Fire Margins

by Lisanne Norman

  He made his way along to the end, then, checking round the corner first, he headed down there until he judged he was in the right position.

  Looking through the lattice work, he could now see the figures below. With a shock he recognized not only Fyak, but at his side, still retching, was Ghezu! Pushing back the anger that threatened to trigger hunt mode, he took a few deep breaths and forced himself to look toward the other side of the curtain.

  What he saw and heard there before this world exploded around him, etched itself into his memory.

  *

  Carrie woke feeling chilled to the bone. Kaid’s arm was a dead weight across her side and as she reached to move it, she realized it was as cold as stone. She froze. Lightheaded and heart pounding, she felt her stomach leap with fear. She must have cried out mentally because within moments, Meral came rushing in, rifle at the ready.

  She watched him slow to a stop as he saw the situation. A tiny noise of fear escaped her and he was instantly by her side.

  There was no need for her to say anything. It was obvious that he’d assessed the situation. He knelt down till his face was level with hers.

  “I’m going to lift his arm, Liegena. When I do, I want you to take my hand and slide off the bed. Do you understand?”

  She made a tiny movement of her head.

  Meral stood up and waited till she’d taken hold of his outstretched hand before carefully taking hold of Kaid’s wrist and lifting it high enough for Carrie to move.

  Sliding out, she would have fallen had Meral’s hand not supported her. As she moved away from the bed, Meral replaced Kaid’s arm on the covers.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, turning round to check on her.

  She nodded, putting both hands over her mouth in an effort to control her need to scream.

  Meral pointed to the chair. “Sit down until I’ve checked Kaid,” he said, turning back to the bed.

  Kaid was covered in a tiny mist of water droplets, and when Meral touched his neck, checking for a pulse, the skin beneath his pelt was cold. Though he kept his hand there for a good minute, he could feel nothing.

  “I’m afraid he’s dead, Liegena,” he said, turning back to her.

  Carrie was still standing where he’d left her. She took her hands away from her face.

  “He can’t be dead. Try again. You’ve done it wrong!” Even she could hear the edge of hysteria in her voice.

  “No, Liegena,” he said, stepping toward her. “I really am sorry, but he is dead.”

  “He can’t be, I tell you!” she said, her voice rising as she ran past him to the bed.

  Pushing Kaid’s arm clear, she pulled back the covers and felt his chest. “He’s still warm!” she said, reaching up for his neck to check his pulse for herself.

  “The fact he’s still warm means nothing, Liegena. The body cools down after death. The covers will have prevented the heat from dissipating so quickly, that’s all,” Meral said. He reached out and took her by the arm. “Leave him, Liegena. I’ll call Physician Vanna. You’re distressing yourself. Please.”

  “I’ve got a pulse, Meral,” she said quietly. “My God, I’ve got a pulse! Get Vanna! No, get me something to keep him warm!”

  He leaned over her. “Let me,” he said.

  She pulled back enough for him to feel the pulse.

  “You’re right! I’ll get Vanna and tell Zhala to fetch a warming blanket,” he said, dashing out of the room.

  Carrie replaced Kaid’s arm at his side, then pulled the covers up to his chin. Taking his head between her hands, she reached mentally for him, trying to locate his consciousness and call him back. She couldn’t find him. It was as if he wasn’t there. Memories of doing the same for Kusac came flooding back to her. She’d succeeded then, she couldn’t fail now; but there was nothing, no response.

  Checking his pulse, she found it unchanged: slow, but definitely there. Perhaps his coldness was the clue. Leaving him, she ran to his shower and grabbed a towel. She began to dry off the moisture, then pulling the covers back again, began rubbing his arm and chest vigorously to try and speed up his circulation. After a couple of minutes she stopped and took his pulse again. She was sure it was faster. Not by much, but it was faster.

  She kept this up until Zhala came running in with a heating blanket. With her help, they stripped the covers back and wrapped him in it, turning the setting to medium to avoid overheating him.

  Again, she tried to reach his mind, but once more, it was as if he wasn’t there. The front door opened and closed. She heard the sound of Vanna’s feet taking the stairs at least two at a time. Then she was there beside her.

  Carrie moved round to the other side of the bed, sitting as close to Kaid as she could while she told Vanna what she knew.

  Her friend pulled the warming blanket away from him and threw it on the floor. “I know why you did it, but if he’s had a stroke, that could be enough to kill him. It pulls the blood back to less vital organs,” she said, checking his pulse and eyes before giving the rest of his body a quick check for swellings or wounds of any kind.

  “He was covered in moisture? That’s most peculiar,” she said, finally running her scanner over him. She checked his brain readings twice before looking over at Carrie. Her ears were lying back in distress.

  “He’s alive, Carrie, no doubt about that, but his pulse is far too slow, and I’m getting no brain activity at all. How long has he been like this?”

  Carrie checked her wrist unit then looked over at Meral. “How long is it since I called you?”

  “Coming up for fifteen minutes now, Liegena,” he said.

  “That’s all I know,” said Carrie. “You could add on an extra five minutes at most as the time it took me to call Meral.”

  “He’s got to be hospitalized. I need to do tests, have emergency equipment on hand in case he needs it,” she said, getting up. “I suggest you call Kusac. There’s nothing more we can do for him here.”

  Vanna was speaking to the medical center when there was a sudden exclamation from Meral. A gust of hot wind rushed through the room and Kaid, gasping for air, sat up, a look of sheer terror on his face.

  Carrie grabbed hold of him, pulling him close and holding him tight.

  It took Kaid only moments to realize where he was, then he clung to her as if afraid that at any moment she’d disappear.

  “He’s fine, Vanna,” Carrie said over her shoulder. “It was a drug dream, nothing more.”

  “I still want him admitted …”

  “No. He’s fine. He’s staying here,” she said firmly. Gradually, the calming effect of her mind touching his and her arms around him had the desired result, and his trembling began to lessen.

  For a moment more he rested against her, his face buried against her neck, his arm wrapped round her.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, her hand gently smoothing his hair.

  He nodded and began to pull away from her.

  “You don’t have to move.”

  “I need to lie down,” he said. “I’m fine. Really.”

  She let him go and he moved away to lie back against his damp pillows.

  “It was a drug dream,” he said, looking up briefly as he felt Kusac arrive. “I was pulled back to the Cataclysm because there were two others there from our time. The Gods help me, I know what’s happening. I know what Fyak’s doing. It’s all been planned, right down to the plant being left in the cavern for Fyak to find. He’s using the sap as a drug to take him back to the Fire Margins. His God, Kezule, isn’t a God. He’s the Valtegan Commander in charge of the unit guarding the hatchery that was at Khezy’ipik, Fyak’s lair.”

  Chapter 20

  Carrie ignored the others’ reactions to the news. “Go on,” she said.

  “Fyak doesn’t know any of this. When he visits the Mar gins, he’s pulled back to a temple where Kezule and hi troop are hoping to weather out the arrival of the meteorite, heard Fyak talk to the statue and call it Kezul
e. I saw the Valtegan, Kezule, reply to him through a translator concealed in the statue. Fyak thinks the voice comes from the God—his God.”

  He stopped for a moment. “This Kezule is the one pushing Fyak. He’s rearranging our society so that when the Valtegans return to Shola, they’ll find it vulnerable.”

  “You said there were three people there. Who was the third?” asked Kusac, coming forward to sit on the bed.

  “Ghezu. He’s with Fyak now.”

  “Ghezu! What’s he doing there?” asked Kusac.

  “Hiding from us. Why he’s visiting the Margins with him is another matter. He was throwing up, which isn’t surprising if Fyak made him take that sap,” said Kaid, vague memories of doing the same coming back. “At least for him it’ll only last a day.”

  “Do you think the drug, whether it’s sap or the narcotic, is the key to returning to the Margins?”

  Kaid shook his head. “I don’t know. I think it’s certainly a factor.”

  “You were still physically here, Kaid,” said Carrie. “We thought you were dead. You had no pulse we could feel at first, you were as cold as the grave, and covered in dampness.”

  He looked at her in shock. “I was here? I couldn’t have been! I was at the temple!”

  “We know you were here, Kaid,” said Vanna, sitting in the chair. “Unfortunately we only know what you saw at the temple. We’ve no proof you were physically there.”

  “You said I had no pulse …”

  “That could have been trauma caused by either being in a deep trance, or your reaction to the dream.”

  “Then how do I know so much about Fyak and what he’s doing!” Kaid demanded, pushing himself into a sitting position.

  “I think we’ll call it a night,” said Kusac, getting up. “Kaid needs to rest. Vanna, we’ll join you downstairs shortly. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  Refusing to let the matter be discussed further, he waited till Vanna and Meral had left, then turned back to Carrie and Kaid.

  “I’m not saying you weren’t there, Kaid, but what you’re telling us about Fyak, this Kezule, and the Valtegans, isn’t substantiated by what you said you saw. I can’t see why you’re drawing the conclusions you are,” he said. “Have you any explanation?”

  Kaid threw himself back against the pillows angrily. “None you’d accept.”

  “Try me.”

  “I’m remembering again,” he said, staring straight at him, daring him to disbelieve.

  “If you’re remembering again, then it’s got to be because we’ve been back and learned what’s going on,” said Carrie.

  “A possibility,” said Kusac, “but only if we’d gone back already.”

  “I don’t think it works quite like that,” said Carrie. “Even if we don’t go for another week, this will still be our past today, the past affected by the fact that we’ve been back.”

  Kusac shook his head. “Let’s leave that one alone. For the sake of argument, we’ll assume you were physically there, Kaid. If it needs three to go back, then how does Fyak manage, and you? And how did he get back in the first place?”

  “You’re asking me which came first. Fyak’s return to the past after eating the plant, or this Kezule leaving some plants growing in that area so that Fyak could find them in order to go back in time! It’s the same question as the last one, Kusac! We’ll get nowhere like this,” he said, obviously frustrated at his inability to explain what had happened to him.

  “Well,” said Carrie. “We do know we go back because we now have evidence that we did—Kaid’s memories. Let’s go forward from there. In actual fact,” she said, shifting round so she could see both Kusac and Kaid comfortably, “what Kaid says tallies with the warnings from Esken. The priest with the ties to the past who’ll bring the past to our future? If that isn’t a Valtegan Commander trying to affect our future by using this mad priest, Fyak, I don’t know what is!”

  “You’ve got a point,” conceded Kusac. “All right, I accept that what you say is correct, Kaid. That still leaves us with how the hell do you and Fyak go back on your own?”

  “I don’t know!” Kaid was sounding exasperated now. “Maybe that’s why Fyak’s mad—because he’s gone back alone so often! Maybe that’s part of why there needs to be three of us!”

  “I’m more interested in how he manages to get himself back to the right time and place,” said Carrie thoughtfully. “Does he just decide to go, and his arrival is reported to this Kezule? Or does Kezule call him, perhaps through the collar? How often did he go into trances while you were there, Kaid?”

  “At least once.”

  “Say he goes back once a week, that’s a lot of visits even since we’ve known about him. It depends over what time span he arrives in the past,” said Carrie. “Any ideas?”

  “We know that debris from the explosion caused by a Valtegan warship hitting our lesser moon caused the actual Cataclysm,” said Kusac. “Dzaka’s been checking out what would have happened to Shola when this debris hit us. The heat of its approach could have started forest fires. When it actually landed, there’d have been an immense explosion. If it landed in the sea, giant tidal waves. There would certainly have been massive earthquakes, and clouds of water vapor. The rubbish from the seabed as well as the meteorite would have ended up in our atmosphere. And it would all have to fall down again.”

  “That’s a definitely a cataclysm,” said Carrie. “How long would they have between knowing the debris was coming and it actually hitting the planet?”

  “Maybe a couple of days at most.”

  “If there were any Valtegan ships capable of space travel, then you can bet that the Valtegans who could would have headed off-planet,” she said. “Why did Kezule and his males stay behind?”

  “Who knows? Loyalty? Stupidity? No ships? Any answer is as good as the next one,” said Kaid. “Just as we may never know what caused Fyak to go back to the past the first time, unless we ask him.”

  “How do we pinpoint our return to the past?” asked Carrie. “That’s more important to us than the why’s or when’s of Fyak.”

  “Each time you had a drug dream,” said Kusac, “something or someone called you, didn’t it? We know we’ve gone back, so perhaps those we’re visiting call us there, because we told them to.”

  “Maybe. But I think an important factor we’ve forgotten is the other crystals. The ones that were used for the eyes of the statue in the monastery,” said Carrie. “I still have the one I found. Maybe we could use the memories it holds to choose the right time.”

  “We can, but not the way you’re thinking, Carrie. We’ve still got the traditional way,” said Kaid. “The En’Shalla ritual has its own rules on how to reach the Cataclysm. It’s been handed down for the God knows how long. It’s something we haven’t yet put into the picture we’re building of the past, despite the fact that we’ve been planning to use it all along. We’re probably avoiding it because we know we’re going to have to use it.”

  “You’re right,” said Kusac. “We have forgotten about it. However, the people using the ritual didn’t survive. Was that the ritual’s fault, or the fact that, once there, they met Vartra the person and couldn’t cope with it?”

  “We’ll use the En’Shalla ritual enhanced by what we’ve learned. I’ve been studying it in greater depth,” said Kaid. “It works on the principle that a gateway to that time exists because of the energy produced by Shola herself during the Cataclysm. This power pools in certain places—places I’ve discovered have large deposits of those blue-white crystals in the ground. The Pathwalkers, or Travelers to the Margins leave from either Stronghold, or more commonly in modern times, from the temple at Valsgarth.”

  “We’d better start making plans now,” said Kusac. “I suggest we look at leaving at the end of this week. Is your body in the past the same there as it is here? Do you still have an injured hand?”

  “Yes,” said Carrie. “When he came to the Shrine he had injuries.”

&n
bsp; “She’s right,” said Kaid. “The past feels just as it does here. It’s just as real, except when you leave and arrive. Those times can make you feel that all you want to do is die.”

  “Can we take anything with us?” asked Carrie.

  Kaid shook his head. “Not even clothing.”

  “Where do these new bodies come from? Do we create them from our imagination? Does going through this gateway automatically create one?”

  “I’ve no idea, Carrie. We can speculate all we want, but all that really matters is that we go back. We warn Vartra of what’s going to happen to his world, and when we return, we can set up our Clan,” said Kaid. “To be honest, I’ve never even seen a gateway.”

  “What about stopping Fyak?” asked Carrie. “Shouldn’t we be trying to do something about that?”

  “No. We can inform Raiban of what we know and leave it to her to deal with in our time,” said Kusac firmly. “How do you feel now, Kaid?” He leaned forward to touch his hand. “You’re not as cold as you were.”

  “I’m all right,” he said. “When I was away, I felt fine. It was a shock to come back to a body that was so cold!”

  “We’ll need Vanna to watch us while we’re away,” said Carrie. “And Ghyan.”

  “Talking of Vanna, she’s waiting for us downstairs. I suggest we go down and get a meal organized. Are you up to joining us, Kaid?”

  Kaid nodded.

  “Use the chair,” said Carrie firmly.

  Kaid exchanged glances with Kusac over her head.

  “I’m no more fussy over you two than you are over me,” she retorted in reply to their common thought.

  *

  All day Mara had been feeling annoyed. She’d tried to help the archeologists, but the old woman, Pam, had been very unpleasant.

  “If you really want to help,” she’d said, “then help by keeping out of our way! I’ve got enough on my hands trying to deal with those damned Touibans! The last thing I need is a kid like you getting under everyone’s feet!”

  That had hurt, and hadn’t been justified. She’d only thought that because they were all Humans, they’d be as pleased to have her help as she’d have been to give it.