Gemworld (39 page)

Still, he lay there, joined with the sleeping earth, its peace eventually lulling him to sleep.

***

Nestor peered through slitted eyes at the nodding Jaeda, holding sleepy vigil in her chair by the door, as had become her custom. He shot a quick look out the door, then back to Jaeda.

The door was propped slightly open, allowing a draft to come in, and a hasty exit, should Jaeda need it. Long weeks ago, Reit’s guard rotation had become lax in their duties, either nodding off themselves or taking long, leisurely strolls through the night air to stay awake.

Tonight, the guard’s chair was empty.

***

Sal sat bolt upright in bed, his lungs heaving with imagined exertion and fear. Instinctively, he took hold of the emerald magic, its power suffusing his being, ready to heal or deal out death, whichever was needed. Gradually, he realized that neither were needed. Snores replaced the din of battle in his ears, candle lit blackness replaced the blood drenched field. He lay in breeches upon a woven bunk, not on a gurney beneath a shroud. He’d been dreaming.

The barracks. I’m in the Earthen Rank barracks at the training camp on the outskirts of Bastion
.

He breathed a sigh of relief and scrubbed his sweat-slick hair, the remnants of the dream quickly fading now. Already, he felt fatigue threatening to steal back over him.

His hands still shook from the adrenaline rush brought on by the dream. He stood and stretched to the sound of stiff joints popping. Spying the wash barrel, he padded over, his toes curling on the cold, flagstone floor.

***

A tickling sensation woke Keth. He glanced at his hand, still one with the ground beneath it. It was no dream. He felt Sal.

The sensation was very faint, diluted by thousands of miles of rock. Had it been an aura that Keth was less familiar with, he would have never noticed it, but there was a distinct signature in the aura of the world’s only diamond mage. It was him, but the aura was almost too faint to follow. The voices of doubt sprang up in Keth’s mind. We can’t risk losing you too, Reit’s voice argued. It’s too far away, said Jaren’s voice.

Keth’s own voice joined in the chorus.
I never feel Sal for more than a few moments at a time. Why should tonight be any different? If I can’t feel him, I can’t find him. And what if Jaren and Lord Reit are right? What if the Highest is waiting for me?

We’re not talking about a rescue here
, the thought came to him, wholly unbidden. One might say, by inspiration.
We’re talking reconnaissance
.

Keth couldn’t argue with that logic, and couldn’t justify wasting time in trying. With a grunt of stubbornness, he banished the voices and rolled off his pallet, falling into the dirt floor.

He floated there in the soil for a moment to get his bearings. He could feel his friend’s presence off to the south, though he couldn’t tell where or how far. He willed himself forward, speeding through the earth and rock toward his target.

As he traveled, the structure of Sal’s aura slowly became sharper, more defined. Like a bloodhound sniffing out a trail, Keth used his friend’s aura to guide his search. He made minor adjustments as he went, until he was satisfied that he was heading straight for Sal. Confident, Keth drew fully on the Granite soulgem, and launched himself with abandon toward his lost friend.

***

Sal shook the water from his hair, wiped the excess from his face. Behind the wash barrel stood a mirror. He gazed into it for a moment, noting the changes to his appearance that fourteen or so weeks in this strange world had brought him.

His hair was still close cropped, though not as neat as the high-and-tight he was used to. Rank barbers were not as skilled as Navy barbers, to be sure. As long as the hair was short enough that an opponent couldn’t grab it, that was good enough for them. His chin was covered in a week-old growth, giving him a rugged look that suited his grizzled “Rank soldier” role nicely. The leather patch clung to the right side of his face, covering his remaining natural eye. The other eye glittered back at Sal through the mirror, candlelight reflecting off the orb’s smooth, emerald surface.

Sure that his colleagues were asleep, Sal drew on Ruby. He watched in awe as his emerald eye dimmed, shifting from its accustomed green to a fiery red in a swirling blend of color. Sal chuckled in bewilderment. It didn’t matter that he’d done this a thousand times before, standing in front of this same mirror and doing the same parlor tricks. No matter how many times he saw it, it never ceased to amaze him.

Leery of being found out, Sal quickly recaptured the emerald magic. Still grinning his amusement, he meandered back to his cot.

***

All of a sudden, it was gone.

Keth stopped and waited for a moment. Sometimes Sal’s aura would disappear for a few seconds, only to reappear soon after. But seconds went by. Then minutes. Still Keth waited, despairing, hoping desperately that he would feel Sal’s aura again in the distance.

It’s no use, he thought finally. He’s either put his boots on, or climbed back into bed. Frustration tore at Keth. He would have screamed, if the earth permeating his lungs and throat would have allowed it. He resigned himself to silent oaths, cursing himself for not moving fast enough.

He willed himself upward, exhuming himself from the magical grave. The earth rippled slightly as he broke the surface, sending waves through the tall grass above. Free of the ground below, he released the spell. His vision flashed brilliantly for a moment, then returned to its normal multicolored state as it always did. Funny that I should think of this as normal, he thought to himself. Keth looked around, searching for any landmarks that he might recognize.

He found himself in a large meadow, possibly one of the old campsites of the nomadic rebel villages. But there was something familiar here. That tree, how it crooks to the side. That boulder, with the haitberry shrub growing through a crack near the top. The way the bordering trees to the south thinned out to reveal a vast open plain beyond.

Yes, he recognized the field. It was about twenty five miles southeast of camp. It was a place Reit had said that they would likely move in the next day or two.

And it was directly in line with Bastion.

***

“Look, I know what I felt,” barked Keth. His voice boomed furiously across the communal tent, pitched just between Jaren’s and Reit’s own wagons.

Reit stifled a yawn as he listened to the young granite’s tirade. Keth had awakened him from a dead sleep, demanding without preamble that a rescue team be dispatched to Bastion at once. But even half awake, the rebel leader refused to be persuaded.

“I’m not saying that you didn’t sense him, Keth. But now is not the time to go off on some half-ripe plan.” The granite opened his mouth to respond, but Reit cut him off. “The Earthen Rank haven’t given up the search for us, no matter what you might think. I’m constantly getting reports of our sister villages being forced to relocate—sometimes three times a week—to avoid the Rank scouts. And we will be headed for Bastion soon, anyway. If we sent a team toward Bastion now, in advance of the rest of us
also
headed toward Bastion, we run the risk of losing men that we cannot spare on an endeavor that would just as easily be served five weeks hence.”

“Five weeks could see Sal dead by our inaction,” Keth accused.

“
And what of the lives of my men?!?
” Reit snapped, his outrage bringing him fully awake. “What of the knowledge that they would carry about our plans for Harvest,
to the very city we plan to attack
? You have the
audacity
to come into my home in the dead of night and demand we send out a rescue team into a city that absolutely teems with Earthen Rank! Have you not thought of their lives? Or those of their families? Or those of the people of this land, should our plans for Harvest be compromised? And for what? The life of a friend—dear, yes, but not dear enough to cost the world this rare chance at freedom. The Highest has held the mainland in his grip for far too long. We need the information that is in the Archives. Too much depends on it. I cannot allow any man—not even Sal—stand in the way of that.”

Keth crossed his arms and set his jaw stubbornly. For long minutes, he couldn’t look Reit in the eye. When he finally did, he found Reit staring back, absolutely unwavering, his demeanor as strong as any steel Keth had ever seen. Try as he might, he couldn’t fight the logic. Being a creature of practicality, it proved to be his weakness. And Reit knew it. “Then send me,” Keth said quietly. “I’ll do it by myself.”

“Out of the question.”

“Why?” Keth demanded incredulously. “I’m the perfect man for the job! I don’t know the half of what you plan for Harvest. I can avoid the patrols better than any rescue team could. I’m more powerful than any five mages you’ve got. I know how to find Sal. I—”

“—would be spotted the first time you surface, if a granite squad doesn’t feel you coming first,” Reit countered. “What, the renegade granite? You can bet that every guard from Aitaxen to Aeden’s Runoff has your description, and standing orders to kill you on sight. Admit it. You’re as infamous as I am.”

The granite winced, caught again in the trap of Reit’s logic.

Reit softened, conscious of the pain Keth was in. “Keth, I won’t invoke the oath you’ve sworn to me. That would likely do more damage than good, anyway. But you must trust me. I’ve poured over our options, more times than I’m willing to count. I’ve seen them from a hundred different angles. And at the moment, it’s just too great a risk.

“Look, I didn’t earn the respect of my people by leaving them out to dry. Nobody—
nobody
—recognizes the asset we have in Sal as I do. But we cannot afford to be foolhardy at a time like this. And Sal wouldn’t want us to, either. Not with so many lives at stake. So we stick to the plan. After we have the information from the Archives, and it’s in a safe place, I fully intend to return for Sal. But until then, he’ll have to manage on his own. Trust me, he’s resourceful,” he added with a wry grin. “If he’s held out this long, he can hold out a little longer.”

Keth looked down at his boots, kicking at a clod of dirt. Grudgingly he nodded, ceding the victory to Reit, then turned and strode from the tent, undoubtedly half intent on defying Reit’s orders anyway.

Reit could hardly blame him. In fact, he’d been of the exact same mind as Keth for days now, ever since the granite had first sensed Sal. His heart went out to the young man as he trudged back to his own tent, frustrated. But as much as Reit identified with the mage, he had a responsibility to his people—to
all
people held under the thumb of the Highest—and he would not make any move that didn’t logically play out. And a rescue attempt didn’t play out. Not yet.

Sighing, he turned from the tent and mounted the stairs of his wagon. Through the open door he saw Delana, starring sleepily at him from beneath the covers, but he wasn’t fooled. She’d heard every word they’d spoken.

“Do you think I was wrong?” he asked, still standing in the doorway.

“You’re
el
’
Yatza
,” she answered simply. “You don’t have the luxury of listening to your heart, or that of one of your friends. You must think of the whole world, every soul who has been touched by the tyranny of the Highest.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he said with a grin. He knew that she supported him in everything he did, and would rarely disapprove of even the most drastic measure. But it would still be nice to be able to hear what was in her heart, what she thought apart from
el
’
Yatza
.

“
el
’
Yatza
!
el
’
Yatza
!” came a cry from behind him, and he groaned inwardly.
Now what?

“Gaelen? What’s the matter?”

“It’s Nestor, sir,” the amethyst said breathlessly, though the lump in the young man’s throat told him that Nestor wasn’t his only concern. Or even his first.

***

Nestor struggled through the thicket, lugging his bound and gagged prisoner behind him. He was careful to keep bare skin on bare skin, sharing the hated spell of the shackle with his precious Jaeda. “You might as well stop fighting me, my dear. We’re going to be together a long time.

Muffled curses made their way around her gag, bringing a smile to his face.

He made his way north, along the rocky banks of a tributary that led southward from the heart of the Garden. If he remembered his cartography, the tributary led all the way to the Rhu’sai, to a point just south of Scholar’s Ford. But to go south would lead him directly into the hands of his captors again. And to go east or west would be pointless, as he would likely get lost in the vast forest without any landmarks. No, it had to be north, north along the only river around for miles in any direction.

“You know,” he said breathlessly in his best conversational tone. “Aeden’s Garden is where the first pegasus was found. Many thousands of years ago, just after the Day of the Crafter’s Tears, the Highest himself came across it in his quest to unite the broken pieces of civilization. So taken was he by it that he had it tamed, and brought back to his camp in the heart of this very forest. Stop—struggling—you can’t get—away...”