The Song of Phaid the Gambler

by Mick Farren

'You don't sound very optimistic.'

  'I'm not. I'm just hoping that they don't pick up our trail, and don't get lucky and guess we're making for Bluehaven. Beyond that, all you can do is to sleep lightly and keep your blaster handy.'

  'It's that bad?'

  'I don't think it's ever really been much better.' Phaid nodded towards Chrystiana-Nex. 'What's the matter with her?'

  'I don't know. She was quite normal earlier, then she suddenly snapped off, you know the way she does that blank out.'

  It was a long, tense night waiting for Traan's sons to return. Instead of staying all night in the wagon, the old hunter twice came and sat by the fire. He had no conversation, and his face gave nothing away, but Phaid could sense that he was anxious for them to return safely.

  Edelline-Lan slept fitfully. Phaid didn't bother at all. He just huddled down in his robe and watched the flames dance and the sparks shoot upward. His blaster was never far from his hand.

  As far as Phaid could estimate, it was somewhere between midnight and dawn when he saw something out in the snow. He had been looking into the heart of the fire so long that he couldn't be sure if there really was a black space out on the snowfield, or whether it was simply an after-image of the flames. He nudged Edelline-Lan awake.

  'Can you see something out there?'

  'Wha? Out where?'

  She sat up, rubbed her eyes and looked again. 'I don't know. Maybe something black against the snow. It's hard to tell.'

  'I think I'll wake up Traan, I'd rather be safe than sorry.'

  He hurried round the wagon and beat on the door. 'Traan! Wake up!'

  Traan didn't need a second call. The door to the wagon flew open and he was there, fully dressed with his gun in his hand.

  'What's the matter? Are they back?'

  'I don't know. There seems to be something moving out on the snow. I think we ought to go and take a look.'

  Traan didn't ask any unnecessary questions. 'Thee wait.' In an instant he was back with a lamp. 'Thee show me.'

  Phaid drew his blaster and they walked cautiously away from the little camp. Out of the firelight, it was easier to distinguish the dark object against the snow. It looked like a huddled bundle that someone or something had inexplicably dumped there. Phaid was just starting to wonder whether it might be a rock or something perfectly natural when it uttered a faint, but distinctly human cry of pain.

  Traan broke into a run. Phaid followed. Stumbling and tripping through the deep snow, they reached the thing at the same time. To Phaid's horror, the thing was Traan's son Dwayne. He was covered in blood and a portion of his stomach seemed to have been shot away. Dwayne clutch­ed at his father as he knelt down beside him.

  'Pa, I'm burned in th' gut, Pa. I'm dying for sure. Help me, Pa, I'm dying. Thee got to help me.'

  'Where are the others?'

  'They dead, Pa.

  'We scouted th' first pair, they was a big hill man an' a woman. Tha' weren't no trouble. They was camped for the night, an' didn't look as though they was gon' move till morn, so we covered our tracks and came back. It was when we went to look at th' other 'un. That's when our trouble started.'

  Dwayne coughed and blood ran down his chin.

  'It hurts me, Pa. I'm dyin' right enough.'

  'What about the other one?'

  'I tell thee, Pa. He's a devil. He hadn't made no camp. He was just sittin' in th' snow as though he didna' feel th' cold or nothin'. Dundle said why didn't we shoot him an' save ourselves a lot of trouble. Then, at that moment, his gun blew up in his hands. It just blew up, Pa, an' then there's blaster fire just everywhere. Doofed got it in th' head. He died straight away. Me, I got burned in the gut. I tell thee, Pa, that ain't no man out there. It's a devil, it's a snow demon, it's . . .'

  A hideous choking sound came from deep inside the boy's chest. His head fell back. Traan looked at Phaid.

  'He's dead!'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'All my sons are dead.'

  'I said I'm sorry.'

  'Sorry? Sorry? What kind of man are you that snow demons dog your trail and my sons have to die for you?' The hunter was getting to his feet. 'What kind of man are you?'

  The gun was coming up. Phaid didn't want to hurt the grief stricken Traan but there seemed to be no other way. His blaster roared. Traan spun around and fell beside his son. Phaid took a long look at the dead hunters. Then he quickly turned away and stumbled back to the fire and the wagon. He grabbed Edelline-Lan by the shoulder and started shaking her.

  'Get up! Get up! The hunters are all dead and I think Solchaim is nearby.'

  Edelline-Lan started struggling out of her fur robe.

  'What should I do?'

  'Keep the hunters' women inside the wagon. I'm going to try something.'

  During the long days of tramping across the snow, Phaid had noticed that what he had been thinking of as a single vehicle really wasn't, the wagon wasn't one fully integrated machine. In fact, it was a trailer drawn by a stripped down flipper. They were joined by just two steel struts. Phaid suspected that if he cut through these with his blaster, the front end of the wagon, the driver's cab, would make an old but perfectly serviceable flipper.

  Accordingly, Phaid took careful aim and started cut­ting. He could hear shouting from the rear of the wagon. Phaid knew that he had to leave Edelline-Lan to deal with the hunters' women, he had enough to worry about.

  The biggest problem was that even if the makeshift flipper did prove to be able to put out a turn of speed when it was cut loose from the burden of the rest of the wagon, it still wouldn't move until the sun was in the sky. Its only source of power was a single sun catcher, there was no auxiliary power or even a storage block. Phaid wished that Ben-e was with them. The little android would, more than likely, have known a way to rig the flipper's drive so it would run off the energy cores of their blasters or something equally bizarre.

  'You really miss that little guy.'

  A cold resonant voice that wasn't his was speaking aloud the thoughts in his head. Phaid froze. The roar of the blaster stopped. His fingers which had been gripping the butt slowly started to open. They were like mechanical things, not even a part of him. The blaster dropped to the snow. Horror washed over Phaid in sickening waves. He wanted to scream, but he found that he had no voice. He wanted to run but his muscles had locked in a terrifying paralysis. As though from the other end of a long tunnel, he heard Edelline-Lan's voice.

  'I had to tell the women that their men were dead. They seemed to go numb and I've locked them . . . oh no!'

  She screamed. Phaid had never heard Edelline-Lan scream before. It seemed to be wrenched from deep inside her soul. In the same instant Phaid felt a momentary release from whatever was holding him. He turned and found himself facing Solchaim, the elaihi.

  Chapter 27

  'Get out of my mind!'

  'And yet it is so stubbornly lonely in there. Have you never longed for companionship?'

  'Get out of my mind!'

  'Your minds are not impregnable fortresses. One day soon you are all going to have to get used to that fact. Your desperate, busy little lives are going to have to change.'

  Solchaim was like a tall skinny spider standing over Phaid, spindly arms and legs were covered in black lightweight plastic armour while his body was swathed from the cold by a tunic of black shaggy fur and a black cape with a red silk lining. Phaid could see why the hunters believed him to be a snow demon. His nose was like the beak of a sinister bird of prey and hard reptile-like eyes bored from beneath the brim of a huge black hat that flopped almost to his shoulders. The rest of his face was covered by folds of the cape. For the second time, Phaid was struck by how Solchaim seemed deliberately to make himself a composite of all that was frightening to humans. He was a spider and a snake, a vulture and a vampire. Solchaim had clothed himself in the stuff of ancient childhood nightmares, the ones that the left-hand side of the brain had saved from times even before humans came down out of the trees. Also for
the second time, Phaid found that a part of Solchaim was moving around inside his mind, probing his consciousness and slithering through his memory. Phaid had never experienced anything quite as revolting. It was a violation so ultimate and so total that every nerve screamed out in revolt.

  'Get out of my mind!'

  Solchaim ignored Phaid's protests as he tested and tasted random samples of Phaid's stored recollections and conditioned reflexes.

  'This is hurting me! For the Lords' sake!'

  'Your beliefs are quite delightful.'

  'Stop playing with me!'

  'I'm not playing with you. I have need of you for a period of time. The hunters were a random factor that didn't occur in my calculations. I need you all the way to Bluehaven and possibly beyond. You will have to do the best that you can.'

  His tone was one a man might use when informing his dog that it was being taken for a walk. Phaid knew that he couldn't take much more of the treatment. He did his best to communicate this to the elaihi as forcefully as he could. Solchaim chuckled.

  'Maybe this would be better?'

  Abruptly Phaid was gripped by a sensation of spiralling upward. The night and the snow had vanished. Phaid could no longer see the dead hunters' wagon or the camp. Even his clothes had gone. He was cocooned in a volup­tuous orange glow that warmed and comforted him. He stretched languidly. It felt so good.

  'Is that more to your taste?'

  The words were like a caress. Solchaim was still inside Phaid's mind, but now he was acting more like a lover than an invader. His presence there was a gentle, pleasur­able massage. It took minutes for Phaid to realise that it was just a piece of psychic sleight of hand.

  'Why do you hate us so much?'

  'When are you going to understand that we don't hate you. If anything we fear you, in the way that you fear the lupe or the rat or the poisonous snake. You have a history of killing all that you think will impede what you call your progress. You destroy anything that might challenge your self proclaimed status as rulers of the planet. You are feral, isolated creatures and you pose a great danger.'

  Faster than the blink of an eye. Phaid was back at the camp, seated by the fire. His arms and legs felt heavy and lethargic. It was hard to move. He tried to stand, but only succeeded in falling over on his side. His face was in the snow but it didn't seem to matter. Some of the soft orange warmth was still with him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Edelline-Lan and Chrystiana-Nex seemed to be experiencing similar difficulties. Solchaim was stand­ing in the middle of them. His face was covered and it was impossible to judge what he thought of his handiwork. Phaid, after some considerable effort, pushed himself into a sitting position. He was completely disorientated. He found that it was impossible to gauge how long Solchaim had been at the camp.

  'Why are you doing this to us?'

  His lips were thick and there were parts of his mind that kept setting him off giggling. This made the rest of him furious at his lack of control. Solchaim laughed right along with him.

  'I've already told you that I have need of you. I am putting a grip around your mind. I need to know how best to manipulate you. Also, we have a little time before the others come.'

  Phaid's mind was spongy but he still managed to be surprised.

  "There are other elaihim coming?'

  Solchaim shook his head. It wasn't the way a human would do it.

  'Oh no, there are no more elaihim coming. For a long time now I have failed to find favour with my own people. They do not like my methods nor my style. In fact, I am very much a creature set apart. I travel a lonely course. You humans are my only diversion.'

  Then who is coming?'

  'What you believe is your destiny.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'No, you probably wouldn't. Makartur is coming. The furious red-haired warrior and his statuesque female. They really are a magnificent pair. He believes he must kill you in order to save his soul. It never ceases to surprise me how you are all so complex in your despera­tion.'

  Phaid found that he couldn't be afraid. Solchaim obviously didn't want the second hand discomfort. He peered into the darkness.

  'Are they far away?'

  'They will be here soon. Perhaps with the sun.'

  'And then?'

  'Don't be afraid. How many times do I have to tell you that I need you. I won't let the warrior or his woman harm you.'

  Phaid just wanted it all to stop.

  'Will you tell me what is really going on?'

  Again Solchaim laughed. This time the laughter was like playful cuffs to either side of Phaid's mind.

  'We elaihim have a dream.'

  Phaid was suddenly somewhere else. He was standing on a wide and very beautiful Plaza surrounded by some of the most magnificent buildings he had ever seen. There were elaihim everywhere, serenely going about their business. Birds flew overhead and animals moved among the elaihim without any sign of fear or tension.

  Everything was cleanliness and light, it was an ideal city, unlike anything that Phaid had ever seen. Between the buildings, he could just see rolling green hills in the distance. On the other side of the Plaza a family of boohooms played and scampered. They were a total contrast to the down trodden, menial boohooms living in the bottom levels of human cities.

  'This is a perfect world.'

  'It is what we seek.'

  'There are no people, no humans in this city.'

  Directly Phaid had mentally voiced the observation, he caught sight of a human, in fact, he caught sight of two humans. A couple, a man and a woman, both naked; they sat in the sun beside a glittering fountain. Now and then a passing elaihim would toss the humans a piece of fruit or some other titbit.

  'Is that how you see us?'

  'That is how we all see you. The dispute is that the rest of my people would wait, they would stay away from you and wait until the time comes for the passing of the human species. The rest of my people are infinitely patient. I am not. They would wait forever, but I would gladly give you a helping hand down the path to extinction.'

  One moment Phaid was riding in some huge, silver-winged flying machine, travelling with hundreds of other people, high above the clouds. The next he watched as thousands of drab green men swarmed over a nightmare landscape of mud and craters. Explosions roared around them and they faced a hail of flying metal projectiles with their arms shielding their faces as though walking against the wind and the rain.

  The scene kept on shifting. Tapering cylinders of shin­ing steel rose into the sky on pillars of flame, terrible explosions lashed the surface of the globe with flashes of awful, all consuming heat. Towers were built to the sky and then blackened and destroyed in fearsome bouts of destruction. There was incredible beauty but also im­measurable destruction. Phaid was moved to both wonder and horror, he knew if the experience went on any longer he wouldn't be able to control himself; his whole being was just fractions of an inch from being wracked by helpless sobbing.

  Then, just as it seemed as though his mind was going to come to pieces, he was back by the fire with snow all round him. Solchaim was grinning into his face.

  'How do you like the story of your species?'

  Phaid cradled his aching head.

  'All that? Mankind achieved all that?'

  'All that and a lot more.'

  'If we achieved all that, how can you call us inferior?'

  'You destroyed as much as you built.'

  'You elaihim could do better?'

  'Once we have the space we will create something infinitely more worthwhile. We do not have your talent for destruction.'

  'You seem to have destroyed enough in your time.'

  'But I am not like the rest of my people. I am the exception.'

  'You're the one that's going to give your people the room they need to grow and build?'

  'You humans are in your final decline, there's no mistaking that.'

  'And I suppose it's all your work.'

  Sol
chaim laughed.

  'Gracious no. I may be overweeningly vain but I'm not so deluded that I think I'm the hand of destiny. No, Master Phaid, your people, your species has fallen into its final decline all on its own. You have lost your arts, you have lost your sciences and you have lost your culture. All I can do is to grease the slide a little for your final descent.'

  'How can you say that the human race is failing? We still live in the biggest cities in the world, with androids to serve us. The marikhs run the trains. Men still sail on the winds between the clouds. We still have a long way to go before the earth has seen the last of humanity.'

  Solchaim's mouth twisted.

  'Is that what you think? Despite all that I have shown you, you still don't understand. Your cities are shadows of what they once were. Your androids and all the rest of your technology was constructed many centuries ago. Few of you know how to even repair a flipper or an android or any of the other things of which you are so proud. There is not one among you who could build any of them from the start. Even the marikhs do not construct new trains or extend their lines. You stagnate and soon you will die. You will go to your graves watching your pointless wind games . . .'

  'But the wind games. Surely they are . . .'

  'They are nothing. Oh yes, maybe your individual wind players are brave and daring, but they are also stupid. They have forgotten. They are a remnant of the times that I have shown you, the time when men travelled across the surface of the water and flew through the air. Those were the days when you could truly think of yourselves as masters of the world. You flew in the air and even above the air.'

  This was all getting beyond Phaid's ability to grasp.

  'I don't understand what you are saying. How can anyone fly beyond the air?'

  'You did it, you pathetic fool. Your insane ancestors, at the same time they were coming close to blowing up the planet, they also started their journey to the stars.'

  'The stars? They tried to get to the stars?'

  'They didn't try, they succeeded. They went to the stars. The best of your kind left this planet and travelled out into deep space. They inherited the stars. Your religion teaches you to worship the Lords that so myster­iously left the earth and who you hope so fervently will return. They will never return. They either live among the stars or they perished in the cold of space. From the moment they left this planet the end had started for those who were left behind. The best of you had gone. Only the dregs remained.'