Merka Shanly — female, Pure and badly frightened but determined not to show it — was hauled out of the drain in the basement of the village inn by two of the younger and stronger Pure soldiers, who, despite their size, were very nearly dragged into the muck with her. She was filthy, soaked through with stagnant water and her own perspiration, her dark hair hanging in unlovely clumps across her narrow shoulders. She had dropped her cloak in the flight back from the place where Kane Grayson had died, and she had not bothered to pause and locate it. She wore only the one-piece, toe-to-neck stretch suit that was standard for all Pures beneath their cloaks, and despite her condition, she was not unaware that it accentuated her attractive figure.
“I must see the General,'' she told the two who had pulled her from the tunnel. “I have extremely important news.”
She was conducted out of the inn and down the main street, an altogether unusual spectacle, trailing water and strings of moss behind her, brushing her sticky, matted hair away from her left ear. She was the center of attention for the spiraling, mutated flies as well as for the Pures and tainteds who watched from the street and from behind curtained windows.
“I think you had best stand off a bit,” the General said when Merka was brought into his company.
So she stood alone just outside the shade thrown by the massive oak, stinking even more intolerably for the effect of the relentless heat of the sun.
“Your name is—”
“Merka Shanly, Your Excellency. And I have vital news.”
“You destroyed the espers?”
She bowed her head a second in contrition, but raised it almost instantly, not about to be subdued. “We encountered them, sir. Kane Grayson was murdered by the creature that looks like a bear, but I managed to escape them after my rifle was batted from my hands.”
“So far,” the General said, “you've reported nothing more than abysmal failure.”
His tone did not put her off, for she noticed that his eyes often strayed to the prominence of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist. She wondered, fleetingly, if she had anticipated this meeting and had lost her cloak, subconsciously, on purpose.
She said, “I will not attempt to justify the way we bungled our assignment, Your Excellency. But I believe I bear news important enough to salvage some of the situation.” Before he could speak, she went on, “Both of the espers carried provisions. The bearlike mutant was toting a huge rucksack that appeared to be well-stuffed. The deviate, Jask Zinn, carried a smaller, gray bag also obviously crammed with supplies. From what I saw of them, the deviate and the tainted creature were functioning in complete accord.”
“Then Zinn compounds his crimes by consorting openly with tainted beings?”
She wiped a smear of mud from her pretty face and said, “Yes, Your Excellency. Though it amazed me to see him form such a close contact in so short a time, and with a beast, a twisted man.”
“He is a mutant now himself,” the General reminded her. He shifted his gaze from her breasts to her eyes and found that these were the most startling blue he had ever seen. “Tell me, what do you extrapolate from the fact that they were provisioned?”
“That they mean to leave the town.”
“Of course.”
She batted away the flies. “And they'll leave it by means of the storm drains.”
“Yes.”
“And that — perhaps they intend striking out for Chen Valley Blight.”
The General's guards were obviously shocked by the suggestion and unwilling to put any credence in it. They looked quickly at one another, smirked openly.
The General said, “Why do you think this?”
“If they were to go anywhere outside the Blight, we could follow them.” She licked her lips, tasted foul water, did not grimace but went on: “or radio other enclaves to be on the watch for them. In the Wildlands, however, they are safe from us— though they will have other, worse things to contend with.”
“I believe that my own conclusions mirror yours,” the General said, putting a stop to the smirking of his guards, who now, abruptly, nodded their heads wisely, as if they had always known and believed what the young girl said was true. The General said, “We will take the necessary steps to head them off before they reach the Chen Valley Blight. You have done well, Merka Shanly.”
She thanked him, not too profusely (lest he suspect that she was attempting to ingratiate herself) and not too vaguely, just enough to let him know that she was deeply moved by his approval but was somewhat shy about it as well. Neither thing was true, of course.
“I will send an escort of two soldiers to accompany you back to the fortress immediately. You appear to be exhausted, and little wonder.”
“I'm fine, Your Excellency. I wish to remain here and join in the battle.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, “I wish you to return now. Upon returning to the enclave, bathe, relax and attire yourself appropriately for a late dinner in the military suite tonight.”
She looked amazed and seemed to have difficulty finding her voice.
“With you, sir?”
“Of course, with me. Who else occupies the military suite?” He smiled at her to let her know that he was not being rude, but jovial. “I suspect this matter will be settled by then, calling for a celebration. We will have fine wine, entertainment and several other enjoyable dinner companions to make a good night of it.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
He watched her depart with the two soldiers who had pulled her from the drain, watched the provocative sharp lines of her slim, flat buttocks. He hoped she was as pretty beneath all that mud and moss as the eyes gave a hint she was. If her face matched her body, she would remain in the military suite long after dinner. Yes, long after. He was, of course, the chairman of the Committee on Fruitfulness…
10
The dense forest was a combination of tainted growths and pure strains, Jask knew, though he was not readily able to identify those varieties of plant life that were solely the handiwork of Lady Nature, nor those that had been touched by the corrupt hand of the Ruiner. He could see, though, when they were drawing near the Chen Valley Blight, for he watched the forest — partially mutated as it was, dumb and senseless as it was — wither rapidly, as if it had no desire to flourish beside that blasphemously barren land that had long ago been consigned to the rule of the Ruiner. The trees dwindled, grew sickly and bent, changed in color from fresh green to an unhealthy brown-yellow. The undergrowth, too, developed new character, became somehow threatening, thornier, laced with ropy vines like tentacles, ugly and cold and clearly mutated far beyond Lady Nature's original design.
Tedesco lead the way, carrying both of the antique rifles, which Jask, somewhat against his will, had shown the mutant how to use. He led them off the obvious paths and approached the entrance to the Wildlands as if he expected to find Pure sentries guarding the way.
Jask followed.
Shortly they came to the end of the forest, where they had to hunch over in order to remain hidden by the dwarf trees. They stared across the hundred yards of utterly bare earth to the place where the Chen Valley Blight began, and they saw all of this:
•prisms rising up, towering overhead like the monstrously crested waves of an alien sea, jagged-edged against the comparably unspectacular blue of the sky, appearing to ebb and to flow, shift and wash as water on a beach, but in reality as stationary as the stone Jask felt he had been turned into;
•bright sunlight dancing along the brittle edge of the waves, piquing them with what might have been seafoam but was actually as insubstantial as the air, a tangible and frothy glare;
•color, riotous color, reds and blues and greens and yellows, burgundy and black, orange and crimson, amber, emerald, violet, sienna, countless subtle shades both bright and pale, shimmering, writhing, moving as if they were alive, color so full of activity that it appeared to be sentient;
•tunnels in the waves, winding caverns, boring holes, shelves, culs-de-sac, some large enough to admit the
