Beholder's Eye

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Next followed a long, dreary day, if day it was and not some trickery with the lights meant to exhaust the Human's resources. Ragem refused to play the game, burying his head and sleeping most of the time. I amused myself by ambushing the small multilegged creatures attracted to the spilled food. Thwump. I trapped a particularly large specimen under my paw and transferred it to my mouth, chewing thoughtfully as I gazed up at the light. Quite nutritious, I decided, if a shade acid in flavor.

  By nature and training, I thought in terms of survival. The room was cold enough that I could release energy quite steadily, making it easier to hold this form. I decided only water was going to be a problem, should I live long enough. I took advantage of Ragem's rest to stick a long tongue into the jug held in the curl of his arm. The taste made me sneeze—it was some kind of wine and bitter for all it was watered down. I lapped up a bit regardless.

  Eventually the lights did go out again, marking a period of time I'm sure the Human hadn't expected to survive. The abrupt blackness made me blink, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Before they did, I felt Ragem's arms go about me to hold tightly, his face buried in the fur of my shoulder.

  I had never been hugged before, and tolerated the awkward embrace for Ragem's sake. Still, I found it a strangely comforting gesture. "Thanks for the food, Human," I said to him quietly, pondering how to proceed.

  My voice brought Ragem back from his collapse. He rose from his knees and moved away from me. I couldn't see him, but a splash and muttered comment marked when he stepped in the food scraps on his way back to the bench. "I'll ask for water, next," a hoarse promise. So he was also compelled to think of survival.

  It seemed unreasonable.

  "Confronting the guards is pointless," I said, climbing up beside him, keeping my own voice low. "I can last much longer than you can without water—and while I enjoy food, I don't need to eat as often as you to survive."

  "Huntress, what am I surviving for?"

  I couldn't answer that; the Human wasn't a fool, after all. I heard him drink some of the wine and refused his offer to share the rest. He finished it. "Are you giving up, then?" I asked his silhouette.

  It stung, which was my intention. "As you said, Huntress," he retorted defensively, "the Protark need only produce my dead body in order to convince my ship to leave."

  It was unfortunate that I had worse tidings to share, having spent much of my own time in thought. "You are assuming the Protark intends to let your ship leave. Do you believe he does, Human?" I asked him, keeping my tone level.

  "What are you saying?" Ragem demanded, alarmed.

  "Quietly!" I cautioned him. When I felt his body lose its rigidity, I continued. "From what you've told me, the Kraosians have already stopped three other ships from leaving their world. Why should they release yours? No. I think the Protark plans to move against your ship." With you or your corpse as bait, I added to myself.

  Silence, then a sudden violent movement as he drove a fist into his other hand. "There's nothing I can do," Ragem said finally, to himself rather than to me. "Kearn will be in command. He has experience—"

  "You of all beings should know better than to underestimate this culture, Specialist," I reminded him. "Treachery can strip the most advanced defenses. What if the Protark says that you have become ill? That he fears the ship has brought a disease to his world and insists on a medical team? That kind of excuse could open your air lock, make your starship vulnerable to the weapons of this planet." I paused for effect. "You mustn't be used as a key—you must warn your crewmates."

  A short, bitter laugh from my invisible companion. "Huntress, now you demand the impossible. I'm no security tech to overpower the guards and whisk us through the walls of this place. I respect your own courage—and teeth—but how far could those take us before we were recaptured or shot? This is no vid tale. We are helpless." Despair and anger shook his voice. "Let's hope you're wrong. I have friends dearer to me than my own life on the Rigus. And there's nothing I can do to help them except pray they leave me behind."

  I was tempted to howl. Of course I had known all along that I would be forced into this situation; known but refused to admit it until now. Ragem's death at the hands of the Kraosians was something I would truly regret, but could have accepted. His chosen role on this world included being at risk. I could not accept the destruction of the innocent sapients on board his ship. Which meant he would have to warn them, and I would have to ensure he had the opportunity. Beyond that, I promised Ersh in my thoughts, beyond that I won't go. I tried not to think of the rules already badly bent, in light of the one I now planned to break entirely.

  "I have not been completely honest with you, Specialist Ragem," I announced briskly, almost relieved to have the decision to act made.

  "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

  Jumping onto the floor, I tried to compose myself. It wouldn't help matters to lose control of the cycle—the light and sound of an explosion would traumatize Ragem as well as bring back the Kraosians. "I am not actually Lanivarian, as you assumed. I am—of a rather different species."

  "Be ready to move quickly, Human," I continued. "In a moment, the door will open and you must overpower any waiting guards—no matter what else you see." He didn't reply, doubtless considering the state of my sanity and possibly starting to believe the sausages had been contaminated with some drug.

  Focusing on what was needful, and blocking out the worrisome sense of having company, albeit a safely blind observer given the darkness in the cell, I scanned my memory for my best choice. There were constraints, as always. Environments had to be matched; more importantly, I had to carefully judge web-mass so I could return immediately to the form he knew, hopefully without being observed. There.

  The process was lightning-swift—it was such a relief to let go of the molecular energy I'd stored holding this shape's integrity so long. I flickered in and out of web-form to my new shape so quickly Ragem might not have been able to detect the intermediate change even if the lights were on. Just as well. The thought of exposing my true form to an alien was enough to make me nauseous.

  But no time to linger. I glanced at the Human, vividly self-illuminated to my new perceptions—now ranging along a much broader spectrum than mere visible light. He looked perplexed, one hand halted in midmotion as if he had begun to reach for me and suddenly changed his mind. His other hand held the empty jug; as a weapon, it had the virtue of availability if nothing else. It was as well the room was still dark—for his sake as well as mine.

  I flowed to the door and began the process of oozing my tissues through its cracks and niches. My lower section traveled fastest, finding clear passage between floor and wood. Then I was out. I excised the taste of grime, oil, and damp wood from my body, creating an amorphous stencil of my base upon the floor. The corridor was empty of life. Better than I had hoped. I freed myself from form again, then condensed once more, cycling back to what I had been.

  "The keys were outside," I said quickly to Ragem as I opened the door, watching him blink owlishly in the corridor's light and register the absence of a guard with definite relief. To forestall the questions filling his eyes with wonder, I ran ahead—again four-footed and furred. "This way, quickly!"

  I didn't bother telling Ragem the door had been the easy part.

  * * *

  7: River Morning, Caravan Afternoon

  « ^ »

  RAGEM and I moved through silent corridors, each length measured by barred doors that guarded cells empty of all but ghosts. Either there was little need for prisons in Suddmusal, or we had been allotted a remarkably large portion of this one to ourselves. I leaned toward the second explanation. Theerlic wanted word of the alien in his prison to spread no farther than his own control could silence.

  "I thought we came this way," Ragem objected, slowing as we passed an intersecting hall.

  I growled in my throat and continued to lead the way at the most rapid pace he could sustain, choosing any corrid
or slanting upward. The Human was right, but there was nothing to be gained by running back to the escort who had brought us here. Aha, I thought, finding what I was after. I stopped below a dark rectangle in the ceiling of the hallway, staring up into a square chimneylike structure, its opening marked by dim stars. The older portion of Suddmusal was full of such skylights, predictably open for ventilation during the hot season. This was our exit.

  Ragem stood beside me, assessing my selection. "I would have said it was morning," he commented absently.

  "It will be all too soon," I murmured, flicking my ears back and forth to listen for pursuit, thinking of the spies above our cell. "Can you climb up?" There were small indentations set into the stone, offering passage to the top. The width was narrow and the steps shallow.

  Ragem pulled off the hide boots he had been forced to wear in place of his own offworld footwear. His feet looked sore, toes red from the narrow-tipped Kraosian footwear. "I can if you can," he promised.

  "I'll go first, then," I said, rearing to stand erect and flexing my long front toes. It no longer mattered if we were being watched as long as we could reach the open air. Indeed, their shock at my actions could mean the edge on a sniper, a priceless extra second to act. I jumped for the metal rim, usually a convenience for securing a ladder rather than the grasp of fingers, boosted in that effort by Ragem's hands. The Human was athletic enough—or desperate enough—to run and jump to the rim himself once I'd cleared it.

  Halfway up—Ersh, the thing went higher than it looked—I clung to the stone for a moment to gather my breath, arms and legs shaking violently from a use they had never evolved to perform. Ragem paused, too. I listened to his steady, deeper breathing and drew strength from it. "Not far, Ragem," I panted. "Be ready. They could be waiting."

  A calm voice floated up. "May I know your name, Huntress?"

  I was surprised enough to look down in a futile attempt to see him. "Esen-alit-Quar," I said. "Esen is better. Es in a hurry."

  The Human didn't comment on it being a very non-Lanivarian name. My birth-mother had been feeling particularly poetic at the time of my arrival. "Good Hunting, Esen-alit-Quar," he said formally and rather finally. He knew what would await us above, or so he thought.

  "Fair Skies to you, Paul Ragem," I responded to his grim courtesy. Then I drew a breath before I scrabbled under and past the protruding edge of the cover glass to stand on the roof.

  I dove behind the pitiful shelter of a wood pile as a warning blast crackled over my head. Things began happening with the jolting clarity of battle. Ragem lunged past me, scattering our shelter to ruins in a glorious berserker rage, yelling his dead captain's name. The experienced Kraosians calmly waited until the Human was close to their line and then pounced. He was immediately in the grip of several soldiers, struggling and kicking like the madman he sounded.

  Nothing was ever easy, I thought with disgust. I stood erect, on two feet, not four. There was a deadly and sudden cessation of movement, save for Ragem's private war, as I so pronounced myself to be something totally different from what they knew. There may have been twenty troops with us on this rooftop—not one seemed to even breathe.

  Ragem took advantage of their shock to fight free, lurching in the direction I presumed he thought led to escape—at least there was only one row of ensorcelled enemy before him rather than three—calling hoarsely for me to follow. Unfortunately, he presented a target the soldiers could comprehend. Streaks of fire licked toward him.

  Somehow, barely in time, Ragem dodged. Others were less agile: one soldier lay screaming, missing an arm and shoulder; his neighbor was reduced to a torso. But between them now lay an opened passage, clear for only as long as it would take the horrified Kraosians to collect themselves.

  I saw my chance, accepting the responsibility of explaining all to Ersh—if I could—at some hopefully distant time from now. There were no alternatives anyway.

  I lunged for the body of the dead Kraosian, cycling into web-form at the same instant. It was the work of a heartbeat to convert his still-living cells into my own mass. Barely enough. I ignored the screaming of those Kraosians who saw.

  Meanwhile Ragem had tripped and was trying to get up again to run. I cycled even as I grabbed him tightly, using my momentum to drive us both over the edge of the roof.

  More screams, perceived as higher-pitched through the ears I now possessed and fading away rapidly as we dropped below the building's upper level. No time to feel contrite over any nightmares my behavior was sowing behind me.

  My takeoff, not really suicide as the poor Human likely judged it, was awkward and labored; with fine irony, it would have killed us both had the building not formed part of the city's outer wall. As it was, I plummeted almost to the damp, heaving crests of the Jesrith before some lift began to slow our fall, in so doing threatening to pull my outstretched wings from their sockets. Ragem helped as best he could, clinging tightly to my underside with both arms and legs, keeping his weight centered and firm. In spite of his self-disparaging remarks during our imprisonment, the Human was proving reassuringly adept at survival.

  I had just enough airspeed to begin to circle toward the road into the mountains. Ragem said something I couldn't hear over the wind, then actually risked releasing one hand to point urgently in another direction, toward the pink of the rising sun. I accepted the correction, though less than pleased to be taken along the flat valley plain. This form depended on wind or, better yet, curls of rising air. Over the night-cooled valley, we would be on foot almost immediately, a consequence I couldn't easily debate with my passenger.

  The blunt-topped buildings of Suddmusal were still too distinct when I knew I had reached my limit, tilting my head to scan the rapidly approaching ground for some soft landing strip. The view was of a plain of baked-hard clay and thorn bushes in every direction, split into two equal parts by the white, arrow-straight road that led from the city to the lowlands beyond the mountains. The Jesrith, subdued by these dry and level surroundings, was a sullen line of brown meandering to the south.

  I shrugged—mentally, of course—and aimed for the water. I felt Regam's hands tighten spasmodically. What a pity if he couldn't swim, after all this, I thought, curving my wings to exchange speed for precious extra lift—a difficult task with his additional weight. It would be a rough landing.

  The Human let go seconds before I was about to strike the water. Relieved, I cycled in midair, flowing through web-form to my next choice as Ragem hit the water. The small amount of mass I'd needed to shed clung to me as drops of moisture, a donation to the river as I dropped into the water slightly downstream from where Ragem's dark head surfaced.

  The river was by no means tamed yet, but its swift current was little more than a convenience to the slim blackness I had become. It was a form I hadn't used since I was very young and Ansky had taken me touring the waterways of Lycorein. For a moment, I daydreamed, exploring memories.

  Guiltily, I brought my attention back to the present, turning my nose upstream to search for the much less aquatic shape of my companion. Once more I was pleasantly surprised. Ragem bobbed along the surface of the Jesrith, safely lodged among the branches of some floating debris. I raised a foot so finely webbed as to seem made of water itself to my forehead in salute as he spotted me, then dove. For now at least, the Jesrith would carry us.

  And carry us it did for much of that morning. I lazed along, feeding well upon a variety of small agile fish, and keeping a watch on Ragem. He was tiring, the hot sun beginning to take its toll on his unprotected head and body, but stayed alert to the appearance of my snout nearby. The current slowed gradually, grudgingly.

  After a while, Ragem's makeshift raft sighed neatly against an undercut bank, twirled once, then ground a firm bed in the washed stone. Ragem took advantage of a confusion of similarly lodged tree trunks and debris, climbing this temporary ladder to the shore.

  I kept underwater as I cycled, using up the last of my excess mass in the change.
It seemed the least of my worries what form I chose, but I stayed with the one we were both used to. Then I dripped out of the river to follow Ragem.

  He found a spot on the bank where shrubs larger than most curved overhead to provide welcome shade and shelter. We had been lucky; I felt my body tremble with reaction and shook water from my fur instead.

  Ragem moved forward as if in a dream, reaching a slow hand to touch the soft vulnerable skin along my throat. With him so close, I could only use one eye to see him, and tilted my head to better do so. Then he chirruped a complex sound. If I could have smiled, I would have. Vain Human, so proud of his knowledge, even now. "This form has trouble with the language of the skyfolk," I apologized in comspeak. "And, yes, it was a lousy landing."

  Ragem's wide mouth curved up in a completely new way, and he began to laugh. I realized this was the first happy sound I had heard from him. It gave me the most peculiar feeling, almost as though I'd done something worthy of Ersh's favor—which I knew couldn't be right. "At least it washed off that stink," he gasped, when once more able to speak. True. Though dripping wet, he did look and smell much better. "The Rigus lies behind that peak. My ship," he added unnecessarily and with undisguised longing.

  I turned my head to follow his outstretched arm. A full day's travel at least and, as I squinted at the hot white sun glinting against the mountains, a day sure to have more of the searing heat that kept the native population sensibly indoors. "No problem," I yawned, dropping to all fours. I lay down, putting my chin on my paws and stretching out my back legs to let the sand warm my belly.

  Ragem looked affronted and confused. "What are you doing?"

  "Getting some rest. You could use a bit yourself, Human," I added kindly. "Sit down!" This more firmly as he showed definite signs of preparing to leave our shelter. "There's no cover past this point, either from our pursuers or from the sun. We must wait."