Dies the Fire

"Tell me about it," Eric said.

The answer was probably rhetorical, but Havel took it literally: "We've got a set of problems, assuming we don't get lucky and find the Three Demon Stooges lying with their necks broken 'cause they couldn't stay on. OK, first, there's the kid with the bow."

"He didn't hit anything," Eric observed. "And we were pretty close."

"Not from a horse he didn't, no. But he might be a lot better on foot. Those hunting bows are no joke-look what your kid sister did with one, and neither of us is as tough a target as a bull elk! That means we have to get real close before he sees us. Next, there's tall ski

"He's worse than the others?"

"He's a real killer, not a wa

Eric swallowed; he was coming down from the adrenaline high of the brief chaotic fight, and looking a bit pale. But he was a sharp kid, and he probably took the point about freezing up better than he would if Havel had stated it openly.

"What's the third problem?"

"They're heading right towards your folks… stop right there!"

The young man reined in at the snap of command.

"We come barreling down after them, they're likely to hear us coming and ambush us. Right now they're going hell for leather after Hutton-the black guy. They'll catch him, he can't get off the trail tied to his horse like that, but they won't worry about us if we're real careful."

"Why not?" Eric said.

"Because to their way of thinking, we've got the women and the stuff; plus they don't know about your family. They may know about the old cabin, though. Three on two is bad odds. This is going to be real tricky."

He paused a moment. "You realize we're going to have to kill them all?"

Eric nodded abruptly, swallowing again; he started to speak, cleared his throat, and then went on: "Yeah, Mike, I do. They'll kill my folks if we don't, won't they? And rape my sisters. And they'll torture that black guy."

"For starters," Havel said.

The sun was setting on the mountains behind them, and the beauty of it made him shiver a little as the great trees threw spears of shadow before them. He'd told Signe that the forest wasn't hostile; and that was still true. But men, now… men had been suddenly thrown back each on himself. The cake of law and custom had been broken; now they were all on their own, and their true natures could come out, for good or ill.

"They're fucking monsters!" Eric burst out.

Havel shook his head. "No, they're just evil," he replied. "But that's close enough for government work."

Eight

"What the hell is going on?" the store owner said, under the sign that read DABLE GARDEN AND LAWN SUPPLY.

He looked at the two great horse-drawn wagons; curious children freed by the lack of school buses gathered around as well. Chuck Barstow glanced up and down the one street of the little town of Dable; houses faded into farmland not two hundred yards from where he stood, and new leaves were budding on the trees that arched overhead.

It was only nine o'clock, but there was a line outside the bakery and the little grocery store. A group of men were pushing the dead cars out of the middle of the street, clearing the way. Several of them looked speculatively at the wagons, which made him nervous.

The strong smell of the horses' sweat filled the air; getting out of Eugene had been a nightmare-if you could call this out of it, since a ribbon of suburb and strip mall extended nearly this far. Nobody had attacked them- quite-or seemed to guess what was under the canvas tilts. He still shuddered and swallowed acid at the back of his throat, thinking of the things he'd seen in the dying city.

"What do you think has happened?" Chuck said.

"Don't know," the storekeeper admitted. "Figure it's some sort of big power-out."

"What about the cars? Radios? The batteries?" Chuck said.

"Well, that could be one of those government projects- I read about it in Popular Mechanics, a bomb aimed at frying electronic gear. That's what must have happened; a test got out of hand."

If that was all, I might have believed something like that myself. Aloud he went on: "What about the guns?"

"Guns aren't working?" the man said, his face going fluid with shock for a second.

Then he chuckled: "I suppose that's why you folks are carrying the swords and such."

Chuck had his own Society long sword at his belt and a buckler-a little shield like a steel soup-plate-hooked over it, along with his dagger on his right hip; he'd had those over at Andy and Diana's for coven work. He shoved down a wistful thought about the gear at home in his garage; they'd decided it was too risky to go all the way south through the city for them, and that was that. The rest of the coveners had shovels, or axes, or at least long kitchen knives and baseball bats.

"What do you think really happened?" the storekeeper said.

"Well, we figure it's a global catastrophe," Chuck said. "All our technology-anything involving engines or electricity or guns-has suddenly stopped working. Planes fell out of the air. Most of humanity is going to die in the next six months, except for peasant farmers, and a lot of them are going to die too unless they're real lucky. It's the end of the world as we knew it, and of civilization. So we'd like to buy some things from you, if you're still foolish enough to accept money. We're ru

The storekeeper was a thin balding man with thick glasses. Chuck could see his words being processed and rejected behind them.

Weirdos, the man thought, almost audibly. Suckers. But well-heeled suckers.

Chuck shivered internally. He knew he was talking to a man who would die, soon and horribly, simply because he couldn't really believe in what had happened.

It was all he could do to make himself believe in what had happened, despite the way everything had simply stopped working.

Too big, he thought. It's just too big. For most people, at least. I'm used to believing in things everyone else doesn't, and I think it's an advantage… and I did try to tell this guy the truth.

From what he'd seen, the vast majority of people were going to wait awhile for things to return to normal, or for the Army or the National Guard to show up. Then when they started to get hungry, or the water didn't run anymore, probably a lot of them would panic and go looking for a place where things were normal. The idea that the whole planet had… Changed… was simply too big to grasp; and accepting it meant looking death in the face, the death of a world.

He shivered and swallowed a bubble of nausea; it was too big to grasp thoroughly, down in the gut, and all at once. By the time most really got it into their heads, it would be too late.

I'm among the living dead, he thought.

There were advantages to being one of a collection of misfits who believed in magic.

"So, what would you folks like?" the thin man said.

When the world turns weird, the weird get going, Chuck thought. Aloud he went on, suppressing laughter-hysterical laughter that he probably couldn't stop once it started: "Do you accept personal checks?"

Sally sat beside Juniper on the driver's seat of the Traveler wagon; it was comfortable enough as they rumbled eastward along the dirt road, with a piece of artfully arranged board to support her injured leg.The Portland woman handled the reins quite well for an amateur, but the horses were experienced and knew the way as hills rose on either side.