The Alehouse at the End of the World

by Stevan Allred

  “I am frightened,” said the woman.

  “With good cause,” said the goddess. “But we must do what we are called to do, or many more than ourselves will suffer.”

  There came then a sound that traveled through the sand, a shattering, cracking, splintering sound that again shook the Isle of the Dead.

  “The beast is restless,” said the goddess, “and hungry. The moment is coming when we shall have to rise to our best selves.”

  Swive me, thought the woman. I fear I left my best self behind when I had my tryst with the crow.

  §

  The fisherman’s nap was brief, cut short by a tremor that shook the bed beneath him. He rose, and found a spade with which to dig. The goddess and his beloved were nowhere in sight, and the pelican slept on. The cormorant’s body was where Dewi had left it, in a corner of his house, beneath a covering of moss. He knelt and pulled the moss back, and there was the cormorant’s corpse. His wings were spread. His eyes were closed and sunken in death, and his spectacles, which had never left his bill in life, were there still, but askew.

  The fisherman ran his hand along the long graceful curve of his friend’s neck. He had watched the battle the night before from one of the pinnacles at the mouth of the inlet. The battle was fought aloft, out of the reach of his blade, and so he’d had naught to do, once he’d dropped the net and captured what crows he could, but bear witness to the cormorant’s ferocious attack. In his guise as the greatest of great horned owls, an owl as big as a barn, he had shown the courage of a seasoned soldier. “I shall never forget you,” said the fisherman, wishing that his friend’s corpse still had the capacity to hear him. “I underestimated you, and for that, I offer my regrets.” He did not wipe away the tears that fell from his cheeks, and he let them drip as an offering onto the cormorant’s feathers. He covered his friend again with moss, and then he stood, and took up his spade again.

  He went to the edge of the forest, and he chose a spot beneath the shade of an old grandfather of a cedar tree. He slipped the sharp edge of his spade into the dirt, and he began to dig a proper hole. He took his time, cutting the sides in plumb and true, doing the last good thing a man could do for a fallen comrade.

  By the time he was finished, the others had joined him, the frigate bird leaving his watchful perch above the crow, the pelican, in her old-woman shape, carrying a bundle of moss, and the goddess and the woman bearing the body of the cormorant on their shoulders. His spectacles were still perched on his bill, and before they lowered him into the grave, the goddess gently took them from the place they had occupied for a hundred times a hundred years. They wrapped him with moss, and set him in his final resting place, and they stood around his grave.

  “He was the least likely of heroes,” said the frigate bird, “yet he saved us all.”

  The goddess hummed a mournful tune, and they all joined in, and then one by one they each threw a handful of dirt atop his corpse.

  “Good-bye, friend cormorant,” said the fisherman. “You shall be sorely missed.”

  They all murmured their assent. The goddess handed the cormorant’s spectacles to the fisherman. “It comes to me now,” said she, “that these should be in your hands.” The fisherman took them, and like the others, he wept.

  §

  The crow heard the whisper of the frigate bird’s wings when he flew off his perch, and at this, his spirits rose. While his captors busied themselves with burying the cormorant, the crow, though he could not see them, listened to the sound of their conversation, which was too far away for him to hear what was said, yet close enough that he might divine where their attention lay. Most times he stood still, but when he heard the sobs of the pelican, he clawed at the rope that tethered him. Strand by strand he worried it, pulling it apart and sawing his way through with a claw, until he heard them heading for their fire.

  Now he stood still. The frigate bird had not returned to his perch, and the crow kicked sand over his tether where he had compromised it. He flexed his wings against the rope that bound them to his body, as he had been doing all day long, loosening his bonds. Better to flee blind than to remain here. He would run, he would fly, and when he was out of their reach he would work the hood off his head. Too long had he plotted with the Kiamah to be defeated now.

  He would have his revenge on all of them, that dung fly the fisherman, that dastardly frigate bird, that traitorous pelican, and that watercolor wife, Cariña. Let the beast devour them between his gnashing teeth, after he swallowed the material world.

  And for Dewi Sri, that tickle-tail strumpet, he reserved a special fate. He would break her wings so that she could not fly. He would tie her to a gibbet, and tear her eyelids from her eyes, and force her to watch the Kiamah swallow the world. Her bleeding, bald eyes would be unwilling witnesses to the deaths of her friends. He would rip her still beating heart from her chest, and the last thing she would ever see would be King Crow gobbling it down before her very eyes.

  He must remember, before he killed the fisherman, to have him build the gibbet.

  §

  Now they all, save the frigate bird, stood around the fisherman’s fire. It was late in the day, the sun almost disappeared in the eastern sky. The strange rumblings in the air and beneath their feet had gone on all afternoon, leaving them pensive and troubled. The sky to the west was blacker than a tyrant’s heart and split with lightning, though the air on the Isle of the Dead was eerily still.

  No one had spoken for a long time. A sudden gust of wind made the fire burn bright, and then the air stilled again and grew heavy. The frigate bird, wings wide, swooped in from a scouting flight over the Sea of Bones, and joined them in their silence. A few wayward drops of rain, harbingers of the storm to come, fell on their heads, and stirred them from their brooding.

  “The seas must be rough out there,” the fisherman said. “Will the canoe survive the crossing this eve?”

  “Let the canoe see to itself,” the goddess said. “We must slay the beast as soon as the sun sets.”

  “Rough seas and more,” said the frigate bird. “There are splinters of wood flying about like daggers in the winds aloft, more proof that the beast is awake.”

  “Splinters of wood?” the fisherman said.

  “He is chewing his way through the log upon which he sits,” said the goddess. “And what he swallows enters his belly through the far corner of the sky.”

  “Perhaps,” the pelican said, and then paused to make the sound of a fart, “some roughage will do his digestion good.” She offered them all her skew-whiff smile, and they returned it with a brief chortle of glee.

  Away from them, at the edge of the forest, the crow continued his krucking and muttering. The frigate bird returned to him, accompanied by the fisherman, and they looked him up and down. He held his wings flexed so as to hide any slack he had made in his bonds, and he stood atop the spot in the sand where he had covered his tether.

  “Am I to starve to death?” said the crow, “or might I have some morsel to eat?”

  The fisherman looked down the beach toward the pyre. “There’s nothing cooked but crow,” said he, a cruel smile forming on his lips. “A proper feast for the likes of you. Shall I fetch you some?”

  The crow stood silent at this, not deigning to take the bait the fisherman put before him. Then he bowed his head ever so slightly, as if he were humbled. “I deserve that riposte, I suppose,” said the crow. “Might I have some water, at the least?”

  “Clever crow,” said the frigate bird. “You want us to remove your hood, so that you might work your magic upon us. But we are not fools.” He turned to the fisherman and said, “Give me your shoulders to stand on, and I will fly to yonder perch, and watch this foul bird from there.”

  The fisherman did as he was bade, and then returned to his fire. The crow listened to his footsteps until they could not be heard. “When aw-aw-all is said and done,” he muttered, “we shall see who’s the bigger fool.”

  §

>   The sun was set, and as the night grew dark, the thump of the Kiamah’s heart grew louder. It emerged in the gloom above them like a dark star, a throbbing bit of darkness even darker than the night. The fisherman gazed up at it, as if it were the pole star, and he must navigate a great tempest by it. The others, too, Dewi Sri, Cariña, and the pelican, wearing her old woman shape, looked up, their fears writ deep on all their furrowed brows.

  “The hour has come,” said Dewi Sri. She hummed a low tone, as much to calm herself as the others, and she formed the abhaya mudra to ward off fear, her hand open, her fingers pointed upward at the night.

  The frigate bird swooped in then, wings wide, and settled himself on the driftwood log. “Fate is upon us,” he said. “The only way out is through.” He put his wing across the fisherman’s shoulders. “Had the gods given me hands,” said he, “I would go in your place.”

  The fisherman smiled ruefully at his friend. “If the gods had given you hands,” he said, “you would be an even greater pirate than you are. There wouldn’t be enough booty in all the world for you.”

  The frigate bird’s throat pouch swelled at these words, for he loved his friend the fisherman, and he knew the peril before him was great. If things went badly, they might never speak again.

  “Are you ready?” said the goddess.

  “I am,” said the fisherman. He checked the blade of his knife with his thumb, for he had been honing it while the sun set. He tucked the knife back into its sheath, and slung it round his neck on its cord. His gaze fell upon Cariña, who looked back at him with such sorrow in her eyes that he went to her and took her in his arms. She held him then with more love than she had felt since she first emerged from her clamshell. “Tell me,” she whispered, “that our story is not yet over.”

  The fisherman was taken aback by her request, which belied feelings he thought she did not hold. “Of course our story goes on,” he whispered. ’Twas a reassurance he offered more to meet her need than because he knew it to be true. Would the gods be so cruel as to rekindle her love for him now? For there, a mere arm’s length away, stood the pelican, with longing in her eyes. He scarcely knew what his own feelings were. He had a monster to slay.

  The goddess bent forward and braced her hands on her knees. The fisherman climbed onto her back, wrapping his arms round her shoulders, and clasping them below her neck. Then Dewi Sri beat her wings and rose, circling the inlet, flying ever upward in a spiral.

  The rest of them watched from the fisherman’s fire. The fate of the world was in the hands of their two companions now.

  And as they watched, the crow, ever stealthy, clawed at the rope that tethered him to the tree. There was but a strand left to cut. His freedom was nigh.

  §

  They flew across the inlet, the goddess and the fisherman, over the chop of wind-frothed waves, rising higher and higher, the fire below them shrinking to a spark. In the gathered darkness the pyre was now the greater light, its mound of embers, the last remains of the congress of crows, glowing red.

  The fisherman’s arms were wrapped round the shoulders of the goddess, and he felt the great strength of her wing muscles beating against his chest. She had shown herself to be formidable during the battle, and she was formidable now.

  “You’ve no doubt been high in the riggings during a storm,” said the goddess.

  “Of course.”

  “That will serve you well,” she said, “in what we are about to do.”

  The beating of the Kiamah’s heart grew louder and louder as they rose, until there was no other sound. The goddess flew higher still, and now above them the fisherman saw the Kiamah’s heart. It was as big as the house he had built, and it pulsed like a thing alive unto itself only. It was hung from the roof of the belly with a cord as thick as the fisherman’s body.

  Now the goddess flew round the cord, and they landed atop the beating heart. The heart thumped beneath them as if it were trying to shake them off, and the fisherman slid sideways off Dewi’s back as she fell to her knees. They were in a flat spot, the heart itself sloping away on all sides, the Isle of the Dead far, far below them. The cord was a body’s length away, and the goddess worked her way forward on her hands and knees, her movements timed for the rest spots between each thump of the beast’s heart, the fisherman following her. When the goddess reached the cord, she pulled herself upright.

  “You do the cutting,” shouted the goddess, “and I shall steady you.” She reached a hand out to the fisherman and pulled him to his feet. The fisherman drew his blade, but the next thud of the beast’s heart nearly threw him off. Only the goddess’s firm grip on his arm saved him.

  “Quickly,” she cried. She had one arm wrapped as far round the cord as she could reach, the rest of her wing stretching out beyond, the strength of her wing muscles serving her well to keep her purchase. With her other arm she held the fisherman round his waist. “Now,” she shouted, “I cannot hold you thus for long.”

  The cord was tough, but the fisherman’s knife was keen. He drew a slice halfway round, the flesh of the cord parting. The slice was a knuckle deep. He cut again, and again, and each time deeper, but it was slow going, and he felt as if he were trying to cut down an oak tree with naught but a penny knife. His other arm was wrapped round Dewi’s waist, and they were locked together in a kind of danse macabre, urging the Kiamah on to his death. He had the slice deep enough to bury his hand in it when he hit blood. It spurted up his arm, hot and as black as tar. He nearly dropped his blade in surprise. The goddess tightened her grip on his waist. “Keep going,” she shouted. “You must finish.”

  The fisherman sliced ever deeper with his knife, the blood now a veritable fountain, great gouts of it splashing down at their feet, and pouring off into the night. The smell of it was sour and smoky, and it burned in their nostrils. Together they worked their way round the cord, slicing through its flesh to the hollows of the blood vessels within, but the more he sliced, the more the heart tilted. It hung by less and less, although its relentless beating kept on. Their footing grew ever more treacherous, slickened as it was by the beast’s blood. Only the goddess’s great strength kept them from falling, but the strain robbed her face of all its serenity, and she grimaced with the effort. Sweat poured down her forehead and stung her eyes, leaving tracks in the sooty gray pallor there. And still the fisherman cut.

  §

  Black blood fell out of the night sky and landed close by the glowing pyre.

  “It’s there the beast’s heart will fall,” said the frigate bird. “We’d best keep our distance.”

  Cariña wrinkled her nose. “There’s a bitter smell in the wind.”

  The pelican nodded. “Like the smell of hair burning on the pyre,” said she.

  It was then that the crow clawed through the last strand of the rope. He sniffed the air, his sense of smell quickened by the many blind hours he had spent with the hood over his head. That way was the fisherman’s fire, where his captors were gathered. Over there was the pyre. Behind him, the forest. He could not fly, and to stumble through the forest, blind as he was, promised a quick recapture. He began to edge his way toward the pyre, moving slowly so as not to draw attention to himself, staying close to the edge of the forest so that he might not be seen. Step by slow step he moved, the rope around his leg dragging behind to its frayed end.

  The frigate bird looked to where the crow had stood, checking on his captive. He peered into the dark night, and saw nothing.

  “Look sharp,” he said to his companions. “Methinks the crow has escaped.”

  They all looked then, and it was Cariña who spotted him. He was some distance down the beach, slinking along, his body bent forward so that it was almost parallel with the ground.

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  “Swiftly, but silently,” said the frigate bird, the tip of his wing to his bill. They all three set out, their footfalls silent in the soft sand, but then the frigate bird had a better thought, and he climbed up o
n Cariña’s back and launched himself into the air. He beat his wings once, twice, thrice, and then he was upon the crow, his claws digging into the crow’s back, the crow twisting and turning and trying to throw him off. The crow fell to his side and rolled, knocking the frigate bird loose. He rolled to his feet and hopped off in that slow gallop peculiar to crows, two-stepping his way down the beach. The frigate bird lay on the sand, the wind knocked out of him.

  Cariña and the pelican had caught up by now, Cariña holding a stout piece of driftwood that she had snatched up as she ran. It was the pelican who saw the rope trailing behind the crow. She grabbed it with both hands and pulled, and the crow, midhop, fell to the ground. He rose again, but now the pelican had him, and she dug her heels into the sand and kept him from fleeing. He was almost to the pyre. Cariña caught up to him, with no thought in her head other than the chase, and with all of her hurt and anger at what the crow had done to her, beating her in his drunken rage, all of her longing for love, and her ire and vexation at not finding it where she sought, all of this in her arms, she swung the club and smote him down.

  The crow fell to the sand senseless, but still breathing. The woman sobbed, great shudders of feeling shaking her body. She dropped her club, and the pelican joined her, putting her arms round her friend. But even though the woman was overcome, the pelican’s smile was broad, for she found that she loved this feeling that came with running toward danger. Tripping the crow, holding him back, and watching Cariña lay him low, made her feel that she was the most alive she had ever been.

  The frigate bird caught up to them. He looked at the crow, and he looked at the pyre, and he looked at the black blood falling out of the sky and marking the sand next to it. He looked up at the night sky, and he saw that the Kiamah’s heart was falling.