“This one is for you, child,” he whispered, and he dropped the Word into the hood of her cloak.
Maggie cried out, tried to struggle free of the Tekkar’s grip, but two of them viciously twisted her arms up behind her back and held her wrists, forcing her to bow down on her knees into the dirt.
Gallen was still at the far side of the bridge, his hands tied behind his back, unable to do anything but watch. Orick could not come to her rescue with the Tekkar holding him at gunpoint.
Gallen stood watching, his face a carefully controlled mask, unable to do anything for the moment. There was no movement, only the sound of the tumbling waters in the chasm far below the stone bridge, breaking the silence.
Maggie grunted, breathing hard, and waited in cold terror for the Word to attack. In a moment, she felt a sharp stabbing pain at the base of her neck, then a rapid push as the Word burrowed under the skin at the base of her skull.
She cried out, and watched Gallen through tear-filled eyes. He was standing thirty meters away from her in the edge of the darkness, and she looked across at him as if across some great gulf, and she realized that she had been looking at him this way for days. Ever since the Word had infected his skull, he’d inhabited a place she could not quite reach.
And now I’m going there, Maggie realized, and it filled her with a new thrill of hope, mingled with fear. I will share the lives he has lived, feel what he has felt. And in the end, we will no more be strangers.
But only if I renounce the Word. And so Maggie conjured an image of the dronon on Fale, and how they had tormented her, until the white hate boiling in the pit of her stomach burned away all fear, all pain.
She heard the sound of bones grinding in her skull, and she shrieked, “Gallen!” And suddenly, the world was turning, and Maggie felt herself dropping forward into the dust.
When Maggie woke, she lay for a long moment, her eyes opened to slits, and her first thought was to wonder if she were dead.
The room was dark but for a small fire, and Maggie recalled lives past, in bodies where she could see more keenly, smell through the palms of her hands, hear the rustling footsteps of mice through stone walls. In comparison, this body seemed sluggish, its senses dulled. She remembered her sense of power living as a Djudjanit under the ocean and swimming as fast as any fish, and recalled as Entreak d’Suluuth flying on hot summer thermals for days, never needing rest, and so she felt weak now in comparison. And this was the Inhuman’s first message to her, that because of her humanity, she was inferior.
She thought for a moment of times spent gazing placidly at campfires, of passionate loves lost and won over the course of a hundred lifetimes, of battles and defeat, and she saw how whole lives were often colored by emotional themes, recurring cycles of anger or despair or hopeful delusions. People were too often cramped by their own inadequacies, or made pawns in the larger affairs of men. Maggie thought back on her lives and saw them as a painter’s palette of colors, each with its own distinctive hue and texture.
And the experience made her feel rich, and buoyant and wise and old beyond the counting of years. And this was the Inhuman’s second message to her. Be grateful for what I have given you.
The lives and customs and thoughts and ideals of a hundred different people roiled around in her brain, and Maggie had learned much from the Inhuman. It was as if before there had been only a night sky, and now a vast and yawning galaxy of stars suddenly burned before her.
Almost without exception, the lives the dronon had shown her were lived by people of passion, people who loved life and wanted to continue indefinitely, and now Maggie saw how truly precious a gift it was, and she wanted to live over and over again, each time experiencing a new form. And in her mind, the Inhuman whispered, Follow me, and I will give you endless life.
And she recalled the hundred lives lived and wasted, and felt how each of those people had seen their own deaths as unfair. And the Inhuman whispered, The Tharrin-led humans are your enemies.
But as she cast back into her new memories, she also recalled thousands of nonhuman people who had been granted the rebirth. So she reconsidered the lives she had led, and recalled from each person something of the unbridled passions that might have kept them from being reborn. For Entreak d’Suluuth it may have been his contempt for the “wingless,” for another it had been complacency, for another greed.
So Maggie felt unsure as to whether the human lords had misjudged these people. Perhaps the human lords had been right to let them pass away, forgotten. And the Inhuman within her cringed at such thoughts, tried to get her to consider other arguments.
Then Maggie recalled her own captivity under the hands of the dronon, and her rage began to burn in her. A wave of confusion washed over her as the Inhuman sought to take control of her, but Maggie focused on her own memories. And she saw without a doubt that the information she’d been given was tainted, an emotional argument designed for the naive and inexperienced. Her own experiences with the dronon precluded any possibility of being drawn into their cause, and her resolve to destroy the Inhuman had not weakened. Indeed, the Inhuman’s Word had not been able to have the slightest effect in changing her view of the world, and she marveled at how Gallen had been so strongly influenced by the Word.
It seemed almost a defect in his character to have become so misguided, but she recalled Ceravanne’s warning that some people found it easier to fight the Inhuman’s Word. Indeed, the Bock had not even feared that Orick could be infected. So Maggie wondered if it were some biological difference in her that let her defeat the programming so easily.
She opened her eyes to slits and looked around. She was lying on the floor in a large room—the same room that the Tekkar had hustled Maggie and Ceravanne into when they first entered Farra Kuur. The room may have once been an inn. It was large enough for one—twenty meters on one side, thirty long, with a huge hearth on the far wall and a couple of entryways that might have led to kitchens or sleeping chambers. Maggie’s head was pillowed by the packs that Gallen, Maggie, and Ceravanne had carried.
In the far corner of the room, two Tekkar had built a fire in an ancient stone oven, and they were cooking some fry bread and beans seasoned with desert spices. The scent made Maggie hungry.
Her legs and arms were not bound, which suggested that the Tekkar believed that she would be converted when she woke—or perhaps they thought only that she would pose no threat.
Maggie looked around for the others. Two Tekkar had Gallen sitting in one corner, guns trained on him. The other Tekkar did not speak much, and then only in whispers, but they moved about the room as if in a dance, each performing his own task—cooking, packing, guarding—and Maggie noticed something odd about them: the Tekkar had set themselves up around the room so that none were really close to the others. They did not congregate. Instead, they moved about the room evenly, almost gracefully, but always chose their path so that they maximized one another’s body space. It was a distinctly nonhuman behavior.
In another corner, Ceravanne sat, hands bound in front of her. Orick was at her side, both of them under heavy guard. Maggie was surprised that they had not yet been infected by the Word.
The Tekkar Lord had Gallen’s mantle in his hands, and he turned it over and over, studying it. Finally, after a minute, he put it on his own head, and smiled at his men. He stood for a moment, breathing deeply, and said, “Ah, now I am a Lord Protector.”
Maggie knew that she had to get the mantle back. It was too powerful a tool to leave in the hands of a servant of the Inhuman. She got up, stretched, and smiled warmly at the Tekkar. Their leader saw her and hurried over, the memory crystals of Gallen’s mantle glinting under his hood.
Maggie waved toward Ceravanne, her voice expressing confusion. “Have we no Word for our sister, or for the bear?”
The Tekkar Lord gazed into her eyes, and his own purple eyes looked like black holes in his dark skin. “None,” he hissed, his voice whispery, as is often the case with those who ha
ve keen ears. “An aircar will be here soon. Perhaps more will be provided.”
Maggie looked about the room, still wondering what to do. “I … want to serve the Inhuman,” she said. “But I don’t know how.”
The Tekkar nodded graciously. “The lives you have lived—they train you in the use of technology and weapons, strategy and history. All that remains is for you to be assigned to a unit.”
Maggie considered. She had the lives of forty-one men and women who’d gone to war—swordsmen and bowmen, tacticians, scouts, squires, kings, and supply men. Merchants who understood the economics of war, a dronon technician and worker from the City of Life.
She hadn’t considered before, but she was prepared for just about any situation that the future could throw at her, and she also realized that much of what she’d learned was designed to help accommodate other nonhuman species. The passionless Wydeem would learn about lust and the desire to build. The gentle and shy Foglarens would learn how to be confident in open spaces and understand the thrill of battle. The Roamers would learn of trade and economics.
“Yes,” Maggie whispered for the first time. “I see what you mean. May I be in your command for now?”
“Of course,” the Tekkar hissed. “It is always an honor to work with a kitten whose eyes have just opened.”
Maggie gave him her hand, let the Tekkar help her rise. She nodded toward the food. “May I? We haven’t eaten well in days.”
“Of course,” the Lord said. “But you will need to hurry. The transport will be here soon.”
Maggie made up a plate, and the Tekkar Lord knelt beside her, watching her every move. Maggie nodded toward Ceravanne. “I almost envy them.”
“Why?” the Tekkar asked.
“Because soon they will hear the voice of the Inhuman, and they will feel what I felt upon awakening. That first moment of being alive.”
“Yesss,” the Lord hissed, obviously pleased.
Maggie sat eating, wondering what she might be able to do to help the others break free. Probably nothing. She noticed the furtive glances the Tekkar gave her. They were watching her closely now, and had not yet offered her a weapon. She knew that they wouldn’t offer her one until she had been safely delivered to Moree. She had just finished her plate, when the building began to rumble and vibrate as the gravity waves of a dronon flier bounced against it.
“The transport is here,” the Tekkar Lord said, and his men began picking up their packs. They had great mounds of food and blankets, and most of the men had to fill their arms.
The Tekkar Lord himself was about to grab his pack, but instead ordered one of his men to do it and took both of the dronon pulp guns, waved Gallen and Orick forward, and they went out into the night.
On the stone bridge outside Farra Kmir, a lone flier had set down. It was a large military job, an oblong blue disk with rows of windows. One of its doors swung upward automatically on landing. It was large enough to carry twenty men, and its forward weapon array held twin plasma cannons and several smart missile mounts. No one had come with the flier, so obviously it was piloted by an AI. Maggie was not wearing her mantle, but she knew upon looking at the flier that this was a completely new machine, not more than a week old and designed for use by men, not some artifact left by the dronon.
So the Inhuman was building its own arsenal.
The Tekkar carried their bundles and went ahead, stopped to look down the road. The Derrits had come back to retrieve their dead. The whole pack of them were gathered out in the darkness far down the road, growling low and snarling.
But they seemed disinclined to charge up the road to the military transport and attack a squad of Tekkar.
Gallen, Orick, Maggie, and Ceravanne were herded behind by the Tekkar Lord, waving his gun. He’d put the spare in his belt.
Just as Maggie got to the main gate of Farra Kuur and stood under its black stone arch, Gallen stopped and looked back at the Tekkar Lord.
“Veriasse, kill them now!” he whispered.
The Tekkar Lord’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and he leapt sideways and fired the dronon pulp pistol in a frenzy. It made burping noises as it fired, and Maggie looked to see a Tekkar take a hit to the head, opening a hole. The whole side of his face exploded outward, the shattered bones of his skull stretching the skin incredibly taut, and then his skull seemed to shrink in on itself, and he crumpled to the road.
Another Tekkar took a body hit, and the left side of his chest ripped away as the shell of the pulp gun exploded, spattering blood and bits of bone and lung all across the transport.
One of the Tekkar managed to pull a knife and fling it at his Lord, but it was a hasty throw, and the Tekkar Lord simply dodged aside, then finished shooting down his own men.
And then he pulled the spare gun from his belt and dropped both weapons, and merely stood. Maggie watched him in confusion, wondering if the Lord were changing sides. Down the mountain, the Derrits began to roar quizzically, as if trying to decide whether to charge.
“Quickly!” Gallen shouted. “Cut us free! There is no telling how long the mantle will be able to control him!”
Maggie grabbed the fallen knife from the road, went to Gallen and cut his bonds, then did the same for Ceravanne. Before Maggie could finish with Ceravanne, Gallen went to the Tekkar Lord, pulled the man’s knife, and plunged it into his heart.
The Tekkar dropped with a sigh, and Gallen grabbed the pulp pistols and his mantle. In moments he had hurried to the flier, and they began throwing in the packs that the Tekkar had carried, then leapt in and closed the doors just as the Derrits charged up the road.
“Vehicle, rise eighty yards and hold position!” Maggie commanded the flier’s AI.
The flier rose up in the air and hovered.
“I don’t understand.” Orick grumbled. “What happened?”
Gallen had already put his mantle back on, and he whispered, “Not any man can wield the power of a Lord Protector’s mantle. The mantle is a living machine, and it partakes of the desires and intents of its makers, and of those who use it. And like a Guide, it has some measure of control over its wearer. Most of the time, it gives me free rein to do as I please, but I have felt it tugging at my limbs, using me in battle as much as I use it. So when the Tekkar asked me to surrender it, I asked my mantle if it could protect me. It said that it could not serve an evil man. It warned me that it might be able to battle the Tekkar, once one of them put it on. I knew that the Tekkar would covet the thing, and eventually one would try to claim it, so I had only to wait my chance.”
Maggie looked out the window at the dead Tekkar strewn across the road. She recalled how the Tekkar Lord had innocuously obtained both the guns. She realized that Gallen’s mantle had been prodding him even then.
Maggie had understood that her mantle was designed for a special purpose, and that its abilities and memory were all aimed at fulfilling its own desires and objectives. She had felt her own mantle tugging at her mind, filling her with curiosity when she’d studied dronon technology, but she hadn’t quite grasped how symbiotic the relationship between man and mantle might be until now. And Maggie realized that she would need to begin studying mantles more explicitly, learning more of their creation, abilities, and desires.
Down on the road, the Derrits fell upon the bodies of the dead Tekkar, grabbing them and scurrying away. Food for their babies, Maggie thought.
“Where to now?” Maggie said.
Gallen looked at her quizzically, the green running lights of the flier soft on his face, and she smiled. “I’m not Inhuman, if that’s what you’re wondering, Gallen O’Day!”
“I didn’t imagine you would be,” Gallen said. “But one can never tell.”
After a moment of thought, he said, “We’ve got air transport, and we’ve got food. We might as well fly to Moree.”
“Surely we can’t just fly into the city,” Ceravanne said. “They’ll be waiting for us.”
“We can land nearby,” Gallen sai
d. “Close, but not too dose.”
Ceravanne dosed her eyes, thinking. “I’m not sure, but I believe I know just the place.”
* * *
Chapter 29
Where should we go?” Maggie asked again, staring hard at Ceravanne, but Ceravanne was still thinking, unsure if hers was the right course.
“If I judge right,” Ceravanne said, “we cannot just go straight into Moree in this vehicle. We will have to set down outside the city. Is that right?” Gallen nodded curtly.
“And I have seen the dronon aircars streak across the sky like meteors,” Ceravanne said, “so that a journey of a thousand kilometers takes but an hour.”
“More like six minutes in this car,” Maggie said. “We need rest and food before we go into Moree, and a place of safety,” Ceravanne continued. “Could we go back to Northland for one day, to the Vale of the Bock on Starbourne Mountain?”
Maggie and Orick both dropped their jaws. They had been struggling so hard to reach Moree that both of them thought only in terms of that small goal, and so they had imagined landing as close as possible to that place.
“It might not be a bad idea,” Maggie said. “When this aircar doesn’t return on schedule, the Tekkar at Moree are going to become suspicious. They’ll close the gates tight, and start looking for us. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay away for a while.”
Gallen stared out the window, considering. “But every moment we waste only allows the Inhuman’s agents to get stronger. They’ve already got the Dronon hive cities, and now they are building armed and armored air transports. I think we should go in immediately.”
“It is hours till dawn,” Ceravanne said. “The Tekkar are awake, but most of them will be sleeping by morning. We should wait to infiltrate the city by daylight.”
Gallen nodded in acquiescence, and Maggie told the aircar to take them to Northland, to Starbourne Mountain. The aircar did not know the coordinates, so Ceravanne gave it an approximation, and the transport rose in the air and swept away. Ceravanne looked out her window and saw the small campfires and lights of villages down in the cities below, and she watched the clouds, like floating sheets of ice on a swollen winter river, sliding away beneath her. She had never been in an aircar before. Though the thing sounded noisy from the outside, there was absolute quiet within the vehicle, and this seemed somehow wondrous to her.
Beyond the Gate (The Golden Queen) (Volume 2) Page 39