Chapter 5 Realm Lore
Those stars still flickered against the black sky when Roland awoke to find the Meshoma already breaking camp. Just seeing them was a comforting sight. While they were still a part of this alien world, they were, at least to a degree, familiar. Roland welcomed any sign that his chaotic life was stabilizing, that reality was not completely random and continually starting from scratch.
Cohasset’s greeting, however, was anything but comforting. “Shh,” he whispered. “Come.”
As he crawled to his feet, Roland was surprised by the pain in both shoulders and arms, until he remembered the exhausting climb on that rope over the river. His upper body was so bathed in lactic acid, he suspected that if he could peel back his skin he would find his muscle turned to mush, like a bruised banana.
Scanning the woods for signs of danger, he thrashed through dewy, knee-high stands of creeping vine as he chased after the dimly lit shape of Cohasset. Try as he might to match the light footsteps, he kept crunching twigs and dried leaves.
What is this guy up to now?
They climbed a steep hill until they reached an outcropping of rock that faced eastward to where the first tentative probes of sunlight touched the sky. But it was not the sky that caught Roland’s attention. Stretched out before him was a mirror image of those heavens, sparkling with tiny lights. Roland thought they must be looking out over a great lake or an ocean.
The reflected stars flickered more brightly than those in the sky above, and with greater animation, like fireflies swarming in a meadow. Roland wondered if he had ever seen such a beautiful, peaceful sight . . . until Cohasset pointed out the significance of the scene.
"They hunt you through the night."
As Roland continued to watch, the terror that had repeatedly gnawed at him the day before returned in paralyzing force. That was no open water. It was forest.
The lights were torches. They moved in a wide arc, at differing rates of speed.
All were drawing closer.
The sliver of hope to which Roland had clung through the night, the hope that he could exit the nightmare and return to his blissfully boring life, vanished. “Holy-- there’s a whole army of them! Why?! I didn’t do anything! How could I help where I ended up? I was just sitting in the library and I got put there, for God's sake!
Cohasset said nothing, but turned and ran back down the hill they had just climbed. Roland scurried after him, fully awake now. If we’d have slept another half hour, they’d be here! I’d be dead. Oh, God help me! Please!
By the time they reached camp, the third member of their party had gone. Roland could not bring himself to ask where he might be.
Quickly collecting his few belongings, Cohasset tore off into the woods with Roland in frantic pursuit.
All day they walked and ran, always pushing the pace, not even stopping for meals. Cohasset said nothing, leaving Roland locked in his own thoughts, which kept looping back to the cold-blooded murder on the river bluff and the threat of Devil Throat.
After another brief night of uneasy sleep on a mattress of moss in a secluded, mosquito-infested ravine, they continued their flight. Hunger was gnawing at Roland’s belly by the time they reached the end of the deep forest. Beyond its last picket line of trees appeared a ripening field of grasses that stretched out to the horizon like a rolling, wind-swept sea of gold.
Cohasset seemed to be wrestling with demons in a corner of his mind as he regarded the dense woods through which they had passed. In the far distance, a dog barked--a bark that sounded chillingly familiar. Instinctively, Roland edged closer to his protector.
“The Topoha seek you as one dying of thirst seeks water.”
Not exactly news, but Roland still cringed to hear it.
Cohasset set off at a brisk walk with Roland beside him. “It is the way of the Meshoma to offer hospitality to the sojourner. Especially one in need. It is a matter of honor.”
Yes! Solid allies with an airtight code of honor! That was exactly what Roland needed. Despite his exhaustion and the relentless threat that dogged him, he felt at least somewhat safe with this guy. Rock on, Cohasset!
“Yet I must tell you this: the Meshoma cannot save you.”
Roland fought off yet another jolt of panic. Come on! Quit jerkin’ me around! The minute I start to relax around here . . . “ What about your honor?” he managed to squeak.
“This does not concern honor; it concerns truth.”
“So what are you saying? Just give up?!” Already light-headed with hunger, Roland thought he would pass out at this latest shock. “Please don’t say that. Do you know what they’ll do to me if they catch me?”
Cohasset’s pessimism was as relentless as the pursuit. “The armies of Rushbrook have come for you. All of them. Perhaps others as well. They have cut off our escape.”
They continued walking while Roland tried to process this news with the pitiful powers of concentration that remained to him. He noticed, with alarm, that Cohasset’s pace had lost its urgency.
“My plan was to draw the enemy far from my people,” Cohasset said, quietly. His use of the past tense added to Roland’s sense of impending doom. “So that we would not endanger the little ones of my people when we were caught.”
“When we were caught?!”
“Here is the part that disturbs me--”
“There’s a part of this that doesn’t disturb you?!”
Cohasset ignored the question. “The wrath of the Topoha is beyond reason. Hatred that burns so hotly against you will not be quenched by your death. It will consume those who give you aid. And their families.”
Roland stiffened. So that’s what he’s getting at! He desperately wanted to cling to Cohasset, even if there was no point, even if Cohasset could do nothing for him. Yet, still racked by guilt and uncertainty over the fate of the soldiers who had unwittingly allowed him to escape over the river, he could not let the Meshoma suffer the same and worse on his account. Lord, I hate being noble. But it’s not like I really have a choice.
“I understand,” he said. He kept forcing one foot in front of the other even though his knees could barely support him. “You need to get away from me.”
Cohasset continued by Roland’s side.
“I mean it,” said Roland, resigning himself to his doom. “They’re not after you. Get away if you still can. Don’t let them find you with me.”
Cohasset ignored him.
“Look, you already saved my life. Your honor’s in good shape. But now my honor is at stake. I could not live with the guilt of bringing such suffering on your people. (Geez, where did that come from, Roland?) Don’t do that to me. Go. The Topoha don’t know I ever met you. Leave it at that."
When Cohasset still made no response, Roland pleaded, choked with emotion, “Do it. For your family. For the kids!”
Cohasset stopped walking and stared hard at him. “This is your wish?”
Are you kidding? Of course not! “Yes. Please go. I mean it! Just go.”
“If that is your choice, then there may be a way out for you.”
Roland immediately eyed the knife on Cohasset’s hip. Yes, he had thought of that. He knew what was in store for him if he were taken alive. Anything, anything was better than that. How ironic that Cohasset was now offering the same act of compassion that Roland refused from Curly Red. I should have taken him up on it then while I had the chance.
It was so hard, though, to surrender. To take that final step.
“You say you are not of this realm,” said Cohasset. “Perhaps then,you would consider leaving it.”
Roland stared again at the knife and tried to steel himself for what was coming. “I would like nothing better than to get out of this hellhole! Would you do the honors for me?”
Cohasset stared at him in confusion. “Honors?”
“You are offering to kill me, aren’t you? You know, put me out of my misery?”
The idea seemed to horrify Cohasset. “No, I am asking if you are willing to leave this realm.”
"This realm?" Roland could not believe how thick-headed this man was being about the real-travel business. “Listen, I keep telling you, I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t have the first clue how to get out. Do you think I’d still be here if I had the power to leave?! I can’t! I’m screwed! I know that. So if you won’t kill me, just go!”
"The Third Realm is not far," said Cohasset, pointing past the field.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Wait a minute." Roland hardly dared pursue what appeared to be another glimmer of hope for fear it would be snuffed out again. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster; this was emotional bungee jumping. "You’re not saying `this world’ or `this life.’ You’re saying `this realm.’ There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
“What are you saying?" cried Roland, ready to toss away good sense and grab at the latest lifeline. "This Third Realm, you mean it's a place I can get to from here? ”Like over there, but in the same world?"
Cohasset nodded.
Roland wanted to make sure he understood this crucial point. “I could get there just by walking?”
“I would run.”
“Okay, wait, wait, wait.” Roland feared Cohasset would disappear at any moment. Through a dry throat he croaked, “If I can get there, what’s to stop Chuckles and his gang from staying on my tail?”
“The Topoha would not expect you to cross the Realm bounds. Few of them dare to cross into the Third. None would do so willingly.”
Roland still could not figure out whether Cohasset was offering a realistic alternative. “Why not? Is the Third Realm dangerous?”
“I will not go there. I do not know that I would go even if I were in your situation. It is no place for a Second Realmer. But you say that you are not from the Second Realm.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” said Roland, his voice rising in fear and frustration. “All I want to know is, will I be better off there than here?”
“That is not for me to say. Do you have enemies in the Third Realm?”
“I’ve never been there,” Roland said. Then he muttered, “’Course I’d never been here before either and somehow I seem to have acquired a list of enemies the size of a phone book.”
Cohasset shrugged. “You know what will happen if you do not go.”
One more flashback of Devil Throat and Roland’s mind was made up. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going.”
Cohasset pointed to the south. “Stay along the edge of these woods until you reach a shelter for travelers. A Tishaaran from the Third Realm may yet be there, preparing to return home. Perhaps he will guide you.”
“What’s this guy doing here? And why is he okay with crossing realms?”
The twinkle rekindled in Cohasset’s eyes. “We know that your feet do not travel quietly. Can they travel swiftly?”
Roland found himself smiling through his shame. Nearly hyperventilating from this prolonged bout with terror, and faint with a mixture of hope and relief, he scanned the woods behind him. “Okay. But you didn’t answer my-” he started. Suddenly, he was alone. As eerily as he had first appeared, Cohasset had dissolved into the forest.
Roland found himself wondering if Cohasset had ever existed at all. Maybe he had been a dream, he thought, hopefully. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe Devil Throat and his goons were just part of the same dream.
“You will BEG for the mercy that I just showed that fool!”
No, he had not imagined that. He took off running.
* * * * * *
Sweet scents of cedar and pine filled the air that Roland sucked deep into his lungs as he raced through the shade of the forest on the edge of the field. Every so often he heard or imagined footsteps or voices or a distant baying. Each time, he scuttled deeper into the cover of the forest, sacrificing speed for safety.
With every step he grew more acutely aware that he had eaten nothing for well over a day. In spite of himself, he began to think of the Meshoma as rather poor hosts. The strain of constant anxiety grated on him. He grew tired and impatient. Would have been nice if Cohasset had given some idea how far it was. The Meshoma don’t give land an owner or time a number. I suppose they don’t give distance a number, either.
At last he spotted a white pine towering above the trees at the boundary between the forest and meadow. Its bottom branches sagged as if dipped in lead. From a distance the details were smudged by the shadows, but he could make out some sort of structure beneath the mammoth tree. As he drew closer, he caught the lingering scent of spent hardwood charcoal at the same time as he saw a doorway carved into the living wood.
Racing across open ground to the structure, he pulled back the lowest level of boughs that blocked the entrance. This revealed a tall, thin-boned man with wavy black hair, dressed in a loose, sky-blue tunic and black leggings, leaning against the trunk. His gray eyes, trimmed with thin, arching eyebrows, blinked at him in surprise. Then he smiled with such warmth, and his eyes shone with such open curiosity and trust, that Roland felt drawn to him, as though none of the threats rearing up around him could penetrate the shield of that comforting presence. In later days he would describe the experience, self-consciously, as like looking into the eyes of a lover, without the intensity, or the eyes of a small child who has not yet learned the deceit of which his elders are capable, only with far more confidence and experience. At the moment those welcoming eyes stared in undisguised fascination at Roland’s blue jeans.
Scratching his head, his broad smile pushing into the corners of his high cheekbones, he said, “I must admit, good sir, that I am as befuddled as a minnow in a whirlpool. But that is well, for it promises a most edifying conversation. If you will excuse me for but a moment.”
He ducked into the doorway. Moments later, he returned, bearing a large flask and a basket of cold biscuits. “Please join us in a meal. Shall we eat out here? It would be a shame to break bread with by the poor light of oil on such a splendid day.”
“Actually, I don’t think I can--” Roland started, glancing at the woods. If you could just give me a sack of those biscuits, we could eat on the run.
“Come, my lady! Berch!”
Roland cringed under the volume of the voice. He could picture the Topoha posse cocking their ears toward the sound.
“Look, I really can’t--”
From the doorway emerged a short, broad-shouldered man who Roland guessed to be somewhere around 60, perhaps older. He ran his hand through wavy hair, yellowish-white from a life of shampooing with bar soap, badly in need of a trim. His wrinkled skin, baked and cured into a horny dragon’s hide by sun and wind, was splotched red beneath age spots. A wide, straight lower lip and a flat nose with hair bristling from his nostrils accented the surly, rather froggish face. He wore heavy gray overalls, a green, button shirt, and hightop leather boots with the polish scuffed away at the toes and ankles.
This man stretched his stiff back, and squinted at the sun. “She’ll be out in a minute,” he said in a gravelly voice. “You need her quicker’n that, you can go in there and drag her out yourself.”
“Uh, I’m telling you, I can’t--” Roland protested as the tall, gray-eyed man spread a picnic lunch on a blanket in a clearing, protected from the wind on three sides by cedars.
“Say no more. I insist. I would be honored,” said the man, gesturing toward the food.The sweet aroma of fruit and day-old whole-grain bread cut short Roland’s protest. Alright, I made pretty good time this morning. I can stay for just a moment. I gotta eat something.
“My name is Windglow,” said his host, “and I am most eager to hear what brings you to this shelter. Ah, here she is! Do you happen to know my lady? Since you share that interesting style of dress, perhaps you know each other. She has not been able to share with us a name by which we might know her.”
To Roland’s astonishment, a wretched, emaciated, greasy-haired female wearing designer jeans that may once have been tight stumbled into the clearing and sat down on the grass, cowering behind a stringy veil of hair. She drew her chin to her chest as if she were cramped in a box, and rocked back and forth on her heels in restless rhythms. Roland could not begin to guess her age.
He shook his head. “No, we haven’t met.”
“My lady has had a difficult time, I fear,” interjected Windglow, his face collapsing into a mask of sympathy.
Following a brief, awkward silence, the older man tugged the flask away from Windglow. He glugged greedily and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “So we’re all going to sit here gawking at each other, is that it?”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said Windglow, snapping back to his role as host. “Please introduce yourself and tell your story.”
“Name’s Berch,” said the old man. “Ain’t much to tell. Worked the land all my life until I lost the farm. Fixing to leave the place for good when the cornfield starts smoking like wet wood in a chimney. I would have said it was a peat fire if there were any peat on the property. Damnedest thing I ever saw. I figure I must have been overcome by smoke. Next thing you know, here I am--wherever we are. What are you staring at, boy? You calling me a liar?”
“Well, n-no,” stammered Roland. “It’s just, I can’t believe, that’s sort of like what happened to me!”
“People raining down from other worlds from smoke and fire!” marveled Windglow. “If that is not the oddest invasion I ever heard of! Most curious! Unnerving, really.” Yet he clearly did not doubt a word of what had been told to him.
Berch snorted at Roland. “What’d they do, send a whole boatload of us on this tomfoolery? That’s the government for you--wasting my tax money monkeying around with drugs and using us for guinea pigs. I’m suing them ‘til they bleed when I get out of here. You want to join me and probably Missy, here, in one of them class action suits, you’re welcome.”
He coughed and spat out a gob of phlegm. “Now her, she’s taken the worst of it. Been here longer and treated worse. Stuck in a hole that would gag a maggot for God knows how long.” By the way she constantly tore at her scalp and underarms, Roland guessed that lice had formed an attachment to her in that dungeon.
“So if I can talk without folks buttin’ in,” Berch said pointedly, stopping yet another attempt by Roland to warn them of the approaching danger, “I wind up on a road west of this Rushbrook place. Barely poke my nose in the first farmhouse when I get hauled off and tossed in that stinkin’ jail with Missy. For suspicion of who knows what. We’d be stuck there to this day, like as not, except for this strange fella. I don’t know what you call him--some kind of preacher or holy man. Name of Ehiloru. When he found out they were holding us down in that pit for no reason, I mean to tell you he chewed them up and spit out small pieces. He must have some clout because he put the fear of God into them. I swear my skin was blistered when he finished and he wasn’t even talking to me. Anyway, he got ‘em to turn us loose and brought us here and that’s as much as I know about anything.”
Windglow leaned back against a mossy tree stump. “Ehiloru asked if I could delay my return to Tishaara to care for these two until he returned. In a day or two, he expected," he explained to Roland "He did not say where he was going or why, nor is he the sort you dare question much. Ah, but forgive me for neglecting you, sir. You have not yet had a chance to tell us your story. And have some more nectar and more of this excellent loaf.”
Roland did not relish putting his lips to something that Berch’s mouth had been all over. But he wiped the flask on his shirt and drank. With the fragrance of fresh sap wafting around, bread filling the void in his stomach, sweet berry nectar flowing down his parched throat, and a warm breeze teasing his hair, the faraway place that he had called home now seemed the dream. If only this other problem had not come up, he could possibly enjoy exploring this new reality. Now that he thought about it, this really was beautiful country. But, anxious at the time they were wasting, sensing the pursuit drawing ever closer, he rattled off only the highlights of his adventure as best he remembered, with a few alterations to make himself appear a little more competent.
He had not quite finished relating his escape from the island when Windglow interrupted him. “Most folks know them as Brookings, not Topoha--that seems to be the Meshoma’s private name for anyone who’s not Meshoma. I hear they are fascinating people.”
“You hear wrong,” scoffed Berch. “I didn’t meet a Brooking worth warm spit.”
“I meant the Meshoma,” said Windglow, shocked at Berch’s harsh evaluation. “It is said they rarely linger long enough in one spot to bend the grass. Few ever encounter them, much less an outrealmer like me.”
A formation of geese flying overhead honked sharply; Roland nearly flew out of his skin.
“City kid!” sneered Berch.
“It’s not that,” said Roland, jumping to his feet. What was I thinking of, lounging around while the lynch mob closes in? “I’m telling you, there’s an army of those, Brookings, Topoha--whatever you call them, they’re coming me. The forest is crawling with them! I need to get out of here; they’re going to kill me!”
“But we are a considerable distance from Rushbrook,” exclaimed Windglow, puzzled by Roland’s severe agitation. “It is true that they are a suspicious lot and treat strangers poorly-”
“Tell me about it!” snorted Berch.
Windglow regarded Berch with confusion. “I will do so in a moment if you wish, though I would have thought you had ample proof from your own experience. But as I say, they are at heart good people. I cannot believe they would come so far out of their way to harm one who has done nothing to them.”
“I did something. I trespassed on their island. Quick, tell me where the Third Realm--”
“But why should-”
“I don’t know!” snapped Roland, frantic at the delay. “All I know is that they swore to kill me in a very prolonged and sick way. Cohasset told me to make a run for the Third Realm as fast as I could get there. So quick, how do I get there?”
“The Meshoma said to flee?!” gasped Windglow, jumping to his feet in alarm. “Whatever did you do? The Brookings cause the occasional mischief out of ignorance,forgive my saying so, but they are not cutthroats.”
“Oh yeah? You ever met their leader? Devil Throat? The guy’s a psycho. He killed one of the guards who accidentally let me escape. Killed him in cold blood. I saw it. And they swore to do worse to me once they catch me!”
Windglow’s face melted into undisguised horror. Glancing feverishly about, he dashed back into the lodging, crying, “The Meshoma never waste words. If their advice is to run, we must flee at once!” He dashed into the shelter and began throwing food and camping equipment from a sparsely-stocked pantry into backpacks of a heavy, canvas-type material.
“’We?’ Hold on there, Bucko,” snapped Berch. “I make my own decisions. Why should I have to go anywhere just because he got his toe caught in a ringer?”
“You don’t,” said Roland, hoping the obnoxious old coot would decide himself out of the picture. “I’ll clear out out and leave you alone. Just tell me where to go!”
“You are all free to do as you wish,” said Windglow, as he tossed a filled pack to Roland, and started in on a second. His brow was creased with anxiety. “But are you and my lady not wearing identical leggings? If these people crave your blood so, they will certainly take a keen interest in anyone so similarly and peculiarly dressed, as well as anyone with whom they associate. We must all leave at once!”
“Are you sure they won’t follow us into the Third Realm?” asked Roland.
“Begging your pardon, but if persons from another world dropped out of the sky on your doorstep, would you be certain of anything anymore?” said Windglow as he flew around the room. “Yet, to answer another way, I do not remember a report of any Brookings dipping a toe into the Third Realm. Not in my lifetime, nor that of my parents.”
Roland stood by, feeling conspicuously useless, as Berch, finally stirred to action, joined Windglow in stuffing packs. As Roland hoisted one pack to test its weight, he saw what looked like a stuffed animal peeking out from Windglow’s collar. He felt embarrassed at the discovery. A grown man carrying around a cuddly doll! Or could this be another guy who is a little soft in the head? He seems a little simple, or maybe he’s just nice pathologically nice. Who would have thought that identifying sanity would be such a tough job?
But then the thing twitched and licked its nose with a long tongue.
“What is that?” asked Roland as they dashed out the door and raced into the tall grass of the meadow. At first glance, the creature had resembled a newly hatched duckling, covered with fuzzy, yellow down. But upon closer inspection, Roland saw that it had no bill, but some rather large teeth. Enormous, pathetic eyes dominated its monkeyish face.
Windglow, breathing heavily, eased the creature out of his shirt, stroking its head with his bony fingers. “Meet Puddles. He is what we call a sherrott."
Fascinated as he was by this zoological wonder, Roland was even more intrigued by the flicker of life it kindled in the eyes of the greasy-haired female. Contrary to her previous catatonic state, broken only by occasional spasms of pathetic cringing, she was tracking Puddles’ movements. Maybe there was something halfway human trapped in that hollow, rat-eaten shell of a woman after all. Roland shuddered as he wondered if she had been as normal as he when she had been plucked out of her world. She had been living in this nightmare here the longest. Look at her! Is that what I’m going to turn out like if I stay here?
Assuming he could shake the mob long enough to find out.