Clarion

by William Greenleaf

  "I regret even more what happened to Diana and Shari," High Elder Brill said. His eyes did not waver from Dorland's. "That was needless, an overreaction. I spoke harshly to Elder Jacowicz about it."

  "Why did you bring me here?" Paul felt himself ask the question, even though he borrowed the tissue of Dorland's lungs and tongue and mouth to ask it.

  "I wanted to say that I am sorry for what happened. I beg your forgiveness and ask for your help in holding our great Clarion together."

  "Why do you need my help?" Paul asked.

  "The heretics in your group have stirred up trouble," Brill said. "A false Godstone was displayed, and how my children are confused." He paused. "Perhaps even doubting. You and I must

  CLARION 199

  reach a compromise, or there will be needless violence."

  He's afraid to kill us! Paul said with sudden realization. The people from the temple—they followed us out there because they saw the Godstone. Paul remembered some of the words he'd spoken from that bench in the courtyard. They had been trite and meaningless to him, but to people in awe of the silver Godstone in his hand, they must have been very real. He knows his position has been weakened. He's afraid he'll create a martyr!

  "It doesn't matter," Dorland said aloud. What do you mean, it doesn 't matter? He'll kill us if he thinks we won't go along. Say whatever it takes to get us out of here. We'll sort it out later. Fear was a hard knot inside Paul.

  "They're looking for you," Dorland said. "Both UNSA and the Fringe Alliance."

  "The Fringe Alliance?" The puzzled look on Brill's face was not contrived.

  "The Alliance is a group of planets under the control of a man named Hans Maiar. He wants the secrets of the Tal Tahir, and he'll destroy Clarion to get them."

  "You have brought this trouble!" Brill snarled, his supplicating tone turning instantly to fury. He pointed an accusing finger at Dorland. His hand doubled into a fist. "Clarion is free, and Lord Tern will see that it remains that way. We will tolerate no interference from outsiders."

  "You won't have a choice," Dorland told him.

  "They're coming. Knives and dart guns won't stop them. They have warships that can destroy

  Fairhope and Chalcharuzzi with one blow." What are you trying to prove by antagonizing him? Paul asked. He's an old man. Tell him what he wants to hear.

  I can't. I am a kra'ith leader.

  "Our strength and faith in Lord Tern will give us 200 William Greenleaf

  CLARION

  201

  victory." Brill opened his glistening eyes to stare at Doriand. "You can share the victory by joining us. If you refuse, we can accomplish the same end by taking you to the God Wall. When the people of Fairhope see that you have no personal god to protect you, they will return to Lord Tern."

  "Your time has ended," Doriand said. "Why can't you accept that gracefully?"

  Brill made a sound that was something between a laugh and a death rattle. He waved a hand, and the two boys grasped Dorland's arms and lifted him from the chair.

  Doriand, you can't let him take us to the God Wall—

  Doriand did not resist when the boys forced him around and walked him down the long carpet to the door. A moment later, they stepped into bright sunlight.

  Desperation made Paul try something he

  wouldn't have believed possible. He reached out for the tenuous sensations he felt around him—the muscles of Dorland's legs under him, his shoulders in the grip of the boys—

  We're getting out ofhere

  —and forced his own orders to Dorland's legs. They responded sluggishly, and Doriand pulled free of the boys and began a shambling run across the lawn. Paul felt resistance from Doriand and stumbled, caught himself and kept running.

  Paul, no—

  He heard a shout behind him; then something exploded against the back of his neck, knocking him forward onto his knees. He tried to get to his feet, but his muscles disobeyed. Something hit him again and he sank into nightmare oblivion.

  He opened his eyes, squinted against the sun that was full in his,face. His arms hurt; he tried to move them—

  We've been strapped to the wall.

  Paul jerked at the voice, then froze as pain stabbed upward from his neck through his skull. Don't try to move, Doriand said. Everything will be all right.

  Paul resisted an irrational urge to laugh. Five of the Sons of God had formed a line a few meters away, facing the wall. The boy with the slanting scar stood in the center. He met Dorland's eyes and held them. His face was expressionless. Paul strained against the bindings at wrists and ankles. He felt Dorland's muscles relax and almost sobbed with frustration.

  Don't worry.

  Time passed. The sun warmed his face. His

  wrists throbbed, and he tried to ease the pressure by pushing down with his feet. The bindings cut into his ankles. Every muscle in his body began to cramp. The boys stood motionless in front of him. Paul didn't know how long he had been hanging there before he heard approaching footsteps. He looked up and saw Elder Jacowicz limping down the pathway, leaning on a wooden staff. His white robe swirled at his ankles. Paul felt tension grip him.

  Jacowicz stepped through the line of boys and thrust his white face up close to Doriand. "I knew you would come back." His voice was sharp and high-pitched. "You couldn't stay away." Doriand locked eyes with Jacowicz. The other returned Dorland's stare in a measuring, predatory manner.

  "Why did you have to kill Diana and Shari?" Doriand asked.

  "Oh, I didn't really have to," Jacowicz said.

  "I suppose it was ordered by Lord Tern." Jacowicz issued a short bark of nasal laughter.

  "Hardly. Lord Tern gives his orders to High Elder Brill, not to me."

  William Greenleaf

  "Whose orders do you obey. Elder Jacowicz?"

  "My own." Jacowicz used the tip of his staff to prod Dorland under the chin. "We really need your cooperation, Dorland. Our children have become quite upset and it's all your fault. You'll have to talk to them and straighten it out."

  Dorland kept silent.

  "The people of Fairhope are confused, and confusion often breeds violence. Many people will be killed if you don't help us. Do you want that on your conscience?"

  "Some will surely die," Dorland agreed. "But if they rid Clarion of the Holy Order—"

  Jacowicz pressed hard with the staff, and a bolt of pain lanced up through Dorland's jaw.

  "All you have to do is talk to them," Jacowicz snarled. "High Elder Brill will call a service at the temple. You will tell the people the Godstone they saw was false. High Elder Brill will do some of his tricks, and all will be forgotten. It's all so simple!" Dorland's eyes shifted from Jacowicz's leering face to the young boys who stood behind him. The boy with the scarred face stared back.

  Suddenly Paul was aware of another presence—

  the link. Elli.

  '"(Acceptance)*

  The feeling of warmth rushed over him—Elli's strength flowing out to him and Dorland. He felt another presence as well.

  -(Youth/touch) kra'ith*

  "I want an answer." Jacowicz's voice came faintly through the soft veil of Elli's presence. Dorland's eyes were on the boy's scarred face. The boy stared back.

  *Kra'ith*

  It came in an instant. The boy's name was Jonny. He was trying hard not to be concerned about his parents. They were in the group near the river. Jonny knew they had violated one of Lord Tern's strictest rules by going into a forbidden part of the city.

  "(Youth/touch) kra'ith*

  Elli's presence folded over all of them. Dorland, Paul, Jonny and Elli. Kra'ith—an alien touch reaching out to soothe an array of human feelings: Dorland's guilt over the deaths of Diana and Shari; Paul's doubts and insecurities; Jonny's blasphemous concern for his parents. They were all together—

  "What's going on—?" Jacowicz's voice rose, then faded.

  *Kra'ith*

  "—Jonny, I want you to come up here and . . . JonnyV
>
  For a moment Paul was back in that depressing bar with Dorland behind him on the stage. Paul had felt that he was a failure at everything when he'd sat down at that table, and when he'd left, it was with renewed faith in himself.

  Dorland was a kra'ith leader.

  Jonny's parents: his mother planted jewel tips around the porch of their little house in Fairhope in an effort to make the squalid place a nicer home for her family; his father worked the fields even when his back felt as if it would break as he reached for the next fluff of cotton. But he went to the fields every day because the deacons kept a record of those who missed, and the fear was great enough to overcome the pain.

  The link expanded to cover the other boys waiting behind Jacowicz. Affection, hatred, fear, happiness—all the range of human emotions

  washed out from them. Dorland brought Diana and Shari close to him. He projected their warmth and acceptance.

  •"(Group/touch)*

  204 William Greenleaf

  The semarch ceremony initiated the boys into the Sons of God. It was a distorted version of the Tal Tahir ceremony.

  The youth are transformed from those who are worshipped to those who worship.

  Dorland blinked, and for a moment Elder

  Jacowicz's skull-like face cleared in front of him. Jacowicz raised the staff high and brought it slashing down toward Dorland's head—

  Dorland felt the shades of music in the background. He imagined his hands inside the robe of his player's garb, fingered the buttons, arranged the music, swept the auditorium with color. The music and the flashing colors combined into a magical salve, swaying in and out of the pain in Jonny's eyes, sweeping over Jacowicz's upturned face. Kra'ith—the strength of the child.

  "Jonnyr

  The shrill scream pierced through the haze that surrounded Paul. Through Dorland's eyes he saw the staff raised high above Jacowicz's head, and Jacowicz's arm held tight in the grip of Jonny and another boy. The staff fell to the ground. Elder Jacowicz stumbled back, staring . . .

  Then Paul felt himself fading. Again came the stretching of identity, and the surroundings changed. Abruptly, he was sitting on a hard stone pedestal with Sabastian beside him.

  "Are you all right?" Sabastian asked. His face was strangely pale. "You've been mumbling and muttering the whole time, jerking around like you were having a bad dream."

  Paul's eyes focused with some effort on the old man. "I was with Dorland."

  Sabastian didn't question the statement. "Where is he?"

  "Coming back, I think."

  Chapter Twenty

  "SOMETHING'S HAPPENING!" SELMER EXCLAIMED. Paul stepped across to the archway. The crowd had moved closer during the past hour, and now he could hear a low murmur. He couldn't see what was happening through the trees, but it was clear that a commotion had broken out.

  Jacque yelled down the stairs behind them:

  "Someone's coming through."

  Then Paul saw the ripple of motion. A moment later several uniformed boys appeared on the pathway. He stiffened, then saw Dorland among them. The crowd made way, and a moment later Dorland stepped through the archway. His wrists were bloody, his hair tangled in a wild mop. With him came the boy Paul recognized as Jonny.

  "Jonny's friends are speaking to the people outside," Dorland said. "They're asking them to return to Fairhope. They are letting the people know that the Holy Order doesn't exist anymore." Paul took Dorland's arm and pulled him farther into the corridor. Except for his wrists, Dorland 205

  206 William Greenleaf

  seemed to be unhurt. "What happened back there?"

  "Elder Jacowicz returned to the temple after Jonny freed me," Dorland said. "He and High Elder Brill are there now, along with the rest of the elders and deacons. I think they're seeking advice from Lord Tern."

  "Let's go after 'em!" Jacque exclaimed. "We've got the Sons on our side now—"

  "That would only result in violence," Dorland said. "The deacons and elders are well armed." He turned to look back through the archway. "After the people have returned to Fairhope with their sons, I'll go to the temple and talk to High Elder Brill."

  Selmer laughed without humor. "What makes you think he'll listen? You're the one that caused all this. He'll have your head for a temple decoration."

  "I think he'll listen to me," Dorland said. Dusk was falling over the city by the time the last of the people from Fairhope had started the trek back to the village. Sabastian and Selmer Ogram had gone with them. Jacque was stationed on the roof of the building, where he could watch the temple with Karyn's binoculars.

  Dorland had gone alone to the temple two hours ago. Through the binoculars Paul had watched him go inside, and as far as Paul could tell, he had been in there with the elders and deacons ever since. Paul stood outside the building in the falling light, listening to the rushing river and the sounds of countless insects in the woods all around.

  "He must be making progress," Erich Frakes said. "They haven't dumped his body out the door yet."

  "I think he knows what he's doing," Paul said. Strangely, he felt confident that he was right.

  "I hope so," Karyn said. She turned to look

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  through the archway at the chauka. It was dark now; Elli had vanished shortly after Dorland returned, and nobody had reactivated the chauka to bring her back. The silver disk lay on the pedestal in front of the chauka. "I wonder if we'll ever see Elli—I mean, really her, not just an image."

  "I don't think so," Paul said.

  Something in his voice made her turn back.

  "Why not?"

  "We've assumed that the chauka was a longrange communicator," Paul said. "Maybe even a transportation device. I don't think it's either of those."

  "Then what is it?" Frakes asked.

  Paul looked out toward the temple. Had Dorland guessed the truth?

  "Has it occurred to you that the main room in this building and the sacred chamber in the temple are set up like an auditorium?"

  "An auditorium?"

  "Elli can be heard only as far as the outer ring of pedestals. The pedestals were obviously meant to be the Tal Tahir equivalent of chairs. With those long arms and legs of his, I'd guess Lord Tern would find one of them to be a comfortable place to sit for a while. I think those pedestals were seats for the males."

  "You're saying the Tal Tahir males came to this place to watch a show?" Frakes sounded skeptical.

  "I think they came here for all kinds of reasons. They called on Elli when they needed a counseling session."

  "A what?" Karyn exclaimed.

  "I kept wondering what Lord Tern and Elli were getting out of this exchange with humans," Paul went on. "Then Elli said that helping us was the reason for her existence. That made me wonder about how the disks work. You touch the rod with the disk and Elli appears."

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  "If you use the disk with her picture on it," Karyn added.

  "Exactly. You mentioned that earlier, but I didn't see the significance. You said the personal Tal Tahir god changes each time a new High Elder is elected. You told me the new High Elder selects his own personal god."

  "That's the way it's always been," Karyn said.

  "Right. Which means Captain Anson from the starship Vanguard was probably the man who

  discovered the disks and the chauka. That's probably what made him go off the deep end in the first place. But I wondered how the High Elder could simply select a Tal Tahir god. Now I think it was simple—he merely chose a new disk. That means the elders had a supply of the disks."

  Karyn nodded. "That makes sense. But I don't see—"

  "If you use the disk with Elli's picture, you get Elli. If you use the one with Lord Tern's picture, you get him instead. There are dozens of disks, each with a different picture." He paused to let them absorb that. "Doesn't that remind you of something?"

  "Sure," Frakes said. "It's like a tridee c
ube. You pop it in your player and sit back in your favorite easy chair and watch the show."

  "Right. The show is recorded in the cube. You can get any kind of show you want, from a murder mystery to a horror film to a nature documentary."

  "Are you saying . . ." Karyn let the words trail off.

  Paul nodded. "I think the Tal Tahir disks are the human equivalent of tridee cubes."

  Silence descended over them while they absorbed what Paul had told them. Karyn broke it:

  "Lord Tern was an actor?"

  "Not an actor as such," Paul corrected. "I don't think the Tal Tahir disks were recorded with the same kind of shows we're accustomed to. I've learned a lot from Elli. The social orientation of the Tal Tahir—you can see it in everything they had, even the way their city was designed. They felt each other's emotions—and it would only be natural that their entertainment would be angled toward emotional experiences. If I'm right, some of those disks depict humor, and some depict the Tal Tahir equivalent of love stories, and some are Tal Tahir horror stories."

  "Stories don't talk back to you," Frakes pointed out.

  "These do," Paul said. "The technology of the Tal Tahir was also oriented toward emotional fulfillment. The disks were all designed to interact with the viewer."

  Karyn looked at him sharply. "The disk of Lord Tern . . ."

  "The disk Brill selected happened to be a horror story. Lord Tern portrayed a Tal Tahir with something inherently wrong. He hated youth rather than worshipping them. The role he played was that of a kra'ith leader who turned against his members."

  "But Lord Tern wasn't dealing with a kra'ith," Karyn pointed out.

  "Lord Tern thought he was dealing with a kra'ith. He fitted the structure of his story around Fairhope, the Holy Order and the human inhabitants of Clarion. And the mission he had to play out was to destroy his kra'ith. That was why he issued proclamations to establish the Sons of God and the God Wall."

  "And Brill followed his orders to the letter," Karyn said bitterly.

  Paul nodded. "Brill's interpretation of what Lord Tern did to his kra'ith members led to what Brill did to his own kra 'ith, which was in effect the entire population of Clarion."