Phthor

by Piers Anthony

  “Yes!” It had been a hard lesson, as most cavern lessons were. Yet Arlo realized that his father was pleased. Aton hated Chthon—yet he stayed here in Chthon’s demesne, and Chthon tolerated him. Why? Arlo dared not ask—yet.

  “An ordinary man would have been lost,” Aton continued after a moment. “But Bedeker belongs to Chthon, and Chthon controls all life in the caverns. Except the three of us. The human mind is too complex to control without an enormous special effort.”

  “The myxo!” Arlo cried.

  “Right. And those of us with minion blood are capable of resisting the myxo, so that if Chthon prevails, the result is not a controlled human mind but a zombie. So it isn’t worth it. Still the mineral intellect has ways of making its point. Chthon could have stopped the caterpillar—but maybe it wanted to teach us a lesson.” He always referred to Chthon as “it,” signaling his smoldering antipathy. “So it let Bedeker get caught. I escaped—only because Chthon let me—but for a week Bedeker marched in the caterpillar. Several more segments were incorporated behind him. I thought I’d never see him again, and I wasn’t sorry.”

  Aton shook his head, his dark hair waving with the motion. “Until that episode, I never really appreciated Chthon’s full power. Maybe I still don’t. Well, Chthon showed me! A predator attacked that caterpillar—some huge wolf like thing and—”

  “Wolf!” Arlo cried. But he shut up as his father paused. He wanted to hear the rest of the episode.

  “The wolf severed it just in front of Bedeker. The main caterpillar escaped, but Bedeker survived as an independent segment. He wasn’t a real caterpillar; he couldn’t use his tail to incorporate new segments. He was just a ten-legged fragment walking around. But now he had control. Maybe it was really Chthon-control; I’m sure I would have died in that situation. But in due course the predator attacked again, this time cutting off the last four segments. And still Bedeker lived. He returned almost to normal—it’s hard to tell, since he is half mad, half Chthon anyway—while the remainder of his former body carried on by itself. Again, no death. The new head assumed control and started eating. Those last segment had been pretty strong, so the thing was stupid but powerful. Bedeker gave it to me to take care of, and he named it Sleipnir, after eight-legged horses of Norse mythology. You’ll find that in LOE.”

  Aton fell silent, and Arlo asked no more questions. The story was incredible—yet he had to believe it. Chthon did have such power, and Doc Bedside did have huge scars on his body whose significance suddenly manifested. But how amazing, for the old mad doctor had almost literally birthed this fine cavern horse—a four-segment caterpillar fragment! Where else could such a thing have happened?”

  They entered the gardens. Aton looked around with interest, blinking in the unaccustomed yellow light, for he had not had opportunity to inspect this region before. “Nice,” he said appreciatively. “I seem to remember something like this, vaguely. I think the first time Chthon guided me through the caverns, using the half-woman...”

  “Black-haired?” Arlo asked.

  “Yes. Half-zombie. Don’t tell me she’s still around?”

  “Yes. She’s one of the Norns.”

  “Norns!” Aton exploded, laughing. “Chthon must have quite a sense of humor, deep in its stone circuits. She was a Lower Cavern bitch, when I knew her.”

  Bitch. The female of an Old Earth dog, evidently a term of disrespect. But now they were coming into Arlo’s particular green near the falls, where the girl lay.

  Ex remained as she had been. Arlo had difficulty looking. It was not the sight of wounds and blood that bothered him. But the fact that he had so recently known this person, and in fact had some responsibility for her condition.

  “She’s been gutted, but she lives,” Aton said. “That’s remarkable. Are you sure she’s not zombie?”

  “She’s human! Chthon tried to take her—and then sent the wolf.”

  Aton looked up. “Wolf?” he asked sharply, evidently making the same connection Arlo had. A wolf had freed Bedside from the caterpillar...

  “That’s what it felt like. Its mind. Bedside blocked me off, so I came too late and hardly saw it. Big—big, like a wolf.”

  “You’ve never seen a wolf!”

  “I’ve seen the picture in LOE. But it’s only the feel I mean. The malignancy. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. It’s a wolf.”

  “A wolf,” Aton repeated. “You’re right: in the caverns, feel is more important than appearance.” Then he shook himself. “So you’ve got a girl! She must have strayed from the prison.”

  “Yes. She said so.” But now Arlo was aware of a certain deviousness in his father and knew he was concealing something. Aton should have been surprised, perhaps angry—but he was neither. He could hardly be in collusion with Chthon. So what did he know?

  “We can’t save her,” Aton said regretfully. “Her guts have been spilled. I don’t know what keeps her alive.”

  There were times when his father lacked tact. Yet it was true. There was no explaining what kept Ex breathing. “We have to try,” Arlo said.

  “All we can do is tie her together and see what happens. Only Chthon can save her.”

  “But Chthon won’t.

  The man’s eye looked at him, and Arlo knew the question was rhetorical. “Why not?”

  “Because Chthon sent the wolf to kill her!”

  Aton nodded. He gathered strong vines from the native flora of the garden “Don’t you think Chthon could have arranged to kill her outright, instead of leaving her hanging by a thread?”

  “I—” But his arrival could not have had much effect; the wolf had already been departing. “Chthon wanted her—this way?”

  “It is possible to bargain with Chthon. That’s how I saved your mother.”

  Arlo was torn by hope and incredulity. “You—”

  “She had the chill.”

  “The chill?”

  “I forgot. That’s not in LOE.” He sighed. “I hate this business. I think your girl is going to die, so I’m talking about something else. But maybe this will help.” He paused, finding his mental place as his hands worked, preparing the vines. “Most of what I know about the chill I learned from fat Hasty. That’s Hastings—a fellow prisoner, a quarter-century ago. Hasty, Framy, Bossman, Garnet, the black-haired bitch—I never did know her name—”

  “Verthandi.”

  Aton snorted, but continued: Two hundred forty-one denizens of the nether caverns, and as many more in the upper prison. But Hasty was special. He knew everything except how to mine a garnet. He died stuck in a hole, chopped in half by Bossman’s axe. Had to be done, because the jelly whale was coming...” He trailed off.

  “You mean a potwhale?” Arlo asked.

  “Hasty did a marvelous presentation. He phrased the mystery of the chill as though it were a parody of the earlier quest for the nature of light. He talked about the particle theory and the wave theory, and showed how the first was exploded and the second swamped. He had fun with his puns! He also took his digs at the obtuseness of military doctors who suppose that no person without a fever can be sick, even though he appears to be dying. And the scholastic “publish or perish” system that has always kept professionals too busy with irrelevancies to attend to their legitimate work.”

  Arlo shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t. The prisoners didn’t grasp the nuances either. But the essence was this: the chill comes in ninety-eight-year cycles—waves of it spreading out from the center of the galaxy. Where it strikes, more than half the population dies. Each infected person becomes colder and colder until he can no longer sustain the bodily processes necessary to live. There in no cure.

  “Coquina caught it when it crossed planet Hvee the last time, in §403. I knew she would die. She had stayed in the path of the chill only to take care of me in my madness, and in that manner she showed me what true love was. I knew I loved her too. So I did what I had resolved never to do, and
I made a bargain with Chthon, agreeing to come here to stay provided Chthon enabled her to live. As long as Chthon keeps its bargain, I keep mine. Honor between enemies, you might say. She stays in a cave so hot her body temperature cannot drop, and Chthon’s ambience touches her to keep her sane and functional, and so she survives. It isn’t much of a life for her, but if she ever leaves that heat, or the presence of Chthon, she will die.”

  Arlo was stunned. In one speech his father had clarified lifelong mysteries—yet how many new mysteries unfolded in that telling! What was the real cause of the chill, and how could Chthon nullify it as though Coquina were merely another hvee plant, existing by the god’s will, yet no zombie? How did the minionette relate to this? And why had Chthon wanted Aton to live here? Arlo knew better than to inquire; his father, like Bedside, volunteered information only when he chose. This had been an unprecedented windfall, but that was all.

  Aton wrapped the vines around Ex’s torso, pulling the great wound together and poking her intestines inside, one link at a time, gently. Even Arlo could see that this was extremely crude surgery, bound to be futile; but there was little else to do.

  “At least there are hardly any harmful microbes here,” Aton murmured. “Wounds don’t suppurate here, and there are no contagious diseases. Outside, even a scratch could kill you, or the air exhaled by a sick man.”

  “A scratch by the salamander kills,” Arlo said. “And the breath of a dragon, too.”

  “Something like that,” Aton agreed, with an obscure smile.

  “I bargained with Chthon,” Arlo ventured. “I threatened to kill myself if it didn’t stop the myxo.”

  Aton looked up at him eye widening. “You experienced the myxo?”

  “It was trying to take over Ex, and she was crusted with white, so I put the spear to myself and—”

  “And so you bargained with the nether god, because it had either to make you a zombie or let you die. And you won!”

  “I guess so. But when I left Ex, the wolf attacked—”

  Aton put his hand on Arlo’s shoulder. “Son, you are a man. You fought Chthon itself to save your girl, as I did. But you did not go far enough.”

  Arlo was immensely flattered by his father’s statement. But he looked down at the bound body, still slowly leaking blood, and knew that he had lost what he had fought for. “I guess not.”

  “You stopped Chthon from using the myxo. But so long as it controls the animals of the caverns, it can kill the girl. You cannot save her without coming to terms with Chthon.”

  Arlo shivered despite the warmth of the gardens. “Should I try to kill myself again?”

  Aton closed his eye. “Son, I have neglected you. Aesir was my son, and when he died it was as though I had no child. You were there, later, but you were hardly real to me. It is the same mistake I made when I clung to the minionette in preference to your mother. But now you are a man, and I know that though you came second, you are every bit as much mine as is Coquina. The second is not inferior to the first! I would not have you die.”

  Again Arlo was amazed. This was the strongest expression of affinity he had ever heard from his father. And now he had heard the name of his lost brother: Aesir. And he had Aton’s admission that he had loved the minionette. But Arlo kept his voice steady. “I am glad. But how can I protect Ex from Chthon?”

  “Only as I protect Coquina. Tell Chthon you will not oppose it so long as your girl lives. Really lives, not a zombie! Chthon wants your cooperation, even as it wanted mine. In fact—” Aton paused momentarily, a strange expression passing across his face— “In fact, I suspect Chthon only wanted me here in the caverns so that I could beget a child. A human creature conceived, birthed, and wholly enclosed by the caverns. It is possible Chthon killed Aesir because he was not suitable for its purpose. Now you are here—and Chthon wanted you whole. I don’t know why. But I think you can bargain. It would take many years to produce another like you—and I doubt Chthon wants to wait that long.”

  “Chthon wants me...” Arlo echoed. “It must be true. Chthon has always been my friend. Until Ex came.”

  Aton smiled. “Evidently Chthon wants no child from you! And certainly no corruption of your mind by any outsider. There is your bargaining point perhaps. Tell it you will have no child by Ex and will cooperate as before no matter what she may tell you, so long as Chthon makes no further move against her. And repairs the damage already done.”

  “But I don’t know how to have a child—or how not to! Arlo protested.

  “You’ll find out how. And Chthon can prevent conception, so long as the two of you remain here. I think it’s a fair bargain. See if Chthon agrees.”

  Arlo turned inward—and Chthon was there, his friend, as before. “Chthon agrees,” he said, wonderingly.

  Aton raised the eyebrow above his good eye. “Just like that!” He had no direct contact with Chthon and wanted none.

  Arlo looked at Ex, who seemed to be resting easier now, “What is conception?” he asked, suspecting it had something to do with the curious crease between her legs.

  Aton turned toward Sleipnir. “The girl is young yet. Do not force her. Let her recover, let her grow a couple of years. Get to know her well. If she is good, she will fill your life as Coquina fills mine. She will convert the animal into a man.” He climbed onto his steed.

  It came to Arlo that his father had to have known that Ex was coming: company for a boy who had not realized he was lonely. But Chthon had not agreed to the arrangement, and here was the consequence: the wolf’s attack.

  “You asked about the minionette,” Aton said. “When you go home, ask your mother. She will tell you as much as you care to know.” Then, to Sleipnir: “Any route home. I believe Chthon will protect us this one time.” And he was gone.

  Arlo felt Chthon’s confirmation. The god had known what Aton would say and do, and thus had permitted his visit to the gardens. This once.

  He sat beside Ex for a long time, mulling over what his father had said, watching to see if the girl got better.

  Finally Doc Bedside came. “’So you have made peace with Chthon,” he observed. “Let me see to the child.”

  Now it was all right. Arlo let the man remove the vines and leaves and explore the great wound. “She has astonishing vitality,” Bedside remarked. “And marvelous good fortune. No internal organs ruptured, bleeding minimal, considering. A few stitches and Chthon’s beneficence will see her through, I suspect.”

  “But why did Chthon want to kill her?” Arlo asked. Aton had suggested a reason, but now the notion of sacrificing a living human being merely to prevent her from being a companion seemed less credible. Surely there were less strenuous ways!

  “Chthon’s ways are inscrutable. But you have made your bargain; Chthon will honor it. No creature of the caverns will harm her so long as you and Chthon are one.”

  “What does Chthon want with me?” Arlo cried.

  Bedside studied him in his disquieting fashion. “I am mad. By that I mean I do not conform to the norms of your society, though I can approximate them when necessary. Your father is half-mad. You are sane. You are Chthon’s chosen. Your destiny is huge.”

  “Chosen for what?”

  But Bedside only smiled.

  • • •

  Ex recovered. It was amazingly rapid, considering the severity of her injury, but it did take time. Arlo brought her food that Coquina made: glow-bread, fermented vine sap, dried chipper meat. He carried her regularly to a narrow, deep crack above flowing water so that she could defecate cleanly. He supported her as she practiced walking. And he talked with her.

  Arlo told her all about the caverns: the rivers, the potwhales, the ice tunnels, the caterpillars, the forests, the chimera, and Chthon. He told her how his father mined gold and precious garnets and other stones to make beautiful rings that Doc Bedside took outside to trade for civilized goods: clothing, tools, books.

  She in turn told him of the great outside world. How the wonderful § spa
ceship traveled from Earth all over the human sector of the galaxy and even traded with sentient alien species: the Xests, Lfa and EeoO. (She had to pronounce those strange names several time for him: zzest, fla only with the L and F reversed, one syllable, and EE-e-o-O with accents on the first and last syllables, the whole run together so that it sounded more like an exclamation than a name.) How mankind had fragmented into planetary sub-species, each adapted for its particular world in subtle ways though all looked completely human and could interbreed. (Interbreed? Arlo inquired, interested. How is that done? But she seemed not to hear him.) How the stars came out at night, just as described in LOE: pinpoints of light too numerous to count, especially in the “Milky Way’ region of the planetary sky. How there were rocks floating in orbit about individual stars, called “planetoids”—some only a few miles in diameter, so that a visitor could hardly cling to their surfaces. “But excellent for mining rare ores,” she said. “Because the deep strata are all exposed and accessible. Gold, iridium—all sorts of things just there for the taking, and almost no energy required to get them into space. Ore-shuttling is a big space business.”

  “It must be,” Arlo agreed, entranced with this vision. LOE had nothing like this!

  “And some of them are made into holiday stopovers. Spotels. Sealed in, completely private, with all the comforts of home.” She winked confidentially. “I was conceived in a spotel.”

  “But how—”

  “My father’s dead now. So’s my mother. Must’ve been some romance, though, while it lasted!”

  That balked further question about the nature of human breeding. But the two became intertwined in Arlo’s imagination: ore-mining, planetoids, and romance.

  They didn’t talk all the time. They played games ranging from hot-hands to chess. Ex was good at all of them, as she had excellent physical and mental coordination. For a young girl, she knew a surprising amount.

  As she grew stronger a strange thing happened. Her body, thinned drastically by the rigor of the injury, filled out to more than its original from. Her legs grew rounder, especially in the upper thighs. Her chest swelled into two humps. Hair grew under her arms and between her legs, concealing that cleft that had so intrigued Arlo. Her body came to resemble, to some degree, that of Verthandi the Norn. And her face changed subtly, becoming less childlike. She was, in short, a golden-haired little beauty.