by Tom Deitz
“Of course,” David grumbled through his teeth.
Sandy probed the juncture of figure and cliff with a finger. “Yeah, well, the first thing is that it really does look like it walked right out of the stone,” she observed, as if addressing her physics students. “See, if you look closely you can see how the granite matrix follows the contour of every pebble interface precisely—which means this wasn’t just made and stuck on.”
David shifted his weight and tried not to fidget. The damned thing gave him the world-class willies, appearing so suddenly, as it had, the evening before—or at least that’s when he’d discovered it. “And the second thing?” he managed.
Sandy puffed her cheeks. “These pebbles aren’t native to north Georgia.”
“Of course not!” Calvin broke in. “Seein’ as how that thing was put together three hundred miles south of here!”
David rounded on him, uncertain whether he was feigning anger or actually felt it. “Okay,” he gritted, “you’ve had your fun, your little game of ‘Prolong-the-Mystery’; I think it’s time you laid things out straight.”
Calvin’s eyes flashed fire, but then he nodded resignedly. “Before I do, could you do me one favor?”
David shot him a skeptical glare. “What?”
Calvin glanced around, mouth set, normally dusky skin unaccountably pale. “Uh, well…could you tell me if it’s normal for fog to completely surround this place in, like, two minutes? It was clear as day when we got up here—and now I can’t even see your house!”
“I can’t either,” Alec added shakily. “But I can see a godawful big rattler.”
Chapter II: The Boys in the Earth
(Sullivan Cove, Georgia—very late afternoon)
“Rattler?” Liz gulped, blanching, but to her credit not bolting. “Where?”
“In front of Mr. Stony,” Alec muttered, inclining his head subtly to the right.
A chill crept across Calvin’s body that had nothing to do with the abruptly appearing fog, as he followed Alec’s edgy stare. Yep, it was a rattler all right: eastern diamondback, if he had his eyes in straight. Big one, too; the largest he’d ever seen, in fact—at least in this World: pushing eight feet if it was an inch, and as big around as his upper arm, with scales that gleamed so brightly they seemed wrought of bronze and gold. A glassy clump ornamented its tail like a hand-sized pine cone cased in yellow ice. It had evidently just crawled from some hidden hole in the shadowed triangle between the effigy’s legs and was now gliding toward them, its whole vast length sliding easily across the pine needles that comprised the ground cover thereabouts. But what really put the wind up him was that none of them had observed its emergence until, all of a sudden it was simply there.
Which was impossible.
And then a second realization made him shiver all over again.
That species didn’t live this far north! Their territory ended at the fall line, a hundred miles to the south!
“Adawehi!” he whispered, tearing his gaze away to lock eyes with a troubled-looking David. Calvin imagined his friend was scared as shitless as the rest of them but trying not to show it. God knew he was fighting a very instinctive urge to get the hell out of there—yet feared to move abruptly lest that provoke the snake to strike.
“Magician?” Liz wondered, with a skeptical frown. She was tense as a wire but, like Sandy, showing no fear of snakes as snakes—which was the only good thing about their situation, he concluded.
“Supernatural, in this context,” he corrected under his breath. “Cherokee think snakes are supernatural. And I’ll bet this one is.”
“What makes you say that?” Alec asked through his teeth.
“This fog, for one thing—as you should know.” Alec glanced around nervously. “You mean this is like…that one?”
Calvin started to shrug, but caught himself. “That’d be my top three guesses! I mean, fog’s a between thing, neither water nor air, which is why it works so well as a gate between Worlds. And of course rattlesnakes are creatures of great power.”
“Servants of Thunder, right?” Sandy murmured, as still as the rest of them.
“More often enemies,” he corrected, gaze never leaving the reptile. “’Cept that Uki sometimes uses them as messengers, probably ’cause they can slide between Worlds so easy.”
The snake was no more than three feet away now, and nearest Calvin. One abrupt motion, and he’d feel fangs in his leg. And though diamondback venom wasn’t as virulent as most folks believed, one that big could still do serious damage. And it would hurt like hell and be inconvenient regardless.
It was then that he saw the second one. Like the first, it was oozing from the shadows between the statue’s legs. But where the rattler had shone bronze, the newcomer was brass and copper, and maybe a tad slimmer of body, though still, at six feet, enormous for its kind. “Wadige-daskali,” he groaned. “Copperhead. Now I know we’re in deep shit.”
Yet no one moved. Perhaps it was because, inured to magic as they had become in the last few years, they all sensed that something was about to happen, and that if they fled no good would come of it. Or perhaps it was the uncanniness of the fog that swirled and eddied less than a yard behind them, and so far above their heads they could see neither mountains nor trees but only a disc of sky. And that, much worse, ended with impossibly well-defined abruptness, to describe a perfect cylinder around them and the scrap of cliff that held David’s pebbly twin.
The only sound was the swish of scales across pine needles, and of shallow breathing.
The diamondback was less than a yard from Calvin’s boots now; but where it had been steering straight at him, it suddenly veered toward the bank of fog, lifting its front fifth a finger’s width as it progressed. But instead of entering the white barrier, it turned again, to parallel its arc, until its whole length lay just inside it, measuring one-fourth of the circle’s circumference on the ground.
The copperhead was following, too, matching the rattler’s path precisely. Calvin stared as if ensorcelled.
—Until a sound startled him: a grinding thump that almost made him flinch—which could have proved disastrous. He tore his gaze from the serpents—and saw that the rock that had formed the statue’s right kneecap had fallen off and now lay beside one foot. And even as he watched, more pebbles crumbled from the arms and chin.
And then another rattler emerged, as large as the first, followed by a second copperhead. They were moving faster, too, just as the pace of the statue’s disintegration was accelerating. There was deliberate intent at work here, that much was clear, but Calvin knew in a way he could not explain that in spite of the presence of these denizens of the Underworld, no hostile power was involved. His friends seemed to sense it too, even Sandy, who’d had least exposure to the arcane. Still no one moved, but growing uncertainty was evident in more than one pair of eyes.
“Oh, shit!” Alec blurted out suddenly. “I see what they’re doing!”
Calvin started to shush him, but then he too noticed what his friend had. For, alternating diamondbacks and copperheads, the reptiles were defining a Power Wheel: four formed the rim, and four more had crawled inward to comprise the spokes, their blunt, triangular heads barely touching. Unfortunately, he and his companions were also enclosed by those quarters.
The pebbles were falling in a regular torrent now, the David effigy decaying at a shocking rate, until finally the fist-sized stone that had lain where its heart would have been thumped to the ground, sealing the hole from which the fourth and apparently final copperhead had just emerged.
Liz yipped in spite of herself. Calvin scowled at her—and felt another chill, for the unnaturally cool air abruptly filled with a dry, low-pitched buzz, as first one, then the other diamondbacks began to shake their rattles.
Louder and louder—and something cold brushed his hand. He jerked away reflexively—but whatever it had been was already moving past him. A downward glance identified it: the too-solid fog drifting past his k
nees like water filling a glass.
“Christ!” Sandy cried beside him, as it flowed in from all sides to engulf them. Already it was waist-high, but the rattling continued, though he could no longer see the snakes.
Chest high, and he gasped, for the fog was as cold as death.
Neck high, and then…
“Grab hands!” he yelled as he felt some force tug at him.
—And barely had time to feel Alec and Sandy seize his left and right wrists respectively before the world turned to white and the buzz of rattles.
And then there was pain, as if every cell in his body had been struck by a separate bolt of lightning and boiled to vapor.
Darkness and cold…
Then warmth and light again…
The fog was gone. But neither was there a defunct statue of David, nor any rock face to support one, nor a mountain for that outcrop to thrust from. Nor was there any sign of snakes forming a Power Wheel on a carpet of pine straw.
But there were pines—a few—mingling with a great many more cedars and laurel, all ringing a perfectly round clearing paved with fine white sand.
Head still awhirl, Calvin eased free of Alec’s grip and squinted past his companions (all present and accounted for, he noted absently) toward the palisade of trees. By the position of the sun, they were facing north. “Galunlati!” he whispered at last, almost to himself. “And if this isn’t Uki’s Power Wheel, it’s a damned fine copy.”
“We’ve…been here before,” David added shakily to Sandy and Liz. “That is, me and Cal and Alec have.”
“Some way to travel!” Sandy breathed. Her voice sounded reasonably steady, though the hand that clutched his was trembling. “I can see why you don’t like it!” Her face, when he checked, was pale, and he knew she was working to hold off hysteria.
“You…get used to it,” he managed as shock launched a sneak attack and made him reel.
“Galunlati,” Liz mused softly, her face even paler than Sandy’s, though Calvin knew she’d been world-hopping more than once. “But—but why?”
“Who knows?” he replied. “But this can’t have happened accidentally. Watch and listen, and just go with the flow as much as you can.”
“’Specially as we’ve got company,” David noted quietly, inclining his head to the left.
Calvin expected to see Uki—this was, after all, his Place of Power. But the figure that stood obscured by the shadows there was not the familiar bone white adawehiyu. Not by a long shot.
True, the man advancing toward him looked to be Uki’s size, and mirrored his mode of dress—and, as he drew closer, showed features like enough to Uki’s to brand him kinsman if not twin. But this man was blue! Saving his roach of slate gray hair, his ornaments of mica and dull-hued stone, and the troubling patterns shaved into the short fur of his loincloth and tattooed like killing frost across his skin, he was the cold, dark blue of winter shadows and icy water beneath thick-grown pines.
“Asgaya Sakani!” Calvin hissed. “It has to be: the Blue Man of the North, Chief of Uhuntsayi, the Frozen Land.”
“Friend of yours, I hope,” Alec muttered.
Calvin glared at him and shook his head, not daring to voice aloud that north was the direction of defeat and trouble. The rest held their peace, bodies tense, eyes feverishly alert.
“There’s another one!” Liz murmured, nudging him with her elbow.
He scanned the perimeter—and saw a second unfamiliar figure emerge from the long shadow of the blasted tree to the west. Nor was he surprised to observe that this man’s skin and garments were black as soot; his ornaments of jet, bear-claw, and iron. Otherwise, he differed from the Blue Man chiefly by having unbound silver white hair.
“And over there!” from Sandy, as a glance east showed yet another tall figure, this one red, even to his skin, which was the color of new-flayed flesh.
And then, finally, he dared look south—and relaxed. “Uki!” he mouthed at David, whose face was already lighting with recognition.
“Your…mentor?” Sandy whispered beside him.
He nodded, his hair hiding most of a troubled scowl. “This kind of thing isn’t normal, though. I wonder what’s up.”
“Siyu!” Uki stated flatly, when he came to within speaking range. His face was unreadable, displaying neither pleasure, surprise, nor disdain.
“S-siyu!” Calvin gave him back uncertainly. “Siyu, adawehiyu!”
Silence, as the three other…whatever they were…joined Uki to form a line in the southeast quadrant of the Wheel. And still no words, neither from Calvin and crew, nor their visitors, though the latter’s eyes spoke volumes, and little of it comforting. Doubt and contempt there was, mostly. Calvin was suddenly afraid.
“Edahi,” Uki said at last, his voice atypically sharp and threatening, “Tsulehisanunhi, Sikwa Unega—you three will come with us.” He paused then, as if seeing Sandy and Liz for the first time. “You women remain here,” he grunted, almost as an afterthought. “My sisters will attend to you when we leave.”
“Now wait a minute!” Calvin began hotly, his hands already balling into fists, as an anger he had never before aimed at Uki roared to life.
“Silence?” Uki spat. “You will keep silent until I say otherwise! The women will not be harmed, and if you act as you ought, you will see them again. No more will I say.”
Calvin had to clamp his jaws down hard to keep from telling Uki he was full of crap—and from lashing out with his still-clenched fists.
“Cool it,” David hissed through his teeth. “Go with the flow, remember?”
Calvin’s reply was a wordless growl, but at a grim, resigned nod from Sandy, he fell in behind the Red Man as Uki led the way from the clearing. David came next, with Alec following. Then came the Black Man, with the Blue Man of the North bringing up the rear.
They did not head south, though, toward Uki’s house in the cliffs beneath the rumbling waterfall Calvin could only just hear. Rather, they turned into the deeper woods to the north, where Calvin, though he had visited Uki more than once, had never fared.
*
Calvin did not know how long they trekked along, only that they traveled due north through unrelieved forest, that he was unaccountably hungry, given the food he’d scarfed at the wedding reception—and that he was bloody tired, which was not so unaccountable, seeing how little sleep he’d had the last week or so. He was also feeling guilty for not having told his friends about the statue when he’d had the chance. He could’ve given them the short form, for God’s sake: how he’d watched Spearfinger construct it down in Willacoochee County, then send it marching into the earth in quest of Dave. Now…who knew when he’d get to lay out the whole tale?
Never mind that both Dave and Alec were probably pissed as hell at him. And certainly never mind whatever it was that had Uki’s breechclout in a wad.
Uki…. His mentor had held ruthless silence since this journey began, as had everyone else in their odd party. And whatever was up had the feel of ritual.
Which could be either good or bad.
Not until sunset did the situation clarify even a little, but when it did, the switch was abrupt. One moment they were panting along the trail between close-grown maples, the next they were confronting a seemingly impenetrable barrier of laurel. Uki simply walked into it. The Red Man went next, whereupon Calvin gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and followed.
The leaves did not prick as much as he’d expected, though, and as soon as a brush of clearer air touched his face, he was blinking across fifty yards of open ground at a mound. Three times as high as Uki was tall, he guessed it was, and close to thrice that across; conical and covered with grass, and with a more steeply walled projection thrusting to the right like the entrance to an igloo. A trickle of white smoke drifted from the apex—or was that steam? He relaxed a fraction. If this was what he hoped it was, maybe things would be okay.
Still no one spoke. And as the light faded, casting the whole site into a study in red and
black, Uki led them to the east, toward what Calvin presumed was the entrance.
He was right. For when they halted, he could see a low, log-framed opening, beyond which a packed-earth tunnel pointed into darkness. He glanced at Uki, then at his stone-faced companions. None of them acknowledged his presence. His stomach growled. As if in sympathy, David’s followed suit. Finally Uki eased around to stand between him and the dark archway. “Remove your clothing. Do not speak unless I tell you.”
And with that, he and his fellows backed away.
Calvin rolled his eyes in resignation at his companions and fell to applying himself to buttons, snaps, and zippers. What choice did they have, after all? At least, he observed, when he’d stepped out of his gaudy boxers, it wasn’t cold.
David was also naked now, but Alec was hesitating over his dangling-dagger earring. Calvin saw him catch Uki’s eye and raise a quizzical brow. Uki spared him a curt, almost contemptuous, nod. Alec grimaced, but unhooked it and set it neatly in one of his sneakers. Calvin took the cue and lifted his medicine bag from around his neck. A thoughtful pause, and he likewise removed the uktena scale that had depended on a thong beside it.
Silence, still, but when Calvin straightened from depositing bag and scale, Uki pointed toward the mound’s extension.
Calvin started that way, heard David, then Alec sigh and fall in behind. An instant later, he ducked through the opening he found there. The skin of a black bear hung beside it, he noted, probably to shut out cold and retain heat. A pause for a final deep breath of fresh air, and he continued on, forced by the low ceiling to walk hunched over.
Fortunately it required no more than nine paces along a narrow tunnel walled with fresh-made mats of woven cane: not so far that he couldn’t see at all, but far enough that he ran head-on into a second bearskin marking the opposite end. Swearing silently, he eased it aside and paused on the threshold of a round chamber nearly thirty feet across and shoulder high at the sides.
Or that’s what he thought it was; it was hard to be certain, for the air was so thick with cedar-scented steam it was like walking into burning fog. As best he could tell, however, the room was walled with more cane mats above a low earth platform that followed its circumference at sitting height. Four thick cedar trunks halfway in braced the conical ceiling and quartered the cardinal directions. A fire burned in the enter of the packed clay floor—or had; mostly it was embers now: embers that yet gave their heat to a number of large glowing stones, atop which a huge pottery vat of water boiled and bubbled with a violence that would have done Old Faithful proud.