by M. L. Ryan
Billman’s lips curved into a small smile. “I’m impressed, Hailey.”
He really shouldn’t have been. The only reason that tidbit of minutiae stuck in my head was the instructor repeated it what seemed like a bazillion times during the semester. Most often, he would just stop, mid-sentence, and “Waw kiwalik” would roll off his tongue. No one knew if he simply found those two words irresistible, or was in some way obsessed with the towering, granite monolith in the Baboquivari Mountain range. The class speculated he suffered from Tourette’s syndrome, but instead of randomly shouting out expletives, he reverently exclaimed the Tohono O’Odham name for a sacred mountain. Whatever his motivation for the compulsion, I spent more time noting the number of times he uttered Waw kiwalik than actually listening to the lectures.
“My mind is a treasure trove of information,” I joked. “So, you think we must climb Babo?”
Billman lifted his shoulders again. “There, you may find what you seek, or you may not.”
With a mental eye roll, I thought, nothing like a cryptic mystic. “Well, that pretty much covers all the bases, I suppose.”
There didn’t seem to be much more to discuss, and Alex thanked Billman for his time.
“Might I request a favor?” the old Tohono O’Odham said as he walked us outside. “I would love to see Hailey change into her hawk form.”
I’d never intentionally bent for an audience, but Billman had given us a lot more to go on than we had before we met with him. I wasn’t sure about the proper protocol for shifting in front of a human, so I deferred to Alex and Sebastian. “It’s fine with me if it doesn’t break any Courso rules,” I explained.
Sebastian waved his hand dismissively. “He already knows about two other dimensions. Seeing a Yterixa bend should not compromise our continued concealment.”
“My lips are sealed,” Billman assured, nodding enthusiastically.
10
Worried the sight of me completely naked might be too much for the almost centenarian, I stripped down to my underwear. They’d probably end up shredded, but I was willing to risk going home commando if it meant preventing a cardiac arrest.
I shifted form and took to the sky. The afternoon’s rising thermals allowed me to soar overhead with ease, and it felt good to stretch my wings. Spotting a scaled quail darting amongst the low brush, my mind flooded with thoughts of hunting the plump, juicy-looking bird. I shook off the idea as Billman promised a post-bend snack of homemade, green corn tamales. I adored those little husk-wrapped packets of corn masa, roasted Anaheim chiles, and cheese and didn’t want to spoil my appetite.
Billman watched with awe as I circled overhead, grinning from ear to ear when I landed on his outstretched arm.
“This is remarkable,” he gushed. “I am so honored you let me see this.”
“The honor is all mine,” I answered, pushing out the words silently.
Billman’s eyes widened as he heard my thoughts, looking at Alex and Sebastian to confirm it wasn’t just his imagination.
“The offer of authentic local food likely added to her deference,” Alex said, laughing.
The old man pulled his arm inward and whispered, “In that case, I’ll throw in an extra dozen for you to take home.”
I flapped my wings. “Sweet! Thanks.”
All the talk about food made my stomach grumble and without loading up on carbs and protein before the transformation, I started to feel woozy.
“I’m going to change back now. Alex, can you help me out?”
I could have shifted somewhere out of sight, but I figured Billman deserved to witness the reverse conversion too. Alex walked to the Land Rover and rummaged through the way back, returning with a somewhat beat-up beach towel. While he waited, I flew off Billman’s arm and disappeared behind his house for my ritual alimentary cleanse. Some things I was okay with doing in front of an audience, but that was not one of them.
Freshly purged, I hopped back and crouched next to Alex. I imagined my wings and feathers pulling back inside my skin, and then felt cool air on my human flesh. Alex wrapped me in terry cloth and helped me to me feet.
Eyes twinkling, Billman shook his head in amazement. “Just when you think you’ve seen everything,” he mused.
“If not for the towel, you would have,” Sebastian observed.
While my panties managed to survive the rigors of the bend, my bra was toast. I didn’t mourn the loss of the underwire, demi-push up, however. Rachel goaded me into purchasing the modern equivalent of a medieval torture device by saying Alex deserved to see me in something sexy. I loathed the sadistic bastard that designed the damn thing. It had to be a man; what woman would knowingly create something so wretchedly uncomfortable?
Once I’d dressed, Billman made good on his promise of green corn tamales, which were way more satisfying than the quail would have been. Alex and Sebastian didn’t share my unfettered adoration for the meal, but they feigned enjoyment nonetheless. Finally fully sated and with a care package of shredded beef tamales tucked under my seat, it was time to go.
After winning a cutthroat round of rock, paper, scissors with Sebastian to ride shotgun, I climbed into the front passenger seat and reached out through the open window to clasp Billman’s calloused hands. Into my palm, he transferred something small and rough. It was a tiny, covered basket, shaped like a bowl with a “man in the maze” design expertly woven across the lid. It was beautiful, but it looked old, and probably worth a hell of a lot of money.
“I can’t take this,” I objected, extending the basket toward him in my outstretched hand.
He pressed my fingers around the miniature wonder. “I want you to have it. Legend says one should always bring a gift to Waw kiwalik to appease I’itoi. I think this will make him very happy.”
Far be it from me to shortchange a god. “I don’t know what to say, Billman. Thank you again, for everything.”
The old man stepped away from the car. “I hope you find what you seek, my friends.”
Everyone waved, except Ulut, who barked his goodbye, and Alex started up the vehicle. The bumpy road limited our conversation for the first part of the return trip, but once we turned onto the highway, we tried to make sense of what we’d learned.
“Let us presuppose this ant hole is not simply an ancient parable, and I’itoi really did travel here from another dimension,” Sebastian began. “Even if we locate the correct location, will we be able to activate the portal?”
Alex tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Excellent question, but at least we have someplace more specific to investigate. Before, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
More like looking for a specific needle in a needle stack, I thought glumly. “Much as I want to believe Billman knows what he’s talking about, doesn’t it seem odd that what we’ve been looking for is like sixty miles away from Tucson?”
“Do you sense Mr. Ortiz is less than trustworthy, carisa? I felt no subterfuge.”
“No, I don’t think Billman’s trying to screw us over. It just seems too convenient that a possible portal to Dekankara is so close.”
“It could be an old portal to Coursodon,” Alex reasoned. “There are abandoned ones all over your dimension. There’s even one right next to the Washington Monument.”
“Don’t the Xyzok worry about someone transcommuting in the middle of the National Mall?”
Alex laughed. “No, carisa, those entry points are no longer useable for transport; there isn’t enough energy in them.”
“Is that why they were abandoned? The batteries went bad from overuse?”
“An apt analogy, my dear,” Sebastian piped in, “but in reality, it is the other way around. As your civilizations grew, it became harder to transport undetected across dimensions. The portals in inhabited places were forsaken for ones in more isolated locales. When portals are not oft used, they lose potency.”
“Besides,” Alex continued, “the Courso don’t require specific entryways int
o this dimension anymore. With pollution breaking down the interdimensional barriers, we can pretty much move back and forth anywhere. We only use specific points for egress and access to keep our existence secret.”
I had forgotten about that bit of transcommutational history. Someone from Coursodon could pop up at the Washington Monument or in the middle of the Oval Office for that matter because specific portals were no longer necessary. They used a system of gateways—marquizoborta—tucked in out-of-the-way spots for obvious reasons. No one wanted the hassle of dealing with unsuspecting humans witnessing their unexplained appearance, much less the wrath of the Xyzok when they discovered the mistake.
I scanned the Baboquivari Mountains to the east. Waw kiwalik was easy to spot: a giant, molar-shaped rock rising a thousand feet above the surrounding mountains. For Ulut’s sake, I hoped Billman was right and we’d find him a way back to Dekankara somewhere on that peak.
We spent the next day finding out everything we could about Babo. As far as I could determine, there wasn’t an actual cave near the summit, which meant we couldn’t really narrow down the location for the “anthill.” To make our search even more complicated, the Xyzok had never surveyed the area for anomalies. Bottom line—we needed to get our butts up there and look for ourselves.
It wouldn’t be easy. Summiting the peak required a strenuous hike plus some technical climbing toward the end. It was no problem for Alex and Sebastian. With their superhuman Courso strength and stamina, the ascent would be—literally—no sweat. Scaling Babo would be at best a challenge, at worst a grueling, soul-sucking ordeal for me even with my current high level of fitness. Ulut would need special rigging to accompany us up the more vertical portions.
Those weren’t the only problems, either. While the arduous trek and somewhat isolated locale made Babo an uncommon destination, total privacy wasn’t a given. To diminish the chance of anyone observing anything supernatural, Alex decided we must go at night, preferably during a new moon, which was five days away. That nixed my idea of avoiding the climb by bending and flying up. I couldn’t see shit in the dark—human or hawk—but as a person, I didn’t have to worry about smacking headfirst into a cliff at forty miles per hour. Only smacking my ass at the bottom after reaching terminal velocity.
Alex, Sebastian, Cortez, and Aiden made a daytime scouting trip to Waw kiwalik to narrow the possible sites for the portal. The good news: They did find a few spots that seemed promising with fluctuating magical thingies that I didn’t completely understand, and the recon meant we’d have less ground to cover during the real deal. The bad? Some of the sites were near the summit, which meant ropes and climbing might still be necessary. I hoped I’itoi was secure in his godhood and hadn’t made a statement at the very top of what amounted to a soaring, granite penis.
For some reason, I felt uneasy. Sure, I was anxious about the mountaineering, having never done any technical climbing before. Something besides nerves was bothering me, I just couldn’t quite figure out why I was so wired.
“This is the best lead we’ve had,” Alex replied when I mentioned my restlessness. “You may just be anticipating our potential success.”
“That could be it,” I conceded. Ulut explained remaining in animal form for extended periods was tough, and he’d been a dog for a long time. From my own experience, if I couldn’t bend regularly, I didn’t feel right. Emotionally. Physically. It was sort of like PMS, but without the bloating and cravings for dark chocolate. I’d never been trapped like Ulut, though. He tried to put on a good front, but I knew he was hurting and I wanted it to stop.
Alex leaned back in his chair and pushed it away from the desk where he worked. “Do you believe your apprehension presages bad omens?” He didn’t seem mad, but because he only spoke like a late nineteenth-century lord when he was either angry or worried, now I was concerned.
“Why, do you think something will go wrong?”
“Not at all,” he answered, reaching out and pulling me to his lap. “But, in my line of work, one never ignores a hunch. Sometimes listening to those inner voices is the difference between success and failure.”
I rested my head against his and tried to analyze what was going on in mine. “I don’t have a shit’s-gonna-hit-the-fan vibe,” I said finally. “You’re probably right; I’m just antsy because I want this to work. Or maybe it’s because we are looking for an ant hole.”
Alex laughed. “Perhaps your propensity for attracting wildlife will come in handy and a trail of them will lead us to the portal.”
“Yeah, and if we are really lucky, the entire peak won’t turn out to be the anthill.” I didn’t even want to imagine the millions of crawly, biting insects that might fill a seven-thousand-foot mountain.
Alex had more work to do, so I went back to our room to wait until he finished. I tried reading an urban fantasy freebie I downloaded on my Kindle, but it didn’t hold my attention. Watching TV was also a bust. Over three hundred channels and there’s nothing interesting. I tossed the remote on the bed, restlessly scanning the suite for distraction.
My gaze settled on the fireplace, to the small, egg-shaped stone resting on a wooden stand in the center of the mantle. I walked over and picked it up, the white veins on the dark blue background reminding me of clouds on a rainy day. Keem had given me the egg and we exploited its pulsating warmth, something I alone could detect, to hone in on his location. When I killed the megalomaniacal Dekankaran, whatever animated the stone died as well. Now it felt like any other mineral specimen, cold and lifeless. I kept it as a memento and often rolled its smooth surface in my palm when I was nervous. For some reason, the simple act calmed me.
As I fingered the stone, a wave of certainty flooded over me. That egg had to accompany us to Baboquivari Peak. Why? No clue, but Alex told me not to ignore a hunch, so I packed it with the rest of my gear. It fit nicely into the little basket Billman gave me as a token for I’itoi and seeing it nested in the finely woven fiber strands seemed right.
That night, I dreamt I was an unfertilized egg, snug in my mother’s ovary with three hundred thousand potential siblings, give or take a few thousand. Then, the moment I’d been waiting for my entire haploid life happened—it was my turn to make the perilous journey. I said a tearful goodbye to my fellow ova, and balancing precariously on the precipice between where I had been and where I must go, apprehension overwhelmed me. I whimpered, “Maybe this isn’t a good idea” and tried hang on, only to realize there was no way to do so.
Reverberating throughout her abdomen, my mother’s voice bellowed, “Get out, you slacker!” before I was expelled unceremoniously into the unknown. As tiny feathers lining the fallopian tube swept me along, I blinked back my tears and stole one last glance at the place I had called home. The woven cup from which I had popped snapped shut, revealing a lid decorated with I’itoi and his labyrinth. I wonder if the maze was made of maize, I wondered absentmindedly as I tumbled further and further into the darkness.
11
Two days later, uncharacteristically overcast skies greeted us on the morning of our ascent. Sebastian was positively giddy in anticipation of possible showers.
“No one in their right mind would climb at night in inclement weather,” he announced gleefully.
Ulut typed,“Sounds like us,” using his pawboard.
“Exactly,” Sebastian agreed. “We will be assured that our explorations will be private.”
“Didn’t mean in a good way.”
Sebastian waved his hand dismissively. “This is excellent luck. I have a good feeling about this evening’s activities.”
I recalled a similar evening months before, when Lyjwix paid me a visit during a storm. “Doesn’t electrical activity in the atmosphere interfere with your magical skill?”
“Lightning interferes with one’s magical signature,” Alex corrected. “It makes it difficult to track or detect someone during a thunderstorm, but one’s abilities remain intact.”
Now I remembered. Lyjwix t
old me before he tried to kill me that no one would know he was the murderer because all the electrostatic discharge would essentially wipe off his arcane fingerprints. “Lightning won’t interfere with sensing a portal?”
Sebastian tilted his head. “That is an excellent question, my dear. I would not think so, but as this is completely new territory for us all, anything is possible.”
Great. Darkness, rain, difficult terrain, and no one had the slightest idea what we were doing.
Ulut summed up my angst. “What can possibly go wrong?” appeared on my cell phone.
Famous last words, I thought as I shoved my iPhone into my pack and headed out to the car.
It was barely drizzling when we left Tucson, but the forecast for Waw kiwalik called for more precipitation. We loaded us and all our gear into a Jeep Wrangler, and Aiden and Cortez followed in an identical, separate vehicle. Once we began the trek up the east face, they’d drive both cars to our planned exit point, on the west side of Babo. There, they would remain with the vehicles and be available if we needed backup. Or an ambulance. Given the nasty weather in store, I was tempted to try to switch places with one of them. I figured in a few hours, a nice, dry car would feel like a five-star resort.
The ninety-minute drive southwest of Tucson was uneventful, and as predicted, the parking area was deserted when we arrived. The sun had set an hour ago and so far, the heavy rain held off. However, in the distance, bolts of lightning flashed, backlighting the otherwise invisible mountain ranges. If I wasn’t about to trek onto an open, exposed, elevated peak, I might have enjoyed the show.
“Isn’t it really dangerous to be on a mountain during a thunderstorm?” I asked, mentally calculating the time between the last bolt of lightning and the resulting thunderclap to estimate how long we might have before a billion volts of electricity fried us to a crisp.
Sebastian effortlessly hefted a thick coil of rope onto his shoulder. “That it is, but I can sense the discharge as it is building and Alexander is able to deflect the energy away. We should be perfectly safe.”