“Not now,” Terris said. “Not any more. This is what the gaea-priests were supposed to warn us about.”
“Gaea-priests!” Montborne said. “A pack of norther dupes who’d like us to have nothing more effective than knives and axes.”
Without replying, Terris turned back to the rubble again. From his expression, I could tell we weren’t leaving until Montborne changed his mind. When Montborne walked away, I followed him.
Montborne picked his way around to one of the almost-intact columns on the far side. It must have been a major structural support, but the tower had long since collapsed around it. He paused, staring off at the end of the valley. His hands hung open at his sides, and a gust of air ruffled his hair. I couldn’t let him get too far, although I glanced over at what he found so interesting.
Beginning a half-mile or so past the base of the tower, a hill stretched halfway to the horizon. Squat and broad, it looked to be cloudy gray-white glass. Even from this distance, I saw the folded, pleated crevices tinged with yellow, as if years of rainfall had left a sickly stain. The near edge of the hill fell off sharply and extended in the shape of a blunted crescent, its two arms forming the sides of a little sheltered glen. Here a patch of weedy trees, stunted and pale, huddled around a spring of clear water. The breeze shifted the leaves, showing their brownish undersides. In Laurea — hell, anywhere in Harth — they’d be thought so poor and sickly, they’d be torn out and replaced if they couldn’t be doctored into something better.
To my left — I couldn’t tell where the sun was and I’d lost my sense of direction — I caught a flicker of movement. I looked, but found nothing. No, I saw it now, camouflaged so well as to be almost invisible when standing still. At first I thought it was a pony, about that size and shape, with reddish horizontal stripes and a scrawny mane. The ears seemed too long, though, and the tail either clamped tight against its scrawny rump, or else for some reason it didn’t have one.
Beside me, Montborne let out his breath with a hissing noise. He too had noticed that the pony-thing had only one foreleg. The other was a stump ending just above the knee joint, the tip tapered smooth as if it were formed that way.
“There it is!” Terris was on his knees, sweeping the rock clear of dust and rubble. Montborne and I turned to look.
I let my breath out in a whistle as I realized it was a metal plaque, badly etched and pitted, but inscribed with recognizable letters. And surrounding them, over and over again, the symbol of the dotted doubled circle.
Terris bent over the tablet, smoothing away the last of the sifted grit with his hands. He wet his lips, tracing the eroded letters with his fingers. I peered over his shoulder, straining to make out the words.
“‘It is better to plant a single seed than conquer a world.’“
“By all that’s holy,” Montborne whispered. “You were right.”
Following the slogan was a list of strange doubled names, some familiar but combined in odd ways:
Sylvia Rosenberg — Thomas Montburn
Aaron Stockman — Geremy Paterno
Esmelda Aragon — Jason Koltabi
Chi-Yun Derrin —
They gave their lives to find a new world for humankind.
From the direction of the spring came a wild, wailing shriek. I sprinted to the edge of the platform in time to see a bolt of greenish light shoot from the brush. It landed squarely on the pony’s striped hip, leaving a puff of vapor.
The pony staggered and turned toward us, as if it sensed our hidden presence and appealed to us for help. For a moment I thought it wasn’t hurt, only a little stunned. It took one step and then another, head down as if to gather itself to run. Suddenly its hind legs collapsed under it.
As it fell I saw the place where the green light had struck, the white bones piercing the flesh that even now dripped in huge wet dollops to the ground. The pony screamed again, its voice high and unbroken. It thrashed the dirt with its single foreleg. Something in the set of its neck and the way it kept trying to get up tore at my memories of the gray mare fighting the ropeweed.
The other creature darted from the shelter of the bushes — not human, not the way it scuttled and crouched. Not the way it pointed the blunt-ended black tube right at the struggling pony and seared it again and again. The pony’s last scream cut off in the middle, leaving a mass of disjointed bones and gelatinous, meat-colored stuff that still quivered slightly.
The hunter paused and straightened up, searching the distance. Then it strode over to what was left of the pony and squatted beside it. It wore a sort of harness over its clothing, boots, a close-fitting hood over its head and neck. Dark goggles covered its eyes. It laid the black tube across one knee, scooped up a handful of the red blobby stuff and stuffed it into its mouth.
I always thought I had a strong stomach, but now I clapped one hand over my mouth and turned away.
Montborne grabbed my arm. He gestured urgently and pointed toward the spring. The hunter thing had seen my movement. It was on its feet once more, aiming the black tube in our direction.
The first blast hit the column inches from my face as Montborne shoved me out of the way. I stumbled, fighting to stay on my feet, and then he grabbed my shirt and hauled me bodily behind the nearest large chunk of stone, a fragment of wall.
Another bolt of light sizzled by us, and Montborne cursed violently. I shrank against the bit of wall, my fingers curled around the hilt of the City Guards knife, for all the good it would do me now.
“Terris!” I yelled.
From across the courtyard, Terris looked up. His face was white-gray, like marble.
I swerved as a splinter of falling rock narrowly missed my nose. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
There was a pause in the attack, as if the thing down were watching for new signs of life. Or maybe sneaking closer.
“This way!” Terris called, gesturing.
I started toward him, keeping to the cover of the wall as long as I could, Montborne at my heels.
Hsst! Crack! Another blast shot between the columns. Eye-watering dust puffed up where it hit the rock wall behind us.
Damn, but that thing aimed good!
“Look out!” Terris yelled.
I glanced up as one of the rust-eaten metal posts of the tower, perhaps weakened by a chance bolt of light, began to topple right where Montborne and I had stood. I hurled myself to the side, as fast and far as I could. The corroded metal shrieked in my ears as it snapped. The next instant, I landed splat on my belly, sliding through the rock dust. My outstretched arms slammed into chunks of loose rubble.
With a deafening boom, quivering through the whole platform, the metal beam crashed into the ground. I covered my head with my free hand and squeezed my eyes tight. Dust and rock chips pelted my body.
Another earth-shivering crack came from behind me, along with another fall of rock — more of the ruined tower toppling, I couldn’t tell. I opened my eyes a fraction and shut them again, chocking on the acrid billowing dust. It would take a moment or two for it to clear, and meanwhile...
I struggled to my feet, knife in my hand. My eyes streamed tears, but I could just make out what was left of the tower.
“Kardith?” Terris’s voice, near.
I blinked hard — yes, there he was, moving in my direction. “Keep to cover!”
Even as I spoke, another light bolt sizzled through the air. This time it didn’t hit anything.
The dust continued to clear. I spotted Terris, crouched low beside a stumpy column. Montborne lay outstretched a few feet away, shards of rust covering what I could see of him. The metal beam had landed on a slant across Montborne’s body, one end propped a foot or so off the ground by a chunk of rock. Faint traces of carving still showed across its surface — the base of a pillar, I thought. It was all that kept Montborne from getting smashed flat.
I wondered if I could convince Terris to go back while Montborne was helpless. It would solve our Laurean problems neatly enough, and
we could swear honestly we hadn’t killed him. But Terris was already hurrying to the general’s side.
Now Montborne raised his head, reached along the pavement with his hands and began pulling himself forward. Terris hooked his hands under Montborne’s shoulders and hauled him out from under the metal. I grabbed Montborne’s other shoulder and helped him to sit up.
Hsst! Crack! A greenish bolt splintered a hole in the engraved rock an inch from Terris’s head. I grabbed him and pulled him down. Montborne bit back a curse. The hunter must be damned close to aim so low.
I caught a glimpse of something clambering up the far end of the platform behind the pillars: the rounded shape of its head, the bulge of the goggles, the straps of its harness. The thing had small, defined breasts.
My fingers inched toward the hilt of the Guards knife, not that it would be much use against the black tube now moving slowly back and forth, searching for us. Any quick movement would draw its attention; I’d have only an instant to draw, aim, and throw.
My shoulder was against Terris’s chest and I could feel the beating of his heart, the whisper of his breath in my hair. The black tube swung back in our direction —
S-s-sshth! Crack-boom! Another bolt of light, this one searing orange, shot through the ruined archways. It caught the edge of a metal bar. Sparks flew and bits of rusted metal hurled in all directions. An acrid smell clawed the back of my throat.
The first hunter whirled and fired its tube weapon off to the east. More orange beams answered it, thin and quick like glowing threads. The hunter twisted and dodged, then jumped from the platform, disappearing from our sight.
“Now!” Terris cried, scrambling to his feet.
We all jumped when he said jump, and landed splat on the stone floor of the Starhall basement.
o0o
After we all got our breath back, Montborne picked himself up off the stone floor and mumbled to Terris, “I was wrong, I...” and Terris shot back, “Let’s just get the hell out of here.” My thoughts exactly.
Despite his brave words, Terris looked whiter than I’d ever seen him, and he shook like a barnfowl at a slaughter yard.
Etch met us halfway up the first flight of stairs. He looked half out of his skin with worry. He’d given up waiting and was on his way to find us.
He took one look at Terris and slung him over his shoulders as if he were a newborn foal. He carried him down a couple of corridors and out the door of polished bronzewood used by the Inner Council for their private comings and goings. It was locked from both sides, but Montborne had the key. Once we were halfway across the plaza, Terris started looking a whole lot stronger.
He said to Montborne, “There wasn’t any other way. There wasn’t anything I could have said that you’d have believed.” Underneath the jittery exhaustion in his voice, I heard again the ring of steel.
As for me, I wondered why it meant a demon’s fart what Montborne believed. Wasn’t he the one who had Pateros killed? Wasn’t he the one who sent the goons after us with that cursed dagger? One glance at Etch’s face told me he thought the same, but both of us kept our mouths shut.
“I thought you were making it all up,” Montborne said. I never heard him so quiet, so subdued. So shook — him, the Butcher of Brassaford? “Just some wild story because you’d been away so long, with nothing but rumors about what’s happening in the city. But I was wrong — oh gods, was I wrong! You were telling the truth. That place back there — ”
Montborne’s eyes flickered toward the Starhall, spewing its glittery light all over the plaza. “I don’t have words enough — it’s more disgustingly — obscenely — contaminated than anything the gaea-priests warn us about. If there’s some way for that — thing to escape, to follow us — sweet Harth! — into Laurea...” His voice trembled. Montborne?
The eastern sky shone like a pearl, pink and gold. Just then, the lights from the Starhall winked out. Montborne jumped, as if Laurea were already plunged into darkness. The demon god had sunk his claws deep into Montborne, that was sure, or maybe it was his own damned conscience.
“You still don’t understand, do you?” said Terris. “Those things were human — every bit as human as our ancestors when they passed through that gate. Why do you think the worst epithets in our language are words like contaminated and toxic and mutagenic? It’s because we were the ones who did that. Why we thought we could start over again, I don’t know. Maybe we thought that with the gaea-priests to keep us from inventing new weapons, more powerful and destructive all the time, we’d somehow manage to avoid turning Harth into...that.”
For a moment Montborne looked lost, as if the glimpse of that other place had broken some part of his mind. Or maybe Terris had gotten through to him and he saw what he’d almost done.
Maybe he saw what he had already done, that it was now too late to undo. That I understood.
But there was forgiveness, and there was forgiveness.
Montborne straightened his shoulders, once more the general of Laurea. He took Terris’s hand in both of his and met his eyes, direct and open. The gesture reminded me in a strangely reversed way of how Pateros took my hand in his when he heard my oath.
“Whatever else I might have been,” Montborne said, “I have been and always will be loyal to Laurea. That — ” with a shiver and a glance back toward the Starhall, “ — is a lesson I won’t have to repeat.”
Terris locked his eyes on the general’s, and I wondered what he saw there. In the dawning light, his face had gone to shades of gray, like marble. “I never thought you acted out of self-interest,” he said.
Montborne offered to escort us to Esmelda’s house, but Terris answered, with a perfectly straight face, that one Ridge-trained Ranger and one meaner-than-piss horse doctor were protection enough.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, at the Inner Council meeting.” Montborne strode off westward.
Silently Terris watched him disappear into the fading darkness. His shoulders sagged a little as we started off toward Esmelda’s house. I watched the shadows for any sign of trouble — military goons, kids, more City Guards with dart pipes.
“There’ve been some changes since we left,” Etch commented.
Terris made a strange sound, half hiccough, half sneeze. I realized he was laughing, and I couldn’t understand what was so funny.
“My visions were right after all. My mother’s become Guardian of Laurea,” he said when he could talk straight again, “and not even pro tem. The real thing. Montborne doesn’t know Avi’s back, so he thinks I’m Esme’s heir. That’s why he humored me so long, trying to find out what I knew. And the best part is — it was some damnfool crazy precedent, some emergency loophole, in one of those archives I busted my ass dredging up that put Esme in power so quick. I never thought — I’d find such a practical use — for my academic career!”
Chapter 38
Terris was staggering by the time Etch and I got him to Esmelda’s house. It wasn’t just the night without sleep or even the journey north when he hardly slept or ate. The Light had changed him, given him gifts he didn’t want and taken something away, too — what, I wasn’t sure yet. Then there was whatever the Starhall gate had cost him. And facing Montborne down afterwards. I knew this man, I’d watched him run mile after mile when he couldn’t catch his breath and his muscles screamed like hell. He didn’t give up. Not then, not now. He gritted his teeth together and his eyes wove in and out of focus. He leaned on me more and more, but when we reached his mother’s doorstep and pushed me away. With a twist of his mouth, he stood on his own, his shoulders back.
The door slammed open just as we reached it, and the mouse-woman steward and Avi came bursting through. Avi took one look at us and said, “Drat,” just as Terris collapsed. Etch caught him as he fell.
I shoved my way into the house. The table just inside the door heaped with papers and books, the staircase with its carved bannister, the dimness broken by the brighter light from the right-hand room, were just as
if the place had stood untouched since I was last here.
“Kardith, what’s happened?” Avi said.
I spun around. “Does he have a room here?”
“Right,” she said, and jerked her head toward the stairs.
Etch maneuvered Terris’s body around the bannister. Both Avi and I moved to help, but suddenly one of my arms was caught — not trapped or grabbed hard, just touched so I couldn’t move.
The old dragon herself.
“You,” she said, meaning Etch and Avi, “get him to bed, and then yourselves. Lys,” to the mouse-woman steward, “get Cherida. And you,” meaning, of course, me, “go sit down,” propelling me with a feather touch toward the living room, “until you can give me a full report.”
Everyone did exactly that. For a moment I hesitated to walk across the sand-colored carpet or touch the plush, upholstered furniture. I was so tired I couldn’t stand up and so fired up I couldn’t sit still. There wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t stinking filthy with dried blood, trail dirt, crusted sweat or grime from the Starhall gate world.
I threw myself into the nearest chair.
A few minutes later, Esmelda entered the room. I remembered the first time she spoke to me, the day of Pateros’s funeral. The night I begged her help for Avi, the night Terris found me on my knees in the plaza and swore he’d find a way.
She’d looked over the milling crowd, as if scenting the yet-unspilled blood. “My son’s out there...”
“I found him for you,” I said. “I found both of them.”
As for the story, I stumbled around, putting together bits of what I’d heard Terris say to Etch and Jakon. I saw from Esmelda’s expression that she’d heard some of this before — maybe from Avi, maybe from her own sources. What happened in the Light, though, that was none of her business.
Like Avi, she interrupted me with questions, “You saw this yourself?” being the most frequent. Unlike Avi, she kept her opinions to herself.
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