“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.