Wings Over Talera Read online

  wings over talera

  the Talera cycle,

  book two

  ALSO BY CHARLES ALLEN GRAMLICH

  Bitter Steel: Tales and Poems of Epic Fantasy

  Midnight in Rosary: Tales of Vampires and Werewolves in Crimson and Black

  Swords of Talera (The Talera Cycle, Book One)

  Wings Over Talera (The Talera Cycle, Book Two)

  Witch of Talera (The Talera Cycle, Book Three)

  Write with Fire: Thoughts on the Craft of Writing

  Writing in Psychology: A Guidebook (with Elliott Hammer and Y. Du Bois Irvin)

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 2007 by Charles Allen Gramlich

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  To My Father,

  J. V. Gramlich

  And to My Son,

  Joshua Gramlich

  WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

  In 1914, on a sea voyage to Japan, Ruenn Maclang and his brother Bryce stumbled on a gate to another world—a world named Talera. They were following the trail of some of the vessel’s crew—including their cousin Eric Ryall—who had shipped with them but disappeared. The gate exploded, sucking Ruenn and Bryce through it, but separating them. The first book in this trilogy, Swords of Talera, was Ruenn’s story of what happened to him on the other side of that gate.

  Ruenn was cast into the Taleran Sea and rescued by a dwarfish race of humans named the Koro. It wasn’t long, however, before the Koro met the Klar—who were reptiles, pirates, and slavers. Captured by the Klar, Ruenn met a lovely human woman named Rannon Jystral. He found himself attracted to her, but they, too, were separated.

  Ruenn learned the discipline of the sword. He learned how to kill. He fought his way free of slavery and in time gathered a band of warriors around him and ventured to the Klar homeland in search of Rannon, and in hopes of discovering his brother, his cousin, and his shipmates. There, he led a slave revolt and overthrew a nation, but he could not locate any of those he sought from earth. He did find Rannon, and discovered that she was a princess in the distant island kingdom of Nyshphal. But he already loved her, and he told her that. She told him the same.

  At the end of Swords of Talera, Ruenn returned to Earth to see about the rest of his family. Though not revealed in that book, Ruenn found his immediate family—parents and two sisters—dead, for decades had passed on our world during his one year absence on Talera. He enlisted the aid of a distant relative to see that money was provided for his sisters’ descendents, and he gave that relative the manuscript for Swords of Talera.

  But Talera called. Rannon called. And there was the need in him to find Bryce and Eric, still lost somewhere on that violent yet beautiful new world. This book, Wings Over Talera, is the story of what happens when Ruenn goes back.

  INTRODUCTION

  BY ONE WHO HAS MET RUENN MACLANG

  October is a month of cold rains and of autumn leaves piled high and burning. It is a month of corpse-gray fogs that twine in low places, and of shadows that do not flee the rising moon. It was in October that I first met a man known as Ruenn Maclang, and it was amid the early frosts of that month, in another year, when he returned. I was standing at my cabin window, watching pale Luna hanging over the wind-tossed trees, when a dark figure came from the forest. I knew at once who it must be.

  I met him at the door and held out my hand. “Ruenn,” I said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “As it is you, Charles,” he said.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” I told him.

  He looked at me strangely.

  “Or at least I’ve been expecting something odd to happen today.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I too have had that feeling this day.”

  “Come in,” I invited.

  He did so, a tall, lean man, with dark brown hair hanging long. He was dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt. A white scar twisting along the left side of his jaw, coupled with eyes that glittered green, made his face seem cold. Yet, his smile was warm when it came.

  I motioned him to an old recliner and sat on the worn couch facing him. I had thought often of seeing this man again. There were many things I wanted to ask him. At our first meeting he had handed me a book called Swords of Talera. In it, a man bearing the name Ruenn Maclang is transported to an alien world of swords and savage warriors. Separated from his only brother, who has been drawn to the planet with him, Ruenn fights his way across a quarter of that world, finding slavery and escape, finding honor in the bloody heart of war, finding loyal friends and the touch of a beautiful woman.

  But not finding his brother.

  At first, of course, I had taken Swords of Talera to be simply an adventure novel. Then a series of strange mysteries created doubts in my mind. According to what records I could find amid the tattered documents of decades past, Ruenn Maclang had been born in 1888 and had disappeared in 1914 on a sea voyage that he captained to Japan. His brother had been with him. Neither had been seen again—dead or alive. And over two years before this night, the man who claimed now to be Maclang had given me gold coins minted by an empire unknown to Earth’s history.

  It was almost as if they came from another world.

  Yes, there was much I wanted to ask this man. But now, seated across from him in my book-cluttered living room, all questions seemed lost to me. It remained quiet between us, the only sounds the crackling of oak logs in the fireplace and the ticking of the mantel clock. It was he who broke the silence.

  Ruenn rose and walked over to me. He grasped my shoulder with powerful fingers and drew me to my feet. His eyes seemed to read me.

  “There is something you wish,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I want to know the truth,” I blurted.

  His lips quirked, and he nodded. “Very well,” he said, so quietly that I scarcely heard him.

  His hand dropped from my shoulder and he turned to look into the fire. The flames glinted off the sharp planes of his face. Then his back straightened.

  “If it is the truth you want then you shall have it,” he said. “My name is Ruenn Maclang and I have been to a planet called Talera. There is a woman there that I love. Her name is Rannon Jystral. I have made a place for myself in her world, and now I call it my world as well. Is that the truth you wanted, my friend?”

  I said nothing for a moment. I had known what his answer must be, had promised myself not to accept it. What he claimed to be truth was impossible. Yet, with him standing there before me I could not think him a liar.

  “I believe you,” I said.

  He sighed, and I realized that he had hoped for and wanted my belief. Perhaps he had needed it. He went and sat down again, seeming heavy with exhaustion. I asked him why.

  “To cross the distance to Earth takes something out of one,” he said.

  “Then why come?”

  “There are always old acquaintances to renew,” he said. “And, too, I wanted to ask after the money that I left with you on my previous visit.”

  I nodded. “For your sisters’ descendents. They’ve been well taken care of. Grants. And trust funds, of course.”

  “Have there been any questions? Inquiries?”

  “A few. Nothing serious. The trail is well hidden.”

  “Good,” he said. “I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, smiling. “And there is something else as well.”

  He frowned in question.

  I went over to my bookshelf and removed a slim paperback volume
with a rather garish cover. I handed it to him and sat down. He looked at the title and then turned to the first page. He read for a moment before looking up and laughing.

  “So, the record of my first adventure was published,” he said.

  “Yes. It sold well. But tell me. What has happened to you since the night we last met, when you left Earth to return to your new world of Talera?”

  “Much,” he said, leaning forward.

  PROLOGUE

  RUENN BEGINS HIS STORY

  I sat by a small fire, in a clearing within the pine-forested hills of northern Arkansas, waiting for something to happen while I scratched my name idly in the dirt with a stick—Ruenn Maclang. About me, night’s face was dark and cold and lovely. Above me, the stars seemed as clear and brittle as icicle teeth. Looking up at those stars, I could see the familiar constellations of my youth, the big and little dipper, and to the north the pole star.

  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 ducked beneath the lance tip of its master and sliced upward with my blade, nearly severing the man’s arm above the elbow.

  Blood sprayed. A new scream cut through the old ones. The fellow reeled in his saddle and I got hold of his boot with my hands and hurled him from his seat. The hyr-quall struck at me over its shoulder and I hammered its face with the pommel of my blade to make it behave. Then I mounted. I had ridden a hyr-quall before. Once. I hoped that I remembered what I had learned.

  Heril was near me. I saw him axe down a second raider who he had thrown from the saddle. Valyan had taken yet a third hyr-quall for his own and I signaled him to join me. Heril mounted too, and the three of us moved up the street toward the far end of the town where half a dozen of the enemy had begun setting fire to the huts. They seemed more intent on doing damage than on acquiring loot for themselves. This, too, told me that we were dealing with no common marauders.

  There were extra lances beneath my right knee and I drew one out and weighed it in my hand. I knew little of mounted spear work—swords were my strength—but I knew enough not to let better lancers close with me. Our foes dropped their torches as we approached and couched their own lances. Our two groups charged at the same time.

  The hyr-quall does not run as smoothly as a horse or a tasaber. They are more like drums, and now their feet were pounding and pounding. And the dust was rising around us. I saw the glittering heads of spears, heard the rattle of armor and the creak of leather.

  At ten paces from our enemies, I stood in my stirrups and hurled my lance into a dark-clad marauder. The wedge-shaped head of the weapon shattered through the man’s face-plate and exploded into splinters. He went backward, hauling convulsively on the reins, and the lizard that he was riding reared up on its hind legs and fell over into its fellows.

  Chaos followed. One hyr-quall snapped its teeth into the neck of another. Heril went past the pile-up on the left, his Koro axe shearing through enemy bone and mail. Valyan’s mount smashed head on into the imbroglio, but the Nakscherii warrior had already loosed his feet from the stirrups and he somersaulted over the heap to safety. He left his lance buried in an enemy throat.

  We closed on the survivors, our steel hacking. More of my men joined the slaughter, and in a few red moments the battle was over, though it would be long and long before the village would recover completely from its wounds. I left half my crew behind to start that recovery and flew on toward my meeting with a sphere gate. That could not be delayed if I wanted to reach Earth.

  In the end, the battle had not delayed my quest. I’d made it to Earth. Now, tonight, I was going back to Talera. There, I would join the woman I intended to marry, and would begin another quest—to locate my brother Bryce, who had been drawn to Talera with me nearly two years before and who had never been found.

  But I did not want to go back remembering blood. I opened my eyes from my thoughts and in that moment I saw Rannon’s sweet face, Rannon Jystral, the dark-haired Taleran princess who had said she loved me. Her visage seemed to float in the clearing before me and I took it as a sign that the gate was near.

  I waited, and there was no sound.

  Then there was.

  One moment there were the stars and the s
hadowy trees and the quiet. In the next there came a humming, and a gray, whirling vortex opened in the air a few feet from my fire. I stood up, dashed the flames to blackness, and went forward, carrying nothing with me save a present for Rannon.

  I stepped into the swirling air and felt something pluck lightly at my body, at my clothes, at my hair. There was an instant of chill and of twisting in my stomach, an instant of pain. And then I stepped out of the same air onto a flat wheel of stone that lay half buried amid drifts of snow. It was morning in this place, the sun rising blue-white, and the breeze that stroked my body was that of Talera.

  Of home.

  CHAPTER ONE

  COMING HOME

  Where before it had been dark, it now was light, the sharp-edged light of the Taleran dawn. I stepped down from the stone upon which I stood, and behind me a whisper died as a door into void closed. The prickling on my skin was gone as well. I was wholly of this world now, wholly of Talera. I breathed deeply, mouth open to taste the sweetness in the chill morning. The first sound of home that I heard was the wakening cry of the kryshawk, the second, the soft crunch of snow beneath a shifting boot.

  Four figures stood before me, hooded and cloaked against the cold. All were human, though one bore the yellow eyes and green skin of a Llurn, of that people who call themselves Nakscherii. One was bearded; one was tall; one was broad; one was a woman. It was the last that I watched.

  Rannon Jystral came forward across the snow and put herself into my arms. I held her tightly for a moment before kissing her. Valyan Tiersal—the Llurn—joined us, coming up to place a firm hand on my shoulder. I smiled at him as I clasped Rannon’s slender form. The broad figure was Kreeg, once a gladiator, a rahnvin slave of the Klar. He nodded, shaved head bobbing once on a bull neck, but did not speak. His presence said enough.

  The last of the four, with a face heavy and bearded, was a man named Tovaris. It was he who had opened the gate between Earth and Talera. From the stone wheel where I had stood he took up the toir’in-or, the milky jewel that held the power of the sphere gates inside it. He then turned and left the rest of us alone.