Future Indefinite (35 page)

“Changed, even since I came. At times he’s just Edward, but not often. I’m sure he sleeps no more than two hours a night. Most of the time he’s the Liberator, whatever that is. I don’t mean he’s acting a part. He
is
the part.”

“Too much mana?”

“Overdose? What are the symptoms?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t get a decent look at him.” Julian’s stomach rumbled loudly, having sighted the food.

Alice said, “He is different. You’ll see. And of course he’s collecting lots of mana from all this healing. Funny, at first it didn’t work too well. He spent more than he earned, was how Ursula put it. Now…It doesn’t take much mana to heal influenza, apparently. A lot less than blindness, say. And the audience…is different, somehow.”

“More supportive?” Julian looked over the clearing and the crowds. “I can believe that. Watching a blind man being given his sight is impressive, true, but most of us aren’t blind and never expect to be so. Pestilence is different; it can strike down anyone.” He suppressed a shiver. “They’re scared, all of them!”

“I expect that’s it.”

“The Pentatheon can cure flu too.”

“They can,” she agreed. “But Zath can’t! You don’t go to Zath for a healing. And what temple can hold a crowd like this?”

Yes, the flu had been a godsend, but Alice was not going to admit it. And it must have brought money as well as mana. There was more to this assembly than just good organization: tents, transportation, abundant food, the equipment to process it. Most of the Free were much better dressed than the rabble Julian had seen in Niolvale.

“He’s certainly doing very well. The boodle must be rolling in too.”

“Oh, yes!” Alice would rather discuss money than mana. “It began with a windfall from Eleal Singer, of all people. But now the rich are flocking to him. The flu brought them as nothing else could have done. Mana and money and followers.”

Julian asked the question that had been hovering unsaid between them. “You think he’s going to make it?”

Her face was unreadable. “He certainly has a better chance now than he did a couple of—a fortnight ago. Ursula says it’s still impossible, though. Zath’s been at the game too long. Edward still can’t hope to win without help from the Five, she says.”

And what would the price of that help be? They had reached the front of the line and were about to be served. Julian was saved from having to comment on that.

The food helped, but after he had eaten, he realized how weak his brief illness had left him. Tomorrow he would have to start walking again, for he had no doubts that he wanted to stay with the Free now, if only to watch what happened as this juggernaut rolled onward through the Vales. He did not think he would be granted a mount or a place in a wagon—not with Pinky organizing matters.

The numbers were staggering. People continued to limp in long after the sun had set, although he could not tell whether they were newcomers or stragglers from the day’s march. Nothing like this crusade had ever been recorded in Valian history before, and he wondered what the Pentatheon was making of it. Trying to put himself in Zath’s position, he could think of no way in which the blighter could fight this mass assault except by throwing the full Thargian army against it when it arrived on his doorstep. He was certainly powerful enough to control the weather to some extent, but the cost in mana would be frightful. If he sent reapers to nip at the edges of the crowd, he would merely create more martyrs for the Liberator, who would be so much closer to the sacrifices that he would glean more benefit from them. Exeter had found an unbeatable strategy. The big question now was how long he could hold his army together—the influenza epidemic would not last forever, and winter was coming. Like a plague of locusts, this horde must keep moving or starve. If he miscalculated, he would create a famine.

After a long search, Julian found Onkenvier, huddled down in a vast crowd of singers. She was chanting along with them, although he did not think she was making words. She looked at him blankly, not seeming to know who he was, and she stared uncomprehendingly at the purse he thrust upon her. He left it with her, sure that somebody would relieve her of it fairly soon. She remained as he had found her, in a mindless, chanting trance.

He went off to speak with Exeter. He must give proper thanks; he must try and apologize for the angry words he had said, for now he shared in the blood guilt. But getting close to the Liberator was far from easy. Even when the camp was settling down for the night under the frosty stars, he did not stop working. He preached, he answered questions, and he healed the wagonloads of sick that were still arriving.

Julian cut no corners; he joined the throng and sat with many others, all wrapped up in blankets, all spellbound, listening to a sermon. It was an astonishing performance. The words were simple, the ideas simplistic, and yet the authority in them was utterly compelling. Even a stranger could barely resist the charisma now.

“There is only one god. God is Undivided. Yet there is a spark of godliness in all of us. Have you not seen it in others? Have you not felt it in yourselves—sometimes? Not often. It rarely shows, but it is there. We strive and sometimes we succeed. We are all evil at times; none of us is evil always. And when we die, as we all must die, do you think that spark of godliness is lost? Of course not! Our bodies die, but the god-stuff in us does not die.

“So where does it go, that spark? The sorcerers promise you a place up there in the heavens, twinkling away every night. Did you ever think to ask:
Doing what?
Just watching the world snoozing far below you? Have you never wondered if perhaps you might eventually get
bored
! Doing nothing, just watching? The first week it would be nice, yes. To be free of the fear of death, to be free of pain and sickness and suffering—wonderful! But for how long could you be satisfied with that? A month? A year? A century? A thousand years? A million? I tell you that what the evildoers offer you is illusion. I tell you that their paradise of unchanging perfection would soon become a hell, and their eternity would be a torment of boredom! Fortunately the truth is otherwise.”

He began to outline his doctrine of successive rebirths, and Julian found himself intrigued, despite his utter disbelief. Exeter’s idea of reincarnation was not the bound-to-the-wheel sort of reincarnation from which the only escape was to a nihilist Nirvana. It was a cheerful, progressive, ladder-to-God reincarnation, a collect-your-Boy-Scout-badges-and-get-promoted reincarnation. It did not deny the world, for the world was where the medals were won. It promised that all souls could merge with the godhead in the fullness of time—apotheosis, not annihilation—and it came from no earthly creed that Julian knew. He wondered where Exeter had found it.

Who knows? said the sceptic in him, it may be right. Who ever comes back to report? It was as appealing a blueprint as any, and that would be exactly why his old friend had chosen it as the keystone of the new faith. To overcome Zath he needed followers, to gain followers he needed a faith, and all faiths needed to explain about the party after the game.

It would be wonderful to believe stuff like that, said the cynical Julian—believe wholeheartedly and permanently. In Flanders he had seen sheer terror create some steadfast, if temporary, believers, even himself. Unfortunately, God had not designed the world quite so neatly as people like Edward Exeter thought He should. At that point Julian was shocked to realize that he was now crediting Exeter with believing what he was preaching.

When the sermon was over, the disciples organized a reception line for those who felt they had a special need to meet the Liberator. He spoke a few words to each—quietly, confidentially…soothing, blessing, comforting, encouraging. Then the supplicant moved on, walking a little taller, and Exeter spoke to the next.

While waiting his turn, Julian studied that tall, gaunt figure in the leaping glow of the fires. From many yards back he thought he could see a difference, as Alice had said. Exeter had changed, even in a brief two weeks. Confidence, yes. Authority, without question. Certainty, certainly. But there was more, somehow, and Julian could not put a finger on what it was.

Too much mana? Was Exeter becoming a god, or at least thinking of himself as a god, just as the others did? Could occult power corrupt as inevitably as temporal power did? So soon?

Whatever had happened, this was not the Exeter he had expected to meet, and as his turn came nearer, his determination wavered. He began to feel more and more as he had in Buckingham Palace, waiting for King George to pin a medal on him. There was no need to give thanks to this person. His thanks were so insignificant that to mention them would be to waste the Liberator’s time. The bitter accusations of a fortnight ago now seemed not merely irreverent but totally irrelevant, just as Pinky’s petty manipulations were irrelevant. Exeter did not need anyone’s apologies. Exeter had been right all along, and the sacrifice his followers had made had been as justified as the similar sacrifices so many had made on the Western Front. He had seen through the smoke to the flame, which Julian had not. Desperate evils may require desperate remedies.

Almost, he turned and fled. But in the end he stayed, and a last step put him in front of the Liberator. Tongue-tied and dismayed, he stared into those piercing sapphire eyes—and was unable to remember even why he had come.

The spell snapped like an icicle. It was only the old familiar Edward Exeter who laughed and took his hand. “Now you’re a thousand and one times welcome, old man! Come. Let’s talk.” He gestured to the closest fire.

“But…” There were hundreds, still waiting to meet him.

“They won’t disappear. Time for a tea break.”

Thus Julian found himself sitting at a fire with the Liberator, served a hot, spicy beverage by worshipful disciples, while a few hundred envious worshippers watched like tigers peering through bars.

“I never doubted you would return.”

“Actually I came to check up on Alice. Since I’m here, I’d like to stay and do my bit.”

Smile. “Very glad to have you.”

“Look, old man, I’m frightfully sorry about—”

“Stow it!” Exeter said sharply. Then he grinned sheepishly. “If I can’t let bygones be bygones, then I’m in the wrong trade.”

“You’re doing very well in it.”

“Got a few lucky breaks. How bad are things in Olympus?” He seemed totally relaxed, fresh, ready to cruise along all night.

His humor was a twinkling armor, deflecting all effort to pry. Only once did Julian manage to nudge the conversation close to Exeter himself.

“Your blueprint for the afterlife intrigues me. It isn’t any form of Buddhism I’ve met. Is it Hindu? Where’d you find it?”

Just for a moment, Exeter seemed startled. “Find it? I don’t really know. It just sort of came to me one day when I was preaching. Felt like something they’d like to know…” Then his eyes focused on Julian again and suddenly flickered amusement, as if he had a very shrewd idea of what his old chum was thinking. “It’s all this mana, you know. I take dictation directly from God now.”

He didn’t
seem
to be serious.

When the brief audience was over, the prophet returned to the reception line to greet the next devotee. Julian walked away into the darkness, humming cheerfully. He paused once to look back at a scene made bleary by wood smoke—the Liberator foretold, receiving the adulation of his admirers by night. There were a dozen people grouped in the warm gold glow of the fires against the dark. It could have been a picture from an illustrated Bible, or even a study in chiaroscuro by some would-be Caravaggio, but the light did not shine any more brightly on Exeter than on the rest. Despite Alice’s misgivings, he had not really changed. Exeter was playing a role and playing it magnificently, but he was still the same old Exeter underneath.

A little later, when he had found a cramped corner of a crowded tent in which to curl up, Julian Smedley discovered that he now had two normal hands.

Give Pinky his due—if it was his due—the organization was impressive. Pilgrims were already starting to move out when Julian awakened at first light. He had promised to wait for Alice, and by the time she and the other commissariat staff had struck camp and loaded up their wagons, Onkenvier’s clearing was almost deserted again, a wasteland of gray mud dotted with smoking ash piles and abandoned latrine fences. Snow was falling gently but with persistence, as if determined to hide the mess the Free had left behind them. The Liberator himself was still there, healing some last patients straggling in, while a fleet of moa taxi chariots was being assembled to carry him and his handlers to the first staging point.

Alice explained that she normally walked with the pilgrims, helping the old or the very young, but that morning she was scheduled to ride with other kitchen workers in a rabbit cart, and she insisted on Julian’s joining her. He suspected that she was not being completely truthful, but accepted gratefully, feeling very much a scrimshander because there were thousands of other people who had been just as sick as he. He promised himself that he would pull his weight tomorrow.

The express could not travel very fast through the multitude packing the Fainpass trail, but it did arrive at the next campsite soon after the vanguard. When Captain Smedley offered to assist, he was armed with a knife and aimed at a mountain of several tons of a tuber much like a potato. It was one of the most joyful moments of his life: He had been assigned a job that needed two hands and he could do it.

The node Exeter had specified was marked by a single standing stone in the center of bleak winter pasture a couple of miles from a small village. Soon the Free were settling on it like flies on a cow pat. There was no snow in Lappinvale; the sun shone at times. Seated on an upturned bucket with his back to the wind, Julian peeled spuds into another bucket to his heart’s content. He had companions—two women jabbering away in Lappinian, a very deaf old man, and three disgruntled girls who thought they deserved much better. He was quite happy to ignore them and just peel spuds.

Then a shadow fell across his bucket and a voice spoke his name. He looked up in fury. She was swaddled in moth-eaten furs like a shapeless teddy bear, her hair blowing untidily across her face. She wouldn’t care how she looked, though; she never had. And she was actually smiling at him as if he should be pleased to see her!

Never in his life before had he wanted to hit a woman, but he did now—very much. “Go away!” he shouted. “Get out of my sight!”

She backed a step. “What’s wrong?”

He rose to his feet, trembling with fury. “The word is rape, Mrs. Newton. You raped me!” None of the onlookers would understand English, but he would not have cared if they did.

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that!”

She looked at him uncertainly. “That’s a rather extreme way of describing what happened. I suppose I used mana on you. I didn’t mean to, Julian.”

“Didn’t
mean
to?” He took a step forward, and she retreated again. He was glad to see that she was starting to look alarmed. His anger had surprised her.

“No,” she said. “You know how Perhaps you don’t. You never had much mana, did you? When you have mana and you want something, it’s very difficult not to cause it to happen. The power leaks out. You couldn’t stop your hand healing, could you? I wanted you to come to my tent. You did. I wanted you to—”

“I did not want you!”

She frowned as if he had said something a gentleman should not. “I suppose I should have been more careful. I’m sorry, Captain Smedley, truly I am.”

But she didn’t care. She would have been much more sorry if she had knocked over his teacup. Now he was waving his knife at her, and the onlookers were becoming alarmed. The deaf old codger had struggled to his feet. Julian was so furious he could not find words.

“When I saw what was happening,” she said patiently, “I should have stopped, I suppose. Or asked you, perhaps. I didn’t think you’d mind. Men usually don’t.” She smiled knowingly.

“You make a habit of it? Is that the only way you can get a man?”

“Oh, your hand!” Ursula cried, changing the subject. “It’s better!”

Julian threw down the knife and made a fist. “A present from an old friend. I should hate to put it to work by knocking your teeth down your throat, Mrs. Newton, but if you don’t get away from me now and stay away from me in future, then the Liberator is going to have more healing to do. Now go to hell and stay there!” He was bluffing, of course. She could bring him weeping to his knees with a whiff of mana.

She didn’t, but she obviously thought he was making an awful fuss. “I am sorry, truly I am. I just didn’t think you’d mind.” With a shrug, she turned and walked away.

Shivering with frustrated rage, Julian resumed his seat and began hacking madly at the tubers.