He got down from his horse and walked over to it and examined it.
"Huh. Copper wire. Looks like enough on that one reel to run from here back to the exit station. Insulated fence stakes, odd post fasteners . . . It's as if they're going to run something through the wire and they don't want it grounded. Very odd. Oh—you two can speak freely now. Pretend time is done."
Boday jumped down and looked at the stuff all laid out there. "Clearly it is more than a mere fence," she noted. "Boday has seen small areas for security that are electrified with materials such as this. They would kill anyone who touched them. Could that be what they are doing? Although it begs the question of who they would be doing this against."
Dorion nodded. "Yeah, that's a real question, all right. A lot of the hubs have fencing, but it's mostly to keep animals from wandering in. It's easier and cheaper to barrier the small section of overlap with the colonial worlds than entirely ring a hub. Besides, where would they get the kind of power a fence like this would require? They can barely power the central district of the capital with what they have."
He thought a moment, then mused, "But if there was a very low-level charge, a trickle, of any sort of energy, even a bit of the null bled into it if somebody figured out how, then it would be enough to close a circuit. It wouldn't keep anybody in or out, but you'd know when your border was breached, and roughly where. Yes, I'll bet that's it. Probably just a test section now, but nobody goes to all this trouble to prove a theory. I wonder who or what they're suddenly afraid of."
"Does it matter?" Charley asked him impatiently. "Let's get someplace where we can cross out of this place and begin to relax and maybe have time enough to sleep in a real bed and— take a bath ..." She added the last less wistfully than reverently. She knew how she had to look and she knew how her hair felt and she certainly knew how everybody smelled. These Akahlar people didn't seem to take too many baths, but that was an area too gross for her to compromise, and gross was the word for all of them by now.
Dorion thought it over. "Well, here's as good a place as any, although who knows how long we're going to have to wait out there until a world we can live with comes up? If we go any farther north we'll hit the exit station area, and if we go south we're going to probably wind up cutting holes in their nice, shiny new fence that isn't even ready yet. That would sure tell them where we exited and give them something of a lead. All right—here it is. Boday—mount up and stay behind Charley as usual. We're going across!"
They went in; Dorion in the lead, Charley almost slipped once as the horse tried for a decent balancing act, but she hung on and felt the horse suddenly level out and speed up as they went out onto the null.
She liked the null because she could see it, and, more to her surprise, she seemed to also see the sky, although it looked kind of weird, like some trick photography or something, the swirling clouds outlined in dim and unnatural colors and hues and crackling with a dark, demonic energy.
Shadowcat, in his harness and perch, gave a sudden yowl that would wake the dead, and Dorion whirled and yelled, "Stop! Turn around and head back for the bank! It's a trap!"
Charley didn't react at first; the demon clouds seemed suddenly to take on a shape, and then out of those clouds, or perhaps of the clouds, a giant and horrible vision formed.
The giant was outlined in hellfire; a great pterodactyl with hollow, burning eyes and a mouth that seemed filled with flame. The rider was even more terrifying, outlined boldly in whites and crimsons, a gigantic figure who rode the flying beast as comfortably as they did horses. The Stormrider was easily ten or twelve feet tall and proportioned to match, and there was a semblance of armor in the magical energy outline, and of a helmet with visor up inside which burned deep crimson flame out of which two dark, demonic eyes peered.
She didn't need any more encouragement. She couldn't see the hub itself but the very lack of vision was enough of a visual cue. She kicked the horse and let it take her back.
The great giant screamed at them, its cry echoing off the land and piercing their very souls as it did so. Charley could only hang on for dear life and pray that she could make it back before that thing could single her out and its talons take her.
Clearly, though it was a creature of sorcery, this was no invisible monster to anyone, cursed with the magical sight or not. Boday tried to keep pace with Charley and keep her on the right track, but she turned, watching the great Stormrider on his giant pivot, turn, and start to dive in towards them; and she reached for a gun, turned in the saddle, and, certain she couldn't miss something that big even at this distance and under these conditions, fired.
The bullet found its mark but it had no effect, cutting right through the fearsome apparition as if it did not represent anything real.
An incredibly deep, resonant mate voice filled the air with mocking laughter.
Furious but frustrated, Boday watched Charley's horse make it to the edge of the hub once again and scramble up that short but irregular ledge. The horse slipped, and Charley suddenly found herself thrown, falling into the mist and hitting the soft, mossy ground of it hard. She managed to get up quickly, adrenaline pumping and masking any pain or injury, but she was shocked, confused. Turning, she watched as the great horror swooped down on her, perhaps only seconds away.
Suddenly she felt herself being picked up and held against a horse, then bounced as the horse made it up the side of the hub to the ground above. She felt something touch her, sting her thigh, and there was a rush of air and a foul stench, and then suddenly she was dropped onto the dirt of the hub.
Boday was breathing hard. "Hurry! Do not delay! We shall find your horse later, but, for now, come up with me and get away from the edge!"
But Charley just lay there, hurting, unable to move. She looked down at her thigh and saw it shining a burning crimson, the same as what had been inside that creature's armor. Her leg was suddenly numb, paralyzed, without feeling or the ability to move except for the burning.
She could only sit there and look out and watch the horrible thing finish its circle and come in close again. There was nothing she could do, no place she could run, and she just watched it come closer, ever closer—until it was virtually at the hub border.
Suddenly the rider pulled up, and the giant and rider remained suspended in the air just a few feet away from the border, the great flying creature's wings going gently up and down in an apparent attempt to keep it mere.
Charley abruptly realized that for some reason the thing couldn't come in. Perhaps the same power that kept out the colonials and the nasties prevented even this form from crossing into one of their sacred hubs.
The two deep, burning eyes fixed upon her.
"The power of the storms in a null is great," said the Stormrider in that low, resonant bass. "Because of the mixing of the air masses and the constant shift in access to the colonial worlds it is always turbulent. Even now forces obedient to me have cut off access and soon will be closing in on you from all sides but this. You cannot win. You cannot escape. Rise and come to me!"
Charley felt will in her burning leg, but it wasn't her will. It tried to stand, tried to force her into motion, but it was simply not enough.
Suddenly Boday was there, pulling her back from the edge, pulling her back behind cover.
"I have fifty men who have no morals or scruples at all and whose reward is great when they bring you to me," the Stormrider chided them. "They also do not care for the lives of your companions. You cannot cross except through me, and your pitiful weapons mean nothing to a prince of the clouds."
Dorion came up beside them, crouching low. "Damn it, he might be right," the magician muttered.
"What is that thing?" Charley asked, scared.
"Stormrider on a giant. Creatures of the Inner Hells, beyond Akahlar where no humans may exist. They can cross, though, into our existence if there is sufficient energy and if they are called by a sorcerer, and they very much want to cross into here."
&n
bsp; "It's that horny bastard again, isn't it? He brought that thing in!"
"Yeah. He's got something going with them. It's all tied in with the same plot somehow, if we knew what it was. Never mind the history lesson now, though. I don't think he's bluffing about those men, either. Damn! I should have thought of this! Their powers are lessened in daylight."
"Enough to get across through it?" she asked.
He paused. "No. Not that lessened. Damn! I wish I could think!"
"You are a magician, oh mighty Master," Boday said sarcastically. "Can you not divert it so that we might cross?"
"I'm not that good a magician! Besides, the cure might be worse than the disease."
Charley felt something furry brush against her and looked down to see the shining lavender fuzz that was Shadowcat. The cat went to her burning leg, climbed on it, and seemed to rest there. She felt a sudden tingle and watched as the cat began to take on some of the crimson coloration of the magical wound. It was incredible, but, somehow, Shadowcat was absorbing the spell, restoring her leg!
She began to think furiously. "Look, didn't you say that the fence they were building was mostly copper? To conduct some magic energy?"
Dorion stared at her. "Yes, but what of it?"
"How was the fence wire stored?"
"On a big reel. That's the only way they can handle it." He was beginning to get interested.
"Hollow core?"
"Yeah, but it must weigh like lead."
"How far are we from it?"
He looked out. "About a hand. Why? What are you thinking of?"
A hand was around 125 feet or so. "Something impossible, probably. If if you could turn that copper wire coil and mount it somehow on a spindle so it'd turn, and if you could pry off the end from inside and fix it to something iron here, in the hub . . ."
Dorion's eyes lit up. "I think I see! Yes, it's worth a try!" He turned and explained it as quickly as possible to Boday. "Stay here," he ordered. "Boday and I will go see."
There were several reels of the stuff at the work site, and the two of them could barely move the smallest one on its side, but they managed. Boday looked around at the rest of the work site and the tools and equipment there, found a number of things, and began to improvise.
"Ha! Not a mere winch, a sculpture that shall enter into legend!" she muttered, and began to assemble a very strange-looking device from bits and pieces of boards and equipment she found lying about.
The activity took time, and did not go unnoticed by the Stormrider.
"What is this? A fence of magic, perhaps? Effective, to a degree, but hardly a good defense against bullets and knives and swords I should think," he noted.
"Silence, pig!" Boday shouted back at him. "Boday is creating and she detests critics enough later on; she cannot abide them looking over her shoulder as she creates!"
The Stormrider seemed somewhat taken aback. "She is truly mad," he muttered, almost to himself. "But this avails you nothing."
Dorion suspected that he might be right, but it took less than fifteen minutes for Boday to come up with what might just be a workable winch—if they could keep the damned roll on the spool or even lift it on there in the first place. However, after failing for a few minutes to convince Boday that decorative carvings and shaping of the edges into artistic forms was a luxury they couldn't afford and finally commanding her as a slave to obey, they managed with great difficulty to get the reel up onto the spindle, which sagged just a bit but seemed to hold.
Boday fed out several yards of the wire while Dorion reached in with a knife and finally found an end piece; then, with a knife and with Boday steadying the reel, he got enough out to be manageable.
The artist looked at the inner end. "You will have to hold that down and firm. When this reel turns, it will want to pull that end back up into the reel."
He nodded. "I'm going to loop it around this iron fencepost and then jam it into the works of the bonding device here. It must weigh a thousand halg. If the wire is tied and the post wedged firmly enough it should hold. Can you shoot such a stiff wire, though?"
"Boday would prefer a cannon, but she will manage. See, she has already taken off at least two hands of wire, and that is about as far as the crossbow will reach with any accuracy. Still, we shall have to bring him in a bit."
He nodded. "I'll get Charley and the horses. Either this works or we're going to be in deep trouble. I think I can hear riders in the distance now."
Shadowcat had somehow completely absorbed the evil from her leg. She had some feeling again, and managed, somewhat wobblily, to stand. She reached down and picked up the cat, who seemed all in with the effort.
"Don't you worry, Shadowcat. You just earned whatever you want from me," she told him.
Dorion came, startled to see her standing. "It's done—I think. Boday may be crazy but in her own way she's a real genius." He paused for a moment. "So are you," he added softly.
She handed him the cat. "Here. I don't know if that bastard can understand English but the last thing we want is for him to read my mind right now. Bring me around until I can see him and he me, and pray that Boday gets the idea. Be ready in a flash, because that might be all we have. Even if this works, who knows what'll happen?"
He sighed. "Yeah. Nobody's ever even hurt a Stormrider before in all this time."
"Yeah. I'm counting on him knowing and believing that, too."
With the magician's help, she stepped out from behind the rock-and-bush cover and saw the edge of the null and the great, fearsome, hovering shape that waited.
Boday had the crossbow rigged, but she was still too far away to be effective. "Over here! Towards the sound of Boday's voice!"
Charley shifted, and, keeping just a few yards in from the edge, she managed to cautiously move towards the fence line where Boday waited.
After what seemed like an eternity, she felt and heard Boday behind her. "Good enough, but you will have to bring him in," the artist whispered.
"I have to admit I am curious," said the Stormrider. "Just what has all this been about? Do you think you can somehow sting me with that crossbow and some puny wire? Sticks and stones can't break my bones for I am a creature of sorcery!" he mocked. "And that half-baked magician of yours is no match for me no matter what magic he intends shooting up that wire."
"Yeah, well, if you want it, come and get it," Charley said in English, and walked slowly towards the edge of die null.
"Ah! The bait for my trap! Come, come, then, my pretty one! Come to me and try your worst. Here, mad one, I will make it easy for you!"
With that, the Stormrider slowly moved down and in, until he was perhaps twenty feet, no more, from the hub's edge. Thunder rumbled ominously and Charley could see the energy from the null storm transferred not to rain or mist but to the Stormrider, energizing him, making him more and more solid.
Suddenly Boday bolted past Charley and went right to the edge. "Very well, sir! Try this stick!" she screamed at him, aimed, and fired the crossbow.
Boday didn't allow for the wire that was suddenly shooting out and she felt a sudden sharp pain in her back that knocked her over and sent her tumbling down into the null itself, screaming curses. In the same time that it took Boday to fall, the arrow struck low into the Stormrider's giant.
The laughter stopped abruptly, and there was a sudden, piercing scream from the giant. Instantly, creature and rider were turned into a giant ball of flame like a miniature orange sun, and what happened next was so fast that Charley could not follow it. It seemed as if the sun raced towards her, and she fell on her face and felt a burning sensation and then there was nothing but a terrible crackling sound and a monstrous roar of thunder so close it rattled her eardrums and knocked her senseless.
Dorion was out in seconds with the horses. He didn't wait for Charley to recover, but picked her up and somehow got her on the horse, where she sat, stunned and confused, only half-aware. He led the horses and their lone rider down into the null, stopping
just inside.
Boday was still cursing, and he helped her up. "Are you hurt?"
"Boday's ears are stuffed with cotton!" she screamed, although it was no longer necessary to do so. "She is bruised and sore and perhaps hurt, but not as much as that flying son of a bitch!" Unsteadily, she mounted the same horse as Charley and held on to her. Dorion led the procession, with Charley's horse carrying only a dazed and very tired Shadowcat out into the null mists.
The riders were now very close, and some could be seen in the distance. There was no time to waste and Dorion knew it. No matter what, they had to ride like blazes across the null and hope that something decent came up before the riders caught them.
8
A Chase Down Memory Lane
Yobi held up potion up, studying it. "Interesting stuff," she muttered in her raspy voice. "There's some real creative people there."
Kira gasped, horrified, as the old witch suddenly drank a small portion of the memory-erasing potion. "No! Wait!"
A toothless grin spread over Yobi's face. "Smooth . . ." she whispered. "Good stuff. Oh, don't worry, my dear. I just want to see what it does and where it goes. I'm in perfect control of it. It's a foreign substance by my spell and will."
They waited for what seemed interminable minutes in the darkness.
"Fast," said the witch. "They must have put it in her morning breakfast juice or something. It'd knock you over before you knew what hit you, and men it goes for the jugular, as it were. Forces the victim to cooperate with it, it does. Fascinating. It sort of gets to know you. Then it finds your lowest common denominator, as it were, and allows those feelings and impulses to remain while it blocks all nonessential memory, anything keyed to 'self.' It appears to actually displace, even replace, certain chemicals or enzymes in the brain itself. It has a very long life and it doesn't get thrown out as a foreign invader, but eventually it does wear out, but not before the new pattern is reinforced and there's been some rewiring, as it were. It establishes Misa as the mind, the identity, then it wires in a whole new set of connections so that only those things relating to 'Misa' as 'self are referenced. By the time it's learned 'Misa' and worn away, there's no connection with the old self. Needed memories—language and the like, common sense about not sticking your hand in the fire, all that—are duplicated as new 'Misa' information and then the old references are replaced by the potion. When it wears away, there's no more connection to the old. Fascinating."
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