“You saw one back in town,” Veriasse said. “You called him Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. He is really a dronon, a Lord Vanquisher from another world. Sixty years ago, his people came among us, and they were wise in the ways of war. At first, we tried to help them. But they envied our technology and sought to take it. They captured many worlds. Now, any guardians who were not slain all serve the dronon vanquishers. On some worlds, even humans serve the dronon’s Golden Queen and her empire.”
Gallen stood up, seeming to have caught his wind. “We’ll need to keep to the trees so that they can’t shoot us, and I’ll lead them on some trails that will be hard to follow. If we can shake them off our track, we won’t have to rush to the gate.”
Gallen took off running. He set a path that the vanquishers would be hard-pressed to follow. He zigzagged between growths of jack pine, where the trees grew so close together that their branches formed a nearly impenetrable wall. Twice he made great circles so that his scent would be strong, then led the others over dry logs where no footprints would show, where even their scent would not hold.
When he had done all he could to obscure his trail, Gallen led them to a cave at the base of a mountain. He took the group to the largest opening, then at the black mouth of the cave he hesitated to enter.
“What’s wrong?” Everynne asked.
“This cave,” Gallen said, “has narrow passages and five openings. If we want to lose the vanquishers, we could go in here. But the cave is haunted by wights. We’ll need to light a fire and take torches in to hold them at bay.”
“We shouldn’t go in,” Maggie said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Wights?” Veriasse asked. “What is a wight?”
“A spirit. If someone is too curious and breaks the laws of the Tome, the priests give the person to the wights.”
“Surely you don’t believe in ghosts?” Veriasse said. “There’s no such thing. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Not ghosts,” Gallen said. “These are wights. I’ve seen them more than once: there was an old woman in our town, Cally O’Brien, who experimented with herbs. One night the wights came and dragged her off screaming, down the road to An Cochan. No one ever saw her again.”
Neither Veriasse nor Everynne looked as if they believed Gallen. “What he says is true,” Maggie offered. “Wights are real. At night you can see their soulfires glowing blue and green in the forest.”
Everynne and Veriasse looked at each other and spoke simultaneously, “Artefs!”
But Veriasse asked, incredulous, “What would an artef be doing here?”
“Guarding this world,” Everynne said. “Keeping its people in enforced ignorance. That is what their ancestors wanted, a world where their children could hide from the problems of a universe too large to control. I’ll bet the original settlers downloaded their intelligences into artefs.”
“So you’re knowing the wights by another name, are you?” Orick asked. “You have them in the realm of the sidhe?”
“Yes,” Everynne said. “We make them in the realm of the sidhe. They are simply machines that store human thought. We can travel through your cave safely.”
“I’m warning you-the sunlight does not penetrate these caverns,” Gallen said. “Inside, it is as dark as night.”
“Sunlight weakens artefs,” Veriasse said, “because the radio waves cast by your sun confuse them, leave them unable to think. But an artef can’t withstand an incendiary rifle.”
Gallen gulped, obviously still afraid. He led them in through a narrow chasm. He took Everynne’s slim hand and pulled her through the dark. She could feel him trembling. She did not know if he feared this place still, or if he simply trembled at her touch. Often, men reacted that way to her. It was a mistake to let him touch her.
Gallen felt his way along a wall until he bumped his head on a rock outcropping, then took a side tunnel. After several hundred feet, he reached a narrow passage, then took another left where the cavern branched; they began climbing a steep slope filled with rubble. Dripping water smacked loud as it dropped to unseen puddles. Everynne struggled to keep from slipping on wet rock. The air had a faintly metallic smell, and Everynne hurried to get out. In the distance, she thought she saw sunlight shining through an exit, but instead a ghostly green apparition began leaping toward them through a large chamber.
It was an old man with muttonchop sideburns and a bushy mustache. He wore a leine without a greatcloak, and short boots. The wight stood quietly, gazing at them in the dark. Its phosphorescent skin let Everynne see the walls of the cave immediately around them, and she was surprised at the jumbles of stone, the numerous stalactites and stalagmites.
The wight asked cordially, “What are you doing in my cave? Don’t you know that this forest is haunted?”
“Off with you!” Gallen said. “I’ll not have you barring our way!”
“Och, why it’s Gallen O’Day,” the wight said merrily. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in these woods.” But the wight studied Everynne, looking at the silver net she wore in her hair. It made a tsking noise and shook its head. “You’re in a tight spot, Gallen-consorting with strangers from another world. Didn’t your mother ever warn you against such things? Didn’t she ever tell you what happens to curious boys?”
“Get back!” Gallen hissed. “We only want to pass.”
The wight studied Veriasse’s incendiary rifle. “Oh, I’ll leave for now, Gallen O’Day. But it’s sure that you can’t shake me off so easily.” The wight backed into a side tunnel, and ducked around a corner.
They hurried through the cave, climbing treacherous outcroppings, dropping down into crevices. The wight paced along behind them, crawling through the rocks. Soon another joined, and another, until Everynne counted a dozen of the creatures shadowing them through the cave. For a long way, their dim glow provided the only light for Everynne to see by.
The group reached the sunlight, and Gallen fell down to the forest floor, gasping. His face was pale, and Everynne realized that entering the cave must have been a great ordeal for the man, being a Backward who believed the wights to be invincible spirits. Soon Orick and Maggie rushed out behind them. Maggie’s eyes were wide. Gallen looked up at Maggie, and he burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Maggie asked.
“Nothing is funny,” Gallen said. “I just feel good.”
Gallen got up and led them south a half mile to a steep slope that descended into a valley. A fire had recently burned the ridge, and large boulders dotted the ground. The soil around the stones had eroded away so that often the slightest touch could send a boulder tumbling downhill, and Everynne saw that Gallen was thinking ahead. A vanquisher, with its enormous feet, would be tempted to step on the boulders, and she imagined how it would go tumbling down in the resulting landslide.
At the bottom of the ravine, Gallen headed west, marching his followers down the channel of a rocky creek. Mosquitoes buzzed around their faces, and often mallards would fly up from the water. In one place where the channel narrowed and the water deepened, Gallen pulled up a small tree, sharpened it into a stake, and pushed it down into the mud where no one could see. It took only a moment. So far, they had traveled a little over five miles in eight hours. Everynne hoped that his tactics would give them more time in the long run.
They reached the shelter of the forest again at the valley floor, and there they rested for a few moments. Maggie was gasping, sweat pouring from her brow. They were all dirty and thoroughly worn. They had to rest.
From the mountain above them nearly half a mile back, a deep voice boomed: “Vanquishers, to me!”
The vanquishers had already found their exit from the caves. Gallen cursed under his breath and looked helplessly to Veriasse.
Veriasse studied Gallen’s face. “You’ve done well,” he said at last, and Gallen furrowed his brow, as if struggling to understand Veriasse’s accent. “You’ve set as difficult a trail for the vanquishers as they could possibly hope to follow, but we must run now. We cannot afford more delays.”