Warp World (2 page)

Danger lurked above, below, and on all sides.

The rider engines growled in low idle. Even now the remaining forces of House Etiphar had to be ready to evacuate, yet again, if their enemies located them before they were ready to make their final move. Technicians labored to repair damaged equipment. Troops checked their weapons, redistributed their ammunition.

House Master Urvish Etiphar, the only Person of authority above the Grand Marshal, touched her shoulder lightly. “Will this work?”

She looked at him, mouth open for a moment as she processed the question. “Yes. Yes it will. Julewa Keep can be fortified. We carried away enough anti-rider weaponry to prevent our enemies from attacking directly. We can hold Julewa until the end of time, House Master.”

Their
enemies
, Devian mused, now consisted of nearly the whole of the World’s population.

“Thank you, Devian. I knew I could count on my people. What about the ones living in the Keep?”

“Escaped caj and bandits. Julewa’s been abandoned for over two hundred years. Rocks and spit, that’s the worst we face in there.”

“Carry on then.” A wave of his hand dismissed her, the House Master returned to his family.

Devian pulled the helmet back onto her head, bucking the strap into place as she turned away to hide her revulsion. It was the House Master’s damned fault they were in this place. Urvis Etiphar knew he could trust his people, but the People knew they couldn’t trust Urvis Etiphar.

Now every raider unit on the World wanted Etiphar blood.

She reached a hand to her helmet to activate the comm but hesitated. She knew what was waiting, the cacophony across the comm channels as the remnants of her troops prepared for the assault. The final charge of House Etiphar, most likely, and this one had to succeed. She flipped the small switch and was bombarded with voices.

The World
Year 976 of the Well

V
oices. Ama stepped into the warp gate, the temporary passageway between worlds, and was swarmed by voices. Her second crossing to Seg’s world and, just as before, she felt as if she were being pulled, stretched in all directions, her insides twisted, her ears assaulted by voices, distant and desperate. But this time, the voices were getting close, scratching past whatever defenses her mind erected to keep them out. Not thousands, either, but millions. All telling their stories and Ama hearing every one at once.

Below the noise, she sensed, was peace. She longed to dive down there, to escape the din. But there was something else, something lurking just below that layer of peace. Something monstrous, hungry, ready to devour her.

I’m trapped,
Ama thought, and a knot of panic formed in her stomach.

The pulling and stretching threatened to tear her skin open. If only she could move—forward to Seg’s world, or back to her own, it didn’t matter which. She strained against the force holding her but her body didn’t budge even a hair’s width. How long had she been here? Hours? Days?

Then, like a cork freed from a bottle, she burst out through the gate and fell, gasping, to her knees. Her left hand found the floor—smooth, metallic—and sent a stab of pain up into her shoulder. She would have collapsed if it weren’t for her right hand. She looked up to see it still clasped in Seg’s. His eyes, that silvery brown color that reminded her of the winter coat of a volp, were fixed on her with a mixture of concern and puzzlement.

“How long were we in there?” she said, panting.

Seg’s eyes narrowed slightly. “A second or two.” He studied her for a moment. “Ama? Is something wrong?”

She caught her breath then glanced around.

“I’m fine.
”
Not wholly a lie, now that she was free of that Nen-cursed warp.

Ama pushed up from the floor. She could see they were in a decontamination chamber, though this one was big enough to accommodate the metal skyship that had attacked the Secat and carried eighty men to freedom. Shan Welkin, the woman who had piloted the skyship, was making a slow survey of the craft, inspecting for damage.

But Ama was not interested in Shan. She swung her head to the left, where fifty men, all Kenda like her, took in this new world. Some huddled together, others raised their sefts—long staffs topped with curved blades—ready for a fight. Their voices echoed in the chamber as they muttered among themselves.

She picked out Viren Hult and, unsurprisingly, he looked merely amused by the scene. Unlike her, he seemed
very
interested in Shan, as he slapped his friend Prow on the back and pointed toward the skyship.

Young Tirnich, who had helped Seg and the raider Fismar at the Secat, wandered through the crowd in a daze. His eyes and mouth were agape at the sights around him. But where Tirnich’s expression was one of boyish wonder, the majority of the men looked on with obvious suspicion and fear.

“It’s a trick!” A former prisoner shouted in the Kenda tongue and raised a hand that was missing the first finger. By his accent, Ama guessed he was a Westie. “Brin spoke nothing of this!”

The outburst rallied some of the others who protested, raised fists, and banged their sefts against the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ama saw a crowd of men and women in white suits that covered every inch of their body—the decontamination crew, medicals, guards—waiting against the wall opposite the men. One of the white-suits raised a weapon and stepped forward.

“I gave you orders!” Seg shouted, teeth clenched at the pain of the effort.

The white-suit hesitated, then stepped back.

Ama walked as quickly as she could, limping slightly, to the crowd of Kenda. “Honor your oaths to Brin! My cousin did not deceive you.” She spoke in the secret language of her people.

Her reminder calmed the men somewhat, though uncertainty remained firmly on their faces. One of the youngest, a scrawny boy who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, could not move his wide eyes from the waiting decon crew. Ama felt a swell of pity. Seg had brought these men here as part of some plan to change his world and she knew he would protect them, but to his eyes there was nothing to fear in this room.

As Seg arrived at her side, she whispered and pointed to the white-suits. “The first time I came to your world, I thought they were demons. It was terrifying.”

He nodded and turned to face the Kenda, then indicated the chamber with his hand. “This is a room for cleansing, to ensure we do not bring sickness from your world to ours and to protect you from any potential poisons. Those are men and women. They wear special protective clothing, that is all.”

At Seg’s explanation, men lowered their sefts. Hostility was replaced by a natural wariness, and they began to look less like a pack of cornered animals. In contrast, the white-suits, held in place by Seg’s orders, muttered more loudly and looked through their visors at Seg with growing unease and contempt.

“Get to the part about the women and the drink!” Viren shouted to Seg. The chamber echoed with Kenda laughter.

Seg scowled but did not respond. Ama stifled a smile. If it had come from any other man, Seg might have laughed as well, but Viren had gotten under his skin from their first meeting, when he and his partner, Prow, had attempted to drug and rob him.

Ama regarded the Kenda more closely, now that the alarm had diminished. They were not precisely the band of warriors Seg or Brin had hoped for.

There was a small contingent who had fought at the Alisir temple with Seg’s people and, later, helped storm the Secat to free the Kenda prisoners there. These men sported bandaged limbs, their clothes were torn and bloodied, and dark circles ringed sleepless eyes. Yet, no matter how fatigued and wounded they were, a good meal, a visit from a healer, and a full night’s sleep would soon set these men right.

A larger number, however, would need more time and care to heal. These were former prisoners of the Secat, who had been freed from a life of horror and neglect only that morning. Their dull gray prison uniforms hung loose on their frames, giving them the appearance of children playing dress-up, but their hollow eyes and sunken cheeks made it clear that once those same uniforms must have fit well, even snugly. They scratched at parasites that crawled in their hair and on their skin. Fresh wounds and old scars stood out, silent testament to the brutality the prisoners had endured at the hands of their Damiar guards.

Scattered among the fifty were a few who were not yet bearded and some others with a noticeable portion of white or gray in their chin whiskers. Too young and too old.

A
Westie crew
, Ama’s father would have called these Kenda. Boat captains in the Western Islands of her world were known for hiring bedraggled and sea-worn crewmen, in the name of saving a coin or two.

“We’ve arrived,” Seg said when the men had quieted. “As I have explained, these processors must cleanse you before we move you into your new home. That will require—” He paused for the slightest moment. “—removing your clothes.”

As Seg spoke, the auto-med hooked to his arm chimed, its pulsing tone ringing out across the silent room. The men muttered again at this bit of magic. With a look to the sleeve, Seg waved a dismissive hand. “It’s nothing, pay it no mind.”

As if answering him, the sleeve chimed again, a sequenced, continuous beeping. An orange alert flashed on its screen, synchronous with the beeps.

He was overdoing it. His body needed more medical attention than the auto-med could provide.

He stabbed his fingers at the sleeve. Red, blue, then amber lights flashed in protest as the machine keened at him, and the screen finally went dark.

Ama frowned but he avoided her gaze.

“You will unclothe and let these people … cleanse you,” Seg continued. He paused, looked to the white-suits then back to the Kenda. Ama could see he was drawing on some memory.

“No hurt white clothes people,” he said to the men, in his broken Kenda.

“Unless I authorize it,” he added, in the common tongue.

He looked from man to man, let them feel the weight of the moment. “White clothes people hurt Kenda,” he said and pointed at the group, “yes, hurt back.”

The white-suits looked to each other as Seg spoke a language their chatterers had not been programmed to translate.

“Ama is in charge of you for now, until I return. She speaks with my voice. Understood?” Seg said, using the common tongue once more.

Under normal circumstances, the Kenda would never submit to a female leader, even temporarily. But any resentment was quickly dispelled as men pointed to her newly revealed dathe—the slits of skin on her neck that marked her as unique among her kind.
Kiera Nen
, they murmured and nodded, some with obvious reverence.

“White clothes people say question,” Seg went on, in Kenda, his voice strained, “you answer no.” He shook his head to demonstrate. “Say you: Talk Ama.”

Ama understood this to mean she would be the lone voice here. The men were not to answer any questions Seg’s people might ask them.
Clever man
.

The white-suits looked disdainfully on the
unortho
spectacle: a Theorist of the Guild speaking the strange, lilting language of barbarous Outers. They murmured among themselves, their thoughts clear in any tongue.

“When you are done here, you will be taken to your new home in a…in a type of cartul called a
‘
mass-trans’. The driver will not speak to you and there are no windows to see outside. This is for your safety.” He paused, struggled for breath. “I will come for you.” That was all he could muster.

He’s lucky to be alive, never mind making speeches.
At the thought, Ama’s shoulder throbbed where she had taken Dagga’s blade. She adjusted the auto-med that circled her arm, pulsing medicine and speeding healing. A chastising beep warned her not to fuss with it further.

“Crazy drexla,” she whispered to Seg as he turned. She offered her good arm, but he waved it off as he limped toward two white-suits—medicals who waited with a slim table on wheels, braced with shiny metal. A stretcher, Ama guessed. As with everything on Seg’s world, it resembled no stretcher she had ever seen.

“I didn’t have it so easy the first time I came through.” She glanced back to the Kenda.

“You weren’t armed,” Seg wheezed, and she knew he was making a joke despite the deep folds of his brow and the sweat that rose on his skin.

Perhaps it was the drugs washing through Seg’s system or perhaps he had ceased to care what his people thought, but he grasped Ama’s hand even as the medicals urged him to lie down on the stretcher. “Watch over them.” He forced the words out now; his forehead was shiny with perspiration, his face a deathly white.

One of the medicals stepped forward. Behind his mask, his eyebrow arched as he regarded Ama. “Theorist, I have to insist—”

“You’ll have to stay with them until…” Seg grit his teeth, winced, took a breath.

“Until you know we’re safe. I know, I understand.” Ama raised a finger to her lips to silence him, for all the good it would do. “Enough. You need to go now.”