"Neither do I. But it"s something to strive for, isn"t it?"
"Amen to that!"
Sarento"s hunger was intense, a yawning chasm within him filled with tongues of fire. He strode from the rebuilt palace and out into the wide courtyard. Four h.e.l.lborn warriors were sitting together by an archway; they stood as he approached, and bowed. Without thinking he drew their life forces from them, watching them topple to the ground.
His hunger was untouched.
An edge of panic flickered in his soul. For a vyhile, in the late afternoon, he had felt the flow of blood from the men he had sent out to the farm. Since then, nothing.
Walking on, he came out on to a ruined avenue. He could hear the sound of men singing, and on the edge of what had once been a lake garden he saw a group of his men sitting around camp-fires. Beyond them were a score of prisoners.
The hunger tore at him . . .
He approached silently. Men toppled to the ground as he pa.s.sed. The prisoners, seeing what was happening, began to scream and run. Not one escaped. Sarento"s hunger was momentarily appeased. Moving past the dried-out corpses, he walked to the picket line and mounted a tall stallion. There were around thirty horses here, standing quietly, half- asleep. One by one they died.
All save the stallion . . .
Sarento took a deep breath, then reached out with his mind."
Sustenance. I need sustenance, he thought. Already the hunger was returning, and it took all his willpower not to devour the life force of the horse he was riding. Closing his eyes, he allowed his mind to float out over the moonlit land, seeking the soul-scent of living flesh.
Finding it, he kicked the horse into a run. And headed out towards Pilgrim"s Valley.
Shannow, his side strapped, blood seeping through the bandages, sat at the wide, bullet- ripped table, Padlock Wheeler standing alongside. At the table sat Amaziga Archer and her husband; beside Sam were Seth Wheeler and Beth McAdam. Amaziga spoke, telling them all of the Bloodstone, and the terrible powers he possessed.
"Then what can we do?" asked Seth. "Sounds like he"s invincible."
Sam shook his head. "Not quite. His hunger is his Achilles heel: it grows at a geometric rate. Without blood - or life if you prefer - he will weaken and literally starve."
"So we just keep out of his way? Is that it?" asked Padlock.
"Not quite," admitted Amaziga. "We none of us know how long he could survive. He could move from active life into a suspended state, being re-activated only when another life force approaches. But what we hope for is that, in a depleted state, his body will be less immune to gunfire. Every shot that strikes him will leach power from him as he struggles to protect himself. It may be that if we can corner him we can destroy him."
Seth Wheeler glanced at the beautiful black woman. "You don"t seem too confident," he said shrewdly.
"I"m not."
"You said you had a plan," said Beth, looking at Shannow. His face was grey with pain and weariness, but he nodded. His voice, when he spoke, was barely above a whisper.
"I don"t know if I"ll have the strength for it, and would be happier should Amaziga"s . . .
theory . . . prove accurate. Whatever happens we must stop Sarento from reaching Unity, or any major settlement. I have seen the extent of his power." They were hushed as he told them of the amphitheatre in the other world, with its rank upon rank of dried-out corpses.
"His power can reach for more than a hundred yards. I don"t know the limits. What I do know is that when we find him we must hit him with rifle shot, and make sure the riflemen stay well back from him."
Nestor ran into the room. "Rider coming," he said. "Weirdest-looking man you ever saw."
"Weird? In what way?" Shannow asked.
"Appears to be painted all in red and black lines."
"It"s him!" shouted Amaziga, lurching to her feet.
Padlock Wheeler gathered up his rifle and ran from the building, shouting for his Crusaders to gather at the paddock fence. The rider was still some two hundred yards distant. Wheeler"s mouth was dry. Levering a sh.e.l.l into the breech, he levelled the weapon and fired. The shot missed, and the rider kicked his mount into a gallop.
"Stop the son of a b.i.t.c.h!" yelled Wheeler. Instantly a volley of shots sounded from all around him. The horse went down, spilling the rider to the gra.s.s, but he rose and walked steadily towards the farm. Three shots struck him in the chest, slowing him. A sh.e.l.l hammered against his forehead, snapping his head back. Another cannoned against his right knee. Sarento stumbled and fell, but rose again.
Sixty rifles came to bear, bullet after bullet hammering into the man - glancing from his skin, flattening against bone and falling to the gra.s.s. Infinitely slowly he pushed forward against the wall of sh.e.l.ls. Closer and closer to the men lining the paddock fence.
One hundred and fifty yards. One hundred and forty yards . . .
Even through the terrible and debilitating hunger Sarento began to feel pain. At first the bullets struck him almost without notice, like insects brushing his skin, then like hailstones, then like fingers jabbing at him. Now they made him grunt as they slammed home against increasingly bruised skin. A shot hit him in the eye and he fell back with a scream as blood welled under the lid. Lifting his hand to protect his eyes he stumbled forward, the sweet promise of sustenance driving him on.
He was so close now, the scent so strong that he began to salivate.
They could not stop him.
"Sarento!" Above the sound of the gunfire he heard a voice calling his name. Turning his head he saw an old man being supported by a black woman, moving slowly out to his left away from the line of fire. Surprised, he halted. He knew the woman: Amaziga Archer. But she was dead long since. He blinked, his injured eye making it difficult to focus. "Cease fire!" bellowed the old man and the thunder of guns faded away. Sarento stood upright and stared hard at him, reaching out with his power to read his thoughts. They were blocked from him.
"Sarento!" he called again.
"Speak," said the Bloodstone. He saw that the old man was wounded; his hunger was so intense that he had to steel himself not to drag the life force from the two as they approached. What helped was that he was intrigued. "What do you want?"
The old man sagged against the woman. Amaziga took the weight, while at no time taking her eyes from the Bloodstone. He tasted her hatred and laughed. "I could give you immortality, Amaziga," he said softly. "Why not join me?"
"You are a ma.s.s murderer, Sarento," she hissed. "I despise you!"
"Murder? I have murdered no one," he said, with genuine surprise. They"re all alive. In here," he added, tapping his chest. "Every one, every soul. I know their thoughts, their dreams, their ambitions. With me they have eternal life. We speak all the time. And they are happy, Amaziga, dwelling with their G.o.d. That is paradise."
"You lie!"
"G.o.ds do not lie," he said. "I will show you." He closed his eyes, and spoke. The voice was not Sarento"s.
"Oh, dear G.o.d!" whispered Amaziga.
"Get back from him, Mother," came the voice of her son, Gareth. "Get back from him!"
"Gareth!" she screamed.
"He"s the Devil!" shouted the familiar voice. "Don"t bel-" Sarento"s eyes opened, and his own deep voice sounded. "He has yet to appreciate his good fortune. However, I think my point is made. No one is dead; they merely changed their place of habitation. Now what do you want, for I hunger?"
The old man pushed himself upright. "I am here to offer you . . . your greatest desire,"he said, his voice faltering.
"My desire is to feed," said Sarento. "And this conversation prevents me from so doing."
"I can open the Gateways to other worlds," the old man said.
"If that is true," responded Sarento, "then all I have to do is draw you into myself and I will have that knowledge."
"Not so," said the other, his voice stronger now. "You used to understand computers, Sarento, but you will not have seen one like this," he went on, tapping the box clipped to his belt. "It is a portable. And it is self-aware. Through this machine I can control the Gateways. Should I die, it has instructions to self-destruct. You want to feed? Look around you. How many are here?" Sarento transferred his gaze to the farm buildings. He could see around fifty, perhaps sixty riflemen. "Not enough, are there?" said the old man. "But I can take you where there are millions."
"Why would you do this?"
"To save my friends."
"You would sacrifice a world to me, for these few?"
"I will take you wherever you choose."
"And I am to trust you?"
"I am Jon Shannow, and I never lie."
"You can"t, Shannow!" screamed Amaziga, lunging at the portable. Shannow backhanded her across the face, spinning her to the ground. The effort caused him to stagger and his hand moved to his side, where blood oozed through the bandages. Amaziga looked up from the ground. "How could you, Shannow? What kind of a man are you?"
Sarento reached out and touched Amaziga"s mind. She felt it and recoiled. "So," said Sarento, "you are a truth speaker. And wherever I name you will take me?"
"Yes."
"The twentieth century on earth?"
"Where in the twentieth century?" responded the old man.
"The United States. Los Angeles would be pleasant."
"I cannot promise you an arrival inside a city. The points of power are usually found in less crowded areas."
"No matter, Jon Shannow. You, of course, will travel with me."
"As you wish. We need to make our way to the crest of that hill," said Shannow. Sarento"s eyes followed where he pointed, then swung back to the group by the paddock fence. "Kill even one of them and you will never see the twentieth century," warned Shannow.
"How long will this take? I hunger!"
"As soon as we reach the crest." The man turned and walked slowly towards the hillside.
Sarento strode alongside him, lifting him from his feet. He began to run, effortlessly covering the ground. The old man was light, and Sarento felt his life draining away.
"Don"t die, old man," he said. Reaching the summit, he lowered Shannow to the ground.
"Now your promise!"
Shannow swung the microphone into place. "Do it!" he whispered.
Violet light flared - and then they were gone . . .
Amaziga staggered to her feet. Behind her the riflemen were cheering and hugging one another, but all Amaziga could feel was shame. Turning from the hillside, she walked back to the farmhouse. How could he have done it? How could he?
Beth came out to greet her. "He succeeded then," she said.
"If you can call it success."
"We"re still alive, Amaziga. I call that success."
"Was the cost worth it? Why did I help him? He"s doomed a world." When the Bloodstone had appeared Shannow had called her to him.
"I have to get close to him," he said. "I need you!"
"I don"t think I can take your weight. Let Sam help!"
"No. It must be you!"
Sam came out to join them now. Laying his hand on Amaziga"s shoulder, he leaned down and kissed her brow. "What have I done, Sam?" she asked.
"What you had to do," he a.s.sured her. Together and hand in hand they walked away to the far fields. Beth stayed for some time, staring at the hillside. Zerah Wheeler and the children joined her.
"Never seen the like," said Zerah. "Gone, just like that!"
"Just like that," echoed Beth, holding firm against the yawning emptiness within. She remembered Shannow as she had first seen him, more than two decades before - a harsh, lonely man, driven to search for a city he knew could not exist. I loved you then, she thought, as I could never love you since.
"Has the bad man gone?" asked Esther suddenly.
"He"s gone," Zerah told her.
"Will he come back?"
"I don"t think so, child."
"What will happen to us, to Oz and me?"
Zerah chuckled. "You"re going to stay with old Zerah. Isn"t that a terrible punishment?
You"re going to have to do ch.o.r.es, and wash and clean. I suspect you"ll run away from the sheer torment of it all."
"I"d never run away from you, Zerah," Esther promised, her face suddenly serious. "Not ever."
"Me neither," said Oz. Lifting the little pistol from his coat pocket, he offered it to Zerah.
"You"d better keep this for me, Frey," he said. "I don"t want to shoot n.o.body."
Zerah smiled as she took the gun. "Let"s go get some breakfast," she said.
Beth stood alone. Her son was dead. Clem was dead. Shannow was gone. What was it all for, she wondered? To the left she saw Padlock Wheeler talking to a group of his men, Nestor Garrity among them. Isis was standing close by, and Beth saw Meredith take her hand and raise it to his lips.