“I have… phant. Blood… as well. Be care… ful.”
The boy rose and fell briskly into step behind Mizar, not even pausing as Dubhe dropped from the branches and onto his shoulder.
“We will be, Mizar. Is the blood scent fresh?”
“Very. Phant also.”
“Maybe that’s why things seem so quiet,” Jay said, not convinced. “If there’s something out here that can wound a phant…”
“Tranto,” Mizar interrupted.
“Tranto?” Jay broke into a trot. “If there’s something out here that can wound Tranto, then maybe everything else has taken cover.”
“Hope it’s not still out here,” Dubhe said.
“Yeah.”
After a time, a handful of trees closely clustered together announced the presence of a watering hole ahead. Coasting on the winds above the trees were a dozen birds that might have been called vultures except that their feathers were brilliant yellow picked out in sapphire blue. Their heads and necks, however, were bare of feathers, the naked pink skin (when added to the yellow and blue) attiring the birds with gruesome festivity given the obvious purpose of their powerfully hooked beaks and horned talons.
“Whatever it is isn’t dead,” Jay said, “or those birds would be down there right now.”
“Tranto,” Mizar repeated patiently. “I smell Tranto.”
And it was Tranto they saw as they closed the remaining distance. The ancient phant lay collapsed on his side. His grey, wrinkled hide was scored with red and blood pooled around him. Only the defiant flapping of his trunk when one of the vultures dropped within range assured them that he still lived, but each time he drove them off they retreated less and the trunk moved more slowly.
Mizar bayed, a horrid sound like the static-laden feedback of a set of poorly wired amplifiers. The vultures flapped higher, warned, but not panicked. Jay ignored them, hurrying to the phant. Up close, things looked even worse, but one thing was clear, Tranto’s opponent had not gotten away without injury. The phant’s long curving tusks were reddened with gore.
“Tranto…” Jay said, his voice breaking.
Tranto’s eye was glazed with pain, dimmed with something like madness, but he still knew Jay. He flapped his upper ear in acknowledgment. Heedless of the blood that soaked the ground, Jay knelt and brought his head near the phant’s oddly delicate mouth.
“Who did this?”
Tranto tried to speak, but only blood-flecked spittle dribbled forth. Jay placed a reassuring hand on one leg—just about the only place he could find that wasn’t terribly wounded.
“Mizar?”
The hound turned from where it had been menacing the swirling vultures. A few yellow-and-blue feathers were caught in his jagged metal teeth.
“Yes?”
“Mizar, I want you to find Nazrat for me.”
“Hard. Genius loci do… not need to be… Is here.”
“I want to talk to him, like I do to Caltrice. How can I send him a message?”
Dubhe tossed a handful of dates at one of the vultures, chortling when he scored a hit.
“It’s impossible if lie doesn’t want to hear you, but I’d bet he has at least some of his awareness extended into this area. Tranto isn’t just any proge.”
“So I should just talk to the air?”
“Why not?”
Jay shrugged. The idea was not as alien to him as it might be to someone with a more Veritean attitude toward Virtu. Still stroking Tranto’s leg, making a silent inventory of the phant’s damage, he soliloquized.
“Nazrat, we’ve met in passing before. I’m Jay Donnerjack. When I came here to play in your jungles or to talk to Tranto, I’ve praised the beauty and versatility of your site. Now, I think something’s wrong here, really wrong. You see, I can’t imagine that something could tear Tranto up like this and just walk away. I can see from Tranto’s tusks that he must have seriously hurt his opponents, but when I look about me, I don’t see any blood trails leading away. Isn’t that strange?”
He paused, but there was no answer.
“I came here hoping for Tranto’s advice. Finding him like this… it’s wrong. Can’t you fix him somehow?”
The pooled blood stirred, bubbles popped making words: “Tranto is destined for Deep Fields.”
Jay nodded. “How interesting. That’s where I’m going myself. If you fix Tranto, I’ll take him with me.”
More bubbles. “You mock me!”
“No, really. You must know something of my family. My father made the trip twice. Call it nostalgia, but I’m going, too.”
“Nostalgia? Insanity!”
“Nazrat, I’m going to make a guess that whatever did this to Tranto wasn’t of your creation. Therefore, you can mend him without violating your own internal laws.”
“Why should I?”
“As a favor to me, as a means of preserving a fantastic proge.”
“You will take him to Deep Fields?”
“That’s where I’m going. I can’t exactly force something as massive as Tranto to go with me, but I’m willing to believe he wouldn’t make a liar of me.”
The great ear flapped agreement.
“I am amused, young Donnerjack. Angered also by what was done here. Very well, if you promise to take Tranto to Deep Fields with you, I will erase the errors that have entered his system.”
“What was done here?”
“Ask the phant. I do not care to converse any longer.”
And the surface on which Tranto lay began to froth as the blood he had shed foamed and, contrary to the basic laws of gravity, began to separate from the dirt, flow up his sides, and descend into his wounds.
When the process was completed, the phant’s hide was coursed with myriad fresh scars, but not a trace of the blood remained.
Getting to his feet, Jay looked down at his hands, checked his trousers, and laughed, knowing that the genius loci would hear his pleasure.
“That was impressive! Tranto, how do you feel?”
With a sigh as of great weariness, the phant rolled to his knees, then surged to his feet to a chorus of disappointed shrieks from the vultures. Tranto trumpeted at them, then he felt himself with his trunk.
“Far better than I would have imagined possible. I owe Nazrat—and you—my thanks.”
“What happened? Who did that to you?”
“I will tell you while I get something to drink and perhaps some forage. Nazrat has written out my damage with immense skill, but I am still depleted.”
“I understand. Dubhe, toss down some of those bananas and coconuts, will you?”
“Sure, Jay. That was rather fascinating. I wonder what Death is going to have to say about yet another Donnerjack cheating him of his due?”
Jay shrugged with a nonchalance he did not entirely feel. “I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
As Tranto was refreshing himself, he told his story.
“A short time ago, I had a visit from a strange, female phant. She spoke of recruiting among my herd as warriors in a battle meant to right some of the inequities between Virtu and Verite.”
“Inequities?”
“I confess, I did not understand her fully, but she seemed to feel
J
that Verite has been misusing the virt. When I expressed no desire to join her crusade, she grew indignant and retreated into the jungle. Still ill at ease, I set myself to guarding the herd, but what I did not anticipate was a traitor from among those I trusted.
“At daybreak, I moved the herd on, wishing to be away from where the stranger phant might yet roam. It was while we were moving that I heard the trumpet of challenge. I turned…”
* * *
Muggle strode from the fringes of the herd, but what an altered Muggle he was. No more was he the runt bull—scrawny, weak, barely tusked. Now he loomed vast and bulky, a great grey mountain with coarse, wrinkled skin and yellow-white tusks so long that he should not have been able to lift them clear of the ground. He glowed
with a faint aura of golden light that was clearly visible even in the brilliance of the day. Only his voice was unchanged and it was by his voice that Tranto knew him.
“I’ve come to challenge you for leadership of the herd, Tranto.”
“Put on some weight, haven’t you, Muggle?”
Tranto’s tone was mocking, but inwardly he was checking out his opponent. What he saw was not promising. Muggle hadn’t just acquired mass, there was grace and agility to go with it. The way he handled those tusks, he now possessed strength and to spare. For the first time in a long, long while, Tranto knew fear.
In the first pass, one of Muggle’s tusks furrowed a long wound on Tranto’s flank, removing Tranto’s last hope that Muggle did not possess the ability to use his new weapons along with a great quantity of flesh and blood. Still, Tranto’s hard-learned cunning and skill stood him in good stead. Time and again he raked Muggle, giving wounds as good or better than those he received, but each time Muggle faltered the golden light flared about him and his wounds healed.
At first Tranto believed that he had somehow offended Nazrat and that the genius loci had raised a champion against him. But there was that about the golden light, about the strange scent that lingered around Muggle, that reminded him of the stranger female. Before he crashed to the ground, he had become convinced that he had been betrayed less by Muggle than by her.
“Still,” Tranto said around a mouthful of grass, “my supposition did not grant me much comfort when I watched Muggle lead away my herd.”
“We can find them for you,” Jay offered.
Mizar scratched behind one ear (tapestry print, roses after the Victorian style).
“I do… not scent… phants.”
“Not anywhere?”
Mizar shook his head, continued scratching. From his perch in the treetops, Dubhe belched, dropped a banana peel near Tranto (who added it to his next mouthful), and called down:
“I don’t see anything from up here and I have a pretty good view over the plains. A herd the size of Tranto’s would stir up some dust.”
“Gone,” Tranto said mournfully. “Muggle—or whatever it was that changed him—has taken them to fight someone else’s battles. I can only hope that the calves will be spared, but I doubt it. There was something cold about that stranger phant.”
“Cold?” Jay asked. “Do you mean evil?”
Tranto considered. “No, cold: willing to sacrifice many lives for an ideal or a victory. I can’t really make myself any clearer. We didn’t talk all that long.”
“Do you want to search for them?”
“I wouldn’t find them,” Tranto said. “Not here. When you were talking to Nazrat, you said that you had come here to consult me about a journey to Deep Fields. Are you following in your father’s footsteps?”
Dubhe guffawed. Jay traced a line in the dirt with his toe.
“Not really. Long ago you told me that a train called the Brass Babboon might be able to tell me about my father’s battle with the Lord of Entropy.”
“Yes.”
“Can you help me find the Brass Babboon?”
“I may be able to do so. After our conversation, I made a point of learning the location of one of his stations. I will guide you there.”
“Thank you.”
“And if he agrees to bear you into Deep Fields, I will go with you.”
“Again, thank you.”
“My reasons are not entirely altruistic. I heard you promise Nazrat that you would take me with you and I would not have you foresworn. Moreover, I feel a rumbling of dark anger within me—an anger that often has unfortunate consequences.”
“You mean you may go mad?”
“Possibly. Do you remember how to treat my ailment?”
“I could use a review. Perfect memory is not among my gifts.”
“Then I will refresh your memory as we talk. Would you like me to give you a ride?”
Jay looked up at the lofty perch of Tranto’s shoulder. Although it was far lower than treetops he would have assayed without trepidation, he felt a momentary pang of acrophobia.
“Sure,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“I’d like it. I can cover a lot of ground when I put my mind to it. You’d have trouble keeping up—especially if we’re trying to talk. I’ll carry the monkey and the dog, too.”
Dubhe chortled. “I love it. If doom awaits, I might as well go in style.”
Mizar wheezed laughter. “I… will walk. Nose to the ground.” Tranto lifted Jay onto his back, settled him just behind his head. Dubhe took his place on Jay’s shoulder. With Mizar on point, they set out across the plains. The earthquake that accompanied them might have been the sounding of Tranto’s mighty feet, but it could have been Nazrat laughing at a joke only a genius loci could understand.
* * *
Once again, Drum and Link met with their employer in the Verite and once again he was costumed and masked. This time Daimon wore a perfect kimono of pale golden silk embroidered with dragons in crimson. His undergarments were also of crimson, as were his gloves. The demon mask he wore had been highlighted to complement the colors of his robes.
Noting Daimon’s delight in both disguise and his elaborate attire, Link had once wondered why their employer did not meet with them in Virtu, where such things would be both easier and more effective. She had rapidly deduced that Daimon did not dare enter the virtual realms and this, combined with his interest in the Elishites, had given her a fair idea what might be Daimon’s actual identity.
She did not mention her suppositions to Drum, however, for Drum was quite clever enough to have arrived at the same conclusions. If he had not spoken of them, there was a reason. Desmond Drum might have been surprised to learn of the respect with which Link viewed him. Then again, being Desmond Drum, he might not have been.
Drum was giving their report as Daimon prepared tea.
“The Elshies have, contrary to popular media opinion, decided to take an aggressive stance with their critics. For a few days after the riot, they appeared conciliatory, then—all at once—attitude changed. Link?”
Link accepted a delicate bowl of tea, bowed stiffly to Daimon, and organized her thoughts.
“Based on linguistic analysis of the Elshies’ latest press releases, I have deduced two things. One, the aggressive stance is not a pose—the church elders do sincerely believe that they can pull this off. If only prepared press releases showed this attitude, I would be tempted to believe that this was a pose, but I arranged for some ‘impromptu’ interviews and the same confidence was present.”
Daimon studied the chrysanthemum flower that had unfolded within his tea cup. He directed the gaze behind his mask to Link’s face. As there were black mesh screens set in the eye sockets, the effect was rather intimidating.
“Interesting. And your second deduction?”
“Given that the change in attitude occurred all at once, I guessed that there was a single, central meeting during which this policy was adopted. Drum took over here.”
He set down his teacup. “It didn’t take much to confirm Link’s guess. The Elshies have several meeting rooms equipped for joint virt/RT conferencing. Judging from travel records, surveillance of landing sites, and utility bills, there was a major conference the day of the first press release showing their altered attitude.”
“In New York?” Daimon asked.
“That’s right. The press releases gave me a starting date to work backward from and I pinpointed the location.”
Daimon crossed his arms across his chest. Although his face was masked, he gave the impression of frowning.
“This change in attitude—as you call it—has already created some strange alliances. The Elishite Celebration is rapidly becoming a rallying point for any group interested in preserving freedom of religion or freedom of speech.”
Drum nodded. “Not surprising. The Elshies have purchased land in California and are preparing for another celebration.”
“Yes.” Daimon toyed with his teacup. “This has all been interesting, but now, favor me with your wilder conclusions.”
Link glanced at Drum. Drum nodded again.
“We think that the Elshies are getting advice from someone who has a great deal of authority. The High Priest is still being treated with deference, but there is a change. It’s rather as if he has been superseded.”
“Do you think it is by one of these gods? Bel Marduk, perhaps?”
Link shook her head. “No, it doesn’t have that feel. I’ve attended enough services to have a sense for what the gods are like. They are powerful, arrogant, and somehow antiquated in their assumptions. Whoever this is is clever and sophisticated, with contemporary cultural bias.”
“Then you suspect…” Daimon prompted.
“Literature about the Church of Elish has long suggested that the founder was an AI, but no one has been able to confirm this, and the Church, of course, claims only divine inspiration.”
“But…”
“Yes, I think that this aion is now taking an active hand in directing
Church policies. I suspect that it has an agenda that runs parallel to that publicly proclaimed by the Church, but which is not identical.”
“And?”
Link hesitated. Drum cut in.
“The kid thinks, wild as it sounds, that the founder of the Church of Elish is planning a coup to take over Verite. The virt powers and the crossover of the gods is just a beginning.”
“It’s insane, isn’t it?” Link said. “I mean, how can a vast computer system take over the reality that created it? It simply should not be able to happen, but that seems to be the agenda.”
“I don’t know how they would do it,” Daimon said, “but I suspect we need to find out and I suspect we need to find out quickly. I, for one, would not enjoy living in a world where gods such as Bel Marduk have free reign.”
He raised his teacup in mute salute. Drum and Link mimicked the motion.
Darkness: spider silk between crimson and gold.
* * *
Dr. Lydia Hazzard walked her patient to the door of the consulting room and turned the young man over to an orderly who would make certain that prescriptions were dispensed and billing was duly addressed. Touching the intercom call button set flush with the top of her walnut veneer desk, she signaled the reception area that she was free to take her next patient.
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