"Thank you!” Dolm said, and his gratitude seemed genuine.
"Come, D'ward!” she repeated.
"You go,” Edward said. “Warn them. I am following."
She pouted at him suspiciously.
"I must change into that pilgrim robe you made, which will always remind me of you,” Dolm said. “Then I will give D'ward my pack. He will come."
Edward nodded his agreement. Reassured, Eleal went skipping off to the end of the bridge, and disappeared down a steep path.
The two men looked at each other.
"Tell me,” Edward said.
Dolm shuddered and shook his head. “Never!” He unfastened his pack and pulled out the smock with the pentacle on it. Then he stood up and looked apprehensively at Edward.
"Tell me!” Edward repeated. “Tell of Zath. I need to know."
"Need?"
"Need! Am the Liberator."
Frowning, the actor leaned his lanky frame on the rail and stared down at his former friends far below.
"I did a terrible thing,” he said quietly. “I hurt a woman, hurt her badly. I was an animal. I was drunk.” He mimed drinking and touched his groin. “Understand? Next day I learned that she was likely to die. I went to the temple of Zath and prayed that he would take my life and spare the woman—that I would die, she would not die.” He acted it out, pausing frequently to be sure that the stranger understood. “A priest said I must go to her and touch her, lay my hand on her, like this. It was dark, nighttime. Doors opened for me. Bolts slid. No one saw me. She was asleep, or unconscious. I touched her."
He shivered, staring out over the rail.
"She died at once. I felt great pleasure, a rush of joy. Perhaps you don't know yet what it is like to lie with a woman, or perhaps you do, but it was like that, only much more. Much more! I went back to the temple and was initiated. I became a reaper. At night the lust would come upon me. Not every night, but often. I would go out and walk the streets or enter into houses, and I would gather souls for Zath. They died in silence, but in fearful agony. They knew. They died terribly and I felt rapture."
He was weeping, his gaunt cheeks shining wet.
"Always I would feel that joy,” he said, his voice breaking. “Especially if they were young and strong. Many, many of them."
Blood was pretty high on the list, Creighton had said. What could be higher than human sacrifice?
"Not you doing this,” Edward said awkwardly. How could anyone console a man who bore such a burden? “The god was doing it, not you."
"But it was my crime that led me to him."
"Sister Ahn kill your, er..."
"Guilt? Sister Ahn took away my guilt?"
"Thank you. Sister Ahn took away your guilt."
"Yes. And gave me repentance instead. I was happy in my evil. Now I can never be happy again. I think I will kill myself."
"No. Sister Ahn died. You die also, her dying is no thing."
Dolm turned his head to stare at Edward with red-rimmed eyes. “She died for me!"
"You die also, then Zath wins!” How, Edward wondered, had he ever gotten himself into this? He was not qualified to be a spiritual advisor. He was a sanctimonious school prefect lecturing a mass murderer. Holy Roly would be proud of him. He barely knew enough of the language to ask for a drink of water, let alone argue ethics. But he could not stop now.
"Sister Ahn gave you back your life. You must take it. You must use it. Do good!"
"Maybe when I have been a pilgrim and made the Holy Circuit."
Edward thought about that. “No. Pilgrim is running away."
"What else can I do?” Dolm said angrily. “I can't act anymore!"
Their eyes locked.
This was Graybeard again, and the soldier at the bridge. This was Dusty Miller of the Lower Fourth, who'd broken an ankle playing rugby and been terrified to put on his studs after that. This was the First Eleven after they'd lost three in a row and were going up against the top of the league. But Edward did not have the words he had used on those occasions. All he had was baby talk. “Yes you can, Dolm. You can act. You can remember lines. You can move without tripping. Acting not changed. Nothing has changed."
He saw the resistance. He felt himself failing. He reached out and gripped Dolm's shoulders with both hands.
"You can!” he said. “I say you can!"
Dolm's eyes widened. Edward saw doubt rooting and pressed harder, using every scrap of conviction he could muster. “You can! I say you can. Trust me. I am D'ward Liberator! Trust me!"
Without warning, the actor screamed. He pushed Edward away and turned, doubling over the rail, racked by sobs. Edward staggered back, appalled at what he had done. The bridge seemed to sway under his feet. A terrible weariness came crashing down on him.
Dolm was weeping helplessly, hysterically, like a child, pounding his fists on the balustrade. He sounded as if he were choking to death.
Edward could find no more words. I had no right to torture the poor man, so! I should have left him to do what he wanted to do and suffer as he wanted to suffer.
Angrily he limped away. He did not try to take the pack, because he did not think he could lift it. He was only two days off his sickbed and he must have walked fifty miles. He was crushed by exhaustion. He had blisters all over his feet and his teeth hurt.
There were too many people. He reeled down the path on jellied legs, stumbling with weakness and hanging on to trees, and when at last he had descended to the valley floor and found the clearing, there were just too many people. A dozen or more of them were clustered around Eleal's tiny form. They were enjoying collective hysterics.
They had not known. Dolm had not been able to tell them that Eleal had escaped from Narsh, because he dared not reveal how he knew. Now, suddenly, she had come skipping out of the bushes to join them. She was the center of attention and loving it—hugging and kissing and telling her adventures all at the same time. They must know of the Testament with its mention of Eleal and the Liberator, because all Suss had been talking of it. Their god had worked a miracle for them. Their baby was back. Everyone was talking at once, men swearing oaths, women weeping. High drama!
Were actors as superstitious on Nextdoor as they were reputed to be on Earth? She was their mascot, Edward thought, watching the reunion. They must see that! Their little crippled mascot had returned to them and now their luck would change. Or would it? The Tion presence in the temple must know of him, or would surely learn shortly. Zath's reapers might be watching the troupe. The Liberator could bring only trouble to these humble players. He must leave now, at once, before they saw him. Too many people!
Perhaps Dolm would have left the backpack on the bridge. With that, and the smattering of language he had attained, Edward could survive on his own somehow—couldn't he? It was the thought of trying to climb that hill again so soon that delayed him. Then someone saw him.
Screaming with excitement, Eleal came skipping choppily over the grass to him, the whole troupe running in pursuit. Too many people. He staggered back a few paces and leaned against a tree for support.
He soon identified the leaders. The figurehead was the middle-aged giant with the silvery mane, Trong Impresario. He declaimed in a voice like distant gunfire. He rumbled platitudes and struck dramatic poses. The real power was his wife, Ambria, a woman taller than Edward, with steel in her eyes and a tongue like a lash. She was all bone and angles, and yet strangely reminiscent of the irrepressible Mrs. Bodgley of Greyfriars Abbey. The brains of the group might well be that little man with the stubbly white beard. Names, names, and more names ... Good-looking men, handsome women, all putting on airs. Handshakes and thumps on the back and effusive gratitude for restoring their darling...