The Man of Bronze (31 page)

“‘Some say the world will end in fire,’” I recited. “‘Some say in ice.’”

Urdmann took a swipe at me, but I dodged easily and slammed the Uzi out to catch him across the throat. The gun shattered under the force field’s intense chill . . . but the blow was enough to knock Urdmann backward. He stumbled over a hunk of Rolls debris and toppled—straight into the heart of the blaze.

Hot and cold met with titanic force. The bang was even louder than the car blowing up—as loud as the sonic boom that rocked Warsaw on the night this all started. Urdmann fell sprawling amid the flames; and for an instant I hoped the clash of extreme temperatures would overwhelm the mirror shell, draining its power, rupturing its impenetrable surface.

Instead, as Urdmann struggled to stand, the fire around him died. It just winked out. Frost radiated across the car’s scorched metal; ice spread from the Silver Shield, chilling the flames and choking them. Combustion is a chemical reaction that takes place only if provided with sufficient heat. Urdmann’s armor squashed all heat like a smothering blanket. It leached away the thermal energy, dampening it to embers. Ice continued expanding outward, fuzzy frosty ice, until the orange firelight went completely dead.

The burned Rolls-Royce lay under its own frozen carapace, like some ancient artifact locked in a glacier.

“Okay,” I said. “So much for hot versus cold. New strategy.”

While the main mass of the car had frozen solid, I could still get at plenty of metal scraps strewn across the nearby field. The biggest piece was the boot door . . . or as Americans call it, the lid of the trunk. It had blown off in the initial explosion and was now several paces away from the iced-over wreck. To me, it looked like a big metal shield; and I’d need one as soon as Urdmann finished rising to his feet.

I barely got to it in time. The man in shimmering armor was faster than I expected, spurred by anger or the knowledge that his force field wouldn’t last forever. No sooner had I heaved up the weighty lid than I had to swing it around to block a silvery punch aimed at my head. I blocked—just barely—and felt the jar as Urdmann’s fist struck metal.

The lid cracked under the intense cold . . . but it held. The moment of impact had been brief, since Urdmann—like any good boxer—had pulled his hand back quickly after the strike. He punched again. I blocked again, shifting the lid so the blow wouldn’t hit where the metal was already weakened. Once more, the lid withstood the impact . . . but Urdmann was quick to learn from his mistakes. Instead of punching a third time, he grabbed the lid by its edges and pulled hard. I might have held on if strength was the only factor; but as soon as Urdmann got a good grip, a wave of cold shot through the metal, threatening to numb my fingers. Better to let go. I did and backed away, watching the lid ice over in Urdmann’s hands. The metal crackled, suddenly brittle. When Urdmann dropped it to the ground, the lid shattered as it struck the dirt.

So much for my shield. Yet it had been worthwhile coming here to the rear of the car . . . because from this angle, I could see into the boot’s lidless interior.

Lying inside, glowing slightly in the darkness, was the intact bronze leg. The real one. Urdmann had put it in the boot after he’d taken it from Silver.

The leg was covered with the same skin of ice that coated the rest of the car. That was no problem. As I ran forward, I shouted “Incendiary!” to my VADS pistols. Two fiery rounds, one from each gun, melted the frozen layer enough for me to break the leg free from its surroundings.

Urdmann came up fast behind me. He might have believed he had me trapped against the car; he held out his arms to prevent me dodging left or right. I could even imagine a smile on his face as his silvery subzero hands closed in.

I smiled too. The last time I’d been in this position—facing Urdmann while he wore a Silver Shield and I held a piece of Bronze—I’d placed the bronze into Urdmann’s hands as lightly as a feather. This time, I’d try something a little more energetic.

Holding the leg by the ankle, I swung it full strength at Urdmann’s mirror-shelled head. Urdmann didn’t even duck. I suppose he’d seen so many different attacks get repelled by the silvery force field, he didn’t think anything could hurt him.

Surprise.

The sound of the collision rang with the perfect tone of a bell struck by a metal hammer. I could feel the vibrations tingling up my arm from where I held the leg . . . and I could
see
the vibrations in Urdmann’s Silver Shield. The shiny surface quivered like aspic. The arms that had been reaching for me jerked violently as if somewhere under the glossy coating, Lancaster Urdmann had suffered a spasm of pain.

The ringing tone of bronze on silver didn’t stop. The reverberations continued, both as a musical tuning-fork tone and as visible waves shivering across the Silver Shield’s shell. Urdmann seemed frozen except for the vibrations trembling around him: like an immobile metal statue shaking in an earthquake.

I ducked under one outstretched arm and stepped away as the shaking increased. His body shuddered epileptically. I expected the glistening glaze surrounding him to pop like an overstressed bubble.

But it didn’t. The Silver Shield didn’t burst outward—it began to collapse inward. The ringing tone crescendoed, the visible tremors grew frantic . . . then the mirror shell imploded: fell in on itself like a dying star disappearing into a black hole. Urdmann shrank before my eyes, from human dimensions smaller . . . to the size of a dog . . . a mouse . . . a single drop of mercury . . . until Urdmann and his silver coating focused down to a dot. The ringing held for another heartbeat; then the silver dot vanished completely like the last vestige of a picture on an old TV screen.

Lancaster Urdmann had literally been expelled from existence; or perhaps he’d simply been removed from our universe, falling through some rip in reality into unknown realms beyond. One way or another, to one world or another, Lancaster Urdmann was gone.

Softly I murmured, “‘In the midst of the word he was trying to say, in the midst of his laughter and glee, he had softly and suddenly vanished away—’”

“But you won’t do the same to me.”

The voice came from behind me. I turned. Silver was standing in the darkness, holding a rapier that glinted in the starlight.

“Good evening, mademoiselle,” he said, pointing the sword’s lethal tip toward me. He was several yards away, but I didn’t doubt he could cross the gap with inhuman speed and impale me through the heart. I lifted the bronze leg like a club and waited for him to attack.

Silver laughed. “You think my enemy’s limb can damage me? Of all things in your pitiful world, I’m the one creature immune to that leg’s energies. I am made of the same substance, mademoiselle: the same matter, the same harnessed forces. Bronze and I may not be the same color, but the difference is as insignificant as the distinction between blue and white diamonds.” He spread his arms invitingly. “Try it, mademoiselle. Hit me and see what happens.”

“Maybe later,” I said. “What do you want?”

“At this moment, a glass of good Beaujolais.” Silver laughed again. “But in lieu of that, I’ll take the leg. Call me spiteful, but I don’t wish to see Bronze made whole.” He brought the rapier back to bear on me. “I have no time for complex negotiations. Give me the leg this instant, or I’ll kill you.”

“If I give it to you, you’ll let me live?”

“Absolutely, mademoiselle. I have no need to see you dead. In fact, if I let you live, there is always a chance—a tiny, tiny chance—that at some point in future, you and I might meet again under more friendly circumstances. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. And I would not deny myself the delight of your charms, unless you make it necessary.” He brandished the sword. “Now or never, mademoiselle. Make your decision. I must leave before my enemy comes.”

“All right,” I said, “if you want the leg, take it.” I extended it toward him . . . then threw it with all my strength off into the darkness.

Silver sighed. “Women. Always the pointless gestures of defiance.”

He shook his head sadly and moved away in the direction I’d thrown the leg. I moved away too—at high speed in the opposite direction . . . because I’d thrown the real leg toward the same set of bushes where I’d left the fake one.

The fake leg that was booby-trapped to explode when an android got close.

I was fifty yards away when the bomb went off. The force of the blast sent me flying into a row of coffee bushes. They scratched me like nettles. I rolled away from the rasping plants—feeling blood trickle down my skin from a dozen nicks—and I lay on my back in the dirt, staring at the stars.

Next time I get blown up,
I thought,
I want it to be in a pillow factory.

EPILOGUE

The mercenaries vamoosed after I told them over the radio sets that Urdmann and Silver were dead. I don’t know where the thugs went—they must have had escape vehicles standing nearby. If I’d really been a zealous crusader for justice, I might have gone after them; but I decided to let fate deal with the scoundrels. Anyone who’d work for a villain like Silver would end up in jail or worse soon enough. Some lifestyles aren’t conducive to longevity.

Then again, I’m one to talk.

Ilya, Teresa, and Lord Horatio arrived in time to help gather the silver body parts strewn around the blast zone. The process reminded me of an Easter egg hunt: peeking under coffee plants, into patches of weeds, and beneath the wrecked Rolls-Royce to come up with a shiny silver hand or a hunk of torso. The helicopter hovered above, shining its spotlight to aid our search.

When I’d suggested to Bronze that picking up pieces could wait until morning, he’d just glared at me with steely eyes—all right, make that bronzey eyes. After looking forward to apprehending Silver for ten thousand years, Bronze couldn’t stand any more delay.

Though Silver was in pieces, Bronze was finally whole. The blast that fragmented Silver had broken the nearby bronze leg back into separate chunks; but Vidonia and Father Emil had quickly reassembled the leg from its severed components and had presented the result to their “master.” I wasn’t entirely pleased at the prospect of Bronze being restored . . . but unless I wanted to shoot innocent people and run off carrying the metal leg, there was nothing I could do to prevent the reintegration.

So Humpty Dumpty was put back together again. As far as I could see, he didn’t even smile as he set the leg into his empty hip socket; nor did he smile as he took his first real steps in ten millennia. Bronze did, however, venture a slight upturn of the lips as he watched us collect Silver piece by piece and lay the parts out in a row.

“No souvenir taking,” he growled in his usual churlish way as I contemplated a silver finger I’d found in a muddy drainage ditch. I confess I
had
been considering tucking something small in my pocket . . . a silver pinkie to replace the bronze one that had been in my family for so many years. But even a tomb raider has to admit some antique artifacts aren’t worth the trouble of collecting. If I held on to a lump of mystic metal, how long before I began to mutate and go mad like the Siberian shamans or the Carthaginian priest?

“Take it,” I said, tossing the finger to Bronze. “Why should I have any keepsakes? Even though I did all the hard work. Where were you, O great avatar of justice, when I was facing off with Urdmann and Silver?”

“Facing off with their hired killers,” Bronze replied. “Someone had to protect innocent bystanders like Father Emil from all those mercenaries. With only one leg, I couldn’t move quickly. It took me quite some time to subdue those who were shooting at us. Besides,” Bronze added, “I have a poor track record against Silver. He is . . . unpredictable. Irrational and foolish. You were far better suited for dealing with him than I might be.”

“Are you saying I’m irrational and foolish?”

Bronze didn’t answer. He added the finger I’d just given him to the collection of silver body parts on the ground. I felt like giving him a different finger . . . but that would be conduct unbecoming a woman of my station.

It was Ilya who discovered the main part of Silver’s head. I’d found one ear and Vidonia had found the other, but the head had gone careening over the fields like a cannonball and ended up stuck in a paraná pine. I came over to watch as Ilya poked the head out of the tree with a stick.

“Ouch!” the head whimpered as it fell to the ground. Its silvery face twisted into a grimace.

“I thought you were bulletproof,” Ilya said. “A drop like that shouldn’t hurt you.”

“It’s the indignity,” Silver grumbled. “I’ve been a king. An emperor. A god! Have some respect, you peasant.”

“You’re only a head and you’re calling me names?” Ilya turned to me. “You’re right, Larochka, this robot isn’t too smart.”

“I am
not
a robot,” Silver snapped. “I am so far beyond your petty understanding . . .”

I didn’t hear the rest of Silver’s diatribe. Ilya kicked Silver’s head like a soccer ball, all the way back to where Bronze was waiting.

Midnight. The moon had finally risen—only a half-moon, but enough to alleviate the pitch-blackness. At Bronze’s direction, we’d reassembled most of Silver’s anatomy. Now he was only in two parts: a glossy metallic body lying on the ground and a sulky whining head held firmly under Bronze’s arm.

“What are you going to do with him?” I asked the bronze robot.

Bronze didn’t reply at first; he stared at me as if deciding whether I was worthy enough to deserve an answer. Finally he said, “We will return to where we belong.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

Bronze said nothing. Silver’s head, however, moaned. “It’s the worst place in the universe! It’s awful! It’s boring! You can’t imagine—”

“Hush,” Bronze said, covering Silver’s mouth with one hand. “You’re an embarrassment to your kind.”

“So you’re leaving?” Father Emil asked. “After all the good you’ve done, you won’t stay and continue to help?”

“I must complete my mission,” Bronze answered. “Farewell.”

Silver screamed beneath Bronze’s muffling hand, but the bronze android paid no heed. He placed his foot upon Silver’s prone, headless body, then raised his empty fist to the sky. For a moment he simply stood there, like a wrestler claiming victory as he poses above his fallen opponent. Then Bronze slammed his fist to his metallic chest with the force of a hammer striking a gong.

Once more, the night air filled with reverberation—exactly the same tone and pitch as when I’d hit Urdmann with the bronze leg. Bronze and Silver vibrated in unison. Their bodies quivered with the sound, shaking harder and harder as the ringing grew louder. Then, just like Urdmann, the two metal men seemed to collapse inward, crumpling out of existence . . . or at least out of existence as I knew it.

Gone away, totally vanished. I wondered if Urdmann had ended up in the same place. If he’d been sucked into a world where creatures like Bronze tirelessly stamped out all criminal behavior . . .

“Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow. Bye-bye, Lancaster,” I whispered.

Vidonia invited us back to the house, but I declined. I’d given the Order of Bronze enough of my time. Besides, with Bronze gone, the Order had ceased to exist. Father Emil and the others would either spend the night mourning the end of their organization or brainstorming new ideas on what to do with their money, their people, and their communication links. I wanted no part of that. If they wanted to continue, they could do so without me.

So my friends drove me back to the city. They had a rental car almost identical to the one I’d left by the fishing stream. My own rental I left with Vidonia, who promised she’d return it to the agency in the morning.

On the drive back, I let the others talk. They spent quite some time speculating where Bronze and Silver had gone. A world run by robots? A faraway planet or a magical alternate dimension? Why had Silver hated it so? If the androids had come from our own future, were we destined for a joyless tomorrow where mechanized police imposed a rigid rule of law?

I remained silent throughout the discussion. I didn’t care where the metal men came from as long as they were gone. And as long as they
stayed
gone. But I worried about that. Silver had found a way to Earth once; he might do so again. As for Bronze, I still didn’t trust him. Who was to say that after he’d taken Silver home, Bronze wouldn’t return to our world? He saw Earth as a cesspool of crime. Now that he was whole, maybe Bronze would come back to “clean up” human civilization . . . to regulate us into orderly citizens. Isn’t that what his programming dictated?

The thought made me shiver.

But I couldn’t hold on to that sense of foreboding. After twenty-four hours of being awake, fatigue was catching up with me. I was floating in a sleepy haze when someone asked what I was going to do next. Go home to Surrey? Or off on another adventure?

“Let’s go back to Silver’s hideout,” I mumbled. “It had a nice beach. We’ll kick out the mercenaries and spend a year or two lying in the sun.”

“A year or two?” Ilya said. “Larochka, you’ll be bored within a week.”

“Will not,” I said. “I’ll look around Silver’s house for something to read while lying out on the sand. He told me he knew where to find plenty of wonderful loot. Excalibur. The ring of the Nibelung. Incan gold. If he kept maps somewhere . . .”

I fell asleep, dreaming of tombs and treasure.