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A.R.Yngve
DARC AGES
Book Three
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Chapter 52

"This is the voice of Darc. This is the Voice of Liberty."

No musical number preceded this speech. Darc had prepared a written radio speech in advance, for his subject was too complicated for improvisation. Mechao sat next to him on the soundstage, ready to assist if necessary.

Darc took on a calm, clear note: "As I have said before: I have lived among Lepers. Now it is time for you in the cities, who may never have seen a Leper, to learn more about them.

"What is a Leper? What are they like? Where did they come from? How many are there in the world today? And what do I intend to do for them? These are the questions I shall try to answer..."



Darc was too exhausted to speak for a long while afterward. He had put all his effort and sincerity into that speech, and found himself drained. The servants handed him water and a towel.

"Never could I have imagined," Mechao said slowly, "that it would take me a lifetime to see the truth." Darc gave the old doctor a puzzled look.

"So fiercely proud have I been of my heritage as a practitioner of genetic surgery. Countless times have I told my children, like my father told me, how important our task is, how we must never forget the old knowledge of the DNA."

Then Mechao buried his face in his hands - at once he seemed as old as his years suggested - and murmured: "But now I see...! What have I made of this great heritage? What did my father do? Nothing! We hid it to ourselves, like selfish children herding glass marbles! For centuries, millions of people have suffered the Plague because of our unwillingness to help."

Darc had asked himself that question many times by now. Even he had failed to grasp the answer, until now. He shook his head, and comforted his friend.

"No, no, no! It is because you are so proud, that you judge yourself too harshly. Remember! You were born into this world like every other man. Your ancestors took this world for granted too. You never saw a Leper until I brought her here, and how could you?

"Wouldn't Lepers, too, have killed you if you approached them? You have all suffered from too much isolation - it is natural to turn secretive, when one is persecuted for such a long time.

"And: before I told you of my adventures in Amrica, there was no way you could know Lepers were suffering from ocean to ocean. Don't you see how open and friendly you have been to my friends, to me, ever since we arrived here? You could have killed us on the spot, just to protect your people. But you didn't!"

Darc stopped there. He had touched on another sensitive matter. Why hadn't Mechao killed him? Why did he reveal himself in the first place?

Mechao removed his hands from his face, and looked into Darc's eyes.

He said: "I thought Pipo, my guardian beast, was going to kill that young warrior, or scare him off... it seemed he had no chance, coming to our island all alone. But he fought like a lion to save you... and so I changed my mind. I gave you the chance to prove your worth, and I cured your fever.

"I grew more curious, and when you told us that you came from another time... I changed my mind. I once considered destroying your aircraft, to hold you prisoners on Kap Verita and force Dohan to marry Meijji. But then I changed my mind again."

"Is that anything to be ashamed of?"

"My shame lies in the fact that I did not trust you from the very beginning."

"Is that," Darc insisted, "anything to be ashamed of? You were careful, you thought of the safety of your people, as you had been taught."

"Yes... but I was also afraid, when I should have been brave." There was a brief silence. Then Darc laughed. "What is it?" the old witchdoctor asked him, almost insulted.

Darc wiped something out of the corner of his eye, and answered: "It just hit me. Women. Women are dominant on Kap Verita. Come to think of it, they dominate this world of yours. And the world has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. They have kept the world going, and that's good..."

Darc stood up, helped Mechao up from his chair, and set off to see Eye-Leg.

"But for better or worse," he added as he left, "it takes men to make a change."



"What are you doing here?" Tharlos snapped, at once angry and nervous. He glared at his mother who stood in his doorway, anxious to come inside.

"Are you hiding a radio receiver in there, Tharlos?"

"I don't have to answer you," he said, instantly regressing to a sulking boy, acting ten years below his age. This always happened, he reflected. And always she got her way, in the end.

"What have you been hearing, that I should not hear?" she demanded.

"The security of the state is threatened," he replied, blocking the doorway. "I must stay informed. It is none of your concern."

She made a face of overwhelming worry, and pleaded in a disturbing, unnatural tone: "But you are my security of state, my concern! I live only for your safety!"

Tharlos felt a growing onrush of panic. He was deprived of sleep; she was drunk again; and he had just heard Darc broadcast an impassioned speech in defense of the Lepers. Tharlos's cult followers were demanding more time and attention than his military endeavors would allow for - and he had a piercing headache.

The last thing he needed was his mother's smothering, lurking presence. Her long-fingered hand darted out to touch him; Tharlos reeled back and tried to shut the door in her face. She pressed on, hysterical.

"Don't do this to me, Tharlos! You're all I have left in this world!" she wailed.

"Go back to your useless husband!" he shouted, and thought: What does it take to make you go away? Is there anyone in the world who could help me against you?

Finally, he managed to lock the door; she kept pounding on it, still wailing pathetically. Tharlos pressed his palms against his ears, but he could still hear her obsessive litany, still feel the headache. His cranium was on the verge of bursting, and his limbs ached for sleep.

Killing her was a tempting option, and all too easily accomplished - but this was the wrong time. His parents' demise had to be plotted with care, and he was much too busy planning the alliance against Darc. He had to wait; he had to endure this living hell just a little more.

Tharlos sank down with his back to the door, rocking his head from side to side - descending into a delirium that he mistook for sleep, but was in fact madness. His mother kept ranting for hours on end.

The formal ruler of the city, Lord Migam Pasko, was blissful where he slept; he had found another, safer delirium in a bottle.



A baptism of a newborn child was to take place in the cathedral of Damon City, next morning at mass. The attending families had not yet arrived to the cathedral's front portal, when a verger made a shocking discovery.

On the wall of a nearby house, someone had painted a message in huge, mocking letters during the night:

DOES THE GODDESS LOVE LEPERS TOO?

The verger alerted the head verger. The head verger alerted the priestesses, who in turn alerted the high-priestess.

Inu took the stairs up to a parapet high above the street, and looked down at the wall painting below. She turned to the head verger.

"Remove it. At once."

The head verger bowed lightly, and replied: "I took the liberty of ordering that earlier, Your Holiness."

They peered down over the parapet, and saw a crew of vergers and novices rush across the street, pulling carts loaded with draperies and canvases. Working at a frenzied pace, they began to nail the sheets in place over the graffiti.

Just as the first crowds of churchgoers began to appear on the plaza before the cathedral, the word LEPERS had been covered from sight.

Inu caught a movement in the corner of her eye. She shifted her gaze across the plaza, and glimpsed window shutters slamming shut.

It was too late. The word had been seen, and it would spread. Inu pulled her red cloak tighter around her shoulders, and shuddered in the icy mist.

She thought about Darc, perhaps in a clearer way than she had before: Are you still my Singing King? Is this what you want of me? Will the heavenly reunion end in the desecration of the Church?

I do not want ugliness to slink into my beautiful cathedral! I will never let a Leper inside these doors! Never, never. O Goddess, you are not as strong in me as you should be...

The high-priestess walked off to the stairs and down, to perform her duties. When faith faltered, there was always ritual to fall back on. And as she had foreseen, the word spread and continued to spread.

An irreversible tide of change had begun, that would continue long after Darc was gone.



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