“How does it work?” Gallen asked. Everynne was surprised at how casually he asked it. She imagined that the young man, being a Backward from such a low-tech world, would find such weapons to be somehow shocking. But Gallen asked in a brusque, businesslike manner.
Veriasse held the weapon up for Gallen to examine. “Down here under the guard is a trigger. When I pull it once, the weapon becomes active and a red beam of light shoots from this lens above the barrel.” He pointed the rifle at a stone, and the red dot of a laser shone on the rock. “You will also feel a vibration in the weapon when it’s active. Whatever the red dot shines on, that is what you will hit if you pull the trigger a second time.”
Veriasse flipped the weapon on its side, pointed to a little indicator light. “These lights show how many more shots you can take with the weapon.” His indicator showed ten shots.
“How far can it shoot?” Gallen asked.
“Officially, it can fire about a hundred and fifty yards,” Veriasse answered. “But the flames can carry farther if you aim high. You must never fire at an opponent who is too close—unless you want to burn with him. Once the weapon sits without firing for three minutes, it deactivates.”
Gallen touched the rifle’s stock. “This can kill an ogre?”
“Yes,” Veriasse said.
“How tough are they?” Gallen asked.
“There are three main types of vanquisher,” Veriasse answered. “Orick here killed a tracker last night—a creature with long legs and arms that walks on all fours. The ‘ogre’ that you saw is one of their infantry. They are tough warriors, and I would not advise you to fight them in hand-to-hand combat. They are very strong. Still, their vital organs are much the same as ours.
“In days gone by, my people created these creatures as guardians, to keep the peace on many worlds. But things have changed. The dronon warriors conquered our people and enslaved our guardians. The dronon are the third kind of vanquisher, and the most dangerous.”
“Dronon?” Maggie asked, panting. Her face was pale, frightened.
“You saw one back in town,” Veriasse said. “You called him Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. He is really a dronon, a Lord Vanquisher from another world. Sixty years ago, his people came among us, and they were wise in the ways of war. At first, we tried to help them. But they envied our technology and sought to take it. They captured many worlds. Now, any guardians who were not slain all serve the dronon vanquishers. On some worlds, even humans serve the dronon’s Golden Queen and her empire.”
Gallen stood up, seeming to have caught his wind. “We’ll need to keep to the trees so that they can’t shoot us, and I’ll lead them on some trails that will be hard to follow. If we can shake them off our track, we won’t have to rush to the gate.”
Gallen took off running. He set a path that the vanquishers would be hard-pressed to follow. He zigzagged between growths of jack pine, where the trees grew so close together that their branches formed a nearly impenetrable wall. Twice he made great circles so that his scent would be strong, then led the others over dry logs where no footprints would show, where even their scent would not hold.
When he had done all he could to obscure his trail, Gallen led them to a cave at the base of a mountain. He took the group to the largest opening, then at the black mouth of the cave he hesitated to enter.
“What’s wrong?” Everynne asked.
“This cave,” Gallen said, “has narrow passages and five openings. If we want to lose the vanquishers, we could go in here. But the cave is haunted by wights. We’ll need to light a fire and take torches in to hold them at bay.”
“We shouldn’t go in,” Maggie said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Wights?” Veriasse asked. “What is a wight?”
“A spirit. If someone is too curious and breaks the laws of the Tome, the priests give the person to the wights.”
“Surely you don’t believe in ghosts?” Veriasse said. “There’s no such thing. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Not ghosts,” Gallen said. “These are wights. I’ve seen them more than once: there was an old woman in our town, Cally O’Brien, who experimented with herbs. One night the wights came and dragged her off screaming, down the road to An Cochan. No one ever saw her again.”
Neither Veriasse nor Everynne looked as if they believed Gallen. “What he says is true,” Maggie offered. “Wights are real. At night you can see their soulfires glowing blue and green in the forest.”
Everynne and Veriasse looked at each other and spoke simultaneously, “Artefs!”
But Veriasse asked, incredulous, “What would an artef be doing here?”
“Guarding this world,” Everynne said. “Keeping its people in enforced ignorance. That is what their ancestors wanted, a world where their children could hide from the problems of a universe too large to control. I’ll bet the original settlers downloaded their intelligences into artefs.”
“So you’re knowing the wights by another name, are you?” Orick asked. “You have them in the realm of the sidhe?”
“Yes,” Everynne said. “We make them in the realm of the sidhe. They are simply machines that store human thought. We can travel through your cave safely.”
“I’m warning you—the sunlight does not penetrate these caverns,” Gallen said. “Inside, it is as dark as night.”
“Sunlight weakens artefs,” Veriasse said, “because the radio waves cast by your sun confuse them, leave them unable to think. But an artef can’t withstand an incendiary rifle.”
Gallen gulped, obviously still afraid. He led them in through a narrow chasm. He took Everynne’s slim hand and pulled her through the dark. She could feel him trembling. She did not know if he feared this place still, or if he simply trembled at her touch. Often, men reacted that way to her. It was a mistake to let him touch her.
Gallen felt his way along a wall until he bumped his head on a rock outcropping, then took a side tunnel. After several hundred feet, he reached a narrow passage, then took another left where the cavern branched; they began climbing a steep slope filled with rubble. Dripping water smacked loud as it dropped to unseen puddles. Everynne struggled to keep from slipping on wet rock. The air had a faintly metallic smell, and Everynne hurried to get out. In the distance, she thought she saw sunlight shining through an exit, but instead a ghostly green apparition began leaping toward them through a large chamber.
It was an old man with muttonchop sideburns and a bushy mustache. He wore a leine without a greatcloak, and short boots. The wight stood quietly, gazing at them in the dark. Its phosphorescent skin let Everynne see the walls of the cave immediately around them, and she was surprised at the jumbles of stone, the numerous stalactites and stalagmites.
The wight asked cordially, “What are you doing in my cave? Don’t you know that this forest is haunted?”
“Off with you!” Gallen said. “I’ll not have you barring our way!”
“Och, why it’s Gallen O’Day,” the wight said merrily. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in these woods.” But the wight studied Everynne, looking at the silver net she wore in her hair. It made a tsking noise and shook its head. “You’re in a tight spot, Gallen—consorting with strangers from another world. Didn’t your mother ever warn you against such things? Didn’t she ever tell you what happens to curious boys?”
“Get back!” Gallen hissed. “We only want to pass.”
The wight studied Veriasse’s incendiary rifle. “Oh, I’ll leave for now, Gallen O’Day. But it’s sure that you can’t shake me off so easily.” The wight backed into a side tunnel, and ducked around a corner.
They hurried through the cave, climbing treacherous outcroppings, dropping down into crevices. The wight paced along behind them, crawling through the rocks. Soon another joined, and another, until Everynne counted a dozen of the creatures shadowing them through the cave. For a long way, their dim glow provided the only light for Everynne to see by.
The group reached the
sunlight, and Gallen fell down to the forest floor, gasping. His face was pale, and Everynne realized that entering the cave must have been a great ordeal for the man, being a Backward who believed the wights to be invincible spirits. Soon Orick and Maggie rushed out behind them. Maggie’s eyes were wide. Gallen looked up at Maggie, and he burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Maggie asked.
“Nothing is funny,” Gallen said. “I just feel good.”
Gallen got up and led them south a half mile to a steep slope that descended into a valley. A fire had recently burned the ridge, and large boulders dotted the ground. The soil around the stones had eroded away so that often the slightest touch could send a boulder tumbling downhill, and Everynne saw that Gallen was thinking ahead. A vanquisher, with its enormous feet, would be tempted to step on the boulders, and she imagined how it would go tumbling down in the resulting landslide.
At the bottom of the ravine, Gallen headed west, marching his followers down the channel of a rocky creek. Mosquitoes buzzed around their faces, and often mallards would fly up from the water. In one place where the channel narrowed and the water deepened, Gallen pulled up a small tree, sharpened it into a stake, and pushed it down into the mud where no one could see. It took only a moment. So far, they had traveled a little over five miles in eight hours. Everynne hoped that his tactics would give them more time in the long run.
They reached the shelter of the forest again at the valley floor, and there they rested for a few moments. Maggie was gasping, sweat pouring from her brow. They were all dirty and thoroughly worn. They had to rest.
From the mountain above them nearly half a mile back, a deep voice boomed: “Vanquishers, to me!”
The vanquishers had already found their exit from the caves. Gallen cursed under his breath and looked helplessly to Veriasse.
Veriasse studied Gallen’s face. “You’ve done well,” he said at last, and Gallen furrowed his brow, as if struggling to understand Veriasse’s accent. “You’ve set as difficult a trail for the vanquishers as they could possibly hope to follow, but we must run now. We cannot afford more delays.”
Up on the mountain, there was a rumbling roar and a scream as a vanquisher learned just how treacherous the trail was. Gallen stepped into a clearing where a tree had fallen. Everynne followed and looked up the mountain. Two humanoid infantrymen were helping a tracker to his feet.
“Veriasse,” Gallen asked, “may I try your weapon?”
Veriasse handed Gallen the incendiary rifle. Gallen raised it. The barrel bounced a bit until he held his breath, relaxed his muscles, pulled the trigger. He frowned a second, obviously having expected the gun to discharge, then raised the gun a second time. Everynne could not see the red dot from the laser scope, but up on the hill, the ogres must have seen it. They suddenly released the tracker and leapt aside. Gallen pulled the trigger. A plume of white-hot chemical fire soared through the air, splashed over the tracker. The creature screamed briefly and burst into flame, then dropped in a pile of melting bones.
Gallen handed the rifle back to Veriasse. “That might keep them off our trail for a bit.”
Gallen raced northwest. He led them on a clear path through deep woods, yet Everynne knew that the vanquishers would be able to run here just as easily. With their long legs, they would run even faster.
At last he reached a grove of pine-houses. Centuries before, perhaps, a town had nestled in this river valley, but it had been abandoned. Seeds from pine-houses had dropped to the ground, and a veritable city of hollow trees grew so close to one another that their trunks had fused.
No one could hope to walk through this section of wood. It was virtually impenetrable.
“We’ll go through here,” Gallen said.
“We’ll never make it through that mess,” Veriasse objected.
“I used to play here when I was a child,” Gallen answered. “There are paths through the trees, if you’re willing to climb a bit. This grove is eight miles long and two or three miles wide in most places, but up here a ways, it’s only a quarter of a mile across. We’ll go through there.”
Like all homes grown from pine-house seeds, the houses naturally formed holes for doors. Always the seeds grew at least one door at the front of the house, and one at the back. In addition, at odd spots on each side, various openings grew for windows.
Everynne knew that the vanquishers would not be able to follow. Gallen skirted the trees till he reached a steep canyon, then walked to that impenetrable wall and entered a door hole.
They moved through the grove of pine-houses with great effort, grunting and struggling from window to window, often climbing up and down.
Perhaps as a child, Gallen had played here as a game, but windows he had squeezed through as a boy were now too narrow to permit an adult, much less a bear like Orick with his winter fat. Everynne was perspiring heavily. When they were halfway through the grove, Gallen suddenly halted, looking at a narrow window. Obviously, they could not squeeze through it, and Gallen furrowed his brow, deep in thought.
“What’s wrong?” Veriasse asked.
“We’re stuck here,” Gallen said. “I used to fit through that hole nicely, and there is a narrow path ahead that we could follow, but we can’t make it through here. There’s no way to go forward.”
“What will we do?” Maggie asked.
“I’ll have to go out and scout another way.”
“Do you need help?” Veriasse asked, yet obviously the older man was worn through.
“I’ll find a way,” Gallen said, and he went out the door. Everynne could hear him scrabbling around outside, climbing up a branch. The pine-house was dusty, full of needles and cones, the leavings of squirrels. A soft afternoon breeze blew through the little valley, stirring the treetops, even though down here on the ground it felt hot, sultry.
For the first few minutes, Everynne was glad of the chance to rest. Veriasse reached into his pack, pulled out a small flask and gave it to her to drink. She was terribly hungry—had gone all day without food—but they had nothing left to eat in the packs.
When Gallen had been gone for nearly an hour, Maggie said, “I think I’d better go look for Gallen. Maybe he’s lost us.”
She headed outside through a window and scuffled about in the tree, climbing limbs. The sunlight filtering through the open doorway had grown dimmer. Night was coming on, and Everynne could hear pigeons cooing from their roosts. It was very quiet, and Everynne began to feel nervous. They had been sitting for a long time, and the vanquishers could not be far behind. She began to wonder if one of the vanquishers might have already killed the young man, but dared not say it. The bear snuffled, looked out a window.
“Do you think Gallen could be lost?” Everynne asked Veriasse.
Veriasse shook his head. “No. As he’s said, he played here as a child. I suspect he knows exactly where we are. I’ve been impressed by his competence. For a Backward, he seems to have grasped our predicament well, and he’s led the vanquishers on a marvelous chase. He’ll come back soon.”
Veriasse said it with such certainty, that Everynne suddenly felt more at ease. Yet the older man also seemed to need to fill up the silence. “As a warrior, I find him … intriguing.”
“In what way?” Everynne asked.
Veriasse smiled, contemplating. “He carries himself with a deadly grace. If I had seen him on any planet, I would have known he was a killer. He moves with caution, a type of confident wariness that one learns to spot quickly. Yet he is different from warriors on most worlds. Our ancestors relied heavily upon armor until the incendiary guns made it useless. Now, we rely upon our guns and upon tactics downloaded from personal intelligences. We fight battles at long distances and seldom look into the faces of our victims. Even more seldom do we purposely expose ourselves to risk. We have, in effect, become chess masters who’ve memorized too many classic moves. But this young man relies on quick wits for his survival, and his weapon of choice is the knife. It seems an odd
choice.”
In the corner of the room, the bear stirred in the shadows under the window. “Oh, Gallen would love a sword,” the bear said, “but they’re so expensive. You have to pay taxes on the damned things every time you travel through a new county.”
Veriasse smiled at the bear, his eyes glittering. “So, even on your backward world,” he said, “you practice arms control?”
The bear shrugged.
Veriasse sighed. “I feel fortunate. I have not met a man like him in many thousands of years.” He stared at Everynne as if to say, “We need him. You could make him follow you.” And a chill went through her. She remembered how Gallen had quivered when he touched her hand in the cave, the way he laughed off his fear of the wights. She, too, found herself intrigued.
“He is taking an awfully long time …” Everynne said.
The bear was watching them intently, and he cleared his throat. “Is there anything you can do to help us find our way out of this wood? Do you know some magic?”
Everynne laughed. “We aren’t magic, Orick, any more than you are magic.”
“Oh,” the bear said, disappointed.
A vanquisher bellowed in frustration. It sounded quite close. The creature had made it partway through the woods. Veriasse stood up, fingering his incendiary rifle, listening.
Ten seconds later, there was a swishing sound as someone leapt down through some upper branches of the tree.
Gallen’s shadow darkened the doorway. “Come on. I found a new trail.”
“What about Maggie?” Everynne asked.
“She’s up ahead, waiting for us.”
Gallen climbed up the tree, leading them through limbs with the grace of a marten. Yet the trail was very difficult.
Soon, Veriasse called for a halt and stood in the shadows under a limb. The sun was setting. He rubbed the backs of his hands against his shirt. “Stop a moment, stop,” he said. He raised his hands. “I smell fire. The vanquishers have set these woods aflame. How much farther?”
The Golden Queen Page 8