“Do you really think so?” Arakny whispered. “I could have sworn it was Olly who went out to the shuttle.” It had been, she was sure But … what if Abasio was right? Abasio turned to face forward, rejecting all doubt. “It wasn’t her,” he said firmly. “That’s what her message meant: be resolute She was she was telling me she’d see me again.”
Arakny’s question stayed on her tongue, for the way steepened as they neared the road, and she had to hold on to keep from falling. Big Blue dug in his hooves to lunge upward, once, twice, again, and they were on the road, going toward the hidden canyon where they’d left the wagon.
Once there, Arakny slipped from Big Blue’s back, intending to continue the conversation about Olly. One look at Abasio’s face dissuaded her. Now wasn’t the time. She reached up to touch his arm in farewell, then trotted off down the road toward the Artemisian lines. Behind her, Big Blue stepped carefully around the buttress of stone and past the wagon itself, headed up the wandering trail to the top of the mesa. Intermittent flashes of lightning came more frequently as the storm moved closer, each flash silvering the narrow way before them. Several brilliant flashes came simultaneously with a crash of thunder as the storm moved past, and then they were upon the mesa top, the walls of the Place looming blackly off to their right. A voice came from somewhere around Big Blue’s feet “Whatso, Basio?”
“Coyote?”
“Who else?”
Abasio slid from the horse’s back and crouched. In the next lightning flash he saw Coyote’s face inches from his own, tongue lolling “Who’ve you got out here?” Abasio asked.
“Bears Big ones. And moose.”
“What’s moose?”
“Like elk Only bigger.”
“Can they kill walkers?”
Coyote shrugged. “Not likely.”
“So? What are you planning?”
Coyote’s plan had to do with deep caverns and underground rivers and walkers being enticed to become lost or drowned therein by this stratagem or that artifice.
“We thought of some of that stuff, but not all,” Abasio remarked “You’re clever.”
“We like to think so,” said Coyote modestly. “My hermit always told me to take advantage of the terrain What are you doing out here?”
“We thought coordinating our strategy might help our cause. At least that way we’ll all know what the others are doing.”
Coyote scratched his ear “You don’t need to worry about the monsters The Artemisians are disciplined and accustomed to taking orders The ones you need to convince are the Heroes and the gangers. They’re both a bunch of rugged individualists.”
“I don’t know what the hell gangers are even doing here,” puzzled Abasio. “Where did they come from?” “CummyNup brought them.” “CummyNup! How’d he—”
Coyote told him how, in the fewest possible words “Sybbis is down there?” Coyote laughed at him without answering. Sybbis here! Abasio fought down an urge to howl, to scream, to throw himself off some convenient precipice Ironic, wasn’t it! The one he wanted with all his heart hidden from him; the one he didn’t want not only present but searching for him. He couldn’t deal with it now!
“If you’ll help me get around to the west,” he managed to say, “I’ll try to talk some sense into the Heroes.” “Don’t tell them about Olly!”
“What … what about Olly? What do you know about Olly?”
Coyote examined him narrowly, cocking his head “Why nothing, Abasio. Nothing you don’t know.”
“What am I not supposed to tell the Heroes?” he shouted.
Coyote nodded slowly to himself. “Shhh. I’m reminding you that rescuing maidens is what Heroes do. That’s why they’re here. Don’t … confuse them about their mission.”
Abasio shook his head, swallowing the lump in his throat All right. So he wouldn’t say anything to the Heroes about Olly being … being all right. Besides, she did need rescuing. She had to be somewhere in Gaddi House, and Gaddi House needed rescuing “If you say so,” he told Coyote “You’d know best.”
Coyote trotted off to the west. Abasio patted Big Blue and urged him in the same direction. They went steadily among the low trees of the mesa top, slowing only when they saw the glimmer of scattered campfires.
“Who goes there?” came a voice from the darkness “A friend of the maiden,” called Coyote, flashing his teeth at Abasio before he went back the way he had come.
A bronzed and muscular form with a crested helm stood into the firelight and beckoned Abasio forward.
“Are you Orphan’s Hero?” asked Abasio, when he came close enough to be heard.
“We are all at the service of purity,” replied the Hero. “We are all Orphans’ Heroes.”
“I’m the one from her village,” said another Hero, who looked much like the first, “if that’s what you meant.”
“That’s what I meant,” Abasio acknowledged “I’ve come under the wall, around the walkers’ lines, to see if we can coordinate our strategy.”
“Strategy!” cried Orphan’s Hero, outraged. “Since when have Heroes stooped to strategy?”
Abasio considered this, taking his time. “It’s unworthy of you, I know. If you were facing men or monsters, it would be inappropriate for me to suggest it If we weren’t so badly outnumbered, we’d not think of it. But we’re not facing men or monsters, we’re facing machines, and what might be unworthy of us in one case may be only sensible in the other. If you want to save your Orphan—” “Of course I do!”
“Then we need to think carefully about the coming battle. Call it planning, if that is more acceptable.”
The first Hero remarked thoughtfully, “Several of the younger Heroes have come up with some ideas.”
“Younger Heroes,” said Orphan’s Hero, puckering his mouth as though to spit, “who have scarcely left their mothers’ skirts.”
“Do they need to?” Abasio asked, surprising himself with the question. Hadn’t he himself been all too eager to leave his mother’s skirts?
Orphan’s Hero said flatly, “Of course they must! No man may be a Hero until he repudiates the female influence and joins the great company of puissant men! We must strip ourselves of female sensibility, of female constraints—”
“Then why are you here, saving some female?” Abasio asked in exasperation.
“It’s what we do,” asserted Orphan’s Hero in a kindly though commanding voice “If the females are worthy and pure. My Orphan is worthy and pure. She is a virgin, brave and kind and sensible I taught her to fight when she was little—not that a woman could ever be very good at it!”
His colleague stared into the distance “Lately,” he said, “some of us have been discussing our relations with women, our rescuing maidens and all that. Nothing we can follow up on now, of course, for we’ve no time, but in the future, perhaps—”
Orphan’s Hero snorted “What have you to suggest, Orphan’s friend?”
Abasio told them some of the ideas that he and Tom and Arakny had come up with. A group of other Heroes gathered around during the discussion that followed, several of the younger ones offering ideas of their own. Though Orphan’s Hero sniffed at the thought of anything except ritual declamations followed by direct hand-to-hand combat, many of the others seemed able to accommodate the idea of evasion or even outright deception.
“If this is to work, someone must speak to the monsters,” said one of the younger Heroes.
“True,” agreed Abasio. “And if you, know them, you’d be better at it than I.”
“I could go under a flag of truce,” said Orphan’s Hero. “That is an honorable approach.”
“However you like,” said Abasio “But whatever you do must be done soon There’ll be no time for conferring come morning.”
“Will the monsters even consider helping us?” asked an older Hero in a doubtful voice.
Abasio said, “I saw a fight between monsters and walkers once. I’ve a feeling the monsters hate the walkers as much or more
than any of us do. I know if that fight was a fair example, monsters can dispose of walkers far better than we can. If we can make our request in a way they will think proper—”
“Humnph,” said Orphan’s Hero.
Abasio could take no more time. “I need to get to the gangers before light, however. They’re massed in the canyon below the eastern wall.”
“I’ll guide you,” the young Hero said enthusiastically. “I know this country well, and I can lead you north of the Place of Power, between the walkers and the monsters, without either of them knowing you are there.”
“Sneaking!” challenged Orphan’s Hero.
“Just getting the job done,” replied the young Hero in an offended voice.
He was as good as his word, though after they had spent most of an hour in slow, silent travel, Abasio thought there might be something to be said for ritual declamations and a full gallop.
Some time after Abasio and his escort had departed, Orphan’s Hero put on his helm, threw a cloak around his shoulders, readied a white scarf to use as a flag of truce, and mounted his war-horse.
“The others should be a mile or so ahead by now,” he announced. “I will speak to the monsters.”
The other Heroes raised their swords in salute, then returned to their assigned duties, most of which would require backbreaking and difficult work through what remained of the night hours.
Hero rode in a long, obvious arc that took him north of the Place of Power and kept him a good distance from the walkers and the walls. Once there, he kneed his horse into a canter and went boldly toward the rocky canyons that led upward toward the crags. The ground was not heavily forested. When the lightning flashed, he looked over his shoulder and saw that both wall and walkers were clearly visible. During a period of prolonged darkness, he could actually see the gleam of their red eyes, which meant they were looking in his direction. He told himself they did not frighten him, but he hurried his horse directly toward the canyons, nonetheless.
Came a yammering from behind him.
He turned the horse and kneed it into a sidling gait that let him keep his eyes on the wall while moving toward his destination. Three of the walkers seemed to have decided to come after him. They were moving forward slowly, like prowling cats, stalking him. The others along the wall had fallen dead silent, but they were watching.
Hero swallowed deeply.
“Who?” said a huge voice from the rock beside him.
He turned his head briefly, just long enough to see a giant half-hidden behind a pillar, its huge and craggy face lit from below by a glowing cookfire, over which something skewered spat fat into the coals. Either the cooking meat or the giant himself had a rank and musty smell.
Hero kept his eyes on the approaching walkers as he spoke. “I am an archetypal Hero come to ask a boon from the—the great legendary creatures assembled here at the Place of Power.”
The walkers stopped prowling. One of them began a rush.
“Mine,” growled Hero, as he put his lance beneath his arm and turned the horse to face his enemy. “Mine.”
“You are mine,” said the walker in an icy voice as he increased his speed.
“Mine,” asserted the giant disagreeably, taking several steps forward and pounding the walker into the ground with his fist, like a nail into a board.
Though the other two walkers had stayed where they were, the monster took two more giant steps and nailed them into the ground as well.
Hero, much annoyed, dismounted and leaned on his lance, staring up at the giant as he tallied certain scars and traits against others remembered from the past “I fought you once,” he said conversationally, barely able to be heard above the yammering of the walkers along the wall, “at the siege of Bitter Mountain.”
“You did,” grunted the giant. “Not today, though. Griffin says not today.”
“Griffin is your commander?”
A grunt in reply.
“Would you convey our request for a boon to your commander?”
Another grunt.
Hero outlined his request, trying to follow Abasio’s suggestion of being as complimentary and as nonheroic as possible, though he found it exceedingly difficult.
When he had finished, the giant nodded and began trampling out the fire with his bare feet “I’ll tell’m,” he mumbled “You go on back I’ll tell’m.”
Mitty and Berkli were roused from sleep by a messenger from Gaddi House who stuttered and waved his arms while trying to tell them what was happening They wakened others of their people, some of whom they sent to the Domer laboratories and shops, some of whom they sent to the aid of the Gaddirs who were dismantling and moving weapons. The rest were told to hold themselves in readiness while Berkli and Mitty themselves went to Gaddi House to see what help they could provide.
Tom met them at the gates “Council of war inside,” he muttered. “The old man says we’ll have to do what we can on our own. He’s all of a sudden claiming to be no tactician.”
“Not his kind of tactics,” muttered Berkli. “I have a hunch that old one of yours usually takes a few decades to plan things and work them out, and that’s when he’s in a hurry.”
“True,” said Tom, unable to repress a smile. “Though once I saw him do something rather important in slightly over a year.” He led them inside and introduced them to several Gaddirs who were rummaging through files and stacks of plans.
“You’ve no doubt worked with the walkers! What do you have in your shops that might be useful?” one of these persons demanded of Mitty, the moment he caught sight of him “At the moment, we’re thinking in terms of a field disrupter.”
Mitty ran a hand through his hair as he did a rapid mental inventory “I might have something,” he said “Can you send a few men back with me?”
Tom delegated this one and that one, who went off behind Mitty looking somewhat bemused. Berkli, who was left behind, got tired of twiddling his thumbs and went with Tom to the roof to see how the crew moving weapons was coming along, remaining there when Tom went down again to join Mitty and his group. Berkli was of help to no one, so far as he could tell. Since he could find nothing useful to do and it was impossible to sleep, he decided he might as well stay here where he’d have a good view of whatever happened, come morning.
Abasio had begun to fume with impatience long before the young Hero brought him to the canyon where the campfires of the gangers glowed palely beneath the lightening sky. The eastern horizon made a broken line against the sky by the time the Hero stopped, saluted Abasio with his sword, and pointed downward.
“A guard there,” he whispered.
Abasio slitted his eyes, eventually spotting the sentry beside a giant fir tree He started to express his thanks, but the young Hero was already gone, back the way he had come.
Abasio kneed Big Blue toward the tree “Give the password!” challenged the sentry in a voice so loud that it provoked a squeal among the walkers up the hill.
“I need to talk to CummyNup,” growled Abasio “Tell him Abasio is here.”
Silence. “Abasio the Cat?” asked the sentry in an awestruck voice.
Abasio grimaced. “I suppose,” he muttered. “Just tell him Abasio. And don’t tell anyone else!”
The sentry departed. Abasio dismounted stiffly and crouched on his heels beside the tree.
“Basio?” came a whisper from behind him. “CummyNup!”
They embraced, pounding and insulting one another after the manner of men.
“Where’s TeClar?” demanded Abasio CummyNup looked at his feet. “He dead, Abasio. You know that Starlight stuff you got from Whistler? TeClar, he knew where you put it While you over at the house, he took a bitsy drop, jus’ to try” “Oh, no, CummyNup!”
“It make him real horny, Basio. So he go to the song- house, and then he feel bad, so he take some other stuff. On the trip, I see him gettin’ worse and worse. One night he jus’ die.”
Abasio could find no words.
“You
gonna fight with us?” asked CummyNup, changing the subject “Or you gonna get us all away from here ‘fore the fightin’ starts?”
“I think this time I have to fight,” said Abasio with a wry shake of his head. “That’s why I came.”
“Figured so,” sighed CummyNup. “Men think they’re here rescuin’ you from up in there, behind those walls, so maybe you better not let ’em know who you are. I tole that sentry you’uz just a messenger. Yon know Sybbis with us here? She say she carryin’ your baby.” There was something quite wistful in CummyNup’s tone.
Abasio dug his toe into the dirt and tried to think of something sensible to say.
“Old Chief, he thought that was a good thing,” said CummyNup. “Way I hear.”
“Old Chief sent Survivors to kill me!”
“Yeah, but he send more later to bring you back He figure out you his son.”
“Old Chief Purple’s son!”
“He think so. He want you back bad.” CummyNup sighed. “Nothin’ to go back to now, though Cities’re all gone.” He thought for a moment, then brightened “Could go to the Edge. Old Chief Purple, he live in the Edge. Maybe he glad to see you, anyhow.”
Abasio sighed. “That’s the last thing on my mind right now. Right now we got to figure out how to make this fight count. Those things up there get loose, start wanderin’ around the world, we’ll all be as gone as the cities.”
“How we gonna fight those walkers, Basio? Way I hear, they hard to kill!”
“Fire,” he said. “That’s what I came to tell you. Don’t get up close to them, and use fire as much as you can. They’re hard to wound, hard to kill, but they’ll burn. They can still work even after their outsides are burnt off, but the lenses in their eyes crack and their guidance systems act up. Still, even then they’ll move faster than anything, CummyNup. Faster than you’d think anything alive can move.…” His voice trailed away as he saw CummyNup staring along the hill where something moved darkly in the grayness of dawn.
“Abasio?” someone called. “Abasio? Is that you?”
“Tom?” Abasio returned the call “What’re you doing here?”
Tom’s stocky figure emerged from the dimness, loaded down with one pack on his back and one in each hand.
A Plague of Angels Page 53
