“You’re scaring the child,” the Magus said.
“I’m scaring him?” Nicky was crying. Head down, tears dripping onto the sand. Lloyd lunged towards the helpless little figure, and the Magus blocked his way.
“You’ve not even changed his fucking nappy.”
“It matters not,” the Magus said, wearily.
A spike of cold horror pierced Lloyd like a nail driven down through the top of his head. “What are they going to do with him?”
“That is none of your concern, nor mine.”
Atrocious visions thrust themselves into Lloyd’s brain. With an immense effort he stopped himself from making another lunge for the child. The Magus was faster than him, thanks to years of beer and Dunhills.
Breathing hard, Lloyd said cunningly, “What’ve they offered you for him?”
“He is theirs already, gifted and paid for.”
“Aye, but there’s got to be a finder’s fee.”
The Magus had gone back to looking like a rock again. Remotely, he said, “They have promised to give me Earth.”
“And you believe that? Jesus, how can you be so gullible?”
“They do not lie.”
“No, but it’s what they’re not saying. They can promise to give you Earth, but that won’t matter when they have their own chemical mages, wired to obey them—human Walking Guns, making cannon fodder by the millions, to conquer the galaxy in the Gray Emperor’s name. And you’ll have one wee planet in the ass-end of the Orion Arm.”
“Earth is all I ever wanted,” the Magus said.
Lloyd felt the same way. But he said, “You’ve not got very grand ambitions for a two-thousand-year-old druid.”
The rock shrugged.
“Look, can I change his nappy at least?”
A moment passed. The rock breathed. Lloyd sweated.
At last the Magus said, “I’ll have hold of you all the time, and if you flit, I shall be with you, and then I will tear your body into a thousand pieces and scatter them into the void.”
“I’ve got no doubt of it.”
Lloyd swiftly crossed the sand to the weeping toddler. Nicky stumbled into his grandfather’s arms, bawling. For a long, sweet minute they just hugged each other, Lloyd on his knees, the boy folded against his chest, and the Magus’s long index finger digging into the side of his neck like a bone fish-hook.
At last he said, “Let’s get you clean, wee lad.” He knew where the nappies and the wipes were at home. One of the few things Colm had done that was actually useful was to bring the world’s supply of disposable nappies to the Free Church Manse. Before that Meg and Axel had been using tea towels and washing them. Lloyd fetched the stuff, pulled off Nicky’s nappy, and wiped his bottom. He put a clean nappy on the boy and then spent a long time bundling up the dirty one. Nicky had done a number 2.
The world that Lloyd had named Faerieland was a thin crust atop an underground cluster of machines, all pulsating with power. The sentrienza lived down there in the dark. They would come up only at twilight—like rabbits, Lloyd thought. Down there in their warrens. Smart rabbits, masters of all the technology under the sun. Except magic. That was the only thing they couldn’t do, because they simply weren’t built for it, any more than a rabbit can play the guitar. But they had air machines down there and water machines, boring and tunneling machines and gravity machines and computers out the arse. They’d made this heimdall thing from raw materials and they’d put a drive on it. That crater on the far side was a spaceship engine the size of a continent, so the heimdall could boost itself into a different orbit if necessary. Lloyd, however, didn’t care what all the machines were for. It only mattered to him that they were brimming with power.
Humming to himself, he fetched copies of Nicky’s dirty nappy into every machine he could find. Computer? Have a sopping clout right in your works. Generator? Ditto. Baby poop and wet recycled hemp padding landed on live circuits and squashed themselves into compartments full of sensitive electronic components. Short-circuits multiplied. Fires started. Alarms sounded. Lloyd picked up the pace, one hand resting on Mickle’s back, the other kneading the bundled-up nappy. Nicky, watching, grinned as if he sensed what his grandfather was up to.
“What are you doing?” the Magus said.
“Just giving them a few little presents from Earth.” Kill all the computers. That’d disable whatever guns they’d got, and then Colm’d be able to land the spaceship. That was Lloyd’s plan.
But as the words left his mouth, the breakwater moved. Those black rocks grew heads. Angular bodies reared out of the waves, howling. They were not rocks but Walking Guns. They splashed to shore and ringed the three humans, their eyeless snouts raised to the sky. Their moaning howls seemed to resonate with the very tissues of Lloyd’s brain, scrambling his thoughts, forcing him to stop his magical mischief. He clutched his head and groaned in agony.
That went on for a few minutes and then a sentrienza ship fell out of the sky like a fiery thumbtack. It struck the beach a quarter mile away. Battlesuited sentrienza jogged down the beach to the humans, the Walking Guns slinking around their legs.
“Get up, humans,” a blank faceplate buzzed. “The Gray Emperor has deigned to take an interest in you.”
“That,” Lloyd muttered, “sounds very bad.”
CHAPTER 46
AXEL REACHED DRUMNADROCHIT IN the afternoon. The small town was a bleak, abandoned knot of streets around a castle. A few Ghosts shot at him from the castle’s parapets, but their bullets bounced harmlessly off his battlesuit. He jogged on. As long as he kept moving, he didn’t have to think about all he’d left behind at the Free Church Manse.
But when he reached the shore of Loch Ness he had to stop and think about why he was here.
Dryjon Lizp had spoken of this place. The Ridge on the Bridge, with an echo that said Drumnadrochit.
Axel had to concentrate hard to remember her exact words. He sat on the edge of a wooden jetty with boats tied up at it—Nessie Hunter, Braveheart II—and sorted through his jumbled memories of Atletis … no, not his memories. The men who’d had those experiences were either dead, or not him anymore. But wearing the battlesuit, he felt close to them again, and he remembered Innismon. A 150-foot rocket standing in the middle of a medieval village. Benches and tables set out on the green. The lords and ladies of Kisperet drinking to their victory, while the slaves—including him—waited patiently for the leftovers. So fucked-up.
And yet he was fucked up, too, because he missed it. He missed the place where he had experienced the bloody highs and despairing lows of battle, all without the responsibility of looking after other people, because he was just a slave. Just a thousand slaves. One for all and all for one … and that one, the one who made the tactical decisions, was not him. It was Colm Mackenzie.
And there Colm was, seated in the best chair, wearing the ruffles and the cloak and the jewellery of a Ghost, and the sword to go with it. Like Colm would know how to use a sword if you gave him a manual with numbered steps. Everyone complimented and flattered him, and now he got up on the table, swaying back and forth, stepping in a pie dish, to deliver a toast, all about how much he loved them (but what he meant was that he loved Diejen Lizp) and how sad he’d be to leave them. Drugged up to his eyeballs, as usual. “I love you guys …” and not a word about the slaves watching from their places on the grass, who had actually won the war.
Except they hadn’t won the war. Because now Colm stumbled away from the feast. He never noticed the Marines following him. You made surprisingly little noise in a battlesuit, if you knew what you were doing. Colm cursed weepily to himself and sat down behind a hedge, and Axel hid in the trees. And after a little while Diejen Lizp came and started to work on him, while her brother concealed himself on the other side of the hedge. Diejen knew exactly what Colm wanted, it was obvious. It was also obvious (to Axel, watching stonily from the treeline) that she had no intention of giving it to him.
And then Colm did his vanish
ing act. And people accused Axel of bailing on difficult situations.
After Colm was gone Dryjon talked for a long time about our ancestral home, while Diejen harped on about the old ways, and Dhjerga spluttered about our obligations, and the upshot was they went away. All of them went away, leaving Lady Terrious and one of her daughters in charge of the slaves. The war was over as far as the Terrious women were concerned. They set the slaves to work clearing the forest, planting crops, and exploring upstream to look for a river worthy of damming, and they fetched women from Kisperet so that the new freemen could have wives and one day children … and Axel wished to fuck he was still there, with that cheerful little brunette he had not had time to get to know properly, instead of sitting on a Scottish jetty, bereft of everything that had meant anything to him.
But.
The Ridge of the Bridge.
Drumnadrochit.
Scota’s grave lies beneath the Ridge of the Bridge.
And this Scota had been the Magus’s true love.
Didn’t it make sense that the Magus would have taken Nicky to her grave? As a tribute, or … a sacrifice?
Colm may have contributed a casual spurt of jism, but Nicky was Axel’s child. He was going to rescue him … or die trying.
He pushed to his feet. The weight of his battlesuit made the jetty creak. It had been Marines who won the war on Atletis, not mages. and it would be a Marine, not a mage, who finished it here on Earth.
He clomped out to Braveheart II. He was in luck: the boat had a solar array on the roof of its cabin, which continually charged its fuel cell. The Ghosts had either not bothered with this particular power source or, more likely, they were wary of this place. Axel knew how they felt. Steep green hills fell to grey water. Evening shadows had already begun to slither across the loch. It was eerily quiet.
Universal connectors were a thing, so he charged his suit from the boat’s fuel cell. While the juice meter ticked up, he ate a canned bacon sandwich he found in the boat’s snack box. Yes, a canned bacon sandwich. Freaking Scotland. It was actually better than it sounded, so he had another one. He might not get the chance to eat again for a while.
Suit power: 100%.
Air supply: 100%.
Time to go.
He’d left enough power in the fuel cell to start the boat’s engine. To someone with experience piloting spaceships, this vessel was as easy to handle as a child’s tricycle. He piloted it out into the middle of the loch and then headed south, following the shoreline, until the power gave out. By now the sky was lavender and bats darted through the air.
Axel climbed up on the prow.
If a Marine battlesuit could stand up to outer space, it could definitely stand up to a bit of water.
He sealed his helmet and jumped.
CHAPTER 47
MEG DROVE A 10-TONNE truck cautiously down the winding road from Drumnadrochit to the shore. She and Dhjerga had found the truck on the pier at Kyle of Lochalsh, being recharged by beamed power from some still-functioning orbital solar array. As recently as last month, Meg wouldn’t have dared go near an electric truck, much less drive it across Scotland. But Dhjerga said it was safe. There were no Magistocracy loyalists left alive to exploit power sources. “I killed them all,” he stated flatly. “Gaethla was the last one.” Anyway, no Ghosts popped out of the truck’s engine compartment on their way to Loch Ness.
When they passed through towns and villages, Ghosts had taken pot-shots at the truck, sure. Ghosts gotta Ghost. Meg had laid the hurt on them with the Gauss, per SOP. In other places, Dhjerga had restrained her from shooting at Ghosts ploughing the fields, or herding sheep. “They’re coming back to themselves,” he had said. “Look. That one there, that’s not a Ghost, that’s a local.”
“They’re mixing with us?!” Meg had said in outrage. “How can people stand it? The Ghosts invaded Earth!”
Looking pained, Dhjerga had said, “They’re often quite nice when they come to themselves.”
Meg had said nothing to that, but she’d quit spraying bullets at random Ghosts. She would save her ammo for the Magus.
Now, here they were. She parked in front of a ticky-tacky visitor center whose sign said Loch Ness Monster Hunter Cruises. They got out. No sign of hostiles. No sign of life at all.
The windows of the visitor center were broken. A single boat bobbed at a wooden jetty sticking out into the loch.
“We didn’t start our cruise from here,” Meg said, recalling that long-ago holiday. “We started from Fort Augustus. I think. It shouldn’t make any difference. All these boats have sonar imaging equipment.”
“Ye gods, please no, not another boat,” Dhjerga said.
“Fucking man up,” Meg said. She went into the visitor center. She was hoping for scuba equipment. She turned the place upside down and was going through stacks of life vests, hope fading by the minute, when she heard Dhjerga coming into the visitor center.
She rose to her feet as he entered the room. He was a homely guy, with his sticky-out brown hair and big nose, and now a fading goose egg on his forehead, thanks to Meg herself. His physique would put a Marine to shame. He carried his Gauss like it was made of balsa wood. His weird illness had not left any physical traces. But ever since he recovered, or Daisy healed him, or a miracle happened, or whatever, he had had an oddly uncertain manner.
Now that air of uncertainty was gone. He was grinning the same grin that used to creep her the hell out when they worked together on Juradis. “Any luck?” he said.
“No,” she said tiredly.
“You were right,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I manned up. I took these pills.” He opened his fist. The blisterpack of tropo she’d given him for his head. Two pills were missing. “It works! I fetched this from Skye as a test.” He took a handheld computer out of the pocket of his jacket. It was a flimsy little thing, solar-powered, that Roger Wilson played solitaire and chess on.
But a cheap computer wasn’t what they needed now. Meg returned his grin, a mere spasm of her facial muscles. “Great. Can you fetch us some scuba equipment?”
“I understand now why Colm was such a fiend for this stuff! It’s better than eating doire leaves.”
“Yeah, but watch out for the crash.”
“I feel like a warrior again.”
“I’m happy for you. Now, scuba equipment? Do you know what that is? Probably not. It’s for diving underwater—”
“We won’t need that. We can travel like human beings now. No more trucks, or boats, or your ‘scuba.’”
“Are you talking about flitting?” Meg flinched. But this was for Nicky. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.
Dhjerga nodded. “Give me your hand.”
“Hold on … Where are we flitting to?”
Dhjerga’s grin broadened. “You were right. There are caves … and there is something drawing power down there. I can feel it, deep below our feet. It must be the Magus’s lair. We will surprise him.”
Meg swallowed. She involuntarily looked down at the mouldy carpet tiles between her boots. “I’m gonna take my gun, ‘kay? I can do that?”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to leave it.”
She had brought her Gauss in with her. She picked it up. She looked into Dhjerga’s eyes and slowly placed her hand in his.
Me, a mage?
Ki ga tsuyoi. That’s what Mom used to say about me. Your ki is strong. She meant, why can’t you act more like a girl sometimes?
Sorry, Mom.
You left me, but I’m not like you. I’m not going to leave my child on his own. Wherever he is, I’ll—
OW OW OW—
She crumpled, screaming. Her body felt like it had been pulled apart and put back together wrong. Her prosthetic arm felt different, prickly, like the neural feedback electronics had gone screwy. And her eyes weren’t working. She couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Dhjerga! Dhjerga!”
A lighter rasped. Dhjerga’s face,
spookily lit from below, emerged from the darkness. Her eyes were OK. There just wasn’t any light. As in, none at all. Tar soup.
Well; caves. Duh.
“Shit,” she muttered, flexing the fingers of her prosthetic around the stock of the Gauss. “And I thought childbirth hurt.”
“You get used to it,” Dhjerga said. He was waving the lighter around. Wet rock walls. Tumbled boulders. They seemed to be in a cavern about the size of a small car. “So where’s this power source?” he muttered.
The lighter gleamed on curved steel armor. Meg whipped her gun up, and a second later lowered it again.
A Marine battlesuit lay on the floor.
It was empty.
CHAPTER 48
AXEL HAD HAD TO take his battlesuit off to fit through the last crevice. It was such a tight squeeze that he left some skin on the glacially smoothed granite. Now he was barefoot, in a ripped t-shirt and tighty whities, wet with sweat and the moisture that clung to the walls. It was cold down here. At least the physical exertion was keeping him warm.
The battlesuit’s helmet lamp could be detached—the Fleet thinks of everything!—so he had that on his forehead now. The elastic strap dug into the soft skin behind his ears. He also had his combi. He poked it ahead of him every time he came to a blind corner.
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