I started, not only because I might have speeded up this dread fate but also because Bronz had so easily noted that Ti and I had been having a relationship. How'd you know about us? I wanted to know.
He laughed. A priest is many things, but an observer of human nature is one of the most important I see the way she hovers there, the way she looks at you, like some eager puppy for her master. She's really smitten with you, whether you realize it or not What are your feelings toward her?
I thought about it. Just what
were
my feelings about Ti? I really wasn't quite sure myself. By no stretch of the imagination did I consider us mates, having any obligations for one another. I'd never found that sort of arrangement comprehensible anyway. But I
did
feel a great fondness for her, not only physically but because she had the potential of becoming a complete human being. She was bright and curious, and she picked up new concepts much more quickly than any of the other native-born of this crazy world. I wondered vaguely whether it was possible to feel paternal and lustful at the same time. That smacked of some sort of nicest, even though we weren't in any way related, yet it summed up my feelings as much as anything, so I told Bronz as much.
He nodded. I thought it might be something like that. Too bad, too, because with you she might have grown to be a hell of a woman.
I considered what he was saying. Potential, that
was
the word. Potential. That was what I'd found so attractive in her, in contrast to the milling pawns around. Yet it was her tragedy, too. I felt a sudden strong fury rising in me, which I couldn't quite understand or fully control. That potential was what they were going to take from her. So great a wave of anger swept through me that I almost trembled with raw, brutal emotion, and I had trouble controlling it.
Father Bronz just sat and watched me, a serious expression on his face. Finally, as I gained some control over myself and tried to relax, to beat down the alien emotional tide, he spoke.
For the first time, he said softly, I saw the real Cal Tremon there beside me; he was a frightening figure, fully as terrible as bis legends. I felt it, too. Great power welling up inside, bubbling like molten rock almost to the surface. You are going to be a powerful man indeed one day, Tremon, if you learn how to channel and use that fury.
I just sat and stared strangely at him, a sudden awareness of myself and my own potential exploding in my mind. In that instant I knew Bronz, from the standpoint of a very powerful Master, had
felt
a surge in my Warden abilities. Now I understood why some would rise and some would not, and how it was done. The key was emotion—raw, terrible emotion. Up until that moment I had never suffered much from emotion, a weakness I could not afford in my old work as an agent. Here, though, the enzymes and hormones and all the rest that had made Tremon such a terror had come to the fore, almost consumed me. Bronz had felt it.
It wasn't just how much power you had, it was how much self-control went along with that power—the ability to take raw, unbridled emotion and channel it, control it, shape it with your intellect. That, possibly more than any gradations of power, was what separated the ranks on this world. That explained why Kronlon, with all his power, was such a little man and would always be. That also explained why Marek Kreegan had risen to become Lord. He had been a trained agent, at the absolute top of bis profession, here, in this sort of situation.
It was growing late; most of the other pawns had already returned to their huts and were sleeping now. I was, for now, still a pawn, facing the usual long day of work. Will you still be here tomorrow? I asked Bronz.
He shook his head. No, sorry. I have a long way to go and I've tarried too long here now. I'm due in Shemlon Keep, to the south of here. Still, it was good meeting you, and I've a premonition of sorts we'll meet again. A man of your power will rise quickly on this world, if properly trained and developed.
That remark was too important to pass up. Trained, I repeated. By whom? Who does the training?
Sometimes nobody, sometimes somebody who knows somebody, he replied enigmatically. The best training, I have heard, is from the colony descended from the first scientists to -visit this world, Moab Keep, but that's thousands of kilometers from here. Don't worry, you'll find somebody—the best always do.
I left him still sitting there and accompanied Ti to the hut. Even though the hour was late and it had been a long day I had difficulty getting to sleep. Thoughts of breaking free of this pawn life, with eventually finding and facing down Marek Kreegan filled my head. And I also thought of Ti, poor, naive little Ti and what they were doing to her. I had built up a whole army I wanted to get even with, many of whom I hadn't even met as yet.
I continued to practice as much as I could while continuing my menial labors. If nothing else, I told myself, these past weeks or months or however long it'd been had accomplished two things. One was to tone up and fine-tune Cal Tremon's body so that it felt not only totally natural but really mine. Furthermore, its —no,
my—
muscles developed to a degree I'd have thought impossible not so long ago. I was hefting three or more times my considerable weight without even thinking about it, the aches long gone. I had no doubt that I could easily bend solid steel bars.
But, oddly, it was the second thing that I, as a trained agent, appreciated the most. I had been humbled. I had been bent, then broken, with almost ridiculous ease, and the process had been humiliating.
Now, this might be a curious thing to say, but I badly needed to be humbled. I had been cocky, eager, too sure of myself when this escapade had started. Homo superior—never beaten in an assignment. I still believed that, but the place I was superior was now forever closed to me. This was a totally alien world, a world that operated on very different rules. I was out of my element here; so if I was going to win, I had to be brought down hard in order to build up again, almost from scratch. This fact, Fm sure, was the only reason I was still alive at this point. That and the fact that, though broken in the face of seemingly unassailable power, I had lost my sense of purpose but never my will to survive.
At the end of a day shortly after Bronz's departure, I walked back to the village for the evening meal with the others. I was already well into the food when I turned and looked at the faces of the others, the dirty and tired pawns of the village, and realized that something was not quite right.
Ti wasn't there. We almost always met here and ate together, and the composition of the Keep was so regular and unvarying that the few times when she'd had to be elsewhere I had always known in advance.
I started asking around, but no one had seen her. Finally I sought out some of the people she worked with at the nursery and they only said that Kronlon had come for her around the midday meal and she had gone off with him.
I frowned. Although Kronlon wasn't above taking those he was attracted to for a little fun, this was the wrong time. Kronlon, for all his power in relation to us, was just a shade higher on the scale than we pawns, and he had his own duties to perform. I had a really bad feeling about this. I stopped eating, stood up, and walked slowly through the crowd of pawns toward the supervisor's area. This wasn't an act rational people performed, but I wasn't about to let this go.
Kronlon was in. I could see him off in his little cubbyhole drinking something—probably local beer—out of a large gourd and puffing on what could have been anything from a stinkweed cigar to happy smoke. Pawns didn't get those luxuries, so I really couldn't be certain. Since it was so unusual for anyone to approach his quarters voluntarily, he noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye and turned in surprise. When he saw who it was, his face broke into an evil grin.
Tremon! Well, well! I kinda expected you tonight! he called out. Come on in, boy!
I approached, a little cautious, since even though I could sense, feel, hear,
see
the Warden organism in just about everything, including him, I hadn't had any success in actually making use of that sense. Kronlon, it seemed to me, burned a little more brightly than others whom I'd concentrated on—or was that just nerves? You never forgot the feeling he gave you, the incredible agony he could inflict merely by willing it. I had the fleeting impulse to back out, but it was too late and I knew it. He'd seen me, he'd invited me over—and that was a command. No matter what, I was stuck.
Kronlon sat back and eyed me with an amused smirk. Lookin' for your little bitch, huh? Missin' your bed partner? His eyes flashed with cruel amusement. I knew he was baiting me, the son of a bitch.
I felt a warm, uncharacteristic rush of anger rising within me, but it was partially canceled out by my fear of him. I just nodded and stayed silent.
Kronlon laughed, enjoying his power and position. Here I was a giant of a man who could physically break him in two and he was my master as surely as if I were tiny and weak, like Ti. He roared with laughter and took another gulp of his beer. She's gone, boy! he told me. Gone forever. You better get used to an empty bed for a while, son, 'cause she ain't never comin' back and you may as well get somebody new. Poor big ol' Cal's just got screwed. He laughed again.
My fury and frustration was growing almost beyond my control. All this tune I'd been bossed and terrorized by this moronic sadist and I was becoming fed up with it.
Where has she gone—sir? I managed, still held back by the threat of that terrible power within him.
My hesitant tone and manner caused him even more amusement. You really feel somethin' for her, don't you? he responded, as if this made his news all the more a cruel joke. Well, boy, I got a message midmornin' to fetch'her and bring her up to the Castle. She didn't wanta come, I'll tell you, but hell, she ain't got no choice. His stare suddenly became slightly vacant, his tone more serious. Ain't nobody got any choice in anything, he added. I realized that Kronlon never liked to think along those lines. He covered his own fear and debasement by his cruelty and sadism, the only things his tiny ego really had.
I should have felt some pity for him, but all I could see was a petty little man. who had neither the right nor the qualification to wash the feet of the people whom he terrorized from his position of power. I was starting to boil.
You know what they're gonna do to her? he taunted. Turn her into a human cow, Tremon. You know what a cow is, don't you? Big tits, no brains! He roared at his joke.
You slimy son of a bitch, I said evenly.
He continued laughing for a moment, and I wasn't sure he had heard me, nor, at that point, did I even
care
if he had. I was mad, howling, seething mad, perhaps crazy mad, too. I no longer cared what this worm, this lowest of the low, could do, what pain he could inflict. Agony was a price I was suddenly willing to pay if I could just snap his slimy neck.
He had heard. What's that you said, boy? Some-thin' on your mind? Why, hell, I'll give you somethin' else to think about, by damn! He was almost shouting now, and he stood up. There was no mistaking it now—that sense of the Warden organism within him was stronger, more intense,
brighter
somehow, now. It was rising within him.
Hell, boy! he roared. Maybe I'll fix you so's you won't get so worked up no more about no women! How'd you like t'be a gelding, boy? I can fix it, I canl I can fix you!
Then hit the force of that agony, that searing pain in every cell of my body. I reeled back, staggering, but this time that terrible pain only fueled my anger and resentment. I exploded, no longer a thinking being, but a mass of raw emotions, a hatred such as I had never known all concentrated on this one terrible little man.
I stumbled and fell to my knees; yet as that animal fury took complete control, I no longer felt the pain the way I had. It lessened, Still agonizing but somehow no longer relevant.
Slowly, deliberately, I pulled myself to my feet and took a step toward him.
Kronlon's bushy eyebrows rose in surprise; his expression showed confusion, then concentration as he threw everything he had at me.
I bellowed, a ferocious primal roar of rage that echoed throughout the whole village, then charged the startled and suddenly very frightened supervisor.
He retreated a couple of steps, then came up against the table he was using and almost fell back onto it. I was on him in an instant, my huge hands around his beefy throat. Kronlon had taught me more than the true meaning of fear; he'd taught me absolute, single-minded hatred. He struggled to pry my hands loose from his throat Somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind I was aware that the pain, the agony, was fading now, fading fast. It didn't matter. It wasn't relevant.
I felt a surge of energy grow within me, a strange, tangible power like some terrible fist. But before I could even comprehend what was happening, the tension broke and flowed outward from me, outward to the man whom I had pinned against the table. There was a searing burst of light and heat so intense I let him go and reeled backward. I recovered quickly but was still stunned as my head came up to see the supervisor lit in a strange glow, like some eerie supernatural flame.
And then he started decomposing before my eyes.
It was a gruesome sight, but one that, given my mental state, I could view without thought and, suddenly, without feeling of any kind. His skin fell from him, then his tissues, and finally the skeleton itself, which first glowed with a terrible brightness, then faded. ' .
As my senses started to return, I just stood there, gaping at the impossible scene I had just witnessed. Finally I approached the place where Kronlon had stood and stared at it in the near darkness.
All that was left of Kronlon.
Intellectually I was aware that I had caused it, but deep down, I could not believe it. The truth was incredible, impossible. Somehow, in my animal fury, my own Warden organisms had picked up that emotional power and transmitted it to those in Kronlon's own cells. Burned them up. Killed them.
I turned, stunned, suddenly aware that I was not alone. A crowd of villagers stood just outside, gaping in shocked silence at the scene, scared but^unmoving
—almost, it seemed, afraid to breathe. As I walked toward them, they quickly drew back, their fear a real and tangible thing. Fear not of Kronlon or of retribution.
Fear of me.
Wait! I called out. Please! Don't be afraid! I'm not—like him. I won't hurt you! I'm your friend. I'm one of you. I live among you, work among you.
My protestations were in vain. Clearly I was
not
one of them any more. I was a man with the power. I had separated myself from them forever, drawn an unbridgeable gap between my own existence and their eternal toil.
It doesn't have to be like this, I almost pleaded with them. It doesn't
haye
to be a tyranny. Kronlon's gone, and I am not Kronlon.
Torlok, an elderly man in a village where most never survived that long, was something of an authority figure; he ambled forward. The others were shrinking from me as if I had some terrible disease. Even Torlok would only come so far, but he was old and experienced and past a lot of caring about men
•and women with the power.
Sir, you must go now, he croaked. You are no longer one of us.
Torlok— I began, but he put up a hand.
If you please, sir. When Kronlon does not check in tomorrow morning they will send someone to see why. They will find out why and they will send us another Kronlon. Things have changed only for you, not for us.
You could leave, I pointed out. You have until at least midday.
Torlok sighed. Sir, you think you understand, but you do not. You are still new on this world of ours. You say flee—but where to? To another Keep run the same? To the wild to live in near starvation with the savages, unprotected from the nobles and the wild's own beasts? Or perhaps to be hunted down like some sporting beast? He shook his head. No, there will be no change for us. You must go now. You must go to the Castle, tell them what you have done. You belong to their life now, not ours. You cannot go back. We cannot go forward. Go—before you un-knowlingly bring the wrath of the Masters upon us. If you feel anything at all for us, go—go now.
I stared at them for a moment, not quite believing what I was hearing. They were fools, I thought, who deserved their miserable lot. They actually preferred it to any sort of challenge!
Well, let them go back to their miserable lives, I told myself. This mention of the Castle reminded me that I had more than one good reason for going there. As Kronlon had said, we didn't have a choice, any of us, least of all me in this situation.
The adrenaline was ebbing, though, and I no longer felt as cocksure and all-powerful as I had only moments before. I turned and looked off into the distance, up at that fairy-tale place built into the side of the hill. Somewhere in there was Ti.
Without another word, I turned my back on the crowd that had disowned me and walked silently out of the village, out across the grassy fields toward the Castle.
Before I was halfway there Td come down completely from the high that the power and emotional fury had given me. Now my intellectual self, my old self, was able to assume control once more—not necessarily for the better, I realized.
Up to that point I had never been anywhere near the Castle. The only people I knew who had were those like Kronlon who weren't exactly the chatty sort. I had no idea how many people were there, and of what potential power. The Knight and his family were there, of course,, most of the time, and I already knew that I was no match for a Master, let alone a Knight. I wondered if I was even a match for a trained person of Supervisor rank. Kronlon was where he was because of the land of person he had been— petty, mean, cruel, and stupid. I suspected that the first three might not matter so much, but the last was unforgivable.
I began to think that individuals like Kronlon, with a little power and small mind, were actually the sacrificial lambs. Somebody had to do that kind of work. But the risk always existed that one of the pawns who had been abused was potentially as strong or stronger than the Supervisor. When that happened, you'd probably scratch one Supervisor.
That observation led to a different line of thought. If I had been merely as strong as Kronlon, we'd have fought to a draw. If I had been
slightly
stronger, well, he'd be in terrible pain but probably alive. Master strength, at the very least.