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CHAPTER FOURTEEN,

wherein Benadek is rescued
from himself.

It becomes difficult to regard this account as "myth." Even holy Grandfather—myth within myth—is shorn of his supernatural aura. He could be a cracked pot instead of an ancestral calvarium. The computers themselves have ceased to "believe" in magic, and report only the tangible and prosaic.
But second-guessing biocybernetic minds has its own perils. Take Achibol's statement that Benadek might be "the last of his kind" (in this context, the sole ancestor of modern humanity). While lending credence to the one-world theory on one hand and adding suspense to the narrative on the other, the notion itself seems preposterous.
Even dedicated one-worlders do not claim that the whole human gene pool sprang from the unimpressive loins of one lone individual whose futile striving for reproductive success gives the tale comic relief.
What tenuous but immutable logic has forced the biocybes to retain this? Is the answer buried in the dim past, or within the tumorlike memories of the computers themselves? It is as inaccessible as a trip to yesterday or the heart of a star. We can only trust that logical bonds do exist, and hope that further "feedings" of newly unearthed myths will add to the tale.
On a hundred worlds, scholars delve in ancient archives for more legends, "food for thought" for the biocybes, but progress is slow. Future input will only be found in village temple attics, in translations of Karbic medicine-runes, Emboth rock writings, and oral histories narrated by shamans on backwater worlds.
A thousand scholars would be too few—and scholars must eat, must buy oil for the crude lamps that light their way through ancient passageways and illumine their notetaking by peasant firesides. They must buy, often with their savings, baubles and trinkets for their informants.
Another volume like this depends not only on their dedication, but on your generosity. Have you enjoyed this as much as a night in a synthisense pavilion, an afternoon excursion to your family burial plot? Your sacrifice of one ephemeral pleasure might make a crucial difference—for who knows from what source revelation may come? Perhaps from a hungry myth collector debating whether to miss one more meal to buy a fresh holocorder powerpack, or from a reluctant medicine-priest whose lips are loosened by the sight of glassite beads on a string . . .
(Saphooth, Project Director)

Teress found Sylfie's body. Maintaining control of her emotions lest stress and sickness bring on the change, she awakened Achibol. They brought the frail remains on deck. At that moment, Benadek's absence registered on the old man's recovering brain.

They scoured the boat for a note or other indication of his whereabouts. Teress noticed that the rag she had used to cool Sylfie's fevers was not where she had left it. From that small clue they guessed with surprising accuracy what had transpired while they had lain in fevered sleep.

"We must find him. He'll change, and won't be able to stop."

It might do him good, Teress thought cruelly. He would make a fine flying toad, or a . . . Aloud, she said "Can't we wait? He'll come back sooner or later—I did."

"The boy holds no monopoly on arrogance," Achibol growled. "Had I not come for you, you'd be yowling, eating guts, and pissing from trees. You'd have remained half-cat until some hunter killed you." He paused for breath, and bridled his anger. "Benadek's ability to change, like Dispucket's, is far beyond yours. Untrained, he'll become so different we'll never know him, nor he us. As you became physically half-cat, your mind changed. Wasn't your father's last kill a cat? I saw its rotting hide on the curing-frame."

Teress nodded. "It was fresh in my mind."

"What will Benadek become? A fish? A songtoad? A great lizard, most likely. He'll complete the physical change, and the mental one. He'll be a lizard, with no human mind to bring him back."

Teress felt sorry for the old man. He, at least, would miss Benadek. "The swamp goes on forever—how will we find him?"

"I'll ask Grandfather," the sorcerer said mysteriously. "Help me drag my trunk up here."

Had fever affected the old man's brain? The trunk? Achibol motioned her to sit, and drew forth . . . Grandfather.

Their helpmate was a brown, misshapen skull, and a matching heavy jawbone with no chin. Teress knew little anatomy, but those bones would not have fit beneath the skin of anyone she knew. The low cranium bulged rearward where normal heads were flat. It was flat above the eyebrows, where ordinary foreheads rose, and had a heavy ridge over the eye sockets. Its owner must have been remarkably ugly.

Achibol lifted the calvarium from its resting place, closed the trunk, and set his burden on it, facing him. "Grandfather," Achibol addressed it, "I need your help."

<Light, boy!> the skull replied, its words hollow as the ancient cranium. <A candle! These old eyes see but dimly by the light of such a feeble moon.> The sun was shining.

"Of course, Grandfather. A candle, Teress." She went along with the charade, and snatched one from the running light nearest her. Achibol lit it with a flourish, a trick the pure-human had tried without success to fathom. "Careful, girl," he cautioned. "Drip no wax on Grandfather's fine old gourd. Have you no respect for the old, the infirm?" Placing a gnarled hand alongside his mouth, he addressed her in a conspiratorial aside: "In his day, the sun and moon were as big as apples, not these small, dim coins we see—or so he claims." The sun seemed ordinarily bright to Teress.

"He's a bit deaf, too," Achibol whispered, "deafened by cannon at the battle of Shiloh." Teress had been exposed to Achibol's tricks from early childhood. She raised a quizzical eyebrow and awaited his further whimsy, not long in coming.

"Grandfather! Old fellow, are you awake?" Aside, to Teress, he said, "It's hard to tell, isn't it? If he had eyelids . . ." Grandfather said nothing. "It's Umry's boy Achibol, Gramps. Wake up, won't you? I have a question."

Teress grew impatient. "Why all the hoko-tonko? It's only an old bone."

"An old bone? This is my ancestor, my most ancient relation. Those eyesockets have gazed upon times beyond imagining. Tell her, Grandpa," he pleaded.

<Cold and damp,> the skull echoed. <Long-dead flowers' crushed petals graced my grave-pit. I lay bound and ochered, my spirit trapped by those mortal remains.>

"Wake up, old gourd, you're not in your grave. This is the future, and I'm your grandson Achibol. You remember me, Achibol."

<Who sneezes?> the skull asked, annoyed. <Who keeps sneezing? What passes, here?>

"Time passes, Grandsire. Awaken and aid me."

<Awake, I am, and cruel it is. This is neither my grave nor my snug glass showcase. Has the museum been robbed? Am I in thieves' hands?>

"There are no thieves. I am Achibol."

<A sneeze! I heard it again. Achoo! Achoo! Ah! That silly name. I remember you now. You're Archie Scribner, Umry's brat. Runny nose, sniffles, sneezes. What do you want, boy?> The skull sounded petulant. Teress barely suppressed a giggle. Achibol glared fiercely at her. <My back hurts,> Grandfather complained. <You're supposed to oil it, and rub it for me.>

"You have no back anymore, Grandfather." How young Achibol sounded. How incongruous the voice of a small boy piping from between ancient, shrivelled lips. It was as funny as hearing his voice coming from . . . Grandfather. It was hard not to laugh aloud. "There's been only your poor old squash for . . . oh, it's been centuries. Don't you remember the fire? When you lost your last remaining femur? I barely saved what you have left now, and a few finger-bones."

<Ah! I knew it! I knew you took those fingers. Sold them to those priests. Don't think I don't know whose fingers you claimed they were, either.>

"Enough, Grandpa. I need to find a lost boy."

<Lost? Achibol, you say? Young Umry's son? Are you lost, boy?>

"Not me, old bone. Benadek, my apprentice, is lost." To Teress, Achibol whispered "I hate it when he's like this. He's not really senile, just mean and stubborn. I'll never be like that when I'm his age." That time, Teress did laugh out loud. Achibol's glare silenced her.

<Well, what then?> Grandfather sputtered petulantly. <If you can't just ask, then put me back in my box. Drafts! I hate drafts.> The candle flame danced momentarily and the sail cover's light fabric fluttered ever so slightly. <Archie? How can I find this apprentice if you play silly games? Get me a map.>

Achibol gestured briskly to the girl, then toward the companionway and the chart rack. "Quickly! Before he forgets." Teress found the fabric map, and unfolded it next to the skull. "Hold it where he can see it," the mage said. "No, never mind." He turned Grandfather instead, and held a finger to the chart. "We're here, Grandfather. Where is he?"

<Of course we're here, Archie. Where else would we be? If we were there, then there would be here. The boy's south and west of us. There's a sandy spot, and trees, and open water . . . >

"Trees are everywhere. Be more specific."

<Bossy, impudent child! South first, then west. Yes, like that.> Achibol's eyes narrowed as if a scene were painted on his eyelids. His finger moved a tiny distance.

<Further west. No, not so far. He's a boy, not a fish? Then he hasn't gone that far.> Again, the sorcerer's long, brown finger moved a short distance. <There! A lovely beach of soft, white sand. He lies asleep. But wait! A boy, you said? A green boy? And that snout! He's not yours, Archie. Not with that long nose.>

"Tell me more," Achibol demanded in a quiet, deadly tone.

<What's to tell? You're here, he's there. You know how to find him. Now put me back in the box. This air is damp as my grave.>

"Grandfather?" Achibol prompted. He waited without reward. "It's no use," he told Teress. "I hate it when he's stubborn. It would be easier if he still had flesh to pinch." His words might have been intended to be funny, but they fell flat on Teress's ears. "Ah, well," he said as he lifted the trunk lid, "we know how to find Benadek . . . But what we'll find . . . "

Teress remained silent. Such absurd showmanship was best confined to a magic show, or performed with a small girl on his lap. The matter at hand was far too serious for mummery. She became more comfortable moments later when Achibol stood, all business again, and issued directions to ready the boat.

Unable to bury Sylfie among the tangled roots and watery muck, they laid her remains at the base of a large tree and covered them with brush. Neither cried or said words over her. Soon Achibol was wielding the pole with steady hands, snaking them along the winding, narrow waterway, away from Sylfie's grave.

He does know where Benadek is, Teress realized. But how? Surely not because that old headbone told him. But he's carried it with him all this time. Could it serve some real purpose? She would ask him later, and not accept any of his nonsense for an answer.

They came to open water about mid-afternoon, and raised mast and sail. The sun was hot, the sky unrelieved by a single cloud, and they were soon moving at a good clip. Achibol's hands were easy on sheet and tiller, and he seemed unconcerned about snags or sandbars, so she gratefully let her fever-weakened mind and body slip into sleep.

 

Once, while Teress slept, Achibol luffed the sail and drifted for a quarter hour. He lifted the ancient skull from his trunk, and held it in front of him, staring into its empty orbits, seeing within those shadowed holes . . . what? It was a short interlude, and after a brief perusal of the map, the sorcerer put the skull away. He worked the craft back into the wind and sailed straight until the sky reddened in the west, then steered toward the edge of the open water, which only in places warranted being called "shore." He raised both leeboards and coasted onto a muddy beach.

"Is this it?" Teress asked sleepily. "Where is he?"

"Not yet. This is no sandy beach, but clay—and slippery. Watch your step. We've sailed to the far side of this lake, but we've been blown further along than I'd have wished. In the morning the wind will shift, and we'll sail directly to him. At any rate, it will get dark soon, and the wind's dying."

"Will we be too late?"

"Possibly. But we mustn't give up."

They slept on the boat, mostly free of mud-bred insects. Teress asked questions about Grandfather, but Achibol dismissed them unanswered. "Later, girl. That seeking is the only true magic I know, and I can't explain it. Even discussing it, I might begin to doubt—and there's no time for that."

In the morning, after a skimpy breakfast of soggy crackers, they set sail again. The wind alternated between the port forequarter and abeam, so they were either close-hauled or reaching all the time. Teress liked it best when the sail was sheeted in tightly and the hull leaned against the rushing water. Then, it seemed they would reach their destination in no time. She did not ponder her eagerness to find Benadek; perhaps it was only the contagion of Achibol's desire, but whenever the wind shifted and the mage eased out the sail, she fidgeted. The easy wallowing motion of a beam reach seemed to get them nowhere, and she urged Achibol to make them go faster.

"We're moving toward our destination faster now than when we were close to the wind," he explained, "though with less splashing and rushing. Our speed before was an illusion, a better one than I could ever create. See! There's the beach. Take the helm, and I'll guide us closer." Their speed fell off as he climbed the mast and guided Teress with gestures. From the height of his vantage he saw that the shore they approached was more apparent than real. The gritty strand was an old sandbar that divided clear water from swamp. "He's close. I can feel it. Slack the sail and run us up on the sand—there."

After they beached, everything seemed quieter, but Teress realized they'd only traded one kind of sound for another. Beyond the brush that divided the sandy side of the bar from the swamp rose all the croaking, squeaking, and chittering they'd left behind for the brief day's sail. The heat and humidity of the morass struck her with greater force than before.

"Listen," Achibol bade her. "Do you hear it?" Teress heard only the gruntings of beasts, the sunset chattering of smaller creatures. "There. That one. That's no beast." It was possible, she admitted, that the groaning of one beast was a few tones higher than the others, that it resembled—ever so slightly—human agony, but without Achibol she would never have singled it out.

They pushed through tangled willow-brush, following the sound, seeing nothing but leaves, stems, and the sky overhead. As Teress broke through the final barrier, there was a hissing, grunting moan almost at her feet. She backed up, stumbling on springy willows. Achibol's words paralyzed her further: "That's him. That's Benadek."

It was once Benadek, perhaps, though she could not accept it. Though she too had known the change, she had seldom seen herself then, or been conscious of her murky reflected image as she drank. Somehow, she pictured herself as still human during that period, though she knew it had not been so. What she saw now was not human.

The lizard lay half-submerged in swamp water turned opaque with its exudations. Only its stubby snout, its back, and its bowed front legs were exposed. Its clawed feet might once have been hands—they still had five digits, though the outermost ones were tiny and useless. It reeked. The stink of carrion, ammonia, and vinegar inundated her. Scent-memory, primeval and intense, threatened to drag her back to the last time she had smelled it—as she had changed.

She forced herself to focus not on her fear but on the thing sprawled before her. Its skin was mottled yellow-green and brown, nubbed and bumpy, crusted with drying residue of the change. Its eyes, even by dusky light, were black slits with yellow irises. Milky nictitating membranes flickered up-down-up. Wrinkled lids drooped and then opened wide, as if they disbelieved what they saw. She looked in vain for intelligence in those eyes. "We're too late, aren't we?"

"I don't know. Here, help me pull him out of the water."

Teress bent to grasp a rough, reptilian limb. "It's . . . he's so heavy!"

"Yes. Better this than lost mass, though. He's absorbed nutrients from the muck. He'll need them if . . . when he changes again." Achibol knelt beside the lumpy shape. Teress observed that its legs were more human than the rest of it, though drawn up in cramped rigor near its ribs.

"Ah, boy, what have I brought you to?" the sorcerer moaned. "Can you understand me? Do you remember words?"

The thing that had been Benadek opened its mouth in a laborious, foul-smelling hiss. "Good! Excellent! Then listen well. You must remember you are a boy, a man. You are Benadek, my apprentice, who walks on two legs. Do you remember?" There was no response from the distorted lizard. Achibol's face twisted in despair. Teress shrugged sympathetically.

"Benadek, Benadek, you must try, you must remember yourself in order to . . ." Achibol murmured on and on, reminding the inert beast of all that he had been, describing the boy Benadek over and over, remembering detail after detail and recounting each aloud. But there was no response. The lizard might have been dead but for the yellow gleam of its eyes.

Teress felt useless. She stared at the darkening ugliness of the swamp, swatting tiny night-flies more annoying than painful. She went back and forth between the far end of the strand and the place where Achibol knelt, crooning and murmuring without success.

"Shit!" Teress said aloud. "I must be crazy." Achibol raised his face to look at her. It was too dark to read her expression. "I'll try it for a while."

"You have no obligation to . . ."

"Just shut up," she said disgustedly. "I'll do it. You're not getting anywhere."

"That is so." He moved aside to make room for her.

"Leave me with him. Go on back to the boat and rest."

Reluctantly, the mage rose. Helplessly, with no spring in his step, he pushed aside the tangles and worked his way to the sandy side. He checked the line from the boat. He lowered the sail and wrapped it. After that, there was nothing to do. He tried to study the stars, but his eyes kept blurring.

He never knew how far he went up the beach, but he must have been gone for several hours. Feeling guilty at having left Teress so long, he pushed back along the path.

At first he saw nothing, then objects took on a dim, reddish glow—the same red glow that had illumined pursuing honches on the far side of Vilbursiton, when he had unthinkingly steered the murderous band to Teress's camp; the same glow that had lit the doors into temples' inner rooms, and the cave where Teress had lurked. By that odd light he saw Benadek as an indistinct crimson shadow. A reptile, he thought dejectedly. Not much heat in it at night. Teress, by contrast, was like a torch, glowing lava radiating intense heat.

The pure-human girl had removed her clothes, and was parading proudly, nakedly before the reptilian form. Achibol remained still, listening.

"You remember this, don't you?" Her voice dripped scorn. Achibol cringed, afraid that she would drive Benadek even further away. He cursed himself for underestimating the depth of her hatred for the boy. "Of course you remember," Teress snarled. "This is the very last thing you'd forget, isn't it?"

The reptile hissed. It grunted, and struggled to pull itself up on its malformed forelegs. "Oh, yes!" she spat. "You're still Benadek under that snake-skin. I'll bet you're really pissed, but you can't say a word. All this time you wanted me, and now here I am, and you can't do a thing! Just think about all the times you wished you could fuck me. What will you do now, if I get on top of you? Hiss at me? Bite me?" She laughed malignantly. Benadek let out a high-pitched hoot unlike any lizard sound. To Achibol, it did sound angry.

Teress, grown impatient with crooning and reminding Benadek what a nice boy he had once been, had tried a different tack, and . . . it seemed to be working. The boy was responding.

Achibol retreated, and paced back and forth in front of the boat, never more than a few steps from the path through the willows. He occasionally heard a loud hiss, and that strange, unlizardlike hooting.

 

The sun was coming up. Teress sat on the sand, still nude, and Benadek lay on his back, his head on her lap. He looked like a very dead lizard—his belly flaccid and white, his arms/forelegs lifeless, the baggy skin of his neck wrinkled and still. His snout seemed oddly different. Was he changing again? Achibol could not tell, but Teress seemed content. He could hear her crooning, though he could not make out her words. Too tired to pace further, the old man climbed back on the boat and stumbled below. He fell asleep on the narrow bunk where Sylfie had died.

 

"Master Achibol, come here!" Groaning, the mage swung his thin shanks over the edge of the bunk and wiped sweat from his eyes. Full, bright daylight glared through the companionway. How long had he slept? He pulled himself out of the cabin, dropped over the rail, and set off at a lope.

He found Teress washing Benadek with swamp water, which soaked into the sand beneath him, leaving a dark, odiferous stain. Her thighs and belly were smeared with the same stuff, but she did not seem to notice. Benadek looked horrible, though obviously almost human. His warty hide was scaling off like peeling sunburn, and underneath was pale pink skin. His eyes, alert and intelligent, were blue where they had been yellow, framed by a face that (though not recognizably the mage's apprentice) was unquestionably the same species.

"He's still changing, Master Achibol, but it was a mistake for me to remain with him so long. Look." She pointed to the juncture of Benadek's thighs. Achibol stared. Where crinkled reptilian skin had so recently been, the flesh had folded, forming a new structure. New, but not entirely unfamiliar to the old man. Not entirely.

"At least she's human," he said with the faintest hint of a chuckle. "I wonder if she'll be as pretty as you?"

Teress frowned. "Can't you do something?"

"You, of all people, should see the irony of it, Teress. What could be more humbling for the boy?" As her frown intensified, he hurriedly assured her that he would try. "He may be patterning himself on you or, considering his new blue eyes, on his memories of Sylfie. If the latter, my presence will make little difference. We'll have to see. Either would be preferable to another Achibol." He knelt next to the silent figure and whispered in its ear. Teress, utterly exhausted, stiff from hours kneeling and sitting with Benadek, stretched out on the sand and fell immediately asleep.

Thus went the day, with Achibol and Teress alternately talking to Benadek, forcing him to respond first with gestures and grunts, then finally with words. Once small, perfect breasts formed on his chest—a grotesque parody of femininity, because Benadek had already reformed his genitalia on Achibol's impressive scale. "You must be a man," Teress whispered. "I want you to have a smooth, hard chest. Then you can have me, if you want. Be a man for me." Achibol snorted, his skin darkening in what may have been a blush. Teress glared at him.

"Sylfie," Benadek muttered.

"I'm not Sylfie," she replied. "I'm Teress."

"Sylfie," Benadek persisted, "Sylfie's dead. I . . . my fault. Better I died."

"Sylfie wanted you to live. She said she wanted us to . . . to be . . ."

"Benadek," Achibol interrupted, "Sylfie asked Teress to take her place when she was gone. She loved you, and wanted you to go on. She expected it. You must, for her."

"Teress?" Benadek said softly. "You? Sylfie?"

Understanding what he was trying to say, she nodded. "You must become Benadek again, for Sylfie and me."

"Yes," he agreed, "Benadek. Me." His eyelids drooped.

Achibol squeezed his shoulder. "Have you stabilized, boy? Do you dare sleep now?"

Benadek blinked. His eyes and his face were entirely human. He had no hair yet, but his next words assured Achibol and Teress that he soon would: "I can sleep. The . . . change will continue."

"I'll bring blankets from the boat," Achibol said. "Then we can all rest."

"You knew!" Teress accused the mage when he returned. "How could you know?"

"I guessed," the oldster half-admitted. "It wasn't hard, knowing Sylfie—and you. You came to care very much for her, and she loved Benadek, for all his faults. How could you have refused her?"

 

Achibol and Teress alternated watching Benadek through dusk and darkness. When morning came, they lit a small fire on the sand and brewed tea. The strong aroma aroused Benadek, who sat up, and then stood. Achibol and Teress both stared at his nude form. He was taller than Achibol, more mature than before, with broad shoulders and heavy bones, but thin to the point of emaciation. His hair stuck up straight and fuzzy, a dark bronze. He poured his own tea, then sat.

"Will you swim with me?" he asked Teress. "I promise not to sit on your clothes." She looked sharply at him, then grinned. She set down her cup and tossed off her blanket. Beneath it, she too was nude. "That's an easy promise to keep."

He grinned, and took her hand. Achibol rolled his eyeballs at both of them. They went through the brush to the fresher water near the boat, but returned sooner than the oldster expected, clean and pink from the cool water. There had been no time for more than swimming. Was he disappointed?

"Are you stabilized, boy?" he asked sharply. "Is that form enough to your liking for you to keep it a while?"

"For now," Benadek answered seriously, "but there'll be others later on."

"No hurry, you understand? I'm too old to be learning new faces all the time—and your last one . . . ach!" Benadek and Teress laughed. Achibol drank the last of the tea while the two young people readied the boat.

"You don't have to keep any promises you made when . . . during the change," Benadek told her. "I know what you said, when I needed it, but you don't have to."

Teress smiled. "Thank you. I'm glad you feel that way. No promises, then. But that doesn't mean you can't ask, sometime."

"I will," he said with a broad grin, "and I'm sorry for everything, before. I just didn't understand. All I'd ever known was poots. And you're not like a poot—you're more like a boy, in a way."

"A boy! I think I liked you better when you wanted to rape me! A boy?"

"I'm sorry! I can't say what I mean. I never knew anyone like you, that's all."

"Never mind," she replied with a shake of her head. "We're both learning things. We both acted as best we knew." A boy, indeed!

 

 

 

 

INTERLUDE

The Great School, Midicor IV

 

Kaledrin pushed himself from the terminal. "I'm glad you came for me. Do you understand where he's heading with this?"

"Saphooth? Not really," Abrovid admitted, "but he's obviously onto something everyone else is missing. I'd hoped you could explain it."

" `Another explanation for becoming besides convergence,' " Kaledrin quoted. "He's fishing, hoping someone else will come forth with an idea he's already had, that he's afraid to take responsibility for. He's awfully gentle on the one-world idea, but he can't be thinking of that—it's been too well discredited. If we toss out that, and convergence, what's left? What possible evolutionary mechanism?" Kaledrin entwined his eyestalks and his motile mouth-tendrils in a gesture of puzzled exasperation. "Hmmph. When is Chapter Fifteen expected, Ab? I'd like to see it before Saphooth has a chance to think about it."

"Too late," Abrovid said, holding up a second data-cube. "Here it is, along with his introduction to it—he already submitted them to the net."

 

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