The sound was horrific. Even sandwiched as she was in between Dale, hunched over the snowmobile's handlebars, and Manoj, his hands delicately placed on her shoulders as he tried to keep his balance on the very back of the seat, the roar of the engine was the sensory input that overrode everything else. She kept her eyes shut most of the time, trying not to think about all the ways they could crash, or skid, or slew sideways, maybe causing the sledge to flip, crushing Karen and Glenda face-down in the snow under its weight...
Even though she knew Dale was taking it slow, travelling not any faster than he deemed absolutely safe, she couldn't keep the fear from her mind. It still seemed like they were travelling unusually fast. It must have been her anticipation, knowing that they were leaving the broken mountain behind, and heading for something better. She had a very limited view of where they were going (Dale was a big, sturdy guy, after all, one of the few facts that helped to ease Sheryl's mind as she kept tight hold of both sides of his wide security belt, per his instructions), but she tried to piece together a mental picture of the terrain from what she could glean off to either side, and what it had looked like as she and Kerren had driven up the service road. It felt like that had been ages ago.
From what she could tell, Dale was following a downhill track that ran between that service road and the open range of large bumps that she never would have imagined a forest looks like after an avalanche. It was the most gradual and smooth way to go, and she was thankful for that. She had already been worried about what Kerren's injuries would mean in terms of her long-range recovery; she didn't need to add fear of further damage from a jarring journey on top of that.
All in all, it should have been a tranquil journey... but there was something off about it. It might have been the high whine of the engine, but it sounded wrong. She never ridden on one of these things, and didn't know why she was thinking that, but there it was. The thought wouldn't leave her head. There seemed to be some component of it that seemed oddly familiar, a high-pitched sound that arose, held, and fell off again in a repetitive way that raised the hair on the back of her neck.
What *was* that? Now that she was focusing on it, she had the disorienting sense that it was coming from behind her, instead of from the engine up front. Could it be some trick of sound, bouncing off of something and coming back from a different direction? But there was nothing out here for it to bounce back from; they were traveling through a virtual wasteland, with nothing over a few feet still standing save for the Lodge itself, far behind them now.
Her face suddenly felt as cold as the wind hitting it. What if it was the horned thing, following them down the mountain, roaring as it leapt, the fury of a whole pack of wolves bearing down on them as they fled? She felt a stripe of electricity shoot up her spine, and felt her head start to turn of its own volition. Her body clearly didn't care if death itself was bearing down to gore them all... she had to see, had to know.
But what she could see of the mountain behind them was clear. Everything was as it had been the last time she had seen it. Manoj was behind her, Kelly sitting on the sledge with her strong legs propped up against it, behind them the reclined forms of Kerren and Glenda...
When she saw Kerren's mouth, and the way it was stretched wide, it came together in her mind. Kerren was *screaming*. That was the high sound, and why it had seemed familiar! Suddenly her hands, which had been holding so tightly onto Dale's wide leather belt, were yanking at them, pulling at both sides with equal panicked insistency.
"Stop!" she was screaming into the wind, into the security guard's ear. It didn't matter whether stopping would expose them to the horned thing; something horrible was happening, and she had to know what it was.
Dale swiveled his head from one side to the other frantically, trying to determine what was going on, whether the problem was with Sheryl or something nearby. He couldn't see anything, Sheryl knew, but he was slowing anyway, trying to keep their vehicle from skidding as they came to a stop. Even though Kelly was using her legs to keep the sledge from bumping into the back of the snowmobile, Sheryl felt the jolt when the two impacted.
"Cut the engine!" Sheryl was now yelling into Dale's ear, afraid that if he stopped but kept idling, they would miss the horrific sound of Kerren's screams. He did, and the air was filled with... silence.
Then a deep intake of breath came from behind them, and Kerren screamed again.
Sheryl threw herself sideways off the snowmobile, falling into the snow. There was no other way to dismount, being stuck between Manoj and Dale. Snow got into her eyes and mouth, she stumbled to her feet, and she staggered back to where Kerren was. Her wife's scream died out as she approached, but her eyes will still wide open. She looked over at Glenda, whose eyes were still open as well. But Sheryl could immediately tell the difference.
"Oh no..." Sheryl breathed. Glenda's sightless eyes were looking right at Kerren, who had no way of moving out of their glassy stare. That must have been why she started screaming, Sheryl thought, because she couldn't avoid that final look.
Sheryl knelt down next to Kerren, rested her hand on the top of her wife's head, mostly because there was no other exposed place for her to put it. "It's all right," she said, her throat already starting to become scratchy with impending tears. "She's okay now." Sheryl didn't even know what she was saying, or what kind of consolation she was trying to give. A clearly sweet, conflicted woman had just been accidentally killed by a famous author. What meaningful words were there for her to say?
Those eyes... they were deep blue, Sheryl noticed now that they were still. Unsure of whether it would work the way it did in the movies, she carefully reached out with one hand and tried to lower Glenda's eyelids. She succeeded, sort of. There was still a rim of white at the bottom where the lids didn't quite meet the bottom row of lashes. The effect was debatably creepier than having her stare at them.
Now Dale was there, falling to his knees in the snow just as Sheryl had done on Kerren's side. His hands reached for the deceased woman reflexively but stopped themselves, unsure of what to do. "No... no..." he murmured, his deep voice clear as tolling bells in the snow-blanketed silence surrounding them. "We just needed a little longer, just a little longer..." One of his hesitant hands found a place on Glenda's temple, as if he were feeling for a pulse, and remained there even when they found nothing.
Kerren and Glenda were both crying now, as silently as they could. Sheryl wanted to move away -- Glenda and Dale's final tender moment was less than two feet away from her face -- but stayed because Kerren couldn't go with her. Deep rivers of guilt flowed through her stomach like cold lava, this death made even more awful by the fact that her own love was still here, still alive in this most precarious of situations.
Dale's fingers drifted back through Glenda's hair, stroking her head softly, and Sheryl realized that he probably never had the chance to touch her that way before. His fingers disappeared into the soft waves, and his head bent down to hers. He rested his forehead just above her ear, and paused.
"I'm so sorry, Dale," Sheryl whispered. She was aware that Kelly had gotten up off the sledge when she realized what was going on, and she and Manoj were now half-seated on the snowmobile, arms wrapped protectively around each other.
Even though he was whispering, his voice hoarse with regret, Dale spoke almost directly into Glenda's unhearing ear. "There just wasn't enough time," he said, his face scrunching into a horrific mask before springing back into some woeful resemblance of his warm, kindly face. "It all happened so *fast*... and I didn't think I deserved any of it... but *you* did. You always did."
Sheryl laid one arm lightly across Kerren. Watching the sorrow of Dale saying his final goodbye to Glenda, she realized how much she needed Kerren, loved her even through all the trouble and uncertainty they'd had. It had been too late to get Glenda to help, but there was still time for the rest of them. She and Kerren could be the way they had been.
None of them made any indication that they needed to hurry to continue their journey. They gave Dale the time he needed, to kneel there in the snow and make the first step of what would be many, into deep grief. Until he was ready, they all patiently waited and said their own private prayers, both for the dead and those still in need of saving.
-11.2-
The passage was longer than he had expected. He tried comparing its length to when he had crawled down it just after the avalanche had collapsed the hallway. Then, as now, he had been traversing a narrow, low passage that may or may not actually have existed; this time, however, he had the experience of his previous trip to keep claustrophobic panic from his mind.
Devoid of other options, he kept retreating, sliding backwards into the tiny crevice on his stomach, his feet ceaselessly flailing around, trying to determine the point when the passage would either open up or close down entirely. Neither happened. The pressing weight of debris around him was always just big enough for him to slip through, just clear enough for him to not spear himself on a jagged edge or lacerating point. He knew he didn't have to go all that far for the Qoloni to be unable to follow, but kept moving anyway. Perhaps he was hoping to rewind time, maybe it was merely the act of backing away from his nemesis that kept him from pondering the more insane questions that were pressing in on him as closely as physical space was.
So he kept moving, waiting for a change, any kind of change. The dim point of light ahead of him had dwindled until he could not tell where it was anymore, or whether some subtle curve in the crawlspace had turned it out of his view. In any event, the sounds of struggle had long since ceased from that direction. Now there was only his breathing, the rasp of his elbows on the jumbled carpet, the scrape of his toenails against dirt...
What? The terrain he was advancing into was definitely changing, from the uneven floor of the hallway to soft, slightly damp dirt. He stopped, unsure of whether he should continue. What was his other option, however? He couldn't retreat (in this case, that meant move forward) to the place where his dark creation might still be waiting. Also, he was victim of the writerly curse of needing to find out What Happens Next. So he pressed on, the ache in his spine beginning to lift as he passed completely over to grassy ground. He felt that strange, lifting sensation that he remembered from his dreams, as if he had entered a place where gravity had less of a persistent grip on him.
He knew this place. It was his. And Theda's. He sped up his efforts. He could not pinpoint when it happened, but he became aware that he was no longer crawling on his belly in a low, tight tunnel of debris. He was on a patch of ground in a moonlit grove, the air lying refreshingly warm over him like a soothing blanket, limitless space above him.
He stopped, rolled over onto his back (not even thinking about the knife wound there, although it didn't seem to hurt anymore), and sat up. His breath caught. He was once again in his dream place. He was within the ring of Sounding Stones, their carven runes still absent of their inner, pulsing light. But they were still there. This place still existed. He didn't truly know how afraid he had been until this moment how afraid he had been that the storm (and don't forget the horned thing, he had seen its shadow here!) had blasted it away.
It was much as he remembered it, although he had never been here during whatever passed for night in this realm. He looked out beyond the ring into the forest beyond, trying to see how far the familiarity of the place stretched. The trees still seemed as thick and lush as before, the farthest depths lit with flickering their usual will-o'-the-wisps that seemed to promise even more wondrous lands beyond.
There was no moon in the sky, and Bruce noted that he was unaware if one even existed in this world. Or, if there were one, what it would look like. He had to investigate only by the light of the stars, which knitted themselves into unknown constellations overhead, and a thin, pale curtain of aurora that hovered high, high above him, barely moving as it cast a faint, evenly green caste over everything.
No wind stirred the dream world, and similarly Bruce was holding his breath. He moved to the edge of the ring, moving as closely as he dared to the gap between the two Sounding Stones where Theda invariably made her appearances. Would she come now? Or had the storm and Qoloni permanently chased her away?
"You've come," she said, from behind him. Bruce whirled around, and there she was, not inside the ring with him but at the gap on the opposite side, although the source of her voice, as always, seemed to be coming from inside his head.
"Yes," he said, turning and walking toward her. "And so have you. I'm so glad to see you."
Her robes, myriad veils that swirled around her as if she were underwater, hid most of her form from his view. Only her face, with those crystal-vivid eyes, did he see with absolute clarity.
"The Qoloni," she stated, and he was surprised to hear her pronounce it with a slightly different inflection than he had always imagined it. "It went over with you."
Bruce nodded, hoping that now, finally, he would get some answers. "That's right," he said. "I don't know if it was the storm you had here, or the avalanche I had there, but it did. It took a while, but it found me. And now you have to tell me how to get rid of it, or defeat it!"
Theda considered him closely, even as he came to stand at the gap between the two stones, the limit of how far he could venture into this strange world. She didn't seem in any particular hurry to clear things up for him. "You are in great danger," she said. "The others, as well. The Qoloni does not discriminate. It knows only its own rage."
"I know I am!" he agreed. He spun around, lifting his shirt in the back to show her the knife wound. "I've already been attacked! And by one of the others!"
He craned his neck to see her reaction, but there was none. He got that feeling he often felt when he was talking to her; that this idealized image of a woman was but one facet of a vast intelligence that often acted as if it were speaking with a belligerent child. "There is no wound. It does not translate here." Bruce probed with the fingers of his other hand, realizing how ridiculous he must look, and found his skin at the small of his back smooth and unbroken.
Theda went on. "I had feared this. The convergence of your mind with several others has caused an anomaly in the Allstory."
"Others?" Bruce asked, tugging his shirt back down and facing her again. "What others? You mean the woman who looks like you?"
"Not just her," Theda said calmly. "The woman who resembles me. The man who painted me. The men who have read your story. These are just a few of those who have caused a rift. I had feared this... the gift I gave you, the story that yearned to be told, was a powerful one."
"The story of the Qoloni?" Bruce asked. "Are you saying that I wrote it so powerfully that it stuck in their minds? And combined, they've managed to harness that part of the Allstory?"
"In part," Theda said, her voice edging toward impatience. "The woman who resembles me is more that she seems. As is one of the readers. A strong combination, and your physical presence has caused a sort of bubble to split off your particular reality. That disruption caused the avalanche."
Bruce thought this over. Hadn't the Indian fellow said something about an alternate reality? Did he have some inkling of what was going on too? Is that why he remained behind as well? "But it can be restored, can't it?" Bruce asked. "We can sort of... reattach ourselves back to our own reality?"
For the first time, Theda's face registered a clear expression, and it was concern. The hair on the back of Bruce's neck rose as if he were about to be struck by lightning. "Perhaps," she said. "But they would need to be made truly aware of the power of the Allstory."
"I can tell them!" Bruce blurted. "I know that I don't understand it much, but I can explain what I can! I already told them some of--"
"You have already told them too much!" Theda said, so loudly that it made Bruce feel like the insides of his skull were being pushed outward because of its force. He recoiled, and when she spoke again she had reined in her volume. "There is danger in letting others in on the secret. The result could be more damaging than what the Qoloni could do."
"But I can't just give up, sacrifice myself as a necessary loss! And what about the others? I've already... hurt one person. How can I accept letting them all go down with me, as part of some trans-dimensional accident that they don't even know they helped cause?"
Theda stared at him for a long moment, and where he had once read affection in her goring stare, he now read blankness. "The Allstory preserves itself in any way it needs to. Its near-infinite blind alleys and ruined worlds are inevitable. You may have just ended up in one. It's no one's fault." The words did nothing to soothe him.
Bruce was growing angry again. If he had only known, on that long-ago night when Theda first came to him and gave him his first story, that there would be such a price paid for her generosity, with such astronomical dividends...
"Why?" he asked her suddenly. "Why did you even come to me in the first place?"
"Because you asked for me," she said. "All those nights that you lay awake, begging the Universe for inspiration. That was what drew me."
Bruce couldn't take responsibility for this catastrophe. He had never signed a contract in blood, never made a deal with the devil, which was what he was quickly determining Theda to be. "I'm going to find them," he said through his clamped jaw. "I'm going to tell them, and we're going to beat this. The Qoloni, the Allstory itself, can just go to hell!" But his words sounded flat and toothless.
"I cannot stop you," she said. "But what I can tell you is this... You cannot win."
"We'll just see about that," Bruce said. "If I created the damn thing--" he ignored the arched eyebrow he received from his muse, "-- then I can put it down." With this, he turned to storm away. He got to the midway point in the circle of Sounding Stones before he stopped, realizing that he did not know how to leave this place. He had never consciously left it before, had done so only by waking up.
He turned back to Theda, about to sheepishly ask her for a manner of exit, but she had disappeared. The wind picked up, flowing through the giant stones like hissing breath through teeth.
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