by Jim Stein
“Hang on!” Charles leaned low over the handlebars and kicked the engine into high gear.
“Wait—” Her breath caught as the trike leapt forward.
The world became cellophane wings and angry buzzing. Anna ducked behind Charles’s shoulder to protect her face. Pain sliced at her knees and shins. They were through, but not clear. Furry bodies and shimmering wings covered the sides of the trike, her legs, and the saddle bags.
“Ow, they’re biting!” Anna beat the vermin on her knee into paste, and kicked her other leg out trying to dislodge three more that clung to her calf.
They slewed wildly as Charles cursed and plucked off the little devils. Rhonda almost went down, but managed to skid to a stop. Unfortunately, stopping wasn’t a good idea because the swarm came at them again.
Her companions were too preoccupied with biting vermin to bring their weapons to bear, and they hadn’t done much good anyway. Pain sliced at her side. One of the little bastards had crawled up under her shirt and chomped down hard. She smashed it flat against her ribs then fanned her top to get the sticky remains to drop out. Several others abandoned the hard-sided saddlebag and flitted toward her.
“Get away!”
Anna batted at the three creatures. They hissed and lunged, catching her knuckles in the face, which only made them more determined. These little monsters were voracious, tenacious, and pissing…her…off!
A hot flush plunged her into a red haze—Milwaukee all over again. A small part of her tried to stay calm, to control the wild music that rose inside. But the torrent swirled out of control, dredging up Spirit energy. Music and magic fed off each other until the pressure was too much.
Magic burst forth with her scream, blasting the attackers off the trike and throwing them back into the oncoming swarm. The whirlwind she unleashed sucked up the shimmering mass like a vacuum, swirling them into a towering column before sweeping out across the crystal maze they’d come through.
Anna sucked in ragged breaths as the spell moved off. Her actions had been preternaturally clear, yet beyond her control—as if she watched from outside her body. The world returned to normal with a wash of shame and exhaustion. She sagged, but had the presence of mind to tie off the frayed ends of the spell. Residual energy flowed back, replacing a small fraction of what she’d expended.
“That was certainly impressive.” Rhonda strolled to the trike, casually plucked the last little monster off her sleeve, and twisted it like a washcloth until it went still with a sickening crunch. “Now I understand all the fawning chatter on tour.”
The woman stepped entirely too close. Anna smelled her musky fragrance, like rich loam mixed with night jasmine—overwhelming. She tried to scoot back on the seat, but the scent enveloped her and the world spun down into blackness.
***
Gray swirled as I drifted, the feathery touch of nothing caressing my skin. Or more precisely it was the lack of something touching me, for Tokpela was the absence of all. It filled the voids between realms. I hadn’t landed between worlds since those early true dreams before my sleeping self knew the way to Koko’s realm. Or maybe it was before the old god had fully latched onto me. Either way, to again slip silently through the gray was a shock—and boring.
I waited for magical lands to manifest, waited for some sign I was not alone. What was the point of true dreaming by yourself? The mists up ahead thinned, resolving into…nope, just more swirls.
I puffed my cheeks and blew out a stream of breath. Curiously, it didn’t affect the smoky tendrils as it would fog or true smoke. But then, Tokpela was beyond the physical world. Did that mean I wasn’t really here, that my “body” was just a mental projection? I raised a hand to my face. It looked solid and felt real when I touched myself.
After an eternity of waiting, running through what to do when we found the shield, and singing, I started in on poetry. Edgar Allan Poe was a favorite. I couldn’t recall much, except his poem The Raven, which I’d insisted on reciting in eighth grade. Those dark days leant themselves well to Poe’s morbid reflections.
I plowed through nearly the entire poem. Just as the speaker damned the bird back to Night’s Plutonian shore and the raven uttered its final denial, the scent of wood-smoke drew me forward.
Flickering yellow lit the stubborn mists. A muffled male voice echoed from near the source of light. Words were impossible to make out, but the speaker paused between sentences as if waiting for a response. A second voice a good octave higher spoke a few words, waited, and then spoke again. It was all indistinct sound with only the modulation and pitch changes indicating a conversation.
The flickering grew brighter. The mists blazed as if on fire as the swirling fog reflected the light trying to burn its way through.
“Hello, is someone there?” The female voice was close and familiar.
Despite having no purchase, I managed to turn as Quinn drifted toward me. She wore only a white tee-shirt that complimented her bronze skin while barely covering her hips. My pulse raced. But then I realized I only wore underpants, and my ears burned—though they didn’t feel hot when I ran a nervous hand through my hair. None of it mattered because Quinn still looked about blindly.
“Over here.” I caught her hand before she sailed by. It was warm, solid, and clutched at mine.
“Ed? What the hell?” At my touch, her eyes came into focus.
“Can you hear them?”
Quinn was no slouch. Her look of confusion shifted to a disgusted scowl almost immediately.
“Yeah, but it’s just mumbles.” She snorted and raised an eyebrow. “Why are you in my dream, and where are your pants, sport?”
“Back at you.” I was glad she didn’t let go, but when she floated close and her bare thigh brushed my leg, whatever wittiness I’d been about to spout evaporated.
Deep, sonorous vibrations ripped through the mists, and we clutched at each other out of reflex. Dread washed over me, not because of the acoustic assault forcing its way through the Tokpela, but because my barely-dressed state would reveal an embarrassing physical reaction as Quinn’s soft flesh pressed close. My thundering heartbeat certainly told me there was going to be an issue, but to my surprise nothing happened. My sigh of relief was buried under an avalanche of worry. Why hadn’t—
“I will not be denied!” The words boomed through the Tokpela barrier like angry timpani, but dropped back to unintelligible rumblings with the feel and tempo of blistering curses.
“That was the horned serpent,” Quinn pushed away from me, leaving an aching emptiness, but she kept hold of my hand.
Light flared from what could only be Koko’s little fire, revealing three blurred silhouettes. As usual for the dream world Uktena wore his dragon body, its sinuous curves and folded wings unmistakable as they crammed in next to a bent figure with feathered headdress. That had to be Koko. The small person outlined to his right would be Pina, judging by the way an arm was cocked onto each hip. I could imagine her stubborn glare as the three tried to penetrate the fog.
I took all that in for a split second before having to throw a hand up to shield against the glare. The Tokpela blazed dazzling orange-yellow, absorbing and reflecting the fire’s energy—bright enough to shine through my skin so the shadow of each finger bone stood as stark outlines before my face.
A high-pitched squawk from the other side would have been Pina’s and the booming report an exclamation from Uktena, but there were no more words, just soft-edged muffles as the fog closed over the scene. The shadows revealed by the fire faded away as did their muted voices, until all was again gray silence.
“I don’t want to go.” Quinn’s hand slipped out of mine, and she drifted away.
I clawed at the mists, trying to follow, but the mechanism that allowed me to move earlier was gone. I floated as if in space, helpless and alone. Time stretched as it had at the beginning of the dream, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t plan. Even my breath stilled. I simply was—floating in a frozen moment.
I woke with a gasp and sucked down a lungful of morning air as if surfacing from drowning. Although there wasn’t much to remember, it was the strangest true dream I’d ever had—not just because Koko and company failed to make a real appearance, but because Quinn had been there.
Only the sprites had ever joined me in Koko’s lands. But then, Quinn and I never made it to his realm, only floated between worlds clinging to each other. The memory of her body pressed against mine brought the stirrings that escaped me earlier. I could feel the weight of her thigh, her hand in mine—I still held her hand.
Of all the nights we’d spent on the road, Quinn rarely got to snuggle close. Something always managed to get in the way. It was a surprise to find her under my blue blanket, her fingers curled around mine, squeezing in warm welcome that had my mind racing.
“Sleep well?” she asked with a wicked grin, but took pity on me when I stuttered an unintelligible reply. “I’ve always wondered what those dreams of yours were like. Somehow I’d thought they would be more…informative.”
With one last squeeze she released my hand and sat up. I lunged for the blanket as it dropped away, then blinked. Quinn was fully dressed in jeans and a graphic-tee. I looked down to find I too wore yesterday’s clothes, though my sneakers sat off to the side with her boots. I’d donned everything from street clothes to ceremonial regalia in those dreams, but had never shown up half-dressed.
“Getting an eyeful?” More than laughter glinted in her big brown eyes.
“Um, sorry.” I’d been staring at various parts of Quinn’s anatomy during my mental clothing inventory and needed a safer topic. “Dream-wise that was a weird one. They were stuck on the other side of the mists.”
“Or we were.” Quinn pulled her boots on and shrugged into her jacket. “Do you usually have to swim through that mess to get to his place?”
“The Tokpela? Not since my early dreams. It’s like we got caught in the transition phase that usually only lasts a moment. Don’t know why you landed there.”
“Maybe because I just happened to be lying next to you?”
“What’s all the whispering about?” Pete boomed in an unnecessarily loud voice from just behind us.
I could have throttled him and his leering grin. To give my friend credit, he’d stopped trying to pry into my personal life when Quinn left on tour. Pete almost certainly had felt sorry for me at the time, but I’d gotten complacent when he hadn’t resumed his lecherous push for details that were embarrassingly absent. His wagging eyebrows meant he’d simply been biding his time.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “Quinn landed in my dream and we’re trying to figure out what it means.”
“Oh, I can tell you what that means.” Again with the eyebrows.
“What’s what mean?” Dwain hopped onto the rocks that had afforded us a bit of privacy.
“Don’t you need to see to Larmoth?” The blanket to my right shuddered and groaned as Max stretched and let out a massive yawn filled with the stench of death—some things never changed.
“Nah, already checked him.”
For such a flighty guy, Dwain did a great impersonation of a stolid boulder with no intention of moving anytime soon. I looked from humans to sprite and sighed.
“Okay, here’s what happened.”
By the time Quinn and I finished telling them about our encounter, Dawa and Vance had joined the circle of listeners. Manny made himself busy checking our rides, but was within easy earshot too.
“Sounds like they were locked out,” Dwain said. “I’ve only seen that happen during court wars, although certain realms are known to be off limits and can have nasty surprises for uninvited visitors.”
“Uktena made it through for a second,” Quinn said.
“The third world is sealed to lesser gods,” Dawa said with such authority that even Manny leaned in to listen.
“Sealed by who?” I didn’t like the way he spoke of Koko and the others, and it must have shown on my face because he backpedaled.
“Perhaps lesser is too severe, but it is certainly sealed to newer gods. Sotuknang who oversees our twin gods has so decreed. When this world was to be destroyed, the veil was constructed to keep in all except those chosen to ascend to the fourth world and to keep all others out.”
“But miraculously, this world survived.” Manny stepped into the circle. “And since you set the vortex in motion, there’s a gaping hole in those defenses. So why couldn’t Ed’s dear old dad get through to deliver a simple dream?”
“The Ants were there at what was to be the end. We helped the chosen people ascend and were ready to accept our fate.” Dawa fell quiet with head bowed, then shook himself. “That is a story for another time. The vortex cannot counter Sotuknang’s strictures on other deities. The twins may not leave and those without may not enter. Only emissaries may penetrate the veil, for they have not the power to trigger the protections.”
Dawa fell silent, studying each of us in turn until his eyes settled on Max who chose that moment to let out a nice wet burp. I grimaced, but the Ant continued to study my dog with way too much interest. At least Dawa had been okay with Max showing up—unlike his brother.
“So where’s Muuyaw this morning?” I saw Larmoth stretched out under a gnarled shrub, but there was no sign of the other leader in our small clearing.
“He has left to attend to some business of his god.” Dawa didn’t look terribly happy.
What business could the guy have a day’s ride from their village? Especially when none of us had known where the staff would lead. When I’d taken a final bearing last night, the increased pull and blazing blue carvings told me we didn’t have far left to travel. But we’d be climbing a lot of hills, starting with the ridge sheltering our camp.
“We can’t wait long.” Hell, even discussion of our dream ate into time we might not have.
“I can have Large Mouth up and moving in a half hour.” Dwain spoke so casually that it took a moment for his words to register.
“The man’s sick. Have a little respect!” Vance never got upset, but name calling was apparently a hot button.
“It’s okay,” Dwain waved away the deputy’s outrage. “He likes the nickname on account of his outspoken nature as a kid. I don’t think Ants use puns, so it really tickled him. We had a good laugh yesterday—and that’s good for healing.”
“Well, maybe the rest of us could just use his real name.” My offered compromise mollified Vance, and Dwain certainly didn’t care.
Good to his word, our sprite had the advisor ready by the time we’d eaten and stowed our gear. Though there was still no sign of his brother, Dawa recommended we continue and seemed confident Muuyaw would somehow catch up.
I was glad to see Max trotting alongside as Quinn and I led the procession. His disappearance after our escape had been like losing my best friend all over again, but the big doofus settled back in with our motley crew.
Dwain rode with his patient at the back of the cart. I didn’t sense any magic. The two simply sat along the back bench and talked as we climbed hill after hill. The Ant laughed with a deep chuffing at odds with his wiry frame. Apparently, our friendly sprite was quite the comedian.
Dawa ignored the pair and stood with a firm grip on the forward rail. His own wound had fully healed, and he continued to pay way too much attention to Max as my dog bounded up the slope ahead. I worried he’d pieced together Max’s role in disabling the guards. But maybe he thought my dog had something to do with his miraculous recovery—a thing the Ant leader seemed deeply ashamed of. That would explain why he treated Max like the second coming or something. Which wasn’t too off the mark since I’d buried the big doofus once.
A simpler reason for Dawa’s fascination could be he’d never seen a dog. Or maybe some residual power from the spell Pina used to bring him back still showed. That might have been what set his brother off too. I’d have to ask Dawa what the term manatoh meant.
“That’s more like it,”
Quinn murmured in a voice that fuzzed my thoughts into a pleasant jumble.
I’d grabbed her tight around the waist when we cut across a steep hill. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine us floating in Tokpela, except my teeth rattled and our helmets cracked together with every bump. She pressed even closer than she had last night. Our layers of protective clothing didn’t do much to diminish the enjoyable heat building between her back and my chest.
Unfortunately, the rear wheels picked that moment to lose traction and skid sideways. Quinn turned uphill, taking an even steeper path, but it kept the cart from rolling over. I fumbled for the staff. The fierce glow and pulsing told me we were close. Narrow pointed peaks showed above the rock-strewn ridgeline fifty yards ahead. The tires slipped and spat loose stone back at a cursing Dawa.
“Better slow up,” I told her. “We’re going to have problems with the cart.”
“Can’t, we’ll never get going again.” There was a note of devilish mirth in her voice that had me clutching her tight—and not for a fun reason.
“Holy fu—”
The front wheels leapt off the ground, putting us at a good thirty degree angle. I was certain we’d flip over backward, but the weight of our tow actually helped. Gravel and dirt spit out behind us as the four-wheeler revved and surged up the slope.
Other engines screamed from each side. Manny and Vance whooped and raced to the top. Pete looked like I felt as he held on for dear life. The wild ride ended abruptly as the front end slammed down onto hard stone. The cart spilled over the lip, and its momentum pushed us out into a wide crescent-shaped expanse carved from the side of the mountain towering before us.
My eyes swept up the gray cliff, up to towering peaks too narrow and uniform to be natural—closely packed spires rising above us, as if we were church mice perched on an old pipe organ. The towers on our far left were missing, replaced by a narrow waterfall that plunged down the sheer rock face into a crevasse.