She touched the girl on the shoulder.
"He could be a threat to us," she said with a smile. "Better to take no chances."
Leona merely nodded in reply.
There was another splash, and without turning her gaze from the girl, Patrice raised her hand. A slash of light snapped out; the water foamed and tumbled, stained red with blood.
"Like that," Patrice said quietly, and walked away.
"Over there," Leti cried, her voice trembling with relief. "They did it," Shigeru roared. "I knew they would."
After Regensburg, his last mission in Europe, Mark could remember such a moment--with two engines out, and fuel nothing more than vapor, he had cleared the cliffs of Dover and finally saw the landing field ahead. It felt the same now. There were no engines this time, but exhaustion had taken him to the limits of endurance and beyond. To splash down would have been useless, for he'd still have to swim on the surface, draining his strength further, and to go below the water would require concentrating on shields. If they didn't have something to land on, further flight would be impossible.
Now there was a place to land and rest, thanks to the ladultas. Dozens of the creatures were slashing about on the surface, and in the middle of their circle was a roughly piled assembly of planks, boards, and fragments of wreckage. It wasn't much, but at least it was a place to lay down and sleep.
Dropping out of the sky, Mark winged over the raft and saw ladultas pressing in on the sides and from underneath to keep the platform afloat. He touched down lightly and felt the boards bucking and swaying. One by one, his comrades winged in to land. More and more ladultas appeared, pushing up against the raft, keeping it above the water.
"They're amazing, just amazing," Ikawa whispered in awe.
Walker looked nervously around, lying stretched out on a plank that rose and fell with the waves.
"Just hope I don't puke," he groaned. An instant later his loud snores echoed across the water.
"Wish I had something to eat first," Shigeru moaned.
"Always your stomach first," Ikawa sighed, but he could not help but agree.
"Captain, look!" Saito cried, pointing to the edge of the raft.
A ladulta appeared, holding a kicking putta in its mouth. Shigeru took the proffered fish and tenderly patted the ladulta on its flank.
"It said they're getting more fish right now." Shigeru grinned. Reaching into his tunic, he pulled out a knife, quickly cleaned the fish, and sliced off a long strip of golden flesh.
"Care for some, Captain Phillips?" he said with a weary smile.
Hunger finally winning out, Mark took the strip and tentatively tried it, while the other Americans watched him suspiciously.
"Not bad," Mark said, to his own surprise. "You all better eat. We need our strength to push on."
"Captain, I'm picking up someone coming in from the west," Kochanski announced, coming to his feet.
Mark looked up and turned to scan westward. Kochanski never ceased to amaze him with his special ability, which now even seemed to outstrip Leti's.
"I've got it, too," Leti said quietly, wearily standing.
"Get ready--it could be her." Trembling with exhaustion, Ikawa started to rise into the air.
"Jesus Christ," Kochanski whispered. "If it's her, I think our shit is cooked."
"It's Tulana," Leti cried with a smile.
Mark could now see half a dozen forms cutting so low across the ocean that they rose and fell with the rolling sea.
The forms grew larger, coming on hard.
"Damn that bitch's hide to hell!" Tulana's voice boomed as he drew in to hover above the raft.
This was a different man than the one Mark had seen less than ten days before. His eyes were livid with rage, his features purple, as if every vein in his face was about to burst.
"Why in the name of the gods did she do this?" Tulana screamed. "I found the wreckage of my city just over the horizon, and ninety percent of my people were dead. Damn her, I'll draw the bones out of her living body, I will. My ladulta tell me she destroyed Valna as well--nearly four thousand dead."
He looked at Leti, as if hoping against hope that the underwater messages were mistaken.
She could only nod sadly.
Tears of rage clouded Tulana's eyes. "Why?" he asked hoarsely.
Quickly she explained all that had happened, and his features grew pale.
"She's mad," he whispered; and the sorcerers who had accompanied him looked to each other with fear and confusion.
"We need to get a message back to Asmara at once," Leti said, "but she's jamming our communications crystals."
"I noticed that, it started yesterday," Tulana said thoughtfully. "The Cresus had moved again. I had Cloud Dancer two hundred miles west of what was left of my city"--he pointed vaguely back to the horizon--"when I lost contact with my capital. Thought it was the atmosphere or some such thing. Then I caught a garbled distress call and nothing more."
"I've been trying to save some of my people all night. The ladulta told me you were coming up, so I waited here till dawn, hoping I could rescue some more victims and then link up with you and get some answers."
"If she wants a war, she has one," Tulana finished darkly.
"We've got to get back to Asmara and organize," Leti said. "Once she's home, I think she'll open a portal that we will not be able to contain."
"She's halfway back already," Tulana told her.
"How do you know that?" Mark asked.
"A ladulta died to find out for me. Damn it, she murdered him. His mate called the news up to us; it came in just as I got word that you had landed out here." Mark felt a ripple of anxiety, and Tulana shook his head.
"Sul's with the ship. They've got their blood up, I've never seen them this mad before. In my realm, to kill a ladulta is a capital crime. They've never had anything like this happen to them before."
"It's still a capital crime," and as Tulana spoke, the ladulta circling the raft started a bone-chilling chant.
"Can you people fly another hour?" the prince asked. "Cloud Dancer's closing in from the west. Once we land on it, we could come about and get another hundred and fifty miles closer to the coast while you rest."
"We could try," Mark replied, feeling for the first time in two days that perhaps they might have a chance after all.
Mark woke from a dreamless, exhausted sleep to see Leti kneeling beside him.
"Time to move," Leti whispered, smiling wanly at him.
Mark could not help but notice that she had seemed to age overnight. Her features were drawn, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot from exhaustion and fear. Standing, she stepped to Walker's side and gently touched him on the shoulder.
Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Mark stepped out of the cabin he had been sharing with Walker and Kochanski, and climbed the ladder onto the windswept deck. Ikawa was already awake, looking toward the sun which now hung low on the western horizon.
"Sleep well?" Ikawa asked, holding out a flask of wine. Mark took a mouthful, swished it around, and spat it over the railing.
"I could sleep for a week," he said.
"When this is over with," Ikawa replied, trying to smile.
"It always seems that there's a next time, though. On Earth there never seemed to be enough time just to sleep. Then the war of Sarnak, and now this. Damn it, can't we just have peace?"
"You have to play the cards life deals you, unfortunately," Ikawa said quietly.
The response caught Mark off guard. Yet as he thought, he knew that it was moments such as this that somehow gave a purpose beyond life itself. He still did not know what had happened to Allic, to Jartan, and to Storm. Was she still alive, or was this action of Patrice's tied into a far broader plan which in a matter of days could spell his doom and the end of all he had so come to love? Never had her love for him seemed so precious. If only he could be with her, he thought wistfully. If only he was sure he would see her again.
"The samurai understands th
e intertwining of life, of death, of peace and war, and how one does not exist without the other," Ikawa whispered. "Chances are we have already lost. Tulana just told me that the ladulta say she has almost reached the mainland. We will not be there for another day."
Mark could not respond.
"Yet we still have this moment," Ikawa continued, "and we will still try."
"And if we lose?"
"Then it is all gone--this world, this beautiful world which I love now far more than where we came from. Knowing the evil we are about to face has made me love this place far more than I could ever have imagined, because I realize how fragile it truly is. I think I understand how the gods who created this must feel, why Jartan will die himself to protect it. Because if it was never threatened, we would not know how precious it truly is. Your Norsemen knew this in the Dark Ages, when even Valhalla would have its final day, and thus the moments of goodness were all the more precious. If we understand that, then how precious those whom we love and call our friends truly are. And how terrible the burden we now carry to protect it for others, even if it means that we shall die and never know its pleasures again."
Ikawa looked over at Mark as if suddenly embarrassed.
"We better get the men ready to move out," he said evenly.
Unable to reply, Mark smiled. Their gaze held for a moment in mutual understanding.
The rest of the men came up from below, some cursing and groaning, others quiet, all with anger in their eyes as Tulana broke the news that Patrice was even now reaching the mainland.
"Well damn it, let's get some flying done," Walker said, rising into the air.
Together, the group ascended into the afternoon sky, Leti and Tulana in the lead. Turning westward, they disappeared into the clouds.
"Just what the hell am I going to do now?" Allic muttered to himself, peering up over the lip of the cave where he had remained hidden for the last two days.
The fortress was aswarm with Gorgon's minions. Where they had come from he had no idea. They must have remained hidden on another part of the world and come back.
The attack had been brutal and stunningly swift. Half of his garrison gone under the swarm of the first overpowering strike. There was nothing to do but run and hide.
He looked at the rest of his men. Dejected, they sat huddled in the darkness. He could hear the rasping wheezing of their breath.
There'd been no water since this morning. The filters on their masks had long since clogged and become next to useless.
His fantasies floated now between the nightmare bodies and a cold glass of water--it wasn't even wine anymore or brandy, it was simply water. There was nothing here at all to work with, nothing he could coax and change with his powers into something they could drink. Perhaps Jartan could have pulled it off, but where the hell was he?
"My lord."
Allic looked back.
"Edwinna's dead."
He looked into the shadows where a sorcerer sat, still cradling the woman's head in his lap.
There was nothing Allic could have done to save her. He had drained what little strength he had left into her, but the horrifying burns had simply been too much for him to master. In another time, another place it could have been done all so simply--but not here.
He cursed silently at his impotence.
A shadow winged through the blood-red sky, and he froze.
The demons were still looking for them. Yet it was not those searches from above that worried him. As long as they kept their shields off and hid in the cave, they would be safe; the landscape was a massive catacomb of such warrens. Yet there were other searches as well.
Cautiously peering over the rim again, he saw a team attempting one.
A demon stood on a low rise not half a mile away. Beside it was one of the nightmare perversions of humanity, a man with four legs, but no arms. Its head was bent low to the ground; then it rose, hesitated, and turned to one side. The creature moved into a hollow and disappeared from view, the demon following behind it.
It had taken Allic a while to realize that the creature was trying to find them by scent. Ever so gradually, the demon--and their monstrous slaves--would close the circle around them, flushing the sorcerers into the air where the finish would be short and deadly.
Allic slid back into the darkness of the cave.
What would kill them first--the demons, or the lack of water?
Jartan must know by now what had happened. What the hell was delaying him?
At the moment, Allic almost didn't care. They were going to die, and when the time came, he would lead one last sortie and take some of Gorgon's minions with him.
Chapter 14
An inner thrill of warning coursed through Patrice's mind, but her plot was now too far along for caution. Yet his presence was almost soothing; gentle in visage, and so carefully crafted in its seductiveness.
"I sense fear," Gorgon said quietly.
"If we should fail," Patrice replied, almost too quickly, to cover her misgivings.
His laughter echoed through the empty chamber. "We fail? Together we shall rule Haven."
"Yet I turn now even against the gods."
Even Patrice was amazed at her own indecisiveness. She had been divorced from the circle of gods since the Great War, and they in turn had ignored her. Now they would know the folly of their slights.... Yet still there was that sense of fear.
"The gods," Gorgon laughed, his voice like that of a delighted child pulling a prank on unsuspecting elders. "What are they? Why are they known as gods? Because they stole Haven from the Old Ones and abrogated the power unto themselves. We and they are cut from the same cloth."
"Yet they are gods."
"And you shall be a goddess. My goddess and consort."
Patrice hesitated. "But they are immortal, and even a demigod like myself will know age in the end."
Gorgon's laughter echoed through the night. "I shall make you immortal also."
Incredulous, she looked at him.
"Can I not steal souls bound for the Sea of Chaos and bend them to my bidding? If I have such power over death, then know that you, too, shall be immortal when my hand stretches across Haven."
His image pulsed and glowed, shaping and reshaping, hovering for a moment as a seductive woman/child, then as a man, then as a strange shaping of the two, which held Patrice spellbound.
"It is but a small matter," Gorgon whispered. "Remember, you now hold the Crystals of Fire, except for the Heart the most coveted of Jartan's gems."
"Jartan?" Patrice asked. "Where is he now?"
The image of Gorgon rose high in the pillar of fire.
"He has taken much that is mine," the demon lord boomed. "Thousands of my servants, a score of my lords have fallen into the Sea of Chaos by his hands. Even now his forces storm the very gates of my inner realm. Yet he has paid as well, for by my hand even Minar was injured. I have slain their sons and daughters, their children's children, and their host of followers."
Patrice could sense the rage in his voice and knew that Jartan and Minar had dealt Gorgon a severe setback, despite of the cost he'd exacted.
"Yet it shall be as nothing," Gorgon went on, dropping into a thin pulsing flame. "For when my servants have passed through to your realm, the work shall begin. With Horat's Portal crystal, I will be able to break through the barriers and step into Haven, making it ours. Jartan and Minar know not the threat. Already we have slipped past them, destroying the portals back to this world. It will take them days to cut their way back here--and by then it wiil be too late."
"It is time we begin," Gorgon whispered soothingly.
Patrice looked at him, her features fixed in a smile. How long she had planned for this moment, she could no longer recall. She could not even say when the turning away had first begun; how many countless nights she had savored the anticipation of this moment, though her heart had stayed her. Could it be that the mere anticipation had kept her alive, kept her dreaming and plotting?
She watched him closely, and the clarity of thought returned. He would try to destroy her in the end, she knew. Could she ever control him?
"You are not afraid of me, are you?" Gorgon purred, and again his voice was like that of a young woman's.
A dark smile flickered across her mouth. No; she could control even him--or it--or whatever it was that floated before her.
When his work here was done she would bend him to her will, or drive him back into the darkness. It had gone too far already, she realized. She had taken action which would force Jartan to strike her--if he returned--and that thought filled her with a sudden edge of fear and at last pushed the caution aside.
"Afraid of you?" she whispered. "I fear nothing."
Her right hand pointed downward, and the dark portal crystal by her feet flared into brilliance.
The portal widened, deepened, pulsing bright red. Shafts of light snapped past her, so that the room appeared to be engulfed in an inferno. From out of the flame five forms drifted upward, their taloned wings beating darkly against the light.
Arcing outward, they spiraled down to land by her side, their coal-black eyes like pits of eternal night.
"Your servants," a demon lord growled, bowing.
"Then begin your work," Patrice said coldly, stepping back from the pentagram.
Forming a circle around the pillar of light, they raised their winged arms, their cries renting the air.
Then one by one, from out of the light, yet more appeared, broadening the circle, drawing out the legion of their warriors and magic users, and preparing for the arrival of their master.
Exhausted, Patrice turned away, and a gentle laughter washed over the room. She looked back to see the image of Gorgon, still barred from her realm by the power of the Essence laid down so long ago. But here at last she was cracking the final barrier, and she could see the lust of anticipation in his eyes. He looked over at her and smiled again, the smile of an innocent child. She smiled back to him, the smile of an innocent woman.
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