A Wizard Alone

Or that it doesn’t run into us first.

“Come on,” Kit said. He slogged down the muddy path, and Ponch padded along behind him, glancing nervously into the shadows of the trees and the undergrowth on either side of the path.

The path made a curve around one unusually large tree. Kit paused, looking at it, and went slowly around the curve. “Darryl?” he shouted. “Where are you?”

There was no answer but another of the bloodcurdling screeches from up in the canopy. Kit knew, in a general sort of way, that there was no guarantee that what he was hearing up there was a carnivore…but there was no guaranteeing that it wasn’t, either. He reached sideways to his otherspace pocket, thinking about the barbecue-lighting laser…and couldn’t find the pocket, let alone the laser.

You tried that before, too

, Ponch said.

“I forgot,” Kit said. He wiped his face again. It wasn’t rain he was wiping away this time, but sweat. The heat here was terrible — stifling, muffling, like wearing a portable electric blanket — but far worse was the humidity. If there was anything in the normal world that Kit really hated, it was hot, humid weather. In this place, though, it seemed like all the spare humidity from any number of jungle planets had been gathered up and dumped here. The sweat was running into his eyes, making them burn. Kit paused long enough to wipe his face again, then continued around the tree, looking at it suspiciously. “I keep expecting Darth Vader to come out of one of these and chase me with a light saber.”

I don’t think that’s a good thing for you to be imagining

, Ponch said, sounding unnerved. Let’s stick to Darryl for now. And once we’ve found him, let’s get out of here!

They went on under the trees. Not far ahead, trees shorter than the gigantic two-hundred-footers were gathered together in a cluster, and the path wound through them. It seemed to Kit that this looked like a perfect place for some kind of ambush… yet somehow he felt unable to take the prospect seriously. He slowed down a little, but kept walking.

Something smells bad here

, Ponch said.

“Everything smells bad here,” said Kit. The whole jungle had a smell like wet laundry that had been left in the washing machine too long, a stagnant scent. Some of the creepers were even festooned with something that might have been mistaken for wet laundry, though the growth was actually some kind of nasty, flabby fungus. Kit looked now with some loathing at the vines hanging from the red-trunked trees ahead of him; they had that fungus all over them, curtaining away the view of whatever might be further down the path.

“You smell anything?” Kit said.

Mold

, Ponch said, his nose wrinkling. And other things. I don’t want to talk about it.

Kit walked forward a little more slowly, looking at those trees, then looked over his shoulder again, back down the path. “I wish Nita were here,” he said.

I don’t

! Ponch said. I wouldn’t want anyone I liked to be here. And I don’t want us to be here, either! We’re not going to find him this way, boss. Let’s go home!

“Just a little while more,” Kit said. He was beginning to agree with Ponch, though. He was so tired. I should have walked out of here the minute I found myself in here, he thought, except I don’t remember how I got in here.

No, wait. I do remember. The dream. I dreamed I saw Darryl running into the jungle. I went after him…

There was a rustling among the trees that lined the path ahead of them. Kit reached sideways for his other- space pocket. Then, as he was feeling around for it, he remembered that it didn’t seem to be there in the dream. I keep forgetting things, he thought. I guess it’s just that I’m so tired. After yesterday, and the days before. But I can’t help it. We can’t leave him stuck in this. We have to find him!

There was definitely something moving around in those trees, though Kit couldn’t see what it was, and he didn’t want to go any closer without some kind of weapon. He had a memory that there should have been wizardries that he could use for self-defense, but he was just too tired to think of any of them right now. Kit looked around him, saw a fallen log to one side of the path. There was a branch sticking out of it that looked big enough to use as a club. He got down on one knee and struggled with the branch for a few moments until it snapped off the log. It was covered with dark brown goo, yet more mold of one kind or another. Kit made a face as he rubbed it off the branch as best he could, rubbed his hands more or less clean on his pants, and then got up. “Come on,” he said to Ponch.

High up in the jungle canopy, one of the invisible monsters started screaming again. Kit wanted to hold his ears against the noise of it, though that would have meant dropping the branch. Shortly the screamer was joined by a second, and they screamed at each other more and more loudly as Kit got closer to the trees.

One big creeper was hanging down over the path. It was well draped with the dirty-laundry fungus, and looked almost like a curtain. They were going to have to push through this. There was no avoiding it. Kit reached out one hand to the creeper, while above him in the trees the intolerable screeching got louder and louder. If there is something in there, Kit thought, I’m not going to be able to hear it if it’s coming for me.

Yet he felt he had to go in. “You ready?” he said to Ponch.

I’m right behind you. Be careful!

Kit pushed the creeper aside. The gloom beyond the curtain of fungus was even worse than that out in the shadow of the trees; it was danker, more stifling and breathless. Kit edged into it, let the curtain fallDarkness. Ponch was close behind him, crowded up against his legs. Any hope that Kit had had that being in this closed-in place might somewhat muffle the awful screeching from outside was in vain; if anything, it seemed worse. He moved softly among the trees, brushing past the downhanging loops and rags of fungus, trying not to touch them more than he had to. Where the fungus brushed him, he got an uncomfortable itchy feeling even through his shirt.

Kit started to move faster, though the weariness that had started to bother him when he came into this place was getting worse all the time. He was sure he could see shadows moving just beyond the trees that hemmed in the path. It might just have been more of the fungus, shifting in the wind, except that there was no wind. Something was moving there. Then, even over the screaming from above, Kit thought he heard a breathing sound—

He couldn’t bear it anymore. He broke into a run, and Ponch plunged along behind him. The awful fungus slapped him in the face and upper body as he ran; Kit swatted it aside as best he could, but somehow it always seemed to get him anyway. Once he nearly throttled himself by running into a creeper that was hanging exactly at throat height. Kit reacted just in time to grab it, and used it to swing himself a little sideways — but then he banged into one of the closer trees and fell, and from above he could hear the screaming, louder than ever, sounding like laughter now.

Kit staggered to his feet and wobbled down the path again. His body didn’t seem to be working right, and he couldn’t understand why, unless it was just the weariness that was getting to him. His legs almost seemed to belong to someone else. His brain was full of noise that he couldn’t stop. He knew Ponch was behind him, but he had to keep reminding himself of that. He couldn’t get rid of the idea that he was all alone here, had been alone forever…

… except for something that hated him. It was hiding in the shadows. It was up in the furious brightness above the trees. It was dripping from every leaf, underfoot in every square inch of mud, looking at him with cruel, small, burning eyes from up among the branches of the trees. Kit ran, but his body wouldn’t obey him, wouldn’t let him run fast enough; he staggered along like some broken mechanical thing, and the screaming voices up above all laughed at him, and eyes, eyes he didn’t dare meet, eyes whose contact was infinite pain, were staring at him from all around in the dark. He would come out into the open again in a moment, but there would be no respite for him