“What’s going on now?” Hunt asked.
“I think we’re in business,” VISAR replied. “Nixie’s in touch with one of them down there now. It’s not one of the big chiefs that she was searching for, but it seems like some guys who are in trouble. I can give you a quick preview.”
A scene appeared as if before Hunt’s eyes of a noisy, excited crowd cramming in from the side streets to the central square of what seemed to be a primitive village. The people were dressed in crude, rustic garb of coarse shirts and breeches, jerkins, and cloaks. But there was also a peculiar, wheelless carriage that ran on slides, like a sledge, with occupants who were more finely arrayed in jewelry and robes. In front of the carriage was a protective line of figures wearing helmets and breastplates and carrying weapons, and ahead, more of them mounted on strange six-legged beasts. Behind the carriage was a rough, open cart, also without wheels. Both conveyances were hitched to pairs of strange, bulky animals, again with six legs but heavier than the ones bearing the riders. They looked somewhat like buffalo, but with enormous, pillarlike legs that projected sideways from their bodies, then bent downward in a right angle like a spider’s.
There was a raised platform with more figures, and behind them, Hunt realized to his alarm and consternation, three stakes piled ready for burning. The houses of the village were square and smooth, possibly mud-built, with projections like minarets, and arches connecting across some of the alleys. Here and there in the square, scaly, doglike animals were whooping and leaping like miniature kangaroos. The light was dim, a gloomy twilight. Outlined through it in the background were mountains, more vertical and sharply angular than any natural formations that Hunt had ever seen before.
Although Hunt had been prepared, he still found himself overcome with amazement. “That’s really it, the Entoverse?” he asked, struggling to accept it. “This is really happening right now, inside a computer light-years away from here?”
“Concentrate on the situation,” VISAR replied. “I’ve got a feeling you could get involved real soon.”
Near the base of the platform, surrounded by more soldiers, was a group of what looked like prisoners, dirty, ragged, and disheveled, wearing manacles and chains. Two seemed to single themselves out in Hunt’s field of view as VISAR directed his attention to them. The younger man, scarcely more than a youth, had fair hair and the remains of a long, white tunic. Hunt stared in surprise as he recognized the purple-spiral emblem on the sash hanging from his shoulder. The older of the two, with long, matted hair and a heavy beard, was clad in what had once been flowing robes, now falling apart. But instead of bowing cowed and dejected like the rest of the prisoners, he was standing erect, his face turned upward, wreathed in an expression of ecstatic revelation. Then Hunt heard a voice that he recognized as Nixie’s, which he knew somehow to be speaking inside the bearded man’s mind.
“… the gods that you knew before. All that’s over now. The sky’s about to come under new management.”
The old man’s thoughts came through as another voice, sounding awed and exalted. “More powerful gods shall rule the heavens? And shall I, Shingen-Hu, be their servant? The priests of the temples, and all their powers, and the king and his forces, all shall be overcome?”
“Don’t worry about them. They’re out of it now… Oh-oh.” On the platform, another nobleman in robes was shouting something about bringing down wrath on blasphemers. Three more prisoners were being chained to the stakes, while several sinister figures advanced menacingly toward them holding long, nasty-looking knives.
“Look,” Nixie’s voice said. “We’re gonna send you down one of our troubleshooters right now. You look like you could use help. Just leave it all to him. I’ll explain later.”
“An angel?” Shingen-Hu said. “To aid us in this moment of anguish? We shall yet be saved?”
Hunt realized with a sudden sinking feeling whom she meant. “Hey, wait a minute, VISAR. You can’t do this. I don’t know anything about-”
“Trust me,” VISAR said. “Think about getting your act together.”
Suddenly, Shingen-Hu was thundering and pointing an accusing finger up at the robed figure on the platform. “Desist ye, false prophet and instrument of all that is evil!” A confused hush swept over the crowd, and all heads turned toward him. “Charlatan and deceiver, thou liest! Even now do greater gods sweep thee and thy puny masters aside, to be trodden into the mire like vermin. Behold, an angel descends from the realm beyond, and he shall be my witness, and thy undoing!”
“VISAR, I really don’t think you-”
“Okay, go knock ‘em dead. You’re on.”
And suddenly, Hunt was up there on the platform. Not just as a focal point of impressions being relayed by VISAR. He was there. Instantly, total silence fell, and every face in the square was gaping at him as if he had just materialized out of nowhere.
As indeed, of course, he had.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
It was no good. Hunt’s mind seized up. For a fleeting, insane second he was tempted to say, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’m standing up here like this,” but the looks on the faces below dispelled any further thought of it.
He looked down and saw that he was wearing a long, loose, togalike garment with sandals. “What’s this?” he hissed inwardly at VISAR. “I look like a part in Julius Caesar.”
“You’re not exactly in Trafalgar Square,” VISAR answered. “It’s appropriate. What did you want, something from Savile Row?”
The noble who had been in charge was backing away behind the soldiers, who were slowly recovering their wits and moving forward warily. “He’s not a god, he’s an impostor!” the noble screamed. “Kill him!”
In a passing thought, Hunt wondered how he came to understand the words. But there were more pressing things to attend to just at the moment. One of the soldiers, a bearded giant with embellished breastplate and plumed helmet, who suggested something from popular depictions of the Trojan War, drew back his arm and hurled a spear. Hunt raised a protective arm reflexively; the spear stopped in midair less than a foot away, then burst into fragments that fell to the ground.
“VISAR, do we have to cut things that close?” Hunt asked shakily.
“Sorry about that. I’m still experimenting with the dynamics of this place Things that moved got longer, Hunt remembered.
“What kind of cowards are you?” the noble shouted. “That’s just a man. One man!”