The Far Side Of Forever Part 16

Su's breath sucked in with surprise and then she made a sound of pain, one which quickly became a scream of desperation. She was the only one among us who was barefoot and bare-legged, which meant that the things didn't have to pa.s.s boots and clothing before they reached flesh. They came up out of the ground, pale white slugs that appeared in the gra.s.s then immediately began climb- ing us, a squis.h.i.+ng sound accompanying them rather than whining, an eagerness to cover us in their squirming, slithering advance. Soffan Dra screamed too, but not be- cause the slugs had reached the tops of her high boots under her gown. The scream was just part of the general reaction to the swarming things, an equivalent to the sick-

ened, cursing shouts of the men as they frantically brushed at themselves.

I might have been on the slow side with the other attacks, but slugs and maggots had shared a tot of my food while I was growing up, before Morgiana found me. They were more familiar to me than they were to most people, which meant I didn't waste any time being horrified or disgusted. Two words banished the slugs already crawling on us, and a word of power forced the ones on the ground to freeze where they were. That didn't slop newcomers from squeezing up through the gra.s.s all around the frozen ones, but at least it gave us something of a break. I looked quickly around at everyone, seeing how Kadrim had hur- ried over to Su and had lifted her quickly off the ground to keep her from being covered again, and shouted the single word, "Run!"

This time 1 was obeyed almost before the word was out of my mouth, and if we didn't all go at top speed, that was only because of what our feet were coming down on. I banished the gate to the fence as we struggled through the mess, saving us from having to stop and open it or climb over, and once inside the fence we found naming but vegetation beneath our feet. Whether it was the gra.s.s I'd subst.i.tuted for what had originally grown there, or the fact that all of us had been outside the fence that had made the slugs appear there alone, I didn't know; none of us knew, but mat didn't keep us from mounting as fast as we could and getting ourselves out of there. I froze the slugs one more time before our horses galloped through them, which kept us from taking any unwanted company along with us.

We slowed the horses sooner this time, trying to save what was left of their stamina after too short a rest and not enough grazing, and it wasn't long before we were glad we did- The insect swarms made them bolt even though 1 was able to screen us from being stung much, and once we'd managed to slow them down, they were set off again by the fruit suddenly dropped on us as though it were being aimed. It's impossible to know how long we went on like that, five minutes of peace and twenty of attack, but I do remember a lull of sorts, between the birds diving and the rootlets reaching for our horses' hooves, of nearly

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an hour. Our four sword-wielders spent almost as much time and energy defending us as 1 did with magic, but the one who seemed to be taking it all the worst was Soffann Dra. She had thrown up once we were away from the slugs, and continued to look like a powder-pale ghost from men on.

At long, long last the forest opened onto a beautiful meadow containing manicured gra.s.s and a really lovely stream, and we six sat our horses staring at it in silence. It was late afternoon and we were hot and sweaty from the heat of the day, covered in filth from the vines, slugs, fruit and so on, bitten and stung, and not far from dropping from exhaustion. Aside from that, we didn't trust the look of the meadow one little bit; it was too pretty and inviting, and we were all remembering the lovely little glade we would have ridden through if not for InThig. I shuddered at the thought of what the gra.s.s in the glade had been resting on, and my gray snorted, either in echo or in sympathy.

*'Su, do we have any choice about going through it?"

Rikkan Addis asked after a minute, unfairly sounding as though he wasn't tired at all- "We might be better off if we went around."*-

"Can't," Su answered, sounding more like I felt. "Don't see the trail any farther ahead than around to the left of that stream. Could be it ends there."

"At the next gate," Rikkan Addis said, causing some- thing of a stir in the rest of us. The second world, accord- ing to Graythor, had people, and I'd discovered that I'd rather be attacked by people than things any day. Appar- ently the others felt the same, but rather than start forward at once, Rikkan Addis called softly, "InThig!"

The demon had been ranging out ahead of us again, but it came gliding back at the sound of its name, a big, black shadow flowing silently over the gra.s.s. InThig wasn't tired at all, of course, and it knew exactly why it had been called.

"I haven't been able to detect anything of particular danger," it told Rikkan Addis, sitting cat-like as it looked up at the man. "Our next gate is not far from that stream, but for some reason it seems odd."

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"Odd in what way?" the man asked, joining everyone else in glancing in my direction- I. on the other hand, was looking at InThig, dreading what its answer would be but already half antic.i.p.ating it.

"The gate didn't flare open when I approached it,"

InThig replied with a puzzled tone in its growl, turning those red eyes to meet my gaze. "Gates always open for me, and I don't understand what it means."

"It probably means the gate is timed," I supplied with a groan, slumping in my saddle. "We'll have to wait a certain amount of time until I can open it, but 1 won't know how much time before I See the thing. Graythor once told me it has something to do with the positioning of me worlds it leads to, when those worlds are more man usually far from the world you're leaving. This seems to be a giant-step gate, and we can only hope its period is hours rather than weeks or months."

That caused another stir among my companions, this time accompanied by echoes of my original groan. We all wanted to be off that world, but when we left was no longer our choice:

"It looks like the best thing we can do is get over there," Rikkan Addis decided aloud, his eyes already set in that direction. "We'll worry about what to do next if me period turns out to be unreasonably long. Before that, worrying is a waste of time."

A touch of his heel sent his roan into a steady lope toward the distant gate, InThig stretching just a little to move out ahead of him, Su and Soffann Dra following just behind. Zail and Kadrim kept to their places to either side of me, but there was more of a grimness to them than what had been holding them most of the day. They both now seemed to consider it a personal insult that we would not be leaving that world right away, and I didn't understand why.

Riding across the meadow turned out to be totally un- eventful, a pleasant change from the way the day had gone until then. The stream was beautifully blue and sparkling with fluffy bushes of various sizes here and there around it, but none of us looked at it too closely as we rode by.

Everyone was just then more interested in the gate, and

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most of mem acted as though they expected to be able to See it. Su knew where it was from where the trail ended, but Rikkan Addis would have ridden right through the glowing slit without knowing it if his roan hadn't slid sideways when he tried. He looked around then to see InThig stopped in front of the gate and me already begin- ning to dismount, and finally got the message.

"How long before you'll know what its period is?" he asked me, backing his roan before starting to dismount. "I don't like me way this place feels."

"I'm afraid you'll just have to live with it for a while,"

I answered, putting my fists on my hips as I stared at the glowing slit. "Its pulse is clearly declining, but it seems to be on a short cycle. My guess is it's openable only in the morning, so it looks like we'll be spending the night here."

"Your guess," he echoed over a few moans and groans from the others, his tone dissatisfied. "Is guessing the best you can do? Can't you tell me something a little more concrete?"

"If you think you can do any better yourself, go right ahead," I offered, waving a hand at the slit with only some of the annoyance I was reeling, aiming my head to look directly at him. "It so happens 1 wasn't telling you anything, just informing the group as a whole, so don't take the disappointment so personally. And you don't have to be that nervous about spending the night here. Once I have our campsite warded, we'll be just fine."

His head went high as his eyes began to blaze, but 1 was too hot and tired to wait for him to come up with words in response to what I'd said. I'd used the opportunity to show the others how little he had going for him as a leader, but I wanted to get our camp set up and provisioned while I still believed I had the strength to do it.

For that reason I turned immediately and walked away from all of them, getting straight in my mind how much room we would need for me camp, what we wanted to be in it, where to put the horses and in what, dozens of items and specifics that would then all have to be warded. It was like juggling a giant puzzle in my head, all the clues and answers in place, all the pieces locking tight, every hint

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and suggestion picked up and fitted into the pattern; it wasn't impossible, only difficult, the sort of difficulty that had fascinated and delighted me from the moment I first began learning about it. I closed my eyes for a moment, wis.h.i.+ng there was even a small breeze to cool the air, then raised my arms and spoke the spells one after the other-

*'0h, look!" Soffann Dra gasped, delight in her voice for the first time that day. "Look at those beautiful pavil- ions! We'll be able to be comfortable tonight!"

There were murmurs of agreement and approval keeping her observations company, and I wondered again why she always had to speak in exclamation points. Right then I was finding it just short of painful, but that wasn't the woman's fault- I sat down in the gra.s.s and closed my eyes again, but this time so that I could rub them with my fingers.

"You all right?" Su's voice asked from above me just before her hand touched my shoulder. "Didn't know you had enough left to do all that after the kind of day we had."

"Nothing to it," I answered, dropping my hands so that I could look up at her where she bent over me. "I'll bet I even have enough left right now to keep my eyes open until I've washed in the stream and maybe had a bite or two to eat. How about you?"

"Didn't think it was worth hoping we could wash," she said with a tired grin, crouching so that she could rub at her leg more easily. I'd neutralized as much of the slug venom in her as I could after we'd ridden away from them, but her legs were still marked with painful-looking sores under the slime that had been left on her from the slugs*

upward progress. There hadn't been a word of complaint out of her, though, and if 1 hadn't been able to clear and ward the stream as well as our camp, she still probably wouldn't have said anything.

"It's always worth hoping you can wash," I told her, deciding I really ought to try getting back to my feet. "It helps to remind you that stinking and filthy isn't the only way of life. Let's get me horses into their pasture, and then we can get on with it."

Su nodded and straightened slowly while I forced my-

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self back to a standing position, and then we went to take care of our mounts. If we'd earned the right to spend the night in comfortable pavilions, our horses had also earned me right to something special. I'd given mem a fenced-in pasture with safe gra.s.s and their own piece of stream, a covered-over area to sleep in if they wanted to, and a wide trough of oats. The pasture had taken more effort than the pavilions had, but only because I'm less familiar with pastures. Putting up a castle would have been easier, but horses aren't known for being partial to castles.

Once we had the saddles and bridles off our mounts, we left them alone to enjoy themselves and went to take care of ourselves. The others had spent some time looking into the targe silk pavilions before leading their mounts to the pasture, and the only one still in hers was Soffann Dra.

Good old fearless leader was taking care of her horse for her so that she could continue inspecting to her heart's delight, which was exactly what she was doing. None of them had had any trouble figuring out which pavilion belonged to whom, not when I'd matched them to the color of the horse each rode, and the small woman seemed as pleased with her white tent as she was with her white mount. ,

My own gray pavilion stood between Su's brown and white one and Kadrim's golden one, all segments of the large circle the six tents were formed into. On Su's other side was Soffann Dra in white, on Kadrim's Zail in black, and between Zail and the small woman, Rikkan Addis in red. If I'd been even a little less tired the red tent would have come equipped with several special features, but fearless leader had gotten lucky with the sort of day we'd had. Maybe next time the luck would be on my side.