Windmaster's Bane

by Tom Deitz

  The Track twisted to their right, almost immediately, then to the left, and the trough grew deeper. They had to trace their way along with the staffs, ever fearful of losing the Track. It was slow going, and—with the knowledge of the creatures behind them—nerve-wracking.

  The creatures had reached the edge. One lowered its nose toward the ruddy liquid but withdrew quickly. The other two shambled up behind it. One edged a tentative claw into the fluid, then jerked it back and shook it violently.

  When they had gone perhaps a hundred yards into the lake David risked a look over his shoulder. “I don’t think those things like the lake,” he whispered. “They’re still prowling around on the shore. Maybe they’ll stop following us now.”

  “I hope so, I truly hope so,” Liz replied as she followed his example. “They give me the creeps more than anything else we’ve seen. It’s almost like they’re—I don’t know—aware, or something.”

  “Purposeful?” David suggested.

  “Strange behavior for carnivores, though,” Alec observed. “I’d think they’d like blood.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it’s not blood.”

  “Or maybe they can’t swim.”

  Alec considered this for a moment. “Maybe not. They’re heading back toward the woods.”

  David squinted across the glistening surface to where, indeed, the shell-beasts were ambling unconcernedly toward the shelter of the dark forest.

  Liz whistled her relief. “Giving up, you think?”

  “Maybe so,” David replied decisively. “And while they’re doing that, we need to put as much distance between us and them as we can.”

  “I’ll drink to that!”

  “Hush, Alec. What a thing to think of here.”

  “Let’s move it, kids,” David said firmly, and turned back toward the center of the lake, striding forward at a quicker pace than they had previously maintained.

  By the time the travelers reached what seemed to be the middle of the sanguine lake, the red cliffs had risen above their heads, towering in an uneasy, jellylike tension that set all their nerves vibrating like saws struck by a hammer.

  Wet copper sand squished beneath their feet, smooth as a plate, marked by no rock nor weed nor living thing, save the Track. Before them was nothing but the roiling wall of dark red, here flickering purple in the reflected blue-white light of the witchmoon, there foaming to pink where it withdrew before David’s staff.

  David quickened his pace as unease rose in him like the quivering walls beside him. He kept the staff before him, sweeping the viscous liquid ahead of him with a kind of grim determination, wondering how long his luck would hold, wondering when those awful walls would come crashing down around him and his friends. He dared not look back, not even to see their faces, for he feared to see the way collapse behind him as he knew it must be doing from the thick splashing sound; feared to know how closely peril stalked as they threaded a path so narrow the walls brushed their shoulders on either side, spreading alarming red stains up the sleeves of their jackets.

  They walked for a long time: fearful, the rank smell of blood in their nostrils, the sickening squish of bloody sand beneath their feet. But finally—sooner than David had really expected—the walls began to lower again, and the bottom to slope upward.

  A moment later the three friends stood once more upon dry sand. The Track continued on its twisted way across that beach before straightening itself at the edge of the inevitable line of trees.

  David paused at the last turn and glanced fearfully back upon the lake.

  And looked upon a trail that ran perfectly straight.

  And on a helmed and armored figure sitting on horseback in the exact middle of it, scarcely three yards behind them. No hoofprints marred the sand behind him: the Lord of the Trial.

  The Lord raised his sword and flourished it once in the air as if in salute, then paced the horse closer, so that at last David stood virtually face to nose with the animal.

  The rider regarded him for a moment, and then spoke. “Hear me, David Kevin Sullivan, and know that you have passed the Test of Knowledge—not by knowing which road to take, but by knowing when to trust another’s judgment above your own.”

  David found himself grinning in spite of himself, and turned impulsively to embrace a startled Liz. “You did it, girl. One down.”

  He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground, uncomfortably aware of how foolish he must look before this Lord of Power. But when he glanced up again, the man was gone. There was only the lake—and the shell-beasts still prowling slowly about the opposite shore.

  The wood before them was darker than any they had seen, and more stately, beginning possibly ten yards ahead with a palisade of tall, red-trunked trees, each of almost identical thickness and height, presenting the appearance of nothing so much as a colonnade before a temple. The Track passed between two trees slightly thicker than the rest, their twined branches meeting in a pointed arch high above their heads, as if marking a gateway.

  From moonlight they walked into gloom. The trail began to slope downhill, ever more steeply, as trees clustered closer to the track and more undergrowth filled the spaces between, effectively locking them into a tunnel in which the only illumination was the light cast by the Straight Track itself.

  Down and down and down, ever more steeply, but continuing straight at a perilous angle so that at times they had to sit down and scoot along on their backsides or risk a foolhardy plunge into the blackness ahead.

  Down and down and down.

  It became darker as well, and even the trail shrank to a faint glimmer.

  Darker and darker and darker.

  Somewhere behind them three hulking shapes ranked themselves side by side at the juncture of three Straight Tracks and stretched their short necks skyward. One by one their mouths opened, revealing gray-white linings. Together they sent a shrill, keening cry wavering across the water.

  On the opposite bank three similar shapes pricked their tiny, bone-shielded ears in response, and lumbered purposefully from the shadows of the forest, moving with absolute precision toward three sets of human footprints that showed beneath the glimmer of the Straight Track where it emerged from the lake of blood.

  Darker and darker and darker.

  Not until David felt fresh, cool air on his face did he realize how close the air had become in the tree-tunnel they had been pursuing. Up ahead the way lightened, the path turned level again. Eagerly David bolted toward that light.

  Only Alec’s flying tackle saved him from disaster. His friend’s arms wrapped around his hips from behind, pitching David forward onto his knees, his arms scraping along rough rock. The breath was knocked from his lungs; he gasped, and the smell of wet stone and decaying leaves filtered into his nostrils.

  “You really like running into thin air, don’t you?” Alec grunted.

  “What?” David asked, momentarily confused, then adjusted his vision to the new light in which they found themselves.

  It was light in fact, but only by comparison to the darkness through which they had lately passed. For the night sky still soared above them, and the Faerie moon which never seemed to set rode again at the zenith.

  And directly in front of them, inches from David’s nose, a matching gulf opened in the land, seemingly as deep as the sky was high: a yawning black abyss between matching cliffs that rose unbelievably steep on either side. The jagged silhouettes of evergreens crowned those cliffs, and the narrow rocky shelf on which they had halted thrust out above the terrible darkness of the rift like fungi on an ancient tree. David looked at the rift with dread. It was not particularly wide—a hundred feet at the outside. But there was no way across.

  The Straight Track simply ended, breaking cleanly off into empty air.

  On the opposite cliff, etched brightly by the moonlight, the topmost branches of pale-barked trees rose above a stone archway composed of three immense rough-hewn boulders. The glow of the Track took up again there and
continued through the opening. But in the empty distance between: nothing.

  “Damn!” Alec cried. “It was the wrong turn, it must have been. We can’t go on from here.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Liz replied. “It couldn’t have been. The Lord of the Trial said we had passed the first test.”

  David squinted into the darkness. “There has to be a way across.”

  He struggled to his feet and as he did so, he dropped the staff he was still carrying. The end with the iron butcher knife lashed to it fell forward into the darkness above the gulf.

  “No!” David cried, grabbing frantically after it. But it did not topple into the giddy darkness below them; rather, the staff rested in apparent defiance of gravity with two-thirds its length lying unsupported in the air above the abyss. The air rang with a gentle ping like the tinkling of a glass windchime.

  And from the point of the knife sparks began to appear, a panoply of glittering motes borne into the night that began to spread in all directions until at last they limned, faint but clear, the shape of the most insubstantial-looking of bridges, arching across the chasm and butting neatly against the opposite cliff. It was steep—almost a true half-circle, like an oriental bridge—and narrow, no more than a foot and a half wide. Nor was there any rail. A bridge it was, but a perilous one, scarcely more than a glimmer in the air.

  “We can’t cross that,” Liz groaned incredulously.

  “We’ve no choice, the way I see it,” was David’s choked reply. “And, besides, we can’t go back. Those shell-things may still be back there, or others like them.”

  Fear had begun to coil in the pit of David’s stomach as the dark places of his mind began to creep open. He couldn’t do it. He knew he couldn’t; the bridge was too steep, too narrow, too high! His hidden fear, the one thing he had never revealed even to Alec, was upon him: the terror of bridges. High places were fine, for he could wander around the ledges on Lookout Rock completely fearless. But being high up and unsupported, with nothing but empty space below him—that set his gut to writhing and his balls to seeking sanctuary inside his body. Unfortunately, he knew he had no choice.

  And the bridge itself, so insubstantial it was barely there—surely it would not support his weight. David reached cautiously down and snagged the staff, fearing that the whole span would collapse at the slightest touch, or that the faint traceries that defined it would wink out.

  Neither thing happened. What disconcerted him, though, was the way he could feel the whole structure tremble at that most delicate of touches. Would it support his weight? Would it support any of their weights?

  For a moment neither of them spoke. None of them dared admit what they knew they must.

  Finally Alec broke the silence. “All right, so who’s first?”

  David drew a ragged breath, his face pale as death. “Me, of course.”

  “Not necessarily, David,” said Liz behind him.

  David whirled around. “What do you mean?”

  “I was thinking,” she said. “Something you don’t seem to be doing.”

  David opened his mouth to say something scathing—he was so tense, so scared—but Liz cut him off.

  “No, David, let me finish. Be rational. This is a really shaky bridge. It might not bear our weight.”

  “Which is why I should go first,” David shot back. “I’m heaviest; if it’ll hold me, it’ll hold you.”

  “Which is why the lightest should go first,” Liz continued. “Meaning me. One of us has to get through. If the heaviest goes first, and it breaks, none of us will make it. If the lightest goes first, there’s a greater chance somebody’ll get through. Remember the conditions: As long as one of us succeeds, the Trial will be a success.”

  “But it has to be David’s decision,” Alec pointed out.

  “Right. So David can decide. But I’ve told him what I think.”

  David had scarcely heard the argument. Either way, first or last, it meant walking—crawling, really—across that frightful gulf. That was what he most feared.

  “David.” Alec’s voice was sharp.

  “Oh, right.” David’s forehead furrowed, and he paced the narrow ledge. Fearless now; but only a few feet beyond he knew he would be quaking jelly.

  “I don’t like either option, but you’re right, Liz: Lightest

  should go first. That’s my decision. . . . Liz, you are lightest,

  right?”

  “That’s what I just said, David.”

  “Well, it doesn’t hurt to be sure.”

  “I weigh a hundred and seven pounds, David.”

  “I was just being sure, Liz.”

  She shook her head suspiciously.

  “And you, Master McLean?”

  “One-twenty-eight.”

  “Davy?”

  “One-thirty-five.”

  Liz raised an eyebrow. “But Alec’s taller.”

  “Only by three inches, and I’m more muscular.”

  Alec glared at him.

  “Okay, okay, this is not the time to play macho-man.”

  “Right,” David said decisively. “Okay, Liz, take off. I’d suggest hands and knees.”

  “Next time remind me to bring a rope,” Alec muttered.

  “Next time I will,” David replied archly.

  Liz approached the juncture of bridge and ledge cautiously, set one foot tentatively upon the sparkling surface—and felt it tremble in response to that contact. Her breath caught. “I don’t know if any of us can make it, David.”

  “One of us has to. Otherwise the Trial will end. And there has to be a possibility of victory.”

  “Okay, but none of you start until I get across. All the way across.”

  Liz knelt on all fours and braced her staff crossways between her two hands. She slid one hand onto the narrow span before her, then the other.

  One knee. Two.

  The bridge shook. Both David and Alec could see the glimmer scintillate.

  One foot. Five feet. Ten. Twenty.

  Liz was halfway across.

  “Oh no,” she called just as she reached the apex. “It’s downhill now, and that’s going to be even harder.” She flattened herself onto her stomach and scooted, her elbows and knees hooked around the angled edges. The staff she kept crossways in front of her, forcing it downward against the substance of the bridge in hope that whatever small bit of extra friction was thus generated would help slow her descent. It worked for several feet, but halfway down the far slope she began to slide. One foot slipped sideways into air. She screamed and ground the staff into the bridge even more forcefully, which slowed her enough for her to right herself. The last third was more falling than sliding, and then she found herself lying facedown on the ledge on the other side.

  “You okay?” shrieked a terrified David.

  Liz stood up and dusted herself off. “Scrapes and bruises. Watch out for the downslope, it’s slick as glass.”

  David rolled his eyes in despair.

  Grimly Alec lowered himself onto all fours and eased onto the span. He’d had the foresight to take his shoes and socks off, figuring the extra grip that would provide might come in useful, especially as he’d left the staff with David and wouldn’t have it to use for balance.

  Disgusting, thought David, when he saw the ease with which Alec accomplished the crossing. This time there was no slipping.

  “What’re you waiting on?” cried Alec when he had reached the other side. “It’s easy. Easy as falling off a . . .” He clapped a hand on his mouth.

  “A log?” David called back, trying to mask his fear with levity. But it was no use; he was petrified. Never in his life had anything so completely unnerved him as the prospect of crossing that hundred-foot arch. A glance over the edge of the cliff showed him nothing but blackness: no bottom, nothing. Suppose there was no bottom, suppose it just went on forever. He could imagine that, imagine fear knotting his whole body more and more tightly into itself until he simply winked out of existence in this u
niverse and popped out again somewhere else, and kept on falling . . .

  “Come on, David!”

  Finally he said it. “I’m scared!”

  “Scared? You?” Alec called back. “I’ve seen you scale ledges higher than this up on Lookout with scarcely a thought.”

  “But I knew where the bottom was, and I had solid ground under my feet.”

  “David!”

  “I’ve never told anybody this, Alec. Bridges scare me. Haven’t you ever noticed how I always speed up on bridges?”

  He could see Alec’s mouth drop open as realization dawned upon him.

  “You’ve got to cross, David!”

  “Okay, okay! Just give me a minute.”

  “Come now, David! Now, or you’ll never do it.”

  “I think the bridge is fading!” Liz cried in such genuine alarm that David could detect it even across the gulf between them. A part of his mind wondered at the uncanny ease with which he had been able to hear across the distance.

  “It is!” Alec cried.

  “Now, David! Now!”

  David stared at the bridge. It was becoming more transparent. Darkness showed through the near end.

  “David, behind you!” Alec’s voice carried shrill across the distance.

  David spun around.

  An armored head three feet wide thrust through the undergrowth a scant ten yards behind him.

  “Now, David. Now!”

  The creature advanced. Slowly. Methodically. Its eyes never left David. Moonlight glittered on the pearlescent whorls painted on its shell.

  “David!”

  David glanced back at the bridge, then at the creature.

  It took a step.

  For no logical reason he could think of he faced it, crouching warily before it, the make-do spear ready in one hand.