Shadow's End

  "This is how big he was when he was born," raved Lutha, "this big. Just this big. The same size … "

  Leelson sat down beside her, his face very white. "Are you all right?"

  "I suppose," she said.

  "You understand what's happened here."

  Her face twisted. I knew she was cursing him, cursing all Fastigats who would not assume anything, who had to spell everything out, letter by letter. Still, she shook herself, gripped her hands tightly together, and answered his stupid question with reasonable self-control.

  "I understand it intellectually, Leelson. Not in any other way. I will never understand in any other way."

  "It might help if you consider that … thing that tore him apart. It's in for a surprise, isn't it?"

  She cast me one incredulous glance, then closed her eyes and refused to speak.

  "It's the big one, Lutha. The prime Ularian. The chief Rotten. And whatever venom Leely spreads, that creature is now awash in it."

  Laughter welled uncontrollably from her throat. She roared. "You're such a fool!"

  He drew away, deeply offended.

  "You Firsters! Suppose your Firster god came calling on you. When he arrived, would you call him a Ularian? Would you expect him to resemble you even in your frailties? Would you expect him to catch your cold. To get a bellyache? To sneeze?"

  He was rigid, pale, not following her.

  She whispered. "You would expect God to be above all that, no? So, if a deity appears who is deity not only of man but of all living things, will you really expect it to die from mange or distemper or an attack of the Leelies?"

  He still didn't understand.

  "Bernesohn didn't understand what's really happening any more than you do."

  "What are you saying?" he grated. "What do you know that I do not?"

  She glared at him. "There is life in Hermes Sector, Leelson. Life breeding here. Life that uses humans as incubators, infinite, wonderful life. Life for old planets that man has ruined and left barren behind him. As mankind seems always to do, we have stumbled into it and contaminated the process, for which we will be punished."

  "No!" he said hoarsely, reaching for her. "No."

  She jerked herself away from him. "And your ultimate Ularian is not merely some alien life-form! It is Behemoth. Creation made manifest. Primordial life. Great Beast. Ruler of some large chunk of the universe. So far as we're concerned, it's name is God."

  "You're mad!" he exclaimed, turning away from me. "Quite mad."

  She shook with hysterical laughter. "We'll see."

  Snark seized one of her arms and I the other, putting my hand over her mouth. Lutha wasn't noticing their faces, Mitigan's and Leelson's. Both of them were ready to explode. Snark had pushed them, the ex-king had pushed them, now Lutha had pushed them. They were becoming dangerous.

  "Enough," said a voice.

  We turned to confront a ghost that rose from the base of the stones. Jiacare Lostre. Ashen, cadaverous, but alive. From around his feet, beetle-ish things bumbled away, tiny Leelies, who did not stop at healing, but also had a sideline in resurrections.

  "You were dead!" cried Mitigan in angry disbelief.

  "So I was," he replied. "And if I was killed as a representative of mankind, deservedly so. And if what I heard may be believed, all mankind may soon share my fate, or that of Dinadh, to be incubators for all eternity."

  "It'll die!" cried Mitigan. "The way the Rottens died. The way the shaggy died. It touched Leely. It'll die."

  Poracious said, "I think not. Look there!" She pointed to the opening of the cave, where one of the Leelies was dueling with a crab among the stones. He touched it repeatedly, but the crab didn't seem to care.

  Lutha wept. "Behemoth has vaccinated its creatures against our plague. What is breeding here now is Leely-proof."

  The largest Leely crawled into Lutha's lap, climbed her chest, and put his tiny arms around her neck.

  "Lutha mother love," he whispered. "Don't cry, Lutha mother love."

  She went on crying, and so did I.

  "We should go back to the camp," said Mitigan in a stiff, unnatural voice. Poor Mitigan. All his world astray, and him lost with it.

  No one had anything else or better to offer. Poracious wanted to stay where she was, but Snark wouldn't let her.

  "It's not a good idea for you to be alone. Not a good idea for any of us."

  After a time of aimless delay, we went from our cave in a wavering line, much the way the Leelies had gone, each of us wrapped in a blanket or two. Lutha carried the largest Leely. Snark carried her jar, taking the lead when we reached the path. I followed after her, then the others, with Mitigan bringing up the rear, his face hard and angry as it had been since Behemoth had appeared. As we went north along the ocean trail we caught glimpses of the smaller Leelies, jumping into tide pools, dodging behind stones, disappearing down holes in the ground. Several of the larger ones greeted us in tiny voices. "Dananana."

  We rounded a corner and confronted a lioness. That is, it was similar to pictures I had seen that were labeled lioness. We scrambled onto the slippery rocks while she passed us by. On her side was a vivid patch of scarlet, bordered by misty violet on one side, by deep wine and bright yellow on the other. Behind her came a train of cubs, each with its own color pattern.

  "They are not hungry," Leelson said in an expressionless voice. "At the moment."

  The lioness was only the first. There were huge almost birds running on the trail, darting their beaks into the tide pools to spear wriggling, silver things. Each of them bore its own pattern of stripes or mottling or moving blotches of color. There were shelled things, clattering on the stones, turtlelike, crablike, strangenesslike. There were small, furry beings with fluffy tails and piping voices that whistled as we passed. Every corner brought a new creature, each one with a new pattern, and each one bringing a new outburst of rage from Mitigan. Their very existence was an insult to him.

  We passed the body of the Procurator in late afternoon, and it was evening when we came out onto the beach. There a snake slithered at Mitigan's feet, and he mouthed impotently, his fury mounting. He saw me cringe, so he turned and began to say to me the kinds of unpleasant things men of his kind often say to women, working himself into yet greater rage.

  Snark tired of it. She shouted, "Use your head! This world was not made for man, Asenagi!"

  "Then why didn't he kill us?" he howled. "He should have killed us!"

  We stopped where we were.

  "Who did you see?" I asked Mitigan, when I could form words again. "When you saw it, what did you see?"

  "A winged bull with a man's face," he cried. "It carried a bull's pizzle and it wore a great beard!"

  "We know," said Leelson. "That's what we all saw. Let's move along, shall we?" He took Mitigan by the arm and tugged him away from us, trying to calm him while the rest of us stood dumbfounded, wondering if we had gone mad.

  "I did not see a man's face," said the ex-king, quietly. "But some can see no farther than their mirrors. What wears another face must go unseen."

  "It was a good question, though," said Snark. "Why didn't it kill us?"

  "It hasn't decided yet," said Lutha.

  "How do you know?" I asked her.

  "I just know. If it had decided to kill us, it would have done it there, as Mitigan expected." She jabbed her chin toward the south. "But we, too, are the offspring of Behemoth. It has uses for all its creatures and would rather not kill us."

  Snark stopped dead. "That's what the justice machine said to me. It would rather not kill me. It would make me useful as a shadow instead."

  "As the sisterhood of Dinadh were shadows," I said.

  "As all women become shadows," said Lutha. "Where men have their way."

  Leelson dragged Mitigan back to the rest of us. "We've been talking about Chur Durwen," he said. "Mitigan believes Chur Durwen will send help."

  "How'll he do that?" asked Poracious wearily.

  Mitiga
n glowered at her, his mouth working.

  "Through the officials at the port?" suggested Leelson.

  "Who control nothing. Who are suspect because of their association with outlanders."

  Mitigan growled, "He'll take ship for Alliance Central. There will be someone there."

  Poracious nodded, saying calmly, "When we came to Dinadh, shipping in Hermes Sector was already a very iffy thing. Suppose Chur Durwen does get through, how will he reach anyone in the bureaucracy? I assume he is a registered assassin? Such folk are not routinely solicited for unusual information about unheard-of situations."

  "He'll go to the Alliance agent in Simidi-ala," said Mitigan.

  Poracious smiled grimly. "Much good may that do him, or us. Thosby Anent's information routes are secure, but he won't get around to making use of them!"

  The ex-king laughed, almost inaudibly. "There's his servant. The woman. Chadra Tsum. We might offer audible prayer, several times a day, to Chadra Tsum."

  With a look of hectic gaiety, Poracious fell to her knees on the sand, held out her arms, and prayed to Chadra Tsum. The ex-king joined her, and they concluded their prayer with a repetitive chant: "Vigilance. Vigilance. Vigilance."

  Lutha and I turned away, overtaken by a fit of hysterical laughter. We leaned on one another, tears running down our faces. Mitigan stood stony-faced, eyes glaring, but Leelson pulled Lutha away from me, into his arms.

  "Oh, Lutha." He sighed. His own face was wet. I had not seen Leelson weep ever before. Had things come to such a pitiful pass that even a Fastigat could weep?

  "Why?" she asked, touching his cheek. "Why tears, almighty Fastigat?"

  "Guilt," he said with a grimace. "It seems I may have been, may be wrong about a number of things. I blamed you."

  "You blamed me?" she asked.

  "For not seeing reality. My reality. And Limia blamed you for not seeing hers."

  "And I blame you now for not seeing what is," she said, almost whispering. "This is real, Leelson. This is not philosophy. Pray with Poracious that someone comes, that Behemoth will let us go, for someone must convince the Fastigats at Prime that this is real."

  "Little chance of that," he murmured, looking around himself.

  "But Behemoth might let us go," I offered, more loudly than I intended. "We could pray to it … "

  I had not seen Mitigan edge up behind us. I didn't know he was there until I heard his howl of rage:

  "Make prayer to an animal?"

  "Mitigan." I faltered, stepping back, away from him. "I meant it only as a suggestion. Perhaps if we offered … repentance, self-sacrifice … "

  It was the wrong thing to say. Perhaps anything would have been the wrong thing to say. He had been teetering on the edge of rage and frustration for too long.

  "You think it would accept a sacrifice?" he bellowed, grabbing me by the arm, lifting me with one mighty hand, and flinging me across his shoulder. "Well then, let us make sacrifice!"

  It happened so quickly that we were halfway up the slope toward the scraggy ridge before I could catch my breath and cry out. Any sound I made was drowned by his fury.

  "We will build us an altar! We will make blood sacrifice!"

  All the breath was driven from my lungs when he dropped me at the crest of the ridge. He took a thong from his belt and lashed my feet and hands together with one quick motion while I gasped and struggled. Dimly I saw him heaving great slabs of stone, stones too heavy to lift, stones no man could have lifted.

  I rolled my head to one side. The others were halfway up the hill. Leelson. Lutha. Above me Mitigan held a huge boulder aloft.

  "Want to join her, Famber? Come closer and you will!"

  "Mitigan!" cried Leelson. "This isn't the way—"

  "I've had enough of this heresy, these devil beasts," Mitigan howled, casting a manic glance in my direction. "Enough!"

  He backed toward me, holding the great stone aloft with one hand while he fumbled for a weapon with the other. Something to kill me with, kill them with. Almost he could have killed them with his eyes, so berserk he was.

  "Why me?" I gasped. "Why sacrifice me, Asenagi?"

  "Why not you?" He dropped the stone and jabbed a contemptuous thumb toward Lutha. "She belongs to Leelson Famber. And the other one is of some use. But you are no use and you belong to no one but your devil god, so let it have you!"

  "I didn't create it!" I cried. "I only saw it, listened to it. I only sensed what was really there, Mitigan. As you did—"

  "Lies," he cried, heaving a huge slab of stone into place upon his pile, now waist-high. He tossed me onto the stone like wood onto a fire, effortlessly. My head hit, and I felt myself go limp, dazed. I couldn't struggle, though I could feel him lashing me to the slab. "The Gracious One warns us against your kind! Animal-lovers! Devils! Mistresses of lies!"

  He licked at the spittle that ran down his chin. Past him I could see Snark on her belly, worming her way up the slope, and behind her, Lutha struggling with Leelson, trying to get free from him. It was all happening too quickly and too slowly, both at once. There was time to be terrified, not time enough to do anything. I prayed, begging Weaving Woman to let my pattern end cleanly, swiftly, without pain. Surely there had been enough pain!

  "Not nearly enough," Mitigan jeered, and I knew I had spoken aloud. Now his hand was aloft, already reddened by sunset, glittering with the blade it held. That was for me.

  Far off, as though in another world, I heard Lutha and Snark shouting, not pleading. There was a strangeness in their voices, something inappropriate. I had time to think that. Why did they sound that way? I squeezed my eyes shut, clenched my teeth tight, waiting for the knife to come …

  It didn't come. Instead Mitigan bellowed, harshly, horrified.

  I opened my eyes against a dazzle of light. Mitigan stood with his back to me, his head thrown back. Beyond him was Behemoth, up from the sea, serpent-necked, dragon-jawed, caldron-eyed.

  "No," it said in a voice of wind.

  "But she refused you!" Mitigan howled. "She deserves to die. She refused you!"

  "She has that right," said the wind. "Do not all my beings have that right? Even you? You may ruin yourselves by your choices, still I will not take them from you … "

  Mitigan turned frantically, lunging toward me, the knife aimed at my heart, but the wind came after him, raising him, taking him up as the vortex had done, twirling him, spinning him, up and away, away, glittering with weapons, howling with rage, away …

  And all the while, for that tiny eternity, Behemoth looked me in the eye until I felt I had drowned in that look. Willingly. Forever. I did not want to come away.

  "Still your kind may choose," it said in a fading whisper. "Choose truth; choose lies; still you may choose, even now."

  I saw sunset. Only that. Behemoth gone. That rough beast gone. That enormous glory gone. That terrible beauty, gone. Leaving only its purpose evident all around us.

  "Saluez," cried Lutha, her fingers busy with the lashings. "Oh, Saluez."

  Far above us in the dusk, a sudden star bloomed and moved, swimming toward us through the evening.

  "A ship," said Leelson disbelievingly. "It's a ship."

  The ship hung above us for some little time while we stared and mumbled. It had grown quite dark before it broke into two glittering parts, one of which descended. When it set down beside the camp, we saw it was a tender. It was from the Vigilance, as it turned out, a battle cruiser of the Alliance.

  We stood slack-jawed while the lock opened, the ramp came down, and a woman alighted.

  "Chadra Tsum," said Poracious wonderingly. "Just as I saw her in Simidi-ala. And there behind her, that's old Thosby Anent."

  He was a crooked man, with a lopsided walk. "Ah," he cried as he hobbled toward us, his eyes scrunched almost shut with delighted self-importance. "Ah, Vigilance! See the ship's name? Ah? I've been watching, waiting. Vigilance!"

  He went on past us to stand upon a small hillock, looking about himself like a con
queror of worlds as he drew deep, dramatic breaths and tapped himself upon the chest in self-congratulation.

  "Let me guess," whispered Poracious to Chadra Tsum. "You told him we were here, expecting rescue, but he had to think it over. He couldn't make up his mind to do anything about it?"

  Chadra Tsum nodded, murmuring, "After some time had gone by, I asked if he would attempt to rescue you, and he said, 'That's the plan!' Days went by, however, and he did nothing at all. So I commandeered an Alliance ship in his name. Then, when it was the Vigilance that showed up, he assumed he had done it himself."

  "Quite a coincidence," Lutha murmured.

  "Not really," said the woman. "It's the only battleship assigned to this sector. That's where Thosby got his password in the first place."

  "I'm surprised you've come so quickly," I managed to say. "Poracious and the king only prayed to you this evening!"

  "You mean you really did that?" the woman breathed. "You know, I've felt something for days, as though you were speaking in my mind. Isn't that strange?"

  Poracious took her by the arm and led her a little aside, where they spoke animatedly to one another. Leelson joined them, and then others from the ship. Leely watched them for a moment, his face intent, then he wandered away toward the sea. I stayed where I was, with Lutha. In a few moments Snark joined us, then the ex-king, none of us making a move to join the general rejoicing. It was as though the four of us had been pulled together.

  "Why did it let the ship come?" whispered Lutha. "Why?"

  "Didn't you hear what it said?" I murmured. "We have a choice. We've always had a choice."

  "Between what and what?" asked Snark.

  "What choices are there?" Jiacare counted them off on his fingers. "What truths we choose to see. What lies we choose to ignore. Whether we become Firsters … or something else—"

  He was interrupted by a raised voice from the group down the slope. Someone said loudly that ships were still disappearing in Hermes Sector and the captain wanted to get away quickly. Someone else reinforced this, but Poracious demanded, loudly, that the Procurator's body be retrieved. There was a muttered argument, then general assent. The group broke up, with individuals going different directions.