Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (40 page)

We all sat in the pond and watched the animals graze.

Oh give me a home where the mastodons roam, and the moose and the dinosaurs play.

I chuckled. The chuckling got bigger. I sat in the water and laughed.

Terry started laughing too.

“You people are sick,” Kevin said. “This isn’t funny.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry,” I said, trying to sober up.

Ida groaned, and Mizzy put a hand on her forehead.

“The coating’s breaking up, but she’s still not well.”

“What’s wrong with her?” I said.

“Her kidneys aren’t working.” Mizzy examined Ida for another few seconds, then pulled her hand away. “The algae are retreating from her tissues, but they already did quite a bit of damage. I can’t tally it all. I don’t have the strength for a full examination.”

She shot me an angry look.

“Rinse out your waterskins and fill them here,” Williams said. “Then let’s go.”

Ida was too ill to stay on her camel. Williams tried putting her in a barrier and suspending it between two camels, but it freaked the animals out, and they wouldn’t move. In the end, we had to just tie her over her saddle and hope for the best.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to ride far. Thirty minutes after we started moving, we met a party from Kye Wodor bound for the ligature. Three of them were healers. Within a few minutes, Ida was getting the treatment she needed.

The leader of the group told us the city had been dealing for some days with the ligature townspeople, all of whom had begun showing symptoms of algae infection. About two hundred townspeople had been affected, so medical resources had been stretched to the limit until one healer happened upon the “soaking cure” in an old text.

The group we’d run into had been sent to the ligature to close the gate and post warning signs. Until the rains returned to Ancient Inland, no one was to enter.

Mizzy told them some of our caravan was still in the other stratum, and that five others had been ahead of us. The group from the city hadn’t run into the five. They must’ve taken a different route back through the plains. Hopefully they’d make it.

The group’s leader agreed to camp by the ligature for a few days to help the caravaners if they emerged, but he turned me down flat when I suggested they enter Ancient Inland as a rescue party. The lord of Kye Wodor — someone named Kekataugh — had decreed no one was to enter Ancient Inland for any reason.

After the healers had finished with Ida, they checked the rest of us and said we were fine. They didn’t bother pushing the last of the algae from our tissues. The organisms’ natural defense mechanism had gone dormant once we immersed ourselves in water. Now they were harmless. All we needed to do was drink plenty of water — we’d all be peeing algae out for the next couple days.

After the healers finished with us, we went our separate ways.

Four hours’ easy ride brought us to the city. I enjoyed every moment of it. There was so much
life
. Wherever I turned, prehistoric reptiles and mammals were grazing on the thick grasses. Birds flitted all around us, catching insects on the wing. Even having to keep watch for predators didn’t bother me — it was a relief after the silent deadness of Ancient Inland.

We boarded the camels on the north bank of the river and took a ferry across. By dinnertime, we were ensconced in the inn we’d stayed in before.

I bathed, ate alone in my room, and got in bed.

Tired as I was, sleep didn’t come right away. I lay there thinking about how unreal it seemed: that morning I’d been turning to stone, and now my biggest worry was whether or not it was too hot to sleep with a sheet over me.

My mind drifted to Williams.

I knew he didn’t want people finding out how big my capacity was because someone might try to use me. Kidnap me and make me their battery slave, or something. Okay, I got that.

What I didn’t get was how high-priority the secret seemed to be. Unless I’d totally misread him, he’d been willing to kill to protect the information. Maybe even willing to die.

Obviously, it would piss Cordus off if I didn’t make it to the ice men. And maybe he considered me a valuable future tool. But Williams was already a valuable tool, as were Mr. Gates’s people. My potential in exchange for their present-day value … that didn’t seem like a sensible trade.

I lay in bed for quite a while turning it over in my head. The illogic of it bothered me.

The next morning, we convened in the common room for breakfast.

The mood was mixed. On the one hand, we’d all survived Ancient Inland. On the other hand, at least some of the members of the caravan had probably died, and the divisions in our little group had been made sadly apparent. Everyone was uncomfortable. Mizzy wouldn’t even look at me.

Furthermore, our route to Fur was now a lot less direct. Kevin laid it out: we’d take Blue Seas to Demesnes to Ice Like Glass to Float of Charms to Step-Through to Bhargos to Smerda. Smerda had a ligature to Fur.

“How long will that take?” I asked.

Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to most of those places. Here to Blue Seas is about a week of sailing downriver. Blue Seas to Demesnes is six to eight weeks. Demesnes to Ice Like Glass, I’m not sure. Demesnes is big.”

“Maybe two months,” Williams said. “Then we try to cross Ice Like Glass before spring. Get there too late to cross, we wait.”

“Until next fall, you mean?”

He jerked his head yes. “Ice Like Glass, two weeks. Float of Charms, hard to say. At least six months. Bhargos, three months. Smerda, four months. Once we’re in Fur, a few weeks.”

I added it up in my head.

“Is Ice Like Glass the one you cross on mammoths?” Terry said.

Kevin shook his head. “Steppe bison. You can’t ride mammoths.”

“How come?”

“They don’t like it.”

Silence fell.

I thought about the time all this would add to my exile. My thirteen-year sentence might turn out to be more like fifteen.

No one else was happy about it, either.

Heck, Ida and Kevin had families to get back to — teenaged kids who needed them.

It occurred to me that we could let Mr. Gates’s people go home, at this point. Surely Ida’s and Kevin’s skills weren’t irreplaceable. And Kevin was such a pill, anyway. As for Mizzy, Williams should be happy to get rid of her.

I glanced at Williams and found he was staring right at me. The stare said,
Not in the mood for your drama
.

I looked away, resolving to raise the issue with him later.

As before, we divided up duties. Mizzy would try to sell the camels. That’d be a hard job — camels weren’t suited to Gold Rush’s climate, and no one would be going to Ancient Inland for at least eight months. Ida would write and post a letter to Bill Gates, explaining what had happened, so that Cordus could be informed. Terry and Kevin would go through our luggage, removing the desert gear we’d bought just a week ago. They’d sell what they could.

Williams and I would go buy passage to and across Blue Seas.

We walked north toward the river.

The city had an extensive system of tall, shop-lined wharfs where large ships docked.

The wharfs were nothing like the ferry landing we’d used to cross the river a few days earlier. That was filthy, thanks to a riverside colony of huge flightless birds that looked like the lovechild of a penguin and a loon had gobbled up Alice’s
Eat Me
cake.

In contrast, the wharfs were clean and businesslike, with workers loading and unloading ships, and passengers embarking and disembarking.

We walked out among the vessels.

I was struck by the number of tax-collectors I saw. Kekataugh seemed to be as financially exacting as Lady Chasca.

All the ships were wooden. They had sails, but not nearly as many as you’d expect, given their size. Even the largest had only one mast. I couldn’t see any sign of oars.

“Are they wind-powered?”

Williams ignored me.

“Big sailing ships in the F-Em have a lot more sails, don’t they?”

“Sails are for emergencies here,” he said. “Now be quiet.”

“Fine. But later I want to talk to you about something.”

He didn’t say anything, but his whole posture looked put-upon.

We came to a dark green vessel. It was particularly large. The hull rose up a good ten feet from where we were standing, and the wharf itself was about thirty feet above the river’s surface — we’d been looking down into a number of the ships we passed. I guess it had been built to be usable whether the river was high or low.

Williams hailed the ship, and a sailor stuck his head over the side. After a brief conversation, the sailor lowered a sturdy rope ladder, and Williams climbed up.

Next it was my turn. I wish I could say I clambered over the ship’s rail gracefully.

A sailor reached out to help me and found himself flat on his back with Williams towering over him. The man clearly had no qualms about enforcing the no-touch rule.

I told him to back off and let the sailor up.

He didn’t even glance my way.

I heard footsteps and turned to see a woman approaching. She was probably in her fifties, but aged by the sun. Her hair was cut very short, and she had several nasty scars on her face. I was reminded of Gwen and felt a stab of homesickness.

Williams greeted the woman, who nodded cordially. Clearly she knew him. Then she turned to me. Williams introduced her as Nayuspetras Rykthas. “Nayuspetras” meant something like “ship-father.” Either she had a very strange first name, or she was the captain.

The woman nodded to me, then turned and led us aft to a small cabin sunk into the deck. It seemed to be an office of sorts. She poured drinks for all three of us. Then she and Williams settled down to talk.

Rykthas was a straightforward speaker. She said Blue Seas was providing fast, safe passage, at present. The news didn’t seem to do much for Williams’s mood.

After the seaways had been discussed, Rykthas leaned back in her chair and swirled the remnants of her drink in its glass.

“I hear your lord faces difficulties,” she said.

My ears perked up.

Williams shrugged.

“You are not worried?” Rykthas asked. “Things might go ill for you, should he fall.”

Williams made a strange, bitter sound. Then the silence stretched out until I started feeling twitchy.

Rykthas didn’t comment on Williams’s obvious refusal to take her into his confidence. She just leaned farther back and contemplated her glass for a minute before downing the last of her drink.

“If you are interested in Blue Seas, perhaps you seek passage to Emden. Or are you here just to abuse my crewmen?”

“We seek passage.”

“How many in your party?”

“Six.”

“I can accommodate you, and comfortably,” the captain said. “I depart in two weeks.”

“Cost?”

“One ghelah each.”

“Too much. There are countless ships in port.”

“Ah, but those with captains such as I may be counted on one maimed hand. And as for ships, there are none like this. You of all people know the quality of my barrier.”

Williams leaned forward. “Perhaps. But neither are we your typical passengers.”

“You are not,” Rykthas said. “The others I do not know.”

“Bill Gates’s people — Mizu Bard, Terence Washington, Ida MacAngus, Kevin Powell.”

Rykthas was nodding thoughtfully. “Is this woman the sixth in the party?”

Williams jerked his head.

Rykthas turned to me. “What would you bring to my ship?”

“She can do nothing,” Williams said.

Rykthas didn’t spare him a glance. Clearly, she wanted an answer directly from me.

“Nothing special, Nayuspetras Rykthas,” I said between gritted teeth. Much as I hated to admit my uselessness, it was a fact.

The older woman’s face grew intent.

“None of that,” Williams said, twitching a finger.

He must’ve shielded me. I wondered what Rykthas had been doing. Whatever it was, I hadn’t felt it. Par for the course, there.

“She has value,” Rykthas said, sitting back.

“Not to me,” Williams said, looking annoyed.

“If she has value to your lord, she has value to you,” Rykthas said. “Six ghelah.”