by Unknown
"I bet the golem knows fuck-all about cyberdecks," Festus snorted. "Big boys made of clay that only dig what's going on when you give 'em a piece of paper to suck on can't even figure out how to work a pocket calculator - guaranteed."
"Will you just cut the crap!" Jessi snapped at him.
Nadros Vladek pushed the cyberdeck aside, took the pouch and emptied it out carefully on the desk top. There was nothing more to be seen than a small heap of pulverized earth.
The mage stuck the first of the written notes into the middle of the heap and left it there. Then he spread his hands over it and began to mumble a long litany. The rings on his fingers began to sparkle again, seeming to spray their fire into the dust. Once more the marble desk responded. It changed color, taking on a blood-red hue which pulsated with the rhythm of a beating heart, now pale, now strong.
For a while nothing happened. Suddenly, though, the dust began to move, whirling around as if a wind funnel had hit it, rising up over the sarcophagus, holding the note within it. The mage drew his hands out of the whirlwind, but continued to hold them raised. He had stopped speaking. His dead eyes glowed.
The centre of the whirlwind seemed to draw more dust from an unknown source. The dust column grew, becoming more dense. More and more dust seemed to be coming from within it. The column now looked firm and heavy, reached almost to the ceiling and kept growing in circumference. Slowly it took on the outlines of something human-like. A large head could be discerned, broad shoulders formed themselves, and heavy, muscular legs stood on the sarcophagus.
The transformation progressed at breathtaking speed. Crude facial features appeared, a wide nose, blind eyes, medium-length hair in a pageboy cut, an apron, knee-length breeches, bare feet. The man was about three meters tall, had shoulders at least one-and-a-half meters across, a bullneck and incredibly large hands and feet. Had the ceiling not been so high, the creature would not have had enough space beneath it. Vladek seemed to have taken this into consideration at the outset.
Despite all the details, the being remained composed of dust. As if someone had used a meticulously finished mold, rich in detail, and, instead of metal, poured in brown powder that for some inexplicable reason did not fall apart when the mold was removed. Even fingernails, eyelashes and individual hairs were reproduced. And yet everything was but loosely compacted matter. The colossus was made of dust through and through. Apart from clay-brown, there was no other color. The creature held the mage's note concealed within it.
Pandur and Jessi had watched the magical act of creation enthralled. Even Festus had goggled and seemed incapable of any kind of mockery.
Ponderously, with slow, clumsy movements, yet silently, the golem climbed down from the sarcophagus. The golem's blind eyes gazed downwards, directed at the mage. Nadros Vladel smiled.
"Kneel down!" he ordered.
To Pandur's amazement, the mage did not speak Hebrew, but used the cityspeak of the megaplexes, in which they had spoken the whole time. Only the note magic seemed to require Hebrew.
The golem obeyed and kneeled before the sarcophagus. Vladek rounded the marble desk top, took the cyberdeck and held it towards the golem in his outstretched hands.
"Take it!" said the mage.
The golem inclined himself forward, reached out and took the deck. He pressed it against his chest. In the next instant, his hands, together with the deck, were immersed in his chest. Then they re-emerged without the deck. The gap in his chest had closed over it. The golem had absorbed the cyberdeck.
"Open your mouth!" said Nadros Vladek with a firm voice and picked up the second note.
The golem obeyed this command too. Pandur assumed the first note had ordered the creature to appear and obey its master.
The mage stretched up to the open mouth of the colossus and pushed the note under its tongue. "Close your mouth!" he ordered.
Like a robot, the golem did what was required of it. Nadros Vladek took a few steps back, looked at the golem and waited. The colossus didn't move.
The mage toyed nervously with the rings on his fingers. The golem still didn't move.
Pandur's gaze had involuntarily followed Vladek's movements. He saw the flashing stones, saw the slim hands of the man, saw his face. Something seemed familiar to him in a terrible way. Not the face. But the hands, the rings...
Again he looked into the face. Vladek was concentrating his complete attention on the golem.
Suddenly the face began to blur. The bland shell flowed down like wax that had come too close to a flame. The mask had been an illusion spell. Now, while the mage was no longer concentrating on it, this spell had been extinguished. What until that moment had been dead eyes twinkled and sparkled. Green-flecked eyes, as if sprinkled with diamond dust. The furtive eyes of a madman! Eyes which Pandur was not seeing for the first time. Eyes he would never forget.
The mad mage who used us for the Renraku job. The man who made me compliant with a drug. The man who looked like...
As if he had intercepted his thoughts, the mage suddenly turned to Pandur.
Roberti was staring at him! That face from the dream! The face that had even followed him into the matrix! The face that had appeared in the street battle outside Jacobi's warehouse! The face that had been hidden under the mask of the mad mage and had now reappeared! The true face of the man who called himself Nadros Vladek!
Inside Pandur the last fuse blew. With a strangled, throaty yell he leapt up, reaching for his gun at the same time.
Jessi sprang up too, her wide eyes reflecting sheer amazement, a startled cry on her lips. Festus was already standing, having followed his instinct, sensing in the other's reaction danger that he hadn't yet noticed himself. The reflex boosters had sent the Combat Gun flying into his arms. But he did nothing yet, only bided his time.
Pandur saw nothing of all this. He had eyes only for Roberti.
I must kill Roberti!
He had the Secura in his hand and was about to fire. He didn't get so far. The golem, who had previously been so plodding, had seemed so awkward and had finally frozen into immobility moved his mighty left hand in a flash, knocking Pandur's weapon out of his hand. It flew through the air in a high arc, landing far beyond Pandur's reach behind the sarcophagus.
The mage laughed. "Not fast enough again, Walez!"
Under the influence of the hypnotic effect of Roberti's face, Pandur would probably have flung himself on the mage to attack with his bare hands. But the sudden movement of the golem had brought him to his senses in a flash, had removed his spirit from the hypnotic commands of another. He felt a tingle of horror. It was a weird sensation to have been touched by a creature that was more spirit than substance. A creature strangely elastic yet capable of striking hard.
He took in Jessi's startled exclamation, "Pandur! What's wrong with you?"
He noticed Festus. Ready for combat, concentrating, biding his time, his weapon in his hand.
He saw Nadros Vladek, the mad mage, still with Roberti's face. He was no longer troubling to conceal it with illusion magic. Pandur still loathed this face but he could now bear it. From the absence of any reaction by Jessi and Festus, he realized that the illusion spell had applied to him alone.
Vladek had known that Thor Walez, who now called himself Pandur, would turn up. He didn't want to be recognized by him at once. He hadn't been concerned about showing himself to Jessi and Festus in his true face.
Pandur saw the golem. The clay creature was once more immobile.
"For Christ's sake!" Vladek screamed at the golem. "You're to carry out your orders! Take the magic out of the cyberdeck. Use the formula I wrote down for you! And kill the strangers! As I commanded you!"
Pandur was the only one of the three not surprised by the turn of events. If Vladek was the mad mage and Roberti, he could not be a friend of the runners. Soberly and almost calmly, Pandur determined for himself that they were not to die because Vladek's identity had been exposed. He had already planned their deaths when he wrote
the message. That could mean only one thing: Vladek wanted the data for himself. His willingness to help the Klabauterbund had been a cover.
Festus reacted immediately. His fingers crooked round the trigger of his Combat Gun. Vladek stood two meters from the barrel of the weapon. Unprotected. He couldn't be missed. Least of all by a chipped-up shotgun. Operated by a man with synthmuscles and reflex boosters. Magic spells were slower. Vladek had no chance.
Vladek would have had no chance. Had it not been for the golem. Spirit beings are faster than synthmuscles and reflex boosters. The golem struck Festus's gun out of his hands as he had previously done to Pandur's. The Combat Gun sailed through the air, hitting a wall. No shot was fired.
Before Jessi could test her skill against the reactions of the golem, Vladek uttered a spell.
Pandur felt his limbs becoming as heavy as lead. A feeling of limitless lethargy spread over his spirit. He dropped into the armchair. He saw the things around him as if through a filter and awaited whatever was to befall. In passing, he registered with mild interest that Jessi was behaving just like him. She, too, had fallen back into her armchair and was observing her surroundings with a lassitude that bore no relation to the threat posed by the mage.
Not Festus. Incredulous, he had watched his weapon as it spun through the air and bounced off the wall. When the mage and his manipulation magic came up against the rigger's spirit, Festus was already undergoing a transformation. No sorcery in the world could reach him now. He lost control of himself. Festus freaked out.
The expression on the rigger's face contorted to untamable fury. Fury became pain. Pain horror. He brought forth a guttural scream, waving his arms around wildly.
Then he flung himself forward. Aimlessly. A reflex movement. The undirected impulse of a body seeking an answer to what was going on in the brain. Or was, after all, a remnant of intellect, a grain of calculation, a spark of hope ultimately determining the direction of the movement demanded and executed by the body?
Festus launched himself through the air. Straight at the massive figure of the golem. The colossus, with the reflexes he had so far demonstrated, could easily have dodged him - but he didn't. Festus struck the chest of the magical creature headfirst. Something weird happened. The rigger's body did not rebound. Its speed slowed as if he had come up against a wad of cotton wool. Then he began to penetrate the golem. First the rigger's head disappeared, then followed his shoulders, the chest cage, the rest of his body. For fractions of a second the outline of Festus's frame was to be seen in the broad chest of the golem as if a hole had been punched out. In the next instant the displaced substance of the creature trickled back into its original shape. The gap closed, as the point of immersion of an object penetrating the surface of a liquid closes, the only difference being that there was not one ripple, splash or other form of turbulence. The golem was intact once more. Molded of dust. Festus had disappeared and remained missing. He didn't exit on the other side of the creature. The rigger was in the golem and there he stayed. Like the cyberdeck.
Pandur had followed everything without being able to react to it in any way whatsoever and, under the imposed will of another, without wanting to in the least. But nothing prevented him from closely registering the events taking place around him. Nothing stopped him from evaluating, drawing conclusions.
He remembered what Vladek had said about the viruses that were destroying the rigger's brain. Only a strong magical force could save him. Or a ritual team. Or both. Or merging with a spirit being! Without intending to, Vladek had opened up an opportunity for the rigger. From a vague possibility had grown a tangible reality when he invoked the golem. And yet Festus would probably have rather died than be immersed in this creature. Pandur could not imagine that a human could exist inside a half-spiritual, half-material, but in any event magical, being. And he didn't think that healing was possible without the deliberate collaboration of mages. Or of the spirit being.
And yet it was the only chance Festus had. He wouldn't have held out much longer. He would definitely have been eaten up by the brain maggots this time. Perhaps he had wanted it this way after all. Or it was only instinct. Or accident. In any event it was fate, was the path he had to walk. May it now lead straight to Lucifer's frying pan or back into the shadows.
Vladek seemed to be surprised. Though his manipulation spell on the two runners didn't weaken.
"Spit him out again!" the mage demanded of the golem.
The creature did not respond. Either it possessed its own will or Vladek was not using the right commands. Perhaps he ought to have written the command on a piece of paper in Hebrew and pushed it under the golem's tongue.
The idea had either not occurred to the mage or he didn't want to take the time to do it. "So ka," he said. "The chiphead has to die and will die one way or the other." He raised his voice. "Golem, your master commands you to remove the spell from the cyberdeck! Obey!"
For the first time a reaction to this order came from the golem. He raised his head of dust and stared with his blind, empty eyes at a spot to the left of Pandur behind the mage.
Vladek spun round. Pandur followed the gaze more slowly, inhibited by the force imposed on their wills.
In the place where the golem was looking with his eyes of dust stood a small, white figure. Nobody could say whether it had just appeared or had been following events for some time. To a far greater degree of certainty than was the case with the golem, this figure was a spirit. They could see through it. At the same time, however, Pandur was able to perceive the figure in all its transparent detail: small and squat, a long gown, a full face of about forty years of age with a long beard, a sharply hooked nose, kind eyes, its head covered by a yarmulka. After everything Pandur had heard and experienced, this could only be the spirit of Rabbi Loew. Hadn't Vladek himself mentioned that the leather pouch also contained the Rabbi's dust?
"Piss off, you fucking bastard!" the mage screamed. "The golem belongs to me now! I'm his master!"
The small, translucent man paid Vladek absolutely no heed. With a quiet but accentuated voice he said something in a foreign language. Presumably Hebrew.
The golem again became immobile. Pandur assumed that his master had commanded him not to follow the mage's orders.
Vladek, too, stood stockstill. His gaze was directed inward. The Rabbi's ghost froze. In the first moment Pandur believed some kind of spell had stopped time or at least slowed it down considerably. But this was merely an expression of his own muted senses. Now he saw that Vladek was swaying slightly. The air around him seemed to be flickering. Then the mage's appearance stabilized again. A moment later the Rabbi's effigy shivered. It grew fainter and then stronger again. Suddenly Pandur understood what was happening.
"Astral combat," he murmured. "Vladek and Rabbi Loew are fighting in Astral Space."
"We can talk to each other again," Jessi discovered. " Maybe... If I fire at him now... " She tried to raise her arm but failed. "This drekhead's incredibly strong. He's fighting in Astral Space but his spell on us has scarcely weakened."
Still, it was their chance. As long as Vladek was occupied with the ghost in Astral Space, he wasn't able to devote as much attention to them. Jessi had had the right idea. If Vladek was faced with a surprise attack in the real world, he would probably not have enough time to use magic against the assailant. Pandur's gun was out of reach. But he could take Jessi's weapon and aim at the mage. If I succeed in being stronger than Vladek. I've got to be stronger than him! If he defeats the ghost, the golem will obey him. He'll give him the data and kill us. Or Vladek himself will kill us. I've got to be stronger than him! I must!
Pandur gathered up all his willpower and tried to stand up. He managed to rise out of the armchair a little. Then he lost control of his muscles again and slumped down. The mage's grip was like a vise. Pandur felt the sweat running down his forehead into the corners of his eyes, felt it dripping from his hair onto the back of his neck. Like Jessi, he had the impression that h
is spirit was not subject to the compulsion to the same degree. But this didn't seem to apply to his muscles.
He tried again, moving his arm towards Jessi. Millimeter by millimeter. But then his arm dropped, devoid of strength.
"Drek!" he cursed. "I just can't make it!"
Jessi was also fighting her body. Her arm rose slightly, fell back, rose, fell back. Pandur saw she had tears in her eyes. "The traitor mustn't get the data!" she said with half-strangled voice.
"Can't you use any magic on him?" Pandur asked hopefully.
"I already tried that," said Jessi. "His manipulation spell isn't only blocking our movements, it's also keeping me from accessing the energies of Astral Space."
The struggle between Vladek and the Rabbi swept back and forth. Both figures were shaken again and again, tottered, were surrounded by barely perceptible force fields and then freed themselves once more. Pandur knew that in Astral Space something similar happened to what occurred in battles in the matrix. For Vladek and the Rabbi the other dimension was as real as this room in Prague, as real as the virtual reality of cyberspace, with its Ice and its fantastical constructions, was for Pandur. What happened there, in Astral Space as in the matrix, had repurcussions on anyone operating in it. Pandur was forced to think of Rose, who had been burnt to a cinder in the matrix as in reality. Events in Astral Space had a much stronger impact on the material world. This was how magic worked, how mages were enabled to influence physically present things. At the moment, however, the actions of the players were limited to the mega-plain.
"Can Vladek kill the Rabbi?" he asked.
"The Rabbi's already dead," Jessi reminded him. "The most Vladek can do is exhaust the ghost's energy and for a while stop him influencing the golem. No more than that. But that's all he needs. He'll get the data. And we'll die."
Pandur looked at the golem. He hadn't moved from the spot. Nor did he seem to be involved in the battle in Astral Space. The golem was a powerful spirit being, but still a servant. Bound to the will of his master. Since he had two masters at the moment giving him different orders, he did nothing at all.