He signaled to the pair of skrails hunkered down nearby, beckoning them to him. They came at once, seized him by his shoulders, and lifted off. In seconds they were airborne, flying toward the boy and the Knight of the Word. He glanced across the gorge to where the members of the caravan were gathered on the embankment edge, watching his approach. Some were already yelling in warning. None, he noticed, had made any effort to try to come back. He would give them no chance to rethink that decision. He would make quick work of their precious leaders, of this boy and his protector. He was already relishing what it would feel like when the morph died beneath the crushing weight of his magic. They believed this boy so powerful, but they had no concept of what real power entailed. They had no idea what he could do.
The Knight of the Word was turned about now, facing him as he flew closer, somehow back on her feet, leaning heavily on her black staff. She would die hard, this one. She had found a way to elude him for years, fighting for the compounds in Southern California, salvaging scores of children from the ruins, keeping them from the camps and his experiments. He assumed she had found a way to put an end to Delloreen, no easy task. No, she would not die easily. But she would be dead, all the same.
Angel PEREZ watched the old man’s descent through a film of pain and weariness. She was no match for him like this, but there was little choice. Behind her, Hawk lay unconscious on the ground, unable to defend himself. She was all he had, and she had sworn to protect him. Even if she knew that she would fail, she had to try.
She had mustered strength enough to get back to her feet when she saw the skrails flying the old man toward her. She had known at once who he was and why he was coming. His army destroyed, he must salvage something from his defeat. Killing her would be a start. Destroying the gypsy morph would put an end to everything. He might not know why this was so, but he must sense the truth of it. He would not be hunting the morph otherwise, would not have expended demons like the female creature that had tracked her or the monstrous thing that had come for Hawk.
She felt a great despair fill her at the prospect of failure. Dying was a given in the lives of the Knights of the Word. She had always known that. Johnny had died for a similar cause, trying to save others, trying to make a difference in a savage world. She understood and accepted this, just as she believed he had. But failure of the sort that would befall the human race with the loss of the gypsy morph was unthinkable.
“I must find a way,” she whispered to herself.
The skrails lowered the old man to the ground, leaving him perhaps thirty feet from where she waited, and then backed away, knowing better than to become involved in this, sensing perhaps that he did not want or need their help. He would face her alone. He was intent on making this personal.
He stood where he was for a moment. Even in the sunlight that filtered down through the lingering haze, he was a wispy figure that had the look of something born out of smoke and ash. His body was hunched slightly, perhaps with age, perhaps with the weight of something less measurable, but equally debilitating. His face was seamed and worn, but even at this distance she could see the bright and compelling light of his strange eyes.
A distraction from across the river drew his attention. A handful of youngsters, including several of the Ghosts and Kirisin, were charging back toward the dam, finally come to their senses, determined now to try to help. The old man watched them for a moment, and there was a mix of curiosity and contempt mirrored on his face. Then he glanced at her for just a moment, turned back almost casually, lifted one arm, and pointed. Fire exploded from his fingertips and tracked across the top of the dam wall. Flames rose dozens of feet into the air, burning from end to end, finding fuel where they was seemingly none to be found.
The flames blocked any passage across, and those trying to reach Hawk and herself fell back. The rescue attempt collapsed.
The old man turned back to her and started to walk forward. “Let me have the boy, and you may go!”
he told her.
He made a slight motion as if to go around her, and she moved immediately to block his way. “I don’t think so, diablo. Back away.”
He slowed to a halt. “You don’t seriously think you can stop me from taking him, do you?” he asked her.
“I don’t know what I can do,” she said. She was aware suddenly of fresh pain radiating through her, the consequence of even those few simple steps. She looked down at the ends of the darts protruding from her body like spikes. “Why don’t you find out?”
“I’m going to kill you, you know. I could do it even if you were fresh and uninjured. I could do it even if you had help.” He gave her a searching look. “I’m not like those others you dispatched. Do you understand that? Do you know who I am?”
She nodded. “You are the one.”
She said it without rancor, but it conveyed a good deal more than its tone revealed. She summoned the magic and watched the runes glow dimly beneath her fingers. Too little, she thought. I haven’t magic enough left to do this. I won’t be able to stop him.
“I am the one,” he agreed. He continued to study her, as if seeing something he hadn’t recognized before. “Why not consider the advantages of what accepting that means.”
“Join with you, you mean?”
He shrugged. “Why not? If you live, you would have much to contribute. Others have done so; you would not be the first.”
She had blood soaking through her clothing, and her face was streaked with sweat and dirt. She was aware of how vulnerable she looked to him. Had there been any reason at all to do so, she would have given the matter thought. But there was no reason, of course.
“I would sooner rut with wild dogs,” she answered.
He laughed softly. “No need for that. No need for anything more from you. I asked out of false hope that reason would transcend pride. I should have known. It never does with your kind.”
“Better pride transcending reason than contempt for the sanctity of life transcending a sense of right and wrong.”
She was fighting for time now, for a chance to gain a small advantage, for anything that would work in her favor. She would keep him talking for as long as she could.
He came forward a few more steps and stopped again. “You are all alike, you Knights of the Word. Passionate in your beliefs, dedicated to your causes, blind to everything but your righteous commitment to a faith in something that has doomed you from the beginning. Humans can’t sustain what is needed for such faith, woman, even if you can. Humans lack the iron necessary to see it through. They are so fallible and so easily subverted. You’ve seen it for yourself, time and again. We are where we are, you and I, standing on this empty plain, because of that.”
“Some of us might see it differently. Humans are not perfect; I wouldn’t argue otherwise. But their faith is what sets them apart from creatures like you. They believe in the impossible, in what they cannot see and touch. They think that if you don’t seek to be better than what you are, you live to no purpose. What is the point of life if not to improve it for yourself and others?”
He laughed anew. “Life’s sole purpose is in staying alive for as long as you can. Power facilitates that end. I saw that centuries ago when I shed my human skin to become my demon self. I gained control over magic that you can only dream about. I gained power over my life and the lives of others. Faith in anything other than that is a waste. What can you hope for but disappointment?”
“You can hope for a world in which living things flourish, not one in which they are systematically destroyed. You can hope for a world where power for its own sake is disdained. You can hope for a common ground that fosters compassion and understanding provides space for all living things.”