Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome

by Stephen Lawhead

  And death was certain now. For while every able body searched for the Dhogs’ secret passage, the Invisibles had discovered the tunnel’s exit to Bolbe. Fighting had not begun there yet, but according to Kopetch the Invisibles only awaited the arrival of additional platoons. Tvrdy had dispatched troops to secure the exit, but held little hope of holding it. When the enemy reinforcements arrived, the pinching operation would commence. The rebels would be caught in a deadly crossfire with no place to run, no way to hide. The tunnel would become a tomb.

  In the meantime, every millimeter of the tunnel from the Old Section to Bolbe had been scoured in search of the Dhogs’ secret passage—to no avail. There was no seam, no opening, no break that had not been minutely examined and re-examined, the search yielding nothing but frustration.

  The Dhogs had vanished—Bogney, the women, the few remaining soldiers. No one recalled precisely when, but they were gone, taking the secret of the tunnel with them. And knowing that there was a way to escape from the tunnel, and not knowing how or where to find it, multiplied the agony. Nothing the Invisibles could devise by way of torture could have been worse.

  The last few hours were spent feverishly inspecting the length of the tunnel yet again. Treet knew they would not find the secret, but went through the motions anyway, thinking the exercise better than sitting around waiting for the Mors Ultima to cut them down.

  Tvrdy had both ends of the tunnel fortified and manned, but the narrow width mocked maneuverability and reduced movement to absurdity. A skinny tunnel was no place to fight a last battle. The rebels’ only consolation was that the Invisibles would have to come in and get them one by one.

  It was late when the Invisibles pulled into position. With victory now a mere matter of execution, Mrukk consulted his commanders and then left to return to Saecaraz. The Invisibles were to wait until sunrise to begin the attack. This would minimize confusion and any mishap caused by darkness, and it would also allow Mrukk time to reach the Supreme Director’s kraam. He planned to be with Jamrog when the tunnel fell, and to personally announce the rebels’ defeat.

  In the Archives, lights blazed into the night as Saecaraz and Nilokerus magicians and Readers slouched over the ancient texts. At one end of the long table, a sixth-order magician and Reader from both Hages huddled together, their heads bent over the diagrams they had deciphered.

  “It is time,” announced the Saecaraz magician. “We have reviewed all available lore. It is apparent that the machine responds to number impulses called ‘coordinates,’ which must be implanted in this device called ‘systems guidance.’ Are we agreed?” The others bobbed their heads and pulled on their chins in agreement.

  “The coordinates for Fierra have been calculated according to the lore formula. We have adhered to the Clear Way and followed the Sacred Directives regarding the revival of machines. We must trust our lore and the psi of this place to aid us.”

  The others muttered approval. The ranking Nilokerus said, “My Hagemen and I are ready to proceed. Once the missile is returned to the launch cradle, the launch may progress as planned.”

  “I will notify Director Diltz,” the Saecaraz said. He rose from the table. “Begin the procedure. The Director will wish to give the order himself.”

  The Dhogs, arranged by family, each of the sixteen families grouped together with their essentials and provisions, stood waiting to begin their exodus to Fierra. Since abandoning the war with the Invisibles, Giloon Bogney and the family heads had worked their hardest, scraping together every last morsel of anything edible, and filling every available container with water. When all was ready, the Dhogs put on their best articles of clothing, trussed up their livestock, and assembled by family to await the order to move out.

  Bogney took his place at the head of the great procession. “Dhogs,” he said, waving his bhuj to get their attention, “this here being a great day. We starting off traveling. We now going to Fieri like Giloon promising.”

  With that the Dhogs moved off, clattering like an army of panhandlers. They lumbered through the long-deserted avenues of the Old Section, the sounds of battle ringing off the curved sections of the skyroof above them. Like noise ghosts, they left the familiar haunts of their ancient home, leaving for a better place they had been told lay out there, somewhere beyond the barriers of the time-fogged crystal.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  In the clean light of the rising sun, Dome’s enormous crystal shell glittered and winked like a faceted jewel mountain, its clustered peaks distinct in the early light. A multitude of giant spires protruded from its skin, each lifting an immense webwork of thick support cables, bearing up the weight of the sealed shining shell with its insane jumble of steeples, turrets, rotundas, and cupolas bulging, swelling, bellying out, one atop another as if springing from a cancerous growth. The colossal range of bulbous mounds reached skyward, hill heaped upon hill, all of them outtopped by tremendous tuberous humps and knobs and gibbous mounds.

  “There it is,” said Pizzle, gazing down on the sprawling mass, “somebody’s idea of modern architecture run amuck.”

  “This isn’t funny,” said Yarden. It had been a long trip and a tense one for her, staring out the balon’s ports at the barren hills—a deadeningly monotonous landscape, all of a uniform, unvarying soft turquoise green—watching while the interminable hours crept by, wondering, despite the many assurances that they would arrive in good time, whether there would be anything worth saving when they reached their destination. Now here it was, and she was in no mood for Pizzle’s smart-aleck observations.

  Talus stood like a rock, fingering his beard, staring at the glassy mountainscape of Dome. Pizzle asked him what he thought, and he replied in a strangely hushed voice, “It is arrogant and unnatural. I can feel its evil reaching out to us.”

  “You think it’s bad now,” quipped Pizzle, “wait’ll you get inside.”

  “Will you stop!” Yarden snapped.

  “He raises a pertinent question,” said Bohm quietly. He, like all the other Fieri on board, was reticent and subdued as they watched the gleaming monstrosity slide silently beneath them. “How are we to get inside?”

  “There is a landing platform on the far side,” Yarden pointed out. “And large doors below it. That’s where we came out.”

  “You know what happens to anyone who lands on that platform,” said Pizzle. “I’m not about to try that again.”

  “But we must find a way in,” said Jaire. She spoke with such intensity that all heads turned to look at her. She blushed, crimson rising to her throat and cheeks.

  “I agree,” said Anthon. “We must find a way in—and find it quickly.”

  “I will instruct our pilots to circle at the present altitude until directed otherwise.” Bohm went to the command center and spoke to the pilot. He returned a moment later and said, “We will remain in this formation while we entertain ideas.”

  “Okay,” said Pizzle, “don’t everybody speak at once.”

  With the rising sun came the Invisibles’ assault on the tunnel. As expected, they attacked both ends at once, but with a vengeance that was completely unexpected. Their armored ems were moved in close, and under the cover of a fiery barrage, the first squads rushed in.

  Heedless of the scorching resistance, the Invisibles were cut down in waves as the rebels, fighting for their lives, threw all they had at the reckless onslaught.

  For one optimistic instant, it appeared that the rebels would stem the murderous tide. But rank on rank of Invisibles, advancing over the bodies of the fallen, began, by sheer pressure of numbers, to push their way inside. They gained the mouth of the tunnel, and then one meter of its length, and then another, driving the rebels back and back.

  The fighting was vicious. The interior of the tunnel began to fill with smoke and fumes. Treet, having elected to stay with the wounded, tending them to the end, heard the shriek of the thermal weapons relentlessly drawing closer, and knew that the final battle would soon belong to the past—a b
rief footnote in a history that would never be recorded.

  Crouched in the darkness of the tunnel, while around him the wounded began to moan and cough as the acrid fumes touched their lungs, Treet tried his hand at calming those disturbed by the wild shouts close at hand and the sound of thunder cracking ever closer. “Rest easy,” he told them. “It will soon be over.”

  Ernina swept by him as he made his way among the wounded. “I’m going to see to what I can do up there,” she told him. “Stay here and keep them quiet.”

  “Be careful,” he called after her and wondered whether he ought to go to the front, too—not to help the wounded, but to fight. Part of him ached to be in the thick of the battle, to give some account of himself, to make the enemy feel his death. The bandage on his burned hand made that a ludicrous proposition.

  Ironically, the one time he had taken up a weapon, he had incapacitated himself and had nearly lost the man he was trying to save. Yes, he reflected, it was better this way. He would wait here and do what he had determined to do since coming to the Old Section, to save life rather than waste it. There was enough killing in Dome without adding to it.

  The air was thick with the stink of blood and death, the tunnel hot. The raking scream of the Invisibles’ weapons echoed and reechoed, reverberating along the walls of the tunnel. The answering fire of the rebels became hesitant and less frequent. The Mors Ultima ground the resistance down, driving the rebels further and further into the tunnel.

  At one point Treet heard the sound of running feet and thought the Invisibles had broken through at last. But Tvrdy appeared, leading what remained of his troops and shouting, “Now! Down! Everyone down!”

  Treet obeyed. A second later the tunnel bucked under him as if it had suddenly taken life. The shock of an explosion rattled his bones in their sockets.

  Tvrdy leaped up at once. “Get these supplies stacked up here!” he shouted. “Make a wall!”

  Treet fell to with the rest of them and began stacking all the remaining crates and bundles in the center of the tunnel to make a wall and seal themselves in. “It won’t take them long to dig through out there,” Tvrdy told him. “But we’ll seal this end and join Cejka and Piipo at the other end. We can hold out longer that way.” He paused and looked at Treet, an expression of sorrow flitting across his smoke-blackened face. “I’m sorry it ends this way.”

  “It isn’t over yet,” said Treet.

  “Come with us.”

  “Thanks, but someone has to stay here.” Treet indicated the wounded.

  Tvrdy nodded and pulled Treet to him in a brusque hug. “Good-bye, friend,” he said and then was hurrying away with his men as they ran to join the fighting at the other end of the tunnel.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  “Look, I don’t know if this’ll work. It’s only an idea,” said Pizzle. “We could try something else, you know? Yarden? C’mon, talk to me. Say something.”

  Yarden stood gazing at the image of Dome projected onto the map table, her fingers steepled and pressed against her lips. She did not respond.

  Just then, Talus returned to where the others stood bent over the map table. He shook his head slowly. “Mathiax has consulted the Preceptor, and both agree there is no precept to cover this situation. We are to proceed according to our own judgment.”

  Bohm nodded and raised his head. “What do the builders say?”

  Talus shrugged. “Not enough is known about the structural qualities of the materials to answer precisely. They would have to make tests. However, the principle is well known.”

  “We have nothing to lose,” said Anthon.

  “Only time,” said Jaire grimly. “We could lose valuable time.”

  “That is a risk,” Anthon assured her gently. “I only meant that if it doesn’t work, we are free to try something else.”

  Abashed, Jaire clamped her mouth shut, glanced around at the others, and left the table.

  “We need a decision,” said Pizzle. “I say we go for it and see what happens.”

  Preben was quick to second the motion. “I agree. It is an inspired plan.” He looked to his father.

  Talus stared at the slowly revolving image on the table, and then nodded. “Yes,” he said slowly. “We have no better plan. I say we try it. This is Mathiax’s thinking as well. He points out that if it succeeds, we will all be very busy in the hours to come.”

  “It is settled.” Bohm smacked his hand down in the center of the projected Dome. “It is time to end the madness. I’m going to give the order.” He beckoned to Pizzle. “Come along. I will need you.” He returned to the balon’s command center.

  Pizzle moved around the table to join him. Passing by Yarden, he paused and said, “Go ahead and do it.”

  She looked up sharply. “You know what I’m thinking?”

  “I’ve seen that look before. Do it.”

  Her gaze drifted back to the gray projection. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “You’ll feel better. Besides, I don’t see how else we’re going to warn him.”

  Pizzle moved off, leaving Yarden transfixed before the image on the flat octagon of the table. Anthon came near and put his arm around her shoulders. She covered his hand with hers. “What should I do?” she asked. “I need guidance. Help me.”

  “Sometimes the itch is supplied by the Infinite, but we must scratch it ourselves,” he replied.

  Yarden threw him a dark look. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “We are meant to find our own way in many of life’s difficult moments.”

  “In the doing comes the knowing—that’s what Gerdes told me once. I guess it applies.” She wrapped her arms around herself in a hug. “I feel so alone.”

  “The Comforter goes with you, Yarden. Always.”

  She gave Anthon a weak smile and turned to climb the stairs leading to the crew quarters. She went up and found Jaire sitting on a bench, her back against the rail of the circular balcony. She sat down on the bench and touched the young woman on the arm. Jaire stirred and looked up, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

  “I know you care for him,” Yarden said, and realized as she spoke the words the reason for Jaire’s uncharacteristic behavior. It was obvious: Jaire had been displaying all the signs of a distraught lover. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I have been praying that he will be rescued safely …” Her voice trailed off.

  “I know.” Yarden nodded. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. Wait here.” She got up slowly. “I’m going to try to reach him, warn him.”

  She went to her cabin and sat down cross-legged on the floor. She took a deep breath and released it; drew another, emptying her mind of all thoughts, clearing her mental screen. She placed her hands together, fingertips touching lightly, and began focusing her consciousness into the fine, sharp probing instrument her sympathic touch required.

  She gathered her awareness and sent it out from her, releasing it like an arrow from the bow.

  Once again she felt the awesome oppression of the power that held Dome in its unrelenting grasp. She found herself hard against the thick membrane she had encountered before. She steadied herself and pushed through. As before, it yielded and admitted her.

  There was howling darkness and the icy numbness of death. She framed Treet’s image in her mind and instantly felt a shudder of rage course through the darkness. The response surprised her, but she did not retreat and did not allow herself to be unnerved or distracted. She steadied herself, pushed ahead, and a moment later Treet was there—his presence weak, distressed, shifting wildly, but alive.

  Treet knelt over a thrashing soldier as the sounds of battle boomed into the tunnel. The young Rumon, hysterical with fear, was intent on tearing off his bandages. Treet calmed him and was about to move on to the next casualty when, as he rose, he caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Just the barest suggestion of a fragrance—faint, but unmistakable …

  Yarden.

  He stood rock-s
till. The sense of her presence was irresistible. It was as if she had suddenly distilled out of the air beside him. Her nearness was almost tangible.

  In the dim smoke-filled tunnel, Treet closed his eyes and opened himself to her touch, shutting out the noise and stink and pain around him. Concentrating, bending his will to the effort with every gram of strength he possessed, he gathered the frazzled shreds of his awareness and projected himself to her. He was rewarded for his effort by a violent wrenching sensation, as if a giant hand had reached into his skull and given his brain a twist between thumb and forefinger.

  The sympathic touch weakened. He felt Yarden receding from him and reached out for her, strained after her, but could not hold her. Before the touch faded completely, even as it slipped away, he received a clear and distinct infusion of hope. His spirit leaped up inside him.

  Help is coming, she seemed to say. Lay low and hold on.

  On Skywalk level of Hage Saecaraz, the Supreme Director strolled the shaded garden walkways of his pleasure grounds. Nilokerus Director Diltz walked beside him, enjoying the greenery and the sunlight shining through the huge crystal panes directly overhead, basking in the praise of his superior.

  “You are to be congratulated,” Jamrog was saying.

  “Not at all, Supreme Director,” replied Diltz. “I remind you that it was your idea. I merely oversaw its implementation.”

  “As you wish.” Jamrog nodded solemnly. “I accept the triumph. I am, after all, the generative force of my people. I am the blood and spirit of Empyrion. I am life and beyond life.” He turned to regard Diltz, his eyes glassy from flash. “Do you understand what I am telling you, Director?”

  “Of course, Supreme Director, I—”

  “From now on, I will be addressed as Father.”

  “Of course, Father.” Diltz gave him a sidelong glance. “The magicians await your order. Will you give it now?”

  Jamrog’s eyes closed, his lips curled lazily. “My breath gives life or takes it. My word is law and death.” He stopped and raised his hands to the sun, which was shining through the enormous panels of the dome above. “I am light; I am becoming one with the sun. My mind is racing far ahead. My enemies seek to trap me, but I know their plans before they are conceived. I am filled with thoughts incomprehensible to lesser beings.