Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 (6 page)

Hooves stamped nearby. Janelle stayed silent, though surely they could hear the thud of her heart. Voices spoke in a patois of heavily accented English sprinkled with unfamiliar words. Straining to understand, she recognized they were talking about the “two on the beach,” that they would finish off the man and take the girl. When she heard what they wanted to do with her, bile rose in her throat.

The voices moved away, until she heard only waves on the beach. Dominick spoke under his breath, no words she recognized, what sounded like an oath. She breathed out, aware of her rigid posture.

“I think we can go,” he said in a low voice.

A reaction was setting in as Janelle comprehended she might truly be stranded in this violent place with no anchor except this stranger. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“It will work out.” Despite his rough voice, he had a kind tone. “Come with me, Janelle. I will do well by you.”

Get a grip,
she told herself, and climbed to her feet. “I’m all right.”

Standing with her, he inclined his head. He lifted his hand as if to touch her face, but when she tensed, he lowered his arm.

They set off again, and the ocean’s mumble receded as they went deeper among the trees. The woods thickened into a heavy forest, and tufts of wild grass stuck up in the soil. Dusk came like a great beast, one barely noticed until it spread its wings, darkening every copse and glade. Luminescent bottle flies hummed among the trees.

Dominick drew her to a stop. Holding his fingers to his mouth, he gave a whistle that rose and fell in an eerie tune. A bird answered his call.

“Hai,” a low voice said.

Janelle started. A man had appeared under a nearby tree. He wore leather armor and a dagger similar to Dominick’s, but without the silver or abalone. He also had an “extra” that made her mouth go dry, a monstrous broadsword strapped across his back with its hilt sticking above his shoulders.

Dominick spoke in the same dialect used by the men who wanted to kill him. It sounded like “Hava moon strake camp,” but she thought he meant, “Have the men strike camp.” Although she didn’t understand the other man’s response, she saw the deference in his bow. The man glanced at her with curiosity, then withdrew into the trees and vanished as silently as he had come.

She and Dominick continued on, and although she saw no one else, she didn’t think they were alone anymore. They soon entered a clearing of trampled grass. Several tents stood on the far side, and men moved in the trees beyond, soldiers it looked like, in leather armor. Most were tending animals. Their mounts resembled horses, but with tufts for tails. Each had two horns, one on either side of its head, with the tips pointing inward. Some of the men wore helmets with similar horns. The scene had a dreamlike quality, all in the dusk, with mist curling around the animals. But the cooling air on her arms and legs and the pungent smell of wet grass were all too real.

The men greeted Dominick with respect. Although Janelle had trouble deciphering their words, she understood their intent. They were preparing to leave.

And she was going with them.

 

Fog muffled the night. Janelle sat in front of Dominick on one of the two-horned animals, which he called a biaquine. Starlight, his mount, had a silver coat with stiff hair. He changed the animal’s saddle to a tasseled blanket woven in heavy red and white yarn so Janelle could more easily sit with him. A few scouts went on ahead, but the rest of the men stayed together, with extra biaquines to carry the tents and other supplies.

Fear and curiosity warred within Janelle. She had agreed to go with Dominick because she saw no other viable choices, at least not where she stayed alive and healthy. But she didn’t trust him.

They passed through veils of mist, climbing into the mountains. Her muscles ached from the unfamiliar ride. Moonlight lightened the fog, and she strove to keep track of landmarks that loomed out of the night: a gnarled tree with two trunks or a weathered statue of an elderly man in a niche of rock. Her ties to home were growing tenuous, unable to compete with the reality of this impossible place.

Dominick put his arms around her waist, so she didn’t fall off the biaquine. At first she sat ramrod straight. Gradually, though, Starlight’s rocking gait lulled her. Nor did Dominick act in any way to make her uncomfortable. She had forgotten how comforting it felt just to be held. Her mother had always been effusive with affection, and although her father had been less demonstrative, he had never let them doubt his love. She had grown up secure in those close-knit ties. One instant of violence had shattered everything. Drowning in grief, she had withdrawn from human contact; in the past two years she had barely touched another person.

Dominick had a strange request. He wanted a curl of her hair. When she agreed, he pulled out his dagger. She stiffened, her gaze riveted on the long blade as it glittered in the moonlight, but he only cut off a small tendril. He gave it to one of his riders, who carefully placed the strands in a packet of cloth. Then the man took off up the trail, galloping ahead of their party.

“What’ll he do with it?” Janelle asked.

“My monks will examine it,” Dominick said. “To see if you are who I think.”

“How can they know from a lock of hair?”

“They have . . . spells.”

“Spells?”

“Well,” he amended, “so they say.”

From his tone, she suspected he didn’t believe it any more than she did. She just hoped his monks didn’t decide her hair had demonic properties.

Exhaustion was catching up to her, but she feared to rest, dreading what she might find when she awoke. She had rarely slept enough during school, often studying late into the night. It paid off; she earned high marks, even the top grade in Mathematical Methods of Physics. Now her simple pleasure in a job well done seemed forlorn.

An owl hooted, its call muted by the fog. Janelle shuddered.

“Are you cold?” Dominick asked.

“I was thinking of home.”

Regret softened the hard edges of his voice. “I am sorry about this.” After a pause, he added, “But I would be lying if I denied I am glad you are here. I never really believed this would happen.”

“Prophecies aren’t real.” She watched the biaquines plodding ahead of them on the trail. “A rational explanation has to exist.”

“Truthfully?” he said. “I don’t think the seeress made that prediction. It was Gregor, a monk from the monastery. He is the one who can read the Jade Pool.” His voice tightened. “Father’s soothsayer had never even been there before. She stayed at the palace.”

“Palace?”

“Where my brother is.”

“Does he work there?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “You could say that.”

“What does he do?”

“He is the Emperor of Othman.”

Good Lord. What had she landed in? “You’re the brother of an emperor?”

“Yes.” He said it simply, just verifying a fact. “He was born first.”

If neither he nor his brother had married, that suggested neither had legitimate offspring. “Does that mean you’re his heir?”

“For now. Until he sires one.”

“Sweet blazes,” she murmured. “I’ve never heard of Othman.”

He swept out his hand as if to show her all of the land. “The provinces stretch from the snow fields in the far north to the great gulf in the south. Maximillian rules it, and I govern the Atlantic Province under him.”

“The entire continent?” It sounded like Canada and North America.

“Only the eastern half. Britain has the rest.” In a voice that sounded deceptively soft, he added, “For now.”

A chill went through her. “And later?”

“That depends on what happens with Max.”

From his tone, she suspected that if he ever became emperor, he would kick out the British and absorb their territories. What a strange history for the colonial revolution.

“Your brother is afraid you’re after his throne,” she said.

“Supposedly, whichever of us marries you will rule Othman.”

“This is crazy. I have nothing to do with either of you.”

“Not according to the seer.”

Or the politicians, more likely. “Dominick, surely you see this so-called prophecy is a trick, one guaranteed to set you and your brother against each other. It’s bunk.”

“Bunk?”

“Lies. Moonshine.”

“Moonshine.” Wryly he added, “An apt image.”

Janelle had used the word on instinct, and now she regretted it. It evoked sweetly faded memories of her southern childhood: grits, biscuits and gravy, and bluegrass music. Her family had later moved to Washington, D.C. and then Europe, but the girl who loved country ham and the unique twang of a steel guitar was still inside of her. Her memories glimmered of the golden hills she had wandered during late summer days, spinning the enchanted dreams of youth. She couldn’t let herself think she might never again see them.

“I would agree it is ‘moonshine,’” Dominick was saying, “except everything else in the prophecy has come true. It foretold the birth of eight children to my parents. Max and I have six siblings, and they fit every detail predicted.” His breath condensed in the air, spuming past her. “Gregor gave my father a sealed letter, to be opened after Father’s death. Father died of pneumonia ten years ago, three days after his sixtieth birthday. After the funeral, Maximillian opened the letter.”

“What did it say?”

He answered quietly. “That my father would die of pneumonia three days after his sixtieth birthday.”

She shivered. “That’s eerie.”

“Indeed.”

“You and Maximillian can never trust each other.”

“True. Not that I would trust him anyway.”

“Why not?”

“He craves power.”

She suspected that applied to Dominick as well. “Why are you so certain it’s me in that prophecy? You’ve only seen drawings of an older woman.”

“We will verify your signature.”

“You’ve never seen me write, I’m sure.”

“Not writing. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

He paused for a moment. “Your signature is inside your body. It has forty-six characters, half each from your father and mother. You can’t see it, I think because it is too small.” He nuzzled the top of her head. “It determines everything about you, from the color of your eyes to whether you are a man or a woman.”

The touch of his lips on her hair startled Janelle. It was a simple gesture, but that just made it more intimate, as if they took such affections for granted. Attractive he might be, but he was too threatening. She started to tell him to stop, then froze as she realized what else he had said. The “signature” sounded like DNA. Based on what she had seen, she wouldn’t have expected his people to know genetics at the molecular level needed to identify a person. Then she gave a frayed laugh. She didn’t believe they understood DNA, but she accepted gates to other universes?

He lifted his head and spoke stiffly. “What is funny?”

Belatedly, she realized how her reaction must have sounded. “Dominick, I wasn’t laughing at—” She foundered at the word

“kiss,” which felt much too awkward, and wasn’t exactly what he had done, anyway. So she told another truth. “I’m tired. Nervous.” Softly, she added, “Don’t push.”

He let out a breath. “It is my fault you were ill prepared. I wasn’t ready, either. I had never before used the gate.”

“You must have studied it.” How else could he have found her?

He shook his head, or at least his hair rustled; seated in front of him, she couldn’t see his face.

“I just use the tools Gregor gave me,” he said.

“The disk on your belt.”

“Yes. Except it no longer does anything.”

“Maybe I can get it to work.”

She expected him to refuse. Instead, he took his arm away from her waist, and she heard a click. Then he pressed a metal plate into her hand. It had a diameter the size of her palm and felt cool on her skin. No marks embellished its polished surface.

“How does it operate?” she asked.

“I rub it. Supposedly my finger ridges activate the spells.” Spells indeed. If his fingerprints operated the mechanism, it wouldn’t work for her. When she rubbed the disk, nothing happened. “Should I touch it in any pattern?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You said before that you calibrated it.”

“Actually, Gregor did. He’s secretive. He tells me nothing.” Wryly he added, “I don’t think he understands it, either.” He guided Starlight around an outcropping, and the biaquine snorted as if to protest the inconvenience.

“What you said about ‘sheets’ earlier,” Dominick said. “What did you mean?”

Janelle handed him back the disk. “It’s kind of abstruse.” “Does that mean you don’t know?”

“No,” she growled. It was a fair question, though. “Imagine one Riemann sheet as my universe. It has a phase.”

“Like the Moon.”

“Not that.” She paused, thinking. “Do you have clocks here?”

“Well, yes. Certainly.”

“Twenty-four hours a day? Twelve and twelve again?”

“Of course.”

It relieved her to have that much in common with him. “Think of the phase as time. Say it goes from midnight to noon in my universe.” She almost said “like hands on an old-fashioned clock,” but then realized analog timepieces might be the norm here.

“And my world is the second clock?” Dominick asked.

“Time goes from noon to midnight here?”

“Yes!” It gratified her that he understood so fast.

“The time here and where I found you was the same.”

“I know. I don’t mean my world and yours are literally related by a twelve-hour difference. Just that they’re in some way out of phase with each other, like three in the morning is different than three in the afternoon, even though they’re called the same thing.”

He was quiet for a while. Then he said, “So the branch cut to your universe is located at a certain phase. It’s like saying the gate opens only at a certain time.”