Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 13

"Cutch!" exclaimed a younger bandit who was missing two front teeth.

Thinking he was being reviled with some ethnic obscenity, Brother Anatoly snapped, "Watch your mouth, pizdosos."

The leader of the gang was all affability. "No, no, padre!

Cutch.

Catechutannic acid, a dye you make from the bark of spine-bushes. A swab-down with that'll turn this nag from Exalted white to wild-chaliko brown slick as a whistle. By the time we get him down to the Amalizan auction, his claws'll be roughed up and the saddle marks blurred. And so he doesn't act too tame for the stock inspector, we'll put a little ginger up him at the last."

The gap-toothed ruffian giggled and explained this last stratagem in disgusting detail while the others rifled Anatoly's baggage. They decided to let him keep the woollen habit and sandals he was wearing, a pouch with hardtack and dry salami, his small spare waterskin, and finally-after the friar's sternest rebuke-the quartz-halogen lantern. This last was grudgingly conceded when Anatoly told them that he was bound for the Montagne Noire wilderness, where the high humidity made it impossible to keep a night fire going and some source of light was needed to ward off prowling man-eaters. In a final magnanimous gesture, the bandit chief cut Anatoly a st.u.r.dy hiking staff.

Thus minimally equipped, the friar continued on his way.

For the better part of three days he travelled through dense rain forest along a boisterous little river. The only hostile wildlife he encountered was a patriarchal sable antelope, which fortunately stood its ground on the opposite bank of the river. With increasing alt.i.tude, the jungle merged into conifer forest and then opened onto long vistas of moorland split by rocky ridges.

Anatoly saw herds of ibex with ma.s.sive horns like scimitars, and sometimes he was followed by curious little chamois as he toiled up the steepening trail.

When Black Crag itself finally came into view, jutting stark among spruce-clad mountains, his heart lifted. There, if G.o.d willed, he would fulfil the promise made more than four months ago to the other priest, the troubled one who had been struck by his own tough-mindedness when they met so briefly in the refugee camp at Castle Gateway and together conceived the mission ...

... but now, lost in the fog, with night closing in, he asked himself: "Was I an arrogant old osloyeb to think I might succeed where she failed? What if I never even find the place? What if I get there-and the bodyguard of Tanu mind-benders sends me off with a flea in my ear?"

He had eaten his last sc.r.a.ps of food for breakfast. Hunger and fatigue made him dizzy and he stumbled many times as he traversed a rubble-strewn slope, which was devoid of any semblance of shelter. The fog was metamorphosing into a chill drizzle. His left ankle, which he had turned early in the afternoon when the mist thickened abruptly, was now so puffed that the strap of his sandal had disappeared into discoloured flesh.

Where could the d.a.m.ned trail be?

He switched on the lantern and cast about, the yellow beam seeming almost semisolid in the murk. He prayed, "Archangel Rafe, patron of travellers, help me spot that peris.h.i.+ng trailmarker!"

And there it was: three stacked rocks, light against the graphitic shale and, as a bonus, a pile of old chaliko dung, sure sign that some other wayfarer had pa.s.sed this spot. Brother Anatoly blessed the Lord, the marker, and the dung. His ankle throbbed, he was benighted and hypothermic and famished enough to eat shoe leather-but at least he was no longer lost.

Fastening the lantern to his cincture, he gripped the staff and plodded on. The trail continued to rise, twisting among rock slabs as black as ink. He came to a fork. Right or left? He shrugged and turned right, onto the wider section of path. The b.u.t.ter-coloured cone of lamplight shone on wet gravel, on tumbled chunks of gneiss, on a treacherous slickensides incline, and on ... nothing.

"Mat' chestnaya!" yelled the priest. He teetered and clung to the staff, which skidded into a small fissure and wedged tight.

Just one more step would have taken him over the precipice edge. Only the lantern's warning had saved him, and the banditgift staff.

He rested on his knees, trembling in terror and relief. Cracked shale pressed through his soaked robe like dull knives, but his unrejuvenated old bones were so chilled that he felt hardly any pain. Head bowed, he mumbled an Ave in the old tongue.

Somewhere down below, a mountain stream seethed and roared and a wind was rising. He looked up and saw a nearly full moon racing amid rags of cloud. The fog was dissipating-or perhaps he had simply climbed high enough to top it-and in a few minutes he had a clear view of a deep coombe threaded by a silvery torrent. The opposite wall was in heavy shadow and above it rose a ridge that culminated in a great moonlit eminence shaped roughly like an old-fas.h.i.+oned papal tiara. Black Crag.

Anatoly climbed to his feet and lifted the lantern high. They could probably see him! He was well out in the open, away from any screening ma.s.s of rock, and the guardian fa.r.s.ensors might have been watching him for hours as he picked his way along the fog-shrouded slope. Perhaps they had even given the warning.

In a voice raised only slightly against the wind, he said, "Good evening! I am Brother Anatoly Severinovich Gorchakov of the Order of Friars Minor. I've been sent with an important message. May I come ahead?"

Was it only the wind-or were spectral metasenses plucking at him, feeling him out? Was exotic scrutiny viewing him with Olympian benevolence-or preparing to flick him off like some intrusive gnat?

Was there no one up there at all, and was he simply a silly old crank with a rumbling stomach and fast-dwindling strength?

He clutched staff and lantern and stood there swaying. Then he saw it, farther into the ravine, on his side of the stream: a tiny red light. And then a white one springing into being just beyond it, and another red one, and then many others, alternately red and white, red and white-a dotted line leading towards the head of the valley, undoubtedly illuminating the continuation of the trail. Anatoly gasped. More lights were zigzagging up the valley's far wall, p.r.i.c.king out a series of ascending switchbacks that snaked to the very summit of the crag. And up there, perched in lofty isolation and glowing like a basket of red-hot coals was a great structure resembling an alpine chalet. The lodge, just as Sister Roccaro had said.

Anatoly switched off his lantern. The last shreds of the Summer Fog were gone and the mountainside lay luminous under the moon. As suddenly as they had appeared, the panorama of faerie lights and the enchanted dwelling on the crag vanished. All that remained was a single little red beacon not a dozen metres away that indicated the correct turning back at the fork of the trail. Brother Anatoly limped toward it. Before he reached the juncture the red light winked out and a white one, farther along, came on.

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," he said. "Still, it may take me a while. You'll keep the tea water hot, won't you? And perhaps save me a sandwich?"

The white star shone steadily. Except for the wind sighing among the rocks, it was very quiet.

"Here I come, then," said Brother Anatoly, and resumed his interrupted journey.

Minds still linked, Elizabeth and Creyn returned from their latest metapsychic range of Ocala Island. But instead of disengaging, they waited, hands lightly clasped across the oak table, to see if the thing would happen again. They were both turned toward the western windows. The sky beyond the balcony railing was now an extravagant blaze of stars, barely challenged by the high-riding moon.

Creyn said: It manifests.

Elizabeth said: Yes. Just like the other two times. Perhaps a bit more leisurely in the coalescence. More sure of itself.

Creyn said: It is a simulacrum isn't it?

Elizabeth said, Pray G.o.d yes friend. Let us attempt a finer a.n.a.lysis.

A silhouette was materializing outside, blotting out the stars.

It was the figure of a tall human male, apparently no more than seven metres away from them on the other side of the leaded window panes. Their linked fa.r.s.ense concentrated into a lancetprobe and explored with superlative delicacy. Were there actual molecules present-or was the thing merely a psychocreative simulacrum, a projected image no more substantial than the holograms of a Tri-D or the "sendings" broadcast by the Tanu and Firvulag? The probe was defeated by an aetheric phenomenon more subtle than a mental screen, a dynamic field manifestation unfamiliar to Elizabeth, more absorptive than reflective.

Creyn said: He's bluffing. He must be.

Elizabeth said: Psychological warfare. Softening up before the real confrontation d.a.m.n him.

The man on the balcony wore a dark and glistening garment with a diagonal fastening, virtually skintight from neck to toe.

Obscure embellishments, apparently of a technical nature, studded it in the region of the collarbone and the groin. The neck and head were bare and the curly hair stood out oddly from the scalp, almost like tendrils. The man's features were unmistakable and he seemed to be looking at them.

To make certain that he heard, Elizabeth spoke on the distance-spanning intimate mode: Why not communicate with us Marc instead of playing games?

The image was not quite motionless. The hair stirred and one corner of the mouth lifted by a millimetre. Tonight, unlike on the previous two visitations, the body was haloed in a faintly luminescent complex of mechanical gadgetry; around the head was a brighter nimbus of half-visible components and a hint of great flex-lines and cables trailing off into the night sky.

Creyn said: Obviously the cerebroenergetic apparatus is again fully operational.

Elizabeth said: They must have been tinkering with it the first two tries. Or perhaps his injuries forced him to utilize unfamiliar neural circuitsDid the head nod, ever so fractionally?

Can you hear us on shortrange conversational Marc?

The smile broadened.

Elizabeth said: Well that's a relief. We're quite tired out from spying on you and your children and Aiken and Nodonn's invaders and the Firvulag. It's been a very wearying thirty-six hours ... We missed you last night. Were you too engrossed in watching the Great Duel to bother visiting us? ... Whom were you cheering for? It was quite a setback for your bewildering offspring but no doubt they'll come up with a new scheme in due course ... What do they really want in Europe Marc?

It's obvious they have a deeper motive than simply snipping the paternal ap.r.o.nstrings and seeking their fortune on barbarian sh.o.r.es. I can't see you coming hotfoot after them for anything as mundane as that ... Your preparations must be nearly complete for the voyage by now. Even with the sigma-fields erected over the Kyllikki we can tell you've managed to stow a remarkable quant.i.ty of materiel aboard her ... Will you set sail soon? ... Quite a lot of mysterious whispering on the intimate mode wafting up from Africa during the last few weeks.

What do you suppose the children are up to? ...

The eyes of the phantom, sunken in deep orbits, blinked slowly. His quirked smile had faded.