by P. K. Lentz
“We won’t,” Trisma swore. “I don’t want someone by my side in battle who hasn’t chosen freely to be there. No warrior does. We’ll respect their wishes. And yours.”
Zhi studied her, as if to judge her earnestness, and nodded. “Still, I will be watching.”
Trisma gave the smile she reserved for Zhi. “Of course. We welcome it.”
Twenty-Three
After the Kaan’s time alone, the three ambassadors of space rejoined them. The session continued a short while longer, with questions asked and answers given by both sides. Trisma asked about the tattoos and learned that Xoc lacked them because he was not yet married. Nor was Nicte, who was younger even than Leimya, but rules differed between males and females, as they would. Tattooed Itzcal prayed to his people’s gods that his wife would turn up among the Sleepers. His panther-like tattoo was of a creature he called balam, a sacred jungle predator.
The three were walked to nearby quarters where they were given the option of separate rooms but chose instead to share. They were provided with a stock of food and water and basic instructions on how to operate some of the controls—which seemed as sorcery to them, as they once had to Scythians.
When Zhi had left, leaving just the Scythians and the Kaan, Trisma remarked to Phoris in their private tongue, “You’ve been quiet, yellow-robe.”
“Observing,” he said.
“What have you concluded?”
“I’ll inform you at a more opportune time. When others might not also be... observing.”
He meant Zhi, of course. Devices all over the Sagaris were capable of capturing events and conversations, and Zhi could access them with the swipe of a thumb. It was not known whether she did so or not, but it was certain that she was able.
What Phoris intended to hide was less certain, but Trisma couldn’t make herself worry about it. There wasn’t much he could do other than talk to the three snake-people, and then only in a manner which wouldn’t risk incurring Zhi’s ire. Even if Phoris somehow managed to spoil the recruitment of these three—or rather the one who seemed most suitable, Xoc—they were still only three out of thousands.
“Let’s leave our guests,” Trisma suggested, switching to Nexus for the Kaan’s sake. “They’ve seen and learned enough for now.”
“I would like to stay a short while,” Phoris asked directly of the Kaan. “I would hear more about their gods and of Xibalba.”
“Whatever is your wish, Lord,” Xoc said.
“Fine,” Trisma said. “Don’t bother them too long, preacher. Remember they’re also strangers to each other. Some time alone will help them remedy that.”
“I’m not one to overstay my welcome,” Phoris said with a smile on his scarred face.
Trisma returned to Arixa’s quarters, which were hers while the Captain was away. She missed Arixa’s presence in the bed but managed to sleep. Since being augmented, she could sleep about the same minimal amount as she had on the steppe, a few hours of each day, but without the accompanying exhaustion.
This night, as far as night could be defined without a sun, she was not to sleep through her allotted hours. A comm awakened her. It was Zhi.
“Your people on the surface report a missing person. They would like a ship to search from the air.”
“On my way.”
Trisma shook off sleep and stood. While dressing, including pelt and armor, so that she might appear presentable in camp, she commed one of the newly imprinted pilots, Idam, to instruct him to report to the hangar and make a Panther ready. She also decided to contact Phoris, since the excursion would afford them a convenient opportunity to speak privately.
The comm woke him. Phoris seemed to understand her unspoken purpose in inviting him, but he proposed an additional one. “Let us take the Kaan to the surface. It must be done eventually. Why not now?”
Trisma agreed that this made sense. “I’ll see whether Zhi objects.”
When asked, Zhi paused to think before answering. “Very well.”
Phoris collected Xoc, Nicte and Itzcan from their quarters and met Trisma and the pilot Idam in the hangar. The three Kaan looked about in wonder, speaking their native tongue in breathless whispers.
“Step aboard,” Phoris said with a smile, beckoning them into the waiting Panther. “We will share with you sights that only gods may enjoy.”
Although their mission was of some urgency, Trisma instructed Idam after launch to spare a small amount of time providing the passengers with views of the endless sea of stars, the marbled ball of blue and gold that was Tabit-1, and the battered moon in the craters of which the Sagaris sat concealed.
The Dawner missing from camp was most likely asleep in the grass somewhere, anyway.
The people of the snake gazed in total awe, as everyone did who took such a voyage for the first time, as long as he or she wasn’t distracted by such matters as impending battle or death. Even then, such sights made fitting final ones for the doomed.
While the Panther soared on its less than direct course, Trisma asked the ex-preacher whether he felt free to speak or thought there might be ears here, too. Evidently he deemed it safe enough to share with Trisma his thoughts on the Kaan.
They conversed in Scythian, far enough from the Kaan to avoid any familiar words being overheard by those they discussed.
The Kaan, anyway, were rather distracted.
“These snake-folk worship gods of many guises and aspects,” Phoris said. “The kings and queens of their cities are thought themselves to be divine. You recall these three insisted on calling us Lords, and still do in spite of frequent correction. That is because they continue to believe that they have perished and entered their Otherworld, Xibalba.”
“And you were quiet because you didn’t wish to dissuade them,” Trisma surmised. “You’d have us be their death-gods. But won’t our ignorance betray us? Why should a god try to learn of their beliefs, as you have?”
Phoris grinned. “Xibalba is a place of trials. I’ve put my questions to them such that it seems I might know the answers and mean only to test them. As for anything said by Zhi, or you, that might contradict their beliefs, that can be explained as more testing or deliberate deception.”
Trisma scoffed. “So Zhi and I are liar gods, while you are the truthful one.”
“If we fail to convince them, they are only three. They could be dealt with and a fresh start made, armed with the knowledge they have given us. But I don’t aspire to godhood. Not me.”
“Arixa,” Trisma surmised, and a conspiratorial smirk on Phoris’s marred face confirmed it. “Before she left, Arixa told me not to let you make her a god. I think she was half joking. But I see now it’s no joke.”
“Arixa didn’t know of this new gift sent us by Tabiti in the form of a people so perfectly molded to follow her.”
“If only we let them think she’s divine, and that they’ve died.” Trisma wasn’t arguing against the preacher’s plan, not yet. Ultimately, it was Arixa’s choice, not theirs.
“They may as well have died on Earth,” Phoris mused, “for all the chance they have of ever returning.” He chuckled. “In Xibalba, the dead are cut with razors and devoured by animals for the gods’ amusement. In that sense, we’ll be treating them well, no matter what we subject them to.”
“Until they make us torture them to prove we’re real gods.”
Now Phoris didn’t laugh. “In their lives on Earth, the Kaan people would engage in ritual war with other tribes simply to prove whose city was greater. Many survivors on the losing side would become sacrifices to the victor’s gods. When I spoke to them of our war band and its Captain, they brought up a legendary queen of their people, the Lady Snake Lord, or Lady Kaan.”
“And I don’t suppose you explained that Arixa wasn’t her.”
“If the Kaan freely choose to believe that Arixa is some dead Snake Queen whom they are bound to serve here in the dark void called Xibalba...”
“But what if we don’t only awaken memb
ers of their snake tribe but also... mouse-folk?”
“We’ll think of something. Perhaps in Xibalba, the tribes of Earth no longer matter.”
Trisma groaned. “I don’t know, Phoris. I don’t like the sound of it. But it’ll be up to Arixa when she returns. Fizzbik won’t be waking more Kaan right away. He’ll move on to other groups. Even if Arixa doesn’t mind coming back to find out she’s a god, what she definitely will mind is Scythians outnumbered by snake-people.”
“Agreed,” Phoris said almost absently. “It all may depend on how soon she returns.”
“She’ll come soon.” The hopeful pledge caused Trisma to feel a fresh pang of hurt that she’d been left behind. “Idam, that’s enough flower-sniffing,” she told the pilot. “Head for camp.”
The descent through Tabit-1’s atmosphere was hardly less awe-inspiring to the first-timers than was their passage through space. Once the Panther broke through the clouds, it soared over a broad expanse of ocean, then mountains and plain and finally the Scythian camp.
There was no need to delay by landing there, for they knew the name of the missing Dawner, Kahrak, and the spot where he’d last been seen.
From camp, the Prowler embarked on a low-altitude flight toward that spot, which Trisma quickly noted lay in the direction of the long-decayed ruins of a Tabitan city. The Dawn was forbidden to venture there, and camp was distant enough from it that it wasn’t in easy reach by foot. Still, its outlines could be viewed on the horizon from high ground near the camp, and to adventurous Dawners, which was all or most of them, the idea of traveling to it held a certain appeal.
The one reason Trisma didn’t suspect any had actually gone there was how notable any absence would be—as Kahrak’s was—thus requiring the whole camp to be complicit in keeping the violation secret.
The only exploration of the ruins had been conducted by Zhi, who had flown over without disembarking. However small their numbers, native Tabitans did dwell on this island which the Dawn had chosen for its camp. Individuals had been spotted from time to time, from afar, never in groups and never permitting contact. They were intelligent, it was assumed, having descended from the builders of the ruined city that predated the Jir hegemony. Yet the Tabitan’s isolation for many generations almost certainly meant that they spoke no Nexus and knew nothing of the wider universe.
Arixa thought they resembled a shelled fish she’d eaten in the palace, but not having shared her privileged upbringing, Trisma didn’t know what a lobster was. From images, they looked like nothing Trisma knew, unless it was some weird, skinny turtle with a mottled shell riding upright on the back of a spider. Until they folded themselves in half and became... badly designed footstools or something.
It was felt by all concerned that the less contact the Dawn had with these natives, the better.
Idam flew the Panther in a slow, circuitous path over the area between camp and ruin while the Kaan gawked and Phoris and Trisma searched displays for sign of anything that wasn’t rocks or tall grass.
A few times Idam circled lower to investigate an object which turned out to be rocks or grass, except for once when it was a large, grazing animal. Within an hour, the Panther’s search pattern took it over the fringes of the ruined city. Many of the crumbling structures appeared to Trisma as the black, skeletal hands of giants attempting to claw their way up and out of the barren land.
For her, the ruins held no allure. It was strictly a place of death, compelling her even to hold her breath as they flew over.
The work of searching for Kahrak became harder among the unnatural formations and the deep shadows they cast.
“I saw something. Go back,” Phoris said during one of their circuits of the city’s edge. It was the fourth time one of them had said it.
Idam complied, and Phoris found again what he had seen. He showed it to Trisma, using the display’s functions to enlarge the view.
Trisma gasped. She could not be certain, but the dark shape Phoris had picked out on a patch of dusty ground, between the bones of fallen buildings, did bear resemblance to a human form, lying down with arms and legs spread wide.
“Go closer,” Trisma said. “Set down by it.”
“No!” Phoris protested.
“Are you sure?” Idam asked.
“I’m sure!” Trisma said. “I see no Tabitans, and if we do, they’re primitive. We’re well equipped.”
“That’s what the Jir thought about us,” Idam pointed out.
“Shut up,” Trisma said, not as sharply as Arixa might have. “We can always take off again.”
The Panther’s approach brought the human-like form into clearer and clearer view until there was no doubt.
They had found Kahrak.
Twenty-Four
They stared in disbelief at the human figure on the ground not far from where the Panther had set down. The displays made it appear closer than it was, showing the linen garments and fur mantle that marked the body unmistakably as Scythian, at minimum. But it could only be Kahrak’s, since he was the only Scythian unaccounted for.
The garments were soaked through with blood, and Kahrak was clearly not alive. He couldn’t be, for although the body remained human in the placement and configuration of its limbs, it was not intact.
Most clearly, the head had been shattered. It was an elongated mass of skin, hair and bone, its face unrecognizable. Its limbs and torso were also wrongly shaped, as if...
Flattened.
The way the body lay, with limbs splayed symmetrically, along with the lack of visible blood or guts on the ground around him pointed to a conclusion just as disturbing. Kahrak had been brought here after death and arranged in this manner.
Phoris invoked the Sun Mother as Trisma whispered breathless prayers of her own to the goddess. Tagimasad was the god of her tribe, but since earning Arixa’s forgiveness for the mutiny and coming to Tabit-1, she had started giving to favor Tabiti.
With a different view on their display in the cabin’s rear, the Kaan may or may not have seen the corpse. In the wake of the discovery, the Scythians all but forgot their guests.
“We must leave this place,” Phoris said.
Neither Trisma nor Idam replied for a long while.
“What could have done this?” Trisma asked eventually.
“Tabitans,” Phoris said with assurance. “Let’s go.”
“No,” Trisma said hurriedly, then hesitated. “Not... without the body.”
“That’s foolish. Leave it.”
“It’s near. We race out quickly and bring it back. Armed.”
“And be tempted—or forced—to kill Tabitans?”
“If we must.”
“You certainly can’t talk to them.”
“They’ve killed one of us,” Trisma said. “Arixa would get the body back.”
Idam interjected, “You’re not Arixa. You’re her bed-warmer.”
Trisma swallowed the sting of the insult and answered evenly, “I know what I am. Your jealousy is understandable.”
She stood, expelling fear, and put her hand to the vazer on her hip. “Are you with me?”
Idam grumbled but rose.
“Not you!” Phoris exclaimed. “If anyone should stay aboard, it’s our pilot.”
“Can’t let anyone go out there alone,” Idam answered. “Are you coming? Or did they do things different in Wind Talon?”
Wind Talon was the war band Phoris had ridden with in the warrior-days that had left their deep impression across his face.
“She mutinied,” Phoris said. “I didn’t.”
“She got better.” Leaving his station, Idam brushed past the preacher.
Communications from planet to the Sagaris were kept to a minimum against the risk that the Jir or some other party had the system under observation. But Trisma felt this warranted a message to Zhi, so she sent one informing her of the facts: they had found the missing Dawner in the city ruin and would shortly attempt to recover his body.
“Lords, a
re we to disembark?” Xoc asked, seeing the Scythians abandoning their stations.
“Not you Kaan,” Phoris said. “This is a matter for... Lords.”
In the end, Phoris joined the other two by the Panther’s exit hatch in preparation for the retrieval run, but not before trying one last time to dissuade Idam.
“If you die, we all do. Will you tell him to stay, Trisma?”
Idam answered for himself. “She doesn’t decide whether I have her back or not. Besides, Kahrak’s my kin.”
“Idam and I will grab the body,” Trisma said. “Phoris, cover us from the hatch.”
The hatch was opened, the cloying heat of Tabiti blasting their faces. After a brief look around and eyes laid on the body thirty yards out, they exited with weapons drawn. Phoris hung close to the hull while Trisma took cautious steps forward with Idam a pace behind. Only when no threat materialized did they break into a run.
They had only gone a few strides when Trisma heard Phoris cry out from behind, “What are you thinking? Come back!”
Without stopping, she craned her neck to see one of the Kaan, Itzal, running away from the Panther at an angle to the direction in which Trisma had gone.
Xoc appeared ready to follow, but Phoris restrained him by the hatch. Xoc’s words could faintly be heard, spoken to Phoris in Nexus, “...a vision...fool thinks his wife is out there somewhere...”
Trisma cursed. By now she and Idam had reached the corpse. She didn’t look at it closely as she grabbed one arm under the shoulder, finding the blood still sticky. Idam took the other arm, but his attention was on the standing ruins not far off, where he also trained his vazer. “I heard something.”
“Just move.”
Kahrak’s body was light and pliant, like that of a straw man—or an emptied shell. A chunk of skull and hair slid to the ground as they lifted him. It would have to be left.
“Take him to the ship,” Trisma said, hoisting the insubstantial body over Idam’s shoulder. “I’ll get the idiot.”