Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 (44 page)

Vru led it to the master. It was docile; he only had to touch it lightly with his claws, on its strange, bare flesh. The Bereft panted softly as it walked. Its claws were torn, and it looked hungry. Vru wanted to embrace its mighty body in his holding-hands, murmur words of comfort in its ear—insane, stupid thoughts, which he tried to ignore.

“Bend its head over to me,” Khancriterquee croaked.

Vru pushed it down to kneel by his master. Was the master going to whisper something to it? How could that help?

As the foreman stood nearby, dancing angrily from one foot to another, Khancriterquee slid his ancient claws against the soft fur of the Bereft’s neck. The Bereft stared solemnly, fearfully, back. Straining and grunting, Khancriterquee closed his claws, tearing through the skin. The Bereft jerked, shuddered, and let out a piercing scream; the foreman, cursing, rushed forward; and then there was a snap and the head of the Bereft rolled from its body, which collapsed onto the ground. Blood poured onto Khancriterquee.

“Are you mad?” yelled the foreman, forgetting himself. Then terror came over his face and he dropped to the ground, burying his face in the dust. “Holiness, please . . .” he moaned.

The master chuckled, pleased perhaps that his body’s old claws were still capable of killing. He clacked them together. The blood was black. Then he scowled. “Bring me some real people to work this mine.” he said. “These abominations are worse than useless.”

Vru vomited onto the dust.

“You need whole stone for your monument!” the master said. “Stupid boy. Now clean me.”

The green stone was a miracle. On a calm blue day a month later, with whorls of fog skating across the ground and drifting into the sky, Vru stood in the sculpting pit of Khancriterquee’s compound, before the monolith brought from the mines. Carving it was like a dream of power; it sang under his claws and under the hammer and file in his holding-hands.

For the last weeks he had returned to the dormitory only for the evening meal and to sleep. This work was altogether different from the work of making copies of the gods. Khancriterquee had been right; until now, Vru had never been a godcarver, only a copyist. Now, a new god was taking shape beneath his claws.

When Vru looked at the new god, he felt as if he had a thousand Ghennungs, with memories as old as the Ghennungs of the Oracle. He would never, himself, poor castle-builder’s ninth son, dare to sculpt anything so shocking and so true. It was a god working through him, he knew, but not Delighting-in-Beauty; a new god, a god only he knew, was using his claws to birth itself into the green stone.

The god, he had decided, was called Embracing-the-New. It was a terrible and wonderful statue. In it, a person naked of Ghennungs, like one of the Bereft or a banished criminal, stooped to touch a Ghennung upon the ground with his claw; gently, a caress. Vru knew that in the next moment, the person would take up the Ghennung in his holding-hands and bring it to his chest: the Ghennung would sink its fangs into him, finding blood and nerves; and the sweet rush of memories would burn into the person’s consciousness: the first thoughts, the new identity.

Vru looked down at his holding-hands; they were shaking. He did not feel tired; he felt like singing. But it had been twenty-nine hours since he had rested. He could not risk a mistake.

He pulled a cloth over the god, and walked up the trail toward the dormitory. As he left the sculpting pit, the embrace of the god faded, and weariness crept through his limbs. He could barely keep his claws up.

As he passed through the empty spring pavilion, a shadow moved ahead of him. He stopped. From the darkness, he heard ragged breathing.

“Who’s there?” he said.

Turmca the journeyman stepped out into the daylight.

Vru relaxed. “You frightened me, Turmca!” he said. Even as he spoke, he noticed that Turmca was not wearing Delighting-in-Beauty around his neck, but Fearless-in-Justice, the soldier god. “Why are you—?”

The journeyman took a shuddering step toward him. His eyes were strange, vacant. Was he drunk? “How are you, Vru?” he asked. “How is your
work?
” Turmca’s claws snapped together, and he jerked as if surprised at his own movement.

“Are you well, Turmca?” Vru asked, taking a step backward.

“How kind of you to ask,” said Turmca, taking uneven steps forward. Vru moved backward into the pavilion’s yard. Turmca was smaller than Vru, but well fed, with muscles from years of godcarving.

“I wanted to ask you,” Vru said, “Turmca, when the master, ah, passes away, would you, have you considered taking me on? I would be grateful if—”

Turmca barked out loud, shuddering laughter. He bent over, put his claws against his eyes, and his body shook. Then he looked up at Vru.

“They all go to you,” Turmca said.

Vru blinked.

“Khancriterquee said so to the Master Singer. I overheard. You will bear all his Ghennungs. He does not want his memories weakened and dispersed among the journeymen, or rather, he says, that is not what Delighting-in-Beauty wants.”

“Turmca, that’s insane. I don’t have the talent. . . .”

Turmca’s claws snapped open. They gleamed, newly cleaned and sharpened. “Talent! You fool! He doesn’t choose you for your talent! He chooses you because of your five feeble Ghennungs and your weak, malleable nature. He wants to live on as himself, that’s all! Your memories will be no trouble to him!”

Turmca’s right foot slid back, and his holding-hands came in to cover the Ghennungs on his chest. Vru had seen that stance before, when his brother Viruarg was drilling. It was a soldier’s stance.

“Turmca—”

Vru leapt backward as Turmca struck, but too slow—the points of a claw opened gashes in his side. Vru had not fought since he was a child playing thakka in a dirt field. He bent low and then lunged forward, checking Turmca’s claws and trying to slam his body into him. But Turmca spun away, and his holding-hands darted out to smack against Vru’s ear fronds. Vru’s legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground, pain washing through him.

Turmca wasn’t fighting like an amateur: he must have borrowed or rented Ghennungs from a solider. He wasn’t drunk. His glazed look was that of one who has not integrated his Ghennungs, who has a battle in his soul. But he was united enough in his desire to kill Vru.

“Get up, Vru,” barked Turmca, and it was a soldier’s voice, the voice of a follower of Fearless-in-Justice, who wanted a kill with honor. And then in a gentler voice, the voice of the journeyman instructing a young apprentice: “I’ll make this quick.”

Vru felt exhaustion flooding through him, singing in his muscles. If he cried out for help, he knew Turmca would kill him and be gone before help came. He heard Turmca’s feet scuffing cautiously toward where he lay on the sand. Goddess, help me, he prayed.

But it was not Delighting-in-Beauty who helped him—it must have been the new god, Embracing-the-New, who wanted to be carved, for he did something that Vru could not, would never do. Embracing-the-New picked Vru’s body up and flung it at Turmca, and Vru’s claw lashed out and severed the cord that held Fearless-in-Justice around Turmca’s neck. Turmca, godless, screamed. Vru grabbed the god as it fell and threw it into the darkness of the pavilion. Turmca’s claws reached for Vru, but his body turned and lurched after his god. Vru ran to the master’s compound.

Vru returned from a week of fasting on the day of the Festival of Hrsh. He was weak, but he felt purified, ready for his task. When Embracing-the-New was unveiled, he would finally win honor for his family.

He sat on the stage, next to Khancriterquee. In front of them stood the monument, hidden by a cloth. Vru longed to see Embracing-the-New, but he could not, until the god was revealed. Suddenly he wondered what the people would see. A Bereft or a criminal as a god, reaching for a forbidden Ghennung! If the god had not carved it through his hands, he would be appalled himself. He trembled—what if they did not see the hand of the god? What if he had carved heresy? He tried to focus on Delighting-in-Beauty, to let her center him as a potter centers clay upon the wheel. But his head swam with images. The strong and lovely Bereft who had worked the green stone; the bloody head, rolling in the dust of the mine pit. The Godless and their strange, evil customs. He imagined the Bereft of his statue, reaching out to greet them. He sat stiffly, his head full of strange thoughts, until it was time.

The priest was calling him. He jerked out of his seat, stumbled across the stage. All around, the audience strained forward. A few people hushed children, then all was still. He reached up and pulled the cloth from Embracing-the-New, and a cry went up from the crowd.

But it was not Embracing-the-New.

The form was the same; it was his own block of green stone that he had lovingly carved. But into the figure’s flesh were carved the distinct bulges of Ghennungs: seventeen Ghennungs, a new number for a new god. And the reaching claw was not caressing a fallen Ghennung; it was crushing a tiny Godless soldier with his claws aflame.

In the stone were the bold, smooth strokes of the master’s hand.

The people applauded. Vru turned to look at Khancriterquee.

The master’s jaws were drawn up into a satisfied, indulgent smirk. I added that which you forgot, his eyes said. It was not bad work, but the message was not correct. I corrected it.

What does it matter, Vru imagined Khancriterquee saying. What does it matter? He gazed at Vru smugly. You have proved yourself worthy of me. Soon this body will collapse, and you will carry my Ghennungs. All my memories, all my power. We will be one person. And then we will carve as Delighting-in-Beauty guides our hand.

Vru could smell, faintly, the decaying odor of Khancriterquee’s skin from where he stood. The master was dying, but the master would not die. He would not even change much. Vru knew his five weak Ghennungs would be no match for Khancriterquee’s sixteen, his own memories dim whispers in a roaring. Some would perhaps be weeded out, for twenty-one is too many for even a young body to carry. Something might remain: Vru’s industriousness, perhaps, his love of textures in the stone. But when he thought of Khancriterquee cutting off the head of the Bereft in the mines, it would be sixteen loud voices of satisfaction, perhaps three of weak dismay.

He should be happy. His god was Delighting-in-Beauty. Why should he not rejoice that the greatest godcarver of the Godly would work with his muscles, his claws, creating grandeur? What did it matter if his memories were dissipated? He remembered seeing himself as a mewling baby in his mother’s holding-hands: a ninth, unwanted son. He remembered stroking his mother’s brow as she held the infant. “There will be no inheritance for him,” she had said. “We will find something,” he had said. “Perhaps the priesthood. He will have one of my Ghennungs.” “Two,” Mother had said. He had scowled down at the crying, wan baby and thought, two? For this scrawny fish?

Vru endured the applause and shuffled back to sit beside Khancriterquee. The stench was overpowering.

This scrawny fish will never make a soldier, his father had thought.

I would rather be Godless, Vru realized. I would rather die once, and then fully, than become Khancriterquee.