Future Indefinite (31 page)

Half a dozen people were grouped around the twinkling fire, their faces dancing in and out of the dark like ghosts. Edward was on the far side, speaking softly while the others listened—the king and his court. He looked weary but not as weary as might have been expected for an actor resting after such a performance.

Her arrival made them all scramble to their feet, but she had eyes only for the tall man in the prophet’s robe. Yes, she wanted to run to him and hug him, but she did not think there was anything sinister in that urge, just normal affection for her only living relative after a long separation. She sensed the others’ hair-trigger vigilance, watching to see if she would try it.

“Alice!”

“Edward! It’s wonderful to see you!”

“And you. Er…won’t you sit down?”

She moved to the closest seat, a flat rock upholstered with a scrap of fur. After a moment, everyone else sat down also, all except Ursula Newton.

Nobody spoke. Edward was just staring at Alice as if she were a ghost, the Holy Grail, or King George himself, and she was similarly tongue-tied. There were so many things to say that they could not even begin. She sensed an invisible wall of distrust between them.

Norfolk seemed very far away now.

She found her voice first. “I’m not here on business, Edward. Just on holiday. I’m not carrying any banners. Funny—you haven’t changed a bit!” The beard was not all that bad at close quarters, hardly more than a heavy stubble. With a patriarchal bush like Tennyson’s, he would look like a character in a school nativity play.

Behind her, Ursula coughed harshly. “Well, I’ll leave you to have a private chat, shall I?” The guards, three men and one woman, would not understand English. She must have left, then, but Alice did not turn to see.

“Sorry about the cloak and dagger,” Edward said. “Ursula.

“It’s a good idea. I don’t mind.”

“You’re thinner. Keeping well?”

“Splendid, thank you.” Under the circumstances, this was an absurdly banal conversation. It was wonderful to see him again. There was an extraordinary pain in her throat. “And you?”

He smiled wistfully across the fire at her. “I’m ever so homesick! Tell me about England.”

The Free had begun yet another hymn. Eleal did not know the lyrics to this one either, and she was not in a mood to sing the praises of the Undivided anyway. She was still struggling to accept the idea that the gods she had always believed in might be imposters. The fire was burning low, but she was not cold now. She was hungry, and the supplies in her pack had run out. A shield-bearer had come around promising that the food would appear shortly, so meanwhile she must just huddle in miserable solitude amid a crowd of tunelessly chanting believers, wrestling with her faith and her conscience.

Old Piol squeezed himself onto the rock beside her. She glanced sideways at him, unsure whether she wanted his company.

He smiled—not the smile of the naive dreamer Piol Poet but that of the other Piol Poet, the genius who knew the human heart and could lay it bare in a carillon of silver words. “Talk it out,” he said. “The first thing to do with problems is to list them in order of worrisomeness.”

“They’re all worrisome.” And some she couldn’t tell even to Piol. “Who is D’ward? What is he—human or god?”

“You told the crowd that he almost died once. If you believe that, then you must believe that he’s human.”

“Well, he was human then,” she admitted. “But in those days he didn’t go around performing miracles…at least, not like he’s doing now.”

Piol nodded, cannily waiting for her next problem.

She said, “I can’t believe both him and the Pentatheon, can I?”

“Not both, no.”

“But Tion heals cripples too!”

“D’ward calls that sorcery.”

“And Tion would call what he does sorcery. Their words cancel out.”

Piol rubbed an eyebrow. “Then look for other evidence.”

That was obvious, but she had not thought of it quite that way. What was he hinting at? “Which of them do you believe?”

Piol was not to be trapped. He grinned, gap-toothed. “Tell you later. I won’t make up your mind for you.”

She pulled a face at him. “Their words cancel out and their miracles cancel out. What else is there to consider? Well? What other evidence is there?”

He probably wouldn’t have given her a straight answer, and he was saved from having to reply at all, because a shield-bearer came by the fire with a bag, soliciting money. He didn’t speak, because most people were singing. A few found coins for him, most just shook their heads sadly to show they had nothing to offer. Eleal declined too. She carried a fortune around her waist, but she was not about to expose it to so many curious eyes in this cave. The shield-bearer flashed her a smile and went on by.

He had reminded her of another problem: D’ward was worried by the weather. He needed money to clothe and feed his followers. She had money. Could she force herself to give away so much, even to D’ward?

Piol was waiting. “What will you do tomorrow, Eleal? You can be an actor now, a great actor. Frankly, you always had more talent for acting than for singing. Will you stay with the Liberator or set off to seek your fortune?”

“That’s the whole problem, you silly old goose! What I believe doesn’t really matter—I can take years to decide that. What I need to know is what to
do
!”

“Good! You’re getting closer.”

She debated wringing his scrawny old neck—affectionately, of course. “You? What will you do?”

“Me? Oh, I shall join the Free. Whether I believe D’ward or not, what he’s doing is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I shall follow him to Tharg and witness the fulfilment or failure of the prophecy.” Piol sighed and clasped her hand in his cold fingers. “But I am an old man, with few years left to me. In your place I might not make that choice, because it may be very dangerous. If I am spared, I shall try to write an account of it all.” After a moment, he chuckled. “Maybe when I have done that, I shall know what I really believe, mm?”

He already knew, of course. He just wasn’t saying.

Tharg would supply the answer, but Eleal could not wait for that. She could not live with this awful predicament. She had to make her decision sooner. Now! To follow D’ward or go her own way? D’ward had told her to leave. He had definitely not made her welcome. That was one point. She dare not return to Jurg itself, and the clutches of Tigurb’l Pimp. That was another. D’ward seemed to avoid cities, so he would probably just cut across Jurgvale and carry on to Mapvale. She could risk that. Or she could go back to Niol and try for auditions there, as Piol had suggested several times.

“I can’t decide!” she moaned. “What other evidence is there?”

“Actions, of course. Judge people by what they do, not what they say.”

“Miracles? Sorcery?”

“What else do they do, apart from miracles?”

Eleal shivered. “Zath, you mean? Reapers?” She could never imagine D’ward sending out reapers to kill people. “Give me a clue, Piol!”

He sighed. “Girls with problems should ask their mothers. I’m afraid yours would not be much help to you, even if she still lived.”

Eleal gulped. “You knew her? I thought that was before you joined the troupe.”

“No. Just after. For a whole fortnight we searched Jurg for her, all of us and all our friends. She was nowhere to be found. Nowhere! Suddenly, out of the blue, she just wandered up to the door of the house where we were staying.”

“Mad! Mad for love of the god?”

“Mad for someone. All she would ever say was, ‘He kissed me!’”

“He did a lot more than that!”

“Perhaps he did, but the first kiss was what she remembered. From then until the day you were born, those were the only words she ever spoke. No matter what we asked her, or how your grandfather raged, all she would say was, ‘He kissed me!’ Dreamily. She wasn’t really unhappy. She tended to wander away and hang around his temple, and of course we had to try to stop her doing that or fetch her back right away if she had eluded us. After you were born, she said nothing at all. It was not a hard birth, but it killed her. No, it released her. She had just been waiting for you to arrive, and after that she faded away, her job done.”

“Ken’th!”

“Well, she never said so, and Trong would never admit that a god would do such a thing.”

Eleal squeezed her eyes tight shut in case they started leaking. “D’ward would never—” Her voice broke.

D’ward would never do that sort of miracle, or that sort of sorcery. A shiver of revulsion racked her. Her mother: a woman starved for the love of a god or a woman enslaved by a poisoned kiss?

Lecherous Ken’th. Murderous Zath. Depraved Ois, with her holy whorehouse. Or Gim Sculptor, whose beauty had won him the right to represent the Youth at the prize giving in Tion’s temple? Two years later, his parents had still been hunting for him.

“Trust their actions, not their words!” Piol said firmly.

“Gods who kill people, gods who hurt people—those are not good gods.” She gripped his hand in gratitude. “I choose D’ward. I believe him, not them!”

“I do too.”

Eleal straightened up. Good! Then her choice was easy. She must go and find D’ward and tell him that she believed in him and his Undivided god. She would give him her money, every copper of it. Then, surely, he would let her stay and be one of the Free. A shield-bearer, even? She could help him, too! She could repeat her witness of his coming, as she had done today, to help convince others. She could imagine his astonished thanks, his hug of thanks…a quick kiss….

She mumbled some words of thanks to Piol without thought. She rose and walked away, heading for the inner cave, for she had explored this place on her way to Niolvale and could guess where the Liberator would rest after his marvelous performance. The greenroom, she thought with a smile.

The fire had almost gone out, so her eyes were well adjusted to the dimness. As she reached the rock pile that divided the cavern, she saw the guards before they saw her. She stopped, unwilling to face an argument or make long explanations to underlings.

Well, there must be other ways around. She turned off to the left, moving with care, for the going soon became very tricky. She scrabbled up between the boulders, frequently bumping her right foot, for it was farther away from her now than it used to be. That did not matter, though. All that mattered was that she would be able to renew her friendship with D’ward. How could she have ever doubted him?

She need not dream of making love to him, though. Dosh had told her how the Joalian-Nagian army had sacked Lemod, and how every man had taken a Lemodian girl to be his concubine, all except D’ward. D’ward had taken a girl and never laid a finger on her, even when she begged him to, Dosh said, although Dosh had probably been guessing there, for how could he have known? Still, he was undoubtedly right when he said that D’ward was a very holy man, with strict standards.

So they would not be lovers, only friends.

No passion. Just a quick hug? And a little kiss, to let bygones be bygones?

She clambered over a smooth, rounded boulder and peered down at the drop. It looked about five feet, but she could not see the ground clearly enough to risk a jump, even with two legs of the same length. This little canyon led directly down to the inner cave, with its ancient ashes and its circle of rocks to sit on.

A pebble clattered. Someone was coming.

She hunkered down on the rock, willing herself to be invisible. And then, in the frail glow of reflected firelight, she saw him, working his way cautiously along the path below her. He wore a long robe with a hood. A gray robe! It was D’ward himself, all alone for once. The urge to leap down and surprise him was absolutely irresistible.

One of the shield-bearers tossed a log on the fire, sending sparks swarming up into the dark. Alice felt as if she had been talking for hours. Any time she hesitated, Edward demanded more. She had described the horrors of war, the unexpected horrors of peace, the new war in Russia, the terrible flu epidemic, the changes that had come and would probably never go…. She had talked of the few acquaintances they had in common, like Mrs. Bodgley and Ginger Jones, and even, reluctantly, told him about D’Arcy and then Terry. He had responded with concern and no maudlin formulas.

There were a million things she wanted to ask him, but his need was greater. He had been trapped on a faraway world for five years now, with one brief break. He was starved for information. She could see that being a prophet must be a desperately lonely business, with a thousand followers and not a single friend. She forgot her doubts and was glad she had come, for she was uniquely able to be the confidante he needed. He hung upon her words, staring at her as if she were a dream who might vanish if he even blinked, but his face said everything needful.

Then the log went into the fire.

“I’m hoarse!” she said. “You talk now.”

He glanced around at the four disciples, who had lost some of their coiled-spring alertness, doubtless bored to distraction by the newcomer’s incomprehensible jabber. He turned a look of wide-eyed innocence on Alice. “What do you want to know, child? What wisdom would you seek from the master? How it feels to out-hypocrite Holy Roly himself, for instance?”

“Uncle Roly wasn’t a hypocrite, he was a fanatic. You’re not.”

He pulled a face. “Don’t talk to me about fanatics! I’m creating fanatics, Alice! My helpers—disciples, I suppose. They believe every word I say, and I see it happening to them, day by day. They’re becoming fanatics, all of them, and I feel like a terrible hypocrite.”

Surely My Cousin the Messiah was not suffering doubts? Was he asking for Alice’s approval? That did not sound like Edward.

“What do you teach them? The Service’s universal Unitarianism?”

He shrugged as if the question was irrelevant or the answer obvious. “Pretty much. Ethically it’s the Golden Rule, the stuff that’s common to all religions—concern for the sick, alms to the poor, smite not thy neighbor with thine ax…. It’s Christianity mostly, because that’s my background, but I think any Moslem, Buddhist, or Sikh would recognize it.”

“And theologically?”

“Monotheism.” He paused for a moment, frowning…looking for all the world as though he had never really thought about it before. “And reincarnation.”

“Why that?”

“Not sure…” He ran a hand through his hair and grinned. “Because Uncle Roly gave me a fixed picture of heaven as an endless ghastly Sunday morning of psalm singing. Because reincarnation seems a happier creed than hellfire. Why should God insist we get it right the first time?”

“And if we have only one chance to get it right, that gives the priests much greater power over us, doesn’t it?”

“By Jove! You know, I hadn’t thought of that. Jolly good! I like it. Besides, you can’t prove I’m wrong, can you?”

“No. So why are you worried if you create a few fanatics? You don’t encourage violence or persecution, do you? You don’t tell outright lies.”

His mood turned glum again. “Yes, I do. I use the magic they give me to heal babies and then tell them that this is a miracle sent by a god I don’t believe in myself.”

“What would happen if you told them the truth?”

“What is truth? That all my power comes from their belief? They wouldn’t believe me. Even charisma has its limits.”

No faith, no mana. No mana, no crusade.

“Are you quite sure God didn’t send you?”

“Alice!
Please!
If I start thinking like that I’ll turn into a total theomaniac.”

“You’re not the type. I’d say you’re a pragmatist. You’re doing the best you can in the circumstances. The object of the Game is to kill Zath, isn’t it? And thereby rid the world of a monster?”

Again he ran a hand through his curls. He needed a haircut. “So the ends justify the means?”

Memories, memories! “You’re playing devil’s advocate, my lad. You always did that.” She saw his shy grin flicker and that, too, was heart-stoppingly familiar from years gone by. “And you’ve had a lot more time to think up the answers than I have. You tell me.”

He stared sadly into the fire for a moment. “I think that sometimes life forces us to choose the path of least evil. How’s that for rationalization?”

“It sounds sound to me,” she said loyally.

“It didn’t convince friend Smedley the other day. It’s not the way a saint thinks. A saint won’t bend his principles no matter what the cost—to himself or anyone else. I’m just a political revolutionary masquerading as a prophet.”

“You’re more saintly than most. You’ve always had strict principles.”

“So did Holy Roly. You know, I used to think the old bat enjoyed heaping brimstone on his wayward nephew’s head? Now I’m not so sure.”

“Good heavens! You really have been gathering insights, haven’t you?”

He laughed, probably not noticing the surprised smiles of his guards. “Wonderful to see you here!” Abruptly he turned serious again. “Dear Alice, I don’t doubt that you are the true, dear Alice. I don’t doubt your motives in the slightest, and yet your arrival here leaves me a teeny-weeny bit suspicious still. Are you quite certain that the Miss Pimm you met was the genuine Miss Pimm?”

Alice opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “Well, I suppose the answer to that is No! I mean, how could I ever be
certain
? She did seem younger than she was two years ago. I assumed that was because she’d been playing a role then, and wasn’t now—or at least not the same role.” She realized that she had not told him about Zath’s appearance at Olympus, which was the reason for her coming here at all.

Edward bit his lip. “Doesn’t really mean anything,” he muttered. “So you went to Olympus. Whose idea was it for you and Jumbo—”

He was interrupted by shouts and a clatter of boots. His bodyguards sprang to their feet. The little blond disciple she had seen earlier came running into the hollow, waving a flaming torch. Right on his heels came Ursula Newton. Much singsong jabber was exchanged. Edward rose and began to move toward the exit. At once two of the guards set themselves between him and Alice. She stayed put on her nice, comfortable rock.

The torchbearer ran out again, probably taking word that the Liberator was coming.

“You’ll have to excuse me a moment,” Edward said. “There’s a young girl out there having some sort of seizure, and everyone thinks she’s about to die.” He grinned ruefully as he passed her. “A god’s work is never done.”

“As I recall,” she countered, “under similar circumstances, Jesus did not need to go to the centurion’s house.”

Edward’s smile vanished. But that was Jesus. This is only me.” He disappeared, too, into the passageway. Well, at least he wasn’t a total theomaniac yet.

The sound of singing was still drifting in over the barrier. Most of the Free must be quite unaware of the current medical emergency. The bodyguards all sat down, not following the Liberator. Did that mean they were now jailers? Ursula Newton had stayed behind also. She made herself comfortable on the next rock with a sigh of wearied satisfaction, like a schoolmistress after the final bell of the day, and fixed Alice with a gaze as steady as a recruiting poster’s.

“I assume you’re now certified as the genuine article, so may I start all over? I’m Ursula Newton, and I’m very happy to meet you.” She leaned over to offer a hand. Her smile was more hearty than winsome, but that was because her face would never manage winsome. The smile itself seemed genuine enough. She had a grip like a blacksmith.

“No offense,” Alice said. “You’re quite right to take precautions. He’s a pretty important man, now.” The significance of her own words seemed to ricochet back at her from the megalithic walls. Important? Edward was working his way into the history books of a world. “I mean he will be if he succeeds, like Moses.”

“He’ll be Jan Hus if he fails.”

Alice shuddered. “Meaning?”

“Martyrdom, murder, massacre, and mayhem. He knew the risks when he burned his first bridge. He had no choice, you know.”

“Edward or Jan Hus?”

“Your cousin, of course!” Mrs. Newton glowered belligerently. “Julian has told me what happened back Home, how the Blighters almost caught him—and you too. Obviously Zath will never stop trying to kill him. He was forced to defend himself, and this was the only way open to him.”

Alice was taken aback. She could not recall saying anything critical of Edward’s crusade and did not see why Mrs. Newton need defend it to her so aggressively. Besides, she found the proposed defense repellent.

“I can’t believe Edward would have involved so many innocent people just to save his own skin. I am sure he seeks some greater good than just his personal survival.”

Her companion conceded the point with a faint pout. “He chose a more daring path than I anticipated. I expected him to begin by freeing the slaves in the Thargian mines.”

“Being Moses?”

“Exactly. ‘The Liberator,’ you see?”

“But you don’t have a Red Sea handy. I suppose the pursuing Thargians could have been buried in a landslide instead.”

Mrs. Newton was not amused. “He elected instead to be Christ, which is a bolder concept altogether.”

It certainly did not lack ambition, but putting it in words raised worrisome questions that Jumbo had not been able to answer. “What will happen when he reaches Tharg itself? I understand crucifixion is not a Valian custom.”

Ursula grimaced. “They’ve never heard of it. Thargians execute criminals by dashing their brains out on an anvil. They’ll have to catch him first, won’t they? I don’t believe your cousin has anything so barbaric in mind for Zath or so suicidal for himself, Mrs. Pearson. I do wish the cooks would hurry up. I’m hungry.”

The guards had begun whispering, perhaps discussing the strangely ill-tongued intruder.

“But he may fail?” Alice said. “How do you rate his chances?”

“Impossible to say.”

“You must have a better idea than I do, for I have no way of judging at all. If you thought he had no chance you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

“On the face of it he doesn’t, frankly.” Ursula folded her arms and thought for a moment, scowling at the fire. “There are three unknowns. The biggest is the Pentatheon. If enough of them rally to Exeter’s side in the final scrum, then they may tip the scales. They’re scared of Zath, but they have no real reason to set up your cousin in his place, which is basically what they’d be trying to do if they intervened.”

“I suppose they’re fence-sitting at the moment?”

“Absolutely. Don’t expect a peep out of any of them until the last possible minute. I expect every one of them has a spy or two within the Free, though. They’re watching. And there’s no way to know how they’re judging Edward’s performance, which is what this parade is.” She seemed to be warming to her lecture. “The second factor is the
Filoby Testament
itself. It hasn’t hit a wrong note in eighty-five years. That’s impressive! Prof Rawlinson estimates that three quarters of the prophecies have already been fulfilled.”

“But there can always be a first time failure?”

“Oh, crikey, yes! And I’m a little bit suspicious of the way verse three eighty-six is worded. It doesn’t say that the Liberator will slay Zath, or that he will win a fight. It just says he will bring death to Death. I only hope that isn’t to be interpreted in some sort of mystical way. Nevertheless, I’d much rather have the
Filoby Testament
working for me than against me.”

“It saved my life once,” Alice said. “Or, rather, it saved Edward’s and I was with him. The third factor must be his own mana?”

“Right. No way to measure that, either, of course. Can’t stick a thermometer in a man and test his mana level. Drat them, I wish they’d bring the tuck basket around!” With a sudden show of irritation, Ursula grabbed up a log and hurled it on the fire. She was concealing something, or trying to detour the conversation away from something.

Alice prompted. “Edward’s obviously collected great power if he can give a blind man back his sight.”

“True.”

“And the miracles inspire the crowd to provide more mana? He gets it back?”

Ursula nodded, beating her hands on her knees and staring angrily at the rocks as if trying to glare through them. “All that singing going on out there doesn’t sound like anyone’s doing much eating yet.”

“What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

“I never…” The doughty Mrs. Newton scowled at this frontal attack. She glanced at the wall around them as if looking for listeners. “You really want my opinion, no matter what?”

“Please.”

“Well, I suppose you are his next of kin. I wouldn’t say this to anyone else. You won’t repeat my words to Jumbo or your cousin?”

“Certainly not.”

“Rain, Mrs. Pearson! The rain’s bad news. He’s lost a lot of people since yesterday. If the weather continues bad, he’s going to come a cropper. He can’t travel as fast in the rain, he can’t attract enough people. So he won’t collect enough mana—or even enough money. If he can’t feed his flock, it’ll wander away. He’s certainly not strong enough yet to do loaves-and-fishes miracles, not on that scale.”

Ursula scowled at the fire for a moment. “And that’s not all. I keep telling him he’s not ruthless enough. As you said, when he uses mana to perform miracles, the resulting adoration should give him back more than he spent. That’s the way it should work. But he’s too softhearted. It begins that way, but it’s astonishingly easy for people to become…um, saturated. Blase. The first couple of miracles today, I could feel the whole node tremble with the surge of mana. Did you notice?”

“I felt something.”

“That was just a whiff of spray we were getting—the waves were hitting the Liberator and they must have rocked him to his toenails. Did you notice how much less the response was the fourth time?”

“He overdoes it, you mean?”