Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [2]
Seeing those brilliant and familiar points reminded me of my father, Kendall, who had taught me the constellations, and of late evenings in the California vineyards of my mother’s family where the first star was a joy. But that was youth. There are other heavens that are important to me now. They hold no stars. I waited in this clearing tonight, not to watch the skies of Earth but to be drawn back to a new land under those other skies, the skies of a world called Talera.
I had arrived on Earth sixty days before this night. I had taken care of a need that had to be met. Now I would return the same way I had come. For there was a gate in this clearing. It could not be seen in the blanket of fallen leaves or the thin topsoil. It could not be heard in the late autumn stillness of a chilled night. It could not even be opened from where I sat. But it could be opened—it would be opened—on Talera. And when it was, I would be drawn through it to the place where—with my parents and sisters dead—I called home.
I closed my eyes to better picture that home. There was one image, one face that I most wanted to see. But it did not come at first. Instead, I saw the bright flash of steel and heard the sharp twang of releasing arrows. There had been a battle fought two months before this night, on the very day that I had left Talera for Earth. These scenes had been a part of it.
With my friends—Heril Rolvfshern, Valyan Tiersal, and others—I had been flying slowly north within the borders of the island kingdom of Nyshphal, the home of Rannon Jystral, the woman I loved. Above our open airship rode the winter sun of Talera, and to the north lay the gate that would take me to Earth. And then there had been smoke on the horizon.
That smoke rose from a burning village called Rakii, which lies on the Sahtern River in a wild land where sheep* are the only livelihood of a poor people. I had ordered our airship down to investigate, and we surprised dark raiders at their work. They were mounted upon hyr-qualls, saddle lizards that somewhat resemble an iguana of monstrous size, and they were dressed as outlaws. This they were not. Their steel was too good, their armor too well matched. I did not know what they were, though I was to eventually find out.
[*I used the term “sheep” for the animals that I saw in Rakii because they were clearly descended from Earth ancestors brought to Talera by the Asadhie race that created this artificial world. Many other Earth species can be found on Talera as well: horses, hawks, cattle of various kinds, deer, pigs, and elephants. Among Earth plants transported to Talera are oak and apple trees, rice, wheat, grapes, and onions.—Ruenn Maclang.]
Despite their formidable appearance, however, the raiders had not been prepared for much resistance to their attack. And they had received little where the villagers were concerned. This changed abruptly when our ship flew down low over their heads and two dozen trained warriors dropped in on them from the sky.
Our pilot brought the ship to man-height and I was first over the side rail, landing lightly on my feet with a naked sword drawn in one fist and a crossbow locked and loaded in the other. The raiders gaped, smoke and heat rippling in the air above them, and I bow-shot the first one who recovered himself, the quarrel catching him high in the throat and blowing him back over his saddle.
Sheep milled in the dirt street. People ran. Our enemies lowered their lances and came against us. I heard the screams of the villagers for a moment, then nothing to distract me as my mind centered on the task at hand.
There were men around me now. My men from the ship. Other crossbows released. Other enemy saddles were emptied. A red-bearded raider shouted at his fellows to kill us, and by that I knew him for a leader. I charged him even as he moved toward me, his mount snarling and showing its teeth. A hyr-quall is trained to attack anything that is not on its back. To distract this one, I hurled the unloaded crossbow into its face. It shied, and I