by Lionel Fenn
There was something up there.
He didn't know what, but there was something up there, miles away yet still able to watch him and definitely unhappy about his being where he was.
Glorian moved more rapidly.
The sun lowered to touch the highest peak.
The birds had wheeled over the meadow and were flocking, more than a score of them, and they were silent.
A duck, he thought angrily. A goddamned duck.
But there had to be more to it than that. Nobody went through all the trouble Glorian had to find someone to help her unless this duck wasn't, maybe, a real duck after all. Perhaps it was a symbol of her people—about whom she had said nothing at all, he reminded himself—and had been taken by their enemies; or perhaps "duck" in her language means something else, except that her language seemed to be his in every respect, including the nuances of truth and honesty that make life so exciting when the nuances are lies; or perhaps it was some sort of treasure, a statue or statuette that has her people's wealth literally attached to it in the form of jewels and precious metals.
The air began to cool, and the shadows of the forest ahead began sliding toward him, darkening the grass, turning the sky indigo. The sun was red. Behind him, the dark slopes had become unpleasantly touched with what looked like running blood.
Something was up there, watching.
He shifted the straps on his shoulders and hastened his pace until he was walking beside her. She did not look at him; her gaze was directed at the trees ahead, once in a while darting upward to check on the birds, who were flying in a tight circle now, and decidedly lower. The fact that she was obviously disinclined to talk increased his ill humor, but he turned his concentration to his feet instead, noting that the meadow was considerably wider than he had previously estimated and that it was taking them much longer to reach the forest than he hoped. But then, he had always been a poor judge of critical distances, which is why he had found himself flat on his back so many times in the few games he had played—the other guys seemed farther away than they really were, and it became a fascinating point of locker room and newspaper discussions as to why Gideon Sunday always looked so surprised when he was tackled; surely the jerk knew he was about to be hit; did he think he had some sort of invisible shield around him?
The birds dropped lower, and he could hear them now, muttering cries that were rasping and clipped. As though they were talking to themselves, debating the meals they saw hurrying below them.
And Gideon, without a doubt in his mind, knew they weren't the sort of avians who dined on insects and flowers.
"Glorian," he said, panting a little as the pack gained weight and his legs grew tight.
"What?"
"Those birds."
"Not good."
"Right."
The trees were a hundred yards distant now, and the sun was below the peak. The meadow was dark, the air under the trees darker still, and only the sky still held a touch of light.
"I think," she said, and began to run.
He was a step slower in starting but soon found himself racing beside her, one part of him admiring the way she took the ground in strides that made it seem as though she were floating, the other trying not to feel the talons and beaks of the predator birds tearing into the back of his neck, the top of his skull, his face, and his eyes.
The ground leveled and they moved even faster, and faster still when a grating shriek ripped through the twilight and he knew the creatures were diving.
He looked up and back, and saw them stringing out in single file, the lead bird already plummeting toward them, the others following a roller-coaster curve.
Glorian looked at him, and he took her hand and lengthened his stride, pulling her now and tensing not only for the assault but for her stumbling. He could hear her gasping, could hear his own breath hissing, and had to shake his head to clear his vision of a blur that had settled over it like a veil.
A bird screamed.
He whirled suddenly and pulled Glorian to him, whirled again and threw her in a spin past the first row of trees, spun himself and followed, and dove for the ground behind the nearest bole. The lead bird couldn't dodge in time, and it screamed as it struck the trunk head on, shaking leaves and twigs loose and causing a split to form jaggedly around the bark.
The others pulled away, silently, not even the sound of their wings beating the air.
—|—
The ground was virtually clear of underbrush. Glorian was lying on her back at the base of a sapling, rubbing her hips and glaring at the leaves, muttering unpleasantries Gideon tried not to hear. He waited until he was sure the birds wouldn't enter the forest, then crawled over and sat beside her, keeping an eye on one large brown wing he could see on the other side of the trunk where he'd hid.
"Are you all right?"
She sat up, brushed dirt from her dress, and checked her arms and legs. "I think so, yes."
"Good. What were they?"
"Ekklers," she said, panting only slightly from her exertion. "They're kind of like vultures, only they don't wait for someone else to do their killing for them."
He pulled the straps off and let the pack fall behind him so he could use it as a pillow. "I take it they don't come in here."
"Not often, no. Only when they're really hungry."
He scanned the high foliage and nodded; there was room for them if they were desperate enough. The trees were not all that close together, and now that he was inside the forest he could see that the higher branches were not as densely packed as they appeared from a distance. Fragments of sky were still visible, and he imagined that daylight would not be much diffused. The ekklers could, in fact, follow them rather easily if their eyesight was keen and their determination high.
"How hungry are they?" he asked, nodding toward the meadow.
"Not hungry enough."
He rested a moment longer, then grunted to his feet and moved cautiously toward the meadow's edge. A check of the sky proved it clear, and he peered around his protector tree to examine the bird that had nearly taken off his head.
"Jesus," he whispered.
A dark smear ran the length of the trunk from the point of impact to the ground, and a few feathers fluttered in the breeze. Other than that, there was only the wing. He looked up quickly, thinking the creature had somehow survived and was waiting to ambush him; he knelt and without leaving the forest's rim stared at the grass, searching for a place where the ekkler might have crawled off to recuperate; he looked down at the wing again and stepped away when he saw it quiver and begin to sink into the black earth.
A closer look in spite of himself, and he realized it wasn't sinking at all, it was falling apart, into a deep grey dust that danced across the ground and was scattered in an eyeblink.
"They do that," Glorian told him when he hurried back to her and explained what he'd seen—or not seen; he wasn't sure.
"Do what?"
"They don't hang around after they're dead. They decompose right away so they can return."
He obeyed a gesture and retrieved his pack. "Return?"
"Well, not really return. You'll only find them in places like this. They're born of it, Gideon, and they come back when they can."
"From the ground."
She nodded.
"The meadow is a breeding place? Like some sort of... egg?"
"Sort of."
She would have gone on, but his expression told her he wanted time to think, and she gave it to him, taking his arm and leading him deeper into the forest as she did, following a convoluted trail he could not see himself and did not ask about. Instead, he awkwardly pulled a jacket from the pack when he felt dusk's chill and wondered how Glorian, in her dress, was able to keep warm. A look told him she wasn't, and he scowled away her protests when he draped the jacket over her shoulders.
"Where are we going?"
She pointed. "There's a place not far ahead. We should reach it before midday tomorrow."
<
br /> "And when we get there?"
"We find a couple of lorras, you get the duck, and you can go home."
"You weren't kidding about the duck, were you?"
She grinned. "No."
"You pulled me into this... place just to find a duck?"
"Well," she said, "it's not just a duck."
"A big duck? A jeweled duck? What?"
"No, a white duck."
It was indicative, he thought glumly, of the way things were going. No princesses, no treasures, no talisman that would destroy a world unless found and returned to the rightful owner. A duck. A white duck.
He sighed.
She patted his arm and smiled.
"What's a lorra?"
She shrugged. "You'll see."
"Is it going to kill me?"
"Not unless you tell it to."
He sighed again and kept silent.
The air darkened as the last of the light receded, as the wind died, as shadows sifted down from the leaves and laid a deeper chill over his shoulders. He was about to suggest finding a place to sleep when Glorian, barely visible now, stopped at a tree and stroked the smooth bole. He stared, thinking of the ekklers and wondering if these trees were about to become some sort of exotic pet. Then he saw a light, faint and tinged with blue; it was coming from the bark she had been caressing, and the more she did it the more it flowed, up and down until it formed a pulsing globe the size of his hand. She cupped it without touching it, blew on it lightly, and it broke free to float at eye level in front of her face. A nod, and she blew again, pushing it ahead until it was some twenty feet in front, where it stayed.
"Incredible," he said quietly, as if afraid his voice would startle the thing into feeling.
"We need another one." She moved to the next bole, and the globe moved away, maintaining the same distance, the same height. "Your turn."
"Can't you do it for me?"
"The lamps belong to the maker, Gideon. If we get separated, you'll need one for yourself."
"Well..." He touched the bark, and it was cold; he ran his hand along its surface, and it was colder still; a second time, and the dark green began to fade, to shift, and the more he rubbed the more the blue was drawn to the surface, colder, just shy of burning his hand. A touch from Glorian, and he let his hand drop away, shaking it to bring back its warmth while he watched the globe form. Then, following her example, he cupped it and blew on it, and the cold vanished as if snapped back into the trunk. He blinked at its brightness, blew again, and it settled some ten feet away and slightly higher than hers.
"Fascinating," he said, walking again, the illumination a narrow path from him to the lamp. "How long do they last?"
"Till sunrise."
"Ah." The weariness that had made his limbs heavy and his vision unsteady receded as he stared, trying to figure out how the things worked and deciding that if he did, he probably wouldn't understand it anyway. "And what if we want some privacy, or we don't want to be seen, or we want to sleep, or—"
She snapped her fingers, and her lamp extinguished.
"Wow."
She snapped them again and the bluelight returned, exactly where it had been, no dimmer, no brighter.
He had no idea how long he was mesmerized by the phenomenon, an hour or two, no longer, but he was soon beginning to stumble over his own feet, over shadows on the ground and he pleaded with her to stop.
"Why?"
"Sleep would be a good thing," he suggested.
"I want to get home."
"For crying out loud, don't you ever sleep?"
"Every so often."
"Well, I sleep every night, thank you," and his legs gave out. He toppled slowly, twisting so he could land on the pack, his arms and legs sprawled, a foolish smile on his face. "I feel like I'm drunk."
She stood over him, shaking her head. "You'll get over it."
"Only if I can get some sleep. A couple of hours, that's all. Then I'll be good as new."
"Oh, god," she said, sinking down beside him, "I hope not."
He would have asked her what the hell she meant by a crack like that, but as soon as he closed his eyes he could feel sleep beginning to draw up the blanket. He didn't even bother to open them again when he snapped his fingers; he just did, and it was darker. Then Glorian did the same, and there was no light at all; and when he saw the two pinpoints of red up in the branches he had no time to check for stars before he was unconscious.
CHAPTER SIX
"So it's like this," he said with maddening patience to his agent on the phone, trying to remember the guy's name and at the same time temper his growing exasperation. "I just can't come to Dallas any time soon for the tryout because I'm hunting for this duck. No, not duck hunting, hunting for a duck. There's a difference—subtle, but a difference. Yes. A duck. It's a special duck. No, not for the zoo. No, I don't know where it is. For that matter, I don't even know where I am. What do you mean? I'm not drunk. I may have been before, but I sure as hell aren't now.
"Look, it's really very simple when you take the time to think about it. I met this woman, who has a bitch of a temper, by the way, and a hell of a right cross, who was in my pantry, and I followed her after beating some really bad-news creature half to death and now I'm—"
The agent yelled.
"Now we're not going to get anywhere if you act like that," he said, shaking his head at the man's lack of trust and faith. "Just tell the manager I'll be there as soon as I can, and tell him for me that I appreciate more than he'll ever know this chance to make a living again. Hell, I'd even tote the water, but don't tell him that, for god's sake, he'll think I'm desperate.
"When? I don't know. How can I give you a date, I told you I don't know. The best I can do is tell you I'll be back soon. No, I do not know when, damnit! As soon as I find this stupid duck and find out how to get back. No, I don't have a map. No, I can't ask a cop. I don't know if there are any around here. No, I can't take a plane. As far as I know there are no planes here. No, no cars either. Look, I haven't even seen a road, for god's sake, so give me a break, okay?"
The agent yelled again.
"You really aren't cooperating, you know," he said, beginning to lose his own temper. "You may think you have a problem, but what about me, huh? I'm in the middle of literal nowhere. You think that's fun? You think I'm doing this because I want to play hard to get? How can a guy who hardly ever plays play hard to get? That doesn't make sense."
The agent screamed his name as an obscenity, and Gideon slammed the handset back into its cradle, rolled over, and punched at his pillow in hopes that the agent would get a telepathic black eye. The pillow wouldn't give. In fact, it felt as if he had punched a block of concrete.
He groaned and sat up, and rubbed his face with his hands, ran his tongue over his teeth to rid them of their cotton coating, and stretched.
And froze.
He was in the middle of a forest, a forest whose trees had dark green trunks, whose branches began far over his head, and whose foliage was sparse enough to permit him a good look at a sky so blue his eyes began to water.
"Oh hell," he muttered, and lowered his head.
Not a dream. It wasn't a dream.
No agent, no offer lucrative or otherwise, no chance for him to make another stab at a comeback. He grunted then and scratched his scalp and chest vigorously. He was, of course, kidding himself anyway. Had he been a star, he would have been able to find at least a decent backup position on a contending team; but he was, like most of his colleagues, only average, and only average players who are dragged bellowing over the age of thirty do not get asked to come back to the game and help save a team's ass in the home stretch.
In that sense, he knew the dream was very much a nightmare.
It told him things he did not want to know.
His back ached, his legs ached, his head ached, and he took his time getting to his feet, swayed a little for balance before he dropped into a fast series of deep-knee bends and toe-tou
chers in order to fool his muscles into thinking he wasn't quite dead. And when he thought he would move around without falling over, he put his hands on his hips and looked for Glorian, the first thing on his mind a bit of persuasive technique to force her, if necessary, to give him more information about this place and about what the hell he was doing here.
She was gone.
He grunted softly, rubbed a finger over his nose, and looked again.
She was still gone.
She had been standing over him when he'd dropped off, he remembered, but as he walked slowly around the area he realized he couldn't find a single sign that she had slept there. Maybe, he thought, she was modest and slept over there. Or over there. Or back here.
She hadn't.
Then he remembered the screaming, and a vague thought that the agent—which he didn't have in the first place—had a curiously high voice.
"Glorian?"
Using his backpack as a hub, he walked a hundred paces in several directions. He looked up, he checked the hard ground for footprints or marks of scuffling; he widened the radius of his search and with a hard swallow looked for blood or torn cloth; he widened it yet again and found, nearly an hour later, a small scattering of leaves and broken twigs. He tilted his head, squinting through the soft daylight at the nearest leaves, and saw a branch that had been almost stripped. And the one above it the same. Measuring the distance between it and the ground told him that unless Glorian had leaping skills she hadn't told him about, she hadn't climbed up there. On the other hand, something could have been waiting there and carried her off.
The ekklers weren't large enough.
The black beast, however, was.
"Glorian!"
But all he could hear was the sound of his voice fading and the soft call of singing birds too high for him to see.
He ran to his pack, cursing the lamented lost bat, and swung it onto his shoulders. He had no intention of staying around for whatever it was that had taken Glorian, or had chased her off, to come back and get him; and he didn't feel as if he were deserting her, either. She was gone, and he was without a weapon. The best thing for him to do was go somewhere else—keep on in the direction she had been guiding him. Maybe, when he reached the town or city or whatever, someone would be able to help him, to come back with him to find her.
