by Holly Lisle
Without waiting for them to answer, he said, "October 22, 1962. Within your parents' memory. Almost within yours."
"That date sounds familiar," Lauren said, frowning.
Pete was staring at his shoes. "It is. It was…ah…yes! Cuban Missile Crisis—the date that John F. Kennedy announced the naval blockade of Cuba to prevent the USSR's delivery of more missiles."
"Yes," Eric said. "Sentinels around the world held their breath—the crisis had been fed not just by Cold War politics, but by the poison that was pouring down to Earth from a world war in Kerras. When the Kerrans set off their nukes and their even-higher-tech weapons and annihilated life on the planet, the reverberation here was nightmarish. We were sure the people in our world with their fingers on the triggers were going to twitch, too, and that was going to be it for us."
"Then each falling world shoves the next toward oblivion?" Pete asked.
"Dominoes," Eric said. "They're dominoes, and we're next. It's just a matter of time. We can't evacuate the whole planet. We could save ourselves, a few of our family and friends…but that isn't our job. Our job is nothing less than to save the world, and if we fail at that…" He shrugged. "That's our job. It can be harsh, but we've seen what will happen if we fail, and next to that, individual lives can seem very small and very insignificant."
Lauren watched him, and felt the bleak, dead horror of that place, and felt its echoes moving through her even yet. The poisons of Kerras seeped into Earth still—pushed it ever closer to inevitable doom. And against the weight of worlds stood a few people scattered throughout little towns all across the planet, isolated from each other, dedicated to holding the line on their own little patch of ground until the last man fell.
Like Chamberlain at Little Round Top in the Civil War, she thought. The Yankee schoolteacher whose men had stood in a line and held back charge after Rebel charge, and when half of them were dead and they had no ammo left, they still held. They more than held. They fixed bayonets and charged down the hill and the Rebels broke, and some ran, and some surrendered and sat out the rest of the war.
Her family had fought on the Southern side of that Past Unpleasantness—a bunch of landless, dirt-poor tenant farmers fighting to protect their homes and families from an invading force. Her father had told her, "It was the finest war ever fought, and for the worst damn cause—heroes and honor and tragedy on both sides, and if we'd been smart, we'd have freed the slaves first and then seceded. Spiked the Yankees' goddamned cannons, that would have." He'd told her about Little Round Top at Gettysburg, told it almost like he'd been sitting there watching it. And the way he told it, there were heroes on both sides, and honor, and sacrifice, and the whole thing was a tragedy and a waste of better men than you could find in this day and age. More than fifty thousand had died in that one battle alone.
Individual lives can seem very small and very insignificant, Eric had said.
And Lauren thought that against the weight of a world, her sister's life didn't amount to much. But she still wouldn't bargain with it.
"I'll do the gates," she told him. "I'll help you. This matters—this stand, this moment, this choice. But Molly lives, and I live, and Jake lives. I won't change my mind on that. I'm going to forget about the fact that if you'd known I was a gateweaver, you would have murdered me. I'm going to put the fact that you—or your people, anyway—murdered my mother and father. But I'm not willing to accept a reluctant nod of agreement from you people. I'm not willing to trust you—you haven't earned my trust. So you and every other Sentinel here is going to both swear an oath and sign a piece of paper promising the safety of my sister's life, and Jake's and mine. The three of us are sacred and untouchable for the rest of our lives."
"They'll sign. We'll all sign."
Copper House, Ballahara
The veyâr Yaner appeared in the little solar where Molly and Seolar were having their meal. He was pale and disheveled, breathing hard, and clearly terrified—and Molly would not have recognized him from their meeting her first night in Oria, except that Seolar half rose from his seat and said, "Yaner! What ails you?"
This, then, was the man whose child she had saved at such cost.
"I have news," Yaner said. "Urgent news."
Molly put down her glass and waited. Her gut tightened—the way Yaner looked at her frightened her.
"What have you found for us?" Seolar asked him. He pointed him to a seat, then waved one of the servants over to bring him a drink.
"They were going to kill the Vodi," Yaner said. "But your sister intervened in your behalf. She said she would let their world die rather than let them kill you."
Molly's pulse fluttered and raced, and her breath suddenly went tight in her chest. "My sister?"
"She's in Cat Creek. In your family's old house—it's her house now. And she's a gateweaver. She and the man in charge didn't know you were here, or they would have tried to get you when they stole the prisoners away—but she knows you're here now, and after they take care of the traitors and some disease they caused, your sister and the Sentinels intend to come back here and get you. They think they're rescuing you."
Molly wasn't really hearing what Yaner was telling her. "My sister?" she whispered. "She is coming here?"
"She has other things she must do first, but—yes. But…" Yaner held out a beseeching hand. "You fail to see what I am saying. She and those people wish to take you away from us. From here. You must not be here when they come."
"My sister," Molly said, turning from Yaner to Seolar, "is going to be here in Oria. I have to see her. I have to meet her."
Yaner said, "The people she is with wanted to kill you. Lauren got them to promise that they wouldn't—but you can't let them get near you. Perhaps they told her the truth, but what if they didn't?"
"I have to go to her. Where will she and the Sentinels be going first?"
Seolar said, "He can't tell you that, Molly. If you went to them, you would be putting yourself in danger. And we need you. I need you. You must stay safe."
"He's right," Yaner said. "These are the people who murdered your mother and father—well, not your father, but…you know what I mean. They can't be trusted."
Molly froze. "My mother and, well, her husband were murdered? They were in a car accident."
"It wasn't an accident. I heard an old woman admit it—she said she warned them so they could get away, but it was too late. Those Sentinels are evil, evil people."
But her sister had fought for her. Had won against those people. Molly stared down at her hands. Changed hands, the fingers long and slender. She'd known about her sister, but had never tried to find her. She'd imagined the child her parents kept would think nothing good of the child they'd given away. Apparently she'd been wrong. She and her sister shared a bond. They shared blood and birthright. And this sister, Lauren, held a portion of Molly's past that she would never know and never understand otherwise. This sister had actually known her mother. She would have stories to tell. She could answer questions. Molly had burned with questions her entire life—and now the answers to at least some of them would be within her grasp.
She turned away from Seolar and stared at Yaner. "You told me that when I needed you most, you would be here for me."
Yaner blanched, but nodded. "I owe you more than my own life."
"I need you now."
Seolar said, "I forbid you to tell her what she wants to know. They'll kill her if they find her."
But Yaner said, "Imallin, I gave my oath to her, and it is my life if I break it. You may kill me if you must, but if I live, I will do as she commands." He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "I am yours to command, Vodi. I am yours, body and soul. Ask of me what you will." Molly saw tears glistening on his cheeks, saw the trembling of his shoulders.
She felt guilty for what she had to ask him. "You know where they're going."
"They're going to the traitors' castle."
"The rrôn are there," Seolar said, his voice edged wit
h horror. "It's at the edge of their hunting grounds. Good gods, of all the places in the universes for you to go, you cannot think of going there."
Molly kept staring at Yaner. "If I can find the magic to take us there, will you guide me to the right place?"
"Please, Vodi," Yaner whispered. His head hung and he sobbed without sound. "Please do not ask this thing of me."
Molly closed her eyes and clenched her fists. "I must go to her. The Sentinels cannot return here—they might try to hurt Seolar for taking them prisoner. They might do something to hurt the others here. I must go to them, and I must do it now. I have to tell my sister that I want to stay here—that I don't need to be rescued. That I've found my place in the universe. I have to make sure that they understand that—all of them. I will find the magic to take us there. Will you guide me?"
"You know I will," Yaner said, his voice so soft that Molly almost couldn't hear it.
"Then come with me. We have to go outside." She turned to Seolar and kissed him. "I'll be back," she told him. "I promise you, I'll come back to you. I can't explain how I know this, but I do. You and I were meant to be together."
"Murderous wizards and rrôn and traitors and spells run wild, with you heading into the heart of this when it will be at its worst, and you think to reassure me that you won't get hurt."
"I'll be fine. When I talked to the old woman—to June Bug—she said that magic was nothing more than focusing your will on the thing you wanted, and creating it as a real thing in your mind. I know how to do that with healing. I can figure out how to do it with traveling, and with protecting myself, and whatever else I have to do." She laced her fingers through his and smiled up at him. "I'm your Vodi, right?" She tapped the necklace that hung around her throat and said, "I did not come this far to lose now."
"Go, then," he said. "But if you die, know that a people and a way of life die with you."
She nodded. "I'll remember." She kissed him again, then pulled away. "Yaner, we need to get out of doors, away from the copper. How much time do we have?"
"Not much. I had to go a long way from the gate I used to get to you."
"Then let's hurry."
Cat Creek to Oria
While Lauren entertained Jake, Eric, Pete, and the Sentinels spent the morning working out battle plans, tactics and strategies, orders of priority, and lists of supplies. They kept Lauren busy opening up gates into all sorts of places so that they could steal what they needed.
"Not the way we usually operate," Eric told her, "but if we walk out the front door, we're all busted, and we don't have the time to explain right now why we disappeared and how come I'm not dead."
Their first order of business would be the reversal of the spell that had transmuted into the Carolina flu—according to Eric, the second they tracked it down and neutralized it, the deaths on Earth should stop. By last count, deaths had risen to two million. Nothing could save those people already dead, but they had to do everything they could to save the billions who remained. Only these few people could save those still alive. And the clock of dead and dying ticked ever faster.
For the size of the task that faced them, and the endless list of unknowns they had to plan for, they made good time. At just past noon Eric said, "That's it, then. We're as ready as we can get."
Lauren finished their first gate. It would take them to the grounds outside the castle where their three traitors had taken up residence. June Bug said the few traces of plague-related magic that she could find centered there. They would undo the plague spells, then go after the traitors. And when that was done, they would use one of the two self-standing full-length mirrors they'd stolen from an antique shop in Laurinburg to set up a temporary gate to Copper House so that they could retrieve Molly. Lauren would create a gate back to their base of operations in the second one, which the rescue team would take with them.
Lauren sent Eric through first, then all the supplies, then the rest of the Sentinels, and finally Pete. She stood there holding her squirming son, who was delighted to be going through the gate again, and stared at the green fire and the lovely valley, the castle, the forest, and the river that waited for her on the other side. She was taking Jake into what was nothing less than a war zone—but if she stayed, the two of them would face the plague. At least in Oria she could use magic to protect them from plague and whatever else they would face. And for threats that magic couldn't handle—whatever those might be, she had Brian's Browning High-Power in its shoulder holster beneath her jacket.
Safety is an illusion, she reminded herself.
She hugged Jake tight to her chest and stepped into the cool, energizing fire, and for that instant while she hung between worlds, Brian was with her again, whispering, "I love you; I will always love you," in her ear.
And then she and Jake stood at the base of a rocky promontory with the Sentinels and Pete. A broad river rolled past her; a fine, tall stone castle guarded the passage downstream from its place on a bluff. Nothing moved except the water—not in the castle or on the land. The stark trees stood black against a field of melting snow, with black earth showing through in several places, and the blood-red heads of tiny flowers peeking out from the edges of snowdrifts in the midst of the understory.
Nothing moved. And then something did.
A gaunt wolf loped out of the forest to stand on the opposite bank of the river, staring at the humans with hungry yellow eyes. It licked its lips and made a low, coughing sound, and more wolves materialized.
"They're usually terrified of humans," Eric said.
"At least wary," June Bug added. "I saw a National Geo-graphic special on them once—they only go around humans if food in the wild is scarce."
"Those fellows don't look like they've had a decent meal all winter," Lauren said.
"Mama…doggies," Jake murmured, pointing and grinning.
"Not quite, baby," Lauren said, and created a spell which she held in her mind that would turn the whole pack to dust should they decide people looked like a good bet for lunch.
But they didn't. Instead, the leader coughed again, and the pack melted back into the forest.
June Bug had her mirror out, and stood staring at what looked to Lauren like a green-glowing map drawn by earthworms. Endless, constantly moving squiggles that started and stopped, bisected each other's paths, and kept looping back to their starting places. Three of the trails turned red as she looked over June Bug's shoulder.
"Willie, Deever, and Tom are in the castle right now—but they aren't alone," June Bug said. "Not by a long shot. Looks to me like twenty or thirty others are in there with them."
"What are they doing now?" Eric asked.
"Can't tell. They've muddied things up royally—scrubber spells and false trails going at the same time, and very low-level white-noise generators scattered all over the place to lead us away, and a handful of other things I can't pinpoint. But they've shielded the castle. I can tell you they're there, and they aren't alone, and not much else."
Eric turned to Lauren and said, "I'm going to put a shield around Jake, and around the mirrors. That way once you get them made, our gates will be protected. I can't shield you or Pete—you're going to have to cover us if we start taking fire from the castle."
Lauren looked at Jake, and then back at Eric. "I don't like that. What if something happens to me?"
Eric said, "We don't have any good alternatives. If we don't fix this, it's all over for everyone. I don't know what to do about Jake. He shouldn't be here, but the way things are…" Eric shrugged. "…the way things are, you can't be sure he'd be better off back in Cat Creek."
"I know."
"Keep him out of sight and hope for the best."
"We'll manage," Lauren said. "I'll have the gates ready before you need them."
The other Sentinels had formed a half circle around June Bug, facing each other and the high stone walls. They each had something in hand—Lauren could make out some of the objects, but couldn't figure out what
purposes any of them might serve.
When Lauren and Jake joined Pete, he said, "He gave us each one of these." He held up an energy weapon like the one he had used to slow down the veyâr when Eric led the Sentinels out of Copper House. "Yours is with the supplies." She retrieved it, and he showed her the safety, the single-shot setting, and the automatic-weapon setting. When he was confident that she could use the weapon, he watched Jake for her while she set up the gates. She created one to her foyer in Cat Creek, and one to the clearing in the forest near Copper House.
