Part 8 (1/2)

”Couldn't tell. Too far away. Looked like two alive, one dead.”

”Don't know who.” Lessandra sighed. ”Well, we'll know soon enough. Spread the word-tell everyone to gather here once the travelers are inside the canyon. I'll do the service then. I'll be inside meanwhile.” She muttered an invocation over the newly planted seeds, then hobbled to the open door of the two-story building adjacent to her garden.

The two surviving fighters rode their ealixes through the pa.s.s below the lookout point atop the broken back of the Abraian range. They followed the meandering arroyo that led into Sanctuary Canyon, but that was as far as the beasts could go. Surefooted as they were in open terrain, they were simply too bulky to clamber up steep slopes; so they were turned loose by their riders to join the small herd of perhaps two dozen animals grazing on the brambles and p.r.i.c.kle brush that grew along a desiccated stream bed. The tired trickle of water springing from a subterranean source was just enough to keep the ealixes alive.

Using a rough-weave blanket from the dead man's pack, the riders fas.h.i.+oned a sling in which to carry the 88 corpse up the switchback trail snaking to the top of the canyon bowl. By the time they reached the encampment, all three hundred residents were gathered in the natural amphitheater behind Lessandra's abode. Gouged out of the stone by prehistoric water flows, the theater had been enhanced by Sojourner masons, long since dead, who had cut curved benches into the mountainside. Mori and Glin waited near Lessandra as the pair of riders gently laid their burden on the ground, then pushed back their own hoods. It was Mori's first chance to see who had lived and who had died. The dead man was Bradsil. There was a scorched spot on his chest where he'd been shot, and his face was puffed and caked with blood. He had been beaten before they executed him. Mori was sorry that Bradsil had been killed, especially since he and his wife were expecting a baby. But she hadn't known him well.

And she was relieved to see that her father's friend Durren had come back in one piece. Durren had been one of Mori's surrogate parents, probably her favorite. She greeted him with a hug, then looked up into his weathered face, with the long scar down his left cheek. She had always been curious about how he got it, but she was afraid to ask. His whiskers sagged, matching the weariness in his heavy-lidded eyes.

The other survivor was a fighter not much older than Mori, and his eyes still displayed fire through the veil of his fatigue. ”They murdered him,” the younger man said fiercely.

Lessandra limped forward. There was no sound at all from the rest of the gathering. ”Did you find him, Mikken?”

The young fighter cradled his rifle like a beloved child and nodded. ”They murdered Bradsil and then threw his body where they knew we'd find him.”

Glin stepped forward. ”How many more, Lessandra?”

”As many as it takes,” said Lessandra with a flinty glare. ”As many as it takes to satisfy your hunger for vengeance against Ruer Stross? That's not enough of a reason anymore.”

”Who chose you to decide where the Hidden Hand points us?” ”No one-yet. But many of us question whether you can see where it points anymore.”

A reed-thin man with a gray beard came up alongside Glin. ”We proved we're willing to fight,” he said,. ”and our raids have gotten more daring. They know nothing is safe from us.

It's time to see if we've scared them into talking peace on our terms.”

”Jaminaw,” Lessandra said disdainfully, ”you're a fool. Durren, did you accomplish your mission?”

He nodded. ”The bomb went off as planned.

Someone from the stars.h.i.+p was there when it did, according to our agents inside.”

”How much damage did it cause?”

”Enough.”

Lessandra turned back to her critics. ”Then Bradsil didn't die for nothing. They accomplished what they set out to do.”

”But what will that accomplish?” Glin demanded.

Lessandra dismissed the retort with an imperious wave of her free hand. ”This isn't the time or place for an argument. We have a service to perform.”

She 90 limped over to face the others. ”In time of death and sorrow, it is our custom, as it has been since the old times, to tell of the garden. Our Mother World created a garden, and she herself was the garden, one and the same. She allowed us to live there, and she allowed those early people to flourish. But soon the people forgot their Mother's words and ways, and they turned to new ways, bad ways. The Mother World had no choice but to punish the people, and she sent them from the garden. We Sojourners know that only when all our people live by the Mother's word again will we be allowed to return to the garden where life first bloomed. When that happens, it will bloom again, and we shall be home, living in peace and plenty for all time.”

Lessandra scanned the faces of the people sitting on the stone benches, then cleared her throat. When she continued, her tone was strident. ”The government of this world violates everything we believe in. They are raping our Mother World. As long as they do so, we can never compromise.” She raised her hand and traced a circle in the air, then continued in a singsong: ”Lord of life, Lord of death, two halves of the same.

You are the master of all. You permit our sojourn in your garden-womb. Unless there is death, there can-not be life. Grant us peaceful renewal. Harvest our souls.”

She bowed her head for a few moments of quiet, then looked up and waved to a pregnant woman seated in the second row of benches. ”Kuri, come here.”

Bradsiff”s widow, Mori thought, and watched as Kuri approached Lessandra. For the first time she realized 91 Kuri couldn't be more than a year or two older than she was, and she wondered if she could be as stoic if her husband was killed. ”We confirm the circle of life,” Kuri whispered, her eyes dry and unseeing, as she repeated Lessandra's gesture. ”The circle and the cycle are all in life and time. There is no beginning and no ending, just the circle.”

Lessandra patted Kuri's bulging abdomen.

”You and your child are symbols of the circle, as are we all. Within that circle, we all share your loss.”

Kuri nodded numbly, then turned back the way she had come. At a signal from Lessandra, two burly young men picked up the blanket-wrapped body of Bradsil. ”Take our brother and commit him to the Cave of Remembrance,” she intoned.

Mori glanced at Glin and sensed her barely suppressed anger. When Kuri and the bearers were out of earshot, Glin exploded.

”That cave is overflowing with your dead bodies, Lessandral When will you come to your senses and stop this bloodshed?”

”When they give us back our world,” the other woman replied. Mori couldn't listen any longer.

Bad enough that there was bloodshed between the Sojourners and Stross, but for the Sojourners to fight among themselves .

She ran until she reached the ledge. From there she watched the ealix herd grazing calmly down in the crook of the canyon. She started when she felt a strong hand enclose her shoulder, but relaxed when she realized it was Durren. ”What's wrong?”

She shrugged, blinking back tears. ”I guess I'm just confused.”

”About what?”

”Whom to believe, what to believe ...”

”You believe what your father taught.”

”I'm not sure I even remember what my father taught. I certainly don't remember my father.”

She took a composing breath. ”He taught me to think. You taught me to act-to ride and shoot, to survive out there.” She nodded toward the dusk-shrouded desert. ”It's easier to believe in actions. Especially when everybody's thoughts collide.”

Durren smiled down at her. ”To tell you the truth, I always had a hard time understanding everything what your father said myself.”

She gave him a quizzical stare. ”You did?

But you were almost like brothers.”

”Even brothers don't always understand each other.

To Evain, everything was so complicated.”

”You loved him, didn't you?”

”Yes, I did. He was a good man. He believed in the right things, and he put his life on the line for them.”

”Would I have loved him if I'd known him?”

Durren nodded. ”I'm sure of it.”

They were quiet for a few moments, watching the tranquil ealixes down below. ”Durren, did you-was He winced briefly. ”Oh, Mori, don't ask me that.”