by James Axler
Jak nodded. “We try get out, they try get in,” he said simply.
J.B. grinned. “Yeah, except we’d better keep that as quiet as possible.”
Jak said nothing, but the thought ran through his head that if the coldhearts running the ville could slow them with their herbs, then there was little doubt that they could come up with something that would make them unable to do anything except tell the truth. He’d seen it before.
While this ran through his head, he gestured toward Krysty, who seemed unaware that they were talking. She hadn’t stirred the whole time, and it was only because his acute hearing could detect the sounds of her breathing that he didn’t fear for her life.
“Better hurry, tell her before anyone comes,” he said.
J.B. barked a hollow laugh. “Much as we can hurry.”
The two men started to move across the room toward where Krysty lay. It was slow, torturous and seemed to take an eternity. Every step was like running up the side of a mountain, taking more effort from them than it seemed possible to give. How could they cope with the intrusion of any of their captors while they were in this state was something that both concerned them, and about which they didn’t care to think. Instead, all they could really focus on was reaching Krysty and bringing her back to consciousness. There was nothing they could do to make their situation better at this stage, but at least somehow they knew that they shared the weight of the problem if they stood together. That sense of comradeship would be enough for now.
As they got close to her, J.B. looked through the window. If they were making enough noise to raise an alarm as they struggled across the room, then there was no one who was apparently watching them to hear them. Outside, the residents of the mysterious city seemed to go about their business oblivious to the inhabitants of the room; oblivious, indeed, to the disruption that had so recently disrupted their routines.
Recently? J.B. wondered about that as he caught sight of the shadows that formed on the far side of the canyon, and the way that the light reflected on the lip of the ledge that housed the city. It had been early morning when they had started their ascent, which would have made it about the middle of the day when they attacked. If the light outside was anything to go by, it was now early morning once more. They had been unconscious for at least eighteen hours. It felt like nothing. Possibly it was even more than that. How many times had the sun risen and fallen since they had been shut up in the room?
These musings were interrupted as Jak tugged at his sleeve. They were within a few steps of Krysty, and it was as if she had somehow been able to hear their approach and respond.
“She’s coming around.”
* * *
RYAN WATCHED THE CITY on the ledge with a mixture of feelings: frustration, anger and an impotent sense of rage. Why the nuking hell had he decided to accept this mission? If he had been aware of what these people were capable of, and the extreme isolation of their position, then he would have thought twice. But that was the key. It hadn’t sounded like the kind of mission that would end this way.
The truth was that the dwellers on the ledge were in a superb defensive position. Now that they were alerted to the fact that they had an enemy within striking distance, they were well suited to close down any avenue of attack. To come from above would entail scaling down a ridge of rock that was almost sheer, and would leave any attacker exposed to those who could simply fire from below. To come from the floor of the canyon entailed leaving yourself open to being fired on at will from angles that gave a superior range of fire.
If J.B., Krysty and Jak were still alive, then they were being held in one of the buildings. There had been no sign of them during the watches that had been established two days previously, when his party had attained the safety of the rendezvous point. Since then, three patrols had been sent forth by the dwellers on the ledge. Those had been the armed, and the mounted parties that they had observed before had a subtle change in their behavior. Where before they had acted in a ritualized manner, as though drugged in some way and performing actions of which they had little awareness, this time they had been only too well aware of their actions. The three companions had used their cover well, keeping themselves hidden while still being able to observe the city.
When the riders had left the palaces, their bearing and the speed at which they spurred their mounts had been telling. They had galloped down the path, and instead of proscribing the circuit that had served them so well for who knew how long, they had begun to comb the floor of the canyon in a methodical manner. Instead of simply riding the route, they had stopped then doubled back on themselves before splitting into two groups and crisscrossing the bottom of the valley. Instead of silence, they had called to one another, and this time they had spoken in a tongue that was all too recognizable. Whatever the language they used when the rituals on the ledge took place, this wasn’t the one they used to communicate in an everyday situation.
Each patrol had been relatively easy to avoid. The sec teams were angry and alert, but they were inept. The canyon had kept these people protected for so long that they had little idea of how to cope with an intrusion. That, and the way in which it had been only the numbers of youth that had driven the companions back before, was what gave Ryan hope. He thought of the fighters he had with him: Mildred was strong and dependable, with good tactical skills and a crack shot. Although she wasn’t a tall woman, she had a deceptive strength. Doc was another matter. The heart of the old man could never be doubted, but his body was battered and fragile because of the ordeals he had been through.
His mind was another matter altogether. Doc’s psyche had taken more of a beating over the years than his body, and so was liable to fragment and crumble at any moment. His heart was dependable, but his body and mind weren’t.
Ryan felt disloyal even thinking that. He knew his companions were tightly bound together, and would stand or fall for one another. Nonetheless, the reasons for splitting them into groups before had now left him with a fighting force that was less than ideal. It felt wrong to think it, but given the free hand he would always have opted for Jak, J.B. or Krysty over Mildred and Doc.
And he was more certain than ever, after what they observed, that it would be necessary to pull out every last effort if they were to get their people back, let alone try to achieve the main aim of their mission. Fuck that. Freeing Baron K’s daughter would be something that they would only do if the chance arose. Finding their friends came first.
Not that he could hold out much hope at this moment. So far, there had been no sign of any of them. While his group had kept watch from cover, it seemed that the city on the ledge had settled back into its routine, and was continuing as though nothing had happened. The attack had been just a hiccup in the routine that seemed well established.
The one thing that their attack had caused was a break in the ritual of sacrifice. The time of day when it happened had coincided with their attack, and so by the time that the gas had cleared and the ledge had been cleared of those who had fallen, it was late in the afternoon, and the sun was already beginning to make a path beyond the uppermost ridges of the canyon. Two large bonfires had been built on each edge of the ledge, by the paths that led down to the canyon floor, and by the light and heat of these the young had worked into the night, clearing the debris left by the assault and then going back to work on fashioning the large stone circle on which the sacrificial altar had been temporarily erected each midday. They had been urged and spurred on by the harsh imprecations of the elders—two in particular, one of them being the immensely fat man who had practiced the ritual slaughters, and would appear to be the senior of the elders.
Once they had finished for the night, the fires had been extinguished, and apart from the smell of wood smoke that drifted to the floor of the canyon, it was as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred that day. Even the time and ma
nner in which the gleaming city had greeted the shine of a new day’s sun had been just the same as usual.
The only thing to mark any anomaly had been when the midday ritual had been practiced. For instead of one young person being put to the knife, the fat man had sent two youths—a male and a female—to the altar, one to wait patiently while the first climbed willingly on the altar to have her heart ripped from her body before taking the place of the still-warm corpse to succumb to the same fate. Mildred had watched this, calling on the other two despite the fact that it was their rest and her watch, and had wondered out loud why the youth would allow themselves to be led to their deaths in this way. Seemed, in fact, to welcome what was about to happen as though it were a privilege.
“What, I wonder, is their ultimate fate if they think this is such a wonderful thing?” Doc mused. “Do they know, and is that why they think nothing of this?”
Now, as Ryan played over these things in his mind, he could see that the altar was being set up again for another willing sacrifice. The point of this slaughter escaped him. Even if he knew what it was, he doubted that he would understand or sympathize.
It was back to normal. The crowd gathered as always, and the fat man stepped forward with his knife. From the crowd, a young woman came forward and lay prostrate on the altar, almost welcoming the blade as it carved into her, her last scream as the beating heart was pulled from her chest being almost ecstatic and orgasmic, rather than the fear and agony that Ryan would have expected.
And then it was over, and the altar was being taken down again as though nothing had happened.
“There is much significance in the fact that they feel the need to make the sacrifice on that spot.”
Ryan was suddenly aware that he had been so engrossed that Doc had been at his elbow, watching with him, without his even being aware of the fact. He turned to the old man, and the look on his face had to have spoken the question in his mind, for Doc continued in a conversational tone that seemed incongruous in view of what they had just witnessed.
“Why would they be building that altar every day and then taking it down again? Why not just leave it there? Because they are building that circle beneath…” Ryan stayed silent, letting Doc answer his own questions as he could see the old man was using this to vocalize his own thought processes.
“So it would seem that the circle is the most important thing,” Doc continued, “leading us, of course, to wonder why they then feel the need to make the sacrifices on that spot, rather than somewhere else. I think this may have to do with the fact that these are not just sacrifices to whatever foul gods they may worship. Rather, they are partly a way of trapping the energies of those who are the victims, though such is their willingness that to call them victims may be inaccurate. Rather, it would seem that they almost view themselves as honored in some way by being killed in such a way.”
“Why the fuck would anyone feel that way?” Ryan asked softly.
“Because, my dear Ryan, they think—or are led to think, either willingly or by coercion—that their actions are leading to a greater good, and indeed may be just a quicker route to the same end.”
Ryan looked at the old man quizzically. “What do you mean?”
Doc shrugged. “In truth I am not sure what I mean. I may be completely wrong, but I have heard of such things before. A mass sacrifice of some kind—either by your own hand or by the hands of some outside agency—that leads to your life energy being somehow transmuted to another, better place. Maybe they don’t mind being sacrificed because they somehow see it as getting in first…as it were.”
Ryan shook his head slowly. “That’s just so incredibly stupe that I can’t even start to tell you—”
Doc interrupted him with a hand. “My dear Ryan, I agree with you completely. But our views count for naught—it is their views that we should be considering. And if they achieve their aim with the young by some kind of coercion, then are they attempting to practice this on our missing companions?”
“In which case we need to move pretty quickly,” Ryan said.
Doc shrugged. “You will find nothing in the way of disagreement from me. Nor, I think, from Mildred when she rejoins us. The only problem is this—just how do we go about it?”
* * *
AT ABOUT THE TIME that Ryan and Doc were pondering this dilemma, Krysty was in the midst of one entirely her own. Had the nightmarish images that had accompanied the pain that had sent her reeling into unconsciousness been real or some kind of appalling vision?
She had been surfacing from sweet oblivion when she had felt J.B.’s hand on her shoulder and heard his voice whispering her name. He sounded as though he had a mouth stuffed full of rags like the ones she could feel beneath her cheek as she opened an eye. She resented the return of the real world, for as soon as it came to her, so did the sights of the sec men being disemboweled by the wraiths that flew around them, and down into their bodies. Gaia, she hoped that was just a nightmare, but the fact that it had come unbidden into her mind in the first instance warned her that this may not be the case. She recognized the faces of men she had seen back in Baron K’s ville, even though she didn’t know their names.
Had they been following the companions for some reason? She wouldn’t put anything past a baron like K, although it had done him little good if this was the case. Far more worrying in this instance was the fact that these men had—if the vision was true—been ripped apart by the psychic force that had previously only erected simple obstacles.
Did this mean that it had intelligence? Or whoever controlled it, at least… But why then hadn’t it come after them when they reached the canyon? Unless it was merely a remote defense, and couldn’t, for whatever reason, progress farther than its own defined paths. Which, she figured, would make it a real bastard to try to get past on the way back. Assuming they ever got that far…
She raised her face and looked at the Armorer and Jak, who was standing just behind J.B.’s shoulder. There was something awkward and unnatural about the way they were standing, as though they were having trouble controlling their limbs. She did, too. Krysty tried to raise herself and found that her left arm, trapped beneath her, refused to move. Then she noticed J.B.’s hand, which still lingered on her shoulder. She saw the marks and the remains of the green paste.
Jak, noticing her gaze, raised his own hand slowly and awkwardly, revealing similar marks. Without even pulling her hand out from under her, or trying to raise her free hand, she cursed and knew that she had the same wounds. Herbalism and the use of such pastes and tinctures for medicinal purposes had been one of the strengths of Harmony, and why the ville had been able to survive. By the same token, she knew that these things were also used for unsavory purposes.
She was aware that J.B. had been talking to her, and the way in which his voice stopped and he looked into her staring, unfocused eyes revealed his realization that she hadn’t heard a word he had said.
He began again. “Krysty, listen for fuck’s sake. It’s hard to talk or do anything. We were poisoned by some shit they put into us. Means they can do what they want. We need to keep it frosty, look for a way out.”
She could have laughed, if not for the fact that it would have taken too much effort. The chances of their being able to take advantage of any such way out, even if it should present itself, was nothing short of laughable right now. She shook her head, a movement that seemed to take forever and made her sweat as if she’d been running for hours.
“Ryan,” she said simply, not wanting to waste energy or effort. “Our only chance.”
“Mebbe,” J.B. replied. “Not sure if they got away. Probably. Don’t know what’s happening to us, though.”
“What is?” Krysty asked.
Before J.B. could form any kind of answer, a voice from behind them took the initiative.
�
�You, my dear girl, like your fellow meddlers, are experiencing the first stages of the road to enlightenment. A road that you would be only too happy to pursue with us once you had the chance to see what it would mean. Unfortunately, though, time precludes us from being able to educate you and make you see, as we have done with the others. So you’ll just have to be shown the short, brutish way. Not my way, if given a choice, but I find myself bereft of choice at this stage.”
They turned to see a figure that they found only too familiar: the grossly fat man they had observed talking in an unfamiliar tongue before he ripped the heart out of an unfortunate young person. Now he was standing in the doorway of the palace, the rest of the denizens of the city going about their business behind him, paying no attention to what he was doing. Neither was he guarded by anyone. He stood alone, leaning heavily on a walking stick. At his waist, sheathed in leather, hung the knife he used for sacrifice. He smiled slightly as he noticed that all three pairs of eyes were trained on him.
“You’ll notice, of course, that you haven’t been stripped of your weapons. They’ll be useful to us, not against us. You’ll also notice, of course, that I have nothing other than my knife, which would normally be of little use to me against three younger, fitter people such as yourselves. Indeed, normally I would think twice about coming up against you even if I had a blaster. But I have none. And I don’t need them. In fact, I feel comfortable doing this.”
With which he turned his back on them and closed the heavy stone door, shutting out the light and noise from outside. As he turned his back, their natural instincts were to reach for their weapons. Krysty tried to move for her Smith & Wesson, but found that it was virtually impossible for her to move a muscle without immense effort. She realized that in the time it took her to get even halfway to where the blaster was holstered, the fat man would have been able to move across, take it from her and shoot her between the eyes if that was his wish. In the same way, J.B. struggled to move toward his weapon with little success, while Jak attempted to palm one of his leaf-bladed knives. He struggled to move with anything approaching speed, and was so clumsy that the blade slipped from his grasp, landing on the floor of the stone room with a reverberating clatter that did nothing other than disturb a cluster of flies on a nearby lump of rotting meat.