"An attack!" barked the Marshal. "Quickly, light a flare and alert the Irmana tower," he called to the beam flash captain as he hurried to the lift-head. The pulley ropes were gone, and the voice wire had been cut.
"Marshal, the flares are gone from the locker!" someone cried a moment before another explosion blew away part of the emergency stairway in the center of the tower.
Lemorel had not realized that there were tripwires with bells some distance to either side of the northern sentry post. Someone with a megaphone tried to hail her, but she ignored him and rode on. Shapes began moving, dimly outlined by the starlight and the distant fires at the rail side
She led the guards another mile north before anchoring Glasken's camel and attacking. In the gloom they did not realize that she was coming back, dodging from bush to bush. Her first shot barked out, hitting a guard hit just below the collarbone. In a panic the other two fired at where the flash had come from, but she had dropped her musket and rolled aside, drawing her twin-barrel. The flashes from their own muskets betrayed their positions as her two shots echoed theirs.
Ten miles farther north she drew alongside Glasken's camel and removed his gag. "Damn you Lemorel, they'll have us back by morning," he spluttered as he shook his head free of the cloth. "They've got trackers who can work by moonlight."
"But there's no moonlight, it's the time of the new moon. The rail side staff think that they're under attack, but once they realize that the shots were only fireworks they'll have to catch the camels I released and scattered."
The whites of her eyes gleamed with mania. Glasken shivered. "They'll have to wait until dawn, then they must find our trail. Should they manage to do that, they can take you back over my dead body, and that should be difficult."
"I'll testify to the magistrate, I'll have you facing a squad of musketeers--"
"From now on, Fras Glasken, whatever you say must be in Alspring. Understood?"
"Alspring? I barely know a word of it."
"Then search your memory very hard."
"Alspring's months away, through a bloody desert!"
"You learned survival skills from Ilyire. You'll teach them to me."
"And what will you use for Alspring money?"
"The coins and jewels I found in your saddle pack when I searched your room." '
"You stole my treasure?" screamed G]asken so loudly that tiny animals scurried away in the darkness. "Yield to fate, Glasken. You falsified beam flash transmissions and made me think that Nika]an and you were dead. You ripped him out of my life, now I want him back! You will help."
"You! Nika]an?" Glasken exclaimed, incrednlous. Mirrorsun was high in the sky, but its weak, coppery light gave them no more than a bearing as they rode north. They reached the dunes well before morning, and the wind obliterated their tracks in the shifting sands as they turned northwest. As the banded sun rose over the desert, the man who was the key to the very Ca]] itself vanished without a trace.
A month later, to the very day, Theres]a and Zarvora boarded the mayoral coach at Rochester's paraIine terminus. The coach behind it carried severa] guards and nineteen men and women who were nervous, wide-eyed and apprehensive. The train moved off, and had absolute priority on the para] inc south.
"Twenty Call folk among the Calculor's components!" Zarvora declared in triumph to Theresla. "Twelve from a group that lives within the Calldeath lands. They call themselves avia ds
"But why they were living among humans?" asked Theresla, who had not helped to question them. "Aviads are prey to the Call until puberty. The children cannot live as vegetables in the Calldeath lands, so they are raised among humans. The twelve in the Calculor were teachers. There are thousands of them there! We no longer need Glasken."
"I am not needed, perhaps, either," said Theresla, drawing the conclusion out further. "Nonsense. You have an outlook very different to mine, Theresla, you see what is not obvious to me. The teacher avia ds are taking us to their town, Macedon. It is south of the Bendigo Abandon. The other seven want to join
"Is nineteen. Found twenty."
"Ah yes, FUNCTION 9. I need him--that is, his talents, in the Calculor." "Is long journey? Coronation next week."
"Being crowned Overmayor of the entire south is less important than winning the trust of the Macedon avia ds The coronation can wait." Hastian followed the ann of his watchman, who was pointing to a pair of camels approaching from due south. His Neverlander warriors wound their Call timers and checked their guns as they stood up. One of the riders was strapped into his saddle, the other was oddly dressed and carried guns of an unfamiliar design.
"The greetings of the day," came an oddly shrill voice. "We seek Glenellen." The voice. Breasts. And she was wantonly wearing trousers.
"Ai-ya, seize the witch!" called Hastian, scandalized. Two of his Neverlanders started forward, but the witch's gun miraculously fired two shots. Both men dropped. The others fired, her camel reared and collapsed, but she emerged from behind its body with more of the infernal, multi shot guns. Five men fell to six shots, and another two to her saber. A pointed metal star thudded into Hastian's knee, and the pain was such a shocking thunder flash that he fell convulsing to the red sand. Time seemed to stop.
A knee came down on Hastian's chest and a twin gunbarrel was rammed into his screaming mouth. The face looking down at him was female, but something in her eyes was more unsettling than the gaze of a tiger snake. "My guide rode off," she snarled. "You guide me now." Hastian gurgled. She withdrew the gun and stood. "Who?" gasped Hastian, without moving, tasting blood.
"I am dark side of Ervelle's soul, returned from Call for vengeance." He looked around. Nine of his invincible Neverlander warriors were dead. The two other bloodied survivors were prostrating themselves in the red sand. To Hastian there was no doubt of it. This thing was what she to be. He was blessed. One of the gods was calling him to service.
CHRYSALIS In the four years following Zarvora's coronation as Overmayor the south of the continent united in the most powerful union since the fall of the Anglaic civilization. Her rule was intelligent, tight but fair, and economies boomed. Armed conflict practically ceased, and thanks to the expansion of beam flash and par aline networks no bad harvest was ever followed by famine. There were rumors that the surplus wealth of this golden age of prosperity was being fed into some mighty project to revive yet another marvel from the Anglaic civilization and prevent another Greatwinter, but only Zarvora knew the entire truth, ii That truth was not her only secret, but it was easier to conceal than a more immediate problem.
"You, Highliber, are pregnant." The Libris medic ian had come to know Zarvora quite well over the years because of her headaches, but he was nervous about how she would react to this particular diagnosis.
"I have been a little nauseous and put on weight," said Zarvora impatiently." "That means nothing."
"And missed four periods."
"That too."
"My advice is--"
"This is highly inconvenient. Leave!" When he was gone Zarvora sat staring at the Calculor console. In all the world there was nobody she could confide in. She stared at a silver owl with ENCRYPTION ENABLE engraved on the plate beneath it.
"I rule half the continent, yet I am pregnant by a man who does not know it, and does not exist, in a machine that does not exist, but which I nevertheless designed. Constructive suggestions are welcome."
The owl remained silent. "I have never felt so very alone. Everyone will gloat and laugh, they all want to see me pulled down. Did you hear the one about the component who got
SOULS IN THE GREAT MACHINE
his beam flash tower stuck in the Highliber's input buffer? No, because everyone who tells the joke gets shot!" She flicked the lever that enabled the voice wire box to her lackey. As the felt damper lifted free and she opened her mouth to speak the voice of the medic ian echoed out.
"I am not making insinuations, Fras Vorion. The fact remains that she is pregnant and unmarried. A woman of her power
and in her position--" "You're saying Frelle Cybeline is not married?" retorted Vorion.
"Yes! It's a fact! Public knowledge! The Overbishop is Christian, rain falls from the sky, and the Highliber is unmarried. Now my advice--"
"Frelle Cybeline's husband is a senior engineer working on a secret machine far away--in Kalgoorlie. Gah, now I've already told you too much! Get out before I call a guard. Go. Go go go go!"
Zarvora disabled the voice wire thought for a moment, smiled, then tugged at one of several dozen tassels hanging from the ceiling. Moments later Vorion was at her door. His face was flushed from his exchange with the medic ian
"Fras Vorion, how did you know my secret consort is an engineer stationed in Kalgoorlie?" she asked.
Vorion was thunderstruck. The man that he had conjured out of the air not thirty seconds earlier had suddenly come to life.
"Highliber, I, I, I must have heard you say something."
"Well next time ask my permission before saying it to someone else. Sumeror is a good medic ian but an even better gossip." Vorion's legs wobbled as the color left his face. He fell to his knees. "Highliber, I can only tender my regrets and my resignation." "How long have you served me?" "Nine years."
"And you are still only a certified lackey."
"Yes. That is--yes."
"Arrange a train for me to Kalgoorlie. I want to be with my consort for the birth."
"Yes, of course." "Then report for retraining. In seven months I want to be at the ceremony when you are presented with Dragon Red. Any subjects that trouble you can be waived."
It took several shots of expensive brandy before Vorion could string a coherent sentence together again. He poured out his story of being a classics graduate whose career in Libris had been stillborn because of Zarvora's new promotion criteria. He was currently the happiest man in Libris, and possibly the continent.
"I mined your prospects, yet you serve me so well?" she said, not comprehending.
"Highliber, you don't understand. I am nothing, but you share greatness will me. I adore you, I would die for you. I lied about your unscheduled absences when I thought you were having an affair."
Zarvora swallowed. "Fascinating. Have another drink." "I even forged documents to protect you. I found out about Archbishop James--oh I have friends who know people who get told, well, intimate things. Bitchy bag of lard, but I cut the balls from his little scheme when I put those seven hundred gold royals against his name--"
"What? I thought it was Tarrin."
"Tarrin? That walking soup stain with delusions of adequacy? He carries on like a eunuch, but I've heard that..."
Vorion had heard a great deal, and Zarvora listened for a long time. When she finally spoke she had very little to say. ' Vorion, I--I do not deserve your service, but fortune must favor me. Now, book my train, then take the afternoon off and read the Dragon Red syllabus."
Alone again, Zarvora pondered the servant who had saved not only her pride and reputation, but her life as well. Tears rolled down her cheeks, yet her world had suddenly brightened. She was certainly in strange company, but she was not alone or without allies.
Several years in the may orates of the south had not changed Ilyire. As he paced the floor of a tavern in Kalgoorlie he seemed merely an intense, distraught man in an emu-leather bush jacket and hobnail boots, but within his soul, he was still a Ghan warrior. Seated at a nearby table was Darien, the bands of her Dragon Silver rank displayed on a clasp that fastened her ochre traveling cloak. Although they were arguing, the other afternoon patrons heard nothing. Darien and Ilyire were fluttering their hands through the words of Portington sign language.
"I am going back to LJ.bris with the Overmayor because you have not changed in half a decade," Darien signed with slow, emphatic symbols, then thumped the table for emphasis.
"Me? No change?" he signed in reply. "I learn your history, language, this sign language, everything for you. I learn your cultures and religions."
"But you do not even like to speak Austaric, Ilyire. Your grammar is all over the place, yet your sister can now speak Austaric as well as the Overmayor." "I fix."
"It's not just grammar," she signed with impatient flourishes. "It's jealousy and Alspring protectiveness. All that I did was go out for a drink with the Merredin envoy and there you were, smashing up the tavern and beating him senseless."
"You not tell me about official business. Seem like funny business." "You should have trusted me."
"I not trust him!"
The gesture for "him" was a violent, slicing stroke, and had a saber been in Ilyire's hand, the movement would have been no different. "Ilyire, I am leaving. The Overmayor's wind train departs tonight and my berth is reserved. You are violently overprotective. I cannot stand it." "Wrong. Am restrained."
"No. You will not accept me for what I am: a fully grown woman. Men have slept with me, have made love with me--"
"You tell who, I kill them!" Ilyire bellowed at the top of his voice, abandoning sign language. Several other patrons spilled their drinks in alarm. Ilyire held onto a stay beam beneath a shelf while he fought his temper back under control. Darien drummed her fingers on the table until Ilyire sheepishly made a gesture of apology.
"So that is an example of your new restraint," she signed. "I have accepted the position as Overmayor's aide, Ilyire. I go where she goes, or where she sends me. Just now she is going east, so goodbye."
The other patrons had their hands on their swagger sticks as Darien stood up and dropped a copper beside her pewter goblet, but Ilyire did not attempt to stop her as she walked out. The vintner sighed with relief as Ilyire left a minute later.
"The Constable's Runners can have 'im if he's wont to raise hell in the streets," he said to a serving boy.
"Skinny sort of shadow lad but strong as ye'd never think, Fras," the boy replied. "That stay-beam's splintered where he gripped it." The vintner whistled as he scratched at the slivers of wood. "Ee, that be kauri, too. Still, a bullet would stop 'im, and if he carries on like that again it's a runner's bullet he'll be getting."
Ilyire did manage to control his behavior, however. He went to the stables around the corner and got his horse, then set off to the west for the Calldeath lands. He rode slowly, knowing what awaited him there.
The landscape below the red upland cliffs was laid out like a scatter of colorful cloth scraps on a Northmoor carpet of pink-and-olive designs. From their vantage on the cliff top three riders observed the aftermath of a battle and made their own judgments about what had happened between the armies of two Alspring cities. They were dressed as Neverlander nomads, swathed against the pervasive red dust in robes, veils, and head shrouds of ochre, light orange, sienna brown, and dappled olive.
"Glenellen is again victorious," said Overhand Genkeric as he lowered his brass-inlay telescope. "That infernal calculating machine fights their battles for them now. It has made them invincible."
The man on his right continued to scan the scatterings of color on the scape below, using one of the new twin oculars that split the light from one lens into two eyepieces.
"Glenellen's battle calculor, I see it!" he suddenly exclaimed. "It's off to the left, just near those observation masts. Just a group of scribes at desks! Who would ever guess what they are, or what they can do?"
"An invincible machine, Captain Lau-Tibad. Whatever the odds the damnable thing multiplies its men's effectiveness to match. What hope do our Neverland tribes have against it?"
"I see them folding their desks away. The desks are white, no--about a third of them are red."
"Gah, shut up will you! You're not with the bird-watching con vial now. This is war."
"My apologies, Overhand Genkeric," he said as he lowered the twin ocular and let it dangle from the strap around his neck. "We are nothing, that's what has protected us so far. As nomads we Neverlanders are just a minor bother to Glenellen's expansion, but the raids of brother tribes must become a serious problem eventually."
"
To Glenellen? They're the bite of a flea. There's plenty of room for all on the desert, and what do we Neverlanders have but our tents and camels?"
"The day will come when Glenellen scratches its fleas. We must stop biting, and persuade the others to do the same..." His voice faded as he realized that the third rider had looked away for a moment from the patchwork of despair and triumph below the cliffs, and was regarding them with eyes that were at the same time quizzical and impatient. "If only you could hear yourselves," she said.
The voice from behind the heavy red cotton veil was measured, sarcastic; While the two officers sat proudly erect in their saddle frames, the Commander turned away from them again, and hunched over, intent upon the scene below.
"But, Commander, our numbers are small and we are untutored in such advanced arts of war," replied Genkeric. "That machine multiplies their numbers twenty fold and their numbers already exceed ours."
The Commander laughed, and it was a long, mirthless, unsettling laugh with a light but hollow pitch. "That machine is nothing more than a highly developed book of tactics. I helped to build the first one. I should know."
"Commander, I know how a crossbow works, but that will not stop an enemy shooting me with one." "Oh so? Well, I too know how a crossbow works, and that tells me where to stand to be out of range, and how much time I have to charge at a bowman who is reloading. I say that any skilled officer could have done what that battle calculor just accomplished."
"Profound apologies, Commander," said Captain Lau-Tibad, "but if that is the case, why did Glenellen's forces triumph so convincingly just now?"
"Because there are few good officers among those dandified, overdressed lap dogs that pass for the military command of the Alspring cities."
"The Gossluff army was three times bigger--" "The battle calculor is a strategic weapon. It has some tactical uses, but they're limited. It's vulnerable, so very vulnerable that it could shatter its own army as easily as granting it victory."
Souls in the Great Machine Page 32
