She glanced up at me and started to say something before rethinking it. She turned her attention back to picking her way along the rocky ground.
“What?” I said.
She didn’t answer but squinted into the wind that rushed through the gorge. It had been there the whole time, blowing in our faces, but over the last minute, it had started to pick up in intensity. I blinked my watering eyes and tried to see where it was coming from but all that lay before us was more rocks, more cliffs, and more walking.
“I was jealous,” Seanna said out of nowhere.
“What?” I asked. “Jealous of what?”
She shook her head and worked her jaw like she tried to find the right words but couldn’t get her tongue to form them.
A cliff face rose in front of us as the path we were on took a hard right. Knowing my luck, the gorge would just end with us facing a cliff we’d have to climb up without a rope. Nothing seemed to go right. It always had to be the hard way for me. I had climbed the rock wall at the gym a few times but scaling an actual mountain face was another story. The cliffs that rose on either side didn’t have conveniently placed hand and foot holds to—
We turned another corner. My heart leapt and my stomach flopped as I stared at Alisundi stretched out in front of me. I could see for miles. Past the rocky mountain terrain to the hills and valleys beyond. All the way out to a forest that went on forever.
And then I realized I could see all that because I stood a foot away from a sheer drop off with a bottom so far down I didn’t want to venture a guess just how far down. My breath caught in my chest and a tingle shot up my spine that left my legs feeling like jelly. I scraped a couple steps back.
Seanna spat something that sounded like a curse in her native tongue. “We might have to turn back, find a different spot.”
“Wait.” I reached out to grab her arm. “It’s going to take weeks to get down. Months. You really think I want to spend another freezing night on this mountain, much less dozens of them?”
“No, I—”
“We wasted so much time coming up here!” Anger rose in me. “Now we’re stuck. It’ll take too long to find a way down. Why don’t we just use a travelway.”
“You heard Mother Tree,” she said, pulling her arm from my grip. “Magic is failing. Safe use of the travelways is no longer a guarantee.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into coming up here.”
“I didn’t—”
“Pointless waste of time!” I turned to head back up the gorge.
“Gaige, wait.” Seanna reached out to grab me, but I pulled away. Instead she pointed out over the forest. “Look.”
“What?” I said, reluctant to look out over the wide expanse again.
“Look,” she said again.
I glanced at the sky, keeping my eyes up and away from the thousands of feet drop below us. “I don’t see anything.”
“There.” She stepped closer and stretched out her finger in front of me to show where to look.
At first all I saw was blue sky dotted by occasional lumps of white clouds. Just as I was about to pull away from her, something caught my eye. I blinked and squinted. Sure enough, there were two black dots flying high above the ground.
“The dragon machines,” I breathed.
17
Deus ex Machina
Run! was my first thought. Then Hide! The latter made more sense. There really wasn’t any place for us to run to—just back up the gorge. There were, however, plenty of boulders for us to hide behind. Rock outcroppings to wiggle under. Increasingly more frequent pine trees to huddle under.
“Come on,” I said, pulling on Seanna. “They might not have seen us yet.”
“Wait, Gaige. They’re here for us.”
“I know! We need to hide.”
“No, I mean they’re coming to pick us up.”
Blood rushed to my head. Had she sold me out again? Did she somehow signal to Daresh where we were heading?
“Mother Tree said she’d send help,” she said.
“She did? But those are the dragon machines.”
“No.” She pulled me closer to the edge and pointed out again. “They’re not the machines. Look.”
I did but they were still just tiny dots in the sky. “I don’t have your eyesight.”
“They’re birds,” she said with a grin.
“The Mother Tree sent birds to help us?”
“Wait, you’ll see.” She looked around, taking stock of our surroundings—which could be summed up in three words. Rock. Cliffs. Snow. Then four more—really tall drop off. “We need to find wider land.”
“For what?” I asked. “Doesn’t these tight fits help keep us out of prying eyes?”
“Come on.” It was her turn to tug on me. “There was an opening in the gorge a little ways back. It should do.”
“Do for what?” I glanced back at the two dots in the sky again. They certainly seemed different from the dragon machines. Their movement was much more fluid. Graceful.
We scrambled back up the mountain for five or ten minutes before we came to the opening Seanna mentioned. She turned a circle, assessing it. The clearing was still surrounded by the high cliffs, but the bottom where we stood was relatively flat and free of large boulders. I remembered thinking it would have been a good place to camp for the night and almost said so, but dreading another night on the mountain, had kept quiet in hopes that we would somehow be able to get to a lower elevation where it was warmer.
“This should do,” she said with a nod.
“For what?” I said, an old familiar anger-fed frustration boiling up in me.
She held up a thin hand, tilted her head and stared up at the cliffs overhead. With her eyes fixed, she turned as if tracking something.
I opened my mouth to demand what was going on when two large, dark shapes burst into the sky above us. I squeaked and dove for cover under small evergreen bush.
Something screamed. A high-pitched screech that made me slap my hands over my ears for fear my eardrums would burst.
“Gaige.”
I looked up to find Seanna standing over me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I slowly pulled my hands from my ears. “I’m...”
I glanced around the opening. There weren’t any dragon machines. There were, however, two extremely large birds. And by extremely large, I mean extremely large. Like, the size of a horse kind of large.
“...feeling stupid,” I finished.
I stood, my shirt sleeve catching momentarily on the prickly bush. My eyes were the size of plates as I stared at the birds preening themselves. I really shouldn’t have been surprised by their appearance. This planet had everything. Walking and talking trees. Cows that stood on two feet...hooves...whatever. Lizard-men only found in South Carolina tabloid papers. Power hungry madman with a cheesy villainous moustache. Alien invaders that looked like they belonged in a low-budget 60s sci-fi movie. Still, I watched them like they were a couple of dead frogs that just got up and started singing and dancing.
They were beautiful, though. They had long, sleek bodies that reminded me of a predator back on Earth. Maybe a falcon. Their feathers were brown with a hint of red shimmering in them.
I took a step closer. One of them turned its head. It’s large, black eye flicked over me and it turned away again. Uninterested.
“Gaige?”
“I...” A thought hit me just then. I pulled my eyes away from the birds. “Wait, this is our help?”
Seanna nodded.
“Like...help us get down from here?”
She nodded again.
“Like...flying get down from here?”
She rolled her eyes. “Really, you’re going to get cold feet over this? Aren’t you the guy who jumped from a plane onto a dragon’s wing mid-air?”
“And almost fell to my death?” I nodded vigorously. “Yeah. The only thing that saved Aoife and I was my telekinesis, which I don’t hav
e anymore.”
“Well, this is different,” she said.
“I don’t see how.”
“These creatures are here to help us.” She walked to the nearest and ran a hand over its feathered body.
It looked at her with slightly less indifference than it had me.
“I just...” I struggled to find the words to form an argument. The thought of riding one of those things made my stomach drop to my toes.
Seanna sighed and rolled her eyes again. “You want to get to Delicia, right?”
“I’m still not sure about that, actually.”
“We both agreed it was our best course of action in trying to find Aoife,” she said.
“I know. I know.”
“You saw what lay in front of us.” She waved a hand back toward the end of the gorge. “It’ll take weeks on foot just to pick our way down from here. Mother Tree had the forethought to know we’d be stuck up here so she sent for these creatures to make it quicker.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Plus,” she said over me, “they’ll shave days off our march to Delicia.”
She was right of course. The first time we were on the mountain, we had the luxury of the travelways to get us down in a matter of moments. From there, the walk across Alisundi was a nightmare. From large to leopard-like cats to the Balataur to the endless walking. I wasn’t thrilled to do it all over again.
I regarded the birds again. They bounced on their taloned feet, eager to be off.
“Deus ex Machina,” I muttered.
“What?” Seanna asked.
“I’m on Middle-earth,” I laughed.
“I don’t understand.”
“Nothing, Gandalf,” I said with a shake of my head. “Let’s get off this mountain before I freeze my nuts off.”
I strode confidently toward the birds. Their heads swiveled to glare at me before dismissing me as a non-threatening and going back to preening.
“Right,” I said, looking the birds over. “How do I get on this thing?”
Seanna circled the nearest bird, patting all the right places. Some non-verbal communication must have gone on between the two because it turned an eye to me and leaned low to the ground.
“Try not to pull out any feathers climbing on,” Seanna said. “I don’t think he’d like that.”
I nodded and approached the bird’s side. My momentary surge of gusto evaporated. “What do I hold on to?”
Seanna thought a moment. “I guess wrap your arms around its neck and squeeze its body with your thighs.”
“Wait,” I said. “You guess? You haven’t ridden one of these before?”
“No,” she said and circled around to the other bird.
My mouth went dry. The bird turned its head to look at me in what I imagined was a look of impatience.
“Right.” I reached to run a hand over his body. His feathers were slicker than I imagined. “If I fall to my death, feel free to use me as you next meal.” I shuffled closer, trying to figure out how to climb on without using his feathers. “But don’t dump me off on purpose,” I amended. “Deal?”
I managed to squirm on his lithe body without much use of his feathers. At least none came out in my fist. I scooted forward until my feet hung in front of its wings and I could wrap my arms around his neck.
He stood and I nearly shrieked, thinking he was taking off. But, he was only standing. I took a breath to try to calm my wildly beating heart.
“Ready?” Seanna asked from the other bird.
“No,” I said. “I need a minute to—”
That shriek went ahead and came out as the birds launched themselves into the air, sending my heart somewhere down near my butt. One moment we were in the shadows of the gorge and in the next we burst into light of the sinking sun. The birds whirled and cleared the cliff that had stopped Seanna and me dead in our tracks. They dived so suddenly my heart flew up my torso to my throat—dragging my stomach and other vital organs with it.
The birds leveled out just above the tops of the mountain and ridges that scarred the land below us.
“Stop!” Seanna yelled.
“—Aahh...” I turned to squint at her through the rushing wind. “What?”
“Stop screeching like a banshee!” she said. “It’s disturbing the birds.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t realized I was yelling the whole time. I swallowed my insides back down.
***
Like Seanna had said, it would have taken weeks for us to pick our way down. Flying, we were off the mountain and gliding over the rolling hills that surrounded it before sunset.
Seanna spotted a clearing ringed by trees and guided her bird that direction. Mine followed close behind. The ground came at us faster than I would have liked. Visions of albatross crashing landing popped into my head as the birds maneuvered between the trees. They expanded their wings to their full width at the last moment, though, cutting their speed down in a split second, causing me to jerk forward on his neck.
I fell off the bird more than dismounted and stood on shaky legs when he finally landed. I winced as my stiff legs locked up. I had worked them pretty well while holding onto the bird for just the hour or so I was on it.
Seanna walked to stand beside me and the birds took off in a rush of wind.
“Where are they going?” I asked with a surprisingly hoarse voice.
“To hunt with what little light is left.”
“What do they hunt?” I asked. “Deer?”
“Or the like.” She turned to survey the small clearing. “I thought here would be a good place to camp for the night.”
“I guess.” I slung my pack off my back and retrieved a water bottle from a side pocket. I drank a third of it in an attempt to cool my raw throat.
“You flew like a champ, Ace.” Seanna patted me on the shoulder.
“Ha. Ha.”
“Should we make a fire?” she asked.
Although it wasn’t nearly as cold as it was up in the mountains, the coming night promised a bit of a chill I could feel through my coat. “Depends. Is there anything around here that will eat us? I wouldn’t want to attract their attention.”
“There’s always creatures around willing to eat things that won’t fight back too much,” she replied. “We don’t have to worry too much, though. When the birds come back, there won’t be anything around willing to risk those beaks and talons for a meal.”
Once wood was gathered, I had the fire going before night fell completely thanks to the lighter I had brought. The birds returned shortly after, their sudden appearance giving me another heart attack. They weren’t too keen on the fire, so they nestled down at the far end of the clearing.
Seanna tried to start a conversation with me, but I wasn’t in the mood. I claimed tiredness and curled up on the ground as close to the fire as I dared, using a spare shirt I had brought rolled under my head as a pillow.
In actuality, I really was tired. Exhausted. Two days of hiking around a mountain with no sleep had worn me out. No sooner had I found a comfortable spot, I was fighting off sleep. We were only an hour into full darkness and I was worried if I fell asleep too quick, I’d wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep.
It was hard, though. The sounds all around me lulled me like a lullaby. The crackling of the fire. The sounds of the night bugs waking. They were all at the same time comforting, familiar, and odd. The bug sounds were so like what I’d hear on Earth, but different at the same time. While I could pick out the sounds of the crickets and croaks of the frogs and clicking of the katydids back home, I couldn’t name the bugs I heard. Still, there was a definite familiarity to them.
Within minutes, I lost the battle and sunk into a deep sleep.
18
Dreams
Gaige Porter rocked back and forth on the swing with eyes closed. The motion felt good. Soothing. Familiar. The coolness of the late evening tickled his skin, sending goosebumps up his arms. The breeze rustling through
the trees sang a song to him.
A tingle ran up his spin. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. He dug his feet into the soft sand to stop the swing. He opened his eyes to find something other than Gate City Park. No. It was there, whole and undestroyed but empty of anyone except him.
He breathed a sigh. He loved the park when he had it to himself. It didn’t happen often, but there were great days he’d go down there to find he was the only one there. Those were the times he could leave the world behind to try to find some peace in himself. He never was one to spend much time contemplating life. He usually didn’t like what he found.
He watched a gray car turn the corner, coming into sight. It rolled down the road at a slow pace. Gaige hoped they weren’t coming to the park. It was getting late, but a few teens like to invade the parks once the families went home.
The car rolled past the small, gravel parking lot, though. He kept watching to see if they’d park on the side of the road. The signs were good for Gaige. Even though it was moving slowly, the car didn’t slow down to pull over.
Gaige frowned as it went by. The car was empty. Nobody drove it. He stood to watch it continue down the street. Not only did it not have a driver, the tail end was smashed in and smoking.
Another tingle ran up his spine. It made his stomach clench.
He turned slowly. As he did, the park phased into a blur, transforming from what it was to what it had become. The lush, green grass was now mostly stomped to mud and dotted with large boulders that had broken off the cliff that used to cut through the park. The cliff was gone with the exception of one rise a few feet wide that created a path up to a hole in the sky. It was so black it was visible even with the night sky as a backdrop.
Gaige’s heart lurched to life and hammered in his chest. He stared at the hole in the sky. He knew it, but it felt so strange to him. Wrong. Instead of calling to him, pleading for him to pass through, it revolted him.
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 68