VirtualHeaven (4 page)

Maggie shivered despite the heavy fur about her shoulders.

“So, I must seek the sword and cup.” Kered rose and paced,
head bent.

Nilrem groped beneath the fur cloak and Maggie yelped as his
hand touched her breast. Kered spun around and stormed to Maggie’s side as
Nilrem lifted the pendant. “See. This slave’s appearance is an omen. The sword
and the cup, they bear this image—eight rings about our earthly home hanging in
the heavens. The sacred eight.”

Kered went down on one knee and clasped the pendant, his
knuckles grazing Maggie’s breast. She froze. His nearness, the heavy weight of
their words, their serious demeanor frightened her into silence.

Nilrem covered Kered’s hand. “You know she must go, too.”

Maggie and Kered both stared at him open-mouthed.

“Aye.” The old man nodded. “She appeared at the conjunction.
She is a rare, exotic find and somehow part of this. She bears the sign. It is
fated.”

Nilrem began to age before Maggie’s eyes. Whatever vestige
of youth had made him speak and move with ease now deserted him. He groaned and
crabbed away, taking Kered’s stool by the hearth, rocking and extending his
hands to the warm flames.

Maggie and Kered studied each other in silence.

“You heard our words?” Kered asked, his hand still fisted
about the pendant.

Maggie nodded. A cold, hard lump formed in her throat.

“I have sought the wisdom of Nilrem the old way. I trekked
here on foot, brought nothing save one pack of necessities, and wore nothing
new. I ate only bread and water—abstained from meat.”

Maggie nodded again. She didn’t understand any of it. She
would play their game—at least until she learned the rules, or woke up.

“One may not deal lightly with a prophecy. One may not scoff
at wisdom from an elder who has reached the twelfth level of awareness.”

He stood and, still holding the pendant, drew her up. Not
wanting the chain to break, Maggie went with it.

“Will your master seek you?” His voice rasped like sandpaper
in a hoarse whisper only she could hear.

“I have no master.” She, too, whispered.

“So you say. But I must know the truth. Must I guard my
back? Will he seek revenge if I take you?”

“I have no master. Where I come from, there are no arm
rings, no slaves.”

“So be it.” He opened his palm, and smoothed a finger along
the delicate interlocking links of the chain. “I knew, when Nilrem beheld this
bauble, you would entwine yourself in my life, just as these metals entwine the
stone.” The pendant fell from his hand to lie between Maggie’s breasts. “We
will rise with the sun.”

Kered dismissed her. He took a fur from the end of the bed
and after a short discussion with Nilrem about the best way to set out on the
quest, he stretched out on the floor. Almost immediately, he began to snore.
Maggie sat huddled on the bed, watching him.

Nilrem came close, and she recoiled from his harsh breath.

“Kered has a destiny. You are somehow part of it. Aid him. I
sense wisdom in you and know that in some way you are crucial to his success.
Whether you have a master or not, it is an omen that you appeared at the
conjunction. Take the path he sets for you. To do anything else is to deny your
fate.”

Maggie pictured the fates as slavering dogs or large men
with knives. She would not blindly accept the old man’s words. Some way must be
found to return to Ocean City. Perhaps even now, a serviceman might be
repairing the game. If she left Nilrem’s mountain, would she miss an
opportunity to return home? The possibility chilled her to the bone. No man,
not even one who looked like Kered, could convince her to leave if she didn’t
want to!

Wearily, Maggie stretched out on the bed and tried in vain
to formulate a plan. After a few minutes, she realized she needed to relieve
herself. She waited until both men lay sleeping on the tamped dirt floor,
singing an aphonic chorus of snores. As silent as a wraith, Maggie rose and
went to the door.

She lifted the latch, pulling Kered’s cloak about her
shoulders. Beyond the door of the hut, the last of the red sun dipped huge and
glowing below the horizon’s edge. The sky was not deep black, but tinged with
purple and scattered with a handful of diamond-like stars, just as it had been
in the opening sequence of
Tolemac Wars
. There were no familiar
constellations to tell her where she was.

Maggie stood in the clearing and stared at the same far peak
that opened the game. Its jagged summit pierced the purple heavens, and off to
one side, four greenish-blue orbs, not quite as magnificent as Kered’s eyes,
traced a straight line. Tears blurred her vision for a moment. Wherever she
was, it was not home. Gwen and Ocean City might still exist, but where? She
thought of her parents, her brothers, and fought a lump swelling in her throat.

Maggie sought a shadow and was glad she’d been a Girl Scout.
She used a broad leaf for toilet paper and hoped it was not the Tolemac version
of poison ivy. She stumbled along the path to the hut. Its candlelit windows
called like home, but she turned her back. For many moments she examined the
far stretching panorama of land, much like a wasteland, looking for some hint
of humanity, some possible sign of habitation.

There was nothing as far as the eye could see. Standing upon
a green and flowered and tree-shaded mountain, her eyes searched a plain as dry
and barren and rocky as the Painted Desert of Arizona. On the distant horizon
she could see white. The ice fields?

Should she hide tomorrow when Kered wished to leave? Would
he force her to go on his quest—drag her if she refused? Part of her wanted to
stay on Nilrem’s mountain and hoped that whatever technological glitch had sent
her to Tolemac would be corrected. Perhaps like an e-mail message gone astray,
she had been divided up into bits or bytes, or mils or mites, or whatever they
were called, and accidentally sent to this place. And just like an e-mail
message, perhaps she could be retrieved, unsent, returned home.

Another part of her suspected the wise man spoke the truth
when he said her appearance at the conjunction, just when Kered needed help,
was an omen. Her Native American background made her open to the idea of
spirits and portents. Her Navajo grandmother spoke often of heeding omens.

Maggie’s shoulders sagged in weary resignation, and she
rubbed her temples against the throbbing headache growing along with her
fatigue. She dashed away a tear. Crying changed nothing, yet she knew it would
be difficult to survive in this barren land alone, hiding from Kered and
Nilrem. Should she follow the warrior and possibly discover the reason she had
landed in Tolemac?

Strong hands took her shoulders and turned her. Maggie let
Kered draw her against his chest. She hiccupped and choked back her fear and worry.

“Do you miss him so?” Kered asked.

“Him?” She pulled away.

Kered’s grip bit into her arms. “The one to whom you
belong?” Then his hands abruptly gentled. “Or did he hurt you so badly you had
no choice but to flee?” His hands swept up and down her bare arms, knocking the
cloak from her shoulders. The cold mountain air chilled her skin and contrasted
with the warm palms soothing and stroking her.

Maggie slapped his hands away. “Hear this once more! I’m not
a slave. I’m not running from anyone. I’m just lost. I hit my head. I don’t
know you or this place. I have no idea where I am or who you are!”

He crossed his massive arms. “Finally. The truth.”

“The truth?” Maggie stuttered.

“Yes. You remember nothing, save your name. You most
assuredly are a slave. I accept that you remember naught of your master, but if
you cannot remember, it changes little. Your speech is like to mine, yet
different. You slur your words together, but not, I think, from your head
wound. You do this from habit. And…no arm rings have ever graced this flesh.”

He stroked a finger up her arm, sending sharp shards of
sensation shooting from her navel to her groin.

“One may not wear arm rings for very long before they scar
the flesh.” Rolling up his sleeve, Kered twisted at the three silver-hued rings
about his right biceps. With great difficulty, he got the narrow bands to edge
out of position. The skin beneath them was calloused from years of abrasion. He
flexed his arm and pushed the rings back into position. “You see now?”

A red splash of residual sunlight touched him with a fiery
glow, making his skin bronze and his hair shine with streaks of copper. Maggie
lost the sense of his words. He could be a god and this his Mount Olympus. His
physical beauty hypnotized her. Then his demonstration made sense. No matter
what she said, her undamaged skin marked her a slave to Kered and any other
inhabitant of his world.

Maggie snatched up the cloak and stormed past Kered and into
the hut. She wrapped herself in his odiferous cloak and curled into a little
ball.

Kered likewise stretched out on the floor by the softly
glowing coals of Nilrem’s hearth.

“I’m not a slave!” she whispered into the near darkness
before turning her back on the warrior and his reality.

For what seemed hours she lay in stiff defiance of what her
sense and senses told her. The low rumble of snores rose and fell unchanging
through the night. She could not wait any longer.

She slipped from the bed. Only the soft whisper of Kered’s
cloak on the floor marked her progress to the door. She snagged Kered’s pack
from a hook and eased up the latch, gritting her teeth at the small
snicking
sound it made. Neither man stirred.

An icy breeze whistled around the corner of the hut, clawing
at the cloak’s edges. Maggie hugged them to her as she ran into the shelter of
the woods, pelting down the slope of Nilrem’s mountain. Her head began to pound
in rhythm with her hammering heartbeat.

Kered’s pack weighed a ton. She paused briefly, set it down,
and opened it. On top lay the game gun. The gun represented a deadly menace in
Kered’s hands. She took it and a heel of bread. The bread would hold hunger at
bay until Kered left on his quest, for Maggie had made her decision. She would
hide from the warrior until he was gone, then explain her dilemma to Nilrem. No
matter how long it took for Gwen to end the game or bring her back, she would
wait. Quest or no quest, good omen or bad, no man would force her into slavery!

Maggie dragged some brush over Kered’s pack. She ran and
stumbled on a small stone, falling hard on one knee.

“Damn,” she muttered. She rose and limped along. The trees
grew dense and filtered the near-dawn light, making her progress laborious.
Fresh pine and the light scent of rain-dampened earth rose with every step. The
wind blew the boughs about her, misting her with drops of moisture. She prayed
that her sense of direction would not fail her and that she could find her way
back. Her steps slowed as the slope grew steeper and more stony. Behind her she
heard something crashing through the underbrush.

Kered
.

Panic raised her heartbeat to thundering and she put on a
burst of speed, madly slipping and stumbling on the precipitous slope. She
chanced a glance over her shoulder and glimpsed white through the shadowy
reaches behind her. “No,” she whispered, falling and going down on her side,
then rising and grabbing a branch to steady herself. A whoosh of sound from
behind her made her duck and scream.

A blur of white swept over her. “My God!” she shrieked, as a
white deer, the size of a small horse, leaped over her huddled figure. His
snowy antlers stretched an arm-span wide, snagging branches and showering her
with pine needles. Just as suddenly as the deer had appeared, it vanished. Only
the continuing snap of small branches and showers of stone marked its passage.

“Honestly, Maggie. Get a grip! It’s just a deer,” she
chastised herself. Brushing her hands on her dress, she stood up straight and
took a deep breath, then shook pine needles from her bandaged head. “The
bread!” she muttered, searching about on the ground with her hands. The dawn
did not penetrate here beneath the trees, and every stone could have been the
chunk of bread. She knelt and began a systematic search. Finally, her hands
touched a smooth, rounded shape.

“No!” she cried, looking up the long length of Kered’s leg,
past his endless torso, to his face hidden in the shadows.

“Lost something?” He dropped his pack with a thud beside
her.

“No, no. Nothing,” she said, her hand on her racing heart.
The damn man had tracked her like a scout from a 1950s cowboy movie.

He grasped the cloak and hauled her to her feet, heedless of
the low branches. “You wished to make an early start upon the quest?” His words
were mild, but clipped and spoken so softly, she needed to strain to hear them.

“Yes. That’s it. I thought I’d get an early start.”

“Or,” he continued as if she had not spoken, “perhaps you
have seen your folly and wish to return home to your master.”

“That’s it. I really want to go home,” she croaked in
desperation as his fist tightened on the cloak, forming a noose about her
throat.

His voice rose to a near roar. “Then we go in the same
direction. Let me offer you my services as escort!”

He bent and tossed her over his shoulder. As he swung about,
she caught the scent of something putrid.

Then she saw it.

Leering eyes and a snarling mouth hung like a Cheshire cat
grin from the shadows, so close she could almost feel the whisper of its fetid
breath. Kered sensed it, too, turned, and dropped her. His sword sang from his
scabbard as the thing pounced.

Maggie shrieked. Pain streaked up her jolted spine and into
her head.

Kered dropped his sword inches from Maggie’s feet. He
snatched two handfuls of the beast’s ruff and heaved it from side to side.

“Gulap!” Kered shouted. “You malodorous fiend.”

They lunged into the shadows, tugging and pulling in a
playful game of
Who’s Stronger!
The creature, a cross between a leopard
and a…Maggie had no idea what to call it—swamp thing seemed somehow
appropriate—batted Kered’s arms and howled. The two rolled like puppies down
the hill, gathering twigs and leaves and sending small stones and sticks
flying.

Maggie staggered to her feet and considered sneaking off.
Kered’s pack stood unattended. She wondered as she peered after them if he would
impale himself on the ridiculously long knife strapped to his thigh. The
thought of the first aid that might entail made her chew her nails in nervous
agitation.

The combatants rolled to a halt in a sprawled pile of legs
and paws.

“Come,” Kered cried up at her, rising, and drawing in great
gasps of air. He patted the animal on its black, spotted flank with one hand as
he gestured to her with the other.

“No,” she called. “Not a chance!” She backed against a tree
trunk, distancing herself from the animal.

Kered bent and seemed to confer with the beast before
climbing up the hill at breathtaking speed. “Surely, you are not going to be
difficult?” Behind him stalked the stinking beast as if Kered were dinner and
she dessert.

“That thing looks like it intends to eat you.” She gulped.

Kered whirled on the beast and snarled. The “cat” retreated
a few steps and clawed the air. “Stay, Gulap,” he ordered. “‘Tis simple to see
you terrify this slave. Nilrem will spit you and roast you should you harm one
hair on her head.”

Maggie, breathing through her mouth to avoid the animal’s
noxious odor, could see that the animal was indeed from the cat family. It
weighed far more than any tiger in a zoo, and most assuredly, it was tame, for
as Kered spoke, it sat back on its haunches and seemed to nod in agreement.

“Now. An explanation of your behavior.” Kered crossed his
arms over his chest. He might have looked forbidding except for the twigs in
his hair and a leaf stuck to his cheek. The dawning light that pierced the
trees bathed him in a warm glow.

Maggie mentally girded her loins. “I can’t go with you. I
might not remember all about my circumstances…but something within me says I
should remain here.”

He studied her for a moment, then bent and retrieved his
discarded sword, sheathing it in one smooth motion. He dropped one hand to the
hilt and let the other hang loose at his side. His relaxed pose calmed her. “I
see. You regret leaving your master.”

“Honestly,” she muttered, then smiled.
If you can’t beat
‘em, join ‘em.
“If that’s what you choose to think.”

“Perhaps we may reach a compromise.”

“I thought warriors only used force!”

“We warriors are occasionally known to see reason.” He
grinned boyishly.

Oh, dear, she thought. If he was going to be reasonable and
smile like that, she’d probably agree to go along on his quest, offer to carry
his pack, or maybe shine his sword.

Behind him, with tiny subtle movements, the cat edged
closer, claws unsheathed.

“I believe Nilrem is correct. You must accompany me.
Whatever meaning these events have, Nilrem thinks you necessary. What if we
strike a bargain?’’

The cat stretched and licked a paw with a studied
nonchalance. Maggie kept one eye on the feline as she listened.

“You will accompany me on my quest. You will offer
assistance in whatever way I deem necessary—”

“Where’s the compromise?” She snorted.

The cat rolled over to its back and yawned, stretching out
and pawing the air in Kered’s direction.

“You interrupt. Did your mother not teach you manners?”

He had an excellent memory and used it! “I’m sorry,
continue,” she directed, properly chastised.

The cat rolled again, moving closer to Kered’s boots, fangs
bared.

“As I was saying, you will accompany me and make yourself
useful, and I will return you to Nilrem’s mountain at the first possible
opportunity.”

Maggie considered the proposition. The cat put its head on
its paws and used its back legs to inch ever nearer.

“Consider, too,” he continued, “this land is barren. To
cross on your own would be foolhardy. To move beyond the ice fields,
impossible.”

“Kered!” she cried, pointing behind him as the cat nearly
hooked the warrior’s boots from under him.

He whirled and smacked the Gulap on the nose. “Foolish
trick!” he chastised, then captured Maggie’s hand. “Come. See how useful you
have already proven to be. Gulap will need to seek some other prey.” Grinning,
he hefted his pack and moved with his now-familiar grace down the mountainside,
hauling her behind him. The cat howled and screeched as if bereft at the loss
of their company, but luckily did not try to follow.

“What’s a Gulap?” she panted.

“Gulap? A canny beast. His name is from the Selaw, meaning
claw.”

“Appropriate! Is it coming with us?” she asked, stumbling
after him, unable to do anything else with his tight grip on her wrist. Now
that she’d seen at least one creature from the mountains, the idea of wandering
or hiding there alone made her hair stand on end.

Kered laughed and shook his head. “No. His prey is on this
mountain and his master, too.”

“What’s his prey?” she asked, peering over her shoulder.

“The white hart and hind,” he answered, “and foolish folk
who wander unsuspecting about these hills.”

Maggie shivered and thought of snow-white Bambis being torn
limb from limb. “Who’s his master?” Her foot slipped and she found herself
skidding on her rear. Kered turned and waited until she had righted herself and
brushed off her dress.

“Gulap is his own master. Yet, if any man may command him,
‘twould be Nilrem. The beast wanders where he will, but I have not known him to
stray much beyond Nilrem’s Hart Fell.” With that, Kered let go of her arm. He
turned away, leading now, not dragging her.

She decided to accept the subtle change in status until
something else occurred to her—something that didn’t involve becoming lunch to
fantastical cats with periodontal problems.

With great difficulty, she kept pace with the warrior. It
did not take much imagination to calculate the speed with which he would move
on a flat surface.

Maggie watched the change of crimson light as the trees
thinned on the lower slopes. Hart Fell had a gentle declivity as they
approached the barren stretches of plain. Taking a quick breather, Maggie
leaned on the trunk of a kind of fir tree she didn’t recognize. She reached
down to pick up a large cone from the ground.

Where her head had been, an arrow quivered in the wood.
Stunned, she stared at the trembling shaft.

Kered snatched her down. She found herself pressed face to
the dirt. A hail of arrows
thunked
in quick succession over their heads.

“Be silent. Do not move,” Kered whispered.

The heavy weight of his body made compliance inevitable. She
dug her fingers deep into the cushion of pine needles and said a quick prayer,
closing her eyes tightly.

Kered crushed Maggie flat. She heard the sound of his blade
being drawn. Maggie only needed to hear the sound a second time to know it was
permanently etched in her mind.

“Wartmen. I will return,” he whispered into her ear. His
weight shifted and cold air caressed her legs where her skirt had ridden up.
Maggie begged him to stay, but the muttered words met empty forest air. Kered
dodged among the trees.

A bloodcurdling cry sent a shiver down her spine. She had to
know what was happening. Cautiously, she risked a peek and raised her eyebrows.
Nothing stirred. With even greater caution, she lifted her chin, and like a
groundhog in February, she looked about.

Long legs wrapped in dirty fur leaped over her. Longer legs
encased in familiar leather followed, stomping down inches from her fingers.
She yelped and scrambled to her knees.

The expression on the wart- and dirt-encrusted face of
Kered’s opponent made her pray even harder. His gaping mouth and stumps of
blackened teeth grinned with a wicked glee. The condition of his hair made
Kered’s tangles look merely wind tossed. Maggie could guess her fate should
Kered be wounded.

Kered’s smile was no less deadly than the Wartman’s. The
blades the men held and the concentration on their faces told Maggie whoever
made a misstep was dead. With a subtle shifting of feet and hands, Kered placed
himself between her and the enemy.

Kered’s adversary flicked a glance in Maggie’s direction. It
was all Kered needed. He lunged forward and the man fell to his knees, his hand
to his breast. Blood seeped between his fingers to soak the long gray tunic he
wore. A bubble of blood rose to his cracked lips, and he fell forward and lay
still.

Maggie reared back on her heels, her hand to her heaving
chest. Kered grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. He drew her behind a
dense deadfall. “‘Tis not over. There are three more.”

“How do you know?” Maggie hissed. His fingers held her
tightly as if she might run away.

“The arrows.” He nodded to the tree where Maggie had been
standing. “Each is fletched with different feathers.”

“What will we do?” Maggie asked, frightened at the odds of
three to two, or realistically, three enemies to one useful fighter. Perhaps
she could improve their odds. “Should we try my gun?”

Kered studied her in the brightening light, and she became
conscious of her vulnerability in his primitive world. “How far from the foe
may we use it?” he asked.

Maggie bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she whispered. Another
arrow hissed overhead to be lost harmlessly in the woods.

“Then we will stay with what I know and hold the magic for
after we have tested it,” he said. “I know the power of my own weapons. Stay,’’
he ordered. Crouching low, he crept to the pack he’d dropped to the ground. In
a moment he was back, just reaching the safety of the deadfall before yet
another arrow whizzed by.

“They are not close. A man may shoot such an arrow for many
yards,” Kered instructed as he opened his pack, sounding to Maggie’s ears like
a pedantic English professor. “This should do nicely.” He opened a suede pouch
and withdrew a bouquet of eight-pointed stars. Hammered of a shiny metal, each
edge was viciously honed. “Now to draw them out,” he whispered. He grasped a
low branch and set it to trembling.

A flash of yellow between the trees caught Maggie’s eye. She
flinched as Kered threw his star with a powerful flick of his wrist. A man’s
cry testified to Kered’s accuracy.

They played a deadly game of hide and seek. Kered moved with
a silence uncanny for one his size. Maggie tried in vain to move with stealth,
but each twig she stepped on seemed determined to announce her presence.

The blur of Kered’s throw came twice more. Each yelp made
Maggie cringe. They saw a trail of thick, bloody drops on dried pine needles.
Each arrow they came to, Kered dislodged and snapped in two. “Why not leave
them?” Maggie asked as they stalked after the bleeding enemy.

“And have them used again? Possibly planted in our backs?”
Kered looked at her as if she were stupid.

“Or,” she continued, determined not to let him think her
completely ignorant, “or, use them yourself?”

Kered stared at her then turned away, a sheepish look upon
his face. Maggie had to strain to hear his words. “I am not very accurate with
the bow,” he whispered, as if embarrassed by this admission of weakness. “I
specialized in blades.”

“Great,” Maggie muttered. “I would end up with someone who
needs to be up close to kill the enemy.” Her words stopped her cold. Kill the
enemy. She had said kill. Violence in her world was to be abhorred and avoided.
Violence in his world was commonplace, and she had been accepting it far too
easily. She swallowed down bile.

They came to the edge of the tree-lined slope. Kered pointed
straight ahead. “There lies the route we must take to begin our quest to the
Sacred Pool. ‘Tis blocked by at least one able man. I may have only wounded the
other two,” he stated, using a stick to indicate a confusion of footprints and
bloody splotches on the ground. “If they can wield their bows from those rocks,
they may hold us here past any hope of making this quest.”

Maggie studied the forbidding landscape stretched beyond the
rocks sheltering the Wartmen. The red surface of cracked and parched earth
looked impossible to cross under any circumstances. Their sylvan shelter seemed
friendlier with every moment. “Why not go up the mountain and come down somewhere
else?” she asked.

“The Forbidden Isle, wherein lies the cup of Liarg, is only
accessible by land on one occasion. If we do not take the most direct route, we
will miss the timely turning of the tides,” he snarled. “Equally, I have no
wish to wait upon Hart Fell for another conjunction to come and go.”

“I see.’’ Maggie knew that Kered had only a few stars left.
The thought that he might have to get close enough to the Wartmen to use a
sword or knife made her mouth dry and her underarms wet. “How dangerous are
those Wartpeople?”

“Wartmen. They are known for their canny use of the bow and
a propensity to gnaw upon the bones of their victims.”

Maggie stared at him in disbelief.

Kered warmed to his subject, resting back on his haunches.
“The warts are a disease from mating with their kin. Their dirty habits have
expelled them from every chiefdom and thus, they have no choice but to prey
upon unwary travelers.” He picked up a star and it glinted in the morning sun
that now bathed the parched landscape.