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Numair smiled twistedly. “I am informed that passage between the realms has an adverse effect on mortals.” He clung to the door frame.
Silver fire glimmered on the floor, and a large badger appeared. Daine smiled as her mentor waddled over. He looked up at her with black eyes that were bright in his vividly-marked face. “Hullo,” she told him. “So we’ve you to thank for handling those Skinners?”
“You wouldn’t rest until you knew they were dealt with.” Balancing on his hindquarters, the god rose to plant his forepaws on her covers. Her nose filled with his musky, heavy scent.
Gently she scratched him behind the ears. Since she had left her Gallan home, the badger had visited her, teaching her the use of her wild magic, and warning of danger to come. The claw she wore around her neck was his; he could always trace it to find her.
Sarra frowned at Numair. “You are supposed to sit, and stay sat.” She made a tugging gesture at the wall beside the mage. That part of the room began to move; the floor buckled and rose. The wall stretched to meet it, then sagged to create a chair. “Down, Master Salmalín!” ordered Sarra. Meekly, he did as ordered.
Daine’s jaw dropped. “But—Ma, you can’t—you never—”
“Things are different here,” the badger said. “In the Divine Realms, we gods can shape our surroundings to suit ourselves.”
“Sometimes,” added Weiryn.
“Wonderful,” the girl said weakly. She was not sure that she liked to see unliving things move about under their own power. “Tell me—how did we come here? The last thing I remember is the Skinners.”
Weiryn and Sarra traded glances. “You were in danger of your life, against a foe you could not fight,” the god said. “We had meant to bring you only, but this— man—” he glared at the mage— “refused to let go of you. We were forced to bring him as well.”
“I just thank the Goddess that you met the Skinners on one of the great holidays, when we could pull you through to us,” added Daine’s mother. “Otherwise you would have been killed. It fair troubles me that no one we’ve asked has ever heard of those creatures.”
Light bloomed through the curtains on a window that filled one of the walls, growing steadily brighter, then fading. Just as it was nearly gone, another slow flash came. “Oh, dear,” remarked Sarra as Weiryn opened the drapes. “They’re still at it.”
“What’s going on?” Numair asked, lurching to his feet.
“Will you sit?” cried Daine’s mother. “Men! You’re so stubborn!” Numair quickly sat, this time on the bed. Sulkily, the chair that Sarra had made for him sank into the wall.
Daine stared at the view. The ground here dropped away to meet a busy stream. There were no trees between stream and house, although the forest grew thickly on the far side of the water. In the oval of open sky overhead, waves of rippling pea green, orange, yellow, and gray fire shimmered and coursed.
“What is it?” she whispered. Numair took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I feel that it means something bad, but it’s so beautiful . . .”
“It means that Uusoae, the Queen of Chaos, is fighting the Great Gods,” said the badger. That light is her magic and her soldiers, as they attack the barriers between our realm and hers.”
“She has been at it since Midwinter.” Weiryn put an arm around Sarra. “Normally the lights that burn in our sky reflect your mortal wars, but this is far more important.”
“Thanks ever so,” muttered Numair. Daine grinned at him.
Sarra looked at her daughter and said reproachfully, “Speaking of war, I never raised you to be always fighting and killing. That’s not woman’s work.”
“It’s needful, Ma. You taught me a woman has to know how to defend herself.”
“I never!” gasped Sarra, indignant.
“You taught me when you were murdered in your own house,” Daine said quietly.
Sarra turned back into Weiryn’s hold, leaning on his chest, but not before the girl saw tears in her mother’s eyes. A hand patted her ankle; a broad head thrust itself under her elbow. Against her mother’s hurt, she set Numair’s smile and the badger’s approval.
“Sarra, our war in Tortall may seem unimportant to the gods, but not to us,” Numair said. “Daine and I must return to it. They need every fighter, and every mage.”
Daine nodded, and closed her eyes. She felt dizzy. Her bones were aching again.
Sarra glanced over and saw what was wrong. “We’ll talk of that later,” she said crisply. “You both need to drink a posset, then sleep again. It will be a few days before the effects of your passage are over.” She went to the hearth and ladled something from a pot into a pair of cups. One she gave to Numair, the other to Daine. “Drink.”
The liquid in the cup smelled vile, but Daine knew better than to argue. She gulped it down when Numair did, praying that her stomach wouldn’t reject it.
“Back to bed, sir mage,” ordered Sarra.
“Good night, Daine,” Numair said. The badger echoed him.
“G’night,” she murmured, eyes closing already. She sank back among pillows that smelled of sun-dried cotton. “Oh—I forgot. G’night—Da.”
She heard a deep chuckle; a hand smoothed her curls. “I am glad that you are here and safe, little one.”
Daine smiled, and slept.
Waking slowly, she heard familiar voices, and thought she dreamed them.
The speaker was a mage, Harailt of Aili. “—from Fiefs Seabeth and Seajen.” He panted, as if he’d been running. “A Yamani fleet’s been sighted to the west. The bad news is, somehow the Scanrans knew they were coming. They fled overnight.”
“Father Storm’s curses!” That voice was Queen Thayet’s. “How does the enemy get his information? I’d swear on my children’s lives that there’s no way for a spy to report our plans—and yet the enemy continues to stay one step ahead!”
“I’ll ask the mages to start using truthspells and the Sight, and see if we can identify an enemy agent.” Harailt sounded worn out.
“Please do,” replied the queen. “And when we find him—or her—I hope that person is good with his gods.”
Daine opened her eyes. The little room was silent, and bathed in sunlight.
What a strange dream, she thought, and sat up.
There was an even stranger animal on her bed.
At first she thought that someone had played a very bad joke on a young beaver; her visitor had that same dense brown fur. No beaver, though, had ever sported a duck’s bill. The tail was wrong, too. It was the proper shape, but it was covered with hair. As the creature, a little over two feet in length, toddled up the length of her bed, she saw that it had webbed feet. Reaching her belly, it cocked its head first one way, then the other, examining her with eyes deeply set into the skull, near that preposterous bill.
“G’day, Weiryn’s daughter,” the animal greeted her. “Glad to see you awake.”
Daine had stopped breathing—she made herself inhale. “Are you a—a god?”
“We’re all gods here, except for the immortals,” replied her visitor.
She sat up carefully. “Excuse me for asking, but—what are you, exactly?”
“I am Broad Foot, the male god of the duckmoles.”
“Duckmoles? I never heard of them.” His fleshy bill was the same shape as a duck’s, but with comblike ridges inside the bottom half. “May I pick you up?”
He nodded. “Mind the spurs on my hind feet, though. I’ve poison in them.”
She lifted him gently. The fur under her fingers was springy and thick. Examining broad, webbed feet armed with heavy claws, she handled the rear ones—and their venomous spurs—with care. “What on earth do you eat?” she asked, putting him down.
“My people eat shrimp, insects, snails—frogs and small fish if we can get any. I usually eat the same things as my people, though gods are more venturesome. Sarra cooks the best fish stew in the Divine Realms. I spend warm seasons here, just for that.”
“You
come here for Ma’s cooking?”
His eyes twinkled. “That’s right. She sent me to tell you that she has food ready for you, if you care to dress and come out.”
Daine eased out from under the blankets, careful not to dislodge her guest, and saw that she wore a cotton nightgown. “How long have we been here?” she asked Broad Foot.
“Four days. See you in the garden.” Silver fire bloomed; the duckmole vanished.
Four days was too long. What were Kitten, Tkaa, and King Jonathan doing now? Did they know that Numair and Daine weren’t dead? Frowning, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth; all that she needed to do those chores lay on a table.
