Land and Overland - Omnibus (51 page)

Their King, though apparently insane by Gartasian's standards, had been prudent enough to send a scout ship to gauge the opposition an invading force would meet. If he received word that there could be very little effective resistance, that Overland's defenders would be annihilated by pterthacosis, his territorial ambitions would be even further inflamed.

The skyship must not be allowed to depart!

The thought spurred Gartasian into action. His men were too far away to be of any assistance, and the ship was already straining upwards, making him solely responsible for preventing the take-off. The only course open to him was to rupture the fabric of the huge balloon by hurling his sword at it. He drew the weapon, twisted in the saddle to make the throw and gasped aloud as pain erupted through his chest cavity, paralysing his upraised arm. He lowered the sword into a position from which he could try an underarm lob, suddenly aware that Orracolde was bringing an oddly shaped musket to bear on him.

Counting on the delay which always occurred while power crystals were combining in a gun's combustion chamber, Gartasian began the upward swing. The musket emitted a strangely flat
crack.
Something punched into Gartasian's left shoulder, slewing him around and causing his sword—weakly thrown—to tumble wide of its mark. He jumped down from the startled bluehorn and went for the fallen blade, but the agony in his shoulder and chest turned what should have been a highspeed dash into a series of stumbles and lurches. By the time he had retrieved the sword the gondola was a good thirty feet above ground, and the balloon carrying it was far beyond his reach.

He stood and watched helplessly, his personal catastrophe eclipsed for the moment, as the skyship rapidly gained height. Although it was centred on the misty blue disk of Land, the ship was hard to see because the sun was almost in the same line of sight, already silvering the sister world's eastern rim. Gartasian gave up trying to penetrate the dazzling rays and spokes and oily needles of light. He lowered his head and stared down at the grass, musing on the fact that the last action of his career and life had ended in abject failure, and it was only the sound of an approaching bluehorn which brought him out of the dark reverie. There were duties yet to be discharged.

"Stay back," he shouted at Lieutenant Keero. "Don't come near me!"

"Sir?" Keero slowed his mount to a walk, but kept it moving forward.

Gartasian pointed at him with his sword. "This is an order, lieutenant. Do
not
come any closer! I have the plague."

Keero halted. "Plague?"

"Pterthacosis. You've heard of it, I trust."

The upper half of Keero's face was masked by the shade of his visor, but Gartasian saw his mouth distort with shock. A moment later the sunlit hills of the western horizon blinked with prismatic colour, then abruptly dimmed as the shadow of Land came rushing over the countryside at orbital speed. As its edge swept across the scene, initiating the brief penumbral phase of little-night, the darkening sky was seen to be spanned by a huge spiral of misty radiance, its arms sparkling with brilliant stars of white, blue and yellow. The knowledge that it was the last time the spectacle of the night sky would be unfurled for him filled Gartasian with a yearning to ponder it in detail, to memorise the patterns of lesser whirlpools and comets so that he would have light to take with him into the place where there was no light. Pushing the notion aside, he addressed himself to the lieutenant, who was waiting about twenty yards away.

"Listen to me carefully, Keero," he called out. "I will be dead before littlenight is over, and you must…" The fire in his lungs, aggravated by the effect of shouting, forced him to abandon the plan to transmit his precious new knowledge verbally.

"I am going to write a message for the King, and I charge you with the responsibility of ensuring that he receives it. Now, take out your dispatch book, make sure the pencil is not broken, and leave the book on the ground for me. When you have done that, rejoin your men and wait with them for the King to arrive. Tell him all that has happened here—and remind him that nobody is to approach my body for at least five days."

Drained of strength by the painfully prolonged speech, Gartasian forced himself to remain upright and militarily correct while Keero dismounted and placed his dispatch book on the ground.

The lieutenant got back into the saddle and hesitated for a moment. "Sir, I'm sorry…"

"It's all right," Gartasian told him, grateful for the fleeting human contact. "Do not concern yourself about me. Just go, and take my bluehorn with you—I have no more need of him."

Keero gave an awkward salute, collected the redundant animal and rode away into the twilight. Gartasian walked to where the book lay, his legs buckling further with each step, and allowed himself to sag to the ground beside it. He had barely finished removing the pencil from its leather sleeve when the last coin-clip of the sun slid behind the curvature of Land. In spite of the reduced level of illumination he was still able to see well enough to write, thanks to Land's halo and the extravagant spangling of the rest of the heavens with fierce stars, some of them in tightly packed circular clusters.

He attempted to lean on his left arm, but jerked upright again as pain flared in the wounded shoulder. Exploring the injury with his fingers, he found that the brakka slug from the musket had spent much of its energy in gouging through the rolled leather at the edge of his cuirass. It had lodged in his flesh, but had not broken the bone. Reminding himself to include a note on how the weapon had fired without the normal delay, he sat with the book in his lap and began to write a detailed report for the benefit of those who would soon have to repel a deadly invader.

The mental discipline involved in the work helped him avoid dwelling on his fate, but his body interposed frequent reminders of the losing battle it was fighting against the ptertha poison. His stomach and lungs seemed to be filling with hot coals, agonising cramps encircled his chest and occasional bouts of shivering made his writing almost illegible in places. So rapid was the progress of the symptoms that on reaching the end of his report he was dully surprised to find himself still conscious, still with some dregs of strength.

If I move away from here,
he thought,
the book can be picked up without delay, and with no risk to any man's life.

He set the book down and marked its position by weighting it with his red-crested helmet. The effort of raising himself to his feet was much greater than he had anticipated. He was unable to prevent himself from swaying in vertiginous circles as he scanned his surroundings, which seemed to be a scene painted on slowly undulating cloth. Keero had brought all his men together and a fire had been lit to guide King Chakkell to the spot. The soldiers and their mounts formed a stationary, amorphous mass in the dimness, and there was little movement anywhere but for the near-continuous flickering of meteors against the dense fields of stars.

Gartasian guessed the men's eyes were fixed on him. He turned and walked away from them, staggering grotesquely, blood beading into the grass from the fingers of his left hand. After some twenty paces his feet were snared by bracken and he pitched forward, to lie with his face buried in rough-haired fronds.

There was no point in trying to get up again.

No point in trying to cling on to consciousness any longer.

I'm coming back to you, Ronoda and little Hallie,
he thought, closing his eyes on the universe.
I'll soon be with…

When Toller Maraquine heard the bolt of his cell door being drawn his principal emotion was one of relief. He had been allowed writing materials, and all through the hours of littlenight he had sat with the pad on his knees, trying to compose a letter to Gesalla and Cassyll. His intention had been to explain and apologise, but explanation had proved impossible—how was he to find any shred of reason in what he had done?—and all he had written was one bald sentence.

I am sorry.

The three words struck him as being an apt but dismal epitaph for a life that had been thrown away, and now he had a profound desire to get the last minutes of futility over and done with.

He stood up and faced the opening door, fully expecting to see an executioner accompanied by a squad of jailers. Instead, the widening rectangle revealed the paunchy form of King Chakkell, flanked by stone-faced members of his personal guard.

"Should I feel honoured?" Toller said. "Am I to be seen off by the King in person?"

Chakkell raised a leather-bound dispatch book of the type used by the Kolcorronian army. "Your astonishing good luck continues, Maraquine. Our game is on again. Come with me—I have need of you." He grasped Toller's arm with as much force as the executioner would have used and marched him into the passageway, where recently extinguished wicks still smoked and fumed in their sconces.

"You have
need
of me? Does this mean…?" Paradoxically, in the moment he began to entertain hope Toller was unmanned by a pang of death-fear which cooled his brow and stilled his voice.

"It means I'm prepared to forget about your stupidity of the foreday."

"Majesty, I'm grateful … truly grateful," Toller managed to say. Inwardly he promised:
I'll
never fail you again, Gesalla.

"And so you should be!" Chakkell led the way out of the cell block, through a gateway whose guards sprang to attention, and into the parade ground in which, seemingly an aeon ago, Toller had faced Karkarand.

"This must concern the skyship we saw," Toller said. "Was it really from Land?"

"We will talk in private."

Toller and Chakkell, still accompanied by guards, entered the rear of the palace and went through corridors to an undistinguished doorway. Walking behind the King, Toller had detected the soupy smell of bluehorn sweat from his clothing, and the indication of hard riding intensified his interest. Chakkell dismissed his men with a wave and brought Toller into a modestly proportioned apartment in which the only furnishings were a round table and six plain chairs.

"Read that." Chakkell handed Toller the dispatch book, took a seat at the table and stared down at his clenched fists. His deeply tanned scalp was glistening with perspiration and it was obvious that he was highly agitated. Deciding it would be unwise to ask any preliminary questions, Toller sat down at the opposite side of the table and opened the book. The reading difficulties he had known as a young man had faded over the years, and it took him only a few minutes to go through the pages of pencilled script, even though the characters were wildly distorted in places. When he had finished he closed the book and set it down, suddenly aware of blood stains on the cover.

Head still lowered, Chakkell looked up from under his brows, eyes showing white crescents. "Well?"

"Is Colonel Gartasian dead?"

"Of course he's dead—and from what is written there he could be the first of many," Chakkell said. "The question is, what can be done? What can we do about these diseased upstarts?"

"Do you think this Rassamarden really intends to invade? It seems an unreasonable course for one who has an empty world at his disposal."

Chakkell pointed at the book. "You saw what Gartasian said. We are not dealing with reasonable people, Maraquine. It was Gartasian's opinion that they are all unhinged to some extent, and their ruler could be the worst of the lot."

Toller nodded. "It is often the way."

"Don't take too many liberties," Chakkell warned. "You have more skyship experience than any other man in Kolcorron, and I want your views about how we can defend ourselves."

"Well…" For a few seconds Toller was distracted by an upsurge of something like joy, immediately followed by feelings of shame and remorse. What kind of a man was he? He had barely finished vowing never again to set anything above the blessed peace of a contented domestic existence, and now his heart was quickening at the thought of participating in an entirely new kind of warfare. Could it be some kind of reaction to the discovery that he was not about to be executed, that life would continue—or was he a fatally flawed human being in the pattern of the long-dead Prince Leddravohr? The latter possibility was almost too much to contemplate.

"I   am waiting," Chakkell said impatiently. "Don't tell me that the crisis is of so great a magnitude as to still
your
tongue."

Toller took a deep breath and exhaled it in a sigh. "Majesty, assuming that a contest does take place, fate has dictated the terms. We cannot carry the battle to the enemy, and for obvious reasons these so-called New Men must never be permitted to set foot on our world. That leaves us but one course of action."

"Which is?"

"Exclusion! A barrier! We must wait for the ships in the weightless zone—midway between the two worlds—and destroy them as they labour up from Land. It is the only way."

Chakkell studied Toller's face, appraising his sincerity. "From what I remember of the mid-passage the air was too cold and thin to support life for any length of time."

"We need ships of a different design. The gondolas need to be larger, and totally enclosed. And sealed to retain air and heat. Perhaps we will even use firesalt to thicken the air. All that and more will be necessary if we are to remain in the weightless zone for long periods."

"Can it be done?" Chakkell said. "You seem to be talking about veritable fortresses suspended in the sky. The weight…"

"On the old skyships we were able to lift twenty passengers, plus essential supplies. That is a considerable weight, and we may be able to attach two balloons to one lengthened gondola so as to double the carrying capacity."

"It's worth thinking about." Chakkell stood up and paced around the table, frowning at Toller all the while. "I believe I'm going to create a new post, especially for you," he finally said, it shall be … Sky Marshal … with complete responsibility for the aerial defence of Overland. You will be answerable to none but me, and will have the power to draw on any resource you need—human or material—for the successful prosecution of your task."