Ebbanai was right. None of those anxious supplicants he had so summarily dismissed dared return to risk the god’s wrath, and he slept better than he expected.
CHAPTER
12
Morning saw his spirits improved. Now that the decision to leave had been made, and the memory of those he had been forced to turn away had receded somewhat in his mind, he was able to eat with some enjoyment the last native morning meal Storra—or, rather, Storra’s new servants—prepared for him. He did not even object when she pleaded to join her mate in escorting him back to his vessel. She had made her desire to see the Teacher plain on more than one occasion. It was a simple enough request, a last request, and he decided to accede. Despite her avaricious nature, she had only done what she believed to be best for herself and her mate. If her motivations had been slightly less than altruistic, she had nonetheless been genuinely solicitous of his welfare.
They started out early, the two Dwarra packing food and drink for their return journey, Flinx doubly eager to be on his way now that the moment to depart had come. So much time had he spent on Arrawd and so focused had he become on healing its ill and injured that it was hard to believe he was actually leaving. None of the new servants his hosts had hired with their semi-ethical gains bothered to see them off. They had work to do.
As the trio crested the first rise Flinx glanced briefly back at the homestead. There the domed house, now much transformed by expensive improvements, there the baryeln barn, beyond it the small garden where Storra grew basic foodstuffs. It was a far more domesticated view than many of the other alien landscapes he had trod: Midworld and Jast, Longtunnel and Terra, Moth and New Riviera.
New Riviera. His thoughts went out to that world, though they could not reach it, that was home now to close friends and to one woman in particular. So very far away. Taking a deep breath, he filed Arrawd with them in his mental catalog of worlds visited and turned away, setting his gaze and his stride toward the center of the peninsula. He had some dedicated spatial wandering ahead of him, and would not see any of those other worlds until it was concluded.
The disappointed ailing masses of Arrawd left him and his unpretentious escort alone, but the wildlife of Dwarra seemed reluctant to let him go.
“Vuuerlia,” Ebbanai told him as a flock of the creatures wafted through the waist-high growth around them. The inoffensive flying creatures stayed aloft more by gliding and riding the air currents off the nearby ocean than by flapping their paper-thin, meter-wide wings. Though the pale, ivory-hued appendages were so thin as to be translucent, Ebbanai informed Flinx that the membranous tissue was strong enough to cope with even the occasional gales that blew across the peninsula. The front of each long, slender brown animal was tipped with a single piercing bill that was half the length of the creature itself, while the aft end terminated in a pair of flaring tails. One vertical and the other horizontal, they helped to steer and stabilize the creature in the roughest weather. In their appearance the vuuerlia were elegant and angular—not unlike the Dwarra themselves.
The three trekkers stood and waited while the flock of nearly a hundred passed over and around them. This gave Flinx time to observe how the creatures would fly as close to the tops of the surrounding vegetation as possible, skimming the crests of the grass-like growths as they used their long, pointed bills to pick off any plant-dwellers foolish or unlucky enough to be lingering near the top of the sward. Once it had its prey pinned, the vuuerlia would flip it into the air and catch it neatly in the small, surprisingly flexible mouths at the base of each bill. It was like watching a flock of anorexic hawks attack in slow motion.
The vuuerlia had exceptionally sharp eyes, or some other means of perceiving what was in their path. Except for the occasional brief brush from a feather-light wing tip, Flinx and his companions had no contact with the flock that glided over and around them. Not that a direct collision was anything to fear. He doubted the heaviest vuuerlia weighed more than a kilogram, and flew no faster than he could run.
As for Pip, she delighted in the opportunity to swoop over, around, and through the flock, disconcerting the placid creatures with her slashing, brightly colored presence. Utterly alien to their experience, the vuuerlia did not know what to make of the winged, serpentine shape that darted through and among them, teasing the uncertain and intercepting the leaders, only to keep just out of reach as they made futile attempts to stab her with their bills.
“Once again, I marvel at the agility of your pet,” Storra commented as she watched the display.
“She is that,” Flinx agreed, “when she’s not sleeping, which is most of the time.”
Pushing forward as the last of the vuuerlia coasted past, he had covered another ten meters or so when he suddenly pulled up short. Ebbanai came up alongside the alien and gazed into his face. During the past many eight-days, he had learned to recognize certain human expressions by connecting Flinx’s words with the concurrent distortion of his facial muscles. But he did not recognize the one that was featured on his alien friend’s face now. He waited for it to change, and it did not. This was in itself, the net-caster felt, significant.
“Friend Flinx, is something wrong?” As Ebbanai spoke, he noted that Pip came rocketing back from where she had been playing with the disappearing flock of vuuerlia, showing speed the net-caster and his mate had not seen before. Whatever had brought their visitor to an abrupt halt, it was clearly serious.
Flinx proceeded to confirm this. “There are other Dwarra approaching. Many.” He scanned the tops of the surrounding verdure. They had entered into a part of the peninsula where the grass-like growths, though still single-bladed, grew tree-high. “They are intent on,” he added without the slightest change in tone, “killing. Whether just me or all of us I don’t know.”
A froth of bubbles and gargling issued from his companions. Not knowing what else to do, unable to see or hear the potential assassins the alien had somehow perceived, they moved closer to him. Ebbanai drew his longknife. It was all he and Storra had brought with them. What need was there for serious weapons on a stroll through their beloved peninsula, where potential dangers were few, far between, and most often encountered at night?
“Who are they?” Storra strained to see through the surrounding greenery.
“I don’t know.” Pip remained airborne, hovering a meter or so over Flinx’s head. She had sensed the same approaching animosity as her master. “I can’t perceive identities. Only emotions. Homicidal ones, in this instance.” Reaching down, he drew his pistol, made sure it was still charged. If the feelings he was picking up were anything to go by, when those projecting them finally showed themselves there would be no time for demonstrations or illustrative examples of what his weapon could do. He was likely to need stopping power.
Why bother? a part of him wondered unexpectedly. Why not end it all here, now, today? This was as good a place and time as any. Put an end to all the wandering, internal conflict, and frustration. It was a mark of his depression that he would even entertain such a thought. It did not last. He couldn’t let any locals kill him, he reasoned, even if he did welcome such an end. Could not, because if a discontented contingent of them were allowed to kill a beneficent “god,” when word of what had happened spread to the wider population at large it could very well incite even more fighting and killing as those he had helped took up arms to take revenge on his killers. Reflecting on the possibilities inherent in such a demise, not for the first time he found himself marveling at the irony that underlay so much of his existence.
I can’t even let myself be killed, because it wouldn’t be the moral thing to do.
As he stood pondering the incongruity of it all, the emotions he was perceiving reached an intensity that reflected the proximity of their promulgators to his present position. Clad in conical clothing that covered their bodies from head to foot-flange, a dozen or so Dwarra burst from the surrounding vegetation. Like so many maniacal, multicolored pinwheels, they converged fro
m two directions on the alien and his terrified companions. They were armed with long, thin, sharp-edged swords and clumsy but effective-looking hand weapons made of wood and metal.
Storra screamed “barbolts!” and fell over onto her side. Ebbanai replicated her desperate fall a moment later. His own emotions a disturbed fusion of dogged determination and sorrowful regret, Flinx raised his weapon and put a shot into the nearest attacker as that individual raised the device he was carrying.
The burst of energy made a neat hole in the center of the assailant’s chest. A few tiny flames flickered from the front of his tapering attire where the blast had entered and from the back where it had exited. Ceremonial raiment smoking, the attacker crumpled to the ground like a collapsing building. At the same time, Pip dove toward another of the attackers and spat directly in his face. The corrosive venom had the same effect on the onrushing Dwarra as it did on any carbon-based tissue. Smoke immediately began to rise from where the toxin hit and began to eat away at the eyes and surrounding flesh. Screaming madly, an uncontrolled stream of bubbles emerging from his mouth, the struck assailant stumbled and staggered backward into the undergrowth from which he had emerged.
Taken together, these two defensive responses were more than sufficient to cause the dead assailants’ companions to pause in their attack.
At his feet, collapsed in on themselves as much as their muscles could manage, Ebbanai and Storra were torn between watching their attackers and gazing in awe up at Flinx. Despite what he had casually told them about his ability to look after himself, until now that ability had only been buttressed by words. The disquieting demonstration of alien power, both technological and organic, found them eyeing him with an entirely new mind-set. For the first time since he had arrived at the homestead, they were afraid of him. More afraid than they had been when each of them had initially encountered him.
As a consequence, something had been lost, and even though he was preparing to depart Arrawd forever, Flinx was not happy about it.
Before he could depart, however, he still had a dangerous number of potential assassins to deal with. Overcoming their initial shock at seeing what the alien and its pet could do, they began to advance anew, urged on by their leader.
“For Rakshinn!” Kredlehken swallowed his fear as he strove to rally the other acolytes and their Pakktrinian allies. Trying to keep one eye on the murderous alien flying thing, he raised his barbolt. Fearsome or not, there was still only one of the two-legged aliens. It could only shoot one of them at a time. With luck, a barbolt or two might strike him. Once wounded, Kredlehken was certain the creature of flesh and blood could be finished off with ordinary swords.
As he took aim at another of the advancing attackers, Flinx was struggling with the same conundrum. If they all came at him in a rush, and fired together...should he dodge left, or right? Shoot the nearest of his assailants first, the biggest, or their apparent leader?
Unexpectedly, a flood of fresh emotions coursed through him. They were not his own, nor those of his two terrified companions, nor even those of his would-be assassins.
“FOR WULLSAKAA AND THE HIGHBORN!”
Whirling, he was just in time to see a host of armed Dwarra explode from among the tallest growths. Unlike his ceremoniously garbed attackers, these newcomers wore strips of metal and leather armor designed to protect their limbs and vital parts. Crested helmets with slits in front allowed their Sensitives to protrude freely. They wielded lances as well as different examples of the complex, pistol-like barbolts. The mounts they rode were like slimmed-down versions of the horned, heavy-bodied tethets whose appearance Flinx had grown accustomed to: similar in origin but an entirely different breed. These new animals were as greyhounds compared to mastiffs.
Ebbanai and Storra cowered at his feet, certain now that death was only moments away. High above the scene of battle Pip hovered uncertainly, reading her master’s feelings for clues as to how to proceed. Flinx raised his pistol in the direction of the nearest of the new arrivals—and promptly lowered it. Their emotions were certainly murderous—but they were not directed toward him. Instead, they were channeled unmistakably, and gratefully, elsewhere.
Falling in among the conically clad assassins, the newcomers proceeded to spread havoc and death. Their attention diverted by the armored arrivals, the well-armed attackers managed to bring down two of the newcomers. Then, their number swiftly halved, the survivors scattered into the surrounding undergrowth. With single-minded determination, the majority of the newcomers went after them. The sounds of pursuit, and the grisly end to first one and then another, resounded from different locations within the tall foliage.
Those who had not joined in the pursuit approached Flinx. Recognizing the insignia they wore, and seeing that—so far, anyway—their rescuers meant them no harm, Ebbanai and Storra struggled to their feet. One of the newcomers immediately slipped off his steed, went up to her, and entwined his Sensitives with hers, then carried out the same exchange with her mate. Their sense of relief was immediate.
Dismounting with some difficulty due to his unusual bulk, the leader of the newcomers was panting audibly as he staggered over to Flinx. As he did so he struggled to straighten his helmet, which had been knocked askew on his head during the battle.
“Your pardon,” he wheezed. “Unfamiliar as I am with such martial exertions, I find myself more than a little out of breath.” He started to extend his Sensitives before remembering yet again that in that regard the alien was lamentably disadvantaged.
Flinx eyed the speaker for a moment. Recognizing both the face and emotional state of the Dwarra confronting him, he holstered his pistol. Descending in a sharp spiral, Pip settled down on his right shoulder, her tail curling firmly around his neck.
“I know you. Teelin...,” Flinx quickly corrected himself. “Treappyn.”
The counselor to His August Highborn Pyrrpallinda sucked in a long, deep breath. It helped. “As I said on the occasion of our previous parting, I hoped we should meet again—though I never could have imagined it would be under such shameful circumstances.” Turning slightly, he gestured with a pair of flanges in the direction of the thick vegetation that had swallowed Flinx’s attackers and the squad of Wullsakaan soldiers who were still pursuing them.
“The fanatics who attacked you are minions of a major deity who is popular throughout Wullsakaa and elsewhere. They dishonor their teachings with this cowardly attempt on your life.”
Behind Flinx, Ebbanai and Storra listened to the words of the counselor and found themselves wishing they had chosen to remain behind and bid their otherworldly guest farewell from the reassuring confines of their own home. Now it was too late, and they found themselves involved with something that promised to be more awkward than simply seeing off disappointed would-be supplicants.
Flinx was genuinely puzzled. “Why would followers of a local divinity have anything against me?”
Though he of course did not comment on it, Treappyn marveled to himself at the navet of this supposed sophisticated visitor. “Why, they perceive you as competition for their Order. If worshippers switch their allegiance—not to mention their contributions—to another god, then their own deity and ‘his’ income suffer correspondingly.”
“Income.” Turning, Flinx glared at his hosts, mindful of the revenue they had acquired while supervising and “facilitating” access to his charitable exertions. A new expression had consumed the alien’s visage. Ebbanai did not recognize this one, either, but decided right away that he did not like it.
“Fortunately,” the counselor continued, “the Highborn has eyes and ears in many places.” Once more he gestured in the direction taken by the majority of the stymied assassins. “We learned of this plot almost too late.”
Flinx nodded, politely grateful. “I appreciate your help.” As he spoke, another plaintive, whistling cry echoed over the foliage, indicating that yet one more unlucky servant of Rakshinn had been run to ground and summarily dealt with. “But
I could have handled it. I can take care of myself.”
“Without question, without question. None who know you would dare dispute that.” Having no diplomatic alternative to agreement, Treappyn readily concurred with the alien, though he doubted even one as powerful as Flinx could have simultaneously coped with so many dedicated killers. “Still, as an honored and respected guest in our country, your well-being was of considerable concern to all of us.”
Despite the well-meaning counselor’s assurances, all Flinx could think of was that a number of natives had met untimely deaths because of his presence on this world. That they had fully intended to kill him did not alter that realization. Clearly, his continued presence here was complicating local relationships in ways he had not, and could not, have foreseen, and the sooner he was on board the Teacher and on his way, the better it would be for all concerned. He said as much to Treappyn. To his surprise, this declaration was met with less than enthusiastic agreement.
“Actually, friend Flinx,” the counselor responded, “I have been instructed to ask that you return with me to Metrel, as the guest of the Highborn himself. Originally, this invitation was to be extended so that you might continue your good works there, where many might hope to be the beneficiaries of your miraculous ministrations.”
“I’m done doing that.” Now that his would-be assassins had been seen to, Flinx was growing impatient to be on his way. Reflecting his eagerness, Pip fidgeted on his shoulder, partly unfurling and then collapsing her brightly colored wings. “I’ve helped as many as I thought I reasonably could and now I have obligations of my own to carry out.” To emphasize his determination, he took a step forward.
Running from the Deity Page 18
