The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (70 page)

Brawne Lamia and Colonel Kassad came out. A minute later Sol Weintraub joined them. Rachel twisted in his arms, reaching toward the night sky as if she could grasp the bright blossoms there.

Hoyt played. The wind was rising in the hour before dawn, and the gargoyles and escarpments acted like reeds to the Keep’s cold bassoon.

Martin Silenus emerged, holding his head. “No fucking respect for a hangover,” he said. He leaned on the broad railing. “If I barf from this height, it’ll be half an hour before the vomitus lands.”

Father Hoyt did not look up. His fingers flew across the strings of the small instrument. The northwest wind grew stronger and colder and the balalaika played counterpart, its notes warm and alive. The Consul and the others huddled in blankets and capes as the
breeze grew to a torrent and the unnamed music kept pace with it. It was the strangest and most beautiful symphony the Consul had ever heard.

The wind gusted, roared, peaked, and died. Hoyt ended his tune.

Brawne Lamia looked around. “It’s almost dawn.”

“We have another hour,” said Colonel Kassad.

Lamia shrugged. “Why wait?”

“Why indeed?” said Sol Weintraub. He looked to the east where the only hint of sunrise was the faintest of palings in constellations there. “It looks like a good day is coming.”

“Let’s get ready,” said Hoyt. “Do we need our luggage?”

The group looked at one another.

“No, I think not,” said the Consul. “The Colonel will bring the comlog with the fatline communicator. Bring anything necessary for your audience with the Shrike. We’ll leave the rest of the stuff here.”

“All right,” said Brawne Lamia, turning back from the dark doorway, gesturing toward the others, “let’s do it.”

   There were six hundred and sixty-one steps from the northeast portal of the Keep to the moor below. There were no railings. The group descended carefully, watching their step in the insecure light.

Once onto the valley floor, they looked back at the outcrop of stone above. Chronos Keep looked like part of the mountain, its balconies and external stairways mere slashes in the rock. Occasionally a brighter explosion would illuminate a window or throw a gargoyle shadow, but except for those instances it was as if the Keep had vanished behind them.

They crossed the low hills below the Keep, staying on grass and avoiding the sharp shrubs which extended thorns like claws. In ten minutes they had crossed to sand and were descending low dunes toward the valley.

Brawne Lamia led the group. She wore her finest cape and a red silk suit with black trim. Her comlog gleamed on her wrist. Colonel Kassad came next. He was in full battle armor, camouflage polymer not yet activated so the suit looked matte black, absorbing even the
light from above. Kassad carried a standard-issue FORCE assault rifle. His visor gleamed like a black mirror.

Father Hoyt wore his black cape, black suit, and clerical collar. The balalaika was cradled in his arms like a child. He continued to set his feet carefully, as if each step caused pain. The Consul followed. He was dressed in his diplomatic best, starched blouse, formal black trousers and demi-jacket, velvet cape, and the gold tricorne he had worn the first day on the treeship. He had to keep a grip on the hat against the wind that had come up again, hurling grains of sand in his face and sliding across the dune tops like a serpent. Martin Silenus followed close behind in his coat of wind-rippled fur.

Sol Weintraub brought up the rear. Rachel rode in the infant carrier, nestled under the cape and coat against her father’s chest. Weintraub was singing a low tune to her, the notes lost in the breeze.

Forty minutes out and they had come even with the dead city. Marble and granite gleamed in the violent light. The peaks glowed behind them, the Keep indistinguishable from the other mountain-sides. The group crossed a sandy vale, climbed a low dune, and suddenly the head of the valley of the Time Tombs was visible for the first time. The Consul could make out the thrust of the Sphinx’s wings and a glow of jade.

A rumble and crash from far behind them made the Consul turn, startled, his heart pounding.

“Is it beginning?” asked Lamia. “The bombardment?”

“No, look,” said Kassad. He pointed to a point above the mountain peaks where blackness obliterated the stars. Lightning exploded along that false horizon, illuminating icefields and glaciers. “Only a storm,” he said.

They resumed their trek across vermilion sands. The Consul found himself straining to make out the shape of a figure near the Tombs or at the head of the valley. He was certain beyond all certainty that something awaited them there … that
it
awaited.

“Look at that,” said Brawne Lamia, her whisper almost lost in the wind.

The Time Tombs were glowing. What the Consul had first taken to be light reflected from above was not. Each Tomb glowed a different hue and each was clearly visible now, the glow brightening,
the Tombs receding far back into the darkness of the valley. The air smelled of ozone.

“Is that a common phenomenon?” asked Father Hoyt, his voice thin.

The Consul shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It had never been reported at the time Rachel came to study the Tombs,” said Sol Weintraub. He began to hum the low tune as the group started forward again through shifting sands.

They paused at the head of the valley. Soft dunes gave way to rock and ink-black shadows at the swale which led down to the glowing Tombs. No one led the way. No one spoke. The Consul felt his heart beating wildly against his ribs. Worse than fear or knowledge of what lay below was the blackness of spirit which seemed to have come into him on the wind, chilling him and making him want to run screaming toward the hills from which they had come.

The Consul turned to Sol Weintraub. “What’s that tune you’re singing to Rachel?”

The scholar forced a grin and scratched his short beard. “It’s from an ancient flat film. Pre-Hegira. Hell, it’s pre-everything.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Brawne Lamia, understanding what the Consul was doing. Her face was very pale.

Weintraub sang it, his voice thin and barely audible at first. But the tune was forceful and oddly compelling. Father Hoyt uncradled the balalaika and played along, the notes gaining confidence.

Brawne Lamia laughed. Martin Silenus said in awe, “My God, I used to sing this in my childhood. It’s ancient.”

“But who is the wizard?” asked Colonel Kassad, the amplified voice through his helmet oddly amusing in this context.

“And what is Oz?” asked Lamia.

“And just
who
is off to see this wizard?” asked the Consul, feeling the black panic in him fade ever so slightly.

Sol Weintraub paused and tried to answer their questions, explaining the plot of a flat film which had been dust for centuries.

“Never mind,” said Brawne Lamia. “You can tell us later. Just sing it again.”

Behind them, the darkness had engulfed the mountains as the storm swept down and across the moors toward them. The sky continued
to bleed light but now the eastern horizon had paled slightly more than the rest. The dead city glowed to their left like stone teeth.

Brawne Lamia took the lead again. Sol Weintraub sang more loudly, Rachel wiggling in delight. Lenar Hoyt threw back his cape so as to better play the balalaika. Martin Silenus threw an empty bottle far out onto the sands and sang along, his deep voice surprisingly strong and pleasant above the wind.

Fedmahn Kassad pushed up his visor, shouldered his weapon, and joined in the chorus. The Consul started to sing, thought about the absurd lyrics, laughed aloud, and started again.

Just where the darkness began, the trail broadened. The Consul moved to his right, Kassad joining him, Sol Weintraub filling the gap, so that instead of a single-file procession, the six adults were walking abreast. Brawne Lamia took Silenus’s hand in hers, joined hands with Sol on the other side.

Still singing loudly, not looking back, matching stride for stride, they descended into the valley.