It's been a long, cold, uncomfortable night on the Hill for Bernice, Slate, and Randall. Yotee has been almost corpse-still for hours, barely breathing, heart rate almost non-existant. Randall hasn't known what to make of his Companion's situation, and has been scarcely more responsive than Yotee to Miss Townes.
At one point during the night, they felt something -- like a warning -- come from within the Hill. As if Yotee feared that some other force were taking over his body and he was trying to warn the others. But nothing more happened for hours.
Now the sun rises on the far horizon, kissing Yotee's motionless form with light.
Then his eyes open, gold slits in the dawning day.
Green eyes look down into golden ones, a lock of ruddy hair straying across the coyote's form where Bernice has been kneeling over him. Her doctor's bag sits nearby, open but untouched and frustratingly useless over the past night. A look of surprise crosses the woman's face, and she reaches down to touch Trouble's furry side. "Trouble? Are you awake?"
Randall grunts softly, and stands up slowly. Creak, pop, snap. "If this is what growing old will be like, then I'm glad I'll miss it." he mutters, watching Yotee carefully.
It's his only motion, and very slight. The coyote stares at the morning light. His breathing is shallow but significantly stronger than it was before. He whines when he is touched, an ear twitches. Hurts.
Townes winces sympathetically, her vet's instinct driving her to begin examining the coyote more carefully, a hand straying to her bag to drag it a little closer. "Where?" She looks into his pupils, then picks a bottle of water out and a small packet of something.
"Don't." Randall's voice is sharp and pitched to carry strongly through the dawn. "Let him be for now."
The doctor doesn't see much that she can do for Yotee anyway. Outwardly, he looks whole and healthy enough. Whatever internal complaints he might have, Bernice can't discern under these circumstances.
The coyote struggles to move, legs twitching individually, his tailtip moves then it remains still. His paws curl in. His pupils dilate well, if somewhat slowly. Has no name. Had to break it for the trick.
"But he's-..." Bernice stops, then just purses her lips, putting her supples back in her bag, though she at least kneels a little closer to share some warmth from her hip. She looks back at Yotee now as he speaks up. "Move slowly, Trouble. You've been out all night. Did the... did the Hill attack you?"
"A bit on the rude side, dropping out of the party like that. What's been keeping you busy this time?" Randall asks. His gaze twiches out and around for a moment, then snaps back to the coyote.
"Yes. Yes." His eyes open to an almost normal width, gold bands in the early light. His mouth opens also, the better to pant with. "That was the trick. Draw the Hill out of the hill, let it have me. Crabs, showed it I had the better shell."
Bernice blinks, puzzled. "Crabs? Shell?" She stoops down closer, stroking the coyote's neck and looking into his eyes again worriedly, seeing if they focus. "He sounds delirious. But he looks a lot like what Monsieur Girard looked like when he was recovering from his run-in with the Hill. Physically alright, but exhausted and out of sorts."
For a brief moment, it almost looked like Randall's dour expression would break. "Delirious. No, can't say I agree, not at all. Makes too much sense, really, and this is reassuringly normal for him."
"Had to get the Hill to leg go. Wouldn't. It wanted new clothes and old." The coyote tries to lift his head; his lips curl in a snarl and he stops the motion just as quickly. "Alorn, St. John, helped, when they heard Closers would be Openers. Alorn remembers, sanctuary tomb."
Bernice mouths the words to herself, repeating them. "It.. you... you talked to Alorn and St. John. Yes, they were trapped in there, weren't they? By the Hill. You told them we'd all Open?"
Hundred legs, eyes, claws, hooves. So big. Can't fight, not a fighter. Yotee grins. Good distraction, always try to kill me when first meet. They needed the Hill's clothes, wouldn't fight together. Told them all Open, if they'd fight together, fight the other side.
Townes puts a hand to her forehead, looking hard-pressed to make sense of Yotee. Still, she gamely keeps at it. "So, Alorn and St. John wouldn't work together anymore. They wanted something from the Hill. You told them everyone was Opening and going to fight the Masters."
They wanted the Hill. They're sharing. Want Food. Trouble explains, and then again and again in peacemeal analogies which eventually make some sense when pieced together in order. Essentially, it was some sort of spirit battle, Alorn and St. John were both trying to kill the Hill, which was far too much for it. Yotee opened himself to be possessed, and this was tempting enough the Hill-spirit tried; fortunately, Yotee's body was small and difficult, and while the Hill-spirit tried the others pried the Hill-spirit out of it's body, the hill. Alorn, did something which broke the bodiless Hill-spirit apart, and saved Yotee. Unfortunately, it's not quite clear what Yotee said, or what Alorn and St. John agreed to, as it seems he started his 'Trick' without explaining what he was going to do, or why the others should help, and Alorn told him to go back before that got resolved. Alorn inhabits the Hill now, and is letting St. John share it with him, she still wishes to destroy humanity though Alorn might t
... talk her out of it.
Bernice goes through several stages of surprise, confusion, and at one point she appears quite disturbed to know that St. John still clings to the world somehow. Still, when she hears that Alorn seemed to disagree, she takes heart. "Could Alorn have simply been using that brute? Slate was friends with him, after all..." The woman shakes her head, her braid wagging. "Still, we're not any closer to... wait, does this mean the Hill is.. dead?" She seems to concentrate for a moment.
"It IS gone," she murmurs, after a few seconds have passed.
He remembers, like a dream, but he remembers. She obeyed. Was surprised I got Closers agree to Open. The coyote sniffs, Food? Hill is, many small dark spirits now. Alorn filled it full of eggs that took pieces away.
Bernice looks troubled. "But we don't even know if there's some way to fight the Other. Do they think there's some way they can help?"
"Not to mention, you haven't convinced the Closers of anything concrete, just yet," she adds.
The lightening sky is clear and pale blue, the sun warming it a bit after the cold of the night. There's peace in the air, the calm after a centuries-long storm. A tension released, more evident by its absence than it had been in its presence.
Alorn can. Yotee seems very sure, and his descriptions of the White Stag's participation in the battle is the likely basis of that. The Stag was much more resourceful, and less wounded than St. John in how he told it. He fought the Masters before, found Sanctuary. Ask the Unicorn? Use Shaft's Machine?
Slate whickers support for her mistress. I hope there's a way to stop the Masters. If they're anything like the Hill was, I don't want them on my world.
Bernice crouches down, stroking the coyote's side. "But how? He's trapped in the hill now." She looks over her shoulder to nod at her friend. "I'd like that as much as anybody, but you remember what the Unicorn said. Their power is enormous, and wouldn't have diminished over time like it has for all the spirits in this world."
I do not know. Ask him? The coyote thinks for a while. Ask Randall, he knows many things.
Bernice turns her glance from Yotee to the elder man expectantly.
"For now, asking Randall isn't going to work, because Randall isn't convinced that Bernice is anything but another obstacle between humanity and its only chance for survival." Randall's tone isn't at all apologetic. "Just another obstacle that will need to be removed. If you are doing okay, Yotee, I have work to do, both for Mr. Shaft and for us."
I'd like to lie on the unyielding ground for a while. He answers.
The woman frowns. "'Removed'? Are you going to try to murder me too, like at least one other Opener I know of has?"
"As much as I'd like to banter glibly with you, I'll just have to forgo that joy." Randall waves toward the rising sun. "But time passes, and there is much to do. And there is always much to be said for that ancient wisdom "Confusion to the enemy"".
Open on Alorn's hill? Yotee asks.
Randall shrugs "I can't say yet, Yotee, I still need to finish the calculations."
"As you like, Mr. Waites. A pity, since you're SO very clever. If you won't help, then at least don't hinder," says Bernice, waving a hand dismissively. She shrugs at Yotee too. "I suppose I'll take your advice and ask Alorn, then. I'll convey anything he says back to the Unicorn. Perhaps they will work together."
Where is the Unicorn?
Bernice begins rummaging through her bag again. "She moves from place to place, Trouble. She won't be found unless she wishes to be."
After a moment, she picks out a bit of dried meat. "Are you hungry?"
Trouble lifts his head again, trying to snap at the meat, whining Yes. Hungry.
"Easy, easy," the woman says, selecting the softer bits to offer. "Don't take my fingers with it. Chew a bit." She makes sure Yotee can reach it, and then retrieves her bottle of water again, this time leaving the packet of medicine in the bag. "You should probably have some water too, no doubt you're dehydrated."
Water. Yotee licks at Bernice's fingers.
Bernice opens the bottle up, and pours a bit into a cupped hand, taking a sip for herself before bringing it down to the coyote's muzzle, and pouring more until Yotee decides he's satisfied. It's not very efficient, but it's enough to soothe a parched throat.
The coyote drinks, and seems unconcerned with the inefficiency, even licking at some where it falls in the dirt. He soon feels much better. Little Spring-spirits have always been there, they just always have been. What happens to them in Shaft's machine?
"I haven't the foggiest," the doctor admits, closing the bottle up once Yotee has his fill. She takes a bite of jerky and chews thoughtfully. "I've no idea how it works, or even what exactly it does. I'm given to understand it doesn't hurt spirits, but... I wouldn't really know."
It only gets spirits without a shell. Yotee observes cryptically, chewing on his jerky. Why is the light like food?
"Ghosts, yes," says Bernice, remembering what the coyote said about shells. "As for the light... I don't know." She thinks back to the pictures Shaft showed her. "Maybe it's similar to what spirits need from the Other side. But... it's not real, is it?"
It's real enough, till you get to it.
Yotee doesn't appear to have any deeper an insight than this.
Bernice ponders this. "Maybe Mr. Shaft can find a way to make it REAL real. But we'll keep all our options open."
Marseilles? Yotee asks, after some quiet quality time with his food.
"I think she's currently in the machine," answers Bernice. "At least, I think that's what Mr. Shaft said."
Oh. Yotee thinks a while longer. You hoped to convince us to Close?
Bernice sets her bag aside and hugs her knees, still sitting hip to back by Yotee to get him warmed back up. "I did," she says. "When I first began this horrid Game, it was with little more than the beliefs my people had, about how spirits moved from world to world, and our reverence for them. It seems we didn't fully understand." She shakes her head, wisps of hair floating in her face. "After I met the Unicorn, she told us why we were chosen to Close. She is the only one who remembers fully, now."
Some spirits are strong, some weak. I remember being stronger; I don't think about it much. As humans rise, we fall, seemed to be the way of it. A shaman told me, to come here, and not eat the beans. Yotee twitches a leg. Beans weren't good, decided to listen to the other part.
The woman puts her chin on her knees. "That's what St. John thinks, too. She'd have every human die, if she had her way, but then this world would simply be lifeless. Spirits would die anyway. She thought Opening would kill all the humans too, or so the animals said. Maybe it would, but then she'll have destroyed innocents of this world, only to return spirits to their former slavery. I'm worried, Trouble. If they couldn't fight the Masters in their own world, why would we think they can fight them here, weakened? If we ARE going to fight them, humans may be the answer, not the problem."
Trouble painfully wriggles closer to the warmth of Bernice's hip. Humans are fine, fun to play tricks on, have a few tricks themselves. Could fight, like a badger in a hole, easier to defend one direction. Alorn... remembers, St. John didn't. He might tell her.
The doctor stretches her legs out, shaking them a little to get her skirts to follow, and giving the winded coyote a bit more surface to warm himself against. "I can think of a lot of humans that probably deserve tricks being played on them," she says, trying to keep a hint of bitterness out of her voice. "The Still Wood, and many other sacred places I knew shrank because of people that didn't care. They'd forgotten too. But still... it's not fair to the rest." She shakes her head again. "I won't forgive St. John. She killed the ones that trusted her, and she killed almost everyone I cared about in cold blood. She used..." The woman pauses for a moment, something seeming to dawn on her.
The Still Wood, the one near here? Yotee asks, almost everyone?
"Slate, my dearest friend, saved me and one other druid, one of our ovates," says Bernice. She pauses a moment, then explains, "Ovates are wise men. Maybe like your 'shaman'. But the rest..." The doctor puts her face in her hands as if trying to shut out the memory. "She used one of the artifacts, a huntsman's horn, that turned all of my fellow druids into deer, and they were torn to pieces by hounds that the horn seemed to summon." Her fingers part, letting her green eyes peer between them. "But now that I think about it... the wolves didn't seem of this world. Maybe they lived in the horn, but do you think maybe it was somehow able to bring them over from the Other side?"
There were wolves that were too alive, at the beginning of the game in the woods. I haven't found trace of them since. Or maybe it was St. John. She hides as a person, you knew that? I thought she was hiding in the battle, or something was hiding in her. Trouble sounds rather unclear on many of these. What happened to the horn?
Bernice nods, letting her hands fall to her knees again. "I've seen her different forms. I shouldn't think she could be a whole pack of wolves. There were many of them." She looks down toward the treeline. "As to the horn, I don't know. She fled the Still Wood to the Hill with Alorn. We would have to ask them."
I might turn up a horn. I'd have to see it, to know if it could pull spirits from the other side. The coyote stretches out, taking full advantage of the offered warmth. I couldn't ask, I'm too tired. I don't think I want to try that trick again. I wonder if St. John is a Master, or a Master hides in her.
The doctor leans back, putting her weight on her hands and patiently driving the chill of hours on the ground out, bit by bit. "I'll ask. They must be able to talk out of the Hill. As for St. John, I don't think she is. Alorn is, however. He and the Unicorn led all spirits to this place. The other Masters live in the Artifacts."
Yotee seems comfortable or insensate to the lingering chill, probably from sheer exhaustion due to his long battle. I dreamed Mother and Alorn where there. I don't remember. I don't remember the Unicorn. She made the game, told you to close? I don't understand, didn't the game mean the door should be opened sometime?
The woman closes her eyes. "She made the Game to get here. The Other have been trying to Open it from their side every Game since. They want to get to all of us here."
Trouble lays his head on his paws. I can't ignore a closed box. I have to see, what's behind doors and locks. I'd try if it was just me. What could I do to get you to help?
"Find us a way to beat the Other back," says Bernice. She listlessly runs her fingers through her hair. "Now that I know what it means to all the spirits and sacred places I've held dear, I want to Open. But if it means destroying everything... we mustn't. Better to let the humans have their world back and fade away. We'll still have hundreds of years left to us, or so the Unicorn said."
The coyote wriggles, rolling over so his belly faces the warming sun. I avoid fights, I got Alorn to agree to help for that. I'm better with tricks. More fun to trick the Masters, I think. What keeps the Masters in the artifacts? Masters are the Others, yes?
Bernice reaches down to try to rub the coyote's belly without even thinking about it, as if it's instinct when presented with such. "The Masters chose to inhabit the Artifacts by choice. It's a different kind of shell, I suppose. Masters are the most powerful spirits, lesser spirits lived or died on their whims as their slaves. There are powerful Masters on the Other side. Alorn and the Unicorn were Masters, as well as the ones living in the Artifacts, and they wanted a better life for their subjects. So the Game was made, and they fled. The Unicorn told me that when they first arrived, she could make volcanos erupt and rivers flow backward. Even a weakling like me could have made the forest march as if it had legs, or so she said. Now she is hard-pressed to purify streams, and I am considered remarkable for being able to talk to you. If your cunning could turn the Other's Masters away, we wouldn't need strength."
The coyote happily lets his belly be rubbed. So, what is it spirits need that is on the other side? The Masters know we are coming, because the timing of the game? It it enough to open the gate for a while, then close it, or must something be brought across. The trick to getting something, is making the one with it look away at something else.
If you could open two, I would open one, then the other, push Shaft's light through that so they would follow, then close it to trap them in someplace else. Trouble speculates.
"I'm not sure what sustains spirits," Bernice says, crooking her fingers so she can scratch the dusty canid's tummy while she thinks. Somehow, she finds doing so soothing. "Some kind of radiance, maybe? Like Mr. Shaft's light, but real. I don't think the Other Masters expect us to come, they're trying to get in. I'm not sure if two gates could be opened, I understand the Banefire appears in only one place. But if they can be distracted as you say, perhaps we could find a source of that radiance and bring it here." She mulls this over for a while, then adds, "You know, we druids believed that when people died, their spirits travelled to the Source. Maybe not everything I believed was wrong."
Trouble is definitely a wild animal, and he's got a record of hardship and close calls even on his stomach, in the form of rough lumps and odd fur. Fleas too, though he's not covetous of those. I could ask Mother, how to trick a Master, though she's very sleepy. Or I could ask the stick. I don't know about the Source. How is the gate Closed? Why cannot it be Opened, then Closed?
The vet doesn't seem bothered by Trouble's little hangers-on. For all her meekness, Bernice at least doesn't shy away from the realities of animals. "We can talk to the stick? The Still Forest feared it. It said the staff came from a ... 'tree of anger'. I didn't really understand, but the Forest bade me never bring it back. I knew St. John wanted it for her plans. That's why I tried to keep it from you, to safeguard it. It was originally held by my people. I still don't know much about it." She considers the coyote's questions. "I think Closing means that those who would Close must be at the Banefire. Girard told me that whoever 'loses', dies. If the Openers 'win', those trying to Close die. If the Closers win, those trying to Open die. That's why we all need to agree. If the way is Opened, I would think Other would hold it Open in their bid to flood through, if it could be Closed at all." The young woman lets another moment pass, then tilts her head. "May I ask, who is your Mother? If she might know,
I would like to hear what she would say."
Not my mother. The coyote answers, Mother, of all. She lives in a rock that looks like a large woman. She's nice. Oh, the shaman told me to bring her here. I can talk to her rock, why not talk to a stick?
Townes touches her lip, seeming to consider this. "It must be an Artifact you have. Well, if the Masters live in them, its sensible you can talk to them. Let's ask both. The stick and the rock." She laughs a little to herself, struck for a moment by how silly that sounds, but quickly sobers.
I'll do that. I'll ask the Stick first, unusual that the Still Wood didn't like it. I can't think of anything more. The coyote admits, Want to sleep.
Bernice nods, and gives the coyote one last gentle pat. "Let's meet again soon. We haven't much time left. Find whatever you can. I'll keep looking."
Okay, Yotee agrees, oh, I remembered. I've heard of things that could summon spirits out of them before; a shaman's peace pipe that could call forth his ancestors to speak with the smoker. I don't know if that'd be like the horn. Randall, home? Food?
"Right, like I'll carry you home. He always pretends." Randall says dismissively. Yotee doesn't answer, he simply closes his eyes like he's willing to sleep there. That seems to be a convincing argument, "Right, hand him up them Miss Townes, I'll take him." It seems to be his only concession and cooperation.
The doctor gets her feet under her, then wiggles her arms under the limp coyote's body, and gentle gathers him up, fleas and all. She passes him off to Randall, choosing not to look directly at the man, but at least saying, "Good evening to you both. I'll see you soon."