The Warslayer(24)

By then the water had boiled. Belegir took a brightly painted tin box from another of the ubiquitous baskets and shook some of the contents into the boiling water, then extinguished the flame beneath the pot with another snap of his fingers. When the liquid had turned peat-dark, he poured it out into a pair of wooden mugs and added several lumps of something dark and gritty-looking to both. When she sipped, Glory realized the lumps had been some kind of sugar; the tea itself was bitter, an unfamiliar mix of herbs. She only hoped that none of them had embarrassing side effects, but she'd always had the constitution of a horse. Besides, last night's dinner hadn't killed her.

John Carter of Mars never has to worry about things like this. But then, he's got the writer on his side. And you don't. Not here.

Soon enough the sun began moving visibly westward. As Belegir began to repack their supplies, Glory finally remembered her makeup. A quick check of her mirror in her bag convinced her of the need for repair. Her eyes were ringed with shadowy grey smudges where the kohl and mascara had run, and her freckles showed plainly through the pancake. She sighed, and pulled out her stuff. She might not look like a cover-model, but she could at least look like Vixen.

After all, if Belegir believed in the Slayer, then maybe the Warmother did too. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?

By the time she was done with her repairs, the supplies were all bundled back together. She held the packhorse while Belegir built the pack into place, lashing it down firmly. As before, she tucked Gordon onto the top. The little stuffed elephant looked absurdly surreal, and once again Glory felt a pang of angry guilt. She was a Phys Ed teacher who still slept with stuffed animals—what right did she have holding out even the most tenuous sort of hope to these people? She didn't have any experience dealing with something that could whip through a village like turbocharged Black Death and peel a full-grown pony stallion like a banana. She wasn't a hero. She wasn't even a cop. She wasn't anybody!

Maybe this Oracle of Belegir's would see that, and send her home before she could get anyone into any trouble by believing she could help. At least she wouldn't have to choose, and wonder forever if she were being a coward or just a realist.

And if it says you should stay?

She shook her head. If the Oracle thought she should stay, then it wasn't much of an Oracle, that was all.

They rode away from the village. As the day wore on, she could feel a prickling on her neck and shoulders—and on her bare upper thighs and exposed and cantilevered chest—that promised a ripe sunburn tomorrow, and wished she'd thought to get out her T-shirt when they'd stopped—it would cover some of her at least. Belegir was more than usually pink as well, though his mage-robes covered all of him except his hands and feet. Soon he'd be as brown as the rest of the Allimir.

And you should have asked for a tube of sun cream before you went off on this wild goose chase. Sun cream, and a big hat, and a dozen other things these people probably didn't have. This wasn't weekend camping or a Cable TV game of Let's Pretend. It was real, no matter how much she might keep forgetting that. There was no referee to whom she could appeal for a Time Out when she didn't like the way the play was going.

And she wasn't her character. Why did she keep coming back to that, as though she were arguing against some unseen audience? God knew Vixen's was a tempting lifestyle—nobody gave you a lot of lip when you had a large sword and a bad temper and a host of spear-carriers to clean up after you—but it just wouldn't play in real life. The rules were different for heroes, and maybe that explained why there weren't any heroes anymore, except in popular fiction.

But it was tempting. Was that her problem? That she was tempted by the chance to be Vixen in something that passed for reality, translating every passing mood and pang of wayward conscience into backflips and sword-blows? Only she was smart enough to know it wouldn't work—and still wished it could.

But not enough to get real people hurt. Fun's fun until people start dying. She flashed back to the mass graves she'd seen at Mechanayas, and shuddered. Dead, all dead, and Belegir said that no one else would come to save them. The inarticulate anger she'd felt before woke again into sullen life. It wasn't fair, by God—the Allimir had played by all the rules of fairy tales, and by those rules they should have gotten a proper hero to sort out their mess, not a pack of apologetic refusals.

Still brooding, she rode after Belegir.

They reached Duirondel in the late afternoon. The light was golden, but the trees were casting long shadows back the way they'd come and there was already a hint of evening chill in the air. She squinted up at the sun. If they were going to reach their destination before night fell, it'd better be no more than two hours away at the outside. Reflexively, Glory touched one of the "rowan" stakes sheathed on the outsides of her thigh-high black leather boots. They were cast resin—more durable than wood and able to be lit up nicely for the money shots—and sharp, but she'd hate to try to defend herself with one. Come to that, being in a situation where she had to defend herself at all from anything other than bad press was really low on her list of fun ways to spend an afternoon.