Michael Moorcock: The Skrayling Tree

I was soon ahead of the canoes, swimming strongly towards the surface with the intention of capsizing the larger one and rescuing Ulric. I was as long as their vessel and did not anticipate any hindrance as I prepared to leap upwards under them. To my dismay, my straining back met massive and unexpected resistance. The thing was far heavier than it had seemed. I was winded. Already, as I tried to recover from the self-inflicted blow, the canoe's prow began to dip as she was taken down by the pull of the maelstrom. The whole scale appeared to have altered, but I had no choice. I followed the canoe as it was sucked deep into the center of the vortex. My supple body withstood all the stresses and pressures I expected, but the canoe, which should have been breaking up, remained in one piece. The occupants, though gripping hard to the sides, were not flung out. I got one clear view of them. They had the fine, regular features of local forest Indians but were dead white, not albino. Their hair was black against oiled, shaven skulls, hanging in a single thick strand. Their black eyes glared into the heart of the maelstrom, and I realized they were deliberately following it to the core. I had to go with them.

Deeper and deeper we went into the wild rush of white and green while all around me great boulders and pillars of rock rose up, their scale shifting back and forth in the unstable water. This was no ordinary natural phenomenon. I knew at once that I had effectively left one world and entered another. It was becoming impossible to orient myself as the rocks changed size and shape before my eyes, but I did everything in my power to continue my pursuit. Then suddenly the thing was before me, the size of the Titanic, and I had been struck a blow directly to the head. I felt myself grow limp. I thrashed my tail to keep my bearings. Then another current was pushing me up towards the surface, even as I fought to dive deeper.

Unable to sustain the descent, I let the current take me back towards shore, exhausted. Fwulette knew we had failed. She seemed sad for me.

"Go with good luck, little sister," she said.

The Salmon Wife returned to her realm, her head slightly sore and, for reasons best known to herself, her humor thoroughly restored.

Fwulette thanked, I called for my own body and returned to the house as fast as I could. We had no telephone, of course. The nearest was miles away. I had no other means of pursuing my husband's abductors, not a single hope of ever seeing him again. I was not the only one whose life had changed totally in the last few hours, but this understanding made my loss no easier. I felt horribly ill as I began looking for my clothes.

Then I saw something I had not noticed in my haste to rescue my husband. Ulric's kidnappers had lost something in the struggle. Presumably I had not seen it earlier because it had fallen down the slats in the stairs and now stood upright against a wall: a large round thing, with the dimensions of a small trampoline, made from decorated deerhide stretched on wicker and attached to its frame with thongs. It was too big for a shield, though the handles at the back suggested that purpose. I had seen the Indians carrying similar shields but in closer proportions to their bodies. I wondered if it was what was called a dreamcatcher, but it lacked any familiar images. It might even be a holy object or a kind of flag.

Made of white buckskin with eight turquoise stripes radiating from a central hub, at the boss was what appeared to be a thun-derbird framed by a tree. The entire thing was painted in vivid blues and reds. Ornamented with scarlet beads around the rim, with more colored beads and porcupine quills throughout the design, it was of superb craftsmanship and had the feel of a treasured possession. Yet its purpose was mysterious.

I left it leaning against the wall while I went upstairs to bathe and get some clothes. When I returned to the main part of the house, the sun was everywhere. I could hardly believe I had not been dreaming. But there was the huge deerskin disk, the cracked glass, and other signs of the fight. Ulric must have heard them come in and delivered himself straight into their hands. There was no note. I had not expected one. This was not an attempt to get ransom.

I was now ready to walk to the filling station. I could do it in under an hour. But I was also reluctant to leave, fearing that if I did so I would miss some important sign or even Ulric's return. It was possible that he could have escaped from his captors after all and been dragged up to the surface as I had been. But I knew this was really a forlorn hope. As I prepared to go, I heard a sound like a car approaching, and then came a knock at the front door. Hoping in spite of all realism, I ran to open it.

The gaunt figure who raised his bowler hat to me was dressed in a neat black overcoat, with black polished shoes and a copy of the local newspaper under his arm. His hard black eyes shifted in the depths of their sockets. His thin, peculiar smile chilled the surrounding air. "Forgive me for coming so early, Countess. I have a message for your husband. Could I, do you think, see him for a moment?"

"Captain Klosterheim!" I was shocked. How had he known where to find me?

He bowed a modest head. "Merely Herr Klosterheim, these days, dear lady. I have returned to my civilian calling. I am with the church again, though in a lay capacity. It has taken some time to locate you. My business with your husband is urgent and in his interest, I think."

"You know nothing of the men who were here in the night?"

"I do not understand you, my lady."

I loathed the idea of being further involved with this villainous ex-Nazi who had allied himself with Ulric's cousin Gaynor. Was he the supernatural medium Ulric had sensed? I doubted it. His psychic presence was powerful, and I would have detected it before now. On the other hand he might be the only means I had of discovering where they had taken Ulric, so I drew on my professional courtesy and invited him in.

Entering the big main room he immediately went towards the huge artifact the Indians had left behind. "The Kakatanawa were here?"

"Last night. What do you know?"

Scarcely thinking, I took a double-barreled Purdy's from the cabinet and dropped in two shells. Then I leveled the gun at Klosterheim. He looked around at me in surprise.

"Oh, madam, I mean you no ill!" He clearly believed I was going to blow him apart on the spot.

"You recognize that thing?"

"It's a Kakatanawa medicine shield," he said. "Some of them think it helps protect them when they go into the spirit lands."

"The spirit lands? That's where they have gone?"

"Gone, madam? No, indeed. They mean here. These are their spirit lands. They hold us in considerable awe."

I motioned with the gun for him to sit in one of the deep leather armchairs. He seemed to spill across it. In certain lights he became almost two-dimensional, a black-and'white shadow against the dark hide. "Then where have they gone?"

He looked at the chair as if he had not known such comfort were possible. "Back to their own world, I would guess."

"Why have they taken him?"

"I am not sure. I knew you were in some kind of danger, and I hoped we could exchange information."

"Why should I help you, Herr Klosterheim? Or you help us? You are our enemy. You were Gaynor's creature. I understood you to be dead."

"Only a little, my lady. It is my fate. I have my loyalties, too."

"To whom?"

"To my master."

"Your master was torn apart by the Lords of the Higher Worlds on Morn. I watched it happen."

"Gaynor von Minct was not my master, lady. We were allies, but he was not my superior. That was mere convenience to explain our presence together." He might even have been a little offended by my presumption. "My master is the essence. Gaynor is merely the vapor. My master is the Prince of Darkness, Lord Lucifer."