by Sharon Lee
"True enough," he heard his own voice tell her. "Anjemalti the Seeker uses it so, more than not."
"No harm, then," she concluded and turned uphill. She took two steps and looked over to him, extending a bird's claw hand. "Three steps to home, Eyes, as I know the way. We'll release these others to the care of their kin, and you will bear witness, as you must. Three steps, I promise you; then we tend your hurts and settle you down to Witness more seemly."
"All Witnessing is seemly," he heard himself say. "It is what must be done."
"Indeed, it must," she agreed, and captured his arm in her thin, strong fingers. "Walk with me now. One step, eh? Two steps . . . Three steps and—"
Home.
* * *
The ground shook, trees screamed, rocks split, streams left their courses.
Finchet battled the controls, beyond swearing—or praying. He rode the buffets, kept fall as slow as he dared, trusting more to his instincts than to instruments that flickered and flashed and gave forth giddy, useless readings.
He'd lost all but one screen; that one was enough to show him the ground rushing up at a rate that would have terrified him, had he not passed beyond terror some time ago.
The wind slapped them into a hard spin. He did nothing to fight it, all his fight going to keep the Garden UPright; to save what he could while trees broke and died around him and the boy lay unconscious, stretched over a Book that was as useless to him now as prayer.
The ground came roaring upward; in the grainy screen he saw distant hills and an unending gleam of water. The wind gave them a last, playful tap and finally let them go.
Finchet sucked in his breath and sent all remaining power—pitiful though it was—to the stabilizers and sat, hands taloned above the useless controls, staring at the dark screens, waiting for impact.
* * *
Without the computers the Big Ship might as well just throw the docks open and invite the GenCrew on board. That the pirates had managed to subvert the System One codes and render all instrument readings suspicious was—disturbing. In light of this disturbance, the captain ordered the ship to System Two, and sent the techs scrambling for the access hatches.
CompTech Kandra Dinshaw swung the jitney off the main track and onto the Core A repair spiral. She kicked the speed up and whirled down and around—three full times around—before slamming on the brakes and rolling out.
The access hatches for the main computer cores were mechanical, designed for exactly the sort of unlikely emergency that faced them now. Kandra set a key the size of her palm in a keyhole bigger than her fist and turned, putting her back into it. The tumblers resisted for a second, then fell—click, click, click!—and the hatch sprang open.
She ran her fingers over the items hanging from her utility belt, nodded, and chinned herself on the overhead bar, scooting feet-first into the core.
Carefully, she worked her way down-core, shining her light overhead and keeping a sharp eye out for the axis numbers. At 38-6-I, she stopped and squirmed into position, reminding herself that there were good reasons why a opsystem changeover needed to be made mechanically. What if the ship were being invaded, as it was being invaded now? A computerized realignment could be read by the enemy, who could then conceivably capture the second computer's codes. . ..
Sweating, but in position at last, Kandra felt in her belt for the hex wrench, fit it over the first of three holding bolts and applied torque.
The bolt spun and popped out into her hand, as did the second and the third. She eased the panel aside, squirmed some more and slid eventually into the changeover bank.
Her light picked out a dazzle of multicolored wires, gleam of metal and plastic surfaces, dull tubing and the glitter of amber spider-eyes, watching gravely from atop the first turn-joint.
Kandra froze, staring at the tiny insectoid. "What the—"
The spider blinked, one yellow eye after another, then turned on dainty gold-wire legs and minced away from her, down the joint—and disappeared into the less-than-hairline crack at the juncture into the second computer.
"A spider?" Kandra demanded, snatching at her belt-comm. A shower of static rewarded her effort to call the bridge and she cursed, and backed out into the core, swearing all the way.
She braced her shoulders against the core wall and thumbed the link again. There was a sprinkle of static, then Security's voice, snapping: "Yes?"
"Dinshaw," she told him, snapping herself, "CompTech Seven, dispatched to Core-A, computer realignment. There's a fucking spider in the backup!"
"Spider?" Security's tone was not encouraging.
"Spider," she reiterated. "Amber glow-eyes, eight legs, all out of gold wire, nice little transceiver body—a mechanical, you reading me? The backup computer's subverted!"
"By a spider." No belief there, maybe a touch of wondering if she'd cracked. Kandra gritted her teeth.
"By a robot," she snarled and glanced up at a sound—a very slight sound—in the core above her. Her light picked out the legs, the huge, shining body . . . "Oh, hell . . ." she breathed.
"What?" demanded Security, and Kandra shrank back against the core wall and knew there was nowhere to run.
"There's another one," she told the comm numbly, watching it come down-core. "Another spider. And it's big. . .."
Chapter Sixty-Six
He woke screaming, pursued by demons that whispered false delights, bloody talons outstretched to rend him.
Half-dazed, he fought the rich, scented furs, breath rasping, eyes wider than nature had ever intended—seeing nothing.
"Corbinye!" One sensible word in a tangle of fever-garble. Both of the room's watchers stirred at that. One rose and approached the bed, wrung out the cloth until it was damp and laid a thin hand against his shoulder, pushing him gently back.
"Down, child. Be still. Still. Good." She smoothed tangled yellow hair back from his brow and laid the cool cloth there. Blue eyes stared blankly into hers—and blinked, brows pulling together.
"Who are you?" he asked, with the wondering half-interest of a child.
His voice was rough, for all its innocence. She reached again and brought the bowl of inthil-juice to his lips.
He drank thirstily, and when he had drunk his fill, he turned his mouth away and asked again, "Who are you?"
"The Gatekeeper," she said, and put the bowl back on the stand. Facing him, she set the hood back, so he could see her clearly. "Gatekeeper for the Telios. The place is the Grotto of the Telios, where the Smiter rests—betweentimes. The healers have dressed your wounds and the singers have been praying for you this while. The Grotto is safety. No need for ill dreams here."
"Ill dreams . . ." He frowned and shifted a little where he lay, as if to see around her.
Guessing at his intention, she moved aside. "The Smiter is with you still. See—there it—"
A violent shudder shook him and he twisted as if he would fling himself off the sleeping ledge, save that the furs ensnared him.
"Take it away!"
The Gatekeeper stared. "The Trident Bearer speaks?"
"I said," he repeated, with awful clarity, enormous eyes bright as if with fever, or with that certain excitation which from time to time overcame those who bore the Trident, "take it away. I want none of it. It belongs to the Telios and I have returned it to the Telios. I'm done with it! Where is Corbinye?"
The Gatekeeper wet her lips, wondering if this were honest delirium or something sinister and beyond the ken of mortalkind. "I—" she began, meaning to say that she would go for one of the Five, but she did not get so far.
"Anjemalti." Two broad hands reached past her, possessed themselves of the Trident Bearer's shoulders and pressed him firmly down into the furs. "Be still. It is not thus that a man comports himself."
"You!" The Trident Bearer glared up. "You know its history—who better? Do you want me mad, with a legion of dead men bleeding on my hands? Is this friendship?" He twisted away from the hands that held him and sat up, his f
ace near level with that of Shlorba's Eyes.
"I say to you I do not want it! Take it away and let another fool take it up!" He drooped back against the pillows. "I want Corbinye," he said in a milder tone. "Fetch her for me, if you love either of us."
"Death's Warrior may not come to you, Anjemalti," Shlorba's Eyes said sadly. "Her hurt was more potent than yours and the healers have labored hard, yet without full confidence in the outcome of their labors. And I cannot in anywise go away from here. For, though a man may love a man and a man may love a woman, I am Witness for the Telios and that is no duty I may lay down simply because it has failed of being joyful. It is not a duty I chose, who was happy in study and in song and never yearned for greatness." He closed his eyes and opened them, his mouth tight.
"My heart must always bow to duty," he said, "until such time as duty lays me down."
The Trident Bearer's eyes were less frenzied. The Gatekeeper allowed herself to hope that the madness had passed.
"And you wish me, an outsider and none of the Bindalche, to emulate you—to willingly sacrifice my self and my soul to—that."
"You are Chosen of the Smiter, Anjemalti, and you please the Goddess well. It is not Recalled that all who have borne the Trident have gone mad, though some have. It is Recalled that many who have lived to lay the Trident down walked away whole, with light in their faces and joy in their hearts and were the most blessed of men thereafter."
The Trident Bearer closed his eyes, leaned his head back and said nothing.
After a moment, Shlorba's Eyes sighed. "There is no one else who may bear it," he said softly, "while the Trident craves your touch. When the time is come to lay your burden aside, Anjemalti, your heart will know it. Until that time, any who seek to take the Smiter from you will die. Recall Jarge Menlin."
From the Trident Bearer, a sigh, long and shuddering. He opened his eyes and looked hard into the face of Shlorba's Eyes. Then he turned his head and stared at the place where the Trident lay, ringed 'round with holy stones, a pall of incense above it.
The Trident Bearer rubbed at his head, discovered the cloth still there and brought it away, holding it silently out. The Gatekeeper took it from his hand and dropped it back into the bowl.
"So." He began, methodically, rationally, to put aside the covers. "If Corbinye is as ill as that, I will go to her. She should not wake alone, without kin by her."
"Healers say you must rest," protested the Gatekeeper, and found herself caught in the brightness of his eyes.
"I will rest," he told her, "as soon as I am at my cousin's side. The healers may complain to me, if the arrangement offends them."
Shlorba's Eyes stepped back, and the Gatekeeper was shocked to see a smile on his mouth.
"Spoken like a man, Anjemalti. Gatekeeper, the Trident Bearer requires a robe."
She looked at him, whom she had known from the moment of his birth, and saw there was nothing she could do to sway him from his course. A glance at the other man's face revealed the same calm madness. Sighing, she went to the alcove and fetched the Trident Bearer his robe.
* * *
He was a boy again, running along Garden paths he had known his whole life—paths magically remade by the one he pursued. He had known Marjella Kristefyon nearly as long as the Garden, but never had he known her so beautiful, so gay, so desirable.
They were both fourteen, and in the Garden it was spring. Finchet stretched his strong young legs, knowing he would catch her at the next bend in the path—
The path pitched and buckled and Finchet fell—kept falling as trees broke above him and crashed down, everywhere at once. He rolled into a ball, shielding his head with his arms, face pushed tight into the dirt. Within the chaos, he thought he heard Marjella screaming. Or maybe it was himself.
He must have swooned, for the next sound he heard was the steady thok-thok-thok of an axe biting wood, and he carefully unwound his cramped body, and opened his eyes.
Above him, tilted at an insane angle, broken straps dangling down, was the pilot's chair. Finchet stared at it for several minutes, trying to make sense of its presence in light of his race with Marjella, and the continued sound of the axe.
Memory sorted itself, slowly, until he finally knew himself for sixty-four, with Marjella dead this weary round of years, and her son, grown to adult, and Captain in his own right, who had ordered the ploy that might well have killed the Garden.
"Well and it's the Captain's part," Finchet muttered, "to say what loss the Crew can take." He closed his eyes then, the better to attend the whirling of his head, and listened to the rhythm of the axe strokes.
These presently stirred him to a curiosity sufficient to overcome lethargy and he climbed painfully to his feet, moaning just a little.
The cottage lay wasted all about him, stone walls crushed beneath the corpses of hundred-year trees. The control wall alone was upright, speared by a broken branch, ready to crumble at a touch.
The axe wielder was Veln. Even as Finchet watched, the boy let the blade sink to the ground and rubbed at his forehead with a hand that shook.
Finchet shook out his legs and began to pick his way across the rubble. The boy turned, a grin turning his face young again, despite the grit that stained it.
"Uncle! Are you—how are you?"
"Well enough," he returned and stopped to cough. "Smoke," he said to the boy's suddenly anxious eyes and offered a grin of his own. "Told you we'd get down. True speaking, young Veln?"
The smile came back, but wearily. "True speaking, Uncle."
Finchet nodded and made a show of surveying the path that had been cut. "Been busy, I see. Belike you've a plan."
Veln pointed away across the tumble of ruin, beyond the edge of what had been the cottage and into the maze that had been a forest. "Access hatch."
"True enough." Finchet thought a moment, considering the boy's sweat-soaked shirt, grim face and trembling arms. "Happen we can get ourselves there without cutting us a boulevard," he said. "Let's have a sit-down and think it out."
They sat cross-legged among the wood chips, the boy straight-backed and tense, the old man leaning his shoulders against a log.
"If we go lightly," Finchet said, "happen we'll make it across to the hatch without trouble. You've uncovered a rope?"
Veln pointed shakily to a careful pile in the corner of two locked branches. Finchet frowned; nodded.
"Rope, small axe, knives, canteen, Book, belt comm—well done, young Veln! We're in a fair way to being out and about and seeing where we've come to rest." He looked closely at the boy. "You're wanting to start now, or rest a bit?"
"Now," said Veln with decision, and Finchet nodded again, creakily stood and bent over the careful little cache.
"We'll rope us together, for safety's sake," he murmured, more to himself than to the boy. "I'll take the large axe and one of the knives and a rope coil over the shoulder . . ."
"And I'll take the small axe, a knife, the canteen," said Veln.
"Right you are. Then I'm for the comm. The Book can go down the back of your shirt." He plucked the items out, one by one, and handed Veln his share. He had just made certain of the comm snapped to his belt when he felt a tough young body slam into him and thin arms go tight around his waist.
"Oh, Uncle, I'm so glad you're all right!" Veln cried out, words muffled by reason of his face being buried in Finchet's side. "I was so afraid—you were breathing, but when I tried to straighten you, you moaned and I thought you were broken and so I was going to cut a path and go—and go for help. . .."
"There now, there now . . ." Finchet put his arms around the heaving shoulders. "You did well, boy—as well as any could. It's only that us oldsters take our knocks a little more to heart. I'm right as right can be. We'll just rope ourselves together and stroll on out of here, eh?"
Snuffling, Veln nodded, and pulled back and stood patient while Finchet knotted the rope around his waist and measured out a length and tied the opposite end about himself.
"All right, now."
"A stroll," he heard the boy say behind him, and they swung out toward the hatch.
* * *
Of course, it was much worse than any stroll. It was a nightmare of tricksy footing and rolling logs; stones that turned under unwary boots, and branches crashing down random-like. Whole groves had gone down in impenetrable tangles, so that twice they had to make lengthy detours, and those weren't the worst of the bad moments.
Hours later, they reached the hatch, both of them grimy and sweating and trembling, and they took turns chopping at the vegetation piled before it. When it was clear, Finchet stepped forward, sending a prayer to the gods of stars and space that it wasn't jammed tight, leaned all his weight against the crash bar and pushed.
Against all his expectations, it popped open and he was catapulted quite neatly into the arms of the person directly before him.
Caught, Finchet blinked against the strong light—sunlight!—and got his captor's face into focus. It bore a marked resemblance to a face he had seen before.
He cleared his throat. "I'm a friend," he said into the Grounder's startled eyes, "of Witness for the Telios. It'd be thought a kindness if you'd take the boy and me to him."
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The room was smaller than the one where he had awakened, and its walls were covered with fur. A fire burned in a pit near the center. Against the back wall was a bed, and on it a prince's ransom in furs.
A diminutive figure hurried forward as Gem crossed the threshold, waving small hands distractedly.
"Please, she is very ill. She must rest and not be in any way distressed. Please leave. We will send word."
Gem stopped and looked deep into the hood, seeing a face as young as the Gatekeeper's was old. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.
The boy pushed his hood back irritably, revealing black braids and a ring of white metal piercing one ear. "You are the Trident Bearer," he said. "But she's ill. She might die, the healers say. Please, you must not call her now—take someone else!"
"You, for chance?" asked Gem and saw the boy's face tighten. He reached out and touched the earring lightly with a fingertip. "What does this signify?"