The Chamber in the Sky (14 page)

On an endless causeway across an endless flat marsh, a division of the Thusser army marched. They were accompanied by wagons, jeeps, carts, and an old bus with its windows painted black. In the middle of them marched Gwynyfer and Gregory, not speaking a word to each other, anxious about when the batteries of their disguises were going to wear out.

Lieutenant Kunhild had originally suggested that they should be taken prisoner until their parents could be found and their circumstances examined. Gwynyfer had
quickly offered that they were active members of their local Young Horde troop, and would be invaluable to the war effort if they were not thrown in chains. The lieutenant asked them what badges they'd gotten.

Gwynyfer had said, “Pardon?”

“What badges? You know. Camping. Arts and crafts. Incendomancy. Torture.”

“Oh, almost all of them. Ortwine here didn't get his murder badge because he felt pity at the last moment, but if you starve him long enough, I'm sure he'll become as vicious as the best of us.”

So there they were, marching as junior members of the armed forces. Gregory reflected that this was not exactly where he wanted to be: fighting for the race that was seeking to enslave all of New England and other worlds beside. He didn't know what to do. He had no idea how they were going to find Brian. He just felt tired. Unnaturally weary. He wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

They marched for hours. They were headed, apparently, for Pflundt, which had become the headquarters of the Thusser invasion.

They marched along with other Thusser children. It appeared that the adult soldiers brought their kids along on military campaigns to teach them the lessons of strength and plunder. There were ten Young Horde scouts traveling with the division — six boys and four girls. They didn't talk much, but Gregory got a sense of a few of them: Aelfward, a big, wide-shouldered, handsome boy who took an immediate interest in Gwynyfer and showed
it by ignoring her completely; and Druce, a pudgy, short, silent kid who kept muttering spells to himself and clearly was thinking creepy thoughts about girls.

Occasionally the kids in the troop talked to each other. Usually it was six-foot-two Aelfward teasing one of the girls, to show Gregory and Gwynyfer that he was the leader of this little pack, and that Gwynyfer would do well to pay attention to him.

Gwynyfer whispered, “He hasn't even asked my name.”

Gregory pointed out, “You'd lie to him anyway.”

“He doesn't know that.”

Gregory looked at her jealously.

“Look, Ortwine,” said Gwynyfer, stroking his cheek quickly, “don't get all boiled in your skivvies. These are just kids. Just Thusser.”

They walked silently, hoping that their disguises would hold out.

Late in the afternoon, they saw part of the surface of the slime ripple. Something was floating on top of the marsh like the skin on hot milk. It gathered itself.

A soldier yelled, “Thordath!” It appeared to be a warning.

The skin raised itself up; underneath it was a body with wheeling legs and feelers. It screamed at them and flapped its gooey canopy.

The soldiers scrambled and fired at the monster. It swarmed toward them. They fired another round of blue bolts. Now it yelped in pain and sank into the murk.

Gregory was glad, suddenly, that he and Gwynyfer hadn't been on the causeway alone.

They made camp on an island covered with low stone houses.

Gwynyfer tromped over to the wagon to demand her pavilion.

“Hello,” she said to the adjutant, who was checking things off on a clipboard. “I'd like my silk pavilion, please.”

“Yours?” he said.

“Yes. Big, spacious, with cloth-of-gold rugs? It was in this wagon?”

He smiled icily. “The one with the coat of arms of a Norumbegan noble family on the side?”

Gwynyfer bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. Spoils of war. Not mine originally, of course. Ah well, never mind. Never you mind! Not necessary. Thanks awfully. Thanks.”

So she and Gregory set up the tent that had been his and Brian's.

As they sat by a campfire, eating baked beans out of a can, some of the soldiers began pointing at the sky.

Gregory looked up. There was Tars Tarkas, wheeling in the air, looking down at their tent.

Several of the soldiers had grabbed their guns. “First one to get it,” one said, “I'll give a bag of hot dogs.”

The soldiers laughed and aimed at the little bacterium. Aelfward grabbed a rifle, eager to impress the men around him. Tars didn't understand the danger and bobbed closer, looking friendly and hopeful.

A bolt of blue light ripped past him.

The bacterium opened his beak in shock. He hissed and wheeled, uncertain what to do.

More shots were fired.

“NO!” said Gregory. “NO, DON'T!”

The boy rushed to the side of the sharpshooters and pulled the nozzle of a rifle down. “Stop it!”

“What's your problem?” the soldier grunted.

“Don't bother with it! It's just a bacterium!”

Aelfward looked at him in astonishment. “So what does it matter?”

Gregory didn't know. He looked anxiously toward the sky. Tars Tarkas lingered there, uncertain of whether Gregory and Gwynyfer were friendly or not. Gregory willed the thing to fly away — fly away as quickly as it could.

“It never did anything to you,” he said.

“And it never will,” Aelfward pointed out, “if we kill it.”

They turned back to the sky.

The bacterium was gone.

They arrived at a town on the edge of the marsh of slime. Here, the troops were transferred to a train that would take them directly to Pflundt.

Lieutenant Kunhild called them into the first-class car, which she had taken over as her HQ. “We haven't been able to locate any word of your parents. Yours is becoming a fascinating case. Where did you say your parents were when you finished them off?”

“They were in the City of Gargoyles. Underneath Mount Norumbega. Back on Earth. We had a new condominium.”

“It's a shame that no one there has been declared dead.”

“That
is
a tearing shame. But it does prove how wonderfully clever my brother and I are at murder-craft. We're rare ones for hiding a corpse.”

“Your accent is fascinating. And why doesn't your brother speak?”

“Ortwine doesn't have anything to say. He has no conversation. Bandying words with this fellow is like dribbling an aluminium ball.” She squeezed Gregory's arm affectionately.

“And how did you get from the City of Gargoyles to the Great Body?”

“Do you know, Lieutenant, asking too many questions of children is unmannerly?”

“And I think it's unmannerly for children to shield their thoughts. One might even say suspicious.”

“Always pointing the finger at the runaways themselves! When, in fact, society is to blame.”

The lieutenant sighed, ran her hand across her forehead, and blinked her black, irisless eyes. “Make yourself useful. We're putting you in charge of feeding the animals.” She gestured to a man who stood at attention. “Private, show them where the feed is kept.”

They spent the next half an hour going back and forth between feed bins and cages of branfs who squawked with displeasure. Then there were red sheep that had to be fed. Then white cows with red ears.

Finally, they were given a dish of pellets and told to drop it off in the livestock car at the end of the train.

The door to the livestock car was guarded by several men with rifles.

“Watch out,” said one of the guards. “It bites.”

“What?”

“The animal.”

Gregory and Gwynyfer exchanged a look.

The guards slid the door open.

Gregory walked cautiously in.

There was almost no light. There was straw all over the floor.

And there, in chains, was Brian.

G
regory and Gwynyfer stared in shock. Brian was streaked with grime. There were tracks in the mud on his face from tears. One of the lenses of his glasses was cracked. He wore no shoes. His T-shirt was stained with sweat and wavering tide lines of salt.

Gregory was about to ask what had happened. But then he realized that the door was still open. The guards outside would be able to hear him.

Brian's face lit up in a smile, which he quickly hid. He assumed his friends were there to save him. He thought that this was his big moment to escape.

They put down the bowl of food pellets and the bowl of water in front of him.

They could feel the guards' eyes on their back.

Brian's face fell. They could see him panic.

They turned and walked out of the car.

The door slammed shut behind them.

“Mean little bugger,” said the guard. “They're trying
to soften him up and weaken him so he can be absorbed in Pflundt.”

“He's a chubby little affair,” said Gwynyfer. “He could probably house a family of four.”

The guard smiled. He said, “Well, as the saying goes, girly, it's not what's down here” (patting his belly) “it's what's up here” (tapping his head). “And he's a fertile one. A lot of thought-power that'll be nice for someone to sink their feet into.”

Gregory was openmouthed and had nothing to say. He wildly spun plans to save Brian, but couldn't think of anything that would work, since they were surrounded. He was terrified of ending up in the same spot. He and Gwynyfer made their way back along the rattling train cars to their seats. He threw himself down and grabbed his own knees. The other Young Horde kids were sitting on duffel bags, drinking syrup and playing throwing games with ornate knives.

Gregory wanted to talk with Gwynyfer. Her eyes warned him to keep silent.

The kids kept throwing their knives closer and closer to Gregory's shoulder. They didn't say anything about it. They clearly wanted to see how the new boy reacted. The blades twanged and stuck out of the woodwork. He slid his eyes to the side and saw a throwing knife had barely missed his headrest.

Facing the other way, Aelfward asked Gwynyfer, “What's your friend's name?” He threw his knife. It stuck into the wall opposite them.

“Brother,” she said.

Aelfward was irked. He strolled across the compartment like someone with too much leg muscle to move easily and pulled his knife out of the wall. With a sudden jerk, he hurled it back over his shoulder. It stuck in the floor, right between Gregory's feet.

Aelfward adjusted his question. “What's your brother's name?”

“Ortwine.”

“Ortwine.” Aelfward snickered. He sat next to Gregory. Gregory could smell the kid's cologne. Aelfward said, “What are your games, Ortwine?”

Gregory had no idea what to answer. He knew soccer was probably not the right answer. So he stared straight ahead without speaking.

A pretty girl called Ianogunde, with full lips, black eyes, and careless hair, leaned back on her elbows and said something that sounded like a line of poetry.

“He gone deep in Lefling, no torn tarp for him.”

Aelfward replied, “As kings of Durrenward fathom, no dope can hold the earl with claws.”

And another boy said, “No sneaky maw, neither. As Fanchrott at piers. (No fathom, but league.)”

Everyone laughed. It was a game — clearly — a game for which Gregory and Gwynyfer did not know the rules, or the meaning, or any of the references to Thusser history that a Young Horde scout might make.

Kids kept saying things about Gilliard's silly harness and Mudwad weighing bread on scales, and all of it
seemed to make fun of Gregory, but in ways he couldn't understand.

Aelfward, next to Gregory, leaned close to the boy's fake ear as if he were about to kiss him. He whispered, “What's your pain, Ortwine? No tongue to talk?”

Everyone waited.

“No one worth talking to,” said Gregory. Then he got up and strode away down the train corridor.

“Good job,” whispered Gwynyfer when she found him.

“Good job at what?” Gregory protested. “What are we going to do about Brian?”

“Nothing, G. This isn't the moment. We're surrounded by Thusser.”

“We have to do something.”

“We have to blend in. That's the only way we'll save Bri-Bri. You're doing marvelously. I think walking out like that was a success. The cad Aelfward was surprised. That little spud Druce laughed a lot, and I think the girls appreciated your savoir faire.”

“My what?”

“You looked like you knew what you were doing. Who you were insulting.”

“What was that game they were playing?”

“Who knows? Thusser. It was some game having to do with poetry and rearranging Thusser runes.” She put her arm through his. “You did just the right thing by keeping
your yap shut.” He couldn't believe she was actually praising him. He felt a glow. He said, “You think so? You really think I did a good job?”

“Aelfward hates you. That's a marvelous achievement for just one day.” She smiled tenderly at him. And then she leaned forward, closed her black eyes, and kissed him on the cheek.

He put his hand to the spot. “Aw, shucks,” he said, with his old humor. “You know,” he said, “I forgot how good it feels to put someone down.”

“It's a warm feeling down here, isn't it, G?”

“That's right. I've forgotten what I'm all about. Jokes. Being a jerk.”

“G,” said Gwynyfer, “this is a perfect opportunity. I'm glad to be here with you.”

They watched the landscape go by for a while. Derricks and mine works passed like bony carcasses rotting on the stomach's bleak plain.

When Gregory rejoined the other Young Horde troopers later that evening, there was more respect for him since Aelfward clearly hated him. Gregory felt good again. His only wish was that he knew how to work with Thusser poetry or throw knives so he could go on the attack. His cheek still tingled where Gwynyfer had kissed it. He wanted that to happen again.

The train rolled on through the night. By keeping silent and listening, Gwynyfer and Gregory started
to get a sense of what was happening behind Thusser lines.

The invasion was clearly stretching Thusser resources. Even though there was very little armed resistance to the Horde, they weren't yet in the Great Body in large numbers. They had to come via Earth. The only portal to Earth was the one Gregory, Brian, and Kalgrash had come through — and it stood in the middle of the slimy swamps of Three-Gut. All the Thusser who came through had to be ferried across that endless wasteland of muck. And then their magic was severely reduced because they didn't have enough imprisoned minds yet in which to anchor themselves in this world. They felt exposed, being only in their bodies. They were gathering prisoners in Pflundt so they could feed on their psychic energy. Brian, clearly, was one of these.

They were also rounding up submarines. As Brian, Gregory, and Gwynyfer had heard, the Thusser planned on attacking the Dry Heart and New Norumbega within days. They couldn't do that, however, without subs.

To make matters more complicated for them, the Great Body was showing signs of life. Several hearts had started beating. This made navigation difficult. The lux effluvium was growing warmer and brighter. There had been quakes in the Esophageal Cantons that suggested something might be on the way down the gullet and into the guts.

On the other hand, the Thusser found the citizens of Norumbega remarkably easy to conquer — lazy, disorganized, and self-satisfied.

Gregory had heard the fungal priests of Blavage speculate on why the Great Body was coming back to life: They had believed that strife was thought, and so now that there was warfare in the Great Body, it lived again.

The Thusser had a different theory. They, like the fungal priests, believed that the Great Body thrived on the thoughts of those who lived within it. But they thought it had lain as if dead for more than a century not because it lacked strife — but because the Norumbegans, who'd made their home in its guts and lungs and hearts, were now too lost, too apathetic, and too stupid to perk it into life. They were its brain, and its brain was apparently empty.

Aelfward took up four seats when he slept. No one was going to argue with him. His boots were big and his coat was twisted around him, and it looked like it would be tough to move him.

Gregory and Gwynyfer were crouching against a wall, trying to drop off. A cold draft trickled along the floor of the train car. “If you were a hero and a gentleman,” said Gwynyfer, “I'd be sleeping on those seats, not him.”

Gregory looked at her slyly. Then he looked at the sleeping Thusser boy. He got up and stepped carefully across the slumbering bodies of the other Young Horde scouts. He gently shook Aelfward. “Aelfward. Aelfward! Hey, Aelfy.”

The eyes opened.

Gregory jerked his thumb at the door. “Lieutenant wants to talk to you.”

“Kunhild? What for?”

“She won't tell me. She says it has to do with your skills.” Gregory crouched down and whispered, “Four cars that way, third door along. Here, I'll show you.”

Aelfward got up and fixed his hair in the window's reflection. He walked along in front of Gregory.

“What's your accent?” asked Aelfward. “Where are you from?”

“Our parents had a place on Earth. The new condos in the City of Gargoyles. Before they erupted.”

“The condos?”

“Our parents.”

Aelfward stopped and looked into Gregory's black eyes. “How'd they go?”

“Demon-fire. On a Friday.” He pointed at a door. “Lieutenant's in there.”

Aelfward opened the door. It was a feed closet filled with buckets of branf pellets and hay. Gregory shoved him in, slammed the door, and dropped the bolt in place.

With Aelfward thumping angrily behind him and calling him incomprehensible names through the door, he walked back to the Young Horde car.

He told Gwynyfer, “My lady, your bench awaits you.” He gestured graciously at the four empty seats. Gwynyfer smiled at him, pulled herself up on his hand, and went to settle herself more comfortably.

Gregory watched her sleep. Her hands were curled up
under her sugar-perfect face. He fell asleep counting the risings and fallings of her breath.