Blanka BLANKA Thunder crashed and shook all about as the blinding downpour vented its fury. Stark flashes of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by still more booming waves of sound. This was vengeful storm, one that drove even the ocean's creatures to seek refuge far below the waves. Only a fool would think of venturing out of doors in such a tempest, let alone chart the path of a aircraft... Jack DerMagne was a fool. "You are a FOOL!" snapped DerMagne's co-pilot, Enrique Tehulca. "Trying to fly a small passenger plane in this weather is sheer madness! Worse still, it is in defiance of the holy forces of nature! You have no business attempting to cross the continent under these conditions." DerMagne folded his arms. Sewn onto the sleeve of his aviator's jacket was a winged insignia of military rank, even though he had long since forfeited his right to wear any such symbol..."I have done so before. We_ have done so before, Enrique. And if you think to scare me with your 'nature god' routine--" "El Rey del Oceano is real_! But that is not my point, for he ceased to meddle in humble mortal affairs centuries ago. What I say is this--flying in this weather is a terrible risk, and that you gambled your life in the past does not give you the right to gamble others' lives now!" Thunder sounded again, and then the sharp squalls of a baby could suddenly be heard crescendoing. "Now look what you've done. Our cargo is crying," growled DerMagne, restlessly picking up the child and trying to soothe it. His tenseness only upset the baby further. "Listen to yourself, man!" rasped Tehulca. "You hold in your arms a baby--an innocent touched by la Virgen Maria--and you call him 'cargo'!" "Ten seconds ago you called upon pagan deities, and now once again you're a professed Catholic? You should at least choose between your religions, Enrique." DerMagne shifted the baby, rocking him back and forth. It continued to wail. The infant's name was James Ricardo-Sanford. He was the son of an ostracized Spanish aristocrat and his Canadian wife. Due to a terrible in-fighting squabble amidst landed families that brought the Spaniard into trouble with his home country, the family had fled to South America first, then Canada. But their funds for the journey were scarce, and so young James was left south of the equator, while his parents toiled for the money to bring him north. At last there was enough to hire the cheapest air transportation cold cash could buy--two unchartered pilots, one on a dishonorable discharge from the US Air Force, the other an unlicensed mechanic from Argentina. License or no, though, every survivalist instinct in Enrique Tehulca's body told him that only the suicidal defied a storm like tonight's. "But why_, Jack?" he pleaded. "Why will you not wait?" "In the twenty-two years that I've made supply runs, I have never, ever_ been late. Even that hotshot Gyles hasn't beaten my best time. You haven't been with me very long, Enrique, or you'd know better than to argue. My record shall be perfection_!" "You are right, I have not worked with you for very long," remarked Enrique. "Nor will I, if you keep insisting upon such lunacy! What would the child's parents say?" "I shall get the babe to them on time, no matter what it takes." Enrique Tehulca shook his head in bewilderment. He'd heard stories of how a bitter rivalry between DerMagne and some youthful pilot named Gyles once escalated into a tense competition, as to who was the better aviator... DerMagne lost on a judgment technicality, and then rabidly tried to beat Gyles into a pulp. The younger pilot had been rescued by a friend, and DerMagne's long and distinguished military career was abruptly terminated. When Tehulca had first learned of the tale, he'd wondered how any man could be so stupid. He still wondered. "Jack, I have a wife and four ninos..." "Then stay, coward. I'll do the run on my own--and claim the entire fee for myself." "No, you won't. I will not let you." "Oh, yes you will. See the little gremlin in the corner there?" "Jack, what are you talking abou-" Enrique made the costly mistake of shifting his eyes to the indicated corner. It was the last thing he saw for a long, long while. The Ricardo-Sanfords waited expectantly for their son to arrive... and waited... and waited. As the days stretched, the frantic mother was at last able to contact a recovering Enrique Tehulca. His voice muffled by a rusty dental appliance, Enrique explained over the telephone's static that his co-pilot DerMagne had sucker-punched him and taken off with her son during the fiercest monsoon. Nothing had been heard from either of them since... Young James Ricardo-Sanford was lost, because of the folly of a stubborn American pilot. All Enrique could do in response to the tragedy was notify both their next of kin. Hell, DerMagne didn't even have any next of kin that Enrique knew of; just some old army buddies listed in an address book. None of them attended DerMagne's funeral. Enrique Tehulca and the Father who read the short ceremony were the only ones present to honor the memory of the biggest fool the Argentinean had ever known. After the last rites were pronounced, Tehulca bestowed a final farewell to his one-time employer. Then he returned to hunting for a day job to feed his wife and kids... ***** Two pairs of glowing green eyes surveyed the wreckage. The eyes belonged to two grey-furred beasts with triangular ears and deadly, powerful jaws. Wolves, one might have called them, for at first glance they looked to be large, wild timber wolves, such as might be found in forests far to the north from the tropical jungle where they crouched. To the casual observer, these beasts were wolves, with streaks of brown fur cresting their backs, from nose to tail. Then, perhaps, one might look into their eyes. The animals' eyes did not possess the rounded pupils and circular irises common to both canines and primates. Instead, their black pupils were oval-shaped, and narrowed to nigh-vertical slits in the intense firelight of the burning wreckage before them. Shining green eyes. Cat's eyes. Perhaps one could name these living creatures 'timber wolves' without too much a loss of truth; and yet, beneath their deceptive appearance, they resembled ordinary wolves as the rich, vibrant rainforest about them resembled ordinary timber. You may as well call them worgs and be done with it. Now that the early evening's storm was temporarily less, the worgs had come to investigate the thunderous crash they had heard and seen from over a mile away. So they waited here now, before the still-burning shattered hull of an unliving bird-thing, a thing whose brothers they had seen high away in the sky before. They had come to investigate it as a possible threat to their welfare. Such did not seem to be the case, though; already the light from the bird-thing's pyre was beginning to fade, as the flames were gradually quenched by the night's rain. No, the bird-thing itself was certainly dead, and there was nothing more to be done here... Was there? crooned the slightly smaller of the two worgs, The larger, cat-eyed wolf swivelled his ears forward, in order to better funnel in any stray oscillations in air pressure. The female worg took another step towards the dying embers, and one might have seen in the moonlight that her left ear truly was torn, ripped and scarred from some nameless strife of years ago. She turned her head, aiming her one good ear at the broken debris, and heard it again--the thin, wailing cry of distress. The worg whose sharp claws blended and were lost against the darkness of the night lowered his muzzle. He had hoped Torn-ear would be over this insanity, by now... After Black-claw and Torn-ear had chosen one another as lifemates, tragedy struck. Pestilence came, breathing death on the winds to claim the sweet breath of their only cub. Worgs do not bear litters of children, as other canines do... But if the loss of the child had cut Black-claw deeply, then Torn-ear was nearly driven out of her mind. Six months she had cared for a rotting slab of tree bark, as if it were the son she had loved so much. Even when that particular madness had passed, she continued to hear the ghost of her lost one howling at nigh, or so she said. It wounded Black-claw twice over to see his mate's sanity shattered by grief. Still, Torn-ear was at heart strong--all worgs must be strong, in order to survive--and at last, it seemed as though she were finally learning to cope with her loss. Until now. Worgs have only a dim understanding of 'past' and 'future' as humans do. Most of their awareness is centered solidly upon the present, and the verbs of their language have only one tense. The wolf with the scarred ear padded closer still to the site of the disaster, and her mate trailed behind in order to be sure she did not injure herself, in her most recent spate of madness. Then he heard it, too; a high-pitched wail, faint and weak by now, yet carrying above the pattering rain. The sound was not of any cub, though, nor of anything wolfen at all... he started to address her, then cut himself off when he saw the source of the sound. He knew, then, that there would be no help for the matter; that their discovery of the crushed bird-thing was a trick of Fate, which would have to be played out. Alive, and miraculously unharmed amidst the destruction about it, was a bipedal survivor. It was an ape-beast, such as the colonies of ape-beasts that swarmed in their filthy hives to the south. It was clearly an infant ape-beast, both too young and too weak to so much as stand. Its squalling continued, interspersed with sobs. There was something unusual about this specific ape-infant, though. Black-claw had glimpsed a very few of the hivelike mammals in his life, and always from far away. Still, his memory told him that this particular creature was different from the rest of its kind. Its skin was colored green--a deep and beastly green. Black-claw could tell this quite clearly, for his cat-eyes distinguished basic shades of color in a way that dog-eyes do not. Had the thing been born that way, or had something in the unliving bird's destruction triggered the change? The other item of unusual notice was the pair of thick, dull brown rings that encircled its ankles. There were no other living things among the corpse of the silver bird; only the charred and crushed remains of a second, adult ape-beast. **** "I have found you," Mrs. Samantha Ricardo-Sanford gasped, nearly crying. "At long last, I have found you again." The old woman seated in front of Samantha looked up from her chaotic fiddling with needle and thread, and cursed in her native Hungarian when the distraction caused her to prick a finger on one of the pins. "That does it," growled the crone, half to herself. "I am simply no good at sewing these things." Samantha took a step closer, and peered at a half-finished stitchery patch reading 'Coven, sweet coven.' "It really is you," Samantha sighed. "Twenty, long years later, and you still point the tips of the pins towards yourself, and not away. I have been seeking you for a long time, wise woman. Mujer inteligente. You are my last hope." "'Wise woman'... repeated the crone. "'Mujer inteligente'... those are two of the politer names that you people have for me. 'Witch woman' and 'bruja' are others. I almost think I remember you--but were we ever formally introduced? I am Mariska. Mariska Taltos, the Witch." She extended a liver-spotted hand to her guest, and produced a sickeningly yellow smile. Samantha shook the offered hand warmly, and returned her own, warm smile of pure gratitude. "I am Samantha Ricardo-Sanford," she continued, now in a softer voice. "You once enchanted a pair of brass anklets for Jimmy, my little boy. I knew that your spells could only bring good, despite the worries of my husband." "Ah, yes, now I do remember you... So. How are the husband and the kid, or kids?" Samantha's face fell, and her eyes looked very sad. "Daniel is no more. He passed away three years ago. I wish I had been able to give him more children." "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. Look, let's get you a seat, and please forgive old Mariska for her impertinence." The witch ambled away from her cluttered desk, carefully choosing a path among the may piles of carelessly discarded items that blanketed her tent's square patch of floor. Her eyes still adjusting from the bright, noonday sun to the shade of Mariska's front, Samantha could see more plants, herbs, and weeds, both alive and dried, than she had ever known there to be in the world. Dozens of home-canned jars were haphazardly piled upon what little shelving there was. Samantha couldn't make out their labels very clearly--she had difficulty reading things from a distance, without her glasses--but she could have sworn that she saw four adjacent pickle canisters that read 'eye of newt', 'tongue of toad', 'wing of bat', 'this and that'. "Here you go," offered Mariska kindly, extricating a gaudy orange folding chair from underneath a sleeping black-and-white cat. The animal meowed its disapproval. "Now, Memphis," chided the witch, "be a nice tom. We have a guest." The cat almost seemed to look into Samantha's eyes for a moment. Then he industriously began to wash his face. "Please forgive Memphis too, while you're at it; at times he can be almost as rude as old Mariska. Here, let's see if I can get this thing too--" Mariska struggled with the incongruously modern metal-and-plastic chair for a while, at last finally accepting Samantha's assistance. Samantha relished the chance to finally sit in the unfolded chair; the younger woman had been on her feet all day, searching the busy Mexican marketplace for the one person who--she hoped--could tell her about her son. Jimmy, her little boy. After the heart attack had taken her beloved Daniel... well, she had managed to cope, but only with the help of friends and family. Her_ side of the family, that was; those of Daniel Ricardo's relatives that still survived kept no contact with her, out of fear of that monster_ who had driven Daniel and her out of Spain two decades ago... (Someday, Julio Vegaverde, you will get what is coming to you), she thought. (You will pay for what you did to my husband and me, and for your role in the loss of my son.) "Excuse me dear, are you all right?" asked Mariska, gently. "There, there now... take a deep breath and tell good old Mariska why you're here. Tissue?" "No thank you," declined Samantha. "Before I begin, though... where were you? Where have you been, all these intervening years? Summer after summer, I returned to this very square, searching for you. You were never here. Where were you?" "Many places, darling. 'Other worlds', I might say, if I thought for one minute that you would believe me. But I've always rather liked this particular little world. Sometimes it even feels more like home than Fenario did... so I'm back, but you were still lucky to catch Memphis and me, we were just planning to start packing tomorrow morning. Isn't that right, Memphis?" The cat stopped washing his face, yawned, flopped on his side, and started licking his chest. Mariska turned back to Samantha and shrugged. "I call him Memphis, but that's just short for Mephistopheles. He can summon up the devilish side of his kitty personality when he wants to, trust me. Of course, I don't know his true name; he's a cat, and cats can only be known by aliases that reflect their inner nature. They are not the only such creatures with that particular characteristic, either..." **** Late one night, Black-claw stealthily padded into the outlying area about an ape-beast hive and scavenged a worn, cut-off pair of trousers for his cub, White-eye. The time was drawing nigh when White-eye would have to seek his own path, possibly among the other ape-beasts, and he could probably use some new 'clothing' when he eventually did so. The mated pair of worgs had taught their adopted cub as much as they knew both of their ways and the ways of its fellow ape-beasts. They knew that one day he would have to go among his own kind. Torn-ear was wiser in ape-ways than Black-claw; it was she who trained the cub to become accustomed to the habit of wearing 'clothing', despite its natural inclinations not to bother with such. She told it of the ape-beasts' exploits and nature, and their inherent dangers. she had once lectured patiently. White-eye would reply. As White-eye grew older, Torn-ear was even able to teach him what little she knew of ape-beast languages. White-eye always paid very close attention to his lessons, looking raptly at her with those strange, cloudy, non-catlike eyes that had earned him his name. The worgs also warned their cub that he was different from the other ape-beasts. They knew not why, but he was. As he neared adulthood, his skin color lightened a little, from deep green to the viridian of young grass. It contrasted sharply with the wild mane of red hair that reached all the way down his back. Similar shocks of bright fur tufted his arms, legs, and chest. Unlike the rest of the ape-beasts, he also had especially sharp claws and teeth. And he still wore the same, dull anklets he had been wearing when the worgs had found him, twenty years ago. They had expanded (by magic?) to continue fitting his feet as he grew... **** Samantha explained the entire story about her long search for her lost son. "So you see," she finished at last, "if anyone knows where he is--if he is still alive--it would be you, Mariska. You, who enchanted my son's anklets. "Hm." Mariska nodded her head sympathetically. "Twenty years, and still you have never given up hope?" "I couldn't. Not ever. Not for anything." "Well, let's see. The plane was lost in a thunderstorm, you say? I enchanted the anklets to make the wearer resistant to the elements, especially electricity, so it is_ possible that he may have survived... It may be, though, that the only way they could protect him was to permanently change him. Even if you do find him, one day, he may not look as you expect..." "I don't care. He is my son. You really--you really think he could be alive? I have searched for so long..." "Oh, dearie, I don't know. But I'll try a divination. I fear that this particular world is even less receptive to my magic Arts than most, but I will try one anyway. Now, take it easy and I'll see if I can get a fix on him with my crystal cube." The witch searched, eventually retrieving a blocky eight-inch by eight-inch cube of white rock. "Crystal cube...?" asked Samantha, in spite of herself. "Hey. When you're on a budget, you make do with what you can get. Be quiet now, please." Memphis silently leaped atop the desk where she set her crystal cube. She stroked him a few times, muttered a few incomprehensible phrases, and peered within the opaque artifact. **** White-eye wondered if it were wise to watch the ape-beasts from so little distance away, but his sense of curiosity compelled him to come closer, despite the risk. He had stumbled across a gathering of male ape-beasts engaged in some sort of hard work. They moved and shouted and performed gymnastics according to the directions of their teacher--an older, grizzled ape-beast with a long beard. White-eye's knowledge of the ape-beast's language was very sketchy, but he learned more and more by listening closely. He had a mind nearly as quick as his reflexes. And his reflexes, along with his physical strength, were unmatched among all circles. He had a natural aptitude for the type of gymnastics that these ape-beasts were doing; in fact, he felt as though he could outperform any one of them. So he watched, and listened, and on his own even imitated some of their fascinating movements. So it was that White-eye gained his first indoctrination into the Art of Capoeira... **** Mariska sighed and put away the crystal. "He is alive and well. That is all I can tell you. I fear that there are many limits to my magical power, in this world. But there was no mistaking the message of the crystal." "I didn't see anything..." "That's not your fault, dear; you simply do not have the Sight, let alone training in how to See. I could give you such training, though, if you really wanted it; you are not as easily deceived by appearances as most humans." Memphis yawned again, as Mariska said that. If Samantha didn't know better, she would have sworn the animal was... unconvinced. "No thank you," she declined, standing up. "You have already helped me, more than you could know." "I truly wish that I could be of greater assistance..." "You have told me that my son is alive and well, and that is help enough. I will find him. I know I will. Thank you for giving me the strength to continue." Samantha briefly embraced the old woman, who seemed rather uncomfortable in the presence of such gratitude. "Goodbye, Mariska Taltos the Witch. I will not trouble you any more." Then, brushing away the last trace of a tear, she left." Memphis yawned a third time. "Mar, I can tell you're feeling guilty again. Don't do it. Don't go running out there to confess to that poor sob that her 'Jimmy' is--" "Precisely forty-six point fifty-four miles away from Rio de Janeiro, heading thirteen point twenty-four degrees south of due west," sighed the witch. "Exactly. Don't do it, Mar. Fate has got to take its course. You weren't lying when you said you 'couldn't' do any more, 'cause you CAN'T." "I wish I could, though. She is a mother who wants to be reunited with her son. What is so wrong about that?" "Mar, the worlds are chock full_ of separated families. There's a million like her on this dirt-globe alone. You know the rules, Mar. You can't make exceptions. By the whiskers of the First Cat--you were severely bending_ the noninterference code when you told her he was alive and well." "I did possess enough of the Sight to enchant those anklets for her son, twenty years ago. I Saw that he might need them." "See? That, Mar, is your good deed for the century. Now, c'mere and scratch my chin." "No." Bethany Cox coxb@carleton.edu (VAX address, if you just wanna write... I can't e-mail stuff off disk from here, though) coxb@tethys.mathcs.carleton.edu (NeXT address, if you're looking for directly e-mailed copies of old stories or new stories... takes longer for me to answer mail sent here, though)