Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 106

Let my Brain s.h.i.+ne 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 ma.s.ses of the twin grandstands and the blackened snags of trees down by the sh.o.r.e.

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 cus.h.i.+on 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, das.h.i.+ng 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."

"Fa.r.s.ensed 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 d.a.m.n s.h.i.+p turns into a floating circus."

Basil Wimborne looked at Chief Burke and Chief Burke looked at Commander LeCocq, who shrugged.

"That's the last?" Burke said, without believing it. "The very last one?"

"So it seems," the officer said.

"How many?" Basil enquired. "I lost count after the third day."

"A total of eleven thousand, three hundred and thirty-two,"