Soldier of the Legion (24 page)

The walls revealed faded golden runes and mysterious figures, phantoms from a lost world, frozen forever all around us. A magnificent panorama of the Kingdom of Southmark, everything these Kings had ruled. The ceiling glowed faintly with strange gods. At one end of the cavernous room, a single skeleton slumped on a dark, austere throne.

“Who is he?” I whispered.

“He is the Golden Sword,” Moontouch replied softly, “who led the Far March and built Southmark with mortar made from blood. We can never forget him.” She raised one arm, and turned her face away. “Look upon his glory, and despair.” His bones were almost black, crumbling into the ages.

Crazy, I thought. I was sweating, but she wasn’t. I guessed she was used to it. Why is it so damned hot?

“I must show you the Book,” she said suddenly, raising her head.

The Book! The Book of the Men of the Book—her holy writ, never seen by non-believers. Surely this would hold the secret of the Beasts, and lead us to the Systies. She led me to a stone ledge, full of ancient books. Southmark’s history! My heart leaped. What a find!

“Here is the Book of Books,” Moontouch whispered. “There is only one. Here is everything we believe!”

It was truly a magnificent book, a massive volume, bound in a thick cover of leather and metal and precious stones, placed on a small platform. Golden runes spelt out the title. The sign of the crown and the skull, engraved in gold. Cautiously, I opened it. Dust seeped out, hanging in the air. Pages of dust, all dust, a book of dust. I turned to Moontouch.

She stood beside me, hypnotized before the Book. She leaned forward and blew slightly, a faint whistle, raising a little cloud of dust.

“History, Slayer,” she hissed. “Look! A thousand years has just vanished. A little more goes each day, even if you do nothing. Try it, Slayer. Blow away the past!” The light of madness showed in her eyes. I closed the book, slowly.

History. Yes, I had found history, hundreds of ancient books, but the pages had all turned to dust. Only the titles remained, intricately inlaid in gold on the leather-bound covers. Moontouch translated some of the titles for me:
History of the World, Our Heritage, Glory of Southmark, Annals of the Kings, Tales of the Golden March, Voyage to the End of the World
...all dust, all that Southmark had ever been, lost and vanished and gone, forever and ever and ever. My head was spinning. I leaned on the ledge for support.

Moontouch reached down to the darkened floor and picked up a skull. I slowly realized that bones littered the floor, hundreds of skeletons, all jumbled together, a ghastly harvest of vanished souls. My mind was working very slowly, I thought—everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Moontouch held the skull before me, bringing the torch closer.

“They were a harsh people. When a King died his servants died, too. They were killed right here, in the tomb.” She spoke dreamily, the torchlight transforming the skull into an evil mask. “Look at this one. Who knows how many ages have passed since this one breathed and hoped and loved. I wanted to eat the past once. I wanted to swallow the past, and grieve in the dark for all those who went before, for all those who are lost forever, and never remembered. Now I feel they are more real than I am. I am only a servant in the House of the Dead.” Her words were hypnotic and I watched her in fascination. She touched the skull gently to her cheek and swayed dreamily, her eyes closed, mourning the dead. Tears streaked down her cheeks.

Stunned by the enormity of the place, I felt trapped in a stale bubble of the past that had somehow slipped through time, a secret, unsuspected black hole, where even a soldier of the Legion could tumble into ages long lost to history, and maybe not ever come back. A hot wave rushed through my blood—something was wrong, I knew, but I felt calm, almost sedated.

Moontouch was trapped. She would never come back. She clutched the skull to her throat, holding the torch up, swirling gently to her own music now, eyes closed, singing softly to herself, dancing with her long-dead lover, clad in the cloak of death. She was lovely, absolutely enchanting. I wanted to pull her out of that evil world, out of the past and into the future. Has she ever known love, or just despair? I gently took the torch from her hand, and reached over to the nearest King, and propped up the torch in his bony fingers. Moontouch ignored me, clutching the skull to her bosom, continuing her terrible dance. She was humming now, entranced. I pulled her to me, and took the skull from her grasp, and dropped it to the floor. Her eyes fluttered open in surprise. I loosened the cloak from her shoulders and it slid to the floor, revealing a sleeveless knee-length tunic.

She who had entranced me, eyes of mystery, her lovely mouth opening in surprise. I slipped a hand behind her neck, hair of sweet soft silk, smooth tender flesh, and she was swaying in my arms, so lovely I thought my heart would stop.

I kissed her gently, hot and sweet, and pressed my cheek against hers. I could taste her tears on my tongue. Taste the living, Moontouch, taste the living!

The torch flickered, and orange torchlight ran over her lovely skin as the skeleton King patiently lit the scene, and long black shadows darted all around us. I wanted to tear the tunic from her body but I did not seem to have the strength. My fingers clutched at the material. Moontouch was calm. She was so lovely it was almost supernatural—I grew dizzy and weak and I wanted to fall to my knees and worship her like a Goddess. Surrounded by death, she was a nova of life, glowing with beauty. I pulled again at the tunic, puzzled that it would not come off. What was wrong with me?

“No, Slayer,” she gasped weakly. “I am a Virgin of the Book—I belong only to the Past.”

“No, Moontouch. You belong to me. You said so. Don’t you remember?” I whispered. My mind was working very slowly. I could not understand why she did not remember. She had said clearly…

I tried to pull her to me, but now the entire chamber spun slowly around me, fading away. The tea, I thought—the tea! Moontouch gazed calmly into my eyes now, raising one slim arm towards me…and then I fell into the dark.

###

I drifted back to consciousness through a severe headache, blinking my eyes painfully as a soft light roused me. I sat up abruptly—I was resting on a bed of silken pillows on the floor of the Temple of the Virgins. One of the temple girls dabbed gently at my forehead with a wet cloth. Dragon stirred beside me, attended by another girl. It was dawn—the third girl appeared with a metal tray stacked high with teakettles and plates of fruit. Incense smoked in a corner.

“Dragon!” I exclaimed. “What happened?”

“I told you not to drink that tea,” he said, squinting and touching his head gingerly. “Damn! That’s potent stuff!”

The girls gathered around us and offered cups of steaming liquid. I pushed mine away rudely. I sure didn’t need any more of what they were pushing. The girls faintly smiled, treating us with great reverence.

“Perfume!” I exclaimed, touching my neck. “And my clothes—they’re moist—as if washed! But what happened, Dragon? What happened to you?”

“Well, all I can say is I hope you had as good a time with Moontouch as I did with these three. I mean, I don’t remember exactly—I was about to make my move when everything just kind of got all blurry and—well, I’m not sure. But it was terrific—I remember that much!” He reached out and touched one of the girls. She gave him a dazzling smile.

“Where is Moontouch?” I demanded of the temple girls. “Where is she?”

They bowed low and one of them whispered in Taka: “Your wife prays for you in the Tomb of the Kings. The dead will walk by your side, through this life and into the next. All of the power of those who have gone before will be yours to wield, oh mighty Slayer.”

I pondered this for a moment, stunned. “Dragon.” I finally said. “Can we try to keep this, um, kind of quiet? Can we?”

Dragon laughed. “You can count on me, Thinker. But we’ll have to tell Snow Leopard something.”

“We’ll tell him something, all right. Don’t worry.”

Chapter 12:
Atom’s Fist

“Are you as sick of this as I am?” Dragon asked me. It was two months after our fruitless mission in the Tomb of the Kings and we were in armor, trudging knee-deep through grisly exoseg parts. We were deep in the heart of what appeared to be the oldest exoseg complex, far underneath the Forest of Bones. I hated exoseg duty, but somebody had to do it, and Squad Beta had been selected.

“Stop whining,” I replied. “You know you love it.”

“I’d rather be back in that laundry we discovered—you know, the one with the tea and the incense?”

“Shut down, will you?”

“Relax, we’re on private. Seriously, Thinker, I finally realized what you were trying to do back there. I thought you were nuts at the time, but I understand it now. You were looking for a shortcut. It was just too damned bad there was nothing there. If it had worked, we could have avoided all this exo nonsense.”

“Well, it didn’t work.”

“Yeah, but you were thinking! It could have worked! I never thought of it. No, it was a fine idea, Thinker. You’re always thinking—they’ll probably make you a One someday.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“I’m serious, Thinker!”

“Alert! Alert!” Sweety suddenly interrupted. “Situation Violet! Probable advanced attack! Probable advanced presence! Probable imminent combat! Readings inconclusive, maximum alert!”

The alert galvanized us.

“Prep for combat, Thinker!” Sweety warned me. “Probe has identified a cenite hatch ahead—please see the zero. I will give you every warning.”

“All right, gang, this is it,” Snow Leopard informed us calmly. “Combat advance. Whatever it is, we attack. Coolhand, take the second element.”

“This has to be the Systies, right?” Warhound asked tensely.

“Silence in the ranks, guys,” Coolhand replied.

When in doubt, advance, an old Legion saying. Now this. I could taste death, and it had nothing to do with exosegs. This was what we’d been looking for since we first dropped!

We advanced.

We found it moments later under a tangled pile of exoseg dead, a circular cenite hatch on the tunnel floor, slimy with a deceptor cloaking field, leading, surely, to our doom. No identifying marks.

Snow Leopard finally broke the silence with a whisper. “If it happens quickly, I want anyone who survives to maxburst whatever you see. Just scream it out, you hear me? Once you know what it is, you let Command know. I don’t want Beta to go out without at least getting off a message. They got the same probe report we did, so they’ll be waiting to hear from us. You hear me?”

We heard him. But we weren’t going without a fight.

“Psycho, Snow Leopard. You get those nukes warmed up.”

“They’re dead, Snow Leopard. If I see something move, they’re going to be dead.”

Snow Leopard kept his voice down. “Merlin, how can we open this? Quietly.”

Merlin pondered the hatch. “Laser, all around the edges. We’ll have to use laser. But when it opens, things may happen.”

“Acceptable. Merlin, open it. As soon as we can confirm what the enemy is, we call it in maxburst. That’s the mission! That’s the only mission! You girls think you can handle that?” He had often used the phrase in Hell, but it was no longer funny.

“Tenners, let’s do it.”

The hatch came off, burning and hissing. Coolhand, Dragon and Priestess hauled it off. Snow Leopard, Merlin and Psycho paused for just a frac, at the brink. Metal steps led down to a metal deck, and that’s all we could see.

“See you in Hell.”

“Death!” A hoarse whisper, from us all. Death, our angel. Death, to watch over us all. And then Snow Leopard, Merlin and Psycho vanished down the stairs. Warhound, Ironman and I followed right behind them leaping down into the portal, ignoring the stairs, guns up.

“Maximum alert!” Sweety whispered icy futures in my ears immediately. “Combat alert! Advanced presence! Human presence! Silenced power systems ahead! Muffled commo systems ahead! Nuclear alert! Radiation alert! V alert! Enemy laser systems powering on! Enemy targeting systems powering on! You are being targeted for attack! Recommend immediate counterattack!”

We ran, flat out, weapons up, my heart pounding, along a pristine metal tunnel, straight to our deaths.

“Fire, Psycho! Fire!” Snow shouted. The tunnel flashed up ahead, a sudden white hot nuclear light glaring all around us, a tremendous concussion, the earth trembling, Warhound and Ironman frozen in mid-stride beside me. Sweety still whispered her magic in my ears, bless her!

“Major enemy power systems powering on, gravity systems powering on, antimat drive generators powering on, strategic space superiority systems powering on! Tactical acquisition combat systems now on and scanning! The enemy is targeting you now! Recommend immediate counterfire! Tac nukes powering on! Multiple coded enemy alerts broadcasting now! I have identified the enemy! United System Defense Alliance tactical systems in use! Ignition! Ignition! Ignition! Ignition! You are under multiple attack! Fire all weapons!”

We dove to the deck in agonizing slow motion, a controlled crash, firing even as we skidded along the metal grating on our armored bellies. I fired high on auto xmax and knew Sweety would handle the arc. The air cracked wildly as we all fired, and then the world exploded. A bolt of white lightning flashed ahead of us and a great shock wave exploded all around us and suddenly the tunnel walls turned liquid, glowing streaks and globs of red-hot metal splattering through the air like fireworks, dazzling my eyes.