Crossroads (36 page)

"But you still have some effect?"

"Some, but when the Mogul captures the final Oculet, I fear that the last of our powers and perhaps we, as well, may fade. It might be that he will be able to see us then, and seeing us, he may destroy us finally."

"Can you help us to find the Citadel?"

Another collective gasp ran through the crowd.

"Why do you seek it?" asked the man with the wild eyebrows.

"I’m not even sure that we do," admitted Sheila, "but my friends and I can’t do anything here. If there is such a thing as fate, I think that’s where we’re going to find it."

"You will find some sort of fate there," said the woman, "but I doubt whether it is the one you seek. The Mogul has long locked himself away inside it to stir his dark magic. His creatures come out, and his shade, but none go in any longer."

"How can we get in?" asked Sheila.

"Only the hand of the Mogul or a mirror can open the doors of the Citadel to the living now," whispered the woman.

Sheila sighed. "I was afraid of that."

"Yes, and the only mirrors now on Otherworld are locked away in the Hall of Mirrors with Shandan Graves."

"No," said Sheila. "There is one other."

"Another?"

Sheila turned back toward the shore. Through the veil of
ocean
she could see Kira standing in the waves, tugging at Jen who dragged her back toward shore. The Elder stood on the beach.

"Ah," said the woman.

"You know her?" asked Sheila.

"Everyone here knows the wife of Shandan Graves."

"Will you come with us? Will you help us fight the Mogul?"

Sheila could feel as much as see the sadness in the woman as it transmitted itself to the whole group. "We gave all to that fight that we had and more. Now we are less than wraiths."

"But you still have some powers. You said so yourself."

The woman bowed her head. "But we have none against the Mogul. None here will face him again."

"Then don’t complain when he comes back for you," said Sheila, angrily striding back out of the waves and into Kira’s arms.

Chapter 49

When Clem blacked out in his arms, Silky rested his old friend gently on the rolling deck and hurried down the ladder into the hold to jerk the blankets and pillow off of the bunk there. Somewhere he remembered reading that aspirin could be effective against a heart attack, and he searched the tiny head, discovering an old rusted first aid kit, but there was nothing in it but some antiseptic ointment, a few Band-aids, and rolls of gauze and tape.

Struggling back up the ladder against the sharp pitching of the boat he nearly lost his balance and tossed headlong back into the bilge, but he finally made it back into the pilothouse where he stuffed the pillow beneath Clem’s head and then wrapped him in the blankets, pressing him against the housing, then searching for some way to secure him there. He spotted an overnight pack beside the main bulkhead door, and he carried it over to wedge beneath Clem’s hip. On an impulse he opened it. Maybe, just maybe Clem had some aspirin in there.

Dirty clothes, a bag of nuts, a candy bar, a pair of worn tennis shoes. He snatched a leather shaving bag from the bottom, hoping against hope, but there was no aspirin inside.

There was a mirror, however.

He stared at it, wondering just what weird twist of fate had brought it into his hands, now.  Clem knew better than to bring a mirror to the island, and Silky just couldn’t write off his doing so to simple forgetfulness. He sensed another hand, but was it Shandan’s, or the Moguls? What was he supposed to do now? If he was a pawn in the Great Game Shandan had once loved to harp about he wished to hell he could see which gamesman’s hands was making the moves, but in the end none of that matter now, none of it outweighed the sight of his old friend, gasping for breath on the pilothouse floor.

Finally he ripped the mirror from the glue that held it to the leather, slipping it into his pocket. He tossed the case back into the pack and then shoved it tighter under Clem’s hip. Placing his ear against Clem’s chest he could barely hear the febrile beating of the heart over the raging storm. Patting his old friend’s cheek lightly he rose again to his feet.

"I’ll be back," he said, quietly. "If there’s any way on this earth. I’ll be back."

With that he stepped through the door and into the storm.

The wind whistled through the rigging, and a following sea now threatened to slop over the rear gunwale onto the deck with each rolling wave. The
Mary O
clearly didn’t like being tethered in the storm. She wrestled at her anchor lines like a wild horse fighting a tether. He climbed down the ladder and strode to the port side and kicked off his shoes. Although he was forty years out of practice he had been a shape changer for what Clem would have considered an eternity. When Julius Caesar walked this planet, Silky had been old. In fact the sting of the salt spray and the call of the dark water were invigorating, raising ancient memories, long forgotten tastes and sensations. He reached toward the Oculet dangling from his throat and stroked it with the tiny digits at the end of his fleshy flippers, watching as his feet, too, transformed. Then he simply leaned forward and dove.

The icy water felt fine, and he rocketed through it like a cavorting dolphin. Because his eyes were now glazed with a translucent third lid-and because the design of the eyes themselves had shifted-he could see clearly beneath the surface, far better than he could ashore even in the near total darkness. He reveled in the familiar freedom of the water as his wide flippers propelled him faster than a barracuda toward the dock at the far end of the island. The Oculet slapped against his chest, and he could feel the mirror wedged in his pants pocket, twin talismans for good or evil.

He’d known immediately of course why Shandan wanted him off the island. The Mogul really had finally come to the little spit of rock. Luckily no Grigs had made it with him or both Silky and Clem would surely be dead by now. That they weren’t wasn’t merely a matter of luck, either. The Mogul didn’t deal in luck and neither did Shandan, but this was a high stakes chess match, and Pinochle had always been Silky’s game. He felt as out of his depth as any flounder washed up on the shore. Rolling onto his back, he gave one great push, broke the surface, breathed in a great gasping gulp, rolled and dove again. Beneath the waves all was peaceful. Like the island had been for forty years while a storm roiled in Otherworld.

The Mogul hadn’t yet changed everything here into Hell. Therefore he had not made it into the Hall of Mirrors. Shandan was holding out. And the Grigs that were on earth were still trapped on the mainland. So the Mogul had no outside help here. It just might be, Silky thought, that he really did have half a chance to sneak up to Clem’s cabin, find his medicine and make it back to the boat without getting himself killed.

But that still left Shandan alone with the Mogul.

The more Clem thought about that, though, the more he realized that nothing had changed. In a way Shandan and the Mogul had always been alone together. While Shandan allowed the smallest parting of reality so Silky could pass him food or on rare occasions touch hands, he locked all the other mirrors tightly, keeping out the Great Destroyer, holding him at bay. But Shandan had tired with each passing year while the Mogul had been increasing in power. Silky just prayed that Shandan still had one last trick up his sleeve, although he had no idea what it might be.

In the end Silky knew it didn’t matter whose hand was upon him. Shandan would understand that he could not let a friend die without at least trying to save him. Even if his actions doomed them all, he could never do that.

When he broached again he spotted the dock, thirty yards ahead, and instead of diving he surfed the back of a wave toward it. The wind and rain blew clear across the top of the island, falling in the lee like a wave of its own, right out of the heavens, dumping the deluge in buckets. He caught the ladder on the crest of another powerful roller and pulled himself wearily up onto the dock, standing there dripping, searching the storm for any signs of the Mogul as he shifted back into his human form.

Lightning streaked the sky, backlighting huge rolling masses of clouds and sparkling the rain into sheets of diamonds tossed, pummeled, and polished by the wind. Thunder competed with the waves, hammering the rocks in a tympanic tumult as though some irrational and chaotic mystic marching band rampaged all around, and Silky could imagine himself within the stampede, almost hear the trumpets sounding.

A dream...

He smiled, remembering what it had been like, living in the Dreamtime. He wasn’t a creator, but all the Originals had played their parts there. Guiding, tweaking, aiding the creators, keeping the Dreamtime balanced.

Another ragged claw of lightning jagged across the sky burning the image from his mind until it was only a dim half-memory.

Just like the Dreamtime.

He spit onto the dock, leaning into the wind, the slippery slope trying to jerk his bare feet out from under him. Here-on almost solid ground-he was just a weak old man again, his flippers melded back into hands and feet, and there was no wonderful water to buoy him up. Each step was an agonizing battle against the wind and gravity and something else, some force that shoved at him and twisted him, gripping now, pushing here.

Let me go, you bastard. I’m not fighting you. All I want is my friend’s medicine. Then I’ll be gone.

Of course this whole rigamarole was just whistling in the wind. Even if the Mogul hadn’t known he was here, even if he did succeed in finding Clem’s medicine and making it back to the boat, that was only a mote in the Mogul’s eye. One life saved. For what? For how long?

He reached Clem’s front walk and hurried to the door, realizing at the last minute that it was locked.

Why in the fuck did you do that you old fart? You think I’m gonna come down here and steal your beer? Think a rusted old lock is going to keep the Grigs out if they showed up or the Mogul if he wants in?

He shouldered the door hard, experiencing a sharp, wrenching pain. The jamb cracked a little, and he hit it again. The door swung inward, but the inside of the house was darker even than the depths of the sea. Not one lightning bolt cracked to guide him. He felt his way across the table top, then bumped first into the sink, and then the propane cooler. Finally he found the door into Clem’s bedroom.

Where the fuck is the medicine? Why didn’t I ask? That was really stupid.

He worked his way through the tiny bedroom by feel. There was a bottle on the bedside table, but the goddamned thing was empty.

Could Clem have been mistaken? He was pretty out of it. Maybe he only thought he had more medicine here. Damn.

He worked his way along the wall to the dresser. A bottle of Old Spice, some deodorant, a leather belt. Finally he found the door to the bathroom. Nowhere else to look. It had to be in there, but there was no medicine cabinet over the bare sink. Just a bare wall.

Of course. Clem knew better than to put a mirror there. So, then where is the fucking medicine?

He felt along the top of the toilet. Soap and a can of shaving cream, a roll of paper. He leaned wearily against the sink, wracking his mind for the answer. Time was running out for Clem, and
he
didn’t want to be on the island any longer himself. With each passing instant he felt the presence of the Mogul growing stronger, and he feared that the bastard already knew he was here. He fumbled for the Oculet, grasping it tightly, trying to draw power from it, but he knew that just doing so was like pointing a spotlight at himself.

A bolt of lightning sent jagged shadows through the little shack, and Silky gasped, reaching out with shaking fingers to touch the wall above the toilet tank, reading the writing there by feel. The message had been slashed into the drywall with a knife... or a claw.

I hold the old man’s life in my hands.

"Shit," gasped Silky.

Why play a game like that? If he was certain I was coming back, why not just wait for me here? Because he couldn’t leave Shandan for that long? Or just for the hell of it to prove his domination? He’d like that. Forcing me to hike up the whole length of the damned island in the storm.

Silky knew his chances of getting the nitro from the Mogul and surviving to take the medicine back to Clem were almost nil, but what else could he do? Swim back to the boat without it and watch his friend die? He hated to admit it, but that might be the best option he had. At least he’d be on the water where the Mogul couldn’t get to him or the Oculet, but he knew he was missing something. Something important. Why had Shandan told them to run? Was it just the last gasp, trying to save Silky for a moment or an hour more? Or was there more to it than that? Shandan always had a reason for what he did. Always. And he’d know that Silky wasn’t likely to run far.

Silky was certain that Shandan saw a lot more from the Hall of Mirrors than even the Mogul suspected. He would have known about Clem’s medicine and his condition. Would he have known about the mirror in his bag on the boat? Maybe.

But it doesn’t matter either way now. I’m not leaving this island without Clem’s medicine.

Chapter 50

"The dead are all around," said Sheila. "The Originals are still here, working to do what they can to ameliorate the suffering."

The others gathered about her. Where only moments before they had stood on the shore of a great sea, now they were surrounded by a shadowy forest. Unlike the true forest where the
trees
were all giant ferns with tall powerful trunks, these trees were skeletally thin, and they had faces that smirked and leered, and once again Kira heard the eerie slithering within their shadows. Sheila glanced into the woods, and Kira knew that she heard it, too.