Memory

Chapter 13

By dawn I had recovered enough volition to throw up when Liam tried to get some water down my throat. My thoughts fixed on Mica Indevar and they were wicked thoughts indeed.

But soon after that I got my fingers to twitch and my eyes to blink on command. Then, instead of the pleasure of feeling nothing, I endured a horrible prickly return of sensation as when the leg has fallen asleep, but it was everywhere and lasted a solid hour at least. I’m ashamed to say the first sound I uttered (and the only sound for some long time) was an agonized moan.

At last though, the torment faded. I gained some control of my muscles, especially of my tongue and throat—though I had no control at all of what I said. I began to babble, to confess. Anything and everything I had never told to Liam before poured forth: the story of how I had taken my father’s rifle when I was eleven and still forbidden to use it, and how I had killed a deer then left the carcass in the forest because I was too frightened to admit what I had done; and the time I had convinced Rizal it would be a good idea to sneak a ride on the rear bumper of a truck leaving Temple Huacho, except Rizal was afraid to jump off so we went too far and it was long past dark by the time we managed to walk home and lucky for us there was no silver that night; and the time Jolly and I had climbed down the kobold well; and how I would fantasize that Liam was my lover after all.

After that confession he left me to recover on my own, and Udondi was too wise to come anywhere near me, so I had only Moki to babble my secrets to, but he already knew them all.

I have no doubt that if Mica Indevar had managed to climb the Kalang escarpment that morning, I would have happily confessed everything I knew about where to find my brother Jolly.

By noon I had mostly returned to myself. I could stand, though my legs trembled. And I could hold my tongue, which is a skill we should not take for granted. I was working my way through a sweetened oat bar when Liam ruefully informed me that the worm had escaped.

I was incredulous. “You let it get away?” Liam was an excellent shot; it had not occurred to me the worm might have escaped him.

“Not by choice. It was fast. Cunning.”

“But you had Moki. You had the rifle.”

“We hit it twice,” Udondi said. “It broke into segments, and then re-formed.”

I looked wide-eyed at the lanes of moss-covered ground between the giant trees. “So it’s still out there.”

“And whoever sent it could be on their way here as we speak,” Udondi said. “We need to move on.”

“But I saw how fast it moved. We can’t outrun it.”

As a mechanic, the worm would be powered by the same tiny battery chips that powered our bikes, which could run for months. If they were smarter, I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before mechanics owned the world, but fortunately they have no passion for their own existences. Their only interest is the task they are given—and this worm had apparently been charged with stopping our flight, and holding us, until its master could catch up. If we left now it would certainly follow us, and give away our position once again.

Udondi shrugged. “Of course you’re right, the worm will find us again, but…” She pulled a vial from her chest pocket. “The next time it shows itself we’ll have it… and we’ll still be far ahead of whoever sent it.”

A half-dozen dormant kobolds filled the little vial. They were silver, and no bigger than the smallest housefly. “Metallophores?” I asked.

Udondi nodded. “Can you ride?”

I didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure I could stay on my bike, but if someone was following the worm’s track up the escarpment, I did not want to be caught sitting here when they came over the top. So I forced myself up. Liam had already packed my sleeping bag and my savant, so there was nothing left to do but get on the bike, and lift Moki into his bin. That was when I remembered the second mechanic I’d seen in the night.

The memory was remarkably clear, but Liam gave me a funny look when I described what I had seen. “I was not hallucinating!” I insisted. He shrugged.

Udondi was more willing to believe me. She eyed the forest thoughtfully. “Kalang’s trees, huh? They do look rather nicely tended.”

So they did. I had been too tired yesterday to notice, and too sick to see it in the morning, but the trees were all straight-backed giants without dead limbs or wounds or gnarls. They looked as if they’d been carefully pruned and tended for what must be the hundreds of years they had been alive.

Udondi said, “Personally, I think I’ll leave the trees unharmed and forgo any fires until we leave the Crescent. What do you say, Liam?”

What could Liam say? He nodded, and took the lead.

The moss that carpeted the forest floor was so thick and moist our bike tires hardly disturbed it; our tracks disappeared almost before we could turn around. Yesterday on the escarpment I’d expected to spend many grim days hunting a path through the forest. The reality proved suspiciously easy. The trees were planted in great lanes, with no saplings, no underbrush, and no low-hanging branches. There were no follies either; no sign at all that silver had ever been there.

Following the lanes of trees took us in a northeasterly direction: deeper into the forest and ever farther from the western escarpment. By late afternoon we had put over eighty miles behind us. We might have gone farther, but I was still very weak, and for my sake Liam called a break every half hour or so. During these times I would let Moki run free, hoping he would alert us if the worm drew near. Then I would fling myself onto the wet moss, sleeping for five minutes, sometimes ten, while Liam and Udondi kept watch.

It was during one of these rest stops that Moki discovered a mantislike mechanic, identical to the one I had seen the night before. It clung to a tree trunk, at a height of fifteen feet or so above the ground. From its perch on the rough bark it examined us, making no comment while Moki danced and barked at the base of the tree. Udondi shooed him away. Then she looked up at the mechanic, her hands on her hips. “You see?” she called. “We are not harming the trees.”

The mechanic made no response. When we continued on our way a few minutes later, it was still clinging to the tree.

Soon after we saw another, this time on the forest floor where it was busy using its clawlike appendage to snip away at tiny weeds sprouting in the moss. Moki growled at it, but I held on to his scruff so he could not give chase. These were not the mechanics we wanted him to hunt.

Late in the day the rain returned. Fat drops fell down from the distant canopy, pattering dully on the moss, while the aisles of trees were filled with drifting mists. I was overwhelmed with the certainty that this had been the pattern of life here, every day, for hundreds of years. The rain would come and the trees would grow, with no difference from one day to the next, no way to measure time passing.

Then into that stillness there burst a terrible animal scream.

I skidded my bike to a stop to listen better.

Every player is born with instinctive memories. Though I had never before heard such a horrible bellowing, I knew immediately it was the death rage of some great beast, set upon by a predator even more fierce. The hair rose on the back of my neck, while Moki cowered in his bin.

The noise came from somewhere ahead. Not far, I guessed, though nothing could be seen through the mist. The sound became higher in pitch and more frantic, waves of pain echoing through the aisles. I bowed my head and covered my ears but I could still hear it. It seemed to go on forever, though I suppose it couldn’t have been more than two minutes, maybe three before silence returned to the forest.

But nothing was the same. The aisles of trees had become sinister lines leading to a dark and unknown heart. I looked back, thinking to turn and flee perhaps, I don’t know, but Udondi was there and though she looked shaken she managed an encouraging smile. “At least that hunter found game before it could notice us.”

Liam rolled his bike back, so that we made a small circle there under the trees. “I’d like to know what it was.”

“You want to look for it?” I asked, wide-eyed.

He nodded. “It could take us two days to reach the eastern end of the Crescent. I’d rather know the hazards than not.”

I glanced back once more, but there was no sanctuary that way. Mica Indevar had overheard me speak of Jolly. He would surely have gotten word to Kaphiri by now. I stroked Moki’s back and whispered a few words to soothe him. Then I slipped my rifle out of its sheath and slung it over my shoulder.

Udondi did the same, but Liam eyed me doubtfully. “I’ll be in front,” he reminded, “so don’t shoot if your hands are shaking.”

They were shaking quite visibly. “Come. Let’s get this done.”

We came on the kill in just a few minutes. It appeared first as a mound of gleaming, scurrying metal looming in the mist. Only as we drew near did I see the great horns and hooves of a wild bull—eight feet at the shoulder in life—protruding from the mass of forest mechanics that swarmed the carcass, using their claws and blades to cut away tiny slices of meat.

Scarlet blood pooled on the moss.

The bull must have rampaged, for in places the moss was torn out down to the mud, and many trees were slashed as if by horns. A crowd of forest mechanics crouched at each of these wounds, using their feet to pat in a paste just the color of the bark. I kept my hand on Moki.

Liam said, “I think we see the reason the Kalang Crescent has not been settled. I will take your advice, Udondi, and not harm any trees.”

Beyond the dead bull (at least, I hoped it was finally dead… a death of small cuts and slashes and slow bleeding) new movement caught my eye: a fluid cable of silver metal sliding out of the mist. “It’s there!” I whispered. “The worm.”

The worm. It must have been drawn by the activity of the forest mechanics. I watched it slip toward the bull’s boiling carcass. It moved slowly, its tiny head raised an inch above the moss, and it did not look to either side. It seemed entranced, hypnotized by this mechanical frenzy, utterly unaware of us on our bikes, only a few dozen feet away.

I realized then that it must have been close to us all day, staying just out of sight—for how else could it have found the carcass so quickly?—and yet it had not once attacked us. Why not? Perhaps because it would be easier to let us escape the Kalang Crescent under our own power…?

I dropped the kickstand on my bike. Udondi turned to stare at me. “They’re waiting for us on the other side of the Crescent!” I gestured at the worm. “It’s been called off. It’s been told to follow us only.”

Panic took me. What had I said this morning when the worm’s drug had set my tongue to talking? Had I said anything more about Jolly? About where I hoped to find him? I couldn’t remember, but what if I had? “They want to use me against him!” Already wet and sick and trembling in that grim forest, I could not bear this added injury. “They think they can find him first!”

I swung off my bike. Moki leaped down to follow.

“Jubilee!” Liam said, backing his bike around. “Be calm. There’s nothing we can do here.”

“Yes there is. Give me your vial of kobolds.” He would have a stock of the metallophores too. I had not seen them, but I knew Liam.

“No. It would be too—”

I wanted no excuses. I turned from him to Udondi. I swear my intention was only to demand the kobolds, but she had come up behind me and in my weakness I stumbled against her. She reached out to catch my arms and I felt the vial in her chest pocket. In an instant I had it out and I was away, running bent over for balance, straight for the feeding frenzy, with the smell of the bull’s blood in my nostrils.

The worm was still there, on the other side of the swarming mechanics. It looked like a channel of light in the blood-soaked moss, its tiny head reared up and swaying above the forest mechanics in the attitude of one entranced by an incomparable symphony. Of me, it was utterly unaware.

I drew my hand back to throw the vial—but the moss was soft. Would the vial shatter? I hesitated, and in that moment Liam caught up with me. He grabbed my hand. I cried out in wordless fury while he shouted at me, “Stop and think what you’re doing!”

Then we were both shouting at once, while Moki danced around our feet barking like a mad thing.

“I’m going to kill the worm, Liam!”

“You’re going to kill us all.”

“Let go of me! The worm will follow us if we don’t kill it now.”

“Think what you’re doing! If you release those kobolds here they won’t just attack the worm. The forest mechanics, Jubilee! They’re made just like the worm. What will happen ifthey begin to die?”

His words got under my rage at last. What would happen? Even more of the forest mechanics would come. Hundreds had swarmed together to attack the bull. How many more might come if some of their own were dying?

The fight left me. I let Liam take the vial.

The worm had been roused by our shouting. It stared at me, its tiny eyes like blind white circles. Somehow it knew I would not dare hurt it.

“Come away,” Liam said.

The smell of the carcass and the churning and snipping of the mechanics intruded on my senses as sickening things. Even Moki was lapping at a pool of blood. I let Liam guide me backward. “We will not harm any trees,” he murmured. “Or any mechanics.” I called to Moki, and he followed, his tongue licking at the blood on his nose and chin.

The worm watched us. Listened. When we were six feet away it lowered its little head to the moss and sped off tail first into the mist almost faster than my eye could follow.

Liam was quietly furious all that afternoon—because I had been foolish, yes, but also I’m sure because he wanted to destroy the worm as much as I did and yet he had been forced to let it go. We would not get a chance like that again, and as fast as the worm could move, how could we ever escape it? I had not seen it again, but I did not doubt that it still followed.

Liam was well ahead of me, his shape on the bike only a silhouette in the mist when I saw him stop. I slowed my own bike, wary of his anger. Udondi had been following, but now she rode up beside me.

She had been silent since my escapade, but with her, as with Liam, I sensed there were words to be spoken that had only been put off for a while. “Stay close,” she said. “We need each other.”

A blush touched my damp cheeks and I hurried forward, to learn that Liam had found a path.

It was a narrow track, running at right angles to our heading. The moss had been worn away, revealing a maze of tree roots cradling scattered patches of thick mud. Pressed into the mud in several places was the watery impression of a very large boot.

Udondi looked up from where she had been crouching, examining the tracks, “Do we follow the path?” she asked. “Or do we leave this mysterious resident to himself?”

“Let’s go on,” Liam said. “I don’t want to know the player who would choose to live here.”

I felt the opposite. I wanted to know who would adopt this forest for a home, and the thought of sleeping under a roof, behind a closed door, was pleasant to me. But I was not going to argue again with Liam. So we crossed the path and went on, but we did not escape.

After half an hour our northeasterly trek was interrupted by a wall that marched across our way. It stood perhaps nine feet high, with a crown of moss on the top. Its bricks had the chalky look of condensed stone that grows by harvesting molecules from the air.

The wall ran off to right and left, wending between the trees until it disappeared in the mist. At several points its stonework had been shattered by the expanding girth of some massive trunk. But despite the strange setting, and the wall’s poor condition, I thought I recognized its purpose, for I had climbed upon a similar fortification all my life. “This is a temple wall.”

“Maybe it was a temple wall,” Liam said. “It’s a ruin now.”

“But perhaps not uninhabited?” Udondi mused.

It was late. Darkness would be falling soon. I knew Liam wanted to push on into the night, but he looked at me and saw it was no use. I was exhausted, not at all recovered from the worm’s bite. I played on my weakness. “If it’s a temple,” I said, “the players here are sure to let us stay the night.” And perhaps there would be no forest mechanics within the temple building. I was developing a hearty loathing for all mechanics greater in size and intelligence than simple kobolds.

“Let’s follow the wall around,” Liam said, nodding to the north. “If we find the gate, maybe we’ll see what goes on inside.” He was hoping we would not find it, but it was my luck—my famous luck—that we did, and only a quarter mile away. The gate stood open, its panels stained with rain, and moss growing along its upper edge and piled around its hinges, so it was clear it hadn’t been shut for years upon endless years.

The path we had spurned in the forest found us again at the gate. It stepped boldly through, dividing the carpet of moss in half. Liam sat his bike, peering reluctantly within at a massive, dark shadow that was the temple building, looming in the mist. There were no lights, or any scent of dinner cooking. No voices, no gardens, nor any paths, except the one determined path leading directly to the front door.

It was Moki who decided us. He jumped from his bin before I could stop him, and trotted toward the temple, his ears pricked forward in a curious pose. “So,” Udondi said, “I’ve been in stranger places.” She followed after Moki, and I followed her, so in the end Liam had no choice.