Again, Collins attempted to steer his thoughts from the depressing possibilities. He concentrated on the scenery. They traveled a dirt path through towering trees whose shade and shed leaves discouraged undergrowth. The branches held vast bounties of leaves in myriad variations of green. Though not as colorful as the bursts of amber, scarlet, and orange that had characterized the autumn foliage in Algary a scant month before, it seemed even more beautiful. The plants seemed to glow with health and, despite mud and dust, looked remarkably clean. The sun streamed through gaps in the highest branches, lending a shimmering glow to the star-shaped leaves and dancing tiny rainbows through clinging droplets of water. In other circumstances, Collins would have enjoyed stretching out beneath the canopy, reveling in birdsong, gaze filled with nature's radiance. Now, distracted by the agonies jolting through his spine and threatening to dismember his hands, and by the uncertainty of whether or not he even had a future, he could only look in mute alarm. He wondered how much more beautiful it might appear with his glasses.
It occurred to Collins suddenly that he should have etched the route they had thus far taken into his memory. If they released him, or he managed to escape, he would have to find his way back to this place. In fact, he would need to keep his wits about him from this point on if he hoped to survive this world intact. If it's not already too late. He shook that thought aside. It could only lead to hopeless despair.
The idea proved easier to concoct than to implement. The pathways branched and looped, and Collins lost track of turns that came naturally to his captors. The intensity of his headache muddled his thinking; twice, he found himself drifting into a strange, conscious oblivion. The other pains remained a constant, intermittently overwhelming diversion.
Then, just as Collins began to believe he'd been captured by nomads, the forest opened to pastures and fields. A low wall of corn blocked their way, and the people led the horse around its squared edge. As they rounded the corner, he saw a vast green pasture grazed by several goats, horses, and pigs. Younglings frolicked around them, the different animals intermingling freely in their games. A cow stood by itself, chewing its cud, its round abdomen looking ready to pop out a calf at any moment. Beyond the animals stretched more fields of unidentifiable shoots and, farther, a huddle of buildings that made up a small and primitive town.
Collins took heart at the sight of the animals. A society that accepted people of all appearances as equals seemed likely to prove reasonably broad-minded. For reasons he could only attribute to childhood cartoon watching, the peaceful coexistence of the animals added to the image of tolerance that might prove so important to his fate. The "good guys" always loved a wide variety of animals as well as their fellow men.
The horse trumpeted out a whinny that shook its entire frame. Caught off guard, Collins lost his balance. He toppled from its withers. Instinctively, he went to catch himself with his hands. The rope burned as it shifted across his wrists, and he slammed the ground with his already bruised shoulder. Pain shocked through him. He lay still, eyes closed, teeth gritted. The hands that shoved him back into position disappeared in a dizzying rush of spots that scored his vision. He fell against the horse's slimy neck, panting against pain. I can't believe this is happening to me.
The ride continued as a blur of motion and distant voices. Collins remained dimly aware of being carried into a large building and thrust into a cell. The door crashed shut with a metallic ring. He lay on his belly, face pressed against cold stone, and allowed nothingness to overtake him.
Benton Collins awoke in the same position he had lost consciousness. He opened his eyes to a mortared stone wall that smelled damp and as musty as an old book. He struggled to sit, automatically tossing one hand out for balance. He winced against the anticipated pain that movement had caused the last time he performed it, only to find that his arm moved freely. Using his hands, he managed to sit up easily. He examined his wrists. The ropes had scraped them raw, and clear fluid oozed from several places. His head no longer hurt. Dirt splattered his chest and abdomen in smeared patches, glazed with a fine coating of dust. His jeans were damp with horse sweat and grime speckled with short golden hairs.
Collins glanced around his prison, approximately four yards square with bars on three sides. The one across from the only stone wall opened onto a hallway, while the other two separated his cell from the ones on either side. He saw no other captives, which seemed like a good sign. Apparently, they did not confine people on a frequent and arbitrary basis. Once they realized he meant them no harm, they would surely release him.
Two bowls lay on the floor in the front left corner. One held water so clear Collins could see every blemish on the inner surface of the crockery. The other contained what appeared to be salad, dotted with lifesaver-sized and -shaped objects of black and brown. The rabbit sat heavily in his gut, and even the thought of food made him queasy. He wondered how long it would take for anyone to miss him. None of the professors intended to return until Sunday. His parents would assume he had gone to the Johnsons, and Marlys would likely believe he was just being rude. He amended the thought. Not rude. Passive/aggressive. A psychology student, she always had a long word, often in unpronounceable Latin, to describe even the most normal aspects of human behavior.
Taking his cue from prisoner movies, Collins examined the bars and lock of his cell. Though pitted in places, they all seemed more than solid enough to withstand any bare-handed assault he could muster. He paced the cell a couple of times, expending nervous energy. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, he sat with his back against the stone wall, his legs stretched in front of him and his throbbing wrists in his lap.
Soon after Collins took his position, two men appeared at his cell. They wore the same rust-and-gold uniforms as the ones who had captured him, but he recognized neither. One looked about six feet tall, with a shock of red hair, pale skin, and wide features. The other stood shorter but outweighed the first by nearly half again as much, most of it muscle. He had hair a shade lighter than Collins' dark brown, and he wore it in a braid. His skin matched his hair almost perfectly. Each carried a sword and what looked like a billy club in a wide belt.
Collins approached, glad for a chance to attempt explanation, though it seemed futile. "Hello," he said in his friendliest voice.
Both men turned.
"My name is Ben." Collins jabbed a finger toward his chest. "Ben."
The men watched him, saying nothing.
"I-I mean no… harm." Collins assumed a bright smile, placing his hands casually between the bars on a horizontal support. "I just want to go home." He stabbed a thumb toward the back of the cell. "Home. Understand?"
The men gave no sign that they did. Abruptly, one freed his club, slamming it down on Collins' fingers.
Pain shocked through Collins' hand, and he jerked away instinctively. "Ow, damn it! Why did you-"
The two men were laughing. They glanced at Collins, exchanged a few words, then broke into hearty chuckles again.
Collins withdrew to the back of his cell and slumped against the stone wall. He nursed his left hand in his right. Nothing seemed broken, and the pain dulled swiftly. The agony in his spirit took longer. Tears stung his eyes for the first time in more years than he could remember. Can't escape. Can't communicate. He sobbed. I'm going to die here.
Apparently having sated their curiosity, and their cruelty, the guards left. A few hours later, others replaced them. These, too, came to study their charge, the first a rangy, middle-aged man, the other a woman of about his age, twenty-three, with silky black hair and a golden tan. They also wore the standard uniform, including the swords and batons.
The thought of repeating the previous encounter repulsed Collins, yet he knew he had to try. He rose, slowly and carefully, edging toward the bars. This time, he stopped beyond reach of their weapons. "Hello," he said miserably.
The man said something to the woman, who nodded. She watched Collins' every movement through intent, blue eyes. She s
ported high cheekbones, spare lips, and a generous nose. Though not classically beautiful, she had a refinement to her movements and features symmetrical enough to make her reasonably attractive. Though slender, she had a sinewy physique that revealed strength.
It seemed a hopeless question, but Collins asked anyway. "Do you speak any English?"
They did not reply.
"Eng-lish," Collins repeated.
The guards exchanged glances. The male ran a hand through the brown-and-white stubble of his hair and shrugged. He said something in their strange language.
The woman replied, equally incomprehensibly.
"Hurt." Collins hit his left arm with his right hand. He shook his head vigorously. "No hurt." He peeled his right hand away, dropped it to his side, and patted it with his left.
The two watched his every movement.
Collins continued, "Friends." He hugged himself fondly. "Friends?"
"Frinz?" the woman repeated in a questioning tone.
The man put things together more quickly. A frown scored his features, and his crow's-feet sprang to vivid relief around his eyes. "No friends."
Encouraged by their clear attention, Collins explained again. He slapped his left arm again, then looked surprised. "Hurt." He shook his head. "No HURT." He plucked loose his right hand and patted it again, followed by a self-hug. "Friends. Yes." He bobbed his head eagerly.
The man glared. "No friends." He jabbed a finger at Collins. "No no no friends." He turned his back. "Yes, aguryo."
Clearly, the guard had understood his pantomime. And rejected it. Heaving a deep sigh, Collins slunk to the back of his cell, dropped to the floor, and buried his head. "Friends," he whispered. "Friends… yes."
Hopeless terror kept Benton Collins awake far into the night. Despair gave way to rocky acceptance, then to desperate worry. He paced the confines of his cell like a zoo tiger, afraid to try to sleep. When he went still, thoughts crowded him, horrible considerations of what his future held. Suddenly, all the things he had cursed earlier that day seemed insignificant. So his parents had chosen their lovers over their son. He was grown now, and they had a right to lives of their own. It only made sense for the other lab assistants and professors to go home over Thanksgiving, since he had nowhere to go. His student loans- only money. None of it mattered one iota if he never found his way back to Algary.
In the wee morning hours, the female guard reappeared. She stood quietly in front of Collins' cell, studying him. The lantern light kindled glimmers in her pale eyes, but she otherwise blended into the dark obscurity of the prison.
Collins stopped his pacing to look at her. With little hope, he tried one more time, touching a hand to his chest. "Ben. That's me. Ben Collins."
"Falima," she replied.
"Falima," Collins repeated. "Pretty. Is that your name?"
"Yes. My name is Falima."
He had not expected a reply; so, when he got one, it stunned him to wide-eyed silence.
"Why?" Falima added.
Collins found his tongue. "You-you do speak English," he said, holding accusation from his voice.
"English," she repeated, rolling the word in her mouth as if to taste it. "Is that what I am speaking?"
"Yes." Collins approached the bars but did not touch them. "And quite well, I might add."
"You might add?"
Knowing idioms, slang, and expressions often confused newcomers to a language, Collins amended. "Well, I did add, I guess. Do all your people speak English?"
"No." Falima considered her own answer briefly, apparently recognizing the word from their previous encounter. Her eyes narrowed, and she studied him further. "No friends." She spoke the last two words with a heavy accent that had not tainted her previous conversation.
Collins' heart rate quickened. He had finally found someone with whom he could communicate, and he seemed to be failing miserable. "Why 'no friends?' " he asked with genuine concern.
Falima pronounced each word with slow and bitter force. "You… are… evil."
"Me?" The question was startled from Collins. "Evil?"
"Yes."
"Why would you say such a thing?"
"Murderer," she hissed. "Cannibal."
Collins blinked ponderously, certain Falima had chosen the wrong word. "Cannibal? What are you talking about?" A moment later, he wished he had reacted as strongly to the claim of murder. To his knowledge, he did not have a violent bone in his body.
Apparently misunderstanding, Falima defined the word. "One who eats its own kind. Cannibal. You."
"I've never eaten a person in my life." Seeing the opportunity, he added. "And I've never killed anyone, either."
Using her thumb and middle finger, Falima pulled back her locks, black as ink, thick, and shiningly soft. They fell instantly back to the sides of her head. "You killed Joetha, Ben Collins." The blue eyes filled with ice. "Then you ate her. We found the remains in your possession, some in your very hands."
"What?" The suggestion seemed nonsense. "I didn't have-" Realization struck with the force of a speeding truck. "Are you talking about the rabbit?"
"Joetha," Falima corrected.
Stunned, Collins stuttered. "I couldn't-I mean I didn't- know…" He trailed off. It seemed impossible that he had discovered a society so tolerant of differences that its citizens considered animals on a par with humans. Why not? There are people in our world who do. He recalled incidents of loonies breaking into laboratories, murdering humans to "rescue" laboratory animals that swiftly perished in the wild. "I-I didn't know. You have to believe me."
"I have to?"
"Because it's true. In my world, animals are considered…" Collins chose his words with care. "… our charges, not… our equals."
The blue eyes narrowed, as if Falima found his explanation impossible to fathom. "What is your switch-form?"
The compound word made no sense to Collins. "My what?"
"Your switch-form. Your switch-form?"
The repetition did not help. "I don't understand."
Falima spoke louder and with awkward sluggishness. "YOUR… SWITCH… -FORM."
Baffled, Collins regarded Falima blankly, then came back with the same volume and tone, "I… HAVE… NO… CLUE… WHAT… YOU'RE… TALKING… ABOUT."
Falima tilted her head. Her lips pursed, and she squinted. Clearly, she thought him a moron. "What are you when you are not a man?"
"Not a man?" Collins shook his head. "… well, I used to be a boy." He could not help adding, "My girlfriend thinks I still am."
Falima rolled her eyes. "So, you are hiding it. A carnivore of some sort, no doubt. Or a bear, maybe. They are always the ones that fall off their oaths."
Collins threw up his hands in surrender. "I honestly have no idea what you're getting at." He put the scattered details together. "Are you saying that sometimes you're something other than a woman?"
Falima's hands clamped to her hips. "You rode me here." "I did?" Collins' eyes widened at the realization. "You're… you're… a horse?" The words sounded twice as ridiculous coming from his own mouth. One of us is entirely crazy. He studied Falima more fully, now noticing the minutiae that seemed too clear for coincidence: the large blue eyes, glossy black hair, and golden skin tone. As impossible as it seemed, he believed. Once Collins' mind made that leap, worse had to follow. "Oh, my God!"
"Yes, my switch-form is a horse. What's wrong with that?" "That rabbit was… was-"
"A sweet old woman." Falima's eyes narrowed again. "And you ate her."
Collins' stomach churned. Bile climbed up his throat. "Oh, my God. My God!" Though nauseated, he felt certain he could not vomit and desperately wished he could. "Holy shit. My God. My God!" Nothing more coherent seemed possible. "I-" His voice emerged hoarser than he expected. "I… didn't know. Where I come from, people are just people. Animals are… animals. All the time. Always."
Rage rekindled in Falima's pale eyes, and she regarded Collins like some loathsome insect. "In Barakhai, you are a m
urderer and a cannibal. And you will be hanged midmorning."
Stunned dumb, Collins could only stare as Falima turned her back on him and strode swiftly beyond sight.
Chapter 3
BENTON Collins sprawled on the floor of his cell, the stone warming to his body. His eyes lay open; he felt incapable of closing them. The irregular, plank ceiling became indelibly etched on his vision: the watermark in the shape of a bottle, the knothole like an ever-staring eye, the spidery crack that emitted a steady patter of water droplets. You will be hanged midmorning. The words cycled through his mind, always in Falima's voice, a death knell he had no way to escape. "I didn't know," he said to no one. "How could I possibly know?"
Collins scraped his fingers along the damp stone in mindless circles, his back aching and his wrists throbbing with every heartbeat. This can't be happening. People changing into animals? It can't be real. He forced his eyes shut, hoping that, when he opened them, he would awaken from this nightmare. The darkness behind his lids was filled with shadows.
Beyond his control, Collins' eyes glided open to confront the same water spot, the knothole, and the crack. The water plopped steadily against stone.
Collins awakened with no realization of having slept. Only the diffuse glow illuminating the prison revealed that morning had come. Distant voices wafted to him, unintelligible and intermingled with the occasional clink of metal. He sprang to his feet, the movement inciting a sharp pain through his back and right shoulder. The hard floor had stiffened him during the night.
Four men entered Collins' field of vision. They all wore the familiar rust and gold, swords, and batons. They also carried a rope.
Terror seized every part of Collins. He flattened against the back wall of his cell.
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