you make of this?'
'Never seen anything like it.'
'Looks kind of ceremonial, doesn't it?'
They were starting to attract a crowd of their own. Reave nudged the Minstrel Boy. 'Let's get out of here before the militia shows up.'
As they hurried away, the Minstrel Boy went into a delayed reaction. 'This can't be connected to the last one, can it? I mean, can it?'
Reave was at a loss. 'I'm damned if I know.'
The Minstrel Boy scowled.
They turned a corner. Halfway down the block was the sun-moon sign of a soothbooth. The Minstrel Boy marched purposefully toward it.
'Well, I'm going to damn well try and find out.'
Reave hurried after him and grabbed him by the arm. 'You ain't going to find out anything in one of those places.'
Anything that had even a nodding acquaintance with the supernatural filled Reave with instant mistrust. Even though the soothbooth operators claimed a scientific basis for their predictions, as far as Reave was concerned fortune-telling was fortune-telling, and no matter how many wires were grafted into the seer's nervous system, it was still worthless unumbo jumbo.
The Minstrel Boy angrily shook himself free. 'I've got to start somewhere,'
'Not in a soothbooth, for God's sake.'
The Minstrel Boy glared at his partner. 'I'll take all the help I can get. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to snuff me.'
They had reached the soothbooth, and despite Reave's protests, the Minstrel Boy ducked through the door. Outside, the walls were covered with silk hangings emblazoned with mystical symbols, but the interior was not unlike the sanctum of the Datron. The soothsayer was a similar deformed being with the same huge, lopsided potato head and tiny atrophying body. It lay in a similar bath of saline solution. But the soothsayer wore heavy makeup and a bright plastic wrap around the hyperencephalic head, hiding the feedlines and implants. The hardware was less extensive than the complexity that had surrounded the Datron, the biode was smaller, and the tubes and cables that ran into the soothsayer's head were not the same draped festoons, but the equipment was equally ancient. The soothsayer might well have had the same unnatural high-pitched voice, but electronic modifiers made its tones warm, feminine, and authoritative, clearly designed to set the client at ease.
'You are a seeker after knowledge?' it asked.
'I suppose so.' The Minstrel boy had his own doubts about the value of the soothbooth, but he was driven by desperation.
'Please make a donation of credit.'
The Minstrel Boy dropped his crys into the booth's transaction unit. The unit deducted the standard fee.
'The volunteering of a gratuity can speed the process.'
The Minstrel Boy added a ten percent tip. The soothsayer's eyes, which had been swiveling uncontrollably from side to side, focused on the Minstrel Boy.
'How can I help you?'
'Can you identify an object and give me its history?'
'All things are possible. Do you have the object with you?'
The Minstrel Boy pulled out the ceramic razor that had come so close to cutting his throat. 'It's here.'
'Please hand it to me.'
The soothsayer stretched out its functioning arm toward the Minstrel Boy, who placed the razor in the trembling hand. The soothsayer's eyes began to swivel again. It was silent for a long time. When it finally spoke, its voice had totally changed. No longer soft and feminine, it was harsh and masculine.
'It is a very old thing. It is an evil thing. There has been much blood. .'
Another entity seemed to have taken over the soothsayer. The Minstrel Boy could not tell whether the effect was an example of genuine channeling or merely an electronic trick.
'Where does it come from?' he asked.
'It is the high sacrificial razor of the Zos Kia Cultus.'
'The what?'
The soothsayer paused again before answering.'The Zos Kia Cultus await the coming of Abraxas.'
'What's Abraxas?'
'Abraxas is a god of true antiquity. He is the whip-wielding rooster god with serpent feet in whom light and darkness arc both united and transcended. His worshipers believe that he will free them from the agony of time. They believe that he is the third possibility of the eternally available timeless moment.'
The Minstrel Boy was completely mystified. 'What does this Abraxas have to do with me?'
The soothsayer reverted to its original feminine voice. 'You asked me to identify the object. Further knowledge will require another transaction.'
The Minstrel Boy knew that the bite was being put on him. At that moment Reave, who had been waiting outside, ducked into the booth.
'You're not buying this garbage, are you?'
'I've gone this far. I might as well get the rest.'
The Minstrel Boy dropped his crys into the transaction unit a second time and added a second gratuity. The soothsayer's eyes focused on him again.
'Give me your hand.'
The Minstrel Boy, with some reluctance, grasped the soothsayer's hand. It was cold, limp, and moist. After a further pause, the masculine voice was back.
'You are a designated victim.'
'That was back at the Caverns. What does it have to do with this Abraxas cult?'
'You have been touched by the wafer.'
'The wafer?'
'The crystal wafer of the Hunters. You accepted it.'
'I smashed that thing.'
'But you touched it.'
Reave leaned close to the Minstrel Boy. 'Get out of here before you make yourself crazy.'
The Minstrel Boy shook his head. He concentrated on the soothsayer. 'Why should the fact of me touching the crystal make some mad munchkin want to slash me?'
'You are tainted by the crystal wafer. The homicides recognize this. They know that you are not only fair game but that if they kill you, they will also gain grace with the Presence. Already a follower of nu-Kali has tried to slay you.'
The Minstrel Boy raised an eyebrow. How had the soothsayer gotten that bit of data? 'Are you telling me that any mad killer can sniff me out?'
'Only the ones who have a spiritual frame of reference.'
'Is there any way I can get rid of this taint? I can't have religious maniacs stalking me like dogs after a bitch in heat.'
'You can no more lift the taint than you can remove radiation contamination.'
'Are you telling me that I'm doomed?'
'We are all doomed.'
'Yeah, but I'd like to know how doomed I am.'
' Do you wish to know the day and hour of your death?'
'No, but. .'
'Very well.'
There was a pause before the Minstrel Boy asked the next question.
'Will this taint ever pass?'
'All things will pass.'
'That's not the answer I was looking for.'
