by Pam Uphoff
Kenton nodded. "The king looked healthy and robust, the crown prince is, what thirty-six? Eventually we'll have to deal with a King Rebo, but he probably won't be anything in government for at least a decade. Prince Mirk is more than twice his age, and still just the number two man in their interior department."
They spent the winter learning the ropes. A lot of parties, a lot of dinners. Prince Mirk pounced on the ambassador for more economic theory, and roped in his elder brother, the crown prince. Kenton got himself into the King's University. Jaime thought about it, but decided to just buy lots of books on building dams and irrigation systems.
They stayed through the end of the spring semester, before returning home. A brief visit to Cadent, again, where Raynor was expanding his staff, then back to Fascia. Then a very long and unsatisfactory sailing trip. They stopped at Discordia, somewhere around this world's Brazil equivalent, not as far south as Rio . . . and found no interest in friendly relations. Demonia (Buenos Aires), Organtes(Lima), Allantro (A thousand miles north, and wishing they were further from Organtes)and Jyth (central Mexican coast, and expecting attack from all sides) as they circled the continent.
Twelve years, and no contact with Earth.
The missions started getting longer as they stopped fearing they might miss the gate. Their two main embassies increased their staffs. They returned to Karista late in 1388, Kenton to school, Jaime and Devvy for a full year's worth of making contacts.
Other than the occasional brutally cold winter storm and dodging witches . . . and the entertainment value of watching Devvy throwing herself at a man who was very good at dodging . . . it was a very pleasant year., and somehow stretched out to two years.
Fifteen years, and still no contact with Earth.
Jaime was back in Karista by the fall of '91. Once again doing the rounds of garden parties and balls. Chatting with princes and dancing with witches. Still no Neptunite, damn it all.
He was standing in the Royal Palace, crowded ballroom, contemplating walking around to the Sisters from Hell, when the purple one—Heliotrope—half danced and half dashed across the dance floor to her father. Who disappeared. There was a sudden disruption to the side . . . men in uniform converged and headed for the patio doors.
Jaime followed the crowd outside to find a duel rapidly developing, Lord Hell and another man just as tall . . . Jaime blinked. Little flashes of things flying back and forth between the men.
Magic. A magic duel.
Other men circling in close, watching the other man. Obviously on Lord Hell's side . . . one of them was Devvy's heart breaker, Lieutenant Xen Wolfson. Waving his hand and deflecting flashes far over his head that were flying toward the city.
And suddenly larger fireballs were flying, so hot even the non-magical crowd could see them. And run away. Jaime hugged the side of the palace and stayed to watch. A girl—Wolfson's sister, looked about fourteen—was holding her hands up, and above her, fireballs ricocheted off of absolutely nothing. The man grabbed her, was sent flying in a neat judo throw, threw fireballs. One hit the girl and she staggered. Crouched on the ground, then jumped forward and grabbed the man's arm as he readied another fireball. They froze, glowing. Her glow brightening, his dimming. Other men crowded up, and jumble of questioning . . . the man disappeared.
Jaime staggered back and sat. All that power, all that control. All the spells. Everything I ever wanted, in my wildest dreams. They have it . . . And I should not ask about it, should not attract that sort of attention to myself. Cannot admit that I can do anything uncanny, cannot become just another dirty native to my fellow soldiers.
Not that they are prejudiced . . . but I wouldn't be one of them any more. I'd be, I'd be . . . I'd have to admit that I want to be one of them, not a misplaced Purp. That I'm the one who's prejudiced.
But no matter how much he tried to watch Wolfson, no matter how often he haunted the teashops near the campus and spoke to Lady Quicksilver, he picked up nothing. And never asked. They disappeared from Karista's high society, so he turned his attention to the Sisters from Hell. Equally to no avail. And finally returned to Fascia.
Sixteen years. No contact with Earth.
They still guarded the gate anchor like a holy relic. But like so many holy sites that failed to produce miracles, the duty became more perfunctory as the years passed.
Chapter Five
21 December 3511 ce
Winter Solstice 1395 px
Fascia, Auralia, Comet Fall
The First Platoon had been in charge of the gate anchor for eighteen years. And for eighteen years they'd fired up the generators, now running on the local white lightning—pure alcohol distilled from the fermentation of the local cactus juice—and run them for ten days straight. Then turned them off, cleaned them up and stored them for the next two and a half months.
Captain (field promotion) Frank Comfrey always attended the startups. The four highpoints of his year, he thought. The whole platoon was in ranks for this. Half of them asleep on their feet. The generators fired. The lights on the anchor lit up. Frank walked down to the locator, feeling a bit like a pompous ass. His assistant walked behind him, a local they'd recruited to fill out their ranks. A decade ago. So many of the marooned troops had married native women and had children that they'd be adding half breeds to the ranks, within a year. He couldn’t stand the thought of having a brat with one of these dirty women, himself, and kept mostly to the Army base and the Palace. But he was losing hope of ever returning home.
Why not sleep in, instead of this pointless exercise?
He blinked a bit at the fog just burning off now to show the street through the rings. The wall and a gyp. Some fool soldier was playing games with their last working gyp . . . wait . . . he should see the back of the building, not . . . Something suddenly clicked in his brain, and he sidestepped as he reached back to grab the native and haul him to the left.
The armored gyp missed him by about three millimeters as it rushed through the gate.
Chapter Six
Winter 1395
Ash, Kingdom of the West, Comet Fall
Xen slept. Safe at home, he released the last of his wariness and let the healing sleep take him completely. As a prisoner of the Empire of the One, once the life threatening injuries had healed, he'd never dared lose himself completely to the healing trance. The Empire had enough shared history with his own people that the tradition of shooting enemy spies was known to both.
But now he slept deeply. Dreamed strange and frightening things. Beautiful things that he awoke from, crying. Things he wished were real. Might have actually happened. He dreamed Rael was alive, that she'd summoned the God of Spies to her hospital room and he'd healed her. Or at least tried, for as long as the dream lasted. He woke, and stared at the ceiling of his old room. Rael had been a gloriously happy, sane and joyful woman. Powerful and protective . . . dying on the ground.
He staggered out of bed, and down the stairs. Water, food, privy, shower. More food, more drink. A glass of wine to fuel the "magical" healing. He could have taken more of the actual healing wine, but the nano factories inside him had already zeroed in on exactly what needed to be done. Better to just send them some alcohol, to keep them working. He looked up the stairs, and turned away.
His legs felt weak. After a month of lying in bed they ought to have been weaker, but a healing trance wasn't quite the same as, well, just lying in bed. "I need the exercise, and I do not need another impossible dream." He drained his glass and walked out to the porch. No one in sight, a bright sunny, icy cold day. The snow was two feet deep, shoveled away from the path, melting along the stream that drained the hotspring behind the house. The crunch of breaking ice crust, and a horse high stepped through the snow, jumped the stream and trotted toward him.
"Hey, Horsie." Xen eyed the icy steps beyond his bare toes.
:: Stay there! I'm coming. You have to heal. ::
:: I'm healing. I'm even awake. ::
A skeptical snort. Py
rite sidled up to the edge. ::Get on. I'm warm. ::
"I'll probably fall off." It took a concentrated effort to get his leg up over the tall horse's back, and he clutched mane unashamedly as his balance wavered. "So, how've you been, Horsie?"
:: I'm fine. You're the one who got shot. Again! You should have taken me with you. I could have helped with the shields. ::
"Yeah . . . but I don't think you could have come to the party." He couldn't help but snicker a bit.
Pyrite snorted, and turned slowly and carefully before he waded through the snow and around the corner of the house. The south side was out of the wind and caught the sun. It felt glorious. He closed his eyes and absorbed sunshine.
"Is anything going on? How's Q?"
:: She comes to check on you regularly. She lives at the Crossroads. River, Grace, Nighthawk and Simon are there. Yellow and Deena come to get witching lessons from River. :: The horse's ears twitched as he thought. :: The puppies grew up while you were gone. I kept reminding them of you, and telling them how to behave. They don't like herding sheep. They're in the black right now, because your Mom got mad about the mud and snow. Pig is very good at opening doors. ::
"Three quarters Hell Hound. They must be pretty smart. I need to stay awake long enough to train them." Xen yawned and leaned forward on the horse's neck. "I had this odd thought while I was dreaming. About adjusting the time ratio on bubbles. I did it once, and it stayed that way for, well, three days? Something like that. So if I could shift one just a bit, to where it experienced more time, like three or four times as much as the outside world, I could use one for the healing sleep. I probably need another six months, to really finish up and completely recover. It'd be nice if I could do it in two months, and get back to work before they forget all about me. And train the puppies before they get any older . . . They're two years old, aren't they?"
Pyrite turned his head enough to eye him. :: Except for when they're bad and your mom puts them in the black. ::
"Oh. Sounds like I really had better heal fast."
Pyrite nodded, then lifted his head further, ears swiveling around toward the front of the winery, nostrils spread. :: Someone . . . Deena is here. ::
A muffled figure on a big bay horse followed their tracks around the corner.
"Xen? What are you doing sitting on a horse in bare feet? We have a problem, and frost bitten toes won't help. Earth is back."
"The first of them came through at the Winter Solstice."
Xen leaned elbows on the kitchen table and sipped strong coffee. "How many are through now? With what equipment?"
"Several hundred, lots of wheeled vehicles, none with tracks. Rufi's man doesn't know enough about advanced weaponry to pick up the details. That's why we all need to get down there, as soon as possible." Deena eyed him, shook her head. "You're still doing the healing sleep, aren't you?"
"Yeah. Umm, I may be able to do something about that. How soon is Lefty moving us out?"
"We're already down there. Well, we've reached the border. Yellow's got a line of corridors from Fort Oven in Farofo to the border, and they're trying to figure out the best way to extend it further. Mutterings of 'draft Q' have been heard. But she's working full time trying to train a pack of old professors how to use a Oner computer. And supervising the setting up of a new printing press so they can print all those books we bought. Rufi said to try you first."
Xen nodded. Failed to stifle a yawn. "Right, well I'm still going to be sleeping way too much, but I ought to be able to do things in between, when I surface for food."
The thump of footsteps. Two parents glaring.
"Tell me I misunderstood what I thought I just heard you say as I walked in?" Rustle Neverdaut's voice was mild and mildly skeptical.
The God of War just eyed him silently.
"They need some help? And really, I'm practically healed."
His mother sighed. "All those blood vessels you healed are still thin, recovering slowly. All those nerves you repaired, the redundancy isn't there yet. The nerve sheaths are still thin. The bones are . . . well, by now they're probably back up to normal strength. Your guts . . . same problems. You stretched and patched in tissue to fill the holes and get everything working instead of leaking. Now it all needs to be grown into, thickened, and strengthened. Your immune system has been running flat out for five months now. Once you've finished healing, it will need time to recover. I'd say you needed another seven months to finish healing, but under the circumstances it's probably more like a whole year. Not to mention that your muscular strength is not up to par."
Xen shrugged. "Mom have you ever tried to adjust the time dilation ratio in bubbles?"
She blinked. "No . . . and even if it could be reversed, do you have any idea how much food you'd need to take with you for that to work?"
"Reversed . . . umm. I just thought maybe faster than outside by a factor of three or four . . . I guess I worry about control. Or pushing it too far. I've only done it once—for a dog. And it didn't slip. Having it snap back to the natural dilation while sleeping for three days would be . . . awkward. Even if it would be handy to sleep for a year—in a single day."
Now his dad was looking thoughtful too. "Go pack, while we work on this."
His packing was just a matter of stuffing everything he might need into bubbles. Clothes, bedding and weapons each in separate bubbles . . . then digging his uniform out of the clothing bubble and putting it on . . . finding his boots . . .
I'm half asleep. This is not one of my brighter ideas. But all I need to do is stretch corridors down to Fascia, right?
He stuck all the bubbles on his arm . . . forgetting which was which, but he could figure that out later. Downstairs his parents had a bubble around a small tent.
"As best we can figure, it's close to twenty times faster inside than out." His father eyed him. "Do not get into a fight—sword or magic—in the shape you are in right now. Deena is saddling Pyrite." He closed the bubble over the tent and stuck it on Xen's other arm.
Rustle snorted. And stuck another bubble on his arm. "Remember to eat. I stashed a lot of food in there. And water."
"Yes, Mother." His attempt to sound put upon slid into snickers and received a shaken fist.
Out on the front porch, Deena was scowling at Pyrite. Saddle and saddle bags. No bridle or halter. She looked over her shoulder. "Will you stop that! Just tell me you don't need a bridle. You don't have to try to make me believe that the horse said that the shape you're in you'll need both hands free to hold on. If you didn't look like death warmed over, I'd suggest a few rounds on the training grounds."
Xen grinned. "Well, well. Pyrite's a lot louder than he used to be. I guess magic horses advance just like human type magicians. But if you don't want him to talk to you, I'm sure he won't."
:: Dun stole all the palominos while I was busy. But four of the foals are mine! :: Definite smugness. :: And Stripy and Cat's foals too. ::
"They haven't made you give the palominos back yet?"
Mental equine smirk. :: They finally caught them. Dun was having fun. ::
Puberty, loss of virginity and fatherhood. All in just over a year. I'll have to check out these foals . . . probably almost yearlings, by now. Xen climbed aboard and followed Deena down the path. And train the puppies.
But first we need to sort out the Earthers.
One problem at a time.
Chapter Seven
30 December 3511 ce
Winter 1395 px
Fascia, Auralia, Comet Fall
"So what really happened on Earth, back when we were getting screwed?" Jaime poured more beer from the nearest pitcher. The old grunts' plan to show the new grunts the important parts of town had stalled out at the first cantina. Good thing we started with a good one!
"The Oners captured the entire Gate Complex and held it for six hours. Half of them went on a loot and rape spree." The black guy stopped for a long swallow.
The Asian on the other side nodded, ange
r in his voice. "They kidnapped a bunch of women. Seventy-two. Haven't found that world yet."
"That world?"
"Some mining world. They somehow made the controllers keep the gate open while they moved in all the people they wanted. Then they switched it to one of the mining worlds and they all went there."
"Ah." Andy Mengle nodded. "The comet. It hit right about the first of the year—their year, here. They were escaping. But it wasn't all that bad, up here. Some problems, mostly forest fires, down south."
"Heh. I wish it had killed them all." Some new guy at the next table turned around and glared as if it were their fault. "They planted explosives. Blew up the main rings of the gate and the power plant."
The Asian nodded. "We had no gate travel at all for three and half years."
That got some indrawn breaths.
Jaime boggled. "Every single Earther who was across was marooned? Ho. Lee. Shit."
"Damn." Andy thumped his mug down. "What happened on the Colonies? There were some damn big ones that were still barely self sufficient."
"Most of them managed, but people died. You think they're mad? The exploration parties had the hardest time. No domesticated crops at all. One group—all male—was stuck for five years eating mice, frogs, and bugs. At least they had something to eat. A lot of the isolated groups . . . every single one of them died." The black guy waved his tankard toward a barmaid. "You lot got nothing to complain about."
That got sputters from all the enlisted.
Jaime cleared his throat. "These new guys don't believe in magic. Let's not tell them about how we were enslaved, castrated, rebelled, captured the palace and rescued the officers. And especially let's not tell them about the magic joy juice that restored our virility in a wild orgy with the ladies from the harem. OK?"
Laughter all around.
