Suddenly the witch queen let go and stepped back, raising her arms once again. “Oh, Satan, Prince of Darkness, rightful King of the Universe, we give thanks!” she almost shouted, and the litany was repeated by the others. The fire flared again into near-blinding brilliance, then almost died, causing the strong impression of a tangible darkness closing in, embracing all of us there in the village. I felt a little chill despite the heat and humidity, I have to admit I could well understand how this sort of thing could attract followers.
“From light into darkness, from dark knowledge the final victory,” she intoned, and then it was broken, as if by some signal. All thirteen of the women stood a little unsteadily, appearing to have gone through some strenuous physical labor.
O’Higgins recovered quickly, though, and walked back to the still unmoving form of Ti, placing hands again on her head. She nodded to herself, then called for others to bear Ti to one of the huts. As they were carrying out her orders, she turned and walked over to us.
“Well, Bronz, your side couldn’t do a damned thing,” she noted.
Bronz shrugged. “You did what was necessary?”
“I undid what I could,” she admitted, “but I told you that that butchering bastard was really good and really clever. She’ll be all right for a while, though—in fact better than all right, since I had to bypass a lot of Pohn’s knots and create alternate routes that might not hold up. There’ll be a rush, though—she’ll probably feel like she can topple mountains, even though in reality she’ll be quite weak until she gets a lot more exercise and regular food, and I fear the repair job won’t hold forever.”
“You mean,” I put in, “that she’ll eventually lapse back into that state?”
She nodded. “Remember the way the system works,” she said. “The Warden organisms have a single idea of what is natural. Those with the power can convince Wardens that something else is what they want to do—and that’s what Pohn did. Her Wardens want to put her back into that state because he’s fooled them into thinking that it’s normal. I bypassed the nerve blocks by using parts of the brain not normally used at all, but the Wardens will perceive my meddling as an injury, like a broken arm. They will rush to fix it, put it right. They’ll be battling my own work with some localized Wardens, but the barriers will eventually break down. It’ll take somebody as expert in cranial medicine and/or more powerful than Dr. Pohn to put her completely right, although that could be accomplished in a matter of minutes by such a person.”
I frowned. “How long, then, will she—wake up?”
She shrugged. “A few days, maybe a week. No more. It’ll go slowly, so there’s no sure way to tell.”
I groaned in frustration. “Then what the hell was the use of all this? Who could really heal her in that length of time?”
She looked at me, slightly surprised at my tone. “You really care? About a small female?”
“He cares,” Bronz put in, saving me from making nasty comments to my host. “He escaped from Zeis and he could have done it a lot easier without bringing her. Instead he’s lugged her with him everywhere, fed her, cleaned her—you name it.”
She looked at me again, this time nodding slightly, and for the first time I felt like I’d attained the status of human being in her eyes. “If she means that much to you,” she said to me, “then perhaps something can be done. There’s only one place I know of for sure, though, that could do the job, and it’s pretty far away.”
“Moab Keep,” Father Bronz added, nodding. “I suspected as much. But four thousand kilometers, Sumiko! How in God’s name can we possibly get her there in under a year? Let alone Tremon here, who needs to take the full treatment.”
She grinned evilly. “Not in God’s name, Augie. But the answer’s obvious—we- fly. A besil can do three, maybe four hundred kilometers a night, resting days, so we’re talking ten days at the outside. That sound a lot more possible?”
“Besils!” Bronz scoffed. “Since when do you have access to any domesticated besils capable of carrying passengers?”
“I don’t—now,” she admitted. “I expect that if we need besils, though, we can get them pretty easily courtesy of Zeis Keep.”
I jumped, “What!”
She shrugged. “Either you slipped up somewhere, Augie, or he did. It doesn’t matter. We’re partially surrounded by Zeis troopers right now, and I expect them to come in at sunup, when they can see what they’re doing.”
I whirled around, staring at the darkness in nervous anticipation. When I realized that neither of the other two seemed in any way concerned by that news, I just grew a little more paranoid about them.
I turned to Father Bronz, who was cocking his head slightly, as if listening for something. Finally he said, “How many do you make them?”
“No more than twenty or thirty, all on besils,” she responded casually. “I’d suppose somebody’s gone back for more, but he’s not about to commit more than a fraction of his force. Some of the other knights might get the idea to exploit the weakness and attack Zeis.”
Bronz nodded agreement. “Then well face no more than forty, a fifth or so of his force. I agree. Okay, forty people at arms, with Artur almost a certainty and, say, two other masters?”
She nodded. “That’s about it.”
“Wait a minute!” I exploded. “It may not be inv-portant to you, but they’re after the girl and me! You can’t fight a force like that!”
Sumiko O’Higgins shook her head slowly in disgust “Now, isn’t that just like a man! Look, you just go cower someplace and maybe get some sleep and leave the worrying to me.”
“But—but—they’re all highly trained soldiers, all of ’em at least supervisors and with more masters than you’ve got here!” I sputtered. “How do you expect to defeat them?”
“Just don’t you worry about it,” she replied condescendingly. “We—Father Bronz and I—have a lot of work to do between now and dawn. A good thing the God-lovers and we Satanists can get together and agree on one sort of cooperative venture,” she added. “Atheists! Pgh!”
Father Bronz added, “She knows what she’s doing, Cal,” in his most reassuring tone. If it hadn’t been for the under-the-breath addition of “I hope” to his statement I just might have believed him.
As it was, I just stayed there, not feeling at afl asleep, seeing Master Artur’s fierce moustachioed gaze behind every darkness-shielded bush and tree in the jungle.
Chapter Seventeen
I Do Believe in Witches—I Do, I Do!
Needless to say, I got very little sleep that night. Of course nobody in the witch village seemed to sleep at night, although they were all rather expert at ignoring anybody they didn’t want to see and I was a non-person in their eyes.
The best I could do was occasionally check on Ti, who when I peeked in for the third or fourth time was not only breathing deeply and regularly, as if in normal sleep, but actually gave out a moan and turned over by herself. That sight alone made this whole business all worthwhile—provided, of course, I lived through the next day.
Although I knew little about witchcraft and remembered less, from the village itself I made a few deductions. Thirteen, the unlucky number because it was the number at the Christians’ Last Supper, was naturally a positive number for devil-worshipers. Thirteen women in the coven, then, which explained the number at the ceremony. Thirteen large huts, too, although there were far more than that number living here communally. I never could get an exact count, but I was willing to wager that whatever it was, the number was a multiple of thirteen.