The Cosmic Puppets (13 page)

M-kinetics, the correct term for the archaic, timeless processes of magic. The manipulation of real objects through symbolic or verbal representations. The charts of Millgate were related to the town itself; because they were perfectly drawn, any force affecting the charts would affect the town. Like a wax doll molded to resemble a person, the charts had been constructed to resemble the town. If the resemblance were perfect, failure was impossible.

“Here we go,” Hilda said quietly. She motioned, and the model team entered the first three-dimensional section on the schematic map.

Barton sat moodily at his place, tapping the tire iron against the ground and watching the teams building up the schematics into a perfect miniature of the old town. Rapidly, one house after another was constructed, painted and finished, then pushed into place. But his heart wasn't in it. He was thinking about Mary. And wondering with growing uneasiness what Peter Trilling was up to.

The first reports from night-flyers began to filter in. As Hilda listened to the ring of moths dancing and fluttering around her, the harsh lines of her mouth hardened. “Not so good,” she said to Barton.

“What's wrong?”

“We're not getting the results we should.”

An uneasy murmur moved through the circle of Wanderers. More and more buildings, streets, stores, houses, minute men and women, were pushed into place, an accelerating program of nervous activity.

“We'll bypass the Dudley Street area,” Hilda ordered. “Barton's re-creation has spread over three or four blocks, now. Most of that region is already restored.”

Barton blinked. “How come?”

“As people see the old park, it recalls awareness of the old town. By cracking the distortion layer in a single place you started a chain of reaction that should eventually spread through the whole imitation town.”

“Maybe that'll be enough.”

“Normally it would be. But something's wrong.” Hilda turned her head to hear a new series of reports being brought up the slope by relay night-flyers. Her expression of concern deepened. “This is bad,” she murmured.

“What is it?” Barton demanded.

“According to the late information, your circle of re-creation has ceased growing. It's been neutralized.”

Barton was appalled. “You mean we're being stopped? Something's working against us?”

Hilda didn't answer. A whole flock of excited gray moths was fluttering around her head. She turned away from Barton to catch what they were saying.

“It's getting more serious,” she said, when the moths had fluttered off again.

Barton didn't have to hear. He could tell by her face what it was. “Then we might as well quit,” he said thickly. “If it's that bad

”

Christopher hurried over. “What's happening? Isn't it working?”

“We're meeting opposition,” Barton answered. “They've succeeded in neutralizing our zone of reconstruction.”

“Worse,” Hilda said calmly. “Something has sucked up our M-energy. The zone has begun to shrink.” A faint smile, ironic and mirthless, touched her lips briefly. “We took a chance. We gambled on you, Barton. And we lost. Your lovely park isn't holding its own. It's nice, but it isn't permanent. They're rolling us back.”

Barton got unsteadily to his feet and moved away from the circle. Moths fluttered around him, as he felt his way through the half-darkness, along the side of the slope, hands deep in the pockets of his rumpled gray suit.

They were losing. The reconstruction attempt had failed.

Far off, at the other end of the valley, he could make out the great bleak figure of Ahriman. The giant shape against the night sky, arms outstretched over them all, the cosmic wrecker. Where the hell was Ormazd? Barton craned his neck and tried to look straight up. Ormazd was supposed to be here; this ridge was about even with His kneecap. Why didn't He do something? What was holding Him back?

Below, the lights of the town winked. The fake town, the distortion Ahriman had cast, eighteen years ago, the day of the Change. The day Ormazd's great original plan had been monkeyed with, while He did nothing. Why did He let Ahriman get away with it? Didn't He care what happened to His design? Didn't it interest Him?

“It's an old problem,” Doctor Meade said, from the shadows. “If God made the world, where did Evil come from

”

“He just stands there,” Barton said futilely. “Like a big carved rock. While we try like hell to fix things up the way He had them. You'd think He'd give us a hand.”

“His ways are strange.”

“You don't seem to care particularly.”

“I care. I care so much I can't talk about it.”

“Maybe your chance will come.”

“I hope so.” After a moment Meade said, “It isn't going well.”

“No. We're washed up. I guess I didn't turn out to be much help. The crisis has come and I can't do anything.”

“Why not?”

“Not enough power. Somebody's moving between our model and the object. Cutting us off. Rolling the reconstructed area back.”

“Who?”

“You know.” Barton indicated the slope and the town below. “He's down there, somewhere. With his rats and spiders and snakes.”

Meade's hands twisted. “If I could get my hands on him

”

“You had your chance. You were happy with things as they are.”

“Barton, I was afraid. I didn't want to go back to my old form.” Meade's eyes were pleading. “I'm still afraid. I know this is all wrong; don't you think I understand that? But I can't do it. I can't face going back. I don't know why. I don't even know what I was. Barton, I'm actually glad it's failing. You understand? I'm glad it's going to stay the way it is. God, I wish I were dead.”

Barton wasn't listening. He was watching something half way down the side of the slope.

In the gloom, a gray cloud was moving slowly upward. It heaved and surged, a billowing mass that grew larger each moment. What was it? He couldn't make it out, in the half-light of early morning. Nearer and nearer the cloud came. Some of the Wanderers had broken away from the circle and were hurrying uneasily to the edge of the slope. From the cloud, a low murmur came. A distant drumming.

Moths.

A few gray shapes fluttered wildly past Barton, toward Hilda. A vast solid mass of death's-head moths, pushing in panic up the slope toward the Wanderers. Thousands of them. All were there, the whole bunch from the valley floor. Returning in a mass. But why?

And then he saw. At the same time, the rest of the Wanderers broke away from the circle and flocked to the edge of the slope. Hilda shouted quick, frantic orders. Reconstruction was forgotten. All of them grouped together, whitefaced and terrified. The fleeing moths broke over them in panic-stricken waves, useless remnants without order or direction.

A bit of spider's web drifted around Barton. He plucked it away. A thick mass of web blew against his face; he tore it quickly away. Now the spiders themselves were visible. Hopping and hurrying through the brush, up the side of the slope. Like rising gray water, a furry tide, lapping from rock to rock. Gaining speed as they came.

And after them, the rats. Scurrying shapes that rustled dryly, countless glittering red eyes, yellow fangs twitching. He couldn't see past them. But someplace beyond were the snakes. Or maybe the snakes had come around the other way. Probably they were creeping and slithering up from behind. It made sense.

A Wanderer shrieked, stumbled back and collapsed. Something tiny and energetic leaped from it and onto the next figure. The Wanderer shook it off, then stepped down hard. A golem. Something flashed wicked white to the night gloom.

He had armed his golems.

It was going to be ugly. Barton retreated with the other Wanderers, away from the edge. The golems had come around the sides; nobody had seen them. The moths cared about the spiders and nothing else; they hadn't even noticed the running, leaping figures of animated clay. A whole pack of golems dashed toward Hilda. She fought wildly, stepped on some, tore others apart with her hands, smashed another as it tried to climb toward her face.

Barton hurried over and crushed a pack of golems with his tire iron. The rest scurried off. Hilda shuddered and half fell; he caught hold of her. Needles were sticking from her arms and legs, microscopic spears the golems had left. “They're all around here,” Barton grunted. “We don't have a chance.”

“Where'll we go? Down to the floor?”

Barton looked quickly around. The tide of spiders had already poured over the lip of the ridge. In a moment the rats would be along. Something crunched under his foot. He recoiled. The cold body of a snake moving toward Hilda. Barton retched with disgust and kept moving.

They had to keep moving. Back toward the house. Wanderers were fighting on all sides, kicking and stepping and struggling with closing rings of yellow-toothed shadows and leaping three-inch figures with glittering swords. The spiders weren't really much good; they had scared off the moths and that was about all. But the snakes

A Wanderer went down under a pile of gnawing gray. Rats and golems together. Things of dust and old hair and dry filth. He could see better; the sky had turned from deep violet to stark white. In a while the sun would be coming up.

Something stabbed into Barton's leg. He smashed the golem in half with his tire iron and moved back. They were everywhere. Rats were clinging to his trouser cuffs. Up and down his arms furry spiders scrambled, trying to get webs around him. He broke away and retreated.

A shape appeared ahead. At first he thought it was one of the Wanderers. It wasn't. It had come up the slope with the horde. Slowly and awkwardly, trailing after them. It was in charge. But it wasn't used to climbing.

Momentarily, he forgot the rats and golems biting at him. Nothing he had seen so far had prepared him for this. It took a while for him to comprehend, and then it almost swept his mind away.

He had been expecting Peter, of course. Wondering when he would show up. But Peter had been down on the valley floor. He had been touched by the reconstruction, by the growing area of the park.

Peter was formed after the Change. What Barton had known was only the distorted shape. The thing weaving and quivering in front of him had been Peter. That was its false shape, and that false shape was gone. This was its real shape. It had been reconstructed.

It was Ahriman.

Everyone was scattering. All the Wanderers were fleeing toward Shady House in crazed panic. Hilda disappeared from sight, cut off by a slithering carpet of gray. Christopher was fighting his way free, with a group of Wanderers, near the door of the house. Doctor Meade had forced his way to his car and was trying to get the door open. Some of the others had got into Shady House and were barricading themselves in their rooms. Useless last-ditch fights, each of them cut off, isolated from the others. To be torn down, one by one.

Barton crushed golems and rats underfoot as he retreated, his tire iron swinging furiously. Ahriman was huge. In the shape of a human boy it had been small, cut down to size. Now there was no holding it. Even as he watched, it grew. A bubbling, swelling mass of gray-yellow jelly. Particles of filth embedded in it. A tangled web of thick hair, clotted and dripping as the thing dragged itself forward. The hair quivered and twitched, sprouted and extended itself in all directions. Bits of the thing were deposited down the slope, the way it had come. Like a cosmic slug it left a trail of slime and offal as it went.

It fed constantly. It was bloating itself on the things it caught. Its tentacles swept up Wanderers, golems, rats, and snakes indiscriminately. He could see a rubbish-heap of cadavers littered through its jelly, in all stages of decomposition. It swept up and absorbed everything, all life, whatever it touched. It turned life into a barren path of filth and ruin and death.

Ahriman took in life and breathed out the numbing, barren chill of deep space. A frigid, biting wind. The blight of death and emptiness. A sickening odor, a rancid stench. Its natural smell. Decay and corruption and death. And it continued to grow. Soon it would be too big for the valley. Too big for the world.

Barton ran. He leaped over a double line of golems and raced between trees, giant cedars growing by the side of Shady House.

Spiders fell on him in torrents. He swept them off and hurried blindly on. Aimlessly. Behind him the towering shape of Ahriman grew. It wasn't exactly moving. It had stopped at the edge of the slope and anchored itself. Writhing and twisting, it jutted up higher and higher, a mountain of filth and bubbling jelly. And as it grew, its cold chill settled over everything.

Barton halted, gasping for breath and getting his bearings. He was in a hollowed-out place beyond the cedars, just above the road. The whole valley, in its early-morning beauty, was emerging from the darkness beneath him. But over the fields and farms and houses a vast shadow was falling. More intense than the one lifting. The shadow of Ahriman, as the destroyer-god expanded to its regular proportions. And this shadow would never lift.

Something slithered. A shiny-backed body lashed at Barton. He twisted away frantically. The copperhead missed, drew back to strike again. Barton hurled his tire iron. It caught the snake dead center and crushed its back into a pulp.

He snatched up the iron just in time. Snakes were everywhere. He had come across a whole nest of them, crawling laboriously up the side of the slope. He was walking on them, tumbling and falling into the hissing mass undulating furiously beneath him.

He rolled. Down the slope, through the wet weeds and vines. Then he was struggling to get up; spiders darted and hopped, stung him in countless places. He fought them off, tore their webs away. Managed to get to his knees.

He groped for his tire iron. Where was it? Had he lost it? His fingers touched something soft. String. A ball of string. With sickened misery he pulled out handfuls of string. The tire iron had faded back. The last blow. The final symbol of his failure. He let the string fall numbly from his empty fingers.

A golem leaped on his shoulder. He saw a flash, the abrupt glint of a needle. The needle poised before his eye, an inch away, point ready to plunge deep into his brain. His arms came feebly up, then were enmeshed in foul tangles of spider web. He closed his eyes hopelessly. There was nothing left. He had failed. The battle was over. He lay waiting for the thrust