Half Discovered Wings (15 page)

He pushed
himself to his knees, brushed himself down, and stood and looked
around. Already he was at the other side, dust rising from the
minor collision.

Henrique checked that the three scrolls were undamaged and
then walked outside into the light, shielding his eyes, and talked
for ten minutes with the two guards who sat nearby. They hadn’t
received word that somebody would be coming through – they never
did; how could any message get across the Lual quicker than the
Transitway? – but they were friendly enough.

‘
Ye a messenger?’ one asked.

‘
Yes,’ he replied. ‘Should be finished a few hours after
sun-up. Will you two still be here?’

‘
Aye, mos’ likely,’ said the other. ‘See ye then, ah
hope.’

‘
Nice talking to you.’

He’d already
arranged to borrow one of the horses. Everyone of the privateers
was a brother, however far apart they were, and since only a
privateer or a friend of one was allowed to use Smuggler’s Run,
they must be trustworthy enough to return a man’s horse if he
borrowed it.

Henrique had mounted it and was about to leave, when one of
the men walked up to him.

‘
Hang on,’ he said quietly. ‘Ah have a warning fae
ye.’

‘
Go ahead.’

‘
Enemies ae about,’ he replied. ‘Even Latinos aren’t safe, ah
heard. Keep ye weapon handy.’

‘
I have no weapon,’ Henrique said quietly, looking down at the
man from horseback. ‘I’m just a messenger.’

‘
Then take thes.’ He offered a dagger. ‘It ain’t much, but ye
mus’ ‘ave somethin’. We ‘ave a pistol we kin use.’

Henrique nodded solemnly, not clear as to what the danger
was, but accepted the dagger and put it carefully into his belt, by
his outer thigh so it wouldn’t hurt him in the saddle.

‘
Thank you. I’ll be back.’

‘
Good luck,’ the man said, and they parted.

Henrique didn’t know if the man had been referring to
the
Caballeros
or
the Luxers, but either way he wasn’t going to get caught. Anybody
after his hide would have to wait ‘til he died of old age, because
there was no way they were getting it otherwise. He dug his heels
into the horse anyway, just for safety’s sake.

~

It took him an hour to arrive in the small town just outside
of Goya – already he could see the lights from the fireworks – and
tied up the horse outside the inn before going in to ask for
directions. The place was cold and empty, not unusual for nearly
five in the morning, but the barman was awake and cleaning up the
previous night’s mess.

‘
Mornin’.’

‘
Morning. I’m looking for the church. I couldn’t see one when I
arrived.’

‘
Who ye aftae?’

Henrique usually mimicked the accent of strange towns – they
were all strange this side of the Great Lake – but he was too tired
for “ye”s and “aye”s. ‘I have word that there’s a priest living
here – this is San Bueto?’

‘
Aye, but ne’church here. Ye mus’ be meanin’ the
mon’stry.’

Henrique thanked him and headed up the hill toward where he
was assured a monastery hiding behind a row of trees. The monastery
was grand in a quiet sense: plain, crumbling, windowless walls on
all sides, and a simple square tower reaching far above them from
somewhere inside the perimeter. Wall-mounted torches burned with
heatless iconoil.

The
gates were open, and beyond those the sand-carpeted courtyard was
empty. Henrique boots crunched as he walked, and his morning shadow
was long and bowed unnaturally up the eastern wall of the main
building.

Once through the iron-gilded front doors, he handed over one
of the duplicate messages to an acolyte and asked her to pass it to
head monk, and to
not
look at it under any circumstances. The acolyte bowed low,
her shaven head gleaming. Then she stood, smiled politely, and
left. Henrique left the monastery feeling confident that the
message would be passed on.

His next stop was the city of Goya, a place which gave him
fond memories every visit. But the trip there was long and
dangerous, even on horseback. The
Caballeros
were always an immediate
problem, and he had run into them before. He never wished to meet
those devils again.

Rumours said that the
Caballeros de
la Muerte
– Horsemen of Death – were
deployed by the xenophobes of Shianti that gave the city its
nickname: Hermeticia. The zealous mercenaries were there to guard
the precious piece of land cocooned in the safety of a giant bomb
crater, and keep the troublesome outsiders where they belonged:
outside. Hearsay talked of vast gold reserves beneath the crater,
or catastrophically powerful weapons unearthed by the historic
explosion. Some said that the secrets of the “Conflict” were buried
amongst Shianti’s secrets.

Other hearsay about the
Caballeros
didn’t interest Henrique;
but the rumours about demons in armour, red-eyed fiends that
terrorised the cities surrounding the mountains and baked Sinh-ha
plains, did. Their faces were cloaked in shadow, but their
penetrating eyes and vicious teeth could occasionally be seen by
the unluckiest. The fact that anyone got that close to a
Caballero
and survived
to give such details was what made Henrique discredit all he had
heard and simply concentrate on getting where he needed to
go.

The only facts he believed were the ones he had accumulated
for himself: the fearsome steeds, black as the night; the
intimidating armour, horned and gleaming like tar; the soul-rending
voices, deeper than the pits of Hadentes, that had ordered him to
stand still and accept his fate, that bitter night not all that
long ago. Never again would he allow himself to fall under the
mercy of such monsters, and never again would he travel the lands
past the Lual without the muscle of a well-trained horse between
his thighs.

It took three hours of hard riding before he heard the first
of the fireworks. His face brightened with the skies at this
iridescent greeting. The sun was up now, and he suspected he was
hearing the last of the nightly celebrations. Nevertheless, the
lights that were reflected against the underside of the clouds were
his vision of Heaven. He would have fun this morning.

Nearly an hour later – the same hour that Caeles, Rowan and
the magus left the pier of São Jantuo – he led his horse on foot
through the large open gates of the town.

The man Henrique intended to meet would be waiting in the
usual place, a bar named Ignacio where he waited every fourth
weekend to collect information that might be useful to his boss
from his various confidential sources. He wasn’t there when
Henrique arrived, but came an hour later. He lived far outside of
the city, Henrique had heard from another of his spies.

The man was
tall and pretty well-built, with soft blonde hair and large strong
hands. His eyes were a curious blue, his nose a peculiar shape,
probably due to a fight he once had. His physique made it seem
likely that he had won that battle, whoever the opponent.

He was dressed in a thin short-sleeved coat, gloves and
boots. His long sleeves and hood were a thin cream-coloured fabric.
He certainly looked dubious; the clothes seemed unnatural
considering the climate. His name was Johnmal, pronounced
“Yon-mah”, and his hair, eyes and build marked him as
European.

He was also an
errant.

~

The two messengers shook hands when they met, sat down and
talked for a few minutes. Henrique handed him the second scroll,
and Johnmal, who hadn’t been expecting anything that day, gave him
a surprised “thank you” and a bag of thin, metallic
coins.

They both
stood, each as happy as the other with the day’s work, and
parted.

*

Ten

THE GREAT WALL

An aged military vehicle trundled along the
bottom of the dusty canyon. Being this close to the rainforest’s
microclimate made the weather unpredictable, but it could be
assumed that the canyon’s proximity to the desert plains assured a
dry trip. That was lucky, because one more problem and the hunk of
crap would probably break down completely.

Tan Cleric touched the lever for the
alternate fuel intake, hoping a burst of energy would cease the
vehicle’s complaining. The ride became smoother, and the large
vehicle continued on as though its master had given it a kiss of
rejuvenation. Cleric closed his eyes for as long as he dared,
smiling faintly. He was happiest when he was doing his work, and
when he was thinking about his protégé, Johnmal.

Johnmal’s great grandfather had once been
given a miraculous gift: a man-made mutagen, injected during the
embryonic and foetal stages. The man had very special genes, given
to him before he was even born by a man who was extraordinarily
intelligent, even by Cleric’s high standards. The grandfather’s
extraordinary physiological talenrs were so strong they showed in
every generation since: Johnmal’s grandmother had them; his father
had them; and now Johnmal had them.

Johnma’s ancestors were all dead now. Johnmal had left his
father on his deathbed, insane and confused, and hadn’t looked
back.

Cleric, who had taken Johnmal away that day and gradually
became his new father, had told him the doctors couldn’t help. The
incredible power of medicine had been vastly diminished following
the Conflict, which had decimated the world’s population. He also
said that Johnmal would be his prize helper at a special hidden
place in the rainforest by the Great River, where he intended to
help as many people as possible. When the seven-year-old Johnmal
had asked why, his boss had said: “Together remarkable people can
do exceptional deeds. Errant fire makes you remarkable; let us be
exceptional together.”

~

Johnmal had been young enough then to
comprehend the simple biology lesson; he had even understood why
Cleric had taken him away from his relatives. There were always
greater goals than one man’s own, and the young Johnmal had
believed in his adoptive teacher unquestioningly.

Apart from his unnaturally long lifespan,
the only visible feature that belied Tan Cleric’s errant genes was
his violent shock of white hair, which had maintained a state of
complete unmanageability since he was born. Prior to the war,
Cleric had operated as a member of the United States Government
Technological Research and Development Sector. His department had
focused primarily on breathing new life into twenty-second century
technology: the redevelopment of weapons, experimentation within
the field of digitized artillery, and the augmentation of military
vehicles.

It was his experience with
vehicles that currently paid off. On the continent that had taken
the brunt of the war’s devastation, travelling had become something
of an impediment. Getting from town to town took days; a
cross-country excursion was prolonged over a matter of weeks. It
wasn’t any wonder that people chose to stagnate in their own little
villages, moldering in places like
Shianti
and São
Jantuo with little or no outside contact. Motorised vehicles were a
much finer method of travel, saving him time and energy, neither of
which Cleric had in large supply.

The resurrected transport was a hummvee,
also known as a High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle. The
nickname didn’t work for Cleric, but as an all-purpose military
truck it was perfect, as adaptable as it was durable. Only its
military-grade armour had prevented the internal chassis from
rusting away over the years, but it was Cleric’s diligence that had
truly saved it. The only real problem in bringing the ancient thing
back to life was that it ran on diesel, about as common these days
as rooster teeth.

He checked that the box in the rotted
passenger seat was okay. Now that the foam and fabric had been
eaten away by time, the bio-case could happily sit between the
struts of the seat’s metal interior. Inside was one of his prizes,
another brick in his currently-incomplete wall. It was a wall that
would keep the chaff out, forever.

He’d obtained this prize in the same manner
that he always did: with great difficulty. The past couple of weeks
had been a tiresome journey to and from the Great Lake. Now that he
was returning to base, he could put the vast reservoir out of his
mind; the place no longer served any purpose for him.

The shore had been alarmingly still when
he’d arrived. It was almost as if he’d stumbled across a sheet of
glass instead of the expected lake. Hardly a ripple met his boot as
he stood and looked out into the thick mist.

He found the landscape marker that his
contact had told him about. It was a tiny bunker of sand, pushed up
against a rise of silt and rock. The lake’s tides were so minute
that no beach was to be found around its rim, but occasionally a
certain kind of sediment was driven outward and collected on the
shore. He touched it with his fingers. It was sediment of ground
bone and rock.

He took a sample of it and slid the
plastiplex phial into the case, being sure to seal its waterproof
lid. Then he went about inflating the pouch strapped to his back,
filling it by mouth until it was full enough to ensure full
buoyancy should the scenario take a turn for the worst. He took the
time to swallow a few energy supplements, which he had packed for
the long journey.