The Vistor

by Sheri S. Tepper

  He was dropping the wagon tongue, talking to the horses, twisting their ears gently in his hands, murmuring sweet nothings, getting them to lie down in the traces, backs together, feet to either side.

  "No time to take off the harness," he said to no one in particular. "And besides, we may need to leave in a hurry."

  "What about the riding horses?" asked the doctor.

  "Bring the saddles in here, hobble the horses and let them graze. There are other horses here on the prairie, wild ones or escaped ones. That thing won't know the difference, and in this deep grass, it won't be able to see the hobbles."

  Everyone scattered, tossing saddles into the wash, pegging the cover from bank to bank, cutting handfuls of grass to toss atop it. The gravelly soil of the wide river bottom was grown up in tufty grasses where the riding horses settled to graze. The others were in or under the wagon while Michael lay prone among the wagon team, murmuring to them, keeping them down. Dismé knelt in the wagon bed, only her head thrust over the lip of the wash, watching the sky through the glasses. The monster quartered the sky, north and south, then came farther west to do it again, over and over.

  "It's coming closer," she murmured, panic threatening to take her by the throat. "It's coming much closer."

  "Oh, by all the..." said Nell suddenly. "What are we thinking of! That thing is a predator, and it's huge. What does it normally eat? What will it do when it sees the horses."

  "Damn," said Michael, feelingly. "I assumed it was hunting us..."

  "It is hunting us," said the doctor, "but that doesn't mean it isn't hungry enough to eat horse. If it comes down on the horses, it won't need to hunt us any further. We'll be right in front of it, like dessert."

  The army had turned westward at the bottom of the mountain road. It had not gone on to Trayford, for when the ogre arrived at dusk, it did not arrive alone. With it was a thing, a monstrous ropiness, a heaving slime, an amorphous stink which could, when necessary, compress itself into a loathsome cloud that half rolled, half crawled alongside the marching monsters of General Gowl. Worse than any other aspect of the thing was its voice, a slimy insinuation which slipped like a slug through the ear into the skull and ate holes in the mind. Upon arrival, the loathsomeness ate ten or a dozen soldiers and called up several monsters, including one that could fly. Then it sniffed the ground and pointed southward, toward the village. The flying thing went there while the army itself turned westward, toward some unmentioned goal that none of the men including the general knew anything about. This evening there had been no rain of blood, and the men were more or less themselves, so the bishop took the opportunity to ride up beside the general and ask a few whispered questions.

  "General Gowl, do you know where we're going?"

  "Urn," said the general, nodding. "The thing that came down from the north is out this way, somewhere. We're going to kill it. My friend, Hetman Gone, doesn't want the thing to come closer. Also the Council of Guardians. We're going to kill the Council, too. And on the way, we're going to find Latimers and kill them because they have something to do with the thing from the north."

  "What are Latimers?"

  "Latimers, Latimers, you know. First Leader of the Spared, he was a Latimer. He had two children."

  "And why are we looking for them?"

  "Because he ... my friend, Hetman Gone, he looked into the future, to see he would fall to the family of Latimer. So, he's kept an eye on all the Latimers, but one got away. And now he's got that flying thing looking for Latimers."

  The bishop thought deeply. Why was the name familiar. Oh, yes. "Rashel Deshôll's sister," he said. "She was mentioned during one of our meetings. Up at Faience."

  "I don't recall. Possibly."

  That wasn't the only place he had seen the name. Where else? Written. He could visualize the paper, a long, long list of names. Of course, Trublood. Trublood's report on people who visited the doctor, either in the office or at the clinic. Dismé Latimer had visited the doctor ... actually worked for him, and had been sent to...

  "The thing's looking in the wrong place," he said firmly. "Dismé Latimer went to Newland."

  "No," said the general. "My friend, Hetman Gone, doesn't look in the wrong place, ever. He can smell her out. He can put a hook in her mind; he can find her if anyone even thinks of her name. We are behind her, but we'll catch up. The flying thing will find her and bring her back to my friend, Hetman Gone."

  In the redoubt, Jackson's spate of uncontrollable weeping gave way to dry and hopeless heaves. He stood up, his eyes fleeting over the control panels beside him, the lights, the dials, the power circuit for the coffins, for the infirmary. The infirmary. He stopped, vacant-headed, only gradually realizing his own stupidity. There were opiates in the infirmary. He almost tore the door from its hinges, getting through it. Within moments he had scooped the loaded hypodermics out of their stasis bin and piled them onto a lab apron, which he gathered up like a sack.

  He instructed himself to take them as he came to them. Otherwise he'd be going back and forth, back and forth. First this nearest man, then the woman next to him. Okay, then the next two men lying under the table. Then the women ... Janet it was, the hell with her, let her wait, go on to the next woman. Three more men. Why wasn't he seeing any of the younger women? There had been several younger women, but they didn't seem to be here. Now this ... God, where was he going to stick the needle. There wasn't any place on this one left to stick the needle. Now this one, now ... now ... now...

  He went back to Janet when he had done everyone else.

  "You left me for last," she howled from a raw throat. "Until last."

  "You killed all these people, you bitch," he said angrily. "You didn't like Nell Latimer, so to prove her wrong, you killed all these people. You killed yourself!"

  She tried to scream at him, but she couldn't. In moments even her rasping moans began to die.

  "It's coming closer," said Dismé in a level voice. "It's turned directly westward, toward us. I think it's seen the horses."

  "Keep still," murmured the doctor. "Keep very still. Maybe it won't notice us."

  "If the riding horses scream, these will react," said Michael in an emotionless voice. "I won't be able to keep them quiet. Can you find Dezmai somewhere? She helped with the horse when we met Arnole."

  Dismé didn't answer. She had no way to search for Dezmai, or summon her, or evoke her. All the volition had been on the other side of the relationship. Above her, only a little to the east, the great creature whipped the air with its wings. She could hear the buzz, huge and deep.

  "Like an engine running," said Nell.

  "Engine?" asked Dismé.

  "For a cart that moves without horses," said Arnole. "Or a machine that flies. As in Chasm."

  "It's coming directly here," said Dismé. "It sees the horses. Everyone be as quiet as you can."

  The deep sound grew closer until it was directly overhead. Out on the prairie, the horses looked up in sudden panic and tried to run. The hobbles panicked them further and they began bucking and screaming, throwing their heads wildly. The pitch of the hum grew higher. Something screeched from directly above them. The horses went mad with fear as the thing dropped directly above them and pivoted on its own axis...

  Where it stopped. Its eyes were fixed at the wash, at the thrashing horses under the blankets, at Michael who had just erupted from among them to prevent himself being struck with a flailing hoof...

  The thing darted forward, one taloned leg extended, and Michael was swept into the air, dangling from one leg, his mouth open, his hands reaching for the large knife he always carried at his belt.

  "Michael," Dismé screamed, thrusting her way up, out of hiding.

  The thing heard her, turned, dropped toward her, another leg extended. She tried to get down, but someone was behind her, she couldn't move...

  Dismé was knocked far to one side, rolling over and over. Beside her something crashed into the ground. Michael yelled, then stopped as h
e fell beside her.

  Silence except for the screaming horses, the muted curses of people trying to struggle to their feet in a tangled mess of wagon cover, blankets, and harness. The riding horses indulged themselves in a few more crow hops, then gathered together to talk it over with much neighing, tossing of heads and attempts to run. One or two of them gave it up and started to graze.

  From behind Dismé, Arnole asked, "What happened."

  Dismé was trying to catch her breath. She whispered, "The thing landed. Michael's here. I think he's hurt..."

  The doctor said, "Michael?"

  "Over by Dismé," said Bobly. "The thing isn't moving."

  "Let me out," said the doctor.

  He climbed out of the wagon and surveyed the surroundings. The moon was well above the horizon. The monster had skidded about fifty feet down the river bank, where it lay silent, and as still as though dead. Michael lay nearby, with Dismé on her knees beside him, cradling his head.

  "It's not moving," she called to Jens. "Michael needs you!"

  Jens went to the fallen man, Nell close behind him. Dismé, catching a glimpse of her eyes, realized that Elnith had at last arrived.

  "About time," she muttered, drawing Michael more closely into her embrace.

  The doctor was beside her. "Did you see what happened?" he asked.

  "It just dropped," cried Dismé. "It hit me with a wing. Is he all right?"

  "Nothing broken," said the cold voice of Galenor, as the doctor ran his hands down arms and legs, around the skull. Then, in Jens's own voice, "I don't think he's badly hurt. Michael. Hey, Michael."

  Michael moaned.

  "What stopped it?" asked Arnole, joining the rest of them with Bobly and Bab trailing behind.

  "Something happened," said Nell, her eyes staring toward the east. "There, in the redoubt. Elnith felt someone ... someone is in there, not injured. The army didn't get him when it got all the others. Whoever it is has stopped the pain. Killed them, maybe. Or drugged them. It has to be, because that's the power that moved the flying thing, maybe even the power that summoned it in the first place. When the pain stopped, it stopped."

  "We can't count on that happening again," said Dismé, rising shakily to her feet. "There's the moon. Let's put as much room as possible between ourselves and whatever is coming after us."

  "If you don't mind," said Michael, sitting up with a pained grunt and holding his head with both hands. "I prefer a little preventive effort. I thought I was ... fly-food. If this thing is still here, that means it isn't any kind of magical construction, right? It's a real thing, though it's probably powered by your warlock. It's not working now, which doesn't mean it won't work later. Somebody bring the axe from the wagon. This thing can't fly again if it doesn't have any wings. And it can't use talons if we lop 'em off."

  In the redoubt, Jackson could find no way to get out. The way up through the seeress's booth was full of rock. Rock had fallen in front of the elevator in a high pile. He passed it a dozen times as he stalked to and fro, muttering to himself, fragments of old, half-forgotten prayers, nursery rhymes from childhood, the words to songs that had been popular before the Happening. It took him a long time before he really looked at the rockfall before the elevator. It was a large pile of rock, true, but the individual rocks weren't large. Not that much stone, really, if he could just get up the impetus to move it. He considered this for some time, moving a step or two toward the pile, then away from it. If he cleared it, he'd have to go up there. He didn't want to go up there. They might still be up there...

  He couldn't move. Maybe it was just as well if he didn't move. Just let things go, for now. There was probably plenty of painkiller in the infirmary. Probably.

  After a long time of blankness and inaction, he went into the infirmary and counted the doses of opiates, those in storage, those in the machines. Then he counted the wounded and divided the one into the other, doing it several times because he disliked the result. Two days supply, at best. Because Nell had taken a lot of it with her, for the people who had to walk to Trayford. Given a week, he could synthesize more, but when two days passed, he'd be back where he started. Still he didn't move. He couldn't move that stone and go up into the world. He'd have to do something else.

  The pings. The pings were still there. Still functional. In Chasm there were survivors from old times. In old times, there would have been a rescue mission. Perhaps the survivors of Chasm remembered when men had cared about men and risked their own lives to save others. At least, they knew about those times. He sat down at the ping console, dizzy from lack of sleep, lack of food, terror, empathetic agony, rounding up pings, bringing pings home, sending pings out, one after another, to the little trading posts, to demon haunts, to the location Raymond had thought Chasm itself would probably be found. Hundreds of pings. Not all functioning, of course. Hard to tell how many there were in full working order.

  Then another dose of opiates for everyone, so he could sleep for a while. Sleep, which he did, longer and sounder than he would have thought possible, only to wake at last to the rumble of machinery...

  He half fell over himself getting to the elevator, and it was already on the way down. The doors opened and the ones inside cleared the stone themselves, coming out to find him there, crouched against the wall, fearing what he might have summoned.

  "Jackson," said one of them: glittering, featureless, uninflected, robotic. "Where are the injured people you pinged us about."

  He pointed, they moved. More of them arrived. There was confusion. Jackson was ignored, mostly, though they finally seized him up and dragged him into the elevator, and once above ground, into a vehicle that was going to Chasm. Someone inside it spoke to Chasm on a radio. It was a cargo vehicle that had been fitted up to take wounded, for the survivors were on stretchers suspended on either side, three stretchers long, three stretchers high. Eighteen plus Jackson. Two white-clad technicians sat toward the front of the cargo space, separated from the drivers by a transparent shield.

  "Can you help them?" Jackson asked, indicating the drugged bodies.

  "Yes," said a technician, indifferently.

  "Prostheses, I suppose," Jackson said, reaching for the word, not one he'd used recently. Not for ... some hundreds of years.

  "You might say that," said the other man. "They'll be fully mobile."

  "Pity we couldn't have saved the severed limbs," Jackson murmured, almost to himself, thinking about it for the first time. "Back in the twenty-first, we used to be able to reattach them."

  "Not needed," said the first man. "Hiram, there. The one who's driving. He lost most of his body."

  Jackson looked at the shiny, robotic figure maneuvering the vehicle down the mountain road. "Most of his body?"

  That's one way to say it," said the other man. "Another way would be to say he lost everything but his head. All of yours still have their heads, so it's no problem."

  Near the chopped off wings of the gigantic fly, they rehitched the wagon and resaddled the horses. Michael insisted on leading them on foot, just to be sure there were no pits or ditches that could wreck either horses or wagon. The prairie went on and on, dotted with scrubby bushes here and there, the only trees found in the occasional swales where rain gathered.

  When Michael was tired, Arnole took his place, moving with an easy stride, obviously a man accustomed to covering long distances. Near dawn, the doctor took his turn, with much the same air of easy competence. They came to a long rise, a ridge extending north and south as far as they could see. Over the top was a trough, and beyond that another rise, and another trough, over and over and over again.

  When the sun rose, they saw a growth of small bushes and cattails in one of the troughs. They dug a seepage hole from which the horses could drink and the water barrel could be refilled. While Dismé plodded up the rise on the far side, the others added a few dry branches to the store under the wagon, picked up along the way.

  Michael said, "Now that we have light we'll be
able to make better time, though we should let the horses rest before starting again."

  "Starting for where?" cried Dismé, from the top of the rise, where she stood, staring to the west. "I think we're there."

  The others went to join her. There were several more and lower ridges, and beyond them only a flat and featureless plain with, at the far side of it, a wall. It stretched the entire distance between low hills to north and south, and it had a huge, open gate at its center. Through the glasses, they could see two figures, white as snow, standing inside the gate.

  "Like the sentries in the maze at Caigo Faience," said Dismé.

  "Let's see," said the doctor, firmly. "It can't be more than an hour away."

  They rode for an hour, but the wall was no nearer. Another hour, and the wall seemed some taller, but was still a great distance. The doctor cursed; Arnole sat up straight on the wagon seat; Bobly and Bab fixed their eyes on the goal ahead, and they went on. When the sun was straight up in the sky, they had crossed the last ridge and could see that the wall was not a low wall but very high indeed.

  They let the horses rest, then began again. When evening arrived, they pulled up between the open gates. On cither side the walls loomed like precipices. The two gigantic figures that stood inside were white-robed angels lifting their great stone hands to the sky and between them, in the space between the walls, was a wide, level-floored canyon, the wall tops so high above that a mere slit of sky showed between them. It took some time even to drive past the thickness of the walls, and when they came to the end of them, they were confronted with another such wall, perhaps a hundred yards away, stretching endlessly to either side, with other statues set in huge recesses, the flat land between the walls carpeted with grass. Dismé laughed.