Then ‘That was petulant of you.’ Donatella’s monstrous voice again.
Then ‘It pisses me off when they don’t know who I am….’ Donatella’s voice. As it had been Lim’s voice, that other time.
On the height, two figures staggered to their feet, one of them carrying a rifle. A spinning shard took off his head, the shard no redder than the blood that spouted high in a momentary jet. The other figure fell and was swallowed up in a dancing fountain of razor-edged boulders.
Where Tasmin and the others clung, the earth heaved and hit them in the face, falling away beneath them again, shaking, again, again, again.
Then silence.
Vivian, Miles, Donatella, Tasmin, Clarin, Jamieson.
The viggies had gone.
Vivian, Miles, Donatella, Tasmin, Clarin …
‘Where’s Jamieson?’ grated Tasmin. ‘Where is he?’
‘He was right behind me,’ Clarin sobbed. ‘Right behind me.’ She levered herself to her feet, staggering. ‘Back there.’
Back there was only piled crystal.
From behind a tumble of sanguinary glass, glittering with malice, a dusty thing rose to its feet, teeth exposed in a grimace of hate. It put a weapon to its shoulder and snarled at them through the blood on its face. ‘Stand where you are.’
‘I have to find Jamieson,’ said Tasmin stupidly. ‘I’ve got to find him.’
‘I said stand where you are! Or I’ll shoot the lot of you.’
‘Spider Geroan,’ Donatella whispered. ‘Oh, God. Spider Geroan.’
‘Get over here,’ Spider said, gesturing with the weapon at Clarin. ‘Get over here, or I’ll kill the rest of them right now, starting with him!’
As though hypnotized, Clarin moved toward him.
‘Clarin! No!’ Tasmin’s voice.
She twitched.
‘Keep moving, girl, or I’ll take him out. I swear I will.’
She moved on. When she was within reach of him, he grabbed her, turning her to face them, one of his arms around her throat, the other fumbling to place a knife at the side of her face.
‘Now,’ said Spider Geroan. ‘Who did that?’
‘Who … who did what?’ Donatella asked.
‘Who set off that thing!’
‘No one,’ she said. ‘It just blew.’
The knife at Clarin’s face made a tiny motion and she cried put, a thin, black trickle oozing down her cheek.
‘None of that!’ he grated. ‘Somebody did it.’
Tasmin struggled to make his voice calm. The man before him was mad. Perhaps had always been mad. ‘Clarin went up to tell Jamieson and Don that the Enigma doesn’t act rationally,’ he said. ‘Vivian brought us that message. We didn’t know it before….’
‘So you got scared and ran, and that did it,’ Geroan asserted, moving the knife again. Clarin cried out again, a high, toneless shriek.
‘It was already doing it,’ Don said. ‘Couldn’t you feel it? The shaking never really stopped!’
Spider breathed heavily for a moment. First, he wanted to get even with whichever one of them had done it to him. Then he wanted to do this girl. Then … then he’d figure out what next. In the meantime, he moved the knife again, almost reflexively, hearing the answering cry of pain with something approaching pleasure.
Tasmin’s stomach clenched and he bit down on his tongue to keep from screaming.
‘Distract him,’ murmured Don. ‘Think of something.’
‘I have to find Jamieson,’ Tasmin called frantically. ‘Or none of us can get out of here.’
Spider looked up, the knife stopped moving. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Let me find him,’ Tasmin shrieked. ‘He’s like my son.’
In the shadows of the rocks, Bondri Gesel. ‘Like his son? What does that mean? Let me alone.’ This to a giligee who was stanching the blood from a cut on his shoulder. ‘Let me alone and find this Jamieson. He is one of Tasmin Ferrence’s troupe, and the debt is not yet paid.’
‘He could be your son and it wouldn’t matter,’ Spider snarled lifting the hand with the knife to wipe his own eyes. He felt no pain from the cuts on his face and neck, but the blood was a nuisance and made him irritable. ‘He could be your brother or your mother and it wouldn’t matter. You’ve been a bother, Tripsinger. You and the Explorer there. I’ve come to stop the bother.’
He choked Clarin against his chest with his knife hand and picked up the rifle once more. There were too many of them to play with. He would save only one. The girl. Clarin. Though he didn’t feel like it, really. Maybe he would, later.
In the shadows of the rocks, Bondri Gesel. ‘That Loudsinger is going to kill them,’ he roared at the top of his song-sack. ‘The debt is coming unstuck again; get rid of that Loudsinger with the weapon.’
Something seized Spider’s knife hand and tore it away from Clarin’s face. Clarin rolled away, and as Spider leaped toward her, he tripped over something and fell down. It was a furry thing, and it didn’t get out of his way. Another furry thing was hanging on the end of the rifle and he couldn’t raise it. Something grabbed him by his legs and sank needle teeth into his thighs. There was no pain, but the thing hung on him, handicapping his movement. Another thing grabbed for the rifle, two more, tearing it away from him. The things clinging to his legs tripped him again. Dozens more of them sat on him. One stared deep into his eyes, brushing his forehead with long, feathery things growing out of its head. He struggled, but there were too many of them.
‘This one is defective,’ said the senior giligee. ‘Bondri Gesel, this Loudsinger is defective. He has no pain feelings at all. Perhaps that is why he acts as he does.’
Bondri regarded the Loudsinger with disfavor. The Prime Song urged good returned for good, and when possible, good returned as an example for others, even when bad had been intended. However, the song also directed that those who kill without good reason must be disposed of in order that others may live in tranquility. Then there was the question of the taboo. There was no good reason to break the taboo for this man. Now he looked down into
