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They made a camp of sorts on a level spot well out of reach of the mist. TP sat on a log and ate his bread, nuts and raisins, stretching out his legs in front of him to work out the kinks. His white shirt now had purple splotches, courtesy of the stingles. Evalda would love it.
The food tasted like dust in his mouth, but he figured it would turn to dust for real in the mistangle, and incredible as it sounded, this would be his last meal for over twenty-three years. Surviving with no sustenance for that long was inconceivable, but Sarah Tucker had done it, staying in the mistangle for the equivalent of over sixty years! He and Doc had puzzled long and hard over this. Doc concluded that the metabolism must slow way down in the mistangle to conserve energy, like a hibernating animal. This still seemed far-fetched to TP, but then, Minglemist itself was far-fetched. The rules of existence here constantly confounded his scientific doctrines. After drinking another bottle of water, he rummaged in his pack and brought out his pouch of pennies, holding it out to Glory.
"I want to settle up now for the trip, in case I don't come out. Take it all, you've earned it." He sincerely meant that, very glad now that Glorious had been his boatman. Old Doc had known what he was doing in hiring him.
"It's already taken care of," Glory said.
Doc must have paid him, then. But TP continued to hold out the pouch. "Please take it. I won't feel right otherwise."
Glory gave him a prickly look. "I don't overcharge my customers. But..." his eye gazed up into a copse of small, twisted trees growing nearby. "I wouldn't mind having that whistle."
TP pulled the dog whistle from his pocket and handed it over. "I'll bring you a dozen whistles if..." His voice trailed off as he stared at the column of mist. "Well, I'd best get started." He consulted his watch. "It's now about twelve-thirty. If I'm not back by three o'clock, you can go on home."
Glory shook his hand, holding it a long moment. "Good luck, Mr. Dunlap. I'll be waiting."
"Call me TP."
He got out his rope and tied one end securely to a tree, the other around his waist with the coil clipped on his belt so it would feed through behind him as he walked. Backpack on, suitcase handle in one hand, the five minute hourglass in the other, he approached the mist. He could feel a pull now, drawing him in. As the mist closed around him, he flipped the hourglass over to start timing. He could walk a half mile in ten minutes, one flip of the timepiece. That should bring him to the center of the mistangle and to the end of his rope.
It was hard to see, to breathe. The air was warm and steamy. Could you drown breathing mist? His ears kept popping and the ground was soft and heavy, sucking at his heels. The suitcase felt like a lead weight. He hadn't counted on the strength of the pull. It kept dragging him to the left, so he tried to compensate by altering his steps. Two forward, one to the right, two forward, one right. He tripped over something and nearly fell, dropping the hour glass. No time to search for it; he'd have to rely on the rope to tell him when he'd reached the center. His watch had stopped, as he'd expected, and the needle on his compass flew around the dial in crazy circles. Again he tripped, and peered downward to see white bones. Pelvic, he thought, and a femur. Definitely human. Panic hit but he forced it away and went on. Couldn't stop. Must hurry. Willing his feet to go faster, he leaned forward and careened through the mist. Not one thing alive in here except himself. No trees, grass, birds, insects. Only bones. Ah, it was such an effort to breathe!
The ground seemed to be sloping downward, which was good. It gave him a bit of momentum, but he had to be very careful not to fall. His leg muscles were already burning, his chest was sore and tight. On he trudged, thinking of marching songs to help carry him along. "Pride of the Wolverines", "The British Grenadiers" - ah, those drums! "The Imperial March" from the Empire Strikes Back. Yes, he was a soldier of the universe, on a mission to help vanquish the evil Black Brotherhood of the Mist. To help end the terrible scourge of the chimera dragon. Onward. Can't be much farther. He thought of Madeline, of Harold, of his favorite students over the years. He thought of his garden. Must plant another round of lettuce when he got home.
When the string tugged against his waist he pulled up in surprise. He'd made it to the center! The mist here was very thick and turbulent, hissing as it spiraled upward like steam from a giant cauldron. Quickly he shrugged off the backpack, opened a side pocket and pulled out the hourglass, flipping it to start timing. Now he had only to wait for a bit less than two hours, which would equal twenty-three years outside, for the honey to ripen. He worried that the air was too damp here for the charcoal to light. It was wrapped in plastic in the suitcase, so he'd best leave it in there till the last minute.
He needed to sit down and rest his legs, but the ground was soggy. Very carefully he set the hourglass down, making sure it was level, then laid out a windbreaker from his pack and sat on it, using the suitcase as a back rest. There was a darkness in front of him, close to the ground. Blinking hard, he strained to see what it was, then realized with shock that the earth fell away there into a pit. Supposing he'd fallen into it? Would his string have held, or would he have tumbled down into the bowels of the earth?
He tried to grasp what he was witnessing. Very powerful forces were rising up from deep underground; forces that were destructive to all life. But why were they here, and what had unleashed them? Fallen angels? Evil spirits? Black magicians? Or something beyond his comprehension. Whatever this eruption was, the human race obviously didn't have the wisdom to deal with it, and he guessed the chimera dragons were the result, being a strange cocktail of human ignorance and greed, supernatural powers and electronic devices. Doppelgangers supposedly fed on the earth's magnetic and electrical charges, and witnessing the power of this upheaval, he could very well imagine monsters emerging from it.
TP had also pieced together a story of struggle between two factions battling over this energy, one that wished to use it for evil purposes, one that wanted to transmute it, gaining power not from the energy itself but from the strength and wisdom achieved by taming it.
There were always warring factions, he thought. Battles seemed to be a necessary part of evolution. But some fought for the good of all, like the honeybees protecting the hive, and some fought to gain at the expense of others. Some wanted to divide and separate, some to unite. In the end, separation was an illusion; the Lord of the Dance had taught him that. But unity had to come through choice, not compulsion. So battles would be waged, one side against the other, until all dross was burned away and the Quinta Essentia emerged, eternal and incorruptible, so powerful that no darkness could touch it.
At least that's what he hoped, sitting here watching pure chaos pour out of the pit. He hoped he'd soon behold the Quinta Essentia and be released from the darkness that had taken root in him.
The first hour dragged to its close and he turned the hourglass. The second hour was an eternity, testing every ounce of his resolve and fortitude. He grew weak and faint, his bones ached, the skin on his face sagged, the veins on his arms protruded in knotty cords from shrunken, mottled flesh. He was now over seventy years old. His hair had grown well past his collar, a scraggly beard covered his chin and trickled down his chest. It was snow white. His breath sounded raspy, his thoughts and movements were slow and labored. He kept fearing he'd fall asleep and never wake up. Then he remembered Hattie's smelling salts. The sharp fumes allowed him moments of clarity, and silently he blessed Hattie's thoughtfulness.
When the top of the hourglass was half empty, he opened the suitcase and dumped half of the charcoal on the ground, mounding it up and placing the small tripod over it with the flask of purified honey on top, sealed except for a small hole at the top to allow steam to escape. Then he sat with the lighter fluid and matches in one hand, the hourglass in the other, his eyes glued on the sand spilling through it. When only a small trickle of sand remained, he poured lighter fluid over the charcoal, lit a match and touched it to the bottom of the pile. The match fizzled and went out. Again he tried with the same result. He poured on more fluid and held the match as close as he could to the charcoal. This time it stayed lit, but within seconds the pile had burned down to a few coals. Frantically he doused the remaining pile of charcoal with fluid and fed it to the fire, bit by bit, as fast as he could. How many seconds had it been? Thirty-two seconds would equal forty days. That was all he needed. When the last piece of charcoal had been used, he peered into the flask, hardly daring to hope. At the bottom was a flat, hard substance, glowing red in the fog. He could hardly believe his eyes. Gingerly he touched the flask, finding it already cold. He picked it up and looked closely inside. Lord almighty, he had done it! Uttering a mighty cry, he raised the flask up high and brought it down hard on the metal rim of the suitcase. It took three tries to smash the glass, but finally he extricated a luminescent red stone about a foot in diameter and six inches thick. Carefully he brushed off the glass shards with his shirttail.
Using his pocket knife, he chipped off a small piece and popped it into his mouth. Should he swallow it whole or wait for it to dissolve, like a piece of hard candy? It had almost no taste, only a faint flowery sweetness. He swallowed.
Immediately warm currents hummed through him, followed by a great pressure on his chest and in his head. Something was wrong. Was he dying? Clutching his head in his hands he fell to his knees, wailing with pain. Louder and louder grew the wails until it dawned on him the sounds were not all his own. He looked up and saw the dark form of his adversary writhing in the mist, its red eyes flashing as it twisted and turned. Horrible sounds made him cover his ears as the chimera was sucked up into the vortex, disintegrating save for the eyes that glared at him, until finally they, too, grew small and dull and disappeared.
No time to rejoice. He still had to get out of the mistangle. With great effort he got the stone into his pack and put it on. His movements were slow and fumbling, his fingers stiff and gnarled, his back bent. He was eighty-six years old and counting. Powerful as the stone was, it hadn't stopped the aging process. But maybe it would keep him alive a bit longer. Leaving the suitcase where it lay, he set off with tottering steps, keeping the string taut in front of him.
Very shortly he knew he was in serious trouble. He couldn't catch his breath and a roaring sound filled his ears. On the verge of passing out, he found the bottle of smelling salts in his pocket and sniffed deeply, coughing and sputtering. He staggered forward, blinking repeatedly to clear his watering eyes. Was there movement up ahead? Yes! He saw a figure waving, surrounded with light and beautiful flowers. Joyfully he pushed onward, but the image vanished and he realized he'd been hallucinating. Ah, he could swear he'd seen the Lord of the Dance, beckoning him.
The dance; it was all about the dance. It went on eternally, everywhere, in all cultures and religions. How did that old Christian hymn go?
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone,
But I am the dance and I still go on.
He tripped and fell, hitting something hard that brought sharp pain to his shin. He struggled to stand, groping for the string, but it wasn't there. It had broken in the fall. On his hands and knees he crawled slowly in a circle, feeling the ground in front of him, squinting to see in the dim light. Nothing but sticky black mud. No time to keep searching, he'd have to go on without it. But which way had he been going? Confused, he took a few more steps and fell again.
Sleep...that's what he needed. Nothing else mattered. He'd gotten rid of the devil on his back, that was the most important thing. Others could carry the torch now. He wished, though, that he'd been able to deliver the stone to Doc. One last time he struggled to stand, then fell back exhausted. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out Madeline's green stone, taking comfort from the smooth feel of it in his hand. He'd put a string through the clasp holding it and fastened it to his belt loop to make sure it didn't get lost.
"I'm sorry, Madeline," he whispered. But she'd find another stone. And she'd find Sephyr, he was sure of it. Sighing deeply, he drifted into sleep.
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