Beyond the Gate (The Golden Queen) (Volume 2) (42 page)

Chapter 31

That morning, after Gallen and Maggie announced their battle plans, Ceravanne took Gallen aside and argued against his method long and vigorously. Neither she nor the Bock could countenance the kind of attack he proposed. They were standing in the Vale of the Bock, beside the hot pools, which shone emerald in the morning light. It was a bright day, and fair here, and it seemed to Maggie somehow odd to be talking of such things in the bright sunlight. Around Maggie, Gallen, Ceravanne, and Orick, dozens of the Bock had gathered, and they stood nearly motionless in the morning sun, their hands upraised as if they were some strange priests gathered in convocation, offering up their prayers to Tremonthin’s double suns. But Ceravanne’s favorite Bock stood beside Gallen and Ceravanne, as if to referee the dispute.

“Remember, Gallen,” Ceravanne warned him, her voice shaking from emotion, “I want no violence, if we can avoid it. Not all of those infected by the Inhuman are evil. Like you, they are people, just people who were infected—by something they did not understand and something they lacked the ability to fight!”

Ceravanne’s eyes blazed, and Maggie was surprised, for she’d never seen a Tharrin show anger. “But if we fail here today, this world may not get another chance at freedom.”

“And I would rather lose my freedom than destroy one innocent life!” Ceravanne argued. She looked like only a young girl, with her pale green eyes blazing and her platinum-blond hair. For the first time since they met, Maggie sensed that Ceravanne was losing control, speaking openly of her deepest feelings.

“But you cannot make that choice for others,” Gallen shouted. “I won’t let you! I’ve already modified my plans so that I spare as many of the Tekkar as I feel safe in doing. If that does not gratify you, then I will leave you displeased! Perhaps I should take your mantle and fight this battle without you!”

“No, please!” Ceravanne said, and her voice faltered, as if she’d never considered the possibility that Gallen would go into battle without her. She begged, “I must come. Don’t deny me that. I’ve already seen all of my own people destroyed in this conflict. And far too many people of other races have been maimed or slaughtered. If I can save only one life, then it will be worth it. I’ve convinced the Bock to come with us. He too may offer some help.”

Gallen’s voice became softer. “Your Tharrin compassion does you merit, but it also is your greatest weakness. I wish you would stay out of this.”

“This world is my home,” Ceravanne said, and she knelt forward a little, almost as if bowing to Gallen, pleading. “I must serve it as I can. There are children in the Tekkar’s warrens. Innocents. Be gentle with them. Please, let me speak to the Harvester. Perhaps between us we can resolve this.”

Maggie watched Gallen, and though both she and Gallen had known that Ceravanne would argue for this, and both of them had agreed that they should leave her behind, such was the quality of Ceravanne’s voice, her ability to persuade, that Maggie suddenly found herself unable to argue against the woman. Indeed, to have done so would have been cruel.

Maggie knew that it was only a combination of pheromones, body language, and the use of voice that made them give in. And perhaps it was their own desires that Ceravanne was working on. But as Ceravanne leaned forward, looking like little more than a child herself, the sunlight falling on her golden hair, her words seemed to weave a powerful spell, so powerful that Gallen’s voice was stopped almost in mid-sentence. And suddenly Maggie saw why Ceravanne had been admired for millennia on this world. She’d helped bring peace to warring races for thousands of years, and such was the power of her presence that Maggie felt almost compelled to throw down the Dronon pulp gun she’d stowed in her waistband.

Ceravanne took Gallen’s hand. “Do you not think that the Harvester argues for peace against the Tekkar, even as I sue for peace with you now? Why else do you think they have not attacked Northland yet? We see now that they could easily take it,” Ceravanne said. And Maggie knew that it must be true. Ceravanne’s other self was suing for peace two thousand kilometers away. “Once we reach her throne room, there will be no need for weapons or battle. The Harvester will not let her people hurt you, if she sees me and the Bock in your retinue. That much, I feel confident, I can promise you.”

“Ceravanne is right,” the Bock urged in his slow voice, the brown-tinged leaves at his crown rustling in the morning wind. “She has experience with many races, even the Tekkar. I do not hesitate to put my own life in her hands.”

Gallen studied the Bock, his face still set and implacable. “All right, then,” he said. “I will give you a moment with the Harvester—no more. If you do not succeed in persuading her, I will kill her.”

Ceravanne closed her eyes gratefully, and sighed. She took Gallen’s hand and kissed it. “I—thank you,” she said, too overcome with gratitude to speak more, and Maggie wondered then if perhaps they had not given in too easily.

After they had discussed their plans once again, they saw the Riallna come down from the hill, bearing a breakfast of cheeses and fresh rolls filled with fruit.

They spread the food out into a circle and ate, watching one another in the morning light, and Maggie’s heart was full.

And Orick the bear ate his rolls with fruit, licking the jam from his upper lips so that his tongue almost wrapped around his snout.

Gallen and Maggie silently held hands as they ate, sharing secret glances. The Bock gathered down at the banks of the pool and stood with their toes stretching out into the water, while the Riallna washed their feet with a paste of nutrients.

And so it was that as they finished eating, a few meadowlarks began to sing, and Orick began to speak slowly. Maggie had always known that Orick wanted to be a priest, and she had imagined him as an ascetic, perhaps some monastic brother living in the woods. She’d never thought him to be one with any missionary tendencies, but he spoke softly to Ceravanne then of the things that were in his heart.

“You know,” he told her, “it hasn’t escaped my notice that you don’t have any proper churches here.”

“The Riallna have their temples, the Bock have their woods,” Ceravanne said. “And others build places to worship.”

“But what of Catholic churches?” Orick asked. “What of Christianity?”

“What is that?” Ceravanne asked. And Maggie suspected that because she respected the bear and saw him as a friend, she asked kindly, as if she were truly interested.

“I’ve had a mind to tell you about it,” Orick said, and then he told her of a young man named Jesus who, like her, sued for peace among mankind thousands of years ago, then gave his life for others. Orick told her how Jesus had died, betrayed by a friend, and how on the night before his death, he had broken bread and blessed wine, asking his disciples to always do this act in remembrance of his sacrifice.

Then, to Maggie’s surprise, the bear said, “Normally, I don’t have proper authority from the Church to do these things, but I think that they must be done. Today we go into Moree.” And with that apology he began singing the words to the Sacrament, and he took some rolls and passed them around, and Gallen fetched a skin of wine, and each of them took it.

Orick then gave a brief prayer, asking God to bless them on their journey and deliver them from harm, and Maggie felt the solemnity of the occasion.

After the sacrament they each made final preparations for the battle. Gallen checked his weapons, while the Bock stood gazing at the sky. Ceravanne laid her pack on the grass. She reached into it, put on a gray silk cloak with a deep hood. Then she unwrapped her mantle and put it on her head, its golden ringlets falling down her shoulders. Last of all, she pulled up the hood to her robe, to conceal her mantle.

Maggie saw that Orick was shaken, pacing nervously, but Ceravanne rumpled the coarse black hair on the back of his neck, and whispered, “Now, let us go, but not in haste, and not in fear. If we go to our deaths, remember that it is but a brief sleep.”

Those words held no comfort for Gallen, Orick, or Maggie. Though Maggie had a mantle herself, it could not save her, and Gallen already had Tallea’s memories stored in his own mantle. And Orick looked resigned. Though he had his faith to sustain him, Maggie knew he hungered for love and a life of peace, yet the road to any greater reward led down this dark path.

And suddenly Ceravanne caught her breath as she realized that what she had meant as a comforting word was only a cruel reminder to the others, since none had their memories recorded, none of them could be reborn, as Ceravanne could.

Orick growled lightly, and bounded forward to the aircar, followed by Ceravanne, the Bock, Gallen, and Maggie.

Maggie went to the cockpit, did a manual system’s check, and as she did so, Gallen came in behind her, and she slid back up out of the pilot’s seat, into his arms. They held each other for a long time. Gallen kissed her, brushing her forehead with his lips, and she leaned into him. “Promise me,” he whispered fervently, “that once you drop me off, you’ll get the transport away quickly. I don’t want you sitting there, a target for the dronon’s walking fortresses.”

“I may be brave, but I’m not stupid.” Maggie smiled up at him sweetly. “And you promise me—come back alive?”

“I guarantee, I plan to grow old with you,” Gallen whispered. Then they kissed so long and tenderly that Maggie was sure that the others must be getting impatient. Gallen was slow to leave, to close the bulkhead door behind him.

Maggie strapped herself into the pilot’s seat and had her mantle silently radio the ship’s AI, link intelligence with it so that the ship would know her commands before she could articulate them.

Their flight time would be short, a swift hop at low altitudes over the ocean, with the ship’s antidetection equipment operating at full capacity. Once they reached the Telgood Mountains, the ship’s intelligent missiles would fire, taking out their primary targets, if those were still available, or taking the secondary or tertiary targets that Maggie had already chosen.

And so they slipped quietly over the ocean for the next few minutes as Maggie’s mantle displayed the view ahead. The sky was clear until they reached the coasts of Babel, and there a thin line of dark clouds showed on the horizon, an approaching thunderstorm.

“Buckle in back there and prepare for rapid descent,” Maggie called to the others.

The aircar dropped low and screamed over the hills and valleys just above the treetops at mach 9. The clouds and rain obscured her vision out the windows, so Maggie relied completely on the head-up holo that her mantle displayed. The holo showed the Telgoods looming ahead, a line of bony white teeth, and Maggie fired her smart missiles, then opened her eyes and looked out the front windows to verify that they left. The missiles streaked ahead of her on antigrav, leaving a flash as the air around them became superheated.

The aircar whirled, dove through some narrow canyons, and the AI fired a burst on the incendiary cannons, blasting a lone wingman from its path. And suddenly the aircar seemed to leap in the air as it cleared a mountain, then lurched as it plummeted toward Moree.

“Four targets hit, three destroyed—” the AI flashed a message on her screen as soon as the ship had visuals. The head-up holo displayed the scene—three of the five dome-shaped spaceships going up in mushroom clouds. A fourth had been hit, but had not exploded. Maggie looked out the windows through a heavy rain, saw the trunk of fiery mushroom cloud begin billowing up as she passed, an incredible inferno. They were diving right through the periphery of its flames.

Two dronon walking fortresses had taken fire from the explosions. One was flying apart, huge metallic chunks spewing out in odd angles as its munitions blew. The other had flames boiling out its cargo hold and was trying to retreat from the white inferno that had once been a starship. The dronon walking fortress left a trail of flames and burning debris as it crawled away, looking for all the world like some great black spider in its death throes.

A smart missile was coming in from directly ahead, launched from one of the intact walking fortresses ten kilometers to the south, and Maggie almost subconsciously fired both plasma cannons, detonating the missile in midair so that a brilliant flash blinded her for a moment.

Their aircar was still dropping toward ground—toward the perpendicular rocky cliff face where the Harvester’s chambers should be—when the AI flashed a message in red letters through the head-up holodisplay: “Permission to abort mission?”

Maggie looked about desperately at the scene below, wondering why the AI would ask that, wondering why one of her missiles hadn’t taken out the Tekkar’s airfield instead of a starship, its secondary target. She looked toward the dun-colored fields below and saw the reason: none of the Tekkar’s military transports were on the field. They’d all been moved.

“No!” Maggie shouted in frustration, but her AI took that as a rejection of permission to abort, and in half a second they slammed to the ground, and her aircar began sending pulsed bursts of antigravity through the substrata.

Maggie looked out the windows, shouted, “Gallen, the airfield was clear! The Tekkar must have their transports out searching for us!”

But Gallen was already clearing the hold, with Orick, Ceravanne, and the Bock all following. Maggie silently willed her mantle to radio the message from mantle to mantle, and she looked around.

“Message received,” Gallen said through his mantle. “But we can’t stop now. Do what you can, then get out of here!”

Maggie wondered what to do. She couldn’t leave Gallen stranded here in Moree, but certainly the Tekkar airships, with a capability for mach 10 speeds, would be here in seconds. Even if they were out a hundred kilometers away, they could be here in thirty seconds.

Maggie bit her lip, studied her surroundings. For the moment, her ship was partly hidden under the rock cliff face to her south. To the north and east, the mushroom clouds from the exploding starships were growing redder and redder as their caps of smoke and flame rose higher into the thunderheads. Static discharges caused by the explosion were suddenly setting off a series of lightning blasts that spanned the sky. The door to the shuttle hummed shut, and almost unconsciously Maggie realized that a huge hole had had opened in the cliff face to her south. From inside the aircar, with the exterior sounds shielded, she heard and felt nothing as tons of rock slid down the face of the cliff, leaving a gaping hole.