Devastation

by Jane Dougherty

  “But what if she meets something dangerous?”

  “She’s supposed to look out for trouble. That’s her role. We should be glad the creature is beginning to take her job seriously.” Yvain smiled.

  The frown left Jeff’s face, and he smiled back. “I suppose so. Maybe she’ll catch us something to eat while she’s about it.”

  Yvain’s smile faded and a worried look replaced it. “I’m not sure she will find enough game to satisfy even her own appetite. The forest is unnaturally deserted. The animals can smell that something is wrong. They haven’t waited to find out what it might be.”

  Jeff nodded in agreement. “They smell the worms. Animals expect men to behave unpredictably, and they avoid them, but the worms are different. They shouldn’t be here at all. The worms open the way for the Light-Bringer, and that means destruction. Everything knows that.”

  Jeff’s full, childlike face was suddenly careworn and old. Yvain put an arm around his shoulders. “But we’re a match for him, old sport—as long as we stick together.”

  “I know.” Jeff grinned, though his face was still pale. “As long as we trust one another and keep Wormwood out of our thoughts, Eblis will remain hidden from him. Without Eblis, his power is limited.”

  “If that’s limited,” Jim said ominously as he stumbled past with a bucket of water from the stream, “remind me to be out when it switches to full strength!”

  “That is exactly what we are trying to prevent. Oh, and, master modeler, what are you doing with that bucket?”

  Jim dumped the bucket heavily on the ground and glared at Yvain.

  “I’m taking the river for a walk!”

  “Because,” Yvain went on, “as a modeler, it would be quite easy to divert a branch of the stream to the campsite. Excavation is one of the more straightforward aspects of the modeler’s art.”

  For a split second Jim felt as though he would like to hit Yvain, before his fury subsided and he thought it over. Finally he grinned. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  Yvain grinned back and tapped the side of his nose.

  “Because you’re a fuckin’ eejit,” Jack shouted.

  Jim threw the water from the bucket at him then went back to the stream. In a few minutes he had assessed the best route for his canal and begun to push the earth aside to form a ditch that rapidly filled with running water. Where it left the main stream he built a shallow barrage that stopped stones, twigs and other debris clogging up the new channel. He ran the channel back to join the stream lower down and stood back to admire his handiwork.

  “I used to dig things like that at the seaside when I was a kid,” Jack said, dipping his hand into the water. “Trouble was, they always sanded up as fast as you dug ’em out.” He scooped his hand out of the channel and showed Jim a trickle of water and a whole fistful of mud.

  Jim frowned. “The world blew up before I studied engineering, remember?” The frown deepened as he thought over the problem and squatted down next to his canal. In a minute, the banks began to straighten and solidify, smooth rock lining the channel, guiding a ribbon of clear water around the camp then back toward the stream.

  “Yes, well, using magic was considered cheating back then. But young people nowadays just don’t have the same moral backbone, do they?” Jack chuckled and thumped Jim on the back. “You couldn’t run us up a Jacuzzi, could you? I’m aching all over from all this unnatural exercise.”

  “Ask Eirian to give you a massage. If she can get rid of golems, she can get rid of a few aches and pains.”

  Jack looked across to where Kat and Eirian were in earnest conversation, but he shook his head. “Eirian’s an attractive young woman. You’d really be happy knowing she was giving massages to all the fine specimens of manhood around here?”

  They both watched Eirian as she gesticulated to make a point to Kat, her firm, graceful arms, her alert, expressive eyes, her thick hair that fell in a dark wave onto her shoulders. Jim dragged his eyes away and agreed. “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t want to inflict your middle-aged flab on the girl. Forget I ever mentioned it.”

  Jack grinned and punched him in the ribs. “Now, how about explaining about golems?”

  * * * *

  Carla had hardly spoken at all. No one had been talkative that morning. All had been silent, as people are who have slept badly, uncomfortably and not enough. They had yawned themselves through a half-hearted breakfast, saddled the horses and packed up, exchanging scarcely more than monosyllables. But Tully watched Carla like a hawk and saw that her silence had a more profound reason. Her usually laughing mouth was turned down at the corners, and her hair hung over her face to half-hide her eyes. At the midday halt, they went through the motions of preparing what the Gauls called porridge, a thick gruel of mixed grains, to which they added strips of dried meat, fried onions and whatever aromatic herbs and vegetables they could find. Tully cracked jokes and reminisced about picnics they had been on together, but Carla barely replied and refused to smile.

  The porridge was set on one side, keeping hot, while Carla stirred the vegetables in a desultory sort of way. Tully took the spoon out of her hand and forced her to look at him.

  “Tell me.” His voice was low but firm.

  Carla’s hazel eyes filled with tears, and she tried to turn her face away. Tully held her face tenderly in his hands and insisted.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s my mother,” Carla whispered. “I couldn’t find her. I’ll never find her.”

  “It was only your first try! Tonight—”

  “But I looked everywhere last night! I followed the paths all over Tibet, and I couldn’t find any trace of her.”

  Tully was about to ask what she did find, but he thought better of it. “You’re sure that’s where she was?”

  Carla nodded. “The Himalayas, a shrine full of paintings she was restoring. I can’t remember the name, but I’m sure it was in Tibet. Unless…” she hesitated, frowning. “Unless that was the trip before. Porca miseria! Why didn’t I pay more attention? She sent a card with a photo of the shrine or temple or whatever. The name was on it, but I sort of assumed it was Tibet. For the last few years she’s been up and down the Himalayas, in and out of shrines and temples and monasteries. Oh, Tully, she could be anywhere!”

  “Not exactly. I’m willing to bet she’s not with Great-Grandma Quinn in Skibbereen,” Tully joked feebly.

  “What if I can’t find her? It’s a death sentence for all of us, just because I was too selfish to care where my mother was working. How you must hate me!”

  Her face, a delicate V-shape held in Tully’s hands looked fragile and elfin, and Tully felt his heart would burst. “Oh, Carla! I don’t give a monkey’s about—”

  “Tully, shut up! That’s it!”

  Tully watched in surprise as Carla ran to her saddlebag then rummaged through the contents. With a high-pitched squeal of triumph, she brandished a small ivory monkey. “She sent me this. I remember now, the postcards she sent of the shrine, the descriptions of the place she was working, full of brilliantly-colored butterflies and troops of monkeys. If only I could remember the damn name!”

  “Hang onto the image, Carla. Find the shrine. Or take me with you, and we’ll look together.”

  Carla’s mouth stretched into a broad smile, and the tears in her eyes became tears of laughter. “Dreamcatchers don’t do guided tours, you know.”

  “Maybe not your average dreamcatcher, but you’re special. Alinor and all the rest of them said so. Try, Carla. Take me with you!”

  Carla took Tully’s hands and squeezed them. “If it’s humanly possible, I will.”

  * * * *

  “I remember my grandmother telling me a story about the golem when I was little and having nightmares about it.” Jim prodded the fire, letting his eyes slide out of focus as the memories came back. “A rabbi made a sort of figure out of clay, put a powerful word in its mouth—a true name of God, or something—then wrote the word ‘truth�
�� on its forehead. He used it like a servant, because it was big and strong, and he could get it to do anything. But he couldn’t control it in the end. It got too huge. It wasn’t very bright, and it ran amok. He had to trick it into bending down so he could wipe out the aleph on its forehead to change the word from ‘truth’ to ‘dead’. That destroyed it.” Jim shook his head. “If my grandma could have seen me last night, fighting one of the bleeders!”

  They had finished eating their meal, and Eirian had prepared an infusion of chamomile and lime, sweetened with honey. Yvain sipped the hot drink thoughtfully.

  “The Hebrews were a very ancient, very wise people. No wonder Wormwood hated them so much. They knew far more about him than was good for him—and for them ultimately.”

  “Wormwood’s going to send more of them after us, isn’t he?” Jim asked. “And maybe he won’t be able to control them any more than the rabbi in the story could. Maybe he won’t want to! So what happens when they run amok?”

  “They destroy things. Everything, in fact.”

  They exchanged uneasy glances.

  “Sounds like we’d better get a move on then,” Jack said, after a pause. “If we want to have any world left worth saving. How long till we reach…you know, where we’re heading?”

  Yvain looked at Tancred, who thought over the question.

  “Supposing we take the most direct route and meet no obstacles. We could make it in six days, seven at most.”

  “But there will be ‘obstacles’, as you so quaintly put it.” Jack’s voice was heavy with irony, and Tancred bristled.

  “I have no idea what we may have to confront!”

  “On past performance you have a pretty good idea, though. Why not just spit it out?”

  “Nobody ever expected this to be a church picnic, Dad. We’ve all seen the Burnt Man in action,” Tully chipped in.

  “We have supplies for more than two weeks,” Yvain said calmly, “and the barrier around Lutecia and the other cities should hold for far longer.”

  “I think I can feel the pressure on the barrier,” Jim said, stretching his fingers to get rid of the incessant tingling he felt in them. “I don’t know that it will hold that long.”

  “Jim’s right. I think a week might be too long.” Jeff’s voice was quiet, apologetic almost. “The sky in the east is growing more and more obscure. More wormholes are opening and something is appearing that’s far more powerful than we first imagined. It might be better to travel some of the way after all, to get…there, quicker.”

  “But we still haven’t found my mother.” Carla’s voice trembled. “What if we never do? How will we get rid of Wormwood?”

  Tully leapt to his feet. “We will find her! We’ll find Garance and we’ll stop the Apocalypse. That’s what we were brought here to do. It’s in the stars or something. Right, Jeff?”

  Jeff took a deep breath. “It was, something like that, but—”

  “But what?” Tully shot him a glance full of unease.

  “The stars are retreating. They’re withholding their light. We’re being cut off from the rest of the universe.”

  A stunned silence followed, then Kat spoke up, her anxious features drawn into a mask of false jollity. “Tully’s right. We came here to fulfill a task, a prophecy if you like. I haven’t found out yet why I’m here. Perhaps I have a talent for talking to the stars?” She smiled bravely.

  Jack took her hand in his and said with a sad shake of his head, “If a talent for talking could do it, we already have a bloody strong team. The best, in fact!”

  “Your talent is elsewhere, Kat. Don’t worry,” Eirian said with a reassuring smile. “It will manifest itself when we most need it.”

  “See?” Jim nudged her, hating to see the look of despair in her eyes. “It might be a talent for something really useful like kung fu or golem baiting. The next bear that leaps out at us, he’s yours to practice on.”

  Kat laughed, but Jim wasn’t fooled. The expression in her eyes was just as desolate.

  * * * *

  Yvain let Bayard, the black stallion, fall back to join Jeff’s little palomino. “I was interested in what you said back there, about the stars.”

  Yvain kept all trace of anxiety out of his voice, but Jeff wasn’t taken in. “You know what it means, though I’m not sure the others understood completely. I saw a vision of the Earth, our Earth. There were no more stars.” Jeff lowered his voice still more. “The eternal dance goes on. The stars move in the same patterns, but the Earth has been excluded. We are no longer part of the dance.” He fell silent and stared ahead at the green path, seeing nothing.

  Yvain’s expression was grave. “Perhaps it was a vision of the future. Perhaps it has yet to happen. Perhaps it will never happen.”

  “Perhaps.” Jeff wrinkled his brow, as a thought struck him. “Yvain? Alinor explained that Eblis could be any one of us. Eblis means despair, and to give in to despair would be to accept it as a name.”

  “That’s what the sages tell us, yes.”

  “But what if Eblis isn’t one of us? What if he—or she—is still…back there?”

  “In the dying world?”

  Jeff nodded. “With Wormwood.”

  A cloud settled on Yvain’s face. “Then we must hope that he brings his darkness and his eaters of souls here, before Eblis is discovered and all is utterly consumed.”

  Jeff imagined Eblis hiding from the Burnt Man inside an American fridge freezer in a wrecked supermarket, and he shivered.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Barrier Trembles

  Alinor paced about the roof terrace of the Assembly building, stopping every few minutes to gaze out across the city. She saw little activity, but that was not extraordinary. For the last few days, people had left their homes as little as possible, no trading was going on, the markets were closed and food was distributed at set hours of the day. What had changed was the noise. There was none. Even the birds in the park were silent. The sages and dreamcatchers and modelers were all mobilized to maintain the barrier around Lutecia, drawing the air into a web so tight as to feel solid to the touch, catching stray demons and flinging them back outside. Below street level, the jails were filling with those who would sow discord and despair, waiting to be visited by healers or a bullet in the back of the head. Alinor would take no chances with the fate of the world.

  The army of sages formed a circle just within the outer limits of the city, their barrier rising in a protective dome within the sight of those talented enough to see. After days and nights of concentration, even working in relays of eight hours, all the sages were beginning to show signs of fatigue. Alinor and the rest of the Assembly did what they could to share the burden, soothing aching limbs, preparing invigorating infusions, sending healing sleep to those not on duty.

  Even though the darkness in the east grew unceasingly, and almost half the sky was obscured, the barrier had not faltered. Each day, dusk fell earlier. Under cover of the premature darkness, unseen bodies hurled themselves at the rampart created to keep them back, scratching and tearing with invisible claws, and each night they were repulsed. The temperature fell with every hour, and ice formed a thick film that revealed the barrier’s position and provoked cracks and fissures that the modelers fought against their weariness to repair. The darkness thickened, and things could be discerned vaguely in the shadows, things that approached slithering on their bellies, shambling unsteadily on two or four feet, or leaping heedlessly, madly, until with howls of fury, they smashed into the obstacle. The inhuman screams pierced even the heaviest doors, the tightest fitting windows, and sent waves of fear over the breathless city.

  The hour to change the guard on the barrier was about to sound when there was a scuffle in the lane before the eastern gate of the city. A man, drab and shabbily dressed, began to harangue a group of workers distributing bread to the sector.

  “Why keep up this pretense? Why this fiction that we can defy Wormwood and his hordes of souleaters? The traitors
from the dead lands brought Eblis, the fourth scourge, with them. Find Eblis and our troubles are over! Hand over Eblis, and we have nothing to fear! The strangers are nothing to us. Why should we risk annihilation to save their skins?”

  A patrol of guards moved in on the man and overpowered him. The distribution workers looked on uneasily. Something was not right, but Rorik, the master modeler in charge of the east gate, tried not to let his attention wander. The buffer had to be maintained at all costs, and the pressure on it already made his arms drop with weariness. But the disturbance didn’t end with the guards laying hands on the troublemaker. Instead, Rorik felt the sense of oppression mounting, and he was aware of the shouting and scuffling as a movement of panic grew out of nothing. The workers abandoned their load of bread and ran, meeting a crowd running in the opposite direction—an armed crowd.

  Rorik had never been so grateful for the strictly enforced rule that firearms were never used as weapons in Gaul. All were accounted for and kept under lock and key. But the crowd of gray-faced individuals had sticks and clubs, garden implements and kitchen knives, even a few hunting weapons. They plowed through the group of unarmed workers toward the line of modelers.

  “Rorik, take cover!” the captain of the guard patrol shouted to the master modeler. Cannon charges thickened the air, and some of the attackers slowed and stopped, caught in the air-turned-jelly. Rorik broke his concentration long enough to weave and cast a few air ropes around the attackers at the head of the group. Igerne Catrinsdaughter and Raimund Edmondson did the same.

  “That’s enough now! Let the guards deal with this,” Rorik shouted sensing the tension slackening in the barrier as the modelers’ concentration wavered.

  “Eblis,” the crowd roared with one voice, and a lone archer took aim. Rorik fell, an arrow in his chest. The blow knocked him to the ground and took away his breath. Sparks and colored lights of pain flickered across his eyes, blurring his vision. He tried to sit up, his fading senses caught by the barrier where a stinking black slime seeped through an invisible fissure. Guards overpowered the archer, and a healer ran to Rorik’s side.