Now and again they would stop and take a sighting on the sun, trying to bear ever northwesterly, deeper into the Drasp. Repeatedly, though, they would come to yet another obstacle barring their way—wide deep pools, quaking bogs, broad sloughs, undulant quicksand, and the like—where they would veer far from the course they set. Yet always would they try to come back to their original line as they won past each of these hindrances and continue onward ever deeper into the bog.
They had started in midafternoon, with the sun riding high over the morass, bringing its blazing heat to bear down upon the vast mire, causing it to bubble and belch and heave, filling the air with suffocating stench. And through this foul reek they pressed, following an elusive clue—if clue it was—the shouted epithet of a dead mage concerning bog spiders and their lairs. And as time had slowly eked by, swatting and cursing, sweating and scratching, wading and riding, they had slogged ahead through water muck and slime and reeds and stands of gnarled and rotted trees until the eventide drew near.
“Look for high ground,” called Arik. “A place to make camp.”
As twilight crept into the mire, they came upon a spine of land arching out of the bog. Through a wide, waist-deep slough of dark water they waded, black muck sucking at boots and hooves, dead trees jutting up all ’round like flayed white bones of skeletal victims left behind. Onto the isle they went, the land rocky under a layer of humus, detritus of things dead, with slimy moss and thorny shrubs and clutching weeds and sharp-bladed grass covering all.
As night fell they made camp on the high ground, well away from the backwater. And as they scraped clinging leeches from one another and from the legs of the animals, Orbis rose in the sky, gibbous and on the wane, shedding its bright light glancing across the swamp, and with it came a breeze blowing down from the north.
“I wonder how far we have come,” said Rith, applying a healing salve to the cuts and bites on the horses and mules.
Arik shrugged, likewise daubing salve on the steeds. “Eight miles, perhaps, though I really cannot say.”
“Eight miles!” exclaimed Kane. “Seems more like eighty.”
“Well,” said Rith, “eight miles or eighty, I’m—”
Of a sudden her words chopped off and her eyes flew wide. “Ssst!” she hissed and pointed. “Something comes.”
As swift Phemis sped up over the horizon, down in the swamp and heading for the rocky isle a pallid light came flickering among the trees. “Seven hells,” growled Kane, taking up his spear, “is it another of those things, like the one that killed Arton?”
“Whatever it is,” gritted Arik, “make ready to ride, and swiftly.”
“But wait,” hissed Rith, “I hear no great swashing as we did with the monster. This thing is not down in the water but instead floats above the slough.”
Arik cocked his head and listened. “Perhaps you are right, Rith,” he said as he drew his falchion and stepped forward to take a defensive stance between the horses and the oncoming light. “Nevertheless, be prepared to fight or flee. The last will-o’-the-wisp we faced was deadly.”
Kane took station to Arik’s right and glanced at the surrounding mire. “I think I’d rather stand and fight than to run through a bog at night.”
Onward came the pale light, gliding now among the bone-white snags jutting up from the dark water below.
“Arda,” breathed Rith on Arik’s left, “it looks like it might be a person.”
Onto the isle it came, glowing and floating just above the ground, moving directly toward the campsite.
“A ghost,” amended Rith, grasping a throwing knife in each hand, hoping that silver was proof against spirits.
Kane hefted his spear; Arik his sword.
Onward came the pale wraith, flowing up the spine of land, flowing to the edge of the campsite, where it stopped.
Suddenly Arik dropped his blade and stepped forward. “Lyssa,” he whispered.
There before them stood the shade of Lyssa, glowing and translucent and ephemeral, tendrils of light blowing in the chill wind.
36
Dilemma
(Coburn Facility)
Toni Adkins made certain that her comband was on channel four. It was. “John, are you there?” she repeated.
Finally—”I’m here,” replied Greyson.
“Have you got a mental pattern for Alice Maxon?” Toni glanced at the rig where the medtechs worked feverishly.
“I’m afraid—” Abruptly Greyson broke off, then—”Yes! Yes I do! It’s just now come back.”
Toni expelled the breath she had been holding.
“But not Arthur Coburn’s,” added Greyson.
“What?”
“I think Arthur Coburn’s mental pattern is gone forever,” clarified Greyson.
“Let’s lock up and get the hell out of here,” said Timothy Rendell. As Drew Meyer keyed the panel shut, Timothy took the burned-out plug-in from Billy Clay. He flipped it front to back then back to front again, looking for something that would indicate why it had failed. Finally he handed the board to Sheila Baxter. “Wrap it up and take it to the lab. See if you can determine just what blew it all to hell and gone.”
“Right,” said Sheila, kneeling and swathing both plug-in and keyboard with bubblewrap.
“All set,” said Drew.
Timothy led them back to the nitrogen lock, while behind in silent, cold shadows Avery loomed in the dark.
Toni looked at the doomsday clock: 1:12:00; one hour twelve minutes before catastrophic battery failure.
“And that’s what happened, Toni,” concluded Timothy. “Blew apart like a fourth of July starbomb.”
“And you don’t know what caused it?”
“Not at the moment.” Timothy glanced at Mark Perry standing at Toni’s side, then back to Toni. “Sheila and Billy are in the lab trying to see what happened to the board. Drew is with them.”
Timothy looked around the control room. Ramanni sat at her console and pondered. Medtechs hovered about the witch’s cradles, just in case someone else went into shock or worse. One cradle was empty: Arthur Coburn’s. Arthur’s body had been removed to the medcenter, where Stein was attempting to determine the cause of death.
“Timothy?”
Blinking, Rendell looked at Toni. “I’m sorry. —What did you say?”
“I asked, is there any other way to contact Avery?”
“Uh, I don’t know. We can’t find anything wrong with the interface circuits. It’s as if he doesn’t wish to be contacted. Greyson says he’s like a child hiding under a blanket and reading by flashlight, not answering his parents’ calls.”
“Well then, we’ve just got to find a way to lift the blanket, to pull it from him,” said Toni. “We’ve got to get the alpha team free before anyone else is hurt.”
Timothy stroked his chin. “Well, with their mental patterns trapped in Avery, we can’t just pull them out.”
“Right,” agreed Toni. “We tried that with Alice Maxon. Her autonomous system totally crashed. She would have died had we not plugged her back in. It seems that it’s Avery who is keeping them alive. And, damn it, we can’t reboot, or their mental patterns will be lost.”
Mark Perry groaned in frustration. “Then just how by god are you people going to get them the hell out of there?”
Timothy frowned and slowly shook his head. At last he said, “Well, Mark, I think there might be just two ways that the team can get free.”
Mark cocked an eyebrow. “And they are . . . ?”
Timothy held up an index finger. “One, the Black Foxes get to endgame and win, in which case Avery might release them; or two”—Timothy held up a pair of fingers—”the technical team has got to somehow log onto Avery and order their release.”
Mark Perry sucked in a breath. “Would he obey?”
Timothy nodded. “If a superuser commanded him to let go, he would have no choice.”
“Of your two ways,” said Toni, “I don’t know whether the team can win aga
inst Avery now. At least we can’t count on it. I think instead, Timothy, you are just going to have to try again to contact him.”
“Yeah,” chimed in Mark.
Timothy took a deep breath. “Wait a minute, boss, there’s something I think you ought to know.”
Toni crossed her arms and waited.
Timothy looked from Toni to Mark Perry and then back to Toni. “Look, there was a substantial delay between when I plugged in the interface board and it blowing up. Drew said it was likely a voltage surge that made it blow. But Billy Clay tells me that those jacks are fed by Avery’s voltage regulators, and Sheila believes that there should be no surges at all, especially when we are running on reserve batteries. From what I understand, Arthur Coburn died at the very moment the board blew. I think that our attempt to install the keyboard was what killed Arthur.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mark Perry. “Are you saying that you killed Arthur?”
“No, Mark. But what I am saying is that I don’t believe it was a coincidence that Arthur died at the very moment we made ready to contact Avery. Nor do I believe that it was an accident that the interface board blew.”
Mark Perry’s eyes widened. “Then what you are saying, without coming right out and saying it, is that Avery is a murderer.”
Toni gasped. “Is that it? Is Mark right?”
Timothy held his hands palms out. “Look, I don’t know. I don’t know whether Avery blew the board just to keep us out, or whether we collided with an interrupt, or what. I also don’t know whether or not it was an accident or whether Avery deliberately killed Arthur. Avery’s ethical programs should prevent him from harming anyone. All I have are my suspicions.”
Toni shook her head. “Even though John Greyson tells me that Avery wants to win at any cost, I find it almost impossible to think of Avery as a murderer . . . yet with the lightning strikes, who knows what might have gone wrong?”
“Well I don’t have any such qualms concerning Avery,” growled Mark Perry. “Greyson told me about Descartes’ evil genius controlling all the world and everything in it. Well, let me tell you”—Mark gestured at the alpha team—”Avery is the evil genius controlling their world, and that makes him the evil genius behind Arthur Coburn’s murder.”
In that very moment the control room door banged open and Henry Stein came striding in. As he walked toward them, bearing news as to what had killed Arthur Coburn, Toni glanced at the doomsday clock: 0:57:16. Less than an hour to go. Where in the hell is Kat Lawrence?
37
Ghost
(Itheria)
“Lyssa,” said Arik again, and he stepped toward her.
But she glided backward, away from him and away from Rith and Kane, tendrils of light streaming from her, leaving luminous streaks fading in the air. Frantically she waved them back, and called out to them, saying . . . saying . . . but all they heard was a hollow wailing, like the sobbing of the wind. Yet they knew that she was trying to tell them something, something vital, for they could see her lips move and behold the urgency in her ethereal face. And so they stopped moving toward her, and she stopped her retreat.
And there she stood, glowing brightly, an agonized look on her face. Insects flew about her, attracted to her light like moths to a flame; they would circle once or twice, then spiral to the ground.
Standing slightly behind and to Arik’s left, Rith called out, “Can you hear us?”
Lyssa nodded.
“I—we cannot hear you.”
Lyssa’s mouth made an O of understanding, and she signaled
“From what?” asked Arik.
“What?” Arik was dumbfounded.
Rith stepped up beside Arik. “Is it because you are a . . . a spirit?”
Rith turned to Arik. “See the insects lying dead at her feet? Ghosts drain life from those they come near and from those who come near to them.”
Anguish spread over Lyssa’s features.
Arik’s shoulders slumped and desolation filled his face. Slowly he sank to his knees.
“Damn, damn, damn!” shouted Kane. “How did Horax do this to you?”
Lyssa’ fingers flew, intermingled with gestures.
“It had to be him,” Kane said through gritted teeth. “Who else would have done such a deed?”
Rith laid a hand on Kane’s arm. “Wait, let us hear her story before we jump to conclusions.” Rith turned to Lyssa. “What happened?”
Lyssa shook her head, streaks of light fading.
Arik glanced up at Phemis now passing below Orbis and tears seeped down his features. Then he faced Lyssa. “God, Lyssa, what are we going to do?”
“No, love, I meant—”
“If the myths speak truly . . .” Rith did not complete her sentence.
“What?” said Arik. “What myths?”
Rith slowly shook her head. “I seem to recall an ancient story, a legend of a loved one being returned from, from . . . drat, I do not remember. It was the tale of a man wrongly banished to the realm of ghosts, a fable written in a tome I found in the far stacks of the great library on the Isle of Azaral. It was a long story, and every day I would go to the library and read some more. Yet my ship sailed before I could finish, and so I cannot tell you how it ends. However, this much I did learn: ghosts live in a half world, in an in-between place. The librarian who guided me to the tome in the first place told me that the tale tells of someone being rescued from there. Perhaps we can go to Azaral and seek out the source—discover a way to restore Lyssa to her natural state.”
“And kill Horax,” added Kane.
“Now?” asked Arik. “Right now? In the night?”
And so they began, lading the mules with cargo and saddling the horses. Strangely enough the animals did not seem at all frightened by the specter of Lyssa, and they stood stolidly as Rith and Arik and Kane pulled the cinch straps tight. And when all was ready, Lyssa’s wraith stood a moment in concentration, then, trailing wisps of light, she glided down the spine of the island ridge and out into the Drasp, the Foxes following. And once again they waded waist-deep through the dark slough, and leeches had a feast.
Among the black trees they slogged, following Lyssa’s ghost, streamers of light wafting from her, afterglow flowing like luminous smoke to fade and vanish in her wake. And all about them the Drasp was filled with breekings and peepings, with wallowings and sloshings and slitherings, and with the whines of flying insects and the distant roars and skraws of other creatures in the night. Yet traveling as they were in the dark, with only the twin moons to light their way, it was cooler and less noxious, for the sun did not beat down
upon the great mire and set it to bubbling. Even so, insects still swarmed about them, biting and stinging and gouging, and it seemed that the leeches knew not the difference between night and day.
Now and again they would stop to rest, for the way was arduous, difficult for man and beast alike. And as Kane and Rith and Arik took water and chewed on trail rations, Lyssa’s shade stood off at a distance and did not partake at all.
But always they resumed, heading deeper into the Drasp, while Phemis sped across the starlit sky and Orbis trudged after.
On through the swamp they slogged till dawn came with morning on its heels, and without warning Lyssa vanished. The Foxes cast about and found a bit of high ground, where they set up camp. Exhausted, they fell into slumber, except for the one on watch.
In late afternoon Arik and Rith awakened to the grinding sound of Kane’s mortar and pestle. “I found a stand of reetha,” he explained.
“Reetha?” asked Arik.
“It’ll repel some of these stinging bloodsuckers,” answered Kane.
“I’m all for that,” averred Rith, moving closer to the warrior-healer. Then—”Phew! What’s that smell?”
“Reetha,” said Kane. He poured out some of the juice into a vial, then cast a green sodden mess from his mortar and replaced it with a handful of small verdant leaves. Once again he began grinding.
Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure Page 32