Clinging to the stone and feeling rock dust work its way into the crusted blood and mud that matted his hair and beard, he realized that the shadow in front of him was not just an unlit strip of the cliff. The darkness was a hollow in the mesa, a runoff-cut chimney. He forced himself in.
It was cooler out of the sun’s searing light. The rock had worn unevenly, leaving a series of projections and ledges. Above him he could see the sky, deep blue and inviting like a pool of cool water. He needed water, so he began to climb. It was hard work, painful work, but he persevered. At one point, he grabbed what appeared to be a convenient handhold and the stone betrayed him. Screaming in agony, Sam slid down several meters in a cascade of dust and rock fragments. He lay against the rockface, winded and coughing, willing the dust to settle.
Beams of sunlight speared through the swirling motes, lending the tall hollow the air of a cathedral. Mineral flakes sparkled and flashed like fairy dust. Save for the faint noises of his own breathing, the world around him was absolutely silent. Suddenly ashamed that he had never once prayed during his recent trials, he did so now, asking first for forgiveness and only later for the strength to continue.
Some time passed before he could think of climbing again. He didn’t really feel capable of anything other than pain, but he pushed himself forward anyway. He crawled again to the chimney’s edge to resume his ascent, and came face to face with a Dragon. Or rather face to skull. Embedded in the sediments of the wall, the huge skull leered a toothy grin at him from its prison of time and stone. As he reached out to touch it, the rock fractured and a whole fang came away in his hand. He stared blankly at the tooth for a moment, then shrugged and slipped it into his pocket. He had better things to do than play with old bones.
He resumed his climb. If it had been hard before, it was more so now that he was even weaker. He was a few meters from the top when he realized that he had stopped perspiring. That meant something, but he couldn’t remember what. He pressed on, determined to cover those last meters before he collapsed.
The heat struck him again as he crawled out onto the surface. Shakily, he stood to survey the reward for his effort. In every direction, he saw more badlands. He might have been on Mars. Distant features were blurred by heat haze shimmer, or perhaps it was his own vision that blurred. Defeated, he lowered himself slowly to the ground. Adding insult, he sat directly on a large rock. He shifted his position to the left, only to land on another rock.
Sam wobbled to his feet, determined to kick the offending stones away. But he forgot about that as he struggled to make sense out of what he saw in the narrowing tunnel of his vision. There were more rocks. They were placed in a line. No, not a line, an outline-and a man-shaped one at that. He started to walk around it, trying to confirm what didn’t make sense, but his ankle, strained beyond further use from the climb, gave way. He hit the ground heavily. screaming out the torment at this latest abuse of his battered body. The sharp knives of pain cut his way into the darkness.
When he Came to, Sam was staring at the sky as it darkened to evening. He was weak, almost beyond caring. He felt forsaken and would have cried, but there didn’t seem to be enough water in his body. He must be near the end, because most of the pain had faded into numbness, tamed by his acceptance of its all-pervasive presence. He felt calm, detached from his body. The world around him seemed at once blurred and more sharply defined than he had ever known it.
“Is this where I die?” he asked the first star to appear in the deep blue to the east.
“That depends.”
He looked around for the voice, but saw no one. He was alone on the mesa except for a scrawny dog that looked a little bit like his abandoned Inu. But that couldn’t be. There were no dogs out here in the badlands. The animal must be a coyote. In any case, it couldn’t talk. He must be hallucinating.
“You’re an illusion,” he told the animal.
It grinned doggishly at him. “Sure of that are you?”
Sam decided to play along with his dementia. What harm could it do? “If you’re not, what’s going on?”
“You are lying in a dreaming circle.”
“A what?”
“A dreaming circle. You know, a place to have visions of power. The Indians who used to come here thought it was a pretty potent place. You gonna lie there all night?”
Sam rolled over to see the animal better. There was no pain, which wasn’t surprising. He was in the midst of a delirium-induced fantasy. Removing the pain was the least his brain could do for him. “Just who or what are you?”
“Call me Dog. You and me, we’re going to be good buddies. I’ve got a strong feeling about that.”
“I don’t believe in you. You’re an impossibility.”
“What’s impossible? You’re talking to me and I’m talking back. How can you not believe? Don’t your ears work?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
Dog cocked his head in such a way as to convey a shrug. “Or dollars, either. But we’re not talking price… yet.”
This really was impossible. Sam flopped over onto his back again. “Go away. Can’t you see that I’m dying?”
“Do you want to die?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t help you.” Dog trotted a few meters away and sat down with his back to Sam.
Sam felt annoyed. How could this figment of his own imagination turn its back on him? Hadn’t it been hard enough getting this close to death?
Dog looked at Sam over his shoulder. “Dying is easy. Happens all the time. It’s the next part that’s tricky.”
“Guess I’ll find out for myself soon enough. My brain’s baking in this sun, It must be.” Sam rolled to a sitting position and caught his knees within the sweep of his folded arms. “I’ll be completely dehydrated before long.”
“That’s the spirit. I knew you’d come around.” Dog trotted back and sat down facing Sam.
Sam stared into the animal’s eyes. The soft brown orbs seemed very old, filled with an alien wisdom. Those eyes were compelling, begging trust and encouraging the sharing of his deepest concerns. “After I die, my sister will have no one to help her. And no one will find Hanae’s murderers.”
“You’re still mixed up, using the wrong preposition.” Dog shook his head. “The word you want is unless, not after.”
“Words won’t matter soon. I’m dying.”
“Right on both counts. But I’ve got a word for you that will count morn than anything else in your life.” Dog grew as he spoke, expanding upward and outward and growing insubstantial as he did. Deep night, not the growing twilight around them, dwelt within his shape and Sam could see the stars in unbelievable numbers. The dog shape grew to encompass the sky from horizon to horizon. It lowered onto the earth and Sam was swallowed up by the shape. A word rang in his head and echoed across the landscape, soundless but loud. Magic.
He was afraid.
Turning, he ran. And ran. For kilometers, it seemed, certainly further than the limited surface of the small tableland should have allowed. A Dragon reared up before him, its form flickering and melting through diverse shapes. Sometimes it was covered with feathers like the serpent Tessien; at other times, it was an Eastern Dragon, a long, sinuous shape with a pair of legs instead of wings and long barbels drooping like a mustache over its toothy jaws. Mostly it was the powerful, scaly bulk of a Western Dragon. Its wings arched up over its back and shadowed him as it stood back on its hind legs and reached for him with its forepaws. It was terror and power and the unknown, and it wore the mantle of death.