by Mark Henwick
“Should not go down like this,” Yelena ground out between clenched teeth.
“Not normally,” I said, remembering lots of flights in Ops 4-10 that had been as bad. “We hit a patch of sinking air.”
“Huh?”
Flint turned around in his seat. “It’s clear just ahead. Look over to the right at the ridge.”
We looked. The clouds were like a sea behind the ridge, spilling over and falling like a waterfall ten miles wide.
“That’s what the air is doing too,” he said. “That’s why it’s dangerous to get close to the leeward side of a mountain. Doesn’t matter how strong your engine is, if the air is sinking faster than you can climb.”
Yelena swallowed and looked out the other side as the Arapaho clawed itself out of the sinking air and bobbled upward.
There was only a blur of static on the TacNet; I’d lost contact with the colonel. I switched it off.
We turned southwest and flew back into cloud. Nothing around us but white.
There was a GPS map in the center of the console. From that, I could see Kane was heading for the Monarch Pass, at ‘only’ 11,000 feet. With a 13,000-foot peak upwind of it.
I could see him settle himself into the seat and smelled the sweat beading on his face.
Fear was good. Fear meant he knew how dangerous this was.
I wanted to touch him with eukori, help him, but I didn’t dare disturb his concentration.
The instruments were all computerized. I didn’t have the spinning dial of an altimeter to tell me we were falling steadily, but I could see the column on the display.
Flint started calling numbers in a steady voice.
He was changing the display on his side of the cockpit, and suddenly I saw he was looking at a synthetic vision image of the ground below us. I could see a road and I knew he was guiding us to land on it if we couldn’t maintain our height. Better than landing a helicopter in a tree, or on the side of a hill.
Flint’s voice slowed.
Stopped.
The image of the road on the display got smaller. The altitude started to spin the other way and my ears popped. We were through the pass and the ground was getting further away. The helicopter was flying smoothly.
“Damn,” whispered Kane.
I took a few deep breaths. Terrain here was lower by three or four thousand feet. We’d lose that and more as we climbed into the San Juan. The area we were heading for was south of an escarpment where there were half a dozen 13,000-foot peaks, and even the lakes themselves were at an altitude of 12,000 feet.
It would be thin air, churning like a washing machine. The last place we should be flying in a helicopter. The San Juan was an unforgiving place at the best of times. In winter, in bad weather...
Too late to go back, even if my oath had let me.
The clouds grew sparse as we climbed and flew southwest. The ground was hidden; it was like looking at a sea of milk, pierced at regular intervals by dark rock. It had a stark beauty that was almost hypnotic.
Apart from his spirit walk senses, I could tell that Kane was using as little magic as he could to keep us as hidden as possible from Adept eyes. He was relying more on look-down radar and terrain systems. Certainly whenever we flew into the cloud and lost all visual references.
I watched the electronic instruments.
Then suddenly, we were circling.
“Down there,” Flint said. He pointed at the map. “We can’t go all the way to the lowest one. Kane thinks that’ll be too close to the curl from the escarpment. We’re aiming for the smallest lake, the one at the top. It’s small enough it should be completely frozen over and we can land on it.”
I gave him a thumbs-up. No point landing anywhere other than the flat surface of a lake. He could hover, but he’d use a lot of fuel and it’d be a nightmare getting Tullah and the others back up into the helicopter.
We sank down into the milk.
The cloud was a layer. It was clear beneath it, about 500 feet above the top of the ground, with the lakes lower than that. The depth of snow made it nearly impossible to make anything out. I could only ‘see’ where the string of lakes and creeks were because I knew they were the lowest points between the steep sides of the valley.
If the old mill was still there, at the creek leading out of the last, biggest lake, it was the lump in the snow.
Kane turned the helicopter sharply and we swooped down right where the smallest lake was supposed to be, and then the helicopter’s nose lifted sharply.
Oh, shit!
I grabbed my seat and waited for the crash that didn’t come.
Instead, the downdraft of the rotor had half-cleared the surface of the lake, revealing it was about fifteen yards wide and maybe thirty long. Kane rocked the helicopter back and forth, and then held it right over the center to wait out the blizzard of powder that was being kicked up.
Hurry up. Put it down, I wanted to yell, but I wanted to be able to fly home even more.
He lowered us an inch at a time.
The last of the snow cleared off the ice and I couldn’t wait. I grabbed my gear and slid the door open. The ice looked good. I leaped down and it was like landing on concrete.
Yelena crunched down beside me.
As we scurried to the edge, the helicopter’s skids came to rest on the ice. It creaked, but it held.
Great job.
Now it was our turn.
Chapter 56
Kane’s part had been all about skill. Our contribution was all about brute strength and stamina.
The small lake was the highest of the chain. We had to make our way down to the lowest, through soft, powdery snow that came up to our chests.
We couldn’t just wade through it, because the more you pushed into it, the more packed it became, until it was a solid wall. So we had a choice: every step we had to sweep the bulk of it aside, or we needed to pack it down so we could walk on it.
Snowshoes would have been a great idea. We had none.
It got worse when we finally made it to the second lake. The shallowest snow was in the middle, but I could feel the ice groaning through the snow. We were forced to make our way along the edge.
Every step was a struggle. We found the best way was to pull a foot out of the snow, kick it forward and down, pack some snow underneath until it would take our weight and then switch to the other foot. Every step.
It was exhausting, even for Athanate.
Flint had joined us, and we took turns leading.
Somewhere near the end of the second lake, where it would flow into a stream that ran into the third, we stopped to rest.
From there, we could look down to the third lake and the creek beyond it.
There was no visible movement from the lump I believed to be the mill.
Did that mean Tullah wasn’t here?
What would I have done, if I’d been hiding in the mill and had heard a helicopter?
I’d have come out, but that didn’t mean Tullah would.
My wolf eyes couldn’t see any sign of warmth. Yelena had an IR scope on her MP5, and she was checking for the same thing without any luck.
“You sure, Boss?” she said.
“Sure? No. But she could have some kind of working that hides the heat.”
Despite my words, I was starting to think we’d come all this way for a ghost.
“I’ll lead for a while,” Flint said and began to squeeze past.
He stopped, mid-step, and raised his head.
I listened. Apart from the wind, our panting and the thudding of our hearts, there didn’t seem to be anything.
Wrong sense.
I felt it then. A shiver. The slightest touch of magic.
“Tullah’s magic leaking?” I said.
Flint looked worried. “No. Lots of Adepts. Structured. Complex working. Not far away. Come on, we’d better hurry.”
He started attacking the snow in front of us, desperately packing it down to force a way through. It was e
ven deeper here than on the second lake. Again, we had to take a curved route to keep away from the weak ice in the middle.
“Can you use a working on this?” I said. “Freeze the snow so we can walk on top?”
“Yes,” he panted. “But if they’re hunting for magic, they’ll sense that right away.”
Stupid question.
He was right. The use of magic would be exactly what they were looking for.
A third of the way across the lake, Yelena took over from Flint, while I longed for a flame thrower.
All the time, the skin-tingling sense of magic was growing.
We were no more than a hundred yards from the mill, but we couldn’t move any faster.
Yelena found a section where the snow was shallower in the lee of the steep valley slope. It wasn’t exactly straight, but it was quicker, and as we rose, I could see down to where I thought the mill was.
Still nothing moved there.
Beyond the mill, to the right, I had a clear view north all the way to the ragged escarpment, about a half-mile away as the crow flies.
The wind was picking up and cloud flowed in silky white banners, over the high ridges of the escarpment and down towards us. It was eerily beautiful and frightening at the same time.
It seemed to be funneled at the midpoint of the range. The cloud grew quicker there. It swelled up and the streamers it put out didn’t remind me of banners so much as reaching arms.
Flint stumbled and stopped.
“That’s not normal cloud,” he said. “That’s the physical effect of a substantiation. A huge one.”
Yelena redoubled her efforts, but it was as if we were moving in slow motion while the substantiation cloud swelled and began to pour over the escarpment.
“They know where we are,” Flint said. “No point hiding anymore. I’m going to use a working.”
He hauled Yelena back and knelt to thrust his hands into the snow.
There was a crackling noise like tiny firecrackers going off. The snow in a direct line to the mill shrunk and sank down, creating a path which took on the sheen of ice.
“Go,” Flint said, still kneeling.
Yelena leaped over him, up onto the path.
It was ice, and the first thing she did was fall over as her feet slid out.
There was suddenly a heat signature from the buried mill. Someone was digging their way out.
I followed Yelena, slipping as she had.
The cloud no longer looked anything like a cloud. It was a swirling mass. A dark growth on the front formed and then shot upwards. It arced down toward us, trailing cloud in its wake like a rocket. When it hit to my right, at the top of the side of the valley, the snow exploded outwards. For a moment I thought it was some kind of magical mortar bomb, but as the wind began to whip the cloud of snow away, I could see the outline of a man, crouched down and aiming something at Yelena.
“Yelena!” I shouted. “On your right! Rifle!”
She looked, lost her footing and slipped.
There was a sharp crack.
I had no idea where the round went, but as long as it hadn’t hit Yelena, it was good.
I pulled my MP5 into my shoulder, sighted. Uphill, only about eighty yards. Too short to bother adjusting for wind.
He was moving... turning...
Focus.
I squeezed the trigger.
Hit him high. Good enough. He spun around and fell backward.
“Left side!” Yelena yelled.
She pointed up at the opposite side of the valley. Another of the magical paratroopers had appeared there. He was smarter, hiding behind rocks and shooting at me.
We had no cover, no place to hide, other than burrowing into the snow.
I steadied myself and lined him up.
Three quick shots. I didn’t have enough of him to aim for, but I got close enough to make him duck out of sight.
I slipped and slithered down after Yelena while he was hiding.
In the seconds I had looked away, the cloud-thing had come so damned close. It seemed to fill half the sky.
It threw out another man with a rifle, back on the right side of the valley. He didn’t start shooting immediately, but in a moment we’d be caught in the crossfire with no cover.
“One each,” Yelena shouted, firing her MP5 up at the one on the left.
I fired where I thought the one on the right would stick his head up.
Flint arrived, sliding on his belly.
“Can you shoot?”
“Tried once. Missed a barn from the inside,” he said.
I looked at the cloud. Too close. Another minute and it’d be at the mill.
No other choice.
I thrust the MP5 into his hands. “Point it up there and pull the trigger anytime something moves,” I said.
I started to run as fast as I could on the slippery path.
If that cloud reached the mill with Tullah still inside, I’d lose her.
There was a movement ahead.
“Amber! Amber, help!”
It was Tullah. She came up out of the snow like a drowning swimmer.
Flint’s ice bridge hadn’t reached all the way, and there was no time.
No time.
I slipped and fell.
She disappeared into the snow. It was even deeper around the old mill.
I got up and ran again.
There were shots from behind me. A round went wheep past my head. Another.
No time.
The cloud loomed over the mill. Swallowed it.
Tullah clawed her way out of the snow and onto the ice path. She started to run, legs pumping, arms flailing to stay balanced, and her black hair whipping like a flag behind her.
The cloud billowed around both of us. I couldn’t even see the icy path beneath my feet.
Sweat froze instantly on my forehead.
“Amber!”
I couldn’t see her.
“Tullah! Keep moving. Here! To my voice.”
The inside of the cloud stung like ice in a blizzard. There were shapes moving inside it. Shadows. I stumbled, slipped, righted myself.
“Tullah!” I screamed.
Nothing. Darker and darker. No light. No sound, not even the wind. Nothing but pain.
I could feel the cloud now, as a creature. Feel the strength in it. The taste of many minds, merging into a great machine. A machine which rolled forwards, crushing, unstoppable, uncaring.
Too strong.
Weaver. I could sense him in the fog. I lashed out, but there was nothing to hit, nothing to grab.
The world went pale again, turned upside down. I saw a flash of sky, immediately blotted out. The fog around me flared and flickered with lightning. My skin crawled with the feeling of magic.
It wasn’t one substantiation any more.
Two? Three?
Fighting. They clashed and I was caught in the center.
A rescue?
The original substantiation, Weaver’s, was stronger, better prepared, but unwilling to fight. I could feel the changes inside, the sense of withdrawal.
A moment’s hesitation.
That’s all it had taken for Flint and Kane to break the Hecate’s substantiation back in Denver. But they knew what they were doing.
What could I do?
My strength was my anger. Speaks-to-wolves had told me that. It was all I had.
Don’t think of the physical world. Don’t lash out. This isn’t a place for strength of body, but strength of purpose, focus...
The darkness stirred within me.
Ash.
I’d defeated Matlal because he’d built a channel, a way of touching me with eukori, and I’d been able to direct my anger back down that channel. These substantiations... were they the same?
I sensed targets in the roiling fog around me.
Lightning burst overhead. I caught a searing image of all of us, swimming in the fog.
Weaver. Tullah. Tara...
Tara! Hana!
<
br /> Gwen!
An Adept. From the Empire of Heaven. I recognized him from the Assembly in LA.
Another. Wrapped in a bloody skin, wearing a horrifying golden Aztec mask. From Matlal.
The power inside me could not be stopped now. It was bursting out.
It was as much as I could do to hold it back from Tullah, from Hana and Tara. And from Gwen.
I screamed as it flowed through me.
Lit them up.
Broke them apart.
One last explosion of pain and I was thrown backwards. I was a hundred feet in the air, above the snowy lakes hidden in the San Juan. I had a moment to grasp how utterly I’d been defeated before all the substantiations snapped away and fled, thrashing like snakes.
Taking Tullah and Tara and Hana.
Weaver had them.
I’d been betrayed. Doubly betrayed. The Hecate hadn’t arrived like the cavalry to rescue me. In that last instant, as I’d fought Weaver with the power I hadn’t wanted to use, the power that could have dissolved his substantiation around him, she’d protected him.
Tullah was beyond my reach, and Tara and Hana were gone too.
And then I fell, down, down to the deep, cold embrace of the powdery snow.
Chapter 57
“I’m fine.”
Lie.
The dungeon was quiet: it had the choking stillness of a funeral after I finished my summary of what had happened in the San Juan.
After Tullah had been taken, Flint had dug me out of the twelve-foot snowdrift I’d fallen into and Yelena had captured the Adepts that Weaver had abandoned.
There’d been nothing else at the mill. No sign of anyone but Tullah.
The substantiations had all disappeared. The clouds in the sky were just clouds.
Kane had flown into Telluride and persuaded them to refuel the helicopter.
Then he’d returned to take us and the captives back to Denver by the safer southern route. The long way back. That gave me too much time to think.
I’d barely spoken till I got back to Haven and met the others in the dungeon.
“The Northern Adept League betrayed us,” I said to break the silence. “Maybe not the whole League was in on it, but certainly the Hecate. She was there. When I saw her in the substantiations, I thought she’d come to try and rescue me, but she was there with Weaver. She protected him. I saw it.”