quickly.
Ian repeated the words to Death. The skeleton rose one arm and pointed. Their eyes followed the white beacon of its finger out to the wasteland beyond. A lake was close by now, too near to be a mirage. Its waters shone purest blue. Ian’s hand released Death’s clothing.
“Are there guns in there?” inquired Jeremy. “A submarine at least?”
But Death was walking away. Resigned, the boys fell into step again.
There was no telling the lake’s true depth. Nothing disturbed the fluid’s surface. It gave the water the appearance of a great oiled lens, from which reflected light did not so much shimmer as pulse. The entire face lifted and fell ever so slightly as the boys approached. Their first action was to collect stones and fling them out over the flat expanse. Perfect ripples arose and crept across the water towards them. The tiny waves swept bare a stone bridge originating at the shore nearby. It lay but a millimetre or so below the waterline, and had they not disturbed the lake, its existence would have remained unknown.
Nathan looked to Death for direction. Ian and Jeremy were already running over the causeway. Huge splashes were thrown up where their feet landed; their laughter reached him easily across the lake. He was glad to see them transformed again by play. Their shadows, dancing fitfully upon the ruffled water, were soon joined by Death’s. Now the black thing beckoned to him with an outstretched finger, and Nathan ran to him.
An island arose several hundred metres from the lakefront. Looking back, Nathan felt slightly queasy, as their path was submerged again where the ripples stilled. Ian stopped and walked back to him.
“It looks weird, doesn’t it?” observed Ian, scuffing a wake beneath his heels.
Nathan nodded. Jeremy was waving at them in the distance, and Ian almost sniffed the air in eagerness.
“Come on!”
Then Ian was gone. Nathan’s gaze lingered back for long seconds. He had never seen this lake in a dream, nor in any of the few trips to the country his father had taken him on. Yet the sensation of standing in the very midst of unknown territory, the sureness of every step masked with doubt, was impossibly familiar to him. The boy turned and ran to catch the others. Running now, he abandoned his fear, kicking up plumes of silvery water with every stride.
Death, Jeremy and Ian had gained the meagre refuge of the island. Knee-high bluffs of crumbling sand were its shoreline. Beyond these lay granite flagstones that crowded close to the bridge, widening further to a long avenue. Flanking this path were tables of thick wood lying in strict rows. Nathan saw then that they carpeted the island to its very limit, a point which the boys could not hope to see. Nathan knelt and saw dark ruling the spaces beneath, sunlight permitted to merely glance upon their legs of thick metal and venture no more. He thought at once of avenues of trees and the plantation upon their hill. Objects glinted upon each table, and the three friends were upon the nearest one in a second.
Beneath a case of clear plastic lay a rock. It was an unremarkable rock in all respects, and Ian noted this loudly. Jeremy had glanced at the table’s contents and was already scanning its neighbours.
“More rocks,” was his dismayed report.
Nathan hesitantly nudged the rock’s cover, as if he expected an alarm to go off. To his surprise it slid easily away and he was able to examine the object in greater detail.
“Just a rock,” he noted, and with that cast it back out over the lake in a long throw. Ian and Jeremy’s shock dissolved a moment later, and they joined their friend in fits of laughter. Jeremy looked at Death furtively, and then followed its cover into the water.
The boy ran again. Nathan had flashes of the glass cases on either side. He stopped, panting hard and with sweat pattering on the laminated wood grain of the table. The case before him held a piece of stone with one side scalloped away to a crude blade-edge. Its handle of black wood was bound by thronging that jammed it firmly to its haft. Ian and Jeremy were behind him.
“A tomahawk,” said Jeremy.
Ian swept the cover aside.
“It’s a crap old one,” he reported.
Nathan reached forward and drew it from the wood’s surface.
“Like the ones Indians use.”
He tossed it lightly, end over end, and caught the haft. Blackie had shown him this last summer. His brother’s friend was adept at the trick, honing his skill with it between draughts of his powerful home-brew.
Ian asked for a turn with the axe. Nathan was reluctant to give up his acquisition, until a realisation struck him.
What might lie on the other tables?
Another tomahawk eluded his darting eyes. Under the closest glass was a thin dart the length of his arm, with an attendant rod of curved wood fitted to one end. Jeremy had located another axe and gleefully retrieved the weapon, reducing its cowling to crystalline dust with a back-handed blow.
The boys journeyed far into the aisles. A system was improvised where Ian and Nathan scanned every fifth table and reported to Jeremy, who directed their progress. Death trailed them many tables to the rear, their earlier fight having put some distance between themselves and him. Nathan thought that people were silly to put such fear in Death.
We’ve been able to out-run him easily all afternoon.
It was a comforting notion, that this so-called nemesis of mankind was gambolling after them with no more menace than a decrepit and unwanted clown. Ian and Jeremy were play-fighting with their hatchets, martial-arts movie blows that were received with an accompanying roar of slow-motion agony. Nathan smiled. A long blowpipe lay close to hand, and the boy thought of grabbing the weapon and entering the fray. He saw that the sun was dipping noticeably now, and an urgency overcame him.
“Come on guys. It’s getting late,” he said plaintively. Ian glanced at him.
“In a moment,” he said, before hooking and twisting Jeremy’s tomahawk away with a triumphant shout.
A pang of anger coursed through Nathan. If they wasted time in play, then their mission would never be complete. Well, he would be their pathfinder, the lead scout operating far ahead of the main force. He left them without another word, dual shadows lengthening down the aisle as Death joined him. The pair slipped away. Nathan noted that his companion kept perfect pace with him now, and he was glad. Were the skeleton a few steps behind, it would feel altogether too much like being hunted. He hoped that Death had no power to divine thoughts. Now Nathan regretted his earlier dismissal.
Ian and Jeremy fought on; the backdrop of glass-studded tables was declared to be the laboratory of an evil genius, bent on world domination. By mutual agreement, the boys were playing with only the weapons that fell to hand. Jeremy enjoyed sliding the cases away with regard to whether they landed intact or not. Their contents clattered to the flagstones a second after the glass exploded, and he sought his prize hungrily amongst the shards.
Jeremy faced his friend with a crude wooden sword edged in shark teeth. Ian emerged from a kneeling inspection of the tiny detritus. Whipping a long, sharpened piece of ivory through the air, he advanced on Jeremy. From beneath every table bled long shadows. Jeremy’s ankles were immersed in the cold, and he shivered. He could just make out the fading silhouettes of Nathan and Death in the far distance.
The boys ceased their play with a trail signal consisting of a clenched fist alternating with a palm. Ian’s eyes widened. A tactical halt. In accordance with the gravity of this command, he placed the ivory spike on the nearest table.
“Friendly forces are moving away from us. We must abandon this position and recover the coherency of our patrol formation.”
Ian signalled back his affirmation, a thumbs-up followed by a hand smoothing away to the horizon. Jeremy nodded and smiled.
The wheels are turning now, he thought. We’re not being lead around like sheep. We are on defensive reconnaissance, the rearguard patrol that prevents an ambush.
A final signal motioned Ian to take point. Sunset lit the cases like a thousand orange prisms, facets shorn from a je
wel.
Nathan stopped to take in the sight. Death halted too and watched him. On the nearest table, the sunrays raked a prism-beam of rainbow colours across its contents. The shine of metal caught his eye. A flintlock pistol lay there, a long fluted barrel ending in a grip of polished walnut. Its firing mechanism looked perfect to Nathan, as if this was no museum piece but a gun fresh-minted that afternoon. The boy removed the case and was dazzled for a moment as the revolving glass flashed bright into his eyes. His finger closed about the trigger and he swung to aim the pistol at the three Blackbird jets propped together; a black insect caught mid-scuttle by the ebbing sun. The gun fired, a percussive boom that slapped his ears. He saw the pistol fall from his hand and skitter upon the flagstones.
It was loaded.
His mind echoed with this certainty. At his sides as a bedevilment of muskets: a stubby blunderbuss whose muzzle was wide enough to swallow Nathan’s fist. Stocked alongside was a pistol mated to a short cutlass, a unicorn chased in pearl upon the stock. Reaching for the weapon, Nathan's hand skidded softly on the glass.
I bet it's loaded too.
Two right hands joined his on the cover, the index finger of one tapping there pensively for a moment. Jeremy was breathless from his and Ian's sprint.
"Did it have much of a kick?"
Nathan nodded. Ian said that they should fire all the guns - one right after the other - but