Strange Medicine

by Jim Stein

  I managed to not jump out of my skin, but had to wonder how long the sprite had been quietly sitting there. Dwain’s smile said too long, as he blew out a big, foggy breath that mingled with the rising smoke.

  “Exactly!” Mr. C nodded. “A tarantella of the old country to heal and unify.”

  “Tarantella?” Quinn leaned forward, forcing me to drop my arm.

  “The old ways still hold in southern Italy. Long before Roman, Byzantine, and more modern influences, the people relied on holistic cures. Communities came together with music and dance to bring good fortune, raise spirits, and cure illness. If you’ve ever watched an old movie with a band of Gypsies, you’ve probably seen a tarantella. The traditional dances vary in style, built around drums, tambourines, and the people’s outfits.”

  “Like in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ or ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ right?” Piper materialized out of the darkness, drawn in like a moth.

  So much for everyone sleeping.

  “Exactly! The dresses, the steps”—fond memories pulled up the corners of his mouth—“all focused on the spirit. It brought the people together. When a village resonates with wholeness, its life energies mingle and are shared by all. These people are scared and tired. They need such a thing.”

  I squinted across the fire, taking in Mr. Conti’s somber face, the sad smile lingering in his eyes. Surely he was no older than sixty—or maybe seventy? If the latter, he could have spent time in Italy as a boy. Trips overseas became few and far between once the virus took hold. Government officials, the ultra-rich, and corporate moguls monopolized international travel as airlines and shipping fell out of service. Yet he spoke as if from experience—as though he’d been there among the dancers and musicians.

  “Medicine as it was meant to be,” Dwain concluded. “Same as the First People. Kokopelli would approve.”

  Humor replaced the sadness in the old man’s eyes, shifting moods as fast as the old spirit himself. Pina, Koko, and now Mr. Conti—maybe jumping between emotions was something that came with age.

  “Billy will love it.” Quinn’s grin was infectious. “Not being able to help has been killing him. Worst case we’ll go unplugged, but Pioneer’s generator is pretty beefy. The RV can power amps and the mixing board.”

  Quinn and I picked out songs while the others drifted off to bed. Working up a program was fun, even if the magic from earlier was gone. We finished exhausted but content and huddled close with our backs to the glowing embers.

  “We’re an odd pair,” Quinn murmured.

  “Guess so.” I slid my hand into hers.

  We sat in silence, looking out over the water. Though the cool air flowing across the river sent up swirling mist, the sky overhead was clear and dark. It was a new moon, and the stars shone with pure brilliance. Recent events proved there were other realms, but what about other planets? Could there be some green-skinned or hydrogen-based guy out there holding his girlfriend’s tentacle and wondering what it would take to get the hydro-gods off his case so he could enjoy life?

  Her hand turned soft in mine. Little suction cups pulled with the sound of lapping waves. Her cold tentacle slid across my knuckles. It whipped forward again, pink and glistening as it extended from a black muzzle.

  “Max?”

  I tried to pull back through the molasses of the dream, but couldn’t move. The sensation went from cold to stinging as my stupid dog kept licking. I wanted to tell him to stop, to push him away. Something was wrong with how focused he was—and with his eyes. The blocky black muzzle blurred and pulsed as if behind a veil of energy. It was definitely Max, but his once brown eyes glowed gold with vertical slits for pupils.

  “Crap that hurts. Stop it!”

  The impossibly long tongue wrapped around my hand. Searing fire shot up my forearm. I instinctively reached for the Spirit element to push him off, not wanting to hurt him—but there was something wrong with the thought. Max was beyond pain, though I couldn’t recall why. My feet slipped as he pulled me forward with a mighty yank. Or maybe he pulled himself toward me. It was difficult to tell as we struggled in a silent tug of war with his stupid tongue.

  I’d only tried spells in the dream world for practice. Music floated by in tattered wisps, the lyrics and tunes fractured and impossible to grasp, like trying to hum a melody while another blared from the stage. My shoulder was about to pop from its socket. The snout drew closer, grew larger. Max’s fur turned green and sulfur overlaid rancid puppy breath that blew hot and scalding. Nothing I did mattered, and I was sick of it.

  The thought came as a lifeline with the driving beat of Skillet’s “Sick of It.” I slid power down my arm, wedging it under the appendage wrapped around my wrist and forearm. Throbbing energy pushed the slimy thing down, forcing it away.

  With a wet sucking, my hand came free. I should have fallen back, but didn’t. Those golden dinner-plate eyes shone between green snout and upswept horns bracketing a glowing red gem. My breath caught, but somehow I wasn’t surprised.

  “Uktena?”

  Hissing laughter escaped like steam from the dragon’s maw. The horned serpent could appear as snake, dragon, or anything in between. The curtain of energy now shimmered behind his haunches and whipping tail. Massive fore-claws gouged furrows in sodden ground covered with pale, springy moss.

  “Hu-man.” Uktena scraped his tongue across enormous fangs as though trying to clear an unsavory taste. I grinned at the thought of my magic giving the massive spirit a bit of indigestion. “At least you are capable of more than just phantom power here.”

  I’d caught him spying on Koko’s adobe halls when I first practiced my seeking spell. Those sessions simply produced the illusion of magic to improve my focus. An odd sense of pride swelled at the thought I’d just accomplished more. We stood in a copse of oddly straight trees that looked like a cross between palms and evergreens. The bare diamond-cut trunks spread into a feathery green canopy beneath a distinctly purple sky.

  “This isn’t Koko’s domain.” It wasn’t even the desert on the edge of his lands.

  “Phhtt…” The expulsion of disgust was accompanied by hot breath and spittle. “You are in my realm, son of Kokopelli. The domain of hunters and prey, where I am master and all others shudder in fe—”

  Wheeee…Wheew

  The piercing whistle brought him up short. A small figure examined the trunk of the nearest tree as if judging it for a climb.

  “This place is hard to find. You really should put in a few signs.” Dwain gave us a brilliant smile and strutted over. “I nearly didn’t make it.”

  I’d grown used to the sprite’s homespun tunic, pants, and wooden boots. Now he sported a tapered green vest and trousers complete with black utility belt, fingerless web gloves, and high-topped commando boots. All he needed was a pair of aviator sunglasses to be right at home on the cover of Mercenary Weekly.

  “What the heck are you doing here?” What am I?

  “Obviously, the old trickster sent him.” The dragon settled down onto his haunches and leveled a glare that implied I was responsible for Koko’s actions.

  “Hey, I barely talk to the guy anymore,” I said.

  “Nope, Pina sent me.”

  Dwain circled Uktena with the same interest he’d given the tree. An evil little grin twinkled in his green eyes and pulled up the right side of his mouth. The crescent scar along the arc of his smooth cheek crinkled. Given the sprite’s mastery of healing, he must have deliberately left the mark as a badge from the battle his people undertook on my behalf—or he simply thought it made him look rugged. The green snout swiveled, eyes locking on the small man.

  “It’s your party, so what gives?” I asked to distract Uktena. If Dwain decided to go for a climb, I’d be picking what was left of him from between those gleaming teeth.

  “That little female is insufferable,” Uktena grumbled, but the words held no venom—more of a grudging admiration as he stomped around to face me, forcing Dwain to dance out of the
way. I snaked an arm out and pulled the sprite back before he got any more bright ideas. “There is no help for it. Your world is out of balance.”

  “Let me guess. The Goddess of Peaceful Death forbids me to interfere.”

  Nothing rubbed me the wrong way like being told not to do something, especially in the case of powerful beings who refused to take action themselves or police their own. Uktena might be the exception. He’d helped us out on the road, but it didn’t give him the right to keep pushing my buttons. Though what I could do to dissuade a multi-ton reptile remained unclear.

  “Goddess Tia no longer holds sway over my actions. I parted ways with the Neutral Council, but they and others are watching. Some problems are unique to your world; this current issue is not. It grows, infecting all realms.”

  He flicked a talon at the shimmering curtain of energy. The rolling landscape beyond the trees was hidden in shifting fog, but the sky lightened from deep purple to azure blue. As if in response to the horned serpent’s gesture the trees faded to two-dimensional things overlaid with towering cliff walls of natural and stacked stone.

  A flicker of orange shone through the fog, drawing nearer though it remained anchored to the ground. Sand spread from around what resolved into a teepee of cheerily burning logs. A hunched figure peered at us from across the flames. Emerald eyes shone from his right about waist high.

  “Edan?” Pina’s voice was muffled as if from a great distance.

  “These intrusions are intolerable.” Uktena sounded tired.

  The flames flared, Koko stood straighter, and I imagined heat pouring through the shimmering boundary separating us.

  “The problem worsens, and its source remains difficult to locate. But we will find it.” Koko nodded off to our right, which I found odd until I realized he looked past Uktena.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “For crying out loud.”

  A slender, elegant woman with hair drawn up in a severe bun matching her cold beauty stood behind us—behind yet another veil of power, in a world of somber hues and waist-high stones arranged to form tidy avenues stretching into the gloom.

  “No use crying, human,” Tia said.

  “No, I didn’t mean…oh, forget it.” The goddess wouldn’t understand our expressions. “What’s going on?”

  “The third world is tightly coupled to all our realms. After the chosen people rose into your fourth world, the third was washed clean and sealed away. That land remains connected to the fabric of our universe. Now, not just the doors, but the very walls of existence are opening, drawing all our lands into confluence.”

  “Like a kind of reverse big bang.” I waved away my comment at her confused and oh-so-imperious scowl. “Everything’s getting drawn together into one domain.”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Koko drifted away, his fire burning lower. “Overlaps are random and fleeting, but will happen more frequently until the borders of our lands fuse. The process will release significant energy.”

  I hadn’t learned much about physics, but history classes covered the discovery of nuclear bombs, which was the vision his words brought to mind. “You’re talking about an atomic blast. Total annihilation.”

  “You are fundamentally correct, Edan. We will work to contain it, but such power is devastating.”

  Koko and Pina slid off to my left, drifting by like a ship passing through a fog bank. Chilling cold quickly replaced the imagined warmth of his fire. Dwain bowed to Pina as they sailed away. Uktena and Tia glared at each other for a full minute, then her realm too fell away, leaving us under the purple sky.

  “What were the chances of that?” I didn’t expect an answer, but Uktena missed my sarcasm.

  “It happens more and more lately, though having two at once is new. This is why you must act soon.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m heading back to find my parents and get everyone out. In the meantime, why don’t you get off your titanic butt and fix this haywire magic?” My hot words were a mistake and unfair. Uktena had saved our bacon in a big way and gotten pretty beat up in the process. I sighed as his eyes narrowed. “No offense, but you’re huge, powerful, and surely better able to put things right than a guy who’s practiced magic for less than a year. For that matter, Koko or Tia are better equipped to fix this.”

  “I would welcome a battle, but this enemy cannot be met with fang and claw. Kokopelli does what he can to hold the worlds apart, but it is a losing struggle. This third world is fused to our realms. We have no leverage to fully stop what occurs because all converges on your lands. Think of it as pushing against something you stand upon. You may hold yourself at arm’s length, but cannot ultimately stop the movement under your own feet.”

  “But if he finds the source, the thing that’s corrupting Earth magic, what then?”

  Those golden orbs blinked, making me feel tiny and weak. He didn’t do it on purpose. The dragon form could paralyze with fear. If Uktena meant to, I’d be sniveling and wetting myself. Still, his intensity raised the hair on my neck, and my ears thrummed with his silence. Whatever secret he refused to divulge cut deep across the supernatural society. Maybe it was simply the remnants of his strictures from working for the Neutral Council, but I guessed his reluctance to expound held deeper implications.

  “That’s where we come in, isn’t it?” Dwain’s voice squeaked from overhead.

  I hadn’t seen him climb the tree, but the sprite hung by his knees like a chimp. His upside-down grin looked like a frown as he bounced and the branch swayed, sending down a cascade of white fluff.

  “At least, that’s what Pina told me,” Dwain continued, oblivious to my and the dragon’s glares as we batted away the drifting seeds. “We enter through your world—or through the desert spilling out into it—find the magic ring or whatever is causing all the trouble, and turn it off. Zippity-do-dah-done!”

  His frown faded into a smile then flipped back when he let go with his legs and hung by his hands over the twenty-foot drop. At least he’d finally noticed my scowl.

  “Substantially correct.” Uktena surprised me by agreeing. “Although, he has left out several important steps, and complications will undoubtedly arise. But you are here because I sensed something in Milwaukee that should not have been there.”

  “Most of the things we encountered should not have been there.” The band’s first tour had been one hell of a ride.

  “True, but the vibrations I felt were different, belonging neither to your allies nor your enemies. Though distracted, my serpent form registered a certain signature that flared at the destruction of the gateway.”

  Distracted didn’t begin to cover it. Uktena had his butt handed to him. His natural form—a serpent the size of a small fleet of sports cars parked end to end—was more attuned to hunting. Though formidable by any standards, the dragon had better offensive weapons.

  “And you’re just now telling me this?”

  We hadn’t spoken much after the conflict, but if there were other forces afoot he should have made time.

  “I could not put a claw on what I felt. The significance escaped me until recently, when I encountered those vibrations again—here.”

  “What exactly do you mean by ‘here’?”

  Somehow I didn’t think he meant in this dreamscape or his own realm. Uktena had a history of stalking me; it was sort of his thing. The serpent had even linked to my dog with a magical bond when my hiding spell took me off his predatory radar.

  “Your city of New Philadelphia resonates with the same power.”

  Dammit!

  “Does that mean Old Milwaukee is turning into a desert too?”

  It made sense. The Earth elemental there had been one of the most powerful beings I’d met, and Koko thought something was turning Earth magic into a weapon to destroy the veil between worlds. Plus, the Brights and I had also released a few choice spells.

  Fast as thought the landscape shifted. Dwain and I blinked at a beachfront. High dunes cascaded into choppy water as win
d dervishes whipped around a white tent rising from the tall mounds. A platform sat atop the spar extending from the tent—no, the material was ridged, metallic or a white polymer.

  “That’s the Music and Arts Center!” I gaped as Uktena stepped up behind us.

  “Yes.”

  The sand shifted and flowed in an avalanche cascading from the top of the hundred-foot mound covering the majestic building modeled after a ship with white sails. The desert spilled across the streets to flood the ruined section of the city with a ten-foot tide of living sand.

  I’d worried the creatures that escaped us would cause problems, but this was far worse. Lamppost tops poked from the sand covering the parking lot where we’d spent so much time, where I’d unleashed an Earth spell beyond my control. I did this.

  “This isn’t your fault.” Dwain studied my face, with hands on hips. “Your magic is being corrupted and used to power this, but it’s not your doing. Pina says to never forget that.”

  “The vibrations preceding the sands are subtle and easier to detect in serpent form.”

  “Why are you showing us this?” I asked.

  “You needed to know.” The dragon shrugged his massive shoulders, a very human gesture.

  “That more than just my hometown is in danger?” I kicked at the cursed sand, but somehow failed to connect. Was this just a dream vision? “And you still won’t lift a claw to help.”

  “I have explained we are bound from helping.”

  “You’ve told me, but not explained.” A herd of shaggy two-legged creatures carrying spears shuffled around the corner of the sail and headed for the ruined sector. “I thought you were a being of action. I respected that.”

  I gasped as water rushed beneath me and the city dwindled in the distance. A moment later, we again stood on spongy moss. I fought to keep my dinner down and scowled at Dwain’s amused smile. The little folk were used to popping around. I’d seen Pina do her in-two-places-at-once trick without so much as getting dizzy. Mere humans—or half-humans—weren’t equipped to deal with the lurching changes, especially without warning.