“But the Lifeshaper . . .”
Just another Forerunner.
“Without her, I’d be . . . free, but ignorant, empty of al but myself. And you’d be dead.”
The Lord of Admirals retreated, but not before his bitter miasma tainted my thoughts.
I kicked at the litter and performed another thrashing dance of frustration—wel aware how stupid I looked, how desperately foolish and trapped.
How I wished I could talk to Riser and hear what he thought!
I folowed after the girl and the old man.
Chapter Thirteen
THE SMELL REACHED us from some distance away, but Gamelpar gave a grunt and pushed on. The shore was littered with decaying bodies. We made out gray and green shapes slumped over the rocks . . . and then we were upon the first, and my worst fears were banished—but not by much.
These were Forerunners, not humans. By their size and build they had been Warrior-Servants, fuly mature. One of them could be Bornstelar, I thought—larger after receiving the Didact’s imprint.
But they were far too decayed to make out individual features.
Vinnevra hung back, holding her hand over her nose and mouth.
“What happened here?” Gamelpar asked, his voice quavering.
“Another battle ,” I said. “They’re not wearing armor.”
“Every Forerunner wears armor. Why would they take it off?”
Then I remembered and understood. My armor had stopped functioning, of course, but so had the armor of my Forerunner escorts—either jammed up by the metal fleas, or just stopped working. “Something kiled al the armor,” I said.
“What, the Beast?”
“I don’t know. Part of the war, maybe.”
“And here they fought hand to hand?” Gamelpar asked.
The bodies were badly decomposed. Slash marks with puffy, swolen edges crossed what remained of their faces and torsos. A few puckered holes seeped inner decay.
I looked out at the rock pilars and the rope-bridge and platform- town—isolated from the shore, accessible only by water and so more defensible, but against what, I could not know. Forerunners of course could have flown out there, and would not have built such a primitive structure. Likely this was a human town.
On Erde-Tyrene, I had heard of vilages built on lakes, usualy out in the great north, but had never seen one. “There was a battle in the town,” I theorized, “and when they died, they fel into the water and drifted to shore. What does your old spirit think?”
Gamelpar made a face. “Sad, even for Forerunners. Is the whole wheel dying?”
We were too smal, too trivial to know such things.
Vinnevra had walked up the shoreline to get away from the smel.
“There’s a boat over there, behind the rocks,” she said. “I think it’s made from one of those trees. It has thorns on its sides.”
We walked along the matted path. She pointed behind a pair of boulders draped with wrack like thinning hair over gray heads. It was indeed a boat, and not a bad one, either.
How convenient. The gods piss salt water but leave us a boat.
Sometimes I found my old spirit to be a real prig.
Vinnevra stood between us, eyes fixed on mine. “We can use pieces of bark for oars, and row across the water,” she said. That seemed like an incomplete plan at best. “Gamelpar needs the rest, and we’l do the rowing,” she added, eyes stil piercing.
I shrugged. “Water is the only path,” I said, then set to inspecting the boat. It was about four meters long, blunt bow and stern, carved as she had suggested, no doubt, from one of the great trunks. The sides were indeed lined with formidable thorns.
“Protection or ornament?” I wondered, feeling a sharp point with my thumb.
She tried to push the boat out into the water. It was jammed tight. Together, we pried up one end, then slid it out over the rocks, and with a grumbling, thumping scrape, pushed it into the water.
Vinnevra held it while I helped the old man across the rocks and then lifted him up bodily, at which he snorted and made an unpleasant scowl.
I lowered him into the bow.
“Find some pieces of bark ,” Vinnevra ordered, her face damp with sweat. She sounded excited and looked even happier. Perhaps we were passing out of range of the beacon signal.
Finding proper pieces of bark, fortunately, was not difficult. The trees shed in long, tough strips varying from a hand’s width to two or three. With a little vigorous bending and tearing, the strips made decent oars. I picked up several more and piled them into the boat.
Soon we were rowing across the water.
“We go to the town first,” Gamelpar insisted.
“Why?” Vinnevra said, her face clouding. “Let’s just row across and leave that be.”
“Looks quiet,” the old man said. “There might stil be living People out there. Or food.”
“Or stinking bodies,” Vinnevra said.
I rowed, she rowed, and finaly we rowed together so that the boat did not go in circles but toward the pilars, the drooping bridges, and at the center, the suspended vilage. It took us the better part of the day to row against a steady, lapping tide. Then, without reason, the tide reversed and rushed us in minutes toward the pilars, so that we had to back water vigorously to avoid being thrust between two adjacent pilars. We clumsily managed to make our way to a wide wooden dock in the crossing shadows of a network of bridges.
On top of many of the pilars, individual huts perched like storks’ nests. The bridges at that end could be raised or lowered to provide access, with platforms between that might be used by al. Here, I counted four layers of bridges, houses, platforms—denser and denser toward the center of the vilage, where, finaly, the dwelings merged.
In the gloom beneath, stairs, ladders, and ropes descended to other docks. I saw no bodies, no evidence of fighting—but also heard no voices nor any of the sounds of a living town. Just the regular lapping of the salty waves.
Then Vinnevra gasped. Something long and pale passed beneath us, a wide, greenish cloud like smoke in the dark water. She scrambled up onto the dock and I quickly folowed, hauling Gamelpar with me. This time I caused him pain and he cried out, then pushed away, balancing on one leg, while I reached down and snatched his stick from the boat. The boat drifted, so I kneeled, groaning at the thought of leaning out over the water, and grabbed one side. “We need some way to tie it up.”
“I’l stay here and tend to it,” Vinnevra said, glancing calmly enough into the water—once again clear and dark through its depths. She preferred whatever had passed below, or its companions, to what we might find up above.
“Not a good idea,” I said. “You’l come with us.”
My concern was twofold. I worried about her safety, but I also worried that she might give in to her compulsion and leave us stranded out here. I didn’t trust her change in mood—or whatever might be causing it.