Shingen-Hu marveled at how perfectly the gods had prepared the moment.
Casting his powers forward, he materialized a curtain of thick, ‘~ black smoke to add to their confusion. Now the train was blocked
both to the rear and to the fore, and the way open for escape lay off
to the side, across the gorge. t Again combining his power with Thrax’s, he walked out on a jutting rock that the gods had provided. There he paused until he felt a current surging, gathered his effort, and then stepped forth confidently to feel himself carried across to a narrow ledge near the cliff base, a short distance above the water. Thrax moved onto the jutting rock, marshaling the emissaries. Shingen-Hu could see that, just as he had expected, they were giving Thrax no assistance, but were acting like helpless novices to let him meet his test on his own merits.
“Walk forward over the bridge,” he called, beckoning for them to follow.
“What bloody bridge?” the emissary who was called Hunt shouted back.
“The bridge that faith shall build for ye. Trust my word, and my power shall carry thee safe.”
Hunt shrugged and stepped off the rock, and Shingen-Hu felt a wave of exhilaration as he bore the emissary over. Next came the redheaded female, followed by the ring-eyed Father of Gods, who had arrived in the spinning temple of beasts. By that time the ledge was crowded, and Thrax was left on the other side with the short-skirted female and the long-headed giant.
“Now we must climb,” Shingen-Hu exhorted. His power would never lift five of them to the top. The test would be to get them there, he was certain. What was to happen after that would then be revealed. So saying, he began moving smoothly and surely up the face, making use of frictite veins to afford a grip where there was no convenient hold, and avoiding the protrusions of green anchonte and black catchstone, as any youngster would know how to do.
But he had barely ascended halfway when a cry from below halted him. “What in God’s name is this confounded stuff? I can’t move.”
Shingen-Hu leaned outward and peered back down. The Father of Gods was stuck to a knob of anchorite and gesticulating frantically. Hunt began traversing toward him but became entangled with a growth of cingweed hanging from a crevice, while the redheaded female below them was scrabbling futilely at a block of lubrite, which contained grains of mobilium and was uncimbable. They were acting like children to try him, Shingen-Hu realized. The test was not over yet.
Meanwhile, priests and soldiers were appearing from the confusion on the other side of the gorge. “Thrax, thou must cross over now and assist,” Shingen-Hu called down. From his stance above he helped Thrax across the gorge, then turned and resumed climbing.
But as he reached the top, Thrax’s voice came up from below. “‘Tis beyond all hope, Master. They are as fish stranded in mud.”
Shingen-Hu looked back across the gorge. The soldiers had reached the jutting rock and were dragging back the female and the long-headed one who had been left. “Then save thyself, Thrax,” he called back down. “Nothing can be gained by thy sacrifice.”
Thrax joined him at the top of the cliff minutes later. By that time the long-headed one and the short-skirted female had been led away, and soldiers had descended to the stream and were wading across. On the trail above the soldiers, the priests had assembled around the Examiner and were directing a paralyzing influence across at the three emissaries stranded below. Shingen-Hu looked on dejectedly. He had failed.
Movement higher up above caught his eye. A flock of vultures was circling above the trail, right over the spot where the priests were gathered. Raising his arm, he pointed at them, his eyes glinting malevolently. Seized by a sudden compulsion, the birds voided their contents upon the priests from on high. Shingen-Hu and Thrax turned and walked sadly away.
In the Shapieron, orbiting high over Jevlen, Eesyan was explaining over the connection from Thurien what would be involved in restoring VISAR’s connection to JEVEX.
“The line out from the club connected into the regular Jevlenese planetary communications net,” he said from one of the large screens overlooking the command deck. “The activation codes that were fed in triggered an i-link termination node somewhere, which was programmed with the operating parameters to access JEVEX. To restore the connection we need to do two things: first, find an entry point into the planetary net that bypasses the normal security checks; and second, input the same activation codes to it that Keshen entered from the club.”