“Be careful, Lady,” said one of the scientists. He picked up a plastic implement and tossed it at our son. The plastic hit something invisible and burst into flames with a shower of green sparks.
Jane stopped where she was and glared at Isi. “Release my son!”
“In a moment, perhaps,” he said in a mild tone. “A few straight answers first, I think. General, see we are not disturbed.”
From behind us, the clanking and clattering grew in volume as the robots advanced into the room. “Yes, m’lord,” said Keirr.
I shook my head and grimaced. “This room is more secure than the other?”
With a smile, Isi nodded. “Shielded from my brothers’ spy beams.” He snapped his fingers at the scientists, and they put away their work and stepped out of the way. “Now, about this place you say you come from…”
The occupant of the other cell resembled Isi and his men more than he did the Isir. He was a mass of contradictions—dressed in a flowing robe of crimson silk, but with bare feet; his black eyes crawled around the room in constant motion, but he stood statue-still with none of the twitches or shifting of weight I expected; he appeared to be human, but no hair grew from any of the parts of his body I could see.
“Is this your other prisoner?” I asked, and as I spoke the creature’s eyes found me and froze, locked to my gaze.
“Yes. He’s been quite recalcitrant.”
The creature’s face was expressionless, and now that his eyes had come to a rest, he could have been a statue for all that he moved—I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. There were no ticks, no subtle repositioning, no flexing and relaxing of muscles in any part of his body. He appeared to favor the robots behind us more than the human beings in the room.
“What will you do with him?” I asked.
“Return this one to the underverse,” the creature grated, not even breaking his stare to blink.
Isi sighed. “That is his answer for everything these days.”
“Why not let him go?”
Isi shook his head. “The possibilities he represents…the science…the knowledge that we could mine from him.”
I shook my head and turned to the red-clad creature. “Isi told me you are from the underverse.”
“This one is,” he said. “You are not.”
“No, I am not.”
“But you are strange…unlike these others.” His eyes twitched to Jane for a moment before returning to me. “That one is your filkya.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She is no filkya.”
Again, his eyes twitched in Jane’s direction and back. “Acceptance. Your spayl.”
I shook my head a second time. “Not my twin, either. She is my wife, and her uhrluhk is entwined with mine.”
“This one comprehends,” said the creature.
“Do you know what this creature is?” asked Isi.
“No,” I said with a shake of my head. I glanced down at the slowth at the creature’s feet. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen—much more significant, much grander, than an Isir’s. It reminded me of the slowthar of the Nornir, of Kuhntul, but was larger still. He could be the dreamslice reflection of a Plauinn, such as the Three Maids, or he could be something I hadn’t seen yet. Whatever he was, he sure spoke in the manner of one of the Plauinn.
“You withhold information, Hank,” said Isi with anger quivering in his voice.
“No. I don’t know what he is.”
Isi narrowed his eyes. “But you suspect something. You ask me to release your friends, but you refuse to share your knowledge. This is not the act of a colleague, of a friend.”
I raised one eyebrow. “But holding my son and friends hostage is?” I scoffed. “You need a new dictionary.”
Isi smiled, but again the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Perhaps General Keirr can assist us with a few definitions and points of fact.” Without looking at the man, Isi raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
“One,” boomed the general, “you are in our power and continue to draw breath only by Lord Isi’s grace. Two, your people—your son and these Alfar—are in our power. Three, you can’t free your people, only we can do that. Four, our weapons are not throwbacks to the ancient past. Each of my robotic warriors wields a shriek-beam, as you’ve seen, and as you haven’t seen, each has a beam-shield and an electromagnetic repulser. Your pitiful weapons are no match for them.”
“We, too, have weapons you can’t see, Isi,” I said, ignoring Keirr utterly.
“Lord Isi!” snapped General Keirr.
I glanced at him, but kept my lips together, which seemed to infuriate him more.
It’s strange what comes to mind in situations such as that. One of my favorite movies was Tombstone, and in a scene toward the end, Doc Holliday called out Johnny Ringo, and Ringo said, “All right, lunger. Let’s do it.” Michael Biehn, the actor who played Ringo, delivered the line with a widening of the eyes, a jaunty nod, and smile, and the image of his expression plus the line flashed through my mind. I almost said it, but I remembered that soon afterward, Doc Holliday blasted a hole in Ringo, so I let the moment pass.
“Isi, call off your pet,” I said, letting my gaze slide away from Keirr as if I’d lost interest.
At a subtle hand gesture from General Keirr, the robots advanced a few feet. Althyof drew his daggers and began a battle trowba, creeping in a slow dance that circled back and forth between us and the robots. Jane set her shield and hefted her spear, but kept her wings hidden. Krowkr stood in the back, looking unsure what to do, and had drawn his mundane weapons, though he let them hang by his sides. Mothi and Frikka stood ready, and Veethar’s eyes were already yellow—I was glad not to be the focus of his furious glare. Keri and Fretyi stood by my side, stiff-legged and growling deep in their chests. John stood, limbs loose and ready, but glowered at Keirr as if he wanted to take a bite out of the man.
I glanced at the red-clad being in the cell. “Are you a dreamslice reflection or are you all here?”
He cocked his head, eyes boring into mine. After a moment, he shrugged. “Your query lacks cohesion.”
That was answer enough, and I shot a curt nod at him. “If it comes down to it, will you fight by our side to earn your freedom?”
“Distasteful,” he said and sighed, “but necessary. Yes, this one will comply.”
“What’s your…” What did Mirkur call names? “What’s your cognomina?”
The man in red tilted his head to the side. “Address this one as Bikkir.”
I tried to keep the shock off my face. “Bikkir?”
“Affirmation.”
I glanced at Jane and saw the same shock written on her face. Her gaze darted from mine to Bikkir before snapping to Isi.
“You know him,” said Isi, and I could tell without glancing at him that he wore a huge smile. “Oh, marvelous! This changes everything. Tell me what he is. Tell me!”
With a grim smile, I stripped off my gun belt, flicked the hat off my head and wriggled out of the mail shirt and the cloak that helped to mask my pain. Isi gave me a confused look. “I will understand you, but I won’t be able to speak. Jane will speak for me if the need arises.” That earned an even stranger look from Isi as I murmured the Kuthbyuhrn triblinkr and shuddered a little as the prayteenk began.
Isi took two steps away from me as the prayteenk twisted my form and the mass settled onto my frame.
When my prayteenk wound down to a halt, I cocked my head at Isi and stood on my hind legs, holding my arms out to the sides as though inviting him to inspect me closely. At that moment, Jane activated the ring Althyof had enchanted for her, and her wings blossomed through the slits in her mail like new spring growths. She flapped her wings and ascended to hover in the air. Behind me, I heard Mothi mutter, “Strikuhr risa,” and knew he would be swelling up like a bodybuilder.
“Impressive, but I don’t think you understand our technical superiority.” Isi snapped his fingers at Keirr.
Keirr uttered
a curse and slapped his hand on what I imagined was a small radio embedded in his sleeve. “Troopers! Send a legion of troopers to my location,” he yelled.
I sank back to all fours and took two casual steps toward Isi, who continued to back away, matching me step for step. I threw a glance up at Jane, and she nodded, understanding what I wanted. The pups matched my advance, walking stiff-legged, eyes boring into Isi’s, challenge in their every movement.
“Stay away!” commanded Isi, and I chuffed through my nose as bears are wont to do.
“That’s bear for laughter,” Jane said. “Are you sure you don’t want to release my son?”
Isi’s gaze twitched from me to Jane to the varkr pups and back to me. “These hidden powers are quite interesting.” He glanced at the scientists cowering against the wall. “You should be taking measurements! Analyzing these…these…”
“Your pardon, Lord,” said one of the scientists. “We can record data, but I fear we don’t have enough computational power to analyze what we are seeing.”
“Take the data then,” Isi snapped, and the scientists leapt to workstations as far from me as they could get. “We will deal with the lack of computational power later. Perhaps at the new base.”
Human troops poured into the room from the only entrance—the one behind the robots. They held rifles that ended in the same matte-black tubes that poked from each robot’s handless arm.
“Each of these men will die for me,” said Isi in a haughty tone. “Can you stand against them all?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Jane and jerked my snout at the warriors pouring into the room. She nodded once and spun in midair. She barged her shield toward the entrance. The air pinged as though a massive windchime had been struck and a jagged black beam ripped the air. The troopers flew back down the hall that led to the room, ass over tea kettle.
Veethar stepped forward and raised his hands. “Skrithu!” he commanded, and with a rumble akin to those we’d heard after each death blossom on the surface, the mouth of the hall leading to the room collapsed, sealing us in and crushing the robots still near the entrance.
Isi’s eyes stretched wide.
Jane turned back to him and smirked. “Your robots might kill us after a protracted battle, but none of you will survive either. This is what we call a standoff.” She leveled her spear at Isi. “You, I will deal with personally. And first, I might add.” She cocked her arm and threw the spear, and it crackled into golden lightning and slashed into the machinery at the far end of the room. “Care to wager who fails to understand whose superiority?”
Isi shook his head and turned to run.
I advanced toward him, moving at a walk, but my stride was enormous, and I caught him with the ease of a natural predator. He spun to face me but continued to back away from my relentless advance. He backed into the first row of disused machinery and squeezed his eyes shut.
Behind me, the remaining robots lurched into action, gliding forward on their treads, matte-black tubes coming up and pointing at one of us. I growled softly in my throat and shook my shaggy head.
“Hooth ow yowrni!” yelled Mothi. He squatted, preparing to leap into the midst of the silver robots.
“No,” said Frikka. “Stand with us, Mothi.”
Frikka lifted her arms, hands together, and shouted, “Skyuldur vekkur!” She ripped her hands apart, drawing a rough rectangle between us and the robots as several high-pitched whines assaulted my ears and saw-toothed bolts of green-gray energy issued from the matte-black tubes and slashed toward us.
Not precisely the same as Haymtatlr’s energy weapons, I thought. But probably just as deadly.
The bolts of energy impacted the shield Frikka had thrown up and the air rang with a shriek like a piece of metal squealing against a stone. The shield glowed as more robots fired their shriek-beams.
Veethar whirled to face Isi. “Ancestor, command them to stop.”
“Ancestor?” murmured Isi.
I grunted and swung my head to the level of Isi’s face and growled, setting the puppies off.
Behind me, the robots continued to pour energy into the shield Frikka had cast, and the air smelled of ozone and hot electronics. Althyof twisted his battle trowba into one that would strengthen the shield and dissipate some of the heat.
Jane turned to face the robots, cocked her arm and threw her spear. It crackled and grew as bright as the sun as it morphed into a bolt of golden lightning. It passed through the shield and slammed into the torso of the lead robot. The robot spasmed and threw up its hands, spinning in a counter-clockwise circle, a misshapen hole melted in its casing, golden sparks dancing inside. “Aftur!” Jane called, and the spear appeared in her hand with a pop. She threw the spear again and again as fast as she could, but even so, the energy they dumped into Frikka’s shield had the air glowing with an orange light, and the heat rapidly approached the unbearable.
I shot a glance at Bikkir, who still stood motionless in his cell, and turned back to Isi and snarled, exposing my fangs. He shrank away from me, abject terror scribbled on his face.
With a snort of disgust, I turned away, scanning the machinery and digital workstations of the scientists, and though I could read the displays easily enough as they used the same runes as everything else in Osgarthr, I couldn’t figure out how to open the cells. I scanned the room again, and my gaze came to rest on the knot of scientists in blue.
With a grunt, I ran to them, causing quite a panic. I picked one of scientists and, using my teeth, grabbed him by the front of his blue smock. Picking him up, I trotted to the other side of the room, close to the cells. I set him down and grunted, swinging my head back and forth between the scientist and the cells.
The man’s gaze tracked to Isi’s, and he swallowed hard. “I…I can’t do it,” he whispered.
I growled low in my throat and leaned forward to nudge him with my snout.
“Don’t you dare!” hissed Isi.
I turned my head toward him and roared, showing my fangs. Keri and Fretyi snarled in accompaniment.
“I’d do as he says, friends,” said John. “You haven’t seen a tenth of what he can do yet.”
“He’s a god,” said Krowkr. “Their leader. The Allfather.”
Inwardly, I cringed, but with Isi’s eyes on me, I tossed my head imperiously and glared at the scientist in front of me.
The scientist made a strange sound—half scream, half belch—and lurched toward a workstation. He interacted with it at a frantic pace, darting glances over his shoulder at me. He turned and bowed low. “It’s done,” he murmured.
I herded him toward the cells with my snout, pushing him past the point where the plastic tool had burst into flames. I nodded my head and jerked my muzzle toward the other scientists. With a sigh of relief, the scientist bolted across the room.
“Dad!” shouted Sig. He came to my side and gave me a hug, shoving his face into the thick fur of my shoulder. Yowtgayrr spared me a quick smile and darted to the shield and drew silvery runes in the air. Skowvithr ruffled Sig’s hair and tipped me a wink.
I turned toward the other cell. Bikkir walked toward me as if he hadn’t a care in the universe, his gaze resting on me without curiosity, and without much of any expression marring his face.
“Gratitude,” he said as he turned toward the robots and gestured in their direction as though by afterthought. Behind the robots, swarthy darkness the size and shape of a proo swirled into existence. It appeared more a hole in reality than a physical object. The ambient light of the room seemed to drown in it.
At first, nothing happened, but after a moment, the robots closest to the black oval slid backward, their treads spinning, fighting for purchase on the stone floor. They continued to fire their shriek-beams, but being yanked backward as they were, the ragged energy bolts flew wildly into the ceiling, the floor, the walls, and into other robots. The robots hit by the bolts ceased moving, but where the bolts hit the stone of the walls, floor, or ceiling, a shower of heated
stones flew in all directions.
The null spot affected more and more of the robots, and they slid faster and faster toward it. When the first robots struck the inky oval, they disappeared with a flash of light and the sound of a gunshot.
Keirr squealed as the pull of the black spot began to tug on him like an insistent tide. He fastened his grip on the arm of the robot closest to him as he slid toward the dark hole hanging in the air. He screamed as the robot slid across the stone floor in the manner of a palm frond in a hurricane-force wind. As with the robots before him, he disappeared into the hole with a bang.
When the last robot had disappeared, Bikkir raised his hands and clapped them together, and the black hole dispersed in a cloud of dust-like particles. The Plauinn turned toward me. “Satisfactory?”
I nodded my head, and even if I had been in my human body, I would not have been able to speak—the shock of what I’d witnessed was too much. The robots, General Keirr, the rubble from the collapsed entrance and the wild shriek-beam shots, even the dust that had gathered in the corners—all of it decohered on the far side of the shield in a fraction of a second. I shook my head and triggered the prayteenk back into human form.
When I had finished dressing, I approached Isi and pulled him back to the center of the room. He came willingly enough, though his eyes were large and glassy with shock.
“I meant what I said. Had you returned my people, none of this would have happened.”
He turned a blank stare my way and nodded without seeming to know he did so. “Who…”
I glanced at Bikkir. “Can you get home?”
“Negative. The local timeflows ensnare me. Navigation is…formidable from this timeslice.”
“I might aid you if you’ll permit it.”
Again, the Plauinn cocked his head at me, but this time he added a few blinks. “You? You are not of the underverse.”
I nodded. “Give me a moment, and I’ll see what I can do.”
He nodded and shrugged.
I bent my attention to his slowth, marveling at its mother-of-pearl hue and the sheer size of the thing. Wrapping my imaginary arms around it, I grunted at the shocking rapidity of the information pulsing through it. I followed it back, past the point when he appeared in the room, and tried to dip into it but couldn’t get past the iridescent covering. “Let me in, Bikkir,” I said.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 131
