by Tom Deitz
David eased off the tailgate and stood, feeling his feet firm on the ground, even if his legs were shaky. Soft swishes to either side were his companions doing likewise.
Snakeeyes ignored them utterly, as though they were no more substantial than the raindrops that sketched arabesques on his chest and shoulders as he paced, in measured stride, straight toward the east-facing entrance of the asi.
Closer he came, and David realized that the witch’s entire body was either subtly painted or tattooed (though if the latter, why hadn’t he noticed it before?) with patterns that lessening distance revealed to be feathers and scales. They were almost the same color as his skin, too, the effect not unlike damask. And they alternated, one leg being feathered below the knee and scaled above, the opposite being patterned the other way round, and so on, all across his body.
The only ornaments he wore seemed to be a medicine pouch around his neck and a pair of dangling white earrings that David finally determined were skulls: a snake skull and a bird skull, most likely.
And still Snakeeyes proceeded toward the asi, the sun turning his skin so red he looked flayed, with the rivulets of rain transformed into blood. His eyes glittered like doubloons on the eyes of the dead. David nudged Liz and Alec with his elbows and plotted an intercept path: witch to the left, sweat lodge to the right.
When they were roughly twenty feet from either, Snakeeyes suddenly halted and swiveled his head to the right: a movement so swift and fluid it was like that of a reptile. “I’d stop right there, if I was you,” he hissed. “In fact, I’d leave, if I was you. You might live longer that way. Then again, you might not. It might not make that big a difference.”
“We’re staying,” David called back calmly, standing as straight as he could and trying to look taller than five feet seven.
“Your head, then,” Snakeeyes spat. “But if Little Wizard in there gets to have partisans, I should, too, don’t you reckon?”
David did not reply, simply tried to mask his confusion with a cold hard stare.
“I’m better at that than you are, white boy,” Snakeeyes snorted derisively. Whereupon he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and commenced a low, mumbled chant.
David tried to listen, but if the words were any language he knew (and he’d forced himself to learn a smattering of Cherokee), he didn’t recognize it.
But something obviously did. For the woods were abruptly alive with noises: rustlings, and shufflings, and the soft thump of beating wings.
A bird landed on the limb nearest the meadow: a black bird with an ivory beak. A raven, David realized. Of which there were supposed to be but a few in Georgia, and none in Jackson County.
But as the chant continued, more appeared, all of them black birds of one species or another, so that the trees on the whole eastern side of the meadow were soon dark with their glistening bodies. The sunlit drizzle was like a veil of fire between.
A movement low down to the left caught David’s eye, and he discovered that other creatures were likewise responding: lizards and snakes mostly, and not a few of the latter rattlers and copperheads: all the vermin of the Underworld, according to Calvin’s ancestral myths. They coiled there among the grasses, tasting the air with forked tongues, beady eyes alert and hungry.
Eventually Snakeeyes stopped chanting. “That oughta be enough!” he snapped, his eyes flashing red as they caught the sunlight. A pair of strides took him to the edge of the outer Power Wheel, eight yards from the sweat lodge. With one sharp tug, he ripped the red-stained branch that marked the east from the ground and flung it with deadly accuracy into the remnants of the fire, where it blazed up, smoking.
And then he drew himself up to his full six-plus feet, leveled his right arm straight before him—straight toward the asi—and shouted, “Calvin McIntosh, come out of that hole and fight me!”
David held his breath, waiting. Five heartbeats passed, then ten. Fifteen…
On twenty the flap of blanket that served as a door twitched aside and a head of black hair appeared. Another breath, and Calvin eased out, rising to his feet in one fluid motion, to stand staring at his adversary.
The guy looked good, David handed him that. He wasn’t as tall as his foe, of course—by a good six inches. But he was more gracefully built, without the exaggerated cuts and bulges that characterized the witch’s body. Most of his body was visible, too: the buckskin loincloth David had been given at his naming ceremony in Galunlati his sole garment. The uktena scale and medicine bag around his throat, and the war club hanging carelessly from his right hand were his only ornaments. Though it had been hours since they’d last brought red-hot rocks to the lodge, his flesh was still sleek with sweat; in the cool drizzle, it steamed.
But where Snakeeyes’s face looked cold and grim and distant, Calvin’s was warm and human. A ghost of a smile even played around his lips. David wondered if he’d finally come to terms with this battle—and with the several others he’d doubtless been fighting with himself as well, most notably how to reconcile things with Sandy.
“So, Little Wizard,” Snakeeyes growled, when Calvin had paced another step forward, so that the smoldering remnant of the campfire was the only tangible thing that lay between them, the ring of cedar twigs having been relocated to surround the asi itself. “So, Little Wizard,” he repeated, louder. “It looks like you’re a worse coward than I figured. For not only do you enlist women to fight for you, but you won’t meet me without one weapon in your hand and another at your throat. I, as you can see, have none.” He swept his arms away from his sides for emphasis.
Calvin glared at him. “I bear weapons only because I didn’t trust you enough to leave mine unprotected—you, who seem to have no respect for either people or property.”
“And is this place your property, that you would stain with fire and blood, magic and battle?” Snakeeyes shot back with soft precision.
“It’s the property of good friends who once told me I was free to use it!”
(“Is all this posturing part of the deal?” Alec murmured in David’s ear.)
(He nodded. “I guess so. And ditto for the fancy talk, since neither of ’em speak like that normally. It’s gettin’ worse, too.”)
(“Hush,” Liz muttered. “Pay attention.”)
“And was that woman you stole from me also your property, to do with as you did?”
“She was her own woman,” Calvin said flatly, “—which you know. No man can own another, or woman either.”
“In the eyes of the state? Or the eyes of the strong?” Snakeeyes snarled back. “Myself, I prefer the strong.”
“I prefer that people control their own lives,” Calvin replied.
“And you’d enforce it with weapons?” Snakeeyes sneered, indicating the club.
Calvin dropped it neatly at his feet. “Now we’re even.”
Snakeeyes laughed derisively. “Are we indeed? I don’t think so! For hear me now, Little Wizard: I am James Rainbow, called by my enemies Snakeeyes, and I am a tskili. I’m older than you, taller than you, stronger than you, meaner than you, more cunning than you, more learned in the powers of our people, and better hung. Men hate me and fear me; women lust after me on sight. What do you have to say to that? Can you claim any of those strengths as your own?”
Calvin looked him up and down, his face grim, his eyes narrowed arrogantly.
“Well, then, Vermin-eyes—for snakes, as we all know, are vermin—you can call me by my own name: Calvin Fargo McIntosh. Or you could call me by the name my grandfather foresaw at my birth: Edahi—He-Goes-About. Or you could call me Nunda-unali’i or Utlunta-Dehi, which names were given to me in Galunlati by the Red Man of the Lightning and the White Man of the Afternoon Thunder. Can you say the same of those who know your name? And if you can’t, remember instead that I’m smarter than you and quicker than you, that I have more friends than you, and that my name is known in Worlds you can’t imagine. Know that I fought the great uktena—and lived. I fought Spearfinger—and survi
ved. I ventured to Usunhiyi, the Darkening Land to the West, and spoke to spirits—and returned alive. And now I prepare to fight you—and I will live. That’s all I have to say.”
“Ah, yes,” Snakeeyes purred. “You…prepare to fight me. Then perhaps we should agree on terms.”
“Name ’em,” Calvin said coldly. “You challenged, therefore it’s my right to name ’em—yet I give up that right to show how little I fear you!”
Snakeeyes grinned. “The more fool you! Very well: battle will begin when the top edge of the sun falls behind that tallest pine, as seen by your own eyes. It’ll end—if that be necessary—when the top edge of the sun greets the world again tomorrow morning. In between we’ll do everything we can to kill each other. This ain’t a fair fight, ’cause I’m not a fair man. I do what I want, and right now I want to fight you. After all, my friends are here—and my slaves. I could have ’em take you and never lift a finger. But since I intend to test your medicine as well as your body, we’ll fight each other first as we are: as men; then as birds; and finally, as beasts of the field. If these terms are acceptable to you, so be it. If not…well then…fuck you!”
“They’re fine,” Calvin snapped, and closed the distance another step.
Again Snakeeyes laughed loudly. “Ain’t you afraid, just a little bit, Little Wizard? After all, when the sun rises, you’ll be dead.”
“As long as I can fight you as a man, I’m not afraid.”
“And when I’m not a man…?”
“Fear,” Calvin whispered, “is one of the things that keeps beasts and birds alive.”
Snakeeyes merely grinned, then raised his head to gaze above Calvin’s head toward the sunset. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Calvin ignored him, but walked straight toward him, past the fire and the edge of the inner Power Wheel—a distance of maybe four yards. Only when he was an arm’s length from his adversary did he likewise turn to face the sunset.
(“He’s crazy,” Alec gritted. “To turn his back, I mean.”)
(“Yeah,” David agreed. “But it also shows Old Snakey that Cal’s not afraid of him. It’s a gesture of contempt.”)
And then the sun reached the spot Snakeeyes had determined:
“Yu!” Calvin yelled and tucked forward into a roll that brought him upright again just past the fire. He snatched at something on the ground; then, as the witch sprang to meet him, whirled and charged.
Snakeeyes defused that assault by dodging left, which likewise brought him nearer the asi. He kicked at the embers of the fire, sending them straight into Calvin’s face. Flame flashed bright, then faded. One caught in Calvin’s hair and sizzled. He shook it free and kept moving. Closing…
Snakeeyes grabbed a still-smoldering limb and stabbed. Smoke writhed from his hand where he gripped it, though he nevertheless held on.
(“Cedar, I think,” David told Liz. “Interesting.”)
Still half-blind, Calvin couldn’t avoid the brand, and it grazed along his side. Flesh stank; blisters rose along his ribs.
Snakeeyes dropped the limb and retreated, easing left to put the fire between them. Calvin leapt again—not around, but over. His fist flashed out, straight at the witch’s face. Snakeeyes deflected it instantly, as a fast upward counter with his right sent Calvin’s arm arching skyward.
—Which was evidently exactly what he’d wanted. For just as it passed Snakeeyes’s head, Calvin managed an awkward lunge—opened his hand—and slapped it atop the witch’s skull. Something red showed there as Calvin ducked and dodged back. Even at his distance, David could see tiny dark somethings crawl onto the man’s forehead. (“Fire ants,” he muttered to Liz. “Smart thinking.”)
Unfortunately the unconventional ploy delayed Snakeeyes but seconds before he moved again. Unbelievably fast, in fact, for Calvin was still regaining his balance when the witch smashed into him and locked his arms around Calvin’s waist, slamming him hard into the trodden earth by the fire. One thigh flopped into the coals. Calvin used the resulting reflex to flip sideways—which set him atop Snakeeyes. His legs immediately clamped around his adversary’s lower body, even as he sought to trap the larger man’s elbows beneath his knees. Fingers found the witch’s windpipe. Tendons tensed along Calvin’s arms and back like mountains rising.
But then Snakeeyes worked a hand free. It shot up rattler-quick to clamp on Calvin’s throat.
And the witch had reach.…
Calvin’s face went pale from fear; his jaw muscles knotted and twitched as he sought to swallow—to breathe…
And then something very strange happened.
Snakeeyes simply stopped fighting…or so it seemed. His fingers slipped from Calvin’s neck, and the entire arm flopped to the ground as if it had been struck numb. David dashed forward impulsively. His friends followed.
“Stay back!” Calvin warned between gritted teeth, his eyes wide and furious. “This may be a trick.”
But it was not, David saw in an instant. No way any actor could mime the look of abject terror that contorted Snakeeyes’s features.
And he evidently had reason to be afraid. For as Calvin held him close, and he struggled ever more weakly to free himself, it became obvious that every exertion left him weaker, as if he were being drained of strength.
But the worst thing was his face. Fear warped it, yes. But even beyond that, David could see that it was…aging. Bare seconds before, Snakeeyes had looked like a man in the very power of his prime—thirty-three, say. Now he seemed a man of fifty—and every ragged breath aged him further. His skin wrinkled and turned papery. Muscles lost their firmness and sheen, became flaccid and dull. Spots marred his skin’s smoothness, wrinkles played havoc with the designs. His hair went gray, then white, then was gone.
The end came so quickly David gasped. Skin became skull became dust.
It was as simple as that. Calvin rocked backward abruptly, for he had suddenly found himself straddling nothing. A few fire ants crawled upon the well-churned earth. Already their fellows from the disturbed mound at the edge of the Wheel were assessing the worth of Snakeeyes’s remnants as building stone.
Calvin swallowed hard and rose. David helped him. “Way to go, Fargo!” he cried. “Way to bloody well go, man!”
Liz stared at the place where the witch had died. Only his breechclout and the two skull earrings remained. “B-but… what happened?”
Calvin grinned at her smugly, but said nothing. The birds, David noted, were already dispersing—as good a sign as any that Snakeeyes’s sovereignty had ended. “Maybe you’d better ask…Sandy,” David chuckled, catching Calvin’s eye.
Calvin’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you know!”
David grinned back, then pointed to where the curve of Calvin’s backside was revealed by his scanty loincloth. “I didn’t—until now. But there’s no tattoo on your heinie—or your shoulders—not even the ghost of one, which there oughta be. Shoot, just think a minute, folks: we saw Cal and Sandy go off together, but only one came back—Cal, so we thought. Even I thought.”
“And I think I see why Cal thinks so much of you,” Sandy né Calvin replied. “’Cause you’re right. I thought Cal was being an utter asshole about the whole thing, especially about not letting me stay here when he found out I was…bleeding. But then he said that warriors were forbidden to be around bleeding women, and I got an idea. And when he told me why: because a woman’s body tries to compensate for her blood loss with the strength of others—well, that clinched it. The hardest part was convincing him to let me take the risk. The rest was easy, if you know some martial arts.”
“But you’re in his shape,” Brock gasped. “How…?”
Once more Sandy/Calvin grinned. “You live together as long as Cal and me have, sooner or later you’ll taste each other’s blood—a cut finger, a love-nip, wild sex—you name it. And a taste was all I needed—that and the scale. The main danger came from not knowing whether me being in male-shape would screw up the prohibition—that, and the possibilit
y of being recognized. And the danger of getting stuck in Cal’s shape, of course—which could still happen.”
“And…?” Alec prompted.
Sandy/Calvin shrugged. “Once I changed, me and Cal did a little wrestling—enough to tell it worked, though apparently, the effect’s only negligible in the real world. It’s only when you come up against things like Snakeeyes that you get mondo reactions like we just saw. Magic amplifies magic, so to speak.”
“So where is Cal?” Brock wondered slyly.
“Down by the river—I hope,” Sandy replied. “I told him we’d toot the horn three times if I succeeded.”
“I’m on it!” Brock volunteered, and promptly trotted off.
“This is…interesting,” Sandy confided to Liz, glancing down her surrogate body. “You oughta get Dave to let you try it sometime.”
Liz raised an inquisitive eyebrow in David’s direction. “Actually,” she giggled, “it’d probably do more to promote understanding between the sexes if he tried on my shape once in a while—preferably at a certain time of month.”
Sandy/Calvin guffawed.
David simply rolled his eyes in resignation.
The Ranger’s horn hooted three times.
“David,” Alec gulped nervously. “Am I dreaming…or is a mist rising?”
Epilogue: The Foggiest Notions
(Jackson County, Georgia—Wednesday, June 20—just past sunset)
Honk! Honk-honk!
Calvin started awake from where he’d been dozing in a laurel thicket atop the eastern bank of the Middle Oconee River. Was that what he hoped it was? He hardly dared hope. Trouble was, he’d been going flat out for something like two days straight with only naps to stave off the worst fatigue—which meant that he wasn’t certain about anything anymore: like whether he’d actually heard a car horn or only dreamed it; or could there maybe have been a bird that sounded like one, and either way, whether or not there’d been three honks. Dammit, why hadn’t he anticipated that he’d be unable to avoid catching some z’s and asked that they repeat the signal at five-minute intervals?