Dark Heart Part 29

Heredrew interrupted their musing.

'New arrivals?' He wore a worried frown. 'I've just realised: did the serving woman say something about new arrivals? Do you suppose-'

Robal was first to react, though Torve had seen a flash of something like amus.e.m.e.nt in Dryman's eyes. 'Get away from the window!' the Falthan soldier cried and, seizing Bandy by the shoulders, dragged her towards the landward end of the tea house. He knocked down a free-standing part.i.tion and there they were, the Bhrudwans, all eight of them, heads down in discussion, the steam from their beverages rising-then abruptly fluttering and flattening out as a breeze sprang from somewhere.

'Outside!' Robal shouted. 'We must flee!'

Beside Torve, Lenares began to mutter. 'The G.o.ds don't want us to put all the truths together. Every time we get close, they try to stop us.' She turned towards the window.

Torve took her by the hand. 'Leave her,' Dryman commanded. The Omeran's hand spasmed, but kept hold of hers. His master's voice came again, shaped with its full weight. 'Leave her.'

How deep was his conditioning to obey? Clearly deeper than his love for Lenares. His hand twitched open and his arm jerked away from her. Another betrayal.

Shrieks from somewhere, a loud roar from behind them. A bone-deep thump as the ground shook. Another fireball? Torve shouldered through the half-open door and began running up the hill beyond the tea house. Ahead of him were hosts and guests, running, stumbling, turning open-mouthed.

He turned too, and saw the wave.

Was it possible for a mind to become worn, Duon wondered. For the edge of reason, once sharp, to be dulled? Weariness had definitely played a part: he and his fellows had received no respite for months. But if his mind was failing him, it was because of other things. The voice in his head, for example: reminder of a magician who had empowered him with strength beyond his dreams-at a cost as yet unknown. Perhaps he was the candle, his mind the wick to the magician's flame, burning brightly but about to wink out.

Or his memories of that day in the Summer Palace. Waiting for death, then facing the Neherians, believing he was about to die. A fear overwhelmed by the strange mix of exaltation and horror as the magician's strength rose in him and he began to kill.

He had begged the voice in his head to erase the memories. They had instead blurred together into a gory pastiche. Whether this was a product of his own mind or some s.a.d.i.s.tic intent of the voice, he could not tell.

Or maybe the cause of his blurriness was the constant, disconcerting alteration of the rules of reality. Nomansland had always played by its own rules, and their shepherding there had been frightening but not surprising. But storms and whirlwinds, vanishing lakes and fireb.a.l.l.s, not to mention supernatural strength and an orgy of b.l.o.o.d.y death-all these served to separate him from the comfort of the real.

So the giant wave, towering above the cliff and the tea house, made surprisingly little impression on Duon's weary mind. He began running only because the voice in his head took over his nervous system, impelling his legs. A glance behind revealed the foaming water rearing above them like an angry stallion; he turned away and so felt rather than saw the wave crash to the ground. Don't look, he told himself, but the thump pulled his head around.

The bulk of the wave had come down on the tea house. The structure had vanished under a white explosion that appeared to be erupting up and out from the clifftop. Running figures covered the hillside above the coast; most well clear of the water. Like him, many of them paused to watch the spectacle. And to watch the fate of those not so fortunate, who had not taken to their heels at the first indication of trouble.

Lenares was one such. Just below him, Duon could see Torve hopping from foot to foot, clearly desperate to rescue the cosmographer, but something restrained him. Dryman, no doubt. The man held an unhealthy, uncanny sway over the Omeran and no command of Duon's had been able to break it.

The remaining power of the wave washed up towards the struggling girl. There seemed comparatively little strength left in it, but it hit her with force and took the legs out from under her. The wave ran another ten or twenty paces up the hill, then began to draw back. It withdrew from the place Lenares had been standing, but she was no longer there.

The water raced back towards the sea as though pulled by an overstretched cord. It smashed into the ruins of the tea house with as much vehemence as the original wave, and the one remaining wall succ.u.mbed, vanishing over the cliff in a flurry of foam, trees and detritus. And bodies, no doubt.

The magician lurking like an eel in the crevices of his mind began to laugh, puffing like a bellows. Out to sea like a piece of wood in a flood, he said, sharing his delight with Duon. That girl could have ruined everything.

Duon realised the next few moments would be crucial, not only for his own survival, but also perhaps in thwarting whatever a.s.sault the G.o.ds were perpetrating on the world. The thought surged through his mind as an unvoiced feeling, and now he could try-had to try-the mental technique he'd devised during the days and weeks on the road north; days he'd been left alone by the voice save for a few brief checks. An answer, possibly, to the question: how does one mislead someone residing in one's head?

He augmented the images in his head, feigning relief as Lenares fell into the foaming water and disappeared, to be sucked, along with beams, bushes and bodies, over the cliff. He imagined her, fearful and already half-drowned, tumbling down towards dark rocks. A moment of abject terror, then pain, disintegration and darkness.

I thought you were sympathetic to her, the magician said.

She was a valuable a.s.set to my Emperor, so I tolerated her, Duon sent earnestly. But three months on the road taught me that usefulness is no subst.i.tute for true humanity. She irked me beyond belief in the last few weeks. No one here will mourn her pa.s.sing.

Is that so? I ought to have paid more attention. Perhaps you could have done the job for me.

Had you but asked, Duon sent, desperately masking his feelings.

Ah, I see. Perhaps it is time for me to propose a more formal alliance, and in so doing explain what I am doing in your head.

Of course. But it might be wise to wait until I'm less busy. I will be expected to at least go through the motions of searching for survivors. I don't imagine this will be of much interest to you.

The magician gave a.s.sent to this. I have other things to attend to. When you have finished your task, you may summon me by speaking the word 'Deorc' in the mind-voice you are using now. I will attend you as soon as I am able.

Then came the curious 'leaving' sensation as the magician withdrew, as though something moved from the front to the back of his head. The top of Duon's neck tingled and warmed. Then the parasite was gone and Duon found himself alone.

He blew out a breath. He had no way of knowing what the magician might do if he learned he had been deceived. Fry his mind perhaps, or make him throw himself off a cliff or walk into a bonfire. He dared not make a single mistake.

Now to help the others find Lenares. He had a feeling that without her they were lost.

Drawn by curiosity, an urge to see the patterns and to identify which of the holes it was, Lenares calculated the speed and size of the approaching wave. Her calculation was perfect, as always, but as a result of her curiosity she didn't have enough time to react to the information the numbers supplied her. She managed to find the trap she'd set, which told her a G.o.d had conjured the wave, but wasted precious seconds doing so, and then she was out of time. The water would reach her before she could escape.

Seeing herself as a creature of the mind, Lenares had never paid her body much attention. Some of the cosmographers had primped and pampered their bodies, while others had regarded their fleshly housing as not much more than a nuisance, but primper and ascetic alike had perished in agony in the Valley of the d.a.m.ned. To pay too much attention to her physical needs, Lenares had decided, was a waste. So she had done nothing to augment her natural fitness, nor had she learned how to run efficiently. Either might have made the difference. Either might have saved her.

She ran as hard as she could, arms and legs flying in all directions, but as soon as her feet started uphill she could feel her strength draining. Ahead of her the Falthans struggled up the slope, the oldest of them borne in Robal's arms. Come back for me! she wanted to shout. The crash behind her was louder and much closer than she had imagined, and a moment later something punched her behind her knees. She tumbled backwards, her legs shooting out from beneath her, and ended up underwater.

She knew about waves like this. She was a cosmographer: it was her job to know about every geographical phenomenon that could be affected by the G.o.ds. Such waves were generated by vast, deep movements of the earth, and could appear hours after such quakes. They were little waves while out to sea, according to the few sea captains who had seen them, but when they came ash.o.r.e they grew enormous, like a tiny mouth opening wide to swallow a large meal.

But knowing about them did nothing to help her survive them. Something hard cracked the back of her skull. She immediately stopped fighting the water and wrapped her arms around her head.

How long can I hold my breath?

Her numbers offered her no answer.

I can't die. Please! Not when everyone needs my help!

Her legs smacked against some hidden obstacle: the water threw her upwards, and she took a hasty, watery breath before plunging back into the foam. She had seen enough, however, to signal her approaching death. The obstacle had been part of the tea house: the cliff was seconds away.

Lenares screamed with frustration and her mouth filled with water.

Not enough time left even to think...

Then she was falling, surrounded by a circular curtain of water, tumbling towards the sea far below. Two breaths, one, all she had left.

And the water around her slowed, began to resolve into millions of shimmering droplets-a part of her mind was not happy with the imprecise idea of millions and set about counting them all-drifting downwards slower than dust motes. She herself had slowed.

So this is what happens in the moment before death.

Her eye was caught by a peculiar arrangement of droplets and foam directly below her. Almost in the shape of a face, a woman's face, if the shadows of the rocks below weren't playing a trick on her. Surrounding the image a curtain of water continued to sift gently towards the sea.

Lenares, the image seemed to say. Finally we are alone.

'Daughter?' she replied, not knowing what else to call her. Definitely the same face she'd seen earlier in the day, outlined in steam.

I have a choice to offer you, the G.o.ddess said, her voice so sweet it seemed to sparkle on Lenares' tongue.

'You offered me a choice before, in the tea house,' said the cosmographer.

So I did. In a way this choice, too, is in the tea house. Look around you, above you.

She looked. Dark shapes encircled her: wreckage from the building atop the cliff, heading with her towards obliteration.

'Are you slowing time?'

Where I dwell there is no time, said the Daughter. It is a beautiful place.

'You can't fool me,' Lenares said. 'Pelanesse said time and s.p.a.ce are the same thing, because s.p.a.ce implies time required to cross it. I've seen the mathematics. If you don't experience time, you don't have a place.'

The G.o.ddess smiled. You would happily argue with me even as you crashed into the rocks below. I like that about you.

Lenares noted the Daughter did not refute her accusation about time and s.p.a.ce.

Here is my offer to you, said the Daughter, her face sparkling madly. Give me a place in your flesh, so I can touch the world directly. It's only fair; my brother already has a host among you, and so grows stronger every day. I could ask for so much more. I could demand that we exchange places, that you go into the agony of darkness, where you find yourself smeared across the stars, each point of light a p.r.i.c.k of anguish in a body no longer there, while I drink the warmth of your body and learn to be you. I would do a better job of being Lenares, too, much better than you. I'd have Torve on me and in me, again and again; I'd unmask the Son's host; I'd save the world from him. But I'm not asking that of you.

Not yet, went the unspoken words.

All I want is the chance to battle my brother on equal terms. All I need is a place in your mind. From there we could work together to drive the Son out, to heal the rift in the walls of the world, perhaps even to call the Father back from exile and let the world find balance again.

And then the sweetest enticement of all.

You would know so much, the Daughter said, her voice caressing Lenares' ears. The secrets of the universe are far vaster than anything your mind can imagine. I can share them with you. We can travel together in an instant and sit on the High Seat. You can ask me anything and I will give you answer.

Or you can fall to your death.

They were noticeably closer to the rocks.

Could she time this right?

'I...I would like to know more,' Lenares said. 'More about how the numbers in my mind work, more about why I am different from others. Can you tell me more about those things?'

Of course, said the G.o.ddess, gazing up at Lenares.

Gazing up. Everything depended on how aware the Daughter was of the world around her, a world in which she was unwelcome, alien.

Of course. What do you want to know?

'Why do I think in numbers? Why doesn't everyone else? What is wrong with them?'

The Daughter's eyes flashed. Not real eyes, drops of water reflecting light. She said, Their minds are like the rooms in a house. A person can be in only one room at a time, in a house like theirs. They're seeing or hearing or tasting or touching or smelling. But in your house there is only one room. Your mind sees and hears and tastes and touches and smells all at the same time. It's why you have no real memory of your childhood: your mind took far longer than most people's minds do to come to terms with what the world was telling it.

'It makes sense,' Lenares breathed, and she did not have to feign her excitement. 'My room is large, while theirs are small. I see everything, while they separate the world into different categories.' She smiled at the G.o.ddess. Soon, soon. 'I'd rather be like me.'

And because you have such a large mind, you will not even notice sharing it with me. Your mind is so large, so warm; you and I will be fast friends, Lenares. My name was...is Umu. You can call me by my name because we are friends. Lenares, will we be friends? Can I come into your mind? All you have to do is say yes. Invite me in. I won't leave you like Mahudia did, or like Martje, your real mother. Say yes, Lenares.

Only a moment more...

Martje? Oh, G.o.ddess Umu, we could have been friends, if you weren't such a liar.

'Yes? Just yes?'

That's all. Antic.i.p.ation thrumming through the words, a slavering hunger.

'No!'

The G.o.ddess shrieked in anger, time returned with a jerk and Lenares plummeted perhaps five paces to the rocks below.

Her last thought before the blackness swallowed her was that she'd underestimated the pain.

CHAPTER 13.

NOCTURNAL REFLECTIONS.

EVENING CAME AT LAST, coating the gentle northland summer landscape in a patina of forgetfulness, blurring the outlines of hills and trees so familiar to the searchers after hours of looking. Telling them it was time to end their endeavours; they had done all they could and more, surely. Time for food, for drink, for laughter and companionship, time to put the day's tragedy behind them and let the healing process begin.

Torve had no truck with the night. All it gave him was a chance to reprise his litany of suffering. And now it conspired to steal his hope.

Lenares, his beloved, was one of three lost in the great wave. A local man from the nearest town had been found wedged among the piles of the tea house, and a mangled body, most likely that of one of the hosts, was located at the foot of the cliff. The path down to the sea had been obliterated by the wave, and it had taken an hour for a brave villager to clamber down to the body. During that hour Torve had been desolate, believing the body was that of Lenares. He remained impa.s.sive, so his master could not read him, but stricken with grief nonetheless.

The body was too small to be hers, the villager reported when he returned, and had a distinctive birthmark under the chin. Balanced against Torve's short-term relief, a rotund woman collapsed to the debris-strewn gra.s.s, sobbing her anguish. A daughter lost.

Who will mourn the loss of Lenares?

At the least, Duon and Dryman ought to have joined him in his distress, but neither seemed troubled beyond annoyance at the loss of a useful a.s.set. He realised he was experiencing the beginnings of anger, an emotion he'd always kept under control. If anything, the Falthans and Bhrudwans seemed more concerned. Arathe and Bandy, in particular, had not stinted in their searching.

But now, with nightfall imminent, the hands of sympathetic townspeople, themselves shocked by events, reached towards the strangers, beckoning them towards pale paths leading to lamplit homes and fire-warmed food. Torve found himself in the company of three young men, perhaps fifteen years of age, eagerly doing their part-and obviously enjoying the welcome interruption in the routine of their lives.

'Where are you from?' one of them asked him.

'Pardon me?' Torve responded. He did not have the heart to join in the conversation, nor the ill manners to ignore the question.

'Where do you come from?'

The boy asking the question had tight, curly hair, not unlike his own, reminding him of the Children of the Desert. For a moment he wished he was back there. He and Lenares should never have left.

But I had no choice.

'From Talamaq,' he replied.

'Is that as far south as Raceme? I went to Raceme once.' The boy turned eager eyes on him, trying to prove he was not some back-country lad.

'Further,' Torve said, drawn in by the lad's enthusiasm. 'Much further. With more people living in one city than all the people on the Fisher Coast combined.'