The Buttoned Sky Part 13

Instinctively he slapped her wrist with his palm as she hurtled past, jerked his legs up and was carried off by the rocketing roan. As he writhed into the saddle behind her, she screamed.

"Help, oh help! He has attacked me!"

The bi--no, the clever girl, by Orbs! Helping him, she was yet saving her own reputation and life, making it seem that he had leaped astride her mount as she was carried by him. No squire could have seen that helping hand, for they were all on the opposite side of her. A vast hullabaloo went up from their ranks.

"Throw me off, you fool," she hissed at him, twisting round and pretending to strike him. "Throw me off!"

He reached past her, hauled on the reins, brought the animal back on its heels, pitched her off unceremoniously, winked broadly at her and found time for a leer as her riding skirt hoisted unladylike as she sat up; then he rammed heels to the brute and was off on a run for his life.

Guns banged behind him, slugs tore the air inches from his bowed back.

Let 'em shoot, curse them, he had a chance now!

The cliff of reed-laced muck dwindled, and he turned the roan and leaped him up to the higher level of ground. Then he turned and went charging back the way he had come, quick eyes searching for his comrade.

"Jerran! Jerran, you scuttling mouse, where are you?"

_Bang_ went a musket.

"Here, Revel!" The little straw-colored man popped out of a bush in his path. He bent as Nirea had, gave the rebel a hand up behind him. Then he swerved the horse and went off through the oaks, while the gentry cursed and raved and came after as best they could.

"Discomfortable riding, this, without pants. Ouch! Where shall we head, ancient one?" Revel asked grimly.

"The way we're going. There, see that hill? Up and over that, and we're on a straight path for the forests of Kamden."

Revel was jolted nearly out of his battered hide by the unfamiliar jounce and rock of the steed; but he knew he could stick on it till night if he had to. The only enemies that fretted him now were the golden spheres. You could not distance a G.o.d simply by mounting a horse.

"Look up," he said, watching the path. "Are there G.o.ds?"

"Yes, but high, following us. They mark our way."

"Let them! Jerran, at nightfall we head for the mine. Our mine, and our cavern."

"You can't go there, you drooling baby, you'd find an army of globes, priests, gentry, and zanphs. They'll be crawling all over the things in that cave, especially after you took guns from it! What is it that draws you there?"

"A metal chest--ouch--I've been thinking of for a long time. Jerran, what's 'suspended animation'?"

"Why?"

"Nirea kept muttering it to herself in the cave. I think she read it on the chest."

"Suspended," mused Jerran. "Temporarily halted. Animation, life. Life held in check? Movement stopped for a time?"

"That's it."

"Love of freedom, lad, what's it?"

Revel, glancing up at the soaring spheres, said half to himself, "Man of the 21st century. Century's a hundred years. Twenty-first? John R.

Klapham, atomic something ... suspended animation. John sounds like a name. Rest of it, enigmas, but...."

"Watch out!" yelled Jerran, turning against his back. "A G.o.d comes at us."

"How good are you at throwing knives?"

"As good as the next rebel. d.a.m.ned good."

"Take one from my belt, and see if you can spit it in the air. If it touches you, you'll be a frizzled-up cinder in a wink."

He felt the knife leave his holster, there was a pause, then Jerran said under her breath, "Blast this horse--ugh--got it!"

They were almost at the crest of the hill now. None of the ruck watched the chase from here, for it was far from Ewyo's house and none had expected Revel and Company to come so far. There were guards, though: three squires sitting their quiet horses on the brow of the hills, a hundred yards apart. They watched the roan with its double burden beat up toward them, then blinked and peered as they saw that the foremost rider was naked.

"Va-yoo," said one uncertainly, then, realization hitting him, "va-yoo hallo! Here he comes!"

He came, and the squires bunched to meet him; he aimed his horse's head for their center, they split off wildly at the last instant, and he was through them before they could draw guns from the saddle boots. A crack behind him was the first one speaking tardily, and the roan leaped forward, touched into fury by the slug's creasing its withers. Jerran said calmly, "I'm hit in the leg. Let me see. A flesh wound, no matter.

Ride, lad!"

"The globes are our only worries now," said Revel exultantly.

"And they're some worries, for they descend even now at us."

He looked up, and saw that it was true. A mult.i.tude of the radiant G.o.ds were dropping from their b.u.t.tons, and the forest of Kamden with its sprawling borders and its secret, protective darknesses lay half a mile before the Mink.

Almost he would rather have died by a squire's bullet than a pseudo-G.o.d's fierce energy blast. He recalled the feelers that had touched his face yesterday, the searing heat of the aura that before that had crisped off the hair above his ear. It was a filthy way to die.

The roan, strongest of all the gentry's horses, was easily distancing them all. But it could not distance a down-slanting globe.

Revel the Mink committed his soul to whatever might receive it, and dug in his heels for a last desperate gallop.

CHAPTER XI

The ruckers all have heard the call The Mink has sounded clear; They come from near, they come from far, To fight the squire and sphere.

He arms them all with stolen guns, With horses, pikes, and fire; He sends them all abroad to hunt The savage-stallioned squire!

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

As night fell, Lady Nirea left her father's house by the servants' door.

She was dressed in the miner's clothes she had worn the previous day, and carried a gigantic portmanteau, so heavy she could scarcely lift it.

In the bag were her favorite gowns, numbering sixteen; two coats she especially loved; some bracelets set with diamonds--the rarest gem of any, for though they were mined extensively throughout the country, the globes took all but a very few for their own mysterious purposes--and an antique golden chain she'd inherited from her grandmother; some personal effects, paint for her lips and such frivolities; a trumpet-mouthed gun with the stock unmounted, together with as much ammunition as she could find; and lastly, four books from her father's secret chamber.

These last were all in the curious run-together printing, three of them labelled "Ledger and Record Book" and the fourth with "G.o.d-Feeding" on its cover. The fourth was far older than the others, indeed, the oldest book Nirea had ever seen.

Ewyo lay drunk in a deep chair in his library; he would sleep now till nearly the middle of the night, when he'd wake up and howl for another bottle. Jann she had not seen for hours. The servants, being ruckers, did not count. Her escape from the mansion was going to be simple.