Throughout most of the conversation, Albert had remained silent, his eyes following whoever was talking.
The poor kid must be utterly confused, I thought. Here he was sitting in a forest in the middle of the night with three virtual strangers talking about technology that couldn’t have even been dreamed about in his day. It was confusing and scary enough for me, God knows what he must be going through.
“Albert,” I said, “are you okay?”
The kid nodded.
I patted the ground next to where I sat. “Why don’t you come over here and sit with me?”
Obediently, Albert joined me.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered to him, “I know it sounds confusing, but I’ll explain it all to you.”
Albert nodded again and yawned.
I put an arm around his shoulders. He leaned into me and closed his eyes. I felt his body relax. There was no way to tell what time it was, the night sky was still invisible, hidden beyond the darkness of the treetops.
“I think perhaps you and Phillip should follow Albert’s example and try and get some rest,” said Chou. “I’ll keep watch while you rest.”
I did not disagree.
Seven
The clouds that had held permanent sway over the sky since our arrival had vanished by morning, revealing patches of blue between the high, thick limbs of the forest’s canopy. Somewhere within those branches, birds sang a vibrant morning chorus greeting to the newly born day. A light mist moved across the ground, and I breathed in the heady smell of wet leaves and damp soil, bringing back memories of childhood camping trips.
Phillip crouched near the dying campfire, warming his hands against the morning chill, he smiled and nodded. “Good morning.”
“Where’s Albert?” I asked. The boy wasn’t anywhere to be seen around camp.
“He is urinating behind that tree,” Chou said, matter-of-factly, pointing at a large oak about twenty feet away.
Hearing his name, Albert’s head appeared around the tree trunk, a look of mortification on his face. I suppressed a laugh by pretending to cover a yawn, turning my head away as the red-faced kid walked back to the camp.
A short time later, we were on our way again, determined to reach the mountain as quickly as possible.
We walked in a loose group, chatting quietly back and forth. Over the next hour or so, terrain that had begun as a gentle incline grew gradually steeper and more taxing. I was about to suggest we stop for a short rest when Phillip said, “Hey! Listen. Hear that?”
“I think… it sounds like water,” I said. I could just make out the faint hiss and burble of running water. “It’s coming from that direction.” I pointed to our right.
We changed course and followed the sound until it increased to a roar.
Chou pushed ahead of us through a cluster of tall, thick bushes. “Careful!” she said suddenly, throwing out her arms to stop any of us from passing.
“Woah!” I whispered as I saw why she had stopped us so abruptly. We stood at the highest point of a horseshoe-shaped cataract, just inches from its edge. I leaned forward and peered over. A quarter of the way down, a steady torrent of water gushed out of a ragged crack in the rock, cascading the remaining sixty or so feet into a large natural pool of the clearest water I’d ever seen. The pool, in turn, fed a creek that zigzagged downhill in the direction of the beach.
I felt Albert’s hand suddenly clasp my arm while his other pointed to something near the pond. “Look,” he whispered.
“Ho-lee shit!” Phillip hissed.
I simply stared.
At the far edge of the pool, a group of five deer lapped at the water. I’ve followed the Pacific Coast Highway along the California coast, up through Oregon and Washington state a couple of times, and I’ve seen more than my fair share of deer along the way. But the creatures lapping at the water and ruminating on the abundant vegetation growing along the bank were unlike anything I’d seen on any of those road-trips. These were huge. They stood at least seven feet tall at their shoulders and must have easily weighed a thousand pounds each, if not more. The single buck among them, larger again than the females, sported a pair of antlers almost as long as his body from tip to tip. But rather than the branch-like antlers of normal sized deer, this creature’s formed a single structure that reminded me of a giant bony maple leaf.
“They are magnificent,” Chou whispered.
And quite intimidating, too, I thought, even though I knew they were unlikely to attack us unless we got too close. Those antlers looked like they could snap bones.
As if sensing our presence, one of the females looked up, her head tilting to one side as she locked eyes with me. For three breathless seconds, the doe held eye-contact with me, then, with a high-pitched warning bellow to the others, she darted off into the woods, the other deer right behind her.
“Well, at least we know there’s a good supply of fresh meat,” Phillip said. “Hell, one of those would feed us all for a month or more.”
“Indeed,” said Chou, “but what concerns me more is that if there are herbivores such as those, then they will undoubtedly attract predators such as the sabre-tooth. We should remain even more vigilant from now on.”
We cautiously followed the edge of the cataract down to the pool. The water was crystal clear, bubbling over rocks and stones rounded from years of shaping by the creek’s constant caress. I scooped up a palm-full of water and drank it down. It was ice cold and delicious. Small fish, about an inch or so long and far too tiny to make much of a meal, swam through the reeds and stones. There was no sign of any larger aquatic life.
“So now we also have access to a fresh water supply,” said Phillip, splashing water over his face. “This day is shaping up pretty nicely.”
“Yes, but the water is a valuable resource,” said Chou, “and there may be survivors who will be willing to do others harm to keep it for themselves.”
I scooped another palm-full of water into my mouth, shook the remaining drops from my hand then joined the others as we continued our journey again toward the mountain.
“We have to be getting close,” Phillip said, pointing to scattered rocks and larger gray boulders sprinkled between the trees.
“I can see the edge of the forest,” Albert said excitedly, not long after. Ahead of us, through the thinning lines of trees, I could just make out a cold gray scree of pea-gravel and some larger boulders.
We picked up our pace, panting a little as we jogged up the growing incline and crossed from the forest out into the open air.
“Wow!” I said, panting. I stood with my hands on my hips, the sun’s rays kissing the back of my neck as I stared up at the mountain. It was much, much bigger than I remembered from my brief glimpse of it that first day on the beach, the craggy and snow-capped peak starkly visible against the washed out blue-gray backdrop of the sky.
Phillip let out a long whistle. “It’s got to be nine, ten thousand feet,” he said, reverently. “Wish I’d brought my damn climbing gear.” He was panting lightly from the jog, too, a hand shading his eyes while they acclimated to the sudden change from dark forest to daylight.
This side of the mountain rose steeply upward from where we stood, the pea gravel quickly transitioning to larger rocks and stones then boulders and finally, slabs of granite and craggy outcrops.
“We are still well below the forest’s canopy,” said Chou. “We will need to climb higher if we are to be sure to spot any signs of civilization.”
“I think we should aim for that outcropping,” Phillip said, pointing at a large slab of flattish rock jutting out from the mountain, another hundred-and-fifty feet or so further up from where we stood. It created a ledge which looked like it would give us an unobstructed view over most of the island back in the direction we came from and a pretty good view over either side of it, too.
Phillip handed Chou his spear, then reached down and swept Albert up onto his shoulders. “Come on little man, the going’s a bit too rough t
o trust you won’t slip.”
With Phillip leading the way, Chou and I followed him from boulder to boulder until, sweating profusely, we reached the ledge.
“Up you go,” said Phillip, hoisting Albert off his shoulders and onto the ledge before pulling himself up alongside the boy. He turned back to face me and extended a hand.
“Grab ahold, and I’ll help you—”
Phillip’s words faded away to silence. His eyes grew huge shifting from me to over my shoulder, then skyward. “Holy shit!” he hissed. “Holy. Shit.”
I was in a precarious position, my left hand grasping onto a crevice in the lip of the rock ledge, the rocks, and loose gravel beneath my sneakers making it dangerous to turn too quickly without the risk of falling. As carefully as possible, I repositioned myself until I was looking back over the tops of the forest in the direction we had come from… and almost slipped from my perch.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “Someone tell me this is a joke.”
In the far distance, the gigantic multi-faceted edifice I’d briefly seen in my first few minutes on this island towered over the coastline, vanishing into the clouds collected around its upper portion. From this vantage point, I could see that the coastline did indeed run for hundreds of miles along what I assumed must be the eastern horizon, as I had suspected. The sun hung above it, making its slow climb toward its azimuth. Except, this quite obviously wasn’t our sun. This couldn’t be Earth’s sun. This star was larger, brighter, and rather than the golden-orange light I had taken for granted all my life, this star burned with a dark orange that bordered on red.
A glowing net of lights filled the sky, encircling the sun within a framework of concentric rings. There were hundreds of rings, each filled with thousands-upon-thousands of pinprick-sized orange lights. It looked like millions of fireflies had surrounded the star, only to be frozen in place, trapped in a permanent orbit around the glowing ball of gas. It was obviously not natural… and it was obviously not human-made. At least, not by any human from my time.
“My God!” Phillip said, then repeated himself several more times.
Chou said nothing, but her face reflected the shock we all felt.
I felt a tugging on my wrist and looked up to see Albert facing in the opposite direction to the caged sun. He pointed up toward the summit with a trembling hand.
“The moon,” Albert stammered, “what’s wrong with the moon?”
We turned to look in the direction Albert pointed. To the west, emerging from where it had been hidden behind the mountain’s snow-capped peak, the remains of what very well could have been the twin of our own moon described a slow arc across the blue sky. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but I thought I could make out what looked like structures or maybe even buildings peppering the moon’s cratered surface, or, at least, what was left of its surface. This moon looked as though some giant space-faring monster had taken a bite out of it, then vomited up its undigested meal. I estimated about a third of the moon had broken away from the main satellite, and now trailed behind it in an extended tail of debris. Other, larger chunks orbited the dead planetoid, moving in never-ending circles around their mother as it continued its never-ending journey around this planet.
It all felt so dreamlike. And, as if that dream insisted on forcing me to accept this new, strange version of reality in one mind-boggling minute, my attention was drawn first to the northern horizon, then to the southern. Rising high above each, sunlight glinting off the quartz-like facets of their sides were exact duplicates of the monolith so clearly visible above the distant coastline to the east.
Struggling to exert some control over this information overload, my mind drew the logical conclusion that if I could see through the thousands of feet of mountain obstructing our view, there would be a fourth structure dominating the western horizon, too. Which made four monoliths, each standing guard like giants over this hemisphere.
“I… I don’t see any settlements,” Phillip murmured, his voice barely audible over a gust of cold wind rolling down from the summit.
“No,” I said, just as quietly, “no signs of civilization.”
Phillip breathed in deeply, held it for a New York minute, then exhaled a long sigh, as though he was finally resigned to the fact that this world was not his, not any human’s.
“So, what do we do now?” he said, looking to me and Chou.
Chou considered the question. “I believe this confirms that our chances of rescue have been reduced to zero. Our immediate objective should, therefore, be to focus on establishing a permanent, defensible shelter.”
Another gust of wind swept down the mountainside, blanketing us with freezing air.
“Let’s get down off this mountain before we either die of hypothermia or get blown off it; both of which are beginning to appeal to me,” said Phillip. He picked Albert up and lowered him down to my waiting arms.
“Stay close,” I ordered Albert. I took the boy’s hand in mine and followed behind Chou who was already gingerly making her way back down the mountain in the direction we had come from. As relieved as I had been to finally get out of the forest and see open blue skies, I was twice as relieved when we crossed back into the woods again; to have everything the skies had revealed hidden from me once more.
Phillip picked up his pace, striding past us as if he was trying to outrun what we had all just seen up on the mountain.
“Is Phillip alright?” Albert said.
“Absolutely. He’s just… confused,” I said, but for all I knew, Phillip intended to keep on walking until he couldn’t walk anymore and leave us all behind. “For God’s sake, Phillip, hold up,” I called after him. He didn’t stop, but he did slow enough for us to catch up to him.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Stop! Phillip! Just stop, would you?” I let go of Albert’s hand, reached out and grabbed Phillip tightly by the bicep, forcing him to either stop or drag me along with him.
Maybe it was the hint of desperation I heard creeping into my voice that finally made it through the panic I knew he must be feeling, I’ll never know, but Phillip stopped and turned. His face was a mask of shifting emotions and confusion.
I understood exactly how he felt, of course. I mean, it wasn’t his reality alone that had just been shattered, it was ours too.
He exhaled a long sigh. “I’m sorry, it’s just that—”
I saw the object fly out of the shadows behind Phillip. It traveled with a swooshing sound in an arc and pierced Phillip’s shoulder with a sickening thud before I could even shout a warning. Phillip grunted like he’d been punched, blinked twice and tried to turn his head to see what had hit him.
I gasped as I saw the shaft of an arrow buried almost down to the feathers of its fletching in Phillip’s right clavicle.
Phillip reached weakly for the arrow, but before his fingers could close around it, there was another thud. He staggered under the impact, coughed, sending a gobbet of blood spilling over his lips, and toppled forward. Phillip collapsed face down into the ground, a second arrow sunk deep into his back, just below his left shoulder blade.
He twitched, then lay motionless.
I started to reach for him… and froze.
Behind Phillip, deeper in the forest, two men stepped out of the shadows. Both were dressed in leather armor and chain mail. They looked like extras out of a movie about ancient Rome or medieval England. One held a bow, the other carried a small round shield, the edge of which was ringed with metal studs. In his other hand, he carried a large sword with a curved blade that grew thicker toward the end. He raised the sword high above his head, let out a bloodcurdling cry and dashed toward us.
Eight
“Run!” I screamed.
I grabbed Albert’s hand tightly in my own, and we took off like frightened rabbits, zigzagging between trees so our pursuers couldn’t get a clear shot. I didn’t know if Phillip was alive or dead, but what was obvious was that if the two men caught us, they would kill us, without hesitation. Why tho
ugh? And who were they? I chanced a quick look over my shoulder and saw we hadn’t put any extra distance between us and them, despite the heavy leather and chainmail armor they were wearing. Albert’s legs were just too short for us to outrun them. Chou must have reached the same conclusion because without missing a step, she leaned down and plucked the boy from me and pulled him in close to her chest.
“Put your arms around my neck,” she ordered the boy. Albert did as he was told, clutching tightly to her. Now he was looking back over Chou’s shoulders at our attackers. Chou increased her pace, moving from a fast jog to a sprint, despite her now carrying a sixty-pound child.
I struggled to keep up, her long legs eating up the uneven ground in huge strides. I knew she was holding back, that she could have easily outrun our pursuers but wasn’t willing to leave my slower ass behind.
“Look out!” Albert yelled.
Chou ducked to her right. An arrow whistled past us and thudded into the trunk of a tree, missing Chou by just a couple of feet.
“Our only chance is to lose them in the trees,” I yelled, panting hard already.
“Yes,” Chou yelled back, leaping over some dense undergrowth, then zagging to her right.
“We need to—”
I should have kept my eyes fixed on the ground ahead of me rather than on Chou, that way I would have seen the knot of roots at the foot of the tree we were sprinting past. Instead, my foot snagged on one, twisted painfully, and I went sprawling to the ground with an Ooof!; the air knocked from my lungs.
Chou yelled at me: “Get up! Get up, Meredith!”
I tried to push myself to my feet, but my ankle wouldn’t support my weight.
Chou stood close by, both she and Albert glancing down at me then back in the direction of the fast-approaching men, the clink-clink-clink of their chainmail getting closer by the second.
Chou flinched as an arrow streaked past her. “Get up!” she yelled at me again.
The Paths Between Worlds Page 8
