Shadow's End (58 page)

“Why me?” I gasped. “Why sacrifice me, Asenagi?”

“Why not you?” He dropped the stone and jabbed a contemptuous thumb toward Lutha. “She belongs to Leelson Famber. And the other one is of some use. But you are no use and you belong to no one but your devil god, so let it have you!”

“I didn't create it!” I cried. “I only saw it, listened to it. I only sensed what was really there, Mitigan. As you did—”

“Lies,” he cried, heaving a huge slab of stone into place upon his pile, now waist-high. He tossed me onto the stone like wood onto a fire, effortlessly. My head hit, and I felt myself go limp, dazed. I couldn't struggle, though I could feel him lashing me to the slab. “The Gracious One warns us against your kind! Animal-lovers! Devils! Mistresses of lies!”

He licked at the spittle that ran down his chin. Past him
I could see Snark on her belly, worming her way up the slope, and behind her, Lutha struggling with Leelson, trying to get free from him. It was all happening too quickly and too slowly, both at once. There was time to be terrified, not time enough to do anything. I prayed, begging Weaving Woman to let my pattern end cleanly, swiftly, without pain. Surely there had been enough pain!

“Not nearly enough,” Mitigan jeered, and I knew I had spoken aloud. Now his hand was aloft, already reddened by sunset, glittering with the blade it held. That was for me.

Far off, as though in another world, I heard Lutha and Snark shouting, not pleading. There was a strangeness in their voices, something inappropriate. I had time to think that. Why did they sound that way? I squeezed my eyes shut, clenched my teeth tight, waiting for the knife to come….

It didn't come. Instead Mitigan bellowed, harshly, horrified.

I opened my eyes against a dazzle of light. Mitigan stood with his back to me, his head thrown back. Beyond him was Behemoth, up from the sea, serpent-necked, dragon-jawed, caldron-eyed.

“No,” it said in a voice of wind.

“But she refused you!” Mitigan howled. “She deserves to die. She refused you!”

“She has that right,” said the wind. “Do not all my beings have that right? Even you? You may ruin yourselves by your choices, still I will not take them from you….”

Mitigan turned frantically, lunging toward me, the knife aimed at my heart, but the wind came after him, raising him, taking him up as the vortex had done, twirling him, spinning him, up and away, away, glittering with weapons, howling with rage, away….

And all the while, for that tiny eternity, Behemoth looked me in the eye until I felt I had drowned in that look. Willingly. Forever. I did not want to come away.

“Still your kind may choose,” it said in a fading whisper. “Choose truth; choose lies; still you may choose, even now.”

I saw sunset. Only that. Behemoth gone. That rough beast gone. That enormous glory gone. That terrible beauty, gone. Leaving only its purpose evident all around us.

“Saluez,” cried Lutha, her fingers busy with the lashings. “Oh, Saluez.”

Far above us in the dusk, a sudden star bloomed and moved, swimming toward us through the evening.

“A ship,” said Leelson disbelievingly. “It's a ship.”

T
he ship hung above us for some little time while we stared and mumbled. It had grown quite dark before it broke into two glittering parts, one of which descended. When it set down beside the camp, we saw it was a tender. It was from the
Vigilance
, as it turned out, a battle cruiser of the Alliance.

We stood slack-jawed while the lock opened, the ramp came down, and a woman alighted.

“Chadra Tsum,” said Poracious wonderingly. “Just as I saw her in Simidi-ala. And there behind her, that's old Thosby Anent.”

He was a crooked man, with a lopsided walk. “Ah,” he cried as he hobbled toward us, his eyes scrunched almost shut with delighted self-importance. “Ah,
Vigilance!
See the ship's name? Ah? I've been watching, waiting.
Vigilance!”

He went on past us to stand upon a small hillock, looking about himself like a conqueror of worlds as he drew deep, dramatic breaths and tapped himself upon the chest in self-congratulation.

“Let me guess,” whispered Poracious to Chadra Tsum. “You told him we were here, expecting rescue, but he had to think it over. He couldn't make up his mind to do anything about it?”

Chadra Tsum nodded, murmuring, “After some time had gone by, I asked if he would attempt to rescue you, and he said, ‘That's the plan!' Days went by, however, and he did nothing at all. So I commandeered an Alliance ship in his name. Then, when it was the
Vigilance
that showed up, he assumed he had done it himself.”

“Quite a coincidence,” Lutha murmured.

“Not really,” said the woman. “It's the only battleship assigned to this sector. That's where Thosby got his password in the first place.”

“I'm surprised you've come so quickly,” I managed to say. “Poracious and the king only prayed to you this evening!”

“You mean you really did that?” the woman breathed. “You know, I've felt something for days, as though you were speaking in my mind. Isn't that strange?”

Poracious took her by the arm and led her a little aside, where they spoke animatedly to one another. Leelson joined them, and then others from the ship. Leely watched them for a moment, his face intent, then he wandered away toward the sea. I stayed where I was, with Lutha. In a few moments Snark joined us, then the ex-king, none of us making a move to join the general rejoicing. It was as though the four of us had been pulled together.

“Why did it let the ship come?” whispered Lutha. “Why?”

“Didn't you hear what it said?” I murmured. “We have a choice. We've always had a choice.”

“Between what and what?” asked Snark.

“What choices are there?” Jiacare counted them off on his fingers. “What truths we choose to see. What lies we choose to ignore. Whether we become Firsters … or something else—”

He was interrupted by a raised voice from the group down the slope. Someone said loudly that ships were still disappearing in Hermes Sector and the captain wanted to
get away quickly. Someone else reinforced this, but Poracious demanded, loudly, that the Procurator's body be retrieved. There was a muttered argument, then general assent. The group broke up, with individuals going busily off in different directions.

“They'll want to leave soon,” I said.

“It will be good to be at home,” said Lutha. It was a statement, but it sounded like a question.

“I have no home,” said Snark.

“Nor I,” I said, as softly. “In any case, that is not why the ship was allowed to come. It did not come merely to take us home. Remember what Behemoth said when it spoke to us first.”

“What did it say?” asked the ex-king. “I don't remember.”

“You wouldn't remember,” said Lutha in an expressionless voice. “You were … dead. It was after it tore … tore Leely into bits. It asked if we would live by truth. It told us to reflect.”

“Such violence,” he said distastefully, as though it had happened to someone else.

I broke the long silence that followed. “The violence wasn't arbitrary. The question wasn't rhetorical.”

Lutha did not look at me. I knew she had heard me, but she didn't meet my eyes. She was watching Leelson, who had broken away from a small group near the ship and was striding up the slope toward us.

He put his arms around Lutha, hugging her joyously.

“We can go home,” he said. “We can take … our son and go home.”

She turned toward me, her eyes spilling tears. I knew what she was thinking. She had wanted him to say that, something like that.

“He'll be of great value in Fastiga,” Leelson assured her, stroking her hair. “For his healing power alone.”

My throat was dry. I cleared it, painfully. “Yes, he'll be of great value. For his healing power alone.”

The ex-king looked off toward the horizon. “Fastigats should be able to live almost forever, with all the Leelies around.”

Leelson frowned, shook his head, stepped away from Lutha. “But … I hadn't … I thought we'd only take … just the one, Lutha.”

“But they're all …” she cried, her hand to her mouth, not finishing the sentence. She was right, however. They were all.

“As you say, they'll be enormously valued,” repeated the ex-king, “for their healing power alone. Not to speak of raising the recently dead. Extending human life spans for how long? Increasing human population by how much? All Firsters will be delighted, of course. It shouldn't take long for there to be a profitable market in Leelies.”

Leelson recoiled as though he'd been slapped.

“Later,” Lutha said in a voice that was almost a scream. “We'll discuss it later.”

“But the ship's leaving….”

“They've sent men to get the Procurator's body. The ship won't leave until they return. Leelson! If you love me, let me be. Give me a moment!”

He backed away, uncertainly. Poracious called his name, and he went off toward her, glancing at us doubtfully over his shoulder, unable to decide whether to be hurt or angry. Poor Fastigat. Even he could not read this tangle!

Lutha turned away from us, her shoulders shaking, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. She shuddered, drew a deep breath, then wept again. In a moment she stopped trying to control herself and simply walked away toward the sea.

Snark said to me, “Go after her, Saluez. She talks to you.”

The ex-king nodded, nudging me, so I went after her. By now it was starlit evening, with just enough light to see
by. She wound her way among glistening pools with me trailing after, and when we came to the beach, I wasn't surprised to find Leely already there, perched on a rock. He was her destination, after all.

“Lutha mother love,” he called in his small voice, sliding off the rock to hug her leg and look happily up at us. “Saluez of the shadow.”

She lifted him, hugged him gently, then sat on the rock where he'd been perched.

He settled into her lap. I leaned against a boulder, being invisible, watching the stars come out.

“Tell me about home,” he said.

I saw her throat tighten, as though she choked. She swallowed deeply. “Isn't this home, Leely?”

“No. Home home I remember. Alliance Central home.”

Who would have thought he would remember Alliance Central? And yet, why would he have forgotten.

“What do you remember?” Lutha asked, looking helplessly at me.

“Everything! My room. My paints. All the nice places you put on my window scene.”

“Do you miss those things?”

He leaned back against her with a little squirm of pleasure and comfort. “I like it here. Window scenes are nice, but you can't touch them. You can't be in them. I like real fish. But you want to go back and I want to be with you.”

There were tears in my throat. Stars fragmented in my sight. I blinked my eyes clear.

She asked, “How do the other Leelies feel?”

“Most of us don't remember. I'm the only one who
really
remembers. You know.”

“I don't know. You tell me.”

His little voice was matter-of-fact as he said, “It depends on how big a piece we got made from or maybe which piece we got made from. I got made from Leely head. That's why I remember. The other ones, they were
made from Leely legs or Leely blood or Leely guts. They've got good brains, but they don't remember some old things like I do.”

He turned to hug her, then went on. “I remember lots of things, Lutha Lutha Tallstaff sister mother love. I remember Trompe. I remember when we met Saluez of the shadow, and how we got here. I remember Behemoth.”

She took a deep breath. “You'd probably be fine here, all you Leelies, whether I was here or not.”

His face clouded. I had never seen him wear that expression before, though it was one common to other children. The look of a child fearing loneliness. The look of a child afraid.

He put his hands to her face, whispering, “I'd be lonesome. I need somebody to talk to. I want to be with you.”

After a time she rose and walked back to the camp, Leely riding on her shoulders, his arms wrapped around her head. Snark and the ex-king were standing outside the dormitory, waiting for us. Lutha took no notice of them. She went on by, as though she would go on walking forever, the child smiling and kicking his heels, his tiny hands clasped around her brow.

T
he journey from Perdur Alas to Dinadh was not a long one. It brought me, Saluez, almost full circle in my journey. I arrived as outlanders do, through Simidi-ala.

So much had changed.

So little had changed.

Poracious asked the people at the port about the Kachis. The people at the port furrowed their brows and asked in return: What about the Kachis? Had something changed about the Kachis?

What about Tahs-uppi? Poracious asked.

It had been successful, they told her. Additional days had been drawn from the omphalos and time ran once more in its accustomed course. I heard all this, though the people of Simidi-ala were talking to Poracious, not to me.
I was veiled and silent before them. They did not even see me.

“What are you going to do?” Poracious asked me when we were alone once more.

“I'm going to make my way to the nearest hive,” I told her. “Where I will talk with the sisterhood.”

“And what good will that do?” she asked.

I grimaced behind my veil. “Perhaps none. Perhaps a good deal. A few years will tell. What are you going to do?”

“I will do as Snark and Jiacare have said I must. Return to the Alliance and become a preacher. A prophet. A doom crier.”

“What good will that do?” I mocked.

She shrugged. “Perhaps none. Perhaps a great deal. I may be of some help on Prime. If things are going to change, it will have to start there. I will do what I can.”