Implied Spaces Page 6

  The priests continued to stalk among the bound bandits. The other bandits watched, and even though they were over a hundred paces away, Aristide could tell they weren’t happy.

  Then Aristide noticed the clay balls. They were dangling by cords from the priests’ hands, and they darted through the air as if they were creatures with minds of their own, like cicadas leashed by children to string.

  Aristide and Grax started at a sudden blast of sound. A stir of dust rose from the grove, and whirled away as the crash echoed repeatedly among the rocks. Birds flew up from their perches, calling in alarm.

  Where there had been a bound bandit, there was now nothing but air.

  Again Aristide’s face became a smooth, intent mask, a motionless work in bronze from which glittered his dark, fierce eyes.

  “So it’s true!” Grax said. He looked over his shoulder at his troops, who seemed to have grown nervous. He favored them with a silent, morale-boosting laugh.

  The murmur of the priests continued without cease. Another boom shattered the air; another bandit vanished.

  “We should attack,” said Grax.

  “The longer this goes on,” Aristide said, “the more they reduce their own strength. Let’s watch.”

  “We can’t wait too long. My men will lose heart.”

  “Go tell them the bandits are killing their own people and doing our job for us.”

  “Oh.” Grax considered this. “Oh. Very good.”

  Bent low, he rumbled down the slope to his troops, and told them to spread the word.

  “This isn’t looking good,” Bitsy said to Aristide, once they were alone.

  “No.”

  “This overthrows everything.”

  Aristide didn’t bother to answer. The priests continued their milling, their chanting. The startled birds began to settle back into the trees. Aristide watched as closely as he could.

  Another detonation sounded from the grove. The birds rose again into the sky. Another outlaw vanished. And, somewhere behind Aristide, a warhorse neighed.

  The horse was a stallion and waiting with other stallions made it fretful and belligerent, and it was beginning to scent the strange horses in the corral, and the repeated detonations had not soothed its nerves. So when the third bang echoed from the surrounding ranks the stallion answered, issuing a furious, shrieking challenge into the sky.

  Aristide glanced over his shoulder at the sound. Grax, standing by another body of caravan guards, whirled to the horseman and signaled angrily for the horseman to quiet his beast.

  Horses in the bandits’ corral answered. The first stallion screamed back at them, and so did several other horses in the party.

  Grax turned to Aristide, arms thrown wide in frustration. Aristide turned back to the plantation.

  The three priests had turned as one to stare in the direction of the noise. Their chanting ceased. And after a half-second pause they were in motion again, running, gesturing, issuing orders.

  Aristide turned to Grax and his command.

  “Now!” he called. “Charge them!”

  Grax took three steps and hurled himself onto his riding-lizard. He pulled his lance from the ground and shook it.

  “Grax the Troll!” he shouted.

  “Grax the Troll!” his riders echoed, and spurred forward.

  “Not exactly ‘Leeroy Jenkins!’” remarked Bitsy, “but I suppose it will do.”

  The riders roared over the lip of the bowl in a great cloud of dust. Grax led the lancers across the open ground to the right while the archers spread out widely, their arrows already humming through the air.

  As the riders passed him, Aristide stood to get a better view.

  The archers were not particularly accurate in firing from the backs of jouncing beasts, but their arrows at least served to increase the confusion of the bandit force. The swift advance of Grax and his lancers was hampered by the tent lines and shelters of the bandit camp, but they managed to maintain their momentum, and as they advanced trampled much of the bandits’ armor and reserve weapons underfoot.

  The main body of bandits had faded back from the edge of the palm plantation, leaving behind eight of their number still bound hand and foot. These were screaming and rolling and crying for help, much to the amusement of the archers, who were pleased to use them for target practice as they trotted forward. Aristide could see nothing of the priests.

  There was a series of concussions, however, that revealed the priests were most likely causing arrows to disappear.

  Aristide unsheathed Tecmessa and trotted forward on foot. Bitsy ran by his side.

  Ahead of him, the archers fired a low scything volley into the plantation, then jumped their beasts over the wall and rode on. Aristide followed. There followed a series of cracks, and Aristide was nearly trampled as the archers came galloping back with a group of sword-swinging bandits in pursuit. A pair of priests were leading the charge and the archers knew not to let them get close.

  It was clearly unwise to fight two priests at once. Aristide retreated along with the archers. Bitsy went up one of the palms.

  The bandits pursued to the edge of the plantation. In the shade of the palms their eyes glowed like distant candles. The archers rode back to a safe distance and then resumed their shooting. Clay balls whirled on the ends of their cords, and booms tore the air as arrows vanished in midflight. But while the priests could protect themselves, they couldn’t protect all their followers, and outlaws cried in pain and rage as they fell with arrow wounds.

  Then there were shouts of Grax the Troll! from the depths of the palm trees, and the sound of riders. One of the priests turned and dashed back into the plantation, along with a group of bandits. The other priest remained, with a handful of followers clumped behind him, so that he could protect them from arrow fire.

  Aristide came forward again, his sword leveled. A few archers trotted forward as well, but rode wide, keeping a respectful distance between themselves and Tecmessa.

  An archer sheltering behind the priest knelt, drew, let fly. Tecmessa took the arrow with a crack, a blast of wind, and a puff of dust.

  The bandits, as one, took a step back, consternation plain on their features. The priest did not move.

  Aristide paused in his advance and addressed the priest.

  “I am Aristide, the traveler. Will you favor me with your name?”

  The priest made no answer, but glared at him with orange eyes. His unnatural height was exaggerated as he stood on the wall that bordered the plantation. He wore a black turban with the tail wrapped around his lower face, a black robe, black pantaloons, boots. His hands and the skin around his eyes were blue. He wore an indigo-colored sash around his narrow waist with a pair of silver-hilted daggers stuck in it. The clay ball, no larger than a knuckle, quested on the end of its cord like the antenna of an insect.

  “If not your name,” Aristide said, “then perhaps your purpose. Your order. Feel free to discourse on the name and nature of your god—who knows, I may convert.”

  The priest gave no answer.

  “Well.” Aristide whirled his sword in a bit of bravado. “As you choose to remain silent, let us then get on to the contest of skill.”

  There was a barrage of bangs from the depths of the plantation, and cries of “Grax! Grax!“ Aristide advanced, his eyes intent on the clay ball.

  The ball swooped, darted, swung toward him. Tecmessa’s point angled toward it.

  Something twisted in the air between them. Then untwisted. A preternatural silence seemed to descend on the field for an instant.

  Aristide continued his advance. “We are well-matched, I see,” he said, “except of course in the matter of practical weaponry.”

  Tecmessa slashed through the air and cut the priest’s leg in half just above the knee. As the priest fell, a backhand cut took his right hand.

  The hand, the ball, and the cord fell to the ground, all lifeless.

  The priest gave a howl of anger, snatched a dagger from h
is waist, and lunged as he rose on the elbow of his crippled arm. Aristide parried, and then his blade thrust forward, the single edge slicing the priest’s throat.

  There was a red spurting, a rattle, a kicking of boots. The air tasted briefly of copper. The silver knife fell to the stones.

  Tecmessa slashed out again, and three bandits vanished in a blast of air. The rest scrambled back in disorder.

  Aristide leaped atop the wall and waved the archers forward, then moved into the plantation on the heels of the bandits.

  Amid the palms ahead, a knot of bandits brandished weapons in the murk and dust. Arrows hissed between the trees. Lancers galloped in, then away. Grax had succeeded in cutting off the outlaws from their mounts, which made their escape problematical, but a barrage of cracks and booms made it clear that the priests were still guarding their flock.

  “Grax the Troll!” There was a storm of arrows, followed by a rush on the flank. Cries among the bandits showed that at least some of the arrows struck home. An unnaturally tall figure rushed to meet the threat, and the riders reined in and turned. All save the leader, who was too large to easily check his speed.

  There was a bang, a swift eddy in the risen dust. Grax vanished.

  “Damn!” said Aristide.

  The Free Companions fell back in confusion. The outlaws gathered courage and prepared an attack. Aristide took several running steps forward, and took another pair of bandits with a blast from Tecmessa.

  The priest turned, the clay ball moving ahead of him like a third, questing eye. Aristide dodged behind a tree just as a blast peeled bark and sent leaves flying. He lunged out of cover to the right, Tecmessa in a high parry, and saw the priest’s boots disappearing around the tree in the other direction. The sword made a great slashing cut to the left just as the clay ball darted around the palm trunk, the cord whipping around the tree like the chain of a morning star.

  The cord was severed. The clay ball flew spinning through the air.

  The priest shrieked, a hair-raising sound like the battle cry of a cougar. Aristide took a step back as the tall, black-clad figure lunged around the palm trunk, a thrusting spear held high in one hand. The orange eyes blazed. The tail of the turban had been torn away from the lower face and revealed a mouth brimming with dozens of needle-like, moray-sharp teeth.

  The priest was inside Tecmessa’s effective range and Aristide parried desperately as he fell back, kicked to the priest’s knee, and fell back again. The priest hissed, thrust. Aristide dodged inside the thrusting spear and cut upward beneath the priest’s arm, slicing through the triceps. The spear fell from nerveless fingers; the tall black-robed figure staggered with shock. Aristide drove upward again, this time with the point, through the ribs and to the lungs and heart.

  Blood fountained past the priest’s needle teeth, and the tall, slender body began to fall. Aristide cleared Tecmessa from the corpse and rolled just in time to avoid a blast from the third priest.

  Aristide rolled to his feet, the sword on guard. The third priest hobbled toward him. He had got an arrow through his left knee early in the fight, and had spent most of the combat kneeling, protecting his followers from inbound arrows. Now he had no choice but to take the fight to the enemy.

  The clay ball quested out from his right hand. The left carried a long, curved sword.

  Aristide took a step back, keeping his distance.

  “May I suggest that you surrender?” he said. “By now your position is quite hopeless.”

  The priest snarled and continued his lurching march. An arrow whistled past his head.

  “Archers should fire all together,” Aristide called in a loud voice. “And from as many directions as possible.”

  Archers fanned out on either side. The few remaining outlaws—they were down to eight or nine—crept along in the wake of their priest. Many were badly wounded. Desperation clung to their faces.

  “You can’t defend against the arrows,” Aristide told the priest. “The second that ball of yours moves to cover an arrow coming from one flank, either I’ll take you or you’ll be hit by arrows from another quarter. So I suggest you drop your… weapon, and we can discuss your fate like reasonable men.”

  The priest hesitated. He seemed to consider the matter.

  Apparently he decided that Aristide’s analysis was correct, because in a single purposeful motion he raised his sword and slashed his own throat.

  The bandits gave a collective moan as their leader fell.

  A few fought to the last, but most tried to surrender.

  The Free Companions of Grax were not in either case inclined to mercy.

  Aristide did not participate in the brief, bloody massacre, but instead retreated to the body of the second priest he’d killed and squatted before the clay ball that lay by its tangled, knotted cord. There was a dab of blood on the end of the cord, which caused the swordsman to examine the hand of the dead priest. The cord was not tied onto the priest’s finger, but grew out of it—the cord had been alive.

  Aristide wiped Tecmessa on a clean part of the priest’s robes, then sheathed the sword. He took his dagger out of his belt and wound a bit of the cord around the tip, then raised it to examine the ball more closely. It was a dusky red in color, and plain-featured, without runes or script or magic signs.

  Bitsy dropped from one of the palms and came up to rub her cheek against the swordsman’s free hand before she gazed up at the dangling ball.

  “It seems harmless,” she said.

  “I imagine it is. Now.” He rose, took a cloth from his pocket, and wrapped the ball carefully before returning it to his pocket. He looked up.

  The battle was over. Overexcited convoy guards rode furiously over the grove, kicking up dust and looking for someone to slaughter. Aristide went looking for whoever was in charge.

  Grax’s deputy, Vidal the Archer, was trying to properly organize the looting.

  “Where’s the plunder?” he demanded, arms akimbo as he glared at the field. He was a dark-skinned man with short, bandy, horseman’s legs and a long, broad trunk, perfect for drawing his bow. He gave a bandit corpse a kick. “All we can find is their tents and their spare trousers.”

  “I’d look behind the waterfall,” Aristide said. “If memory serves, it’s a traditional place for fabulous treasure.”

  Vidal turned his horse and galloped to the waterfall. Aristide followed on foot. By the time he arrived, Vidal had checked behind the fall of water and found the bandits’ cache.

  “Grax promised me a double share,” Aristide said.

  Vidal gave him a narrow, impatient look. “You’ll get it,” he said.

  “I don’t want it,” Aristide said. “What I want is the three fastest animals you have here, and a bag of silver coin for remounts and supplies.”

  Vidal looked at him with more interest. “You have an urgent errand?”

  “Yes. I need to take the news of these priests to the College. The scholars there might be able to understand what they are, and what they represent.”

  Vidal nodded. “Very well,” he said. “You may have what you ask.”

  “I would like a few other things as well,” Aristide said. “I would like the heads of the priests, their right hands, and the balls they used to make your troopers vanish.”

  Vidal gave him a curious look. “Do you think you can get our people back?”

  Aristide considered this. “It might be possible. I doubt it, though.”

  Vidal made a pious sign. “May their next incarnations give them wisdom.”

  “Indeed.”

  Some of Vidal’s guard turned up with improvised torches, and they and their commander ventured behind the waterfall. As Aristide walked away he heard exclamations of delight and avarice at the riches found there.

  He collected the hands, the heads, the clay balls, then retrieved his barb and fed her some of the sultan’s grain. He took off the saddle and laid out his sleeping rug in the palm plantation, as far from the sight and smell of bod
ies as possible. There he drank water, ate some dried fruit, and reclined with the tail of his turban drawn across his eyes. He reckoned it had been eighty turns of the glass since he had last slept.

  When he awoke the camp was still, most of the guards asleep after celebrating their victory and their newfound fortune. He found Vidal, who had not yet slept, and greeted him. Vidal gave him his bag of silver and led him to the corral, where he chose his three mounts. Vidal offered him food for himself and grain for the animals—any grass or bushes had already been grazed out by the bandits’ beasts—and then Aristide mounted the first of the horses he planned to ride that day.

  “If you hear of any more of these priests operating in the world,” he said, “find out as many details as you can, and send word to the College.”

  “I will,” Vidal said simply.

  Bitsy sprang to her nest behind the swordsman’s saddle. Aristide rode away, leading his horses down the side canyon that led to the Cashdan and the route back across the desert to the Womb of the World.

  It had taken him eight months to walk the route that had taken him to the Vale and the Venger’s Temple.

  He would return in three, if he had to kill a hundred horses to do it.

  04

  The wall was transparent and looked out at the great metropolis beyond. No one had ever imposed any kind of architectural uniformity on the city, and the result was a skyline of fabulous extravagance. There were obelisks, pagodas, and minarets. Columns supported arches, arches supported domes, domes supported cupolas. Towers brandished horns, bartizans, mooring masts, and carved stone pinnacles with crockets. Triumphal arches crowned boulevards, and so did torii. There were stoas, cloisters, and pergolas. An enormous wheel carried entire apartments high into the sky before lowering them gently to earth, and stopped in its rotation only when someone wanted to get on or off. A brace of towers circled each other as they rose, a pair of helixes frozen in a dance.

  Buildings were made of stone, of metal, of marble, of glass, of diamond, of carbon fiber. Domes were plated with gold, with bronze, with light-absorbent fuligin, and in one case with the teeth of human children.