Martyr (The Martyr Trilogy) (30 page)

27

Sleep
didn't come easy.  Staring at a strange ceiling, the rumble of water
rushing overhead concealed the sound of countless imagined explosions, echoed
the noise of weapons clashing, beasts roaring, men screaming.  Maya was
restless beside me as well, curling into me, then away, rolling back into me
again.  Several times I could feel her watching me in the darkness, and
once or twice during these moments her fingers touched my
cheek briefly before she would begin anew her restless pattern: rolling
away, back again.  When I tried to draw her out she gave no answer. 
The day's events had been traumatic enough, but this was a woman reared by war
and conflict; something else roiled under the surface, disquieted her.  I determined
to ask her more pointedly at morning's light.  I don't know how long we
lay awake like this, but at some point the exhaustion that wracked my body
claimed my mind as well, and I slept, in a place too deep for dreams to
intrude.
 
When I finally awoke, Maya was gone again.  If she had felt anything like
the gnawing hunger that I now did, she'd be at the grills once more, preparing
our breakfast.  I dressed quickly and stepped out into a sun-bright
morning.  People were busying themselves with all manner of tasks: carrying
materials to repair the breach in the dam, debating strategy and performing
drills in preparation for the anticipated second assault, forming hunting and
gathering parties to provide food and resources for the displaced
populace.  There was indeed food on the grill, but it was Knox, not
Maya, who tended it.  When I asked if he'd seen Maya, he said that he
hadn't.  I scanned the courtyard area and noted that her cycle was no
longer parked where it had been the night before.  As I still didn't know
precisely where Charr's workshop stood, it was possible that it was still
accessible and that she'd taken the bike there for a tune-up, or
to talk to Charr.  Making my way along the lakeshore, I spotted
Reya talking with Jager.  They hadn't seen Maya either.  Nor had Kuro
or Kaire, who were a little farther upstream, overseeing the distribution
of food rations from the latest successful hunt.
 
For all of this, I didn't begin to experience concern until I glanced back
toward the dam and saw Charr ride up suddenly from the main road,
exchange quick words with Knox, and then glance in my direction as he
pointed.  "Justin!" she shouted as she rode up to me. 
"Maya's gone!  Her humbug just came to me with the
message!"
 
"Wait, what?  Where did she go?  What was the message?"
 
"It said, 'I understand the prophecy.  I know what you
would do, and I mean to make it unnecessary.  If I should fail, please
forgive me - I did it because I love you.' I assume the message was for
you."
 
"Charr, what does it mean?  Do you know what she's planning to
do?  Do you know where she's gone?"

“I…don’t
know,” she said, “not for sure…but…”

“Charr,
if you know anything, please!”

“OK,
well, I’d been working on something – a weapon – a dagger with a concealed
mechanism that produces a modified electromagnetic field.”  She paused,
ostensibly to ensure that I was following her so far, but seeing the
near-hysteria in my face, she continued, speaking faster.  “I may have
intimated that it could theoretically neutralize a magical field in a limited
application…but it wasn’t tested of course; I have no idea if it will actually
work.”

“So?”
I almost shouted.

“So
a few days ago, Maya asked to borrow it, said she wanted to play around with
it.  Justin, I don’t think she’s playing.”

“But
what would she…,” I began.

“Based
on the words of this message,” she said, “I fear…”

I
gasped, finished the thought for her, “…she’s going to try to take out Magus by
herself!  Charr, why would she do this?  Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Obviously
she didn’t want you to try to stop her,” she said.

“But
she had to know I would!”  I stormed past her, toward the trees at the edge of
the forest. 

“Justin,
wait!” said Charr.  “You can’t help her on your own.  You don’t even know how
much of a lead she has, or which way she went!”

“That’s
what I’m about to find out,” I replied.  Then I formed the sound to summon a
deer.  The noise caught the attention of Reya and Jager, who started over to
where I stood. 

Soon
a deer trotted up, just as Reya arrived and asked, “What’s going on, Justin?”

“Maya’s
gone after Magus – alone.”

“Alone? 
No!  What is she thinking?”

“She’s
thinking she’ll save me the trouble,” I said.  “She’s trying to save me.”  Then
I turned to the deer, scratched its chin, and said, “Show me where Maya went.” 
The animal blinked its huge liquid-gold eyes once, then projected an image.

“What’s
happening?” Reya asked.

“Let
all of these see as well,” I added belatedly, and then we all watched as an
aerial view of a nocturnal forest coalesced before us.  We were soaring over
the treetops, and then abruptly the trees ended at the edge of a cracked and
overgrown ancient highway.  Our view banked sharply to follow the road, and a
white shape could be seen at the perimeter of our field of vision, racing
toward a pre-dawn horizon.  The view zoomed in, and there could be no question:
it was Maya, tearing up the freeway on her angel-bike.  “Show us Maya as she is
now,” I said.  I had to blink against the sudden brightness of an instant
sunrise, as the vision now showed Maya in full morning light, still riding
hard.  The forest had been replaced by scattered copses of trees and shrubs,
and the surrounding landscape revealed smaller concourses and numerous
interwoven side-streets, tracing their strange patterns among the many derelict
houses that dotted the hilly plain.  Straight ahead a vast metropolis stood,
the end-point of the highway and Maya’s apparent destination, terrible
asymmetries darkly silhouetted against the early morning sun. 

A
line of darkly-clad figures came into view ahead, standing elbow-to-elbow
across the highway.  Directly behind them, the wrecked remains of several
cars had been stacked to form a makeshift roadblock.  Here the road
had been hewn through sheer rock, its steep walls rendering passage around
the blockade impossible.  The blade-wings on Maya's bike snapped open
as Maya accelerated toward the men, these not the highly-skilled
assassins but some of Magus' general foot soldiers.  As she reached
their position she braked suddenly and cut the front wheel hard
to the left, skidding out and bringing the rear of the bike and the right side
blade-wing around, slicing the first soldier in two and tossing
several others against the cars.  Another came at her, sword
drawn, and she dispatched him with a well-aimed crossbow bolt, even as she
peeled out and sped back to a position well before the roadblock. 
Maya now retrieved a different-looking bolt from a hidden compartment under the
edge of her seat and reloaded.  Taking aim at the base of the roadblock she
fired, and the bolt exploded, toppling the cars and creating a bike-sized gap
in the blockade.  Now she came at them again full throttle, blade-wings tucked,
picking off a couple of surviving soldiers as she slipped through the
recently-created opening and resumed her race toward the looming city skyline. 
I banished the vision, was already starting to mount the deer.

“You’ll
never make it in time!” Reya said.  “She’s nearly to the city.  That place is a
hundred times the size of this town, and swarming with tens of thousands of
Magus’ troops.  There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

“We’ll
see about that!” I snarled, and flipped my leg over the other side of the
deer.  I began to hum, and at that moment Reya hummed too, a little louder and
with a bit more vibrato.  The deer immediately sat down on its haunches,
dumping me roughly on my back.

The
next thing I knew, Reya was hauling me to my feet.  I was astounded anew by her
sheer physical prowess.  “Come with me,” she insisted through gritted teeth. 
Hauling me out of earshot, Reya began, “Understand this before you go off
half-cocked on some kind of macho suicide mission.  First, that is my
daughter.  I almost lost her once, and I will die if anything happens to her. 
Please don’t think for one second that you care about her more than I do. 
Second,” she barked, I’ve already lost Tal to that monster, and I believe you
are here as a direct result of that fact, and specifically, to do something
about it.  I won’t have you handing yourself to him on a platter prematurely by
acting rashly.

“What…would
you…suggest instead,” I asked, choosing my words carefully to avoid unleashing
my anger on her and thereby incurring more of hers.

“It’s
time for you to seek the face of Chaer-Ul,” she said.

“Reya,
surely you realize there’s no time for this.  If it’s just me, or an army, we
have to go after her now.”       

“I
don’t know if you heard me,” Reya said.  “Magus has thousands upon thousands. 
Have you looked at us recently?  We number in the hundreds at best, and that
was before last night’s attack.  You’ve become an amazingly powerful warrior,
but that’s not enough.  We were never going to win this war by the numbers.”

“And
how exactly are we going to win this war?” I asked, sincerely, realizing for
perhaps the first time just what the odds were.

“Chaer-Ul
only knows,” she said.

“But…!”
I started to protest.

“It’s
what Maya would want you to do.” 

I
knew she was right.  “Not fair,” I said.

“And
I have little doubt it’s what she did before taking this step,” she added.

“Are
you saying Chaer-Ul told her to do this?” I asked.

“No
one can know what Chaer-Ul whispers in another ear,” she said.  “I’m only
saying that Maya would have sought his counsel.”

“Where
can I find him?” I asked.

By
this time Kuro had joined Charr and Jager, who had hurriedly briefed him on the
situation.  He jogged over to where we stood.  “I may be able to help you with
that,” he said, having caught the tail end of our conversation.  “Chaer-Ul is
everywhere, at all times.  But when I first came here I found a place where it
seems…well…just a bit easier to hear.”

He
led Reya and me across the top of the dam and off the other side, then off the
road and down over the rocky cliffs that overlooked the river below.  In the
distance the smoke of still-burning fires rose over the treetops from the
devastated city downstream.  Our path took us along a narrow ledge where we
were forced to inch along, hugging the cliffside for fear of plummeting to the
jagged rocks and rushing currents below.  Around a bend in this fashion, and
then the path grew wider, and we had to cling to the trunk of a tree that had
taken root in the meager topsoil here, swinging out over the chasm to get
around it before regaining footing on the far side.  As soon as I landed, I saw
a cleft in the cliff face that had not been visible from the dam, or even from
the other side of the tree.  Kuro, landing after me, said, “That’s your path.”

“After
you,” I said thoughtfully.

“
’Fraid not,” he replied.  “The rest is up to you.”  And without releasing the
tree trunk, he swung back around to the other side, where Reya waited to
accompany him back to the dam.  “We’ll wait for you at the camp,” he said, and
I could hear them scuffling back along the narrow ledge.  It seemed there was
no arguing.  I slipped into the shadowy cleft.

The
crevice was pitch black and stifling, the scent of wet moss and mildew almost
palpable in the stagnant air.  A chill draft from deeper in the cleft
told me that it was not a dead end, however, and I pushed forward. 
The way grew lighter, the air fresher, and I finally emerged onto another
narrow ledge overlooking a scene that seemed to have been plucked from a
surrealist painting.  It was an enormous bowl the size of a football
stadium, formed by high, arching cliffs on all sides.  In its center was
what appeared to be a massive, living sphere, covered with twisting vines of
green vegetation and hovering over a carpet of swirling clouds.  A closer
inspection revealed that it did in fact stand upon a slender pillar of
stone, briefly visible between misty gusts, the rest of its
support having been eroded away over millennia.  What had seemed to
be cloud was actually a dense mist caused by the roiling of underground
springs that surfaced here briefly, the remnant of a much stronger current that
had etched this wonder of stone.  The globe, large as it was, stood directly
in the center of the bowl, still some distance from any spot on the outer
walls.  But as there was scarcely space to stand on the ledge, I
assumed that to be my intended destination.