She leaned across the table, which was a stone slab balanced on two boulders. The mara stopped talking. She cleared her throat pointedly.
“Why are the little guys here?”
“They have been waiting a long time for this,” said their mara acquaintance, who spoke the best English.
“For what?”
“For human leadership. It is as Axel said. Only you can defeat the sentrienza.”
Meg gazed at the horde of shablags. They gazed back at her. Their long noses quivered in unison. Meg had never commanded a unit, but she knew how enlisted personnel looked at an officer they trusted, and that’s how the shablags were looking at her now.
Oh, shit, she thought. What have we gotten ourselves into?
Axel broke the silence. “We need to talk tactics. I’d like to propose that the shablags create a diversion at the front gate of the castle, while we breach the postern gate.”
Meg put aside her reservations. It was a workable plan. “For the breaching operation, we’ll need shaped charges. Can you source C4 and detonators?”
The mara knew what plastic explosive was. They said there was a large construction site outside of Kevesingod where the queazels were building an airport. Many of the shablag worked there. The discussion wandered into the logistics and risks of stealing explosives from the site. The fjord lapped at the rocks outside the cave. The oldest of the mara, a weathered giant clad in rags, showed Meg tombstone teeth. “I live alone at the head of the fjord, managing a queazel farm,” it said. “It has been years since I spoke to another being in the flesh. I came back for this.”
Meg gave it what she hoped was a confident smile. “It’s an honor.” Then she noticed a change in the sound of the lapping water.
Stones rattled outside the cave.
Meg’s training took over. She rolled under the table, as a dozen Walking Guns lolloped under the rocky lintel and started roaring.
*
COLM TOSSED HIS JUGGLING balls into the air in a steady rhythm. There was something hypnotic about the five-ball cascade. It was a simple sequence of throws and catches repeated over and over again, but it demanded much more concentration than three balls or four balls. Like telling a rosary, without words. Or baking a cake, without ingredients.
The sun had dropped a few arc-minutes lower in the sky, so it was no longer catching the balls at the tops of their trajectories.
They flew into the dusk under the ceiling, topped out, and dropped back towards his hands.
Yet even in the gloom, they glittered.
Each one turned momentarily into a sparkler, shooting out little fractal streamers.
Colm watched this interesting effect for a while. He decided he was getting a bit hot standing in the sunlight. He walked backwards, keeping the balls going.
Up and down and up and down the balls flew, trailing sparks, creating the illusion of an arch of white fire.
When they hit his hands, the sparks crawled up his wrists and arms. It felt like cold pins and needles.
The fan whirred to a stop.
His scalp tightened.
(It’s working.)
Something very strange was happening.
(You’re the best magician alive.)
I should stop.
(Yes, you should, you wee tosser. You’ll never be as good as me, said his father.)
(Stop now, Collie Mack, said Meg.)
No!
Now.
With a convulsive effort, he flung the juggling balls away. They rolled into the corners of the room—lightless, inert. Just five silver hacky-sacks.
But the sparks of cold electricity stayed on Colm. Streamers wriggled over his hands and arms. They had been coming from him all along.
He held up his hands in front of his face. The streamers stretched from his fingers, across the room, into the dark corner behind the bed.
The air tingled with static electricity. Every hair on Colm’s body stood on end. His breath fogged.
The electrical streamers thickened, shot off fractal spikes. The tendrils outlined a hunched shape, there in the dark corner, behind the bed.
A hunched mass of shadow. Wintry blue eyes. A bony finger poking Bridget’s cheek.
“Please,” Colm said. “No. I’m sorry. Don’t.”
But it was too late.
The rippling shadow condensed into a man.
Down on one knee, head hanging, hands braced on the floor.
Naked for an instant, then clad in khaki uniform.
The sparks wreathing Colm’s hands and arms died, leaving the room in dusk. Frost coated the floor. It steamed, evaporating in the shaft of sunlight from the window.
The Ghost’s shadowy extremities filled out into flesh. His face took on color. It was not the blue-eyed Ghost from the sitting-room. It was the brown-eyed Ghost in the forage cap ... minus the forage cap. His hair dripped with water. He was much thinner than he had been two years ago.
Colm took a step backwards. Without taking his eyes off the Ghost, he bent and felt around on the floor for anything that could serve as a weapon. His fingers found a mug. Ice skinned the dregs of muck in the bottom.
The Ghost heaved himself to his feet and lunged at Colm, reaching for his throat.
Colm ducked, swung the mug. It was only made of plastic. Contact with the Ghost’s skull jarred it out of Colm’s fingers. The Ghost pivoted. Back on Majriti IV, he’d been hellishly fast. On Majriti IV, he’d had a sword. Now he was unarmed, and his movements lagged, telegraphing his next punch. Colm blocked it with time to spare. He seized the Ghost’s arm and used it to twist him off balance, while pistoning his other fist into the Ghost’s solar plexus.
The Ghost fell backwards. His shoulders collided with the bed. He slid to the floor, flailing.
Colm pounced, flipped him onto his stomach, and sat on him. Heart pounding, he grabbed the Ghost’s right arm and twisted it up behind his back.
The Ghost made a small sound of pain.
“Try anything and I’ll break your fucking neck.”
“Gods, I’m knackered,” the Ghost wheezed.
His voice was a raspy tenor, his accent unplaceable. Colm barely noticed these things, astounded by the sheer fact that the Ghost could talk. “You can talk.”
“Of course I can fucking talk.”
“You never did before.”
“Never had a reason to.” The Ghost tried to raise his head. Colm jerked his arm higher up behind his back. “Fuck! Get off me, will you?”
Colm reckoned he probably could break the Ghost’s neck. Alternatively, he could bang his head on the stone floor. Knock him out. Pound on the door, make a racket. Rivizolla would come, with his shotgun—
“It’s you, isn’t it?” the Ghost rasped. “I remember that ginger hair.”
Colm hesitated. But doing nothing was not an option. Reluctantly, he said, “I’m going to let you up. If you try anything, I’ll shout for help. Then we’ll see if you can vanish faster than a queazel can pull the trigger.”
He released the Ghost’s wrist and scooted out of reach.
The Ghost sat up. “Ta,” he said. His gaze strayed to the low nightstand. On it stood a basket of fruit and bread. The Ghost reached out. Colm tensed. The Ghost snatched a bread roll and bit off half of it.
“What are you doing here?” Colm demanded.
“You called me, didn’t you?” The Ghost spoke with his mouth full. “I wasn’t sorry to come. It was getting ugly in the Kuiper Belt. I’d have had to leave soon, anyway. I was thinking about invading Ganymede. Just for provisions, you understand. They’d have crucified me for looting, so just it’s as well you got to me first.” He was devouring the bread roll so fast he seemed in danger of choking. A bruise purpled his right cheek, crusted with blood in the center. Colm hadn’t done that. It was an older injury.
“Where’s your forage cap?”
“I promoted myself, didn’t I? I think I deserved it, after capturing the entire fucking Kuiper Belt singlehandedly. Oh,
I’m exaggerating. It’s not worth capturing.” The Ghost searched the basket for another bread roll. There weren’t any more. “What’s this?” he said, holding up a cime—the Juradis version of an orange.
“It’s a cime.”
“Edible?”
“Full of vitamins.”
The Ghost bit into the cime. He made a disgusted face and spat it into his hand.
“You’ve got to peel them.”
“Now you tell me.” The Ghost dug a ragged thumbnail into the cime and peeled it. Cupping the peels in one hand, he looked around in the vague, utterly familiar manner of a person seeking a rubbish bin. There was none. The Ghost’s gaze fastened on the window. He pushed himself to his feet. He clearly intended to chuck the peels out into the courtyard.
To reach the window, he would have to pass in front of the mirror.
Which had a camera in the frame.
In its current position, the camera could only see the other side of the room. Whoever was monitoring Colm, all they’d have seen so far was him juggling fireballs, then letting them drop and walking out of the picture.
Was the cell also wired for sound? Colm didn’t know. If it was, the queazels would be bursting in here at any moment, alerted by the noise of Colm fighting with someone who wasn’t there.
Was the Ghost really there?
Colm’s bruises said he was. But he had lived with esthesia too long to trust his own physical sensations unquestioningly.
What if he was going mad?
This might be some kind of vivid hallucination. Too much tropodolfin. Too little sleep.
All this went through his mind in a split second. Before the Ghost could take another step towards the window, Colm blocked his way. “Stay where you are. Don’t go over that side of the room, or they’ll see you.”
“Who will?”
“There’s a camera.”
“What’s a camera?”
Colm assumed the Ghost was joking. He went over to the mirror and said to it, as he had once or twice before, “Gonna take a little private time with my fantasies.” In the mirror, his face looked shell-shocked. He mustered a grin, and turned the mirror to the wall.
My fantasies.
My nightmares.
A living nightmare now stood before him in the flesh, with a bruise on its cheek and its khaki shirt untucked, eating a cime.
“I thought at first you were the other one,” Colm said.
“What other one?”
“It doesn’t matter.” It did. “A big fucker. Huge. Feet like boats. Eyes like ice. Too many knuckles on his fingers.”
At the last detail, recognition sparked in the Ghost’s eyes, and a sick feeling settled in the pit of Colm’s stomach. “Oh, I know who that is. You’ve met him? Gods. You were lucky to come out of that in one piece.”
“Who is he?”
“A nasty bastard.”
“Who are you?”
“What do you mean, who am I?”
“Are you real?”
“I’m as real as your fucking arse crack.” The Ghost wiped cime juice on his trousers and stuck out his right hand. Curiosity overcame caution. Colm reached out to shake the Ghost’s hand. But instead of grasping his hand, the Ghost gripped his forearm and squeezed. Colm froze for an instant, then returned the clasp.
Real, all right. Warm skin. Grip like a drill sergeant’s, despite the skin-and-bones look of him.
“Dhjerga Lizp,” the Ghost said.
“What?”
“My name. What’s yours?”
“Colm Mackenzie.”
“That’s a barbarian mouthful. But I won’t hold it against you, even though you got me into the Kuiper Belt, which is the most shite battle theater in the fucking galaxy. Anyway, you’ve got me out again. So we’re even, perhaps.” Dhjerga Lizp took another cime out of the basket and peeled it, dropping the peels on the floor this time. “What is this place?”
Colm answered with a question of his own. “Where’s your sword?”
“You didn’t bring it, did you, bright eyes? I’ll fetch it myself when I’ve got more energy.” Dhjerga Lizp stuffed half of the cime into his mouth. “Have you not got any weapons yourself?” The question sounded judgmental, as if Colm’s not being armed to the teeth reflected poorly on his character.
“It may have escaped you, but I’m not here for my health. They’re holding me prisoner.”
Dhjerga’s lively gaze travelled around the room. “I thought it might be something like that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have sent for me.”
Colm thought about saying he hadn’t done it on purpose.
But in a sense, he had.
The enormity of it hit him like a car crash. He had summoned the Ghosts.
One Ghost, anyway ...
“It’s a nice prison cell,” Dhjerga added, as if he were complimenting Colm on his taste in jails.
“Where are your men?”
“My men?”
“You guys never show up alone. Where there’s one Ghost there are five hundred.”
Dhjerga finished the cime and poked in the fruit bowl to see what else there was. “You’re a mage, too. You fetch them. As I mentioned, I’m fucking knackered. What’s this?” He held up a bunch of hawbrothers, the large chocolate-colored berries that queazels adored.
“Don’t eat those, they’re vile without sugar.” Colm licked his dry lips. “Listen. The queazels are armed with shotguns, but there are only about six of them. They can’t be everywhere at once. So here’s what we do. You summon another of your guys, but not in here. Out in the corridor. He draws the bolt ...” Colm trailed off. There was a padlock on the door, too. Which would have a key, which was probably in Rivizolla or Gil’s keeping. “Shoot the padlock ...” And bring all the guards running. No, that wouldn’t work.
“Why not just shoot these queazel characters?” Dhjerga said.
“Because ...” Despite the rage and hatred that had built up during his captivity, he still didn’t want Gil dead. He just wanted to get away. Quietly, without shooting anyone.
“I bet the corridor’s not got any power, anyway,” Dhjerga said. “What about outdoors?” He went to the window. Squinted into the sunlight. “There’s an alien on the wall,” he said, drawing back.
“That’s a queazel.”
“It’s an alien, anyway.”
Dhjerga spoke as if he himself were a human. But he was not. He might have two arms and two legs, stubble and body odor, but he was even more of an alien than the queazels were. Humans did not materialize out of thin air. They did not.
Dhjerga pressed himself against the wall and inched one eye past the side of the window.
The sentry on the curtain wall patrolled out of sight.
Dhjerga threw a piece of cime peel down into the bailey. It bounced off the top of the generator. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It’s a diesel generator.”
“How many watts?”
“Ten thousand or so?” Colm shrugged, his pulse picking up as he realized why Dhjerga was asking.
“That’s not enough to get us many reinforcements. It’s a long way they’ve got to come.”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Of course it makes a difference. What planet is this, anyway?”
Colm smiled. “It’s a nice planet,” he said. “And we’re going to fuck it up.”
CHAPTER 43
THE WALKING GUNS ROARED, and the shablags crowding the cave suffered seizures. Their weapons dropped from their hands. They twitched, spasmed, and fell.
The mara rose from the table.
One of the Walking Guns turned to them. It did not make any sound that Meg could hear. Its metal neck ruff stiffened into spikes, pointing forward, like an umbrella blown inside-out. The mara convulsed and fell, their limbs drumming randomly on the floor.
Meg crawled away on her elbows among the shaking, drooling shablags. She grabbed a homemade Gauss gun. It looked like a computer with a magazine. She wriggled aro
und, intending to return fire. Axel slapped the gun down. “No,”he whispered. “They’re using neurally calibrated white noise. Broadcast it at the same frequency as brain waves, it scrambles the brain’s electrical impulses. They didn’t calibrate it for humans. But if they see us, they will.”
Her rage settled enough for her to understand that he was right. They crawled deeper into the cave, pulling themselves along on elbows and toes, among the suffering shablags.
“All the way to the back,” Axel panted. “There’s another way out. Got to be.”
“The smoke.”
“Yeah.”
Meg had noticed earlier that the smoke from the firepit bent towards the back of the cave. Was the vent wide enough for a human? They had no choice but to find out.
The cave narrowed to a black crack in the rock. Meg glanced back. The Walking Guns were dragging one of the mara out into the daylight. It was still convulsing. She’d heard of white noise being used for crowd control, but this was more like crowd liquidation.
Axel pushed her into the crack and squeezed in after her. “Keep going.”
Rock on either side of her. Rock above her and below her. Trapped! Then her eyes adjusted and she saw a faint hint of gray from overhead.
They frog-climbed up the chimney, backs pressed to one side, knees and hands pressed to the other. Press down and out with your feet and hands. Scoot your back up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Meg’s kneecaps throbbed with agony. A matching pulse of pain beat in the small of her back.
The chimney got narrower.
“Oh shit, Meg,” Axel said, below her.
She looked down between her knees. His face floated in the barely-there light, pale with panic. It was her turn to say, “Keep going!”
She straightened a leg, wedged her boot into the narrower side of the crack. Pushed upwards. Her hands roamed over the rock face, seeking any tiny lump or ledge. She smeared her other foot into the narrow end, dislodged a pebble that must have been stuck there for hundreds of years. It fell past Axel, bouncing off the sides of the chimney. It was a long time until they could no longer hear the bounces.
“Keep going,” she whispered to herself. Small, patient movements. It got to the point where she was physically wedged in the chimney, pushing herself up with her toes and fingertips, because there wasn’t room to move anything else. But the light was getting brighter and brighter. She saw green moss in front of her face, the type of moss that needed sunlight, and groaned thankfully.
The Chemical Mage: Supernatural Hard Science Fiction (The Tegression Trilogy Book 1) Page 26
