Phthor (19 page)

Now a ripple of horror, inspired by the mere suggestion of Aton dead. Coquina’s love was a miraculous thing; Arlo had never before glimpsed its depth. “When Aton was a child of seven,” Coquina said, “the minionette Malice, his mother and yours, visited him and gave him the hvee. Even then, he loved her. Many years later, he gave that hvee to me, forgetting its origin. I did not know it was hers—but the hvee never forgets, and because I loved him, it survived. Even when Malice died, the hvee lived—because it could not interpret what had happened. The hvee is not intelligent. But when I returned it to Aton, it knew his love for Malice was over— because she was dead and he knew she was dead and that it was really hers—and so it died.”

Vex had to work this out. “You knew Malice was dead— but not that you wore her hvee—so it lived?”

“Yes. The hvee loved me, because I loved Aton, who loved its true mistress. There must always be a chain, and it cannot see beyond one link at a time. Intellectual knowledge of one person about the end of that chain does not affect the hvee; it has to get close enough to comprehend its own, purely emotional way. Any break in that chain can kill it, if the break is adjacent.”

“But the hvee I just brought there is no chain—”

“There is a chain. This is what Aton has shown us. The hvee does not distinguish between types of love; convention has relegated it to romance, but it is quite possible for a father to give it to his son, or to his grandchild—so long as true love exists. Sometimes close friends of the same sex exchange the hvee; this does not imply anything untoward.”

Arlo had not known this either. Where there was love— any love—the hvee could live. It didn’t have to be sexual.

“But I could only carry Aton’s hvee—” Vex said falteringly. “I knew it was not intended for me—” She paused, confused. “I bear Arlo’s hvee!”

“Yes. That much is true. You love Aton—and you also love Arlo. Both are close kin to you; as a minionette, you must love them, so that you can love either—as events require. It is possible to love two; the hvee proves it.”

“Yet now you hold the hvee—”

“I shall give it to my son,” Coquina said. She put it in Arlo’s hair, and her love was an almost tangible thing to his new awareness. “See—it does not wilt.”

“Because he loves you,” Vex said. “And I know he loves me too. But how can it have passed between you and me, unless—” She halted, amazed. “Unless you love me!”

“You are very like your mother,” Coquina said. “And very like Aton. Much of what I love in him is really his reflection of his mother—whom I also loved. I never had a daughter—”

“But I am a minionette!”

“Minionettes are also human beings.”

“Yet Arlo—Aton—”

“We are coming into Ragnarok. If Chthon loses, I die, for I depend on Chthon. If Chthon wins, we may all die, for the cavern entity will have no further need of us. I rather think my son will die, too, in this awful combat. If Aton survives, it will be fitting that he return to Minion. I know you will take care of him when that time comes, and I would not have it otherwise. He was born to love the minionette.”

There was a long silence, but Arlo felt the gradually shifting and strengthening emotions of the minionette. Then: “If you love me, why don’t I feel the pain?”

“You are partly normal, child. Not all your emotions are reversed.”

“I never had a mother....”

“This is the sad thing about being a minionette. You are forced to orient exclusively on the opposite sex, in a sexual way, so that you never know the joys of true family existence. In this manner the pattern is constantly reinforced.”

“I think I have a mother now.”

“Yes...”

Arlo’s store of energy was exhausted. He sank back into unconsciousness—but it was a better state than he had been in before.

“We have to do something about those hands,” Aton said. “The skin’s gone. They’ll be weeks healing.”

Arlo looked up at him. They were in the home-cave. Down in the tunnel was Coquina’s section, too stiflingly hot for normal comfort. Here it was pleasant. Evidently he had been shuffled back once the initial crisis passed. “Why did you save me?”

Aton exchanged glances with Vex. Arlo saw and felt the futile longing that passed between them. Neither intended to yield, but both felt the magnetic pull. Arlo hoped they would not realize how well he could read their emotions, now.

“We need you,” Vex said. “We did not save you from Chthon only to yield you to the potwhale.”

That was a fair answer. All three of them knew the situation: no need to rehearse it. Arlo looked down at his hands. “Gloves, maybe. They don’t hurt—in fact, I can hardly feel my fingers....”

“You took a dose of caterpillar compulsion,” Aton said. “It will be slow to wear off. But we have to protect the skin, and we don’t have proper bandages.”

“So we did get gloves,” Vex finished. “From the minionettes.” She spoke as though she were not one herself, and it was no artificial distinction. “Here.”

Gloves? They were giant metal weave gauntlets! Each finger was articulated by a construction of sliding, overlapping scales, so that it could be moved and bent freely without being crushed. Inside was webbing and padding, fastening the whole in place gently yet firmly. Very firmly. From the outside the gloves were crushproof; they could sustain hammer-blows without denting. But from the inside they were amazingly comfortable, feather-light despite their gross mass.

“Engineers’ handwear,” Aton explained. “I used a similar set on space ships, where temperature and pressure could vary widely across deadly extremes, but precise adjustments had to be made. You can thread a needle or handle red-hot iron—” he broke off.

“I know what a needle is,” Arlo said, smiling. “A sliver of metal used in the manufacture of apparel. Coquina has one.” He looked at his hands. The gloves seemed to fit like living flesh. His skin was numb, but somehow the gloves transmitted the sensation of pressure to his interior receptors, making it seem as though the metal itself could feel.

Experimentally, he tapped the stone floor. There was no pain. He struck it, still receiving sensation without discomfort. He stood up, feeling weak and dizzy, and smacked his fist hard into the wall. It crushed the glow-lichen and chipped a fragment of stone away, but the shock to his hand and arm was minimal.

“Thor’s gloves...” he murmured.

“We saved the best caterpillar segments, and made a sledge,” At on said. “I think it will serve.”

The two of them must have liked working together! But what could Arlo say? They had done it for him, and done well.

“Meanwhile, what is Chthon doing?” Arlo inquired.

“Winning the war,” Vex said succinctly. “If we don’t get organized soon, it will be too late.”

“I’ll see about it,” Arlo said.

“Be careful,” Aton cautioned. “Chthon gives few warnings.”

“Your eye!” Arlo cried, suddenly realizing. “A warning?”

“How did you lose it?” Vex inquired.

Aton seemed reluctant, but answered. “I was questing for better metals, back when I first started making rings. I needed accessible gold in an almost pure state, that I could remove with no more than hammer and chisel, and that’s hard to find. I explored down past tunnels lined with ice and snow and found a closed-off region, an artificial dead end, a blocked passage deep below the normal run. I knew somehow that a fundamental secret of Chthon was concealed behind that barrier, and I wanted to master it. I started to pound through the partition—and the chimera came. I tried to fight it, but the thing moved so quickly... it plucked out my eye and left. It could readily have killed me, but Chthon sent it away. That was my warning: stay clear of the forbidden secrets of Chthon. So I gained knowledge of my limits and never trespassed again. And in a few days a chipper opened a rich vein of gold near my home-cave, and I knew Chthon had given me this in lieu of the knowledge I had sought.”

“Odin went down to the base of the great World Tree Yggdrasil,” Arlo said, remembering as from a dream. “There he found the Spring of Mimir, whose water gave inspiration and knowledge of things to come. And for a drink from that spring, Odin gave up his eye.”

“Lovely,” Vex said. To her, of course, it was.

They showed him the goat-cart. The two chippers were huge and well preserved, their forelimbs intact so that they could run on all fours. The sledge was fashioned of flexible wooden poles from the surface, cushioned by woven fibers. The front part of it was supported by the chippers, so that it did not touch the ground; it tilted down at an angle that made obstruction almost impossible. A vine-bound stalactite seat had been fixed on the rear, with strong handholds. It resembled a throne.

Arlo mounted it and took the reins. “The goats are not really broken in yet,” Aton warned. “Once they start, they tend not to stop, so take it easy. You have to work with them yourself, so that they will orient on you.”

“Sure,” said Arlo. He was feeling better already. He gave the reins a good twitch.

The two chippers launched themselves down the tunnel. Aton and Vex dived out of the way, lest they be trampled. The cavern walls shot past at an alarming rate. “Hold! Hold!” Arlo cried, but they only went faster. They had not yet learned the meaning or discipline of such a command, and they were powerful.

The sledge bumped across irregularities in the floor. Then the chippers hurdled a narrow river channel—and so did the sledge. It felt like flying. At first the experience was terrifying, but soon Arlo realized that the chippers were surefooted; they would not crash into any walls or leap off any cliffs.

Fine. Let them exert their energies. Arlo found that he could steer them, when he needed to, by jerking to one side or the other on the reins, because there were bits hooked into the corners of their mouths behind their teeth, and pressure there was painful. He felt that pain himself, through their limited minds. He directed them toward the wind caverns where the minionettes were camped.

The journey that would have taken hours on foot was much shorter by sledge. Furthermore, he arrived fresher than he had been at the start, for the limited activity restored his body. He concentrated on the chippers’ minds, strengthening his telepathic connection, acquainting them with himself as though he were the lead segment of their caterpillar. In a sense he was. His minion, Chthon, and caterpillar experiences all contributed to his mental authority. The chippers, tiring at last, were willing to accede to his demands. Since the mental directives turned out to be easiest and most effective, he finally removed the bits, leaving the reins as no more than a suggestion. No one but he would be able to control these fine animals!

Torment met him at the camp. She and the other minionettes knew without being physically informed that she was to be his liaison. “We heard you had some trouble.”

“Bit of fun with a caterpillar. I’m better now. I understand you have trouble yourself.”

“We have lost one-third of our troops,” she said. “We can replace them, but we cannot expend them at this rate indefinitely. The population of Minion is limited, and minionettes are hard to replace.”

“Come on here with me,” he said. “I want to survey the caverns.”

She joined him on the sledge, stepping daintily. There was that in her appearance and manner that still set her apart from Vex, showing her to be a mature full-blooded minionette instead of a nascent one. These were appealing refinements. “Your animals are beautifully tired,” she remarked.

He leaned over his chair and kissed her, savoring her aspect so like that of Vex, yet so enticingly distinct. Torment gasped and fell back, barely retaining her perch on the sledge. “Are you trying to kill me?” It was no rhetorical or humorous question; she had been cruelly stricken.

“I want the goats tired,” he said. “I am breaking them in.”

“If I seemed condescending, I will not be so again,” Torment said.

She had gotten the message. He wanted the minionettes broken in, too. He could not punish them in anger, but he could kiss them into oblivion. “Chthon’s creatures are now organized, under common command,” he explained. “We can overcome them only if we have superior organization. Can you link with each other telepathically?”

“To a certain extent. The death of one of our own pains us all; there is no reversal among ourselves. So we tend to suppress it.”

“I’d guess there is reversal between yourselves,” Arlo said. “Double reversal—that cancels out. You broadcast reversed, and you receive reversed.”

She nodded. “You seem to be getting more intelligent.”

“I have had a great deal of experience in the past few days, and I am learning about telepathy. I want you to enhance your own telepathy, not suppress it. The minionettes must be unified.” He glanced around the stark wind tunnels. “Now first I want to establish a secure base of operations.”

“We have sentries posted at all—”

He gave her a loving look, enhanced by a jolt of positive emotion. She quailed. “What do you have in mind?”

“Every living thing in the caverns is an agent of Chthon, except the human beings,” he said. “Not just the caterpillars and chippers—the salamanders and pseudoflies too. You’ll just have to clear a section of every living thing; only then can we plan strategy in secret.”

She nodded, and the motion sent ripples of color through her hair. It occurred to him that here in the green glow of the caverns the minionette’s hair should not appear fire-red—yet it did. The image probably was formed in his brain as much as in his eye: another minor marvel of telepathy. “We could do that in the old prison region,” she said. “There are very few access points there. We have retained a few of the original prisoners as menials; should they be removed also?”