Ann Gimpel (6 page)

Her eyes widened. Purple sky stretched from horizon to horizon. Dual suns were on their way down.
We jumped through a veil.
She swallowed hard. “Okay. Where are we?”

“One world over. You wanted to have a conversation about the dark. It is not safe anywhere on Earth. The bad ones have ears everywhere. I showed you a place we could talk. And now we are here.”

She mulled that over, shifting from foot to foot. Part of her training in mage craft had included the existence of parallel worlds that shared a boundary with hers, but she’d never been to one. “Is there food here?”

“No. Here is talk and rest.”

The rolling grasslands beneath her feet looked soft and inviting. She sank down, resting her back against a boulder. It reminded her of her rucksack, so she unclipped it and arranged the small backpack behind her to make her seat more comfortable.

“Do we need to use mind speech?”

“I don’t think so,” Rune replied, his ears pricked forward. “I believe us to be alone.”

Sending her magic outward, she blew out a relieved sigh when it pinged back clean of taint. “All right.” She was so tired, her words slurred.
Too much magic. Not enough rest and food.
“What do you know of the six dark gods?”

“Beyond their names?”

She nodded.

“I am sorry, human, but little enough. I was hoping you could tell me about them. It is why I brought us here.”

“But your last bond mate—”

“—tried to protect me,” he interrupted. “We spent years together. I was little more than a pup when she found me, long before the dark ones broke through. Our relationship changed afterward. It was then we became bond mates.”

“Oh.” Aislinn looked away. She could see why Marta would have tried to shield her wolf, especially since it appeared she’d raised him. Silence hung between them. She felt Rune next to her, alert, waiting. His energy had a vigilance that rubbed off on her.

“First of the six is Perrikus. He rules power and energy. His mother, Majestron Zalia, is their leader. Other than that, I’m not sure quite what she does. I came upon her once, and she frightened me so badly that I soiled myself. It’s like she takes hold of your mind, and you can’t think anymore.”

Aislinn sucked in a breath. She looked about and then sent magic in a tight circle to make sure they were still alone. The twin suns still clung to the sky low on the horizon, and the day was pleasant, but she felt chilled to her core.

“The other four?” he pressed, leaning close.

“It’s just I’ve never, ah, discussed them before. With anyone.”

“How did you learn of them?”

“Read scrolls from the Old Ones.” She bit her lower lip, remembering. “Metae hung onto them the whole time I was reading and whisked them into her robes the second I finished.” Aislinn’s mouth burned. She knew it was because human tongues weren’t designed to shape the names of evil. She licked her lips, but her saliva made them hurt.
I can finish this.

“Adva rules portals and knowledge. D’Chel is the god of illusion. Tokhots is a trickster and master rhymer. Slototh is filth and all that is discarded.”

Her mouth felt swollen. So did her tongue. For a moment, she thought her airway would close. She pulled a water bottle from her rucksack and drank deeply. It helped a little.

“It is better for me to know.” Rune’s voice seemed as if it were coming from a long way away.

Her head spun. It was impossible to focus her gaze, so she closed her eyes. She gulped air like a landed fish. Something warm and wet laved her face over and over. It took a ridiculously long time for her to realize the wolf was licking her. Even longer for her to hear the wordless song he sent into her mind.

Chapter Five

P
art of her was surprised to wake up. Before darkness had claimed her, she’d wondered if speaking those six names aloud, within the same few minutes, would be her undoing. The inside of her mouth ached. Exploration with her tongue and fingers found blisters extending outward in large pustules that nearly covered her lips.

Something sharp grazed her arm. She forced her eyes to focus and realized Rune had just bitten her—but gently. “Time for us to leave this place.”

“We just got here,” she protested. It was hard to make her sore mouth form words.

“The border worlds do not tolerate us for long.”

“How do you know that?” In spite of her discomfort, she was curious.

“Marta was a messenger.”

So, they must have done a lot of world-jumping…
“That’s why you know where Taltos is.”

He just looked at her. Sorrow rimmed his eyes. Aislinn guessed it hadn’t been all that long since Marta’s death. Being a messenger was exceedingly dangerous. It was the way information flowed to those fighting the dark. The Old Ones had their own ways of communicating with one another. If they were close enough, they used telepathy with humans, too. At least, those with Mage and Seer abilities. For humans who were too far away—or who lacked those particular skills—the Old Ones used alabaster plaques and runners to deliver them. What that meant was messengers were nearly always in the thick of things. Travis doubled as a messenger. She was pretty sure Hunting was his main function, but those weren’t the kinds of things people talked about. Survival depended on secrecy. It was better if no one knew your talents. Travis had used telepathy to tell her he wanted to see her again. So he must have Mage or Seer skills, too, at least to some extent. If her supposition was true, he’d taken quite a risk reaching out to her.

There’s a whole lot I don’t know about human gifts. Maybe Travis is using something entirely different. Something I’ve never even considered.
She made a mental note to ask Rune more about Marta and which skills she’d had.

A deep rumble beneath her drove Aislinn to her feet. The world seemed to be trying to expel them. Furling her eyebrows at Rune, she asked, “So do they send little green men out with a hook next?”

“I am not sure I understand—”

“Never mind. It was a joke. And not a very good one.” She walked over to him. “I need the next place.”

“How strong are you?”

Turning her Mage sense inward, Aislinn took stock. “Medium,” she said after a pause. “I think we could go a ways.”
At least, I hope we can.

“Your mouth…”

“Yeah, it hurts, but it probably looks worse than it feels. I’ll work on Healing it later.”

Another pine forest filled her mind. This one bordered a large lake. Holding the vision close, she buried a hand in Rune’s neck and called up a spell. Winds—so strong that they ripped the breath from her lungs—buffeted her as soon as she and Rune left the border world. Grit blew in her face. The blisters on her lips ruptured. Fluid from them dripped down her chin.
What the hell?
Wary and confused, Aislinn wondered if it was always this hard to leave the borderlands. She tightened her hold on the wolf, determined to ride it out. What choice did she have? Once committed to a destination, she’d been taught it was suicide to switch locations mid-jump.

Struggling to infuse enough magic to keep her spell going got progressively harder.
It’s like trying to drive into a headwind. Takes more fuel.
A harsh laugh escaped her.
That
world, the one with cars and gasoline, was gone. She still thought about it, because she’d understood it—and because she missed its relative predictability. In that world, soldiers got furloughed—R&R they’d called it. In this one, you fought till you died. The Lemurians had never heard of battle fatigue.

The wind left as quickly as it had come. She drifted in a familiar black void, trying to get her breath, the thud of her heart loud against her ears. She ran an experimental tongue over her lips. They actually felt better now that the blisters had broken open. Like he’d done the other day, Rune inserted part of himself inside her. It boosted her flagging energy and reminded her of the fine edge between survival and failure. When the wolf had first shown up, she’d been afraid he’d just slow her down. Now it seemed that he might make the difference between her actually finding the gateway. Or not.

They clunked out of the void. She didn’t have enough power for an elegant transition. One minute, they were weightless. The next, Rune shoved her behind him, hackles on full alert as he scanned the seemingly deserted forest. In spite of being tired and scared, she heard her stomach growl. It didn’t care about anything beyond its empty state.

Knowing they had to hunt, Aislinn tried to summon enough magic to see if they’d come out somewhere safe. Rune sank into an alert sit, and she knew she could save herself for something more important. Like finding game. Or greens. The wolf would never have sat if he’d sensed danger.

She looked around them. A lake glistened through pine boughs in rays from a setting sun. It seemed as if today ought to be long since over. Or maybe it was already tomorrow. She’d heard time flowed differently in the borderlands.
If I got really lucky, it’s still yesterday.
She took off at as brisk a pace as she could manage toward the water.

Catching her up quickly, Rune nipped at her calf. “Where are you going?”

“To see if anything edible’s growing in the shallow part of the lake.” She happened to be looking at him, so she saw something like a grimace cross his furred features and grinned. “Not meat, but I like it.”

Against Rune’s protests, she made a small, sheltered fire between two large boulders and Healed her mouth while she waited for her meal to cook. The hunt had been good. She’d found both watercress and wild onions in abundance. The wolf contributed three fat rabbits. She made a stew of sorts in the battered cook pot she always carried. Rune ate his share of the meat raw. Belly really full for the first time since before she’d lain in wait for Travis, she carted water from the lake to douse the coals.

Rune eyed the rising smoke. Every aspect of his body, from his tautly held tail to the set of his shoulders, told her he thought her fire posed a huge risk.

“Stand down, silly.” She made an expansive gesture with both hands, sure she’d sleep well since she’d had such a sumptuous meal.

He threw an injured look her way. “I will take first watch.”

Too tired to argue, she pulled all her clothes on to ward against the chill of the night, laid her head on her pack, and closed her eyes. Sleep came, but it was almost worse than none. Aislinn stood outside herself, suspended above her body, which was tossing and turning on the hard ground. Metae was there, shrieking at her just like she had when Aislinn had been about to throw her magic down the vortex. Except this time, the Lemurian dunned her for being late.

“
I told you four days.”

“I still have two,”
Aislinn protested.

“Not by my count.”

Guess I wasn’t so lucky in that border world.
Chastised, Aislinn understood that she was awake and in astral form. Somewhat stiffly, she bowed her head.
“What would you have me do?”

“How came you by Marta’s wolf?”
As she often did, Metae switched topics.

“He picked me.”
Aislinn glanced at Rune. He sat still as a carved statue, staring straight ahead, frozen in time. Apparently, Metae didn’t want him to overhear their conversation.

The mage eyed her. If felt as if her soul and her memories were being scrutinized through a tightly woven web. The inside of her head burned. Tears leaked from her eyes. When she brushed them away and looked at her fingertips, they were red.
Christ. She made my eyes bleed.

“Sorry. I forgot how fragile you humans are.”
Metae didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
“A Hunter picked you, and you Healed him when he was hurt?”

“Why ask? You already know those things.”
Aislinn heard a peevish undercurrent in her tone, but her temper was on the uptick, so she didn’t try to modulate it.
“I’m not asleep. May I rejoin my body?”

Disorientation blurred her vision as astral and physical bodies collided. She’d never cared for the sensation. It made her nauseous. Taking little, panting breaths to make sure her dinner stayed in her stomach where it belonged, she raised her gaze to Metae. The mage was in a female phase. The Old Ones were hermaphroditic, sometimes appearing as one sex, sometimes the other. Aislinn had tried to ask one time about how they managed to have children. All her blushing and stammering had bought her was a bunch of doublespeak.

The Lemurian was over seven feet tall. Male or female, that part never changed. Blonde hair shrouded her. It was so long and thick that the white robes beneath were all but obscured. Gold jewelry shone like a queen’s ransom. A thick torc sat round her neck. Another circled her brow. Rings set with enormous gemstones sparked from nearly every finger. An iridescence to her skin made it hard to look directly at her. Her eyes were the worst, though. Deep, dark pools, they swirled hypnotically. Aislinn had learned early on to avoid gazing at any Old One’s eyes. Once ensnared, she couldn’t turn away until they released her. The first time it happened, the Old One—not Metae—had laughed at her, but didn’t let her go, for what felt like an endless time. The lesson sank in. She hadn’t made that mistake again.

“Thank you.” Aislinn bowed slightly, feeling rigid and awkward like she always did around the Old Ones. “I am sorry I am late. What would you have me do?”

The Lemurian moved around her in a circle. Aislinn became stillness itself, waiting. They stood like that, Metae moving and Aislinn immobile, until dawn lightened the eastern horizon. Sometimes, Metae moved so quickly that Aislinn could only feel her, and sometimes, so slowly that the only hint she moved at all was her position shifted subtly as time flowed past.

“I think,” Metae said after Aislinn had given up on the Old One telling her anything, “I shall leave you in your world—”

An odd mixture of disappointment and relief swept through her. She’d wanted to see the mysterious Taltos, but had been scared of what she’d find there. Her humanity felt like it was shrinking. One of the fears she’d kept to herself was that the Old Ones would complete the transformation, and she’d become something alien. Like them.

Laughter like pealing bells filled the dawn. “Oh, you are far from off the hook, child. You are developing into something…interesting. Amazingly, with little intervention from us. I find that fascinating. I am simply giving you more time on your own to, shall we say, discover your talents. Then we shall welcome you to Taltos.”

So I can entertain all of you? I don’t think so.
She clamped down on her thoughts. The Old Ones could read them easily if they were paying attention. Though Metae narrowed her eyes, she didn’t say anything.

If Aislinn hadn’t been so shocked by the turn of events, she’d have been ready. She knew how Lemurians came and went: in a puff of light so bright, it blinded you, leaving spots dancing in front of your eyes for hours. The blast rocked her. She slammed her lids down, but was a fraction of a second too late. Light seared her corneas, burning into her brain.

Rune yelped. She remembered he’d been frozen in place, eyes wide open. Finding him by feel, she pulled him to her. “It’s all right. She’s gone.” Laying hands over the wolf’s eyes, she sent her magic—fairly fully recovered to her relief—edging forward. When she found healthy tissue instead of sizzled cells, she blew out a breath and smoothed his fur back along the sides of his muzzle. “Your eyes will be fine, Rune.”

“What do you mean
she’s gone
?” he demanded.

“One of the Old Ones was here.”

“Why couldn’t I sense her?” Rune wriggled out of her grasp, blinking furiously.

“Because she immobilized you.”

The wolf growled. “I will have a word with her when we get to Taltos. Or him, if she’s shifted.”

Aislinn cocked her head to one side. “That’s just it,” she muttered. “Now we aren’t going.”

Rune squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing. “I’m going to the lake to douse my head. My eyes are burning. When I come back, you need to tell me everything.”

The sun was well up in the sky by the time they’d finished another meal. While they ate, Rune peppered her with questions as she relayed Metae’s visit, asking for clarification on several points. He growled, rose to his feet, and shook himself from ears to tail, before head-butting her with his snout. “Because you have become an interesting specimen for them to watch, they are not going to give you any assistance. At least not now.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Aislinn sucked the last shreds of rabbit flesh off a bone, following it with a thick wad of watercress. Her fire had bothered the wolf so much the night before that she’d opted for raw this morning.

“We treat pack puppies with more respect.”

Aislinn shot him a look. “I’m scarcely a puppy.”

“In terms of your knowledge of magic, that is exactly what you are.”

Ouch.
“Touché.”

“And that means?”

“Even though it pains me, I agree with you.”

Rune whuffed low in the back of his throat. She could have sworn he was laughing.

“So, human, where do we go next?”

She stuffed a wild onion into her mouth, delighting in the bitter sweetness of it as she chewed. Waving the stalk in his direction, she said, “I’ve been thinking about that.”

He waited, watching her closely.

“I think we should go home. To my home, that is,” she clarified.

“Why?”

Good question.
“Because all my things—well, the few I have—are there.”

“Would you like to see where Marta and I lived?”

A sudden flash of insight slammed her between the eyes. Rune wanted things from what had been his home. “I’d love to.” Her reward was a quick flip of his tail as he bounded to her side, eyes bright and filled with what looked like anticipation. She met his golden gaze full on. “We can get whatever you want while we’re there.”

“Maybe you’ll want—” Head rearing up, his voice broke off.