by Julian May
It was very late in the afternoon and quite hot. The space within the walled fort was deep in green shade. A smell of cooking wafted from one of the buildings, making Claude's mouth water. Another meat stew, and something like fruit pies baking. Whatever its other flaws, the Exile society certainly ate well.
Having finished her discussion, Felice crept across the crowded floor to Claude's resting place. She looked keyed up and her brown eyes were wide. She wore the sleeveless kilt-dress that was the undergarment to her hoplite armor, but had put off the rest of the uniform with the exception of the black shin guards. The bare areas of her skin were lightly sheened with perspiration.
"Wake Richard up," she whispered peremptorily.
Claude shook the shoulder of the sleeping ex-spacer. Muttering obscenities, Richard hoisted himself onto his elbows.
"We'll probably have to do it tonight," Felice said. "One of the fort people told Amerie that by tomorrow we'll be into very heavy country where this plan of mine wouldn't have much chance of working. I need open space to see what I'm doing. What I'll do is pick a time before dawn tomorrow when it's fairly dark and the bear-dogs are running on the dregs of their second wind."
"Now wait a minute," Richard protested. "Don't you think we'd better discuss this plan of yours first?"
She ignored him. "Those others, Yosh, Tat, Basil, they'll try to help us. I asked the Gypsies, but they're half crazy and won't take orders from a woman anyway. So this is what we do. After the midnight break, Richard changes places with Amerie and rides beside me."
"Come on, Felice! The guards'll spot the switch."
"You change clothes with her in the latrine."
"Not on your . . ." Richard blazed. But Felice caught him by the lapels and dragged him over the floor on his stomach until they were nose to nose.
"You shut up and listen, Captain Asshole. None of the rest of you have a hope in hell of getting out of this. Amerie pumped one of the guards after she said Mass for them this morning. These exotics have metafunctions that can zap out your brain and turn you into a lunatic or a fuckin' zombie. They can't even be killed with ordinary weapons! They've got some system for controlling their slave-cities that's almost perfect. Once we arrive at Finiah and they test me out and find I'm latent, they'll collar me or kill me and the rest of you'll be lucky to spend your lives shoveling shit in the chaliko barns. This is our chance, Richard! And you're going to do as I say!"
"Let him go, Felice," said Claude urgently. "The guards."
When she dropped him, Richard whispered, "Damn you. Felice! I didn't say I wouldn't help. But you can't treat me like a friggerty baby!"
"What else would you call a grown man who craps up his bed?" she inquired. "Who changed your dydees when you drove starships, Captain?"
Richard went white. Claude was furious. "Stop it! Both of you! . . . Richard, you were sick. A man can't help himself when he's sick. For God's sake, forget the matter. We were glad to help you. But you've got to pull yourself together now and join with the rest of us in this plan to escape. You can't let your personal feelings toward Felice wreck what may be our only chance to get out of this nightmare."
Richard glared at the little ring-hockey player, then gave her a twisted grin. "You may be the only one of us who's a match for 'em at that, sweetie-babe. Sure. I'll go along with whatever you say."
"That's fine," she told him. She reached behind the black leather of her left greave and extracted what looked like a slender golden cross. "Now the first good news is that we aren't completely weaponless . . ."
They rode away in the evening with a crescent moon shining through the cypresses. After fording the shallow tributary, the trail climbed to the Burgundian plateau and once more resumed its northerly course. Fire-beacons lit the way through deepening twilight. After a time they were able to look down on a vast heaving region of mist marking extensive swamplands where the Pliocene Saône was born from the prehistoric Lac de Bresse. The lake waters stretched northward and eastward into the distance like a sheet of black glass, drowning the entire plain below the Cote d'Or. Richard entertained the old paleontologist with descriptions of the legendary wines that would be produced in this district six million years into the future.
Later, when the stars were bright, Richard took one last sighting of Pliocene Polaris. It was the brightest star in a constellation that the two men dubbed the Big Turkey.
"That's a good job you've done," Claude said.
"The whole business may turn out to be academic if we end up dead or brain-burned . . . You think this scheme of Felice's might really work?"
"Think about this, son. Felice would be able to escape by herself fairly easily. But she's worked out this plan to give the rest of us a chance, too. You may hate the little lady's entrails, but she just might bring this thing off. I'm going to do my damnedest for her, even though I'm just an old poop one step this side of fossilization. But you're still a young man, Richard. You look like you could handle yourself in a fight. We're counting on you."
"I'm scared outa my motherin' mind," the pirate told him. "That little bitty gold knife of hers! It's nothing but a toy. How the hell am I going to do it?"
The old man said, "Try Amerie's prescription. Pray a lot."
In the forward part of the caravan, Basil the Alpinist was saluting the sinking crescent moon by playing "Au clair de la lune" on his recorder. The little butterfly dancer from Paris who rode beside him sang along. And amazingly enough, Epone herself joined in in a soprano voice of melting richness. The exotic woman continued to sing as Basil played several more songs; but when he began "Londonderry Air," one of the soldiers galloped back on his chaliko and said, "The Exalted Lady forbids the commonalty to sing that song."
The climber shrugged and put his flute away.
The butterfly dancer said, "The monster sings that song with her own words. I heard her, back at Castle Gateway on the first night that we were imprisoned. Isn't it odd that a monster should be musical? It's like a fairytale, and Epone is like a beautiful wicked witch."
"The witch may sing a different song before dawn," Felice said; but only the nun heard her.
The trail came closer and closer to the western shore of the great lake. The caravan would have to skirt it before heading east into the Belfort Gap between the Vosges highland and the Jura, which led to the valley of the Proto-Rhine. The lake waters were utterly calm, reflecting the brighter stars like an inky mirror. As the curve of the trail took them around a promontory, they saw a distant beacon reflected as well, a streak of orange stabbing toward them across a broad bay. "Look, not one fire but two." Felice's voice held a note of anxiety. "Now what the devil do you suppose that means?"
One of the soldiers from the rear of the caravan galloped past them to confer with Captal Waldemar, then returned to his position. The chalikos slowed to a walk and finally halted altogether. Epone and Waldemar rode off the trail to the top of a small rise where they could survey the lake.
Felice gently pounded one fist into the palm of her other hand and whispered, "Shit shit shit."
"There's something out there on the water," said Amerie.
A light mist filmed the reaches of the bay. One part of it seemed to thicken and grow bright as they watched, then break into four separate, dimly shining masses, fuzzy and amorphous. As the will-o'-the-wisps approached, they grew larger and glowed in color, one faintly blue, another pale gold, and two deep red. They bounced up and down as they followed a devious path over the water to a place not far offshore from the halted caravan.
"Les lutins," said the butterfly dancer, her voice rough with fear.
The central portion of each mass now revealed a form suspended within the glow, rounded bodies with dangling appendages that flexed. They were at least twice as tall as a humanbeing.
"Why, they look just like giant spiders!" whispered Amerie.
"Les lutins araignees," the dancer repeated. "My old Grandmere told me the ancient tales. They are shape-shifters."
The Tanu woman had risen in her stirrups so that she stood high above the back of her motionless white chaliko. The hood of her cloak dropped so that her hair was luminous in the multihued light radiating from the things out on the lake. She placed both hands at her neck and cried out a single word in the exotic language.
The flame-spiders elevated their abdomens at her. Filaments of purple light rocketed toward Epone and over the heads of the prisoners. The people exclaimed in wonderment, hardly conscious of fear. The episode was so bizarre that it seemed like a light-show performance.
The bright webbing never reached the ground. As it shimmered above them, it began shattering into a myriad of glittering fragments like dying fireworks. The outer edges of the individual spiders' haloes started to disintegrate in the same coruscating fashion, enveloping the phantoms in a cloud of swirling sparks. The glowing spiders became krakens with writhing tentacles, then monstrous disembodied human heads with Medusa hair and fiery eyes, and finally featureless balls that dwindled, dimmed, and winked out.
Only stars and the beacon fires gleamed on the lake.
Epone and the captal rode back to the trail and resumed their places at the head of the procession. The chalikos snorted and whiffled and set out again at their usual trot. One of the soldiers said something to a prisoner at the head of the column, and the word passed slowly back.
"Firvulag. Those were Firvulag."
"It was an illusion," Felice insisted. "But something sure as hell caused it. Something that doesn't like the Tanu any more than we do. That's very interesting."
"Does this mean you'll have to change your plan?" Amerie-asked.
"Not bloody likely. It may even help. If the guards are on the lookout for ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties, they'll pay less attention to us."
The cavalcade came around the bay to the place of the double beacon, where the prisoners entered another fort for the midnight rest. Felice dismounted quickly and came to assist all three of her friends, and several other riders as well. And later, when it was time to climb back into the saddle, she was there again to help the tired people fit their feet into the stirrups just before the soldiers came around to lock on the bronze ankle chains with their enveloping leather sleeves.
"Sister Amerie isn't feeling well," the little athlete told the guard who locked her onto her own beast. "Those strange creatures out on the lake gave her a bad turn."
"Don't you worry about the Firvulag, Sister," the man told the veiled, drooping rider. "There's no way they can get you as long as the Exalted Lady is with us. She's tops as a coercer. You just ride easy."
"Bless you," came a whisper.
When the soldier moved away to tend to Basil and the dancer, Felice said, "You just try to go to sleep, Sister. That's the best thing for nerves." In a lower tone she added, "And keep your cunnilingin' trap shut like I told you!"
The poor sick nun invited Felice to take an unlikely anatomical excursion.
They went on, following the shore but still trending northward. After an hour had passed, Claude said, "I'm free. How about you, Amerie?"
The rider beside him was incongruously garbed in a star-ship captain's coverall and a wide-brimmed black hat with dark plumes. "My chains are broken. What an incredible child Felice is! But I can understand why she was ostracized by the other ring-hockey players. It's too freakish, all that strength in such a doll-like body."
"Her physical strength is something the others could live with," Claude said, leaving it at that.
Presently, Amerie asked, "How many people did she set free?"
"The two Japanese riding behind her. Basil, the fellow in the Tyrolean hat. And that poor medievalist knight, Dougal, just ahead of Basil. Dougal doesn't know that his chains have been weakened enough to be broken. Felice didn't think he was stable enough to let in on the scheme. But when the thing starts we might get him to break loose and help. Lord knows he's big and strong looking, and maybe he hates Epone enough to snap out of his funk when he sees others in action."
"I hope Richard will be all right."
"Don't worry. I think he's ready to do his part, if only to show Felice that she's not the only one with balls."
The nun laughed. "What a collection we are! Exiles and losers all. We got just what we deserved, running away from our responsibilities. Look at me. A lot of people needed my ministry. But I had to brood and maunder about my own precious spirituality instead of getting on with my job . . . You know, Claude, most of last night was hell for me. There's something about riding that hits me in the worst way. And while I was hurting, I found I was shrinking myself. I think I finally understand the reasons why I got into this mess. Not just coming to Exile, the whole thing."
The old man said nothing. "I think you figured it out, too, Claude. Quite a while ago."
"Well, yes," he admitted. "When we talked about your childhood that day on the mountain. But you had to find it out for yourself."
She said softly, "The firstborn daughter with the Little Mama thing in the warm Italianate family. The hard-working professional parents depending on her to help raise the cute little brothers. She loving to do it, power-tripping on the responsibility. Then the family gets ready to emigrate to a new world. Exciting! But the daughter screws up by straining some muscles and then breaking her leg in a fall.
". . . But just one short week in the tank, dear, and you can come out to us on the next ship. Hurry and get well, Annamaria. We're going to need your help more than ever on Multnomah, big girl!
"And you hurried. But by the time you were well they were all dead, killed in a translational malfunction of their star-ship. So what could you do but atone? Try through all the years to show them you were sorry that you had not died along with them. Dedicate yourself to easing the passing of others as you were not able to ease theirs . . .
"But fighting it at the same time, Claude. I realize that now. I wasn't really a morbid person and I was glad to be alive and not dead. But that old guilt never let me go, even though it was so well sublimated in my vocation that I didn't realize how it was undermining me. I went along for years doing work that was very hard and refusing to take holidays or sabbaticals the way the others did. There was always a case that needed my special help and I was always strong enough to give it. But in the end it all became a sham. The demons weren't exorcized any more. The emotional fatigue of the job and the buried guilt all mingled and became unbearable."
The old man's voice was compassionate. "So when the contemplative orders justifiably turned you down, you scratched around and found what looked like an even better form of atonement . . . Can't you see that you haven't loved yourself enough, Amerie? This hermitage-in-Exile idea was the ultimate chair in a corner facing the wall."
Her head was averted from him so that the broad-brimmed hat hid her face. She said, "So the Exile anchoress turns out to be just as much of a fraud as the ministering nun in the hospice for the dying."
"That last bit isn't true!" Claude snapped. "Gen didn't think so and neither did I. And neither did the hundreds of other suffering people you helped. For God's sake, Amerie, try to keep a perspective! Every human being has deep motives as well as superficial ones. But the motivation doesn't invalidate the objective good we do."
"You want me to get on with my life and quit picking scabs. But, Claude, I can't go back now, even though I know the choice was wrong. I have nothing left."
"If you've got any faith remaining at all, why not believe that you're here for a reason?"
She gave him a crooked smile. "It's an interesting idea. Suppose I spend the rest of the night meditating on it."
"Good girl. I have a feeling you won't have much time for meditation later on, if Felice's plan works out . . . I tell you what. You meditate and I'll snooze, and we'll both do ourselves good. Wake me as soon as Basil starts playing the signal. It'll be just before dawn."
"When it's darkest," sighed t
he nun. "Go to sleep, Claude. Pleasant dreams."
There were no more double beacons, which seemed to have been the scouting party's warning of Firvulag in the vicinity. The caravan had come down from the plateau now and traversed open wooded slopes cut by little brooks that foamed whitely over boulders, calling for tricky footwork by the chalikos as they picked their way along in the starshine. The country became rougher and there was a tang of conifer resin in the air. As the night wore on, a breeze sprang up, ruffling the lake and making the beacon fires near the shore lean and twist. It was very quiet. Aside from the noise of the moving caravan, only owl hoots were to be heard. There were no lights of villages or farms, no sign of habitation at all. So much the better if they did manage to escape . . .
They came to a deep gorge lit on both sides by bonfires, where a lonely guard post secured a suspension bridge over a cascading stream. Three torch-bearing men in bronze armor stood at attention as Epone and Captal Waldemar crossed the swaying structure. Then the soldiers led small groups of prisoners over, bracketed by amphicyons.
When they resumed their march, Richard told Felice, "It's after four. We been losing time fording the creeks."
"We'll have to wait until we get far enough away from that damn guard post. I hadn't planned on that. There are more than three soldiers manning it, count on that. Epone will be able to send them a telepathic call for help and we've got to be sure they'll get to us too late. I want to wait another half hour at least."
"Don't cut it too fine, sweets. What if there's another post? And what about the scouts ahead who light the beacons?"
"Oh, shut up! I'm juggling factors until I'm dizzy trying to optimize this thing. Just be sure you're ready . . . Did you lash it firmly to your lower arm?"
"Just like you said."
Felice called out, "Basil."
"Righto."
"Would you play some lullaby tunes for a while?"
The notes of the woodwind rose softly, soothing the riders after the brief anxiety caused by the bridge-crossing. The double file of chalikos and their flanking bear-dogs now moved among titanic black conifer trunks. The trail was soft with millennia of needle duff, muffling their passage and sending even the most uncomfortable riders into a doze. The track rose gradually until it was more than a hundred meters above the Lac de Bresse, with occasional sheer drops to the water on the caravan's right. Too soon, it seemed to Felice, the eastern sky began to lighten.