Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (22 page)

“You have cut Treet from your life,” Ianni pointed out gently. “And closed that part of your life to the Teacher.”

“But I don't see how that matters.”

“The Infinite requires an open heart, Yarden, and an open life. All of life is to be shared with Him. You ask Him to help you grow, yet set limits to that growth.”

“But Treet—I want to give him up to follow the faith.”

“I know. But perhaps the Infinite requires something different from you.”

Yarden didn't like this. “You're saying I'm stuck with Treet? No matter what I happen to think or feel about it?”

Ianni laughed. “No, I didn't mean it like that. I only meant that there is obviously something to be accomplished between you. The Seeker has been prodding you to see this. Your rejection of Treet is unhealthy; it has made you unhappy, restless.”

“What am I supposed to do? He's God knows where, doing God knows what, and I'm here. Just what am I supposed to do?”

“I can't answer that, Yarden. Nor, I think, could the Preceptor. This you must discover for yourself.”

Yarden frowned unhappily. “I'll think about it.”

“Yes, think about it. But don't think too long.”

The
sumptuous Supreme Director's kraam had been stripped of its fine furniture and art objects and transformed into a palatial banqueting hall—complete with a bubbling fountain and pool with live fish near the entrance. Miniature trees had been placed around the perimeter of the room, and a circle of tables erected in the center. Behind screens and in secluded clusters conveniently hidden by hanging plants were soft couches and mounds of cushions for the assignations of his guests. Braziers on tall tripods lit the room with yellow flames that burned day and night, flickering before glistening Bolbe hangings of the very best quality.

The Supreme Director was entertaining with increasing frequency; he was busy cultivating a coterie of sycophants, stooges who would do his bidding without qualm or question and never dream of challenging his authority.

Jamrog entered the kraam, surrounded by his Mors Ultima bodyguard. Since Cejka and Tvrdy vanished, the Supreme Director had taken to moving about in public in the company of handpicked Invisibles. Subdirector Osmas, his Saecaraz successor, and a thin, sunken-eyed Nilokerus—one of Hladik's underdirectors, elevated to the Directorship following Fertig's disappearance—stood waiting with several Chryse and Bolbe artisans.

“Splendid!” Jamrog clapped his hands when he saw them. “You have something for me?”

The toady Osmas squirmed forward, rubbing his hands. “I have reviewed the work myself, Supreme Director. I think you will like the results.”

Jamrog, eyes gleaming in anticipation, observed the dour Nilokerus. The man, though young, had sunken cheeks and a deathly pallor, suggesting a wasting disease. “What about you, Diltz? What do you think?”

The voice that answered was forceful enough, but had something of the tenor of the tomb. “You will be pleased, Supreme Director.”

Jamrog made stirring motions with his hands. “Let's see it then, by all means.” Osmas ushered the artisans forward. With some trepidation they produced a huge length of cloth and unrolled it on the floor, stretching it between them. As the folds were carefully shaken out, there appeared a gigantic image of the Supreme Director with ceremonial bhuj in uplifted hand painted on cloth of Saecaraz silver with black edging.

Jamrog studied the likeness carefully, striding right into the center of the cloth to stare down at his own portrait. The artists glanced at one another fearfully. But slowly the mercurial leader smiled and looked up. “I am pleased,” he announced. “Well pleased. You have rendered my likeness admirably, and for that you will receive a thousand shares each.”

“A thousand shares!” gasped one of the Bolbe. He clamped a hand over his mouth and, abashed, shrank back behind the others.

“What, not enough?” mocked Jamrog, turning on the man. “Two thousand then—but you'll have to earn it, greedy Bolbe.”

The artisans were stunned; they'd never heard of such sums. However, one enterprising Chryse found his voice and asked, “How may we further serve you, Supreme Director?”

“I want a thousand just like this,” Jamrog said, tapping the long-handled bhuj on the portrait beneath his feet.

“A thousand!” sputtered the Chryse in disbelief.

“Two thousand for one thousand,” smiled Jamrog sweetly. “I want them ready for the Trabantonna.”

Seeing the artisans quail at the request, Osmas stepped forward. “The Feast of the Departed is nearly upon us, Supreme Director,” he interceded. “Or did we misunderstand?”

“No, you understand completely. I will have my image displayed on every Hageblock in every Hage and at every feast site. This will remind all Empyrion of their leader's thoughtfulness for them.” He looked around him for any to gainsay the plan.

“Of course, Threl Leader,” replied the Chryse spokesman. “It can be done.”

“You see, Osmas? No misunderstanding.” To Diltz he said, “The Nilokerus will see that the banners are hung to best effect in each Hage. When I make my appearances at the Trabantonna feasts, I want to see my image well represented.”

The Nilokerus Director assented silently. “Excellent!” Jamrog said, tapping the image with the bhuj again. “Correct me if I am wrong, Directors, but I think this sort of thing helps our Hagemen tremendously. It focuses their attention, you see, makes them continually aware of me as I am of them.”

“Oh, undoubtedly, Hage Leader,” gushed Osmas.

“All the more reason to proceed with haste,” offered Jamrog helpfully. “We have our Hagemen to think of in this matter.”

The artisans dismissed themselves and were whisked away by several of the ever-attentive Invisibles. “Now then,” snapped Jamrog when the others had gone, “what of the fugitives?”

“Latest reports are not encouraging, Supreme Director,” explained the Saecaraz Subdirector. “There has been no sign of them.”

Jamrog whirled on Diltz. “What about your security forces?”

“As I have explained, Supreme Director, we do not have checkpoints at all Hage borders—”

“Establish them at once,” Jamrog ordered. “I want those traitors found.”

Osmas attempted to soothe his leader. “Certainly you can have no serious thoughts for them now. They mean nothing.”

“Tvrdy is a cunning enemy, and Cejka is no fool. Together they are twice the threat. The longer they are free, the more impudent they will become. All opposition to my leadership must be silenced. Traitors like Tvrdy and his puppet Cejka encourage other weak-willed malcontents to harbor treason in their hearts.” He stepped close to Diltz and thrust a finger in his face. The man did not flinch. “The Nilokerus will begin a Hage by Hage search for the two enemies. Any help will be generously rewarded—five thousand shares if we find them. Publicize it.”

“As you wish,” Osmas replied. Diltz merely offered his silent acquiescence.

The Supreme Director sighed with satisfaction. “Ah, I'm hungry. Have my guests arrived?”

“They are waiting in the anteroom, Hage Leader.”

“Let them come in. Bring me a hagerobe, and send the food at once.” He dismissed Osmas to carry out his orders, and stood with his legs wide apart, gazing at his enormous image on the cloth beneath his feet. “It
is
a good likeness,” he said. “Think—it will hang in every place of prominence. My reign, Diltz, my reign is the beginning of a glorious age, the like of which Empyrion has never seen!”

“Undoubtedly,” intoned Diltz in his sepulchral voice, a spidery smile twitching his lips.

Jamrog put his arm around the man's bony shoulders, threw back his head, and laughed.

He would live. There
was no doubt in his mind about that. Neither was there any doubt that he was changed. Subtly perhaps, but definitely changed. Treet knew this, knew it in his heart and bones. He was simply not the same anymore.

At first he thought the conditioning had done its abominable work. But the more he thought about it—and he had a lot of time to do absolutely nothing but think—the more he was inclined to discount the idea. The way he had been yanked from the tank and dumped on the physician's doorstep suggested that the process had been aborted. Secondly, the conditioning, he reasoned, was designed to remove, replace, or at least alter one's personal awareness, not heighten it.

This last fact was what strengthened his conviction that he had miraculously escaped before the procedure was completed, for Treet's awareness had clearly, decisively, unmistakably been boosted. He felt himself tingling with the sense that he
knew
something—some radical insight had been granted him, or some hidden inner secret of the universe had been revealed to him.

True, he didn't know what his secret revelation was—hadn't a clue—but the inner thrill of
knowing
was as unshakable as it was irrational. Treet delighted in a keenness of perception that had no object. And though he could hardly lift head from pillow, he felt strong and invincible, as if he could part oceans with a word.

The physical sensations did not stop there. His scalp prickled and his face, especially around the eyes and forehead, felt as if it were radioactive, as if he had stood too close to an atomic blast.

This was, however, not an entirely disagreeable feeling; nothing like a sunburn, for instance. He thought it could be an aftereffect of the wax mask he had worn in the tank, but the skin surface itself was not at all sensitive to the touch. The warmth seemed to emanate from inside, radiating heat outward. He imagined that his face might glow in the dark.

Combined with this burning-face phenomenon, there was a lightness in the pit of his stomach—like hunger only softer, more diffuse. He felt buoyant, as if his body were made of a less dense material: air perhaps, or light.

Absurdly, it seemed to Treet that he was floating inside himself. When he closed his eyes, he could feel himself drifting upward, or rising rapidly on invisible currents, streaming toward an unknown destination.

Taken together, these sensations might have alarmed him, or at least frightened him a little. Treet, however, experienced not a second's apprehension over any of his bizarre symptoms. This lack of concern was due to a continuing awareness of the alien presence he had contacted while in Hladik's torture tank.

The entity remained near him, unintrusive but present. As close as thought—as if a part of Treet's consciousness had been permeated by this other, but in such a way that increased rather than diminished his personal awareness—which accounted for his heightened sensitivity, no doubt. If consciousness were pictured as a great miasmic sphere inside which self-awareness dwelt, then a portion of Treet's sphere had been gently interfused with the alien entity's sphere. As a result, he was more himself rather than less.

Curiously, Treet found this pervasion a benign and wholesome affair, completing in him areas of previously unrealized deficiency, as if hidden gaps had been cemented, or wounds healed. He felt centered: a runaway planet that had been captured, stabilized, and pulled into useful orbit around a life-giving sun.

This was how he knew he would live, and how he knew he had changed.

The change, Treet knew in all his being—for the knowledge continually coursed through him like blood through his arteries—was toward life and away from death. There was a certainty, an inevitability to his life now that had been absent before. What is more, he knew that his life would be forever changed. No one, he reasoned, could undergo such an infusion of (there was no other word for it) goodness and remain indifferent or unchanged.

The
wevicat padded silently through the forest, stopping occasionally to sniff at a new scent as it crossed the trail. Crocker followed, loping easily along behind, content to have the cat lead the way back to the lair. They had been hunting again that afternoon and had caught nothing but three of the plump, flightless birds. They had surprised the hapless creatures on the ground, making their slow way to new trees and better feeding. A flurry of feathers, squawks, and a quick wevicat nip on their short necks, and supper was assured. Now, late in the afternoon, the ground mist already starting to curl around root and bole, they were returning with their catch.

Cook the birds over a fire,
the voice in Crocker's head had suggested.
You could make a fire. The meat would taste good that way.

Crocker was puzzling over the word
fire
when he saw the wevicat freeze. The man stopped and stood rock-still, eyes and ears instantly alert. The great cat's nostrils twitched; the tip of his tail quivered.

A scent on the air,
his voice cautioned.

Crocker detected nothing save the ordinary earth smells of the deep forest, but knew the cat's senses were infinitely more keen than his own. Something stopped the animal in its tracks. Game? An enemy?

The wevicat jerked its head around and looked at its human companion, then sprang forward, bounding headlong down the trail. Crocker leaped ahead too, and came flying into a clearing a few meters away—just in time to see the enormous cat clawing its way up a stout tree that emerged from a pile of moss-bedecked rock at the far end of the clearing.

Gripping his spear in one hand, the man began following the cat's example, but much more slowly and with greater care, standing on a rock to reach the first branch a good two meters off the ground. He had cleared the second branch and was reaching for the third when he heard bushes rustling and branches snapping—together with a horrendous snuffling sound like that of a rooting hog amplified fifty times—on the trail behind him. He froze as the beast making the sound lumbered into the clearing.

The first glimpse of the creature almost knocked Crocker from his precarious perch. The thing was perfectly enormous—big enough to make the awesome wevicat appear insignificant.

Crocker recognized instantly that here was one of the lords of the forest he had heard that rainy day when he had hid quivering under a bush, fearing for his life, feeling the very ground tremble beneath their unseen combat, hoping against hope that he would not be discovered by the titanic warriors.