Trail of Bones (18 page)

Humans create such intrigues and problems
for themselves. Eli’s main current problem was that he would only
have a short period of time to free me from this prison.

Silver Throat would then lead Eli and me
away, back to the Spirit Mound, where we would meet with North
Wind, who still hadn’t returned to his people since Birdjumper’s
killing took place.

After resting, we would then follow Silver
Throat’s pack to another safehold, moving farther and farther away
from settled human establishments. And when the spring came and
rivers began to flow, we would navigate the waters again, on our
own, and try to find Thea.

“Though you’d still be a big, giant scary
lizard,” Eli observed, “to anyone who saw you.”

That, anyway, was the plan…

Silver Throat succeeded in scaring away the
guards. She and her wolves swarmed out of the woods as if they were
on a full-bore Cacklaw front press, and ready for an actual attack.
My watchers fled, presumably to get help, which would leave a few
minutes for Eli and me to make our departure. But another human
showed up before Eli did — or rather, I should say two humans:
Sacagawea, a name with a regal high-Saurian elegance to it, and her
hatchling.

“Pomp.” Eli recognized the child.
“Sacagawea, you shouldn’t have come. It might not be safe — in a
couple of minutes.” My friend cast a nervous glance back across the
river toward the mammal dancing.

Yes, finally, actual mammal dancing, and I,
apparently, am to miss it.

“The baby was crying, and I was out, walking
with him, trying to soothe him. I saw the wolves come into camp. I
thought you or North Wind might be here. And I wanted to say
goodbye. To you. And the snake man.”

“Actually,” I informed her, “I am not
related to the local snakes, but instead a Saurian—”

Before I could finish, she reached up
through the bars and put a finger to my lips. “No matter which, I
know you are a friend. And along with goodbye, I give you
this.”

She produced a small mineral sample. It was
translucent, a crystal with a glow in its center from light that
seemed to radiate from obscure parts of the spectrum.

“The flame stone,” Eli said. “The one you
used when you found me.”

“Yes,” Sacagawea nodded. “I would like you
to have it for your journey.”

“But it’s yours. You said it’s been with you
since you were a child. Since you were kidnapped and sold.”

“Yes. I always thought it might help lead me
home. Now, with little Pomp here, I’m feeling that going home may
be possible at last. So you take it now. You and the snake man need
to go home, too.”

Again, that flicker of thought: Where
was
my home now? Was it my nest-source on Saurius Prime, or
was it here, with my friends?

Some other light — firelight — moved on the
other side of the river. This was a different kind of dance, the
kind I had grown more familiar with.

“They’ve been alerted to the wolves now,”
Sacagawea said. “They’ll be coming. Fare warmly,” she said,
rewrapping Pomp in the furry skins that humans permanently borrow
from other animals. “Find good trails.”

“And you”— Silver Throat looked at her—
“guard every moment you have with your little one.”

Sacagawea didn’t have a lingo-spot, and I
don’t know if she understood the wolf, but before she was done
covering her nestling, she kissed him. Then she waved at us and
headed out across the ice.

“Wait—” Eli said.

She’s delaying them
, Silver Throat
said.
For you. But hurry.

The only trace left of her was her voice,
giving song, drifting back from the dark ice:

Always riding out

Never coming home

The trail takes me far

Blood and honor

dancing

She left singing of the
arrak-du
.

Eli regarded me. “All right. Then let’s get
that cage unlocked, Clyne.”

“Yes. It is bound tight with strips of
rendered skin.”

“Leather.”

“Yes. I have been steadily claw-tearing it
when the guards were distracted. I will soon cut through the last
of these practically applied tendons.”

“Just hurry.”

Eli warmed his hands with the mineral sample
while looking over his shoulder. We both saw the portable
firelights —
torches
, a word that’s not quite as crisp as
taco
but is still interesting — on the far side of the
river. The exploring party would soon be here.

“We still have to pick up the supplies I
left in the woods. And we still have to get far enough to make it
hard for them to track us.”

“Friend Eli, may I see the flame stone in
your hand?” While I worked on the task of freeing myself, I
realized where I most recently saw light waves pitched to such
arcane frequencies: Alexandria. They came from the light tower,
where Thea and her mother were doing their experiments.

Eli held up the small crystal. Even with
only the nearby campfire and distant starlight available to refract
through the prism, I recognized the glow. It’s what my friend would
call—

“WOMPER light.”

“What? Clyne, what?”

The wolves growled. The torches were
starting to make their way over to our side of the river.

“I believe a WOMPER particle is trapped in
that crystal, orbiting inside a gas that may be trapped there from
ancient times. There may be such stones on this planet. Thea’s
mother may have heard of their properties.”

“Clyne, can you please get out of the cage?
We have to go!”

“Oh. Yes, friend Eli. A good time for
freeing.”

I ceased work on the tendon straps that
bound my cage shut. The jabberstick wound on my limb seemed to have
healed, and I have just about enough room for a top-stompers
Cacklaw move.

“Clyne—!”

“
RRRKKKKGGGAAAHHHHRRRR!”

I hadn’t roared like that since my playing
field days on Saurius Prime.

The wooden cage shattered.

I was free.

The torches sped up.

“Hurry—”

Eli and I began a fast trudge over the
freeze-blanketed surface. Silver Throat and her pack accompanied
us.

“What I am saying, Eli, is that — in theory
— if that is a WOMPER, and it could be freed and contained, we
could catalyze a reaction, much like the time-spheres your sire
created.”

Soon the explorers would be at their
encampment and discover our escape. My friend Eli would be in a
state of severe reprimand consequence, on my behalf. There was no
turning back for him.

“Can’t you go any faster?” Silver Throat
queried. Now that I was able to jump again, I probably could. But
Eli could not.

“That, I think, is why the stone keeps you
warm. The WOMPER creates a reaction at the core, winking
instantaneously in and out of different time continuums. There is
constant sub-atomic friction—”

“Clyne, don’t you ever run out of
breath?”

“But there is so much to talk about, friend
Eli. Though all of this remains a theory, unless we can free the
particle from the rock using through a very high frequency.”

We could hear the other humans behind us.
They’d discovered our flight.

“High frequency?” Eli was talking to humor
me, to distract himself. I could see the hard puffs of cold air
coming from his mouth, even in the dark.

You mean a kind of song?
Silver
Throat asked.

“Right at the edge of human hearing. I don’t
know how to create it. And even then it would be what we called a
‘wild,’ or uncontained, reaction, with unpredictable results,
especially because we’d have to use plasmechanics to contain the
particle. The only such material is on the lingo-spots, and there
is something I must tell you about the lingo-spots and everything
else—”

“Clyne—”

“I regret not telling you sooner but there
was no time—”

“Clyne—”

“Yes?”

“The wolves. Look.”

Silver Throat had heard what I’d said about
high frequencies. She’d gestured to her pack. They stopped and had
begun singing, howling to the stars and the Earth’s moon. They were
making their own song cycle, with notes going higher, and higher
still….

A song of farewell…

Then Silver Throat joined the inchoate
keening.

In the distance, the pursuing torches
stopped.

Eli put his hands over his ears, after
handing the flame stone to me.

I hurried, peeling some of the
plasmechanical substance from my lingo-spot, from his, to cover the
stone before it might crack, leaving just enough exposed to the
direct sonic vibrations provided by our wolf friends.

What grand theory testing!

And now, in these long seconds, I wait,
unsure if my field theory will prove true, or if we have just lost
more time to our pursuers.

The song grows, and I am reminded once again
of the song cycle of King Temm.

“Eli,” I start to say—

—just as the WOMPER is freed and the wild
reaction starts.

Chapter Twenty

Eli: Bayou St. John

February 1805

It feels like we’ve just been spit out by a
thunderclap, and I can tell from my stomach, and the swirl of
lights we’ve been though, that we just moved through the Fifth
Dimension.

We’re in a city of some sort, by a small
dock. It’s nighttime, I see fireworks in the sky and lightning on
top of that, and we’re surrounded.

Surrounded by more soldiers in
Nutcracker
-type clothes, by a couple of people in weird
costumes with animal heads, by a guy in a boat who’s just fainted,
by a woman standing in the boat— Sally, I think— who looked after
me in Thomas Jefferson’s tent so long ago —

—and by Thea.

Thea!

She calls my name —“Eli!” — and gives me a
big hug, pulling me towards her. I now realize Clyne and I have
appeared on the shores of the river, with our feet in the water,
and I make a squishy sound as she hugs me.

“It’s so good to see you!”

And then, just as quickly, she lets go of
me. I don’t know if she thought hugging me was too corny, or what.
But I’m just as glad to see her.

“And it’s good to see you, too, K’lion.”

“A good time to meet,
ktk!
friend
Thea,” Clyne tells her, “and I am gratified to discover fieldwork
with wild WOMPER reaction was
kng!
successful in drawing us
here, doubtless
tkt!
due to a prime nexus.”

“A what—?” I ask.

“Pulling us to this spot, together. A prime
nexus is a crossroads of major outcome possibilities, first
theorized in early Saurian time-venturing, and since borne
out—”

Sally has been looking Clyne up and down. “I
guess Jefferson is right. We don’t know what’s out there. But even
though you can talk, lizard man, there’s no time for that.”

“You are right. I have to
tk-tk!
tell
my friends what I now know about their lingo-spots
ssskk!
and the plasmechanical—”

“No, there’s no
time
…”

The
Nutcracker
soldiers are snapping
out of their surprise and rushing down the street toward the
river.

One of the people in costume — he looks like
a cat with an enormous head — comes up to Clyne and starts tugging
at his chrono-suit. And then on his head.

“Hello!” Clyne says.

The soldiers stop briefly to watch. Until
the cat person realizes that Clyne isn’t wearing a costume at all,
and starts to scream.

Right after that, the soldiers started
firing.

“Oh, lord,” Sally says, jumping back into
the boat.

Thea and I jump after her. It’s another kind
of pirogue, and Sally uses the long poles to push us along the
waterway while the boatman is still passed out. When you’re unstuck
in time, hellos and goodbyes get constantly interrupted. I sort of
said goodbye to Lewis, but not Gassy, Pierre, York, Clark, or even
North Wind Comes. And I still haven’t found out where we are, or
where we’re going.

It’s like the Corps of Discovery all over
again.

Meanwhile, there isn’t room or time for
Clyne to get in, so he’s following us, jumping along on the
riverbanks — or canal banks, since they seem to be more wall-like—
keeping up with us.

“Does zat phantom ‘ave to follow us here?”
It’s the boatman. He’s waking up, pointing to Clyne, who hops
alongside us, passing occasional small parades of people in costume
who keep pointing to him like he ought to claim his prize
somewhere.

“Yes, Banglees, apparently he does,” Sally
says.

Banglees! The name from Jefferson’s camp.
The fur trader who came back with the first reports of Clyne in the
snow.

“Then I cannot take you wur I promised,
because I will be trailing visions.”

“Oh, you can take us. After all that’s
happened, I think we need to trust ourselves to the journey now.
It’ll tell us what it wants from us.”

“Yes!” Clyne yells from the banks, clearing
a low-hanging mossy tree branch that juts out over the water.

That Saurian hearing is pretty good.

“Sally
sskt!
may be right,” Clyne
bugles over to us. “We could all be drawn here because of prime
tkkt—tt!
nexus!”

“Prime what?” Thea asks.

“Nexus!” Clyne has to cut into the trees,
due to the overgrowth, and we lose sight of him quickly in the
dark. The canal goes through someplace called Bayou St. James,
according to Banglees. The canal itself is a kind of packed-earth
water road, a dug-out channel, but we’re surrounded by swamp
everywhere else.

Another flash of lightning gives us a quick
electric snapshot of thick twisted oak trees, hanging moss, and
tall grasses growing out of the water all around us.

“Nexus!” Clyne’s back from his detour, and
jumps in the water, making a huge splash. Now Thea’s soaked, too,
along with the formerly dry parts north of my feet. Even Sally and
the bird-feather outfit she’s wearing get wet.