Conflagration

by Mick Farren

  Dunbar indicated he knew what the corporal meant. The ticker clattered again. This time the corporal tore off the tape and handed it to Dunbar. “Your first report from the airship, Field Marshal.”

  Dunbar gestured to an aide, who produced a flask and handed it to the corporal, indicating that he should drink and pass it on to the three privates. Raphael reflected how, if Dunbar came out of this day the victor, the corporal would have a story to tell his grandchildren, about how he shared a drink with the great man. Dunbar was already a part of Albany folklore. He was the hero of the bloodless revolution that had brought the present King to power and deposed his autocratic and unpopular father. In the winter of ’93, the poor had marched in the streets, and only the cool resolve of then-Colonel Virgil Dunbar had prevented bloodshed on Regent Square. Subsequently arrested, but then freed by popular outcry, Dunbar had later been one of those at the legendary Midnight Meeting, the historic encounter between the King, the leaders of the Commons, and the Army that had resulted in Carlyle I’s abdication in favor of his son Carlyle II, while the troops of Hassan IX were already coming ashore at Savannah.

  Dunbar noticed Raphael studying the ticker tape machine, and laughed. “One of the marvels of advanced technology, my boy. Strange to think that it exists in the same modern world as you and your friends.”

  Raphael nodded, uncomfortable that the commander had noticed him. “Strange indeed, sir.”

  Dunbar looked amused. He was probably accustomed to junior officers becoming tongue-tied in his presence. “I understand you Four have had very little to do as yet.”

  “That’s right, Field Marshal. As yet.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, my boy. I have a feeling you’ll all see action soon enough.”

  Dunbar was one of the few senior officers in Albany who harbored no doubts about The Four. Many of those immediately under him simply wished they would go away, but the supreme commander accepted their powers as mysterious but infinitely useful. His backing had helped them on a number of occasions, the most notable being in the matter of them making contact with the aborigines. The visit by The Four to the land of the Ohio had almost never happened. Although the winter excursion had been organized by Slide and T’saya, the original suggestion had been made by the Reverend “Bearclaw” Manson. The small man, with his buckskins and unkempt hair, was credited with knowing more about the uncharted interior of the continent than any other individual in Albany, and also of being in closer touch with the aboriginal world of the invisible than perhaps any living American. It had been Manson’s idea that The Four should spend time with the shamans, wisewomen, and windwalkers of the Ohio. Despite all his unique insights, Manson was not a religious leader, and the title “Reverend” was little more than a nickname. At the same time, though, he frequently understood more, and his thoughts were more practical and precise than most, if not all, of those who held offices in the organized worship of God or Goddess. “When you find yourself dealing with the unknown, I figure it’s a real good idea to know all that you can know, before you set to messing with it.”

  At first, a majority of the Albany war cabinet had completely disagreed with him. They had objected strenuously to such a meeting, considering the capabilities of The Four a state secret that should be preserved at all cost, and, under no circumstances compromised, especially at the suggestion of a character like Manson, in their estimation a possible madman who spent far too much of his time communing with who-knew-what imagined devils in the deep and primal forests of the interior. They reasoned that it was bad enough that the existence of The Four had been inadvertently revealed at the King’s investiture. To allow the Ohio a close look at them should be unthinkable. Those who supported Manson, primarily Dunbar and Slide, countered that what Jesamine, Argo, Cordelia, and Raphael might learn from consulting with the aborigines, and letting the tribe’s advanced adepts meet with them, would totally outweigh what they might be giving away. The final decision had been taken by Prime Minister Jack Kennedy, when he sided with Dunbar, concluding that Manson was right, and gave his approval that The Four, along with Slide, T’saya, Manson, and a full military escort, should head out through the snow-blown forest, where the tall pines swayed, bending to the same Arctic north-winds that kept the Mosul shivering in the ruins of Richmond.

  Memories of their time with the Ohio inevitably set Raphael thinking about Jesamine. To say that, since the end of training, Jesamine had been acting strangely was an understatement. The winter had, of course, been hard on all of them, but especially on Argo and Jesamine, who had been expected to sacrifice what seemed to be a much-needed relationship to the greater good. This painful separation had pushed Argo’s drinking well beyond social intoxication, while Jesamine had progressively withdrawn from any interaction with the other three. That she had now rejected the ways of Albany and was traveling south with the Ohio was only a part of it. He could, to some degree, sympathize. The Mosul left scars, both physical and mental, on all who came under their power, and suddenly to adapt to not only freedom, but a new social order, was not easy. He looked over to where Jesamine was standing, inevitably by herself. Jesamine noticed Raphael was looking at her, and struck a pose; then she began to walk in his direction, actually swaying her hips like the angry and highly sexual woman he had first encountered on the Potomac. Two officers turned to watch her. Seemingly men could check out women even with a battle raging less than a thousand yards away.

  Before she had taken up with Argo, Raphael had hoped that Jesamine would invite him to her bed. As two outsiders, he reasoned, they were the ideal comfort for each other. But it was not to be, and, for a while, he despaired of ever finding himself a girl and a relationship. He had gloomily wondered if, in Albany, he was too much of an outsider, until an RNV nurse called Hyacinth Musgrave had made it clear, in word and very explicit deed, that an outsider could also be considered exotic. Their affair, though, had been a well kept secret. Hyacinth Musgrave had feared any gossip linking her with such an outlandish young man would ruin her reputation and embarrass her father, the same Musgrave who commanded Dunbar’s artillery. She was particularly anxious that Cordelia knew nothing about them. The memory caused a slightly cynical smile to cross Raphael’s face. The outsider was exotic enough to shag, but too exotic to take home to Daddy, or be introduced to her friends. Hyacinth would doubtless be highly put out if she knew he had a whole folder of nude drawings of her in his portfolio.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  Raphael blinked. Jesamine had caught him remembering. “Nothing. Just a random thought.”

  “You spend too much time on your own, Raphael Vega.”

  “Perhaps.” An explosion caused everyone to duck. Raphael’s lips were suddenly dry. “Sometimes I feel it’s not enough time, if this is what having company takes.”

  Jesamine pointed to the ticker. As reports came through from the airship, a relay of young captains tore off the tapes, scanned them, and then hurried the news to Dunbar if there was something new. “It prints the reports being sent by wireless from the airship?”

  Raphael nodded. “That’s right.”

  Jesamine looked impressed. “No shit?”

  In a field to the rear, an Odin biplane came in to land. The observer scrambled from the duel cockpit and ran towards the grassy knoll, while the pilot cut the engine, but stayed where he was as a refueling crew went to work. The observer, still in vulcanized goggles and leather flying helmet, and his face black with oil, breathlessly delivered a verbal report as Dunbar listened intently. Jesamine watched it all with precise interest. “It’s all down to communication, isn’t it? I mean, this beats waving flags and blowing bugles.”

  Raphael nodded down the valley. “Communications are for the commanders safely in the rear. Out there it’s some poor fucker getting himself blown all over the map. It’s about fixed bayonets and death, girl.”

  Dunbar dismissed the Odin’s observer who stepped away, pulling off his helmet and goggles, and lighti
ng a cigarette. Dunbar faced his aides. “Gentlemen…”

  That one word had everyone’s attention.

  “The reports from the air lead me to believe that we must ready the second wave. The 19th, the 3rd Foot, Englund’s Irregulars, and the 2nd Armored should all make ready.” With the orders issued, a number of officers hurried away, while others attempted to use the still malfunctioning field telephones. Dunbar looked at his watch. “I want my cavalry commanders here in five minutes.”

  Having done what he needed to do, Dunbar dropped into a folding chair and his batman poured his first whiskey of the day into a cut-glass tumbler. Jesamine moved a little closer to Raphael. “Have you sensed anything, anything at all?”

  “You mean from the Other Place?”

  “Like where else?”

  “No.”

  “And Cordelia looked and saw nothing, right?”

  “Right. And Cordelia knows her looking.”

  “On the Potomac they carried the Dark Things with them, and kept them out on the perimeter of the camp, in these huge pens with high steel fences that glowed in the night. The bodies of the dead were thrown into the damned things, and sometimes the bodies of the living. No one wanted to go near them, and even the Zhaithan fucking loathed them. If Faysid Ab Balsol has any kind of paranormals left, we’d at least see a flare flash of their presence.”

  “Maybe they all died or something, during the winter. Who the hell knows? Can they starve or expire from the cold? We’re just guessing here.”

  Jesamine took a deep breath. For a moment she looked as though she wanted to slap him for the way his desperation had made him state the obvious. “Do you want to help me look again?”

  One of the techniques they had developed in training was that any two of The Four, in very close physical contact, were able to raise a representation of the Other Place that superimposed itself over the prevailing reality. They couldn’t enter, but they could see a simulation of Inside.

  “Here?”

  “Sure, no one will notice if we make it fast.”

  Raphael was cautious. “It could flare us to the enemy.”

  “If there is one.”

  “We can’t assume there isn’t?”

  “You think Jeakqual-Ahrach doesn’t know we’re here?”

  Raphael had run through all his objections. It was Jesamine’s show. He went to work. “Grab my hand and go. Rapid first impression and out.”

  Jesamine grabbed his hand and they went. Raphael opened his eyes and looked. And totally didn’t like what he saw. The Other Place was empty.

  JESAMINE

  She had their attention and a measure of trust was flowing. The terrestrial battle raged all round them, but The Four were focused. “I saw nothing. You know, a void, emptiness, complete fuck-all nothing? And that isn’t right, right?”

  Raphael nodded. “There was so much of nothing it was excessive. The Other Place is empty in a way that it shouldn’t be empty.”

  Jesamine pressed the point. “A billiard-table landscape and empty colorless sky. Forever.”

  Raphael nodded again.“Forever amen, nothing.”

  Argo was thoughtful. “All the death should have at least attracted some psychic scavengers. I mean, there’s some bloody energy release going on.”

  Cordelia sighed. “Yeah, I admit it. I saw nothing and didn’t think it through.”

  A greater measure of trust was flowing, but Jesamine could still feel the crackle of collective emotional impediments. “We’re reluctant to jump in.”

  Argo squared his shoulders. “That’s the fucking truth.”

  “We need to start from scratch.”

  “Scratch?”

  “Have sex. Run the primal force.”

  Cordelia’s suggestion was met with unanimous disbelief. “What?” She defiantly defended herself. “I know it was me that said it, and I’m supposed to be the slut of the entire officer corps, but we’re out of shape, and we’ve all been getting drunk, acting weird, seething with resentment, making spectacles of ourselves, shacking up with Indians, and generally fucking up.”

  Jesamine was starting to like Cordelia again. She could blow through the accumulated garbage when needed. “Even if we wanted to, Four-play is out. Who’s going to buy us organizing an orgy in the middle of a battle, and saying that it’s vital to the war effort?”

  “And where would we get the drugs?”

  Raphael explored the cut on his forehead with his fingers. “We have to jump and just hope for the best.”

  “We’ve been trained, we’re supposed to be ready.”

  “Close our eyes and do it now.”

  “Wait!”

  “What?”

  “We have to clear this.”

  “Why?”

  Cordelia laid out the military requirements. “Because we are in the middle of a battle, goddamn it. Aside from what Dunbar might want, we need to see that our bodies are protected while we’re out of them.”

  Much thought had gone into the preservation and disposition of The Four’s vacated bodies that remained behind when they went in the Other Place. Raphael had suggested a collective coffin, and even offered to design one, but Cordelia had vetoed the idea as too freaky for Albany. Part of the problem was there was no real continuity in how the bodies behaved. Sometimes they had stood like statues, but, on other occasions, they suffered seizures and then collapsed like cut-string puppets. In the end they had adopted an arrangement in which they simply sat square, shoulders hunched, feet touching, clasping their legs to their chests. It seemed to work, but they should jump from a protected space, with an escort guarding them.

  “We have to inform Dunbar.”

  “And tell him what?”

  “That we’re going on a recon patrol. He can understand that.”

  “So he has one more thing to worry about?”

  “Then we tell Slide. He can deal with the protection and the protocols.”

  “Where is Slide?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  Argo signaled to the sergeant in charge of their light horse escort. “Have you seen Yancey Slide, Sergeant?”

  “Not recently, sir.”

  “Slide is never around when you want him.”

  Slide’s low rasp cut off the complaints. “But he can arrive with indecent suddenness.”

  No one had looked, so no one could say for sure that Slide had not walked up, exactly as they were complaining about his absence, and had not appeared out of thin air, but his sudden and precisely timed arrival hinted suspiciously of demonic showing off.

  “You all want to jump?”

  “We think we need to.”

  Slide’s eyes narrowed. “What have you seen?”

  “Nothing. Too much nothing.”

  Slide scowled. “Sounds like a clampdown.”

  “What’s a clampdown?”

  “A clampdown on all condition inputs; nothing is let in to shape the landscape. It is an imposed void.”

  Cordelia’s grammar was tight-laced. “Imposed by whom?”

  “We should be able to guess that easily enough, shouldn’t we? Not that it really matters. Right now, if it doesn’t belong to us, it’s unfriendly. The real problem is that a clampdown can be a setup for a sudden blast-through.”

  “And then?”

  “And then you don’t want to be caught by it. Inside or Outside.”

  “But we can’t find out anything if we don’t go in.”

  Slide drew on his cheroot. “The eternal dilemma.”

  Jesamine brought the discussion to practicality. “We need a place to jump.”

  The Four and Slide were still standing beside the ticker tape machine, and, before Slide could answer, he was distracted by an exclamation from one of the captains tending the machine. He was ineffectually calling out for the corporal who had installed it. “Damn it, man. It’s sending gibberish.”

  The captain was holding an offending length of paper tape. Slide held out a gloved hand. “Le
t me see that.”

  Slide examined the tape and shook his head. “I was afraid of that.”

  The characters printed on the tape suddenly caught fire. They flared briefly before Slide extinguished them by closing his fist. His face was grim. “You have to jump. Now.”

  Jesamine swallowed hard.

  THE FOUR

  They rose as one. The bonding was complete. The links were forged once more. The exaltation was under their command. Far beneath them, the battle raged; it existed, but it was as insubstantial as a phantom. They flew like birds in a sky without clouds. Most times when they jumped, the Other Place was filled with bright mobile stars and planets, but now it was as empty as Jesamine had described. “A billiard-table landscape and empty colorless sky.” Automatically they shifted to the rectilinear position so the parts of The Four were positioned like the points of a radically extended trapezoid. Cordelia conjured the weapons, the others simply hung.

  They acted as one and also as separate individuals that were part of that one. Each was a component and yet each was free within the confines of their common purpose. They did not have to agree, they simply knew what was to be done. They brought their own personalities with them, their own intelligence and their own memories, but they shared so much more. The commonality was greater than any single one of them, greater perhaps than the sum of all four, but neither was it oppressive nor an imposition. Acting for the commonality was the same as acting in individual self-interest, and if ever it should seem confining, the freedom and power that came with it was more than sufficient compensation.

  “How do we turn nothing into something?”

  “We already have. We did it by entering the picture.”

  In such a featureless landscape, no sense of motion was possible, so they simply hung, watchful and waiting, unsure even if they were predator or prey.

  “Has it occurred to anyone this might be a trap?”

  “And that we might be trapped already.”

  “We came in but we won’t come out?”

  “How would we know?”

  Cordelia’s personality surfaced. “We’d know when we got bored.”