by Lionel Fenn
Gideon didn't like the way things were going. "It worked, didn't it?" he repeated stubbornly.
"Well, now," Junffer interrupted, "are we talking about the ends justifying the means here?"
Tuesday turned on him, one eye closed. "Do you mind? I'm talking to my brother."
"Because if we are, we have to define our standards. There's a principle involved, one of—"
"Oh, stuff your damned principles," she said. "This man nearly got us killed!"
Gideon raised his hand.
"But he was thinking of us, not himself," the skeleton reminded her. "Under the circumstances, he was doing the best he could for the greater good."
Tuesday jumped down a step. "Are you saying, Mr. Star, that you'd do the same thing now?"
"Not on your life," Junffer said, horrified. "I could be squashed. Messy being squashed, even for someone like me."
Gideon cleared his throat and wiggled his fingers.
"Then what the hell are you talking about?"
Junffer looked at her in disdain. "Principles, as I said. Something you obviously know nothing about, Duck."
"Whose principles? Bones."
"Well, not mine, to be sure. I don't have a death wish."
"Excuse me," Gideon said, waving his arm. "My hand's falling asleep."
Tuesday looked over her shoulder. "What!"
"You didn't die. He didn't die. I didn't die. Red didn't die."
"What's he doing now?" Junffer asked.
"Conjugating principles," she answered. "Giddy, what are you talking about?"
"The sun."
"The sun? What sun?"
He pointed over his shoulder. "That one. The one in the sky. I just thought you'd like to know we made it to the top."
CHAPTER SIX
The welcome golden light Gideon referred to was perfectly framed within a large, jagged opening some one hundred yards away, and the air that passed through it was sweet, cool, and almost dizzingly fresh. He took a deep breath, and another, and was about to rise to his feet when he was forced to duck away from a flurry of excitement that passed over his head as Tuesday charged for the exit. Then he scrambled to one side as Red, tail high and nostrils flaring at the scent of homegrown grazing, lumbered in her wake.
Junffer, on the other hand, had dropped into a chair and was busily fastening a seat belt.
The escalator flattened and became like unto a moving walkway.
Gideon looked at the exit, looked at the skeleton, and concluded instantly that there was something someone had not told him, some small detail about leaving the underground that evidently required a certain amount of precaution. When he glanced back at the exit and saw Red gather his legs beneath him and make a magnificent leap toward the sun, he was sure of it.
Junffer crossed his legs and held his spear across his lap, his immovable features stone-like in their resignation to whatever necessary unpleasantness he was about to face.
Gideon, having seen the same expression somewhat more fleshily outlined in a dentist's office, put a hand on the knob of his bat and searched the darkness to either side, expecting one last desperate assault by a horrid and utterly ruthless denizen of the dark who would at the final moment snatch victory from his grasp with, no doubt, a gleeful chortling.
"You'd better get a move on," Junffer warned.
"You're not going?" he said, noting the turbulence that had arisen between the creature's ribs.
"Heavens and earth, no," the skeleton replied, motes of blue lightning sparking his eye sockets indignantly. "Stars do not impress the louts out there. I do have my pride, you know."
Gideon stood beside him and held out his hand. "I'm impressed," he said.
They shook hands, albeit gingerly, and Junffer nodded toward their destination as he tightened the belt another notch. "Now don't waste time," the skeleton suggested. "The end of the road, the pot of gold, parting is such sweet sorrow, and if you don't get a running start you'll probably die. Unless you can fly, of course. I don't know about stars in your world, but in my world stars have no need of such flamboyance. We are a modest lot, in general."
Gideon shaded his eyes and squinted until he saw what appeared to be a rather ominously large gap between the exit and where the escalator seemed to curl under on itself. It took him less time than an apprehensive lurch of his stomach to realize that, in order for the conveyance's furniture not to be demolished at each return journey to the bottom, there must needs be a sizable opening at either end.
Which, at this end at least, explained Tuesday's flight and Red's leap, not to mention the seat belt.
He backed away slowly. "I think I'd better sit down."
"Too late," Junffer said. "One of the reasons I'm a star is because I took out all the other seat belts. It's a grand sight, seeing one's opponents have the rug pulled out from under them, so to speak. The screaming isn't terribly nice, but it doesn't last very long."
Screaming, Gideon thought.
"How wide is it?" he asked.
"The lorra made it."
"The lorra has four legs."
Junffer squirmed. "I can't help you."
"Principles."
"Exactly. As a star yourself, you ought to know that."
Gideon watched the exit grow nearer, the gap wider, the sun brighter, the sky bluer. He felt the muscles in his legs tighten, his breathing become shallow, his arms tense, his teeth gnaw on his lower lips.
"Run," Junffer suggested mildly.
The gap was black, and it was wide, and there was a hissing as the segmented flooring curved under and down.
There was no time left for mental or emotional preparation; within the next few seconds, he would have to break into a headlong gallop or there wouldn't be a long enough stretch for him to gain the proper momentum to make the leap, assuming he would be able to make the leap at all, and assuming that in making the leap he would be able to clear the gap and land safely on the other side.
"Run," Junffer said, sounding a bit nervous himself.
Gideon positioned himself in front of his chair, jogged in place a few steps to loosen his legs, and took a deep breath, the shaky exhalation of which was interrupted by a blinding flash of blue, the smell of singed denim, and a violent stinging in his left buttock, which propelled him forward with an angry bellow.
As he neared the edge, he thought he heard Junffer laughing.
As he reached the spot where the floor began to sink and he had to make a decision as to which foot to push off from in order to give himself the proper height and distance, he felt another, more savage sting in his right buttock, which instantly launched him, a second time, into the air with arms and legs windmilling frantically and with his gaze fixed firmly on a patch of green just beyond the lip of the exit.
With more amazement than skill, he landed upright, stepped back, threw himself forward, and fell prone onto the ground. The air was punched from his system upon contact, and he gasped as his eyes filled with tears, wheezed as he sought to refill his lungs, choked when he discovered his mouth was coated with dirt and a few blades of grass. There was a second when he felt as though he were holding onto the side of a mountain, his fingers gripping the ground and his toes scrabbling for a foothold; and another second when he thought he was going to black out when, in rolling onto his back, his buttocks reminded him of their recently weakened condition.
He rolled back onto his stomach.
He calmed, grinned when he realized he was safe, then stopped grinning when a subterranean rumbling suggested that the cavern giant had finally figured out how he'd been duped and was annoyed enough to find his own way to the surface.
A panicked look over his shoulder, however, showed him nothing but a massive grey boulder slowly sinking into the ground where the exit had been. He watched, fascinated, as the earth ran up its sides, closed over it, buried it, and sprouted instant grass to conform with the other grass that stretched all the way to the hazy horizon.
I will not be amazed, he told himself as he push
ed stiff-legged and tight-lipped to his feet; I will simply accept this as one of the amazing qualities of this world, and I will carry on as if nothing has happened. He did not, however, walk over to the spot where he knew he had emerged from the underground, and he did not, in not walking over there, stamp on the ground to see if it sounded hollow.
Luck, or whatever it was that had sustained him thus far, was not to be tempted by doubt or experimentation.
What he did do was throw a salute to Jeko Junffer, then turn around to search for his sister and the lorra, neither of whom he was able to spot immediately on the rolling plain. The one, he decided, was more than likely stretching her wings after so long a dark confinement, and the other was probably gorging himself on the sweet grass of his homeland.
And it was, in a sense, much like coming home, he thought as he sought a familiar landmark. He knew instantly he had arrived on the Sallamin Plain, a vast area that stretched from the inhospitable Blades in the north to a forest, as yet unexplored by Gideon, to the south. A scan of the horizon finally located the distant Scarred Mountains to the northeast, which meant that the edge of the world was behind him, and the village of Pholler was somewhere to the southeast.
And Pholler meant Ivy.
And Ivy meant...
He blushed, though there was no one to read his decidedly prurient and somewhat tender thoughts, and turning to his right, began walking, knowing there was a road somewhere in that direction that would eventually lead him to his destiny.
On the other hand, he thought, with both palms pressed just above those areas where Junffer's blue lightning had spurred him on, perhaps "destiny" was too great a word for a man's mere physical longings and his quest for a permanent place in a land to which he was a stranger.
Thirty minutes and a lot of grimacing later, he reached the hard-packed dirt road. His buttocks were not quite so actively painful, and he wasted no time in setting forth eastward, assured by confidence born of experience that he would not be alone for very long. The people of this world had an uncanny ability to pop up at the oddest, and even on occasion the most fortuitous, moments. Though he had been, to be honest, also interrupted by said popping up during other moments that had been notable for their rare serenity, their delicacy of emotion, and their taint of raw lust and virulent promise of chastity denied.
Such as the time when he and Ivy, shortly after their first meeting at Whale's armory shop in Pholler—
A flapping of wings interrupted him. When he looked up and behind, he saw Tuesday swinging over the road toward him, her wings out in a wavering glide that, once she had applied her brakes, ended no six feet from where he walked.
"You have two holes in your ass," she said when he caught up with her.
The sinews alluded to tightened in recognition, and he winced. "I was given a boost." His knees locked until the pain had passed. "I suppose I'll have to get new jeans. Again."
"I don't know," she said. "It looks kind of... different. Like you're winking. Of course, I suppose some will say you're being cheeky."
He looked at her, waiting for the laugh, and when it came he felt justified in taking a swat at the back of her head. She squawked, flew a few paces farther on, and settled with a huffy fluff of her feathers.
"Where's Red?" he asked.
A wing extended. "Up there. Eating. You'd think it was his last meal or something."
Poor choice of words, he chided silently, but said nothing aloud as he stretched his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the hair that had given the lorra its name. Up a rise, down into a hollow, up again, and he saw him, munching on a low shrub and twitching his tail contentedly.
"You notice something?" Tuesday said.
Red looked up, burped, purred, and trotted over to join them.
"Yeah, he needs a brushing."
"No, about this place."
"I recognize it," he said, "if that's what you mean."
"So do I, Giddy, but that's not what I meant."
He looked around carefully, studying the expanse of grass, the trimmed edges of the road, the seductive rise and fall of the land, the sheer grandeur of the sky, the peaks of the Scarred Mountains still some distance away, the dots of black against the blue that indicated flying things that might or might not be of a friendly nature. And when he had completed his survey, he looked at his sister and shrugged.
"Listen," she prompted.
He did. "Except for us, I don't hear anything."
"Right."
He paused, started walking again, and reached out his right hand to stroke Red's flank thoughtfully. "It's very peaceful."
"It's quiet. There's a difference."
A nod. There were no birds crying, no insects buzzing, no wind whispering through the grass.
"It's as if everything's asleep," he said, unconsciously lowering his voice.
"Or dead."
That was a possibility he wished she hadn't raised. Not that he was surprised; she had done that often during her life back in New Jersey and Hollywood—a straight-from-the-shoulder-and-damn-the-torpedos expression of exactly what she was thinking since, she reasoned, what she was thinking wouldn't benefit anyone if they didn't know what it was. Like the time she had tactlessly, though accurately, characterized a woman Gideon had been seeing as someone who had a connoisseur's knowledge of every ceiling in every hotel in every city that had hosted a professional football team. Gideon had been crushed. It was a harsh judgment, and certainly exaggerated, but it definitely explained the woman's constant muttering about when the management was going to fix that damned crack in the corner.
He listened again. "No, not dead. Missing. Absent."
Tuesday nodded. "Maybe we're too late."
He waved her silent and wished to hell she'd stop reading his mind.
"Maybe we ought to go back."
"How?" he said with an impatient gesture behind him. "The only way now is to jump off the edge of the world, like I did the first time."
"So?"
"So Whale was with me and his magic was working then. He's not around now. It's a long way down, in case you've forgotten."
"Not for me."
"We're not talking about you, we're talking about me."
"That's very selfish of you, Giddy," she said softly.
"Don't call me that," he said. "And it's not selfish, it's realistic. If I jump this time, I die. If I die, you don't have a brother. If you don't have a brother, you stay a duck for the rest of your life."
"I can fly down. To Whale. Who'll change me back."
"Who hasn't been able to change you back yet. Besides, Tuesday, it's the principle of the thing!"
"What principle?"
"The principle that a falling body, when it hits the ground, breaks apart and gets smashed."
"Gee," she said. "I hadn't thought of it that way."
To compensate for his desire to convert her into a unique muff, his feet began to ache; but any thought of riding Red was instantly driven off when he tested his buttocks for signs of recovery. Sitting on the lorra's back would be no pleasure at all.
After an hour Tuesday suggested they sing songs to lift their spirits and make the Sallamin seem a little less spooky.
For spooky it had turned, as a wind came up from the north, lowering the temperature and rustling through the grass, bringing large clouds from the Scarred Mountains whose shadows scuttled over the knolls like things Gideon would just as soon not think about because they reminded him of things he already knew about and didn't much care for.
The songs she chose were spritely, ribald, and ultimately embarrassing, since Gideon could not shake the notion that this duck here was his big sister, who was, in her fashion, a substitute mother, and mothers simply didn't know the lyrics that this one did, not if they wanted to bring their children up correctly and with a sense of propriety.
He refused to join in, even when he knew the words, and Tuesday accused him of blushing.
"I am not blushing," he insisted. "I am re
d-faced from all this walking."
She laughed, and immediately launched into a chanty about a sailor, a mermaid, a dolphin, an electric eel, and a German shepherd. Gideon caught the eel part, but he ignored the bit about the German shepherd since he was positive it was anatomically impossible anyway. Intriguing, but impossible.
After two hours, she began reciting every part she had had in every movie she had made, or had tested for, or had hoped to test for. It was an enlightening experience for her brother, who hadn't fully realized the true range and breadth of her screaming ability and emotive potential, though the impact was somewhat sadly diminished because of her duckish limitations. And when she was finished, close enough to sunset for him to caution her about caution in the face of the unknown, Red nuzzled him thankfully and wandered off to forage for supper.
Gideon found them a traveler's clearing at the side of the road, where he discovered some of the nutritious plants he had once disdained. He fashioned a salad on a large and low flat rock, ate without tasting a thing, and finally lay back on the grass to look at the stars. Tuesday nestled beside him and tucked her head under her wing.
Red finally returned and settled on his other side, so Gideon could use the lorra's soft hair for a pillow.
It would have been wonderful, even idyllic, he thought, if it weren't for the familiar red eyes glaring down at him from the dark.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Gideon woke the following morning, he decided instantly to go back to sleep. Sleep, as he had discovered during his days of terminal unemployment, was a near-perfect method of suppressing, if not actually forgetting, how miserable he was while he was awake. And he was certain, when he saw the dagger pointing at his throat at a distance of less than a hand's breadth, that this was a case of classic misery in the making if he ever saw one.
The weapon itself was, from this angle, imposing—a nine-inch blade of pure, unreflecting black engraved along the cutting edge with what he sincerely hoped were only symbolic silver notches, and a crimson filigree hilt that branched from either side back and around a hand encased in a leather glove as dark as the dagger itself. The point did not waver; neither did it confuse him with any doubt about where it would bury itself should he make a move inconsistent with the owner's perception of survival.