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I nodded, and then said no more, as our unusual ride suddenly rose from a crouch to its full height. And immediately took off for the trunk of a very large tree. Our guide said something in their language, and Ray gripped the side of the seat.
“What did he say?” I asked, as the pincers gripped the wood.
“He said hold on!”
And then we were climbing. It was so fast that I barely realized what was happening before we were bursting out above the tree line. It was a beautiful view, with vividly colored trees—green and yellow and orange and deep purple—spreading out all around us and thick with leaves, like the most luxurious of carpets. Some startled birds—vividly blue with a yellow chest and long, trailing tails—added to the scene, flying up and then off at our appearance, into the perfect cerulean of the sky.
The voyage took the better part of a day, despite the fact that the crabs were extremely fast. They explained the strange rustlings I’d seen in the treetops, shortly after we’d arrived. The common folk seemed to use them in these parts like horses, and the trees like highways, allowing them to swiftly travel across long distances.
I found the trip quite pleasant, and quite easy. There was nothing to impede us here, no mountains to climb or enemies to avoid. I saw a dragon in the distance once, fiery red and easily visible against the pale blue of the sky. But our ride dipped below the leafy canopy for a little while, and when we emerged again, it was gone.
We finally reached our destination in early afternoon, with the climb backwards down another great trunk a new pleasure. In no time, we were on the ground, amid a huge forest of a different kind. Silver gray bark, blue skies and bright yellow leaves, many of the latter swirling down around us as we gazed about in wonder.
“Have you ever seen the like?” I asked Ray.
He just shook his head.
Our guide took us forward. He was the same old man we’d met on the riverbank, and he seemed to have developed a fondness for us. He beckoned us along, while the rest of the party hugged family and friends, and chatted—about the hunt, I presumed—while unloading their beasts.
The forest was a wonder, but I did not have long to marvel at the height of the trees, or the thickness of their trunks, or at the size of their leaves, which were feet across in some cases. Or at the many tents that had been set up beneath them, some on the forest floor and some further up, on branches so broad that they could be used as additional “stories.” Some of the tents were hide, but many more were in colorful fabrics that added to the festive nature of things.
Ray did not seem so impressed, looking around suspiciously as we moved ahead, watching the people so closely that he did not even bother to swear at the size of the roots we often had to clamber over or pass under, or the floor covering of massive, decomposing leaves that we waded through in places, up to our thighs.
Everything was so beautiful, but so alien . . .
Almost.
I paused at the edge of a small clearing. There were no tents here. Instead, a small group of thatched huts clustered closely together, around a central fire. A handful of women, one of them gray haired, were bustling about, fixing a meal. The smell of roasting meat hit my nose, as well as that of some strange vegetables bubbling away in a pot of soup and an open container of hoppy beer.
The beer was more or less familiar, although it wasn’t what had me pausing again, half way to the fire, to sniff the air.
Ray noticed the same time I did, and his face flushed. “No. No, no, no, no, no!”
“Ray—”
“I won’t have it, do you understand?” he yelled, causing the people to pause and look at him oddly. But I didn’t think he was talking to them. “I’ve been ripped to pieces,” he raged. “I’ve been kidnapped, thrown all over a ley line, and almost stomped to death by a dragon! And that was before being shot full of arrows and practically drowned—”
“You can’t drown,” I said, but he wasn’t listening.
“I have put up with it all, but this—I will not do this. Fuck it, I’m done.”
And I supposed he meant it, because he sat right down in the dirt, arms crossed, face mulish, and refused to go another step.
“Raymond?” A familiar male voice carried from somewhere inside one of the huts. “Raymond Lu? Is that you?”
“Not doing it,” Ray muttered, hands going over his ears. “La la la, can’t hear you.”
The old man was looking from me to Ray and back again, as if he was starting to regret bringing us here. I couldn’t really blame him. And then the voice came again. It was slightly muffled, but was nonetheless perfectly understandable.
“Damn it! Stop horsing around and get over here!”
I went over there. He turned out to be in the third hut I peered into, which should have been the first since it was the only one with guards outside the door. They crossed spears when I approached, and I did not attempt to remove them.
We were guests.
It would have been rude.
It was gloomy in the hut, especially when standing outside, but my eyes adjusted after a moment. This allowed me to see the figure of a man, lashed against the central pole of the structure. I assumed there must also be some magic involved, because otherwise, the flimsy ropes would not have held him for an instant. Because he wasn’t just a man, he was a vampire, one with curly hair and a familiar scent in my nose.
