I choose—I choose—
"Wake, Felice. Come back now. Open your eyes."
They were brown eyes, very large, startling in the bloodless face beneath ashen brows and limp platinum hair. They were eyes full of wonder, darting from Elizabeth's face to Dionket's to Creyn's and back again, misting briefly with tears and then star-bright.
"This is sanity?" Felice asked. She rose trembling on one elbow. Her gaze fell. "Same old body, same mind—but different." She laughed very softly. The brown eyes flicked up, locked onto Elizabeth. "Why did you wake me up—bring me back before I could finish choosing?"
The Grand Master was silent.
"You want me to choose to be like you, Elizabeth?"
"Make your own choice." The vocal tone was gentle but the mind's, grating and apprehensive.
"Be like you." Two spots of color appeared in the girl's cheeks. Her hair seemed to come alive. She gave a kind of bounce and was standing on the cot, petite and strong. Her entire body was sheathed in a pearly aura. "Me, be like you, Elizabeth?"
Felice threw back her radiant head and laughed, a wild and vital peal resounding with barbed vitality. "I choose my self! Look at me. Look in me! Wouldn't you rather be me than you? Free to choose what I want to do instead of letting others bind me?" Again the laugh, so shattering, so sane.
"Poor Elizabeth." The goddess extended a luminous hand, touched the Grand Master's shoulder. "But thank you."
She vanished.
Elizabeth sat unmoving, her gaze still fixed on the empty cot, too drained to weep, too diminished even to despair. The cocoon of fire was there, beckoning, and she studied it with an odd sense of detachment, as though the real choice had already been made and this one was a mere consequent.
"Stay," urged Dionket.
Creyn was standing over her, red of blood, white of mind-light, the constraining golden tore clasped about his throat. His hand with its long fingers and prominent joints, adorned with many rings, held out a stoneware cup. "Drink, Elizabeth."
As once before.
She sipped the bitter herbal tea, then lowered the wad so that he could clearly see the waiting flame-coffin, the overwhelming temptation.
"We need you more than ever now," said Creyn.
But Dionket, wiser, was more comforting in sternness. "You ready don't deserve purgatory. Not until you try to put it right."
"Yes," she said, and smiled, and wept.
8
CLOUD PLACED the bouquet on the mounded dirt, then stood dry-eyed, seeing all the intricate details of the orchids with her deep-scan at the same time that she shut out the larger image of the grave itself. The bunch of flowers was enormous, containing twenty-five or thirty varieties. She had gathered it in less than five minutes without going out of sight of their moorage on the Río Genil.
"The Tanu cad Spain 'Koneyn,'" she said inconsequentially. "It means 'Flowerland.' I overheard one mind tell another that no place in Europe has so many different kinds. I hke the azure orchids best, I think. And the pale green ones with the velvet-black edging. Orchids in mourning. Poor Jill."
"We did our best. Steinbrenner warned us about the danger of meningitis." Elaby concentrated on the rock slab he had propped against the roots of a great plane tree. Portions of the rock glowed palely in the noontide sun as he exerted his creative metafaculty. The pungent stench of molten mineral overwhelmed the subtle orchid fragrance, then dissipated on the light breeze blowing downstream. Satisfied, Elaby lifted the slab with his PK and positioned it in the waiting trough at the head of the mound.
JILLIAN MIRIAM MORGENTHALER 20 SEPTEMBER P3–2 JUNE P27
"WHERE LIES THE LAND TO WHICH THE SHIP WOULD GO?
FAR, FAR AHEAD, IS ALL HER SEAMEN KNOW."
"Will it last six million years?" Cloud wondered.
"We're still in the Guadalquivir Basin. This place will be buried in silt. Who can tell?"
Cloud turned her back on the grave and walked listlessly toward the beached dinghy. "Last winter, when we were all wrapped up in planning this thing, I asked Alexis Manion if there had ever been any trace of the exile population found in Pliocene rocks. He said no. It's hard to believe that nothing survived."
She climbed into the little boat. Elaby joined her and shoved them off into the languid water, as brown as strong tea. It was navigable to within 50 kilometers of Mulhacén in the shallow-draft rivercraft that Aiken Drum was bringing.
Elaby said, "If any paleontologist found a fossilized Homo sap skeleton in a Pliocene formation, he'd keep his mouth shut about it unless he wanted to be drummed out of the bonediggers' club. As for a fossilized Bermudian ketch ..."
"Dr. Manion said that nothing we do here in this ancient world can affect the future. That the future—already is."
"Nice reassuring thought. Remind me of it when we have to go concert with Aiken Drum and his bunch and blow the top off Mount Mulhacén."
The inflatable skimmed up to the accommodation ladder. Cloud made the painter fast and mounted. "Owen's still sleeping," she noted, after sending a fleeting redactive touch belowdecks.
"Good. He wore himself out working with you on Jill. Thank heavens he didn't insist on coming ashore for the burial." He rummaged in the portable cooler and brought out a flagon of coconut punch and two of their dwindling supply of gamma chicken-salad sandwiches from Ocala. "Funeral baked meats. Relax, babe. Take a break before the King of the Elves shows up."
They sat in canvas chairs in the cockpit, sheltered from the sun by an awning stretched between the mainmast and backstay. Cloud chewed the sandwich rapturously. "civilized food! God, I'm sick of fish and roast waterfowl and those insipid palm fruits. It's breakfast time back in Florida—do you realize that? Bacon and scrambled eggs. Grits and honey. Orange juice and sweet iced tea."
"Heartless broad," Elaby accused. He refilled her beaker with the milky-colored rum drink. "Sorry you came?"
She shook her head. "I had to. All of us did. Even the gang Papa shunted off to Africa aren't sorry they left home. We're a little closer to the time-gate, anyhow. We've forced Papa to take us and our needs seriously." She hesitated. "He'd come to Europe, you know."
"You're certain?"
"I know him better than anyone."
"Will he help or oppose us?"
"He may not have decided. I can't say." She set aside the remains of the meal. A cloud of sulfur-yellow butterflies fluttered by the port rad, heading toward the Gulf of Guadalquivir. She caged one briefly with her PK, watched it tremble and flail its tiny knobbed antennae, then set it free. It flapped off after the others. "Papa doesn't want to kill us. I was right about that. He won't do it unless we force him to. Unless we deliberately put him and his people in jeopardy by our opening of the gate—or if we try to kid him."
"Some of us wouldn't scruple at it."
"I know." Her expression was tranquil. "Hagen. You."
"But not you?" The young man swirled the ice cubes in his drink, frowning at them. When Cloud did not answer, he posed another query. "Would you stand in the way of the rest of us, if there seems no other way to handle it?"
"I want us ad to be free," she said. "If we could only work together—both generations—instead of at opposite poles! Budding the apparatus and siting it properly in the midst of this barbarian circus will be difficult enough. Maybe impossible."
"Don't wash us out too soon, babe. We've lost some ground—but we may have gained some as well. Our element of secrecy is gone now that Marc's guessed our intention, and your hothead brother's threats have made Marc the teensiest bit skeptical of our loyalty. But your father isn't the only big gun in the fight. Don't forget the Nonborn King. If things keep going downhill here in the Many-Colored Land, he just might start seeking wider horizons."
Cloud was dubious. "Here, Aiken's a large fish in a small pond. What would he be in the Milieu, compared to the Coadúnate Mind? Besides, Papa seems to have him quite overawed as a result of the metaconcert teaching."
Elaby gave a quiet chuckle. "D
on't you believe it This head's young. Only about twenty-two. Yet he's managed to take over an establishment that dominated the Pliocene for forty years, using just his own naked brain."
"Aiken simply picked up the pieces after catastrophe. He's king of the ruins! A demigod in Götterdämmerung."
"Maybe yes, maybe no. I see him chock-full of nuts and eager to howl. And a first-class power, babe—don't forget that. Your father may just have a fish on his hook this time that's more than he can handle."
Cloud bit her lower lip, looking toward the gorgeous heap of blossoms and the upright stone slab on shore. Finally, she said, "Do you think Aiken will actually be able to handle this massive synergy? Papa could be planning to seize the executive from him at a critical moment."
"If Marc doesn't—if he can't—then there may be a chance for us to enlist Aiken on our side later on. I still find it amazing that Marc agreed to let Aiken focus the psychozap. It implies confidence in Golden Boy's abilities ... or a nasty piece of manipulation."
"It's hard to think that someone else in this world might just be a match for Papa." cloud's thought-tone was full of perplexity.
"He's played God too damn long," said Elaby bitterly. "We've forgotten that Marc's human. That he's a loser. He lost it all in the Milieu, and now he's lost us. And he obviously feels threatened by both Felice and Aiken."
"Papa is still a Paramount Grand Master farsensor, coercer, and creator," said Cloud quietly. "And he's limited here in the Pliocene mainly because there are so few suitable minds for him to work with. Don't ever forget that he was one of the two greatest mental coordinators in the Galaxy. Only his brother Jon was better."
"Remind me to light a candle to St. Jack the Bodiless."
Cloud stood staring aft, her farsight wandering northward to the little islands off the mouth of the Genii where the forces of Celadeyr and Aluteyn and the other Spanish Tanu had been camped for two days, awaiting their rendezvous with Aiken Drum's fleet. She shifted her gaze, scanning westward toward the Atlantic. "I still don't see Aiken coming," she said nervously. "How far out are they now, Elaby?"
"Fifteen hours, approx. Their ETA at the base-camp on the Genii is still dawn, as Aiken promised. They've been saving their metafaculties, using Ma Nature's winds most of the way from Brittany. But this morning when they finally rounded Cape St. Vincent, Aiken put his psychokinetics to work. The fleet must be making twenty-six knots now. We'll all be off to the Betics tomorrow on schedule."
"And maybe we'll all die." Cloud came over to him, laying her head on his shoulder and embracing him so tightly that her fingers dug into the muscles of his back like claws. "Darling, I don't know why ... poor Jill this morning, and now this stupid dangerous thing we're being forced to do with Aiken Drum ... why I should feel like this ... it's insane, but ..."
"It's normal," he whispered in her ear. "Normal to reach for life when the world seems ready to end. Very common phenom, if you can believe the books in the library back on Ocala. Plagues, ware, earthquakes—all disasters are keen incitements to venery."
"It's ridiculous."
He kissed her. "Sex often is. So what?" He led her to the companionway stairs. "What say we rock the boat, then make everything shipshape for the royal visit?"
They disappeared. The breeze died and the jungle creatures were hushed in the afternoon heat. Two ramas emerged briefly from the undergrowth to inspect the mound of flowers and finger the strange incisions on the rock slab. Then they melted back into the greenery, their curiosity satisfied.
***
In his cramped cabin on the great tern schooner that was the Tanu flagship, Culluket worked on the cuirass of his ruby armor, resetting a few loose gemstones in the blazon, riveting a new strap in place of one that had weakened, then burnishing the whole so that the glass with its transfixed caput mortuum gleamed more richly than a slick of fresh blood.
You will die looking magnificent, at any rate, he told himself. Too clever at last, Interrogator! If you should escape being devoured by your demonic sweetheart, then surely your overdevious brain will be reduced to charred meat after serving as a living buss-bar between Aiken Drum and the Angel of the Abyss. You will die for your King, a very martyr to the battle-religion of your ancestors. A hero of the Host of Nontusvel could ask for no more glorious fate! What a pity you are a traitor to your blood, and an atheist, and so addicted to life that you would submit to any degradation now in order to be spared. You would even appeal to her, were it not the ultimate in futility ...
"Culluket," said Mercy.
He started, torn from his bitter reverie. Mercy's figure, clad in her silver-and-green parade armor, materialized out of invisibility. She had interpenetrated his cabin door. It was a violation of Tanu etiquette almost as serious as levitating without a steed.
"Great Queen, what is it?" He hastened to pud the scattered pieces of armor together so that there would be room for her to stand.
Her mind radiated a fearful intensity, impinging on his own thick barrier with a coercive force that blurred his sight. "I need you to escort me to Lord Celadeyr now, while Aiken is locked in mind-meld with that horrible Abaddon. It may be the only chance I have. Hurry, man! Enarm yourself. This is no social cad. And I'd want the small sigma-field Aiken's given you as a defense against Felice."
He harnessed up hurriedly. The two of them, invisible, body-flew eastward above the Gulf of Guadalquivir, toward the deformed old moon rising late over the Andalusian jungle, and the camp where the Lord of Afaliah and the Craftsmaster and the rest of the Koneyn nobility awaited the fleet's arrival. The site of the rendezvous was carefully concealed, both physically and mentally. The 3500 chalikos that would equip the raiding party had been penned in a mangrove swamp a full five kilometers from the camouflaged pavilions of the nobles and their retainers.
As Mercy and Culluket hovered just offshore, she commanded, "Farspeak your brother Kuhal on the intimate mode. Tell him we have arrived."
"Kuhal is here?" Culluket was nonplussed. "Surely he would not have been forced—"
"Do as I say," she snapped. "It was I who saw to it that Celo brought him along. You'll soon find out why. Tell Kuhal to cab both Celo and Aluteyn Craftsmaster to his tent"
Culluket obeyed. He and Mercy wafted into the encampment and became visible inside the dimly lamplit shelter of the convalescent Earthshaker. Kuhal lay on a bunk, propped up with cushions. Beside him stood the two Tanu heros, waiting in silence for Mercy's explanation. Their antagonism for the Interrogator was unconcealed.
She said, "Nodonn is alive."
"Glorious Goddess!" exclaimed Kuhal, and Culluket made haste to clap a crude redactive damper over the invalid's mind.
"Erect the sigma-field," Mercy commanded. "It will be enough protection for us so long as Aiken and the others have no suspicions and don't deliberately try to poke into it"
Culluket took the device from his armored crumen, set it upon Kuhal's nightstand, and activated it The noises of the jungle night chopped off. The tent and its inhabitants were isolated within a dynamic field virtually impervious to most energy and matter.
"I've known about Nodonn since early in May," Mercy said, responding to unspoken questions. "He's been marooned on Kersic all this time, in a coma, tended by a Lowlife woman who kept him inside a cave. This is why none of us detected him. Not even I."
"Where is he now?" asked Celadeyr flatly. "What shape is he in?"
"He's hidden in Var-Mesk, cared for by Lord Moreyn, who is"—she swept the Lord of Afaliah and the Craftsmaster with a trenchant glance—"a First Comer to the Many-Colored Land, just as you. And loyal to the old traditions. As you are."
"Now, hold on a minute!" Aluteyn protested. "I gave my oath of fealty—"
"To a foul usurper!" Kuhal interrupted. "Under mortal duress and a sense of desperate inevitability, as we ad did. Such an oath stinks before the Goddess! It demands repudiation!"
"Calm down before you strain something," the Craftsmaster advised. He pulled up a sturdy s
tool and lowered his bulk gingerly onto it. The others also drew up seats close to the cot, and Mercy and Culluket removed their helmets. Aluteyn addressed his Queen. "Tell us exactly what happened to Nodonn, lass. Don't leave out a thing."
She coordinated the data in her mind, then displayed it without comment, save for the shining backdrop of her own joy.
When they had done studying, Kuhal beckoned her and took her silver-gauntleted hand to kiss. His eyes overflowed for the first time since his rescue.
"You are truly one of us, Mercy-Rosmar," he said, "and worthy to be Queen."
Old Celo's reaction was bleaker, practical. "Nodonn's still weak as a kitten. Not as badly off as you, Kuhal, but in no shape to take on Aiken." He stared at Mercy. "You've waited this long to tell us ... and perhaps it's true that you had no choice. But what do you expect us to do?"
"Abandon him," she said simply. "Leave him to Felice. We can all of us fly except Kuhal, and Celo can carry him. Let's start for Var-Mesk now, flying within the sigma-field! Let's go via Aven and Kersic, where we can hide in wilderness when we tire, deep in sheltering caves secure from his golden wrath! Aiken has no long-distance psychoenergetic function. And he won't follow us, since that would mean abandoning his Quest."
Aluteyn groaned. "Lass, lass! Your happiness over Nodonn's deliverance has robbed you of your wits."
"How could we leave our fellow warriors behind, in peril of Felice?" Celo demanded of her. "Would Nodonn want this?"
"The fleet is almost here," Kuhal said sadly. "Our people are committed. Great Queen ... if only you had told us your news earlier."
"I didn't dare try to contact you through farspeech!" she cried. "I'm too clumsy still at far focusing. It was Nodonn who held the thin mind-beam secure between us. And he warned me—" Like a red-hot wire, her scorn lashed out at Culluket. "You watched and listened! And now even Aiken suspects something—perhaps he even knows for certain that Nodonn lives! I was afraid my own farspeech would betray Nodonn completely. Or that Culluket would!"