Karina held Saba’s hand. There was no life there. The felina lay twisted, her tunic torn and bloody and a sliver of hardwood projecting from the ribcage just below one slight breast.
Karina stood.
A vampiro approached, eyes glittering, totally reverted to the wild state. It bent over the still form of Saba.
With an inhuman yell Karina leaped at the creature’s throat, hooking her fingers into the folds of skin. As it began a ponderous flapping, seeking to carry her off, her toes slashed into its abdomen and entrails cascaded to the grass. It fell back with a strangled whimper and Karina, her feet planted on the ground, pivoted with all her strength and threw the huge creature onto its back. She hardly felt the neck snap, didn’t realize as she stepped away from the body that she had decapitated it, and the head was still hanging from her hooked fingers.…
Standing over the body of Saba she gazed at the scene of devastation. The stalls were on fire and the community hut had collapsed. Several of the smaller huts were smoldering. Like gigantic scavenging birds the vampiros stalked among the casualties, pecking here, clawing there, seeking easy meat first and feasting off the dead, leaving the injured for later. Everyone else had fled.
All except for a small group near the siding on which the Pegman’s sailcar stood. Two huge men were there, restraining three people who seemed to be trying to get away.
Karina could not see them for tears.
«Is this what you wanted, Starquin?» she shouted at the darkening sky. «Are you satisfied, damn you? Siervo and Haleka, and now Saba! Is this your great Purpose? Well, I tell you this, you bastard. I’m through! To hell with my Word — I take it back! From now on I’m going to do everything in my power to wreck things for you. Can you hear me?
«I’m going to start by finding Captain Tonio and his wife and his goddamned son, and if they’re still alive I’m going to kill them. Then I’m going to hunt down that burned creep the Dedo keeps sending, and I’m going to kindle the Wrath under her goddamned skirts and finish the job Agni started.
«Then the Dedo.… I’ll really enjoy that. I’ll do it slowly. I’ll take her apart, piece by piece — your flesh, your bones, and I hope I’ll hear you screaming up there.…»
There was more but it was becoming disjointed, merged into the sobbing, and in the end she dropped to her knees and laid her cheek on Saba’s breast.
She didn’t hear the quiet hoisting of sails, and she didn’t see the Pegman’s car glide from its siding and roll away up the coast.
«Oh, my God.… Oh, Karina.» Raoul let his breath out in a shuddering sigh and rolled over, face to the deck, trying to rid his mind of the image of the demented cat-girl, drenched in blood with the head of a vampiro hanging from her fingers, standing over the body of her sister and screaming her murderous intentions at the evening sky.
While nearby, Tonio and Astrud lay watching with scared eyes as the huge, silent Us Ursa handled the ropes.
The importance of balance
The handmaiden said, «She’s resisting — I think I’ve lost her. Her sister died, you see. I think she blames us.»
«Quite rightly, of course.»
The Dedo stood against the Rock which was unlike any other rock. It was translucent blue-gray and it seemed to consist of a multitude of interconnecting facets, each one flat and about the size of a human hand, set somewhere just below the surface so that the handmaiden could never be sure they were there at all. And the facets glowed with a light of such eerie violet tint that it was almost beyond the spectrum. They glowed and flickered, passing flashes of dull color from one to the next in a bewildering pattern which seemed to exist in the handmaiden’s mind rather than in the Rock itself.
The handmaiden, her emotions dulled by years of contact with the Dedo, ate a small fish which had been baked before the fire. The Dedo had caught the fish. In the valley, you had to be careful about that kind of thing.
The valley was in balance.
When the handmaiden first came, the Dedo had explained.
«The cai‑man takes what he needs and no more. Certainly he kills more than he needs, but that is unavoidable when the prey is large. The surplus food goes to feed the scavengers, who also have their place in the valley. The ungulates graze. The rodents gnaw. The jungle lives in balance. You’re probably wondering where I fit in. Well — I grow my own vegetables and I sometimes play the role of a scavenger. Occasionally I am a predator and I kill a deer, or maybe do a little fishing if the stocks are high or if I can see a surplus in the Ifalong.» She indicated a row of smoked fish hanging from a beam.
«I choose my role,” the Dedo said, «because I’m by far the strongest creature in the valley, and that includes Bantus. I arrange the whole of this place to suit my own needs. I balance predator against prey, browsers against foliage, grazers against range. I do it in such a way that every creature retains its place, at the same time allowing the weak to die and the strong to breed. This way, the valley will support me until I die. It is in balance.
«I’ve adjusted the balance to include yourself.»
Now the handmaiden wondered how this was going to work out, because the Dedo had hinted that she was expecting several visitors in the nearby Ifalong. The handmaiden mentioned this.
«The balance of the valley will work towards the fulfilment of the Purpose,” said the Dedo. «Before very long, your work towards that fulfilment will be complete, and John will be conceived.»
A moment of human frailty caused the handmaiden to shudder.
HERE ENDS THAT PART OF THE
SONG OF EARTH KNOWN TO
MEN AS
«TORTUGA FESTIVAL»
IN TIME,
OUR TALE WILL CONTINUE
WITH THE GROUP OF STORIES
AND LEGENDS KNOWN AS
«IN THE VALLEY OF LAKES»
Where El Tigre loses and wins his battle,
Karina loves,
And John is born to the furtherance of
Starquin’s mighty Purpose.
Five
Exile
Should you espy a monstrous beast who shoulders a tree to the ground in passing, tell yourself the trunk was rotten, but get out of the valley of Bantus nevertheless —for sometimes safety is more important than sanity.
Astrud’s shoulder hurt so badly that she could hardly move her arm, her legs were bleeding from a network of scratches, and blisters were erupting on the palms of both hands — the Punishment of Agni.
She wondered how she’d come out of it alive. She’d seen the ground rising to meet her, then she’d known little more until she’d found herself lying on the deck of this squalid little sailcar, with two giant men handling the ropes.
«Palace Guards,” Tonio whispered to her. «They must have been sent here to make sure we had a clear track. The Canton Lord looks after us, you see, Astrud.» There was a dreadful bruise on the side of his face, and much of the skin was missing so that his cheek looked like raw tumpmeat, wet but not quite bleeding.
«Raoul …?»
«He’s fine.»
Raoul turned and looked at her then, and his eyes were full of pain. «She said she was going to kill us. She had this terrible … head in her hands, I don’t know what it was a head of, but it looked as though she’d pulled it off some animal. Ugh. She will kill us, you know. I’m sure of it. She looked crazy.»
«The Canton Lord will protect us.»
«What, from every felino in the Canton?» Raoul voiced Tonio’s own private fear. «How in hell can he? They could get us any time. They could attack the Cadalla — they could even come to the house. You ought to have seen her face, father.»