Chapter 6

Roland sat down with the captain and Sztra to discuss Gloves new suggestion. Using the binoculars he had taken some great pictures of the overhang, and showing them what he was talking about made it much easier. The captain was having a hard time accepting Gloves unwillingness to fight for them, as well as his alleged abilities.

"In a few thousand years?" snorting. "Well, he might be right, there."

Sztra, who found it easier to accept, as he had that longer time perspective, asked. "And how exactly would we get those beasts away from their siege towers?"

The captain wanted to laugh when he heard that great white maggot call the foes outside beasts. But as he had gotten used to Sztra he himself forgot, at times, who he was discussing with. But this thing about a conscientious weapon system still made him mad. Seeing the damned poodle resting under the table, he would have liked to kick the bastard, but that probably would account for an attack on it, and who knew what the hypocrite would do then.

"Yes, Sztra is right. How do we get them away. We can't afford any more losses, they can, not us."

Roland wondered, too, they had a possibility to take out one of the towers, maybe both if they put the other one beside the first, but how? Wait.

"Glove, you like impersonations? Don't you."

"Yes."

Explaining the idea took some time, as Glove had to check it against his Consensual System (CS), but after some inner computing Glove agreed to the idea's feasibility.

"As long as it only involves impersonations and target practice, my CS sees no problems with it, Sir."

"Gentlemen, we have us a winner." said Roland, smiling. "Let's set it up for tonight. And yeah, Lance, why not invite your men to be there to watch the fun and play, too?"

The others who had started to see a weak light hiding in the madness, smiled at the poodle. The captain even going so far as to pat it. "Good dog." He said, missing the slight expression of disgust the words called forward on the poodle's countenance.

Glove once more wondered if being a poodle had been his best choice, but on the other hand, he would look downright ridiculous as a two and a half foot male human. And male he was, proudly so. At least he started to feel comfortable with Roland, the human even making sense for once.

"Yess." He agreed lazily, licking his behind. "We poodles just love to play."

"Hell, why not invite the whole stronghold." Suggested the captain, who felt that they all could need a moral booster.

"Why not." agreed Roland.

"Would there be some place for us, too." asked Sztra, who had became increasingly interested in this new magic called science.

"We'll reserve a part of the wall for you." promised the captain.

Just before nightfall came they were all there, up on the wall. Nobody knew exactly why, but they had peen promised a spectacle. For many of the civilians it was the first time they were up there. Normally, civilians were not encouraged, due to the frequent target practicing some of the foes engaged themselves in. So, for some it was a rather frightening experience to, for the first time, see the foes so close up, realizing their numbers.

"Good luck, Glove, and have fun will you." was Roland's last words, as he stood some way apart from the others. "And make that target practice something to remember will, you."

The poodle seemed almost insulted. "A state of the art penetrating personal weapon system, and you want me to act a clown?"

"Well, not a clown. But I've always heard that poodles were good on making fireworks." Roland tried, a little weakly.

Glove, that by now had access to most of Roland's surface memories, tried to compute that statement, but failed miserably as the memory block made it impossible. At last he decided to take it at its face value, remarking "Well, in that case." Transforming himself into something looking more like a matt black centipede, disappeared up the rock wall like some flicker of a shadow.

Fifteen minutes later, Roland lifted the crude megaphone he had asked the blacksmith to produce from a simple drawing.

"Gentlemen, Ladies. May I have your attention, please. As you may know we have collected here to witness a joyful event. There have been some complaints about that nasty overhang you can see to the left, that's right, just over those ugly towers."

He hawked. "Where I come from we call it landscaping, what they call it here I don't know, but I expect us all to learn some new words to night. So keep your ears and eyes open. And now, if I may, a cheer for our newest ally, Glove, may he live for ever."

Only a select few had heard about the poodle, but listening to Roland's cheerful announcement, they all had started to feel as if there was some festivity waiting for them, so, giving in to his good humor, they all joined in.

"Hip Hip hooray."

As they finished, Glove's fun and games started. Suddenly they all could see something running around on the field opposite the overhang. To see a dog there wasn't that strange, but seeing it having eyes that threw light sure was, not a few of the spectators made signs of warding. But what was worse, at least to Roland, was its singing. Yep, Glove had decided to sing.

Glove had searched long and hard after just that song that really would catch the foes' attention, after a long time of soul searching and creative angst, he had decided, the process taking long over three thousand microseconds, to perform his own version of Billy Idols 'Rebel yell'.

As he had no problems with the instruments they sounded quite good, but his vocals still left something to be wished for. He still sounded rusty, like coming from under some tombstone. Now almost all, even those knowing about Glove, found it impossible to ward themselves from that unholy performance.

And it had an electrifying effect on those guarding the towers. Forgetting their tasks, they either ran away from him as he stately closed in on them, or they started to attack. Roland could understand those running away, the way the poodle mishandled the lyrics made him want to run away himself.

As the guards started to hunt Glove, and as more and more attention was drawn to him by the foes, it became a calamity of seldom seen proportions. The poodle had the advantage of being small and agile, also the foes' weapons made little harm if they ever hit him. Drawing the guards over to the other side took a very small amount of his capacity, in fact he was mostly occupied with trying to modulate his vocal output to a, for him, enjoyable pitch and timbre.

To the onlookers that meant that his voice seemed to dip and, well, soar in sudden strange breaks, never holding his tone more than some seconds, creating an eerie outer worldly quality to his lyrics. "I wish Billy could hear this one." Roland muttered to himself, half in awe as he listened. "He would have turned in his grave." Not that he was dead, that is, as far as Roland was aware. But maybe, just maybe, he would have wished to, had he been there.

The foes seemed to feel much the same, as they desperately tried to hunt that damned ghost down, and as more and more came, even Roland started to doubt for Glove's safety. But Glove wasn't bothered, it had been quite some time since he had had some exercise, and the logistics of avoiding all those things hurled at him now, from bedpans to arrows, at the same time as he avoided tripping the foes, made it quite fun, for a little while at least.

But soon enough he started to feel bored again, and decided to up the difficulties. He stood up on his hind legs, not unlike a small matt black poodle, begging, and started to run that way. Now some of the smaller children on the wall started to cry. To see him run like that, with the light from his eyes creating those extremely strong light cones highlighting the foes, gave the scene an almost stroboscopic effect that could have scared even the bravest.

Glove, who found that he couldn't really up the difficulties anymore without him having to change into something more clumsy, finally initiated his homing system. After some tardy milliseconds he had it targeted, and now, now came his artistic touch into full play. He started to wonder about just how he could make it memorable, a tractor beam perhaps? Combined with a laser show? Would that do the trick?

Suddenly the bystanders saw the overhang starting to glow, changing through the visible spectrum as some weird deranged rainbow on the run. Then it slowly lifted with a low rumbling thunder as the rock broke lose. The foe also started to react now, stopping their futile hunt to stare at the massive overhang floating in the air.

Glove sat down on the field, forgotten by all, cleaning himself as he thoughtfully studied it. Which angle should he use, and what about the trajectory? Which would be the best. Decisions, decisions. Suddenly his CS woke up to what he was doing, realizing this, he muttered "Whoops. Dropped it, sorry." as he found his consensual system throwing in its override. The rock slowly started to fall, accelerating as it hit the first tower standing on its top, leaving the tower in splinters. Then it slowly toppled over, crushing the other one under it as it came to rest.

Glove stood up on two legs again, taking a last bow towards his audience, then transmuting himself into a mat black snake, disappeared into the frostbitten ground, making his way back to Roland.

The applaud and hollering from the walls seemed to go on for ever.

Mari was walking now, step by step, creating her own way through the abyss. Slowly, she started to feel as if she had gotten the hang of it. What she was doing was in fact a result of immense willpower, and had her teachers seen her they would have been awestruck. But nobody would see her in that dimensionless abyss. She was the one willing length, height and width to life, but somehow it seemed to get easier as she walked.

After quite some time, she thought she could see what looked as a field of stones, reminding her of those smaller stone circles she had seen portrayed in her study book once, so long ago. She was very careful to keep her eyes on her goal, though, she had a feeling that to look to the sides wouldn't be appreciated by her newfound state of equilibrium.

As she took that last step inside the circle of stones, she suddenly found herself back, but not anywhere she could recognize. What she saw was a desert landscape, marked by strange looking vehicles.

Some of them without wheels and burned out to chars, with old and not so old corpses strewn over the land. She felt as if she walked straight into some hell, the smell of burnt flesh still hanging in the air as some shadow of darkness, but otherwise it was deadly quiet.

As the dwarves and Avery rode on, they did so in silence, no one wanted to talk. They all were in mourning, and the yoke of sadness pressing them down made a heavy load to carry. At last they had came out of the valley, and the trail they were following had once more started to carry them upwards forever higher.

Seeing how Avery suffered, D'am tried to encourage him. "Mayhap the seers will find her, lad."

"Mayhap." answered Avery, trying to sound hopeful, even though he had scant hopes for that. "We should meet the border in a few days. I think that this pass will be the last one."

They all had started to memorize the maps they had now, nobody felt any sureness in their numbers anymore, neither did they expect themselves to be the one to survive. More than one of the dwarves had already exchanged their letters of farewell, not to be in that situation that S'am and L'am had been.