Felice is on her way.
"Finish the fix, for God's sake!" Aiken shouted at the shaken Carvalho and McGillicuddy, before levitating back into the lead boat in a sizzling cloud of ozone.
"Spotted her!" he cried. This time his focusing was nearly instantaneous. He sucked and the energy flowed into him. He exhaled and the terrible blazing gobbet roared toward the shadowy fleck that hurtled after the flotills, spiky black against a turquoise evening sky.
The firebad bloomed, obliterating some 40 square kilometers of jungle below it The passage of the monstrous energy surge stunned Aiken. Every neuron in his body had turned into a rid of lava. His brain not only seethed, it pulsed like some variable star, with each peak verging on disjunction. A squealing craven nub within him said: Marc was right! You overloaded—and now you're dead, sucker!
But the near-fatal vertigo dampened and he was surprised to find himself still firmly ensconced in the executive slot of the Organic Mind, with Abaddon not scornful or accusatory but registering Olympian approval:
Very commendable—for a barebrain. I think you got her.
"I did?"
I get nothing on a mass-energy scan in ground zero.
"Jesus, you better be right. That zap nearly finished—"
GOD NO SHE D-JUMPED! ... [unintelligible image] ... ABOVE YOU AIKEN HIT HER AGAIN HIT HER!!
Abaddon's warning crashed in his aching brain. He saw Felice again, magnified by some weird atmospheric effect looming directly overhead. She seemed to be several hundred meters tad. Her form, now that of a human female, appeared to be clothed in white flames that rippled like liquid silk. Her monstrous face was translucent Her eyes were black and blazing and so was her mind. Aiken felt the defensive barrier above the flotilla begin to crumble. Something was critically wrong in the coercive segment A vital component had faded and the structure was collapsing—
The screen resolidified. Marc Remillard had injected some arcane reinforcement bypassing his man, Owen Blanchard, who was dead. Instinctively, Aiken knew that this makeshift shoring mechanism would hold only for the brief nanosecond that he, the prime executive, needed to shift back into the offensive mode. He would have to blast Felice again with the full load of the metaconcert, even if it killed him.
There was no time even to focus. He demanded and received the soul-bursting volume of energy and expelled it point-blank at the monster.
A shriek, inhuman, clanging in the aetheric welkin. Conflicting psychic bursts impinging, exploding, imploding, cancelling. A slowly expanding psychocreative detonation that was overwhelming light without noise or heat. Behind and beyond this, a structure besprinkled with thousands of scintillations, multicolored, some of which now flared and died away. A tenuous rolling juncture, deepest carmine, stretched across half a world. (Between my own pain and his?) Pain bridge sentient and sharing, threatening to fade to black, rescued, regenerated, newly joined to a deadly white flame. Candle burning in ruby-glass tube, shrinking. Croon of laughter. Dwindling howl plummeting to despair.
"Abaddon?"
I hear ... King Aiken-Lugonn.
"Get her?"
Gone. No more menace ... either of us. Alliance concluded until your turn to fulfill bargain. No communication until then. Goodbye.
"Marc ... overloaded. Die? Marc?"
...
"Marc ANSWER ME!"
...
***
Amazing, he thought. It was a terminal overload and I should be dead, but it seems I'm not! Behold my mind, a sleazy fabric of carbonized threads, glowing bravely in vacuum. Let me out of my bell jar and into the real world and I may fall to ashes ...
"Nonsense, Aiken. Just hold onto me. I'm almost finished pasting you back together. You're a tough Scottish lad and far too wicked to die young."
Elizabeth?
"Be quiet."
I thought you couldn't redact long-distance?
"I can't. I'm here. Stop communicating, damn you. This is very hard to do and I've been at it for nearly a week and I'm tired."
A week—!
He drifted. All around him were minds whispering. Hundreds—hell, thousands!—of them. Tanu. Gold-torc human operant His people.
Elizabeth? My metaconcert fed apart didn't it?
"It lasted long enough. Quiet Ah. There and there. And there."
Lights! Action!
He saw, felt heard, smelled, tasted. He sat up on the padded table and the sheet slithered from his mother-naked body. He was whole. The table stood in the middle of a small decamole shelter that was meshed on all four sides for ventilation. Outside was a typical Spanish jungle, extravagant greenery and the usual mammal-bird-amphibian-insect cacophony. Inside was Elizabeth, and Creyn and Dionket in informal redactor robes, and a leather-faced Tanu with a short blond beard, a Prince Valiant haircut and uncompromising coercer-blue eyes. This personage held out a pair of golden jockey shorts.
"Allow me."
The weak and disoriented King allowed himself to be dressed in his suit of many pockets. It was somewhat the worse for wear. He said, "So Felice is dead?"
"Her body fed into the Genil like a flaming meteor," said Dionket his mind projecting the image. "There was a strange secondary psychocreative concussion that brought a two-hundred-meter cliff crashing down into the river right on top of her. Some of your people were caught in the avalanche."
"I—felt people dying." Aiken was staring empty-eyed at the jungle outside. "Who?"
Elizabeth's redactive strength held onto him. "Ninety-six are unaccounted for. Aluteyn Craftsmaster. Artigonn of Amalizan. The human operant Elaby Gathen. Culluket the Interrogator. And Mercy."
"Mercy dead?" He looked from face to face. "I don't believe it!"
"Her body wasn't found," Elizabeth admitted, "but the avalanche and the surge in the river were tremendous things. The entire course of the Genil was changed. Your people did find the Craftsmaster's remains, and Elaby Gathen's, as well as the bodies of some minor nobility. You may know that the elderly operant Owen Blanchard, died of a cerebrovascular accident"
"And nearly fucked the lot of us!" Aiken exclaimed bitterly. "I felt the bastard give way right at the moment Felice started her attack. If it hadn't been for Marc ..." He faltered and dropped onto the edge of the bed, sitting with his head in his hands. "He did a job. God, if you only knew." When he looked up there was an odd light in his eyes. His smile was tight "It was an education. A painful one."
"You'll have the hangover of the Western World for the next month or so," Elizabeth remarked. "Go easy. Let your mind heal fully."
His nod was impatient. "Where the devil are we?"
"In the base-camp at the mouth of the Genii. Your people have been waiting for you to regain consciousness. Very few of them were hurt badly, aside from those who were caught in the full brunt of the avalanche and some who were brain-burned when the defenses faltered. The wounded are resting in Skin in Afaliah."
Aiken looked sheepish. "Thanks for coming, Elizabeth. I mean—I was pretty mouthy there earlier, babe. Sorry."
"What the hell," she said, and smiled.
Aiken turned to the burly bearded Tanu, whose mental signature was as notorious as the triskelion badge on his azure tunic. "I suppose you flew the medic party here from Black Crag."
A minimal nod.
"Thanks a lot, Minanonn. I wish you'd consider joining us. It's a new regime in the Many-Colored Land. Lots of things are changing. You could help."
The heretical ex-Battlemaster allowed himself a wintry smile. "I'll be watching you from the Pyrénées. Visit me some time. Without your army."
"You got a deal." Aiken thanked Creyn and Dionket, set his feathered hat very carefully onto his throbbing head, then hesitated as one last item of importance came to mind.
"I don't suppose you know what became of my Spear?"
Elizabeth sighed. "It's safe on your flagship schooner, guarded night and day by Bleyn and Alberonn. And it's been repaired."
"Kaleidoscopic!" The King beamed a
t them all. "In a way, I'm glad I didn't get to use it on Felice. It's a sacred weapon, you know. Too good for the likes of her. I'm glad we finished her off with mindpower. Too bad about old Cull—but that's probably for the best, too."
Walking a trifle unsteadily, he gave them a jaunty wave as he went out the door. There was a sound of scattered cheering that grew until the jungle noises were overwhelmed. And when the shouting and the mind-cries fell off, the music of the Song took its place, carrying from the camp to the boats moored out on the waters of the Gulf of Guadalquivir.
***
The Río Genil flowed down from Mulhacén and swung wide, following its new course around a region covered deep in stony rubble. The dead bodies in the landslide were well-buried, secure from prowling jackals and other scavengers.
Far under the mound a tiny white flame burned within a ruby, waiting inside its dark temenos for fresh fuel.
***
THE END OF PART THREE
PART IV
The Lord of Misrule
1
MOREYN OF VAR-MESK huddled in pitch-darkness in the deserted materials yard of the glassworks. A fine drizzle coalesced on his wispy hair, ran down the collar of his cloak, and dripped onto his neck. He sneezed. It was unseasonably chilly for the middle of June, with a sharp wind blowing off the New Sea. The weather, he reflected morosely, like nearly everything else in the Many-Colored Land these days, seemed to have gone mad.
Miserable, Moreyn scanned the black sky over the water and wished Celadeyr and the redactor would hurry. Did he dare to put up a small psychocreative umbrella while he waited? It was effete, but—Tana's teeth!—brute endurance wasn't the only virtue, nor was prudence necessarily a sign of cosy-wallowing or Firvulagish degeneracy.
He sneezed again. The invisible umbrella went up, and for good measure he spun a discreet infrared pod about his soaked feet. What could be keeping Celo? He was nearly an hour late.
Not that Moreyn was anxious to relinquish his sacred charge. It had been an honor to nurse the Battlemaster, and gratifying when Nodonn praised his cleverness in securing the rare materials needed for the repair of the Sword, and his refurbishing of the armor and fashioning of a new gauntlet to cover the wooden hand. (That hand!)
But as his strength returned, Nodonn had chafed in idleness. He refused to stay hidden in his salty dungeon cell, and began to prowl among the lower levels of the trona diggings during the graveyard shift. Only ramas were about then to observe him, and there was no chance that they might betray his presence. But Nodonn had taken to helping the apes in their labors, using his recovering psychokinesis to load the gondola cars with excessive amounts of mineral, which might have been noted by the gray-torc foremen who checked the schedule. When Moreyn put a stop to this game, the bored Battlemaster began playing with the mice. Swarms of the rodents infested the citadel's sewers and gained access to the glass works via an enormous drain. More than once, as Moreyn came to minister to his patient, he had been startled by serried ranks of the little creatures—marching, countermarching, and performing precision drills, while Nodonn reviewed his miniature host seated on a lump of cullet glass, like some sardonic incarnation of Apollo Smintheus.
Yes ... it was high time that the fast-recuperating Battlemaster moved on to Afaliah. Where the hand could be fixed and the portent wiped out.
In spite of his warming feet, the Glasscrafter experienced a thrill of dread. The One-Handed Warrior! According to hoary Tanu tradition, it was one of the direst forecasts of the Nightfad War.
Moreyn, came the secret cad on his intimate mode.
(At last!) Here. Down here, Celo.
And there came two dim riders spiraling down, their leather storm-suits and the bodies of their chalikos reflecting fog-fuzzed city lights until they entered the shadowy yard.
"Hail, Creative Brother," Moreyn greeted the Lord of Afaliah, who swung down out of his saddle. But when he turned to the other rider he went stock-still, lidding the astonishment that flooded his mind. The slender form was human and female, and though the mental signature and face were masked, he knew that this was not a redactor but a Most Exalted member of Celo's Guild of Creators.
When she lifted the visor of her hood, Moreyn exclaimed: "Great Queen! You live! But it was said—we all mourned—you and the other victims of the monster Felice—"
"A necessary hoax," said Mercy. "Take me to my husband."
"Oh, yes. I see!" Moreyn sneezed twice. "To disarm the surveillance of the usurper. I see! Come this way."
They left the chalikos tied to a railing and entered a disused storeroom crowded with obsolete machinery. Moreyn lifted a trapdoor and they descended into one of the many tunnels that underlay the city of the glassmakers. At first, the way was lit only by a psychocreative flame springing from Moreyn's finger, for they traversed workings that had long been abandoned. But then they came into a region where the hot salt springs still bubbled, depositing crystalline masses of hydrous sodium carbonate that were mined by silent crews of ramapithecine apes.
Guttering torches filled the steamy chambers with an orange glow. The layers of white and pastel evaporite were streaked with soot, making infernal murals that almost seemed alive in the wavering light. The springs burbled and emitted foul-smelling vapor. The small apes with their great lustrous eyes wore skin buskins and mittens as protection from the alkali deposits. They chipped off the trona crystals with vitredur picks, shoveled the mineral into waiting gondolas, and trundled the cars away to a lift.
"What a hellish place!" Mercy said. "The poor little beasts."
"They only work a six-hour shift," Moreyn said defensively. "The smell's only sulfur, and there's plenty of fresh air. Dear Lady, our mines are really a paradise compared to the gold diggings at Amalizan ..."
"And he's had to stay down here?" Mercy said, stricken. They were descending ever deeper. It was hot and there was a rumble behind the saline walls, as of a concealed cataract or mysterious machines.
"Great Goddess," Celadeyr grumbled, pulling off his hood and unfastening the front of his suit. "It's a damn steam bath! How much farther, Mori?"
The Glasscrafter led them to a barred wooden door. Its surface trembled faintly and the noise reverberated from behind it. "Through here." Again he ignited the tip of his finger. He lifted the bars with his PK and swung the portal open like the gate of Tartarus.
They entered a great downslanting gut that carried a roaring stream of foul water. The air was a good fifteen degrees cooler and pervaded by a cloacal stench. Mercy gasped in dismay and Celadeyr hurriedly refastened his suit pulled up the hood, and closed the visor.
"Follow me. Be careful." Moreyn trotted out along a catwalk, holding high his hand of glory. "This is an underground section of the Var River. It carries the main sewage outfall and the factory effluent over the continental shelf. This tunnel used to be leagues long. But with the New Sea rising it becomes shorter every day. Turn here."
They entered a branch tunnel, mercifully dry. A few dozen mice fled as Moreyn opened the last door.
Mercy pushed ahead of the Glasscrafter into a small lighted room, little more than a den carved in striped evaporite and equipped with a minimum of furniture and supplies. Nodonn stood there pallid and gaunt-faced, his golden head brushing the low ceiling, wasted frame clad in a white woolen tunic. He held out both hands to Mercy—one of flesh and the other of wood.
She burst into tears. He held her against his chest, his heart on fire, and said to Moreyn and Celadeyr, "Leave us. Wait above ground. I know the way out of here very well."
When the two men had gone and the door was closed, Nodonn lifted her and sought her lips. Their minds cried wordless greeting, beyond happiness and beyond sorrow. They lived, and now they were reunited, but the soul-hunger of the terrible empty months could scarcely be appeased in that initial conjunction. The time was too short and they dared not expend in mere ecstasy the life-force that would be needed for the impending journey. So the daemon's coming was a sigh, and the
bede dame's fulfillment gentle as an eyelid's soft closing before sunlight. Then they held each other, warm, minds still in sweet fusion.
"Motherhood has deepened you, Queen," he said. "You are a fountain of repose. A wellspring of comfort."
"All my comfort is for you. I'll never leave you now—not even to return to Agraynel. She is only my flesh. You are my mind's life. How could I have doubted that you lived? How could I have accepted him? Can you forgive my defilement?"
"If you forgive mine." He told her about Huldah. "It was not done freely, but I know now that I had dark joy in the shaming. And now this wretched hybrid woman carries the son I would have given you, Rosmar: the first of my Host."
"Never mind, love. We'd make it right somehow, now that we're together again."
She felt his body stiffen. He drew away, the two warm hands, soft and hard, clasping her shoulders. "As to that ... you may have to return to him."
"No!" she cried harshly. Her horror was like a knife, and there was fear as well. "What do you mean?"
He turned from her and began to take off his tunic. From beneath the camp bed he pulled two sacks, one with his glass armor and another with the suit of padding. "It won't be easy, deposing him now that he's been acclaimed King by the battle-company. Leaving aside the matter of my gaining support from the people ... we must consider him as a military objective. He's a formidable metapsychic adversary. I can't farsense him, Mercy. Even when he's not wearing those Milieu screens, he's too strong a mind-guarder for me to penetrate. I can't even follow his physical movements unless some other person is with him, scattering inadvertent clues. The only way I have of spying on him is through you ..."
Her mind was shrouded. The sea-deep eyes were opaque, full of fresh tears. "I've only just gained you back. And you want me to go?"
"Of course I don't!" he said, in a voice of anguish.
She let her lips rest on his naked chest, breathing the exotic pheromones, hearing his heart. "I'd go to him if you tell me to, love. But I've had a foreseeing ..."