Wine of the Gods 08: Dark Lady (17 page)

Saturday, April 25, 3493 AD

Je
ramtown, Arrival

"I need to find out if I can go home. I shouldn't have too much trouble finding the gate."

"
December . . . "

"
Moxie's yours. And the bank account, I signed off on the declaration in the back. Don't ever let yourself be completely financially dependent."

"December!"

"I made a corridor for Kurt. I think he can take it all the way to this Arrival. So you can come back easily, if Arrival doesn't suit you. Hopefully with Kurt."

"December
!"

"
I can't raise Quail here. She'd be so alone, one of a kind. A freak. Or perhaps a magnet for those Arbolian priests. I can't risk her, if there's a safe place for her, a place where she'll be accepted as normal, not the Dark Lady's magical and dangerous child."

"
December . . . "

"
It makes a better tale, anyway. 'And then the Dark Lady rode off into the sunset.' Don't you think?"

"
I think it's midday, and that if you can't live there, you'd best come back and live here." Liz gave her a fierce hug, stood back to let her mount, then handed Quail up.

Everyone watched in silent respect as she rode out. She tried to ignore the tears
, the soldiers coming to attention, and the people who crowded the wall to watch her ride away.

Friday, May 8, 3493
AD, Arrival

Spring, 1376
PE, Comet Fall

Two weeks northwest of Jeramtown December thought she heard someone call her name. The other name. "Rustle." Out loud, it still sounded awkward. There was no one in sight. She jittered nervously, but forced herself to ride on.

Phantom flung up his head and looked due west. Ears pricked and prancing. December followed his lead, and two hills over stopped Phantom at the crest to watch the even larger and blacker horse gallop up the other side. The god was wearing ordinary clothes, tan breeches and high brown boots, a tan shirt and a hairy vest. The horse halted nose to nose with Phantom
. The horses traded snorts, conversing in soft grunts, nickers, subtle changes in head orientation and ear flicks.

The man, the god, swung off the horse, dropped to the ground. On
foot, he  was probably not quite seven foot tall. He was broad shouldered, muscular and moved with smooth assurance.

She shifted uncertainly. "Wolf?" She slid down off Phantom.

The god's smile lit up. "Oh good. I was beginning to fear you had forgotten me altogether."

"No. I have little bits and pieces of memories scattered about. I know who you must be, but I don't recognize you. I don't know my own name. Quicksilver was embroidered on some things, so I used that as the first brick to try and build on." She turned back to Phantom, and lifted Quail from the saddlebag.

The god smiled. "I was afraid to ask. May I?"

She held the baby out, and the God's huge hands cradled the little girl. "Little Quicksilver, I should have known you long before this." The giant looked not at all threatening, tiny babe cuddled against his chest.

"You are Rustle Neverdaut, Sister of the Full Moon of the Pyramid of Mount Frost, except when you are being the Eldest Sister of the Pyramid of Rip Crossing. Never is a Waning Half witch, very powerful, very well trained, and very smart. Through your mother's father you are the great granddaughter of King Rebo of Western. Your father is Dydit Twicecutt, formerly the Duke of High Top in Scoone, who is currently hovering between being one of the most powerful wizards in the World, and qualifying as a god.

"You have two sisters, Obsidian and Topaz. You have a half brother, Havi.

"Witches do not marry. They do not acknowledge the control, or even the influence of a man. So I'm not actually your husband. You have Xen, your six year old son, and now Quicksilver. I am the father of both.

"You are easily the most powerful magic user in our World. You were seriously overstrained about four months ago, saving a great many lives. You could not save everyone, and in your overstrained condition could not shut out the
mental screams of the injured and dying, and fled through a gate as the most likely means of saving yourself."

She scooted back in alarm. "I am not more powerful than you."
Quail's father. But not my husband?

"When you are fully recovered, in everything but warfare, you are."

She looked warily at him. "I am fairly recovered."

"Some parts of your mind are
shut so tightly I didn't even recognize you when I laid eyes upon you. If you were a goddess, you'd curl up and sleep for a year. I recommend you do something close to that."

She nodded cautiously.

He reached out and touched her face lightly. "Who's been throwing fireballs?"

"They called him a god, but he was a mad, enslaved thing. I killed him." She turned her head enough that the god could see the claw scratch that showed beneath her helmet.

The god stood still for a long moment. "Just as well." There was some odd reverberation under the comment that had Phantom easing a bit away from him. Quail started fussing and she took her back.

"Is that Phantom's sire?" December—Rustle—changed the subject.

"Yes. Do you recall Sir Romeau's Sun Gold? Another very special horse, and the sire of Phantom's dam."

She frowned. "I remember bad poetry."

"Yes, that's Romeau's specialty."

"I'm surprised you could find me. There are . . . I remember there being a lot of gates. Or
are you looking for something else?"

"I was searching for you. You had opened eleven gates, so far. I was horribly afraid you might have opened another one that I didn't know about, and then I'd have to search the World to find it. I checked the Ash and Rip Crossing gates first."

"Ash. I think I remember Ash. It's a village . . . isn't it?"

The big man looked her over calmly, but December—Rustle—found herself wanting to edge away again.

"How badly are you injured?"

"Mentally? I . . . cannot remember much of anything. The horse's name. A few odds and ends.
Magically, I can't raise a mental shield. I can do almost anything else I've thought of so far . . . until I get tired. Physically . . . I was deeply clawed, from scalp to calf. The god . . . ripped off my ear and ate it."

She flinched away from the god, away from the radiating heat, the eye-searing light that was leaking in from somewhere. Then the light faded, the heat cooled, mostly, and the god was merely glowing.
Her head pounded, faint and distant, not hurting. Yet.

Power. He i
s just leaking power, not projecting it . . . God help me if I ever need to try and shield against this man!

The glow vanished abruptly.

She continued cautiously. "First I killed the priest that had summoned it, and then I killed the god."

The god sighed. "And how many of your friends had to sit on you to keep you in bed?"

She snickered, and slapped a surprised hand across her lips. "I was . . . nearly sensible about resting, because we knew what was going to happen. I mean, we knew they were going to start their all-out assault soon.

"Tell me what happened."

She gave the god a complete accounting of the siege. She repeated what the priest had said to her before she killed him.

The god looked troubled. "I should take a look at these priests and their little gods. Their collecting
power like that is . . . alarming."

"If you do, mind their Chain spell, the pitchblende made it very strong, and I think there was some sort of
radiation and phosphorescence in the other colors as well."

The god nodded, and as the sun set, he paced in thought. He stopped down slope of her. Down almost two feet, Wolf was eye-to-eye with her.

The big man looked worried. "You really don't remember me, do you."

"Not until you showed up outside of Jeramtown. Were you looking through all the gates? Exploring?"

"All of them. Several times each. I was afraid to spend so much time in one that I missed you somewhere else. Then that person called me."

"Coincidentally when you were on his World?"

The big man's brow creased. "I told someone—I was hunting through gates and calling for you and then listening—I told someone they had all they needed to win, he need only stand fast and true."

"He was the same one who called you to the siege."

"Yes. Apparently he failed to stand fast and true. I was at the Crossroads and he was able to pull me in. Infuriating, in some ways. I wasn't sure which gate I'd been dragged through. I was glad to help, of course. And delighted to know you were alive, and fairly well."

"I see." She hesitated. "How long have I known you?"

"All your life. We . . . our romantic relationship started badly, and has gone in fits and starts. I love you, and with your permission, I will woo you properly as soon as I may. I will never presume."

Quail interrupted with a loud demand for dinner. A bit embarrassed and uncertain, she got a small blanket from the saddle bag and threw it over her shoulder to feed the baby under its cover.

"What are my parents like. Not married, I take it?"

"Technically. They are a bit of a scandal. A witch actually living with her pet." He turned to the bigger horse and unsaddled him, and then Phantom.

"Pet?" She eyed him dubiously.

"Never gets a bit huffy about it, but Dydit just looks smug. No one has dared call Never a wife since a certain witch spent a week barking like a dog, years ago. Your father is a very unusual man . . . I think you'll have to meet him to understand."

"I see." She stared, baffled, at the man for a long moment. "I thought my only problem was remembering me, and maybe the father of that baby."

The god smiled a bit. "You have a large, vocal and concerned family. Maybe you should enjoy your vacation in isolation instead. How many witches have you met here?"

"None." She touched her hat, over the partially regrown ear. "Outside power sourcing. Of course. Why couldn't I remember that? The genes for outside power sourcing seem to have been mostly lost. I . . . don't know where that god sourced from . . . I didn't analyze it while I was fighting, all he really had was a good shield, and these power claws that could pierce my shield."

"Quite enough, in your depleted state."

The Lady drew herself up. "I am not . . . I feel quite strong."

"When you are well, you are overwhelming. You are something beyond strong."

While she'd fed Quail, he'd laid out a camp in a little flat spot below the crest of the hill, their bedrolls still rolled, but on opposite sides of the firepit his horse excavated with a swipe of a huge hoof. His saddlebags turned out a small amount of firewood, a kettle of water and . . . water. Focusing on the saddlebags, she could see that they were full of bubbles.

"That looks like what I did in town. I caught hundreds, possibly thousands of bubbles for people to live in. And store grain, livestock, mothers-in-law . . . "

Wolf laughed. "I noticed all the bubbles and wondered what was going on. I suspect I came along just in time to save the Arbolians from your ingenuity." He pulled a brush from the bag and worked over both horses before they wandered off to graze.

December . . . Rustle . . . fixed tea, and produced dinner from her saddlebags.

Wolf grinned. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother with fires."

"You'll stop wondering shortly, the night wind off the icecap is chilly, even now."

"This World must be fairly close to ours, well, a recent split, I suppose I mean."

"Oh yes. They are also Exiles. Kurt—Prince Kurt Alpha—says they arrived here fourteen hundred years ago."

"Alpha. Good heavens. I suspect I knew your prince's ancestor." He looked thoughtful for a long moment. "The local collective subconscious hasn't adjusted to me yet. I can feel that Roger. Apparently he thinks of Gods the way our people do. I fit too well and was vulnerable to him. I may still be. I think I'll avoid the Crossroads for awhile."

"The Crossroads?"

"An area with a lot of gates to other worlds. It is located on your home world." He eyed her uncertainly. "May I escort you home?"

"Do gods need to ask?"

"Oh yes, gods above all need to be sure they are not presuming."

The man not-presumed to the point of laying out his bedroll across the fire from hers. He didn't try to touch her, but had no qualms about helping with Quail, eating her dinner and washing her dishes.

In the morning he led her off slightly more north than northwest. They stopped for frequent breaks, and camped early every night, but the last.

She spotted the glowing white circle from the base of the hill, and turned Phantom toward it.

"We could wait until morning." Wolf suggested.

He had worked his ass off trying to be nice to her. Helping with the baby, setting up camp, taking c
are of the horses. And taking the trip slow and easy.

She closed her eyes and tried to think of how to put it diplomatically. Gave up.
"Another night of your frenzied attempts to demonstrate what a fine husband you are will probably drive me to violence. Stop slowing me down. I need to find out if I can live on the other side of that Gate. I need to meet all these strangers I'm related to."

Poor man. S
he was not returning the favor of demonstrating what a fine wife she was. Because rather to her relief, she wasn't anyone's wife.

He shut his mouth and followed after her. Halfway up the hill he spoke again. "You think I've been impeding you?"

"I think you have taken the opportunity to demonstrate your finer qualities. In your attempts to be solicitous, you have overlooked the stress I feel about returning to something I don't remember, apart from a great deal of pain and panicked flight. And I am not going to drag it out any further."

"Oh."

Up close, the Gate looked more like a violent whirlpool of lightening laid down sideways, the better to eat any willing sacrifices who rode their horses straight in. She wrapped her arms protectively around the baby in the sling in front of her. Phantom trotted the last two steps and leaped into the maelstrom.

The lights exploded around her and pulled her and spun her and teased her with things just out of her sight, and Phantom landed lightly on the other side, trotting forward. Quail screamed, and Rustle ran her hand up and down the baby's back. "Welcome home, sweetie." Quail gave one more displeased cry and hiccupped.