Page 3 of A World Enough

Brogan felt the instant biting cold before she realized the state she found herself in. She was buried deep in a snow bank.

What the hell was going on? First she’s by a pleasant river with green grass and pleasant green trees, now she was up to her tail in snow.

Brogan started to dig frantically, then realized she didn’t know which way was up or down. A memory came to Brogan, her grandpater telling the kids of one time he was caught in an avalanche in the Scottish mountains when visiting family in the Wulver pack.

He’d shared a disgusting, if not a simple and clever trick: Spit and see which way gravity made it land. The method worked beautifully. Brogan dug herself out and rubbed snow on her face to clean it.

She looked up just in time to see the now most infuriating woman she’d ever had the misfortune to meet going through another window between worlds.

Oh no. “There’s no way you are leaving me here to freeze my tail off.”

The chase was on.

Camber landed on the edge of the marketplace on the dry, hot world of Oipra. She ducked behind a shop. She reached into her leather bag, pulled out a shawl, and draped it around herself, making sure to cover her face from the eyes down.

Most Oiprians wore shawls to protect themselves from the dry heat and sand in the air.

Now she could walk into the marketplace unseen. She smiled at the thought of escaping bounty hunters yet again.

Camber’s life was running away from these hunters, and she had managed to evade them, with close calls along the way. Camber was a Map Keeper, the only one born in generations, and the one who held the power to detect the network of portals between worlds, between universes.

There were known portals that were well used, ones whose locations were lost to time, and those that were obscured by the portal guardians to protect young worlds from civilizations at a more advanced state who might abuse them.

That made the Map Keeper one of the most sought after people in the galaxy, and Camber wasn’t about to get caught.

She walked out from behind the mud brick building and joined the people as they moved through the market.

The shawl gave Camber some anonymity, and it helped that the market was bustling with people busily shopping for what they needed. Oipra was largely a desert world, with water in very short supply, but you wouldn’t have known that by the rich colours of the fruits and vegetables, not to mention the decent selections of meat.

Food was farmed, animals raised for food, and water gathered on a continent far from the population centres. This continent was controlled by the Abnobians.

The Abnobians, their overlords, brought rain to that continent and allowed food to be grown, then administered it to be sent around the planet. But at the first sign of troublemaking by the Oiprians, their water and food would be shut off, and so they were enslaved to the Abnobians, who they were conditioned to believe were gods.

Camber walked past two local guards stationed on every corner. She was well practised in passing incognito in any situation. These guards were there to remind the populace to keep to the rules and remember who owned their lives and their families’ lives.

The thought sickened Camber, for Oipra and for all the worlds under the boot of the Abnobian empire. That was why she fought so hard to keep out of their clutches. If they had access to her knowledge and her skills as Map Keeper, there would be so many more planets under their control, suffering the pain that brought.

A shout startled her, and she turned to see the wolf following her. Camber was astonished she had kept up. The wolf must have been following her scent. People were staring at the wolf’s unusual clothes, and it wouldn’t be long until the guards noticed some disruption going on. Camber couldn’t allow that.

She had to find a way of disguising her scent because the only other portal on this world was heavily guarded by the Abnobians.

If she remembered correctly, she knew the perfect place to go.

When the local guards moved to investigate the commotion her pursuer was creating, Camber ducked behind the next building and made her way to the best place she could think of.

Chapter Two

Morrigan and her Tuatha De Danann guide stepped from the portal they’d travelled through, and they walked a few feet till the whirl closed.

Morrigan sighed. “Where do I start now?”

The Tua monk half smiled. “You want to help people now? Haven’t you caused enough chaos for the Earth people in your time?”

Morrigan felt a deep guilt in the pit of her stomach. “I’ve always tried to help the Earth people. This is no fault of the wolf’s. My brother Balor wanted to take over the Earth, and I had to help banish him. Then Brogan got thrown through the portal, and I promised I would try to find her.” Morrigan looked in the distance and said, “I…is that smoke over at the caves?”

The monk looked and said, “I must get to them.”

Morrigan said, “I can get there more quickly.”