One of them was holding a portable flexi-display and listened to something on a tiny receiver glued to his ear. The other one raised his head and saw him.
“Look who’s here!” he exclaimed.
To his great surprise, he didn’t lose his tail as usual. He turned back before they had time to blink and ran away on the same path, his muscles tense in anticipation of the paralyzing whips. But they didn’t come.
His little rebellion would be even shorter than he expected. The portable display could only mean one thing: the area was being watched from the air. An air-jet had to be hovering somewhere nearby, stalking his every step. He turned his head to see if the agents followed him, but he saw no one; alas, he knew he had no reason to feel happy.
The recreation dome was built on the banks of a small stream fed by an ice tongue, which was barely visible somewhere at the bottom of the valley. Up in the mountains, at an altitude of over three miles, a sharp ridge split the small glacier right from the hearts of Eger.38
There was no time to check his surroundings, so he just blindly followed the path close to the water, leading to the mountains. He couldn’t think of a way to get out of trouble; his only choice was to run, even though he had no hope of escape from the deadly trap into which he had fallen.
The snow, although deep, had a thick enough crust to support his weight, allowing him to run on it easily. Sometimes, though, the frozen layer gave way, and his foot sank in the powder beneath, slowing his escape.
On the right side of the stream, there was a mostly vertical wall covered in ice cascades, impossible to climb without a sticky suit. The other bank didn’t look better, either: the same ridge that split a slice of the Eger became a rocky hill with steep slopes, holding the narrow valley separated from the one of the giant glacier. Besides, it would have been a bit of a mistake to get wet by crossing the stream. His options were not exactly plentiful.
Not far from the dome, the valley began to open, and he got a glimpse of the ice tongue just a few miles away from him, shining magically in the red and orange hues of the star-set. This time, though, he didn’t have eyes to admire the most beautiful view in the whole of Antyra, too busy trying to stay alive.
He gazed over his shoulder to make sure no one followed him, just when two Antyrans appeared from behind the dome and rushed in his direction. Despite the distance, he figured they were not the ones from the parking lot; the valley was teeming with Baila’s agents!
One of them was a clumsy giant, not exactly a running prodigy. His companion, on the other tail, was definitely fast, and after several steps, he had already jumped to the lead.
The slight advance he enjoyed wouldn’t serve him any good if he couldn’t find a place to hide from the air-jet and the other dangers lurking around. Time was racing against him; in open space, he was a helpless target, and even if he managed to follow the winding valley all the way to the glacier tongue, he had no climbing gear to help him cross the crevasses—let alone to survive the frosty night.
Gill reached a rugged area dotted with black stumps of rock, covered here and there by a frozen layer of snow piled up by the relentless blow of the vardannes. The sharp stone edges piercing through the white crust resembled the broken weapons abandoned on a field after a bloody battle.
He was running without purpose, without direction, without feeling the cold wind or the sharp stones under his feet, oblivious to everything around him. Gill knew all too well that he was doomed, yet he refused to think of it as long as it didn’t happen. He was fleeing from his hunters, but in equal measure, he was running from his own cowardice because he felt that if they caught him, he might give them the bracelet. I am a Sigian soldier, he told himself over and over again, hoping to find a trace of their power. He needed time to get used to the thought of dying. A quick death was the only honorable exit from the trap, the only logical choice given the prospect of the lengthy tortures reserved for his sorry tail.
After a while, Gill had to slow down, exhausted. He noticed that the walls were drawing closer; to his dismay, he understood that he had inadvertently left the main stream and now followed a small secondary canyon opened in the wall. What if it led to nowhere? He couldn’t turn back with the hunters on his trail!
The bracelet was still on his arm, animated by the strange life to which he awoke it after so many years. It looked as if it was trying to help him escape, the green rectangles pulsing around obstacles to make them easier to spot.
The valley became narrower and narrower; he glanced at the steep walls through the fog of exhaustion, trying to find a way to crawl up on the rocky ridge. Unfortunately, there was no opening or even a crack large enough for this.
After a few dozen yards, the distance between the hundred-foot-high vertical walls narrowed to less than six feet. He was in a gorge cut by a small creek, now frozen solid, forcing him to run on clear ice. In his mad rush, he slipped several times and fell on the rocks of the riverbed, but he rose each time without feeling any pain and continued to run as fast as he could.
Gill felt his pulse beating madly in the recessive gills behind his ears; his mouth dried up in the effort to squeeze the last drops of strength out of his tormented muscles. Only the fear of getting caught kept moving his legs, but he knew he had reached the end of the tail.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen—after the next curve, a nasty surprise awaited him: the gorge ended in a frozen whirlpool, and a fifty-foot-high ice cascade blocked his path! He could hear the creek flowing under the ice to the small lake below his feet.
The walls around him were eighty feet high, and the only way out was the trail he just came from. He fell on his knees, crushed by the foolishness of his rebellion. It didn’t have to end like this! He looked at the artifact, a storm of thoughts crossing his kyi: could he hide it somewhere? Or type a wrong code and blow himself into pieces? Every way he looked at it, he was going to die, and what hurt him most wasn’t the end of his rather insignificant life but the thought that the secret of the Sigians would die along with him.
The steps approached quickly. He could hear the heavy breathing of one of the agents. His temples dripping wet, Gill touched his forehead to the wall of the frozen waterfall. His kyi was screaming in despair, but he kept his mouth shut—even though it hardly mattered now.
He could try to blackmail the agents, saying he’d blow up the bracelet, but they surely had inductors. They would paralyze him without much fuss, and Baila would be delighted to show him the pleasures of the gods’ neural probes.
It will end quickly. Death is the only way, he thought, trying to gather his courage. Although he knew all too well what he had to do, this time, the preservation instinct was too strong to overcome. Angered by his cowardliness, he thought about all the Sigians who died for their dream. “Give me your strength,” he mumbled.
Gill looked at the waterfall for the last time. He had no way to climb it, but he pressed his hands on the ice, as if he could stick to it. The heroes of the ancient world were able to break the mountains to follow their quests, and he was stuck here, stopped by a tiny wall. He felt so helpless. He wished he could have their powers to drag the edge of the waterfall to his feet.
In a gesture of futility, he stretched his left hand toward the edge. And then came the surprise. Instead of feeling the cold air of the evening, he touched… a rock! A rock covered in ice! It took him several long seconds to admit that he was actually touching the edge of the waterfall, fifty feet above him!