The Third Bear

by Jeff VanderMeer

  By July, I had stopped doing even that and just drank all day and night. I even stopped bathing and shaving. Sometimes, during my erratic sleep, I'd dream of my former life and it would seem exactly that: a dream of something that had never been. When I woke, I'd call Ann, no matter what the time, even though I knew there was no hope she'd take me back, just to reassure myself that once upon a time I'd had that life.

  I try to convince myself now that it would have gotten better without outside intervention, but I think I'm wrong. If James hadn't called one night while I was at Gill's, trying to convince Katie, the owner, to give me a beer on credit, I don't know what would have happened.

  The phone at the bar rang and Katie answered it, then handed the receiver to me with a puzzled look on her face. "It's for you. Says he's an old friend. Keep it brief, okay?"

  "Hello," I said.

  "Jeff? Jeff VanderMeer?"

  "Yeah. Who the fuck is this?"

  A thin laugh. "James Owen. Remember me?"

  For a second, I didn't. James Owen might as well have been from another planet.

  "World Fantasy 2003? Argosy?"

  Then I did remember, which confused me even more. "How'd you get this number?"

  "It doesn't matter. Let's just say a couple of concerned friends gave it to me."

  "Why would they do that?"

  "Because I have an opportunity for you."

  "What kind of opportunity?"

  There was a pause. I think he knew this was a hard sell. "I need you to go to Lake Baikal in Siberia and write a story."

  "You want me to write a story about Lake Baikal?"

  "No. I need you to go to Lake Baikal and write me a story. For Argosy."

  "You're full of shit."

  "I don't blame you for thinking so, but I'm not. You'll be paid. Your expenses will be taken care of.... Don't you think a change of scenery might be a good idea?"

  "Lake Baikal?" I was trying to get my wits about me. "That's the place with the freshwater seals?" As I would soon know all too well.

  "Among other things. A property there has recently come into my possession and it would be perfect for you. You can get some peace and quiet there and write."

  James chose not to reveal at that point that he thought a man would one day come walking along the lakeshore with the express purpose of killing me.

  That first time James called me at Gill's, I hung up on him and went back to drinking. And the next night. And the night after that. It was not until the night after I got into a fight in the parking lot over something so stupid I can't remember what it was and had my nose broken that I realized that I needed to say "yes" or I was going to find my way to rock bottom.

  "Great," James said. "I knew you'd come around."

  He gave me the flight information, assured me of money coming in the mail, and told me his instructions would be waiting for me at Lake Baikal.

  "That all sounds fine to me, James," I said, as if I was talking to a crazy person.

  I drank my way through the countless hours of flights, the bus and train and car rides, until I finally wound up here.

  Gradus remained in my thoughts. I could not get him out. He was the great Unknown in a world that had become as simple as the ice and snow, but no less mysterious.

  "When can I expect this mystery man to arrive, James?"

  "I don't know. It could be any time."

  "Any time, huh?"

  "Yes. You should carry the revolvers with you wherever you go."

  "Even down to the grocery store?"

  "There is no grocery story near you."

  "Exactly my point! Neither I nor Juliette is thrilled about that. No movie theater, either."

  "Appreciate the natural beauty."

  "I'm trying. I'm also reading the guidebook for the fiftieth time. I'm on the verge of switching to the crimethink book and becoming an anarchist."

  "Stay calm. It'll all be over soon."

  "I just wish this `Gradus' would get here soon so I can show him these fancy revolvers and scare him on his way."

  "Jeff, this kind of person doesn't get scared. You will probably have to kill him."

  I didn't believe him, at the time.

  A week after my arrival, I met Ed the Shaman for the first time. I hadn't been putting it off so much as acclimating to my surroundings - getting used to having conversations with Juliette; taking hikes along the lakeshore, through the stunning, bird-filled forests; familiarizing myself with the tin shack bar and its twelve different brands of vodka. James hadn't indicated any constraint for my "Literary Work of Great Import and Inestimable Redeeming Value" other than "I'll let you know when you have to start it," so I'd decided to take my time.

  But, finally, I called Ed. He arranged to pick me up early on a Monday morning. I had with me an Erratum segment - or, at least, what I thought might serve as one - taken from John Grant's "The Dragons of Manhattan." It contained long tracts of rant that I thought might be James applying the nudge of his own beliefs.

  Ed pulled up in a battered pickup truck that needed a coat of paint and new shocks. The back was filled with fishing tackle, old tires, and wooden boxes that appeared to be stuffed with hay.

  He got out, said hello in decent English, and shook my hand. He didn't look like a shaman, even allowing for the fact that I'd only ever seen them in photos in books and read about one in Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus.

  "You're the shaman?" I asked.

  "Yes - I'm Ed. James wrote to me a while back, so I was expecting your call."

  "Ed" wore a baseball cap of indefinite origin, a denim jacket over a worn T-shirt, and a pair of faded blue jeans. He had a gold earring shaped like an otter in his left ear and a silver earring shaped like a seal in his right ear. His broad, wrinkled face had the half-Caucasian, half-Asian look shared by many in the area. He had eyes so blue and piercing it was hard to hold his gaze.

  I felt like asking, "Is this your traditional dress? Because it's not very convincing." But I resisted. Instead, I asked, "Where are we going?"

  Ed smiled. "We're going to consult the Book. It's near Shaman Rock."

  I had heard of Shaman Rock from the travel guide. It was the holiest of holy sites in the old religions. Even going near it was hazardous according to some. But what the hell - this was what I was here to do. So I hopped into the passenger seat, held the door shut with a piece of electrical cord, and off we went, Ed using a series of dirt roads to get to our destination. (There wasn't anything paved within twenty miles of the condominiums. Not anymore. No need for it.)

  "You know you need to pay me to see the Book?" Ed asked along the way.

  I didn't, but luckily James had provided enough money.

  Warning: Here comes another correction.

  Erratum #4: "The Dragons of Manhattan, "John Grant, issue three

  Any internally coherent set of explanations of the phenomena we observe around us starts off as the cutting-edge science of its day. Assuming it is widely accepted, it becomes a fixed dogma: To disagree with it is a stupid and indeed evil revolt against supposedly absolute knowledge. Even though humanity's retaliations against the rebels can be vicious in the extreme, eventually there are enough revolutionaries, and they are persistent enough, that the existing Grand Universal Theory is forced to adapt or give way to a new, improved version.

  should be:

  Any internally coherent set of explanations of the phenomena we observe around us becomes the cutting-edge science of its day. Assuming it is widely accepted, it devolves into dogma: To disagree with it is a stupid, evil revolt against supposedly absolute knowledge. But even though humanity's retaliations against the rebels can be vicious, eventually the revolutionaries are persistent enough that the existing Grand Universal Theory is forced to adapt or give way to a new, improved version.

  I can't tell you where the Book is housed in relation to Shaman Rock. I can't tell you much of anything about it, because I promised Ed I wouldn't. And, besides, it's irrelevant to
this story. What is relevant to this story is the Book itself.

  It lay in its hiding place like something made from the earth - more than a thousand years old, according to Ed, and containing all the wisdom of his shaman forebears. It was fashioned from broad leaves and red bark. Dead beetles and the pelts of animals had been woven into its spine. Large and bulky, it smelled light, of mint and sea salt. The languages in which it had been set down were various and incomprehensible to me. Its cover, wood shot through with silver and bronze, had a worn, smooth feel that was pleasant to the touch. But the cover is all I got to touch, and all I saw of the pages was a quick five-minute glimpse before Ed motioned for me to move back, away from the Book.

  In short, Jeremy, it was the most extraordinary object I have ever seen, and it is mostly my glimpse of the Book that allows me to maintain faith in this whole mad project. Certainly it wasn't James' reassurances or the all-tooordinary appearance of Ed himself.

  That first day, all I did was read the erratum excerpt to Ed, who then consulted the Book, burned some incense, and told me after about an hour, "You've got the right manuscript. But that's the wrong part. And the change is small in this one. A slight change is all you need. Bring another part tomorrow and we'll start over."

  Then he took me fishing in his cockleshell of a boat. We caught some white graylings, which we cooked over an open fire in the lobby back at the condo. It drove the seals away temporarily, but fascinated Juliette, who even seemed to like the taste of cooked fish. That's the kind of barbarism a circus will drive you to.

  I repeated this process for weeks as I strove to find the right parts for the Errata. James called every once in a while to check up on me. For the most part, I didn't appreciate these calls.

  Once he said, apropos of nothing, "I am a direct descendent of Cotton Mather and Increase Mather. Make of that what you will."

  I haven't made much of it, let me tell you.

  "Dave Eggers might read this issue," he said during his next-to-last call.

  Of all the things he said, this made me angriest. "So the fuck what? After everything else you've told me, who gives a flying fuck about that? Fuck Dave Eggers. I'm freezing my ass off here, trying to believe in some shamanism thing that's probably bullshit, and you're thinking about Eggers?"

  "Well," James said, "by my calculations, he's one of those who has to read it for us to be successful."

  During another call, I was telling him about an unstable artist friend of mine, and he said, "At the age of eleven, I was a long-term patient in a hospital in Phoenix. On a single day, I was visited by the Pope, with whom I discussed superhero comics, and Mickey Mouse, with whom I discussed being visited by the Pope. An hour later, President Reagan was shot. These events helped to cement my thoughts about synchronicity."

  "What the hell was that?" I said. I'd been telling him about the seals when he went off into his soliloquy. "Did you read that off a note card or something?"

  "I did," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Fuel for your story. It needs to be in there. As does a mention of farm equipment."

  Most of the time, we both tried to avoid the subject of Gradus, even though I would go to sleep thinking of him and wake up in the morning with a start, certain he was standing over me, and reach like a drowning man for my pearl-handled revolvers.

  James' reasons for putting me in this position still remained cloudy, but I had decided not to open the second letter until after I finished the mind-numbing task of perfecting the Errata. And, after a while, I stopped asking James, because he refused to tell me over the phone. Which meant that only the letter could answer my remaining questions. Still, I resisted its pull.

  Juliette helped me. I kept asking her if I should open the letter, and she refused to answer - for which silent advice I would reward her with some grayling.

  Correction!

  Erratum #5: My General," Carol Emshwiller, issue two

  They'd given up on getting any information out of him. They said he was mine to do with as I wished. We always take them along with us and get them back in shape for our farms. "Don't be treating him too nice," they said. "He's dangerous." They say that every time. Nothing has happened so far and it's unlikely considering the shape they're always in.

  should read:

  They'd given up on getting any information out of him. They said he was mine to do with as I wished. We always take them along with us and get them back in shape for our farms. "He's dangerous," they said. "He killed a man. He'll kill you if you give him half a chance." They say that every time. Nothing has happened so far and it's unlikely considering the shape they're always in. Most of them are so shocked that their vision of the world has proven false that they fall into a stupor, as if their minds cannot adjust to their new situation. Their new world.

  By now, I've grown used to the seals, and grown fond of Juliette. (In a reversal of our established roles, I've taken to buying fish for Juliette from Ed.) I've grown used to the rhythms of the lake and the sounds that begin at dusk - the sounds of owls, of bats, of the occasional night fisherman working without lights: rasping pieces of words in a foreign tongue, distorted by the water. I don't even mind bathing in the lake anymore. I jog and I do push-ups and have forgotten weight machines even exist. Even better, my readers can't get to me here, and neither can my editors. Really, all things considered, it should be peaceful. Except for the man in the freezer.

  That happened the day before yesterday. Yesterday, I had visitors, strangely enough. The author and explorer Liz Williams had heard a rumor that I was in the area and stopped by with a couple of her friends on their way south, into China. You don't think of there being "explorers" today, but there are in this part of the world, and Liz is one of them.

  They didn't stay as long as I might have liked, although I still was glad of the company. Juliette is not what one might call a sparkling conversationalist. And Ed either talks in riddles or asks for money.

  While Liz's companions explored my surreal abode and were in turn investigated by the local seal community, Liz and I sat and talked, reliving Blackpool and various other adventures. After all that had happened in the twenty-four hours before that, I was relieved to experience a veneer of normalcy. Even if I was babbling. Even if my heart was pounding in my chest.

  As I may have mentioned, one thing they have in abundance around here is vodka. We drank a lot of it. For a long time.

  Eventually, she noticed the pearl-handled revolvers on the table next to us.

  "Oh, those are nice," she said. "I used to have a pair like that back in Brighton. Used them for magic shows."

  "I killed a man with them yesterday," I blurted out.

  Liz laughed, said, "These things happen. Just can't be avoided."

  "No, I mean it. I killed a man. He's in the freezer in the kitchen. I mean, the freezer isn't working, but it seals the smell in. I mean, it keeps the seals out."

  Liz laughed even harder at that - was it forced? - but when I invited her and her companions to stay the night, they told me they had to be farther south by dusk if they wanted to cross into China on schedule.

  I asked Juliette her opinion. She thought it was a convenient excuse.

  Then I read her another correction.

  Erratum #6.-"The Mystery of the Texas Twister, "Michael Moorcock, issue one

  From Zodiac's quarters, there now issued the unworldly strains of a violin. Even Begg was astonished. Then he smiled broadly, remembering his old opponent's only apparent passion - his passion for music. The strains were assured and subtle, from an instrument of extraordinary age and maturity. At first Begg tried to identify the piece. Clearly, he thought, some modern master. But then he realised that the composer was Zodiac himself. Gradually it moved from classical to romantic to contemporary structure, a perfectly integrated piece, that led the listener slowly into the nuances of the music. Moreover it was somehow in perfect resonance with the landscape itself.

  should read:

  Fr
om Zodiac's quarters, there now issued the unworldly strains of a violin, in a Russian mode. Even Begg was astonished. Then he smiled broadly, remembering his old opponent's only apparent passion - his passion for the types of music that he had always claimed would change the world. The strains were assured and subtle, from an instrument of extraordinary age and maturity. They conjured up a landscape of deep water and thick forests. At first Begg tried to identify the piece. Clearly, he thought, some modern master. But then he realized that the composer was Zodiac himself. Gradually it moved from gypsy-classical to romantic to contemporary structure, a perfectly integrated piece, that led the listener slowly into the nuances of the music. Moreover, it was somehow in perfect resonance with the landscape itself, as if it had brought the pristine world of the north to the south. Underlying this resonance: a subtle strain of menace, for transformation is not without peril.

  The day before Liz arrived at my doorstep - two days after I had finished the last session with Ed and four days after James called me for the last time - I was sitting in my favorite chair in the lobby, staring out at the lake, when I realized a figure was standing twenty feet to my left, having apparently just entered the lobby through one of the holes that led to the lakeside. His boots were wet. He was dressed all in black. He wore a ski mask, also black. He was tall, over six feet. I could see the white of his eyes through the holes in the mask. He was looking at me intently and pulling out something ominous from beneath his overcoat. I raised my pearl-handled revolvers and shot him before he could complete the motion. It happened as if preordained. It happened as if we were both part of some stage production. There was a tiny puff of smoke, a burning sensation in my hands, and two small holes opened up in the man's chest. He made a huffing sound, almost of surprise. His hands dropped to his sides and he crumpled against the wall. The sound of the guns had been so inconsequential that it hadn't startled the seals or Juliette.