The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (37 page)

“And where is that?” I take a turn, getting
frustrated. I don’t think I’m the only one.

“
Where
is where you were last night. Only the
when
has changed.”

“All right,” Murphy tries diplomacy, managing to not
sound totally incredulous. “
When
are we?”

“The time that was. Or at least a small piece that
remained when this world was rewritten.”

“It’s VR,” I decide. “Some kind of illusion.
Generated by the swords.”

He crouches down using his stick for support, scoops
a handful of water and throws it in my face. It’s cold, wet,
jolting, and very real.

“It’s real,” he insists patiently. “It’s here. Except
when it isn’t.”

“I have no patience for stupid riddles,” Bly growls
at him. He starts to advance again, but his feet seem to be stuck
in the water.

“What are you doing to us?” Erickson demands. The old
man shrugs, shakes his head.

“I’m just performing a service.”

“What service?”

“Ferryman.” He gestures across the water. The haze
has thickened, come closer. But I think I see a large shadow in it.
It gets larger as we watch, but I hear no noise, no sound of
engines or treads. “I’m a captain, you see. Captain of a ship.
Captain Jed.”

He’s very childlike, innocent. (Or senile.
Brain-injured.)

“Why are
we
here?” Abbas demands, approaching,
flanked by Murphy, Ishmael, Rashid and the Ghaddar.

“Invited. As I said. And such interesting choices.”
Jed looks at Abbas, old eyes boring into him. “The Father, the wise
and world-weary fighter who seeks only a safe place for his family,
his people, and has paid so dearly for hope.”

Then he looks at Ishmael. “The Son, the young
adventurer, still wide-eyed and invincible, who seeks to know where
he comes from, no matter what he may find.”

Ishmael looks uncomfortable with that public
revelation, as if a personal secret has just been revealed.

“The Royal Daughter,” he addresses Terina next. “Both
privileged and cursed by life in her father’s shadow. Eager to
distinguish herself, to do something to serve and protect her
people in this dark time. And so far failing, at least I her own
eyes.”

Terina bristles at his judgment. Jed moves on to
Murphy.

“The Hunter. Of men. And sometimes of women and
children. Who lived for duty, only to be cast out by his own, even
his own family, for trying to help them survive.”

And the Ghaddar: “The Warrior, seeking perfection.
Running now from her first and only act of cowardice, having fled
from the one love of her life.” She looks like she wants to cut him
to pieces for that, but also doesn’t seem to be able to act.

Then he turns to Bly: “And the Monster, who hopes for
a modicum of redemption, at least for his people if not for
himself. He’s long since given up on himself.”

Bly manages to slog up through the water onto land,
but every step looks like he has massive weights on his legs. He
exhausts himself before he’s gotten within a dozen meters of his
accuser.

“Sir?” Rashid asks sheepishly, apparently
forgotten.

“Ah, yes. The loyal fighter. So easy to overlook.
Hoping for some kind of recognition, distinction. Brave deeds in
good service to his people.”

The shadow has gotten closer, and now it appears to
turn, getting longer. It’s hard to tell through the haze (which is
actually a fine water mist—I can feel it now), but I’d guess it to
be fifteen meters wide and ten high, and maybe forty or fifty long.
The mist begins to blow away…

It looks something like a Zodangan Frigate, Dutchman
Class, only inverted. Now that I can see it better, there are three
long poles—the Zodangans called them “masts”—sticking straight up
from what I assume is the main hull, rather than downwards. They
rise up at least three times higher than the hull. They’re crossed
by a number of round beams—“yards”—that support massive white
fabric “sails”, which are now rolling up, retracting (“furling”—I
learned the terms when I briefly served on a Zodangan ship during
our joint alliance with Chang). It all seems supported and
controlled by an impressive network of cables (“rigging”). I do
remember seeing pictures of something like this in my history
lessons, some kind of ancient Earth water-going ship, propelled
only by wind.

A heavy object that roughly resembles a grappling
hook, only much larger and bulkier, drops from the angular nose of
the hull into the water with an impressive splash, attached to the
ship by a stout chain. By the amount of chain that follows it into
the water, the water must be several meters deep. The chain goes
taut, and the ship slows and stops, creaking like it may just fall
apart. It’s still dozens of meters out into the lake.

The hull doesn’t look like a dirigible. The sides are
flatter, only tapering at the pointed nose (that sprouts what the
Zodangans call a “bowsprit”) and truncated aft end. The hull is
flat on top, or perhaps open like a bowl, as the masts appear to
extend down below the top edge. It looks to be made out of
something dark brown and almost oily, assembled in long rectangular
sections, except for down by the water, which has been covered in
copper plates.

“The
Charon
,” Jed tells us proudly. “My
ship.”

“Why are we here?” I repeat the earlier demand.

“Your swords,” he finally gets somewhere near the
point. “They’re lost, out of their world. And they’ve lost their
fellows—two others of their kind—that are still there, still
trapped, waiting for them. Waiting for suitable hosts. A father? A
son? A princess? A hunter? A warrior? A monster? A loyal fighter?
All good choices. All have reason to want what the swords offer,
and perhaps offer them something in return. Therefore all of you
are here.”

(And the others—Ram, Bel, Lux, Azazel, Stilson and
Dee—would have no reason to be tempted. But I doubt that’s all it
is.)

“No!” I manage to blurt out first.

“The choice isn’t yours to make.”

“Is it theirs?” Erickson confronts.

“It is, actually. Just as it was yours.”

“It wasn’t so much choice as manipulation,” Erickson
throws back, also warning the others. “These things seem to offer
when they know you can’t refuse. In at least one case, they set up
that circumstance intentionally.”

Jed shrugs. “They could walk away now, leave you,
find their way out of the Borderland.”

I see my un-companioned companions consider that,
exchange glances, shuffle in the still squishy wet sand.

“But we three can’t,” Elias figures.

“I’m afraid not,” Jed admits like he actually is
sorry. “Your swords want to find their fellows. Their fellows can
be found there.” He gestures across the lake, north-northeast.
Whatever might be out there across the water is, of course,
invisible in the haze. The lake could go on forever.

I test his claim, try to step back, walk away. I’m
not stuck, not held by anything tangible, I just can’t seem to make
myself go. Making it worse, Jed smiles at me for my effort.

“And ‘there’ is where?” Elias wants a better
explanation.

“There’s a city. More of a town, really. One of the
last sanctuaries for the unconverted, normal mortal human
beings.”

“In the future,” Elias isn’t buying. “The one that
doesn’t exist anymore because somebody came back through time and
rewrote history?”

Jed shrugs.

“And it’s over there? Across a lake that shouldn’t be
here?”

“It is and it isn’t,” Jed doesn’t explain. “This is
the Borderland. It comes and goes. The energy of the splice created
a bubble, a sub-dimension, leaving a small part of the original
causal chain intact. It happened over there.” He points again. “The
splice.”

“You realize that makes no scientific sense?” Elias
criticizes. “You’re spewing pseudoscience. Nonsense. The sloppiest
speculative garbage.”

“It may have something to do with the water,” Jed
ignores him. He really does seem childlike. “Only my ship can cross
the Lake. If I’m not here, the Borderland isn’t. Usually. There
have been exceptions.”

“Okay: He’s either lying, or he has no
idea
what he’s talking about!” Elias snaps. I think this is the most
vocal I’ve heard him. He looks like his brain is going to
burst.

“Come and see,” Jed offers calmly.

I realize two smaller craft are coming towards us:
long pointed-bow open shells, painted white, with what look like
bench seats, with seating enough for half a dozen each. They slide
across the surface of the lake, from the Charon to the land. I
can’t tell what’s propelling or steering them. They get stuck when
they hit the sand of the “shore”.

“As if we have a choice,” Erickson mutters.

“You don’t,” Jed repeats. “They do.”

The others still appear to be undecided, which means
they’re actually thinking about coming on this crazy mission.

I try to make it easier for them:

“Taking the swords across… Will that remove them from
this world?”

Elias rolls his eyes, but Jed gives me a thoughtful
nod.

I’m thinking something I don’t dare say out loud, not
with the swords—and Jed—potentially listening: If we actually could
get the swords into another world, dimension, whatever, and then
figure a way to trap them there, seal the border… (Destroy the
ship?) They might not have the resources they need to push back
through.

It’s crazy. Desperate. And I’m sure Elias would call
me an idiot for buying into any of this. (He may be right: this may
all be a lie, a subterfuge, and illusion generated by the swords to
sucker us into reuniting them.) But I have to take the shot. Even
if it means a one-way trip.

“Okay.”

I start walking toward one of the small craft.
Erickson seems to understand what I have in mind, because he
follows willingly. Then Elias looks like he’s coming along just to
prove himself right.

But then all the others start walking toward the
water, toward the craft.

“No!” I repeat.

“You can’t,” Erickson agrees.

“We can’t leave you to face this alone,” Abbas
insists.

“You need to get back to your people,” Erickson
states the obvious.

“What’s left of my people, and everybody else in
these valleys, is sitting between Asmodeus and the Unmakers, but
suddenly that’s not the greatest or most immediate threat.” He nods
to our swords.

“You can’t trust that you’ve got control of
yourselves,” Murphy clarifies all our concerns. “Your judgment may
be clouded. We can’t let you go alone.”

“You wouldn’t be able to stop us if the swords took
over,” I protest.

“They might not.” Bly steps up to one of the craft.
“That’s why I’m coming.”

The small craft prove very unstable getting into,
wobbling badly as we step in and find a spot on a narrow bench to
sit. Our group divides roughly in half, with all Normals in one,
and we three and Bly in the other along with the bizarre Jed. Once
we’re seated, the craft move themselves off the sand and slide back
over the water toward the Charon. I still don’t sense any kind of
engine, propulsion. And Jed isn’t steering—he just sits at the nose
of our craft facing backwards, facing us, still grinning at us like
someone with brain trauma.

As we get up close, the Charon is impressively big,
towering over the water—it’s dizzying to look up to the tops of the
masts (especially with our transports still rocking under us). The
small craft pull up alongside and appear to cling to the larger
vessel. Crane-like arms swing out over the top of the hull above
us, dropping lines that hook automatically to the fore and aft of
each small craft, and we’re hauled up…

The top side
is
open, revealing a recessed
main deck, apparently made of the same rectangular strips as the
hull, but white. We debark onto a small railed catwalk, only to
find this vessel isn’t exactly stable either—it sways somewhat
under foot. It’s certainly not as extreme as the small craft, and
it’s more rhythmic. I realize it roughly matches the rippling of
the surface of the water.

“Look!” Ishmael starts, pointing back the way we
came.

A pair of Bug bots have come over the rise and
stagger sloppily down to the water’s edge. Their limbs sink deep in
the wet sand, making every step a struggle, but that doesn’t appear
to be the only thing that’s de-stabilizing them so badly. They
appear to be malfunctioning in some essential way, every move
hesitant, almost as if they’re confused or disoriented. I look for
battle damage, but see none—they look intact. If I listen, I can
hear them: Crying out, sending signals, urgently pinging for a
reply that doesn’t come. There’s no incoming command chatter. The
machines sound almost… terrified?

“They’ve lost contact with their master,” Jed
confirms. “Poor things.”

They tentatively step into the water, as if to try to
pursue us, probably still obeying their last orders to hunt,
attack. The Ghaddar raises her rifle, but Jed gently pushes the
barrel down, shaking his head.

“There’s no need.”

The bots advance, struggle, persist. But with each
step, they get deeper in the water. They begin to struggle, thrash,
but they can’t stay up. They do look pathetic, pitiable. They
should turn around, go back to the sand, but they don’t.

We watch as they disappear below the rippling
surface.

“Ah. Speaking of which…” Jed reaches into a cabinet
and hands us each what looks like a vest, bright orange. “Safety
first. Please. Put these on. Should you wind up in the water for
some reason, pull on the tab on the left breast. You’ll also need
to shed the metal armor you’re wearing—it will pull you under the
surface very quickly. You do know that you’ll die if you become
submerged and can’t surface to breathe? Inhaling the water will
choke and suffocate you very quickly. It’s called ‘drowning’. Very
unpleasant.”