Chapter Sixty-Five

  Several of Tremillan Tribe came forward, weapons leveled, and herded together those of the Vornet ship, who went docile within a ring of warriors up the hill to the Grotto of the Telios.

  Green robes fluttered on the edge of Witness' vision, where he knelt in the broken earth by Anjemalti the Seeker.

  "I greet you, Shlorba's Eyes." Thus, the voice he knew as his own. His heart shuddered, but he kept to duty.

  The green robes rustled and she who had borne him moved out of vision's edge—then came entirely within his range as she knelt at the other side of the Seeker.

  Carefully, she pulled back her sleeves; carefully, turned Anjemalti over; carefully, and with great reverence, laid bare the wound. She conjured a kit from the depths of her robe, brought out padding and twine. Carefully, she tied the rough dressing into place and raised her eyes.

  "We will carry him to the Grotto and give him better there. Does your Witnessing tell you if the Trident still claims him?"

  He drew a deep breath and met her eyes without a quiver.

  "The Seeker's work is not done," he said.

  She bowed her head; raised it.

  "The Smiter is altered."

  "It is," he returned, forcing her to ask the question.

  She did so without apparent anger: "By what means?"

  "Anjemalti the Seeker, seeing with eyes beyond those of men, was given to know both the Smiter's injuries, and that which would heal them."

  "Praise to Anjemalti the Seeker," she murmured. "Praise to his eyes, which saw, and to his hands, which built." She glanced at him sharply.

  "We have tended the woman with the braid. She is of some importance to the Seeker, ah? One would know her status."

  "She is Corbinye Faztherot, Death's Warrior."

  "Hah." Surprise there, and no little wonder. "We bear them both to the Grotto. Have you Heard the Smiter's will?"

  He was silent for a time, eyes dreaming on the Trident. When he returned to himself, Anjemalti was gone, but his mother still knelt on the earth, patient and tireless.

  "Let there come one who has neither fear nor desire," he said, noting how his voice cracked and how his head felt airy and overfull with light. "The Smiter will go with such a one, as far as Anjemalti's side."

  "One shall come," his mother said. She stood, and shook out her robes, and left him.

  He returned to the Witnessing, hovering in a place not unlike trance, though no dreams came to him there. Floating, he marked neither the failing of the sun, nor the five Bindalche warriors left to guard his honor. He was brought again to himself, indeed, by the merest spider-touch upon his shoulder and a slight, old voice murmuring, with bewitching irreverence, "Shlorba's Eyes, open, and see the world."

  He looked up into the Gatekeeper's wrinkled face without comprehension and she smiled, eyes gleaming in their net of wrinkles.

  "I am come to carry the Smiter to the Seeker," she told him gently. "Bear me company, do."

  As if he had choice. Mechanically, he got his legs under him—and almost cried out at the pain of cramped muscles. His thoughts floated high above his head, distant and cool as the night clouds now forming.

  The Gatekeeper bent and picked up the Trident. Held upright, it towered far over her head, and looked too heavy for her frail hand.

  As if reading his thoughts, she chuckled, deep in her hood. "No dishonor, should an oldster use the Smiter as a staff. True, Eyes?"

  "True enough," he heard his own voice tell her. "Anjemalti the Seeker uses it so, more than not."

  "No harm, then," she concluded and turned uphill. She took two steps and looked over to him, extending a bird's claw hand. "Three steps to home, Eyes, as I know the way. We'll release these others to the care of their kin, and you will bear witness, as you must. Three steps, I promise you; then we tend your hurts and settle you down to Witness more seemly."

  "All Witnessing is seemly," he heard himself say. "It is what must be done."

  "Indeed, it must," she agreed, and captured his arm in her thin, strong fingers. "Walk with me now. One step, eh? Two steps . . . Three steps and—"

  Home.

  * * *

  The ground shook, trees screamed, rocks split, streams left their courses.

  Finchet battled the controls, beyond swearing—or praying. He rode the buffets, kept fall as slow as he dared, trusting more to his instincts than to instruments that flickered and flashed and gave forth giddy, useless readings.

  He'd lost all but one screen; that one was enough to show him the ground rushing up at a rate that would have terrified him, had he not passed beyond terror some time ago.

  The wind slapped them into a hard spin. He did nothing to fight it, all his fight going to keep the Garden UPright; to save what he could while trees broke and died around him and the boy lay unconscious, stretched over a Book that was as useless to him now as prayer.

  The ground came roaring upward; in the grainy screen he saw distant hills and an unending gleam of water. The wind gave them a last, playful tap and finally let them go.

  Finchet sucked in his breath and sent all remaining power—pitiful though it was—to the stabilizers and sat, hands taloned above the useless controls, staring at the dark screens, waiting for impact.

  * * *

  Without the computers the Big Ship might as well just throw the docks open and invite the GenCrew on board. That the pirates had managed to subvert the System One codes and render all instrument readings suspicious was—disturbing. In light of this disturbance, the captain ordered the ship to System Two, and sent the techs scrambling for the access hatches.

  CompTech Kandra Dinshaw swung the jitney off the main track and onto the Core A repair spiral. She kicked the speed up and whirled down and around—three full times around—before slamming on the brakes and rolling out.

  The access hatches for the main computer cores were mechanical, designed for exactly the sort of unlikely emergency that faced them now. Kandra set a key the size of her palm in a keyhole bigger than her fist and turned, putting her back into it. The tumblers resisted for a second, then fell—click, click, click!—and the hatch sprang open.

  She ran her fingers over the items hanging from her utility belt, nodded, and chinned herself on the overhead bar, scooting feet-first into the core.

  Carefully, she worked her way down-core, shining her light overhead and keeping a sharp eye out for the axis numbers. At 38-6-I, she stopped and squirmed into position, reminding herself that there were good reasons why a opsystem changeover needed to be made mechanically. What if the ship were being invaded, as it was being invaded now? A computerized realignment could be read by the enemy, who could then conceivably capture the second computer's codes. . ..

  Sweating, but in position at last, Kandra felt in her belt for the hex wrench, fit it over the first of three holding bolts and applied torque.

  The bolt spun and popped out into her hand, as did the second and the third. She eased the panel aside, squirmed some more and slid eventually into the changeover bank.

  Her light picked out a dazzle of multicolored wires, gleam of metal and plastic surfaces, dull tubing and the glitter of amber spider-eyes, watching gravely from atop the first turn-joint.

  Kandra froze, staring at the tiny insectoid. "What the—"

  The spider blinked, one yellow eye after another, then turned on dainty gold-wire legs and minced away from her, down the joint—and disappeared into the less-than-hairline crack at the juncture into the second computer.

  "A spider?" Kandra demanded, snatching at her belt-comm. A shower of static rewarded her effort to call the bridge and she cursed, and backed out into the core, swearing all the way.

  She braced her shoulders against the core wall and thumbed the link again. There was a sprinkle of static, then Security's voice, snapping: "Yes?"

  "Dinshaw," she told him, snapping herself, "CompTech Seven, dispatched to Core-A, computer realignment. There's a fucking spider in the backup!"

  "Spider?" Security's tone was not encouraging.

  "Spider," she reiterated. "Amber glow-eyes, eight legs, all out of gold wire, nice little transceiver body—a mechanical, you reading me? The backup computer's subverted!"

  "By a spider." No belief there, maybe a touch of wondering if she'd cracked. Kandra gritted her teeth.

  "By a robot," she snarled and glanced up at a sound—a very slight sound—in the core above her. Her light picked out the legs, the huge, shining body . . . "Oh, hell . . ." she breathed.

  "What?" demanded Security, and Kandra shrank back against the core wall and knew there was nowhere to run.

  "There's another one," she told the comm numbly, watching it come down-core. "Another spider. And it's big. . .."

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  He woke screaming, pursued by demons that whispered false delights, bloody talons outstretched to rend him.

  Half-dazed, he fought the rich, scented furs, breath rasping, eyes wider than nature had ever intended—seeing nothing.

  "Corbinye!" One sensible word in a tangle of fever-garble. Both of the room's watchers stirred at that. One rose and approached the bed, wrung out the cloth until it was damp and laid a thin hand against his shoulder, pushing him gently back.

  "Down, child. Be still. Still. Good." She smoothed tangled yellow hair back from his brow and laid the cool cloth there. Blue eyes stared blankly into hers—and blinked, brows pulling together.

  "Who are you?" he asked, with the wondering half-interest of a child.

  His voice was rough, for all its innocence. She reached again and brought the bowl of inthil-juice to his lips.

  He drank thirstily, and when he had drunk his fill, he turned his mouth away and asked again, "Who are you?"

  "The Gatekeeper," she said, and put the bowl back on the stand. Facing him, she set the hood back, so he could see her clearly. "Gatekeeper for the Telios. The place is the Grotto of the Telios, where the Smiter rests—betweentimes. The healers have dressed your wounds and the singers have been praying for you this while. The Grotto is safety. No need for ill dreams here."

  "Ill dreams . . ." He frowned and shifted a little where he lay, as if to see around her.

  Guessing at his intention, she moved aside. "The Smiter is with you still. See—there it—"

  A violent shudder shook him and he twisted as if he would fling himself off the sleeping ledge, save that the furs ensnared him.

  "Take it away!"

  The Gatekeeper stared. "The Trident Bearer speaks?"

  "I said," he repeated, with awful clarity, enormous eyes bright as if with fever, or with that certain excitation which from time to time overcame those who bore the Trident, "take it away. I want none of it. It belongs to the Telios and I have returned it to the Telios. I'm done with it! Where is Corbinye?"

  The Gatekeeper wet her lips, wondering if this were honest delirium or something sinister and beyond the ken of mortalkind. "I—" she began, meaning to say that she would go for one of the Five, but she did not get so far.

  "Anjemalti." Two broad hands reached past her, possessed themselves of the Trident Bearer's shoulders and pressed him firmly down into the furs. "Be still. It is not thus that a man comports himself."

  "You!" The Trident Bearer glared up. "You know its history—who better? Do you want me mad, with a legion of dead men bleeding on my hands? Is this friendship?" He twisted away from the hands that held him and sat up, his face near level with that of Shlorba's Eyes.

  "I say to you I do not want it! Take it away and let another fool take it up!" He drooped back against the pillows. "I want Corbinye," he said in a milder tone. "Fetch her for me, if you love either of us."

  "Death's Warrior may not come to you, Anjemalti," Shlorba's Eyes said sadly. "Her hurt was more potent than yours and the healers have labored hard, yet without full confidence in the outcome of their labors. And I cannot in anywise go away from here. For, though a man may love a man and a man may love a woman, I am Witness for the Telios and that is no duty I may lay down simply because it has failed of being joyful. It is not a duty I chose, who was happy in study and in song and never yearned for greatness." He closed his eyes and opened them, his mouth tight.

  "My heart must always bow to duty," he said, "until such time as duty lays me down."

  The Trident Bearer's eyes were less frenzied. The Gatekeeper allowed herself to hope that the madness had passed.

  "And you wish me, an outsider and none of the Bindalche, to emulate you—to willingly sacrifice my self and my soul to—that."

  "You are Chosen of the Smiter, Anjemalti, and you please the Goddess well. It is not Recalled that all who have borne the Trident have gone mad, though some have. It is Recalled that many who have lived to lay the Trident down walked away whole, with light in their faces and joy in their hearts and were the most blessed of men thereafter."

  The Trident Bearer closed his eyes, leaned his head back and said nothing.

  After a moment, Shlorba's Eyes sighed. "There is no one else who may bear it," he said softly, "while the Trident craves your touch. When the time is come to lay your burden aside, Anjemalti, your heart will know it. Until that time, any who seek to take the Smiter from you will die. Recall Jarge Menlin."

  From the Trident Bearer, a sigh, long and shuddering. He opened his eyes and looked hard into the face of Shlorba's Eyes. Then he turned his head and stared at the place where the Trident lay, ringed 'round with holy stones, a pall of incense above it.

  The Trident Bearer rubbed at his head, discovered the cloth still there and brought it away, holding it silently out. The Gatekeeper took it from his hand and dropped it back into the bowl.

  "So." He began, methodically, rationally, to put aside the covers. "If Corbinye is as ill as that, I will go to her. She should not wake alone, without kin by her."

  "Healers say you must rest," protested the Gatekeeper, and found herself caught in the brightness of his eyes.

  "I will rest," he told her, "as soon as I am at my cousin's side. The healers may complain to me, if the arrangement offends them."

  Shlorba's Eyes stepped back, and the Gatekeeper was shocked to see a smile on his mouth.

  "Spoken like a man, Anjemalti. Gatekeeper, the Trident Bearer requires a robe."

  She looked at him, whom she had known from the moment of his birth, and saw there was nothing she could do to sway him from his course. A glance at the other man's face revealed the same calm madness. Sighing, she went to the alcove and fetched the Trident Bearer his robe.

  * * *

  He was a boy again, running along Garden paths he had known his whole life—paths magically remade by the one he pursued. He had known Marjella Kristefyon nearly as long as the Garden, but never had he known her so beautiful, so gay, so desirable.

  They were both fourteen, and in the Garden it was spring. Finchet stretched his strong young legs, knowing he would catch her at the next bend in the path—

  The path pitched and buckled and Finchet fell—kept falling as trees broke above him and crashed down, everywhere at once. He rolled into a ball, shielding his head with his arms, face pushed tight into the dirt. Within the chaos, he thought he heard Marjella screaming. Or maybe it was himself.

  He must have swooned, for the next sound he heard was the steady thok-thok-thok of an axe biting wood, and he carefully unwound his cramped body, and opened his eyes.

  Above him, tilted at an insane angle, broken straps dangling down, was the pilot's chair. Finchet stared at it for several minutes, trying to make sense of its presence in light of his race with Marjella, and the continued sound of the axe.

  Memory sorted itself, slowly, until he finally knew himself for sixty-four, with Marjella dead this weary round of years, and her son, grown to adult, and Captain in his own right, who had ordered the ploy that might well have killed the Garden.

  "Well and it's the Captain's part," Finchet muttered, "to say what loss the Crew can take." He closed his eyes then, the better to attend the whirling of his head, and listened to the rhythm of the axe strokes.

  These presently stirred him to a curiosity sufficient to overcome lethargy and he climbed painfully to his feet, moaning just a little.

  The cottage lay wasted all about him, stone walls crushed beneath the corpses of hundred-year trees. The control wall alone was upright, speared by a broken branch, ready to crumble at a touch.

  The axe wielder was Veln. Even as Finchet watched, the boy let the blade sink to the ground and rubbed at his forehead with a hand that shook.