Future Indefinite (Round Three of The Great Game)

by Dave Duncan

  His mood was turning blacker. Regardless of what the Mapians were trying to tell him, if Exeter was still alive and his crusade still proceeding, Julian should have run into it by now, for he was much closer to Shuujooby than he was to Olympus. Admittedly, the Liberator's pace would be dictated by the slowest of his followers, but Julian had lost two days to the Thargians’ quarantine. The absence of any indication that the prophet was approaching was a very bad sign. It strongly implied that he had died at the hand of either Jumbo or Alice, whichever was the poisoned pawn.

  Julian supposed that was bad news.

  The familiar tremor of virtuality awoke him from his gloomy reverie. He stopped and peered around at the darkening trees, trunks and branches iron black in twilight. He realized that his legs and feet ached and his belly was growling. It was past time to find shelter.

  A node might contain a temple or monastery, either of which would likely offer some minimal hospitality to wayfarers. If the price was an obeisance to some idol or other, he would not be unwilling to pay it at a pinch. A resident numen, if any, would probably detect Julian as a stranger, but then Julian might do quite well out of the encounter. Being a god was a lonely business, all visitors welcome. While natives were fair game for anything, strangers were protected by the club rules.

  He could not be certain which way the center of the node lay, but a faint scent of wood smoke hung in the air. Turning to windward, he set off through the trees, ducking under branches, pushing aside twigs. The virtuality grew stronger. A few minutes later he emerged in a wide clearing and abandoned hopes of a temple. There was nothing there but a desolate patch of moorland in the winter dusk: a few acres of withered weeds and an ice-bound pond. Then he noted animal dung and a tiny hovel at the forest's edge, which must be the source of the smoke. He headed straight for it, confident that his charisma would be irresistible on a node.

  His approach was challenged by a flock of white, shrieking things. They looked and sounded much like geese, although they had teeth and fur. He shooed them away with his umbrella.

  By then a woman stood in the door of the hut, watching him. She was small and stooped, dressed in rags. Her sparse white hair hung limp and her eyes did not meet his. Old, certainly harmless ... and yet she made him think of the nursery tales of his youth: Hansel and Gretel, the gingerbread house. The sinister implications were not reduced by the acrid clouds pouring out around her, for this witch's cottage had no chimney, only a smoke hole.

  He tried his Joalian. “Greetings. I am Julian Teacher. I seek shelter. I will gladly pay."

  She stepped aside. He took one last deep breath of fresh air and stooped through into the shed.

  She shared the one-room hovel with a boy and her livestock—the goose things and a rack-boned ungulate. The floor was filth. A fireplace of stones, a shelf with a few bundles of edibles, a heap of twigs for fuel, a water skin and a couple of gourds, bedding made of two piles of frondy leaves plus scraps of uncured hide ... nothing more.

  The billowing smoke stung Julian's throat and eyes, although the tiny fire barely gave light, let alone heat. Nonetheless, he sank gratefully to the ground, leaned back against his bedroll, and crossed his aching legs. Soon he was coughing his lungs out, but he was off his feet and that was all that mattered.

  The woman tipped water into a small gourd and handed it to him; he drank it, assuming it was a symbol of hospitality. It tasted bad but went down well, soothing his throat. Her hands were gnarled. Indeed, her whole body was twisted. He wondered if she was eighty, as she looked, or just a badly used forty.

  She knew no Joalian and he no Mapian. He established by signs that her name was something like Onkenvier Orliel, although he had no idea what an orliel did. When he pointed inquiringly at the boy, she said, “Thok,” and thereafter no one spoke at all. The boy's age was a mystery too. He would have matched an English twelve-year-old in size, but if that was fuzz and not dirt on his lip, he was both older and seriously malnourished. He did not speak. Perhaps he could not. What sort of a name was Thok anyway? A nickname? It was neuter. In Joalian, a thaki was a cub.

  The silence dragged on, broken only by stray crackles from the fire. The woman sat and stared at it with rheumy eyes. Thok sat and stared at nothing. Julian sat and shivered. He considered unrolling his blanket and wrapping up in it, but the effort seemed too enormous to attempt. The smoke had already given him a headache. Was there a husband somewhere or more children? No, because there were only two beds. How could such a life even be worth living? Earth had poverty to match this, he supposed, but he had never met it. Exeter might have done so, in his African days. The Liberator could do nothing about the plight of these people. They could have no interest in religious reformation. One of Zath's reapers might seem like a welcome release to them.

  Onkenvier produced a knife made from a piece of a rib and stabbed at something in the fire. She pulled out a charred tuber, which she proceeded to hack into three pieces. Then she skewered the largest fragment, blew on it to cool it, and offered it to Julian. His stomach heaved. He shook his head, pointed to the water and made a sign for drinking. Onkenvier said something to Thok; Thok poured another drink for the visitor.

  He started to cough and almost choked on it, spilling water into his beard. Again he refused the tuber. He could not imagine eating anything, the way he felt. He had walked too far, obviously. It was not only his legs and feet that ached. Everything ached. He ached all over.

  Thok and Onkenvier began chewing on the smaller fragments of the tuber, eating even the charred crust. Julian wished he could call over a waiter and order a couple of steaks for them—although meat would probably make them as ill as the sight of their normal diet was making him feel. Still, he was immensely grateful just to be here. He fumbled in his purse and found a coin. He held it out to the woman.

  She stared at it as if she did not know what money was, then turned a puzzled gaze on him, meeting his eyes for the first time.

  "For you,” he said. “Take it."

  She did, peering at it wonderingly.

  Thok was looking at Julian. His face bore no expression at all, so it was impossible to judge what thoughts were writhing inside that undernourished mind, but Julian realized he had made a serious error. Sleeping men had no charisma. He might wake up with a bone knife through his heart.

  The prospect was strangely unworrying. He made a huge effort and rolled his bundle away, so he could lie down and lay his head on it. He did not need it as a cover, certainly. Despite his shivering, he was pouring sweat as if he were in a Turkish bath.

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  49

  By next morning, he was almost too weak to stand. He had to lean on Thok's shoulder when he went out to the pit, and thereafter he just lay on the smelly heap of bedding and waited to die.

  Onkenvier would not let him die. She stripped off his clothes, wrapped him in his blanket, piled ancient furs over him to keep him warm. From time to time she bathed his face and rubbed foul-smelling grease on his chest. She forced him to sip a thin soup while Thok held his head up. When he needed to relieve himself, Thok held a gourd for him.

  He slid into delirium. “Fools!” he told them. “You are fools. Let him die and you can bury him and keep all the money. It isn't much to him, but it's more than you have ever seen in your lives.” They did not understand, so they continued to nurse him.

  In his lucid moments he wept at his incredible weakness. He could hardly find the strength to cough, although the pain in his chest was unbearable and every breath rattled like a cart on cobbles. He did not want to die lost among strangers in a strange world. He would never tell Euphemia how sorry he was. She would never know what had happened to him; he would never know what had happened to her. To have lived through the Great War, to have adventured to another planet, then to die like a rat in a sewer ... it wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

  Night came again. He faded in and out of consciousness, but always when he stirred, Onkenvier was there
. Did she never sleep? Breathing was an impossible effort. He was drowning in mucus. Eventually she seemed to realize that, for she roused the boy so that together they could pull Julian up to a sitting position. They propped him there somehow, and then he could breathe. Just. He wandered away into delirium that was worse than the pain. He was a kipper in a smokehouse, being eaten alive by earwigs.

  Morning at last ... He was aware of sunlight streaming in at him when the door opened, which it did a few times. Onkenvier was still fussing around him with her broth, but he was too weak to swallow it. He was dying—dying nastily, messily, irrelevantly, as everything must die. King or worm, it always came to this. He had been granted more time than those poor sods at Ypres or the Somme. A lot of them had died more disgustingly even than this, but at least they'd had the consolation that they were dying for King and Country. The universe would roll on without Julian Smedley and never notice the loss. He would leave no fame, no children, no great works: Laugh all you want at this fevered, suffering relic, but your turn will come....

  "Tyika Kaptaan!"

  Julian prized his sticky eyelids open. There was nothing there but a blur. How stupid of Dommi to wander into such a nightmare! How stupid of himself not to hallucinate someone more interesting.

  "Tyika!” Someone was shouting. Someone was trying to rub the skin off his hand. “Hold on, Tyika! He is coming, Tyika! The Liberator is coming. We have sent word for him to hurry."

  Julian tried to explain that it was too late, but he couldn't make the words. It didn't matter. He didn't care. He wanted it to end. Come to think of it, a chap couldn't possibly accept a favor from a man he'd accused to his face of being a murderer, so it was just as well that prophet chappie wasn't there, couldn't help, wouldn't arrive in time.... He had probably died already anyway. See you when I get there, old man.

  When the release finally came, it was almost sexual in its intensity. The end of all the harsh, labored breathing, the pain and striving, the pounding fever, the desperate effort—the sudden peace, the wonderful, wonderful peace ... the unbearable joy.

  There was a cool hand on his forehead. There were a devil of a lot of people making a damnable lot of noise outside somewhere, and the door was open again, although the sun wasn't shining on his face anymore. He opened his eyes.

  He licked his lips. He swallowed. He forced himself to meet that familiar smile. “Thank you."

  The blue eyes sparkled strangely. “My pleasure entirely,” Exeter said. “You are a thousand times welcome."

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  50

  "It was most fortuitously, was it not,” said Dommi, “that I was given assignment on the advance team to this campsite and were thus identifying you?” He was methodically going through Julian's bundle, squatting on his heels to keep his fastidious self from coming in contact with that floor.

  Julian pulled his blanket tighter around him, shivering now not because he had a fever, but because he did not have one to keep him warm. He was still adjusting to the idea of being alive. He was also trying to reconcile that miracle with the deaths he had witnessed at Shuujooby, for if Captain Julian Smedley (retd.) was now living on the avails of martyrdom, then he was as guilty as Exeter and a hypocrite as well. He wasn't going to tell Dommi all that, though.

  "I trust that Tyika Kisster would have come to the aid of any invalid, not just a personal friend?"

  "Oh yes, Tyika! Many hundreds every day are succored in this wise. But I have never seen the Liberator ride any rabbit quite so hard.” He laughed. “These appear to be the best of a sad assembly, Tyika.” He held up a smock and breeches.

  When had anyone ever heard Dommi laugh before? His flaming hair had grown perceptibly longer since leaving Olympus, and he had sprouted an impressive layer of copper beard. Now he proceeded to hand the disparaged garments to his former employer and head for the door.

  "You didn't mention where the hot tub is."

  Dommi paused in the doorway and then laughed again, a fraction too late to be convincing. “Hot tub? I barely have recollection of what this is."

  Mm? Times they were a-changing! “Then before you go, tell me of Entyika Alis and Tyika Djumbo."

  "The Entyika is well and keeps very busy with meritorious service. I regret to be informant that the unfortunate Djumbo has departed his recentest incarnation."

  "He's dead?"

  "Indeed so.” Dommi's face had twisted itself into an expression of such heartrending solemnity that it looked ready to shed a few freckles for the departed. “His soul has moved to the next rung of the ladder, as the Liberator has instructed us, and because the madness into which he had fallen was a repercussion of invidious sorcery, no blame must be attached to his memory and we may be confident that his progress upward will continue. Now, if you will excuse, I have many important duties, Kaptaan."

  The doorway was then empty.

  Musing upon Dommi's strange transformation, Julian reached for the water skin. There was no sign of either Thok or Onkenvier, and the door had mysteriously been ripped from its worn old leather hinges. He was unbearably sticky and scratchy, so he proceeded to clean up as well as he could, although the clearing was now crowded with people. No one came to applaud his striptease. Everyone must be fully occupied. He could hear mallets thudding on tent pegs, axes cracking on trees, carts rumbling, and people singing hymns.

  He dressed, combed his hair and beard, and stepped out into the brightness of a winter afternoon. The extent of the activity astonished him. He could see lines of tents, with more going up, makeshift paddocks holding at least a dozen rabbits and a few moas, five or six parked wagons, and the beginning of a camp kitchen—fires and spits and tables. His stomach growled wistfully. Hundreds of people were bustling around, all seemingly performing duties with eagerness and good cheer, even if they were doing nothing more than singing hymns. This was the county fair or the circus come to town, and the British Army could have organized matters no better, Exeter's crusade was prospering, far removed now from the turmoil of Shuujooby.

  Details could wait. Julian's first duty was to find Onkenvier and give her money, all the money he had. He peered around carefully, but he could not see her. Perhaps she and Thok had fled into the forest when this unexpected invasion overthrew their world. The crisp winter air, which two days ago had been crystalline and silent, now rang with hundreds of voices. The carpet of low weeds and shrubs had been trampled flat and patterned with innumerable long shadows by the waning sun. If not terrified, she would be at least bewildered.

  Another wagon rolled into camp, drawn by two rabbits. People ran to help the occupants disembark, lifting some of them out on litters, then carrying or escorting them over to the hymn singers by the pond, where Exeter in his gray robe stood ready for them. In moments the healing began, with shouts of jubilation and surges of mana that made the node tremble. The Spanish flu had met its match.

  The largest group appeared to be made up of initiates; they were being harangued by an adolescent girl. On the far side of the pond, converts were being baptized. Unless Julian's eyes deceived him, one of the officials in charge was Dommi Houseboy with a shield on his back. Well, well, well! Piccadilly Circus.

  The Onkenvier business would have to wait. If she failed to appear before the Free departed, Julian would just leave his purse in her cottage. Meanwhile, he was painfully aware that he was not as fit as a Stradivarius and had not eaten in at least two days. He headed for the commissary, where people were already lining up to be fed.

  He had to stop for a long line of newcomers, bent under their bundles, being led by a shield-bearer to a campsite. Then he narrowly escaped being run down by a gang towing newly felled tree trunks in from the woods. He detoured around a construction site where young men were exuberantly wielding picks, hammers, and shovels, slamming posts into the ground like nails, hurling dirt with the enthusiasm of dogs going after rabbits. Their excessive energy was clearly inspired by the presence of young women, who were officially w
eaving withes into makeshift screens, but also commenting back and forth about muscles and stamina and related matters. It seemed like a jolly way to build latrines.

  Within fifty yards he saw a dozen styles of clothing and overheard a whole Babel of dialects. The nasal Randorian accents he could identify exactly, but the others displayed varying tones of Niolian singsong, Thargian growl, or the terse staccato of Joal, as if every one of the twenty-seven Vales was represented here already.

  "Captain?” caroled a voice. “Oh, Captain Smedley! I say! Hello-o-o!” The hand waving the lacy handkerchief belonged to Hannah Pinkney. She stopped waving it and metronomed her sunshade instead, until she saw that Julian had changed direction.

  Hannah Pinkney! Muddled, twittery Hannah Pinkney? How the devil had she found her way to this battleground? There was no mistaking her, though, swathed in a spectacular robe, an Eiffel Tower-shaped sweep of white fur, plus a straw hat with pink bows. The effect was neither Valian nor European, but something disconcertingly in between—Ascot Week in Thargia or the Randorian Embassy at St. Moritz.

  Then Julian thought, Oh my ears and whiskers! because the man at her side was Pinky himself—Pinky the gray eminence, the manipulator, sly Pinky, smooth Pinky, Pinky as greasy as a ha'pennyworth of cold chips, Pinky all dapper in a fur-trimmed leather greatcoat, unbuttoned to display the leather jerkin and heavy wool knickerbockers beneath, the knee-high boots, Pinky clutching a official-looking notebook, Pinky smiling a greeting without showing more than his eyelids.

  "Captain Smedley! My word! Good to see you, Captain."

  Julian shook Hannah's hand while he discarded all the nasty remarks lining up in his gullet: Not good to see you! or By Jove, I never knew a man switch sides faster! or even How long do you think you can hide here before Exeter finds you?