The child of a royal family, orphaned by a tragic shipwreck, and raised in the heart of the Dark Continent by an ancient people privy to secrets lost to the civilized world, she rose to accept a mantle of sacred guardianship. Fast as the striking snake, deadly as the lioness, and stealthy as the she-wolf, she is ...

Gala, in the Valley of the Winds

1. Chapter  One: In which a stranger arrives in the Valley.
   
2. Chapter Two: In which Gala comes to the aid of old friends.
   
3. Chapter Three: In which a former enemy becomes a servant of greater evil.
   
4. Chapter Four: In which Gala seeks answers at the Cave of Winds.
   
5. Chapter Five: In which a visitor from another world reveals much that was hidden.
   

CHAPTER ONE

With a springing leap, she took to the trees and made her way closer to the sound, eventually falling into a crouch on the edge of a sheer depression. Beneath her, in a wide ravine framed on each side by narrow cliffs of sheer sandstone, a man stood close by a strange machine. Gala had seen the streets of London, and well she knew the acrid sting of smoke and oil that gasoline engines left in the air. But this machine seemed different. It was some sort of motorized bicycle but its smell was more sulphurous than she expected, and something in the air made her nostrils flare. There was something insidious in that machine, some threat that the jungle maiden could not identify.

“Where is this place?” The man was speaking. But in truth, he was no man at all, for while he was garbed as a city dweller, in a garish red suit with wide lapels and brightly polished shoes, he stank like a thing dead for many days. It did not take Gala’s keen sight to make out the gruesome pallor of his rotting skin, his lipless mouth, his missing teeth, the fetid yellowness of his eyes or the crawling insects which burrowed and slid through the soft drooping stuff that was his flesh. Despite his strange appearance, this walking corpse was in good humor, even laughing as he circled the machine. “Must have taken a wrong turn at the River Styx!” he jested, apparently to himself, as nothing on two legs could have detected the silent observer who lurked within striking distance at the top of the nearby cliff. With a hiccup, the motorcycle’s engine abruptly died, and the well-dressed dead man scratched his skull.

“How am I supposed to get this damn thing to work. It’s only supposed to go to Hell and back! No one said anything about the jungle.” The hot, moist, air of the Valley was home to countless  insects which thrived on rotting flesh, and a cloud of them had already begun to gather around the figure. He swatted at some of them ineffectually. Gala, her fingers finding invisible purchase on the lip of the cliff, remained frozen in place. There was much to be learned by observation, she decided. And nothing yet to be gained by welcome or by conflict.

There was a rustling in the tall grasses which found purchase in the floor of the ravine, and through a picket fence of bamboo three tall black men emerged. Gala recognized them at once, for white spirals marked their powerful shoulders and their broad faces. From their obsidian speartips hung three vulture feathers each, a sign of their right to manhood, and each carried a large leaf-shaped shield cured from the hides of zebra which roamed the upper plains. These were warriors of the Skeleton People, no doubt looking for slaves to bring back to their village. More than once Gala had pulled some unlucky woman from their grasp, saving her from a life of meaningless drudgery or worse. But these three had no captive with them. She soon realized they meant to remedy that lack.

Two of them pointed spears at the hideous stranger. “Down on your knees, demon!”

But their prey did not even understand the language of the Valley. When he responded, it was in the same English that Gala had first heard from him, when she arrived. “You gents must be the welcoming committee. I’m Hades, Horatio R. Hades. I don’t believe we’ve met. How do you do?” Although he wore gloves, Hades now removed one of them and reached out to the nearest warrior as if to embrace him.

It was not an action the bold warriors  welcomed. What they had first thought might be a prize was now revealed to be a monster, and with a powerful lunge one of the Skeleton People thrust his spear at Horatio’s stomach. The black stone tip, as large as a man’s hand, made a kind of sucking sound as it pierced the dead muscles, and the spear shivered to a stop when it struck bone. Gala sighed. She had many questions for this strange demon, but such a blow would send any man to his grave. Her questions would go forever unanswered.

The spear-blow, however, had no effect! Without a moment’s hesitation, the intruder lurched forwards and seized his attacker by the throat, even as the long shaft of the spear projected from his own corpse-like body. The heavy-set warrior made a short gurgling sound as his breath was cut off, and he released the spear to finger in futility at Hades’s sudden grip.

The youngest of the three warriors, slighter than the rest, his frame whipcord lean rather than thick with years of exertion, froze in horror. But his wiser companion struck quickly, hefting the machete he had used to clear the bamboo fields and bringing it down on Horatio’s shoulder right where it met the neck. It was a savage blow  that should have sent an arm twitching to the grassy floor of the ravine. Instead, Hades grunted as his pristine red suit was cut, and he hurled the jerking body of the man he was already holding at this new assailant, sending both reeling.

Gala knew that she could perhaps tip the balance of this fight one way or the other. But as yet, she still felt there was more to be learned by watching. She owed the Skeleton People no favors, and three less slavers would do the jungle no harm. Besides, while this newcomer had proven himself quick and resilient, the battle was far from over. She fully expected the two warriors thus far struck to rise and fight more cautiously, with cunning. So Gala waited and watched, fingering the haft of her father’s knife and wondering if Horatio’s quickness would prove her match.

Strangely, the first of Hades’s victims was slow to rise. The brief stranglehold had not been enough to suffocate the sturdy warrior, yet as Gala watched a strange transformation seemed to come over him. His skin gained a repulsive pallor, the green of bad meat, and his cry for help was stifled as his own tongue swelled to fill his mouth. Fingers clutched at the air and he swayed on his knees as he died before the eyes of Gala and his own tribesmen. While shock and fear swept through them, Horatio laughed. “One touch is all it takes, Sambo. Now you’re my valet parker.” Jabbing a finger at the man with the machete, Hades barked a word to his un-dead minion, the meaning of which was all too clear. “Kill!”

And kill he did. Seizing the opportunity of his ally’s paralyzed terror, the horrific Skeleton Man leapt entirely upon his companion and bore him to the earth, tearing, clawing, and biting with monstrous ferocity. The youngest warrior vanished in a panic, turning and fleeing into the bamboo screaming of demons. The laughter of Horatio Hades echoed off the ravine walls.

Gala’s eyes narrowed. This was no mere brawl between a stranger and three slavers. Her instincts had been right. She tensed, her calves and thighs bracing for the long leap that would take her within striking distance of her foe.

CHAPTER TWO

A sound of wings surprised her, as a flock of swallows burst into the air some distance off. Frozen on the cliff side, taut limbs braced for action, she suddenly realized that the frightened birds had taken flight from the Hill of Scorpions, no small distance off and far beyond the narrow ravine where Gala stalked her prey. But if there was danger at the Hill, that meant ...

“Catherine. Jack!” The names burst from Gala without volition, as concern for her friends and family swept through her in a wave. Below, in the ravine, the zombie master Horatio R. Hades looked up, surprised at the sound. What he saw amazed him.

“Windsor?” He knew this woman, her gorgeous mane of thick golden locks, her cloudy blue eyes, her sleek and muscular form. But he felt surprise, too, for the woman he saw here was clearly not the woman he knew. Instead of a policeman’s blue uniform this feral princess was clad in the skin of a hunting cat, and without a gleaming nameplate of machined electrum she wore instead the hidden gold of the Valley in bracelets and loops around her graceful neck. A large knife was at her hip, and her feet were bare. All this Hades saw in a flash, for no sooner had he spotted this predatory beauty poised above him when she vanished into the jungle, a flash of pale limbs. He stroked his chin and smiled. “Crazy,” he murmured to himself. “Crazy.”

As she ran across the Valley floor, Gala cursed her short-sightedness. Catherine Wright, the woman who had first found Gala in the Valley and later shown her the wonders of man’s civilization, had returned only a month ago to excavate and explore the ruins concealed within the Hill of Scorpions, a dangerous site which had been abandoned ever since Catherine’s first adventure in the Valley years ago. In those days, the Scorpion Folk had shown an unhealthy appetite for European flesh, and Gala and Catherine had barely escaped with their lives. But now the caves were home only to ghosts and vermin, so Gala had not been concerned when Catherine arrived with Gala’s own nephew, Jack, as company. Indeed, she had been delighted to see them both, and had since spent many a pleasant evening at their camp, listening to and laughing at the latest foolish fads of England. She should have set guards, laid traps and spoken the quiet whispers which would wake the jungle to shepherd her friends. But she had thought them safe.

A gunshot charged the air. It was Jack’s Winchester rifle, the distinctive crack of its firing as clear to Gala as a fingerprint. Dread and grim determination fought for dominance as she took to the trees, crossing the wide and turbulent river Yan with a lightning fast sprint out to the length of a far-reaching branch, then leaping into empty air. The drooping vine of a jungle creeper found her hand and she swung in an arc into the maze of trees, twisting her body to avoid one trunk after another. There was another gunshot, but now she was close. The sharp smell of gunpowder stung her nostrils as Catherine’s camp and the haunted rocks of the Hill of Scorpions came within view.

The camp was all but destroyed, with the tents Catherine and Jack had constructed now flattened and stomped into the dirt. The wooden fence of the corral, once securing beasts of burden, was shattered in a half dozen places and splintered timber littered the ground like straw. At the base of the Hill, wooden braces supported the entrance to a cave which, Gala knew, slid precipitously down into the maze-like warrens of the Scorpion Folk. It was there, within the shelter of the cave, that Jack Windsor crouched, firing his rifle at the triceratops which thrust one long horn after another deep into the cave. The latest round careened off the impervious bony ridge that protected the lizard’s face, doing no harm.

A generator was still running in the center of the camp, and thick cables led from it up the base of the hill and down the cave mouth where Jack ducked and dodged the maddened triceratops. But there was no sign of Catherine, and Gala felt a cold heaviness in her breast as she sprinted into the clearing. The triceratops was normally a passive beast, which is what made it ideal for manual labor of the sort Catherine required. But now its tail thrashed violently side to side, and Gala had to roll nimbly to the earth to avoid being struck by that mighty limb, which surely would have broken any man in two had it made even a glancing blow. Clambering up the flank of the creature like a panther mounting a boulder, Gala was so light that the frenzied beast had not yet noticed her. But Jack’s maneuvers within the cave mouth were increasingly desperate as the long horns of the dinosaur gouged deep rivulets in the stone wall.

In a feat of uncanny balance, the jungle princess ran up and over the great curve that was the spine of the triceratops, sliding down behind the protective bony helm of its faceplate and gripping its thick neck with her legs. There was a flash of sudden sunlight as she drew the Bowie knife that was the last relic of her father and then, leaning as far to one side as the grip of her legs permitted, she plunged the steel up its hilt deep in the reptile’s neck.

Hot blood poured from the wound, and in pain and rage the maddened three-horn abandoned its hunt for Jack to rear its head and bellow, its voice strangely shrill as it emerged from the creature’s beak-like  mouth. Staggering backwards from the cave, the triceratops swung its head to the side, pinning Gala between the bony headpiece and its own thick body. As her leg was crushed, she could feel the bones of her knee grinding against one another, and Gala’s full-throated scream of pain burst like lightning through the clearing. Gritting her teeth, she pushed with all her might against the inside of the bone shield but it was no use; even her tireless arms were no match for the monstrous and blood-crazed strength of the dinosaur.

As the animal retreated from  the cave mouth and shook, seeking to rid itself of the lone female which clung about its neck, Gala caught sight of movement inside the cave. Jack had turned his back to her, and was working busily to help another figure emerge from the depths of the Hill. Taking advantage of a brief instant when the triceratops had lurched in the other direction, Gala quickly freed her numb and useless limb, drawing herself up to leap on her good leg, flying free of the animal. Rolling up into a crouch, she held her knife clenched between her teeth. Blood was still gushing from the hapless lizard, but it could still do harm in the long while it would take such a massive thing to bleed to death.

By now Jack had succeeded in helping the third figure up out of the pit, and with two hands Catherine Wright pulled off the bubble-like metal helmet which had been obscuring her sharp, angular features. Brown hair poured out of the steel bowl before Kate dropped the helmet to the ground and dashed from the cave mouth in long, catlike strides. Her rapid movement attracted the notice of the enraged triceratops, however, and Gala knew that she must act quickly lest her friend be stampeded by ten tons of primordial flesh. Her wounded leg was throbbing in pain, but at least she could feel it, and she sprinted fast as a bullet shot from a gun. As the dinosaur aimed its three horns at Wright, Gala landed on its face plate, bracing one foot on the lowermost of the deadly spurs, and grasping another with her own vice-like  grip. The dinosaur’s primitive brain did not allow it to see past the immediate threat; Catherine was all but forgotten as the creature again threw its head violently to the left and right, trying to throw this annoying human from before it. But Gala’s balance was too perfect, and with hands and feet perched on the triceratops she could feel each twist and buck of its head the moment it began. Though her arm was nearly pulled from its socket, and sharp pains flared in her torso as she clung to the monster, she would not be thrown.

Given a moment of safety in which to complete her task, Catherine seized a holster and belt which had previously hung in camp, but which now lay all but forgotten upon the ground. In a flash the Colt came free and she took aim, firing round after round. Seven .45 slugs thudded into the giant reptile just behind the neck, causing blooms of brilliant red blood to mushroom from its hide.

“Gala! Jump!” It was Jack’s voice and Gala did not hesitate, leaping free of her tumultuous perch even as the Winchester sang out once more. This time, Jack had his aim, and one of the lizard’s eyes erupted in blood and gore. It screamed again and, at last, fell still. There was an audible sigh as its last breath was expelled from mighty lungs.

A glance towards Jack assured Gala her nephew was fine. He waved his rifle in the air and began making the descent from the cave mouth. Catherine was busily reloading the pistol, discarding the empty clip and snapping another into place. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Your leg...”

Cautiously, Gala ran a hand over her knee, the tendons and muscles of her calf. “It is not serious,” she assured her friend, even managing to avoid much of a limp as she moved to Catherine and replaced the knife in its sheath. “I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

Catherine’s face bore a scowl as she scanned the camp’s perimeter. “I don’t understand what could have made the animals react like that. They’ve always been so docile. We’ve been using Mary here in the excavations for two weeks now, and she was perfectly trainable.” She shot a look at Gala and her frown deepened. “And don’t think I can’t tell your limping. I am a doctor, you know.”

Gala’s laugh burst from her, warm and rich, and she smiled. “I have not forgotten.”

“Aunt Abigail!” Jack Windsor, a handsome and athletic youth of sixteen, was clearly relieved as he slung the rifle over one shoulder and embraced his older relative. “Catherine was exploring the cave of dead air, under the hill. We built an air pump to bring oxygen in through tubes. I’ll show you.”

Ruffling the lad’s hair, Gala demured. “Another time, Jack. There is a stranger come to the Valley, a man of ill tidings I think. Every hour he is left alone is another hour that he can wreak some malice.” She looked apologetically to the other woman. “I was watching him when I realized you were in danger. I am sorry I was not here sooner.”

But the apology was dismissed with a tsk. “Oh, rubbish. We can’t expect you to take care of every little problem, you know.”

“Kate, it was a dinosaur.”

The woman shrugged. “What’s one more dinosaur, more or less?” With a firm gesture, she seated the Colt back in its holster and buckled the belt round her waist. “I still wish I knew what made Mary go berserk like that.”

By now, Gala crouched on the balls of her feet next to the head of the dead beast, resting a hand on its still-cooling body. “The stranger I spoke of was not alone. He had a ... machine with him. Some kind of motorbike.”

Though she brushed the dirt from her sturdy blouse, Catherine could not conceal her interest. “A machine you say?”

Glancing back over her shoulder at her friend, Gala’s expression was serious.  “It is no ordinary machine. There is a presence within it, as if the machine was, itself, alive. No, not just alive, but hateful. There is a malevolent force with this stranger. That, I think, is what Mary and the other animals sense. Evil has come to the Valley of the Winds. Great evil.”

CHAPTER THREE

The movement of two men through the grass of the outer Valley was not easily detected, and if she wanted to keep the trail Gala could not move as swiftly as she wished. But once it became clear that Hades’s only goal must be the Skeleton village, she opened her stride and leapt for the trees, where she could make faster time and circumvent many obstacles that slowed the pace of a running man. She had lost much time in Catherine’s camp, and it was a race now to see who would reach the village first. Gala could only hope that Kate and Jack would be safe as they re-gathered straying animals once kept in the wooden stockade; if the beasts of the jungle could indeed sense the evil that had come among them it would bode ill for everyone.

Panting from exertion, the guardian of the Valley at last paused within sight of her goal. There, far below the spiraling tree limb on which she now crouched, lay the village of the Skeleton Folk: two dozen huts with smoke drifting up lazily from central vents. It was only with effort that Gala could slow her breathing, but in seconds the relentless beat of her pulse settled. There was no sign of disturbance: the women of the tribe were going about their chores while those men who were not hunting for slaves or food kept a close watch on the paths of approach. Some fished in the wide, strong river that led straight through the village. The Skeleton Folk had many  enemies in the Valley, Gala not least among them, so they were always cautious. She was not too late.

Lightly, silently, she dropped to earth. Blending in with the tawny grass, the golden sun, she was not seen at once, and so she gave out a quiet whistle of approach. As she knew they would, the guards heard this and took their spears in both hands. When she emerged, ghost-like, from the tall foliage their expression did not soften.

“This is our territory, golden-hair. You are not welcome here.”

Gala did not touch her weapon, though her stance remained proud, straight and tall. “Am I not the sacred guardian of all this Valley, Ruban? There is not a foot-space where I am not welcome.”

The warrior scowled. It disturbed him that Gala knew his name. Was it true, what the old women said? That Gala could hear every voice whispered in the Valley, every secret, every name? What had she heard him speak in the dark hours?

“Why have you come? To force your ways on us, as before?”

“My issue is not with your slaves,” Gala replied, her voice more stern, “but to help you. Great danger stalks our Valley, and it looks with hungry eyes upon the Skeleton Folk. Every moment we waste talking, it comes closer. Put up your weapon, Ruban, and take me to Kiloc,  wisest among your people.”

By now other warriors too had come, converging on Gala from three sides. But she could see in his eyes that Ruban was cowed, and with a quick jerk of his head he nodded, turned away, and led her into the cluster of huts that made up the village. As she walked amidst these people whom she had battled so many times, she felt their hostile glances. That woman, she knew, had lost a husband to Gala in a furious spear-fight a year ago. That boy: his father had died when Gala plunged her knife deep into his stomach. But there, on the banks of the loud river, she saw also girls washing the clothes of their husbands and she knew them for natives of other villages far across the Valley. Help us, they implored her with their eyes. We are enslaved, thought dead by our fathers and mothers, our true husbands and our children. We suffer. In shame, her cheeks hot, Gala lowered her gaze and followed in Ruban’s footsteps. To battle now would satisfy the demands of her warrior blood, but it would do nothing to stop Hades and his unnatural powers.

“Wait.” After this curt command, Ruban vanished into one of the larger huts, leaving Gala and her three escorts outside the entrance. She could smell the thick aromatic herbs that were burning inside, and tendrils of smoke curled out from under the heavy grass mat that blocked entry. Anxiously she fingered the hilt of the knife at her hip and picked her words for the coming parley. She might have only one chance to convince Kiloc of the gravity of the threat Hades posed. She must be persuasive but still respectful, sincere without boasting.

The warrior reappeared and nodded to her, clearing the way into the hut with one straightened arm. Expressing her thanks to him with a silent glance, she ducked her head to enter, and at once was surrounded by ghostly tendrils of burning incense. The smoke and smell were everywhere, and the darkness of the interior was broken only by hot pinpricks of light where the herbs smoldered in clay pots placed haphazardly about. Never before had Gala walked within this sacred place of the Skeleton Folk, but as she blinked the water from her eyes she picked out a half dozen figures sitting along one wall, with other warriors clustered in a crouched mass on the other side of the chamber. Mindful of custom, Gala stepped silently on the balls of her feet until she could sit before the wise men, mirroring their posture and crossing her legs before her.

“Kiloc,” she began,  though she could barely see the shriveled old man through the darkness and bitter smoke. “You are hailed wisest among the Skeleton Folk, and so it is you I seek out, to give dire news and offer my aid.” There was no spoken reply, but Gala caught sight of Kiloc’s large, dark eyes and she fixated on them, in an effort to penetrate the haze of incense. The stench was trying to turn her stomach. How could they stand it?

“A stranger has come to our Valley. I say our Valley, for I know that you, as I do, revere this place and its ways. This stranger, he is a thing of evil and of death. His flesh is rotting off his bones, and he speaks not our tongue. I saw him kill one of your warriors with just a touch of his hand, and he suffered blows which would have slain you or I without a moment’s pause. But this is not the worst of it: when he had killed your man, I saw that man rise again as a thing un-dead, then kill a friend, a second of your warriors. A third there was, who fled. Did he reach you? His story will confirm mine, though he saw me not.”

Again, there was no direct reply, though Kiloc raised a hand and from the cluster of warriors one rose slowly. Spear in hand, outlined by darkness and smoke, the young warrior Gala had seen lurched towards the wise men. She recognized his short hair, the leanness of his frame, but his gait was different, the stumble of a sick man. And then she realized the truth, in a terrifying instant.

Blinking against the smoke that had so blinded her, and the stench that had kept her from detecting the scent of death, Gala flipped dexterously to her feet and the edge of her knife sang in a protective arc around her body. All the men in the hut were rising now to their feet, but it was a familiar laugh that chilled her blood to ice.

“Visitors from another world?” Horatio chided her as he stepped into view. “Who can’t be killed, but slay with a touch?  Changing innocent people into zombies? That’s a pretty wild story, Gala. But you know?” How was it so easy to detect a sardonic smile on a mouth without lips? “I think they believe you. I really do.”

“Fight it,” Gala urged the warriors who closed in around her, her voice hissing urgently. “You are proud men of the Skeleton Folk. Your courage, your warrior daring, is carried on the winds to lands far across the sea. Do not obey this monstrosity. He is not of your people!”

But it was no use; not a trace of volition was left within the eyes of the un-dead who now surrounded her. Even Kiloc, whose eyes she could see preserved a semblance of intelligence, was now slavishly obedient to his zombie lord.

The warriors were closing in, the tips of their spears grazing Gala’s flesh. Tense, she waited for the first thrust. When it came she twisted out of the way and, snatching the spear fast as a serpent’s bite, yanked its bearer off balance, tripping him awkwardly into some of his allies. And in that moment when confusion most reigned, her muscular legs served to spring Gala up. Desperately she caught the inside edge of the smoke vent and reached up through that hole with her other hand to sink the blade of her knife into the roof of the hut. This gave her more purchase, and quick as a lizard she pulled her lower body and legs out of reach of the warriors within.

Though she crouched now on the roof of Kiloc’s hut, Gala knew she was not yet free. The witch doctor lurched from darkness below her, instantly drawing the attention of all the people nearby. “She has come to murder me!” he shrieked, his voice rasping dry in his dead throat as he pointed accusingly at the sun-bronzed woman huddled above his home.

Some of the warriors and women must have surely noticed Kiloc’s unusual appearance, for he too was transformed into a slave of Hades as the others were, but his words and his authority demanded action. Spears flew toward Gala from all directions, and she rolled behind the conical roof of the hut to dodge three of them, even as another grazed her cheek. The moment she dropped off the thatch, readying herself for a sprint to the cover of the jungle, the wall of Kiloc’s hut burst asunder and a huge warrior from within – his yellow eyes and swollen tongue testifying to his un-death – snatched the jungle princess in a crushing bear-hug. There was an instant of pain, but then she slithered her lithe form free and sent the zombie staggering back with an elbow to his chest.

Precious seconds had been lost, and now warriors living and dead blocked her way to the trees. A bob of the head allowed her to dodge  another spear, but already she was on the move once more. Legs pumping in fluid motion, Gala took her knife between her teeth and dived with arms outstretched for the rushing river. The shouts of Kiloc and the other Skeleton Folk were drowned out by a sudden burst of noise and then utter silence as she found her way along the fast-moving river bottom. The current was strong, adding its speed to her tireless stroke, and she spared not a glance over her shoulder as spears plunged into the waters above her. For an instant she thought she caught the sight of one of the washing women, looking down into the turbulent river with an expression of longing and abandonment.

Silently, Gala vowed: I will not forget you.

CHAPTER FOUR

Still, her face burned with shame and the sting of her flight was far worse than the minor cuts she had suffered in her dash from the Skeleton’s village. Hades had gotten there first but – with a cunning she had not expected – avoided attracting attention, instead infiltrating Kiloc’s hut and making him the first of many zombie slaves. Through Kiloc the un-dead Hades would have found it simple to fool others, quickly turning the witch doctor’s guards into loyal minions. Now that there was no need for secrecy the entire population might be Hades’s thralls.

If there had been a time when a direct challenge could have made the Valley safe again, that time was passed. Gala felt her ignorance keenly: she had no idea what else this strange outlander was capable of, or where he would strike next. His first words upon arriving in the Valley had been of returning home, but she sensed in his latest deeds the white man’s desire for conquest. If a tribe as fierce as the Skeleton Folk could fall so easily, might the rest of the Valley soon follow? Hades had come by accident, but if he could make himself a king of this land, then he would stay. Power could make the humblest hut seem an empire; she had seen it before.

Night had come and with it the predators of the dark jungle. To the tiger and the anaconda, nothing in the Valley was amiss. A pack of wolves huddled round the carcass of a wild pig; Gala crouched on a high tree limb, watching. Somehow, the ritual going on beneath her comforted her. One of the wolves caught her scent, snorted loudly as it looked up. To linger would be to challenge the animals for their prey, so she departed, jumping from her perch like a suddenly released spring, arcing through the air to vanish in a rustle of leaves.

In time, Gala’s course brought her to the center of the Valley, to a rocky clearing on the shore of the Yan. Stones rose up from the river in steps lapped by water, overflowing sometimes to polish the rocky surface to a rippled gleam. The steps led up to a broad, circular stage dominated by a single bell-like dome of natural rock carved out by wind, water, and the ever-present spirits of the Valley. This was Gala’s destination, and she paused in reverence to admire the glow of moonlight as it played over this magical place: the Cave of Whispers.

Without the cover of trees, the constellations shone like spirits down on her from the pitch black sky. The cold water made her bare feet tingle as she crossed the stony banks of the Yan. Her breathing was the only noise. The Cave itself rose more than three times her height, its walls nearly vertical before being capped by the perfect half-sphere of the domed roof. Nowhere else in the Valley was this particular white marble-like rock to be found. Gaps dotted the walls all around its surface, at different elevations and of different sizes. Some were large enough for a man to crawl through, others were too small to admit a blade of grass. But facing the river was an arch taller than Gala herself, a natural entrance, and cautiously she took this way to cross the threshold.

As the wind passed through the openings around the Cave noises were created: sometimes high pitched whistling when the gap was small and the wind quick, sometimes low and haunting when a lazy breeze slid past a larger hole. In a sense, the Cave was a kind of giant flute, a musical instrument blown by nature and creating a strange kind of improvised music. But Gala knew there was more to be heard here than hollow melodies, as stirring as that may be. The floor of the Cave was barren of decoration, austere and yet sublime in its elegant grandeur, and Gala wasted no time before she dropped to her hands and feet to begin prowling mysteriously around the Cave’s circumference.

“... that one, that one is the Basket of Plenty. See the seven stars?”

The voice came fleetingly past her ear, and Gala froze, head cocked, to listen. A boy, across the Valley if the accent of his tribe was any indication. Probably pointing out the stars to the girl who sat beside him. Or perhaps showing off his skills to his friends. She was in the wrong part of the Cave. A different wind would be blowing through the village of the Skeleton  Folk. Motes of persistent moonlight were the only illumination here, and she closed her eyes to better focus on the breathing trickling past her ears.

“... marshlands are taboo; it was foolish of you to go there.”

“Shh. She’s sleeping.”

Gala smiled. She was getting closer, and continued her slow, silent, hunt across the floor of the Cave. She could not explain its properties. Perhaps it was the unusual stone; perhaps its fortuitous location, here in the center of the Valley where the high cliffs could direct their echoes. Certainly the mystical winds which filled the Valley itself were partly to thank. But noises from throughout the Valley were brought here and the clever, patient, hunter could hear them. It was not an easy task; there was no quarry more elusive than the wind itself, and each whisper lingered for only moments. Sometimes she had found a voice that had become trapped by the high ceiling of the dome, or which had lost its way, to circle in the Cave for hours until finally fading like dew in the morning.

“Careful. Careful. Raise the spear higher.”

“... am sorry, Areck. I never meant to hurt you.”

“... then he had the nerve to tell me he had never even considered it!”

As she crept through the Cave, the prowl of jungle cats floated past her ears, the trilling of the jungle insects, the flutter of a night bird. To anyone else these sounds may have seemed only a trick of the wind, a distorted echo of the Yan on the stony porch beyond. She knew better, but she had yet to hear the voices she most sought. Horatio Hades would be prying secrets from Kiloc, his slave, even now. Perhaps he was even discussing his next move, his next target. That was knowledge Gala would very much like to have. If she could find out what tribe, what village, was next marked for death she could warn them, marshal defenses, set spies and traps. It would be war in the Valley of the Winds.

“Of course she believed me. I’m her husband.”

“For the bite of this serpent there is no cure.”

“Between our two tribes there will now be peace.”

“It’s perfectly safe. I’ll show you.”

“... a little red beetle and it will be perfect.”

“... hope she’s okay, Doc.”

Again, Gala froze. That had been Jack’s voice. She was desperate to know how her nephew fared, and Catherine too. Careful not to move a muscle, she strained to hear more.

“I’m sure she’s fine, Jack. But you’ve been spending too much time with our American cousins. Their colloquialisms don’t flatter you.”

Kate’s voice was strong. Gala breathed a measured sigh of relief. The Skeleton Folk would know nothing of Dr. Wright and Jack Windsor, so there was no reason to think they would be in any danger. Both, she knew, would gladly risk their lives to help her, but too much was unknown. For just an instant, she imaged the hand of Hades around Catherine’s throat, and Gala’s chest tightened. No, she would not let that happen. There had to be another way.

She continued to hunt; cool breezes tickled the skin of her forearms and she followed them,  turning about on her hands and feet. Smoke from a campfire far away blew into the Cave and her nostrils flared.

“Great One, I have a plan.”

With a flash, her blue eyes opened. That was her voice,  and no lingering echo from hours past. Sometimes, sometimes she had imagined she heard words which had not yet been spoken, which might never be spoken. To these illusions she ascribed the power of the sacred winds that blew through the Valley always. Such spirits spoke to her, but never directly, never when asked.

Though she still had not found Horatio, Gala scrambled in pursuit of this latest sound. Was it guidance from the spirits of the Valley, or a herald of times to come? She almost cried out in frustration as she sought the source of this tantalizing whisper, but she bit this impulse back. To speak in the Cave would shatter its echoes for hours. That was time she could not afford to waste.

She found the messenger again, a hot, dry, zephyr from the west. The wind sizzled by her; she nearly flinched from the heat. But triumph sang in her; she had tracked her prey, and she moistened dry lips in anticipation.

Suddenly, the Cave went silent.

Gala did not believe her own senses, at first. She looked around; all was still. There were no voices on the air, not even any breeze to carry them. Cautiously, she rose to stand. She felt the tiny gradations in the stone as she walked warily to the center of the Cave of Whispers.

All was still.

All was still. The winds were gone!

Two strides brought Gala to the entrance of the Cave, and she could hear the Yan rushing by only yards away. The night song of insects continued in the jungle beyond. She could hear her own panicked breathing. But no wind blew, no leaves rustled, the branches of the trees stood motionless in the crystal clear moonlit air.

What had happened?

CHAPTER FIVE

At first, her steps were tentative as she left the Cave of Whispers and approached the shore of the river Yan. But resolve gathered quickly in her, as was her wont, for the jungle had made her a woman swift both in limb and in determination.  With an expression grimly set she took to the waters of the Yan, which here flowed wide and slow but soon gathered in momentum. Arms churning, she navigated the white rapids avoiding stone and undertow until the river’s speed increased to a torrent. Bracing herself and filling her lungs with air, she rode the waters as the Yan hurtled her off the Sen-Sen cliffs, diving into the deep waters of Spirit Walk Lake.

In the dead of night the lake was desperately cold, but Gala’s mind was focused on her goal. Within moments she had reached the shore of the lake and solid ground, whereupon she took once more to the trees. Once she felt the luminous eyes of a lemur upon her as she lept, ran and caught the vine of an ancient creeper where it draped from an overarching bough, but to all other creatures she was a mere shadow, a whispered echo of the wind which had been pervasive throughout the Valley until now.

The moon was high and bright when Gala dropped from the trees into a silent crouch on the jungle floor. Two towering columns carved from stone stood before her, each bearing a dozen grotesque and frightful faces stacked one atop the other to the sky. Combining features of man and beast, many even had the hypnotic eyes of spiders and other vermin which prowled the trees, while some of the heads boasted feathered wings or wreathes of gem-encrusted fire that showed them as the supernatural guardians they were. To walk past these silent sentinels was to enter a holy place: the Shrine of the Winds.

Gala had reached the edge of the Valley, and the high cliffs which formed its ultimate protection from the encroaching outside world rose with unassailable majesty just a stone’s throw from where she now stood. She came here seldom, and never without cause, though the Shrine and its sacred purpose was never far from her thoughts. It took only a casual glance for her trained eye to distinguish the traffic of many others, however: dozens of footprints had trod the path between the stone guardians and entered the area of the Shrine. One of them, she noted with narrow eyes and a rising fire in her blood, wore the shoes of a European. A faint scent of smoke was detectable on the air, and burnt meat, but nothing could be seen to be aflame.

As the guardian of the Valley, Gala had every right to be here, and when she slid warily between the stone columns  and towards the Shrine her caution was that of a stalker hunting prey, not that of a trespasser fearful of alarm. The first body was six paces on; the corpse of a Skeleton warrior was torn open by the fierce broad claws of a wolf and his bowels lay spilled across the jungle floor like an uncoiled rope. His face was without expression, however, and the stench of rot was already thick on him. With a shove of her foot, Gala rolled the dead man over to reveal a dozen darts, the poisoned tips of which had become broken off in his back. Any of those darts could have killed a man, but a zombie of Hades had no blood to be poisoned. It had taken brute force to tear the walking corpse into immobile pieces.

Though her senses assured her that she was alone in the Shrine, Gala nonetheless felt urgency, and moved more quickly down the path. There were more bodies: some crushed by great stones that had been cleverly positioned to roll down on trespassers, others at the bottom of deep pits filled with stakes. The zombies were senseless to pain, but they could not walk if their legs were broken. At last Gala could see the tall, broad, stage-like shrine where it was carved into the rock of the cliff. Though she had looked many times upon the weatherworn stone that formed a natural altar for the shrine, and had often recited the prayers carved and painted in arcane petroglyphs upon the walls, without the winds that were ever-present here the place seemed strange, foreign. There were bodies everywhere: the zombie thralls of Hades lay in parts and pieces across the stone dais and sprawled upon the steps that surrounded the stage in a rough semicircle.

But it was not this which caused Gala’s face to turn cold, and a tightness to encircle her heart. Four of the great white wolves which dwelt in this corner of the Valley, and which had long defended it from trespassers while welcoming those who came with reverence, lay dead. Spears had been plunged into their powerful, ghostly, forms and as she approached Gala recognized each of them by signs invisible to mortal man. “Zwabe, Korkan, Shesha,” she said, naming them each in turn. Mournfully she knelt beside the largest. His claws and muzzle were black with the foul ichor that filled the veins of Hades’s minions. “Heltum,” she whispered. A blackened mark in the shape of a handprint stained the side of the proud male wolf, but it was the thrust of many spears and the wicked cut of a machete which had taken his life. “The cursed touch of Hades could not turn your spirit,” Gala knew. “Your sacred duty to protect this place would not allow it. Run with the wind forever, my friend.”

The prayer seemed hollow, ringing false in Gala’s ears even as she said it. Heavy-hearted, she rose to inspect the rest of the site. The inscriptions along the back wall of the shrine had been defaced, with new words and symbols she could not recognize written atop them. Her nose wrinkled as she recognized a scent, however: the markings had been made in human blood. Heltum’s mate, Shesha, had been positioned atop the stone altar and cut open with a knife. The she-wolf was missing some of her internal organs and it was then that Gala understood the smell of cooked flesh on the air.

Hades had worked black magic here. With evil words and the help of whatever foul spirits animated his inhuman frame, he had weakened the shrine enough to capture the winds for his own purpose. Again Gala was struck at the fiendish ingenuity of the zombie master; she knew nothing about him save a name, and yet he seemed to know all about her. Indeed, he had spoken to her in Kiloc’s hut with a voice of familiarity, as one old enemy to another. Yet she had never laid eyes on him before this day!  And now, now he had struck at her holiest place, stolen the very thing she was most sworn to protect! Who was Horatio Hades? From what black pit had he come? There was only one way to know.

With a grim expression, Gala began the long night’s labor. One at a time each of the white fur-covered corpses was heaved atop her broad shoulders and carried downwind out of the shrine, there to be laid for the scavengers that were already gathering. A few supplies had been stowed away in the shrine for occasional travelers and from this cache Gala brought forth a skin for water and some rags. With sand from the lakeshore she began to scour the desecrated shrine, spending hours scrubbing dried blood from the smooth stone. The moon set long before her work was done; she continued in darkness with an owl as her only company.

By the time dawn came, the first glow of light through the trees revealed a scene not of black magic but rather a quiet kind of peace. Washed free of stain, the Shrine of the Winds was sublimely beautiful but strangely silent; never before had the breezes failed to blow here. The first part of Gala’s work was done; the next would tax her patience less and her will more.

Using a simple wooden platter, she gathered the soft blue mud that was found only along the shore of Spirit Walk Lake. While it soaked in a mixture of water, ash, and silver dust ground from an exposed vein near the Shrine, Gala hunted through the high trees. She found what she sought while the sun was still climbing: a small frog, brilliant orange in color, its bulbous eyes comically large. As she descended from the trees, she found the other ingredients she would need: flowers, roots, and a dozen of the fat wasps that buzzed and flew round the overripe fruit at the base of the trunks.

These insects she crushed and mixed into a bowl with a portion of pungent wine brought as tribute long ago from a village on the other side of the Valley. The herbs she had gathered  were diced with her father’s Bowie knife and added to the mixture. Finally, with extreme care and a finger-sized scraper made from a shaft of bamboo sliced in half, she gathered the toxic poison from the back of her captured frog and, when she was done, released him to make the long slow journey back up to the sunlit branches of his home.

The sun was high in the sky by the time she finished her preparations. The clay from the lake side had congealed with its powdered mixture into a blue jelly-like substance which, as she knelt in the center of the hemispherical stage-like platform of the Shrine, Gala spread upon her limbs and torso with two fingers. The four cardinal winds were marked with sigils upon her arms and legs, while the many secret breezes and fierce storms which had made the Valley their home were also represented here, there, with symbols large and small. Eventually her body was covered with the runes and, eyes closed, she made the last few pictograms upon her face, marking her brow, her cheeks, and the slope of her neck.

Taking the bowl that contained the other contents of her preparation in one hand, Gala allowed herself a silent prayer for good fortune. The spirits she would invoke were no longer present; their voices could no longer be heard. Would her own invocation reach them in whatever prison Hades had fashioned for them? And, if heard, could they answer Gala, even if they wished?

Pushing back her doubts, she tossed the bowl’s contents back in a quick swallow, tasting the sharp bitterness in the back of her throat, and a growing numbness.

Nothing happened. She waited. Slowly the sun’s constant rays became oppressive, turning the brightly washed stone of the Shrine into a primitive oven. Indeed, the sun seemed to stop in its tracks, crouching at the zenith like a vulture, gazing expectantly down upon its baking prey. Gala’s joints ached from hours spent in a single position. Light headed, she realized she no longer knew how much time had passed. She could no longer feel the stone beneath her; a trickle of sweat crawled with deliberate slowness down her nose and she felt it, measured its pace, for what seemed like hours.

A fire roared before her, though she could not remember lighting it. Outside the circle of flame, night had reclaimed the jungle. Eyes, paired in predatory glances, shone back at her from cover giving a green, yellow and bluish light. Through the trees, she saw the massive white shape of Heltum, hunting for food. She knew that was wrong, somehow; before she could speak to him, the great wolf was gone.

On the opposite side of the fire, a figure emerged from the darkness. She had Gala’s own face and hair and a frame that was unmistakably Gala’s own, though perhaps less catlike in its movements. Her legs and feet were bare, and her only garment was an overlarge jersey of the sort worn by sportsmen. The word “Cubs” was written in florid script over one breast.

Gala had met her spirit twin years before and managed to croak a greeting with her parched throat. “Gail, of the Windy City.”

The other blonde looked confused, peering from the fire to the dark jungle that surrounded her, then back to where Gala sat limbs crossed before her. “Hey. It’s Gala, right? I remember you from that InfiniVerse case. What’s going on? Is this a dream?”

“I have sent my breath into the place between worlds, and found you. But to you, this may seem a dream. The spirits of the Valley are weakened, and my powers with them. Sit.” And with one hand the guardian of the Valley gestured downward. Gail lowered herself down, nervousness giving way to curiosity.

“What’s this all about? Last I saw, you and Breezy the Wind Wabbit were going back for the Duchess of Windsor and Gulietta, White Queen of the North. You ask me, you shoulda let those bitches burn in hell. Makes me embarrassed to be me sometimes.”

“Gail, there is not much time.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

“A man has come to the Valley. He is a walking corpse, dressed as a European. He had ...”

But Gail interrupted, leaning forward towards the fire till it lit her face in a ghastly manner. “Hades!”

There was a nod from her counterpart. “Yes. You know him.”

“Know him? He killed me once! I was one of his zombie slaves and tried to murder my friends. He trashed my house!” From the sound of it, this last crime appeared to be the most severe. “He’s here?”

“With a machine. Some kind of motorbike.”

“No shit. Look, look, this is what happened.” Spreading her hands, Gail told the tale. “My friends and I, we tracked Hades and his gang to a place in New Mexico, America, where a tribe of people used to live before they mysteriously vanished. There’s a lot of magic in that place, I guess. So Hades was using that magic and some relics he stole to increase his own powers. We sent his pals packing, but at the last minute he took the motorcycle from one of’em and escaped.”

“Then this is where he came.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Gail protested, in a voice of confusion more than argument. “The Beelzebike, it can only go to Hell and back. It’s never gone to another world before.”

“But you said it does not belong to Hades. Has he ever tried to ride it before?”

Gail blinked, her face neutral. “Huh. No. No, not to my knowledge. He must have ... misfired it somehow. Or maybe the magic of the desert interfered with his escape, I don’t know. We’ve always half suspected the bike was alive. It may have just not liked the way Hades looked.”

Now it was Gala who leaned forward and her voice turned predatory. “I need to know only this: how to destroy him.”

It was a moment before Gail answered, and it was accompanied by a spreading of hands. “Gala, I don’t think you can. I mean, he’s taken some of the worst punishment I’ve ever seen. I dropped a dozen ten ton boulders on him, for chrissakes. See, what happened was, he was just another guy on death row, being executed for murder, but the nerve gas transformed him instead.”

“I have seen this poison gas,” Gala spat in disgust. “In the trenches of the Great War. It is a bane on all mankind.”

“Yeah, well, this stuff makes mustard gas look like New Car Smell, okay? Has he started to touch people yet?”

Gala’s nod was tight. “An entire tribe he has made his own already. Now he has stolen the Sacred Winds. He did this to goad me, I can feel it. I can sense his mind working against me.”

“It’s me,” Gail admitted, almost proudly. “He’s been after me for a while now. He sees you, recognizes you, and figures if he can nail you, he’s nailed me somehow.”

“And yet you can give me no weapon with which to defeat him.” Gala did not bother to hide the skepticism in her tone. She had hoped for so much more.

“I’ll get the Patrol, we’ll come and kick his ass. That’s all there is to it. The guys at the Pound can make sure the rest of the Six don’t break free to rescue him, and this’ll be over by morning.”

But Gala’s eyes narrowed as she continued to turn the facts she had been given over and over in her mind. “Do this thing,” she replied, though her voice had little conviction in it.

“I will.”

The sharpness in Gail’s voice brought Gala back to the present, and she stood, the pain in her limbs vanishing. “Try. But I hold little hope for your success. Without the Sacred Winds to go between worlds, your home and mine grow ever farther apart. Indeed, even now you see me only in a dream. When you awaken, will you even remember we have spoken? And if you come, how much time will have passed? May all the Valley not be willing slaves of the Zombie Master?” Reaching out with both hands, she spread her fingers before the roaring fire and felt the heat on her open palms. “Hades has challenged me and I must meet that challenge. It is the way of this place. I will hope for your coming, but I cannot wait for it. Farewell, Gail of the Windy City.”

The detective had also risen, and she reached out with one hand as if to embrace Gala. “Good luck,” she said.

But by the time her hand touched Gala’s, there was only a breeze where the stranger had been.