The Golden Queen - Book 1 of the Golden Queen Series

by David Farland

  While she waited, she took out a brush from her pack and brushed her hair. She could not resist the urge to check her pack, make sure that nothing of value had been taken. She opened it a little, dug through. Her gate key was there, and she rummaged for a moment, pulling out clothing, looking for the gifts that Grandmother had given Gallen and Orick.

  Dinner came soon, and Maggie tried to enjoy the food but kept glancing up furtively.

  Someone was watching her. Most of the guests at the inn were couples—young men and women out to celebrate, frequent pairs of bears. But not all of the couples looked so innocent. A thin man with a hawkish nose, long dark hair, and a thin goatee sat at a nearby table, hands folded under his chin. He did not hide the fact that he was watching her.

  Yet he kept glancing toward the doors—both the front doors and those that led to the pools and the rooms at the side. Maggie lost her appetite.

  She got up to leave, but the dark stranger came and discreetly took her arm, forced her to sit again, then sat next to her. "By any chance," he asked, "have you been to Fale recently?"

  "Yes," Maggie said, then realized that because of the way her gate key sent her back in time, she was currently on Fale, held captive among the aberlains. "I mean, no."

  "I thought so." He smiled. "Eat with me."

  "No, I have to be going," Maggie said.

  But the man gripped her arm, holding her, pulling her back to her seat. "Come now, you've hardly touched a bite," he said, a gleam of excitement in his eyes. "Besides, you've only had the main course. You must try the desserts."

  "No," Maggie said, trying to pull her arm from his grasp. "I must be going." She yanked free.

  "You won't get far," the stranger warned in a whisper, "not to the next gate."

  "What?" Maggie asked, her heart hammering. "Come follow me to your room. We must talk in private, before it's too late," the stranger said. He rose from his seat, walked out the back door. Maggie didn't know why, but the man terrified her. There was a certain calculated power in his gestures, a toughness about him, and she imagined that if he got her alone, she would not be able to protect herself. She tried to still her heavy breathing, looked around the room for some sign of help. He expected her to come, but she couldn't follow him out into the dark.

  She stayed at the table, pretended to eat for an hour. She wanted to go to the pools, find Orick, but the pools were too close to her apartments. So she sat, hoping the stranger would leave. A patina of sweat broke out on her forehead, and she kept worrying that people were watching her, until Orick came in.

  "Hey, Maggie!" Orick called loudly from across the room. "You should try these pools—they're great!" He swaggered over to her table, his fur still wet. "Maggie," he said with uncontrollable excitement, "half of these she-bears are in heat! I tell you, I can hardly believe my luck. Why, I met this she-bear named Panta, and she's panting for me, the dear girl, I assure you. She's invited me to her room tonight—"

  "Good, good," Maggie said without enthusiasm. She didn't know how to tell him that something was dreadfully wrong. She especially did not want to talk here where every word could be overheard. Right now, she only wanted Orick to get away from her safely, keep him out of danger. "Why don't you go with her?"

  "Well, I don't know," Orick said. "Do you think I should? Are you all right? You look sick."

  "I'm afraid," she whispered, hoping none of the other diners could hear. "This world may be more dangerous than we thought."

  "Oh, nonsense," Orick growled too loudly. "This place is grand!"

  "Yes, of course it is," she said, hoping to quiet him. "Please, just go. I'll be all right."

  A female bear came to the side door, stood up on her hind legs, sniffing the air. She saw Orick, walked over on all fours, and stood at the side of the table, demurely watching Orick with big brown eyes that fairly shouted her desires.

  "It's nice to meet you, Panta," Maggie said. "I'm afraid I'm feeling tired. Why don't you two take this table. I'll see you in the morning, Orick." She got up, realizing that she needed to go out the side door to reach her room, see this thing through on her own. If the stranger was waiting in the darkness to accost her, she would have to face him sooner or later. She did not want to place Orick in jeopardy.

  She stalked back through the night. The hot pools had raised a cloud of steam that lingered in the air between buildings, shrouding everything in heavy fog. The faint green footlights set by the sides of the trail and under the trees gave the only illumination, and they seemed inadequate as she walked back through the maze of apartments.

  But the stranger was not waiting for her in the shadows. She reached her own room, glanced skyward before entering. A line of fire ringed the sky, arching from horizon to horizon, and Maggie could just see it through the fog. Her mantle whispered that this planet had a ring around it.

  Maggie spoke to the door. It registered her voice and opened. She walked into the room, looked down the broad staircase to the apartments below. There was no sign of the stranger. She closed the door behind her, crept downstairs. The apartment was empty.

  She was just feeling safe when the door chimes rang, startling her. She opened the door. A short, bald, fat man stood at the door, his broad arms sticking deep in the pockets of his cloak. Both his leather cloak and his deep frown looked as if they had been worn constantly for years.

  "Excuse me," he said. "Maggie Flynn, is it? My name is Bavin. I own this establishment. May I speak with you for a moment?" He looked up at her with sad, baggy eyes.

  She nodded. He glanced back nervously, closed the door. "The, uh, the thing is—" Bavin explained, "is that I want you to settle your bill and clear out before morning. I won't have you bringing any trouble down on my inn."

  "I don't understand," Maggie said. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about that thing you're carrying in your bag," Bavin said, wringing his hands. "I'm not the kind of man who would turn you in for the reward, but there's others who will. I won't have you bringing any trouble down on us poor folks."

  "What are you talking about, 'reward'?"

  Bavin looked about cautiously, as if someone in the room might be listening. "The dronon—" he confided, "they're looking for a beautiful woman who is traveling the Maze of Worlds. She's rumored to be accompanied by several protectors. When you first came in, I wasn't sure you were the one, because you rode in with only that bear. That cast some doubt in my mind. But you rode an airbike that no one would ever bring down this far south in the cold, and that seemed strange. Then you pulled that key from your bag at the table, and you had the planetary police asking about you. . . ."

  "I don't understand," Maggie stuttered. "Are you sure they are looking for me?"

  "The dronon sent more vanquishers just a few days ago, using the gates, same as you," Bavin said. "Oh, they've got people scared—scared evil. Good people that would never have thought of doing business with their kind are scrambling now, and there's some that would turn you over in a second, thinking it might give them some leverage in the future. But not me—not me!" Bavin was shaking his head, and Maggie realized that he denied any possible turpitude simply because he was tempted to turn her in himself. "So like I said, I want you to settle up your account and get out of here."

  "But where will I go?" Maggie said. "What will I do?"

  "Don't go to the gates, whatever you do. They're watched. Beyond that, I don't care what you do. Just settle your account."

  "But, I don't have any money," Maggie said.

  The little man looked at her, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "What do you mean, you don't have any money? How did you plan to pay for this?" He spread his arms wide, indicating the luxurious apartment.

  "I planned to work, make some money," Maggie said. Maggie reached up to her mantle, pulled off a small silver disk with the emblem of an android on it. Regretfully, she handed it to the man. She would be giving up all her knowledge about androids.

  "I—I can't take this," Bav
in argued, apparently having an attack of conscience. "It's too much!" The little man grumbled under his breath, looked about the room. "Get out of here. Just get your things and sneak away."

  Maggie still had the pack she'd carried in. She went to her bedroom, got her blanket and robes. The soil of the day's travel was still on them, and she was loath to wear the dirty robes, but she slipped into them quickly, wrapped her blanket around her shoulders. When she was ready to leave, she returned to the living room. Bavin was gone. He'd left the front door open for her.

  She followed the little footpath through the fog toward the common room, thinking to warn Orick. But as she reached the corner by the pools, she could see the front of the inn.

  Three green-skinned vanquishers hunched over her airbike. Two were ogres—typical military grunts—the third was a tracker.

  The tracker leaned down, sniffing the airbike, his flat orange eyes tilting about like those on a fish. "This bike was driven by a woman and a bear. They traveled through two worlds in a matter of hours."

  "Then we've found her?" one of the soldiers asked.

  "Yes," the tracker said. Maggie began fading back into the shadows, looking for a way to escape. She wanted to circle the inn, approach the bike from the other side. Orick was eating in the common room and he needed to be warned, but she dared not go back into the inn. She thought that, instead, perhaps the vanquishers would go into the common room searching for her. If she reached the far side of the inn without being seen, she could hop on the airbike and speed away, creating enough of a diversion so that Orick could also escape.

  She ran down the trail and circled to the back of the inn where there were no lighted trails. One moment she was rushing around a building, and the next someone leapt from the shadows, knocking her to the snowy ground.

  Maggie screamed, tried to leap up and get some footing. But her captor held her arm, hissed, "Quiet!" then pulled her to her feet with great haste. She stood in the darkness, looking at the thin man she'd seen earlier in the dining room.

  "Hurry—they're after us!" he said, pulling her arm. She heard shouts at the front of the inn, and Maggie didn't need coaxing. They ran over frost-crusted snow to a small field at the back of the inn, where dozens of aircars hunkered in the cold night.

  Maggie looked back, saw vanquishers rushing toward them past a green footlight. One pulled out an incendiary rifle and fired.

  The actinic chemical light shot out in an expanding ball, and the thin man pulled her down to the right. The fireball whooshed overhead, singeing Maggie's face as it passed, then splattered against an aircar.

  She and her benefactor weaved between several cars. Maggie spotted one with an open hatch. A guard dressed in black stood at the door, carrying an incendiary rifle.

  Maggie glanced at the man, caught her breath. He was a twin to the thin man. She froze at the sight of him, but her companion urged her forward. As she lunged into the back seat of the aircar, the guard leapt away into the shadows.

  The thin man started the ignition, began firing the thrusters, and Maggie looked out the window. His twin took cover behind another aircar and fired his incendiary rifle at the vanquishers. The tracker burst into flame, burned like a pillar in the night, his huge spiderlike body twisting in pain. From around the far end of the buildings, three more thin men rushed from the shadows, and two loped around from the front of the inn.

  The vanquishers dove for cover behind some planters and began laying down suppressive fire while shouting for help.

  The aircar rose, began sliding away into the darkness, and Maggie cried, "Wait! I've left a friend down there!"

  "I know!" the thin man said, though he did not slow the aircar. "I was trying to warn him when the vanquishers arrived. They sent for reinforcements, so we had to move fast. We hope that by killing the tracker, it will give your friend a chance to escape."

  "We?" Maggie said.

  "My doppelgangers," the thin man said.

  Maggie had never heard the word doppelganger, so her mantle filled her with understanding. Some people chose to become immortal by cloning themselves and downloading memories into the clones. Among those immortals were people who often kept multiple copies of themselves running at the same time so that they could work toward a common goal. Their leader was called the primary, while the copies were doppelgangers.

  The aircar slid smoothly up into the sky, and Maggie looked down. White volleys of gunfire were whipping through the air. The hot springs looked like cloudy green gems from up here, and she watched another vanquisher turn into a living torch, then saw a doppelganger take a hit to the left leg and stagger. He managed one last shot before he toppled; the shot went wide and torched one of Bavin's apartments.

  She looked down at the dying man and felt peculiarly detached. Though he was human, he was, after all, only a copy of a man, and therefore not real. But she knew that the man had felt pain and desires like any other person; he had hopes and dreams, and he'd just chosen to give his life for her.

  Maggie looked up at the thin man who piloted the aircar. Somehow it was comforting to know that he was the kind of man who would be willing to die for her.

  Chapter 16

  Maggie leaned back in the padded seat as the aircar roared out over snowfields. The cabin was pressurizing, and her ears popped. She took her eyes off the green gems of flaming springs, hoping Orick would escape.

  If I get through this alive, she thought, I'll never go near another inn again. She twisted some hair around her finger, chewed the ends nervously.

  The thin man glanced at her. "Your bear friend will be all right. My men just took out the last vanquisher. As one would suspect, the guests of the inn are checking out in record time."

  The thin man appeared to be thirty-five years old, though appearances would mean nothing on this world. He did not wear a mantle or guide. He wore a work suit of nondescript brown. He was not particularly handsome. "How do you know that your men killed the last vanquisher?"

  "Implants." He pointed to his ear. He sighed and leaned back. The aircar was piloting itself now. He glanced at Maggie. "I must say, I'm disappointed. I had been informed that a Tharrin was traveling between worlds, Semarritte reborn. And the man accompanying her fit the description of Semarritte's Lord Protector. Yet I risked my life and the lives of my doppelgangers for what, a bear and . . . ?"

  Maggie shrugged. There was something more in the question than mere curiosity—a demand. His face remained impassive as he waited for her answer. "My name is Maggie Flynn."

  "My name is Primary Jagget," he offered, stroking his goatee. "So why are you on Wechaus, and where is Semarritte's clone?"

  Maggie did not know if she trusted Jagget. Her first impulse was to lie. Yet she suspected that some of his men were searching for Orick, and in time Jagget might question the bear. She had to make the lie plausible, so she forged ahead.

  "Everynne was her name," Maggie said. "She came to my home world of Tihrglas two weeks ago with her escort, an old man who didn't mention his name. They hired me and my bear to lead them through the woods to an ancient gate, but there were some vanquishers and dronon after them. The old man fell behind to slow the vanquishers, sent us up ahead to the gate. We were at the gate when we heard his death scream. Everynne gave me the key, showed me how to use it, then rushed back through a clearing to help the old man. Just then, the vanquishers came out the far side of the clearing and shot her. The bear and I saw that our only chance for escape was to jump through the gate. We've been traveling ever since, trying to find our way back home through the gates."

  "What of your mantle?" Primary Jagget asked. "Surely you did not get that on Tihrglas."

  "The woman—Everynne—had it in her pack. She handed me her pack before she got killed."

  Primary Jagget studied her with dark eyes, his face lit only by the running lights of the aircar. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes. "So, Semarritte's clone is dead," he said. "What a loss. What a tremendous loss!"

  "W
as she a friend of yours?" Maggie asked.

  Primary Jagget shook his head. "I've never actually seen her, but yes, she was a friend of mine."

  He fell silent for a long moment. "What shall we do with you? The dronon have offered a reward for the woman who is traveling the Maze of Worlds."

  "I've done nothing," Maggie said, realizing that she had a hole in her story. If Everynne was already dead, the dronon wouldn't still be searching for her. "Why should they want me?"

  "Isn't it obvious? They want your key."

  Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. "Of course." She looked out the window. There were no moons above this planet, only a ring of light, and that was partly in shadow. The aircar sped over a frozen ocean.

  "So, you and your friend want to get home," Primary Jagget said. "I can help you—in return for the key." Maggie did not know what to answer. She didn't really want this stranger trying to escort her back to Tihrglas. "Of course, if you think the price is too high, I could sweeten the bargain."

  Maggie listened to the tone of his voice, realized that she might have just stumbled upon a universal trait for the inhabitants of Wechaus—they all seemed greedy.

  "I will think about it," Maggie said. "When your men find my friend Orick, I'll discuss your offer with him."

  "Fine," Primary Jagget said. "I'll take you to my compound. You'll be safe there. I personally can vouch for the character of every person on the premises. It's secluded, well defended. The dronon won't find you there."

  "Thank you," Maggie said. She leaned back in the comfortable cushions of her seat, watched the land go by. They were flying very fast. They were in a Chughat XI, an expensive car used by diplomats, and her mantle whispered that its top speed was Mach 12. She guessed that they were nearing Mach 10 when the car suddenly began slowing and dropped toward a city of stone. Bright lights ringed one large building, and Maggie could see dozens of people driving along streets, standing on corners. They all moved with a common gait, stood with a familiar stance. They were all clones of Primary Jagget.