The Wanderers

by Paula Brandon

  He still had Innesq. Safe again.

  His observations widened, and he grew aware that the sounds overhead had altered. The undead voices had faded. The frenzied hammering upon the great stone had ceased. Yet he still heard a distant drone, and still caught the echo of scraping and thudding. The Wanderers had not abandoned their labors.

  No matter. The barrier was impassable; they could do nothing.

  The arcanists were ready to resume. Once again they formed their circle, and joined their hands. Once again their bodies seemed to turn to stone. Their eyes and faces emptied, while their voices rose and blended in compelling harmony.

  The voices went on and on, and at last Aureste noticed that this second attempt proceeded far more slowly than the first. Perhaps the disruption had cost the adepts some measure of their initial force. Perhaps they would find themselves constrained to swallow more of those lozenges after all, thereby risking sickness or madness.

  And failure.

  The minutes passed. The voices rose and fell. Where was that point of light, that glowing column?

  And then, yes, there it was—a tiny speck of glow pulsing at the center of the circle; not quite so sharply brilliant as it had appeared the first time around, but definitely present, and no doubt responsive to arcane nurturing.

  The voices rolled on, fused into one Voice, and the spark glowed with visibly increasing strength. The globe reappeared, followed by the disk, which reared itself into the whirling column, its radiance marred with bands, veins, and pools of shadow.

  The miniature image of the Source did not seem exactly the same as it had been, or perhaps he spied details that had escaped him upon previous viewing. He now perceived that the velocity of its rotation varied. At times it whirled at a rapid, steady rate; but often it spun in irregular fits and starts. Sometimes it decelerated to a sluggish, drunken spin, and sometimes slowed to the verge of a halt. If anything, the areas of shadow were more pronounced than he had realized. Taken altogether, they darkened nearly half the column.

  The brilliance of the image intensified. The voices of the arcanists halted.

  Into the sudden silence filtered the sounds from above; a dogged, repetitive succession of thumps, thuds, and scrapes, echoing along the shaft. The Wanderers were still at work, but it didn’t matter. They couldn’t get in, and the arcanists’ work proceeded apace.

  Perhaps his perceptions were shared by the Overmind, which chose the moment to launch another assault. It was as strong and intense as the last such attempt, or perhaps more so, but this time there was a difference. He seemed somehow to gain a clearer sense of the enemy’s perceptions, which now translated themselves into sensations sometimes comprehensible to the human mind; much as the ineffable Source presented itself to human arcanists in the form of an intelligible image. He caught the heightened sense of Its resolve, and Its presence within his mind now granted him understanding of the Wanderers’ activity above. In a sense, he could see them; even, in brief flashes, see through their dead eyes.

  They had abandoned their futile efforts to dislodge the immovable stone in favor of circumvention. Now they dug like meechers, tunneling under the huge barrier to reach the wall of the entry shaft. They need only break through, and they would be into Orlazzu’s shelter.

  The wall was stone and recent mortar. What chance had these clumsy remnants of breaching it before the arcanists completed their work?

  Another unwanted vision. He was one with the undead, who used all the substance of their decaying bodies to defeat the final obstacle. He saw hands grey as clay, digging tirelessly; lifeless hands flinging dirt and rocks aside, broken fingernails scrabbling at the dead roots and live soil-wrigglers, hands working until the dead skin and flesh peeled away from the white bones, and still the skeletal hands kept working, until the bones themselves gave way; whereupon other hands appeared and took their place. And never for a moment did the swift labor pause or even slacken.

  They had reached the wall of the shaft, which ought to be strong enough to keep them out; for long enough, at least.

  A new sound close at hand reached him, even where he crouched in the deep recesses of his own mind; reached him, and called him back. Warily he allowed his awareness to surface, looked around and flinched away from the light, glaring at the center of the arcanists’ circle. He blinked hard two or three times, rubbed his eyes, and opened them to see Sonnetia on her feet, stumbling toward her son and calling out his name.

  She moved clumsily, as if unfamiliar with her own body. And the low, beautifully modulated voice that he loved was unrecognizable; at once her own and something unimaginable, resonating across vast distances. He saw that the Other had taken her, and grief smote him, but not despair, for he knew that she could be called back. It had happened before; he could bring her back. But for a moment he neither touched nor addressed her, but stood staring in wonder.

  For the reverberant syllables that spilled from her lips expressed the Overmind, yet for the first time, they issued in the language of humankind. He could understand them.

  “Vinzille—Vinzille—Vinzille,” called Sonnetia/Other, presumably in the belief that she addressed the arcanist most likely to respond to the sound of her voice, altered though it was. “Stop—now—stop. The Whole will be broken—Unity shattered—Beauty destroyed. Chaos continues—madness—darkness—evil. Stop—now. Vinzille.”

  She was lurching toward her son, both hands outstretched, clearly intent on dragging him from the circle. At the very least, she would break his concentration. Aureste shook off his own paralysis and grabbed her. At once she tried to shove him away, and all but succeeded, for her strength was unnatural, although not to be compared with Yvenza’s. Clamping his arms around her, he hung on. But her struggles were furious, her intolerable hybrid voice continued its outcry, and it flashed across his mind that this was some demonic mockery of all his countless dreams of holding her.

  She was uncontrollable and uncontainable; therefore he did the unthinkable. Loosing his grip, he doubled his fist and struck her jaw a blow that sent her to the floor. She lay still, eyes closed, and he did not allow the flood of painful remorse to swamp his thoughts. Not now.

  Had the struggle in their midst shaken the arcanists’ focus? He glanced at them and caught a brief glimpse of five still faces, wide-eyed but unseeing, wholly unconscious of the physical world. But he had to look away quickly, for the brilliance they had called into being was unendurable. It was quiet again, as if those about him slept, with only the ceaseless revolution of the light, and a certain electricity of atmosphere to suggest the invisible working of gigantic forces. For all practical purposes, he was alone.

  But it was not entirely quiet. The beating, scrabbling, and scraping at the wall of the entry shaft had never ceased. Now the sounds were louder and closer. Even as he watched, a rain of grit and bits, wrapped in a pallid cloud of dust, tumbled down into the shelter. Aureste approached. He discovered a spread of broken mortar, chips and small chunks, suggesting dangerous progress.

  But how swift the Wanderers’ progress, compared with that of the arcanists?

  The five of them must be nearing completion. They seemed to have been at it for centuries; surely they would be finished soon. Perhaps no further action was required.

  A stone plummeted from above, hitting the floor at his feet. Aureste looked up. Near the head of the shaft, a small hole had appeared in the wall. Through the hole thrust a fleshless grey hand.

  So they had done it; they had broken through. With the aid of rocks clutched in undead hands, they would quickly enlarge that hole. Within minutes they would come piling down the shaft, and they would make short work of the defenseless arcanists.

  Not entirely defenseless. He himself would have to protect the five—the six—until such time as their work was complete, and they all regained their senses. However long that might take.

  He would stand at the bottom of the shaft and dispatch each Wanderer as it descended. His hand strayed to the
dagger at his belt, the blade that had killed Yvenza. Not much good against the undead. A sword was little better. He remembered his combat with the plaguey guard Drocco at Belandor House. He had learned then that the answer lay in simple, brute force. A Wanderer was best stopped by breaking its legs to keep it from walking. He had used a poker to do it. There was no poker here, but the iron rod that Yvenza had used as an instrument of attempted murder still lay where it had fallen. Retrieving the rod, he returned to his position at the bottom of the shaft. Blows resounded overhead. Bits of broken mortar pattered down. A second stone fell from the wall.

  The tranced adepts saw nothing, heard nothing. Aureste shifted his grip on the bar, and his mind flew back to the encounter with Drocco. He remembered the difficulty of disabling the dead man—in the end, Innesq’s skills had been required—and the magnitude of his own folly dawned on him. Should a succession of Wanderers gain entry, he would not be able to defend his brother and the others. While he busied himself smashing the bones of one or two, another would reach the arcanists. The intervention of a single Wanderer would suffice to break the circle, this time permanently. Once they got in, nothing would stop them.

  They wouldn’t get in, then. The entrance they had made could only be effectively blocked at its point of origin—outside, at surface level.

  Outside he must go.

  Armed with nothing better than an iron rod and a knife? Pitiful … But there was another weapon present, powerful as he could wish, more powerful than anything he had ever wielded—assuming that Orlazzu’s description had been truthful.

  Crossing to the crate at the foot of the pallet, he knelt, took up the flask of liquid lightning, and slipped it into his pocket. He rose, thrust the iron rod through his belt, returned to the shaft, set his hand to one of the rungs in the wall, then paused to glance back.

  Behind him, the arcanists’ circle stood motionless and unbroken. At its center the image of the Source pulsed, and it may have been a trick of his vision, but it seemed to him that the shadows marring its radiance had taken on an independent life of their own, now crawling and slithering like dark serpents along the curve of the column. He blinked and looked away, his gaze seeking out Sonnetia. She was conscious and trying to sit up. Her eyes turned toward him, and they were aware. Her lips framed the syllables of his name. One moment longer he let himself look, then started climbing toward the top of the shaft.

  NINETEEN

  As he passed the hole in the wall, a decomposing hand reached out, palm up. Drawing his dagger, he slashed the offered wrist, slicing through tendons and muscle. The hand went limp, and withdrew. So far, so good.

  The underside of the great stone loomed above, and he could only pray that Orlazzu did not employ some overly clever means of egress. But no. Before him, at eye level, a lever jutted from the wall. He depressed it, and the massive door swiveled silently on its central axis. Aureste sprang forth from the shaft with the energy of a young man. Drawing the iron rod from his belt, he cast a look around him, and his breath caught.

  There must have been two dozen of them at least, probably more; too many to count at a glance—a dreadful and pathetic assemblage of undead men, women, indeterminates, and children. There were animals there as well. He spied three large dogs, a desiccated cat, several meechers, and something that might once have been a giant rat. He had seen such things often in recent weeks, and should by now have grown inured to the sight of decomposing features, filmy eyes, and peeling flesh—but he had not. Nor had he grown used to the stench of decay that wafted from their bodies. The breeze carried it to him now, and he all but gagged.

  Most of them were crouched around the entrance, digging busily. They had flung aside large quantities of soil to uncover portions of the shaft’s stone wall; and in one spot, as he knew, they had already broken through. His eyes shot to the breach in the wall, where a pair of undead men knelt, gripping rocks and methodically chipping mortar.

  Aureste stooped like a falcon. Conquering his revulsion, he seized one of the workers, flung him back from the hole, raised the iron club, and brought it crashing down to shatter an undead forearm. The second worker received identical treatment. Neither of them would dig any farther.

  Behind him, the great stone swung noiselessly shut, as Orlazzu had no doubt engineered it to do. Fortunate that the undead were so slow and sluggish—they had missed their fleeting opportunity to swarm on down the shaft, and now the way was again closed to them.

  Closed to you, too. The thought arose unbidden—an obvious truth, no surprise, yet shocking. The door could be opened from the outside. He had seen that for himself, but he did not know how Orlazzu had done it. He could not go back.

  He did not need to. He need only hold them off for a very little while, and all would be well. The Magnifico Aureste was equal to the task.

  He planted himself before the breach, and a curious exhilaration fired his blood.

  For the first few moments, they seemed to regard him as more a physical obstacle than an active opponent. Several among them simply attempted to move around him to reach the wall and resume the interrupted demolition. These initial few he dealt with summarily, plying his weapon to break legs and arms, incapacitating three Wanderers in quick succession. Thereafter the undead waxed cautious, withdrawing beyond range to observe him. Moments later, five of them launched a concerted attack.

  The next few minutes were a blur of flying iron and flailing limbs. Aureste laid about him with vigor, smashing kneecaps, breaking ankles, shattering wrists, and sometimes splitting skulls—although this last recourse was futile. A Wanderer was capable of functioning with a broken head, or with no head at all. Had he confronted live human beings, he could never have accomplished so much. But the undead, slow and rust-jointed, were easy to hit, albeit all but impossible to destroy.

  Three of them he truly disabled, breaking knees and wrists; the other two, he managed to cripple, and a savage delight awoke in him. But he found that his heart was racing, his breathing heavy, and his shoulders starting to ache, and there were still so many of them left.

  How many minutes had passed?

  When another group of four armed with rocks came against him, it was harder to swing the iron, which was growing heavier. It was much harder to turn and twist, striking out at four adversaries so quickly that all seemed to receive strokes simultaneously. Harder by the moment, but for a time, he did it, and two more Wanderers ceased Wandering.

  The sweat was pouring down his face now, and he was gasping for breath. Even so, he had managed to maintain an almost unbroken wall of flying iron, and no enemy had been able to touch him. This might have continued, had not an undead child—a lad of six or seven, naked but for a once brightly colored kerchief knotted around his neck—proved wiser than his elders, and flung a stone from a safe distance.

  The child’s movement was awkward, but his aim was good. The missile struck Aureste’s forehead, and blood began to flow. Aureste loosed a startled curse. For a moment the world swam, then righted itself.

  The force that animated the undead was evidently capable of learning by example. All functioning Wanderers now stooped, scooped up rocks, stood, and threw. The speeding stones smashed into Aureste’s limbs and torso. One slammed his ribs, and a flare of astonishing red pain followed. For a moment he could not breathe, and he knew that his rib must be broken, but a broken rib was not enough to stop him. For the first time since the battle began, it occurred to the Magnifico Aureste that he was about to die, and it was an outrage. He was not ready to go. He snarled, raised his weapon, charged his enemies, broke a skeletal leg or two, and experienced the distinct satisfaction of shattering the arm of the boy with the kerchief.

  The brief flash of energy was soon spent. His rib ached fiercely, and a great weariness was overtaking him. The iron rod seemed to increase in weight from second to second; it was becoming difficult to lift it.

  And there were still so many of them left, and the stones were whizzing again, coming too thi
ck and fast to dodge. One struck his chest with a force that he thought must stop his heart. Another grazed his head in passing, and the world reeled again. He found himself down on his knees, the Wanderers converging upon him, and mustered the will to force himself to his feet. But even as he rose, one of the undead dogs, which in life had been a great mastiff, reared up and seized his left arm in its jaws, teeth driving through layers of wool to sink into his flesh. Pain called forth the last of his strength. A cracking blow of the iron rod broke the mastiff’s jaw. Its grip on his arm loosened and he tore himself free. A Wanderer of uncertain gender was lurching toward the breach in the wall. He broke both its knees, and it fell.

  Aureste wavered. Blood soaked his arm, welled from countless lacerations, trickled from his forehead into one eye. He wiped the blood away. A wave of sick exhaustion assailed him, and he fought it off.

  How many minutes?

  Another group was shambling toward him, these armed with sticks and stones, and now he must have grown as slow and clumsy as they, for he could neither evade nor parry the great sweep of a heavy wooden staff that caught him solidly athwart the ribs, provoking a roar of pain. At the same moment another of the dogs—a rough-coated, wolfish creature with white bones showing through the rents in its flesh—surged forward to slash his right arm from elbow to wrist. The iron rod dropped from his grasp. As he stooped to retrieve it, the dog launched itself clumsily at his throat. Instinctively he drew his dagger left-handed and plunged the blade into the animal’s side—to no discernible effect.

  The momentum of the dog’s attack hurled him to the ground. For a moment he lay on his back, undead canine weight pressing his chest, intact canine fangs driving at his throat. A second dagger stroke deflected the attack. Arching his back, he threw the animal aside and sat up. His right hand groped for the iron rod and found it. The hand, soaked in blood streaming from his slashed arm, barely functioned. He willed it to close on the weapon. Gathering his legs under him, he braced the rod against the stony ground, and began to drag himself to his feet.