by Nathan Long
“Hold her! The wand must be saved!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I tried to go after him anyway, leaping high, dodging wide. No dice, those spears were everywhere. If I wanted to get past ’em, I’d have to go through the hard way. I turned all my attention to breaking the paladins’ line, chopping through their spears, bashing ’em back, kicking their knees and shins, and all the while afraid Beak-Nose was gonna find a nice little perch and start sniping from on high.
But he didn’t. As I fought through his dudes, I saw him up on the foredeck pulling a tarp off some big piece of equipment I hadn’t noticed before. I thought it might be some kind of big-ass machine gun or sling shot, ’cause it was high in the middle and square on the sides, but when the tarp came off I saw it was a futuristic boat-bike looking thing.
Even knowing there were wands of blue fire lying around, this freaked me out. There was no way these sword-swinging, loincloth-wearing shit-kickers had built anything like that. It looked like a cross between a ski-doo and one of those crazy-ass souped-up racing boats that they always show crashing on ESPN. It was flat and square and wide at the bottom, like a big white plastic mattress, but with what looked like a snowmobile seat and handlebars sticking up out of the middle.
The weirdest part, though, was when Beak-Nose climbed on and fired it up. He was tiny on it. He looked like a kid sitting on his dad’s Harley. In fact, it looked like there was some kind of booster seat on top of the bench just so he could reach the handlebars. I almost laughed until the thing whined like a rice rocket going eighty and rose up off the deck like a hovercraft. Then I stared—and almost got speared through the neck for it.
I snapped back to my fight with blood streaming down over my collar bone, and hacked off the tip of the spear that had almost shish-kabobed me, then bulled through the rest and leapt for the foredeck, trying to stop him.
The ski-doo had two rows of glowing white spheres—each about the size of a beer keg—sunk into its undercarriage, and they were vibrating so fast that the air around them was blurring, and this seemed to be the way it was flying. Yeah. No rotors, no jet engines, just an annoying high-pitched screech from the vibration. The goddamn things were levitating.
“Anti-motherfucking-gravity. Wow!”
I bounded toward the thing as Beak-Nose angled it around toward the back rail, but just as I was gonna land on it and cut his head off, it slipped out from under me like a watermelon seed and made a screaming bee-line for the horizon, its white globes glowing like tracer bullets in the dark.
I crashed down on the deck and stared after it with my jaw hanging open. “Look at that thing go. Goddamn.”
There were footsteps on the stairs behind me, and a shitload of shouting, and I turned, ready to fight again, but it wasn’t Beaky’s paladins. It was Kai-La, a bloody cutlass in her hand, and a smile on her face.
“Well fought, sister! You have won the day!”
I looked around, amazed. The battle was already over, and I’d missed it. While I’d been fighting the paladins and chasing Beak-Nose, the pirates had pulled the ship tight against the mesa and swarmed it, and the priests and paladins were surrendering all over the place. Not that the pirates were paying any attention. I got a little queasy as I saw them grabbing priests who had thrown down their weapons and started tossing them over the side. I mean it was one thing to kill somebody when they were trying to kill you, but this was straight up murder.
I turned to Kai-La. “You’re gonna kill ’em? All of ’em?”
Lo-Zhar turned from cutting a priest’s throat and answered for her, snarling. “It will still be but one for every ten they killed of mine.”
Kai-La nodded. “Aye. And priests of the Seven hold a special place in my heart. I would spare a vurlak’s life before that of a priest.”
I still didn’t like it, but she clapped me on the back before I could say anything else, and waved back toward the mesa. “Now, come, your beloved lies in a cell, alone. Bring him aboard and you shall have a cabin to yourselves for the great work you have done today. You have saved us all!”
That snapped me out of my funk. I gave her a salute, then bounced down to the main deck and across to the mesa. A cabin to ourselves? Well, yippy-kai-yay! I’d hot-footed it across the entire universe to get Lhan alone again. It was about fucking time.
Heh.
Or about time for fucking?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WANTED!
Yeah, well, not so much.
The priests’ warship had been circling the mesa for days, and didn’t have much more food and water than the pirates did, so Kai-La gave orders to set sail for a burg three days to the south of us called Galok, a pirate-friendly border town which was the closest place they could resupply. That meant Lhan and I had three days with nothing to do but hang out in our cabin and get reacquainted. It shoulda been heaven. It was hell.
Lhan was just too hurt to get busy. Way too hurt. He needed food and drink and rest, but at the same time, being so close to each other and not being able to do anything was killing us. I’d lay down beside him to keep him company on his bunk, but just pressing up against him was enough to get my motor running, then my hands would start wandering, and pretty soon his motor would be running, and we’d start rolling around and pulling at each other—and then a second later he’d break away, hissing and holding his side, or bleeding, or wheezing like he was going to die, and I’d end up cursing and apologizing and have to go up to the top bunk and promise that next time I’d be good and keep my hands to myself.
You can guess how that worked out.
Anyway, we also did other stuff. Mostly talk about the future. That started the first morning, when I brought Lhan some breakfast in bed. I was handing him a cup of banana-smelling pink gruel when he gave me a little grin.
“So, beloved. Where shall we go?”
“Huh? Whaddaya mean?”
“I mean, my Dhanshae, that, with no obligations to chain us to place or purpose, we may go where we like. Therefore I ask you, where would you like to go?”
I laughed. “Not back to Ora, that’s for damn sure. I’m sick of that place. And I bet we’d have the church cops on our ass in a hot second. Hmmm, maybe I should just take you back to Earth and—”
For a split second it seemed like a great idea. There wouldn’t be any crazy priests hunting us on Earth. I knew my way around. I could show off my planet for a change, introduce Lhan to hamburgers and beer and fat-boy Harleys. With the hair and the goatee, he’d sure as hell make a damn fine biker dude—except…
Except he would be as weak on Earth as I was strong on Waar, and he was purple. We wouldn’t have the church after us, we’d have the US government hunting our asses. They’d want to cut Lhan up and take samples. They’d want to know how to get to Waar. They’d lock us both up as a matter of national security. The National Enquirer would put us on the front page, BIKER CHICK AND SPACE ALIEN IN INTERSPECIES LOVE NEST. It would suck, and it would never stop sucking.
“Never mind. Stupid idea. Where do you wanna go?”
Lhan shrugged. “I? I would not be unhappy following the path we already tread. Kai-La and her crew are merry companions and lead an unfettered life. There would be worse fates than to sail under her banner.”
My heart jumped in my chest as he said it, and I almost agreed then and there. Almost. But then my conscience, that fucker, caught me and I stopped. I’d been tempted to join Kai-La’s gang before, and been put off by the same thing that put me off now. They were, as Lhan said, a blast to hang around with—my favorite people on Waar as a matter of fact—but they were pirates. They flew around, stealing other people’s shit, and killing them if they didn’t hand it over. On top of that, the pirates also sold people as slaves. Shit, they’d sold me as a slave once! I knew all that was different on Waar. Lhan’s family owned slaves, for instance, and even the slaves dreamed of owning slaves, but I still didn’t want any part of it.
I shook my head. “I can
’t do it. I was a biker, Lhan, not a Hell’s Angel.”
“I fear I do not understand the reference, mistress.”
“I mean, there’s a difference between a rebel and a robber, and I’ve never been a robber—well, not a lot. Also, I know Kai-La’s gonna go after Oran ships, and after the Aldhanan gave me the keys to the kingdom and all that, I’d feel a little weird attacking his people.”
Lhan smirked. “I fear you will find that the difference between the crimes of a pirate and an Aldhanan are but a matter of scale. Still, I understand your reticence. Indeed, I share it. If we were to make war only upon the state or the church I would not hesitate, but the thought of attacking some honest merchant and stealing his hard-won goods? No. It makes the dream ugly and common.” He looked up at me, grinning. “Very well, with piracy dismissed, what other life calls to you? Where else would you like to go?”
All I wanted was the recurring dream I’d had ever since I’d drifted off to sleep at Lhan’s side, that night when the priests had come for me, the dream where Lhan and I would wander Waar side by side, going wherever we wanted, seeing things nobody from Earth had ever seen before, living rough but easy forever and ever amen.
I leaned over and gave him a squeeze. “As long as it’s with you, I don’t care. Any place that’s not Ora. Any place without priests.”
Lhan squeezed me back, then smiled. “Beloved, there is a whole wide world of them.”
***
Seeing Galok appear in the distance far below us on the third morning it looked like a joke—a seaside town without a sea. I could see where the water should have been. The stone docks were still there, sticking out over a steep sandy slope—and being used for airships instead of boats now—and the town still curved around what had once been a long winding shoreline, but there was no ocean anymore, only a deep dry valley which went on forever.
Leaning on the rail beside me, Lhan pointed to the west, which was lit up like fire by the sun coming up behind us. “You see yonder, that glint of gold upon the horizon?”
I squinted. There was a permanent haze of dust out there, but I thought I could see something winking behind it. “I think so.”
“That is the Great Inland Sea—or was, hundreds of years ago, before the rains slowed. Now it is little more than a lake. It is called the Vanished Sea now.”
I nodded toward the town. “So they don’t do much fishing anymore.”
“Indeed not.” Lhan pointed down as we dropped toward the waterless docks, where about half a dozen airships were already tied up. “Now they mine salt.”
On the slope of the exposed sea-bed beyond the docks I saw guys with picks and shovels digging up the dry earth and running it through hand-cranked sifting machines, while other guys loaded the sifted stuff into sacks and threw ’em on big vurlak-drawn carts, which then trundled up a zig-zag road to some kind of refining plant on the shoreline to the south of the town. It looked like Louisiana chain gang work, like hell on earth—or Waar. I wondered if the workers were prisoners or slaves.
“You take me to all the nicest places.”
“But of course. Had I started with Waar’s best, what would you have to look forward to?” He turned from the rail and started back toward the below-decks door. “Come. We must find you a disguise before we land. The edge of the vanished sea marks the end of Oran territory, but until we are safely upon another ship and sailing beyond it, you must not be seen as you are.”
I groaned. I hated disguises. I’d had to disguise myself my last time on Waar, and I’d ended up slathered in purple paint and sweating to death inside a mask and heavy clothes that stank like the back end of a yak.
“Fantastic.”
***
I groaned again as he opened a trunk in what had been the ship’s surgery and pulled out what looked like a pair of red Ku Klux Klan robes. It was a hundred degrees in the shade out here in the sticks, and he wanted me to put on a cloak and hood?
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“At least it is this time clean, beloved. And you will have the satisfaction that I must wear one too.”
“That’ll make it much better, thanks.”
He handed me mine and I held it up to look at it. Yup. Pointy hood, robes, gloves, cloak—all blood-red and stitched at the collar and cuffs with zig-zagging black lines, and made of some kind of cloth that was thicker and heavier than denim, plus a black ninja-mask kinda thing that went with it to hide my face. The one good thing was that, unlike most robes and cloaks I’d tried on Waar, it actually reached down all the way to the ground, which meant I didn’t have to find some way to paint my legs purple to hide the color of my skin. Of course I still had to wrap my boobs so I could pass as a man, but the bandages in the surgery were nice and clean, so it wasn’t as bad as last time.
When I was all strapped down and dressed up, I looked at Lhan. His robes and hood matched mine, but instead of the ninja mask, he had a long-nosed gas mask kinda thing that completely hid his face, and a black leather satchel slung over one shoulder. He looked like a stork in priest drag.
“So what is all this? What are we dressed up as?”
Lhan smiled as he pulled on his gloves. “These are the traditional robes of a surgeon and a surgeon’s assistant. They are red to hide the blood of surgery, and your robes are large because the surgeon’s assistant is traditionally a large individual, necessary to hold down the patient when the cutting begins.”
I winced at the image, then wiped my brow under the ninja mask. The robes were already hotter than fuck.
“Well, I hope we find a ship ASAP. I don’t wanna wear this shit a second longer than I gotta.”
“I do not expect any difficulty there. Galok is constantly visited by foreign traders. And if there is currently no suitable ship, we will take a room at the inn and stay out of sight until one arrives.”
There was a bump on the hull that made us both side step, and a lot of shouts and thumping above us.
Lhan smiled. “Ah. We have docked. Come, let us see what Galok has to offer.”
***
Not much, as it turned out.
Well, we did score passage on a ship, a tiny little merchantman bound for some place called Vedya, but other than that, Galok was about as exciting as a Tuesday night in Wichita.
There was one dusty street which ended at the docks on one end and the plains on the other, and had a dusty market square in the middle, with a few dusty hawkers sitting in the dusty sunshine selling dusty goods, and lots of dusty beggars with missing limbs reaching after us as we walked through them. Dusty tough guys hung out in doorways around the edges, watching everybody else and spitting dusty loogies in the dusty dirt, while dusty local cops strolled through with their spears on their dusty shoulders, eating what looked suspiciously like donuts.
I hardly saw any of it. I was too busy thinking about our room at the inn. Today was the first day that Lhan had seemed healed enough and chipper enough that something might actually happen if we had two hours alone together, and since the boat didn’t take off until noon, we did have two hours alone together. I was getting hot and bothered just thinking about it. I might finally get the second helping I’d come back to Waar for in the first place!
“There it is.” Lhan pointed across the square toward a two-story building with an open door and a bunch of shuttered windows. It looked like it would melt into mud if it ever rained around here. “And I have never seen a finer establishment.”
“As long as the rooms have beds, it’ll be the greatest hotel that ever lived.”
I couldn’t see Lhan’s expression through his stork mask, so I didn’t know if he was leering or not, but the way he squeezed my hand made me think he was.
“Precisely.”
We crossed the square and were just about to step into the inn when a flyer nailed to a board on the outside wall caught my eye. It was a wanted poster, and the guy on the left looked familiar. I looked closer. It was Lhan. And to his right was a picture of—
<
br /> “Jesus Christ on a fucking tricycle! That’s not me! That’s Dolph Lundgren in drag!”
Lhan turned at my squawking and gripped my arm. “Keep your voice down, assistant. I—” He saw the poster too. “I am sorry, mistress, that… that is appalling. But not unexpected. You said yourself there would be a bounty. And at least they won’t be looking for anyone who looks like—” He stopped again as he read the fine print. “What is this?”
I’d been too busy staring at my “likeness” to read the thing, but now I did, squinting to unscramble the Waar alphabet and make it come out in English in my brain.
“Wanted dead or alive. A bounty of ten thousand tolnas is offered for the capture of Lhan-Lar of Herva, and his accomplice, the albino barbarian giantess Jae-En, for crimes against the Church of the Seven and for the kidnapping of—” I stopped and read it again. No way did it say what I thought it said. But it did. “For the kidnapping of Aldhanshai Wen-Jhai, daughter of our beloved Aldhanan, Kor-Har of Ormolu, and her consort, Dhanan Sai-Far of Sensa.”
I stepped back, shaking. “What the fuck, Lhan? We didn’t kidnap Sai and Wen-Jhai! What are they talking about?”
Then I knew, and my teeth clenched hard enough to crack. “Those fuckers. This ain’t nothin’ but bait on a hook. The priests kidnapped Sai and Wen-Jhai, ’cause they think we’re going to drop everything to go rescue them, and walk right into their trap.”
Lhan nodded. “Aye. ’Tis exactly what they think.”
“And they’re right.” I tore the poster off the wall and started back toward the docks. “Vacation’s canceled, Lhan. Let’s go talk to Kai-La. We’re goin’ back to Ormolu.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DUTY!
Kai-La looked up from her map table and shook her head. “I sympathize, sister, but I’ll not go anywhere near Ormolu. Not after Toaga. And certainly not in this ship.”
