“So you started to search the camps, neh? I wondered why you did not come for us at the shrine, or when we were thrown off the lazaret. I suppose you killed all the poor soldiers in the camps, even though they were on your side.”
“A few fled, but many more fought, and I had to kill most of them. A legless woman told me where you were before she died. Many have died because you ran from me, and all for no purpose, because I have you again. Where is he, boy?”
“This time you are here on my terms.”
“Tell me.”
The pressure of Prefect Corin’s grip increased; knives ground in Pandaras’s chest. He said breathlessly, “We could go there directly on your floating disc.”
“One of the gardens, then. I thought so, although I was not sure which one. They are all heavily guarded.” Prefect Corin dropped Pandaras and strode toward Tibor, who was still lying on his back. There was a brief flash of light, and Prefect Corin told the hierodule to get up. Tibor stood, slowly and clumsily, his pale, round face perfectly blank, and Prefect Corin whispered in his ear.
“You command many things,” Pandaras said. He massaged his ribs. None were broken, but all were bruised. “You are becoming like my master.”
“No, not like him. Never like him. There will be anther disc here in a moment, and then you will take me to Yamamanama.”
“I want only the best for my master. I’m sure that he is a prisoner, or else he would have come to me by now. You can help free him, and then he’ll deal with you.”
“You have a monstrous ego, boy.”
A floating disc dropped down beside the first, hovering a handspan above the rock. Prefect Corin stepped onto it. “You will ride with the hierodule. Tell the disc which way to go; I will follow. Do not think of escaping, for the hierodule will break your neck.”
“If you kill me you will never find him.”
“You will be paralyzed, not killed. The coin will still work, I think.”
“You must promise that you will not kill my master.”
“Of course not. Go now.”
At first it was exhilarating. Because the disc warped gravity, it was as if the world tipped and tilted around Pandaras as, with Tibor at his back and Prefect Corin following, he sped through the black air toward the floating island and his master. For a moment, Pandaras forgot that Tibor was no longer his to command, forgot the danger he was in, forgot that he was betraying his master to his worst enemy.
As they drew near, Prefect Corin’s disc accelerated and swept ahead, making a long arc toward the rocky keel of the floating garden. Specks of light flew up from the orange glow of the city in long straight streams that began to bend as they tried to track Prefect Corin, who suddenly shot away at right angles. The disc which carried Tibor and Pandaras followed him. Pandaras ordered it to turn back, but it continued on its new course.
A string of floating gardens lay ahead, linked to each other by catenaries and arched bridges. A chunk of rock hung above this cluster, a round lake gleaming darkly on its flat top, ringed by scattered clumps of pines. Streams of water spilled over its edge at several points and fell toward the gardens below; as Pandaras was carried toward it he saw that the water in one of these streams was actually rising.
The floating disc settled at the landing of the rock, on an apron of lichen-splashed stone. Tibor gripped Pandaras’s arm and dragged him off the disc. A moment later Prefect Corin landed beside them.
“We will need cover,” he said. “Yamamanama is too well defended. I thought it prudent to save you.” Machines flew out of the darkness from every direction, a hundred tiny sparks settling around him like a cloak. “The spirits of the place,” he said. “I have assumed control of them.”
The floating rock shuddered. The light of the little machines around Prefect Corin intensified, a robe of blazing light. A shallow wave of cold water rippled across the apron of bare stone; then another, waist-high this time. Pandaras clung to Tibor, for otherwise he would have been washed over the edge. The rock was slowly accelerating toward the floating garden where Yama was being held prisoner. Ragged flowers of red and yellow flame bloomed in the sky all around it.
“Now it ends,” Prefect Corin said. He stretched out his arm. Something began to spin in the air in front of his fingertips, shrieking like a banshee as it gathered light and heat around itself.
The Shadow walked beside Dr. Dismas across a wide space of charred grass. They both wore silvery cloaks with flowing hems that brushed the ground. Human-shaped animals loped along on all fours on either side. One of the nearest turned its head toward them and grinned. It was a naked woman, her elongated jaws holding racks of long white teeth slick with saliva, her eyes blazing yellow. Ahead, tall trees burned like candles. Above, a fist-sized shadow was growing larger against the sky-glow.
Yama was helpless, paralyzed somewhere behind his own eyes. It was as if he were caught in a fever dream where monsters ran free.
Derev suddenly was walking beside the woman-thing, her slim body glowing like a candle through her robe. There is a problem, the Shadow said. You will help us now, if you wish to live.
“You cannot harm me without harming yourself.”
“You’re back, my boy,” Dr. Dismas said, with surprise. “We are at last breaking free and heading upriver, but someone is chasing us. I do not think that it is Enobarbus.”
The shadow in the sky was as big as Yama’s outstretched hand now. It was another floating garden. He thought that he knew who was chasing them. He said, “I am sure that you have many enemies, Doctor.”
“I try and kill them before they can cause trouble, my boy. You should know that. I do not know who is following us, but he is powerful.”
Someone who can strip machines of their power.
“I can see why that would frighten you,” Yama said. That was why the Shadow still needed him, why it had allowed him to reoccupy his own body.
“It is a question of contingency,” Dr. Dismas said. “I do not like complicated situations, Yamamanama.” Yama and the apothecary walked between two of the burning trees. Heat beat at them from either side; the air was full of resinous smoke. Beyond was a small lake which had been struck by some kind of energy weapon. The water had evaporated, leaving a basin of dry, cracked mud. The man-animals broke away left and right, but Dr. Dismas strode straight across the basin and Yama followed him. The eidolon flowed beside him. It was flickering now, as faint as a firefly near the end of its life. Beyond the top of the slope the other floating garden was growing larger against the sky glow, a flat-topped rock with a jagged keel.
“Where are we going, Doctor?”
“Why, to my paramour, of course. I thought we had discussed this. I have been betrayed by those I tried to help, Yamamanama, and I will have my revenge.”
We will gain so much.
“And I will be destroyed.”
We can work together, Yamamanama. Do not listen to what I tell the doctor.
“It is a question of transfiguration,” Dr. Dismas said. “If something new is made, is the old destroyed? No, it is changed into another form. I should know, Child of the River. I was transformed in the Glass Desert. I am neither man nor machine but something more, yet I still remember what I was and what I wanted, just as a man fondly remembers the foolish fantasies of his childhood.”
“Why do you take the drug, Doctor? What pain are you trying to escape?”
“Fusion was not quite complete. The drug completes it. It will be different in your case, Yamamanama. Trust me.”
We will become more than either of us can imagine, Yamamanama. And more than the doctor can ever dream of.