Radix

"Doom—can't you feel it?" The blind woman's fingers twitched before her face. "Whether we help him or not, it's over. Let Lotus Face deal with this deadwalker."
Nefandi's face hardened. "Don't call me that."
Jesda leaned forward, and the thin light caught the flesh around her sockets and made it glint like snakeskin. "You are a deadwalker. An artificial being. An ort. You know that, don't you?
The knuckles on Nefandi's sword hand whitened, and Orpha spoke up: "Jesda! Let's be done with him."
"Don't fear him, Orpha." Jesda sat back, a disdainful sneer on her lips. "A man angered by a name is not worth fearing."
Nefandi grinned, stiff as a skull. "Will you tell me where I can find him?" he asked, his sharp tone shaving the request to a command.
"Ah, deadwalker," Jesda lamented, shaking her head. "The ne that could have told you precisely where he is are now dead. All we can do is indicate where he might be."
"Then do so." Nefandi's anger was tempered only by his wariness. He watched carefully as Orpha flashed a hand signal to the other women. Several of them walked across the grotto and stood within the haze of the power channel, their bodies tiny in the basin of dark stone. They joined hands and began walking a slow circle.
"We aren't as strong as the ne," Jesda said. "All that we know, they taught us."
Nefandi heard the ire in her voice, and he didn't miss the anger in the eyes of the weasel and the other women. "If you mislead me—if there are any tricks—"
Jesda shook her head solemnly. "No deception."
The women broke off their circling, and one of them approached Orpha. The old woman inclined her head and listened to the other's whisper.
"Go east," she told Nefandi. "After walking several min-utes you will come to a grove of black pear trees. From there you should be able to find him yourself."
Nefandi bowed in mock salute and retreated backwards to the stone stairway. After he had left, the weasel screeched and faced Orpha with clenched fists and a frightened, tearful look. "We've betrayed our ward."
Orpha shrugged. "He's not our ward. It's Miramol we must protect."
Jesda cackled. "Protect!" She lost her breath in a fit of silent laughter. "There's nothing to protect, Sisters. Miramol is as mortal as we are. Nothing lasts." She beamed up at the spikes of rock. "That's why we laugh, isn't it?"
Nefandi emerged into the hum of sunlight and activated his field immediately. The brightness knocked his vision, and he shifted to his sensex. A line of tribal warriors had formed a semicircle beneath the silver-green foliage of the jungle. They began to hiss and click as soon as he appeared, but they silenced themselves when he came toward them.
At the end of the main boulevard several hunters were talking with frantic animation to another warrior and an androg. Both the warrior and the androg were furry with a rosy patina of desert dust.
Nefandi walked east, through the line of warriors and across the boulevard. Suddenly the dusty warrior
pushed aside the hunters and rushed at him. Only the urgent squawk-ing of the ne kept him from colliding with the field.
Get away from him, Fang! Drift begged, coming up and tugging at Ardent Fang's arm. The Mothers have taken care of him. He's leaving now.
Ardent Fang barked at the one-eyed stranger. Fury pounded in his throat, but the obvious futility of attacking the man held him back. He could see the sheen of the shield around him.
"He killed the magnar!" Ardent Fang bawled. "He has the same light that we saw on the Road. We can't let him get away."
Drift clung to his arm. We have no choice. You saw what he did to the n6.
Ardent Fang snarled as Nefandi moved past him. "Dead-walker, only your sorcery protects you!"
Nefandi ignored the lionfaced distort, rechecked his di-rection, and entered the jungle along a narrow gatherer's trail. If that old blind witch hadn't lied to him, his work would soon be over. He could return to Cleyre, to a new body, to the simple pleasures of his easy life, and leave behind the heat and the hostility of this place. He ducked beneath a low branch and heard the wood explode against the field. Reluctantly he shut it down, scanning aft about him for others, and hurrying his pace down the trail.
Ardent Fang watched him disappear into the bush. He felt the restless urge to heave a rock after him. Instead, he turned to Drift, and they walked slowly down the boulevard.
We must prepare the dead.
Ardent Fang didn't acknowledge the seer. He walked with his head slung forward, his brow pressed tight above his eyes. "What did the Mothers do to get him out of here?" He kicked a clod of earth to dust. "Why was he here in the first place?"
Drift scavenged for an answer, but before it could re-spond, the tribesman spit and turned about abruptly. He loped back down the boulevard and shoved brusquely through a crowd of warriors, hissing back at them as he jogged up to the Barrow. Entrance was forbidden him by tradition, so he stooped over the hole and howled. Drift tried to pull him away, but he persisted until a stick-thin, weasel-faced Mother appeared out of the darkness.
"Why are you bawling, breeder?" the Mother asked in her annoyed, reedy voice.
"Tell me where the deadwalker is going."
The Mother laughed with disdain. "Away, brute."
Ardent Fang dropped into the hole and grabbed the woman by her shift. The material ripped as he lifted her off her feet and slammed her into the wall. "Where, woman?"
"I-can't-breathe!" she gasped. He tightened his grip, and she gagged. "To-find-Lo-tus-Face!" Her eyes bugged out, and her lips went taut.
Ardent Fang threw her to the ground and bounded out of the hole. He rolled down the incline and broke into a scramble for the jungle. Drift peered into the burrow and, seeing that the Mother was all right, bolted after Ardent Fang.
The sensors embedded in Nefandi's skull began a low drawl that burred behind his eyes. The voor was nearby, though his sensex hadn't yet picked him out. He pushed through a tangle of fronds and entered a small grove of black pear trees. Flies whined about him, and he nudged the field to its lowest setting. From behind him came the thrash of someone running through the jungle. He swiveled and scanned the way he had come.
The lionfaced warrior leaped into sight through a smoke bush, still a distance off. Nefandi fired a single power burst, but by some incredible fortune the distort rolled to the ground the instant it was fired.
Nefandi aimed more carefully and fired a longer burst, but again the warrior lunged out of the way and dashed closer. He already had his knife out, and Nefandi could see the fierce determination in his yellow eyes.
Drift ran hard to keep Ardent Fang in sight, its chest spiked with pain. But no matter how warped its lungs felt, no matter how much its breath seared its throat, it sprinted on, dodging roots and low-lying branches. As long as Ardent Fang was in sight, it could cue him to Nefandi's attacks. Right! it fervently sent, envisioning Nefandi's impulse to cut off Ar-dent Fang's left-dodge.
Ardent Fang spun right, and the blast from Nefandi's sword ruptured a tree trunk with a clout of noise and a spray of wood splinters.
Roll! Ardent Fang rolled, and another slash of energy frittered the leaves above him. Up left! He swung to his feet and curled left as invisible power chewed the ground beside him to a mash.
Nefandi was stunned. Ardent Fang was closing in, knife low and tilted forward. He prepared to lash out with a long, sustained sweep of ripping energy, but a daring impulse sparked through him, and he hesitated. With his sword an-gled to the ground, he crouched, his eyes alert to every ripple of muscle on the distort
leaping at him.
He waited until Ardent Fang was in mid-leap, level with his face, arms spread, yellow eyes raving. He threw his field up full. The lunging warrior was blown into a tattering of guts and jumping blood. The force of the impact burst the branches of nearby trees and kicked Drift onto its back, slapping it with a mass of hot roping viscera.