Lords of the Seventh Swarm, Book 3 of the Golden Queen Series

by David Farland

  Their path ran along the spine of an ancient dew tree. A section of it had given way, spilling only a meter. The tunnel to the sfuz was blocked by a cave-in, but the path

  back to the ship remained open. If anything, now that the floor had dropped, the passage was more open than before.

  Fresh air was rising from somewhere beneath them.

  "This way. Quickly," Gallen said, grasping Maggie's hand, pulling her back down the trail toward the ship.

  She looked around. Orick and Tallea seemed fine, inde-structible as bears are. Zeus crawled about blindly. A chunk of dirt had struck his head.

  Gallen stopped at his side. "Can you stand?"

  "Uh, uh, fine." Zeus waved Gallen away with his pistol.

  Hurry," Gallen urged Maggie. "The sfuz might dig through."

  Perhaps, Maggie considered, but they wouldn't dig soon. The plasma discharged from Zeus's pistol would stay at ten thousand degrees for several minutes, longer if buried beneath this dirt.

  Still, she pressed forward. She stumbled over the trail, thick with fallen rubbish, following Gallen, checking to see that Zeus got up.

  When they reached the fork in the trail, Gallen stopped. One path led to the sfuz graveyard and the cliffs beyond. The other led back toward the ship.

  Distantly, Maggie heard the ground rumbling. Another cave-in? A mist-wife? Another firefight? She couldn't be certain. She stopped, unwilling to run until she knew where the danger lay.

  Gallen looked up. "Gunfire. Somewhere above."

  Orick grumbled, "Gallen, we can't keep running. Between the Dronon, the mistwives, and the sfuz, one of them will get us."

  Gallen stared at the dirt roof, held by cross-fallen bits of timber. He shook his head in frustration.

  Maggie felt worn to the core. It wasn't just the physical work of dragging herself through this maze, it was the stress of worrying about her child. Gallen held her tenderly.

  "All right. We'll hole up. I'll go down the trails and see if I can find a path to the city. There has to be one."

  He led them past the sfuz burial pit, until they reached a small chamber near the cliffs, perhaps five meters wide and ten meters high. It looked fairly defendable, should it come to that, and any attack could come from only one direction. Maggie only hoped that she wouldn't get cornered in here.

  Gallen opened his backpack and set out a blanket for Maggie to rest on. Then he drew food from his pack-a bottle of juice and fresh bread. Maggie bit into the bread, surprised at how good it tasted. It seemed she'd come down here ages ago, not hours.

  Zeus just threw himself to the ground, lay dirty, exhausted, holding his head. The bears next to him panted. Maggie smelled smoke. She remembered she hadn't reloaded her pistol. She pulled out the clip, inserted a hundred caseless cartridges.

  Gallen knelt at her ear and whispered. "Maggie, I'm going to search for a way into the city."

  "No, stay here and rest with us," Maggie said, uneasy at the thought of Gallen leaving.

  Gallen shook his head. "The Dronon are attacking up above us. I don't know how many there are, but my mantle is picking up thousands of signals-up above us, in the

  tangle. We need this diversion. We need the Dronon to draw the sfuz off, but I can't be asking you and the others to run constantly like this, not in the shape you're in.

  "I'll try to find a way into Teeawah--sneak in if I can. Or if I can't, I'll come back for you. If I'm not back in six hours--"

  ---Three hours, just let me rest for three hours," Maggie said.

  "Four hours, then," Gallen said. "If I'm not back in four hours, I probably won't be back at all. Do you understand?"

  Maggie's heart pounded. The stress was making her chest and arms ache. She nodded dumbly. "I love you."Gallen brushed some fallen hair from her eyes. "I love you, too. Don't take my robe off. Maybe it can hide your scent. I'm going to cover your tracks up ahead, where the trails cross. But keep your eyes open. Don't take the safety off your weapon."

  Maggie licked her dry lips. Gallen kissed her, long and slow. She savored the taste of his lips, the smell of his hair. She held him for a moment. When he pulled back, it feltas if he'd been wrenched from her. She had an odd feeling. I'll never see him again, she thought. It was a fear she'd never faced before, one she'd never conceived. Not when Karthenor took her prisoner on Fale, not when the Inhuman took his mind on Tremonthin. She'd never believed she would lose him.

  Yet now the fear came, as if the future held a black certainty.

  When Gallen pulled away, she almost grabbed him and held. When he turned his back and hurried into the darkness, she almost followed. He carried no light, just jogged

  into the shadows, relying on his mantle to help him place his next step.

  Maggie sat with her weapon across her knees and ate her bread, no longer noticing its taste. Everyone remained awake.

  Zeus came up beside Maggie, stood watching her for a moment. "Will he come back if he finds a way into the city?"

  Maggie shook her head, staring at the ground. The soil here was so thick, so rich, she imagined. She wished she'd found such soil elsewhere, in a place where she could have planted a garden. "I don't know. No, he won't come back. Not unless he has to."

  "He'll go searching for the Waters alone?" Zeus asked. "He will, if he thinks it's safest for us," Maggie answered.

  Zeus said nothing, but after a moment she realized he was breathing hard, just staring off into the darkness, as if he could peer through the dirt and darkness of the tangle.

  "He'll come back," Maggie said.

  Zeus nodded, then asked, "Do you have an extra glow globe?"

  "Check your pack," Maggie said. "I'm sure Gallen left each of us one."

  Zeus went off, a little nearer toward the entrance to the tunnel and sat. It was a good place to take guard duty. He laid his pistol over his knee. then opened his pack, pulled out his light, some grenades, and a bit of food, began munching something that Maggie couldn't make out.

  Nervously, he watched the opening to the tunnel.

  Maggie felt the ground shake from time to time, evidence that fighting still continued above.

  She measured time by the beating of her heart. No one spoke for many, many minutes. No one dared disturb the silence.

  Orick and Tallea began whispering softly, Orick telling her of the saving ordinances of the gospel, and after a few moments, they headed farther back into the tunnel, back into the wider chamber, where the tunnel met the cliffs. Maggie imagined that they wanted to be alone.

  Zeus held his light, letting it grow dimmer and dimmer, until it gave no light whatsoever.

  Maggie busied herself by recalling songs she'd sung as a child, songs about green trees and young girls in love.

  And death. Songs about death. Really, there seemed to be no theme to the songs that came to mind, just one senseless tune after another.

  After a long time, her eyes grew gritty and tired. She closed them, and might have slept.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Orick whispered to Tallea, "Then one night a leader of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, came to Jesus' room, and Jesus told him, `Verily, verily, I say unto you, except. a man be born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.' "

  Tallea frowned. "Why not?"

  Orick hesitated to discuss such dangerous things. If he spoke of her need for baptism before she was ready, he feared she would balk. So he wanted to lead her to the idea gradually, let her get used to it. But he had no idea how to proceed. "Well, it's a ritual ... that shows our willingness to submit to God, keep His commandments. And in return, He forgives us our weaknesses and prepares us so we can live in His kingdom."

  Tallea began to tremble slightly, as if afraid, and she raised her ears. "Are you baptized?"

  Och, of course," Orick said. "Everyone gets baptized-- mean, even Jesus got baptized."

  "He did?" Tallea asked. "But you said he was sinless. Why would he need to be forgiven?"

  "
Och, I don't know!'' Orick said, for he'd never considered the matter. On inspiration, he nosed into his pack, opened his Bible to the tale of Jesus' baptism. Orick put his paw on a glow globe, causing it to glow fiercely, so that he could read:

  "Then comets Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John,

  to be baptized of him,

  "And John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and congest thou to me?

  "And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so

  for now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness."

  Orick suddenly realized that John had asked Jesus the same question that Tallea was asking him now. "In here, Jesus had John baptize him, but notice he said, 'Suffer it to be so for now.' I think it means that in the future, Jesus planned to baptize John-or more accurately, he would redeem him from his sins, which is what baptism is all about."

  "But what about the passage, `for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness'?" Tallea said.

  Orick considered the words "fulfill all righteousness."

  "Jesus was sinless, in both thought and deed," Orick said. "So even though he didn't need to be redeemed from his sins, he did need to keep his own commandment. He was setting an example, showing us that baptism is important." Orick began to recall that somewhere in the dim past, one of the monks at Obhiann Abbey had mentioned this concept.

  "If baptism was necessary for Jesus, isn't it necessary for me?" Tallea asked.

  Orick hedged, "Well, it's a symbol of willingness to keep God's commandments, and, uh-"

  "But I need it, right?"

  "Well ... uh, officially-"

  "Will you baptize me?" Tallea asked.

  Orick hadn't considered. He wasn't a priest. He had no proper authority, didn't even know where to go to get it. He'd found Christian religions on some worlds. On Abbo, he went to the Orange Catholic Church for a service, but they had such a jumble of odd notions, all tied to the worship of some Saint Aesopland, he couldn't make hide nor hair of it.

  "What's wrong, don't you want to baptize me?" Tallea asked.

  "Well, like I said, it's a sign of willingness to keep God's commandments-"

  "Which ones?" Tallea asked. "To love one another, even as we love ourselves? Or the Ten Commandments? I remember all ten. I don't lie or steal. I've killed a few folks, but I can give that up-"

  "Well, uh-" Orick scrambled for an answer.

  "Won't you baptize me?" Tallea asked. "Please? I'll do it-I'll do whatever you ask!"

  Orick hadn't anticipated this. He'd sort of thought that he'd have to beg and wheedle and convince Tallea of her need for baptism. Then they'd maybe go back to Tihrglas and find a priest to do it proper. He'd imagined it would take weeks and months-maybe years-before Tallea would develop enough faith to concede to the need for baptism. He hadn't thought she'd convert in a matter of two days, then come demanding it from him like this. "It's not so easy. Only some folks have authority to baptize-priests and whatnot."

  “But you wanted to be a priest!" Tallea said, hopefully. "Don't you have even a little bit of authority?"

  "Well," he conceded, "the Tome teaches against it, but then the Tome teaches against a lot of things, and not everyone believes the Tome as much as I do.

  "Back on Tihrglas, in some cases-like when infants are stillborn-an attendant will baptize, then have the act ratified by a priest, later. Some people teach that in an emergency, anyone can baptize-"

  "Isn't this an emergency, Orick?" Tallea's eyes were so insistent, so full of hope. "There's a pond by the cliff. You could do it there."

  Orick wondered. He felt that God had called him to this work, had made him Missionary to the Cosmos. And if God had called him, didn't that constitute some authority'?

  Certainly God wouldn't demand that he take every baptismal candidate back to Tihrglas for a dunking. He'd be so much afoot, he'd never get any work done. No, Taliea was right. She needed baptism, and he needed to do it. Like John the Baptist, crying repentance out in the wilderness.

  The Great Tangle of Ruin would be Orick's wilderness, and the pond here in these lightless regions would be his River Jordan.

  Why, if only I had some locusts and wild honey to eat, Orick thought, I'd be another John. Certainly, even John the Baptist had never envisioned anything like this.

  "All right," Orick said, "for thus it becometh us, to fulfill all righteousness."

  It seemed a very sacred and dignified moment, as Tallea carried her glow globe in her teeth, to the back of this tunnel, and set it beside the still waters, beneath a rock, so that the pressure would make the glow globe stay lit.

  There, they watched the ripples on the pond's surface, the light reflecting off them, onto the stone cliff above. They listened to the perfect stillness around them, and Orick talked to Tallea about repentance, about her need to continue the struggle to become better with each day of her life. Indeed, he hardly felt she needed the talk. She'd already shown that she would give her life for others, had been adjudged worthy of a second life by the Lords of Tremonthin-a very special tribute to the life she'd lived.

  Orick knew hundreds of baptized scoundrels back on Tihrglas who would never be her equal as a person. For her, the baptism seemed little more than a formality for her entrance into heaven, and Orick felt it a great honor to do this.

  So when he finished speaking to her, he had her offer a brief but heartfelt prayer, then they both climbed into the water, swam about.

  The pond was deep and cool-the clear water disappearing somewhere into the rocks far out of sight. For a moment, Orick feared that some huge creature might infest the pool. Little blind fishes swam in it, along with some of Ruin's water insects. The water was tinted by bluish green algae, a soft and vibrant color. It smelled of some strange, earthy minerals.

  Orick had never considered how he might baptize someone. He'd seen priests do it-gripping the candidate's hands and having them lean backward into the water. But neither he nor Tallea had hands, and both of them floated higher in the water than did a human.

  After floundering about for a minute, Orick decided there was nothing for it but to put his paws on Tallea's back and push her-under, so he offered a brief prayer, "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."

  Then he shoved her down with all his weight, until he felt certain she'd been submerged. He let her up, and she splashed about, gasping for air, spattering droplets of water all over him.

  She kissed him, licking his wet muzzle, and Orick kissed her in return, so full of love and gratitude and hope, he could express it no other way.

  Then, something strange and wonderful happened: Orick felt his lips begin to burn, as if they were on fire, and his heart pounded hard.

  Tallea must have felt it too, for she got a panicked look in her eye, and she swam toward shore.

  Then, everywhere, every cell in Orick's body felt as if it burst into flame at once. It was not an uncomfortable feeling. In fact, Orick felt oddly at peace.

  Yet he was burning.

  He wondered if the water had begun to heat and boil for some inexplicable reason, and he began dog-paddling. And the burning grew hotter, flaming.

  The words of John the Baptist came to mind: "I indeed baptize you with water, but one comes after me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose, and he shall baptize you with fire, and with the Holy Ghost."

  Then Orick felt as if he were consumed in flame, and he heard Tallea cry out, as if in pain.

  Never, never in all his years, had Orick had an experience like this. Never had he imagined it.

  He felt his own spirit within him, like some dark force, twisting within his body, seeking escape. He opened his mouth, and cried, "Father, save me!"

  He wondered if this was the judgment of God. He wondered if God would punish him for his temerity in baptizing Tallea without holding the priesthood. He felt-he felt as if he were under the judgment of God, and that
any moment he might be burned to a crisp or ripped apart.

  "Father, forgive me!" Orick groaned in fear.

  He looked up above him.

  In the darkness, at the top of the cave, a green light shone. A bird of emerald flames winged overhead in a swift pass. It had emerged from solid rock, and it disappeared into the ceiling. Then reappeared and wheeled, swooping lower.

  And Orick recalled. The bird of light. The Holy Ghost descending upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

  Orick realized that something divine and marvelous was happening. He'd never felt as he did now. He'd never heard of anyone back on Tihrgias having such an experience.

  He was both terrified and grateful at the same time.

  This is my judgment day, Orick realized. This is the end. Any moment, the spirit would either take him to greater heights, or it would destroy him completely.

  There were those at Obhiann Abbey who claimed that one could not look God in the face and live. Yet others argued that it could only be done if one were transformed, made holy.

  Orick gazed upward steadfastly, knowing that such a moment was at hand. "Forgive me, Father," he whispered.

  "Transform me. I seek no harm. I will do no evil, now and forever."

  Then the spirit came, hovering over him on wings of green light, and Orick gazed steadfastly into its eyes for the space of half a heartbeat.

  The fires within him raged, and he felt as if he would melt in the presence of this manifestation.

  The bird of light whispered to Orick's mind, "So be it."

  And as feverishly as the burning had begun a moment before, now the moment passed, and the bird of light dissipated, like a mist under the morning skies, and Orick felt a profound peace, like nothing he'd ever experienced in his life.

  Tallea had paddled to the shore, and now she sat in the water, looking upward where the manifestation had been.

  "Does this always happen?" she asked, panting hard, looking to the top of the cave where the bird had been.