by Daniel Kirk
Wake up, Matt! Wake up! You’re drifting away! Something’s wrong up ahead. We’ve got to stop! Move to the side, and grab hold of the Cord!
Matt felt his body turning before his brain could register the peril in Tuava-Li’s command. He saw his hand reaching, as if in slow motion, for a fistful of the rubbery membrane. Above him the Cord was pale. Below him, darkness. There was a subtle bend in the Cord as it listed downward, and in the distance the blackness was complete. Inky fingers reached up the walls. It looked to Matt like he and his companions were dropping into a great bucket of black paint, but it smelled like a spill at the filling station.
Pain exploded in his jaw. There was a flash of light, and a splatter of black. Tomtar’s shoe hit Matt before it sent a shower of pitch across his face. As the Troll caught hold of the Cord and his body swung around, his leg came up drenched. “What is it, Matt?” he hollered.
“Oil, tar, I don’t know!” Matt grabbed the Cord and pulled himself backwards, against the wind. He saw himself drowning in the foul black liquid.
Tuava-Li’s entire body was pressed into the wall. “Follow me,” she ordered.
The three of them crept laboriously toward the roof of the Cord, like they were working their way around the inside of a barrel. With each grip of their hands, their fingers came away black and greasy. The oil in the Cord was seeping up the walls. Tuava-Li extended one stiffened finger and drew a sharp nail along the roof of the passage. Noxious air gushed from the opening. Following the Elf, Matt dragged himself free, clutching Tomtar’s sleeve. Cold, fresh air struck them like a blow as they tumbled from the Cord and landed on a bed of gravel, dusted in snow. Matt got to his feet, blinking. He’d lost control of his own senses in the Cord, and because of it, he’d nearly lost his life. He was too shaken up to speak.
The exposed length of Cord was a swollen hump, no bigger than a car. The torn flap fluttered in a field of white. Where the snow ended a black plain rolled out, extending all the way to the horizon. “Is that the ocean?” Matt cried into the wind.
The sky was a leaden slab. In the distance he thought he saw a trio of old-fashioned sailing vessels, with sails and masts like the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María, the ships he’d seen in pictures in school. He felt like he’d slipped back in time five hundred years. There was something primal, something fierce and uncivilized about this place. Then he realized that what he thought were masts were in fact cranes and derricks, and the ships were actually metal platforms, rising up out of the water on immense steel legs. Matt squinted into the wind and saw that the metal was rusted and bent, that the oil platforms had been abandoned to the elements.
Tomtar stumbled over the rocks and stood next to his friend. His trousers, blackened with oil, clung to his legs. There was litter strewn on the ground, washed up from the ocean: plastic bottles, rope, rusted cans. “What are those things out there, Matt?” he asked, pointing and shielding his eyes from the harsh, dry snow that fell like cinders. His jacket billowed in the wind as he hugged himself to stay warm.
“I think they’re oil derricks, Tomtar.”
“What?”
Matt struggled past the dizziness and nausea to find a way to explain it. “They’re like, factories, Tomtar, they’re portable factories, on the surface of the water. Corporations, companies, they set them up to drill underwater and look for oil. If they find it, they pump it up and fill ships with it, and haul it back to civilization. They use it to fuel cars and trucks, and burn it to heat houses in the winter.”
“I don’t see any Humans out there,” Tomtar said.
Matt shook his head. “I don’t, either. There aren’t any people, or ships, or anything. Maybe they already got all the oil they could, and they left the rigs behind. It makes me wonder if their drills, out there, punctured the Cord we were traveling in. Maybe that’s why the Cord was filled with oil.”
Tomtar blew into his hands. “We’re just lucky we got out in time!”
“You call this lucky?”
“Well, we didn’t drown.”
Matt squinted into the sky, then looked at his friend and shrugged. “We didn’t drown, but this is a dead end. We’re probably still a long way from the North Pole. What are we going to do now?”
“I could play my flute a little,” Tomtar said, drawing his wooden instrument from the corner of his pack. “That always cheers me up!” He lifted the rod to his lips and began to blow. The sound was thin, and the notes wavered and fell away in the wind.
“I don’t know, Tomtar,” Matt said. “Maybe you ought to save your energy. We might be needing it.”
“How do you know this isn’t the North Pole, Matthew?” Tuava-Li asked, stepping up from behind. She’d been trying to smooth over the rip in the surface of the Cord. Her hands were wet and sticky with oil, and she held them awkwardly at her sides.
“Well, just look,” Matt said, pointing. “Too much water. I can see chunks of ice out there, bobbing in the waves, but we’ve still got to be pretty far from where we want to go. I know there’s global warming, and all, but the North Pole is at the top of the Arctic Ocean, which has been covered in a mile of ice for thousands of years. When we’re near it, we should be able to walk there. Though we’d freeze to death, first.”
Tomtar’s breath was a silent gust of vapor. “I don’t want to freeze to death,” he whispered. He clutched the flute tightly in his chapped hands as doubt crept over him. “What if the Goddess abandoned us, like the Humans abandoned their machines? We can’t survive out here! The Cord is ruined, and we can’t travel over ground like this!”
“The Goddess will never abandon us, Tomtar,” Tuava-Li said consolingly.
Matt stared down at the Elf. “Do you think there’s another Cord around here that’s moving back in the direction we came? We could head back for a while, find some kind of tributary, or something to take us north again. We can’t stay here. Maybe we should split up to look for a Cord. There has to be another, doesn’t there? Somewhere?”
“Let us see your tattoos, Matthew,” Tuava-Li said. “Perhaps they’ve changed again and can give us some guidance.”
Matt’s cheeks reddened. “It’s freezing out here, Tuava-Li. I can’t take off my shirt. Why do the gods always have to communicate with hidden clues and symbols and things you have to interpret, anyway? If they’re so all-powerful, why don’t they just shout down from the heavens and say what they’ve got to say?”
“’Tis not up to us to understand the ways of the Gods,” said Tuava-Li. “They speak to us with every breath we take, though, if we but know how to listen. ’Tis our duty to hear, and obey. Now, may we see your tattoos?”
Matt let out an exasperated sigh and yanked up his shirt. “There,” he said. “Make it quick, okay?”
Tomtar and Tuava-Li drew close and studied Matt’s chest as he shivered before them. “The children are gone,” said Tuava-Li. “But I don’t know how to interpret this. Tomtar?”
The Troll shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Is it a bear?”
Matt looked down and tried to make sense of the round, smooth shape with the two black spots for eyes. Behind the creature there were flashes of green in a black field. “Well, I hope we don’t run into one of these, because I’ve never seen one in my whole life. I think we’re on our own, this time. Tuava-Li, can you change into a hawk when it’s this cold outside?”
“Of course I can,” she replied. “’Twill be hard to stay airborne when there are no thermals to keep me aloft, but if it pleases you, Matthew, I can look over these hills and see if there’s any sign of another Cord.”
“It pleases me,” Matt said.
Tuava-Li quickly shed her clothing and began her transformation. Facing away from the wind, she quickly sprouted a coat of brown and white feathers, lifted her kestrel wings, and flapped into the air. Matt and Tomtar watched her work her way across the snow-flecked sky. High overhead she made a slow arc, peering down with her fierce kestrel gaze, surveying the harsh landsca
pe. “What do you think, Matt?” Tomtar asked.
“Well, I can tell what you think,” Matt said, looking at the anguish on his friend’s face. “I’m worried, too. I have a bad feeling that coming here was a mistake—a really bad one. We need food, clothing, and shelter just to survive up here, and if we don’t get out of this weather, we’ll freeze. I thought that Cord would take us all the way to the city at the North Pole. I guess I was wrong, as usual. Back in Pittsburgh, the jewels we’re carrying were worth so much that people would kill for them, but up here, they’re not worth a dime. Before long we’ll be wishing we could trade them all for a hole in the ground or an animal skin to curl up in.”
Matt glanced around. Where the rocks peeked out of the snow, red and green lichen spread like spattered paint. Tufts of tough grass climbed out of thin drifts, curling like fingers in the wind. A few bare trees dotted the far horizon. “It’s late September. This must be the first snow of the season up here, otherwise all the grass would be dead.”
He bent and stroked one of the clumps of grass, and as he stood up he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. “There’s something down there, Tomtar, look! Do you see what I see?”
Tomtar got to his knees to peer at the ground, where grassy knots crept from rocky crevices. Matt said, “There’s mice under there—little mice, hiding under the rocks and plants!”
Hundreds of rodents were barely concealed in the fissures and clefts, partially blanketed by snow. “Wait a minute,” Matt said. “They’re not mice, they’re lemmings, they have to be! They live in the north. They’ll be hibernating soon. Maybe we’re closer to the North Pole than I thought!”
“Are you going to eat them?” Tomtar asked, only half joking. “I don’t imagine that’s what we saw in your tattoos.”
“I thought we were alone out here,” Matt said. “It’s weird how life adapts.”
“Do you think they bite, Matt?”
“Lemmings are crazy, Tomtar. Did you ever hear what they do? They go nuts and stampede over the edge of cliffs, and wham, no more lemmings!”
Overhead Tuava-Li was circling back, flapping hard against the wind. She spread her wings and swept behind a rocky outcropping, where she could change back to her Elfin form in private. Tomtar hurried to lay her clothing at her feet as her beak and claws drew back into her skin, and the feathers lightened and then dissolved. “Well?” Matt asked as she stepped into view. “What did you see?”
“I thought it was Faerie Folk, at first,” Tuava-Li said, gasping for air. “Then I realized it was children. Human children, Matthew, five of them—like the ones that were in your tattoo. They’re approaching the ridge now, and if they keep moving, they’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“If there are children,” Tomtar said excitedly, “they must have homes nearby. There must be a town, with some place for us to get warm, and eat, and plan what we’re going to do next!”
“Aye,” said the Elf. “There’s a kind of village about a mile from here. Matthew, you’ll have to convince the Humans to take you back with them. We need to find shelter.”
Tomtar was practically jumping up and down. “We don’t want Humans to see us! Should we chew some Trans to make us invisible, just in case? I’ve got them in my Huldu.”
“Find them,” Tuava-Li said.
Tomtar’s hands were shaking with cold and excitement as he rooted around in his pack. When he pulled out the Huldu, all the little wooden chips that were infused with Faerie spells fell from the open sack. Tomtar tried to grab a fistful as they scattered on the frozen ground. “Oooh, now look what I’ve done!”
Tuava-Li and Matt bent to pick up the chips before the wind carried them all away, but their fingers were stiff and numb. “Too late to find the right ones now,” Tuava-Li said. “Just stay behind Matt, and we’ll hope for the best.”
“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Matt said with a shrug. “Guess I’m about to make some new friends!”
Over the ridge, crossing the bleached horizon, five dusky figures came into view.
no strangers to darkness. They had followed Becky through the subterranean tunnels of an abandoned coal mine, where even their sensitive Elfin eyes were ill equipped for the depths of gloom. It was not darkness that made their crawl through the sewers of Helfratheim so terrible; the thing that made the slimy brick passage beneath the palace so unutterably loathsome was the smell. Even when they perceived a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, it was the dank, appalling odor of putrefaction that overwhelmed them. Macta recognized the smell as the rotting waste of the slaughterhouse where meat for the palace was processed.
When they heaved aside the grate over the drain and climbed into the empty chamber, Asra and Macta were both dripping wet and reeking of gore. Wordlessly Macta led Asra from the slaughterhouse. As they crept into the courtyard, they heard a scurrying sound around the corner of the building. “Stop,” Macta hissed, holding his one good arm in front of Asra.
“What is it?”
There was a growl, and a whimper, and something small slunk from one shadowed corner to another. Then a pack of Goblins raced into the clearing, their fangs bared, their muzzles curled in warning. Their eyes, sharp with cunning, darted from the shadows to Macta and then back again. Their nostrils sniffed the air; no doubt they smelled the odor of rot on the two Elves. “They think we’re their next meal,” Macta whispered.
The ribs of the Goblins protruded from their furry hides; their lean muscles tensed as they waited to see what the Elf was going to do. One false move and the creatures would attack. “I’ve seen these creatures,” Macta murmured. “They’re wild. They live outside the fortress, eating the refuse the townspeople toss over the walls. With all the chaos in this place they must have gotten inside. They’re starving. Look, what’s that?”
A small Goblin, no more than a pup, limped out of the shadows and headed a little too slowly toward the shelter of the slaughterhouse door. The pack growled, lunged after the pup, and Asra cried in horror. “They’ve been hunting it! They’re going to rip it to pieces!”
“AAAAARRRGH!” Macta screamed at the top of his lungs. Wild-eyed, he sprinted across the courtyard. The pack of Goblins reared back in surprise and alarm as the pup scurried past Asra’s legs and raced into the slaughterhouse. They backed away, turned tail, and ran. Macta followed the retreating pack until he came to a corner with a view of the palace, where he stood just out of sight and watched them disappear. Then he hurried back to Asra’s side. “Where’s the pup?”
“It ran in there. Don’t go back inside, Macta, I beg of you, ’tis revolting.”
Macta entered the building. “Here, boy,” he said in a soothing voice, peering into every corner of the slaughterhouse, “come here!”
Outside, Asra was getting nervous. If anyone had heard Macta’s scream, the two of them might well be in danger. It was imperative to get out of the open as soon as possible. Macta came to the doorway with the little Goblin cradled in the crook of his arm. The ugly, misshapen creature was slurping the slaughterhouse blood from his cheek, and Macta giggled in delight. “You saved the beast,” Asra said, “isn’t that enough? Put it down, Macta, and get me to the palace. If I don’t get this gore off me soon I’ll go mad.”
“He’s coming with us,” Macta said. “He reminds me of my old Goblin, Powcca. I’m going to keep him.”
Asra sighed in exasperation. “Whatever you want, Macta; please, let’s just get out of here!”
Stealthily they hurried from the slaughterhouse to the palace kitchen, sneaking around corners and slipping through doorways, avoiding the eyes and ears of any of the guards that remained on duty. They headed to Macta’s private apartments, which he hadn’t visited since the fall of Alfheim. “Quiet, boy,” he whispered to the Goblin pup, as it whimpered in his grasp. “Just a while longer now.”
Macta flung open the door and gazed around. Sunlight spilled through stained-glass windows; the room was calm and quiet. He was glad to be home again, thou
gh his memories of the place gave him a stab of melancholy. He put the pup down on the carpet and it limped beneath the nearest settee. “Make yourself at home, boy,” he said, then turned to Asra with a smile. “I’ll lock the door, so that we’re not disturbed, then I shall run you a bath!”
When the tub was full Macta left the Princess alone to scrub away the filth of their journey through the sewer. He found something for her to wear—a plain dress that had belonged to one of his servants, Herma or Holda. He stood next to his bed and considered how many of the truly important figures in his life were dead. Powcca, of course, was gone. His father, his servants, his friends and relatives, and several of his enemies, as well … gone. He felt lucky to still be alive, and he felt positively blessed to have Princess Asra in the next room. What are the chances of that? he said to himself. A hundred to one? Five hundred to one? After all that’s happened, she’s still with me. If I believed in the Gods, I’d say that they’re smiling on me. But all I believe in is luck … and love, of course.
Macta went to coax the Goblin pup from under the settee, and found that the creature had discovered an old chew toy that had belonged to Powcca. The pup gnawed furiously on the leather knot, growling contentedly. “Good boy,” Macta cooed, “good boy, you’re all right, you’re all right!”
When it was Macta’s turn to fill the tub, Asra waited quietly in the sitting room, lost in her own thoughts. She had longed for adventure, she’d longed to be more than just a Princess, with no responsibilities. Now she longed for peace and normalcy. ’Tis odd how things work out, she thought.
Macta was quick to scrub away the grime of his long journey. When he was finished he dried himself with a fresh towel, pulled on some clean trousers, and brushed his hair. He applied powder as best as he could manage with only one arm, shaved the wispy hair from his chin, and spent a few minutes before the mirror examining the dreadful wound at his shoulder. His flesh was still swollen and inflamed, though the healing process had finally begun. After a brief search he found some strips of cloth in a basket near the oaken tub. He tried unsuccessfully to tie a bandage around his shoulder, hoping to cover the wound so that it would not be injured anew. Frustrated, he called to Asra. “There’s something I have to ask you, Princess. Could you help me with my bandage? I know it must repulse you to see me this way, but I cannot do it by myself.”