– from the tales of Kithen the Storyteller
****
A fine luncheon was served on a brightly-lit stone-paved terrace at the Skyler's main house, where balls of glowing colored fog drifted in slow patterns overhead, and where several varieties of polychrome mutant peacocks, made supernaturally splendid by their customized genes, stalked in silent beauty on the rippling lawn nearby. Soft sourceless music played unobtrusively.
The meal was not a pleasant one. Despite the Skyler's earlier declaration that she would not eat with a savage, she and Bredon were both present, and both ate. No one made any mention of this inconsistency; after all, the others all seemed to silently agree, it was the Skyler's home and she could do as she pleased.
Bredon could not bring himself to contribute much to the conversation. He was worried, about himself and about Lady Sunlight and about what Thaddeus would do. Furthermore, despite his new insights into the workings of Terran technology, he was still somewhat awed by the realization that he was dining with three of the Powers-the Powers, about whom he had heard since infancy, beings just a step below gods.
He knew now that they were only human, but the aura the stories bestowed still lingered, reinforced by the otherworldly beauty of the Skyler's domain, and he felt it would not be respectful to speak openly in such company, as if he were their equal.
He was hardly in the mood for light chatter, in any case. As if his other worries weren't enough, his high-speed education had not covered details such as Terran table manners, so that he was in a perpetual state of uncertainty, constantly watching the others to be sure he was using the unfamiliar utensils correctly.
The Skyler met one of his surreptitious glances in her direction and glared back with such ferocity that Bredon thereafter studiously avoided looking at her, instead watching Geste and Imp.
Even before he caught her eye, the Skyler was moody and belligerent, and Bredon guessed that she resented the presence of so many people-one of them a stranger-aboard her private retreat. She devoted most of her energy to devouring her food, rather than to conversation. She chewed away defiantly.
Imp, clad in a red-orange bodysuit, seemed far more radiantly beautiful in person than she had in holographic transmission. Still distraught over Aulden's disappearance, she said nothing, except to reply as briefly as possible to Geste's occasional questions. She ate little, picking at her food. When he looked at her, Bredon found himself thinking of Lady Sunlight; not only did he sympathize with Imp's situation, her concern about a loved one held captive, but her beauty reminded him of Lady Sunlight. She was short and red-headed, with a heart-shaped face and worried expression, where Lady Sunlight was tall, thin, blonde, and aloof, but both were extremely attractive women, and Bredon took an instinctive interest in Imp that had him involuntarily comparing the two in the back of his mind. Even when he had to resort to sheer imagination-he had never spoken to Lady Sunlight, had seen her only briefly in real life, and then again briefly in recordings at Arcade-Lady Sunlight won out in these comparisons, and that brought home to him again just how much he wanted her.
Imp knew nothing of this, did not notice Bredon's attention. She stared unseeing at her plate and occasionally put something in her mouth, where she would gnaw on it interminably before finally swallowing and picking something else.
Geste, for his part, did his best to keep up a lively conversation even while wolfing down his meal, but it quickly developed into a monologue. He accepted this, and began telling long, complicated jokes, most of which made little sense to Bredon.
The Skyland and the other various non-human intelligences said nothing beyond polite inquiries about the service, which was handled by several dozen tiny disk-shaped blue floaters that extruded arms and hands as needed. These disks were constantly buzzing and fluttering about, removing used tableware and replacing it with fresh, carrying food back and forth, refilling drinks through a bent-space siphon, and so forth.
Nobody, not even Bredon after the first few minutes, paid any attention to the peacocks, or the music, or the lawn that moved in graceful patterns without wind, or the lights drifting above them, or any of the other wonders that made up the decor.
Despite his nervousness, Bredon ate until he could eat no more, stuffing himself shamelessly on the mysterious and savory foods that were presented to him. When he had finished he glanced around, and was astonished to see the three immortals still eating. Imp was still only nibbling, but Geste and the Skyler were clearly consuming even more than Bredon had.
A moment's thought provided him with a provisional explanation of how a woman and a small man could each eat more than a large, hungry young man. These people had their internal machinery to power. Each one carried at least one symbiotic organism in his or her blood; each presumably had a skull-liner drawing energy.
An old story about one of Geste's pranks came to mind, one Bredon had heard only once, as a very young child. The Trickster had gotten himself invited to dine in the hut of a poor family of outcasts, and had eaten their entire winter store. Unable to refuse a Power, the household had grown steadily more worried as they politely offered meal after meal and watched Geste consume them all without hesitation, leaving the family with less and less for the coming cold.
Finally, one of the children, seeing the last of his mother's sugar cookies disappearing, had begged Geste to stop. Geste had just smiled and eaten the cookie.
With the polite facade cracked by the child's action, the family broke down and begged the Trickster to stop eating, but he had kept on devouring everything in sight.
Bredon could not remember whether, as Atheron told it, Geste burst out laughing first, or the family ran out of food first, but in any case, they had run out of food, and Geste had laughed, and while the parents were still polite and respectful the children had grown resentful and chastised Geste, which had only made him laugh harder.
Beyond that the details were fuzzy in Bredon's memory, but he knew the story had a happy ending, that Geste had given the family an endless supply of wonderful new foods that made them all wealthy. Atheron had meant the story to teach the value of hospitality, he supposed, but Bredon had never really believed the story to be true.
Watching the immortals eat, though, he began to wonder.
It occurred to him that the story certainly could be true. Even a Power couldn't actually eat an entire winter store, but he could make it vanish, into invisibility or into a bent-space receptacle of some sort, and the whole incident, as Atheron had described it, fit Geste's slightly cruel sense of humor.
He sat, politely quiet, as the others continued their meal, Imp and the Skyler in sullen silence, Geste still babbling on with an endless anecdote about an intelligence designed for piloting a starship that had accidentally been installed in a floor-cleaner.
Imp eventually abandoned any pretext of eating, and even the Skyler and Geste stopped doing more than nibbling. The flying disks stopped bringing new foods, and devoted themselves to removing the old and cleaning away every crumb or drip that remained.
Finally, as the eastern sky began to fade from black to blue with the approach of secondlight dawn, the disks brought tall, thin, strangely-shaped glasses of something that sparkled blue. Geste ended his current tale abruptly, and turned toward the approaching service machines in time to accept his glass before it could reach the tablecloth.
The women were less hurried, and allowed the drinks to be set down before they picked them up.
“What is it?” Bredon asked, as he lifted his glass with the others.
The Skyler threw him a resentful glance and snapped, “This, barbarian, is an after-dinner cordial, a beverage…” She cut herself off short.
“Thank you, lady,” Bredon said. He sipped from his glass.
The stuff was sweet and sharp and strongly alcoholic, which Bredon had not expected; he stopped before more than a trace had passed his lips, to avoid any risk of an unbecoming splutter. The people of his own village ended their meals
with sweets, but never with alcohol. Their potent corn liquor was reserved for celebrations or as relief from long drudgery, and while this elaborate meal had certainly not been a celebration, Bredon had not considered it drudgery, either.
He sipped again, and now that he knew what to expect he found the drink very good indeed. “This is excellent, lady,” he said.
The Skyler threw him a distrustful glance, then grudgingly replied, in a tight, brittle voice, “Thank you."
Emboldened, Bredon groped for something else to say. Before he could devise anything suitable, the Skyland interrupted.
“Excuse me,” it said, “but I'm afraid I have bad news."
“What?” the Skyler demanded. Her voice broke, indicative of her extreme state of nervous tension.
“The High Castle has been breached,” the Skyland said. “The attackers have broken through a full seven levels of defense, counting the stone of the walls, and have entered the main structure at three separate points. Of the observers reporting to me, none can detect any further evidence of activity on the part of the defenders."
The four humans looked at one another.
“How long until we get there?” Imp asked, putting down her drink.
“We should arrive in the vicinity in about an hour,” the Skyland replied.
Bredon noticed that Geste had his head cocked strangely to one side, and guessed that he was listening to something the others could not hear.
“What do we do now?” the Skyler said, an edge of hysteria in her voice and her blue cordial still in her hand.
“We go on,” Imp said flatly. “Aulden's still in Fortress Holding, and the others may be holed up somewhere in the High Castle. I'd be surprised if Brenner didn't have a bolt-hole of some kind, one that he kept out of Mother's records."
“He did,” Geste replied, “but Thaddeus found it."
The two women turned to him, startled; Bredon had been watching him all along, and had expected some sort of dramatic announcement.
“What are you talking about?” the Skyler asked, annoyed and frightened.
“I've got scouts of my own working on this. You know that, of course. Brenner did have an escape tunnel, a bent-space one right through the mountain, heavily fortified and thoroughly hidden. Unfortunately, as Thaddeus and I both know, it's possible to locate and map any kind of bent-space construction, and that's exactly what Thaddeus did. He has a small army of creatures and machines waiting at the mouth of the tunnel, but so far no one has emerged. Brenner probably had some way of checking, and saw them there, so he didn't go out that way."
“Are you sure he just has the one tunnel?” Imp asked.
Geste shrugged. “It's the only one I've found. I had thought we might be able to go in that way, if we really needed to get inside."
“He might have had a normal-space one,” Imp said. “You wouldn't have found one like that, would you?"
“Not necessarily. I had my machines mapping all the bent-space work around the High Castle-there isn't much, I guess Brenner doesn't like it-and I know there aren't any other bent-space tunnels, but I can't say for sure about anything else. I had machines scouting normal space all around there, too, but they might have missed something. If he does have one, it's pretty well hidden."
The Skyler said, “There must be some way to find it."
“Sure, lots of ways. The easiest would be seismic mapping. I didn't try that because I don't have the right equipment, and it could be spotted if Thaddeus is watching closely. Which he probably is."
Imp asked, “Did you watch to see if Thaddeus did any seismic mapping?"
Astonished, Geste's smile vanished as he turned to the diminutive redhead. “I didn't think of that,” he said. “And I don't think any of my machines did, either."
“Is there any way to check?"
“Wait a minute.” Geste's eyes rolled back disconcertingly for a moment, then dropped down again.
“Damn!” he said. “Damn it!"
“What?” the Skyler demanded. “What is it?"
“Mother reports that somebody, identity unknown, set off a pulse charge near the High Castle about ten wakes ago, before Thaddeus began his attack. At that time Thaddeus had several machines scattered in the area. It's a safe bet that he set off the charge, and those machines were mapping the echoes. If Brenner does have a normal-space tunnel, Thaddeus knows it, and we don't."
“But Brenner would check, wouldn't he? He wouldn't rush out blindly.” Imp did not sound very certain of herself.
“You're right,” Geste reassured her. “He wouldn't. So if Thaddeus had a party waiting outside both tunnels-if there is a second tunnel-Brenner ought to know about it, and he wouldn't go out that way. Unless Thaddeus managed to fool him somehow."
“But then where would he go?” the Skyler wailed.
“Nowhere; he must still be in the castle,” Imp said.
“But Thaddeus broke in!"
“Skyler, we don't know what Brenner has in there. He and the others might be safe in a stasis field, or a time warp, or he might have split a bent-space section off into a pocket universe, or he might have whole layers of internal defense that we never even thought of."
The Skyler took little comfort from Geste's words. “Or they might all be dead,” she retorted.
“Yes, they might, or Thaddeus might have caught them-my observers say there have been ships leaving the High Castle, carrying loot, and they might have been aboard one."
“What would he do with them?"
“I don't know."
Bredon felt helpless and out of place listening to this conversation. He knew he was not one of these people, did not really belong here. He wanted to ask about Lady Sunlight, even while he knew that the others knew no more than he did and would not welcome the interruption. To distract himself, while the others spoke in an intent little knot he let his gaze wander the horizon.
The eastern sky was pink and gold, and the sun would appear in seconds. Bredon looked up past the glowing balls of gas to where the sky was still a deep dark blue, high overhead.
Light flashed, and his first thought was that the sun had passed the horizon, but then he realized that the light came from the northwest and was far too bright. “What…?” he began.
The others had all seen the flash as well, he realized. Imp flung her arms up in front of her face, and Geste dropped to the ground shouting a strange syllable, “Nuke!"
The Skyler simply stood, too astonished to move.
Chapter Eighteen
“'…Are you a warrior?’ the stranger demanded.
"Proud of his strength and skill, Walren foolishly answered, ‘Yes, I am!'
"'Then face me in conbat!’ the stranger called. And he flung a weapon like a long, thin knife, longer than a man's arm, to the ground before the lad. He drew a similar knife from a sheath on his belt, and waited.
"Walren began to be afraid, now. He thought the stranger was a madman. He stooped and picked up the strange knife. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
"'It's a soared, of course,’ the stranger replied. And then he leapt forward, his knife stabbing out at Walren.
"Walren jumped aside and swung his own long knife, but the stranger knocked it away easily and slashed Walren across the breast with his blade.
"Astonished, Walren looked down at the blood seeping from his chest, just in time to see the stranger's blade plunge into his heart.
"Everything went black, and he knew that he was dead.
"But then, to his surprise, he awoke, lying on a pile of leaves in the forest, with the stranger standing over him.
"'That was pitiful,’ the stranger said. ‘How can you call yourself a warrior if you can't do any better than that?'
"Walren raised his head and looked at his chest, and saw that although his blouse was still cut open, and blood still stained the fabric, the wounds had closed up and left not even a scar.
"'Who are you?’ he asked the stranger.
"'I'm called Lord Carlov,’ t
he stranger replied with a bow…"
– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller
****
“I can't believe this is happening,” Lady Sunlight moaned, stirring uncomfortably on the unyielding bench.
“It's happening,” Rawl told her calmly. “Accept it.” Inwardly, he marvelled that the woman could have lived for so long without learning that anything could happen. He did not understand why so many of the immortals led such limited lives. It was always by their own choice; were they so desperate for security as to give up all risk and experimentation, and turn completely inward?
Or were they just stupid and unimaginative? Endless life and unimaginable power did not make a fool any less a fool. Some people did not seem to learn from experience, most particularly when they did all they could to limit their experiences to the familiar.
He hated to think that his companions were all fools. On the other hand, he knew from his centuries of wandering among the people of Denner's Wreck that a large percentage of the human race was made up of fools, and there was no reason his little clique should be any different.
For that matter, wasn't he as big a fool as the rest? He was just as much a captive as the others. He mulled that over silently.
“Brenner, why didn't you see all these things waiting for us?” Lady Sunlight demanded, waving at the surrounding plastic.
“I don't know,” Brenner replied bitterly, staring down at his clasped hands. “Thaddeus must have hidden them pretty well. Maybe he sabotaged some of my defensive systems, broke in and fed them false reports that the exit was still clear. I spotted all the stuff he had waiting outside my other tunnels easily enough."
“He probably meant you to,” Sheila said from the other side of the little transport.
“In fact,” Rawl said, leaning back againt the yellow plastic wall, “the entire attack may have been a feint, a trick, a means of herding us out through that tunnel to where he could capture us alive and undamaged."
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