'You made Giles save him,' said Evangeline. 'I don't know how to do things like that. We make a good team, all things considered.'
They smiled at each other, staring deep into each other's eyes, and the stateroom was suddenly full of their love. It occurred to Toby that he might just get the answers to a few pertinent questions out of them, while they were in such a good mood. He gestured surreptitiously for Flynn to turn his camera back on. Flynn nodded slightly, and though the camera on his shoulder didn't move, its single red eye silently glowed into life again.
'So,' said Toby casually, 'what is the deal with the Deathstalker? There's nothing in his history or his legend about his having esper abilities. Certainly no one else in his line has ever shown any trace of them. Until Owen. I saw him do some pretty amazing things on Mistworld.'
'It's the Maze,' said Finlay. 'The Madness Maze. Something Giles and Owen and a few others encountered on the world that used to be Haden.'
'You mean they were changed by a Hadenmen device?'
'No. Something much older. It changed the people who went through it. Made them more than they used to be. Don't ask for details, because I don't have any. The underground has, but it's all strictly need to know. And the likes of you and I don't need to know. Now turn off that camera and get the hell out of here, before I decide which of your bodily orifices to cram it into. Sideways.'
'Fair enough,' said Toby. 'Let's go, Flynn.'
'After me,' said the cameraman, and they left the stateroom in something that wasn't actually a hurry, but close enough. With the door shut firmly behind them, they both stopped for a couple of really deep breaths.
'I don't think he was joking about the camera,' said Flynn. 'Did you think he was joking about the camera?'
'Probably not,' said Toby. 'Finlay Campbell's come a long way from the biggest clotheshorse in the Court. Still, in retrospect, it probably wasn't the best of times to ask probing questions.'
'Never stopped you before,' said Flynn.
'True,' said Toby. 'Let's go see what the toys are up to.'
Not that far away, Giles Deathstalker was leaning on the starboard guardrail, staring into the dark waters of the River as they flowed past. The Captain had the ship back under control again, and they were picking up speed, back on course. Giles tried to recapture the feeling of how it felt to teleport, but it eluded him. As though it was too powerful an experience for him to deal with, except in necessity. Too much for a human mind. Except he wasn't just a human anymore, and hadn't been ever since he and the others passed through the Madness Maze. He'd become something… different than human, and his new ability to teleport was just the beginning. He knew that, beyond any shadow of a doubt. Though he was far away from the others, he was still linked to them through the undermind, the oversoul, and he knew that they were changing, too, in different, frightening ways. He wondered what he was becoming, what they were all becoming, and whether the end result would be in any way human. He also wondered why the thought didn't scare him as much as it should have.
Raised angry voices caught his attention, and he went to see what was happening, more to keep his thoughts occupied than because he really cared. Down by the stern, Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat had found a disembodied head from a patchwork toy, wedged in a corner where the psistorm couldn't get at it, and they were busy interrogating it by kicking it around like a football and shouting questions at it. Toby calmed them down, set the head against the stateroom wall, and asked it questions while Flynn filmed. All he got for his trouble were a series of not very inventive curses, so Giles moved in and took over. No one objected. He didn't think they would.
'Why did you attack us?' he asked the head.
The head was bright blue, with pointed ears and oversize eyes, it had probably been intended to look cute and elfish in the beginning, but now it looked more like a demon. It laughed at his question, showing jagged pointy teeth. The sound was harsh, artificial, and had nothing of human emotion in it. The toy's eyes, all dark pupils, fixed on the Deathstalker.
'You're the enemy. The eternal enemy. Human and human-lovers. Don't think you've won anything here. You can't get away. We'll find you and kill you all. Or the others will.'
'Others?' said Giles, calmly meeting the dark inhuman eyes.
'Oh, we have many friends, waiting along the way for you. We know where you're from, where you're going. We have ears and eyes everywhere. You'll never reach the Red Man. We won't allow it.'
'What's your name?' said Toby.
The head laughed at him. 'Names? That's a human thing. Our identities interchange as our bodies do. We are lost to who we were, and we like it that way.'
'Tell me what you know about Harker,' Giles said patiently. 'Tell me what you know about the Red Man, and his plans. And why you're so determined to stop us getting to him.'
'I don't have to answer your questions. Human.' The head spit at Giles. He didn't flinch.
'I could make you talk,' said Giles. 'Look at me, toy.'
He leaned forward slightly, staring into the head's dark eyes. His presence was suddenly overpowering, frightening, awful. As though something unexpected and horribly powerful had emerged from behind the mask of Giles's face. The Bear and the Goat shrank back, and Toby had to fight down the urge to do the same. Flynn's control over his camera wavered for a moment, but he kept filming. The head made a high, whining noise, a terrified, pitiful sound, like a child being tortured. Giles relaxed suddenly, and the overwhelming presence was gone, as suddenly as it had come. The head had its eyes squeezed shut.
'All right,' it said quietly. 'We're scared of the Red Man. No one who goes to him comes back. Ever. Even those most fanatical to our cause. From what we hear, he's building a private army of his own, deep in the Forest. It's said he's going to end the war. Or end the world. They say he's crazy, crazy as only a human can be, and he's infecting toys with that madness. I know you humans. You'd try and reason with him, and you'd end up mad as he is. Mad as the Red Man. And who knows how powerful he'd become with more humans to help him, humans as crazy as he is. So, we're lying in wait, all along the River. You'll never live to reach the Forest.'
'We want to take him away,' said Giles. 'Take him offworld with us. Isn't that what you want?'
The head just laughed. 'You're lying. Humans always lie. We know that. They said they loved us, when they came here to play with us, but in the end they always went away and left us behind. We were just toys, to be used and discarded on a whim. They never loved us. You'll all pay for that.'
'I think we've heard enough,' said Giles. 'This is for Julian.'
He picked up the head, and pressed his thumbs firmly into its eyes. The huge eyeballs crunched inward, destroying the fragile instruments within. The head howled piteously. Giles pulled his thumbs out, and tossed the screaming head over the rail and into the River, to be found and recovered by its fellows, or not. Giles looked at the others, but neither the humans nor the toys had anything to say. Giles put his back against the guardrail.
'Not as helpful as I'd hoped,' he said calmly. 'Did I miss anything pertinent?'
'Just the one, maybe,' said Toby. 'Why do you suppose they keep referring to Harker as the Red Man?'
'They say he's crazy,' said Giles. 'Dangerously crazy. Maybe the red is a reference to blood.'
'And we're going to meet him,' said the Sea Goat. 'Lucky old us.'
'Shut up, Goat,' said the Bear, not unkindly.
They continued on down the River, passing abandoned battlefields and dead toys. The war had been here, and passed on. The constant rumble of explosions in the distance grew gradually louder, nearer. They passed playhouses; forts and castles, log cabins and rose-covered cottages. Burnt-out, torn apart, utterly destroyed. A farm, complete with barns and outbuildings for artificial animals. The animals were long gone, but the buildings had been torched, and only the blackened bones of humans remained, from where they'd been tied to spits in the blazing farmyard. Signs of the war were everywhere now, as the paddle steamer drew nearer to the Forest, and everywhere lay the broken bodies of dead toys, lying looking up at the sky with empty eyes; no way now to know whether they'd been good or bad toys, or if they'd even given a damn. The ship sailed on as the day faded into the evening and then into night.
They found an open field, apparently untouched by the war, and pulled in beside the River-bank. The humans felt a need for fresh air and the chance to stretch their legs. The toys didn't really understand, but went along with it. Though they hadn't said anything, it was clear their growing nearness to the Forest was worrying them, and they were as glad of a pause in the journey as the humans were. The night was dark and the air was cold, so they built a fire from the surrounding shrubbery and sat around it. It was almost peaceful, apart from the constant distant
