Beyond the Gate (The Golden Queen) (Volume 2) (16 page)

Chapter 14

Once they reached the shadowed recesses of the warehouse, the Bock was dismayed at the sight of blood on Orick’s brow, so while Ceravanne and Gallen talked in the other room and Maggie and the giant made up beds nearby, the Bock lit an oil lamp and set it on some crates. Then it brought forth a pouch of blue dust from its belt, and began slowly rubbing it into Orick’s wounds, his sticklike finger probing tenderly.

“I see blood,” the Bock exclaimed, “but your hair is so dense, I cannot find a wound.”

Orick wasn’t sure if he should tell the creature that he healed quickly—ever since Maggie had fed him some capsules of nanodocs that would extend his life for a millennium or more.

“What is that?” Maggie asked of the powder, looking up from one of the bedrolls. “Healing Earth,” the Bock said. “It will ease the swelling, mend the cuts. It is a small wound. He should be well in a few hours.” Maggie came and pinched some of the dirt in her fingers. “Where does it come from?”

“Legend says that ages ago, the Immortal Lords brought it from the City of Life and put it in the land. Now it is there for the benefit of all people, to be used in curing all wounds.”

“Nanodocs,” Maggie whispered, looking at the powder. “Does it extend one’s life? Regenerate nerve tissue?”

“No,” the Bock said, leaning away from Orick. “Only the Immortals in the City of Life have that power. But it cures wounds, mends bones. If you travel, you will find the Healing Earth in many places, beside the springs where the ground is wet.”

Maggie nodded thoughtfully, then said, “I’m going to let Gallen know that the beds are ready.” She went back behind the crates, into the main room. The Bock stood perfectly motionless, slightly hunched, and there was a vacant look in its eyes.

“Are you all right?” Orick asked.

“Pardon me,” the Bock said. “I fell asleep. I’m exhausted. I must rest soon.” The Bock stepped back into a corner, raised his arms up toward a dim window, and stood with eyes squinted, unfocused.

The Bock began asking questions, in his slow way, about Orick’s habits, his interests in theology and the possibility of becoming a priest. And with each question, the Bock grew steadily more incredulous, more awake and more interested.

The Bock asked, “So you have been working with Gallen for three years, yet never has he paid you? If you receive no compensation, why do you stay with him?”

“Oh, Gallen does buy me an odd meal now and then, but there’s more in this world than money,” Orick said. “After all, the Bible says that it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’d have to be a wretched creature, indeed, to base my relationship with someone on money.”

“So why do you work with him?” the Bock said, his brown eyes gazing steadily at Orick.

“He’s my friend.”

“So you remain with him for companionship?” the Bock said, as if it were an alien concept, vaguely understood. “Of course.”

“But what of your own kind? Why do you not seek out other bears for companionship?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Orick grumbled, not wanting to admit the painful truth. But he was an honest bear, so he continued. “On my world, bears don’t run together. Mostly the males eat too much, and they wouldn’t want to share food with me. The females love to have us during mating season, but they commence snarling soon afterward, and then, well, they just won’t have you around, and they let you know it.”

“Have you sought company with many females?” the Bock asked.

“Some,” Orick admitted. “There was one I met just before I came here. I had hopes for her.”

“You wanted to bond with her?”

Orick hesitated to admit to such a crazy notion. “Marriage is an honorable and holy state … or at least that’s what the Bible says.”

The Bock stopped, and in the dim lamplight he opened his mouth wide in surprise, as if he had just had a fantastic idea. “You are human, Orick!” the Bock said excitedly.

“I’m a bear!” Orick argued.

“Few of us are what we seem,” the Bock said. “Our flesh is our disguise, hiding our desires and notions. Many who seem human are mere shells, so why should it be improbable that a creature such as yourself, who inhabits the form of a bear, would be a human at heart? Your thoughts, your beliefs and needs, are all those that a human would understand and agree with. And if you are human at heart, then by our law I have the right to extend the invitation: you may live within our society and enjoy the blessings of human company.”

“Great,” Orick murmured. He’d had human companionship for his whole life. It didn’t seem a great privilege. “So what does that get me?”

“A great deal,” the Bock answered. “Few nonhumans may ever enter the City of Life and obtain the blessings granted there. You will find many nonhumans here in the port, but they cannot travel the roads beyond. Instead, they must leave with their ships, returning to exile in Babel.”

The Bock seemed so distressed by the plight of the nonhumans that Orick found himself sympathizing with them. He imagined how things must be in Babel, a seething madhouse of incompatible species, preying upon the weak and upon one another, a vast continent laid waste by perpetual warfare. Orick’s heart went out to such creatures, for he understood what it was to be outcast, to never belong.

“So,” Orick grumbled. “Gallen will be surprised when I tell him that I’m as human as he is.”

“Are you sure that he
is
human?” the Bock said.

“Why, what else would he be?” Orick asked.

“He could be many things,” the Bock said. “I have not yet determined whether he is human, and so I cannot grant him the privileges that come with humanity.”

“Why, that’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard!” Orick said.

“One’s flesh is often a disguise,” the Bock countered. “On your home world, did you not often meet others whose thoughts and actions seemed strange to you—so strange as to be incomprehensible?”

Orick considered the blackguards who had tried to frame Gallen. Orick couldn’t quite understand how someone would go to so much work to destroy another. It just wasn’t in his nature, and on that count, Orick had to agree. Outwardly, men looked the same, but on the insides they could be strangers.

Maggie, Gallen, Ceravanne, and the giant Rougaire came back at that moment, and Orick said in glee, “Did you hear that, Gallen? The Bock says I’m human!”

“Well”—Gallen shrugged—”I’ve always known you were a better man than me, Orick, but I wish you would do something about that excess body hair.”

Orick chuckled, but Ceravanne said quite seriously, as if she were offended, “Do not take the Bock’s word lightly, Orick. For five hundred years, this one has been a Lord Judge in the City of Life. A million times he has judged the subspecies of peoples who came before him. In many ways, this Bock knows you better than you know yourselves. If he has proclaimed you human, then he is granting you legal rights and protections. This is a great boon, though you may not know it.”

“Well, thank you, then,” Orick said to the Bock.

Ceravanne turned to the Bock and said softly, “You know a human when you meet it. So, what do you think of Gallen O’Day?”

The Bock blinked and looked at her from the comers of his eyes.

“I approved the bear, Orick, as human. Not Gallen. As for Maggie, I cannot make a determination, since I have spoken with her so little,” the Bock admitted.

“And why do you not think that Gallen is human?” Ceravanne pushed him.

“I sense within him … a struggle. He desires to become more than what he is.”

“So perhaps he is only a human with high aspirations?” Ceravanne countered.

“Perhaps,” the Bock agreed. “I suspect that his are a strong-willed people, with only minor genetic upgrades, very close to feral humans in temperament. I could name him human,” the Bock said, “but I am loath to place him so low on the scale of sentient life.”

Ceravanne laughed daintily and half lowered her eyes, as if at a private joke. “I suspect you are right,” she said to the Bock. “To be a Lord Protector, one would have to be more than human.” She lowered the flame on the lamp, then with the giant in tow made her way to the other room.

Orick lay tasting the scent of cobwebs and thinking of the spiders spinning their webs above his head. He was unable to sleep for a long time.

The next morning, Orick woke to the cries of gulls and the smell of sea fog, a salty tang that seeped through every crack in the floor boards and clung to every fold of the blankets. Rougaire the giant had roused the others, and they grabbed their belongings then made a quick breakfast of bread and cheese from Ceravanne’s pack.

Gallen and Maggie sat alone and talked for a moment by the door with the giant, while Ceravanne had gone to the back room with the Bock.

Orick went to tell them that breakfast was ready, and what he saw surprised him: Ceravanne and the Bock stood in the dim light shining through a small window, and Ceravanne was holding the Bock’s long fingers, looking down at them, like a shy lover.

Orick stopped in the shadows of a crate, and the Bock said, “Are you sure you want to go with them? They killed so easily last night.”

“I too am horrified by their violence, but what can I do?” Ceravanne asked.

The Bock thought a moment. “For three hundred years you have studied with the Bock, learning the ways of peace. You are more one of us than you are of them.”

“Three hundred years.…” Ceravanne echoed. “It is time I return to my people, and teach them the ways of peace. If I can.” Orick wondered at the words “my people.” Was she saying that the nonhumans of Babel were her people?

“We are our bodies,” the Bock said. “I fear that you cannot teach peace to these creatures. And I fear that the violence you must endure in their presence will maim you. Should that happen, do not hesitate to seek us out. In the woods, in the high mountain glens, you can find peace with the Bock.”

Ceravanne had been holding the Bock’s hand, and suddenly she bent forward and kissed it. “Three hundred years among the Bock—passed all too quickly … I often wish to see the world as you do. I often wish that I could be you.”

Suddenly the Bock’s face twisted into a mask of profound regret, and he reached out his long fingers to stroke her hair, cradle her head in his hand. “We are our bodies, with all their hopes and dreams, all their limitations. But you, Ceravanne, even among the Tharrin—you are special.…” The Bock wailed in its own tongue, “Assuah n sentavah, avhala mehall—” and Ceravanne stepped back as if astonished at this.

“I love you, too,” Ceravanne said. “As much as I have ever loved.”

The Bock reached up to its head and fumbled among the green leaves at its crown, then plucked something loose and held it out for Ceravanne. It looked like a small greenish-tan nut, something that Orick hadn’t noticed before among its foliage.

“You are going away, and I may never see you again. Should you need a Bock, plant this seed, and in time I will be with you once again.”

Ceravanne took the seed gratefully, held it close to her chest as if it were precious. The Bock reached out his long fingers, cradled them around her hair so that she looked as if she were caught in the bushes, and then the Bock leaned forward. His face overshadowed hers, and he kissed her softly on the lips.

Ceravanne wept.

Orick sneaked back to Gallen and Maggie, unwilling to tear the Bock and the Tharrin away from each other. In moments, Ceravanne came out of the back room and placed the seed in her pack, then ate a brief breakfast.

When she finished, she hugged the giant Rougaire and said, “You can see us off at the dock, but afterward I need you to go to the City of Life. Tell the Immortals there that the Lord Protector has come, and that we have gone to confront the Inhuman. If our task is not accomplished by mid-winter, they will have to prepare for war in the spring.”

The giant nodded, and they made one last quick search of the room.

Ceravanne wrapped her hair back with a red rag, then pulled her hood forward low over her eyes. She got some soot from a corner, dusted it on her cheeks and under her eyes, making her look worn and wasted. Obviously, she was assuming a disguise.

“Won’t people recognize you as a Tharrin?” Gallen said.

“Most people alive today on this world have never seen a Tharrin,” Ceravanne said. “And so I tell them that I am a Domorian dancing girl. They look much like the Tharrin. But few people ever even question me about my race. I wear a young body, and children are often ignored, invisible.”

She pulled her hood up, affected a slumped posture, a slightly altered body language that somehow completed her disguise. Orick was amazed at the transformation.

Then they hurried out of the warehouse into the streets, and crept to the docks in a dawn fog so thick that they could not see a dozen paces ahead.

It felt good to be on the road again with Gallen and Maggie and a Tharrin, and Orick was somehow eager for action, so he was disappointed when they reached the docks without incident and were able to quickly purchase berths on the second ship they found heading toward Babel.

Because of the thick fog, they had to take the purser’s word as to the seaworthiness of the ship; he described it as a lofty five-masted clipper—a worthy ship whose wood held no worm, a ship that could outrun pirates.

So with trepidation they left the docks as several crewmen rowed them to the ship in the fog. The Bock and Rougaire stood on the docks and waved goodbye, seeming to recede into the mist.

Once aboard the ship, the purser escorted them to their berths in three of the six small cabins near the captain’s quarters, then excused himself to handle other business.

A brief inspection showed that the ship was all they had been promised—comfortable, immaculate. The ship was already heavily laden with goods, so Orick and Maggie went up to the weather deck in the fog and watched one last time for sign of the Inhuman. Dozens of sailors came aboard in small boats, many of them obviously drunk.

“Watch for a man with bright yellow skin,” Maggie breathed into Orick’s ear, and Orick sat, listening to the creaking timbers of the ship, the water slapping against the hull. Certainly, most of the crew was made up of an eccentric lot. Dozens of small, bald men with red skin came aboard wearing little more than breechcloths and knife belts. They were filled with nervous energy and were soon everywhere, manning the lines, checking the ties. A dozen grim-faced giants in leather tunics, all armed with oversized bastard swords, seemed relegated to the more strenuous tasks of hoisting sails.