MULDER: Year 31, Week 9.8, Dale Reckoning (Continued) "Poor Fox. Headache? I think, however, that you should do without your fix for a bit. By the way, did I tell you how highly addictive they were?" And I had been taking more and more, one every time even a ghost of a headache appeared on the horizon. I had had too much else to worry about. I should have known there would be hell to pay. Guess it starts now. "Very f-funny," I wheezed. "Not funny at all, as I'm sure you'll find out as your time without them goes on." Seeing that I was not going to struggle, he removed his foot and crouched down beside me so I would be sure to catch every word. "Ready to talk dates." "Go f-fuck yourself." I actually managed to snarl. "In truth, I had someone else in mind, but first.... What happened here tonight? Do you have any idea at all?" I hadn't had time to think about it, as rudely interrupted as we had been, and it hurt too much to think much now but my suspicions were sufficient. "It's back, isn't it?" "Gold star for you. Yes, it's back. It's been back. You've been reading my thoughts on and off since we first met. Didn't you realize that that's what the headaches meant? Didn't that devil tell you? The mindspeech centers of your brain have been growing back for some time. That has to be at least one of the reasons why he sent you here. Several of us thought to be mindblind developed modest abilities within a year of our arrival. That drug I asked Mac to give you eases the transition, lowers the barriers, and sharpens the focus. That's why it relieved your special kind of headache. Comes from a plant that concentrates certain compound in its leaves. It's even better if taken into the lungs, goes straight to the head that way. I made certain to burn it in my study when you came to visit. I also put a large amount in your fire here when Ben and you were off toiling so diligently. Ben didn't know. He wouldn't have approved. Ben has a little of the ability himself, though he tries to deny it. It's why your mood swings affect him so. It's also how my spies found out about the meadow and the pond and that you would be finishing up tonight. Since distance does matter they have to be good at lurking about. They are. But nothing we did explains how you two were able to bond in such an extraordinary manner tonight. That really was something special. I can hardly wait to participate." He learned closer, whispering, though each word still felt like a booming inside my head. "I was surprised when you told me about the mindspeaker colony that you came from. Obviously they don't use the drug there, which means that Charley hasn't told. Now that's fascinating. I should have realized long ago that he hadn't, otherwise they would have been down here long ago harvesting both plant and people. Suddenly, we're a lot more valuable than I thought." "He won't d-deal. Neither will I." His smile was feral. "I wouldn't be so sure of either. You have something to protect. He has something to hide. Makes his taking me all the more important. And I do want to help my people. Most are good people and they deserve better than this. But since I can't do anything from here I need to get back. No, don't worry, I won't ask you again right now -- waste of time -- and even if you were willing to talk now it would be too easy. I'd rather take the time to do it right. A year was how long it took the talents of the rest of us to make itself known. Bek would wait for that. You're just amazingly precocious. So we have till spring..." Casually, the old devil began exploring this and that part of my naked body. Gratefully, I felt a great deal of nothing, which was fortunate since I couldn't have done a thing to prevent him. The migraine had set in in full force, obliterating totally the sweet singing in my nerve endings. Light blinded, dizzy, and nauseous - Jeez, but I felt like shit. That was when I heard a moaning from a distance and the shifting of a body against stone and earthen floor. Benjamin? How badly was he hurt? I had seen/heard/felt the crack of his skull against the wall. I wanted to call to him, but I also wanted to leave him outside of Daniel's radar for the time being. Besides, those were not the sounds that a totally conscious man makes. No, Ben was best where he was, which was not close enough for Daniel to easily pull a knife on. Dan Rowe knew all too well by now that he could threaten to cut off chunks of my flesh and I'd offer to steady the knife for him, but touch Ben and I was his -- body if not soul. I'd done far worse and would again, maybe even tonight. It really didn't matter. Let him play his power games. Just leave me free for tomorrow; just leave me free for that and all the rest is dust. I'll deal with the psychological impact of Daniel's dirt later. But that wasn't to be either. "You may wonder what brings me here, tonight of all nights," the old devil remarked, with a snake's kind of sly pleasure which should have warned me of bad things ahead all by itself. "When my informants reported that you and Ben had finished slaving in the dirt for the season I thought I would come and save you from another chilly night on the barn floor. Wasn't I surprised by what I found? Don't look so stunned. Surely you remember what I promised so many months ago? You and I are going to spend the winter together. Might as well start tonight." No, oh, no. No, NO! I made one surge upward, a futile but purely involuntary act and his huge hand came down hard on my throat as fast as a striking snake. "See that's what I was afraid of, that you'd decide that it was time to be difficult. That's why I've decided that the town's no place for you. Too open, too public. Besides, too many people would expect me to share. Somewhere South, I think." My insides went cold. I thought that my life had gotten about as bad as it could. I was wrong. He lessened the choking pressure on my throat but the foul imprint of those hands remained. "You're a tasty dish as you are, but I believe I have patience for a little experiment I've been dying to try. I just happen to have all the necessary ingredients. Plus it is very, very private here. If it works the way I think it might, it will be well worth the wait. Arniesse!" I had dreaded that this was what he'd meant and damn but I'd been right. But Daniel's pet genderswapper was not the only one who stepped into the dim stone room. He'd brought five friends if I could count the flock that followed him in through the dizzying pounding in my head. This time all of them were black-robed like carrion crows. None wore female guise. With a convulsive shudder my bowels turned liquid but I was too busy being afraid to be embarrassed. Daniel only laughed at my shame. "Something finally that terrifies you on a very personal level. Very useful." He crouched down again and briefly ran a trailing finger along my jaw and over one cheek. "For the life of me I don't know why you should be so distressed. If this works, you should be even more desirable than you are now, not that it would matter a fig to the population of old Stony if you were as plain as week old bread." Headache or no, how I wanted to stick my fist in his smirking face and I tried, but fast as that snake again he had my wrists in his hands and was pulling my arms over my head. I was working on a bolus of spittle, but Arniesse's flock was suddenly swooping down on me as if my resistance and the mayor's move had been their signal. I didn't know that such young, bored, pretty-boy faces could mirror such callus intent. In a single wave they were on me but it wasn't their soft hands that hurt even though a full dozen of them all at once were pressing down with all their weight on my face and chest, shoulders and groin, and arms and legs. It was the power that surged out from them. A glancing touch from Arniesse had numbed my arm for days. Twelve solidly placed hands and six determined minds blasted my world from its foundations. It was all coming apart again as it had before when Charley lost control; muscles went soft and flowed like water, bones melted. And it hurt, if that were possible, a thousand times more because the attempt was clumsy as they lacked both Charley's god- like power and control. Not that I was capable of making sense of what they intended from their brutal attack. There was just pure, horrible pain as my body began to slowly unravel cell from cell. There was screaming and then more screaming and all in my voice. The cries went on until I knew only that broken sounds and the pain, and both followed me down into a well of pure inky dark. BENJAMIN: Year 31, Week 9.8 Dale Reckoning (continued) I have been knocked unconscious twice before in my life so I knew the feeling for what it was. Once when I was twelve, I fell off a cliff I was trying to climb on a dare. The next year, Jonathan Berrie, a grown man, took a swing at me at Winter Fair when he was dead drunk and I'd made a joke about the affects of alcohol on certain performing arts. This time, however, I didn't remember what had caused my condition, only that my head hurt horribly and the air was incredibly hot. It was the heat brought me back, that and the thrumming radiance in my veins that only comes from really good lovemaking abruptly interrupted. Tense voices were raised in anger all around me. Trying to listen to them got the haze to begin clearing but it was a struggle. What finally cut through the dark were the screams. I imagine that animals scream with such inhuman voices. Whatever it was, it was being tortured and it went on and on. I struggled to open my eyes and look towards the sound but all I saw were black shapes that I took at first to be just dark spots behind my eyes. The spots became black robes in time. Arniesse's people were kneeling in a rough circle on the floor. They took up almost all the space in the small room. It was the someone or something that had their attention who was screaming. I had only managed to get to my own knees when the terrible cries ceased. One long, callused foot was visible from under the dark mass of robes. A huge fist clenched in my gut. I called his name; I called it again louder. There was no answer, not even a twitch from that foot. I propelled my body between two of the Graypeople, pushing them aside. My attack seemed to break some group concentration because they all fell away from whatever it was they were doing. What that was I didn't know though from the screaming I had expected to see a bloody knife in each hand. There were neither knives nor blood; however, just moans from the six men as their strange circle came apart as if they had just been relieved of some great burden. Two staggered outside, their passage allowing a temporary swirl of chill air to enter. The other four collapsed against the curving walls. In the center of the room only a single form remained. Naked, Mulder lay tightly curled, every line of his lean body locked in agony. "What have you done!" I sobbed. "What in hell have you done!" "Benjamin," came a voice I once respected and feared and now hated and feared. It was soft but full of disapproval. "I'm the one who should ask what _ you _ have done. You've gotten in the way of something that doesn't concern you." I glared at the changelings who were still in the room, especially at Arniesse whose face I knew. Actually, I knew both his face and hers and neither was what I saw now. He sat panting near the door. Like the others of his kin, his exhausted face was bloodless. Furious and completely oblivious to the fact that I was also without clothes, I spun back at Daniel. "'Doesn't concern' me? It's Mulder!" "Who had one of his attacks, the kind I warned you of. We had to subdue him. If I hadn't come along he might have seriously hurt you." Granted, I was still groggy, but I wasn't so out of it as to believe that story. There had never been any danger, not from Mulder. On the contrary, it had been beautiful and at that moment my body remembered and recognized the feel of the hand that had grabbed me by the scuff of the neck like a child and flung me against the unyielding stone. Daniel rose from where he had been sitting at Mulder's head and indicated for his four remaining black-clad minions to rise also, unsteady though they were on their feet. "What a mess. We'll have to reverse the damage and try again another time." I assumed in my naiveté that Daniel was referring to the stricken changelings and that they were now going to go and leave Mulder and I in peace. Instead, the four slender men at Daniel's direction bent and began lifting the awkward tangle of arms and legs from the floor. "What do you think you're doing!" "We're taking Mulder with us. You don't think that after what almost happened that I could in all conscience leave him here?" "But you c-can't!" I stammered in my confusion. Everything has happening too fast. "He's mine!" Daniel's eyes narrowed in annoyance as he stared down at me. "This again? Don't be obtuse, Benji. You don't play the part well. Was the adoption ceremony ever held? No, because he was never a suitable candidate for adoption, a fact you knew from his first word and which you chose to hide from me. So he is not yours. As no one is formally responsible for him, I claim him. It's a question of colony security. In any case he needs special management, control you have failed to give him." But past the first terrible words I had ceased to hear. They were taking him outside. With the door open I could feel the now cold fingers of the night on my bare skin. Skin as bare as Mulder's. Hastily pulling my dropped trousers over my most vulnerable parts, I caught up Mulder's trousers and both our shirts and hurried after the procession. They were dumping him into the back of a low hay cart, the kind that requires several strong backs to move. They were careless. I heard a groan and a whimper when they dropped him. It was fortunate that no one tried to stop me when I sprinted to his side. There was no padding, no blanket and my own skin was blue already. "Animals!" I hissed and began tucking the scrapes of clothes around him. There were rush torches burning from sconces at the head and foot of the cart. By their light I could see him better than I had before. He lay silent, still unconscious, but as I tried to cover him I had felt a shakiness in my stomach for the way he lay. He had the appearance of being oddly boneless though his limbs were locked as hard as ice. "What have you done?" "We'll take care of it," Daniel grunted as he seated himself in the front seat of the cart. Meanwhile, the six had stationed themselves at the front and back of the cart, three pulling three pushing. With a sudden jerk the wheels began to turn. "Stop!" I grabbed onto the side of the rough wood, managing in my desperation to slow their progress. "Where are you taking him?" "Leave it alone, Benjamin!" Daniel ordered sharply. "He is no longer your problem." I had dug in my heels, though there was only so much bare feet could do. "Filthy sadist! Rapist! Bastard!" That's when that strong old man leaned down and came up with his iron-hard walking stick. Though I'd seen him carry it, I'd never seen him use it as a weapon. I was lucky. The blow only glanced against my skull, but it landed with terrible force on my shoulder. With the blast of pain my hands came free of the cart. The dirt of the road was hard and gritty against my bare chest. I grimly tried to hold up my head, to watch the cart move on, but there was too much darkness, darkness from the night and darkness from inside my head, both growing together into one black pool until it became my entire world. I have cursed the cold. I have spent entire months cursing the cold. I may not again for that early winter night may very well have saved my life and Mulder's. On a night less chilly, I may have lain nearly naked in the yard in front of my cabin until death took me. As it was, the temperature fell so fast that my body began to shiver violently long before my core temperature dropped too far. Head and shoulder aching, I crawled groggily back into Mulder's sauna and let the blessed heat that lingered bring me back to life. I found myself fighting sleep though I couldn't remember why. Forcing my eyes open, my first thought was of how empty this man-made cave looked after being so crowded before. Crowded with whom, however, I couldn't immediately remember. I stared at the orange glow from the stove. It held its heat marvelously well, but reminded me of what I had thought I had heard only as murmurs -- that Daniel had 'spiced' the fire with Lichenleaf. Why hadn't I suspected something before? Probably because the plant is fairly rare, and people don't just scatter it about. I was tested with it when I was young and found sensitive enough which was when Daniel had taken his first interest in me. I was never that shining of a talent, however, thank the Spirit. Over the years I had chosen to forget about the tiny window in my mind that it had opened just as I had blanked out so much else that had happened that critical year. Along the way I had also forgotten that certain herbs like Sweet William's bark are often used to hide the fainter but unforgettable scent of burning Lichenleaf. It is also called 'liken- leaf', by the way, in that it creates like minds. At Daniel's direction, Reese burned Sweet William bark in the fires during our dinners at Government House. Like a bolt through my aching skull, that's when it all came back... what had almost happened between Mulder and me because of Daniel's plotting. But then I remembered how it had ended and that they had taken him away and maybe I would never see him again. Until that moment I had lain in a sort of half-dream mesmerized by the coals. Now it came back to me how I had ended up half-frozen in the road. With a jolt I tore back outside into the chilly wind and the dark. What did I expect to see? The cart still disappearing down the road? And even if I did, what could I have done? As terrible as the shock was to remember how easily Mulder was taken from me, it was far worse to know how powerless I was to do anything about it now. The cold drove me back inside but this time to the cabin. At least I had more clothes there. Unfortunately, there was also a second chair at the table, one we had made together. There was also a second cup and bowl on the washstand. With cold hands I thrust these away out of sight where I keep the extras for visitors. Frantically, with no plan, I straightened the careless clutter from the last two busy weeks of harvesting. What did I feel? Shock, grief, but mostly a hole. There should be hate but that would come out later and the later the better. Think of something else. Plan for winter. That was what we always think about here on Dale when there was nothing else to think about. How to make it through the winter. Only one pair of hands now, but also only one mouth to feed. Stiff from the injury to my shoulder, I threw on a coat. Too late I realized that it was the one I had requisitioned for Mulder from the stores. Despite the fact that it was still night, winter concerns and desperate to think of nothing else, drove me, huddled against the chill, to the barn. In that dim place with only a small torch for light I began counting bales of the ricewheat that we had already brought in and added to it what I estimated still lay drying in the fields. It made a lot of grain for one man to separate from chaff alone. Too much? Should I get someone in to help? I had been making illegible and completely useless notes on a wax tablet with a straw quill when all at once my hand pressed down with a violent jerk and the quill broke. Swearing, I went to the south corner to see if Mulder had another. He'd asked for such things very early on. I had respected his privacy and not seen the little nest he had made for himself. It was Spartan and neat. The pallet was well made and free of lumps, the rough blanket carefully spread over all. On a small shelf of piled stone sat the tiny lamp that he had made from a broken pot, some oil and a wick of waxed rope. He had used the lamp often; the wick was already short. Above the dampness of the floor on another stone shelf were folded his few clothes. I knew that he found them uncomfortable, that they were far from what he was use to, but he never complained. At the head of the bed was a jug of water, half full. At its foot lay discarded the terribly fitting work boots still caked with mud. They were nearly useless but the best I could requisition for a BoB. A Bob, my Bob. My throat began to tighten to the point where I could scarcely breath. Damn, but I'd been trying not to think about that, not to think about him. In my struggle to keep the dam around my emotions intact, I forced myself to become interested in something protruding from under a grain sack stuffed with grass that served him as a pillow. Feeling like a thief, I drew it out. It was a plank of wood. Half a meter long and half that wide, it had been smoothed with hard work. On it a calendar had been carved. The first numbers were crude but with practice their shape had begun to improve. It began with the date of his arrival and continued for some weeks past the present date. In addition to carving a great 'X' over each day that passed, there were other symbols. It took me a while to realize that these represented the phases for both the Moon and Little Brother. I knew he was interested in the subject but not why. Then the block for the next day's date caught my attention, though considering how late it was it was probably tomorrow already. Its number was cut a little deeper than the others and in addition to the small circle which indicated that Little Brother would be full, a single word had been lightly but freshly carved with care: 'Home'. Not understanding I stared at it and then I did. We knew where Mulder had been dropped onto my world. Here was the other half of what Daniel had been asking about and asking about. As if it burned, I dropped the board, my hands trembling. Daniel had ordered me to look out for some sign of a date from Mulder but I had not been told what the significance was. Now I knew both. His interest in the phases of the moons especially around harvest time, his obsession with finding the landing place for himself... it all made sense, at least it made sense if Mulder believed that this Charley was coming back for him. If I asked Daniel, he would say that the fantasy was all part of Mulder's deterioration. But, if so, why was our mayor equally obsessed with the same information? So Mulder had been planning to leave all along, to go home. Not home with me, which had never been home to him, but back to that earlier life. Well, now he couldn't because Daniel had him. It didn't matter that Daniel didn't know that 'the' date was so soon. Even if he were free, Mulder could never make it so far north, not in his condition. So he would stay. Serves him right. All at once I was so angry, and yet so confused, that I broke the plank across my knee, broke it into smaller and smaller pieces. Just as suddenly my rage swelled into a great, blossoming grief that in an instant swept away the fragile dam that had numbed me ever since I realized he was gone. My legs gave way and I sank down onto his bed. It didn't take much to start the tears flowing, just the familiar scent of his sweat. I cried as I had not cried since Old William died. I sat and held the splinters of that desperate calendar in my hands until there were no tears left. The flood was fierce and real but, in the end, short. My mind wasn't working so well, but a small, sane voice inside was shouting that this kind of reaction wasn't going to help anyone. It wasn't time for mindless anger and it wasn't time for self-pity. Mulder had a chance to leave this hell and Daniel was taking that rarest of chances from him. Mulder needed my help, not my tears. Fired with purpose, I rose and headed for the cabin. I would need supplies. The irony struck me as I reentered cabin. Only a few minutes before, I had left this same room prepared to go on making preparations for winter just as I had the year before and the year before that. How had I ever thought, even for a moment, that I could abandon Mulder to Daniel's grasping hands. I had tried, however, tried because Daniel had told me to stay out of it and people did what Daniel wanted. In my case I was intended to accept this night merely as the last night of a very pretty dream that was never really meant to be. Only Daniel had been more right than he knew. It WAS the end of childhood dreaming, but it was also the beginning of so much more. It was the end of Daniel's control over me, the beginning of the time when I, and others if I could convince them, would have to grow up and stand against him... ... and the very idea of putting myself in Daniel's path made my knees shake. Was I mad? One might as well be a branch to be stepped on or corn to be ground into the dirt. This was Daniel after all. Mayor. King. I had escaped him once so many years ago, but only because he let me go. If I opposed him now there would be no place to hide that would be beyond his reach. My life would become again the living hell it once had been. As Mulder's had become if the screams that still echoed in my bones was any indication. No, if I was going to do this, I had to see Daniel for what he was, just a man like me with too much power, moving our lives about like pieces on his chessboard. So in the end there really was no deciding. What kind of life would there be for me, what kind of man would I be, if I abandoned Mulder, my friend, to this Daniel, not the man of inspiring speeches but the secret monster that no one spoke of yet everyone knew? I found a spare seed bag and began a mental list of what I would need. But first, I thought, I ought to be thinking of where I was going to go and what I was going to do when I got there. The 'where' was actually easy. Daniel had a sizeable group of Graypeople with him so they were unlikely to be headed for Stony River where they would attract too much attention. There was only one other place where they would go. What would I do when I got there? Whatever the voice inside me told me to do, I guess. I just hoped that when the time came that it would shout nice and loud. It took five minutes to fill my sack with what I could carry and still move fast. I wore my precious boots, which would help. In the sack were clothes, dried food, and some water. At the last minute I took three carvings which were my favorites of those which were small and not too fragile because a second voice, the small, scared tones of the child I had been, wondered when, if ever, I would see my home again. Year 31, Week 9.9 Dale Reckoning (Two hours before dawn.) In time I will weave the story of my travels to the Graypeople's town of South Cove into a dramatic tale worthy of winter evenings. Truth be told, the journey was ridiculously easy. As teenagers, my friends and I set up lookouts more than once in the rocks above the town in the hope of seeing one of the changelings in 'female' guise. There was also the hope that we might be able to entice one of them to our beds -- male or female, it didn't matter. We never managed this feat, but the journey had become a rite of passage for the young, full of dangers and sexual connotations, and thus not to be missed. For this reason I knew the way to South Cove so well that I didn't need to take the road which the cart would need to follow. There was a chance that I might even beat them there. I didn't, but not by much. Moving from one black shadow thrown by their sod and thatch huts to another, I finally made my way to a small structure that stood at the edge of the village. Outside stood the cart or, if not the cart they took Mulder away in, then one very much like it. Before I could move in for a closer look, the hut door opened revealing a square of pale light. In a moment that square was almost entirely blocked by an unmistakable figure. He had to stoop as he moved through the doorway, which he also filled, from side to side. None of the Graypeople I knew were anywhere as tall or as broad. For an instant the square of light was back again but then the door closed. I heard the sound of a bar dropping into place across it. The figure began to talk to the group of four changelings who were standing silently beside the cart. I risked exposure to move close enough to hear. "What's wrong with him? He's still unconscious." It was Daniel's voice. A soft murmur rose up from the four. Finally one spoke above the others. "There was considerable damage." "He doesn't look any different." "When you build a house, the foundation takes the longest time to prepare. You must cut the trees and dig into earth that has remained unchanged for thousands of years. The outward appearance, that's that the easy part." "So how do you go from here?" "We were wrong to have started. What you asked had never been tried before on one so old. There are stories for the technique being used on adolescents struggling to produce their first change, but on one unwilling? No. We also disagreed from the start about his having the talent. He is as different from us as he is from you. That he has been reformed to some extent in the past, we are fairly certain, but we don't have the strength or the skill. A full shapeshifter did this before, maybe two, but we cannot, and now that we know the destruction our clumsy attempts can cause, we refuse to try again." "What spineless, unimaginative worms you are. You used the power of only six of you. Perhaps you need a dozen, perhaps the entire colony. We'll talk later. For the present he can't be left the way he is. He's not useful for anything." More soft consultation. "We'll bring him back to where he was. Not forward. To go forward any farther would probably kill him, is killing him now." The heads of the other Graypeople bobbed in agreement. "When?" "We need to rest first. Tomorrow." A grunt of irritation. "Do it then, as soon as you can, and let's not mess it up!" The one who had been speaking for the Graypeople stood straighter. "We would never leave one of our own in such a state, nor will we abandon this one. Remember, it was never our choice to attempt such cruelty." "You just do as you're told!" Daniel snapped and then marched away in an obvious snit -- I think that is the word Mulder would use -- to enter a hut two doors farther down. The quartet of Graypeople also dispersed to their beds. Even though no guard appeared to be posted, it was all I could do to wait until the village became absolutely quiet and one deeper snore was added to the others before I moved again. Daniel may be arrogant in his confidence that no one would dare follow him or attempt to interfere with his plans, me least of all, but he was not a complete fool. I was no fool either and made no attempt to enter through the front door. Instead I circled around to come upon the hut I needed from behind. The dwellings of South Cove are peculiar in that they always have two entrances although, because of the winters on Dale, their second one is often so small as to be sometimes no more than a change in the pattern of the blocks. I imagine that the symbolism is leftover from an earlier point in their history. Was the extra door used as a secret entrance for their paramours to enter or for them to leave to go to them? Or were they perhaps persecuted in some way and needed a means of escape? Whatever their historical relevance, I hoped this architectural trait would help me now. Arriving at my destination, I found that it would, but not as easily as I might have hoped. There was a pseudo-door but no more than a foot wide, two feet high and completely blocked. Poking about with a stone knife I'd brought, I found that the filling was no more than crumbling mud, the area's distinctive white clay, and thatch, far easier to work than rock-hard sod. Without another thought I started digging as quietly as haste allowed. It may be fall and the nights longer than those of summer, but it wouldn't be dark for much longer considering all that had happened so far. As I worked, I could almost feel the approach of morning on the back of my neck. It took only a few minutes before a ragged, nut-size circle of light appeared at the bottom of the deepening scar in the wall, though it felt longer. The light had to be that which illuminated Daniel from behind as he left the hut. Only why would an unconscious man imprisoned behind a barred door be left with a light? It would be more like Daniel to leave him alone and in the dark. Too late to wonder now. The hole I'd made was already large enough to be noticeable from the inside. And then I saw Mulder, or at least the back of a silent heap under a ragged blanket. I also heard a low groan that was undeniably his and a kind of tremor ran through both me and the figure under the blanket. With the strength that comes with horrible urgency, I reached in with both hands and pulled the messy thatch towards me. Hastily, I squeezed into the gap scraping skin along the way. It was a tight fit, but I finally managed to slither ungracefully through to end up on the floor by his side. Kneeling, I pulled back the blanket. He was still naked and his skin felt as hard and cold as a stone. He looked so helpless that I found the rage rising in me all over again. Somehow I had to get him away from here. When gently touching his hair didn't rouse him, I forced myself to speak softly, finally cooing as to a frightened newcomer. But what if I couldn't wake him? Alone, there was so little I could do. Finally, he did begin to stir, his fingers flexing. This was when I noticed that narrow, pale rope bound both wrists and ankles. Gritting my teeth to keep from swearing at this completely unnecessary cruelty, I worked on releasing his bonds. I sawed through the worst with my now- blunted flint knife, eventually tearing the last strands with my teeth. Free, he rolled onto his back, an action that made me wince just to watch. It was not only the condition of his back that prompted my reaction. The tight muscles clearly did not want to uncurl. I had to place my hand partially over his mouth to muffle the moan that might be heard outside. "Mulder, do you hear me?" I whispered. "We have to go. Can you move?" His body shuddered one last time from head to foot and a grimace that distorted his features crossed that face. "Do you understand? We have to go." His eyes opened. Not suddenly and just tiny slits, but something. It was clear that he was in considerable pain. "B-Ben?" The one word was broken and uttered with wonder barely above a whisper. "Expecting someone else?" He tried to smile, but didn't manage it well. "Actually yes, but you'll do." A frown returned. "But, Ben, you can't. Daniel..." "It's too late for that." His eyes struggled to open farther and he blinked to focus on the mess I'd made of the back wall. "I guess so." His face clouded in a kind of despair. "It's so dark." I didn't know if he meant the night or his future, but I think he meant both. "If you can move, there's still time," I assured him. "It's the same night when you were taken, but it's nearly morning, the morning of you-know-what day." His red-rimmed eyes went to my face. "You know." "Found your calendar. You weren't very subtle." "You'll still help?" It was pitiful to see the hope struggle to rise behind his eyes. "You're in danger here. What did you expect that I would do?" I could see that he wanted to say more, but I didn't think that I could bear to hear anything like words of thanks from a man with his kind of ancient pain. Who had betrayed him before? Besides me, that is. After all, I had listened to my enemies when I should have been talking to my friends. "Let's see how well you can walk," I suggested and tried to help him stand. He got to his knees, but even that simple effort brought on a violent trembling that drove his head down to the hard dirt floor and filled his eyes with tears. He tried three times, weakening more each time, and with no more success. "I can't," came out in a despairing wheeze. "You have to!" A third voice spoke softly at my elbow. "Maybe I can help." BENJAMIN Year 31, Week 9.9 Dale Reckoning. An hour before dawn. I whirled. From out of nowhere, Arniesse was crouching beside me. Once more he was in gray. There was no particular expression on his face, but I knew better than to think that that meant he lacked feelings. He'd explained that his ability to change so much of the rest of his body left his face beautiful in either guise but unable to display a great range of emotions. "I didn't know you were here." The exquisite face smiled. That he could do "There was no reason for you to know." "Are you going to tell 'him'?" and my eyes swept in the direction of the hut where Daniel had gone. "I was told to watch Fox, not you. To see to his health as best as I could while the others rested." He bent then over Mulder, who shied so completely from the changeling's touch that he lost his balance and fell onto his side where he bit through his own lower lip to keep from crying out. "Stop it!" I hissed holding Arniesse back. "Benjamin, let me help. We were wrong to attempt to force our kind of change in your friend." I shut my eyes against the sight of the small seizures again wracking the body of the man on the pounded dirt floor. He had curled around his center, arms tightly hugging his knees. "That's what your elder swore outside. He also said that your people could undo it. Can you?" "Alone? Not as much as needs to be done, but I can stabilize him for the time being. Only he can't be afraid of me. He has to work with me." "Daniel won't approve." "We listened to his counsel in the past but only because it agreed with our own goals. We won't listen to him again." "You're going to get into trouble for this." "So are you who have so much more to lose and yet here you are. Come, Benjamin, we have talked enough. We are losing time." For the first time I wondered who Arniesse was. There was more authority in that voice than I had heard before. The changeling bent over Mulder who had only curled tighter while we talked. "Tell your friend to let me help, then it's critical that you both leave. It will make my position less difficult." I was not entirely comfortable with the source of the 'help' just as I knew that Mulder wasn't. As he would be of no assistance on a trip north as he was, however, I sat and talked to him. His pain must have been considerable for he gave me less argument than I expected. He knew as well as I that our choices were down to almost nothing. Some good did come from it all; while Arniesse worked I finally got my chance to hold Mulder's hand again. The 'treatment' was far from a pleasant experience for any of us. I was left with bruises and nail marks in my palms, Mulder exhausted and shocky, and Arniesse drained and looking older. Decades older. That's when I put two and two together for the first time. The changelings had been brought to Dale at about the same time as the first Stony River colonists. The plan may have been that we interbreed because changelings couldn't reproduce among themselves, but the two sides never had managed any offspring so it was assumed that their 'females' were sterile. This meant that the South Cove colonists, and Arniesse with them, must be, if not Daniel's age, at least a good deal older then they appeared. Even older than Arniesse looked now. When they change they revert back to their previous pattern and thus never appear to age. This meant that Annie was no young girl and Arniesse no smooth-faced youth. Certain parts of my anatomy began to curl. The changeling must have read all this on my face and gave me a tired smile. "So you regret the time we spent together. I don't." For myself I couldn't answer, not just then. Instead, I attended to Mulder who was clearly still in pain and too tired to speak. After I helped him to dress in the clothes I'd brought, he was able to crawl after a fashion to the hole I'd clawed in the back wall. Before his shoulders blocked the opening, I noted that the faintest predawn had begun to lighten the sky. Once he was outside, I turned to where Arniesse still breathed heavily against the wall with half-closed eyes. "What will happen?" "My people will say that they called me out to take some food. You came while I was gone. Daniel will shout and stamp. What more can he do? Don't worry about me." But I did. I knew this monster in our midst only too well. Years before Old William had convinced me that life would be simpler if I just tried to see through the same eyes as everyone else and conveniently forget those pre-teen years. I had tried and, damn me, but I'd succeeded. How much had Mulder suffered for that decision? It was, therefore, with feelings more mixed than I would have thought possible an hour before, that I shared the sign of farewell with Annie. We said good-bye in the way I had been shown, by barely brushing the backs of my fingers against his. "I'll see you soon?" The oddest expression came over the weary, delicate face as his eyes lingered on mine. "Perhaps. For now, go, go quickly. I'll delay them as long as I can." I found Mulder outside under the shadow of a large applepear bush. He was upright but that uprightness was due in no small part to the support he got from the poor, half-bent tree. He didn't pull away either when I placed my arm around his waist to steady him. That is how we left South Cove, moving off into the graying sky, heading north. MULDER: Dear Scully, dear heart, it's a shame that you will never get a chance to meet Benjamin. As a mother hen he is nearly your equal. You could compare notes. First the medical update, that I know you've been waiting for. You know that I have worked impaired before. I have worked with pneumonia, with a sprained ankle, with a dislocated shoulder, with bullet wounds. I've been fried in the desert, freeze-dried in the arctic, infected with parasites, tobacco bugs and black oil. I've been invaded by salt water worms and even paralyzed by a poison dart, but never have I had to function while my body felt as if it were coming apart and seldom has my need to be whole been so critical. I could not have managed without Ben. He kept water in my system and food in my belly. He kept me headed in the right direction. He kept me headed in 'a' direction because without him I would have wandered in circles somewhere in the marshlands north of the enclave of the Graypeople and south of the town of Stony. In other words, far from where I needed to be. He was the Sam to my Frodo. He urged my footsteps. His quiet steadiness gave aid and comfort to my ailing spirit. He bore a flicker of light before me when everything about me -- and I do mean everything about 'me' -- was dim and formless. He even bore me on his back and wiped my tears with the rough tail of his shirt. For hours I staggered or crawled across the ground or was carried slung like a sack of meal over Ben's broad shoulders. Consciousness faded in and out. I don't remember when we finally stopped. I came around lying on a carpet of last year's leaves, too utterly wasted to move. My head pounded, my stomach ached. Cool water dripped wonderfully onto my face and down my neck. Over my left shoulder hazy sunshine flickered, winking through the lattice of nearly bare branches overhead. Since it hurt even to move my eyes I didn't. "B-Ben?" Was that croak mine? "You felt warm. Besides, I needed a break." About his needing a break, that was undoubtedly true since he had been doing nearly all the work for both of us. But he was lying about my just being warm. For one, though the sun had warmth, the air was still cool from the chill night before. The stiff breeze from the north had also been in our faces all day, so I shouldn't have been warm. No, this was fever. I felt the difference in my gut and in my limbs and in the awful taste in my mouth. If asked how my head felt, I'd have asked for someone to pull out the knife that had to be protruding from my skull. Then there were the seizures that I'd had off and on all day, though as a rule they weren't as bad as those I had in that terrible padded room where I spent those interminable weeks while you were in Africa. As it is all I can do to raise my head after one of them, you can imagine how successful I've been marching through the wilderlands of Dale. As I lay there I felt a new one beginning to build. They are like great black waves that start small but all at once race towards you, huge and overpowering, unstoppable. I'd drowned more times than I could count that day. This one, thank you, ye gods, turned out to be a small one. Nevertheless, I woke to find Ben holding my head. He watched out for me. I should have been ashamed; I should have been embarrassed. I was worn too thin to care. "S-S-Sorr-ry..." "Don't move, rest." But there was a huskiness to his voice. I had scared him again. With an effort I rolled to a sitting position and let my head sag down between my knees. "I feel like shit." "Mulder, what's wrong?" Ben's blue eyes are darker than usual and huge. "There was just some tremors in South Cove. Now..." Now? I was a stone around his neck, of no earthly use to anyone. Oh, Scully, you know that I miss you. The question is, do you miss me? How could you have put up with such a millstone for so long? "Mulder, tell me what I can do to help." A bullet was my first thought, if he had one. Any suggestion more complicated than that was beyond me. Benjamin for all his earnest desire to succor the weak and dysfunctional wasn't a shapeshifter or a changeling who could rid me of this terrible feeling of vagueness, of drifting apart, that Arniesse had only partially been able to alleviate. Ben didn't carry a supply of Mac's magic pills either so he couldn't help the mountain-size migraine that, unmedicated, hadn't gone away all day as if making up for lost time. From moment to moment it was just more or less severe as different as the Appalachias are from the Himalayas. I didn't even know where the seizures and the sweats and the nausea came from or what anyone could do about them, only that they came and went like the crashing of the sea when you walk on the shore. The beach... The boy on the beach. A pretty nice place to escape to. I hadn't thought about him for a long time... No, you don't. No dropping stitches yet, Spooky. Focus. Yeah, sure, focus and have another seizure. "Just keep me going, Ben." I made a concerted effort to stand up then but found that not a muscle moved. That was a terrifying moment, the truly terrifying part being that it brought back those weeks in the hospital bed where nothing moved but the twisting of the flames in my mind. I didn't need that kind of thinking either! Hard not to panic though because it was already well into the afternoon and we still had such a depressingly long way to go. The days were also shorter now that Dale was spinning towards winter. Wearily, Benjamin ran his fingers through his sweat-limp hair as if trying to think. "I was still coming around, but I have a foggy memory of Daniel saying that the leaf rolls that Mac was instructed to give you were addictive. Could part of what you're feeling be due to that?" I groaned. Shit. Clearly, I had already dropped a few stitches along the way. "Oh, yes. Part of the problem anyway." I should have remembered, though I don't know how I could have managed that particular feat. I hadn't been entirely clear-headed for what felt like days. Somehow I managed to turn my head and for the first time was able to actually see Ben's face with any clarity. He had the look of someone who had cried recently and was seriously scared. "I swear that I didn't know that Mac used lichen leaf in the leaf rolls. I'd only heard of smoking lichen. I didn't know it had other properties. I certainly don't know how he prepares it but I can recognize the plant. This is one of the areas where it's been found growing wild in the past. If I can find some leaves and you chewed those, would it help?" It could only kill me. To willingly take what had caused so much trouble before also made me nervous. In addition, some plants, like Deadly Nightshade, are lethal if they're not prepared correctly or harvested at the right season or you take too much. Still, what would it matter if I couldn't find my way north by nightfall. "Couldn't make me feel worse, but there isn't much time." "We'll never get there if you can't walk," Ben replied, practically. "I can't carry you the whole way." And with that he was off, hunched over, intent on the ground as any hunting dog. In the silence without him the trickling of the stream caught my attention and in the process of leaning towards it I fell over. It did bring me close enough so that I could cup my hand into the little rivulet and get some water to drink. The world got a little clearer and the cool liquid relieved for a brief time the terrible metallic taste in my mouth. Upon his return, Benjamin found me asleep, maybe passed out, I don't know which. A hand's breadth further to the left and I would have drowned in the two-inch deep stream. Ben's only reaction was to sigh -- just like you, Scully. Still practical, he uttered no words of rebuff. He must have realized any would have been useless. After assisting me to right myself -- I was about as helpless as turtle on its back -- he washed some purplish leaves in the stream and told me to chew them. Cautiously, I nibbled one. It was incredibly bitter and tasted terrible. "Needs salt," I said. He rolled his eyes. Another rather a good imitation of you, Scully. At least I haven't lost my touch. While I chewed I leaned back against a tree and took stock of my physical reactions. There was no burning sensation in either my mouth or my stomach so maybe they wouldn't kill me. There was something even reminiscent of that first morning jolt of caffeine which after all this time I still missed. And something in the leaf did seem to be helping. A little of the pressure in my head and gut was lessening. I took another leaf, very much aware that I was at best only postponing the inevitable, but this was a very inconvenient time to go cold turkey. While I chewed the second leaf, a larger one, I closed my eyes and tried to recall everything I had ever read about biofeedback. I had to be able to by-pass my short-circuited nerves and get moving. Then there was the plant's more known purpose as a scary kind of pipe tobacco. I almost spat out the grassy wad, but stuffed it temporarily in the side of my cheek instead. "Assure me again about how doing this is not going to make it easier for Daniel to read my mind?" What a terrible thought after all the trouble we had gone through to stay out of his hands. "We were actually warned never to eat it. Only when smoked does it have the affect you're worried about and then the results can be dramatic, especially if both sides are involved." Clearly embarrassed, the young farmer stared down at the ground in front of where he was sitting. "Even smoked, none of us can read more than a couple of miles. Why do you think the farms are spread out the way they are? Daniel must have sent a man with a pipe of leaf to stand outside the cabin at night to spy on us. Again, I swear that I didn't know what was in the leaf rolls Mac gave you. I thought that it was just something for the headaches and when it did help those I didn't question...." I couldn't see well but I didn't need to. The catch in his voice indicated readily enough that he was close to tears. I wanted to say that it was all right, but my tongue, hardly facile before, had gone fuzzy in my mouth. Besides, I was losing focus again. I had been staring up through the canopy of leaves, watching as the twinkles of sun flickered on and off. Now the white seemed to be breaking up into rays with vivid rainbow spectrums. Red and blue soon joined what began as gold and green. It was when they all began to bleed together into pinwheel spirals that I began to suspect that Alice must have eaten from the wrong side of the mushroom. With considerable effort I dragged my eyes from the show to look for Scully who would really want to know about this. A figure sat across from me on the other side of what looked like a small cave of living and breathing crystal greenery. It wasn't Scully, however. It was an exhausted-looking young man with sweat-dampened black hair and -- I recalled with a jolt -- a very finely muscled body. Definitely not Scully. Scully's not here and I'm seriously tripping. I blinked and did my best to begin stretching my legs. At least they did move though they felt a troublesome distance away. Poor Benjamin. Did he ever look miserable. That one brief flashback to our passionate confrontation of the night before got me thinking; instead of zoning out on what he looked like with his clothes off, I should be asking his forgiveness for turning him on and then not completing what I started. No, that wasn't right. He'd been the one who had been turned on. I had only been reading his mind. It was that old man with Charley's face who had intervened and destroyed the moment. In any case maybe it would be best not to think about that. Something safer, right, like how I had ended up going cold turkey out here in the middle of nowhere with half of the inhabitants of Dale probably out looking for me rather than some place much worse with Dan Rowe breathing down -- or worse 'on' -- my neck. I found that squinting made some of the colors go away, but almost made Ben go away as well. "B-Ben?" He was still staring at the ground, looking tired and sad. How long had I been on this cosmic journey? He started at his name and looked up with something like hope in his voice. "Feeling any better?" "Different anyway." I extended both legs to show that I could at least do that by myself and they didn't seem so far away this time. "I just need a couple more minutes." He nodded and began to put the few items he carried back in his pack. It occurred to me that we may not have much more time to talk and there was a lot we hadn't said to one another. "Why did you come after me?" He just shrugged. "How could I not?" "Ben, It's not that I'm ungrateful but you've put yourself in danger. As Daniel had stated ad nauseum, you can't win." I noticed that I had to keep my speech very exact to keep my words from slurring. "Daniel and his allies are so much more powerful, as well as better organized, than you can ever hope to be. So why?" In the pause that followed, a red blush swept over Ben's face all the way to the tips of his ears and on that well-tanned skin, that was hard to do. "Because of what he said about how he was going to use you, not just now and then but over and over all winter. You would hate that. I think that you would rather be dead." There was something about his expression, which sobered me considerably. "Ben, on our last trip north, you snarled something to me about what you thought Daniel and I were doing together. At the time you seemed to assume that I enjoyed it." The blush deepened. "At the end of our second visit you were so sore and exhausted that I thought that we'd never get home." His blue eyes fixed on the ground. "I thought that you and he had been playing, you know, 'rough' games. Some men like that. I didn't say anything because I was angry. I was hurt that you thought I wasn't tough enough and that that's why you didn't want me. Even Annie didn't really want me. I thought she was only there to get me out of the way so that the lords could have their fun. Every visit after that was the same." I opened my mouth to say protest but once begun he plowed on. "It never occurred to me that you didn't want to play. Both of you from Earth, both knowing so much more than any of us. It was natural that you'd want to be together. Now, seeing what he did to your back ... I mean I've heard about how some men are punished that way, but I never believed." "Believe it." The blue eyes lifted. They were darkened by confused shadows. "I don't understand. What did you do that was so wrong?" "Nothing wrong. I just I refused to tell him what he wanted to know. You know the questions. Now that I think of it, why didn't he just read my mind? I breathed the smoke from his fire every night we were there." Ben had a good ponder about that. "People react differently. After breathing lichen, some can read others well but still can't be read themselves, except sometimes when they focus on responding to a direct question. I think you're one of them." He stared at the ground again and in a softer voice continued, "I know that I can't read you. Even that night --" there was no need to define what night he meant "-- I only felt my own need, only stronger by a ten-fold than ever before. I never felt 'you'. That's why I didn't suspect that we'd been drugged and why I lost control. I should have known that there was something wrong. You had never let me before. I knew you didn't want to, not with me." I winced. Even without 'breathing lichen' I felt the sting of that regret. "Not your fault," I told him which was true. For he most likely had been reading me, while I had been reading him which meant that he had been getting his own feelings back, which were strong to begin with, over and over again. Exponential curve. If Daniel hadn't intervened... What? Things would have gone on to their unnatural conclusion but unnatural only because of my state of mind. It wouldn't have been so bad. Who was regretting now? I looked back in Ben's direction. I don't know when I've ever seen a more miserable creature. He must have sensed the direction of my gaze. "So all those months I was wrong about you and Daniel?" I couldn't lie, not to Ben who needed to know the kind of monster ruled his world. "Whatever Daniel got from me he took, I never gave." All at once a rage rose in that young face. "Then why did you let him?" he demanded. "He asked too high a price to stop." "You could have run." "He would only have gone after another target. I managed. I could put up with a lot because I planned to leave soon. If I had thought that there was no end in sight -- if I had thought that there was no other way out -- that would have been another story." He was scowling, but it was to hide an old pain and said nothing. "What's your story, Ben? Why did you really leave town to practically indenture yourself out in the middle of nowhere to old William? He could have lived for decades yet and you would have spent all this time as little more than a servant. He could be living now." The blush that had retreated was back. "My guess is that Daniel played games with others against their will. Young men? Boys?" Those strong shoulders not only bowed but trembled, and in that instant I think I could have found the strength to kill a certain old man. I hadn't wanted to be right. "It was his right, he said. Like the old lords use to do. When we reached thirteen you were taken to the cellar." A deep shudder passed through him. "Usually it was only once, for 'testing', but he kept asking for me, giving me this pipe to smoke all the time and then made me... do things. I didn't know about the lichen then. I only knew that I didn't understand why he kept coming after me when I hated being down there. I hated it!" Which was precisely why he did it because Ben's emotions when he was under stress were clear as a bell. "Ben, you don't have to say any more." I spoke gently, all too aware that he was absently rubbing his wrists and I had a feeling that I knew more than I wanted to about what went on during those long ago trips to the cellar. Still deep in his remembered grief and humiliation, the young farmer snarled. "Last night when I saw him bend over you, and touch you that way when you were absolutely helpless to stop him, that was when I realized how wrong it was, that it had never been right. It never was my fault, was it?" "No, it never was. You also understand that his interest in you was not all about sex." "I do now. The mindspeaking, what little I have." "You have more than you think. Clearly he's been identifying those with talent for years and developing it the best he can. Bargaining chips for the next time he saw Charley." And no one to stop him from enjoying the perks along the way. "So I'm lucky that when I ran off to live with old William that he let me go?" "More than you know. But if I leave -- when I leave -- that old man is going to be angry." "You're not the only one who can manage." So he thinks, but he's wrong this time. The devil will force him to breathe lichen after which Benjamin will be an open book to him. It's too easy to torture a person like that. But what could I do? Nothing sitting here as the sun sank ever lower in the western sky. "Come on. Give me a hand. I think I can walk for a bit now. We've rested far too long." For suddenly, I was cold sober and all the temporarily rosy edge to my world had turned a grimy gray.