“Just tell me what to do. I’m here to help.”
She shook her head wearily. “Tvrdy wants to see you. He told me to send you as soon as you woke up.”
“What happened to me? Besides the burn, I mean. I didn’t feel a thing.”
“Concussion.” She reached up a hand and touched his head. “Tender?”
Treet winced. “A little.”
“Thermal shock wave. You were fortunate. Any closer and you would have been burned.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Not long. Two hours, maybe three.” She took the lantern from him and made to move off. “Tvrdy’s waiting for you down there.”
Treet gripped the physician’s shoulder with his good hand. “Thanks, Ernina.”
“I did nothing. Worse wounds than yours demanded my attention.”
“And I suppose this bandage just wrapped itself around my mitt?” He gave her a hug and stepped away. “Anyway, thanks; I appreciate it. I’ll come back when Tvrdy’s finished with me.”
He hurried off down the tunnel toward the sound of the fighting, following the curve of the large conduit with his good hand outstretched. He arrived a minute later at the improvised command post a few dozen meters inside the mouth of the tunnel.
Bright globe lights burned from the ribbed ceiling. Tvrdy stood in the center of a group, bathed in white light. He acknowledged Treet when he came up. The others shifted to allow Treet a place to stand. Treet did a quick mental roll call: there was Kopetch, and Cejka, several Tanais and Rumon commanders, Piipo, and next to him the squat Bogney, looking disgusted and angry.
In fact, now that he noticed it, everyone wore the same expression: as if they were holding something old and rotten on their tongues and didn’t like it one little bit.
“Where’s Fertig?” he asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know. Did you see him this morning?”
“My day got off to kind of a rocky start. I don’t remember much of anything.”
“No one saw him,” said Kopetch. “He sneaked out last night.”
“Maybe he got killed in the attack,” offered Treet without much conviction.
“It’s possible,” Tvrdy allowed, although his tone implied that he thought the possibility exceedingly remote. “No one recalls seeing him before the attack or at any time after.”
“But if he died early on, that would explain it.”
“It doesn’t explain the Invisibles finding us so fast,” replied Kopetch acidly.
The bile rising in his throat told Treet that Kopetch was right. He forced down the bitter taste. We trusted Fertig, he thought. He saved my life. Was it just so he could turn traitor?
The shock of the betrayal stung like the smack of a brick between the eyes.
“The point is,” Tvrdy was saying, “we must assume he told them where the exit of this tunnel lies. They will have begun searching for it, and they will find it.”
That’s it then; we’re trapped like rats in a sewer pipe, thought Treet. He felt sick to his stomach at the duplicity, the treachery, and the futility of their position.
“I have sent men to the other end of the tunnel in Bolbe. They should return shortly with a status report.” Tvrdy continued the briefing matter-of-factly, although to Treet it sounded as if the heart had been gouged out of the man; he spoke in a strained and hollow voice. “I doubt if the Invisibles will have had time to locate the exit in Bolbe. If it is still open, we can escape into Hage.”
“And then what?” asked Piipo. “Wait for the Invisibles to pick us up? There’s a Purge going on. We’ll be arrested for interrogation as soon as we set foot in Bolbe.”
“He’s right,” said another. “It would be the end of the rebellion. We’d have to split up our forces and go underground.”
“Maybe that’s just what we need to do,” shouted Tvrdy angrily. “We have not been successful in any other way. If the rebellion is to live, we must also survive.”
“How long can we hold them off at this end?” Cejka asked.
“A day. Perhaps two.” Kopetch shook his head slowly. “We are well protected here, but powerless to mount an attack. We can only defend. Meanwhile, the Invisibles are strengthening their position. If we stay here, they will eventually overrun us.”
Talk continued like this for some time as options were examined and discarded. When the briefing broke up, Treet started back to offer the help he’d promised Ernina. He felt a tug on his arm and turned to see Bogney glowering at him.
“Fieri man promised Giloon to be taking Dhogs to Fierra,” the Dhog leader said.
“That’s right. But there’s not a lot I can do about it now.”
“You promised!”
“What do you want me to do—walk through walls? I can’t take you now. And believe me, if I had my choice right now the desert seems a better bet. But in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re stuck here for a while. No one is going anywhere.”
Bogney spat, and his face twisted into a greasy sneer. “Dhogs going,” he announced, and stomped off.
Yarden could not get over the blandness of Crocker’s expression, the blankness in his empty gray eyes. She had never seen an amnesiac, but Crocker came close to fleshing out her mental picture of one, right down to the fleck of spittle gathering in the corner of his slack mouth.
“Crocker, it’s me, Yarden. Do you remember me?” she asked as she came into the tent where he sat, freshly groomed and clothed in a brown shirt and trousers. The pilot appeared not to notice her at first, then, as she sat down across from him, turned his head and looked at her without interest.
“Yarden,” he said. He might have been a bird mimicking a new sound.
She turned to Anthon, who had followed her in, and gripped his hand as he sat down beside her. “I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered.
“He’s making progress,” Anthon said. “You’ll see. Go on.”
“Crocker, I brought you something.” She unfolded a cloth she carried and held out a piece of sweet herb bread. “Here, taste it. I think you’ll like it.”
The man took the bread and looked at it, raised it to his mouth, and took a bite. He spit the bite out at once and put the cake aside—all without the slightest reaction or expression.
“Now what do I do?”
“Just talk to him,” Anthon urged. “Eino says that his periods of lucidity come and go, but mostly they come when you force him to respond to you.”
“Crocker, look at me,” Yarden said. “I have something important to tell you.” She spoke slowly and with exaggerated care, as if speaking to a child too young to comprehend a grown-up problem.
“I am going away for a little while. There is trouble, and I must go see what I can do to help. Do you understand?”
Her question brought no response. She looked helplessly at Anthon. “Make him respond,” he told her.
“Do you understand what I said? Answer me if you understand.”
She saw a tiny glimmer of recognition in Crocker’s dead eyes. His features quickened. It was as if the man was surfacing from a deep sleep underwater and resuming consciousness. “Yarden,” he said softly. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too, Crocker. We’ve been worried about you. How are you feeling?”
The man’s lips drew back from his teeth, and a noise like creaking bones came from his throat. Yarden realized it was meant to be laughter. The sound sent a chill through her heart. “Feeling good. Feeling fine. Crocker’s feeling all right.”
Yarden shivered. Anthon slipped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Go on, you’re doing well.”
She drew a deep breath. “Crocker, I’m going away—”
“You just got here.”
“No, I mean soon—tomorrow. Treet is in trouble, and we’re going to help him.”
Crocker shook his head, and a vague expression of confusion passed over his features. “Treet.”
“You remember Treet. He was with us,
one of us. He went back to Dome, and we have to get him out.”
“Dome,” said Crocker. His face contorted in a ghastly smile. “Do you remember Dome?”
“I remember, Crocker. Why don’t you tell me what you remember? I’d like to hear it.”
He stared at her.
“What do you remember, Crocker?”
“Dome was a very big place. Very old.”
“Yes, it was. But what about the people? What happened when you and Treet and Calin went back? Do you remember going back?”
“It was night. I saw them sleeping there. I should have done it then, gotten it over with.” Crocker seemed to be speaking to someone else. His eyes were unfocused and hazy. “I knew there would be trouble with that girl along.” He paused and then growled out, “She was trouble. I should have done it then when I had the chance.”
Yarden kept her voice level. “Done what, Crocker?”
“Killed them, of course. What do you think I’m talking about? I was supposed to kill them both—would have, too. But that stupid slut of a magician interfered. She made me miss.” He laughed creakily while Yarden covered her face with her hands. “I fixed her though. I shoved that thing in her throat, and that fixed her.”
Yarden stifled a cry and turned away, sobbing. Anthon comforted her. “Now you know what happened. The worst is over. You’re doing fine.”
Presently she dried her eyes. “Crocker, listen to me very carefully.” Yarden leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, gripping it hard as if willing him to understand what she was about to say. “Anthon,” she indicated the Mentor with a nod, “believes that you will get better. I believe so, too. You can get better, Crocker.
“You’ve had a bad experience, and it has upset your mind. You’re safe now, and no one can hurt you anymore. You can get better if you want to. Do you want to get better?”
He nodded, watching her closely.
“Good. I want you to get better, too. It is going to take time. But mostly it’s going to take a lot of work. Very hard work. No one can do it for you. If you want to get well, you’ll have to work at it. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“We will help you all we can. But it’s going to be up to you. If you want to get well, you’re going to have to do the work, Crocker.”
“I’m tired,” the pilot said and laid down, placing his head on his arm. He closed his eyes.
Yarden glanced at Anthon, who rose quietly and said, “It’s enough for now. We’ll go.”
“We’re going now, Crocker. But I’ll come back to see you tomorrow before I leave. All right? Good night.”
They crept from the tent to the sigh of Crocker’s deep rhythmic breathing. They walked a few paces away. Stars glittered in the high, wide sky and shimmered in the mirrored bay.
“He’s asleep already. Out like a light”—she snapped her fingers “—just that quick. Simply talking to me exhausted him.”
“The trauma was severe. It will take time to heal.”
“He looks so fragile. Can he really come back?”
“Yes; it’s entirely possible. Eino and the Preceptor have examined him, and they agree. But it is as you say. Recovery will take hard work, and it will be up to him to do the work. There is no other way.”
Yarden thought about this. Yes, it did sometimes seem the hardest work of all to impose order on the chaos of thoughts and emotions, to think clearly, rationally. Sometimes it took all the strength of will she possessed.
Yarden shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms, feeling goose bumps. “Poor Calin. I keep thinking about her, and I can’t believe it—it’s like a bad dream.” They walked along a while in silence and came to Yarden’s tent. “Isn’t there anything we can do for Crocker?”
“Oh yes,” replied Anthon. “Encourage him, try to make him understand what he must do, support him. You’d be surprised how much that can help. But you must realize that ultimately he will have to make the decision to get well for himself. No one can make the decision for him.”
“Thank you, Anthon.” Yarden smiled wanly. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
SIXTY-NINE
The balons took on color as the sun rose: royal blue, red, verdigris, saffron, violet, and bronze. They tugged at their tether lines, anxious to leave the great green field for their true home, the clean, empty skies of Empyrion. As the sun climbed above the horizon, the first airship broke free and drifted silently upward.
As if this was the signal they had been waiting for, the others rose as one, floating heavenward in slow, dignified procession, like so many puffballs rising on the wind. They ascended in silence, their bulbous shapes ghostly in the fresh light.
Fierra, the glowing sunstone of its gracious buildings fading now with the coming of day, lay peacefully below, surrounded by fields and fruit groves on three sides and the great silver bowl of Prindahl on the fourth. When each balon had gained sufficient altitude above the sleeping city, the massive engines sparked to life and with a deep, throaty purr pushed the graceful aircraft into the early morning sky.
Under power, the ships turned and headed west, their spherical shadows going before them, gliding over the hills. Only one person saw them go. Mathiax stood alone on the edge of the airfield and watched the balons rise, take power, and purr swiftly away. He watched until the huge spheres were mere colored flecks in the sky and then held up his hands, saying, “Go with all goodness and return in peace. I send you in the power of the Infinite Father, Creator of us all.”
Away to the north, another balon was making its way across the ragged peaks of the Light Mountains. The sharp, red-brown spires and pyramids, flattened by the balon’s altitude into a dull, featureless rumple, took on a measure of its actual shape as the shadows cast by the rising sun threw the mountainscape into knife-sharp relief.
Aboard, the crew and the passengers—Talus, Bohm, and Jaire—still slept, except for the pilot and navigator on duty. They monitored the flight and marked their hourly progress on the large projection of their destination on the flightboard.
“The wind is with us,” remarked the navigator as he returned to his station beside the balon pilot. “We’re making good time. I’ve estimated our ETA—we should reach the bay early tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good,” answered the pilot. “That means we can catch the others en route and arrive at Dome together.”
There came a chime, and presently the relief pilot and navigator appeared to take their places. They logged in, saying, “Go get some sleep, you two. We’ll take over from here.” And the balon pushed on, its engines booming in the rock canyons of Taleraan far below.
As the sun flamed the ocher bluffs, whose reflections shone like gold in the dark olive-tinted water of the bay, Crocker slipped from the tent. He padded silently down to the water’s edge and stood for a moment gazing at the bluffs. He saw a familiar shape perched on the rim of the nearest cliff, watching, waiting.
The man’s head turned toward the Fieri encampment. The sun’s first rays were reaching across the sand as the mountain’s indigo shadows receded. Soon people would be waking and stirring. They would come to the bay to swim; the air would fill with the sound of their voices. The fish would come near once more before taking their newborn young back out to the deeper waters of their ocean home.
Now, before anyone will see. Do it now.
Crocker untied the cloth belt at his waist and shrugged the brown shirt from his shoulders. He let the trousers fall and stepped out of them. He waded into the water of the bay to his waist and cupped water in his hands, drank, and splashed handfuls of water over his body. He walked back to shore and stood for a long moment, looking at the tents spread over the sand.
“Too hard,” he muttered to himself. He turned his eyes away to the west and began running toward the bluffs and the wevicat waiting for him atop the seacliff.
A sharp kick in the ribs brought Fertig awake. He moaned and rolled over weakly.
“On your feet. The Supreme Director wants to see you now.” The guard raised his foot to kick again. “I said, on—”
“No! No! I’m getting up. See? I’m getting up.”
Fertig was taken from the filth-encrusted cell and half-pushed, half-dragged through the corridor to a waiting em. Two Mors Ultima stood beside the vehicle; he was shoved in, and they drove off.
The journey went by in an anxious blur, and when Fertig roused himself from his stupor, they were stopping in Threl Square. A stupendous Jamrog stared down at him from the enormous banners ringing the square. He heard the shush of feet on the stone and saw a platoon of Invisibles marching in double time across the empty square. Then he was hauled from the em and pushed toward the immense gray columns of the Threl Chambers entrance.
They passed between the columns—and a double row of Nilokerus security men—and entered the gigantic ground-floor chamber. At the far end of the vaulted room, red streamers hung down from the ceiling over the crystal bier of Sirin Rohee. They swept past the transparent coffin, and Fertig glanced at the ashen corpse within. The shrunken, waxy remains little resembled the former Supreme Director whose life had so dominated his own.
It was just a glimpse, and they were past. They rode a lift up through the core of the building to the Supreme Director’s kraam, paused outside, and waited to be announced. A moment later, the unidor snapped off and Fertig was propelled inside.
Jamrog stood on a riser in the center of a room much changed since Fertig had last seen it. In the shifting light of torches he saw sumptuous furnishings, fine Bolbe hangings, great standing jars of greenery, and tables laden with fruit and food. The Supreme Director himself was dressed in an opulent hagerobe of blood-red with designs worked in shimmering silver. It was open from neck to ankles and he stood with legs splayed, twirling a bhuj in his hands. Beside him on the riser stood the wasted Diltz, whom Fertig recognized as one of the coterie of grasping underdirectors he’d overseen as Nilokerus Subdirector and Hladik’s rightful successor.
Jamrog bent his head to catch a whispered word from Diltz as Fertig was brought forward. The Supreme Director held up his hand and beckoned the guards closer. “Bring him to me; I want to see him.”
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome Page 42
