Hidden Things

by Doyce Testerman

  “Really?” Vikous glanced back at the building. “Maybe I should take a look at that when I get a chance.”

  Calliope’s frown deepened. “We’re in the Hidden Lands already, aren’t we?” She glanced around them in the dim lighting that the stop provided. “You should have told me.”

  Vikous straightened and shook his head, still smiling. “We’re at a rest stop,” he said, as though he had explained everything with five words. Calliope looked at him and did not return the smile. Vikous folded his arms across his chest, eliciting the same unnatural motion beneath his coat as always. “I told you before that borders are important.”

  Calliope nodded but said nothing, blinking random snowflakes from her eyelashes.

  Vikous rolled his eyes. “Borders are just things in between other things. This”—he gestured at the rest area—“is a place that lies in between.”

  “It’s a border?”

  “A natural border,” Vikous said. “I don’t even have to do anything to it. Someone already hid it—probably after it was closed down for some other reason—and now we’re ready for the next thing.”

  “Which is what?”

  Vikous’s smile widened to uncomfortable dimensions. He held up the dragon scale and threw it into the fire.

  The smell of lilacs filled the air.

  Minutes passed. Calliope shivered. “Cold again.”

  Vikous nodded, scanning the skies. “Couldn’t keep everything going at the same time. Trust me, you’ll be plenty warm in a few minutes.” He frowned, turning slowly as he watched the clouds. “Assuming this works.”

  Calliope watched the highway beyond the parking lot. “This place is hidden from normal people, right?”

  Vikous nodded but didn’t turn. “That’s the way it works. Otherwise people would wander in, take a weird turn on the way out, and find themselves out of gas in a very bad place—it’s generally best to avoid that.”

  Calliope nodded, only half listening. “Then why is a semi pulling in?”

  Vikous whirled, the frown on his face melting into something Calliope could only call wonder. “Oh, jackpot,” he said as the truck’s headlights, coming right toward them, flashed over his face.

  Calliope squinted into the light, shielding her eyes. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a—” She lost track of the next thing she’d meant to say as the truck turned

  wheeled, actually, like a bird

  and came to a stop perpendicular to them. With the light out of her eyes, Calliope could see that whatever it was, it was definitely not a truck. Black, lit only by sparks of light here and there along its body, it could be mistaken for any number of things, at least at night, but when the shining claws settled to the ground—when great, midnight wings like a bomber plane’s furled in from where they had stretched out and away from the body a hundred yards in either direction—when the heat from the thing washed over her and what she had first thought were headlights turned, and dimmed, and blinked—Calliope knew what she was really looking at.

  “WE HAVE COME TO YOUR SUMMONING, HARLEQUIN,” thrummed a voice that seemed to vibrate out of the ground and straight into Calliope’s body. “SUCH IS THE AGREEMENT, TIME OUT OF MIND.” The great thing shifted. Even now, in the flickering illumination afforded by the lights of the parking lot, Calliope could only guess at its exact size and shape. “BUT YOU HAVE INTERRUPTED OUR HUNT, AND WE WILL HAVE A PLEASING EXCUSE FOR THAT OR KILL YOU FOR AMUSEMENT’S SAKE AND CONSUME THE HUMAN GIRL.”

  “I think you might have forgotten to mention a couple of details,” Calliope murmured to Vikous, who ignored her and stepped forward.

  “Ancient Majesty,” he said, “I am guide and escort to this woman.” He paused. “We must reach the effigy.”

  “WE FAIL TO HEAR ANYTHING IN YOUR WORDS, HARLEQUIN, THAT COULD POSSIBLY INVOLVE OR ENTERTAIN US.” The low thrum of its annoyance in the vibration of the thing’s voice made Calliope’s jaw ache. She saw Vikous swallow and straighten his posture imperceptibly, and she couldn’t help but think that her companion might have overestimated his abilities.

  “We would ask the boon of transport, Majesty.”

  The low ache that had accompanied the creature’s annoyance was less than nothing compared to the pain that burst behind Calliope’s eyes when the growl-explosion erupted out of the air around her. She tried to track what was being said, but the white agony in her skull pushed everything else away. After several moments, the surge of pain faded to the point where she could understand the words she was hearing.

  “ . . . IS NOT ENOUGH THAT YOU SHOULD PRESUME TO PARLEY, PRESUME TO COMPEL, BUT THAT YOU SO MUCH AS MENTION THAT MOST UNWORTHY OF TASKS IS GROUNDS ENOUGH FOR YOUR UTTER DESTRUCTION. ARE WE BEASTS? WORSE, ARE WE A MINDLESS, IMPROBABLE, AND IGNOBLE MACHINE, SINCE BEASTS THEMSELVES ARE NOW TOO LOWLY A CONVEYANCE FOR HUMANS? WE THINK NOT.”

  The last words redoubled the previous agony and drove Calliope to her knees, sobbing. When she could see again, after a fashion, she realized that Vikous was kneeling next to her. In his case, however, it seemed as though he had assumed the position willingly; though he looked down and away from the dragon, there was no pain on his face.

  Eventually, as the discomfort faded and the susurrus of dry winter grass replaced the ringing in Calliope’s ears, Vikous stood. “Your pardon, Majesty, but I believe there is a misunderstanding.”

  “YOU INTIMATE THAT THERE IS A THING—ANY THING—WE FAIL TO UNDERSTAND?” The ache-drone of the thing’s disdain was almost a relief.

  Vikous dipped his head. “I have spoken unclearly and without proper distinction. The fault in understanding lies in my own poorly chosen words; we would only ask the favor of your company on our journey. In return we offer what small entertainments we have.”

  “YOUR MEANING IS CLEAR TO US, HARLEQUIN. BUT DO NOT THINK THAT YOUR PALTRY TALENTS MAY BUY THE PRICE OF OUR COMPANIONSHIP. WE ROAMED FREE WHILE YOU AND YOURS HAD YET TO DISCOVER YOUR CRAFT.” The sound of a massive body shifting filled the air in a way utterly unlike the voice. “WE CARE NOT FOR YOUR BANAL TRICKS AND FOOLISHNESS.”

  “I . . .” Vikous’s face became slack, unprepared for this latest pronouncement. Calliope saw desperation in his eyes; an aborted glance in her direction. “I meant to—”

  “He meant”—Calliope forced herself to her feet against the constriction of her bound right arm—“he meant me, Highness.”

  Majesty, Vikous mouthed.

  “Majesty,” Calliope amended. “I’m the . . . I sing.”

  “DO YOU THEN SING MORE DEFTLY THAN YOU SPEAK, HUMAN GIRL?”

  Damn, I hope so, Calliope thought.

  “You’re going to have to cut me loose,” Calliope said under her breath. Vikous stared at her, uncomprehending. Calliope motioned toward her shoulder. “Help me get the coat off and cut the bandages holding my arm down.”

  Vikous frowned. “What? What for?”

  Calliope was already pushing out of her coat. “This thing’s a straitjacket. I can’t sing if I can’t breathe.”

  “It’s not going to do your shoulder any good.”

  “I’m pretty sure having a dragon chew on it isn’t going to do much for the healing process either, so let’s cut the goddamn bandages.”

  Vikous nodded and helped Calliope lift the sweater over her head. Beneath, she wore the very tired-looking white T-shirt that Vikous had gotten her right arm into two days ago and which she hadn’t had the guts to remove since. Her arm was held tight to her side with bandages that Vikous had wrapped entirely around her midsection.

  “YOU ARE INJURED, HUMAN GIRL.” The thing’s voice sounded vaguely intrigued.

  Calliope managed a deferential nod while Vikous worked at the impossible task of pulling tape off her arm without moving her shoulder. Ten minutes ago, the movement might have caused her to cry out, but compared to the dragon’s recent anger, the sharp, sullen ache in her shoulder was more than bearable. “Yes, Majesty. I was shot.”

  “BY WHOM?”

  “By th
e goad, Majesty,” Vikous answered.

  “WE ASKED THE GIRL.”

  Calliope blinked. “Walker. My”—she glanced at Vikous—“my goad. The one who’s trying to stop me, I guess.”

  “THAT IS NOT THE GOAD’S TASK.”

  Calliope looked a question at Vikous, who continued working on the bandages as though he wasn’t listening. “I’m sure you’re right, Majesty, but he did shoot me.”

  “WHERE WAS YOUR QUEST-GUIDE?”

  Calliope frowned. “He was with me.”

  Motion whispered in the night air as the great, flowing shadow of the dragon shifted in the darkness. It was the sound waves made on a shoreline. Or wind in a cornfield “WE BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND THE GREATER STORY. YOUR GUIDE IS INCOMPETENT.”

  “Hey—” Calliope began, but cut herself off when she felt Vikous’s hand on her good shoulder.

  “YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO ADD, HUMAN GIRL?”

  “Just . . .” Calliope frowned, looking up, doing her best to meet the gaze of a creature she couldn’t really see. “I have no cause to complain about my guide, Majesty.”

  “INCONGRUOUS.”

  “Maybe,” Calliope began to shrug, thought better of it. “It’s the truth.”

  The sparks of light along the dragon’s body shifted a few inches, the movement oddly contemplative. “THERE IS A STORY HERE,” said the dragon. “PERHAPS WE WILL HAVE IT FROM YOU, IF YOU LIVE.”

  Calliope bowed her head. “I would be honored, Majesty,” she hesitated, “by both events.”

  “AS YOU SAY,” said the dragon, but Calliope thought she caught the barest hint of amusement. “NOW. YOU ARE READY. SING.”

  Calliope glanced down, realizing that the dragon was correct. Vikous had removed the bandages as she spoke. She stood, wearing only a pair of worn jeans and a wrinkled and stained T-shirt outside a midwestern rest stop in the middle of November, but she felt perfectly comfortable, blasted by the heat of the dragon’s existence. Above her, snow fell, but not a flake reached the pavement as anything more than a mist. Watching the droplets condense on her crumpled coat as it lay at her feet, Calliope began to sing.

  It filled her up with a kind of sad warmth, like sitting safe but alone by a roaring fireplace. Her voice lifted up through the snowy darkness and into the empty border-world around her, and the words, which she sometimes couldn’t even remember afterward, clung to her and swirled along the ground like half-seen images. The song was one she had known for years and sung for many different reasons, but in this place, at this time, it was about what she had done, where she had come from, where she still had to go—the alien world in which she suddenly found herself.

  It was about Joshua.

  It was about everything.

  By the end, it was angry—still filled with loss, but colored with uncomprehending confusion and rage—the song sung eternally by those who had lost what they loved and didn’t understand why. She sang-screamed at the sky above her, letting the lyrics ask that simplest of questions and, when she was done—when the song had gone out of her like a withdrawn candle—she slumped, hanging her head and letting the damp strands of her hair hide her face. She hadn’t felt her shoulder while she sang, but now the ache glowed like a banked fire that was starting to flare up. Her clothing clung to her in the mist, cool and clammy.

  Vikous cleared his throat. It was only then that Calliope realized that the song was probably not what anyone could consider decent payment. She looked up at the light and black where the dragon loomed. “I’m . . . that was . . . I can sing something else for you if—”

  “WHAT IS YOUR NAME, CHILD?”

  Calliope blinked and, after a nudge from Vikous, gave her name. Silence answered her, then: “CALLIOPE,” the voice thrummed through the pavement. “MUSE, MOTHER OF ORPHEUS, ASTEROID, MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.”

  Calliope cleared her throat. “It’s also a kind of hummingbird.”

  The lamplike eyes turned toward her, brightening for a moment. Calliope squinted but did not turn away. “IT IS AN UNCOMMONLY COMPLEX NAME,” the dragon said, “FOR A HUMAN.”

  Calliope couldn’t think of a reply, so she nodded.

  A vast undulation shifted the glints of light along the dragon’s body as it moved toward her, sinuous and cumbersome at once. “WHERE WOULD YOU TRAVEL, CALLIOPE?”

  “My . . .” Calliope glanced at Vikous, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange. She didn’t recognize the expression on his face and, frowning, turned back to the dragon. “My guide tells me we have to go to the effigy.” Vikous nodded, but stopped in midmotion when Calliope continued. “But before that, I need to stop somewhere else.”

  The dragon’s bright eyes stared down at her, unblinking. After several seconds, they moved slightly. “AS YOU SAY, CALLIOPE.” The massive body shifted. “WE WILL TRAVEL WITH YOU FOR A TIME AND, AS YOU ARE SORRY, EARTHBOUND CREATURES, WE WILL SHOW OUR BENEVOLENCE BY CONVEYING YOU IN A MANNER BEFITTING OUR NATURE.” It paused, then turned to Vikous. “WE PERCEIVE THAT YOU ARE DECEPTIVELY COMPETENT, HARLEQUIN, WHICH SHOULD NOT SURPRISE US, GIVEN YOUR NATURE, YET STILL DOES SO. IN ALL THOSE THINGS, YOU ARE A TRIBUTE TO YOUR KIND.” Vikous bowed his head as the creature drew back to look at both of them. “WE WERE CALLED MAHKAH IN THE TONGUE OF A PEOPLE WHO ONCE DWELT IN THESE LANDS. USE THIS NAME AS WE TRAVEL.”

  Vikous froze for a second, then bowed very, very low. Calliope did her very best to do likewise.

  “COME,” Mahkah said. “WE WILL SHOW YOU HOW DRAGONS MOVE OVER THIS WORLD, AND YOU WILL TELL US YOUR STORY.”

  Vikous helped Calliope pull her sweater and coat back on, though they hardly seemed necessary, this close to the dragon.

  “A thousand-jelly-packets performance,” he barely whispered in her ear as he worked the right sleeve over her arm. “There,” he said in a normal voice as he stepped back. Calliope could only smile and give his arm a squeeze. He winked. “Where are we going?” he asked, but Calliope thought he already knew.

  17

  CALLIOPE WATCHED THE sere grass of the highway’s ditch blur by as she sat perched on the neck of a dragon. It didn’t seem normal, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t impossible. Not anymore. The most telling thing was that, despite herself, she was starting to get drowsy.

  They had been flying—gliding, almost—for several hours, jarred only occasionally when Mahkah reached down to the road with one trailing claw to adjust the path of their flight, laying another mark along the pavement. Calliope and Vikous had recounted their story to Mahkah as they traveled, watching oncoming cars sweep by without so much as a second glance from the drivers or passengers.

  “It’s partly magic,” Vikous had explained after the fifth or sixth pickup truck had gone by. “Enhancing shadows, implying a little more to the shape than what’s actually there, obscuring the wing shadow as cloud cover or an overpass.” He gestured at the highway. “Most of it’s just that people see what they want to see.” His hand swept back over his shoulder, indicating the massive bulk of the dragon. “And some of it’s the natural coloration and the sparks of light. Luminescence, whatever.”

  Calliope nodded, but didn’t bother to look the way he’d gestured. She’d found that even now, sitting atop the creature, she still couldn’t really see it; her eyes slid away, or her mind wandered the way it did on long drives. “That’s natural? They’ve always looked like that?”

  Vikous shook his head, but it was Mahkah who answered. “ALL BEINGS ADAPT TO SUIT THEIR ENVIRONMENT. WHAT WONDER THAT THE GREATEST AMONG THEM DO LIKEWISE?”

  To this observation, Vikous added nothing. Calliope decided to follow suit, and let her eyes slowly close.

  “You don’t want me to meet your folks?”

  Calliope sighs, eyes closed. She pushes her fingers halfway through her hair, then grips it tight, focusing on the pain. “No; I don’t want to meet my folks.”

  Josh blows air through his teeth. “You know, it’s funny to joke, but this is a little more serious than just not calling t
hem on the weekends.”

  “I know it’s serious.” She glares at him. “I don’t think you get how much.” Again, she tugs on her hair, turning to stare at the ground. “I don’t—”

  “We drove,” he interrupts, “for two solid days. We are”—he turns, pointing down the road that runs past them and their parked car—“ten minutes from your house.”

  “My parents’ house.”

  “What d—”

  “It’s not my house,” Calliope continues, raising her voice to shut down his protest. “That was made very clear when I left.”

  Josh drops his chin down to his chest the way he always does when he’s swallowing words he doesn’t want to say. “Fine. Okay. Your parents’ house. But it’s still your family. They’re not going to leave you standing on the front step.”

  Calliope’s eyes go wide, her expression incredulous. “Ha!” She tips her face up to shout the sharp, barking laugh at the sky. “You . . . that . . .” She gives Josh a look of pure, astonished disbelief.

  He turns away from Calliope, pacing between her and the car, hands on his hips, looking at the sky. When he gets back to where she’s standing, arms wrapped around her midsection, he tries again. “Why?”

  She shrugs. “They wanted me gone.”

  “That was seven years ago,” he says, his voice quiet and intense. “We walk up and knock on the door—”

  “They never forget,” she manages, barely above a whisper. “They’ll ruin everything.” She winces at Josh’s explosive exhalation. “Please—”

  “You’ve got a family.” He bites off each word. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand how much that’s worth.”

  “I understand them.” Calliope turns away. “Honestly? You’re the lucky one.”

  As soon as she says the words, she knows she’s gone too far.

  She is right. The next sound from Josh is the driver’s-side door of the car opening and closing.

  Calliope turns. Josh sits behind the wheel, eyes forward, not looking at her or anything else. Through the glass of the side window he looks pale and bloodless, like a ghost.