Alarm streaked through me.
I was standing too close.
And I was touching him.
Sean wasn't a tame kind of wolf. I had no business staring into his eyes.
"Where exactly are we going shopping?" he asked quietly. His lips curled slightly.
He knew exactly what he was doing, looking at me like that.
I dropped my hands, stepped back, and smiled. "To Baha-char. Follow me."
I picked up my broom, swiped my backpack off the floor, and went down the hallway. Beast ran ahead of me. Hair-thin cracks glowing with electric blue formed on the shaft, and the broom flowed, shaping itself into a knobby staff. A razor-sharp crescent blade formed at its top with a fist-sized sphere in the middle. I shouldered my backpack, adjusting its weight on my back.
"Let me carry that," Sean said.
"You can't carry it. You're my bodyguard. You might need your hands free."
"It's not a purse. I'm not going to carry it in my hands." He held his hands up. "I'm going to put it on my back."
Judging by his face, it would be easier just to let him have it. He wouldn't settle down until he'd taken it from me.
I passed the bag to him. "Do you have to be difficult about everything?"
"Only about things that matter." He slung the backpack on his shoulder.
"Stay close to me. Please don't wander off. Please don't start fights. If someone assaults you, it's okay to kill them, although if you don't have to use maximum force, I would appreciate it if you didn't. "
The doorway ahead of us swung open. Bright light spilled into the hallway.
"Ready?"
"I was born ready."
I motioned to the door with a sweep of my hand. He stepped through and I followed him into the light.
*** *** ***
The heat enveloped me, the dry relentless heat of a savanna in the middle of the dry season. For a moment I could see nothing except the bright sunlight that filled the space, golden yet somehow with a light lavender tint. Then the large, pale yellow tiles that lined the road in front of me came into focus. A moment later and I saw tall buildings rising on both sides of the street. Built with sand-colored stone and decorated with geometric tiles, they stretched toward the sky, fifteen floors high, each equipped with a collection of terraces, balconies, ledges, and bridges decorated with the same geometric tiles and drowning in greenery. Here and there bright burgundy, gold, and turquoise banners flapped in the breeze between odd vines climbing down the walls. We stood in a deserted alley. A hum came from somewhere ahead.
Sean blinked at the sun and glanced at me. "This is real, right?"
I closed the door to the inn and started down the alley. "Keep up, Mr. Wolf."
The alley narrowed, turned, and opened into the street.
Sean froze.
A busy thoroughfare the size of a six-lane highway stretched into the distance. The terraced buildings rose high on both sides of it, their textured ledges and balconies filled with plants. Stone bridges spanned the street, dangerously high. Merchant stalls sprouted here and there under bright canvas cloth, offering strange fruits in ornate crates, robotic parts, high-grade cybernetics, perfume, paint, caged creatures, weapons, and jewelry. Open doors under glowing signs invited shoppers, and the merchants waved holographic images of their wares at the crowd in the street.
A mass of creatures moved through it all, colorful, varied, and loud. Some were human, some furry, some feathered, others wrapped in cloth or armor. The air vibrated with hundreds of haggling voices and sounds of boots, hooves, and claws scraping the tiles. The breeze brought the aroma of cooked meat, tart and bitter spices, and the multilayered, complex scents of the crowd.
Above it all in the purple sky, a colossal lavender planet rose, ethereal and pale. Huge chunks of it hung motionless, separated from the main mass, as if the planet had been made of clay and someone had shattered its edge with a precise blow of a hammer.
"What is this?" Sean whispered next to me.
"The Node. This is Baha-char. The place to buy things."
He looked shell-shocked. His nostrils flared. He must've been sorting through all the different scents. I'd been coming to the Node since I was five years old. For me it was exciting but familiar. For him, with all the different noises, smells, and creatures, it was probably overwhelming.
"Come on." I stepped into the traffic. He followed me. We turned right and moved with the flow of the crowd. Beast trotted a few steps ahead of us, clearly in charge of the expedition.
To the left a small hooded creature darted through the crowd. A tall woman, skeletally thin and wrapped in hundreds of silvery chains, chased after it, yelling. The creature zigzagged and veered right. The woman tried to follow and collided with a large cloaked creature. He whirled around, his face an odd meld of dinosaur and human, and lunged at her. The woman howled and raked him with long claws. They ripped into each other, rolling on the ground. The crowd parted around them and kept moving, leaving them snarling and growling.