As the symbols reached the end of the conveyance (for that was indeed what the object seemed to be) they blinked off.
“Roadmaker technology,” said Quait. “I had no idea—”
“What does it mean?” asked Flojian.
The seats were fixed in pairs at each window, and were equipped with grips. The illumination seemed to be coming from overhead panels and patches on the walls.
“What now?” Chaka asked, barely audibly.
“I think we have the answer to the signs,” said Shannon reluctantly. “They want us to board this thing.”
Avila nodded. “I agree.” She stepped through the doorway, held out her hands, and frowned. “It’s warm,” she said.
The moving symbols were delivering a new message:
BABYLON! WITH COREY LEDREW AND JANET BARBAROSA
Avila walked to the rear of the carriage. There was a connecting door, which she opened. Chaka could see into the next carriage. It looked identical to this.
“What makes it go?” asked Flojian. “Where did it come from?” He was standing near the door, ready to jump off.
The empty seats glittered. They were made of a smooth material, but Chaka had no idea what it was.
“There’s no driver,” said Flojian. He looked close to panic.
“Is it possible,” asked Chaka, “that there are still Roadmakers alive somewhere?”
“Maybe,” said Quait. “Or maybe it’s something left over.”
Chaka recalled the stories of unquiet ruins.
Avila inhaled, and let out her breath slowly. “Well,” she said, “this is where the trail leads. We can get on, and let it take us where it took Karik; or we can go home.”
“Go home,” said Shannon. “For all we know, it may take us straight to the nether world.”
The thing seemed to be waiting.
Avila looked at Quait.
Quait nodded. “We’ve come this far,” he said. “It’s apparently only a transportation device.”
Chaka was less sure. Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to back away. “I say go,” she said.
Shannon looked disgusted. “Better get the horses on board. I don’t know how much time we have left.”
Everyone joined the frantic effort that followed. They scrambled out of the carriage, up the ridge, reloaded the pack animals, saddled their own mounts, and led them back down onto the esplanade, all within a matter of minutes. They loaded the horses, performed a quick inspection to assure themselves that they were indeed alone on the vehicle, and settled down to wait.
“For what it’s worth,” said Shannon, “the animals weren’t nervous about getting in. That’s a good sign.” He nodded sagely at Chaka. “Animals can sense demons.”
CAMPBELL’S SOUPS ADD LUSTER TO EVERY MEAL.
“There’s no driver,” Flojian reminded them. “That’s not a good sign.”
Chaka was inspecting one of the light-emitting patches. Like Talley’s lamp, there was no open flame. She touched one, yelped, and pulled away. “Hot,” she said.
There was a brief chime, and the doors closed. The floor vibrated.
“I think we’re committed,” said Quait.
Shannon grunted his disapproval. “You shouldn’t hire a guide if you’re not going to listen to anything he says.”
The space became claustrophobic. The lights dimmed, blinked out, came on again. The horses registered a mild protest. Chaka felt upward pressure, as if the floor were rising. The esplanade sank, the vehicle rocked, they got more sounds from the animals, and a couple from the humans, and she was jerked backward as they began to move.
Their carriage, which had been at the front of the vehicle when it entered the esplanade, was now at the rear. And it was hovering in air. They were about two feet off the ground, sustained by what invisible hand Chaka hesitated to guess. She murmured a prayer, and felt Quait’s reassuring grip on her shoulder, although he didn’t look so good himself.
“We knew this would happen,” Avila said. “It’s only a mechanism.” She lowered herself into a seat. The others followed her example.
The grassy shelf moved past and then it was gone and the forest closed around them. Some of the interior lights blinked out.
Their fears were mirrored in one another’s eyes. Crowded together at the rear of the conveyance, they watched the moon dance through a dark network of tree limbs.
It was too dark to see clearly out the windows, but occasional posts and trees rushed past, and within moments they were moving far faster than any had ever traveled before. They sighed and gasped and held on while the train swung into a long curve. Simultaneously, it rose, climbed, soared above the treetops. Flojian invited the Goddess to protect them.
They were in the realm of hawks now. Fields and lakes swept past.
“Karik survived it,” Quait reminded her.
Avila admitted that maybe this had not been a good idea after all. The animals swayed and snorted, but they did not seem as uneasy as their masters.
“I hope there are no sudden stops,” said Shannon. He pushed his battered hat down tight on his head and managed a grin. “This’ll be one for the grandkiddies, right?”
The landscape rose and fell, but the train stayed steady. It seemed to be moving at a constant rate now, a terrifying velocity. Trees and rocks blurred.
DELTA AIRLINES.
LUXURY CLASS AT COACH PRICES.
Avila sat staring out the rear window. The green strip and its guardrail were still with them. “It must mark the trail in some way,” she said.
“Maybe we’re attached to it,” Flojian suggested.
“I don’t think so. It’s too low. There’s no way we could be traveling along its surface.” Her eyes slid shut. “On the bridge, the green strip was broken. I wonder whether there was a time that this thing used to cross the river.”
Occasionally, when the vehicle rounded a curve, they could look ahead and see a cone of light stabbing through the dark. “That’s what we shot out,” Chaka said. “There must be a light at both ends.” They leaped a creek and sailed effortlessly through a cut between ridges. The ridges melted away; ruins appeared below them, around them, and then they were slowing down, settling back into the trees. They glided into another esplanade, stopped, and with much gurgling and hissing, settled to the ground. Extra lights came on inside the carriage and outside.
“Vincennes,” said a female voice. “Watch your step, please.”
Chaka jerked around to see who had spoken. There was nobody. Her hair rose.
The doors opened.
“Who’s there?” demanded Quait, on his feet with his gun out.
“It came from in here,” said Avila.
Outside, a steady wind blew. Chaka could see a stairway, leading down. And benches. And a small wooden building, quite dark. Beyond that there were only woods.
“This is our chance to get out of here,” said Flojian.
They exchanged glances. It wasn’t a bad idea. While they thought about it, the chime sounded again and the doors closed.
“That was quick,” said Chaka.
Quait and Shannon moved into the next carriage, guns drawn, looking for the source of the voice.
The train lifted and they were under way again.
“They won’t find anything,” said Flojian. “That was a spirit.”
“I think he’s right,” said Avila. “At least about not finding anyone. We’ve been through this whole vehicle. There’s no one else on board.”
The open space slipped by and they were in the woods again, racing past clumps of trees and springs and rills. The land fell away and they sailed over a gorge. Chaka’s heart stopped. Water appeared beneath them. Then more solid ground, and the lights picked out a sign:
SOUTHWEST AGRICULTURAL CENTER.
It was gone almost before they could read it.
Quait and Shannon returned to report they could find no one.
The moon had moved over to the west. They sat close together, talking in hushed voices. O
ccasionally someone got up and announced he, or she, was going to check the horses. Someone else always volunteered to go along. Nobody traveled alone.
They stopped again, after a time, and the disembodied voice startled them once more: “Terre Haute,” it said. The doors opened and the wind blew and the doors closed.
“Nobody is ever going to believe this,” said Avila.
They cruised through the night, gliding over broad forest and ruins growing more and more extensive until finally the forest was gone altogether and they were moving above a wasteland of brick and rubble.
The vehicle slowed and began a long westward curve. Water appeared to the north. It looked like a sea.
They accelerated again. When the moon came back, Chaka saw beaches, surf, and ancient highways. The conveyance rocked gently, gliding across sand, water, and patches of grass. The coastline gradually turned north. They stayed with it.
The land broke up into islands and channels, littered with wreckage, piles of stone, rows of crumbling brick houses.
“Look,” said Flojian, his face flattened against the window.
A cluster of towers of incredible dimensions rose out of the dark. They literally challenged the sky, soaring beyond any man-made structure Chaka would have thought possible. They were softened by fading moonlight, and seemed to be anchored in water.
“The City,” breathed Chaka. The city in the fourth sketch.
The train was slowing down.
Walls rose around them. They passed what appeared to be other trains, lying dark and still. They drifted over a channel, crossed a small island, coasted past long, low buildings with enormous stacks, and then glided out over open water again.
The water gave way to a stone wall. The stone was polished and glittered in the lights of the train.
Then they were inside a tunnel. The wall (which had become gray and rough) moved past slowly and finally stopped.
The conveyance settled to the ground.
The lights came up and the doors opened. “Welcome to Union Station,” said a voice. “Everybody must exit here. Please watch your step.”
15
They stood on a platform in the midst of absolute silence, surrounded by the horses and their baggage and the darkness that rolled away and away from the illumination cast by the coaches. It was cold again. Frigid.
“Any idea where we are?” whispered Shannon.
“Union Station.” Chaka tasted the strange words.
The doors closed. The vehicle rose a few feet, and began to move forward. They watched it go, watched it glide into the dark. Its lights glowed for a time and then they vanished, as if it had gone around a curve.
“What now?” said Flojian. His voice echoed.
Avila used a match to light an oil lamp.
The platform was about twenty feet wide, with trenches on either side. More platforms, parallel to this one, stretched away into the dark. No ceiling was visible.
“We should wait for dawn,” said Flojian. “Get some sleep, and don’t walk around too much.”
“I’d sleep better,” said Shannon, “if I knew we were alone.”
“Are we indoors?” asked Quait.
“There’s no wind,” said Avila. “And no stars.”
The platform surface was cement, but it was covered by several inches of dust and dirt. There were posts and handrails, to which they secured the animals. Quait found a wooden bench. He broke it up and they used it to start a fire. But nowhere did its light touch wall or ceiling.
“I agree with Jon,” said Avila. “Let’s find out where we are.”
The tunnel through which they’d entered was gray and unremarkable. “Maybe it really is mechanical,” said Flojian. “I think that possibility scares me even more than a demonic explanation. Can you imagine what a fleet of these things, running among the five cities, would do to river traffic?”
“Forget it,” said Shannon. “It’s wizardry, pure and simple. And it’s not a good idea to poke around with things like that.”
They walked the length of the platform, hearing only their own footsteps, the horses, and a distant wind that sounded walled off. At the other end, the platform blended into a concourse while the trenches sank into another tunnel.
Avila raised her lamp and looked up into the darkness. The place felt like a temple. Its dimensions, the impression of silent time, the echoes, all conspired to produce a sense of returning home.
“We’ve got a wall ahead,” said Quait. Gray and heavy, it rose into the dark. Cubicles lined its base.
“No prints.” Shannon surveyed the broad, dirt-heaped floor. “I don’t think anybody’s been here for a long time.”
The cubicles were filled with counters and racks and debris. “Shops,” said Avila. “This place was a bazaar.”
“We’d cover more ground if we split up,” said Quait.
Avila agreed. “While we’re at it,” she said, “watch for the markers.”
“They’ll be in an exit somewhere,” Shannon added. He and Avila turned away from the others.
Corridors branched off the concourse. There were more cubicles, but of a different kind, perhaps workrooms or sitting rooms. Some were open, others were sealed behind hopelessly warped doors. Stairways led in both directions.
Avila and Shannon passed shops filled with chairs and dining tables; with dummies and display cases; with toys; and with shelves loaded with wisps of rag that might once have been books. Many of the toys had survived, colorful little make-believe rifles and hojjies and dolls. And some of the clothing still looked almost wearable: blue blouses and red sweaters and biege slacks spun from materials that resisted time. But most of the merchandise, and all of the books, had turned to dust.
A set of broken doors concealed a drop shaft. Their lamps reflected off water a couple of levels down. Above, they could make out nothing.
“You wouldn’t want to walk around in here without a lamp,” Shannon said.
The fire they’d built on the platform was a distant glow. “You’re convinced there’s nobody else here?” asked Avila.
Shannon nodded. “Probably not since Karik went through.”
At the same moment, filtered through the response, she heard a second voice. It was just at the edge of audibility, and at first she thought it was a draft, a current of air moving perhaps through the upper darkness.
Avila.
Her blood froze. Shannon stopped and reflexively went down on one knee. “Cover the lamp,” he whispered.
She closed the shutter and they were again in darkness. He took her arm and gently pulled her away a few feet. “Somebody knows your name,” he said.
She heard the suspicion in his voice. No man or woman here could know Avila.
The sound came again, faint, distant, but nevertheless unmistakable.
She could see Chaka’s lamp bobbing through the dark, across the network of platforms and trenches, on the other side of the great hall.
“Don’t move,” Shannon told her, unslinging his rifle and bringing it to bear. “Who’s there?”
Avila was more frightened than she could recall ever having been in her adult life. There was no explanation for what was happening, and so Avila, trained to the religious life, and having recently thrown off a lifelong mindset, immediately reverted. The gods whom she had deserted had chosen this lonely, remote citadel to call her to account.
Holy One, is it you?
She could not have said whether she gave voice to the question, or merely projected it from her mind.
Shannon said, “I think we should get back to the others and find a way out of this place.”
It was hard to know where the voice had come from. She uncovered the light. In the most probable direction, she saw a corner shop with corroded metal racks and a side passage with open doors and a staircase. The staircase was concrete and metal, with handrails.
“You go back,” she said. She moved away from him, toward the shop.
“This is not a good idea,”
Shannon protested.
The shop was empty, and she turned into the passageway. Shannon caught up with her, his breathing uneven.
She passed the staircase. The first open door revealed an ancient washroom.
“Avila.” It came from the stairway. “Come to me.”
Up. It was somewhere above. “Who are you?” she asked.
The voices of their comrades were faint and far off, but she detected laughter.
“Why are we doing this?” asked Shannon.
She looked up the stairs and had no answer. She swallowed, moved away from Shannon’s restraining hand, and started to climb. The guide cautioned her to be quiet, at least, but she doubted that stealth would make a difference.
At the next floor, a set of double doors were off their hinges and wedged against the wall. She looked past them, down a long passageway. “Where are you? Who are you?”
“Avila.” It was very close now. “Do not be afraid.”
“In there.” Shannon pointed to a doorway fifty feet down on the left. He led the way, paused at the entrance, and asked for the lamp.
His face was pale and he looked close to a heart attack. But she had to admire him. He stuck the lamp and his head and the rifle more or less simultaneously into the room. They saw broken chairs, a collapsed desk, curtains drawn back providing a view of the city. “Show yourself,” he said.
“That’s not feasible.” The voice was crisp and cold, and seemed to come from directly overhead. Shannon whirled and dropped the lamp. The oil spilled and flared.
“What happened?” The unseen speaker sounded startled.
Shannon backed away from a burning puddle. “The lamp,” he said. “I—”
“It’s all right. The room is fireproof. Did you burn yourself?” Whoever it was should have been close enough to touch.
“No,” said Shannon, gruffly.
Where was it coming from? Avila looked wildly around and saw a door in one wall. “You’re in the closet,” she said.
Laughter rippled through the room.
Shannon yanked the door open and saw only a washstand.
Eternity Road Page 18