by Mick Farren
Jesamine had proved no help and set no example. She had taken the easy way out by apparently falling for Argo, at least on a temporary basis, and Argo, who was of course the hero of the hour, and also still confined to a hospital bed, had little choice in the matter. He must have been well on the way to recovery, however, because, if the stories of stifled cries from behind the screens, and Jesamine’s missing undergarments, were to be believed, his confinement was no impediment to their romance. The elementary answer would have been for Jesamine to take up with Raphael, but Raphael had resisted all attempts at being taken up with and looked to be suffering from a bad attack of combat aftermath. Where he had once seemed to be falling in love with Cordelia, he now avoided her and everyone else. With Argo in the field hospital, Raphael had their quarters to himself, and he spent most of his time on his own. Either reading behind a closed door or pacing the battlements like Hamlet of Denmark in the old book. He also spent a lot of time sketching the wreckage of war, and if Cordelia recalled the book correctly, Hamlet had not been an artist, so maybe there was a difference. Raphael’s Mosul programming had to be breaking up like the ice on an April river, and he probably did not know if he was coming or going. He seemed to have attached himself to the periphery of Dunbar’s staff, as though looking for the ultimate father figure. While he was in that kind of mood, he was of no practical use to Cordelia, and although he would ultimately come out of it, she did not see any signs that it would be soon enough for her to bother to wait.
The answer to Cordelia’s dilemma did not come until later that night in the officer’s mess, when, after three martinis, she found herself seated beside a young lieutenant of artillery who was in much worse shape than Argo. His ashen and horrified face had once been boyish and sensitive, but now it was glazed, with hollow cheeks and dark rings under wide, unfocused eyes. He was drinking gin hard enough to have had the bar steward leave the bottle, and his thousand-yard stare was down to five hundred or less. Right there and then, Cordelia decided that her duty was to fuck some humanity back into this young man before he went raving mad. An act of charity, therapy, and hope was clearly the delicate way to reenter the world of casual hedonism while still upholding her allegiances to the Four.
“Are you having trouble there, soldier?”
The boy looked up, devoid of comprehension. “What happened? Was I talking to myself?”
“You looked like you were about to start, so I decided I’d cover your back by speaking first. Now it looks to everyone like you’re talking to me.”
The young lieutenant squinted. “Are you real?”
Cordelia nodded. “Oh, yes. I’m real. In fact, I’m not only real, but I’m a captain.”
“A lady captain?”
“You had better believe it.”
“I’m being decorated by the king tomorrow for what I did.”
“Me, too.”
“I don’t think I want a medal for what I did.” Getting no response from Cordelia, the boy poured himself another shot. “I decided.”
“What did you decide, Lieutenant?”
“I decided there were too many fucking bayonets, Captain.”
“There’s been plenty of horror to go round.”
His hands were starting to shake. “We blew them to pieces at point-blank range, Captain.”
“Let go of it, Lieutenant. And call me Cordelia.”
“They kept on coming, Cordelia. When we ran out of ammunition, we fought them off with ramrods and shell cases. And you know something, Captain Cordelia?”
“What’s that, Lieutenant?”
He stared horrified into his gin as though the liquor held a vision. “I’m afraid I enjoyed it far too much.”
“Do you happen to know a cold and out-of-the-way cannon that you might bend me over?”
The boy blinked, stopped dead in his shell shock. “What?”
“I think I have to take you and your bottle out of here, because you seem to have forgotten what you were fighting for.”
The lieutenant looked wary. “I’m not sure…”
Cordelia took him by the arm. “But I am. Bring your gin.”
ARGO
Argo walked unsteadily in his immaculate new uniform. He was still a little weak, but he was determined to reach the platform at the rear of the royal train, where the investitures were to be made, without help. The sun was bright, making for a perfect autumn day, and he was all but overtaken by a sense of complete unreality. A voice that sounded a lot like that of Bonnie Appleford questioned him from inside his head. “How the hell did you get here, Argo Weaver? How did you get to be walking up to the King of Albany to have a medal hung round your neck?” A voice like that of his stepfather wanted to know how long he thought he could keep up the charade. “You may have them fooled now, boy, but how long do think it’s going be before they find out you’re a shit-for-brains country turd out of Thakenham, Virginia?” But they would not, and he was not. He had been given a strange and dangerous gift that had come out of nowhere, but he had used it to the fullest, and, in so doing, he had rendered such service to the kingdom that he could in no way be made to doubt his right to be where he was, even by the whispers of old ghosts. The only regret the ghosts could bring with them was that Bonnie Appleford was not there in person, in the flesh, brave and bawdy, to collect a medal of her own for her role in the adventure.
The Four moved forward to be honored side by side. Cordelia seemed hungover and heavy-lidded from dissipation. By all accounts, she had been celebrating the retreat of the Mosul in her own high style, but that did not stop her from being in an exceedingly good mood and turned out to stun in her outrageously styled uniform, with the clear intention of making every male at the battlefield investiture sick with desire. She was not, however, without competition. Jesamine’s identical outfit clung to her with the same overt suggestion, and she walked with the pride of her new freedom and, in the unfamiliar and still-foreign clothes, a gliding and sinuous sensuality that openly challenged Cordelia as the focus of attention. In that moment, Argo felt a pride of his own in that Jesamine had, at least for the present, chosen to give herself to him. Only Raphael did not seem to welcome so much honor and attention. He moved with a rigid military precision and seemed to be maintaining an inexplicable emotional distance from his companions.
An honor guard of Rangers, some still with bandaged wounds but nonetheless at full salute, flanked the path that led to the platform at the rear of the royal train, while troops of the Household Regiment were lined up on both sides. The Crowned Bear banner of Albany and the royal coat of arms fluttered overhead. Although it was a ceremonial occasion, the victory was so recent, and the memories of combat so vivid to the men guarding the king, that they were alert and tensely watchful, scanning the sky and the surrounding terrain for any hint of a threat. Although the Mosul had gone, no one would put it past them to leave hidden suicide squads, waiting for a chance like the investiture to wreak sudden and deadly havoc. Raphael was the first to climb the four steps to receive his medal. The slim figure of the king, in a plain, understated uniform, had only the blue sash of the Companions of the Goddess to set him apart from the officers who surrounded him. Raphael and the king exchanged a few words, and then the Hispanian inclined his head and Carlyle placed the ribbon of the Golden Order of the Bear around his neck. Argo was too far away to hear what had been said, but he could easily see the slow smile spread over Raphael’s face as he about-faced, away from the king, as though some pall of gloom had lifted in his mind. But then, as he stepped down from platform to make way for Jesamine, who was next in line, the Mothmen attacked.
THE FOUR
To say where they came from was impossible. The Mothmen just seemed to materialize from out of the sun in a batter of highspeed wings and slashing mandibles. At first it was hard to count their number, but later the survivors would all know there were seven in the first wave, and they attacked en masse and with a supernatural speed and fury. One of the Ranger honor guard was
sliced almost in two, and the men beside and behind him were sprayed with blood and shredded flesh. Slide came from behind the last carriage with a pistol in each hand, firing as fast as he could pull the two triggers. The hail of bullets gave the creatures a moment’s pause, and they rose defensively into the air.
Slide’s wild gunfire gave Cordelia and Jesamine the chance to jump to the Other Place. Argo was a little slower getting there, and Raphael extended a helping handhold of energy as he made the transition. Cordelia and Jesamine had come in dream-high, but Argo and Raphael, probably because of Argo’s weakness, entered low, close to the spill-through of the furor on the ground. Three Mothmen were closing on the king, a suddenly vibrant and targeted figure amid the grey, unfocused ghost images of the real world. With no time to be any more precise, Cordelia, with Jesamine at her side, loosed a searing sheet of primal white heat, and the wings of the nearest Mothman burned.
A Mothman crashed to the ground with a sound like falling liquid, smoke trailing from the charred remains of its wings. It tried to rise, but, all round it, the pump shotguns of the Rangers roared, reducing the thing to a cringing and unholy pulp. Guards from the Household Regiment attempted to hustle the king back inside the train, but Carlyle stood his ground with a drawn revolver and an expression of grim determination. “To me, boys. We’ll not run from these hellspawned things.”
Raphael’s being was stretched into a screen of light particles that extended in all the multiple directions. He had defocused himself and let go of coherent form to become a living, asymmetric screen around the king, and, when the first Mothman attempted to batter its way through, it was thrown back by massive and momentarily crippling shocks, jerking it out entirely into the real world and the fire from the shotguns of the Rangers and the carbines of the Household Guard.
Following the example of the Rangers and the Household Guards, the rest of the parade quickly formed themselves into tight-knit, crouching squads. Down on one knee, weapons at the ready, all facing outward, one from the other, they covered the sky and the ground around their king. They had no notion of what the Four might be doing, and most would not have cared to have one. A potential clusterfuck had been turned into a fast, ad hoc, but workable deployment, and anything that emerged in an approximation of flesh from the flashing aurora above and around them would be brought down with a withering fire. An old-timer called out to the men in his squad. “We’re in a shitstorm of magick here, boys. Just do your business and try to ignore it.”
The railroad tracks leading away to Baltimore and the north, the ones down which the king had come, sang metallic. A close formation of five Mothmen, who must have been hiding somewhere up-country, were coming in low and at speed. Raphael maintained his shield, and Argo, who found that just entering the Other Place had used up most of his strength, remained static and provided a link with Jesamine and Cordelia, who, having transformed into deadly blue faceted teardrops of furious aggression, hurled themselves at this fresh quintet of enemies.
A young Ranger with a well-developed sense of theatre had grabbed a Crowned Bear banner and moved to stand beside Carlyle. His name was Hancock Pitt, and he would later be romantically immortalized in the painting by Gibbons. The real life tableau was said to have presented as heroic a composition as the painting, with the king under attack, standing in the middle of his kneeling riflemen, and the Bear banner flying bravely against a supernaturally burning sky. The only problem with this legend was that no one present had the time to look for spectacle.
With Cordelia beside her, Jesamine flew at the fresh formation of Mothmen with fire streaming from the heart of her being. How dare they go after her newfound king? The monsters would burn!
“Yes, my dear, these monsters will burn. But how many more will there be?” The too-familiar voice whispered sickeningly, too clearly inside her own head. It had even maintained the hollow ring of the torture chamber. “How long will you be able to fight? How long before you are exhausted, and I come to take you?”
Jesamine must not be distracted. The voice of Jeakqual-Ahrach was just another weapon, a countermeasure, and her fury lashed the particle beams like a bullwhip as rage generated energy and a Mothman exploded.
“GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU OLD AND TWISTED BITCH!”
The scream seemed to work. The voice of Jeakqual-Ahrach became distant, as though being left behind in the speed of the confrontation. “I have a million more of those and others besides, concubine. You may win this skirmish, you might even save your king, but you will be mine. You escaped my pain and my technicians once, my dear, but they will have you again. That is both my promise and my prophecy.”
The day darkened as an unnameable pall of something that was not smoke obscured the sun, and, in the gathering gloom, the steel of the railroad tracks sparked with strings of arcing electricity. The old-timer had told his comrades to ignore the magick, but now the magick was closing in on them. Rifles were clutched tighter, eyes rolled, and even the boy Pitt, holding high the royal standard, looked round apprehensively. When pulsing green light crackled silently along the armored surfaces of the railcars of the royal train like a poisonous Elmo’s fire, no one cut and ran, although many secretly wanted to do just that.
Argo, with nothing to do but hold his position, perceive, observe, and remember, could detect faintly luminescent lines of control running southward to where the hordes of Hassan were beyond the horizon. He knew beyond any doubt that it may have been the sister who had attempted to disrupt Jesamine’s concentration, but it was Quadaron-Ahrach who was the puppet master behind the attack by the Mothmen. Argo could also sense a distinct uncertainty on the part of both Quadaron-Ahrach and the Mothmen themselves. They were faced with a choice of making either the Four or the king the primary target of their attack. The death of Carlyle II would be a devastating symbolic disaster, but the Four represented a clear, present, and very active danger. Then, running through the system of control like a tremor, a decision was made. The king was to die, and all else was secondary. The remaining Mothmen sideslipped away from the relentless onslaught of Cordelia and Jesamine, and, massing as one, they hurled themselves in the direction of Carlyle II.
A pack of four Mothmen appeared out of the dark and lowering sky. Two were already burning from magick, and a third was brought down by the massed fire of men who were relieved to again have a part to play when it had looked as though they were fated to do nothing but wait and watch as the world they knew went insane. The fourth Mothman, however, came through all the defenses unscathed. The fourth Mothman had open access to the king.
Raphael’s screen, having exhausted all the power he could muster, went down before the concerted attack. Cordelia acted entirely on her own initiative, half in the real world and half in the Other Place, and, bending time beyond what she had previously accepted as reasonable limits, she had enough solidity to push the king to one side and spear the fluttering horror with a shaft of light that was, quite literally, an extension of her arm, just as every fencing master had told her the good sword should be. The Mothman glowed and burned and was gone, and Cordelia collapsed.
Cordelia found herself lying on top of King Carlyle II in a way that would not have been seemly anywhere but in the aftermath of a life-and-death fight. Guards surrounded the two of them and solicitously assisted her to her feet, at the same time helping the king to stand and discreetly checking both of them for possible injuries. As they were disentangled from each other, Carlyle leaned forward and, under the guise of shaking her hand and thanking her for saving his life, smiled mischievously at Cordelia. “This might have been better if we’d been formally introduced and were in a place a little more private.”
ARGO
Argo placed the box containing his Golden Order of the Bear on top of the folded clothes in the leather portmanteau that had been a gift from Prime Minister Kennedy. Then he closed the bag and buckled the straps. Everything was done. He was packed and ready to leave. In just under two hours he would be aboard the
special and heavily guarded train that would take the Four north, first to Baltimore and then on to Brooklyn, Manhattan, and finally to the capital of Albany. Although both Manhattan and Albany promised more sophistication and urbane excitement than Argo had ever known, he was not leaving the front without a certain sadness. He could easily imagine that feeling was the same for the survivors of any battle, at least among the victors. When a unit formed up and marched away from the field, they were leaving the place where they had been tested and emerged intact, and they were leaving the place where they had achieved their moments of glory. The hard-won kinship with those around them was sundered, and both the elation and the horror were consigned to memory and increasingly fanciful barrack room tales, and, in Argo’s case, as he was going to the rear, he would, in future, qualify for the contempt reserved by fighting men for the rear echelons.
The other three were also closing up their luggage in preparation for departure from their makeshift quarters, and, needless to say, the women were carrying far more than either Argo or Raphael, even though they had all started with nothing. They were taking a final look around when T’saya and Slide appeared in the doorway. They would be following the Four to Albany in a few days, after they had both completed some mysterious missions of their own. “You all ready to move out?”
The Four all nodded. “We’re ready for the train.”
“They’ve got that train better guarded than the one the king came in.”
