Strange Land (The Young Ancients Book 15) (19 page)

Tim's voice came from her com too.

"We've got a major problem on the Southern side of the city. The explosion here was so large that a good chunk of the outer wall is gone. It will take a few days to rebuild it. The shield barriers aren't enough for it."

Ali tilted her head.

"Can we put a forest dome over it? The new shields that Guide made?"

There was a low hiss, as Timon seemed to be thinking.

"We might be able to do that. It's a big area to cover. That would be faster though. Can we get one of those over here?"

A different voice came on then, which took her longer to identify, even though she knew it.

"Guide is over helping Sam. I can get to his things, if he has any left here?" It was a deep and manly voice, that sounded calm and collected.

Really, they all did.

"Kolb? That will work. On the shelf under the wine cabinet." That
had
to be Guide.

It took her a moment to realize that Tor had opened the communications device up, so that certain people could talk over it. Rewriting the magic, while standing there in the middle of the main walk area of a city under attack. In under a minute. It was the kind of thing that should have taken months of work, and
probably
ended in failure. There it was though, right in front of her.

Sara looked over at Tor, and tried to make sure he could see her lips. She'd had classes in that kind of thing, so maybe he had too?

"I'm heading up the evacuation at the docks then. Keep people moving that way. We should have this in hand then. Come on, all of you that are coming with me..." She waved, hoping Tor would repeat her words and get his students going the right direction.

It turned out not to be needed.

Ali waved at them all too.

"You all heard her. Come on. Collect people as we go! Hurry!" There was no particular sound of panic to her words, but anyone not realizing that Alyssa Baker was a steel fist under the candy coating on the outside that practically begged to be eaten, wasn't paying attention. It was part of Sara's job to know that sort of thing however.

They all moved off then, including Tor. For some reason she'd figured that he would have plunked down and started trying to build some miracle device that would save them all. Making air from nothing using only his will and a bit of dust from outside, or possibly creating a giant dome of force to... Do something she couldn't even imagine.

The thing there was that they didn't really need that. After a moment, she saw him nod at her, even as they headed down the crowded corridor to her ship. It was the only one in at the moment, but Sara caught that Gemma was about to go and get hers set up too, by simply heading outside to the surface.

That was the right plan, but also brave, considering that she didn't know for certain that the Tim-shield would protect her well enough to survive trying. It would, so Sara waved to her.

"Captain Gemma is going to go and set up her jump ship. It's her first time..." She could set up a ship like that, and so could Tiera, most likely, but of the people they had there, she didn't know who else could manage it. Most of the people she could see were strangers after all.

That didn't stop one of the men, who was from Vagus, and a mage, if his red robes could be trusted, from dashing over to the girl and leading her outside. Hopefully he knew what to do, since Sara had to get her own vessel ready.

Hours passed then, with several ships being set to making dust and rock from the surface into air directly. Others didn't bother, growing to full size and taking loads of people over to Second City. No one else called it Samville, Sara noticed.

She kept moving back into the city, making sure that everyone was able to get into an area that had at least some breathable air left. At about a half day in, exhaustion moving over her, she found a strange sight in a room on the third level. It was a huge space, but also filled with people that should have been sitting in a nice warm ship at the moment.

They were all praying. Silently, since none of them had been patched into the communications device system like she was. It paid to have good friends, sometimes.

These were people from Tellerand. All saints, but also all huddled together, counting on their god to save them. As if he weren't doing that already, by sending them people to help them out? She started to feel a bit upset by the idea, and that almost doubled when she noticed that Roget Smithson was there, leading them. A person that really should have known better.

Well, she could kick his butt later, she decided. For the time being they really needed to either get the people gathered there out, or bring some air inside for them. It might be doable, if it was needed. Why that would be, she didn't know.

Sara looked around, saw the fear on the collected faces, and wondered what was really going on inside their minds. Rather than yell at them, or threaten to leave them there alone, which is what she would have done in Noram, she decided to put her knowledge of these people to use and hope she just wasn't too far off.

"Praise be the All High! I found you. Come this way. We have room on the ship, and people need your help. I'm surprised Roget didn't lead you all over yet." The instructions had been coming in, even if most of them had been in Noram standard...

Actually all of them had been. Blanching a little, Sara started calling out directions in every language she knew. They were all the same, more or less, though her Vagish wasn't really up to it, and after she went the first time a soft female voice came on directly after her, saying what she wanted correctly.

It was enough that the Tellerand people seemed relieved, and started moving then. That still didn't explain why Roget hadn't gotten them going, since these weren't people that were too slow to understand the air had gone out for a while. Sara was willing to bet that it wasn't him being stupid though. The man
wasn't
. That meant his, and possibly all of these people, had felt like their hands were tied for some reason.

They were all in black, the ladies in dresses, and the men in jackets, trousers and black hats. The women mainly had their hair covered too, but not all of them did. Near the back was one man that was dressed in red and bright blue. Almost like he was from Noram. He was darker than the others too. Sara waved to him, not knowing who was who there yet.

She pointed, not wanting to broadcast everything she was saying to the entire population of Harmony.

First she went to Roget, her hand held out toward him, palm down. Pointing without being rude. The man looked sheepish, but reached out to take her hand. That didn't work with the shields on, but his being willing to showed that he was learning. She grinned at him for a half second.

"Follow Ambassador Smithson to the docks. This other man will make sure no one gets lost." She spoke Tellerand for them, but the dark skinned younger man seemed a bit baffled by it, so she tried again in Noram Standard. That got his eyes to go wide.

The common looking fellow nodded at her, then moved toward the back of the line of people that were leaving.

Sara went out into the main walkway for that level and started calling out instructions again. She was going to need a lot of help, if they were going to find everyone that might be out of touch. Even there not everyone would have a communications device. Though thankfully
most
did.

"Tor, or Tiera really, we have people in here still. Ones that either can't hear us or who are afraid to come out. We need an announcement from you Tiera, telling them not to be afraid. We also need a search crew to go from door to door. People that can speak as many languages as possible. I don't know what we're supposed to do if places are locked." Because scared people
would
lock the doors, wouldn't they? So would anyone just leaving their stuff behind for a while.

She was about to write off anyone that they couldn't find, when Tor broke in.

"All the builders, mages and anyone else that can sense people are needed to go inside right now. Search and rescue. Anyone with technologies that might work for this as well." Then he quickly rolled that off in six languages. Then he added two more.

Sara hadn't thought there were more than four, or five if you included the funny way country folk spoke. Then she realized that a lot of places had to have people like that, didn't they?

Still, when Roget and his group of people started away, one of them, a positively tiny woman, who was clutching a cross in her hands moved toward Sara. She touched her own forehead and held it. Or got as close as she could with a shield on, which wasn't
that
close. The plain cord in her hand had simple wood beads on it, in different tones of wood brown. It was wrapped around her fingers so tightly that her skin was a combination of white and red. Her lips matched it too, she was so tense.

No,
terrified
. That, and ashamed of something.

Given how people with the simple ability to turn on magic had been treated by her people in her own land, claiming that she could sense people at a distance was probably enough to have her killed. Possibly even by the other saints that were watching her as they all left.

Except for one very old man, who Sara thought was probably their Day Leader. He turned and came back to them, also filled with shame. The others looked horrified, except for the commoner man in red and blue behind them, who waved his arms about, trying to get them all to move away.

He mouthed something, looking at the front of the line, doing his job.

"High saints."

That wasn't a thing, as far as Sara had ever heard, but was actually a
marvelous
idea.

"Right. Terry, have you announced the thing with the High Saints yet? That those that can do magic are required to use their abilities in the service of the All High and all people everywhere?" So, she sounded desperately transparent, but not ten seconds later the boy spoke to them all. In Tellerand.

It was accent free as far as she could tell. Nearly perfect.

"This is High Day Leader Terrance Baker. Let it be known that the All High has spoken to me, in a dream, and wishes all to know that those of his people that can perform miracles, His High Saints, are to be trusted and listened to by all. Any with these gifts from Him must use them now, and always, to save any in need. Praised be His Name." Then he repeated it in Noram Standard and, to her surprise, Vagish.

He missed Soam for some reason, but a younger voice did that one. The Ancient of Soam itself, being Sara's guess. Taman Baker. She was nine now, or close to it. Also smart enough to realize that this was no time to be playing around. There was nothing added to the message but what her brother had said, then the device went silent.

If that announcement helped the people left with her, the tiny woman and the older man, it didn't show. They both closed their eyes though and pointed off to the right. Then they rose into the air about two feet off the ground, with nothing under them, and moved off that way. She followed, until, about ten minutes later, they found themselves outside a stone door. In the residential area to the south of the entire city.

It was, as she suspected, locked. Worse, the cutter she had wasn't going to work with a shield on. Taking a deep breath and then letting it out, she aimed the focus stone piece at the door, activated it, then turned her shield off.

It was a mistake, she knew. Her ears rang, nearly bursting with the pressure change. Then her eyes tried to go dim as they sparked with pain. It was the vacuum of space, but it was close enough to make her day less than chipper and happy. She made a single cut before her shield kicked in. There was no air in it, but the door opened when the older fellow with his gray beard pulled on it then.

Slowly, over the course of a minute, maybe less, air formed around her. Inside the room that they opened were at least fifty small dark people in bright colors, huddling as close together as they could manage.

She spoke to them in Afrak.

"Come with us! We have a safe place for you. Come!"

It wasn't until the first of them started moving that she realized how she must look. She just didn't think about it. Once they were headed the right direction and had a guide, it was time to start looking for the next people.

That was all she could do. Even though she knew she was going to be sorry about things in the morning. For the time being, saving lives was all that mattered. It had to be.

Chapter six

It wasn't just her doing the searching and in all they found over six hundred people hidden away in different places. Over half of them were children and a full third of those were doing a pretty good job of making sure no one could find them. At the back of closet spaces, hidden in bins and under their beds. Her secret fear there was that they'd find more of them over the next few days and weeks. Their bodies eaten away until there wasn't enough left to keep them alive. Like acid burning them, slowly, as their bodies were taken to make the air they needed to breathe.

That had always been a trade off, but it meant they had a time schedule to keep, if they didn't want half disintegrated corpses popping up when everyone got home in a few days.

There was a crew already sealing all of the places that had been breached, which was going to be needed before they could refill the city with air. As soon as that was done there were a hundred ground crews ready to work round the clock to make certain things didn't take too long.

Sara was planning to help with that, but she really needed a nap first. When she got onto her ship, the Pain Maiden, that was the first thing she planned to do. After all, she didn't smell bad. All of the sweat and dirt had been turned into clean air already. Twice. It wasn't until she got to her cabin, which was where it always was, that she understood why people had been giving her slightly strange looks the whole time.

For one thing, her golden hair, that had always been part of her, was gone. All of it. Looking into the shimmering wall that reflected a good bit better than a normal mirror, she winced. Her eyes were red shot and had blood in them in places, and her skin was pocked with bits of black, blue and red as well. In the main, she looked thoroughly beaten. She felt it too, but that was just because she hadn't slept for a long time.