The Wind Through the Keyhole Read online

  With such thoughts in his mind, Tim guessed it would be a long time before he could get to sleep, but five minutes later he was lost to the world.

  He dreamed of throcken dancing in the moonlight.

  He began to think of Daria as his companion, although she didn't speak much, and when she did, Tim didn't always understand why (or what in Na'ar she was talking about). Once it was a series of numbers. Once she told him she would be "off-line" because she was "searching for satellite" and suggested he stop. He did, and for half an hour the plate seemed completely dead--no lights, no voice. Just when he'd begun to believe she really had died, the green light came back on, the little stick reappeared, and Daria announced, "I have reestablished satellite link."

  "Wish you joy of it," Tim replied.

  Several times, she offered to calculate a detour. This Tim continued to decline. And once, near the end of the second day after leaving the Fagonard, she recited a bit of verse:

  See the Eagle's brilliant eye,

  And wings on which he holds the sky!

  He spies the land and spies the sea

  And even spies a child like me.

  If he lived to be a hundred (which, given his current mad errand, Tim doubted was in the cards), he thought he would never forget the things he saw on the three days he and Daria trudged ever upward in the continuing heat. The path, once vague, became a clear lane, one that for several wheels was bordered by crumbling rock walls. Once, for a space of almost an hour, the corridor in the sky above that lane was filled with thousands of huge red birds flying south, as if in migration. But surely, Tim thought, they must come to rest in the Endless Forest. For no birds like that had ever been seen above the village of Tree. Once four blue deer less than two feet high crossed the path ahead of him, seeming to take no notice of the thunderstruck boy who stood staring at these mutie dwarfs. And once they came to a field filled with giant yellow mushrooms standing four feet high, with caps the size of umbrellas.

  "Are they good to eat, Daria?" Tim asked, for he was reaching the end of the goods in the hamper. "Does thee know?"

  "No, traveler," Daria replied. "They are poison. If you even brush their dust on your skin, you will die of seizures. I advise extreme caution."

  This was advice Tim took, even holding his breath until he was past that deadly grove filled with treacherous, sunshiny death.

  Near the end of the third day, he emerged on the edge of a narrow chasm that fell away for a thousand feet or more. He could not see the bottom, for it was filled with a drift of white flowers. They were so thick that he at first mistook them for a cloud that had fallen to earth. The smell that wafted up to him was fantastically sweet. A rock bridge spanned this gorge, on the other side passing through a waterfall that glowed blood-red in the reflected light of the setting sun.

  "Am I meant to cross that?" Tim asked faintly. It looked not much wider than a barn-beam . . . and, in the middle, not much thicker.

  No answer from Daria, but the steadily glowing green light was answer enough.

  "Maybe in the morning," Tim said, knowing he would not sleep for thinking about it, but also not wanting to chance it so close to day's end. The idea of having to negotiate the last part of that lofty causeway in the dark was terrifying.

  "I advise you to cross now," Daria told him, "and continue to the North Forest Kinnock Dogan with all possible speed. Detour is no longer possible."

  Looking at the gorge with its chancy bridge, Tim hardly needed the voice from the plate to tell him that a detour was no longer possible. But still . . .

  "Why can't I wait until morning? Surely it would be safer."

  "Directive Nineteen." A click louder than any he had heard before came from the plate and then Daria added, "But I advise speed, Tim."

  He had several times asked her to call him by name rather than as traveler. This was the first time she had done so, and it convinced him. He left the Fagonard tribe's basket--not without some regret--because he thought it might unbalance him. He tucked the last two popkins into his shirt, slung the waterskin over his back, then checked to make sure both the four-shot and his father's hand-ax were firmly in place on either hip. He approached the stone causeway, looked down into the banks of white flowers, and saw the first shadows of evening beginning to pool there. He imagined himself making that one you-can-never-take-it-back misstep; saw himself whirling his arms in a fruitless effort to keep his balance; felt his feet first losing the rock and then running on air; heard his scream as the fall began. There would be a few moments to regret all the life he might have lived, and then--

  "Daria," he said in a small, sick voice, "do I have to?"

  No answer, which was answer enough. Tim stepped out over the drop.

  The sound of his bootheels on rock was very loud. He didn't want to look down, but had no choice; if he didn't mind where he was going, he would be doomed for sure. The rock bridge was as wide as a village path when he began, but by the time he got to the middle--as he had feared, although he had hoped it was just his eyes playing tricks--it was only the width of his shor'boots. He tried walking with his arms outstretched, but a breeze came blowing down the gorge, billowing his shirt and making him feel like a kite about to lift off. He lowered them and walked on, heel-to-toe and heel-to-toe, wavering from side to side. He became convinced his heart was beating its last frenzied beats, his mind thinking its last random thoughts.

  Mama will never know what happened to me.

  Halfway across, the bridge was at its narrowest, also its thinnest. Tim could feel its fragility through his feet, and could hear the wind playing its pitch pipe along its eroded underside. Now each time he took a step, he had to swing a boot out over the drop.

  Don't freeze, he told himself, but he knew that if he hesitated, he might do just that. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw movement below, and he did hesitate.

  Long, leathery tentacles were emerging from the flowers. They were slate-gray on top and as pink as burned skin underneath. They rose toward him in a wavery dance--first two, then four, then eight, then a forest of them.

  Daria again said, "I advise speed, Tim."

  He forced himself to start walking again. Slowly at first, but faster as the tentacles continued to close in. Surely no beast had a thousand-foot reach, no matter how monstrous the body hiding down there in the flowers, but when Tim saw the tentacles thinning out and stretching to reach even higher, he began to hurry. And when the longest of them reached the underside of the bridge and began to fumble its way along it, he broke into a run.

  The waterfall--no longer red, now a fading pinkish-orange--thundered ahead of him. Cold spray spattered his hot face. Tim felt something caress his boot, seeking purchase, and threw himself forward at the water with an inarticulate yell. There was one moment of freezing cold--it encased his body like a glove--and then he was on the other side of the falls and back on solid ground.

  One of the tentacles came through. It reared up like a snake, dripping . . . and then withdrew.

  "Daria! Are you all right?"

  "I'm waterproof," Daria replied with something that sounded suspiciously like smugness.

  Tim picked himself up and looked around. He was in a little rock cave. Written on one wall, in paint that once might have been red but had over the years (or perhaps centuries) faded to a dull rust, was this cryptic notation:

  JOHN 3:16

  FEER HELL HOPE FOR HEVEN

  MAN JESUS

  Ahead of him was a short stone staircase filled with fading sunset light. To one side of it was a litter of tin cans and bits of broken machinery--springs, wires, broken glass, and chunks of green board covered with squiggles of metal. On the other side of the stairs was a grinning skeleton with what looked like an ancient canteen draped over its ribcage. Hello, Tim! that grin seemed to say. Welcome to the far side of the world! Want a drink of dust? I have plenty!

  Tim climbed the stairs, skittering past the relic. He knew perfectly well it wouldn'
t come to life and try to snare him by the boot, as the tentacles from the flowers had tried to do; dead was dead. Still, it seemed safer to skitter.

  When he emerged, he saw that the path once more entered the woods, but he wouldn't be there for long. Not far ahead, the great old trees pulled back and the long, long upslope he had been climbing ended in a clearing far larger than the one where the bumblers had danced. There an enormous tower made of metal girders rose into the sky. At the top was a blinking red light.

  "You have almost reached your destination," Daria said. "The North Forest Kinnock Dogan is three wheels ahead." That click came again, even louder than before. "You really must hurry, Tim."

  As Tim stood looking at the tower with its blinking light, the breeze that had so frightened him while crossing the rock bridge came again, only this time its breath was chilly. He looked up into the sky and saw the clouds that had been lazing toward the south were now racing.

  "It's the starkblast, Daria, isn't it? The starkblast is coming."

  Daria didn't reply, but Tim didn't need her to.

  He began to run.

  By the time he reached the Dogan clearing, he was out of breath and only able to trot, in spite of his sense of urgency. The wind continued to rise, pushing against him, and the high branches of the ironwood trees had begun to whisper. The air was still warm, but Tim didn't think it would stay that way for long. He needed to get undercover, and he hoped to do so in this Dogan-thing.

  But when he entered the clearing, he barely spared a glance for the round, metal-roofed building which stood at the base of the skeletal tower with its blinking light. He had seen something else that took all his attention, and stole his breath.

  Am I seeing that? Am I really seeing that?

  "Gods," he whispered.

  The path, as it crossed the clearing, was paved in some smooth dark material, so bright that it reflected both the trees dancing in the rising wind and the sunset-tinged clouds flowing overhead. It ended at a rock precipice. The whole world seemed to end there, and to begin again a hundred wheels or more distant. In between was a great chasm of rushing air in which leaves danced and swirled. There were bin-rusties as well. They rose and twisted helplessly in the eddies and currents. Some were obviously dead, the wings ripped from their bodies.

  Tim hardly noticed the great chasm and the dying birds, either. To the left of the metal road, about three yards from the place where the world dropped off into nothingness, there stood a round cage made of steel bars. Overturned in front of it was a battered tin bucket he knew all too well.

  In the cage, pacing slowly around a hole in the center, was an enormous tyger.

  It saw the staring, gapemouthed boy and approached the bars. Its eyes were as large as Points balls, but a brilliant green instead of blue. On its hide, stripes of dark orange alternated with those of richest midnight black. Its ears were cocked. Its snout wrinkled back from long white teeth. It growled. The sound was low, like a silk garment being ripped slowly up a seam. It could have been a greeting . . . but Tim somehow doubted it.

  Around its neck was a silver collar. From this hung two objects. One looked like a playing card. The other was a key with a strange twisted shape.

  Tim had no idea how long he stood captured by those fabulous emerald eyes, or how long he might have remained so, but the extreme peril of his situation announced itself in a series of low, thudding explosions.

  "What's that?"

  "Trees on the far side of the Great Canyon," Daria said. "Extreme rapid temperature change is causing them to implode. Seek shelter, Tim."

  The starkblast--what else? "How long before it gets here?"

  "Less than an hour." There was another of those loud clicks. "I may have to shut down."

  "No!"

  "I have violated Directive Nineteen. All I can say in my defense is that it's been a very long time since I have had anyone to talk to." Click! Then--more worrisome, more ominous--Clunk!

  "What about the tyger? Is it the Guardian of the Beam?" As soon as he articulated the idea, Tim was filled with horror. "I can't leave a Guardian of the Beam out here to die in the starkblast!"

  "The Guardian of the Beam at this end is Aslan," Daria said. "Aslan is a lion, and if he still lives, he is far from here, in the land of endless snows. This tyger is . . . Directive Nineteen!" Then an even louder clunk as she overrode the directive, at what cost Tim did not know. "This tyger is the magic of which I spoke. Never mind it. Seek shelter! Good luck, Tim. You have been my fr--"

  Not a click this time, nor a clunk, but an awful crunch. Smoke drifted up from the plate and the green light went out.

  "Daria!"

  Nothing.

  "Daria, come back!"

  But Daria was gone.

  The artillery sounds made by the dying trees were still far across that cloudy gap in the world, but there could be no doubt that they were approaching. The wind continued to strengthen, growing ever colder. High above, a final batch of clouds was boiling past. Behind them was an awful violet clarity in which the first stars had begun to appear. The whisper of the wind in the high branches of the surrounding trees had risen to an unhappy chorus of sighs. It was as if the ironwoods knew their long, long lives were coming to an end. A great woodsman was on the way, swinging an ax made of wind.

  Tim took another look at the tyger (it had resumed its slow and stately pacing, as if Tim had been worth only momentary consideration), then hurried to the Dogan. Small round windows of real glass--very thick, from the look--marched around its circumference at the height of Tim's head. The door was also metal. There was no knob or latch, only a slot like a narrow mouth. Above the slot, on a rusting steel plate, was this:

  NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS, LTD.

  North Forest Kinnock

  Bend Quadrant

  OUTPOST 9

  Low Security

  USE KEYCARD

  These words were hard for him to make out, because they were in a weird mixture of High and Low Speech. What had been scrawled below them, however, was easy: All here are dead.

  At the base of the door was a box that looked like the one Tim's mother had for her little trinkets and keepsakes, only of metal instead of wood. He tried to open it, but it was locked. Engraved upon it were letters Tim couldn't read. There was a keyhole of odd shape--like the letter *--but no key. He tried to lift the box and couldn't. It might have been anchored to the ground at the top of a buried stone post.

  A dead bin-rusty smacked the side of Tim's face. More feathered corpses flew past, turning over and over in the increasingly lively air. Some struck the side of the Dogan and fell around him.

  Tim read the last words on the steel plate again: USE KEYCARD. If he had any doubt about what such a thing might be, he had only to look at the slot just below the words. He thought he even knew what a "keycard" looked like, for he believed he had just seen it, along with a more recognizable key that might fit the -shaped keyhole of the metal box. Two keys--and possible salvation--hanging around the neck of a tyger that could probably swallow him down in three bites. And, since there had been no food that Tim could see in the cage, it might only take two.

  This was smelling more and more like a practical joke, although only a very cruel man would find such a joke amusing. The sort of fellow who might use a bad fairy to lure a boy into a dangerous swamp, perhaps.

  What to do? Was there anything he could do? Tim would have liked to ask Daria, but he was terribly afraid his friend in the plate--a good fairy to match the Covenant Man's bad one--was dead, killed by Directive Nineteen.

  Slowly, he approached the cage, now having to lean against the wind. The tyger saw him and came padding around the hole in the middle to stand by the door of the cage. It lowered its great head and stared at him with its lambent eyes. The wind rippled its thick coat, making the stripes waver and seem to change places.

  The tin bucket should have rolled away in the wind, but it didn't. Like the steel box, it seemed anchored in place.
r />   The bucket he left for me back home, so I could see his lies and believe them.

  The whole thing had been a joke, and under this bucket he would find the point of it, that final clever line--like I can't fork hay with a spoon! or So then I turned her over and warmed the other side--that was supposed to make folks roar with laughter. But since it was the end, why not? He could use a laugh.

  Tim grasped the bucket and lifted it. He expected to find the Covenant Man's magic wand beneath, but no. The joke was better than that. It was another key, this one large and ornately carved. Like the Covenant Man's seeing-basin and the tyger's collar, it was made of silver. A note had been attached to the key's head with a bit of twine.

  Across the gorge, the trees cracked and boomed. Now dust came rolling up from the chasm in giant clouds that were whipped away in ribbons like smoke.

  The Covenant Man's note was brief:

  Greetings, Brave and Resourceful Boy! Welcome to the North Forest Kinnock, which was once known as the Gateway of Out-World. Here I have left you a troublesome Tyger. He is VERY hungry! But as you may have guessed, the Key to SHELTER hangs about his Neck. As you may have also guessed, this Key opens the Cage. Use it if you dare! With all regards to your Mother (whose New Husband will visit her SOON), I remain your Faithful Servant!

  RF/MB

  The man--if he was a man--who left Tim that note was surprised by very little, but he might have been surprised by the smile on the boy's face as he rose to his feet with the key in his hand and booted away the tin bucket. It rose and flew off on the rising wind, which had now almost reached gale force. Its purpose had been served, and all the magic was out of it.

  Tim looked at the tyger. The tyger looked at Tim. It seemed completely unaware of the rising storm. Its tail swished slowly back and forth.

  "He thinks I'd rather be blown away or die of the cold than face your claws and teeth. Perhaps he didn't see this." Tim drew the four-shot from his belt. "It did for the fish-thing in the swamp, and I'm sure it would do for you, Sai Tyger."

  Tim was once more amazed by how right the gun felt. Its function was so simple, so clear. All it wanted to do was shoot. And when Tim held it, shooting was all he wanted to do.