In another corner, Ceravanne sat, hands bound in front of her. Orick was at her side, both of them under heavy guard. Maggie was surprised that they had not yet been infected by the Word.
The Tekkar Lord had Gallen’s mantle in his hands, and he turned it over and over, studying it. Finally, after a minute, he put it on his own head, and smiled at his men. He stood for a moment, breathing deeply, and said, “Ah, now I am a Lord Protector.”
Maggie knew that she had to get the mantle back. It was too powerful a tool to leave in the hands of a servant of the Inhuman. She got up, stretched, and smiled warmly at the Tekkar. Their leader saw her and hurried over, the memory crystals of Gallen’s mantle glinting under his hood.
Maggie waved toward Ceravanne, her voice expressing confusion. “Have we no Word for our sister, or for the bear?”
The Tekkar Lord gazed into her eyes, and his own purple eyes looked like black holes in his dark skin. “None,” he hissed, his voice whispery, as is often the case with those who have keen ears. “An aircar will be here soon. Perhaps more will be provided.”
Maggie looked about the room, still wondering what to do. “I … want to serve the Inhuman,” she said. “But I don’t know how.”
The Tekkar nodded graciously. “The lives you have lived-they train you in the use of technology and weapons, strategy and history. All that remains is for you to be assigned to a unit.”
Maggie considered. She had the lives of forty-one men and women who’d gone to war-swordsmen and bowmen, tacticians, scouts, squires, kings, and supply men. Merchants who understood the economics of war, a dronon technician and worker from the City of Life.
She hadn’t considered before, but she was prepared for just about any situation that the future could throw at her, and she also realized that much of what she’d learned was designed to help accommodate other nonhuman species. The passionless Wydeem would learn about lust and the desire to build. The gentle and shy Foglarens would learn how to be confident in open spaces and understand the thrill of battle. The Roamers would learn of trade and economics.
“Yes,” Maggie whispered for the first time. “I see what you mean. May I be in your command for now?”
“Of course,” the Tekkar hissed. “It is always an honor to work with a kitten whose eyes have just opened.”
Maggie gave him her hand, let the Tekkar help her rise. She nodded toward the food. “May I? We haven’t eaten well in days.”
“Of course,” the Lord said. “But you will need to hurry. The transport will be here soon.”
Maggie made up a plate, and the Tekkar Lord knelt beside her, watching her every move. Maggie nodded toward Ceravanne. “I almost envy them.”
“Why?” the Tekkar asked.
“Because soon they will hear the voice of the Inhuman, and they will feel what I felt upon awakening. That first moment of being alive.”
“Yesss,” the Lord hissed, obviously pleased.
Maggie sat eating, wondering what she might be able to do to help the others break free. Probably nothing. She noticed the furtive glances the Tekkar gave her. They were watching her closely now, and had not yet offered her a weapon. She knew that they wouldn’t offer her one until she had been safely delivered to Moree. She had just finished her plate, when the building began to rumble and vibrate as the gravity waves of a dronon flier bounced against it.
“The transport is here,” the Tekkar Lord said, and his men began picking up their packs. They had great mounds of food and blankets, and most of the men had to fill their arms.
The Tekkar Lord himself was about to grab his pack, but instead ordered one of his men to do it and took both of the dronon pulp guns, waved Gallen and Orick forward, and they went out into the night.
On the stone bridge outside Farra Kmir, a lone flier had set down. It was a large military job, an oblong blue disk with rows of windows. One of its doors swung upward automatically on landing. It was large enough to carry twenty men, and its forward weapon array held twin plasma cannons and several smart missile mounts. No one had come with the flier, so obviously it was piloted by an AI. Maggie was not wearing her mantle, but she knew upon looking at the flier that this was a completely new machine, not more than a week old and designed for use by men, not some artifact left by the dronon.
So the Inhuman was building its own arsenal.
The Tekkar carried their bundles and went ahead, stopped to look down the road. The Derrits had come back to retrieve their dead. The whole pack of them were gathered out in the darkness far down the road, growling low and snarling.
But they seemed disinclined to charge up the road to the military transport and attack a squad of Tekkar.
Gallen, Orick, Maggie, and Ceravanne were herded behind by the Tekkar Lord, waving his gun. He’d put the spare in his belt.
Just as Maggie got to the main gate of Farra Kuur and stood under its black stone arch, Gallen stopped and looked back at the Tekkar Lord.
“Veriasse, kill them now!” he whispered.
The Tekkar Lord’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and he leapt sideways and fired the dronon pulp pistol in a frenzy. It made burping noises as it fired, and Maggie looked to see a Tekkar take a hit to the head, opening a hole. The whole side of his face exploded outward, the shattered bones of his skull stretching the skin incredibly taut, and then his skull seemed to shrink in on itself, and he crumpled to the road.
Another Tekkar took a body hit, and the left side of his chest ripped away as the shell of the pulp gun exploded, spattering blood and bits of bone and lung all across the transport.
One of the Tekkar managed to pull a knife and fling it at his Lord, but it was a hasty throw, and the Tekkar Lord simply dodged aside, then finished shooting down his own men.
And then he pulled the spare gun from his belt and dropped both weapons, and merely stood. Maggie watched him in confusion, wondering if the Lord were changing sides. Down the mountain, the Derrits began to roar quizzically, as if trying to decide whether to charge.
“Quickly!” Gallen shouted. “Cut us free! There is no telling how long the mantle will be able to control him!”
Maggie grabbed the fallen knife from the road, went to Gallen and cut his bonds, then did the same for Ceravanne. Before Maggie could finish with Ceravanne, Gallen went to the Tekkar Lord, pulled the man’s knife, and plunged it into his heart.
The Tekkar dropped with a sigh, and Gallen grabbed the pulp pistols and his mantle. In moments he had hurried to the flier, and they began throwing in the packs that the Tekkar had carried, then leapt in and closed the doors just as the Derrits charged up the road.
“Vehicle, rise eighty yards and hold position!” Maggie commanded the flier’s AI.
The flier rose up in the air and hovered.
“I don’t understand.” Orick grumbled. “What happened?”
Gallen had already put his mantle back on, and he whispered, “Not any man can wield the power of a Lord Protector’s mantle. The mantle is a living machine, and it partakes of the desires and intents of its makers, and of those who use it. And like a Guide, it has some measure of control over its wearer. Most of the time, it gives me free rein to do as I please, but I have felt it tugging at my limbs, using me in battle as much as I use it. So when the Tekkar asked me to surrender it, I asked my mantle if it could protect me. It said that it could not serve an evil man. It warned me that it might be able to battle the Tekkar, once one of them put it on. I knew that the Tekkar would covet the thing, and eventually one would try to claim it, so I had only to wait my chance.”
Maggie looked out the window at the dead Tekkar strewn across the road. She recalled how the Tekkar Lord had innocuously obtained both the guns. She realized that Gallen’s mantle had been prodding him even then.
Maggie had understood that her mantle was designed for a special purpose, and that its abilities and memory were all aimed at fulfilling its own desires and objectives. She had felt her own mantle tugging at her mind, filling her with curiosity when she’d studied dronon technology, but she hadn’t quite grasped how symbiotic the relationship between man and mantle might be until now. And Maggie realized that she would need to begin studying mantles more explicitly, learning more of their creation, abilities, and desires.