Collected Short Fiction, page 738
When it began to clear again, he found two muman guards dragging his father across the high stage at the other end of that long room. Everything dimmed and blurred again, as he watched them shackle the preman’s wrists to a high metal crate, so that he hung by his stretched arms. Pale with pain, he kept his eyes on Quelf, somehow still detached and defiant.
The gong had sung again, and two more gigantic mumen marched out of the passage below the black throne, herding two more prisoners, thin crippled creatures half-clad in foul rags. San Six and his wife—
Like a rock crashing into a mirror, the shock of that recognition splintered Davey’s vision. When he got it clear again, the new prisoners stood where his father had been, before Quelf’s throne.
“—three truman heretics.” Ironlaw was intoning the Inquisition charges, framed in the archaic accents of Old High Terran. “They are suspected of demonistic sympathies, of idolatrous belief in the blasphemous myth of the Multiman, of treasonous complicity in preman plots against the sacred dominion of our Lord Belthar and against the public peace. Unfortunately, the son did not survive interrogation—”
An overwhelming wave of grief and pain washed out the whole perception. Davey sat up in the stuffy jail cell, sick at heart and shivering. San Seven—dead! Killed by the Inquisition, in a manner he couldn’t bear to imagine.
When at last he had calmed himself enough to recover the perception, the Sans were kneeling side by side below the black throne. The woman was sobbing silently, gray head bent. The battered man stared up at Quelf, fleshless face flaccid and mouth hanging open in his abject terror.
“—investigation not yet complete,” Ironlaw was droning. “I still suspect that other forces are involved, more powerful and dangerous. But these truman sacrilegists have confessed to the Inquisition that they did in fact render aid to premen demonists in flight from the reservation.”
Bowing slightly, the clone stepped back.
“Prisoners,” Quelf rapped, “how do you plead?”
“You—” The hollow voice of San Six quavered and stuck. “Your Benign Semi-Divinity—” He had to gasp again for breath. “We’ve sworn the truth many times. I knew nothing. My wife knew nothing, it was only our poor, impulsive son—”
Glazed eyes still on the black halfgod, he reached blindly to touch the woman.
“A misguided child.” His hoarse voice was suddenly clearer, racing. “If it’s true that he did aid those young premen, he didn’t know that they were demons. It was a goddess, remember, who had placed them in our home. With Your Divinity’s approval. We were sanctioned to befriend them. If our poor son sinned, his sin was friendship—”
“What is your plea?”
San Six gulped and clutched the woman’s hand desperately.
“For myself,” he whispered, “I accept the guilt. I was the Redrock agent. I was responsible. But, Your Divinity—” The whisper faded, and he gasped again for his breath. “For Lera, I beg mercy. She knew nothing. She meant no sin. She shares no blame—”
The woman raised her blighted face.
“Mercy!” A toneless croak. “Belthar’s mercy, for both of us.”
“I grant you my father’s mercy.”
The half-god smiled and turned his tall-crowned head, waiting for the gong. San Six gasped as if in disbelief, and Lera laughed wildly, hysterical with her momentary joy.
“You’ve nothing more to fear,” Quelf told him. “The Holy Inquisition will release you now, for immediate atonement.”
The perception was wavering again from Davey’s own emotion, but he got blurred glimpses of the mumen dragging their two unresisting victims down that long room, to hang them by their wrists beside the pale preman.
In shattered fragments of sensation, he saw a whole side wall of the room rising like a curtain, to show a vast dim space beyond. A vast circular chamber, walled with prison cells five levels high—the dark and secret dungeon of Quelf’s Inquisition.
The judgment room was now itself a stage, the prison cavern a high-domed theater. The great gong was thrumming again, and the pallid inmates began staggering to clutch their bars and peer down at the place of execution.
Buglet—was she here?
The icy shock of fear erased everything. Aware only of his own jail cell, of fetid air and hard concrete and the quivering tension of his own sweaty limbs, he had to calm his emotional storm before he could see anything. But he was learning to relax and reach and see. In a dozen heartbeats, he was able to get the vision back and scan the stricken faces.
None was Buglet’s. Relieved, trying to hope that she had somehow escaped the Inquisition, he turned his mind back toward that high stone stage. Air had begun to roar, a cold wind whipping at the hanging victims and rushing somewhere away. Quelf had risen from the throne, black staff thrust level.
“Witness the infinite mercy of my ever-loving father.” His brassy voice pealed against the arching dome. “Witness the ineffable grace of the Supreme Lord Belthar, granted in holy atonement!” The staff hummed faintly. Its beam was invisible. For an endless instant, however, the hanging victims shone, every limb and feature turned incandescent. His father’s fixed grin burned itself into Davey’s mind, defiantly impudent, unafraid and unforgettable.
In the next instant, before agony had time to change that glowing grin, the rags and hair and then the lean bodies exploded into crimson flame. If there was any outcry, the roaring wind tore the sound away.
Fighting the chill and sickness of his horror, Davey clung to the shreds of that perception until the dying flames had flickered out, until the curtain wall had dropped again and the ventilators had ceased to roar. Quelf had lowered his staff, leaning on it casually, leering with satisfaction at the black sticks, twisted and tiny, that hung from the shackles. The air in the room was suddenly hot, tainted with the bitter stench of burnt flesh.
He had to let the perception fade. Alone in his cell, he felt the old walls closing in, harder and grimier and colder, until his breath was gone. The afterache of godsgrace was throbbing in his brain again, and nausea overwhelmed him.
5.
He endured a dismal day. For a long time, he had no heart for anything. When at last he nerved himself to reach for the castle again, to search for Buglet there, his shock and grief and helpless rage rose in a storm of feeling that prevented any perception.
Now and then he roused himself to look about the cell again for any possible weapon or tool or way of escape, but he found no opening, no hope, no object he could move. The toilet was only a malodorous hollow in the floor. His own clothing had been changed for a frayed and shapeless garment without button or buckle or pocket. He found no comfort anywhere, and the despair of past preman inmates mocked him from the obscene graffiti on the windowless walls.
When the wicket rattled, he took the soft plastic dish from the talons of the unspeaking muman and sucked tepid water to ease his bitter thirst. The odor of the slimy yellow mush made his stomach churn again.
With each new effort to probe for anything outside the jail, the thin needle of pain at the back of his head grew keener, until he decided that it must be a warning that he was exhausting the obscure new energies that he couldn’t yet understand or control. At last he slept.
Hunger woke him, but the yellow mush was still offensive. Spurred by a new unease, he lay back again to test his perceptions and found two more Inquisition battle skimmers on guard above the jail, black and sleek against a blood-colored sunset.
That discovery numbed him with a troubled wonder. If the inquisitors felt that he was worth three battlecraft, what sort of force had they set against Buglet? His disturbed emotions had darkened everything, and he drew back to recover. Able at last to probe again, he turned toward the castle in time to see a small church skimmer leaving the landing tower, sloping toward the shuttleport.
The tall shuttle stood there at the terminal dock, its mirror-bright hull red-splashed with sunset, crates and bales and drums climbing its gangways. Supplies, he supposed, for the preman exiles on Andoranda Five, where no food grew.
The skimmer came down to the dock and mumen emerged to guard the path of a smaller, brighter figure moving swiftly past them into the shuttle. His breath caught. It was the goddess, Zhondra Zhey.
Once their friend, would she aid them again? That brief hope glowed and faded. She was already aboard, leaving Earth. The cargo booms and gangways had begun to swing away. The hatches closed. The dockhands took shelter. Roaring steam gushing from the jets, the shuttle lifted.
Yet he followed that dying spark of hope. Reaching inside the rising craft, he found her sitting beside the muman pilot, and the grotesque strangeness of that being caught him for a moment. The huge head, dark and bald and leather-skinned. The immense black telescopic eyes. The wide, wingshaped lobes of the radar ears. The long, pliant sensapods spread like clinging vines across the controls.
Though the staring muman seemed unaware, Zhondra Zhey turned at once to face Davey with a look of cool inquiry. Hardly larger than the gnomelike pilot, she still seemed a child, no older than when she had made Quelf find a home for them, so long ago.
“Goddess—” He faltered. “Goddess—” Very fair in her aura’s pale glow, she looked as lovely as Buglet, so tenderly defenseless that he saw no hope of aid from her. “Do you remember me?”
“Davey Dunahoo.” Surprise had widened her eyes. “Your ancestral gifts must be greater than anybody thought, if you can make an image here. Yet you seem distressed.”
“We’re in trouble. I’m locked up, and I can’t find Buglet. If—if you could help—”
“I’ve done all I can.” Her face turned grave. “I’ve appealed to Belthar, for you and all the premen. Begging for a chance to search out a better planet for you. He’s the ruler here, remember. He yielded very little, but he gave me one concession, for Buglet and yourself. A kinder fate than Andoranda Five.”
“What kinder fate?” Terror touched him. “Why am I in the Redrock jail. With three battlecraft to guard me? Does that look like kindness? And Buglet—where is she?”
“I can tell you.” Sympathetic, but yet detached, the goddess studied him. “I think you won’t be pleased—that’s why you have been detained. Quelf told me so just now, as I took my leave from him. As for Buglet—”
His anxiety and eagerness washed out the perception.
“—divine visitation,” she was saying when he found her again. “He’s arriving at Redrock castle tonight, and the Inquisition battlecraft are waiting to escort his sacred skimmer to the chapel stage. Quelf is gathering the sacrificial offerings. One of those is Buglet, to be his bride.”
“Belthar’s bride?” He strove to hold the slipping vision. “That would kill Bug—”
“I’m sure you’re jealous.” Nodding, she made a face. “I myself shouldn’t care to share Belthar’s bed. Yet this is an honor that premen have seldom received—intended, Quelf told me, to compensate your people for their exile from Earth.”
Speechless and trembling with dismay, he could only shake his head.
“I know you’re not entirely happy,” she chided him. “I doubt that Buglet is. But you must both accept the situation with what grace you can. The chapel of Bel is certainly a better place than Andoranda Five. The brides are always well rewarded, and Buglet won’t forget you.”
He gasped for his voice, but still he couldn’t speak.
“After all, there’s nothing you can do. Not against the god of Earth—”
“I—I can’t believe it.” His husky whisper came at last. “Quelf seems to suspect we’re demons. Would he give his father a demon for a bride?”
“Quelf’s a coward.” She shrugged, smiling slightly, as aloof from his gnawing concerns as if her blue-glowing nimbus set her half a universe away. “His father’s a god.”
“Can you—” His voice stuck again. “Can you help me find Buglet?”
“She’s at the castle, Quelf told me. She has been bathed and arrayed. She’ll be waiting for Belthar in the chapel of love—”
Frowning, the goddess interrupted herself.
“Stay away, Davey! Belthar would not be pleased to detect your image there. Quelf says that you have been detained for your own protection, but if the god is offended your guards might be ordered to destroy you.”
“I’ll risk that—”
“Davey, don’t!” Her nimbus had paled, and her widened eyes looked darker. “You don’t know—”
He let the perception fade.
Beyond the red-stained lake, beyond Quelf’s new roads and groves and gardens, the castle loomed immense against the sunset sky. The Bel chapel towered above the dark granite walls, white columns soaring to the high white dome.
Within the circle of columns, the white marble floor was vacant now, broken only by the great black crystal cylinder in which the sacred image could appear and the low altar before it, draped now in scarlet. Beyond the altar, he could see the open arch of the god’s gateway and the railing of the stage where the sacred skimmer would land.
He waited for Buglet there in the empty temple, beneath the flash and shimmer of the starcharts that lined the high vault. Though the dusky chapel was warm enough he was half-aware of his sweat-chilled body back in the jail, of his racing heart and rasping breath, of all the desperate emotion that threatened his perception.
Music began to throb, far-off at first, deep and slow and strange. As it rose louder, a solemn procession came marching into the chapel. Two sacristans in blue, carry yellow-flaring lamps that reeked with pungent incense. A tall prelate in Inquisition black, snapping hushed commands to four ruby-scaled mumen who carried a jewel-crusted chair.
In the chair—Buglet!
Gowned in lacy white, she sat far back, drowsily relaxed, lemon-colored eyes half-shut. Jeweled combs shone in her dark hair, and heavy gemstone bracelets fettered her wrists. Her empty hands were folded peacefully.
“Bug—” His voice shook. “Bug!”
Her sleepy eyes were dilated, blank, blind to him. He caught an unfamiliar scent, a heavy sweetness that repelled him. As they brought her nearer, he saw two black triangular patches on her vacant face, one on each white temple. Beneath that sickly-sweet perfume, he got a sour whiff of gods-grace.
“Bug! Can you hear me?”
He thought her face drained even whiter, thought her eyes dilated wider. But she gave him no sign. The mumen marched on. At a word from the inquisitor, they knelt with the chair before the scarlet altar.
Bowing, the prelate caught her hand. She started, shrank a little from his touch, rose slowly from the chair. Passive as an unstrung puppet, she let him guide her to the red altar. Limp again, she lay back upon it, lips halfopen, eyes half-closed, seeming unaware of anything.
“Bug! If you can hear, move your hand.”
The inquisitor was arranging her gauzy gown, adjusting a diamond comb, straightening her arms. He knelt to touch his lips to the altar cloth, rose and turned. Behind him, her lax white hand lay motionless.
The sacramental music had paused, but now it swelled again. Keeping time to its solemn beat, Quelf strode into the chapel, still wearing the red-jeweled harness and the tall black crown from his dungeon judgment chamber, still carrying the deadly staff of his office as Arch-Inquisitor.
As the gigantic half-god tramped toward the altar, the black prelate moved out of his path and knelt again. The mumen picked up the chair and marched away. The two blue sacristans stationed themselves at the ends of the altar, swinging their flaring lamps in yellow clouds of incense.
Quelf paused before the altar. Gripping the black staff, he fell into a crouch, eyes rolling warily as if to search for danger. Nostrils flared, he was breathing fast. Bright sweat filmed his limbs. When he looked back at Buglet, his dark face set and a shudder shook him.
Abruptly, he dropped to his knees, bent to kiss the marble floor, came stiffly back to his feet. Face lifted to the crystal column beyond the altar, he began intoning a ritual chant that returned in dull thunder from the star-patterned vault.
As his great arms lifted toward the column, Davey glimpsed a second weapon. A slim laser dagger like one he had seen long ago, when the agent took it from La China after she had snatched it from between her bulging breasts to confront a drunken patron. Quelf carried it hidden beneath the wide black belt of his official harness, only half the hilt in sight.
Why? The image of it shivered and dimmed to Davey’s alarm. Why would the half-god bring such a weapon to the sacrificial ceremony? Why hidden?
The invocation had ended. Quelf stood silent, bleak face lifted to the crystal column. The black inquisitor took up the prayer, his voice a cracked and quavering mockery of Quelf’s resounding boom, begging Belthar to manifest his all-forgiving love. The sacristans raised their fuming lamps. All waited.
“Holy father,” Quelf’s great voice drummed again, “we consecrate our humble gift—”
The black staff had clicked in his fingers. Humming softly, it swung level with the scarlet altar, level with Buglet’s head. He bent, tensed. His dark features twitched and froze into a mask of frightened triumph.
The stark and sudden truth chilled Davey’s body in the jail. His breath stopped. His throat hurt. His fists knotted, uselessly. At last he understood. The whole ceremony was a sham, arranged perhaps for Zhondra Zhey. Now that she was gone, the half-god was about to murder Buglet.
With all his will, with no time to think about the impossible, he reached again into the chapel. With no plan at all, too desperate to recall that he wasn’t really there, without stopping to wonder what transvolutionary sources might be drawn upon to energize his image, he snatched for Quelf’s hidden dagger.
The hilt felt cool and solid, real in his fingers. Caught between the wide belt and Quelf’s belly, slippery with the half-god’s sweat, it resisted when he hauled on it. Somehow, he almost lost his balance. The jail-cell tipped and the white chapel whirled and somehow they spun together. He got a fresh grip, pulled again—and suddenly fell.
A sharp report cracked in his ears. The stifling stink of his cell was gone. Gasping for breath, he got a suffocating lungful of incense smoke. Quelf was recoiling from him, quaking with terror, bawling for the mumen, swinging at him with the demon-burner.
