Commitment Hour Read Online Free PDF

“Experimentation is the essence of science.”
    “You aren’t a scientist,” I said. “You’re Master Disease.” I played the finger exercise louder, all the while trying to decide what kind of music was best suited to drive off a god. Right then, my repertoire for weddings and barn-raisings seemed a touch feeble.
    “Rashid is a scientist,” the Neut replied in Its male/female voice. “The Patriarch only killed one scientist in his entire life, and that was a poor anthropology student who wanted to study Tober Cove for her thesis. Bad luck for her—if she’d come a few years earlier, before the Patriarch seized control and perverted everything, she could have studied us to her heart’s content. As it was, she was welcomed with the full hospitality ceremony; but two nights later, the Patriarch and six warriors attacked while she was sleeping, raped her, then burned her in the usual place on Beacon Point. Every person in the village was forced to watch her bubble and pop. At dawn, they were told to smear themselves with her ashes in order to share the triumph. Then the Patriarch declared he had rid the world of scientists and demanded that the Hearth and Home Guild make a quilt to commemorate the deed. Something to keep people warm and toasty in the dark.”
    I’d seen the quilt, of course, in the Patriarch’s Hall at Mayor Teggeree’s house; I’d even been allowed to sleep under the quilt one night, after I won first prize in a talent contest at Wiretown’s Fall Fair. But that proved nothing. Devils can always twist a glorious truth to make it seem sordid. “I don’t believe you,” I said, starting the finger exercise again and hoping Master Disease would evaporate into greasy black smoke pretty soon. I was accustomed to the gut strings on my own instrument, and the wire strings of the Neut’s violin were chewing into my fingers.
    “Quite right,” the knight said, “don’t believe everything you hear.” He gave the Neut a not-so-light push toward the opposite bank. “I’m going to wash out Steck’s mouth with soap for telling such lies.”
    “You know nothing about Tober Cove,” the Neut muttered resentfully to the knight.
    “I know that we haven’t made a glowing first impression.” The knight turned back and said, “We’ll be leaving now. Sorry to have caused a fuss. Next time you see us, I trust the circumstances will be better.”
    “The circumstances will be better if you stay away,” Cappie said tightly.
    The knight turned to her. She gazed in silence at that faceless helmet for many long seconds. Finally, it was the knight who gave up the staring contest. “I come in peace,” he shrugged. “If trouble starts, I won’t be the cause.”
    “You’ll be the cause, no matter who strikes the first blow,” Cappie told him. “Remember that.”
    “Don’t be such a mope,” the knight said, as if briskness would win the argument. “Everywhere I go, people are so deathly serious. I don’t see why they always work themselves into a state. Just once I’d like to visit a town where my arrival doesn’t precipitate some crisis.”
    He turned away and sloshed to join the Neut on the far shore. Without a word, he grabbed the belt of the Neut’s pants and heaved up solidly. The Neut nearly flew onto the bank, scrabbling forward on hands and knees to avoid landing on Its face. “Rashid!” the Neut cried, “be careful, damn it. Just because the girl annoyed you, don’t take it out on me.”
    “You’re the one who annoyed me,” the knight answered in a sharp whisper that carried across the water. “What were you doing out here? We have other business.”
    “Just let me get the violin…”
    “No. Stop your whining.” The knight turned back to me. “Take care of that instrument. We’ll expect it returned in good condition.”
    “Begone, Creature of Darkness!” I shouted, as I began the finger exercise yet again.
    “Fine. I’m gone.”
    Suddenly, the water around the knight