Free A World Too Near by Kay Kenyon Page A

could certainly prevail over the Paion technologies—but they were afraid to use weapons of devastation in a universe so susceptible to collapse. So Johanna believed. Thus the fragile Entire was protected from ruinous weaponry, and those who loved fighting could have a nice little war. The war had a side benefit: it gave cover to the great engine that throbbed beneath her feet. The denizens of the Entire—at least those who lived in the Repel— believed the engine created a protective field around Ahnenhoon, hindering if not preventing Paion intrusion. A nice fiction, and a useful one.
    Pai whispered, “He comes.”
    A sled had emerged from a low door in the watch. The engineer, at last. Johanna could identify his huge form even from here. If Morhab found Gao snooping, it could all be laid bare. Laid bare to her lord—and she hadn’t the stomach to imagine it.
    She turned from the overlook. “Let us greet my friend Morhab,” she said, striding past SuMing with Pai rushing to keep up, holding the sunshade and pretending to protest at Johanna’s hasty departure.
    Down the winding stairs Johanna went, sweating with exertion at descending the Tarig-sized stairs and steeling herself for the encounter with Morhab. Here in the depths of the centrum, surrounded by acres of such stone as the Tarig devised, Johanna heard the drumming of the engine. It pulsed in the stone, in the air, in her feet. Pai said she couldn’t often hear the engine, leading Johanna to suspect that she carried the hateful noise inside her head— the thrum, thrum, thrumming, like a dark god moaning in his sleep.
    Her lord was the keeper of the engine. He wanted her to forgive him that, and perhaps she did. It wouldn’t stop her from bringing the engine down. Then she would face Lord Inweer, a thing she dreaded far more than facing this odious Gond. That gave her more courage, and she continued her rush down the stairs to the gathering yard.
    Morhab required a powered sled or litter for his mobility. Legless, he had the body of a bloated snake, like all Gond. His massive head was crowned by two short horns, and ended in a pointed chin trailing a wisp of a beard. Vestigial wings lay slick upon his back, rustling now and then as though stirred by a memory of flight. Had the creature been smaller—Morhab was the size of a steer—she might have borne the sight of him more easily.
    There was, however, the fact that he looked like a demon.
    His drooping red gums, along with the horns and long chin, made the Gond look unnervingly like Satan in his guise of a cloven-footed, horned beast. Well, the Gond didn’t have legs or hooves, so there was that discrepancy, yet the impression was so vivid that she had taken to crossing herself when meeting Morhab.
    There might be a factual basis for this coincidence. Johanna knew that the Gond, like all Entire sentients except the Tarig, were copied from different races in the Rose. Pai and SuMing, as Chalin, were of human form. The Gond must have an analogue race in the Rose. Perhaps the Gond had come as an alien species to visit Earth long ago. People of the Middle Ages might well have given them a bad reception, and the violent encounters could have spawned a legend of evil. Still, all logic aside, Johanna shuddered to meet him.
    “Open the door, SuMing.” Obeying, SuMing pushed on the massive metal barrier that swung easily on its hinges, allowing the three of them to enter the gathering yard. Pai unfurled the sunshade again.
    “By the bright, pick up your feet, Pai,” Johanna snapped. She hastened onto the parade grounds, where she spied Morhab’s sled, still on the other side.
    From her spies, Johanna knew that Morhab would be in the watch today, inspecting improvements made to house a fresh contingent of soldiers— Hirrin by species, with their own billeting needs. Now the engineer’s course took him on a diagonal across the yard toward one of the centrum’s several doors. Morhab must have seen Johanna,