The world gradually began to lose light and colour. Chen’s feet were going numb, despite the protective Rãvier she wore, while her face hurt from the cold. She looked at the ground, listened intently, but there was no response from the stone and earth. Not that she actually expected there to be. The wind rustled the uncut grass lightly, and specks of acid rain fell over her Rãvier’s defensive shield.
“Goodbye, Lora.”
Lorelei Chen turned her back, and walked in the direction she’d come, toward the lights of the Silver City.
The acid rain continued to fall.
7
The Meta’thron-class bioship glimmered in the light of the morning sun as it soared over the Shadowlands. At almost ten million square miles, this landmass - formerly known as North America - was a huge expanse of arid desert and scorched canyons, littered with the decaying ruins of the old world; crumbling and inarticulate low walls nearly hidden by the sands of the ages, plastic and metallic litter here and there, putrefying and overgrown roads and broken-off sections of derelict highway.
The Shadowlands were now one of the most inhospitable places on the entire planet. Having been so close to the impact site, it had suffered the most devastation following the Apo’calupsis of AD 2132, which had killed virtually all life on the entire continent. Now, this wasteland was populated by nothing but freakish mutations of extinct fauna. Wild Canis Cerberus were among the most common, descendants of formerly domesticated animals that possessed an insatiable bloodlust for any creature foolish enough to wander into their territory. And even some plants too, seemed to have developed predatory instincts - particularly those in the Govian Forest, one of the Shadowlands’ few areas of lush greenery that surrounded large bodies of water…
Long abandoned by human civilisation, this was the perfect place for nomads and outcasts to hide from the influence of the Twelve Factions. Ammold Paramo himself had spent more than three decades here, after being outcast from the Silver City for his ‘unspeakable blasphemies against the Holy Church.’
A long time ago…
Lorelei Chen shivered, remembering her own two-year-long journey from the City of Einek across the Plains of Cerbion, and finally into the Shadowlands. It was here she had originally stumbled upon Cristian Stefánsson, still perfectly preserved in the underground cryopreservation facility which had miraculously survived the passage of centuries, a mass extinction, firestorms, and even a devastating avalanche. She knew only too well how dangerous the Shadowlands could be, and hoped to God that Paramo knew what he was doing.
“We’re going in,” Machiko said softly. The nose of the ship dipped a little as she switched the controls to manual, then piloted smoothly to a large patch of even terrain nearby, at the base of a large emplacement of igneous intrusive rocks largely composed of brownish granite. She gritted her teeth and set it down, displaying considerable skill with the landing engines. The boarding ramp was extended, and finally the bioship was powered down.
The desert morning was burning, the stretches of sand shimmering. A landscape, Paramo thought, in which a man would have every right to claim he saw mirages. He descended the ramp, staring up at the orange-red sky, closely followed by Chen and Machiko. He shifted his gaze, peering at the rocky batholith, and saw the light before he saw the opening. It was a bright glow, so piercing it seemed no more than a reflection of the sunlight from the rocks, but as they drew nearer, he saw that it had nothing to do with the sun. The light came from inside the mountain, illuminating the wide, oval opening like the mouth of a monster lit from the throat. The image was upsetting and he discarded it.
Chen stared at the entranceway. “No one has ever come out of there alive, Paramo,” she said. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”
He nodded. “Yes. I told you. The Samán of Monsula is the only…” But before he could finish his sentence, a large feline creature, fourteen-feet long and at least five feet tall, pounced toward them from behind an outcropping of rocks no more than a few metres away. Its head was an extraordinary thing, half the size of its body and with a fang-filled mouth that could open wide enough to bite a large human in half. A ridge of fur stood straight in a line from head to rump, ending right before its whipping, catlike tail.
“Ghar’na Beast!” Chen yelled.
Already the feline-like monstrosity was leaping up to swipe at her with its deadly claws. She cried out and dodged, but the Ghar’na Beast came on again, slashing at her Rãvier suit. She tucked her legs in as she spun away, gasping in pain, then double-kicked out, knocking the creature to the ground.
“Lora!” Machiko shouted. The furious beast pounced again, and blindly charged toward the sound of her voice. She didn’t hesitate, bringing up a small disruptor pistol she had sequestered on her suit. She fired, scoring a couple of hits, but the golden plasma bolts hardly slowed the beast, and she was tossed away. The Ghar’na Beast charged her, trying to stomp her as she rolled about desperately. Machiko was fast, though. Every time the thing came around, she fired again, and again, her bolts burrowing into the furious monster’s belly.
Finally, the huge feline creature swayed, and Machiko wisely rolled out the far side, opposite Paramo, as the beast collapsed.
“Thankyou, Machiko,” Paramo said, looking somewhat relieved. “Those Ghar’na Beasts have a habit of sneaking up on people like that. Horrible creatures, I’ve had to deal with plenty of them myself over the years. Are you okay, Lorelei?”
Chen grimaced. Her Rãvier suit had a large section ripped open from the savage claws of the beast, exposing her bare back, but was otherwise intact. “I’ll live,” she said. “Not sure about this suit, though.”
“Might I suggest you both wait for me aboard the ship,” Paramo said. “Lorelei, you will find a fresh Rãvier unit in the equipment locker. You can monitor my life signs with the ship’s sensors. If I have not returned within three hours, come and find me.”
The climb had been harder than Paramo had expected, even with the assistance of his Assault-Class Rãvier suit - the most advanced in the Terran Alliance. His old age, it would seem, was catching up to him. Now he paused to gather his strength before entering the cave. Inside he would need all the energy he could muster, and more. The inhabitant of this solitary place would not be impressed by the shouts of an intruder. It would take more than big words and sonorous phrases for him to succeed here. It would take the right words.
Carefully, he edged inward along the right-hand wall. The rock was cool to the touch. It was reassuring to have something solid to lean against in such a place, where nightmares became real and death was something you could taste in the back of your mouth. He had heard many stories about this place, none of which were very encouraging. Ahead, the passageway opened out into a vast cavern, draped with white; thin ropes fashioned from cream, a milky maze whose appearance was deceptively soft. The softness was as deceptive as the elasticity. Each thin cable was stronger than steel.
Paramo slowed, reluctant to leave the comparative safety of the entrance. His gaze travelled to the centre of the immense spiderweb, fastening on the solid white mass at its core.
“I seek the Samán of Monsula!” His voice echoed through the silken chamber. A faint scuttling sound made him retreat a couple of steps. It stopped and he resumed his approach. A pair of pale cables quivered, then stilled.
As soon as the last echo of his cry vanished into the far reaches of the cavern, he was gifted with a stark reply: “Enter here and die!”
That was hardly encouraging, but then he had no reason to expect anything else. “I call the Samán of Monsula!”
This time no response was forthcoming. He would have to force an audience. Carefully he chose the driest-looking cables and started out across them, aiming for the silken mass at the centre of the web. It was hard to balance on the two unsteady cables and his physical skills were not what they used to be. He was halfway across the web when a cable off to his left twitched. It was not connected to the ones he was slowly and pati
ently traversing. He forced himself to look up and across the web.
There it was: the white death. Drawn by his movements, the huge crystalline spider had emerged from its ceiling hidey-hole, anxious to see what might have stumbled into its lair. It was bigger than a cow and transparent as old glass. The apparition would have shocked a normal man into insensibility. Paramo was sufficiently startled to lose his balance. He tumbled backward, flailing at the silk. This action only excited the crystalline arachnid. It moved rapidly now, turning toward the disturbance in the web, flashing glassy palps and dripping clear poison from fangs of dark diamond.
“Esme!” Paramo shouted. There was no time left for subtlety or surprise. His fate would be decided in a few seconds. Even as he called out to her he was fumbling for the disruptor pistol at his waist. The spider’s poison would paralyse without killing. He did not want to die slowly, sucked dry like a fruit.
“Esme!”
The voice that had replied to his own when he’d first entered had been sharp and forceful. Now uncertainty bred hesitation. “Who speaks that name? Answer me!”
“It is Ammold!” The spider was close now, nightmarishly close. No man should have to bear such a sight nor anticipate such a death. Far better to perish by the shockwhip of a Sentinel guard or by one’s own hand. He hefted the pistol, positioned it over his heart.
The voice came again. “I give you the water in the clepsydra.”
The words he’d hoped for. The spider stopped, frozen by the movement of water in the Samán’s strange clock. It would remain motionless until the water ran out. Paramo didn’t know how much time had been given to him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Instead, he concentrated on making his way as rapidly as possible over the unsteady cables toward the mass of silk suspended at the centre of the web.
The silk clutched and tugged at his body and limbs as if conscious of his presence, trying to hold him back until its spinner’s spell was ended. He slashed at the cables with his arms, forcing a path where none existed. One wave of a groping hand uncovered a globular white mass. The skull showed two widely spaced punctures, one above each earhole. Paramo knocked it aside and it went tumbling down through the web. A faint, final crash indicated how far it was to the rock below.
The sticky silk gave way reluctantly, but he adroitly avoided the worst spots, keeping to the dry cables the spider used itself. The central cocoon was close now. Then he slipped. He’d rushed his approach. As he fell, he grabbed frantically for an overhead strand. It was thinner than the cables he’d been traversing, but it held long enough to enable him to swing into a net of thin webbing just beneath the cocoon. At the same time the spider seemed to regain its composure as well as its senses. It lunged across the gap, landing in the webbing just below the white sphere. But by then Paramo had started to pull himself up into the cocoon. The spider turned a slow circle, moving in short, erratic starts, pulling on various cables in an attempt to relocate the prey that had so mysteriously vanished.
It rested there, sensing in its dull fashion that its supper was out of sight as well as out of reach.
Gasping for breath, not daring to glance back, Paramo finally pulled himself up into the cocoon. The surface he relaxed against was unimaginably soft. He lay there for a long moment before rising, then stood up and inspected his surroundings. He likened the sensation to walking on a feather mattress ten feet thick. The light that illuminated the cave was slightly brighter here, as though it emanated from the silk itself. There were chairs, a mirror, other implements of human design. A bed of spun silk lay off in one corner. There was no suggestion of wood in its frame. It appeared to have been woven rather than built. He smelled freshly cooked food and his mind told him not to inquire into the nature of the ingredients.
Across the room sat a table. Various utensils decorated the top. Some were familiar to him, others not. A large clepsydra squatted on the far side of the table. The old woman who sat there staring at him rested one hand atop the device. All the water had collected in the bottom of the clock. She didn’t smile as she studied him. A finger tapped the side of the clock, marking thoughts as well as time. “I gave you the water. You nearly used it all.”
Paramo took a deep breath. “I am not as sprightly as I once was.”
“None of us is young anymore,” she remarked.
He walked toward her. “Esme.” Yes, it was her - who shared name and more with the young woman betrothed to Ammold Paramo, long ago. Age could not hide the resemblance. What must she think of my appearance? he thought absently. Have I changed that much? From her stare he felt certain that he had. Then again, none of us sees ourself true, he mused. It lies only in the power of others to do that. But I can see the past as well as the present in her eyes. She remembers. Whether that is good or ill we will soon know.
“I was young when I last heard that name.”
He moved nearer, took a chair across the table from her. “I was young when last I spoke it to you.”
“My face was as beautiful as my name then.”
“More beautiful. You were the Princess of the Silver City, renowned throughout the Twelve Factions, and men came even from across the stars to court you.”
She snorted. “None of them were suitable. Many were handsome, all were wealthy, others brave and valorous. But none were suitable. Only you were suitable, Ammold Paramo, and you would not stay with me.”
He did not turn away. This was not the time for turning away. But the memory was still painful. Let her take some solace from my pain, he thought. I too have suffered. Loneliness is a poor companion.
“I could not. You know that, Esme. I was exiled. If I risked coming back for you, I would have been killed, just like Doci. Surely, you haven’t forgotten what they did to Doci Chen. Besides, I had many responsibilities, duties.”
“Ambition,” she said tightly. “You could have found a way back to me.”
“It had nothing to do with ambition,” he told her. “It was for the greater good of our people. Coming back for you would have put my plans in jeopardy, you know that, and it was such a difficult time. My work was important to me; perhaps I was too forceful at times in expressing my hopes for the future - a world without Damarus is a heady prize indeed… Some might interpret that as ambition. But for myself, in the end, I wished nothing.” He smiled gently. “And as you can see by my appearance, that is precisely what I have gained, despite the ousting of Damarus more than a decade ago now.”
“Ambition,” she reiterated stubbornly.
“Is it ambition that one should wish to see truth and justice restored in our world? Is it ambition that makes me sorrow as I watch Sentinels ravage the homes of innocent people, and murder their inhabitants simply for expressing an independent opinion? Is it ambition that I should want to see us rule our own lives and determine our own destinies instead of leaving them to the whims of the false prophet, Lord Damarus?”
“You make it sound so noble,” she murmured. “So inevitable. As if you never had a choice.” Her eyes flashed and beneath the age and the exhaustion and the bitterness there was a hint of the woman whom she had once been. “You had a choice. Every man has a choice. As for me, I grew tired of waiting. I despaired of you, Ammold.”
“Great things can come to pass only if one exercises patience and caution.”
“Love does not make room for patience and caution. It burns wild for an instant and if not captured, it dies.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think that while dreaming all my dreams and planning all my plans, I didn’t think of that? Of you? My life has been as lonely as yours. Knowledge is little comfort on a cold night. I have lived a life as solitary as your own, without wife or children. You see, Esme, though I encountered many women from many lands who came to learn from me and join my cause, you and I were too much alike. None of them were…” His smile twisted. “…suitable.”
She turned away from him. “You were not as alone as you believe. You… you had a son.”
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br /> Here was the thing he’d feared most, the thing he had not prepared for, could not prepare for. A stabbing sensation hit him hard in the gut, and his mind whirled. No wonder her greeting had been so much harsher than he’d anticipated. “You said nothing. You told me nothing. You let me leave in ignorance!”
“I would not use such a thing to place a hold on you, Ammold. There is no place in true love for such manipulation. I was pregnant when you were exiled, though I didn’t realise it at the time. Your son, Alfonsus Paramo, was born in the one-hundred-and-sixtieth year of the New Dominion. He was such a beautiful boy, but you had already been gone for so long by then.” She turned away. “When Lord Damarus found out about my… hidden talents… the boy was only ten years old.” She gestured weakly. “He killed him.”
Paramo’s eyes widened with horror. “Damarus killed our son?”
She nodded. “He was angry, mad with anger at you and what you were doing out here in the Shadowlands, training people to rise up against him. He wanted you dead more than anything. He could not strike at you, so he struck at your son. And with him went the last vestige of my hope… and my humanity.” She gestured at the silken prison that enclosed them. “My ability to see things… things beyond my own perception, was considered a threat to the Holy Orthodoxy. Damarus banished me here, bound by his strange powers so that I may never leave. This small room is my life now, my life and my punishment, and the web-spinner is my guardian. I am left only with wisdom I cannot use. Men come in hopes of using my talents. They leave the mouth of the cave in terror. Those who try to enter never leave at all.” She bent over the table. For the first time in many years, she cried, though whether the tears were for herself, for her slain son, or for what might have been, Ammold Paramo could not say.
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 32