The Far Side Of Forever Part 31

We glanced back to see the twisted, lumbering shapes shuffling after us, grotesque horrors that didn't appear fast or agile-only unstoppable. Some of them had picked up poison-bird bodies and were chewing them up in their maws, getting a good deal of pleasure from the snack, which told us more about them than we wanted to know.

Running did seem the smartest way to go, and we weren't slow getting on with it.

We thundered up to the gate and slid to a stop, half-fell from our saddles and, hearts pounding, quickly formed our chain. Zai! raced two horses through, then Dranna, then Rik with the last of them, all of us giving fervent thanks that we'd done it often enough before mat hurrying was possible. Kadi-tin's hand in mine was completely steady, but I was sure he was very glad that InThig was there beside him. As soon as the last of the horses was cleared out of the way he jumped through, and then we were all on the other side of the gate.

"Made it!" Zail crowed with a laugh, clapping Kadrim on the shoulder in true relief and delight. "They almost had us, but we made it. Where's InThig?"

"I'm sure it can take care of itself," Rik said, but mere was a frown on his face as he stared at the gate behind me.

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"It may have gotten delayed, but it'll be through in a minute."

There was a general murmur of agreement from the others, more a matter of trying for confidence than making it, and all of them were now staring behind me. 1 took two more deep breaths to get back what strength I could from the transfer, then I straightened up.

"If it's not through by now, it needs help," I said, tired of the way fearless leader always tried to gloss things over.

"I'm going back to give that help."

"You can't." Rik said at once, the look sharpening in his eyes as he grabbed my arm to keep me from turning.

"If InThig is having a problem, all you'll succeed in doing is getting yourself killed. I'll go."

"And Just how do you intend doing that?" 1 asked in annoyance, pulling my arm out of his grip- "You can't even See a gate, let alone use one. And what do you think you'd accomplish? Even if you could stop me?"

His expression darkened as it usually did when we exchanged words, a perfect match to the dark, dismal countryside I barely noticed all around us. There was nothing he could say in answer to my questions, something that really seemed to get to hm, but I had other concerns just then above his ruffled indignation. I gave him a last look of disgust, then turned again to face the gate.

"Wait," his voice came again, accompanied by his big hand on my shoulder. "You're not going aione. Either I go with you, or I will do my d.a.m.nedest to stop you."

"And what about the rest of us?" Zail put in, sounding the least bit outraged- "InThig has saved our necks often enough; don't you think that ent.i.tles us to do the same for him?"

"It," I corrected automatically, helpless to keep from putting my hand to my mouth as I stared at the piace we had come through from the last world. It was a lot colder and damper in that new world, but that wasn't the reason 1 began trembling.

"What's wrong with you, girl?" Rikkan Addis asked with a frown in his voice, his hand on my shoulder un- doubtedly giving him more of a message than the others were getting. "Why are you looking around like that?"

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I didn't answer him at once, most especially as he was wrong; I wasn't looking around, but he wasn't equipped to know the difference. I felt numb inside, not to mention cold and frightened, but it all made a horrible kind of sense.

"So that's why we were under almost constant attack on that world," I said, still looking everywhere but at the people behind me. "And why those things showed up just when they did, close but not too close. They weren't meant to make us fight, just to make us hurry."

"What are you talking about?" Rikkan Addis asked with surprising gentleness, turning me around to face the worry in his eyes in the same way. "Something's hap- pened, I can see that just from looking at you. Tell me what's wrong."

"The last attack on that other world," I repeated as patiently as I could, feeling very distant but wanting him to know. "We weren't being attacked; we were being herded, straight to the gate and through it as fast as possible. The enemy didn't want to kill us, he wanted us to come through here, to this world."

"But why should he want that?" was me next question, as patient as my explanation had been. "The trail of the balance stone leads here; why would he want us following it?"

"Because this world is special," I said, for some reason fascinated by his bronze eyes. 'I've never been to a world like this before, and I can understand why. This world doesn't allow magic."

"Are you sure?" he asked as the others all made sounds or exclamations of shock, his hands tightening just a little on my arms. "Are you positive mere's nothing you can do in the way of magic? That will mean we've got nothing but swords to defend ourselves with, and no way to pre- tend we're natives."

"And no way to get food or shelter," Zail put in, sounding worried. "And what happens if we run into more patrols?"

"Don't any of you understand?" I demanded, interrupt- ing comments and worries alike, finally looking around at

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them. "On this world I can't See, I'm as blind as the rest of you. Don't you know what that means?"

They stared at me in silence, their expressions of blank- ness completely eloquent, and 1 hardly noticed it when Rikkan Addis took his hands from my arms. They didn't understand, and suddenly I was very reluctant to tell them.

"I can't See." I repeated in a mutter, putting one hand to my eyes as I forced myself to say it. "That gate we just came through-when 1 looked for it, it wasn't there any longer- If you can't See a gate, you can't use it- d.a.m.n it all, we're trapped on this world for good!"

CHAPTER 7.

The silence stretched on and on, a numb, shocked silence that I understood perfectly. I stood there in the chill with one hand over my eyes, feeling no desire to do anything else, feeling like the absolute and complete failure that I was. If I hadn't let myself be rushed like that, if I had been a little more careful before stepping blithely through a one-way gate- And InThig. InThig would have expected me to come back, to help- But 1 couldn't go back, I no longer had the ability to do it, and somehow I knew I'd never see the demon again.

"Now what do we do?" Dranna asked, her voice as lifeless as my own spirit felt. "Choose a piece of land and start fanning it? Find a city and beg on the streets until we have enough money to open a shop? I've never been stranded in a strange world before; is there some sort of protocol to be followed?"

"The first thing we do is stay calm," Rikkan Addis answered her, but obviously speaking to everyone else as well. "If we panic or start running around screaming and shouting, we never will get out of this. To begin with, we'll have to find out where we are, what sort of people live on this world, and whether or not the whole thing is the way this part is. Maybe there's a part of it where Laciel won't be blind."

"Don't know about that, but I do have a question," Su said, and then her arm was around my shoulders. "Laciel,

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why would it be that you can't do magic-but I can still see the trail?"

Everyone started talking at once at that, desperately grasping at the straw Su was holding out, but it wasn't a real loophole that she'd found. I sighed and took my hand away from my eyes, then sadly shook my head.

"Su, you're forgetting there's a difference between hav- ing a magical ability and having the ability to do magic," I said, looking up at her still-calm face. "There are some magical abilities, like luck, and a talent for fixing things and-yes, trail-finding-that seem to work anywhere, on every world there is, under all conceivable circ.u.mstances- Having the Sight isn't the same, because there are some worlds where having it doesn't mean you can use it. It has something to do with the foundations of a particular world, what its primal building blocks were, that sort of thing. If there's no magic in a world's roots, magic can't be done there even if its natives know about the ability."

"That may be so, but now we don't have to wonder what to do next," Rikkan Addis jumped in, briskly over- riding everyone's disappointment. "We follow Su while she follows the trail, and wait until it runs out before racking our brains for what to do after that. If we get very lucky, something might come *up before that. Let's get mounted and use what's left of the daylight.''

His Persuasion-backed enthusiasm spilled over onto ev- eryone, another proof of what I'd said about abilities, but if Su hadn't insisted, I wouldn't have gone along with it.

Even if there had still been some point to the expedition, there wouldn't have been one in my tagging along, but Su refused to let me stay behind, basking in the glory I'd earned. She made me mount up along with everyone else, then began following the trail she was still able to see- There wasn't altthat much left to the day around us, and what there was seemed well suited to the landscape. We were in the middle of scrubby, unenthusiastic woods, thin, frail-looking trees, tired bushes, short, patchy gra.s.s. The browns and greens appeared washed-out and dingier than they should have been, the muddiness of them compounded by the heavy clouds not far above the tree-tops. There probably wasn't even as much as an hour left until dark,

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and the temperature was chilly on the way to being cold, Under other circ.u.mstances we would have made camp-but under those circ.u.mstances we had nothing to make camp with.

A few short minutes of riding brought us to a road, or what seemed to be used as a road by the natives. It was narrow and rutted and completely uncared for, a back- woods track that probably turned to mud with every mod- erately heavy rain. Our horses snorted and slowed once they were on it, distrusting the uneven footing, and it wasn't long before we separated to ride to either side of the thing. There was no sense in risking losing one or more of our mounts, even if we were going nowhere but to a dead end.

The scrub woods changed to dark, desolate countryside, with nothing to be seen in the way of human habitation. 1 was certain the world was inhabited by humans, but as time pa.s.sed the conviction grew more and more uncertain.

Everything seemed to be more mute than silent, more oppressed than quiet, more tremblingly frightened than noiseless, more in hiding than simply out of sight. I didn't like the feel of that world, the lack of both friendliness and hostility, and after a while it came to me that I wasn't the only one to react that way. Not a single word was being exchanged among the others, and we seemed to be taking turns looking behind us.