Man Friday

seem to understand the Crusher better than we do." The "we" referred to his tribe, among whom Medb had been living for the past six years.

  "I have intimate knowledge of the Otherworld and its inhabitants, and I do not exaggerate. Though your culture is foreign to mine, our myths and legends seem to follow the same path."

  The warrior shook his head. "What you say goes beyond my understanding, but that matters little. It is more important that we have found it, and that you know its habits, or at least can accurately guess them. How do you suggest we proceed?"

  "You said there was a hunting lodge nearby?"

  He pointed down the slope to their right. "Yes, at the base of the ridge, built into the side of the hill." Then he realized her purpose in asking. "Surely you do not mean to spend the night there. Why delay? Let us go after it now, while we can still track it."

  Medb looked up at the sky. "No, it is getting late." And indeed the sky was darkening rapidly. "We could not reach the moor before nightfall, and I have no desire to navigate it in the dark. Do you? Besides, we need food and rest, and a plan of attack; we need time to prepare."

  "Very well, the lodge is this way."

  They walked down the slope. Once at the foot of the ridge they turned right and followed its length until they came to a wooden structure protruding from a particularly steep section of its face. Like the houses of T'lingit's village, it was square-shaped, built from wooden planks supported by a frame of log poles, with a low, gabled roof and no windows. The only entrance was round and slightly shorter than either of them, but covered by a thick, reinforced door. Inside was a single, small room, the floor covered in wood planks except for the central firepit. Around the perimeter was a raised platform, for sitting and sleeping. Above the firepit was a smoke hole, but the roof continued into the hillside along with the wooden walls, and a wooden wall formed the rear of the lodge. Despite the shape, interior design, and construction material, it reminded Medb of the dwellings in her native Erin, and she felt comfortable.

  She started a fire while T'lingit went hunting. She considered it an unnecessary risk, what with the Crusher prowling nearby. They had brought food with them, but he wanted fresh game. Medb relented mostly because she believed the creature would spend the night in the moor, waiting to see if they were foolish enough to follow it in after dark. Even so, what with the gloom of approaching dusk, the warrior did not go far, and returned with only three rabbits, which he had already gutted and skinned. Nonetheless, Medb was able to turn them into a splendid stew.

  With the fire burning well, the small space heated up quickly, so he stripped down to his loincloth. She did the same, except she wore nothing else under her shirt. He was neither disturbed nor aroused by her nakedness, since she had frequently gone nude in the house of his clan in the village. In that she was not alone; though the women seldom did so, the men often went naked when comfort and circumstances permitted. That she emulated the men rather than the women was simply one of her many eccentricities his tribe had learned to accept. That evening though, as they sat after eating and discussed how best to find and kill the beast on its home ground, he found that things were different. Perhaps it was the camaraderie of their mutual pursuit; perhaps it was the closeness brought on by being in that cramped, warm space, or the fact that they were alone for the first time in six years. But now he found himself feeling attracted to her, as he would if she were his wife. As they talked, sitting close enough to catch each other's scent and feel each other's warmth, he could not resist touching and caressing her. Rather than be offended, she responded in kind, and it wasn't long before all thoughts of what they had come to do were banished in favor of other more lustful meditations. They spent the night in each other's arms, and had the Crusher itself ripped down the lodge they would not have cared.

  From "The Golden Mushroom"

  By that time they had reached the spot indicated on the map. It was 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?" she asked Sunny.

  "It doesn't look too bad." But there was a hint of uncertainty in her tone. Eile couldn't blame her. While it wasn't going to 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.

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

  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 over it, 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 was getting 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 tight enough. I don't want to be stuck out here without boots."

  After nearly 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 was 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 tu
rned 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 came.

  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.

  "Sunnyyy!!!" She started off after her. The creature coming up behind her passed 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 was already resting 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 were 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 instincts 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 safe. I can't live without her; I can't stand to lose her. Please, I beg of you, let me find her alive.

  From "Oak Do Hate"

  She ran back out to the cart and rode off; the source of the glow seemed to be just ahead. As she got closer her anxiety mounted, and in her imagination she saw all sorts of horrendous possibilities, each worse than the one before. What she finally did see, however, mystified her as she slowed the cart to a halt.

  In the space of the park between the stables and the lake, on either side of the path, were trees, dozens of them, maybe even a hundred or more.

  "There aren't supposed to be trees here." But they were the source of the glow.