She hoped it was just strain and fatigue.
But as she walked through the forests of Faerie she remembered poor little Alella, and Grummetty, the little people from Hrumph who didn’t like to be called gnomes, the little people who had died because their bodies didn’t work right in Imperial space.
What if her body didn’t work right in Faerie? What if she had been uncomfortable in the Empire as much because the nature of space itself was wrong, as anything else?
Susan had said, that morning, that they were all human beings, regardless of which universe they came from-but what if she was wrong, and they weren’t the same at all?
That was a terrifying idea. She hadn’t watched Grummetty and Alella fade away, she hadn’t had the nerve to face it, and had left all the nursing to Nancy Brown and little Rachel-she felt guilty about that now, especially since Nancy and Rachel were dead, and she also selfishly regretted that she didn’t know more about how it had worked. How could she tell if the same thing was happening to her?
None of the other Earthpeople seemed to be troubled by any such effect, though.
At least, not yet.
* * * *
“I wonder what Lieutenant Dibbs and his men have to eat,” Susan said, stepping neatly over a tree root that, a moment before, Ted had stubbed his toe on.
“There are supplies in the ship,” Prossie said. “Maybe we should have taken our share before we left.”
“We couldn’t get at them,” Singer pointed out. “That monster’s wing covered the door.”
“By now Dibbs probably has that thing propped up like a front porch,” Wilkins said. “They’ll be fine.”
“They’ve no water within a hundred yards or more,” Stoddard pointed out.
“There’s some water in the ship, too,” Sawyer said. “At least, I think there is.”
“They’ll be fine,” Wilkins repeated.
“Then why the hell are we here, instead of there?” Marks demanded.
Wilkins glared at him. “Oh, shut up,” he said.
Chapter Ten
They struck the road around mid-morning, and emerged from the forest shortly after noon.
Not that it was much of a road, by the standards of either the Earthpeople or the Imperials. Pel had noticed the four soldiers exchanging derisory glances when Raven called the narrow path a highway. He had sympathized, but had kept his mouth shut; Raven knew this world, and the Imperials didn’t.
“Do you know where we are?” Pel asked Raven, as they all paused, blinking in the bright pale sunlight, atop the gentle slope that led down to cultivated fields and half a dozen crude huts. Rolling farmland stretched out before them almost as far as they could see, broken by streams and occasional small groves and ending in a grassy ridge topped by a massive structure Pel could not make out clearly.
The air had warmed again, and a trickle of sweat was running down his back and into the waistband of his pants.
“Not as exactly as I would choose, friend Pel,” Raven replied, scanning the landscape. “This must surely be the Starlinshire Downs, and behind us the Low Forest, but this road we follow is not the Palanquin Road – ’tis not of the size to be that. Thus we must be well to the north, but I’d know no more than that until we find landmarks or ask the dwellers here.”
“My lord?” Valadrakul said quietly.
“But ah, look you, friend Pel,” Raven said, turning suddenly, his hand on the wizard’s shoulder. “Look you all, we’ve no need to limit ourselves to means natural, for we’ve a practitioner of the arcane arts with us! Speak, then, Valadrakul-where are we now, and where may we find he that we seek, your compatriot Taillefer?”
“I know not, my lord, but a spell can tell me, an you allow me a moment.”
“’Tis safe, my friend, e’en in this realm of Shadow?”
Valadrakul spread empty hands. “Who can say, when we know not the extent of Shadow’s power? At this moment, we might yet be pursued by creatures keen to avenge those we slew beside the sky-ship, and perchance even the merest trace of an incantation will draw disaster upon us. But ’tis only the very simplest of magicks, and I’ve practiced its like many times before, without mischance.”
“Thus, wilt know our whereabouts?”
“Aye, and more,” Valadrakul answered. “Though I know not where we be, yet I sense that this place is a goodly one for magicks, and that hence can I send word to Taillefer through the currents of the air and ether. It might chance that such a message Shadow will feel likewise, but ’tis only a small risk; ne’er has Shadow troubled itself with the signals that we lesser magicians send each other betimes.”
Raven hesitated, then nodded-Pel noticed that he didn’t bother to look around at any of the others, let alone to consult them.
“Go, then,” Raven told the wizard. “Work thy wonders-methinks ’twill give the ladies a needed rest. And if thou canst discover us whence our next meal may come, as well, surely shalt thou have the gratitude of us all!”
It seemed to Pel that Raven and Valadrakul were getting carried away, their phrasing becoming more flowery than ever for no good reason, even while their peculiar Australo-Brooklyn accent grew stronger. Pel didn’t like that. Any time Raven began to talk too much, it meant trouble.
But the man in black did have a point; a glance at Amy convinced Pel that she did, indeed, need a rest. She looked terrible. She hadn’t thrown up again since that morning, but her face was pale, and she appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Susan was keeping a solicitous eye on her; Pel was relieved that someone was.
The four Earthpeople and Prossie settled to the grass in a group; the other four Imperials settled a few feet away. Raven and Stoddard remained upright, roaming along the slope, studying the countryside.
And Valadrakul crouched on the slope, muttering, working his magic.
* * * *
Amy was ravenously hungry, but at the same time she doubted she could keep anything down if she ate it. She felt achy and exhausted; her feet throbbed. The stop for Valadrakul’s magic had been very welcome indeed.
She wondered what was wrong with her. There were so many things it could be.
Stress, hunger, weeks of bad food-that could be it. The others weren’t visibly suffering, but stress didn’t affect everyone the same way. Ted Deranian wasn’t exactly suffering, but he’d snapped completely. And Pel Brown had become sort of detached since his wife and daughter were killed; that might be his way of dealing with the strain.
Susan, of course, could cope with anything; Amy was convinced of that. She’d been through it all before, as a child in southeast Asia.
And the others-well, they were different. The Faerie folk were in their own world, they were used to dealing with Shadow’s monsters and all the rest of it. The Imperials were all soldiers, even Prossie; they’d been trained for hardships. And they’d only been out of their own reality for a day and a half, not a couple of months.
So maybe it was just stress affecting her. Stress, and the thin air, and the heavy gravity, and the heat, and the humidity, and the weird washed-out sunlight.
She liked that idea, the idea that it was just stress, much better than the other possibilities. If this space wasn’t quite right for Earthpeople to live in, then finding a way home wasn’t just a way to get back to normal, it was a matter of life and death.
But none of the other Earthpeople were showing any symptoms that she could see, so she hoped that that wasn’t it.
If it were, then she was the most sensitive. If the others did start showing symptoms, then she would be the first to die.
Right now, she felt as if she might die if she didn’t get a few days’ rest and some good food.
There were other possibilities, of course, and in a way those were even more frightening. What if she’d contracted some alien disease somewhere? What if she’d caught something from her rapist, Walter, back on Zeta Leo III? She’d been free of him for weeks-heavens, he’d been dead for weeks, hanged on her testimony-but how could she be sure she hadn’t picked up something from him? Who knows what loathsome alien diseases he might have had?