The Engineer ReConditioned Part 21

The stranger stood abruptly. There was a look on his face. Cheydar could not identify it, but it made his skin creep.

"Where is your hospitality? I am thirsty and I am hungry," said Dagon.

Cheydar felt a flush of shame, felt his face burning. Such was the way of things: the most basic tenets of the Code lost in only five days and strangers greeted at the campfire with hostility.

"You will forgive me," he said tightly, and glanced aside at each of his sons. They lowered their air guns as Dagon came forward. "Please, eat at my fire, and drink." Even as he spoke the ritual words Cheydar was aware they could ill afford the food; straight porridge gruel and not much of that. He backed off as Dagon stepped past him, his hand on his sword. It could be a ploy. There could be one quick draw and swipe when Cheydar might least be aware. Perhaps Eric might get him, he was much faster than David, but even that was doubtful. Cheydar knew the measure of men and this one looked as if he would not die easy.

The man squatted by the fire, smiled at Sheda and bowed his head to Suen, then with a deliberately long look at Cheydar he folded his legs and sat, not a position he could quickly gain his feet from. Cheydar nodded and moved to the fire, sat opposite him. The boys stood well back, air guns still ready, holsters for spare cylinders clipped open. Sheda, with a businesslike expression, pulled away from her mother and spooned gruel into a bowl, which she handed to Dagon. He thanked her, placed the bowl in his lap and carefully removed the pack from his back, exposing the sheaths of the swords. Well made, Cheydar observed from the glance he got. Dagon removed jerked meat from his pack.

"Let me offer this in return. It is little enough."

Ritual. He knew it verbatim. Cheydar felt his mouth watering as he looked at the meat. They had eaten nothing but gruel for four days. He took three pieces and tossed two of them to Eric and David, chewed on his own piece, found it tasted wonderful, better than he had ever had before. Suen and Sheda ravenously chewed into their meat.

"I have this also. Little enough."

Apples and cheese. How was it he had such fresh food so far from civilization? Cheydar did not want to ask. He asked other questions instead.

"It is a burdensome name you carry," he said.

Dagon nodded. "I sometimes think that if I had been named differently I would have been a farmer, or an inn keeper."

"What are you now?" Cheydar shot back.

"Many things. For your purposes I can be a killer of men. What do you say?"

"I say tell me how you know so much."

"I have followed you since the burning."

"Why?" asked Suen, taking part at last. It was not right for her bondsman to deal in this matter. She must take on her mantle of power. Her time was now.

Dagon said, "Because the Owner brought you people here in the Greats.h.i.+p Vardelex so you could build a new life. Because soon the Owner will return for an accounting, to see that his strictures have been obeyed, that the contract you people have with him has been held to. Because before the end of this demicycle the Owner and his Proctors will once again walk the world."

Suen gaped at the stranger and tried to take in his words: all that her husband believed and had understood, and they burnt Tarrin for those words in the Square of Heros before the Cariphe's palace in Ompotec. Stupid stupid words had lost Suen her husband, a son, a home, and would soon lose her her life. She could only run so far before the Cariphe's people caught up with her. She looked at Cheydar: grey, old. How long could she depend on his strength? For how long had she that right? Soon the priest soldiers would be upon them, for their sport, and they would die. At least out here it might be a cleaner death. She studied this young man who called himself Dagon, out of nursery rhymes and bedtime tales, and thought about what he had said. The Heresy of Ompotec. Ironically the name of the only place where it was called heresy and where the Cariphe and all his sick minions dwelt. Verbatim, but for one tiny alteration. She glanced at Cheydar and wondered if he had noticed. This man had said you people rather than we. She felt cold and she did not want to ask the obvious question.

"If you come with us it may well be the death of you," she said. She would give him every chance to go, every warning. This she told herself to a.s.suage her guilt. "We have no hearth nor home - " Abruptly she stopped. No, it was wrong. "You cannot stay with us. You must go ... " She gazed at him, straight into grey-green eyes that seemed too wise. That was it, she realised. Look away from him and he is a young warrior. Look into his eyes you know he makes only his own choices.

He nodded, then lifted a strong sun-tanned hand and pointed off to their left. "It is too late for me to walk away now. They will not allow it. Guilt by a.s.sociation you could say, not that they observe any code."

Cheydar leapt to his feet his hand slamming down on the b.u.t.t of his sword. Eight men were coming towards them at a steady trot. Eight fully-armoured and armed priest soldiers of the Cariphe. Too late now for anything but survival.

"Into the rocks!"

Suen went to take her daughter by the hand, but her daughter stayed close to David and avoided this mothering. Instead Suen took up a weapons belt from which hung a dagger and a short crossbow. Cheydar took up his own air gun and trotted behind her, his sons following. Dagon stood by the fire watching the soldiers approach, then after a moment he followed the others.

"We need a vantage, a place to defend."

Dagon pointed up into the rocks and scrub. "Up there."

They took him at his word and scrambled that way.

"I will stay."

As he helped Suen up the slope Cheydar watched him suspiciously. Dagon returned the look then grinned and disappeared into the scrub of bushes and cycads. Cheydar had no time for him now. The priest soldiers had broken into a run and were spreading out.

"Check your targets," he told his sons. "Our friend is down there, if friend he be."

"Of course he is, father," said David. "He is the daybreak warrior."

Cheydar ignored that, cracked down the barrel of his gun, inserted an iron dart, then worked the hand pump on the charge cylinder. The leading soldier was close enough now. He brought the intricately carved b.u.t.t of his gun up against his shoulder, flipped up the sight, then aimed and fired in one. The crack of the air gun was vicious and immediately followed by the horrible crunch of impact. A priest soldier staggered back with his hands coming up to a suddenly b.l.o.o.d.y face. There were two more cracks and a dart hit the rocks just in front of him and went whining over his head. He ducked down.

"Yes!" shouted Eric. Crouched down Cheydar saw that his son had hit one of them in the thigh. That one was struggling for cover. Another lay with a b.l.o.o.d.y throat. There had been no exclamation from David. The rest were now in cover provided by the bushes around their camp, and no doubt would be drawing close. Cheydar recharged the cylinder on his gun and put in another dart. Only in close fighting would he resort to the spare cylinders on his belt. His sons, he saw, were doing the same. He watched, allowed himself a little smile when he saw Eric aiming at a swiftly moving figure in black, then lowering his gun. Let us see what you are worth, Dagon. A scream was swift to answer him, followed only moments after by the gagging gurgle Cheydar recognised as the sound issuing from a cut throat. One or two? He wondered.

"Who is he?" Suen asked.

"Just a killer, out to make a name for himself," whispered Cheydar, but it did not sound right. There was a yell. Two soldiers running, a figure standing. Eric aimed again and David knocked his gun aside with the barrel of his own. Cheydar felt a fist closing in his stomach. Now. It was beautiful, if death can be called that. The two swords; crescents of morning sunlight. One man down on his knees his forehead against the ground, the other man standing for a moment until his head toppled from his shoulders. Cheydar had only seen the second blow.

"Fast," Eric breathed.

"Perfect," said David, his observation a.n.a.lytical.

Cheydar had no words. His mouth was dry. He looked from the scene to see one priest soldier running away just as fast as he could. He levelled his air gun, adjusted the sight for the extra distance, fired. The man sprawled then crawled on for a little while, his back rapidly soaking with blood. He tried to haul himself up by the hard dark green leaves of a cycad, then he fell again. Cheydar turned to his sons.

"Go down, see that they are all dead. Get their supplies, weapons, all we might need."

There was nothing in the Code against looting the dead.

Steeleye was the name of the third moon, or the Still Moon, for since the time of its cataclysmic arrival it had remained stationary in the sky above, day and night. In appearance it was a polished ball of metal, and there was something ominous about it, something attentive. It had appeared in the time when Cheydar had trained for service, causing floods and earth quakes. It stood vigil in the sky when he learned bladework, unarmed combat, and the maintenance of dart guns. That time was exciting; change was imminent, things would happen ... But the years pa.s.sed, the tides settled and the ground ceased to shake. And the only change had been the growth in the power and oppressiveness of the Cariphate. It seemed like a betrayal to Cheydar. The moon just became ordinary. He turned his attention back from it to the conversation.

"He would not have allowed it. He would not allow the Cariphe to do the things he does. His Proctors would stop the killing. His Proctors would enforce His law."

He could see Suen regretted the outburst the moment she finished. She shouldn't have said that, but wasn't it true? All that her husband had believed: a better time, a golden age that would come again. Suen closed her eyes and shook her head. Her anger was always greatest when she missed him most, but in Cheydar's experience railing against injustice only brought it down on you.

"Why did the Proctors go away?" he asked, embarra.s.sed and clumsily trying to move away from the subject of Tarrin's execution as he poked at the fire with a stick. He wasn't really interested in why the Proctors had gone away. He wondered if anything about those indestructible monsters of the past and their ten-thousand year old demiG.o.d master could have anything to do with him and his life.

"They did not go away. They are sleeping," said Sheda with that certainty only a teenager can have. "Daddy said they sleep in the Forbidden Zone and that they can be woken." As she finished speaking she looked at David and flushed at her own boldness.

Now wouldn't that be something, thought Cheydar, and s.h.i.+vered. He stared through the flames at Dagon. The man had been very quiet and still. Eventually he spoke.

"Why should you want to wake them?" he asked.

"Justice!" spat Suen, but she sounded suddenly unsure.

"The only justice they bring is the Owner's," Dagon replied. "They enforce only his laws and his laws say nothing about you people killing each other."

" 'You people.' You do not consider yourself one of us?" Suen asked.

Dagon looked briefly annoyed. "A manner of speech, nothing more. But I tell you this, I have read the Agreement."

Suen snorted her disbelief.

Cheydar said, "It is etched into a metal pillar around which the Ompotec temple is built. Only select members of the priesthood are allowed to see it."

Dagon smiled mildly and shook his head. "Wrong, there are in all fifty-eight of the message pillars and every death post around the forbidden zones has the Agreement etched in its surface. Anyone prepared to take a bit of a walk can read it. I've seen it many times." Suen and Cheydar stared at him. They did not know how to refute that. He continued, "Understand that the priesthood uses any and all methods to gather power to itself. Like all religious organizations its greatest power stems from the claim to forbidden knowledge, the ability to intercede with the divine, all of that, though the Owner is hardly divine."

"What does it say?" asked David, speaking for the first time that evening, uncomfortably aware of Sheda's attention firmly fixed upon him.

Dagon glanced at him. "It is quite simple: No one to enter the forbidden zones, no building in or corruption of the Wilder zones, no more taken from them by a human than a human can carry without mechanical aid. There is also a population stricture, but that is hardly necessary as the population here is in decline."

"There has to be more than that," said Suen.

"There is not. The Owner is a great believer in personal responsibility. Beyond preventing damage to his property he doesn't have much more interest in planetary populations."

"You are an Owner expert all at once," said Suen.

"I've studied him all my life."

"Like my husband."

Dagon regarded her very directly, "No, not like your husband. My research was into original materials, not the wishful thinking and distortion that came after."

"What do you mean?"

"The Owner has fascinated scholars for centuries and a great deal has been written about him, and a lot of what has been written is simply not true."

"How do you know what is true?" asked Cheydar.

Dagon showed annoyance again, quickly repressed it. "Simple research. Consider the entire mythology that's arisen about the Proctors. To some they are saviours, and their enforcing of law will bring about Utopia. To others they are demons and this is perhaps closest. They enforced the Wilder laws. If someone used a cart to haul wood out of the Wilder a Proctor would turn up and smash the cart. They simply prevented the law being broken. But it was the population stricture that inspired terror of the Proctors. The population here is set. at two billion and must never go above that number. When it did, about two centuries ago, the Proctors turned killer. For every child born at that two billion limit a human was killed. It was completely random. It might have been a baby that died or an octogenarian on his death bed."

"I do not believe this," said Suen, but her voice was not firm. She turned to Cheydar. "I want to go into the Wilder. I want to read what is written on a death post."

Cheydar was watching Dagon thinking, simply a killer? He nodded, feeling his stomach clench. To actually go to the edge of a Forbidden Zone ... He turned to Suen and saw something else there in her expression: a kind of set stubbornness, a determination to carry something through. He had seen that look before and it brought to him a feeling of hopeless dread. She nodded once as if by his look he had guessed her intention and she was confirming it. She reached into her pack and took out a leather-bound book. She held it up.

"In the morning we head for the Forbidden Zone beyond North Forest, by the coast," she said. Cheydar knew the book. It was one of Tarrin's.

"We will be caught and killed before we get there," he said. "Any route will take us through the Cariphe's lands. If we go South we can take the road to Elmarch and the Forbidden Zone there nearly touches on the road."

"We go to North Forest, by the coast."

There would be no arguing with her. She turned to Dagon, who had taken out one of his swords and was running a stone up and down the blade.

"Will you be with us?"

"Of course," he said. He looked around at them. "Sleep now, I will watch."

Cheydar returned the look.

"Wake me in two hours," he said.

Dagon took out a pocket watch, checked it, then nodded and moved off into the darkness.

The sky was lightening, but the sun had yet to break over the horizon. Like a corroded coin the sulphurous moon Linx traversed the sky, one edge gilded by the approaching sun. Steeleye was a misty orb all but lost behind thin cirrus. There was frost on the boulders, layers of mist out in the scrub.

"Father will be very annoyed," said Eric.

"Ah, but he will be well rested," said Dagon. He stood next to a boulder, an air gun cradled before him. Eric did not recognise the design. He walked up and stood beside this warrior.

"Your weapon," he said.

Dagon flipped the gun around, handed it across.

Eric said, "Valved gas cylinder ... how many shots?"

"Five. The darts are in that revolving barrel and are automatically presented."

"I've never seen its like before."

"They're made in Elmarch and are standard issue to the army there. They're the reason the Cariphe keeps to his borders."

"I'd like to go there. So would David. They say it is always sunny and the King's navy is always looking for volunteers." Eric handed the weapon back.

"They're normally volunteered with a club on the back of the head. Try the Border Legion, you'll have better luck there."

Dagon turned and started walking back to the camp. Eric followed.

"That's where you're from then?"

"Yes."

Eric glanced back. He's from Elmarch, he thought, staring at the ground. Something ... He shook his head and halted. Yes. Where Dagon had stood there were two prints in the frosted ground ivy. No prints other than those Eric had just made coming out here and the both of them were now making as they walked back. There had to be a reasonable explanation. No man could stand as still as a statue all night, or fly, or just appear out of thin air.

"I would say that if we skulked all the way to North Forest we'd more likely be caught than if we just travelled there openly. Head into Giltown, rent a carriage and take it right to the edge of the Wilder. Much less chance of getting caught," said Cheydar. He felt that if they must make this insane journey it would be best to do it quickly.

"I leave that decision in your hands. You are the soldier," said Suen.

Cheydar grimaced. Subterfuge was hardly soldier's work. He turned to Dagon. "What do you think?"

"I think you're right," answered the warrior. "The priesthood is geared that way: they'll be looking for people who look guilty, who are trying to hide, they'll always be looking for that kind. Best to go boldly, pretend to Lord Right, even priestliness." The last word came out with a touch of contempt.

"You don't have much liking of priests do you," said Suen.

"I just don't like the ignorance of faith," he shot back at her.

The coach house at Giltown was a sprawling affair with many attached stables and low buildings for the coaches and, because it was on the main trade route from Elmarch, the carts of traders. Even from a distance the bellowing of the t.i.tanotheres could be heard, and in the fields all around grew tree ferns; fodder for the great beasts.

Beyond the coach house the rest of the town consisted of red brick houses with many storeys leaning precariously over a street leading down to a dock crowded with low black barges. It was on these that goods were brought up from the richer southern country and traded for metal ores mined around Ompotec.

"The priesthood keeps to the agreement," said Cheydar as he walked at Dagon's side to the reception building of the coach house. "There is never mining in the Wilder, nothing like that."