The four locked hands as they moved toward the hill. The mist surrounded them, blotting out the world. Lydee longed for sensors, afraid they might lose their way. The wet grass brushed against her trousers; her soggy clothes clung to her body.
They have to be alive, Lydee thought as her legs churned through green weeds. Reiho might have given in to his fears when he realized what was happening. Even Daiya might not have been able to save him. She walked more quickly, tugging at the hands in hers, feeling the rough calluses on both Marellon’s and Brun’s palms. Marellon shivered; the hands holding hers were cold. They could not even free their minds to warm the air; she wondered how the older couple would fare in the dampness.
“You are good to help us,” Brun said. “I had thought that you were only trying to run from Silla’s wrath, but when I touched your mind, I saw that it wasn’t so. There is caring inside you.”
She squinted. The mist was lifting a little; she could now make out the hill. She pulled at the others, wanting to run forward.
“Save your strength,” Anra said. “We must still climb the hill.”
Lydee slowed. There was still no sign of her sister or her mentor. They struggled toward the slope.
* * *
Brun was panting. Lydee had one arm around his waist, urging him on. The mist was a thin veil; the trees around Daiya’s hut were robed in gray.
Lydee let go of Brun, crying out in dismay. A tree had fallen across the roof of the hut; one of the walls had caved in. She ran to the doorway ahead of the others and peered into the darkness, afraid of what she might find.
“Reiho?” she called out. “Daiya?”
A moan answered her. She rushed inside, nearly stumbling over a mound of bricks. A light suddenly shone in her face; she threw up an arm.
“Lydee,” Reiho’s voice said. The light darted across the caved-in roof and came to rest near a pile of rubble. Reiho was holding a light wand. A beam of wood lay across his chest, pinning him to the ground; if he had been an Earthman, he would have been crushed by it. Daiya was next to him, her leg trapped under the same beam; her eyes were closed.
“You’re alive,” Lydee said. “And Daiya —”
“She’s alive, too. But we’re weak. We’ve both been shielding our thoughts all this time — Daiya said that was what we had to do. I see we’re all trapped outside the force field now.”
“We were inside it. We broke through the wall, just for an instant, just long enough to get through to you.” Her companions were in the doorway; she motioned to them. “Help me move this beam.”
“I tried to move it,” Reiho said. “I couldn’t get leverage. Be careful, or you might bring more bricks down. Just lift it a little — I can crawl out.”
Brun and Marellon braced themselves against the beam as Anra leaned over Daiya. Lydee knelt, pushing against the wood. The beam lifted with a slight creak and Reiho wriggled out from under it while Anra freed her daughter. Lydee lowered the beam slowly as dirt and thatching sprinkled them.
Daiya’s eyelids fluttered. “She’s hurt,” Reiho said. “She’s been using all her strength to shield herself. I didn’t know what was happening at first.” His voice tripped over the words. “Somehow I managed to push Daiya out of the way before —”
“Don’t waste yourself in talk,” Anra murmured. “We must get back to the village. Can you walk?”
Reiho nodded. “But I don’t think Daiya can.” He dropped to Daiya’s side, feeling her leg. “Her leg’s broken.”
“The shuttle.” Lydee ran to the door and hurried outside. The mist was fading; strands of gray gossamer were settling on the green ground. As she made her way down the slope, she peered toward the spot where the shuttle should have been. The craft could carry them to the village; she would have to hope that their enemies could not sense it if they kept a shield around themselves. She might be able to move it with her mind if the others protected her with their walls.
Where was the ship? She looked around frantically, darting to another side of the hill, then spied the shuttle’s dome. She nearly dropped her wall when she saw what had happened. The shuttle had somehow been swept toward Daiya’s garden and was tilted on one side, its runners embedded in a vegetable patch. They would have to strain to move it. She pressed a fist against her mouth.
“Lydee!” She looked up. Marellon had come outside and was standing on the hill above her. “Daiya’s failing — she can’t keep her shield up much longer. We have to go now.”
“The shuttle.” She waved her arms helplessly.
“Forget your vessel. We need all our power to help shield Daiya.”
She climbed toward him as Brun carried Daiya outside. Lydee motioned to him. “Reiho and I can carry her.” She went to her sister. Daiya sagged against her as Lydee gripped her waist, then helped Reiho lift the woman’s legs.
“Link minds,” Brun ordered. “We have to weave ourselves together now, and shield Daiya as well. If they track her mind, we are lost.”
Together, the group struggled down the hill.
* * *
Their minds were wedded. Lydee touched Brun’s stoic thoughts, sensing his grim determination; his mind was now part of her own, locked there by the links they had formed. Daiya had brought him grief, but he would not leave his daughter to die alone. Anra’s thoughts were simpler; she would do what she could, and the rest was in God’s hands. Marellon was thinking of the village, willing himself to keep up his strength long enough to get there, refusing to doubt that he would; he would prove himself to Lydee. Reiho’s energy was being drained by his fear of death as he worked to maintain their mental wall.
Daiya was barely conscious as they came to the meadow and began to cross it. Her head drooped; her long, matted hair hid her face. The arm around Lydee was flaccid, unable to grip.
The sky was lighter; the fog had nearly burned off, and Lydee began to feel conspicuous, imagining thousands of invisible observers. She buttressed her shield as she bowed her head, concentrating on her feet, thinking only of the next step she would take and then the one after that. The village seemed far away, the pressure against their shield greater. She began to count her steps, giving up when she came to thirty.
Anra patted her arm, but her eyes were on Daiya. Anra still saw the woman as a child. We’ll get you home, she was thinking, and her thoughts entwined with Lydee’s; we’ll get you home safely. Anra’s thoughts blurred at that point, becoming a series of vague images in which she, Brun, Daiya, and a young Silla sat in a hut, minds bound together again, differences forgotten. Another figure lingered at the edges of this picture, a person of wire and glass with dark eyes, and Lydee realized that was how Anra saw her.
“I understand now,” Anra whispered. “You are our daughter, too.”
Lydee did not reply.
“Don’t waste your strength in talk,” Brun muttered.
They were closer to the village. Cerwen and Harel were waiting just inside the force field, with other villagers gathered behind them along the path. Leito and Morgen rushed to Cerwen’s side.
Daiya’s mind suddenly dropped out of their web; she had fainted. Lydee drew on more energy, strengthening their wall.
Cerwen signaled, pointing at the force field, then at them. Brun motioned to his father, and Lydee understood what the signals meant. They would have to direct their thoughts at the wall at the same time the villagers were boring from within, and that meant they would have to drop their mental shield. They would be open to attack, uncamouflaged. If the field did not fall, they would die. She hoped that they had the strength to break through.
“Don’t think of that, child,” Brun said. “We’ll need all of your power. We broke through before and can do so again.”
Lydee nodded, wanting to believe him. They stumbled up to the wall and lowered Daiya’s legs to the ground, still holding her by the waist. A wind was rising on the meadow; the grass rippled.
Cerwen raised his arms; Brun pointed at the invisible barrier. — Now �
� he thought.
Their mental shields dropped as they aimed their thoughts. Lydee pushed at the wall. The wind screamed around her as claws tore at her mind. She drew more strength; the wind howled a protest. Marellon fell to the ground, writhing; the barrier began to glow. Pain shot through her as the wall was torn; the sound of the ripping nearly deafened her.
Cerwen’s arms reached out to Marellon. Anra pulled the boy up and thrust him at the old man, then pushed Reiho toward Harel. Lydee screamed, dropping Daiya as she doubled over in pain, pressing her hands against her head, afraid that her skull would explode. Brun picked up his unconscious daughter and handed her to the villagers.
Lydee was failing. Her strength was gone. The hole began to close, the fire at its edges burning more fiercely.
Anra yanked her arm; Brun grabbed her shoulders and aimed her at the flames. She cried out as the fire seared her; hands slapped at her burning hair as minds quenched the fire. Someone pulled her up; she gazed into Nenla’s face. She was inside the shield.
She sat up. The force field had closed. Anra and Brun were still outside, eyes pleading as their fists struck the wall.
“We have to open it again,” Lydee said desperately. Several people had already collapsed from the effort; Leito was kneeling beside Morgen, weeping as she rubbed his chubby wrists. Lydee could sense the weakness in the Net. She forced her thoughts at the wall, knowing she had hardly any strength left.
Anra turned to Brun. He lifted her hands to his face, then drew her to him. Their lips moved; they were smiling.
“No,” Lydee wailed, realizing that the two were preparing for death.
The wind outside gusted soundlessly. A funnel of dark clouds danced across the meadow toward the couple. Lydee’s muscles locked; her mind shattered. A piece of her, its strength gone, watched as the whirlwind swept up Anra and Brun and then fled, becoming a stream of gray mist mottled with the redness of blood.
11
Lydee sat outside Nenla and Kal’s hut, gazing at the field outside the invisible wall. Stalks of corn had begun to ripen; a few stray cattle and sheep were already grazing near the crops. Feebly, she probed the force field with her mind before withdrawing behind her mental shield.
Reiho emerged from the hut. She had not sensed his movements; she kept her shield up constantly, unable to bear the pain that throbbed in the minds around her. Kal’s father Vasen, brother to Anra, had come to the hut that morning to see Daiya; he had left quickly when he had seen Lydee and Reiho there, and she wondered if he was blaming them for Anra’s death. Daiya had muttered all night in her dreams as Nenla and Kal tried to help her heal.
Reiho sat down next to her, hugging his legs. “Daiya still won’t speak to me,” he said in their own language. Daiya had been sitting in one corner, refusing to speak, shaking her head as if communing with someone no one else could see. Lydee had been unable to break through her sister’s wall. Even Nenla and Kal had finally retreated for the day, taking Marellon and Luret with them to the public space.
“We should have brought the food we left in Daiya’s hut,” Lydee said. “I should have gone down to the shuttle and taken out more supplies. We might have tried to get it here somehow.”
“We wouldn’t have made it.”
They were cut off from the shuttle, their lifeline; she wondered if the Earthfolk outside had already torn it apart with their minds. The rest of Earth might be showing them mercy by allowing them the chance to take their own lives, or they might simply be gathering their resources for a final assault. Maybe they had weakened themselves in moving their wall closer to the village and were now waiting to grow strong again.
“We may die,” Reiho went on. “Just like those others.” She bowed her head. A few of the villagers were dead along with Anra and Brun, and some of the gardens bordering the public space were now graves for the five Merging Selves and the two younger people whose efforts to tear at the force field had robbed them of their lives. Morgen BianZeki had been among the victims. Lydee had watched as the village had gathered to mourn. Leito and Cerwen had wept together for him and for their children Anra and Brun.
“The people here think that they will join their God and live on in another life,” Reiho murmured, “but we know that isn’t true. All that awaits us is nothingness.” He glanced at her. “It may be easier for Earthfolk to be brave. They have more to look forward to and less to give up.”
Lydee took his hand. “You helped us save Daiya. She wouldn’t even be alive now without your help.”
“I wish I could have done more.” He sighed.
“The Mindcores will help us — They can’t leave us like this.” But even as she spoke, she was thinking of Anra and Brun. They had reached out to their daughter Daiya at last, only to be snatched away at the moment of reconciliation. Her throat tightened. Toward the end, Anra had even reached out to Lydee, attempting to make amends to the child she had once wished dead; the couple had saved her life by pushing her through the closing gap in the force field. She swallowed hard. The Mindcores had not even tried to save them. Morgen, her other grandfather, was dead, and she had not had a chance to know him.
She recalled the faces of the two who had been her parents. Even the cometdwellers might have found Anra’s fine features pleasing if they could have overlooked the signs of age, the tiny lines etched lightly around her eyes. Brun’s gentle, dark eyes had looked out of a bearded face seemingly struggling to be stern. They had smiled as the whirlwind swallowed them; they had shown no fear. Their minds, no doubt, had already been looking beyond this world, clinging to their superstitious beliefs. They had only deceived themselves. Had they known that this life was all they had, they might have made it through the wall. They might have fought harder to live.
“I know what we have to do,” she said wildly. “We must break through the wall again and go outside, then offer ourselves to this village’s enemies. We can ask them to spare the village in exchange for our lives and tell them that the people here will turn from their doubts.”
Reiho shook his head. “We can’t tear the wall open. The people here are too weak now, and cannot summon the strength. And do you think those outside would spare the village? They killed Anra and Brun, who clung to old ways as much as anyone here could from what Daiya has told me. And the village can’t just forget its questions. They can’t hide their doubts and still allow others to touch their minds.” He paused. “Do you really think you could go outside and meet death so willingly?”
“No.” Her impulse was fading. She did not want death, only an escape. Even now, she could not imagine herself swallowed by oblivion; perhaps no one could until the moment was upon her.
“We shall not die,” a voice said in the Earth tongue.
Lydee turned. Daiya was standing in the doorway, leaning on a long, wooden pole. Her face was drawn and sallow; her eyes stared past them at the field.
“We shall not die,” Daiya said again, sounding unlike herself; her voice was low, but strong. “I hear the dead, and know that they live. The Merged One will not abandon us, and the Minds under the mountains are still linked to us. I have seen Anra and Brun, and they have told me not to mourn.”
“They’re dead,” Lydee burst out. “You couldn’t have seen them.”
“Yes, I know. Nenla showed me how they died. I tried to push her mind from me, but she forced me to see. Now I know that they loved me after all. When death came for them, they were reconciled with me and yet had not lost their faith — they were as close to a holy state as one can be in this life. They died together, as they would have wished, and they are still together, two thoughts in the mind of God.”
“You say that,” Lydee responded. “You, who doubt.”
“Yes, I have doubts.” Daiya’s voice was softer now. “When I meet my death, maybe there won’t be another life for me, but those who are like my mother and father may live on. In this life, we create the fate of our souls — our minds shape it. I’m healing now. I won’t give in to despair
again. It always passes, you see. We’ll live.”
Daiya had been driven mad. That was all Lydee could think as she looked at the woman’s face. Daiya seemed transfixed, her eyes gleaming with a barely restrained hysteria. Frightened, Lydee shrank against the hut; anything she would say might only provoke her sister.
“I must go to the Merging Selves,” Daiya continued in a toneless voice. “We must prepare ourselves and wait for a sign.” She limped toward the road, leaning on her stick.
“But you’re hurt,” Lydee protested. “You must —”
“Let her go.” Reiho’s hand came down on her arm. In their own language, he said, “Let her believe what she must. It doesn’t matter now. I only wish we could cling to such a delusion.”
* * *
Lydee stood on a line with Marellon and Luret, waiting as those in front of her inched forward. The villagers near them were sullen and passive. The young man called Wiland shot Lydee a harsh glance, then turned away, ignoring the hand Luret had raised in greeting.
Three days had passed, and the sign Daiya was expecting had not appeared. Lydee could scarcely bear to be near her sister now. Daiya continued to mutter to herself at intervals, and it was impossible to tell if she was praying or cursing. The villagers were still stunned by their predicament, passively obeying the Merging Selves; Lydee wondered how many others would soon go mad.
Cerwen and the other Merging Selves had assembled the village’s remaining provisions in the public space, pouring water into barrels and piling food onto tables. Cerwen had put aside his personal sorrow in order to reassure everyone, noting, as the lines were forming, that there was a large quantity of new wine, that several villagers had saved water from the storm, that wheat had recently been harvested, and that there were many chickens, ducks, and pigs inside the barrier. If they gathered what was in their gardens and rationed their supplies, they could survive for some time.
Eye of the Comet Page 13
