Swords of Waar (12 page)

I shook my head. “I can’t do it. I was a biker, Lhan, not a Hell’s Angel.”

“I fear I do not understand the reference, mistress.”

“I mean, there’s a difference between a rebel and a robber, and I’ve never been a robber—well, not a lot. Also, I know Kai-La’s gonna go after Oran ships, and after the Aldhanan gave me the keys to the kingdom and all that, I’d feel a little weird attacking his people.”

Lhan smirked. “I fear you will find that the difference between the crimes of a pirate and an Aldhanan are but a matter of scale. Still, I understand your reticence. Indeed, I share it. If we were to make war only upon the state or the church I would not hesitate, but the thought of attacking some honest merchant and stealing his hard-won goods? No. It makes the dream ugly and common.” He looked up at me, grinning. “Very well, with piracy dismissed, what other life calls to you? Where else would you like to go?”

All I wanted was the recurring dream I’d had ever since I’d drifted off to sleep at Lhan’s side, that night when the priests had come for me, the dream where Lhan and I would wander Waar side by side, going wherever we wanted, seeing things nobody from Earth had ever seen before, living rough but easy forever and ever amen.

I leaned over and gave him a squeeze. “As long as it’s with you, I don’t care. Any place that’s not Ora. Any place without priests.”

Lhan squeezed me back, then smiled. “Beloved, there is a whole wide world of them.”

***

Seeing Galok appear in the distance far below us on the third morning it looked like a joke—a seaside town without a sea. I could see where the water
should
have been. The stone docks were still there, sticking out over a steep sandy slope—and being used for airships instead of boats now—and the town still curved around what had once been a long winding shoreline, but there was no ocean anymore, only a deep dry valley which went on forever.

Leaning on the rail beside me, Lhan pointed to the west, which was lit up like fire by the sun coming up behind us. “You see yonder, that glint of gold upon the horizon?”

I squinted. There was a permanent haze of dust out there, but I thought I could see something winking behind it. “I think so.”

“That is the Great Inland Sea—or was, hundreds of years ago, before the rains slowed. Now it is little more than a lake. It is called the Vanished Sea now.”

I nodded toward the town. “So they don’t do much fishing anymore.”

“Indeed not.” Lhan pointed down as we dropped toward the waterless docks, where about half a dozen airships were already tied up. “Now they mine salt.”

On the slope of the exposed sea-bed beyond the docks I saw guys with picks and shovels digging up the dry earth and running it through hand-cranked sifting machines, while other guys loaded the sifted stuff into sacks and threw ’em on big vurlak-drawn carts, which then trundled up a zig-zag road to some kind of refining plant on the shoreline to the south of the town. It looked like Louisiana chain gang work, like hell on earth—or Waar. I wondered if the workers were prisoners or slaves.

“You take me to all the nicest places.”

“But of course. Had I started with Waar’s best, what would you have to look forward to?” He turned from the rail and started back toward the below-decks door. “Come. We must find you a disguise before we land. The edge of the vanished sea marks the end of Oran territory, but until we are safely upon another ship and sailing beyond it, you must not be seen as you are.”

I groaned. I hated disguises. I’d had to disguise myself my last time on Waar, and I’d ended up slathered in purple paint and sweating to death inside a mask and heavy clothes that stank like the back end of a yak.

“Fantastic.”

***

I groaned again as he opened a trunk in what had been the ship’s surgery and pulled out what looked like a pair of red Ku Klux Klan robes. It was a hundred degrees in the shade out here in the sticks, and he wanted me to put on a cloak and hood?

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“At least it is this time clean, beloved. And you will have the satisfaction that I must wear one too.”

“That’ll make it much better, thanks.”

He handed me mine and I held it up to look at it. Yup. Pointy hood, robes, gloves, cloak—all blood-red and stitched at the collar and cuffs with zig-zagging black lines, and made of some kind of cloth that was thicker and heavier than denim, plus a black ninja-mask kinda thing that went with it to hide my face. The one good thing was that, unlike most robes and cloaks I’d tried on Waar, it actually reached down all the way to the ground, which meant I didn’t have to find some way to paint my legs purple to hide the color of my skin. Of course I still had to wrap my boobs so I could pass as a man, but the bandages in the surgery were nice and clean, so it wasn’t as bad as last time.

When I was all strapped down and dressed up, I looked at Lhan. His robes and hood matched mine, but instead of the ninja mask, he had a long-nosed gas mask kinda thing that completely hid his face, and a black leather satchel slung over one shoulder. He looked like a stork in priest drag.

“So what is all this? What are we dressed up as?”

Lhan smiled as he pulled on his gloves. “These are the traditional robes of a surgeon and a surgeon’s assistant. They are red to hide the blood of surgery, and your robes are large because the surgeon’s assistant is traditionally a large individual, necessary to hold down the patient when the cutting begins.”

I winced at the image, then wiped my brow under the ninja mask. The robes were already hotter than fuck.

“Well, I hope we find a ship ASAP. I don’t wanna wear this shit a second longer than I gotta.”

“I do not expect any difficulty there. Galok is constantly visited by foreign traders. And if there is currently no suitable ship, we will take a room at the inn and stay out of sight until one arrives.”

There was a bump on the hull that made us both side step, and a lot of shouts and thumping above us.

Lhan smiled. “Ah. We have docked. Come, let us see what Galok has to offer.”

***

Not much, as it turned out.

Well, we did score passage on a ship, a tiny little merchantman bound for some place called Vedya, but other than that, Galok was about as exciting as a Tuesday night in Wichita.

There was one dusty street which ended at the docks on one end and the plains on the other, and had a dusty market square in the middle, with a few dusty hawkers sitting in the dusty sunshine selling dusty goods, and lots of dusty beggars with missing limbs reaching after us as we walked through them. Dusty tough guys hung out in doorways around the edges, watching everybody else and spitting dusty loogies in the dusty dirt, while dusty local cops strolled through with their spears on their dusty shoulders, eating what looked suspiciously like donuts.

I hardly saw any of it. I was too busy thinking about our room at the inn. Today was the first day that Lhan had seemed healed enough and chipper enough that something might actually happen if we had two hours alone together, and since the boat didn’t take off until noon, we
did
have two hours alone together. I was getting hot and bothered just thinking about it. I might finally get the second helping I’d come back to Waar for in the first place!

“There it is.” Lhan pointed across the square toward a two-story building with an open door and a bunch of shuttered windows. It looked like it would melt into mud if it ever rained around here. “And I have never seen a finer establishment.”

“As long as the rooms have beds, it’ll be the greatest hotel that ever lived.”

I couldn’t see Lhan’s expression through his stork mask, so I didn’t know if he was leering or not, but the way he squeezed my hand made me think he was.

“Precisely.”

We crossed the square and were just about to step into the inn when a flyer nailed to a board on the outside wall caught my eye. It was a wanted poster, and the guy on the left looked familiar. I looked closer. It was Lhan. And to his right was a picture of—

“Jesus Christ on a fucking tricycle! That’s not me! That’s Dolph Lundgren in drag!”

Lhan turned at my squawking and gripped my arm. “Keep your voice down,
assistant
. I—” He saw the poster too. “I am sorry, mistress, that… that is appalling. But not unexpected. You said yourself there would be a bounty. And at least they won’t be looking for anyone who looks like—” He stopped again as he read the fine print. “
What
is this?”

I’d been too busy staring at my “likeness” to read the thing, but now I did, squinting to unscramble the Waar alphabet and make it come out in English in my brain.

“Wanted dead or alive. A bounty of ten thousand tolnas is offered for the capture of Lhan-Lar of Herva, and his accomplice, the albino barbarian giantess Jae-En, for crimes against the Church of the Seven and for the kidnapping of—” I stopped and read it again. No
way
did it say what I thought it said. But it did. “For the kidnapping of Aldhanshai Wen-Jhai, daughter of our beloved Aldhanan, Kor-Har of Ormolu, and her consort, Dhanan Sai-Far of Sensa.”

I stepped back, shaking. “What the fuck, Lhan? We didn’t kidnap Sai and Wen-Jhai! What are they talking about?”

Then I knew, and my teeth clenched hard enough to crack. “Those fuckers. This ain’t nothin’ but bait on a hook. The priests kidnapped Sai and Wen-Jhai, ’cause they think we’re going to drop everything to go rescue them, and walk right into their trap.”

Lhan nodded. “Aye. ’Tis exactly what they think.”

“And they’re right.” I tore the poster off the wall and started back toward the docks. “Vacation’s canceled, Lhan. Let’s go talk to Kai-La. We’re goin’ back to Ormolu.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DUTY!

K
ai-La looked up from her map table and shook her head. “I sympathize, sister, but I’ll not go anywhere near Ormolu. Not after Toaga. And certainly not in this ship.”

“But…” I spread my hands and hit a bulkhead. The captain’s cabin in the church ship was a lot smaller than Kai-La’s quarters back on her old man-o-war. “But they’re your friends too! Well, Sai is. Didn’t you fuck the living daylights out of him all the way to Doshaan?”

Burly snorted from the built-in bench under the stern windows. “And sold him when we arrived.”

Kai-La smirked. “If you went to rescue only his prick I might help you, but the fool attached to it? No. I’ll not risk my crew for a pair of spoiled brats. I’m afraid you are on your own.”

I sighed, but I couldn’t really blame her. She’d just killed an entire shipload of priests. The church would never stop hunting her. Even if she wasn’t on their shit list, I couldn’t expect her or anyone else to wanna come along. Lhan and I were basically planning to go commit suicide. Nobody in their right mind would want a piece of that action.

Kai-La stepped around the table. “All I can do is wish you well and give you your share of the spoils. It might help open some doors.”

Lhan and I exchanged a glance. Lhan raised an eyebrow.

“And what spoils are these?”

Kai-La nodded at Burly, who stood up from the bench, then opened it. He lifted out a heavy satchel and carried it to the table with both hands, then threw back the flap. It was filled to bursting with flat orange glass disks about the size of poker chips. There was a white hexagon symbol stamped on each one. I knew that symbol. It was painted on the side of the balloon we were sitting under.

Burly grinned. “As you did half the work, your share is half. We will divide the other half amongst ourselves.”

Lhan whistled. His eyes had gone all glittery. “That… that is extremely generous of you.”

I looked from him to Kai-La. “Church money?”

“Aye. Water Tokens. Anyone who possesses one can redeem it at a temple for a hundred weight of water. The priests carry them for bribes.”

I still wasn’t up to speed on my Waarian weights and measures. “How much is a hundred weight?”

“About as much as would fit in two large barrels.”

I blinked. “As dry as it is around here, that’s gotta be worth quite a lot.”

Lhan patted the satchel, nodding. “Indeed. We gaze upon a fortune here. ’Twould be enough to buy my father’s house.”

I remembered his father’s house. It was a castle—and not one of those dinky little castles, either.

Lhan crossed his wrists and bowed to Kai-La and Burly. “You are correct, friends. This will make our journey much smoother. Thank you.”

Kai-La and Burly bowed back, then Kai-La reached up and gave me a hug.

“Again you travel in the wrong direction, sister. Someday you will sail with me. I know it.”

“Maybe I will, if I survive.”

She stepped back and looked me in the eyes. “Then survive. We will be waiting.”

***

Half an hour later we waved goodbye as the pirates lifted off and headed south. Even with the stupid orange church balloon, the warship looked so beautiful flying off into the sun it made my heart hurt.

“Totally having second thoughts now.”

“Aye, mistress. As am I.”

Lhan sighed and turned toward the other ships and I followed. My eyes were tearing up from looking at the sun anyway.

We got our fare back from the ship that was sailing to Vedya and bought a ticket on another one going to Ormolu. It didn’t leave for three hours, so we went back to the inn to wait it out. Unfortunately, we were both too freaked out about Sai and Wen-Jhai being kidnapped and what we were heading into to get ourselves in the mood, so there were no hi-jinx, not even when I took off my robes and loosened my boob bindings because of the heat. Instead Lhan fidgeted and paced around while I just flopped on the bed, sweating like I was in a sauna and staring into space with a million thoughts spinning around in my head. Eventually, one of ’em popped out.

“Why are these little church fuckers so weird about me?”

Lhan turned from looking though the crack between the curtains. “As I said before, I believe you impinge on the divinity of the Wargod. You have his skin color, his strength, his leaping. Thus, by your mere existence, you make him less unique—less a god.”

I sat up, pulling the sweaty sheets off my shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, I remember. But that doesn’t explain ’em sending me back to Earth. Why didn’t they just kill me in my sleep? Wouldn’t that have been easier?” I looked at the crumpled wanted poster where I’d laid it on the bedside table. “And why are they gunning for you so hard? Whadda they got against
your
‘mere existence?’”