“And so you are, Greggy.” Sugoll had been issuing telepathic commands, directing the boats to shore. Now he smiled down on the dapper little geneticist. “You are valuable to us as well. I’ll see that you get to stalk some big game at a suitable time. But you must promise not to go haring off on your own. Losing you would be a catastrophe.”
The elderly man was quick with reassurances. He glanced around at the grounding punts and the passengers disembarking in the moonlight. “I think you all look perfectly splendid in your illusory bodies! And you and Katy make a wonderful couple, Sugoll.”
The Howler lord’s brow creased slightly. “You can discern no shadow of our true monstrous shapes?”
“Not a trace! Not a—a debilissima!”
“Let us hope,” Sugoll said, “that our disguises prove as impenetrable to the Firvulag royalty. And to the bridegrooms at the Grand Loving.”
“Nine thousand?’ Sharn croaked brokenly. “O Goddess.”
“The riverguards counted ’em twice, Appalling One,” said Fitharn. “There seem to be well over a thousand virgins, too. All shiny red boots and flower garlands with ribbons, and so stiff with opals and sapphires and rubies that they can barely stagger.”
“But how do they look?’ Ayfa inquired grimly.
Fitharn paused. He pursed his lips, screwed up his eyes, scratched one ear, and resettled his conical hat. Silence grew.
“Well?” demanded the royal ogress. “Can you tell?”
“In a dark bedroom. Majesty, if one were very horny—”
Sharn groaned “That bad?”
“Their stuffings are ingenious and attractive. Appalling Ones, but I’m afraid they wouldn’t deceive a true Firvulag for a gnat’s eyeblink.”
“We can’t risk having an official reception for them here in the Hall,” Ayfa decided. “There’d be a riot.”
“At the least,” the King sighed.
“If you want my advice,” Fitharn said, “head ’em off before they ever get to High Vrazel. Meet ’em on the trail with a slap-up picnic feast, plenty of musicians and liquor, and a welcoming committee of trustworthy nobles and their ladies, primed to be tactful. (Don’t ask any with eligible sons, of course.) Give this pack of monsters what my old friend Chief Burke would call a schmooze-job! Chat ’em up. Tell ’em you want to save an inconvenient side trip to High Vrazel—where all the palace jakes are on the blink! After all, they’ll have far enough to go, marching to Nionel through the Belfort Gap.”
Ayfa broke in “We can tell them all about their fine new home. Show them mind-pictures! Promise them discounts on materials for the renovation! Send them off with plenty of pack animals and riding stock to ease their journey.”
“Not my new herds of chalikos and hellads!” wailed the King.
“You can steal more,” his wife said firmly. “This is an emergency. The quicker that mob of wretched little spriggans is out of the Vosges, the better.”
Sharn shook his great head helplessly. “But we’re only postponing the problem—not solving it. So far, our own people know very little about this migration. But what are we going to do, come May? We’ve agreed to let the Howlers sponsor the Loving!”
“We’ll think of something by then,” Ayfa said soothingly. “And besides—you and I won’t be around then. Don’t you recall? We’re going to spend the Grand Loving this year with Aiken Drum and Mercy-Rosmar and what’s left of the Tanu flower and chivalry over in Goriah.”
“Well, Té be thanked for small favors. All I’ll have to worry about down there is assassination!”
“Shall I put arrangements for the fancy picnic in tram, then?” Fitharn asked.
“Do so,” Sharn commanded, all business again. “That’s a fine idea of yours, Fitharn. And you’re coming, too, as master of ceremonies. Get out your best clothes and the gold pegleg studded with bloodstones. We’re going to pamper and flatter that army of abominations until they’re giddy. They’re never going to suspect that we’re all throwing up inside! . . . Do you think they brought their treasure?”
“The riverguards reported that the Howler horde is well supplied with strongboxes and locked pouches.”
Ayfa gave a great sigh of contentment. “Then everything is going to be all right after all.”
And so the festive meeting took place near the headwaters of the Onion River south of High Vrazel, in a pretty part of the forest where the bulbuls sang amid the giant ferns and blossoming trees dropped petals on a scene of rustic splendor. The King and Queen of the Firvulag, sixty of their most discreet courtiers, an honor guard of Warrior Ogres and Ogresses, and almost the entire strength of the royal culinary corps starred in a day-long fête champêtre that completely overawed the innocent Howlers.
Plied with food and drink, woozy from overindulgence in the psychoactive hooby mushrooms, the emigrants responded enthusiastically to the proposal that they repopulate Nionel. The royal donation of some 400 fully trapped chalikos, twice that number of draft hellads with carts, and a breeding herd of the recently tamed little hipparions provoked transports of maudlin gratitude among the besotted monsters. After a nice show of reluctance, Sharn and Ayfa agreed to accept their joint weight in gemstones as a partial down payment on delinquent taxes owed by the Howler nation to the throne over the past 856 years.
The matter of bnde-fosterage among the noble Firvulag families was delicately skirted. This custom, Sugoll was told, had fallen into decline among the nonmutant populace; and given the large number of nubile Howler females, there would be considerable awkwardness reinstating it at the present time. Smoothly, the two monarchs declared that the brides would be far happier (and more useful) accompanying their own families to Nionel. There they could not only participate in the work force, but also prepare connubial dwellings to share with their new spouses. At the Grand Loving, the Howler damsels would celebrate the mating rituals just as other Firvulag maidens did, the girls and boys pairing off on a basis of mutual selection. Queen Ayfa pooh-poohed fears that the mutant brides would be at a disadvantage. It was true that their numbers were disproportionally great; however, she would personally extend Loving invitations to the most remote enclaves of “wild” Firvulag—those only nominally loyal to the throne—insuring an extra supply of grooms. If some of the Howler beauties went unclaimed this year, they would surely be snapped up at subsequent celebrations once word of their charm and generous endowment got round the Many-Colored Land.
Upon this gracious note, the royal party took its leave. Sugoll, feeling a mountain of anxiety lifted from his shoulders, retired to his cloth-of-gold pavilion after decreeing a two-day period of rest and recuperation. All over the littered picnic grove, happily fuddled mutants collapsed snoring, reassuming their usual forms once they drifted into slumber.
Only Katlinel and Greg-Donnet remained awake. As the moon went down and bonfires died out, the stately hybrid woman and the wispy academic in the clawhammer coat took lanterns and walked among the people to see that all were safe. Heaps of deformed and grotesque bodies, incongruous in rich clothing, lay in Dantean disarray on the trampled grass. There were empty flagons and dirty dishes everywhere.
After they had walked awhile, Greg-Donnet said, “You didn’t tell Sugoll, then?”
“I couldn’t bear to. Not yet. He’s suffered such terrible worries all through the winter—and then the trip, and wondering about our new home. He was afraid Sharn would want to banish our people to some horrible wilderness like Albion!
Nionel will be a paradise in comparison. No. . .we must let him regain his spirits before telling him the bad news. And don’t you let any hint leak out, Greggy, or I shall be very cross with you.”
“No fear, no fear.” The geneticist shook his marmosetlike head, “The King and Queen and their people put a very good face on it, I must say. But as I wandered about, I picked up a good many intimations of disaster. And you, my dear, with your redactive faculty, must have known the truth almost at once.”
“I suppose it was only logic
al,” Katlinel said. “Howlers can see through each other’s illusions easily enough. And they and the Firvulag share the same metapsychic pattern.”
Greg-Donnet gave a mournful sigh. “Only humans and non-redactive Tanu would fail to penetrate the disguises. Poor little loathly brides! Well—it was only a small part of the eugenic scheme, merging the gene pools. There’s still the engineering and the possibility of using Skin.”
“But the people will be humiliated at the Grand Loving! Who knows what they might do? Oh, Greggy, it’s such a shame.”
She paused, lifting her lantern high. Nestled together under a sheltering willow tree were three hideous little beings, pipe-stem limbs entwined, goblin faces relaxed and peaceful. They wore bejeweled kirtles, flower headbands, and little red boots.
2
PERCHED ON A LONE TREE IN THE MIDST OF THE BLOOMING savanna, the raven watched a pair of sabertooth cats cooperate in stalking their prey. The small herd of antidorcas gazelles, fawn-colored and lyre-homed, grazed on obliviously until the male machairodus spooked them by dashing out of a clump of high grass. They fled downwind and the female cat, lying in ambush, sprang. Almost nonchalantly she grappled with one of the gazelles and ripped its neck open with a slash of her ten-centimeter canines. Her mate bounded up, eager for his share.
While the prey still struggled, the raven flew down, on fire with the old lust. The cats withdrew before her coercive blast and crouched, snarling and hissing, as the predatory bird attacked one of the gazelle’s great black eyes. The beak struck like an ebon dagger The animal’s back arched and stiffened, and then it subsided, dead The raven drank the aqueous humor and fed on blood.
But there was no electric release. Never, as there used to be at the death.
She flew back to her perch and swayed there, logy and miserable, watching the indignant machairodus cats return to begin their meal. No pleasure. Never any more. Never the old surge of hot psychoenergy as the victim fell, confirming her power. There were small joys to be found in the gleaning of the gold, and comfort from the faithful friends on Mount Mulhacén. But never the glorious fulfillment. Not even when she had penetrated the world.
It was his fault.
The sun above her expanded to a sanguine whirling thing. She gripped the branch and felt her mind lurch, her guts heave and disgorge clotted dark liquids Suddenly nerveless, her claws lost their hold and she tumbled heavily to the ground, wings all awry, to land in a puddle of stinking vomitus.
And then, as before and always, she was tied to a wheel-tike apparatus, prone, with hands and feet fiercely compressed by the torturer’s manacles, and he focusing ever more sharply the pain that seemed to flood through every orifice of her body. The wheel turned, lowering her headfirst into the vat of filth. Even though her mouth had been wedged open, she slopped her throat with her swollen tongue, staving off drowning, while fresh agony grew in her bursting lungs. Just as the symphony of pain seemed to reach its crescendo, she was forced to a further extreme by the thrust of his impalement The sunburst. The release. The turn of the wheel into the air. The humiliating ignominy as the combined ecstasy and anguish receded.
Stop, her mind pleaded with him Don’t . . .
Don’t stop?
He would cleanse her tenderly, laughing, his beautiful face hovering in torn scarlet mist, sometimes kissing her unbroken body (and this was the worst of all and brought her closest to crying out hate-love and defiance, and thus to the brink of imbecility).
Scream, he told her gently. Curse me aloud and it will be consummated. But she would not utter a sound, shutting eyes and mind from the sight of him and the knowledge of what inevitably came next, the warm stream, the soft impacts on her face and eyelids.
You like it. It’s what you are, where you came from, what you’re made of . . .
Stop. Don’t stop. Let me die rather than know. The agony of realization. The reaming, refining pain burning through the brain along the channels opened by fury. Stop. Don’t stop . . .
Scream, he invited Only scream for an end.
But she would not, and the wheel, come full circle, carried her down again into the feculent trough. Her soul shrank, her identity hid away in the tiny mental sanctuary that remained buried in contradictions of pleasure and pain, humiliation and rapture, love and hate. He was destroying her, creating her. Demolishing her, perfecting her. Driving her insane as he unwittingly set free her superhuman metapsychic potential. Killing her in the act of love.
Stop. Don’t stop. Torturer Beloved.
The raven flopped weakly under the enormous blood-sun. The disk was spinning, throwing off foul-smelling drops that burned her, extruding a kind of jet—a vortex that sought her out and tried to pierce her again.
You will not, she told it. There is no pleasure in the pain anymore. None ever again until I invade and break you, O Beloved. The passive earth was not enough.
At length, the sabertooth cats finished and sat in the sun, licking their paws and washing their faces. They were magnificent things, patterned with marbled squares that merged into dark stripes and spots at the head and extremities. The male strolled over to sniff the moribund raven. But the bird was a repellent object, exuding suffering, and the cat merely gave it a contemptuous swat before turning away and leading its mate off for their afternoon nap.
The bird roused from its stupor and called. Culluket.
Felice.
Is that you Beloved?
No it is I. Elizabeth. My poor Felice. Let me help you.
Help? Stop?
I can help you. Stop the nightmares and the misery.
Stop? Stop painpleasure?
It’s not really pleasure. That part is gone. What’s left is only pain. A mind full of pain and guilt. A sick mind. Let me help.
Help? Only he can help. By dying.
Not true. I can help. Wash away all the filth forever. Make you bright and clean and new.
I can never be. I am only fit to be despised shunned execrated shit upon.
Not true. You can be healed. Come to me.
Come? But they are coming! Coming to me! To bow down and give homage and follow. To gift me with my heart’s desire. Come to YOU? Stupidstupidstupid—
They are liars Felice They will not give you what you need. They will only use you to gain what they seek.
They seek my Beloved. To please me. To restore my joy!
No. They lie to you.
Theydonotcannottheyaredarkangels—
They are human beings. Operant metapsychic humans.
Not devils?
Humans. They lied. Listen to me Felice. You know that I was a powerful mindhealer in the Milieu. I will heal you if you only come freely to me. I will ask nothing in return. I will not seek to bind you. I am constrained by superego block never to harm a thinking being. I only wish to see you healthy in mind and free and at peace. The others cannot do this for you.
Perhaps they can!
Ask them.
I will! And I’ll find out soon enough if they’re lying about bringing me Cull.
Test them.
Yes Yes Elizabeth? Could you really erase the nightmare? It’s the wrong kind of pain you know.
I know. It’s part of your sickness. To perceive pain as pleasure sometimes. Your mental circuits are dislocated. It happened when you were very young. But you can be healed if you open to me admit me freely. Will you come?
Come? Stop the pain? Don’t stop! Yes? No! CULLUKET! CULLUKET! CULLUKET!
The raven took wing, crying harshly. Down below on the Spanish steppe, the sabertooth cats dozed and the herd of gazelles grazed unmolested.
3
HIGH ON AFALIAH’S SOUTHERN RAMPART, LOOKING DOWN unseeing upon the tumult of the afternoon fighting practice, the two old First Comers quarreled.
“Principles! Principles!” raved Aluteyn Craftsmaster. “Hungry people will tell you where to stick your principles! Celo, the Flood’s unhinged your wits!”
“Should I have remained a hostage to Lowlife g
adgetry?” Celadeyr demanded rhetorically. “The thing was a symbol of everything Nodonn warned us against. Only human operators understood it! It was a tool of soulless Milieu technocracy!”
“Well, it’s nobody’s tool now, you bungling idiot. Why didn’t you exercise your high-minded idealism on something less vital to the local economy? There can’t be two weeks’ worth of flour left in the southern warehouses! Sweet tittuping Tana—every city between here and Amalizan depends on your mill. Are we all supposed to eat parched groats and mush?”
“Why not?” the Lord of Afaliah shouted. “They’d be a damn sight more healthy for you than the sissified pastries and croissants and Gil Blas pancakes you usually stuff yourself with! Just look at yourself, Al. You’re toting more lard than ever. A fine excuse for a city-lord! If the Foe attacks your Calamosk, you’ll look like a hippo in emerald armor leading the battle-charge! A diet of honest, old-fashioned food would do you good.”
“Thank you very much for the advice.” The Craftsmaster’s voice was silky. He thrust his face with its silver-gold mustaches and bushy brows nose to nose with that of his old friend. “Odd, isn’t it—but I had the mistaken impression you called me down here to ask my help, not to read me a health-food lecture and insult my physique! Well, live and learn. And fix your bloody flour mill yourself!” He whirled about and went stomping toward the stairway.
“Al, come back.” The words were forced out. The mind-plea was desolate. “I am a bungler. All I intended to do was disconnect the mill’s robotics. Go back to direct control by people. Modify the operation so that we weren’t so dependent on the Lowlives.”