The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [166]
Feeling the weight of an immense sadness, he dealt with the other two and prepared to meet the oncoming madness, and his doom.
ROBERT
From the wide misty valley where Robert escaped being crushed by the gargantuan, half-seen wagon, they climbed flights of ancient, cracked stairs to a grassy plateau. In the distance mountains reared like a barrier while much closer a semi-overgrown paved path led from the head of the stairs off to the left in a rising incline, disappearing into hilly woods.
‘Do you hear that?’ said Reski Emantes, hovering on near-silent rotors.
‘No, I … wait … ’ Robert cocked his head, trying to scan with his ears. ‘Hmm, yes, faintly.’ Barely audible, he could just make out a regular thudding.
‘Coming from along that pathway, as well.’ The drone tilted and glided along at head height. Robert shrugged and followed.
Only minutes after crossing into the trees, the paved path faded away in the undergrowth.
‘Damn, but I was walking on it just moments ago,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to backtrack … ’
‘Normally I would have something devastatingly cutting to say on the subject of Human senses,’ the drone said. ‘But it would appear that my own are proving equally feeble.’
Robert gave the drone a considering look. After they were separated at the river, Reski Emantes had reappeared to rescue him from the clutches of grotesque Vor-like humanoids. The drone now looked as if it had been remodelled with pre-atomic-age materials and techniques. Riveted seams, propellers keeping it aloft rather than suspensors, and a spring-loaded bolt-caster rather than a multi-targetable beam weapon.
‘Surely we can deduce a reasonable direction from the way we came,’ he said.
‘If the environment wasn’t the mutable thoughtscape of an ancient and powerful entity,’ the drone said, ‘that would be a reasonable suggestion.’
‘Well, look,’ he said, pointing at a bushy rise a dozen paces away. ‘We came over that higher ground which we reached by following the path so we should be going this way … ’
And when he turned round, the drone was gone, utterly, not a sign of it in any direction. He shouted its name but nothing came back from the surrounding woods.
Except for the crack of a twig breaking underfoot. Robert whirled round – and saw the face of his daughter, Rosa, staring at him for a single startled moment before she ducked out of sight and darted away.
Amazed, startled, fearful, he plunged forward after her, barging through bushes and undergrowth, shouting her name, then pausing abruptly to listen for the sound of her running. Then off in pursuit again. But doubt rose in his mind like common sense catching up with him. Why would she be here? Was it likely that the Godhead would know her image, or was it more probable that the thoughtscape was reacting to him, that its meta-quantal properties were reflecting back to him important landmarks of his own subconscious? It was a conundrum, this bizarre confrontation with the autonomous imagery from both his own and the Godhead’s subconscious.
But despite understanding this rational conjecture, he knew he would have to keep up the chase, to find out where he was being led, to see if she would say anything true.
Through the trees he tracked glimpses of her. She seemed to be wearing a pale blue two-piece with a hood, which was easily spotted amongst the wood’s darker colours. Not once did she pause to look back, yet she did not seem to be taking any precautions against being seen.
After more than five minutes of unrelenting pursuit she led him to where the trees thinned into a meadow dotted with lush bushes. On the other side of it, a sheer cliff face loomed, its heights veiled in low-hanging cloud. Crossing the meadow, Rosa broke into a run and seemed to be near the foot of the cliffs when she turned to the side and stepped down out of sight.
As Robert left the shadows of the woods behind the faint thudding sound from before sounded louder and clearer. He hurried towards where he last saw Rosa and saw that it was the head of a rack of worn stone steps winding down to a