Walkers (20 page)

Henry, in spite of himself, laughed
out loud at Springer’s seriousness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. You’re
really stretching my credulity here. I feel like any moment now the whole of
the philosophy faculty is going to come bursting into the room, and they’re all
going to shout out April Fool I’m sorry. ‘Well,’ smiled Springer, ‘Your
scepticism is understandable . Your mind has been educated to challenge
everything

. But if I can ask you to suspend your
disbelief for a little while longer you can judge what I am saying from a
practical demonstration.’

‘A practical demonstration?’ asked
Gil. He had kept quiet and listened so far, but Springer was rapidly losing
him. Tebulot, the machine-carrier? He was beginning to think, like Henry, that
somebody somewhere was taking them all for a long and ultimately hilarious
ride.

But Springer glanced at Gil, sharp
and amused, almost as if she could read what Gil was thinking, and then she
said, unabashed, ‘Kasyx the charge-keeper is the power-centre of the trio. It
is Kasyx who draws power from Ashapola, at any one of the nine hundred power
sources, of which this house is one, and keeps it ready for his comrades to use
in their battle against Yaomauitl. If you like, Kasyx is the battery, which
Tebulot and Samena use to charge up their night-weaponry.’

‘So, Kasyx... has no weapon of his
own?’ asked Henry.

‘His power can be used as a weapon,’
said Springer, ‘but only in the last resort. This is because it can only be
discharged in one total blast, leaving all three of you powerless. So, if the
discharge fails to have the desired effect, you are left without any means of
defending yourselves. Also, the release of energy is tremendous – and it is
usually far too powerful for normal combat. It can demolish a building. There
are several famous explosions in the past which were explained as natural
phenomena, but which were charge-keepers fighting a last battle with the Devil.’

‘What about Tebulot?’ asked Gil.

‘Yes, the machine-carrier. The
machine is a weapon but also a tool. It uses power from Kasyx to cut through
walls and doors, if that ever becomes necessary; to make welds and repairs; but
also to fire controlled bursts of pure energy. The machine, if you like, is a
power-controller, but it cannot be carried by Kasyx himself because any attempt
by him to use it would result in the instant discharge of all of his power.’

Gil folded his arms. He was finding
everything that Springer was telling them quite impossible to believe. His
excitement of only a few minutes ago had flattened out completely, and he could
quite happily have gone home. He should have gone bowling with Bradley.

Susan didn’t believe any of it,
either; but unlike Gil she wanted to stay and listen.

Springer’s stories of Kasyx and
Tebulot and Samena were almost like fairy-tales, and she found them
fascinating. She smiled at Springer as she approached, and kept on smiling as
Springer laid her hands on her shoulders.

‘Samena is the quickest of eye; the
fastest runner, the athlete. Where Tebulot is a heavyweight destroyer, Samena
is a lightweight sniper. She, too, draws her energy from Kasyx. But her weapon
is her finger.’

Springer held her arms straight out
in front of her, and crossed her right wrist over her left wrist, keeping her
left hand loosely held in a fist. She pointed her right index finger rigidly,
and took a sight along her right arm.

‘That is how Samena uses her weapon,
but it is better to demonstrate it for real.’

She took hold of Henry’s arm, and
led him to the centre of the room. He stood beside her, his hands on his hips,
embarrassed. I’ll bet you dinner at Anthony’s that nothing happens,’ said
Henry.

Springer stepped lithely around, and
drew Gil and Susan closer to Henry, one on each side of him.

‘Now you are ready,’ she said. ‘You
must understand that you will normally be dreaming when this happens. Your
physical body will be lying asleep in your bed, while your Night Warrior
manifestation goes out into the darkness, looking for the Devil. Your power
will be greater when you have left your physical body, because the energy will
not have to pass through the resistance of solid flesh and bone. But this will
give you some idea of what you will be able to do.’

She came forward and touched Henry’s
forehead. ‘When I have trained you, you will be able to build up your power by
yourself. Right now, I am having to do it for you. It might help you if you
closed your eyes.’ Henry hesitated at first, but then he closed his eyes. Well,
he thought, I might as well get this over and done with. When I open them up
again, the whole of my freshman philosophy class is going to be standing
around, laughing at me. But I think I’m still drunk enough not to mind.

Charge-keeper, he thought to
himself, with mounting scepticism. The only things that he got a charge out of
were vodka and beautiful women and Beethoven, and not always in that order.
Still, he had come here, he had listened to what Springer had said to him, and
so there must be some part of his mind that was still open to argument, no
matter how eccentric that argument happened to be.

Springer’s fingers against his
forehead began to vibrate and irritate him. He could almost imagine that
high-voltage electrical current was running through them, and coursing into his
brain. He had to admit it, Springer was a genius at stirring up illusion and
self-suggestion. He could almost have believed that he was growing, that he was
straightening up, that his body was glittering with thousands of volts of
stored-up energy.

He slowly opened his eyes. Springer
took her hand away. There was a burned, metallic odour of lightning, and
gunpowder, and cauterised copper. Gil and Susan were staring at him in
astonishment. He had never seen faces look like theirs before.

They could have been hit in the face
with a plank, they looked so dumbstruck.

‘Come,’ said Springer, and beckoned
Henry over to the far wall of the room. She opened a white built-in closet,
empty of clothes, and showed him the full-length mirror on the back of the
door.

‘This is you – Kasyx, the greatest
of the Night Warriors,’ she told him.

Henry stared at himself. Slowly,
slowly, he lifted his hand towards his head, and the figure in the mirror
lifted his hand, too. It was actually him. Henry Watkins, threadbare professor
of even more threadbare philosophy, alcoholic and far-too-frequently frustrated
genius, as Kasyx, the Night Warrior. Not taller – although he was standing much
straighter, with his shoulders held back. No more muscular, although his
expression was somehow much more determined, and there was a look of power
about him, the look of a man who could handle himself in a fight. What was
really extraordinary about him, however, was the semi-translucent armour which
covered him from head to foot, including a wedge-shaped helmet. The armour
looked heavy and elaborate, with a slab-sided breastplate, jointed hips like
lobster-tails, and scores of power-points and cables and racks and hooks.

He could scarcely see the armour,
and he certainly couldn’t feel any weight. Yet, when he moved, the armour moved
with him, as if he were really wearing it. He turned to Springer, and said,
‘This suit. . .it’s as if it doesn’t exist.’

‘It exists only in dreams,’ said
Springer.’ What you can see of it now is nothing but my memory of it, just as
the girl I showed you was only a memory, too.’

Henry stared at himself. ‘It’s true,
then,’ he said, with great simplicity. ‘The Night Warriors actually existed.’

‘Yes, Henry, they did; and they will
again. Kasyx, Tebulot, and Samena.’

Springer beckoned Gil to come
forward. Gil hesitated at first, but then stood beside Henry, glancing at his
armour from time to time with fascination. This was absolutely amazing. This
beat burning up Interstate-5 at 120 mph, riding his dirt-bike all around the
Del Mar fairgrounds, Montezuma’s Revenge at Knott’s Berry Farm, and any other
thrill he could think of. This beat
everything.

‘Kneel down beside him, on one
knee,’ Springer instructed Gil. Gil did as he was told, looking up at Henry
with his eyes wide with excitement.

‘Now, Henry,’ said Springer, ‘lay
your left hand on Gil’s right shoulder.’

Henry did as he was told. Gil
immediately felt a tide of energy tingling through Henry’s fingers, and surging
through his nervous system with all the urgency of flood-water pouring into a
complicated network of irrigation ditches. He felt as if Henry’s hand had given
him an electric shock. He opened his mouth, and blue sparks crawled around his
teeth like crackling caterpillars. His hair stood up on end.

‘This is you: Tebulot, the
machine-carrier,’ Springer announced, and Gil stared at himself in the mirror.
He seemed lither and stronger, and there was a deadly look of conviction in his
eyes that almost made him smile. He wore a helmet similar to Henry’s, but
white, with two triangular wing-plates on each side of it. His breastplate was
white and decorated with tactically placed triangles, but he wore no
leg-armour, just clinging white tights, for quickness of movement, and a pair
of wedge-soled shoes that looked like the most fantastic pair of Nikes ever
designed.

In his hands, he carried a massive
piece of shining machinery, shaped like a machine-gun, but larger and longer,
with one T-shaped lever like a gear-shift on top of it, and all kinds of slots
and bolted-on clips and slides and switches.

He tried to heft the machinery in
his hands, but like Henry’ s armour, it weighed nothing, it was hardly even
visible.

‘Raise it up, and aim it,’ said Springer.
‘It will fire a weak charge, if you pull the trigger.’

Gil cautiously lifted the machine,
and squinted along the sights. Springer stood directly behind him, and said,
‘Pull back the T-bar, that charges it. You can see a linear charge-scale, along
the side there, glowing gold. That tells you how much charge you’ve got. All
right – aim it at the wall there, and fire it.’

With trembling hands, Gil tugged
back the T-bar, until he felt it lock. The charge-scale glowed dimly, and
registered only about a tenth, but that was enough for a demonstration. He
touched the trigger. There was a sharp, soft
zzafff!
and a bullet of bright yellow light zipped across the room,
and exploded against the wall, punching a two-inch hole through to the brick.

‘ In a dream, the charge will be
very much more powerful,’ said Springer. ‘You will also discover that the
machine has many different functions. It was created in a dream, and therefore
its capabilities are only as limited as a dream is limited, which is hardly at
all.’ Gil turned the machine from one side to the other, admiring it.

‘Quite a weapon!’ Henry remarked.

‘Unbelievable,’ said Gil.

Springer now brought Susan forward.
Susan had been watching the other two cautiously. She sensed the newly born
comradeship between them, but she had not yet understood the fatherly concern
that Henry felt for her, nor the fact that Gil thought she was pretty and cute
– and that if Springer hadn’t appeared, and turned the routine of his daily
life totally upside-down, he probably would have wanted to date her. She caught
his smile, however, as she came to stand on Henry’ s other side, and she
realised that he was trying hard to show her that he cared about her.

Without needing Springer to tell
him, Henry laid his right hand on Susan’s left shoulder. Susan watched herself
closely in the mirror as the power with which Springer had charged Henry began
to flow through to her. Her eyes sparkled as she blinked; a shower of tiny
white sparks cascaded from her hair.

Gradually, faintly, her own costume
of Samena the finger-archer began to appear.

She wore a triangular cocked hat
that was laden with ostrich feathers, eagle feathers, and peacock plumes. She
was fitted with a tight leather bodice, decorated with sequins and studs and
oddly shaped pieces of metal, and laced across her cleavage with tight leather
thongs. She also wore a high-cut pair of tight leather briefs, around the
waistband of which were clipped twenty or thirty different types of arrowhead –
hooked, barbed, triangular, flared, and smooth. A broad scabbard also hung at
her waist, containing a double-bladed knife with a velvet cord attached to its
handle. Her legs were bare, except for a small pair of soft leather boots with
turn-down tops.

‘Samena,’ said Springer, with
undisguised pride.

Susan asked, breathlessly, ‘Could I
try shooting? Is there enough power left?’

Springer touched Henry’s forehead,
and then nodded. ‘One shot. Use an arrowhead; see if you can hit the wall where
Gil hit it.’

Susan unclipped a sharp triangular
arrowhead. Its body was hollow, so that she could fit her index finger into it,
making it appear as if she had a long metallic fingernail. As Springer had
instructed her, she crossed her wrists, using her left arm to steady her right.
She pointed her arrowhead finger at the wall, directly at the spot where Gil
had blasted a scar in the plaster, and concentrated.

Nothing happened at first. ‘What do
I do now?’ she asked Springer, in disappointment. ‘How do I fire it?’