Deathlands 071: Ritual Chill

by James Axler

  He turned his attention back to the five people who sat in a semicircle in front of him.

  “There is a large ville on the trail between here and Anchorage—Ank Ridge, as ye now call it in these days—which was known in my day as Fairbanks, and is still. Back in the day, it was a place where trappers and traders would meet to sell their wares and to drink and whore. From what I hear, it has changed little, e’en though the world has much. It will be no great shame to wipe the godless pit of hell from the face of the earth.

  “These are souls who should welcome the embrace of the Lord, and should be grateful to be offered to him. But I doubt if they will. They are many, and we are few. More, if ye are with us. We must trek to their settlement and purge them with the fires of righteousness, sacrificing them so that Lord’s servants may have greater longitude.”

  “What you mean is, we get in a firefight where we’re outnumbered so that we can chill a few unsuspecting trappers for your purpose,” Mildred said coldly.

  Jordan fixed her with a baleful glare. “Ye can choose to look on it in that way if ye wish,” he said softly. “Ye would be wrong, but ye could see it in that manner.” He paused, then shrugged. “Can ye honestly say that ye have never done the same or any the less?”

  A sobering thought. Mildred cast her mind back over the things that had happened to her since she had been unfrozen. It seemed like decades. During that period there had been many occasions when she had been forced to choose between the lesser of two evils; times when even that had been denied her and she knew that she was doing something of which she may not be proud. But better to know that than to buy the farm, which was the only alternative.

  Was Jordan presenting her with a case that was, in essence, any different? Knowing this, there was little opposition that she could offer. Looking at her compatriots, she could see that Krysty felt the same way. For Jak, these distinctions didn’t apply. Unless you were granted the luxury, then survival would win out every time. J.B.’s stony expression told the same story. There were times when, despite the closeness that had arisen between them, she felt that J.B. was a stranger to her, an unknown territory whose thoughts were forever closed. Which left Ryan. The one-eyed man had a sense of conscience that sometimes troubled him. He tried not to let it show, but she could see that the sense of responsibility he felt as leader sometimes clashed with the equally strong sense of right and wrong that he carried in his head. Pragmatism would emerge triumphant.

  As, in truth, it would for her. Despite the morality she carried in her head and heart; despite the ideals for which she would have fought and argued in the days before skydark; despite all of these, she didn’t give a damn about the greater good right now. All she really cared about was staying alive and keeping her friends and fellow travelers alive. No matter what it took.

  A sobering thought, indeed. Something about herself that she had, perhaps, never truly had the time to dwell on before. Not something about herself with which she felt at ease. But something that was there, regardless.

  “No, I guess you’re right,” she said softly.

  “Good. I’m glad ye agree. For if ye did not agree, then ye would be against us, and if that were the case, then I can’t guarantee it would be worth keeping ye.”

  The inference was clear. From now on, they would have to follow what Jordan said or risk being chilled before there was a chance of escape.

  Jordan got to his feet, Doc’s tender bones betraying him, making the rise a little more difficult than he would have liked. “It would have been better if the Almighty had given me a better body to work with,” he moaned, stretching and clutching at his back. “But it will have to do.”

  “Doc Tanner was a good and wise man. A brave one, too. You could have done a lot worse,” Mildred said, shrewdly eyeing the stranger in Doc’s body as she spoke. If the real Doc was in there somewhere, she wanted to do everything she could to encourage him.

  “I shall take your word for that. I shall have to,” Jordan said.

  He turned to the Inuit. “How long before they can be received into the faith?”

  “I can do it tomorrow morning, as soon as the sun rises,” McPhee answered. “It’s late now, the dark will soon descend. And there is some preparation I must do. In the meantime, we can make plans so that we have an attack ready to unveil to them and to our people.”

  Jordan’s eyes narrowed. The medicine man was still seated and the stranger towered over him. “Aye, that sounds a good idea. But don’t be taking too much upon yourself, man—ye are, after all, only the medicine man.”

  For the briefest moment, anger flashed across McPhee’s face, so swiftly that it was possible to believe that it was imagined. They all saw it and noted the pause before the medicine man, keeping control of his voice, replied, “Of course.”

  Was Thompson aware of the sudden clash between the stranger and the shaman? It was hard for them to tell, as his face remained as blank as ever. But if he hadn’t registered what had just occurred, then it could mean a complication that lay ahead…in a situation that was already fraught.

  The two Inuit rose effortlessly to their feet and left without a word. Jordan paused at the door and looked back over the assembly. “I’ll be seeing ye,” he said simply before closing the door in his wake.

  Was there something in the way he said that? Did it suggest that there was something of Doc in there, struggling to make its way to the surface?

  There was a silence that hung over them like a pall when they were left alone. It had been a confusing meeting: from being sacrifices to the Inuit religion they were now to be inducted into that same religion and used as sec men in an attack on another ville to make replacement sacrifices.

  That was one hell of a turnaround in less than a day.

  “What do you think?” Krysty asked Ryan eventually, as much to break the oppressive silence as for anything else.

  “About what?” the one-eyed man replied. “Do I think Doc’s finally left this world behind? Do I think we should get ourselves into some kind of stupe religion? Do I think we should go and virtually chill ourselves attacking a ville bigger than this just because of a madman’s vision?”

  “Guess that about covers everything,” J.B. commented wryly.

  Ryan shook his head. “Fireblast, you might as well ask me if I figure we have any choice. ’Cause that’s all that it comes down to.”

  Krysty finished the sentence for him. “And the answer is no.”

  * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  Doc, in his new persona of Joseph Jordan, returned to them once more that night. It had been dark for several hours and the outside was lit only by the glow of lamps that gave away the location of the Inuit huts and cabins. Some had shielded windows, but most were secure in their cover among the woods of the downlands slopes and couldn’t be bothered to blacken their lights. A hollow glow fell over the earth that had been their place of sacrifice only a few hours before and was nothing more than a patch of fallow land.

  Clothed, alert, and still a little confused over what had happened during the preceding day, they were now waiting with strained nerves for what would happen next. More than that, they were kept awake by the gnawing in their guts and their parched throats. The herbs in the sacrificial meal that had earlier been forced upon them had eased through their systems and had left behind an almost maddening desire to eat and drink. Yet they had not been fed, nor given water, since Doc had entered with Thompson and McPhee.

  “How they expect us to fight when starving?” Jak grumbled, hunkering down and hugging himself, as though he could make the pangs subside by squeezing them from his body.

  “An army marches on its stomach,” Mildred said absently. Then, noticing the stares of bemusement she received, explained, “Napoleon was supposed to have said it. Hell of a sec chief in his day.”

  “He wouldn’t have reckoned much to this, then,” J.B. drawled laconically.

  They subsided into a pained silence that was broke
n when Krysty beckoned them to the window.

  “Doc may not be Doc, but it looks like he still wants to look after us.”

  The man now known as Joseph Jordan was striding across the center of the ville from the direction of the cookhouse. He was at the head of three Inuit women: one carrying a steaming pot, another with plates and cups and a third with a pitcher of fluid. What it might be was unclear, but it was steaming as gently as the pot carried ahead of it.

  They heard a scrabbling as the lock on the cabin door was freed and the door swung open to reveal a smiling Doc.

  “Bet ye thought we’d forgotten ye,” he said in his deep Scots burr. “How could we expect ye to join with us and fight if ye didnea have food in your bellies?”

  He stood to one side and ushered the three women into the hut. The pot was a deer stew with stodgy dumplings that bubbled on the surface before turning and sinking into the morass. There were vegetables and vegetable matter of an indeterminate origin floating in the stew, which smelled slightly rank, as though the meat had been left just a little too long before being thrown into the pot.

  The pitcher had a herb infusion that smelled sweet. It was light brown in color and the warmth almost radiated from the surface toward them.

  The Inuit women put the pot, the pitcher and the plates and cups in the center of the room.

  “Come, enjoy.” Jordan gestured toward the meal. A frown of puzzlement momentarily crossed his brow when they held back, until the realization hit him. “Of course, of course,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Ye’d be stupid to just take it after what’s been done to ye before.”

  Jordan took a plate and cup from the pile. He helped himself to some of the stew and took a few mouthfuls, washing it down with the herbal tea.

  “Does that, perhaps, reassure ye?” he asked, wiping the sleeve of his frock coat across his mouth in a gesture that seemed alien coming from the body of Doc Tanner.

  “Only if you stay here and we see what it does or doesn’t do to you,” Ryan answered. “Be too easy to go outside and puke it right now, before it had any effect.”

  A sly grin crossed Jordan’s face. “I like the cut of your jib, son. It’s a fair point. I’ll stay awhile and talk. Ye can go—hist!” he added, directing his attention to the three Inuit women and driving them out of the hut. When they had gone, he turned a shrewd eye on Ryan. “Now, I’m thinking that perhaps there was more reason to ye wanting me to stay than just to test your meal.”

  “You’re right about that,” Ryan agreed. “I’m not going to bullshit you. There’s a few things I need to know.”

  “Need? Ye think you’re in a position to demand?”

  “Mebbe not, but it won’t stop me asking.”

  “Fair, fair.” Jordan shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

  Ryan looked at the others. They were torn between the need to know and the need to fill their aching bellies, even the rank smell of the stewed deer meat enough to get their juices flowing.

  “Why do you think we’ll come with you and fight in a firefight that isn’t ours?” he began, approaching his object circumspectly.

  “Because ye have little choice. It’s the only way ye’ll get your weapons back, and where else are ye going to go?” But even as he said it, Jordan frowned, as though there was something pricking at the edge of his consciousness. Something he couldn’t quite identify, but that niggled at him.

  “Mebbe we would have somewhere, mebbe not. But what’s to stop us going anyway? Mebbe we’d rather take our chances than take part in someone else’s firefight,” Ryan continued.

  Jordan screwed up his face, as though trying to mentally dig out some piece of vital information. “No, not ye. I know that ye all are fighters, good ones at that. I know that ye have a sense of right and wrong, and that ye can be relied upon to back each other up. And I know that I’m included in that, for the man who was in this shell before me.” He stopped, bewilderment crossing his face. “How would I know that? Why is that still there? Shouldn’t…” His voiced wavered, and for a moment—for only a few syllables—the Scots burr fell away and the familiar tones of Doc broke through. “Shouldn’t that be something that did not remain, that went with the man who…” He shook his head. “Lord, these are demons sent to tempt me from my past, a test perhaps from the Almighty to prove my faith.”

  Ryan pressed home what little advantage he could see. “So you wouldn’t come with us if we were to make a break for it when our blasters are back with us? Break for the redoubt and get the hell out of here?”

  “The what? What is this of which ye speak?” Jordan put his hand to his temple, as though pressure were building. The gentle touch became a grinding knuckle, skin whitening at the temple around the area of pressure. “No, I must do the Lord’s work. Lori? I have purpose, reborn like the phoenix… A test, don’t ye see?”

  Mildred seized the opportunity. “Doc, Doc, it’s me. Think about who you are, where you came from. How you got here. Remember that you are Doctor Theophilus Tanner, from—”

  “No!” Jordan roared, shaking his head to clear it. “Ye are not going to trap me with your cleverness. I am Joseph Jordan, and I have been sent to do the Lord’s work and redeem these people who are descended from my kith and kin. This is all still strange to me and I will not allow ye to make the strange seem even stranger. Your food and drink is good, as ye can see from the way in which I still stand before ye. Now eat and drink, for tomorrow we begin our assault on Fairbanks. Now I bid ye good-night until the morrow.”

  Holding himself unnaturally erect, as though every movement had to be forced from his body, Jordan turned and stormed to the door, slamming it behind him and securing the lock before walking heavily into the night. They could hear his pounding feet punctuating his low mutterings as he crossed the center of the ville.

  “Well, what do you make of that?” Mildred said softly.

  “Whatever it is, possession or madness, I don’t care,” J.B. answered. “Doc’s in there somewhere. Just for a moment…”

  “Yeah, I thought he was coming back to us,” Ryan commented. “But whatever it is, it’s keeping the real Doc clamped down. Which means we can’t leave the old bastard to these people, and it’s sure as shit he won’t come with us if we make a break. Even if we force him, he’d be wanting to get away and back to them.”

  “So what do? Just walk into chill for them?” Jak asked. His tone was neutral, but his words betrayed his displeasure.

  “We make sure that we aren’t walking into anything,” Ryan replied. “We bide our time, we go along with them, and we see how Doc’s doing. When the time is right, then we take him with us.”

  “Even if it means getting into a bloodbath?” Krysty asked.

  Ryan nodded slowly. “Even that, I guess. We do it and make sure that every other bastard gets chilled other than us.”

  “That’s not going to be easy, even assuming they give us all our hardware back, and not just some of it,” J.B. pointed out.

  “Fireblast and fuck it, when has it ever been easy?” Ryan countered. “Best thing we can do is actually fill our bellies, quench our thirst and wait for the morning, see where it takes us.”

  THOMPSON AND MCPHEE had been arguing since sunup. The shaman had been waiting for the Inuit chief when he came out of his cabin.

  “Not like you to be up and working so early,” the chief said pointedly.

  “Never mind that shit. I’ve got something to talk to you about,” McPhee said urgently, taking the chief by the arm and leading him away from the cabin. He spoke in low tones, and it didn’t take Thompson much to guess that this was because the stranger Jordan had been sleeping at the chief’s. Whatever was itching at the medicine man, he didn’t want to risk Jordan catching wind of it.

  “Don’t take much to guess what it’s about,” Thompson said softly. “Don’t want someone to hear, eh? Figure you were the one told me he was the real deal, so—”

  “It’s not about him…not really,” McPhee cut in, pick
ing carefully at his words. “Him I don’t doubt, but… Tell me, Chief, do you feel good about him wanting the others to take part in this?”

  “He says that he remembers them being good fighters, from the time before he came into that body. Shit, we know they are, anyway. And he figures that they’ll go along with him because of who he used to be.”

  “That’s just it, though,” McPhee mused.

  “What?” The Inuit chief looked genuinely puzzled.

  “Well, he ain’t who he used to be, is he? He might have some memories left in his brain from that time, but he ain’t the mad old coot they brought with them. So why would they stick with someone who, when you think about it, they don’t actually know? Don’t say that hasn’t crossed your mind. You’d have to be pretty stupid not to think about it, and if you’re anything, you ain’t that.”

  “I hope you mean that,” Thompson said coldly. Then, after a pause while he waited for the import of his word to sink in, he continued. “Jordan told me that he spoke to them last night, and that they agreed to come with us and fight. Even if we leave hardly anyone here to look after the ville while we’re gone, we still don’t number that many. Not against the size of Fairbanks. We need them.”

  “Do we? You think I’m going to be the only one who’s not sure about them being involved. Fuck’s sake, we were ready to carve them up this time yesterday, and now we’re supposed to think that they’ll go along with us just like that?”

  “You got a better idea?” Thompson countered. “Jordan wants them. We need them. He’s been sent to us. You put it together and see what else you can make from it. Only fits one way.”

  McPhee shrugged. “Have it your way. You’re chief, and there ain’t shit I can say to change your mind if that’s how you really want it. But don’t expect everyone to accept it that easily. I trust Jordan, but not the others. There are some who may find it hard to even trust him if they’re part of the deal. Gotta think about that—d’you really want to send us into a firefight where not everyone’ll be totally committed?”