Walkers (30 page)

At last, more than two hundred and
fifty yards ahead of the Night Warriors, the procession reached the outer walls
of the building, and crossed an extraordinary suspension bridge to reach its
high main gate. In fact, as the three of them drew closer they could see that
the entire building was extraordinary. It was constructed of granite, the same
granite as the mountains around it, but highly finished, so that it glistened
wetly in the rain. Its walls were smooth and unscalable up to about seventy
feet from its foundations, but above that height there were hundreds of
openings, on dozens of different levels, and these openings were connected by
external stone staircases, without railings or supports. Up and down the
staircases, in a never-ending stream, climbed men and women in sackcloth robes,
chained and shackled and crowned with thorns.

At the very top of the walls, there
were battlements, on which more of the hooded figures came and went, and from
which wet black flags bellowed and snapped in the wind.

‘I told you,’ said Kasyx, as the
three of them crouched down behind the last protective jumble of rocks. ‘This
man is punishing himself. That’s what this nightmare is all about. We don’t
have to save him at all. Look at this place. Punishment Palace.

I’ve seen the symptoms a hundred
times. He probably likes to wear ladies’ garter-belts, and have his fingers
trodden on with stiletto heels.’

‘I don’t know,’ frowned Samena. ‘I
think there’s more to this nightmare than that. I can sense something, I don’t
quite know what it is.’

Kasyx said, ‘Believe me, Samena,
he’s probably loving every minute of it.’

But Tebulot put in, ‘Don’t dismiss
Samena out of hand, Henry – I mean, Kasyx. Just remember what Springer said,
that Samena is the most sensitive of all of us. She could be picking up
something that’s out of our range.’

Kasyx looked at Samena, and Samena
smiled. Kasyx had to admit she looked more than becoming in that plumed hat and
that tight, decorated bodice and briefs. ‘All right,’ he admitted, ‘maybe I
should stop being so much of a lecturer, and start being more of a listener.’

Samena said, ‘I can’t describe it to
you, but I get the feeling that there’s some other presence inside that
building, apart from the dreamer himself. Something that’s stronger than the
dreamer. Something that’s taken over his dream.’

Kasyx said, uneasily, ‘Maybe that’s
why Springer brought us here. Maybe Yaomauitl’s hiding in this dream.’

‘He said we had to train first,’
Tebulot protested. ‘He wouldn’t send us out against Yaomauitl, not on our very
first night.’

‘Well, I’m not so sure about that,’
said Kasyx. ‘In fact, I’m not so sure about Springer.

We don’t know who or what he really
is, do we? And we’ve all allowed ourselves to be beguiled into this incredible
adventure, haven’t we, without checking his credentials at all.’

Tebulot held out his armoured hands.
‘He can do
this,
he can practically
turn us into super-heroes, and we have to check his credentials? Come on,
Kasyx, why are you doubting him all of a sudden? Don’t you feel fitter, don’t
you feel better? Don’t you feel that you could do absolutely
anything
you wanted to?’

Kasyx lifted his visor. He looked at
Tebulot with steady eyes, while the rain dripped persistently from the rim of
his crimson helmet. ‘I guess you’re right. I do feel better. I guess that’s why
I found that I was volunteering to be a Night Warrior all the way along the
line, without even asking myself why. Have you realised how calmly we’ve
accepted all this, and yet how incredible it actually is? We’ve been calm
because we all feel that this is something we’ve been waiting for; this is our
chance to break free.’

He paused, and then he said, ‘I
don’t think I’ll ever stop doubting. It’s part of my nature, and it’s most of
what my job’s all about. But, all right, I’ll accept what Springer has done for
me, and I’ll go along with all of this until someone shows me that I’m making a
dangerous idiot out of myself. Just one thing, though: don’t ever ask me to lay
down my life for Springer or Ashapola, not as a one-to-one choice, because the
answer will always be, forget it.’

‘Nobody asked you,’ said Tebulot.

‘No,’ Kasyx replied. ‘But there’s
always a chance that somebody might.’

Samena touched her fingers to her
forehead. ‘That feeling... it’s very powerful. It’s very evil, too.’

‘What do you mean, evil?-’ asked
Kasyx.

‘I mean it’s frightening. It’s very
cold, and it’s very vicious. It’s like the feeling you get when you’re walking
along a sidewalk and you suddenly realise that you have to go close to a really
mad-looking dog. I mean, you’re scared, but you can’t run away.’

‘Well,’ said Kasyx, ‘the question
is, what do we do about it?’

‘Didn’t Springer say that he was
going to keep in touch?’ said Tebulot. ‘Maybe you should try to ask him.’

Kasyx closed his eyes, and tried to
concentrate on communicating with Springer. But even after two or three minutes
he could hear nothing but silence, a silence as empty asthe infinite look he
had last seen in Springer’s eyes.

‘He’s not there,’ said Kasyx. ‘At
least, he’s not keeping in touch.’

‘In that case, I vote we go into the
building and see what’s going on,’ Tebulot urged.

‘Come on – we may not have very much
longer. This guy might wake up soon, or turn over and start dreaming about
hootchie-cootchie girls.’

Kasyx lifted his head, and narrowed
his eyes against the wind. ‘I’m not at all sure that I’d object to that.’

Nevertheless, Kasyx laid his hands
on their shoulders and gave them as much of his charge as he felt was safe.
Naked electricity wriggled across his chest, and sizzled in the driving rain.
Tebulot checked the glowing charge-scale, and saw that it registered one
hundred per cent full. Samena unhooked an arrowhead from her waistband, a
simple triangular point, and fitted it over the end of her right index finger.

‘Very well, then, let’s go see what
we can find in the way of evil influences,’ said Kasyx.

They rose up from behind the shelter
of the rocks, and headed diagonally across the valley floor towards the strange
suspension bridge at the front of the building. They ran quickly, keeping their
heads hunched down, but that was all they could do to minimise detection. Kasyx
was thankful that the rain was coming down even harder than before, in
thundering sheets, though he slipped once or twice on the rocks.

They reached the bridge without
being seen, at least as far as they could tell. They ran across it without
hesitation, their feet slapping on wet stone. The bridge spanned a deep,
artificially cut ravine, in which lay stagnant water, black with slime. The
surface of the water was circle patterned with raindrops, and occasionally
furrowed, as if something were swimming deep below its surface.

The Night Warriors found themselves
approaching a narrow, curved gateway. Kasyx was aware of the Freudian symbolism
of gateways in dreams, and noted to himself that this one was remarkably
similar in shape to the female vulva, but he said nothing, and led his two
companions through to a long dark corridor. At the far end of the corridor,
they could see an inner courtyard, cobbled and puddly, and two or three of the
hooded figures, apparently standing guard.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Tebulot,
nervously lifting his weapon.

Kasyx said, ‘We approach them,
that’s all. But we keep ourselves right on edge. Any hostile movements, let
them have it.’

‘That sounds like good basic
American thinking,’ commented Samena, with noticeable sharpness.

‘Well, what do you suggest we do? Go
right up and shake hands? As far as we can make out, those jokers crucified the
man who’s dreaming this dream, and for all we know they might be quite happy to
do the same to us.’

Cautiously, they walked the
remaining few yards along the tunnel and emerged into the rainy courtyard.
Tebulot glanced up. On the walls that surrounded the courtyard, there were
twenty or thirty small balconies, and on each of those balconies stood a hooded
figure with a weapon that looked similar to a crossbow.

‘I think this is what they call a
trap,’ he said, nudging Kasyx’s armoured elbow.

‘You’re probably right,’ said Kasyx.
But by now they were less than ten feet away from the two hooded figures who
stood in the centre of the courtyard, and the option of turning back seemed
very much more dangerous than the option of going on.

Kasyx stopped and raised his hand.

‘They’re not Red Indians,’ Tebulot
protested.

‘For God’s sake, this is a
universally recognised gesture of greeting,’ Kasyx snapped back.

The hooded figures regarded the
three Night Warriors from the black emptiness of their hoods without revealing
their faces, without making a sound. The wind spiralled down inside the
courtyard, and raised leaves and litter and ruffled the hems of their pilgrim’s
robes. Kasyx said loudly, ‘We wish to see the dreamer. We wish to ensure that
he is safe.’

Still the hooded figures said
nothing. But one of them raised its sleeve, and made a beckoning gesture; and
then both of them turned and began to walk away across the courtyard, towards
another tunnel on the far side.

‘Do we follow?’ asked Kasyx.

Samena glanced up at the hooded
figures with their crossbows, all around them.

‘I think we ought to,’ she
suggested.

Tebulot nodded. ‘Springer talked
about practical experience, didn’t he? This is obviously it.’

Kasyx said, ‘Keep a lookout behind
us. I don’t want us to get boxed in.’

The hooded figures glided faster and
faster, and disappeared into the tunnel. Kasyx touched Tebulot’s shoulder and
said, ‘Keep that weapon of yours ready. This could be an ambush.’

They hesitated at the mouth of the
tunnel, but then without any further discussion, they entered it, knowing that
whatever their destiny was, it lay somewhere beyond, and that they would have
to follow it regardless of their fears.

T
he interior walls of the tunnel were
soft and slimy, with a distinctive aroma that reminded Kasyx even more strongly
of the female vagina. Whatever the dreamer’s obsessions were, they were
obviously sexual as well as financial. In fact, the further the three of them
penetrated the dream, the more urgent the erotic atmosphere became. Somewhere
deep within the building, there was a rhythmic pounding sound, more like a human
heart than anything mechanical, and Kasyx was aware that the building was
gradually transmogrifying into a giant body.

At the end of the tunnel, they
emerged into a vast enclosed gallery, with a dark domed roof that was laced
with pipework that looked like veins and arteries.

Dominating the gallery was an
elaborate machine constructed of wood and metal, fifty or sixty feet high, with
gears and cogs and pulleys and winches, and massive black greasy pistons which
churned backwards and forwards on eccentric wheels.

The machinery set up a low rumbling
noise as it operated, overlaid with a higher-pitched sizzling of lubricated
steel sliding against lubricated steel.

‘Where did those two jokers in hoods
get to?’ asked Tebulot, keeping his weapon raised high.

‘There,’ said Samena, pointing
across to the other side of the gallery. On a balcony supported by spindly
staircases of iron and brass, the two hooded figures watched them
dispassionately.

‘Where’s the dreamer, that’s what I
want to know,’ said Tebulot, looking quickly around.

Kasyx lifted his head and
scrutinised the machinery. ‘I see him,’ he said, at last.

Tebulot and Samena followed his
gaze. At the very top of the machinery, there was a jointed wooden track, which
rattled over rows of revolving wheels. Into this track, the dreamer’s wooden
cross fitted, like an automobile axle on a production line, and the dreamer was
still nailed to it, as far as they could see from the floor of the gallery.

Gradually, the cross and its human
burden was carried along to the end of the wooden track, where it was lifted so
that it was standing upright, and then carried downward on an endless toothed
belt, into the very heart of the machinery.

As he was transported through the
huge device by tracks and pulleys and gears, the dreamer suffered continuous
punishment. The cross was passed through a tunnel of lashing leather whips,
which were attached to endlessly revolving wheels. Then he was repeatedly
stabbed by flailing arms that looked like hairbrushes, except that they were fitted
with spikes instead of bristles.

Kasyx watched the cross descend
through the framework of the machinery level by level. Then he turned to
Tebulot and Samena and said, ‘That’s enough. This guy doesn’t need saving. Not
by us, anyway. Maybe a shrink would do him some good.’

‘So, what do we do, split?’ asked
Tebulot. He was almost disappointed that the dream hadn’t turned out to require
a rescue mission after all.