by Jack Conner
“I’m afraid so, honey. But I don’t want you involved. You talk to Ant Gwen, and when you go on the press in Salanth just back up Mama Issia, is that a deal?”
“It’s a deal, Papa. But ... Well, aren’t you going into the Ygrithan ruins? The Monastery? I mean, if you’re ... you know. If it works.”
If you don’t die, he heard. “Yes,” he said cautiously, not liking where this was going.
“Well, don’t you need me, to, you know, open the Monastery and stuff?”
“No, Ani. Don’t even think it. You are not to come here.”
“But what about opening it?”
“The head of the Sleeper will open it, I’m sure of it,” Avery said, talking both to Ani and Sheridan.
“Maybe the Muugists can get the Sleeper to open it,” Ani said stubbornly, “but they have tools you don’t. Once you get the head, you won’t have them.”
She had certainly given it a lot of thought. “That’s true, Ani, but maybe we can use them, too.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
He felt panicked. “Ani, you are not to come here. That’s an order from your king and father.”
“I’m the queen. You’re just a regent.”
“I have the authority.”
“Fine, Papa.”
He stared at the transmitter. She’s lying. Damn it, she’s lying. “Ani, you can’t—”
The door opened, and Segrul came in.
Chapter 9
The pirate admiral stared at them. They stared back. Sheridan slipped around him to close the door, and fortunately no one else followed him. Janx lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Segrul’s sides, trying to pin the pirate admiral’s arms down, but he just enfolded sticky, clam-like flesh, or the sodden wool shirt laid over it, not finding purchase anywhere.
Segrul’s blubbery hand fumbled at his gun.
Dropping the transmitter’s earpiece, Avery leapt for the gun hand. Sheridan, on the far side of Segrul’s gun hand, tried to dart behind him, which would be quicker than going around Janx’s bulk, but just then Segrul jerked backward, crushing her against the door.
The pistol cleared the holster and started up just as Avery grabbed at it, forcing it back down. The hammer started to move ...
Avery jammed his fingers into the space between hammer and guard, wincing as the hammer dug into him. Segrul mashed, hard. Avery started to cry out but held it in.
Sheridan cushioning Segrul as he struck the door actually prevented a louder noise than he ended up making when he did hit, and by the time he rebounded, Sheridan, with a pained look on her face, snatched the pistol out of his hand. Segrul staggered forward, huge and strong and glistening. He wheezed so hard in his struggle against Janx, sweating and tight-jawed, that he couldn’t scream for help. They staggered forward so far that Janx’s backside thumped up against the transmitter desk, which shook under his weight. The mouthpiece toppled. Fortunately plenty of shouting and whip-cracking still issued from the next room for anything other than a gunshot or equivalent to draw attention.
Avery struck futilely at Segrul’s rubbery side while the pirate and Janx grappled, each trying to get a headlock on the other or an arm around the back to break the other’s spine. There was no way Janx could get his arms around Segrul’s middle, and his neck might prove too thick, too, or at least what passed for Segrul’s neck. Not only that, but Janx’s grasp slipped frequently, Segrul’s slime drooling off his hands.
Sheridan pulled out a knife stolen from a dead pirate and slashed it across Segrul’s side, drawing a bright line of blood that spurted Avery. Segrul grunted as loud as he could with no air in his lungs and jerked back, a reflex to get away from the pain, in the process breaking with Janx, whose arms slipped off him. Sheridan stuck her leg out behind Segrul, and the massive shapeless form of the pirate admiral crashed backward to the floor. He yelped when he struck, but not loudly.
Then Janx had out his own knife, huge and scored by many encounters, and knelt down, driving his knee into Segrul’s flabby chest. He shoved the blade against what passed for Segrul’s throat and more blood oozed out.
“Stop yer thrashin’,” Janx growled.
Slowly, Segrul’s bucking and struggling slowed, and he glared hatred up at Janx while Sheridan made sure the door was securely closed, if not locked. Avery stepped back, panting and nauseous.
“So,” Segrul hissed, spraying spittle, “the wayward sheep comes home. Welcome home, little sheep. Baaa. Prepare to get fleeced.”
“Fuck you,” said Janx.
“What do you think’s waiting for you outside that door?” Segrul said. “Death, you fool. Do any of you others have any sense?” He swept them with a glare. “Look, it’s the doctor fellow. I remember you.” He laughed. “You were a sight being paraded around Mago. I never saw a more scared-looking fish.”
“He’s a king now,” Janx said. “Show some respect.”
“A king? I eat kings raw and shit them out bloody.” His eyes speared into Janx. “What’re you gonna do with me now, boy?”
Janx spat on his face. Janx’s own face contorted in hate, and his eyes almost vibrated. He barely seemed able to control himself. Below him lay the murderer of his beloved, and he wanted righteous vengeance. The knife pressed deeper into Segrul’s throat.
“Don’t,” Avery said.
Janx turned to look at him, and the big man’s eyes blazed. “Why not, Doc? I mean, really?”
“Because ...” Because I don’t like you killing in cold blood. Still, it might be best if they did end Segrul.
“We can’t leave him alive,” Sheridan said, as if echoing his own thoughts.
Janx pressed the knife deeper. Segrul gasped, and his heels beat on the hard wood. His blood dripped.
“Wait!” said Avery, and Janx paused. Just then Avery realized the handset hadn’t been put up, and he quickly hung it up so that Ani, if she still waited on the other end, didn’t have to hear what happened next. “We need some answers,” Avery said, turning back.
“You want me to torture him instead of killing him?” Janx said, and he grinned a slow and evil grin. Avery blinked to see the hate there, hate bordering on madness. “I don’t mind trimmin’ him up for awhile. I can’t say I won’t hit an artery at some point, though.” He almost laughed as he said it.
“Easy, Janx,” Avery said, and risked laying a hand on the big man’s shoulder. “Easy. I know you want vengeance, and I do, too.”
“So let me take it.”
“Let him take it,” Segrul said “See if he has the balls. I don’t think you do, Janx me boy. You ran last time. You’ll run again.”
Janx forced the knife even deeper, and Avery was alarmed at how far it had cut already. He could see the knife embedded in over half an inch of clammy, wrinkly flesh. Once again Segrul’s feet drummed against the floor.
“Fucking stay silent!” Sheridan said, though Avery didn’t know if this was supposed to be directed at Janx or Segrul. Neither seemed inclined to listen.
“Janx,” Avery said, and put both hands on his friend’s shoulders. Gradually, Janx eased back, sucking in deep breaths and looking like he’d just run a marathon. His eyes appeared as if he’d just come back from somewhere far away.
“Yeah, Doc?” Even his voice could have come from another universe.
“Let me ask him something,” Avery said. To Segrul, he said, “What are you doing here—in this room?”
Wheezing and exhausted, Segrul stared up at him, and Avery couldn’t tell whether fear or contempt showed on the pirate’s expressionless face. “Checking to see what ships were on the way.”
Satisfied that Segrul would cooperate, Avery said, “Where is the Sleeper’s head?”
“It’s with them,” Segrul said. “The High Ones. Good luck getting it back.”
“High Ones?” Avery frowned. “There’s more than one Muugist?”
Segrul seemed amused. He said nothing.
“Fine,” Avery snapped. “Are they here or in the ze
ppelin?”
“They came, accepted a few sacrifices and went back aboard their ship.”
“Just a few sacrifices?” Janx said, driving his knee in deeper. “We’ve seen packs of them.”
“They’re not for the High Ones,” Segrul said.
“Who are they for?” Avery said.
Segrul grinned, the grin of a fanatic serving his god. “You’ll get no more information from me.”
Janx slashed him across the chest with his knife, eliciting a gasp, then placed the blade back at Segrul’s throat, starting a new groove. “He said, ‘Who are they for?’”
Segrul tried to spit at Janx, but the pirate had no spittle left, though the rest of him positively drooled with slime. Janx’s pants had gone dark with it.
“And I said that’s all the answers you’ll get,” Segrul said. He tried to cry out, but Janx slugged him in the face with his free fist.
“Quit yer squirmin’!”
Janx grabbed Segrul’s own knife out of its holster and drove it through Segrul’s left hand, pinning it there, and blue blood squirted out. Segrul roused enough to start a scream, but Janx punched him again.
“Quiet!”
Janx grinned, but it was not a grin Avery had ever wanted to see. One of the big man’s hands reached down and tore down Segrul’s pants, and the other placed the knife at the base of the pirate admiral’s balls. Segrul’s watery eyes flew wide.
“Wait, wait! You can’t! You—”
Janx punched him with the fist still gripping the knife, then repositioned his knife back at Segrul’s genitals.
“Janx,” Avery tried. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Oh, I’m doin’ it, Doc.”
Janx’s blade jerked upward, then sawed back and forth. Segrul thrashed and cried out, and Janx broke away to hit him into submission, then resumed cutting.
“Dear gods,” Avery said, and turned to Sheridan. “Do something!”
She aimed her gun at Janx’s head.
“No!” Avery said. “Not that!”
Janx sawed harder, sweat beading his brow. Madness gleamed in his eyes, and his jaw bulged sickeningly it was clenched so tight. Blood flowed between Segrul’s legs, spreading in a pool around his middle. In another moment Janx had completed his grisly work and held Segrul’s whitely-glistening testicles overhead, grinning ear to ear.
“For you, Hildra,” he said, then shoved the testicles into Segrul’s mouth. “Now chew, you bas—”
The door burst in, revealing a large man with his foot out and several pirates to either side, all armed. They must have heard Segrul’s attempts to call out. As one, their weapons lifted up—
Sheridan fired. Her gun cracked once, then again. The lead pirate tumbled backward, and those to either side dove for cover. Sheridan slammed the door.
“Hopefully his body will slow them down,” she said. Without another word, she fired out the back window, then kicked the remaining glass out from one side. “This way,” she said over her shoulder and slipped out onto the wraparound balcony.
“Come on,” Avery said to Janx, dragging at his giant arm.
Janx moved the knife to Segrul’s throat, but, before he could slice it, the pirate admiral, who’d been thrashing in surely terrible pain, broke his hand free of Janx’s weight and gripped his knife wrist in fleshy fingers. Janx pressed harder, but Segrul was strong, at least for the moment; it was obvious his strength was waning, though. With another grunt, Segrul ripped his other hand up, taking the knife with it, and struck Janx across the head with the handle. This time when Avery pulled at him, the big man came, and they were both just scrambling out of the window when the door burst in again and pirates surrounded Segrul, then fired out the window. Avery and Janx ducked and ran after Sheridan, who’d reached the corner of the balcony and peered down.
“This way,” she said, and proceeded down the storm drain.
Avery prodded Janx to go first, just to make sure he didn’t double back and try for another go at Segrul, then came himself, and in moments they alit on the lawn of the Triarch’s Mansion.
“Run!” Sheridan said, and sprinted for the edge of the property. Avery and Janx stumbled after. When a shape appeared out of the darkness before them, Sheridan fired, and the shape folded away. Another came out shooting, but Sheridan aimed deliberately and fired. The shape crumpled. The trio ran on.
They reached the edge of the property and heaved themselves over the wall, Janx having to help Avery, then on. They slipped down the first alley they came to, then ran up another. They heard shots and shouts behind them and knew the pirates were following. Avery’s heart pounded in his ears. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Just what had they done now?
The shadow of a zeppelin swept the alley, and they looked up to see a searchlight scanning for them. With a blinding flash, its beam enveloped them. Gunfire sounded, and sparks leapt at their ankles. They turned a corner and ran faster. They turned another corner, then another. Gradually the zeppelin began to recede behind them.
Fortunately, resistance still rose from some areas, and gunfire from a rooftop slowed the zeppelin, at least for a moment. Just enough for Avery’s group to put some distance between them and it. Eventually the roar of the zeppelin’s fans faded from hearing, then disappeared altogether. So did the noises of the pirates afoot; they still shouted and fired their weapons, but they must have been firing into the air or at shadows, as the sounds were far away.
The three came to a stop, panting, in a darkened alley intersection, the ruins of bomb-struck buildings heaping around them. Avery wondered how many had died here when the pirates attacked.
“We might have been able to get the head,” Sheridan said, all but snarling, “if you hadn’t fucked it up.” Her eyes bore into Janx with venom.
The big man glared back at her. His eyes were bloodshot, and stormy emotions passed across his face. “I did what I had to do.” There was no apology in his voice, but much meaning. “And I’d do it again.” He grinned, and once more Avery thought there was madness there. It seemed to be falling away, though, and Janx sounded troubled when he said, “I just wish I’d killed him. Bastard’ll be after us hard now.”
“Fuck you,” Sheridan said, and she seemed honestly infuriated, but in a strange, cold sort of way.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Avery told Janx, then, thinking of Segrul with his balls in his mouth, swiveled suddenly and vomited against the jagged alley wall.
Something stirred in the ruins above him. From one of the half-collapsed rooms on the second story, he thought he saw movement. Wiping the vomit away with the back of his hand, he turned back to see Janx looking away, but the big man’s eyes instantly flicked back up, not admitting any wrongdoing, when he realized Avery was watching him.
“I did what I had to do,” Janx repeated, his voice iron, his bloodshot eyes wet.
Slowly, Avery nodded. “But what are we going to do now?”
The noise of the zeppelin returned, complemented by the noise of another to the south, sweeping northward; Avery could see its searchlight sliding along a still-intact rooftop across the street. The windows, though, were broken out, and their shattered remains shone back like fangs when the beam hit them. Furtive figures huddled back.
“I’ll stay behind and hold them up,” Janx said. “You and her go on.”
Avery made his face stern. “No, Janx.”
“It’s the only way, Doc.” The big man’s eyes glared up at the sky, waiting for doom. All had drawn their hoods over their heads, and he grimaced when some rain hit his eye.
“No,” Avery said. “It’s not.”
“What other way is there?”
Janx’s voice was fatalistic, not resigned, exactly, but ... done. The old whaler was through. He’d lost his love, exacted a terrible if incomplete revenge and now he was ready to let death take him. He would go out in a blaze of bloody glory.
Gently, Avery laid his hand on Janx’s shoulder. The big man felt hot even through his clothes,
and he tensed; at first Avery thought he’d shrug Avery’s hand off, but after a moment he relaxed.
“Don’t do this,” Avery said. “We’ll go up into the ruins for sanctuary.”
“Look,” Sheridan said, and pointed. A half dozen faces peered out of a broken wall at them, eyes wide against their golden skins. All were men, and they clutched guns or makeshift clubs or bladed weapons.
One of the men looked both ways down the alley, as if making sure there were no zeppelins or pirates, then motioned for Avery and the others to come with them, to seek shelter in the ruins. He called out, so low and soft that Avery barely heard it: Come, and quickly.
“You go,” Janx said. “I’ll hold them off.” His jaw bulged.
Avery moved around the other side of him and shoved at him, trying to propel the big man toward the group of friendly natives, but it was like pushing a boulder.
“Go on, damn you,” Avery said. “Move!”
Janx grabbed his arms and, gently, pushed him toward the ruins he’d been trying to move Janx to. “No, Doc. This is where it ends.”
“The hell it does,” Avery said.
He glanced to Sheridan, but she was frowning and obviously at a loss. Avery turned back to Janx, who wasn’t even watching him but stared up the alley, where the sounds of the pirates afoot had suddenly come. He bunched his fist and loaded his gun.
“Fine,” Avery said. He moved over to Sheridan, took the gun from her unresisting hand and returned to Janx. “Then we stand together.”
“You’re mad, Doc. You can’t stay, too. We’d both die.”
“Maybe not. Maybe I can make the difference.”
“Bullshit, Doc, you ...” Janx narrowed his eyes. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but ...”
His voice trailed away as the nearest zeppelin suddenly swung into view over the half-collapsed roof of the building to the right. Its searchlight stabbed out, probing, probing ...
Janx shoved Avery toward the Eberlins, but Avery planted his feet and trained his gun on the airship; Janx moved him, but he couldn’t make Avery move far simply by pushing.
“Fuck you, Doc, you can’t do this.” Janx’s eyes were like open wounds.