“Where are we going?”
“Where you wanted us to go.”
“Where the Arbai have gone?”
“Yes.”
They came to an outcropping of rock, hidden among the trees, where a wide, low archway was closed by a monstrous door. Though it was dark, Fringe saw it clearly for it shone with a harsh, obdurate light. She saw great talons gripping the hinges of that door, trying to bend them, straining at them, roaring at them, while they remained yet adamant. The struggle went on and on, and likewise the defeat.
“I can’t break it.” There was a certain hopelessness in that voice, almost a resignation. “Given enough time, enough thought, I can do many things. But I cannot break this door.”
Fringe’s head sagged. She slumped, beginning to despair.
Jory had not despaired. Not even at the end. Jory had chosen her; she had no right to despair.
“There must be something,” she cried. “Some way!”
“Let it go,” said the great voice.
“No,” she shouted. “Everyone I ever loved, I could have loved better, but I always let it go. I did it. Even Char … even him. When the time came for me to give me up, I never could.”
“What vision is this, Fringe Owldark?”
“Me,” she said. “It’s me.” She shook her head in puzzlement, and peered deeply at the shadowed bulk beneath her, as though to confirm her answer there.
“I’m a questing beast, Great Dragon. It’s why Jory picked me. She knew….”
“Knew what?” he demanded.
“Knew she could find one of us somewhere, for there are always a few of us around.” She ran her hands down her sides, as though to be sure she was present. “Like her. Like Zasper. Like me. We’re the discontented ones. People try to love us, but we keep getting distracted. People give us presents, hoping to please us, but to us they feel like chains and ropes, tying us. They cook the food and pour the wine, and we go unicorn hunting instead. They yell at us and we don’t hear, and they try to nail us down, and we pull out the nails and run away licking the punctures. They tell us we’re being obstinate, and they send us to bed, and we crawl out the window and go wandering. They lock us in a room and they throw away the key. And we slide out under the door.” She laughed. “We leak away, like water.”
“Like water,” he agreed.
“Water can wear away a stone, eventually,” she said. “If there’s enough time.”
“But there isn’t enough time. So we’ll leave it, shall we?”
“Wait,” she said, forcing the words past a dry throat and a terrible inward shrinking. Put me down!”
She was down. She stood facing the door, one hand out. When she was a girl, long ago, working in the weapons shop, she had repaired weapons. She knew how they worked. What was it Asner had said about the Arbai Device? That it could create? Well then, let it create.
She visualized the weapon, the structure of the crystals, the intricacies of the circuitry, the shape of the housing, the effect of one part upon another. She thrust her mind at the nothingness in her hand, believing that what she needed was there!
Nothing. More was needed than merely this! She had sent the device away. What must she do to bring it back?
Give up herself. Let it have its way. Be possessed. Enslaved. Willingly, for the device would not work any other way.
Sobbing, she invited it.
It came from the soil beneath her feet, not as an insinuation but as an invasion. It came into her like a swarm, like a tidal flow.
She stumbled, almost falling, her whole being in revolt against this violence being done to her. From beside her, a mighty claw reached out and held her.
Her mind stuttered. “Steady,” whispered a voice inside her. “Steady now.”
She took a deep breath, focused herself once more. This was the way the weapon had worked. This one she held was different, of course, being larger, more powerful. Vastly more powerful. This one could take down a mountain if that was what was needed.
The firing button lay beneath her thumb.
She pressed it.
The door glowed. The fabric of it howled. Metallic runnels flowed away from it. It sagged upon its hinges. Great Dragon seized it, tore it, battered it down.
Before them a sandy-floored tunnel stretched ahead and downward, into infinity.
“Do you now accept enslavement?” asked the voice. “If you risk death, can I risk less?” she asked. It was what one Enforcer said to another when they went into battle. A way of swearing loyalty. An acceptance of an honorable end.
“Come. I’ll carry you.”
“I cannot reach what I need through you,” she said. “I must walk.”
“True. The device cannot touch me. So, we will walk together.”
She started down the tunnel, counting her steps, ignoring the feeling that she was no longer herself. Her legs felt different. Her arms. Part of her was no longer available. Part of her substance had been used to make the weapon she still held.
Ignore that. Count the steps. Hammer down the distance with striding feet.
When she reached several thousand, she stopped counting, unable to remember what the next number should have been.
“Will we reach them in time?” she asked.
“In time for what?”
“In time to do what Jory would have done.”
“Who knows,” he murmured.
What remained of her leaned for a moment against his side, then turned and began walking once more.
• • •
In far-off City Fifteen, Sepel794DZ watched the ending of man on Panubi. He was enmeshed in his little tentacles, perceiving the slaughter in fear and dismay, fearing the end of the world for himself as for these others, so far away.
Brain dinks led very long lives. They were not subject to disease, and if they stayed at home they were seldom killed. Sepel had always supposed
