The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  His head broke the surface. Stalwick was still with him, his stringy hair matted over his pallid face. His Malakasian uniform, too large, dragged in the current like a shedding skin. Markus held him fast around his chest, listening as Sharr and Brand’s voices grew closer. He could feel nothing from the waist down. He wondered if he would be able to let Stalwick go once they had been dragged back on board.

  ‘Why’d you do it?’ he whispered, fearing that Stalwick was already dead.

  ‘I’m g-g-g-g-good with f-f-f-f-fires,’ Stalwick said. ‘I t-t-t-t-tell you what, M-m-m-m-markus, I am g-g-g-good with f-f-f-fires.’

  The Malakasian ship, packed to the gunwales with mysteries harvested in Rona’s Forbidden Forest, burned for two avens. When the water finally snuffed out the last flames, the massive skeleton upended and sank noiselessly into the North Sea.

  MASSACHUSETTS

  ‘Mom?’

  Jennifer Sorenson shrieked, dropping a bowl of breakfast cereal that shattered on the floor. ‘Hannah?’ she cried, ‘my God, Hannah? Is it you, baby?’ Ignoring the splattered milk and cornflakes, she threw her arms around her daughter, clinging to Hannah as if she would never let go again.

  ‘Are you all right? Oh my God, I thought you’d never come back. I wanted to believe Steven, but it’s been so long. I’ve been waiting and waiting and I just can’t believe you’re back.’ She was crying, laughing, sobbing, all at once. ‘Are you hurt, baby? You’re too thin; I can tell that just from holding you. But are you hurt? Is anything broken?’

  Hannah found herself a little embarrassed at how nice it was to have her mother clutch her so tightly. She knew she ought to feel guilty; she’d put her through a four-month nightmare, but for a few seconds, it was nice to bask in feelings she hadn’t thought about since school. ‘Mom—’ She gently shrugged out of Jennifer’s arms, ‘we have to close the portal.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Jennifer said, wiping her face with her bathrobe sleeve. ‘I’m an old hand at it now.’ She used the cereal spoon she was still clutching to fold the edge of the Larion tapestry back over itself. ‘There,’ she said, then, unable to contain herself, drew Hannah back into her arms and hugged her close.

  ‘Mom?’ Hannah said, ‘we have some stuff to do, and we have to hurry.’ She paused for a second, inhaling her mother’s essence: lavender soap and body lotion, nothing expensive or fancy, but the scent of home, of love, of comfort. ‘I only have twelve hours.’

  She felt Jennifer tense and they broke apart; the poignant moment had passed.

  ‘No.’ Jennifer looked exhausted, worn to the nub. Her hair was more grey than blonde now, and she too had lost weight. ‘No, you can’t, Hannah, you can’t go back. I won’t let you. We can open the portal for Steven if you like, and Mark, and anyone who wants to join you, but you’re staying with me and we’re going home together, today.’

  Hannah knew Jennifer would resist; she tried to sidestep the argument. ‘We’ll talk about it as we go, Mom, but I really do have some stuff to do.’

  ‘Go where?’

  She hadn’t considered that her mother would be anywhere but Grant Street in Denver. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The Berkshires, outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts.’

  ‘Holy shit, what are you doing all the way out here?’

  ‘Aunt Kay has a cottage on Cape Cod. It’s closed up for the winter, but she said I could stay there until she opened the place for spring break. I wasn’t planning on needing it too long; I kept expecting you.’ Jennifer was crying again. ‘Every time I opened this goddamned thing, I expected you to come through it—’ She kicked at the tapestry.

  ‘Who’s Aunt Kay?’ Hannah asked, curious.

  ‘Oh, she’s not your real aunt,’ Jennifer explained. And I don’t think you’ve seen her in – what? Twenty-two years, maybe. She went to college with me about a hundred and forty years ago; we were roommates.’ She went to the tiny kitchenette in what Hannah now saw was a cheap motel suite. She couldn’t believe her mother had been living like this for months. Jennifer returned with a handful of paper towels and started cleaning up the spilled cereal and shards of pottery. Anyway, I called her and told her I needed a place to stay, that I was wrestling with an alcohol problem and wanted to get clear of Denver for a while. She didn’t mind.’

  Hannah was stunned. Lacking something to do, she knelt beside her mother and helped to mop up soggy cornflakes. ‘Why, Mom? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then Steven didn’t find you?’

  ‘We found each other yesterday, finally,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s been difficult—’ she laughed, a little cynically, ‘difficult… no, it’s been a godforsaken mess, but I’m fine.’

  ‘Then why do you—?’

  ‘Steven is sick,’ she said, ‘and I’m going back, Mom, tonight at seven. They’re waiting for me.’

  ‘What about Nerak?’ Jennifer dropped the towels and the jagged bits of cereal bowl into the bin and washed her hands under the faucet. She needed something to do with her hands. ‘That’s why I’m here, you know, because Steven told me I had to keep moving and that I couldn’t go anyplace anyone would think of, or be able to guess. Do you realise how challenging that is? And all the while I’ve been thinking that Nerak might be following me … well, hoping, actually.’

  ‘Hoping?’

  ‘Of course. If he was here following me, he couldn’t be there chasing after you.’

  ‘Steven killed him.’

  Jennifer nodded grimly. After a moment, she said, ‘That’s good, I suppose.’

  Hannah went to the kitchenette and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. ‘God, I missed you, Mom.’

  Jennifer broke down again. ‘I missed you, too, baby. This is the worst thing I’ve ever had to do, and until you have your own children, you’ll never be able to understand. And that’s why I can’t—’

  ‘I have to, Mom, and you have to help me,’ Hannah said softly. She felt her stomach knot; it was so unfair of her to ask for this, but she had no choice. ‘I need you to help me heal him, and maybe save all of us.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll go in your place.’ Jennifer didn’t hesitate.

  Hannah laughed and hugged her mother even more tightly. ‘No, Mom, that’s not what I meant; I need you to keep going like you’re going. I need you to keep opening the portal, every day at seven o’clock, a.m. and p.m. And you can’t miss a time.’

  ‘I haven’t yet.’

  ‘I’ll be back, with Steven, very soon.’

  Jennifer stared out of the front window across the pot-holed parking lot. It had snowed overnight, but it was already melting into puddles. It was going to be wet and slushy, not the kind of day she had imagined Hannah coming home to. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  A drugstore first.’ Hannah dug for a handful of cornflakes. And an Internet café. Let’s start with the café.’

  Hoyt sat wrapped in a blanket with his chair wedged into the corner of the cabin so it couldn’t fall over. He was shivering with fever and hadn’t eaten anything but broth in two days, but still he watched Hannah intently. ‘That was a quick trip,’ he said, trying to hide how pleased he was to see her back.

  ‘I just needed a few things. The hardest part was convincing my mother to let me come back – I thought for a while she was going to chain me up there and cross over here herself.’ Hannah had been gone a full day and night. Hoyt didn’t mention how worried he had been – how worried they had all been – when she didn’t return the first time they opened the portal.

  Hannah took a seat beside Steven. ‘Any change in him?’

  Hoyt frowned and shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s a gamble, but I’m hoping this will help.’ She withdrew a small glass ampoule with a built-in needle and for what felt like the two-hundredth time in two hours, she checked the label.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Anti-venom,’ she said in English.

&nbs
p; ‘Anti—?’

  ‘This comes from the most deadly poisonous creatures in our world.’ She shook the ampoule and held it up to the light. ‘It isn’t the best option, but I only had a day at home and I needed something fast.’

  ‘And you’re going to give it to Steven?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Through that needle?’ Hoyt had read about venous injections in an ancient book on Larion magic and medicine. He had never seen an actual needle up close, however.

  ‘I am,’ Hannah said, ripping open a little packet and pulling out a small piece of thin cloth that smelled peculiar. She rubbed a spot on Steven’s shoulder clean with the strong-smelling cloth, then snapped off the protective cap of the needle and, holding her breath, injected the fluid. ‘There,’ she said, and passed the ampoule to Hoyt who turned it over in his hands like a piece of treasure.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘How do you know how much to inject?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Hannah said. ‘I figure since these are normally administered in emergency situations, what with the built-in needle, I’d just shoot the whole works in there.’

  ‘How long will it take to fix him up?’

  ‘If it works,’ Hannah pulled the tattered blankets up to Steven’s chin, ‘he should be fine by tomorrow, maybe even tonight.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  Hannah paused. ‘Well, it might make him sicker – I don’t think it will kill him, but I guess it could.’

  Hoyt saw how difficult it was for Hannah to admit that. She could just as easily have told them that the anti-stuff was harmless. What would anyone in Eldarn know? He huddled deeper in his blankets and said, ‘Well then, that took courage, Hannah Sorenson. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’

  She worried a piece of Steven’s tunic between her fingers. ‘I hope so,’ she whispered.

  ‘So how does this work, anyway?’

  Hannah explained, ‘As far as I know, in my world these deadly creatures are milked for their venom. Then, using tiny doses, they help horses develop immunity. With that done, they isolate what they need – they’re called proteins – in the horses’ blood, and then use that to extract and mass-produce the anti-venom for people unfortunate enough to be bitten. The molecules in venom are big and slow, especially through the lymph system. With an injection following soon after a bite, the proteins in the anti-venom can usually counteract the effect of the toxin.’

  ‘I was with you until proteins,’ Hoyt said, smiling. ‘Remember, the medical books I read are already a thousand Twinmoons old.’

  ‘Uh, proteins… huge, specialised molecules.’ Hannah dug in her coat pocket. ‘That reminds me—’ She tossed him a plastic medicine bottle with a child-safety cap. ‘You need to take one of those, with food, every six hours … every two avens, give or take, until they’re all gone.’

  Hoyt shook the bottle and tried to read the label. ‘What is it? More molecules extracted from horse blood?’ He laughed; it didn’t make him look any healthier. ‘And I thought medicine was more advanced in Colorado.’

  ‘It is,’ Hannah said, ‘and no, that’s not extracted from horse blood. Believe it or not, the molecules in that handful of magic come from mould.’

  ‘Mould?’

  ‘Good old-fashioned mould.’

  ‘No thanks.’ Hoyt tossed the bottle back. ‘I’ll take my chances with the querlis.’

  ‘You have no idea what I went through to get that,’ Hannah said sternly, ‘so you will take one, with food, every two avens, or I will drag you topside and toss your sick-and-sorry self overboard.’

  ‘All right, all right! I surrender,’ Hoyt wrestled with the safety cap. ‘Good rutters, how do sick people even get them out of the pissing container?’

  Hannah sighed. ‘Must I do everything?’ She gave him a pill, which he examined for a moment, then began to chew.

  ‘Whoring lords!’ he cried, ‘it tastes like grettan shit!’

  ‘You’re not supposed to chew them, you dope.’ She passed him a water-skin and he tipped the liquid straight down his throat, swishing water round his mouth to get rid of the taste.

  ‘I hope it’s powerful medicine, Hannah, because that’s the only one of those I’ll be eating.’ He tried to squeeze the spilled water from his blankets.

  Hannah looked at him like a disappointed schoolmarm. ‘In two avens’ time I’ll help you with the second dose. Christ! Men!’ She handed him a chunk of bread. ‘Now eat that.’

  Footsteps sounded in the companionway followed by a knock on the cabin door. ‘Come in!’ Hoyt wheezed, ‘come in and save me from advanced medicine!’

  Alen and Gilmour joined them, looking grave. No one had elected to remain behind in Pellia, despite the captain’s impassioned speech.

  Hoyt sat up. ‘Where are we?’

  Alen sat on the edge of Steven’s berth. Gilmour remained standing. ‘We’re about a day south of Pellia. The incoming tide helped, but we lose ground when the tide goes out and the tacks are difficult and time-consuming for a boat this size. Captain Ford is working himself to exhaustion.’

  ‘What did you give him?’ Alen reached for the spent ampoule.

  ‘Anti-venom,’ Hannah said.

  ‘For a biological toxin?’ Alen cocked an eyebrow. ‘Steven was attacked by a tan-bak.’

  ‘Gilmour said Steven had disabled the tan-bak, but left it alive,’ Hannah explained. ‘He also said the insects died when you stepped on them or crushed them. That doesn’t sound like a creature armed with a mystical toxin. I just hope the bug that bit Steven is close enough to the arachnid family we use to brew up this serum.’

  Gilmour agreed. ‘While the tan-bak is a monster, Steven’s quick thinking showed us that it is a living, vulnerable monster. And, in Steven’s case, the tan-bak’s tiny emissary didn’t have a chance to burrow inside his brain, like the one that attacked Marrin.’

  ‘The first mate?’ Hoyt asked.

  ‘That’s the one – Marrin had an insect inside his head for days. I can’t begin to speculate what it was doing, maybe incubating in there, but when it saw an opportunity, or when it knew its partner had been found out, it struck.’

  ‘And Marrin died.’

  ‘Last night, I’m afraid,’ Gilmour said.

  ‘What are you taking?’ Alen pointed at the plastic container.

  ‘Mould extract.’ Hoyt leaned against the bulkhead. He was exhausted and needed to sleep. ‘It tastes like last Twinmoon’s booacore.’

  ‘Amoxicillin,’ Hannah said. ‘It kills bacterial infections. There’s almost nothing better in our world. And while it’s possible that Seron didn’t infect Hoyt with a bacterial infection, at least this medication won’t do any damage.’

  ‘How’d you get it?’ Gilmour asked.

  ‘My mother and I robbed a pharmacy.’

  ‘A what?’ Hoyt said, sitting up again.

  ‘A secure office where our doctors keep our strongest and most dangerous medicines – healing substances.’ Hannah put a hand on Steven’s chest. She felt the comforting rise and fall of his chest and thought of the Mexican restaurant on South Broadway near her grandfather’s store.

  ‘That sounds dangerous.’ Gilmour felt Hoyt’s forehead. Expecting to sense a wave of Larion power, Hoyt flinched. Gilmour said, ‘Just checking your temperature, my boy. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Hoyt closed his eyes.

  ‘How’d you manage it?’ Alen asked.

  ‘It was a small town,’ Hannah said, using English for words that wouldn’t translate. ‘Mom and I drove by the police station; there were only two officers on duty for the night. We stole a car, my mother dropped me off near the pharmacy and then drove out to the edge of the officers’ jurisdiction, way out on the side of a mountain. It was cold, and it had snowed the night before; so the roads were a bit icy, especially that far off the main road. My mother drove her car into a ditch, crumpling the front end against a tree, so it looked like a serious accident to passers-by. Then she lit a length of cloth with
her lighter—’

  ‘I have one of those,’ Gilmour interrupted. ‘Steven brought it back for me from Idaho Springs. Alen, remind me later to show you how it ignites—’

  Hannah smiled at him and continued her story. ‘Anyway, using a lighter, my mother started the car on fire and then ran off through the snow—’

  ‘Thus drawing the two police officers away from town for what was probably the biggest crime any of them had investigated in fifty Twinmoons,’ Alen finished for her.

  ‘She wasn’t done yet,’ Hannah said. ‘You see, by fleeing through the forest, she left a trail—’

  Gilmour interrupted, ‘That led the police and a barrel of helpful neighbours on a merry chase through the snowy woods—’

  ‘And ended at a quiet car park on the outside of town, where,’ Alen said, ‘the trail suddenly disappeared.’

  ‘It gave me just enough time to break into the pharmacy, steal the penicillin, which was easy to find, and the red spider anti-venom, which was frigging difficult to find—’

  ‘Not a popular item?’ Hoyt asked.

  ‘In Massachusetts in the dead of winter? No, not exactly,’ Hannah said. ‘Anyway, I’m sure the security tapes show me breaking in and the dispatcher at the police station must have had a heart attack when the alarm went off, but with essentially everyone in town out looking for a crazed, injured car thief, there was no one to come after me, at least for a few moments, anyway.’

  ‘What’s a security tape?’ Hoyt whispered, still listening but nearly asleep now.

  ‘A permanent image of my face,’ Hannah said. ‘But I’ve been listed as missing and assumed dead for more than three Twinmoons now. No one is going to connect a minuscule drugs heist with a cold missing person report two thousand miles away.’

  ‘The perfect crime,’ Gilmour grinned.

  ‘All it takes is a criminal mind.’ Hannah tapped two fingers on her temple. ‘A couple of Larion far portals don’t hurt, either.’