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magnificent beast, with its thick mane all in black and white and gray, but
this wasn't another time. But, still, he couldn't take his eyes off it as it
leaned back, as though sitting on its hind legs, and then lifted its front
paws off the ground.
And changed.
The long muzzle receded, some hairs receding into flesh, others changing in
length, while the forepaws melted into long fingers, tipped with yellowed but
pointed fingernails. The chest, crisscrossed seemingly randomly with scars,
was covered with a mat of dark black hair.
The Son's thin lips were split in a triumphant smile, but it was the eyes
that held Torrie, that made him feel like a mouse facing a snake. "Greetings,
Thorian son of Thorian," the Son said, his voice raspy and harsh. "Your
friends await you, ahead and above."
CHAPTER SIX
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Tir Na Nog
Afterward, Ian was never quite sure how long they walked through the dark
tunnel, their way revealed only by an accompanying sourceless light that left
behind no shadow and lit only their immediate surroundings. Perhaps a dozen
feet in front of him and as many behind him, the dark rock merged with
darkness. The effect was of walking on a treadmill, perhaps, of his feet
pushing the tunnel away behind him, never really making any progress, no
matter how far he walked.
And he had no idea how far that was. After some time, it occurred to him that
he could have simply counted footsteps and multiplied by three or so to get a
general idea of how many feet it was, and then divided by about five thousand
to get the mileage.
But what would be the point? The tunnel seemed to stretch out indefinitely
behind and ahead of him.
Hosea kept up a steady pace, a determined smile on his dark face, but refused
to answer Ian's questions or to respond to anything he said, other than to put
a long finger to his thin lips and shake his head when Ian tried to talk.
Ian didn't see what the need for silence was, but probably that was the
point.
Ian hadn't been aware that there had been any mining in North Dakota,
although it was clever of Hosea and Thorsen to have situated their house above
a mining tunnel.
No, that didn't make any sense; he was trying to apply reason to a situation
that was beyond reason. Mineshafts, no matter where they were, simply didn't
have a one-way entrance that could nip off the end of your finger as easily as
it could a brush. You didn't need to travel by a mine-shaft in order to chase
down a gang bunch? band? party? pack? That was it: pack you didn't need to
travel by mineshaft in order to chase down a pack of wolves. And mines weren't
lit by some sort of directionless light that stayed with you.
He tried not to think. Gripping the hilt of the sword at his waist was more
comforting than thought could be. Not thinking was easy. It was like the time
he had his appendix out, and then was sent back to his dorm with a bottle of
Demerol and Vistaril pills to keep him company. Torrie had helped him down to
the TV room, and set him up in front of the TV, and there he had sat. Time had
changed in its nature. It was no longer linear, but instantaneous: he was
sitting in an overstuffed armchair, he had always been sitting there, and he
always would, that's how it had felt.
It was much easier to float through life than to think about it, much easier
then to sit in an overstuffed armchair, as it was here and now to just keep
walking, as though he could do it forever without tiring, without suffering
from hunger or thirst.
He became aware with something akin to a shock that the tunnel was slanting
up, and that it had been slanting up for some time now, although it was only
his sense of balance that told him so; his ankles didn't complain, the way
they would on a long hike uphill, and he wasn't at all winded, even though
Hosea hadn't for a moment slowed his pace.
And finally the tunnel ended, up ahead: it turned at more than a
ninety-degree angle, pointing straight up, topped by stone about ten feet
above Ian's head.
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Handholds and footholds were carved into the hard stone walls; Ian followed
Hosea up, wincing for a moment as bright sunlight streamed down from above.
He was alone in the upshaft; Ian quickly pulled himself up and through and
into bright green loveliness.
Far upslope, the jagged gray top of the mountain was capped with snow that
seemed, at least from this distance, to be of pure white. But here at the
base? halfway up? Ian couldn't tell the meadow was rimmed by tall pines and
capped by a sky of darker blue than any Ian had seen before. Beneath the noon
sun how longhad they been walking? soft grasses rose knee-high, their green
expanse spotted by wildflowers of dark red and pale, wan yellow. The wind
brought Ian a dark comfortable reek of rotting humus, lightened by hints of
flowery perfumes and the warm tang of sunbaked grasses.
High above, a black bird, its wings spread wide, wheeled across the sky,
orbiting above the meadow several times before it flew off toward the
mountaintop.
Hosea was already replacing a thin slab of rock over the hole they had come
through.
"Os hast dju veerisht?" he asked, although given the normal slurring of his
voice Ian wasn't at all sure what he meant to say, much less what he actually
said. Something about how he was feeling?
"Eh?"
"My apologies, young Silverstein," Hosea said. " 'Are you unwell?' I asked."
Not in any language I've ever heard.But he didn't say that. "I'll live."
"I would hope so. You may sheathe your sword, if it please you," Hosea went
on. "We . . . took a wrong turn."
"We didn't take any turns."
Hosea just smiled, his teeth too white. "You might see it that way. Others
might say we're turned ninety degrees away from everything you've ever seen.
It depends on your perspective, I suppose."
The situation called for some sort of witty comment. "Somehow, Toto, I don't
think we're in Kansas anymore," he said.
Hosea's brow furrowed. "Toto oh.The Wizard of Oz," he said with a smile.
"Yes. I watched it with young Thor-ian, just recently." His smile was
secretive, as though over some private joke. "When one gets to be my age, it's
hard to keep everything straight," he said. "I would venture to guess that
makes me Glinda, or am I the Cowardly lion? I can hardly be the Scarecrow, as
I have a brain, even if it does not work as well as it once did." He tapped a
finger against his temple. "Damaged, don't you know."
"Whereare we?"
Hosea frowned. "Well, we're not in the High Wastes, which is where we should
be. Where we would be, if we'd taken the right rums." His upraised hand
forestalled Ian's objection. "Yes, yes, you saw no turns. Had the binding not
been breached, even Thorian would not have seen the entrance the Sons used."
Hosea looked up the slope. "Well, we're in a meadow, and above us is the peak
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of Mount AEskja, which means we're in western Vandescard. There was a time
when I could have told you to the . . . inch, to the inch where this exit was,
but. . ."He sighed, and lifted his pack to his shoulders, carefully draping
his cloak over it. "Well, shall we?"
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