Sunshaker's War (13 page)

“It was
just
a
thought
.”

“Indeed!”

“Know something?”

“What?”

“I'm tired of talkin'.”

“Then don't.”

They didn't, and for a long time the only sounds were of quickening breathing and of hands against cotton and denim, and eventually against bare flesh. The cold prickle of rain on their feet finally brought them back to the world. Lightning flashed once, and then it was pouring. Liz glanced at her watch. “Jeeze,” she groaned. “I've
got
to get on home.”

“Too bad,” David panted. “But there's always tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I have to go back to Gainesville and study. I have finals Wednesday and Thursday. And Friday you get to come see
me
graduate.”

“I still can't believe you guys built up so many snow days. I mean, you're further south than
we
are.”

“I'll believe anything about the weather anymore, David. Anything at all!”

*

It was raining harder than ever when Liz finally got them back to David's house. So hard, in fact, that she almost hit the becalmed Crown Vic before she saw it. David insisted on getting off at the bottom of the hill, pointing out that she'd only mess up her car by trying to navigate the white water of their drive. A quick final kiss, and he was in the darkness and sprinting up the sodden slope, instantly soaked to the skin and practically blind.

The back porch light was on, though; and with that as guide he made it to sanctuary.

His pa was long since in bed, but his ma was still up, reading Andrea Parnell's latest in the kitchen, which she preferred to the den. David granted her a quick, grumbly greeting and dashed into his room to dry off and change, emerging a short while later in gym shorts and—atypically—a short blue bathrobe. Jo Anne looked up and smiled as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, then smoothed it out with a generous portion of cream and sugar.

“Have a good time?”

“All but the weather.”

“Might as well not even talk about that!”

David rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it.”

She looked up at him, face serious. “Maybe
you
should tell
me
.”

“Well,” he began, “I don't think it's natural.”

She put the book down. “Figured it wasn't.”

“I—” A frantic pounding on the back door interrupted him. David glanced up, startled, meeting his ma's expression of alarm.

“Now who on earth could
that
be?”

David grimaced and padded over. He flipped on the porch light and almost cried out as he wrenched the door open.

“Liz! What…?”

“The highway's washed out,” Liz replied dully, as David hustled her in. She was absolutely soaked. Her hair looked like streams of blood and her clothes were molded to her body like a clammy second skin.

“Well don't just
stand
there, come in!” Joanne ordered. “Get her some coffee, David, and some towels.” She ushered Liz to a seat by the dining table, then closed the door, pausing to gaze out into the night. “Figured that old culvert'd go sometime,” she observed when she returned. “Bill always said they didn't put it in right. How bad was it?”

“Pretty bad,” Liz replied breathlessly. “It's washed out on either side. Road's completely cut. I guess I'll have to call my mom and have her meet me on the other side.”

“The Devil you will!” JoAnne snorted. “You ain't calling your mama out in a night like this! You'll stay here; we'll call her and tell her what's happened and she can get you in the mornin'. 'Sides, it's probably what your life's worth to try to cross the creek on foot now. Best to wait it out. Where's your car?”

“I parked it just inside the church road. Was afraid somebody'd hit it otherwise.”

“You walked all that way?”

“It's not all that far.” She paused, managed a smile. “Besides, it was more like running.”

“Evidently,” David noted, fishing an assortment of towels out of the dryer, all of which he handed to Liz before busying himself concocting a fresh pot of coffee.

Liz took the towels gratefully and began dabbing her sodden clothes. JoAnne looked on for a moment, then rose decisively. “Come on, gal, that won't do no good. I'll toss them clothes in the dryer and you can wear one of my robes and nighties in the meantime. You can stay in David's room.”

“And I'll stay…?” David wondered from the stove.

“
Upstairs
,” JoAnne told him pointedly.

“I was
gonna
suggest the couch.”

“The foldout one in the den?” Liz inserted. “I can stay there if you like. I don't want to put David out of his room.”

“You're stayin' in David's room,” JoAnne said firmly. “And that's that.”

“But
I
could—” David began.

His ma eyed him sharply. “You
really
wanta do that?”

“Good point,” David conceded. “The monster'll be up early tomorrow to watch cartoons.”

“Yeah,” JoAnne said, though he had an idea she knew his true motivation. The hall floor didn't squeak anything
like as much as the attic stairs did, and JoAnne Sullivan had sharp ears.

Liz followed David's mother toward the bathroom. He saw her duck inside and emerge a short while later dressed in the pink housecoat his ma had handed in. The collar of a white nightgown peeked out from under it. She sat down beside him and sipped at her coffee, saying nothing. Her eyes, when David saw them, looked awful.

“Long day.”

She nodded. “And too much goin' on.”

The silence persisted, but David caught the buzz of the living room phone being dialed and of his mother's voice speaking low.

“I just called your ma,” JoAnne reported, rejoining them a short while later. She winked at Liz. “I figured if I talked to her she'd know nothin' fishy was up twixt you and David.”

David blushed.

Half an hour later they all went to bed. David hesitated at the door to his old room to kiss Liz good night.

“You know,” he whispered. “This is the first time you've ever stayed over here—and in my room yet!”

“So?”

“I just hope it's not the last!”

And with that he padded upstairs, pausing as Liz closed the door to blow her one find kiss.

Chapter VI: A Summoning

(Sylva, North Carolina—Friday, June 13—past midnight)

Calvin was not certain if he was awake or asleep when the rattlesnake spoke to him. He was in bed, that much was clear: it was past midnight. Sandy was curled on her side next to him, one bare leg outside the covers; he was lying on his back, still lolling in the afterglow of a hard day's work and a long evening's loving. (It was true what they said about older women, he decided, grinning.) But there'd been a certain lack of passion this time, as if both their minds were somewhere else. And then they had talked for a long time in the darkness, with Sandy trying to explain some of her theory of magic and multiple Worlds as they related to physics. He'd understood parts of it, but when she'd started going on about Straight Tracks and trying to liken them to cosmic strings, he had suddenly felt her theories creeping past the boundaries of his intellect. One moment he comprehended; the next she was speaking gibberish. Eventually she'd fallen silent, but he'd remained awake, staring at the ceiling.

That was when he became aware of the snake.

At first he thought it a shadow, an image of a window spreader cast on the handmade rag rug. He considered getting up to investigate, but something stopped him. The light was strange and murky, not at all like the welcoming moonlight that should have been present.

Maybe he slept.

Maybe he
still
slept when he became aware of the slow dry hiss of scales on wood beside his head and turned to find himself face to face with a monstrous diamondback coiling around the bedpost a bare six inches from his nose. Chills raced over him. But then—to his surprise, yet somehow not—the snake opened its mouth and spoke.

“Come,” it said. “Hasten, for Uki calls you.”

Before he could reply, the snake was gone. Or maybe had never been. Maybe it was only another shadow cast by a tree on the headboard.

But Calvin did not believe that.

Moving as quietly as only years of pride in that art could make him, he slid from the bed. The sheets made the barest whisper as he left them; his feet scarce thumped on the bleached pine floor. He moved toward the open door that led into the other room, pausing to grab a pair of jeans from the chair, gritting his teeth as the zipper buzzed slightly across the arm. Another pause by the door to retrieve the sports page of the
Asheville Citizen
and a certain white doeskin bag he had left there (the medicine pouch that lay on his chest he
never
removed), and he entered the kitchen-great room, whence he passed through the open front door and stepped onto the porch. Moonlight draped the pale wood with white and blue, and Calvin waited until he had crept down the long, steep steps on the northern side to dress.

Fog enfolded him, then, creeping up from the surrounding trees, and he knew that magic was afoot in the world. What had Uki told him when first he had left Galunlati? “Our Worlds touch but seldom now, and that only in mists and the dreams of madmen.” Did that mean he was mad?

Did it matter? One thing only was clear: He had been
summoned. And a summons from Uki could not be ignored.

He wandered through the fog for a short while, aware only of the forest reaching out to circle him, though he could not see the trunks around him, only the ragged summits of pines looming above the white tendrils, dark against a moonlit sky.

Eventually he came to the place he had sought without conscious volition: the small, round clearing that housed his Power Wheel. He and Sandy had camped there sometimes—when they grew tired of even the rudimentary comforts of the cabin. It had also been the site of their first loving, last June under the summer stars. It was therefore a Place of Power (to use Dave's term), because someone had given it Power by loving it, and he himself had an emotional investment there. When the time had come for him to construct a Power Wheel, it had been the natural choice. Sandy understood, she had even deeded it to him, as if she knew by instinct that the fact that it was a gift made its Power even greater.

Hardly daring to breathe, he made his silent way to the center and knelt by the pile of ancient ashes that remained from his last visit. The fog had drawn back, he noticed, but yet waited at the limits of the ring; the moonlight was bright enough, nearly, to show the patterns of colored sand he had sprinkled upon the loam. Taking a deep breath, he reached into the doeskin bag and fished out two objects. One was a common disposable cigarette lighter, the other a triangular sliver of some glassy material roughly the size of his palm. It was milkily white, shading to clear at its edges, but two of its points bore a shimmering ruddiness, as if they had been dipped in blood. It was a scale of the great uktena, and tonight it would be the key to another World.

The ritual was deceptively simple, though he knew that long hours collecting and preparing ingredients and not a little pain went into the empowering of the scales—rituals that Uki had only recently imparted to him as well. Another breath, and he took the scrap of newspaper, crumpled it into a ball, placed it in the center of the clearing, and set it alight. Had he had time to do things properly, he would have used leaves for tinder and added sticks and branches and certain herbs, and made the fire with flint or pyrite, for natural things had more Power in such a working. But he was in a hurry, and the fire was what ultimately mattered, not the nature of its making. A third deep breath. Did he really want to do this? Was he ready to endure the agony once more?

Did he really have any choice?

When he judged the flame to be brightest, he thrust the scale into it. The fire immediately flashed out to embrace the world with light like a magnesium flare. And at that precise moment, Calvin cried out, his voice not loud, but very very clear,
“Hyuntikwala Usunhi!”

Light engulfed him, and he could see nothing but white, and then the light ceased to concern him, and all he felt was the horrible pain of the crossing. It was as if he were being flayed alive, as if his body were being consumed a cell at a time by gleeful lightning. He tried to scream and could not, tried to pass out and was denied.

Abruptly the pain swept away, and Calvin blinked and opened his eyes into daylight so bright he first thought he had been struck blind. The scream he'd held suspended escaped as a gasp.