“Really?” said the woman. “You would give yourself to him?”
“I will not deny myself the pleasure,” said the goddess, “if the proper moment arrives. To school such a god, with his rare apparatus, in the art of love, is not a chance to be missed. You might want to try him out yourself, once he’s had the benefit of my tutelage.” What better way, thought the goddess, to keep the crow distracted.
“Surely not,” said the woman, “for you would be jealous, and I would not risk that offense.”
The goddess waved away the woman’s words with a flick of her wrist. “The jealous poison their own banquet, and then eat it,” said the goddess. The dragonfly hovered in front of her lips, its insect eyes black and gleaming. “No offense would be taken, so long as you wait your turn.”
“The fisherman may not be so forgiving,” said Cariña.
The goddess considered for a moment. At home, in her palace, she kept no secrets from her paramours, and required the same of them. But here, where she served the Turropsi, perhaps a different approach was needed, for the crow was sly, and capable of subterfuge. She would do well to meet his cunning with cunning of her own.
“Then you should take care that you are not found out,” said the goddess. “He will not miss a slice from a cut loaf, unless you tell him.”
“He’s had no slice from my loaf since I’ve arrived here,” said the woman. She laughed, to think of her quim as a loaf, and wondered, smiling, if in this afterlife she was now a virgin.
Ah, thought Dewi, they were not yet coupling. Here, perhaps, was a way to recover love’s lost moment.
“Take pity on him then,” said the goddess, “and give him the first slice. For your sake, as much as his, for a woman needs pleasure even more than a man.”
“Oh,” said the woman, her lips pushed into a bow. She thought for a moment, and felt, for the first time since she had awoken here, a stirring in her loins. Her flesh remembered things that her mind did not, and what the goddess proposed sent a thrill through her. She met the gaze of the goddess, and she nodded her head.
“So be it, then,” said the goddess, her smile broad. ’Twas ever the case that a good coupling was just what the plot needed.
“And what of me?” said the pelican. “Am I to have a turn?” There was a sad downturn to the curve of her bill, for she had come to understand that she was too old to kindle desire in the loins of men.
The goddess extended a hand to the pelican, and a hand to the woman, and then the woman and the pelican joined hands so that they formed a ring of feminine accord.
“Dear friend,” said the goddess, “of course you shall have a turn. There’s more joy in the sharing than there is in the keeping.”
The goddess then bade them all sit on their blankets, and she rubbed their feet with perfumed oil, and they, in turn, rubbed hers. The dragonfly flew off, intent on its own business. From feet they moved on to hands, the goddess showing them by her unhurried example that they should all take their time, and they did so, touching and being touched. From hands they moved on to backs, joyful moans rising unbidden from them as each was the subject of the others’ attentions. The goddess teased them with her wing feathers, and the pelican and the woman teased back with their fain fingertips, their nails tracing lazy lines from nape of neck to base of spine, and then spreading outward until the whole of their backs tingled with pleasure. Now the goddess led them from backs to breasts, surprising her companions with the increasing delight of the moment, and the way their nether lips began to grow moist. Surprising them too, with the adoration shining forth from her eyes, which drew forth that same adoration from their eyes, the delights of the flesh swelling the affection in their hearts.
The goddess bade them lie back, and now her hands wandered from arch of foot to curve of thigh, and from curve of thigh to joy of belly, and from joy of belly to delight of breasts, and from delight of breasts to thrill of lips, hers upon Cariña’s, and Cariña’s upon hers, while the pelican discovered that the soft skin of her throat pouch wanted nothing so much as to be nuzzled with their lips, and that the hard tip of her long bill was yet another tool to softly tease their skin. The goddess let the bounty of her breasts touch the bounty of theirs, her hardened nipples delicate against the delicacy of their nipples, their skin awakened and alive from tip of toes to crown of head. She spread their legs by slow degrees with gentle touch, and when their legs lay wide and open she pleasured them with her hands and her mouth, their tenderest parts swelling with blood-filled desire, the savory tang of their juices flowing, their hips rising as they pressed forward at long last their eager nubbins to meet her touch in surge upon surge of ecstasy.
All this she gave them, and all this they gave to her in return. Then she straddled herself on the pelican’s bill, and rubbed her quim back and forth, showing them how she would ride the crow’s beak, polishing her pearl to its utmost brightness, without risking the sharp point entering her tenderest parts.
Thus did she awaken in the woman and the pelican a lust that had lain dormant. And, in satisfying for one another that lust, they formed that day, as the goddess had foreseen, a bond that stood them in good stead as events unfolded.
§
So this is how it is, thought the crow. The goddess is a trickster, and a tart, and she means to make a fool of me. He was in his crow form, for it was in his crow form that he felt closest to his true nature, and he circled the pyre of smoldering bones in the afternoon sunlight, looking for snacks. He was hungry, as he had not been since the goddess had arrived and stolen his heart. He spied the charred remains of a woman at the bottom of the pyre, a body not yet entirely consumed by the flames. She lay with her back to the pyre, if she’d had a back, for her head and most of her trunk were missing. But her legs were spread, and her nether parts lay between them like a smoked oyster.
“Kiaaw aw aw aw aw aw,” said the crow, his voice raspy with anger. He would show that strumpet of a goddess the special purpose of his beak. He bent down and tore the dead woman’s oyster from between her legs and gobbled it down. “Aw!” he shouted. Such a tasty treat. If only her nipples were here for dessert. He pulled the rest of the flesh from her thighs. It was crispy on the outside, and not quite as tender within as he might have liked, but it tore away in long strips, revealing the whiteness of her bones. It was as if he were undressing her, and he found that satisfying, aw, yes, in a way he never had before. He moved on, looking for more morsels, his appetite whetted. He had, he found, a particular hankering for the flesh of women, with its distinctly distaff flavor, its hint of the earthy funk of the womb mixed with the silvery scent of the moon.
The goddess was a bawdy, rampallian strumpet, he thought, and she meant to share him around with her covey of cunnies. The thought made his zibik hard. That part of her randy scheme was just fine by him, but he would not be made out a fool. She wants scales carved on her bedposts, does she? Thinks she can have a little fun at my expense, making me wait to sample the fullness of her charms? Naw. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.
Never trick a trickster, kiaw, for he who tricks last, tricks best.
§
It took some hard work on the part of the fisherman, aided by his beloved, and the ever-helpful pelican, who was spending more and more time in her old-woman shape, but together they dug a trench beside the half-built house, and then lined that trench with concrete they made with sand and rocks and Roman cement. The frigate bird assigned the tasks, and the women pitched in, Cariña because the smell of the barley and hops triggered in her a desire to taste the ale that would be made from them, and the pelican because she was caught up in the fisherman’s enthusiasm.
“Ale,” said the fisherman, with shovel in hand and sweat on his brow, “is the staff of life. It is bread made liquid, and a tankard of ale at the end of a hard day’s toil is a balm for the mind and a liniment for the body.” And then he broke out in song:
Drink, if there’s beer in your jar
’Tis far to the sun from
the stars
Drink it well, drink it deep
Out of the barrel flows the beer
Semper clara
“Oh, I like that one,” said the pelican, “very classy, with the Latin and all. Sing it again, and I’ll sing it with you.”
So they sang together while they worked, the woman too, their several hands making the task go faster. The day after the cement was cured, they poured the barley in the trench and sprinkled it with water from the stream.
“Excellent water,” said the frigate bird, who seemed to know a great deal about the making of ale. “Crystal clear, with just a hint of flintiness. Perfect for making a pale ale—the minerals will bring out the citrus flavors in the hops.”
The fisherman had never thought much about the flavor of ale, but once the frigate bird started talking about it, he realized that every alehouse made its own ale, and each one was a little different. From Anchuria to Zhlatovica he’d drunk ales, some of them divine, most of them good, if uninspired, and a few that were pretty awful.
“Do you know that alehouse in Kumar,” said the fisherman,” the one just down from the temple of Tammuz?”
“The Three-Legged Pig?” said the frigate bird. “Their sign is a pig whose body is a cask of ale, and one of the legs is broken off? “
“No,” said the fisherman, “you’re thinking of Cabo Luna, up the coast from Cadiz. Kumar is across the straits. You know it because the legs of an ancient colossus straddle the entrance to the harbor.”
“Oh yes,” said the frigate bird. “I know the city, if not the alehouse.”
“There’s a statue of Ninkasi next to the door, sitting on a pig of ale.”
“Full of pirates and thieves? They’ve always got a pig roasting on a spit in the middle of the room?”
“That’s the one.”
“Ye gods, how I love roast pig.”
“Me too. I think the alehouse is called Ninkasi’s Pig. Maybe the best ale I’ve ever drunk. You should try it, next time you’re in the area.”
“I shall, if the opportunity arises,” said the frigate bird, “though I must be careful, walking in to a place like that. Too many of your kind give a six-foot-tall bird, even a talking bird, a lean and hungry look, and think only of their bellies.”
They kept the barley moist for several days until it sprouted, and then they built smoldering fires at either end of the trench and roasted the barleycorns, turning them with the shovel, which they had rinsed clean in the waters of the inlet. “That will add just a touch of salt,” said the woman, showing her keen interest in the finer points of brewing. They dried the roasted barleycorns for several days, souring them slightly in the process, and then they ground the dried kernels in the mortar and pestle, added more water to make a dough of the mash, and formed loaves. These they baked on the stones around the fire, but not long enough to finish them. They drizzled honey into the cask, “For the yeast more than the sugar,” said the frigate bird, as they crumbled the half-baked loaves into pieces. They filled the cask with a mixture of water and the half-baked bread, sealed the bunghole with its bung, and waited a few more days while it fermented.
Meanwhile the walls of the house the fisherman was building went higher and higher, plank by plank. He built himself a ladder, and cut a ridge pole and rafters, and gave the house the simple shape of a pitched roof divided down the middle, with a gable at either end. His beloved helped him set the rafters in place over several days, fitting their notches to notches in the rim joist.
It took them three days to cover the rafters with a raddling of fir boughs and dried sea grass, but when they were done, they had a roof over their heads. They stood under it as the sun filled the room with light and shadows, a room several times bigger than the hut they had occupied in the Spice Islands. This was a proper home, thought the fisherman, with proper windows, two on either side so they could look out, and two up high in each of the gabled ends to let in more light. And to his deep satisfaction, the hinges for the shutters were of brass, brought here by the frigate bird.
The woman was well pleased, and she put her arms round the fisherman and held him close. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I am well cared for here, and I owe that to you.”
The fisherman wanted to wallow in the warmth of her embrace, and he held her close for a long time, his chin resting on her shoulder and the smell of her filling his nose, until his willy-spigot began to swell the front of his breeches. He let her go, walking out the doorway to hide his condition, for he feared she would turn him away if he tried to press the matter forward. Because he did not turn round he failed to see her empty arms and her crooked smile, a smile he would have remembered as an invitation to a kiss.
On the evening of the day when they finished the roof, the frigate bird returned from the land of the living with a lump of hashish. They celebrated together, the fisherman and his beloved, the frigate bird, the pelican, and the cormorant, all of them laughing and singing and going for a midnight swim beneath the vast roof of the Kiamah’s belly. The canoe of the dead paddled swiftly by, and the cormorant and the pelican flew off to meet it. The woman stood next to the fisherman, both of them waist deep in the water, and when their hands brushed against each other, they let them, and did not pull back.
That night, before the fisherman settled into his mossy bed his beloved took his face between her hands and kissed him. “Sleep well,” she said. He caught her hands in his and held them, her eyes open to his, his eyes full of memory, and hers full of romance.
“Is it sleep that you desire?” said he. He kissed her in return, their lips lingering and soft as they renewed their old acquaintance, and then hungry, ardent, and fierce. Something long asleep within her was stirring, and the fisherman was only too happy to help her stir it.
“Let me,” said she, “be the quiver for your arrow.”
And so she was.
§
The crow flew high above the inlet, just below the overarching belly of the Kiamah beast, his spirit in a ruckus. When he thought of the goddess, he wanted to touch her, to rub his beak all over her body, to press his zibik against her loins. What happened after that was not entirely clear to him, but he knew that something urgent inside him would find a release. And yet . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . he wanted something more. Something dark and violent, something just as urgent, just as in need of release. He wanted . . . he wanted . . . yes, this was it. Kiaw! He wanted to plunge his beak into her chest and rip out her heart!
He was, after all, a god, and a king, and he was every bit her equal. No, he was better than she, for he was crow, and human, and mole, and dragonfly, and he could take any shape he wanted, if only he practiced a bit whatever the form he chose. She was a gill-flurt, and a whore, and he would slay her and all who loved her. But first he must have her, he must show her what a prize he was, so that she would know her own foolishness as she died on the end of his beak.
What a mountain of dung love was. To feel so hot and so cold all at once. Over the same creature. She was a woman, and a goddess, and how could he kill the only woman he had ever loved? She was a devil. He must avenge her mockery of him—aw aw aw aw aw. Love her. Kill her. Love. Kill. Aw. Kiaw. Aw. Kiaw.
The crow flew in circles, muttering and considering. Why have a heart if it meant this much sorrow? He was wretched, and his life meant nothing to him anymore. Awww, death would be such sweet sorrow. Death was the answer to his anguish. Hers, his—it made little difference. The crow paused in his flight and passed a wing in front of himself. He would end his suffering in one final gesture of brokenhearted revenge. In his human shape, from high above the inlet, which was the size of a mere puddle below him, he fell from the sky, his arms spread. The wind in his face swept the feathers on his head back. He was a god, but he was not immortal. None of them were. Not Raven, not any of the Old Gods, not Dewi Sri. Wind whistled past. What a splash he would make. She would know then, she had broken his heart. She would die of loneliness, weeping over his broken body,
bringing flowers to his grave. With her last breath she would cry out “I have wronged you, O noble crow, forgive me.” And he would not. Or he would. Or not.
He fell and fell and fell. Now the inlet rippled with waves. Closer, closer. If he died, he would never have the pleasure. Her radiant skin, the dizzy thrill of her touch. And no vengeance either, its own kind of pleasure. If only she were below, he would fall on her and kill them both.
A quick pass of the arm and now he was crow again, wings spread, still plummeting, but he raised his head and lowered his tail, and he pulled himself out of his deathward plunge, and skimmed across the waves. So close, so close.
To have her he must finish the bedposts, the sooner the better. And for that he needed help.
Love for dinner, and revenge for dessert, kiaw. Let the banquet begin.
§
The pelican, her basket filled with an assortment of eyeballs, lips, scrota, nipples, noses, and conaria, flew higher and higher into the far corner of the sky until she flew into the throat of the beast. His throat was dark, and the air there moist and fetid, as if some foul swamp belched mephitic vapors up ahead, where the back of his tongue grew out of the bottom of his mouth. She landed there, and folded her wings, and crept along the great slab of his tongue, careful not to tickle him, for if she did, he might cough, which would send her tumbling through the air to slam into the back of his teeth. She crept along until his front teeth were just before her, and here, in a hollow of his tongue, she emptied her basket of its treats.
The beast’s tongue ran out his mouth in the gap between his fangs, which let in some light. The tip of his tongue rested, as was his custom, on the tip of his long, long tail, which circled round from his hindquarters and lay all along his side until it curled back toward his beastly lips. He was very like, the pelican always thought, a sleeping baby, who sucks his thumb for the comfort to be found there. The pelican crept out between the beast’s fangs, and scurried along the tongue until she stood on the tip of the tail.
The Alehouse at the End of the World Page 20