“And you’re not?” Gallen asked.
“I am not an animal,” the Bock said. “That is why the Tharrin … worship me.” Gallen caught his breath at this last bit of news, for he imagined the Tharrin to be the highest life-forms in the galaxy. It had never occurred to him that the Tharrin would look up to other beings, much less that they would so admire another species that they would worship it. For the past hour, Gallen had felt that the Bock had been trying to show him something, had been trying to get across a message that somehow wasn’t connecting. Now Gallen focused more attentively.
“Gallen, I desire that both sides find a path to peace, nothing more.” The Bock stopped in a narrow alley. A chill wind swept through the alley, and overhead several pigeons flapped about, trying to find the best roosting spot on the crumbling stone lip of a roof. Gallen could see over the edge of town, and the suns setting out over the ocean were shining on some near hills. He could see the front of the temple near where the Gate of the World opened, and near the temple’s huge doors, an enormous brass disk reflected the dying suns. Two giants in yellow robes began to beat the disk with great clubs, so that the gong flashed golden like the wings of a fiery bird, and the sound of it echoed over the town. There was silence for the moment. “Those giants are called Acradas. In many ways they are wise, but each night they try to call the suns back, fearing that unless their sun disk tolls, the suns will never return.” The Bock hesitated, and Gallen pitied such ignorant creatures. “You and I look at the Acradas, and we think them strange. As you are to Acradas, I am to you. My thoughts are incomprehensible to you, and you and the Inhuman are equally alien to me. But we-each of us-are held prisoner by our own bodies. We sense the world in our own way, and we act toward it in ways that our mind allows. No man can truly be comprehended by another. Here on our world, in the City of Life, our people design new forms of humanity to inhabit other worlds. They have created over five thousand subspecies of human. Many of them have far-reaching enhancements that cannot be detected by eye alone, and with others, apparently major enhancements are merely cosmetic. For some subspecies, their paths of thought so differ from those of mankind that they cannot be held accountable to the laws that govern life here in the human lands. Still, their lives are precious to them. They cannot help what they are, and they cannot change it. They are not capable of being human, but you, Gallen O’Day, I hope will look upon them with empathy and understanding.”
“You want me to judge the Inhuman?” Gallen asked.
The Bock whispered, “Many people have been absorbed by the mind of the Inhuman. Few of the people who have become Inhuman did so of their own free will. For each Inhuman that you meet, you will have to decide whether to slay it or let it live.” The Bock sighed, and its mouth opened and its eyes half closed.
For a moment, it gave an expression of such profound sadness that Gallen feared it would break into tears. “And yet, Gallen, I suspect that you will have no chance to reason with or prevail against this … thing. The Inhuman is powerful, and if the rumors we hear are true, it controls hundreds of thousands of beings.…” The Bock glanced up, then whispered, “See, there is one of its scouts now! They come to the city every night!”
Gallen looked skyward, and from the clouds above a dark form swooped, a wriggling tatter of night that suddenly resolved into a creature flapping on batlike wings. As Gallen watched, he almost imagined it to be an enormous bat. And suddenly he knew why the streets here cleared at dusk. The servants of the Inhuman owned the night.
“Quickly now,” the Bock said. “We must get indoors.” Gallen had a sudden cold fear, and he wondered if Maggie and Orick were all right. He would need to get back to them soon. Gallen stopped, unwilling to go any farther with this strange creature. The Bock turned and looked at him expectantly, waiting for Gallen to follow. “Wait a minute,” Gallen said. “What of Maggie and Orick? Shouldn’t we go back for them?”
“Soon, soon,” the Bock promised. “All in time.”
And Gallen wondered. He was a stranger to this world, still unsure of its dangers. The Bock knew more than he did. Perhaps the fact that the Inhuman was sending scouts to the city at night did not mean that Maggie was in danger-but Gallen had seen the fear in the eyes of the locals as they hurried off the streets.
“I’ll go no farther with you,” Gallen said.
“Please, hurry,” the Bock said. “It is not much farther-a moment more.”
Gallen hesitated, greatly tom. But Maggie had Orick to guard her, and Gallen suspected that another moment would make little difference. Reluctantly, he followed the Bock.
The Bock led Gallen to the side entrance of a building, and they stepped under the portico and hurried down a maze of dark hallways until Gallen was completely turned around. Then the Bock stopped and whispered a name at a door that looked like all the others. “Ceravanne.”
Gallen heard a bolt sliding, then the door opened, and behind it stood a young woman wrapped in a dark cloak that hid most of her face. Yet Gallen could see the precisely sculpted cheekbones and brow that marked her kind. He found himself wishing that she would speak, so that he might hear her voice. Her dark eyes were haunted, and she looked at Gallen hopefully for a second, then turned and led the way into a dusty store room filled with barrels and crates, moving with a delicate grace that could only belong to a Tharrin.
Gallen entered the room behind the Bock, feeling extremely ill at ease. As he stepped through the doorway, the door closed a little and a large man moved in behind Gallen, placing a sword at the side of his neck. “Far enough,” the man said, putting just enough weight on the blade to force Gallen to step sideways and back. “Face the wall.”
Gallen stood against the wall, bridling at the thought. He’d come here unarmed, without so much as a knife or his mantle. His legs were shaking, and Gallen forced himself to breathe deeply, hold down his anger. The guard kept the sword to the back of his neck, then ran one hand through Gallen’s long hair, checking carefully around the base of his neck. “He’s clean, milady,” the guard said. “No weapons, and no scars near the neck.”
“The Lord Protector, Gallen O’Day, did not come alone,” the Bock told Ceravanne. “He brought a woman and a bear. I left them behind with the weapons, as ordered.”
The guard stepped back, and Gallen glanced at the Bock, realizing that this seemingly innocuous creature had a duplicitous streak to it. “You tricked me,” Gallen said.
“Ceravanne asked me to bring you to her alone, stripped of weapons,” the Bock answered. “But I asked you to come so for my own reasons.”
So the Bock and Lady Ceravanne worked at cross-purposes, and Gallen realized that he might be working at cross-purposes to them both. The Bock wanted the Inhuman left alone. Ceravanne perhaps sought only to stop its encroachments. And without knowing anything about the Inhuman, Gallen had halfway decided to kill it.
Ceravanne was about to speak, but she stopped, as if a sudden thought had occurred to her. “Bock, isn’t it getting dark out?”
“It is late,” the Bock agreed.
“But-Gallen’s friends, where did you leave them?”
“In the field, at the opening to the gate.”
Ceravanne frowned, plainly worried. “Bock, we can’t leave them for the night-the Inhumans…!”
“I will go get them,” the Bock said.
Ceravanne said, “Can you retrieve them before full nightfall?”
“If I hurry across the fields, over the hill!”
“Rougaire, you go with him,” Ceravanne said.
The guard, a giant with a bulbous red nose and weathered features, put one hand on his sword and said, “Yes, milady.”