When the voice came, some of the faces to the lower left of the wall moved their lips synchronically.
“We are Magna Mater,” they said. “You may bow down again.”
They bowed down again, Nela crying out as they did so.
“What’s the matter with her?” the voice said carelessly.
“You hurt her,” replied Fringe in an angry voice. “Bringing her here. You’re hurting both of them, making them bob up and down like this. They’re not built the way I am.”
“Will she die?” asked another voice in an interested tone.
Fringe looked for the source of the voice, finding it in an idealized woman’s face, lofty browed, wide-eyed, but with its mouth twisted in malicious concentration.
“She may,” said Fringe. “And if so, they both will. Is that what you want?”
The eyes watched, the lips moved. “Address me as Gracious Lady Therabas Bland! Is that what we want?”
Around this face, a group of others came to life, blinking, mouthing. “Is that what we want?” the faces chorused, like an echo.
“No,” said the first voice from another idealized face, some distance from the second. “Not yet. Not now. Before we instruct them in their duty, they must learn to pray to us.” Around this face, others echoed its lip motions.
Two groups, Fringe thought, watching them closely. And both groups together accounted for about half the faces on the wall. No, damn it. There was another thing present. Not speaking. Only watching. She caught the glimmer of its eyes and shuddered.
“What shall we pray for?” asked Bertran with a pained grunt. “What prayers are you pleased to grant.”
Silence.
“You may pray for rest,” said a face from the second group at last. “Pray to Gracious Lady that she will be pleased to grant you rest.”
“And food,” said Fringe stubbornly. “We pray for food, for if we don’t have food we will die.”
“And food,” said the voice grudgingly. “You may pray for food as well. Can we make food?”
“We can make food,” said the other. “We can make anything.”
“Pray for food then. Perhaps we will grant it. And you will pray for enlightenment, to assist you in your duty.”
They prayed for rest, food, enlightenment: Nela and Bertran with practiced phrases and a tumble of parochial school adulatories; Fringe haltingly, in the manner of someone making an assigned speech, keeping her eyes on the faces as she did so, watching for any signs of reaction. Of the faces that were awake, most seemed hypnotized by their words.
When they had done praying (and they were kept at it for some little time), the lower left group of faces demanded that they do reverence once more before they were allowed to retreat to their cell. Fringe went eagerly, the twins with tottering steps, barely able to move.
In a rocky niche beside the ledge they found a heap of dry powdery flakes that smelled vaguely foodlike. They tasted the stuff without enthusiasm. Possibly it would sustain life, though it would never provoke appetite. As they picked at the flakes, Bertran’s breast pocket moved, and from the top of it a tiny head appeared to fix them all with bright beady eyes.
“Hope is never a lie,” it said conversationally. “Hope could keep her alive. All three of them alive.”
It was Zasper’s voice.
“Who was that?” whispered Bertran, patting the pocket with one trembling hand.
“My friend Zasper,” muttered Fringe, her breath quickening in sudden hope. “A friend, Berty. Someone trying to help us.” She reached out to the munk, offering shreds of the foodstuff, which it ate as they were doing, without enjoyment, before burrowing down once more in Bertran’s pocket.
“I think we will rest again,” said Nela, after choking down a mouthful or so of the stuff and drinking from Fringe’s cupped hands. “I think we must, Fringe, even though we just woke up. We feel all torn inside. Maybe resting a bit will let us heal….”
“Rest,” Fringe agreed worriedly, her eyes on the larger cavern. After she had helped the two of them squirm their way onto the ledge and had covered them as warmly as possible, she sat at the door to the cell, watching the distant faces from beneath lowered lids. Whatever animated them seemed to come and go. Now it had gone elsewhere, for a time at least. The faces were like dolls’ faces now, shiny and expressionless, mouths curved into bows, eyes wide or shut, without lines, without individuality. They were not flesh that showed life graven upon itself. They were only symbols of life. Two groups had spoken. Maybe not groups, exactly. Maybe two entities made up of individuals, with not much difference among the individuals involved.
When she had been a girl at school, much had been made of popular E-or P-class girls who had their own coteries. All members of a coterie had sounded much alike. Their vocabularies were similar, their habits of thought. They dressed much alike, made the same gestures, laughed at the same things. By observing one of the sycophants, one could say certainly, “That’s one of Lorry’s clique, that’s one of Ylane’s.” The same was true of these faces. Now that they were quiet, she could see the resemblance among them. The group to the right, the Gracious Lady group, had a straight-lipped, satisfied look. The group to the left was greedy, a bit puff-cheeked, like fat babies, wanting sweeties. And all of them were like those damned E&P dolls Souile had given her so long ago. In her mind she could hear an infant wail, a doll voice. “Am I not beautiful. Do you like my hair?”
What did they want, really? Surely not this pretense at adulation. Were they so infantile that this mockery of worship served? Love me if you will, and if you won’t, I’ll make you!
And that other presence. The one she knew was there, the one that hadn’t spoken yet. What did it want? Not love, she was sure of that.
What duty did a human person owe things
