Pathspace: The Space of Paths

by Matthew Kennedy

  “Oh really? Don't waste your breath, old man. We're going to Texas, where you aren't welcome.”

  Xander laughed. “And you think you are? The Church likes to think up new ways of killing wizards. Even a failed sorcerer like you would make them salivate.”

  Ludlow shook his head. “Trying to make me angry enough to forget myself and make a mistake? It won't happen. As for 'failed', I appear to be succeeding at the moment. And as for the Church, I expect the Honcho's gratitude will be all the protection I need.”

  Aria struggled for words. “I'm so sorry,” she told Xander. As she did this, she saw Lester freeze next to him.

  “You!” he managed.

  The red-haired Texan with the scar glanced at him. “You got some problem, kid?”

  “Not any more,” Lester told him. “It's good to see you again.”

  There was murder in his eyes. Did anyone else see it? Up to now he had seemed to be just a boy learning to be a wizard. But when she saw his expression, Aria revised her opinion. There must be a bit more to him. From the look of him, it wasn't pleasant experience.

  The redhead moved up next to of her. From the side, she could see he was mildly puzzled, but not that interested in whatever was bothering the apprentice. “You gents best get a move on, before Mr. Ludlow gets nervous with that knife,” he advised.

  Xander's face closed like a book. “Follow me.”

  When they entered the stairwell, she saw Lester fade away in front of her.

  “I thought of that, too,” Ludlow called. “”We're not following unless I can see both of you. And if you try an ambush, bad things will happen.”

  Lester reappeared. “It was worth a try,” he muttered.

  “Not now,” said Xander. “He'll make a mistake soon enough.”

  “If he does,” Lester replied, “It'll be his last.”

  “Oh dear,” said Ludlow. “You do realize we can hear you, don't you? Considering our hostage, I think you are getting off lightly. All we're asking for is an escape. I could have ordered you to stand still while Red here beat you senseless, boy. Don't tempt me.”

  “Don't make me laugh,” she said. “He wouldn't do it.”

  Lester stopped on the stairs and turned to look at her. “For you, I would,” he said. “Besides, it would only make it easier for me to kill him later.”

  “Ain't that sweet?” said the red-haired man with the scar over his left eye. “Shut up and get your ass down those stairs.”

  Mother will be soon wondering what's taking me so long, she thought. But she's way up above us. She began to slow down as if she were tired.

  “Miss Aria,” said Ludlow in her ear,”if you don't stop dawdling I'll let Red carry you down. He'd like that.”

  “He'd have trouble carrying me and the knife at the same time,” she said. But she stopped slowing down.

  Presently they reached the ground floor. It smelled of horses. “We'll need seven mounts and a several pieces of rope,” Ludlow announced. Two guards turned at the sound of his voice and gaped at the party of prisoners emerging from the stairwell.

  Xander put his hand out and stopped the nearer one from raising his crossbow. “Don't do it. He has Aria.”

  Ludlow smiled. “Yes, listen to your wizard, boys, he's giving you good advice. Come to think of it, we'll take your crossbows, while we're at it.”

  The guard looked to Xander. He sighed and nodded and they handed two crossbows over.

  As the others climbed onto horses, Ludlow addressed Xander and Lester. “I imagine you are planning to follow us,” he said. “I wouldn't if I were you, but then again I don't expect you'll be swayed by my opinions at this point.”

  “Good to see you're not entirely out of your mind,” said Xander.

  Ludlow smiled. “I don't want to seem ungrateful, but we can't have you following us, so...” he turned to the red-haired man. “Shoot them both,” he said.

  Chapter 34

  Jeffrey: “Knowledge of motion, but not of stillness”

  At this point he could remain silent no longer. “No!” he said,” putting his hand on Brutus's arm. “We'll not leave blood behind us.”

  Brutus looked at him curiously. “I don't recall asking for your advice on the matter,” he said. “Take your hand off before you have an unfortunate accident.”

  He let go, but before the bigger man could take aim, Jeffrey spoke. “Give me one of the crossbows,” he said. “I'll cover them while you all leave, and catch up to you later.”

  Brutus laughed. “More likely, you'll realize you're outnumbered with no hostage and simply get recaptured. I'd hate explaining that to someone we both know. Smarter to just shoot them now and get away clean.”

  “You could try,” Xander said. “But there is a smarter way. You tie all of us up except one, and leave your young man to cover him so you can get a decent head start. After you're gone, he ties up the last one and catches up with you.”

  Brutus laughed even harder. “And who covers the last one while he ties 'em up?”

  “No one,” said Xander. The last one gives his word not to try anything, in return for your word that you'll release Aria unharmed, once you're safely away.”

  “And why don't we tie all of you up?” Brutus inquired. “I'd rather shoot you, myself, but I'm just curious.”

  “Because I won't let you,” said Xander. “You've seen what I can do. If you don't agree to this plan, I'll be forced to take action and see what happens. I'd rather not risk her life, but I won't let myself be killed or tied up so she can suffer at your hands. You have two shots with those crossbows. Think before you roll the dice.”

  “You don't have a campfire for ammo this time, old man.”

  “I don't need a campfire,” said Xander, and vanished.

  Brutus fired. The bolt from his crossbow smacked against the wall behind where the wizard had been.

  “I'm not there any more,” said the voice of Xander. “You now have only one shot. Choose wisely. Ludlow can't get you all past the guards without help.”

  “We agree to your plan,” said Jeffrey. “You promise not to keep us from leaving and we promise not to hurt her.”

  “Agreed,” said Xander. But he did not reappear. “Tie the others up. I'll reappear when your associates leave. Not before.”

  “All right.” He handed his crossbow to Brutus and picked up the rope.

  As he tied up the two guard the wizard's apprentice regarded Brutus. “I don't believe we've been introduced,” he said. “I'm Lester. Who're you?”

  The commander looked at him as if he were crazy. “Brutus is my name. What's it to you?”

  Lester met his gaze. “I just wanted to know who I'm going to kill,” he said.

  Brutus snorted and strode forward, jamming the point of an arrow against Lester throat. “That's real funny,” he said. “Everyone needs a dream, I guess. If your crossbow makers are as good as ours, this arrow will go clean through your neck before you can blink. Now shut up and you might survive.”

  Lester smiled. “Enjoy life while it lasts,” he said.

  Jeffrey finished with the guards and tied Lester up. Then he picked up the discharged crossbow and its arrow, which mad managed to survive bouncing off the wall. He reloaded and turned to Ludlow and Aria. “Saddle up,” he said.

  “Cover her while I mount,” said Ludlow. While Jeffrey complied, hating the idea of aiming a loaded crossbow at girl, Ludlow swung into the saddle. Scowling, Aria climbed up in front of him and took the reins while his knife returned to the vicinity of her throat.

  As the others rode out of the building, Ludlow turned. “You gave your word, wizard,” he said.

  “So I did,” said Xander's voice. “And I'll keep it. But we'll meet again.”

  Ludlow chuckled. “Part of me hopes that you're smarter than that,” he said. “But the rest of me doesn't.”

  As soon as he was gone Xander reappeared. “I'm a man of my word,” he said. “Soon as I'm sure Brutus won't circle back to finish us off
, you can put down the crossbow and tie me up. Brutus doesn't like you very much, does he?”

  “No,” said Jeffrey. “And it's mutual. But what makes you say that?”

  “The fact that he agreed to leave you behind, knowing who you are,” said Xander.

  “I'm nobody special,” said Jeffrey.

  “I think we all know your father is someone famous.”

  “If you keep your word, I rejoin the others. If you don't, well, I'm out of the picture with no blame on the commander. He wins either way.”

  “The Honcho might not see it that way, if you don't make it back.”

  “Perhaps. But Brutus's men will confirm that it was my idea.”

  Xander nodded. “I'm sure they will.” He glanced at the crossbow. “Soon it will be time to tie me up. What, exactly, will you do if I don't let you?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “I could always shoot one of the guards.”

  Xander smiled. “You could, but you won't.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “Because it's something Brutus would do. Perhaps you had better tie me up now.”

  “If I put down the crossbow,” said Jeffrey, “you could probably knock me out with your staff.”

  “Probably,” Xander agreed. He leaned his staff against the wall and stepped away from it. “But I did give my word.” He regarded Jeffrey. “Now that I am unarmed, you might be able to kill me.”

  “I might,” said Jeffrey. Then he laid down the crossbow and picked up the rope. “But I gave my word, too.” He began to tie Xander's feet together.

  “You realize,” said Xander, “that this rope will not hold me very long.” He held up his hands for Jeffrey to tie them together. “I am a wizard, after all. I have a reputation to maintain.”

  “I expect I'll be seeing you again, then,” said Jeffrey. “I think you will find that Brutus is not so easily surprised a second time.” He finished the knots and stood up.

  “Certainly,” said Xander. “But I'll think of something.”

  “Good,” said Jeffrey. “I would hate for him to get away with what he did.”

  “Don't worry about that,” said Lester. “He won't. Not this time.”

  Chapter 35

  Xander: “In ignorance and in knowledge”

  After Jeffrey got on his horse and left, Xander glanced over at Lester. “What was that about?”

  “I recognized Brutus,” said Lester. “I've been looking for him.”

  Xander lifted part of his cloak and shook it. A coin fell out. “Why? Have you met him before?”

  Lester watched him. “We met ten years ago, when he killed my father.”

  Xander crouched by the coin on the floor and wove tonespace around it. Presently a point of blue-white brilliance appeared above the surface of the coin. “I think our young friend wants us to catch Brutus,” he said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because he tied my hands in front of me,” said Xander, as the rope began to smolder over the new everflame. “This would have been a little trickier if he'd tied them behind my back.”

  In a few seconds the charred rope parted. Xander shook the remains off his hands and stroked the side of the coin, shutting turning the everflame off. Then he freed his feet and came over to untie Lester. Lester stood and groaned.

  “What's the matter?” said Xander.

  “I want to kill Brutus,” said Lester. “But I still can't ride a horse. I'd just slow you down. You'll have to go without me. Damn it!”

  “What was that about him killing your father? Isn't he still back at the inn?”

  “Gerrold's not my father,” Lester informed him. “My dad was a farmer. Gerrold took us in after what Brutus and his men did at the farm. That's why you found me at the inn.” He looked out into the street. “It's also why my younger brother doesn't look like me.”

  “I see,” said Xander. He was silent for a minute while he was untying the two guards. “Then I guess you'll have to come along after all.”

  “I want to! But I'd slow you down. Or worse, fall off the horse and break my fool neck.”

  “I have something faster than horses,” said Xander, heading for the stairwell. “But you'll like it even less. Come on!” He surged up the stairs, nearly knocking over the Governor, who was descending.

  “Where are you going?” she asked him. And where's my daughter?”

  “Ludlow helped the prisoners escape,” he told her. “They've got Aria with them. We're going after them. Try not to worry.”

  “I wasn't worried, until now,” she said. “Who's going with you?”

  “My apprentice, of course.”

  She glanced at his staff. “Is he ready for that?”

  He shrugged. “Probably not, but he has to learn sometime. Now would be a good time.”

  She shook her head as the boy followed him up the stairs. “Poor devil.”

  Chapter 36

  Lester: “shake a thousand whispers from the yew”

  The stairs seemed endless. “Aren't we going in the wrong direction?” he asked the wizard. At first he had thought the reason for going up was to notify the Governor. But they'd already done that.

  “No,” said Xander. “It's easier to do this from the roof.” He stopped on a landing to catch his breath.

  “I don't understand,” Lester complained. “Why go up? By the time we get to the roof they'll be out of the city. If they aren't already.”

  “That doesn't matter,” the wizard told him, resuming his climb, though not so fast as before.

  As they ascended, Lester tried to imagine what the old man was planning. Could he signal someone from the roof, was that it? It had to be. Once they reached the roof he'd send some kind of signal to someone far enough away to head off Brutus before he was long gone.

  But he wanted to meet the redhead again before he was returned to his cell.

  After another eternity, they emerged onto the roof. Xander waved to the guard on lookout duty, then reached for the top of his staff and unscrewed it. The top came off, revealing a couple of inches of pipe protruding from the end of the wood. Then he did the same with the bottom.

  Lester watched him. “Why is there a steel pipe inside your staff?”

  “Two reasons,” said Xander as the staff began to hiss. “Keeps me from breaking it when I have to fight. That's one. Also it cuts down on wind erosion. I have to turn up the flow rate pretty high. We'll have to make you one like it soon.”

  Lester blinked as the hiss began to get deeper. “It's a swizzle,” he said. “Are you going to shoot up some kind of signal? Is that it?”

  Xander laughed. “No,” he said. “We have other ways of sending signals. Have you ever heard of Newton's Third Law of Motion?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You're about to get a practical demonstration. As you've guessed, I often use my staff as a swizzle.” The outflow from the bottom of his staff stirred up a cloud of dust from the roof of the skyscraper. “As you know, the swizzle is a free-energy pump, commonly used nowadays for irrigation and to supply mill ponds. A few smiths have them for bellows, where they make light work of heating the forge for metalworking.”

  “What has that got to do with pursuing the escape prisoners?”

  From a pocket of his clock Xander produced a small bottle of something which he daubed liberally on the wood at two locations on the staff, one a foot from the upper end, and the other nearly a foot below that.

  “What is that for?” Lester asked.

  Xander showed him a frightening grin. “It's to keep us alive, by preventing the staff from slipping through our fingers.” He moved around to the opposite side of it from Lester and grabbed the upper area he had daubed. “Now take hold of the other spot I put the stickum on, and don't let go, whatever happens.”

  Wondering what this ritual was all about, Lester did as he was told. The sound made by the air flowing through the staff was quite deep now, a growling roar. “You still haven't said why we are doin
g –”

  And then he shut up. Not because the roaring hum of the staff was making his chest vibrate and would have drowned out his words in any case. He shut up because they were rising off the roof. Risking a glance down, he saw the roof receding and Xander's boots crossing around the bottom of the staff. Without a word he crossed his own boots around it also. In moments they were over a hundred feet above the tallest buildings. At that point the staff began to tilt. The top of it leaned over toward the South. The roar became even louder.

  The next half hour Lester spent being more terrified than he had ever felt in his life.

  Chapter 37

  Jeffrey: “where shall the word Resound?”

  Once outside the building he pushed the walking horse into a trot, letting it warm up its leg muscles before he urged it faster. Posting to the trot, the learned action of moving with the horse's back to minimize the jolting to both of them, was easy at this speed, as the horse smote the pavement first with front left and rear right hooves, then the opposite pair, making a clop clop sound with the two-beat gait.

  After a few blocks of this, though, he began to worry about pursuit and urged the animal into a canter. The clop-clop-clop clop-clop-clop of the three beat canter was reassuringly faster, although he knew the animal could not maintain the greater exertion for long.

  By now he had swung onto the south-bound lanes of the old Highway 25. There had been no time to discuss routes with Brutus before the scouts left, and in any event it would have been unwise to do so in front of the wizard. Now that he was on the road, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. Should he have remained in Rado?

  Somehow the wizard had guessed his identity. That knowledge might have saved him from execution. But then, the price of his life would have been testifying against Brutus and his fellow Texans, and allowing Rado to extract a ransom for him from the Honcho.