---Chapter 9
The strange feel of a new world pervaded the passenger car. For a minute Lenny thought that they had not yet crossed the dimension boundary, before realizing that it was simply dark because the world was dark.
Hurrying over to the windows, he peered out. It seemed to be night time in a patch of woods. Black outlines of trees could be seen, oaks with strange, twisting shapes and branches intertwined. The nearest ones were in their true colors by the light of the lanterns pouring out of the window. Despite this, their trunks were almost black except for where thick green moss grew on the rough bark. Tiny lights like fireflies but even brighter moved among the branches, twinkling mysteriously before disappearing from sight. Far up above, stars could just be seen against a twilight sky.
Glancing down, Lenny noticed that Jax’s eyes were open and fixed on him. With a tiny gesture of his fingers, the injured boy beckoned him closer.
“Len...where are we?”
“The next world over,” Lenny explained, propping his friend’s head up on a folded blanket as a pillow. “How do you feel?”
Jax’s voice was hoarse as he replied, “my throat feels...cold, and bad. I don’t really know...that thing stuck me with its probe.”
“We’re going to find someone to help you, don’t worry,” Lenny assured him, “just lay there and rest.”
“Right.” He closed his eyes for a minute, before asking, “and Patch MacCore?”
“He’s here.”
Meanwhile, Patch had been looking out of the window, eyes large with wonder. Now he exclaimed, “what have ye done! We came to this place in a flash. It looks like the druid’s forest on the mountains of Sherwin, but we came here as quick as lightening! Are you a wizard, to transport us in a strange machine this way?”
“No, he’s the one who found out how to cross borders that way.” Lenny pointed at Jax, adding, “this is a different world, not connected to your own.”
Patch’s face got a little pale, struck with wonder. He glanced from Jax out of the window, then back again. After a minute he spoke in a hushed tone, “I knew he must be something strange, with that seacoat of black and wizard’s hair. Aye, another world ye say? I don’t know what I should feel.”
“The important thing is that we need to find Jax a healer.” Lenny frowned, looking out of the window again. “I was hoping for somewhere with a hospital and someone with advanced knowledge to help us. This is just a forest at night.”
“It still looks like a druid’s woods to me. Ye could do worse for healers than a druid. I had a matey who had received a curse from a mystic seashell and the druids took it right off of him. Strange folk, but powerfully magic.”
“I’m sure they did,” Lenny said dryly, turning away. “But I have to go speak to Amber now. You watch Jax.”
He walked out of the door, stepping onto the catwalk leading past the tender up to the engine. The air of this new place felt cool against his face, the smell of moist leaves and earthy, mossy places being carried to him on it. Everything was very quiet except for a faint rustle every now and then, as if something were moving slowly through the duff. Far, far off he heard the sound of a mournful bird’s call. Odd vines dangled from some of the trees, making slashes of plum color where the light struck them. Ahead, he saw the bright coppery shade of Amber’s hair as she stuck her head out of the side of the cab. Beside it was the gray triangle of Raggsy’s snout.
“This place is very still. Almost peaceful,” Amber commented as he came in.
“Just almost peaceful?”
“It feels too watchful to be truly peaceful.”
Lenny could not help agreeing. He came to join them for a minute, looking out of the window, before he said, “this place is too quiet for our wants. Jax needs somewhere with a good doctor, maybe a hospital. What do you think of jumping again, to another dimension which might have better resources?”
“I’d try it,” Amber replied, “but the Di-jump needs to cool off before we use it again. I hate to think what would happen if we used the device when it was hot and it melted down. It barely had time to cool on the last world. Just feel it now.”
Lenny put out his hand to touch the electronic device, before pulling it quickly away. The Di-jump was not merely warmed up: it was almost too hot to touch. Amber was right, using it again would be dangerous. Even now, he was worried that some of the electronics inside might have fried.
“Then what can we do for Jax?”
Raggsy pulled his head back into the window to comment, “this place smells like magic, to me. I bet there is someone to help us if we look around. Ya never know what you’ll find in a place like this.”
“And I have some first-aid gear. Perhaps we can slow the poison down a little, at least,” Amber volunteered. They trouped back to the passenger car together, where they were surprised to find Patch sitting on the edge of the bench next to Jax, singing something that was a cross between a sea shanty and a lullaby:
“The old, old oak will stand the strain,
of the storm winds in the sail.
And the old, old canvass will stand the strain,
of the wet wind’s saddened wail.
And the old, old ship will stand the strain,
though we call her a rusty pail.
And the old, old captain will stand the strain,
as he stands by the helmsman’s rail--”
He had an unexpectedly deep, melodious voice, but when he saw the others watching he broke off and stood up, bowing his head a little in deference to them.
“I thought it might help him sleep, if ye know what I mean.”
“Oh yes,” Amber gave him a smile, “that was nice. But we wanted to see if there is something we could do for him, before going to look for a healer here.”
Patch moved out of the way, while the young inventor hurried off to get her kit from the caboose. When she returned, they found it contained carefully-wrapped bandages, a half-empty tube of medicine which had the label worn off, a bottle of aspirin and a pair of scissors which had tweezers in the handle.
“An’ I got the brandy, too,” Raggsy added, rummaging it from his pack of provisions, which sat near where he had slept.
“Aye, excellent stuff for any illness,” Patch agreed heartily, “make a warm poultice of it and those rags. That might draw some of the poisons out.”
Lenny was doubtful, but decided to take Patch’s advice. He had Amber heat some of the brandy on her stove until it was almost hot, then dipped a bandage in it and placed it on Jax’s throat. It made the injured young man mutter and twitch a little, but he seemed to have fallen back into an unconsciousness too deep to realize what was going on.
“What is in the tube, Amber?”
“Antibiotics of the latest sort,” she replied, before adding doubtfully, “latest sort last year, I suppose.”
“That might also help. But we should leave the bandage on his throat until all the heat is gone from it. He said that it felt cold: it might warm him,” Lenny gestured down at the damp cloth. “Someone will have to stay here with him while the rest go looking for a healer, of course.”
“I’ll bide with the lad,” Patch offered immediately, “I feel responsible for him. And besides...I don’t really fancy strollin’ about on this strange place. By the by, when can ye take me home? The Cunning Wench sails in two days and I must be aboard it.”
“We’ll see,” Lenny promised, “once we heal Jax we can try to get you back.”
Patch nodded acceptance, upon which Raggsy volunteered to stay behind and help watch over their friend as well.
“I’m a little tired out from runnin’ around that last place, ya see.”
“It’s a good idea to go in pairs from now on, anyway,” Lenny agreed, “that way things like that--” he gestured at Jax, “might not happen as often. Amber can come with me, if she will, while you two stay behind.”
“I’ll come. I haven’t really explored one of these other dimensions yet.” The girl nodded gamely. To be on the safe side, they put a glass bottle of water in a sack, along with a lump of bread and one of cheese. Amber also made sure that her gun was loaded, while scolding Lenny for losing her knife. They were determined to scout the land until either they found a healer, or it had been long enough that the Di-jump would be cooled off when they returned.
“‘Ay, be careful now,” Patch told them, “I don’t want to be stranded here. And this world feels like trouble, to me.”
“Not as much as the last one,” Lenny returned somewhat sardonically. He did not really dislike Patch, but the fact that Jax had got hurt while with him did rankle in his mind. It was Jax’s own foolishness that had got him in the fight with Patch, but there would not have been a fight at all if not for the pirate,
He and Amber walked out through the caboose and jumped onto the forest floor outside. The duff was thick here and the leaves dry, swishing softly under their feet as they walked. First, they circled around the train within sight of its lights, trying to find any sign of inhabitants. Acorns had been cracked open by squirrels, tiny tracks led off through the undergrowth of delicate ferns and there was an empty bird nest hanging from the branch of one tree. But there was no sign of anything that walked on two legs and had hands living nearby.
Lenny stopped near a larger oak tree, which had its branches spread to the air far above them. Looking back, he saw the train illuminated by its own lantern light, tracks gleaming under it and windows like patches of yellow gauze. In the other direction, he only saw the gloomy twilight beneath the leaves.
“If we walk away from the train, how will we find our way back?” he asked, hoping that he would not have to use his night vision optics or the co-ordinates that went with them. He was still trying to save his energy for the times they really needed it, since he had not found an electrical source on any other world.
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“I have a compass set in the grip of my gun,” Amber drew it, showing him the little, round face in the butt, with luminescent pointers. “I put it there myself. And its seems to be reading a constant north, even on this world.”
“Alright then, we’ll follow that way.” Lenny pointed off into the trees in the direction which the compass was indicating. It was at an angle away from the train, into a patch of lower, more tangled trees. Amber nodded, holding her gun upside-down while they walked to keep a good reading. They moved close together, feeling the silence and darkness of the woods press around them the further they traveled from their erstwhile home. Looking back after a few hundred feet, the train had become just a yellow star of light with the branches of trees making a black grid-work over it.
The cool air was both invigorating and oppressive, giving Lenny a mysterious, tense feeling. He seemed full of energy, ready to turn and fight at any sign, and yet he shrunk from the thought of being in these woods alone.
Anything phantom like could have lived there: ghostly women with silver hair, headless specters, men with pale faces and no thoughts in their heads...or even dragons of a darker nature.
They had been walking for almost fifteen minutes with no change to their surroundings, when they suddenly came out into a clearing. The tangled oak trees fell back behind them, while across the clearing on the other side could be seen the tall, straight shapes of conifers. The clearing was carpeted in waist-high grasses, hard and pale under the starlight. Here and there, greenish mushrooms glowed in the dark, or ferns broke up the thick waves. In the center of the clearing was a small but steep hill, with almost perfectly round sides. At the top, a single pine tree reached sadly for the stars.
“I hope there are no serpents in this part of the woods,” Amber confided in a hushed voice. It was hard to speak in a tone above a whisper, here. “I’m afraid of serpents, especially poisonous ones.”
Lenny picked up a dead stick that was laying near the last oak tree. “I’ll go first.”
He pushed out into the grass, moving the stick in front of him. All the time, he had his eyes open for any sight of a path made by human feet, or some other sign of their passing. But he only saw the humps and holes of gopher mounds and the trails of mice under the grass.
They reached the other side of the clearing without meeting either a snake or someone to help them, upon which Lenny threw his stick away. Here, the grass died quickly down to give way to the thick floor of fallen pine needles. Sere and brown, they made a prickly, dense carpet which smelled sweet when the travelers stepped on it. The conifer branches above moaned and whispered together as the two young people walked under them. Only a few steps in and Amber clutched at Lenny’s arm. “I hear something coming!”
Thump, crunch, thump. Something was bounding through the trees ahead. Lenny automatically prepared to use his energy weapon, switching power over to it. But when the creature came into sight, pausing only a few yards from them in an opening between trees, they saw it was a big stag, head upflung and antlers as twisty as the oak’s branches had been. Those antlers were silver, gleaming like polished dinnerware. Its hide was white and seemed to create its own light, so that the large buck glowed in the night. Lenny and Amber both held their breath in wonder now rather than fear. The fantastic creature stared at them as if judging their separate characters, before bounding away into the trees again.
“Just a deer.” Lenny let out his breath, deactivating his cybernetics.
“If you can say ‘just’ about something like that,” Amber returned soberly.
They continued on, as the trees around them became mixed, both pines and oaks. Many of the branches had purple vines hanging from them, or what looked like mistletoe of the same shades clinging to the branches. Some of the trees appeared to have been killed by these parasites, the trunks standing but limbs as brittle and bare as ice.
Lenny was just starting to wonder when dawn would come to this world when he noticed something odd ahead of them. It was a black shape, as large as the trees around it but solid and hard-edged. Indicating it to Amber, he led the way over to see what it was. When they came near he found that it was, indeed, straight-edged and square, like the lower part of a building. Putting a hand to it, he found that it was black metal, smooth and cold to the touch. But when he looked up towards the top, he saw a place where the edge was crumbled and broken away, the peak of the structure torn off. Circling it, they found bits of rusty metal laying on the ground, eaten up by a purple corrosion. The tower had an opening on the other side, where a door had once been and now a half-broken entrance stood. Looking in, Lenny saw that the floor was cement, seamed by moss and grasses which had grown through it. And cracked through with more purple streaks.
“There must have been people here, once,” he pointed out in a low tone, “but are they still on this planet, or have they all been killed?”
“We’ll have to keep looking. But see, there is an old road.” Amber pointed to where pavement could be made out under a thin covering of dried pine needles and moss, leading off in a straight line through the trees.
They followed it in hopes that it would lead to more civilization and they were not disappointed. Soon they saw many stumps of black towers, some with bridges leading from one to the other, or broken off in mid air between. The road met others before crossing over a black stream on a bridge. Lenny tried it gingerly with a foot before trusting his weight to it. On the other side the towers became less common, fading away until the travelers only saw one or two between the trees. They were just considering going back and taking another road when, ahead of them, they saw a light.
“It looks man-made!” Lenny exclaimed quietly, feeling a jab of hope, “nothing in these woods have been that bright, so far.”
They hurried on to come out into another clearing, this one covered in a thin, light grass no more than an inch or two high. In the center of it a huge oak tree, bigger than any tree Lenny had seen before, spread its branches toward the night sky. Its trunk must have been twenty feet thick, with huge roots curling down into the earth on all sides of it. Many of the branches could have been large trees on their own if they had been sticking upright in the ground.
In the side of the trunk facing the young pair, glass panes had been set into the bark, arched outwards into a bay window. A door, painted black, was also set into the trunk, with a large root making a perfect step up into it. The window panes were glowing with a rich, friendly light, which also spilled out and illuminated a pathway of stones which led off to the right into the trees.
“Finally.” Lenny hurried towards the door, which had a large, brass knocker on it. Amber followed, gazing at the tree house with a look that was both delighted and envious. She had always wanted a house like that, built into a giant tree. But there were no trees like it where she lived.
Stepping up in front of the door, Lenny took a deep breath and grasped the knocker. He suddenly felt a little self-conscious and glanced back at his companion. She gave him a nod of encouragement. “Go ahead.”
He knocked, first softly and then with more vigor. A solid, deep noise reverberated through the thick wood. It seemed to echo all around the huge tree, even rattling the branches above. But there was no answer from within. Lenny waited a minute, then banged again, even louder.
“Hello! Anyone home?”
Amber had moved over to press her face against the window. “I don’t see anyone, but the lights are lit. And there must be a second story, as there is a staircase.”
Lenny jumped down to join her and saw a surprisingly civilized scene inside. A crimson carpet, deep and velvety, covered the floor. On it sat a round table with two silver candlesticks in the center. Comfortable armchairs were spread around the room, as well as small bookcases full of old volumes. On one side, a large fireplace had warm coals heaped up in it.
Amber pointed and Lenny saw a set of wooden stairs leading out of sight towards an upper story. The whole scene was lit by what looked like either an electric light fixture or a very bright lantern hanging from the roof.
Lenny frowned. “Someone must be here, because the light is on and the coals are still glowing. Let me try the door again.”
He jumped up to bang more with the knocker, shouting for someone to come to the door. He even tried the knob, but it was locked. Amber drifted over to join him, watching for a minute before suddenly jumping forward and grasping his arm. “Wait, Lenny, look!”
She pointed to the door. Lenny turned his head and noticed for the first time that a purple stripe had been painted across the door in two opposite directions, making a cross over the whole thing. He stared for a minute, then shook his head. “So?”
“Don’t you know that a cross on the door means plague?” Amber pulled him away, forcing him to step down and walk away from the house. “Whoever is inside must have been affected with the purple corruption in some way. Perhaps on this world it has even grown into a contagious sickness!”
Lenny found himself wiping his hands off on his clothes, as if that would get rid of any poison he had picked up. Both of the traveler’s faces were pale.
“Do you think so? It’s just paint on the door...”
“But it must mean plague.” Amber shook her head. “I did not see it at first, but it does explain why no one is answering the door. They don’t want anyone to enter and catch it.”
“That’s terrible. What should we do? If they have a sickness here, a plague, would they know some way to cure someone else who had it? Probably not, or else it would not be a plague.”
“Let’s leave.” Amber still looked frightened. “We can’t do any good here if it is riddled with sickness brought on by the purple corruption. Let’s go back and try a different world.”
“You’re right.” Lenny turned away, before stopping once to look over his shoulder. “Though everything seems so peaceful here...”
The dark tree branches high in the air were still, bright light pooling gently from the bay window. It was like a house from a children’s book, where Father rabbit or Mommy bear might live. Just darker and more foreboding.
“Peaceful is how the house would seem if everyone were sick!” Amber kept pulling on him and they started back into the trees away from the house. Lenny was still not thoroughly convinced that there was a plague, though he could think of no other reason for the cross on the door and the knocker going unanswered. But after a few moments, he stopped walking, halting both of them. “What if the person who lives there is simply outside right now? There could be a well or spring at the end of that stone path, and they went to fetch some water. The cross could be some sort of superstitious charm to ward off the purple corrosion from invading the house at all.”
“Maybe.” Amber still looked disturbed. “How can we know?”
Lenny turned around. “By going down the path to see if anyone is there.”
“And if they have a plague?”
“I won’t get too close. We need to follow every lead: remember, Jax has to have a healer, the sooner the better.”
Without waiting for an answer, Lenny began to walk back the way they had come. Amber followed after him slowly, fingering her pistol as if it could protect them from unseen sickness. The light was still burning in the house window, spilling its cheerful glow onto the stepping stones which made up the path. They were round and flat on top, worn smooth by use and the seasons. Lenny did not walk on them, feeling that he would be safer if he did not touch anywhere that someone else might have. It was also quieter to walk beside them, which somehow seemed important in the twilight world.
Though Lenny often looked towards the eastern horizon in hopes of seeing the first gray of dawn, no change in the sky was visible except for the shifting of the stars.
The path wound on for longer than he had expected, leaving the clearing to twist between trees. Here, they grew with their branches so thickly intertwined overhead that it was almost black underneath, with only the tiny, gleaming lights moving here and there throughout it. Those lights never seemed to come any closer: they moved always at the edge of his vision, or just out of reach in the trees. Lenny wondered if they were fairies, the thought a more serious one than it would have been to him a few weeks before.
With Amber behind him, he threaded the way through the forest, following the path. It passed in front of a low cliff at one point, which had a dark cave receding into it. Lenny went by this cautiously, shuddering at the thought of what might be inside. It was not far beyond it that he began to hear the trickle of water running. Soon, they came to a place where one of the stumpy pieces of old tower stood, black and square in the dark. Coming closer, Lenny saw that there was a stream running from its base, a sort of spring which came from a cracked, rusty water faucet sticking out of the old wall. The path ended there, but there was no sign of anyone getting water.
Lenny came to a stop near the fountain. “Maybe you were right, Amb--”
His words were cut off as he realized that they were being watched. The tower had a small section of old bridge still left on one side, about fifteen feet up in the air. It was just a crumbly, short arm of cement which had most likely held up a support at one time rather than the highway itself. As Lenny had been looking around, his gaze had drifted towards it. And there met a pair of glowing green eyes which were staring back at him. They belonged to a dark silhouette sitting on the broken section near the tower.
For just a moment, he thought that it might be larger specimens of the glimmering dots that were shifting through the whole forest. But the eyes blinked, hidden by darkness for a moment before being revealed again. And they were full of intelligence.
Lenny stepped back, not sure what they had to deal with. All he could see was a vague form against a patch of the lighter night sky. It could have been a large cat, or a maddened rodent. But when the patch moved, standing up to hang from the old bridge support and drop to the ground, Lenny saw that it was a man.
The figure came forward, dressed in something the same shade as the darkest patches of forest. It stopped a few yards in front of them, green eyes regarding them levelly. A quiet, deep voice came through the cool air. “Greetings.”
Catching himself staring, Lenny straightened up. “Er, Hello. Excuse me, but are you--I mean, is there a plague loose in this land?”
“Only the one which makes the purple vines and parasites grow on the trees. And the clouds turn purple when it rains, or the buildings fall down in ruin. That’s all.”
Amber came up beside Lenny. “Then there is no sickness that is attacking the people?”
“There are no people.” The mysterious shape blinked again, yellow sparks running through his eyes like the lights which twinkled in the trees. “Only the Keeper of Darkness and I. Everyone else is far away.”
Lenny felt disappointment. “And you, who are you?”
The figure reached out to grasp a small, leafy twig from a branch which hung nearby and twirl it thoughtfully in his fingers. “You may call me Leaflow.”