Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [28]
“Wait wait a minute. What do you mean by ‘two new Elders’? If I’m chosen, Braxan still”
“You will not be on the hunt plain. Braxan will be.”
“This is between Luntee and me!”
“You’re not an Elder,” Luntee said. “Braxan is the dissenting Elder.”
“Yeah, but you’re not taking her out there.”
“Yes.”
“No. This is between you and me.”
Luntee shrugged. “Braxan is your voice. A hunt decision is made with Elders.”
“There’s got to be something better,” Keller insisted, “something involving me. I should be able to stand for my own purpose and take my chances.”
Around them the hundreds of hunters shifted and bobbed with anxious curiosity. None dared cheer his words or even speak up, though he saw cheers in many eyes. Rules were rules and a lenient crowd wouldn’t change them, but the effect wasn’t lost on any of the three Elders. After all, if none of these people wanted to go through the gateway, there wouldn’t be a problem, would there?
Kymelis’s remaining eye shifted back and forth, as if scanning the old records and laws and rules and their details.
How could such a crowd be so quiet? It was like being watched by owls in the night woods.
“She can select a surrogate,” Kymelis concluded.
Keller went up on his toes. “Great! Perfect” He swung to Braxan.
“Pick me. Come on, hurry up. I’m right here.”
She looked at him, at Kymelis and Luntee, and back at Keller.
“Come on,” he urged, twitching like a kid. “Let’s go. Pick me.”
“I can’t,” she murmured. “You are the next Ennengand. You’ll find a way.”
“But if you if you’re chosen, Luntee’s side wins!”
She gazed at him with miserable adoration. “And if you are chosen, there will be no one strong to speak for going. I’m not strong enough to lead. Whatever happens, you must remain to lead the Living. I will stand on the plain.”
So she did believe in him. Too much.
“Braxan will go onto the hunt plain for the decision,” Kymelis judged.
“No oh, no!” Keller’s head started to pound on the inside and down the back of his neck. He pushed forward toward Luntee and might’ve hit him he might have except Donnastal and Serren held him back.
Maybe they were smart. Maybe there was some little law about hitting an Elder. What about insulting one?
“You’re devious, Luntee,” he tempted. “All right, you don’t like me fine. You want me to pay that’s fine too, but don’t make me pay with her life!”
“These are our laws.” Something had stabilized in Luntee’s voice. He sounded much more confident than he had on the other side of the gateway. “You have come here and must live within”
“I will,” Keller blurted, “if you go out there with me, not with her. Let me be my own voice!”
A light came on in Luntee’s eyes. “Very well,” he complied. “You will be on the hunt plain.”
Why had that gone so well?
Braxan shook her head frantically, suddenly overtaken by a new horror. Why?
A groan rose in Keller’s throat. “What a low-down trick.”
Eminently satisfied, Luntee spoke again to him, clearly enough to be heard well around.
“You, Nikelor, will go out as my surrogate. Braxan will represent the voice to go. You will represent me and the voice to stay. Random order will decide which voice remains to be heard, as it has for five hundred generations.”
Keller fought his own inner arguments and tried to add up the situation. If Braxan lived, her “voice” remained and Ennengand’s ideal of going through the gateway would prevail. But Luntee could easily muddy the waters, play on Kymelis’s doubts, and make the clock run out. He could stall enough to let the last Anointed go into the processor and the gateway to finally close, locking the Living to their fate on this side. Braxan wasn’t the type to fight him hard enough.
In fact, Luntee had Keller better than even Luntee realized. Keller had only his one ace, his big secret. He could arrange for one or the other to survive on the Feast Grid. He could do