VirtualHeaven

by Ann Lawrence

  They played a deadly game of hide and seek. Kered moved with a silence uncanny for one his size. Maggie tried in vain to move with stealth, but each twig she stepped on seemed determined to announce her presence.

  The blur of Kered’s throw came twice more. Each yelp made Maggie cringe. They saw a trail of thick, bloody drops on dried pine needles. Each arrow they came to, Kered dislodged and snapped in two. “Why not leave them?” Maggie asked as they stalked after the bleeding enemy.

  “And have them used again? Possibly planted in our backs?” Kered looked at her as if she were stupid.

  “Or,” she continued, determined not to let him think her completely ignorant, “or, use them yourself?”

  Kered stared at her then turned away, a sheepish look upon his face. Maggie had to strain to hear his words. “I am not very accurate with the bow,” he whispered, as if embarrassed by this admission of weakness. “I specialized in blades.”

  “Great,” Maggie muttered. “I would end up with someone who needs to be up close to kill the enemy.” Her words stopped her cold. Kill the enemy. She had said kill. Violence in her world was to be abhorred and avoided. Violence in his world was commonplace, and she had been accepting it far too easily. She swallowed down bile.

  They came to the edge of the tree-lined slope. Kered pointed straight ahead. “There lies the route we must take to begin our quest to the Sacred Pool. ‘Tis blocked by at least one able man. I may have only wounded the other two,” he stated, using a stick to indicate a confusion of footprints and bloody splotches on the ground. “If they can wield their bows from those rocks, they may hold us here past any hope of making this quest.”

  Maggie studied the forbidding landscape stretched beyond the rocks sheltering the Wartmen. The red surface of cracked and parched earth looked impossible to cross under any circumstances. Their sylvan shelter seemed friendlier with every moment. “Why not go up the mountain and come down somewhere else?” she asked.

  “The Forbidden Isle, wherein lies the cup of Liarg, is only accessible by land on one occasion. If we do not take the most direct route, we will miss the timely turning of the tides,” he snarled. “Equally, I have no wish to wait upon Hart Fell for another conjunction to come and go.”

  “I see.’’ Maggie knew that Kered had only a few stars left. The thought that he might have to get close enough to the Wartmen to use a sword or knife made her mouth dry and her underarms wet. “How dangerous are those Wartpeople?”

  “Wartmen. They are known for their canny use of the bow and a propensity to gnaw upon the bones of their victims.”

  Maggie stared at him in disbelief.

  Kered warmed to his subject, resting back on his haunches. “The warts are a disease from mating with their kin. Their dirty habits have expelled them from every chiefdom and thus, they have no choice but to prey upon unwary travelers.” He picked up a star and it glinted in the morning sun that now bathed the parched landscape.

  Trying not to retch, Maggie decided to risk offending his masculine pride. “Perhaps we should use this opportunity to test my weapon. You know, make that rock they’re hiding behind disappear?” She waited for his reaction.

  Kered turned and looked at her with quiet speculation. “The weapon can do that? Make their shelter disappear?”

  Maggie chewed her lip. “I’m not sure. We can try, can’t we?” At least he hadn’t resisted outright. She watched myriad emotions cross his face.

  “A good commander values even the smallest contribution of the standard bearer,” he said, grinning and digging her gun from his pack. “Make the stone disappear.”

  Maggie took the gun. With a silent prayer, she braced herself against the bole of the tree. Her arms trembled as she sighted down the short barrel of the game gun.

  She fired on blue.

  The rock disappeared. Three Wartmen stared about in astonishment. Kered rose, a star at the ready.

  He never threw it. A blur of black leaped over the crouching men. A confusing pile of Wartmen and Gulap stayed his hand. Blood sprayed and splattered on the dirt like a light rain.

  Maggie gagged. The gun fell from her limp fingers.

  Chapter Five

  Maggie looked over her shoulder again and again. She couldn’t help it. No matter what Kered had told her, she kept expecting the Gulap to come bounding up, a bloody Wartman’s hand dangling from its mouth.

  Despite the blistering heat and blazing red sun in the purple sky, Kered’s easy acceptance of the grizzly end of the Wartmen chilled her blood. His practical retrieval of his stars sickened her. It had taken grim determination to walk past the Gulap’s feast and follow Kered to this stark plain.

  Red dust matted the hem of her dress and rose in swirls around her ankles. Her lower legs were thick with it and her shoes were unrecognizable as black suede flats.

  She paused. Ahead of her loomed jagged, red-striated mountains that reminded her of the buttes of Monument Valley. The air had a similar dry scent. There appeared to be no way up the mountains and no safe way down. Unless, of course, you sprouted wings and took flight like the blue-hued hawks that occasionally soared overhead, cawing an eerie cry into the silent landscape.

  Behind her were the more rounded and softer peaks of Nilrem’s Hart Fell. The gentle slopes, green with coniferous trees, struck a sharp contrasting chord to the sights before her. Yet she now knew that even that placid landscape, scented with fresh pine and delicate white wildflowers, harbored denizens more frightening than any from her imagination.

  Nilrem’s world retreated with every step. Their goal, the jagged red mountain before her, scarcely seemed any closer, the cave they sought for the night no nearer.

  Comfortable with the long distances and monochromatic views of her parent’s home in the Southwest, Maggie judged the distance as more than they could travel before the sun set. Of course, who really knew how long that ugly red orb took to orbit this Tolemac earth? Perhaps they had days of sunlight left, or minutes. She dropped her pendant into her neckline to still its annoying thumping against her chest.

  Kered marched at a relentless pace. He never looked back and never spoke. Wasn’t he thirsty? Wasn’t he hot? His fur-lined cloak was an incongruous outfit for this desert-like environment.

  From the warrior’s conversation with Nilrem, Maggie knew Kered needed to earn two arm rings to sit on the Tolemac council and try to negotiate peace. Would it make that much difference to his quest if they made a pit stop or two?

  Maggie swallowed against the dryness of her throat. Her mouth tasted like an old boot, or worse—like the sweat in an old boot. She wanted her toothbrush.

  She frowned at Kered’s large footprints stretching out before her. He needed a lifemate. One with power. What woman would want such an inconsiderate man? Maggie played a game, leaping from one footprint to the other to stem the boredom and divert her mind from her physical discomforts. Long ago, she had read somewhere about judging a person’s height from his stride. She was five-feet-nine-inches and she came to Kered’s armpit. That made the warrior six-foot-seven or eight. Taking a final hop and stomping one of his footprints to dust, she halted.

  Kered marched at least fifty yards before he realized Maggie wasn’t following. Turning back, he waited. She waited. With an audible sigh of resignation, he strode back to her.

  “What is the problem?” He made no attempt to temper his impatience. “Darkness is falling. All manner of creatures walk the night. Surely you understand that now?’’

  Maggie darted nervous glances about the vast, wasted landscape. “I need to go to the bathroom!”

  “You require a bath?” he roared. “Here? Now?”

  “No.” Maggie’s voice rose to join his shouts. “I don’t require a bath. Don’t you have to go?”

  “Go? I have been going. You are the one standing still!” he bellowed, slamming his pack to the ground and flinging off his cloak.

  Maggie danced in place. Stress gave an edge to her voice. “You are the most vile
cur. You have no manners despite your snotty-sounding speech. You have no consideration for women. We have been marching along for hours. Don’t you have to-to-to answer a call of nature?”

  Kered became aware of her fidgeting, her flushed face. He moved closer, fascinated by the change of color on her cheeks. He almost reached out and touched her, but restrained himself. Then understanding dawned.

  “I see. You are a slave.” He crossed his arms on his chest and nodded sagely.

  “What does that have to do with this?” Maggie snarled.

  “Slaves never reach the seventh level of awareness. More proof.”

  Maggie gritted her teeth. “What is the seventh level of awareness?’’

  “It is a level of control over one’s mind and body. I can control those needs until a more appropriate place and time. Slaves never care to take the time to learn such control. Women slaves especially.”

  Maggie twisted her hands in her skirts as her need became urgent. “Look. We could argue—”

  “I do not argue with slaves.”

  “But I need to go now!”

  “I will turn my back. ‘Tis the best I can offer.”

  At that moment, Maggie really didn’t care if he watched. She motioned for him to turn around.

  A huge grin lit his face. At any other time, Maggie would have been felled by the effect. The damn man had dimples—two—symmetrically placed, of course!

  Kered shouldered his pack and strode off across the dusty plain. Maggie somehow knew he would not look back. When she was finished, she ran to catch up with him. Breathing hard, she passed him, turned, and jogged backward for a moment. He arched a brow at her, but continued his relentless pace.

  “What’s your hurry?” Maggie asked.

  “Get behind me, slave.”

  “Cur.”

  “My name is Kered. Diminution of a name is disrespectful—punishable by flogging.”

  Maggie stopped moving, fisted her hands on her hips, and began to laugh.

  Kered halted. His swift pace carried him past her and he needed to turn back. She bent at the waist and laughed harder.

  “What amuses you so?” He strode back to her, his voice rising again to a shout.

  “I wasn’t shortening your name! I was calling you a cur. C-U-R.”

  “What is a cur, pray tell?” he asked, puzzled, dropping his pack once more and raising a cloud of dust.

  “A mangy, mean-spirited, ill-bred mutt!” Maggie spat out.

  Kered slapped the sleeve that concealed his arm rings. “I am far from ill-bred.”

  “Ah-hah! So you admit, at least, that you are mean-spirited and mangy!”

  “I am not…any of those things,” he sputtered. “We have no time for this, slave.” Kered swept a hand to the heavens. “The sun will set, and you do not wish to be here on The Scorched Plain when darkness falls.”

  A prickle of fear crept down Maggie’s spine. The Scorched Plain. She nodded and gestured him onward. He bent to pick up his pack, but paused.

  “Your feet.” He knelt by her and lifted her right foot, his fingers skimming over the delicate black shoe, a frown creasing his otherwise perfect skin.

  Teetering and off-balance, Maggie grabbed his shoulders. Rock slabs. Mesas of shoulders.

  “Sit,” he ordered.

  Maggie sat. She had little choice with one foot aloft and him twisting it in the air. Flailing her arms, she fell on her rear. “Yikes.”

  Kered drew his knife from the leather scabbard strapped to his thigh, and Maggie gulped back any other thought of chastising him for his treatment. The blade had a small, dark splotch staining it on the hilt, an ugly reminder of his knife fight. In one swift movement, Kered sliced a wide strip from his cloak. He sheathed his knife and searched through his pack. The object he withdrew resembled an awl.

  Maggie’s mouth gaped as Kered folded himself into a cross-legged posture. He poked holes and slashed at the fur-lined strip, cutting it into two pieces. Occasionally he held the strips of cloak up for inspection, moving them close to his face and then holding them away at arm’s length, scowling and muttering inarticulately as he worked. “Come here,” he said finally.

  “Please? Oh, never mind.” Maggie scooted close to him. She stared down at his handiwork.

  “Foot.” Kered turned a hand palm up to her. She slapped her dirty shoe into his waiting hand, like a nurse assisting a surgeon. He clamped his fingers tightly about her ankle.

  “Yow!” Maggie gasped at the strength of his grip.

  Kered wrapped the strip of cloak about her shoe and then used a curved hook from his pack to thread a leather thong through the holes he’d punched along the edge. He squinted with displeasure all the while.

  When he had finished and placed her foot in the red dust, she wore a furry boot. She offered her left foot and he swiftly secured the second strip of cloak.

  He rose to his full height and stuffed his tools into the pack. Slinging it over his shoulder, he began to march away.

  Maggie ran up to his side. “Thank you, Kered. These shoes are for dancing, not marching. My feet were killing me.”

  “Fourth level of awareness,” he snorted, staring straight ahead.

  “Fourth level? Gee, foot discomfort takes a lot of awareness to overcome, doesn’t it?”

  “No, the fourth level of awareness is when you learn to admit to weakness and seek solutions.”

  “How humiliating,” Maggie murmured as she fell into step behind him, placing her furry boots in his footprints. “Cur.” She stuck her tongue out at his back and determined not to say another word to him.

  Darkness fell with no warning. The wind rose, swirling cold streams of air up her skirt as she plodded along. Every muscle in her body ached and her nose itched. Her shoulders drooped. They’d reached the mountain range at least an hour before and had been walking parallel to its base. Except for its color, Maggie was reminded of a string of Devil’s Towers, marching arm in arm, as far as the eye could see.

  “There.” Kered pointed to a dark shadow fifteen or twenty yards over their heads.

  “How do we get up?” Maggie tipped her head back and gulped at the sheer, ragged wall of rock.

  Kered ignored her question and strapped his pack to her back. “Climb on.” He turned away and went down on one knee.

  Without thinking about what he intended, Maggie threw her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs about his waist. He leaped against the rock face.

  She screamed all the way to the cave, in his ear, long and loud. He climbed with little pause to search for handholds or footholds, just seemed to cling to the rock and scramble up and up.

  When he set her down at the cave’s mouth, she collapsed in shock. “Stop grinning, you arrogant—” She swatted away his proffered hand. “I can get up on my own. Next time, warn me before you do something so dangerous. I need to say my prayers before I die! Who taught you that? Spider-Man?”

  “Spider-Man? You babble nonsense.” He shook his head and disappeared into the black interior of the cave.

  It was almost as dark inside the cave as it was outside. She staggered to her feet silently and nervously. Where was he? He moved so quietly that it was as if he had vanished into thin air. Goose bumps broke out on her arms, and she rubbed them briskly to warm herself.

  Kered stepped from the shadows. “Come.” He paused and gripped her arm. “What is this? A disease?”

  Maggie shook her head. “No, it’s called goose bumps. I’m cold. Don’t worry, it’s not catching.”

  “Hm.” He turned her arm over, holding it away and turning it back and forth. “‘Tis strange. Most strange.” He dropped her arm, then moved swiftly into the cave.

  Eagerly she followed him, snatching at his cloak and hanging on so he didn’t get away this time. They wove through the silent black cave. He seemed to navigate easily despite the lack of light. Probably the fifth level of awareness, she thought, seeing in the dark, ignoring the possibilities of creatures in corners. Maggie
thought of spiders and bats and bears, not to mention Gulaps and Wartmen. She grabbed bigger handfuls of his cloak and ran up his heels.

  The path jogged left, then right, and emerged into a small rock chamber lit with a dim glow from an aperture overhead. Maggie stepped near the opening and peered up into the indigo sky. The four orbs of the conjunction, slightly off-kilter now, shone brightly. Their combined light just about equaled that of a quarter moon. At her feet lay a ring of small stones. The scent of charcoal embers still lingered about the long-extinguished fire.

  “Sit here while I gather firewood.”

  “Wood? Where will you get wood?” Maggie looked about the barren chamber.

  “I have stored a supply farther along the path.” He gestured into the shadows and when Maggie nodded, he vanished again.

  Maggie remained rooted to her spot until he returned, arms laden with short, thick logs and small twigs. He stacked them neatly and reached into his pack, removing a flint. He struck a spark and held it to several small sticks. They caught immediately, and he fed twigs to the flames, gently breathing them into life.

  “Tend the fire,” he ordered and rose, dusting off his hands.

  “Where are you going? Don’t leave.” Maggie didn’t want him out of her sight again. The cave echoed and his brief journey to get wood had made her feel vulnerable. “Don’t leave me,” she repeated, ashamed of her pleading tone.

  Kered grinned. “You would not want to accompany me, I think.”

  “Sure I would,” she said, smiling back. “The fire will be fine.”

  “It is now time for one who has attained the seventh level of awareness to tend those needs of nature of which we spoke.”

  “Oh.” Maggie gestured him off. “Shoo. Come back soon.”

  Without another word, he blended into the darkness in the direction of the entrance. Maggie crouched by the fire. As her wait lengthened, she became aware of aching muscles. Her headache had returned, and she unwound her bandages and used her hands to comb through her hair. Gently, she probed the lump at the back of her head. Satisfied that it hurt no more than when Nilrem first bandaged it, she carefully folded the clean cloth and stowed it in Kered’s pack. There was no blood visible on the cloth, and she had been taught to waste nothing.