Omega point rak-2

by Guy Haley

  "That's cold," said Richards. "Your people are dying in droves."

  "Rather unfortunate, that. Still, means there won't be much opposition when I take over the Wood, will there? With Lord Penumbra's blessing, of course."

  "You stupid rodent," said Richards. "He's tricked you into fighting his war for him."

  Hedgehog smiled. "I have never lost a battle. As long as there has been an army of the Magic Wood there has been a Lord High Commander Hedgehog, and as long as that has been so, there have been no defeats. This battle tortoise, Roger, he was my father's mount, before that my grandfather's, my great great-grandfather's. He has never witnessed a battle in which he was not upon the winning side. How else do you think he can remain so phlegmatic, eh? I have two hundred years of victory at my back and you, some man, tell me I am wrong? Pfah! Let the whole of the Earth thunder to the tramping of iron-shod paws, for I will rule it all!" Hedgehog cackled maniacally. Two hedgehogs stepped forward. "Now I'm going to kill you. Make him kneel." The hedgehogs forced Richards down. The Lord High Commander stepped forward and loomed over Richards. "Any last words?" He unhitched his lightning-pistol.

  "I'm not going to beg," said Richards.

  "I am not so crass as to expect begging!" scoffed the hedgehog. "I was rather hoping for some brave witticism. Stiff upper lip and all, wot? Pity."

  "You're making a terrible mistake."

  "Yes, yes," said the hedgehog. "Goodbye."

  Richards stared down the crystal at the end of the gun.

  "Balls," he said, and screwed his eyes tight. No shot came. Roger let out a croak of fear like tearing paper and reared up. There was a sound of the snapping of chain and the wrenching of metal. The howdah broke into pieces as it came free of Roger's shell, scattering hedgehogs and pitching Richards to the blackened ground. He rolled to avoid the tortoise's foot as Roger ran at some speed away from the source of his horror, squashing two of Hedgehog's bodyguards flat and leaving them oozing in the dust. The rest of Hedgehog's guard picked themselves up, faltered and followed the tortoise.

  Richards looked behind him, and his own heart froze. Over the prone body of Lord High Commander Hedgehog was Lord Penumbra.

  Penumbra sat atop a beast that was half-horse, half-dragon. It pawed at the earth with clawed hoofs. Its skin was a coat of scales, its face a snarl of night-black violence, its eyes those of a cat, its tail a serpent's head. It radiated a deep chill, pinning Richards' breath to the air in clouds of frost. Black vapours curled around it, stealing the light away. Penumbra himself was nebulous and black, his form clad in shadow and armour of jet.

  The battlefield grew quiet, sound stymied in Penumbra's presence. The sky roiled with the storm of the world-death.

  "Hedgehog!" rang out a sepulchral voice. "Hedgehog! I come with your reward! Rule in my name! Death shall be thy kingdom!"

  Richards could not look directly at Penumbra, try as he might. His bright darkness blinded him.

  "N-no, my lord!" said Hedgehog. "We have an arrangement!" He shook. No longer the proud warlord, he was now just a big fat rodent in a complicated tin suit.

  "Death!" bellowed Penumbra. His mount reared, its whinnying the end of flowers. "Death! Low field-beast, you would seek to deal with me? Where is your honour, where is your side of the bargain? Where is Queen Isabella?" He roared, a long sound of discordant ferocity. "Fool!"

  "No, no!" squealed Hedgehog, falling to his knees. "Please! I looked, I tried!"

  Penumbra drew a pillar of black flame as he would a sword. His arm extended, distorted like a shadow, the weapon stretching impossibly towards the hedgehog. A shaft of blackness struck out from it, piercing Hedgehog's chest.

  Hedgehog ceased to be. Shadow became light and light shadow. He became a negative of sooty grains. Hedgehog dissipated, pulled into the sword, his thin scream remaining in the air, the scream all small animals make in pain, nothing more.

  Richards felt his stomach turn to water as Penumbra's faceplate swivelled toward him. "And now you. You and your ilk are a blight on this land."

  The shadow-blade extended out, its tip burning Richards with its cold. As it came, reality warped around it, and Richards was struck by a thought. Well, two thoughts.

  The first was that reality was warping around the blade, turning glassy and spinning off sub-universes that popped like soap bubbles on the charred grass.

  Secondly, Richards could not hear k52's Gridsignature at all.

  His eyes narrowed.

  Something came swiftly from the left. There was a roar, the sound of metal hitting metal. The ground heaved. Richards' chest went tight as Tarquin turned to stone. He fell up into the air, and came back down. He found himself lying in a smoking crater, soil pattering off him. His vision swam. An iron monster reached down with long claws to pluck the last of his life from him.

  That was all his facsimiled mind could take.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Valley

  A squeaking accompanied by a grinding penetrated the fog in Richards' mind. He decided he found it annoying, but his irritation was quickly forgotten as sensation returned to him. He hurt all over. His arm was a mass of painful throbbing. He lay there, not daring to move, eyes shut until a jolt through whatever he lay on brought more pain and caused them to jump open.

  He pulled himself onto his elbows and tried not to whimper.

  He was on a pump wagon. Bear stood at one end of the mechanism, methodically pushing it up and down with one paw, struggling out of his armour as he did so.

  "He's awake," said Tarquin.

  "You're back!" shouted Bear, his voice muffled by the armour. He wrenched it over his head, and tossed it overboard. "Damn uncomfortable that was. Who ever heard of a bear in armour? Ridiculous. But I'm keeping these." He held up a paw encased in a heavy gauntlet. There was a rasp of metal, and four blades popped out of the back of it. "Good, eh?" said Bear. "They're a lot sharper than my own, and now I need never worry about breaking a nail in a fight."

  Richards tried to sit up.

  "Steady, sunshine!" said Bear, and the squeaking slowed. "Don't do anything silly."

  Richards looked over the side of the pump wagon, which appeared to be flying through the air.

  "We're on the bridge between the plateau and the Magic Wood. You don't want to fall," said Tarquin. There were clouds below them.

  "Thought we'd lost you back there, sunshine," said Bear. "It all got a bit hairy. No one escaped. They were cut down to a squirrel."

  "I don't believe this," said Richards and lay back down. "Why me?"

  "Don't be like that. I got us out of there, didn't I?" said Bear.

  Richards sat up properly. His chest hurt like hell.

  "Shrapnel wound. A scratch, so don't worry," said Bear. It had been expertly stitched. "Like that? That's my work. As was finding this pump wagon at Last Station. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch this bear! I figured we'd head west. Did I do good?"

  "You did good," said Richards.

  "Damn right I did," said Bear.

  Richards reached behind him and found his knapsack. He pulled out his macintosh, unrolled it and, wincing, put it on. Next he withdrew the fedora Spink had summoned up, smacked it against his hand to get it into shape and placed it on his head. It made him feel complete, and the pain subsided a little.

  "I should have asked for a new suit too," he said, looking at his tattered Pylon City uniform. "Balls."

  They crossed the valley and went into the domain of the Magic Wood, and Richards understood why the animals hated the Pylonites. Swathes of trees had been clear-felled, logs stacked neatly next to charcoal burners, the soft green of the forest scraped right down to raw yellow earth. Pits of tainted water pooled behind dams of mud. Weather-bleached stumps were stacked in heaps, their dead roots contorted in woody agony. More railway tracks ran off into the forest, each an ugly wound.

  They saw no men or sentient animals, but the pump wagon's passage startled bizarre creatures in the trees, humanoi
d things that had tiny bodies but enormous heads of bright scarlet. They had painted-on beards round pink lips and high foreheads covered in subcutaneous lumps. Their hooded eyes unreadable, they stared as the wagon passed.

  Richards shared out his meagre army rations and fell into a black sleep. When he woke he was more stiff than sore. It was evening, and the forest had thinned, dotted with dappled glades made by a kinder hand than that of man. The trees retreated into huddles, and then they were rolling leisurely across a heath alive with life where limestone pavements grinned at them like worn teeth through lips of yellow gorse. The sun was warm and soothing.

  They came to a place where a road crossed the line, and here Bear was obliged to apply the brakes. There was a man in the way.

  The man said nothing as the pump wagon squealed to a stop half a metre from him. He was ragged and unwashed, his beard and hair unkempt. He was wringing his hands. His head juddered, an old-style film caught on the same three frames playing over and over again.

  "Ah, poor bastard," said Bear, jumping down. "Stuck. The bit of land maintaining him must have gone. I hate it when this happens. Best to go out in an instant, not like this."

  The man's voice stuttered. "Du… du… du… du… du…"

  Bear grabbed him and hauled him off his feet. He remained frozen. "Hurgh!" grunted Bear, "death is heavy." He wrinkled his nose. "Goldilocks' knickers, he smells worse than Lucas, must have been here for some time. They still live, in a way. Horrible." He placed the man by the track gently. "Now, let's see what's what." Bear tilted his head to one side. "Network's worse than ever," he grumbled. Presently, he gave a sharp nod. "We were right to get out of that battle when we did. This guy's code was ravelled up in the Broken Lands. If he's like this, the whole place is gone."

  The bear clambered onto the pump wagon. "This k52 is a real bastard. Killing us is one thing, killing us like this is abominable," he said.

  "Hmmm," said Richards, drumming his fingers on the side of the pump. The wagon pulled away, leaving the man to his slow end.

  "'Hmmm'? What does that mean?" said Tarquin. "You don't agree?"

  "Oh, I agree alright," said Richards.

  "So?" said the bear.

  "So nothing," he said, and kept his thoughts to himself.

  The cart went on through the afternoon and into the night. Richards sat and thought and listened to the sound of the rocker. Up and down, squeak and squeak. Up and down. The wheels went clack-clack-clack and Richards thought of Lord Penumbra, and of k52. He thought about just how painful and annoying being, for all intents and purposes, human was.

  And he thought about Rolston.

  A jerk shook him out of his contemplation as they bumped over a join in the land, the rails either side mismatched. The heath ran out, a brown scar dividing it from desert, the join sparking where the coding did not mesh. The desert sloped steeply and at the end it dropped away to nothing over a bluff, the track plunging with it.

  "We're going to go over!" shouted Bear. He grabbed the brake lever and leaned all his weight onto it, straining out over the back of the wagon. "Shitshitshitshitshitshit! I can't hold it!" The pump mechanism pounded up and down as they picked up speed. Wind rushed past. Richards was obliged to clutch his fedora to his head.

  "Jump!" shouted Richards.

  "We're going too fast!" said Tarquin.

  They hit the cliff edge and the track plunged down like a rollercoaster.

  "Great hairy grizzlies! Hold on!" shouted Bear, as sparks fountained out behind them. "Didn't see cliffs until too late. Can't slow down! Sorry!" Richards dodged past the bouncing pump and added his strength to Bear's own. "Pull hard! It's the only way!"

  "There's a curve ahead!" shouted Tarquin.

  "Lean!" roared Bear. He and Richards leaned as the wagon hit the curve. The small vehicle went up onto two wheels and slammed down as the way straightened.

  "That was too close!" said Bear.

  "It must be three hundred metres straight down. We'll be smashed to bits!" said Tarquin.

  Richards and Bear pulled on the brake lever. It grew hot to the touch as the brake shoe burned off.

  "Curve!" The truck slalomed round another bend. Again they leant into it, the wheels rattling as they bounced off and on the tracks. "We're not going to survive another like that!" shouted Bear over the clatter of the truck. "We may have to jump."

  Richards looked down. "We're still too high! Pull harder."

  The smell of hot metal strengthened as Bear and Richards strained hard on the lever. A fountain of red-hot iron filings billowed up around them, singeing Bear's fur. The toy pulled with all his might. For a moment, it looked like it was working. The truck slowed. But then there was a dull clunk and they sprawled backwards, Richards narrowly avoided being brained by the pump handles.

  "Goldilocks' knickers!" said Bear, holding up the bent remains of the lever. "I broke the brake!"

  "Hold on!" bellowed Tarquin.

  Richards grasped the pump wagon deck, fingernails pulling on the wood. Bear tucked the man under his bulk. "I'll cushion you both when we crash," he shouted. "Tarquin, don't change to stone. You'll shatter."

  The truck rattled on, accelerating ever more as it sped towards the desert. The buttress levelled out, but Richards figured that the height did not matter that much. Were the truck to derail on the flat, the speed they were going could still kill them all. Faster and faster they went. The buttress ended, the cart tipping on the slight curve at the bottom. They thundered on, the desert a blur of sand and sky.

  "Oh no!"

  "Jesus!" said Richards.

  It was the end of the line in no uncertain way; a hard wooden buffer. The pump wagon smashed into it, and they were thrown into the air. Bear clasped Richards tightly to him as they flew. Fur, sand and sky turned over and over themselves. There was a thump. A drift of sand. Silence.

  "Ow," said Bear. "Ow ow ow." Richards was winded. Tarquin had been spun round so his head was under his back, but he was unharmed. Richards patted Bear's ample belly.

  "Thanks, sergeant," he said. "You're a very useful bear."

  "Ow, get off." They got to their feet. Bent iron and splinters were strewn everywhere. "Oooh," said Bear.

  "It appears that we have arrived. Somewhere," stated Tarquin.

  "Eh?" said Richards. He rearranged himself and brushed off the sand. He pulled on the lionskin so that Tarquin's head was no longer hanging off his back and turned round to see a canyon mouth. A narrow opening between two natural pillars of sandstone. Above it, a large sign of weather-worn bronze bearing a legend. It read: "La Valle dei Promesse persa."

  "What does it say, what does it say?" asked Bear.

  "The Valley of Lost Promises," said Richards. "In Italian. Now that is interesting."

  The valley started as a canyon and quickly became a crevasse. A sandy path wound between walls of rock, so narrow that Bear had to force himself through sideways. The walls rose, the sky became a stripe, and they were walking in shadow.

  They paused for a rest toward noon, and when they set off once more the path widened. Thorny plants that reeked of creosote lined its margins in dense profusion.

  The canyon broadened into a scrubby valley. A stream trickled though a dry riverbed many times its width. Cliffs ran on either side, their feet hidden by cubes of fallen rock. In the centre a mesa rose, flat top level with the desert. It split the river bed, only one channel carrying water past it.

  Every available patch of ground was covered in the thorny bushes, smothering nascent sand-dunes and holding fast the scree. Rising up from this painful thicket were hundreds of statues, all of the same woman in many different poses. On all, her face was beatific, generous, a little sad.

  The largest was so big its head and shoulders cleared the canyon to stand glowing in the desert sun above. It was in an art nouveau style. She looked down upon them, a single tear of bronze on her face, as if the artist had allowed white-hot metal to run down her cheek. Her bare feet were on point like a b
allerina, the whole edifice balanced unreally on a plinth the height of Bear.

  "The queen!" said Bear softly. "They're all statues of the queen! What are they all doing here?"

  "Looks like they've been dumped. There are statue graveyards like this back in the Real, victims of regime changes."

  "Eh?" said Bear.

  "Never mind," said Richards.

  The path that wended its way past the statues — verdigrised bronze, marble, steel, modern stacked carbon plastics — was broad enough for Richards and Bear to walk comfortably abreast. The thorns choked everything, swallowing the smaller statues, clutching at the hips of the greater.

  "Hang on a minute," said Richards. He pushed through the bushes toward a statue, sharp breaths and expletives preceding him as thorns snagged at his legs. He stopped, pushed back his hat and leaned in closer. "There's something on this one." He peered through a lattice of thorn and twig. A plaque was upon the statue's plinth. He couldn't read it until he moved some of the vegetation aside.

  "Isabella," said Tarquin, "the queen's name."

  "What's all this mean?" asked Bear.

  "Beats me," said Richards. "Come on."

  They walked some more, rounding the mesa. Ahead there was a cave, nestling in the apex of the triangle where the valley walls drew together in a curtain of rock. The river issued from the cave, gurgling over its lower lip. Mosses and ferns grew on the knoll above it. A rich scent of damp earth came from within. It was moist.

  "Is it just me, or does that look like a big fanny?" said Bear.

  "It's not just you, dear boy. It does look like a big fanny."

  "Do you mind?" said Richards.

  "Sunshine, it is a big fanny," said Bear. "Now what?"

  Richards looked up. The cliffs around them were sheer. He looked at the sun and pointed at the cave. "If this place follows the normal rules, that way is west. We go in."