The Alehouse at the End of the World

by Stevan Allred

  “Have another,” said the frigate bird, “and let it linger on your tongue. It has a way of growing on you.”

  The crow drew in another taste, and he worked it around his tongue. “We like the bubbles,” he said. He drew in another taste, and another, until the mug was empty. “Not entirely unpleasant,” said he. “It has a warming effect on Us. Is there more?”

  “There is,” said the fisherman. “But you are busy now.” He gestured at the newly dead, some of whom were crowding around.

  “Is there an alehouse here?” said a young man, a natty lad by the look of him, no doubt fresh from the gallows, sent there for picking one too many pockets.

  “No,” said the fisherman, but at the same moment both the woman and the frigate bird said, “Yes.”

  And so it was that the whole crowd of them followed the fisherman and his beloved along the shore. The evening was fair, and so they gathered around the fire, and though they had but the two mugs, and the one cask of ale, they shared it all out amongst the newly dead and the gods assembled there. The ale grew thick and muddy as the cask grew emptier, but one of the dead, a weaver from Gaza, produced from one of her pockets a piece of gauze, and they filtered the ale as they poured it.

  The cormorant, in particular, was an enthusiast. As a scholar he had come across numerous references to ale, but as he told a burly blacksmith after his second mug, “The reality of it far exceeds my greatest expectorations.” The crowd was jolly around them, chatting away in a polyglot of pidgin and slang, and their laughter filled the dark night within the belly of the beast. A bout of singing broke out, reels and jigs and sea chanties, and some amongst them danced while others clapped their hands in time. The fire burned bright, and sent showers of sparks aloft when the fisherman threw on more fuel.

  The woman stood next to the fisherman as he tended the fire, surveying the crowd of revelers. She put her arm through his, and then spoke of something that had long been on her mind. “I cannot help but notice,” said she, “that you alone have blue skin. Has it always been so?”

  “Only since I have arrived here,” said the fisherman. “And the longer I am here, the bluer I get.” His tattoos had faded into his blue skin, and she could barely make out her own likeness on his chest. Her skin had slowly tanned since she had emerged from her clamshell and was now a deeper shade of bronze. “Does it trouble you?” said he.

  “’Tis a lovely shade of blue,” said she, “and whatever the color, ’tis your touch that matters most.” She caressed his arm with her fingers. “This too have I seen, that you’ve no hair on your person. Is that also a part of the enchantment of this place?”

  The fisherman put his arm round his beloved, and drew her close. She lay her head on his shoulder, and he brought her hand to his face. “No more do my whiskers grow since I’ve come here, nor the stubble on my head. All of it was burned off in the belly of the whale, and has not returned.”

  “Smooth as a china cup,” said the woman. She traced the arch above his eye where his eyebrow ought to’ve been, and then the creases in his forehead. For all the life he had lived, his hairless head made him seem untouched by it.

  ’Twas good to be in his arms, blue though they might be. She closed her eyes, and nestled there, quite content. But when she opened her eyes again, there was the crow, across the fire from her, talking to the cormorant. He was tall and his bearing regal, his oiled skin gleaming in the firelight, and something stirred in her belly, a longing to feel those arms around her as well. I am brought back from the dead, thought she, and if this be the afterlife, why should I not have everything I desire?

  The frigate bird took the opportunity of this gathering to speak to the crow, drawing him aside, and telling him that he wished to make peace with him.

  “The goddess and I,” said the frigate bird, “have come to an understanding.”

  The crow, suspicious, said, “An understanding? Of what sort?”

  “I have no claim on her,” said the frigate bird, fresh from yet another liaison with her the night before, “and thus, I leave the two of you to whatever fate has in store.”

  The crow, who in his position as King of the Dead had asserted his entitlement to more ale than anyone else, tottered back and forth as he considered what the frigate bird said. He knew the frigate bird to be a thief, and the goddess a temptress, and a liar, yet deep in his beating heart he wanted more than anything to believe that he was the goddess’s chosen one.

  “You’ve spoken to her of this?” he said.

  “I have knelt before her as she extolled your virtues,” said the frigate bird. And knelt he had, the better to nuzzle his bill in her cauliflower. “She looks forward to the day, may it come soon, when you have finished the bed you are building.”

  Awww, the bed. She wanted to school him in the arts of love on it, and he would let her. He would become the greatest lover the world had ever known, the better to make her suffer when he withdrew that love. And in her suffering she would repent. She would renounce her machinations, and fall truly in love with him, and forsake all others. And after he had her truest affections, he would slay this brigand who stood before him now, this beetle-headed codpiece, and roast, O sweet revenge, his plucked body on the pyre.

  The pyre. It was time to lead the dead to their proper resting place.

  “More ale?” the frigate bird said. “’Tis the last of what we have.” He held forth the mug, and the crow put the reed straw in his mouth and sucked it dry.

  “You’ll make more of this divine libation?” said the crow.

  “We shall,” said the frigate bird.

  “I should like my own cask the next time,” said the crow.

  “We would be honored to provide you one,” said the frigate bird.

  “I must take my leave,” said the crow. “I have my duties to perform.”

  “Your Omnipotence,” said the frigate bird, bowing, and sweeping a wing in a courtly gesture toward the crowd around the fire.

  The crow hopped up on a driftwood log and let loose a “Kiaw!” that cut through the jolly chatter like a whipsaw. Silenced, the crowd raised their fuzzled eyes and looked up at the crow, who grew himself taller by a cubit while they watched. A long, low “ohhhh” moaned its way through the crowd, followed by a burble of comments at this display of divine power.

  “Listen up, you band of giglets and applejohns,” said the crow. “There’s a bigger, better fire awaiting you, down the beach. Follow me there, and I promise you a song the likes of which you’ve never heard before.”

  “Will there be more ale?” said a dapper old man with a whispery halo of silvery hair.

  “Naw aw aw aw aw,” laughed the crow, “I’ve something far better than ale down there. Follow me and see.”

  “Must be whiskey,” shouted the dapper old man. Hoots of laughter rose from the crowd, and they followed the crow down the beach. So enthused were they that many ran ahead, and the crow, too sozzled to run, let alone take on his crow form and fly, tottered along with the stragglers. When they caught up, there was already a crowd standing around the glowing embers of the pyre. “Form a line, you gleeking sots,” said the crow. And form a line they did, eager as they were to keep the merry mood of the night alive.

  That was easy, thought the crow. Dangle the prospect of a drink in front of these swag-bellied soaks and they’d line up to be hung from the gibbet and sawn in half.

  “Where’s the whiskey?” shouted a toothless woman, her face cheery in the red glow.

  “In just a moment,” said the crow, “but first, listen to my song. You have something within you that wants out, and it’s of no further use to you. Let it go, and there’ll be whiskey for all.”

  “Huzzah!” they shouted, and then they fell under the spell of the crow’s song, and they coughed up their souls.

  This whiskey must be powerful good stuff, thought the crow. I must get me some.

  §

  The next morning dawned bleary and drear. The crow sat upon the c
ormorant’s shoulders, and the cormorant on the pelican’s, and as the light of the sun fell upon them through the haze of clouds above, it was clear that they had been too drunk the night before to assume their brightly painted colors as they fell asleep. Now they all three awoke dry-mouthed, thirsty, and achy of head, none more so than the crow. He spread his wings to flap his way to the ground, but the effort made his head throb, and his sense of balance wobble. He began to climb down, his talons digging in to the cormorant’s breast.

  “Auk!” said the cormorant. “Watch it, you clumsy corvid.”

  The crow wrapped his wings tight round the cormorant’s head as his foot reached for the pelican’s shoulder, and the cormorant worked his bill free and nipped the crow, hard, in his wingpit. The crow shrieked a kiaw and fell to the ground. He lay there moaning, and the pelican stood, throwing the cormorant backward off her shoulders.

  “You poor fellow,” said the pelican to the crow, and she shifted into her old woman shape and bent over him, parting his feathers with her fingers to see the wound. But the crow shoved her hands away. “Leave me alone,” he said, “I think I’m going to up my chuck.”

  The cormorant stood, his head reeling, the contents of his belly gathering themselves for a tactical retreat. “That makes two of us,” he said, and he fergled, and the crow fergled, and the pelican, her sense of smell overwhelmed with the foul stench, backed away, lest she also fergle.

  Up the beach, at the fisherman’s camp, the frigate bird, who had slept on his perch in the snag above the fisherman’s home, was in much better shape than were the crow, the cormorant, and the pelican. Like the fisherman, he knew well the aftereffects of too much ale, and they had paced themselves accordingly. The woman, too, had kept the better part of her wits about her. Although she had no memory of the many years she’d spent as a barmaid, she knew in her bones that ale was a double-edged blade, with one side made for cutting away one’s troubles, while the other side sliced off one’s common sense.

  The three of them ate breakfast together, pleased with themselves for all the jolly good feeling they had spread, and they talked of what they might do next.

  “We need more casks,” said the frigate bird, “and more grain, and hops.”

  “More mugs,” agreed the fisherman. “Bigger batches of ale.”

  “A proper privy,” said the woman, eyeing several round spots of damp sand too near the fire pit.

  “It will take a couple of weeks to brew more,” said the fisherman. “What do we do in the meantime?”

  “I have an idea,” said the frigate bird. “Let us seek out the pelican.”

  §

  The crow, full of subterfuge in the evening dusk, flew out to sea. As the sky darkened and he was sure he would not be seen, he circled back to the canyon, flying in from the upstream side of the waterfall. He landed on the beach in the rocky bowl, and made his way behind the waterfall, where he took on his mole shape.

  Love’s distractions had kept him from his tunnel for long enough. He padded along on his mole feet to the end of his burrow, his nose filled with the earthy smell. That smell calmed him, for here in the tunnel his task was simple and clear, and his body was built for no other thing than to dig. He had dug and dug, the earthy smell giving way finally to something fleshy and fetid, and now, as he padded along his burrow, he knew he was passing through the very belly of the Kiamah beast. Beyond that the smell turned woody, and now he was in that lower region of his burrow, where he had dug nearly all the way through the hollow driftwood log that contained the material world. He dug his foreclaws into the fragrant wood, which was many fathoms thick, and rotted to the consistency of the human tongue, which is to say it was firm but yielding. He pulled the rotted wood away, shoving it behind himself and to the sides, packing it tight to the walls and floor with his hind feet, digging ever onward and downward.

  The digging was just the thing to clear the last of his headache away. In the burrow, in his mole shape, he knew the world by touch, and as he clawed his way forward his thoughts drifted back to the woman he both loved and despised. The goddess had come to him that morning as he lay on the sand next to the stink of his own bile, heaved up by a belly that clenched itself so tight the crow thought he might just as well die.

  “You poor dear,” said Dewi Sri. She stroked the feathers on the back of his head ever so lightly, humming a comforting melody as she did so, and the crow’s aching head ached a little less.

  “Awww,” he said, grateful for her soothing touch in spite of the ire he felt toward her.

  “What is it that has laid you so low?” she asked.

  “Ale,” croaked the crow. “Marvelous stuff as you drink it, but it has a nasty sting in the morning’s light.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said the goddess. “I do not take strong drink myself.”

  “Nor ever again shall I,” said the crow.

  So do they all say, thought the goddess, but she smiled at the crow, and asked him if he were thirsty. She helped him to his feet, and together they walked to the stream, and drank their fill.

  “How goes the carving?”

  The crow, his powers renewed by the sweet clarity of the water in the stream, passed a wing in front of himself, and took on his man shape.

  “It goes,” he said. His hand trembled when he held it out, and he could not will it to stop. The goddess took his hand in hers and faced him. Her dark eyes and her carmine lips seemed to glow. If only she were less comely, thought the crow, she would be easier to hate.

  “I am eager for you to finish,” she said, stepping close to him. She put her arms round him and held him close, nuzzling his neck just below where his feathers ended.

  How could treachery and betrayal feel so good? She was leading him on, he knew this, but it only made him want her more.

  He was far below the surface now, his sinewy shoulders relishing the work, his tunnel sloping down and down and down, when he smelled something new. A zephyrous freshening, as if he neared the cave in Thrace where the west wind dwelt. The ground in front of him gave way, and he pulled back, inching up the slope of his tunnel backward. Just in time, for a hole appeared where he had just been, and there was the sky.

  He stuck his snout over the edge. The material world lay below him, just as the cormorant had told him, the world of humans, and it was a riot of smells. Piney forests, and briny sea. So many creatures, and all their breath. So much sweat and manure, smoke and pollen, mold and rot. There was a hint of something sweet and festive in the air, as if a rainbow were nearby, although he could not see it. Far, far below was the material world, a vast, hazy spread of land, with rivers and lakes shining in the sun. Too bright, too bright. His mole eyes squinted, weak as they were, and he passed a paw in front of his face and became a crow again. Now the world was sharp, and he saw trees and fields, hamlets and towns, trails and roads. Tiny, ant-like creatures moved about, and these were people.

  All of this would soon be his. The Kiamah beast would swallow it all, and he would rule it as the Kiamah’s regent, and when he did, he would be feared by all and loved by whomever he chose.

  Off in the distance was the dark gray of a storm, with trails of rain falling from it. Birds flew through the air below him, motes in motion. “Ko! Ko! Ko!” the crow thundered, his voice shaking the very air, “Ko! Ko! Ko!” Hawks and eagles fled that sound, but from far below came a “Kiaw?” in reply. How sweet a sound was that? His own kind were answering his call.

  “Awww,” the crow called, “aw-awww.” And “aw-aw,” they answered, “aw-aw!” His people, his tribe, from whom he had been separated his entire life. He called out to them again, and a flock of his fellows rose up from the forest, following the sound of his voice. Higher and higher they flew, closer and closer, heading for a hole in the sky that had never been there before. They were curious, and bold, and they heard the crow calling them, urging them upward.

  The crow took on his mole shape again, and while the flock of crows circled beneath him, he wi
dened the end of his tunnel, making a space for them to land. Once more he took on his crow shape. “Come!” he called, “come-come-come-come-come.”

  Into the hole they flew, some dozen of them, and there they gathered, twittering amongst themselves as they beheld the king of the crows, who was black and beauteous and many times their size. “Fly,” he told them, “fly to the end of the tunnel, and await me there.” They did as they were told, and waited while their god sealed up the hole in the sky, and made his way back to the cave behind the waterfall. They watched as he emerged in his mole shape, and then passed a paw in front of his face, and became a crow again, and they knew him to be their true leader.

  “I have work for you,” said the crow. “Follow me.”

  His congress of crows had arrived.

  §

  The fisherman threw another log on the fire, and sparks burst forth and rose into the night sky. He sat down on the driftwood log and put his arm round his beloved. The frigate bird, the pelican, and the cormorant were across the fire from him, a curious company, but his companions nonetheless. It had been a long, long time since he’d felt the fellowship of friends, and his mind was more at ease than it had been in many a day.

  “Oh, yes,” the pelican was saying, “’tis a marvelous notion, to have a chance to get to know the dead before they cough up their souls. We’ve never done that here before.”

  “As it happens,” the frigate bird said, “there’s a company of brewers arriving on the canoe tonight, three stout fellows, who perished when the fire they were roasting barleycorns with got out of hand, and burned down their entire alehouse.”

  “How tragic,” said the pelican. “They must have suffered a great deal.”

  “Not as much as you might think,” said the frigate bird, “for they were parlatic with their own ale.”

  “Let that be a lesson to us all,” said the woman, “not to be plotzed while we go about our business.”