The Broken God Machine (28 page)

The hunter gave him no further time to consider such things, feinting first
to his left and then charging Pehr from the right. Pehr could hear Nani
shrieking something, but he forced her from his thoughts. He turned to face
Josep and then, still moving with slow, calm deliberation, he knelt. He held
the sword out before him, blade down, its tip pressed into the sand, both hands
wrapped around its hilt, and he lowered his head. He waited there like that,
hearing the hunter’s approaching footsteps, wondering if the blow would come
that would cleave his head from his shoulders.

It did not. Josep slowed and then came to a halt, growling, “What is this?
Do you yield already?”

“I will not yield to you, Josep,” Pehr said, still making sure his words
could be heard by those gathered around the circle.

“Then get up and fight.”

“Neither will I do that.”

“Then I will kill you right here!” Josep roared, and Pehr looked up at him,
eyes blazing.

“Cut my head from my shoulders if you must!” he cried. “Do it, Khada’Josep,
head of hunters, and be swift about it. Murder an innocent man who would do
everything in his power to save you, but know that when you do it, so will you
murder every man, woman, and child in this village, and in every village from
here to the ends of Uru. You will murder your friends. Your family. Your son.
Your wife and the unborn child in her belly … every last one of them will die,
as surely as if you had taken their heads along with mine.”

Josep glared down at him, nostrils flaring, eyes wide, jaw clenched. Pehr
stared back, and after a moment the hunter lowered his axe and spoke through
his teeth.

“You make a mockery of our traditions with this filthy, foreign tool,” Josep
hissed. “You have insulted and betrayed the Gods and our ancestors.”

Pehr felt his body tighten, and in that moment he came very close to driving
the blade upward through Josep’s torso. Instead, he surged forward, throwing
himself at the hunter. Josep was quick and strong, but he had no training
against the weapon of the plainsmen and the speed with which it could be
deployed. Pehr ran the blade down the haft of Josep’s axe, a trick that Samhad
had taught him, and slapped its flat side against the hunter’s fingers. Josep
grunted in surprise and dropped the axe to the ground, even as Pehr finished
coming to his feet and brought the blade to the man’s neck.

“I could kill you right here with this filthy tool,” Pehr said through
clenched teeth. “I could let your blood out on this sand, and could have done
so from the moment we began this farce, but it would do nothing for us.
Nothing. And so I will not.”

The crowd, which had gone deathly silent, waited with an anticipation so
palpable it was like electricity in the air. Pehr waited a moment more, and
then he moved the blade away from Josep’s throat and tossed it aside. Slowly,
deliberately, he lowered himself again to his knees.

“The blood of Nesagana Mombutabwe runs in my veins,” he said, his voice
steady. “I know my ancestors. I know them very well. You wish to talk of our
people? Tell me of them, then. Where did we come from? Why did we end up
trapped here on this tiny strip of land between the ocean and the jungle? What
does the future hold for your children, and your children’s children? Can you
answer those questions, Khada’Josep?”

Pehr looked out at the crowd now, meeting the gaze of person after
person.

“Can
any
of you answer those questions?!” he shouted.

They could not, and there was silence. Even Nani had stopped making noise,
stopped struggling, and was watching him with a strange combination of terror
and hope. Pehr looked back at the hunter.

“The words carved into Nethalanhal, Josep? The symbols of the Gods, do you
know what they say? They say ‘
Vega Caliza
.’ In the language of those
who once dwelt here, that means ‘Vega limestone.’ We live at the edge of a
quarry, a place where stone was once cut from the face of the rock by men.
Those symbols are not of the gods – they are but the name of a place built by
man, long ago, before the breaking of our world.”

Pehr glanced around again at the crowd before settling his gaze back on
Josep.

“I know my ancestors,” he said again. “It is you, and all those around us,
who have forgotten them. I know how they would view this foolish, barbaric
ritual. They would recoil in horror and disgust, and they would be right to do
so. I will
not
fight you, Josep, but neither will I yield. You will
have to murder me. You will have to damn our whole world yourself.”

“If you would command us, then best me!” Josep said. “Leave me dead here in
the dust and take your place at the hunter’s table. That is our way!”

“I will not begin the salvation of our people by murdering a man who should
be my friend,” Pehr said. “I will not leave my cousin without a husband or her
children without a father, either by death or exile. I will not. Do you hear
me? This is not right!”

“This is how it has always been!” Josep exclaimed, his voice almost
plaintive.

“No, it is not!” Pehr shouted back. “This is
not
how it has always
been. It was better, once, and it can be better again, but only if you will
listen. I'm not here to take your place. I don't want to be lead hunter. This
is your village, and I would leave it as such.”

“Then why have you come here to battle with me?” Josep asked, tilting his
head.

“To make you understand that I’m not some boy returned from the jungles,
spewing wild stories bred by my imagination. I’m a man, and I deserve of your
respect and your trust. I would not have done this if it wasn’t urgent, but you
must see me as a man. You must listen to me, Josep, or every last one of us
will die. Choose, Josep. Listen and live, or kill me and damn us all.
Choose!”

Josep looked at him for what seemed a very long time, eyes slit, as if
trying to stare through Pehr’s skin and into his soul. At last, the hunter
leaned down and picked up his axe. There was a gasp from the crowd, followed by
low muttering, and Pehr felt his heart sink. Here, then, was the end. Perhaps
he should have stabbed the man after all.

Then Josep shouldered the axe, placing it in his harness, and took two slow
steps backward. He met Pehr’s eyes, and he nodded.

“I see you now as a man, Khada’Pehr,” he said. “You are not the boy I once
knew, and I was wrong to dismiss you as such. I would hear your story, all of
it, for as long as that might take. Come with me to the hunters’ hall and tell
me of this Havenmont. Tell me of our ancestors, and of their ways.”

Pehr felt as if an invisible current had been removed from his body. Without
its presence, his muscles felt weak and his head throbbed painfully. Still, it
was a great relief to have that galvanizing sense of urgency taken away. Behind
him, he could hear Nani making choked sounds that sounded like a combination of
sobs and laughter, and he thought he understood very well how she felt. He
closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, there was a slight
smile on Josep’s face.

“But your story had best be good, Khada’Pehr,” the hunter told him. “Or your
head may yet find its way to the sand.”

“This map is rough, but I believe it’s close,” Pehr said, and he slid the
piece of dried kampri skin across the table to Josep.

He had sketched out with a piece of charcoal the rough boundaries of the
lowlands, the jungle, the mountains, and the plains. He had also noted
significant landmarks such as their village, the circle of bones, and
Havenmont. Josep reached and took the map, spinning it as he brought it to
himself.

More than five hours had passed since the two hunters had left the circle,
and Pehr had spent most of it recounting the past two years for Josep. He was
exhausted, but glad to be alive and pleased with this chance to convince the
hunter to join with him.

“Havenmont is ten or twelve days’ journey by foot, at hunter speed,” Pehr
said. “It will be slower going with a large group, but it’s not so far that
it’ll be impossible.”

“Can the plains really be this big?” Josep asked, staring at the map in
frank disbelief. The strip of land between the jungle and ocean, where Pehr’s
people lived, seemed tiny by comparison.

Pehr nodded. “Our world has always seemed vast and varied to us, but it’s no
more than a sliver. The journey from here to Havenmont takes twelve days, but
to travel from Havenmont to the southern plains takes many weeks.”

Josep spent some time inspecting the map and then pointed to a patch of
jungle that lay northwest of the entrance to Havenmont. “What Lagos remain will
be here.”

Pehr nodded. “That is the most likely place. There may be pockets of them
elsewhere, but if they remain in any significant numbers, it must be there.
Otherwise the hunters in the northern villages would have stumbled upon them by
now. Everywhere else is too close to the jungle’s edge.”

“Should we finish the job that these beasts – these tral that you speak of –
began?”

“It could be done,” Pehr said. “Not with the hunters we have here, but
there’s time to gather numbers. They will not expect an attack. For ten
thousand years they have been the aggressors. I don’t think they’ve spent much
time considering defense.”

“I did not ask if we
could
wipe them out, Khada’Pehr. I asked if we
should. For my part, I would see them eradicated, destroyed so completely that
they are erased even from the stories of old.”

Pehr considered his next words carefully. He was ambivalent; a part of him
hated the Lagos, despised them like no other thing in the world – but another
part understood that they were living creatures, fully sentient and possessed
of a society, however brutal and repugnant it might be. The idea of enacting
genocide upon them would never have bothered him before his augmentation, but
now … ?

“It will be many years before they could come against us again in force,” he
said. “By that time, we will be safe in Havenmont, protected by devices and
weapons against which they have been unable to stand for ten thousand years or
more. I no longer fear the Lagos, Josep. I pity them, in a strange way. They
are cracked and twisted, forsaken by the Gods. They know only hate and rage.
They will never trouble us again. It is … not worth our time. Not worth the
lives of our men.”

Josep considered this, thinking long and hard, fingers tented and held just
before his face, eyes far away. He frowned, opened his mouth, reconsidered,
closed it. Continued his contemplation.

Finally he nodded, and the faraway look in his eyes changed to one of
clarity. A decision had been made, and being a hunter, Josep needed say no more
about it. He reached forward and pointed at a spot Pehr had marked within the
Plains of Tassanna. “This is where we will meet the plainsman, Samhad?”

“Yes, or in that area – it will depend on the movement of the tral. He will
be watching for us.”

“Why take all of us there? Could you not leave us at the edge of Havenmont,
outside the reach of the gardeners?”

“The city is dead, and the circle of bone is poisoned. I don't know how far
that poison extends into the surroundings, whether it would be safe to eat the
plants or drink the water. I cannot leave you on the other side … the villagers
know nothing of surviving on the plains. Even the hunters would have a hard
time of it. The small forest at the foot of the mountain won’t support them
all. The plainsmen will have tral and other food, and they can find water with
ease. It will be better to meet them.”

Josep nodded, seeming satisfied with this answer. The hunter leaned back in
his seat and looked at Pehr, appraising him for a lengthy period. Pehr looked
back, feeling mildly uncomfortable under this scrutiny but refusing to turn
away.

“In all of the years since this catastrophe that you claim drove our people
away from the city in the mountains, no man has ever been able to unite our
many tribes. You know this, and yet you would try it yourself. Do you wish so
much to be King, Pehr?”

“No,” Pehr replied. “Josep, had you asked me not two months ago what I
wanted of my life, I would have told you that I wished to return to this
village, become a hunter, marry a good woman, and raise a family. There’s a
part of me still that craves that life and always will. I’m only following this
other path because there’s no choice.”

“Yet you must know that if you succeed in this thing, you will be looked
upon to rule. It may be true that you have no desire for this, but it will
happen nonetheless. This is where others have stumbled; they sought the power
but couldn't wield it once obtained.”

“Those others did what they did for personal gain,” Pehr replied. “I seek
the salvation of all Uru. If a time comes when I can relinquish such power …
cede it to others … I will do so.”

The hunter gave him a dark grin. “Be careful what you promise. Once you have
been tasked with leading men, it’s a hard thing to give up. I speak from
experience.”

“I’m not asking you to cede your control,” Pehr told him, and Josep gave him
an unimpressed look.

“You are, and we are sitting here talking now so that I may choose whether
to let you or not. You are forcing me to choose, and you said it yourself. Kill
you and damn us all, or let you take control and attempt to unite our people.
If that happens, you will be King. Call me lead hunter of this tribe if you
like … it’s but a name. The fate of this ground and those who dwell upon it
will be in your hands.”

Pehr had no reply to this. He knew that Josep spoke the truth, but he hadn't
expected to hear it laid out before him in so blunt a manner. Josep smiled at
him again, and this time there was more good humor in the expression.

“My wife came to me this morning and begged me not to fight you. You are her
cousin, and she feared for your life and for mine, but that is not why she did
so. She did it because she believes you. She believes that the danger you have
spoken of is real, and that we must listen or perish, and she believes it with
all of her heart.”

“Nani and I have always been close,” Pehr said, his voice ambivalent. Josep
gave a short, bitter-sounding laugh, but he chose not to comment on this
statement.

“I could not reconcile her faith with my desire to meet your challenge,” he
continued. “It will be difficult to stand behind someone after two years at the
front.”

“Then stand at my
side
, Josep!” Pehr said. “Give me your council,
your strength, and your skill with the club. Help me to convince our people and
to unite the tribes. Help me save us all.”

Josep sighed, closed his eyes, and ran a hand over his face. “How do I
choose? How can I know what is right? You’re asking me to deny traditions that
we’ve held for as far back as our history tells and believe instead in a man
who has returned from the dead with stories of miracles beyond anything I’ve
ever dreamed. Damn it all.”

“You have known me all your life,” Pehr said. “Listen to your heart.”

“My heart belongs to Nani,” Josep said. “I know what her choice would be,
and I … I believe she would be right to make it. So be it, Khada’Pehr. I will
stand not behind you but at your side, first of your council. I will make you
an oath to lend you my aid, but you must swear to me in return that you will
not let power lead you astray. You must seek always what is best for all of Uru
and not only yourself.”

He took his bone knife from its sheath and set it on the table, looking up
at Pehr. “Will you make this oath with me?”

“I will,” Pehr said. “I swear to you and to all of the world that I will try
at every step to do only what is best for them, that I will act always for them
and not for myself.”

Pehr reached out and picked up the knife with his left hand, gripping the
blade with his right and drawing it across his palm. Pain lanced through him
and blood welled, beginning to drip on the table as he handed the knife to
Josep. The hunter did the same, and the two shook hands. To break an oath sworn
in such a way meant immediate death at the hands of the village hunters. The
two men looked at each other for a moment more, and then Josep nodded and
released his grip.

“It is done,” he said, and without further comment he turned and made his
way toward the door at the end of the hall. Pehr took a deep breath, turned,
and followed.

* * *

Pehr lay on a mat of dried, woven reeds, spread out on the sandy ground
beneath him, and stared up at the stars in the dark sky. Josep and Nani had
invited him to stay in their home, but he had thought it better to go his own
way and had settled by an abandoned and partially burnt home on the outskirts
of the village.

Pehr had stored his meager possessions inside the small thatched hut, but
after two years of sleeping in hide tents or under the open sky, he found the
dwelling somewhat oppressive. He chose instead to make his fire and bed
outdoors, at least until the next rain came. The cool sea air was a welcome
comfort after so many months on the plains, and the crackling fire to his side
kept any chill away.

Word of the oath he had made with Josep had spread rapidly around the
village, and Pehr had spent the last several hours fielding questions from a
wide variety of visitors. Not all of them had gone away happy, and Pehr
suspected that there would be many defections in the coming days as merchants
and farmers packed up their families and left for other villages. Not everyone
wished to give up this life to chase what seemed to them a fairy tale. In the
end, he supposed, it didn’t matter. What would happen would happen, and he
would press on regardless. He had promises to keep.

“I am doing my best, Tasha,” he said to the stars. He didn’t know if she
could hear him, and knew that the girl with the purple eyes herself would have
doubted it, but it comforted him to speak to her nonetheless.

The last of his visitors had departed some time ago, around sunset, but he
could hear footsteps now from the east, and when he glanced in that direction
he saw Nani walking toward him. She had brought him a plate of food, and after
handing it to him she sat down next to him on the ground.

“You could have told me,” she said, and Pehr shook his head.

“If you had known, you would have tried to use that knowledge to turn Josep
away from the battle.”

Nani considered this and nodded. She chewed on her lip for a moment and
glanced over at him. “Josep says you will be King, like in the stories of the
Great Old Grandfathers.”

“Our people have never had a King. Perhaps I will be Prime Minister … it’s
in my blood.”

This earned him nothing but a confused look, and Pehr smiled, shaking his
head. “Forget it, Nani. Thank you for the food – it’s a welcome change from
salted tral meat, but do not trouble yourself overmuch. I’m fine here, and I
will see you tomorrow. It will be a few weeks yet before I’m ready to
leave.”

“You could have killed him,” Nani said, and Pehr nodded.

“I could have done that, yes, but we all have seen more than enough
killing.”

“Did you want to?” Nani wouldn’t look at him, and he could see that she was
trembling. “For a moment, I … I …”

Pehr chose his next words carefully. “Two years ago, I told you that I
wanted you to make sure Josep lived, so that you could bear him many strong
sons and daughters. Nani, I meant it.”

Nani turned to look at him now, and for a long time she said nothing,
watching his eyes. Pehr looked back, and at last she gave him a small, sad
smile. “It’s good to see you again … cousin.”

I have missed you every single day that I was away
, Pehr thought,
but out loud he said only, “It is good to see you as well.”

Nani nodded and stood, her heavy belly making the act more difficult than it
would otherwise have been. When at last she reached her feet, she bid him
goodnight and headed for home. Pehr watched her go, poking at the fire with a
stick and eating the last few pieces of bread that she had brought him. Nani
did not look back over her shoulder before disappearing over a hill and out of
sight, and Pehr was glad for it.

Night had fallen, and Pehr lay on his mat, listening to the sound of the
surf in the distance. The sound was familiar and hypnotic, lulling him slowly
toward sleep, and Pehr made no effort to resist. It had been a difficult day –
not the last, he was sure – and he would need both his strength and his wits
for the trials ahead. He looked one last time at the stars, his newly augmented
mind now able to give names to the constellations above, and closed his
eyes.

Pehr dreamed.

“Are you well?” Tasha asked him, sitting before him cross-legged in the inky
blackness through which they floated, and Pehr nodded.

“Well enough. And you? Have you found the answers to all of your
questions?”

“Yes,” Tasha told him, and then the ghost of a smile became a full-fledged
grin. “… and no.”

“I was wondering if you’d visit me again. I’m glad to see you.”

“Are you glad to be home?” Tasha asked, and when Pehr was quiet for a
moment, a small smirk appeared on her lips.