Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

He rode until almost dawn, to put distance between himself and the Community. If experience held, the appraisers would arrive at the Hall in the late morning to begin preparing for the auction. When they discovered he was missing, they would assume he had fled into the gaunt structures of the inner City, and they would search there. No one would expect him to leave the warm confines of the ancient buildings. There was, after all, no other place in the world where a man could live.

Nevertheless, Wincavan was cautious. Fearing the possibility of pursuit, he made his camp behind a heavy thicket, using one of the light tapestries of the City Builders to set up a lean-to, pitching it against a fallen tree. It sheltered both himself and—to a lesser extent—Armagon. He tried to build a fire, but the wind came from all directions, and the driving snow smothered the flames. Finally he gave up, wrapped himself in his blankets, and drifted wearily to sleep.

In the morning he woke stiff and cold. The storm had blown itself out, but the sun was a yellow smear in an overcast sky. He got the fire going this time, put on a pot of coffee and a slab of veal. Then he pushed swollen feet down into his boots.

He was on his way quickly enough, driven by falling temperatures and the growing certainty that he would die if he could not reach the tower quickly. And yet, the risk entailed nothing so deadly as remaining in a Hall bereft of its living phantoms, confronting the terrible awareness of a future limited to Rotifer’s practicalities. Surely it was better to die out here than to stagger on from year to dreary year, burdened by his knowledge. In a sense, he was perhaps the last of the race of men, direct descendant of those who had tamed, and somehow lost, a universe. (Memori Collin’s metal weapon lay against his ribs.)

The crystals, still wrapped in his clothes, swayed gently on either flank of the wassoon.

He pulled his scarf up and wrapped it about his face. Saliva leaked into the garment and froze. Flurries blew up, and the wind rattled the trees. Gray shapes moved through the falling snow.

His hood was quite long, designed for severe weather. He might have been looking out of a tunnel, and the illusion carried some comfort. He tried to withdraw into a corner of his mind, away from the stiffening fingers and aching muscles and erratic lungs. His clothing grew heavy, and his heart pounded.

Periodically, he dismounted and walked. Armagon watched with luminous brown eyes, slowing his own pace to match.

The second night was less stormy, but the clear skies brought bitter temperatures. Wincavan quit early, got his shelter up, and slept by a steady fire.

In the morning he considered going back. He even turned the wassoon around, thinking to end the foolishness and save his life. But they’d gone only a few steps when he stopped, sat indecisively aboard his mount for perhaps ten minutes, and swung his head once more to the west.

Hour after hour, he searched the horizon for mountains. He would see them first, and, within a few hours, the tower. But even after that it would be at least two more days!

Hopeless. My God, it had been hopeless from the start.

In the end, he was overtaken by hallucinations, intensified perhaps by the gentle rhythm of muscle and sinew on which he rode. His father traveled beside him, and occasionally there was a third rider: sometimes it was Oliver Candliss, sometimes Memori Collin.

They wore their uniforms and sat straight on their mounts, urging him forward, eyes trained to the west. Grimrock is there, Emory! You don’t see it because your eyes are old now. But it is not far. Keep on.

On the fourth day, late in the afternoon, he fell out of the saddle. Deep snow cushioned him from serious injury, but he twisted his left elbow and knee. He limped badly after that, and the arm never stopped hurting.

He halted every couple of hours to put up his shelter and build a fire.

He came to regret his rashness, to regret it with all his heart. But in other, perhaps less rational moments, when his invisible companions rode with him, he seemed never to have known a fiercer pride, never to have experienced a more intense joy.

The frigid air stung his lungs, and his coat became an intolerable weight. While he counted his heartbeats, Memori Collin’s message changed: Emory , she whispered, her voice very like the wind moving across the snowfields, all we ever were rides with you . And he realized, yes, if I die it will be as though none of them ever lived .

And he knew it was so: Tears squeezed from his eyes and froze on his cheeks, and gasping in the knife air he urged the big animal on.

So they rode together, Emory Wincavan and his father (young again) and Oliver Candliss and Memori Collin. In time the sharp edge of the cold diminished. The reins grew slack in his hands, and the world filled with the steady tread of the wassoon. Even the hallucinations disintegrated, until there was nothing but Armagon, the snow, and the knowledge of what he carried.

It was dark.

He clung to the creature’s furry neck, vaguely aware of its warmth. And his last thought, as the saddle slipped away from him, was whispered into the animal’s ear: Forgive me ….

The goliats found him in the spring. Nearby lay the carcass of the mount.

They burned the body in accordance with tradition. Because he was not one of them, they could not invoke the blessings of the spirits of the place where he had fallen.

Memori Collin’s pistol burned unseen with him, and when the flames drove the temperature of the pile sufficiently high, it exploded, startling the onlookers.

They recovered the crystals and distributed them among the females, who admired them greatly, and put them aside for the solstice festival.

The flagon they knew as their own.

There was one among the goliats who recognized the old man’s features, who remembered the great hall at the edge of the Ruin, and the lambent specters flickering within its western chamber. After some difficulty, he acquired one of the jewels, possibly summer green Omyra. He inserted it into a rough leather pouch, which he tied to his belt. Afterward, he carried it always with him.

In time, when the goliats drove their enemies into the prairies to the north and east, he had occasion again to visit that haunted place. It was cold and dark, and he stood long in the shadowy courtyard. After a time, he extracted the jewel and held it aloft. “Thank you, Old One,” he said.

It glittered in the starlight.

The rain began to fall as they threw the last few spadefuls of earth onto the grave.

Quait bowed his head and murmured the traditional farewell. Chaka looked at the wooden marker, which bore Flojian’s name, his dates, and the legend FAR FROM HOME.

She hadn’t cared all that much for Flojian. He was self-centered and he complained a lot and he always knew better ways to do things. But you could count on him to pull his weight, and now there were only two of them.

Quait finished, looked up, and nodded. Her turn. She was glad it was over. The poor son of a bitch had fallen on his head out of the upper level of a ruin, and during four excruciating days, they’d been able to do little for him. Pointless, silly way to die. “Flojian,” she said, “we’ll miss you.” She let it go at that because she meant it, and the rain was coming harder.

They retreated to their horses. Quait packed his spade behind his saddle and mounted in that awkward way that always left her wondering whether Lightfoot would chuck him off on the other side.

She stood looking up at him.