The Starfollowers of Coramonde (19 page)

The surviving
members of the troupe drew together; cavalrywomen moved to disarm them. Then
one of the Glyffans dropped, a long war arrow’s fletch at her back, a pale-head
sticking out of her mailed breast. Gil searched upward, saw an archer on a
rooftop and cursed himself—
Screw-up!
—for not being more cautious. He
brought the Mauser up, fired, missed. A second arrow found Ferrian’s thigh; Gil
squeezed off three more shots. The bowman’s body hurled from its perch.

The American
demanded of the quailed Sages where the other Southwastelanders were. “Abroad
in the library,” one answered. “There were many of them.”

Swan arrived
to investigate the shots. She split her troops into search teams. Gil went with
seven Glyffans, to help. He never knew how many rooms he ran through, doors he
yanked open, praying Bey’s inhumanly calm, one-eyed stare would meet him on the
other side. There were racks of clay tablets whose age he couldn’t even guess,
ages-old works of art. There were enormous books bound in gold, set with
precious gems to show their rarity and worth. There were piles of scrolls and
illuminated folios, maps and charts. He saw plant specimens and items of natural
history, but ignored them all. He went on, dreamlike, ripping aside endless
curtains, turning countless door handles, running, ever running through the
maze of corridors.

Twilight
turned as they searched. They had divided the offshoots among them. Gil fell
behind, making his inspections thoroughly. The Sisters had outdistanced him and
gone to the next stretch of corridors when he heard a whisper.

Pistol ready,
he traced it back to an unlighted alcove. Then he recognized a skinny frame and
lean, melancholy face.

“Dunstan!” He
lowered the handgun and would’ve let out a yell, but the Horseblooded, at the
far end of a hidden hallway, hushed him with a finger sign. He was armed with a
short stabbing sword, and wanted quiet. “Is Bey here?” Gil mouthed silently. With
a nod and a signal to follow, Dunstan slipped down a flight of stairs. Gil
complied.

Trailing the
Horseblooded’s fleet figure, he was only a few yards behind when Dunstan
slipped through a door. Gil came more slowly, then jumped into the doorway. His
glance skimmed past shelf on shelf of giant books, an ancient suit of armor on
a display pedestal in a corner, an iron lance in its gauntlet, and a hearth.
Then he saw Dunstan.

His friend
stood, sword at the breast of Yardiff Bey. With the sorcerer at gunpoint, Gil
knew fear and elation; the Hand of Salamá had forced his hatred far beyond what
Gil had thought were its extreme limits. Here was his brilliant, elusive
nemesis, everything that made him awaken in sweat and clouded his thought.

“Move away,
Dunstan.” He lifted his pistols, both muzzles leveled at Bey. His friend didn’t
move from his line of fire.

“Stay your
hand a moment,” said the Horseblooded.

“I said stand
clear.” His thumbs were moving the hammers back to half-cock. Whatever reasons
Dunstan had, he didn’t want to hear them.

“Nay, I will
say my piece,” the other insisted.

“No!” The
muzzles shook now. Yardiff Bey glared at the American, unmoved. Gil took
another step, meaning to angle around for an unobstructed line of fire. “Look
out; I’m gonna—”

A terrific
weight hit his shoulders, driving him to the floor. Something crashed off his
steel cap; star clusters went off in his eyes. His arms were wrenched back, the
pistols torn from his hands. By the time he could focus there were sharp points
at each side of his neck, just behind the jaw. He croaked his friend’s name.

The
Horseblooded stepped away from the sorcerer. Yardiff Bey blithely waved a hand.
Dunstan shimmered and became a stranger, a dark-skinned Occhlon. Gil hung his
head abjectly. “Oh no; oh no, no.” There were more Southwastelanders, who began
to laugh.

“You would
not have been deceived by so hasty a glamour,” Bey told him, “had you not
wanted to see Dunstan so very much. I did but work with what was already in
your mind.”

They shoved
him against the hearth and held blades at his waist and throat. In this moment
of complete disaster, he accepted it listlessly. There was a large worktable in
the room, cluttered with books, low-burned candles and a long parchment list.
Gil stared without seeing it, while Bey gathered implements, preparing for
hasty departure. On the table was a huge leather binder, another intact jacket
of
Arrivals Macabre.
It was empty, though its raised seal was
undisturbed, and its stacked pages, bundled securely, lay near it.

“Be
intelligent for once, insect,” the sorcerer was saying. “You were observed, led
astray and captured; it is accomplished fact. If needs be, you are our safe
passage past the Glyffans. You may yet see Dunstan in the flesh. Simply obey.”

Gil’s scalp
burned.
Insect?
He fought vertigo, a little less punchy. “You blew it
when you came to Ladentree. They’ll never let you walk.”

The Hand of
Salamá permitted himself an indulgent smile, the least retaliation. More than
that would have been undue credit to the outlander, whose deception by carrier
pigeon had caused the sorcerer to cancel standby plans to take Cynosure and
Blazetongue. Bey had, at last, the prize secreted by Rydolomo. “Take the pages
and put them in my pouch,” he ordered, “and leave the sealed cover. It is of no
use to me. We depart through the rear gates.”

Gil
shuddered. He would have opened himself to the Berserkergang in that moment,
but it wasn’t in him and he didn’t know how to exert it. He made an effort to
push the fuzz back in his brain, staring down at the empty covers of Rydolomo’s
book, his fright making every detail of binder and seal leap up at him with
abnormal clarity. Then it struck him exactly what he was seeing. He pressed
slightly against the weapons pricking him. He would need room, a piddling bit
of leeway.

“You’ll never
make it,” he told the sorcerer, “Andre deCourteney’s here.”

Yardiff Bey
looked at him as if he were crazy. “What care I for an imbecile like
deCourteney?”

“He and the
Glyffans will stop you, but it’s not too late to make a deal. Otherwise they’ll
bring you down before you can get out of Glyffa.” He was making it up as he
went, playing to his guards. If they were distracted, he had one chance. “Maybe
Andre can’t stop you,” he leaned forward at the waist and dagger points backed
off fractions of an inch, “but the Trustee can, can’t she?”

The
Southwastelanders looked to their leader. Gil’s heart flip-flopped. They didn’t
have to buy it; they just had to see he was in a dialogue with the Hand of
Salamá.

“She
is not nigh,” Bey replied, “or I should know it. I will be long away long
before she is.”

“Oh yeah?
There’s something you should know.” Locking in on the sorcerer’s ocular and the
dark, liquid eye beside it, he leaned forward even more. The blades retreated
one more degree. It was high-voltage triumph when his hand touched the table’s
edge. “The Trustee knows you’re Gabrielle’s father. She’ll have your ass.” His
other hand got to the table. “You and these poor slobs are through.” He eased
down, forearms resting on the table, torso over it. “And Salamá’s going down
for good.” The two points pressing his ribs didn’t matter; he’d gone as far as
he needed to. The sorcerer, bored with him, turned to fasten his bags,
gathering thaumaturgical tools.

“So save
yourself, Bey.” Gil pushed himself backward, bringing his hands back toward
himself, brushing the cover of
Arrivals Macabre
with his wrist. “And
tell these scumbags to let loose.”

He dared not
look at the table now, and could only hope he’d gauged it right, and that Bey wouldn’t
see. He perspired, waiting, lost control of his impulse, and his eyes strayed
to the empty binder. He’d moved it just enough to bring Rydolomo’s seal up to a
candle stub’s flame. The men holding him hadn’t noticed. He held his breath.

That alerted
Yardiff Bey. He turned, wondering what had made the American go silent. He
followed Gil’s eyes, saw it all. His voice was a whiplash. “The seal, fools!” A
thread of melted wax ran from it, even as he lunged at the binder. The Occhlon
stirred, mystified, indecisive.

There was an
explosion over the table. The Occhlons flinched back. Gil, braced for it, threw
them off, spun, and dodged around the corner of the hearth, crouching in its
momentary protection.

The guardian
entity confined by the seal of Rydolomo hovered in the air. Its tendrils
flailed at one astounded Southwastelander, then another. They bounced through
the air like tennis balls, one crunching up against the mantelpiece, the other
dumping the table over, landing five feet beyond. The two handguns jumped from
his clutch. Yardiff Bey ducked in to scoop up the bundled pages of
Arrivals
Macabre.

Another
Occhlon, the acrobat in red who’d perched over the lintel and taken Gil, sprang
in and hewed at the guardian with his yataghan. A pulse of light crackled down
the blade. The Southwastelander dropped, arm charred, and there was the smell
of smoking flesh.

Gil, peeking
around the corner of the hearth, saw Yardiff Bey slide himself across the
polished floor. The window at the opposite end of the shelf room was too far
away. The sorcerer’s hand was near the latch of his ocular, as if he debated
unleashing whatever was contained there. Then he turned and swung the door
open.

The entity
whirled angrily, tracking the movement. It went drifting after him. Yardiff Bey
tumbled through the door and hauled it shut behind him; without time to ready a
spell, he chose to escape with his treasure. Perhaps the guardian would finish
the American, perhaps not; the overriding priority was to bear away the secret
he’d won.

One of his
men tried to do the same, but collided with the closing door. The entity flowed
over and around him. He shrilled in agony and collapsed backward, blackened.
The door’s wood burned where the thing had touched it.

The guardian
throbbed darkly for a moment, then flared brighter. The last Southwastelander
flattened against the wall, whites showing all around his eyes. The sunball
drifted nearer. He sidled along the shelf, slowly. It played with him for a
moment, then rushed to block his way. He reversed field, and it circled to stop
him again. The Occhlon’s mind snapped; he ran at it with his blade high,
screaming, “Bey-yyy!” This time the guardian flashed, blindingly. The desert
man became a human firebrand, dropping to the floor, his sword twisted and
molten.

Gil knelt,
quivering with the need to fight or run. The guardian rotated slowly, waiting.
He saw a straight run for the door would be suicide, but he’d noticed that the
being recovered for a second or two after each discharge. It wafted toward him
gently. He rose to his feet.

He scrambled
around the pedestal on which the armor suit stood. The guardian detected him,
came at him. He tugged hard, and hopped to the side as the armor tottered
forward. The entity stopped short, but the iron lance clamped in the suit’s
gauntlet plunged into it. Streamers of energy spun out, dancing down the lance
and armor, which began to soften and run, glowing, in abrupt thermoplasticity.
Waves of heat filled the room and globs of scoria, blasted free, started more
fires. For a heartbeat, the thing was dimmer.

He charged
past the guardian, doubled over. An instant later its effulgence returned. The
guardian circled and dove at him from behind just as he leapt one Southwastelander’s
charred corpse and threw the burning door open. Realizing he couldn’t get
through in time, he pushed himself to one side. The sunball boiled past, into
the corridor, searing him.

It raged
against the stone opposite the door. He slammed the door shut and, absurdly,
shot the bolt. Backing away, watching the portal, he paid no attention to the
fires and stench of burned flesh. As he’d feared, the door began to crackle
more earnestly; smoke and flame seeped in around it, indicating the guardian’s
effort to re-enter and continue its vigilance. He scooped up his pistols and
headed for the window.

There was a
drop into darkness; he had no idea how far up he was. But the decision was
easy; the cuckolded guardian was nearly through the door. He hung by his
fingers from the sill and let go. He fell less than ten feet.

He rose and
stumbled through blackness. Red light flickering from the window didn’t help
much, but at least the guardian evinced no interest in coming after him. Wading
blindly through shrubs and flower beds, he found a wall and groped along until
he came to a door. Inside, he trotted slowly, pistols out, and picked up his
bearings. He raced to the juncture of corridors where the search teams had
divided.

There he
found Andre, Swan and some of the Sages along with Sisters of the Line. He
gasped his story; they had to chase Bey at once. But Andre rapped, “The
guardian must be stopped first, and the fires. They will destroy lives, and
Ladentree.” He pounded away, Swan and some of the Glyffans at his back, over
Gil’s violent protests.

Ferrian was
reclining against a wall, leg bandaged. “One of the teams was set upon by more
Occhlon,” he informed the American, “and a skirmish was fought. The
Southwastelanders killed and injured many.”

“If we don’t
nab Bey right now there’ll be lots worse than that. He’s got what he came for.”
His eye fell on the Sages. He grabbed one, a slender old man with a carefully
trimmed beard and high, smooth forehead.

“Take me
through this damn maze, to the rear gates.” The Sage drew himself up.

“Remove your
hand,” he ordered, his expression saying he meant it, even though fighting was
prohibited to him. Gil complied. The Sage turned to his fellows. “Go, help the
Sisters of the Line in any way you may.” He immediately set off down the main
corridor. In time, through twisting hallways and wide passages, he guided Gil
to a final door. The American edged past, drew both guns and eased it open.
Horseshoes battered the earth.