Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Yes,” said Greyson, nodding.

  “Pah!” Stein expelled a breath. “What could an AI possibly want?”

  “Blast it, Henry, I’ve told you before: Avery wants to win,” replied Greyson, exasperation in his voice.

  “Nonsense!” barked Stein. “Avery is an AI. Winning and losing mean nothing to it.”

  “Perhaps you are right, Henry,” said Toni. “But if these readings were on a human being, then he would be slipping into sociopathic behavior.”

  Alya Ramanni, sitting at the adjacent console said, “Do you mean Avery is going mad?”

  “With this large a deviation? —Quite probably,” answered Toni.

  “No wonder the sonofabitch killed Arthur,” said Mark Perry. Then his eye strayed to the six in the gimbaled rigs.

  Drew Meyer looked at Sheila Baxter and Billy Clay. “Are you certain?”

  “Yessir, Doctor Meyer,” answered Billy, sitting on the floor, a panel open beside him. “The signals are still coming in from Avery.”

  Sheila, lying on her stomach at the base of the main holo, glanced up at them both. “It’s like Avery wants us to know what’s going on in VR, but all the holo circuits are blown.

  Drew snapped his fingers. “The ball lightning.”

  Sheila scrambled to her feet. “There’s a full set of replacements in the lab.”

  “Let’s go,” said Drew.

  Fwoosh! Kat listened to the liquid hydrogen as it initially rushed into the thermopipe. Michael Phelan turned from the valve and gave her a thumbs-up. She keyed her talkie and called out, “Here it comes, Luiz.”

  Her own talkie crackled and she could hear the hissing of escaping air. “Si, princesa. She’s venting now.”

  Kat glanced over her shoulder at Al Hawkins and his crew desperately bolting individual multiclamps onto each of the six double-ought strands. She looked at her watch. Seven and thirty.

  “Look, you’ve got to do something,” demanded Mark Perry. “You can’t leave those people to the mercy of a mad killer.”

  “There’s nothing we can do, Mark,” said Toni. “The only way to get Avery back to normal is to reinitialise him. But we can’t reboot, else we lose the mental patterns of the alpha team and consign them to be nothing more than living vegetables, if even that. We can’t extract the team from the rigs because the link that’s keeping them alive will be broken. Yet if we don’t do something quickly, then they’ll die anyway.” Toni glanced at the clock. Just under seven minutes remained.

  “Fire it up,” shouted Kat.

  As Luiz revved the truck, Carleen Alsberg kicked over the starter on the Astro 250. With a screaming bellow the turbogen caught, and water vapor roared out from the exhaust as the engine whine scaled upward, sounding like a fan jet of old.

  Kat punched buttons on the Astro panel, checking the available volt-amps as the turbo came up to speed. Then she keyed her talkie. “Al, throw the switches. Engage.”

  She heard no reply above the roar of the turbine, and ran the length of the flatbed and scrambled into the cab, slamming the door behind. “Al, goddamn it, she’s up and running. Throw the switches.”

  “Roj!” came Al’s reply.

  Kat clambered from the truck and ran down the ramp and into the sublevel, following the power cable toward the distribution panels.

  In that same instant in the building, with five minutes and twenty-nine seconds to go, Al Hawkins slammed the mains to, and lights flickered on—

  —but then, sparks flying, the main breakers blew and the lights went back out.

  41

  Tower

  (Itheria)

  “It must be Horax’s tower,” growled Kane. “Who else would live in this swamp? Besides, we have Pon Barius’s word on it.”

  “And there’s the ferry guard,” added Rith. “They were wearing Horax’s sigil—twin bloodmoons—so he must live in the Drasp, and I think that he would permit no other to dwell herein. Kane is right: this must be Horax’s tower.”

  “I agree,” said Arik.

  They lay at the edge of the wood less than a quarter mile from the ramparts and scanned the dark fortress upslope. Square it seemed, two hundred feet to a side, with dark castellated walls some twenty-five feet high and made of a dusky stone. Turreted watchtowers jutted up from each of the three corners in view, yet whether they were manned, the Foxes could not tell. Beyond this wall they could see the roof of a large building—perhaps the main hall. But dominating all else and abutted against a far corner stood a tall black tower, its sides covered with ebon stone—slate or black marble they deemed. Its roof was flat, perhaps for observing the stars and the portents, though it just as well could be used for other things.

  The fortress itself sat on an upraised patch of ground, as was all the land nearby, a set of wooded hills raised above the swamp.

  “I see no gate in these two walls,” rumbled Kane. “Let’s work our way ’round and spy how we can best invade.”

  Starting at the southeast corner, leftward they crept, well back in the woods so that none watching might see them. Soon they could see the western wall, but no entrance or egress did they spy, only solid dark stone.

  Onward they crept, now heading north, paralleling the long western wall until they came to its far extent and a bit beyond.

  “Ssst,” hissed Rith. “Look there.”

  She had spied a recess in the north wall, and when they stole farther northward, at last they could see a great pair of iron doors, shut. From these doors a dirt road twisted down to an east-west running canal where a barge lay docked. “Now we know how Horax gets his supplies,” said Rith.

  Long they lay and watched, but no activity of any kind did they observe. At last Arik said, “It looks as if it is abandoned. Even so, I would rather that we make our way back to the horses and wait till darkness falls. Then we’ll slip over the walls and see whether or not Ky is inside.”

  “Seven hells, Arik,” protested Kane, “who knows what they are doing to her? She could be dying a slow horrible death even as we dither about. I say let’s go over now.”

  Rith lay a soothing hand on the big man’s arm. “No, Kane, Arik is right. Weary warriors make mistakes; we’ve had no sleep and need be rested before we essay these walls. Too, Lyssa will be with us when the sun sets, and she can aid us greatly, assuming that some of what I have been told about ghosts is indeed true. I say we return to camp and sleep. Tonight will be soon enough to scale these ramparts.”

  “But Ky—”

  Rith interrupted Kane. “If they were going to murder Ky, they would have done it long past.”

  Kane ground his teeth and eyed the fortress, as if deciding whether or not to go alone. But at last he turned and started back toward the south, aiming for the hill where the horses and mules stood tethered.

  After caring for the animals, they took a short meal, and then fell into restless sleep, all but the one on watch. And slowly the sun rode up the sky and across and then back down. At last twilight stole over the land and with the darkness came Lyssa.

  Once again they stood at the edge of the woods, the horses and mules behind them, saddled and loaded and ready to fly, the fortress before them silhouetted against the stars. Phemis rose, racing up into the sky, Orbis yet below the horizon and lagging behind.

  “Now is the time to see,” said Rith to Lyssa, the wraith standing off to one side.

  Lyssa frowned in concentration, and then slowly dissipated, and a pale glowing mist drifted out across the treeless expanse lying between the ramparts and woods.

  “I hope this does not hurt her,” whispered Arik.

  Rith shook her head. “I think not; after all, it is a ghostly thing.”

  The pale mist, seeming to be no more than a patch of moonlit fog, at last reached the fortress walls, and then vanished.

  Kane gasped and gripped his spear tightly. “Where did she go?”

  “Through the wall, I think,” replied Rith. “Scouting as planned. Finding out how many guards, wh
ere they patrol, discovering the weak spots in their warding. With Arton gone, Lyssa is the one best suited to such things.”

  Passing through stone was like pressing through . . . pressing through . . . Lyssa could not say. But it clutched at her and she could not see, and something penetrated her essence with icy cold, or was it blazing heat? Again she could not say. Whatever, it was bloody uncomfortable. At last she was through and glad of it. She had emerged in a bailey. Across cobblestones and scattered about were several small structures—storehouses, a smithy, and other such—and one large building—the main hall. In the northeast corner stood the tower. Two warders lounged at the base of the tall structure, each with low sloping foreheads and outjutting toothy jaws and long dangling arms. Half-man, half-beast, they bore spiked cudgels for weapons. Arda, these must be the same as Arton saw at the ferry.

  Lyssa floated up to the top of the wall, like a mist rising on a zephyr. Along the castellated rampart she flowed eastward. At last she came to one of the turrets. Inside was a sleeping guard, features and form like that of the others. Twin bloodmoons adorned the guard’s uniform. Horax’s sigil. Onward she flowed, now northward, heading for the tower. That’s where I would keep prisoners, were it my wont and this my bastion.

  “Ssst, atop the wall. See?” hissed Rith.

  A pale mist flowed westward, past the turret and then north.

  Arik sighed in relief.

  Through the wall of the tower passed Lyssa. First I must find Horax, see if he is here. If so, we may need to deal with him before all else . . . yet the last time we met, we lost . . . or rather, we didn’t win, at least not against him.

  Upward she flowed, following a spiral stone stair, up to a room at the top. An open trapdoor was set in the ceiling. Up to the roof she went, to find bones of cattle and great droppings. The flying thing perches here.

  Now she went down and down, spiraling through floor after floor until she reached ground level. And nowhere had she seen Horax or any living creature.

  Two closed doors stood against the walls, one leading into the bailey, the other leading . . . ? Lyssa passed through this second door. A stairwell pitched downward.

  She came to a chamber at the bottom. A guard sat at a table asleep. She could hear voices down a short hallway.

  Drifting along this way, Lyssa saw three more warders: two playing at rolling several small stones, the other asleep.

  The hallway ended in another door. This one closed and barred. Aha!

  On the other side the hallway continued, but iron-clad doors lined the walls. Cells.

  At the distant end, torchlight guttered through a small grille-covered warder-window set in the last iron door.

  A glimmering mist, Lyssa drifted toward this cell, the only one with a sign of life. As she neared, she felt a tingling, and all of a sudden, without her willing it, her mistform vanished and glowing Lyssa stood, her form restored to that of a ghostly wraith. Some kind of spell or counter spell.

  She peered through the grille.

  “Lyssa!” cried a familiar voice.

  It was Ky, moving out from the shadows. And emerging from the darkness opposite came a stranger.

  Lyssa pushed forward, trying to enter the cell, but she could not.

  “Lyssa!” cried Ky.

  The syldari saw Lyssa try to speak, but only a haunting wail came through the grille.

  “Why are you glowing?” called Ky.

  “Luba, who is this shade?” asked Trendel, moving aflank the syldari, and Ky realized that what he had said was true: Lyssa was a ghost.

 

  “Thank Arda, though, Ky is still alive,” said Kane, a great grin spread across his face.

  Orbis now rode up over the horizon.

  “And she is trapped with another man?” asked Rith.

 

  “How many guards are there altogether?” asked Arik.

 

  “And Horax?” growled Kane.

 

  “Damn!”

  Arik looked at the ground in deep thought. Finally he said, “The odds are not good. We’ll have to move with stealth. Rith, you nullify any of our sounds, especially if we get into a skirmish.”

  Rith nodded.

  “What about the turret guards?” asked Kane.

  Arik glanced at him, then turned to Lyssa. “Can you eliminate them?”

 

  Arik inhaled deeply, then said, “Drain them.”

  A shocked look passed over Lyssa’s face.

  “Dead is dead,” growled Kane.

  Lyssa shook her head.

  “Method be damned,” said Kane. “Ky’s in there and we’ve got to free her.”

  Arik sighed. “No. Lyssa is right. It is awful to kill in such fashion. I am sorry I thought of it.”

  “Hold a moment,” said Rith. “Lyssa, you don’t need to kill them. Just take enough energy to render them senseless.”

  Arik looked at Rith. “Splendid.” He turned to Lyssa. “Love, it may be the only way we can get over the wall unseen.”

  “To rescue Ky,” added Kane.

  At last Lyssa nodded.

  Arik breathed a sigh of relief. “All right. Now about the remaining guards . . .”

  In mist form, Lyssa flowed up the wall to come to the guard turret. The warder was yet asleep. She drifted up behind him. She could see indiscernible life force begin flowing out from his body, but only a small measure seeped into her, slowly, weakly, as if it were an energy somehow incompatible with her own.

  He is not wholly human, that’s why.

  Of a sudden the warder’s head fell back loosely, but he yet breathed.

  By the bright light of Orbis, Lyssa flowed along the wall to the northeast turret. This warder was awake. He stood at the corner and peered northward out over the swamp. Noiselessly, Lyssa came upon him from behind. Life force streamed toward her, most to flow beyond and vanish on the wind. The guard shook his head dizzily and yawned, then he slumped against the parapet and slowly slid down to the banquette, turning as he did so, to face the glowing mist. His eyes widened, and he feebly scrabbled as if to crawl away. Then his gaze glazed over and he collapsed senseless.

  Lyssa drifted partway down the outside of the wall and coalesced into her bright human form. Kane, Arik, and Rith came running from the wood and toward the rampart. As they uncoiled line and snapped tines outward on their grapnels, Lyssa glided westward along the castellations, once more in her mistlike form—there were yet two parapet guards to render insensible.

  Tnk. Chnk. Klnk. Three grappling hooks bit into stone near the northeast corner of the bastion. Up the lines swarmed Rith and Arik and Kane. Swiftly they reached the top of the battlement and, shielded by the curved wall of Horax’s tower, over the parapet they slipped. They drew up the lines and coiled them, and clicked the tines shut on the grapnels.

  Then, cautiously, on his stomach, Arik peered ’round the curve of the tower. He could see a glowing mist in the southwest turret.

  “She deals with the last of the warders,” he hissed to Kane and Rith, both of them crouched in the shadows behind.

  Arik slid forward to look down at the guards below. As Lyssa had said, there were two of them. They sat sharpening the tines on their spiked cudgels. Arik could see no one else in the bailey, though sounds of argument came from the main building on the far side. />
  Arik slid backward. “All right, Kane, Rith. It’s up to you now.”

  Kane threw the senseless guard’s cloak about his shoulders, slipping the hood over his head. Then down the spiral stone stairwell he went, Rith and Arik behind.

  When they reached the bottom, Kane, his shoulders hunched over with his arms dangling, shambled out from the step-housing and around the curve of the tower, Arik and Rith slipping through the shadows after.

  Just before he came to where he could see the guards, Kane turned to Rith.

  She frowned a moment in concentration, then signaled

  His spear in hand, Kane shuffled into the torchlight and up the side steps. One of the tower warders was facing Kane’s way and gnarled something, yet his voice made no sound. Kane merely shambled toward them in total silence. The guard felt his throat in puzzlement and said something else, his words swallowed in the utterstill. He turned to the second warder and his jutting jaw and protruding lips moved, but he voiced no words. Kane reached them both just as the second warder began to turn, but swift as a viper the big man soundlessly dropped his spear and slammed their heads together in complete silence as bone crunched and splintered.

  Arik and Rith dashed out from the shadows, Arik to help Kane with the guards, Rith racing for the door.

  As Rith ran to the portal, Kane grabbed one of the downed warders by the collar and began dragging him across the landing, pausing long enough to retrieve his spear. Arik hauled the second one after.

  Cautiously, Rith turned the ring on the door latch. She could feel it clack, though it made no sound. It was unlocked. Slowly she eased the panel open and looked inside. No one was there. She threw the door wide just as Kane arrived. As he hauled the guard into the tower, Rith dashed past Arik and down the steps and retrieved the warders’ cudgels from where they had fallen.

  Just then, Lyssa’s lambent mist came flowing across the bailey.