The Red Queen (57 page)

‘You know nothing,’ Miryum sent, goaded to speech by words she could not refuse to hear.

‘I know that there is love and there is courage, and sometimes the greatest courage is to go away from love to do what is needful and what is right. Does this decision of yours to die accord with your knightly creed, or do you abandon it now because it was merely a costly and ornate cloak you wore for a time out of vanity? Ask yourself what noble motives rule you now.’

I meant my words to sting her to life, but when a strangled croaking sob came from her lips, my coldness melted away, leaving only pity. I knelt by the cot, and moving aside the cords running to her body and to the bed from some device that had been set up in the corner of the tent, I took Miryum’s hand. It was larger than mine, but there was no strength in it now. ‘Miryum, you know he would never have wanted this and if there is a place where a spirit lasts beyond the death of the body, then his will wait for yours.’

I heard the keening sorrow of her mind, but she only said in a creaking whisper, ‘I am afraid.’

‘Of living?’

‘I would live because he wished it but I cannot go back into that cold deepsleep. I fought so hard to be free of it in the first place because I could not . . . I could not bear it . . .’

I remembered the feeling of sinking into endless icy darkness, at the bottom of which was not death but something worse. ‘I understand,’ I said softly. ‘I feared it too, maybe more than death.’

‘Yes!’ she croaked more forcefully, and this time her head moved slightly towards me, and her eyes found mind. ‘I can’t,’ she said, and I had a memory of her saying those same words in this same way, in the midst of the Battlegames, when she had to cross a high pole. All coercers misliked water and had difficulty with heights, and the measure of that difficulty was the strength of their power. Miryum was a very powerful coercer and I remembered how she stopped halfway across a pole so that Rushton had been forced to come back precariously and lead her step by step across the void. But this was a void where none could reach out to draw her back or save her.

I thought of what Ahmedri said Straaka had told him about Miryum surviving if I succeeded in my quest. Ana had assumed it could only mean I would find a govamen terminal where Sentinel was, but there could be many other things it might mean, and one was that Straaka had lied to try to force Miryum to live. Had he not said he had done what he could? Perhaps he had come to me and not to Miryum because she would have seen through his lie. Though if he had told such a lie, she must have kept her deepest terror secret from him.

Or maybe it was that only I, having experienced the horror of waking inside a body that would not and could not wake, could truly sympathise with her.

I sighed. ‘I see, my friend. I do see,’ I said, ‘and I will not argue with you, if you choose death over that cold and terrible sleep.’

I bade Miryum a sombre farewell and went to the fire, asking Dameon to go back to sit with her. There was no sign of Ahmedri and when I asked Ana about him, she said he had gone for a walk. I asked where Tash and Dragon had gone and why they were not getting ready to leave and Ana explained that God had found some problem in Hendon’s diagnosticks that would take two hours to fix. Tash had gone below with him, and Dragon with her.

I asked what
diagnosticks
were and Ana for once admitted she had no idea.

‘
I
know what it is,’ Swallow said. ‘God stuffed the poor thing so full of knowledge and pipes and indigestible devices that it has a bellyache. A diagnosticks is the name of an androne’s belly.’

‘Fool.’ Ana gave him a weary irritable look that had some fondness in it, before turning back to the burned pot she had begun scouring with sand. Her manner towards the gypsy contrasted sharply with the almost hero-worshipping regard she had offered him before Habitat. Swallow’s smile had faded at her sharp words and he was now regarding Ana with a moody, puzzled look. I wondered if the tensions between them had arisen because they had been forced to pretend to desire one another to protect Ana from Speci suitors. Then I reminded myself it was truly none of my affair.

Ana set the pot aside and said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to wait until after darkmoon?’

I shook my head. ‘Even if we go tonight we will still be able to reach Northport before darkmoon.’

In the end, it was nearing dusk before we left. But despite my frustration, I was glad to have had our departure delayed, for even as the sun began westering, Dameon came to tell me that Miryum wished to speak to me before we left. As soon as I entered the tent, even lacking empathy, I felt at once that her mood had changed. The anger and bitterness had left her face, and she looked only tired and very sad.

‘It is not only because I fear the cryosleep,’ she rasped, as soon as I sat by her bed. Then she sent, ‘In truth, if I am honest, I think I could break it if I wanted to. It is that Straaka is no more. Not in body and not in spirit.’

I thought of the vast black hole that had opened in my heart at those times when I had believed Rushton was dead, and also of the terrible haggard despair I had seen in Rushton’s face when he had thought me dead. The loss of love was truly unendurable, and yet people did endure. I would have endured if Rushton had died. A flash came to me of him hiding under the slaver’s platform and I felt a stab of fear that he, too, had died, and then a surge of certainty that he had not, or I would know it because of the golden cord linking our spirits. Yet even if he did die, I would have to go on because of my quest.

‘Straaka cared that you lived,’ I said at last, and I told her the words Straaka had said, and her tears welled and fell, unstopped. ‘He believed your life would have meaning and purpose. He wanted that for you,’ I told her. ‘If you live, eventually you will find a purpose. Perhaps it is to return to Obernewtyn to lead the knights.’

She was silent for a long time, and then she sent, ‘He is not like his brother.’

She was speaking of Ahmedri now, I realised. ‘Not on the surface,’ I said. ‘But Straaka’s courage and strength and his sense of what is right – they are in Ahmedri, too.’

‘Straaka said they were estranged because of me. He told me his brother had always been full of pride, rigid and eager to take umbrage, and he regarded Straaka’s decision to bond with me as a personal affront and spoke against it before the whole tribe. He made disparaging comments about me, though he had only seen me from afar. It was a deadly insult and ought to have come to blows, but Straaka only turned away from his brother. Somehow that was the worst thing he could have done. They did not speak again.’

‘I think the journey from Sador changed him greatly and he is glad to have the chance to redeem his slight against you and to serve his brother. He did love him very much, that was part of the trouble.’ I hesitated. ‘Miryum, I wish we did not have to leave you . . .’

Miryum nodded. ‘I know it. No one who is a true leader likes to leave a follower, but your quest is greater than anything you could do for me, and from what Dameon says, none of us will survive if you fail in it. And maybe Straaka did not lie. Maybe in completing your quest, you will save me. If I can bear to let God put me back to sleep. But I don’t want his brother to wait here. He must take Straaka’s bones to Sador.’

She had ever been a person who was at her best when helping other people, and this helplessness she must now endure would be very hard for her. No doubt her dislike of Ahmedri was fed by this.

‘Tash will remain in Midland, too,’ I reminded her, ‘though she will only be able to come when the androne comes to tend to you. Unless you will have them shift your bed below?’

‘I will remain up here,’ Miryum sent firmly enough that I flinched. She gave me an apologetic look and continued less forcefully, ‘Dameon said it will be some time before I can endure sunlight, but when I can, I will open the flaps of this tent so that I can look out at the sky from my bed.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Dameon told me about Tash and about the people in Habitat. He said that Hannah Seraphim dwelt among them for a time at the end of her life. I will ask the girl, Tash, to tell me more about her people.’

If only Miryum did not have a deadly sickness, I would have been well content to leave them together. But as it was, none of this matter was of my making or choosing. And I had no idea, still, if Miryum would choose to live and die where she was, or to let God return her to cryosleep, in the hope that I would succeed in my quest and find a govamen computermachine that would enable God to cure her. Let it be unknown, I thought.

I rose and bowed in the Sadorian way, saying very formally, ‘Fare thee well, Coercer-knight.’

I came out of the tent to find the others waiting around a fire upon which bubbled a pot of some sweet-smelling liquid. Both Hendon and Unit A stood together beside the platform that rested now beside the fire, and they were indistinguishable to my eyes. Tash stood beside Dragon, talking quietly, and I realised Unit A must have come up because of the Speci girl. Ahmedri had long since returned and he and Swallow were checking the bindings on the pile of bundles and packs atop the platform, watched by Ana.

Ahmedri was the first to see me approaching, and he came at once and embraced me warmly. I hugged him hard back and said I had not liked him following me about but I was now sorrier than I could have imagined to be going on without him.

‘I wish I might have accompanied you to the end of your great quest,’ he said. ‘If you see Falada when you come to Northport, tell her I have loved her and wish her well.’

‘If I see her, I will send her back to you. And I pray your wolf will find his way to you as well. Be gentle with Miryum, my friend, she grieves the loss of her love very deeply, and she fears the dark, cold sleep. I cannot blame her for either of those things. Be kind to her, even if she is not kind to you, for Straaka’s sake.’

‘I will stay with her, no matter what she decides to do,’ he said, then he stepped back, his face turning grave as he bowed in the formal Sadorian way, and said, ‘Goodbye, Elspeth, I am glad to have known you. I pray you will succeed in your quest, for all our sakes.’

The others made their farewells to him, and I turned to Tash. She stood close to Dragon, and I saw that her eyes were shining, but she did not weep.

‘Dear Tash, I am sorry you cannot go on to the end with me,’ I said.

‘It does not matter. No one’s journey through life is the same. I have a purpose here, keeping God company and helping Ahmedri with Miryum, at least for a while. You have given me this.’ She smiled tremulously and the smile was real, though now tears fell, too. ‘And perhaps Ahmedri’s wolf will come. I would like to see a wolf.’

‘Goodbye,’ I said, and hugged her hard, fighting back my own tears.

And so we left Midland, Tash, Miryum and Ahmedri, heading north-west over the dazzling white plain, which shimmered with heat even though it was approaching dusk. For some hours, we walked over sand, but then sand gave way to a harder bone-white ground that was uneven and stony but less wearisome than walking on sand. There was a wavering pattern in it that reminded me of the sand at the edge of the great sea after the tide has gone out. All of us had switched from sandals to laced Beforetime boots before leaving Midland, and though I had been reluctant, I was surprised by how cool and comfortable my feet felt in them.

Each of us carried a pack for ease of access to things we might need, but the heaviest supplies were borne by the androne whose strength was prodigious. Not only did it pull the pallet, it now had fixtures on its back like shelves onto which many parcels and bundles were now stacked and lashed. There were also hooks from which other bundles were hung, and it had compartments in its body into which things had been fitted. These burdens must have weighed a great deal and yet its massive strides were as smooth as when it had walked unencumbered.

It spoke in the same slightly stiff, metallic, masculine voice as it had before, and sometimes in the smooth female voice of God, for the computermachine would be in contact with it and us until we moved outside its range.

It was Ana who spoke occasionally with the androne, and more often with God, seeming to have no difficulty in speaking to two people inside a single body. For me, both voices were facets of the computermachine and I spoke to it only to ask for information, but Ana not only peppered it with questions, she made observations and asked its opinion on things as if she spoke to a living person.

But even her boundless curiosity faltered, for it was very hot and a wind blew up that seemed hotter still, even as the sun was setting. Following Ahmedri’s advice we had created flowing head-coverings similar to those worn in Sador, and we had dressed in thin, light Beforetime trews and flowing shirts that covered our legs and arms. I had added two pairs of the more sturdy dark blue trews and soft short-sleeved shirts but I eschewed the waterproofed coats with hoods Ana had taken from the Beforetime storage, preferring the dark green coat I had been given by the futuretellers. Yet it was far too hot for it, or for the boots I had been given, and I wondered if I would ever get any use out of them. It seemed unlikely, and yet I had been unable to resist taking them, along with the rest of the things I had brought from Obernewtyn. They were all I had left of that beloved place and I would not relinquish them if I could help it.

I carried the memory seed on me again, but this time in a pouch hung about my neck and tucked securely under my clothes.

We had food as well. Some of Tash’s loaves and some pots of her jam, as well as other things she had prepared and a great many of the Beforetime pouches of dust and stones that would turn into food with water and heat. But we did not stop to eat that first night, for we did not want to waste a moment of travelling time. We ate as we walked and stopped only very late at night, to sleep fully clothed beneath silver plast blankets in the lee of a low hillock. We set a strict watch cycle, but there was no sign of a
rhenling
swarm, nor did we see any other beasts. Nevertheless the androne was left to stand a good distance away from us alongside the loaded pallet, in case
rhenlings
did come and looked like attacking. We would have it shine its headlight and draw them away from us, but only if we were in imminent danger, for we had no idea if it would be impervious to their claws and teeth. Ana had come up with the plan and I had been dismayed, for I had charged her to ask God if the androne could protect us. I had supposed God would have armed it with some sort of weapon, and when I said as much, Ana said that it had weapons, but that this was the best way to deal with a
rhenling
horde.