"Why, when our religion calls for respect and kindness to all creatures, not just each other. Why can't humans love one another?"
Dante's words rolled through the silence. Annoyed with Friend for putting him on the spot, he had barked out the words. Everyone stared at him.
"That's hard to do when someone wants to kidnap, torture and murder you and your loved ones," remarked Trevor.
Dante shrugged. "They mean everyone: You, me, Yevgeny, trainers. All humans. All loving each other at the same time."
"How can we do that? With what they've done to us, Holy Bodhisattva?" asked a nun.
"And what they're still doing to us, to the people?" shouted a soldier.
Dante couldn't answer. How would he know? Each day he struggled to control the hate and anger that could kill with a word. Besides, who loved him that he could love back? A bunch of aliens and the dead. Baba sent him a look of sympathy making him frown. He didn't need her pity.
The crowd dissolved into a heated debate over his words, The Sacred Sayings of Blessed Kore pulled out and thumbed through to make their points. The servers started delivering the next course, plump roasted lizards surrounded by colorful, arranged slices of fruit and vegetables. "Sit down here," said Trevor to Baba and Dedalus as he motioned two of his men to move. "And Dan. Sit down. You're our honored guest. Let me show you our hospitality. Tell me more of your philosophy." A young nun took away Dante's mangled stew with one hand and placed a full plate in front of him with a bobbed curtsey. It looked and smelt very good. His stomach clenched. The magic, his size, bush traveling, starvation memories; he hated how hunger haunted him. A dangerous weakness.
Jerome picked up the bottle of Special Lemon and raised it to his lips. Dante grabbed for it. "No! He might have taken an antidote."
"Could say I risk death for love of The Bodhisattva, but you're way too prickly for that devotion stuff," said Jerome. He took a swig. "Besides I don't think Seth's in the cards for me." He smacked his lips. "Never had this before. Not bad. Needs a nip of something though."Another gulp.
Dante stared in horror. "Betrayal or death, the crossroads when dealing with me," he murmured. "Oh, Jerome."
"There might be another path as well," said Beatrice, glancing up shyly. "A third way." She bowed her head to stare at her plate, as if she had spoken out of turn.
"Come on, sit down. I'm starving," said Jerome, clasping his arm.
Trevor stood and as from an invisible signal, his two generals stood also. They pulled off their shirts and pivoted. The twisting, branching scars grew up their backs, Trevor's the worst, though none as bad as his. Dante won that macabre contest. They turned back to him.
"Trevor found me hiding in a broken down lean-to, paranoid and stammering to myself," said Robert. "My master fell down a ravine while hunting. I turned off the chip and walked away." His eyes glazed over. "I loved him. No. Did not. Sometimes I hear his cries, his begging me, carried on the wind. " He blinked and returned to reality with a grimace. "End up at the healing circle."
"Trevor freed me. So confused thought at first he was my new master," said David. "I would follow him to the ends of the earth but I'm free to do it."
"Rotten broke me, enraged me," said Trevor. " I plotted escape. Then the Prince there bought me." He sent a twisted grin to Dedalus. "And set me free." Trevor held up a hand. "Not what you think. He doesn't control me. Robert's had to do a lot of work with that, right?" Robert scowled then shrugged. "Now you know it all. We understand your paranoia. Justified for a transpo but not true." Trevor motioned at the food. "Eat with us. Your friend is fine. The first step is the hardest and you made that by coming here. Sit with us. Transpos are honoured here, for what we've gone through." He smiled and the three men repeated. "We are lower than the worms that eat the dead." Trevor banged a fist on the table and shouted. "But the worms and dung beetles clean up the world. Right men?" The soldiers roared their assent.
Dante sat down and Jerome placed the bottle of Special Lemon in front of him. His hand shook as he grasped the drink. He clasped his invisible fingers around the other side of the bottle to steady it and found even his unreal hand shaking. Stupid tears pricked at the back of his eyes and nose. He was a coward, terrified. He couldn't trust. Dante felt a snout and a hand on his back, comforting him. The tears threatened to spill over so he jammed the bottle in his mouth and drank. All of it in thirsty glugs. He slammed the bottle back on the table and with a scowl, crossed his arms in front of him.
"There, you've got what you wanted," he thought.
"That took a lot. To do that," said Robert. "You're a brave man."
"No, I'm not," said Dante and the tears overflowed. He bowed his head and covered his eyes with his hand. " Oh, shit." A sob escaped as he stopped them. "Stupid. Stupid." His face burned.
"It's O.K. We've all been there," said Trevor's quiet voice.
"Let your eye water free," imaged Friend.
"No!" Dante imaged and shook his head.
His invisible hand picked up his fork and he poked at the game lizard, then took his knife and cut it open to reveal steaming stuffing of saffron and sage. He began to eat. Around him the silence ebbed away as people turned to their meals and conversations. Dante glanced up to see Baba staring at him, tears coursing down her face. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and turned her head away. Trevor stared at the floating fork bobbing ahead of Dante's stump. Dante shifted the utensil to his whole hand, hid his grotesque arm under the table and continued eating until only clean marrow sucked bones remained.
"Would you like another?" asked his nun.
He nodded, murmuring thanks when she placed another filled plate in front of him. He ate it clean, ignoring the hymns of the cantor and the talk around him. Slowly the urge to weep, then to rage at himself dissolved into filling his stomach. The hita's curiosity over everything wafted around him. The nun put a large bowl of chocolate pudding spun with colored sugar in front of him, which he dutifully consumed though a sense of doom infected its slight bitter taste. A plate of large cookies appeared in the middle of the table and a cup of moccatine at his spot. He heaped several spoons of sugar into the mug, poured in the cream, then took a sip. Everything he liked. He placed the cookie on the table and broke off a piece with the fingers of his good hand.
Across the circle, Jamie grinned at him and he smiled back. Little children ran laughing between the tables. A little girl with blonde ringlets, four or five, stared at him from her hiding place under Jamie's table then sent him a shy smile. Mouse's age, if she had lived. He began to fragment the cookie, bit by bit, into small and smaller pieces.
"Dan. Dan," said Trevor, his tone sharpening. Dante stopped his obsessive chipping and turned to him, somewhat confused. "Enjoy your meal? No side effects?"
"No, it was fine. Thank you."
"Use your magic hand if it makes you feel more comfortable." Trevor nodded at the crushed cookie.
"That's O.K." said Dante.
He watched as his nun refilled his cup. He stirred in the sugar and milk. She still stood at his side, he remembered his manners, looked up at her and said thanks. She sent him a warm smile from a sweet face floating above a rise of large breasts that her habit couldn't disguise. He smiled back, thinking that perhaps she searched for an Adonis. She seemed friendly, that Adonis could be him. Stranger things had happened.
"You enjoying everything?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, feeling his tongue tying and his face starting to burn.
"Sister," snapped the Queen. "Come here."
Constance whispered in her ear and his nun stiffened then rushed away. She reappeared a few minutes later with her own meal, perhaps he could make a space for her on his bench. All his men had managed to squeeze themselves in among the serving women and nuns. Jack seemed to have taken Nat in hand, they laughed and talked without a care. He would do it. If she looked his way he would take a chance and wave her over. He'd slain a thunderlizard, fought soldiers, freed slaves, he could beckon to a woman with out having several drinks first. But she walked with head bent, not looking his way once, and sat down in the midst of a crowd of laughing postulants and acolytes.
"Do you need Sister Eileen for anything?" asked Trevor. Was he that obvious? "I can call her over." The rebel leader grinned at the Queen who scowled back.
Dante glanced over at his nun who now owned a name. Eileen. A nice name, a singing name. She seemed upset as she talked to a religious across from her. The other sister glared at him. His heart sank. He'd made a mistake, misread everything. That's why the Queen looked angry. Somehow he'd frightened or insulted Sister Eileen.
"Sorry, forgot for one second what I am," he thought with a sigh. He took a sip of moccatine and reflected that it was just as well. Last time he had sex, it ended in disaster. He'd spend Adonis night as he always did, without Martha, alone on the cold ground. Maybe he'd make it special, reward himself for bringing the men here: recite a few prayers, serenade the hita with a few of the hymns before he settled down to sleep.
"No, I don't need Sister Eileen," he said, examining the brown liquid resting in his cup.
"You've gone through a lot," remarked Trevor. "We have healing circles here. Transpos telling what happened to them and helping each other to get over the terror, the pain, the hate," he sent Dante a significant look, "the worthless feelings."
Dante sipped his moccatine , his face blank and inscrutable. Adonis would shine in the night and hell would freeze before he told anyone what happened to him on the ship. His hand shuddered, almost spilling his drink and he steadied his cup on the table. Bad enough he had started to weep in front of them. Bad enough he frightened women. Retard, freak, stupid cry baby, sissy. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the handle of the mug. My special boy. How long before he could decently get up and leave?
"No," he said.
"No one's forced, the healing circle wouldn't work. I understand your suspicion," said Trevor. His face softened. "Rotten trained me too. If you ever want to talk. I'm here. For instance, I suspect he knew very well who you were. And took a perverse delight in pretending not to, as he did with me."
Rotten knew who he was? Dante opened his mouth to ask, then thought better of it and clamped his jaw shut.
"Enough of past evils and polite pleasantries," continued Trevor, unperturbed at the bomb shell he had dropped. "Let's talk about the present. I understand that you've told your men you're leaving, that you only guided them here."
"Yes."
"You and the hita intending to continue your war against humans?"
"You intending to continue your war against us?"
"No. And no hunting."
"Then we won't hurt your people. Hita only do what's necessary for survival."
"There's the problem of Yevgeny and the Old World. How much do you know about the war?"
"Some of the men thought you were winning, some thought Yevgeny. Some thought me until I told them I wasn't winning anything. They knew production was up at the mine. Sometimes, coming south, planes passed overhead. We dissolved. Sorry, my hita word for it. I mean, hid in the jungle, not knowing if they searched for us. I'm always on the lookout for gas coming down but none did. The Black had decided it wanted us to come here"
Trevor raised an eyebrow. "I thought you commanded the wraith."
Dane glanced at the heap of cloak behind him. "Baba hasn't told you much about them, I take it. Shine do what Shine decide to do."
"Shine?"
"Fay Seraphim, wraiths, angels, demons, ghosts. All the same. The hita visualize them as a sort of light. Shine. And I'm the Shine child. Magic is shine."
"Are you saying our magic comes from the fay seraphim?" asked Queen Constance. "What nonsense."
"Magic is Shine." Dante's voice held a note of annoyance. He continued to Trevor, "What's happening with your war?"
"New Alabama has, of course, always been with us and the Southern Territories are mostly jungle so they came along easily. The northern territories are just bush and snow. It's the settled lands up the coast where the fighting's fierce. Towns in ruins, refugees crowded into Botany. Our planes attack theirs and we've taken over a few transport ships and a battleship, so the war in space goes well. But an armada comes from the Old World, some think with the Mage, himself, aboard. I doubt it. Last report I had, he was ill." Dante glanced at his half-brother but Dedalus stared off into space, his mind seeming far away from them. "We can harass them from the moons, hit and run like's been successful on the ground. But we need more. You have raw, powerful magic. The Queen is a channeller, you know what that is?"
"No idea."
"She can channel magic from one person to another, long as they're all touching."
"That's how I know that magic isn't fay seraphim," interrupted Constance.
"You ever tried to channel one?" asked Dante.
"Of course not. That would be like trying to hold sand in your fingers," she said with an indulgent smile. Dante shrugged.
"Dedalus can put that magic into machines, fix it there," continued Trevor. "We've created mechanical magic sniffers, smart bombs. But a satellite that could create weather, storms in space, or hurricanes of killing words, we would win our freedom. Only problem, for Her Majesty to channel, the noble giving the magic has to agree, open his mind to let it go."
Dante narrowed his eyes, "To give a magic staff to a leader who needs magic to rule?" Trevor reddened and he knew he had hit a mark.
"Yes, Yevgeny, Trevor, everyone of us lusts after your magic. In our heart, each of us thinks we could use it best," murmured Baba with what seemed an odd sad note.
"But thank Gaia, you're The Bodhisattva," smiled Dedalus, showing he had listened to it all.
"Yeah. Right," thought Dante, fed up with the sarcasm.
Shouting from the trees. Two soldiers dragged an emaciated, chained and naked man, his head shaved bald. They threw him onto the ground beside Friend. Dante jumped up from his seat as Friend scrambled back.
"Show respect," yelled one of the soldiers as they jerked the man to his knees.
"Great Seth," swore Trevor from behind Dante. "Get him out of here."
The soldier slapped the side of the prisoner's head and glared at Dante. "Here's a trainer, Great Bodhisattva. Busy training us when Shining Path took over our ship. Not so arrogant now. We supposed to," The soldier's face sneered, "love him?"
A cool beeze rustled through the glade. The captive shivered and swayed forward, his back betraying fresh oozing branching welts. They owned correction rods. Dante stared down. He didn't know this man. The kneeling, the shaking, the humiliation, the pain; he knew that. The man smothered a dry cough. The thirst.
"Black, lend me your cloak," said Dante.
The wraith inflated and floated to his side. Dante grabbed and the cape collapsed over his arm. He swung the cloak over the wretch and pulled it close around. Black, broken nailed fingers reached out and bunched the opening shut. Dante took a half empty bottle of Special Lemon from his place, squatted down and held the drink to the man's lips. The prisoner gulped.
"No, just a little at a time," murmured Dante. "Too much and it'll come right back up."
The bottle finished, he rose, glancing at his men whose looks reflected his own pity and horror . Dante turned on Trevor in a fury, "This is what you want my magic for? This is the great revolution? Same old torture, same slavery, same dictators, just change the faces."
"You murdered Rotten," pointed out Trevor.
"Yes. I've been a murderer and a thief to survive," said Dante. "So have most of you. Not all transpos are victims of bad justice. Doesn't make torture and the rod right. For anyone." He sent Francis a grimace at the memory reflected in the priest's eyes and beckoned to Luke. "Please heal this man."
Luke nodded. "After he has some food."
"Bring some of that stew," said Dante. Kate brought him a bowl and he murmured to the prisoner. "Sit down and eat." The man's legs folded under him and Dante placed the bowl in his hands. The prisoner tipped the bowl up to his mouth, swallowed down the food and set the bowl on the ground. Not once had he raised his eyes from the ground, now he kowtowed. His forehead touched Dante's feet, the heat of fever seeming to burn his toes. A wicked memory flashed of groveling, touching his face to Rotten's boots, kissing them as he had been taught, begging in the only way he knew not to be sold, to stay with his Master, his protector, his torturer. He obeyed in every way. Please Father don't send me away. Dante pulled back his feet.
"Holy Bodhisattva," croaked the prisoner. "I beg you. No more. No hanging cage. No rod. Execute me."
Dante bent down, pulled the man to a squat, made a sign of Gaia then laid his hand on the prisoner's head. "Gaia forgives your sins and keeps your heart in her palm." Luke had moved up beside him. "You and Alfred help me take him back to our camp." Dante straightened and glared at Trevor and the soldiers, daring them to object, then turned to Jerome. "Stay and enjoy yourselves." Dante turned on his heel and strode to the edge of the glade, tiny angry winds tossing leaves up from his steps. He turned and waited for Luke and Alfred dragging the trainer between them. The hita who acted as his bodyguards, Friend and Blueberry bunched behind. Back at the camp, under the shade of the trees, they lay the broken man down on a couple of blankets. The physician pulled off the cape and examined his patient.
"He's not too bad," said Luke. "If you can remove the manacles, the hita cream should cure the sores. I won't need a long healing."
"Saves you having to sleep away a good time. Good," said Dante.
"I'm going to nap for a few hours anyway, after a meal like that. Gaia, it hit the spot," said Luke. "And as your physician, I would suggest you do the same. You look done in."
"I'm fine," said Dante, though he felt the fatigue of the good meal and his previous restless night of fearful, runaway thoughts. "Chains fall away." Black words buzzed down and around the fetters. The prisoner convulsed with a cry of terror as his manacles loosened and thudded onto the earth.
"No words about freedom?" said Luke.
"Nope," said Dante.
The physician set to work. Dante squatted down beside him, handing over the appropriate bandages and cream when asked. The captive stared at Dante with large sunken eyes.
"Some rest, more food and drink, in a few days, he'll be as well as any of us," said Luke, rubbing a final bit of cream over a slack wrist. "We just leaving him here, when we go back for later the opera? I can't imagine your hita missing some singing. I can go ahead and send back a couple of the lads to guard him. Not that I think he's going anywhere."
"Yeah, I know. Not thinking through before I do something, again," said Dante with a wry grin. "You go back. I know you like opera. I'm not going back there. I'll watch him."
"I'll miss your voice. You should sing Adonis. They didn't reassure you, did they?"
"No."
"Bishop Francis says Trevor runs a democracy," said Luke. "All the units appoint a representative to his council and everyone gets a vote, not just the nobles and the company reps. But I agree, they've got problems. For this revolution to work they need some one to shake them up morally. Like you just did. They need a proper Mage. We need you. The way you zoomed right in on the heart of what was wrong. "
Dante snorted. "Makes no difference what I say or do. It's my magic they're interested in, not any thoughts of mine. The Mage's bastard. Freak. Monster." He spat out the words. "They've tried to ignore me, kill me, silence me, enslave me. Now they ask. And I'm supposed to jump up all grateful and help their glorious revolution.
"They want me to let that harpy of a Queen channel my magic to Dedalus so he can create space ships and machines with magic. So they say. I think Trevor wants a globe or a staff or something full of my magic. So he can be Mage, in power if not in fact. And me and our miserable wretch there will no doubt get to share a dungeon somewhere. Unless they decide to rehabilitate him and make him my trainer." The prisoner shivered and gave a lolling shake of his head, a weak version of a firm no. Dante, his face sullen, got up and tucked a blanket around the captive, thinking a chill created the shakes then returned to his spot nearby."It's no different than what Yevgeny wants. Every once in a while: a little torture, a flash of the rod and I top up their magic. You think I'm some kind of idiot?"
"Yes, I do. Think you're an idiot," said Luke. He raised a hand as if to ward off the killing words. "Whether you like it or not, you're the Bodhisattva. You've got us and the hita loyal to you. All of Trevor's army would follow you if you said the word. And he knows it. You could murder us all. Not even iron can stop you. I know transpos are distrustful, but do you really think your men would let the Rebels turn you into a zombie? Give us a bit of credit. And give some to yourself.
"Why not be Mage? Who better? Make sure Trevor carries through on his promises. Ban correction rods, have them destroyed. Make a new world. Why not? That‘s what The Bodhisattva's supposed to do. Pave the way for the Beloved.
"You know the scripture, the prophecy from Miriam. Seth knows Yevgeny does. Why'd you think he murdered your daughter? Because the angels sang to her."
"What? Shine sang for my Sophia?" Dante looked stunned.
"Was that her name? Odd. Means wisdom, The Messiah. You don't know? It was easy to piece together once all the facts were known. It's the crime of the ages. The murder of the Beloved."
"The baby danced under my hand. I, I loved them. I would have taken Martha with me. But Madam said she'd be safer at the farm." His voice choked. "I never even saw my child. All I had was grainy fax picture. And that's gone. Why tell me crap like that? Damn." He turned his head away. A tear overflowed, salt into his beard and mouth. He brushed his cheek with his palm before growling. "And if she's dead, then I'm not The Bodhisattva after all, am I?"
"That's not what the nuns and ladies think." Luke's voice held a grin. "And the Queen."
Dante turned on him. "I wouldn't give that vinegary old bitch the time of day, let alone bed her. Gaia!"
" You did pretty good on that," said Luke. "Angry and didn't even have to catch a word. She can't be that bad."
"The Hell she is!" Dante's words flew up in the air and blossomed into angry black drops that fizzed into nothing. "How was that!"
Luke sucked in his bottom lip, forcing his smirking face into a professional demeanor as he gave the prisoner a final check and a surreptitious wink.
The man looked up at him with bewilderment, "You aren't afraid?"
"I like to live dangerously," said Luke. Dante glowered as the physician continued with his patient, "How you feeling?"
"Better. My head aches."
Luke laid hands on both sides of his head. The prisoner closed his eyes, gave a long drawn out sigh, pulled up his blanket and fell into a deep sleep. Luke nodded over him, eyes half closed.
"You should rest now, too," said Dante.
"Yes," he said leaning back against a tree. "And you."
Dante shook his head. Except for the bodyguards, the hita, Luke and Alfred settled down against the trunks or in the grass for a siesta. Dante got up and circled the camp to get his blood moving then sat down again. He leaned against a tree and began his prayers to pass the time,
"Hail Gaia full of grace. Blessed are the fruit and grain of your womb. Blessed are trees and flowers that dress your sacredness. Blessed am I to receive your abundance."
The well-fed, contented thoughts of the hita swirled about him, the warm stickiness of the late afternoon pressed down like a blanket, small insects chirped and whirled. The glade shimmered with the heat, glimmering and forming, shining then gathering to itself the dark greens of the jungle. Gaia appeared before him, not wooden like the statue but living, breathing, arousing, shimmering, there and not there. The leaves and flowers entwined inside her nakedness, nature in a woman bottle. She reached out an arm, her finger tip touching the invisible hand Dante stretched out to her and he rose, radiant, to join with her, entwine his golden shine with her, deep in the verdant jungle, deep into her leaves and flowers and fruit. A garden of endless earthly delight.
" Blessed are you among men. Beloved is the fruit of your loins. Love my people and heal my world."
"I'm afraid. I'm not worthy."
"Be not afraid. You are strong now and I am with you, even to the end of time."
A command he could no longer disobey. She kissed his face and smiled. Her fingers pressed his palm and rubbed along the side, then her nails nipped his thumb. He woke with a jerk and a grunt, disoriented to find himself lying sprawled on the ground by the tree. She had vanished, the glade, the bodyguards and his companions slept: heavy, still and silent. He felt encased in a bubble of holy safety. A clawed scuffling tingled his hand. Dante glanced down and grinned. A little plump brown lizard, eyes large and doleful, funny feathery fuzz of quills for a ruff, attempted to nest in his palm. Dante whispered "nut" and one of the filberts from the feast appeared on his open fingers. The lizard stared at it for a moment in disbelief then reached out with tiny snouts and sucked it up. Dante laughed and the creature dashed away to the edge of the clearing.
He rose to his knees, murmured for more nuts, then held one between his finger and thumb. The lizard rose on its haunches, tipped his head in examination then scuttled forward. It stopped a few centimeters from him and extended a trunk. The peanut whooshed away. Dante produced another that also disappeared into a bulge at the top of the snout. The lizard packed in one after another, growing biceps where none should exist.
The creature froze. Dante felt someone behind him. He spun around and looked up to see Jerome, Jamie, Princess Beatrice with her lady-in-waiting and some of the men. How had a large group come up so quietly? He signaled the bodyguards who woke with an embarrassed, worried start, incredulous that they had all fallen asleep. Dante sent them a vision of Gaia, as she had first appeared to him by way of explanation and they sent back understanding of the ways of shamans and the supernatural.
Beatrice sent him a shy smile. "I, I understand, I mean your men said that you sang, uh, Adonis," she stuttered, her blush spreading over her cheeks and down her chest to blotch above her bodice. Dante felt sympathy for the awkward shyness they shared. A sudden urge to protect her or at least reassure her rose in him.
He held out another peanut to the lizard and whispered. "It's not afraid of me. Here, take this and bend down. Let's see if it will come to you."
She knelt with a rustle of silk and the little creature ran back a few feet. Dante placed the peanut in her hand. His fingers brushed her palm and she jerked back her hand a little. The little lizard tipped its head again then hopped forward. She extended her fingers and it siphoned up the nut. Beatrice grinned and Dante dropped a few filberts into her hand. Together they fed the lizard until its trunks bulged and it stumbled back into the jungle.
"It'll hide those now," said Dante. "And forget where it planted half of them. One way trees and plants spread." Beatrice smiled down at her open palm.
Dante stood up, stretched and asked, "Coming to take me back?"
"That's up to you," said Jerome. "But in my opinion, you're safer here among this large rebel army than hiding in the jungle with a couple of hita. Her Highness isn't the only magic sniffer."
"Gaia appeared to me," said Dante. Beatrice looked up at him with wide eyes, the men regarded The Bodhisattva as if such visions happened everyday. He sighed then shrugged. "She ordered me to fulfill my destiny and become the Mage." A small cheer went up. "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. It's going to be interesting to see what the nobles and Trevor think about that."