Future Indefinite (22 page)

Exeter limped back to the road, obviously finding walking an ordeal. His praetorians fussed around him like mother hens, but he ignored them, pulling up his cowl to hide his face. They would gladly have carried him shoulder-high, of course, but what sort of prophet would he seem then? Soon he called Dommi to his side. The road was narrow and crowded again, now that the sun was past its height, so Julian found himself excluded, walking behind his own houseboy and hemmed in by the armed escort like a felon being led to the gallows.

He tried to make conversation with the spear carriers on either side of him, but he could understand little of their heavily accented Joalian. They were loathe to speak with him anyway, being uncertain just who he was or how their leader regarded him. The red-haired one was obviously the boss’s favorite.

Julian had made no progress with Exeter so far. He still had no idea why the man had changed his mind about the
Filoby Testament
, nor did he know what could be done about Ursula. He had been expecting to find the Liberator all charged up with mana, capable of at least putting up a fight. Watching the gray-robed figure striding along in front of him, though, he could see charisma at work. Even though they were not on a node, Exeter was bearing himself straighter already, drawing strength from the devotion of his bodyguard and the adoring pilgrims he passed. That would doubtless carry him as far as Shuujooby. It wouldn’t help much with Ursula, or Queen Elvanife’s lancers either.

For a sweaty, mosquito-laden hour, they trudged through the swamp, looping around toward the rocky gullies of Niolslope again. Finally Exeter remembered his manners. Leaving Dommi to walk alone, he dropped back to partner Julian.

“Dommi tells me the war is over.” He looked fitter than before, his blue eyes twinkling again. Perhaps he felt better able to battle wits.

“Apparently. The Huns lost. We haven’t heard much detail yet.” Julian told what he knew, marveling how little it touched him now. He rarely even dreamed of the hell he had known in Flanders anymore. “And you’ve started another,” he concluded. “Another war, I mean.”

“Dear me! The Service is upset?”

“Very. When they hear how you’re changing their doctrine, they’ll all spit fire and brimstone.”

“Their own fault for inventing the demons. What sort of religion is based on lies and slander?”

“Try telling that to Ursula.”

Exeter did not answer. His cowl concealed his face. He had been a devilish-good bowler back at Fallow, never much of a batsman. When he was on bat, he had consistently stonewalled. He had not lost that ability, for he now proceeded to stonewall every question Julian threw at him.

“You don’t hand out gold earrings to your converts?”

“Ain’t got no gold.”

“But you’ve imported baptism!”

“Water’s cheap.”

“I suppose every cult needs some sort of initiation,” Julian mused. “And circumcision would be messy?”

Exeter shuddered. “Please!”

“So you went into partnership with the Pentatheon?”

“They’re not all monsters.”

“And they deal with any reapers Zath sends after you?”

“They have so far.”

If the Five were frightened of upstart Zath, they might accept the Liberator as an ally or use him as a stalking horse, although only a congenital idiot would ever trust any of them. What promises had Exeter made to win that cooperation? How long a spoon was he using? How far had he bent his principles? To ask those questions would be to end the conversation and trample the fragile reawakening of friendship.

“I thought Zath was stronger than any of them, perhaps even stronger than the whole caboodle?”

Exeter shrugged. “Who knows? Who can possibly know, without trying? No one plays the Great Game with his cards showing.”

Julian persisted. “So why doesn’t he come and get you, now that he’s aware where you are?”

“You’re the military man. You send out skirmishers and they fail to return. Do you march your whole army after them?”

“No. I send a stronger force to reconnoiter.”

“I expect he’ll get around to that.” Reapers were only natives, enslaved by mana. They were armed with rituals that could direct the power of their god, but all their strength came from Zath himself.

“If he sends that stronger force, will you be able to detect them? Will the spells show?”

Exeter took a while to reply. Julian could not tell whether he was thinking over the question or just delaying.

“If I have mana of my own, I may be able to detect them.”

“Why don’t you have any mana now?”

“Used it up.”

“Doing what? Turning rods into serpents?” He knew he was prying dangerously, but he got a civil enough answer.

“Running. I did heal an injured ankle, but it was on Visek’s node.”

“Why did that matter?”

“All the witnesses were Visek’s clergy. They gave all the credit to Visek.”

“You’ll gain some back tonight, when you preach at Shuujooby?”

“Hope so.”

Ursula might get to him before he even opened his mouth, unless Julian himself could distract her somehow. To a large extent, mana was its own fertilizer, like money—the more one had, the easier it was to gain more. Physical exhaustion was not the best state in which to preach a religious revolution. Bloody idiot!

Julian realized he was starting to lose his temper, which was the worst way to deal with stonewalling. “You’re heading for Tharg? You’re going to knock the chip off Zath’s shoulder, aren’t you? Where the hell are you going to get the mana from?”

Exeter hit that one for six. He turned his head and flashed a smile at his tormentor. “From the
Filoby Testament
, of course.”

Julian said, “What?”

“The prophecy itself has mana, old man. Haven’t you realized that yet? It takes a ton of mana to prophesy—so where does it
go
?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“Into the words! Every time the prophecy is vindicated by events, it collects more mana from all the people who know about it. Zath’s been trying since before we were born to break the chain. He fails every time, and every time the prophecy grows stronger.”

Julian stepped in a pothole and stumbled into a leather shield, which helpfully thumped him back to the vertical again.

“That’s bizarre! I never heard that theory before. Who told you that?”

“Thought it up by myself,” Exeter said with a shrug.

“I don’t believe it!”

“I’m not sure I do, actually. But perhaps Zath does? I thought there was at least a fifty-fifty chance he’d come after me right at the start—nip me in the bud in Joalvale with
donner und blitzen
and fiery whips. He didn’t. So perhaps he’s learned his lesson.”

“He’ll just let all those things happen, you mean? Let the play be acted out? Hell’s bells, man, the finale is his own death!”

Exeter chuckled. “Which means that he won’t have dared do a foreseeing of his own. Did you know that, old man? Foreseeing your own death is fatal. He may have had someone else do it for him, of course. No, I’m sure he’ll fight at the end. Now he knows I’m coming for him. He knows I have allies, but he doesn’t know how many or who, and he’ll want to know that for settling scores later if he wins. He may try another jab or two, but I do believe he’ll save his strength for the final innings.”

The idea of the
Filoby Testament
as a sort of active participant did make a wildly improbable sort of sense. Julian himself had postulated that Exeter might have seen something nobody else had. Was this it? More important, would it deter Ursula from meddling?

“That valley?” Exeter was pointing a long, gray-sleeved arm at the hills that now loomed over them, surprisingly close again. “Shuujooby’s at the mouth of that.”

“You’ve reconnoitered the whole route, haven’t you? That’s what you’ve been doing these last two years?”

Exeter just smiled.

Where the river emptied out of the hills to feed the lakes and marshland, its course was almost a mile wide. At that time of year it was all sand, brilliant white quartz, with only a few silver pools and shallow braids holding water, and nothing flowing except an invisible, tangible torrent of air, the breath of the mountains pouring out of the gorge to blow grit in men’s eyes. The only relief from the glaring whiteness was a speckle of shadow under isolated dead trees, stark bleached skeletons.

The trail ended on the northern bank at a rickety jetty and a couple of stranded ferryboats. The celebrated metropolis of Shuujooby was a cluster of driftwood hovels cowering low in the long, rank grass, each hoarding a snowy drift of sand on its leeward side. About a score of ragged villagers stood gaping at the Liberator’s crusade going by. They must have been puzzled by the pilgrims who had already passed and dwindled to specks in the distance, trooping over the shining white desert to reach the designated stopping place. The War-band with their spears and shields were an even greater wonder, and there were hundreds of followers to come yet.

The far bank was a faint green line of brush and woodland, before which stood the remains of the temple, half buried in the sands of the floodplain. Even at that distance, Julian could see that it had been picked clean, as if by giant vultures. Every stone must be burnished smooth, and few seemed to be standing in their original positions. It would have been built on a node, though, and the virtuality would remain. A whopper of a node, Exeter had called it.

He had gone forward to rejoin Dommi, so Julian was alone again. He did not mind, for he had much to think about. Ursula would certainly try to block Exeter’s revolution. Julian found that he was hunting for arguments to stop her, so he must want it to continue. Why? Could he really believe that it had any chance of success? It seemed horribly like a children’s crusade, a massacre of innocents. Whatever damage it was going to do to the Church of the Undivided was probably inevitable now. Whether the heretic sect was smitten by Zath in Thargvale or just discredited and dispersed when Ursula betwitched its leader, the Pentatheon and their traditional religion would be seen to have triumphed.

That was a very cynical attitude! At the rate Exeter was going, he would have gathered a huge following by the time he reached Thargvale. Better, surely, to abandon a few hundred people here than let thousands be slain there? Unless Julian could convince himself that the circus held some reasonable chance of success, he would never convince Ursula—and should not even try.

Ignoring Shuujooby and the watching Shuujoobyites, the Warband arrived at the riverbank and the jetty. The lead warriors jumped down from the spiny grass to the white plain. Exeter and Dommi followed, then Julian himself slithered after them in a shower of hot sand. As he recovered his balance, he saw Ursula a hundred yards or so off to his right, beyond the hamlet. For a moment he felt a strange reluctance to speak with her. He had sworn not to warn Exeter and then broken his word.

She saw him and waved. She ran down the bank, wheeling her arms for balance, and then stood waiting. He slipped neatly between two of the Nagians and started to run. If anyone tried to follow and was called back by Exeter, the wind stole away the words. He staggered and stumbled in the soft sand, his aching feet reminding him how far he had walked that day.

As he drew close, he saw that she was barefoot, clutching her shoes in one hand; the other held her wide-brimmed hat in place against the mischief of the wind. She was wearing a white dress of the flimsy Nextdoorian fabric the Service called cotton, although its fibers came from a tuber. Her arms were bare and the billowing of the material revealed her ankles and half her shins. It also displayed the curves of her hips and thighs and breasts, the unusual width of her shoulders. He had never heard of such a garment in the Vales, but he would not complain about it. She looked for all the world like a girl playing on a beach at Blackpool or Frinton, and must feel like that, also, for she was laughing as she watched his labored approach, her face flushed by the wind.

Instinctively he reached up to remove his hat and remembered that it was a turban. Good Lord! Kiss a woman with his hat on?

He did. She folded into his embrace and returned the kiss willingly, thumping her shoes against his flank in a one-armed hug. Then she applied her other arm as well, and in seconds the wind stole her hat. She swore. He broke loose and ran to catch it, noting that the Warband was tramping along in the same order as before, heading for the distant ruins. Had Exeter observed the meeting and drawn the appropriate conclusions? No matter—Dommi would certainly have told him how the land lay.

Julian brought back the hat and kissed her again.

“Mm! Walking must agree with you,” she said breathlessly.

“Actually, I was dead on my feet until I saw you.” And now he wasn’t. Ursula Newton intoxicated him.

He exchanged the hat for her shoes, which he held in the crook of his right arm. Hand in hand, they plodded over the riverbed, heading for the rains. He could think of no reasonable excuse not to.

“Those Zulus are Nagians, I suppose?” she said.

“Right on. His old comrades from the Lemond campaign.”

“And how is General Exeter?”

“As well as can be expected.” He was lying already.

Ursula glanced up at him quizzically. Her eyes were hazel with tiny golden flecks in them. “Did you discover the argument that will convince him to stop this madness?”

He hoped he had found an argument to stop
her
. “Not really. I—We really had no chance for thorough discussion.”

She made no comment. The brim of her hat concealed her expression.

“Remember that night at the Pinkneys’?” he said. “I suggested that Exeter might have seen something the rest of us had missed?”

“Do tell.” She sounded skeptical already.

“Well, he’s got an interesting theory that the
Filoby Testament
itself may be a reservoir of mana. We know it was an accident; we know it drained Garward so he almost died of it. Mana certainly went into its making. Exeter thinks that every time it’s been proved right, it’s grown stronger.”

“You believe this?”

“I don’t know. I think we ought to get back to Prof Rawlinson on the subject before we take any action.” Hearing no wild cheers of agreement, Julian pressed on. “I was sent out to reconnoiter, remember. We’re scouts, not an assault party.”

He was a scout. Ursula might think of herself otherwise.

“Fiddlesticks! It’s enough to send Prof into delirium. You honestly think that a prophecy can somehow take on a life of its own and then gather strength from its own success? You’re anthropomorphizing an idea!”

“I’m not the first to do that, old girl. A faith is an idea, and lots of faiths have been anthro-whatever-you-said. Religions and nation-states are ideas.” Then Julian thought of something else. If he wasn’t convincing Ursula, he was at least beginning to convince himself. “Look at it this way—if Zath had never tried to invalidate the
Filoby Testament
, then a lot of things wouldn’t have happened. D’you see? Such as Exeter’s return Home. That wouldn’t
disprove
anything, because the prophecy gives no dates or order. As far as the world’s concerned, those things just wouldn’t have happened
yet
, see? But Zath meddled and they did happen, and everyone says, ‘Oo! There goes the Filoby thing again, ain’t it wonderful?’ People talk. Its reputation gets boosted. Fame is a source of mana—you’ve got to admit that.”

“Pull the other one! Trafalgar Square’s famous. You think it’s got mana?”

“It may,” Julian protested. “It makes me feel pretty proud to see old Horatio up there on his bally chimney. It’s at least got virtuality.” Was virtuality in places the same as mana in people? Did a place gain virtuality from worship as people gained mana? That was an intriguing idea, by George! When he got home to Olympus, he wouldn’t just ask Prof about it; he’d work it all out in a paper and present it for discussion. But the problem at the moment was Ursula. “Besides, mana doesn’t obey the laws of logic. Nor does charisma. Or nodes or portals.”

“Or Captain Smedley.”

They were halfway across already. The Warband had almost reached the temple, trailing a snake of pilgrims in its wake. The broken walls and stark, tilted columns were a pale yellow stain on the whiteness of the sand. Julian thought of streaky yolk in a fried egg and realized that he was hungry.

The Nagians might keep visitors away from the Liberator until he had delivered his promised sermon. He doubted they could stop Ursula from gate-crashing if she wanted to.

“What else did you learn?” she asked, not looking up.

“Not much. Well…he has allies. Astina and Irepit have been helping him. Apparently he had an audience with Visek.”

Now she tilted her head and her eyes glinted angrily. “Is this common knowledge?” She had seen the asp in the basket already.

“Some of it,” he admitted.

“And how does he rationalize consorting with demons?”

“Um, you’ll have to ask him. Look, darling, just promise me that you won’t do anything hasty, because—”

“I won’t promise a blasted thing!”

“Dammit, Ursula, it’s dangerous!”

“What is?”

“Tampering with the prophecy! Zath’s been trying for years. All he ever managed to do was kill a lot of innocent bystanders—Exeter’s parents, Julius Creighton, poor old Bagpipe…. You’re likely to get your own fingers burned if you start meddling. All I’m asking is that you—
Oh, Hell!
”

Never mind Ursula. A column of lancers on moas was pouring down the far bank and across the sand, heading for the Liberator and his Warband. There were at least a hundred of them.