The Adventures of Myhr.
P.N. Elrod.
To thereal Myhr and Terrin, Jamie Murray and Troy Rhodes.
This is a work of fiction, Except for those bits that really happened.
SHUTTERS AND SHUDDERS.
Our room in the inn had a little square of a window covered with a wood shutter. I pulled it open for a look outside and to get some air. Down below I heard a soft sound like whispering. Something was definitely on the move. I saw a rippling along the cobbles, growing more substantial the longer I stared. It covered the width of the street, flowing like a river. The only sound was that weird whispering, like thousands of ghosts.
The fur on my nape went straight up.
Just as I began to wonder if it was intelligent or powered by intelligence, a tendril of the dark stuff oozed out from the main body and came creeping up the side of the building toward me.
I slammed the shutter into place and locked it, for all the good it would do. Time to call the cavalry.
"Uh . . . Terrin? You might wanna see this. Terrin?" I shook his shoulder. "Come on, wake up."
Eyes fast shut, his face was a sickly gray and slick with sweat. That wasn"t right.
I half knelt and shook him again. "Terrin? Hey, buddy, don"t do this. I"m scared enough."
Something audibly brushed against the window opening. I jumped, my heart trying to swim upstream to my throat.
I shook Terrin a lot harder now. No response. He was absolutely rigid. Like a corpse.
Not right.Not right. Red alert. Battle stations.
The whispering grew more p.r.o.nounced, stronger. Whatever was behind it wantedin and began b.u.mping against the shutter.
Time to exit, stage left . . . BAEN BOOKS by P.N. Elrod Keeper of the King(with Nigel Bennett) His Father"s Son(with Nigel Bennett) Quincey Morris, Vampire The Adventures of Myhr
CHAPTER ONE.
Some place like Kansas, only not as hilly.
"I wish," I said, puffing hard because we were running flat out. "I really, really wish. You would. Develop your. People skills."
"Bite me," said Terrin, also puffing hard.
I"d have rolled my eyes, but needed to watch where we were going. It was midnight, with a lightning-shot sky dumping rain on us like daggers. Despite this, there were a number of very angry locals hot behind us, either a lynch mob or anauto-da-fe , which I think is Latin for barbeque. The crowd supplied themselves for either possibility, having brought along both torchesand ropes.
No shoddy workmanship for Terrin, who is a wizard. When he decided to p.i.s.s a person off he always put a two hundred percent effort into it. On this occasion, for reasons best known to himself, he caused a bouquet of purple daisies to sprout out of the bald head of the town"s mayor. Bad enough, but they"d been infested with some kind of bugs that gave the man an attack of amazingly ugly hives.
Unfortunately for us, the mayor was popular and had an army of very large relatives all intent on avenging the family honor.
The thunder cracking overhead and the hiss of falling water kept me from hearing how close pursuit might be. As I had the better eyesight after dark, I led the way, hoping to find some spot where Terrin and I could go to ground for a minute so he could get us out. His traveling crystals had been charged up for weeks, but times had been pretty good on this stopover, so we"d put off leaving.
I had only a sketchy idea of the lay of the land here. We"d left the town in a random direction, striking off over ice rink-flat farm country. No matter where we went, we"d be seen.
"House," I said, pointing to a humped building with a thatched roof, the only thing in running range that might provide a temporary refuge.
"Okay." Terrin was shorter, but more than able to keep up as I tore over the ground, my boots making muddy salad of whatever crop the field held.
No lights showed ahead. At this hour any sensible farmer would be tucked away in bed having a good snooze through the storm, which is what I"d be doing now if Terrin hadn"t wanted to make a spectacular magical point. Couldn"t he have just given the mayor a little tummy ache instead? I hate those. The house turned out to be a barn. Good. Then we wouldn"t have to deal with yet another irate local trying to kill us. One mob was more than enough. We ripped around and found a door, dragging it open.
Inside, I curled my lip at the sudden stink of damp livestock, then violently shook water from my soaked mane. My rust-colored fur would either droop or be sticking out in clumpy spikes all over my head, but corrective grooming would have to wait. "How soon?"
Terrin was wheezing hard, but already shrugging off his oversize backpack. "Gimme a minute."
I knew the drill; it would take longer than that for him to set up. We needed something to block the door in case the mayor"s relatives turned out to be marathon runners. Some bales of hay were stacked neatly against one wall. I grabbed one in each hand and hauled them over. A few mice got dislodged. My ears swiveled to track their scattered retreat, and I had to repress an urge to lunge. Not that I"m into chasing mice, much less eating them. The reaction was some deep instinct thing, nothing to get wound up about, put it down to my weird DNA mix.
I slammed the bales behind the door and went back for another two, then two more. But that wasn"t the only entrance to the place. Another, larger door was at the far end. I didn"t think there"d be time to take care of that one, too.
"Terrin?"
He was still rummaging in the backpack.
"What"s the holdup?" I asked. "You didn"t lose them? Tell me you didn"t lose them."
He muttered something impolite as he dug. "Flashlight!" he snapped.
I took that to be a request, not an explicative, and shrugged my own pack from my shoulders. It was nearly pitch dark, for him, anyway, something I don"t always remember. I prefer order over chaos and found my flashlight exactly where it was supposed to be. One click and its beam shone into Terrin"s search area.
"Don"t you throw anything out?" The inside of his bag looked like a Dumpster.
He snarled sudden triumph, having snagged up two perfectly formed clear quartz crystals. They were about an inch in diameter and as long as my hand. Terrin gave me one.
"Get ready," he said, dragging one heel along the floor to make a rough circle around us.
I was ready ages ago. Outside, the first of the mob had arrived and were pushing against the door.
You"d have thought the deluge would have put them off. The bales would hold them for maybe . . . ahhh . . . no. The bales weren"t holding at all. The top one tumbled down in a squashy crash as people on the other side applied muscle against wood. Yells of unholy glee ensued as they inched the door open against the rest of the barrier.
At the far end came energetic hammering onthat door. Until it burst open. A bunch of really big guys flooded in, wearing even bigger grins. And I thoughtI had teeth.
"Get "em!" several of them roared. They charged forward. Just then the group at the first door succeeded in their a.s.sault, sending the last bales tumbling over into the path of their friends. It was awonderful pile-up, but not enough to stop them.
"Now," said Terrin, in a strangely calm voice. His eyes were shut as he held his crystal.
Against all sense, I shut my eyes as well, clutching my crystal, and hoping my backpack was within the circle.
The yelling mob, the disturbed livestock, the splat of rain on thatch, abruptly faded. I thought I felt the brush of a hand grabbing my collar, but it seemed to pa.s.s right through me before fading, too.
Then came the tough part. Well, it"s not that tough, and I should be used to it by now. It"s the mental image that gets to me. I don"t know what Terrin felt during the process, but to me it was always like being flushed down a toilet. A rushing noise, a swirling, that sudden twist, and the awful feeling that my guts were never going to catch up with the rest of me, then the worse feeling when they did.
Whoosh. Slam.
I held still, waiting for the next shoe to fall, but it never does. Once my consciousness figured it out I relaxed, sighing with relief.
Terrin said, "Why do you always groan like that? That wasfun !"
"If you"re an astronaut riding the vomit comet." I opened my eyes, squinting at a bright day. The barn and storm and riot were gone, left behind on yet another world. "Where are we? Is it home yet?"
"I don"t think so. There wasn"t time to pick a direction. Random chance again."
"d.a.m.n." The air didn"t smell like home, though it was nice and soft. It had that fresh after-dawn tinge and felt like a late spring or early summer month. Gra.s.s, lots of brilliantly green, lush gra.s.s covered gentle hills, a living invitation to roll around and act silly.
Gra.s.s is coo-ool.
"Argh!" said Terrin, clapping a hand over his eyes against the daylight. He dropped and began hurriedly rooting in his pack again. "Sungla.s.ses! Where are my shades?"
Mine were zipped in my jacket pocket. I put them on, then stowed away the flashlight in its designated pouch. My bag had been within Terrin"s circle, thankfully. Some of the debris from the barn floor had traveled with us. I found my grooming comb with the wide teeth and started working on my still-wet mane. A quick run-through, another good head-shake and it would dry just fine in the open air.
The rest of me was still pretty damp, though. In silent common accord, Terrin and I put on dry clothes.
He found his sungla.s.ses and a purple fishing hat. "I don"t like this place," he grumbled. "Something"s not right here. Too d.a.m.n much light." Under his short red hair he had naturally pale skin, so he had a right to complain. More than once I"d seen him lobster out after just an hour. Not a happy experience for either of us.
"You always say that, unless it"s a night landing."
A grouchy snarl as he continued digging. "Gimme your crystal." I gave it over. He put it in a small net bag along with his own quartz, safety-pinned it to the top of his hat, then pulled the hat down low over his brow. The crystals could start charging up with sun energy right away while we walked, an ingenious idea. Mine, as a matter of fact. He was a brilliant wizard, but I have my moments, too.
"So what happened?" I asked as he repacked all the junk he"d tossed around in his searches.
"What d"ya mean?" He pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and wrapped a bandana around his exposed neck to keep from burning. I never had to worry much about such things; my body-fur was better than sunblock-50.
"The mayor, the irate citizens, the mob, the chase scene. I just want to know why. We had a nice spot there."
"Mayor p.i.s.sed me off."
"Obviously. How?"
"His att.i.tude. Trying to act like he knew everything. Frigging amateurs. They do a little weather charm and think they"ve got the whole Multiverse in their hand when it"s the other way around. I wastrying to make him see what he was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with; you can"t just poke sticks at elementals for the fun of it.
Unless you know what you"re doing-and he didn"t-all kinds of s.h.i.t can happen."
"Weather? That storm . . . ?"
"Was his fault, not mine. Seemed to think he was helping out the farmers. I was trying to tell him he was sucking rain away from another area where it wa.s.supposed to be, upsetting balances, but he didn"t want to hear that. Nothing p.i.s.ses me off more than people who insist on being stupid. He wanted things to be growing in hismicroscopic piece of the planet-so I made some stuff grow to restore the balance."
"The purple daisies."
Terrin snickered. "Yeah. You should have heard everyone screaming when those sprouted out."
"I did. That"s why I came downstairs with our packs." For the sake of survival I was forever prepared and alert to the signs that a hasty exit was at hand. Screaming people was one of them. At the little inn where we"d been staying the common room had overflowed with vocalized panic. "You spent good magic on that? It"d have been better to punch him in the nose; the same mob would have come after us."
"I didn"t usemy magic, I transferred some local energy in a different direction. There was more than enough off that storm for me to turn him into a Triffid if I wanted."
"Or maybe that giant carrot guy fromThe Thing ?"
"Yeah, but the Howard Hawks version, not the other film-thoughthat would have been fun."
Terrin had some really warped ideas of what const.i.tuted fun. Most did not bear thinking about.
"I had to transfer energy anyway, use up the surplus," he added. "That wannabe Oz dufus with his grandstanding was too busy floating his ego with all the applause to pay attention to his storm. He"d left things running, so it was building up to a good hail fall. Would have ruined all the crops. I took the edgeoff with that daisy gag."
"The bugs, too?" It hadn"t been a pretty sight watching the mayor dancing around getting all bit up by the things. And it got downright revolting when he frantically started ripping his clothes off, the better to scratch at the hives.
"Those drained off the tornado that was coming."
"Really?"
"Yup. Nothing like spontaneous generation of life for using up excess power."
"Sure you didn"t use some of yours? You look a little gaunt."
"I just played traffic cop, and it"s this d.a.m.n daylight that"s messing with my looks."
He was touchy about his appearance, so I let it drop. "Will he ever get rid of the daisies and bugs?"
"Not anytime soon. He"ll have to find another wizard to fix it back, and that will cost him. Maybe he"ll learn a lesson or the other wizard can talk some sense into him. There"s nothing worse than Talents who think they know everything about the Art. They"re way more dangerous than those of us who do."
Terrin was an expert, and he did know a lot, but for the moment not enough to get us back home again.
I kept quiet on that sensitive point and nodded toward a hill. "I think there"s a road over there."
"What makes you think that?"
I shrugged. "It just seems the right way to go. You got your magic, I got my instinct."
"Okay. Let"s go find out where we are. I"m starving."
We had traveling food in the packs, along with water, but those were for emergency only during stopovers in truly barren worlds. Whenever possible, we tried to live off the land. That usually meant taking odd jobs to earn our way. I"d do street-singing and story-telling, and when he had the energy, Terrin would trade minor magics for cash, but only in places where magic was accepted. Otherwise, he bartended.
Once upon a time, oh, a few dozen worlds ago, we lived on Earth-our Earth, the one you"re on, not any of these other spots that called themselves by the same name. Terrin had a nice little metaphysical bookstore and coffee shop that afforded him the freedom to do what he liked. What he liked most after magic was getting laid-one of my favorites, too-and hardcore partying. The techno club raves he frequented in Deep Ellum in Dallas provided outlets for both. I"m more of a rock and roller. Techno is okay, just not for me. The rocker girls are just as cute.