Future Indefinite (Round Three of The Great Game)

by Dave Duncan

  Ursula gestured for Alice to follow. Holding the torch overhead, she led the way up a steep, narrow trench. The rocks pressed closer, looming, threatening. Alice could feel them all around her and overhanging, grinning at her—claustrophobic! The floor was steep and uneven.

  "I apologize for that inquisition,” Ursula said over her shoulder. “The Chamber has been sending human time bombs after him. Your presence here was so unexpected that I insisted he take some precautions."

  And Jumbo's presence was definitely unwelcome. Alice would have to have a word with Edward about that, and build some bridges. “Quite all right. Understandable. What exactly are human time bombs? I presume they don't have fuses dangling from their ears?"

  "Not so easy, I'm afraid. They're people enslaved by mana to kill the Liberator. If it's any comfort to you, I can't detect any sorcery on you—nor on Jumbo, for that matter—but that doesn't mean much. Only a very clumsy curse would be detectable."

  "Well, I assure you that I truly am his cousin. Fresh from England. I'm here on holiday, surprising as that may seem."

  Mrs. Newton uttered a loud snort of laughter. “You have strange tastes in vacation spots! We have to squeeze through here. Watch your footing.” She held the torch higher to illuminate the gap. Then the path led steeply downward, and Alice had to hold back to avoid the heat of the flames ahead of her.

  Her guide stopped and turned around. “Almost there,” she said quietly. “One final request, Mrs. Pearson—please do not go close to your cousin. His bodyguards have been warned to block anyone who tries to touch him. They might not be overly gentle."

  Alice was becoming very tired of this nonsense. “Is it necessary for a human time bomb to touch him to kill him?"

  "Probably not, but that would be by far the easiest way to set up the sorcery. It is how Zath always primes his reapers. You might not even be aware that such a curse had been laid on you.” Ursula Newton was obviously quite serious, despite the unbelievable words she was speaking. “You would be given an irresistible compulsion to touch him and then complete some deadly ritual, although whatever it was might seem quite harmless to you."

  "I shall be extremely careful to keep my hands to myself, then."

  "That would be advisable. Follow me, please."

  As Jumbo had promised, the air was appreciably warmer here. Summer lingered on, deep in the bowels of the hill, and yet the virtuality seemed even stronger. Then a faint glimmer of light showed ahead, and Alice found herself stepping down into a hollow that could almost count as a separate cave. Obviously it was a well-frequented campsite, its floor littered with old chips of wood and bark. In the center was a fireplace of blackened stones, surrounded by a circle of low rocks for sitting. Beyond that, in turn, lay heaps of frondy leaves for bedding and a miscellaneous clutter of gourds and logs.

  Half a dozen people were grouped around the twinkling fire, their faces dancing in and out of the dark like ghosts. Edward was on the far side, speaking softly while the others listened—the king and his court. He looked weary but not as weary as might have been expected for an actor resting after such a performance.

  Her arrival made them all scramble to their feet, but she had eyes only for the tall man in the prophet's robe. Yes, she wanted to run to him and hug him, but she did not think there was anything sinister in that urge, just normal affection for her only living relative after a long separation. She sensed the others’ hair-trigger vigilance, watching to see if she would try it.

  "Alice!"

  "Edward! It's wonderful to see you!"

  "And you. Er ... won't you sit down?"

  She moved to the closest seat, a flat rock upholstered with a scrap of fur. After a moment, everyone else sat down also, all except Ursula Newton.

  Nobody spoke. Edward was just staring at Alice as if she were a ghost, the Holy Grail, or King George himself, and she was similarly tongue-tied. There were so many things to say that they could not even begin. She sensed an invisible wall of distrust between them.

  Norfolk seemed very far away now.

  She found her voice first. “I'm not here on business, Edward. Just on holiday. I'm not carrying any banners. Funny—you haven't changed a bit!” The beard was not all that bad at close quarters, hardly more than a heavy stubble. With a patriarchal bush like Tennyson's, he would look like a character in a school nativity play.

  Behind her, Ursula coughed harshly. “Well, I'll leave you to have a private chat, shall I?” The guards, three men and one woman, would not understand English. She must have left, then, but Alice did not turn to see.

  "Sorry about the cloak and dagger,” Edward said. “Ursula.

  "It's a good idea. I don't mind."

  "You're thinner. Keeping well?"

  "Splendid, thank you.” Under the circumstances, this was an absurdly banal conversation. It was wonderful to see him again. There was an extraordinary pain in her throat. “And you?"

  He smiled wistfully across the fire at her. “I'm ever so homesick! Tell me about England."

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  45

  The Free had begun yet another hymn. Eleal did not know the lyrics to this one either, and she was not in a mood to sing the praises of the Undivided anyway. She was still struggling to accept the idea that the gods she had always believed in might be imposters. The fire was burning low, but she was not cold now. She was hungry, and the supplies in her pack had run out. A shield-bearer had come around promising that the food would appear shortly, so meanwhile she must just huddle in miserable solitude amid a crowd of tunelessly chanting believers, wrestling with her faith and her conscience.

  Old Piol squeezed himself onto the rock beside her. She glanced sideways at him, unsure whether she wanted his company.

  He smiled—not the smile of the naive dreamer Piol Poet but that of the other Piol Poet, the genius who knew the human heart and could lay it bare in a carillon of silver words. “Talk it out,” he said. “The first thing to do with problems is to list them in order of worrisomeness."

  "They're all worrisome.” And some she couldn't tell even to Piol. “Who is D'ward? What is he—human or god?"

  "You told the crowd that he almost died once. If you believe that, then you must believe that he's human."

  "Well, he was human then,” she admitted. “But in those days he didn't go around performing miracles ... at least, not like he's doing now."

  Piol nodded, cannily waiting for her next problem.

  She said, “I can't believe both him and the Pentatheon, can I?"

  "Not both, no."

  "But Tion heals cripples too!"

  "D'ward calls that sorcery."

  "And Tion would call what he does sorcery. Their words cancel out."

  Piol rubbed an eyebrow. “Then look for other evidence."

  That was obvious, but she had not thought of it quite that way. What was he hinting at? “Which of them do you believe?"

  Piol was not to be trapped. He grinned, gap-toothed. “Tell you later. I won't make up your mind for you."

  She pulled a face at him. “Their words cancel out and their miracles cancel out. What else is there to consider? Well? What other evidence is there?"

  He probably wouldn't have given her a straight answer, and he was saved from having to reply at all, because a shield-bearer came by the fire with a bag, soliciting money. He didn't speak, because most people were singing. A few found coins for him, most just shook their heads sadly to show they had nothing to offer. Eleal declined too. She carried a fortune around her waist, but she was not about to expose it to so many curious eyes in this cave. The shield-bearer flashed her a smile and went on by.

  He had reminded her of another problem: D'ward was worried by the weather. He needed money to clothe and feed his followers. She had money. Could she force herself to give away so much, even to D'ward?

  Piol was waiting. “What will you do tomorrow, Eleal? You can be an actor now, a great actor. Frankly, you always had more talent f
or acting than for singing. Will you stay with the Liberator or set off to seek your fortune?"

  "That's the whole problem, you silly old goose! What I believe doesn't really matter—I can take years to decide that. What I need to know is what to do!"

  "Good! You're getting closer."

  She debated wringing his scrawny old neck—affectionately, of course. “You? What will you do?"

  "Me? Oh, I shall join the Free. Whether I believe D'ward or not, what he's doing is the most exciting thing I've ever seen in my life. I shall follow him to Tharg and witness the fulfilment or failure of the prophecy.” Piol sighed and clasped her hand in his cold fingers. “But I am an old man, with few years left to me. In your place I might not make that choice, because it may be very dangerous. If I am spared, I shall try to write an account of it all.” After a moment, he chuckled. “Maybe when I have done that, I shall know what I really believe, mm?"

  He already knew, of course. He just wasn't saying.

  Tharg would supply the answer, but Eleal could not wait for that. She could not live with this awful predicament. She had to make her decision sooner. Now! To follow D'ward or go her own way? D'ward had told her to leave. He had definitely not made her welcome. That was one point. She dare not return to Jurg itself, and the clutches of Tigurb'l Pimp. That was another. D'ward seemed to avoid cities, so he would probably just cut across Jurgvale and carry on to Mapvale. She could risk that. Or she could go back to Niol and try for auditions there, as Piol had suggested several times.

  "I can't decide!” she moaned. “What other evidence is there?"

  "Actions, of course. Judge people by what they do, not what they say."

  "Miracles? Sorcery?"

  "What else do they do, apart from miracles?"

  Eleal shivered. “Zath, you mean? Reapers?” She could never imagine D'ward sending out reapers to kill people. “Give me a clue, Piol!"

  He sighed. “Girls with problems should ask their mothers. I'm afraid yours would not be much help to you, even if she still lived."

  Eleal gulped. “You knew her? I thought that was before you joined the troupe."

  "No. Just after. For a whole fortnight we searched Jurg for her, all of us and all our friends. She was nowhere to be found. Nowhere! Suddenly, out of the blue, she just wandered up to the door of the house where we were staying."

  "Mad! Mad for love of the god?"

  "Mad for someone. All she would ever say was, ‘He kissed me!’”

  "He did a lot more than that!"

  "Perhaps he did, but the first kiss was what she remembered. From then until the day you were born, those were the only words she ever spoke. No matter what we asked her, or how your grandfather raged, all she would say was, ‘He kissed me!’ Dreamily. She wasn't really unhappy. She tended to wander away and hang around his temple, and of course we had to try to stop her doing that or fetch her back right away if she had eluded us. After you were born, she said nothing at all. It was not a hard birth, but it killed her. No, it released her. She had just been waiting for you to arrive, and after that she faded away, her job done."

  "Ken'th!"

  "Well, she never said so, and Trong would never admit that a god would do such a thing."

  Eleal squeezed her eyes tight shut in case they started leaking. “D'ward would never—” Her voice broke.

  D'ward would never do that sort of miracle, or that sort of sorcery. A shiver of revulsion racked her. Her mother: a woman starved for the love of a god or a woman enslaved by a poisoned kiss?

  Lecherous Ken'th. Murderous Zath. Depraved Ois, with her holy whorehouse. Or Gim Sculptor, whose beauty had won him the right to represent the Youth at the prize giving in Tion's temple? Two years later, his parents had still been hunting for him.

  "Trust their actions, not their words!” Piol said firmly.

  "Gods who kill people, gods who hurt people—those are not good gods.” She gripped his hand in gratitude. “I choose D'ward. I believe him, not them!"

  "I do too."

  Eleal straightened up. Good! Then her choice was easy. She must go and find D'ward and tell him that she believed in him and his Undivided god. She would give him her money, every copper of it. Then, surely, he would let her stay and be one of the Free. A shield-bearer, even? She could help him, too! She could repeat her witness of his coming, as she had done today, to help convince others. She could imagine his astonished thanks, his hug of thanks ... a quick kiss....

  She mumbled some words of thanks to Piol without thought. She rose and walked away, heading for the inner cave, for she had explored this place on her way to Niolvale and could guess where the Liberator would rest after his marvelous performance. The greenroom, she thought with a smile.

  The fire had almost gone out, so her eyes were well adjusted to the dimness. As she reached the rock pile that divided the cavern, she saw the guards before they saw her. She stopped, unwilling to face an argument or make long explanations to underlings.

  Well, there must be other ways around. She turned off to the left, moving with care, for the going soon became very tricky. She scrabbled up between the boulders, frequently bumping her right foot, for it was farther away from her now than it used to be. That did not matter, though. All that mattered was that she would be able to renew her friendship with D'ward. How could she have ever doubted him?

  She need not dream of making love to him, though. Dosh had told her how the Joalian-Nagian army had sacked Lemod, and how every man had taken a Lemodian girl to be his concubine, all except D'ward. D'ward had taken a girl and never laid a finger on her, even when she begged him to, Dosh said, although Dosh had probably been guessing there, for how could he have known? Still, he was undoubtedly right when he said that D'ward was a very holy man, with strict standards.

  So they would not be lovers, only friends.

  No passion. Just a quick hug? And a little kiss, to let bygones be bygones?

  She clambered over a smooth, rounded boulder and peered down at the drop. It looked about five feet, but she could not see the ground clearly enough to risk a jump, even with two legs of the same length. This little canyon led directly down to the inner cave, with its ancient ashes and its circle of rocks to sit on.

  A pebble clattered. Someone was coming.

  She hunkered down on the rock, willing herself to be invisible. And then, in the frail glow of reflected firelight, she saw him, working his way cautiously along the path below her. He wore a long robe with a hood. A gray robe! It was D'ward himself, all alone for once. The urge to leap down and surprise him was absolutely irresistible.

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  46

  One of the shield-bearers tossed a log on the fire, sending sparks swarming up into the dark. Alice felt as if she had been talking for hours. Any time she hesitated, Edward demanded more. She had described the horrors of war, the unexpected horrors of peace, the new war in Russia, the terrible flu epidemic, the changes that had come and would probably never go.... She had talked of the few acquaintances they had in common, like Mrs. Bodgley and Ginger Jones, and even, reluctantly, told him about D'Arcy and then Terry. He had responded with concern and no maudlin formulas.

  There were a million things she wanted to ask him, but his need was greater. He had been trapped on a faraway world for five years now, with one brief break. He was starved for information. She could see that being a prophet must be a desperately lonely business, with a thousand followers and not a single friend. She forgot her doubts and was glad she had come, for she was uniquely able to be the confidante he needed. He hung upon her words, staring at her as if she were a dream who might vanish if he even blinked, but his face said everything needful.

  Then the log went into the fire.

  "I'm hoarse!” she said. “You talk now."

  He glanced around at the four disciples, who had lost some of their coiled-spring alertness, doubtless bored to distraction by the newcomer's incomprehensible jabber. He turned a look of wide-eyed innoc
ence on Alice. “What do you want to know, child? What wisdom would you seek from the master? How it feels to out-hypocrite Holy Roly himself, for instance?"

  "Uncle Roly wasn't a hypocrite, he was a fanatic. You're not."

  He pulled a face. “Don't talk to me about fanatics! I'm creating fanatics, Alice! My helpers—disciples, I suppose. They believe every word I say, and I see it happening to them, day by day. They're becoming fanatics, all of them, and I feel like a terrible hypocrite."

  Surely My Cousin the Messiah was not suffering doubts? Was he asking for Alice's approval? That did not sound like Edward.

  "What do you teach them? The Service's universal Unitarianism?"

  He shrugged as if the question was irrelevant or the answer obvious. “Pretty much. Ethically it's the Golden Rule, the stuff that's common to all religions—concern for the sick, alms to the poor, smite not thy neighbor with thine ax.... It's Christianity mostly, because that's my background, but I think any Moslem, Buddhist, or Sikh would recognize it."

  "And theologically?"

  "Monotheism.” He paused for a moment, frowning ... looking for all the world as though he had never really thought about it before. “And reincarnation."

  "Why that?"

  "Not sure...” He ran a hand through his hair and grinned. “Because Uncle Roly gave me a fixed picture of heaven as an endless ghastly Sunday morning of psalm singing. Because reincarnation seems a happier creed than hellfire. Why should God insist we get it right the first time?"

  "And if we have only one chance to get it right, that gives the priests much greater power over us, doesn't it?"

  "By Jove! You know, I hadn't thought of that. Jolly good! I like it. Besides, you can't prove I'm wrong, can you?"

  "No. So why are you worried if you create a few fanatics? You don't encourage violence or persecution, do you? You don't tell outright lies."