Whether due to age or sheer bull-headedness, Berch retained a few fragments more of memory from his native world than either Roland or Delaney. He carried, as if it were embedded in his flesh, the conviction that the highest compliment you could pay a man in the Platte River farmlands, where he had lived all his life, was to say that he was not afraid of work. Calling a man dependable would have come in a close second. Berch took it for a fact that both tributes could be inscribed on his tombstone. As far as he was concerned, these strengths more than made up for the less flattering consensus of his personality.
Part of being dependable was avoiding serious mistakes. Berch had always been a careful and sensible man. Even in the heat of crisis, when split-second decisions owed more to instinct than reasoning, he had generally come through. If he had not, a neighbor would have lost more than a barn to fire, and a cousin would have lost more than an arm to the corn picker.
After so many years clad in the mantle of such simple virtue, it fit like a second skin. At least it had until Berch had found himself in a place where the past no longer counted for anything. Here in the realmlands, late in life, with everything turned upside-down and without the anchor of his gentle and sensible wife, he suddenly had to reestablish a reputation that had been hard-earned over many decades, and that he had assumed to be permanent.
To his surprise and shame, he had failed at this task. The tragedy with the wolf, aggravated by his boasting over the deed, haunted him day and night. The triumphant baying of the savage dog pack in its killing frenzy hounded him even in his sleep.
The effects of advancing age heaped constant humiliation onto his disgrace. Even in these later years, Berch had been able to outwalk and outwork men half his age. But pitted against the freakishly tireless Tishaarans and a college distance runner in his prime, he had been dead weight on the expedition from day one. No matter how he pushed himself, he could never keep up with the others unless they slowed down. He was convinced that Digtry had risked the survival of the expedition in Kal Shadir solely for his sake. Desperate to salvage the shreds of his self-respect, Berch had resorted to a rash bit of thievery that now weighed more heavily on his health than on his conscience.
“You don’t look well,” said Digtry, as they followed Belfray up a steep limestone path.
“You ain’t much to look at, yourself,” Berch growled.
“Your eyes. Not good.”
“They’re blue. You got a problem with that? Louise always liked them.”
“They look out of place; like some spirit has taken over them. You’re drawn and haggard. Would this have anything to do with the disappearance of some Droom elixir?”
Unlike Roland, Berch recognized when he had been caught. Like Roland, he had no affinity for apologies. “I only took a couple drops. Didn’t think you’d notice.”
“You took some of the Droom elixir?” cried Belfray, astonished.
“Guilty as charged,” said Berch.
“Where did you get it?” asked Belfray.
Berch looked openly at Digtry, “From you. When you were sleeping that night by the Glasswater.”
“Why did you take it?”
“I hate slowing you down. Thought that stuff would help me keep me from getting tired. So’s I could keep up with you. Figured if that's the stuff that keep the Droom from needing sleep, it might give me a boost.”
“You have not slowed us down,” said Belfray, with such a lack of commitment that, in the ensuing awkward silence, he felt obliged to back off the statement. “At any rate, we are not in such a desperate hurry at the moment. And never so desperate that we must resort to ingesting Droom poison.”
“Good thing,” said Berch. “The stuff doesn’t work. I’ve been more tired since I tried it than I was before.”
“It’s working too well,” said Digtry, more serious than usual. “It has deprived you of the ability to sleep. You would need regular doses in greater amounts before it overrides your need to sleep.”
“Well, well. What you don’t know can kill you.”
“It may take weeks, months, before the effect wears off,” warned Digtry.
“There’s still a good chance you could bore me to sleep.”
“The strain may become unbearable.”
“All right, I screwed up!” said Berch, testily. “What do you want me to do, grovel? Write on the board fifty times, `I’m sorry I drank Droom juice?’”
Digtry stared hard at him. “Do you want more?” he asked.
“Go ahead, rub my nose in it!” snapped Berch.
“I’m serious,” said Digtry, mildly. “Losing the ability to sleep without losing the need is a tremendous burden. Can you bear it, or would you like more elixir, to take away the need for sleep?”
At first, the answer seemed obvious. Digtry was offering him relief from the merciless grip of insomnia. But Berch hesitated. Instinctively, he suspected a catch in the proposal. A lifetime of experience had taught him that easy answers were an illusion, a trap. After mulling the situation for awhile, he saw clearly the iron teeth of that trap poking through the bait. “I’d become like them, wouldn’t I?”
Digtry nodded.
For an instant, Berch imagined himself looking into a mirror and seeing those same hellish eyes he had seen on the Droom. What happened to the soul of a man who never slept? Could a man who never enjoyed a well-deserved sleep from his labors ever know peace?
Berch now realized how badly he had blown it. How long could he survive night after night, craving sleep without being able to find even a moment’s rest? A month ago, he would have boasted that he was man enough to tough out the weeks before the effects of the elixir faded. But his wheezing lungs and his aching lungs, stiff muscles, and throbbing joints served as constant reminders of the limits of dogged determination. He was not Superman. In fact, although it pained him to admit it, he was far too old for these kinds of adventures. He was worn out, past the point where he could depend on willpower to keep either his will or his faltering body going.
“Hide that vial,” he said, finally. “I don’t want to know where it is. And if I ever beg you for another drop, promise me you’ll both run as fast as you can and leave me behind. For good. And that you’ll never look back. Promise me that.”
“But we cannot just leave--” objected Belfray.
“Promise me!”
“Done,” said Digtry.
Berch sat with Belfray on a limestone shelf atop a cliff that rose above the level of all but the few rugged pioneer trees that had drilled their roots into the forbidding rock. He looked down on what he had first taken to be a stunted brown forest, or possibly overgrown sagebrush in the valley far below. Then the trees, or the sage, moved and milled about under clouds of dust that floated upon the wind. Although there was not a rain cloud in the sky, a steady rumbling filled the air. Even the solid rock beneath them trembled.
At first, Berch chalked up the sensation to sleep deprivation. The insomnia brought on by the cursed Droom poison had taken its toll on his vision, balance, coherent thought, and general disposition, although there was not much of the latter to erode. Then he saw that the forest was not a forest, nor sagebrush, but animals massing upon a vast plain. Although he could not see clearly enough to be certain, he guessed that the brownish hides and thundering hooves belonged to a herd of bison too numerous to count.
“I thought you said we were getting close to the wolves,” said Berch. “There’s nothing but buffalo as far as I can see.”
“The bison do not belong here,” said Belfray, frowning. “Certainly not so many of them.”
“Would they try to stop us from reaching the wolves?”
“Of course not,” laughed Belfray. “Wolves and bison are friends.”
“Were friends,” came an unexpected voice.
“Digtry,” said Belfray, startled by the sudden approach. “Are you back so soon?”
“Apparently.” Weary and covered with dust, he dropped to his knees and peeked into a makeshift birch bowl that rested on the charred remains of a very small fire.
“I knew you would be back before dark, so we waited for you to join us for supper,” said Belfray, grinning proudly.
They dined on a stew made up of roots and vegetables that Belfray had collected during the day. Belfray’s cooking was passable--the kind of fare that would have drawn grimaces at an elegant table but could be savored by the ravenous. Even so, Berch ate little. That cursed elixir seemed to have robbed him of an appetite along with everything else.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“What’s the deal with that herd?” he asked.
Digtry licked his lips. “The bison have been bitten by the strangest obsession. They want to exterminate the wolves. They’ve surrounded them since late winter, with just that in mind. No doubt, that is what the original wolf message concerned.” He nodded toward the plain. “And now the entire bison herd is mustering for the final assault. Not your typical herbivore behavior.”
“No!” gasped Belfray. “We have almost come too late. We must make things right between the wolves and bison, and do so quickly.”
“Very quickly,” said Digtry. “Before the Droom get here.”
Berch shot him a startled look.
“The Droom?” cried Belfray. “I thought Sloat and Roland decoyed them away from us.”
“They bought us time. Maybe a day. Not even Sloat could fool the Droom longer than that.”
“Then we have led them to the wolves!” exclaimed Belfray. “We have betrayed our most loyal ally into the hands of their worst enemies. Digtry, if you knew the Droom would follow us, why did you allow us to keep going?”
“The Droom were following us, not tracking us. They know where to find the wolves.”
Belfray spluttered a symphony of incoherence before finally getting out, “Then what are the Droom doing? Why did they let us leave Kal Shadir, only to pursue us in secret on the Down? None of this makes any sense. I thought you said--”
“The Droom are less devious than I supposed,” said Digtry. “Or more. Hard to tell with them. Anyway, they kept their word. They weren’t stalking us. They weren’t concerned with us at all. If we had not gone back after the map, we never would have seen them.”
“So you didn’t screw up in Kal Shadir after all,” said Berch.
“No. But it was a good thing I thought I did. I was getting too cocky for my own good.”
“How do you know the Droom were not pursuing us?” asked Belfray.
“Why would they send an entire army after our pitiful band? A dozen horsemen, twenty at the most, would have done the job. Answer: they weren’t after us.”
“If they had no business with us, then why did they chase us?” asked Belfray, still doubting Digtry’s explanation.
“Once we discovered them, what choice did they have? They were coming after the wolves and they didn’t want the wolves to know they were coming. They knew we would warn them.”
“Are you sure they knew how to find the wolves?” asked Belfray, still trying to quiet his restless conscience.
“The wolves have been trapped here since winter. Their location is hardly a secret.”
“So why would the Droom suddenly attack the wolves now?” asked Berch. “Are they allies of the buffalo?”
“No, they hate the bison almost as much as they hate wolves. But what better time to make war on your enemies than when they are at each other’s throats? They know what’s going on here.”
“Then we got no time to lose,” said Berch. “Do you suppose if we warn the buffalo, they’ll call off their attack? How sensible are they?”
Belfray snorted a loud, hopeless laugh. “Sensible? The bison? Pardon my saying so, but that is like asking the intelligence of garden slugs. If you combined the common sense of all the bison on the plain, you might fill a rat’s navel.”
“Okay, forget them,” said Berch. “They aren’t our concern anyway. How do we get past them to the wolves?”
“There’s the problem,” said Digtry.
“This is most odd,” said Belfray, rubbing his knuckles on his fuzzy beard. “I have never heard of any strife between wolves and bison, much less open warfare.”
Berch was thinking harder, more desperately than he had in many years. He had to get to the wolves if he ever wanted peace in his life again. But his bleary, sleep-deprived brain was not capable of providing any plan for doing so.
Suddenly, a great bellowing arose from the plain, answered by more bellows, and echoes of yet more. Bison began trotting and as they did so, drew others into line behind them like magnets. Soon long lines of the beasts were thundering around, all moving in the same, clockwise direction.
“They are forming ranks,” said Digtry. He stood silently as they watched the commotion far below. For the first time in all their travels, Berch detected weariness in his face, and a hint of sadness and anxiety.
“The wolves are strong,” said Digtry at last. “Put them in a forest or uneven ground and they would be more than a match for the bison. But trapped here on the open plain, they cannot withstand the herd.”
“Then why are we just sitting here? Have we come all this way to sit as spectators to our friends’ genocide? Do something!” pleaded Belfray, hopping frantically around the cooking fire. “Can you not think of a plan?”
“No, I can’t. But we are out of time, so we’ll have to try something. Berch, let’s pay a visit to Chama, Lord of the Bison.”
“What about me?” asked Belfray.
“We can visit you later.”
“No!” said Belfray, stamping his foot in frustration. “I mean, why should I not come? I am of much more use than Berch, no offense meant.”
“None taken,” growled Berch. You twerp!
“Let me arbitrate the dispute between wolves and bison," said Belfray. "It is we whom the wolves have summoned to their aid.”
“No,” said Digtry.
Belfray’s face fell, his eager eyes stinging from the rejection.
“The alliance between wolves and Tishaara is well-known,” explained Digtry. ”If you must know, it is the object of scorn among many beasts. Some view the wolves’ conduct as traitorous, in fact. You cannot arbitrate this dispute. If you set foot on that plain, the bison will grind you into top soil. I do need your help, though.”
Belfray locked onto him with those hopeful, eager eyes.
“Wolves lose their powers of communication once they cross into the Third Realm,” said Digtry. “So how do they communicate with you?”
“Code,” answered Belfray. “They bring a message encrypted in teeth marks--incisors and fangs. The letter ‘a,’ for example, is one incisor and one fang mark.”
“Send such a note with Berch. Tell them the Tishaarans are here. Come, we have no time to waste.”
Digtry whistled softly as they followed the young bison bull who led them to Lord Chama. Berch trailed behind, his head cluttered with debris that sleep normally would have flushed out. Walls of shaggy hides tacked onto tons of rippling muscle hemmed them in on all sides. Huge eyes, wild and passionate, challenged their every step. Damp, quivering nostrils snorted disdain at them. Horns hovered menacingly near ground level.
Berch had walked through cattle pens a thousand times. He had laughed at his city slicker nephews who followed him into the stalls, flinching with every step. You would have sworn he had asked them to run a gauntlet between rows of blazing machine guns. Now, for the first time, he could sympathize with them. The walk across the plain through the ranks of bison who grudgingly parted ranks just enough for them to squeeze through made him feel small and helpless in a way he never would have thought possible. Only the unquenchable embers of guilt over the murdered wolf drove him onward.
At last they came to the nerve center of the tension in the camp. An immense, disheveled bison strutted forth through a wedge of skittish bison. If any creature could be judged psychotic purely on the basis of appearance, Chama, Lord of the Bison of the Great Plain, was that creature. Its saucer-sized eyes all but burst from their sockets. Berch could almost hear the hissing of a quick-burning fuse in the beast’s massive head. Its long horns, far longer than any Berch had ever seen on a bisonm gleamed through its shaggy wool and its flanks rippled with every step as it drew nearer.
“Greetings, Lord Chama,” said Digtry, looking tinier than ever in this moving brown sea. “We appreciate your willingness to grant us audience before your attack. These are strange and dangerous times when friends must band together.”
Chama tossed its mighty head in spasms. A voice boomed over the plain, and Berch realized it was somehow coming from this agitated creature. “Strange and dangerous, you say! Is this your conclusion? I don’t see you grieving over your dead. As for banding together, tell that to those twenty-times accursed wolves!”
Digtry waited for his ears to stop ringing from Chama’s verbal assault. “Lord Chama, please. What do you mean? Calm your wrath and speak with the voice of reason.”
“Calm my wrath?! I will not! Not when the wolves who have so much to answer for, stand silently licking our blood from their muzzles. Dangerous times, you say! Band together! Hah! The wolves thrive on such watered milk as this. They have planted such bleatings to cover up their foul deeds.”
“What evil have the wolves done that the bison declare them the bane of the Fourth Realm?” asked Digtry. “Animals have always reserved that title for the Droom.”
Flecks of foam shot from the bison’s nostrils. His bellow rolled over the plain like the blast of a great horn. “Compared to the wolves, the vile acts of the Droom are petty slights! The buzzing of flies!
“Dare you look upon me with skepticism?! Have you seen with your eyes the bison lying dead on the blooming grasses of the Great Prairie last autumn? Not one or two bison, but dozens--young calves. We saw their bodies, defiled with wolf prints. Yet the pack will not yield up the murderers to us. Why? What have they to hide from justice, these creatures who shun their own kind and deal secretly with strangers in foreign realms?
“They must answer for their sins and they have had ample chance. Yet they have yielded nothing. They have abused our patience and good will. As I am Lord of the Plain, we shall wait no longer! The wolves will pay for their treachery. From this day forth, the wolves shall be but a poor legend, their existence believed by some, doubted by others, but never again confirmed. The bison will be avenged!”
“Hold that thought for a moment,” said Digtry. Turning to Berch, he whispered, “I smell a setup. Wolves don’t kill bison. Not Fourth Realm bison, at any rate. Like all Fourth Realm predators, they feed on dumb prey that wander up from the Third Realm. The question is, who wants these animals at each others’ throats?”
He immediately answered his own question. “The Droom, of course. But how could they do it? How could Droom agents reach the bison calving grounds on the Great Prairie, where the murders took place, without being detected? They couldn’t. Animal senses are too acute. Someone a lot more skilled than the Droom murdered the young bison and framed the wolves. But who? And why?”
Berch had been waiting anxiously for a chance to jump into this lightning one-man conversation. “Can’t you just warn Chama that the Droom are coming?” he asked quickly. “The bison would have to give up their quarrel with the wolves long enough to defend themselves.”
“If only Chama would believe it,” said Digtry.
Chama let out an ear-splitting bellow of impatience.
Digtry turned and bowed before the Bison Lord. “Lord Chama, please hear me out. The wolves did not kill those bison.”
Chama slashed the earth with his hooves. Berch braced himself as the hostile bison ring drew tight around them. “What do you know of this?” raged Chama. “Name the butchers! Lay before us proof of their guilt!”
“Look to your rear, Chama,” said Digtry. “The Droom approach like vultures to feed on the carnage of this senseless war.”
“You lie!” roared Chama. “We see no Droom! The air holds nothing of their smell. The wolves are the only evil of which I have proof. Their markings alone defile the bodies of our dead children. Do you think we could not detect Droom involvement from miles away?”
Digtry clenched and unclenched his fists rapidly as he sought a way out of this fast-approaching bloodbath. “Your patience has been admirable. If you could just extend it one more day, you will see proof that the Droom lurk close by to reap the harvest of the evil that has been sown.”
Chama stopped pacing. “Who are you?” came the disembodied voice as the bison hunched his shoulders and closed in on Digtry, his fanatical eyes fixed on the object of his current wrath.
“Someone who hates to see excellent creatures duped into a war that will destroy them both.”
Chama stamped and pawed and snorted. His bursts of emotion ignited similar feelings in the herd, that spread like a grass fire in a gale. The air grew thick with dust and snorts and shuffling of frightened and angry bison. “You are clever, wolf lover!” bawled Chama. “While we delay, looking over our shoulders for these Droom, the wolves shall use it to their advantage to escape the justice they deserve. Do you take us for fools, as the wolves have? Do you think that after all we have seen, we will entrust even one drop of bison blood to your fantasy? You, with the honeyed words? You, whom we do not know? Leave the plain this instant before you meet the fate of your wolf friends.”
“May I at least send Berch to ask the wolves one last time to surrender those who may have committed the crime of which you speak?” asked Digtry. “He is a worthy person with great powers of persuasion.”
Berch almost laughed out loud at Digtry’s description of him.
Chama tossed his head high. “I give you no time, but we shall not hinder your passage. Our plan is to attack at dawn. You have until then to bring me the murderers, dead or alive. If they are not standing before me when darkness breaks, we attack, and any who are among them shall die with them, for we shall leave no living creature alive! in that camp of murderers.”
Digtry grabbed Berch by both shoulders and looked him squarely in the eyes. “The plan is brilliant. Kill some bison calves, blame the wolves, entice them into war. In come the Droom to mop up on both. Even if the plot is discovered, nothing can stop the war except trust between wolf and bison. And that trust has been destroyed. Criminally cunning.”
Berch fought to keep the pieces of the puzzle together in his frazzled mind. “It has to be the Droom, doesn’t it? All by themselves. You keep saying the Droom are too proud and powerful to get mixed up in any alliances.”
“I I have no idea what is going on,” admitted Digtry. “I am grasping at flimsy straws at the moment. Pray it is the Droom and not worse. But I don’t see how they could do it. The scope of this mystery is uncomfortably like the work of the force behind the Cold Flame mystery.”
“Whatever,” said Berch, weary of trying to sort things out with a brain that was barely functioning. It was all he could do to focus on the immediate problem. “So you expect me to go to the wolves and do what? Get them to surrender murderers who don’t exist? Fat chance!”
“I only said that to persuade the bison to let you pass to the wolf camp. We need time. Every hour counts. The thing I fear the most right now is that the wolves may try to preempt the bison assault with a breakout attack of their own in the darkness. You must prevent that.”
“But how do I do that?” cried Berch, overwhelmed by the responsibility.
“Think of something. I have all I can handle here. Go!”
Finding himself suddenly alone, Berch tromped off through the shuffling rows of shaggy hides. “Puny little cuss!” he grumbled. “Givin’ orders like he’s God himself. Sure, get the wolves to stand down! Right! You tell me how I'm going to do that." In his present condition he did not think he could persuade a starving beggar to eat.
But at least he was on his way to the wolves. That was what he had come for. Once he reached them and got this weight of guilt off his chest, the wolves and bison could rip each other to shreds. In fact, this whole insane world of the realms could collapse into the deepest pit of hell for all he cared. At least he would finally have some peace.