“Then why didn’t he kill us?” he howled. “He should have killed us!”
We stopped where we were.
“Who did you see?” I asked Mitigan, when I could form words again. “When you saw it, what did you see?”
“A winged bull with a man’s face,” he cried. “It carried a bull’s pizzle and it wore a great beard!”
“We know,” said Leelson. “That’s what we all saw. Let’s move along, shall we?” He took Mitigan by the arm and tugged him away from us, trying to calm him while the rest of us stood dumbfounded, wondering if we had gone mad.
“I did not see a man’s face,” said the ex-king, quietly. “But some can see no farther than their mirrors. What wears another face must go unseen.”
“It was a good question, though,” said Snark. “Why didn’t it kill us?”
“It hasn’t decided yet,” said Lutha.
“How do you know?” I asked her.
“I just know. If it had decided to kill us, it would have done it there, as Mitigan expected.” She jabbed her chin toward the south. “But we, too, are the offspring of Behemoth. It has uses for all its creatures and would rather not kill us.”
Snark stopped dead. “That’s what the justice machine said to me. It would rather not kill me. It would make me useful as a shadow instead.”
“As the sisterhood of Dinadh were shadows,” I said.
“As all women become shadows,” said Lutha. “Where men have their way.”
Leelson dragged Mitigan back to the rest of us. “We’ve been talking about Chur Durwen,” he said. “Mitigan believes Chur Durwen will send help.”
“How’ll he do that?” asked Poracious wearily.
Mitigan glowered at her, his mouth working.
“Through the officials at the port?” suggested Leelson.
“Who control nothing. Who are suspect because of their association with outlanders.”
Mitigan growled, “He’ll take ship for Alliance Central. There will be someone there.”
Poracious nodded, saying calmly, “When we came to Dinadh, shipping in Hermes Sector was already a very iffy thing. Suppose Chur Durwen does get through, how will he reach anyone in the bureaucracy? I assume he is a registered assassin? Such folk are not routinely solicited for unusual information about unheard-of situations.”
“He’ll go to the Alliance agent in Simidi-ala,” said Mitigan.
Poracious smiled grimly. “Much good may that do him, or us. Thosby Anent’s information routes are secure, but he won’t get around to making use of them!”
The ex-king laughed, almost inaudibly. “There’s his servant. The woman. Chadra Tsum. We might offer audible prayer, several times a day, to Chadra Tsum.”
With a look of hectic gaiety, Poracious fell to her knees on the sand, held out her arms, and prayed to Chadra Tsum. The ex-king joined her, and they concluded their prayer with a repetitive chant: “Vigilance. Vigilance. Vigilance.”
Lutha and I turned away, overtaken by a fit of hysterical laughter. We leaned on one another, tears running down our faces. Mitigan stood stony-faced, eyes glaring, but Leelson pulled Lutha away from me, into his arms.
“Oh, Lutha.” He sighed. His own face was wet. I had not seen Leelson weep ever before. Had things come to such a pitiful pass that even a Fastigat could weep?
“Why?” she asked, touching his cheek. “Why tears, almighty Fastigat?”
“Guilt,” he said with a grimace. “It seems I may have been, may be wrong about a number of things. I blamed you.”
“You blamed me?” she asked.
“For not seeing reality. My reality. And Limia blamed you for not seeing hers.”
“And I blame you now for not seeing what is,” she said, almost whispering. “This is real, Leelson. This is not philosophy. Pray with Poracious that someone comes, that Behemoth will let us go, for someone must convince the Fastigats at Prime that this is real.”
“Little chance of that,” he murmured, looking around himself.
“But Behemoth might let us go,” I offered, more loudly than I intended. “We could pray to it….”
I had not seen Mitigan edge up behind us. I didn’t know he was there until I heard his howl of rage:
“Make prayer to an animal?”
“Mitigan.” I faltered, stepping back, away from him. “I meant it only as a suggestion. Perhaps if we offered … repentance, self-sacrifice …”
It was the wrong thing to say. Perhaps anything would have been the wrong thing to say. He had been teetering on the edge of rage and frustration for too long.
“You think it would accept a sacrifice?” he bellowed, grabbing me by the arm, lifting me with one mighty hand, and flinging me across his shoulder. “Well then, let us make sacrifice!”
It happened so quickly that we were halfway up the slope toward the scraggy ridge before I could catch my breath and cry out. Any sound I made was drowned by his fury.
“We will build us an altar! We will make blood sacrifice!”
All the breath was driven from my lungs when he dropped me at the crest of the ridge. He took a thong from his belt and lashed my feet and hands together with one quick motion while I gasped and struggled. Dimly I saw him heaving great slabs of stone, stones too heavy to lift, stones no man could have lifted.
I rolled my head to one side. The others were halfway up the hill. Leelson. Lutha. Above me Mitigan held a huge boulder aloft.
“Want to join her, Famber? Come closer and you will!”
“Mitigan!” cried Leelson. “This isn’t the way—”
“I’ve had enough of this heresy, these devil beasts,” Mitigan howled, casting a manic glance in my direction. “Enough!”
He backed toward me, holding the great stone aloft with one hand while he fumbled for a weapon with the other. Something to kill me with, kill them with. Almost he could have killed them with his eyes, so berserk he was.
“Why me?” I gasped. “Why sacrifice me, Asenagi?”
“Why not you?” He dropped the stone and jabbed a contemptuous thumb toward Lutha. “She belongs to Leelson Famber. And the other one is of some use. But you are no use and you belong to no one but your devil god, so let it have you!”
“I didn’t create it!” I cried.
