“Drusilla?”
“I’ve got to get back to work,” she said. “They’ll fire me.” What the hell had she been thinking?
He said something else, but she was too embarrassed to hear. A minute later she was back at her desk, her cheeks still hot, hunting for her place in the data. At least her boss was leaving her alone because she had claimed female problems. But this was awful!
What if Miles ever guessed what she had been dreaming? She would die of embarrassment. Gosh, she hardly knew him. Five words of conversation….
It was ten or fifteen minutes before she was once again completely calm, safe in the sanctity of her own mind. Then she drifted away again….
Miles rested atop her for a long time, holding her to earth when she might have flown away, keeping her warm when the night would have chilled her. His weight comforted her deeply.
Then, gently, he moved again to her side and drew his cloak around them both.
“In the morning,” he said, “we’ll reach the top of the mountain.”
In Drusilla’s mind, they already had.
The first streamers of dusty rose were lightening the sky when Miles awoke her. “Good morning,” he said, a smile deep in his blue eyes.
She blushed and tried to look away, but he touched her chin and drew her face back around so that she had to look at him. Then he kissed her, a touch that was at once a thank-you and a promise.
“Time to climb,” he said. “Breakfast first?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Later, then,” he agreed. “It won’t be long now. If that Behemoth has the key, we’ll have it soon.”
Drusilla was glad that the Miles of the real world couldn’t read her mind, because she wouldn’t have been able to face him right now.
But the Miles of her dream was a different matter. What they’d done in the night, they had done together, fictional though it was.
She glanced at her watch and saw there wasn’t much time left on her shift. Good.
Then she continued to climb Mount Ayth with Miles the Behemoth Tamer.
The climb was arduous, but not too difficult. They paused frequently to catch their breath, and sometimes they had to be especially careful around talus, but they made steady progress. As long as they didn’t run into a guardian, everything would be fine, right?
But of course they ran into a guardian, an officious pain in the neck with a sword strapped on his waist, who wanted to see their permission to climb Mount Ayth.
And he looked ready to fight about it.
His first words were, “Get back…get back….”
Huh?
Drusilla paused, looked up from her screen, and wondered at the strange noise, which might have been singing, or might have been the mating call of the North American river otter. Now it was her turn to poke her head over the cubicle wall.
Cal was oblivious to her or anyone else, headphones from his portable CD player over his ears, singing along to the Beatles. Or mating along to them. She was tempted to tap his shoulder and suggest that he not quit his day job, then remembered that he worked nights. Which raised a terrible specter: what if singing was his day job? Suppressing a giggle and trusting to the mercies of a loving God, she sat back down and returned to her own private world.
“I’m going to where I belong,” Miles said with chilly defiance in his voice. “I live up there.”
“She doesn’t,” the guardian said. “So either she turns back or you both do.”
There was nothing more frustrating than a petty tyrant. The guardian was the kind of man who, having only a tiny amount of authority, was determined to exercise it at every opportunity. There were two ways to deal with such people.
Tack one. “Look, we’re on an important mission. The princess needs to see the Behemoth, and I’m her guide and bodyguard. And we don’t have a lot of time to argue.”
The guardian wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, yeah, everybody has a story. But I’m the law around here, and I don’t buy excuses. So turn yourselves around.”
Which left Tack two.
“You’re not the law. But you are a very important cog in the security machine on this mountain.”
The guardian looked up a bit. His chest seemed to swell an inch or two before collapsing into its previous sullen stoop. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“I’m not flattering you. I’m telling the truth.” Miles stepped forward, laying a hand on the guardian’s shoulder. “I don’t know where we’d be without people like you. The Behemoth would have been slain long ago.”
The guardian’s head perked a bit. “Yeah? You’re just saying that.”
“I’m serious. I know they don’t treat you like you matter. Hell, they don’t treat any of us like we matter.”
Drusilla wondered who they were, then decided it was wisest to keep her mouth shut.
“No they don’t,” the guardian admitted with a scowl.
“That’s right,” Miles went on. “They treat us all like we can be replaced with the flip of a wrist. But that’s not true.”
“No?”
“No.” Miles’s voice was firm. “They don’t know how much trouble there would be without good guardians like you. What if you weren’t here and the gremlins got up the mountain?”
Now the guardian did puff his chest. “That’s right. They never think of that, do they?”
“Never. They hire you, then forget all about you as long as you keep working. You become invisible.”
“I’m tired of being invisible,” the man admitted.
“Of course you are. We all are. But you do a damn fine job, Guardian, and I’m glad you’re protecting my Behemoth.”
The guardian nodded, standing straighter still. “This one’s your Behemoth, is he?”
“She,” Miles corrected gently. “Yeah, she’s mine. And I need to get back to her before she gets a bad case of hiccups. If she does, the whole mountain will start shaking. It might even come down.”
The guardian nodded. “Okay. Sorry I stopped you. But…” He eyed Drusilla uncertainly.
“She’s okay,” Miles assured him. “She’s a Behemoth feeder. I’ll vouch for her.”
“Well, okay.”
Miles smiled. “Thanks, buddy. I know I can count on you to keep the gremlins at bay.”
“Yeah.” The guardian scowled and patted his sword hilt. “And them, too. They got no business up here.”
“You got that right. Thanks for doing such a good job.”
The guardian actually smiled and waved them on their way, looking like a much prouder man.
“You’re shameless,” Drusilla said when they were out of earshot.
“Who, me? No way, Princess. I just told the truth.”
Which was true, Drusilla decided as she hiked upward behind him. The guardian was an important man, however officious.
“We’re all important,” Miles said over his shoulder. “E
ach and every one of us, no matter how much we feel like invisible cogs. No matter how much we get treated like interchangeable parts in a machine.”
“That’s true.”
He paused to smile at her. “We’ve all had a taste of that from time to time, haven’t we?”
“Even princesses,” she admitted.
“It’s like the world forgets we’re people and sees only what we can do or who we are. Sad. Very sad.”
Drusilla nodded and tried to keep up with his long legs. It was sad, she decided. Because every person mattered, no matter who he was or what he did. Knowing that Miles felt that way made her feel very close to him. Very warm toward him. He was a special man.
Miles paused, giving her a chance to catch up. “Sorry, I don’t mean to walk so fast.”
“It’s not a problem,” Drusilla said, then startled them both by leaning forward to kiss him.
His lips were so warm and soft that she wanted to melt into them forever.
A cheerful whistle dragged Drusilla back to the present. She turned around in her chair to see the nighttime security guard striding down the hallway between the cubicles, matching his steps to the theme from The Bridge Over the River Kwai.
When he saw her, he winked and gave her a casual salute. “Nice evening, Princess,” he said as he passed.
Which raised a set of strange and somewhat frightening possibilities. Could her fantasy be spilling out into the real world, affecting the people around her? Or was she somehow tapping into what was happening around her, even things she couldn’t see, and pulling them into the story? Neither possibility was comfortable. For if it were true, that would mean Miles was somehow involved, as well. The real Miles. The Miles who might rock her comfortable if unfulfilling existence in the real world. This was not good at all.
It was time to take the Behemoth— and the Behemoth Tamer—by the horns.
8
For a few moments there, Drusilla had forgotten her quest. And the ache that filled her now was almost such that she didn’t want to continue. She had to force herself to square her shoulders and back out of Miles’s arms. The future of Morgania lay in the balance.
The flicker of sadness across his face tugged at her heart, but she had to be strong. This could lead nowhere good.
“I’m sorry, Miles. We need to find the Behemoth, get the key and save my father’s kingdom. And not let ourselves get distracted by…other things.”
He nodded. “Sure. Okay. Let’s go, then.”
The last bit of the climb seemed steeper, although Drusilla wasn’t sure if that was the terrain, her tired legs, or the weight of what she’d just done. He deserved better than to be labeled a distraction. After all, she had wanted it as much as he had. But still, she had her life in order—for all its good and bad points—and she couldn’t afford to rattle that order. Not right now.
At the summit of Mount Ayth, a cavern yawned open.
Distant, disinterested hums emerged from within. The kind of hum that said, I’m not interested in the petty doings of the likes of you.
“Is that…?”
Miles nodded. “That’s the Behemoth.”
“It sounds busy.”
“It usually is.”
“So what now?” she asked.
“Now we get really, really careful.”
He stepped into the cave with cautious confidence. She followed with a good deal less certainty in her stride, peeking over his shoulder.
And there it was.
It wasn’t what she’d expected. Come to think of it, she didn’t know what she’d expected. Something large and hairy, with glowing eyes, gleaming teeth, sharp claws and a bad attitude. Instead, it was…well…rather drab. It looked like a big, boxy earthworm, with a segmented body ten or twelve feet long and about waist high. If it had eyes, it kept them well hidden. It must have had eyes, though, for this was without doubt the cleanest cave she’d ever set foot into. Apparently it had a neatness fetish. It also seemed to like cold. She shivered.
“So that’s it?” she whispered.
Miles nodded. “That’s it. It seems content enough. This might be easier than we’d hoped.”
“Famous last words,” she replied.
As if on cue, the Behemoth let out a series of sputtering belches. Iridescent scales twinkled angrily and the belches turned to repetitive yips.
Eeep-eeep-eeep-eeep-eeep!
“Oops,” Drusilla whispered.
“Oops,” Miles agreed.
“Now what?”
“Now I earn my keep.”
It seemed like an odd comment. His company had hardly been an imposition on this journey. And he’d certainly pulled his share of the weight all along. So why did he feel a need to earn his keep? Maybe he simply enjoyed the opportunity to show off his Behemoth-taming skills. Maybe it was simply a verbal tic. Maybe she was trying to parse too much from every word, every action, wondering if he felt the same things she was feeling, and if he was as afraid of them as she was. Maybe she should stop thinking about maybes. Maybe she should stop thinking, period.
He approached the Behemoth with a surprising calm, walking down one side, then around to the other, studying it, as if divining its intentions from the pattern of its yelps and flashing scales.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“That was the plan.”
“Will it breathe fire?”
He shook his head. “That only happens in stories. Behemoths are actually rather sedate, unless you try to poke around inside them without putting them to sleep first. And I’ve rarely had to go there. But they’re still dangerous.”
She was ridiculously disappointed. What was a fantasy without a fire-breathing Behemoth to defeat? “What do they do?”
“Well,” he said, taking a closer look at some of its scales, “if it gets really angry, it’ll cast a spell of forgetfulness.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. It’s diabolical. It will find everything you most need to remember and make it forgotten. Poof. As if it hadn’t even happened.”
Maybe this was more dangerous than fire-breathing after all. She stiffened her spine, ready for a fight. “Definitely not good. So how do you stop it?”
“Carefully,” he answered. “Very carefully.”
If there was any meaning to the Behemoth’s squeals, burps and flashes, she couldn’t see it. But apparently he could. He seemed to stalk the problem like a heron eyeing a fish. Long moments of stillness. A careful step. More study. More stillness. Waiting for the right opportunity. Waiting to strike.
It was surprisingly mesmerizing. She’d thought he would use a sword, or powerful magic, or at least a whip and a chair. Then again, she’d thought the Behemoth would be large, hairy, toothy, clawy and attitudey. Life had a way of not giving you what you expected. And yet giving you exactly what you’d hoped for.
Finally he stopped circling it and looked up. “I think it’s ill. Seems to have caught a cold.”
Her entire menta
l image of Behemoths—what little had survived the initial sighting—collapsed. This was no vile monster. Instead, she found herself thinking of chicken soup, hot chamomile tea, lots of rest under a warm blanket and a heaping-double-extra-helping of womanly TLC.
“How can I help?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s pretty technical.”
“It’s not technical. The poor beast is sick.”
“Yes, but it can get very cranky.”
She waved the warning away. “Pish, tosh. Women are used to dealing with beasts that get cranky when they’re sick. We call them ‘husbands.’”
“I don’t get cranky when I’m sick,” he protested.
“And you’re not a husband, either, are you?”
He smiled mischievously. “Not yet.”
Her heart slammed in her chest. She was suddenly more afraid of him than she’d ever been of the Behemoth.
The Behemoth let out another series of sputtering squeals. His face shifted in a heartbeat. “This is bad. We need to get to work. There’s a stack of crackers over there. Hand them to me, please?”
“Of course.” She walked over to where he’d been pointing but saw nothing that looked even remotely edible, or at least not for a human. “What do they look like?”
“They’re round and shiny, with a hole in the middle.”
“Oh…these?” she asked, holding them up. “These are crackers?”
“Behemoths have strange tastes,” he replied.
She handed him the stack, and he began to sort through it, apparently looking for the right flavor. After what she’d seen on this quest, the notion that a Behemoth might be cured of a cold by the right flavor of cracker was no longer a stretch. The world was far weirder than she had ever imagined. And yet, also far more beautiful.