Peter & Max: A Fables Novel

by Bill Willingham

  “I can’t believe you tried that,” Max said, “after seeing your late wife fail so miserably at the same thing.”

  “I wanted to see if your magic shield worked differently, under different conditions,” Peter said, “such as if you weren’t expecting an attack from your own brother.”

  “Aren’t you clever? Father always pegged you as the smart one. You should have sworn off the musical life and entered the philosophic world instead, where you could have experimented with worldly phenomena, investigated the true nature of nature, and charted the stars in their courses. But, your theory in this case was — what’s the word real philosophers use? Invalid? In any case, let me assure you, my protections aren’t all that conditional and can’t be fooled or distracted.”

  “So what do we do now?” Peter said, all the while wishing with every fiber of his being that Bo should stay safely unconscious below, making no sound, until he figured a way out of this.

  “Now I kill you. But before that, I’ll have my rightful inheritance — the flute that you stole from me. And though I could play a tune that would have you dancing on the end of my strings, forcing you to hand it over, I’d much rather have Frost from your hand, freely given. We both know I should’ve gotten it in the first place, and I expect you to acknowledge that much, without coercion.”

  “But you have another flute,” Peter said, “much more powerful with darkest magic, from what I can see. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Fire is so much more powerful than Frost that they can hardly be compared, one with the other. But, no, to answer your question direct, it’s not enough. Fire is mine by right of conquest. I found it and tamed it to my will. But Frost is also mine, because it’s my birthright. I’ll have both.”

  “And after I give Frost to you, you’ll let me live, each of us free to go on our way?”

  “No, not at all. Weren’t you listening? After that I’m going to kill you.”

  “What happened, Max? We used to love each other. You couldn’t have simply pretended at affection for all those years. I know it.”

  “So what? We also both used to shit our pants with reliable frequency. We grow older and learn better.”

  “Very well then.” Peter slipped Frost’s case from around his neck and shoulder. Then he opened the case and slid Frost out of it, white and gleaming, like an icicle. But instead of handing it over to Max, who reached out for it with one hand, Peter brought it to his lips and began to play. Danger pass me by, he silently implored, as he played.

  “Are you serious?” Max smiled. “It’s a battle of flutes you want? Very well. Let’s see what we shall see.” He raised Fire once again and began to play. This time it wasn’t just a single note he played, but a mad and intricate melody that seemed to speak of monstrous things coursing through the night on their wild hunt. It was the sound of ancient bindings snapping, letting great and terrible old powers loose again in the world, to enact their vengeances of untold ages. Max played the anthems of every dark thing that lurked and growled in the back of pitch-black caves.

  In response, Peter played a song of bright hope and escape. Danger pass me by, he chanted over and over in his mind. Go away from here, Max. Go far away!

  But Fire was truly more powerful than Frost. Almost as soon as Max had begun playing, a burning sensation began in Peter’s feet and started working its slow but steady way up his legs. Peter could feel his flesh begin to pucker and boil. The pain was incredible, but still Peter played on.

  Danger pass me by. Go far away, Max. Run back up the hill, through the tower gate, and never stop until you’re a thousand leagues away.

  The burning in his legs continued, growing higher up his limbs and ever more painful. Through an impossible force of will, Peter managed to keep playing, but he began missing notes. Then he faltered for full measures. It was no use. His song couldn’t be heard and understood against the more commanding tune his brother played. Peter’s effort was a gentle prayer of deliverance, which was lost in the maelstrom of Max’s thundering tale of gods and monsters in desperate battle.

  Then, just as he was about to surrender, unable to stand for much longer on legs that had twisted out of true, and had begun to smell of burnt and rotting flesh, a final, desperate idea occurred to him.

  He began playing again. But this time he didn’t try to counter Max’s tune. Instead he joined it. At first he merely played along — the same wild song Max did, trying to anticipate his composition and match him, note for note. Then, slowly and tentatively at first, but with more confidence every second, Peter began to strike out on his own, still following Max’s central melody, but weaving a manic counterpoint to it, creating diabolic harmonies on the spot, dancing his notes between each one of Max’s.

  Danger pass me by! Peter no longer implored or pleaded his request, he demanded it. Danger pass me by! Go far away, Max! Run up the hill, through the tower gate, and never stop until you’re a thousand leagues away!

  He saw Max, just a few feet removed from him. As Max played, a worried look crept into his eyes. What was Peter doing to his song? Peter was guiding it, taking it over, and leading it off in directions Max didn’t want it to go.

  Peter continued to play, feeling a dozen trickles of blood coursing down his chin and neck, pooling and soaking into the rough weave of his shirt. Frost was exacting its accustomed price for its magic. Peter played Max’s song, and note by note took it away from him. In his mind Peter felt turbulent sensations he’d never known before. Lunatic angers he’d never believed he could possess flared within him, with a frenzied and malign passion.

  But at the same time, little by little, he felt the pain recede from his deformed hips, traversing its way back down his groin and upper legs. He felt flesh knit back into place.

  Now it was Max who began to miss notes.

  I’m a thief, Max, and you always knew the truth of that. And now I’m stealing your song away from you, turning it down my own pathways, taking it to places you dare not follow. And all the while Peter continued to think, danger pass me by! Go far away, Max! Run up the hill, through the tower gate, and never stop until you’re a thousand leagues away!

  The pain began to recede farther and faster down Peter’s legs. His twisted bones strained to find their original shape again.

  Danger pass me by! Go far away, Max! Run up the hill, through the tower gate, and never stop until you’re a thousand leagues away!

  Somewhere far away, barely making itself known, through the dual distractions of the maniacal song he played, and his internal litany of commands that Frost make danger pass him by for the third and last time, Peter heard a distant moaning, that grew into screams of pain.

  That’s Bo, Peter thought. She’s finally woken up to discover her broken arm. Nothing I can do about it. Not yet.

  Peter continued to play, leading the song in every respect, turning it incrementally into something better — something less openly malignant. The pain had almost entirely left Peter’s legs and feet now. In a moment, he knew, they’d be whole and unscarred again, as if they’d never been harmed at all.

  He heard more screaming from over the ledge, even more insistent, but still he played on.

  Then, all of a sudden, a great and racking sob of profound anguish escaped Max’s lips. He abruptly stopped playing, dropped Fire from his lips, and nearly dropped it, from his frantically clutching hands, which opened and closed in violent, spastic twitches, obeying no thought or design. Without further utterances, save an almost inaudible whimper, tears streaming copiously from his eyes, Max turned and started running. He ran uphill, away from the seaside town, back up the road, towards the guard tower and the endless lands beyond.

  WINNING THE DUEL WITH MAX had left Peter exhausted and nearly insensible. But the pull of his obligation towards Bo wouldn’t let him rest. Leaving the donkey and cart where it was, Peter ran down the road, taking the switchback at a mad dash that nearly spilled him off the edge. He wiped blood away from his face as he ran, not wan
ting to frighten Bo with his wounds that were dramatic, but only superficial. Later he’d count at least thirty new small cuts on his lips, on his tongue, and at the corners of his mouth.

  Bo was still conscious when he reached her. But instead of favoring her broken arm, as he’d pictured, she was writhing and clutching at her legs, crying and screaming in a pain too intense to be accounted for by a mere twisted limb — or even a broken one. Bo’s too strong for that, he thought.

  And then a horrifying realization came to him, just as he noticed the rotting-flesh smell. He cut away the dark brown hose covering her legs, using his last remaining knife. But even as he did so, he knew what he’d find underneath.

  Bo’s legs were a burned and twisted ruin. In some places, bits of charred flesh were sloughing off, leaving open slashes of bloodied and withered muscle underneath.

  “I did this!” Peter cried, though Bo was in no condition to understand him. “I did this to you! I wished the danger to pass me by, which is exactly what it did! It didn’t disappear, but it bypassed me only to go somewhere else!”

  LATER, PETER WALKED BACK UP THE ROAD to retrieve the donkey and its cart. He led it down to Bo, where he emptied it of enough of its contents to allow Bo to lie in it. The pain she suffered as he lifted her into its bed made her pass out. He led the cart down the road, winding its way out of the high cliffs, which gradually became hills and then seaside lowlands. He’d take her into town, and use all of his remaining treasure to find the magicians and physicians she needed to save her. She woke only once during the journey, and then only for a moment.

  “Where’s Max?” she asked, in a voice drained of most of its former power.

  “He’s gone far away,” Peter said. And he knew that it was true. Some lingering effect of the spent magic let him know for a certainty that everything he’d demanded of the duel had come to pass. Max wouldn’t stop running, until he was at least a thousand leagues distant. If only he’d thought to demand just a little bit more from Frost’s last service to him.

  Bo’s breathing was weak, broken and hesitant for the rest of the trip into town. For most of the way he wondered if she’d still be alive when they arrived.

  In which Max plays

  his deadliest tune so far,

  and then finds his way

  to Fabletown, to reunite with

  an old acquaintance.

  MAX PIPER VISITED AMERICA FOR THE first time in the fall of 1918, in the wake of the Spanish Influenza pandemic’s second wave, the one medical authorities would later name the killer wave, once the total cost in human lives had been added up.

  He disembarked from his Argentinean passenger liner at Manhattan’s Pier 61, within just a few dozen feet of where the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Seattle was moored, undergoing its refitting from a convoy escort into a troop transport, in anticipation of soon being able to bring the country’s beloved doughboys home from the Great War. The four-stacked Seattle was a looming presence over the pier, its massive hull painted with “dazzle paint,” angry, knife-edged slashes of dark and light colors, designed to hide its true outline from the deadly German U-boats, which still prowled the Atlantic, even though America’s top generals and war experts insisted, almost daily now, that the Huns’ collapse was imminent. Max paused on the wharf to admire the warship’s giant gun batteries, wishing he could see them fire. Guns were one of the things he liked most about the mundy world, and the reason it had taken him an entire year to make it to New York, after arriving in the world. First, he’d traveled the battlefields and devastated cities of the war like a giddy tourist, glorying in the continentwide abattoir that Europe was making of itself.

  But Max had finally, almost reluctantly, turned himself towards his true destination, coming to New York City’s drab and mournful streets dressed to party. He wore a red and white, candy-striped silk suit jacket, over purple slacks, with golden pinstripes. Yellow spats topped his glistening, patent leather shoes, and a jaunty straw boater topped his head, worn at just the perfect angle, to properly convey his rakish charm to the new world. He carried no luggage, not requiring any, since he could magically conjure money, new clothes and personal sundries into existence as he needed them, with only the most minimal effort, and often without any of the wearying aftereffects that plagued him following a greater expenditure of power. He did bring one thing though. He carried the flute called Fire, openly, without covering or case, because he liked to have it always in hand, ready to play at any instant, should the need arise.

  Max ignored the lines of black and green taxicabs clustered along the wharf, waiting to pick up arriving passengers, and instead set off into the city on foot. He wanted to explore among these amazing towers of steel and concrete, and walk the famous avenues that sliced their ways between them. More important, he wanted to be among the people he was killing by the hundreds and sometimes the thousands every day.

  He’d wanted so much to be a part of the mundy world’s great time of destruction that he simply had to find a way to participate. No, he didn’t create the nasty strain of Swine Flu virus that gave birth to the Spanish Influenza. It had existed already in the mundy world, lurking dormant, occasionally mutating, husbanding its deadly potential and biding its time. But what he had done was to compose a powerful and compelling anthem of death, which had inspired the long-slumbering bug to wake and respond to Max’s call, eager to be his agent in the grim and mortal undertaking.

  For a while, Max let whim and caprice lead him on his journey into the heart of the city, going wherever the mood took him, having no specific plan or destination in mind for the day. Owing perhaps to the population’s diminishment by disease and the staggering number of men and boys who’d gone off to the war, but more likely to the strict bans against public gatherings, the sidewalks were much less crowded than he’d expected. In Europe and in Argentina, he’d seen photographs and moving pictures that depicted New York City’s residents packed together, elbow-to-elbow. But here and now there were pedestrians out and about, to be sure, but they kept a wary distance from each other, having been thoroughly indoctrinated that the influenza spread more easily in crowds.

  But, just as in the photographs, the city’s streets were still packed with every possible sort of car and truck and other exotic motorized vehicle, constantly honking, growling and scolding each other in some indecipherable and arcane machine language. Perhaps their foolish drivers thought the glass and steel of their beloved automobiles protected them?

  Almost to a man, folks were dressed drably, in blacks, browns and grays. Elegant clothes were viewed as an unjustified extravagance in these dark times, when everything not absolutely essential should be reserved for “our boys” overseas. The only exception to this dull and conservative trend was the surprising new direction in women’s hemlines, which were tending decidedly upwards, but only because every inch of cloth saved from a civilian’s skirt translated into a little more material that could go to support the war effort. Max spotted one woman after another who was actually out in public with a scandalous three or four inches showing above her ankles.

  Of course, everyone was wearing white cloth masks.

  “They won’t help,” Max said to a random passerby. “My executioner is much too small to be filtered out by even the tightest weave of your ridiculous gauze and butter-cloth constructions.”

  “Excuse me?” the startled woman said, but Max had already gone on his way.

  Even in the daytime, much of the city was closed down. There were “Closed by order of the New York City Board of Health” signs on the doors of every school, church, theatre, moving picture house, dance hall and saloon that he passed. A man on one corner was standing on an apple box, brandishing an open and unloaded shotgun above his head.

  “There’s no medicine known to doctors that can stop the Influenza,” he cried, quite truthfully (whether he knew it or not), “but placing a shotgun under your bed will save you! The gun’s fine steel will draw out the fever! It’s been proven!” Co
incidentally perhaps, the fellow was ready with pamphlets to hand out, directing customers to a nearby gunsmith’s shop. Other impromptu street-side proselytizers broadcast their own ideas to fight the pestilence, with proposed cures ranging from hours of deep sweating, to standing outside stark naked, to inhaling the vapors from one woman’s proprietary pepper stew recipe — copies of which were also available, for a modest price. Each orator had a small crowd of spectators gathered around him, at least until roving police officers, or civic-minded busybodies shooed them away, citing the ordinances against public gatherings.

  Max journeyed on, with a cockeyed smile on his lips and a jaunty kick to his stride. He ignored the rude stares he received from many passersby, perhaps incited by his outlandish dress in these funereal times, or his blatant lack of a cloth mask. He couldn’t say, nor did he care. The prettier ones among them received a tip of his boater in reply, which only seemed to increase the knife-edged looks of disapproval brandished at him.

  The street-level shop windows, whether on businesses open or closed, were plastered with all manner of bills and signs. Some exhorted citizens towards desired behavior, such as, “Open-faced sneezing is against the law! Report all open-faced sneezers!” Another admonished him to “Give to the Our Boys in France Tobacco Fund!” And still another, apparently willing to leave the specific details up to each reader, simply demanded, “Do your share!”

  A green grocer, serving as an ad hoc satellite office of the Bureau of Labor, posted a huge outdoor banner that advertised for city-dwelling coloreds who were willing to relocate out to the country’s farm belt states, to replace field hands who had gone to war or died of the flu. A boy selling newspapers shouted, “Extra! Extra! Tahiti builds pyres of influenza dead!” He waved a copy of the special edition over his head, like a Jack Ketch swinging his deadly ax. In the street immediately adjacent, four masked and gowned women, Red Cross volunteers, were struggling to load a blanket-draped body into a city ambulance.