The Orpheus Machine

Chapter 14

Nisa watched Corean as she would a poisonous reptile. A few minutes before, the sounds of weapons and engines had ceased. Now the slaver walked up and down the narrow corridor between the cages that held Nisa and Dolmaero. The cyborg Marmo floated beside the forward bulkhead, attending his mistress.

Several hours had crept by since she and the Guildmaster had been herded into separate cages by the old man-machine. Nisa had passed the time by imagining that Ruiz Aw was still alive, that he would come after her, would rescue her from the woman who now held her.

As if she could read Nisa’s mind, Corean stopped and glared in at her. “He’s surely dead, bitch. He surely is.” The slaver’s face had undergone some destructive metamorphosis, so that she was no longer beautiful, in any human sense. The planes of her face hadn’t changed, but whatever veneer of sanity she had possessed seemed now to have evaporated, and the madness writhing beneath the skin had become too insistently visible.

Nisa shook her head slowly. The slaver was probably right — but she wouldn’t believe it, not yet.

Corean seemed to swell with rage, her face almost puffy with emotion. “You doubt it? Really? If he didn’t drown, then the Roderigans have him. Better for him to be dead, if so.”

Nisa looked away, as if terribly interested in the rusty steel in the corner of her cage.

The slaver sighed, and it was so incongruous a sound that it regained Nisa’s attention. Corean had grown abruptly pensive, and Nisa had great difficulty in reading the expression on that perfect face. Corean looked at her so strangely that Nisa felt a greater degree of uneasiness than she had when the slaver had seemed full of violent anger.

Corean finally spoke in a voice softer than she had ever before used in Nisa’s presence. “No, dirtworlder, I think you’re right. He’s still alive. His luck is uncanny — why shouldn’t he survive the margars and the hetmen? Minor perils for him, eh? Foolish of me to think that the story is ended.”

Suddenly it occurred to Nisa that Corean, in some dreadful way, loved Ruiz as much as she hated him. How very odd, she thought. I never realized monsters could love. But then she thought, Why not? Isn’t Ruiz a monster, in many ways? And doesn’t he love me? That train of ideas made her very uneasy, and she shut it off, though not before she thought, As monsters go, Ruiz Aw is a kindly one.

The cyborg made an uneasy throat-clearing noise. “Corean? What are your orders?” For once Marmo used a very ordinary voice. He sounded to Nisa like a tired old man, an old man who wanted nothing but his bed and an end to turmoil. “Shall I set the course to Port Ember? We can get a good price for the sub there, and safe passage offworld.”

Corean whirled. “What? No, no. What are you talking about?”

The cyborg made a shrugging gesture. “Corean. We were lucky to get away with our lives. You wouldn’t be thinking of returning to SeaStack, surely. We might not get away a second time. Neither can we go back to the Blacktear Pens; Roderigo will be waiting for us there. We’ve lost all that, now.”

Corean sidled a few steps toward Marmo. “Yes, of course — but you can’t believe I would give up now. After everything Ruiz Aw has cost me? Are you crazy?”

Marmo drew back slightly and didn’t answer. Corean stepped closer, her hands clenched. For some reason, Nisa remembered something she had once seen on Pharaoh, just before her eighth birthday. A caravan of charlatans had come to her father’s palace, and though their sleights had been unimpressive, they owned two great arroyo lizards, which they displayed in gilt cages. To her eventual regret, she had gone to watch them being fed their monthly meal of stonemole puppies. The deliberate movements of the arroyo lizards as they approached their prey, the frozen fascination of the puppies — there was something in the present situation that resonated with that long-ago memory.

“Corean,” Marmo said. “Please. What do you intend?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We return to SeaStack. Ruiz will come for his woman, or to take the Gencha… and we’ll get him. This time.” Corean spoke a bit breathlessly.

“Oh, no. Corean,” said the cyborg, “you must be mad. SeaStack is a charnel house. Ruiz Aw has to be dead, or otherwise beyond your revenge. But at least we’re still alive. Don’t let his ghost drag us to our deaths. My life isn’t much, I admit. But it’s all I have and I want to keep it.”

Nisa watched in horrified fascination. The slaver stood very close to her henchman, looking into his metal eyes. “Marmo. You’ve been with me so long. I never thought you would desert me.” She spoke in a voice of cool bemusement.

Marmo shook his head. “I haven’t deserted you, Corean.”

Corean put her hand to his cheek, where the metal met the flesh.

It ended so quickly that Nisa wasn’t completely sure what she had seen. The slaver’s hand dropped to the cyborg’s throat. Nisa heard a buzzing whine. Marmo jerked and then became still.

A small amount of blood trickled down the front of his battered chassis.

When Corean turned around, Nisa saw tears shine briefly in her blue eyes.

Ruiz crouched among the boulders, listening, trying to filter any alien sound from the slap of waves, the cries of seabirds, the whisper of the offshore breeze in the beach grass. Nothing.

He still had the wireblade; doubtless Gejas, were he alive, was more formidably armed. Maybe the tongue was dead or too badly hurt to oppose him. Ruiz felt a slight degree of cheer at the thought.

As if that small encouragement had unlocked his heart’s armor, he thought of Nisa, whom he would never see again. Corean would surely flee to the farthest corner of Sook, or at least as far as her sub’s energy reserves could carry her. She might sell Nisa — or perhaps Corean would ease her frustration in torment.

The latter seemed most likely, when he remembered the lunatic sound of the slaver’s voice. He supposed he should hope that Molnekh’s burst had caught Nisa as well as Gunderd… but he couldn’t do it.

You’re wasting time, he told himself, and began to slither as silently as he could through the boulders.

When he reached the path he became even more cautious, alert for sensors and trip wires. Gejas was probably equipped with such devices; what good Roderigan soldier wouldn’t be?

But he found nothing and after a while he decided that Gejas must still be hiding in the rocks. He started to run up the path toward the campsite.

By the time he reached the clearing, his damaged ribs were hurting him badly. Einduix was gone, and as Ruiz sat on a rock to catch his breath, he felt a certain relief. If he’d had to nursemaid the little man, his minute chance of survival would shrink to nothing.

He heard a stealthy movement and dropped to the ground behind the rock, gripping the wireblade.

Einduix raised his fuzzy head above the brush ten meters uphill, a quizzical expression on his wizened features.

Ruiz remained cautious. Was the little man alone? Was he perhaps a decoy for Gejas? No, he thought in mild embarrassment. Gejas would have potted me by now.

“Einduix,” he said. “Come out; it’s all right.”

Einduix shuffled toward him, scratching his head and smiling a wry smile. Ruiz sat back down.

Einduix sat beside him, small thin hands on his knees. He turned his face up to Ruiz and his mouth worked, as though he were chewing a mouthful of pebbles. Eventually his mouth opened, and he spoke. “Gunderd?” he asked in a voice squeaking with disuse.

Ruiz was a little surprised, but the cook’s concern was transparently genuine. “Dead,” he said. “He died to give me a chance. I’m sorry.”

Einduix’s face fell, but he didn’t seem surprised.

“I wish you could tell me what’s been happening,” Ruiz said.

Einduix cleared his throat at some length, then spat decisively. “I can tell little,” he said. His accent was archaic, but he spoke the pangalac trade language understandably.

Ruiz was quite startled. “You speak?”

Einduix frowned at Ruiz, as at a willfully slow child. “So it would seem.”

“Then why did you pretend…?”

Einduix made a curious flapping gesture with his hands, as if waving away a bad scent emanating from Ruiz. “Do you see no advantage in such a subterfuge?”

Never had Ruiz expected such a conversation, there on the dead hillside. “I guess I do, but was it worth the… lack of companionship?”

Again Einduix made his disrespectful gesture. “What lack? Need you jabber with your friends to know their love? Gunderd did not.” Einduix smiled painfully. “His jibes? Only affection, which he gave me in his own manner. True, as a chef I possessed little talent, but never was I seasick, so my food — such as it was — appeared with regularity. No more important quality is there, at sea.”

This long speech had apparently exhausted the little man, because now he hunched down into his shipsuit like a skinny orange turtle.

“I see,” said Ruiz. “Why are you speaking now?”

Einduix curled his wrinkled lip. “I am past all ruses.”

Ruiz felt a touch of disorientation. He shook his head violently and attempted to return to the business at hand. “Have you seen the tongue Gejas? Or anyone else?”

“No one. And will the hetman soon be here, to bite out our hearts?” Einduix seemed more annoyed than terrified by the possibility; he gave Ruiz an odd wry smile.

“I don’t think so,” said Ruiz. “I killed her some hours ago.”

A wide yellow-toothed grin lit the tiny face. “Ah? I am delighted to hear this. My deadliest enemy always has been Roderigo — a pestilence on them and may their years be numbered. Because our captors were Roderigo, I slept the sleep like death, so as to deprive them of my torment.” He cocked his head to the side, looking like a clever curious monkey. “But then… who did I see in the hetman’s armor? Your love?”

“My love,” Ruiz said sadly.

“A fine ruse,” said the cook, who now seemed a great deal friendlier. “It worked well?”

“To a point.”

“Ah,” said Einduix in a tone of deep commiseration. “And your love?”

“Gone now, where I cannot follow,” said Ruiz, who suddenly wanted to cry.

“I am sorry, truly.” Einduix patted his shoulder, his hand as weightless as a little bird.

The two of them sat together in a mournful silence that Ruiz somehow took comfort in.

It was Einduix who finally turned and said, “So what will you do, now?”

Ruiz shrugged. “I’d like to live a while longer. I expect that to keep me pretty busy. How about you?”

Einduix pursed his mouth judiciously. “I have no particular plans.” Then the little man looked out over the ruined slopes, lit kindly by the golden morning light. “It is enough that I have come home. To the island’s scent my body woke.”

Ruiz looked at Einduix, puzzled. Then the image of Somnire came into his mind, with his odd yellow skin, his black eyes, his puffs of fuzzy hair. What might a long hard lifetime on the sea do to a person of Somnire’s race? Might it not burn his skin orange, bleach the color from his hair, give him a thousand wrinkles?

“You’re a stackperson,” Ruiz said, astonished that he had taken so long to make the connection.

Einduix’s eyes narrowed to slits and he jumped up. “Where did you hear that term, barbarian?”

“From Somnire, in the virtual.”

The cook’s eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open. “Somnire? You spoke to him?”

“Yes,” said Ruiz. “He gave me a job to do, but I don’t know how I can do it now.”

“Somnire,” said Einduix, and now tears trickled down his small worn face. “Somnire, so glorious once. How fares he in his dream?”

“Well, I think,” said Ruiz. Then he thought of Leel. “Though he must sometimes make ugly decisions.”

Einduix flapped his hands. “What being does not? Somnire… to think you bespoke Somnire last night. And the city? Beautiful still?”

“It was,” said Ruiz. He felt a sudden urge to give the little man a gift of some sort. “Somnire took me flying above the city, on a fine day. He showed me the white palaces, the shady courtyards. The sarim flew the air. Music rose up from the fountains and perfume from the flowers.”

Einduix sat heavily and lowered his face into his hands. Ruiz began to wonder if perhaps he had been cruel.

But finally Einduix looked up, and his face showed some warm transformation. “You have been gracious to me, Ruiz Aw. And this task?”

“I don’t know how I can do it now. It requires me to go to SeaStack.” Ruiz was surprised by his own words. When had he decided he must see to the purging of the enclave alone?

Einduix stood and threw back his narrow shoulders. “Come with me. Friends will guide you by secret ways to a place of leaving.”

Ruiz smiled. “Lead on, then.” He stood abruptly and winced.

“You are injured? Here.” Einduix took the limpet from his pocket. “See? I am useful already.”

Gejas limped up the trail in the noon sunlight. The limpet had restored his vitality sufficiently that he could go in search of The Yellowleaf. He took no precautions against ambush. If Castle Delt had landed a sweep team, he would soon be dead no matter how carefully he hid, and as for Ruiz Aw, he was sure the slayer had left the island in the submarine. May you suffer a long time in Corean Heiclaro’s hands, Ruiz Aw, he wished. The thought gave him little pleasure; he would not witness the slayer’s expiation, and no matter how passionate Corean’s cruelty might be, her expertise would fall far short of Roderigo’s.

He reached the campsite in the hills, and paused to rest for a bit. He settled on a rock and extended his throbbing leg carefully. The limpet still covered the torn flesh; he could feel the peculiar itchy pain of accelerated healing.

His eye fell on the octagon of crushed grass where The Yellowleaf’s tent had been. Was it only the night before that the mad slayer had swaggered into The Yellowleaf’s tent and made his outrageous demands? Gejas shook his head wearily. Sook had turned for a few hours, and his life had torn. Had gone with The Yellowleaf, away.

She was dead, she was dead. He accepted the fact, though he didn’t understand how such a magnificently vital being could have disappeared so suddenly from the universe. The stars had not trembled in their courses, the sky had not split open.

He looked out at the sea far below, and saw that it was feathered with whitecaps. He wondered how much Ruiz Aw had hurt her. The slayer had sufficient reason to hate The Yellowleaf.

Gejas stared at his feet, almost ready to select a fatal soporific from his interrogation kit, to abandon the tatters of his life.

Then he saw a curious thing, a boot print in the loose soil, its edges crisp, uncrumbled by the night’s dew. Gejas bent, the better to examine this anomaly.

When he straightened up, he knew that Ruiz Aw was still on the island. A fire kindled in his belly, and he smiled.

“First to the cave,” he whispered to himself. “To see what you’ve done, slayer. Then I’ll start to find you.”

He felt better. As he climbed quickly up the path to the virtual, he hardly noticed the pain in his leg.

Ruiz followed Einduix through the rubble, down into a valley where the stones lay thick and tumbled. The little man took him into a pathless thicket, pushing the thorny branches carefully aside. “Not to break,” said Einduix. He pointed at Ruiz’s feet. “Don’t scuff. Delt and Roderigo would hunt us, could they find the way.”

Ruiz nodded and took care to leave no marks.

At the bottom of the valley, where a gully undercut an almost intact wall, Einduix stopped and rapped at a slab of black meltstone. His knuckles sounded out an odd syncopated rhythm. Was it a signal? Ruiz couldn’t imagine who or what the cook hoped to notify.

Einduix squatted beneath a little tree, offering no explanation. Twenty minutes passed and the only sound was the buzzing of flies.

When the slab grated back into a slot, exposing a dark opening, it so” startled Ruiz that he jumped up and grabbed at his wireblade.

“No, no,” said Einduix. “These will be friends.”

Two faces looked out, eyes blinking against the glare of day. One emerged into the light: an old man who looked a great deal like Einduix, except for the color of his skin, which was a pale citron.

“You I recognize, Einduix-who-fled. Who might the barbarian be?” The man’s voice was deep and measured, larger than his stature. He held a splinter gun of antique design; the muzzle was fixed on Ruiz. He seemed poised to kill, though it seemed an oddly dutiful readiness, completely dispassionate. “Never may barbarians enter the Remnant. Have you forgotten?”

“No,” said Einduix. “But he carries the commission of Somnire the Glorious.”

The man’s eyes opened very wide, and the muzzle dropped — but only for an instant. “Truth? How verified?”

“The Roderigans sent him into the virtual. He has returned whole. He spoke of the city in its glory… spoke as only a loving visitor could. He has slain Roderigans; he has caused great frustration to Roderigo.”

“Ah!” Now the old man glowed, lips curling back from the black stumps of his teeth. But he still held the splinter gun ready. “Name yourself, barbarian.”

“Ruiz Aw. And yours?” Ruiz made his voice polite and easy. What an irony it would be for Ruiz Aw to be killed by an elderly unemployed troglodyte librarian.

“Not important, to one who may soon die. Answer this, for your life: What did you see beneath Somnire’s bridge?” The old man leaned forward in his intensity, so that the light fell brighter across his face. Ruiz saw that ancient scars seamed his face.

So eager was the old man to hear his answer that Ruiz thought he might easily disarm him, unless the man had abnormally fast reflexes. Ruiz controlled the impulse. What good would that do him? If he didn’t get some help, he was finished. At worst, the librarian would execute him with more kindness than Roderigo.

“Somnire told me not to look,” Ruiz said slowly. “But before he warned me, I think I saw terrible things. Things that I had made.”

The muzzle sagged. The old man’s eyes grew wet as he returned his weapon to its sling. “Glorious Somnire… how does he fare?”

“Well enough,” Ruiz answered — though in truth he did not understand how Somnire managed to live with a heart so badly broken.

“What else can you say?” said the old man — and then in an uncanny parallel to Ruiz’s thoughts: “I would ask you more, but I would only break my heart. Hard wisdom. Come below, and we will help with Somnire’s commission.” He moved back.

Ruiz stepped inside the tunnel, stooping to clear the low ceiling. Einduix followed. There were a half-dozen little people in the tunnel, all silent, all armed. He lifted his arms and they searched him, relieving him of the wireblade and prodding at the limpet. Einduix spoke. “A medical device only.” The old man nodded and they left it in place over the injured ribs.

The slab slid shut with an ominous sound. “Thank you,” Ruiz said.

The old man made Einduix’s fart-flapping gesture. “Don’t thank us. Be grateful to Somnire the Glorious.”

Ruiz nodded, though he had an impulse to describe the nature of Somnire’s commission in other than grateful terms. “How should I address you?”

The old man frowned. “Call me Joe,” he said, finally. He turned to Einduix. “So, have you returned full of energy wealth, as once you swore you would do?”

Einduix shrugged. “I own a tidy sum, in the Northring Mercantile Bank. But I came home only by accident, naked of energy.”

Joe made a sound of derision. Then he jerked his head and they set off down the tunnel by the light of pale green lanterns.

Some of the tunnels were so low that Ruiz was forced to waddle through them like a duck, and twice he had to get on his belly and crawl a hundred meters through an ancient conduit barely wide enough to pass his shoulders. At intervals he felt a movement of air and the pressure of unseen eyes. It came to him that the conduits were actually very ingenious defensive structures. How could any attacking force survive a passage through such a tunnel?

Finally he followed the old man into a corridor lit by tubes of some blue bioluminescent algae.

Joe stopped at a steel door and several of his followers put their shoulders to it. It slid aside with a screech of protest.

“Wait here,” he said to Ruiz. “I will speak to you later, after Einduix-who-fled gives explanation.”

“All right,” said Ruiz a bit apprehensively. He stepped inside.

A dusty plastic bench stood in the center of the otherwise unfurnished room. Ruiz sat down.

The old man nodded, and the door slid shut, wrapping Ruiz in a dense velvety darkness. Locks clattered.

Ruiz found himself finally alone with his thoughts, bereft of distractions. He remembered the days of the recent past, trying to slip lightly past the dreadful deeds he had done, the madness he had retreated into during his time in the slaughterhouse. But it seemed impossible; the more he tried not to think about his bloody hands, the red glee he had felt… the more those memories seized him.

He felt himself beginning to rock back and forth in the darkness. He bit his lip until the blood flowed, trying to feel the pain and nothing else.

When the limpet’s tendril touched his mouth he jerked. A shuddery frisson of horror ran through him before he realized what it was.

It explored the jagged flesh, then applied a coagulant and anesthetic. He felt the sting of sutures, little ghostly pains that made his lip itch.

A sedative jetted into his bloodstream, bringing a sense of warm detachment. He sighed and wiped the blood from his chin as best he could. There was no point in cultivating the appearance of a self-destructive madman, even if that was what he was. Especially if that was what he was.

His thoughts drifted now along more comfortable paths. He remembered Nisa, but perhaps because of the drug, his memories were sweet, untainted by the pain of her loss.

Time passed indefinitely, and Ruiz dwelled in loving recall. After a while he began to wonder why he had chosen to give Nisa so much of his allegiance. She was beautiful. But the universe was full of beautiful women. She was brave, but though bravery was a rarer quality, he’d met many brave persons. She was intelligent, warm, witty. None of those qualities were so unusual.

Was it all just a tangle of erotic coincidence? He shook his head. Difficult to believe. But other explanations trespassed into the realm of mysticism, in which he could put no belief.

“Well, what does it matter?” he said. He took a deep breath and let his mind empty, until he was just a man waiting in a dark room.

By the time Einduix came back, Ruiz had lost all sense of time.

“Ruiz Aw, hello!” said the little orange man. He seemed to be alone; he held a lantern full of glowing worms, a squirming tangle of greenish light. He carried in his other hand a covered tray.

“Hello,” Ruiz said sluggishly. He found it difficult to think; perhaps he should instruct the limpet to discontinue treatment, now that he had enough light to reset the limpet’s parameters. He fumbled under his shirt and clicked it off. He felt slightly painful tugs, as the tendrils withdrew from his body — but his ribs seemed much better. He poked at them, found only a little lingering soreness.

Ruiz dropped the limpet in a pocket. It might later come in handy; for now he would conserve its limited capacity.

Einduix thrust the tray at Ruiz. “Breakfast,” said the little man. “Eat quickly.”

Ruiz peeked under the cover. There was a bowl of yellowish porridge and several strips of what appeared to be dried fish. A deep cup held water.

“Eat!” said Einduix, so Ruiz did. The food seemed tasteless — or perhaps he was paying no attention. When he was done, he felt marginally more alert.

“So… are you ready?” said Einduix.

“Ready?”

“Yes! You must go to SeaStack; so you claimed when we met on the hillside.”

“Ah,” said Ruiz. “And how will I go?”

“Those-who-stayed took counsel. Aid will be given, as I promised. They can spare you no weapons; they have too few already. But they will help as they can. Follow!”

Ruiz got up and followed. Perhaps, he thought, Einduix was incapable of explanation. In any case, he lacked the energy to interrogate the little man.

The two of them trudged through kilometers of dark tunnels, a maze of mouldering machinery and sealed doors. They met no one.

Ruiz thought about his benefactors, since he had nothing better to do. Obviously a remnant of the stackfolk survived here, down in the deepest rubble of the Compendium. But to what purpose? He could not imagine such blind loyalty, at least not to a thing that had died so many centuries before. After a while he stopped thinking about it; the universe was full of inexplicable things.

After what seemed hours, Ruiz became aware of a faint shuddering sound, rhythmic and diffuse, almost too deep to be heard with the ears.

“What is it?” he asked.

Einduix glanced back. “The sea. Do you not voyage to SeaStack?”

“Such is my hope,” said Ruiz glumly.

“Then follow,” Einduix said, lifting his pale lantern and moving off.

The sound of the sea grew louder. Presently the walls of the tunnel began to tremble with it.

Ruiz was ready to ask Einduix another question, when they rounded a curve and came to a gate, a tall slab of monomol secured by heavy cross timbers.

Here a party of stackfolk waited, armed and nervous. The old man named Joe wasn’t with them, and Ruiz felt an unexpected flicker of disappointment. What an odd thing, he thought. What is he to me?

“This is… what?” asked Einduix of the woman who stepped forward. She had a worn defeated face, but she stood straight-backed and held her old punchgun with an air of familiarity.

“Escort,” she said. She handed Ruiz his wireblade. “No activity along the beaches. Roderigo delays; Delt ignores.”

Ruiz shook off his dangerous passivity. “Wait,” he said. “I must know what you plan. This is my area of expertise.”

Einduix frowned at him. “Out into the Sea Caves we go. Where once flourished trade. Where once vessels in great numbers called. There, sealed safe against the ages, low-tech escape boats are hidden.”

“Ah,” said Ruiz. “Well, then, how many are required to obtain one of these?”

“You could do it alone, had you the knowledge.”

“Do you have the knowledge?” Ruiz asked Einduix.

“For a certainty.”

“Then let us go alone. We’ll have a better chance of escaping notice.”

“Agreed,” said Einduix. The woman argued with him, but without enthusiasm.

In the end, the two of them slipped unescorted through the gate into the Sea Caves.