August 21, 2008
HIEROPHANT BRIDGE
| JAY LAKE |
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It is said that a brave woman may cross Hierophant Bridge in five long strides, if her course is true and she binds her eyes with the white silk of mourning. Which is ridiculous, as Hierophant Bridge is five spans long, and each span is fourteen steps for an Imperial Guardsman.
It is said that a wise woman will never cross Hierophant Bridge at all, out of wariness of the judgment which depends from the red banners flowing on the gate at each end. They fade in sunlight, until dusk steals their color to gray, but each dawn are scarlet anew. Blood magic? Strange weavings? Or the penitence of strangers? In any case, this, too, is ridiculous, as Hierophant Bridge connects the Brass Quarter with Hangman’s Rest, and so carries thousands of people, carts, horses, mules, and stranger creatures each day.
The western pier of Hierophant Bridge is known as the Law Gate. It opens onto the great plaza of Hangman’s Rest, where the high court buildings stand in glistening marble array. Cages for the exposure of the guilty overlook all the squabbling traffic of the plaza, where lives are bought and sold beneath the quiet, whimpering deaths of tax cheats and scofflaws.
The eastern pier of Hierophant Bridge is known as the Liberty Gate. It lets out onto crowded, secretive streets of the Brass Quarter, where the murders are conducted in the traditional manner, but where also dwell those with Liberties within the city, immune from tax or prosecution so long as they do not pass the boundaries of the quarter.
In every coffee house and bar from the tiny towns upriver all the way down to the roaring salt they will debate you over which is older, Law or Liberty. “Without freedom there can be no limits,” as the saying goes; always answered with “Absent the hand of order, freedom cannot be measured.” It is a pointless argument, conducted for amusement and the fleecing of strangers, for everyone born within sight of the dawn’s blood-red banners knows well that it is neither Law nor Liberty that matters, but the binding of the two together in the crossing between.
Here lies the true secret of Hierophant Bridge, which makes it a temptation to the brave and an entrapment to the wise: only when you are in the middle of the spans are you balanced between the law and the liberties. One or the other always holds sway otherwise.
Still, even the foolish know better than to loiter on the bridge in the evening watches. The wealthy who must cross by night are sculled in pale little cockleshells by blind beggars, while the poor simply never do.
As for the wise woman and her brave friend, they are doubtless casting pasteboard fortunes in some tavern close by the Liberty Gate. If you hurry, you may catch them while the wine is still being poured.
You might even learn something of the future, if you are sufficiently unlucky.
Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His 2008 novels are Escapement from Tor Books and Madness of Flowers from Night Shade Books, while his short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is winner of the John W. Campbell for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. His website is www.jlake.com.