I have seen them gentle, tame and meek,
That now are wild, and
do not remember
That some time they put themselves in danger
To
take bread at my hand.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
“They Flee from Me”
Gil related everything in detail, partly to tell Dunstan what their situation was, and partly to consider it more closely himself.
“This tells us more of Evergray,” Dunstan admitted, “yet, of what use is it?”
“I’m not sure; what do we know? First, the Masters are aiming for divinity, or something like it. Second, to do it, they have to ‘Ascend,’ whatever that means. They have to get rid of any taint of their own humanity. So third, they’re going to put all their earthly power in Evergray and make him their stooge, ruling by their instructions.” He stopped, considering. “But why allow Evergray free will?”
Dunstan leaned his head back against the stone. “He is to exert control, is he not? Then, a certain capacity for will is implicit. How can an unquestioning machine dominate, as Evergray is to do?”
“You got it; a zombie’s no good to them, and the Masters can’t rule directly because it would taint them again. That’s probably why Bey, and not the Masters themselves, brought Evergray to life; their power and Evergray’s will be separate. It will make it easier to keep him in line.”
The Horseblooded nodded. “It was clever of them to have Evergray created, rather than entrusting Yardiff Bey with their power.”
“Hell yeah. He’s too liable to figure out a way to buck them. So, fourth, Evergray’s been kept in Salamá, almost incommunicado. Wait a minute; is Flaycraft a free-will type?”
“He is indentured to Yardiff Bey by his soul.”
“I see. Well, Evergray’s got this oh-wonderful-me attitude, and he’s getting muley. The Masters must be nervous; without him they’re stuck, Lifetree or no Lifetree. But once they put on their new godhood they’ll be in absolute command. And maybe that’s why they really want him to have free will. Without it, they haven’t got a slave, just a dummy. And the Masters need their slaves, or how could they be Masters?”
“Quite reasonable.”
“Our wild card is Evergray. He’s already gotten some of their force; he’s got this aura, like electricity.” He saw Dunstan didn’t know the word. “He almost looks—No, no, he is; Dunstan, he’s bigger! When he came here that first time after I woke up, that crown thing he wears almost brushed the passageway ceiling. But this time, when he called me out from the corridor, he was hunkering down to look in. And the crown itself is tighter now. He’s grown!”
“Swollen with his legacy, you mean?”
“Oh, and get this: He stopped the Berserkergang.”
“Impossible. It may be shortened, but not Dismissed. The Rage isn’t possession, but rather a venomous side of the individual taking over. It is a susceptibility, not an affliction.”
“Tell that to Evergray. He flipped his hand at me and stopped the fit dead.”
“That is prepotency indeed, which even the deCourteneys couldn’t match. His prepotency comes upon him now.”
“Yeah, he’s changing fast. We may not have much time.”
“It is my fear, my friend, that we have none at all.”
Gil made a thorough inspection of their cell, but found no opening or seam to it, even where he knew the passageway must be. The walls offered no hand- or footholds, so he never got to climb high enough to see just what kind of arrangement the cone of light was. He presumed there was ventilation of some kind, but that it, too, was out of reach.
Monotony set in. Now Gil began stalking around and around their chamber, working arms and legs, doing sets of exercises from sheer frustration. Then the two would re-dissect what they knew of their situation. After a time the American would eat, nap, and begin again.
“In taking our pleas to Evergray,” the Horseblooded pointed out, “you will encounter one obstacle over and over: Yardiff Bey.”
“That’s it. Bey’s smarter than I am, smoother than I’ll ever be. For everything I say he’ll have twenty counterattacks and rebuttals.”
“Unless,” the Wild Rider proposed, “you make no declarations.”
“Huh? Oh, you mean just use questions, right? I dunno though; I’m no shrink.”
“There exists no alternative.”
“Just one, and that’s jumping Flaycraft when he comes in. If you get his attention for a second, maybe I could put him away. I don’t think he’ll be looking for it.”
“His sort always expects violence. And he is more dangerous than you think. More; even though our words have been soft, they may yet have been overheard.”
“But it’s the only other way out.”
Dunstan didn’t reply. Gil knew he was thinking about the utter solitude he’d have to endure again. “Dunstan, we’ve got to go with what we’ve got. When that passageway opens again and Evergray comes through, call out to him. Make a racket.”
The Horseblooded sounded despondent for the first time. “Very well. But sit and rest; it may be some time.”
Gil sat near the spot where the passageway would open. He felt alert and strong again. He’d only planned to relax, too keyed up to rest, but somewhere along the line he fell asleep.
Dunstan’s warning snapped him awake. “Gil, beware.” The passageway opened again. Gil waited to one side, balanced, hands and feet ready. Evergray’s voice echoed loudly from the corridor. Gil went warily.
This time there was no doubt that the Scion of Salamá was metamorphosing into his new form. He was two feet taller than he’d originally been, and his eyes were blazing crosscurrents of red and white. He was surrounded by a crackling aurora, and the crown-helmet was very nearly a perfect fit.
“I have come into much of my legacy,” he told the American. “Soon I will receive that last and greatest measure. But I wish to hear you respond to my questions.” They went again to the balcony to look at the Fane of the Masters. Evergray wanted to watch it as he awaited the command to join the Five for the final time.
“Mortal, what have you to tell me about the free will? Yardiff Bey has said your claim to it is false, and you, too, are moved helplessly by events. But I think you have free will. Is there any value to it that you can mention?”
“One or two; it’s a mixed blessing. But think for a minute. Is there any other facet of yourself they want you to abandon?”
“None. My strength and intellect, my imagination and perceptions are to remain my own.”
“D’you think your free will could be some kind of fault then?”
The response was angry. “I am without flaw.”
Gil pretended elaborately that the next thought was impromptu. “Evergray, could the Five be jealous of you?”
The Scion’s fist hit the balcony’s rail, making it quake. “This thought may be so! I feel I have their enmity, and harbor that same suspicion.”
“They’ve never dared to let you decide anything for yourself?”
“No. Always, the will of the Masters has been set down.”
“But what could they gain, barring you from using free will?”
“Mortal, they would keep me from being all that I might.”
“But they’re already making you their prime servant. Do you deserve to be more?”
“Yes, and yes again! I am worthy to be their equal!” The enormous hands were clamped on the rail now, and hatred was in the radiant eyes.
“Well, then,” Gil suggested softly, “why don’t you exercise free will?”
Evergray calmed a bit. “I am unsure. The Five have always worked for my well-being. Defying them, I risk disaster.”
You understand better than you think, Gil observed, but said, “Is there any other way to use free will?”
“None. When they have Ascended to the godhead, the Five will control my every act, forever.”
“How much time is left?”
“It is already begun. Do you not hear the festive music? Soon I go to the Masters.”
Low and far away, it could barely be heard, an eerie, dissonant music that rose and fell unpredictably, celebrating the Ascension. “Evergray, couldn’t you perform one act of free will? You’ll never have another chance, will you?”
“No, but it is too late. External assault has failed, and the Masters’ plan proceeds.”
“What assault? Where?”
The giant pointed. For the first time, the American noticed shadowy mass movements on the desolate plain. “There, beyond the Necropolis, an army of mortals is come. Soon now, they will be trampled under by the Host of the Grave, which is our guard.”
This is it, Gil thought. He asked, “Evergray, couldn’t you just walk out? Take charge of that army, make your own destiny?”
“I am Scion of Salamá. At least the Five will permit me to rule. What would those creatures out there offer?”
Gil plunged ahead with a lie. “Loyalty, worship, acclaim. You’re perfection itself; we need a leader like you, Evergray, to guide us and rule us all.”
“I find that difficult to accept, sensible though it is. Your kind is intractable, impossible to deal with.”
“Ask Dunstan! Go on, ask him.”
“I cannot leave. The Five will summon me at any time.”
“Then let me bring him to you, and he’ll tell you the same thing I just did.”
The giant inspected the American for a moment, eyes flashing, aura pulsing. Then he raised one big hand. “It is done. Go, fetch the Horseblooded here. Haste; the music rises, and the final moment draws nigh.”
Gil dashed away, through turns and angles of the deserted galleries of Bey’s palace, apocalypse at his heels. He came to the last chamber before the corridor. It was a wide, vaulted room with levels of balconies stretching away above, its walls lined with figurines and icons.
In the center of the room, blocking his way at the worst possible moment, was Flaycraft, toying with the Ace of Swords that hung around his neck. A hate-mask grin split his face. There’d be, Gil saw, no reasoning with him.
“Well, little mutt, will you run away from me now? Go! Your last run is started!”
There was no way around, no time to appeal to Evergray. Gil pushed down astringent fear and stepped out into the room. “C’mon; there’s no wall between us.”
Yardiff Bey’s servant launched himself across the room with a howl. Gil braced to meet him. Ducking grasping paws, he bobbed up behind the torturer and landed a chop to his ear. Flaycraft roared, whirling.
Gil stayed just within jabbing distance, tagging two shots to the other’s face. Flaycraft stopped short, more in surprise than pain. The American bore in, knees bent low, delivering the bottom of his elbow in an upward blow under the edge of the beast-man’s sternum, his forearm and fist coming up like a goose neck. He followed with the heel of his hand to his opponent’s chin, reversed directions and spin-kicked Flaycraft’s stomach going away, a perfect little demonstration in hand-to-hand.
But Flaycraft didn’t go down. He wasn’t even hurt much. He came after Gil, ripping at his shirt. The American abruptly saw what he’d gotten himself into. He pivoted back around and launched a side-kick to the torturer’s groin. The flat-footed authority of the kick stopped Flaycraft.
Gil back-fisted his knuckles into the beast-man’s face, and chopped at his throat. Flaycraft screamed, shook his head angrily and locked his hands around his foe’s throat, bearing him backward, knocking over a pedestal, sending a figurine bouncing. His brute strength was amazing; the hirsute body hid the power of an animal, or a madman. Feeling that, Gil panicked. He locked his hands and struck at the other’s wrists. Two swings did no good, and his wind was shut off. Long black thumbnails had broken the skin at his throat. He was only conscious because the blood flow to his brain hadn’t been pinched off by the clumsy choke.
He thought the blurring of his vision was unconsciousness coming on. Then he knew it was the first wave of the Berserkergang.
He brought one foot up and set it at the juncture of Flaycraft’s hip and thigh, swinging his other leg through the torturer’s. Rolling backward, holding handfuls of brown chest hair, he flipped the beast-man over his head. The deadly grip peeled itself off, backward. He was free, gasping, holding clots of long hairs. Flaycraft slammed down, but bounced up again, very much the angry primate. Gil struggled to rise.
Flaycraft tackled him, bearing him down. Sounds of their struggle drifted up among the darkened balconies. They sprawled, and the beast-man’s grip swelled at the American’s throat again. Gil tried to sit up, heels scrabbling for purchase, but Flaycraft rammed him down. In moments, blackness would close in for good. Gil slapped out his hands to break his fall; his right hit something hard, and fumbled to grip. Small and heavy, it filled his palm, the figurine that had fallen. He swung it blindly. It connected with Flaycraft’s head, and the choke weakened for an instant. He swung again, and again. The hold faltered, fell away. Gil surged up, free.
Flaycraft held his head as blood welled from his scalp, matting his thick hair. Panting, Gil threw the figurine as hard as he could. It ricocheted from the torturer’s shoulder. Flaycraft wiped blood from his eyes and a growl started low in his chest. Gil backed away, hyperventilating both from the Rage and to recover from the choking. He wouldn’t have left the fight now if he could.
Flaycraft charged again. Gil backpedaled, working hand combinations dredged up by the Berserkergang, chopping and snap-punching, evading clinches. He tried for the nose and piggish eyes, but heavy ridges of bone protected them. The torturer’s scalp wound, looking worse than it was, had covered his face and shoulder with blood and marked the tarot at his breast. Gil kept chipping away, using elbows and knees when he could, ducking and sidestepping. His nerves jumped and hummed with hatred. He was unaware of how much his expression resembled his enemy’s.
He blocked reaching hands with a wide, rotary motion and threw a snap-punch to the high ribs, index knuckle cocked forward. He had enough room to slam an elbow in after it.
Pain ignited Flaycraft. He threw himself on Gil, unstoppable, yellow canines snapping close to the jugular. Gil caught the chest hair again, holding him away, trying for a hip throw. They were too intertangled. Gil changed grips to the shaggy ears, to hold Flaycraft’s head steady. Then he crashed the top of his own skull into the snarling face. He felt bone give, and was himself staggered.
Flaycraft reeled back, his broken muzzle reddened, his wide, flat nose shattered. Gil blinked, seeing stars, and retreated to bring his back up against a wall.
He understood the match dimly. Flaycraft wasn’t, and never had been, a standup fighter. His trade was abusing prisoners already bound and subdued. He was unaccustomed to open combat; but the beast-man was willing, and horribly strong and determined.
The moment’s intellectualization was swallowed up again in the Rage. Flaycraft teetered, wiping blood from his bone-visored face, left eye swelling closed. He growled through torn lips. “You have a bite, little mutt,” he slurred, “but now it is time to leash you again.”
Gil heaved his shoulders, standing free of the wall. He topped Flaycraft by a head, but sensed, even in seizure, that the other would tear him apart if the match went on much longer. He brought his hands up again, but his vision wavered.
The beast-man rushed him, arms spread. Gil faked left awkwardly, ducked right and put everything he had into a stiff-fingered left to the other’s midsection. He chopped with the right, but it might as well have been a pat on the head. Flaycraft, arms wide, caught him in a bear hug that ended breath and threatened to splinter his ribs.
Gil dug thumbs under the lower corners of the torturer’s ears, behind his jaw, but Flaycraft persevered. The American swung cupped hands in to pop them into the beast-man’s ears in detonations that must have burst his eardrums. He only tightened his hold. Gil was starved for air.
Gil’s nose was bleeding, as were his many lacerations from Flaycraft’s nails. His eyes had focused down to a narrow circle surrounded by darkness; his head wobbled aimlessly. But the Rage bore him up with ferocity. He pushed his thumbs into the inner corners of the torturer’s eyes.
The beast-man tried to avoid it, burrowing his bloodied head into Gil’s chest, trying to sink his fangs in. The American forced his thumbs past the muscular opposition of lids, into the vulnerability behind them. Flaycraft screamed in pain. Gil ripped his thumbs away, tearing before them all that was in their way.
The torturer released him, stumbling away, hands clapped over both eyes. Gil fell to the floor and breathed in huge gulps, desperate for a few critical seconds’ consciousness. Flaycraft groped back toward him with no other thought but to kill his enemy.
He tripped over Gil’s legs and they both rolled on the carpet, one trying to keep distance, the other to close. Gil scrambled free. Flaycraft jumped to his feet. Blinded, deafened, he waited for smell or some vibration to tell him where his antagonist was. His face was unrecognizable; blood flowed from his ears, and his eyes were sockets of ruin.
Gil now believed the torturer could go on indefinitely, but the Berserkergang whispered that death would end it. The American spotted the figurine’s fallen pedestal, a double spiral of metal rod with small circular base and platform, and went for it. Flaycraft sensed that somehow, charging with a roar. The beast-man took him from behind as he stooped for the weapon. Fingers locked on Gil’s throat again. With no more than four or five seconds left, Gil swung the pedestal wildly over his head, unable to aim. There was blunt, violent collision of bone and metal. The grip weakened. He fumbled clear, swung again, and grazed his enemy.
Flaycraft shook his head angrily, dazed. Gil’s world was blacking out; the Rage couldn’t keep him going much longer. He brought the pedestal over his head in an arc of calculated hate. Even the beast-man couldn’t take the blow without damage. He fell, the side of his skull opened, blue-white bone dashed in. The carpeting was sodden with his blood.
Gil, too, had fallen to his knees with the force of the swing. The torturer swayed before him, gurgling and growling, ruminating somewhere in the depths of his fury. He extended a cautious hand sightlessly feeling feebly, still seeking the grip that would let him kill.
Gil shifted his hold on the pedestal and swung again. It was his last effort; he never felt it end. He only saw the hated darkness rise.
Lying headlong, he held his aching throat where blood ran from nail wounds. Near him lay Flaycraft, sprawled dead. Between them was the pedestal, bent in the middle from the last blow, its base stained with blood. Some of Flaycraft’s brown hairs still clung to it.
He toiled to his feet in the weakness that followed the Berserkergang. Something caught his eye, the Ace of Swords covered with Flaycraft’s gore. He leaned over unsteadily, took it and put it on with bloodied hands, hiding the tarot under his shirt. He passed down the long gallery slowly, breathing deeply.
But at its end he realized that, in taking the Ace, he’d left proof positive that he’d killed Flaycraft. If Evergray noticed it on him, the Scion of Salamá would be suspicious, even if he didn’t know what had happened to his servant. With a sudden thought to hide the body, he returned to the other end of the gallery.
One look around there convinced him it was futile. There was blood everywhere and no immediate place of concealment, even if he could move the torturer’s bulky corpse. His breathing had begun to even out; now he heard the celebratory music of the Masters, louder than before, as if its crescendo were near. He lifted the beast-man’s head and tossed the Ace of Swords beneath it.
“You wanted it, Flaycraft. Now you’ve got it.” Listing dizzily, he went to free his friend.