F. Wilson - The Tery

This was Jon the tery's trial by combat into the human race.

"That's not necessary, Jon. You —"

"I am going, Tlad." Again, that note of finality. "Tell me what to find."

"If you go at all, you're going to have to go twice," Dalt said, then waited for the expected effect.

Jon remained impassive. "Then I shall go twice. But tell me why. I was to find the cache and bring back sufficient weapons for the Talents to — "

"There will be no weapons for the Talents," Dalt said. "I fear the weapons will harm the psi-folk as much as they'll help them. The arms in the cache will give them too much power; they may even lead to the rise of another type of Mekk…a worse type…one with the Talent."

A nightmare scenario had been running through his brain. He saw the Talents overthrowing Mekk with their newfound energy weapons; he saw them executing Mekk's troopers and the True Shape priests. All well and good, all to be expected. But then he saw them eliminating all followers of the True Shape religion as well as all supporters of the Extermination Decree. And after that, all those who hadn't actively opposed the decree. And on and on until only Talents remained.

"You do not trust Rab?" Jon said.

"Rab is a good man. But I don't know if his character — or anybody else's — can withstand the corrosive effect of absolute power. And even if he proves to be a match for it, he will not be the only leader the Talents ever have. The cache must be destroyed."

Jon made no comment; he merely locked his eyes with Dalt's.

"Do you trust me?" Dalt asked finally.

"I would be dead if not for you."

"That doesn't mean I'm right and that doesn't mean you should trust me. It only means I — "

"I trust you," Jon said softly, his voice echoing in the tiny chamber.

"Good," Dalt said in a low voice. "Because I trust you, too. I believe in you."

In the dust on the floor of the chamber he drew a picture of the explosive device he wanted Jon to procure from the cache: ovoid in shape, small enough to fit comfortably in the tery's hand, and powerful enough to set off a chain reaction among the other weapons hidden there. From the inventory described in Dalt's transcript, enough explosive power was stored in the cache to make a shambles of Mekk's fortress above, permanently ending his petty empire of fear.

The device had a timer that could be set only by hand — no capacity for detonation by remote control, unfortunately — and the procedure was too complex for someone who had never handled a timer before. That was why the tery would have to make two trips: The first to bring it back to Dalt for the time-setting; the second to return it to the cache.

"And the Hole dwellers? What happens to them?" Jon asked.

"This entire cavern will collapse. Their misery will be over, along with Mekk's rule."

The tery considered this in silence.

"I think that's for the best," Dalt said. "Don't you?"

"Can we decide this for them?"

The question rattled Dalt for a moment. He had not expected his ethics to be questioned by a forest-dwelling savage like Jon.

But then, why not? Jon killed, but only in defense or out of hunger. And he killed one to one, looking his victims in the eyes. Why wouldn't he question the killing of thousands of creatures who were locked away and posed no threat to him?

Why didn't I question it? Dalt thought, uneasily.

"Jon, if you can see another way, tell me."

"I trust you, Tlad."

That seemed to be enough for Jon, but those four words were dead weight on Dalt's shoulders.

Dalt then showed him how to work the combination studs. Jon would find an identical set on the door to the cache. He drilled him until he had the sequence firmly committed to memory.

After a final run through of the description of the device and the combination, Dalt leaned back.

"That's all I can do for you. A door identical to this outer one here is imbedded in a wall of rock adjacent to the central pool. Head straight out from here and you should find it. And keep moving!"

He turned the wheel until he’d fully retracted the bars on the inner door, then he stepped out to the window to make sure all was clear. Returning to the chamber he grasped Jon's huge right hand in his own.

"Good luck, brother."

Jon growled something unintelligible, then together they pulled the door open. Dank, sour, fetid air poured over them as the tery leaped through and began to run. Dalt pushed the door closed and turned the wheel until the bars just overlapped the edge of the door — just enough to keep some Hole dweller from lumbering through by accident, but not enough to cause any significant delay when Jon returned.

Then he went to the window and watched. And waited.

The stench.

Jon hadn't been prepared for the stench.

It struck him like a blow. The odors of rotting flesh, stale urine, and fresh feces assaulted his acutely perceptive olfactory senses as soon as the door opened. But above all was the unmistakable scent of kill-or-be-killed tension. It saturated the air, permeated the walls.

He moved straight out from the door and entered a winding passage that curved left, then right. The palm of his right hand was sweaty where it gripped his hunting club.

Jon was frightened. He had disguised his fear when talking to Tlad — had almost hidden it from himself, then — but now it came screaming to the surface. He was trembling, ready to strike out at or jump away from anything that moved or came near him.

This was not the forest. The rules here were all different, as unique as they were deadly. The softly glowing rock walls on either side of him were pocked from floor to ceiling with burrows and recesses. Any mad, frenzied creature of any shape, imaginable or otherwise, could be lurking within, ready to pounce, ready to maim or kill without provocation.

He maintained his pace at a wary trot, first upright, then bent, using his left arm as an extra leg, eyes continually moving left, right, above, and behind. So far, no sign of Hole dwellers. There were dark things pulled back tight into the burrows around him, he knew — things that might rush and leap upon him were he smaller and less sure-footed.

The passage widened ahead and forked left and right. His innate sense of direction led him to the right, but as he started down the new path, he heard a cacophony of scraping feet, growls of rage and grunts of pain from around the bend not far ahead of him. And it was moving closer.

Looking up, he spotted a ledge within reach above his head. He pulled himself up and lay flat on his belly with only his eyes and his forehead exposed. The noises grew louder, and then the source staggered around the bend in the passage.

At first he thought it was a huge, dark, nodular creature with multiple human heads and uncountable black spindly arms waving frantically in all directions. But as it moved closer, Jon realized that it was a gang of the spider like teries he and Tlad had seen earlier — perhaps the same gang, perhaps a new one — attacking another larger creature en masse.

The lone victim suddenly reared up on its hind legs and threw off four or five of its attackers, but an equal number remained attached. Jon saw that this creature was taller than he, and vaguely human in form, although grotesquely out of proportion. Its round, bald head was affixed to its body without benefit of a neck; its shoulders were massive, as were its arms which reached nearly to the ground when it raised itself erect.

From the shoulders the body tapered sharply to a narrow pelvis and ludicrously short, stubby legs.

Jon also saw what the spider gang was after: not the creature itself, but the three small wriggling children clinging to its underbelly. That and its four flattened breasts labeled it a female.