by John Hook
“What’re you planning to do?” Saripha asked as we paused.
“Good question.” Kyo nodded.
“I’m not sure. According to Knightshade, the Magister knows where Rox is.”
“And you believe him?”
“No, Knightshade wants something and, whatever it is, it probably isn’t what I want. But I had hoped that the Magister might be a powerful enough figure to intervene.”
“I hear a ‘but’ there,” Izzy said.
“But I don’t know what we’ll find. This allegedly powerful Magister is unaccounted for in his own city and now we’re told he’s sleeping.”
“So you’re going to settle for knowing what’s going on.” Izzy looked at me.
“If I can actually find out what’s going on, I’ll take it. Better than I usually do.”
I walked up the steps and threw open the doors. We stepped out onto the roof. At first we were blinded by the desert sun. Spread out below us was the city of Antanaria. From up here you could even see the hint of mountains in the distance. We stepped away from the small housing that contained the doors at the top of the stairs. A hot wind blew across the roof and I had to find my center of gravity.
There, behind us as we turned, was the Magister. He was massive, easily eighteen to twenty feet tall seated on a throne. He was what we had thought was a mere statue and he still almost looked like one. He was very still with his eyes closed, but now you could see the very slow rise and fall of his chest. He had an elongated face that was mostly human, but ram-like horns formed spirals at the sides of his head. Both his forearms and his legs were bound with thick shackles of leather, although the Magister looked too strong for them to work by themselves.
“Quentin, you’d better take a look at this,” Izzy called. He and Anika had circled around behind the large throne the Magister sat on. I joined them.
Coming out of the back of the throne was a thick rubbery hose-like tube, maybe a foot in diameter. It was held up by two ceramic rings as it exited and then turned down into a hole in the roof. I stepped forward slowly. I knew what I would feel before I touched the rubbery pipe. The rubbery substance was slightly warm and it pulsed like a liquid was being pumped through it.
“It’s just like the tower,” Izzy said without having to feel it himself.
“What are they extracting?” I asked. “And who is doing it to him? Or is he choosing to do this?”
I walked around the front angrily. I was frustrated. I had come here to find out where Rox was. Of course, I knew Knightshade had probably lied about that to get me to come here and I should be more worried about why he wanted me here. However, instead, I was just frustrated that the Magister seemed to be in no shape to answer my questions. I raised a club and took sight on the Magister’s shins. I meant to wake him up and get some answers.
Saripha’s hand stopped the arc of my swing. I looked at her, angry for a moment. Then I saw something deep in her eyes and I felt the anger pass.
“You seem to be losing yourself, Quentin. Violence seems to come awfully easy to you.”
“This place doesn’t make me feel very gentle.”
“I understand. But just as you have said many times that doing the right thing is even more important in a place like this, so is being true to yourself and not letting this place reshape you more than is necessary.”
I sighed, taking in breath and releasing some tension. I let the club drop.
“I’m just so frantic. I’m afraid I’ll lose Rox forever.”
“I know,” Saripha said and there were tears at the corner of her eyes.
I sighed again. “Of course you do, Saripha. I’m sorry.”
“Let’s see if it’s possible to find out what’s going on with him without waking him.”
Saripha, with a boost from me, pulled herself up and sat astride on arm of the chair and lay both hands on his chest. She pressed gently and golden ripples appeared under her hands. She closed her eyes and focused. After what seemed an awfully long time, she opened her eyes again.
“He is pretty deeply sedated.”
“Can you make any sort of contact? Do a Vulcan mind-meld or something?” Saripha rolled her eyes a bit, but it was subtle.
“I can try something, but it will be dangerous given we don’t know what he is being put through or why or what his state of mind is.”
“What is it?”
“I can activate the brain centers that the sedative is acting against. However, once I do that, I won’t be controlling him.”
“Will he be able to give us information?”
Saripha shrugged.
“I’ve never encountered one of these beings before. I have no idea what we can expect.”
“I’m thinking it’s unlikely, if he’s been like this long, that he’ll know anything about what happened to Rox,” Kyo said from beside me.
“He may tell me why Knightshade wanted me to think he does.”
“Or he may not care and just be pissed we woke him up,” Izzy added.
“There’s that,” I said.
“I don’t like Saripha being up there when he wakes,” Kyo added.
“I could always go back to shin whacking.”
Saripha shook her head. She motioned for Izzy. He helped her get down.
“I think I can accomplish this from down here. It would be easier if he had feet instead of hooves.”
I hadn’t even noticed, but he had hooves to go with the spiral horns. Everything else about him seemed human, although his size was staggering. He was also covered with a thin layer of white fur over his skin. His only clothing was a kilt-like dress around his midsection that, seated, came to mid-thigh.
“How would feet have helped?”
“Assuming a similar nervous system to the bipeds he resembles, which is a big if, there are touch points for the entire nervous system in the foot.”
“So what will you do?”
“What we always do. Improvise.” Saripha smiled and opened the palm of her hand. In it she had some of the white fur pulled from the Magister’s body.
Saripha sat as close as she could at a point that neither flailing hands or feet could reach her. She assumed a relaxed cross-legged position and drew her spine up straight. She lay the hand with the fur palm up in her lap and held the other arm in an arc so that the hand faced her other hand palm down. She exhaled and then began slowly drawing in and then releasing breath. Her eyes seemed to have sparks in them. It wasn’t a full glow but as if there were points of light swimming about with each deep, slow breath she drew.
As I watched the Magister, I could see slight tics appearing in his muscles. Then slowly an arm would flex and his posture became more upright. Every so often, a sound that was a little bit like a snarl came out of the corner of his mouth. His head came down, chin on chest and began slowly rotating side to side. Finally he lifted his head and he turned his face towards the sky, stretching his neck. As far as I could tell, his eyes were still closed, which was still true when he brought his face back down to a point where he was simply looking straight ahead.
Then his eyes startled open and rage and pain filled his face. I think it was coincidental, but it looked like he was looking straight at me.
He was trying to speak, but the sounds would not congeal into anything sensible. The sounds were so loud, my ears almost hurt. It was a rich, resonant voice fueled by the powerful lungs of a man-creature twenty feet high and spiked by pain more than anger from what I could tell. In the next moment, all words were forgotten and he began screaming at a decibel level that probably would have violated airport zoning. He rose, struggling against his leather bands. He was trying to free his back from the chair where a framework of porcelain clips had embedded into his skin. He continued to struggle and when he could rise no further, scowled at us and shot bolts of energy from his horns. They were wild arcs of energy but were in some way more dangerous, or at least more unpredictable, than if they had been aimed. I grabbed Saripha, who was coming
out of her trance slowly, and all of us tried to juggle diving for cover without accidentally diving off the roof.
“I sensed something… it seemed important but I can’t quite hold on to it.”
“What, Saripha?”
“It was like a glimpse of something, but the door closed on it suddenly. I can’t seem to hold on to it.”
Then I noticed a brighter light in the sky. I looked up. Out of a ribbon of light that resembled an aurora came six riders on horses like the ones that had destroyed Rockvale, each carrying a staff with a glowing bulb on the head of it.
I grabbed Izzy.
“Get everyone down below and try to find your way out of here if I don’t survive this.”
Izzy started to protest. “We’re not deserting you.”
“Izzy, listen to me. We watched what they did to Rockvale. We can’t fight them. I can’t fight them. But I have to find out if I can communicate with them. If not, I suspect you’ll have to go looking for my proto, unless they completely vaporize me. I have to do this, but I need to know you folks are safe.”
Izzy was about to protest again but Saripha put a hand on his shoulder.
“Quentin is right. What he is doing is risky but worth trying. It would serve no one to have us all annihilated.”
The others retreated to the stairs. I stood straight and tall in the face of the coming horsemen, who rode down on what almost appeared to be a waterfall of light.
For the moment, their attention seemed to be on the Magister, who was bellowing and trying, unsuccessfully, to twist himself out of the chair. He stretched every muscle until I thought his flesh might rip off his body, aiming in the direction of the horsemen. Bolts came from his horns discharging across the sky, hitting some of the horsemen but not slowing them down. Four of the horsemen hovered and hit the Magister with bolts of flame from their staffs. Instead of burning him, they seemed to drain him and forced him hard back into the chair.
Two other horsemen peeled off and flew straight towards me. I tried to make it look like I was addressing them, but my eyes would constantly flick to the ends of their staffs.
“I need to talk to the Magister or whoever is in charge.”
They didn’t look like they were listening. Or slowing down.
“I surrender,” I tried.
Each rider moved their steed to one side so that they would pass easily on either side of me. I could see the horses more clearly than I ever had. They had shiny smooth skin across which moved black and gray patterns, like storm clouds. Every so often there would be light patterns on the flesh, as if something were moving around on the flesh or the flesh was translucent and there were clouds and lightning inside. The humanoid creatures with flaming hair atop the steeds did not seem like they were coming over to talk.
I caught the flash of the heads of their staffs from my periphery. I dropped and rolled away as two blasts of white fire crossed where I had been standing. They shot past the edge of the roof and were pulling up to come back around. I scrambled and launched myself over the edge of the roof, landing squarely on one of the horses, right behind its startled rider. They weren’t expecting this. Actually, neither was I and, luckily, I wasn’t letting myself think about how crazy what I was doing was. I knew nothing about these creatures or their horses.
They rode bareback, so there were no stirrups to hold their feet. I grabbed my rider under his knee and threw his leg up. He fell from the horse. I tried to make a grab for the staff, missed and nearly fell off the horse myself, but managed to grab the horse’s fiery mane, which turned out not to be fire at all but rather a glowing membrane-like bioluminescence. I righted myself on the animal’s back and grabbed the reins. I wasn’t experienced with horses, much less these creatures, but I kicked both knees into the creature’s ribs and snapped the reins. This only seemed to madden the creature as it tried to whip its head around, but it couldn’t quite get me. Bucking didn’t occur to it, but then that may have been because it didn’t ride on the ground or anything solid. I saw the other rider getting his bearings and bringing his staff up and I thought how great it would be if I could ride straight at him, forcing him to duck. I felt a buzz in my hands and suddenly we were doing just that. To my satisfaction, the other rider not only ducked but also lost his staff.
On a hunch I fixed on the far horizon where there was the shimmering faint impression of mountains in the distance. Again, a buzz coming from the reins in my hands and off we shot. Although the horse pumped with its legs, it was more like gliding than galloping. It seemed to be running on a glimmering aurora-like band of light that was being generated at its feet.
I turned and saw that the others were coming after me. I assumed this might not come to a good end, given they probably knew how to control their steeds. Still, I had a head start. If I could reach the mountains ahead of them and if I could figure out how to do quicker maneuvers, I might lose them in the mountain passes. Yeah. Sure.
I kept changing the point we were aiming for in hopes of not making myself an easy target. I doubt it would have worked, but my pursuers didn’t seem to be firing. I also realized they weren’t closing in. Nor was my horse completely navigating where I wished to go. I didn’t think any of these things were particularly good indicators.
My horse swept into the mountains and wound its way in lazy, graceful arcs through several passes and over forested valleys. It was clear now that I was being escorted. The horse stayed high enough off the ground that dropping to the ground unaided was out of the question.
Then the horse began to lower altitude and came up over a rise. What I saw below utterly horrified me.
Spread out in a round valley below us was a complex of eight of those conical towers I had encountered before. Unlike the single tower, the rubbery pipes exited from each of them above the ground and then joined a larger pipe that drew them all together and exited on risers through the forest. I still had no idea what was flowing in those rubbery pipes, but I was sure it was related to staggering pain being inflicted on former humans in those towers. If all those towers were as full as the one I had destroyed, what I saw spread below me was a pain farm of staggering proportions. I could feel the old anger flare up, but also something new. A deep, bottomless sadness.
I had no time to contemplate these new feelings. I was snatched rudely in midair off my steed by a metal cable and hung suspended over the towers. I struggled and then realized that if I succeeded in freeing myself I would end up a proto from up here.
I needn’t have worried.
The cable holding me formed hooked barbs that sank into my skin, making pulling myself away from the cable very painful, if not impossible.
Slowly, I was being lowered to the ground below.
14.
I knew who I would find on the other end of the metal cable that held me.
“You are a disappointment, Quentin.”
I looked up into his spider face and more than ever felt how utterly inhuman this world was. That was where the sadness came from. The anger came from the notion that we had to fight for our place in this world. The sadness was about the realization that maybe the odds were too great, that all the fight could never fix it.
I heard the voice resume in my head.
“I guess your audience with the Magister didn’t go very well.”
“I doubt that comes as a surprise to you. What was the real game?”
“Not your concern. I learned what I needed.”
“So what happens to me now?”
“Well, we have tried everything. Leaving you free, turning you into a proto. No matter what, you keep coming back. So I think the best thing to do is ensure you cannot leave where we put you.”
Knightshade continued floating downwards, finally stopping when I was three feet above the ground. I struggled, knowing such a drop was trivial, but the struggle just made the barbs dig deeper.
I shot Knightshade a hot, angry look.
“Where is Rox?”
“Honestly, I
don’t know more than you do. The Angel took her. I don’t even know why she even bothers with that slut. I mean, you may like having Janovic’s cast-offs, but personally I would like something more refined. I shall have to look up Saripha sometime. Now there is a woman with class.”
I hated to be predictable. He knew that would set me off. I yanked hard on the cable to try to pull him down off the platforms, but he was prepared. He had already let go. I hit the ground hard and rolled in the dust. I heard the doors in one of the towers open. A gang of Shirks surrounded me, carrying clubs like the Dark Men used. They didn’t even give me much time to contemplate what was about to happen. As Knightshade’s laughter filled my ears, the Shirks began swinging, hammering my arms, my ribs, my legs and my back. I heard bones cracking. Flesh became swollen and blood ran out of shallow abrasion cuts. One of my kneecaps was shattered. I tried not to, but I screamed.
“Enough!” Knightshade shouted. The beating stopped but I couldn’t get up. One Shirk snarled and struck me one last time right between my eyes. I heard another crack and blood ran down my face.
Knightshade was on the ground. He walked over and stood over me. I lay helplessly on the ground, unable to get up, wracked in pain.
“Ah, good. You are still alert.” He stepped on my shattered knee and again, despite my best efforts not to, I bellowed.
“I wish they would leave you to me, but so many have failed to contain you, I cannot blame them for not taking chances.”
“I’ll find you. I promise you. I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.”
The spider head showed no expression at hearing this, but Knightshade stepped on my injured knee again. There was an explosion just above my eyes and my head jerked back, hitting the rocky ground.
The Shirks, in unison, grabbed me up. Two of them then took firm hold of me while two more worked the barbed cable off of me. Then I was dragged none too gently towards the tower they had emerged from. I was in an altered state. Everything in my body would have hurt even if it was handled carefully and the Shirks weren’t being the least bit careful. I don’t know why it didn’t immediately occur to me what the end game was, but I guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly at that point.