Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (10 page)

“Remember how he raped the Hages!” said Danelka under his breath. Tvrdy gave him a threatening glance, as Jamrog went on to recite a long catalog of Rohee's benevolent achievements, most of which, it seemed to Tvrdy, centered on the old cutthroat not maiming an opponent worse than he might have, and not crushing the people with any more impossible regulations than they could absolutely bear.

“Sirin Rohee was a man born to greatness, and that greatness will not be diminished in death,” Jamrog went on. “I will not allow his body to be consumed by flames or corruption. Even though he is dead, I will see to it that he remains with us: his body will be embalmed in crystal and laid in Threl Chambers, where a special mausoleum will be prepared. Then, you, his beloved people, will come to look upon him and honor his memory. He will be with us always!”

Jamrog had so drawn his listeners along, carefully building the drama and emotion of his words, that no sooner had his last words been uttered than the amassed mourners loosed a tremendous, bone-shaking cheer. The great shout echoed through the empty streets of Empyrion, ascending to the dome's crystalline shell far above.

The crowd surged forward and seized the platform on which Jamrog stood, tearing it away from the ramp. The severed platform—with Jamrog standing placidly in the center of it, hands outstretched—was lifted high and borne through the square to ringing shouts of acclaim.

As Tanais Hagemen of lower stent streamed past him to join the melee, Tvrdy turned away from the spectacle. Danelka caught up with him as he stomped from the square. “So that's his trick,” muttered Tvrdy. “I should have guessed. He has given them a show they will never forget. Already he is greater than Rohee ever was—and far more deadly.”

Subdirector Danelka asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay with the delegation. I'm going back to my kraam. Come to me later and tell me what has happened.” He looked at Danelka wearily. “I'm tired ... tired.” With that he slipped away through the clamorous crowd and disappeared.

Talus
and Mathiax strolled the path through the long grove of fan trees behind the Clerk of the College of Mentors' shoreside home. The air of Fierra was soft and warm, as always, and lightly scented with the fan tree's aromatic resin. An edge of gray cloud worked the upper atmosphere, drawing a light overcast across the great shining face of Prindahl from the North, giving the midday sun the appearance of white gold.

“It's going to rain,” observed Mathiax to himself.

“Too early,” Talus grunted absently, and the two walked on.

At length they stopped and faced one another. “We have been negligent,” said Mathiax. “There is no denying it. We should not have let him go without first making some provision for communication.”

“What could we do? The Preceptor's ban—”

Mathiax dismissed the thought with a quick shake of his head. “I'm not suggesting we should have gone with him—only that we should have found some way to allow him to reach us in need.”

Talus frowned and rubbed his curly beard with the back of a broad hand. “The woman—Yarden—she told us she was a sympath. She could reach him.”

“She won't.” At Talus' sharp glance, Mathiax answered, “I already tried. I asked Ianni to bring the subject up when Bohm returned.”

“And?”

“Ianni tried, but she refused to discuss it. It appears the two quarreled, and now she will have nothing to do with him.”

“Something between lovers?”

Mathiax nodded. “Ianni says Yarden warned him not to return to Dome, and since he insisted on going she severed their relationship.”

“I wish I had known that. Still, she may change her mind.”

“Yarden is a strong person. Hers is a most formidable will and not easily influenced. We could grow old waiting for her to change her mind in this matter.”

“I don't know what else to tell you, Mathiax. We did all we could do for him without violating the Preceptor's ban. As it is, we came very close.”

“We believed he was right,” pointed out Mathiax sternly.

“Of course. But even so, we must follow the Infinite Father's leading. War is an abhorrence to him. The Fieri will never lift a hand against—”

With an impatient wave of his hand Mathiax turned and began walking again. “You are right to remind me of our most holy precept. But I am uneasy, Talus. I tell you the truth: I cannot rest, thinking about Orion Treet. I think of him and feel a deep foreboding. It is a rare sensation with me, and one I do not like.”

“What can we do? It is out of our hands, Mathiax. He is in the Sustainer's care now.”

Mathiax nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, of course. But my foreboding may also be of divine origin, Talus.”

Just then a large, glistening drop of water fell on the path between them, splattering heavily and sending up a little puff of dust. Talus looked up and saw that the cloud cover had thickened as lower-lying rainclouds had formed beneath the high leading edge. Another drop landed close to the first, and the sound of still other drops could be heard as they fell among the leaves of grass and trees close by.

Talus looked at the dark damp spots on the ground and then back at his friend. “I do not dismiss what you say, Mathiax.” He indicated the heavy drops falling all around them now. “After all, you were right about the rain.”

The rain fell in
slanting sheets upon the roof of the Blue Forest, striking the natural thatch of closely interwoven leaves to trickle slowly down to the smaller trees and plants of the forest floor far below. Crocker heard the rain as a subdued roar overhead, and felt the heavy, moisture-laden air cool as the water seeped down from above, drip by drip. The forest—so loud with its exuberance of life only moments before the rain—now lay still, deserted as its creatures sought shelter from the damp.

Crocker, naked except for a broad waistband torn from his tattered jumpsuit and wrapped around his middle to form a pouch in which to carry the utility knife and a few other small articles he required, huddled under a low, spreading tree whose broad, waxy leaves shed the drops that were now coming more quickly as the forest canopy became saturated. He looked placidly around him, alert but unconcerned. His senses were becoming attuned to the forest's living awareness, that invisible web of consciousness formed by the combined mental activity of all forest dwellers.

He could now detect subtle pulses of communication humming through the webwork, but could not as yet decipher them. Still, knowing that all around him the forest continually spoke to itself gave him a secure feeling. He belonged here and in time would learn to speak the language of the web, and then would become one with all the other creatures.

The rain percolated down to the forest floor, soaking into the thick, dark soil. Trails became trickling runnels, bubbling over root and vine, carrying water away to hidden pools and larger streams. The smell of rain-damp earth and foliage filled the air as vaporous wisps rose like ghostly snakes to writhe and disappear on unseen currents. Crocker had settled back in his little shelter and was listening to the tick and dribble of the rain when suddenly an earsplitting scream shivered the air.

The shattering cry sounded like the fighting scream of an enraged cat—only the cat that had made this sound must have been the size of an elephant. This fearful cry was followed by an answering call—a booming bellow, like that of a buffalo four stories tall—a sound that actually shook the earth where Crocker sat.

The next thing the human heard was the sharp crack of splintering trees and the groan of bushes uprooted as the two mighty beasts closed on one another. There were tremendous thrashings and crashings, and he could hear branches being stripped from trees. The ground shook under the pummeling of the animals' huge feet.

Cringing back deeper into the shadows of his rain shelter, Crocker listened, his heart pounding wildly. He was helpless should one of those prodigious creatures come for him—or even if, in turning to flee the scene of battle, it should run over him. And from the nearness of the sounds, he guessed the clash to be taking place just beyond the curtain of vine hanging from the lower branches of the pillar-like trees directly in front of him.

It was over in seconds, and the last cries echoing through the forest shook the rain from the leaves of Crocker's bush. Straining into the silence that followed the brutal encounter, Crocker listened and at last heard ponderous footsteps moving away slowly, bulling through the underbrush. This he imagined was the buffalo creature. Of the cat, he could not detect a sound.

Very likely, the buffalo-thing had killed the cat-creature and now lumbered off to lick its wounds, which were certain to be grievous. The cat-creature surely lay dead or dying, its life-blood pouring out through its mangled body.

After a time, the rain ceased, though the drip, drip, drip of the leaves would continue for a long time as water filtered down from above. Only when Crocker was certain he could hear nothing at all of either of the animals did he creep from hiding. Crouching, he crawled out, senses keen and wary, muscles tense, ready to flee. He pushed silently through the undergrowth, passing between the twin columns of two forest giants, ducking beneath the shroud of vines. He expected to find the bloodsoaked battlefield before him, but instead saw only more underbrush and more trees. A trail led through the tangle, so Crocker took it and began walking—warily, lest he meet up with a wounded creature out of its mind with pain.

He walked far longer than he estimated he would have to before he came to the scene of the titanic battle. It was a clearing in the forest where a stream flattened and formed a shallow pool hemmed in by trees and thick brush. He stood and looked long and hard, scouring every inch of the clearing for movement, before stepping into it.

There was no dead cat-creature in the clearing, and no wounded buffalo-thing gasping out its last breath, either. But all around were signs of the monumental conflict: branches stripped from trees three meters off the ground, bushes squashed and flattened out of shape or uprooted altogether, smaller trees toppled and larger trees broken like twigs, the earth ripped into open furrows, mud from the pool bottom splattered over everything, depressions sunk ankle-deep in the forest floor.

The creatures that wreaked the destruction, he saw, must be the very lords of the Blue Forest. He stood alone looking at the gaping holes in the earth, the roots dangling in the air, the broken tree limbs strewn over the battlefield, and felt his bowels squirm inside him. There were creatures abroad in this world that dwarfed anything he could imagine. This realization made him feel small and vulnerable.

A weapon! He mouthed the word to himself and understood its meaning. He would find a suitable weapon, and then he would be safe. Other creatures would fear, but he would not.

He turned at once and began walking back to his hidden pool. Tomorrow he would begin searching for his weapon. And then ... and then he would hunt down one of the great creatures and prove himself a forest lord.

It
had been three minutes, Treet estimated, since he had entered the tank. He still dangled from the harness, but could no longer feel it. In fact, he could not feel anything: all sensory stimulation had ceased. He could will his arms and legs and hands to move, but whether they moved as directed, he couldn't tell. It felt as if he no longer had a body at all, that he was a mind adrift, cut off from all physical attributes—except hunger, which still gnawed at him, more insistently now than ever.

Approaching four minutes, Treet began to worry. Surely they would pull him up soon. What good would it do to drown him? And if that's what they intended, why go to all the trouble to truss him up like a turkey? Nothing made sense. But, rational or not, he would have to breathe soon. His lungs were beginning to ache.

Come on, pull me up! thought Treet desperately. Pull me up!

He fought down the impulse to swim for the surface. Thrashing around in the water would use up air too fast, and he could not be certain of swimming in the right direction—he might just as easily swim to the bottom of the tank as the top. It was best just to remain calm and wait.
Wait.

Treet put his mind to work, concentrating on his keeper, holding the man's squat image on his mental screen, willing him to punch the button that would bring the harness up.

Push the button! Treet screamed mentally, putting every atom of his will behind it. Push the button—NOW!

The ache had become a burning, searing flame. His lungs felt as if they would burst.

Ordinarily he would expel some of the air, and this would allow him to stay submerged a little longer. But with the wax mask plastered on his face, and the wax plug between his teeth, he could not exhale. The pressure in his lungs increased.

He reached out with his mind and attempted to touch the mind of his keeper. Push the button! he screamed with his brain. Push it, damn you!

His lungs at the point of rupture, Treet knew that his captors had no intention of bringing him up. They intended letting him die. With this thought came a desperate plan: blow the mask off! Perhaps the force of his breath could tear the wax mask from his face; then he could see the surface and swim for it.

With this thought came the decision to do it—the two were simultaneous. He had nothing to lose.

The exhausted air burst from his mouth with as much force as he could put behind it. The result astonished him: the stream of air bubbles passed right through the mask! It was as if it wasn't there at all. His ears remained stoppered and the plug remained in his mouth, so the mask was still in place.

Panic seized him and wrung him. I can't breathe! I'll suffocate!

He thrashed his head from side to side in an effort to dislodge the mask, but could not tell if he were actually thrashing at all, or only imagining his thrashings. His lungs convulsed in agony.

Air! I must have air!

The vacuum in his lungs became too great. He could not hold back any longer. He had to inhale, even though the mask stayed on. His mind presented him with a picture of himself trying to suck air through a plastic bag, suffocating, the plastic molded to his features, cutting off his life.