Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

"From what I've seen, there's not much anyone can do for the tengu."

"How long are we going to do this?" Durrack asked an hour later, when darkness fell over them yet again.

"Until the lightbulbs burn out, my husband loses his patience, I figure out something better - or they answer us."

"Want to bet which happens first?"

"My bet is that they answer us, or the bulbs burns out. The lifespan of these bulbs are rated at a thousand hours, but there's no telling how many hours they have left."

"And there are no replacements bulbs?" Durrack guessed.

"Nope, not unless Earth can sling them through the Ghostlands."

"Are we going to be able to tell if they're answering us?"

"I have a collection of detecting devices aimed at the valley to catch heat, light, sound and motion."

"Where are you aiming the spotlights?"

"At the buildings. I'm not sure if the air over the valley is part of the discontinuity, so I'm not positive if light passing through it will be visible on another dimension. The buildings though, will either reflect the light or absorb it, which in theory make them more visible on all dimensions, either way - but I could be wrong."

"This just seems so basic. If it could work, then Earth should have -"

Blue slashed upwards, out of the darkness, pulsing in the rhythm of Morse Code.

"They're responding!" Tinker scrambled to kill her transmission program. Her detectors were already translating the flashes.

Calling S1, this is S2, listening.

"It's Earth!" she said.

"You don't know that. Here." Durrack nudged her away from the keyboard. "This is where I come in -remember?"

The searchlights flashed quickly through code and then went dark.

"What are you saying?" Tinker asked.

"I'm requesting verification. It might take them a while to dig someone up that can answer… or they might have someone standing by. Fort Meade isn't that far from the Pittsburgh border."

The valley went dark and then a reply blazed back.

"Someone standing by?" Tinker asked.

"No, they want to know if Pittsburgh is safe on Elfhome."

"Depends on your definition of safe."

Durrack laughed and typed. "I'm repeating my request. Never give info unless you're sure of who is listening."

"Most likely the oni on Onihida can see this."

"Exactly."

Wolf returned to his domi to find her looking unhappy.

"What is it?"

"We've verified we're talking to Earth. The gate is gone, just like we thought. Pittsburgh is stranded."

"You are still communicating?"

"We're comparing notes - seeing if we can use the Ghostlands to our advantage, or close it up somehow. From the sounds of it, though, Earth is still fighting over who has jurisdiction."

A runner from Poppymeadow threaded his way through the sekasha to hold out a piece of paper. "A distant voice came from Aum Renau, relayed from Court."

Wolf took the folded paper, opened it, and read the five English words within: Follow the yellow brick road. He frowned at the message and flipped the paper over, hoping for more. No. That was it.

"What does it say?" Tinker asked.

He handed it to her. "It's from the Pure Radiance. I sent word to the intanyei seyosa caste asking for help with your dreams. I don't understand this."

"Follow the yellow brick road? Follow the yellow brick road? Just point the sucker out and I will. So far, I hadn't found any road-bricked yellow or otherwise-figuratively, literally, allegorically."

"You understand it?"

"No!" She sighed deeply. "But it looks like I have to figure it out."

Tinker kicked the blackened remains of the willow tree. It had died on the waterfront, leaving a burnt trail from the warehouse. Several buildings along its path had scorch marks where the burning tree had brushed up against them while staggering toward the river.

"Okay, let's take it from the top. We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz."

"Because?" Pony asked.

"Because - because -because-because." Tinker didn't know. Did she ever know?

"Because of the wonderful things he does," Stormsong deadpanned.

Tinker glared at her. "In the dream, the yellow brick road led to the willow trees." She gave the tree another kick. "Which threw apples at us. Esme told me to follow the fruit to find the wizard - which is the dragon."

She followed the black path of soot and cinders back toward the warehouse. "Lain gave me one of the seeds, but I couldn't figure out anything interesting with it. Most of the times it doesn't even wriggle. So obviously fruit is something else. Whatever it is, it will lead us to the dragon. The dragon is the desired end product - not the fruit."

"I am not sure it would be wise to face the dragon again." Pony said. "We barely survived the last fight."

"I know, I know, I know. Riki did say that it needs magic to become sentient, and once it used me to tap the spell stones, it -" She paused. "Wait. Riki said that the oni messed with the spell to trap the dragon. What if the 'fruit' is just magic?"

"In the movie," Stormsong said. "The apples were gathered up by Dorothy, the scarecrow, and the tin man."

"No, the tin man came in during the apple scene, Dorothy was picking-" Tinker stopped with sudden realization. "Oh, gods, Oilcan! He was hauling the overflow cans away - when was the last time anyone saw him?"

"The day we watched the movie," Pony said. "Wednesday."

Neither Oilcan or the flatbed had been at the junk yard on Friday. He had left two days of newspapers in the drive. Feeling sick, she fumbled with her phone, picking his number off her address book. His phone rang three times and dropped to voice mail. Trying not to panic, she called the scrap yard and then his apartment, getting only voice mail. Where had he taken the barrels? Had he said? No, just that he had to dump them. Where could he have taken them? They had gone through nearly a hundred barrels before she got the spell repaired-a massive pool of magic to dump haphazardly, but Pittsburgh had lots of big empty places. Still, the barrels and the steel filings represented a good bit of money once the magic leached out - so he would probably leave them on land that they owned. That left one place - the barn.

She dialed the land line to the barn. She expected his machine to pick up after three rings, but it continued ringing. She clung to the phone, whispering, "Oh, please answer."

On the twelfth ring, the phone clattered off the hook, and Oilcan said breathlessly, "Yeah?"

"Oh thank gods, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. What's wrong?"

She laughed, not even sure where to start on that question. "Did you take the barrels from Rienholds to the barn?"

"Yeah, they're here."

"Look, I think you're in a lot of danger. I want you to leave the barn."

"What's going on, Tink?"

"It's all rather complicated. I think my dreams are telling me to trap the dragon and do something with it."

"Trap it?"

"Yeah, the barrels are the fruit." That sounded sane! "Look, you're in danger there. Just go home and let me deal with it."

There was only silence from Oilcan.

"Are you okay?" Tinker asked again.

"I'm kind of in the middle of the something. You know - I don't want to mess with the flow. Why don't you come out and we'll talk about what has gone down since Wednesday."

Wednesday. Nathan died Wednesday. Did Oilcan know? If he didn't, she didn't want to tell him over the phone - not that she really wanted to tell him face to face, either.

"Okay, I'll see you in a couple of minutes."

Oilcan used a barn deep in the South Hills as a retreat. Just as she tinkered on machines, he played with art. It was a side of him that few people saw, as he seemed to think it revealed too much of his soul. Sometimes he welded bits and pieces taken from the scrap yard into mechanical ogres, other times he painted dark and abstract murals. Those he kept at his retreat and only friends got to see. She knew he kept journals with poetry that he never showed anyone, not even her. The only form of his art that he shared was music he composed, a fusion of traditional elfin music with snarling, angry human rock; that he didn't perform but sold to local bands under the penname of Orphan.