"You were such a challenge, you could make me laugh. I liked to be you so much." She began to fiddle with a strand of her own hair, twirling around her index finger.
"So, you released the other avia ds in 1700 but kept me as a pet." "That was stupid of me. I--I was worried. I walk a tightrope, I need certainty. With you in the Calculor I could at least be certain of something in life. I can make it up for you."
"You spied on me and Dolorian. You sent her away."
"I promoted her into the beam flash network. A real tyrant would have her shot."
Denkar closed his eyes and ran his fingers through Zarvora's bushy trying to recapture what she had once been to him. "Everything around me has been controlled. I... don't know what to say." "Denkar, darling, for years what I did was actually controlled by you, if that makes you feel better. Once I kept the Alliance mayors waiting four hours because'. you wanted me to stay longer. When I had to start spending so much time in Kalgoorlie I was tom between being separated from you and tellin thing and risking.." risking a bad reaction."
"The mighty Highliber and Overmayor, frightened of her slave?" "Frightened of losing what we had." She pressed her lips together, looked down at the crumpled menu. She began trying to smooth it out, as if i was an allegory of Denkar's life. "Concerning your time in the Calculor, all that I can do is apologize. I needed raw calculating power very quickly back in and you were one of the thousands that I enslaved to get it. Several dozen of the best early FUNCTIONS were as blameless as yourself, I admit it."
He pondered for a time while Zarvora stroked his hand.
"It was courageous of you, telling me this," he concluded. "You lied." "Den, I want you of your own free will. A galley train is waiting for us * the Rochester terminus." She slid her arms around his neck and placed her head against his. "For some time now I have been telling people that I have a consort. Many are anxious to meet my mysterious husband who is too busy bask in the glories of court life." "Me?" "Yes."
"You, you want me to transform from an unknown slave into the the most powerful ruler in the known world--in twenty minutes?" Zarvora had not thought of it quite that way. "Ah, well.." yes," she ventured. "Will you come with me?"
"Life is hell for the nobility," sighed Denkar, smiling grimly. He turned away to clasp his hands together on the table and shake his head slowly. "Frelle Overmayor no. I cannot forgive you. I am very angry, I want someone beaten for my nine years in the Calculor, and--"
Zarvora stood up and snapped her fingers. The door of the cafe was slammed open and there were shouts and shrieks as a squad of guards tramped in. The door to the bower was not so much opened as torn from its hinges and flung aside. Tarrin stood before them, held firmly by two guards and gagged. As Denkar watched he was stripped of his robes and insignias of office, which were placed on the table.
"Four blows," said Zarvora, folding her arms. As Denkar sat wide-eyed with astonishment Tarrin was turned side-on to face a burly guard whose helmet's rim shadowed his eyes. A right cross smashed into Tarrin's jaw, followed by a left to his eye. He was now standing only because he was being held. A blow to the stomach doubled him over. He was released, and fell. The guard kicked him in the ribs as he lay on the floor. The guard turned back to Zarvora.
"Five blows," she ordered as she came around the table. Denkar braced himself for the beating, but nobody seized him. The guard nervously rubbed his fist and shifted his weight from foot to foot.
"Five blows!" Zarvora demanded. The left cross to her jaw sent her reeling back to sprawl over one of the open area tables and its terrified patrons. The waiter and owner were scrabbling to hide behind each other as she picked herself up and returned to the guard.
"The jaw again," she ordered, and his right cross knocked her into a shelf of crockery that clattered down and smashed around her. Slowly she got up, blood trickling from a split lip.
"Highliber!" shouted Denkar. "Stop it! What is this?" Zarvora's jaw gave a loud click as she opened her mouth. "Your order, System Controller Denkar. A beating for those who enslaved you. One blow for every year. Four for Tarrin, five for me."
"I never meant this!" "For me there is black and white, Fras System Controller," she replied coldly. "Nothing else. I asked what would make up your lost years and you told me. I believe we are up to 1702, Fras Executioner."
"Stop!" shouted Denkar. "You. Take your boot off that man's neck and give him back his robes--and office. Then get out--Zarvora, not you!"
They faced each other in absolute silence as twenty-five pairs of terrified eyes looked on. Zarvora's jaw clicked again.
"I am serious about needing your forgiveness--" she began. "I forgive you! I forgive you, sincerely, I really do." He dropped a few gold royals on the table then held out his arm. Zarvora placed her hand upon it. "So where is our damn galley train, then?"
Crockery fragments crunched beneath their feet as they made their way to the door, and Denkar realized that Zarvora was unsteady on her feet and leaning heavily on him.
"Thank you, c-call again," stammered the waiter.
Denkar saw that BY APPOINTMENT TO OVER MAYOR CYBELINE had been chalked on the door. The Calldeath lands were marked by a dry stone wall snaking across the boundary's location sometimes moved a few miles, however, so no wall be really effective. When Ilyire's horse suddenly became less responsive settled into a steady walking pace, he knew that he had crossed the boundary. sunset Ilyire was seven miles into the Calldeath lands and within sight of wooden stockade. Its angles and colors were starkly geometrical and vivid the overgrown leafy jumble of the Calldeath countryside, and it drew his eyes he approached. He did not pay sufficient attention to an overhang of branches i dripping with vines.
The dirk fang cat that waited in the vine-shrouded cover wei pounds and had fangs over an inch long. Seven hundred generations ago ancestors had sat purring upon human laps and eaten canned pilchards in from saucers on newspapers. The evolutionary predilection for cats to grow heavy and develop huge fangs had been boosted more than anyone could have by the procession of large, entranced animals passing through the Calldeath lands on the way to the sea. Weight was required to pull them down, and large to flay them open to die of blood loss. The balance was delicate. Those that grew too heavy were themselves drawn off by the Call. Lately had altered in the equation, however: some of the humans could fight back.
The cat sprang with precision rather than surprise in mind, expecting due its prey with a few slashes and bites. Ilyire brought up his as it sprang, then twisted from the saddle as it made contact. The dirk fang thrown clear in a flurry of dust and scrabbling paws and it regained its feet to confronted by a human on his knees and very much
Ilyire slowly drew a flintlock from his belt and cocked the striker. The big mewled and began to inch forward on its belly. Ilyire smiled, then uncocked striker and returned the gun to his belt.
The cat sprang, but Ilyire executed a turn-dodge, snatching at one stretched paw, whipping the cat off-balance and slamming it to the ground. slashed through leather, cloth, and skin as Ilyire used his superior weight to down the animal. He slammed the heel of his hand into the dirk fang Standing back, he watched the cat writhing and gasping its life away.
Now his own lacerations began to assert themselves with sharp pain. The Call anchor on his horse had dropped when his weight had left the saddle switch, d the grapples were snagged on a vine-smothered bush. He bent over the dirk fang seized its head, and twisted. The sun was down by now, and the glow of Mirrorsun was rising above the trees in the east. Tonight it was a glowing red oval in the middle of the band. There was also a faint orange corona. By the ruddy light, Ilyire saw a single aviad emerge from the stockade as he led his Callertraptured horse toward the gate.
"Cutting it fine tonight, Fras Ilyire," said the man, who was in his early fifties. "The cats here still don't know to avoid us."
"Unlucky," said Ilyire, heaving the body of the dirk fang off his saddle. "Cat not kill me."
Ilyire dragge
d his horse into the stables and the older aviad whistled as he examined the dead cat.
"How did you kill it? There's no cuts."
"Bare hands. Very macho. Yes?"
"Yes, yes indeed, Fras Ilyire. You'll be wanting the pelt and fangs, so--" "So nothing. Needed good fight. You keep body." Ilyire entered the stockade's little hall. He removed his torn leathers and unrolled a medic ian kit. The air grew sweet with the scent of eucalyptus oil as he cleaned his scratches. The other aviad brought a kettle of hot water over from the grate and poured it into a bowl beside him. "So, you are depressed again, Fras." "Hurt from claws dulls hurt in heart." "More fighting with your sister, Theresla?"
"Always fighting with sister. This ... something else." "Another woman, a romantic interest?" "Honor holds me silent." "Now then, I--ah, I hear the others. They have the counter-Call wagon quite close now. In a day, perhaps two, we can leave the Highliber's precious rockets for the Ca/lbait humans beyond the boundary wall."
Ilyire was glad of the change of subject.
"We had rockets in Alspring. War rockets. Two yards, brass. What special about ancient rockets?"
"They're bigger, Fras. They be built in three pieces that boost each other higher, and the biggest piece is thirty feet long."
"Thirty feet! Big indeed, Do they fly when so old?" "Oh they're just strong tubes that you fill with fuel. Simple, fantastic things, they are. The metal seems as strong as ever after two thousand years in that naUseum, Making the fuel will be difficult."
"Black gunpowder plentiful." "Ah no, the explosive must be much more powerful."
"More powerful than black gunpowder! Hah! Wonder indeed." The other avia ds were inside the stockade by now, dragging and prodding their Call-bemused horses into the stables and exclaiming at the body of the dirk fang Soon three men and two women entered the hall. Ilyire recognized Sondian, a councillor from the Macedon settlement in the Southeast Alliance.
"Ilyire, you're back in the west again," Sondian said as he caught sight of the Alspring Ghan by the fire. "Did you kill that dirk fang out there?"
"Was me. Where my sister?"
"Not with us. She's much farther in, at the Perth Abandon. How did you kill--"
"Who is with her?"
"Nobody."
"Then how you know where she be?"
Sondian's welcome rapidly chilled. "She stayed here. She told us of her plans. Then she traveled on alone."
"Where did she sleep? Who slept with her?" Sondian slowly drew a well-worn flintlock and pulled back the striker until there was a soft click. He cradled the gun in both hands as he stood leaning against a kauri pillar.
"Listen and listen carefully, Ilyire of Glenellen. You may be twice as strong as a comparable man, faster of reflex, and immune to the Call, but remember that we're all avia ds here. Everything that makes you special is just ordinary. If you want to live among us, then observe our manners and courtesies."
"Will not have my sister defiled!" Ilyire shouted, flinging down his mug and standing. Sondian looked at him for a moment, then gently released the striker and tossed his gun to one of the women. At this signal the three other aviad men began to close in on Ilyire.
"Best not to reach for your gun, Fras," said the woman holding Sondian's flintlock. Ilyire lunged, throwing a punch at Sondian, but the Ghan's reflexes attuned to dealing with humans and Sondian easily dodged him. Seizing Ilyire's arm he threw him over his shoulder and onto a chair, which smashed. Ilyire was pinned down and disarmed at once.
"Throw him out," said Sondian.
"The stables?" asked one of the aviad men.
"Right outside. He should be safe enough if he can kill dirk fangs with his bare hands." Ilyire was stood up and marched to the gate with his arms pinned. Sondian strode up behind him, and without warning delivered a bone-jarring kick to his backside with his hobnailed boot. Ilyire cried out and collapsed.
"Get out, crawl," snarled Sondian. "There are too few avia ds and too many humans for us to fight among ourselves. I'll beam flash the guards at the counter Call wagon to shoot to kill if you come too close."
Ilyire turned his head. "You defiled my sister--" Sondian bent down and backhanded Ilyire across the face, striking him so hard that the Ghan lost his senses for a moment. When he revived Sondian was gripping him by the hair.
"Listen well, you pathetic little worm. Not only did I not touch your strange and demented sister, but I am greatly insulted by the insinuation that I might have. Now take your filthy, twisted, diseased, perverted little mind and go!"
Ilyire spent the night beside the stockade, huddled by a fire of off cuts left by the carpenters and wainwrights. He kept watch as shapes warily prowled in the distance and spent his time making a crutch and fire-hardened T-spear. In the morning he turned his back on the rising sun and limped off into the west. Sondian watched from the gallery of the beam flash scaffold. "If we're lucky the dirk fang cats may eat him."
"From what I've seen of his sister, she may eat him," said the watchman. "Compared to him she's civilized. At least she tries to mask her weirdness." "Sometimes. What of his horse?"
"Release it with the anchor pinned, the Call will lure it west along the road. He may catch it."
"Generous of you, Fras."
"Well, his sister may be hungry." Ilyire limped along slowly, now careful to watch for lurking cats and other predators. Presently he encountered the transport wagons. Musket barrels followed him as he approached, and until he was out of sight. The wagon containing the rockets was the biggest that he had ever seen, but the ancient devices themselves were swathed in tarpaulins. The counter-Call wagon that pulled it was far more striking. It was long enough to accommodate twelve horses, in pairs on the tray. They were being strapped into their frames as llyire went past and he noticed that they faced backward to the west, where the Call was luring them. Their hoofs drove two articulated treadmills, which in turn drove the wheels through a gear box. The horses mindlessly strained to walk west, but the engine-wagon traveled east, pulling the wagon loaded with rockets behind it. Some time later Ilyire's own horse caught up with him. He was mightily glad to ride again, even though it hurt to sit in the saddle.
It was another day before Ilyire reached the Perth Abandon. He surveyed the OVergrown buildings and towers, looking for evidence of habitation. There it was, fluttering in the wind from the sea. A flag, the one object that could not have lasted two millennia and could only have been put there by an aviad. It was on the new littoral that had extended into the streets of the Perth Abandon. Ilyire blew his whistle to announce himself, then dismounted. His horse strained to continue west, and into the water.
"Can't drag you all the way back," he said as if in apology, then pulled his saddle pack off and released the reins. The horse immediately set off for the water, splashed in and began to swim. He watched until its head was lost amid the greenish-gray waves of the bay.
"A cruel experiment," observed a voice behind him, and Ilyire jerked around to discover Theresla watching him.
"Sister!" he exclaimed. She was staring at him from barely three yards away, a girl-woman with her hair pulled into a bushy ponytail. She was dressed in the tie-cotton green and red tunic and trews of the other avia ds Ilyire noted with instant disapproval. Her expression was odd: intense, calculating, almost hungry, and somehow devoid of the mischief and mockery that she always reserved for him.
"What of my books?" she asked.
Ilyire took a package from his saddle pack and tossed it to her. "You don't want them," he said sullenly. "You wanted me away, only." "Think what you will," she said, turning and gesturing for him to follow. Theresla began to walk and Ilyire fell in beside her. The trees were loud with the buzzing and clicking of insects in the heat of the day. Miraculously, some of the ancient towers had retained their shape over two millennia and looked like oblong, sharp-edged hills under their mantles of green vines.
Theresla explained that a dirk fang had been stalking Ilyire as he watched his horse swimmin
g away. She had sent it off, but Ilyire was not grateful.
"Why you live here? Dangerous place."
"I am alone, Ilyire. Surely that should please you."
"You should be safe. Safe from dangers. Safe from desires."
"What do you suggest?"
"Return to Kalgoorlie. Set up convent. Spread our great Alspring Orthodox Gentheist faith."
Theresla stopped and gestured to the vine-smothered mounds. "In the eastern Calldeath lands the Anglaic buildings have been looted by avia ds over the centuries, but avia ds are never born among the peoples of the western may orates and castellanies. Thus in these Calldeath regions the buildings have been undisturbed for nineteen centuries. We can learn a lot."
"Pah. Anglaics walk on moon, now trees grow in their roads. So what? Nothing by sinful mortals be built is lasting."
"That is not the point. Now that Zarvora has secretly brought aviad settlers across from the southeast, there will be plundering and disturbance, even with the best of intentions." Ilyire snorted impatiently, then stopped to look out over the bay.
"Those things like blocks in water, over west," he said, pointing. "Ancient beam flash towers. Nothing new."
"They are too close together."
"Used water for defense against freebooters?" he ventured.
"According to old maps, those towers were once on dry land. The water is higher now."
"So what?" grunted Ilyire. She raised her eyes to the sky. "So I am wasting my breath," concluded Theresla. "That building there is a museum, and it has survived the years well. Come."
They entered warily, looking for predators. The museum was a series of highceilinged, spacious hallways, but they were now dark caverns due to vines and mosses smothering the windows. Most exhibits were either crumpled piles of corrosion or entrusted with mold and bat droppings. Those that survived were incomprehensible to Ilyire. There was a musty, feline scent, and the flapping of bat wings high above them. Theresla unclipped a under-lock from her belt, lit the fuse to a paper-wrapped charge, then tossed it ahead of her. The blast was a sharp, echoing whiplash, and two tabby shapes frantically scrambled from their lairs and streaked out of the building.
Souls in the Great Machine Page 35
