Hostiles (The Galactic Mage series) (63 page)

“Yes, sir,” said the commander. “I’m east of you now, I think. I got turned around in the mob pushing through the gate.”

“Levi, find a magician. Any magician. You have to get word to
Citadel
. Tell them to send the teleporters. The director is finally going to help.”

“It’s about goddamn time.”

“Levi, now. Before it’s too late.”

“On it, sir.”

The colonel switched back to the director, who immediately asked if it was done.

“I don’t know, Director. We’ll just have to see. But if this city goes down, if these people all die, you better hope there’s no such place as hell.”

“I think my room is booked and paid for, Colonel. I’ll order the fleet to resume fire, and we’ll send air support back in for now.”

“You do that, sir,” said the colonel, not bothering to hide the contempt beneath the words. His ammo counter flashed at him, the reading: ninety-two.

Chapter 48

K
ettle found Altin by the moans echoing dully out of the dark corner of Calico Castle’s cavernous dining hall. At first she thought it was a ghost, so lost was she in the absent mood that had settled upon her as she set the long table again, set it as she always did at this time of day, preparing it for a meal that was never eaten there anymore, a custom she simply could not let go. If she stopped doing it, if she stopped assuming that Altin would come and eat, it felt like the world would stop too.

And so the first low sounds coming from the shadows gave her a fright as she stared into the gloom at the silhouetted suit of armor there, a rusting old thing that had been glorious one day long ago perhaps, but that had remained unassaulted by even her dust cloth since her third year in Tytamon’s employ.

The moan came again, a few more times, before the flutter of her heart turned from fright to alarm. She recognized that sound.

She ran as fast as her stout frame could manage, her skirts hoisted above her fleshy pink knees. When she saw the strange shape of his spacesuit, she once more recoiled, thinking something supernatural might have come, but there could be no mistaking that face, that sweet, beautiful face of the boy she’d raised since he was eleven. A face now completely covered with blood.

She fell to her knees beside him and shrieked for Nipper to come. She cradled his head in her lap as his blood poured from his mouth in a river that pooled upon her white apron.

“Altin, sweet boy, wake up. Altin speak ta me!” She shrieked for Nipper again.

One of the heavy doors swung open a crack as Nipper came in. “Ya don’t ha’ ta scream, woman, I ain’t deaf yet.” Pernie squeezed under his arm even as he was pushing open the door. She ran to where Kettle was, knowing well what the pitch of Kettle’s voice foretold.

“Tell Gimmel ta hitch a team,” Kettle shouted. “Altin is here, and he’s bleedin’ from everywhere. We got ta get him ta Leekant fast.”

Pernie knelt beside her and looked down into Altin’s face. She’d never seen that much blood coming from someone’s face before, at least no one that she loved.

“What happened to him?” she asked.

“I ha’ no idea, girl. Now run and fetch me some clean rags from the linen, and a kettle a’ hot water from the fire. Go and do it now.”

“I can fix him,” she said, scooting forward and reaching out to touch his face.

“Don’t ya dare,” Kettle snapped. “Don’t ya cast one thing. Ya got no idea what all that magic is about. Yer a wee lass, and ain’t no doctor yet.”

“I don’t want to be a doctor. But Master Grimswoller says I can heal.”

“Pernie, ya needs ta keep that magic in yer head now. You’ll do as I told ya, child!”

“But I can.” She reached out and touched Altin’s face. Both hands, his head held between them. She pressed her palms against his ears, holding him softly as she tried to think healthful thoughts. She knew how to find the mana now. They’d taught her quite a lot. She didn’t know any healing spells, though. At least not human ones. She only knew how to un-wilt a daffodil. But how much different could it be? It was just health after all. So she cast it, the innocence of childhood folding her love for him into it like a prayer.

Altin coughed again, violently, before Kettle could stop her. The hot spray of blood he sent forth freckled them both.

“Pernie,” Kettle shouted as she began to reach for the child’s hands. But she stopped, knowing it was too late, fearing it might only make it worse to disturb magic underway. She didn’t know which was more dangerous anymore, being a magician or being a blank.

Pernie let go of Altin a moment later, pulling her little hands off his face, oblivious to the sticky blood soaking them so thoroughly. “I think that helps,” she said, smiling up at Kettle. “See.”

Altin sat up and coughed out more blood. Kettle watched in horror thinking that Pernie must have ruptured one of his lungs. Perhaps both. He coughed and gagged and drew in ragged breaths. He was a mess, a slimy crimson ooze. But he was alive.

His first word came as if released from a bursting bubble, fast and wet, “Orli?” He looked around, and seemed to see Kettle and Pernie for the first time. He blinked and, in trying to wipe whatever it was away with his hands, smeared more blood into his eyes.

He reached for his robes but realized he was still wearing the space suit. Suddenly he scrabbled back out of the way, getting out of the space behind the ancient armor suit. “Don’t go in there. Stay away from the armor.” His eyes were aflutter then as he tried to clear them of all that blood. It ran in red tears down his face. He looked the part of some gruesome carnival clown in makeup that was a mask of melting horror and leaking death.

He stared into the space behind the armor, glared into it, the intensity of his blood-soaked expression enough to silence even Pernie’s voice. He tried to cast a seeing spell, but he started coughing so violently he couldn’t get it off.

“Please,” Altin said, wheezing, gasping through the fit that wracked him. He nearly blacked out and had to flop over on his side. “Please,” he said, weakly, still trying to catch his breath. It was barely a whisper. “Please, please, please.” He kept saying it, over and over, staring into that place, watching it with a wounded ferocity as he lay panting, waiting for his vision to return. Every so often he would mutter the name of some god or another. He would curse them or praise them alternately.

He tried to cast a seeing spell again, but he simply didn’t have the strength. So he stared, glared even, as if he were trying to burn a hole straight through all that dark space between them with the raw ferocity of his need to know. His need to have her back.

Kettle and Pernie backed away from the armor, backed away even from him. There was something terrifying in his eyes, something threatening the worst of all possible things, something so unspeakable, so unbearable, neither dared to ask. They stared with him, sharing the pall of his awakening dread, the growing thing that filled the room like rumors of a plague.

And then Orli came staggering out of nowhere. In a suit just like the one Altin wore. She appeared in a rush of air, a hot one, stumbling the moment she arrived. She took one running step forward and clanged off the armor suit, buckling it and sending it falling noisily toward Pernie where she stood. The child scrambled out of the way even as Orli staggered back, hit the wall and stumbled two steps forward where she tripped over Altin and went sprawling to the floor, her helmet bouncing out of her hand and sent skittering across the flagstones into the dark places near the farthest end of the room. She lay there motionless for a time, her suit smoking heavily, as Altin leapt for her, finding the strength to half dive, half crawl to where she lay, her name a desperate hope upon his lips.

“Shit,” she said even as his cries rang out. She’d landed hard against the stone floor and knocked the air from her lungs. She gasped a few times more, before she fumbled to right herself. He was already there, rolling her over and helping her sit up.

She shook her head to clear it, and looked instantly relieved. “You’re alive!”

“
You’re
alive!” he rejoiced. “Thank the gods, you are alive.” He sobered instantly. “But is it done?”

“The charges went off, if that’s what you mean,” she replied. “I waited until it blew.”

“So is it dead?”

“I don’t know. I only had time to drill one hole, and not even very deep. Red Fire must have known what we were doing because he started shaking everything. The Higgs prism kept me mostly out of trouble, but the damn wall was moving so bad I couldn’t set the drill. So once I realized trying was pointless, I jammed a charge into the hole I’d made, and then just hung the bag with the rest of them on it. I set the timer for fifteen seconds and jumped. When I’d floated far enough away, I got my helmet off and the amulet ready, but I wanted to make sure the charge went off. The second I saw the fire blast in the heart chamber, I left. And, well, here I am. But that’s it. After the flash, I just don’t know. All I know for sure is: that was pretty damn close.” She held up the stub of the fast-cast amulet, the chain still dangling from her gloved hand. Smoke rose in lazy lines from the glove, drifting toward the ceiling, the strange Earth material obviously singed. “I guess now we wait and see. Or you can go look with a spell.”

Altin tried again to cast a seeing spell, but he could not. He started coughing once more. “Ugh,” he said. “I’m worthless now.”

“Want I should heal you some more?” Pernie asked. Orli got up and ran for her helmet where it had rolled into a corner near the room’s farthest wall.

Altin watched her go, saw that she seemed to be perfectly fine as she strove to pull something out of the helmet, and he turned back to Pernie. “Heal?” he asked, with perhaps more than a little horror in the expression that he wore. He was afraid he already knew the answer too.

“Yes,” she said, nodding honestly up at him, her small face radiant with pride. “It was I what brought you back. Kettle said I shouldn’t, but I did anyway because I knew I could even if I didn’t know the spell. At least not exactly, I know the flower healing spell, but it worked, didn’t it? I just made it for you. I can do it again too, you’ll see.” She moved toward him, reaching out her steady little hands.

Kettle’s own hands darted out and snatched her back. “That’ll be enough a’ that sorta thing from the likes a’ you, child,” she said. “Ya done a fine thing, I’ll grant ya, but that’s plenty fer today, I’d say. Master Altin will be needin’ seen ta by a trained professional from here.”

Pernie looked as if she were ready to argue, but Altin stayed her with an upraised hand. “She’s right, Pernie. But you’ve done a wonderful thing. I will be forever in your debt.”

“Well, I was just going to—” she began, but she stopped when Orli’s yelling turned all eyes to the far end of the room. Orli had extracted a small object Pernie didn’t recognize from the helmet and now held it to her ear.

“Just send them, goddamn it. It’s fucking dead. We killed it.”

The three Prosperions stood staring, transfixed by the urgency in Orli’s tone.

“I don’t want to know why! They’ve already waited long enough.”

Altin thought she was going to lose her mind. She was absolutely furious, but then, just as suddenly as the one-sided conversation had begun, Orli’s tone changed, softening considerably.

“My father?” Another pause. “Okay. Good. Thank God. So you’ll send them if they show up?”

More breathless waiting on the part of Altin, Kettle and Pernie.

“Okay,” Orli said at last, her voice one of absolute relief. “We’ll tell them. Pewter out.” She looked up and saw them all staring at her, two faces filled with bewilderment and one with rising hope.

“Well?” said Altin, having partially figured out what was going on.

“The director said they’ll come. The orbs have all gone motionless. He says they’re turning gray. Nothing is moving, so it worked! It really worked. And he’s going to send the Marines. But we have to get word to
Citadel
. We have to send the teleporters.”

Altin’s first thought was to teleport the two of them straight to the space fortress, but he knew immediately that could be the death of them. He was too weak. He glanced sideways at Pernie. For the barest flicker of time, he considered letting her try to heal him a little more, but he put that idea away even faster than he had set aside the inclination to teleport to
Citadel
.

“How long before they are ready to go?” he asked, buying himself time to think. “Aren’t most of them deployed around Earth?”

“Yes, but they’re gathering in localized areas now. Ten minutes tops and there will be plenty of them ready to go, but we have to send the mages, so they can figure out where they need to be. Which means we need to go now.”

“Go where?” asked Pernie.

“Hush, child,” snapped Kettle, her eyes wide and frightened.

“I can’t do it,” Altin said. “Not yet.” He looked again to Pernie. His heart pounding loudly in his chest and in his ears. It was so risky. She would have no idea what she was doing. Fear and love had guided her before, instinct, animal power. But she’d be thinking now. That would be ruin. Wouldn’t it? He didn’t know much about healing magic, though he imagined it worked like all the rest.