by S. J. Ryan
“Emperor Valarion,” Matt said. “I know what happened to you. Pandora imposed Roth's personality on top of yours. But you can fight it. You can reclaim your life if you resist!“
“You fool,” Roth said. “Yes, Valarion is within me, but do you think he wants to go back to what he was – a puppet of Pandora and Athena? Through me he can rule the planet – and someday the stars!”
“At least if he breaks free, he would have his own life!”
“You still don't understand how it works. His life is my life, my life is his. In a sense, we have always been the same person. Wasn't there an ancient story of a wizard who chopped his soul into pieces, and then had to collect them back? Well, my soul was in halves to begin with, and now I have brought them together.”
“Hypermode available in three minutes,” Ivan announced.
Matt foundered for something to say that would keep Roth talking for another three minutes, but Roth had that contemplative frown he'd had before.
“It seems you're about due for another pill,” Roth said. “This time, however, it will be a lifetime dosage. Any last words?”
According to Ivan's countdown, Matt needed two minutes and forty-nine seconds of last words, but he saw how Roth's finger twitched on the trigger and knew that if he made a speech, it would be interrupted. His mind was empty. All he could do was stare at the instrument of his impending death.
Looking at the staff reminded him of Archimedes, how Archimedes always had a surprise. The secret passages, the fireworks, the caches of silver, this very staff with its bullets and –
Matt opened his mouth as if to reply – and then he head-butted the staff.
As the staff deflected, Roth reflexively pulled the trigger. The tip of the staff boomed and the ball ricocheted against the deck, startling guards and demons. Matt grabbed the end of the staff and swung hard. Roth held tight, but as they wrestled the bottom end struck against the bulkhead.
Just as it had done months earlier in the imperial palace, the bottom of the staff belched a cloud of milky smoke. The entire control room disappeared in a veil of white.
“Enhanced vision!” Matt shouted.
Silhouettes of guards and soldiers choked and groped. Rendered invisible, Matt crawled to the table where Carrot lay.
“Doctor Roth!” Pandora exclaimed. “He's by the table with the girl!“
Matt unsheathed a blinded-soldier's short sword and slashed the probe's sensory stalk. Pandora howled. The staff boomed again and a lead ball struck where he'd been a second before. A temple guard cried out as he was struck by the ricochet and Roth cursed and swung the staff blindly through the smoke.
Matt pulled Carrot from the table. He tried to carry her, but with his strength severely depleted, her weight toppled him onto the floor.
“Open the windows!” Roth shrieked. “Clear the air! Block the door!”
Two minutes to hypermode. Matt wobbled erect, holding the sword in one arm and Carrot in the crook of the other. He dragged her to the doorway. A temple guard was blocking but a simple poke with Matt's sword got him to jump out of the way. The guard drew his sword and slashed randomly but Matt was already stumbling down the passage.
Carrot's head stirred against his shoulder. She murmured: “Matt . . . . “
The smoke thinned rapidly as they moved tailward. Matt looked behind and saw two nightmare creatures shove aside staggering men. He took the cross passage to port, then clambered down the steps, hoping the creatures hadn't seen him and that the smoke would throw off their sense of smell.
The Roman airship was larger than the Good Witch, but it was no Nemesis. Too soon, he reached the rear hatchway and burst onto the platform behind the gondola. He dragged Carrot through the hatchway and slammed the hatch shut. He spun the handle wheel and jammed his sword through the spokes.
The narrow platform stretched only a few meters to the rocket racks. Matt leaned over the rail and looked down. From this height, the lake looked like a puddle. The trees looked like spikes.
“Galatea, I'm going to drop Carrot. I want you to catch her and get away from the ship.”
“What about you?”
Matt heard pounding against the hatch. The wheel was jerking back and forth, but the sword held firm. Then the hatch shook with the impact of bodies.
“I'm going to try to destroy the ship. You need to be at least a hundred meters away.”
“Matt, Ivan linked me with his audio telemetry. Doctor Roth said that the gas cells are filled with helium. Helium is non-flammable. The ship will not explode.”
“A hundred meters, Galatea. Please.”
Carrot nuzzled his shoulder. “Matt,” she whispered. “Matt . . . . “
Still under the effects of Pandora's sedation, Carrot's eyes were closed, her expression peaceful. If she survived, Matt thought, she would remember this moment only as a dream. He brushed the strands of her brown hair from her face, but the wind whipped them back. He kissed her on the cheek.
“I love you, Arcadia.”
“Wizard . . . love you.”
He leaned her over the rail. Upon sight of the distant terrain, every natural instinct told him that he was about to drop her to her death. But the wheel was twisting and the sword was slipping and the hatch was heaving and it was the only way she could be safe from what was on the other side.
“Galatea, get ready to catch her!”
“I am ready, Matt!”
“Here she goes!”
Suppressing tears, he released her. Her eyes shut and body limp, she tumbled downward. His breath caught and his heart pounded at the sight of the rapidly dwindling body.
“Carrot!” he screamed.
Then a dark shape dropped from the tail of the ship and plunged after. Powerful talons gently grasped Carrot's arms. Wings spread and the dragon slowed his descent. The dragon, with the girl hanging beneath him, glided toward the shore of the lake.
“Retreating to hundred meters perimeter,” Galatea said. “I'll put her down and come back as quickly as I can.”
“Don't drop her!”
“I promise, Matt.”
“Matt,” Ivan said. “Hypermode is in standby.”
Matt walked to the end of the platform and surveyed the racks. Five pairs of mountings in series, ten rockets in all. Each mounting was so simple he didn't need Ivan to explain. To adjust the launch direction: loosen fastener screws, twist mounting to desired position, re-tighten screws.
The ignition system was simple too. Pairs of wires extruded from a conduit into the tail of each rocket. The conduit extended all the way back to the gondola, where presumably the batteries that generated the ignition sparks were located. Perhaps the firing switches were in the control room. If he wanted to fire the rockets, he would have to improvise.
“Ivan, you think you can generate enough voltage to ignite a solid fuel rocket?”
“How many ignition pulses will you need?”
“Just one. Or two, I guess. In both palms, at the same time.”
“I can do that.”
Another heave – and the hatch flung open. Soldiers burst through onto the platform and brandished their swords. Unarmed, Matt retreated within the rocket racks. Roth emerged from the gondola. He stopped short and stared – first with confusion, then alarm.
Roth scoffed: “You're bluffing!”
Try me, Matt thought. But he was far from calm. The ground was so far below, Silvanus was out of sight, and falling seemed a horrible way to die.
Roth raised the staff but did not shoot; a misplaced shot could strike a rocket and do Matt's job for him. Matt turned his back on Roth and slipped behind the first pair of rocket mounts.
“I didn't think you were this big a fool, Matt! You really are the stupidest kid I've ever known!”
Matt twisted the first pair of mounts to point the rocket noses toward the gondola. He aimed the second pair upward into the belly of the envelope.
“Matt, I wasn't really going to kill you. I was just trying to
jolt you out of your parochial perspective. I want us to work together!”
Matt slipped further tailward, adjusted the third and fourth pair of rockets to aim upward as he had done with the second.
“Matt! No no! This is insane! All my work, everything I've done! And you Matt, what's the point of your life if you do this? You'll die too, Matt! Do you want to die so young?”
Matt came to the final pair of mountings. He aimed them forward, toward the other rockets. He wrapped his hands around each pair of ignition wires. He thought of Carrot. He thought of his friends. He thought of his family. No, he thought. I don't want to die. But he knew they would not live unless he did.
“Child!” Roth shrieked from the platform, flourishing his arms. “Child, do you see my monument? It's all around you! It's this entire world! How many people can claim that they created an entire world? What have you accomplished in your short life? Nothing! Yet under my mentorship, you can achieve greatness as well! Don't throw your life away! If I die now, people will speak my name for centuries, for I created this world! If you die now, what will people remember you for?”
Matt replied without hesitation: “That I stopped you. You created this world, but then you tried to ruin it. And I stopped you.”
Roth glared at Matt, then shrilled at the soldiers on the platform. They picked their way through the mountings. As they neared, Matt saw fear in their eyes. He wondered what they saw in his. Savoring his final seconds, he let the soldiers come within slashing distance.
“Hypermode,” he said.
The sky shuddered sunset-rouge and he felt very light. A soldier's blade swung in slow motion and Matt easily dodged. Then another soldier came within reach and Matt knew he couldn't delay longer.
“Ignite,” Matt said.
Ivan's tentacles sent an electrical pulse through Matt's palms and into both pairs of rocket ignition wires. The solid fuel ignited and spewed a sword-like flame from the tails of the rockets. The rockets broke their fasteners and hurled into the rockets suspended from the other mountings.
The conflagration was almost too fast for even hypermode. The explosion of the warheads of the moving rockets ignited the other rockets and their warheads in a bouquet of fiery blossoms.
Barely clearing the blast, Matt fell supinely with dreamlike slowness, watching the explosions engulf the midsection of the airship above. The fire must have spread to the munitions compartment, because then there was an even bigger explosion and the ship splintered into a rain of flaming and smoking debris.
Where was Galatea? Matt glimpsed the dragon well in the distance. Silvanus had lain Carrot to safety by the lake and was ascending but was too far and blocked from rescuing Matt by a sky full of shards. Matt had a fall of hundreds of meters, and nothing to break it with.
Should have kept the parachute, Matt thought. Too late now.
He smiled in spite of himself. Maybe there was something to gallows humor.
And so he attempted one last joke: “Ivan, can you make me some anti-gravity?”
“Assume de-arch position,” Ivan replied. “Aim for deepest water. Prior to impact, position legs down and together. Lean back slightly. Hold arms over groin. Contract buttocks – “
“What?”
The sky shuddered to blue and he had only seconds to comply.
In real-time, Matt struck the surface of the lake, broke both legs, severed his spine, snapped his neck and lost consciousness as foaming, blood-soaked water covered his fractured skull and seeped into his unbreathing lungs.
19.
From the control room of the Good Witch, Matt Four watched in amazement as the burning fragments of the Roman airship spiraled smokey trails into the forest hills eastward. His finger was poised on the trigger of a high-powered sniper rifle that was aimed through an open side window, but he hadn't fired yet.
“What in the name of the Seven Lords!” Prin demanded. He was standing next to Matt Four, watching through a spy glass. “It's self-destructing!”
“Perhaps a fire ignited the hydrogen,” Andra said. She was steering. “What do you think, Matt?”
“The kid,” Matt Four said. “The kid would have tried to destroy the ship. Looks like he succeeded.”
Amid the debris were falling bodies, distinguishable at this distance as mere specks. Some were on fire, some were tumbling lifelessly, others flailing wildly. He didn't see anyone who looked like a survivor.
He supposed he should have felt relief. Had he not expected a shoot-out that could have destroyed their own ship?
“Let's get closer. My implant should detect his implant.”
Andra pushed the engine throttle levers and steered toward the wreckage. Open-mouthed, Prin gestured below as they passed over Ravencall.
“All those bodies!” he exclaimed. “There must have been a battle!”
Ravencall Base had been described to Matt Four by Prin and Andra during the trip from Victoriana, and in his imagination he had expected something more impressive. It was only a few huts around an un-roofed building that might have qualified as a barn on a terrestrial farm.
What intrigued him more was the burned-out wreckage at the north of the field: one clump that appeared to be a small blimp, another that appeared to be a small winged aircraft. From the relative positions of their wreckage, it appeared the vehicles had engaged in an aerial confrontation. From the charring of the remains, the blimp appeared to have gotten the worst of it.
“Matt,” Ivan Four said. “I have established contact with Ivan One. He reports that Matt Template is in critical condition.”
For an implant, 'critical condition' meant the host was having a White Room experience.
Ivan Four's video feed pointed an AR arrow toward a small lake, nestled against a steep hill north of the base. Matt Four had Ada zoom in telescopically and relay the telemetry. A pair of bat-winged creatures, the size and shape of humans, were fluttering over a limp human body that floated face down. The body was dressed in the same gray clothing that Matt the Template had been wearing when last seen.
“Go there!” Matt Four shouted. “That's the kid!”
Prin operated valves, Andra nosed downward.
The fluttering monsters were preoccupied with gaining a grip on the body and attempting to lift it. They were nightmares on wings; Matt Four guessed they were Pandora Gamma's enforcers, the 'Inoldias' that the kid had mentioned. The kid had said that they weren't particularly bright, but they appeared as ominous as advertised: strong and nigh invulnerable to pre-industrial weaponry. Matt Four hoped that industrial weaponry would be a match.
He opened the cabinet and took out the AK-47 knock-off. He attached the clip that he'd loaded with refurbished bullets. It wasn't even half full and the weapon wasn't as accurate as a sniper rifle and the intended targets were smaller than an airship. If he missed, he would just be making them angry.
He glanced at Ada, who was staring through the window at the creatures. He saw how smooth her young face was, how innocent her expression. He decided he'd given her trauma enough. If there was more killing to be done, he would do it by his own hands.
The Good Witch was near enough for the monsters to take notice. They ceased picking at the boy's body and streaked directly toward the gondola. They were scariest thing that Matt Four had ever seen going for his throat.
He squeezed the trigger and the rifle rattled loudly. The bullets riddled the body of the lead creature, spurting blood and gouging tufts of hair and feathers. The body curled and flailed and spiraled into the lake. Matt Four drew aim on the second creature and fired. Though wounded, it flew out of range intact, gliding into the concealment of the trees.
Matt Four handed the gun to Prin. “Prin, shoot that creature if it comes back. Andra, we need to retrieve the body. Ada, come with me.”
They exited the rear compartment onto the platform. By then the lake was only a few meters below, the lump that had been his template a few meters ahead.
Having familiarized himself with t
he airship's equipment during their travels, Matt Four lowered the raft and rope ladder by winch. After giving Ada instruction on how to operate the winch, he climbed down into the raft and paddled toward the half-submerged, lifeless lump, carrying along the play of the winch cable.
The scenery was breathtaking: a pristine lake, towering evergreens, white-capped mountains, in the east a pillar of black smoke from the wreckage of the Roman airship. Matt Four spared only a glance, focusing instead on his grim objective.
He paddled alongside the body, wrapped the winch cable harness under the arms. With his wave, Ada reversed the winch. While the body was raised into the ship, Matt Four climbed the ladder.
“Tell Andra to take us up,” he said to Ada.
“What about the raft?”
“Forget the raft! We're in the middle of a war zone and it's not safe to linger at this altitude!”
She scurried forward. He dragged the kid inside the aft compartment, spread him face up onto the deck. The body was wet and cold, limp and stiff. Silt-laden lake water gurgled from the mouth. The skin color was unnatural. Matt Four touched the forehead and tried not to think of how lifeless it felt.
Beneath the kid's skin, the tentacles of implants intertwined. Data flowed into graphics-laden pop-up windows. Blood loss, fractures, hypothermia – this was going to be a hard one.
The ship shuddered, the engines roared, shadows tilted. Ada returned and knelt alongside. “We are ascending. Is he – dead?”
“Clinically.” He saw her startlement and realized he had misspoke. On this world, dead always meant the real death. “What I mean is, we'll need all our resources.” He unbuttoned the kid's shirt, ripping the undershirt down the middle. “Put your hand here, on top of his heart.”
She hesitated. “I've . . . I've never touched a man's bare chest.”
Matt Four blinked. Somehow, reviewing Ivan Four's telemetry of her experiences at Klun, even knowing that her clients were placed into hypnotic trance before anything happened, he'd gotten the impression that she was more . . . worldly.
“Please, Ada. His life depends on it.”
