by Jack Conner
And there to the left was another similar building, and there were more, some with wartstar skin, some with other growths and encrustations. One glowed with eerie, bioluminescent light. Avery’s mind reeled. The buildings of Lusterqal were alive, and the air between them shimmered with alien life. This then, Avery realized, was why the buildings as seen from afar had seemed so eerie and sinister. They did not appear appreciably less eerie from close-up.
“Welcome to the Atomic City,” Layanna said.
“Oh, that’s nothin’,” the cabbie said. “With all the extradimensional energy floating around here, there’s all sorts of phenomenon you would probably call strange, and our engineers have found ways to make use of a lot of it. Why, there’s buildings that are larger on the inside than the out, others that have steps you can take upside down. There’s a restaurant you can go to situated on some sort of time-warp, and it don’t matter when you enter it, or how long you stay, you exit it exactly six seconds later in outside time.”
Avery was impressed despite himself. He wanted to hate Octung, but he found that he had to at least admire the Octunggens’ brilliance. There was a reason the R’loth had made them their Chosen People. However, their better qualities only emphasized their lesser.
Lazily, the cabbie flipped on the radio, and a stark voice suddenly filled the air:
“ ... and are looking for these people. If anyone should see them, please report in immediately. They are a grave danger. Again, their appearances are as follows: one is a large male with a very noticeable def—”
Avery switched it off. “Not in the mood for news,” he told the cabbie, his voice suddenly tight. It’s as I feared. Damn it all.
“We there yet?” Hildra said.
“Almost,” the cabbie said, apparently oblivious. “In fact, the park’s just up—”
He jerked the vehicle to a halt. His eyes stared forward. Avery, reaching for his gun, turned to look.
“Damn,” he said. “A roadblock.”
* * *
“Shit,” said Hildra. Then, slapping the seat angrily: “Should’ve known. Fuck everything, we should have known.”
Octunggen soldiers blocked the intersection ahead. Tanks and troop transports occupied most of the space, and heavily armed soldiers checked identification papers as drivers passed through, one by one. Military zeppelins and dirigibles drifted above. Searchlights stabbed down, even though it was daytime. Perhaps they were fused with some Octunggen technology and were more than mere lights.
“They do this all the time,” the cabbie said, trying to relax them.
Avery scanned the area for convenient alleyways before he remembered Janx. Janx wasn’t running anywhere, and Avery wouldn’t leave him. Hildra would likely kill anyone who suggested it.
Soldiers walked up and down the line of cars, checking identification papers and shining flashlights in the occupants’ faces.
“Doc, this is bad,” Hildra said.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Avery said. They had survived this long by passing any checkpoint separately, trusting on their disguises and fake papers, but now they were without disguises (lost days ago when they had been forced to move too suddenly) and all together. They still had their papers, but that wouldn’t matter. Together they were too conspicuous. A huge, nose-less man, a woman with a hook for a hand and a monkey, an attractive blonde and a small, balding mustached man all traveling together would get noticed, no matter their IDs, especially since such a party was exactly what the Octunggen were looking for.
A car a few lengths ahead jerked away from the line of stopped cars and tried to turn around. Perhaps its driver didn’t like his chances of passing the checkpoint. Whatever the case, soldiers shouted a warning, then fired at the vehicles’ tires. Other troopers rushed over and pulled out the screaming occupants, a man and woman, and forced them to the ground with shock weapons. They were hauled off crying, the man oozing blood from a split lip. The woman had wet herself.
“I guess we’re committed,” Hildra said, echoing Avery’s thoughts.
Time seemed to slow as the cab inched forward. At last the pair of soldiers who were checking IDs along this line approached. One was slender and young, but his eyes were like ice and his face never moved, even when he spoke. The other was huge and carried a bulbous, otherworldly gun, surely meant to be used against Layanna. Not for the first time, Avery wondered if there really was some special unit trained in how to deal with rogue Collossum. A god-squad, as Hildra had said. If so, what would happen to them once Layanna and the other members of the Black Sect were put down? The mainstream Collossum would surely not allow men and women trained to kill beings like them to continue existing when their need was past. They’ll likely get a thank-you and well-done, then a quick trip to the Joyous Sphere.
The two soldiers checked the vehicle directly in front of the cab, waved it by, and the cab lurched forward and stopped for the soldiers. Other troops checked cars coming and going from other directions, and many more waited in the tanks and carriers in the intersection, guns trained, eyes flinty.
“Papers,” the young man demanded, coming around to the passenger side, his hulking mate with him. The young man held out a gloved hand. Avery saw by the epaulets on his lapel that he was an officer, which surprised Avery at first, because the man was infected. Colorful striations rippled across his face, eerily beautiful, giving his still face the illusion of movement but making his cold eyes even more remote, even more lethal. Then Avery remembered the Sacrament. The man might have been made officer because he was infected.
“Papers!” the man demanded through the glass.
Swallowing, Avery rolled down the window. He shoved a hand inside his jacket and thrust his papers at the officer. The cabbie pulled his own out, then turned back to the occupants in the back of the cab to collect theirs. His demeanor was reluctant, bored and impatient, as if he did this all the time, and he probably did. But from the otherworldly weapon the large soldier carried, Avery knew this was no normal checkpoint. The Octunggen were explicitly looking for them. If it weren’t for Sartrand ...
The officer shone his flashlight into Avery’s face, then swept the back of the cab. They would see Layanna and the others, and that would be an end to it. With one hand, Avery made as if to pass the identification papers to him. With the other, he clutched his pistol tightly under his jacket.
Everything seemed to happen very fast.
The officer said something to the large man too quickly for Avery to catch, and the large man began to bring his gun up.
Avery shot the fellow through the forehead, and he reeled back. The young officer screamed. Yanked at the pistol at his side.
Avery fired at him—missed, the man was already leaping, but the leap prevented him from pulling his gun—then grabbed the wheel of the cab from the shocked driver and leaned his body over so that he could stomp on the gas. Avery drove the cab forward, cutting across traffic—a car just having cleared the checkpoint honked at him, then swerved—and plowed down an alley. Shots popped behind him, and he realized that Hildra was firing back at the soldiers, making them scatter so that they couldn’t return fire effectively. The cab’s interior filled with blue smoke. It tasted like metal.
The cabbie screamed and beat at Avery. Avery shoved the pistol against the cabbie’s ribs with one hand and drove awkwardly with the other. He swung them down a cross-alley, roared past two drunks, then caromed down another. The side of the cab scraped against a brick wall, raising sparks. A cat shrieked and jumped away. Avery realized he was trembling.
“Who are you people?” the cabbie screamed. “What’s going on?”
Avery slowed fractionally and turned to see Hildra panting and tense. She had shot out her half of the rear window and glass tinkled on the trunk of the cab. As the vehicle turned a corner, glittering pieces sloughed off. Smoke trailed up from her gun.
“We need more guns,” Hildra said. “We can’t be wasting these.”
Avery realized
she had used her extradimensional gun, just as he had used his. They were the only ones they had. He also realized something else. He jerked the cab to a stop.
“Wh—?” started the cabbie.
“Get out,” Avery told him.
Fearfully, the man complied. As Avery climbed behind the wheel and slammed the door, the cabbie seemed to rediscover his courage:
“What are you doing, you bastards? You’re taking my cab? That’s mine! Fucking pagans!”
He beat against the glass and tried to open the door, but Avery locked it. Through the glass, he shouted, “You’d best clear out of town. Out of Octung. The soldiers got your plates, your name. They might think you collaborated with us.”
The man’s face turned ashen. “Col ... collaborated ... ?”
“I am very sorry.”
Avery shoved the car into gear and took off, leaving the cabbie behind. He felt bad about ruining the man’s life, but many more lives would be ruined if they didn’t do what they’d come to do.
“Where to next, Doc?” Hildra asked. Hildebrand whimpered in fear beside her. In the rear-view mirror Avery saw the monkey clamber over Janx and try to squeeze under his arm, seeking safety.
“I ...” Avery barreled across a busy road—cars honked all around him; something crashed into their rear corner, spinning the cab; Avery wrestled with the wheel to right it—then plunged into another alley. Shapes that must be zeppelins and dirigibles swept overhead, hunting. Military vehicles would be prowling the roads. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“We have to have a destination!” Hildra said. “And we need to get out of this fucking cab! And drive steady, damn it! Don’t run red lights. Stay in your fucking lane.”
Avery forced himself to take deep breaths and drive slower. “We need to get off the roads,” he said. “We need a place to hide.”
“We need to reach the Park,” Layanna said.
“What’s there?” Avery asked.
“You’ll see.”
With reassuring confidence, she began giving directions, and he followed as best he could. Eventually the tell-tale traffic jam of a roadblock forced him to park.
The smell of ozone shocked him when he stepped out of the car—they were along the Haag—and he had to blink to clear the moisture that filled his eyes. The traffic flowed along wide avenues on either side of the Atomic River, and at every intersection bridges spanned the gap across the water and cars and trucks trundled along. Barges, trawlers, riverboats, yachts, gondolas and more plied the surface below.
“The Park is close,” Layanna said. “This way.”
With her in the lead, the group filed down the sidewalk, which was tightly-packed with pedestrians of all stripes. Fish-men, an oozing creature that resembled a mud-skip, a man whose camouflage skin blended in, perhaps unconsciously, with whatever wall (or large person) he happened to be standing against. There were many mutants, a clear majority, and though most of them looked primarily human, just with grayish skin, or the suggestion of gills, or too-thick lips, they were undeniably other. They smelled of the sea, of minerals and salt. A stench of brine and electricity wafted off the river, and the thousands of oily, smoky discharges of the many vehicles—both land and water—added their own unique tangs to the miasma. All around Avery Lusterqal honked and whistled—a riverboat—squelched and screeched, tolled—a cathedral—roared and clamored, boomed—a lightning strike—and cursed. It all conspired to deliver a splitting headache to the back of his skull, and he wished he had thought to pilfer some of the Surugal’s wines before taking his leave.
Layanna led him and the others down sidewalks and over a bridge that spanned the choked and bustling river, and at last into the promised Park. It was a huge, extravagant affair, with great brooding trees festooned with moss and vines, hooting monkeys, gentle creeks (non-toxic, seemingly, if not the creatures in them) and many coves and hills and trails. Layanna led them past the high wrought-iron gateway and into its first wide, graveled trails. Here the spaces were mostly clear and scenic, with little babbling pools and streams. A few Octunggen made breakfast picnics or fed the ducks in the ponds.
“This is Gytherung Park,” Layanna said. She pointed to a statute as they passed. “Named after the first lord, King Gytherung—see his crown? that’s the Lightning Crown itself—” It was a thick, iron crown, its peaks sharp and heavy-looking, and Avery knew that in life it crackled with other-dimensional energy, making the man that wore it appear fantastic and godly. “—that publicly declared himself to the Collossum. Seven-hundred-some years ago.”
Hildra spat. “Not long ago enough.”
“The royal family no longer rules Octung,” Layanna went on, “but they still exist, a sort of figurehead, and the one who possesses the Lightning Crown at the moment—Queen Svelin—is one of the leaders of the Chancellery. Of course, technically she’s no longer queen. The aristocracy is only honorary at this point.”
“She still wear the Crown?” Janx asked.
“No, that is kept at the palace in a place of honor that only the family has access to. I’m not sure it even crackles anymore.”
“What of the famous Trident?” Avery asked. He knew that in addition to wearing the Crown, King Gytherung had carried as his scepter the legendary trident Vilgest, also given to him by the Collossum.
Layanna smiled, pleased by his interest. “You’ll have to ask the queen.”
It was hot. Humid. Sap oozed from the trees and moisture thrust up from the lush ground. In fact, the ground cover was more reed than grass. Sweat squirted up from Avery’s pores in response.
“Where are we going?” asked Hildra, as Layanna led them off the path and into the woods, deep and dark. Gytherung Park was over two hundred acres square, Avery remembered reading; during his researches into history, his studies had mainly focused on Ghenisa and L’oh, but he had not neglected the fascinating if occasionally shudder-inducing evolution of Octung.
“You’ll see,” Layanna said.
She led them through the dark woods. Monkeys and other, odder things (Avery thought he saw a slug-like creature with long, colorful spines, and one fish-like animal with fur and prehensile flippers) hooted and growled and chittered and hissed at them from the dripping branches above. At last they came into a little clearing. A statue of a beautiful woman in robes stood in its center. A few vines had snaked up her feet, but someone must occasionally trim them for they went no further.
Layanna approached it. Avery and the others hung back.
“This is it?” Hildra said. “How does this ... how does she ... help us?”
Instead of answering, Layanna said, “Make sure no one’s watching.”
There were two other entrances into the clearing. Without a word, Avery, Janx and Hildra (helping Janx) posted themselves before each one. Layanna took a deep breath and returned her attention to the statue, frowning in concentration and resting a white palm on the statue’s head. The air seemed to blur around her hand, then her whole body.
Avery was so absorbed watching her that he had to remind himself to watch the path. Before long he heard noises down it.
“Someone’s coming,” he whispered.
Layanna seemed not to hear him, so wrapped up was she in her task. But the air ceased blurring just in time.
A man and woman entered the clearing, glanced at Layanna and the others mildly, and resumed their trek. When they were gone, Avery approached Layanna, who seemed exhausted and leaned against the statue for support. Whatever she’d done had obviously exhausted her, and Avery remembered that she had recently exerted her other-self on the riverboat. She would be craving food from the sea to rebuild her strength.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked.
She nodded. Sweat gleamed on her cheeks. “This ... it’s a drop spot the Black Sect uses. We store information here ... only accessible to other R’loth.”
“What sort of information?” Janx said.
Layanna wiped sweat from her forehead and straig
htened. “In this case, the location of the Sect.”
“I thought you knew where it was,” Hildra said, sounding betrayed.
“When I communicated with them in Cuithril, our link would have been traced. Remember, Uthua himself fully awakened the altar and linked to the Collossum. They would have been able to follow the signal—they did. Remember, that’s the reason we’re here. But ... according to this, what I just learned ... the Sect made it out. I know where they are now.”
“Well?” Hildra demanded.
“You’ll see.”
Avery glanced up as a shadow fell across the clearing. It was a zeppelin, a war-boat, all iron and guns, drifting low over the park. A searchlight swept the trees.
“We’d better hurry,” he said.
Chapter 4
Layanna led them to the subway and down, but not before buying a flashlight from a shop along the way. “We’ll need this,” she said, passing it to Avery. “We’re almost there. At least, to the entrance.”
“What does that mean?” Hildra said, half-supporting Janx as they went.
Layanna smiled mischievously but said nothing, and Hildra threw up one hand and one hook in exasperation. Janx grunted, sounding less groggy than before. Avery offered him another shot of morphine, but Janx declined. At least no more blood was seeping from his wound.
They descended to the platform, waited and entered a subway car when it arrived. Avery felt a throbbing in his right heel. He realized it had been weeks since he’d last bought a pair of shoes, and he had done a great deal of walking, and running, since then. His soles were paper thin. He could feel the grain of the metal under his feet. Luckily his calluses had grown thick.
“Cars, boats, dirigibles, and subways,” he mused. “The Octunggen certainly get around, don’t they?”
“Don’t forget trains, gondolas, trolleys and planes,” Layanna said. “And there’s a few more besides.”