by Hilari Bell
She gave him a final soft kiss, turned, and went back into her round house. Leaving Jase torn between shuddering horror and delight.
“Wow,” he told the frog. “I mean . . . Well, wow.”
“You got what you came for,” Frog People said. “What next?”
Jase realized he’d be more likely to come up with an answer if he stopped staring at the door flap, and wondering when she’d come out again. He walked away, not caring for the moment where he went.
“If I have to kill the Olmaat to get the pouch, then I’ll kill it,” he said. “How do you kill an Olmaat?”
“You don’t,” Frog People told him. “Here in the Spirit World, there’s nothing that can kill it. And in your world it’s just a monster in a dream. I’ve got to say, she picked a good hiding place.”
He sounded almost admiring, and Jase was reminded that to most of these people this was a political game—not the matter of life and death it was for him and Gima. And maybe his world, too.
For all their contempt for humans, these shapeshifters were pretty . . . small. Except for Raven, who at least was trying.
“If I could get hold of a weapon that could hurt the Olmaat, could I kill it?”
“Sure. But it would have to be a weapon that’s both magic and real. And even if you had something like that, odds are the Olmaat would kill you before you could get close enough to use it.”
Jase knew that too. The memory of otter-headed arms reaching into the cave swept over him, and his knees went weak. But this was his grandmother’s only chance, so he had to try.
“Then I know where we’re going.”
“Really? ’Cause if you want me to guide you, it might be good if I knew too.”
“I’m not sure you can guide me,” Jase said. “We’re going back to my car.”
“Problem with that,” Frog People said.
“What?”
“Your car’s not in this world. And your consciousness is.”
“I got hold of it once before,” said Jase. “When I needed to.”
But he’d had to get to his car to do it, with the body that now was lying against a rock pile drugged into sleep. With its ankles bound.
On the other hand Raven had said human dream walkers could split their consciousness. And he’d done it before.
Jase closed his eyes and reached inward with that delicate sense he’d been developing. If he looked at himself, felt himself, he wasn’t all there. Jase groped for the rest of himself . . .
. . . and opened his eyes on the rain-wet forest of reality. He was dizzy from the drugs, cold and stiff, but his scratched fingertips stung from injuries he’d gotten in a dream—a dream that still lurked on the edge of his consciousness. He had to get back to his car. He had to get back to the Tesla. Now. But without completely waking up, without losing his hold on the dream world.
Keeping his eyes half shut, his breathing slow and steady, he started to rise, tripped and fell.
The belt, stupid.
The voice in his mind was distant, and he felt groggy, disoriented. The drug? Or because part of his mind was other where? He fumbled free of the belt and swayed to his feet. One step. Two. But the dream was beginning to fade. Jase let his consciousness fade with it, sinking down and away . . .
Jase opened his eyes. “I’m on the way,” he told Frog People. A part of him could feel what was happening to that distant body, the pressure of earth against one foot then the other, even though he was standing still. Sudden cold washed over his cheek as a wet branch swiped that distant face, but he could feel his other self’s determination to reach the Tesla. Jase just hoped his real body didn’t go tumbling down the bluff, and break both their necks.
“But I have to find the spear too,” he went on. “So I’d better get moving.”
“Well, I can’t guide you there,” said Frog People. “I got no idea where your car is.”
“That’s OK. I do. At least, I think I do.”
Assume the sinking sun in this world was in the same place as in his own. East was the direction he’d take in the real world to get back to his car, so Jase set off to the east.
Somewhat to his surprise, there were no bogs, no impassable thickets, no hook-flowers in his path . . .
Until he climbed out of a shallow dip, and found Otter Woman blocking the way.
“This is where I leave you.” Frog People’s voice was quiet, for him. “I’m a balancer, not a fighter.”
“Neither am I!” He wondered where her football players were.
But the tiny frog was scrambling down the front of his jacket, so Jase put out a hand and let it hop onto his palm, then bent to let it leap off into the grass.
“This isn’t the first time that frog’s abetted my enemies.” Hate burned in the old woman’s eyes. “I’ll deal with him. Right after I’ve dealt with you.”
She began to shift before she’d finished speaking, shrinking, as golden fur sprouted and her cheeks puffed out to form the otter’s face.
It didn’t look friendly, but otters never attacked humans.
The otter shambled forward and launched itself with a hissing snarl.
Jase wasn’t a fighter, but his survival instincts weren’t as atrophied as he’d thought. He kicked the beast away and backed off.
“Hey, otters don’t . . .”
Clearly, this one did. The sinuous brown shape was almost four feet long, and though its claws weren’t that frightening, its teeth were designed for biting through shell.
At least on land it wasn’t fast. It lumbered after him once more, and Jase darted back. He had to keep those teeth away from him. But how? If she kept trying, sooner or later—
It happened sooner, a bit of deadfall catching the back of one ankle and bringing him down.
Jase threw up his hands as the long muscular body surged over him, and caught the creature’s neck just in time to keep those needle-sharp teeth from his throat. Powerful hind legs scrabbled against his belly, bruising, knocking the breath out of him, but its blunt claws couldn’t penetrate his rain gear.
The front paws clawed at his wrists, but Jase didn’t dare let go. He struggled to a sitting position and then to his feet, twisting the otter away from him so the kicking legs no longer connected, though its front legs still scratched his hands. It felt as if she was about to claw through to bone, but at least her teeth couldn’t reach him.
Jase wrapped one hand in the loose skin at the scruff of her neck and held the twisting beast like a kitten as he lowered the other hand to fumble with his belt.
A tug on the buckle released the clasp, and he grabbed the belt and let the canteen slither off. The otter had to weigh thirty pounds, but Jase kept his grip, held it suspended in the air, and used his teeth to hold the buckle while he threaded the belt back through the opening and snugged it down to a small loop.
Even when he had the collar around her neck, he couldn’t just let go of her.
Jase knelt and groped for the fallen tree he’d tripped over, feeling along the trunk till he found a place he could slide the free end of the belt beneath. He grabbed it when it emerged on the other side and pulled it through, only releasing the snarling beast when her head was pressed against the wood. He wrapped the belt around the narrow log and tied it off, then stood staring down at the trapped otter.
Blood seeped from dozens of deep scratches on his hands and wrists, and his breath sobbed in his lungs.
The otter clawed at the belt, snarling otter obscenities and glaring. She could probably shapeshift out of this in minutes, but that gave him at least a slight head start. His knees were so wobbly Jase feared he’d fall, but after a few steps he steadied into a run.
Would she come at him next in some other, stronger form? If that otter had weighed ten more pounds she might have had him, and the sting of deep scratches made the threat real.
Jase started looking as he hurried through the trees, and soon he saw a big dead snag with branches low enough to reach.
He chose the largest he could break, and threw his whole weight down on it to snap it off. It was crooked, and the nubs where twigs had sprouted dug into his palm, but it was better than no weapon at all.
Jase emerged into a patch of low scrub, where he could see the beach on his right and the ruins before him, though in this world the looming towers were only piles of rubble. He ran forward, threading the maze of bushes, watching for whatever might emerge to block his way, listening for something crashing behind him. If the eagle hadn’t shrieked when it began its dive, it might have taken him completely by surprise.
As it was, Jase flung up his arms and ducked. Its claws nicked his scalp and raked two bloody furrows across one arm before it screamed again, and surged up in a rush of wind.
Blood dripped off his arm, and Jase felt hot streaks trickling down the back of his neck. These talons weren’t the otter’s blunt claws—if they fixed in him, that hooked beak could shred his flesh like a knife.
So don’t let it.
Jase cocked his club like a batter at the plate, his gaze on the sky.
Even a stupid football player could learn. This time the eagle plunged in silence, the wind through its feathers almost a roar as it plummeted to strike.
Jase gripped his club and swung with all his strength—a fraction of a second early. The eagle lifted with a startled squawk, and he only caught it a glancing blow.
But that must have been enough, for as it circled, shrieking, Jase saw that it held one leg against its feathered breast.
It looped above him several more times, then flapped off to the west.
It was impossible to run and watch the sky and the ground at the same time, but Jase tried. He thought he knew what was coming next, and if he was right his ears would provide the best warning. Neither his club, or even the spear, if he reached it, would do anything against a swarm of bees.
He thought he could see the spear’s icy glow below the ruins and gave up watching to run toward it, sacrificing safety for speed. But long before he reached it he heard the nerve-shaking whine of the angry swarm, far behind him at first, but growing louder with each passing second, each panting stride.
He’d lost enough elevation by now to leap down the shallow bluffs and reach the surf, which surged and withdrew to his left. Surf that could provide some protection, and he might get there before the swarm reached him.
He would never be able to reach the spear.
He’d been stung by bees before, and survived.
He could survive it again.
Jase ran for the spear, lungs laboring, as the swarm’s snarl grew louder. A knife of fire stabbed his shoulder, and another the side of his neck.
He flung his club aside, and crushed the bee on his neck as he ran. Then the spear was before him, stuck tip down in the thin grass. Jase snatched it up and spun to run for the sea.
But the moment he laid hands on the spear, that faint blue glow burst into a blaze, and then receded into a bubble of light. The bees bounced off it, like raindrops off the Tesla’s windshield.
They buzzed angrily around the fragile shell, the throbbing in his neck and shoulder reminding him of how much damage they could inflict. But they couldn’t touch him, because he was sheltered in a bubble of magic . . . the same size as his car.
He, his body, had reached the Tesla in the real world, and somehow had the sense to close the doors.
The enemy couldn’t harm him.
Jase stood, clutching the spear and gasping for breath.
The bees gave up throwing themselves against the glowing shield, flew into a seething mass, then morphed into the shape of a man. The eagle flapped down, landing awkwardly on one leg, then grew and melted into human form. A man, Jase noted, who stepped forward on two sound legs.
That hardly seemed fair—the cuts on his arm were still oozing. The football squad stopped outside the circle of light, but they said nothing. Otter Woman strode into the open meadow and stalked up to the protective bubble.
She carried Jase’s belt in her hands.
“I will wrap this around your grandmother’s throat, and pull till the last spark of life gutters out. I will—”
“No, you won’t,” said Jase. “Bear will stop you. I haven’t broken the bargain.”
The dawning realization on her face was almost funny.
“I haven’t got any dust,” Jase went on. “I don’t have a sample hidden away to use later. And as long as that’s true, you can’t hurt Gima.”
“But you’re up to something!” Otter Woman proclaimed.
“Yeah, well, I never said I wouldn’t try something.”
“He didn’t.” The great bear trundled around one of the heaping piles of rubble. “So he’s right. You can’t harm the human woman. On the other hand, this little war’z beginning to get distracting. Disturbing. And Raven’s right. Long as her human’s fighting, she hazn’ los-t.”
Otter Woman threw out her arms in a gesture of furious frustration. “But if we turn Raven loose this fight will go on and on. She won’t quit. She’ll squirm and scheme till some- one stops her. The humans are destroying our world. We have a right to defend ourselves.”
Bear nodded. “So we finish it here. If the boy’ll come out of that shell t’ do it.”
“Why should I come out?” Jase asked. “If I do I’ll have to fight all three of them, and who knows who else. I won’t quit, but I’m not crazy either.”
He also didn’t know how to get out, even if he was pretty sure how he’d gotten in.
Bear rolled his shoulders into a forward shrug, a little like Frog People’s. “If you don’ come out, you won’t be able t’ fight the Olmaat.”
“The Olmaat?” Jase looked around in alarm. “It’s not here.”
“No!” Otter Woman exclaimed. “I control this Olmaat, and I won’t bring it.”
This Olmaat? Were there others? It was an appalling idea.
“You will,” said Bear. “Raven’s human haz earned the right to fight for her, so you’ll bring your monster and give the boy a chanze to end it. One way or the other. For all of us.”
Otter Woman opened her mouth to protest, saw that Bear’s decision was made, and closed it. Her clear reluctance was a more persuasive argument for leaving the safety of his car than anything Bear had said. Goose Woman had told the truth. The medicine pouch was hidden in the Olmaat’s heart. If Jase could kill it, take the dust, he could get his grandmother back.
If he could kill it.
He turned to Bear. “Can this spear kill the Olmaat?”
Bear looked closely, not at the weapon, but at the shell of light around it.
“Yez, but you’re going t’ have to break it. Nothing else will release enough magic for the kill.”
“Break it?” Jase considered the strong shaft and honed stone point. It didn’t look breakable.
“Shatter it,” the bear confirmed. “In th’ Olmaat’s body. Only way.”
Otter Woman looked happier now. “I’ll summon the beast.”
She made no other move, but Jase knew the Olmaat was being summoned. Horror swamped him at the thought of seeing that nightmare monster again.
He wasn’t a fighter. Not with a spear, or anything else. He hadn’t signed up for this shapeshifter war. But this was his only chance to get Gima back, and if she didn’t awaken the war in his own family would blaze out of control.
If he could end the shifters’ war, he might also earn a chance to end the war his father had started.
He might not be able to break the spear—but he could break the Tesla.
Jase took his right hand off the spear and made the familiar gesture of punching the Tesla’s starter button. Listening with those other ears, he heard the faint, distant p-ping.
He groped until the fingers of a hand that wasn’t in this world found the switch that lowered the Tesla’s roof. The glowing circle around him disappeared.
“I’ll fight,” he said. “Bring on your beast.”
***
; He smelled it before he saw it, rotting fish and flesh, and an acrid choking stink that made him think of that brown cloud that had all but smothered the planet before carbon emissions were banned.
Bear laid down some ground rules, that this was between Jase and the Olmaat, with no one allowed to interfere. That this was Jase’s one chance; if he lost and lived, he would never be allowed to return to the Spirit World again.
Never returning to the Spirit World sounded just fine to Jase, win or lose.
It was as dark now as the Alaskan summer night ever got, a dim gray light that dissolved the details of the Olmaat’s shambling shape. A bit like a gorilla, but with a longer, thinner body, and legs that rippled bonelessly as it strode forward. Piggy eyes glared above what looked like a mountain lion’s jaws, but it was hard to be sure under the coarse black fur. Its wiggling fingers, surely more than five per hand, were tipped with eagle claws.