The Physiognomy

We stopped briefly at the mayor's house to collect guns, ammunition, and warm coats and blankets. Calloo staved in the wooden wheels of the coach and turned the horses loose. He told me that it was held to be true that the demons of the wilderness had a special appetite for the flesh of domesticated animals, and the smell of the beasts would attract them like a magnet. Bataldo could not stop crying as he ran from room to room, setting the drapes and shelves of books, the bedding and the furniture on fire.

Outside, we stood for a moment at the boundary of the woods and watched the smoke pour from the open windows. The mayor told Calloo and me that he had watched as Drachton Below's werewolf ripped out and devoured his wife's intestines on the main street of Anamasobia.

"Why did you save me?" I asked as he wiped his eyes clear.

"It doesn't matter what we were, Cley. I was no i

Calloo simply nodded and then rested one of his huge hands on Bataldo's back as much to hurry him along as to comfort him.

We set out into that vast forest that the members of old man Beaton's expedition had referred to as the Beyond. I was still nauseous and aching from withdrawal, but I ran on and on, determined not to slow the others down, pacing myself a few yards behind Calloo, who seemed tireless. It felt good to run amid the tall barren trees, over the hardened snow. I felt like a child ru

After ru

In the valley we had recently traversed, we could see the troops in pursuit. Some carried rifles and some the special flamethrowers that had been invented by Drachton Below. He himself rode in another of his inventions, an automated, gear-work carriage with a small compartment for two riders and eight articulated legs like a spider's, that carried him over rocks and fallen trees. I pointed out to Calloo a soldier holding a leash attached to the straining neck of Greta Sykes. Although I was astonished at the speed of her recovery, the big man just shrugged and spat. Then the two of us went and helped Bataldo to his feet and offered words of encouragement.

"Leave me behind," said the mayor. "I can see I will only hold you two back." His face was flushed and his formal, raccoon coat was ripped here and there and covered with all ma

Hearing this, Calloo walked up behind the mayor and kicked him hard in the rear end. Bataldo jumped and then the two of them broke out laughing. I had no idea what I was laughing at, but I joined them.

"All right," said the mayor, and we crested the hill and started down the other side. We no longer ran, for fear that Bataldo would give up, but we walked quickly, heading due north, pushing ever deeper into the Beyond. Each mile of forest we traversed held natural wonders never before seen by civilized man, but we could not slow to inspect any of them.

There were certain trees whose barren branches moved like arms, swiping at the birds that flew just out of their grasp. A species of diminutive deer, the very color of grass, moved in small herds off in the distance. We saw them through the trees, and when they saw us they ran away, emitting the cries of a woman with her hair on fire. Small red lizards with wings flitted from tree to tree like dragonflies, and the songs of birds we could not see, for they flew too high, were hauntingly human. We witnessed all this in utter silence until we came to a brook where Calloo said we could rest for a minute. Then the mayor wondered aloud if we might not really have died back in Ana-masobia and were wandering in the next world.

I was leaning over, taking a drink of water to ease my burning throat, when the demons came swooping down from the trees and burst out of snowbanks we had never suspected. The mayor was the first to draw his gun and shoot. He hit nothing, but the explosion frightened our attackers, and both the ones on the ground and the ones circling above flew up to the highest of the tall trees. They peered down at us, hissing and dropping branches they had torn from their perches.

Calloo lifted the rifle he was carrying, took aim, and shot one of them. Its scream was like nothing I had ever heard. The piercing nature of it tore a hole in reality as the creature plummeted to the ground. There it writhed, its barbed tail slapping the snow. We did not wait to see more but started ru

Calloo reloaded in seconds, put the gun to his shoulder, and fired. He hit one of the demons in the back. The shot wasn't good enough to kill it, but it arched its spine as it screamed, releasing Bataldo's face from its jaws and letting go of him. The other demon could not support the mayor's great weight by itself and dropped him. He fell kicking and screaming from a height of twenty yards, hitting the ground stomach first. I heaved a sigh of relief when he got immediately to his feet and began hobbling toward us. He wore an expression of complete terror and his right hand was thrust forward as if leading him. No less than a dozen of the creatures left their perches.

"Run," Calloo said to me, but I didn't. I watched as he feverishly loaded the gun. He took careful aim, but not at the descending monsters. The shot hit the mayor in the forehead and blood blossomed from the dark hole just as the first set of claws grasped at his collar.

We were off through the woods like a pair of creatures ourselves. For the longest time, I swore I heard demon wings beating above me. At any second I expected to feel a claw as hard as stone crack my head like an egg. Finally Calloo called to me that we had lost them, and I was able to stop and see there hadn't been anything at all behind me. We slowed our pace to a walk and went on till nightfall like that, never speaking.

Although Calloo knew how it was done, we did not dare to light a fire to warm ourselves. We found a spot in a thicket of trees that had grown above into an odd tangle that offered some insurance against attacks from the air. Calloo told me I should sleep first and that he would stand guard. As I lay down on the cold snow, wrapping one of the blankets we had carried around me, he began cleaning the rifle that had saved our lives. The noises of the wilderness, the weird mating calls and death screams, frightened me—but not enough to keep me awake. I fell instantly into a hard sleep.

Of course, I dreamt of Aria. Her face was clear of the ravages of my physiognomical quackery. We were in the wilderness, standing on a mountainside, gazing across a gorge at a tall craggy peak, at the top of which was a plateau where grew a resplendent garden that glowed brightly with golden light.

"Look," she said, pointing, "we are almost there."

"Let's hurry," I said.

"Once we arrive, I will be able to forgive you," she said.