Читать книгу Palaces Of Light - James Axler - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Ryan was the last one to take watch, and was still staring out across the wastes when the others had roused themselves and risen to join him.

Krysty walked over to him as he stood on the lip of the crevice, surer of his footing now that he could see the gaps between land and empty air.

“You see anything, lover?”

“Like what?” He turned and looked sharply at her. There was something about her tone that set his senses tingling.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Like a trace of where they went after they disappeared over the edge.”

He said nothing for a moment, that single, ice-blue orb burrowing into her consciousness, probing that mind it knew so well. Finally, he said, “There are some tracks. They were careful, no doubt, but no one can be that careful. No one.”

She nodded. “That’s good.”

“Something you want to tell me, mebbe?” he asked quietly. “About what you saw in the night?”

She grimaced. “I didn’t see anything…not actually see…and I’ve got to be honest with you, lover, I didn’t get so close. There was a way weird feel to it, and Jak… Well, I don’t really know what Jak saw, but it was something that wasn’t just a bunch of coldhearts.”

“This whole business has the ring of the macabre and mysterious about it,” Doc announced, moving near and clapping his hands together as he did so. “I do so love a mystery, especially when knowledge of it could save my skin. It resembles some stories I used to read by a young man called Pope. Edgar Wallace Pope, as I recall. Liked a touch of the bizarre. A bit like these fellows we are chasing.” Doc’s tone, which had previously been jocular, now became somber, his voice lowering. “I really do think you and young Jak should share this with us, no matter how silly or odd you may feel about it.”

“Doc’s right,” Mildred said, also coming near. “No matter how odd it is, even if it isn’t spooky, the fact that they’re making us feel like that means it’s one of their weapons.”

Jak had remained apart from the group, which had slowly clustered around Ryan. He was ruminative, as though weighing how to explain himself. He joined them, then. Looking away from them, he began. “Not sure how say. Deal with things in front you—hit man, chill mutie. Blades and bullets, know where are. Not with this. Shit scare kids with…didn’t feel like that, though.”

And so hesitantly, as the sun grew higher in the sky, Jak went on to outline how he had felt the previous night when he had tried to scan the dark, and how he had felt as though something was almost physically manhandling him. They listened in silenced until he had come to a halt almost as hesitantly as his beginning.

“Even if one does not believe in the supernatural,” Doc said, “then there is the preternatural. There are powers of the mind that we have all felt, one way or the other. Indeed, our own dear Krysty is living testament to this. To suppose that there are others with a more enhanced power, who could strike fear in this way, is not such a leap. To purport to be an ancient evil as a means of clouding men’s minds and gaining protection, that would be a simple expedient for such a power. I would venture to suggest that we proceed with nothing less than the utmost caution.”

“I guess that goes without saying.” Ryan grinned. Trust Doc to state the obvious, and in a way that used twenty words where one would do. But nonetheless, his central point remained valid. And as Ryan turned back to the narrow valley made by the crack in the earth, he knew that the people they were tailing had strengths that could put the companions on the last train west.

The fissure was unusual. It looked for all the world as though a fork of incredibly strong lightning had struck the earth and mined out a narrow and deep seam of soil. It was no more than fifteen yards across at its broadest point, the ledge that had nearly claimed him the night before being not so much an incursion into existing space as a curve in the trajectory of the seam, its width being the same even though the path suddenly changed. Now that they had good light they could see that it curved in a slow arc that took it beyond their view to the east and west. It was as if nature had decided to arbitrarily cut the earth in two, using this line as a crude division.

And yet there was something that was odd. At the edges of the horizon, where you would expect the curve to continue in a smooth arc, it suddenly seemed to cut sharply at an angle.

The Armorer had noticed that, and to his practiced eye there was something unnatural about the curve. Wordlessly, he took out his minisextant and took some readings by the newly risen sun. Then he sucked on his teeth, deep in thought.

“Something wrong, John?” Mildred asked.

“Could be,” he said after a reflective pause. “This might sound crazy, but if you look at the distance between here and there, then there’s no way we should be able to see those kinds of angles. What’s more, where do they actually go?”

Ryan looked again. J.B. was right. The sharp bend in the fissure seemed to suddenly peter out into nothing before it finally hit the edge of the horizon.

“We’ll follow the trail, such as it is, but we’ll take it real slow,” he said carefully. “There’s something about this that’s crazy, and not in a good way.”

The path ahead of them seemed treacherous. The slope into the fissure was almost sheer, and it was deep. In places, it was so deep as to disappear into shadow. There were paths, but they were narrow and covered with shale. To try to descend them would take a sure-footed care that Ryan felt only Jak truly possessed. And yet the men they sought had made this descent with a bunch of children.

Was there another way? One they were missing? It certainly didn’t seem so. Indeed, from the evidence of torn shrub and cleaned and skidded patches of shale, it would seem that there was a clearly defined route that they could follow.

“I’ll take point,” Ryan said. “Jak, you stay near the back, keep an eye on Doc.”

Doc raised an eyebrow. “I feel somehow as though I should be insulted, my dear Ryan, and yet instead I feel a little reassured.”

“More than I do, Doc,” Ryan replied with a grin. “J.B., follow me and watch my back. If I go, grab me before it’s too late.”

The Armorer moved across Krysty so that he would follow Ryan down the path. To access it, they had to drop almost three yards onto a narrow ledge. Ryan looked over. It was no more than a yard wide, and while one side was sheer rock with only a few handholds, the other dropped off into space that was empty right down into shadow, the occasional jagged rock that broke the shadow being the only real indicator of depth.

“Here goes jackshit,” he said with a sigh, gradually lowering himself over the edge until he was at full extension, his feet slipping on what little hold they could find, and his forearms taking the strain until he had to flatten his palms and let himself fall free a little way. He could feel the rough ground bite into his fingertips as they took his weight. With the pack that he carried, this wasn’t inconsiderable, and as he took a breath, preparing himself for the next drop, he wondered how Doc and Mildred would cope. They were tough, but they weren’t as physically strong as the others. With his head turned and his cheek pressed against the cold, dusty rock, he wondered if momentum would make any of them tumble back as they hit the ledge below, falling into space.

Fireblast, he thought. That was no way to think. Ryan spared himself one look down at the narrow ledge below, which seemed now to be too thin even to accommodate the length of his boots, before letting his fingers loose and feeling himself fall.

He scraped against the face of the rock, feeling it abrasive and hard against his skin. The uneven surface beneath his feet as they hit the ledge made him stumble and fall back. He put one heel back to steady himself, feeling it scrape the edge of the ledge and fall free into space. Barely able to take a breath, he thrust his torso forward so that he could equalize his balance, throwing himself into the rock, pulling that heel forward so that it was now on solid footing. For a second that felt like forever he held his breath in his lungs, feeling the blood thump around his arteries as he revelled in the fact that he had made it in one piece.

He stepped back as far as the ledge would allow and looked up. Above him, he could see the faces of the others, watching anxiously yet unable to do anything in the blinking of an eye that had yet seemed so long to him.

“Come on, we don’t have time to waste.” He grinned, making light of it.

Shrugging, J.B. slipped over the side and dropped down, allowing Ryan to steady him and so avoid the near disaster that the one-eyed man had faced. For Mildred and Doc, it was made easy by the assistance of Jak and Krysty up top, who aided them down to Ryan and J.B. Finally, when they were safely down, they pondered the way ahead.

The path was narrow and wound down into the valley formed by the crevice. Dark shadows enveloped it as it burrowed farther into the earth. Sparse scrub littered the rock-strewed pathway, and it was only this that marked the way taken by those they were following. It seemed a daunting path ahead. There was no indication of how much ground the other party had gained on them. Certainly, they were nowhere in sight.

The path wound down on a slight incline, moving into shadow. The companions started to walk along it, picking their way gingerly over the loose shale. The only consolation was that as the sun rose higher in the sky, they were in shadow and so protected from the worst ravages of the elements.

“How much distance do you think they’ve got on us?” Ryan muttered almost to himself. J.B., close on his heels as he had requested, sniffed ruminatively as he stared across the short yet infinitely deep space between one side and the other.

“I don’t get it, Ryan. It feels all wrong. Never mind what Jak and Krysty were saying, thing is this—it was so bastard dark down here that there was no way they could have gotten that far in front of us before having to stop. Which means that down here, we should be able to at least catch sight of them. But where are they? They’re nowhere I can see.”

“No way they could have gotten across, either,” Ryan mused. He stopped and looked into the darkness that seemed to swirl in the depths, having no real form. It was a disorienting experience and he quickly tore his vision away. “They must be in front.”

“Yeah, well, they better not have gained that much distance,” Mildred grumbled. “Or else they found some way off this path.”

It was true. They had been walking on the narrow ledge for some time, and the lure of the endless drop to their right was calling to them, giving each the almost irresistible desire to throw themselves into the abyss. None would admit it, but it was all they could do to keep their vision focused on the shale path beneath and in front of them.

The call of the darkness grew stronger. Into each person’s mind, unbidden, came a picture of what it would be like to throw himself or herself into the crevice. A despair at their progress swept across them like a wave. What point was there in going on when they couldn’t see their prey? How far in front, how distant were they?

It was inevitable that, with this clouding their focus, one of them would stumble and fall. Almost as inevitable was that it would be one of the weakest of the group. And yet this was where fate had a surprise in store for them, for although Doc found his mind clouding, and his feet becoming heavy and cumbersome, it was J.B. who suddenly felt his combat boots slip on loose shale. Taken momentarily by surprise, he felt his leg shoot out from under him. He threw out an arm, grabbing instinctively for Ryan.

The one-eyed man felt J.B. pull on him, and he was thrown off balance. Beneath him, that which had once been solid was now almost fluid as it slid out from under his feet.

He heard Krysty and Mildred both yell, as he and the Armorer found themselves falling into space.

* * *

MORGAN WAS DOZING fitfully in the morning light as it penetrated the heavy covers over the windows of his hut. The fire had died down and was now little more than a few smoking embers and wisps of smoke, the smell of the sweet, burned wood permeating the room. The baron was hunkered down on the far side of the room, staring into the embers, lost in thoughts of his own. Since the moment the dark force had reached out and thrust him back, Morgan had been content to remain within himself. He might have had some small degree of power, but he knew that whatever was behind the people who had taken the children was far more powerful. Baron or not, he wouldn’t risk going near it again. Tell K whatever he wanted to hear—make it up, if necessary. But he didn’t want to feel that icy claw around his heart again.

“Don’t hold out on me,” K murmured without looking up.

Morgan looked across at the baron. Had K been watching him? Did he, in some way, have the power to see into the old man’s mind? A power that he didn’t, perhaps, even realize he had?

“Whatever you’re seeing, I need to know. Even if you don’t think it’s what I want to hear. I won’t hold you responsible. But I have to know.”

I don’t think you do, Morgan thought but wouldn’t dare say.

Instead he said, “There’s nothing to tell you. At the moment all is dark, as though there was some kind of blanket thrown over the glass.”

K chuckled, albeit without humor. “You’re speaking in riddles, Morgan. Don’t do that. Speak plain.”

“Very well.” The old man sniffed. “There’s some kind of power that’s stopping me seeing clearly, but—”

“What is it?” K was electrified into sudden movement. With a speed that spoke of his strength, he moved from his haunches and across the room in one smooth movement, until he had Morgan’s face in his hands. He was holding it up to whatever light he could find, trying to get a better view. For his part, the old man was making desperate gurgling sounds on the back of his throat, his eyes rolled up into his head so that only the whites showed, yellow and awful as the few shafts of light to penetrate the gloom caught them. Spittle rolled down his chin and into his beard.

“What is it? What is it, man? Tell me!” K roared, as if sheer volume would break through the barrier between them.

But Morgan couldn’t answer. All intent of lying to the baron had been lost, and now all hope of soft-pedaling in an attempt to stay on the right side of the baron was also a cause that was given up. For Morgan had wanted to steer clear of the dark force that One-eye and his motley crew were pursuing. He wished them well, but he knew when he was facing something greater than he had ever believed existed. He didn’t even care about the children. The ones he knew. Even the ones he cared about. Such was the fear that this dark power had instilled in him with one swoop.

Morgan wanted to steer clear, but the dark force wouldn’t let him. It was almost as if it was sentient, seeking to use him as a tool, to scare the baron away from further pursuit.

Struggle as he might to deny it, Morgan was seeing what was happening to Ryan and his people. He hated it, for so many reasons.

But he couldn’t deny it.

* * *

RYAN YELLED in anger and surprise. He was furious with the fates and with himself. He was certain that he had a sure footing, and that he would be able to take the weight of the Armorer as he reached out for him. It should have been simple to grab J.B. and stop him from falling. And yet the ground had seemingly given way beneath him, causing him to be dragged in the wake of his stricken friend. For the second time in less than twelve hours he felt that he was plunging to his doom, except that this time there was no one to stop him. Unlike the night before, the others were too far out of reach, being behind the Armorer as he was the first to take the plunge.

As he fell, weightless, in the air it seemed to him that he was falling at an infinitesimally slow rate. He felt as though he slowly turned in the air, away from the swirling and formless shadows below so that he could see the anguished faces of Doc, Mildred, Jak and particularly Krysty as they stared down, helpless. It was almost funny. They looked so ridiculous in that moment when Ryan knew even their pain and longing could no longer help him.

Maybe that was what did it. At that moment, when Ryan gave in to what he saw as his fate, and his inevitable end, it was as though he ceased to fall. He felt as though he was lying on static ground, as though J.B. was lying next to him. He turned his head and could see that the Armorer was level with him. Surely that wasn’t right? Shouldn’t J.B. have fallen first and been beneath him? The expression of bewilderment on his old friend’s face told him that thoughts of a similar nature were crossing the Armorer’s mind.

The others, looming over him, seemed to be closer than they had a moment ago. Too close. And the air, which had been whistling around his ears, now seemed so static and dry. Dusty, almost…

A blinding pain shot across his skull, running from the back of his neck, up and around so that it blinded his only eye, making him shut it tightly to try to stop the agony, which seemed as though it wanted nothing more than to take a physical form and force its way out through the socket.

He screamed.

And when he opened his eye once more, he was bemused to see that the others were, indeed, standing over him and J.B. Only instead of looking down at them, they were looking around.

Without even sitting up, he knew why. The hard-packed dirt was solid beneath him, and he could see from the periphery of his vision that they were on level ground. Level with where they had been before their descent. Raising himself on one elbow, he looked around. To his left, he could see the flat expanse of waste that they had trekked across the previous day. He recognized the scrub and rock they had used as landmarks to count off the miles.

They should be in the crevice.

But it was no longer there.

More than that, to his right, where there had previously been only the flat lands that stretched on the other side of the crevice, there was now a wall of rock that stood about forty yards high, on a steep incline, about three miles away. It was like an inversion of the crevice.

And maybe it was just as real?

“I don’t know what just happened, and to be honest I don’t really give a shit how. The real question is, what can we do about it?”

Ryan turned to the Armorer, who was sitting up, his arms clasped around his knees as he surveyed the territory. The laconic wryness of his tone belied the real urgency of his question.

“Keep going,” Ryan answered simply. “I figure that we really were seeing them in the distance, and when they disappeared it wasn’t down a nonexistent hole. It was behind some kind of wall they could put up mentally. Something that could get inside our heads.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Doc murmured. “Down the hole and out of sight. Make something grow smaller and then make it grow bigger. Is it really that way or does it just seem to be that way?”

“Not make sense.” Jak spit. “Have to go like real, then see. Just be ready for any shit.”

“Looks that way,” Krysty said slowly. “That crap that Jak and me were feeling last night… Mebbe that’s the mechanism they use, a kind of super doomie power that can play on our fears.”

“How know what scare us?” Jak questioned.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to know us.” Mildred shrugged. “Anyone getting this far would be exhausted, so a deep drop and a narrow path would be daunting. Like that wall is going to be bastard to climb,” she added, indicating the distant barrier, which seemed to stretch across the horizon.

“Can’t be that hard if it doesn’t exist.” J.B. shrugged.

Mildred laughed shortly. “Still hurt like hell to get down that nonexistent drop, didn’t it? Wonder what we would have looked like to anyone watching as we went down an imaginary drop?”

“No more stupe than we’ll look climbing an imaginary mountain,” Ryan replied. “But if that’s what we have to do—”

“That is if it truly is imaginary,” Doc interjected. “There is, of course, the possibility that the abyss was a dream, yet the mountain is real. The one a mask for the other.”

“You know, we could talk about that all day,” J.B. said quietly, spitting on the ground in disgust at their impotence. “We’re not really going to know one way or the other, even when we reach it. But one thing I can tell you for sure is this—the longer we stand around, the farther those coldheart bastards get from us, and the harder it’s going to be to get the kids back and get our jack.”

The Armorer was right. If they intended to finish their mission, they had little option but to continue regardless. And so they started forward again, in silence, hearts and limbs heavy, and all the time knowing that this was exactly the frame of mind that the clouding of their reality had been intended to produce.

Just how hard was it going to be if they had to fight on two planes simultaneously: the mental and the physical?

* * *

MORGAN’S EYES flickered, then rolled back into their usual position. He was surprised to find himself being cradled by the baron, and even more surprised by the distant look in the man’s eyes. It was as though the hardened baron was a million miles away.

And then, as if suddenly noticing that the old man had come to, and not wanting to give anything away, the baron’s worried mien suddenly hardened into its usual mask.

“What did you see, old man? Tell me,” the baron snapped in a harsh voice. It was unnecessarily abrupt, and despite his best intent couldn’t entirely hide the anxiety he felt.

Despite his own fear, exacerbated by the sudden intrusion of the visions he didn’t want to see, Morgan felt a pang of pity for the baron. K wasn’t a man he would have ever thought that he could have sympathy for, and yet he could see that the man had a… A what? A weakness? Was it a weakness to have feelings for your own flesh and blood? Perhaps it was if you were a hard-fighting and hard-fought leader of a ville. So, despite the stubborn streak of his nature that told Morgan to tell the baron to get fucked, in spite of any consequences, he took a deep breath and started to speak.

It was halting and confused as he tried to explain in words the things that he had seen and felt primarily as a series of impressions and emotions, but as he went on the baron’s face changed yet again. He was absorbed by what the old man was telling him. It confirmed his worst fears about the powers of those who had taken the children. At the same time, it boosted his self-esteem. At the back of his mind, still there despite the fears for his own child, was the lurking fear that his judgment had somehow been in error when he allowed these events to happen. But after all, if a man of Morgan’s undoubted doomie sensibility was easy meat to whatever was behind the intruders, then no one could hold him responsible and use that fact to challenge his position.

By the time the old man had finished, the baron had moved back and away, and was hunkered against the wall of the shack, elbows resting on his knees and chin in his hands as he focused on the story. Morgan, for his part, had moved in the opposite direction and had wiped the spittle from his beard. He turned to the barrel where he kept his own personal brew and scooped out a mugful that he downed in one swallow.

K didn’t see it that way. As soon as he saw what the old man was doing, he sprang across the room, swiping the mug from the old man’s fist in one smooth and swift motion.

“No,” he yelled, “you’re not doing that. I want you sober and awake so that you can tell me what’s happening.”

Mutely, Morgan followed the progress of the mug as it flew across the room, its tin body clanging as it hit the boards of the cabin floor, the fire hissing and flaring as a spray of alcohol swept across it like an incoming wave. He turned back to K and looked him squarely in the eye. When he spoke, it was with a hushed gravity that made the baron look away uneasily.

“You idiot. Do you really think that those poor bastards are going to be able to get your daughter back? You don’t give a shit about the other kids. Why the fuck should you? Their parents wouldn’t care squat about your kid, after all. But you should give it up, K. She’s gone. And no amount of making me face going mad seeing what it can do and letting it get inside my head is going to make any bastard difference. Not one little bit. They’re as good as chilled. And so is your daughter. The sooner we face it, the better. Whatever the fuck those coldheart bastards were who took her and the others, they weren’t human. Mebbe once. Before whatever it’s that makes the black fist got hold of them and changed them forever. Mebbe they still have some kind of humanity in them. But if they have, it’s so buried that there ain’t no way it’s ever going to find a way out.

“Face it, K, she’s gone. You lost. We all did. And those poor fuckers you sent after them with the promise of gold? They’re gone, too.”