Maggie commanded the on-board intelligence of the flier to erase its memories of this trip, then sent it back to the city, arching up toward a high cloud whose edges were silvered in the moonlight.
Maggie stood breathing the air of Fale for a moment as if she were readying to plunge into cold water, then pulled out the key to the Gate of the World and began entering codes. The air under the gate shivered a brilliant magenta.
“Remember,” Gallen said. “We are traveling in disguise. Do not mention our names.”
Maggie took her bags, handed Gallen the key, then walked into the magenta light. She felt the familiar sense of being lifted impossibly high into the air, and in a moment she was standing in a field yellow with ripe wheat, white with the bitter-smelling flowers of wild carrots. Tall daisies with beer-colored hearts swayed in the wind. They were in the folds of a valley, and on the hill behind her, golden oaks swayed.
Maggie could hear the distant sound of a marketplace, the cries of street vendors, the bawling of goats. She glanced over her shoulder. A light building rose above the oaks not two hundred yards away-a curious temple the color of the wheat, with five spires rising high above the hill. Banners flew from each spire, red with images of twin orange suns. Along the parapets of the temple walked a man, a broad-shouldered man in a red tunic, with thick braids of golden hair. Maggie studied him a moment, vaguely distressed by his appearance, until she realized that the man could be no less than nine feet tall.
White ghosts blurred into existence at Maggie’s side, as if emerging up from the grass, and suddenly Orick and Gallen stood beside her.
They stood for a moment, looking about, and Orick growled, pointed to Maggie’s left. On the next hill, a dronon’s walking hive city squatted on six giant legs, like some great black tick. The incendiary gun turrets that bristled on its back were unmanned, and had in fact been stripped off, but the red lights at the hatches glowed like squinting eyes.
Maggie found herself suddenly wary. The hive city was uninhabited as far as she could see. Yet it served as an unsavory reminder that this world had been under dronon control only days before.
“Where do we go now?” Orick asked, looking about.
“To find the Lady Ceravanne,” Gallen said uncertainly. There was a depression in the hill, a hollow where someone had perhaps mined rocks. Gallen went to it, hunching down beneath the shelter of an odd, twisted green stump to get out of sight of the temple walls. The others followed. Gallen reached into his bags and brought out his map of Tremonthin. It showed two large continents near each other, and from the map Maggie could see that they were on the eastern coast of the northern continent, but the map did not show cities, for it was far older than cities, so it showed only images of the approximate terrain and the nearest gates. Maggie studied the map. “Ceravanne could be anywhere, thousands of miles from here.”
“The dronon can’t have left more than a week ago,” Gallen pointed out. “A Tharrin will be precious rare on this world. If Ceravanne is near, perhaps others will know of her.”
But Maggie was not so certain. This world was nearly as backward as her home on Tihrglas. She looked up the hill and noticed that the stump above them had a faded rope tied to it, with a small leather purse attached. She wondered if it had been left there on purpose. Perhaps there was a letter inside, bearing instructions. She began climbing toward it.
Gallen sighed heavily. “I want to travel secretly,” he said, hunching lower into the grass, “stay on back roads and sleep in the woods.”
“And if I had your face, I’d keep it hidden, too,” Orick jested, trying to lighten Gallen’s mood. “Any sack would do fine.”
“The young man has a fine face,” a strange whispering voice said. The voice was almost a groan, or the yawn of a waking man. And most startling of all was that it came from the stump!
Maggie looked higher, and saw that the tree stump was staring down at her. The creature that watched them was the most amazing thing she had ever seen: it had deep brown eyes set high up on the uppermost ridge of its long, narrow head, and leaves crowned its top. Its long arms and legs each had many knobby growths, so that no two joints were at the same height. And it had been holding its hands up toward the sun as if it were praying, or warming itself. Each long hand had many fingers. Its mouth was a leathery crack at the bottom of its head, and two holes in its face might have been a nose. But Maggie could see no ears on the creature, and it wore no clothes. She could see no sign of sex organs or an anus.
“Soooh, you have come at last,” the creature said slowly. “But I am patient, as she is patient.”
“She?” Gallen said. “You mean Ceravanne?”
The green man did not answer, but instead looked down in concentration. It twisted its right leg, pulling many toes from deep in the rocky yellow soil. Then, with equally great effort, it pulled its left leg free from the earth. Its skin looked like forest-green leather, and the three-pronged leaves on its head rustled as if blown in the wind. “What are you doing?” Orick demanded, as if he were questioning a young rascal.
“Drinking rainwater, tasting sun,” the green man answered.
“And who are you?” Orick asked.
“I have no name, but you may call me Bock, for I am of the race of Bock, and we are all one.”
The green man swiveled, and began walking slowly down the gully on long legs that covered a great distance. In two steps it was staring at them in the hollow.
“So, you have taken shelter?” the Bock addressed them. “Sitting with backs to the wall, facing out.” It seemed to consider this for a moment. “That is a human trait.” Maggie had never noticed it before, but it was indeed a human trait to take such a stance, one that humans shared with bears.
“Aye,” Gallen said, climbing out of the hollow, eyeing the Bock.
“You speak strangely,” the Bock said. “Were you born speaking this way, or did you learn to speak by listening to your parents?”
Maggie had never heard of anyone who had not been born knowing how to talk. “I was born speaking thus,” Gallen muttered. He rested his free hand on his dagger.
“Good,” the Bock said, his strange eyes widening at Gallen’s threatening action. “Then you are not from feral human stock, but have had some genetic upgrading. I see that you also wear heavy clothes, which speaks of a strong enclosure quotient.”
“A what?” Gallen asked.
“Humans of most subspecies seek enclosure,” the Bock said in slow, even words. “They house themselves in cavelike enclosures at all opportunities, and drape their bodies in bits of hide or vegetation. The amount of covering they desire is a guide to their enclosure quotient, and this can help me make a judgment as to how human the specimen is.”
“You mean that different people want to wear different amounts of clothes?” Gallen asked.
“It varies by subspecies of human,” the Bock said.
“That’s mad,” Gallen said. “We wear clothes to protect ourselves from the weather.”
“You are a Lord Protector,” the Bock said, half a question. “The weather is warm. Why don’t you take off your clothes? You don’t need them here.”
“I would rather keep them on,” Gallen said. “I need the hood, to hide my identity.”
“No one will recognize you,” the Bock assured, putting his long green hand on Gallen’s shoulder, pulling back his robe to expose flesh, and Maggie counted nine fingers on that hand. “Here on Tremonthin, you are unknown. You may show your face freely. You may show your whole body freely.”
The Bock’s actions were strange and frightening, but Maggie could also sense that it meant no harm. Its touch was not rough or lecherous. It seemed instead to be-perplexed by Gallen. Curious about him, and totally alien.