The Nonborn King (11 page)

"You're a doctor as well as a priest Do I have to spell it out to you? You love her, but you know what she is "

"Yes " The nun's tone was desolate

Elizabeth began to move along the balcony, with Amerie following They came to the eastern side of the chalet Lac Provencat was an azure expanse fading to slate near the horizon The storm would come from that direction

"Do you remember Culluket, the King's Interrogator?" Elizabeth asked

"I saw him only once After our stnke at the torc works failed and we were captured, he was the one who clapped gray slave-torcs on us and sent us away to die in prison Yes, I remember the Interrogator He wore glowing red-glass armor and he was the most beautiful Tanu male I've ever seen "

"He look Felice and tortured her "

"Oh, Jesus "

"He worked her over quite a bit more than was necessary to extract information Dionket told me about it during the evacuation As the head of the Redactor Guild, Dionket knew what Cull was up to, but there was no way Dionket could interfere in the private affairs of the Host The torture, the algesis, is what forced Felice into metapsychic operancy and enabled her to take a full measure of vengeance According to her lights " Elizabeth paused "Cull's handiwork also seems to have forged some perverse link between the two of them That's why she looks for him, keeps calling his name on the declam atory mode Felice isn't sure that her dear torturer survived the Flood Unfortunately, I am Cull is alive, and he's gone to Goriah, where he hopes Alken will be able to protect him from Felice God help Cull if she ever tracks him down "

The physician warred with the lover in Amerie, momentarily, the professional won "Yes, I see what you mean Felice's character is profoundly sadomasochistic, of course The Interrogator gave her not only temble pain but also the mental power she'd been searching for ail her life No wonder she loves him

Elizabeth said nothing

"What, what's to be done about Felice'' Her powers, ' My God, not even Saint Jack the Bodiless or Diamond Mask could have blasted out that Gibraltar cut* Not single-minded "

"Felice hasn't used her destructive power since the deluge Perhaps she can't Most of the time, she imagines that she's a black scavenger bird She gathers golden torcs and hides them I don't know where She's very clever at screening, except when she calls to Cull "

The women stood side by side at the railing, Elizabeth in her long black gown and tall Amerie in a white coverall with a clerical rabat and dog collar at the neck A breeze had begun to stir the dark firs that crowded close to the lodge's isolated knoll A rock thrush, invisible, gave plaintive warning of changing weather

"Could you help Felice with your deep-redact faculty?" Amerie asked "Cure the psychosis?"

"Possibly If she gave full cooperation But it might be safer to let her stay as she is, if it means restraining her use of the psychoenergetic functions This is one of the matters I have to think deeply about '

The nun drew back, looking at the other with dawning horror Elizabeth only smiled, resigned Amerie said, "You'll have to decide so many things

Elizabeth lifted a wry shoulder She had turned so that the priest could not see her face "It's cold and lonesome on Olympus "

Amerie said. "If only I could help If any of us could, '"

Elizabeth's hands were clutching the wooden rail, the ten dons while "You can do one thing Again For the sake of my scruples "

"Yes Of course '

From one pocket of her coverall Amerie took a narrow violet nbbon kissed it, and hung it about her neck like a yoke She recited the ancient formula again, as she had recited it for the sleeper wakened in the mountain sanctuary where they had watched the Flood; as she had recited it on countless nights during the long exodus while Elizabeth wept along with the winter rain pounding their improvised shelter

"Only believe it. Elizabeth."

"I try." i try Amerie blessed the head still turned away "Come, child of God, and lay your burden down For he has said to his Church. 'Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.'"

"Bless me. Sister, for I have sinned."

"Let the person who is thirsty come. Let whoever wants it accept the gift of the water of life."

"I confess pnde I confess hubns, the sin of surpassing arrogance. I confess blasphemy of the healing Spirit. I confess contempt for lesser minds. I confess refusing love to other rational beings. I confess despair I confess the unforgivable sin and ask forgiveness. I am sorry- Help me to believe it! Help me to believe that there's a God who forgives the unforgivable."

Help me believe that I'm not alone.

Help me

6

THE BIG WILD CHALIKO WAS TEARING UP THE SQUEF.ZE CHUTE

with his claws, screeching and blowing, flinging his massive barrel against the stout wooden planks until the spikes fastening them seemed about to give way There were four gray-torc wranglers trying to hold him, two on the hackamore iongeline and two on a foot rope They were broadcasting sheer panic when Benjamin Barrett Travis led the three Exalted Ones over to the corral to watch the breaking.

"You really gonna face down that clawfoot killer, Brazos?" Alken Drum inquired, awestricken. "Sweet houghmagandy!"

The penned chaliko reared up on its unfettered hind leg and gave a ringing bellow. It was a blue roan standing at least twenty hands, with black fetlock feathering and mane and a startling biack-rimmed walleye.

"Tana's left tit!" blasphemed Alberonn Mindeater. "It's as big as a rhino!"

Brazos Ben fingered his silver torc The chaliko settled back into the chute with a wooof\ "Hell, he ain't near as snorty as some wild ones I've suppled out. He ain't even mean by nature. Just scared."

"Travis is quite right," said the Interrogator "The animal's mind is awash with profound fear. The bndling device, the equipment affixed to its feet, the saddle, these, combined with its loss of freedom and the presence of people, have nearly driven it insane Only its natural intelligence, and the fact that it has not actually been hurt, restrain it from suicidal violence "

Brazos Ben smiled thmly at the redactor "And don't you forget I been talkin' to him for a week, Lord Cull. You saw how he eased back when I give him a farsqueak Chalikos are smarter'n horses at recogmzin' a friendly mind "

"Then why not Just mind-bend the beast to tame it^" Alberonn wanted to know. "Why go through all this nde'em-cowboy physical tosh?"

"A chaliko's gotta be broke both ways. Lord Alby Otherwise he's only good for gold or silver nders. No gray or bareneck could even touch him. After a chaliko's been suppled and trained to the usual body and voice commands, then he gets mind-broke. Course, i speak to my cntters all along the way, even m the physical schoohn'. But with my method, you can tram up twenty times the wild stock you could mmdbendin', and take less time doin' it. You can use gray and bareneck trainers steada silvers right up until the final postgrad telepathic autopilot programmm' It's a little different tramin' domesticated beasts. Easier But the Banlemaster", Brazos Ben broke off, eyeing Alken, "I mean, the late Battlemaster wanted Goriah to be the best-mounted outfit in the ManyColored Land come Combat time. And that meant usin' plenty o' wild stock."

Across the corral, the chaliko neighed Brazos Ben extracted a small tin of snuff from his breast pocket and tucked a pinch behind his cheek- "Well, you Exalteds ready for some action?"

"Sic 'em, BB!" Aiken chortled

The breaker went off to the chute while Aiken, Culluket the Interrogator, and Alberonn Mindeater approached the fence of the round enclosure and found a spot that was not too muddy Although it was not raining, the sky was dark and louring and a cold wind blew in from the Strait ofRedon beyond the stables The three men wore traditional Tanu storm-suits of colored leather with peaked capuchons and over-knee boots Alken's suit was gold with black piping, the Interrogator's deep red. and Alberonn's turquoise to indicate his status as a creator THE POSTDIUJVIUM 53

coercer. Alberonn's human heritage showed in his chocolate skin, which was a sinking foil to his green Tanu eyes and the bush of fleecy blond hair that escaped from his hood- The hybrid High Table member was half a head taller than Culluket and towered over diminutive Aiken like a fairytale giant.

"My late brother Nodonn counted this man Travis as one of the most valued of all his servants," Culluket remarked. Across the corral, Brazos supervised the removal of the hindfoot hobble.

"I wish we had fifty more like him," Aiken said. "Getting large numbers of trained mounts will be critical to my strategy against the Firvulag At least, until I track down those aircraft."

"It's a bad sign that the Little People have chucked their old prejudice against riding," Culluket said.

Aiken nodded. "One of my spies reported that they're even trying to domesticate those little hippanons for the gnomies to nde! And we know they've been stealing tame chalikos from all the outlying plantations around the eastern cities for the warrior-ogre battalions."

Alberonn said, "Bleyn farspoke me that the same thing is going on down around Rocilan. Raids, sneak attacks, ambushes- All blamed on Howlers, of course. But the situation is getting beyond makeshift countermeasures down there in Candy City. The petty lordlings and the forced humans just aren't responding to Bleyn's leadership, not even when Lady Eadnar commands it. Bleyn's an outsider, even if he is her brother-in-law, and he has no authority. Dammit, Aiken, ' I've a good mind to go down and marry Eadnar now, not wait until the Grand Loving in May!"

"You cannot. Creative Brother," said the Interrogator "It would be even more inflammatory than Bleyn's action. Old Lady Morna-Ia is mulish about respecting the mourning period for her late son. She thinks that even May is too soon for a wedding."

Alberonn was glum. "I should have let the old bat drown But there she was on the floating wreckage with Eadnar, so what could I do?"

"Here comes trouble," Aiken observed, poking his head through the corral bars. The wranglers were opening the chute. Brazos Ben, chewing meditatively, now held the longe-line in his left hand and another rope, attached in some complex fashion to the chaliko's front ankles, in his right. The animal skittered out Into the heavy mud, its walleye rolling and its prancing claws making loud squushing sounds.

"What the hell's that rig on its feel?" Alberonn asked. "I thought Ben was going to ride the beast." "Shut up and watch," ordered Aiken. Brazos Ben was no longer soothing the chaliko's mind through his silver torc. in fact, he seemed to be deliberately provoking the creature to misbehavior, tugging sharply on the hackamore line. The animal's flanks began to heave- Its neck twitched and its head strained. Just as Ben maneuvered it to the center of the corral, it exploded into a frenzy of bucking. The stirrup-pieces of the big, chairlike saddle slapped against its withers. Mud flew to the four winds and Aiken hastily slammed up a PK shieldNow Ben carefully drew in the foot line, which ran from the right side of the saddle down through a ring on the right ankle hobble, up through a pulley at the cinch, down to the left hobble, up over me high stirrup plate, and out to the breaker. "BB calls it a running W," Aiken said. "You gotta use it right, or you ruin the chaliko. But it really puts the fear o' God into uppish brutes."

With the line tightened, the huge chaliko perforce fell to its knees in the muck- Ben held him there, talking softly and making a clucking sound. He rubbed the creature on both sides of its neck but didn't try to catch its panicked eye. After a few minutes, he slacked off the W-line and let the chaliko rise. Still speaking to it, he urged it to begin walking with a gentle tug on the longe. The chaliko reared, shrieking, and gathered itself to run; but before it could step out, Ben pulled the W-line. Once again the big animal stumbled slowly to its knees, sinking deeply into black ooze.

"Now Travis is back in the beast's mind," Culluket said, admiration brightening the somber beauty of his face. "Telling it who the master is, but gently. See? The animal responds. It's no fool. But it's going to try to break loose again, just to be sure."

The procedure was repeated, with Brazos Ben now humming tunelessly as he managed to have the chaliko move a dozen obedient steps at the end of the longe-line before it erupted into defiant bucking and claw-slashing. Ben spat tobacco juice and tipped the animal ignominiously into the slopHunching down, he massaged the chaiiko's face, remonstrating and clucking- The skinned-back ears turned forward and the corded neck muscles relaxed. Ben let the big roan up, flicked the longe. and stood with a satisfied smile as it trotted slowly around him, responding now to the command of the hackamore. And the dry thought came;

He's all broke, Exalteds.

They gave him a heartfelt Slonshal1. The trainer motioned to one of his assistants to take over the two ropes, stood for a few minutes probing the chaliko's mind to insure that it plotted no more deviltry, then waded out of the soupy,corral back to Aiken, Culluket, and Alberonn.

"You won't ride him today, then?" the hybrid asked, disappointed.

"I could, usin' the W. But I'd rather not. Those claws can cut a rope too easy at a trot. All he really needed was to figger out who was boss. A few days now to gel him halter-wise and we'll start ridin'. I don't think this baby'll need any more hobbles."

"Terrific work, BB!" said Aiken.

"I presume you handled livestock back on Elder Earth," said Alberonn Benjamin Barren Travis spat politely over his shoulder. "Hell, no. Lord Alby. Wouldn't I've loved to. though' Naw, I inherited my daddy's desk as comptroller of Westex Foodex of El Paso, the biggest exporter of Hispano-American foodstuffs in the Milieu." His pale eyes twinkled. "Never want to see another retried bean long 's I iive - -." He hitched up his jeans. "I plan to mosey over'n' begin mind-breakin' a really top-notch white stallion, lords. Y'all wanta help? If you ride longside, it reinforces the programmin'-"

"Sounds great'" Alberonn enthused

"You go on with Ben, Alby," Alken said "Cull and I have some things to discuss " To the breaker he said, "You come on up to the Castle of Glass for supper tonight, BB And bring Sally Mac "