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Valentine wondered if he could survive another passage to some new level of Lifeweaver mysticism. Did he truly trust Mantilla? Perhaps Frat Carlson wasn't the only Kurian agent who'd been close to him.
"What do you do?" he said, temporizing.
Mantilla looked skyward. "How shall I describe it to you? We bring messages from the Lifeweavers, and can talk amongst ourselves, after a fashion. Like Ravens of old, we flock to where the battle is thickest. Not to feast on corpses, but to report and intervene as needed. We are tricksters, able to take on a different appearance, at least for a brief time and with some help from the more gullibly minded."
"Like the Lifeweavers and Kurians-and their agents." Valentine didn't mean to cause offense, but Mantilla scowled at the comparison.
"In a sense. It comes down to us in the legend of shape-shifters, or the Rakshasa in India, where they may have been the last enclave of Kurians from the first invasion."
Valentine went back over his encounters with Mantilla. He'd hinted and hemmed and hawed about certain abilities in the past. Valentine gave him time to continue his explanation.
"Every Freehold has a Raven or two watching over it. I was, for a time, one of three in Southern Command. Then I became one of two. It was then that you met me for the first time, on the Arkansas River fixing my barge. Now I'm alone, save for a man who comes up from Texas from time to time. If a new freehold is established in Kentucky, it will need a Raven, for there's little chance a Lifeweaver can be found to guide it, at least anytime soon."
"So you act as substitutes for the Lifeweavers?" Valentine asked.
"It's rather more complicated than that I'm afraid. Have you ever heard the term 'symbiosis'?"
"Yes, it's two organisms of different species who survive better by cooperation. Like a bird who picks ticks off the body of a rhino. The bird gets to eat the ticks, plus I suppose the protection of something the size of a rhino and the rhino has parasites picked off."
Mantilla slapped an exposed brick wall and dust flew. "Verdammnt , I think you're in the wrong profession, my friend. You should be a teacher. Most shape-shifter legends involve duality of one kind or another. The poor sukhim is cursed with this other side living within. It is like that with us, though whether it is a curse or not ... How about the reproductive cycle of the Kurian/Lifeweaver beings? Do you know anything about that?"
"I heard they budded off-like self-cloning."
"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.
