Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (36 page)

Gripper put the Prian down. "No way. I'm going to help you."

________

Panna felt guilty sleeping when she was sure that Maeve was not. But Panna knew she would be useless to the queen exhausted, so she grabbed a few hours of rest before reporting to the royal tower.

In the pale pink dawn, Kaellisem was eerily quiet. Panna walked through the dust along the wide central street. Not empty… There were Arcadians in the window of every tower, all with wide, tired eyes and closed mouths. No one was singing. There were other fairies in the street, too, lining up in front of the Blue Phoenix. Late the night before, Xia had called Xyn in from Gharib to help with the wounded. Panna suspected that the grumpy scientist had come quickly and probably worked through the night alongside Xia. The Ixthians were an amazing species. They could seem so cold and distant sometimes, but little could stop an Ixthian from coming to the aid of the sick and injured.

Panna felt another painful pang in her breast, but this one was not guilt. She missed Professor Xen. He had taken Panna under his wing and guided her education, even though she had lied to him about her genetic heritage. Xen had been brilliant, discerning and even handsome in a strange, alien sort of way. Had she loved the Ixthian professor? Panna suspected so. But now he was gone, killed and eaten by the Devourers. Though Panna had never set foot on Arcadian soil, the Devourers had still managed to take away what she loved best…

She passed the Blue Phoenix. The cargo ramp was lowered into the dusty Kaellisem road. Kessa and Vyron stood at the bottom, taking names and entering information into datadexes. Panna waved to them and then at Xyn, who was just inside the ship's hold, bandaging up a young Arcadian's wing. All three nodded to Panna, but did not pause in their work.

The morning was dry and dim. Panna's indistinct shadow stretched out behind her like a dark bridal train. There were two knights stationed at the base of Maeve's tower and she saw four more circling in the dawn-violet sky or landed on balconies. Panna made her way past the pair outside and climbed the narrow glass stairs. They were a little too shallow to mount easily but too deep to just skip every other one. Hyra had insisted upon singing up the royal spire himself and the glassmith clearly had a purely academic understanding of a staircase's workings. It was depressing to think that Panna was the only Arcadian in Kaellisem who had to use them, but she reminded herself that Maeve often did, too.

Panna stopped at a window a few stories up the tower. Outside, a flock of Arcadians flew over Kaellisem and toward the square silhouettes of Gharib. Leaving. Panna grabbed for her com and stared at the screen for several seconds before she realized that she had no idea who was leaving or how to contact them. Most Arcadians didn't even carry coms.

She sighed and stuffed her com back into the pocket of her pants. They were made of a smooth, slithery blue fabric, woven by one of the Arcadians of Kaellisem. Maybe one of those flying away right now… Panna rubbed the cloth between her fingers and wondered what would become of its maker.

The queen was in an airy, light-filled room that was part parlor, part audience chamber. Maeve sat on a narrow, backless chair. A long cream-colored gown pooled around her feet. There were dark circles under the queen's eyes, but they were barely visible under the skillfully painted makeup. Sir Anthem stood behind her. Someone had cleaned his armor. The plates shined like a frozen ocean over the blue and silver scarves. One of Anthem's glass-gauntleted hands was wrapped around his spear, but the other rested on Maeve's bare shoulder.

Panna blinked. Had she
ever
seen Anthem touching Maeve before? She didn't think so. Panna was suddenly quite certain that Sir Anthem had never left the queen's company that night. Gods, did Logan know…?

"Good morning, Your Majesty," Panna stammered, covering her confusion with a deep bow. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," answered Maeve. "Thank you for coming so early."

There were footsteps behind Panna and the queen paused. Panna turned to find Sir Ballad in the door. His short blond hair stuck to his forehead in sweaty points. He spread his wings and inclined his head. "Sorry I'm late, Majesty," he said through his Prian accent.

"It has been a long night for us all," Maeve told him. "But I fear that I only have more work for you two."

Panna glanced sidelong at the young knight. "Both of us?"

Queen Maeve nodded. She looked at Ballad. "What I must ask of Panna is dangerous," she told the knight. "I need you to protect her and help her, Sir Ballad."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Maeve returned her attention to Panna. "You began this," said the queen. "You were the first to suggest that I should take up the crown."

Panna's mouth was suddenly dry. Did Maeve somehow blame her for what had happened at the theater? For the end of her relationship with Logan Coldhand? For all of it? Was this dangerous work some sort of punishment? Panna could not imagine Maeve doing anything like that, but she was a descendant of Cavain, the man who had wiped out the pyrads to build the White Kingdom. What would Maeve sacrifice for Kaellisem? Panna suspected that it was much more than one wingless little anthropologist.

"Too many died last night," Maeve continued. "And many more are leaving out of fear. You know what that may cost us against Xartasia."

"Yes, a'shae," Panna said. "What do you want me to do?"

"The same thing that I have. We need to continue our seeking out and speaking to the Arcadians scattered across the galaxy. I cannot leave Kaellisem right now, Duke Ferris tells me," Maeve said sourly. "I must remain on Stray, but you must find our people."

"Me?"

Maeve nodded and smiled wearily. "You wrote most of my speeches, anyway. Now I ask you to go to more Alliance worlds to give them yourself."

"Me?" repeated Panna, stunned.

"We will send you with what money Kaellisem can spare. Use it to send as many to Stray as you can convince. We can give them a home here and keep them from Xartasia's grasp. Sir Ballad will be your protector and assistant."

Panna was secretly pleased to note that Ballad looked unhappy with this new assignment. Sir Anthem noticed, too, and gave the proud young Prian knight a stern look. Ballad's wings drooped a few inches.

Maeve either did not notice or else simply said nothing. "You will go first to Hadra," she continued. "The gravity there is much greater than what you are used to on Prianus or Stray, Sir Ballad. Have care. It is a hard world for Arcadians. Please, reach as many as you can and send them back to Kaellisem."

"But I don't even look Arcadian," Panna pointed out.

"And so you will encounter less resistance from the Alliance. Tell your story. Tell all of our stories. Tell them what we have built here."

"I will, Queen Maeve," Panna promised.

"I wish that I could send you on the Blue Phoenix, but I fear that I need Duaal and his ship to remain. Xia's medbay there is all the help we have for most of those injured last night. Xyn has offered his help, for which we are unendingly grateful, but his facilities are of limited use. So Vyron has arranged passage to Hadra aboard another cargo ship. It will not be lavish, Panna, and I am sorry that I cannot offer you better."

"It's fine," Ballad said quickly. "We'll manage, Majesty."

Panna didn't really want to agree with the crude young knight, but had to nod. "The money will be much better spent getting Arcadians off Hadra."

Maeve's expression was tight. Was she angry? Sad? Both, Panna suspected. A queen's responsibilities were many and her worries many more.

"We'll depart at once," Panna announced. She would get started at once and make Maeve proud.

"Your ship, the Vostra Sann, will not be leaving until tomorrow morning," Sir Anthem told her.

Panna blushed. "Oh," she said sheepishly. "Right. We'll leave tomorrow, then."

"The end of night is the beginning of day."

– Titania Cavainna (220 PA)

The sun had set hours ago and the thickly overlapping leaves were beginning to curl at the edges for their nocturnal retreat. Within an hour, the thick, verdant green shell that covered this part of Weh-Weh would become unclimbable, tightly furled spears of vegetation until the sun rose again. If Anandrou didn't get back to the branches of the village tree in the next hour, he would be stranded in the branches of the old sycona.

But that was a whole hour away. Anandrou picked another large purple flower and pulled off the petals one by one with his teeth. They were soft and sweet and far tastier than anything his mother would be serving for dinner. She would probably scold her youngest child for spoiling his appetite, but it was more than a fair trade, Anandrou thought.

Something bright streaked across the darkening sky. A meteorite. Anandrou's father always said that they were celestial seeds falling through the sky to plant themselves in Weh-Weh's rich, dark soil. But others said they were pieces of distant stars. No one knew for sure… When they burned all the way down into the forest, the meteorites seared blackened holes through the trees and down onto the surface. Once down below the canopy, they were gone forever.

Light blazed in the sky for a moment and then was gone. Had it landed? Anandrou wondered if he could find it. He was the best and fastest climber in his village. Anandrou swung up into a higher branch and stared after the fallen star. He could find it. He could see for himself. But Anandrou picked a handful of sweet blossoms and began making his way home, chewing slowly on one of the purple sweets. What did it matter what the stars were made of? He would never reach them.

________

Another great tree toppled, smoking from the laser burns seared through the huge trunk. The sycona crashed down through the branches of smaller trees, down to the distant ground and filled the air with spears of shattered wood. Delicate purple flowers floated through the fire-hot air, curling and blackening all around Xartasia. The toppled tree left a deep, dark chasm in the thick green canopy.

Dhozo and his Devourers had surrounded the frightened aliens of Anzhotek. They were almost as tall as the Devourers, with the same long arms and ears. But they lacked the slick, utterly hairless gray skin. Instead, they had rough brown hide and patches of dark green fur, usually around their forearms, but Xartasia saw some of the mossy-looking hair sprouting from shoulders and heads. For all their size and massive, impressively clawed hands, the aliens cowered among their leaf huts. They screamed in a language Xartasia did not know as Dhozo and Orix and the rest tore them apart. Blood ran bright red across green Anzhotek.

Fifty of Xartasia's knights surrounded their queen, spears held at the ready. Some of the aliens – Arborans, as she knew them; degenerate cousins and food to Dhozo – had already tried to run. They were not warriors, but they were large and frightened. Their blood already dripped from some of the glass spear blades. The bodies through which it once flowed were gone, of course. The Devourers preferred to kill their food themselves, but no meat could be ignored.

An Arboran child – young but still nearly as tall as Xartasia herself – broke from her terrified parents as Orix descended on them in a storm of black barbs and blades. The Arboran girl was naked, skin bare to the warm yellow suns. She bolted across the thick layers of leaves that made up her village's foundation and under Orix's curling, cutting nanite storm. Her parents cried out. Were they calling her back or urging their child on, to run and climb away? Whatever their words, they did not last long as Orix's gleaming black nanites stabbed a hundred tiny serrated blades into the two adult Arborans.

The girl screamed, tugging her long ears down in her hands and kept running. The rest of her village was in flames and the Devourers had cut away the trees to close off their escape, so she fled the only way left to her: toward Xartasia. Her knights shared uneasy glances but lowered their spears in a defensive ring of blades. The Arboran skidded and stumbled to a stop, her green eyes huge and terrified. She wailed something Xartasia did not understand.

"Drive her back to the Devourers," she ordered. "Kill her yourselves if you must."

"My queen, she is only a child," one of the knights said. Her spear wavered. "Surely she does not have to die…"

Several other fairies hummed their agreement. Dhozo stalked across the thick, overlapping leaves toward the circle of Arcadians. The green surface turned brown and then black around him. The Arboran whimpered and scrambled away from Dhozo. Xartasia pushed through the line of her knights and seized the terrified alien girl by her knobby shoulder. She screeched, gaping at the approaching Devourer commander. But the Arboran's mass was much greater than Xartasia's and she was wriggling rapidly away. Xartasia drew the dagger from her white sash and slid it across the girl's throat. Her thick skin was no match for the glass' razor edge. Xartasia stepped swiftly back as blood sprayed into the humid air. Dhozo's nanites swirled, catching the salty, iron-rich red from the air and the blackening leaves under his feet. She did not let herself turn away as Dhozo dissected and consumed the Arboran child.