Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Chronologically, about four,” replied Timothy. “But a brilliant four, Caine.”

  Alice fixed Timothy with wary gaze. “How brilliant?”

  Timothy held out an eliciting hand toward Toni Adkins. She shrugged and said, “We don’t know. He’s off the scale in any of our tests. Of course, we’re not certain how to baseline an AI’s IQ.” Toni paused a moment, then added, “Look, we’ll be closely monitoring the test. If anything at all seems to be going wrong—not that there will be, mind you—but if anything at all goes strange, we’ll simply unplug you, pull you out of there. So, no matter his IQ, no matter his age, there’s no cause for worry.”

  “Yeah, but Jesus, four years old—he’s just a loose ass kid,” said Caine, finally catching his breath. Grinning, Hiroko pounded him a couple more times then stopped.

  Meredith stirred her liquid breakfast, the spoon tinking against the glass. Finally she looked at Toni. “It seems to me that the important question is: how old is Avery emotionally?”

  Toni canted her head. “Take comfort, Miss Rodgers, for he evidences solid maturity in everything he does. But, as with his IQ, the truth is, we don’t know how to baseline his emotional age either.”

  Hiroko’s eyes flew wide. “He has emotions?”

  Toni smiled. “Yes, Miss Kikiro, some.” As she poured herself another cup of coffee, Toni added, “The first we noted was an offshoot of joy: about a year ago he seemed to develop a sense of humor. He told jokes and laughed. Then some six months past, he seemed to develop a sense of empathy, often expressing an understanding of another’s situation or feelings or motives.”

  Meredith raised an eyebrow. “What about love? What about hate? Has he shown any indications of those emotions?”

  “Not any that we have seen,” replied Toni. “But after all, he’s still learning, still developing.”

  Caine shook his head and laughed. “Lordy, lordy, that’s just great. Here we are about to step into a reality where the master of all is an emotionally-retarded loose-ass four-year-old super-genius kid. —God, ain’t life grand?”

  Throughout the day the alpha team waited. Avery, it seemed, was still organizing and correlating the massive amount of data he had gathered. Caine and Hiroko squabbled over cribbage for an hour or so, then joined Meredith and Arthur in a game of four-handed billiards, where tiny Hiroko had to drag a footstool around to stand on. Alice and Eric disappeared for a while, then reappeared looking rather smug, or so Meredith thought.

  And the day dragged by.

  Lunch came and went . . .

  . . . then dinner.

  And all the while, the corporate group was absent, counting down with Avery, or so Alice surmised.

  Night was falling as the alpha team retired to the lounge. In the distance among the peaks of the Catalinas, again lightning stuttered as the evening monsoon began to form.

  An hour or so passed, and then Timothy Rendell appeared and announced, “Saddle up, Black Foxes, Avery’s ready.”

  Eric stood and extended a hand to Alice. Throwing his arm about her shoulders, he gestured at the darkness outside, and a far-off flash illuminated the clouds from within. “Itt vass ein dark und schtormy nacht,” he intoned somberly.

  Alice answered him with a grin, then said, “Ja, Herr Frankenstein, chust perfekt for der ekschperiment.”

  Laughing, the alpha team followed Timothy toward the elevator.

  It seemed as if the entire staff of Coburn Industries was waiting for them. Even Mark Perry, the corporate shark, was present. People they had only seen in passing watched from the viewing room. Terminal jocks sat at the consoles, and Stein and his medical team stood by, as did Doctors Greyson and Ramanni and Meyer. Toni Adkins looked up from her console and greeted them with a smile. Two people with holocams recorded their every move.

  “Jeeze,” whispered Caine, “it’s like a friggin’ moon shot.”

  “Or the mission to Mars,” hissed Hiroko, then guiltily looked toward Doctor Adkins, hoping that she had not overheard.

  Caine reached out and squeezed Hiroko’s hand, then said, “Let’s hope for a better outcome.”

  As usual, the medtech team separated them by gender and led them to the dressing rooms. By this time they each were familiar with the routine, though Alice still felt somewhat violated when they fitted the gear between her legs. Medtechs tested each sensor as various probes and bands and cuffs were attached, until at last all was ready.

  They were led from the dressing rooms to a place before the rigs where awaited Doctor Adkins. They were positioned in a shallow arc facing the consoles and the viewing room beyond. As the last one was put on his mark, Toni looked at one of the vidcams and said, “Avery.”

  Avery’s holo-swirl of slow-turning colors appeared in the central position.

  Holocams recorded all.

  Toni Adkins stepped back and turned to face them. “One ought to have something rather momentous to say upon occasions like this, for we stand on the threshold of a wondrous future where Avery and others like him will aid in the advancement of all mankind. The benefits to be reaped are incalculable.

  “This test is but a small step on the endless journey into mankind’s future. Yet it is in many ways the most important step, for it is the first—and all journeys begin with but a single step.

  “That you have volunteered to take that step is to be much admired, and deserves the highest of praise.”

  She turned and faced the crowd. “Up the Black Foxes,” called Toni Adkins.

  Up the Black Foxes, cried them all.

  And for the barest of moments Avery’s colors stopped turning . . . and then slowly swirled on.

  While outside, lightning hammered at the unyielding mountains, and cold rain fell down and down.

  Medtechs strapped them into the witch’s cradles, and connected the bundles of optical fibers. Console jockeys ran their diagnostics and gave thumbs-up signals. The medtechs inserted the IV needles into veins on the backs of their hands and immobilized them with tape. Comptechs carefully inserted the ID crystals into the VR helmets, where Avery verified them individually, then updated each with new correlated data and verified every one again.

  A fleeting thought flashed across Meredith’s mind—Cradle to grave, witch’s cradle to grave—but she immediately dismissed it.

  At last all was ready.

  Doctor Adkins stood at the central console, her hands together as if in contemplation . . . or prayer. Her gaze swept across them one by one. “Ready, Black Foxes?”

  Ready, they replied.

  Toni gave them a thumbs-up. “Right-o.”

  One by one, medtechs snapped the VR visors down. As her own clicked shut, Alice felt her heart racing. Foolish girl, she chided herself, I’ll bet everyone’s heart is hammering away, just like mine . . . everyone’s but Avery’s, that is: he doesn’t have a heart.

  At that very moment Avery said, “Ready, Black Foxes?” and Alice jumped in startlement. “Settle down, everyone,” Avery continued, “there’s no cause for alarm.”

  Alice took a deep breath. “Ready, Avery. Let’s get this over with.”

  Evidently all agreed, for the next thing Alice heard was Avery saying to someone, “On my mark, beginning hemisynch: three, two, one, mar—”

  11

  Gnoman

  (Itheria)

  “Mark my words,” declared Arton, “if the High King learns I’m anywhere near, he’ll want to know first if I’ve brought him any honeyed sweets, and then he’ll ask about the dark plot against his throne.”

  The late-morning sun shone down on the Black Foxes as they slowly rode along the Southern Byway, heading for the town of Gapton—their goal for the night—some twenty-five miles away. Six Foxes there were, riding six horses, and trailing three pack mules behind, the animals plodding along the rutted dirt road, small puffs of dust swirling ’round their shod hooves.

  Each of the Foxes was dressed in mottled grey leathers, shading from off-white to off-black. From each o
f their shoulders a cloak fell—grey-green on one side, dun-brown on the other—reversible. At the moment the grey-green side was out, for the road they followed wended through rising foothills covered with tall, waving grass.

  Fairly scattered, they rode in a seemingly random pattern, yet it was anything but. Twenty-five yards in the lead, Lyssa rode point on her bay mare, her ranger eyes sweeping the undulant land. Arik took the left flank, just as Kane took the right—Arik on a roan gelding, Kane on a gelded bay—each with a mule on a tether behind. Somewhat in the center were Ky and Rith, the Shadowmaster on a dark grey mare, the black bard on a dun palfrey. Now and again scanning the hills behind, Arton brought up the rear, his gelding a splash of white and tan, with a pack mule tethered after.

  “Ah, Arton,” growled Kane, having dropped back to ride alongside him, “you worry too much. Besides, Langor is weeks away, and we’ve plenty of time to whip you up a good disguise.”

  “Even so, Kane, it is the capital city,” said Arton, “and although I haven’t been there in seven, eight years, still where bloody else would I likely be discovered by fat Torlon? He never leaves Langor, and now I ride toward his permanent lair. —Can’t we find a better place to go? Surely, Ky, you can find someone else someplace else to teach you the trick you wish to master.”

  Ky laughed. “Not likely, Uncle Lightfingers. Besides, you were eager to go when I first suggested it.”

  “I think I was drunk at the time,” growled Arton.

  After the laughter died down, onward they rode in silence, until—

  “Kites!” Ky’s call broke the quiet, and she extended her arm forward and upward at a shallow angle, pointing. “Or gorcrows,” she amended.

  Arik scanned the skies ahead but saw nothing. “Where away? How far?”

  “Straight up the road,” came Ky’s reply. “Just right of the col. Mayhap eight or nine miles. Circling.”

  Arik shaded his eyes and peered long and hard, but still he saw no sign of them against the dark background of the Rawlon Mountains lying upland some ten miles ahead. The fact that she saw the birds and he did not was of little note; she was, after all, a syldari, and they were said to have the keenest eyes in all of Itheria.

  “’Ware, everyone,” he called, thumbing loose the keeper on his falchion. “Where there be kites or crows, there be something dead—”

  “—And something that made it so,” interjected Rith, undoing the tether on the grey shield behind her saddle and transferring the shield to the hook on the left of the forecantle.

  Kane loosened his spear in its long scabbard on the flank of his horse, and he spurred forward to come up alongside Rith, where he settled in slightly ahead of her and to the right. He, too, shifted his grey shield to the fore.

  The Foxes not only readied their manifold weapons and black-fox-silhouetted shields, but from the right side of the forecantles they unhooked metal helms and donned them, each helmet equipped with cheek and nose guards, the steel darkened so as to cast no glints.

  Even as she slipped her helm onto her head, Ky eyed the distant birds which only she could see and said, “It might merely be a dead animal, Arik, but then again it could be a sign of trouble.”

  Arik grunted noncommittally.

  Her own weaponry at hand, Lyssa glanced behind and saw that all Foxes were ready. “Road or grass?” she called back.

  Arik glanced at the others. “Kane and I will ride out on the flanks. The rest of you stay on the road. Fall back a bit and give Lyssa a longer lead—say, fifty yards or so. Ky, take my mule; Rith, take Kane’s.”

  Arik and Kane passed the tethers to the Shadowmaster and the bard. Arik cocked an eye at Kane. “Thirty yards?”

  Kane nodded. “Thirty yards it is, and ’ware the marmot holes.” Then he turned his horse rightward and spurred upslope into the grass. Using coded hand gestures, Arik signaled the plan to Lyssa, then rode out onto the left flank.

  Lyssa kicked her mount into a ground-devouring trot, and behind came the others, the mules protesting at this unseemly gait.

  And upward through the land they rode.

  Time passed, a candlemark or so, and then Arik saw his first kite winging across the sky. —Nay, not a kite, but a gorcrow instead. Carefully he tracked the black bird against the mountains, and watched as it joined the others. And now that he knew exactly where to look and what to look for, he marveled that Ky had managed to see them in the first place, while at the same time wondering why he had not.

  Still the Southern Byway wended upward through the rising land, the rolling hills ascending to meet the Rawlon Range. In the near distance could be seen this end of the fifteen-mile-long breach in the chain through which the road passed, and two miles beyond lay Gapton.

  In four candlemarks they came onto a plateau at the base of the rocky steeps, and a half mile ahead the crows circled down to land and squabble over something large lying in the road.

  “What is it?” breathed Rith.

  “A horse or pony,” said Ky, slipping her shield on her left arm and drawing her ebon-bladed main gauche.

  To the right of the road more birds wrangled over something in the tall grass, but whatever it was could not be seen. And a quarter-mile beyond, up toward the pass just ahead, squabbled a third clot of crows in the road.

  Cautiously, the Black Foxes approached, weapons ready, chary eyes scanning the plateau and crags for sign of a foe but finding none. Closer and closer they drew, until the nearest swarm flew upward in a great squawking cloud. In the fore Lyssa’s horse snorted and shied, and Lyssa held up a hand and stopped, then silently signaled . Arik signed to Kane, and scanning for enemies, they widely circled ’round, shields on their arms, weapons in hand.

  Her bow at the ready, arrow nocked, Lyssa dismounted and approached the pony. It was horribly mutilated—hacked open from muzzle to tail, its gullet and stomach and entrails pulled out and sliced open . . . a haunch missing. Blood pooled in the dirt. The stench of the gutted animal choked the air. Flies swarmed, lapping at the grume. Nearby lay a riding saddle, the cinch straps cut, a ripped up bedroll at hand. Westerly, a wide trail beat through the growth and away from the road and toward the nearby group of raucous crows feeding upon something down in the grass. Lyssa stepped to the roadside and squatted and examined the track leading into the green . . . noting that the spoor not only led inward, but back out as well. Her heart pounding at what she might find, Lyssa followed this trace, her eyes scanning the surround, her own feet leaving no track at all. In the near distance she could see Arik and Kane opposite one another, riding a wide perimeter.

  With Arik circuiting to the left, and Kane to the right, they closed the circle but found no lurking foe. They rode on toward the gap, toward the other squabbling flock in the road. A half-mile ahead loomed the opening to the narrow pass. Like a black scrawking cloud, this swarm, too, took to the air. Another hideously mutilated pony lay in the dirt. Alongside the hacked corpse were scattered provisions, the bags sliced open and the contents strewn. Both Arik and Kane’s mounts required firm hands for control, the skittering animals snorting and shying with the scent of death all ’round.

  “Kane, take post here on the road,” murmured Arik. “Keep an eye on the gap.” At a grunt from Kane, Arik turned his horse and hand-signaled to the others, and as Rith moved to stand ward at the distant end, he rode back toward Lyssa.

  Squawking in alarm and rage, gorcrows flew upward as Lyssa came to their feeding ground. A hideous stench lay like a pustulant cloud all ’round. There she found the remains of the rider: a gnoman. He lay naked, split from chin to crotch, his gullet, stomach, and gut ripped loose from his hacked body and strung out foot after foot and sliced open, bile and acid and partly digested food and feces lying like vomit rotting in the sun. Bloated flies crawled in and out and across, and black beetles rooted among the intestines. Blood slathered the corpse and the grass and the ground. Slashed and torn clothing lay strewn across the nearby ’scape.

&nbs
p; Lyssa felt her gorge rise, but she resisted gagging, resisted retching, and instead forced herself to read the signs, forced herself to reconstruct what had happened here.

  Like a gutted manikin, the gnoman lay broken, his eyes plucked out—Damn crows. In spite of the condition of his body, Lyssa judged him to be a youth among his kind, no more than two hundred years old. And like all gnomen—those strange undermountain dwellers—his skin was grey and his hair black and he looked to be about four foot tall, though sprawled as he was, it was difficult to gauge. A dark glister caught her eye—something black seemed wedged in the wide gash at the corpse’s shoulder joint. Keeping a wary eye on the land, Lyssa gritted her teeth and with her own dagger pried out the ebony thing; it was a sharp obsidian stone point—the broken tip of a blade. Lyssa examined it for a moment, and shivered as a chill wind blew down from the mountains while clouds like wispy feathers slid across the sky above the range. She put the shard in her belt pouch.

  Arik rode through the grass and to Lyssa. When he saw the gnoman, he quickly looked away, then seemed to gather his courage and turned to face the corpse once more. “Have you seen enough?” he growled, his voice low and guttural.

  Lyssa sighed and stood. “Yes, Arik. I know at least some of what has passed here. Perhaps as much as I’ll glean.” She gestured at the churned up clods of earth and grass. “I’ve read the tracks and the desperate story they tell.”

  “There’s another dead pony up there,” said Arik, pointing. “A pack pony. Slain. Gutted. The supplies split open and scattered. The ground was trampled, just like here.”

  Lyssa shaded her eyes and peered toward the pass, where Kane sat watch on the road. Lyssa nodded. “That fits in with what I’ve deduced, Arik. Call the others now—in fact, summon them here. I want them to see this as I tell the wretched tale written in these tracks.”