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“What kind of tree was it?”
“Some say apple; some say fig. It isn’t important.”
“I’m sorry, but I must disagree. The Tree of Knowledge sounds like an astonishing thing. I would give very much to know its botanical properties. Did it speak? What sort of knowledge did it own? Was it a book that gave it life, a stone, a corpse? Was it perhaps some earlier attempt of your God’s to incarnate, and upon his death, did he become the tree you speak of? Or perhaps one of his lieutenants—I assume your God has them?”
“Angels,” I said numbly. “Like men, but pure,
sexless, winged.”
Fortunatus furrowed his owlish brows. “I think you must meet my friend Qaspiel. It is also sexless and winged.”
I admit it, I snorted in disbelief. The spices of the soup pricked my nose.
Fortunatus hurried on, warming to his topic. “Perhaps one of these angels perished and from its body a tree of perfect, sexless apples grew, garlanded with wings and leaves, the most beautiful tree!”
I thought of the sheep-tree, the siege-elms. “Fortunatus, I am afraid that where I come from, a dead thing planted remains dead. There are no living trees like the ones you speak.”
“Oh, your pardon, John. I did not mean to be prideful or boast of my land over yours. But you cannot deny the tragedy of your home. I must take you to see my wife’s tree, and my daughter’s. Then you would know how death may be ransomed.”
Not knowing how to reply to this madness, I continued my scripture as though he had not interrupted me. “But Eve was a woman and therefore possessed within her the seed of wickedness, and the serpent, who was Satan, also dwelt in the Garden, came to her and tempted her to eat of the forbidden tree. Because of her weakness, she did so, and with her skills of seduction convinced Adam to eat as well.”
Fortunatus worried at his feathers in distress, his beak clicking. “What ugly things you think,” he whispered. “How sorry I feel for you.”
I cleared my throat. My hands shook slightly. “God cast them out in punishment, and made them ashamed of their nakedness, and thrust a flaming sword in the gates of Eden, so that they could never return. Thus sin entered the world, and this trespass is the reason for all terrible things we must endure, for we live in the fallen lands that were the punishment of Adam and Eve, and outside the kingdom of God there can be no perfect peace.” I coughed and reached for more of the milky, acidic beer. “But the Lord Our God did not abandon His people.”
“It rather seems he did. Why did he not forgive them? A parent who does not forgive a child’s first offense is a tyrant. If I did not clap up my girl and cuddle her the first time—or even the seventh!—she pulled my tail or ate my portion of cameltail soup as well as her own, what sort of father would I be? If she spoiled her coat with mud and instead of dropping her in a clear pool and laughing while she splashed I cast her out of my house and called her… all those things you called Eve that I am too polite a beast to repeat? How could I forgive myself? And if she suffered, out there, because I did not yield, how could I live?”
“God’s ways are not the ways of mortals,” I said weakly. The great gryphon started some other protest, but I held up my hands; I prayed for the space to finish. I felt it best to skip over the many generations of Israel, since the Creation found so little audience with him.
“Much later, He sent to us His Son, whose very existence is a mystery no human can fathom. The Child’s being was part Flesh of his Holy Virgin Mother, and part Divinity, the Word of God. God walked among us, incarnated.” I smiled ruefully. “Where I come from we do little but argue about that last. I came here fleeing a war over it, seeking something holier, more direct, than scriptural debate on the point of a sword.” I shook my head, trying to get back on course. “Our Lord, who was called the Christ, had twelve disciples, who were great men, but not divine. But the earthly powers did not understand Him, and what they did not understand, they feared. He was crucified, and died in agony for all of us. In His death He redeemed us from the sin of Eve, and three days later He rose again, to break bread and promise the coming of the end of earthly life and the beginning of the kingdom of Heaven. He purchased for us Paradise and life everlasting at the right hand of God.” My heart quieted, as it had in the chapel when I first took my vows. As I finished my witness, I felt the long shadows of those summer windows grow within me, and a gentle calm. “Perhaps God could not forgive Himself,” I said softly, “and suffered for His own sins as well.” This was heresy, no doubt and no argument, but I was moved to utter it.
Fortunatus said nothing. He flicked his tail back and forth.
I pressed forward. “It is the tomb of one of those twelve disciples I seek. Thomas the Doubter, Thomas the Twin.”
The gryphon frowned deeply. His pelt quivered. “John, I do not wish to offend you. I have little experience with foreigners, nor their religions. But you are wrong.”
I laughed. Never had a heathen presented me such a firm and simple rejection. Fortunatus laughed a little himself, a throaty, purring thing.
I felt my balance return to me. “Christ did not come among you, and that makes things difficult. That is the nature of faith, to believe what you did not directly experience.”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I mean. I believe you, about Christ and his twelve brothers, and crucifixion and all that. But I already possess life everlasting.”
“Impossible. You spoke of a dead wife.”
The gryphon shrugged, a rippling of his broad muscles. He cocked his head as a bird will do, and thought for a moment. “Come with me,” he said abruptly, and snatched my collar, tossing me onto his broad back like a doll. I held onto his coarse bristles, and he left his cave, stepping into starlight and leaping up into the air. I squeezed my eyes shut; I could not breathe. I could not look down. It was not a long flight, but I felt I might vomit my heart onto the gryphon’s back. I shook when he set me on the ground again, my whole self trembling, trying to fold into my heart the singular experience of flight.
A tree stood stately and tall before us. It possessed a thick black trunk, twisted and looped, and many fringed, furry leaves of some indeterminate color—starlight turns all things silver. Among the leaves, dozens upon dozens of golden eyes opened and blinked like fireflies, some small, some large and clear.
“This is my wife,” said Fortunatus thickly. He nuzzled the tree with his feathery forehead. The eyes closed in warm recognition. “I hoped for a face, a mouth to speak to me and give me comfort. But sometimes the world treats us without grace. Certainly death may occur, if one is uncareful, or fate unkind. But it is easily gotten over, and so long as I am lucky enough not to crack my skull, I will live forever. So can you, if you stay here, without any recourse to your Christ. I think that more or less spoils your whole story, and in truth I am not sorry, for it had rough and ungenerous aspects.” He stretched his paws and regarded them with interest, avoiding my shocked gaze. His voice grew infinitely gentle. “John, you must see that there is no place for me in your story. At best, I would be a beast of the field, would I not? And never given a choice to obey or defy? Never presented with temptation, only part of a dominion. And so I know you think you speak the truth, but it cannot be so. I refute it with my very being. I breathe, I speak, I think, I dream. I grieve, and love. And I live forever. My mate, who was my body and self, died in a storm that ripped whole forests into dust, and I will never cease mourning her until the end of everything that is me, nor for our cub who died with her. Am I less than you, who you say stand master over me?”
My mind raced itself and got nowhere. I could not stop looking at the tree of eyes, the evidence of a life far beyond my comprehension. Now, I can admit it: I was looking for the trick, the mechanism by which the beast had fooled me. I could believe in a gryphon, but not in this tree, not in life everlasting on earth, without God.
“I… I cannot say. I did not know such things as you lived, before now. Am truly I to believe there is no death here, or simply that demons will lie, after their nature?”
“I am not a demon. We love our religions, John, just as you do, and it is such a pleasure to convert a friend to one’s own faith, isn’t it? But I think you will find few buyers here, when your story needs such work, being ignorant of more or less everything important in the history of the world.”
It came clear to me in that moment, like a seed of light sending out leaves within me. I was not lost. God had sent me here, to complete the work of his saints, and show these marvelous creatures the glory of God, to lead them to salvation and joy. I nearly gasped with the strengt
