The Corridors of Time (20 page)

‘Huh? Where’s your corridor?’

‘We’ve found a different means,’ John said. ‘This machine’ll carry us.’

Fire crawled among the shapes aft. Blackness sealed the cabin. Lockridge took heart. He needn’t really be doomed. This couple
might only feel sorry for him because he had some fighting left to do. At the least, he’d soon see Auri again. Not to mention
Yuria and her cousins; what a party that would be! And afterward Storm. …

The transition ended. John’s countenance had tautened. ‘Get out quick,’ he said. ‘We can’t risk bein’ spotted.’ The machine
fell to a shockless landing. He gripped his passenger’s hand. ‘Fare you well,’ he said roughly.

‘Oh, fare you well,’ cried Mary to Lockridge, and kissed him.

The door slid back. He jumped out. The carrier rose and vanished.

That summery land he had glimpsed was a thousand years unborn. He stood in a wilderness as thick as any the Tenil Orugaray
had known. These trees were mostly beeches, though, tall and white, their branches bare against a darkening sky. Fallen leaves
rustled dryly in a chill wind. A raven flapped overhead.

He winced. What kind of friends had those people been, to dump him here naked and alone?

They had to, he thought.

Still, damnation, no purpose was served by his starving. So somebody must live nearby. He peered through the dusk and
found a trail. Narrow and obviously seldom used, it wound off among brush and tree trunks toward the bay. He selected the
diaglossa for this milieu by experiment and struck off with a briskness that was largely to warm himself.

A glow broke through the woods, opposite the last embers of sunset. Hunter’s moon, he decided. Auri must have been awaiting
him for a good three months. Poor lonely kid. Well, they had to study her anyhow, and he’d be there as soon as he could find
transportation—

He stopped. The cold sank teeth into him. Far off he had heard the baying of hounds.

Well, was that anything to scare a man? Why the devil was he so jittery? He got moving again.

Dusk thickened into night. Twigs crackled and stabbed as he blundered half blind from side to side of the path. The wind grew
louder. Even more close, the dogs gave tongue. And was that a horn he heard? Must be, with such a clang; but the notes were
an ugly snarl.

Probably bound along this same trail, he thought. Let’s wait…. No. He broke into a trot. For some reason he didn’t want to
encounter that pack.

A part of him, above the growing unease, tried to understand why. If the Wardens reserved wild areas, that fitted their philosophy.
If they hunted for sport, what of it? Yet this region was so blasted desolate. Auri’s home woods had teemed. Here he had seen
nothing but trees and bushes and one carrion bird, heard nothing but wind and the unnaturally rapid approach of dogs.

The moon swung higher. Shafts of light pierced between trunks turned ghostly gray, to speckle the ground with shadow. Deeper
in, the gloom was absolute. More and more he felt as if he were in flight down an endless tunnel. He began to breathe hard.
Howling echoed, the horn blew again, he sensed hoof-beats drum through the cold earth.

Ahead of him, the forest opened. Hoarfrost glinted on heather and the Limfjord lay black and silver-streaked under flickering
stars. Lockridge heard himself sob with relief.

But suddenly the hounds yelped and yammered, the horn rang shrill, and the gallop became thunder. Knowledge stabbed: They’ve
got my scent! Uncontrollable, the fear rose up and took him. He ran, with horror at his back.

Closer the pack clamored. A woman screamed like a wildcat. He broke into a dazzle of moonlight. A mile away, next the shore,
he saw a black mass and a few tiny yellow glimmers. Houses — He tripped, into whins that raked him bloody.

The fall shocked out a little panic. He’d never make that shelter, if shelter it was. The dogs would be on him in minutes.
Storm, he wept, darlin’, I’ve got to get home to you. The memory of her breasts against him gave him the courage to double
back.

To the forest edge … up a tall tree … stand on a branch, hug the bole, become another shadow, and wait!

Down the trail and out onto the heath came the hunt.

Those were not dogs, that score of wolfish monsters, roaring forth under the moon. Those were not half a dozen horses, they
were much too huge and narwhal horns sprouted from their heads. The lunar light was so icily brilliant that he could see dark,
clotting wetness on one point. They were human who rode, two women and four men in Warden uniform. Long fair hair blew wild
with their speed. And that shape was also human, slung naked with a rent belly across one saddlebow.

A man winded his trumpet almost beneath Lockridge. Such dread came upon the American that he was near losing his hold, he
knew only that he must run, run, run — Subsonics! flashed through his last sane part, and he clutched the tree till the bark
bruised him.

‘Ho-yo, ho-yo!’ The leading woman shook her spear aloft. Her face was unbearably akin to Storm’s.

Forth they galloped, until the hounds lost the scent and cast about with angry snufflings. The riders reined in. Through wind
and beasts, Lockridge heard them shout to each other. One girl pointed eagerly at the woods. She knew what the quarry had
done. But the rest were too drunk with motion to go beating the bush. After a while they all lined out eastward
across the waste.

Could be a trick, Lockridge thought. They figure me for comin’ down, as I’ve got to, and they’ll be back to catch me then.

The horn sounded anew, but already so far off that most of its mind-destroying effect was lost. Lockridge slid from the tree.
They might not expect him to make for yonder hamlet immediately. He wouldn’t have that much coolness left him, if he were
some ignorant
slogg.

Where did he get that word? Not from his diaglossa, which held so carefully little truth about this half of the world. Wait.
Yes. Storm had used it.

He filled his lungs, pressed elbows to ribs, and started running.

Moonlight flooded the earth, the heather was frost-gray and the waters gleamed, surely they would see him but he could only
run. Bushes snagged and scratched, the wind blew straight against him, but he could only run. Naught else was left in all
the world, unless to wait for fang and horn and lance. Did terror, or something put in his veins by John and Mary, lash him
to the pace he made? This part of his flight was no dream eternity; he reached the shore in one sprint.

The settlement was a mere huddle of huts. Though their walls were concrete and their roofs some glistening synthetic, they
were more cramped and poor than those of the Neolithic. Through ill-fitting shutters and doors trickled those gleams he had
seen.

He beat on the first one. ‘Let me in!’ he cried. ‘Help!’

No answer came, no stir, the house closed in on itself and denied that he was real. He stumbled across bare dirt to the next
and hammered his fists raw. ‘Help! In Her name, help me!’

Someone whimpered. A man’s voice called shaken, ‘Go away.’

Remote on the heath, the noise of the hunt was checked. It lifted again and began to sweep closer.

‘Go away, you filth!’ bawled the man within.

Lockridge cast himself at the door. The panel was too strong. He rebounded in a wave of hurt.

Into the hamlet he lurched, shouting his appeal. At the middle was a sort of square. A tau cross rose twenty feet high near
a primitive well. Upon it was tied a man. He was dead, and the ravens had begun to eat him.

Lockridge went past. Now again he could hear the hoofs.

At the far end of the settlement lay some fields that might have borne potatoes. Plain in the relentless moonlight he saw
the tracks of riders. A cabin even meaner than the rest stood hard by. Its door creaked wide. An old woman stepped forth and
called, ‘Here, you. Quickly.’

Lockridge fell across the threshold. The woman closed and locked the door. Above his gasps, he heard her drunken grumble:
‘They’re not like to come into town. No sport, killing a boxed-in man. And I say a Wildrunner is a man. Let her get wrathy
as she likes, if she finds out. I know my rights, I do. They took my Ola, but that makes me his mother holy for a year. None
less than the Koriach can judge me, and my lady Istar won’t dare trouble Her over so fiddling a matter.’

Lockridge’s strength crept back. He stirred. The woman said hastily, ‘Now remember, if you make any fuss, you, I need but
open the door and holler. I’ve strong men for neighbors, who’d be glad to get their hooks on a Wildrunner. I don’t know if
they’ll tear you to pieces themselves or send you out for Istar to chase, but your wretched life is in my hands and don’t
you ever forget that.’

‘I… won’t… be any bother.’ Lockridge sat up, hugged his knees, and looked at her. ‘If I can give you any thanks – any return
—’

She was not so old at that, he realized with an unexpected shock. The stooped gait, in her drab gown, the gnarled hands, weather-beaten
skin, half toothless mouth, had fooled him. Her hair, braided to her waist, was still dark, her features not much wrinkled,
her eyes drink-hazed but unfaded.

The one-roomed cabin behind her was scantily furnished. A couple of bedsteads, a table and a few chairs, a chest and
cabinet … wait, that kitchen corner held apparatus that looked electronic, and there was a communicator screen on the wall
… opposite a little shrine with a silver Labrys—

She started. ‘You’re no Wildrunner!’

‘I suppose not. Whatever that is.’ Lockridge cupped an ear. The pack had veered off again. He drew a ragged breath and knew
this was not his night to die.

‘But, but you come naked from the woods, fleeing them, yet still you’re barbered, and talk better’n I do—’

‘Let’s say I’m an outlander, though no enemy.’ Lockridge spoke with care. ‘I was bound this way when the hunters chanced on
me. It’s important that I get in touch with, uh, the Koriach’s own headquarters. You ought to be well paid for saving my life.’
He rose. ‘Uh, could you lend me some clothing?’

She looked him up and down, not as a woman at a man but with an immemorial wariness that slowly yielded to resolution. ‘Very
well! Might be you lie, might even be you’re a devil sent to trap poor
sloggs,
but I’ve scant to lose. Ola’s tunic should fit you.’ She rummaged in the chest and handed him a shabby one-piece garment.
As he took it, she stroked a hand across the fabric. ‘His spirit must still be there, a little,’ she said low. ‘Might be it
remembers me. If so, I’m guarded’

Lockridge slipped the tunic over his head. ‘Was Ola your son?’ he asked as softly.

‘Yes. The last. Sickness got the rest in their cribs. And this year, when he was no more than seventeen, the lot chose him.’

With a gruesome intuition, Lockridge blurted, ‘Is he the one on the cross?’

Anger flared back. ‘Hold your jaw! That was a traitor! He cursed my lady Istar’s lover Pribo, who did no more than rip a fishnet
of his!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘I told you I was a stranger.’

Her mood changed with intoxicated swiftness. ‘Ola now,’ she said, ‘he got to be the Year Man.’ She knuckled her eyes. ‘Goddess
forgive me. I know his life is in the land. If only I could forget how he screamed when they burned him.’

Lockridge found a chair, slumped, and looked into nothingness.

‘You’re so pale,’ the woman said. ‘Would you care for drink?’

‘Christ, yes!’ He meant no blasphemy: not of that god.

She poured from a jug into a glass. The wine was rougher than what he had drunk at the palace, but he felt the same peace
stealing along his nerves and thought, Sure, they need somethin’ to make them endure.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘is this Istar your priestess?’

‘Why, indeed. She’s the one you should call. Not before tomorrow afternoon, I think. She’ll be out late, hunting, and’ll sleep
late, and no matter how important you are, she’s no good person to get out of bed.’ The
slogg
drank from her own glass and tittered. ‘Into bed, now, well, I hear that’s another matter. The lads aren’t supposed to talk
about the springtime rites, but they will, they will.’

‘Uh, these Wildrunners. Who are they?’

‘What? You must be from afar! They’re the naked ones, the woods dwellers, the wretches that skulk in to steal a chicken or
waylay any man unwise enough to go out yonder by himself. I really don’t know why I let you in, when I believed you was a
Wildrunner. Unless maybe I’d been sitting here alone remembering Ola and … and of course they must be hunted, not just to
keep them down but because their life goes into the land … yet even so, I sometimes wonder if the Goddess won’t ever make
us a better way.’

Oh, yes, Lockridge thought sickly, a better way can be made.

Though not in this age. I see it quite plain. I see that bewildered old workman I knew, two thousand years ago, laid off because
he couldn’t handle a cybernetic machine. What do you do with your extra people?

If you’re a Ranger, you dragoon them into a permanent army. If you’re a Warden, you keep them ignorant serfs, with some out-and-out
savages as a check, and a religion that —
No, there’s the worst of the matter. The Wardens themselves believe.

Do you, Storm?

I’ve got to find out.

Vaguely, he heard the woman say, ‘Well, sinful though I am, Ola makes me holy till the next Year Man be chosen. He must have
guided me to let you in. What else could have?’ With quick eagerness: ‘Stranger, I helped you. In return, might I see the
Koriach? My grandmother did once. She came flying across this very land, Her hair black as that storm She ofttimes calls Herself,
oh, in sixty years they’ve not forgotten! If I might see Her, I would die so happy.’

‘What?’ Exhaustion and the drug were upon him, but he jolted to wakefulness. ‘The same? That long ago?’

‘Who else? The Goddess doesn’t die.’

A trick of some kind, maybe using the time gates. But Brann had spoken of combatting her throughout all history –and so few
were fitted to go through the corridors. Their leaders, at least, must have to spend a total of years or decades in every
milieu —
How many?