Nigel Findley - House of the Sun

"How long? How far along are they?"

"Far," she answered simply.

"Then we'd better be fragging moving, hadn't we?" I started jogging down that scree slope, starting the 500-meter trek to where the Dance was going on. (What the frag are you going to do when you get there? part of my brain asked. Shut the frag up! another part explained politely.) Around me, I could see the troopers heading down the hill, too. Kono and Akaku'akanene were starting down after me. Pohaku was still standing in the shadow of the downed Merlin, frozen in indecision. Well, fuck him if he couldn't take a joke. I ran on, quickly losing ground to the trained and fit troopers.

That's when the spirits hit us again-maybe the same ones that had downed the Merlin, maybe a different bunch. They hurtled down on us from above, like Thor shots-fire, and wind, and water, and Christ-knows-what-else. They hit the troopers first, the young, hardened men and women who'd easily opened the distance between themselves and the wheezing, out-of-shape erstwhile PI who was trying to keep up with them. Some of the soldiers saw the spirits coming, had enough time to get their weapons up and fire them. Most didn't. Not that it made any difference at all. Bursts of tracer fire, grenades, whatever-everything just went straight through the attacking spirits as if they weren't even there. And then the spirits were among the troopers, and the carnage began.

I turned back and screamed over my shoulder, "Akaku'akanene! Stop them!"

The bird-boned shaman stopped in her tracks, closed her eyes and began to sing. But it was too late for the troopers. They were all dead, or the next worst thing to it, before she even got the first notes of her croaking song out of her throat. Below me some of the spirits were still disporting themselves with the bodies of their victims-rending them into little pieces, carrying them high into the air and dropping them onto the rocks below, or scouring them with fire and cooking off their ammunition. As I watched, frozen in horror, some of the spirits seemed to notice me and the others for the first time. Breaking off from their diversions with the corpses, they hurtled up the scree slope toward us.

I had my own assault rifle off my shoulder as they came, but I didn't even bother touching the trigger. I was dead when those spirits reached me.

They didn't reach me, of course. They broke off their direct trajectories, soaring up into the sky like planes pulling out of power dives at the last instant before slamming into a previously unseen obstacle. My ears were filled with inhuman screams and howls-the spirits' anger and frustration at being blocked from their prey. Behind me I saw that Kono and Pohaku were moving in nice and close to Akaku'akanene, and I figured that they had the right idea. Whatever the Nene shaman was doing, I didn't want to test its range.

Overhead, the spirits were plunging down from the sky again, but before they could reach us they pulled out of their dives once more. Within seconds, we had a dozen of more of the fragging things swirling and orbiting around us, filling the air with their shrieks. At no point did they come closer than about fifteen meters from Akaku'akanene, and I belatedly realized they were displaying the same sort of approach-avoidance reaction as the spirits I'd seen circling the distant Dance.

"What the frag are they?" I asked Akaku'akanene in a husky whisper.

If the kahuna hadn't answered me, I'd have understood. Hell, curiosity always took backseat to survival in my book. She didn't open her eyes, but she did stop her song long enough to tell me, "Guardian spirits."

"Storm spirits? Volcano spirits? What?" I pressed.

"Both. Neither. Guarthan spirits." She went back to her song, and I left her to it.

Now what the frag was I supposed to do? Akaku'akanene was the only thing keeping the "guardian" spirits off our collective ass. Somehow, 1 couldn't see her extending that protection to me as I jogged the half klick across the volcanic wasteland to get to the Dancers. (And what the frag will you do when you get there? part of my mind asked. Shut the frag up! another part responded.) Likewise, I couldn't see her keeping the shield (or whatever it was) up while she jogged along with me. Maybe she could walk and still keep the spirits at bay… but would we be able to get to the Dancers in time?

"Frag!" I yelled in frustration. "They're guardians, right? Can't you just tell them to leave us alone?" I gestured wildly in the direction of the Dance. "We're trying to stop this thing. I thought that was what they wanted too. Don't they get that?"

Akaku'akanene nodded and broke off her song just long enough to say, "Yes. They want to preserve the pattern."

"Then why'd they want to scrag us?"

"I don't know." And again she returned to her harsh song.

Great. The only thing that could make things worse would be if…

And, as if in response to my thought, there he was. Quinn Harlech, appearing maybe fifteen meters downslope from me, materializing out of a prismatic shimmer of light. Even at that distance I could feel those lasers he called eyes burning holes in me. His lips twisted in a scornful grin, and he drew breath to make a (doubtless scathing) remark.

Before he could get a single word out, I saw his eyes go wide, and he looked up. He threw up his arms in a sweeping gesture, and the air directly above his head flickered as if with heat lightning.

Not an instant too soon. The guardian spirit that was making a high-speed pass at the elf's cranium slammed into Quinn's magical shield, deflecting off like a basketball hurled at a concrete wall. The elf made another, more casual gesture, and with a despairing shriek the spirit was torn apart as if by invisible claws.

It had taken him less than a second to dispatch the attacking spirit, but that was long enough for the other guardians-the ones swarming around Akaku'akanene's arcane shield-to notice his existence. And, to judge from their actions, to decide that he was more of a threat to their precious pattern than we were. Of the dozen or so spirits swirling around us, all but a couple broke off and bee-lined it for Quinn Harlech.

I heard the elf curse in some fluid, complex tongue. He reached out toward the approaching spirits with a hand twisted into a claw. Half of them burst asunder, spattering the rocks below with the spirit equivalent of guts and gore. (Ectoplasm, maybe…?) The others, totally undismayed by the geekage of their colleagues, hurtled on, screaming like chipped-up banshees. Quinn frowned. He gestured again, and another half dozen spirits exploded.

That should have put paid to all of them, yet still the air around the elf was filled with ever more screaming, circling spirits. Where the frag were they coming from?

It took me a moment to understand. The elf's presence was siphoning off spirits from the vicinity of the Dance itself. As I watched, a constant stream of gibbering guardians was peeling away from the vicinity of the Dance, flooding over toward Quinn.

He fought well, that beleaguered elf. I don't know how many guardian spirits he blew to ectoplasmic tatters, or turned inside out, or transformed into clouds of ashes or drifting puffs of smoke or rains of frogs. Dozens. But for each one he geeked, two more joined the fray. Within half a minute the guardian spirits were so numerous I couldn't even see the elf anymore.

Finally, from within the tumult of spirits, I heard a sharp, "Frag!" Then came a brilliant flicker of prismatic light, partially occulted by the swarming guardians, and I knew Quinn had made his departure.

Once he was gone, I expected the spirits to turn their attentions back to us.

And, to be honest, I expected to die. There were so many of the fragging things-so many that even Quinn Harlech had decided discretion was the better part of valor. If the elf couldn't take them on, how could Akaku'akanene shield us from them?