by Tom Deitz
Chapter XIX: A Dream Within a Dream
Calvin wasn’t certain which him it was that gazed down at Brock a moment later. Perhaps it was his dream-self, perhaps the “real” him—did it really matter? The prevailing certainty was that the boy still lay where he’d left him: curled into a tight fetal crescent at Sandy’s side, close by the base of the preposterous cliff. He was snoring softly. For her part, Sandy slept in a surprisingly trusting sprawl, looking far more relaxed—and vulnerable—than she had when awake. And Okacha—she was also curled up, but catlike: poised. If she’d sported a tail instead of tight jeans, Calvin suspected it would have twitched. He chuckled at the notion.
He wasn’t present, however—fortunately. Which mostly meant he was spared one batch of metaphysical conundrums, which in turn made it that much easier to focus on the task at hand.
“Brock,” he hissed softly. Then, more sharply: “Brock!”
The boy twitched and moaned and shifted to a more comfortable position.
“Brock!”
“Wha—? Huh?” And this time his eyes slitted open.
Calvin squatted beside him and shook him roughly. “My scale.”
The boy twisted up on his elbow. “W-what scale?”
Calvin grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him to his feet, then dragged him toward the impossible glade where he had left his father. The boy gaped, yawned, not having regained full awareness. “What scale?” he repeated sleepily, still barely able to stand.
When he thought he was far enough from the women to risk raising his voice, Calvin slammed Brock against the cliff—not hard enough to hurt him, but with sufficient force to get his attention. While the boy stared and blinked, Calvin flourished the uktena scale before his startled eyes. “This isn’t mine!” he snapped. “And since it was mine when I gave it to Sandy, and she’s not the kind to play games, and you were the only one who was actually alone with it, it has to be you that swapped ’em!”
Brock had regained some composure by then, and with it a touch of his old surliness. “It didn’t hurt anything.”
“Where’s mine, dammit!”
Brock fished in a pocket. “Here.” He passed a second scale—minus wire winding and thong—to Calvin, who couldn’t help but compare the replacement with the original. He understood how he’d been beguiled, too; for side by side the two were nearly identical. “Sorry,” Brock mumbled. “I was tryin’ to help.”
Calvin glared at him. “By riskin’ us all?”
The boy avoided his gaze. “It was spur of the moment. I didn’t think.”
“Obviously!”
Blue eyes met Calvin’s, then; flashed fire. “Cool it, okay? Everything worked out, and we’ve saved some changes.”
Calvin bit his lip, suppressing the urge to slap the crap out of the lad. “But how?” he managed finally.
Brock shrugged. “It was in the cave. You and ’Kacha had gone; so had Sandy. I was by myself, and I guess I got scared ’cause I know how much you hate doing that; only you’re a pretty cool dude, so anything you don’t like’s bound to be kind of a bitch. And then I saw how much it hurt Sandy, and I got real scared, only I knew I had to do it or look like a wimp. But just as I was getting ready, I looked down and saw this other scale. I’d figured old Tsistu was fooling when he said an uktena lived in that cave, but he must not’ve been, ’cause there was a scale there on the floor. So I said, ‘What the hey?’ You were worried about running out of charges, so I thought I’d try another one.” He paused to take a breath; shifted his weight. “Anyway…it did work, but I changed back to me just to be sure, and then…I guess I figured I’d do us all a favor without telling anybody—I was afraid you’d get mad—so I swapped mine for the scale on your necklace real fast. It was kinda hard to bring ’em both through together, but I did it. I dropped the old one soon as I got through the gate, and then slipped it in my pocket when Sandy had her back turned while I was getting dressed.”
“Smart kid.” Calvin snorted. “Smart—but dumb.”
“It worked, didn’t it? And this way we’ve got a spare.”
Calvin puffed his cheeks thoughtfully, at once pissed and relieved. The kid had a point, damn him!
“So, we cool?” Brock ventured, when Calvin did not continue.
“Maybe,” Calvin hedged. “I’m not the one you have to convince.”
*
“I’ll try it,” Maurice McIntosh announced a short time later. He was sitting peacefully in the verdant, misty glade that had no right to exist around the corner of a stone outcrop in an arid land. “If it works, fine; and if it don’t, I’m no worse off than I was.”
“Unless you get stuck in another shape,” Calvin muttered, shooting a glare at Brock, who stood behind him looking both cocky and contrite.
“That’s my problem, son.”
Calvin gnawed his lip. “Yeah, well, I’m startin’ to learn that it’s never just one person’s problem.”
“If you’ve learned that much, you’ve learned a lot, then.”
A shrug.
“I can’t try that scale-thing until I have it, boy.”
Calvin grimaced, but unwound the scale from the wires that secured it. His father rose to receive it. “I’d suggest you try it at sunset,” Calvin advised, “then again at sunrise, and so on. Be warned, though: it hurts like hell.”
“I know,” Maurice replied quietly. “I’ve seen you do it. I just never knew that stuff about the scars, an’ all.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“It’s magic of this land, therefore it’ll work. I believe that as much as I believed in Spearfinger—more, in fact.”
Another shrug.
“You’re still not happy?”
Calvin shook his head and slumped against a tree trunk, arms folded across his chest. Both Brock and his father stared at him, their faces dark with concern. “What’s the problem, boy?” Maurice asked finally, reaching forward to rest a hand on his son’s shoulder. Brock snared the empty nest of wires that had held the scale and began resecuring the original.
“You mean besides the fact that I won’t know for hours whether or not I’ve done you any good?” Calvin replied sullenly.
Maurice’s grip tightened. “This ain’t the time for games, son. Here you have to say what you mean.”
Calvin scowled grimly. “You weren’t the only one I came here to see about.”
An eyebrow lifted. “You mean them two boys?”
Calvin nodded. “Michael Chadwick—who I guess is in the same boat you are. And Don Scott. Have you, uh, seen ’em?”
“I’ve seen that first boy a lot,” Maurice told him. “His soul-blood’s of this land. He follows me around some—at a distance. Used to follow me to look at you.”
“But he was with you…!”
Maurice shook his head. “That’s how it looked, maybe. But it didn’t seem that way from my side. I think he was held back by that other boy.”
“Don? Yeah, well, he’s not even dead—or wasn’t when he called up Michael. Have you seen him?”
“A time or two. He’s—”
“He’s asleep near here,” a new voice interrupted: young, and thick with sadness. Calvin glanced around, startled; saw Brock do the same. A new figure had entered the glade. Like Calvin’s dad, he wore no more than a loincloth, but unlike the elder McIntosh, he was a boy—about Brock’s age, though blond and a little taller and more filled out. He looked…lost.
“M-Michael?” Calvin guessed as the lad wandered forward.
Brock glared at the visitor sharply, even as the lad tried to grin. “Mike,” the boy corrected. “I don’t look much like I did, do I? It’s all clothes, though—and hair. When you live in the real world you see what you expect to see a lot of times. Nobody expected to see me as an Indian ’cause that blood didn’t show much. Shoot, I didn’t even know it until I came here. But my soul knew. It brought me to the place I’d be happiest.”
“You got a bum deal, then,” Calvin snorted.
“If this is the best it could do.”
The boy shrugged. “I’m a very new soul, so they say. And eternity’s a pretty long haul. I—”
“So, how’d you find us?” Brock interrupted. He’d finished restoring the scale and passed it back to Calvin, who promptly replaced it around his neck.
“By thinking about me, you summoned me; that’s all it takes. Even in the real world it wouldn’t take much more. Trouble is, Don did that little bit extra and got in trouble, poor guy.”
Calvin frowned perplexedly. “But I thought you wanted him here!”
Mike shook his head. “Not as much as he wanted to come! Me, I’m like your dad: I want to get to the good place beyond the river, hold up a while, then move on again.”
“So where is he?” Brock persisted. “I mean, Cal’s dad said he was nearby—but where?”
“I come here a lot, anyway,” Mike went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “And when I got here, I felt you guys thinkin’ about me, and I zipped over. But I’ve gotta go now; I’ve gotta check on Don.”
Calvin reached out abruptly and took him by the shoulders, firmly, but not in anger. “Where? Mike!”
Mike dipped his head to the left over his shoulder. “There, not far.”
“Will you show us?”
“If you can help him, I’ll take you to the end of the World!” Mike shot back savagely. “Come on!” He was already walking.
Calvin hesitated, gazing uncertainly at his father. “You comin’?”
“I’m better off here.”
“I’ll be back—I hope,” Calvin replied helplessly. “Brock, how ’bout you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” the boy grinned and fell into step behind.
*
As Mike had said, it wasn’t far to where Don Scott’s mortal portion lay—not physically, not from the point of time passed or exertion expended. But it might as well have been the other side of the world, for all the good reaching it accomplished.
One instant Calvin was following the ghost-boy through a tangle of ferns, the next they had rounded an outthrust finger of stone (which might have been one of those buttresses that knifed out from the cliff)—and were in another place entirely, one Calvin recognized.
It was a campsite beside Iodine Creek. Specifically, it was the place where Spearfinger had found Michael Chadwick asleep and murdered him. But now another slept there, nestled in a lean-to that was no longer fallen to ruin: a dark-haired boy Calvin identified instantly as Don Scott. He lay flat on his back on a mattress of moss, with his wrists crossed on his stomach and a peaceful smile on his face. He was bare-chested, too; but someone had thrown a bearskin across his lower half.
“Our clothes don’t last here,” Mike explained apologetically. “Nothing synthetic does—an’ most sewin’ thread’s synthetic.”
“So, what’s wrong with him?” Brock wondered nervously.
Mike’s already sad expression clouded further. “He’s asleep, just like you are, but in a different way. The living aren’t supposed to be here, see, and— Well, they just can’t handle it for long, and even so they can only meet the dead in dreams, even when you were as close as Don an’ me were.”
Calvin’s eyes narrowed. “Even when you brought him here?”
Mike nodded, looking absolutely wretched. “That was a mistake. ’Cept that he kept callin’ and callin’, and he looked so sad, and I missed him, and I could feel him missin’ me even more, and I…just had to.”
“Yeah, but what’s wrong with him?” Brock repeated.
Mike squatted by his sleeping friend’s head and stroked his brow in a gesture that was as appropriate here as it would have been incongruous back in Georgia. “He just…can’t sleep much longer,” he whispered finally. “His body needs more than it can get here. There’s no food, and the water’s not the same.”
Calvin looked puzzled. “But if you’re in a dream, and I’m my dream-self, and so is Brock—I guess—then why isn’t Don’s dream-self here?”
“’Cause it’s tired,” Mike replied. “His body’s tired, and so’s his soul, now. But he can’t go back ’cause he won’t wake up. And I can’t take him back.”
“But I thought you guys were friends!” Brock blurted out.
“We were!” Mike cried. “We are! It’s just that…well, one reason Don wanted to see me one more time was to… apologize. He said there was too much unfinished between us; mostly that he couldn’t live with the fact that he’d had to just stand there and watch Spearfinger kill me. He kept thinkin’ that if he’d just been a little stronger or tried a little harder, he could’ve done something.”
“He couldn’t, though,” Calvin assured him. “I’ve been in her mind: I know.”
“So do I—now,” Mike agreed. “But Don didn’t—’cept that he does now, ’cause you can’t hide anything from people here—not for long.”
“So why doesn’t he just wake up and leave?” Brock wondered, fidgeting impatiently.
“’Cause he’s still bummed out about me bein’ stuck here,” Mike replied. “I think most of him wants to go back, but part of him knows that if he does, he’ll start worryin’ again. So he’s shut himself off. But… Oh, gee, guys, I’m glad you’re here! ’cause if he don’t get out of here soon—he’ll die!”
Brock giggled nervously. “In the land of the dead? Big deal!”
“It’s not his place!” Mike snapped. “’Sides, I didn’t get to live out my days; he deserves to! I want him to—for both of us.”
Calvin swapped resigned gazes with Brock. “So, buddy-boy,” he sighed. “I guess our job’s to take him back.”
“I wish you would,” Mike whispered. “Or I’d wish that, ’cept for one thing.”
Calvin stared at him. “What?”
“He’s pining here—’cause I can’t go on. He’ll do the same back there. The only difference is that there they’ll hook him up to machines to keep him alive. And that’s even worse than bein’ dead.”
“Which means,” Calvin continued decisively, “that the only way we can save him is if he knows you’ve gone on.”
“And the only way you can do that,” Brock added excitedly, “is if you’re complete—have your, uh, liver, and all.”
Mike nodded.
Calvin managed a cautious smile. “Well, then, you’ve come to the right place, my lad—maybe.”
“Huh?”
Calvin flopped an arm across his shoulder. “Come on, kid. You need to talk to my father.”
*
Michael Chadwick studied the triangular object in his palm warily, his slim fingers rubbing the vitreous surface as if to polish through the tarnish of doubt to the silver of certainty. But the scale remained as it was: diamond-hard and glossy. It was the new scale, though; Calvin had made sure of that, though he checked the one on the thong around his throat to be sure. “You said sunset would be best?” Mike asked, looking at him expectantly.
“In a perfect world,” Calvin replied. “It’s a between time. And that’s the best time for workin’ magic—’specially what you might call between magic. I mean, what with the uktena bein’ a between creature—shaped like a snake, but horned like a deer—and with you guys bein’ stuck in a between place, and all…”
He leaned against the boulder he had filed default claim to in his father’s enclave and concluded his sentence with a shrug.
Brock surveyed the sky warily. “Uh, guys, when exactly is sunset? I mean, I haven’t seen a sun here.”
“You won’t either,” Maurice chuckled. “It’s something you feel, not a thing you see. And it’s not far off—not if Calvin’s gonna move that Scott boy before we try it.”
“Right.” Calvin sighed, rising. “I’d best be at it. And don’t you dare start anything without me.”
A moment later he (one of him; he was never sure which was which here) had gathered Don Scott’s sleeping body into his arms. Though the boy made an awkward bundle, he wasn’t as heavy as Calvin had expected. Grimacing as he rose, (and fe
eling his back tug painfully), Calvin made his way out of the south Georgia idyll Don had dreamed for himself and stumped through Maurice’s as well. Sandy and Okacha still slept where he had left them, though both had altered positions. He wondered if they also dreamed, and into what dream-world they had ventured. Still, Don was too cumbersome to lug around while speculating, and so (with assistance from Brock), Calvin eased him to the ground. Brock restored the boy’s cover.
Calvin slumped down beside Sandy, suddenly dog tired. A westward glance showed the same familiar murkiness, the same half-seen mountains, the same sheet lightning. But a ruddiness tinted the pervasive gloom that had not been present before. Maybe it was close to dusk.
God, but he was tired! Sleepy too (and something told him he ought to be concerned about that). A glance at Brock showed the boy already zoned out, though he sat bolt upright with his head against the cliff. Good enough: the kid surely needed to catch some z’s. Himself, he’d just close his eyes a minute, try to center, and get himself psyched for overseeing the ritual Mike and his dad had worked out. Lord, but he hoped nothing screwed up. He’d had enough of this, enough of adapting to alternate realities…
*
Maurice McIntosh sat cross-legged in the eastern quarter of the Power Wheel he had scribed in the sand with Calvin’s atasi. Calvin wondered how he knew that design—but now was the time for seeing, not speculation. Mike occupied the western equivalent. The two looked more alike than Calvin would ever have suspected, now that both wore their hair long and were dressed the same. A wind from the west stirred that hair, sent it slithering across their shoulders like serpents, black and fair. It bore the scent of rain, too, and the electric tingle that presaged a storm. Thunder boomed obligingly. Or perhaps that was drums. Calvin still wasn’t sure, as he sat three paces out and waited.
The elder McIntosh stared west, and finally, at some obscure point he had determined, reached to the hollow he had made in the center of the pattern and withdrew the uktena scale. Mike tensed immediately, gasped, then grew quiet. A hardening of the muscles in Maurice’s wrists was the only sign that he had clamped down on the token. His eyes closed, and yet Calvin sensed that his father still saw him. He tried to remain calm—he had no idea what form his father might choose, though he’d given him the standard list of precautions, strongly recommending they both pick something close to their own mass and mammalian.