Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (40 page)

"Does it hurt?" Maeve asked. She raised her storm cloud eyes to Logan's.

"No," he lied.

She knew better. Maeve released his hand and glanced back over her wings to Dain and Anthem. The little queen straightened. Rust-colored dust clung to her pale dress like bloodstains. "Send one of your knights to Vyron," she ordered. "If they have what Gripper needs to make repairs, then I want it delivered to Kaellisem by evening."

Anthem saluted, but did not immediately dispatch one of the other fairies. Did he like seeing the human squirm? The unfailingly regal prince consort was difficult to read.

"There may be a swifter solution, a'shae," he said.

"What is it?" Maeve asked.

Anthem gestured to the nearby street. "Glass, my queen," he said. "Hyra is here in Kaellisem and his glass is as strong as illonium, I think. It does not look so different from a gauntlet."

Maeve shot a look at Gripper. "Would that work?"

"Maybe. If we can get it to withstand impact better than the theater did," said the Arboran mechanic. "I need to clean out the broken illonium, but other than that damage seems pretty superficial. All Hunter needs is new plating. I don't see why it couldn't be glass."

Maeve turned to Logan. "Would that be acceptable?"

"It might be better," he told her. "Nitrocycline reacts particularly violently with metal. Glass will be a little more resilient."

"We will use the Bherrosi glass, then," Maeve decided. "No metallic impurities."

Gripper cleared his throat. "Uh, Hunter? I'll order some amylide, too. Let's not burn your hand off next time."

"Yes," Maeve agreed softly. She did not meet Logan's eye. "I thank you for your bravery and skill, my hunter, but they are poor trade for your life."

She turned quickly away and leapt gracefully into the clear morning sky. Dain scrambled to follow, leaving Logan alone once more with Gripper and the knights. Anthem held his hand out to Logan.

"Let us get you to the glassingers," said the handsome Arcadian man.

Logan pushed himself to his feet without assistance. "I'm not much good to Maeve with only one hand. Let's go."

"We scream not to change someone else's mind, but to change our own."

– Panna Sul (234 PA)

Ballad did not try to talk to Panna very much over the next week. Each worked alone to speak with the Arcadians of Hadra and convince them to join Queen Maeve in Kaellisem. For each fairy that agreed, they bought a starship ticket. But luckily for her dwindling funds, Panna didn't find many Arcadians on Hadra. The high gravity was hard on their wings and fragile bones. Fairies who could leave the planet had already done so. Unfortunately, those who remained behind were stubborn in their refusal to go except in the embrace of the Nameless. The gods had cast them down under Hadra's burning suns to die, they stated flatly. So die they would.

In two weeks of work in five different Hadrian cities, Panna and Ballad convinced only thirty-nine Arcadians to make the journey to Stray. The strain was beginning to show. Panna slept badly, dreaming constantly of butchering her own speeches before a far larger crowd than she ever managed to actually gather pointing and laughing at her lack of wings. And that was when she could sleep at all. Sir Ballad slept face down in the cheap motel beds, snoring into a stained pillow with his wings flopped to either side. Panna tripped on them every time she got up to get a drink or use the bathroom. By the end of the month, she was seriously considering smothering the knight in his sleep.

During their short breakfasts together, Panna repeatedly tried to convince Ballad to wear his glass armor. "No," he told her each time. "I can't move in that stuff. Not in this gravity. Besides, I get enough
move along
talks from the cops here as it is. Can you imagine what they would think of a hawk in full armor flying down their streets? No, thanks."

The one time his stubborn pride might have worked in Panna's favor, Ballad insisted on being practical. He would not even carry the spear that was effectively an Arcadian knight's badge of office. Every morning, he slid his fibersteel boxer's bracelets into the pockets of his worn leather jacket, put on his sunglasses and left.

Panna was no knight. She didn't have the right to wear the glass armor, even if Hyra would agree to fit a suit to anyone without wings. Instead, she had brought a large wallet of Arcadian glass in narrow strips. These small, glittering pieces of their heritage had inspired several Hadrian fairies to make the flight to Stray. The little glass rectangles also served as samples when Panna had the chance to talk to local retailers. The planetary gravity made large windows difficult on Hadra and several manufacturers had expressed interest in the stronger Arcadian glass. Panna had no firm commitments or actual orders yet, but had spent an evening writing up and transmitting a proposal to create a polarized version of Kaellisem's sole export. She had not yet received an answer from Duke Ferris.

One blindingly bright Hadrian afternoon, Panna had finished giving her newest speech to a dozen dirty-faced Arcadians. Or tried to. As soon as she reached the part of her story about surgically giving up her wings to go to school, half of the small crowd turned away, uninterested. The rest lost heart when told that they would be going to Stray, not back to their native planets on the galactic rim.

Panna quickly finished her speech and was unsurprised when only two of the fairies lingered to ask if she could spare any change. She dug the last white cenmark chips from her pockets and divided them between the pair. They thanked her in Arcadian and hurried away. On foot, Panna could not help noticing. They were too weak, too malnourished to fly in the high gravity.

She watched the other fairies go and readjusted her sunglasses. She did not like wearing them, but for anyone born without the Hadrian filtering membrane over their eyes, they were a necessity. The darkened plastic gave the whole world a dim brownish tinge that made Panna want to take a janitorial nanite spray to everything she saw. She turned the other way to head out of the little side street and back to the motel, but another Arcadian stood in her way, his wings spread to block the sidewalk. Even through her glasses, the fans of white feathers were almost painfully bright in the Hadrian suns.

Panna raised her hand, half in greeting and half to block a little more of the light. For an irrational moment, she thought Sir Anthem had come to Hadra. The man before her wore a brilliantly shining suit of glass plate mail. But it was not the prince consort… This man was shorter than Sir Anthem and his beribboned braids were several shades paler. Almost white… though that might have been the effect of the glaring sunlight.

"Eru shen'ai?"
he snarled.
Why are you here?

The newcomer's eyes were hidden behind a black scarf tied across his temples, but Panna imagined them narrowing. She offered up her best, most diplomatic smile.

"Ai na Panna Sul,"
she introduced herself.
"D'hanni ai an Cerri Maeve Cavainna." I work for Queen Maeve Cavainna.

At this, the glass-armored man's hands clenched into fists. For the first time, Panna noticed the short, curved glass blades extending from the knuckles. Who was he? Panna squinted. The armor was not Kaellisem-made. It was utterly clear, like still water, and lacked any of the veins or swirls of cloudy color that marked most glass forged on Stray. Could Hyra be making suits from the white Bherrosi sand? But Panna knew all of Sir Anthem's knights and she was quite sure she had never met this man before.

"En calla ma cerri. An na Xartasia!"
shouted the other Arcadian.
There is only one queen. Her name is Xartasia!

The White Queen's knight yanked something from a white sash around his waist, a knife with a strangely long handle. It had a double-edged glass blade and the haft was made of some sort of dark metal or ceramic. The knight slashed at Panna's stomach. She was already staggering back, but the razor tip sliced cleanly through her shirt and into the unprotected flesh beneath. Blood poured down the front of Panna's pants, hot and wet and heavy.

This would be a short fight. Panna was no knight or any other kind of fighter. How could she stand her ground against the other Arcadian?

Panna threw herself at the man, but to one side. He spun to face her, slicing another bloody wound into Panna's inner arm as she brought it up. She felt soft cloth sliding through her fingers. Too fast…! Panna clutched at the scarf, yanking it clumsily from the knight's head. The fabric tangled in his braids, snaking free from Panna's grasp. But the scarf was no longer covering his eyes. The knight dropped his strange knife and clawed at his eyes, suddenly blinded by the dazzling sunlight.

Panna pressed her hands hard into her bleeding abdomen and ran. Her pulse pounded in her ears, behind her eyes like some maddened creature struggling to free itself from her skull. Behind her, the armored Arcadian spread his wings and leapt into the air, but landed again only a yard away. The Hadrian gravity! Panna wanted to kiss the whole planet.

She stumbled out of the narrow side street, nearly overshooting the sidewalk and running into the wide main road. Several cars swerved and honked loudly. One cheap-looking flying sedan – null-inertia technology was very popular on Hadra – crunched into the shiny chrome bumper of the car in front of them. The driver jumped out, his already dark face turning purple with fury.

"What in the three hundred hells are you doing, girl?" he shouted at Panna. Then his white-covered eyes dropped to her blood-covered hands. "Oh God, what happened?"

Panna looked back. The man in glass had recovered his weapon and ran after her, scattering pedestrians before him. Panna whirled back to the driver. "Get me out of here!" she cried.

"Let me call an ambulance–" he began to argue, perhaps thinking of blood all over his upholstery.

"Just get me out of here!" Panna interrupted, panting.

The Hadrian nodded and yanked open the passenger door. By now, other cars were swerving around and sometimes over the stopped NI sedan. Panna all but fell into the seat, slumping into an uncomfortable cushion of crinkling mycolar fast food envelopes and old drink boxes.

"Come on!" she shouted.

Xartasia's knight was closing fast. He vaulted acrobatically over the broad shoulder of a tall Hadrian father clutching his frightened daughter close. The Arcadian spread his wings again. He couldn't fly well in Hadra's unrelenting gravitation, but he would surely be able to make the jump onto the car. Then what? Pull Panna out and stab her? Throw her out into traffic? A red convertible with sweeping, stylish lines shrieked past. That would certainly do the job.

The sedan's driver finally slid into his seat and slammed the door closed behind him. Had he seen the Arcadian chasing her? He must have, Panna decided. The Hadrian grabbed the shift control and threw the car into gear. The inexpensive null-inertia field filmed the windows over with faintly orange light and the whole vehicle jolted a few feet up into the air. The engine whined in protest – Panna hazily wondered how long since it had been to a shop – and then rumbled. Panna's new best friend yanked his car back into the swift river of other vehicles, eliciting a raucous new chorus of honking and shouting.

But the Arcadian was too close. He vaulted up onto a corner news display, making the screen shudder, and leapt onto the top of the car. Panna wondered who was screaming. Blood filled the hands still clutching at her stomach.

The Hadrian driver shouted and yanked on the steering wheel as the glass blade scraped across the roof, shrieking against the metal. A blinking traffic signal spun past as the vehicle turned sharply. Panna squeezed her eyes shut. She was going to be sick and she was going to throw up her guts all over the dashboard. Ballad would have to finish this alone. She was going to die…

Xartasia's knight slid on the wildly spinning car, glass boots scrabbling for purchase on the roof. He fell over the side, barely holding on by fingertips wedged into the top of Panna's door. They stared into each other's eyes for a fraction of a second before the wind caught the knight's wings and yanked him away. He smashed into the side of a building and fell down out of sight. Panna slid down in the red-stained seat and swiftly lost the battle for consciousness.

________

"Does that hurt?"

"No."

Gripper looked over the magnifiers strapped awkwardly to his huge brown head. His long, drooping ears twitched. "Glass isn't here anymore, Hunter. Stop that."

Logan ground his teeth. "Yes," he admitted.

"Good," said the Blue Phoenix's mechanic. Now his mechanic, too, Logan supposed. "Most of the wiring is fine. The insulation is a little uh… melted in a few spots. We'll replace that with glass, too."

"Will it be flexible enough?" Logan asked as Gripper withdrew a small probe from between the bundled wires that ran through the U-shaped cradle of his wrist.

"Normally, no. That's one of the problems with glass insulation. But by the time you nanostructure it small enough to bend, it gets toxic. That's why no one makes fiberglass anymore."

"It's still used on Prianus."