Ventus

He shook his head. "Just go."

They made for the door.

He sighed. Duty was satisfied; now to find Jordan Mason.

He had no idea whether the a.s.sa.s.sination of Yuri had gone off successfully, but that seemed unimportant now. The Heaven hooks were in a rage. He could hear them, a deep sussurating chorus in his mind.

Never in his life had Turcaret been in the presence of such powerful Winds. He had heard voices as a child, and long before he met anyone who could explain them, had decided they were Winds. Little things spoke to him, trees and stones, and sometimes he could reply. They generally rambled about subjects he didn"t understand, but every now and then they brought news of the Hooks, or the Diadem Swans, and once or twice had told him of the activities of the desals. He clearly remembered the day he learned that the desals had chosen to put the lady Galas on the throne of Iapysia. She was blessed by the Winds; it was this fact that finally made him throw in with Brendan Sheia, because she had somehow angered the desals, and he feared what the Winds might do if that happened.

Now the voices discussed their search for a man. The Winds were acting to eliminate a threat--but how could that be? In all his years, Turcaret had never heard the Winds speak of any sort of danger to themselves or the world. They were all-powerful.

Sometimes when the Winds were very near, Turcaret could see secrets within things. That was happening now, but on a scale he could never have imagined. Everywhere he looked, ghostly words and images seemed to hover in front of objects--the chairs, walls, cas.e.m.e.nts and jittering chandeliers each had its...o...b..ting retinue of tiny visions. He knew if he had time to stop and examine them, each would reveal some secret about the object behind it. You could learn all the crafts, from masonry to bookbinding this way.

He had always felt exalted by such gifts. They were proof that he was special, destined in some way to be a great leader and master over both Man and Nature. When he heard whispers of the coming of the Heaven hooks last night, Turcaret had a.s.sumed they knew of his plot with Brendan Sheia, and were preparing to marshal the forces of heaven itself behind their attempt to wrest control of the Boros family. Sheia didn"t believe him when Turcaret told him, so they had continued with the conservative approach: framing the visiting imposters for the a.s.sa.s.sination. But Turcaret had suspected such detail work would prove unnecessary in the face of what was to come.

Now the Winds had arrived, and they were destroying the estate! He would have thought they disapproved of Yuri"s a.s.sa.s.sination, were it not that he could hear plainly they wanted only one thing: Jordan Mason.

Turcaret himself meant nothing to them. That knowledge came as a deep blow, worse than anything Chan had inflicted.

At the foot of the stairs, people were spilling into the courtyard. He could see Linden Boros trying to organize his men among tilting statues. The terrifying arms of the Hooks reared overhead.

Turcaret ignored them; they were no threat to him. He scanned the faces in the courtyard. He had seen Mason once, being hoisted aloft in Castor"s courtyard for some minor victory. And indeed, there he was coming out of the front hall. He looked more boy than man, his dark hair tousled, eyes wide.

"Give me your sword," Turcaret demanded of a pa.s.sing soldier. Dazed though he was, the man hurried to comply. Turcaret hefted the blade and walked through the mob, eyes fixed on Mason.

What was this boy to the Winds? He was nothing but a loutish tradesman, and yet the Heaven hooks were willing to kill everyone on the estate to get at him. "You!" Turcaret levelled his sword at Mason. "What did you do to anger them?"

"I don"t know!" shouted the boy. He shook himself and glared at Turcaret. "And who are you to accuse me?"

Anger always calmed Turcaret; it gave him focus. He smiled now at the boy. "You"ve spent too long with Chan. Answer me! What have you done to offend the Winds?"

Uncertainty crept into Mason"s eyes again. He was lit in intermittent flashes of lightning, making him seem to shift in place. If he tried to run, Turcaret was prepared to kill him.

"I don"t know why they"re doing it," Mason said simply. He seemed guileless; whatever he had done, he was probably too stupid to remember or connect it to tonight"s events.

The Heaven hooks would keep tearing the estate apart until they found Mason. He was the cancer at the heart of the night, and only his removal would restore the correct order to things.

Killing him would also surely make the Winds notice Turcaret at last.

"Stand still," he instructed the youth. He stepped forward and raised the sword.

Lightning flashed again, and Turcaret caught a glimpse of Mason"s eyes. In them Turcaret saw something he had never believed he would see.

Words and images flickered like heat lightning in those eyes. Somehow, this youth was both Man and Wind. The whispering voices of nature spoke from within him. All the people on this estate--all people everywhere--appeared to Turcaret as absences, silhouettes against the glow of the Winds. All except Mason, who shone like nature itself.

Mason glanced up at the sky. Suddenly everyone in the courtyard was screaming.

Mason jumped back. People were running for the walls, so finally Turcaret tore his gaze away from the youth.

He just had time to count the claws on the giant hand before it fell on him, took him, and crushed out his life.

Jordan met August Ostler in a cellar hallway choked with dust and swarming with terrified people. The soldier looked stunned, and Jordan had to take him by the shoulders and shout in his face to get his attention.

August blinked at him. Despite the warm red light of the torches, August"s face was deadly pale. "The Heaven hooks have come," he said.

"I know," Jordan said impatiently. "Where"s my lady?"

A series of sc.r.a.ping thuds sounded overhead, like the foosteps of a bewildered giant. The crowd grew suddenly silent; their gleaming eyes rolled and glanced to and fro.

Jordan felt curiously detached. He knew he would be in the same state as these people, if he didn"t know who the Heaven hooks wanted. But they wanted him; knowing that made his mind wonderfully clear. He was sure he was as afraid as anyone here, but his fear was focussed and sharp. He knew the thudding steps above were the gropings of a G.o.d which was determined to take the manor apart stone by stone until it found him.

August stammered. "Last I saw, she was being held by Linden"s men. They suspect her of killing Yuri!"

"Killing Yuri? That makes no sense!"

A giant roaring collapse took place somewhere above. It shook dust from the ceiling. People had begun to talk again, and this silenced them.

Jordan strove to compose himself. It seemed everything that went wrong in his life did so when he lost control. He folded his arms across his chest, closed his eyes, and tried his breathing exercises. With an effort he began mentally reciting one of the nonsense mantras Calandria had taught him.

He would have to leave the building. The Heaven hooks would get him for sure, but it sounded like it was just a matter of minutes anyway before they dug down to where he was now.

Once he came to this decision, he felt calmer. He opened his eyes.

August stood near him, eyes downcast. Only now did Jordan notice the bags he was carrying.

"These are Calandria"s!" He fingered the strap of one.

"Yes, I was carrying them because... well, never mind."

"Give them to me!"

August did so without complaint. He seemed relieved, in fact, to be free of the responsibility.

Jordan sat down on the cold flagstones and began rooting through the bags. His mind was racing, spinning between the terrible feeling that he was somehow responsible for this disaster, and a hope that he might be able to set it right.

"August, what do the Heaven hooks look like to you?"

August shook his head dumbly.

"Come on! What do they look like? Animals?"

"No."

"Trees?"

"Almost... no. They are what they are, Jordan."

"Do they look like mechanisms?"

August frowned, then nodded.

Jordan had found what he was looking for. "Listen, August, when Calandria and I were on our way here, we stopped one night in a manse of the Winds. We slept there, unmolested."

"Impossible."

"I thought so too. I didn"t want to go in." Jordan half-rose, and poked August in the spot where the man had been run through. "Remember this? The wound that nearly killed you last night? That"s now gone? Calandria May has more tricks than that. One of them is this." He held up the gauze they had used to avoid the mecha in the manse, and told August how they had used it.

He had the man"s attention now. "I swear to you," Jordan said, "the Heaven hooks are after me! I"m not Calandria"s servant, or Axel"s apprentice. I"m just a workman. But I"ve been cursed, and the Winds are after me. They"re tearing the manor house apart because I"m down here! If I leave, they"ll stop."

"If that"s true..." August didn"t finish, but Jordan knew what he was thinking. August believed him. It was best for Jordan to go out there, and if he wouldn"t go voluntarily, he should be forced. And yet, from the look on August"s face, he had no love for the idea.

Could it be that August felt some sort of loyalty to Jordan, because he had saved the man"s life? Ridiculous. Other people were worthy of such admiration, but Jordan knew he was not.

He had no time to think about that now. Renewed crashings sounded above them, and deep thuds which seemed to be coming nearer. "Listen," he shouted over the din, "Lady May says mecha are a kind of machine. If the Heaven hooks are like the mecha, maybe this will hide me from them."

"Then they will go berserk for sure," said August. "But anyway, the Winds are different from live things, and different from machines."

Jordan shook his head. "Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I"ve got no intention of just disappearing." He told August his plan.

Thousands of kilometers above Ventus, a thing like a bird sculpted in liquid metal heard Calandria"s call. The Desert Voice was named for the voice of conscience that had driven Calandria from the employ of the men who had trained her. The Voice knew the origin of her name, and was proud of it and of her mistress. When she heard Calandria"s call she was nearly over the horizon, following her orbit; she instantly reversed thrust. A bright star appeared in the skies over Ventus.

The Voice had been sailing a very quiet sky. There was no radio traffic from the surface of Ventus, except for localized tight beams between the vagabond moons and the Diadem Swans. The Swans themselves were invisible, wrapped in radar-proof cloaks. They knew the Voice was there, but the starship had been discreet after dropping Calandria and Axel off.

They were about to become very interested in the Desert Voice.

She broke orbit entirely and dropped to hover directly over the Boros estate at an alt.i.tude of two hundred kilometers. The fire from her exhaust pierced the ionosphere and created an auroral spike visible over the horizon. To the survivors huddled in the ruins of the Boros estate, the vagabond moon that eclipsed the sky glowed faintly for a moment.

"She"s here," said Calandria.

The Voice a.s.sessed the situation. The aerostat between her and her mistress was a big one: two kilometers in diameter, comprised of a thin carbon-filament skeleton covered with quasi-biological skin. It was surrounded by a haze of ionized air, which it created and directed around itself to control its movement. It was completely empty except for a ring of storage tanks and gantries in its belly, which was of insignificant ma.s.s compared to the lift the sun-warmed air inside it gave.

It stood five hundred meters above Calandria"s position. The Voice could see it straining to maintain its place: lightning shot from its waist, and a vast electrical potential roved its skin, pulling the air about. It was creating its own weather, and it would have to lift soon or the instabilities would drag it into the ground.

The Voice reviewed her options. Eliminating the aerostat without having it fall on Calandria was going to be tricky. She could send a nuke into the center of the thing and blow it to smithereens, but a lot of the debris would fall on the mistress. Better to blow a hole in its side--but a quick calculation told her that the aerostat could stay on station for many minutes despite huge structural damage, simply because it would take a while for the warm air inside to be replaced by outside air.

She could nuke a spot some miles above the aerostat. The updraft would loft it into the stratosphere... but might also tear it in half.

Her thoughts were interrupted as, all across the sky, the Diadem Swans threw aside their cloaks and came for her.

"Goodbye, August," said Jordan. They shook hands. August looked grim.

"I think I"ll see you again, Jordan," he said. "You"re a mad fool, and such people have a way of surviving."

Jordan laughed. His heart was hammering. "I hope you"re right!" He turned and stepped out the servant"s door.

The grounds of the estate were lit by fires and the savage beams of lantern light cast by the Hooks. Jordan ran with Calandria"s magic gauze wrapped about himself, and though he pa.s.sed close to several of the vast armatures, none moved in his direction. They continued pounding at the ruins of the manor. He could see very few people. Only here and there survivors huddled under the shelter of trees, or in archways. They watched the approach of the metal arms of the Hooks with increasing apathy.

Jordan tripped through deep gouges, and ran around uprooted trees and fallen blocks until he reached the middle of the field, where he had first stopped to look up at the Hooks. There was rubble all the way out here, a hundred meters from the house.

He didn"t give himself time to think, just threw aside the gauze and screamed at the sky, "Here I am, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

For a moment nothing happened. Then he saw the great arms that had buried themselves in the manor were lifting up and out. And above him, a pinpoint of light began to grow into a beacon, as something new fell towards him.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," he whispered. He had been hoping he was wrong, that the Hooks were here to avenge someone else"s transgression.

A wind blew up suddenly, carrying with it a strong smell like air after a thunderstorm. Dust and smoke swirled up, and began to wrap around the base of the vagabond moon.

Certain he had their attention, Jordan wrapped himself in the gauze again, and ran for the trees.

A big metal crane slammed into the spot where he had been standing. The impact threw Jordan off his feet, but he was up and running again in a second. He heard the thing thrashing and digging behind him, but though his shoulders itched with expectation, nothing grabbed him. He made it to the edge of the forest, and paused to look back.

Several arms now hunted over the gra.s.s. None were coming after him. Better yet, those limbs that had been demolishing the manor were gone, lifted back up into the belly of the moon. The thunderstorm smell was stronger, though, and fierce, conflicing gusts of wind blew across the treetops. The moon seemed to be hanging lower and lower in the sky.

Jordan had run for the screen of trees that separated the road from the grounds. He stood at the entrance to a pathway that he knew led to the stone trough at the side of the road.

He unwound the gauze. "Hey!" he shouted, waving his arms over his head. "Over here!"

The questing arms rose into the air, and silently swung in his direction.

He covered up and stepped into the shelter of the trees.

"It"s moving away," Axel observed. He and Calandria stood with some others watching the departure of the arms that had harried the manor. In the sudden silence he could hear the shouts and screams of trapped and injured people. Blocks of stone still fell from the sky at intervals, so everyone"s attention was directed upwards; few people were moving to help the injured.

It did seem like the aerostat was moving away, and the strong winds were probably the reason. Along with the smoke Axel smelled ozone. Electrostatic propulsion? Probably.

"Think the Voice scared it?"

Calandria shook her head. "I doubt it. Anyway, we"ve seen no sign, except that one faint flash. Maybe it decapitated the aerostat, though; we might not know until it hit the ground. As soon as it"s far enough away I"ll call the Voice and check."

Axel nodded. He returned his attention to ground level. A shame. A real shame. "Our first priority is to help these people," he said. "There"s still some trapped in the rubble."

"I"ll dig," she said. "You"d better sit down."

He looked down at himself. He was covered in blood, with open cuts up and down his torso. He hurt all over, too.

"Yes," he said as he lowered himself onto a stone. "I think I"d better."

Jordan made it to the highway. He was out of breath and covered in sweat, but the Hooks hadn"t caught him yet. From here on the countryside was open, which could pose a problem; but he remembered the golden monster in the manse reaching around him to pick up shattered wood after he had merely raised the gauze in front of it. It had not seen him even though he was right in front of it. By now he was fairly sure the Hooks would not spot him even in open country, as long as he had this protection.