The Trailer rose late that morning, stretching slowly and getting dressed without a care. He'd listened to the pompous man and the traders talk for nearly an hour last night, without being glanced at once. How impressive this ability was! To hide in plain sight, in the enemy's own form, like a wolf in sheep's clothing.
For a second, the Trailer wondered where that turn of phrase could possibly have come from. He knew what a wolf was, he assumed that a sheep was some sort of prey, but the idiom was totally alien to him. He tried to let it go, knowing it would rear its head at some inconvenient time.
Next door to his own room, he paid the woman who had acted as his partner and thanked her for such engaging conversation. Manners were important to the Trailer because he hoped that they were the sign of a decent person. In the midst of all of this, he had to believe he was a decent person.
The Trailer wandered downstairs and paid the innkeeper as well, remembering to tell him how surprisingly comfortable the beds were. Then he leisurely strolled to the inn's stables, found the dullest of the horses and stole it.
After all, it was still war.
***
Lunchtime came and went like the patches of trees outside the carriage. By the time their coach arrived in town it was late afternoon and Ferran, the Honch and Talon were thoroughly bored.
'This has been a very kind gesture,' Talon tried to put it as delicately as he could, 'but I honestly don't know how you stand it. And you say we've got even longer tomorrow?'
The Gaimswick Gulp was the name of the tavern. Verden and the teacher had hung back at the bar while Leyh sat with Talon in one of the booths. The trader slurped her sweet, amber-coloured beer.
'Oge's gonna stay here with the coach, that's for sure. He's gotta pick up some things but I've got an –'
The Honch and Ferran arrived with their own topped up tankards and Leyh switched her attention to them. For what must have been the second or third time today, Talon felt unnecessary.
'Oh good,' the trader said. 'Have either of you ridden a horse?'
The adults stared at each other for a moment before looking back to Leyh. The youth wondered absent-mindedly about if she'd been brought up somewhere that had horses.
'Never in my life,' said Ferran.
Despite himself, the Honch's mouth twitched and he said, 'I did some training on a ranch out east.'
Leyh turned to Talon with that powerful expression on her face. This might have been the beer's face, Talon thought, but it seemed to work.
'We can take the horses to Bing-Milton,' she said. 'Shouldn't be more than an hour and a half. Then if we leave early tomorrow, we'll be in Carpol no more than ten hours.'
Talon's elders shared a survey of the youth, suspicious of what he might have given away.
'Why would we need to race all the way?' said Ferran. 'Your coach will be there tomorrow evening.'
'Why race indeed?' the trader said. She winked at Talon. 'Obviously you aren't in any real hurry, but I thought it would be a welcome change of pace. If you could pay for the replacement horses on the coach.'
The four of them sat in silence, each contemplating his or her next move and occasionally taking swigs of drink. Finally, Ferran produced a decent handful of coins from a recess in his jacket. He flicked them over the table and Leyh, still holding her glass with one hand, swiped them from mid air with the other.
'We have another deal, boys. Let's fly.' She looked at each of their blank faces. 'Metaphorically speaking.'
***
Daiv's brain rebooted, painfully aware of motion. Wherever he was, whatever this place happened to be, it was accelerating downward.
***
Mr Sasket rested on the concave wall with a massive grin on his face – he was enjoying this. Certain losses had been taken, indeed a great many soldiers had fought till death on the surface, but the four who remained were worth it.
The men from the alley had carried Roran, Daiv and the Floating Village boy to the central pool where an oblong transport nicknamed “the Grape” had been waiting, guided by the last of Sasket's phase two squad. The Grape had been designed for human-sized passengers but the mass of the thing was small enough that soldiers could push it through the water.
As the prisoners were loaded on board, he wished that there had been just one more agent to track the boy's mindswapped compatriot, who had somehow escaped the attack in the alley. When he closed the hatch and rapped the go code to the pilots outside, Sasket concluded that the escapee would probably die on the beach, gasping for air without knowing to use his gills. That was solace enough.
The Grape sliced through the water, into the deeps and to the south east. There would be no taking chances this time, Darrin thought. The three remaining phase two agents, currently steering the Grape to the city's outskirts, would be heavily sedated just prior to the mindswap process. Daiv and Roran, this other boy too, would awaken in the lowest level of the darkest dungeon in the ruins, waiting for Mr Sasket to decide how useful they were.
'Commander, the Yerz boy is waking up,' said one agent, inhabiting the body of the young man named March. The soldier from the plaza had joined the others but had not spoken since he'd seen his own body killed.
'Good,' said Sasket. 'You should know from experience that the process is less than comfortable with an unconscious target.'
Daiv stirred. 'What's going on?' He then remembered what had happened in the village. The boy sat up straight, having been laid on the metal floor of the Grape between the other two captives.
'Roran!' He moved forward and became aware of the three battle-scarred men and one woman who shared the cramped space with him. The boy drew back and glared at Mr Sasket.
'I knew it was you,' Daiv said.
The old man did not appear to have heard him. 'We were unprepared for Ferran's case. My agents were too inexperienced. Now that I've had time to train them in your history and mannerisms, you and Roran will be perfect infiltrators as we prepare to leave.'
'Talon will warn the Overarchy before you get a chance to invade,' Daiv said. 'Any suspicious activity in Yerz...'
'Try and see logic, boy,' the old man said. 'Those government bigwigs won't believe mid-Ryndian fishermen about bogeymen from the lake.' The Grape decelerated sharply. 'Ah, I believe we are ready to go.'
Panels along one wall of the craft started to slide back and a huge pressure increase popped Daiv's ears. Between him and the near darkness was a crackling membrane. The shapes of multiple puppethead arms pushed against the thin window and Sasket picked at a point to release a gush of water. The cold water splashed on Roran's face and he woke up. The window re-sealed itself, but before Daiv could ponder the ramifications of such a material his head was pressed hard against it by one of the puppethead agents.
No longer was Daiv in the submerged, metallic cigar. A creeping dread rose as he realised that there was absolutely nothing around him, just an endless blackness. Then the music started.
Some kind of stringed instrument, he thought. A guitar or lute. The tune was simple and soothing like a lullaby. The stringed instrument was soon joined by a dull percussion and the boy felt a second presence in the void.
--We have very little time--
What was that?
--Stay calm and listen to me--
Is there somebody here?
--In human speech my name is pronounced Laryet. I'm what you know as a “puppethead”--
'You aren't taking our world!' Daiv shouted out. 'Least not me!'
--Don't speak, the soldiers will hear you--
Daiv prepared to resist whatever came next, all the while the music was building in his mind. Nothing happened. Laryet, though invisible, felt like he had moved closer.
--I'm actually a she, for your information--
The creature could hear what Daiv thought. That connection disgusted him.
--Listen, you will pretend to be mindswapped when this is over. There is usually a period of disorientation--
This was insanity, thought Daiv. He'd cracked.
--Followed by confirmation with your commander. Tell the one called Sasket that you hear a rippling wave--
This monster was trying to enlist him. For what reason?
--Not all of us want the invasion, you have to stop this stupidity and... the sedatives are beginning to take hold; we probably won't meet again--
The black void was gone and the boy was back on the underwater vehicle. It was rising slowly.
'Ready, Laryet?' said Mr Sasket. He lifted Daiv to his feet. The boy didn't need to pretend, the experience had left him groggy enough.
'… a rippling wave,' he managed to mumble.
No comments:
Post a Comment