“Firvulag. Those were Firvulag.”
“It was an illusion,” Felice insisted. “But something sure as hell caused it. Something that doesn’t like the Tanu any more than we do. That’s very interesting.”
“Does this mean you’ll have to change your plan?” Amerie-asked.
“Not bloody likely. It may even help. If the guards are on the lookout for ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties, they’ll pay less attention to us.”
The cavalcade came around the bay to the place of the double beacon, where the prisoners entered another fort for the midnight rest. Felice dismounted quickly and came to assist all three of her friends, and several other riders as well. And later, when it was time to climb back into the saddle, she was there again to help the tired people fit their feet into the stirrups just before the soldiers came around to lock on the bronze ankle chains with their enveloping leather sleeves.
“Sister Amerie isn’t feeling well,” the little athlete told the guard who locked her onto her own beast. “Those strange creatures out on the lake gave her a bad turn.”
“Don’t you worry about the Firvulag, Sister,” the man told the veiled, drooping rider. “There’s no way they can get you as long as the Exalted Lady is with us. She’s tops as a coercer. You just ride easy.”
“Bless you,” came a whisper.
When the soldier moved away to tend to Basil and the dancer, Felice said, “You just try to go to sleep, Sister. That’s the best thing for nerves.” In a lower tone she added, “And keep your cunnilingin’ trap shut like I told you!”
The poor sick nun invited Felice to take an unlikely anatomical excursion.
They went on, following the shore but still trending northward. After an hour had passed, Claude said, “I’m free. How about you, Amerie?”
The rider beside him was incongruously garbed in a star-ship captain’s coverall and a wide-brimmed black hat with dark plumes. “My chains are broken. What an incredible child Felice is! But I can understand why she was ostracized by the other ring-hockey players. It’s too freakish, all that strength in such a doll-like body.”
“Her physical strength is something the others could live with,” Claude said, leaving it at that.
Presently, Amerie asked, “How many people did she set free?”
“The two Japanese riding behind her. Basil, the fellow in the Tyrolean hat. And that poor medievalist knight, Dougal, just ahead of Basil. Dougal doesn’t know that his chains have been weakened enough to be broken. Felice didn’t think he was stable enough to let in on the scheme. But when the thing starts we might get him to break loose and help. Lord knows he’s big and strong looking, and maybe he hates Epone enough to snap out of his funk when he sees others in action.”
“I hope Richard will be all right.”
“Don’t worry. I think he’s ready to do his part, if only to show Felice that she’s not the only one with balls.”
The nun laughed. “What a collection we are! Exiles and losers all. We got just what we deserved, running away from our responsibilities. Look at me. A lot of people needed my ministry. But I had to brood and maunder about my own precious spirituality instead of getting on with my job… You know, Claude, most of last night was hell for me. There’s something about riding that hits me in the worst way. And while I was hurting, I found I was shrinking myself. I think I finally understand the reasons why I got into this mess. Not just coming to Exile, the whole thing.”
The old man said nothing. “I think you figured it out, too, Claude. Quite a while ago.”
“Well, yes,” he admitted. “When we talked about your childhood that day on the mountain. But you had to find it out for yourself.”
She said softly, “The firstborn daughter with the Little Mama thing in the warm Italianate family. The hard-working professional parents depending on her to help raise the cute little brothers. She loving to do it, power-tripping on the responsibility. Then the family gets ready to emigrate to a new world. Exciting! But the daughter screws up by straining some muscles and then breaking her leg in a fall.
“…But just one short week in the tank, dear, and you can come out to us on the next ship. Hurry and get well, Annamaria. We’re going to need your help more than ever on Multnomah, big girl!
“And you hurried. But by the time you were well they were all dead, killed in a translational malfunction of their star-ship. So what could you do but atone? Try through all the years to show them you were sorry that you had not died along with them. Dedicate yourself to easing the passing of others as you were not able to ease theirs…
“But fighting it at the same time, Claude. I realize that now. I wasn’t really a morbid person and I was glad to be alive and not dead. But that old guilt never let me go, even though it was so well sublimated in my vocation that I didn’t realize how it was undermining me. I went along for years doing work that was very hard and refusing to take holidays or sabbaticals the way the others did. There was always a case that needed my special help and I was always strong enough to give it. But in the end it all became a sham. The demons weren’t exorcized any more. The emotional fatigue of the job and the buried guilt all mingled and became unbearable.”
The old man’s voice was compassionate. “So when the contemplative orders justifiably turned you down, you scratched around and found what looked like an even better form of atonement… Can’t you see that you haven’t loved yourself enough, Amerie? This hermitage-in-Exile idea was the ultimate chair in a corner facing the wall.”
Her head was averted from him so that the broad-brimmed hat hid her face. She said, “So the Exile anchoress turns out to be just as much of a fraud as the ministering nun in the hospice for the dying.”
“That last bit isn’t true!” Claude snapped. “Gen didn’t think so and neither did I. And neither did the hundreds of other suffering people you helped. For God’s sake, Amerie, try to keep a perspective! Every human being has deep motives as well as superficial ones. But the motivation doesn’t invalidate the objective good we do.”
“You want me to get on with my life and quit picking scabs. But, Claude, I can’t go back now, even though I know the choice was wrong. I have nothing left.”
“If you’ve got any faith remaining at all, why not believe that you’re here for a reason?”
She gave him a crooked smile. “It’s an interesting idea. Suppose I spend the rest of the night meditating on it.”
“Good girl. I have a feeling you won’t have much time for meditation later on, if Felice’s plan works out… I tell you what. You meditate and I’ll snooze, and we’ll both do ourselves good. Wake me as soon as Basil starts playing the signal. It’ll be just before dawn.”
“When it’s darkest,” sighed the nun. “Go to sleep, Claude. Pleasant dreams.”
There were no more double beacons, which seemed to have been the scouting party’s warning of Firvulag in the vicinity. The caravan had come down from the plateau now and traversed open wooded slopes cut by little brooks that foamed whitely over boulders, calling for tricky footwork by the chalikos as they picked their way along in the starshine. The country became rougher and there was a tang of conifer resin in the air. As the night wore on, a breeze sprang up, ruffling the lake and making the beacon fires near the shore lean and twist. It was very quiet. Aside from the noise of the moving caravan, only owl hoots were to be heard. There were no lights of villages or farms, no sign of habitation at all. So much the better if they did manage to escape…