Freyja had to be taken inside.
“Master, you make even her name sound wonderful.” Nilem reached about, slid in a pool of her own sweat, then rolled onto her back, smiling weakly. “But would you take her into yourself… and not me, Master? Master? Master?”
Kiss the ground, then.
Nilem rolled onto her stomach. She touched her lips to the warm glass and felt the thick tube caress the bones of her protruding spine as it travelled to the base of her skull. In one sure movement Zamael attached, then sucked her brain free from its housing of bone. She passed into darkness deeper than her own blindness, but then, as the King of the Blind inserted his tendrils, his warm fingers, she heard a thousand voices singing, and one of them was her own.
Chapter Eighteen
With the Lord of the Forest
Wodan sat in the bushes with the great bear. They looked at one another for a long time, until the sun disappeared and the forest was dark, and they went to sleep sitting up. Then the bear cut off its long snores with a curt snort and Wodan woke as well. The bear fell forward, slowly, and planted its long arms into the ground. Its great face and hot breath were so near Wodan that he had to lean back. Then the bear lifted itself onto its hind legs and turned about slowly, the top of its head nearly a dozen feet from the ground. Wodan rose to join the beast.
The great bear moved slowly, pushing off with hind legs and tapping the ground with forelegs, throom, thum-thum, throom, thum-thum, throom, and its strides were long and Wodan jogged to keep up. With each heavy step clouds of beetles fell from its limbs, centipedes crawled about its fur, and a host of small crickets hopped back and forth on its back. Wodan felt at peace with the bear only because he knew that if it chose to eat him, as well it might, then it would do so without a lot of drawn-out social niceties.
Time lost its hold in the deep of night and just as Wodan grew tired they came to a ravine with a floor of tiered sandstone and clay, a dry streambed with a thick canopy of intertwining leafy boughs for a roof, and a squat cave between the roots of an ancient, gnarled tree. The entrance of the cave was just high enough for the great bear to enter if it ducked its head. The bear did so, then flopped down on its hindquarters. Wodan crouched at the entrance and looked around as he waited. The bear snorted, and Wodan entered.
Wodan sat on a nest of dried grass. Small skulls were lined along the floor and, since they did not seem to be arranged at random, Wodan left them as they were. He and the bear watched one another for a while. Blue crept into the sky. The white patterns along the bear reflected the dawn. In the growing light Wodan saw painted images on the cave walls. He saw faded images of faces of other bears. Several images placed nearly on top of one another showed a fanged predator, something like a deer, grass and flowers, a skull, then another fanged predator. Another interlinked image showed the yellow sun, a river, a misty field, and a powerful rainstorm run through with wild arcs of lightning. There were flat strips of bark stacked at the rear of the cave, all of them dabbed with dried paint, and several piles of many-colored berries were arranged neatly nearby.
Again Wodan looked at the bear. The bear looked back, blinking sleepily.
Wodan cleared his throat, and said, “Are you one of the intelligent bears I’ve heard about?”
The bear leaned over slowly, already going to sleep. Before it laid its head down, it nodded.
Wodan was not sure if he’d seen the gesture correctly. Feeling a little silly, he said, “Where are the others like you?”
As the bear stretched out, it reached out with its front paw and, extending one giant, curved, black claw, it delicately tapped one of the skulls on the floor.
Wodan nodded, then laid down to sleep beside the great bear.
* * *
Wodan stayed with the great bear in his home and walked with him through his territory. The bear communicated very little, and it was easy for Wodan to forget that something alien, and something like himself, lay behind the bear’s dark eyes. As they walked together, the bear showed him which berries to eat and which to use for making paint. It showed him a hot spring that reeked of sulfur, and here the two companions often relaxed and regarded one another in silence. The bear ate surprisingly little, but one day when Wodan was weak with hunger the two came upon a field where a group of deer played. The two hid side by side, then the bear tapped Wodan on his back and pointed. Wodan crept around and came up behind the deer, then ran after them. As they scattered, one ran near the bear’s position, and the bear ran in a blur and crushed the deer’s head with one swing. Wodan ate one fat flank raw, then nodded in thanks and the bear ground up the deer’s front section in its mouth, swallowed, then consumed the hind end as well. The bear carried the deer’s head in its mouth and deposited it in the high branches of a tree, where it would collect the remains of the skull once the birds and crawling scavengers stripped it.
They sat in the bear’s cave one sunset, and Wodan said, “What name do they call you by?”
The bear thought for a long time, then drew a sketch in the dirt using one long claw. Wodan saw a bear cub rolling and playing among some branches. The branches had small bits attached to them. The bear felt around their bedding, found an acorn, pointed to it with one claw, then pointed to his nose.
“They call you... by the way the acorn smells?” said Wodan.
The bear nodded.
“Hm. I don’t speak that language. Human noses aren’t built for that.”
The bear snorted and its shoulders shook.
“Do you mind if I name you something that I can say?”
The bear shrugged.
Wodan thought of the bear’s black and white fur, and it brought to mind a game played in Haven. It had never been his game. In the northern laborer’s section, card games, trivia sessions, and fast-paced video games between groups were more common. The game that Wodan was thinking of was played between two people. It was slow and required patience and forethought. It was an old game, older than the wasteland, perhaps even older than the Ancients. It seemed appropriate, as Wodan knew that he and the bear were testing one another. They were enjoying one another’s presence even as they wondered if the other should be killed and eaten, as much out of mercy as necessity.
“Chess Bear,” said Wodan. “May I call you Chess Bear? It’s…”
Before Wodan could explain the game, the bear scratched a square in the dirt, then traced a graph in the square, then sketched in the two king positions across from one another.
“So you know the game?” said Wodan. “Is that name good enough?”
The Chess Bear nodded, then pointed a claw toward Wodan.
“Me? What name have you been calling me by, in your mind?”
The Chess Bear’s eyes glazed over in thought, then it took to scratching at its nose and tugging at a wrinkled whisker.
“I must smell like something,” said Wodan.
The Chess Bear seemed annoyed by the probing. It traced out what was obviously the face of a ghoul in the dirt.
“What!” said Wodan, rolling backward on his mattress. “Come on. Surely I don’t have any similarity with those creatures!”
The Chess Bear snorted with laughter and shook its head as it erased the drawing. Wodan was more than a little disturbed by the allegation. The Chess Bear pointed to Wodan’s mouth, then sat back with a questioning look.
“What others call me? I used to have a long name, but the people who gave me that name took it away from me. I was a bother to them. Then I earned a new name, but I grew sick and weary of the people I earned it from, so I rejected that name myself. Now, I’m just Wodan.” The Chess Bear nodded, but before the matter could be dropped Wodan said, “But you must have your own name for me, in your own language.”
The Chess Bear sighed and rose onto all fours. It strode out of the cave, into the night, and Wodan followed. It took him to a place where they could see the sky. The Chess Bear stopped, looked upward, then pointed one claw at the moon and at the stars.
&nb
sp; “But... the stars have no smell.”
The Chess Bear snorted and shook its head so hard that the fur shook along its flanks. It extended all of its great clawed fingers upward. It did not grasp, but waved its fingers left and right, back and forth. Something about the fact that the bear could not grasp the stars clicked in Wodan’s mind.
He thinks of me as an outsider, Wodan thought. An alien presence.
“I think I understand,” said Wodan. After a moment, he laughed. “With a name like Alien Smell, it must make it hard for you to tell your forest friends about me, eh?”
The Chess Bear huffed loudly, eyes wide in appreciation of Wodan’s understanding of the weight he bore from their relationship.
* * *
They spent one cold morning standing in a stream, staring into its currents. Wodan stabbed at fish with a long spear while the Chess Bear either dove in mouth-first to grab them up or swatted them out of the water with its paws. Wodan thought that they would eat the fish right then and there, but the Chess Bear seemed interested in keeping the shining scales, so they transported the fish back to the cave.
They sat on the flat stone floor outside the cave and ate the raw fish together. “This is better than eating berries,” said Wodan. “Don’t you think?”
The Chess Bear thought for a while, then laid one fish on the ground. Below the fish it laid out a string of berries and created something like a squat pyramid. With five long claws extended it pointed out the totality. Then it scratched out the letter B on the ground and pointed to Wodan’s mouth.
Wodan was shocked that the Chess Bear knew anything at all about letters, but he hid his surprise. He knows about letters, but shows no interest in keeping written records, he thought. Mother Nature has a certain economy, but the Ancients were known for their excess and their hubris. Did the Ancients create his kind?
“The letter B,” said Wodan. “You mean, the word I used? Better - that word?”
The Chess Bear nodded and pointed to the one fish and many berries again.
“I see,” said Wodan. “The fish may be at the top, but it’s best to have them all, and in their proper place. Is that what you mean?”
The Chess Bear snorted in acknowledgment, then laid out the scaly skins of the fishes to dry. The Chess Bear glanced at its collection of colored berries, and Wodan could tell that the bear wanted to combine the glittering scales with its paint supplies.
That night Wodan sat long in thought while the Chess Bear snored beside him.
Professor Korliss Matri said that there can be no intelligence, as we know it, without spoken language. No conscious thought, no understanding of abstract concepts, is possible without the words to harness those thoughts by. I don’t know if Korliss is right or wrong about that, but I can see that nature would not give the Chess Bear its ability to understand language without the ability to speak.
He’s the lord of the beasts, and he calls me Alien Smell… but this king of nature might not be as natural as he would like to think.
* * *
One morning they ate berries mixed with nuts, then set to painting on the walls of the cave. They had at their disposal brushes made from animal hair, a complete set of primary and secondary colors made from mashed berries, a sort of tar that could darken colors, and the glittery paste recently made from fish scales, which the Chess Bear was greatly excited to try out.
Time and worry lost their hold as the two painted on opposite walls of the cave. The Chess Bear’s long, slow breaths were only occasionally broken by bird cries far outside the gully; otherwise, the two seemed to live in their own world. Wodan could see that his painting was on top of faded areas that the Chess Bear had painted over years before. The idea that his own painting would fade over time and be replaced by others did not bother him, but he knew that it would have bothered him in the past, just as it would bother anyone from Haven.
Perhaps that’s why they live by hiding, Wodan thought. They dream of immortality, of living forever by some kind of technological artifice that they hope the future will bring. That dream of immortality makes them fear death. So they hide, and life and the human story continue far outside of their artificial world.
Wodan realized that the Chess Bear’s breathing had changed, then he noticed that the bear was watching over his shoulder. Wodan moved so that the bear could see his painting.
The painting showed a view of the valley from one of its mountaintops, not as it was, but as it might be. Over trees of varying shades stood tall towers of wood, with wisps of smoke coming from small homes. A few dirt trails had been cut through thick forest and linked patchworks of farmland. A few lonely stone forts stood high in the mountains, and green flags flew over small, dark figures scanning the horizon. Wodan wondered for a moment if the image might be offensive to the Chess Bear, but then he decided that the signs of civilization were perfectly meshed with the wilderness. If anything, the place looked far more hospitable than it did now. Wodan had tried to show a balance between the frenzied pillaging of the natural world, which the Businessmen in Pontius had always dreamed of committing in the Black Valley, and the abandonment of civilization that marked the lives of the primitive people in the mountains. Wodan had never set out to make such a painting, but did so unconsciously. Looking at it now filled him with intense sadness.
The Chess Bear gestured toward the painting. “It’s nothing,” said Wodan, looking away. “Just a memory of a dream. Nothing more.”
Finally Wodan scooted around the Chess Bear, then said, “Let’s look at yours.”
Wodan saw a wild tableau of faces peering back at him, all of varying sizes, each looking directly at him with shining eyes.
“Huh,” said Wodan, pressing closer. “That looks like-”
The cave seemed to darken and Wodan was immediately struck by one face near the center. It was his own. Wodan stared at Wodan, pale-skinned, brown-haired, jaw set firmly under green eyes shining in the dark. The painting was alive. Other faces much like Wodan’s hovered about his own. Some had slight jaws, others heavy and brutish; some had high foreheads, others squat and tapered. The details varied and showed the faces of artists, warriors, intellectuals, laborers, women, children, old men, corpses, martyrs willing to die rather than give up a dream, and survivors who abandoned dreams and ran into the shadows. But each had the same green eyes, and each looked back at Wodan from across the years. Each was Wodan. Each called out, silently bidding him to remember. To remember that as he lived now and pretended that he was not afraid to die, to be content with being erased and covered over as his painting would be – to remember that he had been here before, in other ages impossible to comprehend but much the same as this one, unable to be erased despite one thousand deaths, and unable to escape responsibility.
Wodan tore his eyes away from his faces and saw an image of the Chess Bear staring back at him with shining black eyes. The faces of other men stared back at him, each with black hair and dark eyes, sometimes pale skin, sometimes ruddy brown. The face of his friend smiled at him from a distance of one thousand lifetimes. Wind blew across Wodan’s face as he made his way along the trail, and he tightened his robe where it slipped under his belt and the sky was clear and blue and Wodan waved to his friend who rose to meet him, and he remembered saying, “There you are, Artus! Have you eaten?” and his black-haired, broad-shouldered friend shook his head and said, “Not today, I was hoping you might come by with a bit of something…” and then the scene fell behind another that demanded attention. Wodan felt the ground against his knees, felt the nanofiber-mesh of his uniform tighten around his legs as he bent over his friend. He was covered in blood and it was impossible to think from the sound of projectile rounds lacing through the air. Wodan instinctively tried to remove his helmet so that he could shout at his friend, but his helmet was already off, so he shouted with stupid desperation, “Urstei! Urstei! Hang in there!” but the light was already going out in his dark eyes. He looked at his friend’s cheekbones and the blood gushi
ng from his mouth and he realized that he did not look quite human, but was from a branch that hung far, far in the distance. Awful, awful sadness gripped his heart as his friend slipped away, and he could think only of revenge, of causing pain to his killers at any cost.
Wodan was back in the cave, but the floor and walls felt thin and weak and unreal, as if he was still dreaming, still remembering. Wodan blinked and placed his palms on the ground, nauseous, in need of stability. He looked away from the paintings and stared at the great bear, who looked back at him. He remembered the eyes, those dark eyes, and he knew that the great bear was wondering if Wodan remembered. Wodan knew in that moment that his life and the things he believed to be real and important were only a passing moment in a timeless, tumbling surge full of so many details and dramas that he could not even begin to comprehend it all. Wodan smiled at his friend and laughed, but then he blinked and looked at the paintings once again, and then the moment passed and he saw only the smudged features of caricatures scrawled on walls of stone. They were not magic, but only berry juice and tar. Wodan was exhausted, and took a long time in catching his breath, unsure what to make of the strange feeling that had passed over him.
He turned to the bear to see if it could explain anything, but the big beast was laid out on its side and sleeping on an old grass mat.
* * *
By the time night fell, any sense of divine magic was gone, like a dream forgotten upon waking. Wodan and the Chess Bear sat in stubborn silence, cross with one another. Wodan was frustrated because he had so easily fallen in sync with the great bear; he’d rationalized their friendship by thinking that the bear would help him discover some means of slaying the valley’s master of demons. Such help was not forthcoming. The checkered lord of beasts seemed content to eat, paint, and soak in the hot springs.
Demonworld Book 5: Lords of the Black Valley (Demonworld series) Page 28