“Mebbe you’re right and we can trust him,” Krysty whispered to Ryan, “but, lover, he sure as hell is a complex man for a baron. Can we actually second-guess him?”
“Just have to try,” Ryan answered as the companions climbed into the back of one of the wags and settled on the dusty bench seats that ran on either side of the low wag, the frame over the top standing bare, its canvas covering long since perished or lost.
Baron Silas climbed into the front, taking the driver’s position, and was joined by a sec man who came from the other room to ride shotgun on the journey out.
“I trust you people can ride your own shotgun,” Silas shouted over the noise of the old wag engine as it fired up.
“Trust no one better,” Jak answered. The baron wouldn’t have heard him over the engine noise, but his companions did. It was something with which they all agreed.
THE WAG ROARED out of the underground garage and into the hard, harsh light of a day in Salvation. The sudden glare made them all squint, particularly Jak, whose red albino eyes were particularly sensitive to light.
Sitting on the bench seat and holding on to one of the otherwise useless metal covering supports, Ryan shifted his weight so that he could see where they had emerged. His good eye adjusting to the light, he could see that the entrance to the garage was down a steep slope at the rear of the building, and as he looked back down that slope he could see a pair of sec men pushing heavy ironwork gates back into position before closing the double doors behind. It was difficult to tell at such a distance, but the doors seemed to be of iron themselves.
Baron Silas was obviously a firm believer in keeping his ass covered.
The wag slowed suddenly as it came around the front of the building and ran into the crush of people that they had noticed on their entrance to the ville. All around them was a heaving mass of people, jammed too close together within the confines of the ville. The street surfaces were of stone and tarmac, but some areas had been stripped where old buildings had fallen and been cleared, and the dry earth beneath had been revealed. These sections of the roads and walkways threw up clouds of dust that mingled with the sweat and odor of the too densely packed population, forming an almost visible cloud that choked the atmosphere, making breath hard to grasp.
There was an immense noise that hit them as they rounded the corner, like walking into a wall of speech and song, the sounds of people trading, conversing and arguing as they went about their daily business. People hung from windows, shouting at those below while the subjects of their attention returned the favor with an equal volume. There was the clash of metal on metal as barrows and bicycles collided, while workmen hammered and sawed, and the sound of brick, stone and wood being beaten down by everyday life. And to complete the overload to the senses, there was a riot of color as people from Salvation and the villes who were part of the alliance collided in the street with an array of hair and skin tone, clothes in an assortment of wildly colored rags and fabrics.
If there was an order to what was occurring, if there was any reason to the tasks and any purpose to the actions, then all of this seemed lost in the general melee.
“Makes the desert seem kind of attractive,” J.B. muttered, observing it.
“You may not be saying that if where we’re headed is anything like this, John,” Mildred pointed out.
Doc stroked his chin and smiled mirthlessly. “Like a maze fit for rats, and possibly populated by them. Ah, if the encampments at the well and refinery bear even the most passing of resemblances to this Byzantium, then proverbs involving needles and haystacks spring readily to the mind.”
Dean looked at the seemingly old man, a puzzled expression on his face. “I keep trying to tell you, Doc—less words, more meaning,” he said wearily.