Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

The canal walls tended to throw every splash and gasp back at him as echoes, so he had no hint that he was being pursued until he saw a ten-foot line of blindingly bright yellow light appear high up on the canal wall a dozen yards ahead and then instantly sweep back, past him and well over his head, and recede away northward faster than any bird.

He gaped after it in wonder, and several seconds later realized that it must have been the beam of a searchlight. Rivas had read of such things, and though he wasn't sure whether or not they worked by electricity, he knew they required a level of technology he thought had been lost many Aces ago.

He resumed dog-paddling down the canal with his bobbing, sleeping burden in tow, a little more quickly now.

«Careful with that stuff!»

Rivas snapped out of his doze and glanced around at the dark, malodorous space under the pier. Boots slowly thumped against the boards over his head; the men on the pier carried lanterns, but little of their light reflected under the pier and it was more by the phosphorescence of the water that Rivas was able to see that the bald, toothless boy was still moored safely to one of the pilings by the back of his shirt, which Rivas had looped over a projecting nail head. The breakwater stopped the waves half a mile out, and the rain tended to flatten what waves there were inside, but Rivas had been worried when he'd moored the unconscious far-gone there that even the gentler rise and fall of the sheltered water might float him loose—in which case, of course, he would quietly have drowned.

Rivas unhooked his own arm from over the cross brace he'd selected for his personal mooring, and as he worked fingers and elbow to get the circulation going, he stared at the dim blur just above the water that was the boy's head. Rivas wondered what he'd do if the kid started speaking again, or even snoring. Drown him? Certainly wouldn't be difficult.

But he knew he couldn't, even though any dog or cat– hell, hamsters, mice, bugs—had more intelligence than a far-gone. Somehow ripping the throat out of that trash man, on top of having tried to knife Frake McAn and having killed Nigel and the two hooters and that shepherd, had broken something in him. He felt crippled by pity, by empathy—he felt that now it would sicken him to kill flies.

It scared him to realize it, as if he'd suddenly discovered he was losing feeling and control in his left hand.

«I said careful, damn it,» came again the voice that had waked him.

«I'm being careful,, brother,» came a petulant younger voice. «You want these in the water yet?»

«Nah, they're cool enough in the rain. You can tie the baskets on the rings, though. And use square knots, will you? Like I showed you. Last trip two of the baskets came loose and sank, and I caught all kinds of hell for it.»

«Okay.»

Slow footsteps and a clinking drag of chain moved from behind Rivas to over his head and then out to the end of the pier, and the strangely cowled hull of the big boat there went down a little and then rose. Low waves spread out through the pilings and gave Rivas a salty slap in the mouth.

For quite a while then there was no noise except for occasional chain clinks and footsteps from the boat and aimless humming from the man on the pier above—Rivas had plenty of time to wish for food and dry clothes, and to decide that his increasing ability to see was due to the imminence of dawn rather than a gradual improvement of his night vision. Then he heard the sudden shifting of a length of chain on the boards over his head.

«Look sharp, Brother Willie. Shepherd.»

«Right. Thanks.»

Soon Rivas heard hoofbeats . . . and then he heard them with agonizing clarity as the horse was ridden right out onto the pier. «Good morning, brother!» came a new voice, tense but trying not to show it. «Are you alone?»

«There's Brother Willie, too, on the boat, getting the baskets tied to the gunwales. Nobody else.»

«Have you seen anyone else tonight?»

«Uh . . . not since the worried lads left for the dance. They through yet?»

«Not yet. Slowing down, though. Well, here, take this thing—don't point it at me! Idiot. It's a flare pistol. If you see anybody but your regular crew, shoot it. You pull the trigger, here, let me show you—that thing. Okay?»

Rivas saw the boat dip and rise again, and guessed Brother Willie had come to the rail to look. Again a little wave surged past, and Rivas glanced worriedly at the far-gone. I hope, he thought, that Jaybush doesn't get up—and start thinking—this early.

«Shoot it at whoever?»

«No. It's a flare gun. It shoots flares. Shoot it up into the sky, okay?»

«Sure. Who is it we might see?»

«None of—well, why not. We think an impostor may have come in on one of yesterday's wagons. A guy broke out of one of the bunkhouses and apparently killed one of the constructs and kidnapped a donor. I actually saw him last night, but he had a leg band and I thought he was a trustee. So it's important to me personally that we get him back. If you're the ones who first see him . . . I won't forget, understand?»

«Sure, brother. We'll keep our eyes open.»

«Be careful. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but it seems fairly certain that Gregorio Rivas was at the Regroup Tent a couple of days ago. They grabbed him, but he had corrupted a sister, and she freed him. She's in the sister city now, appropriately enough, undergoing remedial discipline. He hasn't been seen anywhere else since, including Ellay, so the guy here last night might be him.»

Rivas had winced and bared his teeth during the shepherd's statement, remembering Sister Windchime—her hair the color of the dry brush on the hills, her long athletic legs, her alertness and repressed compassion, and her evident doubts of the faith—and then he made himself stop remembering her.

«Uh . . . sun coming up,» put in Brother Willie. «We better be getting the Blood into the baskets and into the water, huh?»

There was a silence then that even Rivas, under the pier, could tell was awkward.

«I mean, uh, the harvest powder,» Brother Willie amended nervously.

«What did you call it a minute ago?» asked the shepherd, possibly through clenched teeth.

«I meant to say harv—»

» What? »

«Blood, brother,» admitted Brother Willie unhappily.

«Why did you call it that?»

«I don't know, I—»

» Why? »

There was a pause, and then Brother Willie said, sniffling, «I been around. I had Blood once or twice. I know it when I see it.»

«Ah.» The horse stamped and flapped its lips. «If you are the ones to spot our intruder, I'll overlook this.» The horse galloped back down the pier, and then the hoofbeats receded away into the steady whisper of the rain on the sea.

«You . . . damned . . . idiot. »

«Aw, Jesus, brother, all I—»

«Shut up! Say Jaybush if you want to swear! I've met far-gones smarter than you. Yes, get the harvest powder into the baskets and over the sides. And make sure the tarps cover every bit, hear? If sun gets in and ruins one pinch of this batch, I think you're gonna wind up manning a hose in a bleeder hut yourself.»

For a while there was just a lot of clanking and grunting from above, then a big cubical object wrapped in a tarpaulin descended jerkily into Rivas's view on the end of a rope, hit the water, and with a lot of bubbling and flapping of the tarp sank until three-quarters of its bulk was under the water. Another followed, and then another, until the side of the boat that Rivas could see was adorned from bow to stem with a full dozen bobbing black bales connected to it by taut cables. He could hear the tactless Brother Willie performing the same operation now on the far side of the boat.