Nick had to admit that even he had the kind of doubts that half made him want to run away. Not, of course, that he had anywhere to go.
“When Raven tells you a thing,” the bird informed Bobby, “there is no need to worry. And when the Oomgosh tells you something”— Raven paused before continuing—“well, he certainly means well.” He cawed to his assembled audience. “Step forward, and we’ll test this wizard.”
“Test this wizard?” Bobby asked even more loudly than before, his voice squeaking with disbelief. “Can I go home now?”
“None of us can go home,” the Oomgosh advised, “until we deal with Nunn.”
“I know,” Bobby answered glumly. “I just had to say something.”
Todd had turned around to look at the others. For the first time, Nick could see uncertainty in Todd’s face, too. Bobby’s outburst had brought out every fear all four of them had been so carefully hiding.
“Why do we wait?” the Oomgosh asked, as if he was oblivious to the feelings of the four visitors. Raven flapped his wings and flew up toward the glowering mass of cloud above.
Jason was the first to step forward. He didn’t look at any of the others, but kept his face pointed toward their goal. “Let’s go,” was all he said.
“I see why Nunn prizes you so highly,” Raven called from above. “Any of you could be what he is looking for.”
“Come.” The Oomgosh urged the other three forward. “We have no time to dawdle.”
“Raven leads the way!” the bird called down from up above. “But Raven stays close!”
The others moved, urged along by the great, hard hands of the green man. Nick realized that he and the other humans were clearly outmatched. Disagreeing with the Oomgosh was like arguing with a force of nature.
“We go forward,” the Oomgosh remarked. “Into the forest.” Shafts of searing white slashed into trees on either side of them, as if the lightning had been waiting for them to move. Limbs exploded from the trees to fall into the forest beyond.
“Whoa!” Bobby called. “Should we really be listening to a bird?” The black bird dropped even lower in the sky.
“I believe it is time for Raven to come closer still,” the bird announced. “Perhaps one of you fine young men would be honored to have Raven perch upon his shoulder?”
Nick found the large black bird flying straight toward him. “This is not a privilege that I bestow lightly,” Raven remarked as he settled down on Nick’s rain-soaked T-shirt. “Your shoulder should consider this a rare distinction.”
Nick didn’t feel as if he or his shoulder had a choice in this. Raven’s claws clamped down on his shoulder blade. Raven was not light. Still, the bird seemed careful not to dig his claws into Nick’s flesh.
Another bolt of lightning flashed before them, so close and so bright that Nick couldn’t see for an instant.
“Step away!” the Oomgosh cried. “Quickly!”
Raven squawked. Nick felt the green man’s hard fingers grab his free shoulder and pull him back. He blinked as he saw something falling toward them from overhead. A great tree branch, as thick around as the Oomgosh’s chest, fell less than a foot in front of them.
The green man stared down at the severed limb of the tree. “This is another injury that Nunn will pay for.” When the Oomgosh didn’t smile, his face looked frightening, like an angry mask carved from wood.
The others didn’t speak for a minute.
“Maybe,” Todd said for all of them, “Nunn wants to kill us, after all.”
“At the moment,” Raven answered drily, “I believe the magician has had a change of mind.”
The rain stopped as the bird spoke, and the clouds broke apart to show the sun. The storm had ceased as quickly as it had come. It seemed that the last falling limb was too close even for the mysterious Nunn.
“This,” Bobby remarked, “is just too weird.”
“It is time to see Obar,” was the green man’s reply. “Before Nunn gets other ideas,” Raven agreed.
So they marched again, returning to the forest. Nick wondered who Obar was; but they were all so shaken that none of them, not even Todd, chose to ask their guides.
In the space of a dozen steps, the clearing sky was lost beneath the thick greenery. Once truly into these woods, Nick thought, they wouldn’t know whether the sun was shining or Nunn was hatching the storm of all storms. Here, on the forest floor, it always seemed to be twilight.
Nick sloshed after the others. The perpetual gloom they walked through did nothing to help dry his clothes. Raven fluttered his wings but remained on Nick’s shoulder. Now that he had found a form of free transportation, the large bird seemed to expect to ride forever more.
The Oomgosh held up his hand for the party to stop. In the sudden silence, Nick heard a rustling in the trees above. At first, he thought it might be the wind, back now that the unnatural storm had passed.
But when he looked up, he noticed that not all the branches above were moving. Only certain leaves shook on certain trees, shifting in lines over their heads. Something was moving with them up there, tracking their movements as it crept from branch to branch, always just out of sight. Nick suddenly thought of a great, undulating serpent crawling from tree to tree.
Nick looked at the others. Raven and the Oomgosh didn’t seem at all concerned. Surely, they’d be aware of movement in the trees. Todd was too far ahead to talk to without shouting. Bobby looked as if he liked every minute here less than the one before, shifting from foot to foot as their marching had stopped. Jason simply shook his head and kept on moving, his eyes always on the Oomgosh, watching his every step, walking when he walked, pausing when he stopped. Maybe, Nick thought, that sort of resignation was the best way to go.
The rustling stopped overhead as well, and there was a moment of total silence, as if the trees that surrounded them masked sound as well as light. What was up there? It might be some of those small almost-humans; like the one that the Captain had shot down. The soldier had said the things were everywhere. Why couldn’t Nick stop thinking about snakes?
“This is the way to Obar,” the green man suddenly announced. He turned right and began to march. Raven squawked and rose from Nick’s shoulder with a great flapping of wings.
Something happened with the next step Nick took. He felt what he thought was a breeze, maybe from Raven’s beating wings. But it came and went suddenly, then flashed by again, the forest growing bright, then dark again. Nick got the feeling that they were passing through something, like walls of air and light. Even though he felt no real resistance to his movements, and still saw the forest all around him, he got the oddest feeling. It was like stepping from one room to another, one very definite place to somewhere else altogether.
The Oomgosh made a short sharp cry, as if he was in pain. But then he smiled and pointed ahead.
Nick blinked. The world around them had suddenly brightened and changed. Charlie barked sharply. Everyone but the Oomgosh had stopped to stare.
“Holy shit,” Todd said.
Nick felt that Todd was talking for all of them.
Around the Circle #3:
Mary Lou at Twelve
She should have known.
Mary Lou sat on her bed and stared at the small pink flowers that papered her wall. It was no use going downstairs. Her mother didn’t want to talk to her anymore. Her mother didn’t want to have anything to do with her.
A car passed on the street below, breaking the silence. Her mother wasn’t even listening to the radio. Mary Lou couldn’t remember the last time her mother hadn’t turned on that little brown box in the kitchen, sounds of Frank Sinatra and Jack Jones wafting their way through the house. Wives must always be lovers too. Her mother would always sing along.
No one was singing now. Even the birds outside seemed to be sharing the silence.
Mary Lou had only wanted to know what happened to Susan. Was that so wrong?
Maybe it was. Over the past couple of weeks, every time Mary Lo
u had even looked at Susan, her older sister had burst into tears. Every one of Susan’s tears seemed to make her mother angrier still. People don’t act like that in this household! Susan didn’t seem to care. Susan didn’t even bother to retreat to her room. She cried in front of everybody.
What was wrong? Mary Lou was sure it had something to do with Brian. Their mother kept saying that Brian was no good for Susan. Mary Lou had thought that Brian was sort of cute, at least at first.
She remembered one night, when her parents were out and Susan was supposed to be baby-sitting. Mary Lou had been sent to bed, but she had snuck out to the top of the stairs. She stared at the two teenagers as they rolled around on the couch. Susan giggled and Brian moaned. Something was moving inside Susan’s sweater, jerking around like some small-frightened animal. It took Mary Lou a few seconds to realize it was one of Brian’s hands. Mary Lou’s mother had told her to never let a man touch you like that.
Susan threw her head back over the arm of the couch. Whatever Brian was doing was hidden by the back of the sofa, but he couldn’t have been doing anything bad. Mary Lou had never seen Susan with such a wonderful smile.
But that had happened long ago; back in the middle of last winter when all their father ever asked them about was school and their mother’s radio played for the whole house.
This morning, when Mary Lou came out of her room, she found her father moving quickly down the hall, a suitcase hefted in either hand.
“Daddy?” she called after him. “Are you going away?”
Her father looked down the stairs as he answered her. “I’m not going anywhere, honey. These are—for Susan. She has to go—” His voice stopped abruptly, as if he wasn’t sure what word should come next.
“Harold,” her mother spoke from the bottom of the stairs. She looked up at Mary Lou as if her daughter had done something wrong. “I’ll tell her later.”
Her father walked quickly to the stairs. He grunted as one of the full suitcases hit against his knee.
Susan was leaving? Why hadn’t she told Mary Lou? Susan was the one person Mary Lou could really talk to in this family. She rushed into Susan’s room, but her sister wasn’t there. It didn’t even look like Susan lived here anymore. All her stuffed animals were gone, all her papers and schoolbooks cleaned off her desk, the poster of the Monkees taken down from her wall. Mary Lou had never seen the room so neat, or so empty.
Mary Lou hurried back out to the top of the stairs. Her father had reached the foyer below. Mary Lou rushed down the stairs and past her parents, glancing in the living room and kitchen, but saw no sign of her sister.
“Mary Lou!” her mother called sharply. For once, she didn’t care.
Where would Susan be going without her, without even telling her?
She saw Susan when her father opened the front door. Her sister was standing out on the front steps, her back to the house, like she couldn’t wait to leave.
Mary Lou ran to her sister’s side, her questions coming out all in a rush. “Susan, you’re leaving? Where are you going? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mom didn’t want me talking to you,” Susan replied, still looking out to the road.
“What’s the matter? Have you done something wrong?”
“Wow.” For some reason, a smile flickered across Susan’s face. “I’m going to a place—for girls like me. Mom and Dad think it’s for the best.” She looked at her sister then. “Mary Lou, I wish you were older.” She looked back to the road. A single tear worked its way down her cheek as her mouth formed a thin, hard line. “I’m never coming back here again.”
Her mother had come out of the house then and ordered Mary Lou to her room.
But Mary Lou was too upset to go quietly. “Why?” she had demanded. “Why does Susan have to leave?”
Her mother hadn’t spoken, but had only given her that look, the one she gave when you had really done something wrong, and then turned away, as if that was all the explanation necessary.
She had been sent to her room. She had done something really bad. She should have known better than to talk back to her mother, especially when her mother was in one of her moods. What was happening to all of them? Her sister would be gone, her mother would never talk to her again. Everything was wrong. Mary Lou felt like the whole house was spinning around her, spinning and spinning until it finally tipped over and everyone and everything fell out and was lost. Lost forever.
Everything was so bad. Her mother was so angry. There must have been something she could have done. Mary Lou hated feeling like this. She would have to be extra good from now on, so nothing could ever go wrong again.
Seven
Mary Lou found herself walking toward the screams.
There was nowhere else to go. The doorway she had walked through no longer existed. There was only this stone corridor, lit with torches to either side to guide her along.
She had stepped into it now. It would only get worse, so she might as well face up to it and get it over with.
The screams stopped abruptly. Somehow the silence was worse. The heel of her penny loafer clacked against the stone floor. She stopped, afraid to make another move. She saw a doorway ahead in the left-hand wall. That must have been where the screams had come from.
Now she heard a moan, followed by a gruff voice she knew belonged to Nunn.
“Thank you for your honesty,” Nunn said in a tone that sounded both angry and tired. “Contrary to your assumptions, I did not make you Captain of my guard so you could exercise your stupidity!”
“Apparently,” a high, childlike voice added, “he decided to do that on his own initiative.” The second voice giggled.
“I was only,” a third, very hoarse voice began, “trying to act in your own—”
“Talking back again?” the high voice asked brightly. “Don’t you know that chattering only causes trouble?”
“Then I suggest that you stop chattering, too!” Nunn said more forcefully than before. “There are other ways he can be useful.” He continued in a more reasonable tone. “I told you to bring all of them. Until I see all of them, I can’t know which will be useful, and which can be discarded. Since you lost one of them, it falls on me to regain him.” He paused before adding, “Of course, that sort of reclamation takes blood.”
“Can you guess whose blood?” the high voice asked joyfully.
The Captain shouted something that Mary Lou didn’t understand. “He’s clever enough for that,” the high voice agreed.
The screams resumed. This time there was more than sound. The screams were like a physical force, shaking the floor at Mary Lou’s feet. Waves of darkness washed through the air, dimming the torchlight. The darkness did more than simply cover her; it seemed to pass-into her as well, each wave setting off a smooth electrical charge in her muscles and bones, freezing her where she stood. As long as there were screams, she couldn’t move.
The screaming stopped. Mary Lou felt dizzy. She put her arm out against the wall to keep from falling. The stone wall was warm to the touch, as though it were a living thing.
Nunn’s voice broke the silence. “Come in, my dear. After all, you’re a part of this.”
There was no doubt that he was talking to her. Mary Lou walked to the doorway.
There were only two men inside, Nunn and the Captain. The Captain sat in a chair, his hands tied behind his back. Someone had removed his shirt. For all the screaming she had heard, Mary Lou could see no blood or bruises. There was a dark circle drawn on the Captain’s chest. The soldier’s skin glistened with sweat. Mary Lou could see no sign of the child.
The Captain turned his face toward her and opened his mouth as if he might say something. Instead, he flung his head back and screamed, a scream that rose in both intensity and pitch and again froze Mary Lou. The circle on the Captain’s chest began to glow, first dully, then with increasing intensity, the intense red of burning coals. The light spread outward from his chest and writhed about to form a figure, maybe h
alf the height of a man, as if this thing had crawled out of the Captain’s insides.
“Nothing to worry about,” Nunn said in the most reassuring of tones. “It was a simple but necessary operation. We used a different knowledge than what you are used to, but that is all. The Captain is almost as good as new already.” He reached forward and touched the Captain’s shoulder. “Aren’t you?”
The Captain’s head nodded, although his eyes were still closed, awaiting the return of the pain. What would have happened to the Captain, Mary Lou wondered, if he didn’t agree?
She found her gaze drawn back to that strange red light. It moved about like a living thing, prancing around the legs of the Captain’s chair.
“But it is so good to have you here,” Nunn continued smoothly, with such good cheer that it seemed that his fondest wish was to have people stumble upon him while he was in the midst of causing other men to scream. “I haven’t really gotten to know any of the newcomers yet. I do appreciate when someone shows a little initiative.”
The bright red light seemed to lose its shape as it rose quickly to hover above the Captain’s shoulder.
“Ah,” Nunn remarked. “It seems my pet would like some attention as well.”
“You have not introduced us,” that high, childlike voice whined petulantly.
“He is not the most polite of animals,” Nunn remarked. “And his full name is quite unpronounceable.”
The Captain whimpered, as if he was dreaming. If he wasn’t conscious, Mary Lou thought, how could he have nodded his head?
“I am, however,” the child voice protested, “very useful.”
“Therefore,” Nunn continued, “let’s call this fellow Zachs, shall we?”
The red light writhed back to its animal form, and bowed. “At your service, Mary Lou.”
She imagined that she was supposed to be charmed. Instead, Mary Lou wanted to get away from that thing and its master, and whatever they had done to the Captain. Still, where could she go? She tried to smile, and wondered if everyone and everything in this place was going to know her name.
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 7
