Bloodstone (43 page)

Nestor walked from the house.

Outside the Crusaders were clearing away the corpses, dragging them to the field beyond the buildings. Several campfires had been lit in the lee of the barn, and men were sitting quietly, talking in groups.

Isis was sitting by the paddock fence, staring out over the moonlit hills. When Nestor joined her, she looked up and smiled. “It is a wonderful night,” she said.

Nestor glanced up at the glittering stars. “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s good to be alive.”

Beth sat beside Shannow’s bed, with Padlock Wheeler standing beside her. “By God, Deacon, I never thought to hear you lie,” said Wheeler. “But it did the trick; it threw him right enough.”

Shannow smiled weakly. “It was no lie, Pad.” Slowly and with great effort he told the story of his travels, beginning with the attack on his church, his rescue by the Wanderers, the fight with Aaron Crane and his men, and finally his meeting with Amaziga beyond the town of Domango.

“It really was you, then, in my church!” said Wheeler. “By heaven, Deacon, you never cease to amaze me.”

“There’s more, Pad,” said Shannow. He closed his eyes and
spoke of the Bloodstone and the ruined world from which it came.

“How do we fight such a beast?” asked Padlock Wheeler.

“I have a plan,” said Shannow. “Not much of one, I’ll grant you, but with the grace of God it’ll give us a chance.”

Zerah Wheeler entered the room, her shoulder bandaged and her arm bound across her chest. “Leave the wounded man be,” she said, “and say hello to your mother.”

Padlock spun, jaw agape. “Jesus wept, Mother! I did not know you were here. And you’re wounded!” Moving to her side, he threw his arm around her shoulder.

“
Whisht
, you lummox! You’ll set it bleeding again,” she scolded, knocking his hand away. “Now come outside and leave the man to rest. You, too, Beth.”

“I’ll be with you soon,” Beth said quietly as Zerah led her son from the room. Josiah Broome rose and patted Shannow’s arm. “It is good to see you, my friend,” he said, and left the wounded man alone with Beth. She took his hand and sighed.

“Why did you not tell me who you were?” she asked.

“Why did you not recognize me?” he countered.

She shrugged. “I should have. I should have done so many things, Jon. And now it’s all wasted and gone. I couldn’t take it, you see. You changed from man of action to preacher. It was such a change. Why did it have to be so drastic, so radical?”

He smiled wearily. “I can’t tell you, Beth, except that I have never understood compromise. For me it is all or nothing. Yet despite my efforts, I failed in everything. I didn’t find Jerusalem, and as a preacher I couldn’t remain a pacifist.” He sighed. “When the church was burning, I felt a terrible rage. It engulfed me. And then as the Deacon … I thought I could make a difference. Bring God in to the world, establish discipline. I failed at that, too.”

“History alone judges success or failure, Shannow,” said Amaziga, moving into the room.

Beth glanced up, ready to tell the woman to leave, but she felt Shannow’s hand squeeze hers and saw him shake his
head. Amaziga sat down on the other side of the bed. “Lucas tells me you have a plan, but he won’t share it with me.”

“Let me speak with him.” Amaziga passed him the headphones and the portable. Shannow winced as he tried to raise his arm. Amaziga leaned forward and settled the headphones into place, slipping the microphone from its groove and twisting it into position. “Leave me,” he said.

Beth rose first. Amaziga seemed reluctant to go, but at last she, too, stood up and followed Beth from the room.

Outside, Padlock and his brother, Seth, were sitting with Zerah, Wallace, and the children. Beth walked out into the moonlight, past Samuel Archer, who was sitting on the porch, watching the stars; Amaziga sat beside him. Beth walked out, breathing the night air. Nestor and Isis came toward her, both smiling as they passed.

Dr. Meredith was standing by the paddock fence, looking out over the hills.

“All alone, Doctor?” she said, moving to stand beside him.

He grinned boyishly. “Lots to think about, Frey McAdam. So much has happened these past few days. I loved that old man; Jeremiah was good to me. It hurts that I caused his death; I would do anything to bring him back.”

“There’s things we can’t change,” said Beth softly, “no matter how much we might want to. Life goes on. That’s what separates the strong from the weak. The strong move on.”

“You think it will ever change?” he asked suddenly.

“What will change?”

“The world. People. Do you think there’ll ever come a day when there are no wars, no needless killing?”

“No,” she said simply. “I don’t.”

“Neither do I. But it’s something to strive for, isn’t it?”

“Amen to that!”

Sarento’s hunger was intense, a yawning chasm within him filled with tongues of fire. He strode from the rebuilt palace and out into the wide courtyard. Four Hellborn warriors were sitting together by an archway; they stood as he approached
and then bowed. Without thinking he drew their life forces from them, watching them topple to the ground.

His hunger was untouched.

An edge of panic flickered in his soul. For a while, in the late afternoon, he had felt the flow of blood from the men he had sent out to the farm. Since then there had been nothing.

Walking on, he came out onto a ruined avenue. He could hear the sound of men singing, and on the edge of what had once been a lake garden he saw a group of his men sitting around campfires. Beyond them was a score of prisoners.

The hunger tore at him …

He approached silently. Men toppled to the ground as he passed. The prisoners, seeing what was happening, began to scream and run. Not one escaped. Sarento’s hunger was momentarily appeased. Moving past the dried-out corpses, he walked to the picket line and mounted a tall stallion. There were around thirty horses there, standing quietly, half-asleep. One by one they died.

All save the stallion …

Sarento took a deep breath, then reached out with his mind.

Sustenance. I need sustenance, he thought. Already the hunger was returning, and it took all his willpower not to devour the life force of the horse he was riding. Closing his eyes, he allowed his mind to float out over the moonlit land, seeking the soul scent of living flesh.

Finding it, he kicked the horse into a run and headed out toward Pilgrim’s Valley.

Shannow, his side strapped, blood seeping through the bandages, sat at the wide, bullet-ripped table, Padlock Wheeler standing alongside. At the table sat Amaziga Archer and her husband; beside Sam were Seth Wheeler and Beth McAdam. Amaziga spoke, telling them all of the Bloodstone and the terrible powers he possessed.

“Then what can we do?” asked Seth. “Sounds like he’s invincible.”

Sam shook his head. “Not quite. His hunger is his Achilles’
heel: it grows at a geometric rate. Without blood—or life, if you prefer—he will weaken and literally starve.”

“So we just keep out of his way? Is that it?” asked Padlock.

“Not quite,” admitted Amaziga. “We none of us know how long he could survive. He could move from active life into a suspended state, being reactivated only when another life force approaches. But what we hope for is that in a depleted state his body will be less immune to gunfire. Every shot that strikes him will leach power from him as he struggles to protect himself. It may be that if we can corner him, we can destroy him.”

Seth Wheeler glanced at the beautiful black woman. “You don’t seem too confident,” he said shrewdly.

“I’m not.”

“You said you had a plan,” said Beth, looking at Shannow. His face was gray with pain and weariness, but he nodded. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know if I’ll have the strength for it and would be happier should Amaziga’s … theory … prove accurate. Whatever happens, we must stop Sarento from reaching Unity or any major settlement. I have seen the extent of his power.” They were hushed as he told them of the amphitheater in the other world with its rank upon rank of dried-out corpses. “His power can reach for more than a hundred yards. I don’t know the limits. What I do know is that when we find him, we must hit him with rifle shot and make sure the riflemen stay well back from him.”

Nestor ran into the room. “Rider coming,” he said. “Weirdest looking man you ever saw.”

“Weird? In what way?” Shannow asked.

“Appears to be painted all in red and black lines.”

“It’s him!” shouted Amaziga, lurching to her feet.

Padlock Wheeler gathered up his rifle and ran from the building, shouting for his Crusaders to gather at the paddock fence. The rider was still two hundred yards distant. Wheeler’s mouth was dry. Levering a shell into the breech, he leveled the weapon and fired. The shot missed, and the rider kicked his mount into a gallop.

“Stop the son of a bitch!” yelled Wheeler. Instantly a volley of shots sounded from all around him. The horse went down, spilling the rider to the grass, but he rose and walked steadily toward the farm. Three shots struck him in the chest, slowing him. A shell hammered against his forehead, snapping his head back. Another cannoned against his right knee. Sarento stumbled and fell but rose again.

Sixty rifles came to bear, bullet after bullet hammering into the man, glancing from his skin, flattening against bone, and falling to the grass. Infinitely slowly he pushed forward against the wall of shells, closer and closer to the men lining the paddock fence.

One hundred fifty yards. One hundred forty yards …

Even through the terrible and debilitating hunger Sarento began to feel pain. At first the bullets struck him almost without notice, like insects brushing his skin, then like hailstones, then like fingers jabbing at him. Now they made him grunt as they slammed home against increasingly bruised skin. A shot hit him in the eye, and he fell back with a scream as blood welled under the lid. Lifting his hand to protect his eyes, he stumbled forward, the sweet promise of sustenance driving him on.

He was so close now, and the scent was so strong that he began to salivate.

They could not stop him.

“Sarento!” Above the sound of the gunfire he heard a voice calling his name. Turning his head, he saw an old man being supported by a black woman, moving slowly out to his left, away from the line of fire. Surprised, he halted. He knew the woman: Amaziga Archer. But she was dead long since. He blinked, his injured eye making it difficult to focus. “Cease fire!” bellowed the old man, and the thunder of guns faded away. Sarento stood upright and stared hard at him, reaching out with his power to read his thoughts. They were blocked from him.

“Sarento!” he called again.

“Speak,” said the Bloodstone. He saw that the old man was wounded; his hunger was so intense that he had to steel himself not to drag the life force from the two as they approached. What helped was that he was intrigued. “What do you want?”

The old man sagged against the woman. Amaziga took the weight, at no time taking her eyes from the Bloodstone. He tasted her hatred and laughed. “I could give you immortality, Amaziga,” he said softly. “Why not join me?”

“You are a mass murderer, Sarento,” she hissed. “I despise you!”

“Murder? I have murdered no one,” he said with genuine surprise. “They’re all alive. In here,” he added, tapping his chest. “Every one, every soul. I know their thoughts, their dreams, their ambitions. With me they have eternal life. We speak all the time. And they are happy, Amaziga, dwelling with their god. That is paradise.”

“You lie!”

“Gods do not lie,” he said. “I will show you.” He closed his eyes and spoke. The voice was not Sarento’s.

“Oh, dear God!” whispered Amaziga.

“Get back from him, Mother,” came the voice of her son, Gareth. “Get back from him!”

“Gareth!” she screamed.

“He’s the Devil!” shouted the familiar voice. “Don’t bel—” Sarento’s eyes opened, and his own deep voice sounded. “He has yet to appreciate his good fortune. However, I think my point is made. No one is dead; they merely changed their places of habitation. Now what do you want, for I hunger?”

The old man pushed himself upright. “I am here to offer you … your greatest desire,” he said, his voice faltering.

“My desire is to feed,” said Sarento. “And this conversation prevents me from so doing.”

“I can open the gateways to other worlds,” the old man said.

“If that is true,” responded Sarento, “then all I have to do is draw you into myself and I will have that knowledge.”

“Not so,” said the other, his voice stronger now. “You used to understand computers, Sarento, but you will not have seen
one like this,” he went on, tapping the box clipped to his belt. “It is a portable. And it is self-aware. Through this machine I can control the gateways. Should I die, it has instructions to self-destruct. You want to feed? Look around you. How many are here?” Sarento transferred his gaze to the farm buildings. He could see around fifty, perhaps sixty riflemen. “Not enough, are there?” said the old man. “But I can take you where there are millions.”

“Why would you do this?”

“To save my friends.”

“You would sacrifice a world to me for these few?”

“I will take you wherever you choose.”

“And I am to trust you?”

“I am Jon Shannow, and I never lie.”

“You can’t, Shannow!” screamed Amaziga, lunging at the portable. Shannow backhanded her across the face, spinning her to the ground. The effort caused him to stagger, and his hand moved to his side, where blood oozed through the bandages. Amaziga looked up from the ground. “How could you, Shannow? What kind of man are you?”

Sarento reached out and touched Amaziga’s mind. She felt it and recoiled. “So,” said Sarento, “you are a truth speaker. And wherever I name you will take me?”

“Yes.”

“The twentieth century on earth?”

“Where in the twentieth century?” responded the old man.

“The United States. Los Angeles would be pleasant.”

“I cannot promise you an arrival inside a city. The points of power are usually found in less crowded areas.”