“No.”
“I am the stronger. I will compel you.” The steel grip tightened.
Orlazzu winced and gritted his teeth, but managed to reply calmly, “I can’t be compelled. I can’t give you what you seek. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Incorrect. There is one thing.”
A sudden, powerful thrust of the automaton’s arm propelled Grix Orlazzu backward. One of his feet encountered empty air. Arms flailing wildly, he fought to regain his balance, failed, and tumbled into the oubliette.
For a moment GrixPerfect stood motionless, clicking erratically, as if in doubt. At last it called out searchingly, “Leftover? Are you damaged? Leftover? Answer, if you please.”
Answer there was none. Advancing to the edge of the pit, the automaton looked down to spy the body of its creator lying motionless at the bottom.
“If you have been broken, we will effect a durable repair. I am willing to assist, despite the ill treatment I have received. Leftover? I would appreciate the courtesy of a reply.”
Grix Orlazzu neither spoke nor stirred.
For some seconds longer, the automaton stood staring down, clicking and buzzing to itself. Orlazzu lay still. At last GrixPerfect turned away and departed.
The sending concluded. The four arcanists broke contact with the Source, and with one another.
“We had him,” observed Vinzille Corvestri. “For a moment, there.”
“It wasn’t so clear,” said Pridisso.
“He is very near,” mused Innesq. “He was aware of us, and perhaps receptive. Then there was a sudden confusion, something like a distorted double image. I cannot account for it.”
“Gone, now. Gone, who knows where, and I’m sick to death of chasing some whimsical Faerlonnishman who isn’t willing to pull his weight.” Ojem Pridisso’s chest swelled. “To blazes with him. This place couldn’t be any better for the business at hand. I say we rest, eat, prepare ourselves, and then go at it without him. We may as well.”
“I understand,” Innesq returned. “But surely it is not the time to give up on Master Orlazzu. We all know that we need him, and he is certainly very near. Let us make one last effort, and find him.”
“Or one of him,” Nissi whispered.
“What’s that, my dear?”
Nissi dropped her eyes and shook her head.
All of this exchange was lost upon the Magnifico Aureste. At some point during the course of the collective effort, he had tired of watching the four arcanists, motionless and abstracted. His attention had flagged, his mind had wandered, and somehow—he could hardly have said when—a feeling of peace and contentment had stolen over him; a calm, almost joyous sense of certainty and belonging. He was at one with the world and all the life that it supported; part of a magnificent whole, gigantic and eternal. Such sensations were hardly native to Aureste Belandor; some half-heard voice deep inside him squalled a feeble warning, which he ignored. If the splendor that now embraced him was illusory, he wanted the dream to continue.
His first real inkling of his own peril came with a strong, warm pressure upon his hand, and a low voice in his ear.
Aureste.
The voice rang through his mind. At first he tried to ignore it, but it did not go away, and part of him knew it for a voice that he wanted to hear.
Aureste. Come back. Come back to yourself, and to me.
He did not want to go back anywhere. He was happy where he was. But the voice was insistent, and a fragrance accompanied it, and the pressure on his hand turned into a warm touch upon his cheek.
Aureste. Will you let It defeat you?
The question drove through to his center. He drew a gasping breath, remembered who he was, mustered his strength, and reclaimed his mind.
He was himself again, although clammy with sweat and filled with uncharacteristic terror. It had owned him. Had he been alone—had Sonnetia Corvestri not called him back—he would have been lost forever. She was standing very near, gazing into his face. A few yards away, the arcanists were involved in discussion and paying no heed to the two of them.
“It’s out,” he said, resisting the impulse to embrace her. “Thank you.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.” He heard the lack of conviction in his own voice.
“But you miss It?” she guessed.
A reflexive denial died upon his lips. He considered, and recognized the internal void left by Its departure. “Perhaps,” he admitted, and wondered whether anything in the world could ever fill that void.
“I know. It was the same for me.”
The arcanists had made their decision.
“For now, we continue the search for Grix Orlazzu,” Pridisso decreed, pointing north with the air of a monarch.
They moved on, and Aureste did not note their course. It was all moist wastelands, and mists, and sameness. His attention still focused inward, in uneasy contemplation of the Other’s recent occupation of his mind, and the troubling joy that it had brought him.
“Look—over there!”
The excitement charging young Vinzille Corvestri’s voice pulled Aureste from his reverie. His eyes followed the boy’s pointing finger. Straight ahead, at no great distance, a human figure strode vigorously to and fro. It was a black-haired, bearded man, apparently of middle age, stocky of build, attired in garments of simple homespun. The length of his stride, together with his erratic gesticulations, conveyed agitation. For all of that, he walked as if limited by the walls of an invisible cell; forward a set number of steps, pause, sharp reverse, back the same number of steps, reverse again, and again, without pause and without variation. He neither slowed his pace nor evinced awareness as the party of seven approached.
“Master Orlazzu, is it?” Ojem Pridisso called out.
The stranger appeared deaf.
They drew nearer yet, and still the stranger took no notice, but marched on, mumbling to himself. Clicks and beeps underscored his discourse.
“Master Orlazzu.” Pridisso planted himself squarely in the other’s path. “We have been looking for you, sir.”
The stranger halted to survey the newcomers, who inspected him in turn. Aureste noted with some misgiving that Orlazzu’s face was neatly upholstered in fine glove leather. His hands were jointed in metal, and his eyes were formed of clearest amber glass.
“You are Master Grix Orlazzu?” Pridisso persisted.
“I am he. I am GrixPerfect, the ultimate, flawless execution of the Grix design.”
“Pardon me, sir, but are you not an automaton?” inquired Innesq Belandor.
“Indeed, I enjoy that good fortune. And you, sir? You wheel along in the midst of these organics. You possess appendages and appurtenances of moist and perishable meat, yet your lower structures are splendidly metallic. Do I address a hybrid being? Are you almost one of the elite?”
“Not exactly. Tell me, GrixPerfect, if you would be so good—are you the creation of an earlier, organic version of the Grix design?”
“So he claimed. I exceeded him by far, but perhaps it was true. Yes, I think it was true.”
“And he calls himself Grix Orlazzu?”
“He presumed to do so upon occasion, despite my reminders that he no longer enjoyed claim to that title.”
“Annoying, I would suspect.”
“He was always annoying. And unfair. And distant, very distant.”
“That must have been hard to bear. I sympathize.”
“You are a hybrid being. Perhaps we could go somewhere private and discuss our feelings.”
“That pleasure must be postponed for a little while. You see, we’ve business to conduct with your predecessor, the organic version of the Grix design. Could you please tell us where to find him? Is he somewhere near?”
Small lights flashed behind the amber eyes of GrixPerfect. Clattering tremors shook the chunky frame.
“He is dead,” announced GrixPerfect.
Aureste was startled to witness the change that came over
his brother’s face. He realized then how heavily Innesq had been counting on the recruitment of a fifth arcanist.
“You are certain?” Innesq inquired evenly.
“Beyond doubt. I killed him,” the automaton confessed. “I killed my creator.” There was no reply, and it added defensively, “I was right to do so. He treated me poorly. He abandoned me, slunk off into the mists, left me alone, and hid from me. Even then I was prepared to forgive him, for he was only a defective earlier draft, shoddily designed and constructed, of whom not much could be expected. But when I found him again and let him know that he was to have another chance, he said terrible things. He spurned my offer and rejected me. He was ungrateful, unworthy, and miserably engineered. He did not deserve to live.”
“What did you do to him?” inquired Innesq.
“I caused him to fall into a deep hole.”
“Are you certain that he is dead?”
“Yes. He lay very still and did not answer when I called to him. Organics are so flimsy, so difficult to repair, that the least mishap invariably proves fatal.”
“Not invariably. Where is your dead creator now?”
“Yonder.” The automaton pointed. “In the hole at the top of that hill. Do not trouble to seek him out. If I could not repair him, then surely you will not.”
“I trust you will not take it amiss if we try?”
“It is nothing to me. I did not mean to kill my creator. But he deserved it.”
The humans took their leave. Aureste cast a look back over his shoulder and saw that the automaton had resumed its uneasy pacing. Back and forth it strode to the limits of its invisible cell, beeping as it went.
Ten minutes of walking brought them to the summit of the rise, where they found the tumbled stone ruins of an ancient tower. At the northern end of what had once been the building’s cellar gaped an open pit. Seven or eight Wanderers had gathered there. Clumsily but methodically, they were picking up rocks and flinging them down into the hole.
SEVENTEEN
A solid company of Taerleezi soldiers ringed the Cityheart, but attack was out of the question. The outlaws occupying the building held the Deputy Governor Gorza, his family, servants, and assorted visitors hostage. An assault was certain to precipitate the wholesale slaughter of these innocents. So much had been made clear in the written communication, wrapped around a paperweight and flung from a second-story window, to land in plain sight of the soldiers stationed below. This curious document, launched under the joint signature of “The League of Faerlonnish Patriots,” and “The Free People of Roohaathk,” had offered a peculiar mixture of threats and extravagant demands.
In return for the lives of the Taerleezi hostages, and a general cessation of hostilities, the criminals demanded Faerlonnish self-government within the city of Vitrisi, together with the emancipation of all Sishmindris, who would be granted liberty to leave the city and return to their watery homes in the wild, there to live free of human molestation. The parties currently occupying the Cityheart would be permitted free exit and departure. There were to be no reprisals of any description against the citizens of Vitrisi.
The requests were absurdly excessive. The lives of a few individuals were hardly worth such large concessions. Still, an outright refusal would effectively sign the death warrant of an acting Taerleezi governor, his wife, several children, and assorted others; a responsibility that nobody was eager to assume. Indeed, it was unclear exactly who had the right or duty to assume it. Hecti Gorza had served as deputy to the late Anzi Uffrigo. Upon his superior’s assassination, he had, by established rule, stepped in to fill the vacancy until such time, if any, that the current Paramount of Taerleez might choose to appoint another man to the position. His status as new governor of Vitrisi, however, had yet to be formally confirmed. Officially, he still ranked as nothing more than a deputy; moreover, he had neglected to select a successor to his own former position. Thus, in the event of Gorza’s death or incapacitation at this particular time, the position of leadership possessed no clear claimant.
There was, of course, no dearth of legitimate Taerleezi authority. There remained the Taerleezi Executive Council, the various district supervisors and their minions, the finance director, the Paramount’s Eye, and, perhaps most significant, the General Uliole, commander of the Taerleezi garrison in Vitrisi, and highest-ranking military presence in Faerlonne. These entities were accustomed to conducting their affairs within the confines of the Cityheart complex. Now, with access so unexpectedly cut off, communication among them waxed problematic. Runners were collared and dispatched with messages to the respective residences of the various members of the Executive Council. Nearly two hours had passed before all of the councilmen could be located and summoned to an emergency meeting held in the dining hall of the council president’s own home.
Once begun, debate was prolonged and passionate, with half the membership in favor of continuing negotiations with the resistance, others eager to launch an immediate attack on the Cityheart, and a couple undecided. Tempers, already frayed, heated dramatically when the newest member of the Executive Council, the youngest man among them, observed that the arguments for or against attack were largely academic, as the Executive Council exercised no specific authority over the military. In the governor’s absence, the General Uliole would undoubtedly make his own decision.
As it happened, General Uliole had matters even more pressing than the invasion of the Cityheart to occupy his mind.
The news of the resistance/Sishmindri coup had spread through the streets of Vitrisi with supernatural speed. Almost within minutes every citizen knew that the Cityheart was controlled by Faerlonnishmen, that the acting governor was their prisoner, and that a very strong force of Taerleezi soldiers now surrounded the building. Those soldiers had been pulled away from their customary posts and occupations all about the city. Thus, many a troubled neighborhood, heavily patrolled both day and night, was now left lightly guarded, or not guarded at all.
Nowhere did the decline in the military presence draw a more immediate response than in the enclave of Roohaathk. As if by magic, doors and windows locked and barricaded for days flew open, and the Sishmindris burst forth. Likewise they boiled from holes in the ground, hidden passageways, and secret cellars. The reduced Taerleezi forces remaining within Roohaathk were both outnumbered and outmaneuvered. Unprepared for a sudden, well-organized assault, they found themselves disadvantaged, and died quickly. There were no prisoners. Surviving soldiers fled Roohaathk, and the victorious Sishmindris seized the opportunity to repair their wooden ramparts, damaged by cannon fire. Within hours the wall stood once again whole, taller and stronger than before.
The success of the Sishmindris was not lost upon their human neighbors, who took the lesson to heart. Throughout ensuing hours, while the Executive Council debated and the troops stood tensely poised for action about the Cityheart, spontaneous rioting broke out in Coppercoin Street, Anvil Square, the Eastcross, and ordinarily quiet Cistern Street. Destruction and looting of Taerleezi property raged almost unchecked. Attempted intervention by Taerleezi forces was ferociously resisted, and several soldiers died. For the moment, the citizens appeared to have lost all fear of enemy reprisal. Several Taerleezi residences scattered about the city were torched, and for a time it seemed that all Vitrisi teetered upon the brink of open rebellion. Then came the discovery that abruptly chilled Faerlonnish zeal.
A seething band of illegally armed citizens advancing along DukeDalbo Boulevard, which edged the southern boundary of the Strenvivi Gardens, found their way blocked by a Pocket where none had existed before. The unexpected patch of impossibility might be new or, more likely, it was a very recent expansion of that classic first among Permanents—the Pocket known as Blind Panic, which had long smothered a broad swath of the gardens.
The group included no Plungers. Not a soul present wished to advance straight through the Pocket. Best by far to circumvent it. Accordingly the group veered westward, fully confident o
f finding a path around by way of The Pipers.
Here again, they were disappointed, for The Pipers too had vanished into a Pocket. The notes of the resident musicians had been stilled. If human life continued within the neighborhood, it now did so incommunicado.
Another new Pocket? Another expansion?
Two or three citizens blessed with a good sense of geography recalled that the recently acknowledged permanent Pocket known as “Ultimate Tantrum” sprawled but a little way to the west of Blind Panic. The inference was clear, and ominous: The concurrent growth of Ultimate Tantrum and Blind Panic had culminated in convergence, causing the two Pockets to merge into one, now covering considerable territory.
Still determined to skirt the uncanny obstacle, the citizens continued moving west, on toward Chimney Lane, where they discovered the joining of Ultimate Tantrum/Blind Panic and a much-expanded Little Red Crazy.
The product of the triple union was a Pocket of gigantic proportions, far larger than any ever before seen. Its interior was dim and distorted, as if viewed through a clouded lens of irregular curvature, held in a palsied hand. Visible within were the moving figures of numerous Wanderers. There were scores of them at the very least; perhaps hundreds. The deceptive quality of the light precluded quantification, but certainly there were more of the undead walking within the Pocket than had ever before been seen assembled.
Many of them had linked hands—a gesture uncommon among the undead. Their pace was stiff-jointed and dragging, but their progress was perceptible and somehow purposeful. The Wanderers were moving east, toward the harbor. As they progressed, the boundaries of the great Pocket flowed and widened before them. Presumably it was by this agency that Blind Panic, Ultimate Tantrum, and Little Red Crazy had been caused to merge. Beyond doubt, additional Pockets would be similarly consolidated.
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