He was very matter of fact about it all and Tamsin felt sorrow for his brother. He knew how much Sapher had loved Jeleel. How intensely he had courted her. The villagers peered to the Rhode. The dendrons were in flower and deep in them was all perfumed shadow.
"This cannot be," said Baum, the Elder, pointing the grey spade of his beard at Sapher. "The Agreement. He does not allow this."
"The Agreement," spat Sapher. He stabbed his spear into the earth to demonstrate how he felt about the Agreement.
Baum continued, "I know your thoughts on this, but there has to be some other explanation. "Man must not kill tiger and tiger will not kill man." The Owner was very specific." As he mentioned the Owner, he touched his pendant with his forefinger then made the sign: his hand held out flat, parallel with the ground.
"The Agreement is just that. It does not bind. What about Temron Drivetech? He killed a tiger. Who is to say that tigers may not break the Agreement as did he? Perhaps this is their vengeance," said Sapher.
"Vengeance was done upon Temron," said Baum.
They all nodded and remembered. After his sister had died of the ague Temron had denied the Agreement and vehemently claimed that there could be no Owner. He had then, in the madness of his grief, told the village that his sister would be buried in a tiger-skin burial robe. He had killed a tiger and done this thing; his sister wrapped in skin that was still b.l.o.o.d.y. The following night Temron had disappeared.
"You say vengeance was done upon him. I saw no evidence of it. I saw only his footprints leading into the Rhode. I saw only that he left us," said Sapher.
"What Temron"s fate may have been is irrelevant. What do we do now?" said Tamsin. He watched his brother. He needed to hear this, though he did not want to.
"We go after the tiger and we kill it," said Sapher.
"I cannot allow that," said Baum.
Sapher ignored him and turned to the villagers. "Who will come with me? This must be done. Too long we have been bound by superst.i.tion and fear. We are stronger and more cunning than the tigers. We should rule here, as is right!"
Some stepped forwards, but others shook their heads and turned away - returned to the village. Ephis came up and stood beside Tamsin.
"You will go with him?" she asked, frightened that she might lose this newly found love.
"I must," said Tamsin, placing his hand against the side of her face. "He is my brother."
"This is madness," she said. "The Owner will punish us."
"Your father has faith so you must have faith," he said.
She pushed his hand away. "Can you doubt the truth of the Agreement?"
He smiled at her. She was like so many of the villagers; she never questioned the old teachings, never wondered what might or might not be true. He loved her but sometimes her beliefs caused painful argument. If only her father had not been Baum. This, he decided, was not the time for argument - his brother needed him.
"I have to go," he said.
She regarded him for a long moment.
"Then I will go with you," she said.
Though half the village agreed to go with him, Sapher was livid at the rest.
"Yes, crawl back to your huts and sleep untroubled. When the tigers come in the night to eat you I will laugh and climb a tree to watch," he sneered at those who departed.
Amongst those who remained were Tamsin, Sapher and Ephis, Torril and Chand - husband and wife who had always been closest to Sapher, and who hunted with him all the time. The surprise members were Baum and Ghort.
"My daughter is all I have now. I will come with you. I will interfere in no way. I will not stop you killing the tiger, nor will I help you," said Baum.
"I will come," said Ghort.
They all looked around. The huge man was sitting on a boulder with his elbow on his knee and his chin resting on the palm of his hand. He blinked blue eyes at them and said no more. That was the thing about Ghort: no one noticed he was there until he let them know. When they did know they were again awakened to the fact that this was the man who had lifted a fallen coral ash from his hunting partner Dorlis, and who had, at a run, carried Dorlis the ten kilometres back to the village. A vain rescue though, for Dorlis had taken poison rather than spend the rest of his life a cripple.
"Why should you come?" asked Sapher, bitterness still in his voice. Tamsin glared at his brother, hoping he would say no more. Ghort would be a valued member of such an expedition and must not be put off.
"I come because I wish to," said Ghort.
"You believe in the Owner," said Sapher.
Ghort just regarded him with those blue eyes. Sapher turned away in frustration.
"Very well," he said after a moment. "Be back here in the hour. You know what supplies to bring, and if any of you have access to family weapons you may bring them."
"Family weapons?" said Baum, outraged.
Sapher glared at him and he desisted.
They wore the canvas trousers and jackets that were necessary for travelling deep into the Rhode. The only family weapon brought to the hunt was the one Sapher carried: the Logisticson"s gun. Tamsin allowed this even though the gun had been his a.s.signed responsibility from his fifteenth year. Since its last firing, in Tamsin"s grandfather"s time, it took a month of bright sunlight to get it up to eighty per cent of a charge. It would take no more. That charge also tended to bleed away during the hours of darkness. It was all something to do with the flickering red lights on the side of the weapon, but Tamsin could not decipher them - the manual had been lost four generations ago.
Torril and Chand brought their hunting bows and long knives, plus all the usual supplies for a hunt when the prey were deer and swamp elk, not tigers. Tamsin was not skilled in the use of a bow, so he brought his father"s two spears - serviceable weapons with wide blades fashioned of ship metal; blades that took ages to lose their edge and ages to sharpen again.
Ghort came with only one spear, but what a spear it was. The blade was two hands wide and as long as a normal man"s forearm. The Smith had taken months to cut the metal for it, from the old hull, and months to sharpen it. It was Ghort"s reward for his rescue of Dorlis, who killed himself the day after the presentation.
Ephis brought her crossbow with its quarrels fashioned of Rhode wood. Her father, Baum, brought no weapons at all. He brought the Agreement. Sapher looked set to explode when he saw this, instead, he climbed a rock to address them all.
"We have two hours left until darkness," he said, then waited a moment until sure of all their attention before continuing. "The tiger went east to the Ship. We will camp there for the night then use it as our base while we hunt the beast down. The Plain of Landing is probably its main hunting ground." He glared at them all belligerently, daring them to dispute his words.
"He can tell an awful lot from a few tracks," Ephis whispered to Tamsin. Tamsin glared at her, then moved away from her to be closer to his brother.
"If we work together on this we should have the beast"s skin within days. We will kill this tiger for Jeleel!"
As he said this he punched the air with the family gun. There came a grumbling response from the crowd that could have meant anything.
Then a voice spoke up from the back. "Does Jeleel want you to kill a tiger?"
For a moment there was absolute silence, then heads turned to seek the source of that voice. Abruptly the crowd parted and a raggedy scarecrow of a man walked through.
"Owner save us!" exclaimed Baum, clutching the Agreement to his chest.
"That option he left to you," said the man, then he held out his hand to Baum. "Now give me Jeleel"s soul pendant."
"Who are you to make demands?" yelled Sapher, jumping down off his rock.
Tamsin moved up beside him and grabbed his arm. "That"s Temron: the tiger killer," he said, and this news stilled even Sapher.
They watched while Baum groped about in his pouch and eventually came up with a tangle of chains and pendants.
"That"s old Nigella, and that"s Dolic. Ah, here." He separated out a pendant, "I see you"ve lost yours," he said as he handed Jeleel"s pendant across to Temron.
Temron smiled and closed his fist around the object.
"I have been dead for eight years and now I am back," he said.
At this there came a concerted muttering and most people moved back from him. All except one, Tamsin noted. Ghort moved closer, his expression strangely intense.
Temron continued, "I died out in the Rhode because I broke the Agreement. I died alone and in pain, but at least my pain was my own."
Temron raised his fist and a voice spoke out that all recognised. It was Jeleel"s voice: "Now, with what I know, I wonder if I should forgive him. I find that I cannot. Life was sweet and seemed likely to become sweeter. I was innocent," said the voice.
A woman wailed and fell to her knees. The voice went on: "Do not weep, mother. You will be with me again some day."
"Who has done this?" the woman shouted.
"Sapher did this to me. He raped me, then he beat me and cut me with his knives, then he tied rocks in my dress and threw me into the Wishpool. Despite his beatings and his cuttings, I drowned in the end."
"You murderer!" Baum bellowed.
Tamsin was turning to his brother when Sapher yelled.
"Nooo!"
An actinic flash burnt the air and a sound like a rock hitting a tree trunk, opened it. Tamsin staggered back with the smell of burning flesh in his nostrils. He saw Baum falling with smoke pouring from the embered cavity of his chest. His brother had fired the gun..
"Sapher!"
Sapher turned the weapon on Tamsin. Tamsin saw the look in his eyes and dived to one side. Behind him he heard a scream. He rolled and ran into the Rhode. Fire behind him. Screams and chaos. His brother had raped and murdered Jeleel. Tamsin ran in semidark until a root tripped him and brought him to his knees. He pulled himself to a tangle of trunks and tried to bite down on the tears that threatened. Had he known this already? He dared not entertain the thought. Distantly he heard shouting and the sounds of people running. Then close to he heard something and moved as quietly as he could to observe.
It was Temron walking up a path through the Rhode. He seemed almost to be gliding, moving faster forward than his pace should actually have taken him. He also seemed somehow blurred. Behind him Ghort was running to catch up. Temron turned when the big man was close.
Ghort staggered to a halt and rested his weight on his spear. Temron seemed to be fading into the background, or perhaps it was that another background was reaching out from somewhere to grab him back. Abruptly he came back into focus and was no longer Temron. Dark hair turned white over a thin face. Dark eyes turned red, demonic. Canvas clothing transformed into something more like the inside of a machine than attire for a human being. Around him, indefinable engines lurked at the limit of perception; gathered and poised like a planetoid only moments before impact. Ghort sank down onto his hocks and placed his spear on the path next to him. He kept his eyes down while he regained his breath. The ent.i.ty before him did not move. It just nailed him with its viper eyes. Eventually Ghort looked up.
"Owner," he said. "Take me with you."
The Owner"s reply came after a suitable pause. Tamsin felt that this pause was not for reflection. This was a G.o.d after all.
"Are you wise, Ghort?" the Owner asked, and the voice had nuances of power. Hearing it, Tamsin realised it might be possible to kill with a word.
"I am wise," said Ghort.
"Ah," said the Owner. "Yet patience is integral to wisdom."
The Owner turned and things distorted somehow, as if he was attached to everything around him by invisible threads. For a moment Tamsin saw something vast - the inside of an iron cathedral. Then the Owner was gone and Ghort was bowed down with his forehead in the dirt. Tamsin thought he might be crying.
Tamsin waited a moment or two then moved over to the big man and stood next to him. Ghort abruptly pulled himself upright and brushed dirt from his forehead. He sighed, then abruptly turned and studied Tamsin.
"You saw?" he asked.
"I saw, but I"m not sure what I saw," said Tamsin.
"What you saw," said Ghort contemplatively. He went on, "What you saw was the Owner. Surely you realise that?"
"I don"t believe in G.o.ds or supernatural beings. Everything has a reason," said Tamsin.
"Yes, you"re sure of that," said Ghort, observing him. "You are very unusual in your att.i.tude to life. Practically unique. It"s probably why he let you see him."
"Let me?"
"Don"t believe for one moment that he wasn"t aware of your presence," said Ghort.
Tamsin closed his eyes and tried to straighten things out in the storm that was raging between his ears. "I do not believe in G.o.ds or supernatural beings," he said stubbornly. He opened his eyes when Ghort"s hand clamped on his shoulder.
"He is not a G.o.d nor a supernatural being, Tamsin. What he is is a ten thousand year old man with the power of a G.o.d and command of a technology that seems almost supernatural."
Tamsin suddenly felt very calm as things began to click into place.
"We ... we knew more," he said.
"Yes, you did," replied Ghort.
"Who then, are you?" Tamsin asked.
Ghort slipped his hand from Tamsin"s shoulder and cupped Tamsin"s soul pendant in his palm. His expression was almost wistful.
"These are your blessing, for you will never die. For the very same reasons they are my curse. You have believed that your souls are kept safe in your pendant after you die until the time that they transmigrate to heaven. How much truth can you stand, Tamsin?"
"All of it. Only truth is important."
"Very well. You are recorded to your pendant and when you die that recording is transmitted to the Owner"s database. You essentially become part of him; a very small part of an immensely powerful mind. With me that does not happen. I am my pendant and there is no transmission. I have died and woken in a crib more times than I care to remember."
Tamsin was silent for a long moment.
"I do not understand all your words," he said, "but I will. Now we must return to the Wishpool to find out what has happened. Then I think we must pursue my brother." He paused then pulled his pendant from Ghort"s hand. Ghort dropped his hand to his side. Tamsin went on, "Would the Owner accept the soul of a murderer?"
Ghort said, "Oh yes, he accepts all information."
Baum, Torril, and three others lay dead. By the time Ghort and Tamsin had reached the pool the corpses had been laid out side by side and their pendants removed. Chand wept over the body of her husband and Ephis sat by her father. Tamsin wondered what comfort the truth would be to them. Most love, he realised, is selfish, and all they knew was that who they loved was gone. Tamsin walked over to Chester, who was now village elder.
"What of my brother?" he asked.
Chester glanced up, a ma.s.s of pendants clutched in his hand.
"Your brother? Your brother ran into the Rhode when no more charge remained in the weapon. A weapon that was your responsibility, Tamsin Logisticson."
"I will get it back," said Tamsin.
"Best you do that, boy, but before you do, go take a look at the corpse on the end there. Perhaps sight of it will stiffen your sinews."