Yngve, AR - Darc Ages 02 - City Of Masks Read online

  He hurried up the stairs with soft steps - as he wore only the socks of his coolant suit on his feet - and might have a chance of surprising the gunners.

  Kensaburé arrived at the entrance to the turret; the door had been shut from the other side. He put the rifle bore against the lock and fired a one-second beam. The lock's insides fizzed and smoked, and he burst through the door.

  Inside was a short flight of stairs that went up through a wide metal floor grating. Through the grating, he spotted the giant laser cannon, two meters long with a cooling tube spiraling around the barrel. The cannon and the gunner's seat were mounted on a frame on wheels, attached to the iron-pipe spoke in the center of the floor. Thick cables went up from the hollow spoke and fed into the cannon's laser generator, where capacitors fed electric shocks at ruby or diamond lenses which emitted perfectly focused beams of high-energy photons.

  The turret had open windows on all sides and a cool breeze blew in, sending the scents of the sea into the room. Only one gunner sat on duty, dressed in a thick wool jacket and cap. Next to him sat a man wearing the mask and wig of Lord Berluchos. Berluchos glanced down through the grated floor, spotted the intruder and shook the gunner's shoulder. Kensaburé rushed up the final flight of stairs and took aim at the city lord.

  "Surrender, sire!" he cried. The gunner ignored him and reached for a switch that started the cannon frame. The young knight squeezed the rifle trigger - and nothing happened. The battery had run dry. The frame burred and came rolling straight at Kensaburé, passing over the flight of stairs on the floor grating. There was nowhere to run; the knight backed away from the moving turret, while the gunner laughed underneath his mask and reached for the knife in his belt.

  Then, unexpectedly, Lord Berluchos grabbed the gunner's arm and tried to pry the knife from his hands. Kensaburé was fully occupied with escaping the rotating gun, and nearly fell down the stairs while he was watching the struggle.

  The gunner snarled a curse, slapped the city lord's face and plunged his knife into the man's stomach. Kensaburé leaped onto the gunner's seat and swung the rifle butt down on his head. The gunner was knocked out of his seat and fell on the grating, in the wake of the rolling frame. He staggered to his feet with the knife still in his grip. A skull-mask remained firmly tied to his head by a chain, and his mouth was only partially visible through the hole between the rows of painted teeth. He ran after the cannon, laughing.

  "Your gun is empty. Mine is not. Surrender, eh?"

  Then the gunner shrieked and fell down the stairs in the floor; his mask fatally limited his vision. Kensaburé found the lever that controlled the speed of the rotation, and cranked it up to full power. The gunner was just crawling back up the short flight of stairs, when the spinning cannon came around and rolled over him from behind.

  Kensaburé flinched and looked away as the gunner howled in terror; the frame lurched and something crunched underneath its weight. He pushed down the lever and stopped the rotation.

  The dying city lord still lived. He fumbled with the chain that kept his jovial, ever-grinning mask in place. Kensaburé helped remove the mask of Berluchos, and saw an old, pale man with a misshapen nose the size of fist. It was the prisoner of the other Berluchos!

  "Speak. Are you him? The true Berluchos?" The old man nodded, his eyes weeping with pain. "What are you doing here?" The dying, mute man made muffled, wordless moans and pantomimed a noose around his neck. "You were taken here by force and they put the mask on you?"

  The man nodded.

  "Was it a ruse, by the man who captured you and took us hostage?"

  Another nod.

  "Then where is he now? Where is the man behind the mask?"

  Berluchos pointed to the other tower. His head slumped onto his chest and from his nose came a snorting death rattle. He had played his part to the finish.

  Kensaburé did not quite know what to feel. He had had enough of blood and killing. Then he remembered his comrades, and what he must do. He switched on the cannon's tracer light, and turned the frame until the tiny red dot rested on the top of the other turret. From the northern turret, a similar tracer-light flashed past the room. He squeezed the firing trigger until his finger whitened.

  The cannon in front of him emitted a rising hum, building up capacitor charge; he counted endless seconds while the other tower's gun reflected the sunlight and slid into position...

  Then, his cannon made a loud snapping noise, and for the merest fraction of a second he saw a white vapor trail point straight away at the northern turret, then blow away. In that same instant, the top of the northern tower disappeared in a fireball. The noise of the explosion reached him a second later; the room shuddered, and a hail of debris fell over the harbor. He almost thought he could hear sailors swearing down below.

  Then he heard a noise from the stairs below, and looked down at the gory red circle the cannon frame had drawn on the grating.

  The city's two remaining soldiers in robot masks and gloves came in through the doorway - and stopped. The unfortunate gunner's corpse lay sprawled over the upper flight of stairs. With a sigh, Kensaburé leaned down on the other side of the cannon where the soldiers could not see him, and put his hand on the motor lever.

  The soldiers mumbled something to each other through their masks, and then shouted: "Hey! Leper scum! Is that foreigner here with you?" They thought the prisoner sitting by the cannon still lived.

  Kensaburé lifted the dead man's arm, pointed it at a window, and made a moaning noise. The two soldiers shouted and pushed the gunner's mangled corpse aside to come up the stairwell.

  When they had reached halfway up, he pushed the motor lever to the highest setting. The frame rolled over the astonished men at high speed. The whole cannon hit another bump, harder this time, and twice. He lowered the speed gently and looked at the helmet on the floor, made in the likeness of a robot's head. The helmet had been squeezed almost flat.

  Kensaburé felt an impulse to laugh, and it frightened him; he might be going mad. There were stories among the nobility about that happening to the best of knights, becoming kill-crazed beasts who had to be locked up in peacetime.

  Is this glory? he asked himself.

  But the road to freedom lay open. He climbed down from the cannon, took the city lord's mask and a rifle, and headed downstairs.

  On his way down the tower he heard a distant rumbling, followed by the crash of collapsing walls and a giant gurgle from the city.

  He looked out a window and could not believe his eyes. To the west, a dark pillar of smoke rose where the palace gardens had been. Other parts of the building slowly collapsed as he watched.

  But the truly bizarre sight was the canals of Vanitia. The waterways that crisscrossed the walled city rapidly sank away, disappeared, visibly retreated into the mass of smoke that marked the disintegrating palace. In the wake of the sinking water lay countless gondolas, rowboats and prams scattered on the muddy canal floor, like toys left behind by a careless child.

  He thought of the others he had left inside the palace, and hurried down to ground level. All his thoughts of the city lord were pushed aside.

  Awonso, Threo, Okono and the dwarf rushed into the palace hallway, and were about to leave the building when Threo stopped and handed the dwarf to Awonso. He turned and ran up the staircase to the guest wing; the steps felt unstable beneath his feet.

  Okono stared after him, incredulous and terrified.

  "Come back! Threo!"

  He did not listen. All he knew was that the chest containing his vaccine equipment stood in the room where he had left it; the whole mission would be for nothing if he let it be destroyed.

  Gods, let it still be whole, he thought as he stumbled across the rubble, skipped a collapsed floor section and ran for the open doorway to his quarters. I left it right in the corner... by the thickest wall... let it be there... or all these lives are lost and all the killing has been a pointless, sad play... I refuse to let it be gone... the chest will
be there because I will it so...

  And it was where he had left it - in the corner of two supporting walls, right across the room, covered by dust but untouched.

  Except... except that the floor had crashed down a whole level, and only a thin sliver of it remained by the wall. He took a deep breath, stepped out along the chasm and put his foot on the sliver of stone, just wide enough for him to step on. He took another deep breath, pushed himself across and pressed his chest against the wall so as not to fall backward into the hole.

  Familiar voices shouted at him from the courtyard on the other side of the wall, something about not enough time, but he dug his fingernails into the wall plaster and inched himself sideways along the ledge, the chest only a short distance away... he increased the length of his steps, and his stomach protested. If he threw up now, he would fall to his death for sure....

  He passed a broken high window and saw the figures running after him on the blood-soaked courtyard on the other side of the wall: the lovely, brilliant yet deadly Okono Yota, a woman as complex as she was beautiful... and Awonso of Damon City, who Threo could share jokes with... a man could not ask for a better friend... and that peculiar nameless dwarf.

  What a hopeless choice of heroes we are, he thought as he took the last few agonizingly slow, perilous steps toward the remaining corner of the floor... we leave only chaos and destruction behind... what good had they accomplished here, except smiting the wicked? Dead people in the streets, was that going to satisfy Kensaburé and his peers in their selfish quest for spoils and victories?

  And even if Threo succeeded in bringing vaccine to the Vanitians, was it not too late anyway? They were born Lepers and would die Lepers. Only the next generation stood a chance. Only the children to come...

  His foot came down on the corner, which rested on a solid stone column. He grabbed the heavy chest, groaned in frustration, and adrenalin surged through his body. Going back the same way with the chest was impossible, he realized now. The corner faced the very edge of the courtyard, and below floated the dirty canal water. Filled with germs, no doubt.

  He took another breath, wrapped his arms around the chest and leaped off the floor. Threo and his load plunged into the canal and sank to the bottom.

  Okono dropped her rifle and ran for the canal. Awonso, out of breath, carried the dwarf over his shoulder and prepared to jump.

  "Wait!" The dwarf protested. "I cannot swim! Do you hear me?"

  They plunged into the water. And just then, the ravaged palace of colored glass, marble and stone heaved a few feet, as if the building itself had decided to join them in a quick swim. A second later the ground rumbled, and the entire palace garden flew high in the air on a giant cloud of smoke and flame.

  Chapter 14

  Threo would not release his hold of the chest, even as it dragged him down in the murky, smelly water. It was cold, colder than he had expected, and he kicked away from the bottom and tried to push himself up to the surface. It was only a few feet from his head.

  As he struggled and his lungs began to feel the pressure, the water around him suddenly went opaque and a shockwave of water shoved him upward. Dimly he understood that the brave little robot had succeeded in igniting the methane deposit below the canal. And after the explosion had pushed the canal floor upward, a much stronger reverse current would come when the cave floor collapsed and the water rushed in. If Kensaburé had reached the top of one of the two gun towers, he might be able to see the entire canal system sink into the hole.

  The first wave pushed him up to the surface. A tremendous roar of destruction hit his ears; the sky was black with smoke.

  Threo had only the time to gasp for air and shout to the others: "Hold on to something! Hold on to -"

  He felt the current pull him back down, and his back slammed into an underwater wall; the precious air he had just caught rushed out of his mouth in a stream of bubbles. He was sucked alongside the wall, like a piece of trash floating down a gutter, irreversibly headed for the storm drain. He grasped helplessly at the slippery wall with one hand, clutching the chest with his other hand, but only caught fistfuls of frail seaweed.

  The outward-facing wall corner came closer, closer... and he knew that when the current dragged him around that corner, he would plunge into the chasm of the collapsed sewage plant, to be buried in the citys waste sediment, together with one robot... now he was just another piece of debris.

  Okono Yota hit the canal water hands first, and plunged in deep. Her robes wrapped around her legs, slowing them down. She untied the wide belt, freed herself from the robe and let her legs pump her forward.

  Suddenly the water went opaque, and a mighty shockwave pushed her upward and away from the palace. She momentarily lost her bearings and came dangerously close to panic, but the water changed almost as quickly as it had dimmed and became clearer.

  Okono swam back toward the point where she had seen Threo jump in with the precious chest in his arms. She did not care for the chest - it could be salvaged later - she wanted to find Threo. A muffled voice reached down to her from the surface, vaguely recognizable.

  Then: a strong current from the source of the explosion hit her, pulled her back toward the pier stones of the palace. She pumped her legs against the pull, and her feet touched the slippery wall beneath the palace. Stray debris sank down into the muddied water. She made out a human shape being pulled past her, holding an oblong object. It touched the wall and started to drift toward the far corner where the current pulled down, down...

  Okono acted on instinct and long training; her clan was one of the few ones in Castilia that owned an artificial swimming pond. She had spent many summers in that deep pond, testing her ability to hold her breath for minutes on end.

  She swam with the pull, shot through the current like a projectile and overtook the sliding, drowning figure she knew was Threo. At the upper edges of the wall hung several thick iron rings for mooring ropes. She grabbed the collar of Threos doctors coat, pumped her legs until she reached the surface by force of sheer momentum, and hooked her arm through one iron ring. The pull sent a stabbing pain through her arm, and she thought it would break.

  Then she felt the current weaken, and the water level sank around them with astonishing speed. From around the corner came an immense gurgling noise, and boats touched the bottom of the canal as she watched. The canal retreated beneath her feet, leaving her dangling from the ring, with Threo and his chest hanging by the grip of her hand. As the support of the water shrank away, she had to release Threo. He fell two feet and splashed into the muddy canal floor, next to the chest.

  Okono became aware of the masked citizens staring at her; she was only wearing a long white shirt and her shoes. She let herself drop, landed in the mud next to Threo, and her feet sank deep into the bottom.

  Threo lay on his back in the wet mud, and she could not hear him breathing.

  "Wake up!" she cried, leaning down over his pale, calm face. She pounded her thin fists against his chest, her face contorted with grief. "Wake up!" Again she struck his chest, and he stirred.

  Threo coughed up some ill-tasting water and blinked his eyes open; they smarted in the sunlight. Around him he saw boats and gondolas standing on the drained canal bed. He felt for the chest and drew a sigh of relief. A smiling woman leaned down over him, her high cheekbones plastered with strands of wet black hair.

  There were many things he wanted to say, but in his dazed state all he could think of was:

  "Hello... will you be my friend?"

  She pounded his chest, playfully, and bent down and kissed him.

  "Hey! Young lovers! I told you I cannot swim! Are you trying to kill me?"

  The dwarf's angry voice from across the drained canal made them turn around, and they discovered Awonso and the dwarf - clinging to the side of a gondola, which in turn hung down from the embankment by a rope. The other end of the gondola was stuck deep into the canal sediment.

  "Threo!" shouted Awonso. "Did yo
u get the chest?"

  He coughed and replied, "Yes!" They both grinned. "At least I hope most of the things inside are whole... my father packed and padded them well."

  "Do you think Kiti-Mo made it out of there when the methane gas went up?"

  Threo frowned and looked up at Okono. She looked sad. From the remains of the palace above their heads came a steady plume of smoke and foul vapor.

  "I taught her to hide and stick her feet into the ground when she was in danger," Okono said. "If she found a place to take cover from the water's pull, then maybe... but the water would have ruined her innards."

  Fresh water began to flow back into the canal, and lapped at their bodies.

  "They have opened the sluice gates," said the dwarf, and crawled up the tilted gondola. "Young lovers! Get up from there unless you want to drown a second time!"

  Okono and Threo lifted the chest and carried it across the canal floor to the nearest embankment staircase.

  Once they were on the dry street again, Threo bought a couple of cloaks and shirts from a street vendor, and some blank masks. The vendor was unwilling to look at their bare faces, but he accepted Threo's gold coins.

  "Where is Kensaburé?" he asked, while he was wringing the water out of his coat. "Last time I saw him, he was going to stop the false Lord Berluchos from escaping the city..."

  A crowd of onlookers, all wearing masks, was gathering around them and listening. And yet, none of the Vanitians looked directly at their faces.

  Threo was getting tired of this city, no matter how much he wanted to help the citizens. He put his fresh blank mask over his face and said to them: "Talk to the mask!"

  The street vendor seemed to understand at once, and said: "Sirrah, you said there is a false Lord Berluchos?"