I started to exclaim, and she put up her hand. “Please do not inadvertently mention anything that did occur.”
I swallowed. “I would not do so, Provost. Perhaps my classmates thought the secrecy agreement did not…apply to them.”
“No rule or standard has applied to them since birth,” she said. “Great wealth breeds great arrogance, Margaret. Some months ago, each of the three was handpicked by the Directors to take junior but very important posts at Earthgov after graduation. If I were of a suspicious nature, I might guess that those three were picked to attend yesterday’s meeting in order that their arrogance could be assessed under…controlled conditions.”
“But…surely I wasn’t picked for that reason.”
“No,” she said. “Someone else picked you, and before you ask, I am not to say who it was.”
Though I had imagined Bryan’s face if I told him what had happened, I was not about to commit suicide. I would, however, have given a great deal to have been enlightened. The thought that I, Margaret, had been picked by someone(s) to attend a meeting I couldn’t talk about, that I, Margaret, knew what was going to happen to Earth, a secret known only to a handful of other people, was terrifying, and not the least of the terror was that there was no possible, ascribable reason why I should be involved at all!
I Am Ongamar/on Cantardene
Adille, the K’Famira, had said she would not wear the necklace again, yet it hung across her throat pouch the next day, seeming rather larger than before. She wore it the day after that, also, moving restlessly about the house as though something troubled her.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she demanded. We went out into the city, and I followed Adille’s restless feet here and there, without direction, pausing wherever voices were raised or threatening gestures were made. A few days later, Adille dragged me to a public execution, which Adille had always sworn was only for rabble. I hid my face in my lap, winding my arms around my head to keep from hearing the accused screaming as his lower arms and legs were lopped off. It was not mere horror I was hiding from, it was the pain itself that I felt, no matter how I hid my eyes. The day after that we attended the baiting of a dozen traitors’ families by wild klazaks, the sand of the arena running green and a dozen or more young K’Famira ululating from quivering pouches as the klazaks tore first the traitorous parents, then the young…
“Please don’t make me go,” I begged her the following day. “It hurts me, Great Lady. It hurts me to see people killed.” I was taking a risk in saying it wasn’t mere dislike, that it was torment? “I feel it…it hurts…”
“I know, I know,” Adille said distractedly. “Of course, yes, but I must…I must see it. Or something. Something different. Something new. I must…”
“You always said the executions were for the rabble,” I cried. “Are we not rabble if we watch?”
“I don’t know,” Adille said, her mouths set in ugly lines. “But I must. I must. And it wants you with me.”
Bargom disapproved of her wearing the necklace. He told Adille it was ruining her appearance, making her look old and tired. Several times he tried to take the necklace away, but he could not approach it. Each time he tried, he found himself headed out the door, away from it. In the end, he went out the door and simply kept going. During all this time, Adille complained that the beads grew heavier, until they achieved such a weight they could no longer be worn.
Then the sharing began. Adille explained it. She had to go out and find the things the necklace wanted to see, always in my company, then she had to return and lay hands upon the necklace to let it see the horrors through her memory. Mornings we went, and nights. Adille grew too weak to force me to go with her, but still she went alone, returning to lay hands upon the necklace, to which I was now inexorably drawn so that I, too, heard, saw, smelled everything. Years went by as Adille wandered, coming home each night to fall exhausted into bed, eating little, growing thinner with each day, while I eked out our existence by selling the ornaments of the house, then the furniture. The time came that Adille was seen watching something that should not have been watched by anyone. She had warned me that this might happen.
“It sends me places people aren’t supposed to be. It makes me hide and watch, when no one is supposed to watch. It makes me climb walls, hide outside windows. I saw what my clan leader, Draug B’lanjo, did to the Omniont Ambassador. They sent his body to the Federation, claiming it had been done by the Hrass. I heard them talking. They want to stir trouble between the Omniont and the Hrass so they can take over the Hrass shipping routes.”
“Doesn’t that disturb you, Great Lady?” I asked. “The thing that happened to the Ambassador?”
“Him. Oh. I suppose it might have disturbed me if I hadn’t been so worried about being seen.”
I had always wondered if Adille felt anything at all for the victims she saw tortured and slain. Seemingly not.
She went on, “Someday, they will see me. Someday, I won’t come home…”
And one day, she did not. Counting over the seasons I had been with Adille, I estimated it at somewhere between three and four Cantardene years. I myself was then seventeen, or eighteen.
The K’Famir who came to the house some days later told me to clean the house before Adille’s father, Progzo, arrived to dispose of Adille’s belongings. The necklace box lay on the dressing trough, and when I reached out to close the lid, the thing inside lashed out at me like a whip, wrapping itself around
