Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07

by Bridge of Ashes

  The man hurries toward the meadow his party had crossed earlier. There had been a rocky knoll in its midst... .

  He breaks into the open, running toward the hillock. From the thunder at his back, he is already aware that he will be unable to attain a sufficient vantage in time to roll rocks down upon his pursuer.

  He races toward a stony cleft, slips within it and turns, crouching.

  The ground leveled off and we entered an area of heavier brush. I located a trail, though, and we continued to make good progress. Perhaps twenty minutes later, the foliage began to thin. At the same time, the trail took a downward turn. We moved along until it lost itself in the place where the brush dwindled to low shrubbery and dry grasses. I still knew the way—better than ever, for the strength of the summons continued to grow—and I bore toward my left through an area of sandier soil.

  At length, we came to a hill and climbed it. From its top, the sea was now visible, perhaps two miles distant, green, sparkling.

  Old.

  The sea and this land, both.

  I halted for a moment. It was the first time in my life that the concept of vast ages struck me in just that fashion. I suppose that my youth had something to do with it. I had not existed long enough for the accumulation of much personal history; consequently, I had never reflected on the nature of duration as it applied to me. As for those other lives I had touched during my stay on the moon, the time spans which separated us meant nothing when I could simply reach them as I would call to a friend across a room. But this, this prospect of rock and water, told me of geological chronology in a way that even the view from the moon had not. There, though I had seen the world in toto, bright and lovely, I was too removed, too distant—too new to the fact of seeing, perhaps—to look upon it as more than a celestial artifact, cunningly wrought, existing in the moment And the moon itself, about/above me . .. The static character of its airless surface, its mo-tionlessness ... It was a place where time was frozen, process outlawed....

  _ And so the present vista made me think for the first time, as my own thoughts, of the age of the world, of its—lifetime. It made me think of all the tamperings with its life systems. And suddenly, in the play of the afternoon light upon water and this small corner of Africa's old estate, I saw my movement as something more than a compulsion. More, even, than a duty; though this, too, was of it. There rose in me the desire to do anything to preserve the ancient land and waters of my world against the planned obsolesence which had pursued them across countless afternoons—perhaps since the stoking of the now-dead reactor in Moanda. I realized, too, that I might not be what I am but for that ancient device. Yet, I had to be more than a windup toy. We all did, or life was meaningless. The dark man had told Van Duyn that the one answer to the course of human affairs, the answer no longer taken seriously—the teleological one—was correct. We had had a rule of determinism forced upon us. Only by breaking it, somehow, could we save our home, our lives....

  Whatever was asked of me, that now was my desire.

  But tell me ... Is anything ever done?

  I headed down the hill, my eyes on the coastline. The beach was dun, rock-strewn; the sea drew creamy curves along its length. I smelled it now in the racing wind. Dark birds circled, slid above its waves. A finger of land almost touched the water below and to my left I could not see beyond it, to where my course led me.

  Fifteen minutes later, we trod the sand and the pebbles, moving to round that prominence. I could hear the calls of the birds, the splash of the waves, feel the cold force of the winds....

  The wind blows on, the world goes as it will, coursing the same route it would have taken had I never been at all. ...

  The force that was drawing me grew into vision, so that I saw the dark man standing facing the sea before we passed the rocky bill and beheld him with our eyes.

  He knew that I was there, though he did not look in my direction. I could sense this awareness within his consciousness. Most of his attention, however, was focused on something farther east, beneath the waters.

  Quick halted, his hand upon the butt of his weapon.

  "Who is it?" he asked.

  "The dark man," I said, "who spoke with Van Duyn. The ancient enemy of our ancient enemies. He who was gored."

  The man turned and regarded us. He was of medium height. He had on shorts and unlaced tennis shoes. He wore a medallion about his neck. He leaned upon a lance of dull metal. I felt the full force of his attention shift toward me.

  Dennis Guise. This is the time and the place. Things are ready. Are you?

  Yes. But I do not understand.

  He smiled across the ten or twelve meters that separated us. Neither of us moved to draw nearer.

  . . . The vision of Van Duyn as he looked at the East River, as he looked out across the silent city ...

  I have seen. I remember. It is not this which I do not understand.

  Quick caught my eye.

  "What is happening?" he asked.

  I raised my hand.

  Quick nodded.

  "I hear him," he breathed.

  They dwell out there, the man indicated, gesturing with his spear, beneath the waters. I come to this place periodically, to speak with them. As always, I have been attempting to convince them that their plan is failing, that mankind is more complex, has become less responsive to their promptings than they had anticipated, that sufficient remedial action has been taken to thwart them, that something has been learned from all man's missteps, that it is time for them to concede the game and depart.

  Do they answer you? I asked.

  Yes. They maintain the opposite.

  How can such a matter be resolved?

  By means of an example.

  What am I to do?

  You must go to them and let them examine you. 146

  How will that win your case? I asked. What can I show them?

  But even as I asked it, realization after realization swept over me. It was as if this dark stranger, rather than Lydia, were my only begetter, and that he had treated me as the enemy had treated the entire race, shaping my life—my illness, my recovery, the precise nature of each of my experiences—manipulating me to the extent necessary to produce just such a being as myself at this moment, in this place, so that he might give me to the enemy to examine in any way they saw fit, hopefully demonstrating that mankind had changed from the being of their original specifications, and that—as I now knew from my experience of history— the past is not lost to us, is not a bridge that has been burned leaving only ashes, but rather is an open way, that all of history is there to be explored, learned from, and even if they destroy me, more such as myself may arise at any time. He would offer me as a symbol, an example, showing that the race has learned and continues to learn from its mistakes.

  You gave Van Duyn a choice, I told him.

  How can 1 do it for you when I already know your answer?

  I lowered my head.

  The dice were loaded then, too.

  There was no other way. There still is not.

  I looked out at the waters, up at the sky, down at the beach. I might never see them again, I realized.

  Where are they? I finally asked.

  I will call them.

  He turned away, facing the waters.

  "And now?" Quick asked. "What is he doing?"

  "Summoning my judges."

  He placed his hand on his pistol.

  "I don't like the sound of that."

  "It must be."

  "All right. Then what I do must be also, if they try to harm you."

  "You must not interfere. You know what is at stake."

  He did not answer, but jerked his eyes from mine and stared out over the waters. Even before I turned and looked I saw it in his mind.

  A sphere with a mirror finish had broken the surface of the sea. As I watched, it advanced. I could not judge its size or distance accurately. Reaching out, I detected living presences within, of some order of thought whi
ch I could not approach. They were aware of my scrutiny and they gave me no more than this glimpse.

  It came rolling in, gleaming, circular, enormous. It struck a sandbar or some obstruction, perhaps forty meters offshore, and maybe a quarter-mile north of where I stood. There it rested.

  The entire affair was managed without a sound interposed among the wind and the waves, the cries of the birds. As I watched, an opening appeared on the shoreward surface of the globe and a ramp was slowly extruded, slanting down into the water, just as soundlessly as the vessel's arrival.

  They have come. The rest is up to you.

  I licked my lips, tasted salt, nodded. I took a step forward. Quick moved with me.

  No, said the dark man, and Quick froze in his tracks, reminiscent of the audience we— I had seen at the*General Assembly meeting, that day, both long ago and yesterday.

  I continued on. I approached the dark man, passed him on the seaward side. He was as expressionless as I knew myself to be at that moment. He clasped my shoulder as I went by. That was all.

  As I paced beside the lapping waves, I thought of Quick, immobile. It had to be that way. He would have taken a shot at anything that tried to touch me. We could appreciate that. It was so simple.... We ... For suddenly it seemed that I was no longer alone. My mind had played some trick, reaching out unconsciously perhaps, in some peculiar fashion, so that it was as if I were simultaneously myself and one other. Somehow, Roderick Leishman was with me. I felt that if I turned around I would see him walking at my back.

  I did not turn around. I continued, my eyes fixed on the globe, far ahead, wave-washed, spray-swept, laced by the flight of dipping, pivoting birds.

  The birds ... Their flight... I saw them as through a stroboscope, slowing, the details of each movement clearly recorded in my brain, ready at a moment's notice to be transferred to my sketchpad.

  ... And it was as if Leonardo da Vinci walked beside Leishman at my back.

  We passed on, scuffing sand, seeing where the surf drew its lines ... as it had that day, aye, near Syracuse, where we almost captured the calculus ages early.

  Archimedes joined da Vinci and Leishman, as we moved on in this ancient place, this land still virtually untouched, still throbbing with the pulse of the clean elements, oh gods, and might it be that man could live in greater harmony with your bounty.... And Julian, Flavius Claudius Julianus, last of the old defenders, was with me, to be joined moments later by Jean Jacques Rousseau, staggering.

  And as I walked, as at the head of an army, the others came, and I reached out across the bridge, no longer ashes, touching one by one, two by two, then dozens of the men I had been, filling myself with their presences—all of those who had been defeated in the name of man, great failures and small, suppressed men of learning, broken geniuses, talents cut short, twisted, destroyed—I was immersed within their number, but I was one of them: the switchboard, the contact, the point man. There was Leonardo; there, Condorcet; there, Van Duyn ...

  As I waded out into the surf, approaching the down-shot ramp, I made the final leap back, to become the dying god-king who will be resurrected to a sweet-smelling springtime, he whose sons and sons' sons have hunted the land since before the hills were made, he who had spoken with the powers beneath the sea, he who had summoned them here, he who stood now upon the beach with his spear upraised. I was the dark man, who bore all names.

  Walking up the ramp, as in slow motion, we entered the darkened interior of the vessel, seeing nothing. But we could feel their presences, cold and powerful, scrutinizing the thing man had become....

  Walk. This way.

  And we were guided. We felt them. We saw nothing.

  Around the vessel, slowly, counterclockwise, we stepped, moving beneath the pitiless gaze of our makers. ...

  Time, somehow, meant nothing. We paraded before them. All of us they had thought destroyed. Back again. Moving through the darkness of their judgment.

  And then there was light. Far ahead. We hesitated.

  Keep walking, man.

  We continued on in the direction of the light. As we drew near, we saw that it was a port, not unlike the one by which we had come in. Only ... the day was waning now, the sun falling behind the rocky shoreline bluff to the west. I halted.

  Keep going, man.

  Is that all you have to say to me? After all this time? After all that has been done?

  Goodbye.

  I found myself moving once more, down the ramp, into the water, shoreward. I did not look back until I had reached the beach. When I did, the vessel was gone.

  I found that I was shaking as I headed back to the spot where the dark man still stood. Somewhere along the way I lost my companions. Quick lay, apparently asleep, on the sand. He stretched and yawned as I approached.

  "Come this way," the dark man said. "The moon is up. The tide is rising."

  Quick and I followed him down the beach and retreated back along it. He moved a stone and dug beneath it with his spear. He uncovered a cache of supplies and proceeded to build a brushwood fire.

  "What now?" Quick asked 150

  "Eat with me and wait with me," he said.

  We did. The sun had gone away and the stars come out. The fire warmed us against a chill wind. A heavy moon silvered the waters.

  Long into that night we waited. It was Quick who suddenly stood and pointed out over the ocean.

  The moon, now westering, turned their surfaces to pale fire.

  Like bubbles they rose from the sea and lifted into the air, climbing the night. I watched, losing count quickly, as they rose, climbed, vanished, rose, climbed, vanished, like strings of pearls losing themselves among stars.

  "They are going!" Quick said.

  "Yes," answered our companion.

  "Will they try the same thing somewhere else?" Quick asked.

  "Of course."

  "But we have won? The world is ours once more?"

  "So it seems, with no one to blame but ourselves for whatever follows."

  For perhaps another hour we watched, until the sky was empty of them once again. Our companion was smiling in the firelight, when suddenly his expression changed and he clutched at the medallion he wore.

  He was on his feet in an instant.

  "What is it?" Quick asked.

  "Get out of here! Now!" he shouted.

  He scrambled to where his spear stood upright in the sand.

  Then I heard it, a deep, hooting sound, rolling in over the waves, rising, becoming a whistle, vanishing somewhere above the audible. I was stricken, unable to move with the sudden clutch of fear that took me then. Reflexively, I reached out with my mind, but there was nothing there.

  "Go! Get out!" he shouted again. "Hurry!"

  At that moment, the sound came once again, much nearer, and some dark form rose from the waters and advanced toward us across the wide expanse of the beach. Quick dragged me to my feet and pushed me in the direction of the foothills. I stumbled forward, broke into a run.

  Our companion was retreating also. When I glanced back, I saw streaks of moonlight upon a moving shape. It was long and supple; it appeared to be scaled. We departed the beach and began to climb. Behind us, the sound bellowed forth once more. It was coming at an extremely rapid pace, and in the moments of silence following its challenge I could hear a metallic clicking as it passed over stones, pebbles. Shortly, I felt a vibration within the ground.

  We climbed. Our ancient oppressors had departed, but they had left this final doom for their greatest enemy. I saw this within the dark man's mind.

  We reached the place where the grasses began, and then low shrubbery. I hoped that the slope might slow something of such obvious bulk as our pursuer. But its next blast was even louder than the previous. The ground was definitely shaking now. When I looked again, moonlight glinted on a great horned head and unnaturally crooked legs, splayed almost sideways, digging into the ground, propelling it through all obstacles. It was almost upon us.

  The dar
k man swerved, moving away from us. It followed him, knocking down trees, dislodging rocks. Quick turned and pursued it across the slope. I heard his pistol firing. It rang like a bell with each shot as the rounds ricocheted from it.

  The dark man turned to face it, bracing his lance against the slope. The beast rushed upon it, and I heard a grinding, rasping noise. The entire scene was, for a moment, frozen in the moonlight, like some awful statue: the beast had halted, the lance half-buried within it somewhere beneath the head, the dark man straining to hold it.

  Then the head swung, once, and a horn caught the dark man somewhere low, throwing him far to the side. At that moment, it rang once more as Quick struck the back of that head with a large rock. It slumped then and lay still. Whether Quick's blow had done it or whether it was already finished, we would never know.

  I rushed to the dark man's side. Moments later, Quick joined me, breathing heavily. Our companion was still alive, but he was unconscious. His side was very wet.

  "Good God!" said Quick, tearing off his shirt, folding it, pressing it against the wound. "I think he's had it! There is no hospital anywhere near—"

  "Leave him. Go. Get back to your flier. Never speak of this," came a familiar voice which I could not for the moment recognize.

  When I turned, I saw that it was Lydia, coming down the slope.

  "Your job is finished," she said. "Take the boy home, Quick."

  "Lydia," he said, "we can't just go."

  "There is nothing more for you to do here. Leave him to me. Go!"

  I reached out with my mind. There was still life within the dark man, but it continued to wane.

  "But—"

  "Now!"

  She gestured up the slope, and something about the way she did it made us. turn that way.

  "Come on, kid," Quick said. "Don't say anything else."