So this is how the world ends, he thought. Not in ice but in fire, demonic at that. They were to be incinerated on the verge of crossing over. He could feel the flame licking at his skin, teasing his cheeks, incredibly hot and intensely red-orange.
Only—the fire was cool instead of hot, and the flames had wings. He opened his eyes all the way. The terrible heat which had touched him and had threatened to fry them instantly had vanished.
The flames had become a blizzard of brightly colored butterflies.
They had entered the Out Of.
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25
In the Out Of—Elsewhen
Daylight was a feeble imitation of what it had been, weak and dim. The sky looked and smelled of decay and the air was sour with freshly renewed fetidness. Outside the slowing Suzuki a rotten breeze blew through cancer-laden trees. A shrunken, diseased sun hung uncertainly overhead. While its position corresponded to that of the sol they had left behind, the light it case was uneven and sickly.
There was no sign of the pursuing Spirit of the Earth.
They drove on through the faint purple twilight. Although only a single sun was visible in the sky, many of the twisted, gnarled growths that clung to the riverbank cast multiple shadows on the sand below. Some of the shadows hinted at unpleasant shapes moving invisibly among the disintegrating wood.
Here and there young plants thrust hopeful stalks skyward, only to be sickened and bent as they matured by unseen poisons in the air and earth. There were no clouds, but Merry thought she could see thin, slightly phosphorescent green outlines flickering overhead. Some kind of unnatural auroral glow came too near the ground. The dead cold of space pressed close here.
The floor was littered with dead butterflies. Their brightly hued wings turned to gray ash as they perished from contact with the same atmosphere that had transformed them from flame into living things.
"Get out of the river," Olkeloki finally said into the silence. "The Spirits of the Earth are many. What went looking for us in the real world may come hunting for us here."
Oak glanced into the rear-view as he swung toward the left bank. Still no sign of the monster which had nearly incinerated them. Only the purple twilight and a faint reddish glow clinging to the sand like animated fungi.
They found a place where the loose soil of the riverbank had recently crumbled. Even the exposed rock looked ill. It took two tries, but Oak got the Suzuki out of the river and brought it to a halt atop the bank. They were surrounded by forest once more, but it was not the familiar miombo woodland they'd grown accustomed to seeing.
The forest was composed of all those trees and bushes and flowers that had failed the test of evolution before they'd been able to sow a single seed. Here grew unhealthy species that had existed only as a broken strand of DNA floating in the protoplasm of a cancerous gene. Some showed leprous, warty trunks. On others the thin bark had sloughed away to reveal what looked like bloody skin underneath. Mold and fungi grew everywhere, feeding on other plants and the roots of dying trees. Oak was reluctant to turn off the engine out of a sudden stomach-churning fear that once off, the car would never start up again. Olkeloki hastened to reassure him.
"It is only a machine, not unlike you and me. So long as our hearts function, so will this vehicle." He winced in sudden pain.
"Hey, you okay?"
The old man nodded slowly. "That was a strain."
"What was a strain? I didn't see you do anything."
"It was done and over with quickly, as it had to be. One instant the way into the Out Of is malleable as gold; the next it becomes as unyielding as steel." He smiled weakly. "Be of good cheer, Joshua Oak. Now all will be made well again. We have succeeded. I will begin the preparations to seal the breach before it weakens further." Despite the feeble light and the cooler temperature Oak could see that the old man was sweating profusely. "A difficult passage swiftly accomplished. It is one thing to pass into the Out Of, quite another to do so in the company of three friends."
He had Kakombe hand him his calabash and a small leather sack from their stock of supplies, then opened the door on his side and stepped out. Merry held her breath, but nothing shot from the forest to blast the old man from the face of the earth.
"Wait in the car if you wish, but preparation will take a little time."
Keeping a wary eye on their surroundings, they joined him outside. Oak discovered he could look straight at the feeble sun. That didn't mean it couldn't damage his remaining eye, so he turned away from it. Besides, the dim perfect circle looked too much like the dark muzzle of the Kalishnikov which had nearly ended his life.
It wasn't the first time he and death had brushed close by each other. There was the time in Idaho when the key had exploded in his eye, one rainy evening in the swamps of Louisiana, once in the Chicago ghetto. Each time he'd seen death looking at him, and each time it had waved and passed him by. Just as it had only waved from behind the Kalishnikov.
How long before casual acquaintance passed into permanent embrace? Peering into the depths of the diseased forest, he half expected to see his old friend moving back among the shadows. There were no sidewalks full of people here, no streams of life to separate them. This was the Out Of, and he knew it for a certainty that if he encountered the dark shade here it would not wave but would come smiling grimly to grasp him firmly by the hand.
"Here." Kakombe handed him his Makonde knife and spear. Oak slipped the leather thong that ran through the knife's handle over his belt. It bounced against his right leg but was not uncomfortable. A faint coolness seemed to radiate from the highly polished black wood.
Kakombe assumed a one-legged herder's pose, using his own spear for balance. Oak kept shifting his own weapon uncomfortably from hand to hand. No matter how he held it, it still felt like a garden rake. No doubt it was a unique weapon, able to kill even shetani, but he still wished for the solid butt of a .38 in his palm.
"I've got to make a pit stop," Merry announced.
"Go behind the car. I won't watch and neither will Kakombe."
"Not on your life. Olkeloki's over there muttering to himself and drawing pictures in the dirt."
"Well, if he's drawing in the dirt then he won't pay any attention to you either," he said irritably.
"I've always been convinced that men and women have entirely different notions as to what constitutes privacy. Maybe it comes from using different sides of the brain." She pointed to a large pale-gray bush. Limp blue flowers trailed from drooping branches to lie flat upon the ground, as though the entire growth was suffering from heat prostration. "I'm going behind there. Nobody look."
At what, Oak thought as she walked away. His first wife had been like that. It wasn't enough that you didn't look into the bathroom when it was in use. You weren't supposed to look toward the bathroom, either. He glanced skyward. The sun had moved slightly westward but also a little north. Maybe it just wandered haphazardly across the sky here and never set. The twilight was bad enough.
Then he noticed the small bulges which had begun to cut into both sides of the sun. Two moons, or a single moon moving in opposite directions until it met itself coming? What would happen if the first was the case and the two collided in front of the sun? Fireworks? Disconcerting to contemplate.
He left Kakombe standing storklike and walked around the Suzuki. Olkeloki had cleared a small area of weeds and large rocks. The laibon now squatted in the center of the circle, inscribing symbols and words in the dirt with the butt end of one of Nafasi's spears. He barely glanced up at Oak.
"The seal must be made secure on the first try, Joshua Oak."
"How can you seal up something we didn't even see?"
"You did not see it. That doesn't to mean it wasn't seen. Do you still pine for your dynamite?"
"Wish I had a few sticks. The air here stinks. Makes my skin crawl."
"In the Out Of everything crawls, even electrons. Cells crawl, nuclei crawl. Everything here is sick,
or it would not be here. It would be in our world. Here even the strong force is weak, and particles have bad flavor and weak color."
"I can't figure you, old man. Haven't been able to since the day we met. Just when I've got you pegged as pure witch doctor you up and slap me with talk like that."
The laibon smiled as he continued working in the dirt. Now he was setting carefully selected pebbles from his leather sack in small hollows he'd scooped from the soil. When all the hollows had been filled, he began covering them up.
"Today's science is yesterday's magic, friend Oak. Today's magic is tomorrow's science. All disciplines are tangent and the differences between them often nothing more substantial than semantics. Scientists or laibon who dismiss conclusions out of hand because they do not countenance the methodology utilized to reach them forfeit their title. Energy arises out of learning, not contempt."
"Is that what you're trying to produce here? Some kind of energy?"
Olkeloki laughed softly. "Your cultural background will not let you get away from the concept of explosion as savior. Ah well. What I am trying to produce is something that has not been produced before. Different laws to achieve a similar end."
"Magic?"
"Magic, science—it is results we seek, not definitions."
Magic. Surprising how natural and unthreatening it sounded. All you had to do was say it. Like "love." Now, why should that analogy occur to him?
Olkeloki kept working his way around the little clearing, never rising from his squatting position. He must have muscles of iron in those lean thighs, Oak thought admiringly. Consider what the old man had accomplished already: not only had he made it into the Out Of, he'd cajoled three others into coming along with him. This in spite of his advanced age.
"I asked you how old you are. You never have told me."
"I look younger than I really am, Joshua Oak." He spoke without lifting his gaze from his work. "How old do you think I am?"
"I never was real good at guessing ages. Seventy-five? Eighty?"
Olkeloki chuckled to himself as he drew three lines between several buried pebbles. "I am seven hundred and seventy-six years old, my friend. As I have already told you, my father was a great laibon. My mother was a therasi, a water spirit. I was born in the year 1210 on an island in Lake Victoria during a raging storm. My father was a poor swimmer, but a great lover."
Oak just stared at him for a moment. Then the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. "I thought you went to school in England. Oxford, wasn't it?"
"That's right." Briefly the old man's expression turned wistful. "How well I remember the lectures and exciting debates, with myself the only 'Moor' in the student body. I particularly recall the days when Roger Bacon came to lecture to us, often reading from his Opus majus or Opus tertium. He was a great one for prophesying, Roger was, and I tried to teach him a little of the Maasai way of looking into the future. He was good with the stars and the rocks, but he hated milk. He did rather well at predicting: aircraft and telescopes, steam engines." Olkeloki shook his head sadly. "No one believed him, of course. I tried to tell him to quit the Franciscans, but he preferred to stay and argue. He was a great arguer, but stubborn."
"Okay, so don't tell me how old you are. But if I happen to guess it right, will you let me know?"
The laibon's smile returned. "Yes, Joshua Oak, if you guess it I will tell you."
Oak was about to guess eighty-three when something heavy slammed into his back, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"I didn't see it," a voice rasped as he turned.
"Christ." Oak had to catch Kakombe to keep the senior warrior from falling. Despite Oak's support the giant dropped to one knee. Blood was dripping from his fringe of ochre braids. A glance was enough to locate the bruise on the back of his head.
"I did not see it," he mumbled again.
Oak looked past him, past the car. "Where's Merry?"
Olkeloki left off his preparations and rose to stare in the same direction. "I fear they've taken her."
Oak found he could hardly mouth the word. In this place it sounded doubly obscene. "Shetani?"
"Not necessarily. Many nightmares besides shetani inhabit the Out Of."
"She tried to scream, to tell me." Kakombe swallowed, rose shakily to his great height. "I heard a muffled noise from behind the bush she had chosen. I went to look and something struck me from behind. I did not hear it coming. I am ashamed."
"Probably jumped you from a tree." Olkeloki lectured the warrior sternly in Maasai before switching back to English for Oak's benefit. "Didn't you think of that when you went to check on her?"
"I could not look everywhere at once. I have only two eyes." His tone was surly, but he was angry with himself, not the old man.
Oak turned to stare into the forest, into the fetid recesses and lavender shadows. So Merry was gone. What did he really know about her, anyway? Oh, they'd shared some hard times together these past few days, but he'd shared difficult times with several female agents. In that respect the experience of the last week wasn't unprecedented. The important thing, the only thing that really mattered now, was to make sure Olkeloki was allowed to complete his work. Merry Sharrow had been a reasonably rational gal. She'd concur with that opinion.
Anyway, it didn't matter. Finding her in those nightmare woods would be impossible. Anyone foolish enough to plunge blindly in there would never come out again. Gallantry was one thing, stupidity another.
"I'm going after her," he heard himself saying. At least, it sounded like his voice. "I have to try."
For a moment Olkeloki was silent. Then he nodded briskly. "Yes, of course you must look for her."
"Kakombe, you stay here with the laibon."
"The laibon can look after himself," Kakombe replied sharply. "She was my responsibility. I was looking after her and I did not look good enough. I am coming too."
"Hey, man, I said stay here. I mean it."
Kakombe stared down at him. "If the two of us fight now, ilmeet, only the shetani will benefit. Also, I do not want to have to hurt you."
Oak backed off a couple of steps, crouched slightly. "I've brought down bigger trees than you, Kakombe. Don't make me prove it."
"Both of you go." Olkeloki sounded disgusted and Oak suddenly found himself feeling foolish instead of macho.
"Draw the shetani to you, as you will, and I will be safe enough here. You must try to find Merry Sharrow and bring her back. She must be here when the time comes. She is part of this." He glanced at Kakombe.
"Do not disdain the ilmeet. He is deceptive and cunning." His gaze shifted back to Oak. "You will need Kakombe to track. From what I know of your country that is a skill most ilmeet are not adept at."
Steppe Maasai and metropolitan man glared at each other. Then Oak made a face and gestured with his spear toward the forest. "We're wasting time arguing."
"That is something about which I will not argue." Kakombe retrieved his weapons and together they headed into the woods.
Perhaps the senior warrior was the better tracker, but Oak was no stranger to the forest himself. In any case one didn't have to be an expert to follow the trail of Merry's abductors. Branches littered the ground and the grass and fungi had been beaten down. There were numerous tracks. None of them were faintly human.
"A child could follow this." There was contempt in Kakombe's voice.
"Olkeloki never said the shetani were subtle. No reason for them to be, here. This is their place."
"If shetani have taken her. Come."
Oak had always taken care to stay in shape, but Kakombe set a relentless pace and the smaller man had to exert all his energy to keep up. Suddenly he pulled up short and slapped at the back of his neck. Kakombe turned impatiently.
"Tsetse flies here too? I am not surprised."
Oak stood there and inspected the hand he'd slapped with. There was no blood or cursed chitonous carcass. He was breathing hard and his heart pounded against his ribs.
"Didn
't feel like a tsetse. You're going to have to slow down, tall brother, or—ouch, damnit!" This time he slapped at his cheek. Kakombe grinned at him, but only for an instant. Then he was smacking his own shoulders.
Oak's hand came away damp, but not with insect blood. His head tilted back and something hot and sharp struck him on the nose.
Boiling rain.
They sought shelter beneath the expansive leaves of something that looked like a seborrheic pandanus. The steaming drops sizzled where they struck the earth, yet none of the diseased vegetation appeared adversely affected. Some plants stretched out blasted flowers to suck the hot precipitation.
"God, what an awful place."
"No need to blame God," said Kakombe. "He will not get you out of this. I may."
"If you can fight as well as you can boast we might have a real chance. I've spent my life in tighter spots than you've ever dreamed of. So don't get tougher-than-thou with me, understand? Where I come from the prey carries guns and shoots back."
"That is not the same as killing a lion with a spear."
Apples and oranges, lions and radicals—you couldn't compare the two and Oak saw no point in continuing the conversation. They waited in silence beneath the sheltering leaves for the blazing storm to move on. Steam rose in clouds from the forest floor.
"I must ask you a favor before we go farther," Kakombe said quietly.
Oak shrugged. "Ask away."
"When this is done with, when the laibon has worked his magic and we are safely back in the real world, will you sleep with my first wife?"
Oak blinked, looked around sharply. "Say what?"
"It is because of your hair, you see. Maasai women have short hair and shave their heads, but someday I would very much like to have a girl child with long hair. If you sleep with my first wife and let us keep the child I will pay you in cattle. Or if you must be paid improperly, in gold. The laibon is not the only one who knows where to find gold in Maasailand. My first wife, Eseyo, is comely and very enthusiastic. You would like her.