Thorn Fall (9 page)

“We would probably get more clues from the bodies,” Simon said, “assuming these guys don’t make it, either. I’ll try to get the hospital report later.”

“Munds Wagon Trail. Let’s see how long that one is and if it’s on the way back.” I pulled up the web browser on my phone, hoping there would be enough reception for it. We were a ways out of town and not on top of that cliff anymore.

Alek’s head jerked up, and he peered into the woods. Uh oh. Now what? I didn’t hear any buzzing, but we never had figured out who was responsible for the missing ropes. The
jibtab
or some green-eyed elf who wished us ill? He held up a hand, then walked into the trees.

“Again?” Simon asked, then told Temi and me, “He does this a lot. Next time I go hiking with him, I’m going to bring the cooler.”

“Huh,” I voiced, musing over the web search.

“Huh, you found something interesting about that trail or huh, you found a good restaurant for us to visit for lunch?” Simon patted his stomach.

“Only you could read a police report about dead people, then ask about lunch,” I muttered.

“They’re not dead yet. They might survive. Either way, we have to eat.”

“The Cow Pies?” Temi asked, reading over my shoulder.

“That’s what caught my eye too.”

“Because of the silly name?” Simon asked.

“No, because they’re supposed to be a vortex spot,” I said.

Simon snorted. “You’re not hoping Naomi’s grammy is out on the trail and gets pronged, too, are you?”

“No. I’m just wondering if there’s a connection. That first guy was found over by Cathedral Rock, isn’t that what your newspaper article said, Simon?”

“Yup.”

“That’s a vortex spot too.”

“A
supposed
vortex spot, right?” Simon asked. “We’re not believing in the new age nonsense now, are we?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly, thinking of the circle in the cave painting, the one my mind wanted to label as a portal. “We’re believing in magical swords and interdimensional travel.”

Simon raised a finger. “Technically we haven’t established
what
kind of portal Temi went through. It could simply be a wormhole to another planet in our galaxy. In our dimension.”

“
Simply
, as if that wouldn’t be kind of a special thing.”

Temi wore a bemused expression as we discussed this back and forth. Yeah, it was a weird conversation. What would Alek make of us when he learned to understand our words? Speaking of Alek, where had he gone?

“You said Alek ran off to look in the woods a couple of times on your way to find us?” I asked.

“Yeah, sometimes he was hunting for tracks, since you two neglected to take an established trail.”

As if established trails were where the archeological goodies waited.

“But a couple of times…” Simon shrugged. “He seemed agitated. Like last night in camp.”

“Looks like you might be right,” I told Temi. “An unfriendly elf might be keeping an eye on us.”

“And stealing our ropes?”

“Maybe so.”

Alek returned, looking like he wanted to say something, but he grunted in irritation and simply pointed back toward the main trail and the parking lot. Not being able to communicate had to be getting old. I would work more with him tonight while Simon was building his weapons.

By the time we returned to the parking lot, I had refined my thought of language tutoring, wondering if I could find some app to download that would further help him. I was sure there wasn’t an Ancient Greek to English program out there, but maybe something with pictures that was designed to teach children who had no base from which to translate could work.

Simon groaned. “What happened to Zelda’s tire?”

The van was slumped to one side, the front driver-side tire blown. Or punctured? I couldn’t tell from here, but imagined it riddled with thorns. The van didn’t appear otherwise damaged though—no broken windows or gouged paint, at least not more gouged than usual. Simon jogged ahead to take a look.

“Zelda?” Alek asked.

“Van,” I said, not knowing how to explain that Simon had named his vehicle after a video game character and that this was an odd thing, or at least not a common thing.

“Zelda Van?”

“Close enough.” I trotted up to join Simon. “Thorns?”

In the summer, this parking lot would be packed, but ours was the only vehicle left in it this afternoon, so there were no witnesses who might have seen something.

“No.” Simon pointed to a big gash. “A knife or sword or something else with a blade.”

Alek nodded, as if he knew exactly what had happened. Or as if he had expected more trouble, anyway.

“It’s just one tire, right?” I asked. “We have a spare.”

“Yeah, but it’ll take a while to change, and then we’ll have to buy a regular-sized tire.”

He sighed, probably thinking of the cost. Monster hunting wasn’t turning out to be a profitable occupation. “Guess we’re not meant to explore the Cow Pies today.”

We sat in the West Side Deli, Alek and I at one table, and Simon and Temi sitting at the table behind us. We had replaced the tire and were waiting for Autumn to meet us. Even though Simon had been the one texting her, somehow I owed her a sandwich with maple pepper bacon. My idea to save money by buying bread and meat at the grocery store to make our own sandwiches had been vetoed. Just as well, as we would have ended up back at the campground then, and, in case the grandma-next-door had called the police, that might not be a good idea, at least until after dark, which was still a good hour away.

Alek, sitting across from me with the tablet, prodded at the language program I had found for him, muttering words out loud in response to the prompts. I was watching and helping whenever he gave me a perplexed look, but I had my own laptop out with numerous tabs open as I alternated between researching local pictographs, hunting for a record of Temi’s sword on Earth, and poking around in the genealogical databases for Alek. Simon had his Mac open, hunting for more information on the people who had been punctured. The police report didn’t have medical details, and he hadn’t figured out how to get ahold of the hospital records. After eating half of her sandwich, Temi had propped her legs up on the seat in the booth, put her back to the wall, and hadn’t opened her eyes since. Still catching up on lost sleep, it seemed.

“Pig,” Alek announced, drawing my attention.

“What?” I had been vaguely aware that the program was running through barnyard animals, but my first thought was that he was judging me on how quickly I had wolfed down my sandwich.

He pointed at a piece of bacon poking out from between his slices of bread, smiled slightly, and said “Pig” again.

“Oh, figured it out, did you?” I hadn’t seen him smile much, so his small victory made me return the gesture.

“He’s not lamenting the lack of rabbit on the menu is he?” Simon asked, his back to me.

“No, I think he’s pleased with himself for figuring out what bacon is. That’s a gastronomical invention that came well after his time. Either that, or he’s just happy because bacon exists now.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Alek,” I said, pulling the tablet across the table and opening the drawing program. “What is your history with the elves?” I wrote the words as I asked them, switching back to Ancient Greek and inserting my best guess for the spelling of the word Eleriss had shared for his people’s name.

His gaze stayed on my face, as if he already knew what I wanted to ask, as if he had been expecting the question. Maybe he had. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried to get the information from him. I wanted to speak his language as badly as I wanted him to learn ours, and I was willing to discuss anything with him, but he always brought the conversation back to his homeland, his comrades, and his wife, somehow managing to avoid my inquiries about his time with the elves. Hearing about Ancient Sparta was interesting, but I wanted to know what had happened to him in the time between when he had been plucked out of his world and when he had been inserted into that prison chamber. Having more knowledge about the elves could only help, especially if one was following us and making trouble. I also hadn’t forgotten that Eleriss had expected Alek to know his language. If Alek
did
know it, and had simply been uncooperative back in that cave, it could prove useful. Like if we caught up with Green Eyes and had a chance to question him.

Alek said a single word and wrote it under my question. “Slave.”

“They took you from your homeland and made you a slave? Why?”

His leaned back in his seat, his earlier smile long gone. “I stood out. I was a good fighter. I won the wrestling at the Olympics.”

“So they took great warriors and athletes? To what ends? What did they want you for?” I could hear Simon muttering to himself about unintelligible hospital terminology filled out by doctors with unintelligible handwriting. Thanks to having to write everything at the same time as we spoke the words, the conversation with Alek wasn’t progressing quickly. Autumn would arrive any moment. Maybe I should save these questions for another time, but I wanted to know.

“They had many uses for the slaves,” Alek said. “Whatever their owners wished. I saw many others taken as well. Often warriors. Like those in the cave.”

I glanced back at Temi, wondering if she was truly sleeping or if she was following any of this. Probably not. He was answering in a mix of Ancient Greek and throwing in some of the modern Greek words he had picked up from me, but Temi’s command of the language was rusty; I didn’t think she had spoken any since we were kids in school together. I would ask her later if she had seen any sign of human slavery when she had been there. But she had said the elves objected to her presence on their world, so it couldn’t be common. Perhaps slavery had been trendy for a time before falling out of favor?

“What did they make you do?” I asked, still wondering how he had come to be considered a criminal by the elves.

He stared at the words on the tablet for longer than usual, as if he didn’t understand them. No, as if he didn’t want to answer them. Then he looked toward the blackboards on the wall that contained the sandwich menus. Somehow I doubted he was looking for instances of pig.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said, drawing his gaze back to the tablet. “I just want to learn as much about them as possible, about why one or more of them might be hurting our people with the
jibtab
.”

He scratched his jaw. “You think the
Dhekarzha
are responsible for the monsters in your world?”

“
Our
world,” I corrected, even though I understood why he wouldn’t feel connected to it. Still, I wanted him to know he would have a place here, once this all ended, once we figured things out. “Who else would it be if not them? They’re the ones who gave us the word for the creatures.”

“
Jibtab
is a word of theirs, yes. It means unnatural creation. I heard it used when I was among them. It isn’t specific to the creatures you have faced.” He shrugged. “It is like us saying monster.”

“You
do
speak their language, don’t you?” I asked in English, forgetting to translate and write the words in my pleasure at this epiphany. I was probably confusing him by switching back and forth all the time. He merely gazed blandly back at me. He never
looked
confused; maybe it was some kind of stoic warrior poker face, but I always had the impression he understood more than I expected him to. Maybe he had been spying on hikers during the two weeks he had been missing, listening to them talk and trying to understand some of it. “Never mind,” I said, and wrote something else on the tablet. “The
jibtab
, the ones here, can only be harmed by their sword, so…” I paused, realizing I didn’t
know
if the sword had come from the elves’ world or had first been wielded by their people. What if there were other players out there? I sank down in the seat. “My brain hurts.”

“I do not know who has created the
jibtab
,” Alek said, “but the
Dhekarzha
have the resources to send armies of monsters if they wish to destroy us. Or…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “They have other technology that is greater than…” He looked out the window toward the cars in the lot of the shopping center. “Yes, greater than this still, I believe. I don’t think they would need to resort to making monsters that kill a couple of people at a time.”

I sank even lower in the seat. It made sense, but all it did was leave me with even more questions than before. “Maybe some small faction of elves is behind it? Like the way Jakatra and Eleriss came to help us for their own reasons, maybe a couple of others are messing with us for their own reasons and don’t have the support of their people.”

After Alek read the translation, he spread his hand. He didn’t know for sure. How could he? He had been asleep for centuries.

The door opened, and a cool evening breeze wafted in ahead of Autumn. She was dressed all in black, including her earrings and barbell eyebrow rings this time. Her hair was still blue, pulled back in a ponytail with a black holder. She looked like someone who should be carrying an axe and some chains, but that was a microscope case in her hand. Did she plan to check out the thorns in
here
?

I lifted a hand, beckoning her over. Not that we were hard to find in the little shop. A few people had come in to get sandwiches to go, but it was between lunch and dinner, and we were the only ones seated at the moment.

“Nice outfit,” Simon said as Autumn approached. “Did you know you’re supposed to wear white in the desert?”

“I know
you’re
not mocking me, butthead.” She prodded a hole in the shoulder seam of his gray KISS T-shirt. It was even more “vintage” than the clothing we had found for Alek. “Who’s got my sandwich?” she asked.

I pushed a bag and a soda cup toward the end of the table.

The fellow working the register, a scrawny guy with a goatee that nearly reached the collar of his tie-dyed T-shirt, had watched Autumn come in with interest. His face fell when she filled her cup with Diet Coke, then slid into the seat next to me without placing an order. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had hoped to make a sale or he thought she was his type of girl.