Mizar ignored the butterfly’s words. His route was sinking into the outer limits of Deep Fields. He leapt fallen skyscrapers and ran through lengths of broken pipeline.
“I’ll be going, now, Mizar,” Alioth called. “Give my best to the Lord of the Lost.”
Mizar merely ran.
* * *
Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack left his companions and moved silently through the shadowed scrub. Although on the outside the thicket had looked soft enough, now that he had penetrated beyond the long-needled pine and trailing willow of the fringes, he could see that appearances were deceptive. Briar thorn, dark green stems almost silky, thorns curved and purple, blocked out much of the light. Cholla cactus, curving canes studded with clusters of inch-long stickers and lush magenta flowers, twisted like vegetable contortionists. Wild roses swarmed over the lot, their delicate five-petaled white or pink flowers at odds with the stinging kitten claws of their thorns.
Moving around the larger clumps, carefully lifting aside a tendril or cane, Jay worked his way through the thicket. His many games of hide-and-seek with Dubhe and Phecda had trained him well. Although his progress was slow, he won his way to the demicanyon in which the factory was set with myriad scrapes and scratches but no major wounds.
Climbing down the steep cliffside, his only dangers the omnipresent threat of falling or discovery, seemed easy and relatively painless. He imagined that something watched him from the few blank windows at the back of the building, but nothing moved, nothing attacked, and he stilled his pounding heart and continued the descent.
Upon reaching the ground level with the building, he slipped up against one wall and discovered that all his efforts might well have been for naught. Each window he was able to inspect was sealed—constructed to admit light, but not ever to open. The only doors were those in the front of the building and attempting them before darkness could cover some of his actions would be foolhardy.
They had seen little traffic during their scouting, but Virginia’s report indicated that such traffic did exist. Jay was resigning himself to waiting in hiding for the glaring sun to set (Did the sun ever set on the primal mountain?) when an idea, brilliant yet insane, came to him.
He remembered his earliest discussions with Reese Jordan about his crossover ability, Reese’s warning that he should not make the crossover casually lest he step out of Virtu into some distant or dangerous portion of the Verite. What if he made the crossover here, walked a few steps to what would be the inside of the factory, and then crossed back?
The risk was enormous, he knew. He had done some very controlled experimentation years before and he knew that travel within Virtu did move him within Verite as well. The correspondence was neither precise, nor logical, nor consistent.
If he made the crossover here he could end up in the middle of the ocean, in solid rock, or—as Reese had once warned him—in the middle of moving traffic. Still, the idea would not let him rest. The decision was his, and even though he was terrified, he knew that he would choose to make the crossover.
He composed himself, took a deep breath, and essayed a small step from Virtu into the Verite.
His first sensation was one of warmth, a sense of moving wind, and a glimpse of a deep blue sky. Relief flooded him that he had not emerged into solid matter or over water. Then he heard a rumble of machinery. Glancing around, panic replacing relief, he spotted the hulking earthmover, brilliant yellow paint streaked with orange warning stripes.
It was rumbling directly toward him.
* * *
“Jay’s been gone a long time,” Alice said worriedly. “Maybe we should go look for him.”
“Bad idea, kid,” Drum answered. “We haven’t seen a commotion, so we can hope he hasn’t been spotted. He may be taking his time, lying low to wait until a guard moves, any number of things. Do you want to queer his pitch?”
“No, but sitting here is making me edgy.”
Virginia had been studying the upper slope for some time, apparently not hearing their conversation. Now she lowered her binoculars.
“Take a look up there. If Jay’s factory is roughly at nine o’clock, where I want you to look is at one o’clock.”
Alice and Drum did so. Dubhe, who had been hiding his own anxiety by pretending to drowse in the lower branches of a scrub quince, quickly followed suit.
“The modernistic building—the one that’s all ovals and curves?” he asked.
“That’s it,” Virginia confirmed. “A man came past the window in that large cylinder. He was only there a moment, but he matched Alice’s description of her father.”
“There’s no real reason the architectural constraints and trends should be the same,” Drum said, “but if that building was in Verite, I’d guess that the cylinder was a staircase.”
“It could well be,” Virginia said. “Just because Virtu sites can be programmed with different physics than in Verite doesn’t mean that they usually are. From what I’ve learned, most site designers prefer to scan in a standard template and modify.”
“Why would he be there?” Alice said. “Wasn’t he supposed to be part of an army?”
Drum patted her arm. “He might not be there, kid. On the other hand, if I understood your explanation, the Piper is only one of your father’s identities. They may want him here to be near the Bansa device—since he’s also all that’s left of Bansa. Or he might not be resigned to his service as the Piper and be in protective custody or, equally, Virginia could have seen someone else entirely.”
“Yeah.”
“Depressed?”
“A little, I guess. Virtu is so big. Ambry could be anywhere.”
“Well, finding him was only part of your original plan, wasn’t it?”
Alice looked startled. Drum grinned at her.
“I seem to remember a spitfire claiming she was going to march right up to Skyga and demand that her father be returned. Even if we can’t find Ambry, this is where Skyga hangs his hat.”
Although Alice did not seem particularly reassured by this reminder, Virginia straightened, her eyes narrowed.
“Yes, that’s right, and if you go up top, I’m going to give that bitch Earthma what for.”
Dubhe cleared his throat; his binoculars were once again focused on the factor)’, but his ears moved to follow the conversation.
“I doubt a tongue-lashing would do much more than make Earthma laugh, Virginia. As much as you despise her, she is one of the Highest Three.”
Sliding her CF rifle from its holster, Virginia gave the monkey a completely humorless grin.
“Who said a tongue-lashing was what I had in mind?”
Dubhe shivered and Drum smiled grimly.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, ‘Ginnie. Let’s hope that we can find another way.”
Virginia Tallent replaced her weapon, but her blue eyes glinted like those of Markon’s dire-cats, focused and completely merciless.
* * *
Randall Kelsey was standing on top of a partially completed ziggurat, supervising the smoothing out of the worst of the construction damage from the Celebration site, when he saw a man appear from nowhere directly in the broad crescent of land that was due to be terraced, fitted with seats, and become the grandstand area.
Momentarily, he forgot that he was not in Virtu where such things could be possible. Even as he remembered, the driver of the earthmover was trying to brake her vehicle. From his lofty vantage, Kelsey knew the machine could not be stopped in time—momentum, mass, and several other immutable rules could not be argued with. Nor could the young man—unless he was a championship runner—hope to cross enough of the broken ground to escape.
Kelsey focused his binoculars on the man in the field. He was young, dark-haired, muscular but not muscle-bound. His expression as the towering yellow-and-orange machine moved toward him was a mixture of terror and calculation without a trace of the resignation that Kelsey knew he would feel at such a time himself.
Even as
Kelsey watched, the young man backpedaled, turned to one side, ran a few steps, and vanished.
The earthmover rumbled over the place where the youth had stood. Randall Kelsey, standing atop a ziggurat meant to bring gods into the real world, found himself momentarily transfixed with wonder. The beeping of the radio at his belt brought him to himself.
“Uh, chief,” Kelsey recognized the voice as one Marta, a tough, unflappable member of the faithful, “did you see what I thought I saw?”
“A young man, dark-haired—appeared and vanished?”
“That’s it. I thought I was going crazy.”
“Not unless I am, too.”
Kelsey thought quickly. He had no idea what the manifestation might have been—someone with a virt power playing games, a malfunction of the transfer equipment that was being set up, even a minion of one of the gods—Seaga or Skyga—checking out the situation. Still, more witnesses than just Marta must have seen the manifestation. He had to have a story put together.
“The gods must be eager to join us,” he said, his tones schooled to express awe and just a touch of humor. “We’d better get back to work.”
“Yes, sir!”
Marta clicked off. Below, her machine rumbled back into life. She’d be telling the story all over the cafeteria and barracks tonight. No matter. Let her dine out on how she almost ran over a demideity. The full implications of the problem were for their mutual superiors to handle.
Kelsey took some comfort from this.
* * *
Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack really wanted to take the time to consider what he had seen in the Verite, but he had crossed back into Virtu and right into trouble. His initial relief when he found himself within an enormous room of what must be the factory diminished to nothing when he realized that what he had at first taken for two statues were living and breathing creatures.
They stood solidly on four leonine feet, winged lions with the heads of bearded men, those heads turning a small way to regard him with a mixture of contempt and curiosity. In the well-lit room, Jay could see those expressions clearly, and that thick, curving claws were extending from their paws.
“Intruder,” said the one, studying Jay. “Perhaps we may get some fun out of this guard detail after all.”
“Young enough to be tender and sweet,” the other agreed.
Jay backed up a few steps, analyzing the place in which he found himself. Judging from what he had seen of it from the outside (and he had his father’s gift for perspective), the room ran the full length of the building, although it was somewhat narrower. A few doors interrupted the back wall, suggesting storerooms or perhaps offices.
The long room in which lie found himself seemed devoted to a huge Rube Goldberg device of twisting tubes of copper and glass, gold wires of varying degrees of thickness, large gears cut from malachite or jasper and faced with arcane symbols, and cogs and wheels of slowly melting ice. It was surrounded by conveyer belts that carried in materials through panels in the back wall, and others that carried away sealed boxes about ten centimeters square.
These boxes were carried off to an area near the rightside door and dropped into crates which, when full, were stacked near the door by an automated forklift.
There were no workers evident, but Jay suspected that the impossible machine was itself a lesser aion, perhaps infused with the essence of one of the more mechanically inclined deities—Hephaestus or Goibnui, perhaps.
The two winged lions stood one apiece by the doors to the outside, conducting their leisurely discussion as if he was no real threat to them. Jay didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.
“Were we not told to report any intruders so that they might be questioned?” the first said.
“We were so told,” the second said, “but I’m hungry and bored. They didn’t really expect any intruders. We’re being punished for the games we played with Bel Marduk at the Celebration.”
“I know.” Despite his lack of a lion’s head, the creature gave a very convincing growl.
“Is Bel Marduk being punished?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, is he standing here with us, all hours with nothing to do but watch the machine make boxes?”
“No.”
“Then he is not being punished.”
Jay decided that this was a good time to cut in.
“I’ve heard that Bel Marduk is expected to appear at the next Celebration—the great one in California. Are you the two who performed with him in Central Park?”
“We are,” said the first who was, in fact, Little Storm.
“I was greatly impressed by your magnificence,” Jay said.
“You were?” said Little Wind. “Were you there?”
Jay knew he needed to be careful. If he admitted to presence, then he was admitting to his Veritean origin.
“I watched,” lie answered, careful not to lie. He’d hate to run into a base polygraph program—it would be a good thing to outfit a guard with. “The entire spectacle brought the power and eminence of the divine home to me.”
Little Storm and Little Wind pranced a little, ruffling their wings. Jay almost expected them to preen.
“So are you performing in California?” Jay asked.
“We don’t know,” Little Wind sulked. “No one comes to tell us anything. Unless they bring the man here, there is no one but us and the machine.”
“There is the intruder now,” Little Storm reminded him, leering at
Jay-
“The man?” Jay asked hastily.
“The man who they say made the first of the artifacts,” Little Wind replied.
Jay felt a surge of excitement. The}? had to mean Wolfer Martin D’Ambry, aka the Piper, ne Warren Bansa.
“Does he come here often?”
“Once a day, maybe,” Little Wind said. “He claims to know nothing about what they want, but no one believes him. Skyga is furious, but he does not dare punish him. Even as the Piper of the Phantom Legion the man is valuable.”
“Has he been here yet today?” [ay asked.
“I don’t think so,” Little Storm said, “which brings up the question of what to do with you.”
“Why?”
“We can’t have you loose when they arrive—that would ruin our last chance of getting off guard detail. So the question is whether to eat you or to capture you. Eating would be more amusing.”
“But capturing is what you were told to do,” [ay said quickly. “Wouldn’t that help you get back into their good graces?”
“Maybe so. What do you think, Little Wind? You were the one who suggested that we eat him.”
“The young man does have a point,” Little Wind said reluctantly, “if we capture him, we don’t have to turn him over unless the}’ promise to let us go to the Celebration.”
Jay cleared his throat.
“And how do you plan to capture me?”
“We are rather dangerous and we can fly,” Little Storm said. He reached behind him and pulled out a long spear. “And we have these for poking you out of corners.”
“The chase could damage the machine,” Jay suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Little Wind said. “It has protections, otherwise we would have broken it long ago and claimed it was damaged in the heat of a great battle with enemy forces. We discussed the possibility at length when we first came here.”
“What if I escaped?”
“Then you wouldn’t be a problem.”
“But what if I left some mark of my presence before I escaped? Perhaps by scraping my initials on a wall, or kicking in a door.”
“You do look capable of that and you did get in here without using any of the windows or doors. I suppose you could cause us trouble. Is there a point to this line of reasoning?”
Jay nodded. “What if I surrender?”
“Why would you do that?” Little Storm said, surprised.
“I want to see the man. The Phantom Piper of the Phantom Legion
of Skyga is a legendary figure. If I am fated to fail, then I’d at least like a look at him.”
“You are fated to fail,” Little Wind said. “If you came here to steal an artifact, that is impossible. If you came here to record the device, it will do you no good, for it cannot be duplicated outside of very specialized conditions and needs a unique part.”
Bansa’s device, Jay thought. It is here.
Jay sidled over to one of the doors along the back wall. Unlike the walls, it was made of light materials. He made a show of inspecting it.
“I can kick this in before you reach me.”
“But that will not keep us from killing you.”
“Then you lose your proof of your fidelity as guards, and are you certain that you can kill me? Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if I escaped?”
The winged lions glanced at each other, slowly nodded human heads.
“Then let me surrender. Promise me that you’ll let me live.”
“Skyga or his agents may not,” Little Wind said.
“I’m willing to take the risk.”
“We agree,” Little Storm said.
Jay squared his shoulders and walked over to them. Although he kept a calm demeanor, he was certain that they could hear the pounding of his heart. His surrender was by no means as much a resignation as the guards might believe. The CF pistol remained concealed at his waist, and although he did not like the idea, he could cross over into Verite.
Neither of these things would get him Bansa’s device, however. He believed Little Storm and Little Wind when they said that the machine was warded. However, those wards would be lowered for Arnbry/Bansa. He would have to trust that Alice’s father would be his ally, that the others would find some way to deal with whatever guards escorted the Piper, that the winged lions wouldn’t get bored and eat him after all.
He didn’t particularly like the odds, but Deep Fields was no haven, and soon, if the Elishites had their way, there would be no safe place from the games of gods left in all the Verite.
Donnerjack Page 51
