The Red Queen (68 page)

Gahltha gave a whinny of greeting and when Dragon reached us, he snuffed and lipped her in evident affection.

‘But where is Darga? And what about Rasial and Gavyn?’ Dragon asked suddenly.

I asked Gahltha, who answered that Rasial and Gavyn had not returned from their foray into Northport to search for Maruman the previous day. Darga had come with the horses, but he had gone off in search of Ana before they had come across me. I went to the square with Gahltha and Dragon and ate the cold pancakes left for me, wondering where Maruman had gone. I was about to send out a probe for him, when I noticed Ana hurrying up the street, half running and half walking. She greeted the horses with sincere but breathless affection.

‘Thank goodness you have come,’ she gasped. ‘I prayed you would think to farseek me.’

‘Is it Swallow?’ I asked worriedly.

‘No . . . at least I am sure he is fine.’ Still trying to get her breath, she said they had gone to the glide hangar together, but had then parted, the gypsy determined to find the means by which the glide would get out of the hangar. ‘He thinks it might be that Kelver Rhonin left the way open when he took out the fourth glide.’

‘Then why are you so flustered?’ I asked.

‘It is Hendon,’ Ana said. He was in the glide with the door open. He told me that he entered it and tried to test the hatch mechanism for the hold – that is how the horses will go on. The other door is in the roof of the glide and there is a ladder up to it. So when the
rhenlings
came back last night, some of them got inside.’

I shuddered. ‘We will get the wolves to use their musk and get rid of them while they can’t act,’ I said.

‘That’s not all. It turns out the glide computer had been set up with some special system that protects it from an override. That is what Hendon is doing, because he is not coming through the Northport computermachine, which is the usual way the glide is given instructions, and it doesn’t like it.’

‘Ana, it is a machine. It can’t like or dislike anything.’

‘It is only how it feels to Hendon and me,’ she said impatiently. ‘But listen, I am trying to tell you that the glide computermachine wants to lock the glide so it can’t be used, and the only thing stopping it is Hendon. If he withdraws from it the glide will lock and he will not be able to get back in. He said God did not know the glide has this protection and so she has no means of defeating it.’

‘Save staying where it is,’ I muttered. ‘
That
is why it didn’t come back this morning. It couldn’t. Well it is a bother and no mistake, but it only means we’ll have to get the rest of our things down into the hangar ourselves. I can’t see that it will matter one way or another to Hendon.’

Ana still looked fraught, and from the look on Dameon’s face, she was emanating alarm. Perhaps she was worried about the horses getting down to the hangar without God to work the elevating chamber mechanism. I said that it would be difficult, but for all their number, the stairs were wide and relatively shallow and could be used if needs must.

‘Oh Elspeth, there is more,’ Ana said. ‘God’s instructions only allow a certain time for us to board and that begins the moment Hendon orders the glide to open.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We will all assemble by the glide in readiness, bearing our packs. The horses can carry everything they can manage, and we can board and load at the same time. It will not take us long.’

‘It’s not us. We can climb the ladder and get into the glide the way God did. It’s the horses, we . . .’ Ana broke off and gave me a look of despair. ‘I haven’t explained it properly. Elspeth, I have been trying to tell you that Hendon can’t keep overriding the glide computermachine without doing anything more. He needs to start God’s program and once it starts he won’t be able to stop it. We have to go
now.
’

I stared at her in dismay. ‘But, Ana, Maruman has gone a-wandering, and Rasial and Gavyn are still missing! And what of Swallow?’

A hand came to rest on my shoulder and I felt Dameon empathising to us both as he said, ‘I think there is no time for talk now. We must act. You, at least, must be aboard that glide when it takes off.’

I nodded, my mind beginning to race. ‘You are right. Ana, you need to go and bandage the wolves’ eyes and lead them with you to the hangar. I will go with you now and explain to them what is happening, though I have the feeling they might already know some of it from Rheagor.’

I faltered, unable to think how to explain the events of the last hour in the basement chamber. Then I realised there was no time to stand there talking. To them as much as myself, I said, ‘Dameon is right. It is time to act. Get your pack and your healing things, Ana, but forget about the rest. Dragon, you and Dameon load the horses with as much as they can carry and lead them to the hangar stairs. It will take them some time to get down to the hangar level so the sooner they start the better.’

I turned to Gahltha and beastspoke him, showing him mind pictures of where he and the others must go. He snorted and shook his head. ‘When Marumanyelloweyes said we mustcome/fly into the sky inside a
glarsh
, I thought he had been mad-dreaming.’ He snorted again. ‘Better to fly than to go across the waves.’

I kissed him on the nose and then found my own pack and donned it as Ana swung hers over her back, slinging her precious bow and quiver over one shoulder and taking up a smaller bag. As we left, Dragon was already beginning to shift things from the piled-up supplies.

‘It will be a pity to leave any of it,’ she said, and I thought how hard she had worked at Midland amassing it.

‘We will collect some more of it when we come past with the wolves,’ I promised.

As we made our way back up the street to the red door, I told her that Gobor had killed Rheagor and another wolf. She would have stopped if I had not taken her arm and drawn her along. ‘It is not as it sounds. It was . . . a wolf matter and I will explain it properly later. But there are only Gobor and three she-wolves left and he is now the pack leader and all of them are fit to move. Gobor said the rest of the pack will be waiting for us, and I supposed he meant they are in the hangar. I thought something must have happened with them when I saw you hurrying up looking so distressed.’

‘I didn’t see any wolves,’ Ana said, looking puzzled. Then her eyes widened. ‘But I bet if they are in the hangar, they got in the same way we are going to get out, in which case Swallow might have stumbled on them . . .’

‘Don’t fear for him,’ I said. ‘Gobor said Rheagor made the wolves see us as pack.’

As I had suspected, Gobor knew we were to leave because, in the night, he had heard Rheagor speak of it to the pack. He brusquely cut off my attempts to tell him what we would do and why, saying the pack would go with me. The means did not matter. I turned back to Ana who had reeled at the sight of Rheagor and the she-wolf dead, and was still white-faced with distress, but I could not allow her time to grieve for those she had tended. I told her that Gobor had said there was no need to bandage their eyes. They would come at once and follow our scent with their eyes closed.

And so, we passed through Northport one final time. Ana pointed to the pile of bundles left in the square; to my delight, Maruman was sitting on the edge of the empty pool grooming himself industriously. He came into my arms and settled himself on my shoulders even as Ana began to rummage through the bundles and packages, muttering and sighing.

‘There is no time for this,’ I told her tersely.

‘I have a box of healing herbs we might need and I want to be sure they did not forget the big golator,’ she said. ‘You go on with the wolves and I will follow.’

I disliked leaving her, but Maruman was urging haste. I did not bother asking him what he had seen or feared; it was obvious enough. Quite aside from the fear that Hendon would run out of time, the afternoon was wearing on and there were the
rhenlings
to think about. The later it got the more restless they would be, and what would happen when the glide opened its hatch for the horses to enter if they were in a lighter phase of sleep? Would the noise of it be enough to break that sleep? This reminded me to warn Gobor that he and the others would need to stop the
rhenlings
inside the glide from attacking us. He sent back that this could be managed, but only if there were few
rhenlings
, and that the creatures would not freeze as we had done, but could be confused.

I was not sure how this would help, but we had no alternative unless we could kill them as they slept and that would mean killing every
rhenling
inside the glide simultaneously. Quite aside from the difficulty of managing it, the thought sickened me.

I tried, as we walked, to farseek Swallow and then Dameon and Dragon. When I could find none of them, I tried the horses. That my probe would not locate reassured me that they had begun their laborious journey down the steps to the subterranean glide hangar. I tried Darga then, to no avail, and then Rasial. Maruman sent sharply to me to forget them and make haste. Given that he had summoned the horses the previous night, I had no doubt the old cat had either foreseen what was to unfold or the oldOnes had warned him. Of course I had a thousand questions, but I did not let myself ask any of them, knowing from the feel of his mind – fractious, restless – that he would give me no sensible answer. Not now.

We descended quickly, until I saw light ahead, and soon we caught up with the horses making their slow way down the steps. Dameon was in the lead, and Dragon was behind him with a lightstick. She gave me a smile of relief over the backs of the horses. Soon, I heard Ana coming down behind me. Turning, I saw that she was struggling under a great mound of bundles. But as I stopped to take some of them from her, I saw that Darga was behind her.

‘He came upon me while I was rummaging,’ she said. ‘I near died of fright when he nuzzled at me, then he barked and barked and I realised he was trying to hurry me, so I came. Though I still could not find my other box of herbs. At least I brought some of the waterboxes. The others forgot them. I have one in my pack and the rest are stuffed into these bundles.’ She stumbled slightly and I caught her, warning her to be careful. ‘My legs are so tired,’ she said, and added in a heartfelt voice that she would be glad never to have to climb up and down such a set of steps again, which reminded me that she had already been down and up that morning.

‘I only hope Swallow is down here and did not get out of the hangar some other way and is even now at the camp wondering where we are,’ she fretted.

I assured her that I had farsought him the moment before entering the building, and that he was not above ground. Then I greeted Darga.

‘Greetings, ElspethInnle, he responded, without warmth, and yet it seemed to me his mind was not as dark and gloomy as it had been, and I wondered what had happened to him in the year and more since the androne had ‘rescued’ me.

‘Less gnawing and more hurrying,’ Maruman snapped.

When at last we reached the level of the glide chamber, I reckoned the maddeningly slow descent had cost us an hour or more and I heaved a great sigh of relief when Dameon pushed open the heavy door. I had moved to walk alongside Gahltha, and I felt his flesh creep and shiver as the reek of the
rhenlings
flowed up into the stairwell. The other horses were unsettled, too, and when I saw the worried look on Dameon’s face, I farsought him and bade him do his best to soothe the beasts, though I knew his Talent did not work as well with them. Gahltha assured me none of the equines would act foolishly, it was only that the scent affected them in ways that they could not control.

We passed as silently as we could under the thick layer of
rhenlings
clinging to the roof and pillars of the glide chamber, but I noticed the creatures shifting and moving restlessly, and wondered if the journey from the surface had taken longer than I thought; or maybe it was only that the scent of the horses was particularly appealing to the creatures, as it was supposed to be for wolves. That made me look at the four wolves, who had opened their eyes the moment we had entered the dark stairwell and closed the door. They moved like pale wraiths through the darkness of the chamber, unerringly making their way towards the glide Hannah had marked.

But when I passed the
rhenling
-covered pillar, I was shocked to see only two glides stood where there had been three.

‘It’s all right,’ Ana said quickly. ‘I forgot to tell you Hendon moved it. I got a fright too, when I came back, but then I looked about . . . I will show you.’

‘Why was it moved? And how?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Hendon pushed it,’ Ana said absently and went on to explain that the androne had told her there was usually a little machine that would drag the glide into the place it needed to be when it was to fly out of the hangar, but that this was controlled by the Northport computermachine, which could not be reached now by the glide computer.’

‘It is lucky Hendon is so strong and smart,’ Ana said, sounding oddly prideful.

She led us far enough into the hangar that I lost sight of the other glides, then I saw it, standing alone, a ladder propped against its side. I realised I had caught hold of Cassandra’s key as if it were a talisman, and I was momentarily startled at its unfamiliar shape before I remembered the two portions were now attached to one another.

‘I wish I could see it,’ Dameon murmured, and for him to make such a wish was so unusual that I turned to look at him in astonishment. He must have felt it, for he gave me a smile. ‘Just because I do not say it does not mean I do not sometimes think it. In this case, though, I can feel your disbelief and astonishment and fear and wonder, and it comes to me that I am to give my life into the care of a thing I cannot imagine.’

I took his hand; it felt warm and strong. ‘The glide is very ugly and not at all what I would have imagined,’ I said, glancing up at the
rhenlings
. ‘Indeed, it is hard to believe it can fly, for it is an immense, oval-shaped thing on three legs, with windows around its side. It is flat on top and has a great fat underbelly, which I suppose is the hold. There is a ladder going up to its roof and from what Ana has said, we can enter it by climbing up onto its roof and going through an opening on top.’ I glanced at Ana, who nodded, and I bade her go in and see what Hendon had to say for himself, and to warn him about the beasts. The last thing I wanted was for him to threaten the wolves as he had done Maruman.

When she had vanished into the vessel, I beastspoke Gobor, bidding him and the three she-wolves follow her into the glide and locate the
rhenlings
aboard. I had not asked Ana how many there were, and I only hoped the four wolves would be enough. I then asked Dragon to lead Dameon into the glide and bade her find a chamber with windows that could be masked, or a windowless passage for the wolves, for by the looks of it, we would be flying in daylight.

Watching her lead the empath into the glide, I felt again a wash of disbelief and incredulity at what we planned. Then I dismissed it and turned to urge Gahltha and the other horses to assemble themselves close to the hold so that they could enter the second it opened, though surely God must have allowed a little time for boarding. On the other hand, maybe she had left that to the Northport computermachine . . .

Ana appeared atop the vessel looking distressed. ‘Elspeth, there is a problem. God says when he starts the glide and opens the hold, there is like to be a warning siren.’

I thought of the ear-piercing scream of the siren in Habitat, which the Speci had taken as a warning, though hidden in it had been a summons to the
rhenling
horde. How had Hannah allowed God to create that, I thought, baffled. Then my thoughts jerked back to the horses and my fear that they would not have time enough to board the glide before being attacked by the
rhenlings
, given the creatures were crusted on ever surface about us, including on the underside of the glide. Nor could the wolves help, for they had to deal with the
rhenlings
inside the glide, and anyway, Gobor had warned me that they could not hold off a great horde of the vicious creatures.

‘And I am worried about Swallow,’ Ana said.

‘There is no need to worry for me, though it warms my heart that you think of me,’ Swallow said.

Even as I swung away to face the gypsy, I caught the flash of relief and joy on Ana’s face. Swallow was striding towards us from the darkness ahead of the glide and he said at once that he had come back to look for Ana earlier, only to find Hendon sitting in the glide alone. The androne had explained everything. ‘I went back to cleaning the opening I am assuming will let the glide out once Hendon makes it fly. I am assuming we
will
fly before we leave this chamber, because of the height of the roof here.’

‘Clean it?’ I said, looking up and realising that the ceiling
was
higher right above the glide.

‘It was clogged with ancient
rhenling
skeletons,’ Swallow said. ‘My guess is that it happened after the departure of Kelver Rhonin’s glide. In fact, I have a feeling he might have damaged his vessel, for there are a good many bits of broken metal and plast lying about the opening. I only hope that Hendon is right and that the mechanism will open it when the glide approaches. I cleaned the opening and shut it for fear it might not open if it was already jammed open. That is how
they
got in, of course, and right now, there is no way out for them, and so it might be a very good thing if we are to fly away before they wake.’ He nodded to the nearest pillar.

Then Ana was coming towards us and the gypsy’s arm went out to draw her to his side with such perfect naturalness than it ached me and pleased me in equal measure.

‘I cannot believe we are going to do it,’ Ana said to us both, and I marvelled to see that her eyes were alight with excitement, despite what she had just said about the siren. Swallow bade her go back in and close the upper entrance to the glide. He would help me get the horses in through the hold, and we would go in that way as well.

‘But how will I warn you Hendon is about to start the glide? He asked if we could go now, but I said he must wait for as long as he can. He says that will not be much longer.’

‘I think the siren will warn us very well,’ Swallow told her dryly.

‘What of Rasial and Gavyn, and Darga,’ he asked, when she had gone up and in.

‘Darga found Ana and came down with her. I ought to have asked him about Gavyn and Rasial . . .’

‘Perhaps they are not to come with us,’ the gypsy said soberly. ‘Do not fear for them, for they will surely find their way back to Midland eventually. And maybe their course will be a good bit safer than ours.’ He glanced at the glide pointedly, with all of my own mistrust. Then he looked back at me and stiffened, his eyes going past me.

The wolves were coming towards us, three and then two, one limping badly, and then another two, male cubs with a multitude of cuts, and one with a swollen and bloody eye. I beastspoke them, telling them their pack leader was within the vessel, only to realise they would have to wait and go in with us now that Ana had shut the top entrance. In the next few moments two more wolves came, and now we were silent. Only then did it strike me that we could go at once, and that I had not asked Hendon to begin because I was waiting.

Waiting for what, I wondered?

Something to stop me from having to enter the glide? For once I entered, I would truly be no better than the mad and ambitious Beforetimers handing their future over to computermachines. Or maybe not quite so mad, since I at least had the wit to be afraid. It struck me then, that if we did manage to fly free of Northport, I would be once again following in the footsteps of a Beforetime man – not Jacob Obernewtyn this time, but Kelver Rhonin, who had known Hannah and Cassandra’s Beforetime friend, Doktaruth, whom I believed had gone to find Eden.

About my neck, Maruman suddenly grew rigid. ‘They come!’ he sent.

‘Who?’ I whispered aloud, for Swallow’s sake, knowing the old cat would read the thought that preceded the words.

‘More wolves, and Rasial and the funaga cub who are one,’ Maruman sent.

I turned to Swallow who was looking at me expectantly, but before I could speak, the glide behind us began to tremble and hum and I heard a high-pitched scream. I had never expected the siren to be so shockingly loud and my heart quailed at the thought of what lay ahead, though even now, a tiny, mad, treacherous part of me hoped the glide would not open its doors. But sanity reasserted itself at the realisation that this would leave Swallow and me and the beasts trapped in the glide hangar with a horde of slavering
rhenlings
.

With that, I looked at the nearest pillar and saw them stirring and beginning to crawl over one another.

‘It is not opening,’ Swallow said in a low urgent voice, glancing back at the hull of the glide. Gahltha reared slightly and then moved his bulk in front of me, pushing me back against the rounded hull. He was trying to shield me, I knew, even as he had done long ago in the White Valley, after Malik’s betrayal. I looked at Sendari and little Faraf.

‘Something comes,’ Swallow said.

He directed his lightstick outward and I saw, high above, several
rhenlings
dropping from the roof, disturbed by the endless shrilling of the siren. All about us more and more
rhenlings
were wheeling in the air, thick and dim as leaves in a night storm. I remembered that the light would draw them and was about to tell Swallow to quench his lightstick when all at once the hull of the glide begun to hum and glow and two lines of lights showed on the floor, running away into the darkness.

‘At last!’ Swallow cried, his voice barely audible above the wail of the siren. I turned my head to see that a section of the hull was opening painfully slowly, gradually stretching and flattening out to form a ramp. I saw Ana in the opening, an arrow nocked to the string of the bow the futuretellers had given me.

‘Quickly, get the horses in,’ Swallow shouted to me.

There was no need for me to beastspeak the beasts – the wolves and the horses leapt up the ramp and into the dark hold.

‘We have to stop any more
rhenlings
entering. The door will stay open for as long as God decided,’ Ana told us. Swallow nodded and then frowned past me, and I turned to see that Gahltha had not gone in.

‘You must come with me,’ he sent.

Swallow urged us both to enter. ‘Get in and I will stand with Ana and bar the way.’

‘Gavyn and Rasial . . .’

‘The door will stay open as long as it stays open,’ Swallow interrupted. ‘We have no say in it.’

‘Help me,’ Dragon called, and I ran up the ramp, Gahltha thudding up behind me on the soft spongy surface. I found Dragon trying to fasten a net about Sendari’s belly. It was heavy and took two of us to fit it. ‘Hendon said to use these to secure the beasts in the hold,’ she panted, as we moved Faraf into place and did the same for the little mare. ‘We worked out how to use the nets while we were waiting for the hold to open. It seemed to take forever. I was afraid, but Ana swore it would open.’ She was shouting to be heard over the endless shriek of the siren, though it was somewhat muffled inside the hold.

‘There are other nets for the bags and bundles but there is no time to get them off the horses now. Hendon said they have to be in the nets before the glide rises.’

I helped her to fasten Gahltha’s net, all too aware that if
rhenlings
got into the glide, the horses would be helpless.

‘There they go,’ I heard Swallow cry, and turned in time to see a funnelling coil of
rhenlings
. My heart seized in terror, because once they found the hold, there would be no way one long blade and a bowyer, however gifted, could hold them off. I was tempted to use the black spirit power, except that Rheagor had warned me the creatures would home in on me if I tried to use any Talent on them.

‘You should go inside now,’ Dragon said, and I saw that she had drawn a blade now as well. ‘The steps are at the back of this chamber and you must shut the door so that no
rhenlings
get inside if . . .’