Dying of the Light

'Arkin said… an armor-bug migration. It wasn't actually, but we had to check. We rushed away.'

'Why didn't you tell me where you were going? I thought that Jaan and Garse had beaten you up, that they were keeping you away from me. The night before, you'd said-'

'I know, but Arkin said he'd tell you.'

'And he convinced me to run away,' Dirk said. 'And you, I suppose he told you that to convince me you should…'

She nodded.

He turned toward the window. The last light was gone from the tower tops. Above, a handful of stars sparkled. Dirk counted them. Twelve. An even dozen. He wondered if some of them were really galaxies, away across the Great Black Sea. 'Gwen,' he said, 'Jaan left this morning. From here to Larteyn and back, by aircar-how long should that take?'

When she did not answer, he turned to look at her again.

The walls were full of phantoms, and Gwen trembled in their light.

'He should be back by now, shouldn't he?' She nodded and lay back again on the pale mattress. The Siren City sang its lullaby, its hymn to final sleep.

Chapter 11

Dirk walked across the room.

The laser rifle was leaning up against the wall. He lifted it, felt once again the vaguely oily texture of the slick black plastic. His thumb brushed over the wolf's head. He raised the weapon to his shoulder, sighted, fired.

The wand of light hung for at least a full second in the air. He moved the rifle slightly, and the pencil beam moved with it. When it faded, and the afterimage left his retinas, he saw that he had burned an uneven hole in the window. The wind was whistling through it loudly, making an odd dissonance with the music of Lamiya-Bailis.

Gwen climbed unsteadily out of her bed. 'What? Dirk?'

He shrugged at her and lowered the rifle.

'What?' she repeated. 'What are you doing?'

'I wanted to make sure I knew how it worked,' he explained. 'I'm… I'm going.'

She frowned. 'Wait,' she said. 'I'll find my boots.'

He shook his head.

'You too?' Her face was hard, ugly. 'I don't need to be protected, damn it.'

'It's not like that,' he said.

'If this is some idiot move to make yourself a hero in my eyes, it isn't going to work,' she said, putting her hands on her hips.

He smiled. 'What this is, Gwen, is some idiot move to make myself a hero in my eyes. Your eyes… your eyes aren't important anymore.'

'Why, then?'

He hefted the rifle uncertainly. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'Maybe because I like Jaan, and owe him. Because I want to make it up to him for running out after he'd trusted me and named me keth.'

'Dirk,' she began.

He waved her quiet. 'I know… but that isn't all. Maybe I just want to get Ruark. Maybe it's because Kryne Lamiya had more suicides than any other Festival city, and I'm one of them. You can pick your own motive, Gwen. All of the above.' A faint smile brushed across his face. 'Maybe it's because there are only twelve stars, you know? So it doesn't make any difference, does it?'

'What good can you possibly do?'

'Who knows? And why does it matter? Do you care, Gwen? Do you really?' He shook his head, and the motion sent his hair tumbling over his forehead once again, so once more he had to stop and brush it back. 'I don't care if you care,' he said forcefully. 'You said, or implied, that I was being selfish back in Challenge. Well, maybe I was. And maybe I am now. I'll tell you something, though. Whatever I'm going to do, I'm not asking to look at your arms first, Gwen. Know what I mean?'

It was a fine exit line, but halfway out the door he softened, hesitated, turned back. 'Stay here, Gwen,' he told her. 'Just stay. You're still hurt. If you have to run, Jaan said something about a cave. You know anything about a cave?' She nodded. 'Well, go there if you have to. Otherwise stay here.' He waved a clumsy farewell at her with the rifle, then spun and walked away too quickly.

Down in the airlot the walls were just walls-no ghosts, no murals, no lights. Dirk stumbled over the aircar he wanted in the dark, then waited while his eyes adjusted. His derelict was no product of High Kavalaan; it was a cramped two-seater, a black and silver teardrop of plastic and lightweight metal. No armor at all, of course, and the only weapon it carried was the laser rifle he laid across his lap.

It was only a little less dead than the rest of Worlorn, but that little was enough. When he tapped into the power, the car woke, and the instruments lit the cabin with their pale radiance. He ate a protein bar quickly and studied the readings. The energy supply was low, too low, but it would have to do. He would not use the headlamps; he could fly by the scant starlight. And the heater was likewise to be dispensed with, as long as he had his leather jacket to keep him from the chill.

Dirk slammed down the door, sealing himself in, and flicked on the gravity grid. The aircar lifted, rocking a bit unsteadily, but it lifted. He gripped the stick and threw it forward, and then he was outside and airborne.

He had one brief flash of terror. If the grid had been feeble enough, he knew, there would be no flight at all, just a rolling rumble to the moss-choked ground below. The aircar throbbed and dipped alarmingly once clear of the lot, but only for an instant; then the grid caught hold and they rode up on the singing winds, and the only thing left tumbling was his stomach.

Dirk climbed steadily, trying to push the small car as high as it would go. The mountainwall was ahead, and he had to clear it. Besides, he was not anxious to encounter other nocturnal flyers. High up, with his lights doused, he could see any other aircars that passed below him, but the chances were good that he would escape their notice.

He did not look back at Kryne Lamiya, but he felt the city behind him, driving him onward, washing away his fears. Fear was so foolish; nothing mattered, death least of all. Even when the Siren City and its white and gray lights were gone, the music lingered, steadily fading and growing weaker, but always with him, always potent. One note, a thin wavering whistle, outlasted the rest. Some thirty kilometers from the city he was still hearing it, mixed with the deeper whistle of the wind. Finally he realized that the noise was coming from his own lips.

He stopped whistling and tried to concentrate on flying.

When he had been airborne for almost an hour, the mountainwall bulked up before him, or rather beneath him, for he was quite high by that time, and he felt closer to the stars and the pinpoint galaxies above than to the forests far below. The wind had grown shrill and furious as it forced its way through hairline cracks in the door seam, but Dirk was ignoring the sound.

Where the mountains met the wilderness, he saw a light.

He banked the aircar, circled, and began to descend. No lights should shine this side of the mountains, he knew; whatever it was, it should be investigated.

He spiraled down until he was directly above the light, then stilled all forward motion of the aircar, hung hovering for a short moment, and faded his gravity grid. With infinite slowness, he settled, rocking back and forth slightly in the wind, falling quietly.

There were several lights beneath him. The main source of illumination was a fire. He could tell that now; he could see it shifting and flickering as the winds fanned the flames this way and that. But there were other, smaller lights as well-steady and artificial, a circle of them off in the blackness not terribly distant from the fire. Perhaps a kilometer, he estimated, perhaps less.

The temperature in the small cabin began to rise, and Dirk felt sweat on his skin, soaking his clothing beneath the heavy jacket. Smoke assaulted him as well; clouds of it, black and sooty, rose from the fire and