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friend.
But Arnobius just now did not seem to have anything at all on his mind, beyond grossly practical matters.
He was shouting in rage for the people who were trying to loose his hands to hurry up. Couldn't they see
that now was the time to strike back, while the enemy was distracted?
Here, thought Jeremy, was one practical matter in which the newly worldly Scholar was mistaken. There
was no longer any need for human hands to strike back and, indeed, not much chance of their doing so.
The enemies of the village were far worse than distracted.
Arnobius had not been stung, nor had anyone marked by Je-remy with Apollo's protection. None of the
villagers inevitably, he'd missed a few seemed to have suffered more than a sting or two. But he could
see how each person of them winced now and then when each felt, briefly, the hairy, feathery extension
of some insect's body on their backs and necks and legs, the small wind of their saviors' blurring wings ...
and now, thank Apollo for his influence, the girl who had untied Jeremy was once more hugging him in
triumph and delight. Their embrace crushed the bodies of a bee or two, but against the two young bodies
their stingers still remained harmlessly encased. The deaths of such units were triv-ial incidents in swarm
life, nothing to alarm the mass of insects that still seemed to fill the air.
Once Ferrante had got free, he went mumbling and ranting and swearing up and down the street, in his
hand a sword taken from a dead bandit, looking for a live one to cut to pieces.
Arnobius, sounding for all the world like his brother, John, was barking orders.
Ferrante, after only a momentary hesitation, leaped to obey even if Lord John's brother was only a
mere civilian. The two snatched up weapons from the sting-bloated, unrecognizable bodies of dead
bandits. Now the Scholar, ignoring Jeremy for the moment, was snapping what sounded like orders at
some of the young village men, and a few of them were nodding enthusiastically. In moments they were
aboard the remaining cameloids and the animals were run-pacing out of town, at a speed that raised a
cloud of dust.
When there were no more live bandits to be seen but only dead ones, the girl Katy led Jeremy by the
hand back behind the houses.
"Come with me. I want to see if my family's all right."
Also, she wanted to assure them that she was all right, aside from some torn clothes. When they had
reached a small house in the next small street, several family members, including small children, came
running out of hiding to embrace her.
Katy's full name turned out to be Katherine Mirandola. She introduced Jeremy to her family as a man
who'd tried to help her, and their enthusiastic gratitude knew almost no bounds.
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 Katy, not one to let questions drop when she found them in-teresting, still wanted to know what Jeremy
had meant when he had told her that she was saved: how had he known what was going to happen?
"I have good eyes and ears." Then he saw that wasn't going to work as an explanation. "I'll give you all
the details someday. But why does your village have a shrine to Apollo?"
Katy eventually explained to Jeremy some things about the his-tory of the village. In the old days, at
least, any local band of hardy, vicious warriors would have been glad to turn back po-litely when
confronted by a soft and innocent-looking young Honeymaker lass who was annoyed with them. Under
ordinary conditions, individuals of the Honeymaker tribe or culture were introduced to at least one of the
swarms, or to the Swarm, as ba-bies from then bees recognized these individuals as friends or, at least,
folk to be tolerated.
And all the while, the stone lips of Apollo atop his shrine kept on smiling faintly. Jeremy Redthorn
remembered clearly some of the things he'd learned at the Academy. Among the Far-Worker's many
other attributes, he was patron of all domestic animals, including bees....
* * *
Almost all of the buzzing insects had now dispersed, sorting themselves out somehow into their proper
swarms, and then those in turn gradually dissolving as individuals returned to the interrupted tasks of
peace. One of the larger bees, only one, landed on Jeremy's head, just as another perhaps the same
one had landed on the stone god, then quickly whirred away. The boy flinched involuntarily at the
unexpected contact but then sat still. In a strange way the touch of power had been com-forting, as if
someone or something of great authority had pat-ted him benignly on the head. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]