by Lou Hoffmann
“It will be good to have you here to help keep the Sisterhold safe and well while I’m in the city.”
Nedhra City, he of course meant, where Lucky was going too. He liked the idea, he guessed, except he couldn’t help thinking he and Thurlock were leaving the Sisterhold just when something was going to happen. He’d talked to Thurlock again about the Echo’s warning, but nothing had come of it.
“Luccan, I know you have seen something that seems very much like a prophecy, from our perspective—although it may have been something quite different from the Terrathian’s viewpoint. You perceived that she plucked this vision from the Prime’s mind, as if they were either memories or plans, but they may have simply been idle imaginings—daydreams.”
Lucky had started to object, but Thurlock held up a hand.
“Let me finish,” he said. “You’re right, it’s more likely that these images you saw have some relationship to a real future. But they don’t tell us truly what is going to happen, nor where, nor when. Han is gearing the military up for the possibility of war. He’s the best there is for that job. My job is to figure stuff out—like how these Terrathians might get here, or whether they’re here already, or how they’ve hitched their wagon to the creature that was once your mother—or vice versa. What is causing the mist-shadows, what are they, how much harm can they bring? I need to go to Nedhra City for research. I hope also to enlist a little magical help. I’m loath to leave the Hold, but I can’t justify putting off the trip. And I’ve thought about it and decided the best place for you is with me. So unless you refuse, be ready to leave tomorrow.”
HAN STOOD alone watching a dot in the pale summer sky recede—the Condor winging away south and west toward the Fallows.
Henry and the four riders who were to have been his ground support were supposed to have been the first to leave, with the bulk of the Guard reinforcements following later in the day simply because it was easier to prepare and move a bird and four riders than two full companies—almost five hundred heavily armed and provisioned soldiers, more than two-thirds of their number on foot. As it happened, though, one of the support riders’ mounts came up lame just as they were riding out.
Personally, Han thought suspicious circumstances were involved in the horse’s injury, and he suspected Mahros because he wanted to. He couldn’t make that stick—didn’t even try. No one had seen hide nor hair of the malicious wizard since shortly after the council meeting two days ago, when Lemon Martinez, for reasons unknown, had chased him out of the kitchen garden, much to the amusement of the Sisterhold staff. Regardless of how the horse was lamed, the end result was that the departures had been flipped, and the large force had left hours before the small detail got on the road.
Or sky.
Or sky and road.
Way. Got on the way.
Han rolled his eyes at the nonsense of his own thoughts, which was only taking up the space in his brain that he refused to use for bemoaning his situation. His obstinacy wasn’t strong enough to keep the bemoaning at bay, however, and by the time he’d spent a few hours in what felt like busywork—even though it was important—his thoughts were completely lousy with it.
In order to really get into the bemoaning—which he refused to call whining—he needed to be alone, so instead of eating dinner in the dining room at the Hold, he stormed through the kitchen, swiped some meat and bread, went out into the orchard, plucked an early apple, and flopped down at the base of the tree to eat and think. Although he knew he was perhaps feeling more than he was thinking. He felt a number of things, but mostly angry with the world in general—with Mahros, with his brother for dying, and his sister-in-law for being evil, with every god he could think of, and with—especially with—Thurlock, for making him stay at the Hold instead of riding out with Henry and the Guard. Lastly, he stirred up angry resentment for the legacy in his own damn blood.
Lucky you, little boy, he mocked. Not only do you get to be Han Rha-Behl Ah’Shieth, bind yourself to the wizard’s service, and become responsible for every damn thing in the world. You also get to be the last Drakhonic, and a dragon, no less. You get to have weird eyes and live in fear you’re going to burn the Sisterhold down in your sleep.
He’d mentioned that fear to Thurlock, and the old man had laughed. That didn’t help even a little bit.
And then, his not-whining-but-bemoaning continued, when you finally fall in love with someone who just might be able to love you back, you get to watch him fly away. Maybe forever.
Before he’d finished his sandwich, he’d gotten himself so worked up he couldn’t even swallow. Disgusted he threw the apple away into the orchard as hard as he could.
Or that’s what he meant to do.
What he hadn’t realized was that Olana was sitting very quietly on a stump not more than seven yards away, right in the path of the flung apple. Fortunately, though Olana might be aged by everyday standards, she still had quick reflexes. She held up her right hand as if she was going to catch the apple, and then sort of bowed her head to it. The apple exploded in the air and bits of fruit pulp showered down, all lit up golden like fireworks.
Mortified and feeling ridiculously childish, Han apologized profusely as soon as he was done gaping in shock.
Olana smiled, then started laughing, and Han found it contagious. Soon they were both gripping their sides.
When the laughter passed, and Olana had caught her breath, she said, “You are a very handsome young man when you smile, Han. You should wear joy more often.”
Han could only smile again and wonder at the words. Not in a very long time had anyone said anything remotely like that to him. The words made him feel so human. He realized that though he might be the Commander General of the Sunlands military, and he might be Han Rha-Behl Ah’Shieth, and he might be the last in the noble Drakhonic line, and he might even be a gods-be-damned dragon, he was still just plain Han, a man who’d once been a child, just like every other mortal who walked the worlds. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing while a sense of profound relief washed over him.
He stood up and stepped over to Olana, offering his hand to help her rise. They turned together to walk back toward the Sisterhold as once again the summer sun began to pour its gold over the hills.
As they neared the manor, Han sighed and said quietly, “Thank you, Olana.”
She stopped and tugged his arm until he turned, and then drew him into a tiny, grandmotherly hug. “You, my brother, are very welcome.”
Chapter Twenty-Six: Eagle Speaker
THE ONE drawback to the talisman Thurlock had given Henry was that it didn’t stop him from having a condor’s appetite. Having a human mind to think about what a condor wanted to eat was pretty uncomfortable to say the least—condors are vultures. To try to combat that, Henry had eaten a huge meal as a human before leaving for the Fallows, but condors are always hungry. He really, really didn’t want to stop and wait for that old buck to die, or to steal the remains of that fat rabbit from those… whatever they were that almost but not quite looked like coyotes. He tried to focus instead on geography.
His memory was excellent with Thurlock’s charm around his neck, better than usual, even, and he remembered clearly the maps he’d been shown to guide him toward the Fallows. He easily identified landmarks along the way. A great stone structure almost like a pyramid stood inside the arms of a horseshoe lake, once a castle of sorts but now an outpost for those remarkable birds Henry had fought side by side with in Earth—flame eagles. He dipped a wing in salute as he flew past. A chain of golden-thatch roofs and pasture fences surrounded a hill nearly perfectly circular in shape and mounded like half a globe, a town with a central amphitheater atop it. It was an easily identifiable landmark, and Thurlock had said it was an enclave of the Drakha—Han’s people. He wanted to know more about this culture because he wanted to know everything about Han, but he settled for circling once before he flew onward. He was, after all, on a mission.
He knew he was
getting close to his destination when he flew over a crossroads with a busy outdoor market lining the roads in four directions, and—stretching from there to the north and east—miles and miles of orchards. Near the road a little way south of the market, he spotted the remains of a large, dun-colored animal. He wasn’t sure what kind, but to his condor, it looked delicious. After calculating how long it had been since he’d eaten, he decided he probably would be hungry even in human form, so he opted to take a break.
He landed a good distance from the carcass so he wouldn’t be tempted beyond his powers of restraint, and transformed. The fruit of the orchard looked similar to coconut, and the trees they grew on resembled palms, but with long fronds of leaflets rather than the grasslike blades of a coconut tree. Thurlock had told him the fruit could sustain him if he needed it—high in both moisture and nutrients, including protein. Henry found a couple of ripe-looking specimens already on the ground. He figured that, in the way of fruit farmers everywhere, whoever owned these trees would let the windfalls go to waste, so he wouldn’t be stealing profits by eating them. He sat among some pleasantly fragrant brush in the shade at the foot of a nearby cistern to enjoy his meal.
By his calculations, he didn’t have far to go, maybe another hour in the air before he reached his destination. The description of the Fallows sounded a lot like the badlands in South Dakota, or maybe the channeled scablands in eastern Washington, both places Henry had been—and flown. The North Face, according to the information he’d been given, consisted mostly of a single broken escarpment dauntingly high and appearing insurmountable to the novice eye. Probably, if it wasn’t for the persistent haze in that direction, he’d be able to see it by now, at least with his bird’s eye.
Han had told him where each of the main passes were, and how to get by once he was beyond that first natural wall, but he worried a little about getting lost anyway. Perhaps because of that worry, he didn’t linger long over his wayside meal. The fruits were nutlike, and the center cavity was filled with a sweet, clear juice—satisfying, quick, and delicious. Once he’d eaten and refreshed himself, he took to the wing once again and made the best time south he could manage against a headwind.
Closer, he marveled at the amazing beauty of the land formation, daunting though it looked. Layers running from white to pale pinks and grays to blood red and golden yellow had been carved into fantastic shapes and mysterious voids. With none of the black mist-shadow evident, already the place had a forbidding quality. Henry marveled at the adaptability of a people who could find a perch there and hold it, making it home for generations over fifteen hundred years. He thought about Olana and understood that her soft touch and gentle resilience must certainly reflect a core stronger than steel. And if such a people would come to Thurlock for help and would defer to Han, what did that say about the two of them?
His mind turning to business, he found the westernmost of the three passes and flew upward along its length until he passed the wall of the North Face and entered the interior of the Fallows. It wasn’t much different in character than the outer escarpment, except the crags and spires here hadn’t arranged themselves in a solid line, and at their feet narrow, twisting valleys found a way through the maze. He flew into and out of a few of those and saw some domestic-looking camps with hide-covered, longhouse-like tent structures and families around cookfires. He figured those belonged to the Droghona. He saw nothing that stood out as not belonging and no people away from the camps, and each canyon diminished into a small coulee before long. Finally, from high above, he found a broad, deep valley that formed three quarters of a circle around a central mesa, and he flew down into it.
The foulness of the air hit him immediately once he was below the mesa top. Ordinary foul odors don’t bother a condor, but this was different—rot, but of an unnatural and sickening sort. It reminded him of Luccan’s sickroom, where Henry had sat vigil over Han and Lucky along with Olana and Thurlock, but it wasn’t exactly the same. It also resembled the stench of the magic he and Thurlock had encountered in the portal cave. Trying to put his mental finger on the dissimilarity, he decided this miasma seemed older, more durable.
As soon as he’d smelled the stench, he’d known without doubt that he would see some of the mist-shadows, as Lucky called them, and he was right. All along the cliff below the mesa, the shadows hung in places like curtains, stood in pillars, or lay in pools along the ground. From high above, he got a different perspective, and he tried to put a description of it in his thoughts, opening his mind to Han.
“Han?”
“Henry. You have a report?”
“I’ve found some of those mist-shadows. If I concentrate on what the place looks like, can you see it?”
“I can probably get the outlines, at least. Try.”
After a few minutes of Henry focusing on sending the images he saw rather than words, Han came back with “I know where that place is. It’s called Giant’s Hand. I’ve been that deep into the Fallows once, chasing after an injured stallion.”
“Good name for the place.” Henry put a smile into the thought, hoping to cheer Han a little, but then returned to the business of his report. “These mist-shadows, here. They look like the other ones I’ve seen, but they’re huge. And from this perspective, they don’t look so much like mists as places where this world has worn thin and something else took its place. But that something else is… alien—not of this world, but maybe not of another world, either. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make sense.”
“It does,” Han reassured.
“Odd, but it reminds me of what my uncle Hank used to say about the Gateway—not the big one Lucky made, but the one in the cave down in Black Creek Ravine. Sometimes things within the cavern would sort of shift, and when that happened he’d say, ‘It’s like they’re neither here nor there, and they’re never quite where they belong.’”
“Hm,” Han said, but no more.
Henry said, “So it’s hard for me to fly and look and send you these thoughts at the same time. There are people down there. Let me get an eyeball on them, and I’ll dial you back up, okay?”
From high above the valley, the people on the ground were distant enough to look like tiny dolls to Henry. They moved about in small, ant-like groups in a few places near the cliff wall, as if tending to some errand. A larger camp—a base camp, Henry figured—had been tucked away in a sheltered curve under a rock ledge across the valley. What looked like a deep shadow against the stone of the mountain could have been a cave, and it piqued his curiosity. But, he reminded himself, my orders are to not investigate.
The tents looked like army canvas but with no identifying marks, so likely they were surplus. And the people wore fatigues: camo in the colors of the valley, and boots that looked very familiar to an ex-soldier like Henry. Not wanting to alert them that he was an unnaturally curious condor—especially since condors didn’t even exist in Ethra—he couldn’t do too many close flybys. He swooped low and circled just once to confirm that yes, they were carrying guns—everything from holstered handguns to what looked like M16s, the military version of an AK-47.
He perched atop a spindly lightning-split evergreen and attempted to contact Han to report those sightings.
“Henry?”
“Yes, sir, it’s me. It’s not good. Soldiers and yeah, you were right, some pretty serious guns.” He described what he saw in a little more detail and was just about to tell him about the mist-shadows and his thoughts about them when something with a lot of force behind it streaked by close enough to disturb the air around his head. A second later, he heard the gunshot.
Needing all of his attention on saving himself, he dropped the connection with Han and flew in an avoidance pattern as much as the winds would let him, zigging, zagging, and changing altitude in no predictable pattern. More shots echoed from the steep cliffs surrounding the valley, but none got close to him. But then, near the mesa, he flew over some trees to find that just on the other side of them, a small group
of soldiers had come into the open, and they were pointing up at him. One, kneeling before a tripod-mounted sniper rifle, looked to be taking aim.
Without time to think, Henry banked sharply toward the mesa… and headed straight into a curtain of solid-seeming blackness. It was too late to change course, so in he went, hoping that his condor form would offer him some protection from whatever was inside or beyond the mist-shadow.
He got the surprise of his life, and after all his recent surprises, that was saying something.
HENRY BLINKED as he flew into the darkness, then opened his eyes to sunlight and immediately knew something had gone terribly wrong. He’d felt himself transform, as if the dark, magical mist had stripped the condor from him, but his upthrust “arm” remained covered in still-attached flight feathers. Feathers that couldn’t keep the heavier body of a man aloft for long. He began to plummet, succeeded in slowing his descent slightly but landed hard on the edge of a huge chunk of black basalt sticking out of a mountainside overlooking a new landscape.
Arid land, but not nearly so dry and rocky as the Fallows. As a firefighter he recognized the type of ecosystem as “dry forest.” Rocky outcroppings and sparse stands of evergreens dominated the upper slopes that edged the valley, but the grasses on the lower slopes and valley floor shone a pale summer green. Sunflowers and late afternoon sunlight gilded everything, including a long, paved road that ran the length of the valley to one side, ducking in and out of sight around groves and hills. A few dirt tracks—wide enough for cars and trucks—branched off the road at irregular intervals.
He nodded to himself, confirming what he’d known from the moment he opened his eyes—or nose, or maybe all his senses combined. Now that he’d been to a couple of other worlds, he knew Earth when he was standing in it, and he was. Knowing that might have eased his mind a little, but not enough.
