Читать книгу The Puzzler’s War - Eyal Kless - Страница 17

Riding double bareback on a horse trying to hold on to Galinak began as an unpleasant experience and quickly went downhill from there. At least the animal was docile enough, and we had water and a few supplies to get us to where we wanted to go. Or more truthfully, where I wanted us to go. I kept our destination from Galinak despite the periodic bouts of questions from him, mainly because I wasn’t sure what we’d find when we got there but also, I admit, because I wanted to keep some cards close to my chest.

What I couldn’t hide was the fact that we were riding away from the City of Towers, the place Galinak was eager to travel to once I foolishly admitted it was within my sight. I was surprised to find out how quickly the warrior accepted the fact that we were resurrected and simply saw it as a chance for a new life—or, to be more precise, a dramatic comeback to his old life and damn the consequences. This led to several heated arguments between us, but for some reason he still humoured me instead of doing what I would have done, which was to simply throw me off the horse and ride away. I knew that Galinak felt he owed me—he’d told me that himself—but I was not about to trust words or promises uttered while we were finishing our second bottle of moonshine. Three years was not a long time, but Galinak could suddenly decide to live the rest of his short life as a free man. This very concern led me to volunteer for long watch shifts at night, with the perfect excuse that my sight would make me better suited for the job.

If Galinak realised my fear, he did not bother to reassure me. He used his extended rest time to carefully trim his growing beard and to shave both sides of his skull with a thin folding blade he found at the village. It left him with only a thin strip of hair on the top of his skull—a strange look, yet one that nevertheless felt comfortably appropriate.

We crossed several roads and two streams without meeting a living soul. It was not unusual: most of humanity clustered around the Tarakan freeway or roads, and what was once a land full of towns and fields quickly became wilderness. Animals were certainly roaming about, though, and Galinak managed to kill a rabbit with a well-aimed—or, if you ask me, a lucky throw of—a fist-sized stone. We avoided a lightly wooded area after finding still-steamy signs of bear activity and camped one night in the remains of a tall building made of stone and warped metal. I could not have guessed its use, but it was the only man-made structure still standing amid the mounds of rubble.

My sleep was shallow, and the last moment of my previous life was the only surviving memory from my fleeting dreams. Still, I kept our course, riding in the opposite direction of the City of Towers.

On the fourth day we reached our destination, a wire gate no one had bothered to loot with three metal signs so faded one could barely recognise the skull signs on them. If there ever was a wall or a fence on both sides of the gate, it was long gone. The fields in front of us were filled with metal debris. In the distance a tower loomed, surrounded by several large buildings.

Galinak whistled. “Look at that little treasure trove.” He urged the horse forward.

“Stop.” There was enough alarm in my voice to make the horse halt by itself.

Galinak managed not to fall off the horse’s back but he was not happy. “Bukra’s balls, what are you doing?”

“Don’t cross the gate.”

Galinak glared back at me, waiting for me to explain myself.

“Look there, and there …” I pointed. “See the large holes in the ground?”

He followed my finger and nodded.

“It’s an old minefield, pre-Catastrophe.”

“Rust. We found some of those in some deep runs back in the day.” Galinak’s expression betrayed the surprise of a surfacing memory. He shook it away and said, “So, what now, use your eyes to cross it?”

I shook my head. “Now we build up a fire, a big one. There’s plenty of dry wood around.”

We dismounted and Galinak gave me the reins to the horse. “Okay, we build a fire, then what?”

“We wait, someone will come.”

He looked at me long enough for me to feel uncomfortable.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he finally asked.

“Yeah,” I lied, but it came out convincingly enough.

“Good. Don’t get us killed. I’m starting to like this new body.”

We camped and waited. I stopped Galinak from exploring the grounds, so there was no food. We sat in silence, feeding the flames until darkness set, then we let the fire die and let the darkness and the cold slowly envelop us.

I saw them first, of course. Four men, armed with power rifles and wearing night-seeing devices over their eyes, and a dog so large it might have been a wolf.

“They’re coming,” I said in the most casual tone I could muster. “Get ready, but don’t do anything stupid, even if they are aggressive.”

Galinak got up and stood behind me and we both laid our weapons on the ground and at my instruction, proceeded to wrap strips of my old dress around our eyes. The darkness, the real darkness of the blind, made my heart race.

“You’d better be rusting sure about this,” Galinak whispered. I felt the horse’s breath on my neck.

“You there, who are you?” came a shout, not too far, but still a distance away.

“We are here to talk to Old Dwaine,” I shouted back.

“Are you merchants?”

There was no point in lying, “No, we just need to talk to Old Dw—”

“Old Dwaine’s dead’n buried with the mines.” There was the distinct sound of a power weapon charging.

“Oh, rust,” Galinak breathed.

“Don’t take your blindfold down, don’t move,” I whispered through tight lips.

“Then I need to talk to his … son,” I shouted back, my mind racing. What did my LoreMaster tell me? The memory was there, a conversation, before we parted, but I couldn’t remember all of it.

“Oh yeah? What’s his name?”

I swallowed. “Look … our weapons are on the ground … we came to parley … we knew Old Dwaine,” I tried.

“Then what’s his son’s name?” I could feel the muzzle of the weapon training itself on me.

What did I know about them? One extended family. Holed up. Secluders. Firstborn son’s name would be …

“His name is … Dwaine Junior?”

I hoped the question in my sentence was not apparent but I distinctly heard Galinak curse under his breath again.

There was a brief pause, then a voice from a different direction spoke.

“Someone will come pick up your weapons and check the blindfolds, then he will give you a rope. Hold on to the rope and don’t let go if you want to live. You with the horse, if the beast runs away don’t go chasing after it, this whole area is full of explosives and only we know the way.”

They took us in a roundabout way, that was for sure, and I breathed an audible sigh of relief when I felt man-made, solid ground under my feet. As we were led farther on, still blindfolded, I used the time to dig into my foggy memory for my LoreMaster’s words of caution that all secluders were self-sufficient and hostile to outsiders. I was beginning to doubt that my idea was a good one.

When rough hands took my blindfold off my doubts grew to near certainty. Both Galinak and I instinctively raised our hands in the air. We were in a huge indoor building, surrounded by almost two dozen men and several women dressed in tattered grey uniforms. Several generations of low hygiene and probably inbreeding were showing. Most of them had one deformity or another, but that did not stop them from pointing a rich array of firearms at us. The weapons seemed like top-notch, pre-Catastrophe stuff, but that was not what made Galinak whistle softly. Just behind the circle of hostile secluders stood a dozen metal vehicles, shaped roughly like birds with rigid wings spread wide, their metal gleaming and spotless. There was no mistake that these were Sky Birds. In the old days people ruled the skies, and sometimes each other, by flying them.

“You two.”

A voice caused me to turn my head and face the elevated dais. A man was sitting on a throne of some sort, but it was not made of gold or any kind of metal I recognised. The man, who I assumed was Dwaine Junior, was wearing a large helmet on his head which covered most of his face except his mouth and jawline. When he stood up I saw he was clad in some kind of body suit. Standing on either side of him were a wizened old woman and a young man, just out of adolescence. The woman was leaning heavily on a cane while the boy was having difficulty standing because he was holding too many weapons for me to count.

“You two,” the man on the dais bellowed dramatically for the second time, gesturing with his gloved hands, “have intruded on Skygate. Be judged by Dwaine, son of Dwaine.”

“Let them walk the field,” someone shouted from behind us, and there were several murmurs of approval. “Yeah, trespassers be gone, let them be judged.”

I bowed deeply to the man on the dais as the noise around us subsided.

“Dwaine, son of Dwaine,” I began slowly, articulating every word. “I was sent here by LoreMaster Harim. He and your father were bonded in friendship and blood.” I waited for some response but Dwaine Junior’s face was blank. “Like I said,” I added, trying to fill the dangerous silence, “my master left something for me here … in the safekeeping of your father … for me to …”

“He lies.” The boy by the dais stepped forward and pointed a shoulder missile launcher at us. “I say we let the trespassers walk the field.”

There was a quick cheer, so I couldn’t hear what the woman whispered to Dwaine, but the boy was waved by his father to step back. When the noise subsided Dwaine said, “You step on the holy grounds of Skygate, claiming a blood bond between your master and my father, Dwaine, son of Dwaine the guardian, father of us all. The traveller Harim is known to us, and was allowed to pass, guided through the fields, but how do we know your words are true? Tell us, what did this master of yours leave here for you?”

The dismayed look on my face must have been plain to see as I stuttered my reply. “I do not know precisely oh … Dwaine … son of Dwaine … but I know they are essential to my mission, and that my master—”

During the commotion that erupted a stone was thrown and hit my back. Galinak was wise enough to stay still. But shortly after, he swore and threw a man who tried to seize him. The man hit the ground far enough from where we stood for people to withdraw. Things cooled down a bit after that, but weapons were still raised and people still took aim. It was then the old woman banged her walking stick on the dais. In the silence that followed the woman gave a short speech. I recognised only a few words; the rest was a mixture of piercing wails and dialect. When it was over I looked at Dwaine. “I’m sorry, I didn’t manage to get all of that.”

Dwaine’s mouth twisted in a knowing smile. “What Nana Dwaine is saying, is that we’ll very soon know the truth.”