by Don McQuinn
Sylah said, “The Teachers. They wait.” It sent a chill up Conway’s back.
Weapons ready, they set off. When they reached the door, Tate awkwardly shifted her wipe and reached for the handle. Nalatan eased her aside, took over.
A figure slumped in a large, winged upholstered chair behind a huge wooden desk in a small office. It wore the black robe of Church, with a golden T embroidered on the left breast. The hood was raised. Inside the soft, black depths was a desiccated, mummified head. Gray, filmy hair draped to frame leathered cheeks. Closed eyes slept eternally. Lips like old cord parted slightly to reveal a fine white line of teeth. Her crossed wrists lay in her lap. One hand was exposed. The bones were clearly visible through the near-transparent skin. The fingers were curled, talonlike.
There was a solitary sheet of yellowed paper and a black plastic pen on her desk. Sylah stepped past Nalatan to pick up the paper. The writing was a faded trace. Sylah examined it for a moment, then handed it to Tate. Ceremonious, her act was the gesture of one Priestess extending a holy artifact to another.
Tate read aloud.
“‘To you reading these words, greetings to the home of the Teachers. I am the last. None of my sisters has come home for several years now. Sometimes I think I hear their voices, but it’s never true. Lately, it’s been my own words, and I cry as I listen to the echoes race away from me and escape this dreadful loneliness.
“‘Once, I hoped a sister would return. Now it’s my greatest fear. It would mean one of us failed, and revealed the secret of our home to those who conduct the Purge.
“‘Whoever you are, I pray you are truly the Flower.
“‘There are those in Church who know this place exists, but not where. Even I, the last living caretaker, don’t know who holds the secret of our location. Those who dug these impervious caves and created these horrible killing machines are long dead. How they would groan to learn the use we have made of their monument. I only wish we had no reason to keep the lasers operational. What made the Teachers a threat, however, must be protected. It will be the greatest irony of our kind if our secret asset eliminates the need for their destructive power. Ignorance is such a trifling, temporary nuisance for man. His abiding malady is a determination to consolidate the condition into a permanent state.
“‘Generations from now it may be possible for the Teachers to be reborn. The wisest and most compassionate of Church shall decide when and where the ground is properly prepared to receive the seed. The Flower will be chosen.’”
Tate paused at the sound of sobs.
Sylah wanted to tell Tate to continue, but she needed a moment to think. Chosen—that hated word, now revealed to mean so much more. The Iris Abbess—wisest and most compassionate, indeed. Teachers, reborn.
A true realization of the immensity of her responsibility began to reach Sylah. It was like the first view of a rising sun, the merest hint of what one knew to be the edge of indescribable majesty. And ferocity.
At Sylah’s signal, Tate read on. “‘The forces of evil and ignorances are indistinguishable. The Flower will never be safe from either. Nevertheless, the tools to build a world are here. When I die, a sensor will turn off power to everything but the defensive sensors and weapons our scientists, engineers, and theoreticians emplaced. They say only the key can unlock the door, disarm the system, and turn on the lights. They say only the Flower can accomplish the deed. We shall see. It was the assurances and invention of similar authorities and their political trained apes that brought us to this situation.
“‘I shall die at my desk (Clean for the first time, clean eternally. My own little ecclesiastical joke.) with my most precious possessions, my set of Church’s finest jewels. As my life dims, I shall fondle them (my eyes aren’t what they once were) and pray that the Flower will compassionately bring to the world the wisdom I have been entrusted to safeguard. It shames me to say we’ve kept it hidden, because what we offer should be central to the life of everyone born.
“‘The Flower’s duty is to see that our sacrifices serve a purpose. She cannot guarantee the crop. She must assure the planting.
“‘Behind me, everything.
“‘Before you, more.’”
Tate cleared her throat. “There’s no name.”
Lanta sobbed quietly. Conway moved to her. Her look was wary, but then she clung to him.
Sylah moved to the desk. Cautiously, avoiding the mummified body, she pulled gently on a metal handle jutting from the Teacher’s side of the desk. She started as a cunningly fitted open-topped box slid out.
Tate came to look. She said, “Her most precious possessions. Conway, come see this.” Reaching inside, she lifted out a rectangular thing. The top hinged, somehow, and when Tate lifted it, Sylah saw it was all made of paper.
With words.
After a three-sign, hand to her breast, Sylah backed against the wall.
Unaware of her distress, Tate and Conway continued their search. More of the objects came out of what Sylah heard Conway call a drawer. She accepted the word, in spite of never having heard it applied to anything metal before. Working up her courage, she asked, “Those things you’re taking out of there—what are they?”
For a moment, he was blank, then a great sorrow touched him. Softly, he explained. “Books, Sylah. They’re called books. Your Teacher treasured these.” He held them up, one at a time. “The Complete Mathematics. Civil Engineering: Theory and Practice. This one’s a basic chemistry text. This one’s physics. And last…” He paused, cleared his throat. “Poetry of the Ages.”
Turning to Tate, who’d moved to the other side of the Teacher’s body, Conway asked, “Is there anything over there?”
“Nothing.”
Sharply, Sylah looked at Tate. The answer was equivocal. Tate had seen something she didn’t want to mention. Sylah couldn’t find it in her to pursue the matter.
The books were too important.
Words on paper.
Apprehension hammered at Sylah’s sense of the holiness of this place. Since the beginning, Church insisted that all words left from the time of the giants must be destroyed. The ritual called the Return demanded their burning.
If the secret of the Door was somehow connected with words and paper, it was anathema.
But the Teacher was clear. “Behind me, everything. Before you, more.” Her most precious possessions.
No Teacher could be evil, the secret of the Door could never be evil. The Teachers died because they possessed the secret and were feared.
The Flower would live for the secret. Whatever it was.
“I’ll carry the books.” Sylah ignored Lanta’s shocked intake of breath. “They belonged to one of our finest. Church will treasure them, and her, forever. It’s my honor to carry them.”
Without hesitation, Conway handed over all five. Sylah stowed them in the deep pockets of her robe.
Lanta and Nalatan, watching her, made nervous three-signs.
Sylah ran for the door behind the Teacher. The others followed. Stopped short. Tate broke the silence. “A library. Vidisk cabinets. Thousands of disks. Hundreds of thousands.”
Conway was reverent. “The knowledge of mankind. Everything, everything, must be here.”
In a quiet aside for Conway alone, Tate said, “This explains the medical expertise. Here’s why the Teachers felt they had enough power to bargain for equality.”
Conway pulled open a drawer. Vidisks gleamed softly.
Excitement jittered in Tate’s voice. “Like the crèche. A source of power somewhere. Matt, we can bring scholars here from everywhere, anywhere. It’ll be the greatest university the world ever saw.”
Her enthusiasm infected Conway. He hurried from row to row, touching, stroking. Tate chased after him. They called the names of subjects, authors, sources. Tate gave a whoop. “Books. Hidden away over here on this end. More old fashioned, honest-to-goodness books. Thousands. Shelves of them. Geology. Hydraulics. Oceanography.”
It was Conw
ay’s turn to run to her. Like children, they danced, hand in hand, shouting.
Sylah and Lanta exchanged disturbed looks. Lanta said, “I don’t understand what they’re saying. You’re the Flower; what’s all this mean?”
“I don’t know.” There was a touch of resentment in the confession. This was the Door, and its secrets were hers. Why should strangers understand what she couldn’t? Why did the flat, gleaming disks mean so much? What did Tate mean when she said “A power source?” Whose power? It was all confusing. And their near-hysteria was frightening.
Sylah huddled with Nalatan and Lanta. Lanta whispered, “It’s what I feared. Books are evil. They make people mad. The Teachers must have been evil.”
“Impossible.” Sylah reached out, squeezed Lanta’s forearm hard enough to generate a soft cry of complaint. Releasing the arm, Sylah continued without apology. “Conway and Tate were all right until they read. That’s what’s dangerous. Don’t you see? People must treat books carefully. Of course our friends are mad; they’ve absorbed more than they can tolerate, too fast. They need help.”
Sylah hoped she looked and sounded more courageous than she felt. It was obvious how learning had turned the giants against their slaves. It was a lesson she vowed never to forget, never to allow anyone else to ignore.
Despite the lunatic gaiety of her companions, Sylah felt the haunted power of the things around her, the sheer intelligence involved. When she grabbed Tate and spun her around, she was elated to see the instant departure of the wild, wide-eyed excitement. In a few choking breaths, Tate was back in control of herself. Conway took a moment longer, but then he, too; was calm again. They both apologized profusely.
None of them heard the silence, at first.
“The ram.” Sylah whirled, looked back toward the massive room. Yells ricocheted through the passageways.
Tate grabbed Sylah’s arm. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No!” Sylah tore herself free, backed against the wall. “You heard. I have a duty.”
Bluntly, Tate said, “You can’t carry it out dead. We can’t help you dead. Now move it. That way.” To Conway, Tate added, “Can you and the dogs hold them off? Nalatan can’t help unless they’re on us, but he can help me look for a way out. Any ideas?” Her alert, constrained expression and the glaring white bandage on her jaw combined to image her as a fighter, a person executing an ordained role. Conway thought how much she meant to him.
He said, “The lasers. They had to be serviced from the rear. Maybe we can slip out through an embrasure. If we can find one.”
Tate nodded. “I’m on it.”
“Right.” Conway returned to the double doors. He checked his ammunition. Twelve rounds left in the pistol. Fifty wipe rounds. Ten for the boop, one of them armor-piercing, and two flechette loads. Twenty rounds for the sniper rifle. He braced against the doorjamb to cover the stepped command room.
The first two nomads out of the stairwell went down like target practice. When the wipe’s rolling thunder quieted, dire threats boiled from the dark doorway. Conway smiled ruefully. The fight had taken a turn. Battling underground in a place of magic took all the courage the nomads could find. When they came again, it’d be with a bellyful of fear, the sort that generated an absolutely mindless courage. He set himself to meet them accordingly. He checked the dogs on their “stay.” They were ready.
A group of five nomads burst out of the stairwell, sprinted for cover behind the desks. Conway wasted five rounds, only hit one man. Another group of five was even luckier, avoiding four shots without injury.
With a sinking heart, Conway heard a roar of voices in the distance. Reinforcements. Pointlessly, he recounted his ammunition.
Five more men bolted. Three fell, still. Conway cheered. An arrow flew at him, dropped short, skipped to a halt several feet from the door. Without thinking, he sent a round where it came from, then cursed his wastefulness.
Something new touched his hearing. Crashing. Breaking. A cry of pain. Then Moonpriest’s voice. “No! No! You fools! Don’t…”
There was no light.
Abyssal darkness. Across the room, nomads moaned, screamed, clattered about in panic.
Moonpriest was speaking, soothing. “Quiet. Quiet. Be still, my sons. Moonpriest is with you.” The hubbub slowly subsided. Moonpriest continued. “My mother blesses us with this blackness. The lightning weapons need light to function.”
Conway snapped off a boop round in the direction of the voice. Moonpriest yelped at the sound. Conway was congratulating himself at the prolonged silence after the explosion of the round when Moonpriest spoke, boasting. “Blind, my children. Our enemy wastes his strength. Remember, this is Conway, the false brother, the apostate who brought death to your wives and children. Silently, my ever-changing snakes of eternal life. Strike. Windband conquers.” The sibilant last was elongated, a hiss.
Chapter 30
Conway reached out, touched a harsh coat. “Attack,” he said, and thrilled at the way the two massive dogs drifted away like a puff of air.
In the distance behind him he heard occasional thumps as his friends stumbled in the darkness.
Suddenly, growls and screams blasted the black solidity. Then snarling, rending noises. As quickly as it erupted, the noise was gone. Anguished shouts followed. Men called friends. In the end, it was one voice, breaking: “Vidba? Vidba? Answer me! Where are you?”
A gruff answer came from Conway’s right, so close it startled him. “Vidba’s gone. Double up. No one alone.”
Conway snapped a flechette in that direction. An arrow sizzled back, struck the wall off to his right. He jacked a boop flechette round into the chamber. The noise earned another arrow, this one closer.
He whistled in the dogs.
Tate’s voice almost startled him into firing her way. She said, “Matt. Come on.”
“Coming.” He reaching out in the blackness. Touched a dog. Only one. Frightened, he clutched it to him, stretched out, seeking. The second was there. There was a catch in his voice when he commanded them to follow. He eased the double doors shut. With his heel, he crushed the open end of a boop cartridge, jamming the resulting wedge under them at the juncture. He pulled and pushed the desk against them.
Hands outstretched, he called to Tate. She snapped her fingers. “Come to the noise.” A moment later, he touched her, fell in behind her.
Soon, Nalatan’s hoarse whisper said, “Donnacee?”
“Right here. Any news?”
Nalatan said, “There are stairs at the far end of this room, leading to a long hall. I looked both ways, saw no light.”
Behind them, the metal wedge squealed piercingly as the double doors were forced. A dull, orange glow followed. Conway said, “They’ve got torches. I’m going to get one.”
Lanta put a hand on his arm. “It’s too dangerous. We can find our way.”
“If they can see, and we can’t, we’re finished.” Conway pulled away. Nalatan said, “I’m coming with you.”
Calling the dogs, they made their way back. The vidisk cabinets and bookshelves were as high as Conway’s shoulder, turning the entire library into a grid of passageways. At one intersection, Nalatan indicated Conway should hold fast. Nalatan leapt to the far side.
A nomad carrying a torch trotted along the perpendicular alleyway. Across from Conway and the dogs, Nalatan’s anticipatory grin was spectral eye whites and teeth.
The man approaching was so intent on his progress that Conway’s presence didn’t fully register on him until he was already past. As he turned, Nalatan’s parrying bar struck with a sharp crack. Conway snatched the torch from nerveless hands as the stunned Blizzardman dropped.
Conway and Nalatan were at the stairs before the man groaned and called for help. Pursuers gave immediate chase.
Tate’s boop fired twice. There were screams and curses. Tate and Nalatan returned at a dead run, shouting ahead of their arrival. “A lot of them, Matt, down that hall there. Get up the stair
s. Now!” She whirled, fired the wipe. A torch fell. Wild, surreal light patterns scrawled the walls and ceiling.
Firing, falling back, the group surrendered distance for time. They found many doors. None offered escape.
An arrow penetrated Conway’s chain mail. It was harmless, but it made everyone understand how close the race had become.
It was Nalatan who found the light. He questioned it, afraid of disappointment. “Is that a reflection of the torch?”
Tate ran into the room with him, reached out and grabbed Sylah. Conway scooped Lanta in with him, slamming the steel door behind the trailing dogs.
Footsteps pounded in the hall outside, then hesitated, wary of ambush. Tate wedged her knife under the door. “Let’s hope that holds better than your boop cartridge.”
The torch revealed a featureless room with a square metal box in the center and a metal cabinet, floor to ceiling, to the right of the door. Wires rose from the black box to disappear into the ceiling, and a black tube approximately a half inch in diameter extended from its side to the wall opposite the door.
“Laser port,” Tate said. “Just what you thought, buddy.” She patted the box, pointing at the place where the tube reached the wall. “A ball joint where the tube actually fits through the wall. See here; the box moves, as well. It only gives a few degrees of bearing or elevation, but it expands the field of fire a lot. Smart work.”
Conway found it difficult to share Tate’s professional appreciation.
The minute speck of light was at the bottom of the balljoint. Nalatan dropped to his knees, twisted, and worked to get his eye to it. When he straightened, his grin told everyone what they needed to know. “The valley. We can do it. Escape.”
Sylah looked at the door, closed against her. “The Teacher. My duty.” She faced her friends, beseeching. “The Teacher said my responsibility is to bring all the magic in that room to the world.”
Lanta said, “The Teacher said you must plant the seed. We must leave.”
Conway muffled a groan. The naiveté was heartbreaking.