Hidden Things (23 page)

Calliope stared at the scored pavement. “That's not a normal skid mark.”

“No.” Vikous turned and peered at the shoulder of the highway. “Now, if we're real lucky—”

“You're hilarious.”

He ignored Calliope's interjection. “We might find . . .
oh
yeah.” He walked down the shoulder past the end of the streak, reached down, and picked up a dark object. Calliope trailed along after, in no hurry once she saw Vikous was simply sniffing another piece of tire tread. His lips stretched back in what passed for a smile. “Oh yeah. Real good.” He held it out toward Calliope's face.

She recoiled just enough to keep her face clear. “Yeah. Thanks. Maybe I can lick a used ashtray instead.”

Vikous frowned, looking annoyed. “Just, for the love of . . .” He gestured with the hand-sized chunk.

Calliope scowled at him, leaned forward, and sniffed.
Summer. No, spring. Late spring, when the rainstorms have stopped and the clouds are high and white, and the end of school's just a few weeks away.
Confusion flashed across her face and she took another sniff. “It's . . .” She looked up at Vikous. “Lilacs?”

“I would have said violets, but around here you're probably right.” He waggled the thing that looked exactly like a chunk of burnt, black tire tread in the air between them and dropped it into Calliope's left hand. It was so light she almost dropped it, overcompensating. “Congratulations,” he said. “You've found your first dragon scale.”

Calliope looked at the thing in her hand and back to Vikous. “And we do what with this?”

Vikous's smile broadened, looking even less reassuring. “We summon a dragon.” He looked up at the fading colors of dusk. “Let's walk; the last sign said there was a rest area about a mile up and we need to get there before it gets late.”

Carrying the alleged scale in her pocket, Calliope started after Vikous, walking in silence for a quarter of a mile before speaking.

“So . . . dragons.”

“Dragons.” Vikous kept his eyes on the shoulder ahead. Cars passed them in both directions at a regular rate, but none slowed or stopped.

“You said . . .” Calliope frowned, trying to remember. “You said that the things out here were good at hiding.” Vikous nodded. “But there's . . . dragons buzzing the highways?”

“You'd be surprised what tricks your eyes can play on you at night,” Vikous said. “Besides, they're only out there when they're hungry.”

Calliope raised an eyebrow. “Hungry? Something that big lives on roadkill?”

Vikous snorted. “Just because they don't attack towns anymore doesn't mean they don't need a lot of food.” He waved a hand up and down the highway. “They can usually get by on wild animals, but with this food supply right here and all their—”

“Food?”

Vikous gave her a look. “Do you have any idea how many hitchhikers go missing in a year?” He shook his head. “Don't assume it's all abductions and kidnapping. Sometimes they just take a whole car.”

They walked in silence for a time. “You know the weirdest thing about this whole trip?” Calliope asked.

“I've got no idea.”

“You just told me that the highway disappearances I read about aren't always criminals and abductions—that sometimes it's dragons hunting for food—and that actually cheers me up.” Calliope was still smiling to herself when they came to the rest area. Snow was starting to fall.

16

VIKOUS BEGAN PREPARATIONS
while Calliope explored the rest area. The vending machines were all empty or marked “Out of Order” on sheets of paper that had been taped over the coin and bill slots. The restroom stalls had seen more than the usual share of graffiti.

In the antechamber of the unheated building, several maps were mounted on the wall behind Plexiglas. Calliope traced her finger along highways and secondary roads to an area in the northeastern section of the state that she had once called home. Like a great deal of the map of Iowa and the highway map of the continent mounted on the wall to the left, the Plexiglas was heavily obscured by more graffiti done with permanent markers in various colors. Names of several towns had been entirely blacked out or renamed (Grinnell became Grinner; Storm Lake has been left untouched, but was circled three times in different colors). Other nonexistent places (Wrathburn, Needlehole, Western Marches) had been added. It wasn't until Calliope noticed the words
Goblyn Kinge
scrawled over what should have been Castle Rock on the larger map that she realized there was a pattern to the haphazard cartography. She was looking at a map of the Hidden Lands.

Vikous called to her while she was still searching through the additions made to the area of the state with which she was most familiar. He had started a fire in one of the painted fifty-gallon oil drums that served the area as a garbage receptacle, but she was looking over the parking lot. “This place is a little off.”

Vikous did not look up from his preparations. “How so? Can you hand me the dragon scale?”

Calliope gestured to the parking lot with the scale as she took it out of her pocket, then handed it to Vikous. “There's no cars out here.”

Vikous smiled, his lips pressed together. “And?”

“There weren't any when we got here, and that was ten minutes ago. Even on a secondary highway at a shady-looking rest stop—which this one definitely is—with all the traffic we saw on the road, someone should have stopped here by now.” She watched Vikous for a reaction. Receiving none, she said, “And someone's drawn in a map of the Hidden Lands over top of the normal maps in the main building.”

“Really?” Vikous glanced back at the building. “Maybe I should take a look at that when I get a chance.”

Calliope's frown deepened. “We're in the Hidden Lands already, aren't we?” She glanced around them in the dim lighting that the stop provided. “You should have told me.”

Vikous straightened and shook his head, still smiling. “We're at a rest stop,” he said, as though he had explained everything with five words. Calliope looked at him and did not return the smile. Vikous folded his arms across his chest, eliciting the same unnatural motion beneath his coat as always. “I told you before that borders are important.”

Calliope nodded but said nothing, blinking random snowflakes from her eyelashes.

Vikous rolled his eyes. “Borders are just things in between other things. This”—he gestured at the rest area—“is a place that lies in between.”

“It's a border?”

“A natural border,” Vikous said. “I don't even have to do anything to it. Someone already hid it—probably after it was closed down for some other reason—and now we're ready for the next thing.”

“Which is what?”

Vikous's smile widened to uncomfortable dimensions. He held up the dragon scale and threw it into the fire.

The smell of lilacs filled the air.

 

Minutes passed. Calliope shivered. “Cold again.”

Vikous nodded, scanning the skies. “Couldn't keep everything going at the same time. Trust me, you'll be plenty warm in a few minutes.” He frowned, turning slowly as he watched the clouds. “Assuming this works.”

Calliope watched the highway beyond the parking lot. “This place is hidden from normal people, right?”

Vikous nodded but didn't turn. “That's the way it works. Otherwise people would wander in, take a weird turn on the way out, and find themselves out of gas in a very bad place—it's generally best to avoid that.”

Calliope nodded, only half listening. “Then why is a semi pulling in?”

Vikous whirled, the frown on his face melting into something Calliope could only call wonder. “Oh, jackpot,” he said as the truck's headlights, coming right toward them, flashed over his face.

Calliope squinted into the light, shielding her eyes. “What's the big deal? It's just a—” She lost track of the next thing she'd meant to say as the truck turned

wheeled, actually, like a bird

and came to a stop perpendicular to them. With the light out of her eyes, Calliope could see that whatever it was, it was definitely not a truck. Black, lit only by sparks of light here and there along its body, it could be mistaken for any number of things, at least at night, but when the shining claws settled to the ground—when great, midnight wings like a bomber plane's furled in from where they had stretched out and away from the body a hundred yards in either direction—when the heat from the thing washed over her and what she had first thought were headlights turned, and dimmed, and blinked—Calliope knew what she was really looking at.

“WE HAVE COME TO YOUR SUMMONING, HARLEQUIN,”
thrummed a voice that seemed to vibrate out of the ground and straight into Calliope's body.
“SUCH IS THE AGREEMENT, TIME OUT OF MIND.”
The great thing shifted. Even now, in the flickering illumination afforded by the lights of the parking lot, Calliope could only guess at its exact size and shape.
“BUT YOU HAVE INTERRUPTED OUR HUNT, AND WE WILL HAVE A PLEASING EXCUSE FOR THAT OR KILL YOU FOR AMUSEMENT'S SAKE AND CONSUME THE HUMAN GIRL.”

“I think you might have forgotten to mention a couple of details,” Calliope murmured to Vikous, who ignored her and stepped forward.

“Ancient Majesty,” he said, “I am guide and escort to this woman.” He paused. “We must reach the effigy.”

“WE FAIL TO HEAR ANYTHING IN YOUR WORDS, HARLEQUIN, THAT COULD POSSIBLY INVOLVE OR ENTERTAIN US.”
The low thrum of its annoyance in the vibration of the thing's voice made Calliope's jaw ache. She saw Vikous swallow and straighten his posture imperceptibly, and she couldn't help but think that her companion might have overestimated his abilities.

“We would ask the boon of transport, Majesty.”

The low ache that had accompanied the creature's annoyance was less than nothing compared to the pain that burst behind Calliope's eyes when the growl-explosion erupted out of the air around her. She tried to track what was being said, but the white agony in her skull pushed everything else away. After several moments, the surge of pain faded to the point where she could understand the words she was hearing.

“ . . . IS NOT ENOUGH THAT YOU SHOULD PRESUME TO PARLEY, PRESUME TO COMPEL, BUT THAT YOU SO MUCH AS MENTION THAT MOST UNWORTHY OF TASKS IS GROUNDS ENOUGH FOR YOUR UTTER DESTRUCTION. ARE WE
BEASTS
? WORSE, ARE WE A MINDLESS, IMPROBABLE, AND IGNOBLE MACHINE, SINCE BEASTS THEMSELVES ARE NOW TOO LOWLY A CONVEYANCE FOR HUMANS?
WE THINK NOT
.
”

The last words redoubled the previous agony and drove Calliope to her knees, sobbing. When she could see again, after a fashion, she realized that Vikous was kneeling next to her. In his case, however, it seemed as though he had assumed the position willingly; though he looked down and away from the dragon, there was no pain on his face.

Eventually, as the discomfort faded and the susurrus of dry winter grass replaced the ringing in Calliope's ears, Vikous stood. “Your pardon, Majesty, but I believe there is a misunderstanding.”

“YOU INTIMATE THAT THERE IS A THING—
ANY
THING—WE FAIL TO UNDERSTAND?”
The ache-drone of the thing's disdain was almost a relief.

Vikous dipped his head. “I have spoken unclearly and without proper distinction. The fault in understanding lies in my own poorly chosen words; we would only ask the favor of your company on our journey. In return we offer what small entertainments we have.”

“YOUR MEANING IS CLEAR TO US, HARLEQUIN. BUT DO NOT THINK THAT YOUR PALTRY TALENTS MAY BUY THE PRICE OF OUR COMPANIONSHIP. WE ROAMED FREE WHILE YOU AND YOURS HAD YET TO
DISCOVER
YOUR CRAFT.”
The sound of a massive body shifting filled the air in a way utterly unlike the voice.
“WE CARE NOT FOR YOUR BANAL TRICKS AND FOOLISHNESS.”

“I . . .” Vikous's face became slack, unprepared for this latest pronouncement. Calliope saw desperation in his eyes; an aborted glance in her direction. “I meant to—”

“He meant”—Calliope forced herself to her feet against the constriction of her bound right arm—“he meant me, Highness.”

Majesty,
Vikous mouthed.

“Majesty,” Calliope amended. “I'm the . . . I sing.”

“DO YOU THEN SING MORE DEFTLY THAN YOU SPEAK, HUMAN GIRL?”

Damn, I hope so,
Calliope thought.

 

“You're going to have to cut me loose,” Calliope said under her breath. Vikous stared at her, uncomprehending. Calliope motioned toward her shoulder. “Help me get the coat off and cut the bandages holding my arm down.”

Vikous frowned. “What? What for?”

Calliope was already pushing out of her coat. “This thing's a straitjacket. I can't sing if I can't breathe.”

“It's not going to do your shoulder any good.”

“I'm pretty sure having a dragon chew on it isn't going to do much for the healing process either, so let's cut the goddamn bandages.”

Vikous nodded and helped Calliope lift the sweater over her head. Beneath, she wore the very tired-looking white T-shirt that Vikous had gotten her right arm into two days ago and which she hadn't had the guts to remove since. Her arm was held tight to her side with bandages that Vikous had wrapped entirely around her midsection.

“YOU ARE INJURED, HUMAN GIRL.”
The thing's voice sounded vaguely intrigued.

Calliope managed a deferential nod while Vikous worked at the impossible task of pulling tape off her arm without moving her shoulder. Ten minutes ago, the movement might have caused her to cry out, but compared to the dragon's recent anger, the sharp, sullen ache in her shoulder was more than bearable. “Yes, Majesty. I was shot.”

“BY WHOM?”

“By the goad, Majesty,” Vikous answered.

“WE ASKED THE GIRL.”

Calliope blinked. “Walker. My”—she glanced at Vikous—“my goad. The one who's trying to stop me, I guess.”

“THAT IS NOT THE GOAD'S TASK.”

Calliope looked a question at Vikous, who continued working on the bandages as though he wasn't listening. “I'm sure you're right, Majesty, but he did shoot me.”

“WHERE WAS YOUR QUEST-GUIDE?”

Calliope frowned. “He was with me.”

Motion whispered in the night air as the great, flowing shadow of the dragon shifted in the darkness. It was the sound waves made on a shoreline. Or wind in a cornfield
“WE BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND THE GREATER STORY. YOUR GUIDE IS INCOMPETENT.”

“
Hey
—” Calliope began, but cut herself off when she felt Vikous's hand on her good shoulder.

“YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO ADD, HUMAN GIRL?”

“Just . . .” Calliope frowned, looking up, doing her best to meet the gaze of a creature she couldn't really see. “I have no cause to complain about my guide, Majesty.”

“INCONGRUOUS.”

“Maybe,” Calliope began to shrug, thought better of it. “It's the truth.”

The sparks of light along the dragon's body shifted a few inches, the movement oddly contemplative.
“THERE IS A STORY HERE,”
said the dragon.
“PERHAPS WE WILL HAVE IT FROM YOU, IF YOU LIVE.”

Calliope bowed her head. “I would be honored, Majesty,” she hesitated, “by both events.”

“AS YOU SAY,”
said the dragon, but Calliope thought she caught the barest hint of amusement.
“NOW. YOU ARE READY. SING.”

Calliope glanced down, realizing that the dragon was correct. Vikous had removed the bandages as she spoke. She stood, wearing only a pair of worn jeans and a wrinkled and stained T-shirt outside a midwestern rest stop in the middle of November, but she felt perfectly comfortable, blasted by the heat of the dragon's existence. Above her, snow fell, but not a flake reached the pavement as anything more than a mist. Watching the droplets condense on her crumpled coat as it lay at her feet, Calliope began to sing.

It filled her up with a kind of sad warmth, like sitting safe but alone by a roaring fireplace. Her voice lifted up through the snowy darkness and into the empty border-world around her, and the words, which she sometimes couldn't even remember afterward, clung to her and swirled along the ground like half-seen images. The song was one she had known for years and sung for many different reasons, but in this place, at this time, it was about what she had done, where she had come from, where she still had to go—the alien world in which she suddenly found herself.

It was about Joshua.

It was about everything.

By the end, it was angry—still filled with loss, but colored with uncomprehending confusion and rage—the song sung eternally by those who had lost what they loved and didn't understand
why
. She sang-screamed at the sky above her, letting the lyrics ask that simplest of questions and, when she was done—when the song had gone out of her like a withdrawn candle—she slumped, hanging her head and letting the damp strands of her hair hide her face. She hadn't felt her shoulder while she sang, but now the ache glowed like a banked fire that was starting to flare up. Her clothing clung to her in the mist, cool and clammy.