Kingdoms of the Wall Read Online Free PDF

sickness. I trembled; my throat went dry; my face became stiff as a mask. I had seen this moment of the Pilgrims' departure every year of my life, but this time it was different. I imagined myself among them, going up and up and up the Wall. The village dwindled to a dot behind me. I could feel the air growing cooler and thinner as I climbed. I put my head back and stared toward the remote unknown Summit and my brain whirled with wonders.
    Traiben was gripping my arm again. This time I didn't brush him away.
    Together we counted out the names of the mileposts as the Pilgrims ascended:
    "Roshten.... Ashten.... Glay.... Hespen.... Sennt...."
    Ordinarily the Sennt milepost was as far up the Wall-road as one could see from the lowlands. But as I have said, that day had become one of great clarity, and we were able to make out one more winding of the road, to the milepost known as Denbail. Traiben and I whispered its name together as the Pilgrims reached it. That was where the golden ceremonial carpet came to its end and the stone-paved road lay bare. Here the defeated ones had to hand over the equipment, for they were allowed to go no farther on the upward route. We stared, straining our eyes, as the Forty took their packs and gear from those who had borne them up till now. Then the defeated ones swung around and began their descent; and the Forty resumed their climb, continuing on up the road until within moments they were lost to our view in the mists and twists of the upward path.
     
     

 
     
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    That night was the first night that what I call my star-dream came to me.
    It was a night of many moons, when spangled light danced on the wall of our house. Some find it hard to sleep in all that brilliance, but I was tired from the day's events, and I slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted. In the depths of the night I found myself dreaming of the worlds beyond the World.
    In my dream I climbed Kosa Saag with no more effort than if I were climbing to the top of someone's barn. Up and up I went, through each of the Kingdoms of the Wall, and it took no time at all. Traiben was with me, somewhere just behind, and other friends too, but I paid no heed to them and went on and on with tremendous ease and swiftness until I had attained the Summit. And there I stood beneath the worlds of Heaven, which are the stars. I saw those far worlds swarming in the sky like blazing fiery spirits. In some lofty place I danced beneath their cold light. I felt their force and strangeness. I sang with the gods and tasted the wisdom that they have to teach. My great ancestor the First Climber, He Who Climbed, the holiest of men, appeared and stood before me, and I became one with His spirit. And when I came down from the Wall my face was shining and I held out my hands to those who greeted me and they knelt before me and wept with joy.
    That was my dream. It would come to me many times again in the years ahead, as I lay sleeping under the shadow light of the spirit sky. And those who lay with me as I dreamed it would tell me afterward that I turned and tossed and murmured in my sleep, and reached upward with my hands as though trying to grasp Heaven itself.
    A curious dream, yes. But the most curious thing about it, that first time, was that everyone else in the village seemed to have had it also.
    "I dreamed you climbed the Wall last night and danced at the Summit," said my mother's brother Urillin when I came from my sleeping-place in the morning. And he laughed, as though to tell me that it was foolish to put much stock in dreams. But within the space of a single hour three other people told me that they had dreamed the same thing; and Traiben too said that he had; and a little while afterward as I walked through the streets, thick with the litter of yesterday's festival, I saw everyone staring at me with big eyes and pointing and whispering, as if to say, "He is the one who danced at the Summit. The mark of the gods is on him, can you