Eye of the Forest

by P. B. Kerr

  McCreeby made a show of looking at his watch. “Nimrod? What can I say? It’s been fascinating. Really. And I’d love to stay here chatting with you. However, I must be getting along. Dybbuk is expecting me, with the third disk.”

  And he turned around and walked away.

  “We simply have to stop him from completing the ritual,” said Nimrod, as they watched McCreeby start laboriously back up the hill toward the lost city of Paititi.

  “But how?” said Groanin. “We can’t get past those horrible aspidistras. And you said, none of you can afford to use your power for fear of it turning out wrong.” He shook his head. “That’s the thing about you djinn that annoys me the most. It always seems that when you need your power the most, it’s never there. I can’t remember the number of times this sort of thing has happened.”

  “Shut up, Groanin,” said Nimrod.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll have to risk it,” said Nimrod. “Let’s see now. If I wanted to wish for a cup of coffee, I’d wish for — what?”

  “A cup of tea?” suggested Groanin.

  “QWERTYUIOP!” said Nimrod, and a bucket of mud appeared on the path in front of them.

  Groanin dipped a finger into the mud and licked it. “Well,” he said. “It does have two sugars, the way you like it, sir.”

  “I don’t see how that helps,” said John.

  “It was an experiment,” Nimrod said irritably. “In opposite wishing. I was wishing for a cup of tea in order that I might end up with a cup of coffee.”

  “Well, it didn’t work,” observed John.

  “So, if you wanted a cat,” said Philippa, “would you wish for a dog or for a mouse?”

  “You see the problem exactly,” said Nimrod.

  Philippa shot John a sarcastic smile as if to underline the fact that she understood something that her twin brother didn’t.

  “The difficulty lies in how to properly fix the front of your mind on the thing you don’t want, if the thing you do want is somewhere at the back of it.”

  “Sort that one out,” muttered Groanin. “If you can.”

  “You managed it all right with the chess piece,” said Philippa.

  “That was an easy bit of opposite wishing,” said Nimrod. “In a sense the word black is already built into the word white. Especially in the game of chess. Indeed, a chess piece becomes whiter if it exists in relation to another piece that’s black.”

  Groanin threw his hands up and brought them down on top of his bald head with a loud and exasperated slap. “Virgil McCreeby will be gone by the time you work out all the linguistics on this,” he said. “And so will we if he gets a chance to use that third disk.”

  Philippa stamped her golden heels on the yellow stone path and a strong fragrance of strawberries filled the mountain air.

  “Oh, it makes me so mad,” she said, and experienced a strong but pleasant taste of strawberries in her mouth, which she thought was very curious. She stamped her heels again, only this time things tasted and felt very curious indeed, especially underfoot, for when she looked down at her golden shoes she saw that these were no longer standing on top of the yellow brick path, but on the flattened body of Virgil McCreeby who lay prostrate, groaning underneath her on the ground like a quarterback who has been tackled in a game of football.

  Meanwhile the golden disk that had been in McCreeby’s fat fingers was now rolling back down the path toward the spot where Nimrod and the others were still standing; the spot where, not five seconds before, she had been standing herself.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” said Philippa, who was now so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English.

  Nimrod picked up the disk and put it in his pocket.

  Philippa looked at her uncle and, catching his eye at last, lifted her arms in bewilderment, as if to say, “I really have absolutely no explanation for why I’m over here when, just a few seconds ago, I was over there with you.”

  Anxiously, Nimrod started to walk toward his niece until one of the vampire plants turned its pink flower his way and, wisely, he seemed to think better of it just as a poison dart came flying through the air. It fell a long way short of Nimrod, but the thing’s intent was clear enough. There was still no way past the vampire plants. At least, no way that either he or Philippa was able to explain.

  “How I hate those beastly flowers.” Philippa stamped her heels on Virgil McCreeby’s back and once again, a delicious fragrance of strawberries filled the air and her mouth.

  “Ouch,” yelped McCreeby. “Oooof.”

  This time she remained exactly where she was. It was the vampire flowers that moved. Or, to be more accurate, disappeared. All of them. One second they were there, and the next, they were not. It was as simple and immediate as that.

  Looking rather bemused by this fortunate turn of events, Nimrod and the others came slowly up the path.

  “Er, what happened?” John asked Philippa.

  “I don’t know,” said Philippa. “All I know is that I didn’t make a wish. I never said my focus word. And yet, somehow, each time, what I was thinking is exactly what ended up happening.”

  “Gerroff,” moaned McCreeby. “I can’t breathe.”

  Philippa glanced under her feet and realized she was still standing on the Englishman. And a strong scent of strawberries remained in the air.

  “What’s that smell?” asked Zadie.

  “Strawberries,” said Philippa, and stepped off McCreeby’s armor-plated back. “Somehow, stamping my feet seems to make the smell of strawberries coming off my golden shoes grow stronger.”

  “I don’t think that’s all it does,” said Nimrod, kneeling down beside her feet, and scrutinizing her shoes. “I think these shoes given to you by Kublai Khan are gestalt slippers.”

  “Guest what?” asked Groanin.

  “Gestalt,” said Nimrod. “I’ve heard of them, but I never thought they actually existed. I’m sure the Chinese called them something different, but that’s what we call them today. It’s said that when a djinn wears them, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. A djinn’s true desires emerge spontaneously, without reference to the wish-making process. You just have to have a strong thought about something, and that thought emerges as complete reality immediately. It’s your idea of order on matter. Those slippers must be immensely powerful.”

  “And here I was thinking that they were just a nice pair of shoes,” said Philippa.

  “If they’re so powerful,” said John, “it might be best if you were to take them off immediately. At least until you know how to control them better.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Philippa. “But what about Dybbuk? Shouldn’t we — shouldn’t I go and stop him, right away?”

  “It’s all right,” said Nimrod. “Without the third disk, he can’t cause an atomic explosion.”

  “You mean all that stuff about atomic bombs was true?” said McCreeby, sitting up and rubbing his shoulders painfully.

  “Most certainly it was true,” said Nimrod. “Ti Cosi really did intend to bring about the complete destruction of the conquistadors. Just as Manco Capac had promised.”

  “Odd, how we never saw Manco again,” remarked John.

  “Well, I never,” said McCreeby, and let out a chuckle. “Oh, I say. That explains the mushroom. On the door of the ritual chamber in Paititi, there’s an engraving of a mushroom. Well, obviously I thought it was the sacred mushroom. The teonanactl, or the ‘flesh of the gods.’ I say, you don’t really think that I’ve been assembling a nuclear bomb, do you?”

  “I do think,” said Nimrod. “It’s not a mushroom engraved on the door of the ritual chamber, but a mushroom cloud. Of the kind you might get over a nuclear explosion.”

  McCreeby whistled. “And there I was, blithely putting together the means of my own destruction.”

  “If it was just your own destruction, McCreeby,” said Nimrod, “there would be no great cause for concern. But
since it involves the destruction of a good part of this hemisphere, then we’re obliged to do something about it.”

  Groanin cuffed the magician on the back of the head. “Your trouble, Virgil McCreeby, is that you judge everyone by your own despicably low standards,” he said. “You wretched man. If anything happens to their father, I’ll give you such a hiding.”

  “Oh. Yes. Look here. Let me call my followers right away,” said McCreeby. “All I need is a satellite phone. I left my own in Paititi.”

  Philippa stamped her feet and handed him a phone. Fearfully, because he was beginning to realize just how awesome Philippa’s power was, McCreeby took the phone and keyed in a number. “Er, what time is it in New York?” he asked.

  “That’s odd,” said John. “My watch has stopped.”

  “Mine, too,” said Groanin.

  “Erm, this phone doesn’t work,” said McCreeby.

  Nimrod looked at the phone and shook his head.

  “Perhaps it’s the effect of these gestalt slippers,” said Philippa.

  “Perhaps,” said Nimrod.

  “Look,” said McCreeby. “It’s just a thought, but young Dybbuk isn’t what one would call a patient person, is he? In fact, I would say that Dybbuk’s rather an impulsive, willful sort of chap. Not to say headstrong.”

  “That’s him, all right,” muttered Groanin.

  “The reason I mention it is this: Before I left Paititi, to come back down here to look for the third disk, Buck was asking me if we could complete the kutumunkichu ritual without the third disk. Naturally, I said it was impossible. Thank goodness I stopped him, eh? Of course, it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. In fact, he got quite cross about it, really.”

  “You showed him what to do?” said Nimrod.

  “The details of the completion of the ritual are on an inscription in the main building,” said McCreeby. “I just read them out. I didn’t actually show him anything that he couldn’t have read for himself. But it sort of occurs to me now to inquire what might happen if the boy just sort of went ahead and dropped the uranium rod down the tube and into the uranium rock, after the first two tears of the sun.”

  “The uranium in the rock would start to fizz,” said Nimrod. “There would be no explosion, just a great deal of radioactivity.”

  McCreeby pulled a face. “Well, might that not explain why this phone isn’t working? And why your watches have stopped?”

  “Light my lamp, you’re right,” said Nimrod. “Electromagnetic radiation. If only we had a Geiger counter.”

  “You mean a machine that measures radiation?” said John.

  “You mean one of these?” Philippa stamped her feet and handed Nimrod a strawberry-colored electrical box with a dial and a pinkish tube that was about the size of a duck call.

  “That’s it,” said Nimrod. “That’s a Geiger counter.”

  Taking the machine from Philippa, he switched it on and held the tube up to the air. The needle on the dial moved from one side of the machine to the other as the tube in Nimrod’s hand registered the background radiation. Nimrod shook his head and almost bit his lip off.

  “The fool,” he said. “The little idiot.”

  “You mean, he’s gone and done it?” said McCreeby. The magician stood up abruptly and, wrapping himself in his arms, looked around with mounting anxiety. “Oh, Lord, what have I done?”

  “He must have gone ahead without the polonium disk,” said Nimrod. “This whole area is a blizzard of radioactivity. We’ve got to get away from this place right now. Sooner if possible.”

  “Oo-er,” said McCreeby.

  Groanin cleared his throat. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “Are you telling me that after coming thousands of miles to find it — not mention surviving headhunters and giant centipedes and whatnot — that we’re not going to see the lost city of Paititi, after all?”

  “I’m afraid not, old fellow,” said Nimrod. “Radiation is awkward stuff. You can’t see it. But it’s quite deadly. It may already be too late for us.”

  “But what about Buck?” said John. “We can’t just leave him up there in Paititi. We have to go and rescue him. We have to bring him home.”

  “I’m afraid there’s absolutely no possibility of that,” said Nimrod. “We have to go now or we won’t be able to go at all. I’m sorry, but chances are he’s already beyond our help. It may even be too late for us.”

  Philippa stamped her golden strawberry-slippered foot. “No, she said. “No, no, no.”

  Her voice sounded strange inside the concrete, lead-lined nuclear bunker that her will and the gestalt slippers had created within a split second. There had been a project about the Cold War at school and she had seen pictures of nuclear bunkers built during that time, and Philippa figured this one was pretty accurate in every detail, except for the color, of course. She was certain they weren’t ever the color of strawberries, but for some reason she had strawberries on her mind. At least it matched the semitransparent, strawberry-mottled, anti-radiation suits that everyone, including herself, was now wearing. Not to mention the several bowls of strawberries that she had thoughtfully provided in case anyone got hungry. And the strawberry drapes on the lead-filled glass window.

  “John’s right,” she said. “We can’t leave him. Please wait and try to be patient. I’ll only be gone for a second. All of you will be safe in here, I think. There’s a decontamination chamber, working air filters and, through that door, a very comfortable living room with a TV and a library. And a refrigerator. I’m afraid it’s mostly full of strawberries, Groanin.”

  “But why does it always have to be pink?” complained John, shouting through his strawberry-hued plastic hood. “Everything she makes. It’s always pink. You know how I feel about pink, Philippa. Couldn’t I have had a yellow suit? Or a blue one?”

  “It’s not pink,” insisted Philippa. “It’s strawberry-colored.” She shook her head impatiently. “And I don’t have any time for this. I need to go and find Dybbuk.”

  Philippa looked at her uncle, who nodded and then embraced her as fondly as their fully ventilated, gas-tight suits allowed.

  “Please be careful,” said Nimrod.

  CHAPTER 27

  SPLIT PERSONALITY

  While he was waiting for McCreeby to come back with the disk, Dybbuk amused himself by dressing up in some of the Incan clothes they had found in Paititi and by fighting an imaginary enemy with a battle ax. The ax wasn’t, he thought, particularly sharp. None of the Incan axes or lances were very sharp, and it seemed obvious to Dybbuk why the Spanish had easily conquered South America. The Incan weapons were junk.

  The one weapon he did like was a sort of mace with a long wooden handle that had a ball of copper at the end with eight protruding points. It looked jokingly crude but effective enough to batter heads to a pulp. But he doubted that even these could have penetrated Spanish armor. No wonder Ti Cosi had looked for some other kind of weapon that would destroy the Spaniards.

  When Dybbuk got tired of wielding the mace, he tried using a sling and spent a happy fifteen minutes throwing egg-sized stones at the head of what looked like a god or a king that was carved on a wall. He got quite good at it, too, and before long, his wanton boyish vandalism had quite obliterated the face on the ancient carving.

  Looking around for something else to destroy, Dybbuk happened upon a bow and achieved a certain amount of pleasure in shooting arrows at a bronze shield and breastplate of the kind McCreeby had taken to protect himself against the vampire plants. And it was quickly clear that neither afforded much protection against an arrow.

  So how would it fare, he wondered, against a poison dart?

  To answer this question, Dybbuk went back to the containment dome to take another look at McCreeby’s backpack — the one that had been hit by a dart from the vampire plant. And he was surprised to discover that the poisonous dart had apparently penetrated the tough nylon Cordura material and the contents of the backpack — including McCreeby’s t
obacco tin — to a depth of several inches. It was this last discovery — the hole in the tobacco tin — that persuaded Dybbuk that there was no point in awaiting McCreeby’s return.

  “Poor old McCreeby,” he said out loud, because the profound silence and solitude of Paititi was beginning to weigh on him a little. “Gee, those darts must be sharper and tougher than we thought.”

  In this assumption Dybbuk was mistaken, however. The hole in Virgil McCreeby’s tobacco tin had not been caused by the dart from the vampire plant but by the Englishman’s Swiss Army knife, when he had fallen on the path.

  Dybbuk glanced impatiently at his expensive gold watch — it was about the only thing he hadn’t sold after the Jonathan Tarot affair — and told himself that McCreeby’s return was well overdue.

  “The lazy fat idiot, he should have been back by now.”

  Dybbuk was mistaken about this, too. It was an hour’s walk to the place where the vampire plants grew, and an hour’s walk back again. McCreeby had been gone for less than ninety minutes.

  He smiled wryly. “For sure, the guy’s a goner. Poor old McCreeby. Hey, wait a minute. Poor old me. I guess I’m on my own now.”

  Dybbuk went and sat cross-legged in front of the carving that a little earlier he had been using for target practice. There he spent several minutes considering the possibility of going to get the disk himself, and then telling himself the various reasons why he thought that this was not a good idea.

  “First, there’s the obvious danger,” he said. “If McCreeby is dead, then I might get killed, too. Those plants are not to be messed with. The darts are lethal. Second, there’s the fact that if McCreeby isn’t dead, just injured, I might actually have to help him, which would be difficult on account of the fact that he’s too fat to carry, and I don’t know how to use any of that medical stuff in his backpack. Those are two pretty good reasons.”

  Clouds moved across the high peak on which Paititi was positioned, casting strange shadows that undulated over the ancient ground. A condor wheeled in the sky near the sun. Except that Dybbuk thought it was a vulture and that it could be waiting to eat his dead body. He shivered.