“I … am persuaded that they’ve done something,” Felph said. “What that is, I can’t guess. But when I wear a Qualeewooh spirit mask to bed at night … You know, the Qualeewoohs have never revealed the secrets to making those masks. The masks seem to be made of nothing special-skin, metals, a few plant fibers and paints,” Felph’s voice grew silent, and he bit back his words as if afraid to speak them. Still, he spoke, and his voice was both frightened and respectful, “but even using the same materials, I cannot duplicate the effect. There is something about a Qualeewooh having worn the mask that makes it viable, that makes it receptive to messages. It’s almost as if … by communicating from one Qualeewooh to another, the mask itself becomes a living thing, an ear that still hears, though its master has passed on.”
Zeus had been watching this whole exchange, but as Felph fell into his reverie, Zeus got a chill down his back. He knew people who used the masks. Several local hermits would not steep at night without the masks on their faces, for they said the voices of the Qualeewooh Masters soothed them, even though they did not always understand the words spoken.
Yet in the past, Lord Felph had refused to let Zeus wear a mask. Like many other things, he considered it to be dangerous. The masks often had mind-altering effects on people. Zeus considered. I should wear one tonight.
Lord Felph suddenly looked up, just as a fireball crossed the sky, lighting the heavens. “You know,” Felph said, “it’s damnably late. Why isn’t Herm here?”
Hera, who had kept her hand on Zeus’s knee for the past few minutes, suddenly moved it higher up Zeus’s thigh. “I asked some of the droids to find him and invite him here for dinner,” Hera said. “But that was hours ago.”
Felph glanced at the servant Dooring, who’d just come to bring dessert. “Dooring, what did Herm say when you invited him to dinner?”
“The droids couldn’t find him,” Dooring answered. “As far as I can tell, he isn’t in the palace.”
Felph raised a brow. “Has he left the grounds?”
“The perimeter droids didn’t record it,” Dooring answered. “We are searching the palace grounds.”
Lord Felph looked about at the group, and Zeus could tell by his mannerisms, by the minor trembling in his jaw, that Felph was worried. He looked pointedly to Zeus. “You don’t have anything to do with this, do you? Did you have a fight with him?”
“No!” Zeus said too loudly, surprised at the accusation in Felph’s voice. “No!”
Felph half leapt from his chair. “Look me in the eye and tell me. If you killed him by accident, in a fit of passion, that is one thing. But if you murdered him in cold blood-”
“I swear,” Zeus said. “I had nothing to do with this!”
“He’s telling the truth,” Arachne told Felph. “He had nothing to do with this.” Felph took her defense of Zeus at face value, making no more accusations.
“Last I saw him,” Zeus said, “he had a gun, for hunting skogs.”
Felph tensed. Hunting skogs was dangerous. He ordered the droids, “Use fliers. Search the tangle.”
Chapter 23
It didn’t take Felph’s droids long to find Herm. In an hour, the droids retrieved the corpse from the canopy of the tangle, where it lay in plain view.
A droid bore it to the garden. Athena took a glow globe from her pack to inspect the remains.
Maggie wasn’t prepared for the horror. Herm’s head was lopped off. Gone the handsome green eyes, the aquiline nose, the perpetual, secretive smile. Gone the glorious mane of dark hair. Gone, too, his left wing and lower leg. They’d been eaten-along with certain organs. Blood smeared everywhere. The corpse smelled no better than it looked.
If Maggie felt unprepared for Herm’s demise, she felt equally unprepared for others’ reactions. Athena remained stoic, stared at the body as if imagining every detail of how he had died.
Hera sobbed, falling to the ground, seeming unable to move, muttering Herm’s name. Zeus raged, shaking fists, crying for vengeance. Yet rather than running into the wild, searching for Herm’s killer, he held Hera tenderly. Zeus seemed in shock, on the verge of collapse, yet he helped Hera back to their room.
Maggie wondered if she should help Zeus and Hera. They had never faced death before. Born with the promise of immortality, they faced death with all the profound comprehension of adults, coupled with the complete emotional naiveté of toddlers. Maggie felt astonished at the debilitating combination.
But the most astonishing reaction came not from Felph’s children, but from Felph himself. He went to the headless corpse, sprawled on the lawn, and lifted the remains, cradling them as if Herm were a child.
The image of Felph, face pale in horror, eyes wide in shock, on his knees, cradling Herm’s corpse in the ethereal light of the glow globe would stay with Maggie the rest of her life.
“Herm!” Felph sobbed. “Herm! My beloved! What’s happened? What?” He spoke to the corpse as if it might answer. Felph’s shock, more than his children’s, surprised Maggie. You killed him, Maggie wanted to say. You wiped his memories from your Al, destroyed his clones. If not for you, he’d be alive.
Maggie dared not speak such hard truths. Nor did she reprimand Felph when his shock turned to rage, and he shouted at Gallen. “You’re the Lord Protector! How could you let this happen? What … what … I demand an answer!”
Gallen said, “I was gone. Remember, we were in the tangle.”
Lord Felph looked away, struggling, as if he could not recall. “But, but my son!” he said with supreme tenderness. However harsh Felph might seem, Maggie heard love in his voice.
Felph gazed down at the corpse, as if for the first time. “Oh,” he said, like a little boy in surprise. “Did you see this?” He reached into Herm’s chest cavity and pulled out a feather, short and gray at the base, dark green at its tips.
“What is it?” Gallen asked.
“A Qualeewooh feather,” Felph said.
Felph lifted the neck of the corpse, looked at the stump. “Loolooahooke,” he whispered, “the ancient art of decapitation. See how clean the cut is? A southern Qualeewooh did this. A wild one, out of the great wastes.”
Felph suddenly looked up, focusing on Gallen. “A murder has been committed. My son is dead. I demand vengeance. You will hunt this Qualeewooh, and bring him for punishment.”
Gallen bit his lip. “There must be thousands of Qualeewoohs,” Gallen said. “How will we find it?”
“It should be easy,” Felph said. “We are in a vast waste-no water or food for hundreds of kilometers. The killing took place today. Unless the Qualeewooh is hiding in the fields, it must be flying over the wastes. Finding it should not be hard.”
Gallen said softly. “You say this is the work of a wild Qualeewooh. Does it understand our law?”
“What does that matter?” Felph asked. “Herm is dead!”
“It matters,” Gallen said, leaning close. “I enforce the law, but you want vengeance. I won’t deliver this Qualeewooh simply so you can slaughter it.”
“I am the law on Ruin!” Felph shouted, tossing Herm’s corpse to the ground. He strode to Gallen, saffron robes stained with dark blood. “I make the laws here. I’ll have vengeance, with or without you! There are plenty of Qualeewooh poachers on this rock! I could hire a dozen of them. They’d be glad of the pay!”
Gallen stared into Felph’s face. Gallen’s eyes became hard, impassive. Maggie thought he would argue, that he’d turn away and quit this job forever. Instead he simply nodded. “Okay, I’m your man. I’ll find them. But I demand pay.”
“Pay?” Felph said. “I’ve already offered you half of all I own!”
“To find the Waters of Strength. You’ve offered me nothing for the Qualeewooh. If you’re willing to pay poachers, you should be willing to pay me.”
“All right,” Felph said. “Ten thousand credits, if you bring me the Qualeewooh.”