by Rob Scott
He passed out a few of the items he had managed to buy or steal on his journey across the country. Garec was especially excited at the idea of Colorado beer and had already placed the cans in the fjord to cool. Gilmour, thrilled to have Howard’s American Civil War book, planned to check into an Orindale inn, bolt the door and steep himself in Gettysburg as soon as the Fold was closed for ever. As he paged through it absentmindedly, he pondered Steven’s story; he was especially interested in how Steven had located the far portal and Lessek’s key.
Pocketing the lighter, he asked Steven, ‘So are you saying you could feel the staff’s magic there in Idaho Springs?’
‘I think it was the portal, or maybe the key,’ Steven answered. ‘I had been going so fast for so long – in such a hurry to get back. When I discovered that our house had burned down-’ Steven glanced over at Mark, ‘sorry about that, by the way-’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mark said, emotionless. ‘Go on, please.’
‘Well, anyway – when I learned that our house had burned down, I figured Nerak had done it. He had beaten me there and had destroyed everything.’ Steven looked across the fjord, allowing the images to take shape in his mind’s eye. ‘But he hadn’t. The house had been gone for a while, long enough for them to come in and bulldoze the lot. There had been time for some real estate agent to put the land up for sale. So I figured the portal and the key must have been hauled up to the city landfill and dumped.’
‘And that’s where you felt the staff?’ Garec pressed.
‘It was more than just there. I guess it happened a few times along the way, but maybe it was my memory, you know, like muscle memory. Maybe I felt I needed the magic, and my body wanted to believe it was there.’
Gilmour nodded.
Steven rubbed his chin. He needed a shave again. Anyway, whatever it was, at the city dump, I felt the magic. It took me. I needed it, and it came in a blast. I think it came from the key. I can’t be sure, but it did knock me down twice.’
‘Why the key?’ Gilmour leaned forward, his brow furrowed.
‘Because the portal was still a good quarter of a mile away.’ Steven saw Garec frown and added, ‘About four hundred paces – and the key was right there, just a few paces away at the time.’
How did it happen?’ Mark joined the interrogation, suddenly interested.
Steven chuckled. ‘I hit a speed bump, the same one, twice.’
Garec tried the words together, ‘Speed bump?’
‘Right. And who would have thought there would be speed bumps at the landfill? I mean, who goes in there but guys in pick-ups and big town dumper-trucks? Are there really enough pedestrians that they need speed bumps?’
‘But it slowed you down just enough?’
‘Knocked me down is more like it, and when I stood up, everything had changed. I knew right where to find the portal – and the key.’
Sensing something, Gilmour asked, ‘But that wasn’t all, was it?’
‘No.’ Steven kept his eyes on the fjord. ‘I saw more than I expected. It was the Fold. It had to be.’
‘And?’
‘And there were rips in it, tears, like you would tear open a paper sack or the wrapping of a present – three tears.’
Gilmour ran a palm across his ribs, a gesture he had repeated several times that morning. He reached inside his tunic, withdrew his pipe and used Mikelson’s lighter to ignite a leafy mound of Falkan tobacco.
‘Great lords, but that’s a handy device.’ Garec was impressed.
Mark said, ‘You should see some of the nonsensical toys we’ve invented, Garec. It would have your head spinning.’
‘Speaking of which-’ Steven tossed Mark the roast beef sandwich from his pocket.
Finally Mark perked up. ‘Ah, thank you,’ he said, heartfelt, and fumbled with the plastic wrapping. ‘What kind is it?’
‘Roast beef with mayo on wheat. It was all Howard had in his kitchen – well, all that looked safe enough to eat.’
‘Thank you,’ Mark repeated, and finally grinned. ‘Try this, Garec.’ He slashed the sandwich in two, offered half to Garec and gestured with the other half towards Gilmour.
‘No thanks, Mark,’ Gilmour indicated his pipe with a shrug. ‘Anyway, Steven, these tears you saw – was anything moving through them?’
‘No, and the funny thing about them is that I think I put them there – at least, at the time I was convinced I put them there.’
‘You?’ Garec took a bite of the sandwich and exclaimed, ‘Great leaping whores! This is the best thing I’ve eaten in ten Twinmoons! Say again what it’s called?’
‘Roast beef with mayo. Mayonnaise.’ Steven was amused.
‘Roast beef with mayo. Gilmour, we have to learn to make mayo.’ Garec wiped off a smear with his finger and licked it. He gave a moan of satisfaction. ‘Great rutters-’
Smiling, Gilmour went back to the subject. ‘How could you have created tears in the Fold?’
‘That’s just it, Gilmour. I don’t know that I did, but I think I could have, or maybe – maybe it was perfectly all right with me that they were there, as if it didn’t matter.’
‘And you say there were three?’
‘Three. Oblong, and standing on end, like narrow entrances to a tunnel or roughly hewn doorways, and when they disappeared – or rather, when I let them go – I knew right where to find the key and the portal.’
‘And the magic came from inside you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Steven said, matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t think so. Why would it? The staff was here, and I didn’t have the key yet.’ He looked across at the hickory staff leaning against the small sailboat. ‘So I suppose the magic was the key. It had hit me hard in the knees, twice, so I wasn’t feeling much of anything except pain – but when I reached out, I felt as though I could grab the air, as if it was there for me to take. That was when I saw the rips. They materialised in front of me, right where the big centre hill at the dump had been, but where the magic came from isn’t actually as important as what began to take shape in my mind.’
‘What’s that?’ Mark swallowed the last of the sandwich.
‘That we can keep evil trapped inside the Fold.’
‘How?’ Gilmour looked bemused.
‘By controlling the Fold itself.’
Garec laughed. ‘Oh, of course. I thought you were going to suggest something difficult.’
‘No, listen. The Fold is not the enemy, the Fold exists; if evil is trapped inside, and evil is our ultimate enemy, then our goal can only be to keep evil inside for ever. Gilmour, you said that the Fold is the absence of perception and therefore the absence of reality. So it’s the place between what is real and what is unreal, the space separating expectations from actualisations. Right?’
‘That’s how I think of it in my mind, yes.’ Gilmour wasn’t sure yet about Steven trying to make his definition of the Fold into a tangible, controllable reality. ‘But that doesn’t make it any easier to grasp.’
‘Yes it does.’ Steven seemed convinced.
‘Again, you have me on cloakpins, Steven. How?’
‘Because if it exists and if we can conceptualise it accurately and if we can reach it via the spell table,’ Steven withdrew Lessek’s key and held it aloft between two fingers, ‘then we can seal it, not by closing the door that the Larion Senate and Nerak and a handful of other travellers have used over the ages, but rather by building a wall around it, a box around it, a-’ Steven laughed, ‘-a safe-deposit box for the whole frigging thing.’
‘Steven, you’re mixing two kinds of thinking,’ Mark protested. ‘You can’t muddle the tangible and the intangible that way. You’re creating a philosophical paradox. It won’t work.’
‘It will work. Everything can make sense if we take time to learn enough about it, about what it values, about what motivates it, about where it came from and why.’ He searched their camp for an example. ‘Look. Over there, that rock. Now, we all agree it’s a rock, right?’
The others nodded, curious.
‘We all agree it’s a rock, but let’s assume Garec is a masonry worker, and I am a geologist, and Mark is a miner, and Gilmour, you are a sculptor.’
‘Wait – I see what you mean,’ Garec interrupted, excitedly.
‘We all might see it a bit differently, but no matter how hard we try, it will always be a rock. Whether it’s a snapshot of Eldarni history, a valuable ore, a cornerstone for a public library, or even a beautiful three-dimensional realisation of a bird in flight, it’s still just a rock. There is no way, even using all our will, that we can make that rock a fish, or a grizzly bear – or a roast beef sandwich.’
Gilmour, looking interested, said, ‘So if I’m understanding your thinking: if we can understand the Fold, however intangible it may be, then we can – what?’
‘Anything we want. We can paint the damned thing yellow if you want to,’ Steven said. ‘Don’t you see? There is no paradox. We can do whatever we want to the Fold, if we are careful and thorough in developing our understanding of exactly what it is and how it works.’
Garec felt the rug come out from under them. ‘How do we do that?’
‘We need to know what Lessek knew. He found it, called it a pinprick in the universe. That’s fine. Whatever. But he found it, and he knew how to get to it, how to arrive at that place where he could reach out and grab it – like the air at the city dump. It was no different than it had ever been, but I held it in my hands, pressed against it and moved it around.’ He looked in turn at each of them. ‘That’s what we have to do.’
Gilmour slipped a hand back inside his tunic. Although his ribs no longer hurt, he could feel where he had mended them. Only hurts when I breathe! The three friends followed his gaze to where the leather-bound book of Lessek’s spells lay waiting for him to come and try again.
‘Once we know what Lessek knew, what will we use?’ Garec broke the silence, making Gilmour jump visibly. ‘The staff? That book?’
Steven replied, ‘That remains to be determined, Garec, but at this point, I am fairly confident we will use compassion-’
Mark looked down, his head shaking.
‘-magic-’
‘And?’
‘-and maths.’ Steven gave him an amiable slap across the back. ‘Mathematics, Garec.’
Garec went off in search of more wood, and Gilmour stood alone, ankle-deep in the fjord, enjoying a pipe and wrestling with his thoughts. They had made the decision to remain there another night, for they had talked until late in the day. Steven had put up a halfhearted fight when Mark told him where they were – he had assumed his friends were already in Praga, not well on their way to Sandcliff Palace. He had argued – for a few moments – then given in gracefully; much as he hated it, he knew that getting to Sandcliff as quickly as possible was more important than finding Hannah. He had known it when he told Jennifer Sorenson to wait two months before bothering to open the far portal again; it would most likely be even longer before he was reunited with Hannah.
Steven and Mark sat together near the fire, alone together for the first time that day.
‘I’m sorry,’ Steven said, leaning against a fallen log and staring into the flames of the campfire.
‘For Brynne? Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. She was over the stern rail and halfway to safety before she decided to climb back up.’ Mark took a long swallow from one of the beer cans. ‘She made her own decisions.’
‘It’s more than that.’ Steven said. ‘I’m sorry for the whole thing, for this whole mess. I never apologised to you. I ruined your life. Everyone thinks we’re lying dead up there on Decatur Peak. I’m sure they’ve filled your job – hell, I might even have been responsible for the damned school burning down yesterday.’
‘The students will hold a parade in your honour. You’ll be the graduation speaker next spring.’ Mark had been reading the newspaper articles Steven stole from Howard’s refrigerator. Many had been ruined when Steven dived into Clear Creek, but enough had survived to give Mark a sense of the extent of the rescue and recovery efforts on the mountain trail west of town.
‘I’m serious.’ Steven tried to make eye contact; Mark avoided looking at him.
‘It doesn’t matter, Steven. I mean, I appreciate you saying it, but we are here. This is who we are and what we have to do with ourselves now. This is much bigger than being a high school teacher or a banker. These people need you and that staff. They need you here thinking the way you were thinking today, figuring things out, deciphering the magic to get the job done.’ He finished the beer and tossed the can over his shoulder into the sailboat. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m figuring out my role.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means until something better comes along, I am going to kill. I am going to learn to fight, to shoot and to defend myself, and I am going to kill them, one at a time until-’
‘Until Brynne comes back?’ Steven challenged.
‘Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just do it until one of them sends me along after her.’ He reached for another beer. ‘Either way, I don’t care.’
‘But there is something else bothering you, I see it now. I saw it before, long before Brynne- before she disappeared.’ This was risky; Steven understood he was putting their friendship in jeopardy by pushing Mark along this emotional razor-high-wire. ‘Isn’t there?’
‘Actually, you’re right,’ Mark said.
Steven was a little shocked – he had expected more resistance.
Mark refolded an article from the Denver Post and tucked it into the pocket of his new coat. ‘I’ve been trying to work through something, and it’s still bothering me. Do me a favour, give me Lessek’s key.’
‘What?’ Steven was taken aback by the curious request, but didn’t hesitate. ‘Sure. Here it is.’ He tossed the stone across to Mark who caught it in one hand. Neither noticed Gilmour turn to eavesdrop.
Mark closed his fist over the stone and went on, ‘You know, I never touched this that night in our house, but when you opened that box, I experienced something strange.’ He furrowed his brow, trying to remember exactly how the evening had unfolded. ‘It’s weird, and the only way I can explain it is like this: when I was a kid I had strange sleeping habits: I’d just pass out – the couch, the floor, wherever. So rather than try to lug me upstairs to my room, my mother would throw a blanket over me and leave me there. I never really woke up, but I could always sense when she’d covered me up. Do you know what I mean?’
Steven grunted in response; he didn’t want to derail Mark’s thoughts by interrupting at this point.
‘Well, that night when you opened the box, that’s what I felt: a warm sensation, like someone reached into our apartment and draped some old blanket over me.’ He laughed, grimly. ‘I know this isn’t making sense, but bear with me. I’d been drinking, so at the time I dismissed it – I was just drunk, or stupid, or needing to pee, whatever.’
‘But it came again?’
‘When I came through onto that beach in Estrad, I was out of my mind. I thought I was going to lose it – and you know what happened?’
‘Someone draped a blanket over you?’ Steven felt gooseflesh rise up on his forearms.
‘I remembered being a kid, out at the beach, Jones Beach, on the island. I was in Eldarn less than five goddamned minutes, losing it, going full-on screwball crazy, and all of a sudden, I got a reprieve.’
‘What do you mean, a reprieve?’
‘It wasn’t permanent; before the end of the night, I did lose it, curled in a ball, crying like a child. I thought I was dead. But for about ten minutes, I was given a break – I’m sure of it. I certainly wasn’t in any condition emotionally to look after myself, and someone came down to that beach and draped that old blanket over me.’
‘Lessek.’
‘And Bingo! You’ve won it all – the new car, the trip to Paris, and the showroom full of beautif
ul prizes,’ Mark said with mock game-show enthusiasm.
‘Holy shit.’ Steven was stunned.
‘You took the words right out of my mouth, cousin.’ Mark drained his beer and leaned back against the log, shoulder to shoulder with his roommate.
‘So what does it mean?’ Steven pressed.
‘I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be remembering something about some afternoon out at Jones Beach with my family – something about my dad, I think – but our days at the beach were pretty much the same. The only thing I’ve managed to cling to is a Red Sox-Yankees game, the night before, and the Sox won on some late-inning feat by Karl Yazstremski.’
‘And your dad was pissed off about it?’
‘Hell no, you know my father. He’d gladly go to his grave before supporting the “great scourge of the boroughs“ – no, it’s not that: he’s a Sox fan, no matter that he took all kinds of shit for it at work all his life. The game isn’t all of it, though: I think it’s just a point of reference for me to get the day right.’
Steven pulled one of the saddlebags over and rummaged around for something to eat. Finding a block of cheese, he broke off a chunk and offered the rest to Mark. ‘So what else do you remember?’
‘Dad had a cooler full of beer and a couple of sandwiches. He wore a madras bathing suit, something he had bought back in the ’60s, I’m sure, and he carried my mother’s old yellow beach umbrella out there and stabbed it into the sand like Neil Armstrong claiming the moon for Earth.’
‘How do you remember so many details? That was so long ago – how old were you? Six? Eight?’ Mark’s memory astounded Steven.
‘I remember so much because I’ve relived it so often since we came across the Fold. It happened that night on the beach in Estrad. It came again in the cavern the night before we fought those bone-collector things-’
Steven shuddered. Mark had saved his life that day, swimming to the bottom of a subterranean lake to wrench his body from where it was trapped beneath the carcase of a dead monster.