by Leslie Fish
The thing was either a very scaly bat or a short-faced pterodactyl. It was woefully ugly, and it stank. It was a hell of a way to start the day.
I threw the thing out of the cart and drove on, letting the wind in my face wash away the stink. Between that smell and the residual odor of cactus-thing blood, the cart must have reeked amazingly to the local wildlife, for nothing else came to bother me.
Time passed, featureless, immeasurable. The darkness, monotony, fever and pain sent my mind wandering down curious pathways, remembering sunlight and open sky. I imagined walking up the path to my own front door in clean, soft air glowing with sunshine. I thought of a long hot bath melting away my assorted pains. I pictured the big double bed in the main bedroom…
And then I imagined Jan and Lee in it, celebrating their success. I imagined crushing both their skulls with a single blow of the Morning Star, then throwing their bodies out of the bed and lying down in it myself.
I don’t know how many hours passed before I noticed a change that roused me from fever dreams. It was the wind, stronger and louder, closer to the source. I sat up and whipped the lizard-team to a shuffling trot, eager to be done with this place. Slowly but steadily, the wind grew to gale-force.
Now the land grew rougher, and the team could do no better than a walk. The ground sloped upward and the stones on it became bigger. The last of the fire-pits fell far behind, and the wind constantly threatened to put out the torches. Finally one of the torches did blow out, and a boulder too big to pass blocked the way. It was time to abandon the cart.
I halted the team and re-lit the torch, took out the climbing gear and canteen, the sword and the Morning Star. I turned the draft-lizards’ heads around, tied up their reins and slapped them into a shambling trot back toward the dark plain below. I hoped they’d survive down there, that the torches and the assorted stinks the cart had accumulated would keep them safe, for they’d been good serviceable beasts. With luck, some troll or other would find them -- and, I supposed, thank his troll gods for the windfall. There was no point taking a torch for myself, not against that wind. I waved a last farewell to the disappearing torches, turned toward the heart of the gale and climbed upward.
Nothing came to bother me in the roaring darkness, and in time I found the tunnel. It was another volcanic vent, but with far rougher sides than the one I’d come down. There were footholds and handholds in plenty, even ledges broad enough to rest on, and the ragged tunnel led upward at an easy enough angle that I could climb it one-handed in the dark.
It still took forever to climb. A day and a night, I think, it must have been; I remember sleeping on a broad ledge, waking to growing hunger and the eternal nagging pain, and finally thirst when the canteen went dry. Fever and pain distorted my time- sense, and I had to concentrate fiercely on each move. Twice I crossed patches of slick obsidian where the footing was treacherous. On one sharp rise I had to chop footholds and handholds with the sword, and the wretched thing broke before I was safely finished. I managed to climb it anyway, with a little help from the rope and grapnels. Once I came across a crack too wide for jumping, as a tossed stone told me, and I had to use the rope and grapnels with the wind fighting me at every throw.
That wind became a personal enemy, its constant roar blending with the low thunder of pain in my arm. In time it came to sound like a full orchestra playing some dark Impressionist symphony. A choir of impossibly high voices joined it, singing clever insults at me in every phrase, though I could never quite make out the words. Sometimes I sang and shouted back to them, but more often I saved my breath for climbing and only cursed the voices silently.
A dozen times I scraped my injured arm, and howled in pain while the wind- voices laughed. A dozen times I stopped to rest, and half of them fell asleep for uncounted hours. I crawled upward by slow and painful inches, feeling my way along until my good hand was raw. The sores on my skin itched like fire-ants, and more than once I dreamed that I was being eaten alive by tiny lizards. I slipped and almost fell a score of times. Twice I did fall, no more than a yard or two before I could catch myself, but hard enough to make my broken arm scream at me until I screamed back. As hunger and thirst added to the pain I remembered the lamprey-face, and wished that I’d burned the damned thing before giving it a single lizard. I wished I’d taken the troll driver’s bottle, emptied it out and refilled it at the stream for a spare canteen. Above all, I wished I’d cut Jan’s and Lee’s rope before they cut mine.
I don’t know how long the light had been visible before I finally noticed it among the shifting fever-lights in my eyes. What drew my attention was that it didn’t shimmer and change; it was vague and distant and the pale blue of outside air, like sunbeam-shafts through a high cathedral window. I smiled benevolence at all the upper world -- with two exceptions -- and climbed toward it.
I came out through a shadowed gash in a cliff-face, into late afternoon sunlight, overlooking a barren and rocky valley. Steady wind poured through the valley and swept the cliff, pressing me almost lovingly against the rock as I worked my way down to the valley floor. I had no idea where I was, except that it was the true upper world, and not too far from the known location of Langspur Caverns. The sunlight felt wonderful; it seemed to bake the fuzziness out of my head, some of the hot throb out of my arm, and the miserable fire-ant itch out of my skin. The blisters burst and dried as I watched, leaving only glassy circular patches that looked like scales.
Lizard’s scales…?
The thought bothered me, but I couldn’t hold on to it in the pure joy of seeing the sky again, feeling the sun again, and walking on lighted ground again. I couldn’t wait to find a familiar landmark and get myself back to civilization. I wanted a tall beer, a thick steak, a hot bath and a soft bed, in that order. I’d deal with Lee and Jan later; just now I was laughing-drunk on sunlight. I turned toward the sweet gold sun and walked westward out of the valley.
It was no more than a mile or so to the western ridge, and as I came over it I saw on the flats below -- oh joy! -- a two-lane blacktop highway. Roads meant traffic, people, a ride out of here. I hurried down to the shoulder of the road, looked up and down it, and waited.
In time I saw, off to my left, sunlight glinting off the grill of an oncoming truck. I remembered the last time I’d tried to hitch a ride, and grinned down at the trusty hand- made Morning Star in my belt. In daylight, the dangling three-horned skull looked even uglier. For that matter, I didn’t look much better myself: dirt-stained, blood-streaked, bruised, ragged, still wearing my worn climbing-gear, skin studded with those scaly patches, with no idea what my face looked like by now. I’d have a great story to tell the driver. As the truck drew near, I raised my hand and stuck up my thumb in the time-honored signal.
The truck pulled up beside me and stopped. The driver hitched across the seat, opened the near door and leaned out to get a good look at me. I stepped forward to oblige.
As he looked at me, his jaw dropped. He gave a hoarse yell, turned around and tugged furiously at something tucked into his belt. I saw the handle of what looked like a dark iron bar.
No, there was no mistaking that action. Without thinking, I yanked the Morning Star out of my belt.
His weapon cleared first, and a got a good look at it as he swung it up to strike: a black steel crowbar.
I ducked forward and the bar came down flat across my back, clanging on the frame of my backpack. At that angle the blow was enough to stagger me, but not enough to knock me down. I came up swinging.
Damn, damn, damn, I thought wearily, as I smashed the Morning Star upward into his face, Is it all to do over again?
…I suppose I can manage to drive this truck, but I’d been hoping for an easier way home
About Leslie Fish
Leslie Fish is best known as one of the foremost filk musicians in America. Did you know she's an author, too? You just read this book, so now you know.
You can find more about her by visiting her website at http://www.les
liefish.com
Some of her achievements include:
Albums
Folk Songs For Solar Sailors
Cold Iron (Kipling)
The Undertaker's Horse
It's Sister Jenny's Turn to Throw the Bomb
Our Fathers of Old
Serious Steel
Not Canned or Frozen
Avalon is Risen, 2012
Books and Stories
A Dirge for Sabis (with C. J. Cherryh), collected in The Sword of Knowledge trilogy
Offensive As Hell: The Joys of Jesus-Freak Bagging
Of Elven Blood
Short Stories
And a long list of short stories produced as part of The Merovingen Nights series edited by C. J. Cherryh