SKAT MANDU
Horris Kew might have been a Disney artist’s rendering of Ichabod Crane. He was tall and gawky and had the look of a badly assembled puppet. His head was too small, his arms and legs too long, and his ears, nose, Adam’s apple, and hair stuck out all over the place. He looked harmless and silly, but he wasn’t. He was one of those men who possess a little bit of power and handle it badly. He believed himself clever and wise and was neither. He was the proverbial snowball who always managed to turn himself into an avalanche. As a result, he was a danger to everyone, himself included, and most of the time he wasn’t even aware of it.
This morning was no exception.
He came up the garden walk to the swinging gate without slowing, closing the distance in huge, loping strides, slammed the gate back as if annoyed that it had not opened of its own accord, and continued on toward the manor house. He looked neither left nor right at the profusion of summertime flowers that were blooming in their meticulously raked beds, on the carefully pruned bushes, and along the newly painted trellises. He did not bother to breathe in the fragrant smells that filled the warm upstate New York morning air. He failed to give a moment’s notice to the pair of robins singing on the low branches of the old shagbark hickory centered on the sweeping lawn leading up to the manor house. Ignoring all, he galloped along with the single-mindedness of a charging rhino.
From the Assembly Hall at the base of the slope below the manor house came the sound of voices rising up like an angry swarm of bees. Horris’s thick eyebrows furrowed darkly over his narrow, hooked nose, a pair of fuzzy caterpillars laboriously working their way toward a meeting. Biggar was still trying to reason with the faithful, he supposed. Trying to reason with the once-faithful, he amended. It wouldn’t work, of course. Nothing would now. That was the trouble with confessions. Once given, you couldn’t take them back. Simple logic, the lesson a thousand charlatans had been taught at the cost of their lives, and Biggar had somehow missed it.
Horris gritted his teeth. What had that idiot been thinking?
He closed on the manor house with furious determination, the shouts from the Assembly Hall chasing after him, elevated suddenly to a frightening new pitch. They would be coming soon. The whole bunch of them, the faithful of so many months become a horde of unreasoning ingrates who would rip him limb from limb if they got their hands on him.
Horris stopped abruptly at the foot of the steps leading up to the veranda that ran the entire length of the gleaming home and thought about what he was losing. His narrow shoulders sagged, his disjointed body slumped, and his Adam’s apple bobbed like a cork in water as he swallowed his disappointment. Five years of work gone. Gone in an instant’s time. Gone like the light of a candle snuffed. He could not believe it. He had worked so hard.
He shook his head and sighed. Well, there were other fish in the ocean, he supposed. And other oceans to fish.
He clumped up the steps, his size-sixteens slapping against the wooden risers like clown shoes. He was looking around now—looking, because this was the last chance he would get. He would never see this house again, this colonial treasure he had come to love so much, this wonderful, old, Revolutionary American mansion, so carefully restored, so lovingly refurbished, just for him. Fallen into ruin on land given over to hunting and snow sports deep in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, not fifty miles off the toll road linking Utica and Syracuse, it had been all but forgotten until Horris had rediscovered it. Horris had a sense of the importance of history and he admired and coveted things historical—especially when yesterday and today could be tied together for his personal gain. Skat Mandu had allowed him to combine the two, making the history of this house and land a nice, neat package tied up at Horris’s feet waiting to be opened.
But now Skat Mandu was history himself.
Horris stopped a second time at the door, seething. All because of Biggar. He was going to lose it all because of Biggar and his big mouth. It was inconceivable. The fifty acres that formed the retreat, the manor house, the guest house, the Assembly Hall, the tennis courts, the stables, horses, attendants, cars, private plane, bank accounts, everything. He wouldn’t be able to salvage any of it. It was all in the foundation’s name, the tax-sheltered Skat Mandu Foundation, and he couldn’t get to any of it in time. The trustees would see to that quick enough once they learned what had happened. Sure, there was the money in the Swiss bank accounts, but that wouldn’t make up for the collapse of his empire.
Other fish in the ocean, he repeated silently—but why did he have to go fishing again, for pity’s sake?
He kicked at the wicker chair next to the door and sent it flying, wishing with all his heart that he could do the same to Biggar.
The shouts rose anew from the Assembly, and there was a very clear and unmistakable cry of “Let’s get him!” Horris quit thinking about what might have been and went quickly inside.
He was barely inside the house when he heard the beating of wings behind him. He tried to slam the door, but Biggar was too quick. He streaked through at top speed, wings flapping wildly, a few feathers falling away as he reached the banister of the stairway that curved upward from the foyer to the second floor and settled down with a low whistle.
Horris stared at the bird in bleak appraisal. “What’s the trouble, Biggar? Couldn’t get them to listen?”
Biggar fluffed his feathers and shook himself. He was coal black except for a crown of white feathers. Quite a handsome bird, actually. A myna of some sort, though Horris had never been able to determine his exact lineage. He regarded Horris now with a wicked, gleaming eye and winked. “Awk! Pretty Horris. Pretty Horris. Biggar is better. Biggar is better.”
Horris pressed his fingers to his temples. “Please. Could we forgo the dumb-bird routine?”
Biggar snapped his beak shut. “Horris, this is all your fault.”
“My fault?” Horris was aghast. He came forward threateningly. “How could this be my fault, you idiot? I’m not the one who opened his big mouth about Skat Mandu! I’m not the one who decided to tell all!”
Biggar flew up the banister a few steps to keep some distance between them. “Temper, temper. Let us remember something here, shall we? This was all your idea, right? Am I right? Does this ring a bell? You thought up this Skat Mandu business, not me. I went along with the program because you said it would work. I was your pawn, as I have been the pawn of humans and humankind all my life. A poor, simple bird, an outcast …”
“An idiot!” Horris edged closer, trying unsuccessfully to stop the clenching of his hands as he imagined them closing about the bird’s scruffy neck.
Biggar scooted a bit farther up the railing. “A victim, Horris Kew. I am the product of you and your kind. I did the best I could, but I can hardly be held to account for my actions based on your level of expectations, now can I?”
Horris stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Just tell me why you did it. Just tell me that.”
Biggar puffed out his chest. “I had a revelation.”
Horris stared. “You had a revelation,” he repeated dully. He shook his head. “Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?”
“I see nothing ridiculous about it at all. I am in the business of revelations, am I not?”
Horris threw up his hands and turned away. “I do not believe this!” He turned back again furiously. His scarecrow frame seemed to fly out in half-a-dozen directions at once as he gestured. “You’ve ruined us, you stupid bird! Five years of work out the window! Five years! Skat Mandu was the foundation of everything we’ve built! Without him, it’s gone, all of it! What were you thinking?”
“Skat Mandu spoke to me,” Biggar said, huffy himself now.
“There is no Skat Mandu!” Horris shrieked.
“Yes, there is.”
Horris’s broad ears flamed and his even broader nostrils dilated. “Think about what you’re saying, Biggar,” he hissed. “Skat Mandu is a twenty-thousand-year-old wise man that you and I made up in order to convince a bunch of fools to part with their money. Remember? Remember the plan? We thought it up, you and I. Skat Mandu—a twenty-thousand-year-old wise man who had counseled philosophers and leaders throughout time. And now he was back to share his wisdom with us. That was the plan. We bought this land and restored this house and created this retreat for the faithful—the poor, disillusioned faithful—the pathetic, desperate, but well-heeled faithful who just wanted to hear somebody tell them what they already knew! That’s what Skat Mandu did! Through you, Biggar. You were the channeler, a simple bird. I was the handler, the manager of Skat Mandu’s holdings in the temporal world.”
He caught his breath. “But, Biggar, there is no Skat Mandu! Not really, not now, not ever! There’s just you and me!”
“I spoke to him,” Biggar insisted.
“You spoke to him?”
Biggar gave him an impatient look. “You are repeating me. Who is the bird here, Horris?”
Horris gritted his teeth. “You spoke to him? You spoke to Skat Mandu? You spoke to someone who doesn’t exist? Mind telling me what he had to say? Mind sharing his wisdom with me?”
“Don’t be snide.” Biggar’s claws dug into the banister’s polished wood.
“Biggar, just tell me what he had to say.” Horris’s voice sounded like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard.
“He told me to tell the truth. He told me to admit that you had made it all up about him and me, but that now I really was in contact with him.”
Horris’s fingers locked in front of him. “Let me get this straight. Skat Mandu told you to confess?”
“He said that the faithful would understand.”
“And you believed him?”
“I had to do what Skat Mandu required of me. I don’t expect you to understand, Horris. It was a matter of conscience. Sometimes you’ve simply got to respond on an emotional level.”
“You’ve short-circuited, Biggar,” Horris declared. “You’ve burnt out all your wiring.”
“And you simply don’t want to face reality,” Biggar snapped. “So save your caustic comments, Horris, for those who need them.”
“Skat Mandu was the perfect scam!” Horris screamed the words so loudly that Biggar jumped in spite of himself. “Look around you, you idiot! We landed in a world where people are convinced they’ve lost control of their lives, where there’s so much happening that it’s overwhelming, where beliefs are the hardest things to come by and money’s the easiest! It’s a world tailor-made for someone like us, just packed full of opportunities to get rich, to live well, to have everything we ever wanted and a few we didn’t! All we had to do was keep the illusion of Skat Mandu alive. And that meant keeping the faithful convinced that the illusion was real! How many followers do we have, Biggar? Excuse me, how many did we have? Several hundred thousand, at least? Scattered all over the world, but making regular pilgrimages to visit the retreat, to listen to a few precious words of wisdom, to pay good money for the experience?”
He took a deep breath. “Did you think for one minute that telling these people that we tricked them into giving money to hear what a bird would tell them—never mind who the bird said he was getting the words from—would be something they would be quick to forgive? Did you imagine that they would say, ‘Oh, that’s all right, Biggar, we understand,’ and go back to wherever they came from in the first place? What a joke! Skat Mandu must be laughing pretty hard just about now, don’t you think?”
Biggar shook his white-crested head. “He is displeased at the lack of respect he is being accorded, is what he is.”
Horris’s mouth tightened. “Please tell him for me, Biggar, that I could care less!”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself, Horris?”
“What?”
Biggar had a wicked gleam in his eye. “Tell him yourself. He’s standing right behind you.”
Horris sniggered. “You’ve lost your mind, Biggar. You really have.”
“Is that so? Is that a fact?” Biggar puffed out his chest. “Then have a look, Horris. Go on, have a look.”
Horris felt a chill climb up his spine. Biggar sounded awfully sure of himself. The big house suddenly felt much larger than it really was, and the silence that settled into it was immense. The riotous cries of the approaching mob disappeared as if swallowed whole. It seemed to Horris that he could sense a dark presence lifting out of the ether behind him, a shadowy form that coalesced and then whispered with sullen insistence, Turn around, Horris, turn around!
Horris took a deep breath in an effort to stop shaking. He had the sinking feeling that somehow, once again, things were getting out of control. He shook his head stubbornly. “I won’t look,” he snapped—and then added maliciously, “you stupid bird!”
Biggar cocked his head. “He’s reeeeeaching for you,” the myna hissed.
Something feather-light brushed Horris Kew’s shoulder, and he whirled about in terror.
There was nothing there.
Or almost nothing. There was a faint something, a darkening of the light, a small waver of movement, a hint of a stirring in the air.
Horris blinked. No, not even that, he amended with satisfaction. Nothing.
Outside, shouting rose up suddenly from the edge of the gardens. Horris turned. The faithful had caught sight of him through the open door and were trampling through the bedding plants and rosebushes and heading for the gate. They carried sharp objects and were making threatening gestures with them.
Horris walked quickly to the door, closed and locked it, and turned back to Biggar. “That’s it for you,” he said. “Good-bye and good luck.”
He walked quickly through the foyer and down the hall past a parlor and a library sitting room to the kitchen at the back of the house. He could smell fresh wax on the pegged oak floors, and on the kitchen table sat a vase of scarlet roses. He took in the smells and colors as he passed, thinking of better times, regretting how quickly life changed when you least expected it. It was a good thing he was flexible, he decided. It was fortunate that he had foresight.
“Where are we going?” Biggar asked, flying up next to him, curious enough to risk a possible blow. “I assume you have a plan.”
Horris gave him a look that would have frosted a small child at play in midsummer. “Of course I have a plan. It does not, however, include you.”
“That is mean, Horris. And small-minded as well.” Biggar flew ahead and swung back, circling the far end of the kitchen. “Beneath you, really.”
“Very little is beneath me at this point,” Horris declared. “Especially where you are concerned.”
He went to a pantry, pulled open the doors, reached in, triggered the release for the panel behind, and stepped back as the whole assemblage swung open with a ponderous effort. It took a few seconds; the panel was lined with steel.
Biggar swooped down and landed on the top of the open pantry door. “I am your child, Horris,” he lamented disingenuously. “I have been like a son to you. You cannot desert me.”
Horris glanced up. “I disown you. I disinherit you. I banish you from my sight forever.”
From the front of the house came a pounding of fists on the locked door followed rather swiftly by a breaking of glass. Horris tugged nervously on one ear. No, there would be no reasoning with this bunch. The faithful had become a ragged mob of doughheads. Fools discovering their own lack of wit were famous for reverting to form. Would they be sadder but wiser for the experience? he wondered. Or would they simply stay stupid to the end? Not that it mattered.
He had to stoop to pass through the opening behind the panel, which was well under his six-foot-eight height. He had raised all the other doors in the house when he had renovated it. He had told everyone that Skat Mandu needed his space.
Inside was a stairway leading down. He triggered the release once more, and the heavy steel panel swung slowly back into place. Biggar flew through just as the door sealed and sped down the stairwell after Horris.
“He was there behind you, you know,” the bird snapped, flying so close he brushed the other’s face with his wing tip. Horris lashed out with one hand, but missed. “Just for a minute, he was there.”
“Sure he was,” Horris muttered, still a little unnerved by the experience, angry all over again for being reminded of it.
Biggar darted past. “Trying to blame me for your mistakes won’t save you. Besides, you need me!”
Horris groped for the light switch against the shadowed wall as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Need you for what?”
“Whatever it is you are planning to do.” Biggar flew on into the dark, smug in the knowledge that his eyesight was ten times better than Horris’s.
“Rather confident of that, aren’t you?” Horris cursed silently as his searching fingers snagged on a splinter of wood.
“If for nothing else, you need me as a cheering section. Face it, Horris. You cannot stand not having an audience. You require someone to admire your cleverness, to applaud your planning.” Biggar was a voice in the dark. “What is the purpose of concocting a well-devised scheme if there is no one to appreciate its intrinsic brilliance? How shallow the victory if there is no one to hail its masterful execution!” The bird cleared his throat. “Of course, you need me, too, to help with your new plan. What is it, anyway?”
Horris found the light switch and flicked it on. He was momentarily blinded. “The plan is to get as far away from you as possible.”
The basement spread away through a forest of timbered pillars that held up the flooring of the old manor house and cast their shadows in dark columns through the spray of yellow light. Horris marched ahead resolutely, hearing pounding now on the steel panel above. Well, let’s see what they can do with that! he sneered. He wound his way through the timbers to a corridor that tunneled back into shadow. Another light switch triggered a row of overheads, and stooping again to avoid the low ceiling, he started down the passageway.
Again Biggar passed him by, a fleet black shadow. “We belong together, Horris. Birds of a feather and all. Come on. Tell me where we’re going.”
“No.”
“Very well, be mysterious if you must. But you admit we are still a team, don’t you?”
“You and me, Horris. How long have we been together now? Think about all we’ve been through.”
Horris thought, mostly about himself. Hunched down in a crablike stance as he angled through the narrow tunnel, legs bent, arms cranked in, nose plowing through musty air and dusty gloom, ears fanned out like an elephant’s, he considered the road he had traveled in life to arrive at this moment. It had been a twisty one, rife with potholes and sudden curves, slicked over with rain and sleet, brightened now and again with brief stretches of sunlight.
Horris had a few things going for him in life, but none of them had served him very well. He was smart enough, but when the chips were down he always seemed to lack some crucial piece of information. He could reason things through, but his conclusions frequently seemed to stop one step short. He possessed an extraordinary memory, but when he called upon it for help he could never seem to remember what counted.
Skill-wise, he was a minor conjurer—not a magician who pulled rabbits out of hats, but one of a very few in the whole world who could do real magic. Which was because he was not from this world in the first place, of course, but he tried not to dwell on that point since his abilities were somewhat marginal when measured against those of his fellow practitioners.
Mostly, Horris was an opportunist. To be an opportunist one needed an appreciation for the possibilities, and Horris knew about possibilities better than he knew about almost anything. He was forever considering how something might be turned to his advantage. He was convinced that the wealth of the world—of any world—had been created for his ultimate benefit. Time and space were irrelevant; in the end, everything belonged to him. His opinion of himself was extreme. He, better than anyone, understood the fine art of exploitation. He alone could analyze the weaknesses that were indigenous to all creatures and determine how they might be mined. He was certain his insight approached prescience, and he took it as his mission in life to improve his lot at the expense of almost everyone. He possessed a relentless passion for using people and circumstance to achieve this end. Horris cared not a whit for the misfortune of others, for moral conventions, for noble causes, the environment, stray cats and dogs, or little children. These were all concerns for lesser beings. He cared only for himself, for his own creature comforts, for twisting things about when it suited him, and for schemes that reinforced his continuing belief that all other life-forms were impossibly stupid and gullible.
Thus the creation of Skat Mandu and his cult of fervid followers, believers in a twenty-thousand-year-old wise man’s words as channeled by a myna.
Even now, it made Horris smile.
Horris admitted to only one real character flaw, and that was a nagging inability to keep things under his control once he started them in motion. Somehow even the most carefully considered and well planned of his schemes ended up taking on a life of their own and leaving him stranded somewhere along the way. And even though it was never his fault, it seemed that he was always, inexplicably, being relegated to the role of scapegoat.
He reached the end of the corridor and stepped into a thirty-foot-square room which housed stacks of folding tables and chairs and crates of Skat Mandu pamphlets and reading material. The tools of his trade, enough fodder for a fine bonfire.
He looked beyond the mounds of useless inventory to the single steel-lined door at the far side of the room and sighed wearily. Beyond that door was a tunnel that ran for almost a mile underneath the compound to a garage, a silver and black 4WD Land Cruiser, and safety. A careful planner was never without a bolt hole in case things went haywire, as they had just done here. He had not expected to put this one to use quite so soon, but circumstances had conspired against him once again. He grimaced. He supposed it was a good thing that he was always prepared for the worst, but it was an annoying way to live.
He glared purposefully at Biggar, who was perched on the crates safely out of reach. “How many times have I warned you against giving in to acts of conscience, Biggar?”
“Many,” Biggar replied, and rolled his eyes.
“To no purpose, it seems.”
“I’m sorry. I am only a simple bird.”
Horris considered that mitigating circumstance. “I suppose you expect another chance, don’t you?”
Biggar lowered his head to keep from snickering. “I would be most grateful, Horris.”
Horris Kew’s gangly frame bent forward suddenly in the manner of a crouched wolf. “This is the last time I ever want to hear of Skat Mandu, Biggar. The last. Sever whatever lingering relationship you share with our former friend right now. No more private revelations. No more voices from the distant past. From this moment on, you listen only to me. Got it?”
The myna sniffed. Horris didn’t understand anything, but there wasn’t any point in telling him so. “I hear and obey.”
Horris nodded. “Good. Because if it happens again, I will have you stuffed and mounted.”
His wintry gray eyes conveyed the depth of his feelings far more eloquently than his words, and Biggar’s beak clacked shut on the snappy retort he was about to make.
From far back in the cellar came a rending sound—the prying of nailed wood away from its seating. Horris stared. The faithful were tearing up the floorboards! The steel door had not deterred them as completely as he had anticipated. He felt a tightening of his breathing passages as he hurried not toward the tunnel door but through the crates and furniture to a series of pictures bolted to the wall. He reached the fake Degas, touched a pair of studs in the gilt frame, and released the casing. It swung away on concealed hinges to reveal a combination safe. Horris worked the dial feverishly, listening to the sounds of the enraged mob as he did so, and when he heard the catch release, he swung open the layered steel door.
He reached inside and withdrew an intricately carved wooden box.
“Hope springs eternal,” he heard Biggar snicker.
Well, it did, he supposed—at least in this instance. The box was his greatest treasure—and he had no idea what it was. He had conjured it up quite by accident shortly after coming into this world, one of those fortuitous twists of fate that occur every so often in the weaving of spells. He had recognized the importance of the box right from the first. This was a creation of real magic, the carvings ancient and spell-laden, rife with secret meaning. Something was sealed inside, something of great power. The Tangle Box, he had named it, impressed by the weave of symbols and script that ringed its surface. It was seamless and lidless, and nothing he did would release its secrets. Now and again he thought he could hear something give in its bindings, in the seals that bound it close about, but conjure though he might the box defied his best efforts to uncover what lay within.
Still, it was his best and most important treasure from this world, and he was not about to leave it to those cretins who followed.
He tucked the Tangle Box under his arm and hastened on across the room, weaving through the obstacle course of spare furniture and worthless literature to reach the tunnel door. There he worked with a steady hand a second combination dial set close against a lever that secured the door’s heavy locks, heard them release, and shoved down.
The lever did not budge.
Horris Kew frowned, looking a little like a truant caught out of school. He spun the dial angrily and tried the combination again. Still the lever would not budge. Horris was sweating now, hearing shouts to go along with the tearing up of floorboards. He tried the combination again and yet again. Each time, he clearly heard the lock release. Each time, the lever refused to move.
Finally his frustration grew so great that he stepped back and starting kicking at the door. Biggar watched impassively. Horris began swearing, then jumping up and down in fury. Finally, after one last futile try at freeing the inexplicably recalcitrant lever, he sagged back against the door, resigned to his fate.
“I can’t understand it,” he murmured woodenly. “I test it myself almost every day. Every day. And now it won’t work. Why?”
Biggar cleared his throat. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Warn me? Warn me about what?”
“At the risk of incurring your further displeasure, Horris—Skat Mandu. I told you he was displeased.”
Horris stared up at him. “You are obsessing, Biggar.”
Biggar shook his head, ruffled his feathers, and sighed. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we, Horris? Do you want to get out of here or not?”
“I want to get out,” Horris Kew admitted bleakly. “But …”
Biggar cut him short with an impatient wave of one wing. “Just listen, all right? Don’t interrupt, don’t say anything. Just listen. Whether you like it or not, I am in fact in touch with the real Skat Mandu. I did have a revelation, just as I told you. I have reached into the beyond and made contact with the spirit of a wise man and warrior of another time, and he is the one we call Skat Mandu.”
“Oh, for cripes sake, Biggar!” Horris could not help himself.
“Just listen. He has a purpose in coming to us, a purpose of great importance, though he has not yet revealed to me what that purpose is. What I do know is that if we want out of this basement and away from that mob, we must do as he says. Not much is required. A phrase or two of conjuring, nothing more. But you must say it, Horris. You.”
Horris rubbed his temples and thought about the madness that ran deep within the core of all human experience. Surely this was the apex. His voice dripped with venom. “What must I say, O mighty channeler?”
“Skip the sarcasm. It’s wasted on me. You must speak these words. ‘Rashun, oblight, surena! Larin, kestel, maneta! Ruhn!’”
Horris started to object, then caught himself. One or two of the words he recognized, and they were most definitely words of power. The others he had never heard, but they had the feel of conjuring and the weight of magic. He clutched the Tangle Box against his chest and stared up at Biggar. He listened to the sounds of the mob’s pursuit, louder now, the flooring breached and the basement open. Time was running out.
Fear etched deep lines in his narrow face. His resistance gave way. “All right.” He rose and straightened. “Why not?” He cleared his throat. “Rashun, oblight, sur—”
“Wait!” Biggar interrupted with a frantic flutter of wings. “Hold out the box!”
“What?”
“The Tangle Box! Hold it out, away from you!”
Horris saw it all now, the truth behind the secret of the box, and he was both astonished and terrified by what it meant. He might have thrown down the box and run for his life if there had been somewhere to run. He might have resisted Biggar’s command if there had been another to obey. He might have done almost anything if presented with another set of circumstances, but life seldom gives you a choice in pivotal moments and so it was now.
Horris held out the box before him and began to chant. “Rashun, oblight, surena! Larin, kestel, maneta! Ruhn!”
Something hissed in Horris Kew’s ears, a long, slow sigh of satisfaction laced with pent-up rage and fury and the promise of slow revenge. Instantly the room’s light went from white-gold to wicked green, a pulsing reflection of some color given off deep within a primeval forest where old growth still holds sway and clawed things yet patrol the final perimeters of their ancient world. Horris would have dropped the Tangle Box if his hands would have obeyed him, but they seemed inexplicably locked in place, his fingers turned to claws about the carved surface, his nerve endings tied to the sudden pulse of life that rose from within. The top of the box simply disappeared and from out of its depths rose a wisp of something Horris Kew had thought he would never see again.
Fairy mists.
They rose in a veil and settled across the steel door that blocked entry to the tunnel, masking it like paint, then dissolving it until nothing remained but a vague hint of shadows at play against a black-holed nothingness.
“Hurry!” Biggar hissed at his ear, already speeding past. “Go through before it closes!”
The bird was gone in an instant, and his disappearance seemed to propel Horris Kew on as well, flinging himself after, still carrying the once-treasured box. He could have looked into it now to see what was hidden there. It was lidless, and he could have peeked to discover its secret. Once he would have given anything to do so. Now he dared not.
He went through the veil, through the web of fairy mists come somehow out of his past, eyes wide and staring, thinking to find almost anything waiting, to have almost anything happen. There was a sudden vision of vanishing gold coins and fading palatial grounds, the bitter tally of his losses, the sum total of five wasted years. It was there and then gone. He found himself in a corridor that lacked floor or ceiling or walls, a thin light that he swam through like a netted fish seeking to escape its trap. There was no movement around him, no sound, no sense of being or time or place, only the passage and the frightening belief that any deviation would see him lost forever.
What have I done? he asked himself in terror and dismay.
No answer came, and he struggled on like a man coated in hardening mud, the freeze of night working down to the marrow of his bones, the cold of his fate a certainty that whispers wretchedly of lost hope. He thought he could see Biggar, thought he could hear the bird’s paralyzed squawk, and took heart from the fervent hope that the miserable creature’s suffering was greater than his own.
And then abruptly the mists were gone, and he was free of the paralytic light. It was night, and the night was velvet black, the warm air filled with pleasant smells and reassuring sounds. He stood upon a plain, the grasses thick and soft against his feet and ankles, their windswept flow running on like an ocean toward distant mountains. He glanced skyward. Eight moons glowed brightly—mauve, peach, burnt rose, jade, beryl, sea green, turquoise, and white. Their colors mixed and flooded down upon the sleeping land.
It can’t be!
Biggar emerged from somewhere behind him, flying rather unsteadily, lighting on the nearest of a cluster of what appeared to be small pin oaks colored bright blue. He shook himself, preened briefly, and glanced around.
When he saw the moons, he jumped a foot. “Awk!” he croaked, forgetting himself momentarily. He spit in distaste and shivered. “Horris?” he whispered. His eyes were as wide as saucers, no small feat for a bird. “Are we where I think we are?”
Horris was unable to answer. He was unable to speak at all. He simply stared skyward, then around at the landscape, then down at his feet, then at the rune-scripted surface of the Tangle Box, lidded once more and closed away.
Landover! This was Landover!
“Welcome home, Horris Kew,” a low hiss came from over his shoulder—insidious, pervasive, and as cold as death.
Horris felt his heart drop to his feet. This time when he turned around, there really was something waiting.