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an epicanthic fold, Gabriel said. In fact, the old man told us that the Pelagan s appearance would have once been termed at least quasi-Mongoloid. Contradicting this assessment, however, was the reiver s abundant body hair, a sparse, ravenlike down over hands, arms, and face, though so thin on our captive s face that only the moonlight and my own proximity made this hair visible; on the man I had killed this facial down had seemed more horrifying, the sort of animalization of human features that Blaine was now insisting upon. Earthly Mongoloids, Elk said, had very seldom had a great deal of hair on their faces and bodies. Finally, our captive had a purplish patch of skin on his throat, distinctly visible now because his head was back. All the people of the Angromain Archipelagoes don t look like this one, Chancellor Blaine said. I know they don t, I ve had distasteful dealings with a few of them before. The man I killed had similar features, I said. Face, body hair, all of it. Gareth affirmed this. We had left the dead man in the rocks, not wanting to sully Our Shathra s carriage any more than was needful. He even had a mark on his throat like this one. From what I ve heard and seen, Gabriel interjected, this type this quasi-Mongoloid type of individual isn t at all uncommon in the archipelagoes now. I ve had dealings with the Pelagans many times, Chancellor more often than even you have, I d imagine and I ve seen men resembling this one more than once. The Pelagans esteem men like him, nodding toward our captive, because they seem to be particularly daring and resourceful. Many like him are in positions of leadership. Do they also esteem them murderous and cruel? Life in the archipelagoes is not entirely like life in Ongladred, Chancellor; values differ. Obviously. There weren t many Asians among the final population of Windfall Last, I said. Were there? No, Gabriel Elk said. Then why should a people who look like Asians the tuck in the eye, the dark hair, the yellow-brown skin suddenly appear out in the Angromain? It hasn t been all that sudden; it s been incremental, Ingram though what the precise origins of people like these are, I don t know. Maybe the Parfects engineered an Atarite heritage into the genes of some of those penultimate Asians in Windfall Last. Gabriel Elk, something of an engineer himself, here pronounced the word with a deliberate nasality. The descendants of some of these individuals were undoubtedly among the Atarites who fled Ongladred a millennium ago. Ironic, yes? How do you mean, ironic? Blaine asked, visibly peeved. Many of the oldest Earth civilizations were Eastern. Now, out here, eight hundred light-years from our spawning place, Oriental physical characteristics are asserting themselves again. But altered, I said. Yes, the old man agreed. Altered. As everything alters, as everything changes except ourselves. Nobody said anything to that; the comment had a self-consciously sagely ring to it that Elk usually avoided. Moreover, the Parfects grand experiment on Mansueceria didn t altogether support the concept of an unchanging and unchangeable human condition. Long ago, for our own good, we had been engineered. No one could dispute that. We were all beginning to feel the length of the day, the late-evening cold, the after-numbness of fading shock. We moved around in the arena s dust; we watched Coigns and the coachman soothing the sweaty-flanked horses, currying them with rags, talking to them; we tried to shake ourselves back into reality with random gestures and banal resolutions. The reivers had murdered the chariot guards, just as I had earlier assumed, and the chariots horses had more than likely pulled the empty vehicles all the way back to Lunn. This was something none of us had come to grips with yet. As was the death of Josu Lief. Coigns put the dead masker, wrapped in a borrowed blanket, into the equipage on the seat opposite to the one on which Chancellor Blaine and Our Shathra Anna would ride. Blaine raised no protest. Then we all came back to our captive, the Angromain barbarian who had taken part in, perhaps even masterminded, the night s surreal carnage. The women remained in Grotto House, waiting for us to do something, regal in their patience; and at last all our movements came to revolve around the sullen, insolently watchful Pelagan who had very nearly killed me up on the rock wall. Out of this uncertain numbness Gabriel Elk said, Take the gag out of his mouth. The coachman did so, stepping away as soon as the cloth was free. A film seemed to pass over our captive s eyes, he shuddered, his body feebly radiated its weariness. Then the man began to curse us. He cursed vehemently, moving his head from side to side against the wall. Gabriel Elk grabbed my arm and raised his voice over the belligerent cursing, This is the other one, Ingram. No style, no subtlety. You killed the poet, the one with the Hair, you know that? Not until afterwards. Are you glad? No, I said. I pulled my arm away. Why should I be glad? Why should I be glad either way? The Pelagan stopped cursing, drawn to our disagreement. Gabriel Elk ignored him; the old man s eyes, amid leathery wrinkles, looked into mine with an intense and unsettling concentration. You shouldn t, he said quietly. You shouldn t be glad, Ingram. Forgive me. I don t know why I did what I did, I said. I d never killed a man before. Something happened to me. Never mind that now, Ingram, the old man said. He turned to his son. He s run out of curses for the moment, Gareth; while he s quiet, put something on his wound. Clean it out first. The boy moved to do his father s bidding. Arngrim Blaine said, We needn t let our humanitarianism run past the cup s lip, Sayati Elk, but his voice carried no real rebuke and he didn t try to impede Gareth s bandaging of the captive. The captive himself clenched his teeth while Gareth worked at his shoulder, but kept his eyes suspiciously on the boy, now and again letting them rove to our faces as well where they seared their suspicion and disdain into our flesh. I tried to return the man s intermittent stares; in the attempt I noticed something utterly untoward and startling in his expression. The barbarian s mouth reminded me of Bronwen Lief s. The dead girl shared with this archipelago dweller an almost imperceptible pout, a downtugging of one corner of the lower lip, that flawed an otherwise innocent and lovely face. For the Pelagan was handsome. Despite the epicanthic fold, despite the darkness of his complexion, despite the hair on hands, arms, and face, he was imposingly handsome in a ruggedly exotic way that no Ongladredan ever could be. But the set of his mouth! The set of his mouth sabotaged this alien handsomeness. That he should share such a flaw with Bronwen Lief, who had danced and declaimed as Gabriel Elk had programmed her to, amazed me. In the upland cold, the wind moaning through the rocks, I stared at him. Then his eyes caught mine, and I had to Look away. Gareth was finished with him. Are you going to take him back to Lunn in the coach? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |