Captives of the Flame Part 25

White mercury lights flooded the elevated strip as it wound through the city.

The road dipped and houses got wider and lower on each side. The horizon glowed purple and above that, deep yellow clouds dropped into late evening. There was a sound of planes overhead.

As the car halted at the barren limit of the last suburb of Telphar, a sudden white streak speared from the horizon. "Uh-oh," said Jon. "That's what I was afraid of."

Something caught fire in the air, twisted wildly through the sky, and then began to circle down, flaming.

"Major! Major! What happened to D-42?"

"Something got him. Pull over. Pull over everybody!"

"We can't spot it. Where'd it come from?"

"All right, everybody. Break formation. Break formation, I said!"

"Major, I'm going to drop a bomb. Maybe we can see where that came from in the light. I thought you said cripple."

"Never mind what I said. Drop it."

"Major Tomar. This is B-6. We've been--" (Unintelligible static.)

Someone else gave a slow whistle through the microphone.

"Break formation, I said. d.a.m.n it, break formation."

Over the plain, a sheet of red fire flapped up, and Jon and Arkor pulled back from the railing that edged the road. Another white streak left the horizon, and for a moment, in the glare, their shadows on the pavement were doubled in white and red.

The sound of the explosion reached them a moment later, as broken rocks leapt into visibility like a rotted jaw swung up through red fire.

Another sound behind them made them turn. The lighted roadways of Telphar looped the city like strands of pearls on skeletal fingers. A car came toward them.

Another wailing missile took the sky, and a moment later a screaming plane answered, tearing down the night. This one suddenly turned as its flaming motors caught once more and careened above their heads so close that they ducked and disappeared among the city towers: an explosion, then falling flame drooled the side of a building. "I hope that's nowhere near the Palace of the Stars," a voice said next to Jon. "We'll have a great time getting back if it is."

Jon whirled. The d.u.c.h.ess had gotten out of the car. The red light flared a moment in her hair, then died.

"No. That was nowhere near it," Jon said. "Am I glad to see you."

Tel and Alter, still in her cast and hospital robe, followed the d.u.c.h.ess out of the car.

"Well," he said, "you brought the kids too."

"It was better than leaving them back in Toron. Jon, Geryn is dead. I asked what to do, but I didn't get any answer. So we lugged his body along just in case. But what do we do now?"

From the railing Arkor laughed.

"It's not funny," Jon said.

The d.u.c.h.ess looked overhead as another missile exploded. "I had hoped this wouldn't happen. This means a war, Jon. A real one, and unstoppable."

Another plane crashed, too close this time, and they ducked behind the cars. "Gee," breathed Alter, which was the only thing anybody said.

Then Arkor cried, "Come on."

"Where to?" asked Jon.

"Follow me," Arkor repeated. "Everyone."

"What about Geryn?"

"Leave that corpse behind," Arkor told them. "He can't help."

"Look, do you know what's going on?" Jon demanded.

"More than Geryn ever did," the giant returned. "Now let's get going."

They sprinted out along the road, then ducked under the railing and made their way across the rocky waste.

"Where are we going?" Tel whispered.

Jon called back over his shoulder, "That's a very good question."

The plane got tipped, and for seven seconds, while the needles swung, he didn't know where he was going, east or west, up or down. When the needles stopped, he saw that it hadn't been any of the first three.

Suddenly the green detector light flashed in the half darkness of the cabin. The generator! The radiation generator was right below him. Then he was blinded by a white flare outside the winds.h.i.+eld. Oh, G.o.d d.a.m.n!

He felt the jerk and the air suddenly rushed in cold behind him. There was a h.e.l.l of a lot of noise and the needle quietly swung.... He was going down!

Land lit up outside the front window; a small block house set in the wrecked earth. There were three whirling antennae on the roof. That must be it! That must!

It happened in his arms and fingers, not in his head. Because suddenly he pushed the stick forward, and the plane, what was left of it, turned over and he was staring straight down, straight ahead, straight, straight below him. And coming closer.

It must have been his arms, because his head was thinking wildly about a time when a girl with pearls in her black hair had asked him what he had wanted, and he had said, 'Nothing ... nothing....' and realized he had been wrong because suddenly he wanted very much to ... (The block house came up and hit him.) ... Nothing.

Tel and the d.u.c.h.ess screamed. The rest just drew breath quickly and staggered back. "He's in there," Arkor said. "That's where your Lord of the Flames is."

The landscape glowed with the encroaching light of the flaming torch, and they saw the blockhouse now with its whirling antennae on the roof.

Before the plane hit, a darkness opened in the side of the blockhouse and three figures emerged and sprinted among the rocks.

"The middle one," said Arkor. "That's him, face him, concentrate on him...."

"What do you...?" Tel began.

"You ride along with me, kids," Arkor said, only he didn't move. Two of the figures had fallen now, but the middle one was running toward them.

The torch hit, and his shadow was suddenly flung across the broken earth to meet them....