Powers

by James A. Burton

  Another click and another and another, and she had a whole shotgun in her hands. She started pushing shells into the magazine, snap snap snap. First one in the chamber, of course.

  “You should have gone on without me. Find that thing. Fix it. You’ve lost one day, two? Jeopardized the mission.”

  The mission outranks any soldier, any day. Or all of them combined. One reason why he’d always hated armies. Not a one of them agreed with the high value he put on his own skin.

  What armies? Where?

  Some of them had had guns. He remembered guns, various kinds, various eras. Some had carried spears and swords and bows. He couldn’t sort them out, put names and dates to them. What had he done for the armies before bronze and iron? Chipped blades and points out of flint? Carved really, really superior clubs out of blackthorn roots?

  He shook his head. “Drop the Warrior Goddess Sacrifice bit. People matter to me. You matter. To me. If that Seal dies, we’ll deal with it. Even frigging Legion hasn’t ordered us to fix it.”

  She stared at him. She stared some more.

  “Thank you.”

  That made him blink. “For what?”

  “Pulling me out of the river. Feeding me. Pretending you were asleep.” Pause. “You jerked, just a hint of it, when you woke up. But I needed to touch someone. Hold someone. A warm, living someone. It’s been a long time.”

  The loneliness of the long-distance god. Been there, done that.

  Then, in an “If you ever mention this moment of weakness, I’ll kill you . . . ” brisk tone, “Pack up and get moving. We can’t waste time waiting for the tent to dry out.”

  Yeah. Packing a wet tent is so much fun. It weighs three times as much as dry, and when you next set it up all that weight has turned to slime and mildew stink.

  Another memory, unbidden and without proper provenance or attribution. I wish that damned Seal would collate the archives and unlock the index as well.

  He studied her—eyes still sunken, cheeks less so, hair combed and glossy rather than the dead rat’s nest of yesterday. She seemed to be moving close to normal. Thinking close to normal. From what he knew of “normal” as that word applied to her.

  “You well enough to hike? Climb? Looking across from the other side, this looked just as high, just as rocky.”

  That got him a shrug. Typical. “I can hike. I can climb. Slope’s shallower on this side, inside of the bend without the river eating into it, and we have the creek to follow. Gentler climb.”

  Until we come to a hanging waterfall, that is, cut off by the glaciers. I’ve seen those in the fjords and mountain valleys . . .

  He rolled up the rain fly and moved on to knocking down the tent, packing the pots, shaking out and rolling up the plastic sheets. That float of hers, the gas cartridge was used up, no more instant inflation, but it had a nozzle and valve to blow it up with good old-fashioned lungpower. Maybe she could talk her winds into doing the hard part. Anyway, he let the gas out and rolled it up and packed it, too. Might meet another river. Not that he liked the thought of swimming with this world’s fishes.

  And yes, when he hefted it, the pack weighed about five pounds more than when he’d last put it down. About five pounds of water weight, and they couldn’t even drink it. His hip twinged at the thought of hiking and climbing. He buckled the waist-belt anyway and headed upstream along the creek, toward his sense of the broken Seal.

  She’d been pacing like that caged leopard again, waiting, not trying to pretend that packing was a two-man job. Now, moving, out in the open, she kept stopping and listening. With the air dead calm, maybe her winds didn’t want to talk to her? Then he heard it—a low thumping growl through the fog, a boat headed upstream against the heavy current. No reason to think they were searching, but . . .

  Following the creek had brought them back into view of the main river. The sides of the ravine had narrowed to force them out into wading cold shallows—too steep and too tangled with brush for them to sneak along on either bank. He picked his way over slippery rocks, plunging into knee-deep icewater, using each bush and low-hanging branch as cover, glancing back into the fog. He could see the river. The river could see him. At least he’d had the sense to buy a gray jacket.

  Never had liked standing out in a crowd.

  Mel’s uniform coverall, dusty blue, had gathered enough dirt and soot and lichen-smear to pass as camouflage. She crouched, froze, and turned into a rock on the stream bank. He ducked behind a tangle of . . . mountain laurel? Something with glossy leaves that loved the wet, anyway.

  A ghostly lump nosed out of the fog, dark hull with white at its nose—bow-wave. A smaller lump stood up from the bow, in front of the mast and boom for loading. Lookout—should be concentrating on the river, watching for the next channel buoy, watching for any washed-out tree trunks or snags riding the current. Should not be worried about rocks and bushes on the side creek.

  Albert concentrated on being a bush. Nothing more than a bush. Gods are hard to see. Everyone knows that.

  The lump inched upstream, slow as a walking pace against the strong current. He could see the wheelhouse now, faint red through the fog. Nothing here but rocks and brush and trees . . .

  Gronk, gronk, gronk, three blasts on the ship’s airhorn, Albert’s heart almost stopped as the blasts echoed back from the gorge’s rocky walls. But the bulky shadow faded, easing further out into the current. They had to signal before rounding the curve in the river? Damn sure you wouldn’t want to meet another ship in the middle of the channel, and radar wouldn’t be worth shit in this gorge. Radio might not work, either.

  Or—belt and suspenders. You don’t take chances on that kind of thing.

  The shadowy bow passed out of sight behind a tree. Each inch of the hull passed out of sight, taking a minute for each foot. The wheelhouse grew faint as the ship eased over to the far side of the channel, must be some rocks that forced them out into the fiercest current.

  The wheelhouse vanished. Albert straightened up and dared to breathe. Gronk, gronk, gronk, three more blasts, fainter, echoing again, signal for the next curve. All in a day’s work for the pilot and helmsman.

  Had the boat signaled like that, the other day? Headed downstream? He’d thought he heard crows, deafness wearing off.

  The Buddha tells us to live here now. The past and future are Maya, illusion. Be here now.

  Here and now, Albert’s feet were freezing. So much for the battle to keep clothes dry. He climbed over the next rock, and the next. His hip complained. A bend in the creek put the river behind them, out of view. The ravine widened a bit, and he could pick his way through shallows along the bank. He looked back. She splashed through the same holes, over the same rocks, teeth gritted and shotgun held in her right hand as she braced or grabbed branches with her left. She seemed to be moving okay. Gods heal fast.

  Deep pools, mossy boulders, cold water, laurel and cedar along the banks and overhanging the eddies—this creek should hold trout. If this world had trout. He picked out and cut a maple sapling flush to the ground and smeared mud over the stump it left. He stripped and tucked the branches deep into laurel tangles, shadows where even wilting leaves could hide.

  No reason to leave a clear trail behind them.

  Then he cut a spear from it, about seven feet long, splitting the end for a couple of feet and barbing the insides of the split and spreading that point into a narrow fork with a thin shaving to hold the springy jaws open. A fish-sized fork. He’d seen this used, Inuit or Native Americans, couldn’t remember where . . .

  Shadows darted in the water, disturbed by feet in the current. They looked like trout, too bright for browns, maybe speckled or rainbow. Lunch. No way to fry them, no cooking oil or butter, but even poached trout were good. Should be more wild garlic and onions around, and herbs.

  I used to know someone who lived to fish. Any fish, but obsessed with trout. Had dozens of ways to catch and cook and present it, pulled from cultures throughout the world. He’d lov
e this place. Not a friend, not an enemy, someone strange. Beyond strange.

  Where and when and who?

  Water splashed behind him, and he turned. It hadn’t been a fish jumping. She’d fallen. She struggled to pull herself up—not a hole or drop-off, she’d just slipped. She still held the shotgun out of the water, keeping it dry. Protect the weapon that protects you.

  She was not moving well. She put a good face on it, but her rueful grin looked more like a grimace. How hard could she push, recovering?

  He waded back to her, careful of his own footing on the slippery rocks and strong icy current, and offered her a hand to pull her up on the bank. What was worse, she took it. That told him things.

  He turned and found a trail on the bank. No one used it much, no one had used it recently, he could just trace it out under the leaves of last fall. Still, someone had tended it, someone had cut saplings flush with the ground long enough ago that the sawed cuts had weathered gray to blend in with the dirt and moss. Old saw-cuts, also dark with age, had cleared branches that crossed the trail, up far above his head. Granted, he was short, but whoever had cleared this wanted room.

  And the whoever liked a neat path, everything tidy, flush cuts, no scars of a careless saw or axe. Tended.

  She pushed away from leaning on him and nodded thanks. She’d seen it, too. A path meant people, and people meant no talk, or whispers.

  They followed the path upstream, and she nodded again as he pointed out spurs leading to open rocks here and there, to ledges, to spaces with a clear line upstream or down over pools and eddies in the stream. Something caught his eye, a red spot on a twig, and he stared at it, moving closer when it didn’t stir to flee or try to bite him.

  A tiny hook had snagged there, feathered, crimson silk body and dark fuzz at each end, white wings, tail. He plucked it from the twig and felt the metal. Not old. No rust. A thread of leader still clung to the eye of the hook with a tiny fancy knot. That “fly” hadn’t spent the winter hanging in the shrub.

  He laid it in the palm of his hand and held it out to her. Low voice, “Fishing. For fun, not to survive. You’d set fish-traps if you needed the food.”

  She nodded. “Someone lives out here.”

  He checked with the ache in his teeth, judging direction, then consulted the sandalwood. “We’re getting closer. Need to go uphill now, that ridge.” He pointed, this side of the creek. “You able to climb?”

  Another telling sign, she didn’t snap an answer. Then, “I think so. That’s not too high. Winds say, five hundred feet or so.”

  He followed the trail, the path of least effort, and another trail led off it, upward. This looked like it had more use—dead leaves and twigs cleared from a gravel surface. Tree roots and rocks made steps, not sized for him, so he’d climbed for maybe fifty, sixty feet before they clicked in his head. He stopped and waited until she caught up within whisper range.

  He pointed at a slab of rock angling across the path, big rock, looked totally natural, but . . . “Rain diverter. Channels runoff out of the trail, prevents erosion. Someone put a lot of work into this. Over a long time. Centuries.”

  She nodded, no answer. Catching her breath.

  Upward, a steep climb, he kept stopping at shorter and shorter intervals, waiting for her. And cooling the fire in his abused hip. Every time he stopped, he saw rocks placed for steps, roots gnarled across the path as steps, swaths of packed river-washed round stones for drainage.

  All of this was fitted for someone who took larger steps than either of them needed or wanted on this slope. With that clue, he saw worn spots on the bark of trees, stone outcrops bare of moss, places where a hand might fall. If the person carrying that hand stood four feet, five feet taller than he did.

  She caught up with him, panting with the climb. No, not recovered. But she gritted her teeth and waved off his gesture at a seat-sized rock waiting by the side of the trail, with a scenic overlook into the fog-shrouded valley of the creek below. Trees framed Chinese watercolor serene beauty, layered greens and grays with shining laurel leaves in the foreground and pointed cedars fading to nothing in the depths. The fog seemed to be thinning as they climbed, with a hint of where, beyond all that murk, a sun might actually be offering light and warmth. He could use some of each, thank you. If he was still wet, still chilled, what about her?

  He pointed at the seat again, worried.

  “No. If I sit down, I won’t get up. Not without a nap and some food.”

  He handed her the spear, now a walking-stick, not much chance of collecting trout up here. She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and took the stick. More signs and portents.

  “You going to be able to keep going?”

  “Winds say, not much further.”

  He grunted and climbed again, his slow steps paced as much to ease his own hip as to allow her to keep up. The fog thinned. Sunbeams struck down through it, shafts of steam against the shadows. Another ten feet up, another twenty, and the trail leveled in front of him, a grove of spruce and pine framing a tunnel around the view ahead.

  It opened on blue sky. They’d reached the crest, and looked out over whatever came next.

  A blanket of fog spread out beneath his feet when he reached the end of the tunnel. Across it, another ridge humped dark fir green against the sun, with gray stone rising above it to a double summit, rounded bald stone hills, with one face sheared off by some glacier long gone and thawed.

  She’d come up behind him and stood leaning on his fish spear. He pointed out across the valley, across the fog.

  “I know that hill. I’ve been here. Long ago.”

  XXI

  The fog chilled him again as soon as they started down. Wet dark trees, all dense tangled spruce and fir and threatening shadows, canceled any joy and warmth they’d grabbed from their brief glimpse of sun. Crossing the ridge had been like changing worlds, from welcoming hardwoods to a barrier that wanted to keep them out. They had to follow the path, much as that made Albert’s back itch with the sense of crosshairs. He didn’t trust any forced move, particularly one forced by Mother. Was her offer of the “easier” railroad route a pawn sacrifice, masking her real trap? A chess game played in blood?

  That brief glance of sun told him they’d gone from a south slope to a north-facing land that felt and gave little warmth. And downhill hurt. Albert leaned on his cane as a cane now, more important than the blade inside, avoiding as much weight as possible on the fire waking in his hip.

  Schwarzwald, he thought. Black Forest. I’ve been here before. Even the word in German clicks some locks open. Are we climbing down to the Rhine? Did we swim across the Neckar?

  Whatever “Rhine” or “Neckar” meant, in another world.

  “Hold up a minute.” She leaned on the spear, catching her breath again. A sorry picture, both of them.

  “This trail. Are we walking into a trap?”

  He thought about it. “Well, yes . . . we’re going wherever Mother hid the Seal. That has to be a trap. The path seems to be going toward that damned headache.” Another pause for thinking—thinking took too damn long when he was hurting and tired and hungry. “You have enough energy left to go off the trail? Cut straight through that?”

  He waved his free hand at the tangled forest around them—green-black prickle-needle spruce with interlaced low dead branches weaving into a wicker wall, glacier-tumbled mossy rocks, and low-growing briars and shrubs wherever a shaft of light could poke through the thick dark canopy. He could see thirty, forty feet into it, either side sloping sharply up or down. The trail cut across the slope, with switchbacks and stairways—stairways meant for longer legs than his. Each jolt down sent shooting pain from heel to shoulder, but whoever had laid it out, took the easiest way. Any other route involved a scramble. Neither of them was up to scrambling, now or in the foreseeable future.

  She was studying him. “You’re awfully calm about this. Just put your head down and keep going, that’s all? No matter what?”

&nbs
p; “That’s the kind of person I am. Tortoise. You find a tortoise crossing a road and want to help it, keep it from getting splattered by the next truck roaring along at highway speed uncaring, make damn sure you know which way it was heading before you do anything. If you pick it up and put it down on the wrong side of the road, it’ll just start out across the pavement again. Slow and steady, but it knows where it wants to be. Just like Aesop’s story. I’m not fast or flashy, but I finish my job. I’m not smart enough to quit.”

  “Even when going straight ahead shoves your head into a noose?”

  He thought about it with his slow tired brain again. “You want a military genius, you’re looking at the wrong man. I’m a smith. I know fire and iron, hammer and anvil. I make weapons. I’m no expert on using them.” Then, after a pause, “You want to turn around?”

  Mel shook her head. “Not flashy, no, but you’re fast enough to beat me. Three times. Good enough with that knife to cut a bear’s throat and survive. I want to see how you’ll handle whatever surprise Bilqis has waiting for us.”

  I wish she hadn’t reminded me of that bear.

  The way Mother set this up, this forest I half remember, there are other things in the world that I’d rather not have to kill. She’s probably counting on that.

  “I don’t want a fight. Neither of us is in any shape for one. Please don’t shoot first.”

  Mother, Balkis, she’s not like me or Mel. She doesn’t face her enemies head on, on an open battlefield. She’s no warrior goddess. She’d never set up a fight she didn’t know she’d win. She’ll have a trick, a trap . . .

  But she may not have laid that trap with Mel in mind. Not in her first planning. Later, yes, but she’ll have to improvise. Not her strength, because she has a hard time thinking that the whole world won’t obey her every whim.

  Know your enemy. Know yourself. Sun Tzu. But I don’t want to face a hundred battles. Not even one.