"Is that it?" Mike asked.
Jared nodded.
"Everything?"
A sly grin came over his face. "You wouldn't expect
me to tell you everything, would you?" he replied,
stirring his breakfast.
Mike shook his head, looking like he wished he
never'd asked. "No...but is that all the strangeness
in your dream?" he asked, and Jared looked like he was
about to crack a joke again, but instead nodded.
"Very interesting," Brittany said. "And I don't
think it should go through an interp--that was a
message." She sipped her orange juice and looked
pensive, which she was getting very good at, a half
braid hanging over her shoulder.
"I agree," Jared said. "It didn't feel like there
was any kind of strange meaning to it, just a basic
presentation of facts."
"Like what?" Britt asked.
He turned slightly towards her and said, "Fact:
Somewhere in the tempro there's an enourmous building
waiting to be found. Fact: I'm one of the people
who's supposed to go looking."
"Tempro?" Mike asked.
"Tropical/temperate," Brittany replied for Jared,
who'd just stabbed a piece of egg. "I came up with it
by splicing the two words, though I must say that I'm
not even sure if that's the kind of climate in there.
It's short, though, so...." she let the sentance drift
off, and he caught the meaning.
"My question is, though, who sent it?" Jared said.
"Maybe my brain is just addled, but I can't seem to
put my finger on it."
"The Guardian, Jared," Mike spoke up. "It had to
have been, with all the red imagery. It has quite a
thing for red."
"How could I not figure that one out?" puzzled the
boy, eyes distinctly more red than usual this morning.
Brittany gave him a soft smile in reply, took a sip of
her juice, and began to braid again.
"La guardiana," she began, "le gusta estar
misterioso. Ella deja pan para nos buscarlo. Luego,
y solo luego..." but she was cut off by Mike's
sharpening expression.
"English," he commanded.
"The guardian," she began again, "like to be
mysterious. She--and I had to use that in order to
follow up on the gender of 'guardian'--leaves bread in
order for us to find it. Then, and only then, will it
give us what it wants us to have. As if we have to
earn every privelige it gives."
"And why not?" Mike replied. "Free food, board,
clothes, the works."
"But we're still scraping by," Brittany replied.
"It's not like any of us are used to this kind of
enviroment, nor the travails of living in such an
unfamilar place. It gives us bread crumbs and wants
us to make toast."
"Admit it, though--without it, we wouldn't survive,"
Mike countered.
"I admit that freely," she said with a shrug, tying
off her braid. "But there's something that makes me a
little...antagonistic about the whole situation."
"Clash of the wills, I think," Jared said, and she
said nothing in reply.
They sat there for a couple of minutes, just eating,
before Jared spoke up again, "Who's going to go with
me to find this building, this temple?"
Mike and Brittany looked at each other across the
fire.
"Not Brighty," Mike said.
"I assume not me either," replied Britt. "I have a
feeling this is one of those chauvie male-type things.
Besides, I'm not--oh, what's the word?--competent
enough to face what dangers could be out there."
"Exactly," Mike said.
"Thanks," she replied sourly.
"Anytime," he said with a flourish, then washed down
the last of his eggs with the spring water that'd been
served him. Jared also finished his breakfast, as if
the excitement of carrying out his dream was sitting
on his shoulder, urging him to eat faster. Finally,
he stood, and the other two stood with him, avoiding
each others eyes.
"Should we wake Brighty up?" she asked, looking over
Mike's shoulder to see the Care Bear, still
slumbering. "He might want a hug before you leave."
Mike shook his head, and Jared wasn't too enthused
anyway, so he declined as well. The three set off
then for the small cave where they kept the weapons
they'd found on their arrival, two swords and a
dagger. This day, the swords shone brightly on the
wall, as if they'd been polished, and it almost seemed
like a bronze-red gleam flashed over them for an
instant. Brittany gritted her teeth in reply.
"If you get hurt, come back," she admonished the two
of them as they strapped on the swords.
"Concerned?" Mike asked, a unbelieving look on his
face. Her face seemed to solidify in return, becoming
unmoving and expressiveless, but her eyes couldn't
hide it.
"I mean it," she said quietly. "No offense to
Brighty, but I'll go crazy if I have to stay here for
eternity with Brighty and the Guardian. I'd probably
end up killing one of them."
"Ewwh, messy," Jared joked, smiling, but she didn't
smile in reply. "Don't worry!" he added. "We'll be
back."
"Then good luck," she said quietly, and waved as they
started into the forest.
* * * *
"How long do you think we've been gone, Mike?"
"Huh?" Mike replied, startled from the daze he'd
slipped into when he and Jared had decided on silence.
He'd been thinking about...songs, and music, and how
he was going to survive without them now that he had
no radio. Grouchily, he grumbled to himself.
"How long do you think we've been gone?" Jared asked
again, voice in neutrality, face also shifted into a
neutral set.
Mentally, Mike ticked off the days in his head, and
after a minute or so (Brighty would know! he chided
himself) replied, "About a week and a half."
"A week and a half," Jared repeated. Then, "Do you
think our parents have called the cops yet?"
"That's an interesting question," he said. "Does
Brighty even have parents?"
Jared didn't reply, for now their steps led them to
the entrance of the temp/trop, or tempro, as it had
been christened. He warily kept a hand near his
weapon, and looked at Mike. "Are you ready for this?"
he asked in a calm voice, nervousness twitching in his
auburn eyes.
"If you are," Mike replied steadily.
Jared looked to the forest, then back at Mike, then
nodded. Now the two advanced more cautiously into the
forest, wariness creeping into their steps and their
tone. Feeling a too dark heaviness descend on their
mood, Jared rephrased his previous question: "Do you
think the parents of us three humans have called the
police yet?"
Mike regared the question in his head as his eyes
astutely swept back and forth across the trail, raking
into unseen areas. His hand, like Jared's, rested in
a position near to his weapon; there was no way he was
facing a giant spider unprepared. They moved forward
a little more before he answered, "Brittany's
would've."
"Which ones?"
"All four."
Jared let a slip of smile loose on that one.
"Probably worried sick and expecting the worse--she's
pregnant in some whorish hellhole, and with you gone
its most likely suspected..."
Mike dropped his eyes from the forest to glare at
him, and in reply Jared's slip of a smile widened.
Still, he let it drop gracefully, letting silence fill
the emotional cracks before asking, "And yours?"
"Mine? Heh," he replied with short bark of laughter.
"They probably threw a party."
"Honestly?" Jared asked.
"No," Mike admitted, stopping for a moment. Jared
stopped along with him, and Mike looked up and did a
three hundred and sixty degree turn where he stood.
"What?" Jared asked.
"Checking for spiders," Mike admitted.
"Don't worry, you'll hear it first," Jared grumbled,
and for a moment a feralness crept into his voice, of
something not quite approaching human. He crept
forward again, not waiting for Mike
Mike raised his eyebrows--something about that
BOTHERS him--and followed.
"What about your family, Fox?" Mike asked.
Jared straightened. "Fox?" he asked. "You haven't
called me that in...oh, about a week and a half."
"Sorry to offend."
"No, I prefer it!" he quickly replied. "Still, it's
odd hearing it...and in person, too."
"Get used to it," Mike said, and Jared smiled fully
now and let him catch up to him. Besides, the trail
on either side of them now seemed to be made up of
stumped and withered pine, branches of lark reaching
for them with easy break needles and gnarled twig
hands. It spooked something inside of him, the same
way the spider had spooked him...deep down. And
whatever was activating the senses he proudly claimed
(and sometimes cursed), he didn't want to face it
alone.
They hit a clearing, and immediately both of them
TENSED.
"Do you feel it?" Jared asked, moving out a little
ways from Mike.
"Yes," Mike replied, eyes steeling as his the grip on
his sword tightened. "Something's there."
Mike's words had no more left his mouth when the
ground nearby broke open, producing skinny things of
red clay with red stone claws and gnashing teeth.
From above came the sound of whirring, and the a
ghostly howl, and the trees shook violently and gave
birth to black, sticky looking wraith-like things,
which was the best and only way to describe them. It
took a moment for them to register the new presence
within their midst, and suddenly sound poured out from
both, a gnashing howl from the red clay beasties and a
banshee-like sound from the wraiths.
"Run or fight?" Jared asked.
"You have to ask?"
"Fight? Mike..."
"Hey, I have nineteen years of agression within me.
I don't think this is going to hurt at all," Mike
replied through gritted teeth. Suddenly he yelled, a
terrible, angry sound, and plunged into the thick.
Immediately three clay things lost body pieces, mostly
of the upper body sort.
"When in Rome," Jared sighed, and he too plunged into
the thick of things. Immediately the instincts he'd
heightened over the years rose like bile in his
throat, and his mouth opened to spill forth an animal
cry.
Needless to say, very little of the clay or wraith
things survived the attack, and by the time the two
men reached other end of the clearing, their blades
were full of muck, dust, and soot. They didn't speak
as they wiped their blades off as much as possible
using some nearby large, thick leaves.
"Invigorating," Mike half-whispered when they'd
finally struck out on the trail again.
"Yea."
"Are you all right, Jared?" he asked, noticing the
sudden drop in bubliness in his friend's voice.
"I'm a little tired, I guess. I haven't fought like
that in month...weeks," he replied, his mind issuing a
sharp cry of SPIDER! when he nearly messed up the time
reference. You'll never let me forget it, will you?
he'd screamed back once his voice had died. I guess,
replied the overly nonchalant voice. He grated on
himself sometimes. "And its not over yet."
Mike's eyebrows raised, and he drily replied, "But
I've already stopped hating my brother--what do I do
next?"
"Think of Walgreens," Jared replied, a grin barely
touching his face. He brushed some dust from it and
only got more dust on it, and it ticked him off in
such a way that he spat.
The salvia began to bubble.
"MIKE! LOOKIE!" Jared screamed, meaning to say "Look
out!" but not quite forming the right words. His
sword cocked to perform the function of the arrow, and
Mike's eyes found the bubbling soil as well.
"Here we go again," Mike said softly, growling,
"Rrrghhg."
Jared nodded in reply, eyes so concentrated on the
bubbling dirt that he didn't see the grapevine
creature emerge from the near shadows, the thistle
creature nearby that. In fact, it wasn't until the
faint shuffling of leaves and the smell of humus
overode his eyes that he whirled, hacking off the
thistles head. Mike turned as well to find a poison
sumac and a mustard seed bush staring at him, leaves
and twigs reaching out for the exposed skin. His
sword swung around to slash, and cut through most of
the mustard before he drew it up and chopped a piece
of sumac off--nearly missing a lank of Jared's hair.
"CLOSE QUARTERS! GO!" Mike yelled, and Jared backed
up, looking fearfully at him.
"Mike..."
"Go, Fox, I'm right behind you," he said with an
eerie calm as he stabbed into the grapevine. "Trust
me!"
"Sounds kinky," he couldn't help muttering to himself
as he took off and away--and straight into a bramble
bush. Before he could defend, the bush scraped and
scratched his sword arm and his face.
That did it. The smell of blood had the same effect
on Jared as it did on sharks--frenzy. He took one
look at the cut on his arm and saw the blood dribble
down his arm before savagely swinging his sword into
the brush. The sword blurred as his actions moved
faster and faster, his mind retreating before the
savageness his body demanded. He whirled and found a
burdock plant, and made it bleed dark juice before
desposing of it as well. A mallow to Mike's yarrow, a
mint to Mike's marigold--plants came upon the pair as
if they still were a pair, trying to take advantage of
a disadvantage that was no longer there. Yet Mike's
brain had not retreated, and he took off up the trail
as soon as the plants stepped back, finding Jared in
the midst of mulching some red grass. "FOX!" he
yelled suddenly. "FOX!!!"
Jared stopped, and the plant keeled over, bits and
pieces scattered in the minimum juice it had shed.
"Mike," he whispered. "It happened again...didn't
it?"
"What...what happened, oh my God we have to get you
back!" he said, voice rising gently, streaked with a
strangeled panic.
Jared touched his arm, and then his face, and smiled
dimly. "It's just a scratch," he said softly with as
much swagger as he could muster.
"Hmmm...you're right, it is just a scratch. But
Britt's still going to have your hide if we don't turn
back," he said.
"No, Mike. We've got to keep pressing on, pressing
our advantage just a little more. They're PLANTS for
Spirit's sake!"
He stared at his friend, whose own blood was dripping
down his arm and his cheek, and looked to what
remained of the red grass creature. Little bits of
dust. He looked between them again, and sighed.
"All right," he said.
And then they got jumped.
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