"And the Lady's eyes grew wide, and she puffed up her chest, and she shouted at him in a fury, ‘You dare to come here demanding another new boat? You dare? When you wrecked your own boat against the invisible towers of my home, I took pity upon you, for I saw that I had unintentionally harmed you, and so I gave you a new boat, just like the one that was wrecked. But that boat was not good enough—you had lost time from your work, and had been injured, so you came back and I gave you a bigger, better boat. And you came back and told me that the boat was too big for your old nets, so I gave you new nets that can never break or snag. And you came back again, and again, and each time I gave you what you asked. But now you want an entirely new boat, and why? Merely so you can brag more easily!'
"Her eyes were red with fury, and her fingers sprouted long, curving claws as she said, ‘I have had enough! I wronged you, and I tried to atone, but you, in your greed, will not leave well enough alone. I am out of patience, and your greed has been your downfall!'
"And then the room vanished from about him, and he found himself being swept up into the sky atop a waterspout. The Lady of the Lake had vanished, but he could still hear her voice.
"'You are a fisherman no more! If you ever again venture out onto the water, for any reason, then I shall send demons to tear you to ribbons and feast on your screaming soul!'
"And then the waterspout vanished as the sun appeared in the east, heralding secondlight, and he found himself alone and naked, cast up on the beach with nothing at all, his boat gone, his clothes gone, everything that he had had, lost..."
—from the tales of
Atheron the Storyteller
* * * *
Light sparkled from the rippling water around the invisible turret, and Geste blinked; the glare was too diffuse for his optic symbiote to handle readily, leaving him to the more primitive methods of his own reflexes and eyelids.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” Anna demanded, glaring at him as harshly as the scattered sunlight, her hands on her naked hips, “that maybe Brenner brought this on himself? You know as well as I do that he probably started the fight himself, took a pot-shot at Thaddeus over some stupid little squabble. That would be just like him—him and that damned arsenal of his. Only this time, Thaddeus was ready—or maybe he had Aulden ready, I don't know. But it was probably Brenner. You just think it's Thaddeus who's at fault because of what he did on Alpha Imperium, and that's not fair, holding all that against him. That was hundreds of years ago. And not only was it hundreds of years ago, but it was on a different planet and in an entirely different situation. He hasn't caused any trouble here on Denner's Wreck, has he? He certainly hasn't bothered me."
“He's causing trouble now,” Geste pointed out.
“No,” Anna corrected, waggling a finger. “He's involved, but you don't know he caused it. I'll bet Brenner started it."
“Maybe he did,” Geste conceded desperately, blinking again, “but it's getting out of hand. If you don't care about Brenner, what about Sheila, and Sunlight, and Rawl, and Khalid, and O?"
“Khalid and O probably aren't even there,” Anna retorted. “They're probably off somewhere together by themselves with an airskiff of sex toys. It's been decades since I saw either of them play with another human being, unless you want to count Khalid's little flings with the native girls, and they're both of them overdue for a bit of quiet companionship."
“Mother tracked them to Fortress Holding, though.” The rippling sunlight was unbearable; he darkened the lenses of his eyes, even though it left him half-blind and reduced Anna to a shadow. He did not really care to see the details of her nude body, in any case, nor did he need to watch her expression for nuances of emotion; her words made her attitude perfectly clear.
“Maybe they left by the back way, shielded. They went there of their own free will, didn't they? How do you know they aren't staying there as Thaddeus's guests?"
Geste saw that he was not getting anywhere on that tack, and rather than chase any further through Anna's unlikely scenario he switched his ground. “All right, we don't know about them, but what about the others?"
Anna snorted in a manner hardly befitting the dignity of a demi-goddess. “Rawl deserves a little trouble, the way he keeps poking his nose into other people's business! He came by here a few years back and ruined my entire day, lecturing me over some stupid argument I'd had with a fisherman.” She waved in the direction of the nearest village.
“But Sheila and Sunlight...” Geste began.
“All right, all right,” Anna said, raising her hands briefly in mock surrender, as if she were making a great concession, “I guess they got caught in the middle, but I'm sure Thaddeus isn't going to hurt them. He probably won't even hurt Brenner, just teach him a lesson by blowing apart that stupid castle of his. It would serve him right."
“But how do you know he won't hurt anyone? Thaddeus does have a pretty nasty record, even if he's behaved himself lately."
“I know that, but give him a chance! You ... Look, Geste, I know you mean well, and I suppose you're sincerely concerned about this, but it's none of my business if he and Brenner are having a fight. You're a lot younger than I am; maybe you can still get worked up about what's right and wrong instead of what's comfortable, but I'm just not interested. It's not my problem. If one of them starts interfering in my business, then I'll be glad to help, but if they only pick on each other, why should I care?"
Geste had no clear answer to that. “Honestly, Anna,” he said, “I really do think Thaddeus is trying to do here what he did on Alpha Imperium. I think he may be recruiting troops from the short-lifers for building a new empire. A lot of people could get hurt if we don't stop him."
“Just short-lifers and trouble-makers like Brenner. He's not going to bother me, Geste, and he's never going to be able to bother any of the civilized planets—where would he get the firepower? And as for the people here, what do I care about short-lifers?"
“Well, they're people, too, aren't they?"
“I suppose they are, but they're all going to die anyway. What difference will a few years make?"
Exasperated, Geste burst out, “Don't you have any sense of responsibility toward your fellow creatures?"
“No,” Anna retorted, “I don't. I have my own problems."
“Ha!” Infuriated, Geste turned away and marched across the turret roof, back to his waiting platform. The turret was a hole in the lake beneath him, leading down into Anna's hold, but with his eyes dimmed he could see nothing but darkness below.
The instant he had both feet aboard the platform it lifted him upward, sailing toward the island that floated above Lake Anna.
He looked up sullenly at the jagged black rocks overhead, undimming his eyes as he did and wishing that the Skyler had put her hold further east, where it would have blocked the sun and left him debating Anna in its shadow, instead of half-blinded by the sun.
He had never expected unanimity in opposing whatever scheme Thaddeus might be hatching, but he was still distressed by the results of his excursions. He had thought at least some of his fellows would join him, if only as an amusing diversion.
No one had. He had spoken to them all, now—all who would agree to listen, at any rate. Anna had been the last, and his only companions remained Imp and the Skyler. Two, out of twenty-seven.
No, he corrected himself as the platform slid up past the sharp stone edge of the Skyland's disk and green lawns appeared before him, Thaddeus did not count, which left twenty-six, and seven of those had vanished or were under attack. Two out of nineteen had chosen to join him.
That was still a really lousy ratio. He grimaced, wondering if Thaddeus had intentionally attacked those most likely to resist, or whether it was just luck.
The other seventeen might well come to regret their decision. Arguing that Thaddeus might kill them all had seemed so melodramatic, so impossible, that he had not even suggested it to most of them, but nonetheless he believed it to be true. Thaddeus was a vi
cious, ruthless killer, a sociopath; he had demonstrated that repeatedly on Alpha Imperium. That he had harmed no other immortal for five hundred years proved nothing. For all they knew he could have killed dozens of short-lifer natives. Besides, he had lived for seven thousand years, which was plenty of time to learn patience.
The others must know that, being immortals themselves, but still they refused to acknowledge that one of their own comrades might be a danger. To them, Thaddeus was not the Imperial Butcher, the man who had been reputed to eat small children; he was just old Thaddeus, Shadowdark's kid, arrogant and foul-tempered, but harmless.
If they had thought otherwise, how could they have justified not turning him in centuries ago, back on Terra?
How, Geste asked himself, had he ever justified not turning Thaddeus in?
He had gone along with the rest. Basking in the subtle glory of keeping company with the oldest human alive, none of them had wanted to risk offending Shadowdark. And Thaddeus himself was the third-oldest human alive, millenia older than the rest of them. No one had wanted to antagonize him.
Thaddeus had claimed that he was not a murderer, as the Alpha Imperials called him, but only a political outlaw. He had been an absolute monarch at the time of his alleged crimes, granted the power of life and death by the laws of Alpha Imperium; his actions were not illegal, not murder, until retroactively declared to be by the governments that had replaced him.
Besides, his companions had told themselves, even if he had committed mass murder, he was the product of ancient times, when humankind was violent and wild. His father, Shadowdark, had once admitted to having committed a string of murders during his worst period, several thousand years ago, yet no one had ever considered turning him in. Murder was said to have no statute of limitations, but after five thousand years it became hard to take it very seriously. No government existed that would try Shadowdark for those crimes.
Excuses, Geste thought in disgust, simply excuses. They had not turned in Thaddeus or Shadowdark because they all found a rare and subtle thrill in the presence of these strange and ancient men. Such thrills were not lightly discarded by bored immortals.
And none of them, save he and Imp and the Skyler—three of the youngest in the group—were willing to admit their mistake and take action against Thaddeus now. Immortals, Geste reminded himself bitterly, tended to become very set in their ways.
The platform passed over the last of the bare stone of the Skyland's outermost rim and skimmed across a close-trimmed lawn. A few of the Skyler's creatures scampered past. Ahead of him Geste saw the main house, its roofline like broken and tumbling rocks, windows peeking out from beneath every angle.
The Skyler and Imp were seated on a verandah, waiting for him, as the platform settled smoothly down onto the grass a few meters from the house. He stepped off and walked slowly up the gentle slope to join them.
“We heard it all,” Imp said, pointing toward the ground to indicate what lay below. “Now what?"
“Can just the three of us do anything?” the Skyler asked nervously, brushing at her bottle-green gown. A floater hovered near her hand, holding a drink that Geste guessed to be mildly sedative—or would she just have her symbiotes adjust her mood? No, he thought, she was the sort of person who preferred not to rely overmuch on her internal devices, organic or otherwise. The drink was probably drugged.
“I don't know if we can do anything or not,” he said, “but we can try. Imp, back at the Falls, do you have anything that we could use as a weapon?"
“I don't think so,” she said slowly, “but I don't really know. After all, Geste, the Falls is Aulden's hold, not mine. I just live there, off and on, when I get tired of wandering. I didn't help design it. I don't know what he might have tucked away. But I do know that he never mentioned any weapons, and I've never seen any."
“Would any of your intelligences know?"
“I don't know."
“Ask them."
Imp nodded, and held up a hand; a small, amorphous floater, her primary long-range communications system, wrapped itself invisibly around her upraised fingers and tapped into her nervous system. Although he could not see the floater itself, Geste recognized the gesture and the subsequent light trance. Imp had never liked carrying her equipment internally, and kept a small flock of floaters instead.
While she was communing with the device, Geste asked the Skyler, “What about you? Do you have any weapons aboard?"
The Skyler shook her head. “Weapons scare me. I stay up here so I won't need any; there's nothing the short-lifers here can possibly do that would reach the Skyland. And until Imp called me about Thaddeus and Aulden, I didn't think I needed to worry about the rest of you.” She glared at him accusingly.
Geste nodded. He had expected as much.
Imp finished her silent contact and reported, visibly upset, “Aulden did have weapons, lots of them, but he took them with him! Thaddeus didn't even need to build most of his arsenal; he just stole Aulden's! Domo says there isn't anything left that could be of any use."
That was bad news indeed.
“We may not have much time left to prepare, if Thaddeus already has Aulden's entire arsenal,” Geste said. “I told my housekeeper to see what weapons it could come up with; I think it's time we went and picked those up and then headed for the High Castle, to help those people while we still can. If Aulden's provided the weapons, Thaddeus can probably break in there any time he wants to make the effort. He hasn't yet—I've got the place under surveillance—but I don't know why not."
Imp nodded. “Hurry! Once he's sure he has all the weapons he needs, he may kill Aulden!"
The Skyler hesitated, and Imp turned on her. “Go! Go! Go, you silly woman! What are you standing there for? Get this rock moving!"
The Skyler waved a command, and the Skyland began moving southward, steadily picking up speed.
Chapter Fourteen
“...she turned the next corner certain that it had to be the last, that she would see the great wooden door leading out onto the rocks above the sea, but instead she found herself back in the little stone room once again, where Lady Haze still sat before the fire, rocking and knitting, the strange music box tinkling beside her."
"'Hello, my dear,’ said Lady Haze. ‘Have you given up yet?'
"'No!’ the girl said. ‘I know I can find my way out!'
"Lady Haze sighed and put down her knitting and got up from her chair. ‘No, my dear,’ she said, ‘you can't find your way out unless I permit it. I told you, I am the mistress of this castle, and of the rocks on which it stands, and the fog that surrounds it, and the sea below. Nothing happens here that escapes me, and no one who comes here escapes me until I let her go. Within these walls I am the absolute ruler of all. Now, if you will give me back my jewel and swear that you will never enter my castle again, I shall let you out, and you will be free to return to your home. If you persist in this foolish attempt to leave, and still deny that you stole it when I can see it in your pocket right now, then you may well spend the rest of your life wandering about these passages.'
"And the girl broke down, defeated, and pulled the glowing gem from her pocket and gave it to the woman, weeping as she did so.
"Lady Haze accepted the jewel, and then turned and pointed. ‘There is your way out,’ she said.
"And the thief turned, and to her astonishment the great wooden door was right there, in the same room, where she knew only a blank stone wall had been just a moment before. She ran to the door and flung it open and stepped out, and found herself on the wet black rocks outside, the sea roaring behind her and gulls screaming overhead. She turned to look, and the door she had just come through was gone; the castle wall behind her was bare stone. The sky was grey and dim, the sun low in the west, and wisps of fog were rolling in, so she knew that soon it would be full dark, and foggy as well, making the rocks a very dangerous place to be; she despaired of her task and fled for the village, leaving the castle behind her, to vanish in the fo
g.
"And I might end her tale there, save for one curious detail. She was in Castle Haze for a wake or so, she believed—a light and a dark and a light—having entered at first dawn and left, she thought, at second sunset. But when she returned to her village, she learned that she had been gone for almost a season, more than eight tensleeps, and long since given up for dead!"
—from the tales of
Atheron the Storyteller
* * * *
Bredon had long ago lost track of time, and it occurred to him, as he sat at the entertainment console sketching commands on a sensor with his thumb, to ask Gamesmaster how long he had been in Arcade. Before him, naked women who had never lived anywhere but his imagination danced obscenely. Several bore a remarkable resemblance to Lady Sunlight, but he had never dared to intentionally depict her.
The machine's answer shocked him. He flicked the sensor aside, and the holographic display he had been manipulating vanished in a mist of pinkish sparkle, leaving only the faint scent of female sweat that he had added for an extra touch of realism.
“Four wakes?” he said, looking up at the vermilion ceiling. “Just four wakes?"
“Well, seven lights, anyway; it's just now first sunset outside."
“Is that all?"
“Hey, kid, it's enough!” Gamesmaster replied. “What did you think?"
“I've learned so much,” Bredon said, marvelling. “It feels as if I've been here a season or more!"
Gamesmaster buzzed derisively. “Not hardly. You've slept just four times; did you think you were going a couple of dozen wakes at a time?"
“I don't know; I lost track, spending all that time under the ne ... nyoo..."
“Neural-pattern imprinter."
“That's right, the imprinter. That seemed to last forever, sometimes."
“It generally took about ten seconds a shot."
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