Father Herve made a three-fingered gesture once, twice, three times. Now he could see the blue and red light radiating from the heretic on the table. As he suspected, Francois was a stormer. That explained his ability to continue to use modern machinery even though the reality of Magna Verita had replaced that of Core Earth. He could feel energy, as heat, surrounding the stormer. So much power! Some of it was his for the taking, and the rest belonged to the land, for High Lord Jean Malraux to take for his own when he descended. And he was coming soon, so soon.
Herve invoked the miracle that would empty this vessel of its possibilities, sending some into the priest and the rest to the hidden stelae spread throughout the land. With each word of the prayer, he felt the energy
flow out of the stormer in waves. It was as refreshing as water from a cold spring, as nourishing as a mother's milk. And Herve drank in as much as he could.
Father Herve felt himself practically begin to glow with the joy of it, and he laughed long and loud just as
francois screamed. The tortured man's wail took a long, long time to die away.
Claudine Guerault closed her eyes, but she couldn't block out the sound of the man's scream. What had that priest done to him? She had no idea, but she knew that it was awful. Then, before the man's cry died away completely, she ran back into the far reaches of the basement. Back there, in the darkness, she could hide Irom the priest and his inquisitors. She could remain free.
35
"Good job," Bryce said casually to Mara, but the screeching noise from the undercarriage striking the tarmac was just now beginning to die away in his ears. Still, she had brought the plane down safely and more or less intact. He winced as Tolwyn probed the flesh of his right arm where the banshee had touched him.
"I am sorry, Christopher," Tolwyn said. "But we must see how badly you have been hurt."
He watched as she examined his arm. It was still numb, but the cold was lessening. The skin where he had been touched was white and bloodless, like the skin of a corpse. The dead patch was the size of a baseball, and around it the skin was black and blue.
"The banshees must have drifted across from Orrorsh," Kurst said matter-of-factly. "I do not think
they were sent after us in particular. We were just the luck of the draw."
"Luck," Mara muttered. "I don't believe in luck."
"We will encounter worse creatures as we get closer to the Gaunt Man's domain," Kurst continued. "And once we enter the dark realm, the nightmares shall truly begin."
Tolwyn finished her examination and gestured for the priest to put his shirt back on. "I can dress normal battle wounds, Christopher, but that wound is not from a normal battle. If I were a priest, perhaps ..."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"In Aysle, priests can heal wounds and invoke miracles, much like you banished the banshees," she explained. "Have you tried to heal yourself?"
He looked shocked. "What kind of powers are you attributing to me? Except for rare cases, priests of Earth don't go around healing people or banishing demons."
"Why not?" Tolwyn asked, confusion clouding her features. "And you did banish the banshees."
Now it was Bryce's turn to be confused. Did she have a point? He clutched at his bruised arm as he tried to make sense of the changes in reality.
"Christopher?" Tolwyn inquired, concerned about his state of mind.
"I'm okay. Really." He rose, steadying himself against his chair. "Really," he said faintly. Static crackled over the pilot's discarded headset, startling everyone in the cockpit. It had been silent since the banshee attack, but now the noise was back. And underneath the static, a voice broke through.
"Bit of a rough time, mates," the voice said. "Welcome to Nirimba Airfield. If you're all right I suggest you get yourselves in gear and move out. That show of fancy flying scraped your undercarriage pretty badly. Looks to me like you're leaking fuel."
"Triple damn," Mara yelled. "Let's get out of the plane. Now."
Kurst grabbed an M-16 from the plane's store and headed for the exit.
"Can we at least get ourselves organized here?"
Bryce asked impatiently. "There's gear to unload, there's
//
"Now!" Mara shouted, her voice snapping with command. "A fuel leak means the possibility of explosion. We'll get the gear later, if the plane doesn't go up in flames. Let's move!"
It was a credit to the group that when necessity demanded they moved together well, with little wasted motion in the cramped confines of the plane's interior. Tolwyn shot Bryce a glance and he detoured to pick up the pack containing the Heart of Coyote. Kurst, too, watched the priest's actions carefully. What are you all about, Mr. Kurst, he wondered. But the thought was fleeting as he followed the others off the plane.
36
It was like listening to a storm that moved closer and closer so that the thunder was a continuous roll. It was like the constant wash of the sea on the shore, only deeper in pitch and more powerful. It was like the bass line of a church organ playing Handel's Messiah on a long, extended note. It was like all of these things, and none of them. It was the sound of action — every last tank, every last APC, every last vehicle the army had in this area converging on one strategic point. On the other side of the storm front that formed the current battle line, lizard men and dinosaurs converged as well.
Lieutenant Charles Covent knew that when it was over, only one side would be in any shape to fight again.
His radio crackled, and he answered in the brisk code of the U.S. military. He always imagined himself as part of the most powerful fighting force on the face of the Earth, but they found themselves helpless before the spears and unexplainable magic the primitive invaders possessed. Even their own weapons refused to work at critical times, and that scared Covent more than he dared admit.
"Disperse your unit and begin choosing fire alleys, Blue Leader," Red Leader ordered over the radio. Covent complied, dispatching the lead squad with a few practiced sentences. Men leaped from the back of an armored vehicle and crunched off across the scrub in tight, precise formation. Then they scattered for cover. Faintly, over the now-muted roar of the other vehicles, Covent could hear the clatter of last-minute checks on personal weaponry. He counted off twelve seconds, scanned the horizon for danger, and lifted the radio to his mouth.
"Blue Four, do you copy?"
The receiver crackled. "We copy."
"Go up thirty past Blue Three, set up a kill zone stake on their mark," he said quickly.
"Confirm that, Blue Leader." The radio static died out and another squad peeled away from its vehicle, advancing quickly past the position the first squad now occupied. Satisfied, Covent looked down into the belly of his own vehicle, where his sergeant was busy with the tie-in to HQ.
"What's the word, Joey?" he asked.
"That's confirmed, HQ," Sergeant Joey Houston said into his radio. Then he looked up. "We've got us a horde coming in just where HQ said they would." He grinned a big Texas grin. "Unless there's something tricky going on, I'd say we got us a turkey shoot."
"Good, we need one," Covent muttered. He dispatched Blue Five to the left flank to set up another kill zone. "What kind of trick could they be pulling, Joey?"
"They say we're out of the Dead Ring here, that the lizards are getting overextended," Houstonsaid. "Maybe they got booby-traps rigged up to make this area go dead too, once the fighting starts."
Covent felt his nerves tingle with fear, but he held the sensation in check. The Dead Ring was what the soldiers called the three-hundred mile area around Sacramento where practically nothing high-tech worked. Like the Zone of Silence on the east coast. There had been a couple of real bad slaughters initially. Then HQ stopped ordering units across the storm front. Since then they had been holding their own; now the lizards were trying to break out.
"Hell," he said. "What kind of trap can a lizard set?"
Houston grinned at him, that funny gap-toothed smile that could l
ook so kind or so deadly. Right now, Covent wasn't sure which it was.
"Charlie," Houston laughed, "if they were plain old lizards, we wouldn't be sitting here right now."
Eyeing Houston, Covent had a sudden thought. "Listen up, Blues. I want to know about anything that looks out of place, anything ancient or primitive looking that's not connected to a lizard or a caveman. You copy that?"
He saw Houston nod in approval. He put down his radio to wait.
37
Number 3327 soaked in his private hot tub as the two young women worked the tension out of his neck and shoulders with practiced fingers. A screen on the wall flashed the news of the day, and a line running across the bottom provided the latest stock information. Kanawa Corporation stock, and all its myriad subsidiaries, was up. It was always up. That was the way of reality in the cosm of Marketplace. A gentle beep sounded at the sliding door. Information immediately flashed across the inside of the dark glasses Number 3327 always wore, relayed from sensors in the floor mat and scanners in the door frame. Number 3327 read the digital words as they appeared.
"Enter, Nagoya," he called.
Nagoya walked into the room, bowed, and sat in one of the lounge chairs beside the tub. He briefly let his eyes wander to the young women, but then snapped them back to Number 3327.
"I have returned from Earth cosm with information for you, Kanawa-sama," Nagoya began.
"Proceed," Number 3327 nodded.
"The Gaunt Man has successfully attached enough realities to Earth to circumvent the possibility of a reality backlash," Nagoya reported. "We had hoped to delay or prevent a number of realities from arriving. While Tharkold was prevented from making the connection, the Nile Empire decided to drop its bridges before the Earth could repel the other invaders."
"Mobius is a fool," Number 3327 said.
Nagoya agreed. "Still, with Orrorsh, the Living Land, Aysle, Magna Verita, and the Nile all attached to Earth, the Gaunt Man's immediate problem of handling Earth's massive energy surges has been solved. Tharkold's loss
alone was not enough to hinder his plans."
"And each of these realities are firmly established?" Number 3327 asked.
"Only Orrorsh has absolute power in its region, but the other realms are working toward that. Baruk Kaah suffered a slight setback, but Uthorion has sent him assistance. Mobius is already conquering vast areas of the planet, and France does not even realize it has been invaded."
"Of course it doesn't," Number 3327 smiled. "That is the subtlety Malraux is known for."
"Neither he nor Uthorion have descended into their respective realms yet, master."
"That is the way Malraux works, cloaking himself in the myths of his religious trappings. Uthorion is just frightened. He still hides from a meaningless threat made by an overzealous stormer."
"Kanawa-sama," Nagoya interrupted. "There is evidence that the prophecy he runs from has finally come true."
Number33271aughed. It was a brief laugh, humorless. Then he spoke. "Since we cannot stop this merger, we must find another way to profit from it. Send word to the Gaunt Man. As we have previously accepted his generous offer to share in the spoils of Earth, he can expect our realm to be established within the next few Marketplace cycles. Then see to the bridges."
Nagoya stood, bowed, and went to perform his master's bidding. Number 3327 sank back into the tub to soak.
38
The three lead squads were in position, and Covent quickly scanned the surrounding area to make sure
there was no better observation site for the command vehicle. Ahead of him was a zone of death, with sighted- in kill-stakes laid out for the gunners along the lines they were to lead the attackers through. They were outside of Little Lake, between the China Lake Naval Weapons Center on the east and Sequoia National Forest on the west. The last sighting of the enemy was due north, on the other side of the storm front. But the storm's intensity had increased, and for the last eighteen hours they could see nothing through the swirling clouds and driving rain.
"Lieutenant," Sergeant Houston called from inside the vehicle. "I've got HQ on the radio."
Covent dropped into the APC and took the headset Houston offered. He listened, nodded, said he understood, and handed the set back to the sergeant.
"What's the word, Charlie?" Houston asked curiously.
"HQ has received some reports from the east formations. The storm is clearing enough for them to see through and the lizards are gone."
"Gone? What do you mean gone?"
Covent shrugged. "Maybe they've fallen back. Who knows how a lizard thinks?"
The two men went top side and scanned the horizon with their binoculars. The storm front had calmed, and they could catch images through brief openings in the weather. The lizards, the dinosaurs, the primitive men and women — none of them were anywhere to be seen.
"What happened to the massive buildup?" Houston asked. There was an edge of panic in his voice. "That's how they increased the Dead Ring, isn't it? By sending a massive force across the storm front? So where'd they go?"
Covent tried to think the situation through. He had irders to stop the lizards from advancing, to keep them c m the other side of the storm front. But now they were );one, and not a shot had been fired.
"Hand me the map," Covent ordered.
Houston complied.
"What are you looking for, Charlie?"
"Just a hunch, Joey," Covent said, handing the map hack to his sergeant. "Get HQ back on the horn. Tell I hem we're moving out."
"What?" Houston shouted in surprise. "We don't have orders ..."
"They're trying to outflank us, Joey. If they get their lorces past the storm front, then we're going to find ourselves in another Dead Ring. Remember what happened to the National Guard units in New York? We've got to forestall that."
"But where are they going to make their move? The ••torm front cuts across the entire state."
"You've got to think like a primitive on this one, |oey," Covent said. "I think they're going to make their rush through the Sequoia National Forest."
39
Bryce and the others sat in the terminal, sipping coffee and explaining their mission to the Australian officer who had greeted them on the tarmac. At least, they explained as much of their mission as they could without getting into too great a detail. The officer, who said his name was Captain Jeremy Albury, listened without comment, as did the other people with him. When the four finished speaking (three, actually, as Kurst remained quiet throughout the exchange), Albury spoke.
"We've been asked to cooperate with you as a favor
to your government," Albury explained. "I don't know how much of your story — sketchy though it is — I believe, but we've been having troubles of our own. We've lost contact with Indonesia. There's a massive storm front surrounding the islands that we've been unable to fly through. And worse, there are reports of... things attacking people along the coast. These are damn strange times we're living in."
"We need transportation across the continent, captain," Bryce said. "And then, if possible, some kind of vehicle to get us to Borneo."
"Like a gyroplatform or a jump boat," Mara added.
"Well, yes," Albury said, throwing Mara a strange look. "Perhaps you didn't understand me. We cannot contact or get near Borneo or any of the other islands. The storms, you know."
"I'll take them," said one of the men who was with Albury. Bryce looked at the man. He was around the priest's age, but taller and in better shape. He dressed like a mannequin from a Banana Republic clothing store, but his clothes looked more functional than stylish.
"Now listen, Tom," Albury began. "I let you sit in on this because you seemed to know what was happening, but I can't just let you ..."
"Who are you?" Tolwyn asked the man, cutting off the Australian officer curtly.
"My name is Tom O'Malley, ma'am," he offered, extending his hand. "The aborigine sent me to fetch you and your companions."
; "Aborigine?" Tolwyn asked, confused.
"An aborigine is a native of this continent," Bryce explained quickly. "A black-skinned person who ..." He stopped, realizing what he just said.
"A black man? With white hair? And a missing tooth?
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