Kate strode cautiously to the edge of the water and crouched down, enthralled by the detail in the moon’s reflection. Kate knew the Sea of Tranquility because of a beginning astronomy class she’d taken in college and it was visible in the water, which was as much like a mirror as anything. She reached her hand out to touch the water, hesitated, and then withdrew it. She didn’t want to disturb the image.
“Now what?” she asked, standing and turning to find the dragonfly. It floated down on a breeze coming through the tunnel. Instead of answering, which she didn’t really expect it to, the little glowing insect approached the water and the moon’s reflection. For a moment it just hovered there, like it was pondering the perfect mirror image.
She knew from her research into dream symbolism, that dragonflies lived in water before they became insects of the air, which was part of the weight of their allure, being a creature of both water and air. So when it dropped lower, she expected it to land on the glassy surface of the water and stay there, instead, the insect sank deep into the water.
“Hey!” she called out. Her voice echoed back at her, cold and empty. She shivered.
The moon’s reflection didn’t move like she expected it to—she waited to see ripples flowing out from where the insect disappeared, but they never came. The water remained as still as if nothing happened.
She bent down and touched the pond. Her hand moved into the water. It was cold. But like with how it had done with the dragonfly, the water didn’t behave like it should. She stood up. “Eff this,” she muttered. “Like hell I’m just going to stand here alone, wondering what’s going to happen next.” Hesitating only a second, she strode straight into the cold fluid, expecting something like water, even though she’d just watched it behave differently. Water sank around her legs like quicksand or mercury. She headed for the moon, wondering where the dragonfly went. Did it just commit suicide and totally abandon me?
The moon’s reflection is too large, she thought once she’d closed the distance. It was as big as a kiddie size pool, like the one her neighbor’s kids played in. Any minute now, she thought the dragonfly should surface in a reassuring explosion of flight. She couldn’t remember for sure, but she didn’t think they maintained their ability to breathe underwater once they’d become flying insects. Kate touched the strangely behaving liquid where it had taken on the image of the moon and her hand moved as though through a ghost. There was no water, or imitation-water, like whatever she was standing in.
Now she really knew something was going on. Something stranger than her dragonfly ring coming to life. She’d made her choice. She’d crossed the point of no return back when she entered the cave. She was following the dragonfly. She was. She really, really was.
Inhaling deeply, Kate tried to take a step into the area where the moon was. The shallow pool only came up to her knees. When she lifted her foot and moved to plant it in the area where the moon was, it never touched the ground and the reflection never stirred. She tumbled forward, losing her balance, and fell unceremoniously into the moon’s reflection. Despite clinging to some abstract expectation that she’d locate the ground at some point, she merely continued to fall until the water had closed over her face. And when she held her arms out to catch herself somehow, on some kind of surface, somewhere, her hands simply passed through air.
25: Chthonos
Kate fell. Her eyes were open. The walls of whatever surrounded her glowed—a tunnel like a chute of light. It was as though she’d entered a moon beam. She screamed, but no sound escaped her lips. She was so disoriented, and so scared, that she didn’t quite grasp that she’d stopped falling for a few seconds.
She blinked.
The scream died on her lips. She couldn’t even find her vocal cords to create a single sound as she scanned the horrifying vision around her. She sat in the midst of a forest of fire.
Not a forest fire, but a land with trees that looked like they were on fire. The ground beneath them was black and charred like the remains of a forest fire—Kate had seen pictures of how Yellowstone look after its infamous forest fire and that was how this place appeared, only the trees rippled and wavered with continual flames. She studied them, trying to see if they diminished as they burned, but they didn’t. She could make out a black skeletal frame in the midst of the fire.
The atmosphere was only slightly smoky. Overhead a dim, dark orange sun hovered in a pale yellow sky. Further to her left, through the trees, she could see a mountain range, which was also covered in the burning trees. The air reeked of singed plants, like that slightly delicate fragrance of burnt sweet grass interlaced with the odor of melted evergreen sap.
The dragonfly rested quietly on a black stump next to her. It was the only normal thing nearby—as normal as a glowing dragonfly guide could be.
“Where the hell am I?” she whispered, noting the fear in her voice and standing up. She groaned. Her body hurt where she’d landed. Her backside and elbow felt bruised.
“So you are taking me to Will, Lassie. Thank goodness. If I could hug you, I would,” she told the dragonfly. “This place is . . . scary. You could have at least warned me. I would have packed better.”
Her clothing stuck to her as though with some kind of clear, jelly-like goo. She hoped it was goo . . . and not something else. She didn’t even want to think about what it could be.
Kate unzipped her pack, then stopped and stared at the dragonfly steadily. “Wait, do I need to be worried about those weird fire-trees coming over here and burning me? Should I, uh, be running?”
When the dragonfly didn’t fly off, she took that to mean she had time to change her clothes. She dug through her pack until she found a clean shirt and another pair of hiking pants—which she was sure she packed, but all she could find was a pair of climbing shorts. So she put those on. It was hot anyway, what with the burning landscape and all.
Once she’d changed and shoved her dirty clothes into the bottom of her pack, she told her guide to lead on. As they hiked through the burning forest, she mused aloud about the impossible vagaries of the ecosystem. “So tell me how those trees burn without ever being consumed.”
No answer from her insect guide.
“It’s OK if you don’t know the answer. If you’ve got an educated guess, I’ll take that,” she said. Still nothing. “OK, let me guess. Um, they’re not really on fire, they just appear to be on fire. But that wouldn’t explain the heat, or the charred ground.” She wiped beads of sweat from her forehead as she thought about the temperature. Hot, but not hotter than back home during the summer. A different type of hot. Like the dry, combustion-borne heat an engine gave off. She stared at the ground she’d traversed. There wasn’t a trail, but the dragonfly had picked a path that took her as far away from the trees as possible. The rocks and dirt beneath her feet were a mixture of black and red. Occasionally she got a glimpse of what seemed to be hot coals underneath the surface, like the earth beneath her was on fire. She shivered, wondering if her shoes were enough protection. Would they begin to melt?
She glanced at them. The soles seemed OK. She stopped and lifted her foot to test the temperature. Hmm. Kind of warm. But nothing serious.
“Where are we going?” she asked the dragonfly as it started ahead again and she followed. “Wait, why am I asking you? It would be really nice if I had a dragonfly-ese translator. It’s OK; no hard feelings. I know you’re answering in your own language.” The insect bounced and zig-zagged through the air happily guiding her through the dangerous terrain. For an hour or so they followed the curve of the mountain range to her left. Eventually the valley between the two ridges spat them out where both ridges tapered down and vanished in an alluvial fan that spread out onto a plain.
“Oh man, what is that?” Kate asked aloud. In the distance, what appeared to be quite a distance, she saw a towering, unnatural monolith smack-dab in the center of a plain—like Kilimanjaro on the Serengeti, only thinner and with one peak. Her eyes scanned the landscape. Below them, t
he burning forest thinned out as the elevation decreased. The plain was really a sea of burning, golden grass, which waved and swayed in a hot, hot breeze, the pale flames rippling a foot or so above the grasses. “Is that where we’re going?” she asked. Silence. “I’m a slow learner, I guess.” She muttered to the dragonfly, annoyed that she couldn’t have a normal conversation with the insect.
They continued on, her question left unanswered, unless forward progress counted as a response.
She felt more than heard her stomach growl. The world around her roared with a sound like that of a convection oven. Her ears were used to it by now, but it made the journey a loud one, uncomfortable with the constant sound that created a numbing catatonia in her mind.
She stopped and took her pack off. She balanced it on her thigh, afraid it would melt on the hot ground if she set it down, and pulled a granola bar out of one of the front pockets. She also found her water bottle and took a long gulp. She rationed the warm liquid, knowing there was a good chance she wouldn’t find potable water on the burning, nightmarish world.
It hit her hard, the thought I’m on another planet. Everything reeled and for a moment she thought she was about to faint. It couldn’t be real. It’s not, she told herself. This isn’t real. Just treat it like another dream. It is a dream.
Her tired mind fought with itself and another part of her conscience just listened and watched. They resumed their descent to the plain, the dragonfly picking a path that looked like a dry riverbed—though the rocks were as black and charred as anything else—distinguishable only by the fact that it was somewhat sunken in the middle and none of the typical burning fauna grew along it.
***
It took them about an hour and a half to reach the mountain, which reminded her of the tip of a sword sticking straight up out of the ground. When she got closer, it became evident that it wasn’t a mountain at all, but a wall made to look like a natural mountain. The angles were too deliberate and the way that it seemed to be formed was unlike the cliffs she was familiar with back home. There were no surprising ledges or half formed caves full of strange crags that showed signs of weathering and stress. It looked almost like it was formed in a laboratory and then enlarged as though with a computer program.
“What next?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips after she wiped the sweat off her face with the bottom of her shirt. Her pack was heavy and her back felt slick beneath it. Her sweat-soaked shirt had begun to chafe and she was irritated that the supposed performance material wasn’t working better. She should have bought a name-brand and not the cheaper imitation crap reverse-designed in China.
She expected the dragonfly to lead her to a passageway through the mountain. Instead it flew up the face of the wall.
“You’re shitting me,” she said to it. “There’s got to be a tunnel or something. No, don’t keep going up! Come back and show me another way,” she shouted as the dragonfly rose on a warm gust of air. Kate was shocked at the things she heard in her voice—exhaustion, desperation, and a hint of irritability. “I have every right to be irritated,” she muttered to herself. “I haven’t slept at all and if the climb doesn’t kill me first, I’m most likely going to die here from dehydration.”
She stared up the face of the cliffs, picking out a possible route. She couldn’t see as far as she’d have to go, so she figured she’d have to improvise. Find a workable route as far as she could see, and then work out the next problem when she got there. She bent out of the straps of her pack, unzipped it and rummaged through the contents till she found her climbing shoes. She unzipped a side pocket and withdrew her chalk-bag. She strung it around her waist with the belt and then found in the same pocket her finger-tape, which was covered in dust and dirt. She only wanted it to protect some of the raw parts of her fingers. After she slipped on her shoes and stuffed her hiking shoes into her pack, she slung it back on and hitched it up as high as possible so her chalk-bag was accessible where it hung over her backside. Then she quickly taped up a couple blisters and tears on her fingers from the climbing she’d done the day before.
The climbing would be unprotected, a free-solo. If she fell, she’d most likely die.
Is this worth it? She slumped a little as that inquiry echoed through her head.
If this was all a dream, no big deal. She could, should, just be able to fly over the obstacle. She tried to do that. She focused on flying. She closed her eyes and saw herself flying in her mind.
Nothing happened.
Which meant it wasn’t a dream.
Most likely.
If it wasn’t a dream and she died, she would die. Was Will worth it? Was he? What was he to her?
A man. A dead, but living man. A man that she’d grown to . . . love . . . Love? It better be love. She’d come this far. She wouldn’t do that for just anyone. Would she? No. So, yes, love. She was in love with a dream. And yes it was very confusing, considering she’d been dating Ty.
Oh Ty. If he had woken and found her gone, he was probably totally freaked out. She began to think about her friends back at camp. Anxiety beat against the inside of her chest. She couldn’t control what was happening back there. It would work itself out in due time. It had to. Right now she had to focus.
If this climb took her to Will, it might be worth it. She thought about how blue-eyed, sweet and gentle Will (with just a touch of sass and bristles) was worth the effort to do this. At least, there was the possibility that he was on the other side—or even if this mountain was just another step on the path to the world where he was—well, the risk of climbing it would be worth it to rescue him. Rescue? What am I, Prince Charming? she thought bitterly. Did it matter? Did any of those cultural issues affect this? No. No, they didn’t. She knew that. What she had with Will, it was beyond all that. Like what she was about to do to this wall, her thing with Will breached all social labels and classification. It was above naming. It was something singular to her and Will, the man who came to her in dreams.
She craned her head back and studied the route she’d picked out again. From where she stood, it looked relatively easy. The ledges were big and the whole surface was littered with pockets, cracks, and crags that she’d be able to grip with no problems. She had to think of it as a challenge, though. Any time she thought herself above a climb, it whaled on her. And won. This climb couldn’t win.
She took a deep breath. The dragonfly perched about fifteen feet up, waiting for her patiently with its large reflective orbs. Kate closed her eyes and thought about finding Will.
She longed to see him, to touch him. The dreams had stopped several days ago now. An ache began to throb in her gut, ricocheting between the inside of her ribs and heart like the cry of a lonely owl at night. The songs she’d composed about him began to play in her head and she remembered what she said about him—that she’d slay the beast to find him, to make their worlds collide, day and night, dream and reality.
She had that chance. She needed to take it.
She exhaled sharply, rubbed her hands together, dried the perspiration on her shorts, dipped her hands into her chalk-bag and began.
She found an image of Will in her memories—swimming at the house he used to have when he was alive; wearing those old-school swim trunks; sunlight glinted within the chambers of water droplets on his body; he smiled at her, his sapphire eyes reflecting light from the surface of the pool. She focused on that visual of him. All other thoughts faded around it. It was all she saw as she ascended the wall. Her fingers grasped ledges and pulled her up almost as though she were weightless. She shoved her hands into cracks and felt the jagged rock tear easily at her skin as though she was made of tissue paper. Her toes stuck to the holds. It was almost like wings sprouted from her back and she floated up the mountain. She heard her breath exploding in short controlled bursts. The dragonfly stayed ahead of her about ten feet, always drifting upward before landing on a perch to turn and glance down at her, silent like an insect gargoyle on the edge of a church.
Somehow she managed to get her toe back onto a nub and she pushed upwards, shooting herself toward the hold she’d nearly had. Once she was attached to the wall again, she locked her arms—the handholds were actually quite large and comfortable; she shouldn’t have fallen. She paused, stuck stiffly on the wall, and looked out at what had startled her.
A dragon.
Of course there was a dragon.
It circled above her, breathing ten-foot gouts of fire from its mouth.
So, probably not a nice dragon.
***
Halfway up Kate began to think that she might make it. She paused for rests when she found a spot where she could lock her knees under a ledge and let go with one hand and shake it out, doing the same thing with the other. The climb turned out to be not so bad. Her main concern was not keeling over from fatigue. It was a test of endurance rather than skill.
The dragon circled above her a few more times, letting out a keening cry and spraying fire from its nose and mouth, and then it disappeared over the top of the mountain without killing her.
“Good riddance,” she muttered. She finished resting and placed her fingers on a tiny crimper hold while the other was shoved into a horizontal crack. She drew it out, scraping the back of her hand on the sharp teeth of the roof of the crack, ignored it, and continued on, forgetting about the giant lizard. If she had to deal with it again, she would. For now, she resumed focusing on her goal—Will—and not falling to her death.
For the remainder of Kate’s ascent, she got into a rhythm that almost lifted her up and carried her to the top. One minute she was estimating how much further she had to go and the next she was pulling herself over the lip onto the top of the mountain.
A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) Page 30