Mountains of Dreams

by Bevill, C. L.

  “Old magicks,” he said in English. My mouth opened and closed. Somehow this individual knew what the firefly pixies had said. “Do you think that gods were around forever? Don’t you think that perhaps new ones are created, as well?”

  “Is he saying he’s a god?” Lulu whispered out of the side of her mouth.

  “I’m not sure what he’s saying,” I whispered back.

  “Gods of technology, for example,” Bansi went on. “Do you think that when the new technology began in the form of electricity and telephone lights and computer devices, that they did not have their own gods? Technology, you see, is borne of magic, just as everything in this universe. Did you ever wonder if there was a Big Bang? Consequently, did you ever wonder what was there before the Big Bang, because surely there couldn’t have been nothing?”

  “Are you a god?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  Bansi laughed again, a belly laugh that rocked his torso. Apparently I was very funny today. So was Lulu. I was waiting for Spring to have a go at being a comedian.

  “Once the Earth had its own natural magicks,” he said after a minute. “Once, the Earth was magic. The wind that blew the trees. The water that lapped the shore. The plants that grew from the ground and reached for the bright golden sun. All magic, and then man appeared. Man was never happy with what he’d had. Man made more and more. Man took more and more.” He suddenly snapped his fingers and immediately returned his hand to the ground. “Then the Earth took it back.”

  “You’re talking about the change?”

  “A sea of dreams that rolled over the world,” he said, and his chilly little smile was back. He jerked his head back toward the mountains in the distance. “The seas came and next, the mountains will drift, taking it all back, and only the very special will remain to see what will happen next.”

  “Mountains of dreams,” I said with a glance at the snow-capped Rockies. “They’ll drift.”

  “Just as they always have, taking back what once was theirs. Their giant stone feet are slow but implacable.”

  Lulu muttered, “We should go. He makes me nervous, Sophie.”

  Bansi transferred his gaze to Lulu again. “Blue eyes, the color of the skies. Do you not see the magic in that? Humans made a bargain with the sky gods to have that color of eyes, and the skies are no longer as blue as they once were.”

  “I didn’t—” Lulu started, and I interrupted, “Don’t say something you’ll regret later, Lulu.”

  Lulu’s mouth shut. She shot me a quick glance and then shook her head. “Whatever,” she finally said, and for a single second, she sounded like the old Lulu, the one who wanted a boyfriend, and whatever she did to get the best man around, was all fair in the bigger game of life.

  Bansi grinned at us both. “Just keep my words in mind, Sophie of the lighted fairies. Yes, I see their mark on you. It means more than you think, and you’ll need to think about much in the days to come.”

  There was a rumbling sound coming from the east. I couldn’t look away from the one who called himself Bansi. He grinned at me as he sat on the ground, his palms still flat on the earth.

  “What the flip is that?” Lulu growled. She turned her head and looked to the east. “It sounds like thunder. If that’s a storm we better haul butt for the nearest house because…”

  Bansi continued that strange grin. Finally he said, “Your ride, anointed one.” Slowly one hand came up and pointed to the east.

  The thunder increased in volume and then transformed into another noise that I couldn’t put a name to. Yes, I had heard it before, but it had been months ago, and yes, I hadn’t ever been expecting to hear it again.

  It was the way of the world now.

  I looked. “Holy God,” I said.

  A train slowly approached from the east, using the same train tracks that skirted the town of Sunshine.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Lulu rubbed at her eyes with her free hand.

  Spring sang, “Large metal monster!”

  “Not a monster,” I sang back. “Just another manmade construction.”

  Then I remembered Bansi.

  I looked back, and he was gone.

  Chapter 7

  Rules Were Meant To Be Broken…

  “What do we do?” Lulu asked numbly, staring at the train moving ever closer to us. It wasn’t like the train was intentionally aimed at us. We happened to be at the spot where the tracks passed. The train couldn’t have grown feet and chased us down if we suddenly broke into a run.

  “Looks like a monster to the sisters!” Spring shrieked in my ear. I grimaced. The firefly pixies pulled out their silver toothpicks and screamed their fury at the colossal interloper, fiercely pointing their weapons in its direction. They had seen large pieces of equipment that humans had built and used before the change. They had been inert lumps of decomposing metal, ready to fade back into the earth and about as threatening as a bulge of dirt. They simply hadn’t seen one moving before. Or one that put out black smoke like it was huffing and puffing darkness from primordial lungs. It sounded like breathing with its chug-chug-chug. In addition, smoke shot out from the sides of the engine like some insane dragon’s breath.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I muttered. “That…guy is gone.”

  Lulu looked back where Bansi had been sitting. Her thunderstruck gaze returned to the approaching train, picking the greater of two evils. “I’m freaking out,” she said. “This is like a reverse Twilight Zone. I’m freaking out because something normal is happening.”

  I kept the broadsword in my hand. “What say we go meet the conductor?”

  “We haven’t seen anyone for weeks except the whackjob with the Native American riddle slash philosophy lesson, and you want to stroll up to the train? How does a train work anyway now? What is it, a magic train? I can hear the engine running, for God’s sake. There’s not a Big Mama pushing it, right?” Lulu took a deep breath. She waved her free hand in front of her face as if it was hot.

  It wasn’t a long train. There was the engine, a tender, five passenger cars, and a couple of hoppers behind it. It was running. It didn’t look like an Amtrak train. In fact, it looked like something out of an old Western. There was a shining brass headlight in front of the stack that wasn’t lit. The stack was a tower of black authority emitting massive clouds of dark smoke. The driving wheels moved under the effort of pistons at the sides, making that distinctive noise. The arrow-shaped grill in front gleamed brightly in the sun, making it clear that the brass had recently been buffed. The glittering numbers on the front of the mighty machine read 457.

  “Oh my God, it’s a steam train,” I said. “It doesn’t use electricity. They’ve adapted it somehow, and they’re using the existing railways to run it.” I smiled to myself. “I don’t care there are psychopaths on the train. That’s way cool.”

  Lulu panted. “She says it’s cool. What if they don’t stop for us? What if they’re bad guys? What if they try to do something to us?”

  I slashed my sword instead of answering.

  We quickly walked toward the train station and mounted the platform.

  The firefly pixies decided discretion was the greater part of valor and flew to the roof of the station, scaring off some mourning doves in the process. They mounted their tiny defense, ready to do battle if the thing wasn’t what I said it was.

  I wasn’t sure if I should try to wave the train down or gleefully let it go. The train tracks followed U.S. Highway 34 for a ways back to the west and then ran off somewhere to the southwest around Fort Morgan. I hadn’t been paying attention, and my Rand McNally didn’t say doodly about train tracks. They probably went down to Denver.

  So we stood there like great big dummies, staring as if we had never seen a train before. I think if a pink polka-dotted giant stork had flown up and asked directions to Albuquerque, I wouldn’t have been more surprised.

  As it approached us, I could see the train’s driver looking at me with apparent astonishment. Based
on the gray hair, I was guessing he was a man in his fifties, but I couldn’t tell until he got closer. The train wasn’t going that fast anyway, so when the squealing brakes sounded, the train rumbled to a stop. It wasn’t quite lined up on the platform, but it was close. The engine didn’t stop running, but another man climbed out of the second car, yelling, “Craigo! Why didn’t you go to the turnabout because we’re almost out of—” then he saw us and stopped. “Oh.”

  The train driver (Is that what the person is supposed to be called?) clambered out of the engine, plopped down on the landing, and stared at us.

  Lulu and I still had weapons in hand. We weren’t threatening or anything but simply prepared. Despite the noise of the engine, I could hear Spring and the firefly pixies keening.

  The other man, a man in his thirties and possibly Hispanic, whistled loudly while staring at us. “Would you look at that?”

  I wasn’t getting anything out of my extra senses. I wish I would at the moment. That sick feeling I had earlier had left the moment I’d entered the town. It had transformed into a heightened sense of alarm. It hadn’t lessened when we encountered the mysterious Bansi either.

  “I call dibs on the one with the sword,” the train driver (whose name I guessed adroitly was Craig) said.

  “Touch me, and you’ll lose your arm,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t be the first man she did that to,” Lulu commented, “although I wouldn’t have stopped at the arm.”

  “A blonde and a brunette,” said the second man. “The brunette’s got the mark on her cheek.” He looked around curiously. “Where are the little fairy bugs?”

  Realization came swiftly. These two men knew about us. They probably knew about us in the same way that a lot of people knew things.

  The second man said, “My name is Stephen. That’s Craig. He doesn’t mean what he said. He was just joking.”

  “Not if she’s interested in older men,” Craig smiled and then leered.

  “I wasn’t joking about the cutting off of an arm,” I said.

  “Well, okay then,” Craig said with a shrug. “You all want to get aboard, or are you staying in rural Bumford?”

  “I must be a little slow,” I said to Lulu.

  “They know who we are,” Lulu said. She was a slower than I was.

  “Yes, yes,” Stephen said. “All the way from California. We haven’t got a train line that goes over the Rockies yet, but we’re working on it. You wouldn’t believe the problems we’re having with the trains.”

  I cast the steam train a quick disbelieving glance. “I can imagine.”

  “They don’t trust us,” Craig announced. The brass and blue-glassed googles on his forehead slipped a little, and he adjusted them before they popped off. He was wearing a t-shirt that said “If there’s a zombie chasing us, I’m tripping you.” He sighed loudly and said, “I shouldn’t have said that one thing. I haven’t seen such a cute girl in a month, and by the way, you’re young enough to be my daughter. I have one who’s—” his words trailed off, and he added, “had one who was nineteen. Went to Arizona State University. Not much left of it now. They say there’s a big volcano on top of the greater Phoenix area. A volcano complete with critters who like to live in the lava. Supposedly they swim in it like it was water.” That made me wonder if the critters were related to the Big Mamas who liked to eat things that were on fire and sometimes lava, too.

  Stephen waved at Craig impatiently. “We’re turning the train around in about a mile and going back across Colorado and then Nebraska, over to Omaha, where we have to switch trains. There’s another route that goes toward Chicago. Then we have to take a boat across Lake Michigan. Followed by another train that will take us all the way to D.C. That’s where you’re headed, right?” He smiled brightly.

  “How would you have known about us?” Lulu twirled the KA-BAR in her hand. She flipped it once, and the handle came back neatly down into her palm. She’d been practicing that move for about two weeks. It looked pretty good. The first time she’d stabbed herself in her forearm. Yes, it was very intimidating to stab yourself in the arm.

  “Hanley told us,” Craig said. He tapped the side of his head. “Told us about all the others he talked to, too. There was something about you, however.” His green eyes rested on me. There wasn’t a leer or any sign of avarice in his frank gaze, just simple interest. I would have liked to know what he was thinking. It had been hard enough trusting the people in the Redwoods Group and despite their cool steampunk train, I wasn’t a sheep.

  “It’s not like he called you on his cell,” Lulu said scoffingly.

  “One of the guys in the back has a way of talking to people he’s met,” Stephen explained. He looked at us curiously. “Come on. You haven’t noticed that all the people left have a little something-something?”

  Lulu frowned.

  “So you mean the Hanley who has a full-sized poodle with him?” I asked. Oh, I was testing him all right.

  Stephen grimaced. “I don’t know what it is, but it ain’t a poodle. Looks more like a dragon. The only one of those I’ve seen. But Landers said you had little glow-in-the-dark bugs with you.” He looked around.

  “They like to stab people in the eyes,” I lied. “Who’s Landers?”

  “We’re not bad people,” Stephen said quickly. “Our job is to get the railroads going. We beg, borrow, and steal old steam engines and get them running. This one is our third. Good thing it had been rehabbed for a movie not too long ago. But the biggest problem isn’t the steam engines, is it, Craigo?”

  Craig moved his shoulders. “The problem is getting the other trains off the tracks. They weigh tons, you know. I don’t know how much they really weigh, and the scales these days, well, they’re so not working. And you can’t just tip them over. You have to push them down to a side track and then get them on it. We tried horses and cattle to pull the trains. You have to do one by one, and some of the freight trains are over a mile long with their cars. Then there was this big thing that was buds with one of the guys from Pennsylvania. Well, it’s kind of a blend between a super goat and what, a dinosaur?”

  “It likes to eat grass and poops big pellets that you can burn in the fire. It doesn’t smell good, but it’s like a really green super fuel. Don’t have to worry about that carbon footprint.” Stephen rubbed his chin. He had a five o’clock shadow. “Listen, I don’t want to rush you, but we need to get water in this goober. We didn’t bring enough water with us, and there isn’t enough coal around to run this thing forever. We had to raid every big town from Chicago to Omaha. We got lucky in Omaha, but the Prez is gonna have to get people mining for coal if we want these lines to keep working regularly.”

  “There’s a river about two hundred feet that way,” I said. I pointed. “Fairly good-sized flow. Not sure how you’re going to get it into the train.”

  Stephen brightened. “We can do river water. We have hoses in the back of one of the cars. Is this as close as it gets to the river?”

  I shrugged.

  Finally Spring and the girls decided to come closer since the great metal beast hadn’t made a move. They flowed off the roof and settled on me and Lulu. Spring clutched my hair near my ear and sang, “It won’t attack us?”

  “The humans might, but the train won’t,” I sang back.

  Both Stephen and Craig’s eyes got big. “Oh,” Stephen said with a note of awe. “That’s what Landers was talking about. Can I—?”

  The sword came up. “They’re not pets,” I said.

  “Do we trust them?” Lulu asked me. The KA-BAR was spinning again. Then she said to the firefly pixies on her hair, “Don’t worry, girls. I won’t let the big bad men hurt you.”

  Two cars back a group of people opened windows and leaned out. One woman’s voice yelled, “What’s the hold-up?” She saw my sword and added, “Is it a hold-up? How exciting! What do they want? I have a can of peaches! Not the generic kind!”

  I said to Lulu, “I like peaches.”

&nb
sp; Lulu said, “I like fruit cocktail better.”

  Stephen peeled his eyes away from the firefly pixies and stared at me. Clearly, he realized that he was going to have to convince me. However, it was evident to me that he had already convinced other people. He said, “Um, Landers said you lived in California, although the brunette is from, um, was it Oregon? Something about those giant trees near the coast. The redwoods, right at Muir Woods or something like that. Your leader is a teenager named, uh, Gabe, Gil, something with a G. Hanley came to see you around November. Dates are hard, you know, because most people have lost track. The Prez sent us to pick up representatives as we could and clear the tracks as we can. We can’t go further than Denver because of the mountains. We were headed back to Omaha when Landers said we needed to go back for you two. He said Sunshine, and well, here you are.” His tone implied that we were special cases, and if we hadn’t been, we’d be taking the bicycles. Not that I had made up my mind yet.

  “There are redwoods all over northern California,” Lulu said. “Not just near San Francisco.”

  “When you say the Prez, you mean the President of the United States?” I asked.

  Craig said, “His name is Corbin Maston, lately a junior Representative from the great state of Texas. Last remaining member of Congress and the next in line for the Presidency. He’s trying to get the democracy back together, but as you might realize, it’s a little trying.”

  “We’ve got to get that water before the boiler goes dry,” Stephen said, “so stab us or get helping.”

  “There was another guy around here,” Lulu warned. “He looks like he might be Native American. His name is Bansi. He showed up right before you did. He thinks he’s a god. You might want to watch out for him. He’s not with us.”

  Stephen blinked. “Okay.” He turned back to the train. “Water detail, people! You want to ride on the train, then we have to get water in it! Keep an eye out for unfriendlies!”