Daughter of Danger

by John C. Wright

  She was close enough to the goat-man now to strike at his long nose with the chain. He tried to parry with the haft of his trident, but the chain wrapped around it and struck him on the soft snout. Breaking a man’s nose in a fight prevents him from drawing air. She hoped this held true for goats as well.

  The echo said: If a man cannot breathe, he cannot fight.

  Before she could follow up, the goat-man struck at her with the butt of his weapon, and, moving unexpectedly fast for someone his size, he vaulted backward until his rear hoof touched the door. She blocked the blow with her knee, but his strength was such that even the partial blow had force enough to fling her, stumbling, across the room. She tripped, did a back handspring, and regained her footing but she had lost the chain, her only weapon.

  5. Goborchend

  Her gaze was on the goat-man’s monstrous form crouching by the door. She now saw how they had locked the door with no lock. One of them had inserted a metal strip between the door and the jamb, and padlocked a sliding clamp in place. She did not like the fact that they had evidently prepared this attack.

  The goat-man said, “You hurt my hounds! But you will find a Goborchend is not overcome so readily as the Laignech Faelad!”

  She was trembling with fear and rage. The other two men were now both on the ground, in convulsions. She dared not take her eyes from the goat-man, but in the corner of her eye she saw—or thought she saw—hair turning to fur and spreading over their flesh, faces stretching, writhing and changing shape, and limbs shriveling from human hands and feet into wolf paws. Both were howling, but whether this was from the pain of their wounds or the rage of their transformation, she did not know.

  She backed up. There was a lightweight chair next to her, and she felt the Venetian blinds brush her backside.

  She picked up the chair in her hands and turned sideways, crouching.

  Blindingly quick, the goat-man lunged with his three-headed spear. She parried with the chair legs, deflecting the tines high. The tines became tangled with the blinds, and he pulled the whole curtain rod off the wall when he recovered from the lunge. The three windows stood in one frame. They were old-fashioned, from the days before the invention of air conditioning, nothing more than glass panes held in wooden sashes.

  She was sweating freely now. He was taller and stronger, she was backed into a corner. There was no retreat. He was tall enough, and his trident long enough, that he could strike her anywhere in the room.

  The two others rolling on the floor now grew less agitated. The bed blocked her view of them.

  The goat-man shifted his weight and struck again.

  His forward hand, which was constantly in motion, weaving and bobbing, guided the trident, and his rear hand, arm and shoulder, gave weight to the blow. With three spear blades instead of one, he could strike three places at once. And with each twitch of his hands, he switched the trident blades from vertical to horizontal and back again.

  This time, she managed to deflect the blow to her left. The tines penetrated the glass and stuck in the wood of the frame. He roared and yanked. The whole window frame came out of the wall and fell into the room in a spray of splinters, nails, and clouds of powdery dust.

  She saw a narrow stone ledge, less than nine inches wide, flush with the lower lip of the sill.

  The only way to overcome a more skilled opponent is by doing the unexpected, something for which his reflexes are not primed to counter.

  The monster took a moment to kick the wooden debris free from the head of his trident. That moment was her only chance. Up she vaulted, and slid out the window, in one smooth and reckless move, nimbly as a gymnast.

  6. Take It Outside

  Now she was in the filmiest of gowns, shivering with fear and cold, and the wind shear tried to pluck her from the stone side of the building. The myriad lights from other skyscrapers looked down from above and up from below. She saw the winking red taillights and white headlights from motionless and honking traffic far below as well as the pallid glare of streetlamps.

  With her back to the wall, she began inching her way along the ledge toward the next window. The cold wind pried and pummeled at her. The knot of her hair came loose, and now the long black strands were whipping her face, shoulders, and neck. She spat and blinked.

  She looked back. One after another, two wolves larger than wolves should be were creeeping carefully out of the broken window and onto the ledge. Both of them wore red caps on their narrow lupine skulls, and the white owl feathers whipped in the wind. The one in the front was dragging his left hind leg as if his foot were broken. But he had three good legs still. The one in the rear was bleeding from both eyes and moved his head in a manner that blindness. But still he came on, grinning jaws agape, for his nose could guide him as well, or better, than his eyes.

  She seemed again to hear an echo in her memory: If a man cannot walk or cannot see, he cannot fight. “Wisely said,” she muttered. “But what about a wolf?”

  The cold air hissing around the sharp stone corner of the building plucked and pushed at them. Both wolves crouched down on the unsteady footing, ears flattened, and unwilling to step forward. She took the chance to shuffle quickly back. Then, she felt the next window at her hip.

  The window was dark; the room beyond was unlit. She knelt, her fingers searching frantically for some way to open the sash. But there was none on this side.

  7. Thursday

  She was drawing back her hand to strike the glass, hoping she could break it without the recoil toppling her into space, when the sash suddenly moved. The window slid smoothly up.

  The goat-faced man leaned out, grabbed her by both elbows, one in either hand, and pinned her arms behind her. His stench was overwhelming, and his strength was immense.

  She planted her feet on the sill to either side so that he could not draw her inside. She was horizontal, straining helplessly, high above a dark drop with nothing below, and the wind tossed her black hair like a banner.

  He laughed in scorn. “By Cromm Cruach, are you the willful one! Be done with your antics, missy! My hounds will dine on your fair, soft flesh!”

  She shouted, “What do you want?”

  He laughed again and spoke in his strange, gulping voice. “We are anarchists. All law we scorn and all authority defy. The trinket you took is claimed by my master, the Man called Thursday! I see the name dazes you with terror!”

  Actually, she could think of no name less frightening. She was not dazed. She was shivering because of the height, the cold, and the wind. But the goat-man seemed to be having trouble breathing, as his broken snout was beginning to swell. She kicked at his nose again, but he ducked his head, and her bare foot struck his horns.

  He shifted his grip and took both her wrists in one massive, iron-hard hand, and now he pulled at her finger. Had the ring somehow become visible? He pulled, and she screamed, but instead of breaking her finger, he fumbled, twisting the ring. She felt like she was falling. She kicked at him, and kicked again.

  Cursing, he leaned out further, and grabbed her left ankle with his free hand, folding her body in half. She felt dizzy, as if she had no weight. She was too close to use her other foot, but she was now at an angle where his horns were not in the way. She struck with her knee into his bloody nose and then did it again. He roared in pain, started to lose his grip on her sweat-slicked and slippery body, and leaned out even more. She twisted and kicked a final time, and then he toppled forward, slid across the ledge, and rolled out into nothingness.

  The wall of the building seemed almost to leap up and fly in front of her. A blur of windows rushed past. She was still in his grip. They both plunged down toward the alley below, and the rushing air screamed in their ears.

  It seemed so sad to her to know that she would die without ever learning her own name.

  8. A Passage through Night Air

  The goat-man’s eyes rolled in his head until only the whites showed. His lips, ears, and fur were flapping loosely in the wi
nd. Blood and spittle trailed up from his snout in red and yellow clouds. His grip grew lax, and he released her, as he fainted dead away from the sheer terror of their fall. Their two bodies spun away from each other.

  She did not understand why the wind dropped, becoming quiet, or why the body of the goat-man sped away from her, shooting toward the ground with the speed of a rocket. How could he be pulling ahead of her? Didn’t all bodies fall at the same rate, aside from air resistance?

  He struck the side of a skyscraper building and rebounded, and his body fell onto the flat roof of a red brick condominium below, breaking chimney pots and utility boxes and leaving wide stains like inkblots across gravel. She passed below the level of the condominium roof, and the grisly sight was gone.

  And where was the air resistance for her? It was quiet in her ears now. She found herself floating high above the street, slowly spinning. The lights below looked like candy. The great rectilinear lights of windows looming about her like canyon walls slid past with dreamlike ease, shining like a manmade Milky Way. She watched the streetlamps changing red and green.

  She passed across the street, about thirty stories up and dropping with the speed of an autumn leaf. She saw a bright marquee and a theater crowd milling beneath it, men in dark suits and women in evening dresses, like something from an earlier and more elegant era. She saw a hotdog vender kicking a stray dog. She saw a huckster playing three-card monte with a chump, a sailor probably on leave, probably drunk, while the huckster’s allies stood clustered around, pretending to be players or onlookers.

  Then, the wind carried her between two dark buildings. She saw a body in the alley, lying on a steam grating, asleep or dead. The wind in the alley blew up sharply from below and spun her end over end. Now she was lower—perhaps only fifteen stories above the ground—and beneath her was a line of loading docks, silent as a graveyard.

  At ten stories above the ground, the wind changed, and she was flung around another corner. Beneath her naked feet she saw spin by a line of shops and stores with wire mesh or iron lattices locked down over their glass fronts. A pawn shop and the Korean grocery next to it were still open, their neon signs bright. The windows of a Salvation Army outpost were lit and stood directly opposite a brightly lit magic shop whose neon-hued windows were offering palm-reading, séances, and astrological counseling.

  A portly man dressed in a tuxedo and black silk top hat, perhaps a late-night theatergoer, was stepping out of the magic shop, walking stick in one hand and cigar in the other. He looked up when she passed over, and the tip of his cigar grew red as he drew in his breath.

  At the same time, a tall young man in black with a narrow face and round eyeglasses stepped from the Salvation Army door. With him was a friar dressed as a Dominican: a white alb beneath a black hooded cloak. His hair was gray and fell to his shoulders, but his goatee beard was black. He and the youth stepped into the circle of light cast by a nearby streetlamp. The Blackfriar cast no shadow. The youth looked up and pointed in surprise when she drifted past overhead. The Blackfriar raised his hand and placed it over the youth’s eyes.

  The wind carried her to the next block. She wondered who those people were.

  She noticed her flimsy gown had been badly torn in the fight. At five stories above the ground, she put out her hand and caught a passing flagpole. There was no one around, not at this elevation at night, to see her; she tore off the gown and tossed it away. Some owner who had not been a Boy Scout when he was young had left the flag flying on the pole at night. She floated there a moment, flung a leg about the flagpole, and unclipped the colors from the line. She wrapped the flag around her like a shower blanket and tucked it in. It was large enough to cover her from armpit to upper thigh.

  Feeling more modestly dressed, she gathered her wild hair at her neck with one hand and held the flag shut at her bosom with the other. She put her knees together in a kneeling position and launched herself from the flagpole into space.

  Down the darkened street she sailed. All the windows below were dark and all doors locked, except in one spot. Here a flashing sign reading COBBLER’S CLUB hung above a wide door, guarded by two burly bouncers, from which the flashing lights and roaring music poured amidst the fumes of heat and alcohol. Tough-looking young men and scantily clad women were gathered before the doors. She waved, but no one in line saw her.

  The club slid past her like the ruins of a sunken city seen beneath the prow of a dark ship that sails by night.

  It was dark underfoot. She made a smooth landing. Her bare feet slapped on the cold concrete.

  She was once more on the earth, somewhere in an American city, wrapped in a red, white, and blue flag, without shoes, stockings, or undergarments, with no passport, no money, no friends, and no memory.

  9. No Voice Commands

  She saw a scraggly tree growing in a small circle of concrete next to a small park hemmed in by a fence of iron spears. Green buds were present, and a few early leaves had opened on the lower branches, but the crown of the tree was still but a cluster of dry and naked winter twigs.

  Turning, she saw her reflection in a storefront window. The ring glinted a light gray, the hue of pewter on her finger of the hand she held at her breast. When she released her other hand, her hair floated upward like the hair of a pearl diver.

  The intaglio was no longer a skull, but a fair woman’s face. Her eyes were half-closed as if drowsy, and the sculptured hairs stood up as if weightless.

  She twisted the ring once around her finger. The metal face flexed and changed, and the hue of the metal changed. Now, it was as white as burnished silver. The metal hair retracted and now lay flat to the sculpted mask’s scalp, and the little metal face opened its eyes wide. The expression was wakeful, watchful, and tranquil.

  The eerie sensation which earlier had been crawling along her spine, the sensation of hateful eyes in the darkness peering at her, was now entirely gone. She had not noticed the exact moment when the feeling had fled.

  Curious, she twisted the ring once more clockwise. The little face changed again and became the face of an angel. The metal changed from silver white to an argent hue of some celestial metal. A light as bright and clear as the reflection from a diamond began to shine from the ring.

  Alarmed, she twisted the ring counterclockwise. It was silver again and a woman’s face.

  “Hello?” she said to the woman’s face in the intaglio of the ring. “I don’t remember my name or what happened to me. Can you help me? Are you a magic ring?”

  The face did not change expression or utter any reply.

  “Do you have a help feature? An instruction manual? Phones can react to voice commands. Are you not even as good as a phone?”

  The face remained serene and blank despite this criticism, but it still did not reply.

  She sighed. “How did I know that about phones? Did I have a phone? Who did I call?”

  She asked the same question in Japanese and then in French, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin, and Greek. She put her hands to her lips, suddenly startled. “How do I know that many languages? For that matter, how do I know that not everyone knows that many languages?”

  She twisted the ring counterclockwise. She noticed it was sensitive to half and quarter turns. The face changed slowly to a half-sleeping expression as the ring darkened toward gray hue of pewter. The intaglio changed according to how far it was turned, with the eyes growing more shut and the metal growing darker as she twisted it toward her palm and then facing outward again.

  The floating sensation came over her, and her toes left the concrete. Neither by speaking, nor flapping her arms, nor kicking her legs, could she fly, but in a weightless state, it was just as easy to kick off the ground and to float to the top of a lamppost as it was to hook an ankle around the lamppost and to use it as a starting block to float back down. She found she could kick herself and swan dive for hundreds of yards before the air resistance slowed her. She also bumped herself badly trying to stop. The rule
s of inertia and momentum still applied. It was just the law of gravity that was taking a nap.

  She put her hand through the handle of a trashcan and tried to will it into weightlessness with her. No good. Apparently, it was only herself, and any flag she happened to be wearing, that could slip free of gravity’s grasp.

  She went back to the storefront window and held up her hand. The reflection and what she saw with her eye matched up. She twisted the ring two full turns to what she now thought of as the flashlight setting. The brightness in the reflection was much, much stronger than the light she saw with her eye.

  She quickly twisted it back to silver, which seemed to be a neutral setting. Then, she twisted it once more to pewter. She became weightless. The face was half asleep. Again she twisted, one full turn counterclockwise. The woman was fully asleep, and the ring was dark gray like cast iron, almost black.

  She looked down. In the circle of light from the lamppost, she cast no shadow. The light was passing through her as if she were a ghost.

  Darkness began seeping out of the ring, crawling up and down her hand.

  10. No Unseen Eyes

  She screamed and yanked at the ring yet again, ignoring the pain in her knuckle. To her surprise, it slid off her finger.

  The shadow reappeared under her feet.

  The black iron ring now rested in her left palm, and it grew clearer than glass and vanished from her sight. She could still feel the cold circle on her palm, however.

  She held it up to her nose. It was giving off the smell of blood again, but nowhere nearly as strongly as the stench the ring have given off when she had first seen it.

  In the reflection in the store window, she could clearly see the dark gray ring in her hand, with its image of a sleeping woman.