The Far Side Of Forever Part 33

people were, and for an instant I was shocked speechless.

Then the instant pa.s.sed and 1 was cursing under my breath, saying aloud every one of the words Morgiana disliked so much. I realized my voice must be rising in volume when Kadrim's hand closed around my arm again, but I didn't give a d.a.m.n. I was mad enough to chew nails, and iron ones at that!

"I think we'll be leaving now," Rik said to the small man, interrupting me just as I was really warming to my subject. "We'll be going on to Nor, of course, and thank you for the time and courtesy you've given us. We wish you a pleasant night."

The small man bowed as he backed away, giving us room to turn our horses, and he and his people raised their hands as we rode out of the camp. I was so furious 1 hardly knew what I was doing, and didn't realize that Kadrim had taken the rein of my gray until we stopped in the dark, far enough away from that camp that the people in it would have no idea that we had. I was back to muttering under my breath, and would have ridden on if I hadn't been stopped.

"I think it's safe to say we now have a more urgent and pressing problem than what to do at the next gate," Rikkan Addis said at once, faint disgust in his voice. "Apparently everyone in this area has been told about us, which means it's a d.a.m.ned good thing we stopped at that camp. The city of Nor is just ahead of us, and if we'd ridden in there instead, we'd never have ridden out again. We're going to have to stay completely out of sight, which might not be easy in a theocracy as restrictive as this one."

"Don't know why they were all looking at Laciel like that," Su put in, her shadow form facing Rik. "Couldn't follow much of what they were saying, their talk was so strange. Sounded like they were saying something about a gift."

"If I ever get off this world, I'm going to find the one responsible for this and turn him inside out!" 1 swore, feeling as though I were ready to foam at the mouth. "The absolute gall of that creep, promising me as a gift to some barbaric, backwoods medicine man! I'll take him apart with my bare hands, I'll break every bone in his body, I'll-"

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"Okay, enough," fearless leader interrupted, unbeliev- ably sounding annoyed. "I can see you're in no condition to discuss things rationally, but we can't afford to coddle anyone any more. The best thing that happened back there was when we were told about this gift business, because that means the enemy is still worried about us and specific- ally trying to neutralize you. If we were permanently trapped on this world, that wouldn't be necessary, now would it? It means there's a way off this world, and that way involves magic. All we have to do is get to the gate, and then find that way."

"Indeed," Kadrim said from my right with enthusiasm, his sudden fire reflected by the others, even in the dark.

"It must surely be as you say, for there would be sense in little else. We were meant to believe ourselves trapped here, yet were precautionary measures taken should we fail to cling to that belief, it will now be necessary to guard Laciel even more closely than before.'*

"Laciel can take care of herself!" I snapped, in no mood to hear nonsense like that. "And you people are overlooking something. Anyone s.a.d.i.s.tic enough to kill a world full of people, just to get back at one man, isn't likely to make things easy fop his enemies even when they're hoplessly trapped. I was nasty enough to ruin his efforts to stop us for a while, so what better way to say thank you than to make me a present for an absolute dictator? It does not necessarily mean there's a hidden way off this world, or that we'll find it even if there is one.

Depending on a hope tike that could make your ultimate disappointment unspeakably horrible."

None of them had an immediate answer to that, and it wasn't so absolutely pitch dark that I couldn't see all their faces turned toward me. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the wind and a creak of leather as one or two of the horses s.h.i.+fted in place, and then Rikkan Addis sighed.

"I have the feeling you've been disappointed in quite a few hopes in your life," he said, speaking to me but somehow also addressing the others. "That son of experi- ence tends to turn people cynical and unwilling to extend their trust, but the hope of getting out of here can't hurt us.

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not now while there's still a chance of it. If the time ever comes when that chance is completely dead, that's when we can talk about giving up; right now we have too many other things to do. We'll keep moving as long as we can, stop for a rest when we have to, then go on again. Our first order of business is getting to that gate."

The others all drew themselves up in silent agreement, then followed along with heavy determination when Su led off, finding warm hope much more appealing than cold reality. I let my gray move along with the other horses without adding anything, not blaming anyone for choosing the warm over the cold, but finding it impossible to share their hope. I'd do everything I could to make that hope into a reality, but when the time came that it died com- pletely, I was not going to be one of the mourners at its funeral.

We moved on again into the chill of the night, staying close enough to the road for Su to see the trail, but this time not riding immediately beside it as we had earlier.

Not knowing exactly how far ahead of us the city of Nor was-or what kind of patrols they sent out-meant it would have been silly to take chances, so we didn't. It might have helped if there had been cover of some sort to ride through, but even the thin, scraggly woods we'd found when first coming through to that world didn't repeat itself.

Not long after we started a second road came from the left to join the one we were following, and after that the thing was wider if not in any better shape. We also became aware of the fact that the land stretching out around us seemed more regular than simply even, farmland rather than gra.s.sland. We all peered through me dark. trying to make out houses or barns or something, and because of that almost missed it when Su angled away from the road and even farther right than we were riding. She moved out a bit ahead of us, stopped her horse and stood up in her stirrups, then turned to look around at us when we pulled up beside her.

"The trail took a real sharp turn this way, and I can't see it going back again," she told us, a faint excitement under her ever-present calm. "Don't remember it ever

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doing something like that before, except when it was near a gate. Can't see it stopping any time soon, though, so maybe this is different. You want to scout ahead?"

"No," Rikkan Addis answered, knowing she was talk- ing to him. "If we find we are approaching the gate I can always change my mind, but for now we'll continue to stay together."

Su nodded and led off again, and in a short while we discovered we were riding between two cultivated fields.

There were still no farmhouses that we could see, but something barnlike loomed large and dark far to our left.

The trail went between the fields and then angled to the left again once we were beyond them, and the excitement of Su's discovery died of old age. If the turn had meant we were near the gate, we would have found it as quickly as we had the previous ones.

Time has a way of stretching on and on under circ.u.m- stances like that, making you believe you've been riding all night instead of for less than half of it- I didn't know about the others but I was tired and cold, and once, without thinking, I spoke a spell that should have created a warm jacket for me to put on. When nothing happened 1 told myself it had been a necessary experiment, making certain that I wasn't simply blind on that world but really incapable of doing magic, men tried to forget about it.

After trying for several minutes I discovered I was too cold to forget, but that cold did nothing to stop the brooding.

It wasn't possible for any of us to have anything like real, true appet.i.tes, or I should say it wasn't possible for those of us who were civilized, sensitive individuals. Some people make a career out of thinking about their stomachs, and often insist on everyone else joining them just so they'll have the company. At one point Rikkan Addis spoke quietly to Su, left his place beside Dranna to drop back next to Kadrim and give the big redhead his reins, ^ then slipped out of his saddle. The dark swallowed him up almost instantly, but we didn't stop and wait for him. We just kept going as if he'd simply stepped out of a room we were all sitting in, and would be back in a minute or two -Jy to rejoin the conversation. Since no one else was taking notice I didn't either, but I couldn't help wondering if we

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were rid of him for good-and if we were, why he had chosen such a strange time and way to leave.

It turned out, of course, that he'd left us only long enough to go hunting, using what was probably the only way of doing that in the dark. About twenty minutes later we caught sight of a darker shadow ahead of us, which turned out to be fearless leader with a pile of dead rabbits at his feet- He might not have been able to catch rabbits,in the dark, but his link-shape certainly didn't have the same limitations. With supper in the offing it was time for a rest stop, and even if we didn't need it, the horses did.

It didn't take long before we were divided into two groups, those of us who had been raised to the outdoors and therefore knew what they were doing, and those of us who were city-bred and therefore capable of no more than standing and watching. If it had been necessary to feed our group amid the stone and brick and wood of a cold, soulless city with all provisions locked away behind heavy doors, Zail, Dranna and I would have had very little trouble doing it. Out there in the wild, though, where food still moved around under its own power, the provisioning and preparation of it became the job of the other three.

Three s.h.i.+elded fires were quickly built, the" rabbits were skinned and put on improvised spits, and before long the smell of cooking meal was being tossed around by the wind. Dranna and 1 joined Su at her fire while Zail divided his time and comments between Rik and Kadrim, and the best thing to be said about the time was that the fires at least made the stop worthwhile- When the food was ready we ate it, and it turned out to be a good deal better than half of us had expected it to be.

It wasn't the sort of meal you'd ask your cook to prepare for you on a regular basis, but it brought a little warmth back to our bodies, and there was even enough left over to be put in our saddlebags for the next meal. It bothered Dranna and, to a lesser extent Zail, that it wasn't wrapped in any way, but I wouldn't have thought about it if those two hadn't mentioned it. My years with Morgiana had dimmed the past to a certain extent, but nothing would ever erase it completely -

Once the fires were out we were on our way again, and

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in a couple of hours were able to see why the trail kept curving right, away from the road we'd been on originally.

The land to our left had all been cultivated, but slowly the fields gave way to dark shapes and shadows that rose higher in the distance, smaller dwellings thai stood not far from a city. There was light in that city in a number of places, but we were too far away to use that light to see anything-

We needed most of the rest of that night to circle the city, something that following the trail of the stone let-us do without much difficulty. The city seemed to be large and sprawling and entirely unwalled, which said some- thing about the att.i.tudes of its inhabitants. If there had been any chance of revolution or other danger to their upper-cla.s.s necks, they would certainly be living behind high walls of stone. The absence of a wallineant most if not all of the people of that area thought the same as the people we'd talked to, an idea that was extremely depress- ing. A world like that would be horrible for anyone to live in, but for us it would be ten times worse.

And then it came to me to wonder why, if the enemy was on such cozy terms with the G.o.d-king, the trail ran at a safe distance around the city, but ! didn't ask it aloud.

One possible answer was that the'balance stone had been taken through that world and off it before any contact with the G.o.d-king was made, but an answer like that would support Rik's theory that there realty was a way out that only had to be found. There was a way out, the mere fact that the enemy was no longer there proved that, but it wasn't proof of our own ability to use it. If someone had opened the gate from the other side, the enemy would have been able to use it; there was nothing to say that opening it from this side was possible, and unlike Rik, I didn't believe in giving people false hope.

By the time the sun came up we were on the opposite side of the city with more cultivated fields between it and us, not to mention the pasturage to be seen on the far side of the road. The light also showed us the large bams standing one to each two sections of land, brown and gray structures meant only for the use of the land or the ani- mals, not in any manner for the use of people. The work-

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ers undoubtedly had to walk out to the fields every morning and back to the city every night, which was not very pleasant for the workers but perfect for keeping constant track of them. To let them sleep closer to where they worked would have taken them out of reach and out from under constant surveillance, and when you don't watch people constantly they sometimes develop strange ideas. I rode along hugging myself around against the chill that had long since crept inside me, almost to the point of wis.h.i.+ng we would find it impossible to leave that world. If we stayed we might not live very long, but while we did the rulers of that place would know we were there.

"Rik, I'm going to have to rest soon," Dranna's voice came suddenly, loud in the silence it had broken, but otherwise low and nearly strengthless. I looked over to see that the small woman beside me was trembling from cold and fatigue, her face pale and her hands visibly unsteady. I wasn't doing all that well myself after riding all night, but Dranna seemed close to dropping from exhaustion.

"Just hang on until we get to those woods up ahead,"

fearless leader told her, dropping back from Su's side to ride between the small woman and myself. "We all need to rest a while, but there's no cover here to do it. People will be coming out to work those fields, and you know that if they see us they'll report us. Just a few minutes more of riding, and then you'll be able to rest.'*

He reached over to put his hand on one of hers with a smile, a comforting gesture 1 was sure she appreciated, considenng the way she felt about him. Her answering smile was weak because of her weariness, but she still found it possible to straighten in the saddle and draw her hand away from his, probably to show the man that he didn't have to worry about her. I hadn't thought Dranna the sort of woman who would do that kind of chin-up thing, but apparently I'd been mistaken.

It seemed to take forever before we reached the stand of trees, and then we had to get deep enough into it that the horses would be hidden from view. When we finally found an area with enough bushes for cover, 1 half expected it to disappear in a puff of smoke as soon as we dismounted, proving it was nothing but imagination or illusion. We all

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