Time! He needed time to think. He turned to the youth, who merely shrugged, seeming amused but not about to offer any helpful suggestions. He had not spoken a word so far.
"Good luck in your new career, whatever it is,” Monica Mason said. “Give my love to Zath, or Tion, whichever gets you first.” She disappeared into the shrubbery. The youth went with her.
"Eleal saved my life!” Edward wiped his forehead. With a crippled leg, she could never have the stage career she craved, could never enter Tion's Festival. She had braved the deadly reapers to stay and nurse him through his fever. He had always thought that honor enabled a man to choose between good and evil. He had never seriously considered that a decision might lie between two evils. Be a god? Be plaything to an omnipotent pervert?
That damnable Gypsy witch, Mrs. Boswell, had defined the conflict exactly: You must choose between honor and friendship. You must desert a friend to whom you owe your life, or betray everything you hold sacred.
Fallow had not prepared him for this.
The approaching voices were louder, just around the last bend.
"Wait!” Edward said. “Where are you going to take me? What does the Service want of me?"
There was no answer. He could hear Mason and her young friend moving through the bushes, the sound growing fainter as they retreated. He shouted, “Wait!” and ran after them.
All that nattering about courage and then he ran away.
58
THEY SLIPPED OUT OF THE THEATER AREA, APPARENTLY unseen. Trumb's green brilliance suffused the landscape, but red Eltiana and blue Ysh added a strange mix of tints to the shadows. There could be reapers ... Over the last week, Edward had almost forgotten the reapers, and now he was too tormented by thoughts of Eleal to worry about them. Mrs.—or Miss—Mason seemed to know exactly where she was going. She did not head for the city gate, but struck off down an unused, overgrown track, heading roughly in the direction of the river. He stumbled blindly along between her and the youth. Half a mile or so away, the temple dome shone points of colored light back at the moons.
Eleal was a likable kid. Her extreme nosiness was more funny than annoying. She was brave, amusing, dedicated. He owed his life to her, and now he was walking out on her. She could have what she wanted most in the world, and he was denying it to her. His betrayal might ruin her entire life.
Mr. Goodfellow had healed broken bones, which would have healed anyway. Eleal's trouble was more than that. “Could Tion cure a deformed leg, ma'am?"
"Call me Onica. Of course he could, easily. Didn't Creighton explain? Tion's a stranger, and strangers have charisma. We absorb mana. It makes us immortal, or almost so, and in large quantities gives us supernatural powers.” She fell silent to work her way through a tangle of thorny shrubs.
Edward followed carefully. The boy just pushed through as if they were long grass.
Yes, Edward had worked it out—and even seen glimmers of it in himself after he had played holy man in the campground. Obviously the effect disappeared if the stranger returned to his home world. Creighton had possessed no “authority” back on Earth, but as soon as he had returned to Nextdoor, he had been able to smite a reaper with a thunderbolt. Mr. Goodfellow had been a stranger on Earth, an immigrant from Ruatvil.
"I think I picked up some tonight—a sort of tingle? Can I work miracles?"
She shook her head. “Unless you're on a node, it's pretty much impossible to collect enough to produce physical effects."
The campground where he had faced down old Graybeard had been a node, and he'd acquired real mana there. He had used that power to learn the language so swiftly and to cure Dolm's guilt. All the same, his tongue could find no cavities in his teeth now. What should be surprising about minor repairs? The guv'nor had lived somewhere in this world for thirty years without aging a day.
Even the charisma itself was dangerous. Edward Exeter could be the greatest actor in the world if he wanted. He could pluck women like daisies. He could enter politics and be a dictator in no time. He could raise an army and conquer the world. Now he knew why Creighton had wanted older recruits—they might be able to handle this sort of power without being corrupted by it. How long would Edward be able to resist adulation on that scale? How long before his moral standards collapsed like a wet soufflé? At last he understood why the guv'nor had wanted to break the chain and prevent him from becoming the Liberator.
But Eleal! ... What sort of rotter was he to walk out on her like this?
They were past the bushes. He fell into step with Onica.
"What constitutes worship? Blood? Degradation? Public prostitution?"
She stalked on without looking at him. “Sometimes. They don't all go that far. The general principle is that sacrifice must hurt. The believer must voluntarily do something he doesn't want to do—give money or perform unpleasant acts. The greater the pain, the greater the crop of mana. Adoration works too. Tion's better than most in that regard. He bribes his worshipers with roses. He probably gains more mana from one hard-fought singing contest on his node than Zath does from any of his distant murders."
"Human sacrifice is the most powerful source?"
"With one exception. Look out for the burrower holes here."
They were closer to the temple now, and well below the city. Its roofs were a jagged blackness against the sky. Good-bye, Suss! Oh, Eleal!
"What does a god of courage do?” he asked miserably.
"He gives supplicants courage, of course. It isn't difficult to make young men behave like suicidal maniacs.” Onica's voice held traces of the adenoidal accent of Lancashire. “The fact that they're still worshiping there on a node that's been unoccupied for two hundred years shows that most of the effect is wishful thinking. As I recall Gunuu's rituals, they're quite honest. The worshiper offers blood and is granted courage, but it's conditional on abstinence. As soon as he takes a woman, the deal is off. That must bring in lots of return business in the course of a long campaign."
He remembered what Piol had told him about the monastery at Thogwalby. “The god of strength works the same sort of swizz, doesn't he?"
"Garward?” The woman chuckled. “Yes, that's a potent sacrifice! All those young men in training, right on his node, forbidden even to think about their groins. Every night the mana must just pour in. Insomnia to the glory of god! They've been at this for centuries, remember. They've worked out all sorts of twists. Why? Are you seriously—"
She stopped and listened. “Blast! We're being followed!"
"How can you tell?” He could hear nothing.
"Come on!” She began to run down the slope. He loped along beside her, stumbling more often than she did. Either of them might break an ankle any minute. The youth went out in front, jogging steadily. His lack of shoes seemed to make him more surefooted, although he must have feet like hooves to run on this terrain.
"Who's after us?” Edward panted. “Tion? Or Zath?"
"Zath. Reapers. I can smell them. Look, make up your mind, Exeter! Do you want to come with me to Olympus, or don't you? Go to the bloody temple if you want to bare your neck for Tion. Or bare anything else, for that matter."
"Would he really make me god of courage?"
"He might. It's prophesied. Strangers are in short supply, and he needs to reclaim that attribute."
Eleal! Eleal was the problem. Tion might cure her leg out of gratitude, or Edward himself would be able to as soon as he had collected enough mana. A god did not have to be evil, surely? He could do good. A few years on Nextdoor, like the guv'nor...