by John Hook
“I assume you have proof that Haven is an illusion.”
“The ones who leave—they don’t leave the way you think. They will eventually come for all of you.”
“Of course it is an illusion. I think deep down, most of us know that. I don’t think we care. If it lasts a day, a week or a year, it is something. A rest from the horrors.”
“I won’t take that from you if that’s what you want. But we will pass through, if the overlords let us, and descend into the underground tunnels where the demons and worse wait. Maybe you can have your illusion. Maybe it can last.”
Dieter turned to the people of Haven.
“These people mean you no harm. They are demon hunters and the demons tried to trick us into fighting their fight.”
“Maybe the demons will hunt us down and take us away from Haven if we don’t stop these hunters.”
Dieter shook his head. He motioned to us. He motioned to the arrows, to the clubs.
“And what if that were true? If the spell had not been broken we would have been slaughtered if they engaged us. This is an army. A strong army. May they succeed in their hunt, but this is not business for us. We are frightened people hanging on to something that, deep down, we must know is a sham. Let us go and enjoy that mirage and, if we are lucky…”
Dieter looked at me and smiled.
“If we are lucky, they will succeed and we truly will have our Haven, without ever having had to fight for it.”
Some in the crowd were murmuring and clearly weren’t happy with this idea that having found peace in Hell was a sham. Hell or Earth, people don’t like giving up their illusions. However, the crowd as a whole moved away and fell in together, making their way back toward Haven. They weren’t fighters, really. The battle, had we been forced to fight them, would have been a sad, one-sided affair. Baron Steel had meant it to be. He had meant it to be demoralizing.
For me.
21.
Izzy and I checked on Saripha, but she was already in good hands. That level of magic, really more of a tuning yourself to nature and letting it work through you, took a lot out of her. That’s why she rarely wielded her greater witch powers casually. That and the fact that she had to draw upon some of the more negative energies of this world because, really, that’s about all there was here. However, Rox and Kyo were already attending to her. Saripha smiled at me wanly. “Hope I don’t have to do a lot of that.”
“I wish you didn’t have to do that at all. I think you should have stayed with Guido.”
“And then where would you be?”
“Okay, yes, we were lucky you were here for this. We would have had to turn a lot of the folks from Haven into protos, in all likelihood. I’m tired of others being hurt because I won’t just lie down and take it.”
Saripha shook her head. “There are no halfway measures. You are either fighting this place or you are not. We all chose to be here, to fight this fight with you. No matter what happens. Stop making us your responsibility. It’s egotistical and will keep you from doing what has to be done at some point.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not stopping.”
Rox stood and put her arm around my waist.
“Listen to Saripha. They’ll use your sense of responsibility for us against you.”
“They’ll try. They haven’t stopped me yet.”
Rox chucked me on the chin.
“That’s the spirit.”
Roland, together with the captains from all three groups, pulled the troops together. Roland knew what the mission to Haven and the Underground city was. Making sure César agreed for the Zaccorans, I put Roland in charge and sent them off.
I stayed behind with Blaise, Izzy, Saripha, Kyo and Rox. We kept two archers with us. Blaise was pretty sure he knew how to get to the tower from here. He had noted a number of geographical features when he and Izzy had found their way back from the tower after I disappeared. He could use them now and their relative orientation to guide us.
We did our best to keep cover. The tower was in a plain, but most of our way there would be through mountain passes. We had good tree cover. We were hoping they would notice the army approaching Haven rather than us until it was too late. I knew they would be alarmed when they realized I wasn’t with Roland and the tower would be the first place they would come looking.
As we approached the mountain that faced out on the tower, we heard a whistle and spun around. Up in a tree was one of Taka’s assistants from Rockvale. He appeared not much older than Zeon, but without the attitude problem. He grinned and dropped from the branch. He picked himself up and greeted us enthusiastically.
“Hi, Ryan.” Izzy patted him on the shoulder. They had worked together.
“Taka had us taking turns watching for you. He wants you to come see what he has set up.”
We climbed for quite a ways and some of it was pretty steep. We finally came to an area where things flattened out into a shelf before continuing up. We made our way to the front of the shelf, near where it overlooked the plain and the conical tower below.
Taka was waiting for us and greeted us with a nod.
“Nice timing, Q. I just got everything rigged.”
“What have you got?”
“Hot damn.” Izzy had cheated and looked.
I turned. Taka had found three saplings that were big enough to withstand being bent completely back and both sturdy and flexible enough to maintain the tension without splitting. He had tied them back with grass rope and tied the rope around poles sunk firmly in the ground. Into the lattice of branches near the top, Taka and his helpers had woven a net-like mitt and in each had placed one of the black rocks with a lattice of clay around it. At various points in the clay lattice were joints that were larger than the lattice lines so that the black rocks looked like very strange soccer balls.
“You sure you didn’t get these from Acme?”
Taka laughed.
“As charming if naïve as your idea of clay cannons was, we could never get to a point where we could be sure of the aim, or even be sure of a method that would allow us to drop the rock in without blowing ourselves up.”
“Yeah, I guess that would be a problem. Maybe we could train demons to load them.”
“Hmm. Didn’t think of that, but I found something better. Basically, catapult slingshots, except I didn’t have any rubber handy. We have three shots.”
“That should be enough to do serious damage to the tower. Our little army can do the rest on the ground.”
“Keep in mind, this is all theory so far. I was able to run tests with saplings firing in the other direction to know that, in principle, they work well as sling shots. However, not knowing what is in the tower, I couldn’t do a real test throwing something inert against the tower in case it alerted someone. So, essentially, these are aimed by slide rule. I don’t actually know for sure that they are aimed correctly, nor that they will provide the proper arc and force to hit the tower with the rocks.”
“Yeah, but you and Izzy are really good with your slide rules.”
“Let’s hope so.” Taka ran his fingers through his hair.
“So, what did you do to the rocks?”
“Ah, our other problem. We have no idea which surface of the rock will hit the tower. So we have a clay latticework and at various points there is a small clay pocket with a very small amount of lava. It doesn’t take much to cause the explosive reaction. So, whatever surface hits, will be like an arming a warhead.”
“What happens with the other pockets of lava?”
“Don’t know. Actually didn’t have time to test, nor have we had a chance to study exactly how the reaction propagates through the rock. If the rocks splinters immediately, you could end up with secondary bombs. Or the lattice may shatter and all of it, lava and all fall away from the rock and you’ll just end up with shrapnel, if you can use that term for rock.”
“Sounds like we should keep the troops away from the tower while firing these.”
&n
bsp; “Yes. These things could fall in front of the tower or shoot over the tower. Mind you, I feel pretty good about my calculations, but the consequences if I’m wrong will be pretty bad if it lands near folks. And, when it hits, I’m not sure exactly what happens since I don’t know much about what the tower is made of.”
“Looks like we have things covered here as much as possible. We’re going down and try to get in. Taka, you have to take command up here. You are going to have to judge the best time to fire because, honestly, you have the best view of what is going on. So, after we come back out of the tower, you call the best opportunity to fire.”
“What if you don’t come out?”
“Then you are going to have to decide when to fire anyway. Go with your gut. Do not hesitate.”
Taka frowned. I thought of leaving Blaise with him, but I thought his ability might be more useful to us.
Taka looked at me. “How do you stop me if I shouldn’t fire?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m like a bomber pilot. I’m way up in the clouds watching ants. Easy to pick the best time to fire, but I have no real understanding of what’s happening on the ground. If something develops where you really need me not to fire, I need some way to know.”
“I’m sorry, Taka, I don’t think that’s a problem we have time to solve. We don’t have good long-distance signals. And we really don’t know what our situation down there will be. I think there are people in there, including Philip. I want to get them out and then I want the tower taken down if for no other reason than it seems important to them. You need to do it when you think it’s right and not beat yourself up for anything that happens.”
“Too bad I can’t use my slide rule for this too.”
“You’ll know the right time.”
I made my way back down the mountain with Izzy, Blaise, Rox, Kyo, Saripha and the two archers. The archers were now to protect Saripha, if possible. I had tried to talk her into staying with Taka, but she insisted she felt she should be with us. I stopped about halfway down, startled by the sight of Roland crossing the field. He strolled, seeming to be in no hurry, almost as if he were out for a walk in the country. He carried his club casually at his side as he took even measured steps. When he got to the tower door, he turned and faced the direction we would be coming from.
Izzy came up behind me. “What is Roland doing here?”
“I don’t know. I suspect we won’t like the answer.”
“How do you want to handle it?”
I shrugged. “Let’s go ask him.”
Crossing the plain had no safe option. If Baron Steel had not been fooled by the advancing column headed towards Haven and was lurking anywhere about, we would be seen and we would be vulnerable. We kept to our plan and ran across the field as quickly as possible. We reached the tower door and scanned the horizon and the sky. There was no sign of anyone.
I looked at Roland. He did his silent staring thing.
“What are you doing here, Roland?”
“I can’t let you go in there.”
“What’s in there?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know. The boss simply instructed me to insure, if you made it here, that you didn’t go in.”
“I see. Well, I’m not sure how much conviction you have. If you meant it, you would have brought more men.”
“I did. Handpicked.”
I turned and observed 6 men with clubs approaching. Izzy instantly threaded his bow and faced their way. I turned back to Roland.
“Why?”
“Don’t know.”
“Just following orders.”
“I am proud of my loyalty.”
“So we fight it out. Maybe you win. Maybe there is a less messy way to do this.”
“I’m listening.”
“Why don’t we go in and find out what you are protecting? Because I’m guessing that if Gerod knew about this, it has never been just about protecting your people from the demons. It means he is working with either the Shade or the Manitor.”
“You’re wrong.”
“And if I’m right?”
Roland opened his mouth but wasn’t sure what to say.
“Roland, think about it. You and Gerod knew I was coming up here specifically to get into this tower. He let us go. That means he expected us not to make it. That would mean he knew a lot more about what we were going to encounter than he let on.”
“How could he?”
“It might also mean that he wanted to make sure the dark men, maybe specifically you, didn’t find out what was in here.”
Roland’s face looked like he was about to protest, but the words weren’t coming out.
“One sure way to find out. You can decide then what to do about our knowing about it. A close quarters fight will favor your men.”
Roland was still for what seemed a very long time and then he nodded to his men. They lowered their clubs. Izzy unthreaded his arrow and hung the bow on his back. Roland stepped aside as I walked up to the door.
Again, the doors were vibrating and there was a pulsing rhythm of air blowing the doors slightly in and slightly out. There was no handle, lock or other means of either opening or securing the doors. I pushed on them and nothing happened. I felt like I had pushed on them once and something different had happened, but we were getting to where my memory was fuzziest. I did see the Manitor with the head of a jackal in my mind, but memory was becoming more like a dream with no real narrative coherence.
“Let’s get this open, Izzy.”
Izzy took the bag off his shoulder. He had three bombs left. Roland started to protest.
“It’s the only way we get in. Tell Gerod we got here before you could stop us.”
“Doesn’t sound very believable.”
“You just have to sell it.”
Izzy pulled out a bomb. We stood back. He threw it solidly against the door, hitting the seam about a third of the way up. The explosion blew the doors in, but they slammed shut again. Whatever the doors were made out of, which wasn’t clear, they were blackened but undamaged.
Izzy was thoughtful for a moment. “It looks like there is air circulation in there which is creating a pressure differential. We’re going to have a problem if the bombs can’t break the doors.”
“What can we do?”
“Might be easier to break the doors if we can blow them outward.”
“How do we do that from out here?”
“Something similar to what we did at the walled city.”
Izzy went up to the doors with a bomb. When the door breathed out just a bit, he tucked the bomb in carefully so that the rock chamber was under the door and just a bit behind it. It caught and further breathing of the door was not dislodging it.
Izzy walked back to where we were and took his bow off his back, slung it and pulled an arrow with a rock arrowhead. Izzy was wiry and it was easy to miss how strong he was until he pulled back a bow and all of his arm and chest muscles rolled up and drew taut. He released the shaft and it flew as if zeroed in by a guidance system. It hit the bomb between the doors. The doors blew out and now the counterpressure actually helped. They flew wildly out and one came slightly off its hinging system and hung at an angle.
“Nice work, Izzy.” Blaise grinned.
“I have no idea if they have alarms in Hell, but I’m guessing we don’t have a lot of time.” I started running for the door. The others followed me and we dashed in. Roland told his men to remain at the entrance and followed us.
The doors opened in on a hallway. Actually, it was a radial arm that led to the center of the tower, but it was completely covered over so you couldn’t see what else was in the tower. There was an archway without a door at the end that opened into a larger, more brightly lit area. As we approached the hum was getting louder and louder.
We stepped onto a large platform that was probably a circle, but the hallway made it a semicircle. There were two other radial walkways, narrower and uncovered, that went to the
outer wall at two other points. Around the outer wall was a ring of people held in place by elaborate riggings that seemed machine-like. There was a wide-eyed look of horror and pain and hopelessness on their faces, but their mouths were covered over by a gag. And then, with growing horror I saw ladders coming off the radial walkways, going down. I stepped to the railing at the edge of the circular platform we were on and looked down.
I tried to say something, but nothing came out. The others joined me and we were all paralyzed.
The row of people in those riggings around the center was just the top row. The tower continued down and into the ground opening wider and wider—how far I couldn’t even bring myself to count. The whole way down there were an uncountable number of rings of people in the rigs, all with the same wide-eyed mix of horror and hopelessness for whatever was happening to them in those rigs. There was also tubing coming in and out of the rigs and traveling up to larger tubes, which eventually seemed to head to a place in the wall opposite to and lower than the door. I was guessing they were feeding the pipe we saw exiting from the back.
“What is this?” I half-whispered.
Roland stepped up and then his face went ashen as he realized what he was looking at. “He knew.”
Izzy and Blaise turned back to the circular area.
“It’s technology on a scale we’ve never seen before,” Izzy noted.
On the circular platform was a bank of machines with control panel interfaces. It was hard to tell what kind of technology it was, just that it wasn’t made out of wood and rock and grass and clay like most everything else here. Both Izzy and Blaise walked around studying everything slowly and carefully.
The panels were a bit like any control station, with various knobs, levers and buttons. The screens, if that’s what they were, were a membrane-like material that seemed to change color in waves and occasionally tattoo-like symbols appeared on them. It gave me the creeps just to look at them, and I definitely didn’t want to touch them. These “machines” provided some of the humming. The rest was provided by whatever, far above, was creating the air circulation, the source of the air pressure differential when the doors were shut. The place was being air conditioned in some manner.