Below them in the vaulted sanctuary, a bell rang repeatedly, the measured dong, dong, dong seeming to tighten the very atmosphere around them.
‘Evening services,’ said Chantiforth, rising and moving toward the rack where his robe and crown were hung. ‘Damn. I’m getting tired of this. It was kind of fun at first, but I’ve had it to my back teeth.’
‘All you have to do is look impressive,’ Myrony objected. ‘It’s my night for the sermon.’
‘Mine for dispensing revelations,’ Aphrodite remarked. ‘I think I’ll wear that new mantle with the blue feathers. What’ll the message from the Presences be tonight?’
‘Work for the fuckin’ hour cometh,’ Myrony suggested with an unpriestly sneer as he reached for the full white wig that stood on a stand by the door.
‘Repent for the day is at hand,’ sniggered Chantiforth.
‘What d’you think they really say?’ she asked, stretching. ‘The Presences? Y’ever thought about that?’
The two men, tall, white haired, benevolent looking as saints, gave her equally empty stares, as though wondering if she had gone mad.
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I guess you guys never thought about that.’
Don Furz looked down on the Redfang valley from a high pass, her head barely lifted above the line of crystal prominences, swiveling slowly as she examined the lowlands with a pair of excellent glasses. She stopped several times and stared intently, adjusting the glasses for focus, then moved on. When she had scanned the entire valley, she wriggled back down the pass to join Tasmin and his acolytes, who were lying beside the trail playing with Clarin’s crystal mouse.
‘They’re there,’ she said crisply. ‘At least two bunches of them.’
‘The same ones as last night?’ Tasmin asked, handing the mouse to Clarin and getting to his feet.
‘They look the same. Who knows? One group is right down at the bottom of the trail, as though they were waiting for us. The other one is moving along down the center of the valley, as though they don’t even know the other one is here.’
‘Did you see robes? Tripsinger robes?’
‘In the group moving down the valley, yes. Two of them. But no robes at the bottom of the trail.’
‘Which way is the ’Singer group headed?’
‘There’s a passworded trail east of them. It’ll take them in behind the Redfang range, about five miles south and east of us.’
Tasmin frowned. ‘We can wait until the ’Singer group goes on into the range, then we can cross their trail behind them and out of sight of the ones below us.’
‘There’s a route I know.’ She nodded. ‘If we can get behind the ’Singer group, I can get us into a fast north-south corridor.’
Tasmin nodded approval. ‘Then once we’re far enough south to avoid immediate trouble, we can split up. Some of us need to get to Thyle Vowe. I wish his message had been just slightly less enigmatic, that he’d told us just what it is he’s aware of, but we have to operate on the assumption he knows or at least suspects what’s going on. Whether he does or not, we need help and there’s nowhere else to get it.’
‘I never intended to involve others,’ Donatella complained. ‘It makes me feel hideously responsible.’
‘You didn’t involve us, not purposely. The acolytes and I have talked this over, Explorer.’ He rose and stretched, the full sleeves of his robe dropping back to his shoulders as he reached for the sky. Then he turned to her, shaking his robes down around him. ‘We … or I should say, I started this journey to solve a couple of personal mysteries – things I needed to know about Lim, about my wife. I still want answers to those, but right now there are more urgent things.’ He turned away. It seemed a desecration to stop his search for the cause of Celcy’s death, and yet he could do nothing else.
‘First things first,’ Clarin said encouragingly, filling the silence and giving him time to recover. She had pocketed the mouse and was now assembling her gear.
‘Right,’ Tasmin agreed, attempting a rather weary smile. ‘We’ve talked it over, and we want to help you do precisely what you were trying to do. On the face of it, telling all Jubal that the Presences are sentient is the most important thing we could do just now.’
Clarin nodded, running her fingers through her short, curly mop. ‘We agree about that. However, Tasmin and Jamieson and I – we all feel the need to be prudent. Once the CHASE Commission meets and reports, there will be no time for other efforts. The case has to be airtight. We have to be able to prove everything we allege. And so far, as Jamieson mentioned, we have only your word for everything. There could be another explanation for the attack on you, and that’s the only thing we’ve seen with our own eyes.’ She shouldered her pack and went off to load it on the waiting mule.
‘But I told you …’ Donatella interrupted.
Jamieson said firmly, ‘You’ve told us about your arrangement with Lim Terree, but there could be other explanations for that as well.’ He went up the trail to load his own mule.
‘I’ve played you the Enigma cube!’ she protested to Tasmin.
‘You have no witnesses to making that cube, and it could have been faked,’ Tasmin replied in a sympathetic tone. ‘And quite frankly, it is … well, enigmatic.’ Seeing her expression he added hastily, ‘We don’t disbelieve you! You’re right, they are words, and they are sequential words. They just don’t seem to be substantially responsive to what you were saying. Or thought you were saying.’
‘I was scared to death,’ she admitted. ‘I hurried more than I should have. There were these constant tremors. And the Enigma’s words sounded … well, they sounded a little hostile.’
Tasmin nodded. ‘We thought so, too, which is actually one of the best arguments there could be that the thing isn’t faked. Presumably, a fake would have made better sense and have been more ingratiating. For the
