The rising sun cast North's shadow across the island toward Race and Julia. Though the sea was calm, waves slid far up the slimy surface which could not be more than a hundred meters in diameter at this stage of the tide.
Gulls wheeled a half kilometer upwind, calling shrilly and occasionally diving into the pale green water. Scales flashed in their beaks as the birds climbed back to altitude, and the odors of salt and fish mingled in the air.
"So . . . ," said North in a voice as bitter and reptilian as the shrieks of the gulls. "My will is nothing to you?"
Race fell to her knees; Julia was trembling despite herself.
There was nothing in North's physical appearance to demand respect: he was merely a tall, craggy man past middle age, wearing Exploration Service coveralls. An expert might have noted that the butt of North's holstered pistol was worn and that he wore his rank badges on the underside of his collar where they would not target him for a distant marksman—
But Race and Julia dealt almost exclusively with men of war, and they had themselves faced death many times. The power of all Northworld emanated from the space where this man stood, as though he were a window for its majesty.
Julia covered her face with her hands. "F-father . . . ," she whispered. "Father, forgive me."
The Searchers' armor had vanished along with their dragonflies. The two women stood in the garments which they had worn under their battlesuits, a linen shift for Julia and Race in a singlet of thin suede, sweat-stained and rumpled. They were both big, both of them strawberry blondes, and—though they were not related—similar enough in appearance to have been sisters.
The gulls and the chuckling sea were the only speakers for moments that stretched toward a lifetime.
"Why should I forgive you . . . ," said North at last, ". . . ladies?" He spoke mildly. The whip-sting was in the epithet rather than in the tone with which he delivered it.
"You took my service of your own free will," he continued. "And you laughed when you played me false. My will and your oath were nothing to you."
The horizon was without shore in any direction. In a broad arc to the west, a gray slant of rain joined the darker gray of clouds to the sea. The breeze picked up. Thunder became an undertone without noticeable peaks.
"He was so brave, m-majesty," Race whispered. She didn't fear death, but the power that wore North like a garment was greater than life and death.
"It was my sin, master," Julia said. She lowered her hands slowly. "He was strong and brave, and I didn't want to see him murdered like a dog."
She swallowed. Tears were streaming down her broad cheeks. "Forgive me, master. I . . ."
"Oh," said North in bitter derision. "I won't punish you, ladies. You're beneath my contempt, aren't you? Oathbreakers? I'll simply set you down in the Open Lands and be shut of you."
A sheet of lightning leaped across peaks of the oncoming storm. The flash glinted from North's strong teeth and deep-set right eye.
"Your kin are long dead, but I couldn't do anything about that even if I chose," North said. "The sense of honor you displayed to me fits you admirably to live as whores."
Thunder from the storm front rolled across the island. Julia knelt as though an unbearable weight had crushed her down. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth drooped open.
"Slay us, master," Race said. "Or give us leave to kill ourselves. . . ."
The Searcher wrung her hands together, rasping callus against callus where her body rubbed in her battlesuit. She tried to recall the feeling of bravado with which she had plunged into the skirmish in the Open Lands. Her only fear then had been of arc weapons, of the skill and numbers of Venkatna's troops; and that was less fear than a thrill of excitement. The will of North the War God was the farthest thing from her mind—
Then.
"Are you truly contrite?" North asked. His voice seemed softer, though it was hard to say just what the change in timbre had been. His words were audible through the now-constant thunder. "Do you truly wish to redeem yourselves? Though I warn you, the task I will set you, if you choose, will be a hard one."
"Anything, master," Julia whispered. She opened her eyes.
"Anything . . . ," Race said. She spoke so softly that the word was in the form of her lips and tongue rather than sound.
"Good Searchers," the god in gray coveralls mused, "are too valuable to waste. So . . ."
Water sluicing over the ridged surface of the island licked unnoticed at the Searchers' toes. The ground began to rock with the rhythm of the thunder.
"It is my will," continued North, "that you serve the human I choose for as long as he lives and requires you. That you carry out his orders with abject obedience. And if you do so—"
The lightning flash was so bright that it dimmed the risen sun for the instant of the discharge. The thunder was nearly simultaneous, and it echoed from the dome of the sky.
"—then it may be that you will become Searchers again," North continued through the pulsing roar, his tone audible and awful. "But I promise you nothing except the chance to live as the slaves of the man to whom I give you!"
"As you will," Race murmured.
She linked her right hand with Julia's left. They rose to their feet. A sullen wave broke over them from behind. The water was warm.
"As you will, your majesty!" the Searchers cried in unison to the figure of North which swelled from the sea's surface to the heavens without losing solidity.
The rays of the sun streamed from the clear eastern horizon. The light, polarized between the sea and the overhanging cloudbank, tinged the women green. The storm broke over them in blast of huge cold drops.
"Do you think it will be Salles we serve?" Race shouted into the ear of her companion.
The figure of the god disappeared. His laughter boomed across Race and Julia, louder than the thunder and more terrible than the scintillant ropes of lightning above them.
The island humped upward, ridge after green-black ridge, tumorous with barnacles and streaming ropes of seaweed. Almost a kilometer away, great flukes rose to hide the sun.
The beast dived. The storm-lashed sea swept over the place the Searchers had stood, but Race and Julia were no longer on this plane of the Matrix.