Denner_s Wreck

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Something felt wrong almost immediately; he paused to try and identify it.

  When he had stopped moving, when his feet no longer rasped against the underbrush and his clothes no longer rustled as they slid across his body, he realized what it was. The woods sounded wrong.

  Every hour of his life, every wake, every sleep, every light and dark, ever since his birth, whenever he had been outside solid walls, he had heard the wind in the grass. In the spring the wind hissed through the green young shoots. In summer the grass was tall and whispered in the wind. In autumn the brown stalks rubbed and chattered, until at last came the winter, coating the grass in ice, knocking the blades to the ground and sometimes burying them in snow, but not quieting them as they tinkled together or crunched underfoot. The sound had been faint when the wind was gentle, a harsh howling when the winter winds ripped down from the mountains, but always present. The air on the plain was never still, and the grass was never still. When a man walked anywhere beyond the village, he walked through rustling grass.

  Here in the Forbidden Grove the grass did not grow and the wind could not reach. Overhead leaves rustled, but that was a different sound, an alien sound, a wrong sound. His feet moved silently, moving aside nothing but air, and the air around him was calm-not dead, because it still stirred faintly, but calm and quiet.

  A bird chirped, loud in the closed-in stillness.

  He was hungry, he decided. After all, he had not intended to make so long a journey, and had come away with nothing but a pocket full of corn chips. He had reached the grove, he had entered it; now it was time to go home and get something solid to eat.

  He was actually starting to turn when he caught himself.

  He was not Mardon, he thought scornfully, to be terrified by anything that was at all out of the ordinary. There was nothing unnatural in the grove's stillness. He had experienced similar quiet in his parents’ house, he told himself.

  That was not strictly true, he immediately corrected himself. Houses did not have leaves that rustled overhead. Houses were built, not grown. Houses had distinct walls and small rooms, not great ill-defined spaces that seemed to wind on forever. Houses were lit by lamps or straight-edged windows, not by dapples of sunlight that spilled randomly through a myriad of leaves, all shifting in the breeze.

  Still, he was no child to be frightened by something simply because it was strange. He forced himself to march on into the grove.

  It occurred to him that, here among the trees, he was walking between the stems of plants as an insect walked between blades of grass, similarly sheltered, and that he was in no more danger from the trees than an ant was from grass. However, the analogy did not really comfort him, but instead made him feel insignificant.

  As he moved on in the still air beneath the rustling leaves, he quickly noticed something else about the grove; it was cool. The sun was almost straight overhead, yet he was not at all uncomfortable. Out in the open he knew that he would have been sweating heavily. Summer was dying, but not yet dead, and the autumn cooling would not arrive for another few tensleeps.

  With that, with the realization that he was not sweating and hot, his opinion of the grove began to change. He began to see the beauty, as well as the strangeness, in the scattered light, the soaring trunks and reaching branches, the open ground. Looking up, he began to distinguish between the different varieties of tree.

  His pace had shifted from a tentative creep when he first passed under the shade of the trees to a confident stride when he conquered his fear. Now it shifted again, from a stride to an amble, as he began to take in the details of his surroundings, not as potential dangers but as potential delights.

  Best of all was when he rounded a huge old oak and found himself on the bank of a stream. The water gurgled around tree roots and polished stones, and the sunlight shattered into dancing glitter on its surface. He almost thought he heard a distant music, as of children singing or someone playing lightly on a fidlin.

  The streams he was familiar with, out in the grasslands, were little more than meandering ditches. They did not sing and sparkle.

  It was no wonder, he told himself, that people thought a place as weird and wonderful as this must be linked to the Powers. He saw no sign of any Lady Sunlight, but only the sunlight on the leaves and water.

  He looked out across the stream and saw an open meadow, a few hectares of wildflowers and short grass surrounded by trees. That, he told himself, was surely The Meadows, but he saw no Lady Sunlight, and certainly no great palace. For an instant he thought he saw something tall and glittering in the center of the meadow, but when he could not find it again he dismissed it as a trick of the light, something caused by emerging from the dimness of the trees to the meadow's brightness.

  Weird and wonderful, he told himself as he sat down to rest by the stream, but nothing of the Powers about it.

  He did not see the glittering column flicker again. He did not know enough to realize that, even when planted with trees, the plain would not naturally have babbling brooks full of water-rounded stones. As the life of the grove went on around him, he could not distinguish the artificial insects and flowers from the natural ones. He was unaware of the hidden machines that scanned him, analyzed him, and decided he was harmless.

  He sat quietly by the stream until the wake's second sunset and dozed off there, convinced that he sat among wonders of nature, and only of nature.

  The sun was well up the sky, and firstlight well advanced, when he awoke again. He was in the habit of waking at dawn, but he was not accustomed to the cool shade of the grove.

  He rose and stretched, then knelt and splashed a little water on his face. The stream was clear and clean and cool. He bent down and drank.

  His stomach growled, ruining the mood. Something chittered overhead, and he looked up in time to see leaves closing behind some small scampering creature. A dislodged vine slithered across a branch.

  He had not brought any weapons, and besides, he had no idea how to hunt among trees. He reached in his pocket for the last of the corn chips, and stuffed all but the smallest fragments into his mouth.

  When he had taken the edge off his hunger by chewing the corn chips to liquid, he sat down at the base of a great tree and looked around, admiring the scenery. In the rising light it took on a different aspect than it had had when he first arrived. The meadow across the stream was somehow more colorful, he thought; the air itself seemed to glisten, and the impression of distant singing in the sound of the brook was stronger than ever.

  This, he thought, would be a wonderful place to bring a woman. There was a serenity to the place that he judged would appeal to most of the girls or women he knew. He was sure Kittisha would like it. The mossy bank of the stream would be a very pleasant place to lie together.

  He let himself imagine that for a moment as he gazed across at the meadow.

  Then he saw that the air really was glittering. He stared, realizing that it was no illusion, or at least none he had ever encountered before.

  He asked himself if it could be some peculiar sort of diurnal firefly, and was on the verge of convincing himself that that was exactly what he saw when a woman stepped out of the glittering air onto the meadow grass, accompanied by strange music that was definitely neither singing nor the sound of water.

  She was tall and slender, her long, flowing hair the golden yellow of sunlight on wildflowers. She wore a filmy pale something that seemed to shift both color and shape every time she moved, and which hung drifting in the air despite a complete lack of any breeze to account for such motion. Small fluttering things, like tiny glowing butterflies, flashed a thousand colors in a halo about her, and furry things moved through the grass at her feet.

  Bredon stared, and felt something stir within him.

  The woman paid no attention to him. She gave no sign that she had noticed his presence at all. She stood in the meadow and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the morning air. The flutterers swirled away for a mome
nt, then returned, and the sourceless music rose into a brief crescendo.

  Bredon watched hungrily. This woman was, beyond any doubt, Lady Sunlight of the Meadows.

  She was also the most beautiful thing Bredon had ever seen.

  He was, he realized, looking at another Power. This was what he had come here for, to see another Power and see if he could recover some of what he had lost in his meeting with Geste. Looking at Lady Sunlight as she stretched lazily, he knew exactly what he wanted, what would more than make up for the lost mare and his lost self-esteem.

  He wanted Lady Sunlight. He wanted her with a raw and simple lust stronger than any he had felt in years.

  His breeches had grown uncomfortably tight as his body reacted to the sight of that sleek and inhumanly beautiful female form; he shifted his legs, trying to accommodate himself, then got awkwardly to his feet.

  “Hello!” he called.

  Startled, the woman dropped her arms from above her head to cover her breasts, and whirled to face him. The flutterers abruptly vanished, the music stopped, and the animals at her feet disappeared into the grass. She whispered something; he could see her lips moving, but even without the music Bredon heard nothing over the rustle of leaves and the splashing of the brook.

  There was no one else in sight save she and himself. Bredon wondered who she was talking to-the invisible musicians, perhaps?

  Then there was someone else in sight, or at least something else. It was shaped more or less like a man, but was obviously not a man, not even a man in a costume. It was eight feet tall, covered in gleaming silver metal, its face a dark nothingness. It stepped across the brook in a single stride and stood towering over him.

  “Sir,” it said in a polite and completely human masculine voice, “you are trespassing on private property. I must ask you to leave at once."

  The thing was blocking his view; he tried to peer around it, to see what Lady Sunlight was doing. “I just…” he began.

  “Sir, I must ask you to leave at once. There can be no discussion."

  “But…"

  He felt himself being picked up, but the thing's arms still hung motionless at its sides, a meter or two away. Before he could figure this out he was being whisked back through the grove at an incredible speed, though he had not felt anything throw him. Trees flashed by on either side, and for an instant he was terrified by the thought of striking one; at the speed he was travelling he knew such an impact would break his skull or his spine.

  Then he slowed, and tumbled to the ground on the open grassland at a speed no greater than if he had stumbled over his own feet.

  Driven by lust and his native stubbornness, he immediately untangled himself, jumped up, and started back into the grove.

  His face smacked into something invisible, and he fell back, his hand flying immediately to his nose.

  He felt the damaged area carefully. It was not broken, not even bleeding, but he thought it would develop a nice purple bruise in another few hours.

  He advanced again, more cautiously this time, his left hand held out before him.

  His hand pressed up against something he could not see. The invisible barrier was still there. He shoved at it.

  It did not yield. It felt like a solid wall, yet he could see nothing, not even the odd glitter that he had seen above the meadow.

  He stepped back and considered, then circled around a dozen paces to the left. There he advanced into the grove again.

  Once again, he encountered the invisible barrier just past the first ring of trees.

  This, obviously, was magic. This was power. This was what made the Powers respected and feared throughout the world.

  He leaned on the barrier with both hands, digging his heels into the soft earth, but could make no impression. He pushed until he could feel the muscles in his thighs and upper arms knotting with the strain.

  The dirt beneath his heels gave way; his feet went out from under him and he fell ignominiously face-first onto a patch of moss.

  Fuming, he pushed himself up onto his knees and spat out moss and dirt. He glared at the grove, serene and beautiful behind the barrier, looking just as it had when he first awoke. The only difference was that now he was outside and could not get back in.

  He had given in to Geste, but by all the gods and demons, he promised himself, he was not going to lose to Lady Sunlight without putting up a fight.

  He backed out onto the grassland for a running start.

  He bruised his shoulder on the unyielding barrier.

  He glared at the grove, rubbing absently at his injured joint. He had bruised his shoulder, but he did not give up. He would never give up.

  He did not give up, and at last, considerably later, he stood, somewhat battered, in the center of the meadow, trying to decide what to do.

  He had struggled against the invisible wall for hours, as the sun passed its zenith and hurried down the western sky. He had rested briefly at the wake's first sunset, but when full dark had arrived he had renewed his efforts. When the secondlight sunrise came he had rested again, finishing off the last crumbs of corn and washing them down with water taken from the stream where it emerged from the southeast corner of the grove. There, he noticed, the stream became an ordinary ditch, with no rocks and rills, and he began to suspect that the entire grove was an artificial creation, devised by Lady Sunlight for her own enjoyment.

  He tried sneaking upstream to slip under the barrier beneath the shallow water, but succeeded only in covering himself with mud; water did indeed pass under the barrier, but the opening was too small for him.

  He climbed out and dried himself off, and after sitting for a moment, thinking, he decided to try digging his way under. He felt his way forward, looking for the barrier in order to know where to start digging, and did not find it.

  The barrier had vanished. He walked into the grove unobstructed, and found his way to the meadow.

  There was no sign of Lady Sunlight there. He could see glitter in the air sometimes, and once or twice he bumped into invisible somethings, but he could not locate anything out of the ordinary more than once. He found no supernatural doorways, no hidden caves, no messages, nothing but an empty meadow where, every so often, he would brush against a wall that wasn't there when he turned to investigate further. The bright little fluttering things were gone without a trace, as were the small furry creatures that he had glimpsed at her feet, and there was no music, but only the whisper of the wind in the leaves, the gurgle of the stream, and an occasional call from a lonely bird.

  He stood there, baffled.

  He wanted Lady Sunlight more than he had ever wanted anything. He knew that was irrational, but he could not help it. He thought it was not really for her own sake-she was staggeringly beautiful, but he knew nothing more about her than that, and beauty meant little. It was for what she represented. She was a Power. That meant she was unobtainable. It also meant that she was a part of the group that he felt had wronged him. The combination was irresistable.

  This was not love, in any form. It was lust. He knew that.

  He understood his motives, and he was not proud of them, but he was unable to change his feelings. He wanted her, very much indeed. Quite aside from the sexual element-and powerful as it was, he thought he could resist that-he wanted to talk to her, to voice his complaints and challenge her to answer them.

  She was not there. All he saw was the empty meadow.

  Defeated, he thrust his hands in his pockets, hunching forward and glaring balefully at the unmindful wildflowers.

  His finger touched something hard and slick, and he stopped, startled, as he realized what he was touching. A smile spread slowly across his face, then faded again.

  It might, as he had told Mardon, produce nothing but a faceful of stink. If Geste had told the truth, though, Bredon had his answer. He had a demand to make that would surely be a challenge even for Geste. If Geste gave him what he asked for, then he would have Lady Sunlight and a victory over the Power
s; if Geste failed, then he would have shamed Geste as Geste shamed him. He pulled out the red disk.

  “If this doesn't work, you bastard, I'll do my best to kill you,” he said. Then he grabbed the disk in both hands and pushed against it with his thumbs.

  It cracked easily, then crumbled, and suddenly he held nothing but red powder.

  Bredon brushed the powder from his hands and looked about expectantly.

  Nothing happened. Leaves rustled, and somewhere a bird whistled plaintively.

  He waited, quickly growing angry.

  “May demons suck the marrow from your bones for lying to me, Geste the Trickster!” he shouted at the rustling leaves overhead, after a moment passed without incident. Disgusted, he started toward the stream, intending to cross it and head home. He was very hungry now, and he had found nothing to eat anywhere in the grove.

  Chapter Four

  “…neither woman would relinquish her claim to the child."

  "Rawl the Adjuster looked at them carefully, and said, ‘Long ago, an ancient king revered for his wisdom faced a case exactly like this, and proposed that the baby be cut in half, that each mother might have half. What would you think of that solution?'

  "Both mothers gasped in horror at the idea, and each quickly offered to give up her claim to forestall such a catastrophe.

  "'I thought as much,’ said the Adjuster. ‘That story never sounded right to me. Let us see if we can't do better. Give me your hands.’ And he reached out to the two women.

  "Well, naturally, both were hesitant to touch the actual flesh of a Power, but first one reached out, and then the other, not wanting to be bested, did the same. They held hands with the Adjuster for a moment, and then he released them and stepped back. He picked up the baby, then returned it to the cradle.