The Larion Senators e-3

by Rob Scott

  ‘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 cafe. Let’s start with the cafe.’

  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.

  ‘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 explaine
d. ‘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.’

  ‘How’s your mother?’ Gilmour asked.

  ‘She’s holding together,’ Hannah said. ‘Thanks for asking.’

  ‘I’m sure she misses you,’ Alen said.

  ‘You’d better believe it!’ Hannah smiled.

  ‘I know I did.’

  Hannah spun round so quickly that she slipped off Steven’s berth and landed with an embarrassing thud.

  ‘Steven!’ Gilmour shouted, ‘you’re back!’

  Hannah picked herself up and, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to throw herself onto the narrow bunk in public, managed to content herself with merely kneeling on the floor, her face close to Steven’s. She whispered, ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I feel pretty dismal, I have to admit,’ he said. ‘You were running and I couldn’t catch you.’

  Unsure what he meant, Hannah said, ‘I would have slowed down if I’d known.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Steven licked his lips; they were dry, near to cracking. ‘There was a dog that kept biting me.’

  Alen, Gilmour and Hoyt shared a knowing glance.

  Hannah ignored the dog reference and kissed him lightly. ‘Hi,’ she whispered.

  ‘Hi.’ He kissed her back. ‘Come here often?’

  Hannah laughed. ‘I understand it’s a great place to meet men.’

  ‘I missed you.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t miss you.’ She pressed her face closer to his, her nose brushing gently against his cheek.

  ‘Pushy boyfriend following you everywhere? Never giving you any space?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Hannah said, kissing him again, more urgently this time.

  ‘Ahem,’ Gilmour cleared his throat, ruining the moment. ‘How are you, Steven? Can you feel… you know?’

  Steven closed his eyes. ‘Yes, it’s still there. I don’t think it took anything from me.’

  ‘We got to you pretty quickly,’ Gilmour said. ‘I think we bled enough of it out of you that the effects, while still devastating, weren’t fatal.’

  ‘And you have Hannah to thank for her own bit of magic,’ Hoyt added.

  Steven looked confused, and Hannah made introductions. Hoyt sensed there was something she left out, something more she wanted to say about him or Alen, but he let it go.

  ‘Where are we?’ Steven asked finally.

  ‘About a day south of Pellia, on the Welstar River,’ Gilmour replied a little hesitantly. He didn’t want Steven to worry; the young sorcerer wasn’t up to much strain yet, and discovering they were within two days of Welstar Palace might make him try to do too much too soon.

  As Gilmour had expected, Steven tried to sit up, but when his head started spinning, he had to be content with lying on his side. He took Hannah’s hand and said, ‘So, all of you, tell me everything.’

  Hours later, their stories told and Steven’s questions answered, the partisans received their watch assignments from Captain Ford. While some climbed the wooden steps to the main deck, others, Steven and Hannah included, crawled into cramped berths, wrapped themselves in heavy blankets and tried to steal an uneasy aven’s sleep.

  Steven dreamed of Idaho Springs and 147 Tenth Street. Mark was there; the friends were sharing a pizza and drinking beer. Lessek’s key was locked in a rosewood box and the Larion far portal was rolled up like a map and tucked inside its cylindrical case. Nothing tragic or miraculous had happened yet and the two were simply bachelors enjoying dinner and an Oc
tober baseball game. Steven had fallen victim to curiosity, but who in their life hadn’t? He had finagled access to William Higgins’ safe deposit box, had found the missing key and had created an opportunity to investigate, but, thus far, that had been the extent of his crimes. He hadn’t killed a squad of Seron warriors. He hadn’t raced across the United States, mined to his elbows in the city landfill, or battled an almor, acid clouds, a legion of bone-collectors or an army of wraiths. He was just a bank employee who had been tempted by the unknown and given in.

  Then he opened the box.

  ‘What is it?’ Mark had asked.

  ‘My best guess,’ Steven said, removing the stone, ‘is that it’s a rock.’

  Mark had been unable to control himself. ‘No, officer, we left all the cash, but couldn’t part with this rock

  It was months later, Twinmoons, when his roommate eventually told him the truth.

  Mark closed his fist over the stone. ‘You know, I never touched this that night in our house, but when you opened that box, I experienced something strange: a warm sensation, like someone reached into our apartment and draped some old blanket over me… I remembered being a kid, out at the beach, Jones Beach, on the island. I was in Eldarn less than five goddamned minutes, losing it, going full-on screwball crazy, and all of a sudden, I got a reprieve.‘

  Steven had been sitting with him, watching Gilmour wade in the chilly waters of the Falkan fjord. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be remembering something about some afternoon out at Jones Beach with my family… and it’s happening right now as I sit here, touching Lessek’s key: it’s as though I’m there – as if part of my mind is there – reliving that day on the beach.’

  Steven sat up, tumbling Hannah out of the berth again. ‘Holy shit,’ he said, ‘holy shit!’

  ‘What is it?’ Hannah took him in her arms. ‘You’re shaking, Steven, please, tell me what’s wrong.’ She worried it was the anti-venom; she’d heard anti-venom was sometimes more dangerous than the bites it was supposed to cure, causing serum sickness, or bronchospasms requiring adrenalin shots. She’d brought some adrenalin too, just in case He had stopped sweating, but his skin remained pale, even in the weak light of the hanging lamp. ‘We need Captain Ford,’ he said, ‘and Gilmour, Alen, Garec… hell, get everyone. We’re making a huge mistake.’