by Billy Wright
From the screen door, Liz called, “What is it, Stewart?”
“Uh, I really don’t know.”
“Mommy!” Cassie shrilled in growing alarm.
Liz spun and disappeared inside the house. “What is it, sweetie?”
Cassie’s voice carried real fear, but the bizarre creature before him held him in place. He wanted to drag it out so he could examine it, but he was afraid to touch its pale, wrinkly hide.
But then the sound of crying through the bedroom window, a howl of alarm and heartbreak, drew him away to see what was the matter. He went back into the house.
Cassie’s voice echoed. “They were right there!” she wailed.
When Stewart entered the bedroom, Liz was hugging Cassie close, and the girl’s eyes were wide. “What’s going on?”
“My dolls!” Cassie cried. “They’re gone! Hunter took them!”
“No, I didn’t!” In the top bunk, Hunter’s eyes were wide and confused. “I swear!”
Stewart frowned at him.
“Dad, I swear!”
Breathlessly, Cassie said, “I put them on top of my dresser so I don’t get their clothes all rumply at night.” She pointed a little finger at the empty space atop her dresser. “They’re gone!”
Liz stroked her hair and spoke with a soothing voice. “I’m sure they’ll turn up. I mean, it’s not like they walked off.”
“Hunter did it!”
“No, I didn’t!”
Stewart studied his son, and if the boy was lying, he’d been taking acting classes. Flipping on the light, Stewart checked all the corners, under the bed, in the closet, and then expanded his search to the rest of house.
He spotted them immediately upon entering the living room. Both dolls were sitting on the couch, as if carefully arranged. With a sigh of relief, he picked them up and carried them into the bedroom. “Found ’em!”
Cassie, on the verge of the kind of hysteria that would not be easily soothed, melted into a pile of relief, holding out her arms to receive them. He handed them over and she hugged them fiercely.
At least now they would all get to sleep tonight.
“They were on the couch,” he said.
She hugged them tight with a sigh.
“See?” Hunter said. “I told you it wasn’t me!”
“I don’t remember putting them there,” Cassie said.
Liz said, “The important thing is that they’re not lost. Go back to sleep now. And if you want to keep them in your bed, that’s okay. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if their dresses get a little wrinkly. Will you?” She stroked one of the dolls’ hair. “We can always iron them.”
Cassie scooted back into bed, still clutching both dolls, and Liz tucked her in.
As Liz stood, Hunter said plaintively, “It wasn’t me, Mom.”
Liz stroked his cheek with motherly warmth. “Good night, you two. Now get your rest. We’re hitting the road bright and early.”
Stewart shut the bedroom door and said to Liz, “Come on, you got to see this.”
Strangely, the living room smelled of cinnamon and cloves, but what he wanted was to show Liz the bizarre creature under the pickup. First he grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen junk drawer.
Following him outside, Liz said, “Is it what got into the garbage can?”
“You won’t believe this.” He knelt beside the pickup and shined the flashlight underneath.
But there was nothing under there but rocks and dust.
He said a few angry words as he jumped up and circled the truck, shining the flashlight about for any sign of the dying creature he’d seen just minutes ago. Had it dragged itself off?
Too many weird things had happened for him to write this off. He’d gotten a good look at the thing. It was so ugly, as if made of spite, that he would never forget it. It looked like a creature whose entire purpose was to do harm. And something had killed it.
“Let me guess,” Liz said. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
He gave her a plaintive look.
“I’m starting to get the feeling that there’s stuff going on all around us that we can’t see,” she said, looking out into the desert darkness.
“Now who’s Captain Obvious?” he said.
“Touché. It’s like there’s something out there watching us.”
He nodded. “It can’t all be in my head. A streak of crazy can’t do that to a garbage can.”
“Unless you have telekinetic mind powers.”
“I don’t have a lot of time to practice those.”
“It’s a shame. You’d make a great Jedi.”
He chuckled, then sighed at the sight of scattered garbage. “Let’s get that cleaned up and then go to bed. I’ll go get a rake for the garbage and a hammer to straighten out the garbage can.”
Chapter Eleven
Jorath El-Thrim stood before the Master, trembling, on the mirrored expanse of chromium floor. He could not peel his gaze from the Master’s Machine as it worked. Its sole purpose was the systematic destruction of a living being, its power drawn from the life of those placed in its clutches.
The Master’s audience hall stood so swathed in shadows that its boundaries would not be visible to anyone without a dark elf’s eyes, but Jorath could see the rib-like pillars along the metal walls, reaching up into the cavernous arches above. Globules of light floated in the air, spreading pools of illumination, produced and marshaled by the will of the creature upon the throne.
On a high dais of polished bronze and steel stood the Blood Throne of Baron Tyrus. The monolithic throne of blood-red copper, with its slowly waving halo of thorny metal vines, animated whenever its master occupied the throne, rose twice the height of even a creature as tall as Baron Tyrus.
Baron Tyrus watched the Machine work, anticipation gleaming in his featureless crimson eyes like polished rubies catching the red glow of the Machine’s inner workings. His chalk-pale face and bald head looked like sculpted marble, as if he were one of the Medusids’ victims. He would have been strikingly handsome if he still resembled flesh. Stringy black wisps of mustache, meticulously trimmed and waxed, flowed into a spiked beard that looked like sharpened obsidian. His robes glittered with shards of diamond woven into the fabric, glittering with the light of the globes and the inner glow of the Machine. His long-fingered hands, encrusted with jeweled rings, were steepled before his sharp chin, his thin lips pressed together in anticipation.
The screams of Jorath’s superior, Dorash, were beginning to subside as the Machine did its inexorable work. It truly was a demented wonder, the Machine. Designed and perfected over a thousand years by Baron Tyrus, its sole purpose was to drain every drop of blood, every trickle of life force, from those placed in its clutches, but keep them alive and awake for days, weeks, even months, never spilling a dram. It was a thing of meshing gears, blades, drains, pinions, restraints, and needles, everything twisting, squeezing, slashing, stabbing at whatever speed most amused Baron Tyrus in a given moment.
Jorath had been watching the Machine work for over an hour. At first, Dorash had begged for mercy, an act that highlighted his immense foolishness. The tiniest scrap of mercy did not exist within the creature known as Baron Tyrus. It was foolishness that brought Dorash to this terrible end and brought dishonor to the House of Thrim.
A row of dark elf guards, Jorath’s underlings, held fast the other two prisoners. The spindly, cadaverous creature clad in burlap with a face of charcoal scrawled upon its sackcloth skin, trembled in its bonds. Did such a dry, desiccated creature contain any lifeblood to drain? The Machine could reduce it to scraps of burlap and straw in moments.
The other prisoner was a goblin, short and squat, hunched and rounded. Its bald head accentuated its protuberant ears, like broken clamshells they were. Its bulbous nose and snaggleteeth made it a deliciously hideous creature. But goblins were not to be discounted for their ugliness, for like most of its race, its black eyes harbored a devious cunning. Even now, it was doubtless
scheming a way out of its imminent, agonized demise.
The Machine eased to a halt, its glow diminishing to a slow, rhythmic pulse, and what was left of Dorash hung in its clutches, gasping his last.
Baron Tyrus’s voice was a distant thunderstorm, an earthquake. “Captain Dorash El-Thrim.”
Seeing Tyrus’s face move—one did not expect the face of an alabaster statue to show animation—sent a fresh chill over Jorath’s flesh.
But the sound of it awakened Dorash from his near-death stupor. “Yes, Master!” he yelped. “I serve only you, Master!” There was so little strength left in him, it was as if he marshaled all of this strength simply to speak.
“And that, poorly,” Baron Tyrus rumbled. “You are a cretin, Dorash. I gave you a single purpose: prevent the human from going on his journey. You enlisted the aid of more incompetents.” His ruby gaze swept toward the scarecrow and the goblin, who quailed at its bottomless fury. “And together, you failed.”
“But, Master!” the goblin mewled. “The human could see things.”
“That is why I sent you!” Tyrus snarled, his razor teeth glinting in the light of a globule hovering near the throne. “That is precisely why he is so dangerous to my plans.”
“He...had...protectors!” Dorash gasped.
The Dark Lord snarled, baring his awful teeth. “And with all the power and weapons I gave you at your disposal, you still failed. Look!”
A chromium globe descended from the shadows above, hovering in the air before the throne. In it, Jorath could see the images reflected of onlookers’ faces, weapons, the glow of the Machine.
The globe’s surface rippled like quicksilver until it formed the image from the Penumbra. Four humans, the man, his wife, and their two children, climbing into a mechanical conveyance in the light of the rising sun. They were all smiles and excitement, at the beginning of what they anticipated would be a grand adventure, free of danger, clueless to the forces that were gathering against them.
The view in the globe came from a vantage point atop the family’s tin house, where an Eye had been placed. Rooted as it was in the magic of the Dark Realm, the Eye would be invisible to those born of the Penumbra. Baron Tyrus had been watching this human family for some time. Why, Jorath did not know, except that the man, Stewart Riley, was considered a threat to be eliminated. It would have been easy just to kill him, but for the Dark Realm to act so directly against a Penumbral human would jeopardize the Veil between worlds and alert their enemies that schemes were afoot. There were always schemes afoot between Light and Dark, but a direct action in the Penumbra would attract attention.
“As you can see,” Baron Tyrus said, “they have departed. They will be more difficult to track now that they are on the move.”
Jorath summoned every ounce of his courage and ambition, used them to beat down his fear, and raised his voice. “I can do it, Master.”
Baron Tyrus’s terrible gaze fixed upon him.
Jorath swallowed the dry lump in his throat. “I have tracked others in the Penumbra, and in the Borderlands as well. I know their creatures. I am familiar with the humans’ mechanical contrivances.” Dorash’s demise would be Jorath’s opportunity. He had been waiting almost two hundred years for that fawning fool to displease Baron Tyrus. Promotions were rare among beings as long-lived and resistant to disease and injury as dark elves.
In the Machine, Dorash wept.
Baron Tyrus’s voice rumbled over Jorath. “So, you seek to reclaim the honor of the House of Thrim.”
“I do, Master,” Jorath said. “My cousin has proven himself weak, stupid, and ineffectual. I am none of those things.”
“We shall see, Captain Jorath El-Thrim.”
Jorath genuflected. “Thank you, Master.”
“You may assemble your minions. Your cousin chose poorly.” Baron Tyrus indicated the scarecrow and the goblin.
“Thank you, Master,” Jorath said, still kneeling.
The scarecrow and the goblin began to tremble and blubber once again.
Baron Tyrus turned back to the Machine. “Before you depart, however, I have one more task for you, Captain.”
“Of course, Master,” Jorath said.
The Machine began to move again, the light within to pulse brighter. Dorash had apparently rested enough to muster a shriek that echoed into the hall’s high reaches. The Machine’s arms, blades, and needles picked up speed. It operated in unnerving silence, every moving part lubricated. The hall’s only sounds were Dorash’s dying wails and gasps, and when they faded could be heard the sound of flowing liquid, slowing to a trickle.
Dorash hung slack.
The Machine eased to a halt.
The Master said, “Jorath El-Thrim, serve me.”
Jorath approached the Machine. Inside a niche on the side of the Machine rested a golden goblet, encrusted with multicolored gems which glowed with stolen life force. The well of the goblet was twice the size of Jorath’s head, and it brimmed with dark elf blood, Dorash’s blood.
Jorath cupped the goblet in both hands and lifted it carefully, reverently, painstakingly, from its cradle. The power trapped within the goblet’s gems tingled in his palms. He dared not spill a drop as he took it and approached the throne.
Always moving, always alert, the nimbus of thorny metal vines around the throne extended toward Jorath, shivering with threat.
Jorath swallowed his fear and tried not to think about what those vines could do to him. He bowed and presented the goblet to Baron Tyrus.
Baron Tyrus received the goblet in both hands. Strangely, Jorath had never noticed before that the Master’s fingers each possessed an extra knuckle. The Master raised the goblet to his polished-marble lips and drank. But while he did so, his gaze drilled squarely, piercingly, into Jorath.
If Jorath failed, he knew what his fate would be.
Chapter Twelve
The morning wind was already hot, so both pickup windows were rolled down.
Stewart’s mood was light-hearted, despite the weird occurrences of the night before. Bleary-eyed and barely awake, they had left their house this morning just as dawn was breaking over Mesa Roja.
“Where does the map lead, Mommy?” Cassie said. “Where’s our house?”
As usual, the kids sat between him and Liz, sharing the middle seat belt. In another year or so, that arrangement would be uncomfortably snug for both of them. When that time came, he might have to trade off his old truck for something his whole family could comfortably sit in. He always wanted to save money for a used SUV or a minivan, but there were always bills, always unexpected expenses. When this old truck finally gave up, he didn’t know what they would do.
Liz laid the map over her lap and traced a line with her finger. “This is the road we’re on. This is Mesa Roja, so our house is about right here.”
“But where does it go?” Cassie asked.
“That’s what we’re going to find out!” Liz said with a grin. “Isn’t it exciting?”
Cassie nodded vigorously. Then her eyes widened as if just realizing something. She leaned over and whispered something in Liz’s ear.
Liz said to Stewart, “Oh, charioteer, it is time for a pit stop.”
Stewart nodded in acknowledgment. It would be good to get out and stretch his legs. “I’ll pull over at the next place we see.”
This stretch of highway leading generally north toward Utah was sparse in the way of human habitation, the kind of area you could find yourself afoot if you didn’t pay attention to the gas gauge.
Hunter had been quiet, slumped down, straddling the stick shift, face in a paperback book among Gramm’s things, something called The Illustrated Man. Stewart had asked him near the start of the trip if the book was any good, and the boy tore his attention away from it long enough to grunt his assent.
About half an hour ago, Liz had poked the boy in the ribs. “Hey, you should be paying attention outside. The scenery!”
Hunter gave her a withering look. “Mom. I�
�ve seen the desert.”
Stewart and Liz traded can’t-argue-with-that looks.
A dusty, wind-swept gas station appeared as the highway curved around the skirt of a mesa. “There’s our pit stop,” Stewart said. He slowed the truck and eased up to one of the pumps, older than he was.
Cassie said, “I don’t want to go potty here.”
Stewart smiled at her. “It’s this or behind the next bush we see. Sorry, kiddo.”
“It’ll be okay, honey,” Liz said. “I’ll go with you.”
Cassie gave each of them an are-you-crazy? expression, then sighed in acquiescence.
Stewart shut off the engine and got out, stretching his legs, appreciating the cooling wind on his sweat-moistened back. Liz and Cassie hopped out the other side and hurried for the main building, which looked about ten years overdue for a coat of paint.
“Hey, Hunter,” Stewart said. “Raise your periscope. I got something to show you.”
The boy blinked and looked at Stewart, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah?”
Stewart reached under the tarp covering the pickup bed and pulled out the hunting knife.
Hunter scooted out of the truck and jumped to the ground.
Stewart handed him the knife.
The boy drew the blade from its sheath, and his eyes widened at the polished Damascus steel, about eight inches long and two fingerbreadths wide, the gorgeous ironwood handle with its prominent wood grain. “Wow, Dad! That’s beautiful! Is this what you’ve been working on?”
Stewart nodded. “What do you think, Son? You think you’re old enough to handle a knife like that?”
Hunter’s eyes blinked a couple of times, then bulged with burgeoning hope. “Dad!”
“Without cutting your finger off or stabbing yourself in the leg?”
Hunter’s head bobbed up and down.
“Or hurting your sister?”
More vigorous nodding.
“Let me show you how sharp it is.” Stewart took the knife, laid the edge at an angle to his forearm, and promptly shaved a patch of hair clean away.