Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (4 page)

Treet put his head down and ran for it, but had not gone more than three paces when one of the Saecaraz stepped onto the path ahead of him, his back to Treet. Treet skidded to a stop.

The man turned toward the door and moved off. Treet remained unnoticed, but knew now that he had to get off the path. He glanced around and saw a stack of vent covers and stepped onto it. The stack shifted under his weight, and Treet was pitched backward into the path, while the vent covers cascaded around him in a clattering avalanche. The insidious gray film that lay thick over everything in the Archives powdered up in dusty clouds. Heart beating wildly in his throat, he looked up to see that the Saecaraz ahead of him had not turned around. Was the man deaf?

Furiously scrambling for his feet and scattering more of the infernal vents, Treet picked himself up. The startled shout from behind him caught him with his rear end poised in the air in the act of standing up. He glanced behind him—two Saecaraz Hagemen stood together, both wearing expressions of amazement. The foremost of the two shouted again, this time for the help of his comrades. The Saecaraz ahead of Treet turned around and started running toward him.

Treet stood for an instant, poised for flight but with nowhere to go. Then, without thinking what he would do, he threw himself forward, crashing through the stack of vent covers and into a glassy wall of electrical insulators. He tore down the wall, and stumbled through the breach—heaving ceramic insulators big as a man's head behind him as he went—and fell into a tightly packed corridor on the other side, the sounds of the chase close behind.

He flew down the corridor, formed by banks of heat deflector shields, and ran headlong into a dead end. Panting, Treet halted and turned to meet his pursuers.

Horatio Crocker plowed through
the heavy underbrush, searching for the trail he hoped he would find somewhere just ahead. The robot carrier tagged faithfully along behind, riding its treads over the foliage Crocker tramped down.

For six days Crocker had stalked the lonely hills. Dazed, senses numb, whimpering pitifully to himself, he pursued a meandering path that roughly paralleled the river. On the seventh day he had come to the edge of the Blue Forest—a trackless expanse terminating the desolate hill country like an enormous curtain of deep blue-green vegetation.

He had no thought but to lose himself in the darkness of that many-shadowed land—and even this was not a conscious desire. He simply moved because he could not stop moving. At first there had been some urgency in his flight, but as time and again he glanced fearfully over his shoulder and saw nothing to cause him alarm, he gradually relaxed and pushed a less hurried, though still wary, pace.

He did not know why he ran, or where. All consciousness—that part of himself that knew himself, spoke to and governed himself—had been obliterated. He had a ghostly recollection of a shattering event back there in the hills: of blood and death, and an agony like a firebrand cleaving his skull and burning into his soft brain tissue. His mind had become an inflamed and tortured thing, and he bellowed out his pain to the empty sky.

As day gave way to day, Crocker retreated deeper and deeper into the core of his being in an effort to escape the drumming pain. He moved with the same cunning and stealth as a wild animal, and with as much self-regard. He ate when he was hungry and slept when he grew tired. He drank from the river, never far away, though he had water in three canteens in the carrier. He considered the robot a companion, accepting it as being alive in the same way that he was alive. In the space of a few days, he came to derive comfort from the machine's presence. It followed him—moving when he moved, stopping when he stopped, purring idly while it waited—giving Crocker a sense of kinship.

When, on the sixth day, he had stood atop a high promontory and saw the hillscape descending in rippled steps to meet the forest, he knew that he would go there and seek solace beneath the dense dark mass of its interwoven canopy. No one would find him in there; nothing would hurt him anymore.

Without so much as a backward glance, he had pushed his way into the thicket fringe that rimmed the forest, protecting it like a daunting barrier reef around a vast, serene, imperturbable lagoon.

Now he labored, pulling himself through brush grown so lush and tangled that it was a solid wall. Above the wall he could see the tops of nearer trees; he watched these to mark his progress, lifting his head now and again as he thrust arms and legs and torso into whatever openings he could force through the growth. His clothes snagged and tore. His hands bled. But he did not heed the little pain, for it was drowned inside the greater, all-pervasive pain that he had become used to.

As he pushed past a broad-leafed shrub, thick-bodied and twice as tall as a man, he stuck his hand into a hole in the dense covering of leaves. An instant later the bush erupted in a flurry of flashing wings and screams. He threw his hands before his face as the shrieking birds took flight, and then, with instinctual quickness, reached into the feathery melee and closed his fist on the warm body of a bird as its head appeared in the hole, its wings half-unfolded for flight.

In the same motion, he brought the creature to his lips, put its head in his mouth, and bit down hard, feeling the crunch of delicate bone and hot blood spurting over his tongue. He drank the thick bittersweetness and then spit the head out, tossing the carcass away. He smiled and wiped his mouth. “Meat,” he muttered to himself.

“How
Giloon knowing Tanais be doing as he says when big noise finished?” The Dhog leader put his loathsome face close to Tvrdy and smiled maliciously. “Tanais Supreme Director be forgetting his Dhogs, seh?”

Tvrdy stared at Giloon, trying not to show his disgust. They were sitting in one of the dwellings across the plaza from where they had met. The kraam had been hastily appointed for the meeting: two filthy cushions had been put down on the grimy floor and a much abused table between them. Beside the low table stood an improvised brazier made of cast-off pieces of fibersteel riveted and bound together with wire. Foul-smelling chips—dried dung, Tvrdy suspected—burned in the brazier, giving off a thick, noxious smoke. There were two skewers with chunks of ratty-looking meat and a few sorry vegetables sputtering on the odorous coals.

Giloon reached over and turned the skewers expertly, casting a sidelong glance at Tvrdy and grunting with satisfaction. Tvrdy wanted to be away from this stinking place, but his opinion of his squat companion was changing. Giloon Bogney might well be crazy—probably was—but his madness bore a wide streak of stubborn self-interest that, under the proper circumstances, Tvrdy recognized as extremely useful. So, the Director sat in the ruined hovel, permitting himself to be alternately offended and insulted by the Dhog's presence and broad insinuations.,

“You don't know me,” replied Tvrdy, “if you think I would turn my back on any who gave aid when I asked. Saecaraz and Nilokerus may forget any service when it suits them—”

“But they be remembering any crime!”

“Yes, that's true. But the Tanais are not like that. We live by our word.”

“When you getting fat on it.”

“Watch your tongue! We make sure the terms are right before we make a deal. We never have to go back on our word—unless, of course, the other party attempts treachery.”

Giloon chuckled, an ugly sound, full of malicious glee. “Giloon being a Director then, because Dhogs doing what Giloon says.” He snatched up a skewer and thrust it at Tvrdy, who took the unwholesome thing and looked for a place to throw it. “Dhogs helping you, Tanais. Giloon giving his word, seh?” He tore off a scrap of meat, raised it in salute, and flipped it into his mouth.

Tvrdy followed his host's example and swallowed the meat without chewing. “I will send men to you—Rumon and Tanais, perhaps Hyrgo too. They will train those among you who are fit enough to fight.”

“Dhogs not needing your training.”

“We will face Invisibles armed with thermal weapons. You
will
be trained.”

Giloon begrudged him the point with a grunt. Tvrdy continued, “You will give these men any aid, supplies, or information they require. Hold nothing back. If we fail, Old Section will not become a Hage and you will not become a Director.”

“What we having, you having.” Giloon spat on the table.

“My men will bring supplies with them which they will share with you—as they see fit. You must keep your people organized. There is to be no trouble between us. This is of the highest importance.”

“You think Dhogs needing your aid, your training, your supplies? You throw us out of Hage, our names being erased; you taking away our life and thinking to starve us. If you be finding us in Hage, you kill us. Ah, but Dhogs live! We go down into the pits, we taking what you throwing away, use it. We living a long time this way, and we being still alive to roll your bones, Tanais.”

Tvrdy put the skewer down on the table and leaned forward, his face hard, his tone steel. “Listen to me! You call yourself a leader—act like one. If you do not control your people, you will be of no use to us. If we do not have help, we will fail. And then how long do you think you will be allowed to live?”

Before Giloon could answer, Tvrdy went on, “When Jamrog is finished with us, he will turn on you. Rohee tolerated the Dhogs because you were useful to him: those who displeased him, he made nonbeings and sent to you. He used you as a threat to enforce his will. Jamrog is not like Rohee. Jamrog lives only to destroy. He will see the Old Section razed and the Dhogs slaughtered. I know him; that is his plan. Your head is full of night soil if you think to survive the Purge.”

Giloon had sunk into a sulky silence. He fixed Tvrdy with a murderous glare and said nothing.

“You don't like what I've said, but you know the truth when you hear it, seh?” Tvrdy sat back, folded his arms across his chest, and returned Giloon's stare boldly.

The silence spread between them, but Tvrdy let his words sink in. Giloon frowned and fingered the bhuj's blade in his lap. When at last he spoke, his voice was a hissing whisper. “Giloon maybe kill you, Tanais.”

“You'd kill your only friend for speaking the truth? Then you have much to learn before you ever become a Director.”

Giloon sniffed, picked up the bhuj, and slammed the blade into the table. “Giloon being a leader greater as you. I control my people.”

Tvrdy rose. “See that you do—your life and the lives of all your people depend on your cooperation.”

“There being no noisy guts between us, Tanais.” Giloon climbed to his feet and led Tvrdy out of the kraam and back across the square. Tvrdy saw the ghostly shapes of Dhogs watching from behind piles of rubble. As he moved away, the nonbeings came out of hiding to watch him leave, so that when he turned to give some last words to Giloon he saw a whole throng, gray as the shadows they inhabited, gathered at the far end of the plaza, watching silently.

“My men will begin arriving tomorrow. They will come one by one, or in twos. Receive them and make them welcome. We will soon have rumor messengers so that we can talk, but it is best if we do not see each other again until the plans are set. Do you understand?”

Giloon nodded, eyes squinted up at the Director. Tvrdy guessed some sign of official recognition of the Dhog leader before his people would go a long way toward smoothing future relations between them; so he took off his cloak and placed it on Giloon's shoulders. “There,” he said, “now my men will know that I recognize you as a Director.”

The Dhog's face squirmed into a great grin. He raised the bhuj and touched Tvrdy on either side of the throat with it, then turned abruptly and, hitching the cloak around himself, swaggered off across the ruined plaza to join his people.

Tvrdy watched him go, then turned and fled the Old Section as fast as decorum allowed.

Treet gulped air and
watched the Saecaraz come toward him. There were four of them. The two others had presumably gone for help. They slowed as they came nearer, and Treet sized them up: two were taller, heavier-looking, their bodies bulky beneath their black-and-silver yoses; the other two were slighter of build and not as tall, but looked more fit. Clearly, he would have trouble taking on all four, but it looked like he would have no choice.

So, figuring his best advantage lay in initiating the fight, he lowered his head and charged into them, bellowing as he ran. He plunged his shoulder into the first Saecaraz and sent him sprawling into the deflectors, spun off the block, and caught the second man as he attempted to dodge away. Treet gave him an elbow shot in the small of the back and shoved with all his might. There was a crash and a groan behind him as Treet dove for the onrushing feet of the third, who gave a yelp of surprise as his legs were cut from under him. The man landed on his face and skidded into his crumpled partner.

Treet came up running. The fourth Saecaraz stopped in midstride when he saw Treet gathering himself for another charge. For an instant the two stood looking at one another; then Treet yelled and lunged forward. The Saecaraz backpedaled and spun, tangled his legs and went down. Treet dashed for him, placed one foot square on his breastbone, and ran right over him and back into the main pathway, reaching the door seconds later.

He paused only long enough to pull the door shut and seal it, then ran for the first of a succession of doors leading to the guard station and the lower levels of Hage Nilokerus beyond. Once beyond the second set of doors, with those doors sealed behind him, he paused to listen and heard someone coming toward him from the opposite way.

The two Saecaraz who had gone for help were returning with the Nilokerus from the guard station. He could hear their feet pounding down the corridor—one, maybe two doors beyond. There was only one thing to do. Turning to the door he'd just sealed, he tapped the entry code into the lock and opened it again, then dashed the fifty meters to the next door, went through it, and pressed himself flat against the opposite wall and waited.