by Jon F. Merz
The cobalt blue started to go green.
Behind me, I heard Jack’s voice - quiet but urgent. “Lawson…”
I gritted my teeth and shook the green out of the picture in my head. The cobalt blue returned.
But only for a second. A wave of pain shook my skull and I nearly blacked out. It felt like someone had shot a steel bolt into my head - like the worst headache I could imagine. And the picture I’d been holding there shuddered and shimmered as it suddenly went to a very bright orange and yellow.
My breathing came in spurts as more sweat spilled down my shirt now, flowing from all of my pores as I felt the inferno around me. I was gasping, trying my damnedest to suck air into my heaving lungs, but it felt like I was breathing thick soup and couldn’t get enough of it into me. The flames grew a deeper shade of orange.
I was losing.
I thought about Talya - doing exactly what Jack had told me not to think about. I couldn’t help it. I was here for her. This journey, this quest to find some ancient relic to try and help rescue her, it was all for her. If I failed then she was as good as dead.
And I’d never be able to live with myself for failing.
I took a huge gasp of air and then clamped my jaw shut, forcing everything out of my head except the deep blue that had seemed so calm when we’d first entered the cavern. It was almost reassuring. At the time, I hadn’t even appreciated it, and yet now, in the midst of this crazy contest, I longed to see it back again. I felt like if I could just see the cool blue, it would be like draping a jacket about my shoulders on a cool autumn night.
The temperature in the cavern changed then. Or was it only in my mind? I couldn’t tell because there was still work to do. I focused on the flames and willed them back to blue. First one, then another and another still. Each one took what seemed like an incredible amount of effort, but I simply would not stop. I had the lesson drilled into me a long time ago: never quit. And there was the fact that most people give up just shy of reaching success.
Success for me - in this case - was keeping the flame blue and getting the Cloak. And from there, rescuing the woman I loved.
How much time had passed? I had no clue. I’d felt this before during the few times I’d interacted with the spirit world. They had an ability to slow time down or speed it up to suit their needs. I could have been sitting there for hours and never known it. But that often happened anyway during times of extreme stress and challenge. I learned that a long time ago as well: don’t focus on the time, only the present moment. Once you get through that, you just keep going.
The blue flames danced in my mind’s eye. They wove and rose and fell and ducked in some sort of bizarre fashion. I couldn’t predict where the next one would flare up or fall but there was a beauty in watching the flames. I felt calm. Content.
“It’s over.”
Jack’s voice broke my concentration and I opened my eyes. The flames before me were as cobalt blue as they’d been in my mind’s eye.
I exhaled and wiped a hand across my brow, which was curiously dry. “I thought I’d almost lost it there.”
“You very nearly did,” said Jack. He helped me stand up. “The spirit was extremely close to winning at one point.”
“Probably when it tried to make my head explode.”
Jack frowned. “Are you sure that wasn’t just the exertion taking its toll on you?”
I shook my head. “Felt like someone had jabbed a rod into my skull. Never felt that before.”
“Well, whatever you had to do to win, you did it. Congratulations.”
But I was pissed off. “They’re going to give us the Cloak now, right?”
“Not exactly,” said Jack. “But we can continue.”
I shook my head. “Not good enough. As far as I’m concerned, the spirit cheated. And I want recompense. Tell them that they need to deliver the Cloak to us. Right now.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said Jack. “We don’t want to piss them off.”
“Wrong. They don’t want to piss me off.” I looked at him. “Tell them.”
Jack sighed. “You’re a stubborn sonofabitch, you know that?”
“Tell them.”
Jack closed his eyes and I heard him chanting for a moment. When he reopened his eyes a minute later, he shrugged. “All right. I told them.”
“How’d it go over?”
“Not well, but they took your accusation of cheating seriously.”
“Now what?”
Jack sat down on the floor of the cavern. “We wait, I guess. It’s up to them whether they honor your demand or not.”
“Odds?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
I sat down next to him. “Having fun yet?”
But before Jack could respond, we heard a crack and then a shudder as one of the walls at the furthest point in the cavern slid back, revealing a small room bathed in yellow light.
“Looks like they made their decision,” I said.
6
Jack and I looked at the room. The walls were worn smooth like marble, but in the center stood a huge boulder that must have measured roughly eight feet around. Resting on the rock was a piece of cloth woven in a bizarre and hypnotic pattern of undulating lines and colors. I could feel Jack’s gaze on me.
“Suppose that’s it?”
“Could be,” I said. “But there’s only one way to find out for sure.” I walked forward into the room, aware that the yellow light seemed to be all around me but came from no discernible source. And it was warm. I reached out for what I presumed to be the Cloak of Despar and felt the material. Silk. And extremely lightweight. That made sense. I hefted the Cloak and looked back at Jack. “Anything?”
“Put it around your shoulders,” he said.
It rested there for a moment and I expected something to happen. But Jack’s expression told me I was barking up the wrong tree. “Nothing?”
“I can still see you, dude.”
I shook my head and took the Cloak with me out of the room. “Any chance you can ask the spirits here what the problem is? Actually, ask them if this is truly the Cloak we came for.”
Jack closed his eyes and murmured a few phrases. After several minutes of back-and-forth, he opened his eyes again. “Good news, bad news.”
“Story of my life. What is it?”
“That is indeed the Cloak of Despar. You’ve found it.”
“Bad news?”
“It requires an incantation to make it operational.”
“You mean like some sort of code phrase?”
Jack nodded. “Exactly. But none of the spirits know it. They were only charged with protecting the Cloak itself. Even they don’t know the secrets to making it work properly, if at all.”
A heavy sigh rumbled out of me. “Wonderful. Nothing like potentially having gone on a wild goose chase while Talya rots in some Chinese prison in the middle of fuck all.”
“At least we have it,” said Jack. “That’s better than where we were when we woke up this morning.”
I grinned. He still had the youthful optimism that I sometimes sorely missed in my own life. Reality can do that to you. So can age. I appreciated the fact that Jack had managed to hang on to his despite some of the crap he’d already seen. Plus, he had a good point.
“You’re right. Let’s get out of here and keep moving.”
“What about the Cloak?”
I smiled at him. “I have an idea that might work. The only problem is, I can’t test it while we’re surrounded by rock. We need to get out of here first.”
Jack nodded behind us. “Well, stop wasting time and let’s get going.” He turned and headed back up the way we’d come into the cavern. I followed him out after taking a last look at the place. For some reason, it felt hollow and empty now.
Jack glanced over his shoulder. “They’re gone, dude.”
“What?”
“The spirits. When you picked up the Cloak and brought it out of the room, their
job was finished. It was lucky I managed to get a few final words with them.” He shrugged. “In a way, you did them a favor. They can move on now. They were being held here and only when the Cloak was recovered could they journey on.”
No wonder the place felt empty.
“Let’s go,” said Jack. “I’m starting to get desperate to see sunlight.”
“I should tell Niles about this call.”
“You wouldn’t dare. We got back further than that. Plus, you owe me.”
I could feel like frown lines etching into his forehead from thousands of miles away. “Pretty sure I repaid all my debts.”
“There was that bottle of tequila when you were still a drunk.”
He coughed. “Dammit, Lawson, I’ve tried to put that behind me.”
“I know it.”
Wirek sighed. “What do you need?”
“I have an item from long ago. Apparently it needs an incantation to activate it. Until I know how to do that, the thing is pretty useless to me.”
“What sort of item?”
“The Cloak of Despar.”
I heard him gasp. “You found it?”
We were standing back on the cliff overlooking a huge chasm. The winds had picked up some. “Yeah. I tracked it down.”
“I would have enjoyed being a part of that discovery.”
“Trust me, it’s better you were safe and sound back in Boston, old friend. There were…complications.”
“Spiritual?”
“Yup?”
Wirek paused. “No wonder Niles is losing his shit trying to find you. He stopped by my office earlier asking if I’d heard from you.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“The truth. Then again, you hadn’t called yet.”
“Keep him dark for now. There’s a good reason for me doing this and I need things kept quiet. If word gets out of my location, a dear friend of mine could die.”
Wirek paused again. “I’ll do what I can to dig up the information you need.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
“There’s one condition.”
I frowned. “What?”
“I want to wear it just once when you bring it back home.”
“If it survives the trip we’re going on, you’ve got my word.”
“If? You know that’s a priceless artifact, right? It belongs back here at the Council.”
“There’s a life that takes precedence over the Cloak, old friend. I’m sorry. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make any promises.”
Wirek sighed. “Well, take a picture of the thing, for crying out loud. Maybe I can do some research on it from that end.”
“All right. I’ll call you in a few hours.”
“A few hours? It might take me days to dig this stuff up.”
I shook my head. “No good, pal. I don’t have days. The op is going by hours and minutes. And time’s already wasting.”
I disconnected and looked at Jack standing close to the edge of the cliff. “Don’t fall off there.”
He glanced back and grinned. “It’s a long way down to the valley floor. I don’t think we could even survive that fall.”
“Most likely not.” I sat my rucksack down on the ground and started pulling gear out. Jack wasn’t going to like what I had planned next. Best to get on with it and hope he kept his cool.
He walked over and pointed. “What’s all this then?”
I laid the mylar balloon out and attached the hose lead to the small bottle of helium I’d brought along. The balloon began inflating and the spherical shape instantly started to float as more of the gas poured into it. After twenty seconds, it was roughly eight feet around and hovering about six feet off the ground. I finished filling it with gas and then tied a line of paracord to it.
Jack frowned. “Why aren’t you answering my question?”
“Probably better if you don’t know,” I said. From my ruck, I drew out a larger spool of incredibly strong line capable of holding nearly five hundred pounds. “You’re about a buck seventy, right?”
“Hundred seventy-five,” said Jack tapping his abs. “Pure muscle.”
“Whatever.” The rig came last. Two of them. I laid them side by side and started running the line through the leads in the rig. When I was done, I tied the balloon off to the end of the line and looked at Jack. I could see him trying to work this out in his head. I gave him the moment and when he finally got it, the expression on his face was priceless.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, there may be shitting involved.”
“Dude, you are crazy.”
I shrugged. “Look, there are no places for the plane to land and we need an immediate extraction if we hope to keep up with the schedule. Time’s wasting and this is the only thing I could think of to get us back to the town.”
“Yeah, but…” Jack’s voice trailed off.
In truth, I wasn’t crazy about the plan, either. They’d used set-ups like this in the past in the world of special operations, which is why I’d thought of it. But the trade-off for a fast exfil was the fact that you could die attempting it. Then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“Sit down so I can get the rig on you. You’ll go first.”
“Oh. Awesome.” But he sat down and I started strapping him into the modified getup. Straps went around his legs and arms in much the same way you strapped a chute on. I checked the line afterwards and then got my own rig on.
“Can it hold the two of us?”
“I think so.”
“Convincing,” said Jack. “I feel better already.” He sighed and looked around.
I pulled the phone from my pocket and made the call. After a few seconds, I heard the voice of the pilot who dumped us out earlier. I cleared my throat and gave him our coordinates. Then I disconnected and looked at Jack. “Ten minutes.”
He nodded. The fear on his face was evident. I tried to cheer him. “Didn’t you tell me you took up skydiving to get better acquainted with this stuff?”
“Skydiving is one thing. This is something else altogether.”
I laid the line out and checked the balloon that still hovered close by. “It’s pretty simple. The plane has been fitted with an arm that will snag the line held aloft by the balloon. Once the line is snagged, the co-pilot will reel it in and attach it to a winch. Meanwhile, we’ll get jerked aloft by the plane and they’ll slowly wind us back into the plane. Nothing could be easier.”
“Famous last words,” said Jack. “And that’s only if we don’t slam into the side of a mountain while we’re waiting for them to bring us in.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Forgive me for asking, but wasn’t the plane we jumped out of earlier a bit small to handle this type of operation?”
“Yes.”
“So-?”
“They landed and got a new plane. It’ll be fine.” I checked my watch. “Five minutes.”
Jack sighed again. “This better work, Lawson. I’ve had my eye on this smoking hot chick. If I die before I get a chance with her, I’m going to haunt your ass in the afterlife.”
“I don’t doubt it.” I released the balloon and watched it sail aloft, taking the line with it. I nudged Jack with my foot. “Time to stand up. Once this happens, it’s going to be quick.”
Jack stood and checked his straps, making sure they were tight and correctly positioned. I checked myself over.
“Have you ever done this before?”
I nodded. “Once. Back in the 80s. It worked fine.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, no worries.”
Jack nodded and looked overhead at the balloon as it drifted higher. “I hope they’ll be able to see it.”
“They will. The real trick is snagging the line and getting it into the winch properly. Once they do that, we’re good. Until then, though, there’s always the chance we could get smooshed.”
“Smooshed.”
“That’s the technical term for
it, yeah.”
Jack shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
“Others have said the same thing. Just relax and it will be fine. I promise.”
“I remain skeptical,” said Jack. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
The sound of a plane filled my ears and I looked west. The cargo plane was larger and slower moving, but it would have the power to bring us in. I checked my watch. The pilot was right on time.
“Lawson?”
I looked at Jack. “There is something else.”
“Yeah?”
“When the plane takes up the slack, it’s going to feel like someone kicked your nuts into your throat.”
“Awesome,” said Jack. “Have I mentioned how much fun I’m having on this mission already?”
“You just did,” I said.
The plane roared overhead and snagged the line. I watched it start taking up the slack, knowing what was coming next.
“Bastard,” said Jack. But then the line took him up into the sky. I breathed out, felt the jerk and then I was aloft as well.
7
We landed in Thimphu less than an hour later. It took longer to reel us into the plane than I would have liked, but the aircrew got us onboard, much to Jack’s relief.
“I can’t believe we just did that.”
“Stick with me, kid. You won’t believe what happens next.”
As the plane rolled to a stop, Jack undid his straps and eyed me. “Should I even ask?”
“Probably not, but I’ll tell you anyway: we have to get into China.”
Jack nodded. “We knew that was coming. But how are you planning to get us in there? In case you hadn’t noticed, we sorta stick out being white faces and all.”
“We’re in a tough part of the world. Bhutan and China aren’t exactly bosom buddies. China’s been making incursions here in recent years, all of which has both Bhutan and India pretty pissed off. Needless to say, the borders are heavily guarded by both sides. Trying to get through there would be a nightmare and our chances of success would be somewhere around zero.”
