Among the Powers (20 page)

Bredon knew that if he grew bored enough, he
might try things in Arcade that he would do better to avoid. He had
already been dabbling in computer simulations that were
fantastically real, and terrifying in the sense of power they gave
him when he was actually controlling nothing but colored light,
synthesized sound, and artificial odors.

He did not want to stay in Arcade.

Geste, however, probably would not want him
along.

Geste did not necessarily have the final
say, however. Bredon was not just a savage, cowering before a
demi-god. He was a free human being, and could do as he pleased.
Geste had carelessly given him partial control over Gamesmaster,
and therefore over all the machines and creatures in Arcade,
probably thinking that he would be too frightened and ignorant to
make any use of them.

If so, Geste had been wrong, because Bredon
had learned how to use them.

“Gamesmaster,” he said, “privacy,
please.”

Abruptly, he was enclosed in utter
darkness.

“Yes, kid, what can I do for you?”
Gamesmaster asked.

“Get me aboard the Skyland.
Now
.”

“
...the boatmen saw an island in the sea before
them, an island at the mouth of their own harbor that had never
been there before.

‘“
Has it risen from the bottom overnight?’ some
asked.

‘“
Did it fall from the sky?’ said others.

“
But among the elders of the village was a woman
who had studied the legends extensively, and she knew at once what
this island must be. ‘It is Avalon, the home of Tagomi of the Seas,
greatest of the aquatic Powers,’ she told the villagers. ‘This
island, unlike all others, floats freely wherever its master wishes
it to go.’

“
The villagers heard her words, and knew that she
spoke the truth, and they marvelled that one of the Powers had come
to their little corner of the world.

‘“
What could he want here?’ they asked each
other.

“
One young man, Filomor by name, replied, ‘Why
don’t we ask him?’

“
The others laughed, and called him mad. ‘Would
you go up and ask him, ask a Power, ask Tagomi, what he wants here,
as if he were a common vagabond?’ they asked.

‘“
Yes,’ Filomor replied, ‘I would do just that.
Will anyone come with me?’

“
And then the others grew angry, and cursed him,
and threatened him, and told him, ‘You must not go there. You must
not disturb him. If you anger him with your audacity, he might
destroy us all.’

“
But Filomor was determined, and would hear none
of their arguments. ‘I will go to him and ask why he has come,’ he
said, ‘and nothing in the three worlds will stop me.’ And he took
his boat and rowed out onto the sea, across the harbor to the
strange green island...”

—
from the tales of Kithen the
Storyteller

No one human saw Bredon slip off the platform as it
sank to the great empty expanse of close-clipped lawn. No one human
saw him glance around in the dimness at the flawlessly even grass,
the delicate flowers that swayed gracefully without wind, and the
great jagged house at the top of the long, gentle slope as the
platform slid silently back across the rocky verge and down into
the empty space beneath. No one human saw him scurry quickly into
the ornamental shrubbery that glistened nearby, the glossy green
leaves almost black in the dim light of the stars overhead and the
distant glow of the main house. No one human saw or heard any trace
of him. He was a hunter, a named Hunter and the son of a Hunter,
and he knew his trade. The midwake darkness made it easy to avoid
human eyes.

The Skyler’s machines were another matter;
they needed no visible light. The instant his foot left the
protective field the platform had provided he was seen, scented,
felt, heard, measured, analyzed, his mass adjusted for in the
island’s lift, the biochemistry of his breath and body odor
recorded for future identification, his movement matched against
known human behaviors to judge his intentions.

Bredon felt nothing, heard nothing, saw
nothing of the machines, but he knew they were there, and that the
central intelligence would be informing the Skyler of his presence
within seconds. He pulled the little communicator from one of the
pockets in his vest.

“Hello, in the house,” he whispered.

“Identify yourself, intruder,” a harsh voice
replied, speaking not from the communicator but from the air above
him.

“My name is Bredon,” he said. “Gamesmaster
sent me. It’s playing a joke on Lord Geste. Look, I know you have
to report me, but could you wait until we’re moving? Please? If you
don’t the joke will be ruined. You can watch me as closely as you
like, even confine me, and I won’t cause any trouble.”

The intelligence hesitated, then said, “I’m
sorry, sir, but I
must
report you to the Skyler
immediately
. I’m transmitting a report of your arrival right
now. Anything else would run counter to my most basic programming.
She may choose not to ruin the joke herself, however.”

Bredon shrugged. Gamesmaster had warned him,
but he had thought it was worth trying. That had been foolish. One
high-order artificial intelligence, given another similar one’s
exact design specifications, can predict that one’s reactions
pretty closely, and Gamesmaster had the Skyland’s complete original
plans in memory. Geste had ordered them downloaded from Mother
years ago, to help in planning a stunt that he had hoped to pull.
If the Skyler had made any modifications, they hadn’t been enough
to loosen up the original programming for dealing with
trespassers.

Well, he told himself, maybe the Skyler has
a sense of humor and will play along. He crouched down more deeply
into the bushes.

Light suddenly blazed up, washing across the
lawn and the shrubbery, turning them vividly green. The stars
overhead vanished in the glare. “All right, Bredon, come out of
there,” Geste’s voice called.

Bredon cursed, then slid out of the bushes
and got to his feet. The lawn was lit almost as brightly as full
sunlight, and he could see a thousand previously-hidden details of
the Skyland—bushes trimmed to resemble mythological beasts, small
animals and machines skittering about on mysterious errands, the
main house like a dozen villages pressed together into a single
structure, little pavilions and follies scattered across the entire
island in a myriad of shapes and sizes and colors, the whole
panorama neat, orderly, incredibly complex, and somehow sterile and
dull.

The Trickster, still in his red outfit, was
coming around a corner of a nearby pink gazebo; a globe of golden
light accompanied him as far as the edge of the lawn, then
vanished.

He stopped, hands on his hips, and smiled at
Bredon. “I take it you want to come along,” Geste said.

Behind him was a woman, tall, thin, and
obviously nervous, with curling, ill-kept black hair and a dusky
complexion, clad in a gleaming, tight-fitting green gown. Bredon
guessed that this was the Skyler herself. If he could ingratiate
himself with her, Geste might find it that much harder to order him
off the Skyland. He bowed formally in the manner of his people, and
as he groped for flowery greetings he said, “My apologies, lady,
for coming here uninvited.”

“Who is he, Geste?” the woman demanded.
“What’s he doing on my island?”

Geste mockingly returned Bredon’s bow, and
then waved theatrically as he announced, “Skyler, this is Bredon
the Hunter, son of Aredon the Hunter, of a village in the
grasslands for which I know no name. Bredon, this is the Skyler,
mistress of the Skyland, on which you stand.”

“I receive an honor such as I have never
imagined possible even for the gods themselves, my lady, in being
permitted to see you even briefly,” Bredon said, taking his speech
from an old story Atheron liked to tell, about a mortal who so
charmed the Nymph when she carried him away to her home beneath the
river that she kept him there for a year and a wake, rather than
the usual dark or two.

The Skyler stared at him, but still spoke
only to her fellow immortal. “Geste, what is he
doing
here?”
she demanded.

Geste sighed. “Skyler, I apologize. I got
involved with him in the course of one of my little games, and he
was with me when I discovered that Thaddeus was causing trouble. I
left him at Arcade, where I thought he would be safely out of the
way, but it appears that he doesn’t care for my hospitality, and
would prefer to sample yours.”

Bredon could think of nothing appropriate to
say, so he simply bowed again.

“Well,
I
don’t want him
here
!”
the Skyler said.

That, Bredon thought, was that. With nothing
left to lose, however, he decided to try arguing.

“Geste, you can’t leave me there. I want to
help, I want to see what happens. I
can
help, if you let me;
Gamesmaster taught me to run some of your machines.”

Geste was startled. “It did?”

“Of course!” Bredon replied, startled by the
Trickster’s surprise. “You told it to do what I wanted, and you
were gone for almost four wakes; what else was I supposed to
do?”

Geste smiled. “When you put it that way, I
don’t really know.
I
would have just waited—eaten, slept,
played a few games, perhaps. I keep forgetting how impatient you
mortals are, and how easily bored.”

“Some mortals would have done the same,”
Bredon said, “but I’m too restless for that.”

“So I see,” Geste replied.

“May I come along, then?” He did his best to
sound casual, to make it a polite request rather than begging.

Geste contemplated him, still smiling,
clearly thinking it over.

“Geste!” the Skyler exclaimed warningly.

“No, wait, Skyler,” Geste said, still
looking at Bredon. “He may have a point. Maybe he
could
help. Thaddeus will never expect a native to be a danger.”

“Why the hell not?
I
would! I don’t
trust these people!”

“But, Skyler, Thaddeus is different, and you
know it. He’s so damn arrogant that he hardly considers
us
a
threat, let alone some poor bastard who survives by killing rabbits
with rocks. Bredon might be able to walk right up to him, where we
couldn’t get within kilometers without being probed down to our
marrow.”

The Skyler hesitated, almost pouting, then
gave in.

“All right,” she said. “But keep him away
from me. And Skyland, you watch him, every second. And I won’t eat
with him, and I don’t want him in the main house.” She turned and
stalked away.

Geste and Bredon watched her go, and when
she was out of sight the Trickster gave Bredon a smile that could
only be considered conspiratorial.

“Don’t mind her; she’s just nervous.”

“It’s all right,” Bredon answered. “I don’t
blame her. According to the legends she has never spoken to a
human—I mean, a mortal—before.”

Startled, Geste looked after the departed
immortal. “She hasn’t?”

“So the stories say.”

“Skyland, is that true?”

“Yes, sir, to the best of my knowledge it
is. The Skyler does not believe any contact with the indigenes to
be safe.”

“They aren’t indigenes; they didn’t evolve
here.”

“My apologies, sir. Say rather, the previous
inhabitants.”

“She’s
never
spoken to any of
them?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir.”

Geste considered this. “She always votes to
stay here, though, whenever anyone wants to go home,” he pointed
out.

“Yes, sir, she does,” the Skyland
agreed.

“Why does she want to stay, if she never has
any contact with the people here?”

Bredon thought that was obvious, even to
someone as ignorant as himself, but he let the machine answer
rather than risk making a fool of himself if he should be
wrong.

“She has never stated a reason, sir, but in
order to carry out my duties most effectively I am required to
understand the Skyler’s psychology as far as I can, and based on
that understanding I would say that she does not like
any
strangers, and prefers Denner’s Wreck to Terra because the
population here is far smaller and less intrusive.”

Bredon almost nodded. It
was
obvious.

“I hadn’t realized she had it
that
bad,” Geste said, more to himself than to Bredon or the
Skyland.

The two men stood silently for a moment, and
then the Trickster roused himself.

“Well, Bredon, the weapons are all aboard,
and Imp is seeing to it that they’re all linked to our central
control system. We’ll be heading for the High Castle as soon as the
Skyler gets around to giving the order. It will take a few hours to
get there; this thing isn’t designed for speed. Have you had
lunch?”

“
In the southern portion of the desert west of
the mountains, in the harshest part of the desert, where nothing
grows, nothing lives, here is the domain of Madame O. The man who
finds her is fortunate indeed, for not only will he be saved from
death by thirst in that barren land, but he will be given food and
drink the like of which most mortals dare not even dream, foods of
spun crystal and glossy velvet, drinks like liquid song. He will
see sights most mortals cannot imagine. Her chambers flow with
light and color; the very touch of the air is like strange silks.
The grass that grows in her courtyard is as soft to the touch as a
kitten’s fur, and fountains on the amber terraces sing like silver
bells as they pour forth flashing streams of stars...”

—
from the tales of Kithen the
Storyteller