Commitment Hour

by James Alan Gardner

  Steck made a soft choking sound. Even Hakoore chose not to look at his granddaughter for several minutes thereafter.

  Last rites aren’t intended to be showy. People are generally sent away while the Patriarch’s Man plays matchmaker for the corpse’s soul…but Hakoore wanted me there as his “disciple” and it soon became apparent Rashid had no intention of leaving while we practiced our “indigenous cultural ways.” Hakoore made a halfhearted attempt at getting rid of Steck, but she just laughed. Dorr was the only one he had a chance of ordering around, and he didn’t say a word to her.

  Therefore, we were all standing close as he opened his embroidered satchel and began to pull out the elements for the ritual: a gold pin, an OldTech shaving mirror, a small wineskin…

  “What are these things for?” Rashid asked.

  Hakoore plunged the pin into Bonnakkut’s arm. “First things first,” he answered. “Test that the man’s really dead.”

  Rashid pointed to the throat wound. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “I don’t cut corners,” Hakoore hissed. Placing the nozzle of the wineskin into Bonnakkut’s ear, he gave a good healthy squeeze. Clear fluid squirted out, bounced against Bonnakkut’s eardrum, and splashed onto the ground. “It’s only water,” Hakoore said before Rashid could ask. “But if a person doesn’t react to a spritz in the ear, odds are the person is past reacting.”

  Rashid turned to Steck. “Don’t you just love folk wisdom?”

  “You can find the same in any OldTech medical text,” Steck replied.

  “But when it happens in the middle of a forest, it’s quaint. I must say…”

  He stopped and looked toward the village. I had already heard the sound of feet running toward us, and the slash of leaves as someone swiped at a branch that lay too close to the path. A moment later, the remnants of the Warriors Society stormed into sight, all three of them breathing heavily.

  It’s an odd thing about bullies: they seem so ridiculous in the abstract. From a distance, I thought of Kaeomi, Stallor and Mintz as bumbling oafs—Bonnakkut’s pack of yappy little terriers. I always managed to forget how imposing they were face to face. How quick and muscular Kaeomi was. How Stallor’s barrel chest loomed at the level of my head. How Mintz had the just plain mean expression of someone who wouldn’t stop hitting you merely because you’d fallen unconscious. Our three warriors weren’t quite as bad as the Southern murderers and rapists they had to track down, but they were all men who’d sneer and call you weakling for playing the violin.

  “Get out of here,” Hakoore snapped at the three of them. “I’m performing last rites.”

  “So?” Mintz kept advancing and the other two followed with barely a pause. “People are saying that Bonnakkut…”

  He stopped, looking down at the First Warrior’s corpse. Stallor and Kaeomi stepped up beside him, making a wall of muscle. Since I was kneeling beside the deceased, the warriors towered above me as tall as firs.

  “Who did it?” Kaeomi asked. I had the feeling he was talking to me, though he wasn’t looking in my direction.

  “We don’t have any suspects yet,” Rashid answered. “I’ve barely started my investigation.”

  “It’s our investigation,” Mintz snapped. “We’re the Warriors Society.”

  Dorr let out a derisive snort. Mintz wheeled on her. “What was that?”

  She met his gaze silently, her expression just short of outright mockery.

  “Investigations are up to the First Warrior,” Hakoore hissed irritably. “Not you three.”

  “One of us will be First Warrior soon enough,” Kaeomi said.

  “And how does that work?” Rashid asked pleasantly. “Do you hold an election? Tests of skill?”

  “Traditionally,” Steck answered, “each warrior spends the next few weeks being an officious pain-in-the-ass and alienating the entire village. When Father Ash and Mother Dust get fed up with all that posturing, they appoint one of the candidates more or less at random…unless they secretly go behind closed doors and compare penis size, which is what it’s really about anyway.”

  All three warriors turned angrily toward the Neut, their hands bunching into fists. I was glad their attention was focused on my mother, so they couldn’t see me trying not to laugh.

  “You!” Kaeomi’s face reddened as he pointed his spear toward Steck. “You’re the prime suspect here!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a—”

  “Cherished guest, officially granted hospitality?” Steck suggested.

  “We know what you are,” Mintz glowered. “And hospitality or not…”

  Dorr made a soft gasp and gave Mintz a sudden shove. For a second I couldn’t believe it; then I heard a thunk and saw a knife hilt sticking out of a tree beside my mother’s head. Mintz must have drawn the blade stealthily and only Dorr’s quick eyes had noticed. Her shove had knocked off Mintz’s throw.

  “Bitch!” Mintz growled at Dorr. He lashed out, a straightarm swing that slammed across her chest and propelled her backward. By Mintz’s standards, it was almost a love-tap: just pushing her out of the way, with no intention to do real damage. Even so, it knocked the wind out of Dorr’s lungs and she stumbled back, sucking air as she struggled to keep her balance on the uneven ground. Back she came toward me…and that meant toward Bonnakkut’s corpse, still hungry for a death-wife. Kneeling there, I had no choice—I threw myself across the dead man, trying to cover his body to protect Dorr from touching it.

  A second later, Dorr tripped and fell on top of me.

  I was facing the ground so I didn’t see exactly how she came down. She must have twisted around somehow, because she fell front first rather than on her back. Her hand thrust out to catch herself; I heard the dull chud of bone snapping as something broke in her wrist. Then her weight crushed down onto me.

  Breath huffed out of my lungs. Somewhere close by, Hakoore growled with outrage, but neither Dorr nor I had enough air for sound. We lay there, me pressed hard against Bonnakkut’s corpse, my nose actually digging into his cooling cheek; and Dorr above me, flat against my back. I could feel her breasts squashed into me…and I could also feel…

  I could feel…

  Pressing into me, the unmistakable feel of…pressing into my rump…

  I’ve been a woman. I know what it’s like when a man comes up fondly behind you and snuggles his crotch against your butt.

  Thank the gods, at least Dorr wasn’t erect.

  There was a fight…or maybe it only deserves to be called a scuffle. Steck drew her machete, its blade glinting at the edge of my peripheral vision. Then Rashid shouted something I couldn’t hear because of Dorr’s pained panting in my ear.

  Whatever Rashid said, it had to be a threat—Spark Lords had a strict scorched-earth policy when it came to protecting their own. I don’t know if Rashid even drew a weapon…but that armor of his might have concealed an arsenal of guns, death beams, any of the thousand and one lethal gadgets you hear about in campfire tales. Even Mintz was smart enough to realize he’d gone too far. In a moment, I could hear feet pounding away into the distance, our brave warriors running off through the trees.

  And I scarcely paid them any attention.

  Dorr was a Neut. I could feel a woman’s breasts and a man’s groin, tight against me, touching me except for our clothes.

  Feverishly, I tried to crawl my way out, away from being sandwiched between a corpse and a Neut. I didn’t know which appalled me more.

  “Hold still!” Hakoore hissed, and he slapped my shoulder. “Dorr’s hurt.”

  Hakoore. The Patriarch’s Man. He had to know about Dorr. How could he not know? He lived in the same house, for heaven’s sake. Wouldn’t she have to shave several times a day to keep her face looking female? Maybe not—I’d heard that some Neuts were naturally smooth-faced like women. But even so…

  He’d have to know. The Patriarch’s Man. And he protected her.

  Oh, I could imagine how it all happened. If anyone
in the village had the self-destructive defiance to Commit Neut, it was Dorr. She might have done it simply to rebel against Hakoore, or to make an artistic statement in the same vein as her taffy-stretched horses. Then again, Dorr might have chosen it as the only escape from her grandfather’s tyranny: guaranteed banishment to a new life in the South.

  Except that she must have looked too much like herself.

  When people come back after Commitment, no one asks them to drop their pants to prove they aren’t Neut. It’s assumed everyone will just know—if you return from Birds Home and you don’t look like your male or female self, you have to be Neut. But suppose Dorr was like Cappie’s sister Olimbarg: suppose the Neut version of Dorr wasn’t so different from the female. Dorr’s last year before Commitment had been spent male…so when she came back from Birds Home, no one had seen her female body since the summer before. If her Neut body looked enough like her female self that no one immediately cried foul…

  Back Dorr went to Hakoore’s house. Probably delighted with herself. She’d never openly confronted the old snake, and wouldn’t do so now—no stripping naked to exhibit what she’d become. But in her passive defiant way, she’d soon make sure Hakoore found out: leaving the door to the commode ajar as she urinated standing up, something like that.

  Only Hakoore never kicked her out in disgrace. He didn’t set her free.

  Our Patriarch’s Man hadn’t denounced her. Maybe he didn’t want to lose face in front of the community; maybe he refused to let Dorr slip from his grasp; maybe he had some actual affection for her, hard as that was to believe. He kept her home and kept her under his thumb.

  I tried to remember how many times I’d seen Dorr out of the house without Hakoore keeping a milky eye on her. Not often. And it suddenly occurred to me why Dorr seldom spoke, and then only in whispers: her Neut face might be close to her old one, but her voice had changed. Her voice must have deepened and Hakoore bullied her into keeping that a secret.

  For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her…for It. Then I remembered those two kisses in the basement, and I almost retched. My lips had touched a Neut. Been touched by a Neut. Had that thing been pining for me all these years? No, I told myself, no. This was all Steck’s fault. Dorr had only grown brash at the sight of another Neut, an unashamed Neut with no sexual scruples…

  “Let me help you up,” Steck said from close by. She was talking to Dorr, and there was a soppy tenderness in her voice. Another person might have taken this as simple gratitude—Dorr had saved Steck by throwing off Mintz’s aim—but I thought I heard more in my mother’s tone.

  Recognition? Approval? It wouldn’t surprise me that Neuts could identify each other in some creepy way we normal people wouldn’t understand.

  Dorr’s weight eased off me. “Did you touch the corpse?” Hakoore hissed. “Do you know who you are? What’s my name?”

  “Bonnakkut didn’t take me for his death-wife.” Dorr spoke in her usual half-whisper, but I could hear the strain in it. “Fullin saved me.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I mumbled as I rolled off Bonnakkut’s corpse. Partly to avoid meeting anyone’s eye, I carefully started brushing ants off my clothes.

  “I’m sure,” Dorr said, “you would have done the same thing, Grandfather, if Fullin hadn’t reacted first.”

  Hakoore inhaled sharply. Dorr watched him, her eyes glittering as they silently accused him of cowardice.

  “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?” Rashid asked.

  Dorr didn’t speak. I was the one who finally answered, “She broke her wrist.”

  “Nonsense,” Hakoore hissed. “It was just a little fall.”

  But Steck lifted Dorr’s arm and examined it closely. “It’s swelling,” she said. “We’d better take you to the doctor.”

  Dorr shrugged. “I can go myself.”

  “We’re taking you.” There was a finality in Steck’s voice. “You too, Fullin.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “She fell on you pretty hard,” Steck insisted. “You should be checked out.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Fullin…” Steck began.

  “Traditionally,” Rashid nudged me, “this is where a headstrong young man would say, ‘You aren’t my mother!’ ”

  Steck’s mouth closed abruptly. The Spark Lord looked at her, his face the picture of innocence.

  “Get out, the lot of you,” Hakoore growled. “Bonnakkut’s mortal soul is in an empty hell, suffering torment every second until he’s released. Leave me alone to my job.”

  “Come on,” Steck said to Dorr, putting an arm around her shoulders as Dorr supported her own injured wrist.

  “Yes, let’s go to the doctor,” Rashid told me, “just to humor my dear Bozzle. Maria can be such a handful when she doesn’t get her way.”

  I glanced at Hakoore. Gruffly, he waved me off. So why had he decided he didn’t want his “disciple” here after all? Guilt that I had saved Dorr from eternal damnation while he did nothing? Or was it something else? Cappie claimed my face was perennially obvious; maybe something about my expression had betrayed what I learned about Dorr as she lay on top of me.

  Well, Hakoore needn’t worry about me blurting the truth to the world—not when I could hold it over his head until he reconsidered this “disciple” business. I would never stoop to blackmail; but what was wrong with two gentlemen agreeing to exchange favors?

  For the first time since dawn, I could smile.

  FOURTEEN

  A Gift of Blood for Master Crow

  Doctor Gorallin’s home had been on the verge of collapsing for most of my lifetime. She had the idea she would be a great renovator, handier with tools than anyone in the village because she had surgical training…so whenever someone offered to re-shingle the roof or shore up that corner where the foundation was sinking, Gorallin would growl in her suffer-no-fools way and swear she intended to do it herself.

  She never did. When I was ten, Zephram persuaded me to fake a desperate stomach ache to drag Gorallin out on a prolonged house call. That gave a squad of barnstorming carpenters enough time to dash into her place and repair the parts closest to total disintegration. They said they’d done a perfect job of concealing the work they did, but it wasn’t good enough to fool Gorallin’s steely gaze. The moment she saw her home, her eyes narrowed; then she turned around and came directly back to Zephram’s house saying, “I’ve reconsidered. When a boy is as sick as poor dear Fullin, he deserves a thorough enema.”

  Sigh.

  In Gorallin’s waiting room, we found Cappie pacing, her face pale. “Weren’t you supposed to be finding the priestess?” Rashid asked.

  “I did,” Cappie answered. “Leeta decided she’d rather visit Bonnakkut’s family alone. And she told me I’d better bring Pona…my daughter…” Her voice broke off.

  “Pona’s giving the Gift?” I asked. Cappie nodded.

  Tentatively I held my arms open. After a moment’s pause, she slid in against me. I even made an effort not to look down the loose front of her shirt—Cappie had helped me through the previous year when I brought my son to give the Gift, and I believed in repaying my debts.

  “What’s happening?” Rashid asked, his voice too chipper and intrusive. “What’s does it mean, giving the Gift?”

  “At this moment,” Cappie replied, “the doctor is cutting a hole in the back of my daughter’s neck.”

  “She’s…” Rashid stopped himself. “Cutting a hole. Well, well. How extraordinary.” He turned to Steck, who was helping Dorr settle into a chair to wait. “When you told me about Tober Cove, Maria, you didn’t mention anything about giving a Gift.”

  “It’s stupid superstition,” Steck replied airily. “Beneath a scientist’s notice.”

  Cappie pushed herself out of my arms to confront Steck. “You think I’d let the doctor cut my daughter just for superstition?”

  Steck shrugged.

  “You know this is crucial,” Cappie snapped. “Without the Gift, the
gods won’t accept Pona when she goes to Birds Home. She’ll be Locked her whole life.”

  “Really?” Rashid’s voice had just shifted from idle curiosity to something more intense. “Tell me about this Gift.”

  Neither Steck nor Cappie answered—they were too busy glaring at each other. Finally, Dorr spoke in her half whisper. “The first year of a child’s life, die gods don’t take the baby to Birds Home; traveling is hard for infants, and their mothers can’t come along to nurse them. Instead, the gods accept a symbolic substitute for the child: a Gift of blood and bone that’s carried to Birds Home in place of the actual baby.”

  “And the doctor’s taking such a Gift right now?” Rashid asked. “I really must see this.”

  “That isn’t a good idea,” I piped up, but Rashid was already pushing his way through the door that separated the waiting room from the much larger surgery beyond. Cappie rushed after him and I hurried behind…which meant I was just in time to have Gorallin shout at all three of us.

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  “Ahh…” said Cappie. She had stiffened at the sight of blood on the doctor’s hands.

  Gorallin had many granite-hard rules about practicing medicine, and one of them was, “Never let parents see the taking of the Gift.” When I’d brought in my son the year before, I waited outside, shuddering in Cappie’s arms until it was all over. It only took ten minutes, and if Waggett had cried or wailed, I hadn’t heard a peep. When Gorallin brought the boy out of surgery, the incision at the back of his neck was no more than a nick, neatly closed with a single stitch. Within months, the scar was scarcely visible…and in a few months more, I had calmed down enough to stop looking at it every night.

  However, when we barged in on Pona’s Gift-giving, there was no closed incision, no neat stitch, no baby skin carefully cleaned to hide all trace of what happened. Pona, six months old and naked, lay belly down on Gorallin’s operating table. A generous wash of blood had spilled down the sides of her throat, dribbling onto the table’s iron surface; and in the middle of the bloody cut at the back of her neck, the red-smeared white of bone peeked out.