Pathspace: The Space of Paths

by Matthew Kennedy

  Emerging onto the roof, he strode over to the signal observer, intending to ask if he had seen the mage. But before he could open his mouth to speak. A flash and a distant boom grabbed his attention. “The Texans are here!”

  The guard, who had been staring in that direction already, half-turned at the sound of his alarmed cry. “You think? We found out a few minutes ago when they started blasting. I guess he was too busy getting down to street level to wake you.”

  “But why are they wasting ammo over there?” Jeffrey suppressed the urge to duck as another flash exploded against a building in the distance. He found himself counting off the seconds, reaching five before the sound of the blast reached him. “It's over a mile away.”

  The guard shrugged. “Better there than here.” Another flash preceded a delayed boom. “Maybe they're trying to get our attention, put the fear into us by showing us what they can do before they get here.”

  “Well, it's working,” said Lester. I can't believe he didn't have someone wake me.”

  BOOM! “I guess he figured you'd hear them soon enough.”

  Lester dashed back to the stairwell and fairly flew down the steps, while a tiny part of his awareness tried to keep him from descending even faster, head first. By the time he was down to the twentieth floor, he had to stop to catch his breath. It was too soon! They weren't ready. Why hadn't the lookouts signaled the approach of the Honcho's forces?

  He staggered down the last few steps, emerged into the stables on the ground floor, and stumbled into a soldier who was buckling his sword belt. “Have you seen Xander?”

  The guard bounced off a wall, straightened himself, and seemed about to shout a reply until his expression changed as he seemed to recognize Lester. Horses were whinnying and pawing the straw on the floor of their stalls, startled by the sound of the explosions. The soldier led him to the front gate and pointed. “He's down there.”

  Lester winced as a frigid gust from outside whipped around his face. He squinted through eyes reflexively tearing up at the sudden change in temperature, and eventually saw the gray robe and staff. The man was standing about half a block down the sidewalk, looking at the street.

  Chapter 90

  Xander: “time to murder and create”

  Snow had fallen long enough to hide his handiwork. Satisfied, he turned away from the road and listened to the thunder of the Texans down the street,while the words of the ancient text came back to him:

  “. . . the phase change involves a change in the state of order of the matter, while staying at the same temperature. For example, if a piece of ice melts, the total (ice + water) mixture remains at the melting point until all the ice melts. The available energy is always used to change the state of order before raising the temperature.”

  What they always neglected to tell you, he thought, was that heat has to go somewhere. To freeze water, you remove the heat that keeps it a liquid – but you must put it somewhere else. To melt ice, you must supply the heat that will free it from the low energy state of crystalline order – but you must take that energy, that heat, from somewhere else.

  He walked out into the middle of the street. After dumping close to four inches of snow on them the clouds had rolled back; the sunlit snow was so white it dazzled the yes. Shading his eyes with his left hand, he squinted at the distant tanks. There were two of them, both turned so that they were facing to his right, blasting away at buildings.

  “What are they doing?”

  He turned at the sound of Lester's voice behind him. “If I had to guess,” he said, “I'd say they are trying to lure the Governor's forces out to engage and destroy them.”

  Poor Lester appeared to be at his wit's end. “We can't let that happen! How did they get here without word from our sentries?”

  Xander gazed at the tanks again. “An excellent question. I can think of at least one way, but it seems unlikely. How would you do it, if you were the Honcho?”

  “Well, I suppose I would get a wizard to put up a invisibility shield, But he can't do that because Texas doesn't have any wizards.”

  “Since they are here,” said Xander, “he must have at least one. I underestimated Martinez. It would appear that he is flexible enough to rationalize using magic to spread his empire, even when his goal is a civilization without it. Apparently he cut a deal with Ludlow after all.”

  “What are we going to do? All those swizzles and everflames we were making for weapons. . . there's no time to finish them now.”

  “What you are going to do,” said the old wizard, “is warn Kristana to not go after those tanks. See what they are doing? Destroying unoccupied buildings. When she goes after them with her cavalry, odds are the tanks will turn around and lead her into a trap. Probably more tanks, lying in waiting, with Ludlow shielding them from sight until it is too late for her.”

  “But if her forces stay inside the 'scraper, she'll have no way to escape. She'll be trapped.”

  “True. Which is why while you are warning her, I'll be dealing with the tanks.”

  “You have a spell powerful enough to stop tanks?”

  “In a way. It's not what you have, it's how you use it that matters. Now hurry up and warn her not to engage them. People are going to die tonight, and I'll be too busy to kill all of them.”

  The apprentice loped off toward the horsemen lining up in the building's ground floor. Xander turned and examined the tanks again. They were beginning to turn in his direction. He tried jumping up and down to get their attention. “Over here, you bastards!”

  Nothing. He reached out and uncorked his staff at both ends. Presently it began to hum. “Every time I do this I think it'll be the last time,” he grumbled, as his feet left the ground.

  Chapter 91

  Peter:“tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree”

  Even with the ear protectors his ears kept ringing. BOOM! Another small building collapsed as his tank demolished its first floor. “This is taking too long. Let's roll up the street and hit the ones across from her building. That ought to get her attention.”

  With a grinding of treads the tank wheeled around to face straight down the street.

  “Huh,” said the driver. “There's a guy jumping up and down in the middle of the street.”

  “What? Is he armed?”

  “Not that I can see. He's holding a walking stick, is all.”

  Certainty crystallized. Peter unbolted one of the turret's hatches and climbed up for a better look.

  It was Xander all right. Even at this distance the old fool was unmistakable – he looked more like a character in a book of fairy tales rather than a flesh-and-blood opponent. Peter swore, wishing his engineers had taken the time to refurbishing the .50-caliber machine gun. That was his first thought. His second was to lob one of the main gun rounds at the wizard. But even as he had that thought, he saw Xander do something with his staff and wrap himself around it as it rose from the ground, the force of its exhaust blowing the snow away in a wide circle under him, uncovering the street's pavement.

  As the distant figure leveled off and began zooming directly toward him, Peter ducked down and slammed the hatch shut and bolted it. “He's coming right at us,” he told them.

  Unnecessarily so, since both driver and gunner could see for themselves. “Should I open fire?”

  “No.” As he recalled, the tank only carried about 40 rounds for the main gun. No sense in wasting one just to kill one human, and they'd probably miss, anyway. The old devil was nothing if not agile, on his one-man rocket stick.

  He heard a muffle thunk on the top of the turret. What could the man be thinking? He couldn't harm them inside this war machine. Solid steel would have been hard enough, but the engineers had said the specs included composite armor reinforced by depleted-uranium mesh that could defeat even an armor-piercing round from another tank. And all he had was a swizzle that could fly him around or throw rocks.

  “Shake him off, then run him over,” the Honcho ordered. The dri
ver hunkered down, gripping the handlebar-style grips and tried to comply. With a grinding of treads and the roar of the gas turbine engine the tank whipped around in a tight circle on the road, an endless left turn.

  Peter cast his eyes about the interior. “Does anyone have a crossbow?” Wonder of wonders, someone had brought one. He lurched against the gunner as the loader passed it to him, loaded.

  They heard a scraping noise go across the turret as the tank wheeled through its turn. Had they flung him off?

  Peter decided to risk it. “Stop for a second.” The tank was pointed almost exactly 180 degrees from where he had intended to go, but that didn't matter for the moment. He popped the hatch. Xander had fallen off the right side of the tank and was in the act of clambering to his feet, his staff maybe ten feet further to the right where he had dropped it to roll.

  As Peter took aim Xander looked up and saw what he was doing and lunged to the left, running around the front of the tank. Damn!

  He took his finger off the crossbow's trigger and craned his neck seeking the target. The wizard had ducked around to the rear of the tank. Peter swore and called down the hatch. “He's running back up the street. Turn this thing around and run him down.”

  Once again the mighty death device roared around in a turn and centered itself on the road pointing in its original heading. Xander was pounding down the street, but not looking as confident now that he'd lost the staff. He skidded on a patch of snow and slipped, sliding for a dozen feet before regaining his feet.

  The tank geared up to give chase. The top speed for this thing is over forty miles an hour on roads. He's not getting away this time!

  As the tank gained speed, despite the snow on the road (unlike Xander), they began to close the gap. Xander ran past the open patch of road blown bare by his earlier takeoff and kept going. Not bad for an old coot, but not good enough. We'll have him in seconds.

  As he reached a position directly across from the Governor's building, the gray-robed figure suddenly stopped and spun around to face them. Was it bravery? Or suicidal confidence? What could he be thinking?

  Wait a minute. What was that noise?

  Chapter 92

  Xander: “HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME”

  His lungs were burning despite the cold. But something inside him was even colder than the snow. Some things just have to be done. “Come on,” he muttered. “Finish it.”

  The tank kept coming, as he'd hoped and planned it would. The Honcho was about to get a nasty surprise.

  The front of the treads actually came a couple of feet onto the ice before the weight of the sixty-ton tank cracked through. From there, gravity did his dirty work. The front of the tank hung there for a split instant before the unsupported weight pitched it down head-first into the hole his workers had dug and filled with water.

  Xander smiled grimly, remembering how hard they'd dug to make the pit that deep. “What good will this do?” one of the soldiers had grumbled. “He'll never fall for it.”

  It was a fair question. Xander had studied books on tanks, and knew that tanks could easily climb out of holes. They would have had to dig the thing really deep and somehow make the sides slippery and too hard to break, or else the tank could simple grind against the pit walls and build itself a hill of debris to climb out. And there had been no time to do that. Besides, it would have been visible. Stretching a tarp across it wouldn't have worked, either – it would have sagged suspiciously in the middle.

  He'd found a better way. They'd filled it with water. A coldbox spell had frozen an inch or so on the top. Enough to support his weight – but not a sixty ton tank.

  As the water closed over the rear of the tank, with chunks of ice bobbing in the waves and gushing over the edges of the pit from the displacement of the tank, Xander reached out again with his mind. Imagine a coldbox forty feet on a side and forty feet deep. That was a lot of water in the box now. Plus one tank and four people.

  He breathed deeply and wove tonespace around the pit, pushing the coldbox spell as hard as he could and then straining for more.

  Lester rushed out of the Governor's stronghold and dashed over to him. “What are you doing?”

  “Making a two thousand ton ice cube.” Snow was melting all around them and the patch of clear pavement around the now-frozen surface was spreading.

  “What? Really?”

  Xander pushed some more, then finally sagged. He could feel the growing warmth beneath his feet, even where he stood five feet from the pit. “No, of course not. What was I thinking? It'll be heavier than that, because of the tank inside it.”

  Lester's eyes bugged out. “But won't it just climb out?”

  “No. With any luck, it's on its back spinning treads against solid ice. But even if it only landed gun-first, it's trapped like a fly in amber. And the Honcho is in it, with some of his men.

  There was a humming vibration coming from the ice. After a while it stopped.

  “Are they . . .?”

  “Yes. He forgot to close the hatch.”

  Lester shivered. Xander could see him wondering. What would be a worse way to die? Frozen solid in ice? Or frozen inside an air bubble waiting for the oxygen to run out?

  At last the apprentice spoke. “At least it was quick. I'm only sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to Brutus.”

  At the sound of an engine Xander looked up from the surface of his ice cube. “You might still have a chance,” he said, grinning. “I'd be willing to bet he's in that other tank, with the Runt safely tucked back with the others lying in ambush for the Governor.”

  Chapter 93

  Lester: “Let us go then, you and I”

  Lester turned to follow Xander's gaze and saw the other tank turning toward them, two blocks down the street. “Do you have any more surprises like this one?”

  “'Fraid not. I had plans for more, given time, but he got his fuel sooner than I had counted on. Looks like we'll have to improvise. Did you tell her not to chase him?”

  “I delivered the message. You think Brutus will follow through on the original plan, now that his CO is dead?”

  Instead of answering immediately, Xander lunged into him, knocking the two of them to the ground. Behind them an explosion took a chunk out of the side of a building. “Looks that way. We should split up, and be separate targets instead offering him a two-fer.”

  The two of them lunged to their feet and diverged, zig-zagging down the street toward the tank. And exactly what are we going to do, when we get to it? Lester wondered.

  Xander scooped up his staff. Lester could see that the Honcho's tank must have run over it at some point. The wood had shattered, and the iron pipe inside it was crushed nearly flat. As the tank's gun swiveled around, Lester dove toward him and rolled to his feet. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Well, not fly, that's for sure,” Xander said “Too narrowed for that now. But I have another idea.” He felt about in his pockets as they dodged another round. “Do you have any money?”

  Lester just stared at him. “You do remember that I'm an unpaid apprentice, right?”

  “Never mind.. I found some.” Xander pushed him down again as another shell blasted into some building beside them. He had just enough time to turn his head to avoid having glass and rock fragments pepper his face. As it was, the debris pummeled them like rocky rain as they lay there sprawled.

  Xander didn't bother to pick grit out of his hair, but rolled over and began snatching the coins he had dropped.

  The tank was closer now. “You can't stay here! Keep moving!” shouted Lester.

  “That's my line,” grumbled Xander, but he rolled to his left and pointed his staff at the approaching tank. Flow began, this time with a more whistling sound than its usual hum, and he began to slide across the street toward the killing machine.

  Not what I meant! What's he doing? But it was too late to stop him now. He dashed across the street and began approaching the tank from the other side. The tank seemed to ign
ore him as unimportant. It fired one more round at Xander that left Lester's ear's ringing.

  At the last second, Xander managed an extra burst of thrust from the remains of his staff, and hopped onto the right side of the tank.

  Since it was coming down the street, Lester managed to reach its left side only moments later. Trying not to think about what he was doing, he leaped up and managed to grab a handrail to swing his legs up above the wheels and tread.

  As he climbed the rest of the way onto the turret, he met Xander coming from the other side. “Hang on to something” the older man cried, “because they'll be trying to shake us off any second.” He wedged the flattened pipe between his knees as he followed his own advice. Lester gripped the handrail with both hands, the metal cold as ice, and the tank began to fishtail, swerving one way, then the other as the driver inside attempted to rid his metal beast of the two human fleas on its back.

  Right about now they should be losing patience with this, thought Lester. I wonder what their next move is? As he had that thought, the tank stopped veering, settling in a path slanting across the road. He heard the sound of metal sliding and the hatch on the right side of the turret swung up. An angry face rose into view. It was Brutus!

  Brutus raised a crossbow and aimed it at Xander, who was fiddling with something in his hand. Lester let go of the handrail with one hand but realized he was too far away to knock the aim aside.

  “Goodbye, wizard,” said Brutus.

  Xander tossed something into the open hatch and ducked under the aim of the crossbow as he grabbed his metal pipe and swung the end of it into the larger man. Brutus oomphed a grunt as the pipe struck him, but with both hands on the crossbow he could not prevent himself from toppling back into the interior of the tank. Xander let go of the pipe with one hand and reached forward to slam the hatch shut on him. “Time to go!” he yelled, and jumped off the right side of the vehicle. Without thinking Lester followed suit, landing in the snow of the road and rolling.