01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (14 page)

Jack L. Chalker

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rest to the larger girls with some riding experience. That still left twenty-two people to fit someplace, and some food and hay had to remain in the wagons. She managed to get twelve in the cook's wagon, although very cramped and uncomfortably, but because of the bulk she only could get eight in the hay wagon. When she could get no volunteers among the girls to sit next to the driving duggers, who were the worst sort of the lot, she pulled Ivon, and the poor fellow with the mule's head off their mounts, replaced them with girls, and stuck them on the wagon seats.

Ivon didn't seem too thrilled, but he had too much self-image to refuse to do it. The driver, a hulking, hunched creature with bulging, mis- matched eyes and a tongue hanging out of its mouth, giggled and snorted at him and seemed to be having a good time sensing his discomfort.

Matson placed one wagon, the hay wagon, at the head of this new train, and the other in the rear. It looked very strange, but it was a much shorter train now and easier to guard. Jomo had impro- vised a four-across bridle and rein combination for the four remaining pack mules, and managed them while somehow perched in front of the pack on one of them. Cassie. in the first row of mules with riders, admired the troll-like man's tremen- dous skill.

They were underway before Nadya, hanging on to her for dear life, asked, "What suddenly made you an honorary dugger?"

Cassie smiled. "I don't know. I guess I've been a professional shoulder to cry on all my life. I never could figure it out but I'm not asking questions."

They did make better speed, but the combina- tion of mules and mostly inexperienced mule rid- ers did not make for a really good pace, and mules tended to set their new pace and come to a halt when they wanted a drink from the canisters un-

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der the hay wagon or when they were just too tired. Matson's powers could give them more en- ergy and will, but even he could only do so much with a mule, and it was almost fifty kilometers to this land of Persellus.

They made very good time, but there came a time when the mules and even the horses really couldn't be pushed much further. They needed a rest, and the riders, although still haunted by vi- sions of the slaughter they'd just left behind, par- ticularly the visions of the dead faces of people they'd known and shared a lot with over the past weeks, could take only so much on mule back, bare as their own bottoms were.

Finally Matson called a halt, and they got down, many feeling terrible pain from muscles they had seldom used. They were not allowed to rest just yet, though. The mules had to be tended First, and this time individually, and the stringer and his duggers arranged a security line, or as much of one as they could with most of the packs and hay left behind. The mules would be their primary fortress, although the remaining hay bales were hauled out and spaced around the encampment as firing positions. Only then were they allowed to eat the hard bread and cold beans that was all that was saved, and get drinks of water themselves.

When they were finished, Matson walked over to the group. "Any of you know how to shoot a rifle or shotgun?" he asked them.

There was no response. All save the border guards and the police were forbidden any access to fire- arms in Anchor Logh.

"I was afraid of that," Matson sighed. "All right, we're still going to sleep in shifts. I want at least two of you up with each dugger at each gun position, and I want a few more on watch in the gaps. It may bore the hell out of you but you just remember your friends back there and what hap-

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pened to them. If you'd rather live, then you try and not be bored. If you see anything, and I mean anything out there, or even if you just imagine you do, you sing out. The first one that goes to sleep on duty gets to be another of my mules. The First one who misses something and doesn't give a warning will wish he or she was a mule!" He looked over at Cassie. "You! What's your name?"

"They call me Cassie, sir."

He snorted. "Too long. You're Cass. Anybody ever call you that?"

"A lot of people."

"Better to have a strong, one-syllable name that can be yelled in a pinch anyway. You're strong and you have a knack with people. I'm putting you in charge and that means the rest of you take orders from her like you would from me or my people. Cass, you pick your guards for each period, then get some sleep."

She was amazed. "Yes, sir!" she responded, shak- ing her head a bit. She was no more amazed and awe-struck by the sudden promotion than the rest of them, some of whom looked a little resentful. Well, so what? she told herself. Maybe she'd be- come a dugger herself or something. It sure beat some of the alternatives.

The attack began slowly, with a cautious sound- ing out. Two duggers, looking battered and bleed- ing, reeled into view and began half walking, half crawling towards the circle- The alarm was sounded almost immediately, and in an instant everyone was awake and tensely at what positions they could take.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We're from the Arden train!" one of them called out weakly.

"You stop now or this scattergun's gonna end things for you in the next three seconds," Matson

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shouted back. "How the hell do I know who or what you are?"

"We're from the train, the Arden train," gasped the talkative one, but both stopped where they were. "Happened hours ago. They were all around us. . . ."

"What was her whip's name?" he shouted back, unmoved. "You have three more seconds!"

"Whip -- what?" the wounded dugger gasped, looking confused.

"If you don't even know the name of Cuso, then there's no reason to let you live," the stringer said icily, raising his shotgun.

"Oh, Cuso! Sure, sure. I thought you meant -- "

"Her name was Herot, you scum!" Matson snarled at them and opened fire.

The air was suddenly alive with shapes; terrible, nameless, gibbering monsters who were all hating eyes and gaping, tooth-filled mouths, the dark mon- sters of nightmare and madness, dripping blood and screaming foully at them.

Matson and his duggers opened up on them, ignoring the flying things and at all times shooting low. From the mass of the monstrous attackers came occasional screams of agony as bullets and shot found their mark in the sea of terrible illusion.

But there was one hell of a lot of them. Matson took a moment to concentrate, and his head snapped back, then forward again with his eyes suddenly burning with power and concentration. "Armies of the void, attend me!" he commanded loudly over the din of battle, and suddenly, around the outer perimeter of the train appeared hun- dreds of huge, dark apelike shapes with eyes of red fire. The monsters, so huge and thick that they completely shielded the train, started roaring back at the attacking shapes and then slowly advanced outward.

It was a clever maneuver, Matson's best trick-

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The attacking cult had only limited power on its own, and that concentrated in its leader, but it, used illusion with great skill and cunning, creat- ing for their prey what they themselves feared most and sending it forth in the hopes that those nightmares might equally terrify others.

But there were wizards in the Flux as well as illusionists; wizards who had the power to create out of the void a true and living demon army. Matson and his duggers knew that everything sent against them now was illusion, but the attackers could have no such assurance that the reverse was also true.

And so the stringer, himself a master of illusion, cast upon them a hundred demonic beasts at least as horrible as those being hurled at him, but Matson's beasts all had the same name and it was Doubt, and it had an immediate effect.

The mad shapes attacking the train shimmered, winked in and out, and seemed to lose much of their steam as their creator hesitated in the face of the counterattack. And because of their creator's diverted attention, when the monsters winked out it revealed the ones behind them.

Automatic rifles on wide spray had a devastat- ing effect, even in the void; in the midst of a fading scenario of Hell, bullets found mark after mark, causing odd shapes to cry out and fall back, some dropping in their tracks and laying there in pools of their own blood.

Matson halted his own shooting routine and con- centrated once more. "Armies of the void, back to guard this train!" he shouted-

The huge demonic shapes paused, then did a backwards step in perfect unison, then another and another. Matson only hoped he'd been in time. No matter how crazy or frenzied some of these culties were, they'd notice, if given a chance, that for the past few seconds the train had been shoot-

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ing through their allegedly real phantom army. Although the Anchor people could just crouch down and wonder, the duggers understood immediately what the problem was and ceased firing, taking the time to shift positions and thus not be where they would be expected-

Matson stuck the stump of an unlit cigar in his mouth and peered out at the void, which was sud- denly deathly quiet and still once more. Jomo, Cass, and several others helped reload new clips into rifles as the break lengthened- "How many did you make, Jomo?" the stringer asked.

"We shoot twelve, maybe more," the big mule driver responded. "They was at least as many left."

Matson nodded agreement. "Yeah, I figure we still got another dozen, maybe fifteen out there. Bastards. I wonder if any of 'em noticed our more than natural shooting?"

At that moment explosions went off all around them, the concussions knocking several of them back, and from all sides huge, lizard-shaped crea- tures reared up and hissed defiance.

"I think maybe somebody notice!" Jomo called back, and began shooting again into the now crowded void.

"Well, we'll just see how they like their ear- drums broken!" Matson called back. He made a series of sweeping gestures with his hand and went around in a nearly three hundred and sixty degree circle as the duggers continued their shooting.

Cass continued to supervise the reloading, so that all of the ones who could shoot had an almost continuous supply of firepower. She saw Dar come up to her operation, near Matson, and look at the rifles and then Matson. She frowned. "What are you thinking?"

"Lani -- she has to be with them. It don't look so hard. One shot . .."

"One shot and you'll kill yourself and maybe all

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of us!" she screamed back at him. "He's the only chance we got. Dar! They killed all the boys last time!"

He looked at her strangely. "You've gone com- pletely over to him, ain't you? You forgot what he is, and you don't give a damn any more about the rest of us."

Before she could reply he launched himself at her. At that moment all of Matson's mentally placed charges went off in a great circle of fireworks so effective that it pushed over not only the attackers but half the train as well.

Dar recovered first, and, in his crazed mental state, struck Cass hard on the jaw with his fist, knocking her cold. In the recovery and follow-up shooting to the concussions, nobody really noticed him pick up her limp body and sprint for a weak spot in the line to the rear of Matson. The giant lizard-things, frozen for a moment in the shock of the explosions, did not deter him one bit, for he did not believe in them. A dugger saw him run- ning with her, but as his rifle was on spray he didn't dare shoot for fear of hitting the uncon- scious captive on his shoulder. By the time an alarm was shouted and his rifle readjusted, Dar, carrying the unconscious Cass like a sack of pota- toes, was behind the monsters and out of sight of the train.

9

POCKET

Cass awoke to a scene out of nightmare. All around her was the void, yet she was not in it any more. She tried to turn and see just how far it was, but couldn't manage, and it was only then that she realized that she was bound to a flat slab of some kind, arms and legs out in spreadeagle fashion, while something also held her through the neck and waist rings, making much movement impossi- ble.

After the first few fuzzy moments she remem- bered what had happened, remembered Dar's crazy lunge -- and then what?

The slab was angled slightly upward, so she had a view of what was in front of her. It was in fact an eerie and impossible scene, an outcrop of reddish rock rising up perhaps fifty meters over which spilled a small waterfall whose effluent landed in a pool below but did not seem to either drain to a creek or flood. There was a cave in back of the waterfall, but it was impossible to tell who or what might be inside. Around the pool were a number of palm trees and small bushes, and there seemed to be a few trees and bushes growing here and there all around the place. The void was just in back of the large rock, and she couldn't imagine where the water was coming from.

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She was not alone. It seemed that there were an endless number of slabs set back from the pool area in an eerie sort of amphitheater, and while it was difficult to see much at that level she was certain that each slab held someone, similarly bound as she was.

Around the pool and waterfall there were -- shapes. She was far enough away and at a bad angle so that at first she could not identify them, but sud- denly she knew what they were. They were women, very much like those bodies at the massacre site. Primitive, part animal, some scampering about with animal-like motions, others crouched down and eating or gnawing on something. They looked like the visions of Hell painted by the church in sermon after sermon. In fact, except for the eerie warm light the whole scene resembled a painting of Hell that hung in the temple at Anchor Logh.