by John Daulton
“Should I say something to her?” Altin asked. “Or leave her alone to talk to him?”
“How should I know?” Orli asked as she leaned out the window and looked around.
“I’m no matchmaker. You’re the one with the perfect grasp of what is going on.”
“I wouldn’t call it perfect,” Orli said, leaning even farther out the window and looking left and right. “And where is the orb? I don’t see it.”
Altin looked too, though he couldn’t lean out to do it now, given that Orli had climbed up into the windowsill to get a better view. “I don’t know. Should I ask her? It’s the same question really. I don’t want to interrupt.”
“I don’t know either. Maybe give her a few minutes first. Does she still feel afraid?”
“Terribly.”
“Well, she’s probably nervous. I was nervous when I first met you.”
Another time he might have smiled, but the thrumming of Blue Fire’s terror prevented such a thing. Still, the memory was a fond one. “I was beside myself,” he said, recalling the first time he’d seen Orli in person, standing before his hospital bed in the Aspect’s sick bay. “Never had I beheld such beauty.”
He couldn’t see it, but she smiled, hers unhindered by waves of someone else’s fear. “Yeah, you were pretty obvious.” She sighed, very briefly, even without receiving broadcast terror, she was unable to sustain pleasant thoughts for long. “Maybe that’s what’s happening to her. Maybe she is smitten by the big red hunk.” She climbed back into the room. “I sure hope so.”
“As do I,” he said. “But I’m worried. I’m not getting anything like that from her at all. It’s still just her afraid, like she was before we sent the red one here.”
They waited nervously for a while, but still nothing changed.
“I’m going to try to talk to her,” he said at length. “It’s been ten minutes at least.”
“It’s been longer than that,” she said. “Go ahead.”
Nothing.
“She’s not answering me.”
“Maybe they’re making love.”
He harrumphed, the sound deep inside, unconvinced. “If they are, she’s still horrified.”
“They do live for millions of years. Maybe courtship takes a really long time.” She turned and leaned back out the window again, peering down at Blue Fire as if somehow the raw desire to know would be enough to let her see.
“I should have asked, shouldn’t I? Should have found out more.”
“Yes. But we didn’t think of that. That’s usually how it goes.”
“What if we’re locked out now? What if that’s it? What if I can’t speak to her anymore, for … for years. Maybe tens or hundreds, even thousands of years.”
Orli bit her lip. A low sound rumbled in her chest now too. She turned back from the window and went to sit at the table that had so long served Tytamon as a desk. She ran her fingers through her hair, over her forehead, exhausted and frustrated. She stared silently into the wood grain, as if seeking the answers there, but there was nothing. She looked up at him, and shook her head. “Then that will mean we have made a very big mistake.”
She put her forehead in her hands as Altin turned back to the window, staring out at the silent world below, the world whose terror buzzed inside him like blood returning to a limb that’s gone to sleep. He spent several minutes trying to find the Hostile with seeing spells, but it was no use. It had moved. Rapidly no doubt, and who knew where it might be. Somewhere in orbit around the vast planet. Somewhere on the surface. Somewhere far below.
All he could do was wait. But for how long? How much time should they invest in this strategy? He should be moving off, trying to find Red Fire on his own. That was the only hope left if this plan failed. But if he left, what would happen if it didn’t work? Or only sort of worked. What if Blue Fire suddenly needed him? What if he exhausted himself trying to find Red Fire and couldn’t cast himself back again? Blind casting, even with the ring, could still do that to him, he knew. He hadn’t had much rest these last few days.
He watched the emptiness around Blue Fire for a while longer, but still no sign of the orb. He turned back to where Orli sat and saw that she had drifted off to sleep. She had to be exhausted. She’d only gotten a few hours’ rest after he’d snatched her out of the executioner’s grasp. She was in worse shape than he was when it came to that.
But he had to keep going, to keep moving. And there was some work he could do while they waited for this idea to play out.
With a thought, he was standing at the creek in the meadow beyond Calico Castle, the area strangely silent now in the absence of the army that had been encamped near the castle walls. Their tents were all still there, the outbuildings, he knew it by the thin lines of smoke rising into the air, the gray plumes snaking lazily up toward the clouds from fires that still hadn’t quite burned out. Total commitment, the Queen had said. And this was it.
He spent a nerve-wracking quarter hour searching out suitable rocks to use as seeing stones. He enchanted as many as he had patience for, stopping between each enchantment to cast a seeing spell back to the tower for a peek at Orli, who still lay slumped over the table getting a few moments’ desperately needed rest. He’d take an extra second after checking on her to peek out the window, hoping for some signs of blossoming planetary romance, whatever that might be, but there was nothing. Then he went back to work on the seeing stones. Find a stone, enchant, check on Orli. As quickly as he possibly could. And even with that casting regimen, with that furtive speed, he was only willing to make eleven of them. He had to get back and begin the work of finding Red Fire’s world. Eleven would have to be enough.
He quickly sent himself into the castle proper, to a storeroom below the kitchens where he found a basin, which he brought out into the courtyard with another teleport and began filling with water at the well. It was tedious work, but he wound the crank furiously and the physical exertion of several buckets full helped calm his nerves a little bit. Perhaps because it was a familiar task, a thing he’d done, here, in this place, so many times before, it was strangely soothing to do. After a time, midway through his task and, as he found himself staring down into the dark hole of the well watching the bucket slowly creep up out of that sloshing abyss, he began to fill with nostalgia again. How many times had he done this? How many hundred times? All better times, for sure, though he’d appreciated them little enough.
He brought the bucket out and looked at it, an old wooden thing, gray with age, its outsides soft with having been so wet so often over the years. Just then it seemed a familiar friend. An old companion of his youth. He turned and looked across the courtyard at the wooden scaffolding where the work had begun to rebuild his tower—the east tower, which he would always think of as his. No one was working on that now.
Definitely better times.
He heard a sound behind him, back the way he had come. He turned to see Kettle, who had just spotted him.
“I thought I heard someone a crankin’ at that old thing,” she said. She tried to look calm, but tears burst upon her face, and she came running to him. “Oh, Altin, ‘tis all gone wrong, hasn’t it?” She clutched him in arms made strong by the daily lifting of sacks of flour and grain, the toting of water pails and the mashing and chopping of vegetables and meat.
He held her long enough to let the wave of her emotions pass, and he wiped his own tears away with a quick shrug of his shoulder on the right and an absent-seeming motion of his left hand, while she pulled away and dabbed at her face with her apron strings.
When she was composed, he smiled down at her, all confidence again. “It’s not pretty in Crown City,” he said. “But the Earth people are helping, and … well, if Blue Fire can get through to the Hostile world that is attacking Earth, they’ll have more men to spare. If that happens, I think everything will be all right again. At terrible cost, but all right.”
Movement in the doorway caught his eye, and he saw a small blonde he
ad peering out of the shadows within.
He looked back to Kettle. “Pernie’s home?”
“They sent her back. Her Majesty called up all the instructors at the school ta fight.”
“That was good thinking,” he said. He sent Pernie a smile as best he could given the ongoing thrum of Blue Fire’s fearful agony.
Taking that as encouragement, she ran out to where they were. Altin expected her to bounce into him and hug his leg, but she stopped short. She stood very straight and looked him directly in the eye. “I can help, you know.”
This time his smile moved all the way to his eyes. “You are a brave little sprite, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But I think we’ve almost got it won. Besides, Kettle needs you here to guard Calico.”
She thrust out her lips then, and crossed her arms over her narrow little chest. “Everyone knows all the orcs are at Crown City trying to kill the Queen,” she said. “Nothing is coming here.”
“You’re probably right,” he said. “But it’s best to be safe.”
“I’m not a baby anymore.”
Altin smiled again. “I know you aren’t.”
She was looking at the basin he’d filled. “What’s that for? Are you going to scry out the enemy? I know what that is, you know. Even if I can’t do it, says Master Grimswoller.” Her little frame straightened to its fullest height, clearly pleased with her ability to recognize magic purposes by name.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly right.” He took the bucket from where he’d set it on the edge of the well and poured it into his basin. He flipped the catch and tossed the bucket down again.
“So you might still need me to fight.”
“I don’t think so,” he said as he wound the bucket back up again. “Besides, where I’m going is no place for a little girl.”
“I’m not little.”
“Well, it’s no place for a big girl either.”
“Is Miss Orli going?”
He stopped winding for a moment and studied her. She had a strange look on her face. “Yes,” he said, once more working the well handle. “Blue Fire speaks to her, so I have to take her along.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, and he didn’t want to deal with whatever that look was on Pernie’s face.
Pernie stuck out her lips again. Altin looked at Kettle, who merely shrugged. In the old days, Kettle would have sent Pernie away, sent her off on some time-consuming errand that would give Altin his space. A lot of things had changed.
“I have to get back,” he said. “I can’t leave her out there all alone.”
Kettle nodded. Pernie stalked away.
Two more plunges of the bucket and Altin had enough. Kettle watched him in silence the entire time. When he’d dumped the last of the water into the basin, he let go a long sigh. “It’s going to be all right,” he said, just as he had said before.
The edges of her mouth crept upwards a bit, a wan crescent below the uninhibited love misting her eyes. She hugged him and then watched him go, hoping he was right.
Chapter 39
Colonel Pewter tapped the glass on the inside of his battle suit canopy, hoping the reading was wrong. It read under forty thousand rounds left for the Gatling arm, and the unit’s power core was down to a quarter charge. He figured he had about two hours of fight left in the suit, but he wouldn’t have half that for ammunition. If he used the laser, he’d have less than twenty minutes. After that, the suit would be nothing more than a toy for the demons to toss around.
“Down to twenty-eight thousand,” came Corporal Chang’s call even as the Colonel was tapping on the glass. “This is going to be a bitch when it’s down to jackhammers and grips.”
“Roger that, Chang. Make your shots count, people,” the colonel said for perhaps the tenth time that day. He’d been saying it since the transport ship hit the wall and they all came scrambling out. He wondered how much more careful they could be.
Private Sanchez’s unit came charging back around the corner as the colonel gave the order to conserve. Cobblestones flew like dark sparks from the smashing impact of each of the battle suit’s footsteps, and Sanchez cut the corner tight enough to splinter a wagon that had been upturned earlier by a demon. Bits of wood flew from it as the Marine burst through its frame, the whipcords of leather straps flapping as the long traces flew skyward, turning slowly in the air before landing behind him. “We got company,” the panting Marine yelled as he ran to where the colonel stood. “Four of the big ones, and about sixteen orcs.” Another Marine rounded the corner right behind him, his suit smoking from a segment at the back, a short length of red hose waving spastically and spraying red fluid in the air.
“Fire Team Two, can you get to my location?” the colonel asked.
“In a minute, Colonel,” came Corporal Chang’s reply. “We have to finish this fucker first.” The sound of gunfire and the profanity of the other Marines in Corporal Chang’s fire team served as background noise as he spoke. “Can you bring them to us?”
“We’ve got a man on foot here,” he said. “Just get here ASAP.”
“Roger that.”
The colonel ordered his men to cover, marking the one building on the block not burning yet as the one not to hide behind. “Commander Levi is in that one,” he admonished as he fell back and positioned himself behind the glare of the burning inn. It would give him a chance to get off a first shot. Sanchez moved down the street a bit further and hid as best he could behind a marginally shattered tree.
The first of the three demons that had been chasing Private Sanchez didn’t bother rounding the corner as sharply as the Marine had, and it erupted through the side of the two-story structure as easily as the mech had run through the wagon. The roof collapsed in its wake, sending embers climbing into the sky, and the demon crawled straight for where the private stood behind the splintered remnants of the great oak tree. It paused only for a moment, looking farther down the street where the Marine in the smoking mech was still running, seeking cover of his own, but mainly hoping he might draw the pursuit after him a bit farther, pulling the demons deeper down the gauntlet his companions made and giving them as much advantage as possible, if only for a time.
The demon watched him running off, but turned back to Sanchez, who must have seemed as if he were cowering there. It rushed at this near victim, just as two more demons essentially finished off the house on the corner and came pounding into Colonel Pewter’s view.
The colonel waited as the first demon ran past, holding his fire and watching through the flames as twelve stilt legs ate up so much ground so rapidly. Right behind it came another, this one twice as large, a top-heavy monstrosity similar in ways to the very first one the colonel had fought, a massive black body like a wide-bottomed beaker tipped upside down. Where the spout would have been was its neck which thrust out before it as it ran upon the five great clubs of its legs and feet. This one did not see him either, and it chased after its fleeing prey farther down the street, leaving Sanchez for the first.
“Steady, people. Wait for the third one to clear me. Levi, watch your fire, there will be orcs after. Take two good shots, then stay down so they don’t figure out where you are.”
“Don’t think I won’t,” said Roberto from his place inside a room looking down on the street, three buildings down from the corner and nearly in line with where the colonel was. “I’m done trying to be a hero after that last one.”
The third demon came past as he said it, a long sinewy thing, low to the ground like a reptile but with a body that was little more than a consecutive set of lumpy mounds. If it hadn’t been moving in the direction it was, Colonel Pewter could not have identified which end was its head. Even then he couldn’t truly know, for the creature had no eyes, no horns, no mouth, no identifying features at all. Just several sequences of bulk, like bulbous sections in a knotted rope.
When its last segment had nearly passed him, the colonel opened up with his Gatling gun, charging into the trailing section of it as he did. Th
e jackhammer blade was already moving as he drew near, intent on plunging it into the hole his bullets cut into the demon’s hard outer shell. But when he got to it and punched into the jagged place where the fifty-cal had been doing its work, he found that he could not penetrate this one. He backed off a step and opened up again, a waterfall of brass casings pouring onto the street. The ammo counter on his canopy ticked down rapidly.
Rather than spin around to face him, the demon simply stopped running and raised up its back half as if it had changed its mind as to which end was its head. It curled back on itself like a serpent about to strike and, quick as a whip, slammed its bulbous mass down at him.
He dove to the side just in time to avoid being smashed, and the rounded bulb of the demon bashed through the cobblestones that remained and punched a six-foot hole into the gravel and dirt below. It wrestled with itself for a moment to extract its hammer head, and once again raised it up into the air. The colonel expected to hear it roar like the others had, to feel the vibrations of its awesome size through his suit, but it made no sound other than the hard plastic sound of its clattering feet. For a moment most of it was lost in the dust and flying debris of its first strike.
The colonel rolled his battle suit back to its feet and ran at it again, guns blazing into its exposed underside, though with what appeared to be the same results as before, which was nothing, or so little it might as well have been. That’s when the streak of Roberto’s laser cut across the street and bust out a chunk of the black armor, so the colonel moved the line of his fire to that spot as well. The place where the beam hit had already begun to glow some, becoming molten, and a second line of laser fire sent a melt of black fluid running down the demon’s side and onto the street. Two steps was all the colonel needed before he could jam the jackhammer into the hole, but already the massive stone-smashing bulb was on its way down again, intent on driving him into the avenue like an old-world railroad spike. Again he had to dive out of the way, and this time the momentum of it carried him into the fire raging in the building behind which he’d been concealed.
