Rhapsody in Orange

tweaking feline pride every now and then.

  She slipped her free hand into Sunny's. "Ya know, I've been thinking, when we get back ta Ulthar, we oughta celebrate."

  Sunny gave her a surprised look.

  "Yeah, I know, I'm supposed ta be the frugal one. But for once we're not hurting for money. We've still got plenty of what the cats gave us, our adventures of the past couple of months have brought in more than enough ta cover our budget, and Mephitis has promised us a hefty fee. I think we can afford ta splurge."

  "I concur. So, what did you have in mind?"

  "I thought we could start off by spending the day at Tabitha's spa; get a massage, facials, mud bathes, the whole works."

  "Sounds great! What else?"

  "Then we can have an early dinner at Gundersen's tavern."

  "Really?! But I thought you didn't like it."

  "It's not my favorite place, but I know you love it. So I'm willing ta put up with it if it makes you happy."

  "That's so sweet! But deep down I suspect you love it too."

  Perhaps, she thought, but I'm not gonna admit it.

  "Finally, we'll spend the evening at Madam Trotula's bathhouse."

  Sunny gave her a coquettish leer. "My word! You've taken quite a liking to water sports, haven't you."

  Embarrassed, she blushed. "Yeah, well, we don't have a hot tub back in the Waking World, or a pool, or access to anything like that with privacy, so it's either the shower or super soakers in the back yard. Besides, it's a bit more erotic than going back to our own bed."

  "Oh, I agree completely, but what about tonight? We wouldn't get back to Ulthar until well after sunset, and I don't want to travel through the Faulklyn Hills in the dark."

  "Me neither, so we'll stay overnight in Kirin again. If we leave at the crack of dawn, we should be back in Ulthar by early evening. After we drop off the stuff with Mephitis and collect our pay, we can get something ta eat and a good night's sleep, then be at Tabitha's when she opens in the morning."

  Sunny smiled and crinkled her eyes. "Sounds like a plan, partner."

  "That's assuming you don't get distracted by anything along the way."

  She affected a serious attitude. "I swear, I will focus my attention solely on getting home and ignore everything else around me. Cross my heart and hope to die." She traced an "X" over her chest, but she used the hand that held the bow, and almost whacked herself in the face, which elicited a giggling fit.

  "Oh, Sunny." Eile shook her head, but she displayed a broad a grin.

  By that time they had reached the spot indicated on the map. It turned out to be a boggy hollow, in area a little larger than a baseball field. Pools of debris and silt-filled water lay interspersed by mounds and ridges of soggy earth. The trees were small and thinner there, and more widely scattered, but the only other vegetation were thick mats of a ground-hugging herb.

  Shadow sat on a rock waiting for them as she gazed into the hollow. The long, lean, smoky-gray cat looked up at them with her mint-green eyes as they came abreast of her. "This may be a little more difficult."

  To Eile she sounded smugly satisfied. "What do you think?"

  "It doesn't look too bad." But Sunny's tone contained a hint of uncertainty. Eile couldn't blame her. While it wouldn't be as easy as the other items, it looked simple enough: avoid the pools, stay on the land, and hope it was solid enough to support them. But it would make searching for the gilded toadstool all the more difficult.

  Sunny sighed in frustration. "If only we knew where to look."

  As if her words were a prayer, a shaft of sunlight dropped out of a break in the clouds and fell on the central mound. At its center an object winked and twinkled with a distinctive metallic sheen.

  Though stunned, Eile felt suspicious too. "Alright, now that was just too convenient."

  "Yeah, but what choice do we have?"

  Sunny sounded nervous, but she was right. "None." She placed the pack on the ground. "You go first. Use yer bow ta test the ground ahead, make sure it's firm." She unsheathed her sword and held it at the ready. "I'll watch our backs. Okay?"

  "Okay, partner!" She grinned, excitement shining in her eyes. "Team Girl laughs in the face of death as we brave the dangers of the bog of doom! Ha-ha-ha!"

  Eile grimaced and pressed the fingers of her left hand into her forehead. "Just...be careful where you step, will ya? Shadow, you stay here."

  "I'll be sure to tell Mayv where to scatter the flowers."

  She gave the cat a dirty look. "Thanks a bunch."

  "Don't mention it."

  Sunny made her way to the closest ridge and started out, probing the earth with her bow before she took each step. Eile made sure she stepped into Sunny's footprints. At first the ground seemed quite firm, but after a couple of yards Sunny started to sink. For a moment her heart seized up as she expected Sunny to be sucked down out of sight, but she only sank to her ankles. The ground had gotten softer, but the vegetation seemed able to hold it together.

  "Ick!" Sunny squealed as she extracted her foot.

  "Keep moving!" She sank as well, but fortunately no deeper despite her armor. Apparently the herb mat was strong enough to bear their weight without breaking.

  Sunny took another step. "I hope I tied the laces real tight. I don't want to be stuck out here without boots."

  After over twelve Dream-months, Eile had gotten pretty good at estimating the passage of time without a watch. It was sort of like dead reckoning. By her calculation, it took them a total of forty-five minutes to reach the central mound. It was a nerve-wracking trip; with each step, she expected them to stumble into quicksand or fall through an unsuspected dirt bridge and sink into a deep bog hole. But they made it safely, and she figured the journey back would be faster.

  Sunny lifted her skirt and examined her feet. They were covered in muck half-way up her shins. "Ugh. I'm gonna need to get new shoes after this." She then dropped the hem and looked around, while Eile looked with her.

  The mound looked no different from any of the others, except larger. It was covered by an herb mat, but in its center stood the Golden Mushroom. It resembled its name exactly: a standard toadstool stalk and cap, but metallic gold in color. In fact, it looked like it was made of real gold.

  "Here." Sunny held out her bow, and she took it.

  "We'll take the same route back." She watched Sunny put on her gloves and go up to the fungus.

  "Right." She spoke in an absentminded fashion as she knelt down.

  In the same moment, Eile felt something strange in the woods around them. The hairs on the nape of neck stood up as her skin crawled and turned to goose flesh. Raising her sword, she turned around in all directions, trying to identify it, but she saw nothing. But she heard it: muffled thunderclaps like the stamping of huge feet. Then she felt the ground tremble with the concussion shock. Something was coming, something huge, but she couldn't pinpoint from where.

  She looked back at Sunny. She had heard and felt it too, and she stood slowly as she looked around.

  "Sunny!" She tossed her the bow. She caught it and nocked an arrow, ready for whatever might come.

  The sounds grew steadily louder as the tremors intensified. Then Eile saw them: gigantic anthropoid figures striding around the perimeter of the hollow, just beyond the tree line. She tried to count them, but lost track as they crossed and recrossed each other's paths. They moved faster than she expected from their size. She looked for Shadow, but the cat was gone.

  Before she could try to find her, one of the figures emerged into the hollow. It came at her with startling speed as it covered great distances with each enormous stride.

  "Sweet Jesus!" She saw it clearly for the first time: it looked like a tree!

  Sunny screamed. Eile whipped around in time to see a second tree-creature stalking off with her in one hand. She struggled, kicked, and pounded on the fingers, but it had her in an iron grip.

  "Eile!! Help me!!!" The monster merged with the woods and vanished from sight.
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  "Sunnyyy!!!" She started off after her. The creature coming up from behind passed by her in two massive strides, then turned and swung an arm at her. It caught her before she could dodge, picked her up, and threw her backwards in a high, long arch. She landed in one of the pools with a shocking splash. Terrified, she flailed about for some moments, desperately trying to stay afloat, when she realized she already rested on the bottom. She sat up and wiped detritus away from her face as she sputtered to expel the foul tasting water from her mouth.

  She looked around and found that the tree-monsters had gone.

  "Shit!" She groped for her sword, and when she found it she stood up and ran back to the central mound, heedless to any danger. She gained the top and glanced around, looking for the spot where the one creature had taken Sunny into the woods, but she saw nothing to indicate where they had gone.

  "Arrrgh, dammit, dammit, dammit!" She raged as much from misery as wrath.

  "Eile!"

  She turned and saw Shadow standing on a farther mound.

  "I know where they took Sunny. Follow me!"

  She didn't argue. She charged off the mound and across a ridge, and followed the cat as it crossed the rest of the hollow and dashed into the woods. Eile ran as fast as she could push herself, relying on instinct to avoid roots and branches, and luck to avoid what her senses couldn't detect. The scenery around her passed in a blur as her sight focused into tunnel vision and she became oblivious to everything except the chase and her desperate desire to find Sunny.

  God, whoever or whatever you are in this place, please let her be