Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (34 page)

"Want a hand?" Duaal asked.

"No," Tiberius interrupted. "We don't need to talk to the dealers. We can go to the Pylos police."

"I can't talk to the police," Coldhand said flatly.

"I can. They'll have more information than the dealers."

Coldhand considered for a moment. "It would help," he answered slowly.

"Let's go, then!" Duaal said, heading for the tent exit.

"Not you," Tiberius said sharply. "You stay here."

"What?" the mage protested. "Not a chance!"

"You're sick, Duaal! Xia doesn't know what's causing your headaches. You should stay here and rest."

"I've been feeling better! Let me work on this, captain."

Tiberius thought for a moment and then sighed. "All right. But stick close to Xia and you come back to camp the moment you feel ill."

Xia spared one last questioning glance at Xen, then looked at Duaal. "I'll keep an eye on him, captain."

After another argument with Kemmer over use of the trucks, Tiberius and the rest left the tent. Panna was the last one out. She lingered, watching Xen. She couldn't leave just yet. Kemmer studiously ignored her.

"What is it, Panna?" Xen asked, furrowing his white brows.

"You… knew about me?"

"I'm Ixthian," he said simply. "Of course I realized."

"And you don't care?"

"Why should I?" Xen's eyes darkened a shade. "Panna, I don't know your reasons and they're none of my business. I'm your teacher. You've earned your right to be here."

"What about Gruth and the rest?" Panna asked.

"They're not going to say anything, either. I'll talk to them."

"But you're Ixthian," she protested, echoing back his own word. "Xia's right. I lied about my race! Doesn't that bother you?"

Xen's eyes went a dark blue and the pain on his face tugged at Panna's heart. "I once wanted something forbidden to me by my species, too." He gave a quiet, self-mocking laugh. "That's melodramatic. Not forbidden, but I let go of something I wanted very much because it was the Ixthian thing to do. When you came to my office and I realized what you were, I didn't want you to let go, too. Now, go find your princess. I'll be here when you get back."

Panna did not trust herself to speak. She ducked her head and hurried from the tent.

________

Xartasia left Maeve alone with the horror of Gavriel's intentions. Summoning the Devourers, bringing that nightmare back into the worlds?

"Give him what he wants," Xartasia had urged a final time. There was sadness in her voice, but also a soft, sweet kind of hope. "Be at peace, cousin. Soon, none of this will matter."

Maeve could only scream questions and obscenities as Xartasia pulled the door shut behind her and sealed the room in darkness once more. If there was anyone outside, they did not answer Maeve's cries.

Eventually, her voice faded to a rasp once more. The deep chill silenced her voice, but could not quiet her thoughts. Was Gavriel mad? Yes, to be sure, but what man could possibly be mad enough to go seeking the Devourers? And Xartasia wanted to help him kill trillions? Maeve could not imagine such despair.

Even in my worst moments, I only wanted to kill myself.

But the thought offered no comfort or vindication. It did not make Maeve any better than Xartasia, only that she was that much less likely to ever understand the Nihilists. How could
anyone
hate life so much?

Hours passed in the utter blackness. Even the glass-sharp edge of Maeve's terror dulled as her body's needs made themselves uncomfortably known. Her muscles cramped and her bladder was achingly full. In cruel irony, she was thirsty, too. The aftereffects of Vanora White made her head throb.

Maeve closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Everything hurt. The darkness behind Maeve's lids was the same as the inky black of her prison and offered no solace.

"The pure heart cannot be tainted by any art."

- Titania Cavainna, Arcadian monarch (233 PA)

The gray and white of the high mountains gave way to deep brown and green forest, then back to gritty, colorless gray as the trucks made their way down into Pylos. Logan drove the smaller of the two vehicles, leading the larger to the city. Against Tiberius' bellowed arguments, Duaal rode with Logan. Xia sat behind them, silent as snowfall.

Clearly, the mage felt no such urge. He stared alternately between the dilapidated city of Pylos and the almost equally worn bounty hunter.

"Dear God, look at this place," Duaal said, shaking his head. "And you spent the last week here?"

"Yes," Logan answered.

"But Pylos isn't the biggest city on Prianus, or anything like the most important. How did you find your way here? It must have been hard. Really, I'm impressed."

Then the boy was too easily impressed. "Someone told me to come here," Logan said flatly.

"Who? Another cop?"

He shrugged. Why did Duaal care? Logan just wanted to find the Nihilists, find Maeve and finish his work on Prianus. Duaal was watching him again, waiting for the hunter to answer.

"But you think this is where the Cult of Nihil is? It certainly seems like… like Gavriel's style," he said when it became clear that Logan was not going to offer up any information. He gave the other man a sly, sidelong look. "I was here with him before, you see. I know more about him than anyone else in the galaxy."

"Including Xartasia?"

Duaal paused. "Maybe not her."

Logan checked the gauges beside the steering wheel. Kemmer's truck was in bad shape and probably would not survive many more drives down the mountain. Logan had seen little of the archeologist's camp, but the trucks seemed to match everything else. Kemmer was working as hard and as fast as he could, running down equipment and people if he had to.

Why was he in such a hurry? In spite of his earlier declaration, Logan found himself curious about what Kemmer had found in the Kayton Mountains.

"I spent most of my life with Gavriel. Even if Xartasia knows more about him, you'd have to torture her to get it out," Duaal was saying. Did the kid ever shut up? He smiled winsomely. "Of course, you can interrogate me, if you like, Logan…"

"What's down in the ravine that Maeve was guarding?" Logan interrupted.

Xia leapt in before Duaal could answer. "We really can't talk about that," she said. "Kemmer had us sign non-disclosure forms when we first came on the job. Unless you think it's going to help find Maeve. Do you think it's relevant?"

"Come on, Xia," said Duaal flippantly. "You don't really take that seriously, do you? What's Kemmer going to do?"

"What is it?" Logan pressed.

Xia started another protest, but Duaal held up his hand. He paused dramatically.

"A Waygate," Duaal said at last.

"An Arcadian Waygate?"

"In a manner of speaking. The Waygates aren't actually an Arcadian invention," he told Logan airily. "They predate even the White Kingdom. What the fairies know about the Waygates, they learned from the Nnyth. Until now, we thought that the Waygates existed only on the galactic rim. The implications are staggering."

"What implications are those?" Logan asked.

"Well…" Duaal faltered. "That there might have been trade or contact between the core and rim long before anyone thought?"

"The problem is convenience, not technology. Alliance ships can fly out to the rim worlds. It's just not worth the fuel and time. That's been the case for more than a hundred years," said Logan.

"But the Waygate Kemmer found is at least three million years old!" Duaal sounded a little desperate.

"Probably more like seven to nine million," Xia corrected.

Logan considered that. "There weren't humans on Prianus that long ago."

"No, there weren't," said Xia.

"Then someone else built it."

"That's the idea," Duaal said. "What do you think? Aliens on Prianus, before humans evolved here?"

"I think that it won't help me find Maeve," Logan answered.

"The Cult of Nihil." Xia was correcting
him
now. "You came a long way to find them, Coldhand. Why? Is the money that good?"

Logan did not want to talk about it. The money was not that good. Was it exciting, as he had hoped back on Sipho?

No. But Maeve is here.

Maeve
was
here and they've taken her.

Duaal was staring… again. He seemed to be thinking of something else to say when his com chirped. "Yes?"

"We're a few blocks from the police station. Tell Coldhand to turn right at the next intersection."

"I know where we're going," Logan said. Duaal repeated him into the com.

"And he also knows he can't go into the station."

Duaal looked at Logan. "Yeah," the mage said. "Look, captain, maybe Logan and I should start… asking around…"

"Canvassing," Logan supplied. "No. We need information first."

Traffic was growing heavy through the cracked and bumpy Pylos roads. He yanked the wheel hard to one side as a small red car swerved in front of them. The driver waved a rude gesture out the window.

"What the hells was that?" Tiberius asked. Logan could see him in the second truck, glaring furiously. "Does that buzzard even know how to drive?"

Duaal's flush darkened a shade as he hurried to answer. "It's nothing, captain. Everything's fine. We'll see you soon."

Xia's eyes whirled an angry and worried red, but she seemed to think better of admonishing Logan. Duaal was simply grinning at the hunter. Did the boy think that a moment's inattention made Logan as reckless a pilot as he was?

Does it?

He was losing his edge. Logan could feel –
feel
– it. The bounty hunter was distracted by thoughts of Vorus and Maeve. Would finding the lost Arcadian woman make Tiberius think any better of Logan?

I don't care.

I don't.

________

How long since Xartasia had left? It felt like days, but Maeve could not trust her own sense of time. She was finally getting hungry.

But the hunger was a dull ache compared to the fire in her hands and wings. Maeve shifted her weight, trying to ease the pain. Who would have thought that simply sitting still could hurt so much? Maeve cursed herself for a fool – she had thought it so unpleasant up on her sentry crag, exposed and cold. Now, she would have given anything to be back up on those rocks, with her silver blanket and the bright spotlight melting the ice until water dripped down onto her wings.

Now there was no water, no light and no blanket, but plenty of cold and moldering dust. Every time Maeve sneezed, she banged the back of her head against the metal post. Not hard enough to cause any sort of injury, but it hurt.

Everything hurts,
Maeve reminded herself firmly.
Complaining about it will change nothing.

The door opened again, making her squint. She did not recognize the silhouette standing in the doorway as either Xartasia or her master. The relief was short-lived, however, as the tall shape stepped inside. Through her watering eyes, Maeve could make out a red robe.

The Emberguard surveyed the room. It was the same one who had taken her from the mountain – Xartasia had called him Hallax – a long-limbed Mirran with dark stripes across his olive skin.

The Mirrans had evolved their unique and beautiful markings as prey animals on their homeworld, to help them evade and hide from more than five hundred species of sharp-eyed predators. But there was nothing prey-like about Hallax. His dark eyes were narrowed and fixed on Maeve. She was reminded for a moment of Logan Coldhand.

The Emberguard's gaze was appraising. He was measuring her up, but not for a fight, as Logan would have. For slaughter. This man would run his nanosword through Maeve's heart at his master's word. But not yet, it seemed.

Hallax stepped to one side and two other Nihilists – these in ordinary black clothes – heaved a huge chair through the door and set it in front of Maeve.

"What are you doing?" she asked. She was not pleased by the sharp, frightened note in her rough voice. "Leave me alone!"

"I would be happy to," said a voice, "once you have given me what I need."

It was Gavriel, just as Xartasia had warned. He looked taller than he had on Stray… No, Maeve realized. He simply stood straighter, no longer bowed by what was, for a human, vast age. But his clothes were much as Maeve remembered, long and dusty black robes like those of a wandering desert priest.

Gavriel seated himself and waved off the two who had brought the chair. One of them set a lantern at Gavriel's feet, and then they bowed and retreated. Hallax remained at the door, watching Maeve in silence. Gavriel's hands rested on the arms of his chair like huge, age-spotted spiders.