"It's all right," Tim said. "It's fine."
Helmsman dropped to one knee. The others had gotten out of the boat, and they did the same. They fisted their foreheads and cried Hile!
Tim felt more tears rise and fought them back. He said: "Rise, bondsmen . . . if that's what you think you are. Rise in love and thanks."
They rose and scrambled back into their boat.
Tim raised the metal disc with the writing on it. "I'll bring this back! Good as I found it! I will!"
Slowly--but still smiling, and that was somehow terrible--Helmsman shook his head. He gave the boy a last fond and lingering look, then poled the ramshackle boat away from solid ground and into the unsteady part of the world that was their home. Tim stood watching it make its slow and stately turn south. When the crew raised their dripping paddles in salute, he waved. He watched them go until the boat was nothing but a phantom waver on the belt of fire laid down by the setting sun. He dashed warm tears from his eyes and restrained (barely) an urge to call them back.
When the boat was gone, he slung his gunna about his slender body, turned in the direction the device had indicated, and began to walk deeper into the forest.
Dark came. At first there was a moon, but its glow was only an untrustworthy glimmer by the time it reached the ground . . . and then that too was gone. There was a path, he was sure of it, but it was easy to wander to one side or the other. The first two times this happened he managed to avoid running into a tree, but not the third. He was thinking of Maerlyn, and how likely it was there was no such person, and smacked chest-first into the bole of an ironwood. He held onto the silver disc, but the basket of food tumbled to the ground and spilled.
Now I'll have to grope around on my hands and knees, and unless I stay here until morning, I'll still probably miss some of the--
"Would you like a light, traveler?" a woman's voice asked.
Tim would later tell himself he shouted in surprise--for don't we all have a tendency to massage our memories so they reflect our better selves?--but the truth was a little balder: he screamed in terror, dropped the disc, bolted to his feet, and was on the verge of taking to his heels (and never mind the trees he might crash into) when the part of him dedicated to survival intervened. If he ran, he would likely never be able to find the food scattered at the edge of the path. Or the disc, which he had promised to protect and bring back undamaged.
It was the disc that spoke.
A ridiculous idea, even a fairy the size of Armaneeta couldn't fit inside that thin plate of metal . . . but was it any more ridiculous than a boy on his own in the Endless Forest, searching for a mage who had to be long centuries dead? Who, even if alive, was likely thousands of wheels north of here, in that part of the world where the snow never melted?
He looked for the greenglow and didn't see it. With his heart still hammering in his chest, Tim got down on his knees and felt around, touching a litter of leaf-wrapped pork popkins, discovering a small basket of berries (most spilled on the ground), discovering the hamper itself . . . but no silver disc.
In despair, he cried: "Where in Nis are you?"
"Here, traveler," the woman's voice said. Perfectly composed. Coming from his left. Still on his hands and knees, he turned in that direction.
"Where?"
"Here, traveler."
"Keep talking, will ya do."
The voice was obliging. "Here, traveler. Here, traveler, here, traveler."
He reached toward the voice; his hand closed on the precious artifact. When he turned it over in his hand, he saw the green light. He cradled it to his chest, sweating. He thought he had never been so terrified, not even when he realized he was standing on the head of a dragon, nor so relieved.
"Here, traveler. Here, traveler. Here--"
"I've got you," Tim said, feeling simultaneously foolish and not foolish at all. "You can, um, be quiet now."
Silence from the silver disc. Tim sat still for perhaps five minutes, listening to the night-noises of the forest--not so threatening as those in the swamp, at least so far--and getting himself under control. Then he said, "Yes, sai, I'd like a light."
The disc commenced the same low whining noise it made when it brought forth the stick, and suddenly a white light, so brilliant it made Tim temporarily blind, shone out. The trees leaped into being all around him, and some creature that had crept close without making a sound leaped back with a startled yark sound. Tim's eyes were still too dazzled for him to get a good look, but he had an impression of a smooth-furred body and--perhaps--a squiggle of tail.
A second stick had emerged from the plate. At the top, a small hooded bulge was producing that furious glare. It was like burning phosphorous, but unlike phosphorous, it did not burn out. Tim had no idea how sticks and lights could hide in a metal plate so thin, and didn't care. One thing he did care about.
"How long will it last, my lady?"
"Your question is nonspecific, traveler. Rephrase."
"How long will the light last?"
"Battery power is eighty-eight percent. Projected life is seventy years, plus or minus two."
Seventy years, Tim thought. That should be enough.
He began picking up and repacking his gunna.
With the bright glare to guide him, the path he was following was even clearer than it had been on the edge of the swamp, but it sloped steadily upward, and by midnight (if it was midnight; he had no way of telling), Tim was tired out in spite of his long sleep in the boat. The oppressive and unnatural heat continued, and that didn't help. Neither did the weight of the hamper and the waterskin. At last he sat, put the disc down beside him, opened the hamper, and munched one of the popkins. It was delicious. He considered a second, then reminded himself that he didn't know how long he would have to make these rations last. It also crossed his mind that the brilliant light shining from the disc could be seen by anything that happened to be in the vicinity, and some of those things might not be friendly.
"Would you turn the light off, lady?"
He wasn't sure she would respond--he had tried several conversational gambits in the last four or five hours, with no result--but the light went off, plunging him into utter darkness. At once Tim seemed to sense living things all around him--boars, woods-wolves, vurts, mayhap a pooky or two--and he had to restrain an urge to ask for the light again.
These ironwoods seemed to know it was Wide Earth in spite of the unnatural heat, and had sprinkled down plenty of year-end duff, mostly on the flowers that surrounded their bases, but also beyond them. Tim gathered up enough to make a jackleg bed and lay down upon it.
I've gone jippa, he thought--the unpleasant Tree term for people who lost their minds. But he didn't feel jippa. What he felt was full and content, although he missed the Fagonarders and worried about them.
"I'm going to sleep," he said. "Will you wake me if something comes, sai?"
She responded, but not in a way Tim understood: "Directive Nineteen."
That's the one after eighteen and before twenty, Tim thought, and closed his eyes. He began to drift at once. He thought to ask the disembodied female voice another question: Did thee speak to the swamp people? But by then he was gone.
In the deepest crease of the night, Tim Ross's part of the Endless Forest came alive with small, creeping forms. Within the sophisticated device marked North Central Positronics Portable Guidance Module DARIA, NCP-1436345-AN, the ghost in the machine marked the approach of these creatures but remained silent, sensing no danger. Tim slept on.
The throcken--six in all--gathered around the slumbering boy in a loose semicircle. For a while they watched him with their strange gold-ringed eyes, but then they turned north and raised their snouts in the air.
Above the northernmost reaches of Mid-World, where the snows never end and New Earth never comes, a great funnel had begun to form, turning in air lately arrived from the south that was far too warm. As it began to breathe like a lung, it sucked up a moit of frigid air from below and b
egan to turn faster, creating a self-sustaining energy pump. Soon the outer edges found the Path of the Beam, which Guidance Module DARIA read electronically and which Tim Ross saw as a faint path through the woods.
The Beam tasted the storm, found it good, and sucked it in. The starkblast began to move south, slowly at first, then faster.
Tim awoke to birdsong and sat up, rubbing his eyes. For a moment he didn't know where he was, but the sight of the hamper and the greenish shafts of sunlight falling through the high tops of the ironwood trees soon set him in place. He stood up, started to step off the path to do his morning necessary, then paused. He saw several tight little bundles of scat around the place where he had slept, and wondered what had come to investigate him in the night.
Something smaller than wolves, he thought. Let that be enough.
He unbuttoned his flies and took care of his business. When he was finished, he repacked the hamper (a little surprised that his visitors hadn't raided it), had a drink from the waterskin, and picked up the silver disc. His eye fell on the third button. The Widow Smack spoke up inside his head, telling him not to push it, to leave well enough alone, but Tim decided this was advice he would disregard. If he had paid attention to well-meaning advice, he wouldn't be here. Of course, his mother might also have her sight . . . but Big Kells would still be his steppa. He supposed all of life was full of similar trades.
Hoping the damned thing wouldn't explode, Tim pushed the button.
"Hello, traveler!" the woman's voice said.
Tim began to hello her back, but she went on without acknowledging him. "Welcome to DARIA, a guidance service of North Central Positronics. You are on the Beam of the Cat, sometimes known as the Beam of the Lion or of the Tyger. You are also on the Way of the Bird, known variously as the Way of the Eagle, the Way of the Hawk, and the Way of the Vulturine. All things serve the Beam!"
"So they do say," Tim agreed, so wonderstruck he was hardly aware he was speaking. "Although no one knows what it means."
"You have left Waypoint Nine, in Fagonard Swamp. There is no Dogan in Fagonard Swamp, but there is a charging station. If you need a charging station, say yes and I will compute your course. If you do not need a charging station, say continue."
"Continue," Tim said. "Lady . . . Daria . . . I seek Maerlyn--"
She overrode him. "The next Dogan on the current course is on the North Forest Kinnock, also known as the Northern Aerie. The charging station at the North Forest Kinnock Dogan is off-line. Disturbance in the Beam suggests magic at that location. There may also be Changed Life at that location. Detour is recommended. If you would like to detour, say detour and I will compute the necessary changes. If you would like to visit the North Forest Kinnock Dogan, also known as the Northern Aerie, say continue."
Tim considered the choices. If the Daria-thing was suggesting a detour, this Dogan-place was probably dangerous. On the other hand, wasn't magic exactly what he had come in search of? Magic, or a miracle? And he'd already stood on the head of a dragon. How much more dangerous could the North Forest Kinnock Dogan be?
Maybe a lot, he admitted to himself . . . but he had his father's ax, he had his father's lucky coin, and he had a four-shot. One that worked, and had already drawn blood.
"Continue," he said.
"The distance to the North Forest Kinnock Dogan is fifty miles, or forty-five-point-forty-five wheels. The terrain is moderate. Weather conditions . . ."
Daria paused. There was a loud click. Then:
"Directive Nineteen."
"What is Directive Nineteen, Daria?"
"To bypass Directive Nineteen, speak your password. You may be asked to spell."
"I don't know what that means."
"Are you sure you would not like me to plot a detour, traveler? I am detecting a strong disturbance in the Beam, indicating deep magic."
"Is it white magic or black?" It was as close as Tim could come to asking a question the voice from the plate probably wouldn't understand: Is it Maerlyn or is it the man who got Mama and me into this mess?
When there was no answer for ten seconds, Tim began to believe there would be no answer at all . . . or another repetition of Directive Nineteen, which really amounted to the same thing. But an answer came back, although it did him little good.
"Both," said Daria.
His way continued upward, and the heat continued, as well. By noon, Tim was too tired and hungry to go on. He had tried several times to engage Daria in conversation, but she had once again gone silent. Pushing the third button did not help, although her navigation function seemed unimpaired; when he deliberately turned to the right or left of the discernible path leading ever deeper into the woods (and ever upward), the green light turned red. When he turned back, the green reappeared.
He ate from the hamper, then settled in for a nap. When he awoke, it was late afternoon and a little cooler. He reslung the hamper on his back (it was lighter now), shouldered the waterskin, and pushed ahead. The afternoon was short and the twilight even shorter. The night held fewer terrors for him, partly because he had already survived one, but mostly because, when he called for the light, Daria provided it. And after the heat of the day, the cool of evening was refreshing.
Tim went on for a good many hours before he began to tire again. He was gathering some duff to sleep on until daylight when Daria spoke up. "There is a scenic opportunity ahead, traveler. If you wish to take advantage of this scenic opportunity, say continue. If you do not wish to observe, say no."
Tim had been in the act of putting the hamper on the ground. Now he picked it up again, intrigued. "Continue," he said.
The disc's bright light went out, but after Tim's eyes had a chance to adjust, he saw light up ahead. Only moonlight, but far brighter than that which filtered through the trees overhanging the path.
"Use the green navigation sensor," Daria said. "Move quietly. The scenic opportunity is one mile, or point-eight wheels, north of your current location."
With that, she clicked off.
Tim moved as quietly as he could, but to himself he sounded very loud. In the end, it probably made no difference. The path opened into the first large clearing he had come to since entering the forest, and the beings occupying it took no notice of him at all.
There were six billy-bumblers sitting on a fallen ironwood tree, with their snouts raised to the crescent moon. Their eyes gleamed like jewels. Throcken were hardly ever seen in Tree these days, and to see even one was considered extremely lucky. Tim never had. Several of his friends claimed to have glimpsed them at play in the fields, or in the blossie groves, but he suspected they were fibbing. And now . . . to see a full half-dozen . . .
They were, he thought, far more beautiful than the treacherous Armaneeta, because the only magic about them was the plain magic of living things. These were the creatures that surrounded me last night--I know they were.
He approached them as in a dream, knowing he would probably frighten them away, but helpless to stay where he was. They did not move. He stretched his hand out to one, ignoring the doleful voice in his head (it sounded like the Widow's) telling him he would certainly be bitten.
The bumbler did not bite, but when it felt Tim's fingers in the dense fur below the shelf of its jaw, it seemed to awake. It leaped from the log. The others did the same. They began to chase around his feet and between his legs, nipping at each other and uttering high-pitched barks that made Tim laugh.
One looked over its shoulder at him . . . and seemed to laugh back.
They left him and raced to the center of the clearing. There they made a moving ring in the moonlight, their faint shadows dancing and weaving. They all stopped at once and rose on their hind legs with their paws outstretched, looking for all the world like little furry men. Beneath the cold smile of the crescent moon, they all faced north, along the Path of the Beam.
"You're wonderful!" Tim called.
They turned to him, concentration broken. "Wunnerful!" one of them said . . .
and then they all raced into the trees. It happened so quickly that Tim could almost believe he had imagined the whole thing.
Almost.
He made camp in the clearing that night, hoping they might return. And, as he drifted toward sleep, he remembered something the Widow Smack had said about the unseasonably warm weather. It's probably nothing . . . unless you see Sir Throcken dancing in the starlight or looking north with his muzzle upraised.
He had seen not just one bumbler but a full half-dozen doing both.
Tim sat up. The Widow had said those things were a sign of something--what? A stunblast? That was close, but not quite--
"Starkblast," he said. "That was it."
"Starkblast," Daria said, startling him more wide awake than ever. "A fast-moving storm of great power. Its features include steep and sudden drops in temperature accompanied by strong winds. It has been known to cause major destruction and loss of life in civilized portions of the world. In primitive areas, entire tribes have been wiped out. This definition of starkblast has been a service of North Central Positronics."
Tim lay down again on his bed of duff, arms crossed behind his head, looking up at the circle of stars this clearing made visible. A service of North Central Positronics, was it? Well . . . maybe. He had an idea it might really have been a service of Daria. She was a marvelous machine (although he wasn't sure a machine was all she was), but there were things she wasn't allowed to tell him. He had an idea she might be hinting at some things, though. Was she leading him on, as the Covenant Man and Armaneeta had done? Tim had to admit it was a possibility, but he didn't really believe it. He thought--possibly because he was just a stupid kid, ready to believe anything--that maybe she hadn't had anyone to talk to for a long time, and had taken a shine to him. One thing he knew for sure: if there was a terrible storm coming, he would do well to finish his business quickly, and then get undercover. But where would be safe?
This led his musings back to the Fagonard tribe. They weren't a bit safe . . . as they knew, for hadn't they already imitated the bumblers for him? He had promised himself he would recognize what they were trying to show him if it was put before him, and he had. The storm was coming--the starkblast. They knew it, probably from the bumblers, and they expected it to kill them.