This Immortal

by Roger Zelazny

  I took some flowers to the graveyard then, stayed awhile, and went to Jason’s home and repaired his door with some tools I found in the shed. Then I came upon a bottle of his wine and drank it all. And I smoked a cigar. I made me a pot of coffee, too, and I drank all of that.

  I still felt depressed.

  I didn’t know what was coming off.

  George knew his diseases, though, and he said the Vegan showed unmistakable symptoms of a neurological disorder of the e.t. variety. Incurable. Invariably fatal.

  And even Hasan couldn’t take credit for it. “Etiology unknown” was George’s diagnosis.

  So everything was revised.

  George had known about Myshtigo since the reception. —What had set him on the track?

  —Phil had asked him to observe the Vegan for signs of a fatal disease.

  Why?

  Well, he hadn’t said why, and I couldn’t go ask him at the moment.

  I had me a problem.

  Myshtigo had either finished his job or he hadn’t enough time left to do it. He said he’d finished it. If he hadn’t, then I’d been protecting a dead man all the while, to no end. If he had, then I needed to know the results, so that I could make a very fast decision concerning what remained of his lifespan.

  Dinner was no help. Myshtigo had said all he cared to say, and he ignored or parried our questions. So, as soon as we’d had our coffee, Red Wig and I stepped outside for a cigarette.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you did.”

  “No. What now?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Kill him?”

  “Perhaps yes. First though, why?”

  “He’s finished it.”

  “What? Just what has he finished?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Damn it! I have to! I like to know why I’m killing somebody. I’m funny that way.”

  “Funny? Very. Obvious, isn’t it? The Vegans want to buy in again, Earthside. He’s going back to give them a report on the sites they’re interested in.”

  “Then why didn’t he visit them all? Why cut it short after Egypt and Greece? Sand, rocks, jungles, and assorted monsters—that’s all he saw. Hardly makes for an encouraging appraisal.”

  “Then he’s scared, is why, and lucky he’s alive. He could have been eaten by a boadile or a Kourete. He’s running.”

  “Good. Then let him run. Let him hand in a bad report.”

  “He can’t, though. If they do want in, they won’t buy anything that sketchy. They’ll just send somebody else—somebody tougher—to finish it. If we kill Myshtigo they’ll know we’re still for real, still protesting, still tough ourselves.”

  “. . . And he’s not afraid for his life,” I mused.

  “No? What, then?”

  “I don’t know. I have to find out, though.”

  “How?”

  “I think I’ll ask him.”

  “You are a lunatic.” She turned away.

  “My way, or not at all,” I said.

  “Any way, then. It doesn’t matter. We’ve already lost.”

  I took her by the shoulders and kissed her neck. “Not yet. You’ll see.”

  She stood stiffly.

  “Go home,” she said; “it’s late. It’s too late.”

  I did that. I went back to Iakov Korones’ big old place, where Myshtigo and I were both quartered, and where Phil had been staying.

  I stopped, there in the deathroom, in the place where Phil had last slept. His Prometheus Unbound was still on the writing table, set down beside an empty bottle. He had spoken of his own passing when he’d called me in Egypt, and he had suffered an attack, had been through a lot. It seemed he’d leave a message for an old friend then, on a matter like this.

  So I opened Percy B’s dud epic and looked within.

  It was written on the blank pages at the end of the book, in Greek. Not modem Greek, though. Classical.

  It went something like this:

  Dear friend, although I abhor writing anything I cannot rewrite, 1 feel I had best tend to this with dispatch. I am unwell. George wants me to skim to Athens. I will, too, in the morning. First, though, regarding the matter at hand—

  Get the Vegan off the Earth, alive, at any cost.

  It is important.

  It is the most important thing in the worlds

  I was afraid to tell you before, because I thought Myshtigo might be a telepaths That is why I did not go along for the entire journey, though I should dearly have loved to do so. That is why I pretended to hate him, so that I could stay away from him as much as possible. It was only after I managed to confirm the fact that he was not telepathic that I elected to join you.

  I suspected, what with Dos Santos, Diane, and Hasan, that the Radpol might be out for his blood. If he was a telepath, I figured he would learn of this quickly and do whatever needed to be done to assure his safety. If he was not a telepath, I still had great faith in your ability to defend him against almost anything, Hasan included. But I did not want him apprised of my knowledge. I did try to warn you, though, if you recall.

  Tatram Yshtigo, his grandfather, is one of the finest, most noble creatures alive. He is a philosopher, a great writer, an altruistic administrator of services to the public. I became acquainted with him during my stay on Taler, thirty-some years ago, and we later became close friends. We have been in communication ever since that time, and that far back, even, was I advised by him of the Vegan Combined plans regarding the disposition of Earth. I was also sworn to secrecy. Even Cort cannot know that I am aware. The old man would lose face, disastrously, if this thing came out ahead of time.

  The Vegans are in a very embarrassing position. Our expatriate countrymen have forced their own economic and cultural dependence upon Vega. The Vegans were made aware—quite vividly!—during the days of the Radpol Rebellion, of the fact that there is an indigenous population possessing a strong organization of its own and desiring the restoration of our planet. The Vegans too would like to see this happen. They do not want the Earth. Whatever for? If they want to exploit Earthfolk, they have more of them on Taler than we do here on Earth—and they re not doing it; not massively or maliciously, at any rate. Our ex-pop has elected what labor exploitation it does undergo in preference to returning here. What does this indicate? Returnism is a dead issue. No one is coming back. That is why I quit the movement. Why you did too, I believe. The Vegans would like to get the home world problem off their hands. Sure, they want to visit it. It is instructive, sobering, humbling, and downright frightening for them to come here and see what can be done to a world.

  What needed to be done was for them to find a way around our ex-pop gov on Taler. The Talerites were not anxious to give up their only claim for taxes and existence: the Office.

  After much negotiation, though, and much economic suasion, including the offer of full Vegan citizenship -to out ex-pop, it appeared that a means had been found. The implementation of the plan was given into the hands of the Shtigo gens, Tatram in especial.

  He finally found a way, he believed, of returning the Earth proper to an autonomous position and preserving its cultural integrity. That is why he sent his grandson, Cort, to do his ‘survey’ Cort is a strange creature; his real talent is acting (all the Shtigo are quite gifted), and he loves to pose. I believe that he wanted to play the part of an alien very badly, and I am certain that he has carried it with skill and efficiency. (Tatram also advised me that it would be Cort’s last role. He is dying of drinfan, which is incurable; also, I believe it is the reason he was chosen.)

  Believe me, Konstantin Karaghiosis Korones Nomikos (and all the others which I do not know), Conrad, when I say that he was not surveying real estate: No.

  But allow me one last Byronic gesture. Take my word that he must live, and let me keep my promise and my secret. You will not regret it, when you know all.

  I am sorry that I never got to finish your el
egy, and damn you for keeping my Lara, that time in Kerch! —PHIL

  Very well then, I decided—life, not death, for the Vegan. Phil had spoken and I did not doubt his words.

  I went back to Mikar Korones’ dinner, table and stayed with Myshtigo until he was ready to leave. I accompanied him back to Iakov Korones’ and watched him pack some final items. We exchanged maybe six words during this time.

  His belongings we carried out to the place where the Skimmer would land, in front of the house. Before the others (including Hasan) came up to bid him goodbye, he turned to me and said, “Tell me, Conrad, why are you tearing down the pyramid?”

  “To needle Vega,” I said. “To let you know that if you want this place and you do manage to take it away from us, you’ll get it in worse shape than it was after the Three Days. There wouldn’t be anything left to look at. We’d bum the rest of our history. Not even a scrap for you guys.”

  The air escaping from the bottom of his lungs came out with a high-pitched whine—the Vegan equivalent of a sigh.

  “Commendable, I suppose,” he said, “but I did so want to see it. Do you think you could ever get it back together again? Soon, perhaps?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I noticed your men marking many of the pieces.”

  I shrugged.

  “I have only one serious question, then—about your fondness for destruction . . .” he stated.

  “What is that?”

  “Is it really art?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Then the others came up. I shook my head slowly at Diane and seized Hasan’s wrist long enough to tear away a tiny needle he’d taped to the palm of his hand. I let him shake hands with the Vegan too, then, briefly.

  The Skimmer buzzed down out of the darkening sky and I saw Myshtigo aboard, loaded his baggage personally, and closed the door myself.

  It took off without incident and was gone in a matter of moments.

  End of a nothing jaunt.

  I went back inside and changed my clothing.

  It was time to bum a friend.

  Heaped high into the night, my ziggurat of logs bore what remained of the poet, my friend. I kindled a torch and put out the electric lantern. Hasan stood at my side. He had helped bear the corpse to the cart and had taken over the reins. I had built the pyre on the cypress-filled hill above Volos, near the ruins of that church I mentioned earlier. The waters of the bay were calm. The sky was clear and the stars were bright.

  Dos Santos, who did not approve of cremation, had decided not to attend, saying that his wounds were troubling him. Diane had elected to remain with him back in Makrynitsa. She had not spoken to me since our last conversation.

  Ellen and George were seated on the bed of the cart, which was backed beneath a large cypress, and they were holding hands. They were the only others present. Phil would not have liked my relatives wailing their dirges about him. He’d once said he wanted something big, bright, fast, and without music.

  I applied the torch to a corner of the pyre. The flame bit, slowly, began to chew at the wood. Hasan started another torch going, stuck it into the ground, stepped back, and watched.

  As the flames ate their way upwards I prayed the old prayers and poured out wine upon the ground. I heaped aromatic herbs onto the blaze. Then I, too, stepped back.

  “. . . Whatever you were, death has taken you, too,’” I told him. “‘You have gone to see the moist flower open along Acheron, among Hell’s shadows darting fitfully.’ Had you died young, your passing would have been mourned as the destruction of a great talent before its fulfillment. But you lived and they cannot say that now. Some choose a short and supernal life before the walls of their Troy, others a long and less troubled one. And who is to say which is the better? The gods did keep their promise of immortal fame to Achilleus, by inspiring the poet to sing him an immortal paean. But is he the happier for it, being now as dead as yourself? I cannot judge, old friend. Lesser bard, I remember some of the words you, too, wrote of the mightiest of the Argives, and of the time of hard-hurled deaths: ‘Bleak disappointments rage this coming-together place: Menace of sighs in a jeopardy of time. . . . But the ashes do not burn backward to timber. Flame’s invisible music shapes the air to heat, but the day is no longer.’ Fare thee well, Phillip Graber. May the Lords Phoebus and Dionysius, who do love and kill their poets, commend thee to their dark brother Hades. And may his Persephone, Queen of the Night, look with favor upon thee and grant thee high stead in Elysium. Goodbye.”

  The flames had almost reached the top.

  I saw Jason then, standing beside the cart, Bortan seated by his side. I backed away further. Bortan came to me and sat down at my right. He licked my hand, once.

  “Mighty hunter, we have lost us another,” I said.

  He nodded his great head.

  The flames reached the top and began to nibble at the night. The air was filled with sweet aromas and the sound of fire.

  Jason approached.

  “Father,” he said, “he bore me to the place of burning rocks, but you were already escaped.”

  I nodded.

  “A no-man friend freed us from that place. Before that, this man Hasan destroyed the Dead Man. So your dreams have thus far proved both right and wrong.”

  “He is the yellow-eyed warrior of my vision,” he said.

  “I know, but that part too is past.”

  “What of the Black Beast?”

  “Not a snort nor a snuffle.”

  “Good.”

  We watched for a long, long time, as the night retreated into itself. At several points, Bortan’s ears pricked forward and his nostrils dilated. George and Ellen had not moved. Hasan was a strange-eyed watcher, without expression.

  “What will you do now, Hasan?” I asked.

  “Go again to Mount Sindjar,” he said, “for awhile.”

  “And then?”

  He shrugged. “Howsoever it is written,” he replied.

  And a fearsome noise came upon us then, like the groans of an idiot giant, and the sound of splintering trees accompanied it.

  Bortan leapt to his feet and howled. The donkeys who had drawn the cart shifted uneasily. One of them made a brief, braying noise.

  Jason clutched the sharpened staff which he had picked from the heap of kindling, and he stiffened.

  It burst in upon us then, there in the clearing. Big, and ugly, and everything it had ever been called.

  The Eater of Men. . . .

  The Shaker of the Earth. . . .

  The Mighty, Foul One. . . .

  The Black Beast of Thessaly.

  Finally, someone could say what it really was. If they got away to say it, that is.

  It must have been drawn to us by the odor of burning flesh.

  And it was big. The size of an elephant, at least.

  What was Herakles’ fourth labor?

  The wild boar of Arcadia, that’s what.

  I suddenly wished Herk was still around, to help.

  A big pig. . . . A razorback, with tusks the length of a man’s arm. . . . Little pig eyes, black, and rolling in the firelight, wildly. . . .

  It knocked down trees as it came. . . .

  It squealed, though, as Hasan drew a burning brand from the blaze and drove it, fire-end forward, into its snout, and then spun away.

  It swerved, too, which gave me time to snatch Jason’s staff.

  I ran forward and caught it in the left eye with it.

  It swerved again then, and squealed like a leaky boiler.

  . . . And Bortan was upon it, tearing at its shoulder.

  Neither of my two thrusts at its throat did more than superficial damage. It wrestled, shoulder against fang, and finally shook itself free of Bortan’s grip.

  Hasan was at my side by then, waving another firebrand.

  It charged us.

  From somewhere off to the side George emptied a ma-chine-pistol into it. Hasan hurled the torch. Bortan leapt again, this time from its bli
nd side.

  . . . And these things caused it to swerve once more in its charge, crashing into the now empty cart and killing both donkeys.

  I ran against it then, thrusting the staff up under its left front leg.

  The staff broke in two.

  Bortan kept biting, and his snarl was a steady thunder. Whenever it slashed at him with its tusks he relinquished his grip, danced away, and moved in again to worry it.

  I am sure that my needle-point deathlance of steel would not have broken. It had been aboard the Vanitie, though. . . .

  Hasan and I circled it with the sharpest and most stake-like of the kindling we could find. We kept jabbing, to keep it turning in a circle. Bortan kept trying for its throat, but the great snouted head stayed low, and the one eye rolled and the other bled, and the tusks slashed back and forth and up and down like swords. Cloven hooves the size of bread-loaves tore great boles in the ground as it turned, counterclockwise, trying to kill us all, there in the orange and dancing flamelight.

  Finally, it stopped and turned—suddenly, for something that big—and its shoulder struck Bortan in the side and hurled him ten or twelve feet past me. Hasan hit it across the back with his stick and I drove in toward the other eye, but missed.

  Then it moved toward Bortan, who was still regaining his feet—its head held low, tusks gleaming.

  I threw my staff and leapt as it moved in on my dog. It had already dropped its head for the death blow.

  I caught both tusks as the head descended almost to the ground. Nothing could hold back that scooping slash, I realized, as I bore down upon it with all my strength.

  But I tried, and maybe I succeeded, somehow, for a second. . . .

  At least, as I was thrown through the air, my hands tom and bleeding, I saw that Bortan had managed to get back out of the way.

  I was dazed by the fall, for I had been thrown far and high; and I heard a great pig-mad squealing. Hasan screamed and Bortan roared out his great-throated battle-challenge once more.

  . . . And the hot red lightning of Zeus descended twice from the heavens.

  . . . And all was still.

  I climbed back, slowly, to my feet.