She saw them before they saw her. They were hardly the storm wave that the morning gossip described. She recognized them because each of the distant figures carried a rifle. They moved with no great speed. A small group would take some high point, whether it be hill or roof, from which to cover the flow of their fellow judges. Behind that point she assumed was the main body of Kaiel youth. She pressed on, cursing herself for not bringing walking shoes. She was captured by one of the girls she had taught to dance.
The three female riflemen handled her more roughly than any men would have. They tied her hands behind her back so tightly her fingers went numb and they dragged her along the road through the Gathering on a long leash about her neck that nearly choked the breath from her. Those they met gave her a wide detour. Even Joesai, walking with the two-wheeled supply wagons, would not come closer to her than several man-lengths.
She bowed to him, kneeling and touching her head to the ground, graceful even though her hands were tied.
“Just the woman I want to skin alive.” He was scowling.
“Why? Have I committed some crime?” She spoke up to Joesai, from her knees, defiantly.
“To some, I won’t say who, the murder of a Kaiel is no crime.”
“You are a ghost then, as the rumors in Soebo say?”
“Ho! You tease me. But three of my judges died.”
She bowed her head. “For that I am sorry. Eight Liethe also died, and more horribly.”
“The Liethe die, too? For that I am sorry,” he mocked.
“I have come for my reward,” she said brazenly.
He grunted. “I am willing to reward you with a knife to your wrists.”
“I would prefer that you transfer into the name of the Liethe the deeds to the Soebo Palace of Morning. That was to have been my present from ’t’Fosal and I want it! You, too, promised that if I helped you, the Palace of the Morning would be my gift!”
Joesai laughed a genuine laugh of amazement. “Is it usual in Soebo to reward treachery so lavishly?”
“Are you not all alive? Most of you? For that you may kiss my feet.” Her voice trembled. “I was afraid that I had miscalculated and you were all dead. But you are more than alive! You have become invulnerable! Liethe gifts are not given freely. I have earned my reward!”
He went to his haunches so that their conversation might be less awkward. “You speak like a madwoman.” He loosened her collar. “Perhaps your brain has been deprived of oxygen? I am to reward you for bringing ’t’Fosal’s sacred disease to my camp?”
Humility smiled insolently. “I did not bring the disease. I brought the antidote developed at great expense in life by the Liethe of Soebo. If I had brought you the disease you would all be mindless. The Liethe antidote mocks the disease and grants immunity but the micro-life carrier does not contain the genes that cripple.”
“What?”
“You have been immunized. We call the potion you received a tocaein.”
“The honored tocaeins of our temples are the teachers of games — not the givers of pain.”
She mocked Joesai’s seriousness. “The tocaein is indeed a teacher of games. But does he play to win? Does not the tocaein deliberately handicap his moves so that the novice grows strong by winning? So it is with our potion. It attacks you only to challenge your body to great efforts so that when the real attack comes, you are ready. Your body has matched wits with a tocaein who has taught you how to resist the deadliest of Mnankrei ploys.”
Joesai softened as one of his major worries evaporated. “You could have told us,” he said gruffly.
She watched him with a mischievous glint. “And would you have permitted me to poison your entire camp? What if I had told you that you would be vomiting and shaking in your weakness and also delirious with sunfever? You did not even trust me!”
“I trusted you because you helped me free my men from the Temple of Raging Seas.”
“You shouldn’t have. Besides I didn’t even know if the Liethe antidote would work. It was very hastily concocted.”
Joesai yowled as if stung by an angry bee. “Women like you make bitter soup.”
“Untie me, please.”
He cut her bonds. “And what news from the city?”
“The greatest minds of the Swift Wind have been murdered. Mobs are already out, shouting, gaining courage from the visible reassurance of other like minds.”
“Murdered? By who?”
“It is not known.”
“And those I left behind?”
“I know that one of your Kaiel will be leading a mob to the Temple of Raging Seas. They will find the mindless women in whom ’t’Fosal’s disease is grown and that will feed the rage and fear. The city is headless. It is yours.”
“It is not my hope to frighten the city.”
“I will introduce you to the High Wave tu’Ama. He is a just man. If you deal with him and no others, he will become leader of the Mnankrei and salvage what is left of that clan.” She paused. Studying Joesai’s mood, she took his arm affectionately as if she were about to ask for another Palace of the Morning. “Take from them their priesthood, but leave them their ships and the city will be soothed by your mercy.”
“It is a strange scene you paint. I will send men forward to confirm. If true we will move in today.”
“Strike today,” she said.
He kicked a stone. “Will the children bring me flowers?”
“Of course. And tu’Ama, the coward, will offer me to you as a present and pay the coin I cost from his vaults.”
Joesai stepped aside and gave orders. He walked for a long while beside Humility, deep in thought, absorbing some surprise. He laughed and spoke. “My brother Hoemei has vision. I would not have believed it. He told me that if I waited patiently enough, I would walk into the city unopposed.”
“A man only has vision into the future if he has friends who care enough to share his vision and make it real for him.” Hoemei taught me that, she thought, wishing she could say it. “May I ride on your shoulders?” she cajoled.
He laughed and three riflemen who had been keeping their ears cocked also laughed. “I’m the tired one,” complained Joesai. He lifted his leg and climbed onto her shoulders so that she buckled and he had to walk along on tiptoes with her head between his legs.
“You’re mean!” She was outraged.
“All right, little undecorated child.” He picked her up and threw her legs around his neck. She grabbed his hair and stooped to whisper in his ear. “When do I get my Palace?”
55
It is recorded that Bendaein hosa-Kaiel took the Gathering of Outrage to the island of Mnank on an awesome strategy of evasion, moving to those places where he was least expected. Only when Soebo had been completely demoralized by his unpredictability did he send his Second Judge in a lightning thrust at the heart of the city to restore order. Even then he continued to confound all Kaiel detractors by prolonging the Judgment of Outrage to one thousand sunsets and sending to Feast only one-sixth of the surviving male Mnankrei. Bendaein’s creation of the Matrix of Evidence to meet the needs of his Gathering and to avoid the excesses of previous Gatherings established the Kaiel forever as the unhurried defenders of true kalothi. Let God’s Will be done! All power to the Kaiel!
TIME SWEEPS AWAY all things, and though the annexation of Mnank by the Kaiel had fascinated the whole Race, that was part of the past. Now the clans of Geta were concerned with more important matters such as the rayvoice, the revelations from The Forge of War, steam engines, rockets, kalothi among the stars. The millennium of the Savior Who Speaks to God was at hand. In the Era of Silence, how had the Great Danger evolved?