Lords of the Seventh Swarm

by David Farland

  He hoped he could trick Maggie into helping him murder Lord Felph.

  Chapter 17

  Orick sniffed as he stepped from the ship. The ground under him felt spongy. His paw sank deep on the first step. Though they’d waited hours before disembarking, the air was still filled with pulverized limbs and leaves, detritus pounded into atoms by the shuttle’s phased gravity waves.

  Upon entering the tangle, the ship had burrowed a thousand meters, until the atomized foliage and hapless animals beneath the ship got so deep that the ship could burrow no farther.

  Orick looked up. The sky above was perfectly black, as if in a mine shaft. No light could reach him, the sky was up so far, the clouds had been so thick.

  “I smell smoke,” Tallea said. It came faintly, masked by the moist scent of alien trees.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Felph said. “The gravity waves we used to pulverize the trees create some heat. The powder beneath our feet will stay hot for weeks, but won’t catch fire. There isn’t enough oxygen in the mix.”

  “Shhh …” Athena warned. She held a brilliant glow globe in one hand, a pistol in the other. “Follow me.”

  The young woman walked down a mild slope, bouncing with each step. The powder at her feet drifted up like blowing smoke. Orick followed at Athena’s heel.

  Drops of water splashed down from time to time, and the going was slow. Massive tree trunks, wide enough so a house could fit inside, thrust everywhere through the tangle. Fallen trees provided roofs and pathways, and detritus had collected in crooks of branches or on ribbon trees, creating something of a false floor, paths for them to tread.

  Along many trunks were ledges—outcroppings, formed by enormous growths, like giant colonies of mold. Epiphytes and parasitic plants had lived here but then rotted away as the canopy of the tangle climbed higher, robbing the plants of light, so that even though the area showed signs of plant life everywhere—hanging vines and rotted trees—little survived. Only dew trees, massive as houses, still lived.

  Everything seemed familiar, nothing was familiar. Giant worm vines twisted in broad ribbons, forming roads that Athena eagerly sought. Yet the branches and deadfalls combined to form strange caverns. In places, the immense weight of the foliage above caused plants to collapse, so that frequently the trail led down at a precarious angle.

  Though the air was humid, Orick felt surprised at how little water seeped in from the canopy above. Often, water ran down a winding tree trunk in rivulets, but surprisingly, just as often Orick was able to find dry footing.

  Still, the journey became treacherous.

  Little lived here. The tangle was strangely silent, save for an occasional creaking of limbs, the thud of heavy branches snapping far above.

  Yet Orick felt as if the tangle were alive in spite of its silence. Watching, writhing. Everywhere was movement, distant creakings, water cascading, soggy footfalls.

  A march of several hours along various fallen limbs brought them far enough down and away from the havoc wrought by their ship that Orick could finally breathe easier, and they dropped to a false floor, with real dirt.

  Here was life in abundance. Huge pale worms, perhaps five meters in length, each as thick around as a good-sized rattlesnake, fed among the humus, while small armadillo like creatures scampered about, growling when one of the party approached. Here were sounds hard to identify buzzing insects, strange hooting. As they moved into this region, Orick felt frightened.

  Athena dimmed her light. To Orick’s surprise, along the ground were huge clods he’d thought were turds, but these glowed pink, with their own dim light. Athena kicked one over. Orick saw that it had a dozen small legs at its base, so thin they could hardly move such a. massive body.

  Athena grabbed several of them, placed them in a net at her hip. She gave one to Gallen. “Darkfriends,” she explained. “They give light to attract mates, but they are very much in tune with other creatures of the tangle. They dim if they smell enemies.”

  “So if the lights go out, we’ll know that something wants to eat us?” Orick asked.

  “It’s better than no warning at all,” Athena admitted. “I’ll flip on my torch, if that should happen. But beware. We’re down at least fifteen hundred meters. Here, we are not far above the first lairs of the sfuz. If we find a good path, the sfuz will know of it. Watch for traps.”

  Orick wondered, “What kind of traps?”

  “Snares and webs. The webs of sfuz glisten like water. It takes a keen eye to tell the difference.” Athena stopped a moment. “If the sfuz attack, they usually drop from above. Watch for them.”

  Athena took the lead, followed by Gallen, who kept his vibro-blade in one hand. His mantle of black rings jangled on his head; Gallen seemed little more than a shadow, sometimes tinkling as he walked. Behind Gallen, Felph sauntered along easily, carrying only a walking stick. He wore an amused expression. Orick wondered at his aloofness, until he realized that Felph did not care if he lived or died down here. If he died beneath the tangle, he would be reborn.

  Behind Felph came Orrick, followed by Tallea, who remained watchful, sniffing at the ground as she prowled.

  Orick breathed deeply, testing musty air. The pungent odor of dew trees, like rotting oranges, somehow made him hungry. The worm vines smelled rich with turpines, like cut and polished ash. The air was thick with their scent, so heavy Orick felt almost as if he were traveling through liquid. Beneath these aromas lay the heavier odor of molding detritus. All sound was muffled, deadened. Orick had never experienced such total quietness outside a cave.

  Some huge insects fluttered up, seeking escape. Others skittered away to the far side of a tree, defying gravity. Twice the group slowed and climbed down holes, dropping to some deeper level beneath this wretched tangle.

  The dullness of sound, closeness of vegetation, the smell of decay—all became suffocating, till Orick wanted to run. Their scent could lead him back to the shuttle. Orick knew he only had to follow it. Yet he suspected that even in the shuttle, he would feel closed in, trapped. He kept his nose down, followed Gallen.

  After many hours, Athena located a wide branch in the crook of a tree, then called a halt. “It’s dark out,” she whispered. “I think the sun set an hour ago.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Felph whispered. “Let us all press on.”

  “It matters,” Athena warned. “We’re getting tired. The farther we march, the more certain it becomes that the sfuz will cross our trail. If we are tired when they find us, we will be less alert, less able to fight them.”

  Felph grunted in disgust. “Fine then, sleep if you must!”

  He squatted against the tree, leaning back, and Orick saw it—a misty white vine hanging behind Felph, so thin and watery, it seemed almost invisible.

  “Stop!” he shouted. Felph stood bolt upright.

  Orick ran to the vine, sniffed it. It had an odd odor, somewhat like shellac, or some material he’d once smelled boatmen use as glue. The vine came to rest a handspan from Felph’s back, where it ended in a glob of goo that was hidden with crushed dust. The line was tight as a lute string.

  “Good eyes,” Athena praised Orick, patted his head.

  She scrounged till she found a long limb, then touched the gooey end of the web. It snapped, ripping the limb from her hand, pulling it up far into the darkness above. “Had one of us touched the trigger, we’d have been carried as easily as that stick,” Athena warned. “The pull is enough to snap your neck. Let this be a warning. There is no rescue from the snare of a sfuz. We might manage to retrieve your corpse.”

  She gave Lord Felph a hard look, as if ordering him to thank Orick for his very life. Felph merely grunted, leaned back where the snare had been.

  “Not here,” Athena hissed. “We can’t rest here. The sfuz will check its snare. We don’t want it to find us.”

  “Of course we do,” Felph replied, “I brought Gallen here to become acquainted with the vermin. What better way than to rest here,
till the maker of the that trap comes?”

  Athena looked in Gallen’s eyes. He merely shrugged.

  “I’ll keep first watch,” Athena whispered.

  They set a glum camp. Gallen unpacked a bit of cold food, some fine ham from Felph’s larder, along with fresh fruits and bread. The food lightened Orick’s mood, made the darkness seem more bearable.

  Gallen took a canister of explosive foam, sprayed it on the trail behind them, then set wards that would light up and emit sound if something large approached.

  Felph lay on a thermal blanket.

  And Gallen stood, ready. “I will keep vigil with you,” he told Athena.

  “Get some sleep,” she said. “The sfuz live far below us by day, but in an hour, they’ll make their journey up for their nightly hunt in the canopy of the tangle. We shouldn’t have any problems until then.”

  “My mantle can watch with you,” Gallen said. “It can waken me at the first sign of trouble.”

  Athena shook her head. “The sfuz don’t give warning.” She stood, went around camp, setting out darkfriends at equal distances, as if Gallen’s wards and precautions were worthless. When the darkfriends were separated by a few yards, they began glowing fiercely, then ponderously began making an hours-long journey back to one another. The night glowed around them as they struggled in the dirt. Almost, Orick could imagine he was in a deep forest back on Tihrglas, with merry campfires guttering about. But light of these creatures was too dim, and the trees beside them too desiccated, too twisted and alien to remind him of home.

  Lord Felph lay back, resting comfortably in his little nook, watching the frightened faces of the others with amusement. Athena took watch in the deepest shadows she could find amid this pool of light. Surprisingly, though the darkfriends seemed to gleam brightly, their light didn’t shine far; the twisted branches around Athena threw enough shadows so she remained concealed. Gallen lay beside Felph and soon fell asleep.

  Orick could not rest. He could see better in the darkness than a human, and decided to keep watch a bit. Meanwhile, Tallea opened Orick’s Bible and began reading from the book of Genesis, but found it rough going. She could not understand the archaic language of the book, the symbolic references, figures of speech. So Orick expounded the Bible’s teachings, beginning with the creation of the Earth, the fall of Adam, and the promises God made to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and other prophets. He told how David slew Goliath, how Elijah healed a pagan of leprosy—until he got to the life of Jesus, whose birth in Bethlehem was announced by a new star shining in heaven and by the voices of angels.

  Orick felt glad of Tallea’s interest. The she-bear often asked pointed questions. And as Orick taught, he began to see patterns he had never considered. He saw how the stories he knew so well each added to a great theme which told how God spoke to man, giving him promises if he should act well, then helped man reach his highest potential. At times, Orick found himself relating ideas he had never considered. He felt sure God was inspiring him, that he was expounding beyond his natural wisdom.

  Even more gratifying, he found that his words were taking root in more than one heart. As he spoke, his voice filled the little hollow. Athena had been keeping guard, but by the tilt of her head, Orick could tell she was not listening for sounds of predators, she listened to him, and after a bit she did not even keep up a pretense of disinterest, but came and crouched quietly beside Tallea, her pulp gun resting casually on one knee.

  Athena watched Orick intently, absorbing each word, saying nothing. Orick was reminded of the words of Christ, “The gospel is likened unto a fisherman who cast his net into the sea, and gathered fishes of every kind.” Orick had cast his net for Tallea, and was pulling in a decidedly odd fish.

  But as sure as God walked in the Garden of Eden, so did Satan, and it seemed to Orick that he was just getting to the best parts of the New Testament when Lord Felph roused from his nap and sauntered over.

  Orick had been expounding upon the Beatitudes, and he quoted, “`Blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

  Then Orick added, “This is God’s promise that He will strengthen us, regardless of our weaknesses, so that we can withstand His presence.

  “‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ This is God’s promise that all things shall be given to those who submit to His teachings.

  “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.’

  “This is God’s promise that He will not leave you comfortless, in moments of trial, but shall grant His spirit to meet your needs.”

  Felph groused, “Speaking of tribulation, how is a man to sleep, Orick, with your incessant babbling?”

  “I was just telling Tallea and Athena here about the life of Jesus,” Orick said.

  Felph sat next to Orick, wrapped his arms around his legs. Felph’s eyes were a bit puffy, swollen, and his face looked drained, tired. Yet he stroked his short beard thoughtfully and studied Orick from under heavy lids. “Ah, yes, a venerable enough chap, I gather. But I find other gods more intriguing.”

  “Other gods?” Tallea asked. “You mean there are stories of other gods?”

  Orick got an uneasy feeling. The Bible mentioned such gods—Baalim and Asteroth, Moloch and Diana. To worship them was forbidden. On Orick’s world, nothing was known of their ways. Orick believed God wanted to keep it this way.

  “I always found Asteroth fascinating,” Felph said, watching Orick’s reaction. “I loved the way her worshipers used fetishes, and all the delightful sacred orgies they threw. Devotion toward the divine mother—with all her creative forces, and her concern for hearth and home those make so much more sense to me than worship of a war god. Don’t you think, Orick?”

  “God is not a god of war,” Orick said, “but of peace.”

  “Yes, well, tell that to the Canaanites, and the Hittites and Jebusites, and the Perizites and the Ammonites and the Philistines. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few, but those were just some of the nations the Israelites slaughtered under inspiration of your God of Peace.”

  “I’m sure He had a good reason,” Orick countered. “God could not simply allow His people to die at the hands of their enemies. He must protect them.”

  “Protect them, of course,” Felph said. “Now if I recall correctly, with the Hittites, Joshua slaughtered their men, their women, their children, all their flocks and herds, then burned their cities, melted their idols, and ground the gold into dust and threw it into the rivers. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Orick admitted glumly.

  “I can understand discarding the gold, and I suppose cities were dirty enough back then that burning might have been in order. Personally, I’d even back that God of yours on his decision to kill the children in the cities. But for the life of me, Orick, I can’t figure out what the poor sheep did so wrong! Really, was it their fault if those shepherds had unwholesome amorous preferences? Oh, and let’s not even mention the babes—Sock it to those mewling infants, Jehovah!” Lord Felph cackled horribly at his own jests.

  Well, whatever presence of the Holy Spirit Orick had felt, it had about all fled by now. It wasn’t as if Orick didn’t have answers to Felph—he believed that God ordered the flocks destroyed so the Israelites would not be tempted to fight over the spoils of war. As for the babes, who knew what had really been done? The Bible was so old, it was probably filled with some inaccuracies. An uninspired scribe might have thrown in the thing about the babes. But Felph was throwing out questions of such moral complexity they were difficult to answer, especially for someone like Tallea, who needed to receive the milk of the gospel before she could tolerate the meat.

  “There are answers to the questions you pose,” Orick said.

  “Ah, those who have ears, let them hear!” Lord Felph joked.

  Athena saw how Felph annoyed Orick. She said, “You were telling us about the Sermon on the Mount…”r />
  “Yes,” Orick tried to remember where he’d left off.

  “Are you certain your Jesus wasn’t an impostor, Orick?” Felph asked. “None of his ‘miracles’ seem very miraculous to me. Their effects would be very easy to accomplish with modern technology.”

  “But they didn’t have modem technology back then,” Orick countered.

  “Perhaps, but imagine this, Orick: imagine that a modern man went back in time, with the idea of posing as the Son of God. Using modern equipment, he could have easily performed the ‘miracles’ you describe.”

  “What of turning water into wine?” Orick asked.

  “Nanotechnology,” Felph said. “A small tablet filled with nutrients and the proper nanoware, and in moments your water turns to wine.”

  “What about healing the sick or raising the dead?”

  “Who knows how sick those people really were?” Felph argued. “Nanodocs can work wonders.”

  “What of walking on the water?”

  “An antigrav sled, floating just below the surface. I’ve accomplished the same effect myself.”

  “What of calming the troubled seas?”

  Lord Felph fell silent, considering. “Weather satellites. Jesus knew when the storm would end.”

  “I don’t accept that answer,” Orick said. “Even after a storm calms, the seas stay rough. So what about it, how about calming the seas?”

  “I don’t know—yet,” Felph admitted. “Such technology doesn’t exist at the moment.”

  “And here is another question for you,” Orick said. “Can a man travel back in time that far?”

  “Time travel is possible, though the technology is strictly controlled,” Felph said. “One can go back in time, a few days—even a week.”

  “But we’re talking twenty thousand years.”

  “If we had an energy source large enough, one that he could carry with him, so that he could duplicate the effort over and—” Felph began.