Carter glanced at Peelhammer and Capecot. “Your soldiers are efficient. I am Carter Anderson, this is my brother, Duskin. I am Master of Evenmere.”
Settlefrost’s face went pale. “My soldiers are … not as efficient as I would like. Sergeant Peelhammer, you may return to your post.”
Peelhammer hesitated, studying Carter wistfully, as if he wished to speak, but he only nodded and tramped away, Capecot at his heels.
Once they were gone, Settlefrost stood up and paced the floor. “I knew you would come, I just knew it,” he said, wringing his hands. “I told them it couldn’t be done, that they’d never get away with it. And here it is and you’ve come to punish me and I deserve it. It’s death, I suppose. At first I thought it was good. We were organizing, and they said it would make everything better for everyone. We would all be part of the Brotherhood, all equal, man, woman, and child, and everyone would be happy. And it went well at first. After they took our king away we built the train, and painted all the halls, had work for everyone and all sorts of managers and administrators. It was going to be grand. You do understand we meant well?”
Carter was baffled by this string of words, but he said, “Such things usually begin that way.”
“Yes,” the man said, relief in his voice. “We were doing something lofty, and there were banners and festivals and plenty of food for everyone. And then the men in their low hats and greatcoats came, and all the soldiers recruited from our own people, though I don’t know how there could be so many. Things began to happen. All the money spent on festivals never seemed to bring in any revenue. We tried work programs, economic reforms, but the more we struggled, the worse things became. We raised taxes time and again. We set up gambling houses to generate income to increase the wages of the teachers of our schools so our children could grasp the anarchists’ Grand Design, and they learned less and less. We had studies and commissions and endless rhetoric, all part of what the Bobby called the ‘Great Chain of Communication,’ and much was said and nothing done. In the name of intellectual freedom, under the anarchists’ insistence on the realistic portrayal of human suffering, our writers and artists described the basest depravity of man, until our people considered it customary. There seemed to be no help for it. When we ran out of colorful paint we used brown, and when we ran out of dye for our clothing, we used brown again. And one morning we awoke and found Innman Tor this glowering ghost, the whole tor changed overnight! It wasn’t our fault! There were too many soldiers!”
Carter stared hard at the frightened man. “You built it all on sand, knowing the anarchists were stripping your land of its wealth. Wouldn’t anyone stand up to them? Was there no substance within the people themselves?”
“Once, oh, once there was! I swear it!”
“You’re a prisoner here, aren’t you?” Carter asked.
Settlefrost looked around wildly. “Don’t say it loud,” he whispered. “I’m supposed to be the Leader.”
“How long have they kept you here?”
Settlefrost propped his soft face in his hands. “Almost from the beginning. They let me out sometimes to give speeches, but the anarchists and their soldiers run it all. They came five years ago, and there was no Master to appeal to once we saw our mistake. They guard all the ways in and out of the country. And lately they’ve grown stronger, locking doors that can’t be unlocked, unlocking doors we thought forever shut. At night things creep up from some foul basement—living things, but not human. People have begun to disappear. We’re all afraid.”
“Do the anarchists know we’re here?” Duskin asked.
“Ah—that is, we had orders to inform them if strangers appeared. Word was sent this morning. You must understand, no one told me you were the Master.”
Duskin slammed his palm against the table, his eyes afire. “You speak of mercy and plot treachery!”
“Forgive me!” Settlefrost cried.
“How can we escape?” Carter asked.
“There is only one way down.”
They rose, and hurried back through the tunnel, Settlefrost at their heels. Looking out from the top of the stairs they saw the dark coats of anarchists crossing the fields in groups of five and six, approaching the town from all directions. Within the village itself other anarchists led hundreds of soldiers toward the tor.
“You are lost!” Settlefrost cried. “If I had known you were the Master—”
“You would have betrayed us anyway,” Carter said.”You have deluded your own people.”
“But the anarchists will have it all their way,” Settlefrost said. “Is there nothing you can do?”
A group of soldiers were climbing the stairs, waving and shouting at them. “There is one thing I might try,” Carter said. “If it succeeds, it may cost you much of what you have built.”
“Anything!” Settlefrost said.
“What do you plan?” Duskin asked.
“I will use the Word of Hope, which is a Word that heartens and ends confusion, to separate the true from the false.”
“What do you mean?” Settlefrost demanded.
Carter looked upon him with pity. “You poor fool. Your people have deceived themselves. Have they seen nothing around them? I noticed it when we arrived. Half your soldiers have no shadows.”
A gunshot powdered the sandstone to their left and ricocheted into the sky. The men retreated into the shade of the opening. “Be ready,” Carter said. “I don’t know how much will fade.”
He drew the Word of Power, Rahmurrim, from his mind, and held it before his imagination, until he thought he felt the heat from the burning letters. Each time he used the Words it became easier to wield them. It rose within him like magma against mountain-stone, but he restrained it, containing its force, allowing it to build pressure. When he could do so no more, he released it, and it erupted like flowing iron, the pent energy more potent than he had ever experienced before. Both Duskin and Settlefrost had withdrawn from him, and he was glad, for when he cried the Word, the whole tor shook, sending the ascending guards tumbling backward like wooden soldiers.
It resonated across the dry fields, and for an instant after its last echoes fled, nothing occurred; then the surface of the ghastly tor began to tremble and bubble, and the face to melt as candle wax.
“We have to get down!” Carter cried.
They scrambled down the stairs, its steps rapidly turning to mud, until all that remained was a slope too slippery to support them. They tumbled helplessly through the evaporating muck, which refused to cling to their bodies, but blew away like vapor.
They slid to the bottom and landed at last on hard earth. Carter picked himself up, found himself surprisingly unharmed, and helped Duskin and Settlefrost to their feet. Behind them, the hollow eyes of the tor had nearly melted closed; already it was half its former height. Before them the soldiers who had not fled were writhing upon the ground; steam wafted from them, as they, too, melted. They did not appear to suffer, for they made no outcry, but dissolved like burning toys, soulless, impassive, and Carter noticed Capecot among them. He neither saw nor expected Peelhammer, who had possessed a shadow, to be with them.
The town was dissipating, the roofs steaming and sagging, the cobblestone streets sinking into the earth. Only the older buildings, built before the coming of the anarchists, remained whole. A filthy, brown residue of smoke billowed into the sky, while a bell sounded continual alarm from a tower near the train station.
An anarchist, gun in hand, appeared from around the corner of a dwindling house. As he aimed toward the brothers, Carter unsheathed the Lightning Sword. As if in response to danger, it shone brilliantly. Though Carter could look upon it without harm, Duskin and Settlefrost hid their eyes; the anarchist hurled his gun away and bolted down the street.
The three fled south, away from the base of the tor, in the direction where Carter had seen the least number of approaching anarchists. Soldiers scattered all around them, terrified by the destruction of their comrades. A pair of a
narchists rushed by as well, heedless of the men, as panicked as the rest. In the confusion, the three companions soon crossed the outskirts of town. Carter glanced over his shoulder, then stopped in astonishment. “Look!” He pointed toward the hillock.
The entire, ghastly tor was sliding in upon itself, vanishing into a deep cavity, the noise of its crumbling like paper being crushed. It was gone in seconds, leaving a deep, steaming pit.
“How?” Settlefrost cried.
“The ghost image of the tor was fabrication, like the soldiers,” Carter said. “Beneath its cover they destroyed the real tor. But for what purpose?”
“The treasure of the tor,” Settlefrost said sadly. “There were said to be great riches, powerful magics hidden beneath the mound. We thought it legend. It must be what they sought all along.”
“I wonder if they found it?” Duskin said.
Carter shrugged. “I hope we never find out. The name of the country will be Innman Crater from now on, I suppose.”
“I have to go back,” Settlefrost said, sudden determination on his brow.
“If the anarchists don’t kill you, your own people might,” Carter said.
“Yes, that’s true. But I failed as a leader and now they need my help. I have to rally them for a stand against the anarchists. Now that there are fewer soldiers, we might have a chance.”
“Be careful what treaties you found,” Carter said. “When all is done I will bring the forces of the White Circle here. If the country is not in proper order, you will answer to me, Settlefrost.”
Settlefrost quailed and slipped away between the houses, too frightened to say good-bye.
“Will he barter with the anarchists again?” Duskin asked. “We should have taken him with us.”
“No. I believe he will do his best. He had conscience enough to know his wickedness, and he was, after all, truly a prisoner in his own high estate. If he shows courage his people may yet follow him. If he doesn’t he won’t survive.”
They hurried across the fields that had been stripped by the anarchists, their desolation no illusion. Neither was the train, for its tracks remained whole and the sallow engine stood beyond the brown smoke covering the vale. The Bobby must have needed it to take the plundered goods from the country, and perhaps to transport the people themselves, undoubtedly to some horrible fate. Beyond the train, Carter caught sight of the anarchists, opposite their own position, hurrying toward the town. To the south, the fields were clear, but more than twenty armed men were rushing to intercept them from the east. The brothers broke into a run toward the distant gables.
Immediately, Carter knew the race would be close. The two men veered to the left, angling away from their adversaries, forcing the band to travel farther to intercept them. A hail of bullets ripped the earth behind them. Carter pulled his own pistol and fired, a careless shot to provoke their caution, but to his wonder a man fell. He chuckled humorlessly at his luck, thinking they might yet escape, then groaned as three other anarchists plunged out of the house from the southeast. The brothers veered even farther west and redoubled their efforts, but by the time they were within a hundred yards of the gables, the three pursuers had drawn close; one of them, apparently a gifted runner, had pulled far ahead of the other two, and his bullets whizzed by the men. Both Duskin and Carter returned fire, and the man fell, clutching his side. The companions were among the white terraces of the house before the other two came within range.
They slipped behind a stand of tall oaks, losing themselves among the boughs, doubling back to the right along the tree line. As the two anarchists reached the house, they met the brothers’ waiting gun sights, and were downed at once. The respite gave Carter and Duskin time to clamber onto a wooden porch and reach a tidy white door. Bullets tore at the posts and door frame as they clambered into a large kitchen, bolting the door behind them.
They sped between aisles of pots and pans, cutlery and low ovens, through a storeroom filled with sacks of flour, where a pair of aproned men, struggling with a heavy box, called after them to halt. Heedless, the brothers came to a rickety stair at the end of the room, leading down into darkness. They hurriedly lit a lamp and descended into a dirty, unpromising basement scarcely likely to have another exit, with dirt floors and cobwebs crisscrossed through the middle of the room. Worse, the cooks would probably report them to the anarchists.
They passed through two empty rooms, forced the only remaining door, and found themselves in another deserted chamber, their only company a pair of squeaking rats squinting at the glow of the lantern. In the corner Carter spied a dumbwaiter; its box had deteriorated into shards over time, leaving the shaft open. Light streamed down from a large opening above.
Duskin used his hands for a stirrup to boost Carter up to the higher bracing boards in the shaft, which he could use for footholds. A score of thoughts ran through Carter’s mind as he gripped the timber and pulled himself up, of the collapsing tor and the melting soldiers, of his own doubts about whether he should have stayed in the town and rallied the soldiers against the anarchists, or, if not, made a stand against them himself. Yet, Master or no, he doubted he could have commanded the troops in time. And even with the Words of Power and the Lightning Sword, he did not believe he could hold off a garrison.
As his fingers tightened over the lip of the opening and he struggled to pull himself up, he also realized he would never be truly lost in the High House again, for even as he pushed the half-closed dumbwaiter door aside, the maps came to mind, and he knew where he was. He had bypassed the kitchen altogether and entered an upper corridor.
Duskin followed quickly after, bracing himself against both sides of the shaft to climb, and in a moment they were reunited. The passage was dirty from neglect, uncarpeted, its wooden floors bare of finish. Far off, they heard the shouts and running feet of their pursuers. Carter led them, without hesitation, toward a metal stairs.
He considered using the Word of Secret Ways, and a new realization came to him, that it would do no good because there were no hidden passages anywhere nearby. Where the knowledge came from, he did not know, except that it was part of being the Master. He wondered, with vague uneasiness, what other powers he would eventually claim if he survived to come into his full inheritance.
They spent the remainder of the day in cat and mouse, fleeing the footfalls of their enemies, climbing ever higher into the house, for Carter intended to rise nearly to the attic, before descending again to the outer boundary of Innman Tor, where it connected with the White Circle. It was a circuitous route, but an unexpected one, and he hoped to outmaneuver his enemies. He also sensed he would find secret ways in the upper reaches.
By the time twilight fell across gray, moth-eaten curtains, they had attained to the highest portions of the house, and peered from smudged windows overlooking the crater where the tor had stood. Having heard no sign of the anarchists for the past hour, they chanced a few hours rest, exhaustion demanding nothing else. The rooms had been deserted many years; all the furnishings had been taken; the closets lay empty; only the soft prints of mice disturbed the dust; and Carter remembered a proverb his father often used: “as few as the men in Innman Tor,” a homily no doubt common in the house.
He took the first watch. The moon, obscured by the clouds, transformed them to sullen Chinese lanterns while Carter fretted. He wondered if the rain would ever end, or if all creation were to be swept beneath the torrents, covered by the darkness. The anarchists would surely expect the brothers to seek the Long Corridor, and would muster their forces at the border. As the night wore on, and the strands of moonlight sought to break through the cloud cover, Carter cast ever for a way to escape.
Duskin relieved him near one o’clock, and he slept till four, when they rose, ate a mouthful of food, and continued on their way, going ever upward, having no other plan, though despair had crept into Carter’s heart.
His one hope lay in the hidden passages he sensed in the upper stories, and they labored until noon to
reach them. Finally, in a musty corridor, in the pinnacle of that portion of the house, he spoke the Word of Secret Ways, and the mansion trembled at its speaking. A blue rectangle appeared on the wall to his left, and a blue square in the ceiling. Momentary surprise crossed his face.
“What’s wrong?” Duskin asked.
“Through the maps within me, I sensed the panel on the wall, but not the trapdoor above. Why should that be?”
“I don’t know. Which should we take?”
Carter thought a moment. “The trapdoor. Surely our enemies can’t subvert the Words of Power; there must be something unique beyond it.”
They searched the vacant halls until they found a surviving dresser to use for a step. As Carter pushed against the door, a spring mechanism released, dragging it aside. He set the lantern on the floor above before pulling himself through. Though momentarily blinded by his own light, he saw well enough to determine that no one waited in the gloom.
He helped Duskin up, then looked about.
“There’s something strange about this,” Carter said, as his lantern revealed the beginnings of a large chamber. An odd familiarity swept him, along with a half-remembered fear, and as the sloping walls, the tall ceiling, the bare wooden floors, and the dust told their story, he drew a sharp breath.
“This is the attic of the Last Dinosaur!”
“But we should be miles from there!”
A flame roared over their heads from a source not fifty feet away, illuminating the whole attic in a blazing flash. Jormungand towered above them, eyes gleaming red as the fire.
The High House Page 27