John Bowman's Cave

by Erron Adams

  “Careful, Bowman, remember your position. As to me, let's just say I land on my feet; something you should learn. I could teach you. The only thing you have to know about me is I'm here to help you. Trust me, Johnny boy, just say the word 'Yes' once, to what I have to propose, and all your troubles are over!”

  “I'm not doing so bad on my own, thanks.”

  Keemon laughed, scanning the tied man head to toe. He prodded Bowman’s stomach with the gun. “Really? That’s got to be the biggest statement I've heard in a long time!”

  Smarting, Bowman changed the subject. “So how do you figure I can go back?”

  Keemon stopped laughing. “Remember the state we found you in - the Rory clothes, the strange story you told us - you can't have forgotten?”

  Yes, Bowman remembered. In the short time they’d allowed him to talk after the arrest, he'd tried to explain, wincing at the craziness of the story as he told it. Back then, back there, the cops had simply counted him as crazy.

  But Keemon had since travelled in this world, and he seemed intent to prosper from his prior knowledge. He waved the gun barrel under Bowman's nose.

  “Yessir, you're worth a lot to me, my friend. You see - knowing how to land on my feet, as I say - the first lot I met up with here were Kasina. Fitting really, they're kind of the cops in this world, and your lot - the Rory - they're the outlaws in that mountain hideout.”

  As Keemon talked, his study of the Rory and their lands became clear. But he can’t have landed in Animarl, at least not in The Origins like me, thought Bowman, he said he’d met the Kasina first. According to the Rory, Kasina never ranged that far North. Bowman wondered how much Keemon knew about Animarl and its people. Nothing, hopefully. He held his tongue and let the cop ramble.

  “Now the Kasina have it pretty much figured out: almost every Outlander's a retard, so kill 'em all, on sight.” Keemon laughed shortly. “I tell you, I had to talk fast to stay alive.”

  He wandered over to the spit. Bending low, he sniffed the roasting rabbit.

  “Smells good! Hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  But Keemon seemed more interested in his story than in eating. He held one finger up like a politician at a rally and strode back to Bowman.

  “When they heard me talk, it bought me time,” he said. “It didn't take long to realize they were interested in an Outlander who could go back. And bring some of this firepower here.” He waved the gun again.

  “How the hell did you bring a gun along, anyway? Everything metal melted with me.”

  “This may be a new world Bowman, but some things never change. We all have our talents, even here. Yours appears to be opening the gate between the worlds. Mine’s bringing what I want through. That’s what I do, see: get what I want. Think about it. Together we could make a great team. If you’re smart enough to grasp the situation.”

  Keemon ambled to the fire and broke pieces off the rabbit. He came back to Bowman.

  “See, this Outlander the Kasina want must be able to shuttle between the worlds at will. I told them I could, and since I seemed different to other Outlanders - a cut above, you might say - they gave me a chance. I really had to talk fast when it turned out I couldn’t. Around the same time, word came about another healthy Outlander who’d just arrived – these Kasina are great, spies everywhere! Well, it was just what I wanted, really. My ticket out of Kasina Nabir, which was beginning to cramp my style. 'Let me go get this Outlander,' I said. Gave them some twaddle about knowing the mind of someone from my own world better than they would. Anyway, they bought it, which took us after that slut your mad Rory pals damn near got killed over!

  “Caylen?”

  Keemon seemed distracted. “Yeah, Yeah, that one. What a goddam waste of time that was.”

  Bowman frowned. Keemon had talked a lot, but there were still bits of the picture missing.

  “Where did you get that gun? I thought you left it at Grealding.”

  Keemon smirked and gave a small, bitter laugh. “Left it?” He slid the gun inside his boot. “It's my spare.”

  He freed one of Bowman's arms and handed him a joint of rabbit, then sauntered back to eat his own meal by the fire.

  “Don't I get to dine with you?”

  “No, I fancy you tied up there. Always did take you for a tree hugger.”

  They ate in silence a few minutes. Finally, Bowman said, “So, why the attack on Grealding?”

  “Word reached us from Kasina Nabir. Emrel's Oracle had traced the new Outlander to the camps of the Rory. I thought it was just that viperous bitch Caylen again, but the spies said it was a man. Anyway, you don't question the Queen's orders, so off we went again. Then I saw you at the Mirror Guard and it all fell into place. I remembered how I got here. More importantly, who got me here. It was easy enough to put two and two together and come up with you.”

  “Alright Keemon, you're free of the Kasina now. Why not just lam it and stay out of their way?”

  The cop sat back and looked over at Bowman. “You ask too many questions, Convict. But, I guess you'll need to know soon anyway.” He pulled his gun out again. “I need more of these, if I'm to achieve certain objectives here in this world. And ammo. I'm nearly out. I can't go back; you can. You're my ticket between the worlds, Bowman. And as long as you are, you live.”

  “But why here? Why not just go back home and stay?”

  “I like it here; I can be something here. Especially with the right firepower.” Keemon tapped the gun again. “Back there, I was just a shitkicker!” He looked up at Bowman and laughed. “Now you, my mule-for-the-journey-between-the-worlds, are the shit that gets kicked in both. And don't forget it.”

  ***

  With only coals of sunrock to light their way, Roop, Lowery and Oyen ran as fast as the narrow track allowed. When shots rang out, they almost tumbled over one another in their heightened haste.

  The near rout before the Mirror Guard had educated them to the power of such weaponry, and the echoing gunfire brought back the scene in vivid detail.

  When they arrived at the little fire in the glade and found the three lifeless bodies, they shouted for Bowman with mounting dread. But the immediate area was empty of living things, and they went on to the spot where he and Roop had stopped to talk. Their hearts sank on finding it similarly deserted.

  They agreed to stay the night in that place, taking up their search again at first light, and hoping Bowman would find his own way back beforehand.

  So they sat in a sullen triangle and strained the night sounds through a net of hope. A light rain began to fall, furring the edges of every noise, soaking clothes and spirits as it washed away the tracks they'd hoped to search by in the light of day.

  ***

  A slight sound woke Bowman. His arms had been re-tied behind the tree. His shoulders ached from jutting forward, and his neck was stiff. The bindings cut circulation, making his arms long socks of tingling numbness.

  Keemon dozed by the dwindling fire, his back against a tree, gun in his lap. In the flickering light it was impossible to tell how watchful he remained, his downcast eyes could easily have been focussed on Bowman.

  But something was definitely moving behind Bowman, trying to free him, fiddling with the ties that stubbornly held. He flipped through the faces of Yalnita's Pack, guessing which of them had come. Why hadn't they simply fallen on Keemon first? Surely they could see he was alone? Why the surreptitious approach?

  He got the answer when the Migril's face appeared in his peripheral vision and a hand clamped over his mouth. “Not a single word, my friend!” the creature whispered, and held a flint knife under Bowman's eyes for emphasis. Then he vanished, and the unpicking recommenced.

  The Migril displayed surprising dexterity with its stubby fingers, and soon the ropes pooled around Bowman's feet. Keemon hadn't stirred. Bowman quietly stepped out of the slack loops and followed the beckoning Migril.

  They entered a tunnel worn into the undergrowth by forest animals. Bowman ha
d to stoop low, and it slowed them, but he estimated they came out on the Dragon Path a little short of an hour later. If he was right, the shortcut had put useful time between them and the cop. The night was not quite totally dark, and Bowman's eyes, away from the campfire’s glare, had adjusted. He could comfortably make out the close terrain.

  As he straightened and stretched his spine, the creature turned to him. It pursed its lips and cast an appraising eye up and down, and then its mouth broke open in a beaming smile that would have been childlike, if not for the broken teeth.

  “I am the Migril, Cenemis, at your service.”

  Bowman opened his mouth, but competing questions froze it there. The Migril looked at him and frowned, then turned to gesture up the path. “Now go, before your captor wakes.”

  “Wait, not so fast,” Bowman finally said. “Why did you free me?”

  “It was necessary.”

  “In that case, why didn't you just kill the one who held me captive. It would have been safer.”

  Cenemis was horrified. “It's not a Migril's place to kill, John Bowman.”

  “You know my name?”

  It hopped about from one foot to the other and said gleefully, “I know everything you know, and when you move away someplace to learn more, I'll know that too. I’m at the centre of everything!”

  It was too much for Bowman, who muttered something unintelligible. He shook his head. “Impossible!” he finally said. His confusion cleared a moment as he came back at the Migril. “But why didn't you at least take his gun? It's metal, you know.”

  “Ugh! Foul thing, not of this place, not even this world. It poisons the Dragon by its presence! I would never handle such a thing. Better he takes it away himself.”

  They heard footsteps coming. “Now go! And take the foulness with you!”

  Bowman looked back to identify their pursuer, but it was as yet too far off, and when he turned back, the Migril had gone.

  He struck out along the Dragon Path in the direction Cenemis had indicated. A misty rain began to fall, softening the night and bejewelling the edges of leaves. Distant thunder sounded as a storm raged high above the forest.

  Bowman ran before the face of the rain front as it rolled down the Dragonspine. Up high it would be blasting out of clouds, sharp as arrows, into the upper canopy. The storeys of foliage were breaking its angry fall, so that at ground level it became a wall of susurrating gauze, following him like a dream that couldn't be outrun. He stopped and looked back for sight or sound of pursuer, but whatever lay behind was lost in the mist. Turning back towards Animarl, he could see the track clearly where moonlight broke through clouds further down the mountain range.

  When the wall of cold sleet sniffed his spine, he picked up his feet and ran clear again, not looking back until he fell exhausted into Yalnita's camp. He slumped there, hands on his knees and panting.

  “Thank God!” said Caylen. She pushed his shoulders back and scanned first his face, then the rest of him, for sign of injury.

  Before she had finished Yalnita came over. “Are you all right?”

  Bowman fought for breath to answer. “Yes,” he said. “But I'm being followed. I think it's Keemon.”

  “Keemon! You've seen him?”

  “Yes, I was his ‘guest’, you might say. But a Migril freed me.”

  He saw their astonished faces but waved away the ordeal of explanation. “Later, it's a long story.”

  “Look.” Regrais pointed over their heads to the track behind Bowman. Bowman swung and saw a little light bobbing where he'd been just minutes before. He leapt to his feet, fumbling in his quiver for a shaft.

  “Not so fast, friend.” Regrais put a hand on his shoulder. “That glow is from sunrock. It's unlikely Keemon would be toting such a light; the Kasina use oil lamps.” Even as he spoke a second sunrock ember blinked in the blackness, then a third.

  Yalnita came alongside Bowman and pushed his arrow into back its quiver. “I sent Oyen and Lowery back with Roop, to find you,” she said.

  They heard Lowery cursing as he tripped, and the exclamations of the other two on sighting the campfire. Yalnita shook her head. “What a sorry lot of scouts they make,” she said.

  When they stumbled into camp they crashed into a pane of guilt and shock before Bowman.

  Roop’s face paled. “You! Are you all right?” he said. Oyen and Lowery stood frozen.

  Bowman couldn't resist. He spoke dead –voiced out of a blank face. “I am the spirit of John Bowman, returned to plague you for your failure.”

  They shrank like three boys in a haunted house. Peering through the windows of that house, the stony faces of Bowman and the others trembled under the effort of concealment, eventually fissuring in the first phase of a grin. Finally, mischief burst into rolling group laughter.

  Roop got it straight away and protested. “Oh, this is too unfair!” he said. But he couldn't hold out long before he too caught the contagion, leaning against a sapling as his body rocked.

  Oyen’s appraisal was similarly swift, and he hugged John Bowman with the care a bumbling boy is taught to treat a fragile toy. He laughed and wept and slobbered Bowman's cheek, then swept away the mess he'd made and said, “Ahh, Rabbit Slayer, how good it is to have you back!”

  Only Lowery remained unsure, coming forward to pluck tentatively at Bowman's sleeve, and thus emboldened, squeeze an arm through its fabric. Satisfied at last of the figure's fleshiness, his face broke in a smile and he nodded rapidly as he slapped Bowman off balance with spirited shoulder clapping.

  “You mightn't be calling him Rabbit Slayer after tomorrow, Oyen,” said Rain Dog.

  But Yalnita scotched the idea. “No Rain Dog, hunting’s out, for now. I'm afraid we'll have to live on dry food until we reach Animarl. John Bowman says he’s seen Keemon. We can't be too far from trouble.”

  The three late arrivals turned to Bowman. Before they could launch into questions that Yalnita and the others obviously shared, he decided to explain. “Keemon caught up with me back there.” He nodded along the track. “He wanted to do a deal: I help him go back to our old world; he keeps me alive in this one.”

  “As I thought,” said Caylen. “What answer did you give him?”

  “No, obviously! But it didn’t matter; he had me tied to a tree at the time. I was in no position to bargain.”

  Caylen screwed her face up. “How could you let him capture you?”

  “Oh shut up, Caylen!” said Yalnita. “You’re a one to talk about getting caught! At least John Bowman didn’t need to be rescued.”

  Caylen blanched and looked away. It was Bowman who saved her further embarrassment, when he reminded Yalnita he’d been freed by a Migril. “He said his name was Cenemis. Do any of you know him?” Bowman said.

  The Pack laughed as one. “Not likely,” said Oyen. “Migrils never speak to the Rory. They hate us for carrying metal on the Dragonspine. Mind you, they’re no danger to us. Gentle souls, generally. Isn’t that right, Roop?”

  Roop scowled and didn’t answer.

  “But, how did we miss you?” said Roop.

  “We probably passed each other. Cenemis took me through some sort of tunnel in the undergrowth beside the path. It was a shortcut, I suppose. More importantly, it got me off the path, so Keemon couldn’t track me when he found out I was gone.”

  Regrais nodded, understanding. “Yes, well, as to Keemon, he had no trouble avoiding our little search party, and with the noise they make, it’s no mystery how he did it!”

  Roop grunted. “That might explain our not catching him, but why didn't he attack us?” he said.

  Bowman thought a moment. “He told me he was low on ammunition - the little bolts his gun fires. Besides, he's a shrewd man, he'd want to know what you're up to first. Then he'd kill you, if he wanted, I have no doubt of that.” The bitter memory of the Malforms' execution played in Bowman’s mind.

  “Whatever the reason, he's out there, and probably knows we're here,” said Yalnita. “Luc
kily, dawn is close. The sooner we start for Animarl the better. For now, let’s eat. Caylen, since you fancy yourself a match for Keemon, you can go first guard.”

  ***

  They rose just before the sun. As they entered the foothills of the Dragonspine, the forest petered out and the path turned grassy.

  Everywhere about them, small creatures of the night scampered for last scraps of food. A few deer bounded away on the higher slopes, and Rain Dog's eyes shone when they passed within arrow shot of an unseen but hugely heard, grunting boar.

  In the last moments of night's loosening grip they stopped and looked back at the Dragonspine. Its treeless upper reaches flashed where the gilded underbelly of foredawn clouds mirrored the sunglow down.

  The same sunlight that touched fire on the peaks of the mountain range burnt into every valley; soon the Pack themselves walked in the birth of a new day. In the growing light and thinning vegetation their visibility grew. As it did their guard relaxed and they fanned out, talking as they went. Oyen produced a wineskin and looked questioningly at Yalnita. She nodded.

  When it came Bowman’s turn to drink, he stopped a little ahead of the others and turned to them. Before he put the skin’s mouth to his own lips, he raised a toast. “To whatever it is we've lost, to Reunion, to our path Home.”

  The Rory looked longingly back towards Grealding, but Bowman focused in the opposite direction, to the valley that marked his entrance to this world: Animarl.

  Caylen walked over and smiled up at him. For a moment it looked to Bowman as if she would take his hand, but if that was her intention, she decided against it. Instead, she turned to the members of her adoptive tribe and said, "C'mon, no time for moping." The Rory broke from their reverie, and together the group of exiles headed for the cave entrance to the Falling Path that would take them into Animarl.

  ***

  Chapter 17

  A Trap Set

  Sounds of other human activity pulled the Pack up sharply just short of the Falling Path exit. Swords clashed in mock combat, men shouted orders, horses thrashed and snorted as they forded the river.