Read Online Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams - Free Book Online

after him.
    “Try not to die!”
    Aristide laughed and rode on.
    Grax’s little army, having received its orders, was deploying left and right and moving upslope, all the while trying to make as little noise as possible. Aristide looked ahead and saw Bitsy’s black-and-white tail waving from the shelter of a scrub pine. He increased his pace and rode to join her, passing the armed force as it was still deploying.
    He dismounted before he reached the top of the slope, and made his way cautiously to the shelter of the little pine. He found himself on the rim of a shallow bowl three hundred paces in width. There was a great pile of rock on the right, cleft by a mountain brook that fell in two streams past a great basalt pillar into a broad pool, just as Aristide’s guide had described. The stream rose again from the pool and wound its way across the bowl, cutting a trench through the palm plantation. The plantation itself had been raised above the floor of the bowl, and was surrounded by a chest-high stone wall, the interior of which had been filled with soil hauled to this place at considerable labor, to provide a fertile anchor for the trees.
    Whoever had done this was long gone. The plantation had an untended look.
    Beyond the plantation was a corral with horses and other animals. Most of the open area was cluttered with the tents and shelters of the bandit army. Only the fact that the plantation was elevated above the surrounding area gave Aristide a view of what was happening beneath the palms.
    There was a gathering in the plantation, a half-circle of bandits with the three black-clad priests prominent in the center. At the priests’ feet stretched another group of bandits, each bound hand and foot. Taller than the tallest human, and unnaturally slender, the priests stalked among them, chanting in a guttural tongue. It was impossible to hear any words over distance, and over the sound of the waterfall.
    Grax rode up behind Aristide, peering over the twisted pine, his lance poised to give the signal to attack. Aristide motioned him to wait.
    “I want to find out what happens next,” he whispered.
    Grax turned and signaled the army to stillness and silence, and then he dismounted and joined Aristide in concealment. The troll was wider than the bush he was hiding behind: at some other time it might have been amusing.
    The priests continued to stalk among the bound bandits. The other bandits watched, and even though they were over a hundred paces away, Aristide could tell they weren’t happy.
    Then Aristide noticed the clay balls. They were dangling by cords from the priests’ hands, and they darted through the air as if they were creatures with minds of their own, like cicadas leashed by children to string.
    Aristide and Grax started at a sudden blast of sound. A stir of dust rose from the grove, and whirled away as the crash echoed repeatedly among the rocks. Birds flew up from their perches, calling in alarm.
    Where there had been a bound bandit, there was now nothing but air.
    Again Aristide’s face became a smooth, intent mask, a motionless work in bronze from which glittered his dark, fierce eyes.
    “So it’s true!” Grax said. He looked over his shoulder at his troops, who seemed to have grown nervous. He favored them with a silent, morale-boosting laugh.
    The murmur of the priests continued without cease. Another boom shattered the air; another bandit vanished.
    “We should attack,” said Grax.
    “The longer this goes on,” Aristide said, “the more they reduce their own strength. Let’s watch.”
    “We can’t wait too long. My men will lose heart.”
    “Go tell them the bandits are killing their own people and doing our job for us.”
    “Oh.” Grax considered this. “ Oh . Very good.”
    Bent low, he rumbled down the slope to his troops, and told them to spread the word.
    “This isn’t looking good,” Bitsy said to Aristide, once they were alone.
    “No.”
    “This overthrows