No Turning Back

by Sharon T. Rose

  Chapter 20

  "So, Sylenn. What do you think of Graig? Will he do?" Satherlin folded the news-papers he'd been reading and set them aside. Those Descendants who were not out settled themselves in to listen.

  Sylenn, now wearing her customary baggy men's clothing and cap, didn't reply as she flopped into one of the couches. After a moment, she nodded without looking up.

  "He'll do, I guess. He's awfully wet behind the ears, still thinks the world plays fair and nice. He's so naïve you almost can't believe he's ever been away from his mother. I asked him all the questions you suggested, and he sounds like he'd be open to it. When we talked about us, I mean the Descendants, he sounded supportive but not fanatic. He, um, only got fanatic when talking about his work. Digging in and finding the truth, telling the stories that no other pressman would because it wasn't sensational enough, and the like. So, um. He'll do."

  "Good!" Lyshunda enthused, standing up from her seat at the table. "We've been waiting all afternoon for you to get back, and I've an impatient husband to get back to. I'll hear the full report tomorrow, if that's alright, Satherlin."

  "Sure, Lysh; go on and spend the evening with your family. So, Sylenn; where's Mosin? Hopefully not trying to have a word with Graig?"

  Sylenn smiled, a tiny twitch of her cheek. "No, I left him in an alley-way, waiting for an unAwakened Descendant."

  "What!" Seven voices cried out in near-unison. Satherlin waved at them to silence.

  "You found someone?"

  "Um, yeah. And I talked to him, too, in that alley-way. (By the by, I confirmed that unAwakened Descendants do know the Island language.) I told him what he was, and I told him he could choose whether or not he wanted to join us."

  "What? Why?" Clatyn demanded, jumping up and stalking over. "We need all the help we can get; why didn't you just Awaken him right then?"

  "For one reason, Clatyn, I was in the middle of my mission; I couldn't spare any more time to tend to him until Mosin could answer my wireless call and get there. For another reason, he deserves to have the choice!"

  "None of us had a choice--" Satherlin began.

  "And we should have!" Sylenn finished for him. "I can sense who's a Descendant, Awakened or not. I can give them the choice, so I'm going to! We don't need any more reluctant heroes moping around; we need people who are dedicated to finishing this! You all keep talking about ending the War, but that won't happen unless everyone here is completely committed to it from the very start. If we continue to drag in recruits kicking and screaming, then this War will last another three thousand years or more.

  "I'm going to insist that he be given the choice, Satherlin, Clatyn, Lyshunda." Sylenn looked at each of them in turn, lips pressed to keep them still. After a moment, she continued. "If anyone, anyone, Awakens him without his specific request, then I won't ever tell you when I find another unAwakened. Ever." She crossed her arms defensively and leaned back into the couch.

  "How can you--" Clat began.

  "Ease up, Clatyn," Tad said softly. "I think she's right. If-- If I'd had time to think about it, I might have come willingly. I would likely have needed a year or more to walk away from my congregation, to turn my back on everything I'd believed, but I would have done it. Our blood calls us to this heritage, and once we know of it, we cannot turn from it. Even as I followed my parishioners to the fight, something in me cried out. I thought it was holy zeal to destroy the daemon--"

  Kylle snorted; he'd been the "daemon" sought by the Contemptors that night.

  "-- but I have felt it since, and I know that it was the quickening of my birthright. Now that this man knows, he will not be able to deny it. He will come, though it takes weeks or months or years. If he does not come, then we are better off without him."

  "Yes," Satherlin agreed. "I don't like it, but I agree with it. We desperately need new Descendants, but as Sylenn said, we need people who are committed to freeing Alluvia. If this man comes to us willingly, then that will cut his training time in half. Most of training really is getting used to the idea of being a Descendant, after all. Those who are prepared to learn, prepared to be Awakened, will be that much easier to train."

  The door opened, and Mosin strode in, eyes automatically searching until they rested on his sister, who ignored him. Satherlin pre-empted his irritated question.

  "I take it that he didn't come, Mosin?"

  Distracted from his purpose, Mosin grumbled, "He didn't. Ran the other way like his coat was afire. Kept looking over his shoulder like he thought I was going to chase him down."

  "Well, he is from Comoryos," Sylenn sighed. Several people winced, and Tad gave a low whistle. "It's difficult to find a harder group of Contemptors anywhere. They even give Berziny a run for it; at least Pontifists have creeds about being nice to unbelievers." Tad grunted in rueful agreement.

  "Do you really think he will come, Sylenn?" Konyetta whispered.

  Sylenn shrugged. "He might, he might not. You've all agreed that Descendants tend to know who they are, deep inside, like Tad said. Something in you drives you to do more, to be more. I can't say whether or not I felt like that; the beast overwhelmed any thoughts about it I might have had. If he's like most every one else, then he'll come eventually. But he does have a lot of cultural and religious stuff to overcome. Being taught all his life that we're evil daemons, he might not come. Who knows; he may even kill himself in order to avoid joining us. No way to tell what he'll decide. I tried to lay it out for him, that he was free to make his own choice and what those choices were.

  "I don't know which way he'll go or what he'll go through to make that decision. All we can do is hope for the best. At least, what we think is the best. It may turn out that he wouldn't make a good Descendant, and it would be best if none of us Awakened him."

  Satherlin nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. We all need to be careful when we're in Suljem to be sure we don't accidentally bump into him. I know that you're all careful anyway, but I think it bears repeating. No-one is to Awaken this fellow without his express consent. Is that clear?" He glanced around the room until he had everyone's agreement. Clatyn grumbled as he nodded.

  "Good. So then, Graig seems to be a good candidate for our personal pressman. The next question is, do we want him here, at the Temple, or in Ivrithin, at the news-paper?"

  "Not here!" Mosin immediately said.

  "Well, it would be more convenient to have him here," Lyshunda mused, finally resuming her seat and twirling her hair thoughtfully. "There would be less delay in getting the information prepared for distribution, which is always a good thing. Also, isn't the point of having a pressman working for us that we don't need to write up the articles ourselves?"

  "But do we want an outsider, who has no ties other than what we pay him, to know all of our secrets?" Clatyn rebutted. "If we bring him here, either he never leaves Temple Island again, or we somehow keep him from realizing that we can become human again. And what about all the families? How do we keep him away from them? And if someone offers him more money than we can, what's to stop him from running off and publishing everything?"

  "Valid points," Satherlin agreed with a nod. "Niel? What does your research indicate for answers to Clat's questions?"

  Niel sat up straight and furrowed his head as he thought. "Well, I haven't gone over all of it just yet, but I think he'd play us straight. It's interesting, though, just how much there is to find out about him; he's filed a lot of papers here and there. We're still getting information from the college he attended in western Ivrithan, but we do have a few of the papers he wrote for his classes there. Oh, and he was president of his fraternity for two years, and they did mostly social mission things. Based on what I do know so far, I think he'd be safe to bring here to the Temple. Now, you can't predict what a man will do for money; that can really change even the best man."

  "But what would a man do for love?" Konyetta quipped from her seat.

  Sylenn hunched deeper into the couch while Mosin tried to incinerat
e Konyetta with his glare.

  "Oh?" everyone else chorused.

  "Well, I can't say for certain," Konyetta said with a grin, "but if these two's reactions are any indication, this Graig fellow is quite taken with Sylenn. If he cares for her, then he might keep our secrets no matter what is offered him."

  "Sylenn?" Lyshunda demanded.

  "Um ..." Sylenn fiercely wished she could suit up and vanish. "I don't know. He's never said anything like that."

  "Oh, come now, Sylenn!" Mosin burst out angrily. "You can't be that thick!"

  "Thought so," Konyetta murmured smugly.

  "Graig is practically drooling over you; he was grinning like an idiot the entire night! Surely even you can tell when a man wants to use you!"

  "I can so tell, Mosin, and that's why I don't know about Jerell!" Sylenn snapped, coming out of her hiding place.

  "Oh, on a first name basis, are you?" Mosin sneered.

  "Yes! Because he's nice! I do know when all a man wants is my body; I lived on the streets for eight years, for God's sake! I lived with whores and pimps and pipe-dreamers and thieves and worse than that! I know that! And Jerell isn't like that!"

  "That's because he's better bred than street trash, Sylenn; he's got better manners that make him sound sincere when he isn't. Comes from high breeding!"

  "Um, actually," Niel dared to interrupt, "he was born low. Or near to it. His parents are poor textile workers from the outskirts of Hasa. He and all five of his living siblings worked in the mills with their parents from the time they were four years old (which has since been banned by the labor laws). He's the only one who was able to leave, being the oldest boy. He got into the local college on scholarships from his church, since his family couldn't put together more than fifty coppers in ten years to help him. They still live in the same one-room shack outside the mill. Well, some of the children have moved out into their own shanties, but you get the idea. Until he went to the college, he never associated with 'better bred' people."

  "Then he learned his manners at college; what difference does it make? He's still trying to use my sister!" Mosin crossed his arms defiantly.

  "You do realize, Mosin," Kylle drawled, "that you're not helping your case? You sound like every other over-protective brother in the world. The way you're carrying on makes me want to trust the man just because you don't."

  Clatyn's poorly disguised guffaw didn't improve Mosin's expression.

  "I think we've discussed this enough for one day," Satherlin announced, levering himself out of his chair. "Niel, please let me know anything else you uncover that would cast a different light on Graig. I'll discuss this with the town elders, since this will affect them as much as us, and make certain we're all in agreement. If we decide to move forward with this, Fulenthen will take our offer to Graig."

  The door slammed behind Mosin, slightly off one hinge.