Drinking... Or pretending to drink. Just as they pretended to think and breathe and talk. It was all one vast pretense. And Ben behind it all, working his dead puppets for all he was worth.
Dead, she thought. It's all dead. And maybe that's why he needs this. To bring it alive. To give it breath, and substance. But somehow the explanation didn't satisfy. Her unease remained, and with it a growing feeling that she should have defied Ben and called Tolonen in. But now it was too late.
"Look," Ben said quietly, pointing up at the top right-hand screen. "There, beyond the junks."
She went and stood behind him, watching as the first of the steam-powered rafts came into view, laboring through the water, its deck packed with dark and threatening shapes. Seeing it, she felt her fear return; a sharp, cold thing that seemed to sap her will. How could they fight these creatures? How prevail against such odds?
"Let's hear what they're saying," Ben said, reaching out to touch one of the pads on the panel beneath the screens. At once a soft, guttural murmuring began. Hearing it, Meg shivered and turned her head, looking up at the moon. What if it all ends here? she thought. What if it all goes wrong7.
But Ben was clearly harboring no doubts. "Okay," he said, turning to her. "It's just as I thought. They're going for a frontal assault on the town. The Clay-men have been told to land just upriver of the merchantman, the raft people farther down, by the steps of the old Customs House. Tewl plans a pincer movement. He wants to herd all of the townspeople into one place, then deal with them there."
"So what's going to happen? What will you do?"
Ben smiled. "My morphs are going to fight."
"Fight? But how can they? They're not programmed to fight!"
"Of course they are. WeVe choreographed more than eighty different moves."
She stared at him, astonished that he couldn't see it. "Yes, but. . . well, those others won't be programmed, will they? They'll do things that are ... unexpected."
"That's right."
"But they'll cut them to ribbons!"
"Maybe. Some of them, anyway. But not all. I'll be working some of them through the harness here. The big tar, for instance, and the Han with the limp. And others too. Switching from body to body. Hitting back where they least expect it."
Meg frowned, trying to understand, to work out what he wanted from this madness, but there wasn't time. Ben had turned and was leaning across the central board, making minuscule adjustments to the settings, while across the river, in the deep shadow beneath the overhanging trees, two canoes were pushing off from the bank, moving with silvered quickness across the darkness of the water.
THERE WERE SHOUTS in the valley. Hideous, unearthly sounds. On the cobbles outside the ancient coaching inn, the crowd fell silent, looking across the harbor toward the quay beyond. There, in the shadow of the three-masted merchantman, two figures were struggling beneath the lamp, as if locked in an embrace. For a moment there was only that, and then, like demons crawling from a gap in hell itself, a dozen of the Clay-men appeared over the lip of the river wall, whooping and screeching, their dark, stooped figures making for the town.
There were shouts, the first murmurings of panic, and then the crowd broke, some running toward the merchantman, but most to the right and the safety of the Customs House. These last had not gone far when a group of savage-looking creatures—maybe half a dozen in all—burst from the shadows of one of the seafront houses, confronting them. Big, crudely armored men with notched swords and vicious-looking clubs.
"Back!" someone shouted. "Get help from the inn! There's weapons there!" But even as the shout went up, the invaders rushed the front of the crowd, laying about them savagely. Screams filled the air. Awful, pitiful screams, like the sounds of real men dying.
At first the crowd was forced back by the viciousness of the onslaught, several of them falling beneath the rain of blows, their limbs hacked from their bodies or their skulls crushed by hammer blows, but then, encouraged by the efforts of the young watchman from the castle, they began to fight back. Using whatever weapons they had at hand, they began to push the raft-men back step by step toward the Customs House. Yet even as they did, more of the raft-men joined the raiding party, swarming up the steps and out onto the lamp-lit quay.
Observing it all from the safety of her vantage point above the town, Meg set the glasses down and turned, facing her brother.
For a moment she watched as Ben kicked and swung, then ducked and came up sharply, aiming a vicious punch into the air, his eyes never leaving the screen in front of him. Down below, she knew, on the cobbles before the Customs House, the morph of the watchman would have kicked and swung, then ducked and come up quickly, aiming a vicious punch, his movements the perfect duplicate of Ben's.
She shivered, frightened by the sight; by the sheer physicality of it, the uncompromising violence of each movement. "There's too many of them," she said quietly. "Your plan will never work, Ben. They'll overwhelm the morphs before there's time."
"Wait," he answered, moving back slightly, his eyes never leaving the screen even as his hands made small adjustments to the control panel at his side. "It's far from over yet."
She saw him lift his arm, as if to ward off a blow, then duck and twist, as if he threw a figure through the air. From the town below, the shouts and screams continued.
The screens were alive with activity. Close-ups of flailing arms and agonized faces were juxtaposed against long-range shots of tiny figures struggling beneath the harbor lamps. Metal bit deep into flesh—some real, some made—while blood flew like the spray of some dark fountain.
Close up and context, she thought, swallowing, recalling the number of times they had done this kind of thing with the morphs. But this time it was different. This time it was real. Or half real, anyway.
She studied the varied images of the struggle. The Clay-men had been held on the quay beside the merchantman. In the opening moments of the fight, Ben had had the crew pour down the wooden ramps and throw themselves at their attackers, the morphs lashing out in a frenzy. At first they'd been successful and several of the Clay had gone down, badly hurt, but things were turning fast. More than thirty of the morphs lay there on the quay now, inert or badly damaged,
while a dozen or more floated facedown in the water below. Less than half their number remained standing. In a minute or two, they would be overwhelmed, the left flank lost.
Meg turned back, lifting the glasses to her eyes, trying to make out what was happening elsewhere. One of the strange, steam-driven rafts was docked beside the Customs House steps. Out on the river, four more of the rafts formed a staggered line across the water, their dark shapes drifting slowly in toward the shore. The second was no more than fifty yards out now, yet unless the first raft moved it would be hard for the raft-men to disembark.
Unless they used the ferry ramp.
She turned slightly, focusing on the raft. There was feverish activity on board; a great deal of pointing and shouting. As she looked, one of the warriors—the steersman, maybe—slapped one of his fellows down, then, jabbing his finger in the direction of the ramp, forced the two rudder men to bring the unwieldy craft hard about. She watched as the raft swung slowly around, avoiding the moored craft narrowly as it made for the gap in the wall.
For a moment it glided in, the prow perfectly positioned for the ramp, then, suddenly, there was a huge explosion.
Meg felt her chest tighten. In the echoing silence that followed she could hear the splashing of things falling back into the water. Could see the tiny shapes of stone and metal, flesh and splintered bone, falling, tumbling through the broken darkness.