Darkness & Light

by Paul B. Thompson

  Kitiara shouted and waved from the top. She skidded down the slope, coming to a halt by bumping into Sturm. He caught her arms. Panting, she smiled at him.

  "You can see a long way from up there," she gasped. "The hills go on for miles, but there are wide trails running between them."

  "You shouldn't go off on your own like that," Sturm said.

  Kitiara lost her smile and shook herself free of his grasp.

  "I can take care of myself," she said coolly.

  The gnomes flopped down where they stood. Uphill tramping had considerably dampened their ardor for the march. Against all advice, they rapidly drank up their meager water supply and were soon wishing for more.

  "If only we could find a spring," said Wingover.

  "Or if it rains, we could spread our blankets and catch the water," said Sighter. "Well, Rainspot? Might it rain?"

  The weather seer, lying flat on his back, waved one hand feebly. "I don't think it has ever rained here," he said flatly.

  "Though I wish to Reorx it would."

  At his words, a wisp of vapor, no denser than steam, abruptly formed over the exhausted gnome. The vapor expanded, thickened, and turned into a small white cloud, three feet wide. The gnomes and humans watched, speech-less, as the white cloud went murky gray. A single droplet fell on the motionless Rainspot.

  "That's not funny," he complained. Rainspot's eyes opened in time to catch the tiny shower that fell from his personal rain cloud.

  "Hydrodynamics!" he exclaimed.

  The other gnomes crowded in under the little cloud, their round, upturned faces ecstatic as the raindrops pelted them.

  Sturm came over. He swept a hand through it and it came out sopping wet. Then, as quickly and mysteriously as it had come, the cloud faded away.

  "This smacks of magic," Sturm said.

  "I didn't do anything," Rainspot insisted. "I just wished it would rain."

  "Maybe you have the power to grant wishes now," said Wingover. "Like Kitiara has gained strength."

  The gnomes took up this theory and besieged their poor colleague with a barrage of requests. Wingover wanted a rib roast. Cutwood asked for a bushel of crisp apples. Bellcrank wanted a roast pig and apples. Roperig and Fitter wanted muffins -- with raisins, of course.

  "Stop, stop!" Rainspot pleaded tearfully. He couldn't bear so many demands at once. Sturm shooed the shouting gnomes away. Only Sighter remained, staring at the weeping Rainspot.

  "If you can wish for anything, wish for a switch to repair the ship with," he said sagely. The others -- Sturm and Kitiara included -- were surprised by his wise suggestion.

  "I-I wish for a new switch to repair our engine," Rainspot said loudly.

  "Made of copper," said Cutwood.

  "Iron," muttered Bellcrank.

  "Shhh!" said Kitiara.

  Nothing happened.

  "Maybe you have to use the same formula each time," said Wingover. "How exactly did you wish for rain?"

  "I said something about Reorx." Reorx, creator of the gnomish race, was the only deity the gnomes worshiped.

  "So try again and mention Reorx," said Sighter.

  Rainspot drew himself up -- all thirty inches of him -- and declared, "I wish to Reorx that we had a copper --"

  "Iron."

  "-- switch to repair our engine with!"

  Nothing happened..

  "You're useless," said Bellcrank.

  "Worse than useless," added Cutwood.

  "Shut up!" Kitiara snapped. "He tried, didn't he?"

  "I'm sorry," the weather seer said between sniffles. "I wish it would rain again. Then everyone would be happy." Hardly had he said this than a new cloud formed over his head.

  The rain poured down on Rainspot, making a puddle in the red dirt of Lunitari. It seemed insulting somehow, as if Reorx were teasing the gnome. Rainspot then did a rare thing: He got mad.

  "Thunder and lightning!" he cried. The cloud flasherd once, and a puny clump of thunder sounded.

  "Ha, some storm!" said Roperig.

  "It proves one thing," said Sighter. "The limits of Rainspot's power. He can make it rain. That's all."

  "Useless, useless," said Bellcrank.

  "Shut up," said Kitiara. "Rainspot's ability is very useful."

  The gnomes regarded her blankly. "We need water, don't we?"

  As usual, once the gnomes were sparked off, they embraced a new concept with exasperating enthusiasm.

  Planks were torn off the sides of the cart and pounded into the ground with Cutwood's mallet. Roperig ripped their blankets into long triangles and sewed these together, leaving a hole in the center of the resulting circle of cloth. The edges of the blanket were nailed to the upright planks. One of Fitter's canvas buckets was put under the hole in the center of the blanket.

  "Rainspot, sit in the middle and wish for rain," said Wingover. Rainspot complied, and the water was captured by the improvised funnel and led to the waiting bucket.

  Rainspot sat on the soggy blanket, soaked and bedraggled, wishing over and over for rain.

  "I wish for rain." The cloud formed and sprinkled him.

  "Wish for rain." Water ran in the bucket. The gnomes changed buckets and filled it, too. "Rain," said the sodden, tired gnome.

  Poor Rainspot didn't enjoy it at all, but he wished for plenty of water to save them from the agonies of thirst.

  "Happy to do my part," he said flatly when they finally let him off the blanket, squishing in his shoes all the way.

  "I wonder who will get it next," Wingover said as they plodded into the first gully.

  "Get what?" said Bellcrank.

  "We seem to be acquiring new powers," Sighter said. "Kitiara's strength, Rainspot's rainmaking. The rest of us may get new abilities, too."

  Sturm pondered Sighter's claim. His dream (if it was a dream) had been so vivid. Was it part of this mysterious process, too? He asked Sighter if he could think of a reason why they should be affected like this.

  "Hard to say," said the gnome. "Likely, there is something on Lunitari that has done this to them."

  "It's the air," said Bellcrank. "Some effluvium in the air."

  "Piffle! It's all due to the red rays reflecting off the ground.

  Red light always has strange effects on living creatures.

  Remember the experiments done by The-Clumsy-But-Curious-Doctor-Who-Wears-The-Tinted-Lenses-In-Frames-On-His-Face --"

  "Hush!" said Kitiara. She held up a hand. The others watched expectantly. "Do you feel it, Rainspot?" she asked.

  "Yes, ma'am. The sun's coming up."

  A brace of shooting stars raced across the heavens from west to east. The crests of the red hills glowed, and a subtle ringing sensation filled the air. They all felt it. The line of sunlight crept down the hillsides toward the shadowed ravines. As the explorers watched, the soft, spongy covering of the hills writhed. Bumps appeared in the turf. The bumps moved in an unpleasantly animal fashion, twisting and swelling under the crimson carpet. The explorers had to hop about to avoid the moving bumps. Then a single spear of pale pink poked through the turf. It grew longer and thicker, rotating in slow circles as it pushed itself toward the sunlight.

  "What is it?" breathed Fitter.

  "I think it's a plant," Cutwood replied.

  More pink spears bored through the ground and climbed on wine-colored stalks. Other bumps erupted into different types of flora. Fat, knobby puffballs sprang up and inflated themselves. Carmine sticks popped after growing straight out of the turf, and dozens of spiderlike flowers floated to the ground from their ruptured stems. Toadstools with purple spots on top and lovely rose gills underneath emerged and grew visibly as the explorers looked on. By the time the sun shone fully into the ravine, every inch of the hillsides was covered with weird, pulsating life. Only a narrow track at the bottom of the ravine, still shadowed by the surrounding hills, was clear of the speedily growing plants.

  "An instant forest," said Sighter.

  "More like an instant jungl
e," said Sturm, observing the clogged path ahead of them. He drew his sword. "We'll have to cut our way through."

  Kitiara drew her sword. "It's an insult to honest steel," she said, eyeing the garish plants with distaste, "but it has to be done." She raised her arm and slashed into the growth crowding the path on the right. With her greater strength, she had no difficulty hewing the pink spears and spidersticks cleanly off.

  Kitiara stepped back. The chopped-off parts lay on the ground, wriggling.

  The stumps oozed red sap that looked amazingly like blood. She noticed her sword was smeared with the same fluid. Holding the blade near her nose, she sniffed.

  "I've been in many battles," she said. "I know the smell of blood, whether it be human, dwarven, or goblin." She dropped the blade from her face. "This is blood!"

  The gnomes thought this was terribly interesting. They bunched together over the bleeding stumps, taking samples of the bloodsap. Bellcrank picked up the shorn length of a spiderstick. It popped, and eight white flowers burst out.

  Bellcrank yowled in pain. Each tiny flower had ejected a thorn into his face.

  "Hold still," Rainspot said. With a pair of bone tweezers, he plucked the thorns from his colleague's face.

  The gnomes filled fifteen jars and boxes with specimens of the Lunitarian plants. Sturm and Kitiara had a head-to-head talk and opted to travel a little farther. If they didn't find any ore by nightfall, they would return to the ship.

  Steeling themselves, they started hacking. The plants groaned and screamed; when severed, they bled and twitched horribly. After a mile of this, Kitiara said, "This is worse than the massacre of Valkinord Marsh!"

  "At least they don't appear to suffer long," Sturm said, but the screams and blood were wearing on him.

  The gnomes wandered through the path the humans had cut, poking and sniffing and measuring the dying plants.

  For them it was, as Cutwood said, "better than a train of gears." The trail led down a broad draw. Being well shaded from the low sun, there were fewer plants growing there, and Sturm called for a break. Kitiara borrowed a bucket from the gnomes' cart and filled it with rainwater. She dipped a soft rag in the water and wiped the sticky bloodsap Erom her blade. The sap dissolved easily. She lent Sturm the rag and he cleaned his weapon.

  "You know," she said, as he rubbed the sap off his sword hilt, "I'm no coward, and I'm certainly no delicate lady who faints at the sight of blood, but this place is disgusting! What kind of world is it where plants grow before your eyes and bleed when they're cut?"

  "How's your sword arm?" Sturm asked. "How does it feel? I noticed that you're not even breathing hard. Look at me; I'm tired, as you should be, having swung a heavy sword for more than a mile through that weird jungle!"

  "I feel fine. I feel -- strong. Want to wrestle?"

  "No, thank you," he said. "I wouldn't like to trust a broken arm to gnomish medicine."

  "I won't hurt you," she said mockingly. Kitiara's smile faded. She scraped a shallow line in the turf with her heel.

  "What are you so worried about? We're alive, aren't we?"

  "There are strange forces at work here. This new strength of yours is not normal."

  Kitiara shrugged. "Lunitari isn't my idea of paradise, but we haven't done badly so far."

  Sturm knew this was true. So why did he feel such fore-boding? He said, "Just be wary, will you, Kit? Question what comes to you -- especially what seems like a great gift."

  She laughed shortly. "You make it sound like I'm in personal danger. Are you afraid 111 fall into evil ways?"

  Sturm stood and emptied the sap-stained water from the bucket. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of." He wrung out the rag and left it to dry on a stone, then walked away to speak with Wingover.

  The empty canvas bucket sat by her boot. Where Sturm had poured out the water, the turf was dark and slick. It looked like so much blood. Kitiara wrinkled her nose and kicked the bucket away. The toe of her boot split the fabric and sent the bucket soaring over the tops of the pink and crimson foliage.

  Chapter 11

  The Crusty Pudding

  Plant

  The trail wound between the hills in no particular direction. Among the fast-growing plants, there was no way for the adventurers to identify landmarks or remember where they'd been. Sturm discovered that the path they had made grew tall again after they had passed. The explorers were virtually cut off in the living jungle.

  Sturm halted the party finally and announced that they were lost. Sighter promptly tried to find the latitude by shooting the sun with his astrolabe. Even though he stood on Sturm's shoulders, the sun was too low for him to sight correctly, and he fell over backward trying. Fitter and Rainspot picked Sighter up and dusted him off, for he'd fallen on a puffball and was coated with pink spores.

  "Useless!" Sighter said. Spores got up his nose and mouth and he coughed in fits and starts. "All I can tell you is that the sun is setting."

  "We've not had but four or five hours of daylight,"

  Wingover protested.

  "The position of Lunitari in the heavens is eccentric," the astronomer gnome explained. Rainspot tried to dab the dust from his face with a damp rag, but Sighter swatted his hands away. "The nights are very long and the days very short."

  "We haven't found any ore yet," Bellcrank said.

  "True," said Wingover, "but we haven't tried digging, either."

  "Digging?" said Roperig.

  "Digging," said Sturm firmly. "Wingover's right. Pick a spot, Bellcrank, and we'll dig to see what we can find."

  "Could we make supper first?" the tubby gnome asked.

  "My stomach's so empty!"

  "I don't suppose an hour will matter too much," said Sturm. "All right, we'll camp here, eat, then dig."

  The gnomes fell to in their cheerfully scatterbrained way.

  Roperig and Fitter unpacked the cart in a very simple way: they upended it. Fitter was buried in the mound of junk and came out with his favorite clay kettle.

  "Supper will be ready in a jiffy!" he said brightly. The other gnomes hooted derisively.

  "Beans! Beans! Beans! I'm sick of beans," Cutwood said.

  "I'm sick, sick, sick of beans, beans, beans."

  "Shut up, you dumb carpenter," said Sighter.

  "Ah-ah-ah," Kitiara warned, as Cutwood picked up a mallet and tiptoed up behind Sighter. "None of that."

  Fitter took a hatchet and chopped a plank off the side of the cart bed. Sturm saw this and said, "Have you been burning pieces of the wagon all along?"

  "Of course," said the gnome. "What else is there?"

  "Why don't you try some of the plants?" said Bellcrank.

  "They're too green," Wingover said. "They'd never burn."

  "Start a fire with the kindling you've got and lay the green plants on top. When the fire dries them out, they'll burn,"

  Kitiara said.

  Fitter and Cutwood scavenged along the trail and returned with double armfuls of chopped Lunitarian flora.

  These they dumped on the ground by the wagon. Fitter built an arch of pink spear plants over the smoky fire. Within a few minutes, a tantalizing aroma filled the air. The hungry band surrounded Fitter.

  "Fitter, my lad, I never would've believed it, but that bean pot smells just like roast pheasant!" said Wingover.

  "Your gears are slipping," said Roperig. "It smells like fresh-baked bread."

  "Roast venison," said Sturm, wrinkling his nose.

  "Sausages and gravy!" Bellcrank said, licking his lips.

  "I haven't even put the beans in yet," Fitter declared, "and it smells like raisin muffins to me."

  "It's those things," Rainspot said, pointing to the pink spears. The parts nearest the flames had darkened to a rich brown. The sap had oozed out and hardened in streaks along the stalk.

  Sighter picked up one spear by the raw end. He sniffed the cooked tip, and very gingerly bit it. Chewing, his suspicious frown inverted. "Pudding," he said with a catch in his voice.r />
  "Crusty pudding, like my mother used to make."

  The gnomes tripped over each other in a rush to try the other spears. Sturm managed to save one from the first batch. With his dagger, he sliced the roasted portion in two, stabbed a piece, and offered it to Kitiara.

  "It looks like meat," she said, then nibbled off a bit.

  "What does it taste like to you?" asked Sturm.

  "Otik's fried potatoes," she said, amazed. "With lots of salt."

  "A most unique experiment," Sighter commented. "To each of us, this plant tastes like our favorite food."

  "How can that be, if it's all the same plant?" Kitiara asked, munching vigorously.

  "My theory is it has to do with the same force that has given you your strength and Rainspot his rainmaking ability."

  "Magic?" asked Sturm.

  "Possibly. Possibly." The word seemed to make Sighter uncomfortable. "We gnomes believe that what is commonly called 'magic' is just another natural force yet to be tamed."

  The rest of the pink spears were rapidly consumed. For their size, the gnomes were hearty eaters', and finished the meal lying about the camp, holding their bellies. "What a feast!" exclaimed Bellcrank.

  "One of the finest," Roperig agreed.

  Sturm stood over them, fists on his hips. "A fine lot you are! Who's going to help dig now?"

  "Nap first," Cutwood mumbled, wiggling around to get comfortable.

  "Yes, must rest," said Rainspot. "To ensure proper diges-tion. And adequate relaxation of the muscles." Soon the little clearing rattled with the high-pitched snores of seven sets of lungs.

  The sun sank rapidly below the hill. When the light diminished to a deep amber glow, the tangle of plants began to wither. Almost as quickly as they had sprouted with the morning sun, they now shriveled. Spear tips dried and fell off. The spider flowers curled up and bored into the soil.

  The puffballs deflated. The toadstools crumbled into powder. By the time the stars came out, nothing remained above the ground but a fresh layer of red flakes.

  Kitiara said, "I think' I'll stand watch for a while. Get some sleep, why don't you, then you can relieve me later."

  "Good idea," he said. Sturm was suddenly aware of how very tired he was. Constant wonders had dulled his senses, and hacking through the daylight jungle had worn him out.