Ghostcountry's Wrath (18 page)

“Which means you won't do it?”

“Which means I want you to know what I'm risking when I do.”

“When?”

“Oh, I'll do it, of course. I just wanted to lay out the facts first. Except—”

“What?”

Alec looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “Could I ask, like one favor?”

“Sure—I guess.”

“That we ask it just one question. I mean, this thing freaks me enough as is, and…well, frankly, I don't even know what would happen if we tried to ask more than one question at a hit.”

“That sounds fair,” Calvin agreed, after a pause.

“Right,” from David. “So…what do we ask?”

Calvin scratched his chin. “Well, there's no point in askin' it about Brock. That's the least of my worries and could be solved in a positive way—like by showin' him how to ward, or find things, or something. The only thing to ask there would be to see if the ulunsuti predicts any unforeseen negative effects from whatever I teach the kid—and I don't think it works that way. You have to be specific, don't you?”

Alec frowned, followed by a long sigh, then a nod. “It won't work to ask it what to do about a situation because it mostly shows places and…events.”

Calvin gnawed his lip. “Well, that certainly narrows the field. I can't ask it about what to do about the ghosts—or about what kind of threat this Snakeeyes guy is—if he even is one.”

“Could you maybe ask what the most immediate threat is, though?” Sandy suggested.

“Even that might be stretching it,” Alec replied hesitantly. “I mean, I'm not trying to hedge or anything, but that's kind of a multiple-choice question.”

“Would it help if
I
did the asking?” Calvin wondered.

Alec shook his head. “Not really. It was given to me, and I think it's kinda bonded with me now—I guess 'cause I…feed it and all. And yeah, I know we've all linked together and used it, but I used it so much back during the war in Faerie that I can kinda—I dunno—tell what it
likes,
I guess. And I don't think it likes anybody to use it except me and Liz—and she's not available.”

A shrug. “Whatever.”

Silence.

Then, from Alec: “Actually…it works best if you just sort of
worry
at
it, and let it show you what it wants.”

Calvin exchanged glances with Sandy. “Not what I wanted, exactly, but worth a try, I guess.”

“It's your call,” she told him.

“So,” David said brightly, reaching for the penultimate slice of pizza, even as he eyed the remaining beer speculatively, “when do we begin?”

“Twilight'd be best,” Calvin replied. “That's the next
between
time.”

“Besides which, it'd give us time to crash for a spell,” Sandy yawned. “Which I, at least, need to do.”

“And would give these fine lads a chance to study some,” Calvin added.

“As if we could,” Alec muttered.

But that settled it. Calvin and Sandy shed their boots (Calvin also his shirt and jeans) and slid into the lower bunk together. David and Alec claimed opposite corners and went through the motions of reading. To Calvin's surprise, he slept.

*

“I guess I can't put this off any longer, can I?” Alec asked from the open door roughly five hours later. The sun, visible through windows at the end of the hall, had just touched the horizon. The shadows were long on Reed Quad. Somewhere a stereo was playing Jesus and Mary Chain.

“No time like the present,” David told him, in mid-fidget.

Alec grunted, padded barefoot to his closet, and rummaged around inside. Eventually he produced a hiking boot, from which he withdrew a small clay jar, tightly stoppered with bark. Pausing to lock the door on his return, he studied the group for a moment. “I guess you guys remember the ritual we've used with this thing before.” He sighed. “You're
bound
to, Cal, seein' as how you came up with it. Anyway, it seems to work, so I reckon we oughta stick with it. But there's also the—uh—small matter of priming it with blood….”

Calvin pulled out his Rakestraw and studied it meaningfully. “Mine oughta do just dandy.”

“Probably the best choice,” David agreed. “Best I understand these things.”

“I'm open to suggestions, Cal,” Alec went on, “concerning ritual, and all.”

“Well,” Calvin said, puffing his cheeks. “Every other time we've sat in a circle with our knees touchin', held hands, and you or Liz did the rest. I'd say we do that again. Oldest to the west, I guess, 'cause it's closer to Death—that'd be you, Sandy—sorry, old gal. Youngest to the east—Alec, I suppose. Dave, you and me'll have to flip for the others.”

“Or I could take north,” David countered. “This
is
Cherokee mojo we're talkin' about here. And my main adventure in that World was in the north just like you fought Spearfinger in the south.”

“Good point. Okay, so are we ready?”

Alec sighed again. “I reckon.”

The next few moments were spent arranging themselves on the floor. A round rag rug filled the space between the bunks and desks—a dorm-warming present from Sandy, as it happened. It was exactly the right size to encompass the four of them sitting cross-legged with their knees touching—bare knees, as was preferred, and which was the case anyway, since everyone except Calvin was in shorts, and he'd never put his jeans back on after awakening.

Alec set the pot containing the ulunsuti in the center. Before continuing, though—and unlike the earlier times they had used the oracular stone—Calvin reached into his backpack and drew out a wooden pipe ornamented with hawk feathers and as long as his forearm. With it came sprigs of herbs and a small turtle shell he inverted into a bowl.

“Best to clear the air first,” he said in a low voice, whereupon he proceeded to fill the pipe with one of the herbs
—Nicotiana rustica,
he informed them: sacred tobacco—and once it was lit, to blow its smoke to the four quarters, plus up and down. That accomplished, he censed them all with a smoldering bundle of the cedar he had cut, and as an afterthought, handed a bit of that same cedar to the other three. Finally, he set the remnant to smolder in the bowl, which he placed to the west. When he had finished, Alec took the pot in one hand, unstoppered it, and carefully tipped its contents into the other.

A white leather bag slipped out. He took it, and with a frown furrowing his brow, opened the drawstring and let something fall onto his palm.

The ulunsuti—the jewel from the head of the uktena—looked somewhere between a fist-sized raw diamond and a blob of melted glass. It was transparent, but not so much that one could see through it without distortion. And it was split by a darker septum of red.

“Ready when you are,” Alec murmured breathlessly. “To prime the pump, I mean.”

Calvin set his mouth, took the knife, and in one swift motion drew it across the palm of his left hand. Before the blood could more than well to the surface, he clamped it atop the stone Alec still held. It didn't hurt, really, but Calvin felt an uncomfortable sucking sensation, as if the stone fed not so much on the blood, as on the life essence of which it was a part. He didn't remove it, however, until the feeling had subsided, at which point he slowly eased back his hand.

The stone shone as clear as ever, but the cut was only a thin pink line. His other gashes seemed likewise to have shrunk. Even his ribs felt better.

All but Alec clasped hands and stared at the stone, as Alec fixed it with a look of intense concentration. Not a trance, like Liz did, nor like he sometimes managed, or like Sandy's meditations occasionally precipitated. This was more a focusing, a contest of wills played out invisibly.

No one breathed. No one
dared.

Then, very slowly, the room receded. For an instant Calvin saw the septum of the ulunsuti glowing like fire. And then, abruptly, it was gone, replaced with…

…
a forest…night…streamers of Spanish moss above a too familiar stream identifying the location as south Georgia…a Power Wheel scribed into sandy soil…

…eyes: green eyes: a sensation of cold…

…a blasted plain, dark sanded, the sky like sunset…a range of mountains lit with sunset fire glimmering far off…

…and then a—a
face—
or
a mask, it was hard to tell which. Not human, though, but a cat's: mountain lion, it looked like, but darker, more silvery. And as Calvin stared, fascinated, its lips curled back. But instead of the expected snarl, there came words. “Trust the woman,” it demanded, its voice between a growl and a hiss. “Trust the woman—or be damned.”

Its eyes met Calvin's then: yellow and slitted—though he knew big cats had round pupils. But as he stared, the colors shifted, the yellow grew paler, the dark pupil eased toward red. And all at once Calvin was once more staring at the ulunsuti.

No one spoke, as if all feared to shatter a moment which had obviously passed yet was in a more subtle way omnipresent.

Finally Calvin risked a heavy sigh. “That wasn't very comforting.”

“Not if you saw what I did,” David replied with a gulp.

“What…did you see?” Alec wondered shakily.

“I'm feeling brave,” Sandy managed. “I'll go first.”

*

“Well, gee,” Calvin grumbled a quarter hour later, when David had finished recounting his version, “this is a real pisser. I mean we obviously all saw the same thing. Only…it was so damned inconclusive! I mean, I don't know a thing more than I did! Like, I don't know if that was the present, the past, or the future—or whether all that was happenin' all at once, or sequentially, or what.”

“I got a sense of sequential,” David supplied hopefully, but his expression betrayed doubt.

“It looked,” Alec said carefully, “as if you were gonna have to make some kinda choice. But then along came Mr. Thundercat—and I don't have a clue what that's supposed to mean.”

“‘Trust the woman?'” Sandy supplied.

“You got it,” Alec replied. “Only who was he? And…which woman?”

David lifted an eyebrow. “Cal? You're the expert.”

Calvin could only shrug. “Who he—it—was, I don't know—unless it was one of the Ancients—the Ancient of Panthers, I assume. But what he was doing responding to
your
ulunsuti, I have no idea.”

“And the woman?”

“It could mean me,” Sandy replied instantly. “In which case it means you have to trust me to come along.”

“Assumin' one's to believe the first panther that meanders through a vision,” Calvin countered.

“Assuming.”
From Alec.

“So what now?” David yawned—surprisingly unperturbed for someone who'd just had his consciousness zapped half a dozen places, plus seen an animal speak.

Calvin checked his watch. “Well, whatever else gets done, there's still the small matter of my promise to Brock, which
has
to be dealt with. After that…maybe the thing to do is to straighten that out, then check back with you guys tomorrow. How 'bout that?”

David eyed him warily. “It sounds logical, which means I don't trust it. What's to keep you from goin' off on some other tangent soon as you finish with Brock?”

“Nothing,” Calvin told him. “Except that while there
was
a clear reference to night in a place in south Georgia I've seen, there was nothing else in the vision that indicated any time frame at all.”

“Good point,” Alec agreed. “And one we hadn't considered.”

“So…?” From Calvin.

Sandy took his hand. “So I guess we decide first of all whether we drive another five hours tonight and try to find a place to crash at three in the morning, or deprive these lads of the last of their study time by spending the night here and heading out in the wee hours.”

Calvin rolled his eyes. “Uh, the last time I counted on that, Kirk let me oversleep by three hours.”

“Fine,” Sandy countered instantly. “So you sleep, I'll drive.”

“What about us?” David wondered. “I mean, I know you don't want us to go with you, but we'd—that is, I'd—really like to help.”

Calvin laid a hand on his shoulder. “You can help. You stay here, stay out of trouble, and run interference for us—which there may very well be. And if you guys don't hear from us by tomorrow night, contact my cousin Kirkwood. And if you haven't heard anything a week after that, try to get hold of Uki.”

As if in response, thunder rumbled from a sky grown suddenly dark and grim.

“The sooner we leave, the less rain we have to drive in,” Sandy sighed, and rose.