A growl rose from deep in Aamon’s throat as he crouched down, claws out, ready to spring at him. Kevin and the others tensed, surging forward to meet the legions of red-armored agents surrounding Sturges.
There was a clatter of metal as they raised their weapons.
“No!”
Glenn pushed through the line surrounding her and out into the space between Aamon and Sturges.
“Glenn!” Kevin cried.
She stilled the tremors that moved through her body and then slowly held out her hand. The bracelet gleamed in the smoky air.
“No one else has to get hurt,” she said, pushing the words past a thick lump in her throat. “Please. You win. It’s yours.”
Sturges moved fast. Within minutes, his agents packed Glenn, Aamon, and Kevin into a horse-drawn wagon and they pulled out of Bethany, surrounded by a squad of soldiers. Glenn sat up front next to Sturges while Kevin and Aamon were in the back. Aamon had been hurt badly in his fight with Garen Tom and in the bombardment after.
His body was cut and swollen, but he still sat up tall, even though the effort to do it, and the rocking of the wagon, made him wince. Kevin was only a little better off, bruised and scraped and singed. He was slumped against the side of the wagon, blankly staring behind them.
Bethany was a smoking wreck. The fires were mostly out now
that nearly every building had been flattened or reduced to a few stubborn lengths of wood. Whether the blood-streaked bodies they saw as they left were killed in the fighting before or by Sturges’s assault, Glenn didn’t know. The day had offered up so many different ways to die.
As they passed out of the town, Glenn looked up in awe at a line of muscular-looking collections of black scaffolding. They were each thirty or forty feet tall with a heavy base and a long arm attached to a pivot at the top.
“Trebuchet.”
Sturges was sitting high up in the seat beside her, his red silk tie flapping in the wind. He held the horses’ reins lightly in his hands, guiding them along.
“Medieval siege weapons,” he said with a laugh. “Only way to fight these people is to go back in time. They’re like catapults but more powerful. Even more powerful with a few mechanical tweaks and modern materials. These things can shoot a half-ton lump of metal practically into orbit before it falls. Big boom. No explosives. They weren’t easy to drag out here, but once our people told us that everybody in the Magisterium with a sword was converging in the one town that could destroy that trinket you’ve got, it seemed worth it. Now, honestly, I didn’t know you were already in the foundry when I ordered the strike. Last person we’d want to kill is you.”
Sturges smiled his ingratiating smile. Glenn crossed her arms and stared ahead at the approaching trees.
“I know you didn’t want to get mixed up in all this, Glenn. I had time to check into you and I can see that this was all just a big accident.
Your grades are outstanding. Your record is perfect. You were looking at Deep Space Service, right?”
Sturges dangled it out there like a hook on a line. Glenn was curious to see where he was going with it, but she stayed quiet.
“I thought about DSS when I was your age, you know.” Sturges laughed again. “I was a disaster. Wasn’t smart enough for it. Didn’t have the drive.”
“Luckily, you had enough to become a spy and a murderer.”
Sturges glanced down at her. His smile faded as he eased the horses along the trail.
“My wife and I have a daughter,” he said. “Annie. She’s three.
She does this thing when she’s alone in her room, reading her books.”
Sturges was without words for a moment but then his eyes brightened.
“She sings to herself. Not even words, just this kind of gibberish.
It’s … I think it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.”
Sturges shook the reins and guided the horses around a bend in the path.
“I know there are people on this side of the border who are just like us,” he continued. “Peaceful people who want to live their lives.
But I also know that there are others, the ones with power, who would destroy our home in a heartbeat if they thought they could. It’s my job to stop that from happening, however I can. I don’t apologize for it.
Maybe if I was born over here, if my family was here, I’d feel the opposite. But the Colloquium is my home. It’s who I am. That’s not something that changes.”
One of the horses whinnied and shook its mane. Sturges turned away from Glenn and made soothing sounds until it quieted.
“Like I said, I misjudged you. That’s clear from what just
happened. A lot of people could have gotten hurt and you stopped that.
Once we get home, I’m sure we can get everything sorted out. Heck, I’ll write you a recommendation to DSS myself. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have you a few thousand light-years away. Once I have your father’s tech, this is all done.”
“You’ll let him out of the hospital?”
Sturges waved the question away. “We may want to talk to him a little more so we make sure we understand what he’s created, but after that, I don’t see why not.”
“What will you do with it?” Glenn asked. “The bracelet?”
Sturges turned to her, his hair blowing in the wind, exposing his high temples. “Do you care?”
One of the horses whinnied again and its skin trembled. The Rift border was growing immense in front of them. They’d be across it in no time.
Glenn glanced over her shoulder. Kevin and Aamon were staring out over the heads of the soldiers as Bethany and the Magisterium faded into the distance. All it would take to deny Sturges what he wanted was tearing off the bracelet. Hadn’t she had a little more control last time? Maybe she could grab Kevin and Aamon and take them away before Sturges could do a thing about it.
Her hands sat in her lap, surrounded in the rough wool of her Magisterium clothes, the gray band heavy on her wrist.
Glenn saw herself on 813, moving from lab to lab in the planet’s small outpost. Talking quietly with the other settlers about the work that consumed them. At night they’d sit in the observation lounge after dinner and take turns guessing which tiny speck on the horizon was Earth.
The Magisterium, its horrors and jarring beauty, would be like a story she was told long ago and vaguely remembered. Her father would be free.
And what of Kevin and Aamon? The reality of the Colloquium
would strip the lingering presence of Cort out of Kevin and the killer out of Aamon. They could go back to their lives. The ones they always should have had. In time they’d thank her. Wouldn’t they? It had seemed so simple up there on the mountaintop, so clear, but now …
Glenn pulled her coat tight over her chest to stop a chill. Was it getting colder? She looked up at the sky. Ranks of dark clouds had begun to move in. The wind picked up, blowing dust and fallen leaves into their path.
As the wagon hitched up another rise, the horses spooked,
crashing into one another in their traces. Sturges snapped the reins, but the horses’ easy strides turned fast and disjointed.
“What’s wrong?” Glenn asked.
Sturges sat up higher in his seat, trying to ease them, but they strained against him as hard as they could, white froth growing at their mouths.
“Sturges …” Aamon said from behind them.
Aamon was leaning forward, his body tense, peering up into the sky. Amidst the dark clouds, something else was gathering over the remains of Bethany. It looked like a dark smudge, as if someone had dipped a finger in black paint and drawn it across the sky.
“What is it?” Glenn asked.
Aamon whipped around to face them. “Faster. Now!”
Sturges snapped the reins and leaned forward into the growing wind. The horses screamed and jerked ahead, almost shooting Kevin and Aamon off the back of the wagon. Glenn’s knuckles went white as she gripped the plank by her side. Around them the armored men struggled to keep up.