Wolf said, “You were in that fortress place for four days. It’s summerspan six, fourday, fourteen days since you left Hold.”
“Four days in there?”
Dismé said, “Time is probably quite different in there and out here.” She was staring toward the silver figures on the hillside, slashing and tearing at the enemy, seemingly impervious to sword or spear or arrow. On the far side of the ridge, they could make out many officers and men of the Regime who had turned their backs on the field and were fleeing the way they had come.
Dismé strode down the hill and forward to the place the silver figure still chopped at the remnants of Gohdan Gone. Only shreds lay upon the prairie, a puddled filthiness. When the silver thing saw Dismé, it crowed like a cock and came swiftly toward her, knife hands clicking, but Dismé roared at it, and it turned to run after the other silver warriors who were moving up the nearest rise. Dismé turned and trudged back up the slope to the drumhead where she struck the drum once more, just to be sure. The sound fled; only the echo sped in return. The ouphs were gone.
“What did Dezmai do with the drum?” asked Michael, from behind her.
“She broke the bottle walls,” Dismé said. “All of them, I think. If any are left, in Bastion or elsewhere in the world where Gowl’s missionaries have been making conversions, we will need to break those, too. Camwar’s drum was made for that thing alone. Now we have only Gowl to deal with.”
They spun around, their momentary relief ebbing as the army, diminished but still numerous, came over the last rise with the general at its head. They were confronted by the line of silver warriors. The demon who had come with Wolf was waiting to one side, and without a moment’s hesitation, he went at a dead run directly into the army, past groping hands and gaped jaws to reach up and pull the general from his horse.
Atop that distant ridge, the general howled at his captor. “We have a treaty! Don’t kill me. I can give you information. Don’t…”
“Think, Gowl!” said the demon. “Don’t you remember me?”
“Remember you? Why should I remember you?”
“You should remember the friends you betrayed, Gowl. Don’t you remember little Sandbur Fortrees?”
Gowl did not. Gowl gazed into the eyes before him, searching, searching, coming at last to one, far back memory of a white horse carrying a man all in white and five boys hidden in the straw bales…
He had time to remember it fully while the demon holding him grew huge and tall, like a tree three thousand years in the growing. The general was carried high above the fray as Fortrees grew, mighty as a tower. The general could not fathom what was happening to him. Sandbur had been the orphan boy. Sandbur had been the little follower, the nothing. Sandbur? Come to this? What was this?
“I am Tchandbur for the Trees,” the giant demon whispered. “One of the Guardians, Gowl. I was begot to be what I am. I was named to be what I am, chosen first and named first, and you were moved to call me by that name from the beginning, Gowl. You were a tool in god’s hands. I was put under your tutelage to learn what you had to teach me, which was to be wary of men’s friendship and their words. Are you going to apologize to me, Gowl?”
“Apologize?” Gowl howled. “For what? We went on an outing. You were caught, I wasn’t. Why should I apologize…”
“Oh, Gowl. So old to be so much a boastful child still. What shall I do with you, Gowl?”
“Oh, Fortrees, Fortrees, just put me down, put me down…”
“Gladly,” said the Guardian, doing so from a very great height, then placing his foot firmly on what he had dropped. He turned and trudged away to the south while the other Guardians watched, amazed.
“Who?” asked Bobly.
“Tchandbur,” said Bertral disapprovingly, as he looked up from his book. “Not summoned here, not needed here, merely divagating on private business.”
“Is that in the book?” whispered Dismé.
“It seems everything is in the book,” said Bertral. “And it changes, day by day.”
The squashing of the general signalled a widespread and disorderly retreat by the army, though the silver shapes still pursued.
“Thus endeth our war against Bastion?” whispered the doctor.
Dismé shook her head, saying sadly, “Thus endeth one battle. Only one. Think what the small god said, Brother Jens. There are many devils.”
Gowl’s horse and those of his slain officers were running free on the prairie. There was no sign of their riders.
The doctor murmured, “I’ll wager Bishop Lief Laron took himself back to Bastion some time ago.”
“Bastion is hell,” said Dismé. “Why would he go there?”
“Because he belongs there,” said the doctor. “For a little time.”
The silver warriors were halfway up the second ridge to the east.
Dismé turned to Wolf. “Can you call them back?”
“Do you want them called back?” Wolf asked, curiously. “It seems to me they’re doing a good job.”
“There has been enough slaughter,” she replied. “Many of those men are as much victims as murderers. Call them back, now.” She searched the surrounding land with her eyes. Somewhere here were the ones who were needed. Certainly they would always be at the site of any battle. Eventually she found them, three tiny figures dwarfed by the flayed and dismembered body of the ogre.
“Tell your creatures to go there,” Dismé said, pointing at the ogre’s corpse. “Tell them to go there quietly, and just stand there, don’t kill anyone else.”
Wolf took a small silver box from his belt, flipped it open, and keyed in a command. The far-off figures, all but one, slowed, turned, and trudged back in the direction they had come. Wolf cursed, keyed in a specific number, then the command again, and this time the lonely silver figure stopped, turned, and came toward them with lagging feet.
He said, “The others are fighting at command, but that one loves to kill.”
“Have them go farther right,” said Dismé, tonelessly, as the silver fighters neared. “Where those three people are, next to the ogre’s body.”
“Who?” said the doctor, turning. “Oh. Of course.”
They watched silently as the silver figures came to the ogre’s corpse and arranged themselves silently in ranks. The three Guardians there went among them, touching them. Even at the great distance, Dismé saw the green fire, and then the thin, white smoke.
“Who are they? What are they doing?” asked Wolf.
“Rankivian. Shadua. Yun,” said Dismé. “They are releasing your captives.”
“They aren’t captives,” complained Wolf. “And you can’t release them. There isn’t enough left of them to exist outside the shells…”
“She knows,” said the doctor, expressionlessly. “Believe me, she knows.”
All three of the distant figures were gathered around one of the silver warriors, the last one to arrive. Dismé felt a tickling summons in her mind. She went off down the hill, both Michael and the doctor hurrying to catch up to her. The ogre’s body was not far away. As the wind shifted, they caught a momentary whiff, which made their eyes smart and their throats catch.
Shadua, looking up, saw their reaction and went at once to lay her hand upon the mountain of oozing flesh. It exploded into leaping black flames that melted the body like wax, and in moments only a pile of ash remained beneath the charred bones on a darkly stained patch of soil, the ashes already blowing away among the grasses.
“You called me?” asked Dismé, wearily.
“This one,” said Rankivian. “All the others chose to die, but not this one. This one chooses nothing.”
“Can you find out who it is?” asked the doctor.
“It says only one name, over and over. Your name: Dismé, Dismé. It hates you. It wants to kill you. But it has no volition. It can do only what it is told. If told to hate and kill, it does it with enjoyment. If told to do anything else, it will obey.”
“Then order her to tell
us her name.”
They turned their attention back to the silver form, intent upon it. Shadua said imperatively, “Tell us your name.”
Mechanically, the being answered. “Nemesis of Gone…”
Dismé said, “What was your name before you were Nemesis?”
“Rashel was my name.”
Dismé stared at the shining carapace, her own image reflected in it, a distorted personage that grimaced like a clown. What a vengeance! Rashel had hated and feared Gohdan Gone. He had done to her as he did to all his servants. And then…
She asked, “What was the potion Old Ben gave this woman, Jens?”
“I don’t know what was in it,” he said, “but you know it was meant for you. The power in it came from Gone, not from the stuff itself. I took it to the clinic and put it away where I thought it would be safe…I knew it was evil, but I had no idea what it would do…” He fell silent, realizing Dismé was no longer listening.
“A potion meant for me. One made by Rashel, at the command of Gohdan Gone. Because I was a Latimer. As, it turns out, we all are, all of us. Guardians.” She looked over the doctor’s shoulder at Wolf, who was approaching, but still at some distance.
“Rashel,” she said quickly to the silver form. “Who is Gohdan Gone? Is he dead?”
“A servant of the Fell,” said the metallic voice. “The Fell is not dead. The Fell is not here to die.”
They felt a chill, as though a harsh wind had blown across them. Dismé asked, “What is the Fell?”
“The Fell is in the book, greater than…greater than…greater than any being here.”
Dismé checked Wolf’s progress again and said quickly, “Rashel, I order you to choose to die.”
For a long moment nothing happened. The three fingered hands clicked and clicked, the knife edge extending as though in longing. The optics in the silver face glowed.
“It’s either that or imprisonment forever. I order you, choose to die,” said Dismé again, eyes fixed on Wolf who was very near.
“I choose to die,” said Rashel.
Shadua put her hand upon the silver figure and a fine white smoke came from a grilled opening near the neck. Dismé turned and started back toward the others, Michael and the doctor still at her side. They passed Wolf, who went by them purposefully on his way to his silver army.
“He’ll be angry when he finds they are dead,” said the doctor.
“Very,” agreed Michael. “So will all of Chasm, even if they get their hardware back.”
As they passed the amorphous scattering that had been Gohdan Gone, Dismé lingered beside it. The stuff of it was leaking slowly into the sand. A thin whining came from it. She stooped to hear it better and made out the words. “Fell is not dead; sing while you can.”
She knew in her heart she could defeat Gone, had defeated Gone, but evidently Gone had been only part of the evil. The Fell still lived. Somewhere. After a moment, she rejoined the others at the bottom of the butte where they were saddling the horses and hitching the wagon. Nell, Arnole, and the little people slowly gathered around them.
“Are we finished here?” Michael asked.
Nell nodded. “Except for your friend there. He looks upset.”
Wolf was storming back toward them, his anger palpable.
“What in hell have you done?” he shouted as he approached.
“I told you,” said Dismé, when he was near enough to hear her speak quietly. “We released your captives. What you had out there in those silver shells is the same thing Bastion had in the bottles. It doesn’t matter if they fight for us or against us, what’s kept there is pain, and Gohdan Gone can feed off it just as he could the ouphs.”
“Ouphs?” said Wolf.
“The spirits of those who had their patterns kept alive in bottles. Not full-fledged ghosts, just meager spirits, but taken all together, they felt enough pain to feed that monster.”
“You’re talking magic again,” snarled Wolf. “Those warriors had no pain. We gave them pleasure, great pleasure.”
She shook her head. “If you could not detect the evil, you weren’t looking for it. They hated and they were in captivity. Hate is pain, captivity is pain, even when the hater is eu-phorized into accepting it. If you could not detect the ouphs, you were not looking for them. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. As for magic, yes, I may be talking magic from time to time, but then, I am the temporary servant of only a small and temporary god.”
“We saw your small god,” sneered Wolf. “The way we at Chasm figure it, you had a collective hallucination. You only thought you saw and heard it, but your dobsi picked up on what you thought you sensed.”
Dezmai turned on him, took him by the shoulder and grinned fiercely at him. “I call upon my sister, Volian, Guardian of the Air,” she cried, keeping her eyes fixed on Wolf’s face so the dobsi would catch it all and send the image to every demon within reach. “May he fly until the sun sets. I call upon my brothers, Hussara of Earth and Wogalkish of the Waters. May dust devils annoy him and rain pour upon him, and may he hear the ridicule of Jiralk the Joyous throughout his suspension.”
She picked up a stone and threw it high into the air, so that it fell sharply on the drumhead, creating a resonance that carried Wolf aloft and spun him face down, slowly, staring at them from widely opened eyes as the sound went on, and on, and on, and laughter rang in his ears. Lightning split a cloud that began to move in their direction. Small dust devils began to collect.
“Magic,” whispered the doctor.
Nell said tiredly, “Arnole told me once that sufficient power would look like magic to a person who didn’t have it. If we are to believe the little god, the power is hers, not ours, or perhaps it is the natural power of Tamlar’s kinfolk. Do I need to say I don’t feel like a Guardian of anything at the moment? My children seem to have taken to it better than I.”
“Let’s head back to Trayford,” said Arnole. “They may need our help in dealing with the remnants of the army. Whether they do or not, we need some time to ourselves.”
He helped Nell onto the wagon seat. Camwar, Bobly, and Bab climbed into the wagon bed behind them. Michael lifted Dismé onto her horse, then mounted his own as the doctor had already done.
“Tamlar,” called Nell. “Will you come with us?”
“I will come when you need me,” she replied. “But now I will help Shadua dispose of all this carnage.”
“Burn it well,” called Dezmai. “Be sure none is left for either Chasm or the Fell to use.”
Camwar turned to take a last look at his great drum. “I know it’s too large to move,” he confessed. “But, I will miss working on it.” Then he smiled at Dismé. “You will need others, however. Smaller ones that will not take so long. I brought you a sample,” and he took from the wagon bed a set of three small drums, set into a curved frame that fit over the pommel of the saddle.
They rode eastward, up the rises and into the troughs, toward the distant mountains. As they crested one of the ridges, they saw the flying machines from Chasm returning to the field. They stopped long enough to look through the glasses at the pilots of these machines gathered by the great drum, peering into the air above it where Wolf still revolved, around and around.
Later, as the sun was setting, they heard one brief drum roll from behind them.
“He fell. He bounced,” said Dismé, with a small, self-satisfied smile. “Dead snake.”
Jiralk, Michael, erupted into laughter which sped away like the wind along their back trail. “You didn’t kill him, did you,” he cried.
“Of course not. I was just returning the insult he gave me.”
“And what now?” Michael asked her
Dismé reached out her hands to Michael and the doctor. “Bastion, I think. We know the devil there. We know what he eats. Maybe we can smoke him out. Maybe we can find out more about…the other thing.”
“You think we’ll have access to our…counterparts to do that?” the do
ctor asked.
“I said we,” Dismé said, smiling ruefully to herself. “I didn’t necessarily mean them, though I admit they’re useful. Then, after Bastion, maybe other places for the same reason. And after that, to meet our brethren, those who live in the forest and the sea…”
Nell remarked from the wagon, “I knew there was a reason to come out of the redoubt. Also, if we’re stopping in Trayford, I’d like to find Alan. I promised him I would. And poor Jackson. I suppose he’s in Chasm. Perhaps I can visit him there.”
There was silence for a time, except for the creaking of the wagon, until Bobly asked Arnole:
“How many Guardians are there in the book, Arnole?”
“Twenty-one. We know some of them only by name, Ushel, for instance, and Geshlin.”
“And how many stones were there?”
“Twenty, one for each Guardian but Tamlar.”
“But Bab and I only used up one,” she said. “So if you count us as two…”
“As you certainly should,” said Bab.
“…there should be twenty-two Guardians.”
“Odd,” Arnole said thoughtfully. “You’re right, of course. I wonder who that could be?”
No one had an answer. Camwar drew a long-necked stringed instrument from his baggage in the wagon and began to make a gentle music in time with the horses’ hooves. Dismé touched the drums and then stroked them, bim, bom, and boom: tinky tunk, tiddle, tunk tunk. Jiralk began to sing, Dezmai joined him, and for a time, they rejoiced, while unseen far behind them the fortress of the small god emerged once more, silently from the grasses.
46
nell latimer’s journal
Alan and I are living in a large apartment in the Fortress of Bastion. It used to belong to General Gowl, and it has access to the roof garden the general built to reward his wife for giving him a son. Gowl’s wife, son, and unmarried daughters are now living on a farm somewhere in Praise, learning to raise sheep. Dismé wanted them moved completely out of Bastion, but the doctor preferred to have them where he could keep an eye on them until we start separating the sheep from the goats.