The Ancient One (17 page)

“Stop!” shouted Kate. “Laioni, stop!”

The Halami girl paid no attention. She continued to stride toward the bubbling pool. Kate threw herself at her, just managing to catch her by the heel with an outstretched hand. She wrenched the foot sideways, pulling Laioni to the ground with a thud.

Laioni sat up, shaking her head in bewilderment. She watched, horrified, as the tail of the last attacker slipped into the frothing pool.

“I—I almost went in there myself,” she said weakly.

Kate rose, still clutching the wriggling Monga. With her free hand, she picked up the walking stick. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“A little bruised, that’s all.”

Together, they stumbled down the steep slope. Kate continued to hold Monga tightly, for fear he, too, might be drawn by the deadly spell. Only after descending quite a distance did she finally set the dog free. To her relief, he did not try to run back toward the pool. Instead, he scampered over to a rivulet of water running down from the cliffs and plunged his face into the cold stream.

“He didn’t like the taste,” said Laioni wryly.

“I don’t blame him,” answered Kate, with a glance at the Circle of Stones above them. “They almost got the stick. And me, too, if it hadn’t been for Nyla.”

Then, recalling her first experience with the pool, she thought again of the small red owl that had knocked her aside just in time. Had that been Nyla’s doing as well? Turning back to Laioni, she said, “If that’s what we have to expect from the Tinnanis, I don’t see how we’ll ever get any help from their Chieftain.”

Laioni grimaced. “Those were not Tinnanis. They were Slimnis, the Tinnanis’ fallen brethren. Once they lived freely, like other beings of the forest, but now they serve Gashra. The Tinnanis are their sworn enemy.”

Monga lifted his head at last and vigorously shook the water from himself. Watching him, Laioni rubbed her sore right forearm. “It is a bad sign, very bad, that they’ve entered the crater. This place is the greatest stronghold of the Tinnanis, the very home of their Chieftain, I am glad we defeated them, but I’m afraid more will come after.”

“The leader, the one with the arm bands, must have laid a curse on the pool when he fell in,” said Kate. “His way of getting revenge, I guess.”

“But he caught only his own warriors,” added Laioni.

Kate pulled her bandaged hand close to her chest. “So far.”

XV:
T
HE
B
LUE
L
AKE

Wordlessly, they scrambled down the slippery slope. Kate’s legs, whether tugged by gravity alone or by some new inexorable force as well, pulled her downward toward the lake at a rapid clip. Her thigh muscles strained at the steep descent, and several times rocks slid from under her feet, causing her to leap to safety before twisting an ankle or a knee.

At one point she turned to see Laioni, moving down the slope with the ease of mist rolling across the rocks. Though shoeless, she stepped over the jumbled and jagged terrain with confident ease. Monga bounced along behind, stopping every so often to thrust his long nose into a small crevice where some tiny newt or beetle had scurried to safety.

Arriving at the edge of the lake, Kate peered into the fog. No island could be seen, only splotches of shimmering blue through occasional windows in the whirling mist. Bending down, she touched the water with one finger. It felt warm, like a steaming bath. As she stood again, her vision roamed the shoreline for anything that might conceivably be used as a boat. She really didn’t want to cross the shoreline of this mysterious lake at all, but if she had to do so, she certainly did not want to swim in its waters unprotected.

A dark cylindrical shape bobbing near the shore caught her eye. Moving closer, she saw that it was a log, perhaps eight feet long, that must have blown down from the upper reaches of a great fir or cedar and drifted across the lake. The wood, darkened by dampness, was nearly black.

Laioni joined her at the water’s edge. “Our canoe?”

“I think so,” answered Kate as she grabbed one of the protruding branches and pulled the log closer to shore. “I’d rather ride in something shaped like your little toys, but we don’t have much choice.”

Surveying the reflectionless blue water, Laioni added doubtfully, “I just hope we can do better than my pebbles.” She cocked her head. “Wait, I have an idea. Would you give me the little drum you carry? I saw it when you gave us the sweet brown tea.”

Kate slipped off the blue day pack, unzipped it, and handed the tiny painted drum to Laioni. Immediately, the Halami girl squatted down on the pumice, placed the drum between her legs, and closed her eyes for several seconds. When she opened them, she looked neither at the drum nor at Kate, but into the mist rising from the lake.

Gently, her fingers began to tap the stretched hide of the drum, seeking their true rhythm just as Kate had seen Aunt Melanie do at the mouth of Kahona Falls. She began slowly to sing, as her hands alternately slid and swished and pounded. Once again, Kate marveled at the likeness of Laioni to her own beloved great-aunt. Although her intellect dismissed the possibility of a real connection between them as ridiculous, as mere fantasy, she remembered what Grandfather used to say:
Wait long enough, and fantasy becomes reality.

Laioni continued to chant, just as Kate had heard in another time and another place. This time, however, she understood the lilting words:

Hear me O spirits
My small walking words:
All time in the sunrise
All life in the seed.

Our days may be short
Our reach may be long
We touch both our elders
And children unborn.

My struggles are yours
Your mystery mine.
I ask you for guidance
And know you will say:

Your spirit is one
With the spirits around you.
Your spirit is one
With the spirits around you.

As her last
halma-dru
melted into the mist, Laioni rose silently to her feet. She handed the drum to Kate, who replaced it in the day pack. Together, they waded into the water and straddled the log, positioning themselves between the stubby ends of broken branches that ran its full length. Monga jumped into the water and started paddling vigorously alongside.

Kate, seated in front, pushed off from the shore. The ground beneath her sneakers fell away swiftly; in no more than a yard from the water’s edge she could no longer touch bottom. She had no way to measure the depth of this lake, but all her instincts told her it was unfathomably deep.

The log sank slightly under their weight, submerging everything below their hips in the warm water. Fog soon enveloped them, and the cliffs around the rim disappeared from view. Ahead and behind, Kate could see nothing but curls of mist spiraling out of the blue water. She leaned slightly forward and began to paddle, while Laioni did the same. Monga, meanwhile, splashed along beside them. Holding her bandaged hand under the water at one point, Kate noted how clear the water seemed, even as it imbued her forearm, fingers, and kerchief with a vibrant blue color. She had never seen water like this before.

But for the sound of their paddling and the constant lapping of little waves against the log, the lake was still. Gradually, however, Kate grew aware of a slight chill in the air, of a shadow in the mist she could not really see.

Suddenly, the island burst from behind a curtain of fog not fifty yards ahead. Blacker than charcoal, the spindly spires and pinnacles rose like the turrets of an abandoned castle. Then Kate saw what she most dreaded to see: the gleaming black surface of the island seemed to be moving, quivering like living skin.
Like it was crawling or something
, the Forest Service man had said.

At that instant something solid brushed against her foot. She cried out, wrenching up her leg just as Monga started barking furiously. Then the front end of the log rose high out of the water, throwing her backward into Laioni.

With an explosion of spray, the makeshift boat capsized. A great wave lifted and crashed down over the flailing voyagers, drowning their screams in the swell of a powerful whirlpool that dragged them downward.

Soon the eerie stillness returned to the lake. Except for a lone log drifting unattended, nothing but mist moved on the surface.

XVI:
T
HIKA THE
G
UARDIAN

Kate felt a scratchy tongue licking her face. She sat up with a start.

“Hey, Monga, that’s enough,” she sputtered, pushing the affectionate dog away. In response, he shook his shaggy body vigorously, splattering her with water.

She looked around to see Laioni and Monga, like herself, dripping wet on a dark stone floor. Though her clothes were drenched, she felt uncomfortably warm. Laioni had lost her woven basketry cap; her twin ropes of black hair were draped, glistening, over her shoulders.

Over their heads swept a great transparent dome. At first Kate thought it had been fashioned from glass or quartz, but then she saw it flex and bend with a gentle undulation, moved by some powerful current. She marveled at the clear membrane, arching above them like an enormous half bubble. Outside, the world was entirely blue, but for the thin shafts of light penetrating from far above and some curious white shapes that encircled the dome. Tall and slender, they waved slowly like great wind-blown branches. The stone floor was unadorned except for a square silver plank in the center, possibly a trapdoor of some kind.

“Where are we?” asked Laioni, scanning the shifting blue light filtering through the dome.

“Beats me. It’s almost like we’re under the lake somehow. Everything is so blue up there, except for those big white things. They look almost like trees.”

Observing the square plank, Kate said, “I wonder if this is the way out.” Crawling nearer, she inspected it closely. Wrought of gleaming silver, with inlaid patterns of interwoven branches, it fit perfectly into the smooth floor. Pulling from her jeans pocket the Swiss army knife she always carried, she tried to pry it open, but with no success. The trapdoor, if indeed it was a trapdoor, would not budge.

“You carry strange tools,” said Laioni, staring in wonder at the knife.

“Still doesn’t do any good,” grumbled Kate. Then she spied something unusual stuck into the slit between the silver door and the floor. Pinching the object between her thumb and forefinger, she pulled it free. “It’s a feather,” she observed, more mystified than ever. “A pure white feather. An owl maybe?”

“Maybe,” answered Laioni in a noncommittal tone.

“But how could an owl get in here? It doesn’t—”

Just then a spindly shadow fell across the silver square. Kate jerked her head upward to see one of the white treelike figures moving closer to the dome. It was tall, perhaps ten times as tall as Kate and twice as high as the dome, covered with knuckle-shaped lumps like a branch of coral. As it bent closer to them, it laid a bony appendage on the surface of the dome itself with a sound like fingers rubbing against an inflated balloon. Now Kate could see that the appendage was not pure white as it had appeared from a distance, but rather ribbed with veins of very light yellow. Then, with shock, she realized that the knuckle-shaped lumps each contained a single round, blue eye. Hundreds and hundreds of them covered the knobby skeleton.

“You, hsh-whshhh, dare to enter the realm of Ho Shhhantero,” boomed a watery voice that echoed inside the dome. “What is your name, shwshhh, and your purpose?”

Kate clambered to her feet and attempted to address the many-eyed creature. “Kaitlyn Prancer Gordon is my name, and this is Laioni and Monga. We are here to meet with the Chieftain of the Tinnanis.”

“Tell me, shwshhh, why you want to see him,” commanded the watery voice, sounding like liquid sloshing through a pipe. “I am Thika, First Guardian of Ho Shhhantero, and no one may pass beyond here without my permission. Speak quickly, hshh-swshh, for I have very little time.”

Kate answered cautiously, “We have something urgent to discuss with him.”

Thika’s knobby limb moved slightly on the transparent dome. “How do I know, shhhhwshh, you are telling the truth? You might be, hshh, hshh, really an agent of the Wicked One, or just another Halami, shwshhhh, following some deluded dream.”

At this, Laioni glanced anxiously at Kate. Monga, sensing her distress, paced around her feet.

“Because I carry this,” answered Kate, waving the walking stick.

“That, shhhwsh, is not good enough,” gurgled the voice of the Guardian. “I already know you carry a stick of power. Hshhwshhh. That is the only reason I did not banish you immediately, hshhh, through the Tinnanis’ tunnels, shhwsh, as I have done with every other intruder who has dared to approach Ho Shhhantero. By now you would be returned to the forest below, ssswhshh, with no memory at all of our meeting. But you could have stolen the stick, hhshh-whhshh, or won it through treachery. No, if you are to pass by me, shhwsh, you must tell me more of your mission.”

“All right,” Kate said reluctantly. “I need the Chieftain to tell me how to make the stick work, so it can take me back to my own time.”

“Shhhwshh,” sloshed Thika. “You say, hshhh, you are from another time?”

“Yes.”

“Then I, shhhwsh, will let you pass.”

Kate and Laioni exchanged relieved glances.

“After,” continued Thika, “you have said, shhwwwsh, the password.”

“Password?” asked Kate. “But, but—I don’t know what you mean.”

“Any language, hshhh, will do,” declared the coral-like creature, its multiple blue eyes concentrating on Kate. “I am old enough, shhwshh, to remember even the Old Tongue. Now hurry, hurry, hshh-whshh. Choose well your words. For you will have, sshhwsh, only one chance.”

A lump expanded in Kate’s throat, swelling so much that speaking would have been difficult even if she did know the Guardian’s password. She felt a rush of despair, overwhelming her like the waters of the blue lake had overwhelmed her not long before. What could she do now? If she had but one chance as Thika said, then she had already lost it. She would never see the Tinnani Chieftain, never see Aunt Melanie. How could she possibly know some long-forgotten password, as ancient as the Tinnani Old Tongue?