Again:

  In the tavern, they swing their tankards and sing, as though the war and the final calamity are but distant things or tales to frighten children.

  While in one corner, the air grows dark, begins to twist.

  Alone on his couch, Tom shuddered as the visions took him deeper:

  Infiltrating a realm far from home, the narrow-shouldered man moves among well-dressed men and women, stops at the buffet tables, selects a red confection and chews as though he is used to such luxury. Then he moves to the edge of a conversational group. He can learn much from their speech-patterns, by the topics they choose not to discuss. But he is after specific information.

  Standing by a pillar, a security officer dressed in purple and black turns, and the expression in those cold eyes is one that no human being should ever witness.

  Tom. Reach out to me, Tom.

  Again:

  The interrogator’s fingers squeeze her breast hard, and she cries out.

  ‘No ...’

  Again:

  Lungs burning as they run from the conflagration but then black flames burn and the things are in front of them as well, and metallic talons slice the air.

  Slick and blue, intestines slide from their bodies.

  Tom! Don’t let the Chaos take you.

  Again:

  Gouts of superheated steam as grasers pierce the water and the infiltrators boil alive.

  ‘Leave me alone!’

  Again:

  Lev-bikes arc, spitting fire, but the armoured ground troops are too many, and the things behind them rear and spread their wings. The team leader cries out as her bike tips, spins, is gone.

  And Enemy rifles come to bear upon the remaining Chevaliers.

  Let me help, sweet Tom. Let me help you.

  It was as intimate as a lover’s hand sliding inside his garments, fingertips touching him and moving lower.

  ‘Eemur?’ Tom half-raised his head.

  Then fell back into the maelstrom.

  Ozone stink as the air splits apart...

  No, Tom. Keep control. Like this.

  Shift:

  A swimmer, masked, moving through black water in an arterial channel enwrapped by solid basalt, then broken light ripples on waves overhead, and he surfaces. The things that move upon the dock are not human, and never were.

  Something cold trails across the swimmer’s leg.

  Leave it.

  ‘No! I can’t...’

  Leave it now.

  Tom flung his arm around. He screamed.

  You have to disengage, my love.

  But the visions pulled at him, dragged him down.

  Yes, but I have you.

  ‘Eemur?’

  Stay with me.

  Tom slipped away.

  Stones sharp beneath his belly as the sighting mechanism focuses, the scarlet-clad officers spring into sharp relief and he squeezes the—

  No. With me.

  Armoured levanquins sliding over the—

  No.

  Finger on the—

  No.

  Darkness and—

  I’ve got you.

  Fading.

  I’ve got you now, dear Tom.

  ‘Eemur?’

  The darkness that slid down next was ordinary exhaustion, a heavy sleep, while Eemur’s Head, on her lev-tray separated from Tom’s chamber by three distinct layers of stone and steel, used the talents and abilities she had honed over centuries of life and non-life to keep the roiling visions at bay.

  ~ * ~

  42

  NULAPEIRON AD 3426

  Tom’s first significant success was the rescue of Duke Karalvin’s army. It reinforced his commanders’ determination to fight for their Warlord Primus; it also made Tom realize the limitations of his own powers.

  The operation started with a small event, a sudden movement in a holodisplay over the big conference table, and Elva pointing at the shift in colour. ‘What’s that? Something in Tulgrin Vastness?’

  Wind howling past broken pillars, while men in cobalt-blue uniforms with crossed silver sashes flee from clawing metallic wings ...

  Tom maintained focus.

  Are you all right?

  Yes, so far.

  Eemur was floating somewhere behind Tom’s head, but he did not turn to look. Instead he asked General Ygran: ‘Which force has a uniform of cobalt with crossed silver, do you know?’

  ‘I don’t... Karalvin’s Halberdiers. Why do you ask, Warlord?’

  ‘Because that’ - Tom nodded towards the display - ‘is the force the Anomaly’s attacking in Tulgrin.’

  There were glances among the tactical planners around the table. But Elva merely rubbed her chin, considering, then said: ‘They would be worthwhile allies. Karalvin’s got quite a reputation.’

  General Ygran nodded.

  Truholm Janix, the logosopher who was beginning to prove his mettle, ran his fingers through his untidy hair, stared at the image, then shook his head. ‘Duke Karalvin passed up on a chance to join us before. And look at his position.’

  ‘It is bad,’ admitted Elva.

  ‘But not impossible.’ Tom looked at General Ygran. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t like it. The Anomaly’s forces are sweeping in from three directions on that stratum, and look ... A fourth battalion is going to rise from directly beneath them, if the Enemy can cross Beeling’s Gap fast enough.’

  ‘You don’t think a rescue is possible?’

  ‘I think a relieving force would be destroyed, unless they could extract Karalvin’s forces en masse before all the Enemy forces can come together. But such an extraction ... Damn it, Warlord. I don’t think it can be done. Not in the time available.’

  On her floating lev-tray, Eemur’s Head circled the chamber, close to the ceiling. Elva glanced up, her face expressionless, then dropped her gaze to the tactical schemata.

  ‘If only the Alstern Abyss wasn’t occupied—’

  Tom rocked slightly on his feet.

  Black flames form a portal, as men and winged beings move into it, deploying elsewhere, leaving behind five platoons of men whose eyes no longer reflect human thoughts, their graser rifles held at port-arms. They stand centimetres from the edge’s lip. They have no more fear of the sheer drop than a single blood cell is afraid of ceasing to exist.

  Tom smiled.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘the Enemy is not as powerful there as you think.’

  Six holovolumes opened.

  Count Uvril, bearded and glowering. The ferret-faced Lord Vandon. Square-featured and professional: Major Elksin. Lady Liranda, her hair prematurely white, her eyes shining with a psychopathic need for vengeance. Young Alvix, his empty left sleeve tugged by the wind. A brown-skinned woman wearing a golden torc who refused to give her name, but whose partisan group had wiped out three Anomaly-held supply depots.

  Every one of them commanded forces still fighting in tunnels and halls and caverns down below.

  ‘Alvix?’ Tom addressed the most loyal man first. ‘You see the target. Will you take your force downshaft to this location?’

  Subsidiary holos flared at Tom’s gesture. Alvix and the other five commanders looked to one side, seeing the same display replicated.

  ‘Aye, Warlord.’

  ‘Action in two hours and twenty minutes.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Alvix’s image winked out.

  The other five forces were located at varying distances from the target areas. Coordination was going to be the greatest problem. Tom sent schematic images to Major Elksin, whose band of experienced mercenaries was closest to the target.

  ‘Can your people deploy quickly?’

  ‘Five minutes’ notice, and we’re moving, Warlord.’

  ‘Thank you, Major. Out.’

  Tom addressed the remaining four commanders: ‘The key issue is transportation. We want to get as many of Duke Karalvin’s people away from the pincer-trap as we can. But—’

  ‘Question, Warlord.’

  ‘Yes, Lady Liranda.’

  ‘How critical is the timeframe? We can mobilize more lev-platforms if we—’

  ‘Absolutely critical, I’m afraid. The Enemy will be able to concentrate huge forces in the area if we let the schedule slip.’

  ‘Then we go with what we have.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Other questions, my friends?’

  There were none.

  ‘Then Fate be with us all.’

  In the command centre, no-one quite dared to ask how the Warlord Primus knew things that strategists and SatScan logs and intelligence analysts had no knowledge of. They stared at him when the briefing was over, then found things to do, busying themselves at their displays, talking in low-toned voices over comms-links: all the myriad tasks that kept a war machine functioning.

  Eemur floated on her lev-tray, spherical eyes trained upon the tactical holos.

  Speaking as a non-expert...Aren’t you cutting this rather fine?

  Tom looked up at her.

  You know I am.

  Her lev-tray bobbed once in acknowledgement.

  It was a rout.

  Liranda’s group made better time than expected, and laid down covering fire throughout the Giraltae Cavernae. Karalvin’s beleaguered forces, finding unexpected reinforcements, acted sensibly: instead of switching to the attack, they executed a sequence of sweeping moves that cut along the periphery of the Enemy positions, falling back and regrouping in a series of fast manoeuvres that caused command staff in Axolon Array to gasp at their audacity and timing.

  A worthwhile ally.

  One-armed Alvix attacked Enemy ambushers from the rear, taking down most of them before they knew an attack was under way. But the fighting after that was fierce, and a third of Alvix’s troopers were wounded or killed by the time he reached Duke Karalvin’s positions.

  Then Major Elksin’s tough-disciplined soldiers discovered that even the fiercest black-bronze metallic creature will die when twenty graser beams are trained upon it at the same time.

  Amid clouds of choking stone dust and the cries of wounded men and women, lev-platforms bore Karalvin’s forces away, beating a hard-fought retreat before the main mass of Anomaly-controlled forces could enter the region and envelop them.

  Hundreds were left behind, broken or dead.

  It was a rout, but it was not a disaster. Ten thousand fighters escaped, and spread the tale of Duke Karalvin’s Retreat that became a victory in the face of an Enemy that had seemed unbeatable.

  In Axolon Array, as planners totted up the figures, the engagement’s true worth became known. Within hours of the first reports, their comms-webs received tentative queries from scattered groups of freedom fighters that had not dared to affiliate themselves with anyone, preferring to hit and run from hiding.

  To the Anomaly, Tom suspected, the setback was no greater than a servitor missing a spot when he scrubbed out a dirty processor block. But to free human beings throughout the world, Karalvin’s Retreat became a symbol of defiance, a hint that the all-powerful Enemy was not the irresistible juggernaut it appeared.

  By the day’s end, thirteen new groups had sworn allegiance to the Free Alliance, as people had begun to call the growing resistance movement. They pledged fealty to the Warlord Primus. Duke Karalvin was the most prominent warrior to proclaim his devotion to the cause, as he knelt before Tom in person and accepted Tom’s leadership.

  The next day, twenty-three more resistance groups, including a full battalion of Drusigan Dragoons, signed up.

  Strike and fade.

  That became the unofficial motto of the Free Alliance over the next tenday, as Tom directed a series of daring attacks against Enemy-controlled targets. One of the missions was a disaster that ended when the Dark Fire simply enlarged and swallowed half of the attacking force, and the others were forced to flee beneath a barrage of superior fire from Absorbed humans who had once been elite troops of the Brildakov Brigade.

  But other raids were successful, with few losses as they swooped in from directions the Enemy had not foreseen and took out strategic targets.

  By the end of the tenday, three hundred and twenty-two separate outfits from throughout the world had joined the Free Alliance, their liaison officers reporting aboard one or other of the four hundred terraformer spheres that were now home to the resistance forces.

  ‘Now,’ Tom told Elva, ‘it’s getting critical.’

  ‘If the Anomaly starts attacking the terraformers—’

  ‘Then we won’t have much time left.’

  ‘Which means you need the Collegium techs right now, Tom.’

  ‘But Avernon ... We need him, too.’

  Elva turned away, not answering.

  She agrees. But you put too much faith in one man.

  Eemur’s Head floated outside the command centre.

  ‘Avernon,’ said Tom, ‘is a bifurcatin’ genius.’

  That was the moment that Lady Renata came bustling into the chamber, holding up a crystal. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And we know exactly where he is.’

  ‘Where, for Chaos’ sake?’

  ‘As you might expect ... In Strehling Suhltone. We have Pathfinder observers on the ground.’

  ‘Around the Collegium?’

  ‘Right.’

  Elva swore quietly. Then: ‘They could have told us. We’ve beamed messages to the Collegiate defence squads, in Strehling Suhltone and in Rigay Larn, and got nothing in reply.’

  ‘That’s because,’ Renata said, ‘they don’t trust anyone. You could be Absorbed for all they know.’

  ‘We ... Right.’

  Tom looked at them, then dug inside his waistband, pulled out a violet crystal.

  ‘The Crystal Lady,’ he said, ‘gave me this. I can call on the Grey Shadows for help. The question is, should I? And is now the time?’

  Elva, whose contact with the Grey Shadows was long lost, said: ‘Most of their people are probably already with us, in Free Alliance groups. I don’t see it making much difference. It can’t hurt, but I don’t see it changing anything.’

  Renata was thoughtful.

  ‘You’re wondering what the Crystal Lady herself can do, is that it, Warlord?’

  ‘There may be forces other than human that she can command. You’re the expert on native lifeforms. What can they do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean ... They live in the magma. Perhaps they can control it. But I don’t know at all.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Elva.

  ‘Yes, but ... I want to hold something in reserve, my love. Maybe they’re it, or part of... What is it, Elva?’

  She was staring into space, in a way Tom knew well: searching through minutiae in her memory - a memory that could never stop recording what she saw and heard and felt.

  ‘The bastard.’ Then Elva looked at Tom. ‘I’ve been trying to figure out what he’s up to, because he’s been moving fast, all over the place. He’s sent indirect reports, but other groups have observed his whereabouts ... Some of them have been Grey Shadows-trained: I recognized the protocols.’

  ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘Your old friend Viscount Trevalkin. If he’s not already in the Collegium, then I’ll eat your socks. And believe me’ - Elva turned to Renata - ‘I’ve no intention of eating those alien lifeforms.’

  Tom’s attention was turned elsewhere, in a way that only a Seer could have understood, as he Saw and experienced: a supercilious laugh, and the Magister known as Strostiv nods in agreement. To one side, a lattice of pure white light shines, its purpose not apparent.

  ‘All right, Trevalkin,‘ says Strostiv. ‘But I don’t see how—’

  Then Tom was back in the chamber, where Elva and Renata were staring at him.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s time we pushed this into another phase.’

  ~ * ~

  43