Lander

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  The bi-wings were suddenly less important.

  He set off again, and the others followed. He was going to find Xander if he had to swim all the way to him through this drowning valley.

  Who the hell was Jameson?

  QUINCE WAS soaring above the ice again, the mountain below her cracking open to reveal its golden glow.

  Morgan looked up at her, his gaze beseeching her. You have to save me.

  Pain twisted her gut at the memory of his passing. He’d become the key they needed to shift the world. He was gone, vanished in the midst of the unimaginable power he had unleashed. She’d seen it happen.

  Yet here he was, calling to her. His need pulled at her soul.

  QUINCE OPENED her eyes, focusing on the wing that protected her from the rain. She was tired. She’d already crossed the world—twice—to save it. She wasn’t sure she had any more fight left in her, and yet Morgan’s insistent little voice pried at her conscience. You have to save me.

  “There you are.”

  Quince lifted her head, spitting out mud. She sat up as far as she was able and spread her wings. The rain had lessened, and she could see a few feet in each direction. It was a dismal vista.

  Venin stood over her. “I’ve been looking for you. Are you okay? I got separated from the rest of you and found a place under a fallen tree to wait out the worst of it.” He knelt next to her.

  She nodded. “I think so. My foot’s trapped.” She wiped mud off her face, aware she must be a frightful mess.

  “Let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?” Venin gave her an encouraging grin and went to get a better look. “Hold still.” He straddled the trunk and tried to pull it up, his dark blue wings fluttering at the strain. He was quite handsome, his muscles straining with the effort. Too bad it was wasted on her.

  “Any luck?”

  “This thing’s heavy. Let me see if I can find something to lever it up.”

  Quince’s stomach rumbled. How long had she been out here in the storm? At least she could do something about her hunger. She pulled off her pack and rummaged through it, finding a roll and some cheese she’d brought from Gaelan. She missed the MREs and more civilized food. Still, it was food.

  She offered Venin some, but he declined. “Any sign of the others?”

  “Not since we were separated.” He picked up a big stick and snapped off some of the smaller branches.

  Where would they have gone? She’d grown up a long way from here and wasn’t sure if she’d ever ventured this far west before. “Are there any other landmarks around here, besides the Mountain?” Well, that was gone now.

  Venin brought his stick to the fallen tree. “Not much, no. There are some caves along the edge of the valley. Old statues too. Ruins of the ancients, I think.”

  She nodded. “Jameson was leading us to shelter.”

  Venin looked at her strangely. “How would he know about the caves? He’s an offworlder.”

  She laughed ruefully. “It’s a long story.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, let’s give this a try.” He stuck the branch under the trunk and tried to get enough purchase to lift it up just a little. It moved up a few centimeters, then came crashing down as Venin’s grip slipped on the wet wood.

  Quince gritted her teeth. “Gods, that hurts!”

  “Sorry. Let me find a better spot.”

  He wedged the branch in.

  The weight of the trunk on her leg was an agony.

  Venin pushed down on the branch, and the trunk inched up again, five centimeters, then ten.

  Quince pulled her leg out carefully. Scraping it along the bark, she cried in pain and frustration. At last it came free.

  The branch in Venin’s hand snapped, sending him flying backward onto his ass. He spread his wings to cushion his fall.

  “You okay?”

  “I’ll live. I’ll take some of that food now, though.” Venin came to sit next to her and took a chunk of cheese.

  Quince pulled her leg close to look at it in the rain. It was scraped up rather badly, but she’d live. Blood blended with water and ran down to the muddy ground.

  She couldn’t shake the dream. Or had it been a vision? It couldn’t be true. She’d watched Morgan vanish before her eyes inside the Mountain. He was gone.

  Her gut told her it wasn’t that simple.

  Morgan was still alive. Whatever he was, he still existed.

  Why he had chosen to reach out to her, she had no clue. Xander would have been a more likely choice, or even Jameson. If she’d had her way, he would have been killed the first time she’d seen him, and the whole world would have paid the price for her action.

  Now she had a chance to make it right.

  ALIA RETURNED from the still-dangerous sky to share her news. “The valley is mostly impassable. The Mountain’s collapse filled in the lake, and fallen trees have made most of it a nightmare to traverse on foot.”

  “Worse than this?”

  She nodded. “It’s like a giant bramble patch.”

  Alix remembered hiking through this country when he’d arrived here with Dani and her squad. It had been beautiful then, a long lush green valley around a turquoise-blue lake, surrounded by hollyhock and púca trees.

  It had taken them hours to make their way over the edge of the mountain rubble, slipping and sliding through a rocky landscape that had dumped him on his ass more than once. He was ready for a break.

  The rain cleared away ahead of them, giving him a momentary view of the valley below. The lake was no more, buried in a pile of rubble. The trees had been knocked down for kilometers, looking like matchsticks. Beyond the end of the old lake, a new one had formed as the rain filled up the valley bowl—a brown, roiling mass filled with fallen tree trunks and other debris.

  Robyn came up next to him. She pointed to the southern edge of the valley. “The way is clearer up there, along the cliff walls.”

  The limestone walls had offered some protection from the winds. Alix nodded. “So we skirt the valley and hope to run into Xander’s party. If they survived.” That was convenient. It was also where the bi-wings were stashed.

  Alia nodded. “If the others survived, they would have tried to make their way out of this mess.”

  “We’ll head for the wall there—” Alix pointed to a spot closest to where they stood. “—and then follow it eastward.”

  He considered it less and less likely that anyone could have survived the storm down there. Xander was tough, though. He’d had to be, after some of the things he’d gone through. If anyone could make it through, it would be him.

  Did Xander still need him, like he had back on Oberon?

  Alix wondered how the citizens of Oberon City were faring through all this. Was Titan Station still up there?

  They started down the slope toward the edge of the valley as the rain closed in once again, blocking the view. How long could it go on?

  As water sloshed around inside his boots and churned the already soaked ground, Alix decided he hated the fucking rain too.

  QUINCE STRUGGLED up the slope toward the cliff, trying to see far enough ahead to find a protected spot where they could rest.

  Venin let her put an arm on his shoulder, supporting her. She was grateful for the kindness.

  She’d considered flying, but the rain and wind were still heavy enough to make that a really bad idea. She’d been lucky to get off with just a sprained ankle in her last fall. What if she broke a wing?

  For a brief moment, the rain let up.

  Quince looked into the gray sky and then back the way they’d come. The shimmering air parted to reveal the ruined valley, half-filled with water from the storm.

  She hoped Xander, Jameson, Kadin, and Alia had survived. “The prophecy never mentioned a flood,” she grumbled and turned back toward the ridgeline.

  Venin laughed. “Prophecies are notoriously vague. Let’s keep going. We’re almost there.”

  He seemed solid and steady. She needed both at the
moment, though she’d never admit it.

  They resumed their climb as the rain descended again in heavy sheets. Venin helped her clamber over slippery logs and boulders. She’d scraped up her knees several times, and the blood now flowed freely down both legs along with the rainwater. Her cuts were small enough to pose no immediate danger of blood loss, but she’d be lucky if they didn’t get infected.

  At last they reached the white cliffs that ran along the south side of the valley. The limestone disappeared into the mist and rain above. “Which way?”

  Venin shrugged.

  “West it is.”

  They found a rock hollow about a hundred meters along the cliff face, with an overhang deep enough to give them respite from the rain. Quince pulled out her pulse pistol and used the laser sight to provide enough light to check for inhabitants. There were whipcats up in the mountains, and who knew what else. Luckily the hollow was empty, with a deep loam of leaves and dirt to provide them with some cushion.

  “It’ll work.”

  “Looks like heaven to me.” Venin let her go in first.

  She stooped and made her way under the protection of the cliff.

  She was itching to return to Gaelan. The shift had many practical consequences, including the fact that OberCorp now shared a world with Errian and Gaelan, the skythane nations. The corporation was a clear and present danger to both, and the denizens of the Slander wouldn’t be far behind. She had promised Rogan a shitload of pith, after all, that she’d failed to deliver.

  They’d have to do something about all those things, and figure out how to shift the damned Oberon half of the world back to its own universe once the flare was over. Otherwise the misplaced landers would soon take over all Titania—Erro now—and the skythane nations would never be the same. It looked like she was going to be needed, after all.

  Until the storm passed, they were stuck.

  She opened her carry sack and pulled out some more of her rations, and Venin did the same. She was still hungry. It had to be late afternoon, maybe? She’d lost all track of time in the rush from the Mountain and during the storm.

  She took a bite of the remainder of the bread and dried fruit they’d brought with them. The bread was soaked through, but it filled her stomach with nourishment, and for that she was grateful.

  They watched the rain fall outside.

  “I’ve never seen a storm come up so hard and fast.” Venin chewed on some bread.

  She offered him her canteen.

  He shook his head and held up his own. “I brought something stronger.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mothrot, my mother called it. It’s a home-brew liquor, and it’ll take the sting out of just about anything. Want some?”

  “Yes, please.” She had a lot of sting to lose. She took the flask and sipped it. It was about the vilest thing she had ever tasted. “Oh my gods, what’s in this?” She stared at the canteen with disgust.

  He laughed. “Wait for it.”

  “For what?” Then a warm feeling of contentment began to spread through her gut and out to her fingers and toes. “Oh man, that’s nice.” She looked at the canteen with new appreciation. “What’s in it?”

  Venin grinned. “You don’t want to know. Splash a little on your wounds too. It’ll kill just about anything.”

  She did. “Damn, that burns.”

  He winked at her in the dim light. “That’s how you know it’s working.”

  An errant breeze blew a splash of rainwater into the rock hollow. Quince laughed. “I imagine this storm is all the atmosphere on the split side of both worlds, forced out by the shift. Unintended consequences and all.”

  Venin nodded. “There’s a whole mountain-sized pile of rubble out there that could fit under that header. What happened back there?”

  Quince shook her head. “I don’t know. Something new. I still don’t understand how Morgan vanished. Or what he was.”

  “Maybe a sneach?”

  Quince shook her head. “I thought so at first too. But now…. He had his own agenda. But he helped us when we needed him most.” She could still see him, there between Xander and Jameson, pulling the worlds together. Then vanishing as if he’d never been.

  “There are stranger things than we know in the world.” Venin held up his flask. “More ’rot?”

  “No thanks. That little bit did the trick, I think. Tell your mother thanks for me the next time you see her.”

  “Wish I could. She’s been dead three years now.”

  Well, shit. “Sorry.”

  He squeezed her shoulder in response.

  They sat in silence for a while. Quince pulled out a clean, damp shirt from her carry sack and used it with some rainwater on her legs, wiping off her wounds as best she could. They were shallow—mostly just scrapes, but she longed for some warm water and soap to truly clean them out. The mothrot would have to do, for now.

  City life had made her soft. Time to harden herself up again.

  Chapter Three: Memory Shift

  QUINCE WAS sure she’d heard something.

  Venin was slouched over next to her, snoring. She frowned. Men were always falling asleep on her.

  She touched his shoulder.

  He startled awake. “What?”

  “Voices,” she whispered. Jameson and Xander? Or Kadin? She crept to the edge of their rock shelter, wincing as that put pressure on one of her scrapes. There. Coming from the west. From the direction of the Mountain.

  She stood up outside the shelter and stared into the rain. It had to be close to nightfall—hard to tell in the dim light of the storm. It was quiet except for the wind and the drip drip drip.

  One hand went to the hilt of her pulse rifle, which she’d tucked into her belt.

  Nothing. She shook her head. Must be effects of the mothrot. She was about to crawl back into the shelter when a winged form appeared out of the rainfall.

  “Alia!” Quince surged forward and hugged the woman. “Gods, it’s good to see you. I was worried we’d lost you.”

  Alia squeezed her arm. “It was a near thing. But I brought company.”

  Quince looked over Alia’s shoulder. Impossibly, Alix was there. Xander’s ex. He shouldn’t be. Couldn’t be, and yet….

  “Hello, Quince.” Alix flashed her a smile. “Long time.”

  “Alix….” Then Quince’s gaze strayed past him to the woman who stood with them. Holy shit. “Robyn…. Heaven and Erro,” she managed, stumbling across the intervening space to squeeze Robyn tightly. “Oh my gods, it is you. You’re alive!” She held Robyn out at arm’s length, hardly daring to believe her eyes. She reached out to touch Robyn’s face, afraid it was just a mirage. It was real enough, her skin not as soft as it had once been, but firm, real.

  Robyn smiled weakly. “Hello, Quince.”

  Quince laughed and kissed Robyn hard, her heart bursting with joy.

  Robyn’s arms went around her waist, and they stayed like that for a long time. A warmth spread through her gut that was even better than mothrot. She wanted to dance, to scream, to fly.

  “What in the three hells are you doing here?” Robyn asked when they separated. “I didn’t expect to find you tonight.” Or ever, her face said. It wasn’t just the rain. There were tears in her eyes. Quince was sure of it. Not that Robyn would ever admit to such a thing.

  “Someone had to get this thing done.” She’d been sure Robyn was dead, that this moment would never come, and yet…. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here, and what happened to your wings?”

  “That’s a discussion for another time, when we have some privacy.” She squeezed Quince’s hand. “You have shelter?”

  Quince nodded. “It’s small.”

  “We’ll make do. Alix here is looking for Davyn—Xander, I guess you call him now.” Her brow furrowed. “Maybe you can tell us what happened here?”

  “Of course.” She shot a look at Xander’s ex. His sudden appearance could be bad for Xander and Jameson. Very bad
. Fate was laughing at her—she was sure of it. “Come on inside. Let’s talk.”

  Quince sat next to Robyn, unsure what to say. So much time had passed since they’d seen one another. And Robyn’s wings…. By the Split, had Dani done that to her?

  Venin, Alix, and Alia fell in together, talking about the storm and the shift.

  Robyn seemed ill at ease. Her normal air of command was gone, replaced by something else. Exhaustion? Defeat? She seemed deflated, like a wilting flower, her dark hair hanging around her head in damp clumps.

  “I thought you were dead,” Quince managed at last, reaching out to touch Robyn’s face.

  The queen looked at her, her green eyes meeting Quince’s for a brief moment. Then she turned away. “I wished to be. Many times.”

  Quince nodded. “So did I. I almost got my wish, in Gaelan.”

  “The enemy?”

  “It’s over. Your son took back the city.”

  Robyn would have been so proud to see it.

  Robyn’s face lit up. “And Dani?”

  “Imprisoned. I… what happened to you? Did she…?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Alix squirmed uncomfortably next to her.

  Quince glared at him. He knew, or at least had an idea, what had happened. What role had he played? She brushed that thought aside for the moment. This was more important.

  She eased forward on her knees and took Robyn’s hands in her own. “What did they do to you?”

  For her answer, Robyn burst into tears, startling Quince. “Later,” she whispered, wiping her eyes and reasserting some of her former haughtiness. “When we’re alone.”

  This was not the Queen of Gaelan she had known, but it was Robyn. She had been broken, and that broke Quince’s heart. She threw her arms around her love, fingers interlocking behind Robyn’s back.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to.” She rocked Robyn, burying her face in Robyn’s hair. “We’re together again. That’s all that matters right now.”

  Robyn squeezed her tightly. “I’m sorry. I’m such a mess.”