The Robert Stanek Short Story & Novella Collection Page 7

  It was then that Old Bull slipped out of hiding, turning wide, leaning back in with a graceful lethargy that it made particularly spectacular, and then watched again as the other passed by. Old Bull knew the boy’s cargo, wizened on the seasons, it descried what the boy did not, a young one from a wee litter had been taken, revenge would be sweet.

  Ray raced across another house, coming to the edge, nimbly crossing to the next. The area ahead widened, so he slowed, graduating from place to place with greater care. Scratching his head while regarding the sun, he contemplated his positioning, as he still had not come upon a neighborhood he knew. The night would arrive soon and again he would need a place to bed. Looking back, he guessed at his progress, the arbors long lost from sight. He ogled right and left, seeing no familiar dark pillars.

  A journey into the wet at the next crossover could have cost Ray, but Old Bull was growing tired too. It would wait for the other to rest, and then it would find a suitable hollow, although a suitable meal would not be out of the question. It looked up at Ray shifting past, seeming to yawn as its jaws unshut. Perhaps it would dine on snap turtle or bog sucker, or perhaps not.

  Ray beat his way through a mighty stand of weed-grass, observing as the seeds floated off or dropped from sight. He circumnavigated a stalwart bramble, checking for early offerings but finding only a few of last year’s fruits rotted in their place with new buds only beginning to sprout.

  He stopped suddenly, having found a wading, a secluded pool, centralized in the middle of the residence he occupied, fed by a legion of fresh flowings. A trickle of steam greeting the air told him it was a hot wading, not unlike those of his home village. The hot meant death to suckers and other pests, and as a rule, neither the slither nor the bull likened to the warm.

  Ray jabbed and pecked all the same. When finally satisfied that it was unoccupied, he slowly slipped a foot in. The top skim of the pool was only a pale warm, but as he dipped deeper, soothing warmth caressed his foot.

  The wading was just large enough for him to float across its face stretched long, yet only barely so. His pack and pole lay not far off, and he closed his eyes, relaxing. Curious about the depth, Ray reached for his staff, pushed it deep under the wet, as far as he could reach without finding a bottom. He didn’t find this odd though. The hot wading in Second Village was over five times his height, or at least that is what he had been told—no one that he knew of had ever tested that premise; rather, it was accepted as fact. He slipped out of the wet momentarily, relieving his pack of a few leaves of the gritty, using this to cleanse himself in a peaceful frenzy.

  Aloft the sky was delving into shades of gray and Ray decided here would be a pleasant place to spend the night. He could take another dip in the morning and be refreshed for the coming day. Arms spread eagle, legs out, he floated, the rush of bubbles streaming up, up under him, massaging away the stiffness. He rubbed the gritty into his scalp, along his arms, and around his privates. The new sense of clean satisfied him, not that he really minded being dirty, for how else could one travel, or hunt, or do anything else for that matter.

  The Old Bull clambered up into a shaded glen not far away. It descried the cudgeling of the wet, the soft giggles and light song, falling away to its own affairs. With a string of powerful strokes, it launched from the hideout, eyes flaring, jaws tearing, shredding and mangling the captured prey. Belly satisfied for the time being, it slid back into the quiet spot and waited, lids slipping into place momentarily, jaws unhinged.

  The night mischievously advanced from eve to dark, passing to the wee hours without much change. Ray slept in a relaxed style, eyes closed.

  Old Bull, on the other hand, was awake and alert, and on the prowl. Its method of prowling was retarded though, it wasn’t as quick as it used to be, not that speed mattered, stealth was the major advantage here and Old Bull had plenty to spare. It eyed the boy in the subtle dark from the far side of the steaming pool, inching its way closer and closer.

  The air was cool as it swept past him, and Ray shivered in his sleep, moving into a closed ball beside the wading. Absently, he scratched his foot. In his dream, he felt something wet shift across his leg and the scratching chased it away.

  A twinge of pain in his side caused him to roll over. The ground was hard and unforgiving. His dreams were pleasant though, thoughts mostly of home. As his nose was plugged with mucus, he breathed in through his mouth, exhaling in gasps and moans, not feeling the tightening around his throat.

  A myriad of sallow, listless faces crossed before his eyes. Off in the distance he saw the hill but behind him, the land was dry and gutted, lifeless. At first he thought the faces were of the Out, but then he recognized Tall’s lanky drawn out countenance, sharp nose and deep-set eyes. Deep-set eyes? He asked himself. Tall didn’t have deep-set eyes. What was wrong? He coughed and choked, stirring restlessly, coming to rest on his back.

  Fighting to exhale a stifled breath, he wheezed and gagged. His eyes sprang open, meeting another pair of eyes that were luminescent red and descending upon him. Terrified thoughts siphoned into his mind. He turned his head to meet another pair of dark eyes and he heard a groan, a terrible deep sound—almost a growl. He staggered to his feet, falling, rolling and finally ending up in the hot wading. The creature round his neck flailed and fought harder, more desperately now. He heard a second splash, with a deeper, bolder resonance, and his eyes went wide.

  Claws were raking at him while he held the thing before him; its head shifting ever closer, teeth flaring and dripping with saliva. Its twist round his neck tightened, making the extraction of each new breath harder and harder. He saw white flashes before his eyes, all faded to black, no air traveled in or out of his lungs, no sounds passed his ears, all the world froze. His eyes closed, all thought truly stopped.

  Half in the pool, half out, his face in a stand of his own vomit, he awoke to find the world gray about him. His thoughts were still spinning, and his head ached tremendously. Sitting was an excruciating, painful ordeal, managed only through diligence. The first thing he saw was the overcast, frazzled sky and the next, that which had awoken him, a light downpour, which as he sat was growing full and heavy.

  He did not attempt to move any further, nor did he seek cover. The rain pummeling down upon him seemed his return to life, and its touch the only sensation other than pain that he felt.

  His legs were pillars of rampant scratches and gouges, his arms a mass of lacerations. Shock took over his thinking, and at first, he didn’t realize what had happened. The bleeding was his first concern; he had to stop it. His first instinct was to the cake but the rain hampered the application. He began the long climb to his feet, ready to flee, to run as fast as he could to somewhere safe, realizing only then he didn’t know where that was.

  A thing black and lurking caught his eye, as it bobbed about the small pool, and without thinking, he reached out and pulled it towards him. The thing was thick and slimy, an empty stalk oozing at the end he had grabbed. Only as he flung it away did he espy that it had once been a slither. He was baffled now, vividly recalling the bull attacking him, raking him repeatedly with its claws, teeth flashing, jaws snapping.

  He trembled. He would have closed his eyes, sliding into a catatonic slumber, if he hadn’t heard a distinct sound far off blending with the thick fall of the rain. It sounded like the blowing of a great horn, or as he likened it to the call of Tall’s flitter flute.

  No longer slumped over near death’s door, he felt a surge of strength and clarity of mind, his belongings not far off had what he needed, a short-term remedy to be sure but a temporary remedy was better than none. The container of long sap was there as he knew it would be, and he squeezed with both hands, letting the liquid run and slip across his tongue. Soon afterward, everything began to spin. He tumbled to his knees, collapsing beside his pack.

  A watchful Old Bull, not far off, slipped back into its hollow.

  Chapter Five:

  Land Beyond the Hill

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nbsp; A tempestuous sky looked on as Ray slept, fading from violent black to passive gray. He awoke beneath this sky, not knowing whether it was day, night, or somewhere in between. He applied the cake-mud in grand doses, cringing as he did so, but telling himself it would eventually ease the stinging and prevent infestation. All the while, in the back of his mind, his only thought was the realization of whose eyes he had seen in the dream—the wizard’s.

  He took a deep breath, latched onto his staff, using it to help him to his feet and once there, discovering that most of the pain and fatigue were gone. He crouched to his knees, leaning down carefully to get a small, unstoppered container, cursing as he did so. The long sap had been a precious gift and now it was gone. Nevertheless, he plugged the container’s top and dropped it into his bag.

  Low banks of fog made progress arduous, but he crept on. This day the fog was not as big a hindrance as his weakened condition.

  Hours passed, a fair distance traveled, he decided that he wasn’t really feeling all that poorly considering all that had happened, or could have happened. Lunch was a long, drawn-out affair that he should have never sat down to eat; the ground felt so soft, and the climb to his feet so far, though he eventually continued on.

  His path growing further into obscurity, he picked his way with increasing care. Travel during the encroaching night would be out of the question and that suited him just fine. He managed step after step, working up to a rhythmic speed.

  Rain returned as a fine mist, later turning to a light drizzle. His mood turned increasingly pensive and somber with the changing weather. A gray world made gray thoughts.

  The stone land seemed so desperately far away and everywhere before him, he imagined he saw the white, white faces of the Out. But it was the one face that frightened him more than any other. The face with the deep set eyes, the face of the wizard.

  Behind him, sometimes he thought he could hear voices, or make out dark shapes shifting about. Once he thought he had heard Tall’s voice, though he couldn’t be sure. In a sense, his own voice was telling him that home was behind and nothing was ahead, and while he wanted to listen to the voice, he couldn’t.

  An image whirred before his eyes, the foreboding hill, rising up from his lowland home. “The land does not shift, nor quake, not even a tremble,” a voice whispered to him, “It is torrid, staunch and dead.”

  Ray stopped, checked his course, momentarily catching a glimpse of a pale, fiery ball in the sky. He snapped out of his reverie. Afternoon, he reminded himself. He crossed over to the next dwelling with care, making a short leap.

  After bypassing a mixing of byways, he began to look for a place to spend the night. Near exhaustion, he could not go on, nor would the light permit him to go on much farther. Using small steps, he trudged along his chosen path, the imaginary line between nowhere and somewhere.

  The night would not be all bad; the drizzle had ceased its irritation. He wouldn’t find out for some hours that something special had chanced during his amblings this day, though it would upset him when he did.

  Evening did not sweep in as it had the previous nights. It was more of a slow, gradual takeover from gray to black. Gray attempted to take a few steps back near the end, but the darker hue eventually won out, and night arrived. He found himself still on the move, and not wholly prepared to stop. His eyes had been ever adjusting to the trivial changes, and so for a while he had not noticed the arrival of night. It was the absence of change that aroused him to the fact, not the change itself.

  The mist persisted, rising mostly from the wet in thick, billowy clouds, prodded into movement by small puffs of air that one could not call a wind since it really wasn’t blowing in any particular direction or with strength of purpose. Standing on a moist ledge, a twinge of pain came to him, first in his toes, and then up his foot.

  Another time he would have cast it off, since his body was already fatigued and troubled by a number of small aches and pains, but the fog irritated him, and so he kicked out with his foot, stomped down. His foot came down on something slippery and slimy.

  A whisper in his mind said, “Black sucker, Black sucker.” The bile in his mouth suddenly became abhorrence as his stomach soured. He despised suckers, large or small, it didn’t really matter, though the large ones were more dangerous, and the small more bothersome.

  He maintained his retreat until he reached the center of the house where he set up camp for the night. It was during this preparation that he discovered something else. The small arbor encasement stirred with fresh life; the shell was broken.

  He would not find rest as soon as he had wanted, though he was bold enough to hope that when the ordeal was ended he would be able to rest sounder and safer. Two tiny balls of pale red stared at him from the other side of the meshing on the container’s top.

  He was overjoyed, though he wasn’t sure if his friend was completely out of the shell, or if only the head was free. He watched and waited, and the miracle unfolded to him in tiny sounds and pulsations from within the container.

  He hadn’t expected this time to come for several days. He had not even cleansed his mind or performed any of the normal ritualistic preparations. He had been too caught up in his own affairs and now something that would affect the whole of his life and the scope of his journey had unfolded without him.

  He was on the outside looking in. His face was pressed so close to the mesh that when the unexpected flicker of tongue touched his nose, he cried out, startling the little slither, and sending it racing away into the shadows.

  “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” Ray whispered, and though it seemed he was talking to himself he carried on, “Come on, you can come back. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Turning a cupped hand up, he released the latch on the container’s meshed top. A flood of the elder’s words flowed through his mind as he did this. “The first moments of meeting are the most important. First impression is the lasting impression. Be true to your intentions, and voice them to him, and if he is willing, he will accompany you, and if not, he will turn away.”

  Before his eyes, images of all he had endured to get to this point raced, emotions sweeping across his face and playing with the pounding of his heart. He looked ahead now, as far as he dared to reach. “When it is over, you will be free, if it is your wish,” he whispered as his thoughts raced on, not lingering long on that one rationalization. He closed his eyes and pleaded.

  The tiny slither had his wits about him. The calling of the wet and freedom beckoned, and he crawled across his hand, flopping onto the refreshing, wet ground. It did not stop there, though it hesitated briefly. He did not know this; he only knew it was gone. Fearing he might accidentally squash it, he froze in place for a long time, finally crouching down to his haunches, where sleep would later find him.

  A clear day came but he did not welcome it. Finding himself alone, he wallowed in self-pity. A late start allowed the last remnants of the haze to burn off. Food was tasteless as it passed his palate. He ate for subsistence, nothing more. He came to the edge of the wet, closely viewing its every nuance: a ripple, a wave, a branch or twig floating past.

  He considered his quest at an end. He would find no new love, no new bond, for his realm, only remorse and perhaps in the end disdain. The connecting link had been severed before it had begun and he had no one to blame but himself, and this was a momentous burden for him to carry.

  At that moment, the instant where he considered turning back and running home, which he could have done easily though the consequences would have been severe, a voice whispered in his thoughts, “Go until you think you can’t go any more, and then go just a little bit more…”

  He gazed at the rising sun, into the wide space highlighted by its passing, realizing then that he did not want to turn back. He wanted to go on, to go on until he could not go on any more. He couldn’t have known that at that moment, tucked within the shadows of its new home, the tiny slither waited. No, he had made his decision indep
endent of this, and it was something that would stick in his mind for a long, long time to come.

  The previous day’s precipitation, not at all uncommon, had made the residences wet and slick, and everything he brushed against irritated him. He trudged through thick mud, hard slippery rock, and through the wet itself, in unceasing repetition. It was during this, some hours later, that he found himself sinking in wet and muck up past his knees, balancing himself with his staff, and trying to pull himself out with little fortune.

  Even before starting into the crossing, he had seen Old Bull lounging on a large, dry rock. And there Ray stood, stuck, sinking, but Old Bull, somewhat cocked off to one side of the large, protruding boulder, didn’t budge, and Ray would never know why.

  At about waist height, Ray stopped sinking into the muck, and now the only question that remained was how he would break free. With his walking stick, he tested the depth around him, driving it down and prying it out afterward. He could try to back out, but that wouldn’t necessarily solve his problem.

  He slipped the pack off his shoulders, allowing it to float free and luckily the seals held or it would have sunk straight to the bottom and disappeared. Still, he made enough noise that he didn’t hear the bull’s careful slip from the rock and he panicked a moment later when he noticed the emptiness. His wild thrashing only worked him deeper into the muck.

  Re-collecting thought, he tested his weight against the pack, utilizing leverage from his staff, though he did not lift far, and as soon as the leverage waned, he sank back down to where he had begun. He twisted right, bending back, scanning the surface, probing with his stick, did the same to the left. Off to his right was a partially submerged trunk, blackened and ripened by the wet, yet it was just beyond arm’s reach.