Alastair saw motion in his peripheral vision. He dropped, aiming left as he fell, and fired. The burst caught the gangster in mid-aim. The man fell, a surprised look on his face. Alastair switched to single-shot and put a bullet between the man's eyes to make sure of him.
There was a thump from behind. He spun around.
A headless man stood there, arterial blood pumping up from his neck. His head was rolling away down the hill. He fell, revealing Noriko crouched behind. She held her blade in her right hand and an automatic pistol, doubtless picked up from one of the men, in her left.
Alastair nodded his thanks. He switched back on full auto, then scrambled around the left side of his cabinet.
A silhouette appeared before him, moving across his line of vision. Alastair aimed, then swung his barrel up as the firelight revealed the man's white, white hair.
It was Doc . . . and it wasn't. Alastair watched as his friend aimed without looking and put a bullet into the brain of a man directly behind him. Doc's arm swung around and the gun fired again, taking down a sniper Alastair hadn't even seen, but Doc never looked at the man he killed.
His face in the firelight was smiling, serene, perfect. His eyes did not blink.
Alastair shuddered. Doc was with the gods of blood and fire now.
Men ran down the hill. Gaby counted six of them. Two tripped, one after another, and rolled a good thirty yards. One got up and began limping; the other lay still.
She shot the one who ran toward the trucks. He, too, fell and did not move. She felt the knot in her stomach tighten again.
The other men were headed toward the trees. They waved and shouted at the men coming out of the forest, directing them to run.
There were two more gunshots from the top of the hill, then silence. Cabinets continued to burn. Gaby watched the last of the men move, reach the trees and disappear.
Joseph waited beside her. "It is a bad thing to be clumsy," he said. "I feel I have not helped much. Perhaps I should go up and see what has happened."
"Okay."
"Will you be—"
"Just go, dammit."
He began his long, lumbering walk up the hill.
* * *
They descended the hill toward her in a slow, single line.
Joseph carried Doc like a baby. She could see Doc jerk and twitch.
Alastair was next. He was talking to Jean-Pierre. But as they got closer Gaby realized that the thin man wasn't Jean-Pierre, but an older gentleman with glasses.
Harris came next. He staggered under the weight of the tarpaulin-wrapped mass he carried, but his face was fixed, his eyes unseeing.
Noriko brought up the rear. She wouldn't look up.
Gaby tried to make sense of it as Joseph reached the trucks. Where was Jean-Pierre? Then she saw the expression on Harris' face, on the faces of the others, and she knew. Her vision blurred under tears.
The old man, handsome in spite of his leanness, animated in spite of his grimness, was talking. "I'm sorry about your friend. I know his family. Fine people. We can't wait."
"One bell of our time is so precious?" Alastair asked, anger in his voice. "One bell?"
"A bell might be death for us all."
They passed Gaby. Alastair got to the rear of the truck and lowered the tailgate. Joseph set Doc down in the truck bed.
Harris didn't look at Gaby as he passed. He walked to the back and gently placed his precious cargo down beside Doc.
Alastair said, "Joseph, can you drive this?"
"I can."
"Drive. Back to the airfield. Forget about the other car." Alastair swung up into the rear of the truck. Harris and Noriko followed suit and lifted the tailgate.
Gaby, numb, got into the passenger side of the cab. Joseph was already in the driver's seat. "What happened?" she asked.
He told her.
Chapter Twenty
Alastair inserted the hypodermic into Doc's vein and drove the plunger home. He withdrew the needle and set it aside.
Doc gave one final twitch, then heaved a sigh and relaxed. His eyes closed. His breathing slowed and became more regular.
Alastair silently cursed the gods that had brought him here.
With the forests of Cretanis disappearing behind them, one of their number, a good friend, was dead. One had left his mind in the land of the gods and was now drugged into a stupor. The rest were numbed by grief. And if what their new ally had hinted at was true, they needed more strength for what lay ahead.
He drew shut the drapes over Doc's bunk on the Frog Prince and went forward. Turbulence made the footing unsteady.
The others were arrayed in the lounge—except for Noriko, who flew the plane on its westward course, and Jean-Pierre, whose body now lay in the cargo compartment under most of the ice from the galley.
Someone had thoughtfully set out Jean-Pierre's decanters of spirits and several glasses, most of which were now in use. Alastair took a clean one, poured it full of uisge, and sat down to glare at Caster Roundcap. "Now," he said. "Your story."
The solemn old man cleared his throat and, in a clear voice and lilting accent, began.
"Forty years ago, I met a man. His name was Theo MacAllister. An odd-looking fellow; he was bald. I asked him if it was from an accident and he said no, just a characteristic of his family. And he'd laugh as though it were a grim joke.
"He was an inventor. He made a pocket knife with a can-opener as one of the blades. Earned a fortune from it and some other devices. And he was a prophet."
Alastair stirred. "What did he prophesy?"
"He predicted the Colonial War between Castilia and the League of Ardree, a year before the first sign of trouble. He predicted the World Crisis decades before anyone else.
"And the most interesting thing was this: He was completely immune to iron poisoning." The old man waited for some show of surprise from the others; he saw none. That seemed to satisfy him. He nodded, patted down his pockets, and brought out a pipe and a pouch full of tobacco.
"Anyway . . . He was prone to fits of loneliness. One time when he was in his cups I helped him home. He told me where he was from. The grim world. Of course I did not believe him. I didn't believe there was a grim world, much less that he was one of her sons. But he was able to convince me. Such conviction in his stories, such truth in his predictions.
"I began to search for other signs of grimworlders. Theo's history gave me thoughts on what to look for. I found stories. I found living men and women, some of whom would admit to remembering the grim world. Some of them never did, but I could often see through their deceptions." He finished packing the bowl of his pipe, struck a match, puffed until he could draw smoke to his satisfaction.
"I am a historian, an arcanologist, by trade—my father's trade, and his mother's before him—and made the study of the grim world my hobby. From the clues I could draw from the grimworlders I met, I developed some theories about the two worlds."
"He's dead," Harris said.
Caster froze. The others did, too. The poor young man's mind wasn't even here. He had to be reliving the events on the hill, the death of the Acadian prince.
Harris continued, "Theo MacAllister. I remember him from the Changeling's lists. Angus Powrie killed him years ago."
"Oh, how sad." Caster shook his head. "I tried to track him down a few years ago and could not. His children said he'd vanished. I knew then something very bad was in the wind."
Alastair asked, "What theories?"
"I have little proof for any of this," Caster said. "A little evidence and a growing conviction based on things I've heard.
"First, I'm certain that there is a grim world. I think she is a sister to our fair world. Perhaps they were one world once, and developed into twins in their infancy.
"Second, I believe it is possible, though rare, to move from the grim world to here. By extension, it is likely that one can go the other way. I'd never heard of it being done . . . unless Angus Powrie's hints about Duncan Blacklette
r are true. I'd believe anything of Blackletter from the years I knew him."
Alastair gave him a hard look. "You're a friend of his?"
"Oh, no. Never that. When I knew him, he was just a quiet deviser, an old, retired student trying to reconstruct forgotten rituals, living in Novimagos. He saw my early papers on the grim world and wrote letters of praise. We corresponded, exchanged ideas . . . And then one day I heard he was dead, and learned that he deserved to be. A pity I find that the story of his death is erroneous."
"He was famous," Harris said. "How is it you didn't recognize his name?"
"He went by another one," Caster said. "He called himself Duncan MaqqRee."
Alastair swore. "Crass of him. To go by the name of his enemy."
Caster shrugged. "Where was I?"
"Moving from the grim world," Alastair said.
"Ah, yes. In my youth, when I could still travel most moons of the year and keep my health, I discovered that three sites resonated with the same devisement energy given off by the men and women of the grim world. After much study I concluded that these were actually the ends of bindings between the worlds—a sort of umbilical cord.
"Using globes and devisements of my own design, I set up similar links on a much smaller scale. Two worlds, represented by the globes, united by cords that let them share health, share strength, even share events."
Gabriela said, "Meaning that things happening on one globe might be duplicated on the other."
"Very good." Caster nodded approvingly. "Not an exact duplication, by any means. A dim reflection. The greater the event, the greater the likelihood that it would be reflected. I could dab a tiny bit of paint on one globe and nothing might happen to the other. But if I set a portion of one globe afire, a similar portion on the other would usually char.
"Over the years, I've done an immense amount of experimenting on my globes. Even today, they're still spinning in my town house, unless that Powrie person damaged them. By arduous trial and error, and examination of the three sites I've mentioned, I think I've discovered much about the relationships of the two worlds."
Alastair impatiently gestured for him to continue. Caster took a moment to formulate a perfect smoke ring; he puffed it up toward the ceiling. "I think these `umbilical cords' determine the way things people and objects make the transition from one world to the other.
"I've heard enough from the men and women I've interviewed to suspect that the grim world ranges ahead of us in the development of science . . . and lags far behind in the sophistication, and especially acceptance, of its devisements. I believe the cords ensure this. Grimworlders told me of advanced devices they had with them when they made the transition. What do you suppose happened to them when they reached the fair world?"
Gaby spoke again. "Twisted until they're useless."
"You've seen it, then. Yes, they're ruined. I think this is a prophylactic effect—protection for the fair world. I believe our world protects herself from scientific advances that still bear rough edges; she won't allow the passage of anything that could do her harm. Likewise, I think the properties of devices and devisements taken hither-thither would be ruined or diminished. In one world, the old ways are manifest. In the other, the ways of cold, unfettered science dominate.
"But what does get through—the people, I mean—I believe they have a disproportionate effect on the world they've come to. The men and women I talked to from the grim world spoke of this world feasting on them like leeches. The fairworlders drank in and adopted their language, their manners, their ideas. I think that every grimworlder who has come here has added much to our language and store of knowledge.
"I think, in short, that the two world-sisters march together, but the grim world is the vanguard—the first to challenge the unknown, the first to suffer the beatings of change. The fair world hangs back, remains safe and strong, and grants the benefits of her health and wisdom to her sister."
Alastair looked thoughtful. "I won't say that this doesn't make some sense, from what we've already learned. But what were the events at Adennum Complex all about?"
"Adennum is one of the three sites, of course. The other two are the Prophetess' Stone at Omphalia in Panelassion, and at Itzamnál, navel of the Sky Lizard and Earth Lizard in Aluxia. And the ritual you saw at the top of the hill at Adennum, enabled by that portable standing-stone circle made of wood, was nothing less than an effort to cut away the cord linking the two worlds."
"Was it successful?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean, yes?"
"Yes. It was successful." Caster sent another smoke ring at the ceiling. "The cord at Adennum went away. I could feel it. I'm sensitized to those specific emissions of power, after all.
"The goddesses bleed. And the other half of the expedition, led by Duncan Blackletter, was supposed to be doing the same exact thing at Omphalia at the same time. Their plan was to meet in Aluxia afterward and finish the ritual by cutting the third cord together."
Alastair looked among his companions. They seemed as troubled as he.
Caster continued, "Powrie said that these events could not be accomplished until all the men who'd made the transition from one world to the other were gone from at least one of the worlds. I assume that's been done." He saw Harris nod. "Well, then. I regret to say that my life's work has been correct and true. I have successfully identified some of the basic tenets that govern the way our world works. And I seem to have helped a very bad man use that knowledge to a very bad end."
Alastair said, "What end? With the cords cut, doesn't that mean travel between the two worlds will be impossible?"
The scholar shook his head. "Oh, no, Goodsir Kornbock. Travel was never dependent on the cords—else it could only be done from those three sites. No, only the constraints laid down by the goddesses are gone. Devisers who know how to move from one world to the other can carry whatever they wish with them. I can only assume that the fair world is unprepared for what the grim world can bring her . . . and vice versa."
Gaby looked even more glum. "Alastair, we've got things . . . guns, drugs, bombs you wouldn't believe. One bomb could destroy Neckerdam."
"The whole city?"
"All of it. One bomb could turn the whole island into burned slag and kill everybody there. Maybe Duncan can't get his hands on one; they're hard to get. But he can bring all sorts of things that will give us grief."
Alastair went white. He turned back to Caster. "If we stop Duncan in Aluxia, can we repair the cords?"
"If my model work is accurate—and so far, I must say, it has been absolutely correct—then you won't have to. Even if the third cord is cut, given time, all three will eventually regrow."
"So this only creates a brief period in which Duncan can act freely."
"No. The problem is this. In my experiments, once I'd cut the links between my globes, I was able to forge new ones. Links with different defining characteristics. Once they were in place, the old ones would not regrow. All I had to do first was make sure that neither globe was contaminated by a taint of the other."
Everyone turned to look at Harris and Gaby. Gaby glared back. "Boil that down into English. I mean Low Cretanis. You're saying that Duncan killed every fairworlder on the grim world so he could cut the links. And if he manages to finish off the grimworlders on the fair world, he can set up new ones."
"New ones with different characteristics. If he has the skill, he could, for instance, decide that every grimworlder who comes to the fair world ever after becomes devoted to him. And vice versa. An army of slaves in each world . . . slaves that the natives are unprepared to defeat. He could become a god."
Alastair stood. "If there's anything I hate," he said, "it's being in charge. I'm going up to tell all this to Noriko and make some talk-box calls. One to Panelassion to confirm that the second ceremony took place. Another to a friend of Doc's in Aluxia so we can have some allies in place before Duncan gets there.
"Joseph, keep an eye on Doc. Tell me
if there's any change in his manner. Goodsir Roundcap, find yourself a bunk; this will be a long flight. Gaby, Harris, get what sleep you can." He shook his head as if, by denying it, he could undo everything that had happened in the last few bells. He headed forward.
Harris went aft. Gaby started to follow him, but Caster intercepted her. "Goodlady?"
"What is it?"
"You are one of them, aren't you?" Up close, he tried to take in every detail of her, saw the subtle signs of wrongness about her. "A grimworlder."
"Well . . . yes."
"I'd like to speak with you. At length. About your world. Your history."
She looked away, staring after the vanished Harris. After a long moment she met his gaze again. "I think I'd better not."
"Why?"
"Why do you think?"
"You think I might misuse what I learned."
"I think you might use what you learned. That's just as bad."
"A telling shot. We'll talk later." He watched her hurry after Harris.
Gaby paused outside Harris' bunk and called his name.
There was no answer. She heard slow, regular breathing from beyond his curtains.
Asleep already. He usually wasn't able to sleep so fast. He must have been exhausted by what he'd gone through. She cursed Caster Roundcap for delaying her. She went forward to her own bunk.
* * *
Harris heard her call his name. He waited, his eyes closed. Just go, he silently begged.
She did.
Now he knew, he finally understood, why she'd told him she didn't want him anymore.
Because he was a man of good intentions.
But good intentions didn't win fights. They didn't get things done. They didn't point toward the future. They didn't save Jean-Pierre's life. He'd let her down in every conceivable way.
He applauded her decision. Maybe she wouldn't take too long to find someone else. Someone who didn't screw up and get people killed. Someone like Alastair. Someone like Doc. It surprised him that he didn't want to smash the face of whomever she chose. He wished her well.
He heard Joseph set up a chair a few steps aft. Wood creaked, even over the roar of the engines, as the giant settled.
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