by Terry Brooks
His father believes it is one of his children, perhaps going through a phase. He questions them all. Rigorously. His brother, perhaps frightened at the intensity of the accusation, points to Bear. For reasons that Bear will never be able to fathom, his father believes his brother. Bear is convicted without a trial. None of the missing items is found. No one steps forward to say that they have actually seen him stealing. But he is different than they are, aloof and circumspect, his motives not entirely clear, and that is enough. He is not punished, but he is consigned to a back corner of their lives and watched closely.
He accepts this, just as he accepts everything else—stoically, resignedly, with a quiet understanding of how it will always be for him. But he thinks, too, that he should solve this puzzle. He doesn’t like being thought of as a thief. Someone else is doing the stealing, and he will find out who it is. Perhaps that will convince the others their behavior toward him has been wrong.
He waits for the theft to happen again. It does, although not right away. This time, it is a weapon, a small automatic handgun. An antique, by all reckoning, a relic in an age in which lasers and flechettes and Sprays are the norm. But it is a theft nevertheless, and his father is quick to act on it. He searches Bear’s space in the house first and questions him anew. Bear has been too visible, too much in the family eye, to commit these offenses, yet neither his father nor his siblings seem to notice. Even his mother, who still loves him as mothers will their disappointing children, does not stand up for him. It is as if their perception of his character has been determined and cannot be altered. Stung by this injustice, Bear feels the distance between himself and his family widen.
But three nights later, he catches the thief. He has taken to patrolling the grounds and buildings at night, keeping watch in his slow, patient way, determined to prove to them that he is innocent. The thief is trying to steal a box of old tools when Bear comes on him unexpectedly and throws him to the ground. It is a boy, not much older but much smaller than Bear. The boy is dirty and ragged, a wild thing. He admits that he is the thief and that he stole to help his family, a small group of vagrants who have taken up residence in an old farm not far away. He pleads with Bear not to give him up, but Bear has made his decision.
Bear takes the boy to his father. Here is the real thief, he announces. He waits for his father to apologize. He cares nothing for the boy who stole from them beyond redeeming himself. He has not given any thought to the boy’s fate beyond that. It is his belief that the boy will be whipped and released. Bear is neither angry nor vengeful. He does not think that way.
His father does. Thieves are not to be tolerated. The boy begs and cries, but no one listens. Bear’s father and his uncles take the boy out into the small stand of woods at one end of their property and do not bring him back. At first, Bear thinks they have released him with a warning. But small comments and looks tell him otherwise. They have killed the boy to provide an object lesson to his family and others of what happens to thieves.
Bear is stunned. He cannot believe his father has done this. The other members of his family support the decision—even his mother. It does not seem to matter to any of them that this was only a boy. When Bear tries to put his thinking into words, he is brushed aside. He does not understand the nature of their existence, he is told. He does not appreciate what is necessary if they are to survive. He finds them all alien and unfamiliar. They are his family, but they are strangers, too. He sees them now through different eyes, and he does not like it. If they can kill a small boy, what else are they capable of? He waits for understanding to come to him, but it does not.
Then, one night, without thinking about it, without knowing it is what he intends until he does it, he leaves. He packs a small sack of food, water, and tools, straps his knife and stun gun to his waist, and sets out. He walks west without knowing where he is going, intending to follow the sun until he reaches the coast. He has no idea what he is going toward, only what he is leaving behind. He has misgivings and doubts and fears, but mostly he feels sadness.
Still, he knows in his heart how things will end if he stays.
He is twelve years old when he crosses the mountains and enters Seattle for the first time.
BEAR CAUGHT SIGHT of movement out of the corner of his eye, a slight shifting in the shadows. It was almost directly behind him, all the way back by the shed in which Owl slept with River and Fixit. If he hadn’t looked that way at just the right moment, he would have missed it entirely. He remained motionless, watching the darkness, waiting for the movement to reappear. When it did, it had spread from a single source to several, a clutch of shadows emerging from the darkness and taking on human form. But the movement was rough and jerky, slightly out of sync with that of humans.
Bear felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle.
Croaks.
He shifted the Tyson Flechette so that it was pointing toward the shadows, already thinking ahead to what he would have to do. The Croaks were weaving their way through the darkness, coming from the direction of the city, heading for the outbuildings and the sleeping Ghosts. He counted heads quickly, at the same time trying to make certain of what he was seeing. But there was no mistake. There were more than a dozen of them, too many to be anything but a hunting party. He had no idea what had drawn them here or if they knew yet that his family was directly in their path. But the end result was inevitable. In seconds, they were going to stumble over the sleeping forms.
He released the safety on the flechette and brought up the short, blunt barrel, leveling it. But his family lay on the ground almost directly between himself and the Croaks. He couldn’t fire without risking injury to them. The killing radius of the flechette was too wide and too uncertain. And, he added quickly, the distance was too far for the weapon to be accurate.
For the span of about five seconds, he froze, uncertain of what he should do.
Then he was on his feet and sprinting into the darkness, yelling back at the Croaks, intent on catching their attention and drawing them after him, away from his sleeping family. His ploy was successful. The Croaks stiffened and swung about as they caught sight of him. In seconds, they were after him.
He could not tell if any of the Ghosts had been awakened or were aware of his dilemma. There wasn’t time to stop and look; there wasn’t time for anything but flight. Besides, it didn’t matter. His first obligation was to act as their protector. His own safety was secondary and could not be considered.
For Bear, it had never been any other way.
He ran hard for a short distance, far enough so that he was safely away from his family. He was big and strong, but running for long distances was out of the question. When he stopped and wheeled back, he was already breathing hard and his forehead was coated in sweat. He watched the Croaks lumber toward him, bigger and slower than he was, but a whole lot harder to kill. He blew the first two to pieces at fifty paces, turned and ran some more. A hundred yards farther on, he wheeled back and fired again. He brought down a third, but the second blast missed its intended mark. The sound of the weapon’s discharge was earthshaking. One thing was for sure: everyone sleeping would be awake and warned by now.
He fired once more, catching another of the Croaks in the legs. He watched it tumble to the ground, disrupting the pursuit of the rest. There were more of them than he had thought at first, and they were not giving up the chase. He turned and began to run again, but he was tiring quickly now. He gained another fifty yards, coming up on the highway, a dark ribbon stretching away into the dark, its blacktopped surface glistening with a dust-covered slick.
Behind him, he could hear the growls of the Croaks. They were still coming.
He turned and fired again, killing another, and the flechette jammed. He hesitated, then braced himself as the remaining Croaks closed on him. It would end here. Not what he would have wished for, but for a good cause in any case. His blunt features tightened, and the muscles of his big shoulders bunched. Even though the barrel
of the weapon was hot, he gripped it with both hands, holding it like a club. The Croaks growled and slobbered, spittle running from their ruined mouths, eyes mad and shifting in response to the disease eating them. They were covered with lesions and jagged scars, and the sounds they made were the sounds of wild animals. Bear had never faced this many alone.
Claws reached for him, blackened and sharp. He swung the flechette as hard as he could, and the closest attackers collapsed like rag dolls into the others. But the claws ripped his clothing and flesh, leaving ragged wounds that burned.
Bear backed away, taking a fresh stance.
And then the night exploded in streaks of red fire, and Panther and Sparrow surged out of the darkness, screaming like banshees and firing their Parkhan Sprays in steady bursts. The Croaks broke and fled before this fresh assault, less than a handful left as they disappeared into the night.
THE MIX OF GROWLS and yells brought Owl awake inside the shed. She was dozing, staying close to River and Fixit so that she could use cold compresses to help keep their fevers down. She was lying on the floor, close beside them, her wheelchair several feet away. At first, she just stared in the direction of the door, waiting to see if something more would happen. Then she heard the booming discharge of Bear’s weapon and was hauling herself upright and into her wheelchair when Chalk burst through the door, eyes wide and frightened in his pale round face.
“Croaks!” he shouted in what appeared to be a failed attempt at a whisper. “Bear drew them off, and Panther and Sparrow went after him. What should we do?”
She rolled herself over to the door and peered into the night. The sounds of the battle were evident in the continued discharge of the flechette and the growls and cries that followed. But she couldn’t see anything.
“Where’s Candle?” She looked over her shoulder at Chalk, who mouthed wordlessly and shook his head. “Take me outside!” she snapped.
The boy did so, pushing her clear of the entry and into the darkness beyond. She stared off in the direction of the battle, and then looked around for the little girl. No sign of her. She felt her stomach tighten with fear. “Go find her! Don’t come back without her!”
Chalk disappeared at a run, and Owl wheeled herself over to the discarded blankets and pallets where the others had been sleeping, calling out as she went for Candle. There was no response. She picked up one of the prods that the others had dropped in the excitement, laying it across the arms of her wheelchair.
Then she remembered the boy with the ruined face.
She rolled her wheelchair around to the side of the shed where Logan had left him chained to an iron ring. The chains lay in a heap, still attached to the ring, but the boy was gone. Somehow during the night he had managed to free himself and had fled.
Had he forced Candle to go with him?
Chalk charged back into view, gasping for breath. “I looked everywhere! I can’t find her! I can’t find any sign of her!”
There was no reason for the boy to take the little girl with him when he fled, nothing to be gained from taking her.
Yet Owl was convinced that he had.
TWENTY
“I T ISN’T MUCH FARTHER,” the girl named Cat told Logan Tom as they continued their march through the empty buildings of the city.
Logan hoped not. They had been walking for the better part of an hour, and there was nothing to indicate what it was they were walking toward. He had thought to ask her once or twice, but then decided not to. Cat seemed to know exactly where she was going. He had little choice but to trust her if he didn’t want to have to start over on his own—a thought that held little appeal. Time was precious for River and Fixit, and he needed to get the plague medicine to them as quickly as he could manage. Cat still seemed his best bet.
“Are you worried that I don’t know where I’m going?” she asked suddenly, as if reading his mind.
Her dappled face turned toward him, the patches of Lizard skin glistening faintly in the moonlight. He was struck anew by the strangeness of her look. “I’m worried about time, that’s all,” he said.
She nodded. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so foolish as to come into the city on your own and with no weapons.” She continued to study him. “Or maybe you’re better prepared than it seems. You look pretty confident. Do you have weapons I can’t see?”
He shook his head. “Only my staff.”
“Then your staff must be pretty special.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You don’t seem to have any weapons, either. What do you do if you have to protect yourself?”
She turned away from him. “I show my face. It terrifies my enemies, and they run and hide.”
She tossed it off, quick and light, almost a verbal shrug. But it cost her something to say it, and she had said it before this, perhaps practicing how it would sound. Her transformation was more than skin-deep, and she was still coming to terms with it.
In any case, she was too confident not to have some sort of defense against predators. She wouldn’t be out here like this if all she had to rely on was a cat that hopped like a rabbit.
Speaking of which, he hadn’t seen the cat in quite some time. He glanced around, but there was no sign of her.
“What happened to your cat?” he asked.
“She’s gone ahead.”
“Ahead to where?”
“To where we’re going. Not far.”
He gave it up and just kept walking after that, staying alert for any danger but oddly unworried in her company. The streets down which they passed, while as cluttered with debris and overgrown with weeds and scrub as every other road in America, were otherwise empty. Now and then, he caught sight of feeders working their way through the shadows, their sleek forms quicksilver and ephemeral as they flitted past building walls and around tree trunks on their way to destinations that only they knew. He had seen little of feeders since leaving the city of Seattle, but he was conscious of the fact that they were always there, watching and waiting for an opportunity to feast. Humankind’s heritage to the world, the product of their dark emotions, he thought. He wondered if feeders had been there before humans and if they would survive when humans were gone.
Were demons and Faerie creatures fair game, as well?
Were Knights of the Word?
He thought again about the gypsy morph and its purpose—to save the human race, its only chance. And maybe he was the morph’s only chance, but how could he be sure? The Lady had said so. O’olish Amaneh had said so. But they were Faerie creatures, and Faerie creatures never revealed to anyone the whole of what they knew. Logan had been told only what he needed to know and nothing more. That was the way it worked. He had learned that from his time attacking the slave camps.
He was still contemplating the nature and extent of his efforts when he caught sight of movement off to one side. The movement was slow and deliberate, the shifting of a large body against a building wall. They were in a section of old warehouses, close by the water where it extended south from Seattle. Logan glanced at the girl, but she seemed preoccupied. He glanced back at where he had seen the movement, but now there was nothing.
He tightened his grip on his staff and summoned the magic.
The runes began to glow a deep blue in response.
“I thought so,” the girl said suddenly, looking over at him.
Her words startled him. “What?”
“I thought that your staff was special. What makes it do that?”
“A kind of power.” He shrugged dismissively.
“Like a fire?”
“Sort of.”
“You can summon it when you want?”
“Yes. Did you see something move a minute ago?”
She grinned through the darkness. “Sure. So did you. That’s why you did whatever you did to your staff. I wanted to see or I would have said something. Those are Lizards watching us.”
He felt a flush of irritation heat
his face. “I don’t like games. Why didn’t you just say something?”
“These Lizards know me. They guard this place. We’re in the Senator’s territory now. He’s the one who’s going to help us.”
Logan let the magic settle back into the staff, the blue glow diminishing to darkness, the heat of its power cooling. “I thought you knew where we were going.”
She nodded. “I do. But this is in the Senator’s territory, so we need to visit him first. He expects it.”
“Who is this Senator?” he asked.
“You’ll see.”
She clapped her hands sharply, and a clutch of Lizards slid from the shadows, their big, cumbersome forms materializing as if by magic. Logan did not panic. There was no effort made to seize or restrain him, and the girl began speaking to them almost immediately. She did not use any language with which he was familiar, but a kind of guttural speech that relied heavily on grunts and slurs. The Lizards seemed to understand, answering her back, one or two nodding and gesturing, as well. Cat glanced at him briefly and smiled her reassurance, pointing ahead.
“Our destination,” she said.
It was a majestic old stone building with a long rise of broad steps leading to a veranda lined with pillars that supported a massive overhang, the face of which was carved with strange symbols and figures. From within the building, through windows scarred by time and weather and between cracks in fifteen-foot-high doors closed tightly against the night, light glimmered in a soft, pulsating rhythm. A steady murmur emanated from within, rising and falling like an ocean’s tide. Atop the steps stood a dozen more of the Lizards bearing an odd assortment of weapons—prods, flechettes, and antique single-shots—a ragtag arsenal for a ragtag band.