Floating City by Eric Van Lustbader Page A

overheard. “This way!”
    Crouched over, she led him down off the right side of the hillock. Then she headed obliquely away from Cu Chi and the tightening net of Vietnamese soldiers. The land rose slightly, and Nicholas could smell the standing water of rice paddies. They ran like this for perhaps half a mile. Then, abruptly, Bay led them to her left. A moment later, the ground began to slope downward, and at some point she changed direction again, heading more or less directly toward Cu Chi.
    Nicholas could hear the sound of water. He heard Bay’s whispered warning, “Careful now!” and the ground, mucky with sand and bits of stone, gave way. Buried roots and rotting branches clawed at them, tearing their clothes and abrading their skin.
    “Isn’t there a better way to go?” he asked.
    Bay hooked a thumb. “Above us, the ground is packed hard and makes for easy travel. The only problem is, there’s a minefield that runs for three hundred yards. Even the locals don’t go near it.”
    They continued scrambling down the treacherous bank and eventually found themselves heading along a riverbank. Their pace slowed as they searched for firmer footing in the morass close to the river. The musky scents of tropical foliage and decay lay heavy on the air, and the thick drone and chirrup of insects filled the night.
    At a bend in the river, where a fallen tree reached out into the water, Bay held up her hand. She crouched down, staring fixedly at the tree for some time.
    “Are you ready for a swim?” She slipped into the water.
    She waited for him at the head of the fallen tree. The water was not so deep, but the current was surprisingly powerful. Movement along the dark, gleaming hulk caught his attention. A long adder slithered toward them, but Bay appeared unconcerned. She gave him a sardonic smile.
    “If you lose your balance, turn on your back,” she advised him. “You’d be astonished at how quickly you can drown.”
    She let go of the tree and they began to make their laborious way upriver. It was impossible to swim against the current, which meant they had to half-walk along the silty, quicksandlike river bottom while the water rushed at them in an unending torrent. Nicholas guessed they had gone perhaps half a mile when Bay turned and pushed him against the smooth face of a rock.
    “Wait here,” she said in his ear.
    “What’s going on?”
    “The VC built many trapdoors into the Cu Chi tunnels. A number of them came out into this river. The problem is nowadays they’re never used or even explored, and the VC had a nasty habit of booby-trapping these exits.”
    Nicholas watched her as she drifted away from him. For a moment she stood steady near the bank, then she ducked below the surface of the rippling water. Nicholas could feel the tension come into his frame, and he went into meditative breathing. He opened his tanjian eye and immediately sensed Bay moving toward the near riverbank. He was also aware of the trapdoor and knew that the downed tree half a mile back had been some kind of marker. The projection of his psyche could find no evidence of a booby trap, but that meant nothing. His powers were normally blind to non-sentient things. Though he could sense a path in utter darkness, the essential nature of man-made energy was still beyond his current powers.
    He could feel the stealthy encroachment of death, and so near to it, his thoughts strayed to Justine, his wife, who had died some months ago in a fiery car wreck. He would never quite get over the fact they had been estranged when she died. And, even now, he could not say whether there would have been a reconciliation. Too much damage had been done, too many wounds had been inflicted that, though healed on the surface, ran deeper into flesh and bone where they remained, hidden and all the more painful for that.
    Celeste, the beautiful woman he had met and fallen in love with while trying to protect Mikio Okami, had returned to Venice. After the