God's Junk Drawer, page 44
He turned away again. “We should keep moving.”
A new forest sprang up on the other side of the lava field. This one felt more like the woods in New England. A good mix of trees. A few random shoots coming up through the thick mulch of the forest floor. Like the forest behind his home growing up, before they’d ended up here. Half a dozen childhood memories zipped through his mind.
Beau. Beau was up ahead. Finally.
Emerson’s pace slowed for a moment while he scanned the forest. Noah’s pace brought him next to the man and Emerson held an arm out to keep him from going further. A few heartbeats later and they headed forward through the forest.
Noah took another breath. Tried to distract himself. “My uncle—my mom’s older brother—he was in Vietnam.”
Emerson gave him a quick glance. “He make it back?”
“No.”
“Sorry. Lot of guys didn’t make it back.”
“I never knew him.”
“Sorry for your mom, then.”
“She died when I was little.”
“And then you ended up here. Twice.” Emerson made a coughing sound that might’ve been a laugh. “No offense, buddy, but your family’s got shit luck.”
“Well . . . maybe that changes today.”
“Hope so. Otherwise . . .” He glanced at Noah, at Pyr, and let the sentence die on his tongue.
“I know you want to kill her.”
Emerson shook his head. “Don’t want to kill anyone, man. But sometimes people need to die. Greater good, American way, all that.”
“Not this time.”
Emerson shrugged and grunted. Quickened his pace until he’d moved a few steps ahead again. Noah looked over at Pyr and saw a somewhat pitying expression on her face.
“It’s going to be okay. She’s going to remember me.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
They walked in silence through the trees. Made a detour around a hungry dimetrodon tearing apart a velociraptor, its broad, spined fin swaying side to side with each jerk of its head. Walked some more until Noah saw brightness up ahead. The tree line. The edge of another area of terrain.
As they continued forward, Emerson’s hand slid up toward his waist. He had one of Pyr’s iron daggers hidden there. His fingers brushed the hem of his camouflage vest.
Noah looked around. Realized Pyr had moved close to him again. “Problem?”
“Just being safe.” She had one of the daggers under her hooded wifebeater-tunic, but wasn’t reaching for it.
“Why?”
Emerson gestured forward with his free hand. “Walking out of the trees, into the sunlight, it’s going to take our eyes a moment to adjust. If they wanted a surprise attack, it’s the best time.”
“They’re not going to attack us. She invited me here.”
“No reason not to be cautious.” Pyr stepped past Emerson and out into the sunlight.
Noah moved closer. “The Neanderthals don’t like her because of her synthetic parts.”
“Nope.”
“So why let her go first?”
“Because the change in light don’t affect her eyes. Not the plastic one, anyway.”
“Clear,” she called back into the trees.
They walked forward and Noah blinked as the full sun beat down on them. Pyr and Emerson settled in on either side of him, Emerson moving a few steps forward. Noah shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out across the grassland.
A full savanna spread out in front of them. At least a mile and a half of yellow-green grass. Every fifty or sixty feet a narrow-limbed tree spread itself toward the sky like a fountain of wood and leaves.
And past it all . . .
The Ice Castle towered above everything. A good four hundred feet over the tallest tree. Part iceberg, part architecture, part alien artifact. The legacy of the Castaway. Abandoned here to catch unfortunates throughout history.
It jarred his mind, seeing it at the far end of the savanna. Like running into someone from work in another city.
Noah’s heart did something in his chest, and he heard another breath shudder out of his nose.
Emerson looked back and forth across the savanna. “You see anything?”
“No.” Pyr shook her head.
“Gives me the creeps, being this close to the place.”
Maybe a football field away, off to their left, a dinosaur stretched its neck up out of the grass. It had armored fins down its back and an array of long, straight spikes on its swaying tail. Noah chuckled, felt himself relax.
Pyr followed his eye line. “It’s a stegosaurus. They’re herbivores. Harmless.”
“I know. First dinosaur I ever saw here.”
He started across the grassland. Pyr fell in with him almost immediately. Emerson took a few quick steps to catch up.
The grass whisked against his knees as they walked. No paths here. Not even beaten-down grass. Was this area relatively new to the valley, or just rarely used? Did it matter?
The nervousness worked across his shoulders, into his chest, down his arms. Why was he nervous? This was it. A mile to go before their reunion.
Another stegosaurus lumbered through the grass, moving closer than the first one. Its head never rose, but Noah heard it sniff and snort as it moved along. If it noticed them, it didn’t care.
A distant eagle shriek echoed across the savanna. Emerson tensed up. He scanned the broad grasslands. Watching. Waiting for a dinosaur to leap out from behind one of the skinny trees.
Noah stepped past him. “We need to keep moving.”
“This could still be a trap,” muttered the old soldier.
“It’s not a trap. And even if it was, why would they go through all this just to get me?”
“Because you mouthed off to the Empress.”
Fifteen minutes of walking through the tall grass and Noah could see the sloping ramp leading up into the Castle and the dark shadow of the entrance. It sent another shiver through his chest. Not long now.
They’d gone maybe another fifty yards when a series of tuba-like honks drew his attention off to the right. Maybe a quarter mile away, a massive rust-orange boulder marked the line where the savanna became a swamp, and past those shallows he saw the sparkle and shimmer of open water. The lake.
A group of bluish-gray dinosaurs waded in the swamp, pulling up clumps of reeds and what looked like oversized lily pads. The duck-billed hadrosaurs. The water looked like it hit them around the middle of the leg, grazing the underside of their bellies. Maybe waist-deep for him.
One of them honked again, reached up to grab a mouthful of leaves from a tree, and showed off the long red crest on the back of its head. Not hadrosaurs, Noah realized. Not the ones he remembered, anyway. Something else that had changed in the valley.
A dozen more steps and the lines of the boulder shifted. The real shape of it became clear. The memory hidden under centuries of rust. He gasped.
Emerson tensed again. “What?”
“It’s the riverboat. The Egyptian riverboat from when I was a kid.”
Rusted holes pitted the whole surface of the hull. It looked like most of the railing had crumbled away. Or maybe been broken off.
“Ross’s mentioned it in some of his old stories.” Pyr tilted her head slightly and the sunlight gleamed on the synthetic sections of her face. “I don’t think anyone’s seen it this close in decades.”
“Nobody who lived, anyway,” muttered Emerson.
“It used to be a lot closer to the Castle,” Noah said. “Maybe a hundred feet between them. And that’s my little-kid memory of it.”
The dinosaurs in the swamp honked again, like an adult talking in an old Peanuts cartoon.
They continued across the savanna. Now Noah could see the figures around the base of the ramp. One of them on a raptor.
Another two minutes of striding through the grass and they passed the last tree. Every facet of the ice tower looked the same, each gleam sparking another memory. Noah felt another thrill run down into his fingertips. Nothing between him and Beau now but a few Neanderthals. “Maybe you should let me take the lead.”
Pyr glanced at him. “Why?”
“They’re expecting me, but from what you’re saying this is all new to them, too. Less of a surprise if I’m out front.”
“Guy’s got a point,” Emerson said grudgingly.
“It’s going to be fine.”
They continued forward.
The mounted Neanderthal was a woman with red-brown hair in a massive tangle of dreadlocks. She held a spear in both hands across her body, resting against the back of the raptor’s neck. Two more stood at the base of the ramp, each of them holding one of the crude axe-clubs. Another crouched a few yards away, like a hunter watching prey through the grass.
Noah led them toward the ramp. When they were a few yards away, one of the Klaa held out his weapon. Pointed with it. Said a few words.
Noah recognized the simple numbers and the hard emphasis. Without taking his eyes off the fur-draped man, he turned his head to Pyr. “Not you,” he repeated. “Only me.”
Another grunt from Emerson.
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a threat. I think they’re just saying what she told them to say.”
Pyr eyed the guards. Flexed her biomechanical fingers. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”
“Yep.” He considered saying something more, but his mind skipped ahead. Pictured the reunion.
Noah walked to the ramp. The two Neanderthals shuffled their feet, moving ever so slightly out of his way. They both smelled of leather and sweat and wood bark. He saw one of them tighten its grip on the long shaft of the axe-club and realized they were probably as nervous as Pyr and Emerson were.
The ramp was still glossy and spotless. He recognized a few different patterns in the not-ice. That starburst of facets. The long trio of ridges over there.
Halfway up he raised his eyes to the entrance. Would she be there, waiting for him? Maybe welcoming him? The scales gone from her eyes and her own memories present again.
She wasn’t there. The entrance to the Castle loomed, the mouth of a yawning giant. Noah felt the cool air from inside rolling out and tumbling down the ramp.
He reached the top and looked back. Emerson still had one hand near his waist, trading stares with the Neanderthals. Pyr stared past them, up at Noah.
He gave her a little nod of his head and went inside.
The feeling of peace settled over him. Soft light, cool air, and that ultraclean scent. Thirty years back in the present—back on Earth—and he’d never smelled anything quite like it. Maybe little whiffs of alien air being manufactured by the lifeboat.
The hallways seemed smaller, and a minute later he chuckled. Nothing had changed, he’d just gotten taller. And a little wider. After so many things being different in the valley, the sameness of the Ice Castle caught him off guard.
He let the tunnels guide him deeper inside. So much of the Castle was a mystery. More so now that he knew what it really was. Beau could be anywhere in the massive structure. But his feet only knew one room to take him to.
It took him four, maybe five minutes to reach the Castaway’s chamber. His mind grabbed at the familiar sights. Across the room, the dais where he’d first seen the bright purple alien. Over there, the alcove where he’d slept the time he’d come here searching for Charlie the cat.
But reality settled in fast. Someone new had moved in and put the furniture in different places, their own decorations on the walls. They’d all but buried the familiar, only the largest details still visible. Just like at the cave.
In this case, the decorations were pelts and hides. Furs he couldn’t identify. The bedsheet-sized piece of raw leather stretched across the floor reminded him of the blue-gray dinosaurs outside in the swamp. A collection of rocks held down the edges of the leather rug. A few shiny chunks of quartz. A small slab of volcanic glass, cleaned and polished by hundreds, maybe thousands of touches. One piece that looked like a fist-sized ruby.
At least two of the rocks were actually skulls. Maybe a third. One of them had overly large eye sockets, tiny nostrils, and a peaked crest across the top of its cranium. The other one . . .
The other one looked human. Not Neanderthal, but plain old Homo sapiens. The third one was probably human, too. So were all the skulls piled up—displayed—in the sleeping alcove.
He looked away. Looked up at the thing on the dais that definitely wasn’t a shape-changing purple alien. The one thing he knew on sight. He’d recognized it as soon as he’d walked into the room and forced himself not to look at it until now.
The tyrannosaurus skull stood in the middle of the dais. The bony snout and eye sockets pointed up at the ceiling. The huge jaw hung loose, sitting flat on the glassy floor. More furs and hides filled the space where the tongue had been, almost spilling out over the knife-sized teeth.
Noah walked slowly around the dais, studying the throne. The front four, maybe six teeth had been knocked out of the jawbone, giving the person seated there somewhere to put their legs. The remaining ones were glossy, polished by decades of use, of hands caressing them.
The teeth on the upper jaw were what held his attention, though. One on each side. Unnaturally large. Almost double the size of the others. If the other teeth were knives, these two were swords.
Or fangs.
He remembered those big teeth closing on his father.
Something scraped behind him.
His breath caught as he whirled around and his heartbeat went from bouncing to hammering.
Beau stood by one of the entrances to the room. Her wrist moved in slow circles, and the obsidian knife in her hand scratched short lines in the archway. She stared at him. Noah saw curiosity in her gaze. Some dismissal.
She broke their stare and walked across the chamber. A few strides carried her past him, and for a moment they were side by side and he almost laughed. Years of threatening it as a kid, but he was finally bigger than her. At least six inches taller. Maybe eight.
If she registered the size difference, she didn’t show it. Her bare feet carried her onto the dais. She turned, lowered herself onto the tyrannosaurus skull throne, leaned forward to rest her arms on her knees.
A huge wave of relief crashed over him. The sudden lightness of achievement. A massive, years-long task finally complete.
He’d done it.
“Hi, Beau.”
She stared at him some more. Pursed her lips even as her jaw shifted back and forth. She had different face paint on now. Black rings around her eyes, so wide they touched on the bridge of her nose and almost made a broad stripe across her face.
She still held the knife. Let the point swing side to side. In the light, it clearly wasn’t obsidian. Too bright. Too translucent. It looked like sky-blue glass.
Noah looked at the tanned, painted face, the mane of white hair, tried to pull his teenage sister out of it. He’d always imagined Beau would get older and look like their mother, but her jawline had turned out more like their father’s. Her pixie nose was still there, and he tried to add those last bits of baby fat back to her cheeks, mentally rounding out her face.
Still no reaction. She looked him up and down. Examined him. Tapped the flat of the crystal knife against the side of her bare knee.
“It’s me. Billy.”
The knife came up. Pointed at him. “You lie.”
“No, it’s me.”
“You lie to your Empress.”
“It’s me. I know it’s been a long time—a really long time—but it’s me.” He turned his head left and right. “The beard’s probably a little weird, too, right?”
The knife slowly tipped down. “Billy is dead. He died centuries ago.”
Noah shook his head. “No. I went down to the watering hole to fill the gourds and I . . . slipped. Ended up in the right place at the right time. The valley sent me home.”
Beau’s eyebrows went up. “That isn’t possible.”
“It is. I went home. Back to Earth.” He gestured at himself. At his adult body. “It was dumb luck. I spent years trying to find out how I could get back here. Back for you. And I finally did it.”
“No.”
“Yep.”
“Nothing enters my valley without my permission.”
“Seriously, it’s—”
“What color were Billy’s shoes?”
“What?”
The tip of the knife came up. “What color were his shoes?”
His mind derailed, went blank for a moment, and then the answer came back. “Black. They’d been Batman sneakers but the logo was just ironed on. They came off a week before the . . . the raft trip. I left them on my desk at—”
“What color was his backpack?”
“Dark blue. The bottom and straps were black. It had a little silver plastic anchor on the top loop. Mom gave it to me on our first rafting trip, so I wouldn’t fall out of the boat. Said it was an old sailor thing.”
“What killed Billy’s father?”
He stared at her. Tried to imagine her blue eyes getting that pale. Her dirty blond hair going white. His sister had always hated long hair. One of their mother’s favorite stories had been about how she’d given little Beau pigtails once, and Beau’d hacked them off with a pair of scissors.
“You know what killed him.” Noah pointed above her, at the massive skull throne. “He did. Fang.”
She tilted her head this way and that. Studying him the same way he’d studied her, mentally subtracting years. He put a hand up and covered his beard, opening his eyes a little wider as he did.
Her lips dropped open. “The eyes of the boy in the face of the man,” she whispered. “It is you.” Amazement softened her harsh tones into a low hiss. Made her voice sound more like . . .
Like . . .
The warm thrill left Noah. No more tingling. No more hammering heart.
The woman’s face hardened again. She smiled at him. A cat’s smile. “Little Billy Gather. Not dead after all.”
“No, I’m not. And you’re not Beau, are you?”
“I am not. Your sister died by her own hand so many years ago, finally wiping the valley clean of your family’s stain. Or so we all thought.”
