THE GOD BOX

by Barry B. Longyear

  With the god box in my hands, I asked it what Sabis needed. "What Sabis needs," answered the box, "is to ask for himself." I supposed that the box had just told me to mind my own business.

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  Once on the other side of the pass, we came to where the road forked again. North would take us to the land of the green-painted Serkers, whose warriors, it was rumored, rode upon the backs of giant lizards. We took the east fork toward the Omergunts.

  Late in the evening, after stopping to eat and rest the horses, I asked Syndia what the box meant about Sabis needing to ask for himself.

  "It could mean nothing more than what the Mankua priest needs is to admit that he needs help. Until he admits that, his hatred will either sustain or consume him."

  "It doesn't seem fair, Syndia. After all, enormous wrongs were committed against him. His teeth were broken out with a club, burning pitch was dripped on his back—terrible things."

  "That is true. And it seems that for the past eighteen years Sabis has been completing the work started by his Heterin torturers."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "No one, Korvas, can bring quite the same degree of subtle pain to the task of torturing another as one can to one's own self-torture."

  "How do you mean?"

  Syndia put her plate aside and looked at me. "No torturer in the world can keep a man in wretched agony from one sunrise to the next for more than a few months. A year, at most and at that the torturer must be young and very fit. It is a matter of stamina, both of the victim and of the torturer. The person who tortures himself, however, can keep the agony alive for every waking moment of a lifetime. For example, the hatred you have for your own father."

  My eyes must have gone wide in surprise. I know my jaw fell open. "Hatred?" I repeated.

  "Yes, hatred. You grew up believing your father allowed your brother to die. Now you know differently. Yet you cannot let go of the hate even though you do not enjoy it. Why is it, do you suppose?" she asked with what appeared to me to be a smug look on her face.

  "Are you working your way around to saying I need the same thing as Sabis? I need my hatred?"

  "Possibly." She smiled. "At the moment, I can only guess. You are the one with the god box."

  I glanced at the article. No drawers opened. I faced the priestess. "How does one let go of hatred?" I asked her.

  "The traditional remedy is forgiveness," she answered.

  "Forgiveness?" growled the guard sergeant in mid chew. Rosh almost gagged on his food, he was so angry. After coughing, he faced Syndia. "Why should I forgive my enemies? Why should I do that for them?"

  Syndia stood up and brushed off her robe. "Forgiveness isn't something one does for someone else's benefit, Sergeant Rosh. It is something one does for oneself." Syndia's eyebrows went up as her dark eyed gaze fixed the guard where he sat. "Hatred can eat you alive, Rosh, as you well know."

  The Nant priestess walked toward the horses, and we all began packing in preparation to continue our journey. As Rosh ate he stared at the fire, his eyes very intense. I was about to pack up my own nag when the sergeant looked at me and said, "Korvas?"

  "Yes?"

  "Give me what I need from your box."

  After a pause, I shrugged and turned to the little chest of drawers. I opened the lower right drawer and inside was a piece of paper with many folds. It seemed obvious to me that only Rosh was supposed to read it. I handed it to the sergeant; he opened it, read it, and said nothing.

  That night, as we rode higher into the mountains, it snowed.

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  I half slept in my saddle as the horses felt their way through the blizzard. I could see little from deep within my saddle robe. At best I would catch a glimpse of Tayu on his horse in front of me against a snow-covered hill or rock, but then he would be lost in a dark swirl of flakes. There was little to do but try to keep warm and awake. I began having horrible nightmares of falling from my horse asleep and freezing to death before anyone discovered I was missing.

  On one such venture into dreamland, I awakened to find myself buried in snow. I dug my way out and stood on the road, the snow so deep it almost came to my knees. The road was empty and I called out to the others time and time again, but I was left with nothing but echoes muffled by the snow. The road was unfamiliar to me, and I could not make up my mind which way was east and which way was west. I looked to consult my god box, but I remembered that it was tied to my saddle.

  My heart was near bursting with panic, and I picked a direction out of desperation and ran through the snow, calling for Syndia. I fell, and as I pulled my face from the snow, I opened my eyes to a great light. It was so bright it made the night day. I was suddenly very hot, and the snow melted and the water vaporized. Soon the trees and brush were aflame, then there was nothing but the parched surface of the road flanked by the blackened landscape.

  I fell to my knees, held out my hands, and addressed the center of the light, saying, "Great Lord, who are you?"

  "I am Manku," came an answer that seemed to rock the mountains. "I am the Destroyer. Do you bring me the one who would stand against me?"

  My god box was gone, but I was in such desperate fear, I opened a pocket of my robe. "God of this pocket, please grant me what I need—"

  "Korvas!"

  There was a rough arm shaking my shoulder. I looked and it was Sergeant Rosh, both of us riding through a blizzard.

  "What?"

  "You were asleep in your saddle."

  "Sorry."

  "Don't fall asleep again. I cannot watch you all of the time."

  "I said I was sorry. It won't happen again."

  As Rosh fell back, I noticed my heart was still pounding from the terrible fear of my dream. I reached down and assured myself that the god box was still tied to my saddle. Not finding that comfort enough, I took the tie-down strap and slung it over my head and shoulder, allowing the god box to hang at my waist. Pulling my saddle robe around me, I tried to quiet my heart.

  In a few moments we turned north and followed a much narrower road—little more than a pack trail that snaked higher and higher until at every turn we risked falling to our deaths. Strong winds shrieked through the frozen rocks and crags, and all I could hang onto was the god box as it told me that everything has an end. Remembering Ker's experience with the box's sense of timing, I didn't pry into the possibility of my end preceding the snowstorm's, for the answer might be somewhat less than agreeable.

  The storm deepened and soon it was no darker with my eyes closed than open, and a great deal less painful. I covered my face with my saddle robe and sighed as feeling came back to my nose. I jogged back and forth in my saddle like this for an immeasurable time until I was jerked out of my half-slumber by a voice.

  "Look! Look up there!"

  I pulled the robe from my face and saw that the gray light of dawn had chased away the shadows. It was still snowing, but not as heavily. I lifted my head, and a bright light came to my eyes. High above us was a brilliant reddish yellow glare from a towering wall of white and blue ice.

  Our progress on the trail seemed to inch up toward that light, but soon our horses were next to the ice wall, the light high above us shining on the top. The wall formed part of a narrow pass that wound between two very tall peaks. We were still in the shade, but the sky was becoming pink and it gave me hope.

  We eventually reached a place in the pass where a huge slab of black rock was perched high upon a pillar of ice, making it look like a giant mushroom. Our guide, Ruuter, dismounted and stood before the ice-pillar, immediately beneath the greatest overhang of that slab. He seemed to take things from his pockets and throw them at the base of the pillar, which must have been a shrine. I picked up the god box, withdrew a drawer, and took a peek.

  Ruuter's deity appeared to be a mother-goddess of great kindness and compassion named Ebe
ll. When he had last come this way, Ruuter had asked for the privilege of returning. He was now thanking her. The face of this mother-goddess for some reason bore a striking resemblance to Manku the Destroyer. I replaced the drawer in the god box and waited with the others for Ruuter to finish.

  Moments after we had resumed our travel, we rounded a turn in the ice canyon, and the scene that opened before me took away my breath. Far below us, the sunlight just touching it, was a wide valley of the richest greens and yellows. Winding through its center was a large blue river with tiny fishing boats visible on its surface. The floor of this valley was divided up into crops of various kinds, the fields bordered and separated by thick hedgerows. Higher on the gentle slopes of the foothills were waterfalls and row after row of terraces planted with all sorts of flowering plants.

  As much as I disliked horses, I patted mine on its neck and, with the same sincerity that Ruuter thanked his mother-goddess, whispered my thanks to the critter. We had made it out of the ice.

  With each mile down the trail from the pass, I removed another layer of clothing until we reached a misty place near the valley floor. Ruuter led us more deeply into the mists until all about me I saw steaming pools of bubbling water, hissing steam vents, and the sounds of mud pools glopping.

  Ruuter stopped next to a very large pool of steaming water and began undressing as we dismounted. Before I had managed to figure out what he was doing, he jumped into the water.

  "A hot bath! Another miracle," I cried as I began shucking my own togs, which were rather ripe. I fell into the water and let it close over my head as a slight odor of sulfur filled my nose. I scrubbed and sighed like a spent lover as I felt the icy hand of the mountain chill release my bones one frozen finger at a time.

  My head broke the surface, and I pushed the wet hair from my eyes. To Ruuter I said, "Will we be here long enough to wash and dry our clothes?"

  "Yes. There be hot stones for drying clothes. It take very little time." He pointed at the water. "The smell, does it offend you?"

  "No, but . . ." As much as it distressed me to believe it, Ruuter still stank. "By Angh's bum, Ruuter, you still have quite an aroma."

  "Thank you very much," He said as he grinned and went back to his bathing. I heard a splash to my left and saw Syndia bobbing up in the water while Rosh stood guard. Out of her robe she looked like a young girl of voluptuous persuasions. It nearly broke my heart when we climbed out of the pool to dry our clothes on the hot rocks and our bodies in the sun. I could not look at her.

  It was like a bottle of water to a man dying of thirst. If he couldn't have it, better he shouldn't see it. Still, my imagination combined with a mental committee of demons and angels to urge me to do everything from enjoy the sunshine to impregnate half the countryside. It was exhausting.

  "Korvas?"

  "What!?" I turned to see Sergeant Rosh.

  "Will you stand guard while I bathe?"

  "I'd be pleased to!" I put on my half-dry clothing and decrepitating boots, slung my god box, and aimed my feet for the trail. While I stormed into position, my mind was ripped by an additional anger—that special anger of mine called fear. How was I supposed to aid in some great heroic challenge when I couldn't even wrestle my own appetites to the ground? Obviously I needed something. I held out the god box and said, rather loudly, "Then what is it? What do I need?"

  No drawers opened and the box said nothing. Then I heard happy giggling and splashing coming from behind some huge boulders. I followed the path around and found three naked maidens with raven hair splashing in a hot-water pond. One of them saw me and she stood and motioned for me to join her and her sisters. I patted my god box, for it truly had known what I needed. Indeed, the gods were above us. If Ahtma the Doubter had only asked for this miracle, he would have become a believer for life. The water nymph's two friends stood and waved at me as they giggled. It was enough to make one grateful to be a mammal.

  "Come," one of the maidens said, "come play with us."

  As my eyes feasted, my tongue was tied into a knot, my mind mired in confusion. Ahead of us lay the Destroyer and behind us, Captain Shadows. In between were who knew how many dangers? The situation—

  —What I was trying to remember was that I was on guard. My comrades depended upon me to send up the alarm if danger approached. Feeling just a little jellied in the kneecaps, I made my decision and turned away from the maidens. When I glanced back for just one more visual taste, the three maidens, and their pool of steaming water, were gone.

  "Eh?" I walked back and examined the area. No maidens, no steaming pool of water. There was nothing there but rocks. I scratched my head and picked up the god box. "Perhaps you are having fun at my expense? I asked you for what I needed. What did I get?"

  "A test," answered the box.

  "Who tests me?"

  "You do," it answered.

  That was when I concluded that the principal symptom of godhood is smugness. I took my place at the entrance to the hot springs and looked far up the trail. It was deserted. I sat on a rock, bent over, and looked at my reflection in a puddle. As I examined that lying, lecherous countenance, it became clear to me why I found preposterous the proposition that I was the Guide of the ancient prophecy. The Guide must do the work of the gods, and I did not feel worthy to do divine work.

  Part of me argued that I had chosen to stand guard rather than leap into the middle of that press of pulchritude. I must be at least a little responsible. I shook my head in disgust. On the celestial ledgers, what is one little profit against my wealth of losses? To do the work of gods, one must be considerably closer to sainthood than was I.

  A strange idea found its way into my awareness, and I took a drawer out of the god box, held it over the puddle, and looked at myself through the opening.

  What I saw was not a judgment upon myself, but an image of my greatest fear. Shadows and his men, their red uniforms like spots of blood against the snow, were coming to the mountain road branch that would bring them to the Pass of Ebell. In another ten hours they would be at the hot springs.

  "Shadows," I called to the image.

  The captain pulled up his huge black horse and looked to the left, right, behind, and above, his breath steaming in the cold. "Damn your tongue! Come out where I can see you! No more tricks, Bachudowah!"

  He thought my voice in his head belonged to the Dagas storyteller. "I am not Bachudowah, Captain. My name is Korvas."

  An entirely different look came over Shadows's face. It was something sly, wicked. "Yes? What do you want, Korvas? I was not informed you were a magician."

  "Captain, why do you chase me?"

  He withdrew a black and silver sword from its scabbard and brandished the point in the air. "To bring your head back on this."

  "Why? What have I done?"

  I took another drawer out of the box and saw more of Shadows. I saw inside, the way he thought of himself. He was on a mission for the gods, to slay me and Tayu for the preservation of the Heterin faith. I removed another drawer and saw even more: his hates, loves, fears, his entire life, as though he were standing before me. I removed the fourth drawer and again saw a face that had a resemblance to Manku the Destroyer.

  I sat up and replaced the drawers, my heart fairly sick with fear. What if Shadows, instead of I, was doing the work of the gods? If so, then what was I doing?

  "Korvas!" It was Ruuter's voice. I turned and looked back at him. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, "Come! We must find butnuts."

  "Butnuts?"

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  We followed a stream that formed from the hot springs down to where the trail came to a bridge. The bridge crossed the wide river that we had seen from the Pass of Ebell. Ruuter informed us that the river was named the Great Serpent. There we saw our first natives.

  There were two boys, one a head taller than the other,
and they were fishing from our end of the bridge. The shorter of the two looked our way and dropped his fishing pole, he was so excited. He ran to Ruuter's side, while the taller of the two shouted and ran across the wooden bridge to spread the news.

  "Hoo!" said the approaching boy.

  "Hoo, Tolly. Where be Coul?" said Ruuter.

  "Cou'd be at his grove, Ruuter. Good see you."

  "Good see you, Tolly. Want present?"