Seeklight

Daenek spun away from the accusing voice. The same face leaned forward from its perch on an outcropping of rock. “So that man could slide back into the pit, giving away everything that we were made to preserve in him?” A chorus of murmurs mixed with harsh electronic crackling moved through the air, then became silent.

The moon had lifted a little higher, just under the edge of the clouds, and as Daenek turned slowly around, he could see the pale light sliding over the metal limbs and faces of the dying bishops. On all sides, they stretched as far as he could see.

“We have given up hope.” A single voice spoke near Daenek, but he could not locate it. “We whose purpose was to create hope. It is no wonder that some of us, with the rot of time within, have gone mad and now seek the blood of you whom we were to serve.”

It’s no use, thought Daenek. He wiped the cold perspiration from his face. They’re too old to help me. But still—He crouched down before one of the priests and pulled the chain from out of his shirt. The white metal glimmered in the light from the scan-cells. “Do you know what this is?” he asked softly.

The bishop was silent for a long time. “Thane,” it said finally, “of all men, I am most sorry for you.”

“I’m not the thane,” said Daenek wearily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m trying to find out. Tell me what this is. It’s a key, isn’t it? What does it unlock?”

The expressionless face moved upwards to his. “Your birthright.”

Daenek stood up, a growing exhaustion weighing on his spine.

He looked up the hillside and saw the monastery walls silhouetted against the bank of storm clouds. Around him, the bishops’ faces were all turned away from him, back to where the sun would rise. “What do you do out here?” he murmured.

“While you wait to die?”

“We meditate,” said the one to which he had shown the chain.

It did not look up at him. “Upon man. Upon the god who all around us is dying.”

“… dying.” An echo, followed by a sharp buzz of static.

He turned, feeling the cold wind against his skin. In the darkness, he climbed the hill and then circled the monastery, guiding himself by keeping one hand on the rough wall. He came at last to the equine, where he had left it tied to the gate’s hinge.

As he loosened the knot, he heard the nervous whinnying of another equine somewhere behind him.

He froze at the sound, then spun around. A hand gloved in coarse leather caught him at the throat and pinned him against the wall.

Chapter VII

“So smart,” jeered the militia captain from across the fire, his face redlit by the flames. The rest of the subthane’s men were a little ways off in the darkness, roaring with laughter and passing around flasks of the village’s brown liquor. “Smart enough to have your old lady blow the top of someone’s head off—but you couldn’t keep from leaving a track a blind baby could follow.” He took a swig from his own bottle, then returned it to between his boots.

Daenek said nothing. He flexed his cramped shoulders and felt his wrists chafe against the wiry cord that bound them behind his back.

“Well, you’ve lost your choices now.” The captain’s face lengthened into a wolfish leer. “We’ll take you back hi the morning, and the old geezer’ll get to use his little toy after all.

“He laid a finger against his temple. “Zap. Just like that. Then we’ll watch your brains run out like pudding.”

Lightning flickered above them. Daenek looked up at the rumbling sky and felt a drop of rain splash on his neck.

“Afraid of a little wet, boy? We got something here to keep us warm. Want some?” The captain extended his bottle over the top of the flames. “No?”

He dropped it, then watched in alcoholic befuddle-ment as the spilled liquid hissed into steam over the burning wood.

Daenek’s gaze fell to the low flames. He could vaguely hear the rest of the subthane’s men cheering a drunken fight between two of their number. The equines, staked down several yards away, whined at each flash of lightning. Daenek coughed, feeling a band of pressure tighten across his chest. He had no idea of how far they had ridden from the monastery before his captors had decided to rest on this bare hillside for the night. They had not even given him a blanket to wrap around himself, and the cold seeped through his clothes and flesh, gripping his bones. The beginning of a fever made his vision waver and seem unreal.

His shirt was soon plastered to his back as the rain increased.

The fire sputtered, then collapsed into smoke and dark ashes.

Daenek pulled his tightly bound feet closer to himself, trying to draw himself into a ball, to shelter against the storm what little warmth remained in his body.

Minutes or hours passed, driven into his numb senses by the rain, and then he felt himself jerked upright by a hand painfully gripping his shoulder. His knees buckled as his bootsoles slipped in the mud.