by Becca Mills
Ida nodded. “Something else is going on here.”
“The ice men are known for being sensitive to slights,” Mizzy said. “And they have a wergild system. But I’ve never heard of it being applied like this.”
I shrugged. “The person who actually ordered the killing isn’t available to punish, and I guess the person who carried it out is too valuable to let go. I’m the only one left.”
Mizzy frowned thoughtfully but said nothing.
“It sucks, Beth,” Terry said. “I’m sorry.”
Ida nodded. “Absolutely not fair.” She paused and smoothed her expression. “You know, when you’re young, thirteen years sounds like a lifetime, but it goes by pretty fast. It seems just a few years since Cata was born, but it’s been fifteen.”
That didn’t really help, but I smiled. “I’ve heard the ice mothers have an outstanding library. At least I’ll be able to read.”
Mizzy nodded. “Their library’s legendary. Being able to troll for stories there would be a dream come true.”
“Maybe you can do some reading there before you head home.”
“Hey, I’ve heard they have amazing bladed weapons,” Terry said. “They make them out of ice, but they never melt.”
“Great. Endless opportunities to accidentally stab myself.”
That got a little forced laughter.
No one seemed to think of anything else to say, so we went back to packing. The mood was somber, but oddly, I felt better than I had since leaving New York. It was nice to know there were some people around who knew something about me and were sympathetic. It’s not like Mr. Gates’s people suddenly filled up the hole left by Andy and the others, but they made me feel new friendships might be possible.
I woke up in the middle of the night, sure that something was wrong. I looked around the dark room. Nothing seemed amiss.
I rolled out of bed and poured myself a glass of water from the carafe on the dresser. The wooden chair by the window looked more inviting than my too-warm bed, so I took my drink over there and sat down.
A wisp of an image of Cordus flitted through my mind, and I realized that’s probably what had woken me — a nightmare I couldn’t quite remember.
Damn the dreams, the man, and the horse he rode in on.
Outside, the street was empty. Cloud-dimmed moonlight illuminated the wet cobblestones.
A soft laugh came up from below, and a couple walked into view. They were holding hands and leaning into each other — people in love, heading home after a night out.
The familiarity and normality of it struck me, followed by a wave of dissociation.
I’m in another world.
The weirdness of it gripped me for a long second or two and then faded.
It’s another world in more ways than one, I thought.
How radically my understanding of things had shifted over the last few weeks. When I first learned about the S-Em, I’d been told that Seconds and humans were different. Seconds belonged in their world and humans in theirs. Nolanders were stuck in the middle — neither Second nor human. We had no home, so we had no rights.
Then Gwen had floated her idea.
She’d been more right than she could’ve imagined. There was Williams, for instance. He was a Second, but everyone back home had believed he was a Nolander. Mizzy was a Nolander, but I was pretty sure the only people here who knew that were the ones she’d told. I’d never seen anyone treat her differently. No one had treated me strangely either, for that matter.
It wasn’t just that there was a power overlap between essence-working Seconds and Nolanders. They were literally indistinguishable. And another group of Seconds were indistinguishable from humans — unable to work essence at all.
Now that I understood, it made perfect sense. I mean, a world made up of people like Cordus wouldn’t function. Why would someone be a shop-keeper if they could remake themselves and the world at will? A waitress? A trader? A miner? There was no reason someone would spend their life slaving away in a muddy goldmine unless it was their only choice.
So, why were people here free to do more or less as they pleased while Nolanders were the de facto property of whatever power happened to get hold of them?
Mizzy probably knew. She seemed to know something about everything.
But would she talk to me about it?
I thought about her little digs at Williams.
I’d begun to suspect they were really aimed at me — that she’d figured out I hated Williams and was trying to establish common cause with me. Hey, she was saying, you’re so right about this guy. I hate him too!
The question was why she’d want to do that.
I knew what Zion would say. She’d tell me that people in my position — people with a shitload of power that was basically free for the taking — could never really have friends. Even if the other party started out with good intentions, I’d always end up getting used.
Everyone should have a Zion in their life — some clear-eyed, unsentimental person who’ll tell you the hard thing.
On the other hand, I wasn’t going to live wholly by Zion rules. To me, a life where you trust no one and are fundamentally alone wasn’t worth living. I was pretty sure even Zion had her soft spots.
Where that left me in a bigger sense, I wasn’t sure. But in this specific instance, there wasn’t much reason to put Williams ahead of Mizzy on the trustworthiness scale. He was a murderer, took every opportunity to be nasty to me, and was neck-deep in some subterfuge about his own identity that I couldn’t begin to grasp. And on top of all that, he might not be fully under Cordus’s control.
Mizzy, in contrast, was just unknown.
When it came to choosing allies, better unknown than known and confirmed awful.
Some devil’s-advocate part of my psyche tossed up Williams’s odd tendency to be kind to animals. I considered it for a moment, then dismissed it. As the saying goes, even Hitler loved dogs.
Chapter 12
I tightened the drawstrings holding on my hat and tried to do a better job of swaying with my camel’s strange, pacing gait.
Early in the morning, we’d sent all our baggage to the wharf by cart and then crossed the wide river on a paddle-driven ferry. A caravan of about twenty people and fifty camels had been waiting for us in the walled settlement on the other side. Several of the other caravaners appeared to be traders, but most had more modest amounts of baggage — ordinary travelers, like us.
Kevin had already set things up with the caravan master, and the ten dromedaries Mizzy had bought had been delivered. We found them and packed them up.
I wasn’t worried when I first saw the camels. I’d ridden plenty of horses. How different could it be?
Very, I’d discovered. Their gaits were nothing like horses’, and the saddle sat right up atop the shoulders, so I constantly felt I was about to catapult off over the animal’s low neck. As for the part where the camel got up from the kneeling position, the less said about that, the better.
By mid-morning, we were headed north from the river, our camels walking two abreast. The master had said each person should watch their side of the trail carefully. Apparently, there were predators.
Surprise, surprise.
As we left the river behind, the trees grew smaller and fewer. Soon the landscape had transitioned from forest to lush green grasslands studded with lakes.
I could see the land had been inundated recently. We were forced to trace a winding path around the remaining bodies of water. Occasionally we had to wade. The camels weren’t crazy about the water, but once the caravan master and his assistants got their animals going, the rest followed along.
Unlike in the highland jungle, here there were mammals. I saw elephants, antelope, deer, bison, horses, zebras, rhinolike things, camellike things, piglike things, and huge creatures that must’ve been ground sloths. None of them looked quite like any modern animal I was familiar with.
The mammals were mixed in with plant-eating di
nosaurs. Some types of mammals and dinos seemed to hang out together habitually. Almost all the long-nosed camels I saw were grazing in among some species of massive-bodied dinosaur that had a single hornlike projection on the top of its head. Sometimes a dino tossed its head at a camel, warning it away from a particularly juicy clump of grass, but more often the dinos rose up on their back legs to forage from scrubby trees while the camels grazed beneath them.
I wondered if the mammals had all come through the strait at Free. They’d have to have traveled through the jungle and across the river to get here.
Williams was riding beside me. I doubted he’d answer me, so I turned in my saddle and asked Mizzy.
She tilted her head. “I guess so, unless there used to be another strait that connected these plains to North America. That’s not likely.”
“But wouldn’t the predators in the jungle just kill any mammal that wandered through the strait?”
She shrugged. “It only takes a few to start a population. Over the course of millions of years, some must have made it through.”
“But why would a camel or a sloth go through a strait to begin with?”
“Essence-working is as common among animals as people. Workers are drawn to straits. Plus, some animals are émigrés.”
Of course. I knew an animal émigré — the wolf Ghosteater.
“Animal émigrés tend to leave straits sitting open,” Mizzy said. “Then lesser workers who’ve been drawn to the strait go through. If they’re herding types, there might be non-workers with them. Over time, you can end up with a lot of variety.”
As we approached, a mixed herd of antelope and duck-billed dinosaurs stopped to observe us, then turned and fled across the plain. The antelope moved much faster than the dinosaurs. I could see why they’d done well here, where there was open space.
Over the course of the day, we passed quite a few hunting parties on their way back to the city. Most were carrying plant-eaters — both mammal and reptile — but some had bagged predators. I saw big cats, wolves, giant flightless birds with huge hooked beaks, and other stranger animals I could only identify as predators by their many sharp teeth. In one case, a string of three horses were carrying the dismembered pieces of the biggest bear I’d ever seen.
I only saw one predatory dinosaur being brought back to the city. It was much smaller than the jungle turkeys — perhaps three feet tall at the shoulder — and more lightly built. Instead of the turkeys’ tiny, vestigial stumps, it had long, three-clawed arms that looked capable of doing a lot of damage. Its plumage was black and white, like a woodpecker’s. Its large, pale gold eye stared at me sightlessly as I rode past.
At midday, we encountered a city-bound group that was not a hunting party. The caravan master stopped to speak with them. Kevin went with him.
After a few minutes, the caravan moved forward again. We passed the other group, exchanging polite nods.
Kevin fell back into line with us. He looked unhappy.
“They’re from the settlement on the other side of the ligature. Their wells are so low they don’t think they’ll make it through the dry season. They’re relocating to Kye Wodor until at least next year.”
“Anyone left there?” Williams said.
“About a quarter of the people, but they’re all getting ready to leave.”
I glanced at Williams. He looked grim. Then again, he generally did.
It took several more hours to reach the ligature.
I’d never seen one before and stared at it curiously.
Whereas Bill Gates’s strait had been invisible to me, even when open, the ligature was obvious. The aperture was about twenty feet across and unevenly shaped. Above the ground, it was hard to pick out the edges. Maybe the sky was a slightly different color inside, a little more washed out. But on the ground, the difference was clear: the lush grass of the plains gave way abruptly to dusty ground and sparse, dead vegetation.
In a line of ones and twos, we passed through the opening into blazing sun, bone-dry air, and oppressive heat.
As with the strait into Gold Rush, the ligature opened into a space encircled by a tall stone wall. In this case, though, there were no guards. The ground was hardened earth, not paved, and the wall’s gates stood open.
We rode on through into a ramshackle mud-brick town that was clustered around the gates like flies mobbing a leftover sandwich.
It was strangely quiet.
The caravan thinned out to single file and made its way to the center of the town — a dusty square with a well in the middle. Two people were there, drawing up buckets of water. They were dressed Bedouin-style in loose robes and headdresses that covered them almost entirely — so much so that I couldn’t tell their gender.
I saw the sense of it. Sunscreen or no, I could feel my skin burning in the blazing light.
I brought my camel to a halt and dug a light cotton jacket out of one of my saddle bags.
Mizzy came up next to me. “Good idea. The sun’s terrible here.”
The caravan master went to speak with the townspeople, and Kevin once again tagged along.
“They say their well is close to dry,” he said when he came back. “The water is always muddy now, and it takes a long time to refill.”
“That sounds bad,” I said. “If the wells are so low now, won’t they run dry during our journey?”
Kevin grimaced. “Not necessarily. Groundwater isn’t like a big lake. It’s in cracks and pockets in the rock. A two-hundred-foot well might run dry while a fifty-footer nearby doesn’t. It’s difficult to predict.” He glanced at Williams. “But it’s definitely not a good sign.”
The big man was looking down, frowning.
“We could just go back to Kye Wodor and wait for the drought to lift,” I said.
Williams shook his head. “It’d add eight months. At least. Drought could go on for years.”
He chirruped to his camel and headed toward the caravan master.
I watched his retreating back.
“Have you thought about making a break for it?” Mizzy murmured.
I shook my head.
But of course I considered it — all the time. I’d promised myself not to give up, and I meant it.
So far, there’d been no chance. Riding through the jungle without a barrier-worker would’ve been suicide. Now we were heading into uninhabitable desert. I wouldn’t survive there alone, either. Kye Wodor might’ve presented some opportunities, but Kevin was a problem. Essence trails lasted a good while, and as long as he could sense mine, he’d be able to follow me.
All in all, it was hard to see a way out.
But strange things happen — disruptions, surprises, things you can’t plan for. That gave me hope.
Williams finished speaking to the master and turned his head. He looked right at me.
I started and looked away.
Just a coincidence.
He couldn’t possibly know what I was thinking about.
We spent the rest of the afternoon resting.
At dusk, we donned the kind of desert clothes the townspeople wore, ate an evening meal, and mounted up. Then we threaded our way to the north end of town and out into the open desert.
The air seemed thin and left me slightly out of breath.
To our left, the sinking sun burned whitely in the cloudless sky. It was stiflingly hot, but Terry promised the temperature would fall quickly after sunset.
“Pretty soon you’ll be wishing for some of this heat,” he said. “Riding in the cold sucks.”
There wasn’t much to see. The terrain alternated between rocky outcroppings and plains. The ground was covered with short plants, all dead. There were no animals.
We pressed on as the sun sank below the horizon. The sky retained some light for a good thirty minutes or so, deepening slowly to a brilliant ultramarine. Then the stars brightened, and the space between lost its blueness. Night had come.
Immediately, the temperature began to fall. I got out the w
oolen cloak stashed behind my saddle and pulled it on. Pretty soon, I’d need to add a warm hat.
The caravan master used an industrial-sized flashlight to illuminate the road before us. His assistants also had flashlights. They swept the road behind us and the open spaces to either side.
It was nerve-wracking, wondering what might be racing toward us in the dark section of a flashlight’s arc, but nothing attacked us. In fact, we didn’t see a single living thing.
We rode until just before sunrise, then pitched camp, set guards, and ate a meal. There was no well nearby, so we didn’t wash ourselves or water the camels.
I used the privies that had been dug some ways from the road by past travelers, then lay down in my tent. It was really cold. My feet felt nearly frozen, and my bedroll seemed way too thin. But I was exhausted from the hours of tense riding through silence and darkness. I fell into a fitful sleep and slept off and on until, sweat-drenched and headachey, I woke into the stifling heat of mid-afternoon.
We ate, broke camp, packed the camels, and continued on our way in the dwindling light.
The land grew increasingly flat, so we could see as far as the heat-shimmers allowed. There were still no animals, just miles of cracked soil and dust devils.
Night came, and we journeyed on. The silence was oppressive. Before the sun set, I’d chatted a bit with Mizzy, but now speech seemed out of place. The only sounds were the creaking of the saddles and the camels’ strange groaning calls. It felt like we were traveling through the land of the dead. It was unsettling.
The others seemed to feel the weirdness too. Every time a flashlight’s beam glanced across Mizzy’s face, the worried line between her eyebrows looked a bit deeper. Ida gripped her silver locket like a good luck talisman. Kevin looked physically ill.
Shortly before dawn, we reached the first well. The water was very low, and we had to let the silt settle to the bottom of the buckets before we used it. We drank, but there wasn’t even enough to wash our hands.
Exhausted more by tension than the ride itself, I crawled into my tent and fell asleep.
I woke in the heat of the afternoon very thirsty. When I picked up my waterskin, I remembered I’d emptied it the last time I was up.