Chapter 7: Men of Black and Red

The sun was warm and bright in a cloudless sky as they lazed by the edge of the water. The air was fresh and clean, pungent with the myriad odors of moist earth and growing things. It had been late November and Chicago had been firmly in the grip of winter when Chad had left it behind, but even this close to Gardhe's equator spring was fast fading into the warmth of summer and the shade of the trees along the river bank was welcome. He'd said something about it to Mike, who'd just shaken his head and muttered something about "... elliptical orbit, more so than Earth."

They had spent the last couple of weeks just relaxing and getting to know their hosts. There had been little they could do in the way of hunting to earn their keep, since neither Chad nor Mike knew how to use bows and arrows. It hadn't seemed to matter, though. There was no lack of food in the bustling camp of the Followers of The Goddess.

The days of Gardhe, short though they were, had given them time to settle in to the camp's routine and improve their knowledge of the language. Evenings had typically been filled by listening to the minstrels' songs and stories around the campfires, or else in questionandanswer sessions with Doranthe and the other councilors.

Ahlenya and Lom had taken to the life of the camp with enthusiasm. No more for them the rough clothes and dawn to dusk hard labor of a wilderness farm, the unending drudgery of tending crops and herds. For Chad it had been a time to unwind, to relax some of the tension that had been his constant companion for longer than he liked to remember. Mike, as always, had been only too glad to store up hours of sleep against the time that they would be needed.

"An old campaigner's trick," he'd answered with a grin when Chad had teased him about it.

"Let's go for a swim," Ahlenya had suggested that morning when the breakfast chores were done, brushing a lock of pale golden hair back from her face. "We can take fishing lines along, and some bait."

"That sounds good to me," Chad agreed. "What do you think, Mike."

"Yeah, that sounds good all right. I could really use a mess of fish for our supper."

It was only a short walk from camp, strolling upstream through the golden woods to where gentle rapids and a quiet pool made a perfect setting for both fishing and swimming. They stripped off their clothes and happily splashed each other in the chill water until they were cold enough to need to bask in the sunshine for a while.

"Hey, man. What did ya mean about weapons to use against the Landsmen and their cities?" Chad asked a while later as he lazily watched the wooden bobber of his fishing line drift with the slow current. He and Lom were still waiting for their first solid bites, though Mike and Ahlenya already had several fish apiece on their stringers.

"Gunpowder, Kid. Guns to knock the soldiers off their horses... I mean, their riding pigs, and powder to blow up city walls." Mike had been slower to pick up the language than Chad, but he was still making good progress. When the two of them talked, he still mostly used English, but had no problem making himself understood by the Followers when he needed to. "It'd be a cinch to make, they've already got all the stuff they need for it, but I still say it wouldn't win the war for us. We've got a whole lot to learn about this world before we'll know what would be the most help to them. Speakin' of which, did you see how Doranthe's scouts work?"

"Yeah, and I'm still not sure if I believe it or not. I was sittin' there yesterday morning, wishin' I had a cuppa coffee to finish off my breakfast. This here kid gets up from where he's flaked out under a tree, and trots over to Doranthe. He says sumpin' like, 'Hey, man, there's a squad of soldiers headin' this way, over by the hill path.' Doranthe sends out a dozen or so archers to chase them away, and sure enough, they was right where the kid says. I asked Doranthe how the kid knew about the soldiers, and he says that the kid'd seen 'em. I didn't quite dig this bit, 'cause the kid's been flaked out under that tree ever since I woke up, but Doranthe says that's how all his scouts work. Sumpin' like Ahlenya, and her 'The Goddess tells me' routine, I guess."

"She does tell me," Ahlenya replied drowsily from a mossy bank where she lay stretched out, letting the sun dry and warm her bare skin after their swim, head pillowed on her rolledup tunic. Chad leaned back against a tree trunk, watching appreciatively as the sun's reflections from the rippling water made moving highlights on her slimly rounded body. She might be a year or so younger than he was, Chad thought to himself, but her body certainly was fully developed. He would have to watch it that he didn't get in over his head with her, he thought, reminding himself once again to treat her just like a younger sister... "Just like She tells me you've got a fish about to bite."

"Yeah, sure I... Hey! I got one!" Chad hauled in his line with a plump fish flapping on the hook. With a puzzled look on his face, he slipped it onto his stringer.

"I told you it was there," she giggled, sitting up and mocking his expression.

"You sure did, and I'd give a lot to know how you did it." Chad baited his hook again and dropped it back into the water. "Can you teach us how it's done?"

"I don't know. It isn't really something that you can learn. Either you can do it or you can't." Brushing moss and twigs from her back and shoulders, she combed her hair back from her face with her fingers and shrugged back into her tunic and pantaloons. Once more, the tiny figurine was taken from the thong around her neck and placed on a smoothedoff patch of dirt. "Come here, and I'll show you how it works."

She had both of them sit on the ground facing her, hands clasped loosely in their laps, while Lom watched all four fishing lines for them.

"Now relax all over, and concentrate on the amulet. Just let your minds drift. When I make it move, then you try to move it along with me."

Once more her breathing slowed. The figurine stirred and lifted heavily into the air, this time swaying and dipping violently. It rose until it was level with their eyes, fell almost to the ground, then rose again. All the time, it twisted and turned like a live thing. Finally, it gave one last convulsive leap and fell back, inert.

"Hey, I did move it some," Chad breathed. "I could feel it, somehow!"

"You did," Ahlenya agreed, but Mike could only shake his head, muttering that he hadn't felt anything. "You have much power, but it is not under control. Why did you not learn to do this as a child?"

"Nobody in my world believes in this kind of power," Chad answered. "Or, at least, not many do, and there are none who know how to control it. I've always had hunches, but even they've been a lot stronger since I came here."

"Yeah, this world may have something to do with it, at that," Mike agreed. "From what I've been told, each universe is just a little bit different from all the others. That's how come the portals can be tuned so's they reach different ones. That could explain a lot of things, like why these powers work better here."

"And, your world does not know The Goddess," Ahlenya added. "The power is Hers, after all. She only shares it with us."

"Whatever the reason, that stuff does seem to work here. We'll try it some more another time, but right now I think we'd better be heading back to camp," Chad told them, getting up and retrieving his fishing line and stringer of fish.

"Another hunch, Kid?"

"Naw, just my stomach sayin' it's time to eat. I'm finally gettin' used to these short days."

"Say, Chad, if you don't mind my askin'. Why is it you use good English one minute, and slang the next? You use lousy grammar most of the time, but you've taught Ahlenya to speak perfectly good English."

"It's no secret, I guess. My folks taught me to talk right. Then, after they was killed in a car wreck and I went to live with Uncle Charley and Aunt LuAnne, I had to learn real quick to talk the way the other kids did so's I didn't get beat on as often. I used to read a lot, even after I dropped outa school, and I can still use good English, but by now it's an effort." He grinned, a bit shamefaced. "Unless I watch it, it comes out pure homeboy."

It was only a short walk back to the tent city, but even before they reached it they could hear a rising murmur of agitated voices.

A scowling Doranthe was waiting for them by the council fire, flanked by Cymwis and Homarthe. He hailed them as they made for their tent. "Chad, Mike! Come over here right now! There's bad news."

"What is it?" Mike handed his fishing tackle to Lom.

"Those new weapons you told us about. The Landsmen's soldiers have started using them." Even as he spoke, a crowd gathered, and Chad could tell that many of the comments directed their way were far from friendly.

"What? That can't be. We're the only ones who know the secret of how to make them!"

"Yes, that's what you told us." Doranthe's scowl deepened, his hand straying toward the sword at his belt. "A party of raiders from another band of Followers attacked a caravan, three days travel from here. They were driven off by weapons that made loud noises, throwing chunks of hot metal at them. Several of them were killed or wounded."