David Farland - Beyond the Gate

“I am not worried that they will be injured or killed,” Ceravanne said. “I’m worried that they will be infected by the Inhuman.”

“Infected?”

“The Inhuman sends agents-small creatures-to burrow into their victims from the back of the neck, and then the creature infects its host with the Inhuman’s propaganda, downloading information into the victim’s brain. Those who have recently been infected will bear a scar at the base of the neck.”

Ceravanne went to a large barrel, used a match to light a single candle, then set it on the barrel. She sat down cross-legged at the base of it, and motes of dust rose up, floated in the light.

“I asked the rebellion to send someone I could trust. Can I trust you?” she asked.

Gallen stared into the child’s eyes, and his heart felt as if it would melt. He had forgotten how powerful the scent of a Tharrin woman could be, had forgotten how the pheromones she exuded could tug at his sanity. One look at her frail, perfect figure, and he wanted only to fall to his knees, pledge his fealty. And because she was Tharrin, because she was bred to rule in kindness, he could see no reason not to do so. Yet Gallen remembered the deadly rose in its glass last night, someone warning him against trusting the beautiful Tharrin? He stood aloof from her. “Of course you can trust me.”

“You are new to our world,” Ceravanne said. “I forget my manners. Is there anything you need? Food, drink?”

“No,” Gallen said.

“I suppose you have questions?”

“Your friend, the Bock-he said that you Tharrin worship him. Is this true?”

“Worship?” The question seemed to make her nervous. She shook her head and looked away a bit guiltily. “I’m afraid he does not understand all of the nuances of our language. I revere him, certainly. I respect him, seek to emulate him. He is my teacher, and I love him as a friend.…Perhaps ‘worship’ is close to the right word.” She looked at him squarely. “I do not worship him any more than you worship the Tharrin, I suspect. Do you worship the Tharrin?”

Gallen puzzled at the question. In many ways, he almost did. He found that when he was in their presence, he could not help but serve them faithfully. He admired them. He had loved the Lady Everynne. Still … “No,” Gallen said. “I do not trust them completely. I have learned that despite all appearances, we are not the same species.”

Ceravanne smiled wryly at that. “In some ways, I trust the Bock completely. He is a man of peace, who can do no harm. But it seems that I cannot trust him to fetch a Lord Protector to me, without botching the job.”

Gallen changed the subject. “Why does the Inhuman want you?”

“I’m Tharrin,” Ceravanne answered. “And therefore am born to lead. The Inhuman may want me as a leader.”

“I am surprised,” Gallen admitted. “With the dronon gone from this world, I would have thought you would be a Lord Judge, wearing a mantle.”

“No,” Ceravanne said. “The human lords in the City of Life act as judges on this world, not me. I act as a counselor to them only-should they seek my counsel. I have not held much power for the past several centuries. Still, I am the last of the Tharrin here, and so the Inhuman seeks to control me.

“Beyond that, what I can tell you about the Inhuman is mostly guesses.

“We began to hear rumors of it three years ago. At first it was only one or two odd reports, borne from the interior of Babel by nonhumans who came with wild tales. The lands there are very rugged and backward, and we imagined that it was only some new religion. But when our leaders sought to send scouts to the area, the dronon opposed us. Among the Rebellion, there was some talk of sending our own scouts in secret, but we erred-we ignored the rumors for the moment, and concentrated instead on fighting the dronon.

“So the Inhuman seemed to grow slowly, until last year. Among the peoples of Babel, there is a race called the Tekkar, a brilliant people, engineered to live on a brutal world so hot that men can only safely move about at night. They have purple eyes that see in the dark, and they are themselves stealthy and dark. Within weeks, all the tribes of Tekkar were converted, and then they began to attack their neighbors by night, converting those they could, slaying those who opposed them.”

Gallen said slowly, “The Bock showed me some of the peoples who live here, and he warned that some were more powerful, more vicious than humans. Yet I wonder: the Tharrin are peaceful people-why would you create such beings?”

“Once again, you overestimate my influence,” Ceravanne said. “The human lords in the City of Life choose which races to create, which attributes are needed for those who will inhabit other worlds. Some of the beings they’ve created were designed before the Tharrin were born. Others I see as abominations that should never have been formed. Still, I have long sought to maintain peace between our various races.”

“You were telling me about the Inhuman?” Gallen said.

“Yes. It was about a year ago that the Inhuman sent its first scouts to the City of Life, where I had been in hiding from the dronon for many years. The agents of the Inhuman tried to abduct me, but I resisted to the death, and my faithful followers downloaded my memories into a new clone.

“Then sailing ships began arriving from Babel, ships filled with refugees, and they warned us of the darkness growing in the land of Moree. Only then did we begin to recognize the true size of the danger, but we could not mount an attack against the Inhuman. The dronon still ruled here, and they refused our pleas. At first, we thought they were only refusing to take sides in a local squabble, so we sent out scouts then, in secret. Even I went with that first scouting party, but most of our people were killed, and those who survived returned as Inhuman converts who betrayed the Rebellion by pointing out our operatives. Some small bands of our people went to war secretly then, but they were no match for the Inhuman.

“Then three months ago it became apparent that the dronon were openly siding with the Inhuman. They put a marching hive city in each of our ports so that we could not mount an offensive. We could not defeat the dronon’s aircraft and walking fortresses with spears and swords.

“And so we began to lose hope. We thought we would all be consumed-until a few days ago, when the dronon left our worlds. And suddenly our hope is reborn!”

“And what is the Inhuman’s cause?” Gallen asked.

“It was created for the purpose of convincing mankind that our species can coexist peacefully-as subjects within the dronon Empire.”

“So the dronon created the Inhuman?”

Ceravanne frowned. “Not exactly. It is beyond their technology-in some ways, it is beyond ours. Here on Tremonthin, we have adopted a simple way of life. Nearly all technology is proscribed, except that which is used in the service of extending life. In the City of Life we download memories into clones, perform our great work of adapting mankind to fit within alien ecosystems. Because it is our sole technological export, our life-enhancing technologies are among the best in the galaxy. The dronon incorporated our technologies into the Inhuman. Some of our scientists aided them. We found the perpetrators, and those who aided them willingly have already been dealt with. The rest are working to undo the damage.”

“You say that the dronon helped create the Inhuman,” Gallen said. “What is the Inhuman?”

“The dronon saw that with the thousands of subspecies of mankind living on this world, it was the perfect place to experiment, learn which breeds might most easily integrate into their society.

“So they made an artificial intelligence that stores the memories of dronon technicians, along with those of nonhumans from our southern continent.