Web of Defeat Page 3

  "I am bored!" he announced.

  Gideon grinned.

  "What's so humorous about that?" Whale demanded. "I am, as you well know, an artist of sorts. And a damned good one, I might add. My weapons—like that bat thing you carry—and my armor are unsurpassed in all the Upper and Middle Grounds. I have a splendid reputation stretching back long before I attempted—in a dignified way, I should remind you—to work my skills on wood and metal. And while I am as you know I am, Gideon, you know too that I am not. The challenge, and I dearly love a challenge, of running Rayn has become less a challenge than a daily matter of—"

  Tuesday flapped to the table. "You want to go, too?"

  Whale grinned, slapped his palms on the table and rose again, gesturing that they should follow as he headed for the stairs.

  "Are we going now?" Gideon said fearfully.

  Tuesday flew after the mayor. "Why wait?"

  "Well... there are provisions—"

  "In my apartments," Whale called back.

  "—preparations—"

  "The tent's already down, and we don't have a damned thing to pack," Tuesday reminded him.

  "—travel maps—"

  "In my pocket," Whale sang out as he opened the heavy door.

  "—and we can't do it alone, so don't you think we ought to sit down and think about it? Plan our strategy? See what—"

  If Tuesday had had hands, hips, and a method to join one to the other, she would have; as it was, she managed fairly well with her wings when she veered to land in front of him.

  "Are you backing out, Giddy?"

  "Don't call me that."

  "You promised."

  "Yes, but I didn't think we would have to deal with Wamchu, remember. This puts a whole new—"

  "Tuesday!" a resonant male voice called from the doorway.

  "Gideon!" Whale called from the doorway.

  "Finlay!" Tuesday shrieked, and flew into the arms of a man who had no right to be as powerful-looking as this one.

  "What?" Gideon said when Whale rushed up to him.

  "Ivy!" Whale said.

  "Shit," Tuesday said as she delicately pecked and nuzzled the blacksmith's bearded cheek.

  Ivy, Gideon thought, and looked at the paper Whale had handed him.

  It was a note.

  From Ivy.

  Oh god, he thought; she hasn't forgotten me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Ivy," Gideon whispered, holding the folded letter as if it were made of the finest of rare silks.

  "I believe it's a matter of some urgency," Whale said hesitantly.

  "Ivy," Gideon crooned, bringing the letter to his nostrils in an attempt to sense a hint of her scent.

  "I don't read other people's messages as a matter of course, you understand," Whale explained as he eased over the threshold into the stairwell. "But Finlay seemed to believe there was something here you should know. I will admit, however, that my timing was not of the best. I'm a little rusty at this sort of thing."

  Tuesday snapped her beak once, very hard.

  "Ivy," Gideon incanted as he reverently opened the letter and stared at the bold writing that leapt like windblown roses to his loving gaze.

  "Is something wrong?" asked Botham. "Do you want me to beat up the old man?"

  The duck shook her head, then kissed the blacksmith's cheek to soften his disappointment at being denied, if even for only a moment, his place as knight-errant.

  "Ivy," Gideon breathed.

  "Thanks," Tuesday said to the mayor, who could only shrug wisely and slink away, to leave the two pairs of lovers with their thoughts and their dreams.

  The one pair, the blacksmith and the duck, looked down at the other pair, the hero and the letter, and did their best not to let their disdain color their contempt for his woebegone expression and the faint moans that slipped from his lips as he settled onto the roof and crossed his legs.

  "Is he always like this?" Botham asked the duck cradled in his arms.

  "Only when he's in love," she answered in disgust, and ran the length of her neck along his brawny bare arm. If she whimpered in remembrance of what might have been and what could be, no one bothered to listen.

  Finlay Botham was, like Gideon, of staunch middle height, but there the superficial resemblance ended. From the vagaries and demands of his profession, he was accordingly broad at the arm and chest, thick at thigh and shin, and, in deference to the fires with which he worked, short of black hair and close-trimmed beard, which gave his face a rather piratical cast, though carrying a duck on his shoulder was hardly the same. He was, if one cared to look at the purely physical aspects of his appearance, a handsome and fearsome-looking gentleman in a somewhat sooty and nondescript way, given as he was to wearing shirts that wouldn't close over his pecs and whose sleeves were never wide enough to cover his bi- and triceps.

  If one did not care to examine the physical, but wished to feed on the more vital emotional and psychological areas of Finlay's development, one would probably starve to death. This, however, was only Gideon's assessment, and one could, if one were still around, mark it down to fraternal jealousy and the fact that no man, no matter how attractive or intelligent, would ever be good enough for his sister.

  Even if she was a duck, and was making a complete fool of herself by thrusting her downy bosom against Botham's hairy one and making as close to a cooing noise as a duck could get.

  Gideon glanced at the display, shuddered, and looked again at the letter he had received.

  Ivy.

  It was from Ivy.

  And the very thought of her made him feel a shade guilty for his sneering at Botham. After all, for whatever reasons, and some of them just had to be a little on the disgusting side when you thought about it for more than a few seconds, the man was in love with his sister.

  And so was he, perhaps and if the truth be known, a little on the lovesick side himself.

  Or rather, he thought in abrupt correction, more than a little on the bewildered side, since his exact feelings toward Ivy were not quite yet refined and defined sufficiently for him to make a rational evaluation.

  She was a hell of a woman, though.

  Throughout his previous trials he had worked side by side with her, an infuriating, beautiful, sarcastic, self-important, intelligent, witty, independent, and caring person, who had left with most of his other new friends for their nameless home above the clouds after the Wamchu had been defeated. Despite possible feelings and yearnings otherwise, there was vital work to be done up there, in the land known as the Upper Ground, atop the slopes of the awesome northern mountains; there were new lives to be forged, old enmities to be settled, and the word to be spread that none now need fear the Wamchu and his legions. He didn't want her to go, and he didn't think she wanted to go, but there was still the matter of his New Jersey home—even now, as a few minutes ago, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to go back. And the fact that a Bridge hadn't opened to him gave him pause, since those inexplicable gateways never appeared, he had learned, unless there was a need.

  And he hadn't seen one since he'd arrived.

  Botham and Tuesday withdrew to the edge of the roof, where they billed and cooed and kept an eye on Gideon in case he decided to leave them in the lurch.

  Gideon didn't see them go. He held the letter and read:

  Gideon,

  Where the hell are you?

  When I got back to Pholler with Glorian and Tag—and it's a damned long climb up those stupid mountains, even if there were ladders—Glorian the high-and-mighty went straight to Kori, her hometown, which Wamchu the bastard ruined as you recall, and started rebuilding. A lot of people helped her, from Pholler and other places. Most of them were men, which may tell you a lot about how Glorian still is, and a lot about how men always are. She is still a snob, though. Tag is back in school, learning to be an armorer like Whale. He thinks we ought to go to Choy and blow Wamchu out of the water; he doesn't know what that means, but he heard you say it and thinks
it's a good idea. No one else does, thank goodness, so he practices on trees.

  Did I hear you ask about me?

  I don't think I did. That's because you haven't written to me once in all the weeks I've been gone. Well, I hope you're having a good time because I am not. Don't think I have any feelings for you except from one fighter to another who wasn't so hot all the time, but I have been waiting here at my door for you to show up like you promised. You are ungrateful. You said you would come back for a visit. I bet you haven't even thought about it. Do you think about me? I don't think about you all that much, but when I do I get mad because you're down there and I'm up here and it's a bitch, if you know what I mean.

  We have a problem.

  The crops aren't growing right.

  I am getting hungry.

  I am also naked as I write this but you don't care because you had a couple of chances already to take advantage of me and you didn't so you're just going to have to suffer. Unless you come back right away because it's getting cold up here, too, and I'm going to have to get dressed soon.

  How is Whale?

  How is the duck?

  Goddamnit, Gideon, this is humiliating. You're the hero, you're supposed to know about things like this. So why in hell aren't you up here instead of being down there?

  Help us, Gideon. Come on up and plow a few furrows.

  Ivy Pholler,

  A friend.

  Gideon refolded the letter carefully and placed it in his breast pocket. He frowned. He scowled. He rubbed a hand over his face, his chin, down the side of his neck, across his chest, over his knees. He rocked on his buttocks. He glanced over at Tuesday and Botham. He stared at the empty doorway and heard the muffled voices of the citizenry in the hall beneath him. He stood and walked to the edge of the roof, watched the people milling about the square, accosting those with food baskets, begging on street corners, eyeing anything that didn't look as if it had two legs with a certain panache of hunger.

  He remembered the earthquake, and the flying black thing that tried to take off his head.

  He remembered vividly an evening too long ago when Ivy kissed him goodbye and rode off on the back of a giant red goat.

  "Shit," he said.

  There were footsteps behind him.

  He remembered the day they fought side by side against the terror of the dreaded Moglar, a Wamchu-affiliated band of giant dwarves who nearly ended their quest prematurely, crudely, and with ultimate malice.

  He remembered an afternoon when he broke out of a forest to a riverbank and saw Ivy across the way. She had been bathing. She was not dressed.

  "Damn."

  Something pressed against his leg, and he saw Tuesday looking up at him. "She wants you back, huh?"

  He nodded. Such misery should not be given to any man, especially one who manages to find enough on his own.

  Botham's deep voice sounded in his left ear. "Tuesie says you're going to get her back to normal."

  Tuesie? Gideon winced.

  "I think," said the duck, "Giddy has a dilemma."

  Botham's hand closed on his left shoulder. And squeezed.

  Gideon ignored the pain. It was his lot, and he expected the chastisement, the punishment, the flagellations and the abominations of the spirit.

  "Giddy—"

  "Don't call me that."

  "Don't talk to her that way."

  He shrugged the hand off, turned, and looked down at the duck, up at the blacksmith's angry dark face, and said, "Ivy needs me. Things are bad up there, too."

  "Things can get worse down here," Botham hinted.

  "What can you do up there that you can't do down here?" Tuesday asked, the sorrow in her hoarse voice competing with a certain fowl understanding.

  Gideon thought of Ivy.

  Tuesday told him to forget the question and consider instead the morality of his decision, told him to forget the morality and consider instead the logistics of returning, told him to forget the logistics and consider instead the promises he had made.

  "Never mind," she said. "I think I'm confusing myself. Ducks do that, you know. They have a narrow outlook on life, and can't always tell the water from the lake."

  "Thank you," Gideon said.

  She winked one eye while the other squeezed out a damned good approximation of a tear.

  "You're trying to make me feel guilty," he said.

  "Can you think of a better way to get you to make up your mind?"

  "Yes," he said, striding between them. "You can use logic, you can use reason, you can appeal to my better nature to see the right thing to do in spite of what my heart tells me."

  "Jesus," she said.

  "Do I hit him?" Botham asked.

  "Later," she promised.

  He stopped at the doorway and turned. "I need to think, Sis. I need time to think. Before this"—and he touched his pocket wherein the letter resided—"it was easy. Now, I'm not sure. I'm just not sure."

  "Oh, that's all right," she said gently. "Finlay and I will wait here while you go off and meditate. I'm sure he won't make advances because he hasn't figured out how yet, even though he loves me more than life itself and will go through hell to see me restored to my rightful form. Unlike some others I could mention. I'm sure I'll understand, no matter what you decide. I know that, deep down in that professional hero's chest of yours, there's a soul that won't allow you to—"

  "Enough," he said.

  "Why? I'm just getting warmed up."

  "Now?" Botham pleaded.

  A roar of angry voices rose through the stairwell, followed by the sound of what had to be a creature of immense size and short temper either venting or protecting its spleen. Running footsteps. A few harsh screams.

  Gideon whirled, bat in hand before he even thought about unholstering it, and stared downward.

  "My god, Wamchu already?" Tuesday said, snuggling against the blacksmith for protection.

  "No. It's—"

  "The thing," Botham said.

  "Good word."

  "No. I mean, the thing that brought the letter. I guess the guys are going to have it for supper." He laughed heartily, and stopped when Gideon glared at him.

  "What thing?" Gideon asked.

  A man staggered out of the stairwell, his chest and face bloodied. He collapsed at Gideon's feet.

  Tuesday reached up and tapped him on the arm with her beak. "What does the thing look like, Finny?"

  Another man who had stumbled onto the roof heard the question, looked at the duck and the blacksmith, and stumbled back down.

  Gideon shook his head and crossed the threshold.

  A cat-like bellowing nearly deafened him.

  "Like a big red goat."

  "Holy shit!" Tuesday yelled.

  And Gideon leapt down the stairs while she screamed at him to hurry.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was a sight that, were he in a better frame of mind and inclined to view things with a dash of humor, could have had him laughing. However, Botham's comment about the evening repast and its possible main course only made him snarl, growl, and otherwise show his extreme displeasure as he slammed through the doors and burst onto the floor below.

  Bedlam was a summer's nap in a hammock in contrast to what he saw.

  There were men and women in every clinical stage of panic running all over the vast room, many attempting to squeeze through the single exit to the square, others opting for the torturous route to the dungeons, and still others finding remarkable agility in climbing the smooth bare walls. Tables were overturned; papers, boxes, and writing implements were scattered everywhere, making footing hazardous. A few citizens lay unconscious, their bodies in varying states of embattled disarray; a few more were quite obviously on the far side of breathing, punctuated as they were with holes of mixed diameters.

  Gideon stopped with mouth agape and eyes wide.

  The cause of their consternation stood in the center of the floor. It was a beast. A large beast. A beast easily the size
of a reasonably healthy, long-legged horse, which had decided it would have a much better time being a goat. It had long filmy hair and a patriarchal bearded muzzle, the hair starting out dark pink at the body and shading to a deep russet at the ends. But its rather impressive and now red-stained horns were those of a splendid mountain ram's—thickly spiraled and curled back aside each large ear, the tips elongated and aiming now for new targets. Its head was billy-shaped, but its eyes were much larger and ordinarily all white, though its rage at its supposed enemies had turned those orbs black.

  Gideon stepped away from the doors, recognition bringing an unashamed tear to one eye.

  The lorra, for so it was called by those who had had a hand in naming such things, swung its head ponderously toward him, its long red tail switching angrily behind it, its pointed, horse-like teeth gnashing hard enough to produce the illusion of sparks.

  "Red!" Gideon shouted, a foolish grin on his face.

  The lorra unclenched the cloven hooves that clawed at the parquet floor, and one of its eyes lightened slightly to grey.

  A woman screamed lustily and fainted. A man screamed and fainted. A contingent of merchants gathered in the far corner and assessed their chances of charging the animal with the weapons at hand—mostly short daggers and a few rolled-up tax forms. Whale hauled himself out from under the man who had fainted and fell back against the wall next to Gideon.

  "They fear him," the armorer/mayor gasped.

  "No kidding." Gideon holstered the bat and walked forward.

  Those still running stopped; those crawling sat up; those unconscious groaned and opened their eyes.

  There was a silence, deep and apprehensive.

  "Red," Gideon said softly. "Hey, it's me."

  The lorra's eyes lightened further, to a pure dazzling white, and a deep purring rose from deep within its throat. Then it lifted its head, called a decidedly feline triumph, and ran to Gideon's arms, which flung themselves around its neck in a comradic embrace.