The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [19]
Riddick whirled. His blade was out and ready before he finished turning. It halted less than a millimeter from the neck of a fourth visitor. He stared.
“Whose throat is this?”
The woman standing under the knife was smooth and supple despite her evident age. Her attire, like her visage, was new to him. She did not seem strong enough to throw words with any skill, much less a knife. She did not show fear, exactly, but neither was she utterly indifferent to the proximity of the sharp-edged tool to her jugular vein. Verging on the maternal, her expression was disarming, yet Riddick sensed this female creature was anything but ingenuous.
He felt Imam coming up behind him, let the man approach. “This is Aereon. An envoy from the Elementals.” Tentatively, he reached up to lay a calming hand on Riddick’s shoulder. What he felt was more stone than flesh. “She means you no harm.”
Riddick listened, but the blade did not relent.
Aereon’s voice was notably less ethereal than her appearance. “If you cut my throat, I’ll not be able to rescind the offer that brought you here. Nor tell you why it’s so vital that you came. There is much more at stake here, Richard Riddick, than trivialities like bounties and personal revenge.”
“I make my own definition of what’s trivial, thanks. And I’ll take the blade off when the bounty comes off.”
“I see that additional explanation is in order,” she told him.
“I’d say long overdue,” he growled softly.
She smiled—just before pirouetting away from him, and vanishing. The knife moved, but too late.
“There are very few of us who have met a Necromonger noble and lived unconverted to speak of it. So when I choose to speak of it, you should choose to listen.”
“‘Necromonger,’” he murmured thoughtfully. He listened—but he did not put away the knife.
“Be familiar with it,” she told him forcefully. “It is the name that will convert or kill every last human life—unless the universe can rebalance itself.” In response to his questioning stare she added, “Balance is everything to Elementals. Water to fire, earth to air. We have thirty-three different words for this balance, but today, here, now, we have time to speak only of the Balance of Opposites.”
Riddick was one of those rare individuals who was smart enough to know and recognize the extent of his ignorance. “Maybe you should pretend like you’re talkin’ to someone who’s been educated in the general penal system. Places where notions like ‘rehabilitation’ have too many syllables for the guards to pronounce. Fact, don’t pretend. I hear what you’re saying, but I ain’t following where you’re going with it.”
“There is a story . . . ,” she began. Blade at the ready, arm extended, Riddick whirled repeatedly as he tried to track the voice. The three clerics had withdrawn to the comparative safety of a wall. Imam held his ground, watching Riddick as closely as the Elemental.
She seemed to be everywhere on the veranda without alighting anywhere in particular. Wherever and whenever she materialized, it was well clear of the big man’s blade.
Imam took up the tale. “A story, about young male Furyans who, feared for whatever reason, were strangled at birth. Strangled with their own umbilical cords. When Aereon told this story to the leaders of Helion—I told her of you.” The way he said it made it sound as if that was intended to explain everything.
The big man’s brow furrowed. “Furyans?”
Aereon felt confident enough to move a little closer. The clerics watched her movements in awe. Not Riddick. Always calculating, always thinking ahead of his opponent, he had little time to spare on awe.
“The one race, we calculate, that may be able to slow the spread of the Necromongers.” She was eyeing him intently.
It dawned on Riddick why he had been drawn to Helion. Out of touch and glad of it, he had clearly missed hearing about some kind of ominous ongoing conflict. They believed him to be some player in their local