The Visitor (48 page)

“My people wanted truth,” said Nell, stiffly. “My friends.”

“They were a minority. Not many years before the Happening, one of your country's largest religious bodies officially declared that their book was holier than their God, thus simultaneously and corporately breaking several commandments of their own religion, particularly the first one. Of course they liked the book better! It was full of magic and contradictions that they could quote to reinforce their bigoted and hateful opinions, as I well know, for I chose many parts of it from among the scrolls and epistles that were lying around in caves here and there. They're correct that a god picked out the material; they just have the wrong god doing it.

“The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along. Game shows where people betray one another to one group, brain busting challenges to the other. You'll fight the devils
and I'll provide distractions, and within a few generations, we'll have them all sorted out.”

“And we're to be killers?” asked Arnole, sadly.

The voice became gentle. “Only of ignorance, Bertral. You will divide the sheep from the goats and you will encourage the one and shepherd the other. You always had a leaning that way. Each of you will find the fight that suits yourself and your being. You will triumph, suffer, weep, rejoice, possibly die…If you die, another will rise up in your name, if you don't die, you'll live an extremely long life. You are
my
angels, for whom an almost heaven waits in Udarsland, with Skulda and Caigo Faience. Your work will be long, however, long and hard before you may rest in it.”

The being turned on her plinth and stretched many wings, the face appearing darkly, as through veils, each of them seeing a different image. Multiple arms beckoned and a man came toward them out of the gardens, a simple, brownish man dressed in a simple, brownish robe. He wore a leather apron, carried a drawknife and bowsaw and bore a great axe on his back.

“This is your son and brother, Camwar,” she said. “Camwar has spent some years preparing for you. Also awaiting you is Tamlar, the only one of you without human parents, a being of another star, sister of those beings who are guiding each of you. I asked for their help, for this is my last chance with Earth.”

The space began to move around them as the being on her plinth receded. The splintered world hurtled toward them as though they were in a kaleidoscope, images whirling to join, spinning outward to disintegrate, vortices of jagged light, horizons of endless time, pinwheels of splendor that rushed at them and receded through which they heard the small god cry, “You will not see me soon again. It is not fitting that gods, however small, consort casually with their servants. I leave you as Guardians for all that live on this world.”

When the dazzlement stopped, they were standing outside the gates of the great maze, their wagon and horses beside them.

Michael cried, “Where's Dismé?”

They looked about, and then, suddenly Dismé was there, among them, staring dazedly outward, where their sister Guardian burned in the evening air.

“Greetings,” Tamlar said, with a fiery grin.

On the other side stood Camwar, beckoning them to follow him, and as they turned, the walls disappeared without a sound. Far to the east, over one of the long north-south ridges came the first rank of the monster host, bloody banners waving.

A
s he followed Camwar up the slope, Arnole had time for analysis.

“It is interesting,” he said to himself, “that this small god implied devils were made of ignorance, for I have always believed this to be true. Ignorance perpetuates itself just as knowledge does. Men write false documents, they preach false doctrine, and those evil beliefs survive to inspire wickedness in later generations. They are like the spells woven by wizards, lying in wait for the credulous to find them and use them. Conversely, some men write and teach the truth, only to be declared heretic by the wicked. In such cases, evil has the advantage, for it will do anything to suppress truth, but the good man limits what he will do to suppress falsehood.

“One might almost make a rule of it: ‘Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic.'

“Magic, yes! How interesting that the small god should describe magic as a normal stage of development. I have seen that, too, though most magic is only pretence or hope under another name. What I do not understand about magic today is where the power comes from? Gohdan Gone does have power! He raises actual monsters who actually kill. Is
power given him by those who follow him? Do followers supply the evil their devils use?

“I am relieved to know there are many ways to wage this battle. I would be lost on the battlefield if that field were only for slaughter. But if that field were also for teaching, and preaching, and evangelizing…”

Dismé, behind him, was thinking. “She kept me back for a moment to tell me. I'm the only one she told. I can tell Michael or keep it to myself. How strange. One would think she would have told all of us, but she didn't. There's no time to sort it out now. No time to do anything now except…

“There they are, coming over the ridge! That horde coming at me is what Arnole meant long ago when he told me Rashel was going somewhere I didn't want to go. She is Regimic to her eyeballs, and I'll wager she's inside this battle somehow! We, on the other hand, have been given permission to look for truth! Which Jens and Michael and Arnole have always done, and I suppose Nell, as well. We are to find truth and keep ourselves out of the devil's hands and sort out the people…

“If we pick only those who flee from falsity, does that include all the good ones? The woman who ran the sweet-shop in Hold, she was a good woman, but she worshipped Gowl. She called him ‘My general,' and she had his picture on her wall. If I had to sort her out, where would I put her? Should I try to make her more like us or leave her as she is? Can virtual innocence live at the borders of evil? Live off it, without becoming it? On the other hand, not all who worship the truth will have the kind of minds who can find it. Should they be prevented from supporting those who can? Even those who conquer ignorance will need grocers and tailors and men to build their houses…”

“Surely it would not really stop ignorance to let ignorance keep a separated half of us? Though, come to think of it, Arnole told me when creatures evolve, the change starts with only a few of them, maybe only one. The change spreads from that small start, and all the others of that one's kind stay as they were while the evolved progeny move on.
Is this to be like that? Will our progeny live on, while everyone else stays behind and does what? Die away?

“There are imperfections in this task. Still, if I must choose, I choose to believe in the side I am standing with. If only the Real One is perfect, then small gods no doubt have imperfections, as we do. I was not like those in Bastion. Arnole wasn't, nor the doctor, nor Michael, and it wasn't simply because we had one mother among us. We may well find others of our persuasion, elsewhere in the world, who worship the Real One, who always have.

“For this moment, I choose to believe and I choose, oh, I choose not to think of Michael just now. What she said to me! And I haven't even time to think about it…”

Michael was thinking, “She's beautiful. I've always thought she was beautiful, but she's become more so, somehow. There she goes, look at her, striding along as though it were a summer day in the garden at Faience, not facing horrid enemies on the plains of this strange little world of ours. As soon as we have conquered this mob of miscreants, which we can do merely by laughing them to death, if it comes to that, I'm going to tell her…What? Oh, what are you going to tell her, Michael? Jiralk? Tell her she's my sister, but I love her as more than a sister? Does her being my sister really matter…”

And Nell thought, “This is a strange dream I am having. When I wake, I usually dream about Jerry and the children and the Happening. Where did this detailed strangeness come from? It hangs together so well, one would almost think it was scripted just for me. Well, suppose I were actually here, in this predicament, what would I do? I would certainly depend upon Elnith to do the necessary quashing. It's obvious one old woman—even one with a few well meaning assistants—isn't going to get far without supernatural help, though the being seemed to say our inhabitants aren't really supernatural…”

And the doctor thought, “I knew it. I've known it all along. He's in love with her. And maybe she with him. Which is only right and proper, I suppose, given their ages
and proximity. Why didn't I have the sense to stay out of it, not that anyone's going to be able to stay out of it, and why must I go on feeling! Our angelic sides are long on ability but short on emotion, while the small god seems to wallow in feelings almost as much as we do. All I've done is drag Dismé into the middle of it. If that army wins, chances are everyone in the world will be in the middle of it, we'll all be devils-food and I suppose that godlet will chuckle over it…

“No. She will not. I heard what she meant when she said this was her last chance to make this world work. Dividing the population sounds like desperation, but perhaps, with our help, there's some better way we can make it work…”

He stopped, just short of the crest of the hill and tugged his glasses from their pouch. “What are we up against? Gowl on a white horse. At least the horse was white, when they started, as Gowl was himself. Look at the mess you've made of yourself, General. Spattered and befouled that way. Why did I keep you alive, Gowl. Time after time, you infected or dissipated yourself to the edge of death and I brought you back. Should I ride to you now and ask you to listen to reason, dripping with blood as you are, and with that monster leading you. I think not. No, Gowl. I don't know the end of this, but it is sure you will find an end in it very soon, one way or another.”

Bobly and Bab thought, “Oh, botheration and obfuscation, we hope to heaven Ialond and Aarond are as big and powerful as they seemed to be, for we're going to need every hammer blow, every anvil strike. Heavens to Betsy, isn't this an excitement!”

And Camwar thought, “Now, at last, at the top of this rise, no more work, no more waiting, at last…”

And Tamlar thought, “Burn, burn, burn, burn, burn…”

They topped the rise and found themselves on the edge of an eastern facing butte, the rock and clay beneath them falling sheer to the level prairie, several stories down. In front of them, level with the ground and extending all the way to the prairie below, was a ship, or so the doctor thought at first. But then, he had seen pictures of ships and they
weren't shaped like that. So very up and down. So very round. With great metal rings around to hold the…well, they were shaped like barrel staves…

“A barrel,” said Dismé, flatly.

“It will be a drum,” said Camwar quietly, though with considerable pride. “As soon as we have a skin to stretch across it. Up here,” and he started across a gangplank that led from the butte to the upper edge of the huge construction. The barrel was not as tall as the fortress walls of Godland, but it was very tall for a drum, enough that Nell and Arnole were dizzied by the height. Dismé sauntered after Camwar, and the others after her, except for Tamlar who remained on the butte, her eyes fixed on the horde that was still pouring toward them over a far rise, its vanguard momentarily hidden in the trough between the ridges.

Those on the drum regarded the great width and thickness of the staves with awe, for each of them must have been cut from a single, very old and large tree. The great hoops that bound the barrel were riveted with bronze. The top edge was finished with a circular wooden rim wide enough to walk or work upon. Hooked to this rim were thick leather laces that dropped down the outside to run through blocks fixed halfway down the barrel, then came back up to thread through others just beneath the rim, before dropping to the ground, where each lace went through a great eye bolt.

“To tighten the drumhead,” Camwar said, following her eyes. “When we have skinned it from its owner.”

“Why a drum?” asked Dismé.

“I am told that Dezmai knows,” said Camwar, smiling at her with unaccountable fondness. “Dezmai knows very well.”

Dismé regarded the great open vat with wonder. It could hold a small village, complete with bell tower. What sound this thing would make when it could be drummed upon!

“What animal carries a skin large enough to…” the doctor started to ask, stopping as his eyes were caught by the horrid leader of the approaching horde, cresting a nearer ridge. The ogre. More colossal than ever.

“There,” pointed Camwar. “It was built to fit the hide of that beast.”

“How can we kill it?” the doctor whispered.

“You could starve it,” called Tamlar from behind them. “If it gets no blood, it will die. Make it pursue and pursue, but don't let it catch you.”

“We can't outrun it,” said Dismé. “Michael's the swiftest of us, and even he…”

“The race is not to the swift,” laughed Michael. “Haven't you heard that? We have horses. And demons.”

“Demons?” Nell turned toward him. “What about demons?”

He shook Dismé by the shoulders. “Dismé, you have a dobsi. By this time, the demons know everything about our last day, or hour, or however long it's been. They've been watching us. Ask for help, Dismé! Everyone, look at Dismé and ask for help!”

She saw all their faces, the open mouths, heard the screamed, uttered, muttered command. Help. And how could the demons help?

“They'd better hurry,” she said. “That army is getting a lot closer.”

Michael was already across the gangway and running down the sloping side of the butte toward the horses. Within moments he had mounted the swiftest of the riding horses and was off toward the horde. Even from this distance, they could hear shouted commands and the ogre's roar.

Nell grimaced in anger, her arms rising, every atom of her being focused on that distant horde as Elnith took her. Her hands came up. Her lips formed one silent word. A wave went from Elnith's hands outward, visible in the air as it went, past Michael, past the ridges of earth between them and the horde, and across the horde itself.

Silence. No more roars, no more commands, no more trumpet sounds. The horde kept coming, but it began to fray at the edges as its parts turned questioningly to those behind. Some stopped moving, shaking their heads. Others turned back only to be knocked down by those behind, who then
stumbled and fell to make an obstacle for others in their turn. By the time the ogre's head appeared over the nearest ridge, Michael was halfway there.

Elnith stood tall upon the butte, robed in green and gold, eyes fixed on Michael, hands outstretched to hold fast the silence that wrapped the world. Michael and the horse had become something other than Michael and the horse. They too, were larger than life, brighter than life. They glowed and sparkled. The horse's golden hooves gamboled upon the grasses. Michael become Jiralk stood in his stirrups and laughed in the face of the monster. The ogre gaped wide to utter a soundless roar as it plunged down the slope toward the horse, which spun on its hind legs and came galloping back the way it had come. Eyes fixed on the retreating horse and rider, the ogre pounded after it.

“No time to starve it,” cried Bobly. “No time!”

She took the same route Michael had taken, Bab in close pursuit, short legs padding down the slope, growing longer, and longer yet as they neared the bottom of the butte and circled it to the rock strewn slope at the bottom of the great drum. Aarond's hair touched the rim of the drum, but Ialond was taller by a head. Aarond jerked a boulder loose from the butte face and heaved it atop another farther out on the flat. Ialond towered above it with his hammer over his shoulder, body twisted for a mighty swing. His body uncoiled, his hammer struck the stone, and it shot toward the ogre like a ball from a cannon. While it was still in the air, Aarond had set another stone ready.

The first stone struck the ogre on the shoulder. The arm on that side went limp, but in deadly silence the beast came on. The second stone struck it on the chest. Ribs shattered and jabbed through bloody flesh, sawing at it as the ogre moved, as it did, without even slowing. Michael was almost back to the other horses; the ogre was very near. Those on the butte top held their breaths. The third stone struck the beast full in the face, felling it. Aarond and Ialond ran toward the body, which was trying to rise, the earth shaking to their footfalls, Ialond with his hammer ready, glancing
over his shoulder to see Camwar thundering behind him, almost as tall, his axe over his shoulder.

It took only one swing of that great axe to behead the creature. From the butte, Dismé watched unmoved as Camwar hewed the monster's thick hide from neck to groin and lopped the short legs and long arms, but she turned away when the skinning of the long, wide torso began, trying to reason her way past her revulsion at the thought of drumming upon that hide. She could not fathom what the drum was for. For herself, obviously! Was she not Dezmai of the Drums? But what good would drumming do? She stared at the great barrel Camwar had built. Each stave a whole tree. Felled. Cut. Shaped. Again and again. Then the monster staves fitted around that huge bottom, itself made from gigantic planks, pegged and glued together. The labor of years, and for what? Did Camwar himself know?