The Big Glass.
* * *
It would have been easier if the Big Glass had been as flat as it looked. The wheels of the engine-cycle bumped and juddered on flaws that Jenivar could hardly see; even with her smoked goggles, the ground was a mass of flare and shine, the sun reflecting in every direction. As it was, she had to constantly fight the steering rod as some lump or furrow in the glass sent a wheel jumping to one side or the other. It was exhausting , and Jenivar felt herself sweating with exertion. The engine-cycle’s canopy didn’t help. The light came from below as much as above, the sun bouncing back from the ground with almost equal intensity. Jenivar felt broiled inside her protective clothing. She was drinking her water too fast, she knew, but she also knew the dangers of sweating without replenishing fluids.
She drove all day and into the night, pushing as far as she could in the relative cold before pausing to sleep. There was no point in setting up any precautions; nothing lived in the Big Glass. The Spine had long since merged with the distant mountains on the horizon, the Scrub a darker blotch to the side. Ahead was... nothing. More whorls and curves of glass.
No one knew how wide the Big Glass was, not really. No one had ever crossed it. No one even knew if it had a far side. It was an irregular blotch, inside of which the desert sand had fused to crude glass. The sand was slowly reclaiming the space, gnawing at the rounded edges. Jenivar knew that if you followed the edge of the Big Glass far enough east, you eventually came to a place called Burrows, where the houses were dug into the sand and they used the glass shards as decoration for their homes and bodies. That was three days’ hard driving along the perimeter; even Terk had never been further than that. Terk said that carrying enough fuel to go that far ended up burning too much fuel at the start. It was, he said, the Point of Diminishing Returns.
Jenivar had searched Groton’s ancient maps for the Point for several days until she’d realized what Terk had meant.
She drove all through the next day, too. She had spare fuel—Terk never left the Spine without at least two extra cans—but water would be the more pressing need. She was already running low. The Big Glass was also the Big Empty; the sand itself was buried beneath several feet of glass, and any water there might be was far deeper than Jenivar could have burrowed by herself.
Tymon had been the Water-Keeper at the Spine since before Jenivar was born, and through the benefits of his office, she’d never known what it was like to be without water. Between the collector sheets up at the Drip and the bucket-and-pulleys down at the Drop, there was always enough water, and no one would begrudge the Keeper a sip or two while he gathered it up and set it to purifying. Jenivar remembered the quiet darkness of the lowest levels of the Drop, so deep that the air grew chilled, down in the caves where the sun could never reach and even a torch or a glowstone felt like blasphemy. No heat, no crawling drackles, no family or neighbors, no forced smiles and unspoken questions; just the steady dripping of water along rock, echoing down the tunnels until it came from everywhere and nowhere, soothing, hypnotic...
Jenivar came awake from her daydream when the engine-cycle bounced over a ramp-like protrusion and kicked sideways. She clutched at the steering rod, but the engine-cycle was rolling on only two wheels, teetering dangerously. Jenivar threw herself to the side, trying to balance the weight and settle the vehicle. She hovered tenuously for a timeless moment. Then she hit the rim of a pit.
It was a large, shallow depression, worn smooth by years of wear. If the engine-cycle had been rolling normally, the pit would have posed no risk at all, and might even have been a bit of fun to speed through. As it was, the sudden drop removed any semblance of control. The engine-cycle toppled—the wrong way—and crashed to the bottom of the pit, sending up a spray of glass splinters. Jenivar closed her mouth and covered her face with her gloved hands as best she could. She tumbled into a darkness even more complete than that of the caverns around the Drop, silent and smothering.
* * *
When Jenivar opened her eyes again, she saw nothing. After a brief moment of panic, she realized that night had fallen while she still had her smoked lenses down. She tugged her goggles down and tried to assess her situation. A sharp pain in her hand made her flinch, which sent a drackle flying from beside her. The finger-length insect had bitten her, chewing through her sleeve. Jenivar had seen bodies after the drackles got to them. They weren’t nice to look at.
She lay on her shoulders on the hard ground, her legs caught in the engine-cycle’s seat. She wriggled and managed to scrape her way partially out of the mangled frame. She became aware that her arm felt cold, and she looked down to see a long gash on her forearm, cut through the protective layers. The blood was black in the starlight. She touched it to her lips; it was tacky and crusted, no longer actively bleeding. The edges looked ragged; an artifact of the injury itself, or had drackles been gnawing on it? She shuddered as she realized that she could well have bled to death, dangling upside down in the wrecked engine-cycle, and never woken to realize it. She smelled the sharp odor of its fuel and heard a faint trickling, but she couldn’t see what was happening. She also heard a distant hum that seemed to be coming from underground, as though another engine-cycle were running at full tilt somewhere down below.
Jenivar wriggled free at the cost of another cut on her forehead and several painful glass splinters in her back. She checked her water-bags for leaks and ran a quick inventory, operating by touch as much as by sight. Sword, gun, water, sunshade, herb pouch; Jenivar made sure the paper twists of Donnybell were unharmed and the glass bottle of Hellflower extract remained unbroken in its wad of soft fibers.
She shuffled a few meters away and flicked the power switch on her gun. The readout screen came to life, and she turned the useless weapon around at the site of the crash. The faint greenish glow illuminated enough of the engine-cycle to tell that she wouldn’t be using it to travel any further.
She was in a bowl-shaped hollow, ten meters across and perhaps a half-meter at its nadir. The light also glinted off of a stream of dark liquid under the engine-cycle. The fuel! It was leaking from the spare cans, forming a puddle that sent out tendrils toward the bottom of the pit, where it trickled into a jagged hole.
The engine-cycle might be a wreck, but fuel was valuable, and she’d couldn’t waste the rest of her herbs until she knew better what they were worth. Knightly largesse was all well and good, but she suspected she’d made a fool of herself with Huj, and that rankled. She struggled upright and eased forward. As she drew nearer, she realized that the humming sound was coming from down the hole.
Sudden motion made her halt. A black shape darted out of the hole and skittered toward her. A drackle! She stomped it in instinctive revulsion, its scaly carapace crunching unpleasantly under her boot. The creature’s reeking innards gushed out; drackle guts smelled like unwashed feet and rot. She flicked the disgusting thing back into the hole. The buzzing intensified, drawing nearer to the surface, and Jenivar realized she was in trouble. One drackle was a nuisance. A handful were a pestilence. A whole swarm of them... Her hand throbbed where one had bitten her. Their poison was weak, but even a strong man could be in danger from a sufficient number of them.
Jenivar quickly fumbled open her herb wallet and grabbed a handful of the remaining Donnybell packets. The herb was useful for soothing and calming in very small doses, loosening muscles and sending strange dreams. In large doses, it was almost invariably lethal. Jenivar ratcheted her blaster’s power up to the maximum and felt it begin to overheat, soon almost burning her skin through her gloves. She held her breath and touched the paper twists containing the Donnybell to the blaster’s battery pack. They smoldered and caught flame. Jenivar held them away from her face and waved them about, making certain the fire was well and truly caught. When the smoke turned dark, she dropped them down into the hole.
The falling flame caught the trickle of fuel, sending a ribbon of fire downward. Like dragonfire, Jenivar thought. It illuminated
an endless horde of crawling bodies coating the sides of the tunnel, a stream of foulness that seemed to reach into the bowels of the earth. Where the smoke touched, they fell senseless away, and those nearby went into a frenzy, lashing out with their sharp forelimbs.
Jenivar did not linger. Some drackles could fly, and she wanted to be nowhere near the area when any of them made it out.
She was alone, and her engine-cycle was scrap. She might be able to walk back out of the Big Glass, but it would be a hard trek indeed, and Terk would have mobilized anyone he could deputize to hunt her down. He might be waiting for her at the edge, or even following after her.
A Knight would not retreat. A Knight would press on. She oriented herself as best she could by the stars and struck out for what she hoped was the north edge of the Big Glass.
* * *
Jenivar did not feel like a Knight when she emerged from the Big Glass. She should have felt triumph, but she didn’t; she felt like a thirst with legs. She’d walked all day in the punishing sunlight across what was functionally an enormous mirror. If she stopped, she knew she would fall and never stand up.
Ahead, the sand gave way to mere sandy soil. A series of small bluffs off to the east held vegetation on their lower ranks.
And there was a thin shape approaching out of the rolling heat shimmers.
Jenivar at first feared it was Terk or a clutch of his deputies, but no, a plodding beast of burden, another figure behind it, and a larger one behind that. Travelers. Perhaps traders.
Jenivar lifted the dusty lenses of her goggles. She knew it would make her paleness all the more apparent—every trader she’d ever seen had been baked brown by their years in the sun—but she wanted clear sight for her first encounter with a true stranger on the road. She tugged her thick gloves off and rested a hand on the pommel of her sword as well.
As the figures approached, Jenivar began to sense that something was not quite right. There was the pack-beast, likely a donkey. But the two figures were strange. One was tall and dressed in the loose robes of a practiced desert traveler, but the short one seemed to have on no clothes at all, and he staggered unevenly, lurching. It wasn’t until the tall figure pulled its arm back and Jenivar caught the glint of sun on metal that she realized.
Slaver.
The tall figure had knocked the small one to the ground and was kicking it repeatedly.
A Knight would not stand for injustice, Jenivar knew, but her reserves were severely depleted. Her mission would best be served if she obtained water and directions as politely as possible and moved on to find a dragon, which would likely be menacing dozens or hundreds of people at a time.
The tall slaver appeared to have seen Jenivar coming, as he stood still with his foot on the fallen slave and watched her approach. Jenivar tried to work up enough saliva to speak; best to present as strong a front as possible.
The slaver turned out to be a lean and rangy man, with the rough nut-brown skin of a regular traveler. His hair was bleached pale by the sun, but he bore two long mustachios that were almost black. His eyes were invisible behind a shaded lens, a wraparound visor that left his peripheral vision intact. The slave was a youth younger than Jenivar, clad in a thin shirt and inadequate trousers, his skin exposed to the sun and his feet to the rocks and sand. He craned his neck to look up at Jenivar but flinched as the man bore down harder on his booted foot.
The man lifted a gnarled hand in greeting. “Hail and well-met, traveler! You have clearly traveled a hard road.”
“Hail,” Jenivar managed, but her throat betrayed her, and the rest of her greeting disappeared in a strangling cough.
“Please,” the man offered, lifting a waterskin from his side, “I have more than enough to see me through my journey, and I would be remiss in my duties as a traveler if I did not offer assistance where I might.”
Jenivar accepted the proffered skin and drank. She was desperately conflicted about accepting water surely purchased with money gained from human suffering, but she was dizzy and nauseated with dehydration already.
“Kandru the Trader is my name,” said the man, “known throughout the Mirrorlands for the quality of my goods and the reasonableness of my bargains. You seem to be on a lengthy journey. I have dried meat, water, salt tablets, even a compass. Or, as you look to have an interest in ancient tech,” Kandru murmured, eyeing the pistol at Jenivar’s side, “I do a small trade in such exotics and sundries myself...”
“Jenivar,” said Jenivar. “I am a Knight-Errant, called to serve the people. I am afraid I require only two things. First, directions to the nearest trading post or waystation. Second, the release of that child.”
“Child?” said Kandru, clearly offended. “This boy is my rightful property, though I was badly cheated by his former owners. The ungrateful brute disregards orders and shirks constantly. I would be better served by my donkey! I have no intention of losing him, not at the price I paid. He will learn obedience and loyalty soon enough. Isn’t that right, boy?”
“Yes, boss!” The boy’s accent was thick, lending an odd inflection to his words.
“I saw you beating him,” Jenivar said coldly. She drew herself up. “A Knight will not stand for injustice. A Knight defends the weak.”
“If I see any such notables, I shall promptly inform them of their duties.” Kandru spat over his shoulder, his expression as sour and unfriendly as it had previously been unctuous.
Jenivar bent to the boy. “Are you happy with your master? Does he treat you properly?”
“Yes, boss! Yes, boss!”
Jenivar was taken aback. “Really?”
“Don’t put too much stock in that. Those are the only two words he knows, likely by rote. I believe I mentioned that I was cheated on his price.”
“And yet you beat him for not understanding or following instructions?”
Kandru frowned. “I will treat my property as I see fit. The nearest trading post is Yellowcake, just over a day’s walk behind me. If you’ve no intent to barter or trade, be off with you, and be thankful I don’t demand payment for the water you’ve wasted.” He strode past, hauling at the reins of his donkey and tugging on the chain linked to the slave’s wrists. “Move, you worthless dracklespawn.”
But the chain slid free without the boy, who instead darted behind Jenivar to hide behind her legs. He had not been still or idle while he had lain in the dirt; Jenivar saw a bent piece of wire clutched in one scrawny hand. He babbled something in a language she couldn’t understand, but the urgent need in his expression was undeniable.
“This nonsense again?” Kandra flexed his hands. “Do you want to be tied to the donkey for the rest of the journey?”
“Yes, boss!” The boy stared at Jenivar, pleading.
Jenivar hesitated. Her course here was clear, but how would she complete her quest if she was saddled with the care of a helpless and frightened child?
“I wish to purchase your slave, Lord Kandru,” she announced. She reached into her pouch and closed her gloved hand around a paper-wrapped packet. “I will pay a fair price. A Knight does not cheat or steal. I have rare herbs, Donnybell and Numb, other medicines.”
Kandru turned back, his eyes now watchful and gleaming with excitement. “Medicines I have in plenty,” he said, “but perhaps there are... more interesting artifacts in your possession.”
Jenivar thought hard. “I have one or two gallons of fuel for a burn-engine.”
“Does that weapon function?” Kandru said abruptly, pointing to the blaster.
“Why would anyone carry a weapon that did not?” Jenivar countered, feeling a twist of guilt. But really, it wasn’t a lie, not exactly. And he had kicked the boy. She had seen it.
“A trade, then. The boy for the gun. The road is dangerous, and if you deprive me of my night-guard, you can at least arm me sufficiently against the dangers that remain ahead.” Kandru held out his hand.
Jenivar hesitated only a moment. Using her left hand, she pulled the blaster from its
holster and offered it, upside-down.
“Would you be wanting a bill of sale?” Kandru asked, turning toward the packs on his donkey’s side.
“Is... is that necessary?” Jenivar asked.
“No,” Kandru said flatly. He turned back, the blaster’s power light glowing and the vents humming, and leveled it at Jenivar’s head. “I will be leaving here with my property. All of my property.” Kandru gestured at the boy.
Jenivar held up her left hand to halt him. This man had no honor, none whatsoever.
“Don’t think it,” Kandru warned. “I told you I trade in tech. I know how to wield a blaster.”
Jenivar did not move. She knew she would have only a moment to act once he discovered her ruse.
“Hands away from that sword, girl,” Kandru said again. “Now.”
“All right,” Jenivar said.
And she flung the paper packet of Hellflower extract into Kandru’s face.
He screamed and reeled backwards, dropping the blaster to clutch his visor and rip it away. Jenivar snatched it up, then shouted to the boy. “Run!”
She’d made it a few steps before Kandru’s mewling screams stopped her. “Rub sand in it!” she called to him. “Water only makes it worse.”
She wondered if she should go back to render aid; her herblore would at least ensure he didn’t lose his sight permanently. A Knight was merciful and would not leave even a fallen adversary helpless. But a Knight also had to protect her charge. She’d helped the slave-boy escape, but he would not last long alone. He was her responsibility. More than what she’d done to Kandru?
As she debated, Kandru lurched to his feet with an inarticulate roar of rage. Behind Jenivar, the slave-boy moaned in terror.
Jenivar fled, tugging the slave-boy after her.
* * *
Jenivar carefully scrubbed her hands with sand before removing her glove and folding it, inside out, into a spare pouch. The leather had protected her when she crushed the glass vial of Hellflower extract, but she didn’t want to risk any residue remaining on the glove’s palm. She had once rubbed absentmindedly at her face while chopping Hellflower for processing; her eyes had been swollen shut for a week, and that was fresh-picked Hellflower that hadn’t yet had its potent chemical isolated and purified into crystals. Hellflower was a decent medicine, and in minute amounts made for fiery spiced meals, but it was a truly nasty weapon.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies #142, Special Double-Issue for BCS Science-Fantasy Month 2 Page 5