THE GOD BOX

by Barry B. Longyear

  "You tempt me again, Hunt Leader. It has been a few years." She took the spear and tested her grip and its balance. She turned to Havaak's servant. "Yuva Im Ko, would you guard my back?"

  The servant was speechless for a moment. He smiled and sat upright. "I would be honored, Your Majesty."

  Nodding with satisfaction, the queen looked at Havaak. "When you give the signal, Hunt Leader."

  I spoke to Lan Ota. "Is this a dangerous sport?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "The queen asked for a guard at her back."

  "This is no sport, Korvas." She and her guards pulled out their swords and held them at the ready. "We harvest tiwi. Very tasty."

  "Lan Ota, you were about to explain why she needs a guard at her back."

  "The tiwi is a very agile creature. While you are concentrating on putting your spear into one, another will get behind you and give you a little nip. That's why we team up in pairs. The fishers use spears and the back guards use swords."

  Lan Ota gestured with her sword, and the Queen's Guard spread out among the fishers, half of whom returned their own swords to their belts and withdrew spears. The captain of the guard held out her hand toward Yuva Im Ko.

  "The loan of your spear?"

  "My pleasure, Captain."

  Yuva flipped it through the water at her. She caught it and held it out to me as she held up her own sword. "I will guard your back, Korvas."

  Personally I didn't much like the idea of being in the middle of a bunch of weapon-slinging hunters, however tasty the game. Besides, racing around on a ratier was still something I needed to practice. I looked at the weapon in my hands. The point on it was well over two hands long and edged with wicked-looking barbs. I began to suspect that the tiwi fish might have a bit more spunk than represented.

  "Lan Ota." I lowered my spear. "Do you think it would be permissible for me to stay here?"

  "Of course, although you'll miss all of the fun." Havaak pointed with his spear and called, "The lights of the drivers!"

  I squinted my eyes and could just barely make out a pale green glow in the distance. The glow became brighter, and soon I could see huge black silhouettes against the glow accompanied by a faint chattering sound. The shadows were some monstrous kind of fish with fleshy ribbons hanging from the corners of fang-littered maws. A row of jagged spines crowned each head like a cockscomb, and I do believe their eyes glowed red.

  "Lan Ota, are those tiwi fish?"

  "Yes. The sounds you hear are the drivers hitting together their stones."

  "The name 'tiwi' sounds like it would belong to a much smaller creature."

  The hunt leader held up his spear and said, "To Chara!" The remainder of the company held up either spear or sword and answered, "To Chara!"

  Recalling that Chara is the patron of those who do battle with sea monsters, I was just congratulating myself for not participating in this insanity when Havaak brought down his spear and the entire school of ratiers, including mine, bolted toward the approaching nightmare.

  I pulled upon my ratier's fins, his gills, his antennae, each time screaming "Whoa!"

  It was not necessary to ask the god box for what I needed right then; what I needed was a miracle. "Whoa! Please whoa."

  As we streaked toward the school of perhaps a hundred tiwi, I saw that each was almost three times as long as a ratier including the sworded snout. The chattering sound became deafening as I saw the queen raise her spear and lead her ratier just beneath the lead tiwi, leaving her spear in the fish's gut.

  It seemed simple enough. I placed my fear in the god box, and I vowed to retrieve the remnants of my dignity and get me a fish. My mount seemed to know what it was doing, so I gave the ratier its head.

  To be truthful, which I must, ever since it had carried me off I hadn't been steering the racing fish. Thus, by "giving the ratier its head," I didn't mean to imply that I had stopped steering it. What I meant was that I continued to let the fish go where it wanted to go but stopped worrying about it.

  My mount seemed to be aiming for a particular tiwi, so I raised my spear and braced myself to drive it in the tiwi's gut. In half a moment the huge fish filled my vision and I drove the spear into it with all of my might.

  Suddenly my ratier was no longer between my legs and I was being dragged toward the darkness below by my intended victim. It's difficult to know what to do in such situations. I was already out of sight of the hunting party. Hence, if I let go of the spear. who would know where to look for me? The tiwi and I together could be seen more easily than I alone. However, the tiwi kept speeding straight down.

  I could see nothing and I imagined that if I ever did let go of that spear, the tiwi would thrash around until it gobbled at my legs with its fearsome jaws. It was quite disconcerting, especially after my vatos fish disagreed with the increased depth and abandoned me.

  I released my hold upon the spear and hung suspended in the blackness, horrible choking silence replacing the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

  Soon I floated upon the air, sailing among the black clouds of my mind. I held my god box outstretched in my hands before me and began kicking.

  I heard a voice in my mind, and it was the god box. "Where would you have me lead you, Korvas?"

  "Lead me? I do not know, nameless spirit," I said to it. "Where do you think I should go?"

  "What do you need more than anything else in the universe?"

  My desire to live, my greed, my lust, my mission, all of them clamored for my attention. In the midst of this noise was the spirit of the god box, which made me hesitate.

  What did I want?

  What did I need?

  What should I ask for?

  What jokes do the gods have left to play upon a poor honest carpet merchant?

  I didn't know what I should say. If I said nothing, I would go nowhere. I would end my moments there in the blackness. Could I risk making one more wrong choice to end a life of wrong choices? It was too much for me to decide.

  "Spirit, take me to where you would have me be."

  The blackness grew until it was as complete inside my head as it was in the surrounding waters. I felt my mind slipping away as I said to myself, "Again the great Korvas dies."

  Among dreamy billows I flitted among my possible futures like a fly in the marketplace buzzing from apple to sausage to rug to onion, wondering where to land to make the most of voluptuous opportunity.

  I took a deep breath, and as I stopped kicking, all of the sweet and ragged agonies of the underworld seared my lungs. I opened my eyes and saw that I had another vatos upon my head. Coming toward me were four riders. The queen led them and just behind her were Lan Ota and Havaak. Yuva Im Ko followed, leading what I suspected was my ratier.

  "I am glad to find you alive," said the queen with a grim tone to her thoughts. "Once you have thrust your spear, Korvas, you must let go of the shaft."

  "Words to live by, my queen. However, that is advice that would have been much more useful had received it before the hunt." The queen smiled thinly, which is better, I suppose, than her taking offense. I settled on the ratier held by Havaak's servant.

  "Congratulations, Korvas," said Yuva Im Ko.

  "On what? On being alive?"

  "On your kill." He pointed behind me and there was my tiwi, stone-cold dead, floating in the water.

  Yuva maneuvered his mount until he was next to the tiwi. He withdrew the spear and used its point to pry six of the fanglike teeth from the tiwi's jaws. He cut one of those fleshy ribbons and used it to tie the teeth together into a necklace. When he was finished he put the necklace over my head.

  "For your first kill. It gives you the strength of the tiwi to add to your own. When you marry, this must go to your bride. For as long as she wears it your family will never want for food."

  I fingered one of the fangs and looked up at Lan Ota. "I do not feel much like a mighty hunter."

  "Korvas, in life it is not necessary that you face the monster wi
th dignity and carry away perfect victory. It is only necessary that you face the monster. All you can ever do is try. Outcomes belong to the gods."

  I looked around. "Where is the fellow we wanted? The driver, Vio Ta?"

  "He is dead. A tiwi turned and charged him."

  "What about the prophecy?" I faced Queen Alya. "What about the prophecy?"

  "What is left of Vio Ta's skin is being removed for the librarian. We know the remains do not contain the prophecy."

  "What now?"

  The queen nodded as she turned her ratier to head back to her court. "As my captain said to you, Korvas: All we can do is try. Outcomes belong to the gods."

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  All we can do is try. Outcomes belong to the gods.

  The words teased at my mind as we returned to the queen's palace. Who would have thought that the ancient Itkahs, who fled before the invaders who founded Iskandar, would survive to create this underwater kingdom? If I was truly doing the work of the gods, might it not make sense that the gods foresaw the wreck of the Silk Ghost and created Ilanyia to save Abrina and her Guide?

  No, that didn't make any sense at all. Granted, the gods could do such things, but why would they? It didn't seem very efficient. Wouldn't it have made more sense to give the Silk Ghost safe passage? To my mind it would have been less trouble to calm the sea or to grant the Kienosan shipbuilders a better design. Of course, I was thinking in terms of money; the gods do not concern themselves with such trivialities, which is one of the reasons why I once decided they didn't have much practical value to the living.

  The existence of Ilanyia had answered the prayer I uttered as the Silk Ghost sank, but all of this couldn't be just for me. The refugees fleeing from their ancient city seven hundred years ago must have prayed to their gods to save them.

  I watched the backs of the queen and her guards. Ilanyia was the answer to many prayers, and the sinking of the Silk Ghost was, as well. I, Korvas, had been the answer to the prayers of those deviled by the bavatos problem. But wasn't it the spirits who caused the bavatos problem in the first place? Is life simply a series of trials designed to force the hapless to turn to the gods? Now, what would be the point of that?

  I had to begin again. Did the spirits who allowed the possibility of Ilanyia see seven hundred years ago the sinking of the Silk Ghost? That would mean that all of this thing I called my life was planned out in advance. Considering how that life had gone, that seemed to make even less sense. That would mean that the gods, perhaps in moments of boredom or spite, occasionally peeked over the edges of their clouds, spied poor Korvas in a rare moment of serenity, and flung down calamities upon him to brighten up otherwise dull moments.

  "Here is another test, Korvas. Try and do better this time."

  Then I remembered the words of Zaqaros quoted to me by the trader Delomas. "If we could see as the gods and choose as the gods, we would be the gods."

  It was time to put the subject to rest. I suspected that what I was attempting to understand about the gods might be beyond my ability even to imagine, much less understand.

  When we had given our ratiers to the servants and had entered the lower part of the queen's palace, we all received another massage with the sweet-smelling oil. I hardly noticed mine, except that when it was finished I couldn't bear the thought of putting my wet clothes back on again. I supposed one could get used to anything given enough time and a sufficient supply of other persons who were doing the same thing. I didn't begin feeling uncomfortable again until I was returned to my shipmates, all of whom save Tah were still dressed.

  Awake, recovering, and propped up on cushions of grass, Lem Vyle was amused at my lack of attire. "Have you become an Ilanyian, Korvas?"

  "No. I am, however, quite warm and dry. That is more than I can say for the rest of you." I glanced at Tah in her patch of a loincloth. "With one possible exception."

  Tah, of course, was out of her loincloth in a second. She was like a jungle animal that had been forced to wear silly costumes in a traveling carnival, suddenly freed.

  "Tah," called Lem Vyle. "All modesty aside, the removal of these wet rags does appear to be the sensible thing to do." The agent's bodyguard assisted him in removing his robes. After he had been shucked, he looked to his left. I turned to see what he was looking at.

  Abrina was removing the last of her clothing. Already undressed from the waist up, she peeled down her wet trousers and slipped off her boots. When I realized that I had forgotten to breathe for a minute or so, I took a deep breath and looked at Lem Vyle. Vyle turned and looked back at me, his eyes wide and his eyebrows raised. "Well, Korvas?"

  "Well, Lem Vyle?"

  "That's what I thought."

  "That's what I thought, too."

  He held out a hand toward Abrina and looked at her. "That sight does seem to merit at least a round of applause, doesn't it?"

  Curiously enough, it was Tah, not Abrina, who blushed. Abrina only smiled and began running her fingers through her short black hair to dry it. Tah's blush ceased as quickly as it had begun, to be replaced by her sly smile and cold eyes.

  Something very important became clear to me. Tah loved her employer yet kept it from him; which, because of his powers, was pointless. Pointless, that is, unless Lem Vyle could lie to himself. An ironic flaw for a ziusu.

  A thought seemed to entertain Vyle for a moment, then he returned his gaze to me. "Where have you been for all of this time, Korvas?"

  "The queen took me in search of someone who had the story of the Blade and the Destroyer tattooed on his body. I killed a fish and the fish killed me." I held up my fang necklace.

  "What about the fellow you wanted to find?"

  "We didn't get there in time. One of this fish's relatives took a rather large bite out of him"

  "Sad." He glanced at Tah and looked back at me. "You know the prophecy. I heard you recite it."

  I nodded. "I know the oracle, not the story that grew around the oracle."

  "Perhaps, Korvas, it is only a myth."

  "Wouldn't we all look foolish on the last day of the world if it is not? I do not want to defend myself to the beings who will make my final judgment by saying, 'Silly me! Wrong again'!"

  "On the last day of the world," began Lem Vyle, "I doubt I would waste my remaining time worrying on how I might look to others, divine or not." He glanced toward the grass room's doorway. "Why are there armed guards on our quarters?" He gestured toward the doorway. "Korvas, ask one of the guards to come in."

  As soon as I stood in the doorway, two guards armed with swords blocked the entrance. Eight more armed guards stood behind them.

  The first guard to my right lifted his sword and said, "No one is allowed to leave the room."

  "Why?"

  "It is the order of the queen."

  I turned toward Vyle. "I don't understand. Just a short time ago I was quite popular. It must be something you people did in my absence."

  "Ask the guard in, Korvas."

  I cocked my head at the guard and he entered followed by another guard who stood just inside the door. Lem Vyle held up his hand. "Come here, fellow. What is your name?"

  "Rhal Ivak."

  "Tell me, Rhal Ivak. Why are we being held as prisoners?"

  "I cannot."

  Lem Vyle nodded. "I see. Are we to be executed?"

  "I cannot—"

  "Why are we to be executed? Has it to do with the prophecy?"

  "I—"

  "No? But we would have been spared had the queen found the lad with the prophecy tattooed upon him?"

  The guard stood silent and glared at Lem Vyle. Vyle nodded. "I see. That clears up the entire matter." He faced me. "It is simple, really. We are to be executed to protect the secret of Ilanyia—its existence."

  Abrina's expression did not change, while Tah looked at the guard's sword with frightening relish. "That
is insane," I answered. "What about the prophecy?" The guard glanced at me, returned his glower to Lem Vyle, and folded his arms across his chest.

  "Vyle," I said, "it doesn't take a ziusu to see that the only reason we were kept alive was because the prophecy just might be true."

  He nodded. "Now that it cannot be proven one way or the other, we are about to be done." He raised his eyebrows at the guard. "By what method?"

  The guard's expression did not change.