by Don McQuinn
When he rose, a squalling magpie flew out of the tree directly above Conway.
The nearest nomad jerked around. He looked directly into Conway’s wipe. Amazingly blue eyes somehow mingled in Conway’s senses with the hard crack of the weapon.
Conway swung around to fire at the other two. The instant of distraction provided by the bird was all they needed. Both were in motion. The one facing downstream was already moving in that direction. Conway shot him first. He assumed the third man would follow, which meant he must turn completely around. Slowed, off-stride, he’d be the easier target.
What should have been Conway’s last shot nicked a branch, glanced away uselessly. The man dropped his bow and arrow and ran.
Conway sent the dogs.
The nomad shrewdly anticipated that. He sprinted for a jumble of boulders and rock slabs. The huge animals closed amazingly. Long, powerful legs devoured distance. The man screamed, scrambled up the rocks like a squirrel.
Karda tried to follow, leaped, clawed at the smooth surface, fell back. Jaws snapped fury and frustration. Mikka circled, picking her way, getting above her quarry.
Helpless, the trapped nomad watched Conway advance. At point-blank range, Conway lifted the piece to his shoulder.
The man compressed himself against the rock. He wept, shook his head in denial. Hands, palms out, gleamed with sweat. Bright sunlight silvered their trembling, gave them a strange tenuousness. Conway thought of the winking, whispering leaves of aspens.
Gushing wetness discolored the man’s leather trousers, ran in a staining wash down the face of the rock. He didn’t bother to look to see his own shame and terror. He managed to form words. “No. No, please.”
Conway lined up the front sight between the man’s eyes. They were dark brown, almost black. There were small hairs clustered between the brows. The man had to die. Free, he’d run for his companions, tell them that the raider was no Dog warrior, but Matt Conway.
Karda stopped trying to reach the nomad. He looked back over his shoulder. There was something in the dog’s manner that made Conway pause. Belatedly, Conway understood. The pack had treed. The leader’s responsibility was the kill.
The nomad sobbed, closed his eyes.
Conway said, “Take off the sword. Lay it beside you.”
Untrusting, the nomad opened his eyes, squinting. Sensing he might live, he scrambled to obey. The weapon clattered on the stone.
Conway remembered Windband. Storming towns, villages. Vicious. Cruel. Men who killed for pleasure, took captives for profit. And amusement. Men who made death a mercy. The image before him wavered. When it cleared, the wipe was again aimed between the burnt-brown eyes. Conway focused on that point, remembering.
The man tried to speak, choked.
“Go.” Conway called off the dogs, then repeated, “Go. I give you your life. Tell Moonpriest that while he lives, I hunt him. So long as Moonpriest leads Windband, I kill every Windband man I see. One day I’ll kill Moonpriest. Tell him. Tell them all.”
The man inched forward, then retreated, gaze locked on the wipe. Conway shook it, shouted, “Go!”
Leaping down past Conway, running, stumbling, falling and rising, the nomad fled. Once, with plenty of trees between himself and Conway, he turned to look over his shoulder. There was a gleam, a flash. Conway was enraged to think it might be a grin. Doubt curled up in his stomach like a malevolent, self-satisfied cat.
The dogs sat a few paces off, staring at the place where the freed nomad was last visible. Conway walked to them. Mikka seemed almost to be leaning away. Conway ruffled Karda’s ears. The male glanced at him quickly, then resumed his watching. Conway left, half afraid the dogs wouldn’t follow. They did, loitering behind. “I did what was right.” Conway spoke aloud, a crushed whisper. “It won’t do any harm. Killing him wasn’t necessary.”
He pictured the Windband patrol, waiting a short distance away. If they heard the shots, they’d already be returning. They’d find the trail, follow it to the camp where Lanta and Tate waited.
They’d tell Moonpriest. Moonpriest would pay any price for Lanta and Tate. And Matt Conway. To take them alive.
Another secret. To be kept from Tate. And Lanta. They mustn’t know the danger he’d created.
Mistake. Weakling. The words whined in his ear.
He flung himself into the saddle. Memory conjured the horrified man pinned against the rock. He saw the narrow, targeted flesh between the dark eyes. Saw the sight lower, lower. Surrender.
“Damn you!” he shouted. The words rang the valley like clashing brass, repeating, mocking. “Damn you!”
He wasn’t sure who or what he cursed. Or why.
Chapter 25
The following afternoon Tate pointed at the ground and said, “That’s where we found the cast bronze arrowhead.” She turned in her saddle, facing the looming mountains to the west. “That’s the spur we followed down to here. The crèche is up there.”
Across the small stream to their right, a cock pheasant crowed from its hideaway in the scrub. Rasping, sharp, it had a mad sound.
Tate went on. “The nomads you ambushed won’t know their raider was you, instead of a Dog warrior, which is good, but they’re going to want to do something about their losses. I wonder how much time we have?”
Conway ached to confess. Something slimy in the back of his mind laughed at him as he answered, “Not much. Those scouts mean Moonpriest’s coming.”
“Moonpriest? Coming here?” Lanta, riding up from several paces to the rear, caught Conway and Tate by surprise. They had no wish for her to overhear their concerns. Lanta’s voice was high. “I thought… You said this journey had to do with your religion?” The intonation was part question, part fearful accusation.
“Not exactly religion.” Conway gestured, reaching for explanation.
Lanta leaped into the pause. “You said religion. Now you say Moonpriest is coming.”
“We’re here because we want to help Church. The Territories. Moonpriest knows about certain secrets here. We think he’s coming after them.”
“Like the Door. If he gets the secrets, will he be stronger than you? How does he know of these things?”
Tate stepped in. “Moonpriest has never had a chance to get here. Neither have we. Now it’s a race. We have to take as much power from here as we can, and we have to assure that Moonpriest never gets any. What we’re doing is like a pilgrimage. To us, the place we’re going is almost holy.”
“Almost holy?”
Conway said, “Like an abbey. The place isn’t, but what it represents is.”
Lanta was dubious. “I want to see it. Take me with you.”
“No. It’s too powerful.”
“I saw…” Lanta bit off the sentence. Her mind filled with the dreadful images she remembered from Seeing Conway’s memories. She didn’t understand them. Nevertheless, they froze her blood. Her gaze went to him. He was ashen. She was sure he was remembering, too, and hating her for Seeing inside him. She looked away.
Conway said, “We’ll all go up the mountain. When we’re close to the secret place, but far enough away for you to be safe, we’ll make camp. Tate and I will do what needs done. Then we leave, fast.”
Lanta nodded, unwilling to speak.
Single file, with dogs scouting ahead, they moved out. Conway thought about the trip down the mountain the day they ventured out of the crèche. Each step was an adventure, with the very air an unknown quantity. Did the breeze carry radioactive contamination? Was the earth toxic with chemicals? Or bacteriological vectors? Was anyone else alive? Anywhere?
Conway watched Tate. His heart lifted at the way she sat her horse. Loose, flowing with the animal’s movement. Her eyes sought in all directions. Her head was raised, listening, sniffing. She cradled the wipe, ready.
Campsite was a perch on the shoulder of the mountain, a steep walk from the crèche. Most importantly, the crèche entry was hidden from view; the terrain required one to go south, then resume cl
imbing to reach the actual location. With practiced ease, the trio settled in. A small hollow under a boulder the size of a house provided basic quarters. Branches and the For cloth supplied weather protection.
At last, straining for nonchalance, Tate broached the subject. “We’ve got some time before dark; think we ought to look things over? Nothing special. Just check. You know.”
Too quickly, Conway said, “Might as well. There’s no hurry, really. But it can’t hurt, I guess.”
They took a packhorse. The dogs led.
Alone, Lanta busied herself tending to the tethered horses. Moving from one to another, Lanta stroked the muscular, arched necks, ran her hands across the smooth, warm sides. Even the Dog war-horses responded to her. She was proud of that. She told herself that animals understood more than people. The horses didn’t care about the blessed curse of Seeing. They didn’t flinch away from her touch.
The way Matt Conway did.
She reached the obstinate mule. Her hand, tracing the long sweep of a jawbone stopped, forgotten. The animal’s soft eye blinked reproach.
Matt Conway didn’t flinch from her touch. He luxuriated in it. He avoided her, but when circumstances created physical contact between them, she could see he enjoyed it. Her face warmed; she enjoyed it as well. There was no point dissembling about that. After all, she’d run away from Ola, forced herself on him during this quest. What sense was there in denying her love?
The mule nodded vigorously. Lanta laughed aloud at the timing. “You do understand, don’t you? Even you.” She tugged on a flicking, black ear, then resumed petting the animal’s muzzle. She soon left the animals, strolled to the shelter entrance. Sitting down, back against the looming boulder, she drew herself into a snug, warm ball, tucking her heavy robe and coat around her. Overhead, a breeze poured through the branches, the liquid rush of it soothing. Lanta pulled up her hood, retreating further. Weariness settled on her. Not the sort that normally came at the end of a day, but an odd, compelling need to close her eyes. It was as if the comfort that pulled her deep into her warm wraps now tugged even more urgently, drawing her away from this place.
This place.
The Seeing. It was coming after her, not waiting for her to call to it.
Thinking about Matt Conway. That was the way it happened before.
The black curtain of the Seeing fell. Claimed her. Fiery words streaked and flared across a void.
“The Lanta one will be torn from the garden of the Flower because of the Matt Conway one. The Lanta one demands complete trust given and returned. Who dares such without total knowledge and understanding? Hear and weep.”
The flaming words disappeared, left only darkness. Then Lanta heard the crying. Voices, uncountable in number, all weeping. Every conceivable misery washed over her, threatened to drown her. Then, the words once more.
“So it was with the Conway one. That was the end of the life he knew. As was this: Feel, and wonder.”
Rhythm. Immediately, Lanta knew it was a heart, beating fearfully. She felt its helplessness, a moth’s dust-fragile wings battering stone. It stilled. Then came cold. Something was dead, yet feared death. In blackness.
The return of the flaming words brought heat that was beneficence. Lanta wanted to reach for them. Until the horror of their message struck at her.
“That is what the Conway one brings to wife. A man who knows the inner rooms of death, who cannot grasp what he is. A man who knows the fear of too much knowledge, yet a man driven to know more. The man desired of the Lanta one. The Lanta one will have what she wishes most. To be here, the Conway one has become what no man should ever be. If you are to be one with him, you must become what one such as you must never be. The decision comes. The question must be answered by the Lanta one: Will you have him dead once, to live more, or dead forever? Think, and tremble.”
She woke.
There was a spring a short distance away. She rose Unsteadily, running to the clean, pure water, anxious to pray.
* * *
Although Conway and Tate knew where the crèche was, it took a few worried moments for them to locate it exactly. Using his knife, Conway pried the camouflaged door open. There was no flow of air to meet them. Instead, when they stepped inside, it was to feel themselves sinking into a chill, repellent atmosphere. Conway struck sparks with flint and steel from a small leather box that also held fluffy tow. Transferring the small glow to rags spread with pitch and tied to a stick created a torch. They advanced slowly. The immense steel door that originally sealed the cave and maintained its nitrogen atmosphere hung drunkenly where the trapped survivors had blown it open. Dulled, freckled here and there with patches of dark corrosion, it saddened Conway. The metal seemed to be asking to decay in peace.
Tate found her voice first. They were past the circular, vault like door. “It smells dead. There’s a bad feeling, like it ought to stink worse. There’s just mostly dampness.”
Conway knew her imagination saw what the torch wouldn’t reveal; the hundreds who’d died farther back in the cave and were left, coffined in their clamlike cryogenic capsules, entombed forever. Neither of them would speak directly about that. He offered compromise. “We don’t have to go all the way in. The supply area’s between the door and the—other areas.” He cursed himself for the minute hesitation, the unspoken acknowledgment that only a few yards away in uncaring darkness lay people for whom cryogenic suspension eternally failed.
At the edge of the torch’s ruddy light, Tate was a dim, bent figure, moving in a crouch. “Over here.”
The supply room was an eerily disorderly jumble. Precise aisles and shelves were an earthquake-smashed landscape of refuse. Light barely reached the corners of the square concrete room. The blackness of the rough vault overhead was vague, threatening. Wavering shadows suggested lives that resented trespass.
Conway picked up a camouflage jacket, only to drop it with a wordless cry of revulsion. “Mold. Mildew. Nasty stuff.” His voice thrummed imperfect echo. The offending cloth sighed when it landed, collapsing on itself. Thin, powdery clouds puffed into the stillness.
Tate grimaced. “Let’s hope the weapons aren’t ruined.”
“And the Hy-Pex. We’ll want to seal off this place for good when we’re done with it.”
Tate looked wounded when she nodded affirmation.
All cloth was ruined. Some articles were already disintegrated, identifiable only by buckles or zippers or buttons. More came apart at a touch. Food supplies, never intended to be more than a measure to feed crèche volunteers until they were transferred elsewhere, were ruined. Tate mourned their loss. “There were rations for three days for everyone in the crèche. They weren’t much, but we could have used them. We wouldn’t have to hunt on the way back to Ola.”
Conway picked up one of the food packets. The plastic film container was swelled taut. Idly, Conway punctured it with the tip of his knife. Noxious glop oozed out. He hurriedly dropped the mess. “Well, they’re garbage now.”
“Always were, buddy.” Tate sighed, nudged the vast mound with her foot. Packets slipped and slid in minor avalanche. “The dried fruit wasn’t bad. And the burritos. First, you added some Tabasco, then…” She stopped. Resumed sharply, “Let’s get to the weapons.”
Wipes, pistols, grenades, masses of field equipment—all were strewn wildly. Rummaging, Tate gave a running commentary on her findings, each comment more depressed than the last. Finally, holding a tubular article in both hands in front of her, as if presenting an offering, she faced Conway. The device was perhaps a yard long, four inches in diameter, capped at both ends. A boxy apparatus Conway assumed was the sight rested atop the thing. When he looked from the sight to Tate, he was surprised to see fierce, unshed tears glistening. She spoke harshly. “This is antiarmor rocket, sabot, laser-guided. Aunt Sally, the troopers called her. The ones who died here. They never even grew up. For what? We said it was for living space, for enough food, for clean air and rivers, for freedom. We almost exterminated
the race and the world it lived in. All of it’s forgotten. And here we are, getting ready to send more young men and women to their deaths, babbling the same old things. Words. None worth one young life. You hear me? Not one. None of it.” She was shouting when she finished, sweating. Echo rolled through the cavern.
Conway answered very quietly, “We can make a difference here, Donnacee. We have to try.”
Like fire dying, the rage faded away. She looked tired, sounded worse. “Right. We have to try. Put that down with the rest of them: ‘Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead.’ ‘Come on, you sonsobitches. You want to live forever?’ ‘Today is a good day to die.’ If it wasn’t so sad, it’d be funny. The hits just keep on coming, don’t they?” She spat. A tiny billow of mold rose where it landed. Tate watched the miniature cloud as if it were of supreme importance until it disappeared. Absently, so softly Conway was sure it was intended only for herself, she added, “What sorry fools we are. If it weren’t for love, there’d be nothing good in us at all.”
Immediately, she was brisk again. “Some of the wipes are in reasonable shape. Most of the wipe ammunition, too. And grenades. Each trooper had a unit of fire—that’s enough for a day’s combat. We’ll need all the horses to haul the stuff. We’ll go on foot.”
“Where’s the Hy-Pex?”
“Over there. There’s more mold and crud on the cases. I never thought this place was so damp. Remember how some of us talked about staying here?” She shuddered, looking around.
“Is there any point in trying to salvage the Aunt Sallys? Or anything else?”
She shook her head. “Not really. They worked off batteries or hand generators, and they’re all shot. Explosive junk; might as well use them to blow the place.”
“That was my thought. What if we hide some wipes, take the firing pins? That way we ride, instead of walk.”
Considering, Tate stroked her lips with a finger. “Good point. Speed’s important. And even if Moonpriest finds the weapons cache, we’ll have all the ammunition.”
