Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 by Bill Fawcett Read Free Book Online

said.
    “We don’t have the luxury of time. This is the best way I know to protect us both.”
    What to do? Given how little she knew about life here, going it alone didn’t seem particularly bright. After a moment, she said, “All right. I accept your bargain.”
    It wasn’t until his rigid hold eased that she realized how much he had stiffened. He said only, “Good,” which relieved her. She wasn’t ready for any heart-to-heart talks with the fiancé she had just acquired.
    They rode higher into the mountains, and the fog thinned until they were traveling under a sky brilliant with stars, far more than she saw in the city of Cambridge where she lived. The day’s warmth had fled. When Janelle shivered, Dominick reached to the bags he had slung over the flanks of his biaquine. He folded a sheepskin around her shoulders, with the fleecy side against her skin.
    “Thank you,” she murmured.
    As they rode, Janelle mulled over his words. She couldn’t fathom why she would figure in anyone’s “prophecy.” Her only talents were writing proofs and solving equations. She smiled wryly. Maybe she could subdue the nefarious Maximillian with Bessel functions.
    Up ahead, peaks rose out of the fog, dark against the sky. Then she realized it was a cascade of onion-bulb towers, each topped by a spire. Dominick’s party approached a cliff that stood about ten feet high—no, not a cliff, a great wall that curved away in either direction, topped by crenellations.
    Eerie whistles broke the night’s quiet as the biaquines gathered before the wall, stamping and snorting. A gate swung outward, huge and dark, groaning. Torchlight flickered beyond, where men were cranking giant wheels wound with rope as thick as their burly arms. Past the gate lay courtyards, and past them, a huge building surrounded by smaller structures. The layout resembled a European castle, but the architecture evoked the palaces of Moorish Andalusia that Janelle had visited when her family lived in Spain. Icy moonlight edged it all, turning the spires, domes, and delicate arches into frozen lace.
    As much as the scene enthralled Janelle, it also bewildered her. Who had settled this land? Dominick’s men spoke a dialect of English, but their names sounded Mediterranean, Arabic, or Near Eastern, with English more rarely in the mix. That described their appearance, too. Maybe the Ottoman Empire had spread farther across Europe in this universe. If East and West had blended more, the mix of colonists who settled the New World here could have been different than in her world.
    They rode to a courtyard in front of the palace. An immense horseshoe arch framed the entrance of the building like the keyhole for a giant antique key. Its sides rose in pillars, and at the top, an onion-shaped arch curved out and back around to a point. Mosaics tiled the pillars and glistened like silver in the moonlight.
    As their party dismounted, stable-hands swirled around them. The biaquines were taller than most horses, but Dominick swung off with little effort. He reached up, offering his arms to Janelle. She hesitated, staring at his harsh features, which were blurred by moonlight and the hint of mist in the air. Then she pulled her leg over and slid down. She ached everywhere. He eased her to the ground, his hold solid after the swaying gait of the biaquine.
    The sheepskin had fallen off, and she shivered. Dominick pulled her close, under a jacket he had donned earlier. It was fur lined, not as warm as the skin, but soft and thick against her arms. For just a moment, she gave in to her fatigue and buried her face against his shirt as if that would hide her from his world.
    When she looked up again, Dominick brushed her hair back from her face, and calluses on his palm scraped her cheek. She wondered how he had developed them—and then remembered the swords his men wore.
    “Welcome to my home,” he murmured. Then he bent his head.
    Janelle knew what he intended, but she froze,