Red Sun Also Rises, A (28 page)

We only travelled a short distance—our destination was on the near side of Zone Four—but the flight was long enough that I was able, by careful observation, to understand the machine’s surprisingly simple controls. By the time we spiralled down onto a platform that projected from one of the upper storeys of a tower, I was confident that I’d be able to fly it myself.

I looked around. We were at a dizzying height and most of the busy traffic was below us. The platform was not easily visible from the neighbouring buildings. I was already aware that Yissil Froon was employing his mental powers to keep the guards distracted, so had little fear of discovery. I was more concerned that Iriputiz would attempt to betray me, so after we landed I kept a tight hold of him as I clambered out of the flier. Hauling him after me, I dragged him over to the building’s wall and rammed him into it, slapping his face again and feeling a satisfying sting in my palm. He was an old man and I was acting like a vicious thug but didn’t care. There was nothing I could do to him that would match the agony he’d inflicted upon me, no amount of pain I could subject him to that he didn’t deserve.

“Lead me to her.”

He indicated a door. I pushed him over to it, he made a gesture, the panel faded, and we passed through onto a ramp that angled upward to our left and downward to our right. We followed it down.

“Reverend Fleischer, I can—”

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped.

“I’m sorry. Please listen. I can give you power—”

“I don’t need it.”

“Not here! Not on Ptallaya! On Earth! I’m to travel back to Koluwai, and from there to your country—to London. The crystal will cause the far end of the path to follow me.”

I pushed him on down the walkway. “Path?”

“The rupture. The thing that spans our world and this.”

“Why move it over London?”

“Yissil Froon intends to send his Divergent Mi’aata through. That’s why he’s been breeding the creatures. When they emerge from the Yatsill and consume human blood, it poisons them, affects their brains, makes them susceptible to his influence. They are to be an army of conquest, using war machines designed by Clarissa Stark. Your country, as the most powerful nation, will be the first to be invaded. Once it’s brought to its knees and its resources are seized, the rest of our world will buckle. Work with us, Rev—Mr. Fleischer. I am to become Yissil Froon’s representative on Earth. I will make you my general. You can have your choice of riches!”

I was so astounded by his audacity that I almost stumbled.

Digging my fingers into him, I gave the witch doctor a shake and hissed, “
Why
, Iriputiz? Why did you send me to Ptallaya?”

“Because my wife was preventing the Yatsill from developing into Mi’aata. I couldn’t locate and stop her. So, instead, I infected you with the
kichyomachyoma
disease, which my own people cannot carry, and sent you here to spread it among the creatures. It weakened their ability to receive her help, made them more liable to transform.”

Wife?

A veil of secrecy and deceit lifted.

“Yaku! You are Yaku!”

Suddenly, I understood almost everything.

“Move faster!” I commanded.

I forced the witch doctor ahead until, having descended three levels without encountering a single Mi’aata, we came to a door that was guarded by two. Neither responded to our approach, and when we reached them, I saw that their eyes were glazed over. Yissil Froon held them in his thrall.

I reached out, took hold of one of their pikestaffs, and plucked it from a loose grip.

“She’s in here,” Iriputiz said. He made a gesture and the door faded. We stepped through.

The room was square, unadorned, and unfurnished but for a long table at its centre. Clarissa Stark was stretched out on it, held down by straps around her wrists and ankles. She turned her head as we entered, her yellow eyes met mine, and she croaked, “Aiden!”

Then she saw Iriputiz and uttered a cry of amazement.

I pushed the man forward. “Untie her!”

Iriputiz obeyed.

“They’ve been battling inside my mind,” Clarissa said, her voice hoarse with emotion. “The Quintessence and Yissil Froon. Froon has examined everything I know about Earth. He filled me with mathematical formulae to keep the Quintessence occupied.”

“Clarissa, I’m going to get you off this island,” I responded.

I pushed Iriputiz aside and helped my friend to sit up. I nodded toward the islander. “As you can see, Iriputiz is no stranger to Ptallaya. He comes and goes as he pleases. He is Yaku, Pretty Wahine’s husband, and also Mr. Sepik of New Yatsillat.”

Clarissa rubbed her wrists and looked at the Koluwaian. “Your wife is dead. Her ability to hide away failed her and she was killed by a Blood God.”

The old man shrugged and said, “She means nothing to me.”

I prodded him with the pikestaff. He jerked and gave a screech as the weapon’s tip sent a shock through him.

“Take off your robes,” I ordered, and turned back to my companion. “There are no Blood Gods, Clarissa. Those bumps on your head—I think some sort of paired parasitical creature has burrowed into your scalp. The things endow the Yatsill with increased intelligence and telepathic abilities, while also causing them to slowly metamorphose into the creatures that inhabit this mountain, the Mi’aata.”

Seeing the look of horror on her face, I added, “Judging from Pretty Wahine’s long life, they’re somewhat incompatible with human physiology. They can’t transform you, other than to correct the malformations you suffered as a child. They also extend your lifespan and connect your mind to the other hosts.”

Iriputiz was now standing in nothing but a loincloth, though the crystal he wore was still hanging against his narrow chest. I passed the pikestaff to Clarissa, gestured for the islander to hand me his robes, and started to put them on.

I said, “I’ve been piecing it all together. I was wondering why, after Pretty Wahine arrived on Ptallaya, the Mi’aata used to die before reaching the sea. I think it’s because, when they break out of their Yatsill shell, they must immediately feed. It gives them the strength required to make their way here to Phenadoor. Quee’tan were their natural prey, but the Yatsill, who fashioned their society on Pretty Wahine’s memories of Koluwai, drove the Quee’tan out of the forest when they built tree houses.”

I glared at Iriputiz, finished dressing, and pointed at his crystal. “I want that, too.”

Reluctantly, he removed it and handed it over. It tingled against my skin as if charged with electricity. I looped its string around my neck and continued, “The Mi’aata were then further hampered by Pretty Wahine. She interpreted their emergence as a demonic invasion. The mental powers she’d gained through the consumption of Dar’sayn allowed her to counter it by suppressing the Yatsills’ metamorphosis. The natural evolution of the species was almost completely halted.”

With a jerk of my hand, I ordered the witch doctor to the door. Clarissa followed him, limping slightly, and I fell in behind. We exited the room. The guards were still in a stupor. We passed them without incident and started up the ramp.

“Yissil Froon was the first Yatsill to drink Dar’sayn,” I said. “He took it in large amounts. It gave him greater mesmeric control—and insight. He saw the true nature of the relationship between the Yatsill and the Mi’aata. That’s when he approached you, isn’t it, Iriputiz? After he realised.”

The Koluwaian swallowed nervously and nodded.

“And what did he do?” Clarissa asked.

“Answer her!” I barked.

Iriputiz moaned and said, “Some of my people fell through the rupture. They were brought to Yatsillat. When the Heart of Blood rose, what few Mi’aata hatched fed off their blood and fled to the sea. Yissil Froon could listen to their thoughts. He could influence their actions. With his mind, he followed them and discovered Phenadoor.”

We came to the door that led to the platform where the flier was parked. I pushed Iriputiz through it, whirled him around to face me, and kept shoving until he was standing with his heels at the very edge of the precipitous drop. I repeated Clarissa’s question. “And what did he do?”

Glancing fearfully down at the streets far, far below, the old man stammered, “He—he—he sent me back through the rupture to fetch more people.”

“For the new Mi’aata. To make them insane. To make them susceptible to his influence.”

“Y-yes. Pretty Wahine had disappeared. We could not find her. But she was still interfering. Even so, some Mi’aata were born at every rising of the Heart of Blood. They required food.”

I placed my right forefinger in the middle of the witch doctor’s chest and held it there while addressing Clarissa.

“Yissil Froon knew of Earth from this hound. And he knew from the sick Mi’aata that Phenadoor was scientifically advanced. He realised that, with its manufacturing power and the growing number of Divergent, he could create an invasion force.”

“Surely you don’t mean that he intends to attack our world, Aiden!”

“I mean exactly that. Get into the vehicle, please.”

I applied a slight pressure to the Koluwaian’s chest. He swayed backward, his arms windmilling as he fought for balance.

“Please!” he yelled.

“Clarissa,” I said. “Can justice be evil?”

So softly that I could barely hear her, she replied, “If it’s true justice, I don’t see how it can be, Aiden.”

I gave a grunt of agreement and pushed.

The witch doctor’s eyes went wide, his mouth opened, and he toppled backward and vanished from sight. A long receding wail rose from below and quickly trailed away to nothing.

I turned, paced over to the flier, climbed in, and began to manipulate the controls.

Clarissa remained silent.

“There are certain matters,” I said, quietly, “that I am beginning to see in black and white.”

The vehicle moaned quietly and rose into the air. I steered it high over Zone Four.

“Is there a way out of here?” I asked.

“To the left. A shaft of red light is shining in—there must be an opening.”

I spotted the beam and directed the craft toward it. The light was streaming into the cavern at an angle that suggested the red sun had made considerable progress across the sky since I’d last seen it.

“I was Yissil Froon’s plague carrier,” I called back to my friend. “His means to overcome Pretty Wahine’s influence. He needed me in New Yatsillat. So when Yarvis Thayne tried to raise opposition to our presence, Froon had him murdered.”

“By whom?”

“The same Yatsill that attacked you, I expect. My guess is he dominated them mentally and made them train to fight. I doubt they really understood what they were doing. Froon made a show of supporting those who wanted us banished from the city, but in reality, the only one he wanted gone was you.”

“Because I was trying to find a cure?”

“And also because the Yatsill were mimicking your inventiveness. You weren’t meant to be transported to Ptallaya—and you certainly weren’t meant to be a host for the parasite. He was afraid your level of intelligence, transmitted to the Yatsill, might lead them to realize what he was up to. That’s why he tried to have you banished to the Whimpering Ruins, and why, having failed, he then orchestrated the attempt on your life. Later, in surreptitiously investigating your mind, probably in search of a weakness, he encountered the plans that you and Lord Hufferton had drawn up for war machines. That’s when you suddenly became useful to him.”

“So that’s why the blueprints were going around and around in my head!” she exclaimed. “But, Aiden, I was immature when I dreamed up those machines. It was done as an exercise, nothing more. The designs are impossibly extravagant. I doubt they would even function.”

“Perhaps not if constructed by men on Earth, but here on Ptallaya, with Mi’aata science, who knows what’s possible?”

A long moment went by, silent but for the air whistling past, then Clarissa said, “There’s something I still don’t understand. Why are the parasites entering fewer and fewer Yatsill? Why is the Ritual of Immersion failing?”

“I have a theory, but if you don’t mind, I’ll wait until I have evidence to support it before I share.”

“I don’t mind, but why keep it to yourself?”

“Because,” I answered, “if it’s true, I will have to completely revise my understanding of what it means to be evil.”

I saw that the sunlight was streaming through a large orifice in the side of the cavern. I steered our vehicle into it, sped through a short tunnel, and shot out into the open, veering around and down to fly low along the base of the mountain.

Dock Twelve was easier to find than I’d anticipated. There were a great many caves around the base of Phenadoor, nearly all of them with docks visible just inside, mostly empty, the fleet of underconveyances obviously out at sea. However, after completely circling the vast mountain, we passed a solid vertical cliff along which vast doors were lined—all closed.

“The manufacturing plants,” Clarissa declared.

“How do you know?”

“The Quintessence was obsessing over them. I picked up his thoughts when he was digging around in my head.”