by Dyrk Ashton
He frantically searches the sky as Arges arrives next to him. “Tanuki, what is it? What do you see?” Unfortunately for Arges, he inherited the notoriously poor eyesight of his rhinoceros mother. His sense of smell, however, has no equal. He takes a deep draught of the air, exhales slowly. “Gods,” is all he says. Not an identification per se, but a curse, and a prayer.
Tanuki fears, however, The Rhino is not wrong.
“There!” Tanuki points below.
An expansive black shadow slithers fast over the roofs of the monastery buildings. The Gong Pagoda goes dark beneath it--and explodes. From this distance they see it before they hear the sound. The shadow is gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving projectile fragments of stone, metal, and flesh scattering the grounds. Then comes the stone-shattering crunch, twisted ringing whine of metal, screams cut short, and more screaming.
From high on the air comes another sound, much louder than the gongs had ever been. The mountain vibrates with its onslaught. The booming horn of a ship, an air raid siren, the air-horn of a fast-approaching train, a klaxon of doom…
Tanuki, Arges and Asterion have heard it before, but not since the final battle of the Second Holocaust--the war cry of Ziz, The Quetzalcoatlus, primordial terror of the sky.
* * *
Ziz pumps his magnificent wings, driving himself up into the ashen sky above the monastery. His natural pterodactyl mother had been an excellent glider, but he is Firstborn. He can fly, fast and forever.
Ziz had not planned to announce himself. He’d flown hard, even in daylight, cloaked in shadow, though the Master ordered him to travel only by night, and approached the monastery from the opposite side of the mountain. There he concealed himself and waited for darkness to come before descending cautiously. As careful as he was, the parvulus maggots somehow spied his approach and commenced to banging their metal toys. They are ruing it now. The Quetzalcoatlus isn’t overly concerned. At least it allowed him to express with his cry the blood-boiling exhilaration of impending combat.
Ziz spins, dives, banks to glide along the face of the mountain. The bloodlust of aggression inherent to all higher creatures has taken hold. It exists in the parvuli, primitive as they are, but even more so in Firstborn. The sheer thrill that comes only from fighting for one’s life and meting out death. He revels in it. And he knows, deep within his cave, The Bull feels it too.
Patience, Asterion. I’m coming...
CHAPTER TWELVE
Flowers & Figs 5
Fi’s life is not what she would call exciting. Last night with Zeke and today with Billy, then the two of them together, it’s all been a little too much. She looks forward to getting on with her simple routine.
She enters the spacious recreation room on the third floor. Sunshine streams through arched windows that go practically floor to ceiling, all signs of rain she experienced upon her arrival gone from the sky outside. Patients lounge at tables and on couches, mesmerized by flat screen TVs. Some shuffle in circles while others sit quietly in wheelchairs, staring into space. There’s a full-size shuffle board that’s rarely used, and shelves of books and games line the walls. Half a dozen staff are scattered about, chatting amongst themselves.
Billy must have headed this way while Fi was in the staff office checking her schedule. He’s at a table speaking closely to a young nurse. From the look on her face he’s telling her about Peter and Dr. Williams. Fi isn’t sure she’s happy about that. Billy wiggles his fingers at her in “hello,” then points surreptitiously past her to the other side of the room.
Fi turns to where there’s a glass-walled security booth. Another one. Joe, the Head of Security, sits at a counter inside eating pretzels, watching more surveillance screens. He wears the same kind of headset with microphone the guards have downstairs.
Another guard, Lisa, stands at the open door at the end of the booth, having a conversation with Dr. Williams, the Chief of Medical Staff--and the woman who has supposedly been boinking Peter. She must be what Billy was pointing at. Dr. Williams is probably in her mid-fifties, shoulder-length black hair with a wisp of white over each ear. She was probably gorgeous in her youth but never married, as far as anyone knows. She’s one of those brilliant but driven women who gives her whole life to her work, Fi figures. Honorable, but kind of sad. Will that be me, someday?
Dr. Williams spots her, “Miss Patterson!” and strides over, waving a file folder.
Fi freezes, stricken by the thought they’ve found out about her seizure. Zeke promised! He wouldn’t tell, would he?! Stay calm! Breathe! Speak!
“Dr. Williams, good morning.”
Dr. Williams reads from the file in her hand, “Fiona Megan Patterson,” then looks up at her, “is everything all right here at the hospital?”
Fi isn’t sure what to say. Truth is, they treat her extremely well, the patients have the best care she can imagine and she loves working here--so she tells Dr. Williams that.
“Good!” Dr. Williams exclaims, appearing to be relieved--and even more on edge than Fi. “I mean, good. Excellent. Because I have your peer evaluation here, and you have rave reviews. The staff, and the patients who have the wherewithal to respond, simply love you.”
“Oh,” Fi says tentatively. “Thank you. That’s... great.”
Dr. Williams glances around and steps a little closer, lowering her voice. “And you are working wonders with Peter. He’s a very interesting case, as you know. Does he seem alright to you? Any change in his behavior?”
“Um... No. Not to speak of.”
Dr. Williams breathes with obvious relief. “Okay. Well, keep me apprised, will you please?”
“Sure, absolutely.”
“Thank you, Fi. For everything you do here.”
“You’re very welcome. Thank you for the job.”
Dr. Williams seems confused. “No... thank you, again. You know, this evaluation means a pretty significant increase in your internship stipend.”
“Wow, that’s great.”
Dr. Williams smiles nervously, then straightens and strides out of the room.
Fi watches her go. That was weird. A relief, ultimately, but weird. Dr. Williams rarely talks to her, let alone gives her praise. Maybe Billy’s friend Salazar was telling the truth.
Fi surveys the room then smiles as her eyes settle on a particularly withered old man sitting hunched in a wheelchair in a soft block of light from the windows. A heavy-set woman in brightly flower-patterned scrubs is kneeling in front of him, spooning something to his mouth from a bowl on a standing tray.
The woman sees her approach. “Fi, darlin’, thank God.” She wipes dribbled oatmeal from the old man’s chin, then stands with some effort.
“Hi Mary,” Fi greets her. “Is he giving you any trouble?”
“Trouble?” Mary scoffs. “You a comedian now? If he only would. It’d be better than doing absolutely nothin’, which is absolutely what he’s always doin’. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning, though. Dr. Williams has had me trying to get him to eat something all day.”
“Dr. Williams?”
Mary nods. “Mm-hmm. She seems to have taken a special interest in his welfare lately. But now he’s all yours. I’m goin’ home to my bathtub.” She hands Fi the towel and spoon. “Work your magic.” She pulls a napkin out of a pocket in her scrubs and wipes beads of sweat from her brow. “Whew!”
“Hot flashes again?” Fi asks.
Mary fans her face with her hands. “Every time. I don’t know if it’s the getting up and down or if it’s just him. The man gets me positively rosy.”
Fi grins. “I think he has that effect on a lot of people.”
Mary sees the bag in Fi’s hand. “I see you brought the good stuff. You know I tried to give him figs last week. Wouldn’t touch ‘em. I had three different nurses try ‘em on him. Kind of an experiment. Nothin’ doin’.”
“Really? He wouldn’t eat any?” Fi sets the spoon on the tray and moves it out of the way.
“Not a bite.
It’s you girl. You got the Peter touch.”
Fi raises an eyebrow. Mary realizes what she’s said and chuckles. “‘Peter touch.’ Oh my. Well, have fun honey.”
“Thanks, Mary. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.”
Mary murmurs, “Mm-hmm” and walks away, chuckling and shaking her head. “‘Peter touch’... my my...”
Fi kneels in front of Peter’s wheelchair. He isn’t wearing the standard hospital gown or approved white bathrobe like the rest of the patients. He won’t have it. He doesn’t fight if you dress him that way, but if you leave him alone for even a minute you’ll come back and find him naked. The only clothes he’ll keep on are the same ratty nightcap, mangy pink slippers and threadbare baby-blue robe he was found in. Fi studies his face. There’s apparently nothing wrong with his sight but his eyes are cloudy and dull, so much so that the color is impossible to discern.
“Peter?” she asks softly. No response. He reacts to things sometimes but doesn’t actually interact, and never really communicates. Other than flowers and figs, the one thing that usually gets a rise out of him, if you could call it that, is a clear night sky. Billy stopped in to check on him one night a couple of months ago. Peter was lying in his bed, staring out the window and mumbling what Billy thought was gibberish. It took him awhile to realize that Peter might be looking at the stars.
Billy told Fi about it, and when she had her next night shift, which is only one day every other week, she asked for permission to take Peter to the roof. Dr. Williams was hesitant but told her to go for it as long as she put a blanket on him to keep him warm. Fi took a book and a little reading light to keep herself occupied. Peter stared into the sky for hours, mumbling to himself. The words made no sense to her, but every once in awhile she thought she heard something she recognized as an actual name of a star or constellation. Dr. Williams took this as a good sign, so she and the other doctors decided that Fi should take him out whenever she had a night shift and the weather was amenable. Each time, Peter reacts the same way. He becomes tranquil, motionless except for the slow turn of his head and the movement of his lips. After their stints on the roof he’s especially calm the rest of the night and the whole next day.
Uncle Edgar has a passing interest in Peter since Fi talks about him a lot, so she told him about the stars. Edgar thought about it for a minute, then said, “Maybe he was once a scientist, an astronomer or astrophysicist.”
“That would be cool,” she mused.
“Or, perhaps he was a seafaring explorer who navigated by sextant, or a wise king in an ivory tower who gazed at the heavens through a telescope of crystal and gold.
Fi smirked, “Now you’re just making fun.”
“Am I?” It’s hard to tell with Edgar, even after all her years with him, when he’s joking and when he’s deadly serious. “I’m not so young myself, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
Edgar ignored the jab. “What I’m trying to say is, at Peter’s advanced age, the night skies might represent for him something that remains constant. While his life has whirled by, everything changing around him at breakneck speed, perhaps the stars are his connection to eternity, timeless and forever. Maybe the heavens are all he has left.”
“He’s got flowers and figs,” Fi added.
“Yes he does, dear,” Edgar said with a smile, “and he’s got you.”
Edgar sometimes surprises her by saying things like that, out of the blue. Profound things. Profound to her, anyway. He has a way of making her feel like she matters. And the truth is, she doesn’t feel that way very often.
“Peter, it’s Fi,” she tries again.
A furrow flits across his brow, but it looks like that’s all she’s going to get out of him. She was really hoping to see that rare smile today. She studies him for any sign of recognition. His full head of white hair is plastered to his scalp under his cap, as always, and hangs below his shoulders. He’s got wide-set eyes beneath a broad brow, high cheekbones and a strong jawline--Fi can tell, even though his chin is mostly hidden by a white beard that scraggles down to the middle of his chest. He has an intelligent face, she thinks, and something about his features makes her believe he had to be quite handsome in his day. Now, he just looks old. Old, sad, and lost.
He can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, though his measurements say he’s six feet tall. His shoulders may once have been broad, but now they’re drooped and emaciated. His legs and arms are skin and bone, the flesh mottled purple and yellow. His joints are swollen, as is common among the aged, accentuated by his thinness, making his knuckles, knees and elbows especially knobby. His fingernails are yellowed, but not ragged, and of a length that reminds Fi of the nails on Zeke’s right hand, which he keeps overly long for playing his guitar, except that Peter’s are like that on both hands. He gets terribly irritated if anyone tries to cut them, or his hair, but neither seem to get any longer. He doesn’t scratch, pinch or claw like some patients do, and his hair isn’t matted, greasy or smelly, so the staff just leaves him be.
The oddest thing about Peter is the way he smells. All the staff who work with him agree that he doesn’t smell like an old man. That musty sour odor the elderly often have. All the other patients in the facility smell like that, some more than others, but not Peter. He doesn’t even have bad breath. He never perspires visibly, which isn’t uncommon for old folks, but he does have a faint scent of sweat, though not the bad kind. Other than that, what else he smells like is where everybody disagrees. Mary says its cucumbers, Clary sage and baby powder. Billy swears it’s pumpkin pie and doughnuts. Zeke claims it’s patchouli, ylang-ylang and myrrh. Fi has no idea what ylang-ylang and myrrh smell like, but she is not a fan of patchouli. Makes her think of old hippies.
Fi and the others are well aware these scents are all known aphrodisiacs. This information is even in Peter’s file, though the doctors (except for Dr. Williams, for some reason), scoff when they read it. To Fi, Peter smells of flowers. Rose, jasmine, lavender--but she also gets a hint of licorice. The truth is, she gets a little flushed herself when Peter’s close, sometimes. If she’s brutally honest with herself, she can kind of understand why Dr. Williams had succumbed--but just kind of. She’d never do anything about it, that’s just freaky. Still, she can’t help imagining how attractive he must have been in his prime.
“Peter, I brought you something,” she says, retrieving the orchids from the bag. She pulls the green paper down from around them, reaches to place them in his hand--and Peter suddenly grabs her by the wrist. The orchids go flying.
Fi gasps, “Peter!” He’s never done anything like this before!
Slowly, he pulls her forearm to his face. Fi is amazed at the firmness of his grip. For a second she worries that he might bite her. His teeth may be yellowed and stained but he has all of them, and according to the staff dentist they’re perfectly healthy. But instead of chomping on her arm, he sniffs it.
His cloudy eyes narrow as he inhales deeply. Then he begins to shake. His temples throb, veins pop out on his forehead--and he’s gripping her harder.
“Peter, please.” As shocked as she is, she tries to keep her voice down so as not to draw attention. She glances around, sees Billy watching them with concern. She shakes her head and holds her free hand out to indicate that everything’s okay. Billy rises from his chair and walks toward them anyway.
Now Fi’s hand is turning purple. His eyes, she notices. They look almost... red. “Peter, please,” she whispers forcefully. “You’re hurting me.”
He inhales sharply and releases her. She jerks her arm back, rubs her wrist, but doesn’t move away. He mumbles something. It actually sounds like “sorry.”
“Peter?”
He rarely looks at anyone. His eyes just kind of wander in your general direction, if you can get his attention at all. But they settle on her now--and there are tears. He speaks below a whisper, but this time there’s no mistaking the words. “S-s-sorry. S-so, sorry...”
Fi is astounded. H
e begins to sob. “No, Peter, it’s okay. It’s alright.” Tears stream down his cheeks.
Billy arrives, the young nurse he was conversing with right behind him. Even a few of the other employees and some patients are looking their way.
“It’s okay everybody,” Fi reassures, waving them off. Billy doesn’t go, but he doesn’t come any closer. She collects the spilled flowers into Peter’s lap. “Peter, look, I brought figs.” She takes his shaking hand, sets a fig on his palm. His sobbing subsides. Without looking at it he lifts it to his face, smells it, and slowly pushes the whole thing in his mouth.
“There, see?” she comforts. “Everything’s all right.”
Billy touches her on the shoulder. “What the hell? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. He’s fine.” She stands, shakes off the shock. “Did you hear that? He spoke. To me. He said he was sorry.”
“No he didn’t,” Billy says, incredulously. Then he sees the look on her face. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Wow. Maybe his little tryst last night with Dr. Williams is bringing him out of his shell.” Billy thinks for a moment, keeping his eyes on Peter, then says, “Better put it in your notes for the day, I guess.”
Fi’s distracted, gazing at Peter. “I will, believe me,” she answers, then looks to Billy. “The talking part, not the grabbing. Okay?”
Billy grins. He does love secrets. “Okay. I’ll be right over here if you need me, Fi-fi.” He walks away, taking the young nurse with him.
Fi watches Peter eat another fig. What could have possibly made him do that? What was he thinking? She looks at her arm and it occurs to her--this isn’t the first time someone’s grabbed her today. She smells her wrist, but there’s only the trace of soap she used to wash it earlier.