Armageddon's Children (34 page)

No, not someone, he corrects quickly. Himself. He should have done something for Michael. But he didn’t. Didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to do it. And now it is too late.

When dawn breaks in a thin leaden line across a sky so overcast it feels as if it is pressing down against the earth like the hand of judgment, he is forced to confront his future. With Michael dead and his followers dead or scattered, Logan has nowhere to go. He doesn’t even know what to do, for that matter. Carry on Michael’s work? Attacking the slave camps seems endless and ultimately not enough to make a difference. One man is not enough to attack the slave camps in any case. One man is not enough to do anything in this world.

So he wanders for weeks, driving aimlessly, until finally the Lady appears to tell him what it is that he is needed to do.

THE MEMORY CAME
and went like the passing of a cloud’s shadow across the earth, and Logan Tom found himself staring once more at the wall of rock that blocked the pass. A gust of wind blew sharp and chill against his face, and the deep silence of the mountains pressed close in the wake of the memory’s passing. He stood where he was for a moment, collecting his thoughts, then turned away. Memories could take you outside yourself, but they couldn’t keep you there for long. He walked back to the Lightning, climbed inside, and started the engine. In minutes, he was winding his way back down the mountainside. His mouth tightened against his thoughts. One thing he had learned that Michael had not. No matter how bad things looked, there was always another way.

He descended out of the pass, traveling east back down through the foothills toward the flats. He drove as swiftly as the condition of the highway would allow, watching the daylight begin to fail with nighttime’s approach. He would have to decide soon whether to turn north or south to find a way through the mountains. He knew there were several major passes that led over, but not which ones were still accessible.

When he reached what appeared to be a major crossroads, he stopped and threw the finger bones once more. The bones writhed and wriggled on the square of black cloth and formed themselves into fingers that by compass reckoning pointed northwest. He put the bones away and turned the Lightning north. This road was smaller, its surface badly eroded by time and weather. He had to travel more slowly as a consequence, and the light soon faded to a thick, hazy gray, leaving behind a world of shadows and furtive movements.

He had almost decided that he had gone as far as it was possible to go without unnecessary risk when the road ahead turned into a morass of dark obstacles that forced him to slow to a crawl. Old vehicles, pieces of fencing, and farm equipment littered a road surface already pocked and cracked. There was room to get around, but only barely.

Then there was no room at all, as dozens of dark, furtive figures materialized out of the dark to surround him.

T
HE FIGURES SEEMED
to rise out of the earth like wraiths, their insubstantial forms composed of shadows and secrets, their movements quick and furtive. They did not approach in upright fashion, but in a crouched, crab-like scuttle. It was dark enough by now that he couldn’t make out their features, hazy enough that it was like peering through smoke. He was not using the AV’s headlights, and there was little natural light to provide any other form of illumination. As the figures drew nearer he could tell that they were human in shape, but lean and corded and crooked-limbed. They wore ragged clothing and clutched staffs and clubs rather than automatic weapons. They seemed curious rather than threatening, so he sat quietly and waited for them to reach the AV.

As the first of them did so, tentatively running slender hands over the smooth metal of the hood, the light from the sunset revealed a face and arms covered with patches of dark hair, suggestive of a creature more simian than human.

Spiders,
Logan realized.

He hadn’t seen any since Chicago, but he knew of them. One of several kinds of mutants, Spiders were humans infected by poisons or chemicals or radiation—depending on whom you believed—and physically altered as a consequence. Some claimed their minds had been altered, as well, but he had never seen any proof of this. Then again, Spiders were shy and reclusive, so it was difficult to know for sure. In Logan’s twenty-eight years, he had encountered them no more than a handful of times. He had never spoken to one, or even seen one this close up.

The face peered in at him, features still clearly human within patches of black facial hair that coated everything from forehead to chin. Blue eyes regarded him with a mix of curiosity and hidden intent. Although the face had a feral, animalistic look to it, the eyes revealed intelligence.

He took a chance and lowered the window. He didn’t say anything; he just nodded his greeting.

A dozen faces pressed close, and hands reached out to touch his. He did not try to draw away. He let their gnarled, hairy fingers brush against his skin and clothing. He let them peer past him inside the AV. He let them look at everything, giving them time and space.

At last, the one standing closest asked, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

The words were intelligible, the speaker’s voice clear. “My name is Logan,” he replied. “I am looking for a way over the mountains.”

There was a murmuring among the Spiders that he couldn’t follow. The speaker pointed back in the direction from which he had come. “The way over the mountains is behind you.”

“I couldn’t go that way. The pass I intended to take is blocked by a slide and I cannot get around it. I was hoping to find another. Do you know of one? Is there another north of here?”

The murmuring resumed, then faded. The speaker leaned in and whispered. “No one can go into the mountains north. That is sacred ground.”

It was a simple statement of fact, but it was a warning, as well. “Why is it sacred?” he pressed.

The Spider leaned close. “The spirits live in the mountains. Some are as the wind. Some are flesh and blood. They speak with us when we chant their names. They tell us of their will. We give them offerings and make sacrifices so that they will protect us.”

The others, standing close behind the speaker, nodded in agreement. Logan could tell that this was serious business for them, that these people regarded their relationship with the spirits of the mountains—whatever they might be—as they would a religion.

“Will they let no one pass to the other side?” he asked.

The speaker shook his head, hands making a warding gesture. “You must turn back.”

Logan sighed. He didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t think reasoning was going to work here. He would have to take a different approach. Or maybe he should just turn around and try to find another way, one that would allow him to avoid this blockade.

“Do you have an offering so that we may permit you to go?” the speaker continued.

Oh, so now it’s blackmail,
he thought in disgust. He shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. But he wasn’t going to get into a fight if he could avoid it. “Let me get out and see,” he said.

He opened the door and stepped out of the AV, bringing the black staff with him. As soon as the Spiders got a look at the staff, its carvings clearly visible against the polished surface, there was a collective moan. The entire body moved back from him as if it had been scorched by fire, a scattered few dropping to their knees, one or two actually covering their eyes. Logan froze instantly, not sure what was happening.

The speaker hunched forward a step, bowing deeply. “You are a magic wielder! Forgive us, please. We did not know.”

Sorry, sorry, sorry,
whispered the cringing forms. Logan looked from face to face in disbelief.

“Do you require our lives as payment for our foolishness?” the speaker asked softly.

“No,” Logan said quickly. “No, I don’t require anything. It’s all right.” His mind raced. “I just need you to tell me how to find my way through the mountains.”

The speaker, head bowed until now, risked a quick glance up. “You would visit with your own kind? I should have realized what you wanted. Of course, of course. We can help you. We can show you where they are. Come this way.”

He set out at once, the others hastening after him, casting anxious glances back at Logan and the AV. Logan climbed back in the vehicle and started forward once more, working his way through the obstacles, following the dark gathering that flowed ahead of him. Maybe this was going to work out after all.

They continued up the road for another two or three miles, the Spiders moving smoothly and easily over the terrain, seemingly tireless, their dark forms scattering out ahead in the deepening dark. He thought to turn on the running lights, but he was afraid that would frighten them. They were clearly a highly superstitious bunch, if they believed in mountain spirits, and he couldn’t be sure what else might disturb them. All he needed to do was find his way into the mountains, and he could leave this business behind. Besides, the sky was sufficiently clear that slivers of moonlight cut through the cloud cover and washed the landscape in a pale soft glow that brightened the path ahead.

As they traveled, more Spiders joined those already leading the way, until there were easily more than a hundred. They were of all shapes and sizes, probably of all ages, big and little, old and young, and it became clear that word of his coming had spread to the larger community. More appeared with the passing of every minute, materializing out of the dark, come to see the magic wielder. He found himself wondering how large their community was and how distant their village. Did they even have a village? How did they live?

He knew so little about Spiders, he realized. Tiny splinter groups of mutants ostracized by everyone, they had been forced to make their own way in the larger world. They had survived by burrowing, Michael had told him once. Humans, they had gone to ground when the bombs fell and the radiation poisoned everything. They had survived by living on earth, air, and water that should have killed them, but instead had caused them to mutate. Like the Lizards and the other breeds. Normal humans wanted nothing to do with them; normal humans could not imagine living as mutants did, would not have dreamed even of touching them. Humans had gone one way, mutants another. It remained to be seen how it would all come together down the road.

If it ever came together at all.

It was more than an hour later when they reached another crossroads, a new highway intersecting the one on which they traveled, this one running east to west from the plains into the mountains. The speaker came back to the AV and bowed. “The pass lies that way,” he said, pointing up the crossroads and toward the peaks. “Should we come with you?”

Logan shook his head. “You have done more than enough to help me.”

“The other man asked us to go with him so that he could be certain of the way,” the speaker explained.

Logan frowned. “Have others like me come through here?”

The speaker nodded. “Only the one, more than two years ago. He carried a staff like yours. We did not recognize him. We did not understand who he was. We challenged him, and he revealed himself to us through use of his magic. Thirty lives were taken in payment for our foolishness. It was a necessary lesson, he said.”

A rogue Knight
. Logan had heard of them, a few only, men and women who had lost their way and their belief and become demons themselves. It was rare, but in the madness of the apocalypse, it happened.

“No lives are required here,” he assured the speaker and those others pressed close enough to hear.

A murmuring rose from those gathered, borne on a wave of gratitude. Logan shook his head.

“Will you tell the spirits when you see them that we remain faithful?” another asked, one whose face beneath the patches of hair was deeply wrinkled and spotted with age. “Will you tell them we are grateful for their protection?”

Several answers came to mind, but he said only, “I will tell them.”

He left them clustered at the base of the mountains, gathered together at the crossroads, a collection of strange creatures with strange ideas. He felt oddly ashamed of himself for playing into their fantasies about mountain spirits, but he couldn’t think of a better way to handle things. They seemed convinced that such spirits existed, and it would have been foolish for him to try to convince them otherwise. Even so, he didn’t like pretending at things he knew weren’t true.