The Valley of Thunder

by Charles de Lint

  He stopped short when he reached Annabelle and her company, looking from one to the other.

  "My God," he said finally. "Do any of you speak English?"

  Fifteen

  When Clive woke the next morning, he was alone in the bed. All that remained of Keoti's presence was the indentation left by her head on her pillow.

  Looking around the room for her. he found Smythe instead, sitting at the table by the video screen, sipping tea from a white porcelain mug. He, too, was cleanshaven again, except for his bushy mustache; his hair was neatly trimmed. The remains of breakfast sat on a tray before him. At the setting across from him was another tray, covered with a metal hood.

  Clive thought about the night before and guilt arose inside him. How could he have forgotten Annabella so easily? And for what? A tumble in the hay with some woman—all right, a damnably attractive woman—that he'd only just met. It was true that Annabelle was out there—in the world beyond the Dungeon—and he was here, with little hope of seeing her again, but still....

  As he thought of Annabella. an add sensation came over him. He seemed to remember a night with her.... They were in her rooms, then went out to a party with George du Maurier—a party thrown in honor of a promotion he'd received, and for his and Annabella's engagement.

  Just a dream, of course.

  But it had gone on. He seemed to remember walking by himself, later that same night, through the slums of London, and being confronted by Annabelle again—only this time, she was in the guise of a prostitute....

  Impossible. It had to have been a dream.

  But it seemed terribly real. And, hard on the heels of those recollections, other dreamlike memories fluttered. An odd conversation... overheard in the dark.... But, as soon as he tried to concentrate upon it. it was gone.

  He sighed and sat up in the bed. Smythe looked up as he stirred and gave him a grin.

  "Busy night, then, gov'nor?" he asked.

  With an effort, Clive put away the strange feelings.

  "It's too early for me to face your cockney imitation." he told him.

  Smythe gave a quick tug at his forelock. "Sorry, gov'nor. Just trying to get along."

  Clive couldn't help but laugh at Smythe's mock self-effacement.

  "Incorrigible," he said. "That's the only term that properly describes you. Horace."

  "Right you are, gov'nor. Shall I be throwing myself in the Thames for troubling your morning? Just say the word."

  "No doubt picking my pocket as you fling yourself from the bridge?"

  "Jerusalem! The thought never crossed me mind, gov'nor. How to regain your trust?"

  "You could pour me some of that tea you're keeping to yourself."

  Swinging his legs to the floor, Clive tugged on his trousers, surprised to find them clean.

  "Washed, pressed, and mended while we slept," Smythe said, plucking at his own shirt. "Can't fault our hosts for their hospitality."

  Clive joined his companion at the table. Lifting the hood from his tray, he found a breakfast of eggs, fried strips of what must have been porten meat, biscuits, and fresh fruit staring up at him. Smythe handed him a mug of tea.

  "It's like the finest hotel back home." he said.

  Clive nodded. He took a sip of the tea and was again surprised. It had the aromatic flavor of an Indian brew.

  "Did Keoti show you how to work this?" Smythe asked, pointing at the video screen.

  "No. We were... otherwise occupied. She did describe it to me as some form of window...." Me shrugged, the terminology she'd used to describe its functions escaping him at the moment.

  "It's a marvelous machine. It can bring words up onto its screen—as a book—but it also has illustrations. Not static ones, but moving pictures that have somehow been recorded and stored inside it—somewhat in the way that our friend Guafe has described the workings of his memory, I assume."

  "And what of our companions?" Clive asked. He set aside the tea and started at his breakfast. The porten meat had a delicate texture, for all the creature's immense bulk. It was tender, without a touch of gaminess about it, having a domesticated flavor, rather than that of a wild beast. "Have you spoken to them yet today?"

  Smythe nodded. "Guafe's gone on a tour with a pair of the Dramaranins. I believe they're as interested in observing him as he is their machines. As for Finn—he won't leave his room."

  Clive's eyebrows lifted. "Why not?"

  "He now believes this level to BE the realm of the Dungeon's dead. The Dramaranians are spirits of the dead, he told me—judges measuring our worth. He's waiting for them to take him away for judgment."

  "Didn't he say something about a white stone that held dead spirits?"

  Smythe nodded. "But that's in Quan—or so he said earlier."

  Silence fell between them as they thought of the other half of their company, lost now in the jungles. Loyal Sidi. The arachnid. Shriek. And Annabelle.

  Clive set aside his fork, appetite fled. He didn't care much what happened to the Portuguese, but the others... especially his descendant....

  "We made a bad mistake letting them go off on their own," he said.

  "It wasn't our choice to make, sah. They are all thinking, rational adults with minds of their own."

  "I was responsible—"

  "For yourself, sah. You are only responsible for yourself."

  "But Annabelle. She's...."

  "A capable young lady to do you proud. I'm not so ready to write any of them off as our hosts are. We've come through some other bad times in this place and survived. I'm not prepared to give upon them until I see the bodies."

  An image flashed into Clive's head, of Annabelle torn apart by wild beasts. Or lying hurt somewhere in that jungle, her companions slain, danger closing in.

  Smythe reached across the table and touched Clive's hand. "Don't think about them," he said softly.

  "How can I help but think of them?"

  Smythe sighed. "Here." he said, turning to the video screen. "Watch how this works."

  He manipulated the controls as one of the Dramaranians had shown him and the screen suddenly flooded with images in full color. The picture on the screen gave them the impression of looking out a moving window, the view slowly panning across a windswept, frozen plain. Then, disconcertingly, as the view continued to shift, it proved to be one of the borderland between jungle and veldt, where they'd left their companions, though obviously at some other time from when they had seen it. for the veldt was a frozen waste, while the jungle retained all its tropical glory.

  There was no sound, but only because Smythe had left it turned down.

  "This machine brings to life the past." he said. "Anything that's been recorded upon it can be called up on that screen, at any time."

  The two men watched as the camera continued to pan across the scene—jungle and ice fields, side by side.

  "That doesn't seem possible." Clive said. "The vegetation should be dead—withered by that cold."

  "This is the Dungeon," Smythe reminded him. "Anything seems possible here."

  "Within reason." a new voice said.

  So entranced were they with what was on the screen that neither man had heard the door hiss open behind them. They turned now to find Keoti standing there. Today her bodysuit was a bewildering pattern of blacks and reds, a swirling design that caught the eye and led it this way and that, but never let the full pattern emerge. Her weapon was no longer in its holster, clipped to her belt.

  "But this." Clive said. "It defies the laws of nature."

  Keoti smiled. "What you see was recorded by a remote scouting unit that was sent out while we were in our Long Sleep. Apparently an invisible barrier—made of a material that we have yet to identify—comes between the jungle and the plains at that time so that the two environments do not affect each other. Curious, isn't it?"

  Both men nodded.

  "Have you come to bring us to my brother?" Clive asked.

  Keoti shook her head. "He wishes to s
ee you this afternoon. I merely came by to see how you were doing, and to ask if you would like to see more of Dramaran."

  "I don't think so." Clive replied.

  He looked from her to the screen, but neither was enough to take his mind from the fate of Annabelle and the others of her party. A tour of the city would merely aggravate his sense of loss, for he'd always be thinking. If only Annabelle were here, to share this with me.

  Damn him for not keeping their group together. He should have stood firm when the suggestion first arose, but somehow, it was all discussed and done before he'd really had a chance to think through all of its ramifications.

  "I don't feel in a very... companionable mood," he added. "I'd just make for poor company. But you go ahead, Horace."

  Keoti gave him a considering look. "You are worrying about your friends." she said with quick insight. "The ones who entered the jungle."

  "I can't forget them."

  "And so you shouldn't. But brooding does no one any good." Her brow wrinkled for a moment, then she smiled. "Come with me anyway. Clive. I know something that will help you deal with what's troubling you."

  "I'm not sure...."

  "Humor me."

  Clive sat for a long moment, then finally nodded and started to rise. As he pushed his chair back from the table, he suddenly realized that all he was wearing was his trousers. A blush crept up the back of his neck—foolish, for she'd seen him in far more revealing circumstances—but he felt awkward all the same. Crossing the room to the bed. he gathered up the bundle of his clothes and fled for the washroom.

  "Just let me get dressed." he called over his shoulder.

  Behind him. Keoti and Smythe shared a smile.

  "Will you look at this, sah." Smythe said. "A bloody gymnasium. Who'd of thought it?"

  Keoti led them to a locker room, where she took two sets of matched fencing gear from a locker—foils, gloves, masks, and metallic plastrons.

  When she presented one set to Clive, he laid everything down on a bench except for the foil. He tested its spring and balance, enjoying the feel of the handle in his hand. The tip of the blade was capped with a button.

  "Do you fence?" he asked her.

  Keoti shook her head. "I have a friend who will be meeting us—ah, there you are, Naree."

  The man who entered the locker room was lean as a whip, with expressive, mobile features. His black hair was long and tied back in a ponytail, and there was a scar under his left eye. He smiled as Keoti introduced them, giving Smythe a quick glance, then focusing all of his attention on Clive.

  "Finally, some new blood," he said as he took the other set of fencing gear from Keoti.

  His full name, they learned, was Naree Terin, and he was a biological research scientist.

  "The pleasure is all mine." Clive replied.

  Keoti and Smythe took seats on one side of the gym as the two men donned their gear. Each went through a series of warming-up exercises. When they were ready to fence. Naree attached body wires to the rear of each of their metallic plastrons. The wires were fed out of reels that sat at either end of the fencing area.

  "It's for scoring." Naree explained at Clive's puzzled look.

  He touched the tip of his foil against Clive's chest and a small bell rang on the electronic scoring apparatus that was on a table near where Keoti and Smythe were sitting. Keoti rose and cleared the counter back to zero once more. When she sat down, the two men began to fence.

  "This was kindly thought of you," Smythe remarked to her.

  She smiled. "I know what it is like to have tension build up in you—the mind knots as much as the muscles."

  "And what do you do to relax?"

  "Are you familiar with gymnastics?"

  Smythe nodded. "They can be very demanding."

  "They have to be—or what would be the challenge?"

  "Of course."

  Smythe looked back to where Clive and Naree were fencing. The whip-quick clang of the foils rang in the large room, the two figures weaving a pattern as intricate as a set dance with their feet, back and forth along the marked-out fencing area. Neither man had scored yet.

  "Naree is very good." he said.

  "As is Clive. To be honest. I hadn't thought he would do so well. Naree is the best in Dramaran."

  "But to him it's a sport, am I correct?"

  "Yes."

  Smythe smiled. "For Clive, it has been a matter of life and death—his skill being all that kept him alive."

  Keoti regarded the fencers in a new light.

  "I see," she said softly.

  There was just time for Clive to have a shower after his workout, before Keoti collected them for the meeting with Neville. Clive was in much better spirits, muscles tender and sore in spots, but the pain honestly earned. He had won the match, seven to zero, leaving Naree puzzled, and not a little in awe.

  "Now they judge us," Finnbogg said mournfully as he joined them in the corridor outside his room.

  "We're just going to meet Sir—Father Neville." Smythe reassured him. There'll be no judgments, Finn."

  Perhaps, perhaps not. Clive thought. There was still the puzzle as to how his brother had arrived here five years before them when they had entered the gateway literally within minutes of each other. And considering the traps Neville had left in their way before—if, in fact, he had been responsible for them—Clive meant to be prepared for anything.

  "Clive will see, Clive will see," Finnbogg muttered as they went down the hall to where Guafe was waiting for them. "All dead now—blue limbo was boundary between being alive and dying. And now they judge us."

  "Nonsense," Guafe told the dwarf when they reached him. "They have made some remarkable technological advances, but they are hardly deities."

  "Been having a good time, then?" Smythe asked.

  The cyborg caught the thinly veiled hostility of Smythe's tone. "It's been a pleasure dealing with other than primitive minds," he replied.

  "I think we're ready to meet my brother." Clive said before they went any further.

  They rode the elevator once more, all the way up to the floor just below the ground level of the city. Though he was prepared for the sensation of the small room's movement this time, Clive was still uncomfortable in the elevator. He doubted that he would ever be comfortable with some of the Dramaranian mechanisms, but he schooled his features to remain impassive.

  When they disembarked from the elevator, Smythe touched his arm. holding him back so that they took up the rear of the group.

  "We'd best be ready for anything," he whispered.

  Clive nodded. "I am."

  Keoti had opened a door in the corridor ahead of them, and they hurried to catch up as she ushered them in. Clive's heartbeat sped up as he went through the door.

  Now, Neville, he thought. Now, we'll find out the meaning behind all these games of yours.

  But the man behind the desk was a stranger.

  Not again, was all Clive could think as he stared at him.

  He was a rotund man with cheery features, pate shaved like a friar's, blue eyes bright and curious as he looked up to meet his guests. He wore a Dramaranian bodysuit that was stretched too tight across his stomach, giving him a somewhat comical air.

  A pleasant-enough looking fellow, but he wasn't Sir Neville Folliot. no matter how much one might attempt to stretch the imagination. If anything, he reminded Clive of that damnable Philo B. Goode. There was enough familial resemblance to make him at least Goode's brother.

  Clive and Smythe exchanged worried glances.

  Even though Clive had been expecting this—or something like it—from the moment that he had learned that his brother was in Dramaran. the fact that he'd been duped again still hit him with a hard jolt. He stood with his back straight and met the stranger's gaze—an increasingly puzzled frown. He could feel Smythe's tension. Keoti's confusion.

  "You are not my brother." Clive said.

  "Indeed. I am not," the stranger said. "But I am Father Ne
ville Folliot. And who are you, sir?"

  Sixteen

  His name was Luke Drew.

  "Call me Lukey." he told Annabelle as he sat down on the platform near where she was sitting, his blue eyes glinting merrily in the torchlight.

  The rogha treated him with a friendly familiarity, making room for him in the circle of furry bodies that were sitting cross-legged or slouched around Annabelle's party. The old man presented an incongruous picture among all those brown apes, his bony limbs protruding from the cloak of animal pelts he was wearing.

  Tarzan in his fifties, Annabelle thought with a smile. This was probably what he'd really look like—forget all the muscles.

  "Hell," the old man went on, "call me anythin' you like so long's you know some words that ain't monkey talk. Now, don't get me wrong. These monkeys are all Lukey's pals, you bet. But a soul gets tired a' listenin' to all their jabberin', you be here as long as me. I bin tryin' to teach some of 'em English, but I ain't had much luck. You get a good ol' boy like Chobba here, an' he's for learning, but most a' them can't be bothered to take the time, so mostly I'm jabberin' away in their lingo."

  "Are you a native?'' Annabelle asked.

  "Hell, no. I'm a Newfie, born an' bred. Lived an' woulda died in Freshwater. Bell Island—little place smack dab in the middle a' Conception Bay—'ccpt a blue bogey light snatched me right out of my ol' boat one night an' dumped me here. I never seen anythin' so

  spooky before—though I bin seein' things since that'd make your toes curl."

  "How long have you been here?"

  "Don't rightly know. I used ta keep track, but I kind a' lost interest. Let's see. It was just after the big war when that blue light gobbled me up...."

  "Which war?"

  Lukey blinked. "The big W.W. Two, girl. Is there any other?"

  "'Fraid so." Annabelle said.

  "Don't tell me about 'em—I don't want to know. Just tell me, the ol' Rock—Newfoundland—she's still in one piece?"

  "So far as I know."

  "Well, that's somethin'. What year was it when you got snatched?"

  "Nineteen hundred ninety-nine."

  For a long moment, Lukey didn't say anything. Then, he slowly shook his head.