Denner_s Wreck

The thing was blocking his view; he tried to peer around it, to see what Lady Sunlight was doing. “I just…” he began.

“Sir, I must ask you to leave at once. There can be no discussion."

“But…"

He felt himself being picked up, but the thing's arms still hung motionless at its sides, a meter or two away. Before he could figure this out he was being whisked back through the grove at an incredible speed, though he had not felt anything throw him. Trees flashed by on either side, and for an instant he was terrified by the thought of striking one; at the speed he was travelling he knew such an impact would break his skull or his spine.

Then he slowed, and tumbled to the ground on the open grassland at a speed no greater than if he had stumbled over his own feet.

Driven by lust and his native stubbor

His face smacked into something invisible, and he fell back, his hand flying immediately to his nose.

He felt the damaged area carefully. It was not broken, not even bleeding, but he thought it would develop a nice purple bruise in another few hours.

He advanced again, more cautiously this time, his left hand held out before him.

His hand pressed up against something he could not see. The invisible barrier was still there. He shoved at it.

It did not yield. It felt like a solid wall, yet he could see nothing, not even the odd glitter that he had seen above the meadow.

He stepped back and considered, then circled around a dozen paces to the left. There he advanced into the grove again.

Once again, he encountered the invisible barrier just past the first ring of trees.

This, obviously, was magic. This was power. This was what made the Powers respected and feared throughout the world.

He leaned on the barrier with both hands, digging his heels into the soft earth, but could make no impression. He pushed until he could feel the muscles in his thighs and upper arms knotting with the strain.

The dirt beneath his heels gave way; his feet went out from under him and he fell ignominiously face-first onto a patch of moss.

Fuming, he pushed himself up onto his knees and spat out moss and dirt. He glared at the grove, serene and beautiful behind the barrier, looking just as it had when he first awoke. The only difference was that now he was outside and could not get back in.

He had given in to Geste, but by all the gods and demons, he promised himself, he was not going to lose to Lady Sunlight without putting up a fight.

He backed out onto the grassland for a ru

He bruised his shoulder on the unyielding barrier.

He glared at the grove, rubbing absently at his injured joint. He had bruised his shoulder, but he did not give up. He would never give up.

He did not give up, and at last, considerably later, he stood, somewhat battered, in the center of the meadow, trying to decide what to do.

He had struggled against the invisible wall for hours, as the sun passed its zenith and hurried down the western sky. He had rested briefly at the wake's first sunset, but when full dark had arrived he had renewed his efforts. When the secondlight sunrise came he had rested again, finishing off the last crumbs of corn and washing them down with water taken from the stream where it emerged from the southeast corner of the grove. There, he noticed, the stream became an ordinary ditch, with no rocks and rills, and he began to suspect that the entire grove was an artificial creation, devised by Lady Sunlight for her own enjoyment.

He tried sneaking upstream to slip under the barrier beneath the shallow water, but succeeded only in covering himself with mud; water did indeed pass under the barrier, but the opening was too small for him.

He climbed out and dried himself off, and after sitting for a moment, thinking, he decided to try digging his way under. He felt his way forward, looking for the barrier in order to know where to start digging, and did not find it.

The barrier had vanished. He walked into the grove unobstructed, and found his way to the meadow.

There was no sign of Lady Sunlight there. He could see glitter in the air sometimes, and once or twice he bumped into invisible somethings, but he could not locate anything out of the ordinary more than once. He found no supernatural doorways, no hidden caves, no messages, nothing but an empty meadow where, every so often, he would brush against a wall that wasn't there when he turned to investigate further. The bright little fluttering things were gone without a trace, as were the small furry creatures that he had glimpsed at her feet, and there was no music, but only the whisper of the wind in the leaves, the gurgle of the stream, and an occasional call from a lonely bird.

He stood there, baffled.

He wanted Lady Sunlight more than he had ever wanted anything. He knew that was irrational, but he could not help it. He thought it was not really for her own sake-she was staggeringly beautiful, but he knew nothing more about her than that, and beauty meant little. It was for what she represented. She was a Power. That meant she was unobtainable. It also meant that she was a part of the group that he felt had wronged him. The combination was irresistable.

This was not love, in any form. It was lust. He knew that.

He understood his motives, and he was not proud of them, but he was unable to change his feelings. He wanted her, very much indeed. Quite aside from the sexual element-and powerful as it was, he thought he could resist that-he wanted to talk to her, to voice his complaints and challenge her to answer them.

She was not there. All he saw was the empty meadow.

Defeated, he thrust his hands in his pockets, hunching forward and glaring balefully at the unmindful wildflowers.

His finger touched something hard and slick, and he stopped, startled, as he realized what he was touching. A smile spread slowly across his face, then faded again.

It might, as he had told Mardon, produce nothing but a faceful of stink. If Geste had told the truth, though, Bredon had his answer. He had a demand to make that would surely be a challenge even for Geste. If Geste gave him what he asked for, then he would have Lady Sunlight and a victory over the Powers; if Geste failed, then he would have shamed Geste as Geste shamed him. He pulled out the red disk.

“If this doesn't work, you bastard, I'll do my best to kill you,” he said. Then he grabbed the disk in both hands and pushed against it with his thumbs.

It cracked easily, then crumbled, and suddenly he held nothing but red powder.

Bredon brushed the powder from his hands and looked about expectantly.

Nothing happened. Leaves rustled, and somewhere a bird whistled plaintively.

He waited, quickly growing angry.

“May demons suck the marrow from your bones for lying to me, Geste the Trickster!” he shouted at the rustling leaves overhead, after a moment passed without incident. Disgusted, he started toward the stream, intending to cross it and head home. He was very hungry now, and he had found nothing to eat anywhere in the grove.