"I love your new look," Arachne called to Zeus. "So ... manly."
There was nothing to do now but try to seem nonchalant. Perhaps most embarrassing was Gallen's reaction. His jaw had dropped in such a way Zeus knew it went against all his principles to appear naked in public. Ah well, thank the heavens for a bit of body paint. At least he hadn't come totally nude.
The stranger beside Gallen said, "Well, I must say I don't care for it at all, Zeus, you're taking this nudity entirely too far." Only then did Zeus recognize his father's clone.
"If you looked as fine as I do," Zeus told him, "you'd run naked, too. I must say, Father, a young body has not strengthened your appeal."
"Oh, don't say that," Arachne grinned. "He looks very handsome. I've thought of nothing but incest all evening."
Lord Felph smiled appreciatively, and Zeus saw that Arachne was trying to appease the old man. She wanted to head off any arguments before they began.
Felph must have recognized it, too, for he made certain to get in the last word. "At the very least, consider wearing a breechcloth. If you look in the historical archives, you'll find that they reached the height of fashion under the Beeorso Dominion. You'll see some tremendous examples of what can be done with a simple piece of cloth."
"Well, Father," Zeus said to change the subject, "I see that you had a successful expedition." He decided then and there that if his father didn't want him naked, he'd damned well run around naked for the next three hundred years.
"If you call getting eaten by sfuz successful, then, yes, I suppose this was an astonishing triumph. I don't doubt that at least a hundred of them are sucking the marrow from my bones at this very moment."
"Successful, I mean, in that Gallen and Athena at least made it home alive, and you did find some sfuz."
"Oh, yes," Felph laughed. "Gallen fought gloriously. I do believe that he might actually be capable of making his way down to the bottom."
"Not likely," Gallen said, "with so many."
"Ah but you see their limitations," Felph said. "They are not very bright."
Zeus took a seat next to Hera, and she smiled at him, a sweet, confident smile. Perfectly lovely. She reached down and grasped his knee, then massaged his leg.
"Perhaps they are stupid, but we shouldn't be over confident," Gallen considered. "Athena said that, considering how long it took a hunting party to find us, she thinks we were at least a dozen kilometers from their nesting site. Who knows how many of them there are? Or what they're capable of."
Lord Felph frowned a bit, an old-man's gesture that seemed out of place on his fresh young clone. "Time, space, nature, self. I wonder what the Qualeewoohs discovered that would make them believe they conquered those?"
"Who knows?" Gallen asked. "Certainly, the Waters don't give the sfuz such power."
"Perhaps that is only because the sfuz aren't wise," Athena cut in. "Whatever transformation the Waters work upon them, it may not change the way the creatures think, nor affect their basic natures. The sfuz are hunters of the deep tangle. They live down in the shadows, and hunt the upper boughs by night. That is their nature. It may be that they could do more--conquer space, leap through time, but just do not desire it."
"Perhaps they do things we never imagine," Arachne put in, and every head turned to her. "Imagine that if a sfuz looked up from the tangle on a clear night, and saw the light of a star, and longed to be there. If it had drunk from the Waters and conquered space, it might find itself there in an instant--and in that instant, it would be consumed in fires it had never imagined. Thus ends the sfuz." Arachne looked pointedly at Zeus. Don't get burned, she was telling him. No one else seemed to notice.
"So travel between space may be practiced among the sfuz--" Gallen put in, "to their own detriment."
"It is always a danger to those who do not recognize their limits," Arachne said.
At that moment, Orick chose to ask a question, one that had always bothered Zeus. "I don't understand all of this. If the Qualeewoohs are immortal, and if they've conquered space, then why don't they show themselves?"
Felph leaned both elbows on the table, folded his hands, and stared deeply into them. "I believe that the ancient Qualeewoohs live, but not in physical bodies. They've abandoned those.
"Some on this planet understand the folklore better than I, but Qualeewooh belief goes something like this: Qualeewoohs say life is something one `flies through.' That is all that they do, they fly through life toward some distant destination. Their journey, they say, began long before birth, and will continue long after this life. They move toward `the Enlightenment,' a moment in one's life where light, where pure intelligence and its attendant powers, become infused into them, in that moment when the image of what we desire to become is engraved into our flesh.
"When that moment comes, an exchange will be made, the new body for the old." Orick said, "It sounds to me like they're talking about the resurrection."
"Perhaps it sounds to you as if their doctrine is the same as yours, Orick," Felph countered, "but only because we are filtering their doctrine first into human terms, then comparing it to something we understand. However, the Qualeewoohs see a thousand shades of differentiation between your concepts and theirs.
"The Qualeewoohs see this life as a time of preparation, a time during which they must `soften their bones,' so when Enlightenment strikes, they will gain the full effect of it.
"Now, this is the most interesting part of their beliefs, as far as I'm concerned: they say 'The Waters of Strength' are `The Strong Blow' toward Enlightenment. The Waters were designed to `Shape Bone' toward Enlightenment."
Felph drew silent for a moment, then sighed. “I do not know if I can explain this any better, but the Waters of Strength quite literally are meant to transform one into Qualeewooh gods.
"And, Orick, while you may take comfort in the thought of resurrection, the Qualeewoohs have no similar concept. For them, the Enlightenment is not a comfort. The act of attaining godhood is destructive. Just as you must destroy a block of wood to carve it into a work of art, even so, the elders of the Qualeewooh believe our hopes, our desires all will be pared away, until we each become equal with the divine image. But what that divine image is, even the Qualeewoohs don't know.
"But I do know that the Qualeewooh gods aren't physical beings in the sense that you and I are familiar with."
"If they are not physical beings, what else could they be?" Orick asked.
Lord Felph shrugged. "A good question. I don't believe in beings of pure energy--not in the sense that the Qualeewooh gods are spoken of. Energy beings--if they do evolve or exist at all--are too ephemeral. Born on lightning, they would die on lightning, and none of us would be the wiser.
"But there are types of matter that we cannot detect, or that we can detect only dimly. Some theorists believe that as much as ninety percent of all matter is undetectable to mankind through our instruments. The Qualeewooh seem to have a word for it. They call it `dim matter,' and it is in this invisible matter that they say their ancestors yet live."
"You're talking about interdimensional travel again," Maggie said.
"Precisely," Felph said.
"Wait a minute," Gallen said. "I don't see how this is possible, to transmit a body from this dimension to another. I mean, I'm not a technologist, but..”
"Think of it this way," Maggie said. "Suppose you take a person's memories, his personality, and you download that into an Al. Even though that person may die, his or her personality, experiences, and ambitions live on, right?"
"Right," Gallen said..
"Then imagine that we download those memories into a clone. In our parlance, we say that the person is revivified, right? The person is still alive, still the same in all important ways "
"Right," Gallen said, obviously not certain where Maggie was going.
"But imagine for a second that those same memories are downloaded into an android, a machine that thinks and feels in every way as if it were hu
man. Is it still the same person?"
"No," Gallen said. "An android is still just an ambulatory storage facility."
"But the android doesn't know that. Many people have been downloaded into machine bodies, and they seem to like it. They aren't troubled by disturbing dreams, they don't have to deal with the emotional side of life. In short, to them life seems better without dealing with emotional issues."
"Yes, but such people lose their humanity," Gallen said. "In time they forget how to feel, how to relate to other humans."
"So they, end up going to Bothor," Orick said, "where they don't have to deal with regular folks. We've been there.
"Well," Maggie said, "some theorists say we can't travel to other dimensions in our physical bodies, but we could create artificial bodies in another dimension, then download our personalities into those new bodies. It wouldn't be much different from being an android."
"No," Felph said. "You've got the analogy right, but you've just missed it. If I understand the Qualeewoohs, they consider this life to be the experiment. They say they existed as dim matter before this world, and they've come here to gain experience in our dimension. Their goal is to take that experience back to the dim worlds. There are lessons they can learn here in mortality they can't learn elsewhere."
"Such as?" Orick asked.
Felph shrugged. "I don't really care. It has to do with self-testing, preparation for greater knowledge. Qualeewooh mumbo jumbo."
"If the Qualeewoohs are telling the truth," Maggie said, "have you considered the possibility that they really are creatures who've somehow traveled to this dimension? That the `Waters of Strength' might just be the ticket home?"
"Odd as it sounds, I've considered that," Felph said, "but it appears to me that they evolved here. I can't credit that theory."
“But you're convinced the Qualeewoohs have learned to transport their consciousness between dimensions?" Maggie asked.
"I ... am persuaded that they've done something," Felph said. "What that is, I can't guess. But when I wear a Qualeewooh spirit mask to bed at night ... You know, the Qualeewoohs have never revealed the secrets to making those masks. The masks seem to be made of nothing special--skin, metals, a few plant fibers and paints." Felph's voice grew silent, and he bit back his words as if afraid to speak them. Still, he spoke, and his voice was both frightened and respectful, "but even using the same materials, I cannot duplicate the effect. There is something about a Qualeewooh having worn the mask that makes it viable, that makes it receptive to messages. It's almost as if ... by communicating from one Qualeewooh to another, the mask itself becomes a living thing, an ear that still hears, though its master has passed on."
Zeus had been watching this whole exchange, but as Felph fell into his reverie, Zeus got a chill down his back. He knew people who used the masks. Several local hermits would not steep at night without the masks on their faces, for they said the voices of the Qualeewooh Masters soothed them, even though they did not always understand the words spoken.
Yet in the past, Lord Felph had refused to let Zeus wear a mask. Like many other things, he considered it to be dangerous. The masks often had mind-altering effects on people. Zeus considered. I should wear one tonight.
Lord Felph suddenly looked up, just as a fireball crossed the sky, lighting the heavens. "You know," Felph said, "it's damnably late. Why isn't Herm here?"
Hera, who had kept her hand on Zeus's knee for the past few minutes, suddenly moved it higher up Zeus's thigh. "I asked some of the droids to find him and invite him here for dinner," Hera said. "But that was hours ago."
Felph glanced at the servant Dooring, who'd just come to bring dessert. "Dooring, what did Herm say when you invited him to dinner?"
"The droids couldn't find him," Dooring answered.. "As far as I can tell, he isn't in the palace."
Felph raised a brow. "Has he left the grounds?"
"The perimeter droids didn't record it," Dooring answered. "We are searching the palace grounds."
Lord Felph looked about at the group, and Zeus could tell by his mannerisms, by the minor trembling in his jaw, that Felph was worried. He looked pointedly to Zeus. "You don't have anything to do with this, do you? Did you have a fight with him?"
"No!" Zeus said too loudly, surprised at the accusation in Felph's voice. "No!"
Felph half leapt from his chair. "Look me in the eye and tell me. If you killed him by accident, in a fit of passion, that is one thing. But if you murdered him in cold blood--"
"I swear," Zeus said. "I had nothing to do with this!"
"He's telling the truth," Arachne told Felph. "He had nothing to do with this." Felph took her defense of Zeus at face value, making no more accusations.
"Last I saw him," Zeus said, "he had a gun, for hunting skogs."
Felph tensed. Hunting skogs was dangerous. He ordered the droids, "Use fliers. Search the tangle."
Chapter Twenty Three
It didn't take Felph's droids long to find Herm. In an hour, the droids retrieved the corpse from the canopy of the tangle, where it lay in plain view.
A droid bore it to the garden. Athena took a glow globe from her pack to inspect the remains.
Maggie wasn't prepared for the horror. Herm's head was lopped off. Gone the handsome green eyes, the aquiline nose, the perpetual, secretive smile. Gone the glorious mane of dark hair. Gone, too, his left wing and lower leg. They'd been eaten--along with certain organs. Blood smeared everywhere. The corpse smelled no better than it looked.
If Maggie felt unprepared for Herm's demise, she felt equally unprepared for others' reactions. Athena remained stoic, stared at the body as if imagining every detail of how he had died.
Hera sobbed, falling to the ground, seeming unable to move, muttering Herm's name. Zeus raged, shaking fists, crying for vengeance. Yet rather than running into the wild, searching for Herm's killer, he held Hera tenderly. Zeus seemed in shock, on the verge of collapse, yet he helped Hera back to their room.
Maggie wondered if she should help Zeus and Hera. They had never faced death before. Born with the promise of immortality, they faced death with all the profound comprehension of adults, coupled with the complete emotional naiveté of toddlers. Maggie felt astonished at the debilitating combination.
But the most astonishing reaction came not from Felph’s children, but from Felph himself. He went to the headless corpse, sprawled on the lawn, and lifted the remains, cradling them as if Herm were a child.
The image of Felph, face pale in horror, eyes wide in shock, on his knees, cradling Herm's corpse in the ethereal light of the glow globe would stay with Maggie the rest of her life.
"Herm!" Felph sobbed. "Herm! My beloved! What's happened? What?" He spoke to the corpse as if it might answer. Felph’s shock, more than his children's, surprised Maggie. You killed him, Maggie wanted to say. You wiped his memories from your Al, destroyed his clones. If not for you, he'd be alive.
Maggie dared not speak such hard truths. Nor did she reprimand Felph when his shock turned to rage, and he shouted at Gallen. "You're the Lord Protector! How could you let this happen? What ... what ... I demand an answer!"
Gallen said, "I was gone. Remember, we were in the tangle."
Lord Felph looked away, struggling, as if he could not recall. "But, but my son!" he said with supreme tenderness. However harsh Felph might seem, Maggie heard love in his voice.
Felph gazed down at the corpse, as if for the first time. "Oh," he said, like a little boy in surprise. "Did you see this?" He reached into Herm's chest cavity and pulled out a feather, short and gray at the base, dark green at its tips.
"What is it?" Gallen asked.
"A Qualeewooh feather," Felph said.
Felph lifted the neck of the corpse, looked at the stump. "Loolooahooke," he whispered, "the ancient art of decapitation. See how clean the cut is? A southern Qualeewooh did this. A wild one, out of the great wastes."
Felph suddenly looked up, focusing on Gallen. "A murder has been comm
itted. My son is dead. I demand vengeance. You will hunt this Qualeewooh, and bring him for punishment."
Gallen bit his lip. "There must be thousands of Qualeewoohs," Gallen said. "How will we find it?"
"It should be easy," Felph said. "We are in a vast waste--no water or food for hundreds of kilometers. The killing took place today. Unless the Qualeewooh is hiding in the fields, it must be flying over the wastes. Finding it should not be hard."
Gallen said softly. "You say this is the work of a wild Qualeewooh. Does it understand our law?"
"What does that matter?" Felph asked. "Herm is dead!"
"It matters," Gallen said, leaning close. "I enforce the law, but you want vengeance. I won't deliver this Qualeewooh simply so you can slaughter it."
"I am the law on Ruin!" Felph shouted, tossing Herm's corpse to the ground. He strode to Gallen, saffron robes stained with dark blood. "I make the laws here. I'll have vengeance, with or without you! There are plenty of Qualeewooh poachers on this rock! I could hire a dozen of them. They'd be glad of the pay!"
Gallen stared into Felph's face. Gallen's eyes became hard, impassive. Maggie thought he would argue, that he'd turn away and quit this job forever. Instead he simply nodded. "Okay, I'm your man. I'll find them. But I demand pay."
"Pay?" Felph said. "I've already offered you half of all I own!"
"To find the Waters of Strength. You've offered me nothing for the Qualeewooh. If you're willing to pay poachers, you should be willing to pay me."
"All right," Felph said. "Ten thousand credits, if you bring me the Qualeewooh."
Gallen shook his head. "Too low."
"It's a generous offer," Felph argued. "I could hire five men for the price."
"It's not money I want," Gallen said.
"What then?"
"A fair trial," Gallen offered. "I want a fair trial for the Qualeewooh."
Felph's eyes blazed, and he thrust his jaw forward. He was beside himself with rage at Herm's death, and Maggie could see that he was in no mood to be generous. Yet he reconsidered. "Define fair."
Lords of the Seventh Swarm, Book 3 of the Golden Queen Series Page 22