Ironminder

Double the Distance and Half the Time

I followed behind the creature at a polite but safe distance. It loped along, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. The fluid way it switched from animal to human natures --two sides of the same coin-- made the telltale itch of nerves trail like spiders down my spine. 

Despite the darkened hour, there were still people living their lives. Groups of teens sneaking about, bicyclists running red lights on empty main streets. I was just another odd creature, a ghost on a city street that would forget the weight of my steps as soon as the pavement warmed to the new day. 

None of them saw the inky creature, leading me down more and more obscure streets. But one saw me. The piercing whistle from a group of men cleaved the night, breaking the feeling of invisibility. 

The creature turned with a preternatural swiftness, its eyes reflecting the light of the streetlamp above, making them glow. "Ow-n su vee'la," it hissed back in that tri-toned voice that caused my hair to stand on end. 

The men went back to their conversation as if the incident hadn't even occurred. 

"Your protection only extends to those from the Reedlings and the Darkmarsh, not humans on darkened Florida streets."

"The matter that needs attending isssss most urgent."

It always was. I swallowed my bitter thoughts with only a little trouble. Words were dangerous and it didn't do to provoke creatures from the faelands with words. They'd mastered the art far more clinically than any human that didn't feel the consequences of the things they thought to say. 

Murals on walls bled into brick roads that screamed old money. I left behind the art city and stepped into the Old Northeast. Boughs of oak trees blanketed the night until it was inky. The remains of a thundershower dripped ominously from the branches and onto the grass and me. I followed mutely as the creature led the way, unerringly toward a canal, as if it had navigated this world more times than I had ever drawn breath. 

The canal directed the overflow of rainwater through the city. I slid down the mud into the base of the ditch, the dirt here had gorged itself on rainwater and had become brazen and hungry. It sucked at my feet with every step, trying to keep hold of me, as if telling me not to go. 

I didn't like omens, good or ill. The ship had passed for me to avoid them though, some 7 years ago. 

The creature continued forward, not at all impeded by the clawing mud, heading directly for the mouth of a cement cylinder beneath a small bridge.

It was dark, eerily dark. One of my baser animal instincts tickled at the back of my mind, whispering, "Not safe. Not safe. Not safe." I shoved it aside like all my other good senses. 

The creature disappeared into the darkness and I ducked into the tunnel, groping along my fingers scraped against the pockmarked concrete. Half doubled over, I nearly crawled toward the scuffling sound of my guide in front of me. 

The journey was double the distance and half the time I expected. One second my hand was pressed into the sandpaper grit of the shadowed cement tunnel and the next I was gripping a handful of branches and blinking into the clear bright light of a completely different world. 

I threw a careless glance behind me at a large structure built of branches and twigs. The large wooden circle was crafted of interwoven woodwork. Some of the branches were dead and rotting and others still bloomed in the bright morning light. One half of my mind knew that I'd just come through this very circle, but from a human standpoint, it just didn't make sense. 

But that was the case with magic, wasn't it?

I sucked in a lungful of cool damp air and turned back to my messenger.