Pathspace: The Space of Paths (17 page)

She considered it. “Good point. Tell you
what. Vanish here for a bit in case anyone walks by while I'm gone,
and I'll go and ask about it and come back in a few minutes. Once
we know how long it's going to be, I'll let you know, then hang
around in the corridor outside and say something loud when I see
them coming. That way you won't have to vanish again until they're
practically in the cell.”

It sounded like a good plan. “Okay,” he
said, and wove the pathspace again , letting the darkness swallow
him. He leaned against the wall, wrapped in artificial night, and
listened to the sound of her opening the door to the corridor.

How is it,
he
wondered,
that I can hear – and speak – to her when the
light is going around me?
It seemed to him
that sound would do the same thing, avoid him. Was it possible that
there was more than one kind of
pathspace
? He made a note to ask Xander about it after he finished
here.

It was only after she left that he realized
he had forgotten to ask her the second question. If she had classes
all the time to prepare her for the future, wouldn't they miss her
if she stayed down here near the cell?

He tried to pass the time thinking of new
things to do with pathspace. Was it good for anything else besides
invisibility? Then he remembered Xander making the bits of cracker
circle in opposite direction in the bowl of soup. Xander hadn't
seemed to even trying very hard when he did it. Like it wasn't even
work. Was making ordinary matter follow a path easier than
re-routing the light?

There was a wooden cup and an empty clay
pitcher on the table across from him. Maybe he could practice on
that when she got back. It'd be pretty hard to do anything when he
was trapped in his own pocket of blindness.

He thought about the
swizzles. Obviously it must be possible to make ordinary matter
follow the pathspace, else how could you make air or water shoot
through a swizzle? As always, He wondered what it was about his
mind that could affect the pathspace so readily as to render him
invisible. But, as Xander had already told him, it was more
important to be
able
to do it than
to know
how
he did it. Or at least,
at this stage of my apprenticeship.

Presently Aria returned, bearing several
items. The first was a peculiar hourglass. It dripped oil, rather
than sand, from the top half into the bottom, and the glass was
marked with transparent bands of color. She set it down on the
table, and he saw that the oil had filled the red and orange levels
and was beginning to fill the yellow band.

“
Where did you get that?”
he asked her. “I've never seen anything like it.”

“
Oh, we have a lot of
them,” she said. “It's called an Xander glass. He invented it, and
they're becoming quite popular. There's even talk of exporting them
East. There's a different color for each hour, and oil drips so
slowly that it's good for a whole eight hour watch.” She paused.
“The thing is, he's the only one who can get the little glow-tube
inside to work. If it wasn't for that they'd be all over Rado by
now.”

“
It's brilliant,” he said,
and meant it. “How did he ever think of such a thing?”

“
He's more than a crazy
old wizard,” she said. “But most people don't see that. You know
about his idea of starting a school for wizards, don't
you?”

“
Yes. At first I thought
it was a little nutty. But after thinking about it, I've realized
that it's probably one of the best ideas I've ever heard.. Your
mother – I mean, the Governor – is lucky to have him.”

“
I'm sure she knows it,”
she said. “Sometimes I hear it in her voice – something that makes
me think he's even more important to her than she lets
on.”

“
Has he been here a long
time?”

“
As long as I can
remember,” she said. Then she changed the subject. “Anyway, from
what I hear, it'll be at least a couple of hours before they get
here. They won't be here until it reaches the blue line at the
earliest. That's why I brought us a couple of books.”

He looked them over. Both
were hand-bound, obviously expensive. One was called
Rise!
and it was the biography of the
General. The other was
The Tourists,
a story of the Fall. He picked that one up. “I'd like to read
this one.”

“
I thought you might,” she
said, “considering the author. The other one's my favorite,
anyway.”

He turned the book in his hands to read the
author's name and immediately felt stupid again. “Oh. I guess I
should have expected it was by him. Why didn't he show it to me as
soon as I arrived here?”

“
It must have slipped his
mind,” she said. “But it's hardly surprising. I think only Mother
and I have read it. Nobody else seems to care about the Tourists
any more.”

“
Even after what they did
to us?” He couldn't believe it. “Back where I come from in
Inverness, if a neighbor's dog bites someone they still talk about
it twenty years later. And the Tourists, they wrecked our whole
civilization!”

“
I don't think they meant
to,” she said. “And no one remembers what it used to be like before
the Fall. Well,” she amended, “maybe a few people like Xander.. But
no one else. Well, I''ll go keep a lookout so you won't have to
vanish yet.”

She left, and Les sat down
by the wall to read
The Tourists
,
by Xander.

Brutus was in a foul mood when we awoke, and
finding himself tied up did not improve his disposition. When he
lifted his bruised head, now sporting a fresh bump, the first thing
his eyes focused on was Jeffrey. The first thing he said was
unprintable.

“
You look about as good as
you sound,” Jeffrey told him. “Maybe it wasn't the best idea to
threaten the old man, after all.”

Brutus spat pink saliva onto the floor of
the cart. “You seem fine,” he sneered. “let me guess. You cowered
in fear, then helped him tie us up.”

“
Not even close,” said
Jeffrey. “I avoided a fight with a powerful wizard, and then I tied
you up by myself. He didn't help until it was time to finish the
job on me.”

Brutus struggled to a sitting position.
“Then we have a chance after all,” he said. “You probably can't
even tie your own bootlaces.”

Jeffrey watched the larger
man squirm and pull at the knots that bound his hands behind his
back. “Regardless of what you think of me, the fact is the old man
checked all the knots himself. I didn't dare try any tricks. After
that your boys did at that farm, I think he was almost disappointed
that I
didn't
try anything. My
guess is his conscience is the only reason we're all still
alive.”

“
Where are we?”

“
Headed north, probably
into Denver. They brought some good horses with them, but it might
be noon before we get anywhere near their capitol. After that,” he
swallowed, “things might get a little more intense.”

Brutus seemed amused now. “Having second
thoughts about being so cooperative, are you? Bet you're crapping
in your pants.”

“
Maybe you're not scared,
but I am. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I had a lot to look forward
to, before you got us in this mess.” Jeffrey looked away, at the
bushes and the occasional tree speeding past the cart. By the look
of it, the men from Rado were eager to deliver them to the
Governor. Too eager. “You should have seen the faces of those men
after the old man told them what happened. If it wasn't for him
we'd have dug our own graves hours ago.” Jeffrey swallowed again.
His throat was raspy, but he knew better than to ask men who looked
that grim for a drink of water. “In a way, though, you have. You've
killed us all, commander. Do you know how they execute people in
Rado? Just curious.”

Brutus showed him a feral grin. “By hanging.
Same as in Texas. Oh, they used to have fancier ways, or so I'm
told. But these days your last moments are measured by a length of
rope, the good old fashioned way.”

Jeffrey turned his head to gaze at him. “You
don't seem very worried. Do you think you're going to Heaven? I
never pegged you for a religious man.”

Brutus spat again at that. “Fuck no. But so
what? I don't believe in Hell, neither. When you die you're just
gone. Not what I want, but,” he shrugged, “I won't even know I'm
dead, afterwards, so it won't bother me none. Could be worse.”

Worse? Jeffrey was staring wide-eyed now.
“How could it be worse than getting killed?”

The commander just laughed. “You're happier
not knowing,” he said. “But since you asked, if it was anywhere but
Rado, they might cut our balls off, tear our tongues out, and put
us to slave labor for the rest of our lives, hauling garbage or
building walls or some such. That's what they do down in Mexico. Or
just torture us to death over a period of a week or so. That's what
I hear they do over in the Dixie Emirates. God only knows what they
do up in New Israel or over to the west in Deseret.” He roared at
Jeffrey's expression, laughed until tears flowed. When he had
finished laughing, he continued. “But we're going to Rado. There
they put you on a platform with a noose of decent hemp around your
neck and send you straight to oblivion. Nearly as painless as a
bullet in the back of the head.”

“
Damn you, I don't want to
die at all!”

Brutus grinned. “Do tell,” he said. “Are you
religious, sonny boy? Afraid you might kick the bucket before some
priest prays you into Saint Peter's loving hands?”

“
I won't give them the
satisfaction of begging for my life, it it comes to that,” Jeffrey
told him. “But there were a few things I wanted to do before my
time here was over. Things you probably don't care about, like
falling in love, having kids, stuff like that.” He looked away
again. “Instead, I'm going to hang because your men got to rape and
kill.” He wanted to say there was no justice. But now he was
beginning to be afraid that there would be.

“
Well waugh, waugh waugh!
Show some backbone, you worm. They were the enemy, and there's no
God caring about what we did, or about you. Shit happens, then you
die.”

I wonder what it will feel like? Is he
right, and when it's over there's nothing left to know that it's
dead? He'd read stories that claimed some people had nearly died,
and had seen a tunnel and a bright light and then someone told them
to go back. But he'd read other opinions that disputed such claims,
saying those visions were only hallucinations brought about by the
loss of oxygen to the brain, or something like that.

He lay there thinking and wondering, or at
least that how he thought he spent the time, until a jolt awakened
him. He opened his eyes in time to see a high doorway passing over
head, then the cart was in a large room somewhere.

“
All right, get out of the
cart.”

He lurched to a sitting position ans
squinted as his eyes adjusted to a dimmer light level. “How are we
supposed to do that? We're tied up.”

A man with short-cut dark
hair leaned over the side of the cart. The expression on his face
was not pleasant. “You're lucky to be breathing. If we'd caught you
instead of the wizard, you'd be feeding buzzards by now. Your legs
aren't tied, so get out
now
. Or
we'll roll you out, and laugh if you break something. Like your
heads. Accidents happen.” He grinned. “We might even put you back
in and roll you out again, if it's amusing enough.”

They managed to get out of the cart. As soon
as they were standing on the floor, the men aimed crossbows at them
and hustled them though a door and up endless flights of steps. He
could see Brutus was looking for a chance to overcome their guards
and escape, but there was no chance.

When they emerged from the stairwell, the
first thing he saw was a beautiful girl lounging in the hallway
with a book. She must have been deaf or something, because the
first thing she did when she saw them was shout “Are these the
prisoners I heard about?”

She was listening to the water drain out of
the tub and pulling her boots on when the knock at the door
intruded. Sighing, she stood, regarded herself in the mirror,
stopped being just a relaxed woman and became the Governor of Rado
again. “What is it?”

“
The prisoner are here,
Governor.”

“
All right,” she said,
“I'll be right down to welcome them to Denver.” She fastened her
shirt and adjusted the shoulder boards. There were stars on them.
Robbie's stars. I never knew two stupid bits of obsolete rank
insignia could be so heavy, she thought. On days like today it
seemed the weight of them was crushing her.

“
Are you getting out of
that tub?” she snapped. “or are you just going to still there
dripping until you get pneumonia?”

“
Are those my only two
choices?” he said. Old but not too-badly muscled legs swung over
the edge of the bathtub and planted themselves on the tiles. “It's
about time they showed up.”

“
They couldn't have picked
a worse time,” she said. “Aria's birthday is in two days. We ought
to be planning that instead of figuring out how to hold a trial
that's fair but brief.”