Agnes Day

by Lionel Fenn

  "Damn," he said at last.

  Red snored.

  Vorden laughed, but it didn't last. "I was wondering when you'd notice."

  Gideon grabbed his bat and went to the wall. He pressed a hand against it and felt the cold stone; he stood sideways to it and put the bat on his shoulder; he heard Vorden whisper a word of support, and swung the bat against the wall, bracing himself for the stinging impact, and ignoring it when it came as a piece of brick powdered his feet.

  He swung again, and worked himself into a rhythm that banished time and pain and the dust that gathered around him like a cloud; he let his mind roam from Rayn to Harghe the Giant to the deserted village of Kori to the awesome evil of the flying deshes to the deserted city of Thazbinn; he choked on the clogged air and coughed and gagged and didn't stop until there was a hole in the wall and he was driven back by the fist of the wind that punched in from the night he saw before he fell.

  He knew then why Agnes had picked one of the towers.

  Time.

  She was throwing meaningless obstacles at them, just in order to gain time.

  "No," he said, staggering to his feet.

  It wasn't possible that they had taken three days to get this far.

  But how long had he been unconscious?

  They had started out close to midafternoon on the third day before the Day. They had fought their way up the tower, and he figured an hour each time, more for the skirmishes, less for the empty rooms. He had been knocked out. Could he have then fallen into a sleep? Wouldn't they have awakened him? Or were they so tired themselves by that time that they had used his unexpected lapse as an opportunity to regain some of their strength?

  He shaded his eyes and looked into the wind again.

  He saw the night, saw the constant display of lightning, and felt without knowing how, the sheer power that shimmered around the outside of the tower.

  Three days.

  One day left.

  He was so sure of it that he turned his back on the hole and hurried over to Lain, to tell him what had happened, to tell him he was right and there was no time left.

  Vorden's eyes were closed.

  When he knelt, and put an ear against the man's chest, tried to find the man's pulse in his wrist and in his neck, he heard and felt nothing.

  "Well, damn," he said. "Well, goddamnit!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Gideon could barely see where he was going.

  It wasn't the light; it was his temper.

  Somewhere between pulling Vorden away from the stairwell and being unable to wake an exhausted Red up, his temper had snapped, and he'd made no effort to control it. That, he knew even as he climbed, was foolish, not to mention lethal; it would prevent him from thinking clearly about what he had to do, planning, checking, and checking again. But he'd been known for his sporadic temper ever since he was a kid, except that he always lost it for what he thought were the wrong reasons, either for things over which he had no control or for things about which he could do nothing.

  This time, however, he could do something.

  This time he would do something.

  And by god and all the saints, he was going to do it even if it killed him.

  Oh wrong, he told himself then, only barely refraining from slapping himself; not the most practical way to look at things, Gideon, old son. At least have the kindness to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and have some hope that you'll make it through at the end.

  The tower swayed more alarmingly.

  The wind he had released into it howled along the stairs, reminding him uncomfortably of a wolf that had scented its prey and was hunting it down, slowly.

  Wrong again; bad attitude.

  He smiled and shook his head, once. Even alone, he was having behavioral arguments with his sister, and while he figured it wouldn't exactly prove his sanity to the outside world, it permitted his temper to reduce itself from a boil to a patient simmer.

  But while it had lasted, it had propelled him up another three stories, through empty rooms whose light had faded to a spectral green. It did nothing at all for his complexion when he looked at the back of one hand, but it served to guide him up the last set of steps.

  He knew it was the last because it ended at a small landing, and off the landing was a door.

  When he reached it, he saw there was neither knob nor latch, and guessed that all he had to do was push and it would open. Onto the roof, most likely, putting him between the five fingers, which were, from the sound of it, still attracting lightning.

  Now, he thought, is the time to gird your loins, psych yourself up, direct your energies toward the woman who is waiting on the other side to kill you. And not just a swift and true murder either, but one that promises to give you so much pain you'll beg for the release of all-encompassing death.

  "Ugh," he said, for the first time in his life.

  He gave his bat the once-over-lightly with the palm of his hand, pulled at his jeans to be sure they wouldn't fall down at a moment of crisis, smoothed his shirt down over his chest, raked a hand through the beard he swore he was going to shave off whether he was dead or not, pushed his hair behind his ears, and thought about checking his boots for pebbles in case he had to run and didn't want to cripple himself.

  He thought about it.

  He didn't do it, and congratulated himself.

  Instead, he called himself any number of impolite names, and four kinds of an idiot, and pushed open the door.

  —|—

  His mother, when she was speaking to him, which wasn't often because he was seldom home and wasn't really there when he was there, had taught him that first impressions were often the most important because they set in a person's mind the way they looked at another person, or thing, or group of things if you were talking about nouns.

  Even as a child he had never argued that first impressions were often wrong if you caught a person, or a noun, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, under the wrong circumstances, because she was, at the end, usually right. And that lesson had stayed with him into his adult years, standing him in good stead in every instance save on the gridiron where he tended to think good of all men until they put him on his back and took the ball away.

  Thus, his first impression upon walking out to the roof was that he was a flaming jackass.

  The reasoning, which he didn't bother to analyze, was simple enough—if he were back in the tower, he wouldn't be out here, and if he wasn't out here he had a good chance of living five minutes longer than he knew he would if he stayed out here, gaping at the scene before him like the aforementioned flaming jackass.

  Nevertheless, he had to admit it was impressive in a dour and unhealthy sort of way.

  The air was cold, pluming his breath as if he were a racehorse in the dead dawn of winter, though he did not shiver and he did not feel the cold as much as he sensed it.

  The wind swept visibly around the building, a cyclone of entrapped spirits laughing maniacally as it sought to tear the bricks from their mortar one by one.

  And from it also came a flickering brilliant light, casting shadows which wove each other into patterns of obscenities best left to the imagination, though he noted a few of the more interesting ones stuck around longer when he stared at them for more than a few seconds at a time.

  The five gnarled supratowers were at least forty feet high in their convoluted reach for the clouds so black they blacked out the night, and they had been seared to mere shadows of themselves by the constant battering of the lightning that struck them, in orderly sequence left to right, at least two or three times every five minutes; great chunks of them were scattered around the roof, smoldering, charred, powdered.

  At first he thought he was alone.

  Then, with a startled gasp he'd only heard before in the movies, he knew he was wrong again.

  At the base of each of the towers he could see a figure, and when he took a step farther away from the door, which slammed behind him in s
o familiar a fashion that he didn't bother to turn around, he knew them: Ivy, bound by a silver rope; Lain, propped up by a webbing of copper; Tuesday, held in check by a gold belt with a sparkling neon buckle; Tag, virtually cocooned in mauve silk sparkling with dancing sequins; and Red, hobbled by a chain thick enough to sink a battleship.

  Each of them looked at him with varying expression of relief, of horror, of gratitude for his presence, and of despair that their last hope of salvation had walked boldly into a trap where no man had ever gone before, and wouldn't have done had he two brains to rub together.

  Then, one by one, each of them looked away, embarrassed that they should be so naked before him, and focused their attention on the simple raised platform in the center of the roof.

  Gideon did, as well.

  And Agnes bowed her head ever so slightly.

  —|—

  "You see," she said, with a nod toward her prisoners, "how I have prevailed."

  "I see," he answered, "how you have wasted an awful lot of good rope and stuff for nothing."

  She laughed gaily, and the top of one of the towers broke off with a thunderous roar and plunged down into the street.

  "You think that's funny?" he said.

  "I find it amusing," she told him. "And I find it rather touching that you have gotten this far, suffered so much, endured travail for so long, only to have it snatched away from you at the last moment."

  He smiled; there wasn't much else he could do.

  "What time?" he asked.

  "I don't know," she said sadly. "I have been unable to keep a watch running for more than five minutes before it rots and falls off."

  "No. I mean, what time does the Day begin."

  There was thunder like a cannonade in the center of a great hall, and the wind increased its spin.

  He began a slow movement toward her, knowing she would stop him with a look just before he reached the spot where he would be able to lunge at her with the bat.

  She did.

  He stopped, but cheated by keeping one foot in front of the other.

  "Soon," she said finally. "Soon, Gideon Sunday, I will be the One you've been afraid of all your life."

  The lightning was giving him a headache; the wind was spinning so rapidly now that it was a wall of flickering whites and greens that dared him to stare at it without losing his mind.

  Then she lowered herself into a crouch, hiking up her dress to expose her knees. "Do you remember the Hold, Gideon Sunday?"

  His right hand took the bat from its holster and swung it like a cat's tail low and in front of him.

  He remembered.

  And when her eyes flared blue he felt the heat in his veins, and the pressure in his skull, and the slow birth of an agony that would tear off his legs if she didn't look away.

  She did.

  He staggered, but remained on his feet.

  "I believe," she said, "my husband's exact words were: 'Fry the little prick.' Is that right?"

  Again he had no choice; he nodded.

  Her eyes, a limpid and deceptive brown, shifted to look at him sideways, and he grunted at the burning fist that struck his abdomen and brought him to his knees, brought a cascade of perspiration down his brow to sting and blind him, touched each of his internal organs and set them afire until she looked away again, and he dropped forward, catching himself with his hands before he collapsed on his face.

  She laughed at him, and a corner of the platform broke off and spun over his head and through the door, through the wall behind, and over the rooftops toward the Scarred Mountains.

  Slowly, swallowing bile and shaking away tears, he swayed to his feet and managed to stagger forward before stopping, the bat loose in his hand, but in his hand nonetheless.

  "Soon," she said, turned her back to him and stood, arched her spine and looked over her shoulder.

  The volcano erupted in the center of his brain, making him scream, making him fall, making him roll helplessly on the roof until he was stopped by the platform's base. Which he used when she looked away again to bring himself to his feet.

  His legs were quivering, his arms were filling with lead; and it took him several seconds before he stopped seeing double.

  "Very soon," she crooned.

  And he brought the bat up over his head, aimed at the center of her spine, and missed.

  The platform cracked, Agnes screamed a curse as she was thrown off balance, and he swung again, gasping, catching her on the left ankle and grinning when he heard the bone crack like her lightning.

  She screamed and jumped down, whirled and faced him, her hands on the platform's surface and her eyes flickering so wildly from one color to another that the worst he felt was a series of child-like punches to his jaw.

  "You can't," she said, struggling to regain control.

  "I can," he said, struggling to find the strength to lift the bat again.

  She shook her head, and the towers began to split, fragments of stone spilling over the side, spilling around his tied friends, some taken by the wind and hurled over Thazbinn to level homes and shops and slam trenches in the streets.

  The wind increased again, and something made him look up, up into the funnel of a tornado to a distant black light that was descending on a black cloud.

  Agnes laughed, and the tower just behind them crumpled to rubble before the wind took her laugh away.

  "Come on, Gideon Sunday," she taunted. "You murdered my sisters, didn't you? You murdered Chou-Li, and you murdered Thong. What's the matter, hero, can't you do the same to me?"

  They circled the platform in spurts of speed, in gasps, in stumbles. The pain in her ankle still forbade her the full use of her eyes, but he had no intention of attempting a brave leap over the stone only to be felled by a giggle.

  "Gideon," she said, and chuckled loud enough to bring down both the tower that rose above Tag and the supratower that rose above Lain.

  He swung the bat one-handed, and didn't laugh when he hit her shoulder and she dropped out of sight.

  And rose again, hair torn by the wind, eyes wild as they kept checking the descent of the black light on the black cloud.

  A laugh, and the pillar that held Red shattered to dust.

  A cackle, and he heard the last two fall to wind-driven debris.

  And he lost his temper again.

  He didn't give a damn about the howling in his ears or the thundering that shook the roof under his feet or the lightning that sprayed around himself and Agnes, now the two highest points on the tower. All he needed was one glimpse of the rubble where his friends and sister used to be, and he sprang onto the platform with a mindless shriek of anger.

  Agnes backed away.

  Gideon marched toward her.

  Agnes flashed blue again, and he felt the fire, the cold, the expanding pressure, the contracting iron, and he lifted Whale's bat over his head, grinned, and dropped as the lightning sought to strike it.

  It missed the bat.

  It didn't miss Agnes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  "You know," Gideon said wearily, "my mother didn't raise me to be a hero. Really she didn't. She always wanted me to be something like a shoe salesman or the owner of the corner luncheonette so she could get a free meal once in a while."

  It was dawn, and the sky had cleared, most of the clouds had vanished, and the wind had softened to a cool autumn breeze.

  "Your mother was right," answered Lu Wamchu. "A shoe salesman wouldn't have caused me all this trouble."

  Gideon grinned and touched the man's shoulder with the bat, spurring him on to complete his work before the sun rose much higher.

  It had taken Gideon hours to recover from the battle with Agnes, and five minutes of trying to move stone and brick to realize he couldn't do it by himself. So he had done something he'd always wanted to do ever since he was a kid—he'd straddled the staircase banister and ridden down to the floor where the Wamchu had been imprisoned. A quick one-two with the bat, and the man was free; a
little prodding, a little persuasion, a little food from the kitchen after dragging him up there, and a little reminder that magic, when it works, can work wonders, and the tall blond man with no shoes was soon busily excavating what was left of the tower.

  "If I were myself, you wouldn't be able to do this, you know," Lu complained.

  "Shut up," Gideon said politely. "You're on the last one, so why bitch?"

  Then he looked at Tag, who was lying beside him, battered and scratched all to hell, but definitely alive. Lain was beside the lad, covered with dust, and beside him was the lorra, and the lorra was snoring.

  Tuesday was on the platform. She had been caught in an open space between two large blocks and was perfectly well save for a lost feather or two. She hadn't said a word since her rescue, but Gideon thought it was enough, for now, that she was alive.

  Then the Wamchu grunted, and Gideon dropped the bat and shoved the man aside. Lu looked at him, looked at the bat, shrugged and groaned to stand tall, his hands rubbing the small of his back and his shoulders working to drive the stiffness away.

  Then he looked at the bat again.

  Gideon saw the look and ignored it. Instead, he concentrated on tossing aside the last bits of debris that had fallen on Ivy. And when he saw her face he touched it tenderly, brushing the dust from her cheek, blowing the dust from her hair, flicking pebbles and shards from her breast until she opened her eyes with a great deal of fluttering and told him to keep his goddamned hands to himself.

  He kissed her.

  She shoved him away and tried to sit up, fell back with a moan, and he kissed her again.

  "Gideon," she said, "three times will get you a kick where you don't want it."

  He didn't care, not until she kicked him and he rolled onto his side, rolled up to his haunches and grinned at her again. "Tough jeans," he said, tapping the material. "They've been through a lot."

  "I'll bet," said Ivy, though she said it with a smile.

  —|—

  By midafternoon he had gotten them all down the steps and into the street. Thazbinn looked as if it had been through a week-long bombardment, and he saw, in the distance, a few people making their way through the destruction, signaling, getting work crews together, ignoring the battered, limping band that eventually passed by them, though a few of the more feminine inclined wondered who that delicious naked blond guy was, holding the duck.