The road was paved, kind of, with large slabs of rock ground into the dirt. The horse's shoes made loud sounds against the stones, hopefully scaring away any predators. The noise was soothing, and the rhythm of Red's trot sang a counterpoint to Jack's disturbing thoughts. They kept a steady pace before stopping by a pond at midday. The horses drank, and Daine made lunch, which was a kind of soup in a roll of paper.
"Clever," Jack rasped, trying desperately to distract himself. Daine smiled at him, but her eyebrows drew up in concern at his tone. She was perceptive, Jack thought sourly. Damn her for being perceptive.
"It's a trick the Queen's Riders taught me," she explained, dumping the roll out into boiling water. "Fast and easy to carry. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Jack assured, and it was utterly unconvincing. "Just thirsty."
Lunch was surprisingly palatable, and they got back onto their horses with full bellies, although Jack's control dwindled. As they neared Pirate's Swoop, the scent of ocean grew stronger and the sun began to descend slowly into the sky. They rode through twilight and into darkness, and the moon was rising when they arrived. A small, sleeping town rose in silhouette around a fortress by the cliffs, which overlooked the sea. The gates were open, and as they approached Jack saw a figure on a horse in the shadow of the threshold. He thought of the Guardian he was supposed to substitute, and wondered wryly if this was some kind of sign.
"You know," the figure said in a woman's voice when they approached, "these days it isn't safe to ride at night. Especially when you don't send a message to the place you're going."
Jack fingered his revolver uneasily, unsure of the figure before the gates. He glanced over to gage the responses of his companions. Daine had turned to Numair, and although it was dark Jack could see the glare she was giving him.
"You forgot to tell them?" she scolded. The figure on the horse laughed.
"Lucky for you," the silhouette said, "Jon knows us better than anyone would like. He sent a message for you, and I was in the area, so I came to throttle you." Jack could hear amusement in the voice, but he didn't relax. A show of amusement was just the thing to ease an enemy's mind, and then strike when their guard was down. He'd be damned if he let anything happen to Daine or Numair, Jack thought fiercely.
"Lioness," Numair groaned, utterly unaware of Jack's tension.
"Don't Lioness me, Numair Salmalin," the woman on the horse snapped. Suddenly she was washed in violet light, and Jack blinked, adjusting. It seemed that Numair wasn't the only mage around.
She was pretty, Jack thought, in an unusual sort of way. Her hair was flaming red, and her proportions told him that she would be short, on the ground. At this distance and in the odd light he couldn't see her eyes, but he got the impression that the color was strange.
"Honestly, is a messenger pigeon so hard?" the woman called Lioness scolded. "Your lover's the Wildmage."
Numair looked embarrassed. Daine rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, Alanna," she said sheepishly. "We were distracted."
The Lioness, whose name was apparently Alanna, held up a hand. "And that's all I want to know. Come inside, so we can close the gates. Who's your friend?"
"Cap'n Jack Harkness," Jack said promptly, grinning with all the charm he could muster. This woman was a friend; he could remember Daine and Numair speaking about her. Still, another person was only someone else to put at risk. Jack remained tense, although he smiled and went through the motions of perfect ease. "I take it your name is Alanna?"
"Cheeky," she replied with a grin, looking over her shoulder as they followed her on horseback though the gates. The light she cast was violet, and it made strange shadows play on the walls of the stone archway. "I'm—"
"Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau— called the Lioness, the King's Champion," Numair interrupted. "He won't have known," he explained when the woman gave him a startled look. "And if I let you introduce yourself, you'll just say you're Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau." Alanna scowled and Numair smiled at her teasingly. She flapped a hand at him over her shoulder, dismissing his mocking expression. The mage only grinned more. Clearly, they were old friends, Jack thought uneasily. They emerged on the other side of the gate and halted.
"Lady knight," Jack stated. He was unable to help quirking a smile. His dark thoughts were distracted with the sudden amusement. This place, this Tortall, was wonderful, it really was.
"Got a problem with that?" Alanna challenged, eyes turning from Numair and locking sharply with Jack's.
"Nah," Jack's smile widened. His misery of earlier faded, overshadowed by delight. "I think it's brilliant, actually."
The Lioness grinned fiercely at him. "I'm glad to hear it." She glanced up to the ramparts around the walls, and the open doors through which they had just passed. "Close gates!" she bellowed, voice carrying and echoing into the night.
The great, wooden doors immediately creaked and groaned, and the men standing atop them began to turn great gears, slowly closing them. "Anyway," the Lady Knight added over the noise, beckoning them up a grassy hill, "welcome to Pirate's Swoop."
Three towers stood within the walls, and they rose dramatically in the moonlight. They sat atop the hill, partially set into the cliff side, and Jack was sure that the view during the day would be magnificent. They rode up to the largest of three towers, where there were grooms waiting for their horses. Jack dismounted with the others, and handed Red off to a short, stocky kid, although he couldn't see his face in the darkness. "Take care of him," Jack told the boy gravely. "I've grown rather attached to this one." He patted Red's neck. The horse snuffled at Jack, eyes bright. He looked surprised, if a horse could look surprised.
"Good," Daine smiled at him. The dappled gelding was looking back as the boy led him away, steps reluctant. "I think he's grown attached to you as well. We stole him off a couple of bandits, wandering outside of Stone Hill," she added to Alanna, who sighed.
"Did you really?" the King's Champion asked in a long-suffering voice. "I've been after them. We'll have to send another Rider group, when we get word to Jon." She tilted her head, and the three of them followed her into the tower.
"Have you all had dinner, or did you ride straight through?" Alanna added as she led them through the huge, double-doors of the tower. Torches jammed in sconces high on the walls lit the place, and Jack was rather charmed by the antiquity of it. The light they cast was warm, and there were enough of them to chase most of the shadows from the corners.
"Straight through," Numair said as they walked across what looked like a great entrance hall and headed for a flight of stairs.
"Well, it's not to me to take care of you, but you should know better," Alanna tutted.
She led them up the stairs and to a landing, where they took a left down a hall. "We wanted to make it here by nightfall," Daine explained ruefully. "We set out late, yesterday, and I didn't want to tax the horses. It's a day's ride from Numair's tower," she added to Jack, "if you start early, and don't stop. We started too late, and it got dark, so we camped the night. Then we ran into those killer unicorns." She sighed.
"Killer unicorns?" Alanna asked. She stopped short and turned to look at the three of them, surprise evident on her face. "Don't they live more to the north?"
"Yes," Numair replied. "Did Jon tell you where Daine and I are going?"
"He just said that you were investigating a new Immortal on the Great Road East to the Gallan border." Alanna shrugged, but her eyes slid inquisitively at Jack. He did not let himself shift his weight uncomfortably under her purple-eyed stare.
Numair nodded. "Yes," he said, and gestured for Alanna to keep walking. She hummed and led them down the hall, but at a slower pace, looking back. "We think they might've driven the unicorns out. One of the ones Daine killed had some pretty particular scars." Numair glanced at Jack.
"Particular scars?" Alanna halted again, this time outside a pair of rooms. "How particular?"
"Puncture wounds," Jack put in slowly, still a little unsure of her. Daine and Numair clearly trusted this woman, and she was allowing them to spend the night here. Daine was giving him an encouraging look and Numair was nodding, so Jack continued hesitantly. "Four primary canines, eight secondary ones. I don't think that this new Immortal is an Immortal – I think it's something called a weevil."
"A weevil?" Alanna demanded. "I take it you don't mean those bugs that eat crops."
"No," Jack replied flatly. "I don't. Which one's mine?" He gestured at the rooms. It was rude and he knew it, but suddenly he was tired, and he still wasn't entirely comfortable.
"The one on the left. You haven't told me what a weevil is." Alanna had arched one eyebrow, and Jack reacted instinctively- he wanted to end the conversation right here.
"You can trust her, Jack," Daine said, laying a hand on his arm. Jack startled a little at the contact and looked down at her, all earnest blue eyes and curly hair. She really did mean well, did Veralidaine Sarrasri. He sighed.
"I'm a traveler," Jack said without emotion, still looking at Daine. "I've seen a lot of things. I lived in a place very far from here for a while. The sewers were crawling with weevils – it was part of my job to catch them."
Alanna regarded him for a moment and then nodded, accepting his explanation. "I think we'll talk more about this in the morning. I'll have someone send dinner up. Good night." She walked down the hall.
"You should be more polite, Jack," Numair scolded gently. "Alanna's a friend."
Guilt shivered down Jack's spine. "I think I'm just tired," he said with a strained smile. It was a lie, but it was a believable one. Daine and Numair looked concerned, and it cut him. Nodding to them, he went into the room dubbed his for the night.
It was reasonably large and tastefully furnished. There was a door to one side that he imagined connected to Daine and Numair's room. That was surprisingly considerate, he thought tiredly. Jack went to sit on the bed. It was comfortable, and he was alone so he let his shoulders slump and put his head in his hands. The more he talked about weevils, the more he remembered Torchwood, and the more it hurt.
He wanted to run. He had his coat – he could just run, leave Daine and Numair and their kindness, and the sharp-eyed King's Champion behind. He'd be safe from developing attachments to people, safe from the heartbreak when they eventually died. Jack could strike out on his own, like he had before, take care of the weevils and the Guardian and then split, with ten limitless favors from powerful gods. He could have anything, and the faster he ran, the easier it was to forget.
"I'm assuming," he told the ceiling suddenly as a thought sprang to mind, "that I can't wish for the dead to come back to life."
"You assume correctly," a soft voice responded, almost immediately. "Had you come from this world, we would be able to do as you wish; however, the dead of your world are out of my jurisdiction."
Well then. That was unexpected. Jack blinked and looked around, but he could see no one. It didn't sound like the badger; He heard this voice with his ears, not his mind, and it was not as gruff.
"To whom am I speaking?" Jack asked politely,. The room was quite empty.
"I am the Black God, the God of the Dead." There was a man in a dark cowl standing in front of Jack where there had not been one a moment before. Jack jerked back in surprise, and then forced himself to relax. This god could not hurt him.
"So I'm out of your jurisdiction as well," Jack said dryly, not missing a beat.
"I do not know what you are, Jack Harkness," the Black God said. "I have never, in all my years, seen anything like you. I do not believe that I can even—" he reached forward, as if to touch Jack's cheek. His hand extended, pale fingers reaching out of a black cloak, and he was close enough that he should have been able to lay his palm flat on Jack's face. Jack did not lean back, but the god's hand did not touch him. It was as though the space between them had increased without changing at all, like Tantalus grasping for a fruit just out of reach.
"I see," Jack murmured, watching the hand that came toward but never reached. The Black God sighed and pulled away.
"I am sorry, Jack Harkness. I cannot make you mortal, either. I don't think that you could even follow me into my realms."
"What about Owen Harper?" Jack asked.
The god huffed a little and his voice, as it emerged from the cowl, was amused. "Quite the spirit, Owen Harper. When you refused Gainel, the dream god came to me, to see if there was anyone to speak in his place. I looked for your Ianto, but I could not find him. The dead of your world are hidden from me: I would imagine that my daughter, the Graveyard Hag, would have better luck. Harper, however, is not dead, and he is not alive; he is the stuff of dreams, and thus Gainel's jurisdiction. He agreed to come with me, if I could give him rest."
"That sounds like Owen," Jack replied fondly. "Making a deal with the god of death."
"Yes," the Dark God chuckled. "He was quite sharp with me, you know. No mortal soul has spoken to me that way for thousands of years – they are generally too afraid. Then again, I have never met a human that I could not touch." There was a smile in his voice, although he face was hidden by the cowl. "These are quite the times, Captain Jack Harkness." He started to fade away.
"Death in this world seems very kind," Jack whispered. "It is not so kind, where I come from."
"I am the end of suffering," the god said, and all amusement had faded. His voice was firm and powerful, a simple statement of fact. "And the end of happiness. There is no kindness and no cruelty. I am simply the end. My realms are much as the realms of mortals – they are what the individual makes of them." He vanished.
"Darkness," Jack whispered sadly to the empty space where the god had gone, "silence. Death is nothing, and nowhere where I'm from. They go to the place where I can't follow."