“Of course, Our Lady,” the crimson lords agreed, and almost as one they breathed a sigh of relief. They had spoken treasonous words and had not been arrested. Everynne could feel the clouds of doubt and fear lifting from her. For a long moment, they all sat and simply looked at one another around the table. For five years the crimson lords had worked, and now their part was done. Everynne watched them relax and wanted only to relax with them, take one last rest before her part in the great work began.
“We must go now,” Veriasse said. Everynne knew he was right. They had left Tihrglas only an hour ago. The vanquishers could transmit news of their escape over tachyon waves. Within another few hours, word of their escape would reach Fale, and the vanquishers would seek to block all of Everynne’s escape routes.
“Wait, please,” the crimson lady begged. “I have one last favor to ask before you leave.”
“Which is?” Everynne said.
“Your face,” the crimson lady asked. “Once, before you leave, I want to see your face.”
On Fale, the lords never went unmasked in public. It was a tradition millennia old. The crimson lady would never have asked such a favor of one of her own neighbors. Everynne had little time to spare, but these people had risked so much for her that she could not resist.
She peeled off her pale blue mask, and the lords stared at her in awe for a moment. “You are truly a queen among the Tharrin,” the crimson lady said. Everynne felt sick at the words. After all, what was a queen among the Tharrin but a specific set of genetic codes given to those who were born to be leaders? It was nothing she had done, nothing she had earned. Her genetic makeup gave her a certain sculpted beauty, a regal air, a measure of charisma and wit that probably would never have been duplicated in nature. Yet Everynne saw all of this as a sham. It was simply a station she was born to. Her flesh was the clothing she wore.
The crimson lady peeled off her own mask, showed herself to be a handsome, aging woman with penetrating gray eyes. “My name is Atheremis, and it has been my pleasure to serve you. I will never betray you,” she said.
One by one, the other crimson lords around the room also peeled back their masks, spoke their names and their gratitude.
That is when Everynne knew for sure that they would kill themselves. If they had not been planning suicide, Everynne was sure that they would not have revealed themselves. But one of their number was missing, so they were choosing to die now by their own hands rather than risk that they might be captured and forced to reveal damning evidence.
The crimson lady cried; tears rolled down her cheeks. Everynne wanted to stay with them a little longer, hoping to keep them alive. If looking into her face gave them pleasure, then she would stand here for hours. But Veriasse took her elbow, and whispered, “Come, we must hurry.”
Together they walked from the darkened chamber and headed down a long green corridor past the shops and apartments of Toohkansay. Only Everynne’s mask hid the fact that she was sobbing inside.
They had hardly gone a hundred meters when a blinding flash of light erupted behind them, and the blast from the explosion buffeted their robes like a strong wind. Sirens began to wail, and citizens of the city rushed toward the blast, searching for victims. The living walls of the city did not catch fire, but the distinctive smell of cooked vegetable matter filled the smoking hallways.
They hurried to a cantina on the edge of town where the scent of food beguiled them. Everynne had not eaten for nearly twenty hours, so they went through the dispensary line and grabbed some rolls, then hurried out to a waiting shuttle, a beat up old magcar that would not draw undue attention.
They hopped over the doors, and Veriasse unfolded a thin map and pushed a button until Fale appeared on the legend of the world. The map showed them at the edge of Toohkansay, and a three-dimensional image showed the land around them for hundreds of kilometers. There were three gates within that range, but only Veriasse had traveled the Maze of Worlds enough to know which planet each gate would lead to. “This gate here,” Veriasse said, pointing to the most distant of the three, “leads to Cyannesse. We will be safe there.”
Everynne took the stick and gunned the thrusters. The car raised several inches on a magnetic wave, and she piloted the vehicle slowly at first, fearing that foot travelers might be on the road so close to Toohkansay.
For ten minutes they drove past the yawning farms that sprawled along the calm river. Huge, spiderlike harvesters were at work, cultivating the fields. They turned a wide bend, and Everynne was just ready to raise the windshields so that she could speed up when she saw a bear ahead. It leapt from the road into the woods.
“That’s Orick!” she said, reversing thrusters.
“It can’t be,” Veriasse said. “It’s just a bear.”
“I’m sure of it.” The magcar slowed and idled beside the trees. She gazed into the woods, up a slight rise where white rocks lay in a jumble. There was no sign of Orick-only prints among the fallen leaves that the bear had made as it bowled through the trees. Everynne wondered if it had been a trick of her imagination, yet she let the magcar hover on the road. Uphill, the nose of a bear poked cautiously over some bushes to watch her.
“You’re right,” she said, distracted. She had last seen Orick only slightly more than an hour ago on a planet nearly six hundred light-years away. Somehow, that recent image must have burned into her subconscious so that she imagined that this bear looked just like Orick.
She gunned the thrusters and the magcar rose and began to move forward slowly. She glanced back, and the bear stood up on its hind legs, sniffing the air.
It yelled, “Everynne? Is that you?”
She slammed on the reverse thrusters.
“Orick?” Veriasse called. The bear dropped to all fours and ran toward them with astonishing speed.
“It’s you!” Orick shouted. “Where have you been? I’ve been searching for you everywhere! It’s been days!”
Veriasse and Everynne looked at each other. “What do you mean, ‘days’?” Everynne asked. “We left Tihrglas less than two hours ago. How did you get here?”
“Gallen stole a key from the dronon. He was afraid they would use it to catch you. When we got here, we couldn’t find any sign of you. Maggie’s been kidnapped, and we can’t get her back. Gallen and I have been here for nearly four days!”
“The dronon tried to make a key?” Veriasse asked, incredulous. “Only a great fool-or a very desperate person-would try to make his own key to the Maze of Worlds. That explains how you got here before us. Your key is flawed.”
“You mean to say we got here four days early because of a busted key?”
“Of course,” Everynne said realizing what had happened. “The gates move us from one planet to another faster than the speed of light-but any method of locomotion that can do that can also be used to send things into the past, or the future.”
“Still,” Veriasse said, “it’s a wonder that they broke our access codes at all. We will have to re-tool the gates.” Veriasse looked down at the chronometer on the magcar. “We have to go, Everynne.”
“Wait a moment,” Everynne said. “They need our help.”
Anger flashed in Veriasse’s eyes. “Many people need your help. You cannot risk staying in enemy territory for these.”
Everynne looked at Orick. The bear was dirty, had lost a little weight. The whites of his eyes were wide. “I was born to be the Servant of All,” she said. “I will take care of these three now, because they need me now.”