The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [174]
His finger was shaking, and they were pulling him. He couldn’t be sure he had made the mark right. Then the hands lifted him into a dim, long space. It was crowded. They shoved him past stacks of steel crates. One of them was empty, its hatch open. The hands forced him inside.
No, don’t do this! he tried to scream, but instead different words came out of his mouth.
“Fa! Oel im ethala inhar!”
The hands pressed harder. He curled up inside the steel box, like a babe in a cold, lifeless womb. There was a clang as the hatch was shut, and another as its latch was driven home. Outside the box, shadows receded. There was a loud noise as the door of the t’ruk was shut.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” he whispered.
But she couldn’t hear him. He was a coward and a weakling, just like his father had said. She had died for him, and now he was alone.
A faint, chiming sound.
He listened. The sound came again, and it made him think of ice on a starry night. The tingling returned, all over now, and the fog seemed to recede a fraction. Beltan shifted in the box and peered out a small vent.
He felt it should have been dark inside the t’ruk, but it was not. A soft, silvery glow illuminated the boxes and crates all around. Most were steel like his own, although one was different. It was smaller and looked as if it was fashioned of stone, its surface covered by odd, angular symbols.
The light grew brighter. Beltan saw now that it emanated from one of the steel boxes near his own. Something moved within, folding long, slender limbs behind the wire mesh. The tingling grew stronger now, a sensation like lightning about to strike. He forgot weariness, forgot fear, even as he felt the t’ruk rumble into motion.
Beltan pressed his face against the grate. “Who are you?”
Inside its cage, the thing lifted a large, round head and gazed at him with tilted eyes like white, depthless jewels.
58.
“How much longer?” Grace said, squatting next to a puddle in the dimness beneath the viaduct.
Travis scowled at her. “You mean since the last time you asked that question exactly seventeen seconds ago?”
Grace opened her mouth for a hot reply, but her words were lost as a particularly heavy truck hurtled over the viaduct above them. Small flakes of cement fell down like hard snow. Travis knew the real question was not how much longer they had to wait for the call from the Seekers, but how much longer they had until the entire overpass came crashing down on top of them.
“It is nearly time,” Vani said. She crouched on the base of a cement column, gazing into the grayness of the day, her visage intent.
“Thank you,” Grace said. She shot Travis a sour look.
He scowled. “Fine. Trust the enigmatic woman from a medieval world who doesn’t even have a watch.”
Then again, he had a feeling Vani was one of those people who could tell time without the convenience of a digital clock. She probably kept a running count of the seconds in the back of her mind. He supposed she could also start a fire with two Q-Tips in the rain and hot-wire a car with a gum wrapper and some twine. She was one of those terminally capable people. Unlike Travis, who had always found it cause for minor celebration when he actually remembered how to use a can opener.
He was glad she was with them.
The Seekers had dropped them as close as they dared to the location of the Duratek complex. This was Commerce City—a shiny, optimistic name that could not change the fact it was a grim, dirty industrial area north of downtown, home to oil refineries, storage facilities, and dog-food factories.
A hundred years ago, all of this had been tall-grass prairie sprinkled with wetlands.