Beyond the Gate

Chapter 26

Though the remaining journey through the passageways of the city of Indallian took only a few hours, to Maggie it seemed to last forever. Gallen took the lead, watching for traps while Ceravanne told him which passages to take, and once more they heard the roaring of Derrits in distant recesses, but the company eluded them by slipping through passageways too small and narrow for the Derrits to negotiate.

Once, when they stopped to rest in an ancient hallway where dried and faded tapestries still hung on some walls, Gallen said, “I’d hoped we wouldn’t find so many Derrits here. I saw a tribe of them in the Nigangi Pass. I think that the movements of armies has driven them here.”

“With nothing but dirt to chew on for these past few weeks,” Ceravanne said, “they’ll be mad with hunger. How many did you see in Nigangi Pass?”

“Perhaps a hundred of them.”

Ceravanne squinted her eyes, and her mouth opened in a little O of shock. “So many? Derrits only band like that in fear.”

Yet Maggie had to wonder how many might be hereabout. They’d fought off three Derrits and been chased by more. Perhaps Ceravanne was thinking along the same lines.

“We’ll have to take care,” Ceravanne whispered. “We may be the only food these Derrits see this winter-though they are known to feed on their own young, if necessary.”

“What are you saying?” Orick asked.

“They’ll hesitate to follow us into the sunlight,” Ceravanne said, “but surely they will be hunting us tonight, and perhaps they will dog our trail for weeks to come. We can only hope that their band is smaller than the one Gallen saw in Nigangi.”

“Right then, let’s move out quietly,” Gallen said, and Ceravanne held the glow globe aloft while Gallen led the way.

Thus it was that the group came out of the city of Indallian at sunset and found themselves on a long gray road. But they were still too close to the lairs of the Derrits, and Gallen kept them moving at a run over the long road for many hours, until the pack on Maggie’s back felt as if it would burrow into her flesh, and her legs felt as massive and unyielding as stone.

At last, well past midnight, they could run no more. They came to an ancient guard tower dug into the mountain alongside the road, and prepared to make camp there. It was a good spot, out on a spur of a mountain ridge where they could see the road gouged into the cliff for four or five kilometers in each direction. The Derrits would not be able to come upon them unawares, so long as someone kept watch.

Maggie shrugged off her pack as soon as she got in the door of the guard room, then merely threw herself on the ground in exhaustion, glad to sleep on the rocks. She was almost blind with fatigue, still numbed with grief at Tallea’s death.

But Gallen took her elbow and lifted her up. “Come,” he whispered, “just a bit farther.”

“No,” Maggie whispered, but she was too tired to argue, so she let him guide her and the others to. the back of the guard room, into a tiny shelter that had once been used as an armory. There, he got out the packs and began laying out blankets.

Maggie stood watching him stupidly for a moment, wondering why he bothered, and then said at last, “Wait, let me help.”

“I can get it,” Gallen said, spreading out the last blanket. He began setting out the food and wine, and Maggie watched him and realized that for the past couple of days, whenever it was time to eat, Tallea had been quietly preparing the food. She’d taken that as her job, and now she was gone. It didn’t seem fair that Tallea should be dead, while all of them walked around.

“Sit down and get some food in you,” Gallen said. “You’ll need your energy tomorrow.”

“What if the Derrits come tonight?” Maggie said.

“I’ll stand watch,” Gallen whispered, looking up at her.

But she knew that he could not run all day and then stand watch all night. Indeed, he had dark circles under his eyes already, and Orick had been keeping more than his fair share of watches. And though Ceravanne was bright and intelligent, she was so small that Maggie feared the woman would be useless in battle.

Which meant that Maggie would need to take over some of Tallea’s duties. Maggie felt the loss of Tallea as a sharp pain that sucked the air from her, and she realized that Tallea’s death had given her an added responsibility. Tallea had saved them more than once. Maggie had felt secure with her solid presence on the ship as she guarded their door each night. And certainly Gallen would have been overwhelmed in battle with the Derrits and the wingmen had Tallea not come to his aid. Always, Maggie had imagined that Gallen and Orick could hold their own in any skirmish, but Gallen had never had to fight anything as big as a Derrit, or as swift as a Tekkar.

Maggie closed her eyes momentarily, and felt a slight disorientation, as if she were falling. And suddenly she found herself back in the hive city on Dronon, and ten thousand dronon warriors surrounded her in the dark arena at the city’s belly, their mouthfingers clicking as they chanted in unison. The air was heavy with the biting scent of their stomach acids, and only a dim red light of their glow globes in the high ceiling lit the room.

Gallen was battling a dronon Lord Vanquisher who had spat his stomach acids into Gallen’s face, so that Gallen stood with his flesh blistering, blinded as Veriasse had stood blinded in his final battle, while the dronon Lord swooped overhead, slashing with his battle arms.

And in the dream, Gallen listened intently as the dronon Lord made his approach, and he leapt incredibly high and kicked at the Lord Vanquisher one final time. Their bodies blurred together as they collided, and there was a spray of blood-both red and green-and Gallen tumbled back to the ground, the flesh ripped off half his face, to reveal a pale blue mask underneath. He was no longer breathing.

The Lord Vanquisher tumbled to the ground beyond him, wounded, the exoskeleton of his skull badly crushed, so that white ooze dripped from it. His left front cluster of eyes was shattered, and one of the sensor whips beneath his mouth had been snapped off. The Lord Vanquisher was almost dead, and he flapped his pee-colored wings experimentally, but was unable to lift his weight off the ground.

All around the room, the dronon’s voices were raised in a gentle roar of clacking, as if rocks were falling onto the metal floor, and the Lord Vanquisher turned toward Maggie and raised his serrated battle arms high for a killing blow, then began stalking toward her.

And Maggie looked up at him helplessly, feebly, knowing that she would die, just as surely as Gallen had executed the dronon’s weak and bloated Golden Queen after defeating her Lord Vanquisher.

And as the Lord Vanquisher came to destroy her, Maggie heard a voice whisper in the back of her mind, “This is what becomes of the Lords of the Swarm. Prepare.”

Maggie’s heart began hammering wildly, and she looked about, suddenly realized that she’d fallen asleep on her feet, and dreamed a dream that she knew she’d had on many nights before but had been so terrible, she’d put it from her mind.

Perhaps her own feelings of inadequacy now brought it to the surface. Without Tallea to guard her, Maggie realized that the time had come for her to learn to fight for herself.

They ate a brief dinner, and Gallen urged Maggie to bed.

“You sleep,” Maggie whispered. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“Are you certain?” Gallen said, eyeing her carefully.

“I feel better with some food in me. I’ll thank you for the loan of your weapons though, and your mantle,” Maggie said.

Gallen gave her his sword and incendiary rifle, then Maggie put on his mantle. “Are you sure?” he asked.

Maggie nodded. “I have to start sometime,” she said and went into the large guard chamber where slits cut into the stone let her watch out into the darkness. The moons were out, but the road was deep in shadows, and Maggie wished that she could see better. Suddenly the whole scene lightened as Gallen’s mantle complied with her wishes, and Maggie watched the snaking road. There was nothing alive out there except an owl that swooped silently down the length of the road, hunting for mice.

In moments, Maggie heard Gallen and Ceravanne settle down to rest, but Orick whined and barked, as bears will when they cry.

Maggie went back to check on him, and he was sitting up beside the door, shaking with the hurt. With the mantle on, she could see the tears in his eyes, and Maggie realized that Orick’s feelings for Tallea had been stronger than she’d known, and no one had thought to try to comfort him.

“Are you thinking of Tallea?” Maggie whispered, and Orick nodded. Maggie patted his head, then petted him behind the ears. “She was a good one. We will all miss her.”

“I know,” Orick grumbled.

There was a rustling in the far corner as Ceravanne came awake, and sat up and looked over toward them, as did Gallen. “Do not be too hasty to grieve for Tallea,” Ceravanne said from across the room. “Death is but a temporary state for many. She lived her life to the benefit of others, and she died to save us. The Immortals will be loath to let her perish.”

“But she feels dead to me,” Orick grumbled.

“Think of her as a friend who sleeps, but who will waken again.”

“Aye, but when she wakes again, she wants to be a Roamer. She’ll be different.”

“I should think you wouldn’t mind the differences,” Ceravanne said. “She’ll have fur, and she’ll look more like you. You were becoming close friends. I should think that when she is a Roamer, you will be closer still.”

“Och, she may resemble me,” Orick said, “but I have to wonder what thoughts will lodge in her head. Certainly not human thoughts. And what will her heart feel? No, Tallea is gone forever.”

Maggie patted his head. “By her own will she is gone,” she whispered. “She died well, as she wanted. We should be happy for her in that. But I think she lived a sad life. She wanted others to depend on her, to own them and be owned-too much. It was a burden for her.”

“So it’s love you’re accusing her of?” Orick said. “And I should be happy that she’ll feel it no more?”

No one spoke for a long moment, and at last Gallen said softly, “I lived as a Roamer once. You are right to mourn for her, Orick. Roamers feel a certain closeness, but it is not love, and so Tallea now loses some of her humanity. Still, they can be happy. They revel in their own freedom, and their days pass quickly because they are unencumbered. She will learn to hunt for grass seeds on the plain, and squat beneath wide trees in a fireless camp, where she will have no care while she sings at the stars.

“And so, while you mourn her, take care not to mourn too long. This is the reward she has chosen, and if you had ever suffered under the emotional encumbrances of a Caldurian, perhaps you would feel that she has chosen wisely.”

Orick thought for a long time, and his spirits seemed to lift a little. Maggie quickly kissed him on the snout, and when Orick said, “You know, I’m at least as hungry as those Derrits,” she knew that he was feeling better, but he was also reminding her of her duty.

She went back and watched the road, letting the others sleep through the long night. And as she waited, she clasped her hands and twisted, exercising her wrists as she often saw Gallen do, and she whispered of her need to Gallen’s mantle, saying, “Teach me!”

And so during that night, she moved in the darkness, exercising her body in new ways, swinging Gallen’s sword as best she could while the mantle sent her visions of foes.

Only once that night did she spot a Derrit-a great brute of a male walking down a ridge on the far side of the canyon, carrying a greatsword in one hand, with a war hammer in the other.

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