The Elves of Cintra

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LEAVING THE GHOSTS and their field camp behind, Logan Tom drove down the highway through the deepening twilight toward the darkened buildings of Tacoma. The city hun–kered down on a mostly flat plain bordered by water on one side and hills on the other. Its look was a familiar one, residences on the perime–ter, downtown in the center, the whole of it a shadowy presence, unlit and seemingly uninhabited.

But there would be people, of course, perhaps living in a com–pound, perhaps living on the streets. There would be Freaks. There would be the usual strays and homeless. There would be things no one could imagine without first seeing them, creatures formed of the poi–sons and the plagues, the monsters of this brave new world.

And always, there would be feeders, waiting.

He scanned the shadows as he drove, weaving through the debris, angling for the open spots on the cracked, weed–grown pavement. He searched for movement, for any indication of life, and found little. Feral dogs and street kids. The flicker of solar–powered lamps from the dark recesses of buildings. The faint sounds of life that belied the otherwise deep silence. Now and then, he passed the remains of the dead, some of the bodies so old they had been reduced to little more than bones and bits of clothing. He tried to imagine how it had been before the wars had begun and the way back had been lost, and he could not.

His mind drifted to other times and places. It was like this in so many other cities, the aftermath of destruction, the leavings of madness and despair. So much had been rendered useless. He looked around at the devastation, at the emptiness, and it made him want to cry. But he didn't cry anymore. Not for this. He had seen it too often. It was the legacy of his time, a world depopulated, a civilization destroyed.

Ahead, a huge domed building rose against the skyline, and in the fading light he could make out its massive support arches. It was an en–tertainment arena, a leftover from the time when there was order in the world. It was black and silent now, an edifice that had lost its place and purpose, a mausoleum for a time of life that was dead and gone.

He drove toward it.

The highway dipped slightly in a long sloping ramp toward the domed building, but huge piles of trash and parts of discarded cars had been hauled over to form a barricade that blocked the exit. He drove a bit closer and abandoned his plan to follow the pavement. Instead he began driving across the open spaces adjacent to the highway and then through the yards of perimeter residences, cutting past other, smaller roads, choosing rougher terrain that offered more accessible passage for the AV. The Lightning was built to crawl over barriers from which other vehicles would have turned back.

When he had gone as far as he could, close now to the dome and in sight of buildings that were clearly storefronts and warehouses, Logan stopped the AV and got out. He stood looking around for a few moments, taking in the feel of his surroundings, watching and listening. Nothing drew his attention. Satisfied, he triggered the Lightning's security locks and protective devices and, picking up his staff, set out on foot. He walked softly, noiselessly, in the way he had learned from Michael, an almost invisible presence, just another of night's shadows. The houses on either side were squat, dark structures empty of life. Once or twice, cats crossed his path, and once a pair of street kids, furtive and hunched over as they moved across his line of sight. Once, he thought he heard voices, but he could not decipher the words or detect their source.

And once, like a vision, a woman appeared–or maybe a girl–sliding out of the shadows into the light, her hair long and blond and flowing, her form slender. He could only imagine that she was beautiful–her fea–tures hidden behind the night's dark mask–yet he felt certain of it, even though she was there for only a moment.

She made him feel something unexpected with her passing, a deep, inexplicable loss coupled with a sadness that left his throat tight and his mouth dry. He could not explain it, could not find a reason for it. He had disdained companionship since Michael and the others had died. He had jealously safeguarded his solitary existence, actively avoiding the company of others. It was his nature as a Knight of the Word. It was one of the dictates of the life he had chosen. The presence of others only complicated his work. Attachments only served to tie him down.

Like the Ghosts threatened to do.

And yet …

He took a moment longer to search for the woman, peering into the shadows between the houses as, without thinking, he slowed. The si–lence deepened around him; the night closed about. There was no sign of her. It seemed to him now that he might have imagined her.

He quickened his pace and moved on.

He was twenty–eight years old, if his calculations were correct. He relied to a great extent on the calendar that Michael had built into the AV. Without it, time would have been lost to him completely. The sea–sons were unrecognizable, often passing from one into the other with little evidence of change.

Clocks and watches had ceased to work years ago, save for a stubborn few that he came across now and then, and most of these only gave the time of day. There was an order to things when you could recite your age, when you could say with some cer–tainty that you knew the day and month and year. There was a sense of being grounded in the world.

Twenty–eight, and he felt disconnected from everything. Except for his work as a Knight of the Word. And now, perhaps, even from that. Now that he had been saddled with these street kids and their problems. He would have to leave them, he knew. He would have to find a way. Once they were no longer sick and safely away from the threat of being overtaken by demons and once–men. Once it felt right to him. He shook his head at the confusion this caused. Because his charge, his mission, was to find and give aid to the imprisoned and abandoned. His life was dedicated to helping those who were not as strong as he was, who required deliverance from evil and could be saved only by his spe–cial power.

Were the Ghosts not most of these? Was he not bound to help them, too? Still, they were not of the same sort as those imprisoned in the slave camps or imperiled by the dark things that prowled the coun–tryside. They did not need him in the same way as so many others.

Or at all, really, if you thought about it. If you weighed their need against that of so many others.

They did not need him.

Did they?

He was aware suddenly of a cat walking next to him. It had ap–peared out of nowhere, a burly, grizzled beast, brindle and black in color with a strange white slash across its blunt face–as if it had been slapped with a paintbrush. It had a peculiar gait, the like of which he had never encountered in a cat. Although it mostly ambled, it also hopped. It took no more than a couple of hops at a time, but that was enough to be noticeable. It was while it was trailing along slightly off to his right that he caught sight of the unusual movement out of the cor–ner of his eye and was alerted to its presence.

He stopped and looked down at the cat. The cat stopped and looked up at him.

"Shoo," he whispered.

The cat blinked, then hissed back at him.

He hesitated, thought about chasing it away, and decided it wasn't worth the effort. He started walking again. Right away the cat fol–lowed. He picked up his pace, but the cat picked up its pace, too. When he stopped again, the cat stopped with him, staying back and well out of reach of the black staff. Not that he would strike out at it, but the cat couldn't know.

"Go on, get out of here," Logan muttered.

He continued on, trying to ignore the cat, turning his attention to the task at hand. The dome loomed ahead, a dark monolith against the skyline. He was close enough to it by now that storefronts and ware–houses had replaced the residences of earlier. He began searching for signs of what he needed, but nothing useful revealed itself Most of the stores had seen their doors and windows broken out and their fixtures and contents smashed. The warehouses were in similar condition. If there was anything to be found, it was probably only because it was well hidden. Medicines and bandages were the first things people took once the plagues and chemical poisonings began in earnest, after the governments had collapsed and the demons and the once–men had sur–faced. It seemed unlikely that anything was left after this long.

The cat made a series of sudden hops until it had drawn even with him, and then it gave a mournful cry that stopped him in his tracks.

"Shhh! Don't do that?" he snapped. He looked around in dismay. Everything within a hundred yards must have heard!

The cat regarded him intently, and then did it again—a longer, deeper, more poignant cry. It held it for an impossibly long time, as if it might be trying for a record.

Logan started for it, brandishing his staff, and the cat was gone in a blur of black and brindle. In the space of a heartbeat, it had disap–peared. and Logan was left alone.

"Just as well," he muttered reproachfully.

He walked on alone, upset by the encounter for reasons he couldn't explain. He guessed it was the strangeness of the cat's behavior, the way it was willing to approach him so boldly when most creatures, even larger ones, would have kept their distance. Maybe he felt a sense of kin–ship with it, a creature at once both aloof and unafraid. Maybe it was something about the way it had cried out, the sound so disturbing.

Whatever the case, he had just managed to put the cat out of his mind when it was back again, walking a few paces behind, its familiar amble punctuated by the peculiar hopping motion. Logan glanced over his shoulder at it without slowing, smiling to himself at its persistence. It probably thought he had food. In fact, he realized abruptly, he did. He was carrying a piece of a packaged ration he had stuffed in his pocket before leaving. The cat must have smelled it.

"Aren't you the clever one," he said, turning.

He reached into his pocket, extracted the food, broke off a chunk, and tossed it toward the animal. The cat watched the offering hit the ground and roll to a stop. It examined it without moving, and then looked up at Logan as if to say, What am I supposed to do with this?

Logan shook his head. Feral cats; they learned early on how to be cautious or they ended up dead. They didn't trust anyone. Besides, this one didn't look particularly hungry. If anything, it looked overfed.

He shrugged. "Fine, don't eat it, then. Not my problem."

"She doesn't ever eat food from strangers," a voice said.

Logan had been surprised enough times in his life to not jump out of his skin at unexpected voices, but he was startled nevertheless. He looked around without seeing anyone. "She doesn't?"

"She likes you, though. If she didn't, she wouldn't bother following you. She is very particular."

A girl not yet a woman, he guessed from the sound of her voice. He kept looking, and then saw her detach herself from the tree against which she had been leaning. Before, she had been part of the trunk, so closely assimilated that he had missed her. Even now, she was barely recognizable. She was cloaked and hooded, and her features were hid–den. She stood facing him and made no move to come closer.

"Is this your cat?" he asked her.

"She thinks so. Her name is Rabbit. Mine is Catalya, sometimes Cat for short. What's yours?"

"Logan Tom." He paused. "Your name is Cat and your cat's name is Rabbit. Your cat acts like a rabbit. It makes me wonder."

She regarded him in silence for a moment. "What are you looking for?"

He shook his head. "Supplies."

Rabbit moved over to her and began rubbing up against her legs with her grizzled face as if to scratch an itch. Catalya reached down and tickled the cat's ears. She was still concealed within the shadows of her cloak and hood. "What kind of supplies?"

"Medical. Plague medicine."

She did not flinch or back away. She kept tickling Rabbit's ears as if what he had said was no more significant than a comment about the weather.

"Why are you out here by yourself ?" he asked her.

"Who says I am?"

The reply was quick and certain, not sharp or defensive. He resisted the urge to search the surrounding shadows. If he hadn't been able to detect her, he might have missed detecting others who were with her.

"Don't worry, there's no one else," she said. "I can take care of my–self'

He nodded and let the matter drop. "Is there a compound inside that dome? I thought I might find something there."

She straightened, taking her fingers away from the cat. Not once when she moved did she reveal even the slightest detail about herself "You don't want to go there. No one there will help you."

"You seem awfully sure …"

"I am. Do you know why? I was born in that compound. My par–ents and my brothers and sisters still live there. All except my sister Evie; she died when I was four. The rest are still there. They live under–ground, in the basement rooms. They hide during the night. No lights or movement is allowed aboveground. That way, no one knows they are there."

He stared at her.

"Stupid, isn't it? If you pretend no one can find you, then maybe no one will. That's what it amounts to. Pretending. They pretend a lot. I guess it's what keeps them from falling apart."

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Eighteen. How old are you?"

"Twenty–eight. How long since you lived inside the compound?"

"Six years. I was put out when I was twelve."

He hesitated, wondering how far he should pursue this. "Why were you put out?"

"I got sick."

She didn't offer anything more. He stood watching her, leaning on his staff, studying her posture for some clue about what was wrong with her. The night tightened about them, as if to hide the secret she was obviously keeping. Rabbit stood up, walked over to him, and sat down again, just out of reach but close enough that her eyes reflected the moonlight.

"Why do you need plague medicine?" she asked.

"I have some sick kids with me. They need it. We're traveling south."

"There isn't anything south," she said. "Just more of the same. More plague and poisoned air and water, and bad chemicals. And insects–lots and lots of insects."

He had heard something of this but not yet come across it. Appar–ently the disruption of the ecosystems and the poisoning of the earth and water had fueled rapid growth in certain species of insect life. The giant centipede the Ghosts had killed was one example. But in other cases, the results were different. Instead of one giant insect, accelerated procreation resulted in thousands and thousands of smaller forms, hordes that were eating their way through every type of plant life that was left, denuding the earth.

"How old are your kids?" she asked suddenly.

"They're not my kids. I'm just helping them. The oldest is maybe twenty. The youngest is ten."

"Are they street kids or compound kids?"

"Some of both, I guess."

"What about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Were you a street kid or a compound kid?"

"A compound kid, but I was orphaned at eight. Why are you asking all these questions?"

"Do you want my help finding your plague medicine?"

He sighed. "I want any help I can get."

"Then just tell me what I want to know. Where are your kids?"

"I left them outside the city when I came to look for the medicine." "That's dangerous, coming in alone at night. Aren't you scared?"

"Aren't you?"

"I know my way around."

"So do I. Look, can you help me find what I need?"

She came forward a step. "Maybe. Maybe I'm the only one who can help you. The only one who's willing. No one in the compound will help you. No one in the streets, either. Just me."

He gave her a hard look. "Uh–huh. Only you. Why is that? Because your cat likes me?"

"Because I need something from you."

Rabbit was rubbing up against him, acting as if they had been friends all their lives. He hadn't even noticed her until just now. He glanced down and shifted his leg away by stepping back. The cat looked up at him with saucer eyes.

Logan faced the girl. "What is it you need?"

"I need you to take me with you when you leave."

As if he needed another kid to look after. As if he hadn't just been contemplating finding a way to lose the ones he already had. It struck him as incredibly funny; he found himself wanting to laugh, even though he knew it was no laughing matter to the girl. But it didn't mat–ter how she felt. He wasn't going to take her. He wouldn't.

"Do you know why they put me out of the compound?" she asked suddenly. "My parents and my brothers and sisters and my friends and all the rest? Why they never stopped to think twice about it, even though I was only twelve years old and had been born in the com–pound and had never been outside, even with adults? Why do you think?"

She started toward him.

"They were afraid of you?" he guessed. He held his ground against her advance, not sure what was going to happen but unwilling to back away.

She stopped when she was less than ten feet away. "That's exactly right. They were afraid of me. Of this."

She pulled back the hood of her cloak and tilted her head into the pale wash of the moonlight. Dark splotches covered large portions of her face and neck. When she stretched out her arms so that the con–cealing folds of the cloak fell away, he could see the same markings there, as well. She turned herself slightly so that the color and shape of the markings were more clearly revealed by the angle of the light. The skin had turned rough and scaly like the hide of a reptile.

He understood at once. She was turning into a Lizard.

"Are you afraid of Freaks, Logan?" she asked him. She came forward another few steps, bold and challenging, but stayed just out of reach. "No. But the people in the compounds are."

"Terrified. Even my own family. They thought it was catching. They didn't know, but they didn't want to take the chance. What's one kid's life against so many? Easier to put me out than risk a widespread infec–tion of Lizard skin."

Her voice had turned harsh and bitter, but she faced him squarely and did not try to turn away.

There were no tears. He wondered how long it had taken her to learn not to cry when she talked about it.

"It's happening everywhere," he said. "I've seen it over and over. I don't think anyone knows what causes it. Something about being ex–posed to all the chemicals. Something about the air or water or food. Like everything else that's happened to create mutations, there are too many possibilities to know."

She nodded, said nothing.

"How did you survive? You were put out of the compound more than six years ago."

She smiled. Her smile, beneath the patch of reptilian skin that cov–ered the entire left side of her lower face, was pretty. "A family of Lizards helped me. They took me in, fed me, clothed me, and then raised me. They understood what it was like to change because it had happened to them. They knew others who had been put out in the same way I was, others who had the disease. They were street people, this family. But they understood."

"What happened to them?"

She hesitated, then shrugged. "Nothing. I just decided I wanted to be on my own. Will you take me with you if I help you?"

"You get me my medicine, and I take you back with me. Then what?" "I go with you and your kids, wherever you are going. It doesn't matter. I just don't want to be here anymore. I want to get away."

"Why?

"I told you, I just don't want to …"

He walked up to her then, reached out and ran two fingers along the rough patch covering her jaw. Uncertainty reflected in her blue eyes. Her hair, he saw, was cinnamon–colored. But even in her scalp, the patches showed.

"I know something of your disease," he said. "I've seen a lot of it, talked to those who had it. It covers the skin and absorbs it. It changes a human into a mutant. It acts quickly. That doesn't seem to have hap–pened to you. You've had this disease six years, you said?"

"It doesn't work the same with everyone." She looked away now, and then reached down quickly to snatch up Rabbit in her arms and backed away. "If you don't want me to go with you, just say so."

"I want you to tell me the truth," he said. "Why are you living out here on your own?"

She started to tell him something–another lie, he guessed–but cut herself off with a tightening of her lips and a muted sigh.

"I quit changing. Something stopped it. I knew that when my new family realized I wasn't going to be like them, they would put me out, too. I decided not to wait around for that to happen."

Logan stepped back, giving her some space. She didn't belong any–where. She wasn't one thing or the other, and no one wanted you if you weren't like them. Not in this world. The Lizards were no different. They understood what it meant to change, but not what it meant to get halfway there and then stop. Catalya wasn't about to have the same thing happen twice, not when it hurt as much as it must have the first time.

"So," she said. "Will your kids want to put me out, too?"

"Maybe. Some of them. I don't know. I've only been with them a few days now."

"What about you? Now that you know."

He looked off into the darkness, making up his mind. For some rea–son, he found himself remembering Meike. How much trouble would it have been for him to have taken her with him? Even knowing as little about her as he did. Even knowing he might not have saved her anyway. Rabbit was looking at him from the cradle of her arms. Waiting.

"I don't put people out," he said.

She waited, too. To hear the words.

"Okay," he agreed. "You have a deal."

THEY WALKED THROUGH the darkened streets, the girl leading, the cat ambling along beside him, hopping every now and then as if to prove to him how strange things had become. The world was silent around them, the buildings dark and the sky vast and empty.

"Why do you carry that staff?" she asked him.

"I'll tell you sometime. How do you know where to find plague medicine?"

"The Lizards keep stores of it to trade with. They don't have much use for most of it. Their immune systems aren't affected in the same way as humans, so the medicines mostly don't help. What kind is it that you need?"

"Cyclomopensia." He reached in his pocket, took out the empty container Owl had given him, and handed it to her. "Look familiar?"

She examined it carefully and then pocketed it. "I think I've seen it. We can take some of the other kinds, too. In case."

He glanced at her, but she kept looking straight ahead, a step or two in front of him. "What if my kids don't like you?" he asked after a mo–ment. "I probably can't change it if they don't."

"Some of them will like me, I bet."

"Some of them, yes." He thought of Owl. She would be quick enough to take Cat under her wing. Maybe Candle, too. But he wasn't so sure about the others.

"Are you worried about me?"

He thought about it a moment. "I don't know."

She reached down abruptly and scooped up Rabbit, cradling him in her arms. "Don't be. I can take care of myself"

He didn't know about that, either.