by Garon Whited
“That I wish to have this metal. But I do not wish to hide you.”
“That is difficult to reconcile,” I replied. “So what will you do?”
He sighed. “If I do this, many will come to this land—you say you have many enemies. Many will die on both sides. There will be war among us and between both sides of the world.”
I nodded. “Thank you for thinking about it.” So much for a nice hideout. Oh, well.
“You are not angry?”
“No. If that is your wish, I will honor it. I am not angry.”
He looked at me, long and hard, then nodded.
“Good.”
“May I go? I must seek my woman, now. She was injured when last I saw her, and I wish to be certain she will live.”
He cocked his head. “How will you do this?”
“I have my own magic. I will seek her through it, and I will heal her.”
“You can heal wounds?” he asked, leaning forward.
“I can,” I allowed, cautiously.
He sat back and frowned, thinking.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The two who saw your people and lived are injured. One may die.”
“I will heal them, if I can.”
His expression changed, becoming curious. “Why?”
“Do they wish to die?”
“No.”
“Then I will help them.”
“Why?” he insisted.
“Because I can. I have power, and responsibility. They are the same thing.”
He looked thoughtful for a long moment. “Very well. What do you want in exchange?”
It was my turn to look thoughtful.
“I would like to be allowed to travel on this side of the teeth-of-the-world’s-edge.”
“No one of my family will hinder you. I cannot speak for others.”
“Fair enough, fair enough. If you do speak to others, though, please let them know I will help them too, for the same trade.”
“Save my brother and I will.”
I don’t think he meant brother in the sense of child of my father. That was just the word the spell selected from my vocabulary. I think he meant it as one who is part of my greater family. These people are a close-knit bunch. I could see that my version of the translation spell might have its good points.
So we went to the tent of the worse-off wounded man and I looked him over. It looked like a rock had caught him just above the temple. Probing with power-tendrils, I could feel the black, jagged edges of broken bone. There was also some minor damage to his arms and back. Blunt trauma—more rocks?
Lucky for him it was already night. I reached into his skull and fused the bone back together, wrapped the whole injured area in a bright web of raw life, sank it deeply into the cell structure, moved around some blood vessels, drained a bit of swelling…
“He should be fine tomorrow.”
The wise man was staring at me. When I spoke to him, he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. My guards did the same thing.
“Forgive us, Lord of Night, that we did not know you by day. Bless us with your mercy and be kind to those who do you no wrong.”
What the hell is this? I wondered.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“I ask, O lord of shadows, that you bring no harm; pass and be thanked.”
“Fine. You have my blessing, for what it’s worth, and I will not harm you or yours. Now get up and tell me what the blazes you’re talking about.”
He looked up from the ground, hesitantly. “You wish me to rise?”
“Of course. No, better, sit.” I sat, too. “Now tell me why you’re groveling.” I hate watching a grown man grovel.
He contorted into a sitting position, keeping his eyes downcast. The guards didn’t budge.
“You are a lord of night, a mighty one of the darkness. I ask only that you harm no one.”
“And I agreed. Now tell me everything you know about, uh, us.”
“You are lesser gods, to be revered and feared and made sacrifice to when the midwinter moon is dark. This we have done.”
“Well done,” I replied, absently. “What do you sacrifice?”
“We pour out the blood of the best animal of our herds to satisfy the thirst that never ends.”
“Very good. And what do you get out of the deal?”
He looked surprised, but did not look up. “You do not destroy us.”
Simple extortion. I thought. Good racket. Whoever set it up did a fine job of it, too, to last this long. Bastard.
“Just as long as I’m clear on that. Now tell me about the greater gods.”
“There is the Mother Earth, upon whom we live and who loves all things. There is Father Sun, who hates the darkness. There is the Lady Moon, who holds the spirits of those who die with a pure heart. There are the stars, the spirits of great heroes. And there is the Great Darkness, who lives between the stars and eats the spirits of those who have evil in their hearts.”
Great. More gods. I wondered what they would say to Tamara, a fire-witch. Could be a heated theological debate. Briefly.
“Okay. What sacrifice to you make to them?”
He looked surprised again. I guess I was showing my ignorance.
“We do not make sacrifice,” he said. “They are the greater gods. They do not hunger.”
“Right. Thanks. Now show me the other wounded guy.”
He didn’t argue or ask; he just got up and showed me to the next tent. The man was hurt, but not too badly. There were some deep cuts into the muscle of his back—jagged ones; sharp rocks?—and some nasty bruises. That was pretty much it. Simple.
“There. Both should be feeling better tomorrow.”
“Thank you, dark one.”
“I’m going now.”
“As you will, dark one.”
I sighed. I don’t think I like being a god. Even one with no duties, aside from reining in his tendency to kill.
I was headed northwest, up and down again, when I noticed the phase of the moon. It triggered a memory of an obligation.
It wasn’t a big deal to find grazing animals. A herd of them gives off a quite noticeable odor.
I left Bronze on a hilltop while I was stalking the herd, picking the one I wanted—or the Huntsman might like. I wasn’t sure if these were domesticated or not, but I saw no signs of anyone about. They resembled a cross between a cow and a horse. Imagine, if you will, a cow with longer legs, built more for speed, and with bulls that had ram-like horns.
To make this more of a hunt—I had no idea how to offer up a kill to the god—I stalked on foot and mentally promised myself to kill one with my bare hands if I could.
They were alert; one of them snorted in my direction. And here I thought I had been doing a good job of being stealthy! I was downwind and everything. Pity I never took Hunting & Stalking 101; I might have some idea how the heck they knew I was there.
I sprinted forward and one beast gave out a sort of low, groaning wail. The rest of the herd became much more alert and started to swing away from me, running for it. It didn’t help my target, though. I’m very fast. I sprinted for it, jumped, hooked one leg over its back, seized it by the horns, and twisted. Its neck didn’t break, but it did suddenly veer to the right—my side—and start to scream; it reminded me of a sheep’s bleating, but louder and lower. None of the others seemed inclined to stop and check on why it was making a distressed noise, either. Good for them.
Twisting harder, I discovered my problem; my arms were too short to turn its head that far. I had the strength to do it, no problem. I just needed to tie it down while I unscrewed it at the neck. Damn.
Out came the dagger. Still holding on to one horn, I kept it off-balance and running in a circle. Then I reached under its neck and drew my dagger across its throat. It stopped screaming and started gurgling, kept on running. It wound down, like a toy with dying batteries, and eventually collapsed in its tracks; I let go and r
olled away as it came to a halt. I went back and stood over it to watch it finish bleeding out; the blood steamed in the night air and soaked into the ground.
“Does that satisfy you?” I asked, out loud. “Am I good for this month?”
The wind laughed, Yes.
“I’m glad you’re happy. Anything else you need done to complete this?”
The wind just blew, no words came with it.
“Okay, I’m off. Enjoy.”
Bronze and I shot away from that place. Glancing back, I noticed a greenish flicker licking over the carcass. The dogs? Maybe.
I’m glad I remembered on my own.
I don’t know how fast these guys went on foot, or with whatever horses they had, but Bronze was a lot faster. We covered ground like a motocross racer. The only thing that bothered me was the compass; it was still tuned to Shada, and it said she wasn’t headed for Eastgate—the city at the pass. Maybe they were headed almost due north before cutting west to the mountains. I wondered what sort of lead they might have on me.
Maybe it’s the side effect of changing worlds multiple times. First from academia to idle rich, life to half-life, loved to alone, my world to this world… I had been through a lot. But I finally realized I could take a pair of sightings, triangulate on Shada, have some idea of how far away she was. Duh. Or maybe I’m just slow, sometimes.
I took a sighting along my knife, picked a star that was almost exactly on the line, and then rode a couple of minutes perpendicular to that direction. At Bronze’s speed, that was pretty far. Another sighting revealed a noticeable change in Shada’s line; a little math and some hefty approximations… twenty minutes away? Okay. That would give me a good idea of when to start slowing down, anyway.
I paused to wrap us both in a twisted space of different gravity. Then I kicked Bronze in the sides and we started taking hills three at a time, hitting maybe a hundred feet at the top of the arc. A running start and a ramp make all the difference. It gave us a hell of view.
I reminded myself sternly to hang on. Inertia was going to be the next thing I tried to fiddle with, as soon as I got off the roller-coaster. Pity I didn’t think of it sooner, because we found a hole on one of the upslopes.
Bronze was ramping up a low rise, preparing to launch again, when the local equivalent of a gopher or prairie dog had its entryway invaded by a hoof. Bronze pitched forward, pivoting at the knee and shoulder in a fashion no real horse could have managed. I was pitched forward, out of the saddle; the low gravity didn’t help me, since my mass was undiminished. We both wound up tumbling and rolling to a halt. Bronze wasn’t hurt that I could tell, but I certainly was! Bronze is heavy—even at fractional gravity—and rolled over me.
I was lucky; the ground wasn’t rocky. I made a nice dirt angel. Dirt vampire? A deep impression, anyway.
Bronze nosed at me to check on me. I let some ribs finish crackling back into place and lay there for a few more minutes. I’d gotten one leg tangled up with Firebrand in the tumble and it was bent backward at an unpleasant angle beneath me. Firebrand seemed okay, even if my leg wasn’t.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded and nosed me again. “I’m fine. I think,” I said, and patted her nose.
I sat up slowly, not wanting to disturb the leg too much. Instead of pulling it around and straightening it out, I moved the rest of me to align with the break. I had to take off my swordbelt and put Firebrand aside to do it, though. Big swords can be inconvenient.
I managed not to do more than whimper a little as the broken bones and snapped ligaments started to pop back into place. Bronze stood almost right over me and watched. I’d swear she was worried for me.
Once the cracking, popping, and internal slurping around were finished, I got up and checked on my stuff. The saddlebags had sailed even farther than I had and were a pain to locate; tall grass does that. But all things considered, I was lucky; Bronze hadn’t crushed anything vital. Then again, what was left after a trip into the sub-ocean realms wasn’t too vulnerable to crushing.
After a few stretches and pops, I felt almost back to normal for the evening. I brushed myself down— I desperately needed both a laundry and a bath—and mounted up.
“Can we avoid that sort of thing in the future?”
Bronze nodded vigorously. I don’t think she liked falling on me any more than I did.
It was considerably more than twenty minutes before I caught sight of campfires during one of our now-more-cautious leaps. I lost them again when we came down, but no matter; I had a marker for where we would be headed. We turned off our line to pass by the campfires and continued until we were well to one side. I took another bearing on Shada, which showed her to be in the camp.
Aha!
Now, riding toward a camp in broad daylight had me looked at, shot at, and made a lot of people nervous. I doubted a casual stroll up in the middle of the night was going to be any less disturbing. Ergo, stealth. Hopefully more effective stealth than I’d used on the herd of animals.
I extended my tendrils all over the place, a lot like the wings I designed for light feeding, but much more nebulous. I only wanted to notice everything, not consume it. With magical senses extended, I then drew down a piece of the night to cloak me.
Okay, okay; I cast a spell to change my coloration to a broken-up black-green-and-grey camouflage. It wasn’t perfect concealment, but it affected both my clothes and myself. With that and my tendril-web to warn me of anyone moving around, I felt I’d be all right.
I left Bronze just over the rise of a hill as I crept into camp. It’s good to have cavalry in reserve. She wasn’t too pleased at the idea; I think she was still a little protective after our accident.
The camp was hardly a model of military efficiency. Aside from one wakeful fellow with a weak bladder, I didn’t see anyone. But my compass worked fine; I homed in on a larger tent and circled it, noting where it pointed. There was someone in there, and I could smell blood; that decided me on speed. A quick slash with the dagger and I put my left leg through the slit, followed it inside…
Someone at my back knifed me under the ribs, just under the vest, up into my left lung.
It was a unique sensation; I’ve never been knifed before. As a human, it would have been ugly. But, being dead, it was just a sharp, cool sensation where I normally don’t even have sensation. I don’t often consider how my kidney feels. Or my liver, for that matter.
Not wanting to make a lot of ruckus, I didn’t even turn to look at my assailant. I just folded and collapsed inside the tent. A moment later, I got turned over—with effort—and saw Shada standing over me with a bloodied blade.
“You!” she hissed, catching my features by the moonlight from the slit in the tent. I was glad to see she was recovering nicely. A couple of days and a healing spell had done wonders for her appearance.
“Me,” I whispered back. “I’m rescuing you. What gives?”
She seethed wordlessly at me for several seconds. “I am escaping. But you can help.”
“Sure. I’m agreeable. What’s your plan?”
She nodded toward the middle of the tent; a man was lying there, unmoving, near the embers of a fire. From the look of him, he was going to be unmoving until someone carried him off.
“He thought to keep me a prisoner, the price for letting the rest go. He wished to keep me as his woman, but found that I am not to be taken. No one knows he is dead. I had intended to steal a pair of horses and make for Eastgate. But you are never without that metal steed of yours; it will be much faster. Let us ride it and be gone.”
I nodded. “Well, that was kinda my idea, too. Let’s see if we can’t sneak out of here. Stay close to me; I have spells to help avoid being noticed.”
She did so, keeping one arm around my waist as I kept one about her shoulders. I expanded my spell to camouflage her as well. We practically danced out of camp and around the hill to Bronze.
“I’m going to have words with the captain,” I said, helping her mount.<
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“He had no choice but to barter me for their freedom,” she replied as I swung into the saddle behind her. “We came upon them unexpectedly at the close of the day; our few mounts were tired and the barbarians armed with slings and spears. I told the captain to offer me; I can take care of myself.”
“I agree; you can. I’m still not pleased with him,” I replied, kicking Bronze into a gallop.
I forgot Shada was not familiar with Bronze’s gait in this rolling country. She gasped as we left the ground and white-knuckled the saddlehorn as we started to come down. But Bronze landed as smoothly as silk on glass.
We paused there between two hills for her to quietly berate me; I told Bronze to take it easy after that. She stopped jumping; the up-and-down still made Shada a trifle seasick. However, we made excellent time until dawn.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7TH
We reached the pass of Eastgate before noon and paused for a stretch. There would be a few hours’ ride to the other end of the pass, then the gate itself.
Shada had recovered somewhat while a prisoner; I wove a minor spell through her to hasten the process and to be sure any infection was taken care of. While I did so, I took the opportunity to cast her non-detection spell again. I asked her about it; she did not recall anyone waving their hands and chanting at her, which left me with a minor mystery. Perhaps the inquisitors took it down. It’s possible it just failed on its own. After all, it’s a spell, not an enchantment, and needs to be refreshed periodically.
During this, I noted smoke coming from this side of the range; not out in the plains, but in the mountains themselves.
“Shada?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing. She shaded her eyes and peered.
“I do not see anything.”
Well, it was a very thin line of smoke, but my eyes had become exceptionally sharp even by day. “I see smoke. Like from a chimney or a small fire or something.” I wondered if the Eastrange was at all volcanic.
“I do not see… wait.” She shaded her eyes. “Perhaps I do see something.”
“Any idea what it could be?”