It was the disc that spoke.
A ridiculous idea, even a fairy the size of Armaneeta couldn’t fit inside that thin plate of metal… but was it any more ridiculous than a boy on his own in the Endless Forest, searching for a mage who had to be long centuries dead? Who, even if alive, was likely thousands of wheels north of here, in that part of the world where the snow never melted?
He looked for the greenglow and didn’t see it. With his heart still hammering in his chest, Tim got down on his knees and felt around, touching a litter of leaf-wrapped pork popkins, discovering a small basket of berries (most spilled on the ground), discovering the hamper itself… but no silver disc.
In despair, he cried: “Where in Nis are you?”
“Here, traveler,” the woman’s voice said. Perfectly composed. Coming from his left. Still on his hands and knees, he turned in that direction.
“Where?”
“Here, traveler.”
“Keep talking, will ya do.”
The voice was obliging. “Here, traveler. Here, traveler, here, traveler.”
He reached toward the voice; his hand closed on the precious artifact. When he turned it over in his hand, he saw the green light. He cradled it to his chest, sweating. He thought he had never been so terrified, not even when he realized he was standing on the head of a dragon, nor so relieved.
“Here, traveler. Here, traveler. Here-”
“I’ve got you,” Tim said, feeling simultaneously foolish and not foolish at all. “You can, um, be quiet now.”
Silence from the silver disc. Tim sat still for perhaps five minutes, listening to the night-noises of the forest-not so threatening as those in the swamp, at least so far-and getting himself under control. Then he said, “Yes, sai, I’d like a light.”
The disc commenced the same low whining noise it made when it brought forth the stick, and suddenly a white light, so brilliant it made Tim temporarily blind, shone out. The trees leaped into being all around him, and some creature that had crept close without making a sound leaped back with a startled yark sound. Tim’s eyes were still too dazzled for him to get a good look, but he had an impression of a smooth-furred body and-perhaps-a squiggle of tail.
A second stick had emerged from the plate. At the top, a small hooded bulge was producing that furious glare. It was like burning phosphorous, but unlike phosphorous, it did not burn out. Tim had no idea how sticks and lights could hide in a metal plate so thin, and didn’t care. One thing he did care about.
“How long will it last, my lady?”
“Your question is nonspecific, traveler. Rephrase.”
“How long will the light last?”
“Battery power is eighty-eight percent. Projected life is seventy years, plus or minus two.”
Seventy years, Tim thought. That should be enough.
He began picking up and repacking his gunna.
With the bright glare to guide him, the path he was following was even clearer than it had been on the edge of the swamp, but it sloped steadily upward, and by midnight (if it was midnight; he had no way of telling), Tim was tired out in spite of his long sleep in the boat. The oppressive and unnatural heat continued, and that didn’t help. Neither did the weight of the hamper and the waterskin. At last he sat, put the disc down beside him, opened the hamper, and munched one of the popkins. It was delicious. He considered a second, then reminded himself that he didn’t know how long he would have to make these rations last. It also crossed his mind that the brilliant light shining from the disc could be seen by anything that happened to be in the vicinity, and some of those things might not be friendly.
“Would you turn the light off, lady?”
He wasn’t sure she would respond-he had tried several conversational gambits in the last four or five hours, with no result-but the light went off, plunging him into utter darkness. At once Tim seemed to sense living things all around him-boars, woods-wolves, vurts, mayhap a pooky or two-and he had to restrain an urge to ask for the light again.
These ironwoods seemed to know it was Wide Earth in spite of the unnatural heat, and had sprinkled down plenty of year-end duff, mostly on the flowers that surrounded their bases, but also beyond them. Tim gathered up enough to make a jackleg bed and lay down upon it.
I’ve gone jippa, he thought-the unpleasant Tree term for people who lost their minds. But he didn’t feel jippa. What he felt was full and content, although he missed the Fagonarders and worried about them.
“I’m going to sleep,” he said. “Will you wake me if something comes, sai?”
She responded, but not in a way Tim understood: “Directive Nineteen.”
That’s the one after eighteen and before twenty, Tim thought, and closed his eyes. He began to drift at once. He thought to ask the disembodied female voice another question: Did thee speak to the swamp people? But by then he was gone.
In the deepest crease of the night, Tim Ross’s part of the Endless Forest came alive with small, creeping forms. Within the sophisticated device marked North Central Positronics Portable Guidance Module DARIA, NCP-1436345-AN, the ghost in the machine marked the approach of these creatures but remained silent, sensing no danger. Tim slept on.
The throcken-six in all-gathered around the slumbering boy in a loose semicircle. For a while they watched him with their strange gold-ringed eyes, but then they turned north and raised their snouts in the air.
Above the northernmost reaches of Mid-World, where the snows never end and New Earth never comes, a great funnel had begun to form, turning in air lately arrived from the south that was far too warm. As it began to breathe like a lung, it sucked up a moit of frigid air from below and began to turn faster, creating a self-sustaining energy pump. Soon the outer edges found the Path of the Beam, which Guidance Module DARIA read electronically and which Tim Ross saw as a faint path through the woods.
The Beam tasted the storm, found it good, and sucked it in. The starkblast began to move south, slowly at first, then faster.
Tim awoke to birdsong and sat up, rubbing his eyes. For a moment he didn’t know where he was, but the sight of the hamper and the greenish shafts of sunlight falling through the high tops of the ironwood trees soon set him in place. He stood up, started to step off the path to do his morning necessary, then paused. He saw several tight little bundles of scat around the place where he had slept, and wondered what had come to investigate him in the night.
Something smaller than wolves, he thought. Let that be enough.
He unbuttoned his flies and took care of his business. When he was finished, he repacked the hamper (a little surprised that his visitors hadn’t raided it), had a drink from the waterskin, and picked up the silver disc. His eye fell on the third button. The Widow Smack spoke up inside his head, telling him not to push it, to leave well enough alone, but Tim decided this was advice he would disregard. If he had paid attention to well-meaning advice, he wouldn’t be here. Of course, his mother might also have her sight… but Big Kells would still be his steppa. He supposed all of life was full of similar trades.
Hoping the damned thing wouldn’t explode, Tim pushed the button.
“Hello, traveler!” the woman’s voice said.
Tim began to hello her back, but she went on without acknowledging him. “Welcome to DARIA, a guidance service of North Central Positronics. You are on the Beam of the Cat, sometimes known as the Beam of the Lion or of the Tyger. You are also on the Way of the Bird, known variously as the Way of the Eagle, the Way of the Hawk, and the Way of the Vulturine. All things serve the Beam!”
“So they do say,” Tim agreed, so wonderstruck he was hardly aware he was speaking. “Although no one knows what it means.”
“You have left Waypoint Nine, in Fagonard Swamp. There is no Dogan in Fagonard Swamp, but there is a charging station. If you need a charging station, say yes and I will compute your course. If you do not need a charging station, say continue. ”
“Continue,” Tim said. “Lady… Daria… I seek Maerlyn-”
She overrode him. “The next Dogan on the current course is on the North Forest Kinnock, also known as the Northern Aerie. The charging station at the North Forest Kinnock Dogan is off-line. Disturbance in the Beam suggests magic at that location. There may also be Changed Life at that location. Detour is recommended. If you would like to detour, say detour and I will compute the necessary changes. If you would like to visit the North Forest Kinnock Dogan, also known as the Northern Aerie, say continue. ”