Wielding a Red Sword (22 page)

Thanatos immediately let go of Mym’s soul, as now he could only hurt himself. Mym stepped out of the body.

They looked at each other. “Incarnations should not quarrel with each other,” Thanatos said after a moment.

“Agreed,” Mym sang. He knew he should not have reacted so imperiously and was glad to accept the truce. The Way of the Warrior was a resolute acceptance of death. Here he had Death literally before him and should have accepted Death’s concern. “But if only you can draw out the soul from a living body, how did these zombies come to be? Certainly
I
did not create them.”

“We had better find out.”

“The young woman summoned them; perhaps she can answer.”

They went to the woman, and Thanatos spoke to her. “You must inform us how the zombies came about,” he said.

The woman seemed startled, as if she hadn’t realized that anyone was near. She started to turn to face the cloaked figure.

“Do not look at me,” Thanatos said quickly.

She hesitated, then spoke in Spanish. Mym, now disassociated
from the thug host, was unable to understand it, but Thanatos did.

“I am the Incarnation of Death,” Thanatos replied to her. “But I have not come for you, only to discover the truth about the zombies.”

She spoke again, with some force.

“The Death Squad thug tried to rape you?” Thanatos asked. He was speaking in English, yet the woman seemed to hear him in Spanish. Mym wondered how that was accomplished, but knew that matter was not worth pursuing at the moment.

The woman spoke again.

“So you asked the guerrilla connection to send help, but you did not know the nature of what would come,” Thanatos said, and the woman nodded.

“Give me that number that you called,” Thanatos said.

She protested; it was a secret she could not divulge.

“Look at me, now,” Thanatos said.

The woman turned to stare into his face. She quailed, then spoke a number.

“Thank you,” Thanatos said. He gestured to Mym, and they went into the house.

Thanatos picked up the phone and dialed the number. When the connection was made, Thanatos turned to his fine pale horse. “Mortis, orient on that location,” he said. Then he hung up the phone.

They went back outside. The zombies were still working on the thugs, and the woman was watching with a certain horrified pleasure. It was not every woman who got such a chance to see an attempted rape and murder so obnoxiously punished.

They mounted their steeds. “To that location,” Thanatos told his horse.

The animal took off. Mym’s own mount followed. They galloped swiftly through the air. Soon they came down in a small jungle clearing and trotted to an isolated cabin.

This was the place, all right: a number of zombies shuffled about. A trainer was instructing them, evidently teaching them how to walk without falling and how to follow a road. A truck was parked, hidden under a tree—the primary transportation for the zombies. “They drove
them to the vicinity of the farm, then pointed them toward it,” Mym said. “That must have been all that was necessary.”

“Yes. But my concern is with the crafting of them.”

They dismounted and walked to the cabin. It was closed, its windows boarded, so they walked through the wall to enter.

A man was inside, using mortar and pestle to work up a white paste. That was all.

Thanatos manifested before him. “Look at me,
Mortal
.”

The man looked up—and stiffened. He recognized Death.

Thanatos questioned him, and Mym picked up the essence; the man had been seeking a better way to purify cocaine and had stumbled upon a savage variation. This product affected the subject so deeply that he passed right through a trance state into somnambulance, and could not be aroused. His body lived, but his mind was almost entirely gone.

Thus, the zombies—living people deprived of their souls, proceeding without personal volition, doomed to degenerate shortly from neglect. Hence the connection with the Incarnation of Pestilence; in days, those bodies would be riddled with disease, the prey of flies and worms.

Certainly this related to War, for these zombies were being used to oppose the Death Squads. In fact, the woman’s husband, the man the Squad had come to assassinate, was involved with this project; when he had gotten news that he was to be hit, naturally he had arranged to test the zombies in action. His brave wife had remained at the house to alert him when the Squad arrived. She had been supposed to phone him and hide in the attic, but the premature break-in of the Squad leader had cut off her escape. The zombies would have wrapped things up anyway, but only Mym’s intercession had spared her from rape and possibly murder before their arrival.

However, Mym realized that it was the development of the zombies that had brought him here, so perhaps that was not coincidence. Nevertheless, there was no question
that it also overlapped the office of Death, since people were being killed, and in a manner that was supposed to be reserved for Thanatos. They were going to have to work this out.

Where did they get the people to de-soul by means of this drug? From captive government troops. It made perfect sense, to the guerrillas and to Mym, who had just seen how the government operated. But it didn’t make sense to Thanatos. “If mortals learn how to handle souls, there will be no end of mischief,” he declared. “This knowledge must be abolished.”

Mym thought of the way the zombies had shuffled into battle and concluded that Thanatos was correct. Killing was bad enough, but de-souling would give unscrupulous people a motive for more of it. They would generate armies of zombies, and no person would be safe. It would transform war, making it uglier than it already was, because the killing would be done before the battles ever started.

“But how can knowledge be abolished?” he sang.

“We shall have to get help,” Thanatos decided. “Chronos could do it.”

Because Chronos controlled time, Mym realized. He could tilt his Hourglass and cause time to freeze, and—

No, that wouldn’t work. Both Mars and Thanatos had the ability to freeze scenes—but the scenes resumed unchanged later. Chronos would have to run time actually backwards to undo the discovery of the drug. That would complicate the world in other ways. “There must be an easier way,” he sang. “Maybe Gaea—”

“Yes, Gaea would be best,” Thanatos agreed. “She knows how to do things with least disruption. I will summon her.” He lifted the heavy black watch he carried to his face and spoke into it as if it were a microphone. “Gaea.”

Mist coalesced, thickening and forming into ghostly, then solid, shape. Mym, still conscious of
Five Rings
, recognized this as the manifestation of Wind—or Air. Musashi also called it
Tradition
.

“I was waiting for your call,” the voice of Gaea said, slightly before her appearance was complete.

“We have knowledge to eliminate,” Thanatos said.

Gaea frowned “To eliminate!” she exclaimed. “Since when have you become regressive? Satan thrives on ignorance.”

“I shall explain,” Thanatos said.

Mym heard something outside. He signaled the others that he would investigate while they clarified the issue and walked through the wall.

Military trucks were pulling up. What was this? More victims for de-souling being brought in? The Incarnations were taking action none too soon!

“The government!” the trainer of the zombies cried.

The first truck screeched to a stop, and soldiers piled out of the back. “Take them alive!” an officer called.

The trainer and the zombies fought as well as they were able, but in minutes all were captive, for the government forces were overwhelming. “Spread out!” the officer cried. Mym wasn’t sure whether he was speaking English, or whether Spanish was becoming intelligible now. “Secure all property! Destroy nothing!”

They were after the secret of making zombies! They must have traced the zombie-truck back to its source and mounted a mission to capture both the site and its personnel.

Mym stepped back into the building. “The government is coming after the secret!” he exclaimed in singsong.

“Too soon!” Thanatos said. “We have not yet decided on a way to abolish it.”

Gaea smiled. “Perhaps we can delay them somewhat,” she said. She stepped to and through the wall. Mym and Thanatos followed.

Outside, the government troops were combing through the jungle and the clearing, hundreds strong, poking at the ground with bayonets. Before long the line would intersect the cabin. There did not seem to be any way to stop it.

“I think fire is best,” Gaea said. She raised her hands, her fingers spread, and jags of electricity radiated from them. The jags touched the ground—and fire erupted. It spread between the points of its origin, formed a line, and swept toward the troops.

The soldiers were quick to realize their peril. “Fire!” they cried. “They’ve torched it!”

“Beat it out!” the officer cried. “Save that shack!”

But the troops were demoralized by the fire. They retreated from it.

Gaea turned about. More current flared from her hands. The cabin burst into flame.

“But the man inside!” Mym sang.

Gaea shrugged. “Rescue him, then.”

Mym strode through the flames and the wall, feeling neither. The man inside was standing, alarmed. Mym caught him by the arm, then touched the Sword.

The two of them flew up, through the roof, and into the sky. The man’s mouth hung open; he could not believe this was happening. Mym brought them down beside Gaea and Thanatos.

The woman turned to the man. “Who besides you knows the secret for making the drug?” she asked.

“N-no one!” the man said, his knees seeming to weaken.

A streamer of mist poured from Gaea’s right hand. Snakelike, it slid toward the man’s head, and into it. “No one,” she repeated.

The man’s expression changed. “I—have forgotten how!” he said.

“And you will never remember or rediscover it,” Gaea said. “Now depart, before the troops apprehend you.”

“But—but the fire—”

“Will not touch you,” she finished.

The man walked, neared the line of fire that enclosed the cabin, and walked through it. He was magically protected—for the moment. Soon he was out of sight.

The officer had succeeded in restoring some discipline in the troops, and they were now attacking the fire with shovels, beating it out. A gap was forming in the fireline.

“With the material and equipment destroyed by fire and the memory of its process gone, they will not be able to fathom the secret,” Gaea said. She fuzzed, became vapor, and dissipated.

Mym exchanged a glance with Thanatos. “It seems our problem has been solved,” Thanatos said. “I have no
further interest in the proceedings.” He made a signal, and his pale horse appeared at his side.

“Wait!” Mym sang. “Your friend Luna—did you know that I once loved her cousin?”

Thanatos paused. “I did not know. I have not met her cousin, but I understand she is easy to love.”

“Now I love Rapture—and I don’t like the influence that Satan is having on her. I want her to be more with Luna, a better influence. But she—she fears any contact I might have with Luna, because of her similarity to Orb—”

Thanatos smiled. “I will deliver Rapture between Luna’s estate and your castle,” he said.

Mym grasped his bony hand. “I thank you, Thanatos! If I can ever repay the favor—”

“We Incarnations must help each other to oppose Satan,” he said. “When I help you, I help myself, for now you will oppose Satan’s designs on Luna.”

“I will certainly do that! But what is it Satan means to do to Luna? Lachesis told me that Luna is destined to balk—”

“She is to cast a decisive vote against Satan’s political power on Earth, some years hence. Satan means to remove her from political office, or in some way circumvent her, so that his will shall govern, and he shall be able to corrupt the mortal realm and gain a majority of souls for himself. This would represent his final victory over God.”

“Satan can do that? Change things about on Earth to suit himself? Why doesn’t God stop him?”

“The two made a Covenant of noninterference,” Thanatos explained. “God is good, therefore he honors it and allows free will among the mortals, wherever it may lead. But Satan, being evil, violates it and seeks always to win more power.”

Mym remembered that Gaea had said the same. Still, he found it hard to accept. “But then—what is to prevent Satan from winning?”

“The other Incarnations,” Thanatos said. “And the war is now coming to you. Wage it well.”

“I will try,” Mym sang. “But I remain new in this office and still have much to learn.”

“That is why the next battle must be yours. Satan always attacks the weakest point.”

Which made sense, Mym realized. But he had little comfort in the realization.
Five Rings
recommended attacking the enemy’s strongest points first—but had the author ever come up against Satan directly?

 
11
 
CHRONOS