The Way Things Seem

by Mackey Chandler

  "Indeed. I have never seen a lens so big, or need of one."

  "If you just cut the curved part of the lens in steps," David illustrated with his hand in the air. "That's what does the work of a lens and you can collapse the shape flat, like a folding drinking cup," he said bringing his flat hands together. "It works just the same but is much lighter and thinner."

  "I've seen such cups. You explain it very well," Uncle said.

  "But I still have no idea what it is for all of that," David admitted.

  "I will show you," Uncle said, and looked grim. "There was a rabbit a ways back, but I let it be because we still have too far to walk. Let us go back and kill it. I have need of it to demonstrate."

  David nodded agreement, but it was to Uncles back walking away by the time he did so.

  The rabbit was easy now that it was a familiar routine. Uncle didn't bleed it as he usually did, nor gut it or cut the head off. He then found a dead tree with a limb the size he wanted near the ground.

  "You cut here," Uncle instructed David, marking it with his knife, "And I shall cut here," he said, moving down and taking the thicker section. He cut a V with strokes from each side and David copied his style. The section was a little heavier than his thumb at the thin end.

  Uncle displayed the same patience here he did in everything. It must have been ten minutes before he had a notch in the hard wood deep enough to suit him and he started another notch from the opposite side.

  When he got tired of shaving the hard wood he asked Uncle if it would be faster to burn the section where it was thinned.

  "You may not have sufficient stamina after doing that to walk the rest of the way to our new camp," Uncle warned. "We can break it off when it is a little thinner. No need to cut it through all the way."

  After another fifteen minutes or so Uncle stopped and put his knife away.

  "Pull it quickly towards the deeper V I made," Uncle instructed and held the base below the cut opposed to David's motion.

  The branch broke with a sharp crack and the few threads of fiber holding it were easily twisted off. David was going to break his smaller end against his knee, but Uncle stopped him.

  "You can injure yourself far too easily. Put it supported on the ground or rocks and snap it with your heel," he insisted.

  When David did so however he surprised David by taking up the thinner long end of the branch he'd assumed was waste and started trimming all the smaller branches and twigs off it. But without explanation.

  The hefty club that they'd created got his attention again. Uncle swung it thoughtfully, then sat again to carefully notch several circles around where he'd grip it for a non-slip finish. Sometimes his methodical patience was irritating.

  Then Uncle returned to the thin end of the branch and skewered the rabbit full length on the end, offering it to David.

  "I am going to stand in close to the disturbance you see. I want you to ease in from the other side after circling at a safe distance. Hold the rabbit out in front of you," Uncle said, illustrating what he meant with hands well away from him. "If it is snatched out of your hands let it go. Don't have such a firm grip on the branch it yanks you along after it."

  "Alright," Davis agreed, not at all sure where this was going on.

  Uncle slid in from the side holding the club but looking away from the disturbance in the air, prepared to swing that direction, not at the wavy lens.

  Uncle looked at his footing to make sure it was clear and nodded at David to proceed with extending the rabbit.

  David did so, watching Uncle. He got an encouraging nod after a few steps.

  The movement when it came was so fast it was a blur, until the large claw clamped on the rabbit and tried to yank it back. Despite what he was told David tried to pry back on the stick, but then Uncle swung the club from behind and knocked the claw and the first joint off an arm as big as his leg. He got a brief impression of pointy barbs in a line along the arm and then it whipped back in the disturbance. After a few second the anomaly in the air disappeared too.

  Uncle looked satisfied with himself.

  "And that's the sort of thing that lives in the shadow world," Uncle informed him. "Now do you see why I don't have anything to do with magicians?"

  David was too horrified to say anything. He kept looking at the claw on the ground as if this hallucination would pass or change in a little while. This was exactly the sort of thing he feared from taking strange herbs.

  "There's some shade over here," Uncle said, taking him by the arm. "Come sit a little while and drink some water. You've taken everything else strange to you so well I had no idea this would shock you so."

  Once he had him seated Uncle broke a stick off a dead bush and made a fire starter stick as he'd done before. He walked back to the claw and ignited the fire stick placing it against the open broken off end of the joint. It caught fire easily and by the time Uncle walked back to him it was burning with a sooty plume of smoke rising. They both sat and watched it burn, even the carapace burned as if it were soaked in kerosene.

  "That's so strange," David said when it was almost burned out. "Nothing normal would burn like that."

  Uncle shrugged. "Nothing normal about it. The shadow world has other rules. I have no desire to venture there. I imagine the things that live there find us as strange as we find them. Magicians can make their own way there, but I have heard tales that some went through the thin places such as we saw and killed the hunter making them. They may have the joy of it. I certainly don't want to confront such a creature in its own home."

  "Nope," David agreed. "That limb was as big as my leg. If the critter has a second claw like a crab or a lobster I sure wouldn't want to deal with it. Not even with my pistol. I wouldn't even know where to shoot it to be effective. That would call for much more than a silly little pistol. Explosives maybe."

  "This is good," Uncle said. "I feared from your reaction you might have been pushed beyond your limits and be unable to cope with it."

  "How would you expect that to . . . look to you?" David wondered.

  "I've seen a few men shocked that deeply," Uncle said, looking unhappy. "They either refused to recall it to mind and went on as if nothing had ever happened, or withdrew from everything in a deep trance. They might come out of it later, or not. That would have been a huge inconvenience out here with you," he said in an understatement. They weren't even in a decent place to camp.

  David thought about that and decided he didn't want to know what Uncle would do with a catatonic David on his hands in the wilderness.

  "The things you showed me before. The fire making and the magnetic lines and new colors all made sense to me from things I already knew," David explained. "This . . . he waved up the gully where there was no disturbance in the air now, only a black smudge on the ground. "This is like something from a horror story, or the things grandmothers use to frighten little children into obedience. It had no basis in anything I didn't regard as superstition."

  "Those grandmothers may have some wisdom," Uncle said, gently.

  "Yeah, how can such a thing be and people not know?" David asked.

  "A few do know. But like your grandmothers are discounted. You could not see the thin spot until you ate the wizard jewel," Uncle reminded him. "If something passes close by and is snatched, as fast as you saw it happened, what would you see? What would you remember?"

  "Very little," David admitted. "A flash of movement and they'd be gone. Even if you are looking the right direction, when it is so unexpected the brain won't make sense of what it does see. I know that a little from my work."

  "And who would believe them?” Uncle asked. "Authorities and experts? Police and priests?”

  "People disappear all the time. If no trace is ever found they assume it is some criminal, or a bear or a shark. People let their pet out and it never comes back to the door. They figure a coyote got it or a hawk. Not some monster from another continuum. If you suggested such a thing they'd think you crazy. I'd
have thought it crazy an hour ago," David said.

  "Crazy is refusing to believe what you really see," Uncle said.

  "I can walk now," David said. "Let's move on to next camp site."

  "We'll have to walk briskly," Uncle warned him. "We used a lot of daylight. If it becomes too hard for you speak up, and we'll find a place for just the night."

  It was hard, but he pushed and found it in himself to keep up. When they stopped Uncle looked at him with a hard expression and turned away without saying anything. At first David thought it was disapproval and he didn't know why. Then he figured out it was just the opposite. Uncle was pleased, but sparing with praise. He slept easily and didn't dream of monsters.

  Chapter 11

  "When I get back home I have a lot of checking to do with real instruments. It will drive me nuts wanting to know what all these colors and lines and fizzy little sparks and things are I'm seeing now," David said.

  "Are you asking to go back?" Uncle asked. "There are a great many other things you can't learn out here. You have not started to read people's faces and tell when they are lying or sick. You're going to have to be around a lot of them and get experience that way. You'll still be learning long after you go back home."

  "Yes, I expect I will," David readily agreed. "But I don't want to miss a lesson like the clawed monster. I would have walked right into that trap.”

  "In fairness, the thin place between the worlds was not obvious," Uncle said. "The creature puts it edge on to those approaching for a reason. There are those with a little sight even without eating the weed. They live with odd sensations they never completely understand. Things seen on the edge of their vision that aren't there when they turn to look. The occasional odd color they can't describe to others. They may speak of odd colors playing across others' faces. Those who see nothing dismiss them as delusional or making up stories. But such a one might sense something odd enough about a place to want to avoid it."

  "Don't deprive me of knowing actual danger," David pleaded.

  "There are other sorts of crossing points. The circle in the air will always be the armored creature as far as I know. Others lay a trap like a pit into which you can step. There may be others I don't know. After all, only the ones that fail will have the story of their nature reported. But when your senses are fully developed the otherness of them will be obvious."

  "What of these magicians?" David demanded.

  "That will seem even easier if you should meet one. The only one I ever saw took one look at me and walked away quickly. You will see people with no skill or power who are broken in personality or sick. When you see such a broken person in touch with the same skills and perception as you, then you'll know you have a magician or something much the same."

  "What if he isn't afraid of me?" David asked.

  "They prey on those weaker than them," Uncle said. "If you continue to develop as you have been, it will be a very bad mistake to disrespect you. Since you leave it to me to decide, I'll keep you here awhile longer before you have to deal with the city."

  * * *

  The next morning Uncle quizzed him closely about how everything appeared to him. He was concerned if the spectral lines and colors were becoming too distracting for David to function in the normal world to which he was physically anchored.

  He must have been satisfied at David's answers, because he gave him another dose of the wizard jewel. David was pleased, because he'd wanted more, but he made sure to answer honestly, certain now Uncle would see deception or even serious doubt.

  Uncle showed him where to get water from the pool a spring made near the camp. They spent the day making their new camp comfortable and didn't talk much. David could fast for a day now without even thinking about it much. That wasn't any special power, just a new level of self discipline and knowledge about his own abilities.

  By sundown things seen faintly were looking firmer. He saw the flux of the Earth's magnetic field more clearly. When he took out his knife and examined it the shape of the flux lines in the complex form of the blade was both clearer and beautiful.

  David concentrated and tried to draw in more of the lines, just as he’d made the little flecks of heat come together to start a fire. It wasn't as easy, but then the natural source of the magnetism was undoubtedly weaker then the ambient heat.

  When he did manage to bundle more field lines through the knife it was leaky. They tended to cluster around it length-wise but not actually inside for some reason. When he tried to turn the knife across the lines it resisted in his hand. When he jerked the knife back and forth across the lines it flashed the color he found closest to purple. David gasped in delight and smiled. He was sure he was seeing induced electrical current. What he wouldn't give right now for a length of wire and a good multi-meter. That was one more thing for when he got back home.

  "Testing?" Uncle asked of his actions, teasing but in a good natured way.

  "Always, but it's nice to have new things to test," David said, grinning.

  "You showed some improvement throwing rocks today," Uncle said. "Perhaps tomorrow you can try to hunt for us. We can start early and if it is still beyond you, we'll have plenty of time to switch and let me bag something for us."

  "OK, I'll give it a try," David agreed. He hadn't been at all sure Uncle was really watching what he did that closely as they walked along. He thought his terminal accuracy was improving, but he was watching closely. He was guiding the stone to hit better, but he still didn't have the natural throwing power Uncle displayed. Merely steering it on target didn't help that.

  * * *

  In the morning things looked different, to the point it scared David a little. He took to heart Uncles warning about losing touch with his own world. He said nothing but waited and found he could walk and do other things just fine, but it would take some time to get used to this intrusive overlay. For sure he was not going to beg for more wizard jewel soon.

  The sun looked subtly different and there was a crescent moon setting to the west. When he looked back toward the east there was a pale shadow of another moon near the horizon. It was smaller than the usual moon and he found it strangely upsetting. When his gaze lingered on it Uncle noticed and smiled. He just gave a nod to acknowledge David was seeing something new.

  As they walked along there were occasional vague shapes in the air. A couple of them moved. The hills around them were mirrored in faint outlines, but not always exactly like their real counterparts.

  When David tried to explain what he saw, Uncle explained.

  "The shadow world by no means mirrors ours. There are places along the coast where our sea and theirs' deviate from the other. There are places to the west where one can see plainly, if one has the vision, that they have great mountains and we have none."

  "When I saw some shapes I was alarmed that it might be a repeat of the thin place with the crab-like creature," David said. "But none were like that."

  "Those aren't so common," Uncle assured him. "I've had many a walk in the wilderness for months and never saw one, even from a distance. Most of the time I suspect they snare a rabbit or a deer and are satisfied and withdraw."

  "Do you mean the creature makes the thin spot?" David asked.

  "I have always assumed so," Uncle admitted, "unless they just happen naturally and the act of reaching through destabilizes them and makes them close. But I have been told that some magicians are able to create such windows into another reality, so I would guess it is a talent of the predator if a magician can do so. Are they even the same shadow world or are there several? I certainly don't intend to learn how to do so myself. I see no use for it that doesn't have bad consequences."

  "But if it takes talent and knowledge for a magician to do that, how would a dumb thing like a big crab be able to do it?" David insisted.

  "How smart is a bee to build a honey comb or a beaver to build a dam?" Uncle asked. "Neither need a drawing and instructions. But for all I know they may be smart. Though I doubt we
'd ever sit and have a conversation."

  David thought about the claw and what it must have been attached to. No, he doubted the creature was snatching him through that hole to have a discourse. It made chills go up his back. His eyes narrowed and he thought about how to deal with such a monster.

  "Now you have an appearance about you unlike any you have ever displayed," Uncle informed him. "I'm not terribly happy to see it. Would you share what turned your thoughts so dark?"

  "It occurred to me that the creature could be dealt with by attaching a hand grenade to the rabbit, so that snatching it pulled the ring off and activated it. When it pulled the bait through it would get what it deserved."

  Uncle gave a little snort of amusement. "I can't fault you for hostility to that."

  "I don't suppose you have any wizard's tales about whether the whole creature can come through if it wants to?" David asked.

  "No, I expect if that has happened it took its prey back with it," Uncle speculated. "From my experience in this world, shelled things don't die quickly or easily. I'd try to give it a hard time, but I'm not sure what would stop it. I suspect rocks may not worry it. I have little in the way of things like a hand grenade, and I don't really want to acquire any."

  "Yes, I bet my silly little pistol wouldn't bother it at all," David decided.

  "Let's go hunt something a bit easier," Uncle suggested. "Are you ready to take a rabbit or two for us? We'll trade roles and I'll flush them out for you."

  "Yes, but let us discuss the signs that they are sick or well as we find them, so I learn what subtle signs to look for," David insisted.

  "Certainly, lead on," Uncle invited.

  * * *

  The difference between a healthy rabbit and a sick rabbit was subtle. When He thought he understood it and said the hue filtering up from the bush indicated a sick one Uncle corrected him and informed him it was simply an old rabbit.

  "Do you have any objection to eating an old rabbit?" David asked.

  "Not at all. Perhaps he will be slow enough for you to hit," Uncle taunted him. David was already irked that he'd missed his first rabbit earlier. His throw went off to the right and he nudged it back on target well enough, but it simply lacked the power to reach out far enough and the rabbit outran it. Right and left was fairly easy. Down was easiest of all since the rock wanted to go that way. Up was much too hard.