The eastern sky was pink and gold, and the sun would appear in seconds. Bredon looked up past the glowing balls of gas to where the sky was still a deep dark blue, high overhead.
Light flashed, and his first thought was that the sun had passed the horizon, but then he realized that the light came from the northwest and was far too bright. “What…?” he began.
The others had all seen the flash as well, he realized. Imp flung her arms up in front of her face, and Geste dropped to the ground shouting a strange syllable, “Nuke!"
The Skyler simply stood, too astonished to move.
Chapter Eighteen
“'…Are you a warrior?’ the stranger demanded.
"Proud of his strength and skill, Walren foolishly answered, ‘Yes, I am!'
"'Then face me in conbat!’ the stranger called. And he flung a weapon like a long, thin knife, longer than a man's arm, to the ground before the lad. He drew a similar knife from a sheath on his belt, and waited.
"Walren began to be afraid, now. He thought the stranger was a madman. He stooped and picked up the strange knife. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
"'It's a soared, of course,’ the stranger replied. And then he leapt forward, his knife stabbing out at Walren.
"Walren jumped aside and swung his own long knife, but the stranger knocked it away easily and slashed Walren across the breast with his blade.
"Astonished, Walren looked down at the blood seeping from his chest, just in time to see the stranger's blade plunge into his heart.
"Everything went black, and he knew that he was dead.
"But then, to his surprise, he awoke, lying on a pile of leaves in the forest, with the stranger standing over him.
"'That was pitiful,’ the stranger said. ‘How can you call yourself a warrior if you can't do any better than that?'
"Walren raised his head and looked at his chest, and saw that although his blouse was still cut open, and blood still stained the fabric, the wounds had closed up and left not even a scar.
"'Who are you?’ he asked the stranger.
"'I'm called Lord Carlov,’ the stranger replied with a bow…"
– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller
“I can't believe this is happening,” Lady Sunlight moaned, stirring uncomfortably on the unyielding bench.
“It's happening,” Rawl told her calmly. “Accept it.” Inwardly, he marvelled that the woman could have lived for so long without learning that anything could happen. He did not understand why so many of the immortals led such limited lives. It was always by their own choice; were they so desperate for security as to give up all risk and experimentation, and turn completely inward?
Or were they just stupid and unimaginative? Endless life and unimaginable power did not make a fool any less a fool. Some people did not seem to learn from experience, most particularly when they did all they could to limit their experiences to the familiar.
He hated to think that his companions were all fools. On the other hand, he knew from his centuries of wandering among the people of Denner's Wreck that a large percentage of the human race was made up of fools, and there was no reason his little clique should be any different.
For that matter, wasn't he as big a fool as the rest? He was just as much a captive as the others. He mulled that over silently.
“Brenner, why didn't you see all these things waiting for us?” Lady Sunlight demanded, waving at the surrounding plastic.
“I don't know,” Brenner replied bitterly, staring down at his clasped hands. “Thaddeus must have hidden them pretty well. Maybe he sabotaged some of my defensive systems, broke in and fed them false reports that the exit was still clear. I spotted all the stuff he had waiting outside my other tunnels easily enough."
“He probably meant you to,” Sheila said from the other side of the little transport.
“In fact,” Rawl said, leaning back againt the yellow plastic wall, “the entire attack may have been a feint, a trick, a means of herding us out through that tunnel to where he could capture us alive and undamaged."
Brenner looked up. “Do you think so?"
Rawl shrugged. “Who knows? It could have been.” He did not think Thaddeus was inherently any less a fool than most of the others, but he knew that he could be very clever indeed in pursuing his foolish goals. Thaddeus was crazy, but he was not stupid.
“What does he want with us?” Lady Sunlight asked.
“How should I know?” Brenner answered angrily.
“Hostages,” Rawl muttered softly, so softly the others did not hear him.
Lady Sunlight started to reply to Brenner's outburst, blaming him further for his ignorance, but then she saw the expression on his face and thought better of it. She looked away, in the direction of the other transport, the one that held her pet and various devices. Silence fell, as all four contemplated their unhappy situation.
Thaddeus's machines had stripped them of all their equipment except what was actually built into them. Lady Sunlight had given up her pet, a feelie vine, three small creatures she had had tucked away, and six small floaters. Sheila had had only a single floater; her airskiff did not fit through the tunnel and had been left behind.
Rawl had resisted briefly, taking out three minor machines from Thaddeus's arsenal, and had had forty-two floaters immobilized by suppressor fields, and four creatures captured alive. Several other small creatures from Rawl's menagerie had escaped safely into the woods surrounding the exit from the tunnel, and three had died making the attempt, fried by Thaddeus's weapons. One, a modified ferret, had last been seen being pursued by an artificial predator Thaddeus had designed and grown himself, working mostly from feline genes.
Brenner had had nothing at all for Thaddeus to confiscate. All his external devices had been built into the High Castle, or had been left behind in his hurried departure.
Of course, they all still carried symbiotes and a variety of internal machinery. Thaddeus had not tried to do anything about that. In fact, the transport that they had been forced to board was not even shielded against most communications frequencies; Rawl discovered, after the brief spurt of conversation triggered by Lady Sunlight's outburst, that he was able to contact the mother ship and inquire after the other immortals.
None of the other captives had thought to try that, so far as he could see.
No one was reported dead, Rawl learned. That was some comfort, but Khalid, O, and Aulden were missing, all three last heard from in the vicinity of Fortress Holding. Geste and Imp were aboard the Skyland, of all places, and had been going from hold to hold recently, and were now apparently headed for the High Castle; Rawl suspected that this meant they were aware of what was happening and were coming to lend what aid they could.
He smiled wryly to himself. They were already too late. The High Castle was gone. Once Thaddeus had his captives and booty out, Mother said, he had nuked the place. Rawl hesitated for an instant, and then decided against telling Brenner and Sheila and Sunlight that. They were disheartened enough already.
Still, Geste and Imp and the Skyler would find nothing but radioactive rubble.
At least they were trying, though. What were all the others doing?
Nothing, apparently. They were just going about their business.
Rawl did not like that. If the Skyler and her party knew what was happening, they would surely have told everyone. Why weren't the others doing anything to stop Thaddeus?
He knew that he could not manage a proper holographic transmission with just his internal systems, but with Mother to relay Rawl thought he could get a message of some sort out, either audio or data feed. He tried to put a call through to Isabelle.