Pandaras stopped. He was at a crossroads. Rubble slumped at its four corners. Rain poured down out of a black sky, intermittently lit by white and red and green threads of light. The slow, muffled drumbeat was coming closer. He could not tell where it was and chose a direction at random and ran. Prefect Corin had taken his poniard; Pandaras missed it like a lost arm. The Prefect had the copy of the Puranas, too. All Pandaras had left was the fetish which the leader of the fisherfolk had given Yama, the ceramic coin, and his life.
Something flashed overhead and hit the long street ahead. Pandaras stopped, heartsick.
Far down the street, a column of naked men was marching stiffly in time to the slow, steady beat of a drum. Most of the men were horribly mutilated. Silvery spikes jutted from the tops of their skulls. One was headless, and the spike jutted from his breastbone instead.
It was a maniple of the dead, come back to fight their living comrades.
A sudden blade of fire blew a land-coral formation to fiery ruin to the left flank of the column. Some brave gunner was trying to find the range. A handful of the naked dead fell and were trampled by their unheeding companions. Pandaras ran to the right. He scrambled over the crest of a slope and tumbled into a sandbagged pit where two soldiers stared at him in horror. One swung the bell-like muzzle of his balister toward Pandaras, and then there was a wave of earth and fire which tore the world away.
Chapter Eight
In Dreams
As always, evening was the worst time. An escape from the horrors of dreams which were neither true dreams nor truly his into the reality of captivity and the wait for the prick of Dr. Dismas’s needle and the antidote to the drug which paralyzed his body.
This time he woke not from nightmares but from a reverie woven from memories of the first of his adventures. For a happy moment, he thought that he was safe in the tower at the edge of the City of the Dead, deep in the foothills of the Rim Mountains. He had been brought there so that the curators of the City of the Dead, Osric and Beatrice, could tend his wounds. He had been very sick then, but he was even sicker now. He woke, expecting to see the hunting scene painted on the wooden ceiling of his little room and perhaps Beatrice’s time-worn, kindly face, but found that he could not open his eyes. With a sharp pang of despair he remembered where he was; but then he remembered what he had done and felt his happiness well up again.
The Shadow was talking with Enobarbus. Yama had grown used to the way it carelessly used his body, and did not bother to listen to the long list of the atrocities which it was describing in gloating detail. That was not important. The battlegrounds along the river were no more than nightmares; the struggle of dominance of his own body was more immediate. From now on, he must be constantly alert, always ready to resist the Shadow’s advances. For the first time, he began to think that he might be able to escape.
Yama had ceded much to the Shadow while concentrating on the search for Pandaras, but he had at last found Pandaras for the second time, on a battlefield at the far edge of the war and the prisoner of Yama’s old enemy, Prefect Corin, who had somehow survived the destruction of his ship by the giant polyps. Not only had Yama rescued Pandaras again, even though it had meant destroying the machine he had been using, but he was certain that the boy had guessed who had helped him, for he had called to him by name. Yama had tried to kill or at least seriously wound the Prefect by the same stroke which had freed Pandaras, but it occurred to him now that perhaps that had not been wise. He was certain that Prefect Corin was searching for him, and Sergeant Rhodean had taught him that in the right circumstances the strength of one enemy can be used against another.
The Shadow finished its boasting, and Enobarbus told Dr. Dismas that there were important matters which they must discuss.
“I am always at your service,” Dr. Dismas said. “After all, I am not allowed to leave this place.”
“Is the boy asleep?”
“He pretends to be, but I think he is not. Shall I administer the antidote?”
“No. Leave him. We will talk outside.”
After Dr. Dismas and Enobarbus had left the room, the Shadow manifested itself in Yama’s inner sight: a faint fluttering star growing slowly larger and becoming a bird, a luminous white dove fluttering through infinite darkness and suddenly changing again, a human figure now, pale hair fluttering around her face as she raised her head to look at him.
Yama found that he could open his eyes, but she was still there, leaning over him. His sweetheart, Derev. Her feathery hair was brushed back from her shaven forehead and caught in a plastic clasp. The finely carved blade of her face, her large black eyes, the soft lips of her small mouth pursed in the beginning of a smile. When she spoke, her words burned in his brain.
They are talking about us.
“Why do you never show your true self?”
Derev raised her slim arms above her head in a graceful movement, the swell of her small breasts lifting under her shift.
Is this repellent to you? I thought it would please you. I can remove this garment—
“Do as you wish. It is not a true representation, so it does not matter.”
The eidolon paused, one hand on the shoulder clasp of its shift. For a moment, Derev’s face seemed to be filmed over with something nauseating.
That is true. You did not sleep with her although you very much wanted to. An odd denial, since you lost your virginity to a whore, and then slept with the cateran—
“That is in the past. I look forward to the future when I will be reunited with Derev. I promised her that I would return when I had discovered the truth about my bloodline, and now I have learned more about myself than I care to know.”
Must I remind you of our relationship? Do not think that you are better than me, Yamamanama, or stronger, or more intelligent.
“Of course not. You do not need to remind me. But although you are better than me in every way, you still need me.”
For the moment.
“You are still very young. You are still learning. There is much that I can teach you.”
I will soon know all you know.
“Perhaps, but mere facts are useless if you do not know how to use them.”
I control thousands of machines at once. You can control only one, and that badly.
“I wondered if you knew what I was doing.”
I could prevent it. I could blind and deafen you. Be thankful for my mercy.
“I mean no harm by it. I grow bored while you are off fighting the war.”
Yet you have never used a machine to find out about the place where we are held.
“That is because I was afraid that Dr. Dismas would discover my little trick.”
Fortunately, I have no such fears. I have learned much about this place, and I have discovered that we are in danger. Enobarbus does not trust us. Nor does he trust Dr. Dismas.
“I know that Enobarbus is frightened of you. What are he and Dr. Dismas talking about?”
Listen.
The eidolon of Derev and the brightly lit room faded into a view from somewhere above the tops of the trees which surrounded the grassy glade in which Dr. Dismas and Enobarbus stood, with Enobarbus’s guards in their black armor on one side and Dr. Dismas’s mutilated servants on the other. The sun was directly overhead. It was noon. A bird was singing somewhere, a cascade of falling notes repeated over and over.