Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (36 page)

Williams was riding beside me. I doubted he’d answer me, so I turned in my saddle and asked Mizzy.

She tilted her head. “I guess so, unless there used to be another strait that connected these plains to North America. That’s not likely.”

“But wouldn’t the predators in the jungle just kill any mammal that wandered through the strait?”

She shrugged. “It only takes a few to start a population. Over the course of millions of years, some must have made it through.”

“But why would a camel or a sloth go through a strait to begin with?”

“Essence-working is as common among animals as people. Workers are drawn to straits. Plus, some animals are émigrés.”

Of course. I knew an animal émigré — the wolf Ghosteater.

“Animal émigrés tend to leave straits sitting open,” Mizzy said. “Then lesser workers who’ve been drawn to the strait go through. If they’re herding types, there might be non-workers with them. Over time, you can end up with a lot of variety.”

As we approached, a mixed herd of antelope and duck-billed dinosaurs stopped to observe us, then turned and fled across the plain. The antelope moved much faster than the dinosaurs. I could see why they’d done well here, where there was open space.

Over the course of the day, we passed quite a few hunting parties on their way back to the city. Most were carrying plant-eaters — both mammal and reptile — but some had bagged predators. I saw big cats, wolves, giant flightless birds with huge hooked beaks, and other stranger animals I could only identify as predators by their many sharp teeth. In one case, a string of three horses were carrying the dismembered pieces of the biggest bear I’d ever seen.

I only saw one predatory dinosaur being brought back to the city. It was much smaller than the jungle turkeys — perhaps three feet tall at the shoulder — and more lightly built. Instead of the turkeys’ tiny, vestigial stumps, it had long, three-clawed arms that looked capable of doing a lot of damage. Its plumage was black and white, like a woodpecker’s. Its large, pale gold eye stared at me sightlessly as I rode past.

At midday, we encountered a city-bound group that was not a hunting party. The caravan master stopped to speak with them. Kevin went with him.

After a few minutes, the caravan moved forward again. We passed the other group, exchanging polite nods.

Kevin fell back into line with us. He looked unhappy.

“They’re from the settlement on the other side of the ligature. Their wells are so low they don’t think they’ll make it through the dry season. They’re relocating to Kye Wodor until at least next year.”

“Anyone left there?” Williams said.

“About a quarter of the people, but they’re all getting ready to leave.”

I glanced at Williams. He looked grim. Then again, he generally did.

It took several more hours to reach the ligature.

I’d never seen one before and stared at it curiously.

Whereas Bill Gates’s strait had been invisible to me, even when open, the ligature was obvious. The aperture was about twenty feet across and unevenly shaped. Above the ground, it was hard to pick out the edges. Maybe the sky was a slightly different color inside, a little more washed out. But on the ground, the difference was clear: the lush grass of the plains gave way abruptly to dusty ground and sparse, dead vegetation.

In a line of ones and twos, we passed through the opening into blazing sun, bone-dry air, and oppressive heat.

As with the strait into Gold Rush, the ligature opened into a space encircled by a tall stone wall. In this case, though, there were no guards. The ground was hardened earth, not paved, and the wall’s gates stood open.

We rode on through into a ramshackle mud-brick town that was clustered around the gates like flies mobbing a leftover sandwich.

It was strangely quiet.

The caravan thinned out to single file and made its way to the center of the town — a dusty square with a well in the middle. Two people were there, drawing up buckets of water. They were dressed Bedouin-style in loose robes and headdresses that covered them almost entirely — so much so that I couldn’t tell their gender.

I saw the sense of it. Sunscreen or no, I could feel my skin burning in the blazing light.

I brought my camel to a halt and dug a light cotton jacket out of one of my saddle bags.

Mizzy came up next to me. “Good idea. The sun’s terrible here.”

The caravan master went to speak with the townspeople, and Kevin once again tagged along.

“They say their well is close to dry,” he said when he came back. “The water is always muddy now, and it takes a long time to refill.”

“That sounds bad,” I said. “If the wells are so low now, won’t they run dry during our journey?”

Kevin grimaced. “Not necessarily. Groundwater isn’t like a big lake. It’s in cracks and pockets in the rock. A two-hundred-foot well might run dry while a fifty-footer nearby doesn’t. It’s difficult to predict.” He glanced at Williams. “But it’s definitely not a good sign.”

The big man was looking down, frowning.

“We could just go back to Kye Wodor and wait for the drought to lift,” I said.

Williams shook his head. “It’d add eight months. At least. Drought could go on for years.”

He chirruped to his camel and headed toward the caravan master.

I watched his retreating back.

“Have you thought about making a break for it?” Mizzy murmured.

I shook my head.

But of course I considered it — all the time. I’d promised myself not to give up, and I meant it.

So far, there’d been no chance. Riding through the jungle without a barrier-worker would’ve been suicide. Now we were heading into uninhabitable desert. I wouldn’t survive there alone, either. Kye Wodor might’ve presented some opportunities, but Kevin was a problem. Essence trails lasted a good while, and as long as he could sense mine, he’d be able to follow me.

All in all, it was hard to see a way out.

But strange things happen — disruptions, surprises, things you can’t plan for. That gave me hope.

Williams finished speaking to the master and turned his head. He looked right at me.

I started and looked away.

Just a coincidence.

He couldn’t possibly know what I was thinking about.

We spent the rest of the afternoon resting.

At dusk, we donned the kind of desert clothes the townspeople wore, ate an evening meal, and mounted up. Then we threaded our way to the north end of town and out into the open desert.

The air seemed thin and left me slightly out of breath.

To our left, the sinking sun burned whitely in the cloudless sky. It was stiflingly hot, but Terry promised the temperature would fall quickly after sunset.

“Pretty soon you’ll be wishing for some of this heat,” he said. “Riding in the cold sucks.”

There wasn’t much to see. The terrain alternated between rocky outcroppings and plains. The ground was covered with short plants, all dead. There were no animals.

We pressed on as the sun sank below the horizon. The sky retained some light for a good thirty minutes or so, deepening slowly to a brilliant ultramarine. Then the stars brightened, and the space between lost its blueness. Night had come.

Immediately, the temperature began to fall. I got out the woolen cloak stashed behind my saddle and pulled it on. Pretty soon, I’d need to add a warm hat.

The caravan master used an industrial-sized flashlight to illuminate the road before us. His assistants also had flashlights. They swept the road behind us and the open spaces to either side.

It was nerve-wracking, wondering what might be racing toward us in the dark section of a flashlight’s arc, but nothing attacked us. In fact, we didn’t see a single living thing.

We rode until just before sunrise, then pitched camp, set guards, and ate a meal. There was no well nearby, so we didn’t wash ourselves or water the camels.

I used the privies that had been dug some ways from the road by past travelers, then lay down in my tent. It was really cold. My feet felt nearly frozen, and my bedroll seemed way too thin. But I was exhausted from the hours of tense riding through silence and darkness. I fell into a fitful sleep and slept off and on until, sweat-drenched and headachey, I woke into the stifling heat of mid-afternoon.

We ate, broke camp, packed the camels, and continued on our way in the dwindling light.

The land grew increasingly flat, so we could see as far as the heat-shimmers allowed. There were still no animals, just miles of cracked soil and dust devils.

Night came, and we journeyed on. The silence was oppressive. Before the sun set, I’d chatted a bit with Mizzy, but now speech seemed out of place. The only sounds were the creaking of the saddles and the camels’ strange groaning calls. It felt like we were traveling through the land of the dead. It was unsettling.

The others seemed to feel the weirdness too. Every time a flashlight’s beam glanced across Mizzy’s face, the worried line between her eyebrows looked a bit deeper. Ida gripped her silver locket like a good luck talisman. Kevin looked physically ill.

Shortly before dawn, we reached the first well. The water was very low, and we had to let the silt settle to the bottom of the buckets before we used it. We drank, but there wasn’t even enough to wash our hands.

Exhausted more by tension than the ride itself, I crawled into my tent and fell asleep.

I woke in the heat of the afternoon very thirsty. When I picked up my waterskin, I remembered I’d emptied it the last time I was up.

I lay there in the sweltering heat, annoyed by a rivulet of sweat running down my right temple. My hair was already soaked. Gross.

I pulled on my robes and crawled out of the tent into the brilliant light. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. I felt like Sam Spade getting grilled by the cops. My eyes burned and watered. I let them adjust to the brightness before walking over to the caravan’s stores, which had been set out under a larger pavilion-style tent, along with several buckets of water and some other supplies.

Mizzy was there, fanning herself and drinking. She looked up as I approached and shot me a tired smile.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just miserable. How many days of this?”

“At least thirty. Probably more. There are always delays — illness, injury, broken equipment.”

I took in that dreadful news.

We were both silent for a minute.

“There’s something wrong with this place,” I said. “I don’t like it.”

“I agree.”

“Maybe we should —”

“If you don’t want to spend years getting to Fur, we have to go this way.”

“Yeah, right.” I sighed. “I’m going to scrounge up some lunch. Want something?”

“No thanks. It’s too hot.” She looked around. “I guess I’ll lie back down.”

“Okay. Sleep tight.”

She rolled her eyes and headed back to her tent.

I dug through the stores, taking a strip of dried meat and a handful of fruit.

I tore off a bite of meat and looked around.

Our sleeping tents were a little ways off to the west. The camels were clustered in several groups nearby. They’d long since eaten their fodder. Most were now parked on the ground in their odd crouches, dozing or chewing their cuds.

Out past the camels, I could see four sentries guarding the camp. The one to the north was Williams. I recognized him by his size.

I turned, looking in all directions. Beyond the sentries, nothing. The ground had a very slight roll to it, but you could still see a long way. There were no animals, no movement whatsoever — just dry, cracked ground and the pale fuzz of dead vegetation.

I leaned down and pulled up one of the plants. Before it crumbled away, I saw it was a fern. This stratum had been worked into being long before grasses evolved.

A light breeze brushed my face, then died.

Except for the occasional noise from the camels, silence reigned.

I shuddered. The place creeped me out. It wasn’t the creepiness of the rainforest. That was about the alien mixed in with the familiar. This place just felt wrong.

“Why are you up?”

I just about jumped out of my skin. Williams. Beats me how he’d managed to approach so quickly.