by Tad Williams
"Mozart," Martine breathed. "He told me he liked Mozart."
Paul did not have to ask who she meant.
As they hurried up the side street, trying to stay in the pockets of shadow, Paul at last saw the piano player. The room in which he played might once have been the back parlor of one of the saloons which faced out onto the main street, a secluded nook where cowboys or gamblers with money in their pockets could spend a little private time with the town's professional women, but some explosion had taken out most of the wall, and privacy was in any case clearly a thing of the past. The player was an old black man, although his color now was much closer to gray. He was surrounded by swaying duplicates of Dread who were either too drunk to move much or were actually attending to his warped rendition of Mozart. The failings of the music became even more understandable when Paul saw that the legless pianist had been tied to his bench with barbed wire, and sat like a becalmed ship in a spreading pool of his own blood.
Now it was Paul's turn to stumble, gagging, and to be helped along by the others.
It took them long minutes to dodge from building to building, the fires making their skin itch, their ears full of the cries of the dying and those pleading for death—an agonizingly extended walking tour through the inferno. Paul had to fight to keep going. Every bit of sheltering darkness seemed to offer an oasis of peace. Each open space felt like it was watched by hundreds of eyes.
Thank God we came after they'd been at this for days, he thought as he struggled to catch his breath in the smoldering, smoky depths of a livery stable. Thank God those Dread-clones have wallowed in this evil so long that they're almost senseless with it. He could not let himself think about the hundreds of Dodge City inhabitants whose misery had given him and his companions this chance.
They had crossed their second street and stood in a trembling huddle in a doorway across from the ruins of a newspaper office. A pile of what at first seemed to be some kind of animal skins lay in the dusty street. Paul had only just recognized them as the remains of more citizens—they had been run through the printing press until rolled bonelessly flat, and one unlucky victim even had a "Dodge City Welcomes Visitors!" headline printed across his now greatly extended body—when Martine waved tor silence. Since none of them had the breath to speak, it seemed a bit unnecessary.
"Over that way," she said at last. "It was just a moment, but I . . . I felt it."
"Felt what?" Florimel's voice was flat with shock and fatigue.
"A gateway, I think."
T4b stirred. "Anywhere, gotta be better."
They followed her along the gutted buildings and then west down Walnut Street. Behind them the Mozart was slowing like a gramophone in need of cranking. As they staggered out into the shadows west of the town, Paul saw that the moon was just now climbing above the peaks of the mountains, as if confused by the cataclysmic changes to its familiar plains.
"This way," Martine panted.
It was such a relief not to be surrounded by burning walls that Paul could almost feel the darkness cover him like a cool, damp cloth. They made their way northwest along the edge of the swamp, squelching through the mud, slipping and sticking, but it seemed a thousand times preferable to what they had left behind. Even when a buzzing thing as large as a rat alighted on Martine's shoulder, making her shriek and fall to the ground, Paul felt the bargain was worthwhile. He plucked it off her with the nonchalance of complete, exhausted misery, and twisted it between his hands until it splintered, oozed, and died.
"There," Florimel gasped as Paul helped Martine to stand. "I think I see it!"
She was pointing at a pale, low protuberance a quarter, mile away, burnished by moonlight until it seemed the lop of a giant's buried skull. Despite their sagging weariness they broke into a trot across the slickly treacherous flats.
"Fenfen!" T4b cried out, his voice full of despair. For a moment Paul thought the youth had fallen, but when he turned he saw T4b was peering back at a cloud of small fires that had detached themselves from the greater burning that was Dodge City. "Torches," T4b moaned. "Following us, like."
Paul pulled the boy until they were both moving at a stumbling trot once more. "Hurry!" he shouted to the others. "Someone's seen us!"
The ground around Boot Hill was harder, drier, and when they reached it they broke into a sprint. Paul tripped and the earth seemed to leap up toward him, smacking him like a heavy hand, but now it was T4b who reached down and tugged Paul back onto his feet.
The graveyard on top of the hill was surprisingly small, a couple of dozen wooden crosses and a few modest stone markers littering the uneven ground. There were more rocks than monuments. Other than buffalo grass, the only object on the hilltop higher than Paul's waist was a slender ash tree with a noose dangling from a long branch—a hanging tree.
"Where is it?" Florimel asked. "The gateway?"
Martine was pivoting slowly from side to side like a radar dish sweeping the skies. "I . . . I cannot tell. It will not reveal itself to my command, and there seems nothing here large enough to contain it. A grave. . . ?"
"Want me to dig, tell me," T4b said, bending to scratch at the nearest mound like a crazed dog. "Need to get out now—for true!"
The torches were moving toward them with terrifying speed, and now Paul could see that the torchbearers were at least a dozen Dread-men mounted on the strange black horses with hands. As the war party sped up the hill, not slowed in the least by the horses' bizarre gait, Paul felt himself sinking into apathy. He dragged Ben Thompson's pistol out of his pocket. It felt heavy as an anchor.
"Javier, be quiet!" Martine shouted from behind him. "Let me think!"
Paul sank to one knee, trying to steady the gun. The first of the Dreads had reached the bottom of the slope. Paul did his best to aim, wishing for the only time in his life that he had been the kind of boy fascinated by weapons. He waited as long as he dared, sweating so that he could barely keep his finger on the trigger; then, when the rider was less than twenty meters away, he shot.
Whether from blind luck or some vestige of the original simulation favoring the human participant, his shot struck the ape-horse and sent it crashing to the ground. It must have rolled on its rider, for he did not rise after the horse had skidded to a leg-flailing stop. The other Dread-men veered away sideways, taking a circular path around the base of the hill, screeching now with rage, or perhaps even with pleasure at the diversion. Many of them were armed with rifles and pistols; their guns cracked and bullets whined across the hilltop. Paul flung himself to the ground. Florimel and T4b did the same. Martine did not.
"What are you doing?" he screamed at her. "Martine, get down!"
"Of course," she said as bullets whistled through the grass at her feet. "I should have seen it before." She sprinted for the tree. "There would be no gallows on sacred ground," she shouted.
Terrified for her, Paul rose and began squeezing off shots, hoping only to distract the attention of the circling Dreads from such an easy target, but his luck had changed: although he thought he saw one of the torch-wielding shapes snap backward in the saddle, none of his other bullets seemed to have any effect. He looked over his shoulder and saw Martine reaching up to the hangman's noose, pulling it with her fingers as though readying it for a particularly large neck. Golden light burst out of it. Within moments it was an opening larger than she was, extending from the knot at the top of the noose all the way to the ground. T4b and Florimel were already running low across the hilltop. Paul turned to see the mounted men charging up the hillside, their shouts rising like the belling of hounds at the kill. He fired his last shot, flung the empty revolver toward the dazzle of torches, then sprinted for the glow.
Martine was waiting just at the edge. She grabbed his arm and together they dived into the heatless golden brilliance.
For a moment, as Paul fell through onto hard stone, it seemed that their pursuers had come through after them: the unsteady light of torches was everywhere.
Reassure
d by the silence, Paul sat up. The torches hung in wall brackets along a vast stone facade, outshining even the stars in the black sky. The wall was covered with painted scenes in the stiff Egyptian style, colorful portraits of people and animal-headed gods.
He stood, feeling for broken bones, but found nothing worse than skinned knees and ripped coveralls. Beside him Martine and Florimel and T4b were also climbing to their feet. The quiet, an almost palpable thing in this gallery of vast stone walls, was broken only by the sound of his companions' breathing.
"We made it," Paul whispered. "Brilliant, Martine."
Before she could reply, a shape appeared around the edge of the building, monstrously large but as silent as a cat. In one bound it stood before them and over them, a lion-bodied, human-headed giant. Crudely stitched in many places like an ancient doll, the sphinx leaked sand from a dozen gaping seams. Its eyelids were sewn shut.
"You trespass on sacred precincts," it announced in a voice so low and powerful that it seemed to shake the stones. "This is the Temple of Anubis, Lord of Life and Death. You trespass."
Paul found himself struggling to make words come out of his mouth, terrified by the astounding size of the thing. "W–w–we . . . w–we don't . . . mean. . . ."
"You trespass."
"Run!" Paul shouted, turning, but before he had gone three steps something struck him like a velvet freight train and smashed him into darkness.
CHAPTER 25
The Hidden Bridge
* * *
NETFEED/INTERACTIVES: GCN, Hr. 7.0 (Eu, NAm)-"Escape!"
(visual: Zelmo on ledge)
VO: Nedra (Kamchatka T) and Zelmo (Cold Wells Carlson) are on the run from Iron Island Academy, but agents of Lord Lubar (Ignatz Reiner) shoot Zelmo with a Despair Ray, and now he is desperate to kill himself. This is last episode before "Escape!" folds into the "I Hate My Life" plotline. 5 supporting, 25 background open, cold-weather outdoor shoot. Flak to: GCN.IHMLIFE.CAST
* * *
For the third time they poled the raft across the sluggish current, steering toward the far shore. The bank seemed little more than a long stone's throw away, but after strenuous exercise by Sam and the new arrival Azador on one side, !Xabbu and Jongleur on the other, they had moved no closer.
At last they dragged the poles out and stood up straight to catch their breath. Released now to the current, the raft began to drift lazily downstream. The meadowlands on the far bank, so unexceptional, so apparently identical to the side of the river from which they had come, were beginning to seem like some mythical continent out of the past.
"Someone must swim," Jongleur said. "A person may be allowed where a boat is not."
Sam was nettled. The old man might have been proved right in his conjecture that crossing the river, not following it, was the key to traversing this strange land, but she still didn't like the assumption of command in his voice.
"We don't work for you," she said through clenched teeth. Something bumped her in the small of the back and she whirled, ready to shout at Jongleur, but it was !Xabbu who had nudged her. He gave her a significant look; it took Sam a moment to figure it out.
We're not supposed to talk about who Jongleur is, she remembered, and felt ashamed. All those years as a thief, creeping through the houses of the rich and powerful in the Middle Country—the imaginary rich and powerful anyway—and here she was, when it really counted, almost blurting out secrets for no reason. She lowered her eyes.
"He is right," Azador said. "We will not know for certain until someone tries to swim. I would do it, but with my leg. . . ." He made a gesture of regret, of heroism postponed.
Sam waited for !Xabbu to volunteer and was surprised when he did not. Usually the small man insisted on taking the primary risks before he would let anyone else, especially Sam, do something dangerous. "I guess it's me, then," she said. So all those years of morning swim practice would get some practical use. She hoped she'd get to tell her mom about it someday. The thought of something so gloriously mundane as laughing with her mother about swimming those hated laps sent a sharp spike of longing through her.
"Wait, I am not sure. . . ." !Xabbu began.
"It's okay, I'm good at this." Without giving herself more time to worry, she lifted her arms and leaped from the edge of the raft. When she surfaced she could hear Azador and Jongleur cursing at the violent rocking caused by her dive.
The water was a bit of a shock, colder than she expected, and though the current was slow, it was a steady drag that made swimming a great deal more difficult than it had been in the pool back home; still, after a few awkward kicks she got her body level and began to cut an angular path across the river, heading for the grassy, welcoming slope of the far bank.
A couple of minutes, she guessed, gauging the distance.
Within half a hundred strokes it became obvious that either the current was deceptively strong or she was suffering the same fate as the raft. She lifted her head above water and changed to a breast stroke so she could better see what was happening. She dug river water out from before her, surged against the resistance, made headway . . . but the land got no closer. Frustrated, she dove under the surface, forcing her way down until one of her hands brushed against the thick grasses waving at the bottom of the river before flattening out again. She kicked as hard as she could, wriggling her body like a fish. She was proud of her strength: she would not give up without testing herself and the simulation.
When she couldn't hold her breath any longer, she gave another two kicks, then allowed herself to glide upward. The shore was still just as far away. Disgusted, treading water, she had turned around toward the middle of the river to look for the raft when a sudden, shocking pain stabbed at her leg.
Something grabbed me. . . ! was all she had time to think before she slid under the water. She fought her way back up through agony, one leg helpless, and realized it was not some carnivorous river dweller that had struck but a cramp in her calf. It made little difference: she could not keep herself above water for more than a moment, and she was exhausted from her fruitless swim.
Sam shouted for !Xabbu, but her nose and mouth were full of water and it came out as little more than a gurgle. She simply could not kick the cramped leg. nor could she do much else. She tried to roll over on her back and go limp—the words dead man's float bubbled through her brain, a very unreassuring phrase—now the pain in her leg was excruciating and river water was rolling across her face. She had just sunk under the surface for the second time when something whacked hard against her shoulder. She grabbed at the barge pole, clutching it as though it were the shepherd's crook of her very own guardian angel. Which, in a way, it was.
"I was very frightened, Sam." !Xabbu had been unwilling to leave her side to make the fire, and had left the job to Azador. As she huddled beside the low blaze, still shivering a half hour later, she found herself actually grateful to the mustached man. "I was hoping, hoping very hard, that we could get the raft as far as you swam," !Xabbu went on. "Oh, I was frightened."
Sam was touched. In some ways, her experience seemed to have been worse for him than it had been for her. "I'm okay. You saved me."
!Xabbu only shook his head.
"So we are thwarted," said Jongleur. "We cannot cross the river, either by boat or by swimming."
Sam made an effort to stop her teeth from chattering. "But there must be a bridge. Those little animals or whatever they were—the Bubble Bunny ones—they said something about going to a bridge. We just never found out what they meant." She could not help glaring at Jongleur, since it had been his frightening temper that had driven the natives away. She thought she saw a shadow of guilt cross his face.
Maybe he's a little bit human, she decided. Just a little. Of course, it might only be regret at having interfered with his own chances.
"But there are no bridges," Azador declared. "I have gone all the way around this bloody river three times. You have gone around it once yourself. Did you see bridges?"
"We can do nothing more today." !Xabbu's troubled expression had not gone, but it had changed into something different, more remote. "We will think again in the morning." He reached out and touched Sam's arm. "I am happy you were not hurt, Sam."
"Just my leg, and that's better now." She smiled, hoping to cheer him a little, but wondered how convincing it was with her teeth still chattering.
For all !Xabbu's concern, he was not beside her when Sam woke sometime in the middle of the night. She could see the shadowy forms of the other two revealed by the dying coals, but no sign of the small man.
Call of nature, like, she guessed, and had almost toppled back into sleep when she remembered that there was no longer such a thing for any of them. She jerked upright. The idea of losing him, of being left alone with only Jongleur and Azador, was too horrible to consider.
I don't want any of this. I just want to go home.
She tried to calm herself, forcing herself to imagine what Renie or Orlando would do. If !Xabbu was gone she had to go and look for him, that was all. She considered rousing the others but decided against it. If she could not find any sign of him within a hundred meters or so of the campfire she would think about it again.
She was just pulling a smoldering stick out of the fire to use as a torch when she noticed that someone else had already had the same idea: a hundred meters from the camp a single spot of orange light stood out against the black velvet hills. Sam trotted toward it.