Phthor

by Piers Anthony

  “Chthon!” he called automatically, knowing that was useless. One lesson this experience with Ex had already taught him: he could no longer rely on his friend and god. Not completely. And what was untrustworthy part of the time was uncertain all of the time. He had depended on Chthon to protect him from cavern predators, until he had come to think of the caverns as safe. That had been a dangerous complacency!

  Now he had to handle the salamander himself—and quickly, for the menace to Ex was growing. Chthon, balked from direct attack was now using an indirect approach, sending a monster to kill Ex while the salamander blocked off Arlo. Had he remained longer with the Norns, the deed would have been accomplished before he could return. The Norns, governed by another aspect of Chthon, had not informed him. They had sought to distract him longer.

  Arlo scowled. One day, when he had nothing better to do he just might see about making them regret that.

  Suddenly a new, ugly connection formed in his mind. The hvee, too, had worked Chthon’s will. It had sent him to the Norns, rendering Ex vulnerable. The hvee was able to grow in the caverns only because of Chthon’s ambience. Chthon could make anything happen. Chthon had wanted Arlo to be happy, so the cavern god had provided him, through Doc Bedside, with the ultimate in contentment: successful hvee. But by that token, the hvee was but another zombie, or at least a partial zombie, like Verthandi and Bedside. It seemed independent, but at the root it was not.

  Arlo realized that he had complicated his life phenomenally when he had set his will against that of his god.

  But the salamander: let the theoretical implications go, in the face of the specific. He did not dare put his hands on it. The thing was less than the span of his spread hand from thumb to little finger, but its virulent poison could kill within minutes. He could not risk hurdling it, for the thing could jump as high as he could. He could bat it aside with a stick—but he had no stick or stone, and no time to fetch one.

  He did have his stalactite spear, still tied to his body. If he could stab the thing...

  No time to debate. The salamander started for him, for these creatures always attacked, never relented. He had to fight or run. He could outrun it, and ordinarily would have—but there were no tunnel loops here that would enable him to circle beyond it and escape in the direction he required. Not in time.

  He leaped toward it, stabbing with his point. The creature cooperated by opening its jaws to bite the weapon—and the point of the spear rammed right down its throat. Lucky thrust! Arlo threw the spear to the side. The salamander was not yet dead, but it could not dislodge itself from its impalement, or move while anchored by the heavy stone spear. The way was clear.

  Then he hesitated. He might have need of his spear again. In fact, he surely would, to balk that menace closing in on Ex. Gingerly he picked it up by the end, lifting the salamander into the air. Its beady eyes stared at him with consummate malevolence, and this gave Arlo an odd thrill. He liked the hate of this little monster!

  He moved on, carrying the spear horizontally and to the side, so that the poison would neither roll down the spear to his hand nor be carried to him in droplets on the wind. He could scrape the salamander off against a suitable rock, then rinse the spear carefully in running water. When he had time. Right now he had to carry it awkwardly.

  The corkscrew was a special problem. If he slid the spear down ahead of him, poison might drip to the stone to be picked up by his body. If he held it above him, drops could fall on him. But he found he was able to carry it behind in such a way that it was never actually above him. Drops did fall on the stone, and he knew it would be long before he dared travel this way again. Well, the Norns could wait!

  He ran on through the wider, lower tunnels. Soon he would reenter the gardens—and he had gained on the menace. The animal was very large, he knew, now that he was closer to it. It could not take the most direct route, but had to find passage for its girth. So it was slow.

  “Arlo.” A man stood in his way. He was shorter and slighter than Arlo, and he was old: in his middle sixties, Arlo knew. This was Doc Bedside.

  Arlo knew the man was up to no good. In fact, he represented another barrier interposed by Chthon—a more formidable one than either Norn or salamander. For Beside was not only mad, he was intelligent.

  Still, perhaps he could bluff his way past. “I have speared a stray salamander. I must dispose of it. Be careful of the poison.” And he poked it suggestively at Bedside.

  “Ah, yes, the episode of the salamander,” Bedside said, not yielding the right-of-way though his eyes seemed to glow within the sallow crinkles of his face. “Had your father but known...”

  “I killed it, not my father,” Arlo said. How could he move the man? The wolf was getting closer to the sleeping girl; now he felt both her slumbering innocence and its malice.

  Malice—what had the Norns said?

  No time for that! He had to get by, but he could not simply shove the old man aside. Bedside had peculiar powers of his own, as the most cunning of all Chthon’s minions. In many cases he actually spoke for Chthon. A direct attack on him would be like a sally against Chthon: despite everything, unthinkable.

  “Aton was physically balked by the salamander,” Bedside said. “But he was emotionally balked by the minionette. His death reflected his life, could he but have read the parallels in time.”

  “Minionette? Death? My father lives,” Arlo said, perplexed.

  “All men sent to the prison Chthon are officially dead,” Bedside said. “The caverns have taken the place of capital punishment. There is no release; it is like the mythical underworld. I died in §394 by that definition; Aton died in §400. I was sentenced to prison Chthon because I am mad; he because he loved a minionette. Much the same thing.”

  Arlo was growing desperate because of the looming approach of the cavern menace, yet his thirst for information about his parent’s situation compelled him to follow this up. He knew Bedside was holding him here, just as the salamander had, just as the Norns had. But the hunger the old man had roused was more compelling than that the Norns had touched and harder to combat than the salamander’s threat. He knew Bedside would speak only while his terms were met, again like the Norns he resembled.

  Ah—but the wolf seemed to have mislaid the scent of the prey, temporarily. Chthon could not guide it all the way, for that would overtly break the covenant they had so recently made. The wolf had to find Ex itself. So a little extra time had developed. Arlo had to delay—or lose, perhaps forever, his chance to acquire this knowledge. Restricted as he was to the caverns, his sources of outside information were invaluable. So he listened, though simultaneously angry about being controlled this way.

  “What’s a minionette?” he asked.

  “A female of modified human stock inhabiting the planet Minion. Your grandmother was a minionette; you are quarter-minion.”

  “But you said my father was imprisoned for loving a minionette! My mother—”

  “Coquina is human, or close to it. She is native Hvee. The minionette is death.”

  “The salamander is death!” Arlo said, looking at the creature on his spear. It still lived, struggling every so often.

  “Precisely. Aton sought the incalculable wealth of the blue garnet, but what he found was the salamander. In the equivalent episode of his life he sought the lovely siren—or shall we say Valkyrie—the minionette, but that quest only brought him here to the nether world. Siren, Valkyrie, minionette: all are mere conveyances to death. All his life was like that.”

  “All reflecting his death? That makes no sense—”

  “His life reflected his death, and his death his life. All he had to do was interpret the parallels, and he would have known his future.”

  Arlo remained incredulous. “The salamander like the minionette? Did she have poison fangs?”

  “In her fashion. Your life, too has parallels—if you can read them. The hints are all about you.”

  Arlo smiled, looking again at the
salamander. “If I meet a minionette, I’ll poke my spear through her belly.”

  “Undoubtedly. That would certainly be best.”

  If Bedside agreed with him, Arlo knew he had better reconsider. But suddenly an unbearably intense sensation passed through him. The wolf had recovered the scent, charged Ex, and had her in its teeth!

  Arlo held the salamander before him and sprinted. This time Bedside, alert to the menace, got out of his way. Arlo would gladly have impaled him along with the salamander!

  Moments later he burst into the garden. But his approach had already alarmed the monster. All he saw was its huge haunch as it fled. He hurled the spear after it, hoping to nick it with the poisoned end, but the range was too long.

  Ex lay in blood on the stone. Her body had been torn open like that of a butchered chipper, exposing her innards yet she lived. Arlo took one horrified look and knew he could do nothing. He had to get help.

  Where? Not from Chthon, certainly! Who else was there to turn to?

  He was hardly aware of his rush home. Suddenly he was there, panting violently, drawing on his trunks as Coquina looked up in surprise.

  She wore a dress, very like those pictured in LOE. She was always clothed, despite the stifling heat. Clothing was part of the home-cave ritual; it had never occurred to Arlo that things should ever be otherwise. She was a woman of about fifty, and whether she was beautiful or ugly was irrelevant. She was his mother.

  Arlo had a hard time catching with breath, and the sweat seemed to be squirting out of his skin in this sudden oven. But Coquina never left her burning-wall premises, heated by a boiling stream. Not for more than a moment, certainly.

  “A girl,” he cried. “Attacked. By a monster. Dying—”

  Coquina wasted on time with questions. “Aton’s questing in the upwind forest. Find him there. Take Sleipnir.”

  “I can’t ride Sleipnir!” Arlo protested.

  “Hang onto his tail; follow him. He can find Aton immediately and carry you both back.”

  She was right: this was the fastest way. “Thanks, Mother! She hadn’t even shown surprise over Ex!

  He left the oven-cave and ran to the pasture. This was a closed minor network of passages reserved for the animal, barricaded not against his escape but against the intrusion of dangerous predators. He located Sleipnir by the sound of the animal’s grazing: a steady chip-chip-chip. Sleipnir was another glow feeder, his great front teeth chipping off flakes of rock to chew for their coating of lichen. It was a tedious chore, requiring much time and effort—but the creature had time, and strength, and imagination for little else. In fact, Aton had to pasture him in a suitable section each time, or the chipper would work over a recently deglowed stone, and starve.

  Sleipnir had a bulbous, long-snouted head, a segmented body, and eight powerful legs. He was low and long, able to run through fairly tight tunnels without pause. That was what made him such a good steed—for Aton. Sleipnir had little wit but he knew his master and tolerated no one else upon him though he was strong enough to carry several people at once.

  “Come, stupid,” Arlo said.

  The animal ignored him.

  “Sleipnir!” Arlo cried loudly. Now he perked up, hearing his name—but when he saw that it was only Arlo, he returned to his repast. CHIP! CHIP!

  Arlo grabbed hold of the creature’s spike like tail. “Find Aton!” he bawled, making his voice sound as much like his father’s as he could. “Aton! ATON!”

  That registered. Sleipnir looked about, searching for his master. When he did not see him, he sniffed the floor. “Aton! Upwind forest!” Arlo cried, jerking on the tail. With Ex dying, he had to struggle with this moronic beast!

  Sleipnir could not understand the words, but now the need to find his master had been invoked, and he began to move. His brain was minimal, but his nose was sophisticated. In a moment, he had located the freshest spoor. He pursued it.

  Was there really such a difference between man and animal, Arlo wondered. Norns, salamander, and Doc Bedside had evoked particular responses in Arlo, just as Arlo had evoked this response in the pseudo-horse. Intelligence was not of itself sufficient to circumvent such responses, or he would have been able to save Ex by ignoring the distraction placed in his way.

  When Sleipnir ran, he ran. Arlo hung to the tail with both hands and sprinted, but the steed was too swift for him. Soon he was reduced to bouncing: putting down both feet together in a kind of sliding hop, to support himself while the creature’s headlong pace carried him along. This was rough exercise—but it was getting him where he wanted to go!

  The passing caves became a blur. Some were dark, some light; some small, some huge. Some were straight, with the wind rushing through; some curved and recurred intricately. An outsider would have been amazed at the variety of shape and color; Arlo took it all for granted.

  At last they reached the upwind forest. Here the stalactites extended down from the ceiling to connect with the stalagmites below, forming columns. But many were not vertical; the force and eddies of the wind had taken the dripping fluids slantwise, and the rock formations had followed. At times over the centuries, natural forces had shifted the wind, causing the structures to change direction, and the growing presence of upwind columns had interrupted the air stream and affected the downwind columns. Slow accretion had been replaced by wind erosion. As a result, the stalactites had irregularly descending branches, and the stalagmites had roots that twisted in widely varied configurations. The colors, too, were divergent, with glowing blue and pink stripes augmenting the green moss. Even Arlo could see that this represented a kind of history of the cavern: the glow had not always been green, but only in the developing columns were the prior types recorded.

  “Father!” Arlo cried. His arms and legs were numb, his body sore from the bruising run, but that hardly mattered.

  Aton turned. He was fifty-two years old, dark-bearded and powerful, with a certain aura of determination or ruthlessness about him. He punched his fist into Sleipnir’s nose, his way of patting the animal. The creature was so tough it could not feel a light touch. Aton’s single eye looked inquiringly at Arlo.

  “Girl. Wounded. Dying. Blood. Help.” Arlo said between gulps of air.

  Aton put one hand on Sleipnir’s back and vaulted aboard. This vigor did not seem strange to Arlo; his father had always been an active man, and only recently had Arlo outgrown him. Aton leaned over, caught his son under the arms, lifted him. And deposited him on the rear segment of the steed. Sleipnir didn’t notice; all he cared about was that Aton was riding him.

  There had never been another human being in this region of the caverns other than Aton, Coquina, Arlo, Doc Bedside, and the zombies. Yet Aton hadn’t hesitated. “Where?” Aton asked.

  “In my gardens.”

  Aton had never been to the gardens, though he knew where they were, because the way was blocked by so many animate and inanimate threats. Aton did not have the aid of Chthon on that route; it was as though the god wanted no one but Arlo there. But of course Arlo had explored al the tunnels and knew his way through safely, regardless of Chthon’s influence.

  Aton guided Sleipnir according to Arlo’s instructions, and they thundered toward the gardens. Even on this fleet mount, it took some time because the safe route was circuitous. Afraid to contemplate what they would find there. Arlo talked with his father: a thing he seldom did. It was not that there was any bad feeling between them, but that there was inadequate feeling. Arlo really did not know his father well. “What is a minionette?” He had asked this question of Bedside, but received no satisfactory answer. Of course a minionette came from planet Minion; why should that be significant? Why did she equate with sirens, Valkyries, and death?

  Aton’s back stiffened, and Arlo knew that he had made a mistake. As the second son, substitute for the favored firstborn, he dared not presume. He had supposed this to be a special case. “Who spoke to you of that?”

  “Old Doc Beside.”

  Aton
grunted contemptuously, but he relaxed a bit. “What did he tell you?”

  “Only that I was quarter-minion. My grandmother—”

  “Enough!”

  Arlo was glad enough to let it drop. Aton was a man of violent temperament, and he had a sadistic streak . It was evident that Bedside had been sowing dissent, in his subtle fashion. Time for a change of subject.

  “How did you get Sleipnir?”

  Aton relaxed again. “That was Bedeker’s doing.” He always called Doc Bedside that. “He and I went exploring in the early days, but we were careless and got trapped by a caterpillar. He tried to distract it while I pounded a hole in the wall, but it stabbed him with its tail and incorporated him.”

  Arlo knew how that worked. The long caterpillars rammed their tail-spikes through the quarry, impaling the victim through the middle. In moments, special substances or nerves extended into the victim’s body, and instead of dying, he was reanimated as a segment of the creature, marching in unison with the other segments. In due course, the segments of the latter end of the creature were slowly drained of their resources, going to sustain the forepart, shrinking until they were little more than walking lumps. The caterpillar never ate with its mouth; its face was a huge façade intended to frighten potential prey toward the tail. There was little defense against a caterpillar except avoidance, as with other Chthonic menaces. But it could readily be avoided with suitable foresight. On occasion Arlo had scrambled over a caterpillar’s midportion since only the tail could attack.

  Then the other meaning of Aton’s words penetrated. “Bedside was incorporated? But he’s alive!”

  “That took you while, son,” Aton said with a brief laugh. “Bedeker is only half-alive. He’s a creature of Chthon, a mad doctor, a golem, an animated stick. A good doctor, though, especially with Chthon’s assistance. You should have gone to him for help first.”

  “I couldn’t. Chthon wants the girl dead.”

  “I thought as much,” Aton said. “Chthon wasn’t in on this particular scheme, it seems. You’re beginning to appreciate that the god of the caverns is not necessarily beneficent.”