by Roland Green
It was the thirstiest ten minutes of Jazra's life, but during that time her wits returned, and the urge to end her life vanished. She understood that she had been driving herself onward with little food, and less sleep, ever since the battle aboard Fworta began. She had reached her limit, gone beyond it, and at last considered herself a coward because she did not realize this.
Which meant that it was time to stop trying to do too much all alone. More than time, when there were other Rael now afoot on this world, and she did not have to fight alone.
It was also time to make contact with the humans. They had to have search parties out for the fallen comet—unless they were so unshakable that fire hurtling down from the sky meant no more than a spring shower on their kitchen gardens. Somehow, Jazra doubted this.
The search parties would find Fworta, and the Overseer's fighters. Even the humans were somehow warned, many of them would die, and others would go on combing the countryside. The humans were far more likely to find the other Rael than Jazra, who was searching alone, and unable to use her radio for fear of detection.
Among the humans, she would learn of that discovery. She might even reach the other Rael in time to keep humans and Rael from each others' throats.
She displayed her map, and decided that she wanted to put more distance between herself and Fworta. She would try not to leave even the human vanguard to encounter the invaders unwarned, but she did need to find a search party that was not in the middle of a desperate fight for its life.
She had heard mention of a 'temple,' clearly a sacred place in one of the native religions. It seemed to be a center for communal activity, and a logical starting place for the search parties. She even had a rough idea of its location.
She highlighted the temple, and plotted a route that would let her travel safely by daylight. Correct that: she hoped it would let her travel safely by daylight. She did not know how fast the spider drones and Doomed would spread across country, or how alert the humans would be. She was updating the map as fast as she could, but right now she was traveling, if not blind, then with only one eye, and that half shut.
Jazra realized that the light on the filter/purifier was blinking. She tilted the canteen and drank. The water was warm and tasteless, but if she had been drinking one of the legendary elixirs of vitality, it could not have helped her more.
Strength returning, she scrambled up to the nearest high ground that offered concealment as well and looked about her. Smoke still poured up from the direction of the thicket she'd fled, and from beyond it, all the way to Fworta.
The Secondary Director must be vastly confident in the ability of its gang of constructs and Doomed to fight off anyone drawn by the smoke. It was already carrying out one of the standard Overseer defensive procedures, burning off all ground cover for a wide radius around the ship.
Jazra nearly choked on the last of her water. This time, though, it was rage, not fear. The casual burning seemed even more obscene than the capture of the small human.
"This isn't your world, Overseer!" Jazra screamed at the sky. "It never will be. Do you hear me, monster!"
FIVE
Aston Tanak remembered where he was: on a mountainside, not far from a cliff. He did not remember the name of the mountain or what lay at the bottom of the cliff. He did remember the pinnacle of rock that marked the beginning of a way up the mountain, for those who wished to climb it.
He did not want to climb it. Once he might have. He had forgotten many things, but not that he had once been strong of body and sound of mind. He wished that if the gods were going to take away his memory, they would take it all away, so that he could forget everything.
But perhaps the gods were even angrier than he had thought, punishing both him, and the folk around him. He sat down to contemplate this idea.
He did remember that he had been about to speak to many folk, gathered at a place called the "temple." This temple had been his home for many years, his and those he had called to serve—what was the name of the god they had wished to serve by frugal living and hard work? The Frugal One? That did not seem quite right.
So much else did not seem quite right, either. That was why he had walked out into the night, rather than onto the stage where the people waited to hear him. He knew he was not worthy to speak to them. He had no prayers to turn aside the comet. He had no wisdom to give them, to help them endure the wrath of the gods. He had nothing.
He had not quite become nothing, he knew. He had been able to walk faster than he had for many years, through darkness made darker by mist. His near blindness actually helped him there. On paths he had walked so many times, he could tell where he was by hearing, and even, sometimes, by scent. Both had grown sharper as his eyes failed.
He knew that others had already faced the wrath of the gods. He had heard screams in the night, the crackling of flames, strange sizzling noises like porridge boiling over; he had smelled smoke. Also things falling—heavy things, like rocks, trees, and people. Even the scraping of metal on metal. Not like a sword fight, either, but like the turning of iron mill wheels.
He had come as far as he needed to for the gods to see him and know that he was willing to atone for his faults. He did not think it was only through the vices of others that the gods' wrath had come.
His heart lifted, and almost stopped with joy when he saw movement by the pinnacle. The gods had come!
When his dimmed vision made out three figures approaching, he saw that none of them looked at all like a god. One was a monster, who hopped on two overgrown hind legs, waved strange weapons in two short arms, and snarled through a muzzle like a . . . wolf? Yes, something like a wolf, but also something like a snake.
The monster led. Behind it came the others. At the sight of those, Aston Tanak wished that his heart had stopped. One of chem was a dwarf, one of the Stonehreaker clan who lived in these mountains. He carried the same weapon as the monster, and also had—pots?—in green, red, and yellow, slung on a belt. Small pots, gleaming dully as if they had been glazed.
Last came Brother Morif. Aston Tanak could not have forgotten him. From a far-off land—someplace called Gyot-sol—he had been hard to teach at first. But he had decided to learn the discipline of—yes, SIMPLICITY, and the worship of the Simple One . .. !
Morif also carried a weapon, and as Aston Tanak rejoiced in winning back the memory of the true name of the god he had followed, the monk raised the weapon. Aston Tanak stared at him, trying to find words in an aged, tight, dry throat to make Morif remember also.
As he stared, Aston Tanak also did something he had not done in many years, and doubted he could ever do again. He was neither mage, wizard, nor cleric; magic was not part of Simplicity. But sometimes he could make another hear his thoughts. Sometimes he could even hear another's.
Morif seemed to be as deaf as the pinnacle behind him, and Aston Tanak heard no recognition in the monk's thoughts, no joy at finding his old teacher. There was nothing, except the sense of a hand tightening around the weapon for a thrust, or a throw—
Strength surged into Aston Tanak's legs. Strength that he had not even dreamed of feeling again. Strength given by horror at what Morif had become: a thing who lived only to serve . . . whoever had thus changed him.
And Ithun Stonebreaker likewise.
Even the monster. Hideous, but perhaps once free, honorable, and even loved among his own kind.
This was the fate of those who went living to meet the . . . whatever had come.
Abominations. That was what had come with the comet. Abominations, making more of their own kind.
Aston Tanak would not be one of them, if his feet could just carry him a few paces farther. . . .
Red-hot tongs seemed to grip Aston Tanak's left arm. He did not look down, for fear of what he would see.
He also did not look down when he reached the edge of the cliff. He felt more searing blows as he leaped, but his senses did not leave him until the ground below leaped up, and smashed him int
o blackness.
• • •
Elda Ha-Gelher raised a warning hand, and the companions did as they had done a dozen times before. They halted, then spread out, weapons ready.
Instead of drawing her rapier, Elda unslung a short compound bow. She reached back over her shoulder, into her quiver, and, purely by touch, drew out a broad-pointed arrow.
Brinus swiftly vanished among the rocks to the left. Neither friend nor enemy would see or hear him, until either his sister signaled for his return, or the danger came into the open. Brinus would be ready with either an arrow from his own compound bow, or a shrewdly-flung spear.
Both of the Ha-Gelhers were master archers. Elda could wield either rapier or dagger faster than the eye could follow, and Brinus could, at fifty paces, put five successive spears in a space the size of a man's palm in the time it took to draw a deep breath.
Add to this that Brinus seemed to have eyes in both his fingers and toes—or perhaps sucker pads like a frog's—judging from his ability to climb cliffs, or pick out easy paths on rocky ground. Elda was as swift in running as she was in sword play. She had a flawless, dancer's body, shorter than Ohlt had thought at first, but she carried herself so that she seemed to look directly into his eyes.
Hellandros was standing back-to-back with M'lenda, he with his staff held as if ready for a physical duel, she with her longbow nocked and ready. Ohlt had heard of spells that allowed wizards to see in all directions at once, but Hellandros had so far managed to avoid so much as raising a magical fire to heat sausage or bake trail bread.
No doubt this would change if they faced real danger, but so far they had met only other search parties, ready to trade tales of what they had not found.
At the moment, Fedor Ohlt was in the rear, hand on the hilt of his dagger, cudgel in the other hand, and eyes drifting across the valley floor behind them in search of . . . what? They had seen nothing in the smoke-scented murk that seemed to have swallowed the mountains, but since they left Drenin's grove they had heard much that plainly said that the unknown was lurking in these mountains.
Shapes took form in the mist below, and Ohlt took a breath to shout a warning. Then he sighed. It was only the same three monks who had been following them since dawn. He did not bother shouting this time, but merely waved. The leader waved back, and the monks continued their silent advance.
The monks' silence had made the five companions uneasy at first, and Elda had been anything but silent on the subject. Brinus had even remained hidden while the others watched the monks pass, close enough that Ohlt could have spat on them.
"They seem like three ordinary monks," Brinus said, after rejoining the party, "probably under a vow of silence. A fair number of folk—not all of them exactly good followers of any god—were making vows the night of the comet. Why not monks?"
"If they are monks," Elda said.
Brinus shot her a look that said she had gone from persistence to obstinateness. "They wear robes and sandals," he told his sister, "they bear no weapons or even climbing staves, and they carry water bottles. We cannot learn more without a quarrel with them. I would not gladly have them at our backs after that."
"I would rather not have them at our backs at all," M'lenda said. Elda shot her a look of surprised gratitude. Ohlt and Hellandros frowned.
"To find no trace of Asrienda and Drenin at the grove . . ." She fumbled for words. "Not to find them, and not to find any sign that they have been there in some days . . . and not to be able to enter even the outer grove, to take something of theirs that would let me find them . . ."
"If I had to leave my home untended with all these light-fingered gentry about, I'd put a spell on it myself—if I could— that would fry any would-be thieves," Elda said. "That doesn't trouble me much."
At noon yesterday they had met just outside the bounds of Drenin's grove. Once they found the grove proof against entry, they had all but looked under every pebble and pine needle for traces of the druid or Asrienda. Brinus even climbed a good dozen trees, but there was no trace. Since then, their search had been more for the druid, and his companion, than for the missing Aston Tanak. Ohlt was beginning to grow a bit weary of all the searching about for lost people, and was getting the sense that Hellandros shared his frustration.
"Let us rejoin the search for Aston Tanak," Hellandros finally suggested. "No one will suspect us of anything if we do. Besides, knowing Drenin, he and Asrienda might have gone off to join the search themselves. In bear form, he could easily carry her."
Elda laughed. "A wood elf and her riding bear? What an act for a festival!"
"What a chance for you to be arrow-feathered, laughing at wood elves," M'lenda said. Her eyes held the female Ha-Gelher's for a moment, and it was not M'lenda who looked away.
Ohlt's mind leaped back to the present, like a man recrossing a stream on whose far side he has just discovered a tiger. Brinus was scrambling down from his hiding place, shaking his head.
"This cursed mist. The mountains already twist sound so a man can't tell what he's hearing, and the mist makes it worse. I thought I heard something falling, but I can't see far enough ahead to be sure."
"Nothing to do but press on, then," Elda said. Ohlt thought everyone else looked both dubious, and unable to come up with a better idea.
"So be it," Hellandros said, and Ohlt nodded. He let the others open the distance, then looked back.
The leading monk was down on one knee, doing something with his sandal. Sandals would not have been Ohlt's choice of footgear for these mountains; he hoped the monk had not gone lame. He had ceased to think of the companions protecting themselves from the monks, and begun to think of the companions as the monks' protectors. But they could not halt to protect the footsore.
Then he turned, drawing his dagger again, at a stifled cry from ahead.
• • •
Jazra's monk's garb was a holographic projection, and holographic sandals gather no pebbles. This was a small favor for which she was infinitely grateful. Large favors, under the circumstances, seemed rather too much to ask for.
However, she did wear cloth wrappings over her boots, and a hooded gray robe with ample sleeves, belted with a cord that supported human-style pouches. All of this was carefully arranged to allow her quick access to her weapons, and other gear that would not pass muster with humans. At the same time, it would also fool the human eye—at least from a distance—long enough for her to seek concealment if her holo-projector malfunctioned.
Never mind what the manuals said. Holoprojectors were rugged, which was not the same as indestructible. They had failed under the kind of pounding hers had taken since the Overseer's boarding party swarmed aboard Fworta. At least once, a marine had been set on and killed by the equally primitive natives of a distant planet, the moment his true form was revealed.
She was still glad to have her armor between her own clothes and the native garments. Even after a brisk washing in a stream, they were stiff with dirt, grease, and the blood of someone who would never need clothing of any sort again. They were also definitely infested with some sort of local insect, which Jazra hoped could neither hite, nor infect her with some local disease.
She had stopped to simulate trouble with her sandal because she wanted the human band ahead to open the distance a trifle. Not so far that she was out of visual or hearing range, but not so close that they might, perhaps out of courtesy, ask her to join t hem. Jazra feared a refusal might arouse suspicion.
This band seemed the best-ordered and most skilled of any she had seen, except for the band of what were clearly trained soldiers. Against a firestorm tank's flamethrower, and what had to be at least seven or eight spider drones, their training had helped them little.
The party she was following now might be the most dangerous if they thought her an enemy, but they would be the most potent allies for her and her fellow survivors if they could be turned into friends. Also, they were for the moment isolated, which meant less risk of starting a pa
nic if the first-contact efforts went as badly wrong as they sometimes did.
Jazra had her audio pickups turned up high, so the woman's shriek from ahead made her wince. She looked behind her to make sure that her holographic companions were still convincing, then started a swift stalk uphill through the mist.
She laughed softly as she sought firm footing where she would not slip or dislodge stones whose fall might betray her. She had transferred from the marines to the fleet after only four years because she was tired of long marches. Now she was walking farther and faster, over worse terrain, and to more mysterious destinations, than any Rael marine ever had.
Beyond the next boulder, the mist thinned, and Jazra went to ground. She could see easily without her infrared binoculars, which meant that she could be seen in return, by any of the humans alert for intruders.
Indeed, the two who looked to be the best warriors were both studying the terrain about them. The tallest and oldest—the one Jazra suspected of being a magic worker—also seemed to be listening with senses that, perhaps, were not of his body.
But he, the second woman, and the sturdy man who seemed to be the leader, were also bending over a fallen body. No, not quite a body yet. In the infrared spectrum, the fallen man gave off the warmth of a living human.
Jazra needed only a short look, however, to know that the man would not be alive much longer. His limbs were contorted, his breathing shallow, and his garments spattered with blood, with still more on the rocks around him.
Jazra settled down to listen, thinking that if she had any . . . "spells" was the old name for them, at her command, she would gladly heal the dying man. Failing that, she would turn herself into a rock, one that could still see and hear, but never be distinguished from the other rocks all around her.
Her training chided her, and asked what she would be thinking of next? Fertility dances?
She replied that she had been trained for the worlds of the Rael, but for this new one she had to train herself, and would the past please be silent?
• • •
The man had not bled much on his belt or its bronze clasp. Fedor Ohlt hardly needed to wipe his hands after cutting it loose and holding it up for Hellandros to study.
