Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

Another robed and hooded figure stepped forward from the group. «His name is Brother Boaz,» said Sister Sue. «Grab him, he—»

Rivas was off and running through the darkness toward the path that led up the hill, hearing nothing but the hard quick thumping of booted feet close behind him and his heart laboring in his chest, and he was wishing he'd done some exercise during his years in Ellay; and then an open hand slapped him solidly between the shoulder blades and he went flailing forward, off balance, his feet unable to keep up with his plunging body, and he hit the ground in a long grinding slide that left him retching in a cloud of dust as he struggled to get air into his impact-emptied lungs.

Strong hands yanked him roughly to his feet; he'd have collapsed again immediately but the two men held him up and turned him around, back toward the tent. Sister Sue was walking up to the swaying trio, and in the brightening light Rivas could just see her broad, savage smile. «He's a redeemer,» she told the figures following her. «He's the one who killed our shepherd in the Cerritos Stadium. He knows a way to resist the sacrament.» She stopped in front of him and her ferally happy gaze made him squint defensively. «But he's . . . susceptible, aren't you, little brother? He can be made to be uncertain about things like who a musical instrument belongs to, and how old he is. Yes.» She laughed softly and reached out and touched Rivas's abraded, bleeding cheek. «Yes, I think that after a couple of administrations of the sacrament while you're securely tied up, and then being kept awake and chanted over for about seventy-two hours, you'll be completely repentant, don't you think, and eager to tell us all the details of your sins.»

Rivas realized that he'd never been truly scared before now. «Look,» he quavered, trying to keep from breaking down and crying and probably wetting his pants too, «look, you don't have to. I'll tell you right now, Christ, everything, all of it, I swear, please—»

Sister Sue laughed again, affectionately. «No no, little brother. We'll do it our way—the Lord's way.» She turned to the four figures behind her. «He's strong with fear. All of you hold him. Get a rope around him—but not around his neck. Soon enough he'll be happy to merge with the Lord, but right now he'd certainly rather take his own life.»

With stout leather thongs they tied him to two big timbers which had been crossed and bolted together to form a big standing capital X, and a wide basket of woven bamboo was wedged over the tops of the beams as a sort of roof. The X stood over on the seaward side of the big tent, by the trash pits and the latrines; people seldom lingered on this side normally, but the sight of someone being disciplined roused morbid curiosity even in Jaybirds, and when the news about Rivas got around the shepherds had to set up a sticks-and-string boundary fence to keep the crowd back. The bright dawn had given way to an overcast sky, and the clouds whirled occasional skirts of rain across the valley, leaving patterns of round, dark pockmarks in the dust.

Rivas's ludicrous spread-eagled position was uncomfortable from the start, and during the morning it became increasingly painful in his shoulders and back; his arms would eventually have become entirely numb if he hadn't kept flexing them against the bindings, and wiggling his fingers . . . though by midmorning he had to roll his head around and look up to see if the fingers really were moving as ordered. The most tormenting things were aches and itches that he couldn't do anything about, and the way his nose kept tickling as if leading up to a sneeze which never came, and his consuming hangover thirst. Blood and sweat slowly dripped from him or soaked into the wood, and he couldn't get rid of the idea that as every drop left him the hemogoblin out there in the wilderness became stronger and more solid, and that as every dragging hour eroded Rivas's alertness and capacity for connected thought, the thing out there became more intelligent.

At around noon the rain became steady, and soon after that it began coming down hard in battering sheets that raised a foggy spray of splashes from the muddy ground and rattled a loud, continuous drum-roll on the tent and the hillside and the basket above Rivas's head. His black hair was slicked across his forehead and his clothes were darkly plastered against him and the breath seemed even hotter in his head because of how cold he was. The crowd of Jaybirds dispersed reluctantly, and before long they had all gone back inside the tent.

Rivas had by now become almost calm. He knew he was not as strong, mentally or physically, as he'd been at twenty-one, and that if he became a Jaybird again now he probably would not again succeed in escaping the dreadful faith. But he knew too how short was the lifetime of the average far-gone—and he suspected that he'd be gone, and definitely far, in record time. Sister Sue had been right this morning in guessing that he'd gladly have killed himself rather than wind up here . . . but now he could see little difference between the two courses. And it seemed to him that there was something fitting about not dying until everything one ever had was used up . . . not dropping the glass until it was empty and even gnawed a little . . . . There was a term he'd heard once . . . test to destruction. . . . To learn how much punishment something can take before breaking, you eventually have to break it . . . .

. . . He could think of a lot of smooth rhymes for «break it». . . .

At least, he thought feverishly, I won't wind up an old man. He spoke hoarsely into the rain: «I never did want to wind up an old man.»

Then, and it scared him even though he could tell it was just delirium, he thought he heard the hemogoblin's voice from miles away across the rainy hills: Well then I'll come over and wind him up.

He shuddered, and shook his head to clear it of all these morbid, self-pitying ideas. There you go again focusing only on Rivas, he told himself. You're just fascinated by the Gregorio Rivas story, aren't you? Especially the tragic ending.

What about the Urania Barrows story? She may be just a supporting actor in your story, but what about hers? Or is yours the only one there is, and when you're not actually looking at people they disappear or collapse like stage costumes that aren't currently in use? Now that would be an interesting position for you to take, Rivas; maybe even if you somehow get out of this you'll just end up as Noah Almondine's main successor in the art of cutting out paper dolls.

He couldn't hear over the thrashing hiss of the rain, but through the deeply moored timbers of his rack he could feel the thudding of approaching footsteps. He closed his eyes so that they might think he was unconscious . . . . The jay-bush might just touch him anyway, but it was worth a try.

«Brother Thomas!» came a sharp whisper.

Rivas's eyes snapped open. A robed and hooded figure stood in front of him, holding a knife. «Sister Windchime?» he rasped.

«Yes. I don't want to get my hair wet or they'll know I'm the one that did this.» Quickly she plowed the knife edge down the gap between Rivas's right arm and the wood, and as he shook off the slimy loops of wet leather she did the same for his left arm—and then had to hold him up with her free hand, for he'd started to fold helplessly forward. Reaching down, she cut his legs free too, and Rivas reflected dazedly that this was one strong young lady. «Now run,» she said. «No one should ever be forced to take the sacrament.»

«Thank you,» Rivas gasped. «I—»

«Go, damn you!»

«Right, right.»

Rivas ran wobblingly toward the seaward hill, his shoes splashing in the new mud, and when he got to the slope he crouched behind one of the scrawny bushes at the foot of the hill until he got his breath back and stopped seeing a rainbow glitter seeping into his vision from the sides.