Robert Sawyer - Fossil Hunter

Afsan entered through the secondary doorway, an arch outlined with polished agate tiles, between the niches holding the statue of the hunter Katoon and that of the first-crafter, Jostark.

“Det-Bogkash?” Afsan called into the chamber. The name echoed off the stone walls.

A moment later, from the far side of the circular room, Priest Bogkash appeared. He entered through a hidden doorway, sculpted to look like part of the ornate bas-relief that covered the curving walls, a portal to his inner sanctum nestled between the statues of Mekt, hunter and original bloodpriest, and Detoon the Righteous, first member of the clergy.

“Permission to enter your territory?” called Afsan.

“ Hahat dan. ” said Bogkash, peering in Afsan’s direction. “Is that you, Sal-Afsan? I can barely see you in this light.”

“You still have me at an advantage,” said Afsan, teeth clicking in forced good humor as he stepped farther into the room. “Yes, it’s me.”

Bogkash closed the gap between them, but only slightly—a gesture of peace that did not arouse territoriality. “It’s rare to see the palace’s chief savant at the Hall of Worship.”

Afsan accepted the gibe stoically.

“You need perhaps some comforting?” offered Bogkash. “I heard, of course, about Haldan and Yabool. I didn’t know them well, but I understand they were friends of yours.”

“They were my children,” said Afsan simply.

“So it is said. Frankly, I don’t know what that means. I don’t understand these matters at all. But I do know what it is to lose a friend, and I take it, child or not, that Haldan and Yabool were indeed your friends.”

“Yes. Yes, they were.”

“Then accept my condolences. I’ve been to Prath for Haldan, and plan to make it out there again to say a prayer over Yabool’s body.”

“That would be most welcome,” said Afsan. “They had each taken both rites of passage, but, well, the circumstances of their deaths were not normal—”

“Oh, their acceptance into heaven is not in danger, Afsan, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. But, no, that’s not what’s worrying me, not exactly.”

“Well?” Bogkash said.

“I’ve come to ask you if you know anything about the disappearance of Mek-Maliden.”

“Afsan, I am a priest in the order of Detoon the Righteous. Maliden is a bloodpriest in the order of Mekt. These are entirely different categories of the ministry.”

“Maliden is imperial bloodpriest,” said Afsan, “and you are Master of the Faith, and, therefore, primary priest to the Emperor. Surely you and Maliden must have interacted often and known each other well.”

“Afsan, you were training to be an astrologer; that was a science. Do you therefore automatically know Pas-Harnal, a metallurgist who lives in this city? He is a scientist, too. All holy people no more make up a single community than do all savants.”

“In point of fact, I do know Harnal, although not well.” Afsan’s tail swished. “Surely you must know something of the bloodpriest?”

“Yes, of course, I know Maliden, but we rarely had contact, and no, I do not know where he’s gone, although I must say that if I had done what he is accused of—tampering with imperial succession—I’d have left town, too.”

“We have reason to suspect that Maliden has not left town.”

“What? Why?”

In the flickering light, Afsan couldn’t avoid a direct question. “We think he may have had something to do with the murders.”

Bogkash’s teeth clicked derisively. “Maliden? A murderer? Afsan, first, he’s very, very old. Second, he’s gentle to a fault.”

“Well,” said Afsan, “I’m open to other suggestions. Do you know anything that might help identify the killer or killers? Anything you might have learned in your professional capacity?”

There was a moment’s silence. Perhaps Bogkash was thinking. “Why, no, Afsan, not a thing.”

Pal-Cadool moved out of the shadows.

“He’s lying.”

Suddenly the priest wheeled, his white robe flowing around him, claws glinting in the wan torchlight. “What is this impudence?” said Bogkash.

“Forgive me,” said Afsan, “but my associate says you are not telling the truth.”

“I am. He’s the one who is lying.”

“Cadool would not lie to me.”

“Cadool, is it? A butcher? You take the word of a butcher over a priest?”

“Cadool is no longer a butcher. He is my assistant. And I take his word over anyone’s.”

“But I’m telling the truth,” said Bogkash.

“You thought to lie to me,” said Afsan simply. “A blind person can’t see if you are lying. But Cadool is my eyes in these matters. Now, I ask you again, do you have any knowledge of the death of my daughter and my son?”

Bogkash looked at Afsan, then Cadool. “Surely what happens here, in the Hall of Worship, is private.”

“Is it? Whenever I had to do penance here as an apprentice, your predecessor, Det-Yenalb, would later discuss it with my master, Tak-Saleed.”

“Saleed and Yenalb died ages ago. You must have been just child then.”

“Shy of my first hunt. That makes a difference?”

“Well, of course.”

“Haldan is—was—little older now than I was then. She’d only taken her pilgrimage three kilodays ago. And Yabool, of course, was the same age as Haldan.” A pause. “Regardless, I have imperial authority for this investigation.” Afsan had no need of a document bearing Dybo’s cartouche to assert this; his muzzle declared that the stated authority was genuine. “Answer my questions.”

Bogkash appeared to consider. At last he said, “About Haldan and Yabool, I know little. But another of your children—the one who works on the docks…”

“Drawtood.”

“Yes, Drawtood. He has been here often of late, walking the sinner’s march, circling the Hall over and over again.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

“An unburdening of guilt must be freely offered. I note which individuals enter and leave the Hall at times other than normal services, but I don’t normally engage them in conversation. Even here, the rules of territoriality apply most of the time.”

“But you know nothing about Haldan or Yabool, only Drawtood?”

“That’s right.”

“Why bring it up, then?” asked Afsan. “What’s he got to do with them?”

Bogkash shrugged. “You tell me.”

The surveying of the polar cap required sailing right around it. Fortunately it was quite small, so its circumnavigation only took a few dekadays.

Still, sailing east meant that the Dasheter was soon on the side of the world that looked upon the Face of God.

Everybody aboard had seen the Face at least once, when they took their pilgrimage voyage at the passage into adulthood. But the spectacle from here at the bottom of the world was shockingly different from the one they had beheld in equatorial waters.

At the equator, the Face went through phases from top to bottom. Here it waxed from side to side. On pilgrimage voyages, the yellow and brown and white bands of cloud striped the Face vertically. Here they roiled across it horizontally. When seen from warm waters, the Face was squished so that it appeared taller than it was wide. Here, in the Antarctic, it was oblate, apparently compressed vertically.

It all made sense when one looked at that newest of fads—a globe of the world—for a Quintaglio standing at the south pole was indeed perpendicular to one at the equator, therefore rotating the frame of reference through a quarter of a circle. Indeed, after seeing the Face both ways—waxing like a winking eye at the latitudes of Land; waning like a rounded door down here at the southern ice cap—one could no longer doubt that the world was indeed a sphere.