Chapter 6 : Mist Wolves

It was early afternoon, one day north of the Cross Roads.

"Tell me about Sunanon," Peter ventured. They were riding through a zone of tall chestnut trees, littered with fallen leaves, rich shiny brown nuts and the green husks of their spiny cases. Below the thick trunks bright orange and yellow mushrooms carpeted the forest floor.

"I don't know what to say," Cerylia said.

"Tell me what you feel. I know I haven't got any right to ask you but I want to know. You're here aren't you? And I'm here as well, for my sins. What are we here for?"

"He makes me feel alive," Cerylia said. "I like his sense of humour. He was the first person to appreciate me for what I really was. He understood why I wanted to be an Agent. He understood that I didn't want to be some bureaucrat for the Stability Council - that I had my own life to lead." "I love him," she finished.

Of course that had to be true. If it hadn’t been true then why was she chasing this man to the ends of the Autumn Country? All perfectly reasonable. So why did it hurt? The hurt was the stupid thing. That was totally unreasonable! Peter felt ashamed of himself. Not ashamed that he loved Cerylia but ashamed that he was so stupid in respect of the other people who loved her. It was obvious. Obvious that other people would feel the same way that he felt. And stupid, therefore not to respect the fact that they loved her. Fine. But it was hateful. Even though he had known Cerylia for such a short while and even though he had no right to object to the relationships she had with other men he hated the thought of it. In crude and simple terms he was jealous - jealous of a person he had never even seen.

"He is a lucky man then", Peter said. "He must be very special to deserve you."

A sudden reckless spirit possessed him.

"If you were mine, I wouldn't be as careless as him. I know I have my limitations and God knows there are plenty of them but I wouldn’t have made you chase me across the Autumn Country. Not if I could help it."

"Sunanon couldn't help it. He's under Eryndra's Glamour and it's blinding him to reason. Once we free him from the Glamour, he'll see sense."

For a few moments they held their peace as the Kestervaals carried them northwards into the forest.

"And what about you, Peter," Cerylia asked. "You've been thrown out of a Stable World. Is there anyone who will be expecting you to return to them? Who's going to miss you?"

That turned out to be a surprisingly hard question and Peter had to think about it for a good five minutes.

"I don’t know," he managed at last. "My mum, dad and my sister I guess, although they don’t see a lot of me these days so it might be a while before they'll notice. I've got friends who will object if I don't supply them with some stupid weekly lottery figures. And I imagine that it won't be very long before my bosses will expect an analysis document or two out of the old AS/400 system. You can't leave that alone for very long before someone wants a specification out of it. Other than that, no one I would think."

"So you haven't really got anyone who's actually in love with you then?" Cerylia asked.

"Not as far as I know."

It was a pretty feeble reply and even as he said it Peter was annoyed with himself for the confession. It was pathetic in the worse sense of the word. Get a grip, he thought. But he wasn't quite sure what he had to get a grip of.

There was a short and uncomfortable little silence.

"What exactly were you doing when you fell through to the Autumn Country?" Cerylia asked to change the subject.

"I was travelling between floors on a lift in the tower block," Peter said.

"Hmmm. Were you doing anything special before that? I'm wondering why you ended up in the Autumn Country, you see."

Peter considered it carefully.

"I'm a computer programmer. I was working on ODBC calls from Visual Basic into the AS/400 database," he said. "ODBC is a special sort of program which is used to contact remote databases."

Cerylia shook her head in puzzlement.

"I don’t really understand", she admitted.

"Join the club," Peter muttered. "Let's just say that ODBC is something which mediates between the program and the database. You have to invoke it to get an answer from the database."

"Ah. So ODeedBeeSea is a sort of oracle. I think I see now! Some of my friends have had trouble with oracles. And does this ODeedBeeSea always come when you call it?" she asked.

"Well not exactly," Peter admitted.

"Just as I thought!" Cerylia said. "These oracles can be tricky. They think that because you have to access some final authority through them, they can mess you about. Don’t put up with it! It wouldn’t surprise me if this ODeedBeeSea wasn't responsible for throwing you into the Autumn Country!"

There was an idea… Peter had always distrusted ODBC but surely even the world's worst ODBC call couldn’t produce this result! Could it?

"Perhaps you can explain something to me, whilst we're on the subject of technicalities," he said. "What's all this business with true names? Everyone seems very prickly about their 'true' name and I've never heard so many aliases before."

"Oh that's easy. I think you do understand it already. Sort of. What do you use aliases for in your world?"

"Well… ODBC, I suppose," he said. "I hadn't thought of that! We have to declare an alias for the data source before we can call it."

"That makes sense. When you're talking to oracles you don’t want to reveal your real name, do you?"

"No. No. That isn’t it."

He shook his head in confusion feeling that they'd gone off on the wrong track somewhere. "Well, maybe not. I don’t know. A simpler example then. Imagine, oh I don’t know, imagine you're having an affair and you don’t want anyone to know. You might use an alias then, mightn't you? Just as a form of protection when you exchange messages."

"I suppose you could do. Yes."

"Well it's the same reasoning here only much, much more so! The Stable Worlds have managed to exclude most of the spirits that hunt on the scent of blood and true names. In many other Realms a true name is a source of weakness which can be exploited by the locals. The Autumn Country is a very bad place to reveal your true name."

"But how can these 'spirits' use the true name?" Peter persisted.

"Blood must flow first. When the name and the blood are cursed together within sight of one another they can act. You wouldn't want to witness that."

---

The chestnut trees had given way to ancient oaks and the widely spaced fat, gnarled trunks of some enormous species of tree Peter didn’t recognise at all; wood as black as coal, rough bark and deep red circular leaves the size of dinner plates with finely toothed edges.

"We are approaching the Fungal Regions," Tarragon said. "This part of the Autumn Country is known for the wide variety and size of the fungi which fruit here."

As the continued up the road, the forest seemed to draw apart from itself, becoming taller, older and gloomier. Each tree commanded a vast circular domain of twisted roots and shade which no seedling would dare to invade. The change in scale gave rise to the disturbing illusion that they had all shrunk into a party of miniature toys. Even the Kestervaals looked like nothing more than squirrels compared to these trees.

Then Peter spotted the first of the giant fungi. They were the only things which dared to grow under the dark canopy. This one was a bracket fungus. Sprouting from the black trunk of a particularly twisted tree the broad white cap spread out over the road like the awning of a shop front. As they rode underneath it, they could all see intricate architecture of the widely spaced gills and smell the rich unpleasant mustiness of the creamy flesh.

Soon there were more. Tarragon named them as they passed: bright yellow "Fever Frights", their globular heads bent like street lights; dark purple clusters of "Root Rot" the size of umbrellas which grew in thick colonies around old tree stumps; vivid crimson caps of "Assassin's Friend" which seemed to emerge directly from the forest floor to rise on solitary stalks two metres high; the white domes of puff balls the size of the Kestervaals; and some faintly luminous blue species called "Traitor's Lights" which could be seen glowing deeply in the forest.

Everyone seemed to find this section of the road rather disturbing and they kept closer together than usual. The Count cantered up and down the column checking that they were all in good order but the men were subdued and didn’t sing or call to one another with their usual enthusiasm. After an hour or so he let Sirius trot beside Peter and Cerylia and fell into conversation with them.

"What's so significant about the Temple Of November?" Cerylia asked.

"It's on the border of the Realm for a start and it occupies the strategic high ground between my heart lands and the Winter Country," the Count said. "Obviously that's significant in itself. It's important for other reasons as well. It's the location of two of the Seven Ways."

"The Seven Ways being?", Peter promoted.

"The Seven Ways being the traditional Gates in and out of the Autumn Country. Naturally, there are lots of ways in and out of the Autumn Country but these seven are the important ones. That's another one of my titles - the Gatekeeper of the Seven Ways. There is the Great Summer Door on Indian hill to the south of the Cross Roads, the Night Gate and the Haunted Way close to my castle, both of which lead through to different parts of the Twilight Realms and there is the Abstract Way in the East. The Temple of November houses two more Gates; the Christmas Passage and the Broken Gate. The Christmas Passage is the name of both the Gate itself and of its destination. The Broken Gate doesn't go anywhere. That's why it's called the Broken Gate."

"I only make that six ways," said Cerylia, somewhat pedantically, Peter thought.

"It is only six ways. The location of the seventh way has been forgotten."

"Sounds pretty careless to me," Cerylia said. "Fancy forgetting where the doors are?"

"Well don’t blame me!" the Count answered defensively. "It was forgotten long before I took over here."

"And you think Eryndra, Kark, Sunanon and company are at the Temple?"

"Yes. Somebody is at the Temple. My birds aren't smart enough to identify them but they're telling me it's occupied. It would be too much of a coincidence if it wasn't the Agents you were looking for. And someone's messing around with the Christmas Passage."

"How can you tell?"

"I keep the Gate locked and I have an alarm which tells me if it's being tampered with", the Count said. "I've only got a small garrison here and I don’t want any trouble. The best way to avoid trouble is to keep out unwelcome visitors and as far as I'm concerned pretty much all visitors to the Autumn Country are unwelcome."

He gave Cerylia a dazzling smile. "Obviously there are exceptions, my lady."

"The Christmas Passage is a small Realm - a narrow valley between steep rocky hills which funnels out through the New Year gap onto the Great Bleak Plain over the border in the Winter Country. At one time it used to be a place of some spirituality. Men and women made pilgrimages to the holy sites and came away renewed and at peace.

"These days it has fallen into disrepute. It's become a byword for drunken revelry and mayhem. There are cut throat traders who'll extort every last penny from you in the name of the prince of the place - a nasty old thug who styles himself 'Santa Clause' and runs a pretty comprehensive protection racket demanding a toll of so called 'presents' from travellers through the Realm. I hear that Santa may be fronting for the Proton King now.

When I last visited the Christmas Passage, I was quite glad to make it through the New Year gap and out alive on to the other side. That's when I decided to lock the Gate and shut the Temple."

"What are you going to do about the gnomes?" Cerylia asked. They'd seen fires again in the morning when they broke camp - several this time and from the way that they were grouped in the forest Tarragon was confident that they were the work of the gnome Rings.

The Count was altogether calmer on the subject of gnomes now. The sight of so many fires had obviously made him think. He took the question seriously.

"I shall have to talk to this R'eskyl'ah'in character," he said. "It would be foolish to ignore the signs. Something's going on here and I'd like to know what. We must arrange a meeting Tarragon."

"Is that wise, sire?" the councillor said. "You know what gnomes are like! They make all sorts of promises and then they go their own way. You can't trust them…"

"I'll be the judge of that," the Count said firmly. "I just want you to arrange a meeting. I've decided. Tomorrow, before we continue our journey, we will try to make contact."

---

Evening came swiftly under the vast boughs of the woodland giants. They made camp in a hollow where a dark stream fed a shallow pool before it overflowed into deeper levels of the forest. A thick tangle of leathery rhododendron bushes had managed to survive the shade by the pool and it was red wood from their dead branches which fed the cooking fire.

"It's not far to the Temple," the Count said. "Another day should see us there."

Peter already knew. He could feel the presence of Eryndra growing stronger and stronger and somehow he could sense that they should reach her very soon.

Tarragon spent a long time setting the ward for the night, pacing in a wide circle three times round the perimeter of the camp and muttering softly to himself as he sprinkled his powders on the ground. They all ate well - generous helpings of a venison stew flavoured with wild onions and garlic - but there were no songs tonight. The soldiers were pensive and even slightly tense, having little liking for the Fungal Regions and aware also that the next day might bring confrontation with an unknown enemy. Count Arcturus let the men finish with a single shot of brandy, telling them that by tomorrow night they'd be on their way back to the castle with the trouble makers in custody. The fire was damped only a couple of hours after sundown and apart from the two watchmen on guard duty, everyone retired to their tents early.

It must have been after midnight when Peter emerged out of the treacherous waters of a shallow sleep filled with reefs of bad dreams, and found himself beached on the shores of wakefulness. The camp was quiet and it was very dark but something was making him uneasy. He twisted inside his fur sleeping bag, straightening himself to liberate his limbs where his body had got tangled in the linen inner lining. Next to him in the tent, Cerylia was sleeping peacefully inside her own sleeping bag, the slow rise and fall of her breathing reassuringly normal. Harry Hammond was snoring softly on the far side of the tent.

Peter's mouth felt dry and sandy and he needed a drink. He reached for his canteen and shook it. Empty. Damn. He hadn’t filled it last night. He swallowed, his throat raw and unpleasant as though he were sickening for something. Perhaps he could make a quick trip to the pool to get some water now. He struggled out of the sleeping bag and began to shiver immediately. He was running a slight fever. As soon as he unzipped the tent flap the cold of the night air was a thousand times worse but he was determined to brave it now.

There was some moonlight tonight, a little of which had spilled down between the branches of the trees to try to illuminate the forest. It was very quiet outside. Why should that worry him? Maybe it was due to the grey folds of mist which were swirling round the tents. When he'd retired for the night the air had been crystal clear but now a wet chilly blanket had risen from somewhere and was pouring through the trees like milk. Only the thin moonlight allowed Peter to see the softly moving banks of fog. From time to time, black clearings opened in the dank air but mostly he could only make out pale shifting silvery walls of nothingness punctuated by a few dark silhouettes.

He clambered out of the tent and turned downhill in the direction he believed the pool to be. It was the Kestervaals that were quiet. He suddenly realised that even in the night he had grown accustomed to the constant wheezing, snorting, belching and grumbling of the giant animals. Now they weren't making a sound.

He found the pool only a few metres away but he was starting to feel the first hint of fear. His canteen filled slowly with low fluid glugs as he wondered what to do next. He wished the canteen were filling more quietly. The return trip to the tent seemed to take an age.

Just as he reached it, he saw strange creatures in the mist and locked solid with fright. Peter had no idea what they were but at the very heart of the silver water vapour he could now make out denser shapes - shapes which had a dozen tendrils, shapes which flowed like liquid but with foggy little yellow eyes and cloudy breath. They made a faint hissing sound as they moved, floating softly through the camp. Fortunately they did not see Peter before he had fumbled his way back into the tent and shaken the nearest sleeping bag which proved to be a startled Harry Hammond.

"Look!" Peter said. His voice was harsh and ragged.

Harry shook his head and stuck it outside the tent. Soon both men were staring at the sinister entities menacing the darkness. The fog seemed to grab Peter by the throat as though it were preventing him from calling out. He thought this was only a delusion at first but then he realised that Harry was suffering from the same effect. Somehow the thickening mist was choking them all into silence as though it were in collusion with the unnatural animals.

"What are they?" Peter managed at last.

"Mist wolves!" Harry croaked, his voice starting as a shout then dying to a hoarse whisper. He grabbed his sword and banged it against his shield to rouse the camp. The success of this tactic caused a surge of adrenaline though his body and he managed to break the strangle hold of the vapours, recovering a little of his voice to shout again.

"Wake the camp! Ware the wolves!"

The men began to stumble out of their tents in long johns and woolly vests, not pausing even to dress, arms and legs flailing as they hurried to seize their weapons. Two torches flared to life, their ruddy glows diffuse but welcoming in the vaguely defined forest night.

Then the Count was out amongst his men, creating order out of chaos as he organised the defence.

"Mist wolves! We're under attack! Form a ring round the fire. Load the Dragon Guns!"

This was all he managed to spit out before the sinister vapour silenced him but it was enough. The soldiers knew what they were facing now.

Cerylia was already armed and looked dangerous to Peter but when she grabbed his arm it was only to say, "There's nothing we can do to help. I've got my daggers and you've got a sword but no blade is any use against a mist wolf! The contact between metal and mist doesn't harm them in the slightest. A mist wolf will just corrode the edge off your weapon and leave you holding a useless stick of rust in next to no time."

Someone had poked the camp fire back into life again.

"We have to keep clear of the Wolves but we need to get to that fire! It'll be safer there."

A roar of orange heat erupted from a Dragon Gun as it spat its deadly line of flame into the grey wall of air nearby. One of the mist wolves turned in its tracks and seemed to lunge towards a running man who tripped and fell in front of it. There was a scream which turned into a horrid gurgle before being cut off into an ominous silence - all far too quickly.

"Come on!"

Peter, Cerylia and Harry dodged between the guy ropes and pegs of five tents to get to the centre of the camp. It was only thirty metres or so but it seemed much longer. When they reached it, they found that most of the troops were already assembled in a circle, Dragon Guns pointing outward.

"Hold your fire until you have a clear target"

The Count's hoarse whisper was still loud enough for the close circle of soldiers. The three new arrivals slipped gratefully inside the protective ring of flame throwers just as another orange roar cut the night open.

"Told you Dragon Guns were handy in a tight spot!" the Count hissed to Peter.

Two running men made it to the sanctuary but another heart rending scream that turned into a hiss told of one more who had fallen to the wolves.

Peter crouched with his back to the fire, heart hammering as he watched and waited anxiously for further developments. But after all the drama of the previous few minutes there was to be only one more incident that night. A kind of stalemate had been reached. Now that the soldiers had formed a defensive circle the wolves had no hope of breaking through. One tried and was reduced to a flaming ball of dead gases. That was the last of the action. The rest of the wolves learned their lesson and contented themselves with patrolling round the outside edge of the firelight just out of range of the Dragon Guns.

"It’s a good job you warned us when you did," the Count said to Harry. "They must have silenced our sentries with this mist and killed them before they could raise the alarm."

"Thaat was young Pendramoons dooin Count."

The Count looked at Peter with a new eye.

"Hmmm.. Perhaps you are useful for something after all. Besides hogging Recorder Tokens that is."

It was said with a lightness of touch which took the sting out of the words and Peter took it as a compliment.

"We should destroy the cursed things," A'lekim proposed. "Take the fight to them whilst we've got the upper hand!"

The Count, however, ruled against a direct assault.

"Those creatures are fast," he told the minstrel. "If we try to break out from the fire we'll certainly wipe plenty of 'em out, but we might take needless casualties as well. We've only got a limited amount of ammunition for the guns. I'm not going to risk it. If we keep the fire going they can't prowl round here forever and they can't do any damage in the camp so we'll wait 'em out." And that was what they did. The fire was built up to a great roaring blaze with the aid of all the fuel that fell within their defensive circle. Whilst some of the troops took turns to snatch a little sleep others kept a continuous watch making sure that the circumference was completely covered by loaded Dragon guns.

Cerylia sat down next to Peter and they talked over their recent narrow escape, staring nervously into the mist for half an hour with their backs to the hot flames, propped up against a couple of solid packs. There was nothing to see but faintly shifting shadows and to Peter's surprise Cerylia suddenly rested her head on his shoulder and fell asleep. He settled awkwardly with his arm around her and eventually he drifted off himself.

Despite the horror of the recent attack his dreams for the rest of the night were much more peaceful. When he woke in the morning the fire was low and Cerylia was already preparing for travel. The mist had cleared and the mist wolves were long gone…