He would have liked to have the tail to ask for guarantees, to negotiate conditions, but he wasn’t that kind of Antyran, and it didn’t seem a particularly smart idea to annoy the prophet with petty talk. Therefore, he tried to pull the bracelet off his arm. Still uncertain if he would be able to hand it over, he wanted to test his reactions to find out if he was coward enough to do it. Come on, you idiot, give it faster! his cells screamed from the top of their membranes. We want to live!
But his left arm hung motionless along his body, as if it was made of neutronium. He tried again, somewhat more determined that the first time. Still nothing. His own limbs didn’t listen to his preservation instinct, which for the first—and probably the last—time in his life proved too weak to save his tail. He sighed, partly relieved and partly terrified, realizing that he just signed his death warrant. The Sigians won. He wouldn’t betray them that easily, even if his life would be forfeit.
Strangely, now that he passed the test, he didn’t feel so afraid anymore. His whole body numbed, falling into a kind of trance. You can’t give a whole world like a bowl of siclides, a worried voice whispered in his kyi, a voice he didn’t recognize as his own.
He had the feeling he was looking at himself from the outside, as if someone much braver took control of his kyi, as if the Sigian god was still living inside, begging him to fight for their lost civilization.
Of course, he knew he was alone—the god vanished when Alala burst into his room. But he didn’t leave altogether: the Sigian left the mark of despair imprinted in his kyi, and Gill realized he’d never escape of it. Never, no matter how many days he had to live.
So instead of gratefully accepting the prophet’s request, he surprised himself by speaking with a suicidal courage he never dreamed of being capable of.
“Sorry, but the bracelet is not for taking.”
“Are you mad?” Alala shouted, appalled. “Do you realize that—”
Baila made a sign to silence her.
“Allow me one more word because Antyra’s fate depends on your decision!” he barked with a glimpse of fury in his eyes, quickly hidden under a fake smile.
Gill hesitated for a moment, undecided if he should run away or listen what the prophet had to say.
“We’re not going to harm you,” continued Baila.
Gill threw an incredulous look at him.
“That’s the truth, Gill. Not because we don’t want to. Let’s skip the veiled words and skillful smell-talk: we can’t afford to touch you. We need your help more than anything, to avoid losing another bracelet—maybe the last one!”
“You lost another bracelet?” he exclaimed, stunned by the revelation.
“Yes,” the prophet admitted angrily, clenching his fists. “It was the most unfortunate accident. We were so close, and then we lost everything. But today, after hundreds of years, I’m finally hopeful—”
“This is all very interesting,” he said, cutting into the prophet’s speech without bothering to hide his hostility, “but no matter how much I enjoy our little conversation, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“I’m going to tell you the biggest secret of the gods! Why do you think they locked the Antyrans inside the firewall? As a punishment for their mortal sins, as it was written in the dogma? No, Gill, the truth is that Arghail’s children took shelter on Antyra, and Zhan had to raise the wall to keep them trapped. For one thousand two hundred and fifty years, the gods left us as hostages, imprisoned by flames, along with their greatest enemy!”
Too bad the tarjis can’t hear you; they’d rip you to pieces for such a blasphemy, he thought bitterly. But Baila’s revelation was every bit as extraordinary as the other things found that day; Gill thought he was the only one who knew the story of the Sigians, yet Baila knew it as well! Or rather, a small part of it. The prophet obviously had no idea who the Sigians were and what fate they had suffered. He even dared to call them “Arghail’s children”—an evilness he couldn’t fathom after touching the kyi of the bracelet bearer.
“Let’s say I believe you,” he said instead, smiling bitterly. “Still, that doesn’t change anything.”
“Yes, it does, Gill. You see, my son, I don’t want the bracelet; I have no use for it. But the gods demand it. They need it. You have to give it to them!” he ordered, thrusting his claws at him like a hungry guval.
Gill shuddered, as if Baila’s immaterial hologram was somehow able to materialize in the room and grab his bracelet.
“I see what’s on your kyi, my child,” continued Baila with an unctuous voice. “You work for the Shindam, and you think its salvation lies in your hands. But be realistic! Ulben is lost, and you’re wasting your time on his tail!”
Like an evil oscillator, the cold reality threatened to throw him again in the pit of despair. After all, he had a ridiculously small chance of reaching Regisulben alive. You’ll die in vain, a coward voice whispered in his ears. His preservation instinct was still halfheartedly begging him to find a way to stay alive.
Shut up! he yelled at the storm of thoughts raging inside his kyi. I’m not afraid of you, he thought, looking straight at Baila. I’ll reach Regisulben and tell him how to defeat you, even if I have to drink the water of death to find him!
Without hesitation, he turned his back to the holotheater and walked to the doorstep.
“Maybe you hope your bracelet will change something, but I ask you: What are you going to do when the skies open and the wall of fire disappears? Who’s going to listen to your story when Zhan arrives at my call?” Baila shouted glacially, his voice filled with undisguised hate.
“I’ll see then, Your Greatness. I’ll see then,” he whispered, more to himself.
He rushed out of the room, suddenly worried that Alala might use a portable inductor34 on his tail. But she did nothing to stop him.
It seemed he had escaped… until a guttural mumble resembling a hungry moulan eating from an abundant gattar hit his ears.
“Ha purru si nanweg aga nyi,” it said.
He instinctively turned his eyes toward the holotheater, and he froze again—because for the second time in that day, the creature in front of his eyes didn’t belong to the Antyran world! On the verge of losing his smell, he understood the enormity of the consequences. The gods are already here!
A weird holo-creature was walking in front of the prophet, even though there was no holotheater to hold it. And along with the apparition, a huge artificial cave dug in granite bedrock became visible, entangled with Baila’s hideout. It seemed that the alien holo-device had troubles balancing the depth impression, because it projected part of the god’s cavern inside the large wall behind the prophet. The whole mix-up created the illusion that the prophet was in the same room with the creature, despite the obviously non-Antyran scanning technology and its granular red-gray shades added for a hallucinatory effect. It was an alien hologram meant for a different visual range than theirs!
The god was short, even shorter than Baila, and didn’t look like anything Gill had seen before—not even remotely. The scrawny creature gave an impression of surreal fragility, greatly emphasized by his whitish-gray skin dotted with purple veins—hard to tell if that was their normal color or just a scanning artifact.
The only things adorning his oddly shaped head, bulged out above his eye sockets and positioned on a long, wrinkled neck, were three shiny symbols—or maybe metallic implants—glimmering on the skin above his left eye.