Palaces of Light

by James Axler

  Murphy sniffed and looked at the men around them. They looked scared. He didn’t blame them much. He felt pretty much that way himself.

  “Okay, so what is it, then?”

  Taggart barked a short laugh. “Hell, don’t expect me to tell you what it is. I can only tell you what it ain’t. No dirt, too quick… It ain’t real. Look.”

  Acting and sounding more fearless than he really was, Taggart stepped forward and punched the rock wall in front of them, not realizing that belief was the thing that powered the illusion. Even the slightest suspicion that it may have substance gave it so, a circular loop of logic that both sustained and powered the illusion.

  And hurt his hand. Like hell. He yelled in sudden pain and anger as his fist appeared to strike rock. Despite the gravity of the situation, some of the men beside Murphy couldn’t stifle their laughter at Taggart’s cocksure confidence ending in such pain and humiliation.

  He glared at them, spit in fury on the ground, then turned back to the rock wall.

  “Blind NORAD, I know you ain’t really there,” he yelled in fury before aiming a petulant kick at the wall. His anger, and the certainty that the wall couldn’t really exist, drove any doubts from his mind—with the inevitable result that his foot passed easily into the seemingly solid edifice, creating a hole of emptiness around its passage.

  He yelled again, this time in triumphant glee. “Ya see?” he shouted. “Not fucking there, man.”

  He walked forward, waving his arms so that it opened up a large space of empty air around him as he entered the rock edifice.

  “Shit—just some kind of…” Murphy trailed off, not really knowing himself how to describe what he was seeing.

  “Doesn’t matter what it is. Just matters that we can walk right through it and carry on,” Taggart said with an almost smug air, surrounded by empty space that framed him in the wall and gave him an almost messianic aura. “C’mon…”

  Murphy looked at the men around him. They looked bemused rather than scared at this point, and also seemed to be looking to him for a lead. He stared at Taggart. It seemed impossible, but it was there in front of him. Then he recalled the weird shit that had happened, and the way it had messed with all of their minds, when they were back at the ville, and suddenly he understood in a way that he couldn’t have put into words.

  “Fuck ’em,” he muttered as much to himself as to the men gathered around him, and strode forward confidently into the wall. It parted around him, forming an empty space that felt strange and unreal, as though the air was sucked out and then blown back in as he moved into the space where the rock had stood moments before.

  “C’mon.” He beckoned to his men. “We can’t let them get too far ahead of us. We need to see where they went down,” he urged, goading his men to life with a reminder of what they were supposed to be doing here.

  The others followed. Their first steps were tentative, but as they neared the rock itself, and could see that nothing had happened to Murphy and Taggart, their confidence grew—so much so that as they all reached the rock wall it seemed to part and fall apart around them.

  And then it was gone, almost as if it had never been.

  “How d’you work that one out?” Murphy asked Taggart, relieved and also unable to hide his admiration.

  The gaunt man grinned, unwilling to give away his secrets. He would hold this one to himself and use it to get the upper hand when they returned to the ville.

  That was the second mistake he would make. And his last.

  There was a shimmering of the air around them, and then it seemed as though the rock had re-formed around them. Except that it wasn’t solid, but rather seemed to be in a series of shifting and mutable shapes that moved at speed around their heads. The rock appeared to come alive and form into a series of faces and bodies that were fluid and yet awful, their twisted torsos and contorted, silently screaming faces staring sightlessly into the very souls of the men contained within the boundaries of their flight. The image seemed to move in repetitive and intricate patterns that formed a web within which they weren’t so much contained now as trapped. For that fraction of a second that each stared into the face of the other, it seemed that the imaginary faces—for what else could they be—were staring right into the souls of the sec party. Every fear and doubt rose bubbling and unbidden to the surface.

  And then the first man opened his mouth to scream. As he did so, one of the chimera in flight took advantage of the fact, and darted down his throat. He tried to swallow and then found that he couldn’t. Choking, he doubled over and then, as his companions watched in a mute and horrified awe, he straightened and arched his back so that it seemed as though he might topple backward. But before he could do that, his chest split asunder in a spray of bone shards, pulped organs and a mist of blood forced from its previous resting place by a tremendous force. Only his spine, now raggedly exposed, along with the remains of his rib cage, kept him upright before the weight of his head and remaining shoulder tissue caused it to implode.

  The shock of seeing that, and also of knowing that the force—whatever or whoever it might be—had the capacity to inflict physical damage if not real substance of its own was enough to make whatever resolve the remaining men had crumble to the dust that had failed to cover them moments before.

  Each man screamed in fear. Murphy knew he would never see home again. The ville didn’t mean much to him, but his family did. The same was true for a couple of the others. For another two it meant that they would buy the farm, alone and unloved, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing and no one to mark their passing, or even their brief tenure in this world.

  For Taggart, there was the bitter knowledge that he, and he alone, was responsible for their demise. If he hadn’t been so willing to score points with his little knowledge and the way in which he had used it; if he had been just a little more thoughtful about the consequences of any action that they might take, then he might not have opened them up to the force that was now invading their minds and—he was sure—actually making them cause this to happen to themselves.

  It was too little realization, and way too late to make any difference. He could do nothing but acknowledge that fact as he felt his own insides rip themselves inside out as the cold flow of a chimera oozed down his throat.

  Each man, as he bought the farm, unleashed a deep emotion and psychic wellspring that reached out across the wastes in frantic scream, searching for a recipient who might, in some way, understand.

  Krysty was recipient enough. The moment she fell down screaming was the moment that chilled the sec party K sent on her tail.

  Chapter Twelve

  The grens had done their job. The clouds of smoke and gas that they had generated were drifting along the lip of the city, their progress stirred and quickened by the movement of the confused and choking mass. The young were still trancelike in their movements, except that now—in their confusion—they were doing little other than confusing the elders, who were wary of firing their blasters into the throng lest they should injure or chill the youth that they held so dear. Given a moment in which to ponder why this should be, Doc would perhaps have been chilled by the thoughts and memories that were stirred by the ritualistic behavior he had seen.

  Right now, however, he had more pressing concerns. The gas was drifting uncomfortably close to where he was standing, alongside Ryan and Mildred. They had kept fairly close together so that they wouldn’t lose sight of one another as the crowd began to press, regardless of the instinct that told each of them that to spread out would make for a harder target. More important than that, perhaps, was the fact that they were uncomfortably close to the edge of the lip, and a straight drop into the canyon below.

  A thorny problem presented itself. There was precious little noise coming from the far side of the city, where Jak’s party would
have encroached. The lack of blasterfire boded well—it was an indication that they hadn’t been spotted by the elders of the party, and also that they had no need to pull and fire their own weapons. Hopefully that also meant that they had identified and closed on their prey. And that the risks that Ryan’s party were undertaking were therefore justified.

  Doc would certainly hope as much as he tried to keep his breathing as shallow as possible, holding a kerchief to his face to try to cut out the worst choking excesses of the gas. Like the companions who stood beside him, he knew that the gas would eventually seep through the pores of their skin if they took too long before departing. It was a calculated risk. The youth were breathing freely and without thought. The elders might not be aware of such things as gas grens. Even if they were, it was to be hoped that the confusion surrounding the rest of the area would deflect them from avoiding at least some effects.

  Or it may stop them firing. There was little room to dodge the fire, and all that the three fighters had really been able to do was to keep low and hope that the gas and smoke it created, along with the melee around, would prevent any kind of accuracy in the fire of the elders.

  Thankfully they were poor shots. Under normal circumstances, Doc would have expected them to have been mown down by now, but instead they were able to pick their targets through the mists and cause the maximum of disruption.

  But even so, there was only so long that they could continue before the clouds of gas became too much to risk. They could only hope that they had given Jak’s party enough time to achieve their aim and get the hell out. For it was time for them to do the very same thing. Ryan barked an incoherent command, biting off his words as the gas caught the back of his throat, stinging and raw. That was how Doc imagined it, at any rate, comparing it to the parched tissue of his own.

  Being the person nearest to the path that they had taken to reach the ledge, Doc had to lead off. The way ahead of him was blocked by the fallen youth, and he had to tread carefully between them to reach the relative safety of the path. Some were unconscious, either from gas or from blaster wounds; some had already bought the farm; others had just fallen, and were struggling to stay conscious. These were the dangerous ones, and it was hard to differentiate them under the circumstances. Were they just lying still, gathering themselves, or were they beyond being a risk?

  As nimbly as he could, Doc stepped between them, cradling the LeMat in one fist while the other held the kerchief to his nose. He had the blaster loaded and ready to discharge, but he was unwilling to waste a charge on what would be—of necessity—a small target area. He didn’t look back, but he just knew that Ryan and Mildred were at his back, following him while laying down cover. He could almost feel the ordnance whistling past him—and indeed some of it probably was, and it was little more than providence that kept him upright—but was comforted by the crack of the SIG-Sauer and the ZKR, blasters he knew so well.

  Through the choking fog and the bile that rose in his already aching craw, he could see the multicolored coat of the first man to be hit by blasterfire. The puppet master, now little more than a lifeless puppet himself, and almost obscured by the bodies that either lay around or stumbled over him. Perhaps it was that catching his eye that distracted Doc for just a moment, but a moment was all that it needed. He felt his foot hit a body and stumble, his ankle turning on the irregular shape beneath—a body that was still moving.

  Doc’s reactions were slowed both by the distraction of the chilled man to one side of him, and also by the seeping effects of the nerve gas gren. That was enough. Before he had a chance to pull away, the young boy beneath his foot had grasped his ankle and lower calf with both hands. Whether he was trying to pull Doc down, or to somehow use the older man to lever himself up was something that was open to debate. The effect, however, was the same no matter what. Doc fell toward him, the ground coming up to him with an alarming suddenness. There was no time even for him to loose off a shot from the LeMat. Before he had a chance to fasten and squeeze on the trigger, he knew that he was too close to the lad beneath him. To fire at such range would have caused the charge to explode and almost certainly injure him as well as the intended target.

  He used the butt of the heavy blaster to try to club at the young man, whose hands were now scrabbling over Doc’s body. The old man couldn’t tell whether the lad was trying to attack or to help him, or if the wild scrabbling was little more than the desperation of one trying to escape the effects of the gas. It didn’t matter; if he didn’t escape, he would soon be claimed by the nerve agent, too, as the kerchief slipped away from his mouth. Despite his best efforts he swallowed a mouthful of the noxious fog. He choked and spit it out as best he could, but the tendrils snaked down into his lungs.

  He could almost instantly feel it weaken him, though whether that was an actual physical effect or pure fancy he couldn’t tell. Regardless, it caused him to weaken and for the young man to gain a greater hold on him. His efforts to club his way free were hampered by the lack of purchase with which to get a good swing and bring some force to bear. It seemed as though all might be lost; all for one moment of distraction.

  However, Doc had, in his panic, forgotten who was at his back. He felt an iron grip close on his frock coat, tugging him upward and out of the grasp of the weakened youth as though he were nothing more than a babe.

  And no sooner was he clear than the crack of Mildred’s ZKR sounded in his ear. Beneath him, as he dangled almost horizontally, he saw the bewildered face of the young man fade to nothing as a hole drilled itself neatly in his forehead.

  Then, before Doc had time to register any more, he was upright and on his feet once more, a push in the back from Ryan signaling that they had to move…and fast.

  It was only as he moved forward once more that Doc realized the action had been so sudden and shocking that he hadn’t even taken a breath, which, in the circumstances, was perhaps as well.

  Still stumbling, he made his way onto the path that led downward. At his rear, he could hear the random crack of the SIG-Sauer and the ZKR in reply to a few stray shots that were coming their way. But these were few and far between. The gas grens had done their work, and the people milling around on the ledge that constituted the city of mysterious palaces now found themselves shrouded in a chem fog or on their knees, choking and desperately trying to drag in breath.

  In the midst of this, the elders had obviously devoted their attentions to salvaging the youth that meant so much to them. To drive away the clouds of gas and to get the youth back into shelter was a prime directive, and one that would take their attention away from their attackers. They could be dealt with later. Now, they had more pressing problems.

  That was the way it seemed, and that was exactly the way that Ryan and his companions had been hoping it would pan out. They needed to get back down the path quickly, and into some kind of cover. No doubt the elders of the ville would mount some kind of sweep later on. That could be handled when it occurred. Now, they needed to regroup.

  But first the descent. Doc had no idea what it felt like for Mildred and Ryan, but if it was even a fraction of how it felt for him, then he wouldn’t wish it on his enemies, let alone on his friends. He skittered down the path, thankful for the shallow incline as he struggled to keep his feet. Ground that had seemed so solid beneath his feet on the way up now seemed to shimmer like quicksilver beneath his soles as he slipped and stumbled down a path that had seemed so wide on the way up, but was now so narrow as to almost fail to contain the width of a foot.

  Balance swaying as the forward momentum pitched him at bizarre angles with every uneven pitch and yaw of the surface, he fell first sideways into the rock wall of the canyon, scratching and grazing his face, the dull clunk in his head seeming to be beyond concussion, and then righting himself with too much force so that he seemed to proscribe an arc that took him out and down over the edge of the path, his to
rso seeming to swerve and pitch into space at such an angle that he thought he’d surely fall into the void.

  But no. At the last moment, his instincts somehow caused him to twist and turn so that he was able to come upright again while keeping his feet. His lungs burned with fire and threatened to burst in his chest as he tried to gasp in the air needed for the effort of keeping one foot in front of another at such a furious pace. Air sucked in through lungs and throat scorched by the inhalation of gas… .

  Behind him, to a lesser degree as they were fitter and had absorbed less of the gas, Mildred and Ryan were finding it hard to keep up with Doc, who seemed to be moving at an almost preternatural speed as he headed for the end of the long path. Like him, both were aware that they had ingested small amounts of the gas, and that this had affected their nervous systems and therefore their perceptions. But unlike Doc, both found it easier to keep under control.

  So it was that they were able to pull up with a greater ease as they hit the level, while Doc kept wildly running in any direction until he caught a foot on a lump of rock and fell flat on his face.

  The shock did the trick. As Doc looked up, his head spinning and ears ringing from the unexpected impact, he could see that Mildred was looming over him, while over her shoulder he could see Ryan racking the chamber of the SIG as he looked up at the city they had left behind.

  They were alone on the floor of the canyon. No one had even tried to follow them. Following the line of sight past Mildred and Ryan, Doc could see that there was now only a thin, wispy cloud of gas across the city, gradually dissipating to reveal the youth being herded back into the gleaming palaces by the elders. Even as he watched, he could see the area in front of the mysterious buildings clear and empty out as though no one had ever trod the earth. Even the corpses—and there had to have been some, to judge from the volume of blasterfire—had been taken in.