Authors: Cindy Spencer Pape
Lana tried to grin but whimpered at the pain.
Watch out. I just might hold you to that.
His hand slid under her cloak to the skin of her neck and he began to chant again. Lana imagined she could feel her spine straightening, fusing back into shape. There was no relief, though. With the repair of her spinal cord came the return of sensation, and more pain than she could ever remember.
He stroked her forehead as she whimpered. “Shh. I’m putting you to sleep,
chán-láng.
It’s the only way I can help you with the pain.”
It went against every instinct to let that happen. They were alone in a strange universe. Des was hurt, too. He needed her. She couldn’t just sleep.
“Trust me.” He feathered a kiss on her cheek. “This once, just let yourself rest, and let me worry about everything else. It will make the healing process easier, and I promise, I won’t let anything else hurt you.”
There was that trust thing again. With a flutter of her lips that was meant to be a smile, she tipped her chin in the barest hint of a nod.
Des saw it and smiled back. “Thank you. Now sleep.” She hated being told what to do, but this time, the command held too much appeal to resist.
* * *
Des had a small fire going and had built up the snow banks around them to block out the wind by the time Lana woke. His magic was significantly more powerful here, and healing his own legs had taken a fraction of the time it usually did. After repairing Lana’s spine, he’d been lucky to have anything left to get himself moving.
Seeing her so helpless and in pain scared the living hell out of him. Learning she couldn’t shift had almost given him a heart attack. The worst of it was that this whole situation was his stupid fault. He’d gotten her into this. Though without her, he’d probably be dead by now. He had to admit she was a damn fine partner. When she wasn’t driving him crazy.
After assessing the damage to their belongings, he reloaded everything into the backpack, along with the scraps of Lana’s instrument. She’d be sad about that, though she’d put a brave face on it. Maybe later he could fix it, but he couldn’t afford the magic now. He used a little magic to get her onto the bedroll without jarring her remaining injuries and then covered her with the blankets. Sitting next to her on the mat, he fed another chunk of deadwood into the fire before pulling the map across his legs and studying their position.
“I wonder if Peaches could fly,” he murmured, though Lana couldn’t hear him. “That would explain…a lot.” Like how he’d accessed a portal that was halfway down—or up—a cliff.
The good news was that the road was supposedly on this side of the mountain. So they wouldn’t have to find a way to climb back up. Also, based on what Des could decipher, they wouldn’t be in the snow for much further. The road just a few hundred yards from where they were now, wound steeply down into a valley, where, Des hoped, the climate was a little warmer, at least based on the absence of little snowflake symbols on the map. The cliff, now that he looked with a more critical eye, had appeared on the map to be just a hillside, so Des was inclined to take all the markings with a grain of salt.
After a few more minutes, he chaffed Lana’s chilled hand between his own and found the next most serious of her injuries. Again, with his magic boosted by the environment, he rebuilt her rib cage, removing the pressure on her lungs before repairing internal bruising and her dislocated jaw. Her breathing eased and he sent more warmth around their link, keeping her well clear of hypothermia.
He ate some nuts and dried meat to keep his own strength up while he continued to study the map and let his magic rebuild. Eventually he began to make sense of some of the notations Vin had apparently missed. A squiggly line that might mean flying, for instance. That would have been handy to know.
Fortunately, that one didn’t appear again in their proposed route. There was one mark that looked suspiciously like an avalanche or mudslide, though. That one worried him a bit, but not enough to keep him from planning to move forward as soon as they possibly could.
He waited another half hour or so, then took care of the rest of Lana’s internal injuries. Exhausted by the process, he cast a small heat reflection spell on their blanket and crawled under it with her, dozing lightly, but primed to wake up if they suddenly had company. A career as a paranormal enforcer had trained him to sleep with one eye open, but the alertness that never quite shut off was part of what he’d been born with as a
Wyndewin.
After another couple of hours spent alternately dozing and healing, he finally woke Lana. “Good morning,
chán-láng
. How do you feel?”
Lana tested her fingers and toes, then arms and legs. “Thank you. Everything seems to be working,” she said. “How about you?”
“All healed.” He got to his feet and helped her up. “Still good?”
“Just a little stiff,” she determined after a couple of steps. Her stomach rumbled, and the sound made him smile. “And hungry, I guess.”
“I suspect healing took most of the fuel out of your system.” Des rummaged through the pack and came up with a couple strips of jerky, which she pretty much inhaled while he repacked the bedroll. She even licked her fingers clean after she finished. The sight of that pink tongue flicking out made Des groan. They didn’t have time for this. Not now. “Come on,” he said, with a little more gruffness than was probably warranted. “We need to get out of the snow before nightfall.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” She tugged her gloves back on and then hefted the backpack. “So any idea which way is down?”
“I found the path while you were asleep,” he told her. In all honesty it had been when he’d moved away to take a leak. “It’s just around that rock.”
“Lead on, then,” she said. “You are such a Boy Scout, Sutton. Sometimes I think that should worry me.”
Des chuckled. “You’ve never complained before about me being prepared.”
She snorted, following in his footsteps through the calf-deep snow. “That’s what you think.”
* * *
Perhaps three hours passed before they reached the first village, just a little way down the mountain from the snowline. It was small, something like a tiny Swiss village or Colorado ski resort, with outlying buildings giving way to a bustling town square.
Though there were a few six-armed folk from Fish’s world and other species walking about, Lana breathed a sigh of relief when she realized most of the people looked pretty much human, with two arms, two legs and hair on top of their heads. The skin tone ranged from orange to green, but compared to what they’d seen recently, these folks looked positively normal. Of course the language they were speaking was entirely foreign, so if they were talking about Lana and Des, the two earthlings couldn’t understand it.
Outside one building they saw a sign with a steaming mug. “Restaurant?” Des asked.
Lana peered in the window. A counter, a table, a menu board and all the other recognizable accoutrements filled a bit of warm space around a large stone hearth. “Oh, yeah,” she sighed. “Can we go in?” She was still tired enough not to care that he was being bossy.
Des shrugged. “I think something hot would be good. No more than a half hour though.”
“Deal.” Lana had already pushed open the door. The scents of food and drink were heavenly, though not recognizable, and the heat from the hearth drew her like a magnet. First, though, they moved up to the counter.
A woman with yellow skin and blue hair said something in a rapid-fire tongue to Des, ignoring Lana completely. A man with similar coloring sat at a desk behind the counter, ignoring the exchange, though the woman occasionally cast a nervous look back over her shoulder.
Male-dominant society. Right.
Lana and Des looked at each other and shrugged. “Drink?” Lana mimed holding a mug and sipping. Des repeated the gesture.
The woman nodded and pulled out a piece of paper from under the counter. On it were hand-drawn pictures. A mug of something steaming, one of something foamy, a bowl with chunks floating in it, and a plate of some kind of noodles.
Lana and Des both pointed at the bowl and the mug of hot liquid. Des made sure they ordered two of each and then pulled a variety of their smaller silver coins out of his pocket and laid them out on the counter, tipping his head as if in question.
The woman shook her head at the biggest coins, picking up the three mid-sized ones, and holding up one more finger. Des nodded and pulled out one more coin that matched. The woman accepted that coin and pushed the others back toward him. He took most, but slid a few of the smaller ones back across the counter to her. She beamed and shooed them off to the dining area.
Lana beelined for the hearth. “Nice job there, Sutton. I’d almost say you were learning some actual social skills.”
“What can I say?” He helped her off with the backpack and her cloak and then dropped the bedroll and his own outer garments as they took a seat by the fire. “I’ve been taking lessons from a rock-and-roll wolf.”
“Just don’t get carried away.” She smiled up at the green-skinned young woman who brought them their meal. The girl gazed avidly at Des’s tanned skin and black hair. “I don’t want to have to beat down the entire female population of this planet. We don’t know what the locals are capable of.”
“Aww, are you saying you would fight for me,
chán-láng
?” He took a sip of his hot drink and sighed in appreciation.
“You’re my ticket home, mage.” No way was she going to admit she loved him. Hell, she hadn’t figured it out entirely for herself until she’d been lying paralyzed on a mountainside, praying to hear his voice. “And for some strange reason, your sister is fond of your hide. She may be tiny, but yeah, she scares me.”
“Poor little wolfie. Eat your soup.” He rolled his eyes and she knew he didn’t believe her for a moment.
She ate. It wasn’t as good as the previous night’s fare, but it beat the hell out of dried meat and nuts. She ate it all, not quite bold enough to lick the bowl. “So what does that mean, anyway?”
“What does what mean?” He drained his mug, which had tasted a little like bark, but had definitely been refreshing and warming. “‘Eat your soup,’ is pretty self-explanatory.”
“
Chán-láng.”
She mimicked his accent, hoping she got it right. “You’ve been calling me that. Sometimes I think it’s an endearment, sometimes I think it’s a curse.”
“Neither, just a nickname. It means…wolf.” He hesitated just long enough that she didn’t quite believe him.
“And if I were to ask Elise when we get home, would she tell me the same thing?” She bit her lip as his skin flushed faintly.
“Uh—she might wonder why you wanted to know.” He cocked one straight black eyebrow.
“True. Good thing there are translator programs online.” She stood, spotting a door with a symbol on it that remotely resembled a toilet.
Please let there be restrooms. Maybe even with actual toilet paper
. “I
will
find out you know.”
Des motioned toward the possible facilities. “You figure it out. I’m going to see if that’s a bathroom.” He strode off before she could say she’d been heading there first, leaving her to wait with their stuff until he got back.
Jerk.
Yeah, she loved him, but he was still a jerk sometimes.
“I cleaned it up a bit,” he said when he returned. “You can go ahead.”
Okay, so not so much of a jerk.
“Fine. But being polite isn’t going to get you out of telling me what it means.”
“Just go to the bathroom, Svetlana. I want to get moving while it’s still daylight.”
“Call me that again, Desmond Theodore Sutton, and I’ll hurt you,” she warned. Elise had told Lana his middle name weeks ago. “Don’t think I can’t do it.” Stepping into the lavatory, she slammed the door in his face. He was damned lucky she loved him. Otherwise she’d make his life a living hell.
* * *
She was making his life a living hell, Des mused a few hours later as twilight began to fall. Lana hadn’t spoken a word to him since the last time he’d refused to tell her that while
láng
did indeed mean wolf,
chán
was actually a compliment. It suited her, but he didn’t want her to know how much he adored her. It would only make their eventual break up when they got home all that much harder.
Instead of talking, she’d insisted on whistling. For someone who was a great bass player and had a sultry singing voice, the woman couldn’t whistle worth a damn. The grating screech was driving him crazy.
Given the hours they’d lost after falling, he didn’t think they were too badly behind schedule. The road was relatively flat and mostly downhill so far. Both of them were healthy and had long legs, so they were making good time. Of course, starting late did mean they’d be camping tonight in one of the rough wooden shelters scattered periodically along the road. According to the map, the next town was a full day’s walk from the one where they’d eaten lunch.
“The sky here is a bizarre color,” she finally said. “Kind of mint green with yellow swirls. I like it, don’t you?”
“It’s interesting,” he agreed. “I’d like seeing our own sky even better.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” She whistled again, this time something he thought was a Guns N’ Roses tune.
“Let me know if you get tired,” he said. They’d passed the camping shelters, in clusters of two or three, about every half hour, and most of them were unoccupied. “Vin said there weren’t a lot of night predators, but it supposedly gets pretty cold once the sun sets.”
“Yeah, it’s dropped a good ten degrees already,” she said. “And it’s getting harder to see the road. Next open shelter, we can camp.”
“Deal.”
She started whistling again.
“
Láng
really does mean wolf,” he conceded. “If you don’t whistle again between here and the portal, I’ll tell you what
chán
means.”
“You are so easy, Sutton,” she said with a chuckle. “So how do you feel about singing?”
He loved her voice, but felt the need to punish her for hours of whistling. “If you sing, I sing, darling.”