The Path of the Four

A memory of a dream then hit Ariana. The dream hit her hard, harder than bullets or lasers blasts ever could. The memory of the dream hit more than flesh, blood, and bone, and struck her mind, for a few precious seconds, far away from the maze, the gunman, and the terrible danger she was in.

“When the boy, that schizophrenic, shot that clerk because he didn’t take his drugs, you argued against the boy getting a mandatory ‘mind-sweep’ punishment,” she had said in the dream. “You even went on TV to speak out against it. Then a drug addict shot you dead for the $8.25 you had in your pockets.”

“And then the government makes heroin and other drugs legal and that reduces addiction and drug-related crime by over ninety percent in a few years. I have a great sense of timing, huh?”

“Not every member of the Universal Resistance League was brought into the Paladins of the Promise,” the giant, floating head version of Brother Chaos said. “Like Joseph Whitney. But many were. Like Peter Hargrove.”

Brother Chaos said one more thing before he vanished.

“And by the most melodramatic of coincidences, the man who killed Ariana Orlando’s brother has a weapon pointed at her head right now.”

Ariana took a few trembling steps toward Hargrove.

Hargrove pointed his gun with a straighter arm.

Ariana had one question she had to ask, despite bursting with terror, and she reduced it to one word.

“True?”

Hargrove hesitated five seconds.

“Well,” he said. “There’s no point in denying it now. Is there?”

Before she knew what he was doing, Ariana grabbed Hargrove’s nose and held on tight.

“Hey! Damn it! Hey!”

The death dealing, robed bastard, Ariana’s rash action, reducing his voice to a pathetic cartoon.

He slapped and pushed her, trying to break her hold.

At last, the ugly weapon came down across her face, knocking her to the ground again.

Ariana looked, from her sprawled robe, arms, and legs, the insignia of three different faiths she wore around her neck that swung and jittered from the sudden motion, up at Peter Hargrove, at death in a robe that didn’t belong to the wearer, up at the wide eyes, Roman nose, sunken cheeks, thin lips, jutting jaw that belonged on a cheap doll or puppet, and not something exalted as her own death.

“Right. That’s it for you.”

He raised the weapon.

“’Bye now. I’ll settle for killing as many of them as I can before they get me.”

Joe dropped down behind Hargrove.

Ariana, in a few seconds, put together, Joe, with the help of some Side Clan, being helped over one of the walls of the maze, after stalking and listening to Hargrove and herself.

Joe, as he dropped, grabbed Hargrove’s gun hand, dragged it and Hargrove to a wall, smashed the gun and weapon hard against the wall until the weapon turned into fragments and sparks and pieces of what was lethal plummeted to the ground. All of that while Joe delivered two punches to Hargrove’s Roman nose, bending it, freeing its blood.

Joe produced his two automatic pistols from beneath his robe. He stuck the guns under Hargrove’s jutting jaw.

“We all heard the history lesson, Peter. Want to fill in the blank spaces?”

Ariana got back up to her feet.

“Just before Yamato vanished, he had dinner with Brantley. I don’t know. It was the anniversary of Brantley taking Yamato out of that orphanage or something. Brantley told Yamato the secret, felt sure he would understand, go along, approve. Hell, he should have. He’s a genius. However, he didn’t understand. Like you. Like her.” Hargrove nodded at Ariana. “Yamato didn’t and said so. Went back to his apartment, he disappears, every cop on Earth looks for him and--” He stopped.

Joe lifted Hargrove’s jaw with the guns.

“Then a Paladin, the one with the freckles, the one you shot, spots Yamato here, on Zah-Gre, out somewhere between the villages, talking to Ab-Druh.”

“That’s impossible,” Ariana said.

“You heard the lady,” Joe added. “Nobody could have moved Yamato through a Corridor, to here, without alarms going off in every Earth police agency.”

“I’m going to lie now, Joe? I don’t have anything else to hide. Roselle relays the sighting back to Earth. I come to eliminate Yamato, for knowing the secret, Ab-Druh, for maybe knowing the secret, and the lady here for also maybe knowing, since she’s spending so much time chatting with that native priest.”

Without taking his eyes or guns off Hargrove, Joe said, “What do you think, Ariana?”

“I don’t know. There are huge holes in it, but it’s the beginning of some type of explanation.”

Behind and in front of Ariana, Joe, and Hargrove stepped two groups of Side Clan, their small, silver laser pistols still in their hands.

Voh-Heem stepped around a corner, walking in front of Ariana and the other two Humans.

“Follow us out. There are decisions we all have to make.”

Joe got a nerve-cuff, and it’s control ring, off of one of the H.S. men he killed. That, and the surrounding Zah-Gre, and their weapons, and their torches, kept Hargrove under control back on the top of the hill.

Skinny Kre-Nan and tubby Ni-Vel, of the Inner Clan, made their way to the center of the crowd, to Ariana, Joe, Hargrove, and Voh-Heem.

Joe nodded to the two of them.

“So now what?”

“We have what we want. His capture,” Kre-Nan said.

“Judgment is another question,” added Ni-Vel. He looked at Ariana. “What say you, the Second of the Fourth Book prophecy and Inner Clan of the North Land?”

Ariana looked around and her eyes settled on Joe.

“You’re asking me,” Joe said. “As your boss?”

“I don’t know. I’m asking you.”

From his robe, Joe took out his two guns.

“He betrayed my cause and killed your brother and your friend.”

Hargrove was making it a point not to look anyone in the eyes.

The torches crackled. The two-headed birds sang. The sound of the tide drifted along.

“Get to your knees, Pete.”

The assassin didn’t hesitate to do what Joe asked.

Joe walked over to Ariana and stood next to her.

“Do you like five? I think five is a great number. Let’s do it on five.”

He handed her one of the pistols.

Ariana almost dropped it. Part of her mind knew the weapon was light, but somehow it was much heavier.

“Aim for Pete’s chest,” Joe said. He did so.

And waited.

Then Ariana did so as well, watching herself from some distant somewhere in her own mind, and so with the rest of Joe’s instructions and matching actions.

“With your free hand, hold the wrist of your gun hand. Sight down right over the top of the gun, right down the center. When it’s time, squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it or yank it. Squeeze. It’s a not cannon, but expect a kick when you fire. You want to start?”

Joe waited.

“OK then,” he said. “One.”

There’s a Center Land legend about something called the One Who Will Complete Us.

“Two.”

Some friends will deliver my killer to you and this man will be at your mercy.

“Three.”

Instead of saying “great in its lack of balance” I should have used an English word that we have no equivalent to in all five of the tongues. Something “evil.”

“Four.”

Like I said, Ariana, I can only wish you luck in passing the test.

“Five!”

Ariana dropped the gun she held, grabbed the wrist of Joe’s gun hand, and shoved it into the air. The weapon discharged, the round banging and flying up somewhere away.

Joe leaped back from her.

“What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?”

“What needs to be done.”

“Bullshit.” He aimed at Hargrove’s chest again, and the assassin’s face fought a battle between fear, relief, and confusion. The Zah-Gre were quiet, their faces passive.

“I’ll kill him myself.”

“No you will not!”

Did she just say that? That command? That loud? Her throat hurt from her shouting. She noticed she was even holding her hand up in a commanding gesture, like --

-- Like Ab-Druh.

“Uh, Joe,” Hargrove said. “I don’t expect love and kisses from this crowd at this point. However, before you do anything else, you might want to take, I don’t know, a poll or something. Who is on what side here? Who is taking orders from who? And what was the other thing? Oh yeah. Who’s holding the most guns?”

Ariana saw Joe looking at the armed Zah-Gre and looking at her, and looking at Joe, and waiting.

Joe let his gun hand drop.

“I don’t care what these circumstances are. ‘Mercy’ is not a good enough reason, not after everything Pete did.”

“Maybe not.” Ariana looked at Hargrove. “Let’s ask the Lower Clan, if we can, once they get ‘The One Who Will Complete Us.’” She looked at the crowd of Zah-Gre. “Somebody--I need a map, a translator, some directions, and a boat. Come on, folks. I have to go stop a war.”