She was almost on top of Zeb before he could hear her voice over the wind. She was shouting his name.
Zeb tried to rise but it was difficult in the loose snow, and he did not manage it until the woman arrived beside him and hooked her hands in mittens under his arms. She picked up his axe and thrust it into his numbing hands.
“Who are you?” Zeb shouted, for he was actually more curious about that at the moment than he was about his location.
With the light coming from behind her Zeb could not see the woman’s face in a deep fur-line hood, plus she had a snapping scarf wrapped around most of it. She leaned in close to shout by his ear, but not an answer.
“No matter what you see, do not linger! Turn, and flee through the gate!”
“The say what now?”
The woman leaned back and pulled down her scarf. Zeb could still hardly see her as his eyes were tearing up and the lashes had begun to freeze together. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
“Turn and run through the gate!” she shouted, then shoved Zeb hard in the chest with both hands.
*
The echo of the tuning-fork buzz lingered in the great round chamber. Uella had squealed and clapped her hands over her ears, falling backwards off the balustrade of a high balcony near the top of the tower, where they had moved for a better view of the fighting on the floor. Poltus winced and hissed, and Balan shuddered in the soft silk of a fresh smoking jacket.
“That was unexpected,” he muttered.
The monkeys on the floor below converged on the dais, where now only the dark-haired Miilarkian girl stood, shouting a name. The others scrambled up to join her and she started shaking the Circle Wizard by the front of his robes. Balan could not hear her words from the distance, but she was screaming. Booms echoed through the chamber as the hobgoblins began to beat on the barred door.
“What the hell was that?” Uella demanded.
“Trouble,” Balan said.
Several of the monkeys shouted at the Miilarkian in alarm, but she produced a dagger in either hand and hopped between the two platinum pillars flanking the Node space. Nothing happened. She hopped back the other way, and nothing happened that time either.
“The gate is not fully open,” Poltus said, sounding relieved. Balan did not share his emotion.
“Give it a minute.”
*
Zeb stumbled backwards between the pillar tusks on the tundra, wind-milling his arms and almost hitting himself in the face with his axe. Then he hit the ground with a grunt, and soft, dewy grass tickled the back of his neck.
He was on his back beneath a blue sky supporting fluffy white clouds. He sat up, snow crunching inside his armor, but it was pleasantly warm here. He was in the woods, tall trees all around him with white trunks and verdant branches moving on the soft breeze. Water burbled somewhere nearby. Standing stones stood among the trees under the boughs, irregular gray rocks with yellow flowers blooming around them. Their polished faces were carved with lines that looked to Zeb like the old runic alphabet of ancient Danoric, the mother tongue of his native Minauan. For a moment, Zeb thought he was going to cry, though he could not imagine a reason why he would, for this was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. It felt like home and Zebulon Baj Nif, born a Warchild of the Riven Kingdoms, had never felt that feeling before.
There were two tree trunks directly in front of him, stripped of branches though they still looked alive. They were bowed wide in the middle and the tops were sharpened points, like tusks.
Do not linger. Run through the gate.
Zeb did not want to leave this place, but he did what the strange woman had told him. He had not seen her face but for some reason he thought he had known her, and he trusted her completely.
*
“Somebody do something!“ Tilda shouted, then she jumped as the pillars rang a second time. Zebulon Baj Nif barreled out from between them and neither had time to do anything but widen their eyes before he slammed into her. They went down in a pile and almost slid off the top of the dais before Brother Heggenauer knelt and stopped them against his leg.
“Tilda?” Zeb blinked down at her. His helmet was gone and his hair was wet. Cold water dripped off his nose and onto Tilda’s.
“Get off!” Tilda hissed at the couple hundred pounds of Minaun and ring mail on her chest.
He did so with a helpful yank on his collar from Shikashe, who hoisted Zeb to his feet. Claudja helped Tilda to hers, and as Zeb stood up facing her a chunk of wet white material Tilda was unfamiliar with plopped to the floor from under his armor.
“Is that snow?” Amatesu asked.
“Uh. Yes. I think so.”
Shikashe frowned behind Zeb, reached out and tugged something off his ring mail. The samurai held several blades of deep-green grass between his fingers.
“What happened to you?” Claudja asked. Tilda was glad she did, as she wanted to know but was still trying to get her breath back after Zeb had nearly collapsed her rib cage.
“I think I went somewhere else,” Zeb said, his eyes wide and wondering. “A couple of places, actually.”
Tilda and some of the others turned to look at the Circle Wizard, but Phoarty only shrugged and shook his head.
“I’ve got nothing,” he said. “Really.”
Nesha-tari cleared her throat, and the doors barred against the hobgoblins shuddered under a heavy impact.
“We should go if we are going,” John Deskata said quietly. “We can sort out what just happened later.“ John looked absolutely awful as he was the only one who had not bathed recently, and was now spattered both in hobgoblin gore and his own blood from the deep thigh wound Amatesu had already healed. But worse than that to Tilda was the hard, blank set of his face, and the smoldering green eyes that now looked both somehow right, but terrible.
Nesha-tari waited no longer. She pulled both Claudja and Phoarty by the shoulders and hurried them down off the dais and back toward the open set of doors, the Duchess still holding tightly to a dagger Tilda had given her and the wizard clutching a heavy satchel to his chest. Shikashe handed Zeb his crossbow and followed the others, while the cleric and the shukenja still eyed Zeb oddly.
“Are you all right?” Tilda asked him once she had her breath back.
Zeb nodded dully, then his eyes seemed to finally get some focus back as he looked at her.
“You? Did I hurt you?”
“Bruised but unbroken,” Tilda said, and turned to follow the others. Zeb trotted beside her.
“You’re sure?” he said, his voice now returning to normal after sounding punch-drunk and stupefied. “Miss Matilda, I would never forgive myself if I in any way damaged your breasts.”
Tilda stopped for a moment at the bottom of the dais stairs, and Zeb jogged on past her looking back with a wide, wolfish smile and a wink.
“Told you he likes you,” Heggenauer said as he clanged by as well.
Tilda started after them shaking her head, but her mouth broke into an unbidden smile. Amatesu was beside her as the two mounted the stairs at the back of the line. The echoing bangs from the other door were deafening now, and when everyone was in the hall by which they had entered they closed those doors behind them. There was no way to lock them from this side.
Tilda wanted to ask if anyone had any idea where they were going, but Nesha-tari had already set off down the long, carpeted hallway at a lope and the others had to rush to keep up. They did not slow until they reached the end of the hall that ran the full length of the palace’s wing, and the open doors to the tower through which they had entered, what now felt like days ago. Despite that feeling, Tilda was surprised to see the gray light of Vod’Adia’s early dawn through the open doors across the tower floor.
Nesha-tari waited for the others to gather around her before she stepped out into the tower with her hands spread apart and the blue lightning sparking in her palms, raking the surroundings with her luminous eyes. She spoke in Zantish.