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Stop it
!
The creature s eyes pulsed in and out of sight. The upper elbows
of its wings trembled.
Suddenly each wing parted from the body, and in an eyeblink, each was
transformed into a new Throg. Now three
Throgs gazed down at her. The voice boomed again, but confusingly,
like several voices not quite in rhythm, reverberating over one another: 
YOUUUU LIIIIVE
. 
I-I-I-I-S-S-S-S-S THISSS ONNNE OF YOUUU
?
 WHAAAT
IISSS IT
? 
DO-O-O YOULIIIIVE
?
 What? Claudi shook her head.  I don t know what you re talking about! She
gazed up at
Sheki, now frozen and unmoving. Beside her, Lopo was growling softly; Baako
was trembling with fear.  Why don t you just let us go? Claudi choked,
struggling not to cry.  We didn t ask to fight.

FIIIIIGHT
? 
FIIIGHT
?
 What do you call it?

WEEEEE SEEEEEK-K-K
  
LIIIIIFE
  
LIIIFE
  
YOUUU WOUUULD-D STOP USSS
!
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Claudi stared at the Throgs in bewilderment. Her head was spinning, filling
with jabbering voices not Human. Blindly she yanked a tissue out of her pocket
and blew her nose. She didn t understand any of this. Not the stupid Throgs;
not anything. As she stuffed the tissue back into her pocket, she felt
something crinkling in her mind, opening. It was her presence shifting past
all of those voices, drifting out on the moist wind that was blowing through
her mind. The air around her seemed choked with confusion. Her frustration was
a vapor that coiled out of her breath and enveloped her.
A coarse wet tongue stroked her face, startling her. She gasped,
gagging in Lopo s warm breath. She hugged him fiercely and looked up. There
was a frightening gleam in the Throgs
eyes.

YOUUUUU LIIIIIVE   WOUUUUULD-D-D PROOOOVVVE   WOUUUULD
PROOOVVE ?  YOUUU LIIIIIVE?  YOU SAYYYY?  YOU LIVE
?
She stared up at them.  We live. So what? she spat.

SOOOO WHAAT-T-T?  SOOOO WHAAT-T-T?  SO WHAT
?
 Soooo whaaaat? she mimicked angrily. She was very tired of this, and she
just wanted to be at home with her mother, and to know that Lopo and Sheki and
everyone else was safe.

SOOOOOO &   WEEEEE WIIILL LLET-T-T YOUUU LIIIVE.  IFF YOUU LIIVE.  YOU
LIVE
.
She opened her mouth.

WE LET YOU LIVE
, the things repeated, in unison.  Just like that? she croaked.
 You mean you re going to let us go?

JUST-T-T LIK-K-K-E THAT-T-T.  YOUUUUU GO BAAACK.  IF   IF   IF
 The sky trembled again, interrupting them, but only for a moment. 
THISSSSS ONE
STAYYYYYY   THIS ONE STAY
.
The eyes of the Throgs pulsed down at her.
 What do you mean? Which one stay? She had a sickening feeling of dread.
Their voices became harsh and full of fury. 
THISSS   THISS   THISSSS ONE.
 THIS ONE STAYYYY
.
She looked up and saw a great gulf of blackness opening behind Sheki, and he
was being drawn backward into that blackness. Watson, flickering,
streaked after him. She saw, or imagined that she saw, his eyes
brightening with terror. With her greater presence she reached out a long arm
and touched him, and felt his terror, and reeled from it.
She opened her mouth to cry in protest, but only a whisper came out. 
No
!
But Sheki was already gone from sight.
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Interlude
There was such uncertainty and confusion now: conflicting tides and
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currents of understanding, of will. Did the dark ones think that the child
was holding them trapped? To what were they appealing to bargain, to deal?
It was so difficult to know what would work
what these strange and unfathomable beings would do if New carried their plan
their hope through
If Claudi can touch them
Dare we hope
?
Can we know
?
The Ganz/New, the Assassin/New, spoke out of his long silence. Is it not best
to destroy them, to let the captain of the ship destroy them? There may be no
need to know, or to touch
But the children whispered the Ruskin.
And if the captain fails?
If others come, how much more death?
 hissed the Ali Maksam.
 And if we fail, and the Throgs remain? It is madness, the risk
But the children what of the children?
 And what of the others?
The aspects of *Bright*/Ruskin/Ali Maksam/Ganz/and-more/New were too divided
to know what course was best; they could not reach and touch and protect as
their hearts yearned to do, but perhaps & just perhaps they could bring
illumination where there had been none&
Must sing
Claudi, you must believe and sing cried *Bright*
.
The dark ones do not know, young Claudi cannot know what they want, what they
seek
even the Throgs do not yet know, or agree.
From the shadowy veils of the Throgs, the strange ones who brought
such death and disruption, there was a resonance of disharmony, and
confusion of knowledge. And yet they had responded to song, echoed with
their own music that had amazed New with its power.
Responding to Claudi s song, they d produced
music tempo pattern
And feeling ?
 perhaps
Young Claudi and Sheki, so vulnerable, and the other from the ship, strong but
helpless &
and yet they must not run, they must stand and face the darkness, and make it
know they are real, they live
Must face those who destroy without mercy
but do they know what they destroy?
Surely New could help, without driving the wedge of destruction deeper still
But
how
?
how
?
how
?
how
?
Help her sing
And trust
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And believe
And hope
Is all I/we can do.
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Chapter 30
Through a continuous haze of pain, the face of the young girl
appeared like a spirit or a hallucination; it appeared with
tantalizing clarity, then vanished without a trace, leaving just the
pain.
The pain! How he felk d the pain!
For Roti, the world had become a state of nothing except pain. He didn t
know where he was, or why, or what they wanted, they who had brought him
into this place. He knew only that they were aware of him, that they had
no idea how to understand him. He had felk d their lack of understanding,
their discord and disagreement among themselves. He had felk d those things as
a variation, a tremor in the pain.
But now it was changing. He had felk d the girl.
How
, he didn t know, or why. Or where she was, or why. But she existed, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]