To Barrold, she said, ‘What is it? And why are we making camp? There’s still a half-aven of decent light left.’
‘You need to see this, ma’am,’ he said, and spurred his horse back through the ranks, Gita hard on his heels.
The naked linden trees at the crossroads were stark black against the setting sun, their skeletal branches an unanticipated break in the monotonous Falkan plain. They lined a dirt road leading away from the Merchants’ Highway. Gita followed Barrold to the intersection, then reined in and shielded her eyes against the sun.
‘Unholy mothers,’ she whispered.
Hanging from every tree, for as far as Gita could see, were Malakasian soldiers, officers, mostly. They dangled like macabre ornaments, sometimes two and three to a branch, all with makeshift signs around their necks spelling out their crimes against the Eldarni people. It was a massive tag hanging, that very same punishment the occupation army had used to keep Falkan’s populace subdued for five generations. The dead soldiers’ naturally pale skin, bereft now of blood as well, matched the dusty beige hue of their ragged uniforms.
Some of the tags were misspelled; others looked to have been written in blood. Some had been nailed into the dead men’s chests. Gita read a few of them:
Lieutenant, murderer.
Captain, rapist.
Corporal, thief.
Captain, killed my son.
Major, burned homes.
Lieutenant, rapist, murderer.
Gita sighed. ‘Well, this answers six or seven of my nine hundred and thirteen questions.’
‘What do you suppose happened?’
‘I guess their men deserted, most likely, realised that they were over here alone.’
‘And that’s a long way from home, especially if you’re all by your lonesome,’ Barrold laughed. ‘Good for them.’
‘What I don’t understand is how it happened – I mean, where are we? What’s here? Who did this? Do you see another Resistance army out here anywhere? We’re in the middle of nowhere; there’s nothing but fallow fields and these few trees for as far as I can see.’
‘Maybe they’re up from Rona, or maybe it’s Sallax’s forces, following Oaklen up the Merchants’ Highway.’
‘Too many maybes,’ Gita said. ‘Well, regardless, I think the road to Orindale is going to be an interesting one, my friend. I’m sorry Sallax isn’t here to see this.’
‘This is his kind of entertainment.’
Gita took a last look at the corpses and said, ‘Have them cut down. No rites. Just burn the bodies, over there in that field. I want us on our way again with the dawn aven.’
Barrold rode for the Falkan ranks, while Gita stared west into the fading twilight.
$6.3 MILLION
After his parents had finally stopped hugging him and gone to get some sleep, Mark joined Hannah and Steven on the porch. It had taken most of the afternoon to convince his mother and father that their son was actually living inside the body of a young sailor from another place and time. He had answered all their questions, esoteric facts that only Mark would know, but it was Milla, levitating and then rotating – gently – the family cat that finally convinced them something uncommon and wonderful was happening in their front room. The sight of their son, returned to them but not as he had been, ignited smouldering fires of protection deep inside Mr and Mrs Jenkins. They had wept openly, without embarrassment, desperately clinging to him, as if trying to keep him safe from whatever horrors might be lurking in the suburban streets outside. Like Jennifer Sorenson, they refused to entertain any discussion that involved his return to Eldarn and after a while, Mark let the conversation drop, content to address it with them in private, after they had had a few days to get used to his return.
Now Mark pulled on his coat and, after checking several times beneath a porch chair, leant against the railing.
Steven asked, ‘You lose something?’
‘No,’ Mark checked the chair again, ‘just looking for snakes.’
Hannah laughed. ‘Snakes? Are you kidding? It’s freezing out here.’
‘I know. I just think … well, I’m going to be a bit gun-shy around snakes for a while, a few decades, maybe.’
‘Anything we can do?’ Steven asked.
‘Nope,’ Mark replied, ‘just shout if you see anything poisonous slithering up behind me.’
‘Done,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll take the first watch.’
Mark stared across the sleepy island neighbourhood. ‘How did we get here?’ he whispered.
Hannah took his arm. ‘For starters, Steven robbed the bank. After that, it was all an unstoppable rollercoaster ride for me.’
‘Hey,’ Steven defended himself, ‘I was always going to put that stuff back. It was just a little curiosity.’
‘Any way we can get our hands on the money?’ Mark huffed out a wintry cloud over the driveway. ‘Old whatshisname’s, Haggerty’s?’
‘Higgins,’ Steven said. ‘William Higgins, and if I’m not mistaken, I damned his soul to eternity inside the Fold, so I think we probably ought to leave his money alone.’
‘How much was he worth?’ Hannah asked.
‘Six point three million dollars,’ Steven said.
‘Holy cats. He did well, didn’t he?’
‘It was Nerak,’ Steven said. ‘He opened the account with silver he stole from hard-working miners, William Higgins included, in Oro City – Leadville.’
‘We could do a lot with that money, Steven,’ Mark said. ‘It would get us rolling in Eldarn. There’s a lot we could bring through the portals with six million and change.’
‘We don’t need money,’ Steven muttered, ‘we need to be able to bring Lessek back with us. We need Gilmour or Alen. Gilmour would be better, because Alen was in hiding for so long. Gilmour knows more about Eldarn and Eldarni culture than anyone – sorry, he knew more about it.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Mark said, ‘him and Alen living all that time and then dying five minutes apart.’
Steven whispered, ‘Get them going and they’ll go on for ever, like the Twinmoons, or the fountains at Sandcliff.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Just something Gilmour used to say.’ He shrugged. ‘It was time, I guess. Lessek let them go; he let a very old spell spin itself out… or maybe it was me.’
Hannah kissed him lightly. ‘You can’t blame yourself for Gilmour. No one could have done what you did today. You heard Lessek; everything had to be perfect. Everything had its place and yours was there, standing down that creature, the minion trying to open the Fold. The rest of us would have been swept away in its wake. You knew where it was coming and you knew what to do. Gilmour would have been proud of you.’
‘He was,’ Mark added, ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘We need him,’ Steven said. ‘We need his knowledge; we’re lost, just groping about in the dark without him. We don’t know the people, except for Gita. We don’t know the cities, the industries, the teachers, the business owners, the merchants. We’re starting off, what, ten, maybe even twenty years behind without him.’
‘But we have to do it,’ Mark said to the empty yard. ‘It will be the defining achievement of our lives.’
‘Unless we get the shit kicked out of us,’ Hannah said.
‘Unless that, of course.’ Mark chuckled. ‘And I think there’s a good chance of that happening, probably more than once. Hey, do either of you want anything before I go to bed? I’m pretty tired. Except for those few minutes this morning, I don’t think I’ve really slept in two months.’
‘Nothing for me,’ Hannah said. Steven didn’t answer.
‘What about you, Stevo?’
‘Look at that,’ Steven whispered to himself.
‘At what?’ Hannah said, sliding under his arm.
‘Down the block, just over there, behind those elms.’ He pointed. Hannah and Mark followed his gaze towards the dimly lit sidewalk.
‘Sonofabitch,’ he whispered.
An elderly man made his way hurriedly towards them. He was tall and gangly, dressed in a worn overcoat buckled at the waist. His balding pate reflected the streetlights like polished marble.
‘Who? That old dude?’ Mark said. ‘He’d better get inside; he’ll freeze out here tonight dressed like that.’
‘Do you recognise him?’ Steven asked urgently. ‘Is he somebody who lives on this block?’
Mark squinted. ‘Christ, but this sailor’s eyesight was shit.’ He leaned over the porch rail. ‘Nope, don’t know him.’
‘I do,’ Steven said, smiling. He pulled Hannah close and kissed her hard, then laughed. ‘My friends,’ Steven said into the night, ‘things are looking up.’
‘What are you up to, sailor?’ Hannah asked, moving even closer to him. ‘Things are not up yet,’ she whispered, sliding her hips forward, ‘but there’s definite potential.’
‘Slut,’ Steven teased. He looked longingly at her and felt his very soul lighten as he shouted towards the street, ‘Things are looking up! Aren’t they?’
The old man leaped the fence and started up the driveway. ‘I must learn to operate one of these automobiles. It’s gods-rutting cold here,’ he grumbled.
THE END
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Robert Scott 2007 All rights reserved.
The right of Robert Scott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2010 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 08707 1
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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