by Jim Stein
“Where does he get that stuff?”
Ralph bit off the end and chewed with his mouth open, ignoring Pete’s question and effectively squashing my grand escape plan. A good five minutes later, the shamans wound down, put away the assorted tools of their trade, and laid hands on their charges in a more clinical examination.
“Did you sense any magic?” I asked Quinn.
“Zilch.”
“Me neither. If any of the elements were involved, I should have at least felt it—even with this stupid song stuck in my head.”
The inane music had been whisper-quiet, so I tried to ease an old Ozzie song up from the vaults. My magic roiled just below the surface—ready and willing—but as soon as I brushed it, the damned earworm exploded to full “volume.” I hastily abandoned my attempt, and the tune settled down to a dull background loop, which was so much better than blacking out again.
“They lack healing magic.” Dwain wriggled into the center of our huddle, looking way too fresh for having been dragged over half the third world. “Those rituals are familiar and should work.”
“But nothing’s happening,” Quinn said.
Which wasn’t exactly true, now that I took another look. Both shamans still prayed over their charge, but the patients had curled in on themselves in agony. Although they’d each been cut, the ceremony and exaggerated postures seemed a bit much. The guard who got sliced across the front was hurt worst, but the shallow four-inch cut wasn’t exactly life threatening. Neither were the gashes along the other guard’s left forearm, and yet everyone acted as if the two were on death’s doorstep.
“Enough of this!” Dwain pulled himself up to his full height, slid his hands out of the restraints, and pushed past us to march over to the doorway.
“He could have simply walked away all along?” Vance spoke up for the first time.
I felt his frustration. But then again, where could the sprite go? For now, his destination was all too clear. Dwain marched right up to the litters, ignoring both leaders as he bent to examine one of the injured. A guard moved to pull him away, but our shaman held up a paddled hand to stop him.
“I hope Dwain knows what he’s doing,” Quinn said.
“Pina calls him an expert healer,” I said. “But neither is badly hurt, so this has to be a scam. I’m worried what the big bad shaman will do when Dwain calls their bluff.”
Pain shot through my wrists as our bonds jerked tight and dragged us to the left.
“Hey!” we both protested.
Our assigned guard yanked the tether again, and we fell silent. Our wardens moved closer, having realized Dwain slipped his leash. Now, there was no way we’d sneak away without a fight.
Dwain pushed his first patient flat, but the ant groaned and curled back like a spring to protect his sliced chest. I felt the sprite’s magic rise. Where Pina’s tasted of green grass and flowers, Dwain’s was ocean air and sunshine—clean and pure. He stroked the ant’s bulbous head, running both hands down over its shoulders and sides.
Acting or not, the pain drained from the creature’s face and it relaxed back onto the litter. Magic eased over the wound, cleansing and sealing. Red pulsed in my Sight, but disappeared under his soothing touch—a sure sign infection or poison had indeed settled into the superficial wound. Could Manny have lied about his blade?
Dwain stood as his patient relaxed into sleep, and a collective gasp rose from the guards. Even the shamans looked impressed and fell into animated discussion as Dwain treated their second casualty.
Word spread during Dwain’s ministrations. A small crowd of the creatures we’d passed on the road stood outside the circle, and more shambled and stumbled over the bridge, heading our way.
The day we’d met, Dwain struck me as irresponsible. He’d been quite the trickster and totally without remorse when goofing on his friends. Later, I’d seen him as a leader, a force of inspiration to his people in the face of insurmountable odds. Here, he demonstrated compassion, and my chest swelled with pride, which was ridiculous because it wasn’t like he was my kid or anything—yet there it was. The sprite had done the Ant People and us a great service. He showed them we were not a threat to be feared.
“I bet we’ll be treated differently now.” I turned my best let’s-be-friends smile on the approaching shamans and their flanking guard.
It took no time at all for my prediction to prove true.
***
“You just had to go and jinx it!” Pete kicked up clouds of dust as he stormed to the back of the room—our cell.
The shamans watched as the guard slammed the door shut with an all-too-final clang, but only the new leader gave a self-satisfied smirk in response to Pete’s outburst. Our original shaman looked sad and tired, as if he’d lost an argument about how best to honor us—I wish.
“We’ve done nothing to deserve this!” I grabbed the bars out of reflex and gave them a good shake. Definitely locked. “We aren’t criminals.” Shaman better-than-the-rest spit out a little disgusted laugh and turned to leave. “You’re not fooling anyone. I know you understand us. Hell, we saved your men.”
Good Shaman started at my words as his counterpart spun on me. “You—” the word dripped with scorn—“saved no one. That was the little spirit’s doing.”
I bit back a self-satisfied laugh at having gotten him to speak, and damned if it wasn’t in English—or maybe their magic just let us hear it that way. Quinn, Pete, and Vance pressed close to listen. Dwain had been taken elsewhere, probably to be put on a pedestal and adored. Ralph had gone missing in action. When the guards herded us to the far end of the cliff and our…accommodations, the imp simply vanished. The Ant People didn’t notice or care, which left me wondering if they were even aware of our small friend. If not, that gave us an advantage, although how to capitalize on his freedom was a head scratcher.
“What about him?” I jerked a thumb at Manny, still unconscious and strapped to the stretcher laying along the wall.
“That one is dangerous.” The shaman’s voice was shrill as a cracked wooden flute.
“You haven’t begun to see dangerous.”
His continued smug attitude had me seeing red. I leaned hard against the bars I still gripped. The sheer gall of attacking and then imprisoning innocent passers-by, especially when the stakes for our world were so high and after Dwain helped them…
“Ed?” The warning note in Quinn’s voice had me blinking to clear my vision.
Black veins snaked from beneath my hands, the metal responding to the Earth magic called up by my emotion. I hadn’t cast a spell. The power snuck under the rising crescendo of the tune blocking my music. The shaman stepped back, eyes wide, pulled a pouch from his belt, and sent a reinforcing wave of will to bolster the earworm. I staggered as my element warred with the counter-spell. Rather than black out, I shunted the Earth power into the bare dirt and forced my hands to unclench. The lines of corrosion faded, and the bars returned to normal.
“You see how they repay us, Muki-Dawa?” the more aggressive of the two asked. “With disrespect and treachery.”
“Peace, Maasi-Muuyaw. The boy is clearly over-wrought. How would you behave in his place?”
“I would never find myself in such a position.” Maasi-Muuyaw threw up his hands in disgust. “Your people found them. Treat them as you like. You always do.”
He spun on his heel and stomped off, taking half the guards with him. The shaman that captured us regarded me for a long moment. He grasped a rough-hewn figurine hanging from his belt and made a deft series of symbols in the air with the fingers of his other hand.
“Your friend will wake soon. Give your word that he and yours will bring no harm to my people.” He too reminded me of flute song, but his high-pitched words lilted pure as a concert piccolo.
“We won’t harm you. That was never our intent.” I stopped short of revealing our reasons for entering their world. “Just let us be on our way, and we won’t trouble you at all.”
I scowle
d at the bars, having no clue what we’d done to offend his people in the first place—aside from defend ourselves. Had we strayed into sacred lands, or disturbed some woodland preserve?
“My brother thinks me too soft-hearted.” He cast a glance at the retreating leader. “But Muuyaw’s concerns are not entirely unfounded. You bring machines from another time—another world. We cannot know your true intent. You will be treated well, but must stay here for now.
“Speak with that one, soothe him.” Dawa pointed his mitten-hand at Manny, who rocked beneath his restraints as if fighting back to consciousness. “He is out of balance, even for one of his kind. We will see what tomorrow brings.”
“We don’t have time to waste.” How could I convince this guy to let us go?
“You wish to enlighten us as to your purpose in our lands?”
He cocked his head and made a clicking noise through flat plates that passed for teeth. A crease at each corner swept up from non-existent lips to where cheekbones would be if his face wasn’t so round. The overall impression was indeed of an ant scissoring its mandibles. When my silence stretched, he gave a very human shrug and shuffled away with his guard in tow.
The whole situation felt very good-cop bad-cop, and I had to wonder if we were being played for fools. If Muuyaw had his way, we’d never be released. Dawa seemed more reasonable, but there was no guarantee he’d let us get on with our mission any time soon.
Neither came across as truly evil. Oh, Muuyaw was filled with disdain and a superiority complex, but not the gleeful malevolence those of the dark cultivated. I’d promised not to hurt their people, but breaking free was on the top of my to-do list.
“Let me up!” Manny’s demand snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Ed, a little help here.” Quinn struggled to keep the road manager from flipping face-down into the dirt as he thrashed against his restraints.
I rushed over and steadied the stretcher, but had nothing to cut him free.
“They’re gone. All of them. It’s all gone.” White showed around his wild eyes.
“Take it easy and tell us what’s wrong. We’ve gotta find a way to cut you free.”
I ended up using a jagged rock to saw at his bonds while Quinn told him what had occurred while he was out. Her voice calmed his thrashing, but Manny vibrated like an over-taut guitar string. As soon as the last strap parted, he leapt to his feet and rushed the bars.
He spent his fury on the metal, trying to tear the bars free amidst a steady stream of curses. In the few months we’d known him, Manny had never thrown fits of rage—arrogance and condescension yes, but always controlled. He eventually ran out of steam, sank to the floor, and covered his face with both hands.
“Everything is gone.” Desolation teetered between his ragged breaths.
“What’s gone?” I crouched down by the door.
“Our majestic mountains, the rivers and lakes, the people. My world is gone—annihilated in the blink of an eye.”
“They’re messing with your head. I can’t escape this song blocking my magic. The Ant People must have done something similar to you. It’s a spell to block magic.” It was the only thing I could think of.
“No.” Manny shook his head, which looked to take supreme effort. “Their spell quells the flow of power, wrapping it in cotton. What I saw in my mind was different. The castle crashing into the blue mountains of another world. The terror as thousands of my people realized the end was at hand. The flash of light as both worlds erupted into pure energy.” He grabbed my shirt in both hands and looked me in the eyes. “Ed, I felt them die.”
I’d seen mountains and castles collide in my dream as the forces of light fought to contain the vortex. Two of the pocket worlds collided and were gone in the blink of an eye. Manny must have seen the recognition in my eyes because he sagged back, his head slamming the bars with a sharp crack.
If my dream had been real, if two worlds had been vaporized… I didn’t know what to say. I’d long suspected Manny came from one of the dark lands where beings still plotted to stop Koko and capture his children. But even they didn’t deserve to be wiped from history without warning.
19. Wasting Time
A
NNA WOKE before sunrise to the crack of a rifle. She stumbled over the groggy forms strewn across the living room floor, nearly skewered herself on the stuffed deer head by the back door, and peered through the curtains. The moon had set, but the sand around the farm flashed green in time to the vortex. Two spotlights darted across the ground in stark white ovals. Dark shapes scuttled along the dunes, probably more scorpions or spiders. But larger silhouettes rose in front of the glowing green gateway—a lot of them.
“Piper, Melissa, you need to see this!”
The women were already halfway through the doorway. Pete’s sister held her shotgun in one hand with comfortable ease, a mirror image of Piper and her notebook.
“What ya got?” Melissa asked as another shot rang out from the second floor.
“Looks like a small army.” She tried to count individuals but gave up after twenty because they swayed and mingled, making the task impossible. “Guys upstairs are taking pot shots, but nothing’s going down. Will the threshold keep them out?”
“Good question.” Piper’s pen flew across the paper. “There’s more than one type of creature out there. Those skinny ones move like the shamblers Pete described. I don’t recognize the others. That squad of hulking brutes over to the west are huge, but if the threshold keeps the sands at bay, it ought to offer some protection.”
“My god, that thing’s close.” Melissa pointed up at the vortex that now stretched across most of the landscape.
Anna found it hard to tear her eyes off the incoming hordes. The gaunt feral faces of the ghouls in Milwaukee flashed though her memory. She shivered and pushed the past down deep where it couldn’t hurt her. Beyond the monsters, the leading edge of the frozen tornado stood only a stone’s throw from the back wall of the barn.
“The process is accelerating.” Piper flipped through some sketches she’d made of the vortex since their arrival. “We don’t want to be in the house when it gets swallowed.”
“We can load the vehicles using the inside barn entrance without exposing anyone to those creatures.” Melissa jerked her chin at a group of confused shamblers, which had stopped short a hundred feet from the porch.
“Get everyone ready to evacuate.” Piper squinted into the pale light of approaching dawn. “Let’s hope they stay around back.”
Anna closed her eyes and stoked her Spirit reserves with a simple opening from the A-Chords’ title track. The magic rose like a loyal dog, warm and reassuring. She wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.
“What about the desert?” Anna asked. “Ed couldn’t hold a direction without Ralph’s help.”
“Best we can do is head west and hope to get clear before we run out of gas.” Piper shrugged. “The threshold is holding. Things will work out.”
The window to their left shattered, spraying glass across the floor as a fist sized rock rolled to a stop on the braided carpet. Thuds on the roof and against the siding told them more projectiles were inbound. Something heavy crashed upstairs, followed by muted curses and gunfire.
***
A heavy weight pinned my left arm and pulled me from dreamless sleep. Perhaps Koko and the others were succeeding in their efforts to contain the vortex and reestablish the world veil. I held to that hope. If the Light Court and Neutral Council got the job done, our abysmal progress might not matter.
After Manny had calmed down and fell into fitful slumber, the rest of us stretched out using blankets we found tucked away in a corner cupboard. Although our prison wasn’t furnished, the small conveniences of the blankets, a basin of running water, and a private alcove for personal business made our treatment seem less harsh.
If I’d been inclined to curl up with any of the others it would have been Quinn, but she’d opted to stay near Manny in case he flew
into another rage. A burning ache blossomed in my numb arm. I squinted through the dim light, happy she’d decided to come back over. But the small form shifted with an impressive snort that definitely wasn’t my girlfriend’s.
“Wake up.” I prodded the lump, and it rolled over in a clear attempt to ignore me. “I saw your eyes open, Dwain. Where have you been?”
“Where haven’t I been?” The sprite sat up with a wry grin. “These folks dragged me all over the bloody place. I had to sneak in here just to get some peace and quiet.”
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked as she scooted over to investigate.
“Dwain was just about to tell me how he got in here without causing a fuss.”
“No, I was sleeping.” He looked pointedly at the blue-striped blanket, but I refused to let him off the hook. “Fine! I came in for a nap. These guys are working me to death. You’re lucky to have such cozy digs.”
“You’re helping them?” Pete sounded incredulous.
Everyone was up at this point and gathered around. Manny hung at the back, scowling and leaning against the wall with his chin tucked on his chest. He had the look of someone who’d lost interest in his surroundings, which was better than flying off on another tirade.
“Sure.” Dwain propped himself up against the wall with his legs out straight and clonked his boots together. “They need healing—not just the two guards Manny hurt. There are scads more with recent injuries. Even the most minor cuts get infected.”
“If the Ants have been fighting, they ought to put their own healers to work,” I said.
“Nah, these are more like accidents: twisted ankles, scrapes and cuts, those sorts of things. And I haven’t seen any healers. Their leaders are smart, but not one of them has an ounce of common sense when it comes to treating wounds.”
“Not everyone has healing powers,” I said.
“Forget about magic, though you’re right there’s none that heals. The thought of cleaning a cut or splinting a broken bone are foreign concepts. To be honest, I pretty much drained my energy and was falling back on the old standbys. They’ve got a few of the common herbs too, but again no clue what to do with them. I tried explaining things, but it’s like talking to rocks. They nod politely, then do something stupid like trying to walk off a broken leg.”