“Move fast,” he said, gesturing for us to squeeze past him. Rita was the first to go, and as she was the smallest, it was an easy fit. “Get down to the shore,” he told her, “somewhere out of the line of sight from here. Wait for me.”
She walked a few feet, looked over the edge, then jumped. A few seconds later I heard a deep splash.
Devon went next.
I tried to approach the grate, but my leg had stiffened up in the last few minutes, and I found I could barely move it. The grate seemed to be moving around a bit. Rippling, like water. I hoped it would stand still long enough for me to squeeze past it.
The white-haired man looked at me with concern, then reached out and pressed the back of his hand briefly against my forehead. The fine white lines between his eyebrows deepened.
“I’ll take her,” he said.
Isaac hesitated, then nodded. With a strong arm the white-haired man drew me close to him, holding me tightly against him as he urged Isaac through the opening. His coat smelled of things that were not raw sewage, which was nice.
“I apologize for what is going to seem an undignified exit,” he said to me, as Isaac went over the edge. Holding me close to him, he squeezed through the narrow opening. Barbs of rusty iron scraped my skin as he pulled me along with him. Great. Tetanus too. This trip just got better and better.
He closed the gate carefully behind us and reached in through the bars to lock it again. Then without warning he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, head first, so that I wound up hanging down his back. I grabbed onto his coat, dimly aware that if we jumped down into the river like this it would be really hard for me to swim. But he didn’t jump. He walked to the edge of the tunnel, grabbed hold of something off to one side, then swung himself around the opening. It didn’t look like there was anything next to the pipe but a pretty steep hillside, but apparently he found some kind of foothold.
And then we stood very still. Well, he stood very still. I hung with my butt in the air, very still.
Over the sound of the water I could hear people approaching. The goons must have had heard the gate open, and they were coming to investigate. I prayed my companions had gotten out of sight in time.
I heard people moving around inside the pipe. Saying things I couldn’t make out. Then they left. We waited until we could no longer hear them, and then we waited some more. And some more. The blood rushing to my head, meanwhile, made for an interesting sensation. Kind of like an internal roller coaster.
Finally he began to move again. I was aware of him climbing down the embankment, then carrying me a short way along the shore. We came to a big canoe, and he laid me down inside it. Then he pushed off, and we were on the river. The sun warmed my skin. Nice, very nice. I shut my eyes for a minute then felt the canoe jostle as more people climbed into it. Three in all. I opened my eyes but couldn’t see anything clearly. Feet pressed against me on all sides as my companions packed themselves into the narrow space. Not such a big canoe after all.
And then the strange man with the white ponytail pushed us away from the shore and let the current carry us south. Away from Luray. Away from pursuit.
Away from Tommy.
No! I screamed inwardly. No! This isn’t what’s supposed to happen!
I opened my mouth to protest, but no sound would come out. My tongue was hot and swollen.
“When we get to where the water’s clear,” the man said, “the three of you are going to take a dip. I won’t bring someone who smells like fresh manure into my home.”
But I smelled like fresh manure, too. Didn’t that matter? Wasn’t I going home with them?
“Who are you?” I heard Isaac ask him. “Why are you helping us?”
There was silence for a moment. Then soft laughter.
“I thought you’d have guessed that by now,” he said. “They call me the Green Man.”
That’s when I passed out.
22
OBFUSCATE GUILDHOUSE IN LURAY
VIRGINIA PRIME
THEY PUT A BAG over Tommy’s head when they moved him. But that was a good thing, he told himself. You put a bag over someone’s head when you didn’t want him to see things he might report on later. There was no point in doing that if you intended to kill him. Right?
He kept telling himself that. Over and over again. But it wasn’t enough to fend off a tide of raw panic as they dragged him from his cell, blind and bound, and carted him off to unknown places. He probably would have pissed his pants in terror if he hadn’t just emptied his bladder before they arrived; as it was, the more sensitive bits of his anatomy pulled up so tightly against his body that it felt like they were trying to take shelter inside him.
Where were they taking him? He asked, but they wouldn’t say. He might as well be whimpering questions to the wind.
He knew he should pay attention to the world around him, memorizing whatever details of sound or smell he could identify, in case he needed to find this place later … but that was easier said than done. And besides, what good would it do? He hadn’t been hooded when the aliens brought him through the crystal gate, so he wasn’t under any illusion about where he was. Or, more accurately, where he wasn’t. Even if he managed to get away from these people, it was going to take a lot more to get him home than a brisk walk through a bad neighborhood.
He knew when they took him outside, because the heat of the sun started to turn his head-bag into an oven. Then he was led up a couple of steps into an enclosure that was marginally cooler. From the echo of his movements, it sounded like he was in a small space. A van, maybe? No, because when it started moving he heard the clip-clop of horse hooves on pavement. For a moment the sheer incongruity of it distracted him from his fear. Was he was being transported from one alien stronghold to another in a horse-drawn carriage? Seriously? What kind of low budget aliens were these, anyway?
The noise of the surrounding city was muffled by carriage walls and the bag, but it sounded like a crowded place. He thought briefly about screaming for help, but then he figured that the odds of someone responding to a muffled cry from inside a vehicle in the middle of a crowded city were not nearly as high as the odds of his captors hurting him if he tried it. The last thing he wanted to do right now, bound and helpless, was piss them off.
Eventually the outside noises faded, and the carriage began to move uphill. After a while Tommy could tell it was entering a cool, dark space. Then it stopped.
He heard the door open. “Is this the boy?” someone asked.
“It’s a boy,” someone else responded gruffly. “Are you the one who signs for him?”
They pulled him from the carriage, and there was more walking. More stumbling. They were indoors now, and once or twice he had to go down a staircase, a precarious feat that required he feel for each stair with his toes.
Then they put him in something that felt like an elevator, but didn’t sound like an elevator. Heading down.
The air in the lower level was chilly. As the sweat of fear evaporated on Tommy’s skin he shivered, and the bag was finally removed from his head. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim blue light.
He was standing in a cave. Well, mostly a cave. Someone had laid down a smooth concrete floor and stuck eerie glowing balls to the ceiling, then put metal bars across the openings of several natural alcoves. Call it the world’s creepiest jail. The door to one of the alcoves was open and Tommy didn’t need a degree in rocket science to know that they wanted him to go in there.
Were they going to lock him up and leave him alone down here? It was a scarier thought in this surreal environment than it would have been aboveground. Despairing, he tried to come up with an alternative to entering the cell—any alternative—but he couldn’t think of any option that these guys were likely to accept.
They untied his hands and let him walk into the alcove of his own accord. It was a long and narrow space, with black, ominous shadows at the far end. The short walk through the door felt like a death march
.
The door clanged shut.
“There’s a journal on the table,” came a voice from behind him. He turned around and saw a man with a deathly pale face, whose eyes and voice were devoid of any emotion. Two men stood behind him, equally dispassionate. Clearly scaring the hell out Tommy was just a job to them. “You will record your dreams every day. For so long as your information has value to us, you will be kept alive.”
“What if I don’t dream anything?” he asked. Not because he thought the answer would enlighten him, but as a stalling mechanism. Every minute he kept the man talking was one less minute he had to be alone down here. “This place isn’t exactly conducive to sound sleep.”
The cold eyes stared at him, unblinking. A lizard’s gaze. “Then we will turn off the lights until you do dream. Do I need to demonstrate what that would be like?”
“No,” he whispered. “I’ll take your word for it.”
As the man began to turn away from him, something flitted in between them. A wisp of smoke, that moved against the air currents in the room. A hint of shadow, that didn’t have the shape of a shadow.
“Wait!” Tommy cried. “What was that?” He grabbed the bars, his heart pounding wildly. “What’s down here?”
The lizard-man looked back at him. “Spirits of the dead. They’re immaterial, and cannot hurt you.”
“Ghosts?” he demanded, aghast. “You’re leaving me down here with ghosts?”
“Fragments of ghosts,” the man corrected. “Echoes of shattered lives, granted brief autonomy and the illusion of purpose. Some call them soul shards. Don’t worry, few men can see them in any detail, and fewer still can make sense of their whispering. I don’t expect they’ll bother you much.” A faint, cold smile spread across his face. “Surely not enough to disturb your sleep.”
He motioned to the other two men, who followed him out of the chamber. A few seconds after they rounded a natural turn that took them out of Tommy’s line of sight, he heard the strange elevator sound again.
Then there was silence.
No, not silence.
Whispers.
…scared …
The disembodied voice was so soft it was almost inaudible. A shadow wisped across the front of Tommy’s cell, then vanished.
…so scared …
Shaking, he slid down the bars of his cell to the concrete floor. The courage he’d been clinging to so desperately up to now was beginning to crumble. A handful of blue light bulbs in the ceiling was all that stood between him and a nervous breakdown.
Jesse, he swore, if you don’t come find me soon, I’m gonna go crazy. Not gamer-crazy. The real thing.
A few of the soul shards began to circle around him. They seemed to find him interesting.
But the lights were still on. So things could be worse.
Right?
23
VICTORIA FOREST
VIRGINIA PRIME
THERE WAS A PTERODACTYL sitting on my chest.
Not a big one. Parrot-sized. Its head was turned to one side, and its little black eye was staring at me. There was no mistaking the profile. A pterodactyl.
“Ah. You’re awake.” A man’s voice filtered into my awareness. I tried to turn my head toward him, but the motion hurt. Everything hurt.
“Here,” he said, to someone other than me. “I saved one for you.”
A small fish came flying in my direction. The pterodactyl reached up and snapped it out of the air. One gulp later the fish was gone. The pterodactyl went back to staring at me.
“Brought over from a world where the great asteroid never hit. They were popular pets among the elites for a while. Then the aristos tired of them, like they tire of everything. Here.” He knelt down by my side. “This will help.”
My chest burned like fire as he helped me to a sitting position. The pterodactyl squawked as it was dislodged, and fluttered off to take up a post on a nearby chair. My left leg, I saw, was swathed in thick bandages. It smelled of herbs. Every inch of my body was sore.
He lifted a cup to my lips.
“What is it?” I whispered hoarsely.
“Chicken soup. A thousand worlds have yet to come up with anything better. Drink.”
I did so. Its heat soothed my throat, and my stomach soaked up the nourishment like a sponge. As I handed him back the cup I looked around, ready to face whatever my next trial was to be.
We were in a narrow cave, lit by flickering candles that were lined up in a neat row along a natural ledge at the far end. The chamber had been outfitted as a living space, albeit a spartan one. The bed I was now sitting on had a rough-hewn frame, and next to it stood a matching table with a single chair. In a dark recess far from the candlelight I saw some rough wooden shelves with a collection of items arranged on them, but I couldn’t make out any details. A curtain had been hung across the mouth of the cave, made from some coarsely textured cloth. Burlap? There was no light bleeding through it from the outside.
“Where are the others?” I asked. The previous day’s events were coming back to me now, along with bodily echoes of fear and exhaustion.
“Waiting outside. Very anxiously, I might add. Which is appropriate, given the condition you were in.”
I put my hand up to my stomach and felt a thick swath of bandages there. My leg was wrapped in linen, with some kind of coin strapped to it. I ached in some places and burned in others, but it was nothing compared to the pain I’d been in the day before. I felt … better.
“You’re a costly guest,” the Green Man told me, as he saw my eye fall upon the coin. “The fetters that I used to heal you were worth their weight in gold. Not the sort of thing I usually part with for strangers.”
“Was it necessary?” I asked.
He chuckled softly. “My dear, you swam in sewage with an open wound across your stomach, not to mention a day spent walking, jumping, and climbing on an ankle which, while not broken, was sorely damaged. Had I a month to heal you, then no, I would not need a Gift to do it. But your friends said that you wouldn’t be willing to wait that long—that in fact you would want to jump up to go raid a Shadow’s citadel as soon as you were capable of moving again. So other means were required.”
“I didn’t swim in sewage,” I muttered.
“But you are planning to raid a Shadow’s citadel.”
I flushed a bit. “Well … yeah. Sort of.”
“Then we should get you on your feet right away.” He motioned toward the niche with the shelves. “There are some clean clothes over there. I regret that none are likely to fit you, but your own clothing is still damp, so choose whatever works the best. I’ll let your friends know you’re up and about.”
He started toward the burlap curtain, but before he could push it aside, I said, “Have I … have I missed much?”
He looked back at me; the piercing blue eyes seemed to take my measure. “Several hours of your companions bringing me up to date on American history, punctuated by complaints that I was not answering enough of their questions. The information had enough value to me that it paid for the use of my healing fetter, but nothing you should worry about missing.” He smiled slightly, indicating the coin that was on my leg.
“American history.” I blinked. “From … my America? My world?”
There was a pause. The smile faded. A haunting sadness veiled his expression.
“It was my world once,” he said softly.
Then he pushed the burlap curtain aside—I saw that the world outside was dark, with a tiny fire in the distance—and left me alone in the chamber.
Easing myself off the bed, I gingerly tested my left foot against the ground. The worst of the pain was gone, but my ankle still didn’t feel strong; I would have to be careful with it.
I suddenly realized I was clean, which mean that someone had washed me while I slept. And I was dressed only in a loose smock of some kind, so someone had changed my clothing as well. Not that I wasn’t glad to be rid of all that filth, but I dearly hoped Rita wa
s the only one who had seen me naked.
I walked over to the shelves, and discovered a collection of items that reminded me of the mementos in the magpie room—that chamber in the Warrens that had reminded me of a magpie’s nest. Aside from basic supplies like food and clothing there were books, charms, small pieces of pottery in seemingly random shapes, and a few personal items that didn’t look like they would belong to my host. There were a few things I couldn’t identify at all.
I saw there was a pen on one of the shelves, but it seemed so normal, so insignificant, that I just looked past it without thinking. A few seconds later it hit me just how significant it was.
It was plastic. One of those cheap pens you buy by the dozen, with a clear plastic shaft and a ball-point tip that always clogs. Totally unremarkable in my normal context. But it wasn’t a normal context, and this was a world with no plastic in it.
He says he’s from my world originally, I reminded myself. So maybe he brought it with him.
The clothing on the shelves was too large for me, as he’d warned, but I managed to find an off-white linen shirt that was wearable. It hung down to my thighs, so I figured I didn’t need to go through the effort of trying on pants. I’d worn dresses shorter than that.
As I finally headed toward the cave entrance, I realized there was one other thing of significance in the cave, resting on a narrow ledge near the curtain.
A gun.
It was a heavy piece, shaped like a rifle but much longer than any I’d seen before. Below the age-blackened barrel was a slender ramrod, and when I looked at the trigger mechanism I saw a fragment of stone in a metal clamp, arching over a small, flat pan.
A flintlock. Next to a ball point pen. Guarded by a pterodactyl.
Maybe I should just give up trying to make sense of this world.
Pushing my way past the curtain, I found myself standing on a smooth natural shelf jutting out from the side of a steep hill. The surrounding view was magnificent. Overhead the sky was a vast black pool of blackness, filled with thousands of stars and a brilliant quarter moon. Richly forested mountains surrounded us, their crests gleaming in the starlight. Summer’s heat had given way to a breeze that was blissfully cool, and it stirred the folds of my borrowed shirt and soothed my skin. For a few seconds I just stood there and drank it all in, a precious moment of peace.
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