Strata (23 page)

Kin urged the horse forward until she saw Marco’s gleaming eyes looking urgently between bars thick enough to have been tree trunks. Perhaps they were.

Kin jiggled them until they slid back noisily. Marco came out as though on a spring.

‘Give me the sword,’ he commanded. Kin had almost handed it over before it occurred to her that she could have refused, and then it was too late. He snatched it.

‘Is this the best you could do?’ he hissed. ‘It’s blunt as a ball.’

‘Big deal! I could have gone off and left you!’

Marco tapped the flat of the black sword on one opened palm, and looked at her reflectively.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You could. This sword will do. Thank you. From where did you obtain the flying robot?’

‘Well, I went—’

‘How do you make it fly?’

‘It just obeys, and –
get down
!’

Marco settled himself in the saddle, and ignored her.

‘Do you know the way to the palace, robot quadruped?’

‘
YES
,
O
MASTER
.’

‘Then proceed.’

There was a brief dumming of hooves and the horse was a dwindling speck against the sky. Kin watched it disappear and then peered into the back of the cage.

‘Silver?’ she said quietly. A light shape stirred in the gloom.

‘Come on,’ said Kin. ‘We’d better be going. How do you feel?’

Silver sat up.

‘Where is the kung?’ she said thickly.

‘Gone to beat up the baddies, the lunatic fool.’

‘Then where should
we
go?’ said the shand, lumbering to her feet.

‘After him, I think. Got any better ideas?’

‘No,’ said Silver. ‘I imagine everyone will be far too occupied to notice us.’

They stepped out into the avenue of bars.

‘There are unicorns in that one,’ volunteered Silver, pointing. ‘We saw them being fed. And mermaids, I think, in a pool. They were given fish.’

‘Abu is a born collector, it seems.’

They passed a white dome, temple size. Close up, it was a large white egg, the lower third buried in the sand. There was a small hole in one end.

‘Laid by a bird?’ said Silver, indicating it with a thumb.

‘Search me. I wouldn’t put out crumbs for it. There’s another one over there. No—’

It wasn’t. It was, however, the derelict shell of the planetary lander from a Terminus probe. A memory arose in Kin unbidden, of an ancient copy of a still more ancient publicity film. It looked smaller in real life. There were three deep gashes in it, as though some great beast had tried to grab it.

Perhaps it had. If the thing beside it was an egg,
something
laid it.

The interior was a mess.

‘Jalo landed near the centre of the disc, at least,’ said Silver. Kin looked at the – oh, all right – call them talon marks, they could have been.

‘I don’t envy him,’ she said. ‘Our Abu is a genuine enthusiast, Silver. He never throws anything away.’

There were running feet behind them, and they turned to see two men gaping at them. One held a pike, and prodded it gingerly towards Silver. It was a mistake. The shand merely grabbed it behind the point and felled its holder with a vicious downward slash, bringing it back afterwards to knock the other man’s scurrying legs from under him.

Then she started running towards the palace, wielding the shattered shaft like a club.

Kin trailed after her. There didn’t seem any alternative.

They found Marco by following the screams.

There was a courtyard, and a mob of fighting men, and in the middle a blur behind a fence of swords. Marco was fighting five men at once, and seemed to be winning.

One man, who turned and found himself a few feet from Silver, slashed at her with desperate bravery. She blinked at him sleepily, then brought a fist down with vertebrae-crushing speed.

And all the time the sword sang. Kin had heard the phrase used poetically, but this one
was
singing – a weird electric ululation punctuated by clashes and screams.

Marco was holding it at arms’ length, almost cringing away from it. It moved of itself, darting from blade to blade, from blade to body, without appearing to pass through the intervening air. Blue light crackled along its edge.

Silver padded up to two men and hit them hard. Of the ones who turned to stare before running away, three keeled over as Marco took advantage of their distraction.

Alone in the courtyard, except for the dead, Marco sagged and dropped the sword. Kin picked it up and looked at its edge. It should have been bloody. It wasn’t. It was merely black, like a hole through the universe into something else.

‘It’s alive,’ said Marco sullenly. ‘I know you will scorn, but—’

‘What we have here’, said Kin loudly, ‘is merely a frictionless-coated blade with an electronic edge. The metal blade is merely a conductor. You must have seen similar things. Carving knives, for example?’

There was a pause. Marco nodded. ‘Of course you are right,’ he said.

‘Then let’s get the hell out of here!’

She oriented herself as best she could and made for the nearest flight of steps.

‘Where are you going?’ shouted Marco.

‘To find the magician!’ Before you do, she added to herself. I don’t want him killed. He’s the only way out of here.

She trotted through empty passages, heading upwards. A short flight of stairs looked familiar. She bounded up them, and there, at the end of a vaulted corridor, was the magician’s chamber.

Abu Ibn Infra sat pensively cross-legged on the magic carpet, watching her carefully over the top of thin, steepled fingers. Somewhat nearer the horse-faced shape of Azrifel crouched, splay-toed.

Kin glanced around the room. There was no one else there. Abu Ibn Infra spoke.

‘Why Have Your Creatures Attacked And Slaughtered My People?’ translated Azrifel.

‘We had expected better treatment,’ said Kin.

‘Why? You Come From The Place Of Thieves And Liars With Two Renegade Demons—’

‘They’re not demons,’ she said sharply. ‘They’re intelligent living creatures. They just happen to be of different races. Now, about that flying carpet—’

‘They Are Demons.’

Kin felt a gust of air from the far side of the room, and was in time to see two figures coalesce.

They were kung. Not perhaps perfect copies, and they moved curiously as if whatever had created them had aimed for kung shape without a knowledge of kung anatomy.

Abu had summoned demons to deal with her, and somewhere there was something that had observed that the kung shape was good for a fighter …

It had added disc touches. In battle kung usually carried no more than a short sword and a small blast deflector, leaving two arms for freelance throttling. These carried a weapon in each hand, and each one was different. One even twirled a morningstar.

It would be like being hit by colliding lawn-mowers.

Kin stared at the two expressionless faces,
dead
faces, and stopped herself from turning to run. She’d be running downstairs, with
those
behind her.

She raised the sword hopefully.

Something squirmed under her hand. Pain exploded up her arm and rattled her teeth. As the kung-things loped towards her the sword crackled.

Movement slowed. Through a pink glow Kin saw the demons slow as if they’d run into jelly, but there was no sound at all. Hate settled on her dreamily, comfortably, and she watched the sword come up with interest.

There was no shock when it drifted through an axe blade, and went on to shear through an arm – the flesh was grey, boneless and bloodless – and another sword.

She folded away from a snail’s-pace spear, and started a long slow leap that let her slice through a neck.

She swung her feet round in time to land lightly, twist, and let the sword sweep like a scythe.

Now there was a third enemy, backing away through the red mists. The sword jerked and Kin jumped, feeling her body curve behind the blade like the tail of a comet. It struck the figure in the chest, and Kin left it there.

She drifted on and into the wall, colliding gently with a faint prickling sensation. Then she began a lazy tumble to the floor, several miles away.

It had no right to hit her so hard.

She felt as though one side of her body was one long bruise. Her shoulder muscles were screaming. Her arm suggested that it had been dragged through a sieve.

For a blissful few seconds she was able to view the clamouring sensations objectively, looking into the kaleidoscope of her own head. Then subjectivity set in with a rush.

There was a slithering noise behind her, and a soft thud. With a certain amount of agony she turned her head to see Abu sprawled against the wall, with a long red smear above him.

Kin lay cherishing the coolness of the floor. Then she used her left arm, which merely ached horribly, to walk it on its fingers to the magician’s outflung hand. She uncurled his fingers from the lamp, and dragged it back until it was in front of her eyes.

It didn’t look anything special. She buffed its surface with a finger.

‘I Am Azrifel, Slave Of The Lamp,’ said the demon in a sing-song voice. ‘Your Wish Is My Command.’

‘Fetch me a doctor,’ said Kin thickly. The demon disappeared. There was a tiny thunderclap.

An agony later he reappeared. In his arms, kicking faintly and whimpering, was a small white-faced man in a black robe.

‘Wass that?’ said Kin.

‘Johannes Angelego Of The University Of Toledo.’

Kin picked up the lamp and hammered it on the tiles. Azrifel screamed. The small scholar echoed him, then fainted.

‘I mean a physician, you horse,’ muttered Kin. ‘Take that man back and bring me a proper doctor. It’s a box eight foot long, demon, with lights and dials on it. A DOCTOR. Unnerstan? Hell, even a human doctor would do.’

She hit the lamp again. Azrifel shrieked and disappeared.

This time he took longer, when he reappeared he carried a figure riding pickaback and was holding a large equipment box in his arms. Kin looked up hazily at the familiar green allsuit of an intern at the Company Medical Centre. The man jumped down, landing with all the athletic grace of one with limited access to rejuvenation treatments.

Kin recognized Jen Teremilt, his face wavering slightly as the pain closed in. Good old Jen – she’d nearly married him, a hundred and forty years ago. He’d have reached a high position in the Company’s medical history if he hadn’t died while hunting chaque on Sister.

His cool fingers reached out for her.

Though the carpet could easily carry the three of them – Azrifel did not appear to weigh anything – Marco insisted on ordering the flying horse to follow them closely.

‘Are we ready?’ said Marco.

The sun still hadn’t shown above the disc, but there was enough pearly pre-dawn light to show Kin and Silver sitting on the carpet in the middle of the cool roof.

Kin’s arm felt numb. She shivered.

‘Let’s go,’ she said. She rubbed the lamp. Azrifel appeared beside her.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘What?’

‘What happened to all that O Mistress stuff?’ said Kin, surprised.

Marco snorted impatiently.

‘All Right, Don’t Get Stuffy. That Sort Of Stuff Was All Right For
Him
– I Gathered You Were More Democratic.’ An etiquette lesson from a hundred and ninety years before jogged Kin’s overloaded memory – a gentleman is someone who always says ‘thank you’ to his robot.

‘This lamp,’ she said. ‘Suppose I were to give it to you?’

The demon blinked, and thought about it. After a moment a green tongue flicked out across its dry lips.

‘I Would Take It And Drop It Over The Edge Of The World, O Mistress,’ it said. ‘Then I Would Have Peace.’

‘Fly this carpet to the centre of the world and I will give you the lamp,’ said Kin. Azrifel grinned. Kin added, ‘See the kung on the horse? You will note he has the magic sword. I will give him the lamp. Should you betray us in any way, no doubt he will damage the lamp in interesting ways—’

The demon shivered.

‘Point Taken,’ he said, gloomily. ‘Is There No Trust In This World?’

‘No,’ said Marco flatly.

The carpet rose and skimmed over the darkened city, Marco following closely on the flying horse.

Kin watched the houses pass below and thought: