From: Windsinger@aol.com
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:32:27 EST
Subject: xfc: NEW: Travels w/Charley 8: Not Kansas (11/15) by Windsinger
Source: xfc

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 08: Not Kansas (11/15)
Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

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 naivete 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."

End of Chapter 11

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 08: Not Kansas (12/15)
Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

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.
 
End of Chapter 12

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 08: Not Kansas (13/15)
Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

MULDER
Year 31, Week 20.0 Dale Reckoning (late afternoon to twilight)

We made good time for an hour at least. The land changed from barren 
to fertile and, though there were now some cart and foot paths, 
there were more small farms and cultivated fields. Ben's route took 
us west of Stony River but because of our limited time not as far 
out as I would have preferred. Still, the harvested fields were 
empty. 

"I think we're safe. Everyone should have left already for town. 
Another one of those festivals I'm not going to get to," he said 
with as much humor as his tired body could manage.

I had had visions of Daniel raising the country against us, but it 
certainly didn't look like that was the case. He had boasted that he 
didn't share. Such egotism could turn out to be his downfall. If 
only he and a few of his men were looking for us, we might have a 
chance. Believe it or not, I had caught some of Arniesse and Ben's 
conversation in the hut. If the changeling was correct about the 
Graypeople wanting nothing more to do with Dan Rowe, then there was 
another point for our side. Ben and I were also the only ones who 
knew that this was the night; Daniel didn't, so he wouldn't know 
where we were going.  Where our plan fell through was if Arniesse 
had been premature in speaking for his people. There was also 
nothing to prevent Daniel from making assumptions about the 
expediency of our departure. With or without the changelings, Daniel 
would be able to travel faster than we were managing. We could also 
not forget about the sniffing that went on during our first survey 
north and they have my scent by now as well as Ben's. 

We stopped to catch our breath within the dark under a copse of 
small trees. Collapsed would describe it better. As the day had 
turned cloudy, there wasn't much light in that closed space, but the 
warmth was worth it. In mid-afternoon the temperature had begun to 
drop as the breeze stiffened. As I had clawed up the last few yards 
to our resting place, I could have sworn occasional drop of wind-
driven rain had been mixed with snow. 

It took me too long to stop wheezing. "Ben," I gasped, "where would 
you be heading now ... if not north. Surely not back to the farm."

Ben's even features with their days' growth of beard showed that he 
hadn't considered this. "I don't know."

"You must have friends."

"None that would stand up to the Mayor... except maybe Mac."

"So the search should be split between your farm to the west, Mac's 
surgery in town, and the area around South Cove if they thought that 
I would be unable to travel very far."

"Daniel also knows where the landing place is," Ben offered.

"But he's convinced that Charley won't be returning until spring."

"We still need to be careful," Benjamin warned, his tired face 
gloomy. "You think that you know Daniel, but you don't."

"Which is why I owe you everything for keeping us out of sight as 
much as you have." I didn't bring up the issue of the changeling 
trackers and that the residual affects of what had happened the 
night before probably meant that we were shedding pheromones like a 
nervous cat sheds hair. Ben had enough problems. 

I needed more rest but there wasn't time. The shakes and the 
sickness and the headaches came and went; though they came more than 
they went as the miles stumbled by. Forcing down a few mouthfuls of 
dried fruit and grain that Ben had brought, we started off again, 
ducking under the low-hanging boughs and back into the biting wind. 
It seemed to have dropped another ten degrees and there was snow in 
the air now without a doubt. Only one field more would bring us to 
the end of the cultivated land. Beyond stretched the rocky and 
higher hills of the north with its occasional cliff and gully and 
dark lines of trees. 


I didn't make it very far. Maybe less than a mile. I had tried to 
hurry but felt what strength I had draining away with each step. 
Wrapped in a fog of pain and exhaustion, my legs as heavy as lead, I 
made it up the second rise, which put us solidly into the north, but 
there my body just stopped. We halted under far sparser cover this 
time, a single conifer-like tree whose branches hung nearly to the 
ground. "H-How far now?" I wheezed, trying to sound matter-of-fact 
but that's hard to do when you barely draw breath.

"An hour," Ben's said with no optimism. "But that's walking quickly 
which you haven't been able to manage." 

What I just did hadn't been walking quickly? It had taken nearly all 
I had. I was leaning over with my hands on my knees, trying to find 
the strength to pull in another mouthful of air. My side hurt, my 
chest hurt. I felt sick again. My stomach had emptied again only a 
hundred yards back.

"Maybe you should stay here," Ben suggested uneasily. 

For the first time in what seemed hours I actually looked at my 
companion. Concentrating as I had been just to shuffle along, he had 
seemed like a shadow to me, and yet at the same time also my 
strength, never far from my side, lending an arm, and guiding my 
wavering steps. If he looked this tired and hopeless...

"I'll go ahead," he offered. "I can run some yet. I'll find this 
Charley and bring him back --"

"No, he won't show himself to you. It has to be me. He laid down the 
rules and he's a literal bastard." I forced my back to straighten in 
an attempt to look more fit than I was. The abused muscles clenched 
in the grip of fist-sized cramps. "I-I'll do better. Just tell me 
there's time. It's so dark that I can't tell where the sun is."

His voice was soft and touched with pity which made me worry about 
just how dark it really was. "We won't be too late if you can push 
the pace a little more than we have." 

I nodded in acknowledgement that I had heard, but my attention was 
all for the road of pain ahead. It was very like walking on the 
stumps of legs, all splintered bone and damaged nerve. I didn't look 
at his face again. I didn't like the anxious shadows I saw there, 
not that there weren't plenty of other signs of disaster. The 
vagueness was still with me; partly due to my scrambled insides that 
the Graypeople have left me with and partly due to the cumulative 
psychotropic affects of the lichen leaves which I been chewing all 
afternoon just to stay upright. And part, I admit, was due to the 
blindness that comes from me being me. Like the fact that the 
afternoon must have been growing colder more quickly than I thought. 
This was because my fever was climbing again, though I had refused 
to admit it at the time. The tremor in my hands was almost constant, 
as well, and Ben stayed even closer than before so he could catch me 
from falling when I stumbled, which was happening more and more. As 
for the headache, I had more urgent things to think about ... like 
what I would say to Charley and what I would offer if he would only 
take me back and, in time, take me home. 

I managed to get moving again but only because the first long 
stretch was downhill. It gave me enough rest that I managed another 
hill after than and then a shorter downhill slope. I believe I 
crawled up the next steeper rise. Then came a long expanse of ankle-
twisting stony ground. I was moved in a fog of pain, barely able to 
feel Ben's arm around my waist supporting more and more of my 
weight. Ben. I couldn't allow myself to think about him. That 
parting would be every bit as bad as my parting from Ness. Worse. 
She had had the Circle, her family. What life was Ben condemned to 
for helping me? Had they appropriated his farm already? His crops? 
His little bits of handmade furniture and the fanciful carved animal 
he had made with such love? Whatever I achieved here today, it would 
be no victory.

Tears burnt my eyes. I let the fog take me. It closed in tight for a 
while. Just the fog and the pain. When it cleared I found myself 
sitting on ground covered with prickly pine needles and with no 
memory of how I got there. I had lost all sense of time. It seemed 
that I had walked for a lifetime and yet it was still not far 
enough. Dead stop this time, dead being the operative word. I had to 
be closer to that condition that to anything actually living. The 
wad of lichen leaf that I had been chewing for so long that it was 
no more than a gritty paste fell out of my mouth. I had no strength 
to stop it as it dribbled down the front of the ragged blanket Ben 
had wrapped me in against the increasing wind. Didn't matter; I had 
no pride left and hadn't gotten any value from the drug for a long 
time. The fever and shakes and the knife thrust between the eyes had 
all taken their toll. I was also drifting again as all of the 'one-
ness' I had from recovered through Arniesse's secret mumbo-jumbo had 
burnt away. I was only dimly aware of Ben scooping me up and 
slinging me over his shoulder, no small task. 

The fog returned and a throbbing in my ears now, which made the 
headache ten times worse. There was no thinking about Charley any 
more. Existing was about all I could manage. The next thing I 
remember was being carried, still head down, into a dry gully, a 
place of steep, hard walls and eroded earth. It was good to be out 
of the bitter wind that had been scouring our exposed skin with 
patchy bits of stinging sleet. It must be a riverbed when the snow 
melts in spring. It was when I tried to raise my head to ask my 
companion why we were there that things went to hell. That was when 
my body decided that it was as good a time as any for one last 
monumental seizure.


A peaceful blackness blessed me then which was oh-so-much better 
than the gray fog.  When this cleared to a scene tinged an ethereal 
blue-gray, I was somehow not surprised to find that I was looking 
down on my body convulsing weakly on the hard, dry ground. Benjamin 
was holding my head to keep me from biting my tongue or otherwise 
injuring myself. No, I wasn't mind reading; this was not from Ben's 
or any other person's point of view. This was a far more ancient and 
primal kind of seeing and I had been there, done that before. It's a 
loosening of the soul. In the X-Files there are more than a hundred 
documented cases...

The X-Files, my files.... But they are a long, long way from Ben's 
little agricultural wonderland of short summers and hellish winters. 
Buried in those well-thumbed pages is one that I filled out myself. 
If you ever came across it, Scully, you let on. It describes how I 
watched my body die in Alaska in that metal tub of murderously warm 
water. I saw you, too, that day from somewhere above your left 
shoulder. You had cardiac paddles in you hands and you were giving 
the army doctors hell and shocking my poor heart back to a sluggish, 
reluctant beating. 

When it happened in Alaska I was not afraid. Even so long ago you 
held my life in your hands in more ways than one. Watching Ben 
weeping as I convulsed, I was more than afraid; I was terrified. I 
didn't want to die and the seizures had to have been going on for 
too long. One night when I was spending the night on your couch and 
I couldn't sleep, I found a video some sadist made from my time in 
the psych ward. For God's sake, Scully, why did you keep it? I hope 
that it doesn't turn you on to see me like that. What I saw on that 
tape looked more than anything like the death throes of some poor 
animal that should be put out of its misery. In that desolate place 
so far from your the affect was even worse.

If astral eyes can be trusted, it was almost entirely dark. I should 
have been standing in the center of the landing place right now and 
shaking my fist at the great god Charley, but I wasn't, was I? I had 
not been strong enough. I must not have wanted to go home badly 
enough or maybe sub-consciously I had feared going back to Charley 
more than I thought. It certainly wasn't Ben's fault. I realized 
with my new clarity that, during this day, especially during these 
last hours, he had carried me more often than not. 

And for what? For his good?

Finally the convulsions ceased and he cradled my twitching body in 
his arms, and cried some more. His head shook despairingly from side 
to side. He was shocked at how hot my skin was. It was at this point 
that his expression hardened suddenly. He set my limp body aside 
and, jaw clenched, rose stiffly and began rapidly to study the 
steep, canyon walls. What he was looking for and found was cave-like 
depression that the spring rains had carved in the streambed. He 
laid my body in that close place. Under my head he placed the bit of 
sacking he had carried the food and clothing in when we had food and 
before we put on all the clothes. I should be slowly freezing to 
death. Instead, I feel comparatively warm. Must be the fever.

It was that sense of warmth that made me realize that I was back in 
my body. I must have drawn strength from Ben, vampire that I am. 
Maybe I was back because he was talking to me and I wanted to hear 
what he was saying. But I still couldn't. There was this hum all 
about me. The ocean again. He drew away. With the very last of my 
strength, both my mind and my body reached out. For God's sake, 
don't leave! I don't want to die alone. But my companion had evaded 
my grasping hand, if barely twitching fingers can be considered 
grasping. I found only empty air. There was a touch on my shoulder, 
however, and the back of fingers larger than yours, Scully, swept 
for a moment against my cheek. Then he was gone, pausing to pile dry 
brush across the opening to my tomb. There was no light at all now.

Through the sensitive skin of my damaged back, I sensed footsteps 
stumbling away back across the dry ground. Then there was silence 
and I was alone.

It was dark, Scully, in every sense of the word, dark. As before, 
all that was left to me was my mind. My nerves at least had decided 
that they had taken enough and weren't going to feel pain any more. 
Free of distractions, links began forming between this and that word 
or this and that event that I had not had time to think about 
before. Only in this new peace did one plus one come together and I 
saw the error that Ben and I had both made. In that instant I wished 
that I were that super-being again. I would even have accepted being 
tied down wrist and ankle to the cold metal of that hospital bed, 
because I needed to reach Benjamin. He had to be warned! 

In deep in despair as I was and sick of heart, still I tried and 
then tried again. Regretfully, all I managed to do was awaken the 
knife to start poking holes in my skull again. Killed my last peace. 
Oh, Scully, it hurt; it hurt so bad. I hung on for a little while 
but in time I couldn't find the strength to fight any more. It was 
on the point of that knife that I ceased fighting and began to slip 
back down that darkest of roads. Until the very last candle went out 
I wondered if Ben had heard my warning.


BENJAMIN

Year 31, Week 20.0 Dale Reckoning (full dark)

I hated myself for leaving him; I would have hated myself worse for 
staying. His trying to hold me back at the end made it just so much 
more difficult. Did I see those twitching fingers? I did and very 
nearly took that hand. I would have held it until he died, but how 
would that have helped either of us? I was willing to lose him to 
this Charley in hopes that it would be to a better place; I was not 
ready to lose him to the Dark One. Unlike so many of the colonists, 
I have never believed in a life after death where there is a woman 
for every man who will welcome you to her bed and where there is 
food for the having and perpetual summer.

Besides, I couldn't see Mulder being any more content there that he 
had been at the farm.

So I ran, though I feared that I was already too late. I ran with 
what bit of strength I had left but without much hope. At the top of 
a particularly high ridge I stopped and stared north into a sky now 
completely black. I was still at least twenty minutes away from the 
landing place that Daniel had desecrated so. From such a high point 
I should have been able to see any strange lights like the ones 
Mulder described during one of his few lucid moments on our way 
here. 

I saw nothing except for a night slightly aglow with the softly 
blowing snow. I debated as to whether I should go on twenty minutes 
more to find nothing only to turn right around to find equally 
nothing except perhaps just one more body to plant in this hellish 
soil.

In the end I turned around but not to go far. There was another 
possibility, small though it might be. I headed for a thicket of 
half-dead redbud bush that I passed on my way up the last slope. 
There was dry fuel here and being in the lee side of the hill, it 
would be as out of the wind as anything could be on such a night. 
With the pair of flint stones I always carried, I had a small flame 
going within two minutes, a miracle with the way my hands shook. 
That was a sign if ever there was one that I was doing the right 
thing. From my pocket I drew three crumpled and drying lichen 
leaves. How many times over the last few hours had I wanted to give 
them to Mulder, but we were no longer in the area where they grew. 
If I had given them to him then I would not have been able to 
attempt what I planned now. With my coat tightly pulled over my head 
like a hood, I bent over the tiny burning leaves and prayed that it 
would be enough and that he would hear.

End of Chapter 13


MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 08: Not Kansas (14/15)
Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

MULDER:
Year 31, Week 20.1 Dale Reckoning (sometime before dawn)

The fever came in the night. It's only fever that gives me dreams 
like that. Over and over a kind of mantra ran through them, "I don't 
want to die, not on this planet. I want to go home." I found out 
later that I lay entombed in the crypt Ben had found for me for most 
of the night. Even after the fever broke I still faded in an out. 
The first true sensation I had was far from pleasant: Someone's 
mouth was closed over mine.

Now, Scully, don't jump to conclusions; it wasn't what you think. 
Neither was it what I thought at first either. I thought that I was 
being given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Embarrassingly, it's not 
so unusual for me to wake up and find that particular life-saving 
technique being performed on my person. As a runner, my respirations 
are fairly infrequent and shallow compared to most people's, so the 
novice good Samaritan may not notice that I'm actually doing just 
fine on my own. What I found disgusting on this occasion was that 
the breath of this particular Samaritan reeked of smoke and the guy 
-- I knew it was a man from the rasp of his beard and the size of 
his mouth -- had one incredible pair of lungs. And where did this 
guy learn CPR? He filled up my lungs with his noxious breath one 
moment -- overfilled really -- and then he, or someone, would push 
down hard on my stomach to force me to exhale the next. You add the 
beard and the bad breath and this was far worse than any respirator 
I'd been hooked up to in any hospital and you know how I hate those 
things. As soon as I could think straight, I struggled to let the 
man know that his efforts weren't needed. The problem was I couldn't 
struggle much. I couldn't move either my head or my arms. I found 
out later that a second man held my head down while my 'savior' had 
a knee on one wrist and a third man had his knee on the other. Still 
he must have gotten the idea, feeble though my resistance was.

*He's awake. Should I stop? *

*Fuck! *

There was underlying humor in the next exchange, this one spoken 
aloud. "I heard that, Fox. Such language. Yes, Jason, you can leave 
off now." 

I swore because the first words had popped into my mind directly. 
Just as I've learned to distinguish an out-of-body experience from 
seeing through someone else's eyes, I knew telepathy from the spoken 
word once I'd been warned.
 
Mayor Dan's words were the signal for the three burly men clustered 
around me, darker shapes against the night sky, to lean back from 
their work. They didn't retreat far, however, as if afraid I'd leap 
up and run. That sounded like a reasonable idea, only the way I felt 
I knew that I wouldn't be doing any leaping for quite some time. 
Breathing on my own was work enough, which I did in great grasps in 
an attempt to clear the evil out of my lungs. I even managed to 
summon up a truly painful cough or two, but the harm had been done. 
Lichenleaf. The only question was why force the telepathic stimulant 
at this particular time, but I wasn't about to ask. Instead, I 
collapsed back against the ground, bare except for a thin layer of 
trampled vegetation. At least it was the ground that was bare this 
time, not me. I didn't fight any more than I had tried to run 
because, truthfully, there wasn't much fight in me.
 
I only vaguely recognized the three men who still hovered near me. I 
think I last saw them lingering outside Government House. Each 
certainly had the look of a Mob Boss's hit man, which in essence was 
what they were. By the light of the fire, for there was a good-sized 
one, I could see that one of the men, the one called Jason, still 
held a large clay pipe. Jason must have been the one who held the 
lichen leaf smoke in his mouth before exhaling into mine. My stomach 
ached from where another of the bullies made certain that I would 
inhale deeply enough. Across my field of vision the bulky form of 
Mayor Dan wavered, retrieved the pipe, and took a drag.  He raised 
it in my direction. * More? * 

Nausea rose unpleasantly in my throat. "Do you have any idea how 
long it takes to kick the habit once that kind of thing gets 
started?"

Daniel chuckled and sat down on a convenient log by the fire close 
enough for me to see him without my needing to move more than my 
eyes. 

*Think to me, Fox. Don't speak. *

"I'll just manage in the old-fashioned way, thank you."

Five ghostly shapes moved against the dark. One wore a face I 
recognized. It was Arniesse, who averted his eyes from mine, and 
four of his 'brothers'. The older one, the one who Ben said stood up 
to Daniel, wasn't among them. Clearly, he hadn't been invited to the 
party. I wish that I hadn't been invited either. Closing my eyes, I 
tried to take stock of how I felt now compared to how I felt the 
last time I recall being conscious. The answer is: A whole shit 
better, though if I'd been a fish I probably would still have been 
thrown back. The bits and pieces of me that had seemed to be flowing 
more and more randomly during the day had at least stopped moving so 
the feeling of not being quite 'me' had improved. I probably had the 
changelings and their laying-on-of-hands magic to thank for 
finishing what Arniesse started back in the hut. From the dulled 
headache and the metallic taste in my mouth I surmised that I'd also 
been juiced me with a whole fistful of Mac's magic leaf rolls. This 
also meant that the fever and nausea and tremors and convulsions 
from my body's lusting after the drug were also gone, at least 
temporarily, though I ached absolutely everywhere and my body hummed 
in an unnatural way. 

All in all, therefore, I had to conclude that this particular mob 
didn't take bad care of their property -- just as long as over-
medicated is considered good medicine.

*Don't go to sleep, Fox. *

That was unlikely; I was freezing. The cold from the ground was 
rising and clawing its way into the damaged muscles of my back. The 
cold did help to remind me of my stumbling, crawling, 'tripping' 
flight across Dale's countryside.

I tried to sit up so I could meet my devil on something approaching 
equal ground, but I couldn't. It was Arniesse who came to help, 
being careful, I noted, not to touch my skin directly. I would have 
to remember that cloth shields the affect. Cold as it was on the 
ground, it was colder off for the stiff wind of the evening before 
had not completely died away. Seeing me shiver, the changeling 
draped a blanket around my shoulders. What would I get next? A last 
meal?

It was clear pretty quickly that I should never have tried to sit. 
There was no threat of seizing, but that many drugs had left me 
lightheaded and my insides vibrated in a way that made me slightly 
seasick. With the migraine numbed, my whole head felt as if it had 
been wrapped in cotton wool. It was so padded in there that those of 
Daniel's thoughts that I did pick up would probably be sucked into 
the padding - or at least I hoped so.

Across from me, Daniel appeared relaxed, but the rapid puffing on 
his pipe gave away how anxious he was. I wish he wouldn't do that -- 
smoke, I mean. I didn't want him any stronger; didn't want him able 
to hear me or for me to be able to hear him. Then I realized that I 
didn't hear much from him and never had, just a directed phrase here 
and there, nothing like the torrent of voices from the year before. 
It was a kind of comfort that if this thing in my head was growing 
back, that it was still in its infancy. Time enough to whack it out 
later then. But I would worry about that when I got out of here, 
which still seemed unlikely. I was probably going to die here, if 
not from my own stupidity then from Dan Rowe's malice. 

Just then the old man rose with a jerk and began pacing back and 
forth in front of the fire.

There was a sudden pop of sparks from the fire and my eyes 
instinctively followed the glowing trail into the sky. That was when 
my heart stopped. There was a lightening of the dark just above the 
horizon and they don't have cities on Dale. I hadn't thought to ask 
the time. Night was flowing away. Dawn was waiting in the wings.

Oh, Scully, ever my rock and my heart's home. I've missed my flight. 
I've blown in big time. The biggest. I'm never going to get off this 
ball of clay and the Lord Mayor here, who is striding up and down 
like a damn rooster, is going to make sure that what time I have 
left is going to be spent as miserable as possible.

I glared at him with what fury I could find the energy for. *So get 
it over with. What in the hell do you want? Why are you still here 
and not... * I gestured with my eyes towards the sky. 

He whirled to face me, surprised, I think, by the clarity of the 
message I'd shot his way. 

*As I've said, Fox. I don't waste valuable resources, not so long as 
they are still valuable which you have just proved that you are. * 

* For what? *

I'd been too busy being depressed to wonder exactly where I was. I 
turned my head away from the fire and took a moment to let my eyes 
adjust. After a moment I recognized the ragged cliff as well as the 
pattern of the remaining trees around it. Daniel had made his little 
camp dead center over the rendezvous point. Not that that fact did 
me any good, I was too late and even if I wasn't I wasn't alone. I 
knew what the fire was for though, and it wasn't there just to 
provide Daniel's little force with some warmth in the early winter 
chill. It was a signal. 'Hey, Charley! Here! We're over here!'

So why save my life and drag my almost corpse all the way here? 
Daniel said I was valuable. I can't say that I agree with him, but I 
guess it can't hurt to play the game. I just wish that my heart were 
in it.

"I thought you weren't interested in having any competition for this 
particular trip?" I asked, raising my voice as loud as I was able 
which wasn't much. 

 I must have hit a nerve. In shifting orange glow of the bonfire, 
the old man's angry face never looked more like his younger copy. 
"First he has to come, but the bastard didn't come!"

I assumed as much. "And you expect me to do what?"

"Call him."

The idea was so ridiculous that I couldn't help smiling. "E.T. phone 
home? Ah, but then you wouldn't know that one."

He was on me in two quick steps, dragging me up by the front of the 
two layers of the colony's precious homespun that I wore. The jerk 
was accompanied by a ripping sound. More clothes ruined. I felt a 
flash of deja vue. I had been in this position with Charley a 
lifetime before. 

"Call with your mind, Idiot! With as much force as you can. In fact 
you don't even have to call him in words. You only need to fill the 
airwaves with your signature. Scream to that dog Benjamin for help 
for all I care."

I started. Ben? How could I have gone so long and not thought about 
Ben? Idiot was too good a word for the kind of friend I was. 
Arrogant, egocentric, self-pitying worm came closer.

"Where's Ben? If you've done anything to Ben..."

The shaking I got before he let go of what remained of my shirt and 
tunic was all the reminder I needed that I was not in tiptop shape. 

"I said 'Call'! I'll know if you don't." He stood over where I lay 
sprawled on the trampled grass and tried to look menacing. He didn't 
have to try very hard.

"Tell me where Ben is and maybe I'll think about it!" Years 
defending the X-Files against all comers and then living with 
Charley had taught me how to be defiant against worse odds than Dan 
Rowe. 

But Dan had lived with Charley, too. I forgot about that. Faster 
than I thought that old man could move he drew out what on this 
planet was a very unexpected object. It was a real knife, not a 
flint one, not crudely remelted dental filling. I saw the straight, 
bright glint in the firelight.

"Hold him."

Dan's three hit men were only too happy to do so. They first threw 
me down on a boulder that was not only cold but also sharp. One then 
took a fist full of hair and pulled back my head while a second 
grabbed me firmly by the right wrist and the third tore the sleeve. 
Easily within the reach of that evil-looking blade, they held the 
limb out as steady as a rock no matter how hard I fought. Sadly, my 
fight was rather pitiful, but then they were also very efficient in 
their movements as if this was something they'd done before. 
Clearly, Dale's mayor was well prepared for those times when it just 
wasn't convenient to transport his victims to Government House and 
the fun and games that went on in the basement.

I had no misconception now about what this old man wanted me for. 
Bait. And when Charley showed up, I'd be expendable. Daniel would 
have the audience he craved.

I expected more threats at that moment, and lots of melodramatic 
talk. What I got was a long, thin line of red along the length of my 
forearm. There wasn't a lot of pain at first but surprise made me 
cry out, though as this was what Dan wanted, I tried to swallow it 
as soon as it started. Maybe I had some control over what exhibited 
on the outside. What I couldn't do was stop the shock that went 
bouncing around inside my skull. 
    
"Not bad," Daniel murmured with satisfaction. 

"There's no point to this," I started, with a voice only slightly 
tinged with hysteria. "Charley's headblind, you know that. All the 
shapeshifters are."

"But his instruments aren't. Remember what I said about finding you 
when you were young. How do you think we choose the ones we wanted 
to begin with? Mindspeakers unconsciously give off a kind of radiant 
energy your science and mine refuses to recognize, but with the 
right instruments what a beacon you were even when you were young."

"Thanks to a certain black-lunged pain-in-the-ass, I'm not the freak 
you knew."

"But you've recovered a portion of that shine. I just hope it will 
be enough. We've boosted you about as much as we can manage here." 
He moved his hand in brisk, crisp motions, allowing the tiny blade 
to glitter to its best advantage. "So let's try it again, shall we, 
only louder this time."
    
The old man bent to his work. He made only a modest cut this time 
and, ready for it, I bit down on my lip and made hardly any sound 
even on the inside. Daniel snorted disapprovingly and gestured for 
his goons to tighten their grip. "You do know that there's only one 
profession that a man with one arm man is good for in this society, 
don't you?"

That gave me a chill from a couple of different directions, though I 
tried to assure myself that the blade was too small and too thin for 
downright amputation. Still, the current game wasn't worth the cost 
to me of allowing him to try. The next cut would be deeper and 
longer. I wish that I had been able to hang on, to play for news of 
Ben if nothing else. As for being the bait for bringing Charley 
here, if he heard and if he came, that was one shapeshifter who 
could take care of himself. While he was at it, he could also take 
care of Dan Rowe so it was to my advantage to stay alive and 
relatively whole as long as I could.

Even forewarned it was still a shock when the blade bit deeply into 
flesh. There was no point in holding back; I'd had enough of this 
shit. I don't know where the power came for the cry I sent up then. 
There was no control and no words that would be printable here. I 
know that the power sailed like a damned shooting star out of the 
top of my head. It was like hitting the sweet spot on a maplewood 
bat; even when you don't know what you're doing, sometimes you hit 
it just right. 

Instantly, there was a commotion about the fire as if everyone had 
felt it, human and changeling alike. What I'd been told about the 
mindspeaker compound being in the very blood and bones of the planet 
and everyone being exposed to it to some degree must be true. The 
men holding me fell back as if struck especially Jason who'd smoked 
so much from the pipe. Daniel cried out and dropped the knife to 
grip his head. The thought came to me that this would be the perfect 
time to go for the weapon, but after the white lightning of that cry 
came a crack like that of a whip and almost as if in slow motion 
time and place went softly away for a while.


When I came around Arniesse was calmly bandaging my arm. The fact 
that I was sitting up on my own indicated that I could not have been 
entirely unconscious, but there certainly had been a lot of nothing 
for a while. Not too much time had passed, however, because there 
was only a little more light in the sky. I think it was the bite 
from the pain of my newest injuries that helped bring me around and 
Arniesse had had something to do with making certain that I felt 
them. I know for a fact that he wasn't being as gentle with his 
nursing as he could have been.
          
Without moving any more than necessary I checked for Daniel and his 
men. Equally spaced around the dying bonfire, they were dark 
silhouettes standing guard and staring intently outward into the 
barest gray of dawn. 

Even though the changeling and I didn't seem to be anyone's 
immediate concern, I spoke as softly as I could. "Where's Benjamin?"

The handsome, bowed head gestured out beyond the fire. "Out there."

"Daniel found him, didn't he? Is he dead?" 

Arniesse's eyes lowered. "I don't know, I wasn't there. When the 
hours passed and the spaceship didn't come and neither of you came, 
they went searching. They wouldn't let me go. I'm not entirely 
trusted at the moment. I'm told that they did find Benjamin, but 
that he refused to tell them where you were. They followed his trail 
back to you. I was taken along for that since I know you better than 
the others. You'd crawled out of the hiding place he'd made for you. 
You may have frozen to death by morning."

And how would that have mattered to anyone? 

"But what happened to Ben? How badly did they hurt him?"

"Badly, or so I'm told."

"Then why haven't you gone to him?" I snarled.

"Because," Arniesse replied with more regret than I'd heard before 
from the changeling, "he would not want me to leave you." The dark 
head bowed over the knot he was tying in the bit of torn cloth to 
hold the bandage in place. Now that I knew him better I could see 
the subtle signs of his distress. I flinched when he tied the knot 
too tight. "Sorry." He stared down at the bandage where dark, wet 
spots were already seeping through. "I would not have let them take 
your arm. And they call us animals," he hissed with bitterness.

Something had been bothering me. I vaguely remembered shouting a 
warning to Ben back when he hid me in the dry gully. Now I 
remembered what the warning was. 

"You were in the hut, when Benjamin talked to me about finding my 
calendar only we didn't know it then. You knew from that exchange 
that tonight was the night. You told. That's how Dan and his troops 
just happened to be sitting here waiting for us to show up." My 
interrogation skills have obviously gotten rusty because Arniesse 
didn't confirm or deny. He simply looked out with his/her beautiful 
face, composed again, in the direction of the great empty plain 
where Ben was lying dead or dying. I'm absolutely certain about the 
dead or dying part because Ben would never have told and Daniel 
would never have stopped asking until he knew that he would learn 
nothing.

Arniesse wasn't going to answer, but Dan Rowe took that moment to 
come in range. "What happened to Benjamin?" I demanded.

"Who knows," Daniel replied in a distracted voice, more interested 
in watching for movement beyond the fire. At that moment I would 
have killed him if I could have stood up without falling on my face, 
but what little strength I had had spent itself on that one 
telepathic bomb.

With irritation, eyes still on the promise of at least a cloudy 
dawn, Daniel kicked a small glowing piece of wood back into the 
fire. "Show yourself you damned green-blooded monster!" he howled, 
then as if with a sudden thought, he reversed to glare at me. "Could 
you have gotten it wrong?"

My response was a shrug but hope stirred a little. Maybe I had. 
Maybe there was still a chance. Does the tree in the forest make a 
sound when it falls even if there is no one around to hear? Could 
the moon be said to be full even if there are too many clouds to 
see? Is it full on its own or only because we know it to be so? It's 
all in the viewpoint, after all. Daniel growled and turned away. 
What did it matter? Even if I was wrong, I'd never be given the 
opportunity to be alone here again and Benjamin would be just as 
dead. 


We all sat in silence for some minutes after that. Arniesse went 
back to his own kind who huddled quietly out of the ring of 
dwindling firelight. As dawn approached, Daniel was indeed letting 
the fire burn down, confirming my assumption that it had been lit as 
a signal. Not that it wasn't just as cold now as before. I hadn't 
mentioned the weather much because it was so still. In New England 
they would call it a crisp morning and talk about frost on the 
pumpkins. A comfortable temperature if you are walking bristly or 
busy confronting madmen. It crept into your bones when you did 
nothing more that sit like a stone. How long would we wait? There 
was no telling from looking at Daniel and his men. Patiently, they 
maintained their slow circling vigilance. I didn't let myself be 
assuaged by their lack of firepower. It didn't matter that except 
for Daniel's knife each was armed with only a stout club and a 
sharpened hunk of a flint ax head. I had no doubt that they knew how 
to use both. Most notably, there was always one within two steps of 
where I sat on another butt-denting rock. A hostage in the event of 
Charley's sudden appearance, I had no doubt. 

There was no telling who heard the footsteps first because within 
seconds we were all alert. Someone was approaching from the 
direction of the rough thrust of rock that so identified the place. 
All eyes were soon trained that way. A guard moved behind me. Flint 
pricked the side of my neck. Let's say that I didn't move. I didn't 
even breathe much.

Within seconds an anxious challenge was raised and a hesitate voice 
answered. There was a general mumbling as the guards, even the one 
at my back, went to see the arrival. It was about the last person I 
would have expected. It was Reese, Daniel's manservant, bringing 
some critical news from town. It was while they buzzed about the old 
Bob that I noticed Arniesse and then the rest of the Grayrobes 
stiffen. Arniesse rose slowly but his attention was focused in the 
opposite direction from where Reese had come. Over the sounds of the 
voices from Daniel and his men I heard what Arniesse and his fellows 
had heard -- slow, halting footsteps, every other one dragging a 
little. Not Charley.
 
It was still too dark to see far but enough dawn to make out forms 
beyond the firelight. A figure the color of frost like the morning 
itself stopped just at the limit the light allowed. I didn't 
recognize him by his face, half of which was covered in something 
dark, most probably blood. I knew him by the height and width of his 
shoulders and the ragged clothes though he listed badly to one side. 

Benjamin. I felt an absurd happiness. He'd been badly beaten, but it 
was Ben. If he came to save me, however, his timing was terrible.

Arniesse straightened as he, too, recognized the figure. He didn't 
go to him any more than I, however. The other Grayrobes also stayed 
where they were. It was not a good idea to move quickly with Daniel 
and his men only momentarily distracted. The tableaux probably 
lasted no more than ten seconds before the Mayor's men swept down on 
us. They slowed and stopped when they saw who it was though not from 
fear. They were just wary to see if their neighbor, and former 
victim, was going to be stupid enough to retaliate for past abuses. 
After a moment their shoulders relaxed and weapons lowered, though 
in their place I wouldn't have been so quick to do either. There was 
a suppressed tension in the young farmer. Not knowing how long of a 
fuse Ben had, I considered going to him, but barely able to sit 
without falling over, I would probably make the situation worse. 
Better to watch and wait. After all, I've caused Ben problems enough 
since my arrival. His injuries as well as his current estrangement 
from his village were my doing. Besides, he hadn't looked my way. 
Oh, he had at first but just enough to count heads. It was Daniel 
that he stood and waited for. The old man approached more slowly 
than his men. Everything about Stony River's Mayor was casual and 
matter-of-fact except for the eyes. Ignored by Daniel just as he 
always had been, Reese followed closely behind, his features tense.
 
"So, it's Benjamin. Fox has been taxing our patience with all his 
questions over your status so we're relieved to see that you're 
still with us. You understand why we had to take the actions we did, 
don't you, Benjamin? Of course, you do. And you're forgiven. We're 
all capable of momentarily forgetting where our true loyalties lie. 
Just don't let it happen again. By the way, did you happen to 
stumble upon Bek on your way here?"

Benjamin's reply took some time in coming. A head wound will do 
that. I've had too many occasions to know. "He found me."

As Dan Rowe hadn't been serious when he asked his question, Ben's 
answer was so unexpected that it took everyone around the fire, me 
included, time for it to sink in. So I got the date right after all 
and Charley was here. Only where? My eyes rolled skyward but all I 
could see was dark gray gradually turning lighter and the occasional 
flake of blown snow.

End of Chapter 14


MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 08: Not Kansas (15/15)
Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com)

MULDER:
Year 31, Week 20.0 Dale Reckoning (Dawn)

"He's come for..." and Ben nodded his bloody head in my direction 
though his attention remained on the old man. Relief struggled to 
come alive in my chest, but I knew how dangerous my position still 
was.
 
Daniel was breathing heavily and I almost wished that the light were 
better so that I could watch him turn purple. "No!! Not that! Where 
is the bastard!"

Unbelievably, it was Reese who answered. "I expect that he'll be 
here any minute now." 

With these clear, precisely intoned words it became obvious, at 
least to me, that this was not the same man who had silently served 
drinks and passed the hors d'oeuvres. 

Whipping around, Daniel stared at his servant. "There was no fire at 
the east common farm, was there?" Suspiciously, his intense eyes 
darted from the aging newcomer to Ben and back. Reese's arrival had 
allowed Ben to approach without being challenged. Showing up 
separately as they did had thrown Daniel temporarily off balance. It 
had been a diverting little plan. No sudden moves meant safer for 
me.  As my forearm still burned like hell, this was something I 
could agree with.

Meanwhile, Daniel had spun back towards his men, what was left of 
his control crumbling as if he expected the transport beam from 
Charley's ship to appear at any moment. "Now, as we discussed! The 
master's come for his pupil, let him have only one he can leave 
with."

The three men lumbered forward but hesitantly this time. They were 
bullies, not murderers. Arniesse and Reese, neither big men, stopped 
the thugs' advance simply by stepping between the three and where I 
sat huddled under my blanket, helpless in every way possible and for 
the moment glad of it. There are advantages to not appearing to be a 
threat, as you and your five-foot-two have reason to know, Scully.  
Still, I was attempting to get to my feet to intervene, when from 
behind Benjamin's strong hands came down heavily on my shoulders. 
Benjamin protecting my back -- it felt right that he should be 
there.

All in all, it certainly was a novelty to have friends -- in 
addition to you, of course, Scully. I just hoped that I wouldn't get 
them killed.
 
Reese was speaking again, his voice loud and clear and without a 
hint of a stutter. "Where has your honey voice gone, Mayor? You 
boasted to everyone who would listen that you would talk this alien 
mercenary into taking you instead, that it would be no problem at 
all. Now you have to commit assault and murder?" To emphasize his 
point he gestured as much to Ben's bloody face as to me.

 "The Graypeople agree," Arniesse added, raising his soft voice with 
unexpected force. "Clearly, you never had the power you promised. 
Therefore, as you have been warned, we will no longer listen to your 
counsel. The only reason we told you of their plans and came today 
was to end this and prevent exactly what you intend now."

Daniel snarled, baring his teeth. "Do you think I need you? Do you 
think that I need any you whores?" He spun back to his men. "Well? 
What's stopping you? It's not like we have not silenced the rebels 
in our ranks before. To survive we must be united and we must be 
strong. Be strong now. I must be the one who meets with Bek!"

After a pause to check first that none of them would be wading into 
the situation alone, the three men started forward again. Nervous 
hands choked up on their clubs.

"I warn you," Arniesse's clear voice called out, "stop now or no 
Grayrobe will ever enter your town again and neither will you be 
welcome in ours."

At that seemingly mild threat, the oddest thing happened. The three 
bullies visibly hesitated, expressions of alarm growing in their 
faces. Into this atmosphere, one of Arniesse's companions, 
heretofore silent, stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder 
with his fellow changling. He was taller and green-eyed and 
awesomely beautiful. "Did you hear, Raymond?" He called, staring at 
the youngest of the three thugs. "No more Firstday nights -- ever!"

The young man wavered as if struck by a blow. His club began to sink 
as his face turned fiercely red.
 
A second changeling came forward, less tall and striking but no 
slouch. "I also stand with my kin, Jason." These words made the 
ugliest and meanest of the three go pale.

The second to the last changeling stepped up to join our group. It 
was getting crowded. He didn't speak, but one piercing glance and 
the third bully, a rotund fellow who was more meek than his fellows, 
dropped his eyes even as his club fell to his side. 

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry but as exhausted as I was I 
was certainly on the verge of doing one or the other. It was an odd 
sort of Lysistrata, but the old ways are often the best. Had the 
Grayrobes placed 'concubines' with Daniel's lieutenants for just 
such a eventuality? It certainly seemed that way. Let Daniel do all 
the work while they secretly held all the high cards?

The last and oldest of the Grayrobe group came to stand beside 
Reese, their shoulders comfortably touching. 

There was now enough dawn light to see that Daniel's face had flared 
red. "Traitor," he hissed at Reese. "How could you betray your own?"

"My own? These are more my own than you. They treat me like a man. 
To you I am little more than a dumb beast."

"So you were their spy in my house? For how long?"

"Too many years to count. Since they took pity on my silence and 
worked with me to help me think and speak again."
    
Too flustered to come up with a reply, Daniel turned to confront the 
one whose betrayal probably stung the worst. "And you..." he hissed 
at Arniesse, loathing dripping from each word. "Worse than a spy." 

"Those who are powerless will seize what weapon they can," the 
changeling said simply.  

Finding no way to start a physical brawl with these two groups, the 
old man glared wildly at his three lieutenants. "Can't you see what 
they're doing? What are you? Men of mud? Where is your backbone? 
Where is your heart? This is our last chance. We have to insist that 
Bek take me! You know I'll work for the colony's interests. You 
can't trust a stranger to do that!"

Ever since he had verbally attacked Reese and Arniesse, the mayor 
had been moving and gesturing with his arms. Being a large man, his 
movements covered a lot of space. Unaccustomed to fighting and in 
their smug satisfaction over the thwarting of Daniel's plans, Reese 
and the changelings had let their guard down. They'd allowed him to 
scatter them. All at once he was two steps away from where I still 
sat. He didn't seem to be armed, but I knew better. That little 
knife could easily be hidden in the palm of a hand as large as his. 

This is the way in which things so often go wrong. A tense situation 
is defused and you feel this brief burst of euphoria as the last of 
the adrenaline burns away. As if in slow motion, I saw him begin the 
movement that would turn him in my direction and bring the little 
knife up with force into my throat. I had to get up, I had to defend 
myself, but I was too stiff, too sore, and I'd been sitting too long 
in the cold. All that my standing managed to do was give the old man 
a larger target, my stomach. On this planet the thrust from an arm 
as strong as Daniel's would make a lethal wound, though death may 
take its time.

That was when a body with the strength of a small bull pushed me 
aside.

The knife found its target... into Benjamin who'd forced himself 
into my place. 

Or did it? Ben didn't fall or react at all. With the help of Reese's 
arm I managed to get to my feet from the trampled ground where I'd 
been shoved out of harm's way. I would have gone to my friend then 
but the old newcomer held me back. Maybe it was going to be all 
right. There was no flash of blood or grimace of pain. Maybe the 
little blade had become tangled in the layers of rough woven 
clothing he wore. All I knew was that he stood where he was, his 
work hardened hands around the old man's powerful wrist, and stared 
coldly into those hateful gray eyes.

"What makes you think," he said in tones even colder, "that anything 
would induce me to deal with anything as twisted as you?"

The words came from Ben, but it was a voice that I had never heard 
from that young man. I knew what was going to happen next even 
before it did. Benjamin's strong, handsome features began to ripple, 
to flow, to grow larger and thicker as his body became taller and 
more broad -- and all so familiar. For only the second time since  
'Benjamin' had limped into the fire circle, he looked fully me.

"The entire power structure of a world in turmoil? As ever, wherever 
there is trouble, that is where you can be found, Agent Mulder."

It sounded good to hear that name but not nearly as wonderful as it 
once may have. For it was Charley, not Benjamin, who spoke and who 
held the old man by the throat, an old man who in appearance could 
easily have passed for his father.  

Shock and grief made me stagger, which was quite different from the 
anxiety that had eaten at me since I had heard about the attack on 
Ben. This mourning was not that my Benjamin might be dead but that 
he had somehow never existed. Had he been Charley all along?
      
But this was clearly not the time for a formal greeting which after 
all this time would be complicated to say the least. Dan Rowe was 
thrashing in the shapeshifter's grip like a frenzied animal. I'll 
give him credit; he fought well for his age. After sufficient damage 
had been done, Charley let him go.

The old man staggered back, holding his throat and its darkening 
bruises. In a rasping voice he spoke, "At least listen to me. I want 
to come back. I can still pilot the ship. I'm still strong, you know 
that I can manage the Beast." 

From Charley's expression you would think that he was facing some 
insignificant life form. 

"Very well! If you have to replace me with Fox then so be it, but at 
least take me along. There's so much I can teach him."

"The way you have taught the people here? The people you begged to 
be allowed to take to a better place? You have made a mess of your 
own ship, do not attempt to do the same to mine."

"The deaths were not my fault!"

"They were no one's fault, but when the harm was done and the offer 
was made to move the colony to an established place, to a hard but 
safer place, you refused. Did you tell your beloved people that? Or 
would you then have to admit that you refused because relocating the 
colony would mean that you would have to give up your high seat in 
favor of another?"

The men from Stony River and Reese stared at their mayor in 
astonishment. This was a part of the story they clearly didn't know. 
All these years their hopelessness, the deaths of their mothers and 
wives and daughters, had been unnecessary. 

"And these..." Charley looked with what for Charley was almost 
fondness on the cluster of slender, gray-clad changelings, "even 
after your refusal they were planted here to help you. You think of 
them as barren but they are not." To a man, or woman, the reaction 
of the changelings was immediate. "They must only remain in their 
female form until the fetus is implanted and then cannot return to 
their male form until the child has come to term. But your 'law' 
does not allow them to come and go except by your leave, nor can 
they appear as women in your town and none but you can visit theirs. 
The result? No children."

Arniesse's question came out as a moan. "Why weren't we told?"

"So that you would see a need to grow strong and find your own ways 
to resist this man's power and petty rules. That you would find ways 
to be accepted so that the two communities would eventually merge. 
In time the gift we gave you would then have become known. A 
people's future after all should not be brought into a place of 
conflict. Unless the culture changed, you would have remained freaks 
to them and become little more than slaves or cattle to create 
children. But he kept you separate, the enjoyment of your gifts a 
shameful thing. In an atmosphere of strife, none prosper." 

Charley stared hard at his 'father's' face. "You promised to make a 
kinder world than the one you were fleeing. You should have done 
so."

"How ironic," the old man snarled, "considering the torture the two 
of us inflicted on helpless children for so many years." Here I had 
thought myself pretty much forgotten but now most eyes followed 
Daniel's to me. It wasn't unusual to find myself the object of 
attention. What made me squirm was to find so much of it 
sympathetic. 

Not surprisingly, Charley's expression didn't alter but his next 
words were softer. "To survive, each race as a whole must change, 
must grow, must learn from its mistakes. In the process some 
individuals must always lose a thing so that the whole will survive. 
There are and will always be the pathfinders, the soldiers and those 
that sacrifice all. We played our part, Dan. It was a different war 
then."

The pathfinders, the soldiers, and the sacrifices... After many years 
of sleeping on stony group, explorers that do not fall by the 
wayside will find their way home. Soldiers do return from the war 
though not all of them living and even more of them not whole. Then 
there are the sacrifices, those who die just because they are in the 
way, just because that's the way of the world, any world. Which one 
am I, Scully? 

"Agent Mulder." It was Charley's voice calling me. "It is time for 
us to go. They have much to clean up here and we have much to do."

But the old man wasn't finished. "No!" he cried. Staring wildly 
towards each of his men in turn, he declared, "Don't tell me that 
you honestly believe this fairy tale? He just wants to wash his 
hands of the problem and we'll be abandoned again. He can do more, 
he just refuses to." Rabble rouse as he may, the old politician was 
having little affect on his once obedient flock. "Look, there are 
eight of us. The original plan doesn't have to be over. Take Fox and 
he'll deal! It's all he wants or cares about!" 

But to a man  -- and to a changeling -- they all turned their heads 
away. The three town men and Reese each sought instead the eyes of 
their changeling lover and in an astonishingly short time there were 
four couples, male and gray-clad female, creating a wall of defiance 
against the old ways. 

With a cry Daniel stooped, his hand closing on a rock. Logically, he 
would just have thrown it down again in impotent rage but, though 
aging, the man had been in the military once and an athlete and he 
was still strong. With the speed of a major league pitcher, he 
whirled. We never found out who that final stone was meant for -- 
Reese, the traitor; Charley, the old Master who rejected him; 
Arniesse, the spy; or I, the rival. We never found out because the 
old man staggered suddenly, the projectile falling harmlessly 
somewhere on the flattened weeds between the four of us. He fell 
seconds later, his hand clutching his throat from where a dark-
fletched dart protruded. 

It was Reese who lowered the tiny blowgun from his lips. "A gift 
from Mac," he explained, dispassionately observing the start of 
Mayor Dan's death throes. "He thought it might come to this, though 
I didn't know that the poison would be so potent. I guess Mac knew 
better than most what kind of monster lived among us. He had to 
doctor Daniel's victims often enough."

For a time no one spoke. We all just stood abhorred and fascinated 
as the old man frantically clutched at his closing windpipe. It was 
all happening so fast and so horribly. The old eyes sought those of 
Charley. The swelling lips said something then, something I wasn't 
close enough to hear nor was I able to make out the words that were 
formed, but Charley was. Was the old man begging for Charley to save 
him because shapeshifters were healers? Forbidding Charley to save 
him? Reminding him of some old attachment? In a matter of seconds 
lips stopped moving and the cold gray eyes stared into the pale 
morning light. No one moved to help as the broad, flushed face went 
from blue to black. 

Epilogue

Without a word or ceremony a grave was dug. Too weak to do much to 
help turn the cold, hard ground, I managed at least to check for a 
pulse. No one deserves to be buried alive. In was early winter, 
however, so the body was already cooling by the time they had 
finished carving the shallow hole. Depth wasn't needed; there aren't 
any scavengers on Dale but Human ones. As was their custom, he was 
buried naked, the dead having no need of the precious boots or warm 
clothes. Minutes later, without any more of a farewell than a nod, 
the four couples began their long walk back to one or the other of 
their respective towns. I dare say that they will take their time.
   
Only Arniesse remained and Charley and I. Charley, stone-faced as 
always, stood over the grave by himself, wrapped in his own alien 
thoughts. Arniesse stood beside him. I had long since returned to my 
stone, too tired and dizzy and sick to stand. The overdose of lichen 
pills they had pumped me with was fading and my body was beginning 
to make some serious requests for more. 

"The colony will manage well enough," Arniesse predicted as he 
watched the distant twin specks of couples until they were lost 
within a line of trees. "Change will be quick. Reese knows all that 
Daniel was involved in and his new importance will change the lot of 
the others."

"Then the BoBs will be freed?" I asked wanting to be certain on that 
point.

"Those who feel unfree. Some are happy with their lives and some 
truly can't live without care. The ones whose adoptive 'parent' will 
not let them go, those cases will take some work but there are, 
gratefully, fewer of those than you might think. The truly unhappy 
and abused can't work. My kind will come to town now. We are as 
eager for children as the men beside the river. It will be an 
interesting winter with the status quo broken in more ways than 
one." A slight smile crossed the smooth face. "If my people have 
anything to say about it, there won't be one of us without a round 
belly by spring."

"But what about the birth trauma? What's to keep your people from 
dying like the colony's women died?" 

"We thought of that long ago in case a miracle should ever happen. 
Immediately after birth we will change back to our male form until 
the bleeding stops, then switch again to nurse the young. Timing 
will be tricky but nothing that can't be dealt with. Well worth the 
risk."

The pathfinders, the soldiers and the sacrifices.

"What will you do?" I asked the handsome young 'man'.

"Me?"

Did I have to say it? He would be alone at least for a while. Daniel 
wasn't the only one who was gone. "I'm sorry about Benjamin." 

He looked at me oddly and said nothing more. I was distracted by 
Charley then who, I realized, hadn't spoken for a long time. He dark 
gaze was still on the mound. They had traveled many years together. 
There had been tension I was sure, as between Charley and I, but not 
all of it could have been bad. Jailer and prisoner have more in 
common than one might think, a lesson I was still learning.

I never did find out what he was thinking. 

Feeling my gaze on him, he straightened his bowed head, but it was 
Arniesse he looked towards. "There is nothing more that I can do 
here. There is a great task for the war that needs to be attended to 
first. It's why I've come for Mulder. But hear me: If I can, I or 
one of my allies will return and we'll see what can be done to 
help."
          
For only the second time since transforming from Ben's bloody 
features -- which could not have been actual blood since Charley 
bleeds green acid no matter what his form -- the shapeshifter looked 
me straight in the eye and there was an understanding between us. 
This great task he spoke to Arniesse of was what I'd be required to 
take part in if I were accepted back. With an inclination of his 
head he signaled that it was past time he were gone and took a few 
steps back in the direction 'Ben' had come from. 

My own next steps would be the critical ones. I could still stay and 
thus stay for good. But to go I need only rise and follow and I'd be 
in. No groveling would be required. On the other hand I hadn't 
forgotten the sheer agony of joining with the Beast. It was the only 
road home, however.

I got to my feet -- or tried to. I finally managed after a fashion. 
It was with relief that neither Charley nor Arniesse moved to help. 
The shapeshifter only slowed his steps so that I could catch up. He 
also beckoned with the tiniest movement of his hand and Arniesse, 
with an expression to match his own, fell into step with us both. It 
was as if the changeling expected this. As for me, I was past caring 
one way or the other. My only coherent thought was a badly worded 
prayer that we didn't have to walk far. I was not doing well and 
just the thought of being on a ship in stardrive made me feel a good 
deal worse. 

We were outside the fire circle now. Though the fire was now out, 
there should have been more than enough morning to see by. Then why 
couldn't I? Was there going to be a storm? If we didn't hurry, I'd 
have come to Dale in storm and I'd leave in storm. Got to move 
faster, but I couldn't. I'd already fallen behind. Charley and 
Arniesse were at least a dozen strides ahead and didn't look back. 
My head hurt badly with a pounding behind my eyes.


The world went gray and dim and stayed that way for quite some time. 
I stumbled. A familiar, strong arm around my waist kept me from 
getting up close and personal with the earth of Dale again. Before 
me there was only the empty plain. No Charley, no Arniesse. I looked 
right to stare at the face next to mine. It was a dirty, tired face 
and streaked with dried blood but also endearingly familiar. It was 
Benjamin and he was smiling. I blinked several times.

"Don't tell me he fooled you?" he laughed sounding blissfully happy.

I was not going to admit to what I thought -- that Charley had been 
Ben all along. For Charley to keep the pretense of being human for 
so long, and such a gentle soul as Ben's, seemed inconceivable now. 
Stress and sickness had badly muddied my thinking. Then there had 
been my other fear.

"I thought that Daniel and his men had killed you."  

Ben passed his free hand over his face and a few flakes of reddish 
brown crumbled off. "Not for lack of trying."
        
"How badly are you hurt?"
    
"How badly 'was' I hurt, you mean. Pretty bad. It was my own fault. 
I 'called' Daniel. I though I was saving your life. But then I saw 
the lights of the ship and I realized what I blunder I'd made. 
Luckily, Daniel's group hadn't seen them, so I had to keep silent. 
It was the only way to keep you from Daniel's hands and possibly get 
you into Charley's. Charley found me after Daniel's group got 
finished with me. Took me up to his ship and worked some kind of 
magic. I'm doing well now." He bounced on the balls of his feet, the 
jostling more than sufficient to set little bombs off in my head. He 
must have noticed my grimace and calmed his enthusiasm. "He had come 
upon Reese earlier while he was shadowing Daniel. He wanted to know 
what that old lion's plans were." Ben's black eyes glistened. "The 
ship is amazing. I couldn't believe it when I met Reese there."

"Anyone mention me during all this?" I murmured.

"I thought he was going to spit nails he was so angry with you for 
not being there waiting for him. When I told him that you had tried 
and that you were unconscious he understood why he'd been unable to 
find you. Then he began to get weak signals from you. When it became 
clear that Daniel had you, we began to make plans. Just before he 
and Reese were ready to leave he got some incredibly loud reading. 
About roasted his equipment! Whatever you did surprised him. You 
should have seen him smile."

"Charley, smile?"
    
Benjamin's expression was curious. "You know, Charley's not so bad. 
He's not at all like you described."

I just rolled my eyes.  "Well, he left me alone down here just now," 
I grumbled.

"He's sorry about that. He and Arniesse both thought you were 
following. It's why he sent me down to get you, as a peace offering. 
That's what I've been doing, waiting on the ship for you. And 
there's another thing."  He took a deep breath. "I'm coming along," 
came out in a rush. I stared at him. "I'm coming with you on the 
ship."

"I know what you meant. You can't be serious. You don't know what 
it's like. Besides Daniel's no threat any more. You can go home."

"And plow fields, and carve little mythical animals I'll never see, 
and chop wood in the winter till my hands bleed, and invent two 
hundred different ways to serve potatoes and beans? Given this 
chance, how could I not?"

"'How you gonna keep them down on the farm after they've seen 
Parie?'" I said. (Note, Scully, that I recited. I did not sing.) 
"Does Charley know about this? I can't image that he's much on house 
guests."

"He invited me, and Arniesse, too, I heard. Guess they had some talk 
on their way back to the ship. Charley and I also had a couple of 
hours together. I told him a lot already about what happened since 
you arrived, about your back and whatever it was that the Grayrobes 
did, and about the lichenleaf addiction. He was so pissed at Daniel 
that it's a good thing that the man's dead. And don't you worry; 
Charley's going to fix everything."

"I'll bet he will." Benjamin chatting away with Charley about all my 
medical problems...boggles the mind. 

"Mulder, about my coming. He says he needs me. That the two of you 
need..." Ben paused to remember the word "... an intermediary. He 
says I can help." Ben was totally serious now. "Mulder, he says that 
there's so much to be done."

"In the war?"

"Yes. They need you, Mulder. Something special that only you can do. 
And, Mulder, he promised that if the mission goes well that he will 
send you home. Home, Mulder, to Earth."

To you, Scully...


I stare into the distance at Dale's rolling hills, but between that 
fertile land and me there's a familiar beam of bright light. It's 
only a hundred yards away and with the aid of Benjamin's strong arm 
I think that I might actually be able to make it on my own two feet. 
 

I just hope that Charley's got himself a bigger spacecraft. 

So I'm going to join Charley again, but not alone this time. There's 
Charley who can be anyone and who has already indicated has human 
urges; there's Arniesse/Annie, who can be either a beautiful young 
man or a beautiful young woman; there's Benjamin who's so affection-
starved he'll try anything... and I. I've rejected them all at one 
time or another. 

Would make a body shiver even if he weren't already going through 
withdrawal.

I don't see any of this as fun and games. There's a great 'task' to 
be done? Right. But is it a job for a pathfinder, a soldier or a 
sacrifice? Does it matter? None of the three necessarily find their 
way home all in one piece. Guess I'll have to watch my step.

The End (My Travels with Charley will conclude in part 9.)