Clarion

by William Greenleaf

  The layout fitted Karyn's description. To the left was a low, wide archway that led into another room. The light came from there. On the right side of the entry was a heavy wooden door that stood open. Through it Paul could see a short passageway that led to a gentle curve of stairs.

  Paul touched Dorland's shoulder and turned

  toward that door. He had no way of knowing

  exactly what kind of ceremony would take place, but, based on what Selmer and Karyn had told him, chances were good it would be held inside the sacred chamber. That was a solid enough reason to avoid going in there.

  Then he stopped when he realized that Dorland hadn't moved. He stood stiffly with his arms down at his sides, staring into the lighted room.

  "Let's go!" Paul hissed. Then he heard the boy's voice again just outside the arched entrance:

  "—sure I saw someone come across here—" Paul pushed down the surge of panic and realized that he and Dorland had only two choices; they could follow the planned escape route by turning right and going up the stairs, or they could turn left into the sacred chamber. Taking the stairs would make them visible for several seconds to anyone who glanced through the entrance—and a perfect target.

  Too risky. He urged Dorland through the archway into the sacred chamber. It was a large room, and he wasn't surprised to see that it was circular. Like the outer chamber, the walls and floors were of varying shades of gleaming wood. Globes on the far wall provided feeble light. Set against the wall under the globes were several large wooden cabinets. The two men stood listening to the unnatural sound of their own breathing.

  Cleve described strange pedestals before he died, Sabastian had said. And the chauka. Paul took it all in—the pedestals scattered around the room, the large dish of the chauka dominating the center.

  "The sacred chamber," Dorland said softly.

  "Where live the Tal Tahir."

  Despite his anxiety, Paul felt something close to awe. He told himself: This was constructed by alien beings. Then: For what purpose7 He pulled his jacket more tightly across his chest. But the chill he felt didn't have anything to do with the temperature of the room. He had never visited the two planets where the remnants of other intelligents had been found, yet he was sure that nothing was as well preserved as this.

  "Elder Jamis taught us that the Tal Tahir come to provide insight," Dorland said softly. "It is through them that all things come to pass on our world. It is through them that all things will eventually come to pass everywhere." His head moved slowly, his eyes dark and unreadable as he looked around the chamber. "I have never come to this place, but I have seen the pedestals."

  "Yeah, well." Now that he'd had a chance to survey the room, Paul was becoming aware again that the immediate danger lay not in the strange pedestals or the device called the chauka, but in the young boys outside the building and in the deacons and elders who would be coming before long for the ceremony.

  The only door to the chamber was the one they 102

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  had come through. Paul moved closer to it and heard the murmur of voices in the courtyard. He turned back to Dorland. "We have to get out of here."

  Dorland gave him a distracted look. "Yes. The ceremony."

  Cleve Quintan saw something that made him lose his mind. . . .

  But there wasn't a way out. The boys were just outside the door. If Sabastian was right, they weren't allowed to come inside the temple. Young boys don't always do as they're told, Paul thought. If the boys thought they'd seen somebody come in here, they were probably watching through the door. Which meant Paul and Dorland couldn't risk making a run for the stairway.

  Cleve Quinton saw something . . .

  Paul shook his head. His eyes went to the cabinets that lined the back wall. There were six of them, and each looked as if it had been made from thick planks of green-tinged wood. Fine carvings—

  symbols and figures that made no sense to Paul—

  had been cut in vertical strips that ran the length of the double doors on three of the cabinets. The other three had strips of glass or something similar set into the doors. The cabinets were huge—there should be more than enough room inside for Paul and Dorland.

  Paul shook away the dark feeling of dread that had settled over him and crossed the room to the cabinet in the comer, farthest from the chauka. Round metal knobs served as handles. The doors swung open with a faint rasping sound. Inside, Paul found deep wooden shelves that were covered with tiny figurines.

  "Tal Tahir artifacts," Dorland said, beside him.

  "I knew they were kept in the temple, but I've never seen them." ,

  Paul picked up one of the figurines and found it to be surprisingly heavy. Metal of some kind—its surface gleamed a dull silver. His first impression was of an insect—a long, sticklike torso with four spindly limbs. But if it was an insect, it was one that walked on two legs. The details of the head and face were too fine to be discerned. The other figurines appeared to be of the same creature, but in different poses.

  "Is this Lord Tern?" he asked. When Dorland didn't answer, Paul glanced at him and found him staring at the creature. "Are you all right?" Dorland's eyes moved slowly to Paul. "I think so," he said.

  Paul wasn't sure which question Dorland had answered. He replaced the figurine and closed the door. The next cabinet had a glass strip in the door, but in the dim light Paul couldn't see through it. Inside he found shallow shelves that held long, slender tubes. He examined one briefly and decided it might be a musical instrument. He replaced it and opened the door wide to step into the cabinet. It would be a trifle crowded, but he thought there was enough space for both of them to squeeze in between the front edge of the shelves and the doors.

  He stepped back out, closed the door again and looked critically at the glass strip. In the dim light from the globes he was sure he and Dorland

  wouldn't be visible inside the cabinet.

  "What do you think?" he asked.

  Dorland looked at him. "About what?"

  "About hiding in here. We can't go out that way." Paul jerked a thumb toward the door. "We have to get out of sight before the ceremony starts."

  Dorland looked at the cabinet. "Seems okay," he said simply, and without a word he stepped inside. Paul fitted himself in beside him and pulled the door closed.

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  Cleve Quintan saw something that made him go mad.

  He swallowed. /'// keep my eyes closed, he told himself. When the ceremony starts, I won't look. That way I can't see anything that might... He decided he didn't want to think any more about that.

  The globes provided enough light for a relatively good view of the chamber. Paul moved as far back from the door as he could. What if somebody decides to get something out of this cabinefl He touched the handle of the knife and made sure it was within easy reach in its sheath. Not that it would do much good if they were caught—

  "Diana."

  Paul jumped a little, even though the sound had come from Dorland in a soft whisper. "What?"

  "I can feel her," Dorland said. "The fear has been bred into me. Its breath is mine, but I can overcome it because it has no flesh and bone."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Diana and Shari were flesh and bone. They are ... close in this place." Dorland's voice was flat, but Paul could sense a deep, underlying emotion. "How long has it been since I've thought of them? How long since I've allowed their flesh and blood and love to come into my mind? Our life together, our too-short life—"

  The words choked off. Paul shifted nervously.

  "Dorland, this isn't the time to—"

  "Little Shari. Ah . . ."

  Then Paul heard muted voices and the sounds of feet on the wooden floor of the outer chamber. Dorland fell silent. Through the glass Paul saw several men in robes enter the chamber and begin arranging themselves around the room. The robes were white, which meant the men were dea
cons, if Ogram knew what he was talking about. Slow

  footsteps moved past the cabinet and a hazy shadow blocked the light, then moved on. Paul realized the deacons had taken positions against the wall, all around the cabinets. For a while there was only silence. Paul eased himself forward for a better view.

  Another line of men came through the door and moved up close to the chauka. These were the elders, with white robes trimmed in scarlet. After they had gathered around the chauka, an old man in a scarlet robe came slowly into the room, leaning on a staff. This had to be High Elder Brill. The staff was curved slightly in a way that reminded Paul of the spire above the temple. A young boy walked beside Brill. The boy was tall and bone-skinny, a birdlike face with long nose, pointed chin, narrow mouth. The eyes made quick, darting movements as he followed a half step behind Brill. Paul felt tension grip him. A young boy—that meant a

  semarch ceremony. A new recruit would be initi-ated into the Sons of God. Brill's steps took him directly to the gray dish of the chauka. Using the staff as support, he lowered himself to his knees in front of it. His robe flared out around him. The boy waited, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

  Stiff fabric rustled as the deacons withdrew something from the folds of their garments. Paul realized they were slender tubes like those on the shelves behind him. The deacons lifted the tubes to their mouths, and a single tone filled the room. It started low and shifted upward to a higher pitch. Then the eerie sounds merged as some of the men played low tones while others played high tones. The intertwined highs and lows were strangely familiar, even though Paul was sure he had never heard anything like it before.

  The music ended abruptly, and High Elder Brill

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  immediately began speaking. His words rang out in choppy, high-pitched syllables that made no sense to Paul. Then he switched to Basic:

  "Oh Great One, who comforts us,

  King of all holy places,

  Lord Tern the Almighty,

  Come, we ask you, hear our prayers."

  The elders repeated the chant in slow, somber tones. Then Brill spoke again:

  "Hear this our song to thee,

  Monarch of monarchs in whose name

  Our enemies are slain.

  We praise thee!"

  This went on for a few more minutes, and it didn't take long for Paul to realize that the main thrust of the chants was the Holy Order's hope that if they were faithful to Lord Tern, he would strike their enemies dead. Lord Tern and the Holy Order did not hold peace and love in high regard. High Elder Brill reached to his throat, fumbled for a moment with a clasp and removed something that had been hanging around his neck. Paul's eye caught a dull, round gleam. A coin? Brill fondled it almost lovingly, then held it in front of a rod that protruded slightly from the side of the chauka. He leaned back, still on his knees, and lifted his hands to hold them out toward the dish of the chauka—

  another motion that was somehow familiar to Paul. Brill began to chant again, and the elders behind him joined in:

  "Holy One, Holy One, Holy One—"

  Paul turned to look at Dorland, but a hint of motion above the chauka made him snap his head back. The air above the chauka began to take on a soft glow. Paul stared at it, and his blood went cold. He involuntarily moved back and bumped into Dorland. Something on the shelf beside him went clunk! and he froze. In the chamber. High Elder Brill and the other elders continued to chant. Paul released pent-up breath and again peered out through the crack between the wooden doors. The rhythm of the chant soaked into him. His muscles felt soft and sluggish. The glow hovered like a mist above the chauka.

  High Elder Brill moved his hands above the dish in a weaving pattern as if he were a magician conjuring up something out of thin air. Then—

  Paul blinked. The glow above the chauka separated into two distinct forms, then four. Ribbonlike streamers of color swirled together as if obeying the command of Brill's moving hands. Paul wished suddenly that he were anyplace but here. The swirling shapes darkened into a shadow, formless and full of motion. Paul fought down the urgent desire to push the door open and dash out of this room to the freedom of the night outside. He felt Borland's hand on his shoulder, a reassuring squeeze. The shadow spun and flickered. Paul stared at it. He began to feel disoriented, cut off from reality . . .

  Something touched his mind.

  He recoiled, and bumped into Dorland. The

  touch came again, like probing fingers. He felt a bubbling panic. It came again, deeper this time. He could almost catch a thought that was certainly not his own. Something was inside him, probing

  through the depths of his brain, uncovering dark memories, gaining form and substance in his mind as the shadow danced above the chauka. A clear thought emerged ...

  His father: defeated and tired, always dreaming of something better but never quite able to find it. His mother—she spent half her time sleeping and the other half taking drugs. By the time Paul had left 108 William Greenleaf

  home, her brain had been squeezed dry by yellow pills called lollipops.

  He thought: What have I accomplished with my life? Washed out of the Guard after two years of pushing papers and punching computer keys on a hellhole planet in upstream Omega. Two more years wandering through the planets of the stream looking for God-knows-what, with the specter of his parents haunting him . . .

  Paul made an effort to concentrate on what was happening in the chamber. Brill's chants grew in intensity. The elders repeated each chant in droning voices. The shadows above the chauka moved faster and faster—

  The chanting stopped with unnerving abruptness, and something began to emerge above the chauka—a more solid substance writhing from the haze. A long, tubelike torso took shape. Spindly arms emerged like the limbs of a dead tree. An elongated head formed, and the creature was nearly complete. It was horribly inhuman, its sharp-edged face more reptilian than anything else. The eyes were black, multifaceted, bulging from under a bony shelf of brow.

  High Elder Brill began to chant again, softly this time. The creature gained substance until it stood as a solid horror in the dish of the chauka. Paul stared, aware of a painful constriction across his chest and of the shadows still huddled inside his mind.

  Brill spoke again in the strange, wavering language. The creature answered in high-pitched squeals. It moved constantly above the chauka, gesturing with its spindly arms, its head swaying back and forth.

  Paul's hands came up to press on each side of his head in an effort to contain the growing pressure. The sense of loathing was an overpowering stench inside him. He opened his eyes, gasping, and forced

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  himself to look at the creature. Something like a vest covered the creature's upper body; a gray breechclout hung below its waist. The bulbous head came around in short, jerky movements, and the glittering eyes fastened on the cabinet. Paul had time for a panicky thought: It knows we're in here

  He pressed his knuckles against the rough wood of the cabinet wall and tried to keep reality from slipping away. He was aware of Dorland's shallow breathing behind him, and of the hand that still gripped his shoulder. The creature was motionless above the chauka now, and its eyes were still turned toward the cabinet. From its mouth came the strange sounds.

  It knows we're in here! It'll come—

  Easy, came a soothing voice inside him.

  Brill spoke to the creature, and Paul expected at any moment that the deacons would rush to the cabinet and drag out him and Dorland. But the minutes wore on and nothing like that happened. The creature still looked from time to time toward the cabinet, and each time Paul felt the pressure building inside his head. But the creature showed no inclination to leave the chauka.

  Then he felt something else stirring in his mind. Shari was only six years old. She was a gentle child who would not think of hurting anyone. What did she do to deserve such a bloody death7

/>   Rage and nausea boiled up, and the sour taste of terror. The terror was primitive, from that deep, reptile part of his brain that was untouched by higher logic centers that fought to control it. Daddy, Daddy...

  Paul opened his eyes again and saw the creature's head sway toward him, the black eyes gleaming. He felt it again in his mind, and a new wave of panic crept over him. The walls of the cabinet were too close. He felt Dorland's hand on his shoulder. Steady.

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  He pushed against the alien presence and felt Dorland pushing with him. The creature above the chauka continued to stare at the cabinet while Brill and the elders chanted. The presence inside Paul grew. It was alien, unlike anything he had ever felt. The only thing familiar about it was the hatred, and that emotion was stronger than Paul would have believed possible. It was a focus of his existence. Together he and Dorland created a fragile barrier. A young girl appeared in his mind—golden curls framing an angel face. Shari . . .

  He felt a silent prayer emerge from the darkness: Shari, give me the courage and wisdom to fight this horror.

  Sudden warmth washed through him, bringing a sensation of strength and confidence. He felt small, strong arms around him, comforting.

  The people of Clarion may have their god, but I have mine as well. The strength of the child. A soft hue took shape inside him, and a sound built up like a two-toned hum. Its meaning was vague and unreachable, but he grasped the comfort it offered and pulled it close. He turned his head. Was that a soft strain of music he heard? He listened, brought it back and moved it around and into the glow of color. He felt Dorland with him and knew that nothing could touch them with that shield in place. He felt the power of Shari, her youth—a godlike quality . . .