The Sea Peoples(93)

He could also see behind them, and it didn’t look in the least like the place they’d just been. Instead the white dirt of the road shimmered in the darkness, winding off into an empty countryside of rolling hills and copses of trees. It was ordinary-looking country, if not anything quite like what he’d seen before. Perhaps parts of the Willamette in the far south, or the Chehalis valley if you subtracted the mountains . . .

It doesn’t stink, either, John thought. He took a deep breath. But there’s something . . . off.

“Is everyone hale?” Deor said.

They gathered around. Pip had a bleeding scratch on one forearm; he helped her clean and bandage it. Toa had a mark on one massive calf, and he examined it while leaning on his spear and turning up the leg.

“Sodding thing bit me,” he said. “And that was after I cut it in half.”

“Let me look at that,” Deor said, kneeling. “I’ll cleanse it. Best not to let this fester, considering what teeth they were that bit. Worse than a lion.”

Whatever he used made Toa give a mild grunt, which meant it probably hit like a red-hot cauterizing iron.

“What’s this?” John asked. “This place, I mean.”

He had the usual canteen at his belt, and he handed it around and took a welcome swallow of tepid, metallic-tasting water.

“It’s a bad place,” Toa said, with a frightening grin—the tattoos on his face were supposed to look terrifying, and they did, especially in this reddish un-light. “But I think it’s one we went through on the way in.”

“We are deeper into the mind of the . . . Power that rules here,” Deor agreed.

“Deeper in to get out,” Pip agreed, working her fingers. “Dammit, that hurts!”

“Bad for the flawless complexion, too,” Thora said.

She said it with a smile . . . more or less. Her own face had a weathered handsomeness, but it also showed every year of an adventurous thirty-five spent knocking around an implausible amount of the Changed world in Deor’s company. None of the great chanson de geste that told of the paladins of Charlemagne had the hero accompanied by his current intended and very-recently-ex-girlfriend.

Which means either the chanson were heavily edited, or the jongleurs didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, or I’m not the hero of this song, John thought.

“Oh, on the contrary, dear Thora, a few scars are wonderful icebreakers in some situations.”

Thora hadn’t been going out of her way to make things more awkward. Or less, for that matter. There seemed to be something they knew that he didn’t, too—it was in the way Pip’s fair brow rose, and the ironic quirk to Thora’s grin.

I’m getting tired of other people knowing things I don’t.

“Let’s walk,” Deor said. “The steps are symbolic; but here, symbols have power.”

They did. John slung his shield on his back and trudged along behind him, with Pip at his side; she was whistling a song she told him was “Advance Australia Fair” when he asked. Sweat started up, though it wasn’t particularly warm or cold; if you moved in armor, you sweated—and the sweat stayed next to your skin. Even if it was very cold, you sweated and then the sweat chilled you the moment you stopped; of course, if it was hot and sunny the armor got too hot to touch, and you grilled like a fish wrapped in damp straw matting and dropped into a pit of hot coals.

Oh, that was brilliant, John, he thought: now he felt hungry.

“What is it that you and Thora aren’t telling me?” he said after a while; Toa began to laugh.

When John stared at him, the big Maori laughed even harder. “Oh, no, mate, not a bleedin’ chance. I know better than to stick my ghoolies in the mangle, you bet your arse I do.”

Pip just raised a slim blond brow. “Oh, come now, Johnnie. Thora and I have the greatest respect for each other—”

Thora chuckled and raised a gauntleted thumb; he realized that they actually did. He didn’t think they liked each other much—the thought of what it would be like for him if they were friends was enough to make him blanch—but they certainly respected each other’s abilities. You would have to be stupid or blind not to respect Thora Garwood’s capacities, or Philippa Balwyn-Abercrombie’s . . . and neither of the ladies were stupid in the least.

Unless you count being involved with me, he thought mordantly. Which got them here, wherever here really is. If it really is.

Unexpectedly, Toa spoke again: “You should tell the lad. Wouldn’t be fair if it all went tits-up and he’d never got the word, like.”

“He’d get all protective,” Thora said.

“Nah,” Toa said. “Lady, he’s no fool. We’re here . . . but we’re really not, you know?”

Pip and Thora exchanged one of those disturbing looks, and Thora shrugged in a clatter of armor. Pip cleared her throat.

“You’re going to be a daddy, sweetie,” she said.

Thora was fighting down a grin as he nearly tripped, and looked wildly between them.

“Who . . . who . . . who . . .”

“I wouldn’t have thought your totem was an owl,” Thora said, letting the grin out. It was remarkably evil.

“He’s a Raven,” Deor cast over his shoulder. “You can see the shadow of the wings on him. Well, think who his father was, and Who his father met and knew. The Crow Goddess . . . and others.”