The Red Queen (80 page)

‘It is done,’ he said.

I turned to see that all of our supplies and the heaviest items from our packs had been securely lashed to the horses, along with the awning. The watermaking device was handily lashed to Sendari’s back, so that it could be drained and reset whenever it was full. Aside from the packs we would wear, there was nothing left of our makeshift camp beside the dark mouth of the rift save the androne, bronzed by the flickering light of the dying fire the gypsy had built to make our meal.

‘Time to go then,’ I said.

‘What of the wolves?’ Swallow asked.

‘Rasial said their scent trail showed they had gone into some deep tunnel, and Gobor told me before they left that the pack will follow us in darkness. I thought he meant at night, after the moon sets, of course, but it might be that he meant they would follow us using a tunnel. This could have been one of the things Rheagor foresaw. Ana said he spoke to Gobor after he had awakened and before he died.’

Swallow nodded. ‘It might be better if the wolves do not follow us into Redport, in any case.’

‘True enough,’ I said, moving to kick earth over the fire.

Ana stopped me. ‘Leave it,’ she said, distress in her expression. ‘Nothing can be harmed by it and I do not want to leave him in darkness.’

I pressed my lips together and forbore to say the androne would be in darkness soon enough, but it would do no harm to leave the fire to burn itself out, as she said. I went to the machine man. It had stood as unmoving as a statue since shutting down all of its activities, save, presumably, those that kept its memory intact. It looked exactly as it had the first time I beheld it when it entered the Hub in Habitat, no more marked by all that had happened to it since leaving Midland than any of the events in its long existence. Its smooth human face was silver and its eyes glimmered as I moved closer and looked into them, but they showed neither fear nor regret nor even resolve. I felt foolish as I bade it fetch the large golator and such supplies as it could from the glide when its power had been replenished, but Ana assured me it could hear and would obey me, once it could move.

Gahltha insisted I ride, as did the other beasts, and seeing no reason to refuse, at least to begin with, I settled myself on his back, avoiding the stone sword lashed to one of the bundles, and gestured to Dragon. Swallow gave her a leg up and as she settled herself behind me, I laid a folded cloth between my knees to create a false lap, and Ana lifted Maruman up onto it. The old cat turned and turned, fastidiously, as Swallow helped Dameon up onto Faraf and then mounted Sendari.

Wincing at Maruman’s ministrations and wishing he would settle and be done with it, I noticed that he was beginning to shed tufts of his thick fur, and hoped it was only a matter of adjusting to the heat, for fur loss also heralded an episode of madness. I was careful to think these thoughts behind a mindshield, not that it would keep the old cat out if he wanted to enter my mind, but it did enable me some mental privacy.

I looked up to see Swallow stretching out a hand to Ana. She began to move towards him, but at the last minute, turned away to go to the androne. She stood before him and, lifting her uninjured arm, she set a hand upon his silver chest and looked into his impassive, perfect face, speaking words pitched too low for me to hear. The androne made no response, of course, and after a moment, she reached up once to cup his metallic cheek, then she went back to Swallow and let him haul her up behind him. She made herself comfortable, carefully cradling her bandaged arm between them, and we set off.

We did not gallop or trot, for although the moon had risen and there was light enough to see, there were many cracks and fissures in the ground. Indeed the pace was so slow that we might just as well have used our own legs, except that Gahltha had brooked no refusal, arguing that he and the other equines would rest while we were within the barud that was our immediate destination. I was worried that they had not found any water, but Gahltha said there were succulents growing in patches that were full of moisture and that we smelled a good deal thirstier than he and the other equines felt.

We followed the fissure northward to begin with, for we had to reach the place where Swallow said we would be able to cross. Behind us the androne stood like a silver guard gazing out over the stony, much-fissured plain we must cross to reach the coast, the fire reflected in its shining form, so that when I turned back to look at it, it seemed a man formed of fire.

Gahltha beastspoke me to ask curiously why the others were so troubled at leaving the androne. He had already told me that his senses did not detect the machine man at all save in the way they understood any lifeless object that moved. I explained as best I could, but perhaps I did not explain well for I could no more understand than he why the others felt they were betraying the androne by leaving it.

‘Maybe it is because I have no Talent for empathy and even less, it seems, for machine empathy,’ I finally told him with a sigh.

I did look back once more after we crossed the rift and set off to the east. This time I was in the lead, and so I saw Ana bringing up the rear with Swallow on Sendari; she turned and lifted a hand in farewell to the androne, then turned away. So it was I alone, looking back, who saw the androne’s eyes flash. I said nothing, certain it was only a trick of the firelight, but equally certain Ana would have insisted we turn back, convinced the machine wept at our departure.

‘Her machine empathy is very strong,’ Dameon observed, as Faraf moved up beside Gahltha.

I looked at him curiously. ‘You feel it?’

‘I feel her feelings,’ Dameon said. ‘What she feels for the androne is not what she feels for us or for Swallow. Yet it
is
a reaching out of the emotions.’

I shook my head. ‘I did not like leaving it there, for it has served us well, but even if it
had
been able to go with us, it would have been impossible to take it into Redport.’

‘You are very certain the slavemasters still rule there.’

‘I
hope
that the people there are simply waiting for their queen, but whenever was life so simple?’

The empath laughed softly. ‘It seems as if it should be at least half the time, but life is no more simple than fair.’

I said nothing and the silence between us grew awkward, for it seemed the conversation had brought us back in a neat loop to the night Dameon had kissed me, revealing feelings I could not return. I was trying to think of how I could move away when the empath said, ‘Elspeth, it is probably useless to say it, but I wish you would not be so discomfited by what happened between us on the glide. I spoke the truth when I said it was a relief to have told you how I feel after all this time. I had never meant to speak out but I am glad I did. It only dismays and grieves me that my confession has stopped you seeing me as a friend.’

‘Oh Dameon,’ I said, shaken and distressed. ‘I
do
see you as a friend. I love you and nothing you have said has changed that. But it hurts me to know that I cannot be what you want.’

He laughed again, that true soft laugh I had always loved. ‘No wonder you are so chary of emotions when you complicate them so. If there is any anguishing to be done, I think as the rejected lover I ought to be the one to do it. However, strictly speaking, I am not rejected since I only confessed love and did not offer it, being clever enough to have worked out for myself that it was not wanted. I indulged myself thoroughly and shamefully by kissing you and telling you what I felt, and I confess to you now that I do not feel the least bit remorseful about that, and so you can feel righteously misused by
me.
’

His argument was so absurd that I could not help but utter an incredulous laugh, and he laughed too and then said, gently, firmly, ‘Let us put an end to this dreadful incident and say only that we are resolved to be true friends and leave all the rest.’

I laughed again and felt sheepish too. ‘I suppose it is rather arrogant for me to anguish for your anguish.’

‘Only a little, and it is generously done,’ he said gently. Then he grew serious. ‘But my dear, I think a little arrogance is inevitable in those who must rule and undertake such great quests. The thing is to ensure that a little arrogance does not grow into an ugly love of power for its own sake, though somehow I do not think that will ever be a problem with you. Now tell me what you plan for us when we reach Redport.’

Sendari had drawn up on Faraf’s flank and I realised the empath had felt the approach of the others, hence his suddenly pragmatic tone.

I drew a deep breath and explained my plan.

We had travelled steadily for several hours before Fey again flew out of the darkness on silent wings to land on Gavyn’s upraised hand. Rasial had sent her out again at my request. Watching the lad pet the little owl, I was reminded of the night she had dived on Moss, distracting him and saving Dragon from a horrible death at the hands of the demented man. She had acted at the behest of Rasial and Gavyn then, too, and I wondered what I would see if I looked at the three of them now with spirit eyes. Would I see the connection the white dog had spoken of, linking her and the boy to the bird? Or had the little bird’s spirit been drawn into the merge between the souls of dog and boy? It might very well be their connection to the owl that gave their spirit-form wings, and yet was not my own spirit-form winged?

‘Did she/Fey overfly the funaga city again?’ I beastspoke Rasial.

‘She went closer/lower as you asked, ElspethInnle,’ the dog said. ‘Her mind is full of pictures/visions of that barud, but she sees as all birds, in bright scraps, some things tiny/important only to birdminds. She flew over a large/complicated barud
.
Shesaw funaga, but few. Shesaw no water but only fire that plays/flies. I/Rasial cannot make sense/understand that.’

I bade her show me, and received the owl’s fragmented vision of a settlement clustered around a bay edged by an esplanade that linked a number of wide roads radiating out from the hub of the bay like the curved spokes of a wheel. Within the segments formed by each pair of roads lay a coiling tangle of narrow streets, lanes and alleys with not a straight line between them, all centred on doubled circular plazas or courts. Trying to negotiate the smaller streets would be like threading a labyrinth, though it was possible they were not such a snakes’ nest as they seemed, and this was merely Fey’s distorted bird vision. I could see no trees or greenery at all, nor did there appear to be any water either, save within the bay. Fire I did see, leaping and coiling in the largest of the doubled circles, and bordering a rectangular building in two ranks. A spoke road curving close by the building seemed to be bordered by two lines of fire as well. I could not guess what it all meant, though the likelihood was that it was some sort of celebration.

‘Do you wish her to fly over it again?’ Rasial asked. All canines, like equines, had a good deal of empathy.

‘Perhaps when we are closer,’ I murmured, wishing the owl would be able to overfly the city in daylight.

‘What did you see?’ Dragon asked eagerly. I told her, and at first she frowned and seemed puzzled, but when I began to describe the fires, she laughed and clapped her hands in delight, saying I was right that it must be a celebration, for fire had always been part of celebrations in Redport.

‘You would think they would prefer something cooler in this heat,’ Dameon murmured, and I glanced at him sympathetically, knowing he was finding the heat very trying, and we had not yet marched through a day.

‘Celebrating what?’ Ana asked.

Eyes dreamy, Dragon spoke of fire gardens ignited in celebration of her mother’s birthing day. Unfortunately she had no clear memory of what fire gardens were, save that it involved flame, but her words made it clear that Fey’s vision might be closer to reality than I had supposed.

Ana said, ‘If the fires are a celebratory tradition, maybe we are arriving at the end of the confrontation between the Redlanders and the Gadfian invaders.’

‘If so, we must learn who are the winners,’ I said.

‘It must be the Redlanders,’ Swallow said. ‘If the tradition is theirs.’

I looked at him. ‘Oppressors can co-opt the celebrations of the oppressed.’

‘You are still convinced slavers rule Redland?’ Dameon murmured

I nodded. ‘I am, but we will not know the truth of it until we reach Redport.’

We rode with only short breaks to drain the water device. The waxing moon rose and crossed the sky, and when it set, we dismounted and ate.

‘I miss Hendon’s light,’ Ana sighed, as she and I prepared a meal.

It was as we sat in the midst of the dark plain to eat it, that the rest of us experienced what Dameon had claimed to have felt earlier, a strange shuddering of the earth that lasted several long minutes.

‘I do not much like that,’ I said. ‘What do you suppose it is?’

‘An earth tremor,’ Dameon said. ‘There was one last time I was on the west coast, when Dell sent for me. Miryum told me she had felt something like it before and that Jak had told her they come because the earth contains a molten core and sometimes the ground cracks and . . .’

‘Stop,’ Ana said. ‘I do not doubt any of it is true, but talking about the earth in this way while we are making our way across a plain full of cracks and fissures, strikes a little too close to the bone.’

The empath chuckled. ‘Forgive me, my dear, but I only meant to say that this shivering of the earth is not so unusual nor does it necessarily bode any evil. That said, I was somewhat uneasy myself when it happened. But apparently they were not uncommon there.’

‘Yet there are none of these cracks and fissures,’ Swallow said, giving Ana an apologetic look.

‘I think we had best walk when we continue, anyway,’ I said. ‘It is dark and it is less perilous if the horses stumble.’ I wondered how the wolves fared, if they truly were following us through a subterranean tunnel.

There was a pleasantly cool breeze blowing into our faces when we set off again, and before long Gahltha said he could smell good grazing, and he and the other equines went to eat their fill while they could. Rasial suggested she and Gavyn go with them and then she would lead them back to us, her nose being superior to the nose of an equine. ‘He/we are fretting at this creeping along,’ she added, and I wondered which of them fretted, she or Gavyn, or were they so close now that there was no telling what they felt individually?

The beasts caught us up again at dawn in high spirits, having found a good crop of some sort of juicy succulents that had quenched their thirst as well as filling their bellies. I was glad of it and relieved, too, for I had been worrying about them. Gahltha insisted we ride, and although I was reluctant, Swallow suggested it would be a good idea to ride for an hour or two before it got too stinking hot, because we would cover more ground that way, even if the horses broke into a trot only occasionally.

As usual, Gavyn refused to ride, but Dragon carried Fey in her shirt, for it was a gentler journey than stuffed into the jogging boy’s forage pouch. When the sun rose, it grew hot very quickly and when we stopped, the water device was full, one of our party drained it. I asked Gahltha how the horses fared and he said they did not yet thirst much, so we decided to press on.

Darga, Rasial and Maruman took their turns to drink as the day wore on, and though no one complained of thirst, all of them must have felt as tormented by it as I did.

When my turn came, I took my time drinking the tepid mugful, but the water was too soon gone and I felt I could have drunk ten more like it. I told myself stoically that we had only to manage until we reached Redport, and though I did not know exactly how far away it was, Fey had flown there and back twice, so I doubted it would be more than a day or two.

Twice more, during the day, the earth shuddered, and once as we were crossing a small fissure. Nothing happened but my heart was in my mouth for a moment.

Fortunately, despite the general barrenness of the terrain, the horses continued to find patches of succulents to eat, and when finally I set eyes on them, I saw that, like cacti, they were covered in needles. I thought it a pity the rest of us could not eat them for the moisture they held, if not for their flavour. Gahltha sent that he did not see why the dogs and Maruman should not eat them, though the needles were tough. The horses used their hoofs to smash the outer casing so they could get at the soft meat inside, but the dogs and felines could manage if only one of the humans sliced away the outer shell for them. Dameon volunteered to try one to see if we could stomach them, but Ana shook her head, saying Darga had already warned her off.

‘How can he know?’ Swallow asked.

‘He said they smell like some plants a boy he knew ate, which made him sick,’ Ana said, having questioned the big ugly dog with signals.

I wondered if the anonymous boy was Jik, and if there were other traces of the boy’s memory left here and there in the dog’s mind. After all, how would it be possible to wholly remove a person with whom one had a deep and important bond without removing parts of a thousand events and strands of thought. It would be like trying to remove one portion of a complex patterned weave. I was convinced the Agyllians had removed only key events in the dog’s mind, such as Darga’s meeting with Jik and the boy’s awful death.

How sad that Darga had chosen to forget Jik, for he deserved to be remembered with love and grief.

When we stopped again, Ana and Swallow deftly wielded their knives. Watching them husk the spiky succulents and feed them to the dogs, it struck me that they were like miniature cacti. I thought of the Speci and wondered if their relentless passivity had enabled them to absorb and then suppress our dramatic departure from Habitat – another kind of forgetting. It might not be difficult for some, but what of Balboa? Would she be able to forget Dameon so easily? I wondered, too, how the Committee had dealt with the loss of the red token, which they had used to punish and control the other Speci. Did they simply use something else in its place or had our activities ended the ugly practice? This reminded me that Tash had given the red token to me, so that I could compare it with the device I had taken from the computermachine in the amethyst chamber of the Earthtemple. They were almost identical, but for their colour and the fact that one was older. I had meant to return it to her, but perhaps it was not something she had wanted to keep.

As we mounted up again my thoughts turned to Miryum and Ahmedri and I wondered how they fared. I had not allowed myself to count the days since we left Midland, but I wanted to believe Miryum had chosen to allow God to return her to a cryopod. Surely Ahmedri had convinced her. But he had promised to remain with her, no matter what. I wondered if he would come to regret that promise . . . 

The sun approached its zenith and Swallow suggested we stop and rest until the worst of the day’s heat had faded. I did not want to stop, but moments before, I had seen a pack of wolves running towards me before they dissolved in the writhing air, and I understood that I was even more affected by the heat than I realised. Swallow and I set up the awning, and when the rest of us would have simply cast ourselves down under it, he reminded us that someone must remain awake to keep watch and tend the water-making device. He volunteered to be the first and suggested that, when it was full, the person on watch slake their thirst then wake the next watcher.

Such was our weariness in the sapping heat that we removed the horses’ burdens in silence, then lay down in the light hot shade and slept at once.

It was Dragon who woke me, listless and heavy eyed, to take my turn at standing watch. I saw from the sun that it was late afternoon and she had drained the water. I reset the device, then sat by it, willing it to work faster, thinking again how absurd it was that we had ended up with only one water-making device when we had started out with so many. Ana had located a good many other useful devices with God’s help, all of which were now lying uselessly under a pile of rocks. No wonder she had lamented so bitterly.

I sighed, reminding myself that it had been my choice to leave rather than waiting for Hendon to excavate the glide. Even now, I was not sure why. Partly it was simply a desire to get away from that dark gash in the earth into which we had so nearly plunged. We had been incredibly lucky to escape from the glide alive, and no less lucky to have found it in the first place, and to have been able to use it. Without it we would never have been able to make such a journey. But it was not luck, for the Agyllians must have foreseen it all, and maybe Hannah had as well, though it would not have seemed so remarkable to her, coming from a world in which such machines and journeys were common.

I thought of her lying in death with Jacob as I gazed out across the shimmering red plain, then for some reason, I found myself picturing Hendon standing in the blazing heat, reflecting it and absorbing the sunlight somehow, gaining strength from it, and I wondered what he would do when he came to life again. He would excavate the glide and get out the large golator, if Ana was right and he had been able to hear my final instructions. Then what? Foolishly, I had not given him any further instructions, so presumably he would set off towards the coast of the Andol Sea, since that was the most direct route to God. But how would he cross the strait? Would he build a raft and try to sail across it, and what materials would he find in this bare land? Even if he managed it somehow, he would have many long sevendays of walking across terribly tainted ground before reaching Pellmar Quadrants.

I imagining him, shining and impervious, striding across what Swallow had so aptly named the Desolation, then a movement caught my eye, drawing me back to the present.