by Ben Bova
The sun rose dim and hazy, a weak pale phantom of its usual glory. Set's shield was incredibly strong, I realized. Pterosaurs were already crisscrossing the watery gray sky. They could not miss seeing me riding alone across the wide plain of grass.
I wondered what Subotai was thinking of me. Probably he was not alarmed yet, thinking that I had returned to Muscovy and was making preparations for bringing the rest of his army to him. I hated to think that he would believe I had betrayed him. I did not fear his anger or punishment, but I felt miserable at the thought that he might feel I had broken his trust.
Despite the wan appearance of the sun, the day became quite hot. Set's shield was selective, allowing the longer wavelengths of sunlight to reach the ground and heat it. I knew that if I had the proper instruments with me, they would show that none of the higher-energy wavelengths were penetrating the shield. Nor were any energetic cosmic particles getting through, I was certain.
Late in the afternoon a trio of Shaydanians mounted on fighting dragons appeared out of the shimmering heat haze, heading directly for me. The pterosaurs had done their job. I was to be killed or captured and brought before Set once again.
For the first time since I had known them, these Shaydanians bore weapons. They each carried oddly convoluted lengths of bright metal strapped across their backs. Once they spotted me they unslung the devices and, clutching them in both hands like rifles, urged their two-legged carnosaurs into a trotting pace.
I slid off my mount and shooed it away from me. I had already sacrificed one pony to the carnosaurs. That was enough. Idly I thought that I must be acquiring some of the Mongols' reverence for horses.
As the carnosaur-mounted devils approached me I focused my consciousness on the nearest of the three, reaching into his mind for a brief moment. The rifles, with their bulbous metallic blisters and needle-slim muzzles, projected streams of fire, like a small flamethrower. Set realized that he could no longer rely on fangs and claws to deal with the Mongols; he needed weapons. What more terrifying weapon than a flamethrower, especially coming from a reptilian that already had the Mongols worried that they were facing supernatural demons?
I saw something else in the Shadanian's mind during that fleeting instant: they were not under orders to take me alive. Set had no intention of taking further chances with me. These three clones of his were going to kill me, here and now.
My senses shifted into hyperdrive immediately and the scene slowed as if time were stretching like a piece of warm taffy. The three Shaydanians lifted their rifles to their shoulders, aiming at me through diamond-shaped crystal sights. I saw their taloned fingers tightening on the curved triggers.
As they aimed at me their attention was shifted momentarily from guiding their mounts. The fierce two-legged carnosaurs, directed mentally by their riders, continued to trot toward me. But their tiny brains were not under the firm control of the Shaydanians, for one fleeting moment.
Desperately I sent a lance of red-hot mental energy into those three dinosaurs' brains. They screeched and reared to their full height, throwing two of the Shaydanians to the ground and forcing the third to drop his rifle and clutch at his mount's hide with both clawed hands.
All this I saw in slow motion. Even as the two thrown Shaydanians were falling toward the ground, I ran and dove full-length for the rifle that was spiraling through midair. I grabbed it before it touched the grass. As my fingers tightened around it I heard the thumps of the two riders hitting the ground hard.
The dinosaurs were still hissing, the two freed of their riders galloping off away from us. The third, though, was under his rider's control once again and heading straight for me.
I rolled away from a stamping clawed foot that would have crushed me under the carnosaur's weight and fired from the hip at its rider. The stream of flame sliced him in two across midtorso. As his severed body slipped bloodily from the dinosaur's back, the beast wheeled and came at me, massive head bent low, cavernous mouth gaping, lined with saw-edged teeth the size of my scimitar.
I pulled the rifle's trigger as hard as I could while dodging sideways. The stream poured flame down its gullet and slashed down the length of its thick neck. It hit the ground with a tremendous thud, literally shaking the earth, bellowing like a runaway steam locomotive to the very last.
I looked up. The two other Shaydanians were scrambling for the rifles they had dropped. I fired at the nearer of them and he toppled over dead. But when I turned to the third of them, my rifle did not respond. It was empty, its fuel depleted.
The Shaydanian had reached his own rifle and was picking it up from the grass. I threw my useless weapon at him and charged after it, drawing my scimitar from its scabbard. The rifle hit him like a club, knocking him down again on his rump. Before he could train his own rifle on me I was close enough to kick it out of his hands.
He glowered at me through his red slitted reptilian eyes and scrambled to his feet. Hissing, he advanced on me, clawed hands reaching out. I slashed at him with the scimitar once. He raised an arm to block the blow, but I swung the blade under and then lunged at him. The point penetrated the scales of his chest and went completely through him. With a final hiss of death agony he collapsed and, sliding off my blade, fell to the bloodstained ground.
Immediately I projected a mental image at Set. I sent him a scene that showed two of his clones lying dead on the bloody grass but the third standing over my own burned corpse. With every ounce of cunning in me, I presented myself mentally as one of Set's clones, and the body at my feet as my own.
"You have done well, my son," came Set's mental voice. "Return now with the corpse so that I may examine it."
I mentally called one of the carnosaurs back to me and mounted it for the trip back to the fortress by the Nile. Had Set truly believed the false message I had sent him? Or was he merely drawing me to his fortress so he could dispose of me more easily?
There was only one way to find out. I headed the dinosaur toward the fortress, concentrating every moment on my phony image so that even the pterosaurs scouting high overhead would "see" what I wanted them to, and report it back to Set.
It was nightfall by the time I reached the garden by the Nile. The fortress was a short ride away. I would reach it in darkness, which suited me well. I knew there was no chance of my keeping up my deception once inside Set's walls—if Set had been deceived at all.
The sky was utterly black and starless, as dark as the deepest pit of hell as I rode the carnosaur up to the curving fortress wall. The faint phosphorescent glow of the wall itself was the only hint of light in that night made frighteningly black by Set's energy shield. Not an insect buzzed, not a frog peeped or an owl hooted. The murky shadows were as silent as Set's reptilians themselves. The night was eerily, unnaturally still, as if Set was mentally controlling even the wind and the flow of the Nile.
Climbing from the back of my mount to the top of its thickly boned head, I reached as high as I could along the wall. My hands fell short of its top, but the surface of the wall was not perfectly smooth. Like the shell of an egg, there was a slight, almost microscopic roughness to it. Not much, but perhaps enough to climb with. And the wall curved inward. Yanking off my Muscovite boots, I clambered barefoot along the slippery curved surface while directing the dinosaur to go on the gate alone.
Several times my precarious footing on the egg-smooth wall faltered and I almost slid back down to the ground. I had to consciously prevent my hands and feet from sweating and becoming slippery. At last, after what seemed like an hour of painfully slow climbing, I reached the top of the wall and slid myself flat on my belly across its edge.
I could feel the energy humming from deep within the fortress. It made the wall vibrate. The eggshell-like material was warm, not from the day's sunshine but from the energy pulsating from below. Now my task was to reach the source of that energy, the core tap at the heart of this fortress.
I quickly realized I was not alone on the wall's narrow top. Peering i
nto the darkness, I saw nothing ahead of me. Turning around to look behind, my guts twisted in sudden fear. One of those enormous dead-white snakes was slithering toward me, its beady eyes glowering red hatred, its jaws already open, its fangs already dripping venom.
"Did you think you could trick me, foolish ape?" Set's voice in my head sent a shiver through me. "Did you really believe that your monkey's mind could be superior to mine? Welcome to my fortress, Orion. For the final time!"
If ever my body went into hyperdrive, it was at that instant. I rolled over on my back and kicked my legs over my feet like an acrobat to end up standing on the balls of my feet even as the huge snake sprang at me.
Its first strike fell short because I was no longer where it had expected me to be. But it immediately drew itself together, coiling for another strike as I drew my scimitar from its scabbard. The snake's immense body was thicker than my arm and at least twenty feet long. It hissed and reared back in slow motion, then struck at me again.
This time I was ready. With a two-handed swing I slashed its head from its body and saw it go sailing off slowly into the darkness below. Its decapitated body hit me in the chest, smearing blood on me and staggering me backward several steps. For long moments the headless serpent writhed and twitched while my senses returned to normal and my breathing slowed down.
"How many can you fight, simian?" Set taunted me. "I have an unending source of creatures to do my bidding. How long will your strength last against my legions?"
For a second or two I stood there in the darkness, seeing nothing but the faint glow of the phosphorescent wall's top curving off into the gloom like a softly lighted highway. More snakes were on their way, I knew. And squads of Shaydanians armed with flame rifles or more. All under Set's mental control.
I searched my memory to ascertain exactly where along the wall I stood in relation to the gate. Then I dashed off in the other direction.
I heard bodies stirring in the circular courtyard below. Probably Set's clones rousing themselves to come after me. He had fighting dragons penned down there, too. And sauropods. And human slaves.
All under his control. But could he control them all at the same time?
I reached the spot where I remembered the pterosaurs' roost to be and leaped down into the darkness. Sure enough, I landed only a few feet below in the midst of the sleeping winged lizards. They hissed and squawked and flapped their huge clawed wings as I swung my sword wildly among them, driving them into the air.
With one hand I grabbed the clawed feet of a pterosaur as it launched itself off their roosting platform. I was far too heavy for it to support and we sank, the beast screaming and flapping madly, to the hard-packed earth below. I let go of my animate parachute once I saw the ground below me. I hit with a jarring thump and rolled over; the pterosaur disappeared into the shadows, flapping and wailing like a banshee.
Confusion. I had lost the element of surprise; indeed, I had never had it. But I could cause confusion there in the courtyard. Let's see how firm Set's control is over all his menagerie, I said to myself.
The carnosaurs and sauropods were stomping and hissing in their pens, as if angry at being awakened by the squawking of the pterosaurs. Good! In the dimness of the unlit courtyard I dashed for the carnosaur pens, throwing a mental projection of pain at them as I raced through the shadows.
Their answering screeches was music to my ears. A Shaydanian suddenly appeared out of the darkness before me, flamethrower in his hands. I swung my scimitar overhand, crunching through collarbone and ribs, slicing him open from neck to gut. With my left hand I grabbed his rifle as he fell.
Sheathing my bloody sword, I turned and fired a bolt of flame at the carnosaurs' pens. That panicked them and they smashed through the railings, screeching wildly. A similar blast of flame turned the normally placid sauropods into a maddened herd of thundering brutes that likewise broke free of their enclosures and stampeded across the courtyard.
Total confusion swept the courtyard. Chaos reigned as the Shaydanians stopped trying to find me in their sudden rush to get out of the paths of the frightened dinosaurs that were dashing every which way.
I ran to the barred inner gate where the human slaves were kept and kicked it open. It was totally dark in there, and with the screeching and roaring from the courtyard I would not have been able to hear a brass band playing. I took a step inside and tottered on empty air, tried to recover, and found myself staggering ludicrously down a steep set of stairs into total darkness.
CHAPTER 36
I fell against a warm body that screamed in the pitch black and flinched away from me.
Human voices muttered in the darkness, some fearful, most groggy with sleep. The place smelled with the fetid stench of sweat and excrement. I nearly gagged, but pulled myself to my feet amid the jostling of other bodies pressed too close together.
"Come with me!" I commanded over the dimmed noise from the courtyard. "Follow me to freedom!"
Someone struck a spark and a tiny lamp flickered to life. I saw that I was in a vast room, far too large for the pitiful lamp to fully illuminate. Crowds of emaciated, grimy, frightened faces peered at me, their eyes red, cheeks hollow, bare skin mottled by the bites of lice and lashes of whips. Jammed together like dumb beasts in some inhuman charnel house, hundreds of men and women blinked unbelievingly at my words. I had no way to tell how many more stood in the dark shadows beyond the lamp's feeble reach.
"Come on!" I shouted. "We're going to get out of here!" And I tossed the flame rifle to the man nearest me. He staggered back a bit, then stared wonderingly at the weapon in his hands.
"Orion!" a young voice shouted. Someone pushed his way through the shadows, jostling the crowd as he struggled toward me. "Orion, it's me! Chron!"
I barely recognized him. He had aged ten years. His body was emaciated, his skin pale and sickly, his eyes sunk deeply into a face that was far too old for his years.
"Chron," I said.
There were tears in his red-rimmed eyes. "I knew you would come. I knew they couldn't kill you."
"It's time to kill the devils!" I snarled. "Let's go!"
I started up the steps, Chron right behind me. Some of them followed us. How many, I neither knew nor cared. Just as I reached the top of the stairs a Shaydanian appeared at the doorway. I thrust my sword through his belly before he had a chance to react. I handed his rifle to Chron. Now we had two.
We burst out into the courtyard where the dinosaurs were milling around, literally shaking the ground with the stamping of their heavy feet. One of the men behind me fired a burst of flame at a Shaydanian. Another bolt of flame seared past me and splashed against the wall. I broadcast mentally to the carnosaurs the image of devouring the Shaydanians, but they seemed more interested in the immense sauropods—their natural prey.
The Shaydanians did not seem to realize that their human slaves were making a break for freedom. Some of them, at least. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that only a few dozen had followed up the stone steps. The rest must have stayed cowering in their dungeon.
Focusing all my mental energy on one carnosaur, I drew it to me, snorting as it trotted on its two powerful hind legs. I jumped onto its back and charged into the Shaydanians who were boiling out of a wide double door set into the curving wall.
They fired their rifles at my mount. Screaming with pain and fury, the carnosaur smashed into the grouped Shaydanians, clawing them with his hind feet, crushing the life from them with his terrifying jaws. I slid from the dinosaur's back while it wreaked havoc among Set's clones and picked up four fallen flame rifles.
Racing back to where the humans huddled close to the wall, gaping at the wild melee with round eyes, I handed out the rifles.
Shouting, "Head for the outer gate! Make your way to freedom!" I looked about for another carnosaur to commandeer.
The courtyard was in absolute chaos. Carnosaurs were clawing and snapping at the sauropods, which defended themselves with lashing tails and their
own considerable claws. Here a sauropod reared up on its hind legs and ripped a carnosaur with both its forefeet, driven by nearly two tons of bone and sinew. There a carnosaur stood with one massive hind leg firmly clamped on a sauropod's fallen neck, bending down to tear out huge chunks of living flesh with its saw-edged teeth. Screaming and howling tore the night apart, tremendous bodies ran thundering across the courtyard, slamming into its curving wall so hard I thought they would knock it down.
More Shaydanians were pouring out of several doorways now, firing their flame rifles at the enraged dinosaurs. The small band of humans had edged halfway around the wall and were almost at the gate before any of Set's clones realized they were making a break for freedom.
I saw a squad of twenty Shaydanians slinking along the inner perimeter of the wall toward the gate from the opposite side. They could not cut across the courtyard without being trampled by the terrified sauropods or attacked by the ravening carnosaurs.
But I could. I dashed toward the gate, dodging between those mighty brutes, trusting to my speeded-up senses to take me safely through the mad melee. Scimitar in hand, I ran to help the humans I was trying to free.
"Foolish ape," I heard Set snarling at me. "Even if I cannot control all my servants at once, I can control these few well enough to destroy you."
The leader of the Shaydanians stopped his squad with an upraised hand and pointed toward me. As they leveled their rifles at me I desperately dodged behind the massive legs of a sauropod, feeling like a tiny mouse among a herd of madly charging elephants.
I tried to seize control of the sauropod's mind, but Set was there before me. The great beast's bony little head swung around on its long neck and it glowered at me with Set's eyes.
"I will kill you," he seethed in my mind. Somewhere deep inside this fortress Set directed his troops against me, remorseless, untiring. Perhaps he could not control each of his beasts and clones at the same time. But he could concentrate his control wherever he wanted to. Once he had killed me he could restore order to his domain.