Beholder's Eye (39 page)

This was not good,
I decided, Ket hearts pounding, my sore feet persisting in distracting me as I made and then discarded plan after plan, considered form after form.
Trust Ansky,
I concluded, helplessly.
Trust her to know what she’s doing.
It wasn’t a plan, but it seemed the only thing I could safely do for now.

The priests, Ansky and Ragem, and several guards entered the Shrine. Not everyone was being allowed to follow. I took my turn before the guards stationed outside, prepared to be adamant—or at least truly obnoxious—but they took one look at the petals around my neck and stood aside to let me enter without question.

Inside, the building retained its original loveliness, there being not much you could do to alter the grace of wooden beams and arches without bringing down the roof. The airiness of its massive hall was welcome on my overheated form. The Shrine was almost filled to capacity already. Many villagers had gathered beforehand from the looks of it; the benches were packed and more stood along the sides. I made my way to an aisle seat, the Artican female closest to me moving as far away as flesh allowed. At this moment, I was beyond insult, too busy craning my neck to try and see what was happening at the front.

Both Ansky and Ragem were taller than most Articans. I could just see the backs of their heads, Ansky’s crowned in its unlikely flurry of red-gold and Ragem’s usually neat black locks tousled as if he’d struggled somewhere in the journey. A forest of slender gray staffs—bone, of course—marked where the village council priests must be standing to confront the two.

I stood and climbed up on the bench, using my sternest Ket glare to subdue the immediate objection of the Artican behind me.
At last.
Now I could see and hear what was going on.

I wished I couldn’t.

Ansky, alone of all in the now-silent crowd, appeared at ease; I could see the side of her face and thought I caught a small smile on her lips, as though she had just invited those before her to relax and chat. She and Ragem were still gripped by guards, one holding the Human, two holding her.

From the somber black robes of those facing them, I knew we were about to witness a sentencing by the God of Bones’ Chosen, not a trial or hearing. Nothing in my shared memories listed harboring a boneless individual as a taboo—
Ansky would have to invent her own crime,
I thought with disgust, trying to subdue my fear.
What would she do?

It appeared the answer was to throw herself on their mercy.
Not my first choice.
I held my breath and listened. “Seeker Prador has informed me of my transgression,” Ansky’s voice rang out like a bell, the ideal blend of contrition and humility in every word. “Please believe it was unknowing. I ask your grace to perform my penance to our God.”

Heads nodded. There was an approving murmur through the gathering:
a vast improvement over growling,
I reasoned. I hoped Ansky knew what she was doing; the priests would have the final say in what her penance would be and there were some deplorable options on their list of choices.

“Hear us, Blessed of our God,” intoned the centermost priest. “Let us pray for guidance.”

As those around me closed their eyes and began to loudly exhort their God for advice, I slipped off the bench and padded toward the front. I’d moved to within two rows when a low gong stopped the prayers as abruptly as they’d started. No choice but to step close to the next bench in line and hope to be unnoticed. My new neighbor frowned at me briefly, then decided the events up front were more interesting.

The cluster of priests stepped to one side, allowing Ansky and Ragem, and the rest of us, to see the altar. Aside from being four times the size, it resembled the one in the Spaceport Keeper’s Shrine down to the relative number of thigh-bones used as uprights. But this altar was not made from animal bones alone and its surface glittered in the harsh lights streaming down from above it.
Not the surface,
I observed numbly,
the blades lying on it
.

“Your penance,” intoned the priest, “is to be forever blessed to the service of the God of Bones.”

There was a collective sigh from the audience, a sound like an orgasmic release of pleasure. It was all very well for them to anticipate a quick trip to Artican heaven as a result of having their bones removed and added to those decorating the Shrine. Ansky-memory did not hold that as one of her dreams.

Nor, of course, was it Ragem’s. “What of my assistant, Your Worship?” I dared to call out, thoroughly shocking those around me. “He bears the Keeper’s sign. I know he has meant no disrespect to your ways or God.”
Much as I’d like to show some,
a notion I shunted deep inside.

“I don’t know this alien, Seeker Prador,” Ansky added in a quiet, respectful tone. “I believe he was only concerned for my well-being.”

“Humans are the Cast Outs!” came a hoarse shout from the back.

“Kill them both!” came another, regrettably repeated several times and at increasing volume.

I’d need more mass to be anything useful,
I realized, searching the room with my eyes, unwilling even in my fury at these fanatics to consider taking one of them as a donor.

“The Human will not be harmed,” the priest shouted, making me sag with relief. “It is enough that he shall never know the Blessing and must leave our beautiful world forever.”

However much I approved of this declaration, it didn’t satisfy the blood lust quite thoroughly possessing the crowd in the Shrine. Articans began leaping up, pushing each other in their eagerness to get closer to the front. I let myself be carried along with them.

The priests stood fast for a moment, staffs raised in futile gestures of authority, then seized their prisoners and scurried to one side of the hall, disappearing from view. Cheated, the crowd began that bestial growl, this time loud enough to be perceived as a vibration through the floor under my feet. I took advantage of my long legs and flexible body to speed through the first disorganized ranks—barely restrained by the Shrine’s guards who were thus too preoccupied to bother with me—and followed the priests who’d taken Ragem and Ansky.

There!
I spotted the door just as it closed. Somehow I eluded the grasp of the one guard who noticed me, flinging myself right over a basket of fresh cut magitteri flowers, their famous perfume something this form couldn’t appreciate, even if I’d been in the mood.

The door wasn’t locked. It led outside, to a roofless corridor that paralleled the main building, walled by a latticework fence and at the moment more than half-filled with a jumble of empty baskets, staffs, and moaning or unconscious priests. I skidded to a halt, blinking in the near darkness, trying to figure out what could have happened.

“Es! This way!”

“Ragem?” I started picking my way through the confusion to the voice.

“Hurry up!” he urged. Judging by the sounds from behind me, there was good reason to be less careful where I put my feet, though I winced when I stepped on at least one set of fingers. Hopefully their owner hadn’t noticed.

“Will you come?” This from Ansky. I could see them both at last, standing at the end of the little corridor, silhouetted by the streetlights beyond. I slipped as I forced my way through the last pile of baskets and found myself in Ansky’s firm grasp. “Let’s go,” she said immediately, pulling me along with her.

“What did you—?”

Ragem’s voice had a feather of laughter to it:
equal parts triumph and panic,
I decided. “Let’s say I’d never start a brawl in the Sleepy Uncle—or in any establishment run by this sweet lady.”

“I should hope not. You seem like a nice young man,” Ansky said serenely. She was leading us down the main street, away from the Shrine, but also away from the inn and our borrowed aircar.

“The aircar?” I objected, attempting, in vain, to resist moving with them. I could hear Ersh now.
As well try to stop an avalanche as Ansky at full throttle.

“That’s where they expect us to go,” Ragem said from behind me.

“That’s where we need to go,” I countered, still struggling to undo Anksy’s grip on my poor arm.

She released me after a stern tug in the direction of her choice. “We’ll go through the orchard and come around from behind, youngest,” she said pleasantly, as though we were out for an evening stroll. “Ah.”

Ansky’s “Ah” turned out to mark a narrow footpath between two homes, one she urged us along. It was dark once we were a few strides past the range of the nearest streetlight, a plus given the rising clamor of voices behind us as the crowd spilled out and discovered their priests. The footing was again the soft turf, balm to my feet.

“I don’t remember a taboo against attacking the clergy,” I commented.

“I’m sure that will be rectified at the next meeting,” Ansky returned. “Sssh. They might have left someone at the drying shed to turn the flowers.”

We had already passed between three tall rows of houses, all apparently empty of their inhabitants.
One advantage to the mass meeting,
I thought, keeping the hand that wasn’t clenched around my hoobit outstretched in case I needed to feel my way around some unseen obstacle in the dark. It was instinctive, Ket night-sight being less trustworthy than touch.

The shed, a mammoth building much longer than it was wide, lay just beyond the hind yards of the last row of homes. Its darker bulk loomed against the rising mountainside, small lights from its high windows confirming Ansky’s caution. Ragem stifled a sneeze. Even my Ket sense of smell was affected by the sheer volume of scent oozing from its walls. I heard Ansky draw in a deep breath beside me. “Marvelous crop this season,” she whispered matter-of-factly as we passed the building. “The Shrine will offer exceptional blessings this festival.”
I won’t ask,
I decided, not having an Ansky-memory rise in explanation and quite sure I didn’t want to know any more about the Articans—an ephemeral attitude sure to infuriate Ersh.
I don’t care,
I told myself, then added the truth:
much
.

We reached the hedge surrounding the orchard, and all of my doubts about Ansky’s chosen path came crashing back as I looked ahead. Skalet had considered my birth-mother the least able of us to defend herself.
Here was proof.
“You expect us to hide in there?” I demanded incredulously.

“It’s the largest orchard in the valley,” Ansky answered in a shaken voice, perhaps feeling her own dismay.

No doubt the orchard was large.
By the light of the rising moons I could see its ranks of fruit trees marching to the start of the mountain forest and down again to surround this entire side of the village.

But the feathery tips of the tallest of those young trees would barely reach my chin. Most would be under my elbows.

“We don’t have a choice, Fems,” Ragem said bluntly, hurrying from where he walked back a few paces to check on our pursuers. “They’re coming. Enough of them to cause trouble, at any rate.” His arms swept both of us forward through the orchard gate. “Let’s not make it any easier.”

41:

I WAS soon convinced this would be one of those nights I’d replay in my thoughts for centuries to come, forced to remember each painful moment with the acute and vivid accuracy of my heritage. I envied Ragem his fallible Human memory. If we could trade, the first thing I’d choose to forget was running for my life as a Ket through this Artican orchard.

I was young, strong, and healthy. I was also working under several disadvantages. The orchard was carpeted, not in turf, but in a spiked, curling, detestable undergrowth Ansky-memory told me helped discourage small wild herbivores. It was discouraging me; with every step my bare feet translated each tiny thorn’s grip-and-release as a needle through my skin. To make me even more miserable, Artos’ gravity, while close to Ket-norm, was sufficiently greater to steal whatever excess energy sheer terror lent me.

In a final insult, the warm caressing air had turned chill (to a Ket) and thin, due to the late evening slide of air down the mountain. I gasped, shivered, stumbled, and otherwise made a miserable show of keeping up with Ragem’s tireless strides and Ansky’s ponderous grace.

I’d have given anything to cycle out of this form.

But, thanks to my web-kin’s inspired selection of escape routes, there was no hope of doing that without being seen. I couldn’t keep up if I crouched below the tops of the tiny trees. And I wouldn’t cycle in sight of the pack climbing steadily behind us. There may have been only three Articans giving chase, but they were three witnesses too many.

Ersh, I hope you appreciate this,
I grumbled to myself, yanking my foot free of a more amorous clump of foliage than most, surely leaving skin behind in the bargain.

“How far up?” Ragem’s panting had a reassuringly desperate quality.

“To the tree line,” Ansky’s voice floated back, still as calm as though we were engaged in evening revels instead of running for our lives. “We’ll split up there—confuse them a bit—then meet back at the inn when things quiet down.”

She continued to plow ahead, aiming at the knife’s edge of shadows marking the verge of the natural forest. From Ansky’s memories, I knew it to be an old, overgrown, and wild community, filled with a labyrinth of game trails only a hunter used to this area could safely travel. Surely some of those behind us qualified. Likely Ansky did. Ragem didn’t.