“Nine people just sacrificed their lives for you back in town!” Veriasse countered. “You can’t stay here and risk making that sacrifice invalid. Leave these three. What’s the difference? It is an acceptable loss.”
“Acceptable to who? To you, perhaps, but not to me. Those nine gave their lives voluntarily for something they understood-” Everynne answered. “These three want to live, and they serve us with innocent hearts. We must give them a little time-fifteen minutes.”
Everynne turned to Orick. “Where is Gallen?”
“Hiding in the woods,” Orick answered. “I’ll get him.” He spun and galloped uphill.
“We don’t have time for this,” Veriasse told Everynne after Orick hurried into the brush. “Every second of delay places you in greater jeopardy. Can’t you feel the worlds slipping from your grasp?”
“Right thoughts. Right words. Right actions. Isn’t that the credo you taught me?” Everynne said. “Right actions. Always do what is right. That’s what I’m trying to do now.”
“I know,” Veriasse said more softly. “When we win back your inheritance, you will truly be worthy of the title Servant of All. But think: at this moment, you must choose between two goods. The right action is to choose the greater good.”
Everynne closed her eyes. “No, you cannot prove to me that fifteen minutes will make a difference. I’ll serve my friends here to the best of my ability, and afterward I’ll serve the rest of humanity.
“Veriasse, if not for Gallen stealing that key, we would have jumped out of the gate and found the whole planet mobilized against us. We must help them-you must help them. See, here comes Gallen now.”
Gallen and Orick raced through the trees. The young man was dressed in the swirling greens and blues of a merchant of Fale, yet his garments were stained from the camp and his hair was unkempt. He breathed hard as he rushed up to the magcar.
“Orick says that Maggie has been kidnapped,” Everynne said. “Do you know who took her?”
“A man named Karthenor, Lord of the Aberlains,” Gallen panted. “I’ve scouted the city. I plan to get her back.”
Everynne marveled that such a simple man could have so much faith in himself.
“If Maggie has been taken by Karthenor,” Veriasse said, “she is in the hands of a most unscrupulous man. For enough money, he might sell her back to you-or he might become curious and send you to his interrogators to find out why you want her. With the right equipment, you could free her from her Guide and steal her back, but that would be very dangerous to attempt. Both plans carry their risks, and it seems to me that in any event you are likely to fail.”
Everynne hesitated to tell them the most logical course of action. She wetted her lips with her tongue. “Gallen, Orick,” she said slowly, “would you be willing to leave Maggie behind, come away with me through the Maze of Worlds?”
“What?” Gallen asked, incredulous.
Everynne tried to phrase her argument as succinctly as possible. “I am going to try to overthrow the dronons. If I succeed, then we can rescue Maggie. If, on the other hand, I do not succeed, she will become a valuable member of dronon society, and in the long run she will be better off where she is. So, I ask you again: do you two want to come with me?”
Gallen and Orick looked at each other. “No,” Gallen said. “We can’t do that. We’ll stay and see what we can do to get Maggie free.”
Everynne nodded. “I understand,” she said heavily. “Then we will both do what we must, even though it takes us on different paths.” She turned to Veriasse. “Do you have allies here that might help him?”
“I had few allies here,” Veriasse said. “And all of them are dead now. Gallen must forge ahead on his own. The first thing he should do is go learn all that he can about our world.”
“I’ve already been to the pidc,” Gallen said. Everynne looked into his eyes, saw that it was true. There was a burden in his eyes, as if he knew too much.
“The pidc can teach you many things, but it is still under dronon control,” Veriasse said. “Much of our technology is kept secret. Gallen, if you want to free Maggie, you will have to do it without her knowledge. The Guide sees through her eyes, hears with her ears, and it can transmit messages to other Guides. It will be your greatest enemy, and since it controls Maggie, she will fight you herself if you try to rescue her while she’s still connected to the Guide. You will need the help of a Guide-maker to learn how to dismantle the thing.
“At the same time, security around the aberlains will be very tight. Microscopic cameras will be hidden in the main corridors, and motion detectors will be at every window. I doubt that you can make it into the compound undetected. Dronon vanquishers themselves will probably patrol the compound, and they are very dangerous. You will need weapons and an escape plan.
“Gallen, don’t be in a hurry to rescue her. This will require careful planning and research.”
Veriasse looked down at the chronometer on the magcar. “Everynne, my child, we really must go now, before the vanquishers block our exit.”
Everynne gritted her teeth. Veriasse had just outlined an impossible task for Gallen-a task that only Veriasse himself could pull off. She glanced at Gallen, ashamed to be leaving, and said, “Good luck.”
“What world will you be going to next?” Gallen asked. “Maybe we will follow you there?”
Everynne considered lying. She had to protect herself from possible danger, yet she knew that Gallen must be feeling lost and alone. As a Tharrin, her presence gave him a sense of comfort that he could not find elsewhere. And the world she was going to was beyond enemy lines.
“Cyannesse is its name,” she said. “The gate lies nearly three hundred miles north of here, about a quarter of a mile off the right-hand side of the road. When you put your key up to the gate, it will glow golden. That’s how you know you have the right destination.”
Gallen looked at her longingly, and Everynne could not bear to watch him any longer. “Take care of yourselves,” she said. She gunned the thrusters and headed out.
Chapter 9
Gallen watched Everynne and Veriasse glide off through the forest in their magcar. Orick grumbled and pawed the ground, raking leaves as if he were frustrated. “What now?” he asked. “Do you have a plan to save Maggie?”
Gallen considered. He had few resources: a couple of knives, a key to unlock the Maze of Worlds. A few days before, he’d told Everynne that imagination was the measure of a man, but now he wondered if that were true.
“You heard Veriasse,” Gallen said. “If we try to rescue her, the Guide will warn Karthenor. Our only hope is to take her without her or her Guide knowing of it.”
“Can we trick the Guide?”
“I doubt it,” Gallen said. “It’s probably smarter than we are. But I may be able to figure out some way to lure Maggie out of the city at Karthenor’s request, so that the other Guides can’t hear her talk.”
“Och, this sounds like a grand plan!” Orick said. “Why, it’s no plan at all, that’s what it is.”
Orick was right, at least for the moment. “We’ll have to find a way to disable the Guide,” Gallen said. “I’ll have to find a Guide-maker.”
“So, what are you going to do,” Orick asked, “walk right into a shop and ask the fellow, ‘By the way, how can I break one of those things?’ and then hope he answers you square?”
“No,” Gallen said. He knew the means had to be close by. He thought, If you were the most creative bodyguard in the world, Gallen O’Day, what would you do? He waited for a moment, and a familiar thrill coursed through him. He knew the answer. “I’m going to go speak to a past employee of the company that makes the Guides. A dead employee, to be precise.”
“What?” Orick shouted.
“When we first went into town, and I was wandering around on my own, I met a merchant who sells a machine that lets you talk to the dead, so long as they’re properly embalmed and haven’t rotted too much.”