David Farland - Beyond the Gate

“That is all I can do for her,” Ceravanne said. “It may be enough, if no vital organs have been punctured.” So Maggie held the woman as Gallen rowed the boat, long into the night. Soon, Tallea faded to sleep. In two hours, while the moons were riding high, they landed upon a rocky beach where a large creek spilled into the ocean. Gallen, Ceravanne, and Maggie carried Tallea from the boat, then dragged the boat ashore into deep brush, and set it down. Ceravanne helped Maggie form a bed of leaves under the shelter of a large tree, and they placed Tallea in it. Orick was gathering wood, while Gallen made a small fire with matches from his pack.

When he got it going, everyone sat beside it for a while, and Ceravanne looked over to Tallea. She was surprised to see the woman conscious again, watching her from the comer of her eyes.

Ceravanne went to her side, to see if the Caldurian needed anything. Tallea clutched at Ceravanne’s robe and whispered, “Life brings joy, only if serve something greater than selves.” Her voice was weak.

“Yes, you said that to us several nights ago,” Ceravanne said. Ceravanne looked at the woman helplessly. “Is there anything you need? Water, food?”

Tallea shook her head fiercely and whispered, “A year ago, you came to Babel. I served you then. Not well.”

Ceravanne caught her breath, studied the woman’s face. “Yes, one of my clones came here, before I was renewed,” Ceravanne whispered low enough so that the others would not hear. “It was lost, and never returned. What happened to it?”

Tallea wet her lips, looked away, and closed her eyes. “Dead, I think. That one dead. I wanted to tell when I saw you, but I not want Inhuman to hear.” She coughed, then winced at the pain in her side.

Ceravanne bent low, brushed her lips over the woman’s forehead, and held her for a long time.

“I need rope, to use as belt,” Tallea whispered.

“You don’t have to bind yourself to me,” Ceravanne whispered. “I don’t want slaves.”

“I not slave,” Tallea wheezed. “I ally. I serve freely.”

“But the clone you served is dead. I am not that woman.”

“No, I not be bound to you-to Maggie.”

Ceravanne looked at Tallea, taken aback.

“She saved me,” Tallea said. “I promise live for her.”

“You promised wisely,” Ceravanne said. “Sleep now, and keep your promise. When you wake, I will have the belt for you.”

Ceravanne gently laid Tallea’s head back down, then went back to the fire. The others were still all wide awake. “I wish we had more blankets for her,” she said, nodding toward Tallea. Maggie had put a thick robe on the woman, but it was hardly enough, and the blankets had gotten wet in the bottom of the boat. They’d have to sleep without for the night.

“When my fur is dry, I’ll lie next to her,” Orick offered.

Ceravanne laughed. “And may I sleep on the other side of you?”

“If you do, you’ll do so at your own risk,” Orick said. “I tend to toss and turn in my sleep. I’d hate to squash you.”

“I’ll take the risk,” Ceravanne said.

No one spoke for a minute, and they all sat gazing into the fire. At last, Gallen said, “I’ll hike into town in the morning and buy a wagon, if we’ve got any money. We’ll need it to carry supplies-and to get her to a doctor.”

Ceravanne said, “Her fever is low. If she makes it through the night, she should do well. There’s nothing more that a doctor could do. Still, she will need a wagon. She won’t be walking much for a few days.”

The others spoke on for a while, but Ceravanne began to tire. She went and lay beside Tallea, and sometime later she woke. Orick was beside her, his fur all warm from the fire. The bear put one big paw over Tallea’s chest, and Ceravanne hugged him from the other side, lay for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall. He began to sing in his deep voice, a song she guessed that bear mothers would sing to their cubs on his home world:

“Little bear running,

little bear running,

with burrs in your hair,

and dirt on your paws.

May your spirit linger,

long may you wander

in woodlands hallow

with dirt on your paws.”

When he finished, Ceravanne realized that it was a song to comfort dying cubs, and her heart ached to think that anyone should have to compose such a verse. Yet she was glad to have Orick here, comforting the woman in his own way.

When Orick and Ceravanne went off to sleep, Gallen and Maggie rested together beside a small fire that flickered and twisted among a few sticks.

Gallen sat in the darkness far under the tree, and Maggie lay in the crook of his arm, holding the crushed Word, its white metal body limp in her fingers as she scrutinized it. Aside from Tallea, only Maggie knew that Gallen had been infected by the Inhuman, and she seemed greatly distressed, unable to sleep.

Gallen tuned his mantle, listening as far as its range would extend, calling upon its sensors to amplify the light until it seemed that he sat in daylight, beneath cloudy skies. Yet there was a surreal quality to his sight. He could see mice hunting for food among the leaves in the distance too clearly, their body heat glowing like soft flames. And small deer in the near hills shone brightly. The songs of ten thousand crickets and katydids filled the woods, and he could hear the rustling of mice under dead leaves. No people lurked nearby.

Yet despite his sensors, Gallen was worried. Even with ample warning, Gallen feared the servants of the Inhuman. The fear gnawed at him, kept him awake.

When battling on ship, he’d found the giants and the red-skinned sailors to be no great challenge, but he had come close to dying in the grasp of the Tekkar. The little man had been incredibly fast, incredibly strong, and he had the focus of one who does not fear death but only wishes to kill. While struggling with the creature on the deck of the ship, Gallen had watched the white spider tattooed on the Tekkar’s forehead. As the man grimaced and struggled, the legs of the spider had seemed to move as his skin stretched and tightened. And Gallen realized that the man had done it purposely, seeking to frighten him. The Tekkar had worked its hand slowly, inexorably toward Gallen’s esophagus, despite Gallen’s best efforts to fight the creature off. It had been playing with him, Gallen was sure, lengthening the seconds until it took Gallen’s esophagus in hand and crushed it.

Gallen did not want to frighten the others, but he worried, for it had only been their combined strength that let them defeat one Tekkar.

“How are you feeling?” Maggie said, still looking at the machine in her hand. She wore her own mantle. “Your head-is it all right?”

“I can’t feel anything moving in it anymore,” Gallen said, and even to himself his voice sounded stretched, hollow.

“What are you going to do?” Maggie whispered. “You can’t just ignore it. The Word isn’t going to go away.”

“What are our options?” Gallen asked. “What have you learned from the Word that Tallea found?”

“It’s a fairly simple device,” Maggie said. Maggie had on her own mantle, and she was studying the creature as a technologist would. “Its body has a few sensors-smell and sight only, as far as I can tell, and the main shell is built with invasion in mind. Its streamlined build helps it get under the flesh quickly. Beyond that …” She pried off its largest arm, with its spade-shaped blade, then pulled off the head. Something like a green-blue gel oozed out. “On the inside, it’s all nanoware interface. The Word is designed to burrow into your skull and create an electronic sensory interface.”