THE GOD BOX

by Barry B. Longyear

  The queen seemed to take no offense at the old fellow's crust. Instead she pointed at me and said, "This one is called Korvas, He claims to be the reflection of the Seeker in the Oracle of the Blade and the Destroyer."

  The librarian chuckled and slowly shook his head. "It is but an ancient myth, my queen." He pointed at my clothes. "Look at his coverings." The old man tapped the side of his head." Perhaps he has an eel in his ear."

  The audience chamber again burst out in that braying laughter. When it quieted down, the queen nodded and smiled at the librarian. "Perhaps it is as you say, Sahtu. However, I am queen. I cannot place my trust in probabilities. I must know."

  "This is why you have summoned me, Your Majesty?"

  "It is."

  The librarian gave me a dirty look. "Very well. I suppose you wish to consult everything written concerning the oracle."

  "Yes."

  He clapped his hands twice, and the bald children began walking like ducks around him. He bent over and examined each scalp as it passed. When the scalp he wanted reached him, he clapped once and the children stopped. Sahtu Es ran his finger down a column of those tattoos, stopped and read a particular line, and leaned back to see the face of the little girl whose scalp he had been reading.

  "Pruti?"

  "Yes, master?" the child answered. "Where is Yuva Im Ko?"

  The child stood, closed her eyes, and recited, "Yuva Im Ko, servant to Hunt Leader Havaak Os, is now with the hunt just north of the Great Divide in the Taan Mountains."

  The librarian patted the child on her head and looked at the queen." It will take some time to bring this man here all of the way from the Taan."

  The queen pointed at Pruti. "There is something she is not saying. What is it?"

  Sahtu Es smiled and closed his eyes. "The troubles of a baby are of no concern to a queen, Your Majesty."

  Queen Alya came down from her throne. She grabbed the child by her chin. "What are you keeping from us, child?"

  The child's face looked frightened. "Yuva . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "Yuva Im Ko is bavatos."

  There was a mental gasp from the court, and I looked at the queen, hoping this turn of events didn't require my mortal sacrifice to remedy. The queen looked down her nose at the librarian. "Sahtu Es, how could you?"

  The old man had been caught doing something obviously disgraceful. His shoulders sagged. "It was his turn, Your Majesty. His father was the index of prophecies before him, and we did not know until later that he was bavatos." The old man slumped back in his chair. "I didn't know myself until it was too late. By then there was no one else to take the information." He shrugged and held out his hands in a deprecating gesture. "After all, Your Majesty, it is only a myth."

  "Sahtu Es, it seems that the Oracle of the Blade and the Destroyer may be, in fact, true prophecy. Let us hope for all of our sakes that you are right and it is only a myth."

  Alya Am Ti, Queen of Ocean, dismissed the old man with a wave of her hand. In moments the old man and the children had been helped down the stairs and the chair removed. She turned to her advisor, Zean Am, and mentally whispered something to him. He nodded, bowed, and walked off to talk with Lan Ota.

  The queen looked down at me. "Master Korvas, you will come with us to the hunt to find the bavatos, Yuva Im Ko. There we shall find whether to honor you or to give you to the dirahnos."

  I bowed and Lan Ota led me toward the stairs. When we reached the stairs I asked her, "What are bavatos?"

  "It means without vatos; without the breathing fish. The bavatos breathe in the water like the fish."

  "Is there something wrong with that?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "I sort of got the feeling that there was something wrong with being a bavatos."

  A sad look came to Lan Ota's eyes. "Because the bavatos can flout the tradition of using vatos in the water, they think they can flout all tradition. They are unruly, ill-mannered, and hateful."

  It has always been my policy to avoid entanglements in local politics, Oghar and the Omergunts notwithstanding. Hence, I pried no further into the matter of bavatos. There was one other thing, however, and I asked as we reached the bottom of the stairs:

  "Lan Ota, what are dirahnos? The queen said something about giving me to the dirahnos."

  The captain of the Queen's Guard smiled at me, and it was a lovely smile. "They are tiny sea crabs."

  "Crabs?"

  "Yes. They can eat a full-grown man down to his bones in less time than a child can hold its breath—except for the brain."

  "Except for the brain?"

  "Yes. You see, the crabs can only enter the brain through the eye sockets. Have you ever seen a skull picked clean?"

  "Once or twice." I was beginning to feel a bit ill.

  "Then you know that the holes in back of the eyes are very small. It takes some time for the dirahnos to widen them sufficiently to enter and eat the brain."

  "Fascinating."

  "It really is. Many believe that the body is eaten so quickly that the brain has a moment where it is still alive and awake when the rest of the body is nothing but bones. It is a subject of much debate among the priests."

  "I don't imagine that anyone who is in a position to know for certain is in any condition to say."

  Lan Ota laughed at my little witticism. She pointed at the water and said, "Simply dive in. A vatos will attach itself."

  "About going in the water again . . ." I held out my hands. "Look at my skin."

  She looked, her eyebrows rose, and she began untying a thong from around her waist." Take off your coverings, Korvas. I need to oil you."

  "Oil me?"

  "Yes, and hurry. The queen will be wanting to leave as soon as she dismisses her court."

  I wrapped my robe about me more tightly. "Under normal circumstances, Lan Ota, your offer of lubrication would bring a ray of sunlight to an otherwise dark and dismal existence. However, I've decided that I like my skin wrinkled like this. It—"

  "Take off your clothing. It is not just the oil. You cannot wear robes like that while riding a ratier. The water would catch in those sails and drag you off in an instant. Hurry."

  "But I will freeze."

  "The oil will keep you warm." She grinned with just a little bit of mischief. "As will the memory of its application." I sent another urgent message skyward to Ehbot, patron of the pitiful, and began undressing.

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  Nicely oiled and upon the back of a sword-nosed fish that sped through and around sharp coral crevices with such rapidity that it was all I could do to hang on to its harness, I entertained certain theological thoughts. I had a great desire to give my fears to my god box. I kept imagining the bubble fish on my head getting snagged and ripping open on some outcropping and drowning before anyone could notice. However, Queen Alya, riding the ratier fish next to me, had my god box tied to her waist.

  I remembered from my experience with Oghar, high chief of the Omergunts, how to make a god box of my own, and I pondered the simple steps. I needed a container that could close. I had nothing save the pockets of my undervest. Those and my undershorts were all that I could keep in the way of clothing.

  Next I needed to inscribe the name of my patron upon the container. And just who was my patron? There were all of the gods of the wicked and pitiful that I had angrily invoked as curses, but I could imagine no kind deity who wasn't at war with me. Hence the theological thoughts.

  My fish was between the queen's and Lan Ota's, and we were being followed by forty guards. With all of those sword-nosed fish swimming at top speed directly behind me, perhaps it had been foolish of me to fear drowning. After all, had I fallen off my racing fish, I would have been impaled a dozen times by the mounts of the Queen's Guard. With luck one of the swords would get me through the brain before the crabs got me.

  The proces
sion dipped beneath a coral bridge, turned left around a jagged knife of rock that jutted straight up from the murky depths, and streaked for the darkness beyond. It was time to resume my theological musings.

  As I hugged my mount, I pondered the god box that Queen Alya had at her waist. It had no name upon it, yet it had worked for me as well as Oghar's bowl marked with the name of Yulus. Perhaps the deity that served me had no name. Perhaps it just didn't need to be named. Perhaps putting a name on it would limit the god, as a word limits any thought to which it is applied. Perhaps, I thought, I am going insane. What else could a person who is about to pray to his pocket think of himself? It had worked before, but only in a dream. Nevertheless, I had gotten what I needed: I had awakened.

  I gave my fear to my pocket, and as I felt the burden of terror lift from my heart, I wondered which of the many gods I had regularly cursed had deigned to favor me with his, her, or its forgiveness. As the distant glow of oros brightened the water with their glow, I put the subject to rest, hoping I wouldn't forget which pocket I had used.

  "Korvas."

  I turned to my left and Lan Ota pointed toward the glow. "The Taan Mountains. That is Hunt Leader Havaak Os and his party of fishers. His servant, Yuva Im Ko, should be with him."

  Beyond the glow and surrounding it, tremendously tall mountains rose from the darkness below to become lost in the darkness above. As we came closer I could see a party of perhaps twenty spear-carrying riders mounted on the sword-nosed ratiers. As we approached, the ratiers slowed down and the fishers and their leader bowed.

  "Father Ilan's bounty upon you, Havaak Os," greeted the queen.

  A muscular fellow in his middle years raised his spear and answered, "Only through your prayers, Alya Am Ti." He lowered his spear, glanced at me, and turned again to the queen. "How may I help you, Your Majesty?"

  "It is your servant, Yuva Im Ko. We have an important reading to complete, and he is the Index of Prophecies."

  The hunt leader frowned for a moment, then looked over his shoulder and gestured with his head. One of the fishers coaxed his ratier until it was next to Havaak. The fellow, true enough, had no vatos upon his head.

  "Master?"

  The hunt leader stared at his servant for a long time and then said, "Why do you choose this moment to shame me in front of my queen?"

  "Master I do not shame—"

  "Be still!" Havaak turned toward the queen. "Your Majesty, please accept my most humble apologies for my servant's insolence."

  The queen nodded. "I know how it is, Hunt Leader Havaak. As always with the young, it is a way to attract attention."

  The hunt leader angrily gestured with his head toward his servant. "Present yourself, idiot!"

  The servant bowed toward Queen Alya and said, "I am your servant, Your Majesty."

  The queen studied Havaak's servant with obvious scorn. "Yuva Im Ko?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty?"

  "What is it that you hope to accomplish with this bold display of rudeness?"

  "With respect, my queen, it is not rudeness."

  "You contradict me?"

  "But with respect, Your Majesty."

  The queen glanced at Lan Ota, then looked back at Yuva. "You are less then eel dung to me, bavatos. In my mother's time your shreds would already be feeding the water mites while the dirahnos ate your brains. And pity the poor dirahnos, for that would be a pauper's meal, indeed." She fumed for a moment, shook her head, and continued. "This is my reward for trying to treat the bavatos with kindness and justice. I will be honest with you, bavatos. It would take nothing to move me to have you skinned and your record given to another."

  "Even so, Your Majesty," insisted the young man, "I am not being rude."

  Havaak Os jabbed the butt of his spear into his servant's back. "I shall skin you myself, Xaxos's gift to the world!" After jabbing his servant again, the hunt leader faced his queen. "Your Majesty, I would be honored if you would allow me the pleasure of feeding my servant to the dirahnos."

  "I am quite tempted. However, he is a servant, not a slave. Thanks to my misguided sense of fair play, there are no more slaves in Ilanyia. He cannot be put to death unless he murders."

  "Great Queen," I interrupted, "before things get any further out of hand, might I step in with a possible solution?"

  "Solution?"

  "Yes. You see, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Vatos or no vatos, it's all the same to me." Judging from the expressions on the faces surrounding me, not to mention the half-dozen spear points aimed at my throat, I had said exactly the wrong thing. "If I might clarify—"

  "Briefly," the queen amended. The spear points did not come down.

  "If you would allow me to consult my god box that you have so considerately kept tied to your waist, I think this problem with the vatos fishes can be resolved."

  "Nonsense. There is only one solution. That is for the bavatos to return to our honored ways and stop trying to be different just for the sake of being different."

  "We are different," Yuva Im Ko insisted.

  The queen arched her eyebrows at me as if to say she told me so, but I had the courage of my vest pocket. "Your Majesty, we all know that the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is a problem. The second step, I suspect, is wanting the problem solved. Perhaps you do not want this problem solved."

  "After I am done skinning my servant," said the hunt leader as he held his spear point beneath my chin, "I shall feed you to the dirahnos one limb at a time."

  The queen held up her hand, palm facing Havaak. "Hold." She lowered her hand and faced me. "You don't seem to be one who would have a great deal of courage, Korvas, but that was a dangerous thing to say to any queen, even without spears at your throat. Does courage come from your god box, as well?"

  "That, and other things."

  With an amused expression on her face, Queen Alya untied the god box and held it out toward me. "Very well."

  I took the box, and I confess I was relieved to have it in my grasp again. Although the pocket worked well enough, it required just a little more faith than I could gather at a moment's notice.

  "God box," I whispered to myself, "what do these people need?"

  I waited for a drawer to open, but none did. Instead, I noticed Havaak Os's vatos fish slowly lift from his head and swim away. The hunt leader waited patiently for another vatos to take its place, but none came. His face filled with panic, and I told him the message that came into my mind. "Just breathe, Havaak."

  He tried, coughed, and tried again. He breathed in and out a few times, his face stunned at the wonder of breathing. The transparent vatos lifted from the fishers, the Queen's Guard and even from the queen herself. They lifted from everyone's head, except mine. There was some panic, but soon they were all bavatos.

  "You are all the same," I said to the queen and Yuva. "Some of you only had to resist wearing the fish."

  The queen practiced breathing for a moment, then she slowly shook her head. "Vatos were a gift from Father Ilan. When we were driven from Iskandar, the god gave them to us and offered to hide us behind his face. But now—"

  "But now," I interrupted, "you no longer need them. It is time to thank Father Ilan for his help and return the vatos to their own pursuits."

  The queen looked at Yuva. Havaak's servant looked sullen. "Is that look because of the beating you took for being rude to your queen?" The servant didn't answer. Alya laughed. "I see. Yuva Im Ko, you did not want this problem solved any more than did I. Is that not true?"

  "Perhaps I am confused, Your Majesty."

  "Perhaps, Yuva, it is nothing more than the fact that you are no longer special." She faced me. "Korvas, you may keep your god box."

  "Thank you, Your Majesty."

  "Have the vatos lifted from all the Ilanyians?"

  "I don't know."

  Queen Alya smiled. "If they haven't, it will be an interesting time in court when I return. Now, to why we are here." She faced Havaak's serva
nt. "Where is the prophecy of the Blade and the Destroyer?"

  Yuva consulted the inside of his right thigh." Your Majesty, it is with Via Ta. We are in luck; He is a driver with this hunt."

  The queen looked at Havaak. The hunt leader was searching the distant darkness. "We should see their lights soon. We were waiting for them to drive the school in this direction." He held out a spear to the queen. "Would you care to join us, Your Majesty?"