The Sunset Warrior - 01 (8 page)

Stahlig’s arm waved like a flag. ‘Behold,’ he whispered. ‘Borros.’

‘How did you manage it?’

The Medicine Man’s eyes lowered. ‘It was not—uhm—all that difficult. Borros had not regained consciousness when I returned the last Cycle, and I told Friedal that if he was not brought here immediately he would never again be conscious. Freidal had no choice, really.’

‘Would Borros have died?’

Stahlig rubbed his eyes. ‘Perhaps. But the important thing is that he has since awakened and talked to me.’ He sank on to the empty bed. ‘I have not yet told Freidal because I do not understand any of this. What can his value be to Freidal now? He is quite mad. Perhaps at one time—’ He shook his head, and Ronin crossed the room, stood over Borros. ‘Such a terrible waste,’ Stahlig said wearily. ‘Human life means nothing to them. They had him for much too long—his mind is not the same.’

But he did not tell them what they wanted to know, thought Ronin, or Freidal would not care whether he lives or dies now. He must have been a strong man. ‘Still, I would talk with him,’ Ronin said.

Stahlig shrugged. ‘You can learn nothing from him. He is so full of drugs—’

Ronin turned. ‘Then how can you tell that he is mad?’

‘It is not—’

The sound was tiny but distinct, coming from the anteroom. Stahlig jumped up, his face pale, his eyes wide. ‘Oh, Frost,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘this was a mistake. I never should have agreed to it. Do not move.’ He passed through the doorway to the surgery, and it closed silently behind him.

Ronin stared down at Borros, at the high gleaming pate the colour of old bones, at the long closed eyelids. His breathing was deeper.

The stillness was palpable. Outside he heard the low murmuring of voices. He bent over Borros, gripped the sides of his jaw in his hand. The skin felt smooth and dry. The eyelids fluttered, opened slowly, gazed blankly up at him with unfocused pupils. Still, the eyes were so extraordinary that Ronin almost failed to react to the sound behind him.

He straightened and whirled in time to see Stahlig stepping through the doorway. ‘Freidal wants to see me immediately,’ he whispered. ‘Probably concerned about Borros,’ he added needlessly. ‘Remain here until I have left with the messenger. I have reminded the daggam outside that their presence in here would be harmful to the patient’s health. But even so, you must leave as quickly as possible. Borros has not awakened?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Better for him to rest. And there is nothing he can tell you. You would be wasting your time.’ He turned to go. ‘Remember, as soon as you hear us leave—’ He went through the doorway and disappeared into the shadows of the surgery.

Grey they were. But light grey, with golden flecks swimming in their depths like chips of bright metal. The muffled tramp of boots against concrete, diminishing. And then only the soft silence enshrouded them, with its fine susurration of breathing. The world reversed: the figures immobile, the pale flames of the lamps licking at the moving shadows they created. Still the eyes held him.

And then as if through a force of will Ronin moved silently to the closed door to the surgery, put his ear to the cool metal. He could hear nothing moving out there. He returned to the Magic Man, sat on the adjacent bed, elbows on knees. He was aware of the other door, across from him, beyond which the daggam stood guard.

‘Borros,’ he said quietly. ‘Borros, can you hear me?’

There was only the sound of his breathing, lips slightly parted. His eyes stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

Ronin repeated the question.

Silence. No movement of the pupils.

Repeat the question: closer, louder, more insistent.

Silent but: eye movement. Blink.

Lips trembling.

‘What? What did you say?’

He had to repeat it.

‘So blue—’

He had to strain to hear, and thought: No sense, but contact. Repeat.

‘Impossible blue. I—know it is there, I—’

Eyes focused now, golden flecks glinting. Breathing rapid. Ronin felt himself sweating, glanced quickly at the door to the Corridor. Had he heard a movement? He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist, turned back quickly. Too late to get out now. ‘Borros, what are you saying?’

‘An arch—yes, it—it must look like an arch, so vast, so—’ He jerked as Ronin touched him, head whipping around, eyes bulging. His lips drew back in a laugh that was more an animal snarl, bared teeth gleaming. ‘Ahahaha! But there is nothing there, you have nothing no notes and now no more head brain squeezed until it’s dry and that’s what it is dry so it’s no use why don’t you st—’ His eyes drooped momentarily, then the lids flew up and he started as if just coming awake. ‘No—no more I’—shake of the head—‘do what you want, all usel—ugh!’—he shivered down the length of his body—‘the land brown and rich and plants growing green and free with no tanks and the heat of the bare sun hang—hanging in all that space!’

He stopped there like a mechanism run down and incapable of beginning again. And Ronin thought: It’s no good this way, no good at all. He
does
sound like a madman. His words are clear but they have no meaning. He wiped away more sweat, knowing that there was very little time.

Missed something, he thought. But what? Think.

He leaned forward, said urgently: ‘The land, Borros, tell me more about the land.’ The Magic Man had thought Ronin was one of the Security interrogators. So his approach had been wrong. Get into his mind: what if he was not mad? Only thing to try.

And he saw Borros’s mouth working. ‘Yes, the land.’ The faintest whisper like a dry wind, and Ronin felt a surge of adrenalin. ‘The fields, food to eat, great flowing waters, new life for the people but—’ He gasped as if struck by a blow, and Ronin reached out to hold him.

The long eyes were deep pools where golden fish swam frenziedly. ‘Oh, Frost, no! Not again!’ Eyes popping, face very pale, white lines netting the sides of the mouth, a living skull. As if staring into the face of Death—or a being more terrible.

He strained to sit up but Ronin held him down as gently as he could, feeling the flight of forces within the thin frame. ‘Must, must!’ Beads of sweat clung to the tight yellow skin of his head. It gathered on his upper lip, ran into his mouth, and the tongue came out, licked at the moisture. Sweat dripped along the sides of Ronin’s face as he stared at the twisting, tortured countenance. It rolled along his wrists and on to the backs of his hands, seeping between his fingers, and he tightened his grip. Borros’s hands were like claws, the tendons corded and raised just beneath the skin, held out in front of him as if warding off his agony and terror. Then he seized Ronin’s arms.

They were locked, immobile, and Ronin, caught in the pull of the grey-and-gold eyes, felt that he had lost volition of independent movement.

‘It is coming!’

Bound within the moment, he felt the writhings of Borros’s mind—

‘I have seen—It—’

—knew with an awful certainty suddenly flooding his being that Something was there—

‘—draws closer—the people cannot st—’

—not a presence but merely the threat of a presence, and that was enough to—

‘Must go to them—help—hel—’

‘Who, Borros, who? We are the only—’

The jaws snapped closed, the eyes saw him, perhaps for the first time, and the terrible ivory grin came again and now Ronin felt as if he faced—what?

‘Fool!’ hissed Borros. ‘They want no one to know. A secret!’ And he laughed without humour. ‘
Their
secret!’ The eyes took on a glossy depth, the pupils huge. Veins stood out along his temples where the Dehn spots pulsed as if alive. ‘Fool! We are not alone on this world!’ Eyes bulging alarmingly, teeth grinding in effort. ‘But it—will mean nothing. It comes—comes to destroy everything. Unless—’ His head whipped from side to side, with a spray of sweat. His throat convulsed and it appeared that he cried out, although the sound was low and strangled and seemed barely human. ‘Death—death is coming!’

Borros jerked again and went limp, his eyes fluttering closed. Ronin let go of him then, his hands and arms numb. He put his ear to Borros’s chest, then quickly pushed rhythmically with his palms. He listened again. Pounded his fist once, twice, over the heart. Listened again.

He wiped his dripping face and stood up. Moving to the doorway to the surgery, he pressed a part of the wall and darkness bloomed before him. He stepped through, out of the light. The door closed. He listened for a moment. His eyes adjusted. All shadows in their place. Then, like Stahlig before him, he disappeared into the shadows.

‘What do you know of the Magic Men?’

‘What brought that to mind?’

‘You are always answering a question with another question—Oh yes! There.’ The hand moved, flesh on flesh, orange and light brown in the low guttering lamplight. Black pooled in the hollows.

‘Just a peculiar topic to bring up now,’ Ronin said softly.

K’reen moved slowly, gently against him. Cascading dark hair, soft and cool, accentuating the heat of their bodies. ‘Not at all. They are purported to be—oh!—the saviours of the Freehold, divining ways for us to live in case the Great Machines cease to function. Is that not true?’

Hands moving from orange to black, light to shadow. ‘So it is said.’ Their lips met and opened.

K’reen licked the sick of his neck. ‘With all the political talk going on—the rumours of the Saardin—mmm—it’s natural to be thinking of the future.’

‘I know very little of them,’ he whispered. But the temptation was very strong within him.

She rolled away from him, the lamplight licking at the indentation of her spine, the crease of her buttocks. ‘Won’t you ever talk to me?’ she said in a small voice.

‘There is nothing to talk about.’ He reached out and she drew away.

‘You mean you have nothing to say to me.’

Ronin sat up in the bed and stared at the dark bell of her hair sweeping across the pillows. ‘That is not at all what I meant.’

She turned on him, eyes flashing. ‘But it is!’ she cried.

‘You are twisting what I say. Why do you do that?’

‘I will not play this game.’

‘There is no game.’ There was an edge to his voice now.

‘I will not let you turn this back on me. You’re the one who—’

‘K’reen, this is not the time—’

‘Not the time?’ She sat up too. ‘You must be joking! There is nothing more important for us to do.’

‘Yes, there is,’ he said sharply.

She glared at him for an instant and he felt the charge build within her. She lunged, her open palm striking him across the face with considerable force. ‘Chill take you!’ she hissed.

He caught her extended arm at the wrist, pulled it forward and down with some violence so that she was suddenly on her back beneath him. He lowered himself. The soft light gleamed off the whites of her eyes. Her breasts heaved under him, the nipples hard, and she brought her knee up into his hip on the edge of the pelvic bone, but he pressed the nerve on the inside of her thigh, numbing it. ‘Frost!’ she breathed, and pulled his head down to hers, arching her body against him, thighs open.

He made love with a strange kind of desperation, trying, in his confusion and anguish, to lose his mind in his body. And so involved was he in this that he failed to notice a similar despair in K’reen.

He rolled away from her sleeping form, sat on the edge of the bed, and lit the lamp. Its pale flame sent the darkness skittering away in all directions. He kept the light low so as not to wake her. He heard nothing but the white noise of silence in his ears as he stared into the flame and saw again the dream from which he had awakened …

He is in the Freehold, yet it is of a different construction from that of the real Freehold. It is under the earth but it is a City, with massive structures that rise through the air to such heights that they almost touch the rock vault above. Dreamscape: suprareal.

He is in one such structure, high up, with K’reen. They are preparing to leave; he cannot think where they are going to. Suddenly the structure trembles heavily. Cracks appear in the walls, and he feels the rumbling in his bones. He looks outside. Structures all around are coming apart and collapsing as the earth continues to heave and split. He hears screaming and sees the red belch of columns of flame.

He cannot find K’reen. He runs out into the Corridor and is met with the choke of smoke and falling rubble; the structure is tearing itself apart. He calls her name. Over and over. He hears echoes, echoes only. He runs then down the Stairwell, fearing at any moment it will collapse under him.

He reaches the Outside at last and finds—He is in a cool glade of green foliage, dark and moist. A rich, unfamiliar scent comes to him from the earth. His face is wet. And his arms. Drops of water from above hit him all over. Across a river he sees the Freehold disassemble itself and come crashing down amidst huge fires. Bright sparks twist in the air. But he is not there and he wonders at this as he opens his eyes and finds that he is lying beside K’reen in the dark …

He sighed now, once, a long inhalation and exhalation of breath, to help rid himself of the last strands of the dream. It had been very vivid. He lay back in bed, put a pillow behind his back, and thought about Borros. For half the length of a Spell he replayed over and over in his mind what the Magic Man had said.

And at the end of that time he thought that perhaps his dream had not after all been dispelled.

Time, Ronin decided, to see the Salamander.

In the Sector the Lift was out, its sliding doors frozen irretrievably half open. Deep parallel lines were scored down one door, as if some large and angry animal had been frustrated by its stasis. The other one was crumpled like an old Bladesman’s Combat wound. So he took to the Stairwell and, on the way Upshaft, had time to recall his first meeting with the Salamander.

Combat had always been a game to him. Like every other element in his young life, it was too inconsequential to be taken seriously. On what had come to be known as the Combat Level, the normal Freehold cubicles had, some time before, been scooped out and replaced by a series of large indoor courtyards that now served as training grounds for Combat. Each Cycle at his allotted time, he would file into the Hall of Combat, the largest of these courtyards, along with other Students of his age. Half a Spell of strenuous exercise would eventually give way to a lecture on the art of killing and maiming through ritual moves, after which the Students would be paired off for actual practice.