by Eileen Wilks
"Of course. Go slink around. Ah… I guess you can be sure they won't see or hear you?"
Nathan's smiles always looked freshly minted, as if he'd just discovered the expression. This one blended amusement with pleasure: she didn't need to worry; he was glad he mattered to her. "I can be sure of that."
"Should we… a couple of them are injured. I know we're not supposed to contact them, but it feels wrong to do nothing."
"They have called the Ekiba, who have healers. You will be all right here?"
Kai glanced across the small clearing where their horses were tethered. From here she couldn't see Dell. The big cat's dappled fur blended well with shadows and darkness, and it was very dark indeed beneath the trees. Nor could she hear her, but she knew what the chameleon was doing. Feeding. Quite happily, too. Squeamishness was as foreign to Dell's nature as bloodsucking was to Kai's, and yet their bond remained strong. "Dell will know if anything gets close, and we haven't seen anything here she couldn't handle."
"I didn't ask if you would be defended. I asked if you would be all right."
She met his pale gray eyes, and just like that, she was okay. Loving him was easy. Sometimes it made the other stuff easier, too. She smiled. "I will."
He came to her and kissed her lightly. "So will I, then."
Nathan faded into the forest as easily as Dell, and even more silently. Kai walked over to the horses, moving far less gracefully. Thighs, hips, butt—everything hurt. She was in good shape and knew how to ride, but she hadn't done it in years.
They had three horses—a stolid chestnut they used for a packhorse; the bay mare that Kai rode; and Nathan's mount, a rawboned gelding with a bad disposition.
"Hsst," she whispered to the roan gelding, who'd snorted at her approach and backed off, his colors flaring into an edgy, annoyed orange. "Hsst, there, you're okay." She stopped and slid into fugue—slid quick and easy, which brought a prickle of fear. She let that prickle alone. Poking at it just made it stronger.
Fugue was a strange, glassy state where words didn't belong. She'd brought intention with her, though, and after a moment dreamed her way into her affection for horses. All horses, even big, bad-tempered geldings who tried to bite her. She held out a hand, sent a puff of a pink thought-bubble at him, and popped out of fugue. "See? Not saddling you now. Just coming over to tend your feet, and you need that, hmm?"
The pink wound its way into the gelding's thoughts. His ears came forward, and he snuffled at her hand. Kai chuckled. "Love means food to you, does it, big boy? Sorry—no treats." She scratched along his ear, though, which he liked, then took out her pocketknife. It had a nail file that served well enough for a hoof pick.
She picked up his near front hoof and dug the embedded grass and dirt. The familiar chore soothed her. Nathan had to do pretty much everything for them here, and the dependence bothered her more than maybe it ought to. But at least she could do this. Grandfather had made sure she knew how to care for horses.
Most of the time these days she felt incompetent, and it was not a feeling she was used to. But so much of her life now consisted of things she wasn't used to. All-powerful queens. Traveling to another realm. Falling in love… well, no. She'd done that long before she knew what Nathan was. But being loved back, that was new.
She finished tending the gelding's hooves and stood back, her head cocked, looking for her pink thought-bubble in his colors. It had broken up, as she'd meant it to, its bits blending with the slow, simple shapes of animal thought.
Kai focused on the horse's colors until she slid into fugue again. Once there, she had trouble remembering what she'd meant to do… oh, yes. Reclaim her bits. She liked the way they looked in his dusty colors, though… No, she told herself firmly, the word itself almost enough to tilt her out of fugue.
Slowly, gently, she wanted the bits that were hers. Like wishes in a dream, the soft, pink threads unwrapped themselves from the gelding's colors and drifted toward her. They sank into her own colors and dissipated.
She blinked. Swayed. In spite of her sudden exhaustion, accomplishment thrilled through her. She'd done it. Twice now she'd been able to reclaim the thought-bubbles she sent while in fugue. If she could take back what she sent, she could be sure of not doing lasting harm while she learned how to use her Gift.
Since her life depended on that, Kai could put up with a little exhaustion.
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cullen lay on something hard. The air smelled strange… humans, yes, several humans were nearby. One lay beside him, a quiet lump of warmth along his left side. It wasn't Cynna, though the air held her scent, too. And blood. Not fresh blood, and not much of it. The other scents… he should know some of them. Horses? Yes, but stranger scents, too…
He was very hungry.
Something creaked rhythmically. Someone spoke, but the words meant nothing. Somehow that jolted his memory back in place. Edge. He was in Edge. They'd been attacked… he'd burned so many. So many. He'd smell them burn in his dreams, he thought.
But bad dreams were an acceptable price to pay. Cynna was okay. His son was okay.
So was he, for that matter. Cullen opened his eyes.
The sky was still dark and star-blazoned. Automatically he checked the time, but what his moon-sense told him didn't add up. He felt disoriented, adrift.
He was moving. Whatever he lay on, it creaked and bounced over rough ground. He propped himself up on one elbow. He was in a large wooden cart or wagon—narrow with high sides and a gate of sorts at the back. Ruben lay crowded up beside him, apparently asleep. The blood smell came from him. His bandaged, splinted wrist lay outside the rough blanket that covered him, Cullen, and the woman on his other side—Marilyn Wright, still unconscious. She smelled ill.
He looked at them.
A green haze overlay Brooks's magic. The woman, too, wore a gauzy overlay. Healing magic. Cullen held out his arm and checked his own energy.
Thin, but all his. And wearing a sleeve. He inspected the rest of himself and saw that he was wearing a long dress of rough, undyed wool, rather like a monk's cassock or an Arab's thobe, but more narrowly fashioned. It was slit on the sides to permit a full stride. No shoes. No underwear, either, but the lack of shoes was more of a problem.
He sat up slowly.
A number of clay-colored people mounted on horses surrounded the wagon, which was pulled by… no, not horses, though the large draft animals would have looked at home pulling the Budweiser wagon. If not for the horns, that is, and the curly hair. The scent reminded him of horse. Also buffalo.
Fifteen feet ahead was another wagon drawn by a pair of the not-quite-horses. Tash rode there with one of the clay-people. Steve sat in the back of that wagon. Cullen didn't see McClosky.
Cynna was in his wagon. She sat on the bench at the front next to Wen, who was driving the wagon. He wanted to touch her. He wanted her to be back here with him. Why wasn't she?
Get a grip, Seabourne.
They were traveling on a road, he saw as he looked around. Packed earth, not paved, and rutted. It wound down from a range of low hills behind them into the grassy plain they were crossing. Ahead, the land seemed to drop off. No snow here, and the temperature was warmer—a blessing, given his lack of footwear. The riders were fanned out around the wagons. He counted sixteen, five of them women. They all looked fairly young, but that didn't mean much. So did he.
The women were as hairless as the men, which was a tad disconcerting, but not unattractive. They dressed exactly like the men, too, who all wore the same sort of loincloth Wen favored. Cullen took a moment to appreciate that.
They controlled their mounts with hackamores—bridles with a padded nose strap and no bit. Their saddles were thick leather pads with wooden stirrups, and their horses were more like ponies, sturdy and shaggy. No horns. They smelled like horses, too.
His stomach growled. His wolf had no objection to horse. "I need to eat."
"You're awake!" Cynna twisted
around to beam at him.
"How long was I out?"
"Altogether? Eleven hours, if my watch is working. It might not be, given all the stray magic around here." She bent and dug around under her seat.
"More like thirteen, I think."
Her voice was muffled. "If you know, why did you ask?"
"Because it's still dark."
"Uh… yeah." Cynna straightened and tossed him something. Automatically he caught it. His mouth watered at the scent. Jerky, made from venison, not beef. He ripped off a bite while she went on, "We're in what they call Night Season. They don't have day and night the way we do."
He chewed, took another bite, and gestured for her to keep talking.
"It stays dark for three months. Lunar months, I mean—their moon acts like ours, so it's the basis for their timekeeping. After the Night Season comes the Dawning, which lasts a few sleeps. That's how they divide the time—into sleeps—since they don't have days. And after the Dawning it stays light for three months."
Cullen swallowed the last of the jerky, his hunger unappeased. "No doubt they call that the Day Season."
Her grin flickered. "Good guess. That's sorta why we're here." She tossed him another bundle, "Eat. I'll fill you in."
This bundle was wrapped in a greasy cloth. His nose told him it was bread, and so it was—dark, heavy, with bits of fruit and nuts baked in. None too fresh, but he was in no mood to be picky. He ripped off a hunk. "Start with the casualties. Marilyn Wright's in bad shape."
"Yeah." Her mouth thinned. "Head injury. They can't do much for her until we get to the City. Kryl—that's the Ekiba healer—stopped the bleeding and took down some of the swelling in the brain, but she doesn't dare try to wake her."
"Ekiba?" Cullen asked with his mouth full.
"Wen's people. They're sort of like gypsies, though they have some permanent camps, too. Fortunately we landed not too far from one of those camps. It took them a couple hours to reach us."
He swallowed. "How did Wen call them?"
"Ekiba can all mindspeak with each other. I'm not clear on just what their range is—either Wen doesn't want me to know or he doesn't know how to convert their units into ours—but it seems to be several miles. Anyway, they're like a telegraph system, passing messages along."
"Their healer set Brooks's wrist, I take it. What about his leg?" Cullen finished off the bread regretfully. He was still hungry.
"His leg didn't need setting—it was just a hairline fracture—but his wrist was a mess. She gave him this potion to knock him out because she had to cut it open to get the bones lined up right."
"Hey!" Steve called from the next wagon. "You're awake!"
"So I'm told. Brooks is drugged?" he asked Cynna, frowning. The man hadn't stirred once.
"No, that wore off a long time ago. Kryl put him in sleep—you know, like Nettie does. A healing trance."
In sleep. Nettie. Memory stirred dimly. "I woke up earlier, didn't I? I thought…" He'd thought it was Nettie tending him, chiding him for having emptied himself so badly. But Nettie, the clan's physician-shaman, was on Earth. It must have been the Ekiba healer who called him out of unconsciousness.
"When we made camp, yeah. Most of us weren't in any shape to go far, but Wen's people didn't want to linger so close to the forest, so we traveled a couple hours, then stopped to take care of the wounded and get some sleep." Cynna scowled down at him. "You scared the crap out of me, you know that? I've never seen anyone kill himself by abusing his Gift, but hey. Always a first time, right?"
"I'm alive, aren't I?" he snapped.
"You were in a damned coma!"
That startled him into silence… for a couple seconds. "Couldn't have been." Coma was not a restful state. He felt fine… aside from an ongoing wolfish interest in the horses. "Is there any more jerky?"
"Gah!" Cynna looked disgusted, but did bend and dig under the seat again.
Steve had unfastened the wooden gate at the end of his wagon. He propped it against the wagon's side so he could sit at the rear with his legs dangling. Behind him Cullen saw a couple of wooden crates and a couple of sleeping bodies. One was orange. The other was snoring.
Amusement tugged at Cullen's lips. There was a sight—McClosky bedded down with Gan.
"Sure looked like a coma," Steve said. "You were non-responsive. I pricked your foot with my pocket knife, and it didn't twitch."
Maybe he was wrong.
Suddenly restless, Cullen stood, hitched up the skirt of his thobe—he refused to think of it as a dress—and vaulted over the side of the wagon. His knee took the impact just fine, so it had finished healing while he slept. The pebbly road wasn't kind to his bare feet as he trotted up beside Cynna, but he'd had all the sitting he could take. "You believed I was in a coma."
She hurled another chunk of jerky at him. "Why are you grinning like that? What kind of an idiot grins when he finds out he was in a coma?"
"You were worried about me."
She rolled her eyes.
Steve, lacking all social sense as he did, continued cheerfully, "Everyone thought you were done for, especially when the healer woman refused do her woo-woo stuff. Cynna was frothing at the mouth, but the woman thought she'd get trapped in the coma with you. Say, is it true you people can empty out so much of your magic you up and die?"
"Theoretically," Cullen answered absently, biting off a mouthful of salty meat. How had he emptied himself so badly? He'd been using the diamond, not his own resources. Of course, it took some energy to draw from the diamond, but not much. But he had just finished wrestling with a ley line…
"Well, that's what they believe here. The Ekiba all thought you'd die soon. Tash thought you had a chance, being lupus, but the rest of 'em didn't believe it. Didn't believe you were lupus, I mean." He snorted. "They wouldn't listen to us. We're ignorant savages, werewolves aren't real, and we should quit lying. Gan set 'em straight."
Cullen finished chewing and swallowed. "Gan did?"
"They think she can't lie, so when Cynna got her to tell them about lupi, they believed her. What's this deal about you having been in hell?"
He waved that off. "Later. I may have looked like I was in a coma, but the healer couldn't tell for sure because of my shields, so—"
"Cullen," Cynna said quietly, "your shields were down."
That, he decided, was pretty damned scary. His shields would go down only if there was nothing left for them to draw on. Cullen hade been taught that if a practitioner drained himself completely, he either burned out his Gift or died. "There goes that theory," he murmured.
"What?"
"Never mind. So Gan persuaded the healer I was lupus. I suppose the idea is that, being of the Blood, I'd gradually rebuild my magic."
"They argued about that, too," Steve said. "Can't agree on much, this bunch. You put an end to the argument by waking up."
"No, the healer woke me." His memory of that waking was as gauzy as a dream, but he remembered that much. He'd thought it was Nettie calling him back.
"You woke up on your own the first time," Steve said. "We heard you mutter something—"
"You told us to go away," Wen put in abruptly.
Cynna grinned. "That's when I figured you'd be okay. Only you went right back to sleep, and Kryl said your shields were up again, so she had to wake you the old-fashioned way—by shaking you. She made you drink something nasty-looking and did some sort of energy sharing, then you went back to sleep. You didn't wake up again until now."
That still didn't seem right, but his memory was so fuzzy he decided not to argue about it. "Is there any more jerky? Water, too, or something else to drink."
"You've had two pieces and a loaf of bread."
"Healing takes fuel."
"If you can wait a short time, we'll be at the river," Wen said. "You have a wolf's needs?"
"Somewhat." If he didn't eat when he should, he got cranky. Real cranky. The need wasn't as strong now that he had a clan again, but it didn't pay to let a
wolf get too hungry. "How soon, and what happens at the river?"
"We get shipped off to the City," Cynna said. "That's what they call it, just the City. That's where out-realm traders come."
"Hostages and kidnap victims, too, I guess."
"Um, well, Bilbo explained—"
"Bilbo?"
"The gnome. I got tired of always saying 'the gnome' or 'the councilor,' so I've been calling him Bilbo. It pisses him off."
"To the gnomes," Wen said gravely, "names are of great importance. Birth-names are secret. Use-names are chosen carefully and divulged only within the family. Nicknames, as you call them, are bestowed on children by adults. By nicknaming the Councilor, Cynna accords him the status of child."
Cullen had the feeling Wen didn't mind one bit if they insulted the gnome. "So Bilbo explained things. That's lovely. When we get to this city, will Bilbo and his buddies open a gate and send us home?"
"They can't. Or won't… Don't look at me that way! I'm not swallowing everything they feed me whole, not after the way they tricked us. But Wen and Tash and all of them say it's almost impossible to open a new gate in Night Season."
Cullen was very polite. "They FedEx-ed themselves to Earth, I take it."
"Is being two types of gate, sorcerer." The gnome had decided to join the conversation. He stood behind Steve at the back of the other wagon, glaring at Cullen, "Is new gates and old gates. Magic for old gates shaped over long time, years or centuries of using. Magic of old gates holds our shaping even during Night Season. Old gates requiring much more power during Night Season, but can being used."
"We used an established gate to cross to another realm first," Wen explained. "Twelve masters went with us to open a temporary gate between Sheevah and Earth. To return—"
"To return, you needed me." Anger and humiliation made a foul mix in Cullen's mouth as the pieces fell in place. He knew why he'd been so drained, damn them. "Or some other poor's.o.b. who'd burn himself up giving you your gate. That's what you expected, wasn't it? You were the spell's final component," he said to the gnome. "The one I didn't know about. The gate was tied to you, but you couldn't power it. That was my job. What you didn't tell me was that your damned bloody spell needed my personal magic. Not just the raw magic. It ate my magic, too."
