The Heretic Read Online Free PDF Page A

for watch after watch. Who never let you do anything that wasn’t Edict. Who whacked you with the correction stick when you got out of Stasis for even one second.
    In the Land, it’s Thursday forever, lad, said Raj.
    When Abel opened his eyes again, he was hovering over the Fourth Cataract near the River’s headwaters as it cascaded out of the Schnee.
    A village stretched below him. Its rooftops not flat, as were all roofs Abel had ever seen so far. These were oddly tilted and joined at the center in ridges.
    They’re for shedding the autumn rains, lad, Raj said with a chuckle. Never seen the like, have you? Not only that, sometimes in midwinter they’re topped with snow.
    White, like in the stories?
    Yes, lad. At least for a day. Then the dust settles in and browns it down.
    Behold Orash, Progar District, said Center. Behold the gateway of the Blood Wind.

2
    Observe:
    The Redlanders flooded down the Escarpment toward the forts at the choke point of the River. The donts they rode upon were Valley stock sold to them by the very villagers they were now attacking. It didn’t matter. The Redlanders cut through the villagers like a scythe.
    Time to go down, said Raj, and abruptly Abel found himself off the flyer and standing in a village street.
    The principle street of Orash in a not-distant future. Observe:
    Screaming people were running past him. Babies were crying. Children were yelling for their parents, for their brothers and sisters.
    Nobody knew where to go or what to do.
    Because there wasn’t anywhere to go.
    The rumble of massed riding donts in the distance. Men on dontback. Abel recognized the sound well enough without Center’s data planting.
    Screams that were screams of pain.
    A single villager charging down the street straight at Abel, a wild look on his face and insanity in his eyes.
    It was the eyes that frightened Abel the most.
    He’s seen something, Abel thought to himself. Something horrible.
    Their eyes locked, and the man headed directly toward Abel at a quick pace, as if tugged by a lanyard.
    Abel flinched. The man with the crazy eyes was going to run right over him. There was no time to dodge, no time to jump away.
    But then the man stumbled. Slowed.
    Still his eyes remained locked with Abel’s.
    And then he keeled over and fell on his face at Abel’s feet.
    The man’s back was pierced with arrows as if he were a human pincushion. And there was a gunshot to the left shoulder blade. Meat and muscle hung loose, and the ball had wreaked terrible damage to the bone.
    It looks like a ragged, bloody cave, Abel thought. Bone glinted within torn skin.
    Enough, said Raj.
    Abel was back in the storehouse in Hestinga. He stumbled back from the upended flyer he’d been touching. He gasped for air.
    “That man—” Abel managed to wheeze.
    —one of many, said Raj. Many thousands who will die.
    The Redlanders will sweep down Valley. The Second Cataract forts were designed as bases for forays into the surrounding desert, not north-south defense bastions. Their rear works are practically nonexistent. Most of them are unwalled and back up to the River. The Central Granary on Montag Island will burn. Rotten Bruneberg will crumble. Lindron will fall. The priesthood will flee to Mims. Mims will burn along with the priests. Thousands more will die from famine.
    How do you know? Abel asked.
    I am a fifth-generation artificial intelligence running on a one hundred gigacubit quantum superimposition engine. I complete more calculations per one of your eyeblinks than all the computers of the first millennium of the Information Age could produce together if all of them ran at full power for each of those one thousand years.
    Huh?
    Trust me, Abel. I know.
    Zentrum will reach an accommodation with the Redlanders, said Raj. As always, Zentrum believes he is taking the long view.
    There is a tactical purity to the scheme, said Center. If one’s time horizon does not extend beyond a century or two.
    Bloody hell, you