Land Beyond Summer

by Brad Linaweaver

“I never said…” began the dog.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Clive corrected himself. “I meant I’ll make a decision. And my decision is IT’S CHOW TIME!”

  If it weren’t for the permanent grin with which all dogs are cursed, Wolf would have smiled. “So I’ll stand guard,” he said, taking up his position.

  One deep breath later, Clive took a small bite of the dried, fungous substance. The bad news was that it tasted perfectly terrible. The good news was that it didn’t require more than one bite to have the desired effect. Clive, first-nighter.

  The program wasn’t exactly a premiere. He was seeing the same vision that had so upset his younger sister when she had her last nightmare: Mom and Dad in the transparent boxes, suspended over the yellow fog. Snake-like objects were floating all around them.

  Then suddenly the boxes disappeared, and Mom and Dad fell straight into the fog. Clive wanted to scream but he didn’t seem to have a throat or larynx any longer, or a body for that matter. He was only a presence, watching, watching … but unable to do anything.

  He willed himself to follow his parents but couldn’t get beneath the thick, yellow fog. As they had fallen, they’d seemed to be moving further apart. He wanted to follow one.

  His father was singled out for the honor of continued surveillance. The Clive presence was sinking beneath the mists, falling; and before he knew it, he could see his father far below. The man was naked from the waist up, with a reddish sunburn — and this made sense, because there was a sun in the sky again.

  Dad was swinging a scythe. Clive knew it was a scythe because he’d seen one in a comic book about the Grim Reaper. Dad was swinging the wicked looking blade in a wide arc, and cutting down what appeared to be tall stalks of wheat.

  As the picture became more clear, Clive was surprised to see that the wheat had faces. He could also hear his father muttering under his breath, “Have to prove myself … have to be worthy of her … can’t stand her coldness any longer; maybe I can warm her up with other people’s blood … she must take me back, I want her back, I want my wife…. What’s mine is mine, mine, mine!”

  Then Clive was rising again into the yellow clouds, moving through mist until it was time to descend again. He swooped down faster this time, to see his mother standing all alone on a barren plain. She was moving some large, flat rectangular objects. The perspective made her appear ungainly although she had always been graceful. The objects were almost transparent and several feet higher than herself. They had semi-transparent supports extending to the ground. Although Clive could see through them, he could tell where the edges were, like drawings in a coloring book before you color them in. The nearest Clive had come to seeing anything like them were stage flats on which he helped paint scenery for the school play.

  When Clive was close up, he saw that Mom was not as alone as she had first appeared. She was surrounded by little creatures jumping up and down. They were humanoid. They were male. They looked a lot like Dad.

  As each one would bound up near her face, chattering and smiling, she would move one of the large flats so that it stood between them. No sooner had she done this than another would try to attract her attention and she would repeat her actions with another of the flats. The little creatures varied their approach. Some would shout, some would sing, some would only smile and some would frown. Some performed acrobatic stunts. But no matter what they did, she’d move the tall, thin walls so that they stood between her and their ministrations.

  She never uttered a word.

  Then Clive was rising again, back into the clouds, hurtling along to the next stop. Nor did he have long to wait. This time he descended to a giant doll house. Somehow he knew it was a doll house, although its proportions were the same as a real one. Fay seemed to be waiting for someone on the porch. She was surrounded by a herd of plastic ponies, big enough to climb on because they were as oversized as everything else.

  The Clive presence was surprised that Fay wasn’t dressed in doll clothes. She was wearing her two piece bathing suit (the one she’d had to fight with Mom to let her buy with her own hard earned allowance money). She was observing her surroundings with an expression of faint disgust. She went inside and Clive’s presence followed. On a pink table in the center of the “living room” were two large bottles with labels attached. One was marked FACTS and the other OPINIONS.

  Sitting down, she proceeded to uncork the bottles, and started pouring the contents of the first one into the second; then she poured the second back into the first. Clive noted a marked similarity to the episode of Mr. Wizard. Fay repeated this seemingly pointless procedure over and over, and as she did so her voice poured out as well: “It’s all my fault” — “You shouldn’t blame yourself” — “They don’t love me” — “I hate them, I hate them” — “Grandfather’s a troll and if I only had the money I’d give it to Mom and Dad … and that would show him!”

  Clive was more interested in what his sister was saying than he’d been in the scenes of Mom and Dad. He didn’t like it when the force controlling what he saw and heard pulled him out of the giant doll house aqainst his wishes. He willed himself to remain just where he was but to no avail. This had him wondering if the decision to follow his father had truly been his own. But where could he be going now? He’d seen Dad, then Mom, then Fay. There was no one left except….

  He didn’t like the logical implication. He didn’t want to see some weird shit happening to himself. Whatever was next, his feeble will power was no longer part of the equation. He’d been returned to the clouds, moving through the thick mist, and then he was falling again, plummeting to the very scene he most dreaded.

  Wondering if he could close his eyes this time led nowhere but to the reminder that he didn’t have eyelids at the moment. He was a disembodied mind bouncing around space as if trapped in some ultimate Nintendo game. He could no more stop what was happening than a shout can stop a thought.

  He saw himself. He was locked in a box on the end of a rope. He could see his own face because there was a small glass panel breaking the smooth expanse of wood near the top of — now he recognized the shape! — the coffin. The rope was tied to a gnarled tree whose naked branches seemed to form a finger pointing to the dark abyss over which the coffing swung. The creaking of the rope was the only sound penetrating another of Clive’s senses that somehow functioned without organs. Whatever was happening to him in this trance, he couldn’t smell anything.

  Back and forth, back and forth … this was more terrible than the other sights. Dad had the freedom to swing his scythe; Mom the freedom of moving her walls; Fay the freedom of a house, and to pour bottles one into the other. In contrast, the Clive of the vision had no freedom of any kind. He was completely dependent on external factors.

  The creaking rope made him think of the summer he’d gone sailing with his Uncle Andrew. There had been something reassuring about the repetitive caress of rope on wood. Maybe if he could think about that, he could banish this experience. But such was the nature of the controlled hallucination that it left no room for any memory or desire to create a picture contrary to the present selection.

  “No!” He had no voice but somehow he would make his thought heard. “No!” He couldn’t conjure up a different picture but he could remember the timbre of his own voice. “NO!!!” Now he could hear himself, he really could, and it came from outside this terrible dream.

  He was waking up. But right before he opened his eyes, he heard a woman’s voice unlike anything he’d ever heard, so rich and comforting that it completely overwhelmed all objections. It said: “Only you can overcome your problems, but you’ll need help. I offer you what is within my power. By saving your family you will help to save far more.”

  Clive opened his eyes. Eyelids. Watering eyeballs underneath. It was good to be back. Wolf was licking his face. For a moment, Clive forgot this was more than his good old dog; this was a new friend.

  “No danger to report,” said Wolf, “but I’m glad you’re
coming out of it.”

  Clive must have collapsed at some point. Now he stood up too quickly and felt a wave of dizziness. “Hold on there,” said Wolf. “Give yourself a moment.” That was good advice, all right, as Clive gratefully sat back down. “So tell me, kid, what was it like?”

  Clive shook his head, as if trying to clear away the residue of his mental journey. “Like dreaming wide awake,” he said. “Fay was having dreams like this for months and months. I’m surprised she didn’t go crazy.”

  “How do you know she didn’t?” asked Wolf, trying to put humor in his voice, but a talking dog has certain limitations. The awful expression on Clive’s face indicated a misfired joke. The dog recovered with: “I mean she likes Kitnip best, doesn’t she?”

  At last Clive relaxed enough to laugh. He scratched behind Wolf’s ears. The dog part could still be reached in more ways than one.

  “Hey, you know I’m just kidding about my token cat buddy. So … were your questions answered?” asked Wolf.

  Clive shook his head. “I should have known better. There’s more questions than ever! I’ll be waiting for Mrs. Norse no matter what!”

  “And she’s waiting on us. I figure if Malak could have stopped us back there, he would have. Let’s press on and get to the house. Besides, I’m hungry.”

  “Don’t you want a moment to forage for food?” asked Clive.

  “You must be crazy! I don’t want to eat this nature stuff. It’s even hard to find back home, and Mrs. Norse has promised treats.” So saying, Wolf was off and running before he remembered Clive would be even slower now until the after effects had worn off from his experience.

  Stifling a growl, Wolf returned and said, “Rrrrrrrest up, Clive.”

  While Clive sat cross legged on the ground, feeling stupid, Wolf sniffed around, obviously searching for something. Clive was about to ask if Wolf still had a taste for dried up dung when he thought better of it. Suddenly good manners had become a real concern. He was worried that he’d be holding Wolf back because his imaptience had led him to eat that damned stuff. He felt like his blood had turned to water, and his heart was beating too fast. Then again, the dog had told him it wouldn’t hurt him to eat it.

  “I’m thirsty,” Clive announced without preamble.

  “Probably that little meal of yours is to blame, but I’m thirsty, too. And we should have at least this problem solved as soon as I … hooray, I found it!” Wolf started digging under a thick carpet of leaves. Clive watched as twigs and clots of dirt went flying. When Wolf had made a good sized hole, his front quarters disappeared for a moment, and there was heavy breathing from below. When he had reappeared, he had a big, white bone in his mouth.

  “This will fix you right up,” announced the dog.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Clive, but already Wolf had dropped the object in his lap.

  “Just unscrew the top,” said Wolf. Upon closer examination, the bone was actually plastic, and the top did indeed come off. There was water inside. No sooner did he start to drink than he felt much, much better.

  “There are canteens like that buried throughout Autumn,” said Wolf.

  Clive lifted his face from the spout and, refreshed, lost any hope for diplomacy that deprivation had placed in his heart. “I’m beginning to think there’s a lot more you know than you’ve passed on,” he said, “but don’t suggest I eat anything else!”

  Wolf was too tired from digging to argue, but not too tired to resume the journey. Having ascertained that Clive was ready, the dog set a slow pace. Clive felt so good that he outran Wolf for the first hundred yards.

  Go to Next Chapter.

  Return to Table of Contents.

  The Land Beyond Summer is posted for entertainment purposes only and no part of it may be crossposted to any other datafile base, conference, news group, email list, or website without written permission of Pulpless.Comtm.

  Copyright © 1996 by Brad Linaweaver. All rights reserved.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE KLAVE

  Jennifer sang to Fay and Kitnip as they ate the sweet food that came in the shape of brightly colored flowers. The flowers were almost too sweet. But they made Fay feel stronger. The cat was eating a smaller flower than Fay’s, a dark red bloom; and it was pretty easy to guess that this one must taste like meat.

  “So, tell me about yourselves,” Jennifer said.

  Fay remembered the title of a book she had been intending to read: Stranger in a Strange Land. She’d heard those words in church, too. So she used them to describe herself to Jennifer.

  “Well, you are strangers,” the lovely girl replied, “but there’s nothing strange about this land — at least not until the new monster came.”

  Kitnip’s ears went up at those words, and Fay could guess what would come next. “Do you mean Grand … I mean, the one Mrs. Norse calls Malak?”

  “Oh, do you know her?” asked Jennifer bounding up. “Isn’t she the most wonderful person? She taught me a dance.” Fay had a cousin who was interested in Renaissance dance, and as Jennifer began to sway back and forth, and then take little hopping steps in a formalized style, it reminded the young stranger that no matter how far you travel from home, there will always be reminders of what you’ve left behind.

  But at the moment, Fay was not enjoying the demonstration. She was exasperated at how difficult it was to keep this pretty young thing on any subject for long. The best to be done was to keep trying.

  “You were talking about a monster?” Fay tried again.

  “Yes,” came the languid voice. “The new one.”

  “Might that be Malak?” the cat volunteered.

  “They’re all Malak, you know,” sighed Jennifer, in the most matter-of-fact tone. She was starting to sound bored but Fay wasn’t about to let their hostess get off that easy.

  “Please tell us what you know,” requested Fay in a stern voice.

  “What could I tell you that you wouldn’t find out from Mrs. Norse?”

  Oh, the girl was irritating. “Since we haven’t seen her yet, how the hell should we know?” Fay was surprised to hear such language coming out of her own mouth. Kitnip’s tail went straight up.

  The outburst did accomplish something. Jennifer stopped dancing. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes fluttering. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.” She sort of glided over and touched Fay’s cheek with a most delicate hand. “I’ll help you,” she said, then kissed Fay on the forehead. “I’d kiss you on the top of your head except you’re almost as tall as I am. You must be very tall for your age.”

  Fay blushed. “Yes, my brother teases me about it.”

  Jennifer took Fay by the hand and led her over to sit on a flat stone next to the waterfall. “Now I’ll tell you about the monster,” she said. “Once upon a time….”

  “I don’t believe this,” said the cat in a low sibilant hiss of skepticism.

  “… there was a very bad wizard who hated the seasons. He wanted everything to stay the same all the time so he wouldn’t need to change his wardrobe or alter his plans because of the weather. But of all the worlds in space and time in which he might take up residence, he was in the very worst place for a person who felt the way he did. You see, he was living right in the center of the Seasons, in a palace where all four Seasons met at the exact point of his throne.”

  The manner in which Jennifer regarded Fay inspired a nod from her young protege. Fay leaned forward, eager to hear more.

  Jennifer continued: “The evil wizard had a name no one can remember any longer, but he took a new name, Malak, and with the passing of time his new name became a title. He made so much trouble for everyone that the people of the land had to turn to The Original for help.”

  Jennifer paused as if expecting her young friend to ask the obvious question, but Fay smiled sweetly, assuming: Wait long enough, and everything has a reason.

  Jennifer laced her fingers together whenever she mentioned the Original, which she began doing with greate
r frequency: “The Original, of course, created the Seasons, and gave them this home from which to guide secondary worlds. No one would have dreamed that a native of these lands would ever challenge the Seasons! There was a war in which the palace was destroyed. You have seen the remains.”

  Try as she might, Fay could not remember passing through any monumental ruins recently. She shook her head. Jennifer smiled and said, “You stood on what was once the most magnificent palace in all the universes.”

  Recognition dawned as Fay gasped, “The stone mountain!”

  “The sodden mound o’er which blossomed the hopes of all,” intoned Jennifer, without missing a beat. “So it was the Original took on many forms instead of One. You are well aware of the most respected form.”

  Fay required no extra prompting. “Mrs. Norse,” she said, then added, “of course.” Aaaargh, that rhymes, she thought.

  “We love her best because she’s closest to the Original. The rest kept breaking up into smaller and smaller parts, until you get me, for instance!” Choosing that moment to curtsy, Jennifer allowed herself the pleasure of enjoying Fay’s exaggerated expression.

  Unsure whether or not she should bow or kneel before the beautiful woman, Fay asked, “What happened to the people who lived there?”

  “They’re still around, but in greatly reduced forms. Some are nice and some are nasty — so what would you expect? What’s important,” said Jennifer, throwing her hair over her shoulder for emphasis, “is that we pieces of the Original have our hands full putting up with all the different people who take turns at being Malak! Mrs. Norse has her hands full. From the beginning, she told the first Malak, as she has told all his successors, how silly it was to oppose the Four Seasons on the grounds that he wanted things always to be the same. The Seasons make up one thing, after all, just in four parts. They’re always the same, even if they do provide a little variety. And what’s wrong with a little variety, anyway?”