Rainbow Bridge Read Online Free

the antique monsters, could be heard complaining. The patching of bizarre connections, the lack of gaffer tape—
    ‘I couldn’t find you! We arrived and no one would tell me where you two were, it was as if I didn’t exist . What the fuck was that about? All right, forget it, forget it. Listen, it’s not over. IT’S NOT OVER. Half the country is unoccupied, the Celtic nations are untouched. We have matériel, far more than they know. We have soldiers, few maybe, but harder, more experienced than they have any idea. We can have bases, here there and everywhere, we can harry them—’
    ‘Oh really? You’re gonna show the People’s Liberation Army how to do guerrilla warfare?’
    ‘I know it’s been hell, I know what happened to you. But you have to get on, back on your feet, we have to pull ourselves together, and strike hard —’
    Shouldn’t say a word, except silence was going to make the man worse. ‘Nah, you see, tha’s where you’re wrong. We’re the pacifists—’
    Richard’s eyes bulged dangerously, he exploded in fury.
    ‘So it’s true . I didn’t believe it! You’re bottling out. You were an outstanding officer once, Sage. I was proud to serve with you in Yorkshire. But for you that was several lifetimes ago, that’s the problem. Before your trip to see God, before the fashionplate years at the court of King Ax. Frankly, I liked you better when you were a loutish, sex-mad, drunken teen-idol in a ridiculous digital mask.’
    ‘Thanks a lot.’
    ‘Put not your faith in rockstars, they reinvent themselves every season.’
    ‘Rich, I’m serious. This isn’t somethen’ we should fight, iffen we could. It’s our share of a mighty disturbance in the Force, bro. It’s neither good nor bad, an’ violence is not the way to meet it.’
    The soldier curled his lip.
    ‘I’ll wait until I hear the dreamy mystic line from Ax, Aoxomoxoa.’
    ‘Suit yourself.’
    Someone who had quietly come up behind Richard crossed into view, with a guitar he’d taken from a stagehand: tucked a bead in his ear and sat on a cable drum beside Sage, head bent, a wing of dark hair falling. He wore a ring with an incised, red bevel on his right hand, a band of red and white and yellow braided British gold on his left. He picked the strings, one welling phrase of single notes, and looked up, tossing back the hair to reveal a keel of Celtic knotwork around his left eye.
    ‘The Chinese invasion’s a mighty disturbance in the Force, Rich. It’s neither good nor bad. And violence is not the way to meet it.’
    Like his Triumvirate partner, the President (technically still President of this vanquished nation) looked as if he’d been sleeping rough since his last known whereabouts. His brown jacket was stained and muddy, his sheeny hair unkempt.
    ‘I’m fucking glad you’re okay, but I wish you’d stayed away from Ashdown. If you have to be here I wish you’d turn in that gun, ditch the paramilitary look, and tell your cohorts the same. We’re holding this gathering on sufferance, you know. I can’t protect you guys, and I won’t try.’
    Richard was distracted by the knotwork, dark blue against skin the colour of milky tea; which he had not seen before.
    ‘What’s that on your face? Did the Scots mark you like that?’
    ‘Yep,’ said Mr Preston, shortly. ‘They did. Price of our ticket out of jail.’
    ‘It doesn’t disguise you. But that doesn’t matter. The Chinese don’t know if you’re alive or dead. They have no idea where you are!’
    Ax let that pass. ‘Yeah, well, maybe, but it doesn’t make me your secret weapon. I’m not going to join you this time, Rich. It’s not tenable.’
    The leader of the resistance stood nonplussed, his face working. ‘All right. I’ve been shooting my mouth. We’ll discuss this further.’ He turned on his heel, ramrod straight: got a hand to the ground, and forged away into the mill of the lost. Ax looked at Sage. They went together to the front of the stage,