Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (23 page)

“Inadequate. Not even enough to pay a local healer.” He looked around the woman toward us. “Next!”

“Please,” the mother said. “Please. That is all I have.”

“My regrets,” the man said. “Step aside.”

“The lady’s mercy, then,” the woman said. “Please.”

“I have no such influence with her ladyship. Leave now.”

All the woman’s strength seemed to go out of her. It was like she shrank three inches and lost twenty pounds in an instant. When she turned, her face was gray. As she passed, I saw that her older child was disfigured: a black-riddled mass the size of a baseball protruded where his left eye should’ve been. The kid’s eyebrow was stretched across the mass, the hairs weirdly spaced out by the distortion of the skin underneath.

I leaned toward Williams. “Can we help her?”

“Quiet.”

He put a huge hand on my back and stepped up, propelling me along.

I twisted my head around, looking for the woman, but she’d already disappeared into the sunlit outside.

“What is your interest in the first world?” the man at the table said in a bored voice.

“Live there,” Williams said.

“Papers?”

Williams handed the man his Minnesota driver’s license.

If I hadn’t still been thinking about that woman and her poor kid, that might’ve triggered the giggles.

The functionary glanced at it and handed it back.

“Your offer?”

Williams placed the box he’d been carrying on the table. It was a carton of mini solar-chargers, the kind you can use to power a phone or laptop.

The man gave it a look. “Inadequate.”

“Adequate,” Williams growled.

The effect was the same as with the tax-collector — the sudden stillness, the looking up, the quick acquiescence. The man picked up a large stamp, inked it, and pressed it to the back of Williams’s hand, leaving an intricate mark.

Then his big paw landed on my back again, and I was steered away from the table.

“Don’t I need one?”

“Nope.”

“One mark is good for both of us?”

“Yeah.”

Williams looked away, studying the far side of the hall. He changed our direction a bit and picked up the pace.

“Why couldn’t we help that woman?”

“You have any money?”

I didn’t, of course. I mean, my wallet was in my pack, but what good were dollar bills going to be, here? I might as well have left it in New York.

“I meant, why didn’t
you
help that woman? You must have some funds for the trip.”

Williams stopped and looked down at me. I stiffened, bracing for a bad reaction, but in the end, he didn’t say anything — just shook his head and started walking again.

We ended up at the far end of the entrance hall, where a heavy door blocked access to the castle’s depths. It was well guarded.

Williams showed his stamped hand to one of the guards, who let us through. A guard on the other side led us deeper into the building, then up a winding flight of stairs, through a series of connected hallways, up more stairs, and finally into a furnished waiting room. He gestured, inviting us to sit, and then crossed to a small door on the far side of the room and knocked. It opened a crack, and the guard conducted a short, whispered conversation with someone on the other side. Then he stepped back against the wall, set his feet shoulder-width apart, and settled one hand on the butt of his gun and the other on the pommel of his sword.

Clearly, we were waiting. Under guard.

I sat down on one of the soft couches and looked around.

The room’s walls were plastered white and hung with generic-looking paintings. Wall-to-wall carpeting covered the floor. I fingered the couch cushion and noticed it was machine-sewn. The carpet had that slightly shiny look that suggested synthetic fibers.

Had all this stuff been brought over from the F-Em? It looked like it could’ve come from Hendricksen’s Whole-House Warehouse, back in Dorf.

The image of a bunch of guys maneuvering big puffy sofas through Bill Gates’s horse paddock made me chuckle.

Williams glanced at me. I tried to think of something not-funny.

We waited about ten minutes. Then someone knocked on the small door from the other side. The guard opened it and gestured us through.

A woman was waiting for us.

The first thing I noticed was her beauty. Thick, straight black hair spilled over one shoulder and pooled in her lap like oil. Her skin was a warm brown, and flawless. Her lips were full, her cheekbones broad and high. Her gown was fitted, accentuating the soft curves of her body.

I suddenly felt drab and unfeminine. I tugged at my t-shirt’s sleeves, trying to cover up my toned upper arms.

What am I doing?

I was proud to be stronger than I used to be. I’d earned those muscles with months of workouts. I thought of Gwen leaning over me shouting, “Sweat out the little girl! Sweat that whiney bitch out!” The memory made me smile. As reserved as Gwen was in everyday life, she was a monster in the gym.

I brought my focus back to the dark-haired beauty. She was staring at me with unnervingly deep, dark eyes. Looking into them made the air on my arms prickle.

She was a power, no question about it — too beautiful to be real, with a touch of inhumanity.

I took a steadying breath and laced my fingers behind my back. I really, really hoped she wasn’t on my team. Surely she couldn’t be.

The woman was sitting in an overstuffed armchair. A handful of people hovered behind her with the air of devoted servants. A huge snake lay in a loose coil on the floor beside her. Its little pebble of an eye seemed to track us as we approached.

“My lady,” Williams said.

She smiled at him. “Ah, Mr. Williams, a [blah blah] pleasure.”

I struggled to figure out the Baasha word I’d missed. “Unexpected,” maybe?

She looked at me. “Who is your pretty friend?”

That I understood.

I clamped my teeth into a smile and bowed my head respectfully. Williams really should’ve given me a code name.

“This is Hera Hanson,” he said.

Hera
. Very funny. I’d gotten a one-letter upgrade from “her.”

“Ah, yes, the unfortunate solatium,” she said, switching into English. “My name is Chasca, child. You have my condolences.”

Mystified, I glanced at Williams. His expression told me nothing.

Chasca rose and approached us. It was hard not to notice that she was mainly interested in me, sparing Williams just a glance.

I powered up my smile again.

“The woman whose namesake you are,” Chasca said, “I knew her.”

“Uh …”

The power arched one perfect eyebrow. “You are named for Zeus’s hectoring wife, are you not? An unusually jealous woman, I am sorry to say. Full of bile. Every bit as unpleasant as the stories make her out to be.”

“Oh. I … see.”

“The gods’ names grow uncommon, or so I hear. Where are you from, Miss Hanson?”

“We started out from New York yesterday, my lady,” Williams said.

She tilted her head, smiling slyly. He had answered a question other than the one she asked, and everyone knew it. Fortunately, it seemed to amuse her more than anything else.

“You have bought passage home?”

“Yes,” Williams said.

“Well then, I will cement your mark.”

Williams put his hand out. “Thank you, my lady.”

Who knew he could be so polite?

Chasca stilled for a second, and as I watched, the ink stamp on the back of Williams’s hand sank into his skin. It had become a tattoo.

I stifled a shudder. I was happy not to have Chasca’s strait ticket, or whatever it was, tattooed on me.

I looked up at her and found her watching me with amusement.

“Never fear, child. I will remove my mark upon passage. It is only good for one trip, after all.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s good. I mean, not that it’s not a pretty mark. It’s very nice. Very, um —”

Williams shifted minutely beside me.

“— very intricate,” I said lamely.

“Thank you,” she said brightly. “It is a map of my city.”

“Really?” I said, taken by surprise.

“Yes. I am so very proud of what we have built, here.” She held her hand out invitingly. “Would you like a small tour?”

Williams said, “Alas, my lady, we are pressed for time.”

She dropped her hand and laughed. “Of course, Mr. Williams. I quite understand.”

Her laughter sounded like a bunch of creepy cat bells tinkling.

She turned and walked away, toward her throne and her minions and her great big snake. After a few steps, she paused and looked back at me over her shoulder.

“I hope your time in Free is pleasant, Miss Hanson. I will look forward to seeing you again, one day.”

“What’s a solatium?”

Williams didn’t answer.

We were standing in the castle’s courtyard, waiting for Chasca’s people to finish reloading our packhorses. Apparently Copper had kicked someone and then gotten loose while we were upstairs, causing a big delay.

I’d been mulling over Chasca’s words as we waited. Not the stuff about knowing the real goddess Hera. She had to be pulling my chain with that one. It was the first thing she said that was bothering me — that I was the “unfortunate solatium.”

I looked up at Williams. “She gave me ‘condolences.’”

He shifted from one foot to the other.

Not a good sign. The man didn’t do antsy.

“You want me to walk around town asking random people until I find some highly educated English-speaker who’ll tell me?”

“Don’t do that,” he said, sounding like he’d had to force each word out at gunpoint.

“Then explain. I can tell you know something.”

The fingers on Williams’s right hand gave a tell-tale twitch. He’d put up a barrier. Then he turned to me. From his face, I got the impression he’d rather clean up road kill with his bare hands than talk to me about this.

“Restitution. Blood money.”

I understood the words, but they made no sense.

“I’m a person, not money. What did she mean?”

“Remember Bob?”

“The ice man in Dorf?” I frowned. “Of course I remember.”

Williams was the one who’d killed him.

“The ice men always demand restitution.”

I stared up at him, trying to process what he was saying.

“I’m being given to them to make up for Bob’s death? Like a trade?” I searched his face. “Why does she think that? Did someone tell her that?”

Williams tilted his head. His expression took on a hint of
Duh!

For a moment, I was swamped with shock and horror. Then I remembered Lord Cordus wouldn’t do something like that to me. He was depending on me. I was important to him.

“It’s just a cover story,” I said. “Something to tell people like Chasca, so I have a reason to be going to Fur.”

The big man just stood there, staring down at me.

Fifty-two toothbrushes.

“This solatium thing — is it supposed to be forever?”

“Thirteen years.”

I studied him, looking for evidence that Lord Cordus hadn’t given me away. That I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my youth locked up in the Arctic.

There was nothing to sway me one way or the other — no pity, no satisfaction, no
wink-wink, gotta keep the boss’s secret
. He just looked angry, like he always did, but with an extra serving, since he was actually having to speak to me.

“Is she right? Is it true?”

He looked back at me and said nothing. I could tell from his expression I wasn’t going to get an answer to that question out of him.

One of Chasca’s people whistled and beckoned. Williams turned and headed in his direction.

I stood there, paralyzed.

Should I make a run for the strait? If I could just get Lord Cordus on the phone, he would straighten this out. I was sure of it.

But no. I couldn’t get back through on my own — Williams had the tattoo, not me.

Could I hitch a ride with someone else?

I remembered the wagon at Bill Gates’s farm — the one those people had been unloading. If I could find one of those and hide among the crates …

I thought of the armed guards lining the walls around the strait. There’d been guards along the causeway, too. And they were here, as well, stationed regularly around the courtyard — less obvious because of all the hustle and bustle, but no less armed and no less serious.

I looked at one, and he turned and met my eyes. I jerked my gaze away, heart pounding. He didn’t look like a man who’d take pity on a stowaway.

Maybe Chasca would help me.

Her heightened interest in me came to mind, and I shuddered.

Williams appeared in front of me and thrust Copper’s reins into my hands.

“Come on. Gonna rain.”

He swung up onto Bertha and collected both pack strings. Without a backward glance, he headed off toward the far corner of the courtyard.

I watched his retreating back.

I had no idea what to do.

He disappeared around the corner of the castle.

Everything started pressing in on me. I was in an alien world where I barely spoke the language. I had no way to support myself, nowhere to go, and no way out. I knew no one.