Beholder's Eye (38 page)

“We don’t know she can. We can’t risk her, Ansky,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “I wish we had some way to be sure, but we don’t.”

“You truly believe this—thing—could threaten Ersh.”

I felt oddly older, unsure if it was my own feeling or the burden of Ersh-memory. “I know it.”

“NOW don’t you try and tell me one serving was enough. Young men have their appetites.” Ansky’s assertion and subsequent overloading of poor Ragem’s plate should have brought at least an understanding chuckle from our neighbors, given the Artican sense of humor.

Instead, the crowd gathered tonight in the Sleepy Uncle’s dining hall remained as silent as the bones of their God’s altars. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought there was a taboo against talking indoors. The final tap tap of Ansky’s spoon on Ragem’s plate rang in the silence.

“Maybe we should eat in our rooms, Ansky,” I whispered as she flounced behind me, the immense bowl of chilled vegetable stew under one arm, hand brandishing the spoon as if ready to dole out more.

“Too late for regrets,” she said loudly, boldly eyeing her other customers until they found their own tabletops of engrossing interest. “You eat what you’ve ordered. Besides, my spedinni is the specialty of the house, Madame Ket.”

We wore our floral badges giving us the blessing of their God—or at least the permission of their planet’s gatekeeper—to be here. We’d sat in a corner far from the area Ansky kept for the locals. We’d been so unremarkable as to be invisible.

But we weren’t. The dining hall had filled steadily, by ones and twos, since we’d come down for our evening meal. Ansky’s cheery greetings to her regulars had been ignored. No one else had ordered food or drink. The Articans merely came in the door, looked to see if we were there, then took a seat. They were waiting.
I didn’t like it.

“We’re in trouble,” Ragem mumbled around a mouthful of stew, his eyes measuring and wary.

“Ansky knows these people,” I said, more for myself than him.

He dropped his voice a shade lower. “This is a mob waiting for something to happen, Es. I’ve seen it before.”

I looked around casually, and knew Ragem was right. There had to be over forty adults here now, three more just walking in the door, outwardly a normal-enough sampling of the local population. They were a bit too well dressed for farmers taking their ease after a hard harvest. And, despite our low conversation, none had uttered a word.

A necklace of preserved flower petals hardly seemed sufficient protection. “This mob will have to keep waiting, then,” I decided. “Because we’re leaving. Now.”

In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to everything in the room. I should have seen which of us the eyes followed most: I should have known who was really at risk. Instead, I worried about keeping myself between Ragem and the crowd, believing if the worst happened and they attacked us, I had the best chance at protecting him. But Ragem wasn’t the target.

We stood, putting down our napkins and pushing in our chairs as if leaving normally. I brushed my long fingers against the soothing grain of the wood, trying to keep outwardly calm. Every sense seemed keener. I looked around, catching Ansky’s eyes as she reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen, carrying out a carafe of some steaming liquid. I noticed the steam, the bone altar to the left of the doorway, the way light from the kitchen spilled around her feet and ran into the main hall, brighter than that provided by the purple candles on every table.

I noticed everything but the way every Artican’s attention riveted on
her
.

Ragem did. His arm swept me to one side as he walked straight into the middle of the room, passing between tables crowded with silent, brooding Articans as if in his own lounge on the
Rigus
. “Barkeep,” his voice sailed out, cheery and loud, his pronunciation of the Artican trade tongue not bad under the circumstances. “I wonder if you’ve any of that fine stew left in your kitchen.”

I froze, finally alert to the anger in the room and its focus.
Ragem, you fool!
I thought.
She can look after herself.

Ansky smiled at Ragem as if the two of them were alone and he were her next consort. “As I promised, good guest,” she said. “There’re no empty bellies in my house.”

“A House of Sin!”

I twisted to see the latest arrivals at the inn: a pair of priests who strode in through the main doors as if taking ownership. Both wore the red-rimmed vests of black animal hide signifying they were Seekers, engaged in the lawful hunt to find and punish those who violated their God’s taboos. Behind them were guards, male this time, more than I could count through the doors, their weapons’ glint about all I could see clearly.

“My inn, Seeker Preador?” Ansky asked just as bluntly, putting the carafe down on the nearest table. “What sin do you expect to find here, among my good and pious neighbors?”

“This!” The Seekers stepped farther in, moving one to each side of the opening. Between them, the guards pushed in a hunched little figure, so curled up and busy moaning its distress I had trouble identifying it for a moment. But that voice wasn’t Artican, or anything else remotely humanoid.

“Deny you kept this hidden, Innkeeper!”

Ansky, Ragem staying at her side, cruised across the room like a battleship across an ocean. The guards backed away as she tenderly bent down and helped the creature straighten up. When its face caught the candlelight, there were gasps from around the room.

It had to be an Urgian,
I thought in despair. Ansky-memory surfaced promptly, giving me its name (I’d need different vocal cords), far too many details about its sexual prowress, and even this poor being’s fondness for fried sausage on toast. I hadn’t paid attention during assimilation to
where
Ansky’s been writing Urgian love poems. I’d assumed on Urgia, not in her basement.

The being clung to Ansky, its head barely up to her waist, its present morph state dimale-sisfemale from what little I could see within the blankets bundling it against the night’s chill and the rough handling of the guards. Ansky’s arm was firmly around it, likely the only thing keeping the delicate being standing.

“Why have these aliens come to our village, to your house? Because you encourage these demons to walk among us! Did you not keep this one hidden here, in full knowledge it does not have the Keeper’s permission?” the hitherto speechless Seeker announced, pulling at the blankets so we could all see the creature had no petal necklace such as Ragem and I wore for safety. “You have given it comfort and shelter so it can continue to heresy against the One God.”

“It can’t understand you, Seeker, so don’t shout at it,” Ansky said sternly. “As for permission, the petals of the Keepers’ sign gave it a rash. I have it stored in the blessed corner of my own room if you’d care to see. I deny there has been any heresy. Listen,” she turned slowly to look at all those gathered in the room. Many ducked their heads to avoid her gaze. “You people know me. We harvested together this day. I am a true believer and I tell you there is no wrong in this gentle being. He is a guest, like any other here, and has obeyed all of the strictures of our God.”

They won’t support you,
I said, but to myself.
Can’t you see that, Ansky?

The first Seeker laughed without humor. “All? Then explain this, good and God-fearing innkeeper.” He gestured to one of the guards nearby, a big, roughhewn male. This Artican moved forward smoothly, obviously coached in what his leader would want done. He pulled the Urgian out of Ansky’s grasp, ripping away its blanket.

“Careful,” Ragem warned, his hands becoming fists. “It’s not as strong as you are.” His accent and the words were insulting, a choice I suspected was deliberate rather than a mistake. I wished, of course futilely, for him to be less brave and more sensible. The Urgian moaned to itself, now exposed to the draft whistling through the door. The cool night air was a welcome relief from the overheated room to the rest of us but I could see shivers coursing under its fine scales, as though an iridescent liquid poured over its body.

“We know its weakness,” said the Seeker, peering down at Ragem as if disappointed to see still-fresh petals encircling the Human’s neck, “And we know its life is a blasphemy against the One God. Show us!”

The guard took one of the Urgian’s four slender arms and folded it almost in half. The being didn’t appear to notice. The guard bent the arm the other way again, himself looking a tad green as he did so. Again the Urgian didn’t react. I heard a retching noise from somewhere behind me.
What did they expect from a species without a calcified skeleton?
I wondered. Which was, of course, the problem.

“This being should not be punished for its nature,” Ansky protested, picking up one of the blankets to wrap around the alien. Its one weepy eye regarded her gratefully before closing again in misery. “The God of Bones asks us to care for those living things without its blessing.”

“The God of Bones rightly has us care for such beings until they are harvested for the benefit of God’s Blessed. Are you suggesting we do so with this?”

Ansky’s face tightened ever-so-slightly, its skin reddening—I thought she likely raised her temperature and controlled my own urge to cycle in the same way. But her voice remained polite and level, that famous calm of hers in full force. “What do you suggest, Seeker?”

“We wish this being removed from Artos,” the other priest answered. He pointed at me with a burnished fingerbone, its surface carved in some script or other.
Instructions on how to intimidate the masses,
I thought, not ready to be as forgiving with these beings as my birth-mother appeared. “These other aliens have the Keeper’s permission to travel among us. They can take this one to the spaceport.”

“Of course, Seeker,” I said quickly, relieved if astonished at this sign they could be reasonable. I stepped forward to take the Urgian in my own grasp, pulling it gently but firmly away from those in the doorway. The poor thing was icy to my fingers, and I tried to bundle it tighter in the blanket as we moved.
The sooner it was out of the Articans’ sight the better,
I thought.

We’d taken only a few slow steps when the Urgian twisted sinuously in my hold, looking back to Ansky. It chirruped something frantic, impossible for me to understand in this form as the sound soared octaves above Ket hearing. I didn’t need the content. The Urgian was far from the only being to love Ansky.

Ansky smiled and whistled, a reassurance that drooped the Urgian against me. The poor being must be close to phasing out from stress.
Not now,
I urged it silently. I needed it to stay stable at least long enough to reach the temporary safety of our room.

My preoccupation with it stopped me from being able to act when two guards marched forward in obedience to the Seeker’s gesture and took Ansky by the arms. “What is this?” she said, not moving. As she out-massed the guards in total, I could see they were nonplussed what to do next.

“You must be judged, woman,” the Seeker intoned. “You will come to the Shrine and face your God.”

There was a sound at last from the crowd in the room, a shocking low growl reverberating upward to the flower-hung ceiling and trembling the candle flames. I hurried the Urgian to the doorway leading to the stairs, thrusting it through and pointing upward to the light coming from the rooms on the next floor. It seemed to understand, squirming toward what safety I could provide with admirable speed. I closed the door behind it, turning back to the main room.

The Articans were on their feet now, lips closed, but still making that bestial noise. Their faces were far less Human-similar.
Human!
Where was Ragem?

Oh no.
He had stayed with Ansky, actually shoving away one of the guards from the look of it. Before I could do more than gasp, Ragem was grabbed by others and swept out the doors with Ansky, the crowd around me surging forward to follow. Ignored, I shuffled behind the last of them, Ansky-memory supplying horrifying samples of what might be about to occur.
Ersh, this can’t be happening,
I found myself repeating inanely to myself.
Ansky knows this culture better than I do. She knows what she’s doing. Right?
But Ersh wasn’t there to reassure me.

THE Shrine rose in the center of the village, splitting the main road in two to carry its traffic by on either side, the result being that you couldn’t travel anywhere without passing the living eyes of the God of Bones—and paying a road tax to the owners of those eyes. As in the other shrines Ragem and I had seen from the air, this building had been altered over time to reflect the rapid evolution of the Artican religion. Its tallest spire had been removed, replaced by the black globe currently popular as a sign of worship. The former warm brick of its construction had been painted an assortment of grays, the effect meant to suggest the building was made of sacred bone, but succeeding only in making the solid structure look leprous and ready to collapse.

Our feet crunched over black gravel, sharp nasty stones my famed Ket tactile sense insisted on telegraphing to my brain as hot sparks shooting up both legs. I had a most un-Ketlike longing for shoes.

I could have used inspiration as well. The crowd was well-behaved, so far; all that had happened being an orderly march from the Sleepy Uncle to the village Shrine. Along the way, we collected what might be every other Artican in the place until more were behind me than in front. I hadn’t been able yet to push all the way up to where the guard escorted Ansky and Ragem, but with some adroit dodging I could now see them just ahead, illuminated by the streetlights on either side. They were no longer being held. On the other hand, where could they go?