by S T Branton
On some level, I couldn’t afford to worry about what was going on at the temple or how long it would take me to get back. I simply didn’t have the energy or the emotional fortitude to consider any of that, especially not Deacon.
I told myself over and over that he was fine, that they’d thrown him in some shitty jail cell so they could kill me in front of him later. It was still not the best reassurance but way better than the glaring alternative. The farther I drove, the more convinced I became that I was doing the right thing after all. I could either believe in my choices or fall into despair.
My self-distraction techniques worked well enough to carry me to the west coast without going insane, but not well enough to keep me from looking like shit warmed over on Namiko’s doorstep. She’d opened the door, taken one look at me, and said, “Vic, come in before you die out there.” She fed me a meal, gave me a room, and slowly coaxed the whole story out and unraveled the tangled threads of my narrative with the patience of a saint.
At the end of it all, she’d said, “Listen, I think Delano’s beyond our capabilities here, but I’ll see if we can’t dispatch some people to the Midwest to keep the weaker minions out of your way. And I can get you to South Asia. I think.”
“You’re my fucking hero,” I had said to her—before she booked my flights. The plane shuddered yet again, and I managed a strained laugh.
I thought you were not having fun, Marcus said.
“Does it look like I’m having fun?” I shook my head. “It’s merely funny that I’ve spent months fighting a shitload of gods, narrowly escaped by the skin of my damn teeth, and now I’m about to die in the mountains. And it won’t even be my own fault.”
You will be fine, Marcus told me. You have proven that it will take much more than inclement weather and a vehicle of dubious endurance to remove you from the earth.
I chuckled. “I guess that’s true. But wouldn’t it be the ultimate burn on Delano if I survived his beating, only to be killed in a stupid plane crash? He’d be so mad.”
He would indeed be furious. Marcus acknowledged. The price for such a hollow victory, however—
“I know, I know. I’m not hoping for it. I merely hate that guy so much.”
Evidence indicates that the feeling is mutual.
The airplane continued to fight through the storm, and I continued to wish there was a barf bag somewhere nearby. Finally, the ride smoothed out a little and a wave of blinding light washed over us as we burst through the edge of the clouds. The pilots broke into a cheer of thankful relief. They signaled to me and pointed down toward a rocky, snowy landscape that gave way to broad fields before they spoke on their radios and we began our descent.
The narrow airstrip materialized out of what looked like a brown smudge in the field and I held my breath on the approach. It was nothing more than well-packed soil, and it looked slick. The landing gear dropped. The earth rushed up to meet us. I didn’t breathe again until the aircraft touched down and jostled me against my seatbelt one last time.
“Holy shit,” I said out loud. “We made it!”
See? And you are no worse for wear.
“That’s debatable,” I said.
The aircraft taxied to a stop at the end of the strip. I undid my straps, opened the door, and almost fell out onto the side runner.
“Thank you!” I called to the pilots and waved. I had to hand it to those guys. As terrifying as that flight had been, they had pulled it off in the end.
They waved back, grinned, and shouted something in their native tongue. I retrieved the backpack I’d brought from Namiko’s base, hefted it onto my shoulders, and jumped down to blessedly solid ground.
The field sprawled in all directions around me. In summer, it was likely lush and green, perhaps repurposed farmland. At the moment, it lay dormant under a patchy cover of snow, not unlike the land surrounding Delano’s temple. The major differences were the mountains that rose up in the distance everywhere I looked.
Onward! Marcus proclaimed. To the next stage of this new adventure.
“Yeah.” I walked away from the airstrip and adjusted my stride to compensate for the lingering ache in my leg. “Do you know what the craziest thing is?”
What?
I smiled grimly. “I think that was the easy part.”
Chapter Eighteen
I walked until the sun hung low in the sky and saw no signs of life except ruts in the dirt road that headed north from the airstrip. Back at Namiko’s, I had done some research on the general area so was decently prepared for the enormous sense of isolation that weighed down on me as I traveled.
She had inspected the smoking man’s tablet, declared it insufficient for my needs, and gave me a new GPS unit, which I consulted regularly. The tablet was still tucked away in an inside pocket of my coat. I had half a mind to throw it back at him the next time I saw him.
This is a stark but beautiful country, Marcus observed. I myself have little personal experience with mountainous regions.
“You’re in luck,” I said. “Something tells me we’re about to get intimately familiar with this one.”
If nothing else, we’d be stuck there until I managed to finagle a way home, but I pushed those worries aside. There was no sense in freaking out about that when we had only arrived. There was, apparently, business to handle first. I didn’t know what that business was, but past experience had taught me that things tended to reveal themselves along the way. My job was to grin and bear it until that happened.
I continued along the dirt path, confident that at least the blinking indicator on my GPS led me in the right direction. The slope of the road began to climb. Most of me didn’t have a problem with that, but it wasn’t long before my bum leg put in a complaint.
“Damn that sword,” I muttered and gritted my teeth against the dull, persistent pain.
The Gladius Solis is a fearsomely effective weapon. It has served you well many a time.
“Yeah, but it’s not supposed to work against me,” I replied. “That feels like a betrayal.” I was quiet for a minute as I considered this. “I wonder if this is how Kronin felt when he died.”
Worse, perhaps. He knew that everything he had worked to build would be gone in that instant. We are fortunate to have been given another chance.
I crested the top of the hill and looked out toward the craggy horizon. The road wound down until it disappeared from view as it stretched toward the base of the distant mountains. I sighed. “It’s gonna be a long walk.”
My eye caught a cluster of shapes huddled beside the road. A few dim lights flickered around them. “Hey, that looks like a village!” I double-checked my GPS, but the settlement was so small that I wasn’t surprised it didn’t show up on maps. Reinvigorated, I hurried toward the structures which appeared to have been constructed out of not much more than mud and stone.
Incredible. From the miracle of flight to a primitive hovel in the space of an afternoon.
“I’m so glad no one else can hear you right now,” I said. “Don’t talk shit about these guys. They might be our only help.”
I was merely commenting on the condition of their civilization, Marcus replied, slightly huffy. I agree that their knowledge may be indispensable.
I rolled my eyes. “Then don’t make this weird.” I smoothed my hair and straightened my clothes as I approached the boundary of the village. Most of the buildings appeared to be residential, at least to my uneducated eye. There were significantly more of them than I had first assumed, stacked on top of and directly adjacent to each other as they climbed a hillside. Up close, they were colorful, too, although the hues had been washed out by exposure to the elements. Rainbow strings of cloth flags fluttered over the main street.
“Whoa.” I glanced around, wide-eyed. “This is pretty awesome, actually.”
It pales in comparison to the Roman Empire, of course.
I frowned. “Let’s find someone and hope they speak enough English to give us directions.” The
streets were cold and windswept but faces appeared in a few windows as I made my way deeper into the village. A door squeaked open on my left, and an old woman with a sweet, wrinkled face and a scarf tied around her head beckoned me inside. She placed her arm around my shoulders and urged me across the threshold.
“Thank you,” I said, not at all sure that she understood. “Um, could you tell me how to find…” I retrieved the tablet and opened the map to show her. She blinked at the screen. “I’m looking for this mountain.” I pointed at the dot on the map. “I really need to get there.” The old lady turned her eyes to me. They were shiny and black and crinkled at the corners. “If you don’t know, that’s okay!”
She held up a slightly crooked finger, sat me down in one of the two chairs at her table, and hurried through a doorway. I opened my mouth to call after her but she had already gone. When she returned a minute later, she had a younger man with her, his face half obscured by a thick beard. She talked to him in what I thought might be the same language the pilots had spoken and gestured in my direction. I tried to look apologetic.
The man smiled. “Grandmother says you only speak English? She thinks that you are lost.”
“Oh.” I barely stopped myself from saying shit in time. “Well, she’s two for two.”
“I see.” His smile widened. “How may I help you? This is a strange place to be lost in if you will allow me to say so.”
I showed him the tablet. “Well, I need to get to this mountain and I’m not sure which one it is.”
“It is true that there are many mountains in this region,” he said a chuckled. “Let me see.”
He took the device from my hand and studied it for a while with a slight frown. I thought I’d have to show him how to operate the touch screen, but he manipulated it without any problems.
“Ah,” he said at last. “I understand. Unfortunately, this mountain is very far away. You are searching for a different village to the north. A few hundred miles.”
I nodded and tried to conceal my disappointment. “All right. Thanks.”
He handed back the tablet. “I am sorry that you have so far yet to go. Grandmother has taken a liking to you.”
The old woman beamed and showed all her teeth.
“I appreciate the help,” I said. “What’s the quickest way to cover that kind of distance? I’m in a something of a rush.”
He tilted his head to regard me curiously. “You are the only person I have ever met who rushes to the mountains.” A thoughtful expression crossed his face. “But I may be able to help further.” He retreated into the other room and returned wearing a parka. “There is a man in the village who owns a car. Perhaps he can take you the rest of the way.” He said something to his grandmother, then opened the door and motioned for me to follow. “Come with me and we will ask him.”
We went down the street and turned into an alley lined with doors and balconies so close that they almost touched. More flags hung between the railings amid empty clotheslines. The man knocked at the fourth door.
“We may have to try more than once,” he told me. “Sometimes, he has trouble hearing.”
The sound of shuffling footsteps reached our ears and a slot in the door opened. My guide spoke briefly. He pointed to me and I waved.
A second later, the door swung inward to reveal an older gentleman whose black hair had gone mostly grey. He inspected me closely. I showed him the tablet.
“Yes,” he said. “I drive you.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. Both men laughed.
“Yes, yes,” said the driver. “We leave now. Road is empty at night.” He motioned with his hands. “Faster.”
“Okay,” I said. “Awesome!” I turned to the first man. “Thank you so much. And thank your grandmother too.” I checked my pockets. “I wish I had something to give you in exchange.”
“Oh, no.” The man shook his head. “You must not give me anything. Where you are going, you will need all you have.” He smiled again and shook my hand. “Good luck to you, traveler. May you find the blessings you seek.” He patted my shoulder and turned toward the old lady’s house.
“Come, come,” the driver said. He led me around the back of the building to a small, partially fenced lot. A car sat hidden under a thick tarp and I helped him unfasten the ties. It looked like an ancient cab, the yellow paint chipped and faded. The driver produced a key and unlocked my side before he hurried around the front hood to wedge himself behind the steering wheel. The interior smelled vaguely musty.
“Does it still run?” I joked before I realized that he might not know I was kidding.
To my great relief, he laughed. “It runs, yes! It runs.” As a demonstration, he started the old engine, which coughed but rumbled to life. “See? Good car.”
“Great car,” I said.
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
We crept out of the lot at less than five miles an hour and gingerly negotiated the tight corners. But when we finally reached the actual road, he accelerated and the engine roared. The exhaust backfired a couple times. Villagers emerged from their houses and hung out the windows to watch us pass by. Some of them cheered.
“Do they know where we’re going?” I asked.
The driver shrugged. “Probably no,” he answered. “They simply wish you well.”
We rode together in silence for a while as the old vehicle bumped over the unpaved road. Once the cab reached its optimum speed, it chugged along like an old, reliable workhorse. The driver glanced constantly at me in the rearview mirror. He seemed eager to socialize.
“What you are doing here?” he asked and seemed to choose his words carefully. “Vacation?”
I shook my head. “No vacation. I, uh…I heard this was a good place to come if you want to find yourself.”
He grinned. “On top of mountain, find lots of cold, maybe. Snow and big sky. Storms.”
I sat in silence and suppressed the instinctive response that those had better not be all there was. He frowned and his cheerful face darkened abruptly.
“It is dangerous,” he told me. “Out here. There are a lot of bad things.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Bad things, as in bad people? I can handle those.”
“No.” He wagged a finger in warning. “The evil ones, they walk amongst them.”
I sighed. Exactly what I wanted to hear.
In the silence that ensued, I leaned back into the passenger seat and watched this new part of the world roll by. Every so often, the driver would gesture out one side of the car or the other to point out landmarks or try to share some interesting fact. I really wanted to ask him more about the aforementioned evil ones, but he didn’t seem too keen on the subject. His eyes clouded over whenever he so much as started to mention them and I gave up after a while. The guy was doing me a huge favor. It would be stupid to antagonize him before he’d gotten me where I needed to go.
The hours ran into each other as we cruised down that lonely, winding road. The mountains inched closer and closer until I could no longer see the misty outlines of even the lowest peaks. Finally, we chugged our way into a proper little town with big old stones set into the roads.
The same densely packed, brightly colored houses lined the streets. Near the town center, an open-air market attracted decent crowds. I paused with my hand on the door. People walked the streets as I expected but there were all kinds of Forgotten, too. I identified satyrs, Weres, and a gaggle of the stunted golems we’d encountered in D.C. A tall, lean vampire in an elegant coat stood outside a pot maker’s stall and examined the wares.
“What’s going on here?” I mused.
The driver scowled for the first time since we’d left his home village. He spat out an ugly word that had to be a curse and accelerated away as soon as I shut the car door behind me. Lumbering, stone-skinned gargoyles ambled past, their chiseled features set to mild ambivalence. At first, I was tense and ready for imminent confrontation. But these streets were
peaceful if not normal.
“This is weird,” I muttered to Marcus. “Why don’t they act like pricks?”
They appear to lack the natural aggression we have observed thus far, he responded. I must confess, I have never seen it before.
“Maybe they’re under some kind of spell.” I slipped as inconspicuously as possible through the streets and studied my surroundings as unobtrusively as I could. The satyrs there were sober, well-groomed, and unarmed. No one gave me a second glance. I entered the town bazaar and pretended to scan the stalls instead of their patrons. I was sure a fight would erupt at any moment.
Fortunately, that never happened. Humans and Forgotten browsed the handcrafted goods side by side. They made conversation. I felt like I had gone crazy.
“Hey! American girl!” An English-speaking voice cut through all the foreign buzz.
I turned to look at its source and saw a small, wiry man perched on a stool behind his stall. He motioned me over.
“A rare sight in these mountains,” he said and laughed.
I made a vague gesture around the market. “What is all this?” I asked. “These people don’t care about the…” I mimed horns, wings, and fangs.
He smiled. “Elsewhere, perhaps they are monsters, but not here. These have defied their former masters and freed their minds of oppression. They came in search of freedom, and that is what they found. We have simply accepted their presence.”
“Huh.” I took another look around the vicinity. “And it’s working out.”
He shrugged his thin shoulders. “So far. We know they could turn on us at any time. In the beginning, many of us lived in fear. But they never chose anything other than peace. Now, we believe they are no different from us in here.” The shopkeeper tapped the left side of his chest.
I looked into the unwavering serenity of his eyes. “I wonder if this is the way it could be everywhere,” I said quietly.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“New York City.”
He chuckled. “And you do not have stranger citizens than this in New York?” He nodded his head at a small herd of centaurs that trotted down the middle of the road. They moved slowly so as not to pose a danger to the surrounding pedestrians and smiled as they greeted humans and other Forgotten alike. The brands on their bodies had faded to almost nothing.