Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (21 page)

Everything was green and lush. I could see lightning bugs flashing around the grazing horses, and the buzz of cicadas was audible through the windows. Clearly, summer was hanging on, down here.

It wasn’t exactly like Wisconsin, but it did look familiar and normal.

Soon I’ll be in another world.

It didn’t seem possible. Excitement coursed through me.

With a soft
plink
, a lightning bug struck the window and bounced back.

Fifty-two toothbrushes
.

I watched the bug hover in place for several seconds, apparently disoriented. Then it got itself back underway, meandering out over the grass, its greenish-yellow rear flashing.

How long is this trip going to take, exactly?

Well, it seemed hard to estimate the research part, especially if the ice mothers’ library was as extensive as Lord Cordus said. But surely it wouldn’t take more than a month. So, two months out, two months back, plus one for research — a chunk of time, but not all that bad. Tiffany would still be in seventh grade.

I haven’t called my brother
.

I hadn’t even thought of it.

He’d be furious if I just disappeared for five months. He’d only just started taking my calls. He’d probably never speak to me again.

I pulled out my phone.

Then it occurred to me that it probably didn’t matter. I’d been leaning on Ben for so long, but I didn’t need to lean on him anymore. I was finally coming into my own. I wasn’t a failure anymore.

No, that wasn’t right.

But it was.

I stared down at my phone, confused. I knew Ben should be important to me, but it didn’t feel like he was.

The hair on the back of my neck rose.

Something was wrong. Really wrong. With me.

No, I was fine. That was the whole point. Everything was going to be great. I was coming into my own.

Right?

I sat there with the phone in my hand a bit longer. Then I decided I was being silly. I powered it down and headed up to bed.

I woke well before 6:00 the next morning feeling unsettled, as though I’d been having a bad dream I couldn’t quite remember.

It must be nerves.

I dressed and went downstairs to find breakfast. Mr. Gates was in the kitchen, finishing up a plate of eggs.

“Up early this morning, huh?” I said.

“They get me up.” He nodded toward the stables. “I don’t get down there on time to feed them, I start hearing about it.”

Amusingly, a horse chose that moment to whinny its demand for attention. I laughed, and Mr. Gates shook his head, smiling.

“Is Mr. Williams up yet?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s already down there loading up the packhorses.” He took a last drink of coffee and stood. “You come on down when you’re ready, and I’ll show you how to groom and tack-up a horse. Mr. Williams might need a little help, now and then.”

The assumption that I didn’t know such things set my teeth on edge. I reminded myself that Mr. Gates didn’t know I’d grown up in a rural area. Plus, he was an old-style southern gentleman — there were probably things ladies just weren’t expected to know how to do.

“Okay. Thanks. Has anyone else gotten here?”

“Nope. It’s just Kelly and me, at the moment. And the two you saw yesterday, but they’ll be heading out soon.”

“To the S-Em?”

“No, ma’am. They’ve just come from there.”

I nodded, shrugging off the issue of the team. Somehow or another, Cordus had it all set up. I didn’t have to worry.

I ate a bowl of cereal, fetched my pack from upstairs, and headed down to the barn.

As I approached, I saw the man and woman who’d been in the kitchen the day before. They’d backed a horse trailer up to one of the outbuildings and were loading crates into it. They were transferring the crates from a large wooden cart, the kind of contraption you might see at Ye Olde Renaissance Faire.

I wondered what was in the crates. Some of the interworld commerce Mr. Gates had mentioned, probably.

The S-Em was largely pre-industrial, so I could see the Seconds wanting to get ahold of F-Em technology. Especially weapons. But what would they have that we’d want over here?

Williams had four packhorses tied to hitching posts in front of the stable. He and a short red-haired man were loading the packs. Copper and Bertha weren’t among the pack horses. Apparently, we’d be riding. The additional animals must’ve come from Mr. Gates’s stock.

Williams glanced up at my approach, then went back to work.

The man helping him straightened up, smiled, and came over, holding out his hand to shake.

“Kelly McLeod.”

“Hey. I’m Beth Ryder.”

“Nice to meet you, Beth.”

“McLeod,” Williams growled.

“Sorry,” Kelly said. “Duty calls.” He leaned toward me conspiratorially. “And ‘Duty’ got up on the wrong side of the bed, if you ask me.”

I smiled. He seemed like a nice guy.

I headed into the stable. As my eyes adjusted, I saw Mr. Gates working on Copper, who was cross-tied in the aisle.

“Hey, Mr. Gates. Where’s Bertha? I can get started on her.”

Mr. Gates turned to speak to me, and Copper took the opportunity to nip at his side. Fortunately, the cross-ties kept him from making contact.

“This pony isn’t so nice, Miss Ryder. You’ll be okay on him?”

I shrugged. “He does tend to dump me, but there’s no barn to run back to where we’re going.”

Mr. Gates did his eyes-only smile. “All right, then. The big girl’s right there — three down on the left. You okay with her on your own?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been around horses a good bit.”

He nodded and turned back to Copper.

I got Bertha out and gave her a thorough going over. Compared to Copper, Bertha was easy. She was one of those sweetheart horses who pick their feet up for you at a touch.

Once both horses were tacked up, Mr. Gates showed me how to put on saddlebags. I’d never used them before. Copper was carrying one set below the saddle’s cantle and another smaller set in the front. Mr. Gates explained I should put daily essentials in them — things like a hoof pick, my traveling clothes, ammunition, and toiletries. The rest of my stuff would go on the packhorses.

When I went to put my weapons in the pommel bags, Mr. Gates told me I was better off keeping them on my person.

“No good having weapons if they go running off with your horse.”

“I’m not really going to need them, am I? Lord Cordus said this route was safe.”

Mr. Gates lifted his foot and tapped a hoof pick against the heel of his boot, dislodging a clump of dirt.

“Well, now, I don’t know anywhere in the worlds that can’t pose some danger, once in a while. Better safe than sorry, I say.”

I nodded.
Sure. Just a precaution.

Mr. Gates stashed the pick in his back pocket. “You got holsters?”

I didn’t, so he went into one of the outbuildings and came back with a big crate. It was full of brand-new holsters of different types and sizes. I guess I was right about the Seconds’ interest in F-Em weaponry.

Mr. Gates first pulled out a nylon dual-pistol shoulder holster that looked badass and would’ve held both of my guns, but when I tried it on, it was too bulky. Plus, drawing the weapons took forever, especially the one I had to get with my left hand.

I ended up with belt-mounted holsters. My knife’s sheath was also designed to slide onto a belt, so it all worked well — but only after Mr. Gates went back to the house and got me one of his old belts, which he cut down to size and punched with additional holes.

I was a little embarrassed not to have a belt, but really, you don’t need one if you don’t tuck your shirt in, right?

He also gave me an ankle holster that would fit the .38. It’d be easy to reach when I was mounted.

After the weapons were finally set, Mr. Gates helped me go through my stuff and put each item in a big Ziploc bag. At the same time, he made a little pile of things I should carry on Copper.

“This all right, Miss Ryder?”

I looked over what he’d pulled. It was all hot-weather gear: the sun screen and bug spray, a poncho, long-sleeved cotton shirts, and so forth.

“Where does it go? The strait, I mean.”

“Town by the name of Free.”

I’d never heard of it.

“Where is that, exactly?”

“Rainforest stratum. South American landmass. We call it ‘Gold Rush,’ on account of all the mines. It’s not that old.”

In S-Em terms, “not that old” probably meant Cretaceous.

The S-Em wasn’t a single, coherent sphere, like the Earth. It was a massively layered collection of strata that had been created at different times by different essence-workers. Most of the strata were connected to others haphazardly at points known as “ligatures.” That meant you could travel around. It just tended to be a lot less direct than going somewhere in the F-Em. Sometimes you had to take a very roundabout route to avoid no-go areas. Some strata predated the oxygenation of the atmosphere, and some ligatures were in the deep oceans — not so workable for humans. Some strata were so full of dinosaurs that people avoided them.

Not for the first time, I wished Yellin’s lessons on the S-Em hadn’t been so narrow. It’d been hard to get him to talk about strata that weren’t dominated by humans or that had no great powers in residence. He didn’t think they mattered. He’d never so much as mentioned Gold Rush, even though Lord Cordus held a strait that led there. That was nuts.

“Can you tell me about the trip from Gold Rush to Fur? Lord Cordus said it’d take about two months.”

“Well now, that depends,” Mr. Gates said, rubbing his chin. “Gold Rush connects to Ancient Inland, and Ancient Inland connects to Fur. With good luck, you can go that way in two, three months. Blue Seas is doable, but a good deal longer. There’s also Ants, but you surely don’t want to go there. No ma’am. Ants is no good at all.” He glanced at my face. “You’ll be all right. Mr. Williams’ll keep you safe. He knows what he’s about.”

“I thought there’d be more people coming along.”

“There might well be. There might well be.”

“You mean from the other side? Seconds?”

Mr. Gates shrugged, smiling. “You just wait and see how Mr. Williams wants to handle things. He’s got a good head on him, that one. He’ll get you where you’re going.”

I nodded. It was a little frustrating, but I knew it’d work out. Not because of Williams. Because of Lord Cordus.

By 9:00, everything was ready. Mr. Gates and I led Bertha and Copper outside and tied them to the hitching posts south of the paddock. The packhorses were already out there waiting.

Williams was leaning against the paddock fence. He had a handgun in a hip holster on the left and a short sword on the right. A small pile of loaded saddlebags sat at his feet. And more guns. Once we’d tied up Bertha, he came over and put the bags on her. Then he hung a rifle scabbard along her near side, so that it slanted back under the saddle’s fender. A shotgun scabbard went on the other side, attaching near the pommel in a more upright position.

I’d felt pretty butch with my knife and two pistols, but I didn’t feel so tough standing next to the mounted armory.

That’s probably the point
, I thought.
He wants to feel important.

He took no notice of me — just stood there, contemplating the empty paddock.

I turned and looked as well. It seemed utterly ordinary. I wondered what a closed strait felt like to normal Nolanders. Was it really obvious, or more of a spot of possibility?

“Any news of the road?” Williams asked Mr. Gates.

“Turkey problem’s getting worse. Could put a real hitch in the trade.”

Williams grunted. Then he turned and looked at me. Not just a glance, but a real up-and-down examination. Unlike with the guy in the kitchen, there was nothing sexual about it. It was more like a parent checking to make sure their preschooler wasn’t headed out the door pantsless.

I gritted my teeth. “Do I pass inspection?”

Mr. Gates chuckled. “This one’s not gonna be any trouble. She knows her way around the vitals.”

Williams didn’t answer, but he shot Mr. Gates a look that said,
This one is nothing
but
trouble
.