“I told you, I don’t feel guilt over the reinstatement of the bloodpriests.”
“Don’t you? Do you remember when your bad dreams began?”
“You’ve asked me that before, and I’ve told you.”
“Yes. Two kilodays before we began our therapy. During the time when the bloodpriests were in disrepute. During the time of mass
dagamant
. During the time when Dybo was being challenged by his brother.”
“Yes.”
“And what was your role in all that?”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at…”
“Yes, you do.
You
came up with the solution to the challenge against Dybo. And what was that solution?”
“That he and his siblings … oh, my God — that he and his siblings undergo a culling, that they be chased around a stadium by a giant blackdeath, just as the hatchlings in a normal clutch are chased and devoured by a bloodpriest.”
“And what was the result?”
“Six of Dybo’s siblings were devoured.”
“Devoured because of
your
suggestion.”
“No … no, it was just…” Afsan was shaking, his whole body convulsing. “No, it was the only way. Don’t you see? The only way…”
“
You
engineered a culling.
You
, in essence, became a blood-priest. You, whose low mind
remembered
the culling your own clutch had gone through, who later had stumbled onto another culling in progress, children swallowed whole in front of your eyes, you
became
a bloodpriest…”
“No…”
“And six died, on top of the seven siblings of yours who had already died so you could live.”
“There was no other answer…”
“Exactly! You lamented that yourself when we discussed your
dagamant
aboard the
Dasheter
. Living our lives should not require killing others of our own kind. ’By the very Egg of God,’ you said, ’it shouldn’t!’”
“That’s right! It shouldn’t.”
“But it
does
! Starting right in the creche: those of us who are alive today live because seven of our siblings died. And to solve the challenge to Dybo, you yourself, who hated the necessity of death so that others could live, you
became
a bloodpriest.”
“No. We used a blackdeath…”
“A blackdeath is a dumb brute.
You
engineered the replay of the culling.
You
were responsible.
You
were the bloodpriest.”
“No.”
“And now you must face that truth. Do you see it, Afsan?
Do you see it?”
“I can’t see
anything
, Mokleb.”
“Because your mind
refuses
to see. Even with working eyes, your mind refuses to look upon what you have done, what you have become.”
Afsan’s voice was growing shrill. “I don’t believe you.”
“Think! Most people are traumatized once by a bloodpriest, when their own clutch is culled. You’ve been traumatized
three
times: first at your own culling, then when you stumbled into Carno’s creche as an adult, and finally again when you engineered the battle with the blackdeath — when you became that which you feared most. When you became a bloodpriest!”
“Shut up!” screamed Afsan.
“You became a bloodpriest, Afsan. In your own mind, that’s what you are.”
“Back off!” shouted Afsan, his claws coming out into the light. “Give me room!”
“A
bloodpriest!”
“You’re invading my territory!”
“That’s the real trauma, Afsan — that’s what’s preventing you from seeing! The
shame
of what you became. In your own eyes you’d become evil, and now those eyes refuse to see.”
Afsan was bobbing from the waist. “Back off! Back off now!”
“You refuse to see!”
“Back off before I
kill
you.”
“The trauma!” shouted Mokleb.
“No!”
“Face the trauma!”
“I’ll kill you!” Afsan’s voice had changed to a low, guttural tone, an animal’s tone. “I’ll kill you!” he shouted again. And then, low. slurred, a voice from deep within his chest:
“I’ll swallow you whole!”
He bobbed up and down in full
dagamant
, enraged, wild, a killing machine.
Mokleb turned from Afsan, hiding her eyes so that she would not be drawn into the madness. She ran as fast as she could from Rockscape. Behind her, Afsan continued to bob up and down, up and down, unable to sight anything to kill.
*25*
Garios had been counting the days until Novato would return. He did not know what to expect. He’d watched, amazed, as the long waves of the landquake had worked their way up the tower. Had Novato survived that? Even if she had, had some other tragedy befallen her in the twenty days she’d been gone? If nothing else, would having been cooped up in such a small space for that long have driven her mad?
Garios had brought to the base of the tower everything Novato might possibly need: water in case her supply had been exhausted; freshly killed meat in case she was hungry; leather blankets in case she was cold; wooden splints in case she had broken a limb. He’d also tethered a runningbeast outside the entrance so that he could make his escape if Novato had been driven to
dagamant
by her own pheromones and the tight confines of the lifeboat.
There was no way to know how long Novato had spent outside the lifeboat at the top, so Garios couldn’t be sure when she’d return. The only warning of her impending arrival would be actually sighting the lifeboat coming down. Garios sat on the beach, looking up, and waited.
Garios saw many wingfingers, as well as pale spots behind the clouds that must have been moons, but, as the old saying went, a watched carcass never finishes draining. The sun was setting when at last he saw the lifeboat emerge from the bottom of the cloud layer. Garios was surprised to find his claws sneaking out; he was more apprehensive about Novato’s return than he’d thought.
He hurried down the long blue corridor and arrived at the end of its 140-pace length just in time to see the lifeboat complete its journey, a faint whistle accompanying its reduction in velocity. It came to rest at the bottom of the shaft.
Nothing happened for an interminable time. Garios watched his own worried face being reflected back from the curving metal of the lifeboat. And then, at last, the hull appeared to liquefy and when it regained a solid appearance, a large doorway had appeared in its side.
Novato staggered out, apparently having some difficulty walking. She leaned back on her tail after each step. Almost from head to toe, her skin was the purple-blue of bruises, as if somehow her entire surface area had been subjected to an assault.
“My God!” declared Garios. “What happened to you?”
Novato’s expression was totally serene. “Something wonderful,” she said.
“I’ll summon a healer. We’ll get you fixed up.”
“I’m fine,” said Novato. “Really, I am.” She beamed at Garios. “It’s so good to see you again, my friend.”
“You’re sure you are all right?”
“I’m better than I’ve ever been before, Garios. How is everyone down here?”
“Most of us are fine,” said Garios, “but there is some bad news, I’m afraid. It happened while you were away, during the landquake.”
“I know,” said Novato, an absolutely calm, peaceful look on her face. “Karshirl is dead, isn’t she?”
An even-day passed, and then it was odd-day again. As the time for their appointment approached, Mokleb walked the path to Rockscape with trepidation. Had she gone too far in her last session with Afsan? She was normally not so brutal with her patients, but, by the Eggs of Creation, she’d had to make Afsan see her point.
It was a lackluster day. The gibbous Big One made a dull smudge behind a stack of clouds on the eastern horizon. The sun was a point drilling through other clouds as it slid down the western sky. Wingfingers of every color — every color except purple, that is — flitted across the gray firmament.
The path to Rockscape took a sharp bend to avoid a thick copse of trees just before it rounded out onto the field of carefully arrayed boulders. Mokleb was too far from Capital City to hear the drums from the Hall of Worship, but was sure that she was on time. She rounded the grouping of trees, and Rockscape was visible before her.
It was deserted.
Afsan wasn’t there.
Mokleb felt her heart sink.
She had been too hard on him. He’d curtailed their sessions. The penalty of wasting part of a volume of Saleed’s treatise was hardly enough in the face of what she’d made him go through last time.
She was about to leave when a thought struck her. She’d sat on a couple of the Rockscape boulders over the course of her long association with Afsan, but had never actually touched the one called Afsan’s rock. She made her way across the field, through the ancient geometric patterns, and came to the large, proud boulder. Mokleb reached out with her left hand and lightly patted the stone. It was worthy of Afsan: strong, hard, weather-beaten, but, despite all it had been through, placidly surviving.
Surviving.
She wondered if she’d ever see Afsan again, if he’d ever forgive her for their last session. She had no desire to be near anyone else today. She began to amble on in the same direction, heading through Rockscape toward the lands beyond.
“Wait!”
Mokleb turned. Emerging from the mouth of the path, beside the dense copse of trees, was Pal-Cadool. “Wait!” he shouted again, and ran toward her, his long legs covering the distance quickly. Mokleb stood dumbfounded as Cadool came within eight paces of her. “Don’t go,” said Cadool. “Afsan is coming.”
She looked back toward the mouth of the path. Soon Afsan did indeed appear. He held his walking stick in his left hand, and his right was on Cork’s harness. Mokleb hurried over to Afsan as fast as she could with her bad knee, Cadool loping alongside. Once the distance between them had closed as much as it reasonably could, Mokleb blurted out, “I thought you weren’t coming.”
Afsan’s face was a portrait in joy. “I’m sorry, Mokleb,” he said. And then, with a deep bow,
“I overslept.”
*26*
Mokleb and Afsan headed back to their usual rocks. Afsan was eager to understand all the implications of what Mokleb had revealed in their last session.
“If your low mind remembers your culling by the bloodpriests,” said Mokleb, “then the same is probably true for all Quintaglios. I suspect our suppressed memories of the culling manifest themselves most in the territorial challenge. When we end up in a fight with another, we
don’t
behave sensibly or logically or instinctively. Instead, our minds, our traumatized minds, cause us to fight uncontrollably until we or our opponent is dead.”
“You sound like Emperor Dybo. He thinks that trait in us will allow us to defeat the Others.”
Mokleb nodded. “He’s probably right.”
“But it sounds like you’re saying we’re insane.”
“That’s a strong word. I might say ’irrational’ instead. But yes, as a race, we’re deranged.”
“But by definition the majority is always sane. Insanity or irrationality is an aberration from the norm.”
“That’s a semantic game, Afsan, and a dangerous one to play. There was a time when many of our ancestors practiced cannibalism. Today, we find that concept abhorrent. There is a higher arbiter of conduct than simple mob majority.”
“Perhaps,” said Afsan. “But what does the culling of the bloodpriest have to do with the territorial frenzy of
dagamant
? It sounds as though you’re trying to link the two.”
“I am indeed. It’s the traumatizing effect of the culling that causes us to have such a wild reaction to territorial invasions. Think about it! The very first time we see someone invade our territory — that someone being the bloodpriest — it results in death and destruction and unspeakable horror right in front of our eyes! No wonder our reaction to future invasions is so strong — far stronger than any animal instinct would require.”
Afsan’s tail shifted as he considered this. “It’s a neat theory, Mokleb, I’ll give you that. But you know what you suggest is only a pre-fact, only a proposition. You can’t test it.”
“Ah, good Afsan, that’s where you are wrong.
It already has been tested
.”
“What do you mean?”
“Consider your son Toroca.”
“Yes?”
“We’ve discussed him before. He has no sense of territoriality.”
“He doesn’t like people talking about that.”
“Well, doubtless it causes him some embarrassment. But it’s true, isn’t it? He feels no need to issue a challenge when another encroaches on his physical space.”
“That is correct.”
“And when he sees the Others, he, alone amongst those who have encountered them, has no adverse reaction. What was it his missive said? ’Mere sight of them triggers
dagamant
in all of us except me.’”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t you see? Don’t you see why that is? What’s different about Toroca?”
“He’s — ah! No, Mokleb, it can’t be that simple…”
“But it is! I’m sure of it. What’s different about Toroca is that he did
not
undergo the culling of the bloodpriest. None of the offspring of yourself and Wab-Novato did.”
“But not all of them are without territoriality,” said Afsan.
“No, that’s true, although as near as I’ve been able to determine, none of them has ever been involved in a territorial challenge.”
“It pains me to bring up this subject, Mokleb, but what about my son Drawtood…”
“Ah, yes. The murderer.” Mokleb raised a hand. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have said that. But, yes, Drawtood poses a problem. He killed two of your other children.”
Afsan’s voice was small. “Yes.”
“But consider, good Afsan, exactly how he committed the, ah, the crimes.”
“He approached his siblings,” said Afsan, “presumably with stealth, and slit their throats with a jagged mirror.”