by James Axler
There was a deep, melodious chuckle. "Such curiosity, Ryan Cawdor."
"Always been my way."
A silence. Ryan rubbed at the side of his nose, hesitated a moment, then turned and started to stroll out of the stone-walled building.
"And so impatient." Again the wise chuckle, making Ryan feel seven years old.
"I don't wait for any man," he replied.
"I believe you, my son. Did you never wait for a word from your father?"
"When I was little."
"Respect, Ryan Cawdor. That is what I have taught my young people here in Quindley. Respect and order. You would be surprised how eager they are to be
told what to do and when to do it. No confusion over having to make choices."
"Right or wrong?" Ryan questioned.
He caught the faint sound of someone clapping, slowly and quietly. "I like you. If s sad that you have brought such gloom and death riding at your saddle horn."
"You know that's shit."
"Do I?"
"Course. Isaac's brother was dead before we got anywhere near your ville. Children died because of bad planning and bad luck. Same with Calvin. Just to feed your face, Moses."
"You speak your mind."
"Damn right!"
"This is because you have more summers."
"Mebbe."
"This is why we do not allow so many summers here in the paradise of Quindley. They lead only to questioning and trouble."
"Paradise! I seen better paradises on flea-bitten beds in stinking frontier gaudies, Moses. This might be paradise for you. You got everything you need. The kids work from when they get born and then, when they might start to get difficult, you simply get them chilled."
Again there was the quiet, deep-chested laugh. "You are the living proof of the great wisdom of the way that this ville operates, Ryan."
"Wise for you."
"Of course. I give them the sense of belonging and of having their h'ves organized. Without me this ville would be a hole in the ground."
Ryan nodded, becoming bored with the conversation. "That all you wanted to tell me, Moses? How the sun shines out of your ass and when you shit it comes out flat like a ribbon and smells of violets? That all?"
"Someone once said that you shouldn't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain, Ryan Cawdor. You are the first person I've m et who has acted on that."
"I'm going."
"Very well. But if you chose to come in with me, we would together wield such power that all of Death-lands could fall to us. One day."
"Old friend of mine used to say that you shouldn't ever plan for tomorrow. Might not come."
"It will not come for Heinrich and for the out-lander."
"Heard about them. When?"
"Tonight," Moses replied.
"Might turn in early," Ryan said, yawning. "Been quite a big day already,"
"It gets bigger."
"Sure."
"The passing of someone who has resisted being twenty-five is a spectacle worth seeing, Ryan."
"I've seen more chillings than you've eaten fish dinners, Moses."
There came a sigh that seemed to Ryan to be tainted with a strange longing. "I believe you."
"How old are you, Moses?"
Moses laughed, which made Ryan feel, for a moment, as though he'd asked the unseen presence something incredibly stupid. "You must cease wondering about my age. You know the truth that you will never know."
"See you later," Ryan said.
WHEN HE REJOINED the others he found that Michael was back, sitting on the corner bed, arms folded, staring sullenly at Krysty.
"What's wrong?" Ryan asked. "Dorothy hasn't bought the farm, has she?"
Michael shook his head in silence.
"He saw the people they're going to chill tonight," Krysty said quietly.
"When?"
"Day he went into the woods with his special blonde," Dean stated venomously.
"Just shut your flap, kid," Michael spit.
Ryan stepped between them. "You know you should've told us about this."
"No, I don't know that, Ryan. As it happens, I don't fucking know that at all."
"Just what's got into you?" Ryan looked at the others. "Anyone know about this?"
"Cherchez la femme," Doc muttered. "Ancient predark saying. Means that when there's any trouble... all that you have to do is seek out the woman." He glanced at Mildred. "My apologies, my dear. Not very politically correct, I know. But, c'est la vie. That's another-"
"I know what it means, Doc," she replied. "And this time I guess you're probably right about Michael's problem."
"Not a problem. Look, all right. I went for a walk, and we saw these two prisoners. That's all. You always told us, Ryan, that we shouldn't mess with the affairs of a ville. Well, I just did like you told me."
The teenager was on the ragged edge. With a shock like cold water in the eyes, Ryan realized something. Michael had been taken into Nil-Vanity as an oblate, an infant who was reared all his life within the strict confines of the withdrawn meditative order. Dorothy was one of the few women that Michael had ever fallen in love with.
"All right," he said. "Let it drop now. But remember where your loyalty lies, Michael."
"Oh, I know that all right, Ryan." He stood up defiantly. "And it doesn't lie with you." He stalked straight out of the door into the heart of the ville.
Chapter Thirty
There was a long discussion between the six friends over the noon meal. Ryan and J.B. were both leaning toward the idea of getting out of the ville before evening came, and the pair of promised sacrifices. Jehu had arrived with the silent serving girls, who carried in trays of food and had explained to them about the doomed outlander rapist that Michael had seen, and about the hapless Heinrich who was to die as an example for the rest of the ville.
The food was less good, as though everyone in Quindley had been shaken by the death of the young man. But Ryan's suspicion was that the depression was linked to the vastly more serious fact that Moses hadn't been allowed to enjoy his anticipated luncheon of fresh-caught fish.
There was cold potatoes, lumpy and dull, scorched on the outside and partly raw on the inside; a mess of peas, gray and heavily salted. At least the bread was good, and the butter tasty. Dean looked at the horn beaker of water that Krysty had poured out for him.
"That come from the lake?"
"Course. They don't seem to have any wells here. No need, I guess."
"Don't somehow fancy it." The boy peered unhappily into the tumbler. "Got the blood of what's-his-name. You know, that Calvin the pike crushed. Don't want to drink it."
Doc brushed some crumbs off his vest. "I confess a certain sympathy with the lad, though I share the opinion of the great W. C. Fields on drinking water. He wouldn't touch it because he said that fish fucked in it."
"Doc!" Mildred exclaimed. "I'm shocked at your language. And you a Harvard man."
"Only a lighthearted jest, madam." The old man appeared to be flustered. "It was not my intention to offend you. Or to offend any lady here present. My apologies."
She grinned. "Only kidding, Doc. Actually this water tastes good enough to me. I wouldn't have dreamed of drinking it back when I was alive before. Most of the lakes, rivers and seas were filthy with all kinds of industrial and chemical contaminants. Fall in some lakes in the United States of America and swallow a couple of mouthfuls and you probably wouldn't make it to the next dawn. They were that bad."
Krysty picked up a bright-skinned pippin and crunched it between her strong white teeth. "We should get back to the subject of leaving or staying." She turned to Ryan. "Look, lover, if you and J.B. think we ought to make tracks, then I guess the rest of us'll go along with that."
The two men looked at each other in silence. Ryan spoke first. "My guess is that we'll probably be leaving young Michael behind here."
"Serve him right." Dean was peeling a ripe pear with his turquoise-hilted knife.
"You and Michael have really fallen out, haven't you?" Ryan looked at his son.
"Yeah. Gone all big-eyed and wet-mouthed over that straw-head slut."
Krysty pushed back her chair, the legs scraping noisily on the wooden floor. "Better watch that mouth, Dean," she said, her voice hard and tight with anger. "Dorothy might be many things, but she's not a slut. You get in the easy habit of bad-talking all women, and you lose all respect for women. You'll be calling Mildred and me sluts next."
"Sorry. But she's trapped Michael into changing. Mebbe she's a witch, Dad."
"No. Michael may have fallen for Dorothy. In love with her. Wouldn't surprise me. Happens, Dean. One day it'll even happen to you."
"No way at all!"
They all laughed. Doc leaned back and pushed away his wooden plate. "When the arrow strikes at the heart, Dean, it will pierce through the strongest defence. And even the bravest and boldest will fall a helpless captive."
"Not me, Doc!" Dean pulled a face of such appalled repugnance that they all laughed again.
Ryan got up and looked casually out of the doorway, making sure that none of the young people of Quindley were close enough to overhear them.
"You think Michael might remain here, Dean? Think about it. That's a serious question."
"What if he does, Ryan?" J.B. asked.
"Then he stays. Time came for Jak Lauren to pull out of the endless moving-on. One day it'll come to all of us." He didn't dare to meet Krysty's eyes. "If Michael decides that his own personal future lies here with Dorothy, then that'll be what happens. It's his decision."
Dean nodded. "I think they sort of want to be together, Dad."
"How about us, Ryan?" Mildred had also stood up. "Must go and take a leak in a minute. Are we going to stay another night or move on while there's light?"
Ryan looked out of the thatched hut, at the range of close-packed wooden buildings. The narrow lanes of the ville were almost deserted, with most of the people out in the fields or the forest around.
"Stickies are out there, somewhere. I'm sure of it. We can malce the redoubt in about a half day or so. Wouldn't want to find us stuck in the evening gloom in these woods."
"So we wait until dawn, lover?"
"Yeah, Krysty. Move tomorrow at first light. But keep that to ourselves."
"We telling Michael?" Dean asked.
Ryan considered for a few seconds, finally deciding. "No."
THE TEENAGER still hadn't appeared by the end of the afternoon.
Jehu had come by after the dirty plates had been collected to tell them that the ceremony-that was the word he used-would be beginning an hour after the sun had set over the western edge of the lake.
Then he had gone, saying something they didn't understand about how he had to check that all of the osiers had been properly collected and treated.
"Did he say the 'hoosiers' had been collected and treated?" wondered Doc.
"No, the osiers," Mildred snapped. "Osiers, Doc. Branches of willow trees."
"I am familiar with the term, madam. Just that the young man with the absurd ponytail doesn't open his mouth properly when he speaks. Anyway, why would they be wanting the branches of willow trees?"
Nobody could come up with an answer to that question. So the afternoon wore wearily on.
RYAN AND KRYSTY WALKED out across the causeway onto dry land. Strolling together along the beach, they ignored the curious glances of the young men and women working in the allotments and orchards of the ville.
The sun had dipped partway below the horizon, leaving a golden carpet that stretched toward them across the calm water. The storm had eased away, bringing only a brief shower at around three o'clock, barely enough to lay the dust.
"Where are they going to do this chilling?" Krysty asked, her dazzling hair even more bright in the evening fire.
"Don't know. Have to be close, or Moses won't be able to get to see it. And I can't imagine anything happening in this sick place without his knowing all about it."
"Look."
A hundred yards ahead of them, emerging from the sable shadows at the edge of the pine forest, were Michael and Dorothy, hand in hand.
"Young lovers," Ryan said flatly.
When they saw Ryan and Krysty, the couple hesitated, exchanging a few hurried words. Then they approached.
"Fine sunset," Krysty said.
"Yeah. It is." Michael looked unhappy. "Is...is your neck feeling okay, Ryan?"
"My neck?"
"Yeah. You still got that bit of bandage on it from the mutie creature in the ghost town."
Ryan's wound had healed so well that he'd almost completely forgotten it. Once in the night he had woken with a brief stab of flaring pain, but it had quickly passed. He lifted a hand to touch the place.
"Feels fine, thanks. How are you?"
All four of them were suddenly aware that the question hadn't been a simple, polite one, that Ryan was asking the teenager how he really was.
"Better. Think that the last jump, and the ghost town, sort of moved my brain around loose inside my head. You know how it can be, Ryan."
"Sure do."
"But you are feeling better now, aren't you, Michael?" Dorothy asked, not letting go of his hand.
"Sure. Lots."
"That's good." Krysty looked beyond them, along the dark strand, vanishing toward the north. "Can any of you smell smoke at all?"
Ryan paused, concentrating. "Could be. Probably the cooking fires from the ville."
Krysty shook her head. "No. Not wood burning. I'm sure there's gas, as well."
"We didn't see anything in the trees, did we, Dorothy?" Michael said.
"Depends on what you mean by anything." She wasn't able to control a suggestive giggle.
Michael blushed and pulled his hand away from hers. "You know what I mean," he snarled, angry at his own obvious embarrassment. "No fires or anything."
"All right, sweetness. Sorry if I upset you. You know I'd do anything not to do that."
She laid a hand on his arm, then stretched up and kissed him softly on the mouth, her blond hair blowing across both their faces.
"You going to the ceremony, Michael?"
"Sure. Everyone'll be there, Ryan. You aren't leaving the ville before that, are you?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
He shuffled his feet in the loose pebbles. "Something I want to talk about before you go."
"Before 'you' go? That sounds different from saying before 'we' go, Michael."
"Yeah."
Krysty watched the teenager carefully. He was looking toward the setting sun, and she saw that his dark eyes were completely veiled, showing no more emotion than a piece of fresh-quarried slate. His mouth was a thin, etched line, and he wouldn't actually look either Ryan or herself full in the face.
At that moment she was certain that Ryan had been right in his guess. Michael and Dorothy wouldn't be separated. Unless something very unexpected happened in the next twenty-four hours, the six of them would be making the next jump without the curly headed teenager.
THEY WALKED a little farther along the coast of the enormous lake, but the sun was sinking fast and they only had their handblasters with them.
"Best get back," Krysty said.
"Sure."
"Lover? What do you think that Michael was talking about? What does he want to say to us?"
"Goodbye."
Chapter Thirty-One
The tiny sliver of a new moon showed in the night sky, hardly enough to cast the weakest shadow.
Far over the lake, to the west, hung a dense bank of cloud, and a few thin tatters of gray-white floated across the silent forest that surrounded the ville.
Within the pools of blackness beneath the larches, firs, pines and aspens, the creatures of the night moved and hunted. Some crawled on their scaled bellies and some flew silently among the stark branches. Many did their work on four legs.
Some did it on two legs.
SUPPER HAD BEEN a hasty and cursory
affair a stew of apples that was so thick you could have cut it into slices, providing you had a sharp enough knife; some sourdough rolls with cherry jelly, and a large bowl of cold boiled potatoes and carrots.