Commitment Hour

'Playing my violin,' the Neut answered.

I played another E flat minor chord.

'Sounds like an E minor chord,' the Neut said.

'E flat minor!' I shouted.

'Oh. That's a lot harder,' the Neut told the knight. 'He's trying to impress us.'

'I'm trying to exorcise you,' I said.

'Me?' the Neut asked.

'Him,' I said, pointing the bow at the knight. 'Master Disease.'

The Neut laughed and put Its arm around the knight's waist. 'He thinks you're Master Disease!'

'Who's Master Disease?'

'A god.'

'I see.' The knight sloshed a few steps toward me. 'Young man, I'm not a god, I'm a scientist. We're like gods, but more irresponsible.'

'You're lying,' I said. 'The Patriarch killed all the scientists.' I began a finger exercise in C. No point playing in a difficult key if my enemy had a poor sense of pitch.

'Steck!' the knight said sharply, rounding on the Neut. 'Why didn't you tell me they think all scientists are dead? You know I don't want to offend local sensibilities.'

'I forgot.'

'How stupid do you think I am?' the knight asked. Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to me and said, 'Your Patriarch, though his wisdom encircled the globe, overlooked a tiny enclave of scientists far away on the other side of the planet. We survived, and were duly chastened by the just retribution wrought by the Patriarch on our fellows. Now we have changed our ways; we pursue only the good.'

'How stupid do you think we are?' Cappie said quietly.

'I didn't know till I tried,' the knight answered cheerfully. 'Experimentation is the essence of science.'

'You aren't a scientist,' I said. 'You're Master Disease.' I played the finger exercise louder, all the while trying to decide what kind of music was best suited to drive off a god. Right then, my repertoire for weddings and barn-raisings seemed a touch feeble.

'Rashid is a scientist,' the Neut replied in Its male/female voice. 'The Patriarch only killed one scientist in his entire life, and that was a poor anthropology student who wanted to study Tober Cove for her thesis. Bad luck for her — if she'd come a few years earlier, before the Patriarch seized control and perverted everything, she could have studied us to her heart's content. As it was, she was welcomed with the full hospitality ceremony; but two nights later, the Patriarch and six warriors attacked while she was sleeping, raped her, then burned her in the usual place on Beacon Point. Every person in the village was forced to watch her bubble and pop. At dawn, they were told to smear themselves with her ashes in order to share the triumph. Then the Patriarch declared he had rid the world of scientists and demanded that the Hearth and Home Guild make a quilt to commemorate the deed. Something to keep people warm and toasty in the dark.'

I'd seen the quilt, of course, in the Patriarch's Hall at Mayor Teggeree's house; I'd even been allowed to sleep under the quilt one night, after I won first prize in a talent contest at Wiretown's Fall Fair. But that proved nothing. Devils can always twist a glorious truth to make it seem sordid. 'I don't believe you,' I said, starting the finger exercise again and hoping Master Disease would evaporate into greasy black smoke pretty soon. I was accustomed to the gut strings on my own instrument, and the wire strings of the Neut's violin were chewing into my fingers.

'Quite right,' the knight said, 'don't believe everything you hear.' He gave the Neut a not-so-light push toward the opposite bank. 'I'm going to wash out Steck's mouth with soap for telling such lies.'

'You know nothing about Tober Cove,' the Neut muttered resentfully to the knight.

'I know that we haven't made a glowing first impression.' The knight turned back and said, 'We'll be leaving now. Sorry to have caused a fuss. Next time you see us, I trust the circumstances will be better.'

'The circumstances will be better if you stay away,' Cappie said tightly.

The knight turned to her. She gazed in silence at that faceless helmet for many long seconds. Finally, it was the knight who gave up the staring contest. 'I come in peace,' he shrugged. 'If trouble starts, I won't be the cause.'

'You'll be the cause, no matter who strikes the first blow,' Cappie told him. 'Remember that.'

'Don't be such a mope,' the knight said, as if briskness would win the argument. 'Everywhere I go, people are so deathly serious. I don't see why they always work themselves into a state. Just once I'd like to visit a town where my arrival doesn't precipitate some crisis.'

He turned away and sloshed to join the Neut on the far shore. Without a word, he grabbed the belt of the Neut's pants and heaved up solidly. The Neut nearly flew onto the bank, scrabbling forward on hands and knees to avoid landing on Its face. 'Rashid!' the Neut cried, 'be careful, damn it. Just because the girl annoyed you, don't take it out on me.'

'You're the one who annoyed me,' the knight answered in a sharp whisper that carried across the water. 'What were you doing out here? We have other business.'

'Just let me get the violin…'

'No. Stop your whining.' The knight turned back to me. 'Take care of that instrument. We'll expect it returned in good condition.'

'Begone, Creature of Darkness!' I shouted, as I began the finger exercise yet again.

'Fine. I'm gone.'

Suddenly, the water around the knight roiled with bubbles, as if every twelve-year-old boy who'd ever gone swimming was farting under the surface. The knight shot upward, clouds of smoke billowing from his boots as they broke clear of the creek. I quickly held my breath and spun away from the smoke, anxious to avoid more vomit-gas. This smoke, however, was nothing like the previous kind; its smell was foul but its effects harmless.

When I turned back toward the creek, knight and Neut were gone, leaving only broken reeds to show their path. Slowly I lowered the bow and violin, as quiet awe filtered into my mind.

I had defeated Master Disease.

True, he hadn't been reduced to a stinking pool of lava, but what could you expect from a finger exercise? Especially one in the key of C.

I wished I'd stayed with E flat minor. He might have burst into flames.

THREE A Shoulder for the Mocking Priestess

Cappie dove under the water. When she surfaced, her face was cleaner and she once again held my spear. She laid it on the shore and clambered out beside it, water pattering off her clothes onto the soft mud bank.

Men's clothes or not, she was clearly a woman now: her nipples pressed tautly against the wet fabric of her shirt. I thought of the feel of them, in my fingers, my mouth, and was suddenly more hungry for her than I'd been in months. With Master Disease banished, I was keen to celebrate my triumph.

'Cappie…' I started.

'No.'

'You don't know what I was going to say.'

'You're so obvious,' she said, walking over to the Neut's knife and picking it up. I liked the way she walked — bold as a man, but with a woman's hips. 'When you want to grope and fumble,' she continued, 'you always get the same tone in your voice and put on a moronic expression. Is that your idea of a sly grin?'

'What is this?' I cried. 'Half an hour ago, you were singing 'Our Love Will Fill Us,' and now you're made of ice. Not to mention that you're dressed like your father. Have you been smoking dizzy-weed with the Mocking Priestess?'

'We have to go home and warn people,' she said, jamming her shirttails back into her pants. There was a swipe of mud on her nose; I was furious with her, but I badly wanted to dab that nose clean with kisses.

'It's Commitment Eve,' I reminded her. 'We can't go back to the cove tonight. We're in isolation.'

'Check your priorities, Fullin,' she snapped. 'A Neut and a scientist show up in the marsh, and you don't want to tell people?'

'We can tell people,' I said. 'Later. After. Come lie down.'

'Do it with the damned violin,' she replied. 'You aren't doing it with me.'

Tossing me an angry glare, she picked up the spear and ran. A sleek and easy run. A warrior's run. I opened my mouth to demand that she wait for me, but stopped myself in time. She wouldn't wait, no matter what I said, and a man loses face when his woman doesn't obey orders. Finally, I called, 'You better not break my spear!' but not loud enough for her to hear.

Now I had no choice but to go back to the cove, Commitment Eve or not. If Cappie showed up and I didn't, the Elders would say I'd sent a woman to deliver a message I was too timid to deliver myself. Not to mention that she'd surely give a distorted version of what happened. She was, after all, possessed by a devil. I kept forgetting that.

But I knew how to take care of devils. I tucked the Neut's violin under my arm and started for home.

Soon I regretted letting Cappie get away with the spear — every stone in my path looked like a snapping turtle. I thought of rapping those rocks with the violin bow, but I couldn't bring myself to do it: I kept thinking of the crunch a snapper would make biting off a mouthful of wood and horsehair. Just imagining the sound gave me the shakes. I told myself it wasn't my bow, but that didn't lessen my queasiness. Musicians are sensitive people.

I took to veering away from every rock that could possibly be a snapper in disguise, with the result that I strayed off the paths that led directly to the cove. No one could claim I was lost — I retained my bearings by keeping an eye on the dead tree rising high above the reeds in the center of the marsh — but when I finally reached the turtle-free safety of the forest, I was far from the frequented trails.