The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  “Glasken, I shall hold a great feast on my estate on every solstice, I promise you. Bartolicans like an excuse to revel, in fact I cannot think why they have overlooked the solstices for so long.”

  By now they were getting cold, and Glasken suggested that they warm themselves by the library fire. They entered, but found it deserted. That was unusual, for there was always a monk on duty when the door was unlocked. It was Glasken who found Brother James lying bleeding on the floor behind the register desk. He had been shot in the abdomen.

  “Brother James!” exclaimed Glasken. “Who did this?”

  “Five men, sair,” Brother James whispered. “Cold eyes. Asked … about you.”

  “Australican Callwalkers,” Glasken said grimly. “In a way I marvel that they took so long to get here. Come now, Brother, let’s see your wound.”

  “But this man needs a physician,” said Laurelene.

  “I’ve tended my share of wounds in the decades past, and most of my patients have lived.”

  He looked up when Laurelene did not reply. Five gun barrels were pointed at them.

  Laurelene was soon bound and gagged in a reading chair. She gave muffled squeals of fury as one of the men ran his hands up her legs and under her skirts. He withdrew them to display a small pistol. He turned his attention back to Glasken.

  “You dirty, evil old man,” said the lean, muscular aviad.

  “I am neither dirty nor evil, and fifty is merely middle-aged,” Glasken replied smoothly, as if he faced this sort of accusation several times a day. “Brother James, I believe you have already met my son Warran.”

  Warran Glasken returned his gun to a holster beneath his coat and stood with his fists on his hips.

  “Chorteau, close the door and bolt it,” barked Warran. “Glasken, get away from the monk.”

  “Only when Brother James is bandaged shall I move away from him,” replied Glasken, tearing a strip of cloth from his own robe. “Besides, since when have I been Glasken instead of Father?”

  Warran’s eyes blazed with fury at the word “father,” but he let Glasken bind the monk’s wound.

  “He’s bandaged, that’s enough!” snapped Warran. “Now move away.”

  Glasken did as he was told, moving well away from the monk.

  “At least have one of your men tend his wound properly,” pleaded Glasken.

  “My men open wounds, not heal them. Sablek, search him.”

  Sablek ran his hands through Glasken’s clothing quickly and methodically. He drew out the clip-spring pistol and two daggers.

  “Is that all?” demanded Warran. “What about another gun? He always carries two guns.”

  “Both daggers are for throwing,” Sablek pointed out. “Perhaps his second gun was that which we found in the woman’s garter.”

  “You’re right. So, Brother Glasken, where are your notes?”

  “Notes? I have no notes.”

  “You study at this monastery! What did you scribe from their books?”

  “I merely entered the holy cloisters for some weeks of quiet contemplation. I did no study.”

  “I think otherwise. You gave a lecture last night, I know that!”

  “Oh, yes, on denial theology—”

  “Don’t give me that drivel, you lecherous, adulterous old goat! I know everything! Everything that you did with every nun in that convent, and the names of every monk who has followed your example. Even this fat Bartolican tart went to your room long enough for a quick one last night, I know that as well!”

  “If that’s your story, then you know nothing. Laurelene is my friend Jeb’s lady, and I’d not betray—”

  Warran backhanded him across the face.

  “Don’t talk to me about betrayal! You betrayed your wives more often than I’ve drunk hot coffee. It was your fault that they started following your example. You all shamed me!” He took one of Glasken’s daggers from Sablek and pressed the point lightly against Glasken’s nose. “I could threaten the monk, I could threaten your whore, Father, but there are three other things that I know you treasure far more. Chorteau, Sablek, fetch rope and a chair. I have a very slow operation to perform.”

  Chorteau and Sablek holstered their weapons. Brother James had been moaning softly and clutching at his bandaged wound beneath his robes, but as soon as the two aviads had put their weapons away he drew Glasken’s missing pistol and opened fire on the two other aviads. Glasken kneed Warran in the crotch and dived for a fallen pistol as Chorteau and Sablek drew their guns and sprayed the monk with bullets. Rolling across the floor, Glasken opened fire on them. In the withering, unshielded exchange that followed all three were hit, but Glasken’s aim was better. Laurelene tried to scream through her gag, and the sound was enough to get Glasken’s attention. He turned to see Warran, almost doubled over with agony, raise his own gun. His shot hit Glasken high in the chest. Laurelene, still bound and gagged, surged out of the armchair, crashing into Warran’s legs and sending him sprawling. He rose to his knees, his gun pointed at her forehead.

  “You dare to touch me, you filthy, perverted whore—”

  Warran’s head exploded as Glasken squeezed off one last shot, then dropped the gun and lay still across the Dorakian carpet covering the library floor. Laurelene writhed her way across the floor to Glasken’s fallen dagger. With much fumbling she managed to cut her hands free, then removed the rest of her bonds. Outside in the yard the woodcutters continued to chop. Nobody thought the shots from the library were anything else but axe blows.

  Seven bodies lay sprawled on the library floor, but only Glasken was still alive. He was hanging by a thread when Laurelene reached him.

  “Glasken, lie still,” Laurelene said urgently as she began cutting the clothing away over his chest.

  “Easily done,” he whispered.

  “We have to stop the bleeding first, then I’ll get the monks—”

  “No use. Frelle Laurelene. Two favors …”

  “Anything! Anything!”

  “When I die, press gold stud … remove collar.”

  “Yes, yes. What else?”

  “Tell me I’m … handsome devil.”

  “You’re a handsome devil, Glasken,” Laurelene managed, but as she winked a tear was squeezed from her eye.

  Slowly, carefully she knelt, straddling his body. She bent down low over his face.

  “I shall never, never forget you, Glasken,” she said, her voice breaking up. “Many women may have said that, but I mean it.”

  “No better way to go …”

  She kissed him for a moment that lingered and lingered, tasting blood in his mouth. As she pulled back he was no longer breathing.

  “No better way to go than between a woman’s legs,” she whispered, finishing his last sentence for him.

  For a long time Laurelene lay sobbing on Glasken’s body. At last she got up. She cut a lock of Glasken’s hair with the dagger, then wrapped it about her fingers and stood. She shuffled over to the armchair and flopped down into it with her bloodied hands over her face. Soon she had to raise the alarm. Soon, but not yet. She could share a few minutes more with Glasken, that much she felt she was owed.

  A flickering filled the library, intense enough to be evident past Laurelene’s closed eyes and fingers. She opened her eyes. Glasken’s body was glowing brightly—then the glowing image of something human-shaped began to rise free of him. She cowered, scrabbling back into the chair, but it was not facing her. The image stood, yet its feet were clear of the floor. The profile of a much younger Glasken’s face looked down at his body.

  “Hah! Za’be liv-te Morthet post,” the image said.

  A second image began to materialize in front of the Glasken wraith. It too began as flickering light, then defined itself into a tall woman of about thirty-five. She had thick, bushy hair and intense, protuberant eyes.

  “Fras Glasken, va’sen hale,” she said casually.

  “Zarvora! So, za‘be devil! Diz’be hell?” Glasken’s image gasped.<
br />
  The image of the woman named Zarvora folded her arms and shrugged.

  “Advan, reprobart, Mirrorsun liqu-to var’aq,” she replied, holding out her hand.

  Glasken’s image took a last look at his dead body; then the two images faded.

  “Did I dream?” Laurelene asked herself as she walked over to Glasken’s body and knelt beside it. “The gold stud, you say? Well, how better to remember a randy old dog than by his collar?”

  The collar looked to be leather, yet the material felt more like silk. A seam appeared as she touched the gold stud, but as she peeled the collar away she saw that dozens of gossamer filaments ran from it into the back of Glasken’s neck. She hesitated, then pulled gently. The filaments slowly withdrew from Glasken, to hang in a limp bundle two handspans long. As she watched they were drawn back into the collar by some unseen mechanism, until all that was left was a damp mark on the collar’s inner lining.

  “I’ll keep it, but I’ll not wear it,” Laurelene decided, then slipped the collar between her breasts.

  Raising the alarm was not quite the same in the monastery as it was in Condelor. There was no ringing of bells, no cries of “Bloody murder!” and no cloaked inspectors arriving to examine the scene. The abbot was summoned, the bodies were examined, and Laurelene told her story while a scribe transcribed it onto paper. Mother Virginia and the visiting nuns led Laurelene away and comforted her—or more accurately they comforted each other, as Glasken had been close to them all.

  It was sometime after sunset that Laurelene finally found herself alone in her room. Bone-weary, she began to undress before the meager heat of the little fire in the grate. Released from her cleavage, Glasken’s collar fell to the floor. She picked it up and put it on the washbasin stand, then pulled her downfiber nightgown on and sat on the edge of her bunk. She closed her eyes, dreading the thought of lying down in her bunk alone, for that night and forever after.

  Laurelene opened her eyes to find a flickering image standing before her. The coals of the fire were quite distinct through it, and the form and face were familiar. Theresla.

  For a moment Laurelene was dumbfounded. “Are you dead too?” she asked.

  “I am not a ghost. This image is … is like a very advanced semaphore system. It is Mirrorsun technology, not like the primitive induction transmitter radios of the aviads. At this moment I am four hundred miles away in Condelor, and I am very much alive. I have been listening to what you and the nuns were saying for the hour past and no, I’ll not repeat it to anyone. The world has lost a strange and capable man.”

  Laurelene was too wrung out to feel shame or anger.

  “I—I fancied that I saw his ghost after he died.”

  “Glasken is truly dead, Semme Laurelene, but for three years he has been wearing that collar. It is the machine that is now projecting my voice and image, but it also communicated Glasken’s … essence, habits, and memories to Mirrorsun. An image, a shadow, a pale copy of Glasken lives on within Mirrorsun. It is not Glasken’s ghost or soul, but it is a likeness of Glasken.”

  Laurelene shook her head, as if that would make Theresla’s image vanish. It did not. Now she had to come to terms with the image of someone that she had never liked yet would not go away.

  “You say that Glasken is dead, yet he lives,” she said, looking down at the bare floorboards and shaking her head.

  “His soul has gone to … wherever it is destined to go. I could speculate, but I shall not. What remains is an image, a mold taken while he was alive and stored in the fabric of the huge machine that is Mirrorsun. The collar that you took from his body is a machine too, built by Mirrorsun.”

  Most of what she said was lost on Laurelene, who sat absolutely still and scarcely breathed.

  “So you wear one too? Are threads buried in your skin?”

  “I wear mine with a padded copper plate over the bio-cybernetic interface.”

  “The what?”

  “The place where the tendrils come out. That way I can use it for speaking like this, but my soul will not be copied out and stored on a machine.”

  “So Glasken lives, or exists, ah—can I speak to him?”

  “Glasken is not my concern, Semme Laurelene. You are. You must not return to Condelor until spring, and you must not breathe a word of today’s deaths to anyone outside this monastery.”

  “But there are seven dead men in the next building. That cannot be hidden from the inspectors for long.”

  “It can indeed. The five Callwalkers were not known to the Denver city inspector, and neither was Glasken. Brother James will be marked in the register as going on a long pilgrimage. Glasken could have killed you, Semme, but he never takes the easy way out. Do not waste the sacrifice of his life by returning to Condelor and telling all who will listen that the Sentinels are long dead.”

  “But why?”

  “To survive, the Bartolican people must lose this war.”

  “What?” gasped Laurelene.

  “Greater Bartolica is under the control of Callwalkers such as myself. They are stealing gunwings under the shroud of war’s anarchy. There may be more, but as yet I do not know.”

  “So you are a spy. Against your own people.”

  “Indeed. Now, will you stay in this place for the winter, and not return to Condelor until at least the equinox?” “The local envoy knows I am here, he will mention it to my husband in dispatch letters. He will inquire after me.”

  “Your husband is dead,” Theresla said bluntly. “He has been dead for months.”

  “What? No! Lies! The envoy would have—”

  Suddenly Laurelene remembered the unopened envelope that the envoy had handed her. She rummaged in her bag and drew it out. Tearing it open, she dropped to her knees beside the grate and read the message by its red glow. Theresla had been right. Roric was indeed dead.

  “I’ll stay,” Laurelene said as she slowly stood up and then slumped back onto the bunk. “It’s as good a place as any to give birth.”

  “Good,” said Theresla as she started to fade. “If you wish to wear Glasken’s collar but do not fancy spending eternity within Mirrorsun, have one of the monks glue a copper plate over the interface spot. If you do not wear it, it will cease working tomorrow. It is powered by a mixture of body heat, sweat, and motion.”

  When Laurelene got into bed it took her only moments to plunge into the sleep of one utterly exhausted. The suggestion of an image of Theresla lingered to watch for a few minutes, then faded completely.

  Glasken, Brother James, and the five aviads were buried in the monastery cemetery by the monks. Laurelene stood among the graves as Glasken’s large and heavy coffin was lowered into the ground, standing aside from the rest while prayers were chanted.

  On Glasken’s the headstone was written HERE RESTS JOHN GLASKEN. BRAVE, LOYAL, AND LOVED BY MANY. ANNO DOMINE 3909—3960.

  Lied about his age, Laurelene thought, then noticed that there were sparkles before her eyes. They vanished as she blinked.

  “What a disaster,” muttered a familiar whisper close by her ear.

  “Glasken?” whispered Laurelene.

  “Wander away by yourself. Pretend to pray in private.”

  Laurelene opened a little book of prayers and slowly walked away from the seven open graves.

  “Did you really think about killing me?” she asked, a little resentfully.

  “Yes, and so did Theresla. There’s a power store in the collar that can be overloaded remotely. Had you said that you were returning to Condelor before March …”

  “Bang?”

  “Very big bang. Bartolica must lose the war.”

  “Glasken, what could make such a chivalrous man as you contemplate murder?”

  “Mounthaven is being invaded by Callwalkers from my continent. They see themselves as a master race, and I have learned that they have rebuilt a war coordination machine called an internet. Bartolica is under their control, as is Montras. Dorak will be next. Yarron has put up a better
fight, but it can do no more than buy time for other dominions with its death struggles.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing, I just wanted you to know, to understand. Laurelene, later today certain monks will begin pilgrimages to all Mounthaven dominions not yet in the war or conquered. There they will deliver secret messages to the Airlords, messages telling them that trains and wings of any size and speed are now possible, that Callwalkers are among us and that dominions have already fallen to them. That’s why I came here, to organize a message to go out to all dominions at once. They will be warned at the same time, and be given designs for better weapons than Bartolica has.”

  “Sair Glasken, this is very hard for me to tell you, but—”

  “Don’t say you love me, Semme, please. I’m in a strange, shimmering place, I can feel nothing, I’m dead yet I’m going to live forever, and having no body has ruined my sex life.”

  “I was going to offer to betray my dominion and airlord, Sair Glasken.”

  “Oh.”

  “When I eventually return to Bartolica, just say the word and I’ll do what I can.”

  “You are a truer patriot than most, Semme Laurelene.”

  By now the monks were shoveling soil into Glasken’s grave. Laurelene nodded, and they said goodbye. Glasken’s secret was better kept than he could have realized. Laurelene wrote to the local envoy that she was staying at the monastery for several months to mourn her husband, and would not return to Condelor until April. The monks all dutifully left on their missions to warn of the aviad menace, but only in Yarron did the seeds that Glasken had already planted take root and grow. Even in death, Warran Glasken was a little ahead of his father.

  6

  REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

  Forian stubbornly refused to yield throughout the winter. It had one advantage that was shared by no other inhabited city in Mounthaven: massive, ancient walls, sixteen hundred years old and five miles across. They had been maintained for their sheer magnificence after the wardenate system was established, but were still proof against direct attack. Amid snow and freezing rain the Yarronese defenders drove the Bartolicans back through their breaches in the walls time and again, then fought from rooftops, sewers, canals, and alleyways after the center was finally taken. When aviad infiltrators were detected they were shot dead where they stood.