Back to the Index



Added 2 Nov

Okay, I knew better. I admit that. You never, ever go out in a thunderstorm. Or, more accurately, there is seldom a good reason to walk over a thunderstorm during peacetime.

And I saw the signs. The grass wavering, the mountains hanging low, the trees dangling. But my sheep had gotten loose. The work gang had rounded up most of them, but Thudd, the ram, was still out there, somewhere.

I could have afforded to replace him, but that would involve admitting to my liege that I'd lost the ram. That would cost me a lot, in the long run. So I was out there, beating the bushes and rattling the caves. There was no sign of any trolls in the area, so I split up my forces. Hefting my sword, I took off alone.

I'd taken the northern fields for my own search. Jettup and the boys had a harder time in those fields, the grass was as tall as they were. It was only up to my waist, so I strode across it more quickly, scanning for Thudd. The quickness was my undoing.

I never saw the cloudwater. One second I was walking, then I was falling. The grasses became mists around me, then there was lightning and I was clawing uselessly at the air. I figure it must have been a relatively low storm cloud, on the Earth side, because I survived.

The splash into the ocean must have been quite the sight. I barely noticed when I went from airborne to waterborne until I took in a breath for another scream. When the raindrops became saltwater, I had a clue.

Back on the surface, the waves were impressive, even for Earth weather. Even after I dropped my shield and most of my weaponry, I had a hard time staying clear of the water, but I managed it, for the hours of the night.

When the sun came up, it outlined an island, and I swam for it. Not much of an inventory: palm trees, a volcano, palm trees, a few wild pigs, palm trees and a lagoon fed by a freshwater brook. No people.

That was fine by me. I had food, water, and a place to stay until another fluke cloud provided a way home. That might take six or seven hundred years, but I was patient.

So I set up a home. A big lava tube at the base of the mountain provided shelter. I started collecting the boars and tending them to build up the livestock.

Most of my food was from fishing, though. The tropics of my new home were a lot more forgiving than the wintered forest I'd left behind, so I cannibalized my cold-cloak and made a fishing net. I rocked up the lagoon outlet and made it a sort of fish-farm, to keep most of what I netted.

And my chainmail was easily turned into a cooking bag. I'd fill it, hang it over the lava for a while, then eat it, maybe with a palm tree for roughage.

A couple of years went by that way. I tell you, I was going a little crazy. Even for cloud giants, it's possible to get too isolated.

One storm, though, everything changed. I'd taken to spending storms on a cliff on the eastern edge of the island. The wind tended to blow storms into the cliff there, I had a hope that some day a low cloud would turn out to be a portal home that swooped down to within reach.

That day, I noticed a tiny ship being tossed on the waves when the weather got rough. It was my first glimpse of the locals. There was no sail, but the ship was moving under power. Two figures in yellow fought the controls on the top. Despite their brave efforts, though, it was clear that they were being driven towards the rocks below me. The ship was going to be lost.

I eased over the cliff and slid down to the water. No one on board seemed to notice me as I waded out. I tried, but I wasn't fast enough. They managed to dodge past a couple of the big rocks, but finally smashed against one.

One of the yellow draped figures was thrown clear, the other dropped to the deck. I scooped up the cast away and put the little figure in my tunic pocket. Screams were sounding from the boat as I made it up to the side. A hole about the size of my palm was in the side, rapidly sinking out of sight.

I wrestled it up out of the water and carried it past the rocks. It was actually easier to go farther out to see and around than step around those things. A few heads poked up to see what was going on, but human eyesight in the dark is pretty poor. They groped their way to the fallen crewman and dragged the body below.

I set the boat down on the edge of the jungle, well above the water line. I didn't think they'd handle meeting me well, on top of the storm, the sinking and any other trauma, so I left them alone for now. The lagoon wasn't far, so they'd have fresh water and fruit while they were waiting.

I headed back to the cave. Once inside and far enough in to ignore the weather, I heard groaning.

The little sailor in my pocket was waking up. I'd forgotten all about that rescue. I eased a hand in and scooped up the moaning creature. Laid out on the bit of stone I'd smoothed flat for a table, it looked tiny and pitiful. As senses started to return, it stripped off the outer layers of clothing and I realized it was a woman.

She was dark, much darker than any of the people that came to the Clouds in First or Second Migration. I wondered if she was a Moor the Elder Second's referred to.

I hadn't made any efforts to produce light inside the cave. With my night-vision, I seldom needed it. She was lost in the dark, with the rare lightning strike showing the location of the doorway.

"Hello?" she called.

"Oh, good. You speak a language I know," I said. She turned to look up towards my face. Or, towards my voice, really.

"Who's there?"

"Grappan," I said. "This is my island. I rescued you. Who are you?"

"The others! My ship, our passengers, you have to-"

"It's okay," I assured her. "They're all safe. Who are you?"

"Um, Vanessa. Where's the ship?" She was looking around, trying to see me, or anything around her.

"Down by the beach. I'll take you back if you want." Vanessa tried to stand, then sat back down, holding her head in her hands. "Are you okay?"

"Just a headache," she said. "I think I hit my head. Oh, Shane's gonna be pissed."

"Who is Shane?" I looked around for anything that might be useful in getting my little guest a drink of water. She'd do better to swim in the mug I'd carved out of the basalt.

"My partner. We bought the boat for our retirement. We mustered out of the Navy, and just wanted to take tourists out fishing or for tours."

"And you ended up here." I wasn't finding anything.

"Yeah, wherever here is?" I couldn't answer her question, not with any details she'd find meaningful, so I ignored it. I wasn't finding anything like a cup, either.

"I'm going to take you back to the ship, Vanessa. Maybe they can help you with your headwound." She stood again, very slowly. A hand stretched out, waiting for me to take it.

"Okay. Do you have a light? I can't see anything down here. I don't wanna trip over anything and break my skull. Break it more, anyway."

"Not really. But don't worry, I can see fine. I'll just put you in my pocket and carry you." Before she could ask a question, I scooped her up again and put her back in the tunic.

She gave a brief squeak of surprise, and wriggled for a bit, but settled down as I walked back to the beach. Once there, I placed her next to the hull, on the lee side of the wind.

A finger tap on the ship drew their attention. Two figures appeared with some lights that shone through the rain. They didn't even flicker in the wind. I was impressed. I stood back as they swept the area around my tapping. They found Vanessa and quickly carried her inside. I watched for a bit, making sure the waves didn't reach.

The storm broke up before dawn. I retreated to my cave for a day's sleep. I woke about sunset and made my way back to the boat to see how they were doing. It was full night by the time I arrived.

They had a fire going near the grounded vessel. Seven figures huddled near the light. Facing the flames, none could see to far into the darkness around them.

Vanessa was sitting on a box of some sort. I was pleased to see her head wrapped in bandages. Not that I was happy she was hurt, but that she'd gotten some sort of medical attention. There was also gauze on the face of the brunette sitting beside her on the footlocker thing. No one else was patched up, so I assumed this was the other crewman. Crewwoman?

Three women shared a piece of driftwood, all with clothes much less utilitarian than the crew's. Something in or on the fabric glittered in the firelight. In a row, they were a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Red was much younger than the other two, but they were all lookers. The brunette was talking.

"Well, this is simply unacceptable. You promised that you'd return us to the port in time to catch our flight. You owe it to us to get us to a plane."

"Shut up, Alexis," the blonde beside her said. But she draped an arm over the other's shoulders. "They couldn't avoid the storm."

"Or the uncharted desert island," the woman that I figured was Shane added.

"Well, don't you have insurance?" Alexis went on. "Krystle, shouldn't they have insurance against such things?" she asked her partner.

"That only works if we get home to claim money for our losses," Krystle answered. "Until then, the money is pretty useless."

"Money is never useless," Alexis insisted. I thought of the four gold coins in my purse. Not many places to spend it here, though each one probably weighed half as much as Alexis. I thought about tossing one into the center of the fire, but waited.

Another redhead was sitting alone in the sand. She changed the topic. "Well, there aren't really any uncharted islands, not anymore. Someone, somewhere, has a picture of this place from a satellite. The question is, how often do they photograph it, and how often do they check it."

I didn't quite know what a satellite was, or a photograph. I did know that I'd been here for years and these women seemed never to have heard of me. Certainly, no one else had shown up asking where I came from.

The brunette closest to me finally spoke. She was on an overturned bucket, fiddling with something in her lap. "Well, if Vanessa is right, someone does know we're here."

"Oh, shut up," Vanessa growled.

"No, no," the glittery redhead piped up. "Mary Ann's right. If you can find your giant again, he could carry us all home in his pocket."

"Oh, not that again," Alexis muttered. "Ginger, she has head trauma. She imagined it."

"Then why didn't we find her footsteps in the sand?" Shane asked.

"Why didn't we find giant footsteps in the sand?" Mary Ann countered.

"Because of the storm, darling," Alexis answered. "No one's footprints were in the sand, or even the line of the boat crossing the beach."

"Hush!" the lone redhead hissed, standing and looking across the fire towards the jungle. Towards me. What had I done?

"What do you hear, Dana?" Shane asked.

"I don't hear anything?" Mary Ann asked, turning around. She made it a question.

"That's just it," Dana replied. "No birds, no insects, no frogs, none of the sounds the jungle was making a while back. Something made everything quiet." Oops. They were starting to get up and fan out. Before they got far enough away from the fire to start getting night vision back, I tiptoed away.

I don't really know why I didn't just plop down on the beach. I guess I was so terribly bored, I found the status interesting. Leaving them to set up their camp alone, I could watch, from afar. It was better than hosting troubadours in the Keep.

Back at my own cave, I quickly dug a moat around my personal area. I channeled water from a hot spring on the side of my volcano through some steam vents to fill it. Some quick walls blocked off any chance of them seeing the camp or the cave entrance without some serious work.

I sorted through my livestock and let loose my smallest male boars. I hoped the women could handle them as far as threats went. I didn't know if they had any food reserves aboard, they might need them. But they sure couldn't handle the bigger tuskers. Not until they had shelter.

The next couple of months were fascinating, if hungry times. I couldn't spend as much time fishing, or use the lagoon, so I could only eat what I caught that night.

The women set up a small camp at the mouth of the brook, where it met the lagoon. They'd stayed on the beach for a couple of nights, until they'd apparently felt that the hull was beyond their abilities.

Three cabins were erected for their immediate shelter. It took me more than a few nights to figure out who was sleeping where. One cabin seemed to be for the crew, Shane and Vanessa. One was for the older pair, Alexis and Krystle. They seemed to have had a relationship before they were shipwrecked. And the other three, Mary Ann, Ginger and Dana, slept in the last one.

After a couple of days, they also built a working shed, where they made the tools for fishing, hunting and whatever else they needed. As it got more and more complex, Dana eventually moved into that as her personal space.

The jungle covered my tracks pretty well, as long as I avoided the trails they tramped into the place. That was quite an intriguing puzzle, figuring out what they were all for.

They led from the boat to the camp, from the camp to a place upstream that they designated the place to collect water, and to the place on the shore they set up for a latrine. The others were apparently leading to places they collected foods, or materials for building/working.

I spent three nights trying to figure out just what was in an empty field that they built a path to. The grass was beaten flat in a rough circle. Was it religious services? I gave up and went back to the camp.

That night, I saw that Dana had her arm in a sling. She was moving from one of the cabins to her shed when Shane stepped up to apologize.

"I'm really sorry I dislocated your shoulder, Dana."

"Oh, that's alright. I should have checked your position before attacking Vanessa." She shrugged with one shoulder. "That's why we practice."

They were practicing for combat? How practical! I liked these women. Maybe I'd let one of the tusker's loose? I'd smelled the meat of one of the little ones cooking a time or two. Could they handle the scarred bastard I kept alone? I decided to wait until Dana was out of her sling.

But before I could let loose a 'challenge,' the girls found one of their own. One evening, I was easing across the island, alert to any sign that they were out and about. I heard screams. Following them, I found myself uphill from a cave with some excitement.

Seems that I wasn't the only Cloud Giant on the island. Or at least, not the only being that the Cloud World had made into a giant. There was a spider attacking the cave that was as big as my hand. It had to have come from up above.

Some of the women were trapped in the cave, fending the beast off with spears and torches. Some others were outside, trying to drive it away. It was confused, but I didn't think that would last. I eased back into the trees and found a sturdy one.

Ripping it up by the roots, I shook off the dirt and sand and went back. They were poking and prodding the damned thing, but not inflicting any real damage. Vanessa slipped on the sand and fell. Quick as thought, it surged towards her.

Quicker still, I stepped forward and batted the thing out of the clearing and down the mountain. I stepped back, eyes on the spider as it rolled down the shore and into the water. It sank and didn't come back up.

The girls rushed to collect Vanessa, each coming up with a different explanation for what had happened. None came anywhere close. At least, not until Vanessa stopped gasping.

"I saw a shadow," she said. "It blotted out the moon, the stars. And it swung a club, POW! Knocked the spider halfway to Mars." They all laughed at her story, but it was a tension laugh. The way guys laugh after fighting a troll, an efreet, or a nest of kobolds. It's more about being alive than finding actual humor in the situation.

They stayed close together, a tight group, as they made their way back to their camp.


Added 3 Nov

------

At some point, they explored enough to find the boiling moat. I only thought that it would keep them away from me. They moment she saw it, Dana started cheering.

There was a chimney through the side of the volcano that let me watch part of the far shore of the moat. Dana directed the construction of a hot soak.

They dug out a hole in the ground, lined it with clay, and burned a big fire in it. During the night, I found that they'd baked the clay into a fairly solid liner for the soak.

They pumped water up from the moat in bamboo tubes, letting it cool in a big tub they'd cannibalized from the ship. The next day, they'd mix the hot water from the moat with the cooler water from the tub in the soak.

Then as I stood in my cave and watched, seven women stripped naked and spent an hour or two in the soak. It was far more interesting than fishing, I have to say.

At the end of their bathing, they took turns pumping more water up into the cooling tub. The same pump moved water out of the soak, letting it run downhill back to the moat. I was quite proud of Dana's ingenuity, almost as if I'd picked her for the island colony myself.

I realized I was seeing the women as my pets. Well, that seemed a lot more fun than grinding their bones for bread. I wondered how they'd take to the idea. Especially if those were the two choices.

One day, the person with pump duty was Vanessa. One or two at a time, women had been climbing out and dressing, wandering off down the trail to the camp. Vanessa was stretching out her soak, putting off the physical effort as long as possible. The sun was getting lower, though, and she wouldn't want to be doing it after dark.

When she was alone, I stepped out of the cave. I kept low to the ground and moved all the way around the volcano to come back through the jungle. Just as she was stepping out of the water, I sat down on the bank beside her.

"Hey, you okay?"

"EEP!" She jumped and tried to cover herself. I ignored the flashes of skin, having spent the last hour staring at them anyway, and handed over her clothes, pinched between finger and thumb.

"I was worried about you," I said. "I was glad when the bandages came off."

"Thanks," she said softly, taking the clothes, but glancing towards the path back to camp. No one was coming back up it, though. The evening meal was due, they'd be concentrating on that.

I reached over her head and put the pipes and hoses where they needed to be, then extended one finger to run the pump handle round and round.

"I was also worried about the fight with the spider. No one got hurt, did they?"

"No... Thanks to you," she said. She dressed and stared up at me.

"Eh, least I could do. Thing came from home." The pump started to slurp as the soak emptied. I stopped and pulled the hoses out.

"Where's home?" she asked.

"Up in the sky," I said, pointing up. "I'm a Cloud Giant. So was the spider, technically."

"What are you doing here?" She drifted a bit away from me, but was still within my arms' reach.

"I fell down," I admitted, "and I can't get up." She laughed. I don't know what was so funny about that, but she fell to the ground, convulsing. I reached down to deliver a pat on the head, then stood.

"Wait!" she cried. "Where are you going?"

"Around," I said.

"But the others, they've never seen you, they don't believe you're real!" I knew that. I'd decided to make it a game.

"Well, tell them to keep looking up," I said with a shrug and walked off.

----

Half an hour or so later, I was crouched at the edge of the trees, listening to the conversation at their communal dinner.

"You fell asleep in the tub and dreamed it," Alexis was saying.

"You're lucky you didn't drown," Ginger added.

"No! No, it was real. I can prove it!" Vanessa insisted.

"A giant man handed you your clothes," Dana counted on her fingers, "ran the pump for you, told you the tag line from a medical alert bracelet commercial, asked if you were okay, and walked off into the sunset." She shook her head. "Nothing there that you either couldn't have done yourself, or made up. Nothing proves your giant."

"You think I'm crazy?" Vanessa asked. "Or just too stupid to tell the difference between dreams and reality?"

Dana shrugged. "Doesn't matter. The question is: do we have a reason to accept that your giant is real? Answer: No. But if you find real proof, let us know."

"What about the giant spider?" Shane asked. "That was real."

"A new species, one I didn't get any real chance to study, before it escaped," Dana dismissed it. "Probably hopping away in the confusion. Found a new cave and is staying well away from us."

"Doesn't a giant spider," Krystle said slowly, "violate thermodynamics? Or something like that? I thought I read that somewhere."

"Inverse square law,'" Dana identified the thought. She shrugged. "Laws are man-made. We make them to describe life as we know it and the world we see. If we never saw a species that violated it, we'd never have a reason to question it. But science gets overhauled by new evidence on a regular basis. If we could find the spider, maybe the Inverse Square Law has to be rewritten. Or expanded. Or there will be a known exception to it that will have to be explained later on."

"Well," Mary Ann announced, "whatever the truth, it's time for the coconut crème pie. And your giant is welcome to a slice, Vanessa. But only a slice." I didn't quite make out Vanessa's reply.

---------



Added 4 Nov

------

About a week later, they set a trap for me. They all came to the soak again, but a few of them were leery about getting naked. They'd unclothe at the edge of the water and jump in quick. Some made a point of undressing at the bench and walking over, sure that no giant was watching.

At the end of the soak, way before the usual length, Vanessa was stuck with pump duty again. What, they thought I couldn't keep track? It wasn't her turn, yet. It was a trap. I figured Vanessa was trying to prove I was real while the others were trying to prove to her that I wasn't.

So there she is, pumping away, while the others make a lot of noise about going back to the camp and leaving her alone. Some of them were better than others at hiding in the bushes. Krystle's hair shone brightly through the trees. I stayed put.

The next day, about the time they were taking their baths, I stole around the beach to the lagoon. Once there, I built up a little fire out of their stacked driftwood and set up one of my boars on a rod over it. I'd pre-cooked it most of the way in my volcano, now they just had to finish turning it before dinner.

The breezes were going the usual direction, from camp to the moat. Then I crouched low and snuck up to the trail coming back from the soak. Soon enough, the millionaire twins were sniffing their way back to the food, followed by Ginger and Mary Ann. I stayed real still in the bushes while they exclaimed about the boar.

The shouts eventually drew Shane and Dana back down, too. That left my friend alone at the soak. I disentangled myself and came back to the moat. She was pumping away at a very dry soak, with water overflowing the cooling tub. I sat down slowly beside her.

"Is this a joke?" she asked. "You only show up when I'm alone?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "I get bored easily. This seemed more amusing than my family's usual habit." I reached down and stopped the pump with a finger tip. She staggered away from the piping and glared up at me.

"And what would that be?"

"Grinding up your bones for bread." To my surprise, she broke out laughing again.

"Well, I know what story my subconscious got THAT from, anyway," she said. "I loved Jack and the Beanstalk."

"You guys tell 'Jack the Goose Thief' stories, too?" I was amazed. "I wouldn't have thought Jack would have admitted to what he did." She smiled.

"I guess it would be a different story from the Giant's side," she said. Just then a voice called through the gathering darkness.

"Vanessa! Come see what your giant left in the camp!" In an instant, I was up and across my wall, out of sight.

"Can't be my giant," she replied. "He doesn't do anything _I_ couldn't do and I was here the whole time." There was a little laugh in her voice, though.

------

A couple of nights later, I crawled up the beach from the lagoon to the workshed. Dana had made one side into a door, so any size projects could be removed. On warm nights, she left it open. Tonight, I reached in, picked up the entire cot she slept on, with her upon it.

Carefully and gently, I wrapped her up in my scarf. The thick material cushioned her against shock and the insulation kept her warm and sleepy. I carried the bundle up to the head of the cliff. Below, the full moon shone on the rocks dotting the surf. Even human eyes would be able to see that much. I unwrapped her and lifted her from the bedding.

She woke in my hand, wearing nothing but a t-shirt. I was stroking her back and thighs when she came to.

"Hey!" She slapped away my fingertips. "What are...who the hell are you?"

"Grappan."

"Oh, great," she muttered. "Vanessa's got me dreaming of her giant." She stood in my hand and looked around. "That's where we hit a rock, right?"

"Yes. And there was another storm." With my uninhabited hand, I pointed East. "Way across the ocean, a violent one."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"I'm a Cloud Giant. We know storms."

"Yeah, yeah," she shrugged. "I fought a Storm Giant in a D&D game once."

"I was unaware that any of the Storm Giants lived," I said softly. This could be bad.

"Game," she repeated. "Anyway.... Why am I dreaming of distant storms?"

"Jetsam," I said. Pointing to the rocks I showed her where blocks of some sort of shipping crates were lodged in the stones. "Something may be of use or interest to you."

"Huh," she nodded. "Could be useful to check it out when I wake up. I guess my subconscious thought it up?"

"Could be," I agreed. Then I poked a finger at the hem of her shirt. "So, is this a good time for a sex dream, until you wake up?"

"NO!" she said, slapping again. I nodded, then wrapped her up in the scarf again. She wiggled all the way back, muffled cries of anger filtering through Marta's knitting. I set her cot up in the usual spot, with her sheet strewn to one side. Then I aimed carefully and unrolled the scarf rapidly.

Dana spun out, dizzy and disoriented, rolling across her cot and onto the floor. By the time she had regained her bearings, the wall was back in place and I was down the beach and away. With any luck, the dizziness would make her think it all a dream.

When they'd finally rigged a float and some safety ropes, they found some interesting things among the rocks. The clothes and tools were favorites, but the most talk was about the coin. I'd slipped one of the gold pieces from my pocket amongst the rocks nearest the gravel beach.

That night, everyone kept asking Vanessa if the face of King Jottensh on the coin matched her giant's. She was ignoring the teasing until Dana blurted: "No, he has a beard."

I crouched in the brush for a while, listening to the skeptical Dana get raked over the coals. Once they found out the treasure hunt was based on a dream, it was almost enough to drive her out of camp.

-------

After that, it seemed that the castaways had an adventure about once a week. A crazy pilot in a float plane came and went; a caged lion washed ashore; experimental weapons were fired at the island; a meteor hit the beach; cannibal islanders showed up; Krystle and Alexis got in a fight by the soak and ended up wrestling, naked, in ahot mud puddle, and there was an outbreak of telepathy.

It was like a dozen crazy bard's epics, all lined up and performing one at a time. I watched as I could, building up more than a few blinds in the jungle where I could spend a day as the drama unfolded. I helped when I had to. The girls thought they drove the cannibals away by making a Tiki statue come to life. I just tossed them into the volcano.

Slowly, though, the individual women came to know I was a real presence on the island.

Krystle was kidnapped by a group of men from a distant island. They'd followed a vision sending them to my island to find 'the white goddess.' I didn't even know about them until I heard Mary Ann ringing the alarm bell in the night. I made it to the camp in time to hear her describing the situation.

I tiptoed away, then ran to the beach and looked around. I barely made out the canoes on the water. A few quick strokes and I was beside them. I reached up and plucked one at a time out of the boats, holding them underwater until they stopped struggling.

I was very possessive about my pets by then. When Krystle was the last person in the last craft, I turned it around and gently towed it back to shore. When I figured it was close enough for her to paddle back, I let go and drifted away. I thought I was so, so sneaky, but as she lifted a paddle, she looked directly at me.

"Thank you, Grappan," she said. Then she turned and aimed for the beach where her friends were gathering.

----

After a tsunami washed over much of the island, reconstruction efforts were extensive. I only had to make sure my blinds still looked like dense vegetation, but the girls had to rebuild, almost from scratch. So it was quite a while before they noticed the mine, an ugly black thing floating in the lagoon.

There was a lot of discussion about the thing, enough to educate me, sort of. It was full of badness, I learned, that would hurt someone if it touched or jarred anything, left over from a war they'd fought.

No one know much about disarming it, but Shane volunteered to tow it back out of the lagoon, where it wouldn't hurt anyone. As they made preparations, I swam out to the sea wall at the mouth of the lagoon.

She rowed her dinghy hard, but between the wind and surf, she wasn't getting past the mouth. As I crouched under the water and watched, the mine bounced in the waves, each time coming closer to the rocks I'd dredged up to block the mouth. Shane was going to get hurt.

At a point when the waves were highest, I grabbed her craft and towed it across the rocks. The mine cleared them, too. On the clear side, I rolled the boat over. Shane swam clear and headed for the beach. I took the mine over to the East side and let it drift into the rocks.

Wow. They had really, really underestimated the badness. Or under-discussed it, maybe. I guess they knew what it would do. I just wanted to get some more of these mines and take them home, to throw at the trolls.

That night, I listened in to see if Shane was alright. I found the group around the fire, facing out wards, singing 'Grappan's a jolly good fellow.' I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but listened for a while.

"Wait!" Scully said at the end of the verse. Everyone quieted and listened. "The birds stopped."

"It's giant silence," Mary Ann said.

"It's your singing, darlings," Alexis replied. "A road show this is most definitely not."

"Blow it out your ass," Shane said. Then, "If that was you in the current, Big Fella, thanks."

"And if it wasn't you," Ginger called out, "then thanks anyway." I snuck away, glad my little women were alright enough to fight.

-----

Alexis discovered a seam of gold in the side of a cliff and determined to mine out every tiny nugget. Others argued that they couldn't spend their resources on such an effort. As it was, all they'd get out of it were shiny stones they couldn't eat, wear or use to make shelter from.

Alexis persevered, usually alone. Sometimes Krystle or Ginger would pitch in, more for Alexis' sake than their own. Shane, Vanessa and Dana made a point of spending their time finding food, lumber or other survival goods. Mary Ann carried water or coconut-ade over, and keeping dinner warm until Alexis couldn't dig any more.

I'm not as good with earth as I am with storms, but even I couldn't mistake the sound of the avalanche as it built up. Countering the scrape of her home-made pick was a screech of stone slipping against stone. I thundered across the island, amazed that she couldn't seem to hear the impending doom.

I slid into the valley with seconds to spare. Not even enough to yank her free, I just covered her body with my hand and held her there as rocks pelted down. I ended up buried up to my shoulder.

She screamed, wriggled and beat on me for a while, then settled down as she used up the available oxygen. One rock at a time, I picked up or kicked away at the pile. Finally, I cleared enough weight to pull her and my hand out. She was limp when I did.

Luckily, Dana and Vanessa showed up about then. I pointed to the unconscious woman and crawled off silently. They ran to her and managed to shake her awake, or so it seemed.

She was awake and back to normal by the time I visited the camp again. Pissed about the lost gold, she at least realized that the effort to dig down to the seam probably wasn't worth it.

Until she could buy the rights, whatever that was.

----



Added 5 Nov

A case of vegetables that were preserved by radiation floated up to the beach one day. It was while I was holed up, nursing at least two hairline fractures to my arm from the avalanche.

I found out that the veggies made the girls telepathic for a while after they ate them. Mary Ann tickled her way into my mind one night.

"Hello?" It was like a voice that was calling on both sides of my ear drum. Very weird effect.

"Who is that?" I asked out loud.

"Oh, help! I'm Mary Ann! I'm a castaway on a desert island! I've been shipwrecked for a year. Can you send help?"

"Where are you?"

"On a desert island!"

"No, I mean, I hear your voice. Where are you standing?"

"Ah! I'm laying in a clearing on the island. I don't have much time. There are these vegetables we found. They're preserved by radiation. Somehow, they make us telepathic. I'm trying to contact you for a rescue."

"Who, exactly, do you think I am?" I got up and worked my way out of the lava tube.

"I'm hoping to contact a pilot or passenger on a jet airliner. The telepathy only works on human beings, so I ate all the vegs in the crate and tried to expand my range."

"Ah. Well, while my grandparents were human, I'm not, not really." I stepped over the moat and looked around. There was a definite sense of direction for the 'voice' I was hearing. I set off.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Vanessa's Cloud Giant, Grappan," I answered. I moved a bit more quickly through the trees.

"Oh. What do you mean, not human any more?"

"My ancestors come from Briton. When they found their way up into the Clouds, they were affected by the magic of the place, that's why I'm 80 feet tall. The second group to show up, they were a long time later. They're up to 40 feet tall, on average." I ranged around, pretty sure I knew which clearing she was in, trying to find it without stepping on her.

"Mary Ann, did you suggest this plan to Dana?"

"Yes. She didn’t like it."

"You're changing the way your BRAIN works, sweetheart. No one should like that." I found her. She was on a sheet, on the grass, in the middle of the field. One panther or wild boar could have done a number on her limp form.

I carefully slid the sheet onto my hand and went for the camp. They were all out looking for her. She was starting to make less and less sense as I got to the warning bell and gave it a rap.

"But the pilots have GPS! They'll mapquest the island ASAP! We'll be home PDQ!"

"Yes, dear," I agreed. I always agree with crazy people, they're easier to handle that way. I heard feet on the path and retreated. I could tell the exact moment Dana shoved a finger down the patient's throat. The echoing 'voice' cut off in mid nonsense.

"The NSA can probably task a satellite to our coordinates and send a carrier. Then they'll-Oh. Oh, my. I think I have to-" And she was gone. I heard that she slept for three days. Dana burned every remaining piece before she woke up.

------

Anyway, after a while, they all sort of agreed that I existed. Some thought I was something like 'santa claws,' an embodiment of a wish fulfillment desire, or something like that. Others insisted that I was real.

But before they all agreed I was factual, something came up. Literally. I woke up that morning, knowing that the world was changed.

In the distance, I felt a storm. A big one. And it was coming right at the island. Actually, as large as the tempest was, it was more accurate to say that the island lay in the swath of ocean that was going to be churned.

I looked around for something I could use. Then I saw my boots. They'd been soaked through the day I came ashore. With the buckles, I hadn't been able to take them off while I tread water, but they came off about the time I found the cave. I'd been barefoot for ten years.

From time to time, I did have a use for a fire, so I'd been in the habit of keeping chips of wood in them. And a few other plants as aromatics, to keep the smoke pleasing when I tried to dry the damp out of the cave.

I dumped them out and sniffed. It did not smell like giant foot sweat. It didn't smell all that great, but it'd have to do.

I went out and collected my girls. The only two in camp were Alexis and Krystle. The lovers were clearly in their cabin, and the moans/groans had driven the others off. Their privacy came to an abrupt end when I ripped their roof off. Alexis screamed, rolled off of the bed and crawled under it. Krystle grabbed the bedsheet and covered herself.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"There's a flood coming this way," I said, casually placing my kneed against the door so they couldn't get out. "Grab some clothes, I'll take you to safety." In the end, Krystle got two sets of clothes and stepped into my hand. Alexis had to be pried out from her hiding spot and lowered down into the boot headfirst.

Shane and Vanessa were down at the beach, beside the wreck. The captain was a bit drunk on some scavenged wine, talking up her plans to fix the ship and return to civilization. Vanessa nodded now and then. I thumped down beside them and reached.

Vanessa jumped up at the sound of my knees hitting the sand, but she stood still when she saw it was me. Shane glanced over her shoulder, screamed, and took off running down the beach.

"Damn," I muttered. "We don't have time for this." I grabbed Vanessa and put her in the boot. Then I chased after the other girl. If she'd been sober, I think she'd have had me. As it was, she kept veering away from the trees and bushes, towards the water that slowed her down.

I'd just lowered her into my improvised wallet when I saw Dana. At the breakers that protected the lagoon, she was looking at me. She'd watched me run down my last captive and took off when I looked up.

She ran around the lagoon towards the camp, I just thundered straight across the water and scooped her up in mid-step.

Ginger was waiting for me at the soak. "I just haven't the energy to run and scream," she said. I lifted her gently, gratefully, up and into the boot.

Mary Ann was at the edge of the trees. I just sat down by the moat and placed the boot down. "If there's anyone that doesn't want to be all alone on the island, it'd be you, sweetheart." She nodded and stepped fearfully towards me. I let her come, putting my hand flat on the ground for her to climb onto. Very gently, I secured her, then stepped quickly.

I grabbed the other boot, a whale-skin bladder of water, some squid jerky (which is as vile as it sounds), my scarf and a knife, then climbed up the volcano.

Very near the top, I sat down, stretched my kilt between my thighs, and set the girls in my lap. I cut the scarf into halves.

I was facing west and pointed them towards the dark black smudge on the edge of the horizon. They peered at it, then glanced up to me. Except for Shane, she kept trying to crawl down until I picked her up and just held her.

"That's a storm," I said. "A typhoon that can change the shape of a shoreline. The only thing that can cause such chaos in the sky is a battle back home. A war. A great and terrible fight between my people and the trolls, or the efreet."

"Or kobolds?" Dana asked.

"They're more of a nuisance than a threat. Armies march up above the Clouds."

"Yeah," Vanessa muttered. "And this has what to do with us?"

"The storm is headed this way. It's going to hit the island," I warned them.

"Are we high enough?" Krystle asked.

"Well, darling, we can't go much higher," Alexis pointed out, glancing over my lap at the edge of the volcano's mouth.

"No," I said. "The best we can hope for is that everything's washed off the island, but I can swim long enough to land back here when it's over, with enough vegetation left to rebuild."

They stared up at me for a bit. Shane even stopped squirming.

"That's best?" Mary Ann said softly.

"What's worst?" Dana asked. I took a deep breath.

"The water pressure cracks the volcano and the only thing that prevents us from drowning is being broiled alive by supersaturated steam." I shoved half of the scarf into each of the boots. "This thing was made by the same person who made my wallet. It's reinforced, so you won't be crushed, it's nearly waterproof, so you won't drown, and I can strap it to my harness, so you won't be lost." They stared up at me for a long time.

Ginger spoke first. "Dana, does that sound..." She dwindled off as Dana broke out laughing.

"Sound what? Feasible? Likely? I'm on a giant's lap, and he's going to protect me from a storm that's caused by trolls in a boot the size of a two-room tent. What're the Vegas odds on that?" With a whoop, she collapsed on her side, laughing and crying.

They watched as I put the water skin in one of the boots, folding the top over to seal it and buckling it to my harness. Then it was their turn.

"Wait," Krystle asked, "shouldn't we take food, water?"

"You'll just throw it all up," I said. "Now, get in the boot, nestle down into the scarf, and brace yourselves." I didn't seal the top airtight. Some water would get in, but at least they wouldn't smother. Then I waited.

The storm got closer and closer. Waves washed up, across the lagoon, across the hills, over the trails. I hunkered against the wind and waited some more.

Water piled over the island. I listened to the rocks in the volcano screaming as they shifted under the weight. The clouds were still mist as they washed over me.

Eventually, the waves lapped at the bare rock of the volcano's base. Nothing green showed above the water in the glimpses I had. I was wearing my fingerprints into the rock face, as afraid of the steam flowing out of the volcano's mouth as I was of the storm.

I'd just about given up hope when I felt the first cloud slap me in the face, knocking me back. The inner core of the storm was near. Something about the magic of the Clouds had changed my people enough to make the mist and fog solid. I lunged up from the rock face and started climbing the cloud. Winds tore, waters soaked, and the steam still rose behind me.

It was kind of like climbing a rock wall and kind of like swimming in a current. Fold by fold, I rose above the island. Soon after I was about a head's height up, the volcano gave way. Bursts of smoke and steam rose up behind me, baking me on the side that wasn't being frozen by the storm. It gave me more motivation to climb.

Slipping and whipping around in the air, I rose higher and higher. I tried to cushion the girls in the boot, but mostly I just hung on for all our sakes.

Hours later, I reached the Lattice. Huge green stalks wove a mat above me and in cried in joy. The Beanstalk was the boundary between the worlds. I left the flexible support of the clouds and hung from the solid vegetation. A few handholds along, I found a leaf. Big as a bed, I tested it and found it firm. I lay for my first rest since the volcano blew.

I carefully opened the boots and removed the girls. They were pitiful little things in the dim light. They'd been sick, and worse, during the ride. I took a sip from the water, and used the rest to clean them up as well as I could. They were disoriented and exhausted. No one gave much fight as I stripped off their clothing and washed them down.

The clothes were rolled up in the soiled half of the scarf and put into the boot. The girls I moved to the other boot, wrapped in the clean half. The dozed peacefully as I resealed it.

I'd tried to explain where we were, and about the various scholars theories of the Cloud world and its connection to Earth. Or the everlasting fight about whether the beanstalk formed the boundary, or formed the connection between them.

No one much cared. Well, the hard part was over. I reloaded the boots and looked for a way up. As I expected, there was a weak spot in the Lattice. A dead branch had opened the way between the worlds. The battle above had stirred the storm. Now I just had to dig my way back up, without losing my grip on what was real.

The fall back down would be much worse this time. I'd rather avoid that.

The only question now was, what would I find? I could come out anywhere in my known world. Behind troll lines, next to my mother's loom, inside the king's garden... Well, there were only two ways to find out. And I didn't have an oracle in my pocket.

-----



Added 6 Nov

Three months later, I was in my Keep, taking last minute steps to prepare for the king's visit. I'd come up at the tail of the battle, just in time to save the prince's life.

After throwing me a party in the Capital, he'd sent me home, where my brother had tended the lands until my return.

All but the most loyal family retainers had drifted away over the last decade. Now, when I really needed them to spiffy and straighten, I would be greeting the royal party with what was largely a skeleton staff.

I ran from the gate, where we'd rehearsed the guard on proper greetings, to my room, where my dress tunic waited.

I passed my senior maid, Marta, on the steps. "Are the girls ready?" I asked.

"How should I know?" she replied. "I'm to old to play pet catcher." Ah, great. So, with no time to spare, I ended up in their room. It was just down the hall from my own. Drawers in a cabinet had been outfitted for their individual use, and seven court dresses were laid out on the top. Seven empty dresses. The women were nowhere to be seen.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," I muttered.

Ginger's voice sounded from behind the drapes. "Why? To be groomed for the pet show?" I took a step towards the window.

"No, not a pet show," I said. "To be presented to the king as new citizens." Mary Ann spoke from the book case. I spun around, forgetting that they were really really good at keeping me off balance this way.

"Marta didn't call us citizens," she called. I focused and decided she was on the second shelf up.

"Marta worked for my grandfather," I said, crawling closer. "She's set in her ways. And, she's not in charge here."

"She said we were your favored pets, nothing more," Dana shouted from near the closet. I ignored her, looking for Mary Ann's hiding place.

"And that you'd probably sell us off to hire new workers," Alexis accused from behind me some where. I moved a music box and there was my little farm girl. She crouched in the corner, but didn't fight as I picked her up and stood.

All the girls had grown since we arrived in the Clouds. The magic worked quickly at first. I looked my little friend over, seeing that she was popping out of her earth-clothes.

"Okay, you're too big for this," I said. Even just sitting in my hand, her breathing strained her breasts against the fabric of her halter. I pinched the knot at her cleavage and ripped it off of her. While she covered her breasts, I turned her slightly in my hand. The seams of her shorts were parting under pressure from her expanding hips. One tug finished them off as well.

She wriggled, naked in my grasp as I tossed the rags in the fireplace. Then I set her down by the gowns. She fumed for a second, but turned and started dressing.

"Next," I muttered, dropping to my knees again and moving towards the closet. I knew I was getting close when Ginger started complaining about the heating somewhere behind me. I found Dana in a shoe from some previous occupant.

Her slightly skinnier body wasn't straining the fabric as much as Mary Ann's had, but I figured it was time to mark a passage. She wrestled and fought, but I soon had her stripped as well.

Ginger backed herself into a corner under the dresser. The robe she wore had been gauzy but lengthy on the island, now it was flimsy, and hardly worth the effort to pop off of her. She didn't dress right away, but helped adjust the gowns on the other two. She had a deft hand, I saw. Then it was back to the knees.

Alexis had actually climbed up the drapes, trying for the window sill. But the fabric parted and she wound up tangled and hanging upside down. I pulled her skirt off before freeing her and wondered briefly if Hollywood swear words were going to become popular up here.

Once I had Alexis, Krystle gave up even the pretense of resistance and was soon on the dresser, naked in the light from the window. It was quite a view. Much more compelling than trying to wrest two commandos from the woodwork.

I eased into the chair set in the room for my use and contemplated my wards. Yes, I had considered them pets on the island. But after getting to know them, after being with them, I couldn't see them that way any more. "You know, I was going to wait until after the audience, but I guess I should tell you now."

"Tell us what?" Dana asked.

"You may have noticed that I don't have a lot of staff right now." They laughed at that. I gazed curiously at them until Alexis explained.

"From where we stand, just one of your forty-foot-tall servants is more staff than any of our companies ever had."

"Ah. Well, the fact is, most of what I have around here are very old retainers that have worked for my family for a very long time. Some are ready to retire."

"So," Krystle smiled sweetly, tightening her corset, "can we have some say in the Queen Bitch that will replace that Marta character?"

"No," I said. "Hiring is my duty and responsibility. I was going to give that job to Alexis." Utter silence met my remark. "Well, I figure if she's going to be yelling at the servants anyway, might as well pay her for it." The woman in question stepped to the edge of the dresser.

"Are you serious?" she asked softly.

"Yes. You guys are, effectively, the Third Migration. Might as well get stuck in." I reached out a finger. She took it in both hands and we shook, formally, the deal sealed.

"So what are we going to be?" Ginger asked. "Maids? You get a kick out of inviting friends over to watch tiny women mop your airport-sized floors?"

"Two things you look for when you hire," I said. "Physical ability and mental capacity. You may be too small to work things around here, but you know more than we do. I figure to put everyone in an apprentice position for a while, to see how we do things, then let you go. If you know of a better way to do things, then by all means show us."

I scooted closer to the dresser. I took Mary Ann by a hand and twirled her around. The dress looked even better than I'd imagined. If the king wasn't impressed, he was blind.

She had already made suggestions about something called crop rotation. I had a lot of land to till and few hands to do it. Any increase in efficiency would be a plus, so I gave her the farm.

Ginger was put in charge of the sewing. Any sort of population in a castle needed a constant supply of clothing, and any woman not involved in other tasks would be under her direction. Some of her clothes on the island had been revolutionary from my point of view. There was a good chance that any surplus we could produce, with her fashion sense, could be sold off for a good profit to other holdings.

I offered the seneschal position to Krystle. All of the castle's operations that were not under Alexis' control would be hers. I figured they'd work together better than my last pair.

"What about me?" Dana asked. I had her turn around and tightened the straps on her dress for her. She was a little vision in velvet.

"I'm going to hire a journeyman wizard," I told her, "and put him in your charge." She opened her mouth, then closed it. She turned and gave me a wry grin.

"I was going to say: I don't believe in magic. Then I thought about it a second." I smiled back at her. Nothing like stepping into a fairy tale to boot your skepticism one right in the head. "So, you're going to have me teach a wizard magic?"

"No, no. I figure our philosophers have had eons to try to figure out the beanstalk Lattice. I'm betting that you could come up with a steady, stable way to travel between the worlds in less than a century."

"And we can go home?" Mary Ann asked.

"If you want. Of course, you'll all be about twelve feet tall by then..."

Alexis tapped her cheek with a finger, thinking. Then she nodded her head over the side, towards the floor. "And what do we have for the Skipper and First Mate, Johnny?"

"Well," I said, "this is a frontier holding. We have trolls just over the hills. If Shane was willing, I'd put her in direct charge of my professional fighting force. Might be hard finding a pony she can ride to battle on..."

"Yeah!" a voice shouted, down by my foot. I snapped her up and gave her the same treatment. Clothes off, rags in fireplace, down by the formals. She hardly seemed to notice as the other women slipped the court stuff onto her and started lacing it up.

"We need to redesign those pole weapons," she was saying. "And practice. Practice, practice, practice. Forced marches." I ignored her and looked down on the floor.

The first Earther I'd ever met was standing by the poker for the fireplace. I lay flat on the floor, head just barely over her, smiling.

She smiled back as she stripped her own clothes off and heaved them over into the embers.

"What do I get?" she asked. I reached over and ran a finger down her side. She shivered a bit at the touch. I thought that was odd, since she was right in front of the fire.

"Well, someone has to train the remaining staff to augment the paid soldiers."

"I'm in charge of the irregulars?" she laughed. "I'm the Reserve?"

She sat readily upon my hand and I lifted her up to the dresser. Before I put her down, I reached up with my free hand to stroke her hair. "Yeah," I agreed. "That'll take up part of your time. What you're not spending on other duties as the Lady of the Keep. If you want..."

"Is that a proposal?" she asked

"Um, uh..."

"He says: YES!" Dana shouted.

"So does she!" Shane added. Vanessa glanced over her shoulder at her friends, then back at me. She nodded.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

Back to the Index