by Tom Deitz
They had found David’s clothes in Liz’s car, the sheriff had told her during the time he and his deputy had spent asking her and Big Billy questions. His jersey had been wet and smelling of lake water. And they’d found Dale’s .22 in the car as well, and the old man hadn’t answered his phone when they’d tried to call over there, which was very strange indeed. So they had gone to his farm to investigate further, and Big Billy had gone with them.
The screen door squeaked open behind her. A head of bed-rumpled blond hair insinuated itself through the crack; a small hand rubbed sleepy blue eyes as Little Billy paused half inside and half out. The sound of tentative breathing whispered into the night. “What time is it?” the little boy yawned, his forehead contorted in a frown. “When’s Davy comin’ home?”
“Oh, Billy, you’re s’posed to be in bed, baby.” His mother sighed her distressed surprise as she squatted down beside him.
“Yeah, but when’s Davy comin’ home?”
“I don’t know, honey,” his mother said softly, as her younger son trotted over to stand beside her. She ruffled his hair absently and took another sip of coffee. “Truly I don’t know.”
“He’s in some kinda trouble, ain’t he?” Little Billy insisted, his eyes searching hers trustingly, but a little fearful as well. “I know he is, ’cause I sneaked out an’ peeked while the sheriff was talkin’ to you an’ Pa. They think him an’ Liz has run off with the gippies, an’ maybe Uncle Dale’s helpin’ ’em or somethin’, don’t they?” He paused thoughtfully, but then his face brightened again. “Reckon maybe they’re gonna get married, or somethin’?”
JoAnne frowned. “I wish it was somethin’ that simple, baby. Right now I wish they was gettin’ married. That I could understand.”
The momentary joy faded from Little Billy’s face. “But they wouldn’t be doin’ that at night, would they? And they’d have told us an’ all, and the sheriff wouldn’t of been askin’ questions about that fight Pa and Davy had, would they?”
“Smart, ain’t you, to figger all that out?” His mother smiled.
“Davy says I am,” Little Billy replied proudly.
“Well, your brother’s right there, I guess. I just wish he was as smart sometimes—leastwise, smart enough to hold his tongue once in a while.” She drained the last grainy contents of her coffee cup and set it down on the rough gray boards beside her.
“Yeah . . . but if they was gonna git married, Liz wouldn’t’ve left her car, would she?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” JoAnne cried, tears starting involuntarily into her eyes for the fourth time that evening.
“Yeah, but you don’t believe it, do you?”
His mother shook her head sadly, and slipped an arm around him, drawing him close. “No, honey, I don’t.”
“Sheriff’ll find ’em. Sheriffs always find ’em.”
“This ain’t TV, baby.”
“Know what I think?” Little Billy said, as he pulled away and started back inside.
His mother turned around and watched him go, feeling the solitude already closing in on her again. “No, what?”
“I think the boogers got ’em.”
Chapter XXV: The Ship of Flames
(The Lands of Fire)
David stepped out from behind the enameled copper screen he had commandeered for privacy and aimed a soulful glare at Morwyn before turning his full attention to the image he saw reflected in the sheet of mirror-polished silver set in the flickering wall beside her.
Not bad, actually, he told himself, upon closer inspection. At least this outfit wasn’t that absurd red. There were still hose, unfortunately; but these were a subtle grayish green, the more embarrassing parts mostly covered by the lower flaps of a padded gambeson that fit snug about his torso. There were thigh-high boots of silvery leather, too—wywern skin, Morwyn had said, the single substance in Faerie to which iron was not inimical. Any other material would have been consumed by the Iron Road.
And then the good part: the suit of fine mail that rested close across his shoulders and hung shimmering to elbow and knee. The stuff had looked heavy, but had in fact been as surprisingly light as it was proving comfortable to wear—once he got it on right. It had looked easy: you simply raised the whole thing over your head and let it slither down your arms and over your body like a flood of silver water.
But then he had discovered that he’d put it on backward, and getting it off again had proved both more complicated and far less dignified than putting it on had been. You had to pull up the bottom, then bend over and sort of half thrash, half wiggle from side to side until gravity got into the game and gave the stuff enough momentum to carry it the rest of the way off. And the tiny links had gotten tangled in his hair on the way, which hadn’t made things any better.
It’d really been a shame to cover it, he thought, when he finally got it right; but Morwyn apparently considered it necessary, so he’d reluctantly added the sleeveless, calf-length, gray velvet surcoat she’d tossed over the screen to him. A belt of scarlet leather went with it, looping twice around his waist and hanging down in front.
And finally, there was the best thing: the sword Morwyn had fastened upon him herself when he’d been forced to ask her how. The gray leather scabbard (wyvern skin, too, it looked like) hung low on his left hip. He fingered it experimentally, began to loosen the scarlet peace-ties as he turned once more toward the lady.
Morwyn gripped his wrist with a warning hand before he had scarce begun. “No, do not draw it here. The blade is of iron—iron of a particular sort and origin. To draw it here would not be good for this chamber.”
David stared around in confusion, not at all certain what she had meant. “Lot of good it’d do anyway,” he muttered. “Don’t know how to use it.”
“Perhaps it will find a way to use you, then.”
David raised a dubious eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
Morwyn shrugged noncommitally and handed him one final object: a medium-sized pouch embroidered with salamanders and closed by a drawstring at the top. He opened it, reached inside, felt something cool and softly slick, and pulled out a bundle of some light, semitransparent material that looked a little like spun glass. A quick unfolding showed it to be a hooded, ankle-length cloak.
“Wear that as you enter the Iron Road—or beforehand, if you have need,” Morwyn said. “It will make you all but invisible.”
“Invisible?” David’s nose twitched doubtfully.
Morwyn took it from him, refolded it in what looked to him like a very particular manner, and returned it to the pouch.
“The stuff of which it is made is cousin to that which comprises the glass walls of the Iron Road. When warmed by the touch of a living body, it bends the Walls Between the Worlds enough to confound the eye of the unwary. But beware, for it may confuse your own perceptions as well, and if you wear it for very long it will almost certainly make you ill. Human bodies are not meant to walk in two Worlds at once. Finally, do not let it be damaged, for its strength rests in the sum of the parts, which any flaw diminishes.”
David glanced around the room. “No helmet?” he said with a trace of disappointment.
Morwyn shook her head. “I do not have one here to fit you, and were I to provide you one that did not, it would cause you more trouble than good. In any case your role is not that of warrior; what I have given you is to protect your body from—”
“My head is part of my body,” David interrupted. “Or it was last time I looked.”
“From such beasts as may attack you unlooked for, I was about to say. Few there are and cowardly, at least in the country you will travel. What you now wear should be enough to make them avoid you.”
“That’s real comforting.”
Morwyn ignored his sarcasm. She folded her arms and regarded him thoughtfully. “Well, you are as ready as I can reasonably make you,” she said at last, “and we have no more time to squander.”
Without another word she turned and strode to a section of wa
ll where matching life-sized carvings of mustached warriors in full armor flanked what appeared to be an archway. Each statue held a silver sword upright before it. Morwyn nudged the right-hand blade the barest distance to one side.
At once a bright-lit crack showed in the wall between the figures. Morwyn stepped aside for David to go through before her.
But even before the door came fully open, a wave of heat blasted against David’s face, and he became at once bitterly aware of the remarkable, pleasant coolness he was leaving behind in Morwyn’s quarters. He held back uncertainly.
And then the door had opened completely, and almost against his will he found himself stepping outside to gaze upon a plain of featureless whiteness that stretched as far as he could see in all directions. Heat blazed up from that whiteness like invisible fire, and the glazed glare of the pale sky was so bright that he dared not raise his eyes much above the horizon.
The air was clear and still, but the heat throbbed from the ground with such ferocity that it seemed possessed of some subtle, watchful life that devoured without moving, sucking out strength and will until only despair remained. David could feel his skin growing tight across his cheekbones. He blinked and stared at the ground, eyes watering; saw then the tiny pattern of cracks that fractured the whiteness like fragments of a jigsaw puzzle slowly being dragged apart.
“Damn!” he whispered to himself as he discovered that he had already begun to perspire, though he had done nothing more exerting than take a dozen paces. Hot air rushed into his lungs, and he gasped. It was like breathing fire. He took another step, found himself panting. His throat felt dry as the desert around him.
No! This wouldn’t do. He couldn’t stand this kind of heat; nothing human could. If Morwyn expected him to go traipsing around in some absurd getup while the sun (was there a sun?) boiled him alive in his shell like a lobster, well, by golly she was mistaken.
All at once he swung around to face the sorceress. “I thought you said your house was underwater, lady,” he shouted, his voice cracking as the greedy air sucked his tongue dry. “But if that’s so . . . well, looks like the friggin’ tide’s been out a couple of thousand years! Find yourself another bloody fool to do your dirty work!”
“Fool indeed!” Morwyn shouted back, raising her arms. “If it is water you want, boy, then water you shall certainly have!” She clapped her hands once and closed her eyes.
And David found himself unable to breathe. He was underwater, he knew that at once, from the cold darkness around him—a cold so insidious and pervasive he felt his bones would shatter. And there was a pressure on his chest, a darkness clamped close against his eyes and nose denying him sight or breath. He made feeble attempts to swim . . .
But he could not rise. His waterlogged accoutrements weighed half as much as he did, and he could not push himself more than a foot or two above the bottom. His fingers ripped at the fixtures of the sword belt, but he couldn’t work the buckle. He kicked at his boots but they would not come off. The rising tails of the surcoat floated up to encumber his arms. And in his eyes and his sinuses and the back of his head a red pounding had begun, the significance of which was only too familiar.
I’m going to drown, he thought grimly. I’m going to—
Die? came Morwyn’s thought. You might. Perhaps I will simply discard you now. After all, you are not the only human who might suit my purposes. Perhaps your friend Alec McLean would like to try my quest. Do you think so? Shall I send for him, and leave you here to ponder?
“Or shall I fetch you back, now?” Morwyn’s voice rang harsh in his eardrums as David found himself again on the blasted plain. He choked out his relief, then looked down, expecting to see the surcoat ruined, his feet in a puddle. But he was quite dry.
Morwyn stood in front of him; behind her was a vast sphere of flame half as tall as the sky, which, he surmised, was the outside of the room she had first brought him to.
“What did you just do?” he gasped.
Morwyn smiled placidly. “Sent you through the Walls Between the Worlds. I take it you did not find that pleasant?”
“Not hardly,” he muttered sulkily, as he deliberately turned his back on her and began to stalk away. His defiance was pure sham, though, and he feared at any moment to find himself cast back again into darkness—until something occurred to him.
“Wait a minute.” He skidded to a halt and spun around. “If it’s that easy to pass between the Worlds, why even bother with the Tracks?’
“Because,” Morwyn responded patiently, “only where realms actually touch each other can such things be effected.”
“But don’t the Worlds overlap all over?”
“Indeed not. Think of two sheets of parchment on which maps are drawn, which are the Worlds. Both maps are crumpled and then laid flat again. Yet they no longer lie so close together as heretofore; some parts touch, some do not. Now imagine that there are golden lines drawn on both maps: those represent the Tracks, curved or bent from your point of view, but not from theirs. Then thrust golden needles through those sheets, joining them one to another, and you begin to gain a notion of how the Straight Tracks function. And of course there are many more layers of Worlds than I have spoken of—nor do they all lie in layers.”
She took a deep breath. “Now—if you have finished pouting, and are willing to walk a very short distance—we will soon be at our voyaging.” She stepped past him and strode toward the horizon.
David followed with some reluctance as Morwyn led the way across the plain. They had covered three hundred paces (David had been counting, to distract himself from the heat) when a rift suddenly opened in the land at their feet: a rift with walls so clean and sheer that it had been invisible within the masking heat-haze until they were almost upon it.
David found himself standing on the brink. Perhaps ten feet below, at the bottom of the narrow canyon, a wide, shallow river glided languorously, its water clear as glass, with more of the white sand visible on the bottom. The river ran arrow-straight from horizon to horizon. And almost at its further shore a strip of golden glimmer showed where a Straight Track lazed upon it.
Morwyn led the way down a flight of wide steps cut into the bank to their left, and a moment later they stood upon the square lower landing.
“This Track leads to Lugh’s realm,” she said, pointing to the right, “but from a seldom-used direction. I do not think Lugh will have set a watch at the place it enters, for this land is most times empty, and Lugh has no interest in it. Perhaps he has even forgotten it. Indeed, were I not what I am I would not know of it myself. But a Fireshaper does well to know all of the Lands of Fire.”
David stuck his hands on his hips in exasperation. “But I thought the borders were sealed, even against the Tracks.”
“And so they are: one may not step from the Tracks into Lugh’s kingdom, for the fires of his sealing prevent it. Yet if one were to find the right place of entry, then find a way through the sealing . . .”
“Which you, of course, know how to do.”
“Of course: the sealing makes use of Fire in its elemental form, and since the sealing is a thing of Fire, a ship made of Fire may make that passage safely.”
Morwyn smiled, and reached into a red velvet pouch that hung at her left hip.
David could not help but gasp when he saw what she held out before him an instant later.
It was a tiny model ship, perfect in each detail, from the needle-spear of the single mast to the delicate webbing of furled sail and rigging, to the high, curling stern and even more impressive prow which was marked by a gleaming dragon’s head no bigger than the end of his finger. A low, flat cabin lay behind the mast, and the dramatic swooping sides were scalloped with what appeared to be tiny shields. It reminded David of a Viking ship, though there were no oars, and he didn’t think the cabin was typical.
“Very pretty,” he said with forced indifference. He liked models and intricate craftsmanship and suddenly wanted very much to hold the object.
“Small, though. Mighty close quarters for two people.”
“Is it?” Morwyn challenged. “Perhaps it only seems so.”
Before David could reply she set the boat gently into the still water beyond the landing, then brushed a long nail across the head of one of the tiny dragons on her ring. Its mouth popped open obediently, and a tiny flame shot out. She turned it toward the model, the flame continuing to spark on her knuckle, and set it against the miniature prow.
David held his breath in dismay as the toy ship caught fire.
Yet in spite of the flames that enwrapped it, it did not seem to be consumed. In fact, as the fire took hold, the ship began to grow, to swell, second by second, seeming to draw substance from the flames that lapped about it, so that in two breaths it was a yard long, and in four the size of a small canoe. Ten breaths later it had reached the size he imagined by rights it should be. And all the while fire leaped and curled around it.
Eventually the flames began to subside, as though they were absorbed into the wood and metal and fabric of the ship itself. The air cooled, and the last persistent flicker of green about a copper shield boss winked out. A breeze from the west set the water to rippling, and the rigging to swelling gently in its wake.
“Neat!” David cried in spite of himself.
“It is the Power of the Fireshapers,” Morwyn responded flatly. “A simple thing, in truth. Indeed, mortal men do much the same.”
David stared at her. “You’re kidding!”
Morwyn shook her head. “It is common with your kind, is it not, to draw the water from a thing, so that little remains but a dry shell, and then renew it at need by returning that water to it?”
David nodded slowly. “Freeze-drying, dehydration, whatever.”