Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (35 page)

When everyone convened in the inn’s common room that evening, I sat down between Terry and Ida. Williams came down a minute later and sat at the far side of the table.

Thank goodness.
I couldn’t get away from the man, but being eight feet away felt a whole lot better than being right beside him.

Everyone reported on their activities. Since I didn’t have a report to make, I just listened and focused on not looking as rattled as I felt.

As it turned out, the drought in Ancient Inland had made it easier to get things done quickly and cheaply.

Mizzy said she’d had no trouble getting camels and tack. Demand for the animals was way down.

“But the news isn’t all good,” she said, toying with her fork. “The dealer recommended putting no more than four hundred pounds on each animal. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave Mr. Williams behind.”

No one laughed, but you could feel the wave of nervous amusement wash over the table.

Williams didn’t react — just turned his gaze to Ida, who reported that trail food, tents, and other equipment were selling for next to nothing.

Kevin said the ferrymen had competed to get his business, and the caravan master had been glad to add our party to his next crossing — we had several strong workers among us, after all.

The only person who hadn’t finished his task was Terry.

“We need more bags,” he said. “It’s not all going to fit.”

Mizzy shook her head. “I got all the bags the camels can carry. It has to fit.”

“Let’s get more camels, then. More camels equal more bags.”

“No more,” Williams said. “They’ll need to drink.”

“Then you guys’ll have to help me,” Terry said. “I’m a packing failure.”

So, I spent the next day helping to squeeze a mountain of food and gear into a bunch of oddly shaped camel saddlebags. It was sort of fun. By the time Terry and I both tried to sit at once on a bag of dehydrated meat that wouldn’t close, we were all laughing — even Kevin.

Of course, it helped that, for once, Williams had gone off to do something and had left me behind. Everyone relaxed a bit in his absence.

“Why are you going to see the ice men, anyway?” Ida asked, once we got the stubborn bag closed.

“Mr. Williams has decided to return to his people,” Mizzy said.

Everyone laughed.

I poked her in the ribs. “That’s not fair … to the ice men.”

“But really,” Ida said, once the titters died down, “why are you going?”

“I’ve been declared a solatium. I have to stay with them for thirteen years.”

A shocked silence fell.

Finally, someone asked why.

I hesitated, afraid telling the story would reveal my very late seeing-through.

Then I remembered how Terry had heard about me through the grapevine, back in Free. My odd development wouldn’t be a revelation to these people.

“I like to take photographs for fun,” I said. “When I first started seeing through, it happened with the camera instead of directly. I accidentally took a picture of an ice man who was living in my hometown. Well, just his foot, actually. I showed it to some humans. The ice man got killed for revealing himself, even though he didn’t mean to. I guess his people are pretty angry about it.”

Everyone just sat there, staring at me. Then they glanced around at one another.

“Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I thought emerging Nolanders weren’t usually held accountable for that sort of slip-up,” Terry said.

“We aren’t,” Mizzy said. “If we were, there’d be no Nolanders. The first thing people do when they see through is talk about it to their family or friends. I certainly did.”

Ida nodded. “Something else is going on here.”

“The ice men are known for being sensitive to slights,” Mizzy said. “And they have a wergild system. But I’ve never heard of it being applied like this.”

I shrugged. “The person who actually ordered the killing isn’t available to punish, and I guess the person who carried it out is too valuable to let go. I’m the only one left.”

Mizzy frowned thoughtfully but said nothing.

“It sucks, Beth,” Terry said. “I’m sorry.”

Ida nodded. “Absolutely not fair.” She paused and smoothed her expression. “You know, when you’re young, thirteen years sounds like a lifetime, but it goes by pretty fast. It seems just a few years since Cata was born, but it’s been fifteen.”

That didn’t really help, but I smiled. “I’ve heard the ice mothers have an outstanding library. At least I’ll be able to read.”

Mizzy nodded. “Their library’s legendary. Being able to troll for stories there would be a dream come true.”

“Maybe you can do some reading there before you head home.”

“Hey, I’ve heard they have amazing bladed weapons,” Terry said. “They make them out of ice, but they never melt.”

“Great. Endless opportunities to accidentally stab myself.”

That got a little forced laughter.

No one seemed to think of anything else to say, so we went back to packing. The mood was somber, but oddly, I felt better than I had since leaving New York. It was nice to know there were some people around who knew something about me and were sympathetic. It’s not like Mr. Gates’s people suddenly filled up the hole left by Andy and the others, but they made me feel new friendships might be possible.

I woke up in the middle of the night, sure that something was wrong. I looked around the dark room. Nothing seemed amiss.

I rolled out of bed and poured myself a glass of water from the carafe on the dresser. The wooden chair by the window looked more inviting than my too-warm bed, so I took my drink over there and sat down.

A wisp of an image of Cordus flitted through my mind, and I realized that’s probably what had woken me — a nightmare I couldn’t quite remember.

Damn the dreams, the man, and the horse he rode in on.

Outside, the street was empty. Cloud-dimmed moonlight illuminated the wet cobblestones.

A soft laugh came up from below, and a couple walked into view. They were holding hands and leaning into each other — people in love, heading home after a night out.

The familiarity and normality of it struck me, followed by a wave of dissociation.

I’m in another world.

The weirdness of it gripped me for a long second or two and then faded.

It’s another world in more ways than one
, I thought.

How radically my understanding of things had shifted over the last few weeks. When I first learned about the S-Em, I’d been told that Seconds and humans were different. Seconds belonged in their world and humans in theirs. Nolanders were stuck in the middle — neither Second nor human. We had no home, so we had no rights.

Then Gwen had floated her idea.

She’d been more right than she could’ve imagined. There was Williams, for instance. He was a Second, but everyone back home had believed he was a Nolander. Mizzy was a Nolander, but I was pretty sure the only people here who knew that were the ones she’d told. I’d never seen anyone treat her differently. No one had treated me strangely either, for that matter.

It wasn’t just that there was a power overlap between essence-working Seconds and Nolanders. They were literally indistinguishable. And another group of Seconds were indistinguishable from humans — unable to work essence at all.

Now that I understood, it made perfect sense. I mean, a world made up of people like Cordus wouldn’t function. Why would someone be a shop-keeper if they could remake themselves and the world at will? A waitress? A trader? A miner? There was no reason someone would spend their life slaving away in a muddy goldmine unless it was their only choice.

So, why were people here free to do more or less as they pleased while Nolanders were the de facto property of whatever power happened to get hold of them?

Mizzy probably knew. She seemed to know something about everything.

But would she talk to me about it?

I thought about her little digs at Williams.

I’d begun to suspect they were really aimed at me — that she’d figured out I hated Williams and was trying to establish common cause with me.
Hey
, she was saying,
you’re so right about this guy. I hate him too!

The question was why she’d want to do that.

I knew what Zion would say. She’d tell me that people in my position — people with a shitload of power that was basically free for the taking — could never really have friends. Even if the other party started out with good intentions, I’d always end up getting used.

Everyone should have a Zion in their life — some clear-eyed, unsentimental person who’ll tell you the hard thing.

On the other hand, I wasn’t going to live wholly by Zion rules. To me, a life where you trust no one and are fundamentally alone wasn’t worth living. I was pretty sure even Zion had her soft spots.

Where that left me in a bigger sense, I wasn’t sure. But in this specific instance, there wasn’t much reason to put Williams ahead of Mizzy on the trustworthiness scale. He was a murderer, took every opportunity to be nasty to me, and was neck-deep in some subterfuge about his own identity that I couldn’t begin to grasp. And on top of all that, he might not be fully under Cordus’s control.

Mizzy, in contrast, was just unknown.

When it came to choosing allies, better unknown than known and confirmed awful.

Some devil’s-advocate part of my psyche tossed up Williams’s odd tendency to be kind to animals. I considered it for a moment, then dismissed it. As the saying goes, even Hitler loved dogs.

I tightened the drawstrings holding on my hat and tried to do a better job of swaying with my camel’s strange, pacing gait.

Early in the morning, we’d sent all our baggage to the wharf by cart and then crossed the wide river on a paddle-driven ferry. A caravan of about twenty people and fifty camels had been waiting for us in the walled settlement on the other side. Several of the other caravaners appeared to be traders, but most had more modest amounts of baggage — ordinary travelers, like us.

Kevin had already set things up with the caravan master, and the ten dromedaries Mizzy had bought had been delivered. We found them and packed them up.

I wasn’t worried when I first saw the camels. I’d ridden plenty of horses. How different could it be?

Very
, I’d discovered. Their gaits were nothing like horses’, and the saddle sat right up atop the shoulders, so I constantly felt I was about to catapult off over the animal’s low neck. As for the part where the camel got up from the kneeling position, the less said about that, the better.

By mid-morning, we were headed north from the river, our camels walking two abreast. The master had said each person should watch their side of the trail carefully. Apparently, there were predators.

Surprise, surprise.

As we left the river behind, the trees grew smaller and fewer. Soon the landscape had transitioned from forest to lush green grasslands studded with lakes.

I could see the land had been inundated recently. We were forced to trace a winding path around the remaining bodies of water. Occasionally we had to wade. The camels weren’t crazy about the water, but once the caravan master and his assistants got their animals going, the rest followed along.

Unlike in the highland jungle, here there were mammals. I saw elephants, antelope, deer, bison, horses, zebras, rhinolike things, camellike things, piglike things, and huge creatures that must’ve been ground sloths. None of them looked quite like any modern animal I was familiar with.

The mammals were mixed in with plant-eating dinosaurs. Some types of mammals and dinos seemed to hang out together habitually. Almost all the long-nosed camels I saw were grazing in among some species of massive-bodied dinosaur that had a single hornlike projection on the top of its head. Sometimes a dino tossed its head at a camel, warning it away from a particularly juicy clump of grass, but more often the dinos rose up on their back legs to forage from scrubby trees while the camels grazed beneath them.

I wondered if the mammals had all come through the strait at Free. They’d have to have traveled through the jungle and across the river to get here.