Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (41 page)

Gripper flushed. "Yeah. Anyway, Vyron's been working with the fairies here to make a better version; something about a coiled substructure instead of fiberwoven like hull plating. I'm not sure, but we'll be trying it out on your new hand."

"Have you told him the even better news?" asked Duaal.

The well-dressed young captain stood across a nearby table from Hyra, who was studying the datadex Duaal had brought with a deep scowl.

"No, actually," answered Gripper. "It was
going
to be a surprise."

"Too late now," Duaal said cheerfully. "Those plans that Hyra's glaring at right now are from Xia. They're a little rough, she says. I wouldn't know."

"What are they for?" asked Logan.

"Nerve endings, more or less. If Hyra can pull it off, we will–"

"What is
we
?" Hyra hissed in thickly accented Aver. His single wing twitched in agitation.

"He will be able to use some of the more reactive glass fibers," Duaal continued smoothly, "to return some of the feeling you've lost."

Logan blinked. "What?"

"Not all," Gripper added quickly. "Glass isn't skin. We can only give you about eighty-five percent sensitivity."

"Will take time," said Hyra, looking up from Xia's schematics. "Has lots of little pieces. I can make in one week."

A week… After seven years of near numbness. One week more and he could feel again. It was not so long to wait, so long to be with only one hand.

But how many bombs could be made in a week? There was more to do than just to find and defuse the explosives – and that was threatening to overwhelm Anthem and his knights. It was Logan's job to find the one setting them.

There was too much work to be done. Logan shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't have time for that. Just get the moving pieces covered."

Gripper sighed and rolled his big brown eyes at Duaal. "See? That's why I wasn't going to tell him."

Duaal frowned. "Are you sure, Logan?" he asked. "Just think how it will feel to hold Maeve with two working hands."

Logan tossed a canister of compressed air to Gripper and the Arboran got to work cleaning and sterilizing the exposed cybernetics.

"I can't hold Maeve now," he said. "And Anthem never will if someone kills her. Just get me back out there."

________

An Ixthian woman was standing over Panna when she woke. They were alone in a small, pale cubicle with a curtain instead of a door. The Ixthian was checking over something on the computer display at the end of the bed.

"You're awake," she said. "Good. I'm Doctor Xel. How are you feeling?"

Panna swallowed and thought about her answer. "Thirsty," she decided. "And sort of weak. But otherwise all right. Can I have something to drink?"

Xel filled a cup from a small nearby sink. Panna drank it down in three huge gulps. "You lost a lot of blood," the doctor said, then pursed her shiny lips. "We replaced it, but that very nearly killed you, Miss Sul."

Panna wondered for a moment what that meant, then blushed scarlet and held out her cup for more water. "You tried to give me human blood?" she asked.

Xel nodded and refilled the plastic cup. "You really should wear a tag or something."

She probably had more to say – either a lecture on proper redprint identification or else on Panna's surgical alterations themselves – but a crash from outside the cubicle interrupted her.

"Get your bloody hands off me!" shouted someone. The voice had a thick Prian accent. "Where the hells is she? You said she was here!"

The curtain was suddenly torn aside and Ballad was there, his wings tangled in the fabric. A human hung from each of his arms. The first was an Axial or colonist in blue scrubs. He was shouting for Ballad to get back outside, but was shockingly unsuccessful in forcing the Arcadian to do so. The second was more grabbed by Ballad than the other way around. It was the Hadrian man whose car Panna had tried very hard not to die in. His blank white eyes were wide and round as Ballad hauled him into the cubicle.

"I'm right here," Panna said.

Xel had closed a six-fingered hand on Ballad's shoulder and was preparing to help the orderly haul him away. She quirked her antennae at her patient. "You know him?"

"Yes, I do," Panna said. "We work together."

Ballad stopped struggling and the hospital staff let go of his limbs. He even released the Hadrian. Xel waited until she was sure that Ballad was no further danger and then excused herself and the orderly. "Just press the call button if you need us," she told Panna.

"Thanks."

Panna sat up slowly, wincing in preparation for the pain in her stomach, but there was none. She wished she could check the wound, but unless she wanted to pull off her already rather brief paper gown in front of the two men, it would have to wait.

Ballad's sharp jaw was clenched so tightly that Panna worried about his teeth. "You shouldn't have gone off on your own," he said. "You could have been killed! What the hells happened?"

"How did you find me?" Panna asked. She intended to answer Ballad's questions, but not until she asked a few of her own.

"He came looking for you," said the Hadrian, speaking up for the first time since their abrupt entrance. "I was still answering questions with the cops when he showed up. They can't find the guy, by the way. He got away. Sorry, I guess."

"You helped Ballad find me?" Panna smiled. "Thank you. Um, I'm sorry. I never got your name."

"Jacks." The wiry, dark-skinned man glanced between Ballad and Panna uncomfortably. "If you don't need anything else from me…"

"No," Panna said.

Jacks quickly ducked out of the hospital cube. Panna smoothed the blanket over her lap and inspected her right arm, where Xartasia's knight had cut her. There was a pink line across the skin, but even that was faint. She didn't think that it would scar. The Ixthians did great work.

"Panna, what happened?" Ballad asked again. Oddly, the young knight didn't sound angry this time. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. There was another knight. At least, I think that's what he was. He wore armor. But not like yours. His was like the old suits." Panna frowned and drained her water again. "No, it was definitely different. Modified. But it didn't come from Kaellisem. I'm sure of that much."

Ballad refilled Panna's cup and handed it back. "What did he do? Did he say anything?"

"Yes. When I told him I serve Queen Maeve, he answered that there was only one queen."

"Xartasia." A deep scowl tugged at Ballad's young face.

Panna nodded. "Then he attacked me. I pulled the scarf off his eyes and ran. Jacks got me away."

"And called the cops," Ballad added. Was he angry about that part? It was hard to tell. "They brought the Ixthians."

Panna just couldn't resist anymore. She held up the blanket as a barrier and pulled aside the pale green gown to look at her stomach. The skin was a little red, but otherwise there was no sign of her struggle with the knight. She covered herself again and found Ballad staring at her, eyebrows raised.

"I've never actually been to a real Ixthian med center," she explained. "I was always careful to avoid them. I knew it wouldn't take them long to realize that I wasn't human."

Ballad didn't seem to know what to say to that. "What now?" he asked instead.

Panna pressed the nurse's call button. "We settle the bill and get back to work. Xartasia's got a man on Hadra, too. We need to get to the Arcadians here before he does."

"It is easy to kill a queen. To destroy her is something else entirely."

– Syle Lamanna (234 PA)

"I am so very sorry, Your Majesty," said Duke Ferris. "I have no idea how this is happening."

Maeve slammed her hands down on her desk. There were no desks in the White Kingdom, but she had grown accustomed to the coreworlder practice. Her desk was one of the few things in the royal tower not made of glass. It was a cheap thing, in truth, little more than two sheets of printed mycoboard with a piece of already scuffed and scratched steel bolted to the top. The desk was one of Xyn's. The fat little scientist seemed more than happy to give it to Maeve. It was cheaper than the disposal fee in Gharib and easier than dumping it in the desert. The desk was a convenient place to keep things that Maeve was working on and an uncomplaining victim of her frequent frustrations.

"That bomb could have killed Logan!" she cried.

Verra winced at her volume, but Ferris' expression remained neutral. The old duke's already graying hair had gone entirely steely at the temples. Maeve almost felt guilty for yelling at him.

"That would have been regrettable," the duke said evenly. "What of your consort, Sir Anthem? Is he well?"

"Fine," Maeve answered, refusing to rise to the bait.

She pounded her fist into the desktop one more time for good measure and resumed her angry pacing along the length of the study. Ferris tucked his hands into the gold-trimmed sleeves of his flowing robe. He glanced sidelong at the open door, at the pair of glass-armored knights standing outside. Hannu listened with obvious interest. He blushed and hid behind one wing when he saw the two older Arcadians staring. On the other side, Syle's gaze remained fixed ahead. Maeve wondered if he was really ignoring the conversation or simply preserving his queen's fragile dignity.

"We must increase your security," Ferris said, wrenching Maeve's attention back into the room. "We cannot risk any danger to you, my queen."

Maeve felt the insane urge to laugh at the stodgy old duke. She settled for a tight smirk. "I am in no danger. It is not so difficult to get near me that our bomber could not have done so at any time in the last weeks."

"Does he have some other aim?"

Maeve nodded. "His target must be Kaellisem itself. Not the towers, but the dream.
Erritasia.
"

"The dream of dreamers,"
Ferris said in Aver. "The spirit of Kaellisem. You believe that this bomber is trying to ruin the city?"

"How many have left Kaellisem since the enassui? More than three hundred! When the people learn that this newest bomb contained nitrocycline, more will go. Those who know the word, at least. Killing me is little in the face of true destruction."

"A dead queen is still a queen," Ferris said quietly.

"But a queen who cannot protect her people will not remain queen for long," finished Maeve. "My people will all leave, in time."

"Finding the bombs slows the process, I am sure, Your Majesty."

"But does not stop it!" Maeve kicked her desk and winced in pain. "And while I struggle to hold one city together, Xartasia is still out there. I do not know if we have slowed her at all."

________

Panna threw her arm up over her eyes as they stepped out into the brilliant daylight. Ballad prodded her shoulder with one wing and handed her a pair of sunglasses. Panna accepted them gratefully.

"Where are we going?" she asked as Ballad struck a quick pace down the sidewalk.

He ignored a group of scowling Hadrians in dark suits. "Motel," the knight answered shortly. "And if you didn't like the one we had before, you'll love this place. We spent most of our money on your treatment."

"Ixthians are the best. You can tell by the bill."

Ballad smiled tightly without looking at Panna. "If we're going to send anyone else back to Kaellisem, we need to save all the colour we can. That means we're sharing a room again."

"What?" She came to an awkward stop in front of a crowded cafeteria.

"Unless you feel like sleeping on the street. I've had plenty of practice. Want to give it a try?" Ballad looked back over one leather-clad shoulder.

Panna hurried to catch up. "No, the motel will be fine. But not just yet. We need to go back down to Yebdemi. There are still a lot of Arcadians over there."

Ballad slowed again when Panna caught up, but the sweating young knight was glowering. "You just got out of the hospital," he growled. "Xartasia's hawk stabbed you in Yebdemi!"

"He grazed me," Panna corrected.

"You nearly bled to death!"

He had a point and if the Ixthians were any less skilled doctors, she probably would not have been alive to admit it. Still, Panna didn't want to tell Ballad that he was right. She stopped at the street corner and ignored a shouted suggestion that
Hey Sweetie
should drop her fairy boy for a real man. Ballad stuck his thumb and last finger out at the car from which the shout had come.

"Stop that," Panna said. She adjusted the sunglasses over her streaming eyes. "You're just giving him what he wants."

"He wants you," Ballad answered angrily. "Not me."

Panna flushed but doubted that he could see through the blinding light. In the road, dual rows of tall orange barriers rose up and beeped instantly at the pedestrians. Panna jogged into the street, packed in close between much taller humans. Ballad swore under his breath and had to fly to catch up. He landed next to Panna when she reached the other side of the road. Ballad did not apologize to the Hadrians his arrival displaced.