The Golden Queen (8 page)

Like all homes grown from pine-house seeds, the houses naturally formed holes for doors. Always the seeds grew at least one door at the front of the house, and one at the back. In addition, at odd spots on each side, various openings grew for windows.

Everynne knew that the vanquishers would not be able to follow. Gallen skirted the trees till he reached a steep canyon, then walked to that impenetrable wall and entered a door hole.

They moved through the grove of pine-houses with great effort, grunting and struggling from window to window, often climbing up and down.

Perhaps as a child, Gallen had played here as a game, but windows he had squeezed through as a boy were now too narrow to permit an adult, much less a bear like Orick with his winter fat. Everynne was perspiring heavily. When they were halfway through the grove, Gallen suddenly halted, looking at a narrow window. Obviously, they could not squeeze through it, and Gallen furrowed his brow, deep in thought.

“What’s wrong?” Veriasse asked.

“We’re stuck here,” Gallen said. “I used to fit through that hole nicely, and there is a narrow path ahead that we could follow, but we can’t make it through here. There’s no way to go forward.”

“What will we do?” Maggie asked.

“I’ll have to go out and scout another way.”

“Do you need help?” Veriasse asked, yet obviously the older man was worn through.

“I’ll find a way,” Gallen said, and he went out the door. Everynne could hear him scrabbling around outside, climbing up a branch. The pine-house was dusty, full of needles and cones, the leavings of squirrels. A soft afternoon breeze blew through the little valley, stirring the treetops, even though down here on the ground it felt hot, sultry.

For the first few minutes, Everynne was glad of the chance to rest. Veriasse reached into his pack, pulled out a small flask and gave it to her to drink. She was terribly hungry—had gone all day without food—but they had nothing left to eat in the packs.

When Gallen had been gone for nearly an hour, Maggie said, “I think I’d better go look for Gallen. Maybe he’s lost us.”

She headed outside through a window and scuffled about in the tree, climbing limbs. The sunlight filtering through the open doorway had grown dimmer. Night was coming on, and Everynne could hear pigeons cooing from their roosts. It was very quiet, and Everynne began to feel nervous. They had been sitting for a long time, and the vanquishers could not be far behind. She began to wonder if one of the vanquishers might have already killed the young man, but dared not say it. The bear snuffled, looked out a window.

“Do you think Gallen could be lost?” Everynne asked Veriasse.

Veriasse shook his head. “No. As he’s said, he played here as a child. I suspect he knows exactly where we are. I’ve been impressed by his competence. For a Backward, he seems to have grasped our predicament well, and he’s led the vanquishers on a marvelous chase. He’ll come back soon.”

Veriasse said it with such certainty, that Everynne suddenly felt more at ease. Yet the older man also seemed to need to fill up the silence. “As a warrior, I find him … intriguing.”

“In what way?” Everynne asked.

Veriasse smiled, contemplating. “He carries himself with a deadly grace. If I had seen him on any planet, I would have known he was a killer. He moves with caution, a type of confident wariness that one learns to spot quickly. Yet he is different from warriors on most worlds. Our ancestors relied heavily upon armor until the incendiary guns made it useless. Now, we rely upon our guns and upon tactics downloaded from personal intelligences. We fight battles at long distances and seldom look into the faces of our victims. Even more seldom do we purposely expose ourselves to risk. We have, in effect, become chess masters who’ve memorized too many classic moves. But this young man relies on quick wits for his survival, and his weapon of choice is the knife. It seems an odd choice.”

In the corner of the room, the bear stirred in the shadows under the window. “Oh, Gallen would love a sword,” the bear said, “but they’re so expensive. You have to pay taxes on the damned things every time you travel through a new county.”

Veriasse smiled at the bear, his eyes glittering. “So, even on your backward world,” he said, “you practice arms control?”

The bear shrugged.

Veriasse sighed. “I feel fortunate. I have not met a man like him in many thousands of years.” He stared at Everynne as if to say, “We need him. You could make him follow you.” And a chill went through her. She remembered how Gallen had quivered when he touched her hand in the cave, the way he laughed off his fear of the wights. She, too, found herself intrigued.

“He is taking an awfully long time …” Everynne said.

The bear was watching them intently, and he cleared his throat. “Is there anything you can do to help us find our way out of this wood? Do you know some magic?”

Everynne laughed. “We aren’t magic, Orick, any more than you are magic.”

“Oh,” the bear said, disappointed.

A vanquisher bellowed in frustration. It sounded quite close. The creature had made it partway through the woods. Veriasse stood up, fingering his incendiary rifle, listening.

Ten seconds later, there was a swishing sound as someone leapt down through some upper branches of the tree.

Gallen’s shadow darkened the doorway. “Come on. I found a new trail.”

“What about Maggie?” Everynne asked.

“She’s up ahead, waiting for us.”

Gallen climbed up the tree, leading them through limbs with the grace of a marten. Yet the trail was very difficult.

Soon, Veriasse called for a halt and stood in the shadows under a limb. The sun was setting. He rubbed the backs of his hands against his shirt. “Stop a moment, stop,” he said. He raised his hands. “I smell fire. The vanquishers have set these woods aflame. How much farther?”

“Not far,” Gallen panted. “Not more than fifty yards.”

Everynne was nearly senseless with exhaustion. They climbed ahead, and she found herself blindly grasping for limbs. Smoke crept through the forest like a thin fog. Just before they left the grove, Gallen pulled off his sweaty, soiled greatcoat and threw it into a crevice between two trees. Veriasse watched him and did likewise, and Everynne realized the value of leaving behind something strong of scent. She pulled off her own blue cloak, tossed it back. Everynne looked down, caught Gallen staring at her as she perched on a branch. He did not look away guiltily as some men might have. Instead, he just seemed to admire her. She wondered what he saw—a woman in a blue tunic, perched in a tree, silver ringlets in her dark hair. She realized that she was sitting in the last rays of the dying sun, and perhaps so lit, she looked resplendent. She had been bred to look that way to common humans.

She leapt to the ground and raced into the forest, under the tall pines. Night was falling. Gallen seemed bone weary and had no more tricks in him. Now it was only a race to the gate, and the young man led them over the shortest route.

They reached an old forest at the fork of a canyon just at sunset. Behind them in the distance, Everynne heard an exultant howl. The vanquishers must have picked up their trail. In moments they would be here.

Everynne rushed to the gate and opened her harp case, throwing it to the ground. Gallen stood panting beside Maggie and the bear while Veriasse stepped up behind them. Everynne pulled out her key, a crystal shaped like a horseshoe, then held it up and thumbed a switch that transmitted an electronic code to power up the gate. Her crystal began glowing as the gate transmitted its acceptance signal.

The gate on this world was perhaps the oldest Everynne had ever seen. It was a small thing—taller than a man and two yards wide. It looked like a simple arch made of polished gray stone. On the posts of the arch were carved designs—flowers and vines, images that Everynne could not decipher.

As Everynne held her crystal aloft, the air under the arch began to glow pale lavender.

“My lady,” Gallen said, “will you be safe in this next world?”

Everynne looked at him. Gallen obviously wanted to follow, and Everynne had to decide whether to take him. But the vanquishers were coming. The young man would need to guard Maggie and Orick. If Everynne let him follow, the others might die.

“I’ll be safe enough for the moment,” Everynne answered. “I have the only key to the gate. The vanquishers will have to hunt me in their sky ships. I should get a good lead on them. But for now, you and your friends need to leave here at once. The vanquishers want only me.”

Everynne took one last look at this world—tasted the scent of the pine trees, the freshness of the air under the dark forest. On the first part of her journey here, she had seen the clean brooks full of trout, slept under stars where no one worried about dronon. She doubted that Gallen and Maggie understood what they had here, and she hoped that by leaving, the vanquishers would follow. Perhaps in ten years, people here would forget that vanquishers had once passed through a town. And in a hundred years, the account of Everynne’s race through these woods would only become a fairy tale, the story of the time that the sidhe were seen walking alive.

Everynne looked at Gallen over her shoulder. The young man was tense, and Everynne could read his intent simply by looking into his eyes. He planned to leap through the gate when she did. She said quickly, “Eternal life, if I reach my destination. I promise. Gallen, will you pick up my harp case for me?”

Gallen bent over, and before he could react, she grabbed Veriasse’s arm and pulled him through the gate.

Gallen had not known what to expect. He planned to wait until Everynne was ready to leave, then jump through the gate with her, but he’d wanted to say good-bye to Maggie and Orick first.

Instead, Everynne had taken Veriasse’s arm and leapt forward. There was a flash of white, and suddenly the lights under the arch snuffed out like a candle. A freezing chill hit the air. The arch itself turned white with frost, and Gallen walked under it, stood a moment looking up at the ancient runes of flowers and animals carved into the stone. As a child he had brought a hammer and chisel to the gate, but had not been able to chip off any of that stone. Instead, his chisel got blunted and bent, and finally the handle to his hammer splintered. It was like no stone in the world. He looked at Maggie, took her hand.

Gallen felt as if his heart had been pulled from him, and he just stood, staring. He heard a shout from the forest behind, and Maggie tugged on his hand, urging, “Come away from here. Take your legs into your shoes. Run!”

Gallen found that he was shaking, and he ducked beneath the arch, felt a thrill of cold air, but nothing more. For him, the gate led nowhere. It had closed.

“Come!” Orick growled. The bear stood up, sniffed the air nervously.

They ran up a small hill. Gallen stopped near the crest and took cover behind a fallen log. Maggie and Orick lay down beside him. There was shouting below in the glen, and Gallen peeked over the log, the rotting black bark pungent under his nose.

Vanquishers rushed under the dark trees. Two ogres. They were battered, dirty. One ogre cursed and kicked at the arch. “They made it through,” he said.

The ogre looked up while the other threw himself to the ground to rest. He spoke to the air. “Lord Hitkani, we’ve found the gate, but Everynne and her escorts have escaped.” He listened for a moment, then answered, “Yes, we’ll wait.”

Gallen sat watching them for several minutes and heard a rumbling noise over the trees. A black creature with enormous wings dove below the treetops, settled on the ground beside the gate. It walked in circles around the gate, touching it with long feelers beneath its mouth. Gallen watched the dronon and could only name it to himself silently—Beelzebub.

The dronon reached into a pouch at its side, pulled out a crystal shaped like a horseshoe. It held the crystal in the air, watching it change colors to a soft lavender. In an odd, guttural voice it said, “They have gone to Fale. When the others arrive, we will renew the chase. You there,” he said to one ogre, “see if you can get this key working.”

The dronon sat on a thick carpet of pine needles, beating his wings softly, while one vanquisher fumbled with the key. The shadows under the trees were thickening. Gallen wanted nothing more than a bath and something to put in his shrinking belly. This seemed to have been the longest day of his life. He had not slept in over thirty-six hours. Yet he dared not move for fear of making some noise that would alert the vanquishers, and he dared not sleep.

Beside him, Orick and Maggie quietly watched the vanquisher work as the shadows deepened under the trees. An evening wind began blowing in from the sea, hissing through the treetops, making limbs creak.

Orick stuck his muzzle into Gallen’s ribs, then looked off behind them to the north. Gallen followed the bear’s eyes. In the woods, flitting through the trees, was a pale blue light.

It was said that a man’s best defense against a wight was to lie low, hide. Yet Gallen knew the wights would be searching for him this night.

His mouth suddenly felt dry; he licked his lips. He spotted other lights flickering in the forest, pale blues and greens flowing between the trees as fluidly as a deer leaping a fence. By staying where he was, Gallen risked that the wights would catch him. Yet if he tried to make it out of Coille Sidhe now, the vanquishers would take him.

“Got it,” the vanquisher muttered, a weary note of triumph in his voice. Gallen turned, saw that the arch glowed brighter. The ogre set the flaming crystal back into its pouch, then sat with the others a couple yards away.

The wind hissed through the trees, and a woodpecker began tapping above them. Gallen toyed with the idea of rushing the giants, grabbing the key and leaping through to another world. Everynne had seemed secure in the knowledge that she had the only key to the gate. She would not expect the vanquishers to follow her so quickly. But Gallen suspected that if he tried to attack, his little knives would hardly trouble the vanquishers.

Gallen put an arm around Maggie’s shoulder and whispered, “Lie low and make your way home in the morning,” then tapped Orick on the muzzle, stood up and leapt over the log quietly and began running downhill on the soft humus, letting the pine needles cushion the sound. Orick leapt over the log and ran beside him, glancing at Gallen fearfully. Gallen poured on the speed, thinking, by God, they won’t see my heels for the dust.