The Gypsy Morph

THIRTY-FOUR

FOR WEEKS, Hawk led the caravan eastward from the Columbia, pressing on toward the mountains. Children, their caregivers and protectors, Elves, Lizards, Spiders, and others trailed behind him in an exodus that would for years afterward be recounted by the descendants of those who survived it. They crossed first through flatlands and gently rolling hills ravaged by drought and dust storms, the landscape barren and empty of everything but scrub and clusters of farm buildings long since abandoned and collapsing back into the earth until that, in turn, gave way to pine forests, whole stretches of which were dead or dying, but some of which still thrived on water and nutrients somehow left free of the poisons that had infected the rest. Finally, they found themselves approaching what a battered green sign announced to have once been the city of Spokane.

They were more than two weeks into their journey by then, their food and water almost gone and their strength failing. They had been following a freeway they had come across on the second day of their march. Without vehicles for transport and reduced to walking, the ribbon of concrete offered the path of least resistance. Logan, Angel, and Helen Rice all agreed that following the highway was the best option for making their way and probably the safest. They also hoped that one or more of the small towns that normally bracketed major roadways like this one would yield the supplies they needed. But while the former proved out, the latter did not, and by the time of their arrival in Spokane the situation was desperate.

Then things turned around.

First Logan and a handful of others, searching through an industrial complex on the outskirts of the city, discovered a warehouse filled with haulers and tractors. They were all meant for farm use and not for the purpose of carrying people, but there was nothing to say that they couldn’t be adapted to the uses the caravan required. Their solar engines were in working order, and once they were pulled out into the sunlight, their cells began to charge immediately. The tractors would be slow–not much faster than walking, once the wagons were attached–but they would allow most of the children to ride.

Later that same day, prowling deeper into buildings in the same complex, they found a handful of working AVs. The AVs were not on the same order as the Lightning or the Ventra; they were not armed or armored or meant for fighting use of any sort. Even so, they would provide the caravan with swift, mobile vehicles for scouting and foraging. Five were still working.

The following day, while the caravan was passing down the freeway through the city itself, another foraging party found an outlet filled with bottled water and dried foods that could still be eaten. Helen had one of the tractors and a slat–sided wagon taken off the road and brought down to be loaded with the supplies. They might still have some distance to go, but at least they would have something to eat and drink along the way.

While all this was going on, Hawk stayed with the main body of the caravan, knowing that his job was to keep its members moving toward their destination. He still didn’t know where that was or how far they had to go, and he could sense the restlessness growing in those he led. At times, he could sense hostility, as well. But when he spoke of it to Logan, the Knight of the Word told him to ignore it. Those who traveled with him did so of their own volition. They did so at his sufferance. If they didn’t want to go with him, they could leave at any time. Hawk refrained from pointing out how many of these were children who didn’t really have a choice because he knew Logan meant well.

But his own uneasiness persisted, and the restlessness and even the hostility were reflections of what he was feeling toward himself.

Spokane seemed virtually deserted, an oddity given the nature of most cities, which served as havens for refugees of all sorts. But no one appeared to challenge them, and there were only glimpses of brief, furtive movements in the shadows of the buildings they passed. Hawk asked Logan and Angel to keep an eye out for others who might want to come with them, but no one appeared to do so. Perhaps they were frightened of the size of the caravan, or perhaps they simply didn’t want to go. Whatever the case, the residents of the city, human or otherwise, remained in the shadows.

At one point Hawk saw a sign by the side of the freeway that read CHENEY. He was so surprised that he stopped to stare at it momentarily, and Candle, walking with him, stopped, too.

After they began walking again, she said, “Do you think they will ever come back?”

He put his hand on her head and stroked her hair. “I don’t know, Candle.”

But he did know, though he wouldn’t admit it. He had known from the look in Panther’s eyes when they had said good–bye. He had known when he had sent Cheney with him, a protector for the boy and for Cat, once he found her. None of them would be coming back.

It was instinctive by now. It was a part of his transformation since leaving the gardens of the King of the Silver River. He knew a lot of things he should not have been able to know, knew them with increasing regularity and with unshakable certainty. More and more, he sensed the truths that were hidden from the others. Without that sense he would have faltered long ago, he believed. Without that mystic reassurance that told him how things were he would have despaired.

So it was that he knew Panther would find Cat and stay with her, and Cheney would stay to watch over them both. Their lives would take them in a different direction from the other Ghosts, and the family would shrink accordingly.

Now and then, he wished he had been able to keep Cheney with him for a little while longer. It was hard to think of going on without the big dog.

But what was the point of hanging on to something you weren’t going to need?

The CARAVAN TRAVELED EAST for another three weeks, the speed of its already slow passage further diminished by changes in the landscape. Flatlands gave way to steeply rolling hills that were rocky and forested, and then to miles of foothills leading into the mountains they had been heading for all along. Hawk began to gain a fresh sense of perspective on their destination, and at last felt comfortable enough to tell Owl and Tessa, if no one else, that he believed they were getting close to where they were meant to go.

They had passed through the city of Spokane without finding anyone who wished to join their pilgrimage, but all that changed when they neared the mountains. Other families drifted in from the wilderness, some bringing what remained of their livestock, some bringing household pets. There was only a scattering of each, but enough so that it began to feel as if a full–blown community was forming. They might be starting over, wherever they were going, but they were bringing with them vestiges of the old world, and it felt comforting to be able to do so.

Then one evening a band of men and women rode in on horseback, the first horses anyone had seen in years. They had been living up in the hills, isolated and protected by the natural terrain, veterans of living off the land, and they had seen the caravan passing from afar. Anxious to learn what they could of the world, they stayed to eat dinner and talk, and then chose to stay for good and travel to wherever the caravan was going. Hawk was never certain what decided them, although they spent a long time talking with Logan and Simralin. They had never seen an Elf or a Knight of the Word, but whatever the two conveyed was persuasive enough to convince them that hiding out in the hills was not what they should do.

In the morning, they rode back for the rest of their community, and by nightfall another fifty had joined the march.

The three weeks following Spokane passed quickly and without incident. Once, a militia rolled up to them in armed vehicles and confronted them near the passes leading into the mountains. But Simralin had marked their approach long before they arrived, and the defenders were waiting to greet them. A brief exchange resulted in a few threats and some bitter words, and Logan gave the raiders some of their water to appease them. It was just enough to avoid bloodshed, and the raiders, sensing the probable outcome, took the water and left.

Then, on a bright sunlit morning, they crossed through a high pass in the mountains and looked out over a broad valley dotted with lakes and trees that were still fresh and green to a horizon clustered with even bigger mountains that stretched away for as far as they could see, blue–black and jagged shadows backlit by the sunrise.

“This is it,” Hawk said softly, standing alone at the forefront of the march, and he went to tell the others.

Simralin COMPLETED HER MEASUREMENTS and stood at the very center of the forested bluff, looking around. “I think this is the place, Kirisin.”

The boy nodded. “It feels right. The Elves will want height and distance when they emerge, a sense of being apart from the rest of the world. They won’t be able to change their feelings about that right away. It will be hard enough for them to accept that they can no longer hide.”

He’s growing up, Logan thought approvingly. He was standing next to the boy watching Simralin pace off the distance atop the bluff, measuring the available space for the Elven city. His black staff was strapped across his back, out of his hands for the first time that he could remember. He’d tied it there for the journey across the valley. There hadn’t been any need for it since they had arrived. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t think there would be any need for it again.

He smiled despite himself at the idea.

“The others from the caravan will have to get used to the Elves, too,” he interrupted the siblings. “They all have to share this valley together.”

“It will help that most of them are children,” Simralin added.

It will help mostly that they have to make it work because this is all there is, Logan amended. But he kept that to himself, too.

In the company of the remainder of the Elves, the handful who had found their way clear of the Cintra, they had traveled all day to reach this spot. Simralin had explored it two days earlier and come back with her report. By then, they had been inside the valley–this safehold to which Hawk had taken them–for three weeks. The caravan was already beginning to split apart and its members to take their leave and go out to make their homes in this new world. The Lizards and Spiders and the other mutants had been the first, gone the very night of their arrival. No one had suggested that they needed to live apart; it was mostly an individual choice that each species had made. Some distance between the different groups wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, Logan thought. They would need time to adjust to this new life. They would need space to grow accustomed to what that required.

But the distance felt odd to him. He had made his decision, too. In choosing to be Simralin’s partner, he had stepped across a line. He must go with the Elves because those were her people and she had told him from the first that she would always live among them. Because he had no people, it felt right that he should live with hers. But it was hard leaving the Ghosts. Hawk, Tessa, Owl, Sparrow, little Candle, River, and Bear–they had become a kind of family for him over the past weeks, children he had taken under his wing, the first children he had really gotten to know in all the years he had been saving them from the slave camps.

Still, Angel Perez had stayed behind, and they would all be a part of the community of children and caregivers living under the leadership of Helen Rice. Already, they had begun work on permanent homes, building with the tools they had managed to carry with them in their flight. It was probably best for them to be together there and for him to be with Simralin here.

A part of him ached nevertheless.

“What do you think I need to do now?” Kirisin asked, glancing from Logan to his sister and back again. “I think you need to do what your heart tells you, Little K,” Simralin said.

“We better back off a ways,” Logan advised. “We’re standing right in the middle of where you plan to put the city.”

They did as he advised, taking the other Elves with them, moving to one side of the open space on which they intended to locate the city and its Elves when they were released from the Loden. When they were safely clear, Kirisin took out the Loden and held it in his hand, looking down at it dubiously.

“I wish I knew more about what I was doing,” he said, glancing at Logan.

Logan understood. He had wished for that more than once on this journey. But much of life didn’t allow for knowing things in advance, and you had to trust to your instincts and common sense. Kirisin knew as much about Elven magic as anyone alive, including all those trapped inside the Elfstone. So there was nothing much anyone else could do to help him through this.

“Go on,” he said gently. “You used it before to put them inside. Do the same thing now to bring them back out.”

The boy nodded, finding some measure of sense in this advice. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and closed his eyes. He stood without moving while the others watched. Don’t rush this, Logan said silently. Westward, the sun was dropping toward the horizon, and the daylight was fading from the sky. Even so, there was light enough for whatever was required to complete the transition. Logan glanced at Simralin, but she had her eyes fixed on Kirisin. Willing him to do what he must do. Willing him to be strong and sure–handed enough not to make a mistake.

Abruptly the Loden flared within the boy’s clenched fist, a blinding glow that spread outward and built in intensity. Logan shielded his eyes. As the glow rose and spread outward, covering the whole of the bluff from end to end and even into the trees beyond, a wind rose with it, come out of nowhere. So powerful was the wind that it nearly knocked the Knight of the Word and the Elves sprawling. As it was, they had to crouch protectively, bracing themselves against its force. Only Kirisin was unaffected, standing at its center as if untouched.

The wind howled like a living thing. It whipped at the light, scattering it in four directions, a giant hand pushing bright water in a pond. Within the light, Logan could see movement. Something was coming alive. He could see the hazy images of buildings and people; he could see the bright scarlet–and–silver canopy of the Ellcrys. The city of the Elves and its inhabitants were reemerging, coming back from their confinement.

Then there was a wrenching of earth and rock, and the entire bluff shuddered with the weight of Arborlon settling into place. Like mist, the light swirled about the Elven city and its people, a hazy curtain slowly being lifted. The wind built to a fever pitch, and the light assumed a liquid appearance. Within the soup, buildings and roadways, gardens and trees, and people and animals assumed a sharper definition. There was an odd sense of two worlds coming together, a blending of the one with the other.

Then the wind diminished, the light faded, and it was finished. Arborlon stood before them, sprawled across the whole of the bluff running back into the trees beyond, looking just as it had when Kirisin had used the Loden to close it away.

A crowd was already starting to gather, Elves coming out from their homes and along the pathways, filling up that piece of the bluff closest to where Kirisin and his companions stood. They were looking around, as if not quite sure where they were or what had happened. Reasonable enough, Logan thought. He stayed in the background, letting Kirisin and his sister step forward to meet those they had left behind. A few hands waved and a few voices called. There was shock on the faces of many and tears in more than a few eyes. Daylight mingled with shadows to streak the whole of the bluff in gold and black layers that gave those assembled the look of exotic creatures.

Then a single figure broke from the crowd, a pinch–faced boy about Kirisin’s age who approached with a wide grin.

“Kirisin!” he greeted, embracing him.

“Biat!” Kirisin replied, and hugged him back.

When they broke apart, the other boy glanced down at the Loden, which his friend was still clutching in a death grip, and declared with a bright laugh, “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

On THAT SAME DAY, at the other end of the valley, Hawk looked out at the setting sun and prepared to say good–bye. He wasn’t at all sure how to go about it. He guessed that when you came right down to it, there wasn’t any good way. But his dream of the King of the Silver River had been sharp and clear, so there wasn’t any point in trying to avoid what was coming. Perhaps he had always known this moment would arrive, even after they had reached their destination and he had hoped his work finished.

The dream only confirmed what he already knew was true.

“IT IS TIME, young one .”

The old man speaks the words gently, but they cut him like a knife. He doesn’t want to hear them, hasn’t wanted even to think of them. The old man stands before him, his seamed and bearded countenance unexpectedly kind, and waits for his response.

“I am ready,” he says. “But I am afraid.”

TESSA CAME UP BESIDE him and took his arm, squeezing it. “What are you thinking about?”

“You and me. The baby.” He put his arm around her and pulled her against him. “About how lucky we are.”

She took his hand and put it on her belly, where the first faint swelling had begun. “It won’t be long. I think it will be a boy.”

He started to say something in reply, but his voice caught in his throat. “I have something to do,” he said finally. “Back up in the pass.”

“Right now?”

“It would be better.”

“But it’s almost dark.”

“That won’t matter.”

She looked at him carefully. “Wait until morning. Please?”

He hesitated. “All right,” he agreed.

He waited until it was fully dark and she was asleep, then he rose from their bed and slipped from their shelter. He walked steadily from there, not looking back, trying not to think of what he was leaving. The air was cool and still, and the sky was filled with stars. The way was brightly lit, the path easy to follow. He took time to recall memories of his days with the Ghosts, of their life in the city and then on the road, of each of them in turn, calling up their faces and holding them before him in his mind like pictures from a camera. He wished he could have said good–bye to them, could have told them how much they meant to him, could have tried to convey what he was feeling.

But that would have been so difficult. There was no easy way to say what needed saying. He would have to trust that they would be able to imagine the words he would have said simply by knowing him.

“THERE IS NO NEED TO BE FRIGHTENED, Hawk,” the King of the Silver River says, smiling. “Your magic will protect you. There will be no pain. There will only be peace.”

“What am I to do?”

“You are to go to the head of the pass that brought you into the valley. You will know what to do when you get there.”

He already knows, although he doesn’t say so. He thinks, again, that perhaps he has always known. He has brought his followers to this place of safety, brought them through the wilderness and out of the path of the destruction that is coming. Only one thing remains in order for them to be made secure. Only he can provide it.

“It is because of who you are,” says the old man. “A gypsy morph, a creature of wild magic, a giver of special gifts. To those you lead, you give the gift of life.”

THINKING OF IT NOW, he hoped that it was true. He needed to believe that it was why he was making this journey. He needed to feel that it mattered in the way he wanted it to.

As he climbed into the mountains from the valley floor, he paused to look back. The starlight was bright enough that he could see to the far horizons. Bits and pieces of the valley floor were visible, as well.

From the camp he had departed, a few lights glowed in the darkness. Not everyone was sleeping. He experienced a sudden urge to turn back, to return to what he so badly wanted to hold on to. But the urge came and went, and he began to climb once more.

When he reached the head of the pass, he stopped to collect himself. He was visibly shaking by now, and his fear of what was going to happen was almost overwhelming. He replayed in his mind the words of the King of the Silver River, reassuring himself that the old man would not have lied. He reminded himself of his origins, of the power that was given him at birth, of the magic that had served him so well. It would not fail him now, he told himself. Nor would he fail in his duty.

It was a duty, after all. It sounded strange to say so, but it was what he had been given to do. To keep them protected. To keep them safe. Those he had brought to this place, friends and family and strangers alike. They were his responsibility, and he must embrace that responsibility as a soldier would his duty.

Still.

He squeezed his eyes shut and whispered Tessa’s name.

“HOW CAN I JUST LEAVE THEM?” he asks the old man. “My wife and child, my friends, all those who care about me?”

The King of the Silver River places a hand on his shoulder. “You won’t be leaving them forever. Only for a little while.”

Hawk does not know what he means, but he is not reassured. Leaving them at all seems wrong.

He thinks that this is unfair, to require him to do this after he has already done so much. He did not ask for this responsibility. He did not ask to have his life directed so. All he has ever wanted is a family, and now it is to be taken away from him. How can anyone make such a sacrifice?

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he says.

“I don’t know that, either,” the old man agrees. “Yet you must.”

He LOOKED WESTWARD then across the vast reaches of the empty, barren land the caravan crossed in coming here, and was reminded anew what the rest of the world was like. In that moment he was reminded, as well, of the dark and twisted place the world would become in the aftermath of the approaching destruction. He could not allow this valley, this newly found haven, and all those he had brought here to live, to fall under that shadow. He could not permit such a monstrous subversion.

But he would be doing so if he failed to act now, as the King of the Silver River had told him he must.

There was no point in waiting any longer.

He took a moment to calm himself, breathing in the night air and staring upward at the stars. He was standing at the highest point of the pass, directly at its center. From this vista, he could see the mountains that ringed the valley, the valley itself, and everything that lay within its vast cradle. Even though the details were hidden by the darkness, he could see them in his mind.

He knelt and placed his hands against the earth.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the magic began to build within him as the familiar sensations began to surface.

He took his time letting it do so, giving it space and freedom to find the necessary level of intensity. He knew what was needed, but not what it would take. He could only assume that the magic he wielded was sufficient and the price it would demand bearable. He knelt with his eyes closed and his head bent, with his arms braced in rigid support, his back bowed, a supplicant seeking relief.

It took a long time for the magic within to fuse with the magic without. When it did, he felt himself begin to join with the earth; felt the elements that composed its body and the life that it sustained to find a home in him. In the smells and tastes and sounds and feel of the world, he found himself made whole, all his separate parts become one. He was the world, and the world was in him.

It was the strangest feeling.

It made him smile.

Then the ground heaved beneath him, and dozens of tiny vents opened from deep underground. A fine gray mist rose into the night, layering the cool air. An opaque curtain rose and spread, winding outward in a vast spiral, filling up the open space with layered shrouds that draped the darkness, one on top of the other. From the place where Hawk knelt, the mist began to infiltrate the trees and rocks and then the mountains themselves. It gained speed and height and thickness, a silent storm front wrapping about, running north and south for miles before bending east and closing the haven that sheltered his followers like a giant’s hands about a cup.

The mountains and the valley they cradled disappeared. Rocks, trees, cliffs, grasses, streams, and rivers–all that encompassed the perimeter of the peaks and their protected valley–slowly faded away.

Hawk’s strength was drained from him as his gypsy morph magic was steadily, implacably leached away.

I am so tired, he thought near the end.

Then the mist swallowed him.

When THE residents OF THE camp that housed the children and their protectors woke the following morning, they noticed the difference in their world right away. The light was altered, although no one was able to agree in what way. The sky was clear and cloudless, a day like any other except that it wasn’t. There were changes in the texture of the air, in the slant of the sunlight, in the way that shadows fell and sounds reverberated.

There was a wall of mist that had settled into the mountains on all sides, thick and impenetrable, miles of it, encircling the whole of the valley.

Tessa stood beside Owl in the company of Sparrow, River, and Candle, staring at the mountains and waiting for Angel to return. It was nearing midday, and the Knight of the Word had been gone since early morning. She had left as soon as she had discovered the strange transformations, gone out into the mountains to discover its source. Others had wanted to go with her, but she had insisted that it would be safer for everyone if she went alone. So there had been nothing left for any of them to do but to wait for her return.

Tessa had waited with the others, although she already knew what had happened. Hawk had left during the night and climbed back up into the mountain pass as he had told her he must. He had done something with the magic, used it in the way that was meant to make them all safe.

Just as he had done when he had driven the rogue militia from the bridge and the demon army from the plains.

With one important difference. He had used the magic for the last time. He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

She could barely keep her tears in check when Angel finally reappeared and walked toward them. She was prepared for what she was going to hear but unable to imagine living with what it meant. She had struggled all day to keep from breaking down completely, and several times had gone off alone to cry. Owl must have known, perhaps the others, as well, but no one had said anything.

Angel trudged up to them, her face reflecting frustration. “I couldn’t find anything of the source,” she said. “But something’s certainly happened. That mist is impenetrable. No matter how often you go in, you come out again right where you started. As far as I can tell, it wraps around the entire valley. I tried everything to get through it. I even used the Word’s magic. Nothing worked.”

She looked from face to face, stopping finally with Owl. “It was Hawk who did this, wasn’t it?”

Owl nodded. “Tessa told me that he said yesterday he was going back up into the pass to do something. She made him promise to wait until morning, but he went up sometime during the night.”

“I didn’t see him,” Angel said. “Are you sure he isn’t here? He didn’t come back?”

Heads shook slowly. Candle was crying soundlessly. Sparrow stood with her hands on Owl’s shoulders, and River was hugging herself.

They tried not to look at Tessa, but they couldn’t help themselves. She bore the weight of their shifting gazes for as long as she could and then walked away before they could see her break down.