01. When the Changewinds Blow (8 page)

Both of them stopped screaming only when they saw the others emerge from thee walls, closer to them, between them and the beasts. Shadow people, with no features, like two-dimensional black cardboard cutouts, but
alive,
and, from their looks, not unarmed. The beasts tried to dodge the newcomers, and Charley had the strangest feeling that those six terrible eyes were fixed not on Sam but on
her
and on her alone.

The three shadow humans worked quickly, one drawing a shadow sword, another placing an arrow in a shadow box, a third with a great, long, sharp spear. All three struck their dog monsters almost simultaneously and with great accuracy, but the beasts, while wounded and suddenly howling in agony a strange, supernatural howl that echoed forever down the spout, kept coming, kept staring not at Sam but at Charley. She could practically smell their breath, but the three shadow hunters were not done turning the tables on the fearsome hunters, falling upon the beasts, stabbing, spearing, gripping their foes and dragging them down and away. One beast let out a great scream and suddenly vanished, dissipating like smoke in the wind, while the other two were now being dragged down, away from the girls, at an accelerating rate until they were just tiny dots, then gone.

All returned to normalcy for a moment, but then below them at the point on the storm wall they were facing, another figure seemed to grow, a figure that was anything but cardboard and two-dimensional or even black. It was the figure of a large man, imposing, well built, wearing flowing robes of crimson and gold, his face sporting a full snow-white beard that was trimmed oddly as if an inverted V-shaped notch was cut from it, and on his head was a crown from which arose two long, sharp, slightly curved horns.

Sam gasped, knowing that this was the one she feared the most, her tormentor and would-be murderer. They were falling-or he was rising-at a rate that would bring them face to face in a matter of seconds.

Suddenly there was an odd sound like a giant spring suddenly uncoiled at great speed, and between them and the horned figure there appeared a thin, transparent pink barrier.

"That will hold him only for a minute or so,"
said a familiar voice nearby. They turned and saw another figure, this of a small man with long, unkempt white hair, a bulbous nose and oddly chubby cheeks, like a doll's, dressed in similar fashion to the Horned One, only in robes of silver and emerald green. This, men, was the voice from the car radio.
"I'm going to have to face him down,"
he told them.
"I
don't think he wants a full calling out right now, so I can stall him long enough to get you down to someplace neutral and out of the way. Trust Zenchur. He's a scoundrel but he stays bought and he'll be expecting you and know what to do, and he speaks English."

Bom of them were beyond shock at this point and it brought a curious clarity of mind, almost like this was normal.
"But what's this all about?"
Sam called to him.
"And where are we going?"

"What's the difference? You're going there anyway,"
the man in green responded pragmatically.
"He's through the barrier already. Stand by. When I divert him you'll get a real sudden push."

The Horned One raised a hand and the barrier vanished, and he continued until he was level with them, perhaps ten feet away from the girls. The one in green, however, stood suspended in the maelstrom between them and their immediate nemesis.

"Enough!"
said the Horned One impatiently in that sinister, terribly cold voice Sam had heard in the dreams.
"This is not your affair, Boolean. You are out of your league here. Stand aside. She is mine,"
he said emphatically, holding out a thin, almost skeletal hand and pointing, clearly, not to Sam but to Charley!

This is nuts,
Sam thought, thoroughly confused.
This is
my
nightmare, not Charley's!
And, just as suddenly, she realized what was going on. There
was
a fair resemblance between the two of them, and the Horned One knew he was seeking a girl. Whatever power or sense he used to track his prey, the two of them, together, touching hands, confused it. Charley was also still pretty well covered with mud, but her hair and dress made it very clear she was female, but Sam looked like a boy and with the very short hair . . .

He thinks Charley is me!

The man in green, who clearly knew different, did nothing to correct the impression. Instead he said,
"I
am making it my business. Do you want to have it out now over her? You think you're ready for me? You think you can finally beat me in something?"

The comments clearly infuriated the Horned One, but he hesitated.
"You would fight me for
her?
Risk everything?"

For an answer, the small man in green raised his hands and there was a pyrotechnic light show that was almost blinding in its brilliance. At the same moment, both Charley and Sam felt a tremendous push on them, forcing them suddenly and very quickly down and away from the duo. It was so sudden and forceful that it took their breaths away in spite of the green one's warnings, and it was no longer an eternal floating sensation but more the feeling of going down the biggest hill on the roller coaster.

The walls continued to close in until there was no more space between and they were inside the clouds themselves.

Lightly but very suddenly and unexpectedly they hit the ground and rolled, letting go of one another's hand in spite of themselves, tumbling to a stop.

Wherever they had been going, they had now arrived.

3

The Mother of Universes

Wherever it was, it was dark and hot and incredibly humid; a layer of gray mist so thick you couldn't see a thing in it lay over the land and extended perhaps two feet up from the ground it clung to. Sam groaned and managed to get first to her knees and then to her feet and look around. The night sky appeared totally clouded over, at least, there were no stars visible, nor any moon, although it wasn't pitch black. She could see the thick carpet of mist well enough, although it seemed that it was not from any light source on high but rather that the mist itself was faintly glowing.

"Charley?" she shouted worriedly. "Are you anywhere in this gook?"

For a moment she was worried that they had not landed together, that the last moment when they'd lost their grip on each other it had sent them to different places and left them both done. Sam's hand hurt like hell from what seemed like
hours
gripping Charley's hand-and it might well have been that long.

She heard something moving not far from her.
"Oh! Jeez! That you, Sam?"

Sam frowned. "That you, Charley?" The voice just didn't sound right, but then she saw a familiar form, still caked with mud, rise eerily from the mist.

"Yeah, I
think
so. Damn! My voice sounds funny. Are my ears stopped up or what?
You
sound okay."

Sam frowned, but went over to her friend and helped her to her feet. "Your voice sounds as deep as mine! I don't know. Maybe I-shit!"

"What's the matter?"

"That chubby-cheeked bastard! He saw that Old Horny mistook you for me. He looked, saw a boy and a girl, and since he was after a girl he made the obvious mistake. Old Greenie, then, figured he'd keep it up I bet. He wants old Stick Head to keep goin' after you, that's what! Both of 'em don't give a damn about
you-
it's me they both want for some reason. So Greenie, he cast a spell or something to make you sound like me. Keep it up as long as possible. You don't sound to me like I sound to me, but I bet to anybody else your voice and my voice now sound pretty much the same. You still got the accent but who's gonna know the difference
here?
If I keep my voice on low and keep dressin' and actin' like a boy then anybody sent out lookin' for me'll go for
you."

Charley didn't like any of this. She was scared, confused, and totally off-balance, but what Sam said made sense considering the crazy low voice she was hearing in herself and the fact that those
things-
she shivered at the memory even though it already seemed like a dream-only had eyes for
her
and even that fancy wizard with the horns had pointed to her. It wasn't at all comforting; she was nothing to them, a sacrificial lamb, no more, no less. She had become the target and it wasn't even her nightmare.

"I'm dreaming this. Somehow this is all a dream and I'm back home or in the cabin or something sound asleep," she muttered in that strange-sounding voice. The whole thing
did
have a dreamlike, nightmarish quality about it, and to think otherwise was to believe in monster storms called at will and shadow people and wizards and magic spells, none of which she'd believed in for many, many years. She believed in Halston and Gucci and I. Magnum's and they seemed very far from here.

"Sam," she said very softly, "I'm scared. I'm filthy, wet, miserable, and scared to death."

"Yeah. Me, too," sighed the other. She looked around.
"Now
what are we supposed to do, I wonder? Wait here to be picked up or move someplace or what? And if we're supposed to go someplace, where in hell is it?"

"I don't know. If this is a dream, why can't we conjure up a bath tub? Talk about gettin' mixed up. I dunno if I'm in
Alice in Wonderland
or
The Wizard of Oz.
A storm sucks you down the rabbit hole. . . . Can't even get our damn fairy tales straight."

Sam knelt down and felt the ground. They had landed relatively gently for the apparent speed, but it felt like pretty hard rock down there, covered perhaps with moss most places. It was firm, but her hand was wet when she ran it around on the surface.

Off in the distance there was the sudden sound of thunder and an area of the sky was illuminated, briefly. Charley started, then turned quickly back to Sam. "Don't you
dare
call it!"

Sam looked out at it. For some odd reason it hadn't the unreasoned fear she had always felt when seeing or hearing such things; instead, it inspired wary caution, as if it were a person, directed by an intelligence, that she had to avoid. Somehow that made it easier to take-particularly since she'd evaded or fooled that intelligence more than once now. But that had been on essentially home turf. This place-wherever this place was-was something else again. Still, she was thinking fast and surprisingly clear considering her experience and how tired she was feeling.

"I don't think it's the same here as back home," she mused.

"No shit. Tell me something else that's brilliant."

"No, no! I don't mean
that.
You don't have to worry 'bout me callin' no storms, 'cause I bet that's one of the few easy ways Old Horny can find me here. If he could find me here the same way he could back home, then what's the use of sendin' us down here, changin' your voice, and all the rest? Here's got to be different. If I don't call him he's got no more chance of findin' me than if he was lookin' for anybody else. He don't know where Chubby Cheeks plopped us 'cause he was kinda busy. Now he's gotta find me the hard way. The same way somebody normal would try'n find somebody else back home."

"Yeah, that makes sense. But your Chubby Cheeks knows where he dropped us and even which is which. That's okay for you-he wants you alive for something-but it sure as hell paints a target on me. I'm stickin' to you like glue, girl, 'cause if I'm ever separated, your savior there could just let some of Horny's agents bump me off and then he thinks he's home free and you're off the hook."

Sam sighed. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Charley, I really am. But it was
your
idea to call that damned storm."

"Yeah, but how was I to know it'd actually show up? This isn't
real.' It can't
be! It just
can't
be!" And then Charley dissolved into tears.

Sam didn't know what to do except try and comfort her friend. Common sense said to stay the night right here. Charley was right about one thing-old Chubby Cheeks knew just where he dropped them and they were supposed to be met by somebody. Move too far and they might not meet-and
then
where would they be? Lost in some damned weird world where they didn't know the rules, that's where. And Charley was worried she couldn't cope with Denver!

Still, staying here, in this crap, wasn't too comforting. She was dead tired-they both were-but what lived around here, hidden by this glowing fog? Damn it, what the hell were they supposed to
do?

Ultimately, it was decided by practical matters. They were too tired, still too much in shock, and it was too damned dark to make a try for someplace better than they were in now, if in fact that place existed. Still, it was not hard to sit there, just your head and shoulders above the mist, and imagine monsters moving underneath. They clung to each other and comforted each other and, eventually, they went to sleep in spite of themselves, so exhausted that not even fear could hold it back.

Sam awoke suddenly with a start and sat up. It was still quite dark and still, and the mist was still there-in fact, it seemed to have risen some. She was soaked through again by the mist, and it was clammy and uncomfortable, but she put it from her mind. Charley still slept, protected beneath it, but Sam had always been a lighter sleeper and she had been on the run and under tension for more than a week. There was something-an odd noise-coming across the dark to her, approaching.

It was somebody whistling. It was a casual but firm and loud whistle, and whoever it was was whistling a bright, fast tune.

It was
Yankee Doodle!

She tensed, alert, and used the mist as a cover so that only her eyes and the top of her head were visible. Protecting Charley and herself became the only purpose in her mind. She reached down and shook the sleeping girl, who mumbled and murmured but suddenly came awake and sat up. "It wasn't a dream," she said, more amazed than anything else.