Future Indefinite

by Dave Duncan

  Led to a smoky, crackling heap—more fuel than flame as yet—Eleal huddled in as close as she could and shivered strenuously. Between the snapping of the twigs and the chattering of teeth all around her, she could not make out what was being said at all. The air smelled very strongly of wet people, but she was glad of the company. As the flames leaped higher and the heat penetrated, her bones began to thaw. It was then she realized that one of the men pressed against her was Dosh. His eyes shone in the firelight as he saw that she had noticed him.

  “Are you keeping watch on me?” she whispered angrily.

  He nodded and held a finger to his lips.

  She looked around. More and more people were trickling into the cave. Another fire had been lit nearby, and newcomers were led to that one now. The overall silence of such a crowd was quite eerie.

  D’ward had risen and was moving to another group. They cleared a boulder for him to sit on. Now he was closer, and she could hear better.

  “Well?” he said cheerfully. “No questions?”

  “I have a question, heretic!” The harsh voice came from a large man in a dark robe. Eleal would not have been sure of its color had she not recognized its wearer as one of the priests of Padlopan who had shared the wagon with her yesterday.

  D’ward’s voice was no softer. “You waste your life worshipping a false god of sickness! I doubt that mere words can penetrate so many years of wrongful thinking, but ask.”

  The priest rose to his feet, a massive dark shape against the dancing firelight. “You say you go to slay Death. Then tell us what happens after, when Death is dead! Shall we all live forever?”

  The Liberator sighed. “Whatever I answer, you will not believe. Come with us and see for yourself what happens. Who else has a question?”

  “I have not done,” the priest bellowed. “Nay, I have many other queries!” The reaction was a roar of fury from the audience. The priest was clearly shocked but undeterred; then D’ward said something sharply to him and he sank down out of sight.

  Eleal discovered she was on the verge of sniggering. She caught Dosh’s eye and saw he was grinning as if he had heard such exchanges before.

  The next query was inaudible.

  “Ah!” D’ward said. “Not everyone heard that. You, priest, have an excessively brazen voice. Repeat for these good people what the lady asked.”

  The priest did not rise, but he made himself heard. “Gladly, I will, gladly! The woman said her babe is dying and can the Liberator slay death in time to save it? Yes, answer that, Liberator!”

  D’ward did not reply for a long moment, and Roaring Cave was very silent. Only faint crackling from the fires disturbed the hush. Then he said, “Pass me this child.”

  Eleal rose up on her knees, hoping to see more, but there were too many bodies and boulders in the way and people behind her began hissing angrily until she sat down again. All she could make out was D’ward’s familiar face, framed in a narrow gap, lit from below against darkness. He looked up from whatever he had been doing.

  “There!” he said. “I think that will answer your question, mother, and answer yours, too, priest. The poor mite is hungry. Has anyone a scrap of food for a hungry child? Thank you, brother—a blessing upon you. And back to your mother with you, kitten.”

  Roaring Cave did not exactly roar, but a whirlwind of whispers seemed to sweep through it, and then some voices cried out, “A miracle!”

  Eleal looked around, and Dosh’s expression was as mocking as she had expected. “Like me?” she said. “He cures others? He does this all the time?”

  Dosh nodded. She cowered down low, thinking furiously.

  D’ward waited until the reaction died away. “It was a blessing from the Undivided upon our quest. Who else has a question?”

  He kept it up for more than an hour, moving around from fire to fire. In that time he apparently cured a woman’s paralyzed arm and another fevered child and gave a blind man back his sight. Sometimes he would laugh and joke, sometimes be solemn. Often his replies took the form of little stories that made a point but left no handhold for the priests wanting to contest it. He was unfailingly gracious to everyone except clerics, and to them he was scathingly rude. That was understandable, as they kept trying to trap him. None of them ever seemed to catch him out, although some of his answers were evasive, like the one he had given the priest of Padlopan.

  His mastery was amazing. Eleal had seen audiences held spellbound before, but never for so long and never by an extemporaneous performance, for obviously D’ward was following no script. His progress would eventually bring him to her fire, and she waited with trembling anxiety lest he break off and go elsewhere.

  By the time he arrived, dusk was falling beyond the great arch of the entrance—and not just dusk, for the rain had turned to snow. People squirmed out of the way to make a place for him. Instead of sitting, he remained standing, his arms folded. She remembered the time he had played Gunuu in The Tragedy of Trastos. Then he had not worn a robe, only a loincloth, and the magic of firelight had made him shine like the god he portrayed. Oh, what a triumph that had been! A lump arose in her throat, and she trembled with a fierce longing to jump up and throw her arms around him.

  He glanced at her without expression, then looked around the group. “Who asks here?”

  An old man beside him cried out in the loud, flat tones of the deaf. “There is a storm coming! My bones know it! My bones always tell me when there’s bad weather coming. Will you lead us onward again tomorrow, young man, or stay here and wait it out, mm?” It was a good question. He looked even older than Piol, and he was wearing no more than the legal minimum. At a guess he was just a beggar who had joined the Free for the food.

  D’ward shrugged. “We’re warm here now, there’s fuel in the woods, water in the stream, meat walking in our direction—why run to meet tomorrow’s troubles?”

  “Because I don’t have many tomorrows left, young man! That’s why!”

  D’ward laughed gleefully and reached over to clap the man’s bony shoulder. “You have all eternity to look forward to, grandfather! But if your bones are telling us the truth, then I think we’ll have to wait out the storm. You’re not the only one without proper clothing. I don’t want to see anyone freeze. Now, if we have any rich people here who would like to contribute money or spare clothes to the Free, that would be a very meritorious deed in the eyes of the Undivided.”

  He glanced over the group as if looking for another question, but it seemed to Eleal that his eyes momentarily flashed sapphire at her. Could he know about her money belt? She must have more wealth to hand than anyone else in the cave. She would not let D’ward have that money to foster his blasphemies!

  But if she did, would he forget his unfair suspicions? Would he accept that she only wanted to be his friend now?

  Would he even give her a hug, just one brief hug, to say that he knew he could trust her?

  “May I ask?” The voice was that of Piol Poet, who had somehow become separated from her and was now on the far side of the fire. “I fear it may be an impertinent question, master.”

  D’ward chuckled. “But coming from you it will be an astute one, old friend. Ask.”

  “You teach things that are not written in any scripture. By whose authority do you speak?”

  The Liberator’s dark eyebrows rose very high. He lifted his head to address his answer to the whole cave. “Piol Poet asks by what authority I speak. Oh, Piol, Piol, do you really put so much trust in books? You know how often a scribe will make mistakes when copying a text. You know that even the original was written by mortal hand, for gods do not stoop to writing their own scriptures. Is it not better to hear the words of the teacher at firsthand than at innumerable repeats? My authority comes from the One True God, who sent me.”

  Several voices began to speak at once. D’ward nodded at the loudest, a burly, sullen-looking man who had been sitting with his arm around a girl no older than Eleal. Perhaps she was the only rea
son he was here, for his manner did not seem at all respectful.

  “You claim to be the Liberator foretold in the Filoby Testament. But according to the Testament, the Liberator was born less than five years ago. How then can you be the Liberator?”

  D’ward did not take offense, although several of the listeners growled angrily. “That is not what the Testament said about me, and I can call a witness to what did happen. Eleal Singer is here, the Eleal prophesied, the Eleal who fulfilled that prophecy. Rise, Eleal, and tell the people what you saw.”

  Eleal had almost forgotten what stage fright felt like, for she had not experienced it since she was a child. Now she cringed away in shock, staring aghast at D’ward’s twinkling blue eyes. She could not follow an act like that!

  Dosh pinched her. “Up with you! Give them the performance of your life, Singer. But keep your clothes on.”

  She slapped him away angrily.

  Then D’ward smiled at her. She had forgotten his smiles. The beard hadn’t changed their impact. She rose unwillingly to her feet.

  “Come and bear witness,” he said. “Up here! Excuse us, grandfather.”

  He meant her to stand on the flat rock the old man was now vacating. She held out a hand so he could help her up, but he ignored it. Then Dosh gripped her waist and lifted her onto the makeshift podium. A great cavern, full of twinkling fires, bright now against the evening…innumerable intent faces. She had never performed before an audience this size before, and she did not have her lines memorized. Piol had not even written her part yet. The pounding of her heart seemed to fill the cave; something was building a nest in her stomach.

  “Begin at the beginning,” D’ward said below her. “Like you told Dosh.” He smiled again.

  She turned to the audience and drew a deep breath. “My name is Eleal Singer.” She heard her voice echo back satisfactorily from the rocks. “Five years ago, I came to Narshvale with a troupe of strolling players. Innocent child that I was, I never dreamed that evil forces conspired to slay me, nor that I was destined to play a starring role on the stage of history….”

  After that it was easy. She told everything, or almost everything. She did not describe D’ward’s hasty departure from Suss, but she included the first miracle, when he had cured Dolm Actor of his curse, and the miracle yesterday that had cured her leg. By the time she had finished, the sky outside was black. She expected an ovation, for she was sure that it had been the finest performance of her life. She was greeted by a numbing silence. Well, no matter! People did not applaud in a temple, and today this cave was a temple. Silence itself was appreciation; the cave was very still. Not a cough. She had preached for the heretic. She had no regrets—although she wondered what her father thought of her now.

  She spun around on her podium, planning to jump down into D’ward’s arms for a little hug and a whispered congratulation, perhaps even a quick kiss.

  But D’ward had gone.

  43

  As Eleal Singer began working up a serious sweat in her highly dramatized version of The Coming of the Liberator, D’ward nodded to Dosh to follow him and slipped away from the little group around the fire. Unnoticed by the intently listening pilgrims, he moved off into the dark. Doing the same was not quite so easy for a man loaded like a turtle with Prat’han’s great shield, but Dosh accepted the challenge.

  He reached the toe of the rockfall first. D’ward arrived, then turned around to look for his missing follower. Like an unusually silent shadow, Dosh stepped in close behind him and whispered, “Master?”

  D’ward jumped rewardingly and then laughed. “You trying to frighten me to death?” In the faint glimmer from the many fires, his face was hardly more than a blur, but he was smiling, and if anyone’s smile could glow in the dark, it would be his. “You know this cave?”

  “Best lodgings in the Vales, for the price.”

  “True. So you know the little hollow back there?”

  Dosh nodded. “It’s called the Fleapit.”

  “Probably well deserved. I asked Kilpian to get a fire going. Try and keep everyone except friends and shield-bearers away, will you?”

  Oh, blazes! The cave was fifty strides wide, and although the main path over the rockfall was well defined, there were other low spots. Dosh had spent days exploring Roaring Cave in his youth, for it was a favorite Tinkerfolk campsite. He knew six or seven passable routes to the Fleapit. Dusk was falling, but with so many fires burning, the cavern would not be truly dark. Intruders could manage the barrier without a torch if they took it slowly.

  He sighed. “You always give me the tough ones!”

  “I do,” D’ward said solemnly. “That’s partly because I can rely on you to tackle them better than anyone else. It’s also because I know you like getting the tough ones.” He grinned again. “Don’t you?”

  “No!” But then Dosh realized that he did enjoy the unfamiliar sensation of being trusted, which was probably the same thing. “Well, maybe. I suppose I do.” He hadn’t really known that, but it was true. Not for the first time, he wondered if the Liberator knew him better than he knew himself. “I’ll see you’re not disturbed, master.”

  D’ward squeezed his shoulder. “Good man. You never let me down, Dosh.” He faded away into the gloom.

  Dosh stood for a moment, savoring those final words. Never let him down! How good that felt! And how strange that he should think so—he, Dosh Envoy, who had never before cared for anything except carnal pleasure, the kinkier the better. Some miracles were less obvious than others…. Then he heaved Prat’han’s shield straight on his shoulders, adjusted the (horribly light) money bag on his belt, and set off to locate some helpers.

  He enlisted shield-bearers Tielan and Gastik, two friends, and also three Niolian youngsters he’d picked out earlier as promising recruits. Then he found Tittrag Mason, a new shield-bearer who was big enough to move the whole rockfall single-handed.

  He posted them in pairs to cover the most likely paths over the pile. None of them was very happy at the prospect, thinking of reapers.

  “Don’t worry about them,” he said. “A reaper can go by without being seen if he wants to, and in this case he won’t want to leave bodies around to raise the alarm, right? The same thing’s true of Eltiana cultists or Blood-and-Hammer thugs, or any other assassins the evil sorcerers may send against D’ward. Don’t worry about them, because they won’t worry about you, and you can’t do anything about them anyway. If they do turn up, D’ward will deal with them. Your job is strictly pest control. Be polite and understanding, but firm. If you have any trouble, shout for me. I’ll be going up and down the line.”

  Pest control. Some people just had to speak to the Liberator personally, to explain their problems, the gods’ truth, or his mistakes. D’ward dealt with most of those during the day, but that sort could never understand that he might have more important business to attend to, such as sleeping. The worst pests by far were the priests. There were dozens of priests around now, every one of them determined to stamp out his heresy.

  Dosh began patrolling back and forth across the toe of the rockfall, keeping both eyes wide open, watching anyone who headed deeper into the cave and also watching his helpers. He was annoyed to discover how easily he could work his way past them without their seeing him. He was a very good sneak, of course, after a lifetime’s practice, but others might be just as good.

  There was too much cover, too many people in the cave, too little light. Even if he had the fuel to build a chain of fires from one wall to the other, there would still be too many shadows. The job D’ward had given him this time wasn’t just tough, it was an eyelash short of impossible.

  44

  “Crikey!” Jumbo said. “For a native, she’s quite a performer!” He was sitting near a smoky little fire at the far side of Roaring Cave, leaning his arms on his knees and looking as totally relaxed as if he were watching a cricket match on a village green.

  Alice refrained from comment. He was referring to
the famous Miss Eleal, who had certainly grown up from the child Edward had described in 1917. She had grown out, too, in conspicuous places.

  Riding a dragon had been a very strange experience, but this cave was stranger yet. Never would Alice have believed that her next meeting with her cousin would take place in such grotesque surroundings. When she came in, she had known his voice at once, even reverberating in that huge, echoing space, even speaking whatever dialect that was. He had not been speaking in tongues, as Zath had, yet she had often been able to catch the gist of his words. Later she had seen him in the distance. He had not changed a bit, except that now he had a beard. It did not suit him, but it might be required wear for the unlikely career he had chosen. He was obviously doing very well in it. Hundreds of people were grouped around dozens of twinkling fires under a blue haze of wood smoke. It all looked rather like one of Uncle Roly’s more lurid descriptions of Hell, except that no one was screaming or suffering. Quite the reverse—this cavern was a node, and the virtuality added an unnerving aura of holiness to the proceedings. She had been tempted to stand up and shout, “He’s only Edward! I knew him when he picked his nose and woke up crying from nightmares.”

  She hadn’t, of course. Nobody would have understood her anyway. But it was definitely an odd feeling to have a holy man in the family.

  A woman with a shield on her back was shouting over the rising buzz of conversation.

  “Now what’s going on?” Alice demanded.

  “She says,” Jumbo drawled, “that the train on platform four is the express to Pontefract and Llandudno.”

  “I shall ask my cousin to turn you into a pillar of salt.”

  “Actually she said that there’s food coming, that the ladies’ room is over that way and the gentlemen’s that way, and could she have some volunteers to fetch firewood?”

  “Go ahead and volunteer,” Alice said. “Shouldn’t we be checking on the dragons, anyway? Suppose somebody steals them?”