It was difficult to decide where
this place actually was; whether it was in the West or in the Orient, or
somewhere else altogether different. They knew that the dreamer was Japanese,
or half-Japanese, but this landscape was nothing like Japan. Nor was it
anything like California, either. It was still and warm and regretful, a
landscape of memories and lost loves, but there was also some vaguely
threatening quality about it, some indefinable instability.
The Night Warriors reached the river
and slowly forded it, up to their thighs. The water glittered in the sunlight,
and ran thick with fish. They climbed the muddy bank on the other side, and sat
down beside one of the rustling willows to rest for a minute or two, and to
look around at this extraordinary world in which they had found themselves.
High up above them, the flamingos still idly circled, and the clouds sailed
past them with all the dignity of old-time Spanish galleons leaving Cadiz.
‘Isn’t this the most peaceful place you’ve ever been?’ asked Samena.
Xaxxa was lying on his back on the
grass, chewing the stem of a wild flower, his hands laced behind his head. ‘If
this wasn’t somebody else’s dream, I tell you, I’d stay here.’
Tebulot put down his machine, eased
off his helmet, and ran his hand through his hair. ‘I think Yaomauitl’s taken a
powder, if he was ever here at all. There’s nothing Devilish going on in this
neighbourhood, believe me.’
But Kasyx still felt uneasy. He
sniffed the fresh water in the wind, and the bright fragrance of flowers, and
he plucked a blade of grass and began to twist it around his finger; but still
he sensed trouble. Not in the way that Samena sensed the presence of Yaomauitl
and his offspring, through disturbed emotions, and subtle currents of fear; but
through plain analytical logic. Yaomauitl needed to eliminate the Night
Warriors before he continued his invasion of America’s dreams; both as a matter
of practicality and as a matter of pride. It was hard for Kasyx to believe that
he wouldn’t try to destroy them at the earliest possible opportunity. The
longer your enemy lives, the stronger he becomes.
‘Where do we go from here?’ he asked
Samena.
Samena shaded her eyes against the
sun. ‘I suppose we could try walking along to the far end of the valley.’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
Samena said, ‘I’m not sure. I seem
to have lost the scent.’
Kasyx stood up. He was worried now.
Xaxxa watched him from where he was lying on the grass, twiddling the flower
stem between his teeth. ‘What’s the matter, man?
You look like something’s under your
skin.’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know, this is
all wrong,’ said Kasyx. ‘Listen – I vote we get out of this dream, now we’ve
lost the trail. Let’s go back and try again, right from the beginning. We’ve
managed to kill off one of Yaomauitl’s offspring, let’s chalk that up for
tonight, and leave the rest until tomorrow.’
Tebulot was down by the edge of the
river, trying to scoop up one of the fish in his hand. ‘I think we ought to
stay here for a while, and enjoy it. Come on Kasyx, enjoy!
How often do we get into a dream
like this? This is paradise.’
Kasyx said anxiously, ‘Please – let’s
go. There’s definitely something wrong here. I can feel it.’
‘If you can feel it, how come Samena
can’t feel it?’ Tebulot wanted to know.
But Kasyx didn’t answer. Kasyx was
staring out at the wide, reflecting surface of the river. Something had
disturbed the surface of the water, and caused it to furrow as it flowed. Then
something else, a small triangular point rising out of the water; and another,
and another, and another. No, not points, but spears.
Utterly silently, with dreadful
majesty, an entire army rose from the water; a black-armoured army mounted on
black steeds that looked like horses but had the skin of reptiles. The soldiers
wore huge helmets with horns on top of them, and breastplates that rose up on
either side of their heads like the wings of vultures. Their eyes glowed
venomously yellow, and they carried long spears which began to hum on a deep,
vibrating note, like the very lowest note of an organ. The soldiers themselves
started to hum too – deeply and discordantly, a triumphant hum of victory and
death.
The river crept away from the
horses’ clawed hoofs. The grass shrivelled up, with a sound like crinkling
cellophane, and turned deathly white. The willows shed their leaves and their
trunks wrinkled with premature age. Behind the soldiers, the sky turned from
red to threatening black, and lightning scuttled along the spines of the
distant hilltops, cracking rocks and incinerating trees.
The leader of the army nudged his
horse forward, and approached the Night Warriors like a mounted nightmare. He
glared down at them without speaking for a very long time, and then he
addressed them in words that they could hear only inside their minds.
‘You have been warned before not to interfere in my affairs. You have
caused me
great grief, and for this you shall die. You
will see no more mornings, Night Warriors.
Look around this dream, for this is where you will meet your end, and
this is where
I
shall bury you for ever.’
A cold wind began to blow, tossing
away the dead leaves from the trees, and drying up the last of the river, where
the fish now flapped and gasped. It lifted Yaomauitl’s cloak and shook it, so
that it sounded like thunder. The Devil’s eyes flared up, and his steed roared,
and clawed at the air.
Kasyx stood forward.
‘In the dark and holy name of the Night
Warriors, we shall see
you chained up
for ever!’
he shouted.
Tebulot rolled away sideways,
yanking back the T-bar of his weapon, and let fly with half-a-dozen
energy-bolts. Three or four of them struck the black shields that Yaomauitl’s
soldiers carried, and were deflected in a spray of incandescent sparks, but two
of them zapped through to their targets, and two soldiers exploded like
bursting boilers, toppling from their steeds with unspent energy still crawling
all over their armour.
Xaxxa shot away, out over the
valley, with a shower of humming spears flying after him. He dodged and
twisted, but as he circled around to fly back toward the soldiers, he suddenly
looked over his shoulder and saw that the humming spears were still following
him, with all the deadly tenacity of heat-seeking missiles.
Xaxxa climbed steeply, his feet
sliding up the vertical strip of glowing energy as if they were on rails. The
spears climbed upwards after him. He looped the loop, and still the spears
pursued him, edging their way nearer and* nearer.
He climbed again, as high as he
dared, then paused, rolled over sideways in the air, and dived straight for the
ground. Even Yaomauitl’s soldiers turned in their saddles to watch him as he
plummeted out of the thundery sky, a golden meteor. He disappeared behind the
hills and the humming spears flashed after him.
Kasyx feinted first to one side,
then to the other, and then he grabbed hold of Samena’s arm and began to run.
There was nothing else for it. With Xaxxa lost, they stood no chance of
fighting Yaomauitl and his army of offspring in the same way they had fought
the army of corpses. Tebulot gave them a brilliant horizontal spray of covering
fire that knocked two more of Yaomauitl’s soldiers from their steeds, and then
came running after them.
A flight of humming spears came
after them, but Kasyx whipped up his arm, and stopped them with a sizzling
burst of energy which sent them harmlessly bounding away. Two or three more
spears followed, but when Kasyx knocked those away, too, Yaomauitl uttered a
harsh order that clutched coldly at Kasyx’s heart as he ran up the hillside,
because although it was spoken in an unknown language, he knew intuitively what
it meant. He heard scythes being drawn out of metal scabbards with a steely
ringing sound, and the cries of the Devil’s soldiers, urging their steeds to
run faster. He heard jingling harnesses and clattering armour, and clawed hoofs
tearing at the ground.
Kasyx and Samena and Tebulot
scrambled away as fast as they possibly could, but the gradient of the hillside
grew steeper and steeper, and they knew that they didn’t have the strength to
outrun Yaomauitl’s reptile-horses for more than a few seconds longer.
Kasyx stopped running, and then
Samena stopped, too, and finally Tebulot came to a halt, doubled over, gasping
for breath. The soldiers encircled them, as black and threatening as shadows,
their steeds fretting and sidestepping, their scythes gleaming in the
storm-light, their eyes as frightening as the fires of hell, glimpsed through a
secret grating.
Yaomauitl came forward again and
dismounted. He was impossibly tall; he seemed to stretch up above them the way
that a shadow stretches, as it falls across a cemetery at sunset. He exuded an
extraordinary and repellent odour, like goats and musk and decaying chickens.
It was more than the odour of death, it was the odour of complete physical and
moral corruption.
‘
You will kneel before me, minions of Ashapola, and you will kiss my
feet, and then
you will die. For
hundreds of years,
I
was imprisoned
by your forefathers, and you
thought
that you could take up their weapons and imprison me again. Well, my
friends, it was not to be, and never will
be, world without end, amen.’
Yaomauitl reached down and lifted
his engulfing cloak. He revealed beneath his armour the shaggy legs and cloven
hoofs of Pan, the hair matted with grease and filth, and crusty with droppings.
‘Kneel!’
he
commanded.
‘The pure before the impure!
The good before the evil!
Kneel, and kiss my feet!’
Kasyx said to Tebulot, under his
breath, ‘We have one chance only.’
Tebulot turned and stared at him.
‘That’s right,’ said Kasyx. ‘I can
discharge all my energy at once, and we can blow the whole damned lot of them
to Kingdom Come.’
‘Can you really do that?’ asked
Samena, her eyes wide.
‘Kneel!’
roared
Yaomauitl, and together the three of them knelt.
‘I can do it, sure,’ said Kasyx.
‘The only trouble is, it’ll probably wipe
us
out, too. And even if it doesn’t, we won’t have enough energy left to get
out of this dream.
Yaomauitl was right. This is where
we’re going to meet our end.’
‘Do it,’ said Tebulot, decisively.
‘Samena?’ asked Kasyx, softly.
‘Do it,’ she whispered, without
hesitation.
Yaomauitl’s offspring had climbed
down from their steeds now, and had gathered around the Night Warriors to
witness their final humiliation and execution. Their robes swished in the
rising wind like the curtains of confessionals in blasphemous cathedrals.
Thunder banged and grumbled in the distance, and hawks with the faces of men
wheeled and turned over the naked trees.
Kasyx lifted his head, and said to
Yaomauitl, ‘I will not kiss your feet.’
‘Then
I
shall have your head cut off, and your dead
lips shall kiss my rump,’
Yaomauitl replied, in the coarsest
of voices.
‘No, you misunderstand me,’ said
Kasyx. ‘I recognise now that you are greater than Ashapola; that I have been
mistaken all this time. I wish to do more than kiss your feet. I wish to
embrace you. I wish to hold you close, and feel that you and I are one.’
Yaomauitl was suspiciously silent
for a while. Then he said to Kasyx,
‘Stand.’
Kasyx got up on to his feet again,
and stood in front of the Deadly Enemy face to face.
‘Should
I
believe you?’
Yaomauitl asked him.
‘What harm could I possibly do to
you?’ asked Kasyx. ‘You have defeated me now. I am your thrall.’
Very slowly, snow began to fall once
more; the snow that had followed Yaomauitl’s coldness from the Arctic regions
where the Night Warriors had first penetrated the dream. Thunder and lightning
and softly falling snow. It was the climate of madness.
Yaomauitl suddenly laughed. The snow
seemed to have given him glittering new confidence. He could crystallise the very
air, in the middle of an electric storm! He could do anything! He could ride
through the dreams of men like a whirling avenger, creating anarchy and havoc
wherever he went! He had defeated the Night Warriors that Ashapola had sent
against him! More than that, he had defeated their spirit, too, so that they
now knelt before him and acknowledged that
he
was the master of darkness, and that Ashapola was nothing more than the
dust of twenty million unopened Bibles!
‘Embrace me, then!’
he roared to Kasyx, and Kasyx opened his arms wide and advanced into the
huge black shadow of Yaomauitl’s cloak.
For one fraction of a second, Kasyx
thought that he had done it, that he was going to hug Yaomauitl as tight as he
possibly could, and then release every single ounce of the energy that was
stored up inside him. Yaomauitl would be exploded into atoms, beyond all
possible resurrection. Even though he and his fellow Night Warriors would die
in this haunted dream, unable to return to the waking world – at least they would
have done their duty. But, grotesquely, one of Yaomauitl’s offspring suddenly
stepped forward, and stood between Kasyx and Yaomauitl.