“We are doing everything medically possible, but in spite of our best efforts his injuries are—”
“No!” Angelica whispered. She shook her head. “No, no, no…I know what that language means. Where is he?” The young man led Angelica toward the wide glass windows that looked into the intensive care center where medical personnel monitored Tristan around the clock. Mage wandered after her and leaned against a wall. Angelica turned to his nurse. “Thank you.” Her eyes flew to Mage and scanned him. “Please ensure Captain DeLan returns to his hospital bed. He shouldn’t be on his feet.”
***
Mage lay in a sitting position in a bed in the same room the nurse had taken him to a day ago—or was it two—and downed his fifth glass of Pottsdim. He was attempting to reach oblivion. It wasn’t working. The potent alcohol couldn’t dampen his emotional devastation any more than the opioids he’d swallowed could deaden his physical pain. It’s not fair. Any other time, I’d be under the table.
A haggard and hollow-cheeked Angelica walked in, paused for a moment, and with a shake of her head crawled onto the bed and snugged herself under his good side.
“I can’t reach the decanter with you there,” he murmured.
“I think you’ve had enough. I could smell you from the door.”
He sighed heavily and let the empty glass fall to his lap. “Doesn’t matter. Wasn’t doing any good, anyway.” He let his head roll back and examined the ceiling. He swallowed and asked the question he dreaded the answer to. “Tris?”
Angelica hugged him tighter and buried her face in his chest. He felt her body shake, but then she stiffened, swiped her nose on the blankets and half sat. Deep purple bruises made crescents below her closed eyes. Her lids opened and her gaze found his. “We have the most advanced medical technology available and we are barely keeping him alive. It would take a miracle for him to live more than a day or so off the machines.”
“Gods-be-damned heroics. I warned him about that, but he said pompous dickwits didn’t do heroics.”
“No, no, no, no.” With each word, Angelica pounded on his chest, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I brought this danger to you. Neither of you should have been involved. This is my fault.”
“Oh, Angel.” Mage wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her to him, suppressing a hiss as she slid across his damaged thigh. “You aren’t responsible for the behavior of some sociopathic maniac. Having you in our lives is worth any pain. It was the thought we’d lost you that was intolerable. Tris and I are in love with you. The fact that you aren’t in the hands of the meks is the one thing keeping me sane.”
“Tristan loves me?”
More pain assaulted him. How could he have forgotten? “He told me so. It was the last thing he said. He told me to tell you. I’m so sorry. I…I…just forgot in all this…” Mage gestured helplessly.
Angelica caught his floundering arm and kissed his hand. “Stop… stop, Mage. I love you both—so very much. We can’t lose him. I can’t lose him. I’ve done everything I know to do and he’s still slipping away. I don’t know how to stop it. He’s fading away and nothing I do helps. I’m watching him die.”
Angelica dissolved into quiet sobs, and for a long stretch of time all Mage did was rub the nape of her neck as she poured out her grief. He battled the fat tears pooling in his eyes and the raw ache in his throat. He was afraid he’d break down, too. Finally, she quieted and lay on his chest with only an occasional shudder passing through her. Mage thought she dozed, but then she would hug him fiercely and begin to sob again. Sometime deep in the dark of the night he gave up the battle to hold back his tears and cried with her. They both poured out their grief until pure exhaustion stopped their tears.
“May we come in?” Ramsey’s deep baritone broke the quiet. The door to their room stood open and soft light from the hallway cast a cone of illumination.
“Yes.” Mage roused from his semi-stupor, pressed the room controls and brought the lights up to half-strength. Lord Ramsey shuffled in and stood stooped with red-stained bandages swathing his abdomen and head. A shirt, half-buttoned, draped his shoulders. Loose sleep pants hung low on his hips. His feet were bare. Steffania followed. The pair looked as beaten and battered physically as he felt mentally. While she was more dressed than her husband, Steffania’s lips were swollen to twice their normal size. The left half of her face was a massive purpling mound of shiny swollen flesh with an ugly line of black stitches crossing the bridge of her nose and left cheekbone. Her eye on that side was swollen to a mere slit. A cast immobilized her left arm and shoulder.“What time is it?” Mage said.
“Predawn,” Ramsey answered.
Steffania limped to Angelica and with her good hand grasped Angelica’s fingers in a gentle hold.“Eva found us and told us about your rescue. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I hold myself responsible for this entire debacle. I underestimated the capacity of the mekanikos. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”Pushed through battered lips, Steffania’s words lacked her normal crisp enunciation and emerged labored and slurred.
“I could never blame you, Steffania. I’m the one who brought the meks here. Of course I forgive you.”
Steffania shook her head. “Thank you. I’ll argue with you about whose fault… later. Are you all right? Eva said the meks violated your mind.”
Angelica nodded. “Yes. Highly unpleasant at the time, but no lasting damage. I’ll have a complete psyche eval tomorrow to confirm. I doubt there’ll be any long-term ill effects.”
Mage observed Angelica lift to study Lord Ramsey. He stood slightly bent. Her gaze turned to watch as Steffania hobbled to him. The two stood side-by-side, guarded and obviously in pain.
“You and Lord Ramsey belong in a hospital bed.”
Steffania’s mouth twitched in a caricature of a smile and she shot a one-eyed glance at her husband. “He has refused to stay in bed and he’s injured worse than me, so…” She grimaced. “I’ll lay down when he does.”
“I’m very grateful Tok rescued you, Angelica, but you must forgive me if I loathe the way it was procured. I will rest when I know for certain all that vile excrement has been removed from Verdantia. Their very presence is a desecration of our Mother,” said Ramsey.
“The Haarb and the fell wolves,” she whispered.
Ramsey nodded. “If you see Tok, tell him to stay away from me. At this very moment, in spite of my regard for him… I will kill him if I see him.”
She nodded silently.
“How’s Tris?” Ram asked softly.
Angelica raised her face to Mage. Tears threatened to overflow her violet eyes. She pressed her lips together, but the trembling of her chin gave her away and she buried her head in his chest.
Mage said what Angelica couldn’t. He held Ramsey’s gaze steadily and shook his head. “It’s unlikely he’ll pull through.” Angelica gave amuffled cry so filled with pain that an ache as large as a fist gathered in his gut and he hugged her to him more tightly.
Ramsey shifted with a grunt of pain. “Can you keep him alive for another forty-eight hours?”
“I don’t know,” she choked. “Why do you ask?”
“I want Tristan inNyth Uchel, with Adonia, Hel’s wife. I hoped you could keep him alive until we get there.”
Angelica nestled into Mage, seeking comfort as tears continued to roll down her cheeks. “To what point, Dominus?” she choked out. “Can she work miracles? Can she return someone from death’s threshold?”
Ramsey and Steffania stared at each other. With halting care, Ram raised an arm andcupped the less damaged side of his wife’s face. His thumbcaressed her cheekbone, and some indefinable emotion softened his expression. Steffania turned her face into his palm and closed her eye. When Ram dropped his hand,he replied. “Yes. She can.”
Chapter Nineteen
In the day and a half since Ramsey and Steffania had hustled her and Tristan out of Arkodaenia, the pace had been suicidal. Angelica had prepared for immin
ent death several times. A horse-drawn vehicle of weightless poly-carbon with a sophisticated suspension system—an anachronistic anomaly anywhere but on Verdantia—had met their ambulance at the far edge of the modern spaceport. While the rest of their party had mounted horses or climbed into other horse-drawn vehicles, she and a number of medical personnel had disconnected Tris from the electrical machines that regulated his breathing, heart and fluid intake, and transferred him to the sleek vehicle superbly outfitted as an ambulance. Clever mechanical apparatus replaced the more familiar electrical machines keeping Tristan’s body alive.
She eyed the high-strung, restive horses dubiously as she monitored Tristan and murmured to Mage. “Are they safe?”
Mage shrugged. “…under the circumstances…”
“Nevermind. Sorry I asked.”
Rather than a driver, a short, sinewy rider mounted the front, left horse and their mad careen to Nyth Uchel began—only Angelica discovered they weren’t going directly to Nyth Uchel.
They would stop at a major Oshtesh village, Sh’r Un Kree. There, Adonia DeHelios would meet them and attempt to stabilize Tristan before they continued to Nyth Uchel. Changing horses regularly, they made good time—considering. It was a good thing Tristan’s care required all her skill and attention; otherwise she’d have been reduced to hysterics on multiple occasions. She’d take a safe, 300-mile-per-hour hovercraft anyday.
She swayed gently and her tired brain took note of the extraordinary scenery rolling by. Craggy rock formations rose steeply on either side of the endless plain they traversed. The cliffs, striated in ocher and purple, rust and vermillion, cast vast shadows across their route—the only shade on the barren landscape, and the temperature climbed within the medical vehicle. There seemed to be some commotion outside as, with unintelligible shouts, the outriders who had flanked them since they left Arkodaenia closed tighter to the vehicle and with a small lurch their pace increased.
She tossed a tired glance at Mage. “What’s going on? We have speeded up. I thought we were giving the animals a breather.”
“I don’t know. I’ll try to find out.” Mage moved to the back of the transport and slid open a window. More unintelligible shouting ensued. After a brief exchange, he slipped back into his seat next to her.
“Well?”
“We are being followed. You told me that the fell wolves tore the meks into small pieces.”
“Yes. I saw them. Well, I saw one shredded to bits and I heard what sounded like the other meks being attacked. I was somewhat out of it by that time. Why do you ask?”
“Meks, Angelica. We are being followed by three meks.”
The hits had been coming too hard and fast. An hysterical laugh burst from her lips, and she slapped her hand across her mouth to smother it. Mage studied her with a concerned look. A long period of silence followed as Angelica struggled with hysteria. What finally allowed her to hold onto her composure was the knowledge that if Tristan had any chance of living, she musthold it together. She returned her hand to her lap and straightened. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I think I lost it for a minute.”
“Sweetheart. You’re entitled. Hey, come here.” He pulled her to him with his good arm and she went willingly. “The good news is, since the time the meks were first sighted, we have been putting more and more distance between us and them. Either they cannot keep pace or our Great Mother is affecting them.”
“How do you mean?” she mumbled into his shirt.
“It’s possible that the electromagnetic distortion that disrupts every other form of technology is also affecting the meks. Sapping their energy… slowing them down.”
She nuzzled closer to him. “That’s a comforting thought. How long until we reach Sh’r Un Kree?”
Mage peered out the window and studied the passing terrain. “Not exactly sure where we are at the moment, but we passed the Eye of Navarre sometime back… so, two hours? Three?”
***
Angelica’s vehicle rocked to a halt in the dusty central courtyard of Sh’r Un Kree. The wide double door on the side flew open. A tall, wiry brunette in fitted, well-worn riding leathers jumped in as Mage slipped out. She nodded at Angelica, “I’m Adonia,” and then her attention focused on Tristan.
She immediately moved to him, placed both hands on his chest and closed her eyes. Her lips mouthed silent words. A golden glow and low hum built in the air around her, traveled down her arms and hands and entered Tristan’s body. Adonia gasped and staggered but did not fall. Angelica sprang to assist her and wrapped an arm around her waist in support. It was like hugging a live current. Angelica endured the course of painful energy through her body as long as she could but was about to pull away when Adonia gave a sigh and lifted her hands from Tristan. The feeling immediately ceased. She opened her eyes and turned to Angelica. The compassion and strength in the brown eyes that met hers filled Angelica with an inexplicable desire to lay all her burdens at this woman’s feet with the knowledge that she would carry them for her.
“I am Adonia DeHelios. You must be Dr. Giverny.” The brunette gave her a smile of singular sweetness. “Your care of Tristan has been extraordinary. To have kept him alive with the injuries that he’s suffered…” She shook her head in wonder.“I would love to talk with you about your medical methodology when time allows. Tristan is stable. I’ve put him in stasis. I don’t know if…if… he will live, but I have bought us time.”
“Thank you.” Angelica pushed the words out.
Adonia nodded. “I love him, too. I will do my best. Now, where are Steffania and Ramsey DeKieran?”
As Angelica stepped out of the vehicle with Adonia, a slew of horses and riders thundered past and out the arched entry of Sh’r Un Kree. Mage limped over to join the two women. “Primus G’hed and his fighters are going to try and slow the meks.”
“That’s suicide,” Angelica gasped.
Mage sighed. “That’s what we told him, but he wouldn’t be stopped. He said our Great Mother would protect them.”
***
It was deep night before the Oshtesh Primus and his company returned at a sedate walk. Their desert horses glowed a ghostly white in the soft radiance of Verdantia’s double moons. The entire troop appeared otherworldly… like creatures from another dimension. They fit this surreal experience. Angelica saw them before she heard them. She stepped out of the ambulance where she’d been keeping watch over Tristan while an exhausted Adonia and a newly-healed Mage got some desperately needed sleep. She didn’t know where Lord Ramsey and his wife were. Someplace asleep, she hoped. Angelica stopped one of the first riders. “I’m a doctor. Where are the injured? Who needs medical help?”
“No one, healer. We don’t require your services.”
“I don’t understand. Didn’t you find the meks?”
The rider hawked and spat into the dirt. “Unnatural perversions. Yes, we found them.”
“And no one was injured in the fight?” Her voice rose in confusion.
A low chuckle sounded behind her and she turned to see Primus G’hed looking down at her from his horse. “There was no fight. Our Great Mother defeated the mekanikos. We found the alien constructs on the road, perhaps an hour’s ride to the west. I’m surprised they made it that far. Organic matter must have comprised more of the mekanikos than we thought. We found them frozen mid-step.It was simple enough to hack them into pieces.” He untied a cloth bag fastened to his saddle bow and upended it. A round object hit the ground and rolled to her feet. A metallic looking skull gleamed in the moonlight. She shuddered. The eyelids in the skeletal head of the mekanikos opened and glowing blue orbs fixed her in an unblinking, malignant stare.
She leapt away with a small gasp.
“It still lives!”
Primus G’hed swung down from his horse, grabbed the skull and dropped it back into the cloth bag. “Yes.But this time we tookprecaution of taking the heads. We will carry them to the furthest corners of our planet. There will be no reintegration. You are safe,
at least from these aberrations.”
***
Two days later, Angelica had forgotten life had ever existed beyond the swaying of the specially-fitted vehicle pulled at a remorseless pace. She’d been awake the better part of forty hours, but even through her sleep-deprived fugue she recognized the unique quality inherent in the landscape and atmosphere of Nyth Uchel clearly seen through the spacious windows. The very air seemed purified, energized—magickal. Perhaps Tristan was right. Perhaps Hel’s wife did have a magick wand. In the midst of the luminous atmosphere and fantastical structures, in light of Adonia’s miraculous healing of Steffania, Ramsey and Mage that Angelica had witnessed personally, it didn’t seem so farfetched. If not for her exhaustion, she would have badgered Adonia to explain about their “Great Mother.” Who was this sentient planet and what vast powers didShe endow Her “children” with? How do I get some?
“We’re here,” murmured Adonia. “The City of Nyth Uchel.” Angelica pulled herself to the window and gazed out.
The superbly crafted ambulance thundered at breakneck speed over a vast bridge that spanned a deep canyon through which a tumultuous river poured. They hurtled through massive, elaborately scrolled bronze gates flung wide in a colossal wall of glistening white crystal. The vehicle flew recklessly down a prosperous boulevard. Well-dressed crowds lined the route. The vehicle swirled into the courtyard of an immense, ethereal castle comprised of spirals that lifted effortlessly into space and only then slowed its frenetic pace.
When it rocked to a halt, Adonia rose, slid the side panel of the vehicle open and spoke out the door. “I think Prince Tristan is stable enough to move inside.” Several large men hustled in and disconnected his journey-bed from the inner suspension that further softened what few bumps and jars reached the interior of the vehicle.
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