The Secrets of Ordinary Farm of-2

by Tad Williams

  He was just wondering whether he could take a video camera with him to the past, and if there was a way to make money from that-a feature-length movie of real dinosaurs, maybe, which he could claim he animated-when he realized that something was wrong. The worst of the lightning and thunder had passed, although he could see flashes and thunderheads beyond the western hills and headed toward them, but the expanse of ground between the silo and the driveway was empty but for a tractor deserted when the storm got bad. As he stared he noticed a rather curiously large amount of crawling shapes were scuttling across the mud as though the rain had flooded all the small animals out of their tunnels. It was a strange, lonely scene, but it didn’t explain why he had the distinct and disturbing feeling that something was watching him.

  He stopped, squinting at the distant house, but although he could see lights in the window and what might even have been shapes moving behind the curtains in a couple of the rooms, he couldn’t imagine anyone being able to see him out here in the dark. He took a few more steps, then the wind changed, and suddenly a new scent swept over him, sharp and sour as vinegar.

  Startled, Colin turned and looked back toward the silo. Something was coming around the tall old structure, walking toward him on all fours with slow, measured steps. An animal. A really big animal. Its head lifted even as Colin stood staring, as though it had not noticed him until now, and the lights from the distant house reflected orange in the lamps of its eyes, as if they were windows and some terrible flame burned inside the low, slanted skull.

  One of the manticores was loose.

  Colin whimpered in terror, then turned, taking a few running steps toward the house, but he was overbalanced by his backpack and the clumsy coat. He skidded in the mud and tumbled to his knees, then could not get up for a moment as he thrashed helplessly in the muck. He looked back, certain he would see that pale, horribly humanoid face right on top of him but the manticore had not increased its pace, as though it knew he could not outrun it. And the monster was right-it was a hundred yards to the house at least and Colin knew he couldn’t possibly outrun the thing. He whimpered again. The creature kept coming, but now he could see something wasn’t right about it. Its head trembled a bit from side to side, like Gideon’s after he took Colin’s mother’s medication, and its steps seemed awkward, as if it had hurt itself. Despite this, though, it continued toward him, slowly but relentlessly. He scrambled to his feet and began to run again but he stepped on something that burst wetly beneath his foot, and he fell again. His backpack with the precious Continuascope slid down around his arms and he had to shrug it off, still making little noises of terror. When he had finally freed himself the monster was only yards away. Colin tried to get up but knew it was no use. Even if he ran now, the thing would be on him in a second. The house waited, but far out of reach, an impossible distance away.

  Lightning flashed, and the manticore’s eyes flashed too. “Help!” Colin screamed. “Help! Mr. Walkwell! Mother!” But the thunder drowned his cries. He scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at the beast but it only spattered harmlessly against its already mud-smeared legs. As it drew nearer he could see the foul yellow teeth in its drooling mouth, the weirdly apelike nostrils flaring as it inhaled his scent.

  “Go away!” he shrieked. “Leave me alone!” His hand settled on the wrapped snowball and he threw it, handkerchief and all; it struck the manticore square on the snout and burst in a puff of white. The thing’s head and neck continued to shake and tremble, but otherwise it showed no sign of having noticed. The handkerchief caught for a moment on the creature’s bristly cheek, then slid off and fluttered away in the rising wind.

  Jaws grinning, eyes glowing like a jack-o-lantern’s, the beast slouched toward him.

  Chapter 35

  Gone Sour on the Operation

  Lucinda didn’t think she had ever been so scared in her life, and she was a girl who’d been dangled upside down in mid-air by an angry dragon. But the night she had been tangled in Meseret’s harness had been so absurd, so crazy, that even at the time it hadn’t felt entirely real. This was different. A bad, bad man was holding a knife against her throat-a man who she knew wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if it would benefit him. And on top of everything else, he smelled awful , rank with sweat and stale tobacco, as though he had been wearing the same clothes for days: she was terrified she might be sick, might startle him by gagging. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered. “I’m not going to scream or try to get away.”

  “That’s good,” he told her just as quietly. “Because I want to hear what that little Patience is saying.”

  That little Patience was Mrs. Needle, of course, who was facing Stillman and his gun across Gideon Goldring’s sickbed on the other side of the window. Gideon was struggling in his restraints but his eyes were unfocused and he hardly seemed aware of what was going on right in front of him. Dankle the lawyer- everyone’s lawyer, it seemed-cowered against the wall beside the door, doing his best not to be noticed.

  “God,” Lucinda could hear Stillman saying, “I almost feel sorry for Gideon Goldring, and that’s something I thought I’d never say. What must it be like having a viper like you as an employee, Ms. Needle? Challenging, I’m sure.”

  “I have done nothing but sacrifice for Gideon and his needs.” Mrs. Needle was very carefully not looking at Stillman’s gun. Lucinda wondered how much the witch knew about modern weapons-she had been born five centuries ago, after all. For a moment Lucinda half-hoped she would try something foolish and get shot. “But it has come to the point where Gideon has put the farm at risk too many times,” she went on in her calm, precise voice. “Some of us… some of us have nowhere else to go.”

  “Yeah, that’s sad. You should find somebody who cares and tell him about it.” Stillman waved the gun around as if it were a laser pointer, as if they were in the middle of nothing more serious than a boardroom dispute. “This farm belongs to my family-which means it really belongs to me. The polite fiction that Gideon’s wife ran off somewhere doesn’t hold water. I knew Grace Tinker since she was a little girl. She loved Gideon, astonishing as that might be. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

  “Our aims are not so different, Mr. Stillman.” Mrs. Needle still wasn’t looking at the gun, but she was looking at Edward Stillman with an intensity Lucinda had never seen-almost like some hypnotist in an old movie. “You want what is best for this place. So do I. Perhaps

  … perhaps we could work something out… ”

  Outside the window, Kingaree tightened his grip on Lucinda, then leaned even closer until his lips touched her ear and tears of fright formed in her eyes. “Listen to that little earwig getting ready to sell me out,” he snarled. “Oh, she’s fine to look at, but she is rotten all through. I should have known she would never make good on all those promises.”

  Thunder boomed just overhead, near enough to make Lucinda gasp. More fat drops of rain began to fall. One of them splashed down her forehead, but she didn’t dare move with the sharp blade at her throat.

  Stillman laughed. “What about your cowboy friend, whoever he is? Have you already got everything you want out of him?”

  “Please, Mr. Stillman… ” began Barnaby Dankle, but no one was paying attention to him.

  “Kingaree? He’s nothing,” said Mrs. Needle. “A bravo, a common criminal. I only brought him in to make certain neither Gideon nor Mr. Dankle turned tricksy… ”

  “Oh, she is the queen of deception!” Kingaree hissed, and the knife pressed deeper. But even in the midst of her discomfort and growing fear Lucinda wondered whether she was the only one watching Gideon: her great-uncle, still seemingly oblivious to all that was going on around him, had worked one of his skinny arms out of its restraint and was plucking at the other one, his mouth hanging open, his face screwed up in a grimace of pain or frustration or both.

  “Um, Mr. Stillman…!” Dankle had just noticed Gideon’s escape attempt. “Mr. Stillman, I think…!”

  “Shu
t up, lawyer!” But Edward Stillman’s angry words were half-buried in a new, louder crash of thunder. Lightning turned the sky white for a moment above Lucinda, then the thunder came again, so loud that for that instant she forgot every other danger.

  Then many things happened, one after the other. The first was that the house blew up.

  Lucinda realized afterward that it was only a lightning strike and it had done nothing worse than find the lightning rod on top of the house’s highest turret and race down the ground wire into the earth, but the crack was so loud and the rush of hot air so powerful that it felt more like a bomb exploding.

  All the power suddenly went off-the lights in the Snake Parlor and in the rest of the house and the utility lights hung on wires between farm buildings, all gone in an instant as blackness wrapped them round. Lucinda heard Stillman shout something inside the pitch-black parlor and Mrs. Needle shouting too, but she couldn’t make any of it out because Jackson Kingaree was dragging her back from the window, filling the darkness with curse words she had never heard before as well as a few she had. Lucinda saw a flash on the other side of the window and heard a loud bang, then the sound of a man shrieking in pain.

  “Where’s Gideon?” cried Mrs. Needle, not in fear but in something more like indignation. “You fools! He’s gotten away!”

  Out in the darkness Kingaree froze in place like a hunting animal, his arm still around Lucinda’s neck. “Don’t you make a sound, girl, or by God I will cut you,” he whispered. “You are my ticket out of here

  … ”

  He never finished the sentence. A horrible clatter and the sound of more shouting arose from the darkness near the end of the driveway, somewhere near where Stillman had left his car and his bodyguards. The thumping and scraping noises and men’s terrified voices got even louder-it sounded like a mob of angry peasants had attacked the car with pitchforks and baseball bats. A series of flashes and pops like exploding firecrackers snapped through the air.

  Oh my God, Lucinda was all Lucinda had time to think, Stillman’s bodyguards are shooting at something-is one of the manticores here? Or is it Alamu…? Then another loud bang! blew out the parlor window. She had no idea whether it came from inside or outside, but Kingaree dropped down onto his hands and knees. Lucinda didn’t know whether he was ducking or had been hit, but she grabbed her chance.

  She bolted away from the house and into the dark, scrambling on all fours until she could get upright, headed away from the guns and whatever had attacked Stillman’s bodyguards, sprinting as fast as she could across a patch of untended dry lawn now half-drowned by puddles. Stems smacked against her shins as she ran.

  She had gone only a few steps when she heard Jackson Kingaree crunching over the gravel drive, trying to cut her off. She didn’t think she could outrun him in the open but she was terrified that he would slash her for trying to escape, so she cut between two seldom-used drying sheds and headed for the farm road that led out across the property toward the Reptile Barn.

  “ Mr. Walkwell! Ragnar! Help!” she screamed. Silence didn’t matter now-the murderous Kingaree was only a dozen steps behind her. “Help me!” But all she heard was crashing and hoarse screams and animal growling from the dark driveway behind her. Whatever had found Stillman’s bodyguards was now apparently tearing pieces off his expensive armored car.

  Lucinda realized as she emerged from between the sheds that she had misjudged the length of open space she would have to cross: there was no protection and no cover for hundreds of yards along the farm road, and nobody in sight to help her. Kingaree was close behind her as Lucinda turned and headed toward the cyclone fence that guarded the levee where Kumish Creek passed through this part of the property. She jumped up onto the wire and began to climb. Kingaree came slowly toward her, confident now that she couldn’t get away.

  “You know I can swing over that fence in a hot second, so you might as well come back now, child. It’s a terrible bad idea, making me angry.” He stopped a few feet away as she began to pull her other leg over. His eyes were slits, but he was doing his best to smile. “Now, hold on. We need each other. I need you to help me get out of here-see, I’ve gone sour on this whole operation. Jack Kingaree’s not going to get myself shot for that two-timing Needle baggage. So you get off that fence and the two of it’ll parley.”

  “No.” The storm had slackened a little. In the intervals between thunderclaps Lucinda heard strange noises drifting to her from several different directions, muffled shouts and the squeals of frightened animals. She inched farther away along the top of the fence, trying to keep some distance between her and her pursuer. The lights were still out all over the farm, but there was enough moonlight to see Kingaree’s long, pale face and the gleam of his knife, which he was making to keep in view. “No,” she said again, louder. “I’m not coming down. Mr. Walkwell! ” she shouted. “Ragnar! It’s Kingaree! He’s here!”

  The tall man laughed. “Neither of them two are coming, and I ain’t afraid of either of them, anyway. Walkwell’s wiry enough, but he won’t hurt me… because I’ll have you!” At the last word he strode forward and leaped up onto the fence, his coat flapping like dark wings. Panicked, Lucinda tried to jump down but one of her feet caught in the diamond space between the fence wires. As she struggled to free herself the man in the long black coat climbed toward her as quickly as a spider on a wall. He snatched at her; for a moment his grasping fingers closed on her shoe, but it came off and she was just able to swing her leg over and jump down on the creek side of the fence. She kicked off her other shoe and ran along the levee beside the dark water. Kingaree swung himself down onto the concrete and began to lope unhurriedly after her. “You can’t outrun me, child. I’m twice your size and strong as vinegar!”

  She was hemmed between the creek and Kingaree. The levee extended a long way before her, but she knew she could not outrun him on open ground. She stopped and turned to face him, so frightened of the man that she could barely breathe. Better to give up, she told herself. He wouldn’t hurt her-he needed her. But her speeding heart didn’t entirely believe that.

  “Now that’s a good girl,” he said, slowing to a walk, approaching her along the concrete levee with the knife hand at his side and his other hand out.

  “Stop there,” she said. “Why should I trust you?”

  He stopped and cocked his head to the side. He had lost his hat somewhere and the rain had plastered his black hair close to his skull. “Trust me? Trust got nothing to do with it.” He shook rain out of his eyes. “You’re going with me until I’m safe off this property, and you’re going to mind me just how I say or I’ll cut you. I don’t have to kill you to make you wish you’d never crossed me, you know.”

  Lucinda’s attention was distracted by movement in the shadows behind Kingaree, something rising out of the darkness of the creek. As she stared, trembling with cold and terror, she saw a large shadow separate itself from the rest. For a moment Lucinda thought that the reeds and long grasses and weeds of Kumish Creek had uprooted themselves and crawled up onto the levee, until she saw two huge eyes glinting in the moonlight, circles as big as softballs rising behind the unsuspecting Kingaree like twin moons until they hung a full half a foot above his head, the only glimmer in a dark, dripping mass like a moving haystack.

  Uncle Gideon’s river monster, she thought. With the crazy name. Then she remembered. Bunyip.

  Kingaree’s wet face wrinkled in puzzlement. “Why are you staring like that? That’s an old, stupid trick, child. There’s nobody behind

  …” Then he heard a noise and turned. Jackson Kingaree didn’t even have a chance to cry out before the huge shape was wrestling him backward into the tall reeds. He found his voice at last, shouting in raw-throated horror as he stabbed at the sodden mass over and over. The two of them, man and mythical beast, fell and rolled down the side of the levee as Kingaree’s terrified curses peppered the air, then they splashed into the dark creek.

  Lucinda did not wait to see wh
at happened. She climbed back over the fence as fast as she could, ignoring her cuts and scrapes. She slipped getting down, landing so hard that for a moment she thought she’d broken her ankle. The sky went white and thunder rolled again as she forced herself up onto her feet. The struggle was still going on behind her, but the weird, intermixed noises of Kingaree and his attacker fell away as she limped back toward the house across the dark, rainy farm.

  Chapter 36

  Nehctik

  Steve looked up the dark stairway in horror. “What are you talking about? Why should we go up there? You said the witch’s rooms are up there!”

  In another part of the house, nearer to the front door, unfamiliar voices were raised in loud argument. Tyler’s heart was beating hard: at any moment someone might walk in and find them. “That’s where the mirror is now,” he said with quiet urgency and pushed again, but Steve Carrillo was big enough not to be moved if he didn’t want to. “I’m serious! Mrs. Needle took it. Gideon’s wife Grace is stuck in there just like you were and we have to save her.”

  “That’s totally different than what you said before,” Steve accused him. “You told me we had to stop Colin-that he had this Continnyscope thing and he was going to take over the earth or something if we didn’t get back here and stop him. That he could destroy time like some kind of supervillain.”

  “Exactly!” said Tyler, shoving him again. “So we have to get Grace out of the mirror and then Gideon will… I don’t know… it’ll snap him out of whatever’s wrong with him! We need Gideon to get well so he can stop Colin.”

  “What? That totally doesn’t make any sense at all! Forget it-I’m not going near that mirror. It’s crazy in there, and I felt like I was in there for years last time!”

  “Nobody’s going to make you go in the mirror. You can wait for me.”