He thought a bit longer, then chuckled. “It’s too bad we can’t fly. A man in such a fortress is watching the ground, not the sky. And small wonder,” he added in a more critical tone.
“Why can’t we fly?” Surata said. “Do you think it isn’t possible?”
“I haven’t got wings,” he reminded her, holding his arms to the side.
“But I can become wings for you. I can be any weapon you need, and if that means wings, so be it.” The chain mail slithered and slid over him, gathering at his back and clumping there. It chimed softly, then changed, stretching out, expanding, until two huge expanses of silver feathers framed him and towered over him. “It will take this much to lift you, if you wish to remain as you are.”
He was caught up in the wonder of this transformation and so took a little time before he said, “I wish I could do the things that you can do. To be able to alter so much…”
“It takes many years of study, Arkady my champion. As much as I would wish it, I cannot learn to be a fighter in a week or a year. To have your skill, I would have had to begin as a child, as you did.” Her voice in the wings was breathless, softer than the clarion chain mail.
“I suppose you have the….” He shrugged and felt the wings ride on his shoulders with the movement. “How far is it to this redoubt?”
“How far is anything in this other place?” she asked. “It is where it is. We will fly there and find it as quickly as we can. The more closely joined we are, the faster we will go.”
She had never before made reference to the duality of their existence when they were in this other place, and it took him aback to hear her mention it now. “Surata, what we are doing…”
“We are united, Arkady my champion. Our Subtle Bodies are linked as our flesh is linked. We are still in the daily world, and our fulfillment in each other is the riding of the wave that brings us here.” The huge wings expanded and cupped the air, beating slowly at first and then faster. “As long as we are united, then this, the Divine Child of the Jiva, can be freed in this other place. The way we are here is the offspring of how we are in the daily world. If we should end our lovemaking, or if there should be discord between us in our joined bodies, then we could not be able to function in this other place. That is why the Bundhi wishes to disrupt us and cause…frictions between us that will interrupt our joining.” They were into the air now, soaring through a sky that was as many-hued as a rainbow.
The wings were silent, beating steadily, carrying him with a sureness that heartened him. Below them there were shapes in the bright patterns that might be land, but it was impossible to tell with any certainty, for this other place was so malleable that nothing here was immutable.
“There’s something up ahead,” Arkady said after a passage of time—whether it was long or short, he had no way of knowing. “Do you think it’s the redoubt?”
“It may be,” Surata whispered in the rush of the wings.
“It looks like the fortress we saw before,” he said, not quite as certain as he had been.
“Yes, but that means little here.” The wings spread, holding him in a slow, steady turn over the steep-rising mountains below. “This may be a sham, a false image established to turn our attention away from the real stronghold.”
“Then how can we ever know if we are actually battling the Bundhi and are not simply wasting our strength on illusions?” he asked, feeling the cold touch of despair within him.
“We will know,” she said grimly. “Do not give way, Arkady my champion, or…”
(“Surata,” he breathed, her hair moist against his brow. “I don’t think…God, I can’t hold back…” Her mouth was warm and open under his.
(“Slowly,” she murmured when she could speak at all. “Go very slowly, Arkady-champion. Slowly.” She moved so that he could penetrate her more fully and moaned with the pleasure of him.)
“Surata!” He felt dizzy, disoriented in the shifting lights.
The wings flapped listlessly, then opened, holding him in a steady coasting while he strove to regain his equilibrium once more. He was giddy with fear and exhilaration, and was not certain which was greater. The mountains beneath them wavered, shrank and rose again, as the space around them turned blue and clear at last.
“Hold on, Arkady my champion,” Surata called in the beating of his wings. “Hold on.”
He could not answer but did not have to. He all but willed himself to ascend, rushing higher than he would have dared to go before.
Far below them, the redoubt of bamboo staves loomed over the crags. It was livid as a bruise and filled with menace.
“What do you think? Is it the Bundhi?” Arkady asked as they swung over the peaks.
“It may be,” she said again. “I hope it is.”
“Why hope?” he said.
“Because it would mean he does not know we have come so close once more. If the Bundhi knew we were near, he would seek to show us illusions and other distortions. This may be just that, and a very persuasive one, but I doubt it.” She carried them in a long arc that brought them directly over the redoubt. “It does not look as if it is an illusion, unless the Bundhi is aware that he must attend to his citadel from above as well as below.”
“You don’t believe it, do you?” he asked. “You’re afraid that he does know we’re here and is seeking to divert us from our goal.” He could feel her lack of conviction in the movement of his wings, but how it could be, he had no idea.
“Yes,” she said finally, and they dropped a little in the air. “Yes, I am afraid that the Bundhi has anticipated us and has already made up this ruse to…”
When she did not finish, Arkady said for her, “To keep us from his real stronghold. That is what worries you the most, isn’t it?”
“It is.” The wings beat steadily, but there was no more from her but the force of their flying.
“And if this is the redoubt, what then?” he asked her when they had circled the fortress for the third time.
“Then we must find a way to destroy it, and to end the protection it gives the Bundhi, both here in this other place and in the daily world.” She sounded hopelessly determined and it touched his heart to hear her.
“Surata, don’t. You have courage and dedication and—”
“You had those things and you were cast out of your own ranks for them,” she reminded him.
“Listen to yourself,” he said when he could think of no reasonable argument. “You warned me that the Bundhi could sap your strength with doubt, and you are the one who is questioning everything here. I have no way of knowing what is and is not right in this other place; you do. If you can’t be certain of what is here, how can I?” He was not angry, and there was nothing in his voice but his concern. “Surata?”
She did not answer him, but his wings carried him more quickly, and that gave him hope.
(He felt his release start to build, from the base of his spine to his throat; his body strained against its demand.)
The redoubt shuddered, the bamboo staves quivering as if they could sense the two far overhead. A soundless wail drifted up to them, as eerie and frightening as the cry of wolves in a winter’s night.
“They sense us,” Surata cautioned.
“This is the Bundhi’s redoubt, then?” Arkady asked, feeling terribly vulnerable.
“Yes. And they will be hunting us if—” She had no chance to complete her warning; he trembled in the embrace of the wings.
“Su rata,” he cried as his body succumbed to its need, and she pressed tightly to him, shaking and laughing with him as the air around them snapped and quivered with the turmoil of the disturbed, unhappy ghosts.
Chapter 15
For the next three days, they went even faster, driving their animals and themselves to the limits of their strengths. Only when the larger mule went lame did they stop their flight, knowing that to do anything else was folly.
“We could abandon the mule,” Arkady suggested without enthusiasm.
“And half our supplies,” Surata added. “It wouldn’t matter. The Bundhi’s agents would find it, and they would know too much.”
“It takes more than the threat of a spy to frighten me.” His bravado fooled neither of them. “Besides, with your insistence on baths every other day, and making me darken my hair and beard, who would know me?”
“The Bundhi follows other trails,” she sighed. “Arkady-immai, I know you want to cheer me; I wish I could be cheered.”
Arkady patted the rump of the lame mule. “All right: I admit I’m worried. But I won’t be dispirited. That’s doing the Bundhi’s work for him.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “We’re not far from a village. it won’t take us long to walk there, and they must have a farrier and a smithy. I can get another shoe for the mule and see if he can go on.”
“Better buy another mule,” she said. “I know it is more than the shoe. It is the hoof.” Her eyes were fixed in the middle distance, as clouded as fine opals.
Arkady did not dispute this. “And if we can’t find another mule, what then?”
“An ass, a horse, it doesn’t matter. So long as we can travel.”
“What about staying there for the night? It will be late afternoon by the time we get to the village. You need rest, Surata. One of the reasons you’re downhearted is that you’re exhausted.”
There were tears gathering in her eyes now, very shiny. “I realize that. But it frightens me.”
“Oh, Surata.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Listen to me, girl. I’m a soldier, I have better sense than you.”
She tried to laugh, sobbed instead, as she rested her head against his neck. “Much better sense.”
“No trooper fights well tired. It’s worse than hunger and wounds, because it slows you down, it distorts your judgment and makes you hesitate when you should act. With a foe like this Bundhi, if you hesitate, you’re damned. One good night’s sleep will make all the difference.”
“Sleep?” she asked, with the hint of provocation in her tone.
“Sleep,” he repeated emphatically. “I need it too.”
She patted his back. “You’ve convinced me.”
“Good.” He kissed the top of her head and stepped away from her. “I’m going to put you on my horse and I’ll lead all of you. We’ll make better time that way.”
Though he had not said it, she added for him, “It would be faster, wouldn’t it, if you don’t have to wait for me to shuffle after you.”
“Stop that,” he ordered her. “I’ll take almost anything from you, Surata, but not self-pity.”
This brought her chin up. “I was not being self-pitying, just saying what is obvious.”
“I won’t argue about it,” he said firmly as he took the reins of his gelding and led the bay nearer to her. “Get ready to mount.”
“Arkady-immai…” She was uncertain now, and once she said his name, she faltered.
“What is it? We don’t have time to waste.” He could sense something in the air, the same sort of tension that he had felt before he learned of the ambush, the same he had felt on the eve of losing a battle. “There’s thunder in the air,” he said aloud, to explain his feelings to himself.
“It’s not that,” Surata said, her face averted. “Help me up.”
Silently he tossed her into the saddle, then went for the two mules. The irregular clop of the animals’ hooves was all that passed between them for most of the walk to the village.
Surprisingly, no barking dogs hearalded their approach. The whole collection of rush-thatched huts was unnaturally still. No livestock bleated or grunted or lowed, no birds shrilled.
“What is it?” Surata asked as Arkady slowed them to a walk.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s as if…no one’s here.”
“How close are we?” Surata said, her head cocked to the side.
“Close enough. Someone should have noticed us by now.” He could see the door of a shed swinging lazily on the summer breeze.
Cautiously they entered the village, only to find it deserted. The squat houses stood untenanted, the barns and pens were empty. Nothing, not a chicken, not a rat, moved in the stillness.
“This is the Bundhi’s doing,” Surata said from her seat on the bay, for Arkady had refused to permit her to dismount.
“Surata…” He could not continue; he had no other explanation to offer for what they had found, and it perplexed him to see no reason for the place to be empty.
“An emergency would not take all the animals,” Surata said, anticipating Arkady’s protests. “There would be signs that the people had left in a hurry, but not that they had never been here.”
“Maybe there was a battle nearby and they decided to take all that they had. It’s happened before.” He did not believe this, but he wanted to.
“Then why are there wagons in the barn? You said you found three of them.” She did not want to ask him this and both of them knew it. “There is food in the houses, and fuel in the sheds, you said so yourself. The water is not brackish in the pails you found, so they cannot have been gone long. The smell of pigs and sheep still lingers.” She shifted in the saddle, patting the bay when he gave an uneasy rumble in his throat.
Arkady felt the same distress that his gelding did, but he would not allow himself to surrender to it. “I’m going to make a thorough search. I haven’t examined everything.”
“And what do you think there is to find—skeletons?” She stopped herself. “Forgive me, Arkady-immai. I am not being sensible, am I?”
“I don’t blame you,” he responded. “Do you want to come down? It may take me some time to look everywhere.” He held his arms up to her.
“Even if something happened, I could not see where to go, and this poor creature would not know what to do with me,” she said, resigned to their uncertainty. “Let me down, by all means.” She felt for his hands and came out of the saddle. “Find me a place where you will be able to reach me quickly, if you must.”
“By the well,” Arkady said at once. “That’s central. There’s three houses close to it, and a cattle barn.” He led her and their three animals to the well. “Don’t let them drink. You can give them their nosebags, if you want.”
“Better not,” she said as she almost stumbled beside him. “If we must leave quickly, it wouldn’t be—”
“You’re right,” he interrupted. “Well, watch them for me.”
“Of course,” she said, taking a seat on the wooden bench beside the well where he had led her. “I’ll try to find out…anything I can while you search.”
It was almost sunset when he came out of the bathhouse, pale and shaken, to tell her that there was a body. “It’s a man,” he went on. “Dead. Young. No more than a day dead.”
“What is it?” she asked sharply, hearing the strain in his voice.
“He…he’s pretty horrible.”
“Plague?” she ventured.
“I don’t think so,” he replied carefully. “I’ve never seen a death like this before.” He was shaken, and he sat down beside her abruptly. “He’s…very white.”
“Oh?” She wanted to know more but knew better than to press him. “Why does that bother you?”
“There are other marks…” He shut his eyes and swallowed hard. “I…I found him in the bathhouse. He was…just lying there peacefully. He was as calm as an old, old Saint dying in the odor of sanctity.” Automatically he crossed himself, aware that his hand shook as he did it. “But there were marks.”
“What marks?” Surata demanded, her patience almost gone.
“You remember the mosquito bite I had in the other place? The one that looked as if a leech had been at me? They were like that only…much larger. Much, much larger. As big as the palm of my hand, and…deep. They had…sunk into him.” He had not been speaking loudly, and by the time he had finished, he was barely whispering.
“The Bundhi. I said it was the Bundhi,” Surata said, her hands knotted tog
ether in her lap. “He took them all. Every one of them. He’s taken them and made them…his.”
“A whole village, dogs and all?” Arkady asked in disbelief. “How could he do a thing like that?”
“I’ve said he’s powerful. He yearns for destruction, and each destruction adds to his power.” Suddenly she reached out for him, holding on to him as if he were keeping her from drowning. “If the whole world disappeared, he would be content and pleased.”
Before he found the young man’s corpse, Arkady might have doubted her; now he nodded dumbly. He pressed her head to his shoulder, his hand stroking her hair to soothe himself more than her. He could not get the picture of that pallid body out of his mind, nor the red, red circular impression that covered most of his skin.
“He wants us to know he did this. That’s why you found that body, just the one.” She shuddered. “The staves took him. They fed on him.”
“The bamboo?” he said numbly. “The bamboo did that?”
She put her arms around his waist, moving closer still. “I didn’t know he had advanced so far. It’s been little more than a year, and he has gained all that strength.”
Arkady had no answer for her. He did not want to think of facing an enemy capable of making a whole village cease to exist. They sat together as the sky grew darker.
It was twilight when they left the village. “He will know where we’re going now, I think,” Surata said listlessly as she got onto their sound mule. Arkady held the animal’s head for her, steadying her so she could mount.
“We’ll get another in Sarai. We’ll get three mules.” He tried not to think about what they had found, but he did not succeed entirely. “We can’t go very far tonight, but at least we can get away from here. That’s something.”
“For what little it is worth,” she added for him. “There will be other agents. He is amusing himself with us. That’s clear. If he thought we might actually be able to fight him, we’d be one with those villagers, wherever they are.”
“Maybe they’re with the ghosts in the burned madhouse.” He had intended this to be funny, but it came out badly and he looked away from her. “I’ll get mounted.”
To the High Redoubt Page 22
