David Farland - Beyond the Gate

“Why, that’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard!” Orick said.

“One’s flesh is often a disguise,” the Bock countered. “On your home world, did you not often meet others whose thoughts and actions seemed strange to you-so strange as to be incomprehensible?”

Orick considered the blackguards who had tried to frame Gallen. Orick couldn’t quite understand how someone would go to so much work to destroy another. It just wasn’t in his nature, and on that count, Orick had to agree. Outwardly, men looked the same, but on the insides they could be strangers.

Maggie, Gallen, Ceravanne, and the giant Rougaire came back at that moment, and Orick said in glee, “Did you hear that, Gallen? The Bock says I’m human!”

“Well”-Gallen shrugged-”I’ve always known you were a better man than me, Orick, but I wish you would do something about that excess body hair.”

Orick chuckled, but Ceravanne said quite seriously, as if she were offended, “Do not take the Bock’s word lightly, Orick. For five hundred years, this one has been a Lord Judge in the City of Life. A million times he has judged the subspecies of peoples who came before him. In many ways, this Bock knows you better than you know yourselves. If he has proclaimed you human, then he is granting you legal rights and protections. This is a great boon, though you may not know it.”

“Well, thank you, then,” Orick said to the Bock.

Ceravanne turned to the Bock and said softly, “You know a human when you meet it. So, what do you think of Gallen O’Day?”

The Bock blinked and looked at her from the comers of his eyes.

“I approved the bear, Orick, as human. Not Gallen. As for Maggie, I cannot make a determination, since I have spoken with her so little,” the Bock admitted.

“And why do you not think that Gallen is human?” Ceravanne pushed him.

“I sense within him … a struggle. He desires to become more than what he is.”

“So perhaps he is only a human with high aspirations?” Ceravanne countered.

“Perhaps,” the Bock agreed. “I suspect that his are a strong-willed people, with only minor genetic upgrades, very close to feral humans in temperament. I could name him human,” the Bock said, “but I am loath to place him so low on the scale of sentient life.”

Ceravanne laughed daintily and half lowered her eyes, as if at a private joke. “I suspect you are right,” she said to the Bock. “To be a Lord Protector, one would have to be more than human.” She lowered the flame on the lamp, then with the giant in tow made her way to the other room.

Orick lay tasting the scent of cobwebs and thinking of the spiders spinning their webs above his head. He was unable to sleep for a long time.

The next morning, Orick woke to the cries of gulls and the smell of sea fog, a salty tang that seeped through every crack in the floor boards and clung to every fold of the blankets. Rougaire the giant had roused the others, and they grabbed their belongings then made a quick breakfast of bread and cheese from Ceravanne’s pack.

Gallen and Maggie sat alone and talked for a moment by the door with the giant, while Ceravanne had gone to the back room with the Bock.

Orick went to tell them that breakfast was ready, and what he saw surprised him: Ceravanne and the Bock stood in the dim light shining through a small window, and Ceravanne was holding the Bock’s long fingers, looking down at them, like a shy lover.

Orick stopped in the shadows of a crate, and the Bock said, “Are you sure you want to go with them? They killed so easily last night.”

“I too am horrified by their violence, but what can I do?” Ceravanne asked.

The Bock thought a moment. “For three hundred years you have studied with the Bock, learning the ways of peace. You are more one of us than you are of them.”

“Three hundred years.…” Ceravanne echoed. “It is time I return to my people, and teach them the ways of peace. If I can.” Orick wondered at the words “my people.” Was she saying that the nonhumans of Babel were her people?

“We are our bodies,” the Bock said. “I fear that you cannot teach peace to these creatures. And I fear that the violence you must endure in their presence will maim you. Should that happen, do not hesitate to seek us out. In the woods, in the high mountain glens, you can find peace with the Bock.”

Ceravanne had been holding the Bock’s hand, and suddenly she bent forward and kissed it. “Three hundred years among the Bock-passed all too quickly … I often wish to see the world as you do. I often wish that I could be you.”

Suddenly the Bock’s face twisted into a mask of profound regret, and he reached out his long fingers to stroke her hair, cradle her head in his hand. “We are our bodies, with all their hopes and dreams, all their limitations. But you, Ceravanne, even among the Tharrin-you are special.…” The Bock wailed in its own tongue, “Assuah n sentavah, avhala mehall-” and Ceravanne stepped back as if astonished at this.

“I love you, too,” Ceravanne said. “As much as I have ever loved.”

The Bock reached up to its head and fumbled among the green leaves at its crown, then plucked something loose and held it out for Ceravanne. It looked like a small greenish-tan nut, something that Orick hadn’t noticed before among its foliage.

“You are going away, and I may never see you again. Should you need a Bock, plant this seed, and in time I will be with you once again.”

Ceravanne took the seed gratefully, held it close to her chest as if it were precious. The Bock reached out his long fingers, cradled them around her hair so that she looked as if she were caught in the bushes, and then the Bock leaned forward. His face overshadowed hers, and he kissed her softly on the lips.

Ceravanne wept.

Orick sneaked back to Gallen and Maggie, unwilling to tear the Bock and the Tharrin away from each other. In moments, Ceravanne came out of the back room and placed the seed in her pack, then ate a brief breakfast.

When she finished, she hugged the giant Rougaire and said, “You can see us off at the dock, but afterward I need you to go to the City of Life. Tell the Immortals there that the Lord Protector has come, and that we have gone to confront the Inhuman. If our task is not accomplished by mid-winter, they will have to prepare for war in the spring.”

The giant nodded, and they made one last quick search of the room.

Ceravanne wrapped her hair back with a red rag, then pulled her hood forward low over her eyes. She got some soot from a corner, dusted it on her cheeks and under her eyes, making her look worn and wasted. Obviously, she was assuming a disguise.

“Won’t people recognize you as a Tharrin?” Gallen said.

“Most people alive today on this world have never seen a Tharrin,” Ceravanne said. “And so I tell them that I am a Domorian dancing girl. They look much like the Tharrin. But few people ever even question me about my race. I wear a young body, and children are often ignored, invisible.”

She pulled her hood up, affected a slumped posture, a slightly altered body language that somehow completed her disguise. Orick was amazed at the transformation.

Then they hurried out of the warehouse into the streets, and crept to the docks in a dawn fog so thick that they could not see a dozen paces ahead.

It felt good to be on the road again with Gallen and Maggie and a Tharrin, and Orick was somehow eager for action, so he was disappointed when they reached the docks without incident and were able to quickly purchase berths on the second ship they found heading toward Babel.

Because of the thick fog, they had to take the purser’s word as to the seaworthiness of the ship; he described it as a lofty five-masted clipper-a worthy ship whose wood held no worm, a ship that could outrun pirates.