Orick paddled beside her, marveling at the deep and abiding sense of peace he felt.
"Hardly ever," he answered, wondering.
God had forgiven him, he realized. God had allowed him to baptize Tallea, and had sent His messenger to let Orick know that the ordinance was accepted.
For a long time, neither he nor Tallea spoke. Instead, they rolled about in the pond for several long moments, kissing playfully, gazing into one another's dark eyes, then climbed back onto the ground and just sat, nuzzling. Orick licked the water from her face, and she did the same for him, until at last they sat, began talking low.
Tallea told Orick of her childhood, her dark past raised as a Caldurian warrior, trained in a creche of stone with bars of steel by harsh swordsmen, enslaved by her love for her masters.
She spoke of sleeping in dark towers on nights when the wind whipped the ragged banners, snapping them in the blackness, and told of the cold rains that skittered against the stones of the guard towers where she stood watch, and said how she would gaze down on the village below and see the glow of firelight in some window, and wish desperately for a place inside, a place safe and warm, where people would accept a child who was not quite human as a beloved daughter, not just a tool to be wielded.
She felt that love now, that acceptance, and Orick did too, more profoundly than he had ever imagined possible.
Tallea talked of her hopes for the future, her love for Orick that felt so much deeper, so much easier to come by, than the compulsions that drove her to serve her masters, and she thanked him for freeing her.
So they rested, dripping and cold, speaking words of hope and comfort.
Yet something nagged at Orick's mind, something odd. He kept recalling the bird of light, and wondering. It had not looked much at all like a dove.
It had looked ... he decided, like a Qualeewooh.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Maggie opened her eyes. She hadn't heard the ground shake for a while. She wondered how long it had been since Gallen left. She finally realized she could simply ask her mantle the time; silently she questioned the mantle's Al.
"It is 2:2l P.M.," her mantle answered. When did Gallen leave? she asked.
"At 9:l4 P.M.," the mantle said.
Five hours. He'd been gone more than five hours. He'd promised to be back in four, or he would never come back at all. Maggie's heart began racing. She shook slightly and began to sob.
She looked about. Off in the deep shadows, at the far end of the tunnel, Zeus appeared to have fallen asleep, head hunched over. His light had gone out. Orick and Tallea were nowhere in sight.
She got up, called "Zeus?" He didn't stir.
She stepped forward, held up her glow globe. What she'd thought was Zeus, leaning forward with head bent over his knees in the shadows, turned out to be only a crimped limb. Zeus had left.
"Zeus?" she called louder, toward the tunnel leading out.
An uneasy feeling assailed her. Zeus had gone, following Gallen. She should have known he would, by the way he'd watched longingly after Gallen.
Orick and Tallea were gone, too. She'd last seen them heading to the back of the tunnel. She followed their trail, found them beside the water, lying asleep, Tallea's glow globe wedged under a rock so that it maintained enough pressure to keep it lit.
"Orick, Tallea-Gallen isn't back yet. And Zeus has gone."
"What?" Orick asked, startling awake.
"Gallen isn't back, I said. He promised to be back in four hours. He's late."
"And Zeus went after him?" Tallea asked.
"I don't know. He crept out while we slept." Maggie didn't want to accuse him. She hoped he'd gone in search of Gallen. But she didn't trust the man. Despite his handsome features, his lordly air, she could not dismiss the way he'd tried to seduce her.
"He must have been worried," Orick whispered, as trusting as ever. The big bear lumbered over on all fours, looked up, and nuzzled Maggie's hand, trying to comfort
her. "It will be all right. There's not a sfuz or a Dronon that can stop Gallen. Maybe he just got held up for a bit."
"Maybe," Maggie whispered, trying not to cry. Her voice broke, and she stifled a sob.
"Maybe we should go find him,” Orick said. "Without his robe, I'should be able to track him fine. Would that make you feel better?"
"Yes," Maggie said. "Please." She went back to her pack, fumbled about as she began putting away her food, getting out some weapons. Maggie was so nervous, she could hardly think. A cold chill seemed to dog her. Her thoughts came disjointed. Searching for Gallen would be dangerous. She'd always relied on him to protect her, Gallen with his knives and his swords and guns and mantle. The idea she might be able to help him seemed absurd.
But even if I can't help him, she thought, even if I go only to find his body, this is something I have to do.
She wished Zeus were here. Orick and Tallea had great hearts, and would fight beside her no matter what, but she'd been in one little firefight with the sfuz, and she knew how fast those things could move.
She wouldn't be able to pull her trigger fast enough in a concerted attack. Before, she'd had Gallen with his mantle and intelligent pistol and grenades, and she'd had Zeus backing her up when her clip emptied. This time, she'd have nothing to protect her.
All her defenders were being stripped away.
When everything was packed, Maggie took her glow globe and squeezed it tight so it would blaze as brightly as possible, then held it aloft in her left hand while gripping her pistol in her right.
Orick took the lead, and Tallea followed, both of them hurrying along. They went several hundred meters, found where Gallen, followed by Zeus, had departed from their old trail, then taken a new track up a steep incline.
It was tough climbing, along a narrow ledge of stone cliff, through a chasm where water had once tumbled down from above. Orick could barely squeeze through the opening. They'd seen this little cave before, but Gallen thought they could not get through. Obviously, on the trip in he'd taken the easier trails only out of concern for Maggie.
Now that need drove him, he'd taken a more precarious track.
As they hurried along, Maggie crawling on her hands and knees, she tried to still her breathing. After a long and treacherous climb up the narrow tube, it opened into a wider chamber, where the air seemed thick and close: Everywhere she could now smell the scent of smoke and burning detritus.
Something about this passage frightened her. Partly it was the strong smell of fire ahead. She detected more than the burning of humus-she could also smell cooked flesh. Up ahead, somewhere, there had been a battle, a fight with incendiary rifles unleashing their deadly plasma. Something had died.
But it was more than the knowledge of the carnage ahead that frightened her. No, the thing that frightened her was this: she had an overwhelming sense that this little passage, this sinkhole where water had once gouged a channel through the forest floor, led someplace she did not want to go.
It was the sense that as Gallen had kept searching for a passage into the Teeawah, hoping to enter the lair of the sfuz, he'd suddenly found a good tunnel, one that headed precisely where he wanted to go. And she did not want to follow.
The smell of smoke grew stronger, the charred flesh and burning hair.
The passage suddenly opened wide into a much larger chamber. At the mouth of this passage, Gallen's and Zeus's footprints lay deep in the dirt--a large beetle had fallen into one, and it struggled to climb out.
Maggie felt frigid, disjointed, as if a stranger were manipulating her own body like a marionette.
Gallen's path led through a narrow defile where the sloping timbers of an old tree gradually dropped lower and lower, again forcing them to crawl, until a side passage opened to a larger chamber.
Here the roiling smoke suddenly became overwhelming. Here the smell of bodies was strong. Orick and Tallea stopped at the mouth of this chamber, wary, but Maggie could not slow, could not stop-ahead, in the dim sh
adows, she saw lumps on the ground. Her Iight glinted off the carapaces of dead Dronon Vanquishers-dozens of them, sprawled on the floor.
Maggie's heart pounded. So Gallen had met the Dronon at last, down here in the tangle.
The bears held back, but Maggie had to enter, had to know how Gallen had fared.
Maggie held her light aloft. She could not see the roof of this chamber, it was so high, but ahead-encircled by dozens of dead Vanquishers, she could see a human figure lying facedown in the dirt. Even as she held the light up, the man raised up feebly, head lolling, and she saw a pale face, bruised and bloody, the golden hair.
"Gallen!" Orick shouted, and the bear bounded forward, leapt over the corpses of Vanquishers.
Gallen looked up, his long golden hair falling down around his face. With a start, Maggie saw that his mantle was missing. His eyes were black, his nose and chin covered with dried blood. He struggled to raise his head, to push himself off the ground. His mouth was swollen, teeth knocked out.
Unsteadily, he gasped, "Or-Or-Go back!"
Gallen collapsed, and Maggie rushed to him, choking back her horror. Tears streamed from her eyes. As she neared, she looked down at his right leg. It was mangled, covered in blood, and a stout chain held it pegged to the ground.
Suddenly light blared around her, and Maggie raised her pistol, tried to aim, but the lights blinded her. On the far side of the cavern, a Dronon voice clicked, a translator buzzed.
"Welcome, Maggie Flynn, 0 great and honored Golden Queen. We bring you greetings and a challenge from Cintkin and Kintiniklintit, Lords of the Seventh Swarm."
High up, all around, wings buzzed, and with the movement Maggie saw Dronon Vanquishers by the score, clinging to the ceiling, ready to drop. But where was Zeus?
Then she knew. Then she knew death had come. With her husband and protector broken at her feet, the Lords of Seventh Swarm threatening. She raised her gun, tempted to shoot the Dronon, but there were so many, so many, and she knew if she opened fire on them, she wouldn't just be committing suicide, she'd be killing her friends, Orick and Tallea.
Silently, she screamed, No!
Chapter Forty
Thomas Flynn stalked behind Lord Felph, following a trail of corpses through the tangle. Between the boles of vast trees, smoke hung in the air in iridescent wisps, reflecting the light of Thomas's glow globe.
The air was remarkably cool despite the smoke. The fighting had died down two hours ago, yet Felph and Thomas often passed roving patrols of Vanquishers. who still hunted for Maggie and Gallen.
Though Felph hurried, his journey through Teeawah took longer than anticipated. He'd pinpointed the course he wanted to follow, using a map provided by the Dronon, but following the precise route proved impossible. The Vanquishers simply flew when they wanted to travel up or down, so Felph ended up traveling twice the distance as the Vanquishers to reach the ancient city.
On the trail in, they passed the corpses of fantastic monsters-the purple-black sfuz with their thin legs, the long pale corpse of a mistwife, some previously undiscov ered creature Thomas called a troll-for it had greenish skin and hair that looked like roots, all with a nose at least two feet long. Dronon dead littered the path in places, primarily asphyxiated by the flames thrown by their own incendiary rifles. Felph robbed their corpses of pulp guns, gave a spare to Thomas.
Only once did they spot a sfuz-a frantic creature so busy dragging a Vanquisher's corpse it did not notice Felph till he shot it. Thomas felt surprised at how the sfuz had not seen them, for they had not hidden their light. Perhaps in this battle, with its massive carnage on both sides, the mind of this poor wretched beast had snapped.
In its death throes, the sfuz protectively wrapped four legs around its head. Thomas gazed deep into its indigo eyes. Fires had burned here. Three spots in the turf still smoldered from incendiary fires, trailing thin white plumes of smoke.
Felph halted, watching the sfuz, his leg propped up on the thorax of a dead Vanquisher. He sniffed.
"How long have you been working for Karthenor?" Felph asked.
Thomas could not answer. Karthenor had ordered Thomas to be silent earlier in the morning. Thomas's Guide would not recognize Feiph's request.
"Are you a slave, fresh captured?" Felph asked.
Thomas nodded.
Felph considered. "Do you think a man should work for what he gets, or just take it? Receive reward without sweat?"
Thomas shook his head no.
Felph watched Thomas thoughtfully. "Me neither."
Thomas wondered if Felph planned to free him. Perhaps so, but if he did, he wasn't saying. Rather forcefully Felph said, "I don't think it should happen. In fact, I don't believe it ever does. Remember, Thomas, everything has its price. Everything. Even you. Karthenor believes he has captured a prize. But you will cost him. It is a law of nature, and nature will not be violated."
Aye, everything has a cost, Thomas silently agreed, but my ignorance cost me more than it's worth. Give me a hand, man. If you removed this Guide, I'd write a song to immortalize the deed!
Felph studied Thomas's eyes. Go on, man, save me! You can read everything I want to say from my eyes.
"Indeed," Felph said, "everything has a price. Even compassion. I would free you if I could. I have the tools in my palace. But I cannot do so now. Perhaps I will never
be in a position to do so. But remember, my friend, you are free if you so desire to be. Karthenor may force you to do his will-his Guide might control your actions even past
the moment when your brain ceases to function-but so long as you do not let his will supplant yours, you are always free.
"Lord Felph stroked his thin beard, a gesture that somehow made him look much older, then he turned away and headed down the trail, as if he'd decided to let Thomas be.
Thomas despaired. Freedom of thought was not much at all. Freedom of thought was an itch, begging to be scratched. And Thomas wondered if the moment would come when Karthenor's will would supplant his own.
We two are too much alike, Thomas realized. With very little difficulty, he and I could be the same man.
Felph led the way deeper into the tangle. Their path led past several dozen dead sfuz, up a steep.incline where rainwater washed down, making a thin stream that ran with green and purple blood.
The time of day or night did not matter, though Thomas felt weary. The interminable darkness told his body to rest despite the fact Thomas had been awake for only ten hours that day.
All around, the hoary shadows of the tangle assaulted him, the tatters of roots hanging from above, the musky mineral scent of mold and rot, the constant dripping. The scenery seemed appropriate for a nightmare, and every two hundred meters they chanced on some new horror, some new site of a slaughter, until at long last they trudged up a path and came to the golden cliffs of Teeawah.
There holes opened in the rock like giant eyes. Smoke curled out from them, and from the openings hung the bodies of sfuz, chopped in half by gunfire.
Lord Felph jogged up to the holes, raising his glow globe over his head, peering into the dark recesses of the lair. At one point, he held up the light, then pointed his gun into the shadows and fired-an almost nonchalant gesture. From inside the cave, a shrill whistle erupted, the death cry of a sfuz.
"Here is a passage!" Felph shouted. "Back behind these bodies." He jumped up into the oval opening, climbed in. For one second Thomas saw the opening lit from inside. Felph seemed to be the pupil of a great burning eye, then the image faded as Felph hurried inside.
Thomas came up, surveyed the inside of the fortress. The bodies of a dozen sfuz sprawled on the floor, wrapped in their own arms and legs. These did not ooze blood. They'd been asphyxiated.
The hollow chamber here was shaped, something like an egg. Thomas had imagined there would be furnishings inside, as if it were a home back on Tihrglas with a butter churn in one corner and a sofa near the fireplace.
What he saw repulsed him. The floors lay bare of
furnishings, but in every corner bones and dung lay in fetid heaps. All along the wall were odd trophies-dozens of
flesh-covered heads from some large creatures, like ogres, each with a huge horn on its forehead; a collection of animal tails were tacked in another line; an assortment of
dried turds and testicles were pinned into the stone with wooden thorns. It wasn't until Thomas whiffed the ungodly odor from these items that he realized they weren't to look at-these items were here to smell.
Maybe the sfuz relished these bouquets as humans would the scent of flowers. Or more likely, this room seemed to form a library of scents, where young hunters could learn to track prey.
"Here's what we're looking for," Felph said, holding his light to a large passage that opened near the wall. "A common area. The Quaieewoohs connect these from various points. They twist a lot, and can be tricky."
With that, he held his glow globe aloft, began searching along a wide passage with a low ceiling that Ied deep into the city. Everywhere, side passages led to small rooms.
Felph ignored these as he clambered over asphyxiated sfuz.
"Let me tell you something," Felph huffed. "We have perhaps two hours before these dead sfuz begin to reanimate. By then, we'd best be well away." It was such an odd thing to say, and the young lord said it with such sincerity, the, notion took Thomas's breath. Did he really believe these dead would rise again?
In the past weeks, Thomas had seen so many wonders, he couldn't question this. If you told me they'd all transform into hummingbirds, Thomas thought, it wouldn't faze me.
They found another large passage that merged with the one they were in, like streams meeting to form a river, becoming one enormous tunnel, heading downward.
Here, in the depths of the city, the numbers of dead diminished. It was as if all the sfuz had gone to do battle. Yet ahead, Thomas heard an odd whistling, and Felph immediately fell into a crouch, waving his weapon.
"Well," Felph whispered. "It seems we have company. The sfuz must be guarding their waters. Get your weapon ready to fire."
Lords of the Seventh Swarm, Book 3 of the Golden Queen Series Page 32