Playfair's Axiom

by James Axler

  Krysty gasped. “She’s just a girl!”

  Ryan saw it was true. Even if he couldn’t see her face, the slim figure—far from fully developed into womanhood, even the way she walked—told the story well enough.

  Jak shook his head as if clearing water from his hair. He clapped his hands over the ears. Their escorts looked at him funny, but they said nothing. Only steered a little farther clear of the albino teen, as if afraid whatever kind of crazy he had was catching.

  “Jak, what on earth are you doing?” Krysty asked, as quietly as she could and still be heard above the rising noise of the throng that filled the street ahead of them.

  “Whine. Triple-high. Heard yesterday in circle ruin. Back now.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Hurts.”

  Krysty looked at Ryan. He shook his head.

  “None of the rest of us hear anything,” the redhead said.

  “Whose fault that?”

  The acolytes led the girl to the tilted slab. She raised her head and looked around fearfully, her eyes glistening, cheeks flushed. Krysty was right: she couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

  The crowd kept up its chant: “Winner! Winner!”

  Brother Joseph stepped carefully backward off the slab. The acolytes hustled the slim girl up onto it and knelt. Quickly they secured a short, coarse rope to her slender right ankle. Then they tied it securely to one of the rebars curved into hooks. With one quick rip, her smock was torn away by one of the acolytes.

  “It’s an altar,” Mildred said. “Oh, sweet Mary, what are these bastards doing?”

  “And now,” Brother Joseph cried, “the price! The awful price is paid, that all of us may live and thrive!”

  He pointed at the sky to the north again. The crowd looked. Someone screamed.

  The screamwings came.

  Chapter Twelve

  At least thirty of the savage flying muties came in a cloud. Ryan tensed as his pulse rate soared.

  “Get ready to run for it,” he said tersely. “If we get in among the crowd, we’ll have better odds, anyway.”

  “Wait.” Krysty gripped his arm. “Nobody else is running.”

  “Oh, shit,” Mildred was saying, over and over. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, shit, no.”

  Jak was looking around wildly. He was used to being the hunter. But he knew too well what it was like to be the prey as well.

  He’d been the intended prey of the flying mutant horrors called screamwings. They all had. That they had survived their previous encounters was due as much to luck as to their skill and zeal at fighting and fleeing.

  These were a new kind of screamwing to Ryan’s experience. They were about the size of big tailless seagulls, he saw as the cloud approached. They were brown above and a dirty white below. They had big staring eyes and snapping narrow beaks—but beaks lined with needle-sharp teeth.

  As they swooped toward the girl, who stood staring fixedly up at them as if frozen in horror, Ryan saw they were covered in what looked like short, soft fur.

  People screamed and ducked away as the horrors fluttered near them. But they circled the altar. They were as fixated on the girl as she was on them.

  One darted down from above. Ryan heard a ripping sound. The sacrificial victim shrieked and slapped a hand to her cheek. A screamwing flapped violently upward with a strip of something streaming from its beak. It was skin, freshly torn from the helpless victim.

  The muties swarmed the helpless sacrifice. Their screeches almost overwhelmed the girl’s frantic pain-filled shrieks. They became a living whirlwind of wings and furs and claws. And always those slim, lethal beaks full of deadly teeth.

  Blood sprayed in all directions at they darted in to nip at an ear or tear a strip from a quivering pale thigh. The girl managed to keep them at bay from her face temporarily by swinging her head desperately from side to side, whipping her long hair back and forth. Then one latched on to the top of her head with its claws and began pecking downward at her face.

  “Ryan!” Mildred screamed. “We have to do something!”

  But Ryan only shook his head. They were hemmed in tight by the sec men. The guards’ eyes never left them. Figures, he thought. They’ve seen this show plenty of times before.

  Around them the crowd bayed like hounds. Some seemed frightened, some exalted. But all seemed caught up in a frenzy of emotions.

  With a lost-child wail Mildred turned to clutch the first available friendly human form. It proved to be the bean-pole frame of Doc Tanner. The oldie clutched the black woman against him with one hand, so tight the bones stood out on the back of his hand like a mummy’s. The two were often bitter rivals in day-to-day life, scrapping like dogs over a patch of turf. Now they clung to each other for comfort in the face of unspeakable horror.

  Jak stood with arms folded tightly across his chest and his face half lowered. His hair hung in white curtains, framing it. His eyes glared ruby-laser death at their hosts and captors.

  Ryan felt a warm firm hand grip his. He squeezed Krysty’s hand back. It wasn’t like her to seek even that much reassuring comfort from him. But he didn’t begrudge it.

  He made himself watch it all. The girl, her body robed in blood, dropped to her knees as her strength faded. Six or seven screamwings had landed and were knuckle-walking around on stubby hind legs and folded wings, picking at scraps fallen to the blood-washed concrete or ripping greedily at exposed bits of skin with their beaks. Most of the swarm had settled onto the victim now, clutching with their hind claws, pulling up strips of skin and flesh with their beaks, shaking blood from their big-eyed heads before diving in again.

  A shadow wheeled across the plaza. Spectators screamed in renewed fear and pointed skyward.

  “King Screamwing! It’s the king!”

  The largest screamwing Ryan had ever seen settled down toward the slab with a thunder of wings. Unlike the lesser screamwings, which rose up and screeched protest at the approach of their monstrous overlord to fly upward in spirals around the altar and its terrible bloody cargo, a yard-long crest stabbed backward from its head, as if to counterbalance its huge voracious jaws. These snapped open and shut several times with pistol-crack sounds, rousting the rest of its underlings from their prey.

  The girl had fallen to her side and lay curled in a fetal position. Her nose was gone, as were her ears. Great patches of skin had been ripped away; Ryan could see skeins and knots of red muscle and gleams of yellow bone.

  The great flyer landed. It stood a good eight feet tall. It bent over the girl. Its bent wings hid its quarry like the vampire’s cloak in a predark horror vid. Ryan heard a crunching noise.

  The girl uttered a last scream of pain, unearthly and unendurable. Then the great mutie monster unfurled its wings. With a boom like thunder it rose up. Wind that stank of blood and spilled bowels hit Ryan’s face with tangible impact as the King Screamwing rose.

  The girl’s limp form rose with it, clutched in its great rear claws. The giant screamwing circled up into the painful blue sky. Then with vast slow beats of its wings it flew toward the single intact skyscraper that dominated all the ruins, carrying its prey to its aerie. The lesser muties followed it in a fluttering, squabbling cloud.

  “Oh, God,” Mildred said brokenly.

  She pointed. The girl’s right foot lay on its side on the altar. The rough rope that secured it to the bent iron was still tied about it.

  Ryan drew in a deep breath. “Fuck,” he said.

  “We in mess of shit,” Jak said.

  “And then some,” Ryan said.

  “I DIDN’T THINK anything ever lived that could carry off a human being in its claws,” Mildred said. “There were some awful big dinosaurs…flying reptiles…whatever. But it’s hard to imagine a creature big enough to fly away with that poor girl.”

  “She was only a wisp,” Doc said. “She probably weighed less than young Jak.”

  “Leave me out!” Jak snarled. He was walking bent over himself, clutching himself as if he’d take
n a gut punch.

  “How can you even talk about shit like that at a time like this?” Ryan demanded.

  He felt Krysty squeeze his hand, briefly this time. “It’s their way of coping,” she said. “Just let them. All right?”

  “Yeah.”

  They were being marched under guard down broad Russell Street toward the main gate through which they’d entered, only yesterday. A full ten sec men and Garrison himself surrounded them. Another six or seven civvies marched along with them, including Tully and Lonny from yesterday’s patrol. The tall ginger-haired patrol leader looked ill. Lonny looked like a century-storm about to bust.

  Brother Joseph brought up the rear, striding proudly with a quartet of acolytes, two males, two females, in attendance.

  “I thought Tully and our pal Lonny were big fans of this Princess Emerald,” Ryan said, putting his head close to Krysty’s as they walked side by side.

  “Brother Joseph’s rubbing their noses in their own impotence,” she said.

  “Huh. Mebbe so. Just for meanness?” He’d long ago learned not to judge books by their covers, especially where any kind of power came into play. But even he was shaken by the depth of Brother Joseph’s duplicitous cruelty.

  “Probably layer upon layer of political games going on here we have no clue about,” the redhead said, her voice husky with controlled emotion as well as held low. “Plus, yeah. Meanness.”

  They reached the gate. The market space was empty. “Reckon they shut it down for sacrifice day,” Ryan remarked as gate guards moved the black-iron gate back with a metal-on-metal squeal.

  “Or they find themselves short of customers on the regular occasions on which flights of screamwings wing their way hence,” Doc said.

  “That, too,” Ryan said. “I think.”

  Under the blasters and glowers of Garrison’s guards they were marched out onto 7th Boulevard. They found themselves at the center of a circle of blaster muzzles, facing Brother Joseph.

  “Seems to me,” Ryan said, “that you broke our little deal.”

  “Indeed?” Brother Joseph cocked an eyebrow. “How do you reckon that, Mr. Cawdor?”

  “You said Emerald ran away to avoid her civic duty,” Krysty said, her voice as low and dangerous as a mother wolf’s growl. “You meant to sacrifice her, didn’t you? And you still do!”

  The holy man shrugged. “Like everyone in Soulardville—like myself—her name is entered into the great lottery. Her name was duly picked. It was her responsibility to accept her fate as that brave girl did today. Caitlin McDowell, her name was. A sweet child.”

  “You bastard! You fed her to those monsters alive!” Mildred cried.

  “Such is the compact. Every moon we sacrifice one of our own to the king. In his turn, he keeps the lesser screamwings from hunting us the rest of the time. Believe me, I don’t like it any better than you do. But it saves lives. Is that not worth sacrifice?”

  “Does anything justify such extremes of barbarity?” Doc demanded.

  Brother Joseph smiled thinly. “Evidently, to the people of Soulardville, it does.”

  “We never agreed to bring anybody back for human sacrifice to a bunch of flying muties,” Ryan said.

  “Indeed?” Brother Joseph cocked his head as if curious. “It seems to me you made no preconditions to your acceptance of my terms. And it was made clear to you, I distinctly recall, that Emerald had fled to evade her civic duty.”

  “Ryan,” Krysty said, “we can’t—”

  “Then, there are issues such as the return of your weapons, not to mention your freedom,” Brother Joseph said. “It does not appear you’re in the strongest of bargaining positions.”

  “Mebbe not,” Ryan said. “All right.”

  “All right?” Mildred said. “What do you mean ‘all right’?”

  “There’s something else you’re not thinking about,” Ryan said.

  “Not leave J.B.,” Jak said.

  Mildred’s eyes got big and round. So great had her outrage grown that she’d forgotten all about her lover, however temporarily.

  “Speaking of which,” Brother Joseph said, “I made mention that the lottery takes place every four weeks. Should you not have successfully brought the princess back, or certain evidence of her death, within twenty-eight days, I very much fear your friend J.B. will be required to pay for his treatment by serving as sacrifice in her place.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Mildred blurted.

  “Dear lady, I watched young Caitlin grow up from a most delightful child. She was scarcely more than a toddler when I arrived. Her parents were among the first to hearken to my message. Yet I presided over her sacrifice. What does a man who is, after all, a stranger matter to me?”

  “Enough,” Ryan said. “I said we’d do this. But you still held out on us when you bargained. We bring back this lost princess of yours, or her head, you pay us twice the amount agreed. Ammo, grub, meds, jack. The wag-load.”

  Brother Joseph drew in a short but deep breath and sighed it out. “Very well. Her return is most important to this ville.”

  “Why?” Krysty asked bitterly. “How can it matter so much to you who you feed to your pet monsters?”

  “Dear lady, they aren’t my pet monsters, I assure you. It has to do with the cohesion of the ville. The heart and soul of our community. The people must see that even the baron’s own flesh and blood is not exempt from sacrifice. Otherwise, how can they be expected to continue to pay the blood price necessary to keep our commune alive?”

  “Give us our blasters and gear,” Ryan said. “Daylight’s burning. Jawing won’t bring your girl back.”

  “Excellent,” Brother Joseph said. “Mr. Garrison, if you please.”

  While sec men trained their weapons ostentatiously at the five companions’ heads, their gear was brought to them. Tully himself handed Ryan his pack. There were tears streaming down his freckled cheeks.

  “I wish it didn’t come to this, Cawdor,” he said.

  “Yeah. Well, you and me both.” He dropped the sack to the ground and broke it open to check inside. The appropriate portion of the agreed-upon payment was inside. The pack felt almost twice as heavy as it had when he last hefted it.

  The burly Lonnie brought Jak his rucksack. He and the albino teen exchanged furious glares. Lonny backed away.

  “If all these guys with blasters weren’t here,” the slab-faced man said, “none of you’d walk away alive.”

  When the five had shrugged into their packs, Garrison nodded. His sec men returned the travelers’ weapons. Each carefully checked the pieces before stowing them.

  “All right,” Ryan said, slamming home a fresh magazine in the well of his SIG-Sauer P-226 and racking the slide. “Just one more little bit of business before we go.”

  He flung out his right arm to full length and fired.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lonny’s pig eyes went wide as a hole appeared between them. Pink mist made a brief halo around his brown topthatched head. He fell with a sound like a sack of wet grain dropping out of a wag.

  With much ostentatious clacking-off of safeties the sec men shouldered their longblasters, all aimed dead at Ryan’s head.

  “Hold!” Garrison barked.

  The color had left Brother Joseph’s face. “What is the meaning of this outrageous act?”

  “Ha!” Ryan said. “You got some stones, Your Reverence, talking about outrageous acts after that shit you just made us watch. Lonny there thought we might like our food better yesterday when we were penned up if he hocked a big fat one in it and stirred it around. Nobody spits in our food and lives to brag about it long.”

  Ryan put the safety on and deliberately holstered the SIG.

  Brother Joseph’s eyes stood out from his face, which had gone from mocha to pale gray. “Y-you killed him just for revenge? For a petty slight?”

  “Nothing’s petty about fouling helpless folks’ grub.”

  “Yes,” Mildred said. “You grew up in this worl
d, Brother. You should know. People have to learn they can’t afford to screw with us. Or we’ll have nothing but grief.”

  Brother Joseph shook his head. “You disappoint me, Mildred. I’d expect a healer—and a woman—to have a more…humane outlook.”

  Doc laughed. “The gentler sex is gentler indeed,” he said, “but only relatively.”

  “I keep my deals, Brother Joseph,” Ryan rasped. “Even the ones that aren’t spoken aloud.”

  Standing just behind the guru’s left shoulder Ryan saw Garrison produce a rueful grin and a head shake. “Lower the pieces,” he ordered his men.

  He looked Ryan square in the eye. “You folks have five seconds to pick a direction and head that way like you mean it. And once you’re started, if you so much as look back I’ll give the word to ice you in your tracks. Understood?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan said.

  Without a look aside he set off walking briskly south.

  He heard the others following him. When they had gone a couple hundred yards with the heat of the sun bouncing back up off the asphalt in their faces, Jak asked, “Why not chill Bro Joe, the fuck?”

  “His sec men would have avenged him instantly, lad,” Doc said. “They might not have mourned his loss themselves. But they would have been quick to make up for the fact they failed to keep him alive by chilling us.”

  “Fat bastard Lonny needed to die,” Ryan said. “Nobody pulls that shit on us and lives.”

  “What about Brother Joseph?” Krysty asked.

  “We chill him,” Ryan said. “Later.”

  “And how do you propose to accomplish that eminently laudable goal, my dear Ryan?” Doc asked.

  Ryan hitched a one-shoulder shrug. “Work it out later. Right now we have to find Emerald.”

  “He’ll never pay us,” Mildred said.

  “I know that,” Ryan said. “He gave in way too quick when I doubled the price. At that, I was only confirming what I already reckoned. Anyway we made a deal. We’ve got to keep it or J.B.’s dead.”