Storymania - The Blood-Rage by L Clayton Bennett

The Blood-Rage (22)
L Clayton Bennett

"Who makes them?"

Patra started to pace slowly up and down in front of her student, hands clasped behind her back, a frown on her forehead. "There's a third class of rationals on Agon, the warriors and healers being the first two. This third class is the thinkers, people who live in the cities and . . . think. They number only about twenty thousand. The first of this group, their ancestors of many years ago, designed and made the cupola-cylinders and lok-bands and many other marvels. The cities are their design and construction and aren't a recent thing, being in existence for the last ten thousand years. These thinkers pursue the mathematical paths of reality and have little stomach for combat."

"You say that with some distain. Is it a weakness to think?"

She stopped to look at him sharply. After a length of study, she said cautiously, "No. Their efforts have helped us to become partly civilized. Still . . . when people avoid combat, others wonder at their motives."

"A priority of values, perhaps?"

"A test of your strength against another's should always be the top priority."

"Why?"

"So the lesser of the two dies and the stronger lives to increase the power of Agon through the propagation of superior seed or egg, whichever the case may be."

"Haven't the thinkers increased Agon's power through their inventions?"

"That's a synthetic way, not natural. And it's not passed on genetically."

"Yet the result is the same, for the knowledge is passed on."

She bowed her head, looking at the ground. She kicked a pebble and said, "Hear me. High technology brings decadence, laziness, and weakness. No race can maintain a warrior's mentality if they succumb to its allure. For technology takes away hardships, pain, and insecurity. Clearly it's only through adversity that one can grow strong. It's only through the constant threat of death that one can stay honed for combat. So, we reject all forms of technology so that we don't become weakened by the illusion of safety that it portends. The exceptions to this, of course, are the loks, diode-cloths, energy cylinders, and cupolas. We need these things to give us a slight edge over the weather.

"We cultivate our strength through trials against the planet and its lifeforms. We embrace warrior qualities such as honor and courage and reject those things that weaken us, such as comfort and ease. Again, the way to a result is important. Honor and courage have value in a warrior's life; it's all that we do have, really."

"Yet Agon demands that one must die for honor and courage to be proven."

She looked up with a frown. "The weaker one must die. Why do you have a problem with that?"

"Because he is weak," came a voice behind the older woman. Erendria had drifted back. "He's afraid to die, like the healers and thinkers."

Patra turned to her daughter, saying, "If true, then it's our fault because we have not trained him correctly." The older woman gazed back at Darkcian. "Is that true?" she asked.

"I don't have a real feel for death," he answered. "Yet with what I do know, it doesn't seem like something one would wish to seek out. It seems to me to be more of a personal choice between wanting . . . desiring . . . loving one state over another, the state of life over death. Or . . . perhaps it's a search for the state that will allow one to escape from the pain of the blood-rage, like Rasp seems to advocate."

Patra smiled and said to her daughter. "You see. He hasn't learned yet the link between honor and death." Switching her attention to him, she added, "Life without honor isn't real life but an existence with a constant fear of death. Who would want it? Who would choose to go through life in that manner?"

He nodded. "You give me much to think about, teacher. Yet I'm still puzzled. Doesn't having a weak class of rationals on Agon violate the Second Law? How can the thinkers and healers be tolerated?" He thought: Are there exceptions to the laws?

"Ah, yes. I see your problem," Patra answered with another grin. "It is, however, a problem in semantics, in the use of the term weak. The kind of weakness that's not tolerated is any that can be transmitted genetically. Since will is a mental manifestation or trait, much as cowardice is, it's not a genetically created thing. For example, if a cowardly healer had a son who was adopted by a courageous warrior, the son would be influenced by the courageous step-father rather than by genetics, in terms of developing his own courage during his boyhood growth, that is. Will, courage, and like traits are not transferable genetically. Therefore, the lack of these traits is tolerated to an extent. The children of thinkers are free to become warriors if they wish, just as the offspring of warriors sometimes choose the cerebral path of the thinkers."

"Or that of the healers," Darkcian added.

"Yes," Patra said. "But the latter is a disgrace."

"Thinkers, then, are tall and strong like us?"

"If you found one of each naked, you couldn't tell them apart by body type."

Darkcian was still not satisfied. "Yet this healer who follows us is small, almost deformed."

"That one is a borderline case. Most mothers, upon seeing such a deviation from the norm, would have killed a son of his like. Even as he is, no rational female would ever mate with him; he's too . . . different."

Total rejection! Darkcian thought with dismay. "That must make him very bitter," he said aloud.

Erendria answered, "Who can tell what a healer thinks. They are all crazy. Born that way, I think."

Patra turned and walked away, saying, "Of course. Why else would they have chosen such a path to begin with?"

Darkcian focused on Erendria, noting that her normally full lips were now tight and thin and that her hand was resting on the handle of her dagger. He said, "How long is your anger toward me going to last? Is it in you to forgive?"

"You grow bold with your questions," she observed as she looked up at him while toying with her dagger.

"I've found that little information is forthcoming voluntarily from the warriors of Agon. If I'm to know, I must ask."

"The only thing you need to know from me is how to die."

"You will enjoy plunging a dagger into the back of my neck, will you?"

She looked at him strangely. "So . . . you know how the execution is done, do you?"

"You, in an argument with Rasp, discussed it. The lok filled in the rest."

"Ah, of course. There are no secrets when one knows how to tune the lok. Has Rasp passed that information on to you?"

"Yes."

She slammed her half-drawn dagger back into its sheath. "The old fool should listen to his own advice. What do you need of knowledge beyond the hazards of Agon?"

"The greatest of all of Agon's hazards are the rationals that roam on its surface."

She searched his face for a long time. Finally, "Perhaps that's true. You, at least, are a danger to the daggers of Agon. With many of my sister warriors, you could make them slaves by doing what you did to me."

She walked up close to him, so close he could feel her soft breasts against his chest and smell her breath.

She continued, "I have thought on it until my head buzzes, yet no answer has been forthcoming. How did you do it?"

"I don't understand either, my-death." He let his frustration and puzzlement show. He thought: I was hoping she would tell me. Could it be possible she doesn't really know either?

"Along with your other skills, you have learned to lie," she snarled.

She looks deadly with her face contorted that way. How does one convince another of truth?

TRUST, came the thought.

His puzzlement grew.

She turned away from him, stopped, and said over her shoulder, "All of this doesn't matter in the end. When you bow your head to the earth before me, it will then be I who is master. Remember that if you ever try to gain control over me again."

Ah, you didn't turn quick enough, beautiful one. I saw your nipples harden behind that yellow cloth. And the 'lok' has told me what that means.

She stomped off, her anger making her walk stiff.

CHAPTER 23

Why is death so abhorred? Perhaps it’s because

of the uncertainty that it offers nothing else

beyond it . . . yet immortality would be worse.

-From the Thoughts of Night Mist-

It was one of those noon-times when the world seemed to be asleep. There was no breeze and, hence, no rustle of grass; even the day-bats and their high-pitched screams were too distant to be heard. A soft-plains day, Patra called it, one that sneaks up on Agon's creatures to catch them unawares.

The tall grass hid the legs of their mu-lynxes up to the felines' knees. As Patra looked at the other riders and their cats, it looked as though the beasts were gliding through the grass instead of walking.

Thus did they ride slowly, loath to break the strange tranquility that entered into their thoughts, bringing peace to some.

Patra figured it must have been with some reluctance on his part, then, when of necessity Rasp spoke, "Rationals ahead, maybe five minutes away."

"I see them," Patra said. "We should change course."

"We head poleward," Rasp retorted. "I don't change my course for anyone. Woe be it to the fool who would challenge my right to pass upon the surface of Agon."

"The stranger," reminded Patra.

"I don't worry about him now in the context of battle. He can defeat almost any male warrior on Agon." He turned his hawk- like gaze on Gravestone, who was riding to his right. "Do you agree, good friend?"

She watched Gravestone nod.

"Then we meet with those ahead," Rasp said with a grunt. The anger in his eyes contradicted the slight smile on his lips.

They soon rode over a hill and saw a camp composed of only two cupolas. It was Patra who, upon a quick survey of the situation, first perceived what they had interrupted. Only Darkcian, hearing her almost inaudible gasp, saw her face blanch from some inner pain she could not conceal.

Soon, all knew except Darkcian.

A female and her son were kneeling on the soft grass in a meadow of flowers about fifty feet from the camp. The mother and her boy of about five orbits of age faced each other. The father stood behind his mate, arms folded across his chest, looking far away at the horizon. The boy was holding his mother's dagger, and this, to Patra, was the telling sign.

She watched Rasp raise his arm to signal a halt to their group. They then sat in silence until the male became aware of their presence. It was a long time in coming. Patra guessed his mind must have been very far away. Pain and grief sometimes does that to a person.

He slowly turned his head and, with a frown, looked at those who had intruded upon his family's agony. He said, "Do you come in peace or anger?"

Rasp raised his right hand in greeting and replied, "Peace, my brother warrior. May we assist you in your time of pain and commitment to the purity of Agon?"

The other warrior looked at his mate and then again at the mounted group, searching each face but coming to rest on Patra's. "I need only your witness to the bravery of my clan; and if my mate wavers in her duty, kill me after I kill her."

Although the rational was directing his reply at Patra, it was Rasp who gave the hushed answer, "We give our pledge to bring you peace if such a duty on your part is necessary. You have as your witnesses the respected clan of Kalt and myself, Rasp, the last of my clan."

The warrior bowed slightly and murmured, "Those names are know to me, and I am honored. You watch the agony of the clan of Neman." He then turned back to his mate and folded his arms again.

Patra dismounted and approached the other three. When she reached the side of the male, she asked, "May I be with your mate in this? I also have been where she kneels. I know her thoughts, her emotions, her dagger, and her right hand. Let my hand be her hand."

He nodded. A tear escaped his eye and coursed its way down his rough cheek.

Patra knelt beside the female's left side and put her own right hand on the other woman's right shoulder, right to right as tradition allowed. The female turned her head and looked into Patra's eyes. The woman's face was calm, with a slight smile on her lips. But there was terror in her eyes.

Patra locked her gaze with the other's and said, "I am with you, sister. Give me your grief, your terror, your sadness, and your reluctance. Let me, through you, purify Agon. Let my hand be the start, so that you won't feel guilt from the act of giving your son peace." She could feel through her hand the slight trembling in the other's body.

The female closed her eyes for a second and then faced her son. "You have held my dagger, my son," she whispered. "What do you think of it?"

"It is very sharp, mother-teacher," he said. The knife now lay lightly in his open hands, the handle on one, and the blade on the other. The boy's right hand was badly deformed.

"As a good dagger should be," she murmured. "It will give you peace with honor."

"I don't understand the peace you speak of," he suddenly cried. "I don't understand the look on father-teacher's face and yours. I'm afraid."

The woman reached out and touched his right wrist, saying, "Don't be afraid. Agon has made you different, so now he wants you back. When you go back, peace will come and your horror will vanish." She gently took the dagger from his unresisting hands.

She said, "You remember the ritual we have made you practice every week for the past orbit? Of course you do. We are going to do it again so you must say the proper words. Now bow your head to the ground."

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