City of Golden Shadow (103 page)

As the bus jounced through the outer rings of the metropolis, the tops of the tall buildings rose out of sight above the windows. Renie pushed through the crowding passengers and returned to her seat, breathless.

"It's incredible." She could not shake off what she knew to be a dangerous kind of exhilaration. "I can't believe we found it. We found it!"

Martine had been very quiet. Still without speaking, she reached out and took Renie's hand, pulling her thoughts in another direction. Here in the midst of the larger miracle was a small one: Martine, the mystery woman, the voice without a face, had become a real person. True, she was using a sim body in the way that a puppeteer used a marionette, and she was thousands of miles away from Renie's real body, and even farther away from this purely theoretical place, but she was here; Renie could feel her, could even tell something about her real physical self. It was as though Renie had finally met a treasured childhood pen pal.

Unable to express this odd happiness, she only squeezed Martine's hand.

The bus stopped at last, deep in the golden-shadowed canyons of the city. Martine could now walk fairly well under her own power. She and Renie and !Xabbu waited impatiently for the other passengers to file out before making their way down onto the tiled floor of the bus station, a vast, hollow pyramid braced with mammoth beams which rose level upon level like a kaleidoscopic spider web. They had only a few moments to appreciate its high-ceilinged magnificence before a pair of men in dark clothing stepped in front of them.

"Excuse me," one of them said. "You have just come on the bus from Aracataca, yes?"

Renie's mind raced, but to no useful purpose. They wore overcoats with small ceremonial capes, and both had a look of hard-faced professionalism. Any hope that they might be particularly stern ticket takers slipped away when she looked at the oddly ceremonial-looking clubs at their belts and their polished black helmets shaped like the heads of snarling jungle cats.

"Yes, we were. . . ."

"Then you will show me your identification, please."

Helplessly, Renie patted the pockets of her jumpsuit. Martine stared into space, her expression that of someone lost in a daydream.

"If the show is for our benefit, you may dispense with it" Beneath the high-crowned helmet, his head appeared to be shaved. "You are outsiders. We have been expecting you." He stepped forward and took Renie's arm. His partner hesitated for a moment, staring at !Xabbu. "The monkey will come with us, too, of course," the first policeman said. "I am sure none of you wish to delay any further, so let us go. Please, content yourself that you will be transported to the Great Palace with all dispatch. Those are our orders."

!Xabbu lowered his head, then took Renie's hand and followed docilely as the policeman walked them through the station toward the doors.

"What are you doing with us?" Renie did not feel there was much purpose in it, but she did not want to give in without trying. "We haven't done anything. We were hiking in the country and got lost. I have my papers at home."

The policeman threw the door open. Parked just outside was a large panel track that vented steam like a sleeping dragon. The second policeman pulled open the doors at the back and helped Martine up into the shadowed interior.

"Please, good woman." The first policeman's voice was cold. "Everything will be better if you save your questions for our masters. We have been ordered days ago to wait for you. Besides, you should be honored. The Council seems to have special plans for all of you."

When Renie and !Xabbu had been ushered inside with Martine, the door was slammed shut. There were no windows. The darkness was complete.

"We've been here hours." Renie had paced the same figure eight across the small cell so many times that she was now doing it with her eyes closed as she struggled to make sense of things. All that she had seen, the jungle, the magnificent city, and now this bleak stone dungeon out of a bad horror story, swirled in front of her mind's eye, but she could make no sense of them. "Why all this show? If they're going to hypnotize us or whatever that Kali thing tried on me before, why not just do it? Aren't they afraid we'll just drop offline?"

"Perhaps we cannot," said !Xabbu. Soon after the policeman locked them in, he had climbed to the single high window, and after ascertaining that it was covered with a metal grate sufficiently fine to prevent a medium-sized monkey slipping through, had climbed back down and squatted in the corner. He had even slept there for a while, something that Renie found inexplicably annoying. "Perhaps they know something about it we do not. Do we dare to try?"

"Not yet," said Martine. "It might not work-they have already proved they can manipulate our minds in ways we do not understand-and even if we can, we will have admitted defeat."

"In any case, these are the people who we're looking for." Renie stopped and opened her eyes. Her friends looked up at her with what she felt sure was the near-indifference of the helpless, but she herself was struggling against mounting rage. "If I didn't know it already, I'd be able to guess just from the way those slick, self-satisfied policemen acted. These are the people who've tried to kill us, who did kill Doctor Van Bleeck and Singh and God knows how many others, and they're as proud of themselves as can be. Arrogant bastards."

"It will not help to be angry," Martine said gently.

"It won't? Well, what will help? Saying we're sorry? That we'll never interfere with their horrible goddamned games again, so please send us back with just a warning?" She balled her hands into fists and swung at the air. "Shit! I am so tired of being pushed and chased and scared and . . . and manipulated by these monsters!"

"Renie. . . ." Martine began.

"Don't tell me not to get angry! Your brother isn't lying in a quarantined hospital. Your brother isn't a vegetable kept alive by machines, is he? Your brother who counted on you to protect him?"

"No, Renie. They have not hurt my family as they have yours."

She realized she was crying and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry. Martine, but. . . ."

The door to the cell clanked and then slid open. The same two policemen stood there, ominous black shapes in the shadowy corridor.

"Come along. He Who Is Favored Above All Others wants to see you."

"Why don't you run away?" Renie whispered fiercely. "You could hide somewhere and then help us break out. I can't believe you're not even going to try."

!Xabbu's look, even filtered through the baboon countenance, was pained. "I would not leave you, knowing as little as we do about this place. Besides, if it is our minds they seek to affect, then we are stronger together."

The first policeman looked over his shoulder at them, irritated by the whispering.

They climbed a long flight of stairs, then entered a wide hall with a polished stone floor. By the shape and the height of the roof, Renie guessed that they were inside another one of the pyramids she had seen from the bus. A crowd of dark-haired people in various kinds of ceremonial dress, most of which featured capes similar to those the police wore, bustled in all directions. This multitude, full of hurry and self-obsessed energy, paid no particular attention to the prisoners; the only ones who showed any real interest were the half-dozen armed guards standing before the doors at the far end of the hall. These bulky men had animal helmets even more garishly realistic than those of the police, long antique-looking rifles and very functional-looking clubs, and seemed as though they might enjoy the chance to hurt someone.

As Renie and the others approached, there was an anticipatory straightening of the ranks, but after examining the policemen's emblems with great care the guards reluctantly stepped aside and swung the doors open. Renie and her friends were pushed through, but their captors remained outside as the doors closed again.

They were alone in a chamber almost as large as the hall they had just left. The stone walls were painted with scenes of fantastical battles between men and monsters. At the center of the room, in the pool of light cast by an electrified chandelier of wide and grotesque design, stood a long table surrounded by empty chairs. The farthest chair was considerably higher than the others, and had a canopy of what looked to be solid gold in the form of the sun's disk blazing through clouds.

"The Council is not here. I thought you might be interested to see the meeting place, though."

A figure stepped from behind the massive chair, a tall youth with the same hawklike features as the rest of the inhabitants. He was naked above the waist except for a long cloak of feathers, a necklace of beads and sharp teeth, and a high crown of gold studded with blue stones.

"Normally I am surrounded by minions-'numberless as the sands' is how the priests put it, and they are nearly right." His accented English was softly spoken, but there was an unmistakable core of sharp, hard intelligence behind the cold eyes: if this man wanted something, he would get it. He was also clearly much older than he appeared. "But there are quite a few other guests expected, so we shall need our space-and anyway, I thought it best we have our conversation in private." He showed a wintry smile. "The priests would be apoplectic if they knew that the God-King was alone with strangers."

"Who . . . who are you?" Renie struggled to keep her voice steady, but the knowledge that she faced one of their persecutors made it impossible.

"The God-King of this place, as I told you. The Lord of Life and Death. But if it will make you more comfortable, let me introduce myself properly-you are guests, after all.

"My name is Bolivar Atasco."

CHAPTER 34

NETFEED/NEWS: Refugee Camp Given Nation Status

(visual: refugee city on Merida beach)

VO: The Mexican refugee encampment called "the End of the Road" by its residents has been declared a country by the United Nations. Merida, a small city on the northern tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, has swollen to four million residents because of a series of killer storms along the coast and political instability in Honduras, Guatemala, and northeastern Mexico,

(visual: UN truck being driven through frenzied crowd)

The three-and-a-half million refugees are almost entirely without shelter, and many are suffering from tuberculosis, typhoid, and Guantanamo fever. By making Merida a nation in its own right, the UN can now declare martial law and bring the new country under its direct jurisdiction. . . .

"Dzang, Orlando, you were right! You were right!" Fredericks was leaping up and down on the beach, almost crazy with excitement and terror."Where are we? What happened? That's it! You were right!"

Orlando could feel sand beneath the palms of his hand, hot and gritty and undeniable. He scooped up a handful and let it pour away again. It was real. It was all real. And the city, wilder and more wonderful than anything in a fairy tale, the golden city was real, too, stretching almost as far as he could see, reaching toward the sky in a profusion of towers and pyramids as ornate as Russian Easter eggs. The thing that had haunted him was now just a few miles away, separated from him only by an expanse of blue ocean. He was sitting on a beach, an inarguable beach, staring at his own dream.

And before that, he had passed through a nightmare. That darkness, and then that thing, that hungry, horrid thing. . . .

But it wasn't only a dream. There was something real behind it-like it was a puppet show. Like my mind was trying to make sense of something too big to understand. . . .

There was more wrong than just the nightmare. Wherever he was, he had not left the illnesses of his real body behind. The city stood in front of him-the couldn't-be city, the don't-dare-hope city-and yet he could barely force himself to care. He was melting like a candle, giving off too much heat. A big, hot something inside him was eating away at his thoughts, filling his head and pressing behind his eyes.

Where are we?

Fredericks was still jumping up and down in an ecstasy of uncertainty. As Orlando struggled to his feet, he realized that the Fredericks he was looking at was wearing the body of Pithlit, arch-thief of the Middle Country.

That's wrong, he thought, but could not pursue it any farther. Standing up had only made him feel worse. The golden-daubed city suddenly tilted, and Orlando tried to follow it, but instead the sand jumped up to meet him, slamming against him as though it were one solid thing.

Something in the dark touched me. . . .

The world was spinning, spinning. He closed his eyes and went away.

Pithlit the Thief was shaking him. Orlando's head felt like a rotten melon; at every wobble it seemed about to burst.

"Orlando?" Fredericks seemed to have no idea how much his voice was making Orlando's bones ache. "Are you okay?"

". . . Sick. Stop shaking. . . ."

Fredericks let go. Orlando rolled onto his side, hugging himself. He could feel the bright sun beating down on his skin, but it was a weather report from another part of the country; deep inside him there was now a chill resistant to any sun, real or simulated He felt the first shivers begin.