I stopped in the darkened field. Was I in fact one of the elect, or, like Ti, merely a Wild Talent? That was the most sobering question I had asked myself on the journey and the most disquieting.
All those nights I had sat there, sensing the Warden organism even as I felt it now in everything around me, trying to make it do something, anything—just bend a blade of grass. I’d failed miserably, despite intense concentration and force of will. And yet I had willed a man to decompose into dust and he had done so. How? Why?
It wasn’t the absence of thought, although that was certainly true in this case, since the rulers, even those like Kronlon, could accomplish such things effortlessly and at their command. Yet there was no communication with the Warden organism itself, not really. The little buggers didn’t think, they reacted to stimulus. External stimulus. If the power didn’t depend on thought, but could be consciously mustered, then what was it?
The answer was so obvious I had only to ask the question of myself in order to be able to answer it. It was emotion, of course. My hatred, my sheer contempt and loathing for Kronlon had triggered the Warden organisms in my own body to transmit that devastating energy signal to the organisms in his.
Hatred, fear, love—all these emotions triggered chemical actions in various parts of the body, including most particularly the brain. These chemicals, then, were the catalyst that the Warden organism, living symbiotically in each and every cell of my body, needed to trigger its own powers. Emotion, reduced to its chemical products and by-products, was what was needed—and that explained a lot. Training, then, in the use of these powers was really concerned with controlling areas of the brain and body normally beyond control, much as yoga and other disciplines.
The criminals who were sent here were a bundle of messed-up psyches and unbalanced, often uncontrolled emotions. In the main, those born here were more naturally balanced as a result of their static society. Furthermore they were born with the Warden organism already growing and multiplying with their cells, in a better balance with then: host’s bodies; thus they were more like the creatures of Lilith, in perfect balance with the organism rather than alien to it. Outsiders, then, would naturally have the edge in triggering these odd powers. Ironically, while my cold, trained, logical mind had been unable to do a thing with this power, Cal Tremon’s emotional imbalances —that new part of me that made me alien from myself—had done the job so well.
I resumed walking, but slowly, reflecting on what I knew and still didn’t know. It was perhaps two hours, before I reached the carved stone stairs leading, in a series of switchbacks, up to the Castle itself. For the first time in a. very long time I was aware of and a little ashamed of my nakedness, my dirt and grime, my wild and savage appearance that was unfit for civilized company. Those up there in the Castle were civilized, no doubt about that. Perhaps not sane by any known definition, but certainly civilized—perhaps even cultured.
I wondered what-1 was supposed to do now and cursed myself for not asking someone back in the village. Did you just go up and knock and say, “Hello, I’m Cal Tremon. I just killed Supervisor Kronlon and I want to join your club?” What were the procedures here?
There seemed nothing to do but climb the stairs and wing it.
Chapter Nine
The Castle
It was an imposing structure, I had to admit that. Nothing like it had existed in the civilized worlds for a thousand years or so, if then, except in children’s fantasies.
And they lived happily ever after.…
Towers rose on either side of the main gateway, a huge double door of some bronze-colored wood that filled a massive stone arch. Windows in various parts of the place, which looked big enough to house several hundred, were all of stained glass and alit with the varying colors of the artist’s hand. Judging from the lights, I deduced that at least the inhabitants were still up and I wouldn’t be waking anybody.
I looked around for some simpler entrance, but it seemed as if the huge wooden door was it. I wondered whether every knight on Lilith had such a building, or whether this was the aberration of Boss Tiel. Certainly on Lilith there was nothing that walls and gates would keep out to be feared by one of such power.
There being no bell, apparently, nor any other system for summoning those inside, I pounded on the great wooden doors as hard as I could without hurting myself.
I hardly expected an immediate response, and I didn’t get one. Vaguely, through the thick stone walls and gate, I could hear the sound of a crowd and some music, which meant I had to compete with some interior function. Still, I kept banging away, resting a bit between tries, although I was beginning to think I might have to camp out on the Knight’s doorstep until the Castle opened for business in the morning.
With all my muscles I could pound pretty good, and somebody did eventually hear the pounding. I heard a voice from above me call out “Hey! You, there! What the hell do you want?”
I jumped slightly, then turned to locate the speaker. He was standing at one of the small tower windows. He was too far away for me to see his features and how he might be dressed, or to get any idea of his rank.
I shrugged to myself. What the hell. “I’m Cal Tremon, sir!” I responded in my loudest, boomiest voice. “I just disintegrated one of your supervisors and I was told in no uncertain terms to get my ass up here.”
The man hesitated a moment, as if considering what to do. Finally he called, “Just a moment! I’ll have somebody come down and take care of you!”
I shrugged again. I sure wasn’t going anyplace until they came, having no place to go, I wondered what was going on inside. For all I knew I was speaking to the lowest servant in the place—or to the big boss himself.
After a few minutes the huge wooden doors creaked open a bit and a young woman emerged. She was tall and thin and had an almost aristocratic bearing about her. Years ago she’d probably been a really pretty woman, but she was now well into middle age and that usually didn’t wear well on this kind of primitive world. Her hair was white and her face more wrinkled than even her age should have permitted.
What was important was that she was fully dressed in a long dress or robe of deep-purple silk embroidered with gold—an impressive uniform. At least a Master, I told myself, feeling even more helpless and not a little embarrassed by my appearances.
She approached me and walked around me, examining me as if I were some prize animal stock. Her nose twitched a bit, indicating that mingling with the common stock was not altogether to her taste. She smelled of perfumes too sweet to remember the time long ago when she must have been out in the muck herself.
Finally she straightened up, stood back, and took the overall view. I decided it was better to say nothing until she did. No use in blowing protocol. Finally she said, “So you killed Kronlon, eh?” I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Gior said you claimed to have, ah, disintegrated him or some such term?”
I could only nod again. “That’s true. He decomposed into dust at my touch.”
She nodded back thoughtfully, more to herself than to me. “You use those cultured words freely,” she noted, a trace of surprise in her voice. “Disintegrate. Decompose. And your speech is cultured. You are from Outside?”
I grimaced, knowing her thoughts on my filthy appearance. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been here some time—how long I’m not sure.”
She put her hand to her chin in a gesture of deep thought. “What were you when you were Outside, Tremon?”
I tried to look as innocent as possible. “I was a, ah, gentleman privateer, ma’am.” • She snickered. “A pirate, you mean.” “For political motives,” I replied. “The Confederacy had a basic concept that I disagreed with and I took action against it.”