The Red Queen (49 page)

‘You know I will not be able to exert any power over a dream figure,’ Dameon warned.

‘It does not matter. It is only a way to stop her completing the dream cycle. Stay her hand for as long as you can. I will need some time.’

Dameon rose and wound his elegant way through the strange army to where Miryum stood on the knoll with the winged horse. I did not hear the words he spoke, but Miryum held out her arms and the white cat leapt into them. She roared a command for the army to attack the front of the castle, and then set off at a run.

The moment she was out of sight, I ran to the horned beastman and bade him take me to the front of the army. I held the black sword in my mind as I spoke to him and in a short time, I had coerced not only him, but a number of the other spirits into believing I was an ally of the warrior queen come to do battle with the sorcerer on her behalf. It was not difficult. Being unconscious spirit-forms, they had no true clear will of their own and when I commanded them to form a semicircle facing the gate to the keep, they obeyed at once. The rest followed docilely, but it was an effort to hold them back when Malik appeared at the gates. This had happened too many times before and they knew he was their enemy. But bending to my spirit-charged will, the army allowed me to approach Malik alone. He radiated such a rage of malevolence that my fur stood on end, and I had to yowl to release a coiling tension that bade me fly at him and claw out his eyes.

I had to remind myself that this was not the real Malik who had tortured me, for he had died long since. This was the Malik of Miryum’s memories, the man who had truly caused Straaka’s death, and yet was still only a creation of Miryum’s mind, and no more real than the Ariel I had once encountered and vanquished in Rushton’s deepest mind. This Malik could be destroyed, if I chose. But something else was required here. I bade the beasts stay back and moved lightly forward until Malik was sneering down at me.

This close, I could see that his form had been brutishly assembled, shaped for sneering and loathing, but the eyes were blank. Miryum had not exerted any subtlety in his making because no one was meant to come so close to him. It had not been necessary. I exerted my will as Malik lashed out at me, deflecting his blade so that it flew harmlessly to one side.

‘You are not guilty of anything but of inspiring and feeling great love,’ I said.

He cursed me and struck out again very violently, and then again, and each time I used the power of the black sword to prevent his blade reaching me.

‘You did not harm Straaka deliberately,’ I said. ‘He chose to save you because he loved you. He loves you still, and he does not blame you for what happened. He is trapped because you are trapped. He wishes to free you even as you would free him. Let me help you and we can free you both.’ I said these words softly, over and over, speaking not to Malik but to Miryum’s rage and self-loathing. Malik slashed and slashed in a frenzy and then, quite suddenly, all strength and fire flowed out of him and the madness and loathing in his face faded. His hands fell to his sides and the sword slipped from his fingers. Tears ran down his cheeks and they were golden.

‘I cannot,’ he said, and the tone was not Malik’s but Miryum’s. This made it easier to overcome my loathing and coil about his legs, nudging him comfortingly and giving him my scent in pity and sympathy. I bade him carry me and he bent down and took me up gently into his arms. ‘Come. Let us go in,’ I said, and he turned and stumbled into the keep. ‘Carry me to the chamber where the sleeping prince lies,’ I told him, and he did.

The way was only a simple repetition of halls and stairs, and there was no elevating chamber shaft or doors. I recognised nothing until we came to the section of the passage wall that was transparent. Beyond the glass lay the same lit room I had seen when Miryum carried me here, full of computermachines and other Beforetime devices. Two metallic guards were still talking to one another, but now I saw that they were not men but andrones, and that they were not talking nor feeding pipes to one another, but performing what must be some sort of repair. Miryum must have glimpsed it when she had been brought to Midland.

Beyond lay the end of the passage, which opened to the chamber full of coffin-like metal cases with rounded ends, each resting atop a little low plinth. This bore no resemblance to the cavernous chilly chamber in which the coercer truly lay, and so it was purely imaginary. Over to one side, I saw Miryum with Dameon crouched on her shoulder. They were gazing down at a case, and I guessed that somehow, during the dream, Miryum had allowed herself to discover the case in which Straaka lay. Of course it was not the real Straaka. Any more than Malik was the real Malik.

Miryum turned at the sound of her name, and seeing Malik, her face darkened and two short curved daggers appeared in her hands. But there was fear in her eyes and shock, too, and when she lifted her sword, the point over the case trembled.

‘You will not keep his soul imprisoned any longer, monster!’ Miryum roared, and on her shoulder, Dameon’s feline ears flattened to his skull.

‘There is a way,’ I said.

Her eyes fell to me and widened. ‘Betrayer! You served the sorcerer all along?’

‘I came to help you, even as the white cat did,’ I said, willing Malik to move slowly and carefully towards her. ‘I have defeated the sorcerer. See, he is unarmed and does my bidding. I have learned that this is not his true form. Let me show his true face to you.’

‘No!’ Miryum cried, and there was real horror on her face.

I exerted my will, and to my astonishment, Malik did not become Miryum, but Straaka!

‘You will not let me go,’ he said. ‘You have gladly held me captive.’

Miryum gave a high, wild scream of pure anguish.

At the same moment, a segment of the case sprang open and I was close enough to see Straaka lying dead in it, a terrible wound open in his chest. It was how he had looked in the White Valley, and all at once I understood that Miryum had not wanted to release the tribesman’s soul – Straaka had said as much when he had told her that she must sever them so that she could find a living person to love. She had tried, but in her essence, she had been gladdened that they could not be parted. The shame of this had caused her mind to fold in on itself, resulting in this strange dream in which she had enacted, over and over, her attempt and her failure to free Straaka. But I had misjudged the dream badly, because even now that Miryum had been forced to face her shame, the dream did not break, and worse, she lifted the sword to drive it into Straaka.

To my horror, Dameon leapt down from her shoulder onto the tribesman’s chest and lay down directly under the terrible point of the blade, lifting his head to gaze into the tribesman’s handsome ebony face.

In that moment, I was utterly stunned to see Straaka’s eyes open and they were Straaka’s eyes. Miryum gasped and the sword fell from her fingers as she backed away in shock and incredulity.

‘Do not be afraid, my
ravek
,’ Straaka said.

And then the dream shattered, flinging me away. I flew through a hundred broken visions. Matthew, running along a street with a lit torch; Erit crouched over a dog that lay bleeding from a slash along its flank; Rushton lying on blankets on the ground under a red sky, tossing and turning, his face wet with sweat, a beast looming over him, its jaws wide; Jak gazing at a pool of shining water; Mouse lying on a bed with Sabatien weeping over him; Sover gazing at them both with pity; Maruman curled asleep on a rooftop, the little owl Fey beside him, eyes open wide; Maryon taking a tiny red-haired child from the arms of a beaming Freya; Rolf taking a laughing Iriny in his arms.

‘Elspeth?’

I did not want to open my eyes. My head felt as if someone had been running around the inside of my skull and my mouth was so dry that my tongue lay in it like a wad of cloth.

‘Elspeth, my dear, wake else I will give way to a powerful desire to bite your ear.’

That startled me awake. I sat up abruptly and groaned as I straightened my head. I had a terrible crick in my neck for I had been lying with my head on the side of Dameon’s bed. He was leaning on his elbow and grinning at me. ‘That was an astounding and fascinating experience,’ he said. ‘I assume it was not just a dream. I mean, I was inside Miryum’s dream and then you were there as well. And we were both cats?’

‘You were a very dignified and beautiful white cat,’ I said, gingerly turning my head left and then right, massaging my neck.

‘Straaka was within her dream too,’ Dameon said, wonderingly. ‘When the case opened and I saw him lying there dead, I grieved for him. I used empathy to reach into him, striving for his life when I was on Miryum’s shoulder and I felt a flicker of response. I recognised that he was not as the other creatures in the dream, which were all chimeras, but a true spirit as I was and as you and Miryum were. I leapt onto him and used the contact to make empathic contact with his spirit.’

‘That
was why I could not find him on the dreamtrails guarding Miryum’s sleeping spirit, I said. ‘He had actually gone into her dream. She didn’t even know. It was only your making him open his eyes that let her see that it was truly Straaka’s spirit, that let her see he did not blame her for binding his spirit to her life. She would have known at once that the only way he got into her visiondream was to will himself there. That he had willingly entered and trapped himself in her distorted imagining, where he would die over and over, without waking, showed her how much he loved her. For why else would he submit himself to that if not for love?
That
is what broke the dream.’

‘He loved her very deeply, I felt that,’ Dameon said, and his face was sad and stern. ‘Well, what now?’

‘I will wait until my head stops ringing and then I will go and see how Ahmedri is progressing. Miryum may have been moved into the resurrection chamber already – I do not know how long we have been dreaming together.’

‘Why do you suppose she made me a cat?’ Dameon asked.

‘She made me one, too. Maybe she is fond of them,’ I said. ‘Or maybe it is because of Maruman . . .’

‘Well, it was interesting to have a tail that had a life of its own and fur that stood on end whenever I was alarmed. Like having hair with a mind of its own. But how could Miryum know how it is to be a cat?’

It was a good question and one I had pondered before, without coming to a conclusion. ‘The dreamtrails are mysterious,’ I said finally. ‘Much happens upon them that cannot be explained in the words and terms of the real waking world.’ I examined his face closely. ‘Do you truly feel all right?’

He nodded rather absently and then said he was hungry. Throwing the blankets off he grimaced at his rumpled clothes, saying he would bathe and change them, but first he would come with me to find out what was happening to Ahmedri.

Dragon and Tash were asleep, I saw, as we passed their door, and there was no sign of Ana as we made our way through the main chamber. I got a fright to find the screen was now blank and dark, but God answered my alarmed question in the same calm, serene tone, saying that Ahmedri had some time ago entered the area around Midland infused with a force that repelled the horde of flying mutants, and that this force disrupted the connection between it and the andrones. ‘I do not much like being blind,’ I said, unthinkingly.

‘There are times when it irks me as well,’ Dameon said, but he was smiling wryly when I turned to him in dismay. He said, ‘It is funny how swiftly we become accustomed even to complex and strange things, and then feel the lack of them when they are not there. If you think about it, it was only yesterday you figured out how to see through the eyes of the androne, and already we take it for granted.’

‘It is easy to get used to things that serve you and ease your way,’ I said thoughtfully, thinking I had become so accustomed to strange things that I might be a very different person indeed than the girl I had been when I had first been sent to Obernewtyn. Truly we were what life made of us.

Only when we entered the main chamber did I remember I had been waiting for Miryum to be bought up from the lower levels of Midland to the resurrection chamber in the Galon Institute. I asked God where she was and learned that the cryopod containing her sleeping form was even now being installed in a chamber that would be able to be sealed when she became infectious.

‘Do you wish me to begin the resurrection process immediately?’ God asked. Its tone was devoid of feeling and yet I was aware that it must have heard enough of our talk to deduct that I was ambivalent about waking Miryum. At the same time, it struck me that it had offered no obstacle.

Did that mean it did regard Miryum as one of my assistants, or was it willing to wake her simply because she could be restored to sleep at any moment? Or was it simply that Hannah had told it that my quest was to be set above all other matters? Certainly it would have heard enough to deduce that Miryum had an important part to play in my quest.

The door opened and Ana came staggering in, half buried under a pile of things. Seeing Dameon, she dropped them unceremoniously and came at once to embrace him, telling him fervently that she was glad he had woken with his wits intact. He answered with amusement that he was glad of it too, though being a cat had certainly proven a salutary experience.

Ana was struck dumb, which had him bursting out laughing, and as he explained himself, I thought that he seemed at last to have thrown off his heavy gloom over the loss of Balboa. He made a lively tale of our adventure in Miryum’s dream and when Dragon and Tash entered, having been awakened by our voices, even Tash laughed in delight at his talk of cats and warriors and sorcerers, saying there had been stories about such things on the tabyls and she had loved them.

I offered to heat Ahmedri the last of the soup and Tash said shyly that she had made a proper welcome feast in anticipation of Ahmedri’s arrival, and with our leave, she would lay it out. We all set about preparing the welcome feast. As we worked, Dragon begged Dameon to retell the first part of the story, for she and Tash had missed it. He obeyed and his description of his feelings and experiences as a cat caused them much amazement and hilarity. He was describing the agreeable if startling feeling of having a tail to swish when Ana led me away to the pile of things she had left on a bench.

‘I forgot in all the excitement to say that I went to Incidental Storage G in readiness and God directed me to Hannah’s things,’ she said softly, so as not to interrupt Dameon’s story. ‘You were right about it cleaning this residence. Kelver Rhonin’s things were there too.’

‘What did Hannah leave?’ I asked.

‘Not much, truly,’ she warned. ‘Some scribings and a few other bits and pieces, as well as a good walking stick. They are all here, but I will have to dig them out. You should have seen what else was there – a vast strange collection of things, mostly taken from people who were rescued. I asked God about the memory seed. She knew at once what I meant but she said there were millions of them in Midland alone. But seeing all the possessions of all those people rescued by the andrones, it suddenly occurred to me that the androne that brought us in might have brought in our things as well. At least some of them. So I had the idea of asking about my . . . your bow and arrow because there can’t be millions of them, and I described some of the other things, too. God has Hendon looking right now.’

My head was spinning. ‘If all of the things from the camp in the desert are here . . . that would be such a boon,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘I knew it would please you. Of course he still has to find it, Hendon I mean.’

‘If he had not done so by tomorrow, I will go there to this storage,’ I said. ‘I’d like to have a look at the things Kelver Rhonin left as well.’

‘You know it is an odd thing but God asked if I wanted the belongings of Hannah
Obernewtyn
. Do you suppose they bonded ere the end after all? Garth said it was Beforetime tradition for the woman to take the man’s name.’ Ana asked rather wistfully.

‘God spoke of her by that name to me as well,’ I said. ‘I think that Garth has been right all along. Hannah did love Jacob as he loved her.’

Ana beamed at me, then she pounced on something in the pile. ‘Now this will be useful,’ she said, taking up a small black plast band. ‘Remember God spoke of being able to locate Kelver Rhonin with a golator. Well these are small ones. I brought back one for each of us, as well as a few spare ones.’ She fastened the black band around her wrist and held it out to admire it.

‘What is their use to us?’ I asked.

‘They have many uses,’ Ana said with authority. ‘They let us communicate with God the whole time we are within her range. You just talk at it. That means we can speak to her even when we are outside buildings. It also means she can enable us to speak to one another, almost as if we were farseekers.’

I was about to say I
was
a farseeker, until it occurred to me that the device might not have the limitations of Talent, so that we could communicate with one another between the surface and under the earth. Also, it meant that the others could speak to me, without having to wait until I contacted them.

I allowed Ana to fasten one on my own wrist, thinking the bands would also mean that God could hear
us
constantly, but I suspected Ana would not find this a matter of concern. It had not occurred to her that although a computermachine would hear anything we said impartially and unemotionally, it would still absorb our words as information and perhaps act on them, especially if there was something in those words that interfered with the commands it had been given by its maker. Ana went on to say that the golators would let us find one another, too, even if we were not speaking, so long as we wore them and were within a reasonable distance of one another. Their range would be greater while we were within the reach of God’s power. I asked how they were powered, and she said it was the motion of a living person that powered the little devices somehow.

‘Hold yours close to mine,’ she told me. I obeyed and she put her mouth close to her own device and spoke a few soft words. I was startled to hear God’s voice coming from the little device in a whisper. I could not hear its words, but Ana nodded unconsciously before carefully pressing a button on the side of both devices.

‘Now they will know one another,’ she said. ‘If you don’t smash them, it seems they will just go on and on working forever.’

I shook my wrist, feeling the little device as a slight irritation, but no doubt I would become used to it, though I would like it better once we had left Midland and God could no longer listen to us. ‘So how do I find you?’

‘You use this little dial to tell the golator who you want to find. You see the colours around it, and there is a little arrow on the side of the dial. If you want to know where I am, you turn the arrow to my colour and then press it in. I have made myself yellow. Look!’ Triumphantly she showed me the front of the smooth device where two pricks of light appeared close together. One was white and one was yellow. ‘The white is you. Now watch.’ Ana moved apart from me and I was fascinated to see the lights move minutely away from one another. ‘God says everyone wore them in the Beforetime, and people always knew where their friends or lovers or children were. Or at least they could find them when they needed them. That’s how Kelver Rhonin has one.’

‘But you said they were powered by a living body, and Kelver Rhonin must be long dead, no matter what he did after leaving Northport, so how could another golator find his, and would it work from above?’

‘God said we can use a large golator that is not worn on the wrist – it is a more complex and powerful device that can pick up even a powerless golator, as long as it is close enough to it. God is going to fix one so that it will recognise Kelver Rhonin’s golator.’ Her face changed as she took in my words. ‘You are thinking of the glide . . .’

I had forgotten her quickness, but Dragon chose that moment to come and insist we admire the bread Tash had just taken from the cooking box. Smelling the lovely familiar yeasty smell rising from four golden loaves of new-baked bread, I had a sudden vivid memory of Kella teaching Matthew how to bake bread at the safe house in Sutrium, before the slavers had carried him off. Then I thought of seeing Rushton lying asleep, a beast leaning over him, and then of the brief vision I had experienced after the breaking of Miryum’s dream of Matthew running through a dark street with a torch. All glimpses, all too short for me to say which had been memories and which dream gibberish.

Ana was asked to slice the hot bread and said it ought to stand a little first. As they bade Dameon decide if it should be cut at once or after a time, my thoughts shifted to the little glimpse I had of Rolf taking Iriny into his arms. I hoped
that
, at least, was true, but was it really possible Ceirwan and Freya had borne a child already? They had only begun to speak of bonding when I had been there last, but perhaps there had been more between them than I had guessed. Well, the birth of any child was rare enough that it would be a cause for joy, and since Freya was an enhancer, it was like to make everyone dote on the child.