The day grew hot, and the big Newfoundland bounded ahead into the grasses, but soon grew weary, panting, miserable, and overheated. Concerned for his pet, Meriwether left Seaman with John Potts to watch him near a small creek, before the animal collapsed in the heat.
Within another mile, as the terrain flattened and the trees dispersed, leaving a broad prairie that extended before them, they stopped as they got their first glimpse of the mysterious conical mound. The strange hill had squarish sides that looked manmade. Its shape certainly wasn’t due to erosion. Out in the wild emptiness, it reminded Meriwether of pictures he’d seen of an ancient temple, of the kind that had once graced ancient Greece.
The men stared, gathered their courage, and set off again.
With his hunting senses, Meriwether noted as they approached the strange mound that game became scarcer, though the birds more plentiful. They would take wing in great panicked flights as the men pressed forward. Meriwether sensed an uncanny throbbing in the air.
“A simple explanation might not involve magic,” Clark suggested, as if trying to calm himself and the others. “Since the mound is the tallest prominence in the vicinity, winds blow all the bugs into it, and therefore they cluster on its sides. Such a feast attracts the birds, which lends the whole place an air of supernatural dread.” He looked up as a small flock of red-winged blackbirds flitted up from the brush, flying about in random paths. “That would explain the savages’ superstition.”
LaBiche gave Captain Clark a sidelong look of impatience. “Maybe.” The trapper scratched at his beard, which never seemed to be full grown or fully shaven, but always scraggly. “Or maybe we should accept there’s something truly uncanny about the place. Maybe such explanations were once acceptable, back in the civilized world and back before the comet. Newcomers to the wilds would dismiss local knowledge, but I would warn against it, Captain. Right now, such doubts are quite beside the point. We know magic exists in the world now.”
Upon setting out on the expedition a few months ago, Meriwether would have been shocked by the brazen disrespect shown toward a man of higher rank and education, but he’d learned that the rules were quite different in these unexplored territories, and an honest, reliable man was far better than one who merely followed authority.
Meriwether added, “Such an explanation would hold for any tall hill. But we can see that one wasn’t formed by natural processes.”
“If they are little people, they certainly constructed an enormous edifice,” Clark said.
“I’m inclined to believe the little people are real, Captains,” LaBiche said, sounding nervous. “I’ve heard the natives in these parts talk about friends or comrades who died from the pygmies’ magical darts.” The trapper gazed at the mound and spoke toward it, though he was answering the two expedition leaders. “I’ve heard of logic and I’ve seen the impossible. It always seemed to me that dismissing such things with so-called natural explanations is a bit simple. We who’ve lived here, close to the land, maybe know more about the real dangers we might face.”
Clark frowned, deep in thought, but said nothing. That prompted Meriwether to say, “From my readings of history, I believe the people in old Europe had similar legends about certain hills and mounds. When they were excavated, the mounds were found to contain the bodies of great chiefs and warriors. This mound might have served a similar purpose for the local tribes, long ago. Many great chiefs or warriors entombed there?”
“Might be,” LaBiche said. “But since we’ve seen the dead walking now that the great magic has been unleashed on the land, even your logical explanation doesn’t give me much comfort.”
Meriwether nodded, feeling a chill. In a time of dragons, undead revenants, and giant antediluvian lizards, he could not dismiss the existence of magical pygmies.
The party proceeded slowly with even greater caution. As before, when he and Clark had approached Tavern Rock, he again sensed an eerie feeling permeating the area. The others were uneasy, and for Meriwether it was a phenomenon just beyond his normal human senses. But he couldn’t deny it. The daylight had a different quality, the air had a different feel as it brushed their faces. The best he could describe it was as if he kept walking into unseen spiderwebs.
And each time he felt such an ethereal web snapping in the air, the birds took flight in great flocks—sparrows, blackbirds, crows.
LaBiche muttered, “I’ve heard that the birds act as alarms for the little people, warning them of the approach of strangers. Sometimes unwary strangers fall under a magical spell and when they return home they discover that centuries have passed, though to them it is mere minutes.”
“I believe the wizard Franklin would not want to wait centuries to hear the report of our expedition,” Clark said. “And I have a lovely woman waiting for me when I get home.”
“No,” Meriwether said. “We cannot wait for centuries.” He imagined coming out of this to learn that his family was dead and gone. More important, in that time, the magical evil that was gaining strength in these arcane territories might have consumed the entire land. He had a feeling that the brooding evil might be a greater danger than Franklin suspected, perhaps growing powerful enough to push civilization back to the eastern edge of the continent. In a blurred vision, which might have been no more than his nightmarish imagination, Meriwether saw what the populated east could become, a blasted wasteland populated by rotting human revenants and enormous revived lizards, all civilization left in ruins…
Considering the tension he felt in the air, he was glad he had left Seaman behind, for the dog—with his bravado and boundless energy—would have leaped into the danger, barking. But Meriwether also felt glum that he had separated from his friend and protector, leaving him with a stranger in a land where the natives ate dogs.
When he had acquired the dog in St. Louis, he had thought Seaman would serve as sentinel and hunting companion, and in the months of rigorous travel, he had grown much attached to the furry brute. Seaman was now a friend, and a man dealt fairly with his friends.
But at least he had kept the dog safe…or so he hoped. They were all in danger, man and beast.
Another snap, another flock of birds flew up, obscuring the sun, startling them with their raucous chirping. Meriwether pressed on, pushing his worries aside so he could concentrate on the more tangible perils. The Canoti had lethal darts or other spells that humans could not understand, but he and Clark had accepted the task of discovery and understanding of the arcane territories, not just for Franklin’s curiosity, but for the future of the Sundered world. They had to go forth.
Perhaps it was the only way to prevent the blasted landscape of his imaginings.
At the front of the group, Clark raised a hand. “Hold up.” He stepped carefully, looking down at the tall grasses with an expression of disgust.
Meriwether paused and saw that he had nearly tripped over a bent human leg, a moccasin-clad foot. The rest of the body hidden under a scraggly bush—no, not hidden by some murderer, not dragged there by scavengers. It was clear the dead man had crawled under the bush after being mortally wounded, and he had died there.
While he and Clark watched, grim and serious, their companions tugged to extricate the corpse. The victim, already stiffening in death, had curled one arm around the trunk of the spreading bush, but the men pulled harder, snapping branches and hard tendons to pull the body free.