Zeth had to set up the ladder, climb to the loft, jump to the ground, and run! Run? He couldn't even walk. He tried to lift the ladder, but the best he could do was slide it a hand's span across the floor—and even that left him sick and trembling as he heard voices outside.
"Get around back—he could break out the back door."
Back door? Oh, no—he might have gotten out by now– with Star!
"Cord—Trent—train your guns on that loft door. They can jump on you like some mountain cat!"
They think I'm a full-grown Sime, Zeth realized. If I were, I'd be out of town by now. Then he heard Lon Carson's voice. "What is it? A Sime? Hey, in there! You from Fort Freedom?"
Angry questions from the gathering men, and Mr. Carson's protest, "One Sime doesn't attack a town! Someone's come after the boy!"
"No," came the stable boy's voice, "it is a kid. Changeover."
"Who is it?" another voice demanded on a note of anxiety.
"I don't know him. Never saw him before."
Then Sessly Bron's voice. "It's Zeth! He's gone from—"
"Dear God!" exclaimed Mr. Carson. "Zeth, is that you?"
"Yes!" he managed to choke out. "Mr. Carson—let me go—please! Got to—get home—"
"You hear that?" Mr. Carson said to the others. "That boy was perfectly all right a couple of hours ago—there's plenty of time for him to get to Fort Freedom, to one of their . . . channels."
"No Sime is all right, and no damn Sime sympathizer!" came another voice.
Someone else responded, "Turn him loose so's we can shoot him! Damn demon monster!"
"My daughter is neither demon nor monster!" Lon Carson said angrily. "She could help this boy. Give him a horse—or I'll take him in my wagon. He came to us for help—are we going to murder him?"
"Lon." Maddok Bron's voice, calm and reasonable. "We must do what is right, Lon. You know that."
"Are you so damn sure you know what's right? You'd have murdered Marji–"
"Stop! Before you say something you may regret forever. I know you feel shamed that your wife took your daughter across the border without your help—but how can you be certain Hope is not being used?"
"She saw—"
"She saw what they chose to show her."
Heart vibrating madly, darkness closing in on him, Zeth lost track of the argument as the transition to stage three struck him. The stable dwindled to a black box, a coffin, the walls closing in. He choked, fighting spasms in his chest, and fainted.
He woke to a dull ache spreading through all the nerves of his body. That he could breathe again was little relief in the presence of indefinable ugliness. But it came from outside himself—he could get away from it if he could move.
Sitting up, he found his head clear again. He saw the dim inside of the stable, smelled the horses, heard the voices outside. The ugly sensation dimmed before the senses he was
familiar with—and then as he focused on the angry voices, it returned in a most peculiar way.
* Through the walls came a glow of darkness—his mind twisted, trying to find words to describe it, but he didn't have them, even in Simelan. "Darkness visible," Mr. Veritt had once said, was the way an Ancient poet had described hell. It seemed to fit the sensation he was getting from several people ... yes, those were people surrounding the stable, hating him, fearing him.
"... get him out of there," someone was saying, "whatever we do with him then!"
"Shoot him!"
"Let's smoke him out!" someone suggested.
"You fool! Burn down the stable with all our horses? Just keep him in there. If he survives, he'll come out looking for someone to kill, and we'll shoot him. If he doesn't come out by tomorrow night, we'll know he's dead."
It wasn't even cruelty, Zeth somehow realized. He was not human to the men talking so casually of his death.
He was going to die. He should have some strength at this stage, but he could not even crawl to the water trough to assuage his thirst. Fear had consumed his selyn reserves.
If by chance he survived breakout, he knew he would not be able to think rationally in. First Need. He would be driven to seek selyn, find his way out of the stable—and be shot on sight.
At least I won't kill. He considered that, then thought, I haven't asked God for anything since I prayed for Owen to live. Now I have one last request, because I won't be able to control it myself. If I don't die in changeover . . . don't let me kill anyone before they shoot me.
Abel Veritt called it "putting one's trust in God." Somehow, Zeth felt better, even though he was terrified of what was yet to come.
He was a channel, all right—his changeover was progressing even more rapidly than Marji's had. If they let him go right now, and he galloped for the border, breakout would come long before he got home. A berserker, he would attack the first Gen he found. Or the first Sime. My father killed a Sime in First Need.
With sudden clarity, he knew why he was here: to die without killing, the shock that would rouse the community of Mountain Chapel to go to Fort Freedom's rescue.
It was all part of God's plan that Abel Veritt spoke of, that Rimon Farris said it was man's only duty to seek to perceive. If Zeth had obediently stayed with the other children, he'd have gone into changeover just the same. With Freehand Raiders surrounding the fort, there'd have been no way for Mrs. Veritt to get him to his father.
Wik would have tried to give him First Transfer—Wik, who could easily serve any other changeover victim, would have thus ended his brief life, so full of potential. And Zeth would be junct—joined to the kill. With the voracious need of a Farris, he might have gone on to kill Mrs. Veritt or one of the children.
Instead, he would be a martyr. His death would unite Fort Freedom and Mountain Chapel. His name would be carved on the Monument, and his grandchildren would tell his story to their grandchildren.
It did not occur to Zeth just then that if he died in changeover he would have no grandchildren. He lay on the stable floor, shivering as the night cold crept into his bones, while the men outside futilely argued his fate.
What roused Zeth from his torpor was a new sensation ... no, a change in the same sensation of feeling the people outside. Beyond the muddy, unpleasant miasma, he sensed a brightness like sunrise. But it wasn't the sun, wasn't light at all, although it gave promise of warmth to ease his chill.
Galloping hoofbeats, the bright presence swamping all the others, suffusing him with hope. Outside, a familiar voice asked, "What's going on?" Owen.
"Changeover," someone replied. "We got 'im trapped."
"Thank God I decided to ride on over here. Whose child is it?"
Another presence, nothing to Owen's, but without the ugliness of the men who waited to murder Zeth, joined those gathered at the door. Owen identified it. "Mr. Bron! I can save that child from killing. Tell your men to let me through."
"Are you a witch, then, Owen? A sorcerer who can consort with demons and emerge unscathed?"
The annoyance in Owen's field penetrated Zeth's numbness. "Let me save a life tonight, and we'll argue theology in the morning. Where are the child's parents? Surely they will want their child to live . . . and not to kill."
"None of ourn," said the man who wanted to shoot Zeth. "Some kid from across the border."
"But who would—?" Then Owen was at the door, the bolt creaking as he withdrew it. "Zeth! Zeth, is that you?"
The numb chill had taken Zeth over completely. Though his lips moved in an attempt to answer, no sound came.
Meanwhile, he heard a scuffle outside the door, Owen demanding, "Let me go! He needs me! He's a channel, and he could die, you lorshes!" He was apparently dragged away from the door, and Zeth's spirits sank. Then he remembered that Owen, despite the magic of his field, could not be a Companion. They were right to keep him from Zeth.