Commitment Hour lop-2

by James Alan Gardner

  I don't know if we fought for minutes or seconds. I remember heat: my body, hers, and the sweaty suffocation of clothes over my face as we grappled. At some point, the pain and screaming woke my male half, where he slept far off in Birds Home; carried on the wings of crows, his spirit raced in to take over my body. The moment it took possession I felt stronger, more in control. As a man, I knew how to fight and no woman could beat me. I began to punch instead of bite, to grab the woman's softest parts and twist.

  Then people were separating us, Yoskar among them. He went to her, not me, babbling apologies and love. The male spirit in me vanished as quickly as it had come and I was left a discarded woman, weeping in rage. I wanted to start the fight again, just to rip Yoskar's pretty face with my fingernails, but the onlookers held me back. They carried me to a private room of the wedding pavilion and a woman wearing the purple scarf of a doctor stripped off my clothes to bathe my wounds.

  "You'll feel a hundred times better when you're clean," she said.

  She was in her early forties, a woman with confident voice and hands. Those hands ranged over my body, sewing up the stab wound in my back ("Very shallow — you're lucky") and tending multiple bites and scratches. All the while, she spoke of her admiration for my performance that night. "You have fire," the doctor said. "I've never seen such passion."

  Gradually the pain and heat remaining from the fight changed. The doctor's hands were still at work. My head was growing dizzy; I could no longer remember wounds in the places she touched, but I let her continue. She kissed me on the right breast and whispered, "Passion." I felt my body twist toward her, wanting more.

  I remember heat: my body, hers, the sweaty suffocation…

  At dawn I woke alone, in the same room and lying under a thin blanket on the floor. Surprisingly, my male soul had come back to take charge of my female body; and I barely had time to roll onto my side before I threw up, appalled by what I had done. Obviously, the doctor had drugged me — that was the only explanation for how I could participate in such perversion. Two women! How could my female half have been so weak as to yield to such… no, I'd been drugged. Otherwise, I would never have…

  I ran outside to the beach, frantic to scrub my flesh raw, to clean the doctor's smell from my face; but when I splashed on water, I stopped immediately. In my mind I could still hear the woman whispering in my ear, "You'll feel a hundred times better when you're clean."

  Leaning against the bank in Cypress Marsh, I watched the knight tenderly washing the Neut's face. He whispered softly in the creature's ear; their faces were close and the knight's touch gentle.

  I knew lovers when I saw them. If I'd had anything left in my stomach, I would have thrown up again.

  What kind of man could bring himself to bed a Neut? One incapable of shame. A man who could openly wear OldTech plastic. The one and only time I'd worn plastic, I was eight and a group of us kids had found an OldTech dump in the forest, just off the Feliss City highway. We spent the afternoon digging through it and ornamenting ourselves with junk: bracelets twisted together from greenish wire and capes made of plastic sheets. I was proud of a plastic collar I found, shaped like a horseshoe but big enough to go around my neck like a yoke. We came back to the cove wearing our finery and huge grins, expecting the adults to praise our finds. Instead, they slapped us till our cheeks burned and promised we would be struck ill by the diseases that OldTech trash always carries.

  A knight wearing plastic OldTech armor had to be a walking plague. The smoke bomb that made us sick was only the beginning — everywhere he went, he must leave behind poxes and pestilence. In fact, he might be Master Disease himself, god of evil, hater of life.

  The thought chilled me… but the Elders told many tales of Master Disease walking the earth. To face him, you needed courage; to banish him, you needed the magic of the heart.

  Painfully, I dragged myself out of the water onto the shore. The breeze had thinned the stink he called "tear gas"; my eyes were nearly swollen shut, but my strength was coming back. Off to my right, Cappie furtively gestured toward the knife, lying on reeds where the knight had kicked it. I ignored her — a mere knife couldn't hurt Master Disease. Even if it penetrated his armor, the blade would simply release a tornado of sickness to ravage our village.

  Instead of the knife, I crawled toward the violin. Music has boundless purifying power, and I knew my playing was our only defence against this evil. The Patriarch taught that a song can banish devils of fear, and a war chant can summon angels of victory. Defeating Master Disease might take more than a simple tune, but I could do it. I was the only person in the village who could.

  The violin and bow lay where I'd left them. Both were dirty. I ran my fingers lightly along the bow-hairs, trying to clean off the sludge without removing too much rosin as well. I don't know if it helped — my fingers were gritty with mud — but I brushed off the worst clots, propped my back against a nearby log, and prepared to play.

  A smack of muck hit me in the leg. Cappie wanted my attention — she gestured again toward the knife. Ignoring her, I readied my bow over the strings.

  I intended the first sweep of the bow to sound a strident challenge: E flat minor, the most challenging chord I knew. The chord didn't have quite the attack I wanted because the dirt on the bow weakened the rosin's grip on the strings; but the sound was loud enough to grab the knight's attention. He shoved himself in front of the Neut and turned to face me, his hands raised and pointing toward me like a wrestler waiting to grapple.

  "Ha!" I said.

  "I beg your pardon?" he replied.

  "Ha!" I said again and played a B flat arpeggio.

  The knight lowered his hands and half turned to the Neut. "What's he doing, Steck?"

  "Playing my violin," the Neut answered.

  I played another E flat minor chord.

  "Sounds like an E minor chord," the Neut said.

  "E flat minor!" I shouted.

  "Oh. That's a lot harder," the Neut told the knight. "He's trying to impress us."

  "I'm trying to exorcise you," I said.

  "Me?" the Neut asked.

  "Him," I said, pointing the bow at the knight. "Master Disease."

  The Neut laughed and put Its arm around the knight's waist. "He thinks you're Master Disease!"

  "Who's Master Disease?"

  "A god."

  "I see." The knight sloshed a few steps toward me. "Young man, I'm not a god, I'm a scientist. We're like gods, but more irresponsible."

  "You're lying," I said. "The Patriarch killed all the scientists." I began a finger exercise in C. No point playing in a difficult key if my enemy had a poor sense of pitch.

  "Steck!" the knight said sharply, rounding on the Neut. "Why didn't you tell me they think all scientists are dead? You know I don't want to offend local sensibilities."

  "I forgot."

  "How stupid do you think I am?" the knight asked. Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to me and said, "Your Patriarch, though his wisdom encircled the globe, overlooked a tiny enclave of scientists far away on the other side of the planet. We survived, and were duly chastened by the just retribution wrought by the Patriarch on our fellows. Now we have changed our ways; we pursue only the good."

  "How stupid do you think we are?" Cappie said quietly.

  "I didn't know till I tried," the knight answered cheerfully. "Experimentation is the essence of science."

  "You aren't a scientist," I said. "You're Master Disease." I played the finger exercise louder, all the while trying to decide what kind of music was best suited to drive off a god. Right then, my repertoire for weddings and barn-raisings seemed a touch feeble.

  "Rashid is a scientist," the Neut replied in Its male/female voice. "The Patriarch only killed one scientist in his entire life, and that was a poor anthropology student who wanted to study Tober Cove for her thesis. Bad luck for her — if she'd come a few years earlier, before the Patriarch seized control and perverted everything, she could h
ave studied us to her heart's content. As it was, she was welcomed with the full hospitality ceremony; but two nights later, the Patriarch and six warriors attacked while she was sleeping, raped her, then burned her in the usual place on Beacon Point. Every person in the village was forced to watch her bubble and pop. At dawn, they were told to smear themselves with her ashes in order to share the triumph. Then the Patriarch declared he had rid the world of scientists and demanded that the Hearth and Home Guild make a quilt to commemorate the deed. Something to keep people warm and toasty in the dark."

  I'd seen the quilt, of course, in the Patriarch's Hall at Mayor Teggeree's house; I'd even been allowed to sleep under the quilt one night, after I won first prize in a talent contest at Wiretown's Fall Fair. But that proved nothing. Devils can always twist a glorious truth to make it seem sordid. "I don't believe you," I said, starting the finger exercise again and hoping Master Disease would evaporate into greasy black smoke pretty soon. I was accustomed to the gut strings on my own instrument, and the wire strings of the Neut's violin were chewing into my fingers.

  "Quite right," the knight said, "don't believe everything you hear." He gave the Neut a not-so-light push toward the opposite bank. "I'm going to wash out Steck's mouth with soap for telling such lies."

  "You know nothing about Tober Cove," the Neut muttered resentfully to the knight.

  "I know that we haven't made a glowing first impression." The knight turned back and said, "We'll be leaving now. Sorry to have caused a fuss. Next time you see us, I trust the circumstances will be better."

  "The circumstances will be better if you stay away," Cappie said tightly.

  The knight turned to her. She gazed in silence at that faceless helmet for many long seconds. Finally, it was the knight who gave up the staring contest. "I come in peace," he shrugged. "If trouble starts, I won't be the cause."

  "You'll be the cause, no matter who strikes the first blow," Cappie told him. "Remember that."

  "Don't be such a mope," the knight said, as if briskness would win the argument. "Everywhere I go, people are so deathly serious. I don't see why they always work themselves into a state. Just once I'd like to visit a town where my arrival doesn't precipitate some crisis."

  He turned away and sloshed to join the Neut on the far shore. Without a word, he grabbed the belt of the Neut's pants and heaved up solidly. The Neut nearly flew onto the bank, scrabbling forward on hands and knees to avoid landing on Its face. "Rashid!" the Neut cried, "be careful, damn it. Just because the girl annoyed you, don't take it out on me."

  "You're the one who annoyed me," the knight answered in a sharp whisper that carried across the water. "What were you doing out here? We have other business."

  "Just let me get the violin…"

  "No. Stop your whining." The knight turned back to me. "Take care of that instrument. We'll expect it returned in good condition."

  "Begone, Creature of Darkness!" I shouted, as I began the finger exercise yet again.

  "Fine. I'm gone."

  Suddenly, the water around the knight roiled with bubbles, as if every twelve-year-old boy who'd ever gone swimming was farting under the surface. The knight shot upward, clouds of smoke billowing from his boots as they broke clear of the creek. I quickly held my breath and spun away from the smoke, anxious to avoid more vomit-gas. This smoke, however, was nothing like the previous kind; its smell was foul but its effects harmless.

  When I turned back toward the creek, knight and Neut were gone, leaving only broken reeds to show their path. Slowly I lowered the bow and violin, as quiet awe filtered into my mind.

  I had defeated Master Disease.

  True, he hadn't been reduced to a stinking pool of lava, but what could you expect from a finger exercise? Especially one in the key of C.

  I wished I'd stayed with E flat minor. He might have burst into flames.

  THREE

  A Shoulder for the Mocking Priestess

  Cappie dove under the water. When she surfaced, her face was cleaner and she once again held my spear. She laid it on the shore and clambered out beside it, water pattering off her clothes onto the soft mud bank.

  Men's clothes or not, she was clearly a woman now: her nipples pressed tautly against the wet fabric of her shirt. I thought of the feel of them, in my fingers, my mouth, and was suddenly more hungry for her than I'd been in months. With Master Disease banished, I was keen to celebrate my triumph.

  "Cappie…" I started.

  "No."

  "You don't know what I was going to say."

  "You're so obvious," she said, walking over to the Neut's knife and picking it up. I liked the way she walked — bold as a man, but with a woman's hips. "When you want to grope and fumble," she continued, "you always get the same tone in your voice and put on a moronic expression. Is that your idea of a sly grin?"

  "What is this?" I cried. "Half an hour ago, you were singing "Our Love Will Fill Us," and now you're made of ice. Not to mention that you're dressed like your father. Have you been smoking dizzy-weed with the Mocking Priestess?"

  "We have to go home and warn people," she said, jamming her shirttails back into her pants. There was a swipe of mud on her nose; I was furious with her, but I badly wanted to dab that nose clean with kisses.

  "It's Commitment Eve," I reminded her. "We can't go back to the cove tonight. We're in isolation."

  "Check your priorities, Fullin," she snapped. "A Neut and a scientist show up in the marsh, and you don't want to tell people?"

  "We can tell people," I said. "Later. After. Come lie down."

  "Do it with the damned violin," she replied. "You aren't doing it with me."

  Tossing me an angry glare, she picked up the spear and ran. A sleek and easy run. A warrior's run. I opened my mouth to demand that she wait for me, but stopped myself in time. She wouldn't wait, no matter what I said, and a man loses face when his woman doesn't obey orders. Finally, I called, "You better not break my spear!" but not loud enough for her to hear.

  Now I had no choice but to go back to the cove, Commitment Eve or not. If Cappie showed up and I didn't, the Elders would say I'd sent a woman to deliver a message I was too timid to deliver myself. Not to mention that she'd surely give a distorted version of what happened. She was, after all, possessed by a devil. I kept forgetting that.

  But I knew how to take care of devils. I tucked the Neut's violin under my arm and started for home.

  Soon I regretted letting Cappie get away with the spear — every stone in my path looked like a snapping turtle. I thought of rapping those rocks with the violin bow, but I couldn't bring myself to do it: I kept thinking of the crunch a snapper would make biting off a mouthful of wood and horsehair. Just imagining the sound gave me the shakes. I told myself it wasn't my bow, but that didn't lessen my queasiness. Musicians are sensitive people.

  I took to veering away from every rock that could possibly be a snapper in disguise, with the result that I strayed off the paths that led directly to the cove. No one could claim I was lost — I retained my bearings by keeping an eye on the dead tree rising high above the reeds in the center of the marsh — but when I finally reached the turtle-free safety of the forest, I was far from the frequented trails.

  You can measure the distance from town to any part of the forest by the age of the people who use that area as a hiding place. The youngest children make their forts just deep enough into the trees to be out of sight of the Council Hall steeple. As they grow older they venture beyond, in search of OldTech dumps and collapsed buildings they believe have never been seen by Tober eyes. Teen-aged couples steal out even farther, past the haunts of tattletale siblings, to beds of scratchy pine needles where they share love poems and ghost stories. (Ghost stories are the best aphrodisiac a fourteen-year-old knows.) Past the nesting areas of new lovers are the glower-bowers of the jilted, the solitary clearings where older teens brood over the unfairness of life and tell themselves how sorry everyone would be if they were found dangling from an oak.
Soon, most of the brooders return to the coupling grounds, but a few proceed to higher degrees of restlessness, ranging farther and farther until their connection to Tober Cove snaps and they are propelled down-peninsula to the cities of the south.

  Avoiding turtles had brought me to those outermost regions, a part of the forest seen only by solitaries and the occasional hunter. It was still Tober land, however, and a clear trail led back in the direction of the cove. No doubt the trail would reach more familiar regions soon enough.

  I had barely walked twenty paces when I caught sight of a yellow-orange campfire in the forest on my left. Common sense said to avoid it — no honest traveler wandered so far from the main road. More likely, it was some fugitive from Feliss City. Each year, a handful of thieves and murderers came up-peninsula to hide in our woods; each year, the Warriors Society tracked them down and turned them in for bounty at the Feliss army outpost in Ohna Sound. It was a lucrative business: for fifteen years, the bounty money had completely paid for Tober Cove's "Fish-on-a-Bun" booth at the Wiretown Fall Fair. (We used to call the booth "Perch-on-a-Bun"… but cityfolk who didn't know perch were a type of fish got the strangest ideas.)

  The thought of tangling with a criminal so soon after the last fight turned my stomach. On the other hand, Cappie would have reached the village already and given her version of our battle. She'd likely paint me in a bad light… and people in the cove envied my success so much, they'd love an excuse to look down on me. I could use something to counteract Cappie's spite, to explain why I was late getting home. Reporting the whereabouts of a big-bounty outlaw was perfect for redeeming myself.

  As quietly as I could, I laid the violin under a bush and stole through the forest toward the fire. Soon I heard the sound of wood burning, popping and snapping loud enough to cover any noise I made. I managed to get very close, down on my stomach behind a fallen spruce where I could peer through the cover of dead branches toward the lighted clearing.