132 - So You Wouldn't Notice the Back Up

“Mom, please pause.”

“Certainly, Terence, but aren't we in a hurry?” Her headlong scuttling rush slowed to a smooth halt.

“If I'm not mistaken, we are here.” He looked out across the lip of the canyon at a city straight out of someone's code fantasy. The butte was separated from the opposite rim at the top by several hundred feet, merging with the canyon wall about half way down. It was a gigantic stone flower emerging from a basin that he suspected held quite a bit of water from the rains. In fact he could see that the soaring bridges that arced out over the drop, along with what looked like residences on the ends, were designed to catch every drop of water that fell from the sky. The top dome shone softly golden in the failing light, an enormous glittering crystal on the top spike.

There was barely enough light from the already set sun, still scattering in the atmosphere, that he could see the faint outlines of windows dug into the rock below and around the city, and the threads of earthan green farming terraces up and down the far wall, stretching along the length on either side, fading away out of sight. Each terrace, he noted, had a certain amount of overhang to make it impossible to see from directly above, as well as giving the tender green planets some protection from the brutal Chishiki sun.

He couldn't see all the way to the bottom of the canyon below, but Mom had assured him there was a river down there, where the sun and the heat hardly ever reached. The city was covered with banners floating in the breeze. “The banners will be coming down soon,” Eshmaeel said, quietly, proudly. “Once the trailing plants grow long enough, with the water having come. All winter crops.”

“It looks very beautiful, but...” Terry had to stop and try and find a way of putting it without insulting anybody.

Esh laughed. “It looks like a bloody great target doesn't it?”

“Yes. I didn't want to say.” It was a relief. Terry found he didn't want to offend Esh, even if he was a secretive, devious, son of a blank page.

“Call Agador up and look, in code, or as if you were one of Prime's scanners.”

Terry shrugged. “Agador, if you would, please.”

“Certainly, Terence.”

The city shimmered in front of his eyes and he recoiled back in his seat with a yelp. They were apparently on the edge of a slow erupting volcano. The energy signatures of the city were all deeply buried under what appeared to be rivers of lava, flowing, changing, heat and light ranging from sullen red to blue/white hot.

“That's brilliant!” he exclaimed. “How else would you hide that...” he waved out of Mom's screens at Lainz, “... except under something much bigger and much more spectacular!”

“The First Emperor said that one day the city would become a target, so we might as well make it obvious. His Radiance also said that if he was going to have a useless aristocratic class they might as well be the first to go in an aerial attack. The loggia of the Hive lords are the homes out on the ends of the bridges.”

Terry frowned, even as he snorted a bitter laugh. “That's kind of callous to the rest of the household.”

Esh shrugged. “If the Hive Lord goes off to do something useful for the Empire... like fight or govern or do real work of some kind, then it's traditional for the families to move into their cliff homes.” He waved a hand down toward the cool, dark reaches of the canyon, away from the bright, shiny, obvious city.

Terry snorted. “Practical.”

“I want to go home,” Davood whined, like a much younger boy. He sat, and rocked, and picked at the edges of his ragged fingernails and chewed on raw, peeling lips as he fought the infective personality. He was thin and looked ill, though both Esh and Terry were more scraped up and had all their hair melted off.

“Yeah,” Esh said. “Please.”

“There are bird-riders coming up on either side of us, gentlemen,” Mom interrupted. “They appear to be armed. I could avoid them going down the wall, but that would be rude, wouldn't it?”

Esh frowned. “Can you project my voice outside, Mom?”

“Easily.”

“Then project this when that fellow...” he pointed to the lead bird. “The one with the fancy tabard is the Emir-al or higher, I can't see his insignia from here... when he gets in earshot.”

“He is in earshot now, Eshmaeel.”

Terry didn't understand the fluid, burbling English dialect that Esh spoke, but it appeared to have an enormous number of loanwords from another tongue.

The whole cavalcade on bird back came to a glittering halt in the light of what Terry could now see were torches apparently made of flaming scales of some kind that flapped on the ends of the staves.

“Blank and blasted page,” Terry said. “They were ready to attack you with swords? Mom?”

“Swords, atl spears, spears and arrows apparently,” she said.

“Brave,” he said. “But a bit stupid.”

Esh broke off his dialogue with the Emir-al, and looked over his shoulder. “Not stupid. Sacrificial. So you wouldn't notice their backup.”

“Back up? With what, rocks?” Terry shook his head.

“No.” He waved at the canyon. “We'll have an aerial escort.”

Rising up out of the depths of the canyon was something that looked like a flaming bush dragon, burning blue-white, flapping its wings slowly apparently more to control its forward momentum than to gain height. Flanking it were – broomsticks? “Are they riding those torches?”

“Nasera Basserus said that Hara and the Hive have made some new things.” Esh's smile was sly.

“And you just wanted to spring that on me. Thanks a lot, brother.”

For an instant Esh looked stricken, then the expression was gone. “It was a good joke, hmm? Would you have believed me if I'd told you?” The Emir-al outside said something that Terry didn't catch, Esh answered him, then turned back to Terry. “We've been forced to be kind of like your illiterates. But now we can't afford to be anymore.”

Terry nodded and dropped his head back against the headrest. “Mom, please take us over, would you? It looks like you will fit quite handily through that gate, given the size of those monsters they're riding.”

“We're already causing a sensation because of Mom's lights even though Nasera Basserus told them we were coming.” Esh waved at the dragon floating overhead, its head swinging back and forth as it examined Mom. “We weren't what they expected.” The down wash of the dragon pressed Mom down for a moment, then it rose higher and lifted the effect off them, even as Mom braced herself.

“What? They didn't expect gigantic bug-shaped vehicle to come strolling along?”

“Pretty much.”

Terry sighed. “Let's do this, then.”