Runner (44 page)

But that was the moment when the runner realized that all of the ruins looked the same, that he had no idea which way to go, and that he was hopelessly lost. Lee, who had
started to recover, felt Rebo pause. The reason for the runner's hesitancy was obvious, and the boy had just experienced the first stirrings of panic, when he spotted what could be their salvation. “Look!” the boy said. “Blood! We can follow it back!”

Rebo looked, saw that droplets of blood from the gash on the side of his head led out into the ruins, and realized that Lee was correct. Quickly, lest one of the rain showers wash the red dots away, the runner followed the regularly spaced blobs back to the spot where the empty shell casing marked the point of arrival. The air shimmered where the space-time continuum had been disrupted. “You—first,” the runner gasped, and pushed the boy forward.

Rebo experienced a profound sense of gratitude as the youngster disappeared. Then, having achieved his goal, the runner collapsed. He fell into a well of darkness, felt his body start to spin, and waited to die.

FIFTEEN
The Planet Thara

In spite of all the wisdom that has been spoken, or preserved in manuscripts, each soul must search for enlightenment. There is no single path, but rather a multiplicity of ways, some short and some long. Go forth and find your path, help others along the way, and enjoy the journey. For this is life.

—The ascended master Teon,
An admonition to my students

Death isn't so bad after all,
the runner thought to himself,
as he opened his eyes and looked up through lacy fronds into a pale blue sky. Paradise felt deliciously warm, a soft breeze stirred the thick foliage off to his right, and brightly colored insects darted through his vision.

There was a problem, however—and that had to do with the persistent pain associated with the left side of his head. Dead people don't experience pain, or so Rebo assumed, although there was a great deal about the spirit realms that he couldn't remember. But then, as if to assure the runner that he really was in heaven, an angel appeared. She had high cheekbones, a narrow face, and her eyes were filled with concern. “Jak? Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” the runner croaked. “Are we dead?”

Norr looked relieved. “No, silly. We're on Thara.”

Rebo blinked. “On Thara? But how?”

“You fell through the portal onto the ship. Logos reset the gate for Thara, Bo carried you through, and I put some stitches into your scalp. You'll have a scar—but your hair will cover it. What else would you like to know?”

Rebo pushed himself up onto one elbow. He had been laid out on top of his sleeping bag. Packs were stacked all about. “Where's Lee?”

“Right here,” the boy said as he knelt next to the runner. “Thanks to you.”

Rebo felt a profound sense of relief. “We made it then . . . How 'bout the rest of the passengers?”

The sensitive looked down at the ground. “Bo made one last attempt to round them up . . . But none were willing to listen.”

The runner thought about what it would be like. The strongest passengers would kill weaker ones and take their food. Then, once that was gone, they would start to feed on each other. Not a pleasant way to die.

“So,” Rebo said out loud, “the man who was following you is dead. The rest should be easy.”

“
Should
be, but won't be,” Hoggles said darkly, as he entered the clearing. “Look at this . . .”

The heavy handed a flyer to Norr, who looked at it and frowned before turning the document around so that the others could see it. “It looks like me!” Lee said in astonishment.

Rebo glanced at the crudely printed sketch, then at the boy. “You look a lot like you did when we were on Ning,” the runner observed. “What does the text say? I can't read it from here.”

Norr turned the flyer around. “Be on the lookout for this boy . . . Though posing as the reincarnated spirit of Nom
Maa, the youth called Tra Lee is actually little more than an imposter, bent on stealing the throne of CaCanth. All sightings should be reported to the nearest black hat monastery to receive a material as well as spiritual blessing.”

“Where did you get that?” the runner wanted to know, his eyes on Hoggles.

“It was tacked to a tree next to the main road,” the variant replied.

Rebo shook his head disgustedly. “It looks like the other kid managed to reach Thara before we did, and his supporters are hard at work.”

“Which makes sense,” Norr added thoughtfully, “since nobody was chasing him.”

“Where are we? Does anyone know?” the runner inquired, as he struggled to stand. His head hurt and he felt dizzy.

“I spoke with a farmer,” Hoggles replied. “He was on his way to a town called Nomath.”

Even though Rebo had left Thara when he was very young, he still remembered the names of the cities that he and Crowley had passed through, and Nomath was one of them. He had obtained a map from the runner's guild on Anafa and the time had come to take a look at it. The norm dispatched Lee to fetch the document while he took a seat on a flat-topped rock and probed his bandage. It hurt. The boy returned, spread the map out on the ground, and pointed at one of the symbols. “Here's Nomath,” Lee said, “and look! There's CaCanth!”

The youngster was correct, and it was then, as Rebo eyed the road that connected the two places together, that the reality of the situation struck him. He was home! And there, located in a small bay about a hundred miles east of the holy city of CaCanth, was the village of Lorval. Was his mother
still alive? Or buried next to the symbolic resting places that she had established for her dead husband and sons? There was no way to know.

Something of what the runner felt must have registered on his face, or been visible among the colors that shimmered around him, because Norr knelt next to Rebo and placed an arm around his shoulders. “We must be close to the village in which you were born. Very close.”

“Yes,” the runner agreed. “We are . . . But CaCanth comes first. It's obvious that the black hats are out looking for us, and it wasn't for the completely unexpected manner in which we arrived, would have located us by now. We're safe for the moment—but someone is bound to report us.”

“That's true,” Lee agreed as he brought a grubby digit down onto the surface of the map, “but
here's
the solution.”

Rebo squinted at the map. Part of the symbol was hidden by Lee's grubby finger. It lay a little to the north, in the direction of CaCanth, but east of the main road. “Nocar Rebu? What does that mean?”

“It means the ‘Temple Red,' or the ‘Red Temple,' in Tilisi.”

“It's a red hat monastery,” Norr observed. “Perhaps they could help.”

“I like it,” Rebo replied thoughtfully, as he remembered the well-armed Dib Wa warriors they had encountered on Pooz. “And who knows? Maybe they would supply us with an escort.”

And so it was agreed that rather than strike out for CaCanth directly—the foursome would head for the Red Temple instead. The problem was how to complete the three-day march without attracting the wrong sort of attention. Norr was the one who came up with the solution
and
the clothing necessary to make it work. “There,” the
sensitive said, as she tied one of her scarves under Lee's chin. “I had to wear a disguise on Etu. Now it's your turn.”

“But I don't
want
to dress like a girl!” the boy objected as he looked down at the hem of his skirt. It was too long for him, but the sensitive solved that problem by rolling the excess fabric up around his waist. When covered by a jacket the bulge made the youth look as though he was significantly overweight. A plus insofar as the disguise was concerned.

“And I didn't enjoy wearing chains,” Hoggles put in unsympathetically. “Get over it.”

There was a moment of silence followed by an embarrassed smile. At that particular moment it was as if the boy was someone much older. “It seems that even now, after many lifetimes, it is still difficult to focus on that which is truly important. I apologize.”

There was no slavery on Thara, which meant that Rebo and Norr could pretend to be husband and wife, while Lee posed as their daughter. Then, in an effort to break up what would otherwise amount to an easily identifiable group, it was agreed that Hoggles would follow a quarter mile behind, thereby creating the impression the variant was alone. That stratagem would still allow the heavy to rush forward should that prove necessary.

The way north proved to be exactly two carts wide, and alternated between stretches of fused rock the ancients had laid down, and sections of poorly maintained dirt road. That particular portion of Thara's surface was not only tropical but relatively flat, which meant that there weren't many hills to deal with. There was plenty of water, however. It fell out of the sky at approximately the same time each afternoon and served to fill not only the native lakes, rivers, and streams but a complex network of ponds, canals, and
ditches. The natural result was a road that not only wandered back and forth across the landscape, but crossed innumerable bridges, some of which were quite a bit wider than the current path and suggested that the thoroughfare had been larger at some point.

Most of what the travelers saw came in shades of green, since the frothy-looking trees, spiky undergrowth, and carefully tended fields were all variations of the same color. The exceptions included the brightly colored spirit poles that served to support neatly thatched roofs, clothing hung out to dry, and prayer ribbons that reminded Rebo of his youthful journey to the spaceport.

That had been a long time before, of course, and much of what the younger him had witnessed had been eroded by the passage of time, but some things were as they had been, including the enormous waterwheel that continued to grind tas for the village of Kua, a metal tower so strong that generations of scavengers had been unable to bring it down, and a twenty-foot-tall likeness of Emperor Hios, which though badly dented, still stared out over the land that had once been his.

The younger Rebo had been scared during that first journey, afraid of what might await him, and now these many years later, the grown-up was frightened as well. Not of the physical dangers that might lie in wait, but of what he had or had not become. Because, other than the considerable sum of money on deposit with the guild, the runner had returned to his home planet with none of the things by which most men measured their success. No friends other than those at his side, no home other than the one in his pack, and no family other than a mother who might or might not be alive.

Or was he wrong? The runner examined Norr from the
corner of his eye, tried to imagine a future without her, and found that it was difficult to do. But what did
she
want? A life on Thara? No, that seemed unlikely . . . And what about Lysander, Logos, and the Techno Society? The man with the blond hair was dead—but the danger continued. That wasn't
his
problem, of course, or was it?

A two-wheeled cart rumbled past. A little girl rode the angen's broad back while her father dozed high on a wooden seat. A cloud of dust rose, and the runner held his breath while it settled. The road stretched ahead.

Had Norr been paying attention, she might have picked up on some of Rebo's emotions, but her thoughts were centered on her own problems. Even though the journey would come to an end soon,
her
difficulties wouldn't, not so long as she had the being called Logos stuffed into her pack. Would she proceed alone? Or would Rebo accompany her? And if he did, would that be good or bad? Gradually, without intending to do so, the sensitive had allowed the runner to pass beyond the barriers she had erected to keep other norms at bay. But was such a course wise? In spite of the fact that they had been forced to act like a married couple, and been physically intimate, they remained strangers on certain levels. Perhaps it would be best to go her own way before she became too entangled with Rebo and set herself up for a painful fall.

Prayer ribbons fluttered gaily as the travelers passed between a cluster of neatly kept homes, and Lee fought a battle with himself. Though long and arduous, the journey to Thara had been liberating after all of the years spent within the monastery on Anafa. Now, as each step carried the boy closer to CaCanth and the test that would determine his future, a weight rode the pit of his stomach. What if he took the test and failed? Or, and the second possibility would be
worse in some ways, what if he passed the test? And was he thereby sentenced to a life of meditation, deliberation, and probity? But such thoughts were not only selfish, but unworthy of his higher self, which had returned to the physical plane to be of service.

The red hat's thoughts were interrupted as he and his companions rounded a curve and ran into a checkpoint. It consisted of a pole that blocked the road, a black-clad monk, and four equally drab Dib Wa warriors. They had just finished searching a four-wheeled freight wagon. The pole was raised and the conveyance rattled loudly as it got under way.

Rebo's first inclination was to turn and flee, but the runner knew that could be disastrous, so he produced a determined smile as the monk crossed the road to intercept them. The black hat had a broad forehead, a long nose, and a pair of bright, inquisitive eyes. When he spoke it was with a Tharian accent. “Good afternoon . . . And where might the three of you be headed?”

In spite of the fact that Rebo's accent had all but disappeared during the years he'd been gone, the runner could bring it back when he chose to do so. “To attend my nephew's wedding, holy one.”

“I see,” the monk replied noncommittally, as he circled the travelers. “And where will the blessed event take place?”

“In Lorval,” the runner replied, giving the name of his native village.

“Ah,” the black hat said having come full circle. “So your nephew is a farmer?”

“No, holy one,” Rebo answered humbly. “The land around Lorval is far too rocky to farm. My nephew makes his living from the sea.”

It was not only a
good
answer, but the
correct
answer, and
the monk was about to let the family pass when the girl caught his eye. Her face looked familiar, but why? Curious, and with no other travelers to attend to at the moment, the black hat chose to approach her. Lee felt his stomach perform a somersault as the man reached out to tug at the scarf. The knot came loose and the fabric fell away. “Well,” the monk said smugly. “What have we here? A girl? Or a boy? And not just
any
boy, but one who bears a strong resemblance to the red hat imposter.”