Demon (GAIA) (65 page)

On the bad side, Gautama had two companies of Minutemen with functional flintlock rifles. Siddhartha had a couple of cannons.

And Luther had a long way to go to reach Fox.

Gaby had been working on Luther’s deteriorating mind for some time. She used the discontent she found there and built on it. There was no way to sway him in his loyalty to Gaea, but he resented her just
enough that he would not be as cautious as usual. She had managed to whisper in his ear back at his post at Goldwyn, and he was on his way. And she had a few more tricks in store.

Luther was a weak reed. She hated to rely on him so much. But she could not take direct actions within the walls of Pandemonium. Putting the staff of Tara to sleep was about as far as she could go.

Gene was a weak reed, too. But what could you do? He
had
to have his part to play, she owed him that much. And…there was no one else who could do what Gene had to do.

She was waiting on the verge of the forest when the four Titanides and three humans showed up. She greeted each of them by name. She noted the shocked surprise on Robin’s face, wished she had more time to talk to the little witch, who she loved dearly, but there was so much to do.

So she gave them their instruction. They had brought their weapons.

The rest was going to be up to them.

***

Conal sat astride Rocky and watched as the little plume of steam crawled around the rim of Pandemonium. He didn’t know what it was. All he knew was that Gaby said that when it reached a certain mark on the wall, they were to go.

He was surprised to discover that he was not afraid for himself. But he was absolutely terrified Robin would die.

They had their weapons. Each Titanide had a long sword and a rifle with interchangeable magazines. The humans carried handguns. They had practiced with both rifles and handguns, and found it was practically impossible to hit anything with either, even from the relatively steady moving platform of a Titanide’s back. But they were fractionally better with the smaller weapons. They also carried short swords, and hoped they didn’t have to use them, because it was hard to see what use they would be unless they were dismounted. To be thrown from a Titanide generally meant the Titanide was badly hurt.

The puff of steam was at the proper mark. Conal felt his hand being squeezed tightly. It was Robin,
and her hand was very cold. He leaned over and kissed her. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

The Titanides moved out into the open and began their charge.

***

The body of Whistlestop had almost burned out before the remains began to stir.

Behind it, Universal was still burning madly. The waters of the moat were full of floating debris. The corpses of a hundred parboiled eight-meter Great White sharks floated belly-up all around the crumpled ruin of the blimp.

As with Nasu, it was a hand that appeared first. Then, slowly, struggling, Gaea pulled herself out of the black mess and stood, looking dazed, on the outer shore of the moat.

Cirocco sternly repressed an impulse to laugh. Once it started, it would never stop, it would quickly become hysteria. But Gaea…

She looked like some cartoon character in one of the oldest gags in the trade. Hapless cartoon animal is handed a round black bomb with a sizzling fuse, looks at it, does a double-take—eyes bug out and
BLAM!
Smoke clears to reveal character standing in exactly the same position, holding nothing, but completely black, hair standing on end, wisps of smoke curling away…character blinks twice—only the eyes are visible—and falls over.

Completely black but for the eyes. That was Gaea. But she didn’t fall over.

She began to writhe. It was awful to watch. She stretched this way and that, and her skin began to crack. She reached down to her belly, to her legs, her feet, and scrubbed herself vigorously with her hands. And the skin began to peel away.

It came off in one big chunk, like a child’s bunny-suit pajamas. Beneath was glistening white skin, blonde hair…a new Gaea, unhurt. She stood for a moment, having lost perhaps two feet in height, then began to walk toward Cirocco.

“It’s time, Gene.”

“I know it’s time,” he said. “Tarnation, didn’t you tell me…”

He stopped his work and looked around. Gaby wasn’t there. He thought he had heard her, but he couldn’t be sure. He shrugged, and returned to the device in his lap.

He was sitting on a big crate labeled DYNAMITE: Product of Bellinzona. It sat, in turn, on the great green nerve nexus down in the dead heart of Oceanus. Stacked all around him were similar crates.

What he had in his lap was a timing device. He had thought he understood how to use it. Hook this here dingus to that there whatchamacallit over there, wind up the little hammenframis on the back of that doohickey….

Nothing. It wasn’t ticking or nothing.

He was supposed to hook it up and get the hell out of there. He didn’t plan to get out, so when Gaby gave him the go-on-ahead, he’d waited it out here what he figured was a goodly chunk of time, and then set to work. Now it didn’t look like it was gonna work no-how, on account he’d hooked it up ever whichway, and nothing was happening.

He sobbed his frustration.

It’d be nice to have him a nice hunk of fish right about now. It was a wonderment, it surely was, how much better the stinking things tasted if you charred them a bit over the fire. Now why hadn’t he thought of that?

He was about to get up and get him some fish, when he remembered how long it would take to get up there and back. Phooey! That’s why he’d waited so long before setting to work on this dingus
anyway, figuring in the time it would have took him to of clumb up to the top of them stairs…

He was woolgathering again, and he knew it. He rearranged the parts of the detonator, wondering if he’d ever get it right.

And he kept thinking that he was forgetting something.

And it was the most important part.

***

The brakes on the frigging little train didn’t work.

Luther cursed it mightily, then, as the station came by, he leaped, and he rolled.

He got up shakily. There were little bits of Luther scattered here and there on the platform. Luckily, they weren’t important bits. An ear, a fragment of skull, part of a foot.

He didn’t have much time left, and he knew it.

Luther watched the little train puff away around the broad curve of the track. It would keep going forever, round and round the great wheel of Pandemonium, round and round the Great Gaea….

No it wouldn’t. The track was broken, because…
thump
…Gaea had fought the snake because…thump, thump…Cirocco was attacking! And Gaea had sent him here on an important mission!

His brain was thumping along pretty good by now, actually. A square wheel, if it rolls long enough, wears off some of the corners. He felt as alert as he’d been since the day he…died. What was left of his brow furrowed, then he shrugged it off and hurried down the stairs—

He was met by Gautama. Little fat-ass gold-painted pissant Gautama, yammering something in some godless language. Luther drew his cross—the mighty Sword of the Lord—and lopped off his head.

Which didn’t kill Gautama, of course, but when Luther kicked the head a hundred yards down the road it sure inconvenienced him some. Gautama blundered around, senseless, his hands held out in front of him. Luther didn’t give him another thought. He was humming, trying to mouth the words, though
there wasn’t enough mouth left to form many of them.

“But now a champion comes to fight, Whom God Herself elected! No strength of ours can match Her might! We would be lost, rejected!”

Up on the walls, people were shooting their guns. He heard a cannon go off. And he marched up to the gate and threw it open. People were shouting at him. He couldn’t understand the words. He went to the drawbridge mechanism, located the proper lever to pull…

Thump.

I’m lowering the drawbridge, he told himself. Thump.

Why
am I lowering the drawbridge?

Ah…why, to help Gaea, of course. To help Gaea to…

Get in? Thump thump thump.

Maybe this was some sort of trick. His hand moved away from the lever.

“This is not a trick, my darling Luther,” said a voice close to his ear.

He turned his head and saw her.

It was Gaea, it was his wife, his mother, all motherhood and womanhood and the virginmary god-help-me, with thorns wrapped around her heart and that saintly expression on her face (and it was a little brown woman) and the dazzling white robes and the halo—
halo!
Why, it was a searing, screaming light that
burst
from her, the burning light of goodness/pain/death—and millions of angels were hovering above her, blowing their trumpets (and he didn’t even know the little brown woman)…thump—
trick?
How could it be a trick?!

People were hacking at him with swords now. Absently, he saw one of his arms fall to the stone floor. But, O Lord, I have another to do Thy bidding.

He lunged at the lever, thrust it forward, and fell into the rattling clattering chewing mechanism as the tons of drawbridge fell forward and rended him limb from limb….

Arthur Lundquist’s first death had been horrible. His second was glorious.

***

Some photofauns had somehow managed to swim the moat. There were a dozen of them clustered around Cirocco as she stood her ground and watched Gaea striding confidently forward.

The giant Monroe-thing had its arms wide, as if to cut Cirocco off no matter which way she ran. She came on like a dreadful professional wrestler, her face contorted with hate.

She was five hundred meters away. Four hundred. Three hundred.

And she stopped, listening, as Luther died.

Where is the Child?

***

As they neared the end of the bridge, a cannon shell burst over their heads. Conal heard something rattle off his helmet, felt something sting his arm, and heard Robin cry out.

He saw she was holding her hand to her forehead, and there was blood under it. He started to jump—

“No!” Robin shouted. “I’m all right.”

There was no time, anyway. They were on the bridge now, the Titanides’ hooves pounding on the thick timbers. They charged toward the big gap. The drawbridge was up. We’d better turn back, Conal thought.

Then it fell, and not a moment too soon. With part of his mind Conal noticed that Rocky was bleeding from many wounds. Up on the wall, something was making odd little barking sounds. Smoke was drifting around them. He looked up and saw people pointing rifles at them. He hoped they couldn’t shoot any better than he could.

They entered the arched gate, passed quickly through it. Conal didn’t have time to fire at anything. The Titanide swords were at work, and the humans that fell beneath them were probably dead before
they hit the ground. Still they came charging up. Conal began to shoot at anything that moved.

There had been no time to see who he was fighting, no sense of them as individuals. Finally, he started to notice they were dressed oddly. They wore long coats, some of them, or suits of white armor, or multi-colored green-gray-brown pants and helmets like his own.

A man came shrieking up to him, getting under Rocky’s sword thrust. He was carrying an impossibly long sword. How could he even lift it, much less swing it?

But swing it he did, and it hit Conal on the leg, and Conal started saying his prayers, certain his leg was off and it would be a few seconds before the shock hit him.

He looked down. Part of the sword was clutched in his hand. He saw broken wood. He saw silver paint. The paint came off on his hand as he threw it away.

It was too much for his confused mind to deal with.

My god, did they think this was a
game
?

Then he heard Valiha’s shout. She was far ahead of the rest, unencumbered, and she had found Chris.

“Turn around!” she screamed. “I’ve got them! Turn around!”

***

“Chicken!”
Cirocco screamed.

Gaea paused.

“Gaea’s a stinking,
gutless, yellow COWARD! Gaea is CHICKEN!!
”

The naked, sweating giant turned slowly. She had been on her way to Fox, on her way to stop the theft of Adam. But…Cirocco was right here. Adam was miles away.

“Come on back here and
fight
, you yellow
bitch
! What are you…
afraid
? Gaea’s afraid, Gaea’s a coward, Gaea’s a stinking whore!”

Gaea hung there, swaying back and forth, torn between going for Adam and taking care of this
insect once and for all. She
knew
it was a trick. She knew Cirocco wanted her to come and silence her filthy mouth. She knew it…and more than anything in this stinking, dreary universe she wanted to go back and
crush
this horrible upstart.

Cirocco spat in Gaea’s direction. She picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could. It bounced off Gaea’s head, leaving a bloody mark. She drew her sword and held it high in the sweet light of Hyperion. It flashed as Cirocco brandished it.

“God? You make me
laugh
, Gaea. You are a
pig.
Your mother was a pig, your
grandmother
was a pig, and
her
mother fucked
dead
pigs. I
spit
on you. I
piss
on you. I
dare
you to come out and fight. If you run away,
everyone
will know you for the coward you are!”

Tears of rage were streaming from Cirocco’s eyes.

Gaea might still have turned away and gone after Adam, but Cirocco gave a bloodcurdling shriek…and charged at her.

Which was simply too much. Gaea began to move.

Toward Cirocco.

***

“It’s time, Gene.”

“I
know
it’s time, Gaby. I’m sorry I ra…r-r-r-raped you. I’m sorry I killed you. I didn’t mean to do it.”

His hands fumbled with the detonator on his lap. It was a simple mechanism, he
knew
it was simple. It was just so
horrible.
He couldn’t
remember.