Charon (29 page)

 
The last one was surprisingly human, and decidedly uncomfortable with us. She was small, quite attractive, and had a distinctive pair of devil's horns. She appeared to be a nervous wreck and I'm afraid our all-changeling group didn't help her mood. Her name was Emla Quoor. She'd been in the group in the square, and she'd been terrified from that point on. There was little we could do to comfort her, except to point out that she must have some real guts and intelligence to make it this far undetected and in one piece. She looked like she'd been through hell, though, and I wasn't about to press her further. Others could do that— if we ever got picked up.

 
Suddenly a rumbling erupted all around us. "Oh, brother!" somebody swore. "You can't go three hours out here without getting dumped on." As the skies opened up for what promised to be the usual long deluge, everyone moved into the shelter of the trees. The way the wind whipped things up, though, there was no question but that everyone would be pretty well drenched.

 
Lightning swirled around the Pinnacles, lighting up the area intermittently in what, I had to admit, was an impressive scene. I looked out into the little clearing which was brightly lit by a lightning flash, then dark again. Then came a second bolt, but this tune there was somebody—or something—there, standing in the middle. "There's somebody herel" I called to the others and drew my pistol.

 
All eyes peered nervously into the clearing—it was empty. They glared at me, but I stood firm. "Somebody
was
there," I assured them. "I do not see things." I flicked the power on the pistol to full.

 
Another lightning blast, and once again the figure appeared—a tall, thin human in a long black cloak and hood. Not a trooper, that was for sure. One of the others caught sight of it too, and mumbled confirmation of my sighting. All turned to look, nerves on edge.

 
The figure was certainly standing there now in the rain for all to see. Slowly it approached us. It came right into our midst and looked around. The impression was of a very dark human face inside the hood, but little else. Finally a woman's voice announced: "There is thunder in the south."

 
"The Destroyer builds," returned the stranger in a very deep female voice. She turned and nodded. "Is this all of you?"

 
"Us and the human girl over there," the worm-man responded.

 
"I am Frienta," the newcomer introduced herself. "I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting, but there are heavy patrols on the road and I decided to wait and use the storm for cover."

 
"You are from Koril's organization?" I asked.

 
"Master Koril is certainly involved, although it is not entirely his organization, or anyone's," Frienta replied curtly. "However, we have to move you and hundreds more out of the
region,
and that is a massive logistical effort. More than half of our people have already been caught or killed in this region, and you are not out of danger yet yourself. We must now get you quickly to an assembly point." She looked around. "Are you up to a long march in the-rain?"

 
The human woman and the devil-man both groaned. Frienta took notice of them,
then
looked at our worm-man. "What about you? How fast can you travel?"

 
"I'll be fine," he assured her. "The wetter it
is,
the better."

 
"Well, then, our success depends on the two of you." She looked at Darva and me. "You're the biggest. Do you think you could each carry one of these?"

 
I looked at Darva, who shrugged.
"Why not?"
I replied. "But they'll have to hang on tight."

 
The devil-man gave a grotesque expression which I hoped was one of gratitude. The human woman seemed extremely nervous and uncertain. "Come on—climb up and get as comfortable as you can," I said, trying to sound as friendly and reassuring as possible. "I'm not poison, I don't bite—not people on my side anyway—and riding beats walking in this stuff."

 
The devil-man had little problem getting on Darva's back, but he apparently weighed more than he looked, given the expression on her face. Frienta went over to the human. "Come. I will help you."

 
She looked over at me. "I—I don't know. Maybe I can walk ..."

 
"I have no time or patience for such prejudice," the strange dark women said acidly. "You too are nonhuman, as those horns attest."

 
The woman stepped back, obviously upset by the sudden attitude of the one whom she'd considered her only ally. Abruptly I was aware of a flaring of the Wardens within the dark woman's body, and I sensed complex message information flow from her outstretched arm to the scared woman. It was as if there were now thousands, perhaps millions of tiny weblike cords of energy
Unking
the two.

 
Then, somewhat jerkily, the human walked up to me, and with Frienta's assistance, climbed on my back and clung tightly. Frienta nodded to herself, stepped back, and traced a few symbols in the air. "There!" she announced, satisfied. "You are bound there until I free you!" She turned to the rest of us. "Cornel Follow me quickly! This is not the time to stay in one place!"

 
I was aware of the rigidity of the woman on my back, and said to Frienta, "You are an apt."

 
"A minor one," she responded crisply. Then we were off into the rain-soaked jungle in the midst of the darkness.

 
It was a long and arduous journey, taken at a good pace. Frienta, whose face I never could see clearly and whose body was masked by her black robes, proved extremely quick and agile—and apparently tireless. The extra burdens Darva and I carried soon proved to be wearing, but we had no choice but to go on. Worm-man and Hemara proved capable of some speed under adverse conditions, but none of us were cut out for this sort of thing. Frienta seemed to sense when one or more of us was spent and absolutely had to rest, and the breaks were well timed although not as frequent as we would have wished.

 
We walked all night through a wilderness so complete that after a while none of us had any sense of where we were, how far we'd come, or in what direction we were going. We finally reached a small clearing in the jungle where Frienta proclaimed a complete stop. We would be allowed to forage for food, each according to our own needs,
then
get some sleep. It was not well, she told us, to travel much in daylight and we still had a long way to go—more than two nights' march at the least.

 
Even relieved of our burdens, Darva and I felt exhausted, but we knew we needed strength now more than ever. We picked no fights, settling for catching and eating a number of small animals that were no real challenge and supplementing this with what wild fruits we could find. Then we slept through most of the day.

 
Frienta revealed no more of herself in light than in darkness—a fact that intrigued us all more and more. We felt certain she was some sort of changeling herself, but what sort we had no idea. We rotated guard positions while the others slept, but I kept the laser pistols. Most of the others didn't know how to use them and a couple simply couldn't. Besides, I didn't really fully trust anybody except Darva, who certainly didn't know how to shoot, and
myself
.

 
The next night was much like the first, although we got a break in the rain which certainly helped me a little. My human passenger said next to nothing during the entire journey, and I was glad for that. I was too tired to be conversational. During the middle of the third night we suddenly broke out onto a wide, sandy beach. We had reached the coast—the south coast again, as it turned out, but more than a hundred kilometers west of Bourget.

 
It was with relief that we realized that we were at the end of our journey. Our mysterious guide had taken us unerringly to the right spot through the jungle, avoiding all Companies and all but a very few roads—and also avoiding the worst of the jungle and swamps.

 
"We are safe now," Frienta assured us. "The encampment here is protected from interlopers by high sorcery."

 
I looked around.
"Encampment?"

 
"Come," she beckoned, and we walked down the beach a little
to
where it curved inland, forming a small bay. It looked desolate, totally deserted, until we turned slightly inland on the bay's south side. Suddenly we found ourselves in a very large if primitive village, with tents, even fires and torchlight. It was so surprising that several of us uttered sounds of amazement; I, for one, stopped, then turned and stepped back a few meters and turned again.
Desertion and silence.
Walk a few steps forward, and there it was—a true camp with hundreds of beings, both changeling and human.

 
Frienta waved a ghostly arm. "Just find yourself a comfortable place and settle in," she told us. "Ample food to your requirements will be provided, but we are out of tents and other shelters, I fear. If you can make no arrangements, you can use the jungle in the rear. The spell covers the entire south side of the bay but only to a depth of ninety meters from the beach—so if you go beyond, into the forest, take care."

 
Our little group dispersed quickly as our fellow travelers found others they knew among the teeming throng of creatures on the beach. Our nervous human joined a small group of her own kind with evident relief.

 
Darva looked at me. "Well? What shall we do now?"

 
I shrugged. "Sleep, I think. Tomorrow we'll find out_ what comes next." I looked around at the various kinds of creatures on the beach, some of which were the stuff of real nightmares. Charon had taken criminal minds, insane minds, and given them great power. Much of that insanity could be seen reflected in its victims on the beach as well as in our former company, I reflected. Koril might prove more sympathetic, I knew; but he was still a politician, a king dethroned who wanted his position back and was willing to go to any lengths to get it. This system had been in effect when he was in charge before, and even before that, and he'd done nothing then to stop it. And that, of course, was something most of these people, the changelings in particular, would simply overlook; almost all were natives, and that alone accounted for a certain naivete to which was now added an exponential increase in trust borne of hope and desperation.

 
How
were we
different from the aliens, Darva had asked me—and I really wasn't sure of an answer. If I wasn't, then perhaps Koril saw few differences either. He would be unlikely to eliminate an external alien menace only to allow another to fester here homegrown. There was no question in my mind that these people were being used, as always. Sooner or later I knew
,
something would have to be done.

 
Darva had wandered off for a few minutes to see if anybody was around and awake whom she knew. When I saw her talking to a small group near a large tent, I decided to join her.

 
She looked over at me as I approached, smiled, nodded, and turned back to the trio by the fire—I saw one of them was frog-man, another the bird creature—and I strode right up to them. Before I could say anything, though, the flap of the tent behind me opened and I heard a familiar voice. "Why, hello, Darva! Hi, Park! My, you look stunning in your new suit!"

 
I whirled about in total surprise, and looked into the face of Tully Kokul.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Koril's Redoubt

Tully and I walked along the beach. "Tell me," I asked him, "are
you
Koril?"

 
He laughed.
"Oh my, no!
I couldn't hold a candle to him! I'm really a very simple man, Park. In ancient times I'd be the parish priest, a man looking for rest and place to contemplate and experiment with a minimum of interference. Bourget was like a dream come true for me. Nobody around higher up to give me all sorts of orders, a peaceful village filled with good, profit-minded simple folk, and a very distant government that left us all alone. I was
extremely
happy there."

 
"So how come you're here, then?" I asked him. "Surely you didn't just come along for the ride."

 
He chuckled. "Oh no, but I'm like the pacifist who stays home, locks himself in his house while the war rages, then suddenly finds the opposing armies marching and shooting through his living room. I'm only a fair sore, but I'm a
good
politician, Park. I knew what was going on in and around the village. I knew too that eventually the idyll would end, although I put off all decisions until the last minute. It was painful to lose—but when Matuze took over it was only a matter of time. She's a real nut case, Park. Morah keeps her protected from the Synod for his own purposes, and she's able to indulge her every crazy whim. She's sadistic, cruel, but very, very imaginative—and very ambitious. So when she took control, I more or less got my credentials from this group, although I kept a hands-off attitude almost to the last minute. It really wasn't until Morah himself showed up that I knew the game was up."