The Loch was different from anything they had previously encountered within the park. Not for nothing, Simwan saw, was this section called the Ravine. Deep, dark, and mysterious during the day, it was transformed at night into a geologic interloper from another planet. With its dense brush, overhanging branches of mature ash and maple and oak and hickory, hidden forest floor flowers peeking out from among the goldenrod and spurge, it looked like a strip of green-walled water that had been lifted whole and entire from somewhere in the oldest, deepest part of the Adirondacks.
For the second time that day they found a part of the park reminding them of home, of the woods near the Deavy homestead in eastern Pennsylvania, and by inference, the reason they were here in the middle of the night picking their way through bushes and thickets that clung to their clothes as if desperately trying to keep them from penetrating any farther.
“Don’t go in there!” the oaks seemed to be silently whispering.
“Go back where you came from,” the maples were all but shouting.
Though they heard the warnings voiced by the trees, the Deavys pressed on until they had reached the edge of the creek itself. Grasses and weeds had cobbled together enough mud to form transitory islands in the middle of the stream. The persistent clamor of a small waterfall could be heard but not seen. Hemmed in by the banks of the ravine and with nowhere to go, fog pressed in closer around them than it had anywhere else. Gently descending mist made it difficult for them to see one another, let alone locate the singular growth the dragon had described. Somewhere out in the stream, a frog croaked. It was too late in the year and too cold for frogs to be about, the Pond they had crossed being an enchanted exception. Evidently, no one had informed this particular amphibian. Though in no wise especially informative, the sound was a welcome indication that normal life existed in the otherwise oppressive creek bed.
“What now?” Both Rose’s voice and attitude were uncharacteristically muted.
Aware that his sisters were once again looking to him for direction, he nodded and gestured downstream. “We’ll head that way, toward Harlem Meer.” He squinted into the fog and damp. “As long as we can see both sides of the brook, we’ll be okay. If we don’t find what we’re looking for before we reach the lake, we’ll just have to turn around and retrace our steps upstream to the Pool, where the Loch originates. Everybody keep a sharp lookout as we go.”
“As opposed to a dull lookout?” Amber kicked at a dead branch as she turned and started walking. Simwan didn’t mind the mild belittling. So long as his sisters managed to sustain their usual high level of sarcasm, he knew they were all right.
At first the going was easy enough, where a narrow but well-maintained path followed the course of the stream. But soon they encountered places where it did not. Here the Deavys had to clamber over rocks made treacherous by the constant damp, and push their way through thickets that had been left to grow wild. In one place the combination of foggywet weather, poor lighting, and an absence of any clear trail was so rough that they nearly missed what they were looking for. Pithfwid and Simwan had walked right past it (in Pithfwid’s defense, the cat’s line of sight was considerably closer to the ground than those of his humans) when N/Ice called out.
“Hey, hold up, you guys. I think this might be it.”
Turning, Simwan and the cat retraced their steps. To Simwan’s relief, there was nothing ambiguous about the ancient oak N/Ice had found. “Look for the twinned tree,” the dragon Slythroat had instructed them. Joined by her sisters, she stood gazing at a pair of trunks that thrust separately upward from the moist soil, only to meld together several feet above the ground to form a single bole.
“This has to be it.” Rose was stroking the conjoined trunk with the flat of her palm, lightly caressing the weathered bark.
“I think you’re right.” Simwan could not imagine finding along the length of the Loch another tree that better fit the dragon’s description.
“Assuming it is,” murmured Amber as she turned from the tree to study the flowing stream opposite, “where do we go from here?”
“Remember the rest of the dragon’s words.” Rose repeated them aloud. “‘Opposite and down lies the way in. Descend there.’”
“‘At your peril.’” Amber added the final words that her sister chose to eschew.
Having tiptoed down to the water’s edge, Pithfwid finished lapping up a drink before sitting back on his haunches to study the riparian riddle that lay set before them. “‘Opposite and down lies the way in. Descend there.’ Clearly, our scaly acquaintance meant for us to find the entrance opposite the twinned tree. And downward.” His fur having turned a forest green checkerboarded with black, he leaned slightly forward. “I see nothing on the opposite bank that suggests an opening of any kind.”
“Maybe it’s hidden under a big rock,” N/Ice suggested.
“Or a big spell,” Rose added as she contemplated the far shore.
Simwan had been doing some hard thinking of his own. Perhaps it was the extensive esoteric reading he had done in his parents’ library. Or maybe it was all the video games he’d played. For whatever reason, moreso than the girls he found himself taking the dragon’s directions literally.
“Slythroat didn’t say the way in lies across and down. He said opposite and down. And in.”
His sisters eyed him uncertainly. “Brother,” exclaimed Amber, “I’m not sure I see the difference.”
He proceeded to elaborate. “If the dragon had said ‘across,’ then the instructions would be unmistakable.” He nodded at the far side of the creek. “We’d have to look for an entrance over there somewhere. But he didn’t say across. He said ‘opposite.’ Opposite and down.” With one hand, he gestured at the gunmetal-gray, running water. “I think the way in does lie opposite this tree, but under the water.”
“That’s crazy,” Amber insisted immediately.
“That’s stupid,” added Rose without hesitation.
“That’s—wicked,” ventured N/Ice rather more thoughtfully.
Pithfwid had already lowered his gaze, redirecting his attention away from the far bank and back to the stream itself. “What it is, contentious coubet, is an interesting notion. What better place to hide a hidey-hole from the casual view of Ords and the more perceptive sight of non-Ords than beneath flowing water itself?”
Amber frowned. “Wouldn’t it flood? I mean, even if there’s an airtight door of some kind, or a vacuum spell, what’s to keep the creek water from pouring in every time somebody wants to go in or come out?”
“An interesting question to go with the interesting notion,” Pithfwid admitted. “Hopefully, we’ll come up with an interesting solution.” He tilted his head to peer up at Simwan. “Boy, I am possessed of paws that will soothe, and claws that will kill, but I must confess yet one more time to the lack of opposable thumbs. Give me a hand here, please.”
Unsure of what the Deavy feline had in mind but knowing from experience never to question it, Simwan knelt beside Pithfwid. The cat then proceeded to direct Simwan to do something that was patently impossible. Even if some sorcerer had patented the idea, it still seemed an outrageous defiance of all laws both natural and unnatural. But wasn’t that what the Crub was all about, Pithfwid pointed out when Simwan questioned his instructions? Defiance of laws?
“This is crazy,” Amber muttered.
“It isn’t going to work,” N/Ice murmured with conviction.
“Aren’t we wet enough already?” Rose concluded.
“Go on. Do it.” Pithfwid’s unblinking stare was locked on Simwan’s eyes.
Oh well, Simwan thought as he reached forward and down. Regardless of whatever eventuated if he followed the cat’s instructions, it was unlikely to hurt. Extending both arms he reached out and, doing as he had been instructed, grabbed at the glistening edge of the water.
Just as Pithfwid had predicted
, it lifted up easily in his hands, like a shimmering, wet blanket.
The cat examined the perfectly inexplicable phenomenon as though it was something he encountered every day. “‘Under the water.’ Your presumption turns out to be spot on, boy.” Lowering himself back onto all fours, he started forward. “Opposite the twinned tree and down lies the way in. So sayeth Slythroat the serpent. Come along, now, kittens.”
Utterly ignorant of exactly what he was doing and how he was doing it, Simwan lifted the side of the creek higher to make room enough for his crouching sisters to slip underneath. When the last of them had disappeared, he joined them below the manifest impossibility.
Though they scrambled down into the depths of the creek bed, the underside of the water remained just over their heads. Looking up, Simwan could see the occasional dark shape of a fish or salamander swimming past. Once, he reached up and stuck a finger into the underside of the stream. It came away wet.
“What kind of spell is holding it up, and away from us?” Rose stumbled downstream, careful not to trip on any of the small rocks or clutches of pebbles underfoot.
“A really strong one.” From time to time N/Ice would drift upward until her head vanished into the underside of the creek, only to reappear moments later dripping wet down to her neck. “Somebody around here knows how to handle water.”
Handle was the right description, Simwan mused as he made his way downstream along the dry creek bed. Hadn’t he “handled” it when Pithfwid had directed him to lift up the water’s edge?
They had gone maybe half a mile when a dull, greenish glow caused them to slow. Sister pressed close against sister, sister moved nearer to brother, while Pithfwid hunkered low against the water-worn rocks and licked his lips, his tail switching back and forth, his ears aimed expectantly forward like miniature radar scopes.
They had found the Way In. And it was blocked.
Before Simwan had lifted up the edge of the stream so they could slip underneath, they had wondered how an opening located below it could avoid being flooded. Now they saw that there were two reasons. First, the Way In was not located under the water—it was situated under under the water. And second, it was tightly plugged by something that not only prevented any water from entering, but kept anything from entering.
A hoofin.
It was a full-blown, unmentionable, Four-G hoofin, too: green, glowing, gross, and grotesque. Its bulbous backside effectively stoppered the entrance. Three great protruding black eyes dominated the high, oval skull. Half a dozen red horns erupted from its swollen head. A narrow, questing trunk probed the air under the creek while the too-wide mouth almost split in half the puke-yellow head. Mucus drained from the oversize, scalloped ears and the tip of the trunk while green drool dribbled from one corner of a mouth that was filled with needlelike teeth. It squatted in the entrance gurgling unpleasantly to itself, the three round black eyes closed as it dozed on duty.
The hoofin was a nightmare. Traditionally, about seven on a scale of ten. Not sufficiently frightening to cause a heart attack, but plenty scary enough if it invaded someone’s dreams to cause them to wake up screaming. Seen outside a dream, it was no less frightening than if it had been encountered during slumber. It was also arguably much more dangerous in this state, because it could invade the awake.
That was what made it such a perfect sentry, Simwan realized. In the event of trouble it did not have to raise the alarm itself. All it had to do was enter the mind of an intruder and cause it to start running around in circles shrieking uncontrollably as it tried to escape. They had no choice but to approach it with care and caution. With its fat butt plugging the Way In, their quest would end right there and then unless they could find a way to dislodge it. Preferably without sending any of them running and screaming.
He was trying to think of a spell that might work when N/Ice stepped out from behind the cover of the rocks and started forward. Flashing the fearless demeanor of a decidedly downsized pre-adolescent Valkyrie, his sister eyed the menacing shape of the hoofin and declared in a voice both cocky and unafraid, “This one’s mine.”
“Are you sure, N/Ice?” Rose asked worriedly.
“Be careful, sis.” Despite N/Ice’s declaration of confidence, Amber too was preparing herself for battle. “You know what is said. Anyone who tries to targle a hoofin and fails risks encountering that nightmare every time they fall asleep.” She cast an anxious glance her brother’s way. “What do you think, Simwan?”
That’s right; put it all on me again, he thought resentfully. “It’s N/Ice’s call. With her being half girl and half dream herself, maybe she is the best equipped of all of us to tangle with something …”
“Targle,” Rose quickly corrected him. “Targle with.”
“Targle and tangle,” Simwan growled irritably. He turned his attention back to his half-a-sister. “N/Ice, I don’t know any spells for targling a hoofin.” He looked embarrassed. “I’ve never studied how to deal with anything more advanced than a Two-G nightmare.”
She smiled up at him, then over at her sisters. “Don’t worry. Just watch me.” She turned back to the squatting, sputtering hoofin. “I’m going to targle the hell out of it.”
An approaching Ord would have been spotted and bathed in total, mind-numbing horror long before it could have been able to reach the hoofin. But N/Ice was no Ord. Furthermore, she was exceptionally quick, a quality Simwan attributed to all the upside-down running around she did with her sisters on the ceiling of their room (that and soccer practice). When it finally did catch sight of the onrushing Deavy sister, the hoofin reacted with a mixture of surprise and outrage. So startled was the nightmare that it pulled itself out of the opening as it turned to confront her charge.
The path to the Way In was clear. If N/Ice could distract the hoofin for just a couple of moments or two, Simwan saw that there was a good chance he and Pithfwid and his other two sisters could duck inside. Beyond appraising the possibility, he never gave it serious consideration. Deavys stayed together, no matter how critical the quest, no matter how grave the danger.
Heedless of anyone or any thing that might be near enough to overhear, Rose and Amber were suddenly out in the open, wildly cheering on their sister.
“Go get it, N/Ice!” Amber yelled.
“Targle its ears off!” Rose bellowed as forcefully as she could.
Simwan added nothing. He couldn’t. He was too concerned with what might happen to his sister if she failed. A hoofin was no childhood bad dream. It was a mature, developed, full-formed nightmare that, once it got a hold on you, would never let go. The third volume of the Field Guide to Dreams described it as a kind of mental malaria: leaving for a while only to return later again and again at full strength to torment the sleep of the afflicted. So while Amber and Rose formed a passionate cheering section of their own, urging on their sister’s efforts, Simwan found he could only watch and worry.
As for Pithfwid, he sat motionless, staring as only a cat can stare, utterly intent and unblinking. Cats did not cheer—at least, not out loud. But there was no question that he was as concerned for N/Ice’s safety as were her human siblings.
The hoofin was no slouch (a slouch being only a One-G nightmare), but speed and quickness were not its forte. It was charged with staying in one place, guarding an entrance, and making sure only authorized visitors were granted admittance. With the speed and unexpectedness of her attack, N/Ice had already accomplished the task of getting its butt removed from the Way In. That wouldn’t matter if she failed to finish the job, Simwan knew. In that event, the hoofin would simply resume its stance as guardian of the Way In. Or rather, resume its seat.
The ugly trunk straightened and tried to curl around her neck. Demonstrating the agility of a legendary female samurai (and the lessons she had learned in ballet class), N/Ice spun clear of the thrust. Rising into the air, she stabbed one hand, fingers extended, in the ho
ofin’s direction. A burst of white lightning (the non-imbibable kind) shot from her fingers to strike the nightmare square between its middle eye and its trunk. Stunned, the hoofin staggered backward, but quickly recovered. Letting out a moan terrifying enough to stun the soul of the most resistant Ord, it reached for her with long, flexible arms that ended in powerful grasping fingers. In an instant of no significant moment, Simwan noted that the nightmare had dirty fingernails.
Flipping parallel to the ground, N/Ice spun clear of the clutching hands. This time she delivered a double burst of energy straight to the center of the hoofin’s body. Shocked, it started to tremble, then to shake violently. Eyes wide with realization, Simwan shouted a warning as he dropped flat onto the dry, pebbly creek bed.
“Look out! It’s gonna blow!”
A second (or maybe three) later, there was a bright, silent explosion as the nightmare blew apart. Bits and pieces of fear flew in all directions. As he covered his head with his hands, one of them struck Simwan on the right shoulder. It was a small fear, but quite intense. It caused him to whimper loudly for a moment or two before it dissipated.
As the rest of the flying fear faded, he scrambled to his feet and ran forward. The hoofin had been well and truly targled, all right, but—there was no sign of his sister.
“N/Ice! N/Ice, where are you? Are you okay?” As Amber and Rose closed the distance behind him, a small black-and-gold streak shot past them all: a linear feline.
Pithfwid found her lying on her back at the first bend in the creek bed. She was sitting up slowly, one hand resting against her forehead. Her anxious siblings crowded around her, eager to offer their support.