Weldon's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

The Gate opened onto a gray shore, and the four of them stepped through before dawn had even touched Silver Millennium. Weldon held the compass level. Its arms pulled toward a ridge of black stone. Sailor Pluto led. Sailor Venus walked at his side, restless. Behind them came Sailor Ceres, who had joined at the Gate without asking anyone's leave. "The Queen wants a second reader she trusts," Ceres had said. "That is me now." She said it plainly and kept walking. They had not gone far when the ground rose up against them. Figures came out of the rocks. They wore stitched hides and carried spears, and their eyes were bright and afraid. Dozens of them. They formed a wall between the arrivals and the ridge. One raised a spear and shouted words Weldon did not know. The meaning was plain enough. Leave, or bleed. Weldon stepped forward with empty hands. "We come in peace," he said. The nearest man spat and leveled his spear. Weldon knew how he looked to them. A witch prince from the sky, trailing armed women. He had no seal here, no Queen's name to lend him weight. "They can't understand me," he said. "And even if they could, why would they believe it?" Venus reached for her wrist. Ceres caught her arm. "Not that," Ceres said. "You draw blood, we lose them for good." She looked at Weldon. "You have witchcraft. Not a weapon. Show them what you cannot do to hurt them." Weldon understood. He knelt in the dirt, spear points a breath from his chest, and cupped his hands. His power gathered there. Not fire, not force. He shaped light. It spun slow between his palms, band over band, a small ring of turning color, warm and harmless. He lifted it above his head. It floated free and hung there, drifting, throwing soft light across the frightened faces. A child pushed past the men and reached for it. No one stopped her. She laughed. The spears lowered, one by one. An old woman came forward, studied Weldon's kneeling shape, and touched his blond hair as if to prove he was real. She spoke to her people. The wall broke apart. They did not embrace the strangers, but they did not kill them either. Pluto watched the ridge beyond the crowd. "The trail runs through their land," she said quietly. "We could not have passed by force." The old woman gestured them toward a path. Ceres fell in beside Weldon. "That worked," she said. "It also told them exactly what you are." Weldon nodded. He had bought their passage with the truth. Now these people knew a witch walked among them, and word would run ahead. Whoever Mercury had become, on whatever world this was, would hear that the sky had opened and a witch prince had come looking.