Title: The Desert Children (6/6)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Abandoned to a dire fate into the wilds, McCoy learns that every tale has a dark origin.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

There are endings and beginnings, and sometimes they flow so smoothly together, we barely recognize the transition from one to the other. This Part Six is an ending of sorts and is in fact the end of The Desert Children for the simple fact we may not see the real world for quite some time. That said, there is a second-half to McCoy’s journey which I will continue to ponder.

FYI, I’m picking and choosing some of the things I’ve loved most from my favorite fairy tale/fantasy authors to share with you and wrapping them up in a slightly convoluted story. Nothing is truly original with fairy or folk tales but there are reasons we speak of them time and time again. :)

Part Six

“Let me tell you a story,” begins the soft voice of an elderly woman. A crone, some might call her in secret, who is wise to the world through her many years of life.

Lieutenant Uhura settles on a bench near the Storykeeper. Many of the colony’s young children follow suit, arranging themselves at the feet of the young woman, clearly as eager to hear a tale as they are to stay close to Uhura. Their fears have all but vanished since her arrival. To them, with her dark skin, beautiful eyes, and melodic voice, Uhura is the face of those who are kind, fair folk. They love her.

Uhura surreptiously sets her tricorder to record and then tucks the smallest child, a boy the age of five, into her lap. She is ready to listen to every word of the Storykeeper’s, who has, Uhura discovered, the most valuable knowledge of any of the colonists. Many would be deterred by the Storykeeper’s preference to speak in fables or strange riddles but in truth, this is the kind of challenge Uhura loves. So many things can be said within words; and Uhura has made it her life’s study to recognize the different shapes to every story.

The Storykeeper rocks in her chair, her eyes fixed unseeing on a doorway across the room. “Long ago, there was a race of people who roamed freely. From the desert to the mountains to the seas, everything was theirs. They loved this world, and it loved them in return.”

This story is an often-shared tale among the colonists. The boy in Uhura’s lap hugs her arm, eyes wide and his little heart picking up speed. Uhura whispers a comfort in his ear and his fear quiets.

Against the far wall, two adults mutter to each other. See how woman enchants them, they are saying. How long do we let our children trail after her, oblivious to all except her piped piper’s call? The distrust in their eyes is far from hidden.

“But the world changed, as is its fickle nature. It took their homes and forests with fire and boiled their rivers and seas. The people were certain to perish, and they prayed to the Hills to save them, for in the Hills lived gods to whom they paid each season’s tribute. They feared the gods would not hear them because the world shook the Hills, great mounds of grass and stone, and crumbled them one by one. So they gathered at the last Hill, the tallest and oldest of them all, and beat upon its doors with their fists. One of the gods came out of the Hill, which was not merely a temple of the gods but a portal to an other-world which shadowed this one.”

“Shadows, not mirrors,” the young girl leaning against Uhura’s leg murmurs. “That’s important. The Storykeeper told me that once.”

“Through the Hill the gods would come to watch the people and their world change, envious because they could not change themselves. But that is another tale for another time.” The Storykeeper makes a thoughtful noise, rocking back and forth. She turns her unseeing eyes to the children. “Where was I?”

“The people were scared, and a god came to save them!”

“Yes. So they were and so she did. They begged her to save them. They gave her a crown of white thorn and dying roses, and promises of loyalty. In their fear, the people had forgotten the rule: once part of her world, there would be no way out again, except by walking the path of sorrow. Or perhaps they did remember and simply did not care. She let them in, accepting both the wild magic they had given her and their fealty, and since that time she has been their queen. It is said those people have lived so long in the Otherworld they cannot remember their old lives. The Queen keeps their names with her always, refusing to return them, though this world is ready for the living again.”

The Storykeeper pauses and tilts her head slightly toward Uhura.

Uhura asks her question, unnerved that the old woman knew she had a question to ask. “Did one of the Hills survive?”

“No. They were eaten by the world.” She smiles. “But there are ways, other passages. The Queen still walks here when she wishes, always seeking youth and dreams and dying wishes to sustain her power.”

The children whimper, some of them crying, “But, Storykeeper, we don’t want Her to come back!”

“It is the way,” the woman says gently, closing her eyes as though she is drifting to sleep. “When it is time for the Hunt, hide well, my children. Leaf has no words, nor does dark. Become both, if you can. Only then will you remain safe from Them.”

Uhura instinctively tightens her hold on the boy in her lap, feeling cold settle into her very bones. The children absorb the Storykeeper’s advice with faces too sad and serious for their ages. Unbidden, in her mind’s eye Uhura sees great dark steeds streaming past, moonlight reflected in their fiery eyes and in the eyes of their silver-haired riders. Flowing after them are dry rivers of leaves from tiny trees, waiting for the Hunt to pass them by.

An older girl stands up and leans her head against Uhura’s shoulder. “Don’t cry,” she whispers. “Should we ask for another story?”

Wiping away her tears, Uhura composes herself and nods resolutely. What other secrets lie buried in these people’s words?

Leonard picks his way through the garden, beyond an archway covered in thorns, to the crumbling steps of the Hall. Around him, flowering trees shed blooms like confetti, coloring eddies of wind in pinks and reds. He does not let the beauty move him, not even the strange allure of the wild vines and weeds, and mounts the steps.

The season of the land is late summer but winter has invited itself into the Hall. Leonard shivers, running his hands along his arms, surprised to be struck so keenly by the cold.

The place is a maze of long passageways, cold hearthstones, ragged tapestries, and un-swept floors. But despite its emptiness, there is an eerie feeling of activity in the wind funneling through the corridors, as if the Hall is bustling with invisible people, hurrying to and fro, communicating, and living their lives with no thought for an intruder like Leonard. If Leonard stays still long enough, the whispers of voices ensnared in cobwebbed doorways try to break free. So he moves on.

A nest of owls eye him querulously from the rafters of a ballroom before returning their attention to a mouse skirting a wall. Something has built a small cottage of bones in a kitchen corner. A ubiquitous shape flows around a door. Leonard searches until he finds a winding staircase, hoping it belongs to one of the towers jutting skyward at the Hall’s four corners. From the highest point he will be able to see the lay of the land and, if he is lucky, the bridge which had brought him here. He needs to find it again now that Gram has disappeared, perhaps even abandoned him.

He is beginning to forget, when he lets his guard down, why he does not want to linger in this otherworld. Things were simpler, Leonard thinks, when he was dying in the desert. Following Gram was a terrible mistake.

The stairs circle stories high, opening onto a battlement rather than at the head of a tower. Gripping at a crumbling wall of stone, Leonard steps to the edge of the battlement and skims a dark-green sea of forest. The world is painted in shades of brown and green, interspersed with other spots of color. He sees no visible roads or settlements; no rivers. If there is no river, there is likely no bridge. Leonard swallows against fear and moves to each side of the battlement, only to find the same landscape in every direction.

“What now?” he asks himself, sinking miserably against a wall. He bends down to pick up a dislodged stone and, after weighing it in his hand, turns to throw it as far as he can over. Tracing its arch through the air, it is only then Leonard notices one of the spots of color moving across the grounds.

Not simply moving, he realizes, but waving to catch his attention. The color—a man?—might be tossing words back to him like stones but Leonard cannot hear them over the wind and the pounding of his heart. He plunges down the staircase again, tripping once but catching himself before his plunge becomes a painful fall to the stairs’ end.

Discovering a way out of the Hall is not difficult, as every room seems open to the outside, yet Leonard finds himself lost in his surroundings. “I’m here!” he shouts, determined to completely circle the Hall if needed.

“Oh good,” someone says at his back.

Leonard twirls around to find a colorful stranger smiling at him, holding a top hat between his hands and wearing a cloak that billows like a sail.

“You must be Doctor McCoy. I am Sir Rowan.” The stranger bows slightly from the waist. Sunlight produces an odd flash of fire coming from the man’s eyes.

Magic, Leonard thinks, startled. Then he amends that: spectacles. “How did you—” He halts that question for another. “Can you take me back?”

Rowan laughs. “Can I? I could, yes.” His mouth quirks faintly and his leaf-colored eyes inspect Leonard. “But you ask the wrong questions, Doctor.”

“No,” Leonard snaps, starting forward, “we aren’t playing that game!”

The man disappears before Leonard can take a hold of him. Blinking in surprise, Leonard is slow to turn around when Sir Rowan exclaims, reappearing behind him, “Surely you do not propose violence against my person!”

“I, I,” McCoy fumbles. What had he intended to do? “No, not violence. Why would I want to hurt you?”

Rowan glances around with a grave air. “Some do not take well to change.” He looks over Leonard again, more slowly this time, and places his hat on his head. “Shall we continue your journey, Doctor?”

“Only if that means you’re taking me back.”

“What a humorous person you are.” Rowan whistles, sharp and low. A small creature bounds out of a rosebush—a fox, who grins widely at them before it leaps away. The man adjusts the folds of his cloak. “Do I look foolish?” he wants to know. “I must admit, it has been too long since I performed this sort of task. I am not considered, in general, mysterious enough to be a Guide but our numbers dwindle with every century and, well, we must all contribute our part, mustn’t we? I borrowed the attire from an acquaintance. Since he’s, shall we say, dead, I doubt he minds.”

Leonard only makes sense of half of that and doesn’t want to know about the rest. “Was your friend a magician?”

“Acquaintance.” Rowan looks smug. “Ah, magic! How very suitable.” He sobers slightly, though his amusement is as discernible as his eye color. “And the name? Is it foolish also?”

“Sir Rowan isn’t your real name?”

He slants an unreadable look at Leonard and answers his own question. “It fits well enough, given what I am.”

“God help me,” Leonard mutters, “the man thinks he’s a tree.”

Rowan laughs, a great bark like a thunderclap. Around them, the sky darkens suddenly with heavy clouds and the trees shudder, dropping leaves. The strange man stares at Leonard with energy crackling in his eyes. “This will be intriguing for us both, I can tell.”

Leonard is not assured. “Where’s Gram?” He would rather deal with her long silences than this man’s penchant for saying too much.

Sir Rowan waves away the question as unimportant, swinging around and stalking toward a wooded hill. “She offered you the gift of clear-sight, which you forfeited—how silly of you, Doctor, really—and that was against the rules. She won’t return. Good riddance too—annoying and nasty, most borderland dwellers are.” His smile has a sharp edge. “Yet you obviously survived the encounter.”

Confused, Leonard argues as he follows, “She wasn’t that bad.”

“I suppose she decided not to waste effort on a scrawny meal.”

“You’re insulting,” McCoy states flatly.

“Yes I am,” agrees his newest companion. “Now Red there,” he points to the fox digging a hole under a berry bush. “He prefers to bite rather than insult. Do be careful of his temper.”

Leonard almost grasps at his hair in frustration. “Are you mad? I don’t understand this! Why are you here? Why am I here?“

The man’s eyes glitter behind his lens. “Truly, you do not know? Allow me to enlighten you then: you’ve passed from the earthly realm to this one. The path you travel now will reveal what must be done with you.”

Leonard comes to a halt. “I’m… dead?”

Rowan’s shrug is both enigmatic and uncaring. “If the shoe fits. But I don’t recommend trying on the glass slipper. If it isn’t yours, it will cut you when it breaks. Everyone forgets that part, too enamored of their dreams.”

Leonard stopped listening after the first sentence. “I’m not dead,” he tells himself. No, he isn’t dead. He doesn’t remember dying. But the golden cup… he had touched it and felt dark memories, knowledge his heart did not want.

What had Gram offered to show him? A terrible truth?

“Doctor!” Rowan calls. “Come now!”

The familiar echo of the command is easy to obey. Leonard finds his legs moving without his agreement. Nearby the fox, Red, skips into the open grass, a tiny tail of a mouse or a mole hanging from the side of his mouth. His sly eyes watch Leonard as he gives one smacking swallow; then the tail is gone.

As they enter the woods, a storm breaks over the Hall and drenches the world in grey. Leonard hesitates at the woods’ edge. Behind him is a maelstrom; before him, an impenetrable dark looming under a canopy of trees. Rowan’s eyes glow as forest shadows pick at their clothing, waiting for Leonard to decide. Sighing, Leonard chooses, and Rowan seems pleased as McCoy steps fully into the trees.

Jim is unable to sleep. He abandons his makeshift cot in one of the tents they had pitched and circles to the edge of camp. A security officer on guard duty acknowledges him briefly then allows the Captain privacy to think. He settles into a wide-set stance, arms folded, and idly enjoys the breeze ruffling the hair at the nape of his neck while his thoughts untangle themselves from a stew of hard reality and soft emotions.

Far beyond the camp, in the dark of the desert, a keen rises into a howl. For an instant, all thinking stops and a chill walks the length of Jim’s spine. The sound comes again, seconds later, from a different direction.

“Captain.”

A quietly spoken voice draws Jim’s attention. Spock’s tall, straight figure separates itself from a shadow of a tent.

Jim greets the Vulcan with a nod of his head and they fall into a companionable silence. At the third howl, broken into a series of yips, Jim ponders its owner. “A coyote?”

“Doubtful,” Spock replies. “There is no record of a species relative to the canidae indigenous to your Earth.”

“Then what would you suggest is howling at the moon, Spock?”

Spock is silent for a moment. “Records can be lacking.”

Jim chuckles darkly. “I would say so.” Certainly there is no record of a race called the Others, but the colonists believe wholeheartedly in their existence. Jim wonders what else exists on this planet that it is impervious to his human senses, or is simply adept at hiding from him.

He sighs slowly, feeling an invisible weight on his shoulders. The question which has been hurting his heart all day is suddenly the monster looming between them. “Are we making a mistake, Spock? It’s… likely that McCoy is dead by now. The desert sun alone is enough to kill a man.”

“You think the body is the doctor’s,” Spock concludes, tone inflection-less.

Almost angry, as though Spock has accused him of giving up, Jim retorts, “What else am I to assume, Mr. Spock? The clothes are McCoy’s. The blood on them—McCoy’s.”

“I gave you my analysis, Jim.”

Jim pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m not doubting your analysis, Spock. I—” I am afraid, he doesn’t finish, suppressing a shudder. A scientific analysis cannot explain everything. I just want to know if I need to bury my friend.

Spock talks quietly, summarizing points of rationale Jim has already memorized by heart. Jim isn’t certain who of the two of them the Vulcan intends to convince with his argument.

“The rate of decomposition suggests the person has been deceased for, at minimum, sixty-three solar days. Discounting its appearance, the body itself does not correlate to what we know as fact, Captain. I cannot accept—”

“Spock,” Jim interrupts gently. “I know.”

The Vulcan retreats into silence again. Jim struggles with what he wants to say to his friend, wondering if there is anything consoling to be said. He settles on “Hope is our strongest motivation. When we lose hope, we lose McCoy.”

Hypocrisy burns at the back in his throat, and Jim vows silently not to make himself into a liar. McCoy deserves unyielding faith. After all, how often has Bones driven his body to exhaustion to battle death on their behalf in an operating room, never giving up, never allowing himself to lose hope for their survival or to question his role in saving their lives?

A sigh escapes Jim. “Tomorrow we move the search west—”

“Captain.”

It’s the way his First Officer says that title, low and hinting at caution, which causes Jim to rise swiftly to alertness. His gaze follows Spock’s, searching the desert. Then he sees it: a shape moving fluidly through the dark, twin to the night yet separate from it.

Jim prepares to raise the alarm, not certain who would wish to attack them (except for the colonists with secrets to hide?) but having been a part of too many battles in his lifetime to remain ignorant of the possibility.

“Jim.” Spock switches to his first name, a request to wait.

Tense but willing to trust the instincts of his First Officer, he remains still, silent.

The creature is, Jim realizes, four-footed. Not the size of a man. Had he been right about the coyote?

A beast of short black, bristling hair and yellow eyes stops only feet away, encased in darkness at the boundary between shadow and moonlight where it simply watches them. One minute passes; another. At last, satisfied by whatever it sees, it takes the final step from the night into the faint glow of their camp lanterns. The beast is not a beast but a woman whose skin has molded itself against the bones of her face; and her eyes—knowing eyes, smoky with age.

Jim almost goes to her out of wonder but Spock shifts at his side, acting as a subtle blockade to Jim’s path while asking of their visitor, “Who are you?”

Jim looks at Spock like he is, in fact, alien. Spock is straightforward but not usually so discourteous. McCoy’s disappearance is trying for them all, Jim realizes. Even for those who profess to have no great love for Doctor Leonard McCoy.

Surprisingly, the woman answers. “I am called Gram.” Her eyes darken, wander past them to the outline of the camp.

Something tells Jim this woman is not a colonist. Is she a native of the desert then? “We’re searching for one of our lost companions.”

Her eyes return to meet his. “Have you not found something of him?”

The desert feels frozen in time between her innocuous question and Jim’s sudden understanding of what lies beneath it. Spock does not stop him from stepping forward. “What do you know about my officer?”

“Yours,” she echoes thoughtfully. “Then you claim him.”

“Yes. He is part of my crew aboard the Enterprise.”

The name of his starship probably means nothing to her. Nevertheless, Gram studies him gravely. But it is to Spock that she says, “The answers you have do not satisfy you. How long will you continue to seek the one who is lost?”

“Time is not our constraint,” Spock tells her. “It is knowledge which eludes us… and the cooperation of those with that knowledge.”

Gram’s mouth curls with an almost smile. “I will help you. Think no more of what eludes you—or the man who is and is not your McCoy.”

“What do you mean?” Jim demands. He remembers then the sleeping officers inside their camp and lowers his voice though it is not less fierce in its questioning. “Are you talking about the… body?”

“Yes.”

“Then it isn’t McCoy.” Relief is a heady sensation, close to dizzying. He plants his feet and gives no sign of it. This woman may be their only chance to find McCoy, but there is no advantage to her knowing how desperate they are for her help. “Was it a trick?”

“To keep the man.”

Spock hypothesizes, “You know where Doctor McCoy is.”

Her eyes say yes but her mouth refuses to shape the word, like it is a burden or a curse.

“You will lead me to him,” Jim says simply, smoothly. To Spock, he asks a silent question. Should we trust her?

The Vulcan’s look is louder than words. We have no choice. We must.

The fox does not stay with them. Leonard catches sight of it weaving among the tall pines, a thin shadow sliding along the forest floor. Once he thinks he sees eyes watching him from a distance, too wide to belong to Red but of the same dark, sly quality. He shakes off the nonsensical feeling and steadily marches on.

They might have been traveling for a day or a year when he hears it: singing. At first it sounds so far away, it could be the song of star. One of the stars floating by the Enterprise, calling him home, Leonard imagines with tears in his eyes.

The distant song grows note by note, and his heart stirs with it. The trees seem to shift, and Rowan grows quiet; Leonard does not notice. High atop a tree is a bird—lovely, wild, made of firelight. It croons sweetly to the sky, fanning its plume of feathers like languid flames.

Leonard’s unfaltering steps bring him beneath the tree, and the singing falls silent. A long neck curves downward; golden eyes watch him.

He breathes in wonder, “She’s beautiful.”

“Firebirds are also deadly,” his companion replies.

Leonard cannot fathom how that could possibly be, but the serious shade of Rowan’s eyes speaks of a truth.

They pass by the tree, but Leonard keeps his eyes fixed above. The firebird departs from its branch with a last trailing note, gracefully shifting shape as it goes. It—she—lands upon the forest path, a pale face and body surrounded by an endless tumble of red curls. Then she begins to sing again, the woman, in all her wild beauty as fire and ivory, bird and human. Her golden eyes are beguiling like her voice, and Leonard could forget who he is, seized so steadfastly by her. He hears the depth of her song, a remembrance of love and loss, and it stirs an elusive memory of his own. Yet the memory slips away at the firebird’s call, each thought of Leonard’s turning to one of hers.

The trees shift again, opening to take him in. He longs to go. But Rowan touches his shoulder.

“A firebird is what you follow to change your life. Is that what you wish?”

Notes sharpen, falling like fiery cinders. Leonard can feel them burn against his skin.

“No,” he says reluctantly.

“Then leave her to seduce the moon and the stars, Doctor. Your path does not end here.”

He turns his back to her and follows Rowan, but for a long, long time he hears the firebird singing to the blank face of the moon. It is even longer still before he untangles his heart from her song.

They wake Uhura, who opted to stay at the camp rather return to the Enterprise after her latest report. She listens quietly to Jim’s recounting of the meeting with Gram and accepts everything her Captain has to say. Only at the end does she ask, perhaps already knowing the answer, “Where do you need me, sir?”

“Mr. Scott is aware of the situation. He has command of the Enterprise until I return.”

Uhura turns to the Vulcan, who has made no remark since she had woken to find him standing at the lifted flap of her tent, watching Jim pace the interior of the tent with dark, calm eyes.

Jim answers her unspoken question. “Mr. Spock will be joining me.” He doesn’t sound amused. “Gram seems to believe his… appearance will work in our favor.”

Jim would have preferred to leave his First Officer behind to take charge of the ship and the situation with the colonists. Spock, for his part, had not corrected Gram’s assumption that he would accompany Jim. If Jim did not know better, he would think the Vulcan harbors some irrational notion of responsibility for McCoy’s plight.

He pushes that thought aside.

“If you are willing, Uhura, I want you to return to the colony. Keep them guessing but do not tell them what Spock and I are attempting to do. As far as they need to know, we are still with the search party moving westward.” He pauses to gather more thoughts into words. “Whether there is any substance to what you learned, I don’t know—but there may be others who need saving. I don’t want to risk them any more than I want to risk McCoy.” He cannot allow himself to think too long about parents turning over their children to some stranger because that stranger feels it is his or her due; it angers him. “We’ve heard many lies, and we’ve heard twice as many excuses disguised as fairy tales in the past few days, Lieutenant. What I want is the truth, and I intend to find it.”

Her face mirrors the hard set of his. “If you find Doctor McCoy, Captain, chances are you will have more truth than you might want.”

His smile is mirthless. “I would rather live with an unpleasant truth than a sweet lie.”

And if he decides, because of the truth, to place the colonist’s children under the protection of the Federation, and in particular on his ship, he will do exactly that. His command gold may have its limitations in the eyes of Starfleet but his conscience does not.

Leonard insists on taking a break, despite that he feels neither tired nor aching from a long walk. He sits between the shelter of two trees and stares at his hands while Rowan vanishes into the forest, intent on some task Leonard is not to know of. McCoy’s ears still faintly hear the firebird’s song but it no longer has a strong hold on him, passing from his thoughts like a leaf swept downstream. Hunger too is a long-ago memory; pain even more so. Leonard simply is, now. He is a man existing in a body untouchable to the weaknesses of humanity. That should frighten him, but he feels nothing. Clinically there is a name for his apathy—yet even that small thought becomes unimportant.

Leonard removes the ring on his smallest finger and drops it to the ground. It rolls into a nest of pine needles where the metal glows soft and pale.

“What ails you?”

The fox called Red has returned; Leonard feels no surprise. That the fox talks, too, is of no consequence.

The corner of his mouth lifts faintly. “What could ail me in this world?”

“Well said. There is little to trouble you here, only what you choose to trouble yourself with.”

“Red the wise,” McCoy says sardonically.

“Never so wise was I,” laughs the fox, “until I grew a snout and a simpler view of the world.”

“Then you were not always a fox?”

Red slinks to a tree and rubs against its bark, eyes slit in pleasure. “Of course not. I was a prince—foolish and feckless and… alas, I am still!” He laughs again, a silky, sly sound.

Leonard considers what might be troubling him, as Red had implied, and his thoughts lift somewhat from their drowsy fog. “I feel… lost in the wood,” he says slowly, watching an owl with sapphire eyes take flight through the trees. “Everything and nothing points the way toward home.”

With his fox’s nose, Red pushes aside dead leaves and fallen berries. “Every path is tangled.”

“Yes.”

“I could guide you.”

Leonard watches him. “I thought I had a Guide.”

“But is he guiding you to his purpose or yours?”

A fox’s grin is full of teeth even when he sounds sincere. Leonard looks away. The forest is silent, no voices in the leaves or wild beauties singing fire into a man’s heart. He imagines everything is listening for his answer. The words stay locked tightly in his mouth. Finally, he forces some of them out: “I don’t know.”

“When you do know, you need only ask for my help,” Red tells him.

“Why would you help me?”

“That is part of my curse. I must ask every human I meet how I might ease his burdens.”

Leonard is startled. It had not occurred to him that Red is not simply a magical being in an otherworld but an individual as trapped as he is. “How can your curse be broken? By helping me?” he asks curiously.

Red’s eyes contemplate Leonard’s ring half-hidden in the leaves. “That is the tangle in my path” is the fox’s only reply. Then Red turns away with a great leap over a twisted root and disappears beneath a bramble patch, barking out another laugh as he goes.

Leonard is left to wonder when he might see the strange creature again. He picks up his ring, cold now, and slides it onto his finger, uncertain of what had possessed him to remove it. Rowan appears in the trees ahead and beckons him. He goes.

Beyond the bluffs, the sun sinks slowly. Jim tries to memorize the way it slants over the rocks, how it casts the desert into a long stretch of orange shadow. He has an unsettling feeling that once the sun sets he won’t see it again.

“Where are you taking us?” Jim asks as he, Spock, and Gram pass an ancient river bed, dry and white as bone.

“To a place where even death is not the end of the story.”

He looks to Spock and sees that the Vulcan is equally at a loss to interpret her meaning.

Bones, Jim thinks grimly, what are we getting into?

As if she can hear that thought, Gram answers. “The man you seek will not be easy to find. The longer he is apart from this world, the deeper he is rooted to the other. There will be trials to overcome, a price to be paid. Three tasks, one for each of you: the healer, the leader, and the wise one.”

With a glimmer of amusement, Jim can almost hear Bones’ incredulous rebuke: why is Spock the wise one?

Gram wouldn’t understand his snort of laughter. Jim immediately sobers under her sharp gaze and a question of his own. “If you know where McCoy is, why would he be difficult to find?”

Jim doesn’t like her silence or her carefully blank expression. “It’s rather simple,” Jim presses on. “Take us to Doctor McCoy, and we will bring him home.”

Gram stops walking. Jim and Spock stop short as well.

“I can lead you to the lost one,” she agrees, “but it is not my place to return him to you.”

“Then whose is it?” he asks sharply, internally railing against the thought of McCoy’s freedom dependent on anyone’s whim but the doctor’s own.

“It is Leonard’s.”

Jim inhales. Partly turning away from Gram, to Spock he mutters, “Why does that sound more ominous than it should?”

“I do not know, Jim,” the Vulcan replies softly, “but it is imperative we find him soon.”

Jim nods and Gram resumes walking again, taking them down a dangerous path Jim can feel but not see.

Sequel here.

Related Posts:

• The Desert Children (5/6) – from May 14, 2012
• The Desert Children (4/6) – from May 10, 2012
• The Desert Children (3/5) – from May 4, 2012
• The Desert Children (2/5) – from May 2, 2012
• The Desert Children (1/?) – from April 30, 2012