He stood and handed the naginata back to her. Added, “Is any part of this real?”
She echoed his shrug and then went back to sentry duty. “The pain. The exhaustion. The hunger. The deep aching thirst for a cold beer.”
And the need for a hot bath. He wiped his fingers on his pants to get rid of the slime—God knew the pants were filthy enough already. Would it dissolve cloth? Dissolve the washing machine, assuming they ever saw one again?
He nodded at the bastard improvised weapon in her hands. “You used that well. I never intended it to stand battle.”
She focused on the bare blade, a frown narrowing her eyes, questioning. “I think it used me as much as I used it. You forge strange weapons, old god. It seems alive. It knows what I want it to do.”
He checked the bits of hydra again. Still not moving. The salt pulled water out of the tissue, making it shrivel, and ooze, spreading puddles of musty sewage stink like a flooded cellar after pumping out. But he damn well wasn’t going to waste energy on cleaning it up.
Not their problem. For all he knew, it would either vanish or regenerate as soon as they left. Just as long as it didn’t try to do anything while they were here.
He turned and tucked the pack cover back in place, couldn’t buckle it since the buckles lay scattered in bits on the paving stones. He wondered if he could break them without the adrenaline boost of something trying to kill him—that kind of plastic was strong. Anyway, he hoisted the pack onto his shoulders and grunted at the weight.
“Well, we’ve paid blood for this hill. Let’s see if it was worth the price. Wouldn’t put it past Mother to make us fight our way into a blind alley, then fight our way out again. Her brain works like that.”
Speaking of their line of retreat . . . the door waited behind them, closed. No way they’d shut it behind themselves, kicking it open and then fighting the hydra. He edged up to it, palms sweating, and eased it back with his left hand while holding the shotgun braced on his hip with his right. The open door yawned at him, offering them the gravel path, spring-green water meadow bordered by aspens, trout stream, sunshine. Fafnir’s Idyll, just like they’d left it. He ducked his head out, checking either side. Worn stone cliff. Including a hundred feet or more straight up overhead, where the inside courtyard opened to blue sky.
No sense. No sense at all. He closed the door again.
While he had been doing that, she’d moved over to the nearest of the ground floor doors and checked it. Now she was leaning her forehead against the middle one, the one she’d said led back to her hills in the previous incarnation of the gates. Her slumped shoulders said this one didn’t smell the same, didn’t tell the same tale to her winds. She mourned the loss. Funny, he’d learned to read her body language that well.
Hair prickled on his arms. Mother had said that the doors changed. Did this place offer them any way home? Whatever “home” might be?
Over to the front wall, he looked out the window there. A view into a dark forest glade with a shadowy stream in the depths, fairly wide, black spruce and fir like they’d found on the far side of the ridge they’d crossed. Schwarzwald. Through probably a mile of stone.
He climbed the marble stair—as far as he could see the exact same stair they’d climbed back in the “real” world—and checked his “Finland” door. He didn’t recognize the smells behind it. But the middle door on the far side spoke to him, smelled familiar, except it wasn’t raining on the other side this time. More birch, less spruce and fir than the Black Forest. Different tang to the damp earthy dead leaves and needles. Opened it and got the same gray nothing that troubled his stomach. He tried poking his cane through the space that wasn’t a space, thumped it on what felt like dirt and maybe roots, and got it back again. He ran his fingers down the shaft—dry to the touch, not particularly cold. It had picked up a bit of spruce gum and a seed scale on the tip.
Maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense. Magic was like that—why it was magic, rather than science or even smith-work. The works of gods are mysterious, sort of by definition. Mysterious, whimsical, and tending to bite the incautious hand.
I’m going to put some serious effort into killing Legion, if we ever see its demonic ass again. This is all its fault.
At least his hand had stopped bleeding. He touched the ache of his cheek and flaked dried blood off it. If anything, he was healing even faster than normal.
Define normal, as applied to gods.
She’d also been poking around. Probably a bad tactic, both of them checking doors at the same time, rather than one on guard while the other searched. It hadn’t gotten them killed yet. But he heard her boots overhead, definitely her, another thing he’d learned in the last couple of weeks. Nobody else walked quite like that, a stalking cat with rubber-soled boots.
Then, “Al, you’d better come up here.”
Voice strange, tight, but not scared. Puzzled.
He climbed to the fourth level and found her staring at a door on the far side. He followed the gallery around, passing the front “window” on the way. That vista looked out on a grassy valley with a small stone-built mill and millpond on the stream. People could live in the land outside that window, no plague that attacked even gods.
She wasn’t staring at the door. She was staring at the doorjamb, or rather at the stucco next to the wood frame. Which had an arrow on it, three slashes of orange lumber crayon. The mark he’d left on coarse dark gray stone in the firefly cave.
The exact same mark. He remembered the curve at each starting end, just quick jabs with most of his attention on the fireflies. He could see a couple of skips where the speeding crayon had jumped a dimple in the stone. They didn’t match with the rough-smooth trowel prints on the stucco.
Which were illusions, anyway.
This place spooked him. “What do your winds tell you?”
“You sniff first. You’ve got a good nose. Tell me.”
He tested the air, just as he had with the Finland door. “Cold, damp, smells like an alley, a dirty alley, touch of diesel exhaust, not close or fresh, cat piss and wet cardboard and a hint of coal smoke—sulfur. City. Not a good neighborhood, all in all. Probably night, going by the heavy air, or raining. Maybe both.”
She nodded. “My winds know it. They think it’s the alley outside the other gate.”
“How much do we trust that?”
“I left two six-packs of Sam Adams in the refrigerator.”
Talk about incentives . . .
“If it’s our city, you’d better wear the cop-stuff to go with your badge and patches.” He unbuckled the pistol belt and handed it over. Kept the shotgun. He wasn’t up to a knife-fight, just now, and the naginata had gotten used to her. It knew her hands and fighting style.
Yes, it was a person. It had a soul. The shotgun, on the other hand, didn’t care who held it.
He sniffed again. Got the same answers. “What are the odds that we’re actually going into our alley?”
“Three things. Your marks. The smell, both to my winds and your nose.”
“And?”
Wry smile. “Nothing else comes close. I tried all the doors. Couple of other cities, but none of them are ours. This, or nothing.”
Great.
“Any caves?” And, he had to ask it, even though he knew it could hurt, “Any connection to your hills?”
“One on the courtyard level could be the cave we came in by. Nitrate smoke added to the smell, fits in with the shit that went down there. Middle door, other side of this level, could be Tibet or Nepal. Both fit the logic of the other place.”
First floor for moves within the same world, fourth floor for moves between this world and however you define our home. Which also means that isn’t my Finland. No matter what the nose may say.
But close. Might be worth a look sometime.
“So we try this?”
She nodded. “Same drill, but I’ll go first this time. Healthier. You go left, I go right, we keep our backs against th
e wall. Safety off, but don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to.”
Because, if this is “our” alley, shots will draw the cops. Her cops. Who we don’t want to meet just now. Plus, anyone in that alley at night is likely to run at the sight of people stepping out of a solid brick wall. They can’t see the door.
She pulled the door open. Blank gray, without either surface or depth. She vanished through it, naginata unsheathed and ready. He took a deep breath and followed.
Spinning disorientation just as before, but this time he was ready. Darkness. Cold damp air smelling of cat piss and wet cardboard and all the rest. Splash of icy raindrop on his cheek. His eyes didn’t have time to adjust before a flashlight blazed to his right, where she should be, and splashed brightness away from them across pavement and a brick wall opposite, picking out that rust-spotted junk-shop door and then shooting up and down what looked, indeed, very like the alley he remembered. A shadow vanished around a corner, leaving an echo of scared running footsteps behind.
Colder than when they left. Spring had stepped back a couple of weeks since then. Spring did that sort of thing, didn’t mean they’d reversed time.
The light vanished. Silence. Into which flowed the sounds of a city, distant traffic and a siren, switching to warble and horn-blasts as it came to an intersection. A helicopter overhead thumping its way to business elsewhere. That undefined rumble that lay beneath it all, machinery and the heartbeats of a hundred thousand people.
Rain spattered on the asphalt. Rain that felt like it was half sleet on the back of his hand. Not much of it, but ’tis enough, ’twill do.
His eyes started to adapt, and he could pick out rooflines against streetlights in fog beyond. A couple of lighted windows down to the left, where he remembered windows in daylight.
“Switching the light on again.” Her voice, a couple of yards away.
He closed one eye. Light splashed between them, picking up the weeds he remembered in the wind-blown dirt, now mud, light sweeping up and across the stone door jamb and pointed arch and shield with cross he remembered.
But no door inside the stonework. Just the same formless depthless gray that offended his eyes and gut and balance. She focused the light on that. The beam vanished without reflection.
The light skipped away to flicking up and down the alley again, not landing on any threats, then into darkness. Apparently she didn’t like looking at that gray, either.
Out of the darkness, a pensive voice, “I wonder how long it takes to reset.”
“Huh?” Witty discourse our specialty . . .
“We could cross back to the same gallery and gate, just like you did the first time. Sooner or later, that option is going to vanish. This will go back to being a door that humans can’t see, opening into choices.”
Logic. Does logic work on this stuff?
“Any way we can check if this is really our world?”
“Best way I can think, is that Sam Adams in my refrigerator. And I can check the date there, too.”
Yeah. Time. Everything that involved Legion, screwed with the time.
“Flick on the light again, across and about ten feet left.”
She did. The beam splashed on red spray-paint graffiti on brick, looked like a Russian Orthodox cross, three crossbars with the bottom one slanted, with an Islamic crescent added to the base. Probably a gang “tag” claiming this turf, he didn’t know. But he doubted if that sort of thing stayed constant across the multiple universes of magic gates.
“I remember that.”
She switched off the light. “So do I.”
He sagged back against the wall, feeling the solid reassuring brick. Whatever it really was.
Home. They had actually found home. That cold beer she craved, the hot bath, the bed, walls he knew around him. His forge. The center of his life.
Senses stronger now, he could feel his cold forge and the heavy steel of his anvil, over there beyond the streets and buildings. Now, to find the strength to reach it.
His hip burned. His legs wanted to fold under him, reminding him that he’d just crawled out of a plague-dream this morning. Getting here, knowing he was here, drained him. No fight left. His teeth started to chatter from the cold wind and exhaustion and the rain pecking at his hair. He slung the shotgun and pulled his cane out of the loop that held it to the pack. Used its strength and both hands to heave himself away from the wall and upright again.
“You okay to move?” Her voice in the darkness.
Sounded like she had learned to read his sounds and body language, as much as he had learned hers. Funny thing, that. They’d started this as shadows in the dark, fighting. Enemies.
Shadows again now, but not . . . enemies. He wasn’t sure what they were. Some kind of weird combat team.
“Yeah, I guess. We’d better get going while I still can.”
“My place is closer.”
She switched on the flashlight, keeping the beam low to pick out their footing through the rain-spotted puddles, and led. He shuffled along behind, thump thump click, feet and cane, while her boots made no noise.
Asphalt pavement and brick for the side alley, concrete sidewalk—his focus narrowed to five feet in front. Where his feet were going. Vague shadows scuttled away, human and other, none of them interested in hanging around people who came in twos and carried obvious weapons. He didn’t know if they could see her badge or not, but they damn sure could see light glinting off the guns.
He didn’t think he was dropping back into the fever dream, but it had . . . similarities. Especially, the “if you’re still moving, you’re still alive” part. Cold. Wet. Tunnel vision. So damn tired, his hip had quit hurting. He knew it was still out there, still screaming at him, but those nerves had lost touch with Central Command.
One foot in front of the other. He heard the snick of her sheathing the blade. They must have reached some point where bare steel could draw attention, but looking up, looking around, took someone with the will and strength for it. Someone not him. He shoved his free hand into a pocket, trying to warm icy fingers.
Stop. Stand in the cold and wet. Shiver. Hear the hiss and roar of traffic. Start again when she started. Stop when she stopped. She probably should be carrying the shotgun—went with the uniform. How many bloodstained limping dwarves walk through the city carrying a shotgun and a backpack? One foot in front of the other.
Stop. Cold gust of wind. Shiver. Click of locks. Apartment foyer, wind went away, hooray. Grumbling, more clicks and clacks, day’s mail falling on the floor, fumbling to pick up, should be more than one day’s mail. Maybe her “people” knew to collect it if she didn’t.
Stairway lock click clack clunk. Stairway, dammit. Now he had to lift each time for the one foot in front of the other. Tap of his cane, grab the railing, grunt. Up. Up. Up. Stop.
Door without outside locks. Hers. Into that sparse room, lights, Wheel of Life, meditation pad, gleaming gold statue of Kali. Stand shivering. Teeth chattering. Dripping half-sleet on the floor.
“Fucking exhaustion and hypothermia. You! Into the shower! Now!”
He stood. Not enough brainpower to walk. To hell with chewing gum at the same time. Shotgun pulled from his shoulder, backpack pulled from his shoulder, coat off, someone’s strong impatient hands. Shirt off, boots off, pants off, underwear off, sense of flying, hot water. Blessed heat. Scrubbing.
Slippery soapy body scrubbing his. Sting of soap and hot water in half-healed wounds.
“I’d planned this to be a little sexier, dammit.” Somewhere behind his left ear. No beer breath, so it couldn’t be Mel. She’d be in the kitchen with a cold Sam Adams. Not washing him. Not washing his ass.
Towel. Bleary focus, more stings where the towel caught at scabs. Dark-skinned naked body pulling him. Dark wet hair. Strong hands, strong arms. Bedroom. Bed. Blankets. Darkness.
Warm damp body pressed against his back.
Darkness.
Wake to darkness, still or again. Wrong. Windows
in the wrong places, wrong number, streetlights outside the windows in the wrong places, throwing the wrong shadows. He lay there, blinking, sorting. Even the bed was wrong. It was too big. It had someone else in it.
“You’re awake.” Mel’s voice. Things clicked into place.
“Come over here and make yourself useful.”
Eventually they fell back to sleep.
Warmer.
XXV
Albert woke alone. He could feel it. He lay there, eyes closed, for a couple of minutes until he figured out why that mattered, why that was a change. “Alone” had been his default state for centuries . . .
Mel.
He opened his eyes and looked around. Shades pulled now, they hadn’t been when he woke in the night, but daylight outside. Gloomy daylight, with the patter of rain on the glass, so he couldn’t tell the time by sun angles and besides, he didn’t know which way her windows faced. She didn’t seem to have a clock in her bedroom. The air felt somehow afternoon-ish. At a guess.
He studied the room, her bedroom, it should be damn near the most intimate of her spaces. He never had seen it, not really. He’d ended up in her bed by teleportation.
One long low dresser stood opposite the foot of the bed, dark golden fancy-grain wood, maybe walnut and damn sure not cheap veneer, with mirror. No pharmacopoeia on top, no cosmetics, just a hairbrush and comb and a hand mirror for checking the back of her head. All laid out precisely parallel and neatly spaced.
And a pistol, looked like a Colt .45 automatic from where he lay, also precisely squared with the dresser top. That sort of fit her personality. He assumed it was loaded. With a round in the chamber.
Closets ran along the wall across from the windows, all closed, all austere six-panel off-white paint like her kitchen and her meditation room. Wooden chair on either side of the bed instead of tables, the one on his side—well, the side where he was lying, he couldn’t really claim it as his—looked like the ones he remembered from her kitchen. The other didn’t. So she didn’t keep two chairs in her bedroom. Which also fit what he knew of her.
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