Book of Heroes: George of Sedona I - 28. I Don't Want To Grow Up

Chapter 28: I Don’t Want to Grow Up

Two days of patient triangulation later, the gnome had his answer. The sword—and the boys he pursued—were not in the temple. They were at the College of Magic. The gnome knew he could not easily enter that place. There will be wards and warnings, he thought. He sat at a table across the square. He drank tea. He watched, and he planned.

*****

Arthur and his companions had moved from the room first assigned them into a larger room that they shared with Petrus, Jeremy, and Ethan. However, the sleeping arrangements remained fluid. There were seven other students—boys and tweens—at the college, and they all maintained congenial relationships. Paul and others of Larry’s friends from the temple often visited, as well. Arthur still checked the matrix, but he had found no hint that they were pursued. He was almost able to relax.

*****

Arthur and George had spent the afternoon at sword drill, and were the first in the bath. As Arthur washed George’s hair, he asked, “Do you remember the first time I washed your hair?”

“Um hmm,” George said. “And I got an erection and nearly passed out because I was afraid.”

George turned to face Arthur. “You rescued me from Earth, and you rescued me from myself.”

“That’s not what I was thinking of,” Arthur said. “It occurred to me that I don’t have to reach down to wash your hair anymore. You’re almost as tall as I am. When we first met, I have to bend my head down to kiss the top of your head. Now, your forehead is level with my nose.”

“Am I still growing?” George asked.

“Look with me,” Arthur said.

George giggled, remembering the first time Arthur had examined him magically, and the glow of light that had limned his body. “Your epiphyseal plates…see them? They’ve all closed. You’re as tall as you’ll get. But…this is unusual. Your bone marrow…it’s no longer that of a boy…George, you’re becoming a tween.”

“Huh? How can that be? I’m supposed to be a boy for…well, a lot longer.”

“It’s not going to happen all at once—”

“How long does it take?”

Arthur thought for a minute, and then said, “The process has already started. Probably a decade, but no more than that.”

“I’ll still be less than 50; I thought it didn’t happen until you were like, 70.”

“That’s an average, George. You’re—”

“Don’t say ‘less than average,’ ” George said, “if you know what’s good for you.”

Arthur laughed. “No, George. You are well above average, and that’s probably why it’s happening early. Responsibility—the responsibility you have had to protect Gary and Larry, and to teach them—can cause an early transition.”

“Can it also cause a tween to become a man?”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Arthur said.

“How is it decided which men will become heterosexual?” George asked.

“Actually,” Arthur said, “actually, it’s purely genetic. You remember the HOX genes? The ones that affected Gary’s legs, and Gary’s friend, Theo? The blind boy?”

When George nodded, Arthur continued. “Most people have 39 of them; about 30 percent of boys are born with 40. When that gene expresses itself, never before a tween becomes a man, it causes a cascade of genetic changes throughout the body. Hormones are altered, chemoreceptors in the nose become more sensitive to a woman’s pheromones, and a host of other things happen. He becomes…interested in women. He becomes capable of being aroused by a woman.”

“He becomes heterosexual?” George asked.

“Actually,” Arthur said, “actually, very few people are exclusively heterosexual. Even men who marry and sire children may be bi-sexual. You know that marriage isn’t an exclusive arrangement, don’t you? I mean, the women don’t become chattel, like so often on your world. You’ve witnessed at least one marriage, in Bowling Green. Was anything said about obedience?”

“That was a long time ago,” George said, “and I had other things on my mind, if you remember.”

“Yes, but you can remember, if you want to. I taught you how to do that.”

“Okay, okay. Let me think…You’re right. They simply agreed that they would share responsibility for raising their children. That was a wedding? That’s all there is to it?”

“Yes. There may have been a civil contract that dealt with disposition of property—a combination of a pre-nuptial agreement and a last will and testament. But the form of that agreement would have been the same as…oh, the partnership agreement among those fellows who had the horse farm…the one where Aurous was put to stud.”

“Um, can two guys get married?”

“They can certainly form the same sort of bond a man and a woman can. They announce their intentions and ask the blessing and support of the community. They can do it at a temple or in the public square or simply among a group of their friends. It’s actually less formal than boys and tweens swearing brotherhood. That wasn’t true on your world, was it?”

“No. Just before I left…just before you rescued me…it was a big deal. A couple of states had passed laws allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. California permitted it, but there was a ballot proposition to prohibit it. It would have been voted on a few weeks after…”

“George, I left your world in 1972, and this wasn’t an issue. But I do remember from my high school civics class that the constitution required that all citizens be treated the same under the law. Marriage began as a religious thing, a sacrament. Then, the government got involved and gave married couples certain rights—inheritance, social security benefits, hospital visitation, there must have been more—how could a gay couple be denied the right to marry, and thereby be denied equal treatment under the law?”

“That,” George said, “was the issue. And the only answer I could come up with was the hypocrisy of the religious right and the apathy of most of the rest of the people.”

*****

George’s sleep that night was broken and restless. Rather than wake the others, he crept to one of the unoccupied beds in the giant room and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. Tweens are adults, for all practical purposes—except procreation, he thought. They can enter into contracts on their own. Oh…oh. Oaths of apprenticeship and fealty may be annulled! Does that mean Arthur and I…?

Morning light woke the boys. George took Arthur aside. “Arthur, I don’t want to be a tween,” George said.

“Huh?” Arthur asked. “I don’t think you have a choice.”

“You told me that before a boy could become a tween, he had to be examined by someone in authority. I refuse to be examined.”

Arthur was clearly puzzled. “Well, yes. Technically. But your body—your mind—you are becoming a tween. Why—?”

“Because oaths taken by boys are automatically wiped out when they become tweens,” George said.

“Where did you hear that?” Arthur asked. His voice expressed his incredulity.

“You mean, it’s not right?” George said.

“No!” Arthur said. “I mean, unless the oath specifically says something about becoming a tween.”

“Then my oath to you…the one I took on Earth…it’s not null and void?”

Arthur looked at George. He saw a boy on the verge of becoming a tween—adult, for all legal purposes, able to determine his own destiny, make his own commitments, and live his own life. If you love something, let it go, he remembered from some book or movie or play or song from Earth.

“The oath we made on Earth was until such time as you shall be lawfully released. You’ve lived here long enough to know what that means. Mutual agreement would release you. I will release you, if that is what you want.”

A microsecond passed.

“No!” George said. “No! No!” He threw his arms around Arthur. “That is not what I want. Never. Besides, here’s another oath we made. The one we took when the four of us became best friends. And before that, when you said you were my best friend, that was an oath. It doesn’t matter that neither of us swore. It was still an oath. We are bound by more than any oath. I want it to stay that way. If I am to become a tween—by law as well as by physiology—I want to remain your squire and … and your love … forever.”

*****

The gnome watched the college for weeks. His mirror could not penetrate the school’s wards; nor dared he enter. His targets were certainly mages, so he dared not use magic to scry them. However, he was patient. After two tendays, he was able to identify the boy with the mithral sword. He laid his plans carefully. His master would no longer tolerate failure.

It will be during festival, he decided. Their guard will be down. They will not wear swords. The crowd may conceal my escape. He knew the risk to himself was great, but the price of failure would be greater. Death would at least release him for a time from his master’s thrall. The gnome almost smiled at that thought, and began to collect spiders.

*****

The gnome had been correct that the boys would not wear swords when they left the college on festival morning. He was wrong about their wariness, however. Arthur issued his usual instructions, “You boys stay together. That’s your responsibility. I’ll keep up with you and watch out for you…you have fun, but stay together, and in sight of one another, okay?” The boys, including Petrus, Paul, Ethan, and Jeremy, agreed.

The seven boys skipped from entertainer to sweets vendor to entertainer, with Arthur only a few paces behind. The gnome hadn’t heard Arthur’s instructions, but quickly understood what was happening. He followed Arthur. The tall tween’s nearly white hair served as a beacon.

It was past nones when the gnome’s opportunity came. One of the boys, the smallest one, sought out the tall tween. The tween reached into his belt pouch—likely searching for a coin—the gnome thought. He wasted no time, but darted quickly through the crowd, always keeping someone between himself and the tween.

It was Petrus who cried warning. “George! Behind you.” But it was Larry who acted first. He threw himself at the gnome. The poisoned dagger meant for George pierced Larry’s chest. George grasped the situation in an instant. Before the gnome could withdraw his dagger, the dagger George had received from Peter was in his hand. He rammed it to the hilt in the gnome’s eye. The point cracked through the back of the gnome’s skull.

“It’s poisoned,” Gary said. He and Arthur knelt by Larry. “It’s not inorganic,” Gary added. “I don’t recognize it.”

Arthur nodded. So that’s what this was for, he thought. He pulled the silver flask containing seven drops of the fifth distillation of Amaranth from around his neck, and poured it, drop by drop onto Larry’s wound. The sound of this essence of Light meeting the Darkness of the gnome’s poison was audible to everyone in the city who had a trace of magical talent. Can’t be helped, Arthur thought.

While Arthur and Paul tended to Larry, George faced down the centurion who came with a double maniple of soldiers. “The gnome attacked us; his dagger was poisoned.

“Do not disturb them,” he added when the centurion turned toward Arthur and Paul. “They are healing.”

“Whose dagger,” the centurion asked George, gesturing to the gnome.

“Mine,” George said.

*****

Larry had been carried to the temple. The poison had eroded a walnut-sized hole in his chest and lung, and had destroyed some blood vessels before it was neutralized by the Amaranth. “He will be all right,” Paul assured the boys. “But he needs rest and more healing.”

*****

Several thousand miles away, the gnome’s master also heard the sound of the Amaranth, and knew what it meant. The fool has failed me for the last time…in this lifetime, that is. I will find him again. Until then, I will have to act, directly.