Eagle mask shouted, “Acolyte! Secure that portal!”
I did not see which one of them was the acolyte, but someone must have done some hoodoo, because there was a soft thud from behind, and I glanced back and saw that clamps made of the black living metal had folded out of the walls and gripped the secret panel on four sides. One clamp was covering the spot where the cylinder seal was supposed to go.
That did not look good.
Peacock mask said to me, “Oho! So the Crown sends outlandish clowns down Star stairs fated not to be cleansed of pollution until three decades hence? Surely you concocted a more feasible tale?”
“Pizza delivery!” I shouted. “Who ordered the butt-whoop special, extra cheese?”
Peacock mask drew back, “What?”
“Landshark!” I shouted.
Nakasu walked up next to me, picked me up (which he could do without bending over, since his arms hung apelike past his knees) set me on my feet.
I started to draw the curved shortsword I had looted from Sergeant Crowmeat, but Nakasu grunted and handed me the flail. He pointed to two of the ruby rings on the hilt, hooted at me softly, made a gesture with his hand, pantomiming a half-turn on one, a full turn on the other.
I could not open the pouch one-handed, so I stuck the cylinder seal between my lips like a cigar butt and started to twist the flail hilt rings as instructed, but Nakasu made a shushing gesture with his huge, meaty hand, one of those calm down — wait for it sort of hand-motions.
He took a large step away from me. I nodded (a gesture that made him hunch his shoulders in amusement) because I understood. Nakasu was showing me how to open the twilight leak, an effect poisonous to everyone but me.
Without a hand free, I spat the cylinder seal into the cheek of the hood I wore, and then bucked my head like a horse to knock the hood backward. I felt the heavy metal slug of the seal fall down into the pointy part of the hood hanging halfway down my spine. I was pretty sure it would not fall out of that impromptu pocket.
Peacock mask sighed a sigh of exasperation, turned to his men, and barked out: “Unexpected event. Bugler, sound quarantine. Scorpios, fall out and secure the main doors; Virgos, fall out and secure the stairwells and waystations for the quadrant.”
Two squads of a dozen men each trotted past us and went their way. I nodded and waved genially while they double-timed it past me. Nakasu stood glowering, arms folded across his face, eyes above his elbows and haughty sneer below.
I should explain that the corridor here was laid out like a giant letter Y. The secret door was at the fork, and the giant doors at the stem. Two lesser doors, which were brass inset with lustrous blue lapis lazuli in shapes of rain clouds and sea waves, were set at the end of either arm, leading to further spaces beyond. These brass doors were only a story-and-a-half tall.
One squad of eagle-masked soldiers went down a huge gold-decorated corridor to the right, and the other went down a huge gold-decorated corridor to the left. They passed through the smaller brass doors. The echoes of their receding footfalls diminished.
Peacock mask turned toward us and raised a hand. “You there! Unexpected and disorderly! Give me use-name, house, your birthdate and hour!”
I said, “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
“What?”
“A Yankee Doodle! Do or Die! I’m a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July!”
“Silence, lunatic! And what of you, Blemmyae? Your date and hour?”
Nakasu cracked his knuckles, and spat the most impressive glob of spit I have ever seen—an Olympic gold medal wad of spit, a pint at least—onto the floor.
Peacock mask said, “I don’t see a slavemark on either of you! Come now. You are freeborn! We all serve the Tower. You are caught in a mire; thrashing about will only suck you deeper.”
I counted. There were twelve men left. I felt a strange feeling began to swell in me and I started to grin.
You see, I could be dismembered, even decapitated, but I could not be killed. And Nakasu was an honest-to-Saint-George monster. I was beginning to think these dudes did not know who they were up against, and that maybe we stood a chance.
Peacock said, “Tell me your birth signs, loyal subjects of the Dark Tower! Putting fate back on course is not what you’ve heard in the public house tales! No pain is involved, no punishment. We are not going to kill you.”
There was enough of a suppressed snort from enough men in masks at this announcement that I knew it was false, and knew that the soldiers did not give a darn if I knew. It was not a pleasant feeling.
Nakasu grunted. The sardonic look on his chest was visible from across the room: he did not believe the officer.
I said to Nakasu in a soft voice, “I know you cannot understand me, but you understood what he just said. We cannot surrender and there is nowhere to run. So, you in the mood for a fight? I think we can take ’em!”
Maybe he understood my tone of voice, maybe not. Nakasu took me by the shoulder, and pointed at the smaller brass door, the one decorated with rainclouds and seawaves, to the left. Then he turned to the right and began lumbering away.
I was puzzled. He was not moving fast enough to be running, and anyway there were troops ahead of him beyond those doors. Nonetheless, I decided to trust him, and walked away from him and over to the story-and-a-half-tall door.
The twelve soldiers stood still as statues. Their expressions were hidden by their fanciful faceplates. They just watched us walking away. Maybe they were waiting to see what we would do. Maybe they were waiting for orders. I was waiting for both, I guess.
Peacock mask spoke in a cajoling, hearty voice: “You’ve had your fun while your star blinked, and you got away from your horoscope for a while, eh? But that’s done, and your horoscope is back, and the stars will guide your every footstep from now on.”
When I got to the door I suddenly realized why I was here. I could not see Nakasu from this position, but I heard the groan of hinges and the clang of metal. So I found the door ring, and pulled the heavy leaves to. There was a bar on this side which lowered into place when I turned a crank shaped like a flower. It was not made of living metal, and, of course, the door was meant to be barred from this side, for defense of the vast gold door inscribed with the eighteen-pointed star behind me. When my bar fell into place, it made the same clang as I had just heard down the other branch of the corridor.
Peacock mask was saying in a louder, harder voice: “Don’t get any crazy ideas, and don’t make it worse…”
I turned around and started walking toward him. Nakasu, coming from the other corridor, fell into step next to me, matching his longer strides to mine, so that we approached at the same speed.
Peacock mask would not shut up. He just kept talking, “… and I can have a word with the Inflictors to see your scourging will only leave you with lashmarks you can brag about to your doxies and ale-mates. My offer is generous!”
I felt my cheeks pull back with the kind of a smile you only smile when you start to get really mad.
“I am so going to kick your sorry butt.” I announced loudly.
Peacock mask tilted his head. “Decurion. What is that, Frisnian? English?”
One of the men in the rear said, “Technomancer world, sir! Look out for his jetpack and explodey-boom weapons!”
Nakasu tapped my shoulder and pointed at the flail, and pantomimed a screw-unscrew gesture.
I twisted at the ruby rings along the bottom of the staff, but nothing happened. Nakasu tore the flail from my grasp, made a quick adjustment, giving the lowest ring a half-turn, and the one above that a full turn. Darkness began to seep from the flail, and a shimmer like you see above a pavement on a hot day. He handed it back to me with a condescending grin all along his belly.
Peacock mask barked, “Winter constellations rear! Summer, fore! Death-lanterns ready!”
The men formed a musket line, rear rank resting their weapons on hooks in their pikes meant for this, the front r
ank kneeling, pikes tilted toward us. The rear brought out brass Jules Verne rayguns that looked very different from the steam-powered hot nail gun I had been shot with earlier. These were shorter, only about a forearm long, and looked like brass telescopes. The breech held a gem. At the command, the gems all lit up with blinding, phosphorescent light.
Nakasu picked up the pace, and was jogging. This was like seeing an elephant jog. I swear the floor trembled. I sidled a little to the left so I would not brain him (or, in his case, shoulder him) when I started swinging the flail. The three golden arms were whirling like bicycle spokes around my head, a glittering orbit. A dark cloud began to spread from me.
“Fire!”
By that point, the cloud was pretty dark, and spread from wall to wall. The energy beams looked as bright and dangerous as lightning bolts until they entered the cloud. The lantern stuff, when it touched the cloud, seemed to thicken and slow in a freakish fashion, and curve and drip and drop to the floor in shining pools that shrank. The darkness was just eating it.
Peacock mask shouted, “Pikes! Light ’em up!”
The men flourished their pole-arms, and the wooden shafts began to shine with an eye-searing blue-white light, a light that drove back the twilight. My circle of smoke shrank suddenly.
Peacock mask shouted, “La! We might as well get some fun out of an unexpected event. How’s it feel to fight not knowing the result, eh? Like being a kid again! One of you might win a gold medallion this day, or a golden girl!”
One voice said, “B-but — we don’t know what will — !”
The fear in his voice made me start laughing and laughing like a maniac. Nervous laughter, I guess.
Nakasu roared like a lion and charged. I sprinted, bellowing.
And they panicked, two of them throwing down their pikes.
Ugly, crazy laughter was bursting out of me. I was immortal and Nakasu was a man-eating monster as big as a hippo. And there were only ten of them, because two had broken ranks and were fleeing!
We plowed into the line, and it broke, so five men were to our right, and five to our left. Victory seemed near.
And then it was not so near.
Keep in mind, a line of ten pikemen, even a panicked line, is not something two abominations, even a nice abomination like me, can really hope to outnumber or outmatch. In addition to numbers, they also had reach, which means they got to hit us before we hit them. Also, they had armor, and we didn’t. In movies and stuff, whoever is more courageous and impetuous always wins, or the heroes have special powers. Well, we two abominations were special, but we were not winning.
I am pretty sure I managed to brain one of them (at least, my flail clanged loudly off his decorated helmet) before two others hooked me under my knees to throw me on my back, and a third soldier speared me through the guts, pinning me to the floor, and a fourth stepped forward with a battle cry, and swung his poleax down in a powerful overhead swing toward my favorite neck. I could not raise my flail haft to block it, because the officer in the peacock helm was standing on my arm.
Nakasu’s hide was thick enough to turn the first two spears that broke against him, but his momentum and strength were not enough to bring any of the pikemen into his grasp: three of them staved him off with broken pikestaffs while a fourth one belabored the huge target of his vast face, forcing Nakasu to cross his arms over his chest. When Nakasu roared, someone thrust a spear into his mouth.
Nakasu snapped the pikestaff in half with his monster teeth and spit the pikehead out. But he was lumbering back and puking blood. Had his tongue been cut, or was he disemboweled? I didn’t know if the wound was mortal, because I did not know where his organs were. It suddenly seemed to me as if he perhaps was not as well designed as a human being for combat. I mean, if he ever got a breastplate for armor, it would have looked like a hockey mask, and have holes in it for his eyes and stuff.
With a huge sweep of his arm, Nakasu knocked aside the guy who was trying to decapitate me, so the pikehead broke my collarbone instead, and chopped halfway through my right shoulder. I lost sensation in that arm (the one the peacock-masked officer was standing on) and my flail slipped from my grasp.
Nakasu had just saved my life! I felt a rush of such gratitude at that moment that made me ashamed of my earlier snorting at his odor.
But, no. Then I realized that, if I could not die, the strong bond of emotion people are supposed to feel when they fight shoulder to shoulder with comrades in arms would be denied to me. Why feel grateful when someone saves your life if your life cannot be lost? This being unkillable would warp my psychology into something nonhuman if I were not careful.
The officer in the peacock mask raised a pistol, a shortened version of the lantern-powered brass raygun, and sent a line of blazing fire into and through my chest. I am sure he hit my heart, because of the enormous spray of blood, but at this point I thought of my heart and lungs as my least vulnerable spots, because when you fight an immortal, you want to break his limbs and prevent him from moving.
Of course, come to think of it, since it was impossible for me to be alive at all, why could I not move a broken limb?
It was as if all my rage flooded into my numb right arm. I could dimly feel the broken ends of my collar bone grinding together, but I saw my arm flex and twist and rise up and grab the officer’s foot by its spurs, and yank him off his feet.
I tried to rise, but four or five pikemen pierced me and leaned on their pikes. I was helpless as a butterfly pinned to a board. They held me down and clubbed and chopped me over the head and chest and shoulders, and at least one leg got chopped neatly through. Note to self: being unkillable does not mean you are invulnerable.
I heard the Peacock say, “Chop the head off the abomination! I have heard they can still feel pain in their cut limbs when they are dismembered. Let’s have some fun, eh?”
Because I was flat on my back, I saw something no one else was looking at. Remember I said that there was an oriel window above the big three-story-tall golden doors? I saw a man with flowing white hair and beard step through the oriel window and onto the balcony. In his hand he was carrying a shepherd’s crook.
He looked down at me. Because he was not dressed in armor, and did not have the almond eyes and thick red lips of an Ur-man, I shouted to him for help.
His stern expression did not relax an inch, but he nodded briefly. He stepped up on the balcony rail with remarkable agility, as if drawn aloft on invisible wires.
And then he stepped on nothing.
With no pause and no hesitation, his hair and beard floating and flowing about him, the stranger’s feet left the railing. He walked out onto the emptiness as if he were walking on an invisible floor.
Gravity was just not paying attention to this guy today, I figured.
2. A Walk in the Air
Don’t think this shepherd was thin and frail because his hair was white: think of a weightlifter or boxer. When I say his beard and hair were flowing, I mean he looked like he was underwater, and his hair was like a cloud streaming back from his harsh face. Like Charlton Heston playing Moses in a Cecil B. DeMille movie, except dressed more shabbily. He was garbed in a toga or coat of camel hair, and his belt was a hank of rope. His calloused feet were bare.
He gazed down with eyes as hard and cold as outer space, and raised his crook in a gesture like that of a conductor readying the orchestra for the first thunderous opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth. He closed his eyes as if in concentration, and thrust the crosier.
And the soldiers in their gold armor, screaming, were plucked up in midair as neatly as Dorothy’s house in Kansas, and whirled up and up, ten then twenty then thirty feet in the air. The half-score of men spun like a swirl of autumn leaves, shouting hysterically, bouncing off the walls and each other. Their pikes swirled and spun and fell through the air like straw in the wind. But there was no wind.
The effect, whatever it was, was not affecting me. Nakasu climbed heavily to his elephant-feet, and sto
od blinking. The flow of blood from his mouth was less, just a trickle running down his hip and thigh, and he stood with his arms akimbo, wiping the corner of his mouth. His pectoral muscle flexed as he squinted, but whether he was annoyed or in pain or amazed at our sudden rescue, I could not say.
I used my left arm to push my severed right arm back into its stump (and, no, I had not noticed when it got detached) concentrated a moment to rejoin the limbs, and then used it to point upward at the white-haired Moses wannabe. (My other limbs and organs were not all together at this point. I looked like the Scarecrow of Oz after his battle with flying monkeys.) Nakasu had to lean back to look up, like the Tim Burton version of Batman—one disadvantage of having no head, I suppose.
The shepherd standing in midair spoke like Moses, too. His was a booming voice, ringing with authority, that filled the corridor and echoed off the far wall. It sounded like Hebrew, a language I had studied, but I did not have my lexicon with me.
He was evidently addressing the captain in the peacock-mask helm, who answered with a stream of abuse and insult I understood, but I won’t bother to repeat here. Evidently swearwords in every aeon of the multiverse are pretty much the same: excretion, fornication, blasphemy, you get the picture.
The shepherd guy gestured again with his crook, and the spinning stopped, and the men simply hung in midair, puppets on unseen threads.
The captain gained control of himself. Even though his voice shook with terror, his words were words of defiance, “The Dark Tower has been father and mother to me, and the stars have granted me shelter, garb, viand and wine, and name and rank and power: I will not break faith, but die obedient to her laws. Which of you, my men, will call upon this outlandish abomination to save his life? Who here will betray?”
The shepherd spoke again. It was a few syllables: harsh, cold, and final. It was a death sentence. I could have told that from the tone of voice even without recognizing any words.
One of the men answered, “We will fall: the Dark Tower will forever stand.”