Мелисса Марр – The Arrivals (страница 9)
The headache had lessened some in the hours since the new Arrival had come through to the Wasteland. Ajani no longer felt like his body was being reorganized inside, and the vomiting had stopped. As long as he didn’t move, the nosebleed would stay away too. Better, however, didn’t mean well. Opening a gate to the other world was somewhere between magic and science. It
Sometimes it seemed that the headaches had grown worse over the years. Other times, Ajani suspected that he’d simply become less tolerant of pain. It didn’t matter, though: great men had always suffered for their causes. He would suffer for his, and in time, the natives would thank him for his sacrifices and those back home would know that he was a true visionary. He might not have discovered the path to a new world in the same fashion as most explorers had, but like the rest of those good men who’d expanded the queen’s empire, he’d made sacrifices. He was shaping an entire
There were no interesting artifacts here, as there had been in Egypt, and he had no desire to gather too many exotic species of animals. He’d collected a few in a private zoo, but jewels and metals were far more useful than lindwurms or cynanthropes. He wasn’t sure how well he could transport creatures either. Moving living beings through time and space was difficult as it was. It was a remarkable victory that he’d accomplished this much.
The distance between worlds seemed so vast when seen from the ground. Wide swaths of darkness, sprinkled with stars, the distance between them so unfathomable—until a man realized that the dark distance was like fabric. With the right tools, the fabric could be bent, fashioned into waves, and then pierced like a needle through folded cloth. A tiny hole—a doorway to another world—could be opened, and vast spaces could be crossed in a moment.
The consequence, unfortunately, was that it left him exhausted and sick. When he’d been in England, a place as removed from the Wasteland as possible, he’d learned that he could open a doorway rather by accident. Egyptology was the fashionable thing. The queen had been expanding her empire, and everyone had grasped whatever heathen artifacts they could. Ajani was no different.
Only a third son, grateful not to be his father’s heir but not interested in pursuing a life of service either, Ajani had been at a loss—until he’d bought a mummified body. With the body came canopic jars, shabti, and a coffin text. The text was scrawled in the margins of a torn page from a book that had been tucked under the jar. While holding the canopic jar, he’d read that text aloud.
I am lord of eternity in the crossing of the sky.
I am not afraid in my limbs,
I shall open the light-land, I shall enter and dwell in it …
Make way for me … I am he who passes by the guards …
I am equipped and effective in opening his portal!
With the speaking of this spell, I am like Re in the eastern sky,
like Osiris in the netherworld. I will go through the circle of
darkness, without the breath stilling within me ever!
And a doorway had opened. The universe folded as the words created a tunnel leading from his rather comfortable sitting room to somewhere he couldn’t see.
If Ajani had known what waited, he might have hesitated, but he’d been well in his cups by then, and despite plenty of practice in the art of drunkenness, he’d failed to observe any of the logical principles he’d typically have employed. Fortunately, it was not the netherworld he found when he stepped through the portal. He’d ended up in the Wasteland, a godforsaken world filled with heathens and monsters, deviants and demons, and no aristocracy at all.
So Ajani had done what any of the queen’s best men would’ve done: he began to work to correct the shortcomings of the Wasteland, to bring its inhabitants the benefit of the superiority of the British Empire, to guide and rule the natives of this primitive world.
Reminding himself that what he did was for the betterment of the world was at least some small consolation today. Yesterday, he’d brought another useful soldier to this world. Today, he would wait for his body to repair the cost of yesterday’s success.
CHAPTER 8
That night, Kitty looked after Chloe as the new woman worked through the fevers that accompanied arrival in the Wasteland. The unexpected benefit of this was that it gave her an excuse to avoid Edgar. He’d stopped outside her tent when he’d finished his shift, but he wouldn’t come inside without invitation, especially when she was tending a new Arrival.
Kitty had done this so often for so many people that it was almost routine. Unfortunately, being used to a thing didn’t make it any less wearying. She sat at the same bedside where Mary had once thrashed in the throes of her arrival fever; she dipped her cloth into the same white basin and watched over another woman who would wake in an unfamiliar world.
The first few days were hard on the body. By midday the next day, Chloe’s worst bout with the fever had passed, but she was still resting. She’d woken only briefly, which was fairly normal. The transition between the world the Arrivals had known and the Wasteland left every one of them exhausted. Now that the worst was past, Melody could watch Chloe for a couple hours. Francis would take over when he finished his shift. Usually Kitty would take the opportunity to catch up on the sleep she’d missed the first day—and the sleep she would miss again tomorrow. By the end of the third day, Kitty would be stuck in her tent waiting for Chloe to wake. It wasn’t a
When he and Kitty had arrived in the Wasteland, they knew nothing about the world around them, nothing about the people or creatures in it, and even less about how they ended up in this place. After twenty-six years, they knew plenty about the world, the people, and the creatures. They shared the knowledge with new Arrivals and helped their transition. It was the
Today, though, Kitty wanted to be somewhere else—not resting, not dealing with Mary’s death or Chloe’s arrival. The group had been living at this campsite for more than a week since the situation with the brethren. What Kitty needed was a break: time away from everyone’s watchful gaze, space away from the horrible anticipation that followed every death.
She changed into something less suited for work, and then after verifying that Edgar was nowhere in sight, she made her way to the gate, where she found Francis twisted into one of his contorted positions that seemed like they should be impossible. He was trying another of his plant-based creams, so his entire visage was tinted blue. Unlike most of them, Francis burned a bright red even with the sun protection the rest of them used. He’d developed it, and it worked well enough for everyone else. He just burned more easily. Kitty couldn’t help but smile at his blue face.
“I need to head into Gallows,” she said.
“Alone?” His gaze flickered over to her only briefly before returning to dutifully watching the expanse of desert.
Kitty sorted through a few of the weapons that were kept at the gate, buying herself time, trying to decide how much she had to admit. There was no way to pretend she wasn’t going to a tavern dressed as she now was. Her skirt was of a lightweight fabric and tied up in the front with a series of ribbons, giving her freedom of movement and exposing a lot of leg from the front. The back of it had no ties, so it brushed almost to the ground, and the degree of detail made abundantly clear that, despite the fabric, this wasn’t a dress for walking in the desert. Sand would collect at the hem, and unless she was careful, plants would snag it until it looked like a rag.
She dropped a few throwing knives into her bag and settled on, “Jack’s already out there, so we’ll catch up before I head into town.”
She wasn’t completely lying. She suspected that her brother would catch up with her; whether or not that would be before or after she reached town, she couldn’t say. It depended on when he found out she’d left.
“If Edgar asks, you know I have to tell him.” Francis didn’t look at her this time. “If Jack comes back without you—”
“You sound like you doubt me.”
“I smoked an awful lot of weed when I was back home, tripped a lot too, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” Francis continued to scan the desert.