Two Renegade Realms (Realm Walkers Book 2) (45 page)
He felt Bridger’s approach.
“You’re well enough to fly?”
“Yes, and you’re needed at the main camp.”
“Why?”
“They’re gathering those who are mobile, and Ahma and
Odem are among those who walked in. Ahma wants to see you.”
Cantor ran to the stretch of hillside where Bridger planned to land. As soon as he settled on his dragon’s back, he began to ask questions.
“Have we heard from the contingent defending Zonvaner? How severely is Dukmee wounded? Are we running low on supplies? Has a division moved out to cover the departing side of the planes? Has anyone estimated the time when we’ll see the last of this hovering plane?”
“Not hovering.” Bridger answered the last question. “The renegade plane is moving along nicely.”
“What about the rest of my questions?”
“Hmmm? Oh, sorry. I wasn’t listening. Wondering when we would have our next meal and what we would have. I’m hoping for noodles and creamy garlic sauce.”
Suddenly weary, Cantor leaned forward and rested on Bridger’s neck. “Perhaps we’ll get a few hours of respite before Cho shows up to direct the next part of our routing of the Lymen.”
B
ixby walked with Cantor to where she’d last seen Ahma and Odem. She wanted to ask about the hug he’d given her but when she reached for him with her talents, she ran up against walls and hedges and barriers to keep her at a distance. He’d raised them against her in particular. She could tell they were personal, not general. Because of that, she wanted to corner him and make him talk.
They carried hot meals, enough to share with Cantor’s mentors. The idea of having dinner with Ahma, since she had been so strange the first time they met, gave Bixby a dread in her middle. Bridger and Totobee-Rotolow came along. That would make the conversation easier.
As soon as they found Cantor’s mentors, Bixby busied herself with serving the thick hot soup, bread, and fruit. Ahma took Cantor to a corner and had a whispered conversation as they ate. Bixby tried to batten down her resentment.
Whispering was rude. Just ask her mother. If the old lady wanted to have secrets, why didn’t she just communicate with Cantor through their minds?
The annoyance was shoveled to the side by a powerful feeling of anticipation. Just before she heard Cho’s voice, Bixby turned her eyes to the sky.
“To me, Cantor. To me, Bixby. Bridger, Totobee-Rodolow, to me.”
In the air above them, Chomountain rode on a magnificent dragon no one had seen before. Dukmee, looking a little wane, sat behind him.
Without hesitation, Bixby and Cantor mounted their dragons and flew to join them.
“Where are we going, sir?” asked Bixby.
“To give our enemies an appropriate send off. We have one more project which must be accomplished before Lyme Major and Lyme Minor are out of sight.”
He turned to Cantor. “I hear you have an astonishing aim.”
Cantor nodded. “I do, sir.”
“Good. We’re going to knock those planes out of their orbits. If we put a wicked spin on them, they’ll disintegrate.”
The right hand of Primen clutched his pointed hat as the wind threatened to whip it away. “We’ll go by portal. Much faster that way, and we can have a little nap while we wait for the Lymens to catch up.”
They flew through one of the biggest portals Bixby had ever seen. She looked over Totobee-Rodolow’s side at the unfamiliar terrain.
“This isn’t Derson. Are we on Zonvaner?”
“Yes, darling. And as soon as we finish this little errand with Chomountain, I know of a lovely spa where we can go
soak and do the saunas and perhaps have a refreshing body wrap. They might even be able to do something with your hair.”
Bixby patted the fringe of hair sticking out from under her helmet hat. She scowled. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
Totobee-Rodolow didn’t answer.
“Cantor once said he liked it. He said he could find me in a crowd because it shines like a beacon.”
“What about Tegan, dear?” Totobee-Rodolow had begun circling in a descent before landing. “Does the dear boy offer you compliments in between proposals?”
“Tegan hasn’t proposed in a couple of days. I think seeing his history at the Observatory of the Universe took away his need to have a constant in his life.”
“A constant?”
“Not a mor dragon-type constant but someone reliable, always there, an anchor, a place to call home, a helpmate.”
“You’re not a poet, darling, but I get the point. And I think you’re right. Everyone needs a constant.”
Chomountain and Dukmee landed. Totobee-Rodolow aimed at a spot beside them.
Bixby chose to think her question. She wouldn’t have to shout against the wind and the loud noise dragon wings made at landing.
“Do you know Cho’s dragon? He’s not a mor dragon,
is he?”
“No, not a mor dragon. He is a stunning male
though, isn’t
he? Just look at those muscles between his wings. And his color,
the white opalescence with an undertone of cerulean blue.”
“So you don’t know who he is.”
“I didn’t say that. And it is not polite, darling, to rush someone
who is admiring a work of art. His name is X’Onaire. He’s
a mountain dragon from Cintain.”
“A monk?”
“Most definitely, a monk.”
Their conversation ceased as Bridger landed with Cantor. It was time to receive their instructions. Chomountain gestured for them to circle around him.
“We are going to damage the planes just before they leave our atmosphere. Our hope is to set them spinning. There are no life forms on Lyme Major or Lyme Minor other than the carnivorous plants.”
He must have seen the objection rising to Bixby’s lips because he cast a stare her way with steely eyes and one crooked eyebrow. She swallowed her question.
Cho looked straight at her but addressed them all. “I know this from Primen. It is not I but he who has ordered the planes completely destroyed. We are to have nothing to do with them and must not take anything from them to hold as ours.”
Bridger gulped. Bixby heard it from the other side of their tight circle. She felt the same tension. Bridger didn’t get Cho’s stern eye, so he blurted out his question.
“We aren’t going to go to those planes, are we? I mean actually walk on their soil?”
“No, no, no. Because of the effects of gravity we witnessed in the Observatory of the Universe.” He paused. “There really should be a shorter way of saying that.” Again he paused, considering, gave himself a shake, and continued, “As I was saying, the gravitational pull will help us launch explosive rocks at the planes. If we time the bombs correctly and hit the target, the explosions will damage the symmetry of the plane and set it to flip-flop. As it goes beyond the curtain, it will enter space that has no air to resist the turning. The flip-flopping will accelerate. The plane will disintegrate.”
He rubbed his hands together vigorously. “Quite simple, don’t you see? The simple plans are often the most worthy.”
Chomountain looked around the circle, meeting the eyes of each of the participants. Bixby watched as everyone else returned his nod.
Bixby screwed up her face. She wasn’t going to nod just to be nodding. Objections and questions hovered on her lips. She wasn’t at all sure about this thing they were going to do. Nodding was out of the question.
Chomountain’s kind, wise, approving, generous gaze fell on her. He nodded.
If she recognized him as authority and trusted him, then demanding a full explanation only complicated matters. When there was more time, when everyone was not stretched to their limits, and if she still had questions then, he would answer. She remembered she was a minion and she was glad to let him be the boss.
Bixby nodded in return.
When he finished the round of eye contact, he looked over Bixby’s shoulder and smiled. “A tree and shade. Dukmee shall take a nap while I show you how to rig the rocks to explode.”
Cantor took Dukmee’s arm and assisted him to a comfortable spot.
When he returned to the group, he found Cho assigning the first chore, gathering rocks about the size of Cantor’s head — his was the largest aside from the dragons. Bixby struggled to lift the cumbersome stones, but she persevered, reluctant to shirk when she knew the others were as tired as she. X’Onaire turned out to be a willing worker. He might look like a fancy painting, but his friendliness and humility brought him acceptance from the group.
When they’d piled up enough rocks to satisfy Chomountain, he gave them each a bowl.
“The ingredients in the bowl need to be worked together,” he said. “Your fingers are the best instruments to use. Rub the powders together until they combine to make a uniform color. As you knead the materials, they will become warm and then moist. Eventually, the mix becomes a clay.”
Bixby sat with the others on the grassy hill, using her crisscrossed legs to hold the bowl steady as she worked at the mixture with both hands. The warm sun felt pleasant, as did the slight breeze. Exhaustion from their morning battle drew her to the edge of sleep. She closed her eyes for a moment and popped them open again. In the dark of her mind lurked the images of burned and maimed comrades. Her mind pulled up words from the Book of Primen to keep the horrors from hounding her.
She ended up singing in her head the Hands Benediction she had once sung with Cantor in the Sanctuary in Gilead. Remembering his strong voice and the promises of Primen soothed her spirit.
The others must have been as weary, for no one talked.
The texture between her fingers changed as she continued to massage the lump of ingredients. The color changed from blue to green, and she busied her mind by imagining what the shade might look like on a pair of gloves.
Chomountain arrived with a bowl of warm water and towels for them to use, and then he passed out a meal. He’d stuffed small loaves of bread with warm meat and crisp vegetables. The drink he produced must have contained a restorative herb. Bixby felt more refreshed by the simple repast than mere food and drink would have provided.
“On to our next project.” Chomountain directed them to a crude wooden table, where their bowls and the rocks now waited.
Cho supplied Bixby with a crate to boost her up to a level at which she could toil with the others. They all stood around the work bench and smeared the clay around the rocks, filling cracks and gouges with the explosive.
“This is strange.” Bixby gestured with her mud-covered hand to the table and the field around them.
Chomountain paused and gave her his attention. “How is that?”
“We’re working here in beautiful surroundings, with songs from the birds and fresh scents of warm grass and flowers.” She shuddered. “This morning we were linked together by a powerful force, and we destroyed all that came to harm us.” She picked up another rock and smoothed clay over its surface. “And here we labor in comfortable serenity, at ease with one another, and not fretting. But we are quietly creating a weapon that will destroy two planes.”
Chomountain’s face became still, his eyes squinted in thought, his mouth slightly pursed. He took a deep breath of air and let it out. “You are unsettled by calm and chaos being shoulder to shoulder, so to speak.”
“Yes, I think that’s it.”
“The intensity of feelings is necessary for us to fully respond to life. But that intensity would burn us to cinders if we did not spend most of our time in a softer, more nurturing emotion.”
“Isn’t that state almost no emotion?”
“No,” said Totobee-Rodolow. “We were made to feel. There’s rest in contentment, and contentment rests on soft cushions of love, respectability, and generosity.”
Cho placed the last clay-covered rock on the table. “We’re done here. Three-fifths of the rocks need to be taken to the eastern edge of Derson to be used against Lyme Major.”
Chomountain assigned Bixby, Totobee-Rodolow, and X’Onaire to the task of gathering the rocks, storing them in a hamper, and carrying them through a portal to Derson. He pulled Cantor and Bridger aside for a serious conversation.
Bixby wanted to eavesdrop, but Dukmee had been put in charge of her and gave her no time. Chomountain’s prescription of rest and the refreshing meal had strengthened him considerably. He hurried Totobee-Rodolow, X’Onaire, and Bixby ahead of him through the portal to Derson. He helped unload the rocks to make a stockpile for Cantor’s use.
“Isn’t anyone else going to help throw these things?” Bixby objected. “How is he going to be able to throw them so far?”
“When the planes are close, the pull of gravity will do most of the work. Cantor’s aim is what is most important.”
“Are you going to be here, or are you going back to Zonvaner?”
“I’m going back to this morning’s battleground. Chomountain has charged me with keeping an eye on the Realm Walkers Guild councilmen.”
Bixby gasped. She covered her mouth. “I forgot.”
Dukmee leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Take care of things here.”
He walked away and through a portal before she recovered from his unusual action. Her hand now touched the warm spot left by his kiss.