“Yes,” Meriwether said, reassured. “Exactly as I felt.” So many times in his life, in struggling with his great melancholic fits, he had found that he often perceived the world differently from others. At least he and Clark had seen the same thing along the mysterious river.
Clark scraped his hand down the stubble on his face. Though they were both military men, since this was a privately funded voyage of exploration, without military discipline, they had decided to forego the effort of shaving every single morning. “The first night when we stopped in Saint Charles, I heard that this cave here was something more than just a sheltered place for travelers. The local natives considered it a magical place. Apparently, if you look on the walls inside, there are some very fine drawings within, from time before anyone can remember. Drawings of magic. And now, after the Sundering, maybe that magic really does hold.”
“You suggest that I did indeed encounter a spell?” Meriwether said. “And that my knife dispelled it. The iron in the blade?”
Clark made a face. “I hate to speak of things I don’t know, and I know very little about magic, my friend, but I understand some of the native magics are not capable of withstanding the touch of metal. Metal is foreign to them, never smelted or worked by the tribes of this region, which makes it powerful against anything based on this uncharted land. That is why we find such a trade in our knives and guns, for they carry the ability to fight magic.”
Meriwether didn’t know what to believe. In the Virginia of his upbringing, magic, like science, was a force known to few, controlled by few, established within boundaries. The magics of the eastern native tribes were no great threat to the colonizers, and he knew that the people had little to fear from their rituals and shamanistic fits.
But this was the unexplored west, untamed, and the magical occurrences out here might well be more powerful in unimaginable ways.
And that is why the wizard Franklin found it so important to send us out here.
He and Clark turned to the inspect the interior of the cave. It was a shallow alcove hollowed out of the bluff, showing signs of human occupation, from a pile of ashes and half-burnt branches on the floor near the front and soot smears on the wall and ground. Tiny colorful beads were scattered in the scuffed debris, as well as a thin leather thong, snapped in half, possibly a moccasin tie, cast into a corner.
As their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, the walls came alive with drawings and symbols. The figures were simple, if colorful, shining with ochre and other pigments. Here and there, the sandstone had been incised and the pigments bit deep, seeming to glow from the rock.
The first scenes depicted hunts: human figures hunted large animals, the likes of which Meriwether had never seen anywhere in the Americas. He remembered an old book of his father’s, left to his mother after the man’s death, and oft perused by the young Meriwether. He would dream of the world lost to them after the Sundering, places that had disappeared beyond a magical barrier, including the continent of Africa. In that book, he had seen a large creature with a stocky body and a pendulous nose, called an elephant. The creature drawn on the cave wall looked similar, but much hairier, and it dwarfed the natives hunting it, apparently the size of a covered wagon. Another drawing showed an ungainly, long-legged creature with humps.
The hunting scenes extended from the ceiling of the cavern to the floor, but other depictions showed various rituals, one of which made him gasp. It showed a human figure swamped by ravens. Clark called his attention to other creatures: doglike animals that walked on two legs, and an ominous-looking man with antlers on his head.
As the complex mural continued, they saw the appearance of white men, as distinguished by tall hats, as well as horses. Pictures showed battles between the natives and white men. Guns, the flare of fire. And then…
And then on the far right of the cavern, a single figure had been sketched life size, its head lost near the cavern ceiling, its feet on the floor. It was a man, but not quite human. Broad-shouldered and sturdy, with muscular arms, strong legs. From the sketch he could not tell whether its breeches and tunic were of European or native manufacture. The features were hidden behind magic enigmatic symbols, curlicues and wedges. Meriwether could not interpret them.
The extended right hand of the figure unleashed a flock of ravens. His left hand, partly closed, held a tribe of natives. Creatures frolicked at his feet. But seizing Meriwether’s attention were the angular wings that sprouted from his shoulders.
“What an odd creature,” Clark mused. “Some sort of demon?”
“I think those are dragon wings,” Meriwether said, despising himself as his voice cracked. He disguised it by clearing his throat. “Like the dragon that Franklin fought in St. Louis.”
Clark bent down to look at the animals massed around the figure’s feet “What are these?”
Meriwether bent to study the elephant creatures, camels, buffalo, and…and words failed him. Taller than even the hairy elephant, he saw creatures of fang and claw, one standing on its back legs.
Clark’s voice grew quiet. “I certainly hope, my dear friend, that the creatures represented here are but a fanciful outgrowth of some savage’s imagination.”
Meriwether had a sudden cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d met the ravens, and he’d met the dragon, and he did not doubt that he’d meet the other horrors this demonic winged figure could summon. The mural on the wall felt like a threat rather than a story.
From the foot of the cliff, Seaman was barking, and Meriwether clambered down to calm the dog. But there was a cold presentiment in his soul.
Very Bad Things
“They say they are Kickapoo,” said Nathaniel Pryor, a hardy frontier boy in his early twenties wearing a beaver hat with the tail hanging behind his head. He bent over so that Meriwether and Clark, who were sitting on the ground side by side, could hear him.
Four figures had appeared in the darkness, looming just outside the fire circle. Meriwether thought the strangers looked monstrous, hunched and with horns, like the drawings in the cavern.
“They each bring a deer,” Nathaniel continued to explain, “as a peace offering.” He seemed more troubled than his words warranted.
“That is normal enough, is it not?” Meriwether asked. “While preparing for the expedition in St. Louis, I witnessed all sorts of trades between fur trappers and natives. Friendship and business flowed back and forth, as one would expect of human beings in a hostile and isolated territory.”
“Normal enough,” Nathaniel said, still sounding doubtful. “But—but they wish to speak with our chiefs, they said.” He shrugged. “They say they bear warnings and information you’ll wish to hear. Should we just give them something in trade and run them off, so as to cause no trouble?”
Clark seemed about to agree, but Meriwether broke in, “No, don’t do that. What if they do bear vital information, and genuine warnings? Who would venture into the unknown without some intimation of the dangers that lie ahead?” After the narrow escape that afternoon, he needed to pay attention to the dangers in the uncharted lands. As Benjamin Franklin suspected, some great magical work was happening beyond the known territories. “Have them come and speak to us. Let us hear what they have to say.”