Smedley looked at him in surprise. “Now you won't?"
"If Zath can't break the chain, then how can I?” Exeter released his grip on Julian's shoulder and straightened up to address the nervous mob of Carrots.
"It was not your fault!” he shouted. “It was Demon Karzon who drove you to this, Demon Zath. The saints will not abandon you, for it was not your fault. The Undivided knows the truth and where the guilt lies."
They reacted with screams of joy, like children.
"But you must demonstrate your grief. You must bury the dead with honor. Women go and start digging graves in the cricket ground, big graves. Men collect the bodies. We shall bury each household together, tyikank and servants together. The saints and the Carrots who lived together shall lie together. It must be done by sundown!"
It was done by sundown, when the snowy peaks of Kilimanjaro and Nanga Parbat turned to blood. The dead could not be numbered, for many bodies had been piled in the burning houses and others had been butchered into anonymous lumps of meat. Nevertheless, it was clear that many more Carrots than tyikank had died—most of the strangers would have been able to use their mana to escape, Exeter said. The remains were tipped into pits and covered over. Olympus was a ghost settlement.
Almost out on his feet with exhaustion, Smedley watched and marveled as Edward Exeter conducted a funeral service over the mass burial. He faced a congregation of several hundreds, probably the entire population of the native village, and he spoke in the local tongue, so that Smedley did not understand any of it, only the tears of the assembled Carrots. Whatever Exeter said, he began softly and ended with great vehemence, and his audience was impressed. When he had done, they cheered wildly, which seemed like a very peculiar closing for a funeral.
The next day some of the surviving tyikank came creeping out of the forest, hungry, frightened, and exhausted. Missionaries began returning from duty in the field. They were all surprised to find work gangs already clearing away the ruins, cleaning up, erecting temporary dwellings. They were even more surprised that the leadership was being provided by a young man none of them had ever met, an officer in the Royal Artillery, known to the Carrots as Tyika Kaptaan. The lad was doing a fine job, too.
Exeter had gone. He had departed in the night, alone, and nobody knew where. According to reliable Carrots, he had revealed to them in the eulogy he had delivered over the graves that he was the prophesied Liberator. They were not supposed to know that, of course, but it had always been impossible to keep the English-speaking domestic Carrots from eavesdropping and passing rumors, so many of them had already known. Now, apparently, Exeter had sworn that he was destined to bring death to Death, and thus fulfil the prophecies.
It was, he had said, an affair of honor.
He had not said where he was going.
As the fortnights passed with no news of him, a consensus arose that either Zath's watchers had caught the fellow on his way out, or else he had just gone native again. He could safely be forgotten.
Some of the pessimists would not believe that, especially Jumbo Watson. He predicted that Olympus had not seen the last of Edward Exeter. He pointed to the Filoby Testament and in particular to the cryptic Verse 1098:
Terrible is the justice of the Liberator; his might lays low the unworthy. He is gentle and hard to anger. Gifts he sets aside and honor he spurns. Eleal shall be the first temptation and the prince shall be the second, but the dead shall rouse him.
55
47 Bamlett Road,
London, W1
16th September, 1917
Dear Miss Prescott,
With very deep regret, I must inform you that word has been received that my brother, D'Arcy, has made the Supreme Sacrifice. A telegram from the War Office reported today that he has been killed in action. We have no further details at this time.
I was at the house when the telegram arrived. My sister-in-law was, as you will understand, quite distraught, as were we all. I have only just got home, and have written to you as soon as I could. You may have seen the news in the evening papers already.
A memorial service will be arranged and announced in the usual way.
I am sure that you share our grief, even if you will not be able to acknowledge it in public.
I am,
Yours sincerely,
Anabel Finchley (Mrs.)
Appendix: The Moons
NEXTDOOR IS A PROBABILITY VARIANT OF EARTH. THE STARS VISIBLE from its surface are the same as those visible from Earth; the sun is apparently the same.
However, Nextdoor has four moons. Prof Rawlinson's theory that they might have been gouged out by the impact of one or more meteors is not without merit. The Pacific was commonly believed in his day to be the scar left when the Moon was torn from the Earth. Modern theory supports an impact origin for the Moon, although the Pacific is now known to be billions of years younger. The impacting body would have had to be the size of a small planet, considerably more than a meteor, but in some respects Rawlinson was ahead of his time. He was particularly perceptive in anticipating recent insight on chaotic systems; even a minute difference in the size, velocity, or angle of such an impact could generate enormous variations in the final results. This would account for not only the varying number of satellites but also the slight discrepancies in the length of the day and year on Earth and Nextdoor.
Only Trumb displays a sufficiently large disk to hide the sun and create a solar eclipse. This occurs on every orbit, but is visible only in the daylight hemisphere. The following refers mainly to eclipses of the respective moons by the shadow of the planet, lunar eclipses as we know them.
The outermost moon, Eltiana, has a period of twenty-eight days, very similar to Earth's Moon, but it is much less conspicuous, little more than a bright red star. Its equatorial orbit causes it to be eclipsed every month, although on average only each alternate eclipse will be visible from a given location.
Ysh displays a small blue disk. It has a useful and dependable period of almost exactly fourteen days, the origin of the fortnight used as a basic division of time. Like Earth's Moon, Ysh has an inclined orbit and therefore is likely to be involved in eclipses only two or three times a year. Many eclipses will be obscured by weather or their occurrence during daylight hours. An observed eclipse of Ysh is a rare and ill-omened occurrence.
Trumb, the green moon, displays a large disk. Its synodic period is 4.44 days and its orbital inclination too slight to matter. It is eclipsed on every orbit, although half the eclipses occur below the horizon.
The tiny yellow moon, Kirb'l, may be a captured asteroid. Its orbit is elliptical and inclined at 15 degrees, which is close to the latitude of the Vales. To complicate matters, its orbit precesses rapidly under the influence of the other moons, and the body itself is asymmetric, rotating every two hours with marked changes in albedo. It has a synodic period of 1.5 days.
At perigee, it appears to move from west to east. This may occur almost overhead, at times of minimum declination, or may be invisible below the horizon. Eclipse is very common at perigee, but Kirb'l is never eclipsed at apogee. At intermediate positions it moves north or south and may or may not be eclipsed.