David Farland - Beyond the Gate

Dear Maggie:

Now, don’t be cross at me, darling, but by the time you read this, I’ll be off on my own adventures. I’m afraid I’m getting old and plump, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather spend some time on a nice, safe world like this. You go ahead and tramp down the dark roads, if that’s what your heart is after, but for me, I want nothing more than a warm mug of whiskey by the fire, some soft music, and a woman who loves me just for warming her bed.

I know Gallen is worrying that I’ll tell someone about you folks going you-know-where, but I promise not to whisper a peep about it, even in my dreams. So don’t you fret. And don’ waste your time trying to hunt me down. I’ve eluded my share of assassins in my time, and I know how to disappear when I want to.

Now, I must say that I’ve been pleased to be making your acquaintance, Maggie. You’re a fine-looking woman, and I’m glad you’re a Flynn. But you do have your mother’s way about you. I sometimes think my brother drowned himself just to escape your mother’s vile temper. And if I know you, you’re probably so mad right now, I could fry an egg on your forehead. But someday, maybe you’ll thank me for leaving.

With no apologies,

Thomas

Maggie placed a holoprojector cube on the floor, then went to Orick’s pack, began throwing it together.

The holoprojector flared to life, and an image appeared-a dronon Vanquisher with a dusty black carapace and glistening amber wings. The insect-like creature squatted on four hind legs, and its forward battle arms were crossed on the ground. The dronon’s head was to the ground, so that his forward eyes looked at the dust while his backward eye cluster pointed upward. It was the dronon stance of obeisance.

“Oh, great Golden, admired by all,” a translator said in English while the dronon’s mouthfingers clicked over the voice drums beneath its jaws. “I bear messages of congratulations from the Tincin and Tlinini, Lords of the Fourth Swarm; and from Kininic and Nickit, Lords of the Fifth Swarm; and from In and Tlik, Lords of the Third Swarm; and from Cintkin and Kintiniklintit, Lords of the Seventh Swarm. All of these speak their adoration, and announce their intent to challenge you and the great Gallen O’Day to combat for the right to rule the Sixth Swarm of Dronon.”

The image faded, and Everynne stood in the creature’s place. “Maggie, I wanted to give you and Gallen time to prepare, to rest. But that time has been cut short. I received this message, and immediately afterward registered a power fluctuation to the Gate of the World. The Lords of the Seventh Swarm are coming, and they know you are on Fale. They may be there already. Flee.”

Orick’s heart began beating hard. He had imagined that in time, Golden Queens from within the swarm that Gallen and Maggie nominally controlled would grow and demand to battle for the right to govern, but he had not considered that lords from the other swarms of Dronon would seek them out.

“They’re all coming for you,” Orick muttered, in shock. “The dronon attack only those that they believe are weak. They must think that you and Gallen are the weakest lords of all.”

“We are,” Maggie said. And she handed him his pack.

* * *

After notifying Orick of the danger, Maggie rushed to her room, then took off her nightgown and dressed in the burnt-orange-colored robes of a Lord of Technicians and donned a pale green mask to hide her face. Gallen threw her nightgown in her bags.

After she dressed, Maggie stood for a moment, trying to wake, thinking furiously. She wondered where Thomas might have gone. Her uncle seemed willing to cause her any amount of trouble. She doubted that he would willingly betray her-his notions of the duties to kin would extend too far for that-but Maggie knew too well that what he was willing to tell and what he would be forced to tell were two different things.

“Quickly,” Gallen said as he took Maggie’s hand and they rushed out the door. “My mantle is picking up dronon radio signals. The Lords of the Swarm are heading for the city.”

Orick was in the hall. Gallen did not slow for him, but as they hurried down the corridors, Gallen kept watching down side passages, as if hoping to find Thomas wandering the halls. “That old fool will cost us dear,” Gallen murmured. “The dronon will have the city in an hour.”

In two minutes they were on the roof of the city, where half a dozen fliers were parked. Gallen rushed to them, spoke his name and commanded the fliers to open.

Only one of the fliers obeyed his command-a four-man flier. Maggie jumped in the pilot’s seat, while Orick scrambled to fit into a space entirely too small for a bear of his bulk.

“Hurry! They’ve reached the city,” Gallen shouted. As if to emphasize his point, emergency sirens began whining all across the city. Orick squeezed in, filling two seats.

“Head north at normal air speed. We don’t want to attract attention,” Maggie commanded the flier’s on-board intelligence while Gallen took out his map and looked for the coordinates to the gate to Tremonthin. The flier lurched into the air, and Maggie looked down.

An army of dronon Vanquishers was marching in the night, carrying lights before them. They churned and seethed, like giant ants seen from a distance. They had nearly reached the city. Fortunately, the entrance to the Gate of the World was too small to allow them to bring in their own heavy fliers, and Maggie sighed in relief.

They surged upward for ten minutes, then slowed. In that brief time, the flier had traveled a thousand miles, and in moments they were on the ground beside an ancient metal arch in a northern desert. The rocks stood out in sharp relief all around them, and in the distance, Maggie could hear wild dogs barking. The night was warm, yet she shivered.

Maggie commanded the on-board intelligence of the flier to erase its memories of this trip, then sent it back to the city, arching up toward a high cloud whose edges were silvered in the moonlight.

Maggie stood breathing the air of Fale for a moment as if she were readying to plunge into cold water, then pulled out the key to the Gate of the World and began entering codes. The air under the gate shivered a brilliant magenta.

“Remember,” Gallen said. “We are traveling in disguise. Do not mention our names.”

Maggie took her bags, handed Gallen the key, then walked into the magenta light. She felt the familiar sense of being lifted impossibly high into the air, and in a moment she was standing in a field yellow with ripe wheat, white with the bitter-smelling flowers of wild carrots. Tall daisies with beer-colored hearts swayed in the wind. They were in the folds of a valley, and on the hill behind her, golden oaks swayed.

Maggie could hear the distant sound of a marketplace, the cries of street vendors, the bawling of goats. She glanced over her shoulder. A light building rose above the oaks not two hundred yards away-a curious temple the color of the wheat, with five spires rising high above the hill. Banners flew from each spire, red with images of twin orange suns. Along the parapets of the temple walked a man, a broad-shouldered man in a red tunic, with thick braids of golden hair. Maggie studied him a moment, vaguely distressed by his appearance, until she realized that the man could be no less than nine feet tall.

White ghosts blurred into existence at Maggie’s side, as if emerging up from the grass, and suddenly Orick and Gallen stood beside her.

They stood for a moment, looking about, and Orick growled, pointed to Maggie’s left. On the next hill, a dronon’s walking hive city squatted on six giant legs, like some great black tick. The incendiary gun turrets that bristled on its back were unmanned, and had in fact been stripped off, but the red lights at the hatches glowed like squinting eyes.