Shadow Over Avalon

by C. N Lesley

  “I’m not sure, but I think I’ve found a difference,” he called.

  They joined him to stare where his light rested on the floor.

  “I think I see faint patterns in the dust,” he said.

  “He’s right,” Kai said. “Luck is riding with us now.”

  “We don’t know how deep the dust is, or what lies underneath.” Ector hunkered down, to touch the surface. “Shadow?”

  “I can’t, not alone. Have you any idea how difficult it is to lift individual particles? Every single one has to be isolated for levitation. I’d need to see the next wall break to even calculate how much power we need.”

  “Lights, everyone,” Ector ordered.

  Darkness lifted, revealing the passage stretching ahead.

  “Hells, that’s about twenty body lengths.” Kai relaxed his grip on Arthur’s arm.

  “One hundred and twenty feet,” Ector translated for the benefit of Ambrose.

  Shadow turned to Ambrose. “I know how Ector ranks in psi factor, and Kai can’t help, so that leaves you.”

  “Levitation is not my strong point. I can lift myself when the need is great, but inanimate objects tend to slip. Besides, I think I might recognize those symbols if I could see them clearly. I can’t lift and decipher at the same time.”

  “I’ll do it. Three is only going to complicate matters.” Arthur moved forward to stand by Shadow.

  “Maybe we could lift half at a time,” Ector suggested. “Look, I know you said you were a twenty on a good day, but this isn’t one when you’re carrying the Archive.”

  “It’s busy gloating. I really don’t like gloating. That’s a most disgusting expression of feeling. However, I’m free for a space.”

  “Don’t you need to stimulate Circe’s dream?” Ector wanted to know.

  “She has an active imagination. She’s doing quite nicely all by herself. I just need to keep a light touch on her mind.”

  “You ever lifted multiple objects before?” Shadow asked.

  “I know the principle. Give me a moment while I focus. I’ll take the left side of central.

  Arthur looked at the stretch before them while he calculated the distance, probable depth and absolute width. He knew he couldn’t use all his will, as he had to keep tabs on both Circe and the Archive. The residue might just be enough, given the drain of linking.

  “Ector, we may need a reinforcement of will. Don’t try to help us lift. Just give us the strength we need if we seem to be faltering,” he said.

  Shadow looked once into his eyes as she reached out her hand. He made a conscious effort not to block her as the strands of their wills linked together, before immense power flooded through him when their wills combined to a single purpose. Their eyes turned as one, to the dusty floor. Together they focused on every particle. The drain sucked at his life-force by the time they assimilated each atom.

  Slowly, so slowly the mass lifted. Sweat ran down into Arthur’s eyes, blinding him. He could feel the lifting, and then it faltered as limits topped.

  “Ector,” they gasped in unison. Power flowed into the joining to magnify their wills. The blanket of atoms once more ascended.

  “That’s enough,” Ambrose cried. “Hold it there as long as you can. I can see now.”

  Every fiber of Arthur’s being cried out for relief, and he could sense Shadow’s distress, along with Ector’s rapid tiring. His link with Circe began to fail.

  “Let go, I have it,” Ambrose ordered.

  All three of them relaxed, and Ector dropped to his knees to begin rubbing at his neck muscles, while Shadow stretched, and Arthur breathed deeply. Kai passed high-energy rations to each. Ambrose stood with his eyes half-closed in deep concentration until Kai finished, and then turned to him.

  “Have you an eidetic memory, Kai?”

  “A what?”

  “Total recall. I know all original Brethren had such from the moment of banding, but not if children inherit.”

  “Some don’t, I did. What data do you want to review?”

  “None, I need to download while the floor patterns are still intact in my mind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Arthur wondered at Ambrose’s strength. Shadow and Ector didn’t bounce back as swiftly as himself, and neither picked up on Ambrose for his peculiar request. He decided to take initiative.

  “Ambrose, why is Kai storing?”

  “So I don’t lose the pattern while I compare ancient symbols against the original. I don’t possess your level of concentration. Please let me alone for a while.”

  “Arthur, how much time do we have left?” Shadow rubbed her hands over her eyes and sighed.

  “Twenty minutes on my current program.”

  “Then what?” Her gaze skewered him.

  “Depends on whether the Archive will be content to let the apparent me sleep. If not, you’d best go on without me.”

  “Can’t you . . . ?” Kay grinned.

  “No. If I’m not where it expects to find me this time, it will know for sure I’m misdirecting. I could possibly buy five extra minutes, seeming to be at an exit. Where I can’t be is anywhere around the rest of you. If I get five minutes, I’ll try to use them going back to Sanctuary.”

  “Supposing I stay with you?” She laid a light hand on his shoulder. “There will be three left to continue. It might gain us more time.”

  “And two certain deaths, instead of one. I knew the risks, and I was forfeit anyway. Much may happen in the next twenty minutes. We may reach the end of our quest, or we might encounter a barrier we can’t penetrate and have to turn back—the possibilities are many. I’d like my life to have meaning.”

  “Leave him be, Shadow.” Ector wrapped his arm around her waist for a brief hug. “As he said, the future hasn’t happened yet.”

  “We can continue now.” Ambrose looked up. “The symbols were based on ancient cartouches. Follow my exact footsteps until we get across.”

  They formed up to proceed. Ector moved sluggishly enough for Arthur to wish himself not removed by one from the weak link. Shadow also noticed Ector’s fatigue.

  “Change of order. I’ll follow Ambrose with Arthur behind me, then Ector with Kai at the rear.”

  Ambrose started, with each of them following in order. Arthur focused most of his attention behind him, very much aware Shadow made conscious sacrifices. She wanted the strongest for the final conflict.

  Ambrose crossed the next sentinel, then Shadow, followed by Arthur, but Ector miss-stepped. The entire floor vanished into a hole. Arthur joined with Shadow in a desperate bid to grab the falling bodies with their combined psi power. They made contact, fighting against gravity and their own limitations to slowly levitate those two. Ambrose stood ready to haul the frightened pair onto solid ground. Ector sagged to the floor a few moments before an ashen-faced Kai joined him in safety.

  “He’s finished, Shadow,” Ambrose said. “We’d best leave him.”

  “Not while I can carry him,” Kai objected.

  “We can make a chair for him between us,” Arthur offered.

  “No, I can manage. I don’t have psi powers needed here.” The auburn-haired Brethren got to his feet. His expression changed to shock, and he pointed.

  “Ambrose. Come back!” Shadow started after the man, and then she turned, shrugging.

  Arthur unclenched his will. He’d been preparing to turn her if necessary. Without Ector, they hadn’t a hope of controlling Ambrose, who had walked away with supreme confidence. It meant he knew something he hadn’t shared, a typical racial trait among Submariners. Unlike Brethren, they weren’t very good team players, and the higher the ranking, the more individualistic they became. Arthur suspected Ambrose hadn’t wanted inclusion in the first place if he wasn’t the leader. Ector would automatically defer to Shadow on her own personal quest, but not Ambrose, who still considered Brethren as primitive death-mongers. He could see from the tension in her back that Shadow fought rage at this deplorable action. She�
��d let Ambrose go because she couldn’t risk weakening herself further in a trial of wills and Arthur guessed she cut her losses by having Ambrose spring the next trap. The time lapse since Ambrose’s departure confirmed his conjecture. He became aware of her intense scrutiny.

  “Thoughts, Arthur? You probably know the man better than I ever will.”

  “His hobby is ancient forms of communication. I’d guess he learned more from those symbols than just how to get us across.”

  “Can you access his mind?”

  “He’ll be prepared for a fight. He wants all the glory,” Arthur said. “I will if you really want.”

  “Kai?” she asked.

  “I don’t sense any danger for him, wherever he is.”

  “Then we go forward. Who cares who finds the quest end, as long as it’s found?”

  Arthur helped Kai get Ector up from the floor and settled into a carrying position, and then he and Shadow walked in advance. The passage elbowed to the right in the light of their torches.

  “He walked with too much confidence for any traps,” Arthur supplied. “We haven’t heard any screams, so it’s probably safe.”

  “How much time?” Kai huffed from behind.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Brother mine, you’ll have to introduce me to Circe if we ever get out of this.”

  “Kai.” Shadow glared back at him.

  “Sorry, Mother, it’s a man thing.” Kai sighed. “I would like to anticipate some sort of reward at this point.”

  “If I can find a way to suppress your viability, we have a deal,” Arthur offered, ignoring Shadow’s outraged expression. As Kai said, this was man talk. “We wouldn’t want seers to become augmented by fey qualities—they’re bad enough as they are.”

  “If you two have quite finished?”

  “We’ll reconvene later, since the corner is just coming up. Where you can’t hear us, I think,” Arthur added, smiling to himself. If they survived this, if they could, he’d enjoy having a brother like Kai.

  They saw Ambrose at once. He stood at the end of the passage in a rectangular room with a raised dais to the right and he studied a wall splattered with the same ancient symbols as on the falling floor. On the dais, a console invited more attention than the wall that Ambrose scrutinized with such concentration. The other walls appeared sculptured with scenes from a long-dead surface world, if Arthur judged the lack of saurians and other mutations aright.

  “Leave Ector here,” Shadow ordered. “One of us must return, if possible. He has enough psi power to call for help when he recovers.”

  Kai laid Ector down against a wall with Arthur’s help. Shadow strode over to Ambrose with Arthur just behind her. They passed the dais before he realized Kai wasn’t following.

  “It looks as if—” Ambrose began, turning to them, and then his face froze in horror.

  Arthur spun around. “No, Kai!” he yelled, too late to prevent Kai taking the steps up to the dais.

  His weight already committed, Kai tried to turn. Lethal blasts of plasma bolts shot from ports in the stairs. Wet smacks sounded. Blood gushing from his body, the young Terran crumpled instantly.

  Chapter 33

  Earth Date 3892

  “Kai!” Shadow sprinted to her younger son’s side, dropping to her knees. She pressed her hands over the bleeding holes in a desperate effort to stop blood loss. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Arthur knelt down beside her to help. A spurt of blood shot between his fingers to hang, motionless. Time slipped out of sequence. A rushing sound in his ears drowned out the death rattle in Kai’s throat. Shards of darkness flew at him as his awareness shattered into a sudden vision of the cave-sitter. His soul wrenched free from his body, while the damp cavern of his dreams encased his essence like a tomb.

  “Sacrifices for the common good are a harsh burden.” The young-old man’s matte-black eyes appeared to radiate a red light from some inner source. The smooth skin of his face glowed above a snow-white beard. “Let your sibling go.”

  “No!” Helpless, Arthur wished for the strength to strangle this being. “I know you now. The Archive knows who Kai is and what his powers are. Only the Archive—you—have reason to want him dead before he plays his part. I can save him. I won’t let go. I won’t cede his life.”

  “He is forfeit,” the cave-sitter said, raising those terrible eyes to Arthur, bringing an intractable will to bear on him.

  “Too late.” Arthur clenched his teeth. Beads of sweat began to drip off his brow. He hasn’t killed me. Why? He was at the Archive’s mercy, so why did the creature hold back? Why want Kai dead? A glimmer of understanding produced a motive: “If my body dies, you lose. You wanted to take over my mind. Well, I won’t relinquish Kai.” He drew a deep breath, fighting against the being with his entire telepathic ability. “Sacrifice unacceptable. Every last shred of my strength, I bequeath to him.” Arthur directed his energy at Kai.

  “Nooo . . . oo . . . o . . . ” the cave-sitter wailed. A fading sigh and darkness closed around them. The scene whirled into a tangled mess of black fragments spiraling into light.

  Arthur opened his eyes to see his brother still breathing, but Shadow? She looked as if she stared through stone, a Brethren expression that frightened him.

  Kai’s wounds were beyond any emergency supplies in their packs. Arthur’s hands aligned with his mother’s to stem the flow while he thought. If the organs weren’t too badly smashed, an octet of seers could instigate tissue regeneration by telepathy. They used their own life force as raw energy if the victim were important, or one of their own. An octet ranked a combined psi power of approximately forty, since they wouldn’t commit all their will. It left him at least four points short, even with Shadow’s help.

  “Ambrose, get over here will you?” he yelled.

  “Can’t. I’m trying to stop every other weapon being discharged. Kai triggered all of them.”

  Ector groaned as Ambrose called his warning. He lurched, stumbling with fatigue, to Shadow. Arthur committed in that second. He used seer techniques to body scan. The damage looked bad, with many deep puncture wounds, but if he used every ounce of his will . . .

  “Shadow, link with me. I need everything you’ve got for Kai to have any chance.”

  She raised her tear-drenched face to his in misery. Arthur wondered, for a split-second, if any other woman cried without sobbing, or getting a red, splotchy face. Her tears just flowed, a liquid grief he couldn’t bear.

  “I can’t lose two of you.” She grasped his arm in a painful grip. “You’ll be open to attack the instant you commit to saving him.”

  “I already have.” Arthur gently pried her fingers loose, aware she hadn’t realized which hand she used in the grief. “My brother is more important to me than your quest. Even now, the Archive searches for me. You don’t have to choose between us. The choice no longer exists.”

  Hope, followed by determination flashed across Shadow’s face. Arthur plunged into her now open mind, taking from her and Ector. Every hair stood on end when he focused. Will flowed from energy into matter. The body under his hands glowed as it healed. Tissue and organs regenerated at a far greater rate than had ever been achieved by an octet, but then the outcome meant nothing to them compared with Arthur’s determination to save his brother.

  Too much blood loss needed a life-force correction. Arthur didn’t require Shadow’s frantic warning, coming just before he sucked the last of her strength out, to know his blood type wasn’t compatible to Kai’s, any more than Ector’s, or hers. He had to make Kai work with him, and for that, he needed a proscribed joining. Arthur didn’t hesitate. His mind severed connection with the others to blend as one with Kai. Full flow of life started to return to his brother moments before Arthur ceased to be an individual. There was a second of exultation, followed by a moment of pure horror as a force reached out to snatch his essence from Kai. Molten fire flickered through his nerves. If he let go now, Kai would die and what would happen to A
rthur? He sensed the Archive’s presence trying to claw him through his brother. In that moment, he committed totally. If it wanted him that bad, it would have to pull him back from death, for he would not return without Kai.

  The force wavered and Arthur merged with Kai.

  The creature that arose from the floor of the chamber wasn’t human. Tentacles of light emerged from a brilliant glow of pure energy. It stretched, feeling the power flow through its essence, aware of being a gestalt, an amalgam of two living creatures, but not disturbed by this knowledge. Almost as an afterthought, it directed two of its eyes at the man still trying to circumvent weaponry no longer of interest. It gloried in resources others couldn’t even begin to imagine. Graceful beyond human capacity, it levitated to the podium where its many limbs activated a program previously buried in antiquity. An ocular magnifier rose from the center of the structure to focus on the projection of a combined retina pattern.

  “Security scan approved. Voice-coded password from ruling planetary council now required,” a disembodied voice requested.

  “Armageddon.” The gestalt’s multi-toned answer came from the depths of its racial memory.

  “Access granted.”

  The experience of direct sensory playback paled into insignificance before the wealth of data the gestalt absorbed. Centuries of history rolled into the awareness. Terrible facts registered in the gestalt’s mind in those moments. At the end, a single voice screaming one word burst forth:

  “Free . . . !” Then the cave-sitter’s voice faded away into nothingness.

  For an instant, the gestalt glimpsed the creature breaking its ancient bonds before it, too, spiraled into darkness.

  *

  Sound came from a long way away, a faint clicking accompanied by a clinical smell. Pain pounded with each tiny noise. It grew with the volume until Arthur writhed in agony.

  “Easy, lad. Can you hear me?” Ector’s voice came at a nerve grinding intensity.

  Arthur wanted to scream, but sound pulverized him. He whimpered as a door rumbled open and someone thudded across the plasglass floor. The sound of a slap-shot against the skin of his upper arm hurt more than medication being forced deep within. His temporary link with reality faded into silence.