A World Too Near (8 page)

“The result being,” he went on, “you are here unscathed instead of burned or blown to pulp.” He couldn’t help but smirk. “You think you can cross without dying in the dark? Quite wrong. The only thing that saved you was that I drew you in.” He jerked his head at the crevice. “She almost died, too. Still might.”

Quinn looked at Benhu with an unnerving sideways glance.

“Yes, she lives, don’t worry. Burned, though.” He pointed at the figure lying in the shadows on the floor.

Lurching to his feet, Quinn strode to the woman’s side. He could surely see that Benhu had taken care of her: a blanket, and laid out comfortably. It was all he’d had time for, but the man seemed enraged.

Quinn stalked back to him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “A bad mistake, Benhu. Send her back.”

Benhu was aghast. “Back? Send back? The lord said nothing about—”

Quinn yanked Benhu around to face the veil-of-worlds. “Put her in there and do what you do. Now.” Shoving Benhu away, Quinn rushed to the unconscious woman and began dragging her to the veil.

“No,” Benhu said, running to prevent him. “You can’t do that. Put her down.” He pulled on the woman’s arm, slapping at Quinn. A nasty blow sent Benhu sprawling as Quinn continued to haul the woman toward the veil.

Benhu crouched against the wall, rubbing his sore shoulder. “Go ahead and kill her then. I have no part in this.”

During the dragging, the blanket had come off the still-unconscious woman, and now Quinn saw her wounds. He paused, breathing heavily from his exertions and the stress of the crossing.

He whispered, “Why can’t you send her back?”

Benhu thought his dignity better served by standing up. He did so, rising to his full height, considerably less than Titus Quinn’s. “First, because in her condition, she wouldn’t survive a crossing. And second, because the gracious lord gave me no instructions as to the particulars of reverse passage. In other words, I don’t know how.”

Quinn fixed him with an awful stare. “Any more than a beku can pilot the Nigh?”

Benhu straightened his clothes. That was a foul thing to say. “I should have let you suffocate in that stinking jelly. Ever watch a man suffocate?”

“Yes.”

Indeed, Quinn looked like a man who didn’t care when or how he died. Those kind were the most dangerous. And though he would sooner have kissed a Gond, Benhu was now stuck with him. He put on his most superior demeanor. “I will await your apology outside.”

Quinn growled, “What am I supposed to do with
her
?”

“I don’t know or care. She’s yours now.”

Benhu walked out of the chamber, eager to exit the chamber in case Quinn dispatched the unfortunate woman with his knife. Whoever she was, she appeared to be about as welcome as a horde of gnats on a beku’s arse.

CHAPTER SIX

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be
invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the
enemy’s fate in our hands.

—from Tun Mu’s
Annals of War

B
EHIND JOHANNA LOOMED THE STORM WALL. She made it her practice never to look at it, with its towering blue-black folds, like an aurora borealis gone dark and mad.

“He’s not coming,” Johanna murmured. She looked out toward the mustering grounds six stories below. At her side, Pai held a square sunshade. A rivulet of sweat traced a path under Johanna’s jacket. So much depended on the creature making an appearance.

“We can wait a bit longer,” Pai said. She had steady nerves, this Chalin woman who had become her friend and chief spy, although Johanna and Pai carefully hid their friendship behind a façade of arrogant mistress and timid servant. Pai’s golden eyes swept the yard, searching for the appearance of Morhab the engineer. Today the grounds were empty, the phase of day too hot for long exertion and the troops having no maneuvers planned.

In an arched doorway nearby, SuMing stood in the cool shade, watching them, ready to serve if called. She wouldn’t approach the edge of the walkway, having developed an aversion to heights. So still and quiet, this young retainer. So . . . chastened. SuMing’s neck didn’t bend naturally any longer, having healed poorly. She might well blame Johanna for this, but she was still her servant and now better knew her place.

Pai wasn’t Johanna’s only agent. There was also Gao, who was at this moment searching through the chamber of Morhab the Gond and desperately needed Johanna to delay Morhab from prematurely returning.

“Pai, where is he?”

“Still in the watch, mistress. I’m sure.”

As Heart of Day beat down on the yard, a dust devil skipped along, leaving a powdery tail in its wake. On these grounds officers would drill the garrison, although no one could remember if the Paion had ever infiltrated this far.

They called this fortress the Repel, after its function to repulse Paion incursions. Laid out in a half-moon shape against the storm wall, it possessed five domains. The innermost, and so-called fifth domain, was the centrum, her home and the home of Lord Inweer. Four lines of defense enclosed the centrum and thwarted an enemy that, when it came, would likely come in hordes. The fourth domain was the gathering yard, where the stark grounds would afford an enemy no cover. The third domain, the watch, served as a barracks, and was a stone fortress in its own right. Before the outer wall of the watch lay the second domain, the sere, a sector of blackened soil exposing trespassers to incineration. Some days Johanna could see a thermal column rise above the watch, bearing the charred dust of some hapless creature. Facing the plains of Ahnenhoon in first defensive position was the legendary terminus, a maze that swallowed any life that ventured inside. Open doorways riddled this outer wall, perhaps more unnerving than a solid buttress would have been. Johanna’s understanding of the domains was collected from legend and hearsay. There were no maps or layouts, except in the minds of its Tarig builders and in the locked chests of Morhab, Lord Inweer’s
master engineer, the highest position of any non-Tarig in the Ahnenhoon Repel, save only the generals of the army.

Gao had access to Morhab’s chests. In past forays he had found pieces of maps, fragments showing the centuries-long building and rebuilding of the five domains—most particularly, fragments pertaining to the engine’s containment chamber. He committed these to memory, assembling a piecemeal understanding of the immensity of the Repel.

To distract Johanna, Pai pointed into the distance. “See, mistress, there is a sky bulb floating.”

Johanna made out an airship, a mere speck hovering over the plains. It might be filled with Paion, but if it signified a fight, the sounds of battle didn’t travel this far. The Long War, as it was called, hardly registered on Johanna’s life, though she lived only a few miles from its eternal clashes. The daily presence of war-at-a-distance made her complacent.

The Paion, whatever they were, attacked only at Ahnenhoon. The lords could certainly prevail over the Paion technologies—but they were afraid to use weapons of devastation in a universe so susceptible to collapse. So Johanna believed. Thus the fragile Entire was protected from ruinous weaponry, and those who loved fighting could have a nice little war. The war had a side benefit: it gave cover to the great engine that throbbed beneath her feet. The denizens of the Entire—at least those who lived in the Repel— believed the engine created a protective field around Ahnenhoon, hindering if not preventing Paion intrusion. A nice fiction, and a useful one.

Pai whispered, “He comes.”

A sled had emerged from a low door in the watch. The engineer, at last. Johanna could identify his huge form even from here. If Morhab found Gao snooping, it could all be laid bare. Laid bare to her lord—and she hadn’t the stomach to imagine it.

She turned from the overlook. “Let us greet my friend Morhab,” she said, striding past SuMing with Pai rushing to keep up, holding the sunshade and pretending to protest at Johanna’s hasty departure.

Down the winding stairs Johanna went, sweating with exertion at descending the Tarig-sized stairs and steeling herself for the encounter with Morhab. Here in the depths of the centrum, surrounded by acres of such stone as the Tarig devised, Johanna heard the drumming of the engine. It pulsed in the stone, in the air, in her feet. Pai said she couldn’t often hear the engine, leading Johanna to suspect that she carried the hateful noise inside her head— the thrum, thrum, thrumming, like a dark god moaning in his sleep.

Her lord was the keeper of the engine. He wanted her to forgive him that, and perhaps she did. It wouldn’t stop her from bringing the engine down. Then she would face Lord Inweer, a thing she dreaded far more than facing this odious Gond. That gave her more courage, and she continued her rush down the stairs to the gathering yard.

Morhab required a powered sled or litter for his mobility. Legless, he had the body of a bloated snake, like all Gond. His massive head was crowned by two short horns, and ended in a pointed chin trailing a wisp of a beard. Vestigial wings lay slick upon his back, rustling now and then as though stirred by a memory of flight. Had the creature been smaller—Morhab was the size of a steer—she might have borne the sight of him more easily.

There was, however, the fact that he looked like a demon.

His drooping red gums, along with the horns and long chin, made the Gond look unnervingly like Satan in his guise of a cloven-footed, horned beast. Well, the Gond didn’t have legs or hooves, so there was that discrepancy, yet the impression was so vivid that she had taken to crossing herself when meeting Morhab.

There might be a factual basis for this coincidence. Johanna knew that the Gond, like all Entire sentients except the Tarig, were copied from different races in the Rose. Pai and SuMing, as Chalin, were of human form. The Gond must have an analogue race in the Rose. Perhaps the Gond had come as an alien species to visit Earth long ago. People of the Middle Ages might well have given them a bad reception, and the violent encounters could have spawned a legend of evil. Still, all logic aside, Johanna shuddered to meet him.

“Open the door, SuMing.” Obeying, SuMing pushed on the massive metal barrier that swung easily on its hinges, allowing the three of them to enter the gathering yard. Pai unfurled the sunshade again.

“By the bright, pick up your feet, Pai,” Johanna snapped. She hastened onto the parade grounds, where she spied Morhab’s sled, still on the other side.

From her spies, Johanna knew that Morhab would be in the watch today, inspecting improvements made to house a fresh contingent of soldiers— Hirrin by species, with their own billeting needs. Now the engineer’s course took him on a diagonal across the yard toward one of the centrum’s several doors. Morhab must have seen Johanna, because the sled’s course swerved to meet them. The creature was easily lured. Bloated in form and self-regard, he couldn’t imagine that she found him loathsome.

Propelled by silent means, the floating conveyance lumbered under its weight of Gond, attendants, and equipage. It stopped in front of her, swaying slightly as Ysli and Chalin attendants jumped down, bowing to Johanna.

“Master Morhab,” she said, bowing low. When she rose again, her smile was fixed and convincing, she trusted.

Morhab’s profound bass voice came to her, clotted, as though he needed to cough. “Now then, Mistress Johanna. Too hot for strolling,” he said, “unless you came to see me.” He tucked his wings closer to his body, as though aware they were not his best feature.

She was already feeling nauseous, but took a cleansing breath, determined to be at least as courageous as Gao.

“Master Morhab, I saw you from the ramparts, and hoped for diversion from a day already long.” She added, “Although I’m sure you have great matters in hand. No time for idle women.”

The Gond’s mouth was too large to be fully expressive, so Johanna could never judge whether a Gond smiled. But she thought he was pleased. His nostrils expanded, drinking in her scent. Morhab glanced at his stonewell computers built into the half-walls of his sled, monitoring his numbers and perhaps judging whether he did have time for her. But his curiosity won out.

“You will join me here.” He waved his thin arms at his attendants, one of whom bent down to form a step with his laced hands.

Johanna looked to the stone embrasures of the centrum, wondering if anyone watched her. Lord Inweer might well look down and wonder why she would seek out a creature that he knew she disliked. Her ready answer:
For
the sake of Gao, my lord. That the engineer treat him well.
She pretended to take a kindly interest in Gao and his family, but it was more than that. It was the first layer of lies that had by now grown deep.

Johanna allowed herself to be helped into the sled, where she sat opposite Morhab on a seat littered with scrolls. He leaned forward to push them aside, coming so near that her gorge rose from his breath. His carnivore diet mulched in his huge stomach and vented abominably.

He turned his prodigious head toward SuMing and Pai. “Yes, board, sharing with my retainers.” They climbed next to Morhab’s servants, sitting with feet hanging over the edge of the sled.

Johanna smiled at Morhab. “I would take it as an extreme indulgence if you would continue your inspections of the gathering yard, Master Morhab.

We will ride for a time and observe your important work.” She knew very well he wasn’t inspecting the yard or its surrounding walls today, but hoped he would change his plans.

A Ysli servant came around the perimeter of the sled. “Mistress,” the Ysli said, extending a hirsute hand and handing up her sunshade. Taking it, she popped it open, it being her custom to block her view of the relentless bright.

Observing the parasol, Morhab remarked, “Delicate.” The word sounded strange coming from such a mouth. In close approximation to him, Johanna was acutely aware of his massive and useless body, its lower half hidden by a moist blanket that served to condition his skin. Morhab turned to adjust his pillows, using his short arms and exposing his glistening wings, like a beetle’s.