31. Aru

Negal and Dagor took turns carrying Jasmine the rest of the way up the mountain, one of them always walking right behind her in case the one holding her stumbled and fell.

When they finally reached the summit, Dagor set Jasmine down near a boulder. She was panting, her face slick with sweat, and her eyes glazed with pain.

Aru pulled out a water canteen and handed it to her. "Take a drink."

Dagor took several energy bars out of his backpack and handed them around.

Jasmine shook her head. "I"m nauseous. I can"t eat anything."

It was probably from the pain, and Aru was angry with himself for not packing any painkillers. The doctor should have thought of it.

Maybe he did?

"Does anyone remember packing a first aid kit?"

"I did," Jasmine said. "It"s in my backpack."

"I"ll get it." Dagor opened the clasps and rummaged inside until he found the kit. "What do you need from here?"

"Advil, and a lot of it."

He found the container and handed it to her.

"Thank you." She shook a bunch of small brown pills into her palm, popped them in her mouth, and washed them down with water from the canteen.

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the boulder, and when she didn"t move, Aru thought that she had fallen asleep.

Should he wake her up?

In the meantime, he could check for a particular signal signature. Pulling the device out of his vest pocket, he turned it on and walked in a circle, pointing it in different directions.

"Anything?" Dagor asked.

Aru shook his head. "I didn"t expect to get a signal, but I was hoping to get lucky."

If the pod still functioned even at minimal life support, he should be able to get a reading within a mile or so of its location. If it was dead, he would get nothing, and that was a very likely possibility.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Jasmine opened her eyes and let out a sigh. "The Advil kicked in. The pain is no longer as overwhelming. It"s more of a dull throb now." She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out the stick she was using for scrying.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the stick began to vibrate, and Jasmine"s hand turned steadily towards the west. Aru followed its direction, his eyes narrowing as he spotted a cluster of structures in the distance.

Even with his enhanced vision, it was too far for him to tell whether what he was seeing was buildings or a collection of large boulders.

Reaching for his binoculars, he lifted them to his eyes and waited for the focus to auto-adjust and the image to become clear.

His heart sank as he realized what he was looking at. It was a small military base, more of an outpost. Still, the tall antennae and satellite dishes indicated that it was an intelligence facility, and getting past their defenses would be a challenge, even for gods.

"What do you see?" Negal asked.

Aru lowered the device. "A military base, and they can see us coming from miles away. We will have to shroud ourselves to get close, but it won"t be easy. Each of us can only maintain the illusion for a short time, and I don"t know if we can do that even while taking turns. We will need to calculate how long it will take us to climb there and how long each of us can keep it up."

Negal nodded. "We should be able to do it." He looked at Jasmine. "Anyway, we need to carry her, and we can move much faster when she"s not slowing us down."

"She is right here." Jasmine glared at him.

"I"m sorry." He offered her an energy bar. "You seem to be feeling better, so you should eat."

"Thank you." She took the bar from him. "Is that a consolation prize?"

Negal chuckled. "No, just nourishment."

Aru shook his head. "We can"t get there today. It"s getting late, and it will be nighttime by the time we climb that slope. I need to call Julian and hear what he recommends. I also need to check with Edgar if he thinks that he can land nearby, in which case we won"t set up camp but return to home base so Jasmine"s foot can be looked at."

The truth was that heading back for the night would be better for Jasmine and make Aru"s meeting with the queen and Clan Mother more private.