The Adversary - 4 (66 page)

ELIZABETH: Yes, dear.

AIKEN: Gads! I'm surprised to find you still here, babe ... You decided not to waft away after all?

ELIZABETH: Marc and I are discussing things.

AIKEN: I had a sneaking suspicion you might be ... Babe, that metaconcert program he gave the Firvulag is killing us. We're going to lose this ball game-and the Little People haven't even begun to focus their full mental potential on us. I think they're holding back the terminal zorch for the clincher-the signal for Nightfall.

ELIZABETH: Oh, Aiken. But if it becomes plain that the assault is of lethal intent, you'll be free to use your weapons and your aircraftAIKEN: By then, we may be goners. Or I may be-which amounts to the same thing. If I were Sharn and Ayfa, I'd funnel the entire psychocreative load at Me just before old Heymdol blows the Last Trump.

ELIZABETH: Marc-can't you do something?

MARC: I promised the Firvulag that I would never use my destructive potential against them.

ELIZABETH: The metaconcert then-!

MARC: I can't rescind it, nor is it susceptible of sabotage. I played fair with the Little People as I did with both of you.

AIKEN: I was afraid you might have. Well ... I guess that's that. Thanks for the memories, you two. Think about Me as you work out your little penances for the next six million years.

MARC: Just a moment. Are you restricted as to your garb in this game?

AIKEN: ? We wear our usual Grand Combat regalia, but I suppose anything goes. What's this got to do with the fending of Ragnarok?

MARC: I'll show you.

All but hidden in smoky haze, the sun dropped toward the western forest horizon. But the game was rocketing madly in the opposite direction, toward the Rainbow Bridge and Nionel.

Aiken Drum and his depleted band of defenders, englobed in a mental shield, were running away with the ball.

Outraged gnomes and ogres trampled through the concession stands, blasted aside the flimsy riverside bleachers, poured in a demonic torrent through empty picnic areas and pleasances, and charged the Tanu stalwarts blocking the approach to the bridge.

The spectrum colours of the great arch had a preternaturally brilliant glow. A single low-angled beam of sunlight broke the cloud cover and illuminated gold-domed Nionel.

Out in the middle of the span was the King's protective bubble-and on top of its flexible surface bounced the enormous ball, insolently inaccessible in spite of the combined mental power of the Firvulag seeking vainly to snatch it away.

"Pull it down!" Ayfa entreated her husband. "What's wrong with us? How can that little scoundrel be countering our concerted effort like this?"

"He's getting help!" Sharn gasped. "From somewhere on the other side of the river. Te's Tonsils-it's the Howlers lending him their minds!"

"Perfidious misbegottens!" raged the Queen. "There's nothing for it, Sharn. We'll have to hit him with everything we've got. Right now. Before the Last Trump."

"We'll burst the ball-lose the game by default!"

"And win the Nightfall War, you great blockhead!" she screamed. "Order the offensive metaconcert in its ultimate configuration as the Adversary taught us. Now!"

"Wife, wife, our Sacred Way forbids-"

"Do you want to lose?

If we cannot take him suddenly, before the game's end, the aircraft with their Milieu armaments will come at us from all directions! Will we have the skill to fend them off-and cope with Aiken Drum at the same time? Call up the offensive!"

Sharn did as he was told.

In the middle of the Rainbow Bridge, Aiken felt the psychic tension begin to mount, perceived the terrible coherence of the Foe-mind gathering back on the Field of Gold.

He said to his people: Slonshal to Us! It was a grand game after all.

Then he saw the two black armoured forms materializing inside his mental bubble, side by side on the deck of the bridge.

From the righthand CE rig came Marc Remillard, shimmering through the impermeable cerametal as though it were the insubstantial projection of a Tri-D. The other suit of armour abruptly split open and the blind helm lifted to show that it was empty.

"Hurry!" Marc told him. "Get inside. The coverall isn't necessary and your own armour will fit within the shell. I'll not oppose them directly, but I'm willing to show you how to use the cerebroenergetic enhancer yourself. There will be pain. Pay no attention. Now hurry!"

Without thinking, Aiken dived for the gaping lefthand rig.

Marc's simulacrum had vanished back inside the other. As the body halves closed over him, Aiken levitated to keep his head above the neck seal. Something deep inside the armour stabbed him on both sides of the groin. He felt his legs growing cold, his entire body numbing, disappearing ...

It's only the femoral circulatory shunt and the start of the refrigeration. Are you keeping your protective bubble up?

Yes. Aagh! It hit my jugular!

Carotid arteries. The primary shunt. Here comes the helmet.

Don't panic. Have your people holdfast as best they can. You'll be out of it for the next few seconds.

Descending darkness. Clang! Liquid rising, filling mouth, nose. I'll drown! I won't ... I'm cold, not breathing.

God-no-lasers drilling my skull-my mind sees the crown of needles plunge into the helpless brain, sprout filaments, hurt me as the energies pour in-Marc make it stopOstopOstopOGodmakeitstop no no ... ??? Jesus.

Can you see now? Farsense?

Yes. O yes. YES!

Find the enemy executive. Your farsenses will stay in peripheral mode. As normal. You're power-phased only for psychocreative metafunction. Now quickly-this is the way to augment the faculty with the enhancer. Let me monitor ... merde alors you are a strong little bugger aren't you? Christ they're winding up to strike!

Have you the fix on Shorn and Ayfa? Hurry for the love of God Aiken hit them hit them now forgetmetaconcertBoyhitthem yourselfyourownpowerhithitHe did.

Oh, it was so good. He hit, and the Foe burned. The encroaching Night was thrust back by the intensity of the fire.

Was the game over? Had the horn blown? Was the sun down?

He didn't know. The Rainbow Bridge seemed to be tumbling down, and golden onion domes and lacy spires. He was aware of minds fleeing and minds dying and minds whirling like sparks in a hurricane all around the central fire of the Shining One.

Let my Brain shine on! This is the way it should be. This is the way I win, I conquer it all, engulf it in my furnace and feed upon it!

Never let it stop.

It stops now. And just in time I think ...

Aiken woke. He was lying on smouldering turf, wearing a stained and soggy suit of armour-padding. Big Dougal sat beside him, raising his head and proffering a cup of lukewarm muddytasting water. It was extremely dark except for a full red glow all along the northern skyline.

"The wildfire is past, my liege. How fare you?"

Aiken tried to sit up. A pang of agony shot through his head and he saw multicoloured stars. Then he got hold of himself and managed a puny beam of farsight. He and Dougal seemed to be the only ones alive in the midst of a scorched plain strewn with bodies. "No!" he whispered. "No no no!"

"Take heart, Asian. Many of our people live. They are beyond the blasted bridge, receiving aid from those who lately fled. It was said that you had perished in the dire combustion but I knew it was not so. I sought you out and found you, and now we will go to a small boat I have waiting, and thence to an aircraft that will carry you home."

"Sharn ... Ayfa ... "

"They are dead, and more than half their host. The rest fled before the wildfire that your mind enkindled, into the north and the west and the southern jungle. But none dared cross the Nonol to our sanctuary, and none dared dispute when the departing Adversary named you High King."

"Gone. Marc's gone." Suddenly, Aiken had to grin. "Oh, that was a narrow escape! Small wonder those rigs are outlawed in the Galactic Milieu."

Dougal had with him an oil lantern that had long ago burnt out. With feebly reviving creativity Aiken engendered a wee faerie light to sit in it and cast a meagre radiance to show the way. Arm in arm they limped toward the river. Their progress was very slow. Gradually the eastern sky acquired a tentative grey sheen, silhouetting the broken masses of the twin grandstands and the blackened snags of trees down by the shore.

Wraiths of smoke drifted here and there, given substance when the lantern light caught them.

Then they saw something else-a harder, brighter gleam in the midst of a great tumble of Firvulag bodies. They came close and discovered a thing like a backless throne, exquisitely carved from translucent greenish stone and ornamented with silvery metal. Its cushion had been burnt to ashes, but otherwise the Singing Stone was unharmed.

Dougal lifted the lantern high and marvelled. "Would you seat yourself upon it, High King?"

Aiken uttered a weary laugh. "Maybe some other time." He turned away from the trophy and let his farsight range, mourning the lost splendour, the wasted lives. And now to begin all over again for the third time! Could he do it? Did he even want to try? Or should he simply turn his back on the entire mess and follow the ones who had surrendered, returning to the security of Elder Earth?

There was a definite tinge of dawn in the east. "Who knows what I'll do?" Aiken said to Dougal. "It looks like the Night is almost over. Let's go find that boat of yours and see what's on the other side of the river."

Tony Wayland had managed to escape the vigilance of Chief Burke when the terrible news from the Field of Gold reached the time-gate site. Wild with fear for Rowane, he secreted himself on a shuttlecraft returning to Nionel. He spent the remaining hours of the night searching futilely among the huddled mutants who dozed in small groups around dead campfires in the eastern meadow. It was not until the sun was full risen that he found Greggy beside a tiny brook, leaning against the trunk of a willow tree, the head of a sleeping woman in his lap.

The Genetics Master giggled softly. "Well, well! Back at last, are you? We'd given you up, you know. Poor Rowane cried herself to sleep."

Tony demanded, "Where's my wife? What have you done with her?"

"Why, she's here," Greggy said slyly. He let one fingertip caress the eyelids of the little beauty who nestled against him.

The eyes opened. Saw Tony. He stood there as dumb as a stick of wood as she rose and stood in front of him, lips trembling, hands clasped together. "It's really her," Greggy said. "She went through my new Skin-tank. The very first case. I'm so proud."

She said in a low voice, "I hope you like me. I hope you'll stay now."

"I loved you the way you were," he said brokenly, and then he touched his golden torc. "I loved you too much. I wasn't strong enough then. But now I have my torc and it'll be all right. Rowane."

"But you do like me as I am now?" she pleaded.

"I love you. You're beautiful. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But it wouldn't have mattered if you'd stayed the same, Rowane. Believe me."

"Not everything about me is changed," she whispered, and then gave a little teasing laugh. Tony gulped, but only held her tighter. She said, "I wonder if the baby will take after you-or me?"

Looking over her shoulder, stunned, Tony saw Greg-Donnet Genetics Master wink at him. "Don't fret, son. Don't give it a second thought."

Deep in the Paris Basin swamps, a boy woke as the paddles splashed and the inflated craft pushed through rattling reeds to an open pool. He saw the kindly face of Lady Mabino Dreamspinner looking down at him. When he struggled upright he caught sight of old Finoderee snoring back in the stern and two rugged dwarves in obsidian half-armour stretching and scratching mosquito bites and taking long swigs from a drinking skin.

"Mother? Father?" the boy called. And then the memories returned and he gasped with the renewal of terror and cried, "Where are they? And my brothers and sisters? What's happened?"

Mabino bestowed a reproving look on him. "Behave yourself, Sharn-Ador. You aren't an infant but a Warrior Youth. We believe your siblings are safe enough with Galbor's wife, Habetrot. But since she's not very adept at farspeech, we'll-"

"Where are my Mother and Father?" the boy asked in a tight voice.

"They are secure in Te's Peace, having travelled the Warrior's Way. We are very proud of them. Now you may weep for a short time, as is fitting."

Later, he lifted his reddened face and looked across the sunlit marsh. Mallards were swimming there, and immature greylag geese, and one enormous cob swan who dominated the others.

"He is their king," the child said, dashing away his tears. He watched the black-and-white bird cruise about with neck proudly curved and wings lifted above his back. "I'll be a king, too, some day! Did you save my armour and sword?"

The stalwart dwarves guffawed and bent again to the paddles.

Mabino tightened her mouth in pretended disapproval. "It's in the back of the boat. But don't go crawling over Papa Finoderee and wake him. He's just managed to drop off to sleep after a very bad night."

"Yes, my Lady," said Sharn-Ador. He settled back against the boat's pneumatic gunwale and watched the swan until it had vanished from sight astern.

The Heretic seemed to fly out of the heart of the rising sun and along the wake of the great schooner, to land on the afterdeck, where Alexis Manion greeted him without surprise.

They introduced themselves. Alex said, "I've tracked you for three hours. Welcome to Kyllikki."

"Farsensed me into the sun?" Minanonn let his astonishment show. "That's no mean feat. You must be a power to reckon with."

Alex chuckled. "I was, but that's ancient history."

"Funny, you could say the same for me."

The man who had been Marc Remillard's closest confidant during the Metapsychic Rebellion looked up at the former Tanu Battlemaster. "You like coffee, high pockets?"

"Don't mind if I do, shrimp. You Lowlives are a hopelessly corrupting influence."

"It seems to me I've heard that line before." Alex turned around and beckoned. "Right this way to the galley and let's talk. Enjoy the peace and quiet while you can. When the women and children wake up, this damn ship turns into a floating circus."