AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Not quite. They shift genders, briefly, when they need to reproduce. If conditions are right, two 'males'-though they're not really sexed that way, they're way beyond pricks and pussies-who have found themselves in affinity decide to reproduce. One shifts into 'female' mode long enough for a combination of genes. Sometimes it will be two joining with a third serving as brood-parent as well. In extreme cases they can self-fertilize, but that is more risky. In any case, a small carbuncle is fertilized and it grows into a new Lifeweaver. Or Kurian."
"You'd think we'd have a lot more around, then," Valentine said.
"The Kurians practice very strict population control. Centuries of being trapped on Kur forced it on them. Only the most clever and vicious survived to reproduce. As for the Lifeweavers, they've so successfully extended their already long life spans that they put it off more and more often than not never get around to reproducing. It takes a lot out of them and they'd rather spend their energy on art and science."
"Or get a piece of us."
Mantilla took a deep breath. "Sometimes, a bud doesn't develop properly and dies. Other times, if it is taken off early, it does not develop normally, but remains in an arrested state. It can attach itself to a host and live off the host. In return, it helps the host survive, though it acts more as an agent of the host's will than on its own."
He talked more of the Ravens-how they sometimes just knew a truth, or had an unusually vivid dream depicting the future and the course they should take. "The trick, of course, is to shape the actions of others. You're already accomplished at that. Perhaps your mother's influence passed down to you."
"No thanks," Valentine said, after turning it over. "I feel like I've given enough of myself to the cause. There's only a tablespoon or two left."
"I'm afraid, then, David, you condemn Blake to the life of a wild Reaper. Narcisse will be gone soon, no matter how hard her symbiot tries to keep her alive, and Blake is like a young child in a supremely powerful body. Sooner or later he'll succumb to the temptation to run down a Grog or two. Unless you choose to keep him in chains, of course, and throw him a dead chicken every other day."
Mantilla, in some ways, was as clever as Brother Mark, finding the chinks in his emotional armor and sleeping sensibilities. Did Brother Mark have something riding in him?
"Perhaps I could try it?"
"Of course. The one on Narcisse detaches at will."
They ate a meal of vegetables. Slave food, the Grogs called it. Valentine had been ravenous since being wounded by the Baron, and wanted something in his stomach before trying any new experiments.
When he had his nerve worked up, he allowed Mantilla to take the dwarf Lifeweaver from Narcisse and place it on him. Valentine tried not to think that it would be the work of only a second for it to drain the vital aura from his body, leaving him twitching on the floor until his heart quit.
A light-headedness seized him. It reminded him of coming out of a sound sleep and jumping to his feet. A controlled swoon.
"How do I know where you end and I begin?"
Such vitality. I feel a millennium younger, David Stuart Valentine.
"What do I call you?"
I do not know. I as this flesh am part of a larger identity. Narcisse called me "Makak"-I rode her like a monkey.
Would you like to see the world through Blake's eyes?
"Let him be."
I would no more control him as my others would a Reaper than I would have used one of these nerve hooks to bleed the aura from Narcisse . I correct him, calm him when he is anxious.
"When he eats a chicken?"
The aura in a chicken is more trouble than it is worth. It is like the smell of real food to you, David Stuart Valentine. Does it sustain you, or make you wish to eat your fill?
"Suppose I were linked to you, and knifed someone. Close enough to smell them."
I cannot say; it depends on many variables. I may benefit. I may shrink in fear of the violence. You may benefit. I expect you have already. Why do you think you thrill so, when you survive a combat? That is a splash of vital aura washing across you as it is released.
Valentine flushed. He felt greasy where it was touching him. "Get off me. Now."
He handed the double-handful of over-intelligent calamari back to Mantilla.
"Sorry, Mantilla. You'll have to find another symbiot."
ast Bank, May: Across the river from Saint Louis lies a collection of settlements known as the Tangle.
It's watched over by a lone Kurian tower, a growth on what had been a bank building in East Saint Louis. The Kurian there is an odd one-weak, reclusive, and of little import to the scoundrels and smugglers across the river from the Grog metropolis. He has but a Reaper or two, rarely glimpsed, no police force, only a few toughs with wellmaintained armored cars to shuttle his mouthpieces and churchmen about. Southern Command's intelligence service, insofar as they think about him at all, believe "Eastie" is some fallen Kurian exiled to a disputed area chiefly to keep his eye upon the Grogs across the river and maintain some manner of relations with them.
