Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Yoshaki, joining her, gasped in wonder.

  Far away, a vast range of mountains rose heavenward, so blue with distance that their caps of perennial ice floated upon the air like fantastic islands. Between them and the boreal mountains stretched a absolutely level plain of bluish-green glass shimmering like a phantasm of dream.

  Kyozokura and Komurasaki sat near the entrance of the cave, the other men farther back.

  Komurasaki said: “We will not be able to track them when the storm of sand finally subsides. All traces of their passage will be obliterated.”

  “Perhaps,” Kyozokura acknowledged. “Perhaps something yet will remain. We must wait.”

  “And if we cannot find a trail,” Komurasaki said, “What then?”

  “We shall seek some spoor of theirs.”

  “And if they have perished in this storm?”

  “Then we shall seek their bones.”

  Komurasaki turned his gaze from his commander, looked into the depths of the swirling sand. Late afternoon should be settling over the land, dusk approaching, but the sand-filled air gave no token. This was no task for a warrior, he thought, hunting down a girl and an old man, seeking trail-spoor that would baffle a ranger or ninja. No honor, true, but was there any honor in admitting defeat? He thought he knew the answer, but it was not an answer he could share with his commander. They had their orders, but they were the orders of a lunatic, a father driven mad by the death of the thing that had been his son.

  Komurasaki glanced momentarily at the old samurai. Had he heard the whispered rumors that circulated following the murder of Lord Zempachi’s son? If he had, would it matter?

  Probably not, Komurasaki decided.

  “Did you hear that?” Kyozokura asked softly.

  Komurasaki listened, but heard only the wind. He shook his head.

  Kyozokura held silent, head cocked, listening. After a long moment, he murmured. “Yes, there, again. Do you now hear?”

  Komurasaki strained to hear beyond the roaring wind. Something was there, but what? Distant drums? No, not in this inhospitable wasteland. The arrhythmic muted booms sounded again, soft, like the hushed beatings of a demon’s heart.

  “Explosions?”

  Kyozokura nodded. “We must ride.”

  “The sand will choke our breathing,” Komurasaki protested. “We will not be able to see anything.”

  “We ride!” the commander barked, glaring at his lieutenant.

  The other men under their command jumped to obey; Komurasaki did not long hesitate before moving, but he hesitated long enough to earn a frown.

  The mounted samurais rode out of the cave into the fury of the storm, following Kyozokura’s lead. They held to a close formation, much as they would if they were riding in fog, each man keeping within sight of at least one other. Kyozokura led them northward.

  After several hours of fighting for progress, the storm began to lessen somewhat, and the desert sand started to give way to rockier ground. Better footing and better visibility allowed the band to increase their speed.

  All the men could now hear the explosions drawing them ever northward.

  Komurasaki spurred his horse forward to ride beside his commander. “Do the explosions betray the presence of Mitsuko and Yoshaki?”

  “The caravan at least,” Kyozokura replied, “Remember what we were told of its armament!”

  Komurasaki nodded. “But who would they be battling?”

  A muted explosion sounded across the leagues, swept away by the wind. The interval of silence that followed the noise lengthened into an eternity.

  The storm dissipated with the setting of the sun. The warriors drifted out of the tight formation they had held to keep from becoming disoriented and lost and give their mounts free rein. Though it was customary to stop at nightfall, to give men and animals a rest, their commander Kyozokura kept them apace.

  By starlight they rode, then by the rising moon. Vast towers of stone rose around them, their sides perforated by hewn portals, some touched by a twinkle of light, but more by darkness. They indicated, Kyozokura knew, the homes of religious hermits, aesthetics who sought visions of god in the silence of solitude.

  They came to a spring in the wilderness, marked by an isolated profusion of vegetation.

  “We must stop,” Komurasaki said. “If not for the men, then for the horses.”

  Kyozokura reluctantly nodded and gave the signal to stop and dismount. He and Komurasaki gave their steeds to others to brush and water while they reconnoitered beyond the edge of the oasis.

  They attached night-vision aids to their binoculars and swept the land ahead. A realm of sand and wind-sculpted stone was revealed to them. Further northward they saw small flickers of light and monstrous shadows.

  When men and horses had been given a measure of rest Kyozokura gave the order to remount and continue. They rode toward the flicker at the horizon, three hours later coming upon a scene of carnage and destruction.

  “The caravan?” Komurasaki said.

  “What’s left of it,” Kyozokura answered.

  “What could have done this?”

  “Commander!” Torimatsu shouted from the other side of one of the twisted steam-tracks. “Come quickly!”

  Both Kyozokura and Komurasaki answered the young man’s excited call. As they rounded the wrecked vehicle, they saw what had caused the samurai to cry out.

  “What is it?” Komurasaki asked, reining back his steed.

  “A mechanistic warrior,” Kyozokura said. “A war machine from the war of Napoleon.”

  “A Napoleonic war machine,” Komurasaki breathed. “I have heard of such devices, but did not think I would ever myself see such a terrible thing loosed by Napoleon’s own hand.”

  “No, look at that crest,” Kyozokura pointed out. “It is a fighting machine of the Tribes of Rus…the ancient enemy of Gaul.”

  “The caravan master’s men defended their charges well and bravely” Komurasaki commented. “At least their deaths were filled with honor.”

  Kyozokura looked at the fallen giant, then glanced about warily. There was too little wreckage to account for the entire caravan. And no amount of mustered firepower could have destroyed this ancient engine of destruction.

  “Search the wreckage!” Kyozokura ordered. “Look for survivors! Quickly!”

  The samurais dismounted and swept through the shattered vehicles, looking for signs of life. They found, however, only a single survivor.

  “What happened?” Kyozokura demanded when the man was brought to him.

  “The fighting machines!” the man gasped, frothy blood spilling over his lips. “The fire! The noise!”

  Kyozokura bent closer to the man. “Were there two people of Nippon on the caravan, of my race? A young girl and a very old man, traveling together?”

  Coughing blood, the man nodded.

  “They are not among the dead.” Komurasaki said.

  “Where did they go?” Kyozokura asked.

  The man coughed blood, sighed and ceased breathing.

  “Other war machines destroyed it, not the protectors of the caravan,” Kyozokura said. “The remainder of the caravan must have escaped while the war machines battled.” He pointed westward. “We’ll ride after them, try to pick up a trail at dawn; we dare not tarry here, not with other machines like that wandering about.”

  “But the horses, commander,” Komurasaki said. “They need to be rested.”

  “If we could afford to do so, I would, but we cannot,” Kyozokura explained. He squinted narrowly at his lieutenant. “Do you defy me, Komurasaki?”

  After a long moment, Komurasaki shook his head.

  “Good. We will ride them as easily as we can, but we must not linger,” Kyozokura said. “Let’s go.”

  They rode westward at a slow but steady gallop, the sort of pace a samurai’s horse could hold for an almost indefinite period of time. Just before dawn, the eastern sky whitening, they picked up the caravan and rode to intercept.r />
  The glass glistened like a dream under the orient-cresting sun, filling the chill air with a myriad of rainbows, points of light and false suns.

  “Amazing!” Yoshaki breathed. “Quite like the visual effects described by explorers of the far southern realms, upon the leagues of crystalline ice fields.”

  “Amazing, it may be to you, but is a fell evil place,” Mitsuko said. “Let’s be away from it.”

  Reluctantly, Yoshaki nodded and urged his animal on. In the past few hours they had learned the “knack” of dromedary-driving, of bending the stubborn beasts to their wills. Riding one of the recalcitrant animals was an agonizing experience, nothing at all like horseback riding, and Mitsuko wondered if this humped creature had been created to be ridden at all. Still, she had to admit that their slow but tireless pace was faster than walking.

  Though Mitsuko would rather have ridden out of sight of the vitrified plain, Yoshaki convinced her it was better to keep to the highland and follow this hill chain as long as it led in a generally western direction. If they kept on westward, according to Yoshaki’s geographical knowledge, they would eventually come to the expanse of the Caspian Sea, and there would be towns and fishing villages along its shores.

  If, of course, they lived that long, Mitsuko thought grimly.

  Their dromedaries had been draft animals in the caravan, pulling some wagon that had been lost in the confusion. Each had a waterskin attached to its saddle, but there were no food rations. The crates had contained nothing but trade goods and had been abandoned by the trail.

  Yoshaki declared himself very optimistic about their survival, but Mitsuko suspected it was a fiction intended to ease her mind more than an objective evaluation of their situation. Still, since being thrown together by chance when fleeing Nippon, they had survived some dire circumstances where, by all rights, they should have perished.

  On the third day of their sojourn along the Glass Plain’s rim they saw a long smear of blue on the horizon. They were also forced to abandon the high way, for the line of hills turned northward.

  On the fourth day, Yoshaki’s dromedary mis-stepped on rocky ground, earth giving way, and it broke its leg. Mitsuko insisted he ride her animal, her leading it along, and he was too weak to protest. As they moved away, the pitiful cries of the abandoned animal followed them until Mitsuko was forced to return and, weeping, bring a quick end to its wretched life.

  The roughness of the ride upon the dromedaries, who seemed content to continue their steady amble without pause, had seemed to chase away Mitsuko’s dreams, which for a time gave her some small respite from their prophetic torments. That had changed with the one beast’s injury. Now that she traveled on foot, for they could not both be carried, they were forced to rest quite often, and stop entirely with the coming of night. With rest came fitful sleep and with sleep came disturbing dreams, prophetic and otherwise.

  There were, of course, the usual dreams of pursuit, which Yoshaki had almost convinced her were nothing but night-fictions engendered by their desperate flight. Almost. More disturbing, however, were those dreams in which she saw herself surrounded by machines, wearing a long white coat, working with people who were familiar yet alien, occidental strangers who had the bearing of friends in that other life that at times seemed more real than the life she lived. She was called by a name other than her own, and yet it was indeed her name. Eventually, however, as they journeyed beneath the pitiless sun, she came to have trouble telling a sleeping dream from a waking dream.

  Dreaming and waking seemed as one.

  One step after another.

  Hang onto the dromedary’s rein.

  Sleep.

  Awaken.

  Dream.

  Awaken.

  She spoke to the people who came to her, sometimes from out the wasteland, others up from the earth or out of the sky.

  The stars whispered great secrets

  She touched fire.

  Ice burned.

  Mitsuko saw flames leaping before her and it took her several minutes to fathom that she was looking at a campfire, that she lay at the edge of its warmth, that she lay beneath a blanket of animal skin. Darkness slashed at her consciousness, tried to send her back to healing oblivion, but she rebelled, forced her way to lucidity.

  She sat up with a startled cry.

  A man in armor moved toward her, pressed a canteen to her parched lips. His eyes glowed ruddy. His armor flashed like burnished bronze in the flickers of the campfire.

  No, not a man, she thought.

  The face swam into focus, and she gasped.

  “I am Dax,” the robot said.

  “If they went northward from the scene of the attack,” Komurasaki said as they rode away from the caravan, “they surely perished.”

  “Perhaps,” Kyozokura acknowledged.

  “You yourself said that the north held only death,” Komurasaki pointed out.

  “That should make it easier to find their bodies, should it not?” Kyozokura said. “The dead do not run.”

  Komurasaki sighed and nodded. There was no dissuading the commander from returning to where the Gaulish and Rus war machines had dueled. Just the knowledge that Mitsuko and Yoshaki were no longer with the caravan, that they had been seen fleeing northward, had come at a high enough price, two of their own dead and nearly a dozen of the caravan’s defenders before the misunderstanding could be straightened out.

  If only Kyozokura had allowed him to ride forward alone, to show they were not marauders.

  Sometime during their long journey, Komurasaki now realized, a change had come over Kyozokura. When they had been ordered out of Nippon months ago in pursuit of the fugitives it had been a matter of obedience, of following the orders given by their grief-stricken lord, and satisfying the bushido code of honor. By subtle degrees, however, the pursuit had become something else, something more to Kyozokura, something personal, a reason for living, perhaps for dying.

  The samurai was a servant, a warrior who found honor in serving a master. Was there ever a more pitiful man than the ronin, the masterless samurai? It was written:

  From today with heart

  Without regard for myself

  A path by moonlight

  Sword weeping and bow singing

  To press our sovereign’s will

  Written by an unknown samurai poet upon the island of Honshu a thousand years earlier, it was the first poem Komurasaki had learned from his father, himself a great samurai who had earned honor by fighting to the death in service to his lord.

  To die here in this wilderness, beyond their lord’s knowledge, to lie in a shallow, unmarked grave, to become sustenance for jackals and direwolves, to slaughter an old man and a girl, to die because of misunderstandings and one man’s pride—where was the honor in any of that? The chase had become Kyozokura’s, rather than Lord Zampachi’s, Komurasaki now understood. And what if they did not discover their bodies? Or pick up their trail? Were they then doomed to wander the wastelands until an old man’s death overtook even the youngest of them?

  There was something distasteful, unnatural in the idea of a warrior dying of old age.

  There was honor in a battlefield death.

  There was honor in dying for one’s lord.

  There was even honor in disemboweling oneself with one’s own katana or wakizashi, if it served to save face.

  But where was the honor in what they now did?

  That thought echoed in Komurasaki’s mind and he still had not found an answer when they returned to the battlefield upon which the war machines had fought. Flocks of scavenging birds picked at the bones of the exposed dead, and four-legged eaters of the dead haunted the wreckage of the steam-carriages and wagons. Human scavengers, too, had been drawn by the abandoned freight, but they were cowardly, driven away by the mere sight of the warriors. The samurai caught a few of these ragged specimens of humanity, but they gibbered wretchedly and were ignorant about any survivors.

  Kyozokura instructed hi
s men to fan northward seeking trail signs.

  Ironically, it was Komurasaki who discovered the human tracks leading to a cluster of stones, then dromedary tracks galloping into the north. For a moment, he considered keeping the discovery to himself, but for a moment only. Even the thought of betraying his commander was dishonorable, and he was glad Kyozokura could not peer into his heart as he delivered the news.

  The samurai thundered northward, Kyozokura and Komurasaki at the lead.

  Dax, the battle-rob, administered medical care to the humans, using information that had been idle in his memory banks for many years. The last time he had been called upon to tend a human soldier was in September 1812, just before the Fire.

  These two beings who had staggered out of the battlefield did not appear to be soldiers. Neither could Dax say whether they were of Gaul or the Tribes of Rus. They appeared to be neither, but it had been a long time since Dax had encountered human combatants of either faction. Their clothing offered no clue.

  Whomever they were, they would live. Even knowing that, however, Dax still could not abandon them, for to do so would have violated the Second General Order for his class of battle-rob, to render humanitarian aide to any injured human, but especially to noncombatants, and he was beginning to believe such might these people be.

  Once again, as he had done since being separated from his unit, he broadcast brief coded signals on the Gaulish frequencies. And, as he had come to expect, his signal was answered by silence.

  The female responded quickly to Dax’s ministrations; the elderly male also, but less aggressively. Mitsuko, as she called herself, at first seemed frightened, but when she learned she was in no immediate danger her fear left her and she was able to take over the care of her companion.

  “Have you news of the war?” Dax asked.

  Mitsuko frowned. “The war?”

  “Twixt the Empire of Gaul and Tribes of Rus,” Dax explained.