“There are dangers.”
“So you said. But there’re also dangers in not going to see him. There are dangers just being alive and awake; look at me. If Byron’s the guy who can deal with Iskendarian once and for all I want to get my hands on him as soon as I can.”
That wasn’t necessarily the whole truth, but it was as much as I wanted to reveal to Gash. I didn’t entirely know just what to make of this Byron connection. On the one hand, if I took what Gash said at face value, Byron could represent some measure of redemption to me. If Byron was the key to solving some part of the mess of the world, and if Iskendarian was the key to Byron, and if I was the key to worming the relevant information from Iskendarian without letting him loose again, then I could get the fear of Iskendarian off my back and help society at the same time.
On the other hand, it was a risky enterprise to take anything Gash said at face value.
But even if Byron wasn’t the hope of the world, everything I’d heard about him did imply he might very well be wizard enough to be able to expunge Iskendarian. If he was alive, and if he could be reached, and if he was interested, and if he wasn’t really aligned with Iskendarian himself in the same strange plot, and if Byron wasn’t actually even more unpleasant than Iskendarian to boot. That was a lot of conditional modifiers.
Of course, the status quo hadn’t exactly been breaking in my direction lately, either.
Yet this line of reasoning rested unpleasantly-much on the words of Gashanatantra. That brought up the question that had been dogging my thoughts to an omnipresent extent these last few days - how much of what Gash had said was really the truth?
If I thought of any options better than stringing along with him maybe I’d ask him then. “What we’re getting back to is that Iskendarian may be the key,” I temporized.
“A key, yes, indeed.”
“So what are we doing spending the time visiting Protector of Nature?”
“There is more than just one lock involved. This way - I know the secret path to the Sacred Grove.”
We had arrived at a large block set in the middle of the Boulevard of Gods - literally in the middle, with the road peeling off to encircle it in a long sweeping detour on both sides. The block was occupied by a park. Actually, “park” would be only the most minimal word to describe it. Beyond a low wall separating it from the bustle of traffic stretched a broad greensward dotted with the occasional thicket or copse; here a meandering stream, there a small pond half-choked with marsh grass. There were no pathways, only the luxuriant lawn and rolling meadows.
Gash led me into a field of what looked like wild wheat that started out knee-high, then mounted slowly to my chest before bounding suddenly to a level a good two feet above my head. When we emerged from the grain we were abruptly in the midst of a dense wood, fully equipped with clinging mists, dangling creepers, carpets of pine needles and decaying mulch, and heaven-scraping trees. Birds called exotically overhead, animals slunk in the underbrush. I wanted to ask Gash if we’d have to climb but I didn’t really want to hear the answer. Instead, I followed him along a ridgeline that revealed itself two hundred feet further along to be the broken-backed remnant of an ancient fallen trunk, food now for a whole new linear grove whose members had to be themselves a hundred feet tall apiece.
Then the trees parted suddenly. I had been hearing the muffled roar of untamed water for some time in the forest, but had no idea if the source was near or far, rapids or channel, or whether it was all just another trick of environment sorcery. I had certainly not expected the cataract that confronted us now, free-falling down the face of a cliff that dwarfed the trees that lay just behind us, at the top a smooth curve of glass, at the bottom a jumbled cauldron of thundering white and a mass of boulders, a small still pool, and an echoing subterranean exit that drained the torrent as quickly as it descended. A symmetric rainbow crowned the mist and framed the top of the waterfall and the summit of the peak above it. “We should have seen this from the street,” I said. “Why didn’t we see this from the street? This mountain has to be the tallest thing in the city.”
Gash shrugged. “She’s a god.”
“Well, is that thing just there for decor or are we supposed to get ourselves to the top?”
“We are scarcely run-of-the-mill supplicants.”
“That’s something, I guess, but what if she’s not around? We didn’t exactly bring camping supplies.”
“Oh, she’s around, all right. She does split consciousness better than anyone.”
He looked around, then raised his voice. “Clara? Where are you?”
A cloud passed overhead, a dark cloud, casting the clearing and the base of the waterfall into deep shadow. Thunder rolled. “She’s just keeping us entertained,” Gash said, I thought a trifle uncertainly.
“Fine,” I told him, “but if we start taking lightning bolts I’m getting out of here.”
He opened his mouth to respond - in fact, he might have actually said something that was lost behind the latest peal from the heavens - and we’d just begun to receive the first pelt of hail when the noise level dropped abruptly. It took me a moment to identify the fact that the waterfall had shut itself off. The last cascade of falling water hit the pool and as the spray and mist cleared a grotto in the cliff face became visible, along with a path of stepping stones and slick sections of ledge skirting the back edge of the lagoon. “You see?” Gash said.
What I saw didn’t necessarily make me any happier, but then pursuit of my happiness was not exactly what had brought us here. I followed Gash along the trail, trying not to slip badly enough to slide off into the water, since it had occurred to me that nature clearly included carnivorous fish, and then entered through the mouth of the grotto into a hollowed cavern festooned with stalagmites and stalactites and the other traditional furnishings of natural limestone caves. Hidden lighting in bold colors cast the shadows of the pillars into eerie relief. By now I was half-expecting one of the pillars to writhe around and transform itself into our hostess, but instead there she suddenly was, in the same normal human form I’d last seen her wear in the street next to the Scapula’s headquarters, stepping like a normal human out from behind an outcropping of rock. “Gashanatantra. What a surprise,” she said, not sounding surprised at all.
“Clara,” Gash responded. “A pleasure, as always,” he proceeded, underlining the fact that she had not referred to her own surprise as pleasant.
“Nice of you to bring the family,” said Protector of Nature.
“You refer to my associate, and occasional surrogate? If we are to be colleagues, it is only appropriate to conduct our affairs in an open and aboveboard fashion.”
‘Associate,’ was it? It sounded like I’d just received a promotion. Next he’d be saying the whole thing had really been my idea. “Yeah, right,” Clara told him, which is about what I’d have said too at the moment if anyone had asked me for a comment. “Have you been power-sharing with this guy or is he some long-lost cousin? I don’t like being fooled, you know.”
“You approached him, I believe, and requested no validation.”
“That’s right. I approached him. So why are you speaking? Why are you even here?”
Enough of this. “I wasn’t interested in your offer,” I said. “I thought Gash would be, so I told him about it. I thought he was probably the one you intended your message to reach, anyway.”
“Yes,” said Gash. “I understood there was a bounty out for the elimination as an active force of Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable; it was a question of determining who was offering it. I have now decided to collect.”
“What are you talking about?”