The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (38 page)

"Nothing but," Richard declared. "She was chewed to pieces and I let her have a couple of good ones with the bronze sword, but she still just about nailed me. Then something made me try Felice's little dagger."

The red man turned to the girl and demanded, "Give it to me."

"And who the hell do you think you are?" she said coolly.

He roared with laughter and the sound of it boomed in the hollow trunk of the Tree as in an empty cathedral "I'm Peo-peo Moxmox Burke, last chief of the Wallawalla tribe and former justice of the Washington State Supreme Court I'm also the one-time leader of this gang of paskudnyaks and its present Sergeant at Arms and Warlord in Chief. Now may I please examine your dagger?"

He smiled at Felice and held out a great hand. She smacked the golden scabbard into it smartly. Burke drew out the leaf-shaped little blade and held it up in the firelight.

"Stainless steel alloy with an eversharp edge," the girl said. "A common toy on Acadie, useful for picking teeth, cutting sandwiches, pricking out transponders from rustled cattle, and putting out the lights of casual assaulters "

"It seems quite ordinary except for the gold of the hilt," Burke said. "Amerie has a theory about it," Claude said. 'Tell him, child."

Burke listened thoughtfully as the nun set forth her hypothesis on the possible deadly effect of iron on torc-bearing exotics, then murmured, "It could be. The iron disrupting the life-force almost like a neural poison."

"I wonder . . ." Felice began, staring at Madame with an innocent expression.

The old woman went to Chief Burke and took the knife from him. As the assembled crowd gasped, she held it to her own throat below the golden neck-ring and pricked the skin. A pearl-sized drop of dark blood appeared. She handed the dagger back to Burke.

"It seems," Felice said gently, "that Madame is made of sterner stuff than the Tanu."

"Sans doute," was the old woman's dry reply.

Burke mused over the small blade. "It's incredible that we never thought to try iron against them. But vitredur and bronze weapons were so easily available. And we never tumbled to the reasons why they confiscated steel items back at the Castle . . . Khalid Khan!"

One of the crowd, a gaunt man with burning eyes, a scraggly beard, and an immaculate white turban, got to his feet. "I can smelt iron as readily as copper, Peo. All you have to do is furnish the ore. The religious prohibition that the Tanu put on ironwork among their human subjects simply led us to carry on with copper and bronze out of sheer inertia "

"Who knows where iron ore might be found?" Madame asked of the company. There was silence until Claude said, "I might help you there. We old fossil hunters know a little geology, too. About a hundred kloms northwest of here, down the Moselle River, should be an accessible deposit. Even primitive men worked it It'll be near the site of the future city of Nancy."

Khalid Khan said, "We'd have to do the refining work up there. Arrowheads would be best to begin with. Some lance tips. A few smaller blades."

"There's another experiment you might try," Amerie said, "once you have a strong iron chisel." "What's that. Sister?" asked the turbaned metalsmith.

'Try removing gray torcs with it"

"By damn!" exclaimed Peopeo Moxmox Burke.

"Iron might short out the linkage between the brains of the torc wearers and the slave-circuitry," the nun went on. "We must find some way of freeing those people!"

One of Burke's fighters, a hefty fellow puffing a meerschaum, said, "To be sure. But what about those who don't wish to be freed? Perhaps you don't realize, Sister, that a good many humans are quite content with their filthy symbiosis with the exotics. The soldiers, especially. How many of them are sadistic misfits, delighting in the riles given them by the Tanu?"

Madame Guderian said, "It is true, what Uwe Guldenzopf says. And even among those of goodwill, even among the bare-necks, there are many who are happy in bondage. It is because of them that the expiation of my guilt cannot be a simple matter."

"Now don't start that again, Madame." Burke was firm. "Your plan, as it stands, is a good one. With the addition of iron weapons, we can shtup it forward that much faster. By the time we've located the Ship's Grave, we'll have enough of an armory to give the scheme a reasonable chance of success."

'I'm not going to wait weeks or months for you people to hatch your plot," Felice declared. "If my dirk killed one Tanu, it can kill others." She held out her hand to Burke. "Give it back."

"They'd get you, Felice," the Native American said. They're expecting you. Do you think all of the Tanu are as weak as Epone? She was small fry, fairly powerful as coercers go, but her redact function wasn't worth much or she'd have smelted, you out back at the Castle, even without using the mind-assay machine. The leaders among the Tanu can detect people like you in the same way that they detect Firvulag. You're going to have to keep out of the way until you get your golden torc."

She exploded. "And when will that be, dammit?"

Madame said, "When we manage to obtain one for you. Orwhen the Firvulag choose to give you one."

The girl replied with a volley of obscenities. Claude went up to her, took her by the shoulders, and sat her down on the soft wood-dust of the floor. "Now that's enough of that." Turning to Burke and Madame Guderian, he said, "Both of you have referred to a plan of action that you seem to expect us to participate in. Let's hear it."

Madame uttered a deep sigh. "Very well. First, you must know what we are up against. The Tanu seem to be invulnerable, immortal, but they are not. They can be killed by Firvulag brainstorms, the weaker ones, and even a powerful coercer-redactor may be over-whelmed if many Firvulag all project together or if one of their great heroes, such as Pallol or Sharn-Mes, chooses to fight."

"What is this bad vibes thing?" Richard asked her. "Can you do it?"

She shook her head. "My latent abilities include the far-sensing function in moderation, a somewhat less powerful coercive ability, and an aspect of creativity that may spin certain illusions. I can coerce ordinary humans, and grays who are not under direct compulsion from a Tanu. I cannot coerce humans wearing gold or silver torcs, except with subliminal suggestions, which they may or may not follow. My farsense permits me to eavesdrop upon the so-called declamatory or command mode of the mental speech. I can hear the golds, silvers, and grays when they call out to one another over moderate distances, but I cannot detect more subtle narrow-focus communication unless it is directed at me. On rare occasions I have perceived messages coming from far away."

"And can you farspeak back?" Claude asked in an excited tone.

"To whom would I speak?" the old woman inquired. "All around us are enemies!"

Amerie exclaimed. "Elizabeth!"

Claude explained. "One of our companions. An operant far-speaker. She was taken south to the capital" He told what he knew of Elizabeth's former life and her regained metafunctions. Madame frowned in. preoccupation. "So it was she that I heard! But I did not know. And so I suspected a Tanu trick and withdrew at once from the touch."

"Could you contact her?" Claude asked.

"The Tanu would hear me," the old woman said, shaking her head. "I seldom project, except to sound the alarm to our people. Rarely to call to our Firvalug allies. I have not the skill to use the narrow focus that is undetectable except to the intended receptor."

Felice broke in rudely, "The plan! Get on with it!"

Madame pursed her lips and lifted her chin. "Eh bien. Let us continue to speak of the potential vulnerability of the Tanu. They kill one another by decapitation during their ritual combats. In theory a human could accomplish this, too, if it were possible to get close enough. However, the Tanu with coercive or reductive functions defend themselves mentally, while the creators and the psychokinetics are capable of physical assault. The weaker among them remain within the protective sphere of their more powerful fellows or else have bodyguards of armed silver or grays. There are two other ways in which Tanu may meet death, both very rare. The Firvulag told me of a very young Tanu who died by fire. He panicked when burning lamp oil spilled upon him and in fleeing, fell off a wall. His human guardians were unable to reach him before he was incinerated. If they had rescued him before his brain burned, they could have restored him to health in the usual Tanu fashion."

"Which is?" Amerie asked.

Chief Burke said, "They have a psychoactive substance that they call Skin. It looks like a thin plass membrane. Tanu healers with a certain combination of PK and redact are able to work through this stuff in some metapsychic way. They just wrap the patient up and start cogitating. They get results comparable to our best regeneration-tank therapy back in the Milieu, but with no hardware. Skin works on human beings, too, but it's worthless without the Tanu operator." "Do the Firvulag use Skin?" asked the nun. Burke shook his huge head. "Just old-fashioned frontier doctoring. But they're tough little devils."

Felice laughed. "So are we."

"The last way that the exotics may die," Madame resumed, "is by drowning. The Firvulag are excellent swimmers. However, most of the Tanu are rather more sensitive than humans to the injurious effects of immersion. Still, death by drowning is very rare among them and seems to take mostly certain careless sportsmen of Goriah in Brittany, who are accustomed to carry their Hunt to the sea. Sometimes they are swallowed or carried into the depths by the enraged leviathans that they prey upon."

Felice grunted. "Well, there's not much chance well be able to hold the bastards' heads under water. So how do you plan to get the drop on 'em?"

"The plan is complex, involving several phases. It requires the co-operation of the Firvulag, with whom we have a very precarious alliance. Briefly, we would hope to attack and overrun Finiah aided by the forces of the Little People, who would be able to wreak havoc once they penetrated the city walls. Finiah is a strategic target of prime importance and it is isolated from the other Tanu population centers. Within its environs and protected by its defenses is the only barium mine in the Exile world. The element is extracted with great difficulty from a meager ore by rama workers. It is vital to the manufacture of torcs. All torcs. If we eliminate the supply of barium by destroying the mine, the entire socioeconomy of the Tanu would be undercut."

"Kinda long-range for a disaster, isn't it?" Richard remarked. "I should think they'd have stockpiles of the stuff stashed away."

"I have said that the matter is complex," Madame responded in some irritation. "We will also have to find a way of stopping the flow of time-travelers. As you will see, it is the coming of humanity to the Pliocene that has enabled the Tanu to dominate the era. In the days before I began my meddling, there was a virtual balance of power between Tanu and Firvulag. This was destroyed by the human advent."

"I get it," said Richard, the old intriguer. "The Firvulag are willing to help you and your bunch in hopes of restoring the good old days. But what makes you think the little spooks won't turn on us once they get what they want?"

"It is a matter still requiring some reflection," said Madame in a low voice.

Richard gave a derisive snort.

'There's more to the plan," said Peopeo Moxmox Burke. "And don't kick it in the head until you've heard the whole thing. Now down south in the capital ..." The little cat growled.

All of them looked toward the entrance crevice. There stood a short, broad-shouldered figure in a dripping, mucky cloak. His high-crowned hat leaned lugubriously over one ear from an accumulation of moisture. He grinned at the company through a mask of mud in which eyes and teeth were the only bright points.

"Pegleg!" exclaimed Burke. 'For God's sake, bubi, what have you been up to? "

"Had to go to ground. Bear-dogs on my trail!" As he came stumping toward the fire, Madame whispered, "Not a word of the iron."

The new arrival was something under a meter and a half in height, with a barrel chest and a visage that was rosy-cheeked and long-nosed, once the filth had been wiped away. He had lost one leg below the knee, but walked about agilely enough with the aid of a singular prosthesis fashioned of wood. Seating himself by the fire, he swabbed at the peg with a damp rag, revealing carvings of snakes and weasels and other creatures twining about the artificial limb. They bad inset jewels for eyes "What news?" Burke inquired.

"Oh, they're out there, all right," Pegleg replied. Somebody passed food and drink, which the little man attacked with gusto, simultaneously talking with his mouth full "Some of the lads drew off a large patrol coming up the Onion River. Finished a good half dozen and sent the rest off with their tails between their legs screeching for Daddy Velteyn. No sign of the Exalted Cocksman himself yet, Té be thanked. Probably doesn't want to get his lovely glass armor all wet in the rain. I had a bad moment when some bear-dogs from the squad that we finished began tracking me unawares. Could've nailed me, the sneaky turdlings, but I happened on a nice stinking bog and hid in it until they tired of waiting."The little man held out his mug to the nun for a refill of wine. Amerie's cat had not returned to her, even though she snapped her fingers in a way that usually brought the animal running. Two baleful glowing eyes watched Pegleg from a dark pile of baggage far from the central fire. The cat continued to utter high-pitched, quavering growls.

"We must introduce our new companions to you," Madame said graciously. "You have seen them, of course. The Reverend Sister Amerie, Professor Claude, Captain Richard ... and Felice."

"May the Good Goddess smile on you," the little man said. "I'm Fithara. But you can call me Pegleg."

Richard goggled. "Christ! You're a Firvulag?"

The one-legged man laughed and climbed to his feet. There beside the fire stood a tall, dead-black apparition with coiling tentacles for arms, slitted red eyes, and a mouth full of shark's teeth that slavered foul saliva.

Amerie's little cat let out a spitting screech. The monster vanished and Pegleg resumed his seat by the fire, nonchalantly drinking his wine.