by Lionel Fenn
First of all, it was dark. He had hoped, once he'd passed over into the land beyond the living, that his eyes would adjust to his new surroundings, but they hadn't. All he could see was black, and all that did was remind him of funerals, which, he hoped, was not an attitude he was going to carry with him for the rest of eternity. A good laugh now and then was good for the soul, and the way things were now, he wouldn't be able to work up a decent giggle.
Secondly, he couldn't move, a turn of events that prevented him from doing any preliminary exploring. And he would be damned if he was going to lie on his back until Whoever or Whatever decided to come along and fit him for wings. Which thought depressed him because, though he was not a deeply religious man, he had hoped he might be able to see at least one angel while he was here. A halo, even a harp. But unless someone turned on the lights, he wasn't even going to know where he was.
Thirdly, it was too damned warm, and the implications of that were even more depressing than not being able to see an angel.
And fourthly, it was too noisy.
Death was supposed to be quiet. It was supposed to slough off all the trials, the irritations, the annoyances, the problems, and the simple plain orneriness of things that had plagued him throughout his active life. It was supposed to be calm. It was supposed to be contemplative. It was, all in all, not supposed to sound like a convention of middle-aged men dropped into a room with a free bar and more women than they knew what to do with, even if they had the nerve to do it.
"Jesus Christ," he said, "will you please shut up."
It did.
Suddenly, and frighteningly, it was silent.
He frowned, tried to lift his arms, and felt a soft weight pressing them against his sides. He tried again, flailing this time, and yelled in terror when the Dark went away and there was a fierce light glaring into his eyes.
It was still silent.
All right, he thought, so the Dark is the Light, and maybe there are angels after all.
But he was at least able to move now, and he very slowly pulled his arms back so he could push himself up on his elbows, holding his breath in anticipation of the pain and grinning like a fool when all he felt was the protest of muscles that hadn't been used for a while. It could be worse, he guessed; and when his eyes finally stopped watering and the Light became not so bright and he was at last sitting up, he decided that it was.
He was sitting on a rickety platform, a pile of furs at his feet next to his shirt, jeans, and boots; his bat was lying behind his head, and a vast featureless plain surrounded him to every horizon. It was also warm, there was no angels that he could see, and his stomach was growling.
No problem, he told himself; there's still a lot I have to learn.
Still, there was one good thing aside from the fact that it wouldn't always be dark here—his body, unencumbered as it was by anything remotely resembling a choir robe or even a forked tail, was in one piece. The skin was whole, his bones were whole, and when he rubbed his face thoughtfully he gave instant thanks for the fact that his stupid beard was gone.
He stretched.
He yawned.
He shifted until he was on his knees and looked over the edge of the platform for a way down, since it was clear he was not destined to spend the rest of Time laid out like a side of drying beef.
The ground was at least fifteen feet down, and there was no ladder on this side. There was no ladder at the back or on the other side either. And when he crawled to the platform's foot, he closed his eyes in hopes that a brief prayer would fix it so that he wouldn't have to climb down, perhaps fall, perhaps break a leg, though it was probable one didn't break a leg in a place like this since it was, after all, the life after.
He heard a noise.
His eyes opened.
And hovering in front of his face was a huge white duck.
"Oh, god," he said. "You didn't."
"Damn right, I didn't," Tuesday told him. "If I had, you'd be dead."
He fell back on his haunches. "Huh?"
Tuesday landed, puffed, and managed yet again to put her wings where her hips might have been had she had them, and had she the hands to put on them. "I said, if I had set the torch the way I was supposed to, you'd be dead."
"I am dead."
She bit him.
He yelled and aimed a feeble swing at her head.
"You call that dead?"
"Damnit, that hurt!" He stopped, listened to himself, and stared at the red mark growing on his thigh. "Hey. Hey, that really hurt!"
"Clever," the duck said. "Mom always said you were the clever one."
He nudged her to one side and looked down, backed off, and looked down a second time, just in case he was dreaming.
Abber waved at him. Horrn danced about in a circle. Botham scratched his head. Red looked at him with a shake of his head and returned to his grazing. Grahne moistened her lips and winked.
"I'm alive?"
Tuesday nipped his rump. "Right, and would you mind putting your clothes on? You look disgusting, and that slut is watching."
—|—
The next few hours meant little to him. There was the rush to put his clothes on, the climb to the plain, and the greeting of his friends; there was the ride to Terwin on Red's back while Horrn trotted alongside and explained in puffs and pants that since they had thought him dead, they had prepared a funeral for him, the high point of which was to be the burning of his body and his possessions. Five more minutes, and he would have been ash on the wind.
Tuesday, who was bobbing on the lorra's haunches because her wings were tired from keeping the torch lit while the others sang their dirges, explained that Abber's mysterious massaging had worked, but the results had taken longer than anyone expected, and wasn't it a good thing she was around to take care of him?
Abber was having enough trouble just keeping up and didn't say a word.
Botham, he thought, looked as if he were pouting.
He blushed, then, when they arrived in Terwin and found a huge celebration in progress. Grahne had run ahead to spread the good news, and Harghe had spared no benst nor fruit tree to provide enough food for a population three times the size. As soon as they reached the house, in fact, the giant lifted Gideon from the lorra's back and held him up for everyone to see. For an hour. While the others ate and drank and danced and sang and Gideon's stomach was torn between the need for nourishment and the need to cleanse itself because the giant in his joy kept waving him around.
Finally, he was set down, and set upon, and ate and drank too much for his own good. By sunset he was in gastronomical agony, but had the sense not to wish himself dead.
He slept for an entire day.
He woke just before noon, dressed, stared puzzledly for a moment at the depression on the mattress beside him, and hoped he'd had a good time. Then he stood in front of the window and watched a cloud of dust billowing on the Grassplain. It was a good sight, and it was a disturbing one. It reminded him of a promise Harghe had made, and a promise of his own he could not avoid. With a sigh, he strapped on the bat and hurried to the front hall, where his sister and her lover were chasing Horrn around the main table.
They stopped when they saw him.
"Trouble?" he asked.
"The creep," Tuesday said, "tried to steal Finlay's anvil."
Botham swelled his chest impressively, and the duck cooed.
Gideon beckoned the thief over. "Practicing, right?"
"It was heavy."
He waited.
"I needed it."
"For what?" the blacksmith growled.
"To keep my door shut."
Gideon's eyebrows raised.
Horrn's panic changed to indignation. "Well, he's big and strong and he doesn't have to worry, but I'm just a little guy, right, and I can't protect myself as good. I don't think."
"From what?" Tuesday said derisively. "The slut?"
"No. The black bird."
Oh, shit, Gideon thought, and slump
ed into a chair. He knew it had been too good to last, and knew that sooner or later he was going to have to get on with it. Later would have been much better for his peace of mind; sooner would only get him either fired or frozen.
Tuesday stomped over and poked his knee to get his attention. "What black bird?"
Gideon looked at her sorrowfully, reached out and stroked her head. "Sis, we have to leave. Now."
"Well, I know that," she said impatiently. "You think I like hanging around here while you sleep half your life away? We have to get back to that idiot Whale so's I can find my figure again." Her beak prodded through her feathers. "I keep looking, but it ain't there."
"Well," he said, "that's not exactly what I meant."
She stopped prodding and glared. "Few men," she said in a low voice, "ever have the opportunity to die more than once in their lives."
"You're forgetting the Wamchus."
"No, I'm not," she said. "I'm ignoring them."
Abber walked in, walked over, walked away as soon as he heard his previous employers' names.
"Maybe you can," he said. "I can't."
The glare softened. "I want to be me again, Giddy."
"I know."
She inched closer and whispered, "I want to do disgusting things to that man over there."
Gideon felt his face grow warm.
"Ducks cannot do disgusting things the same way people can."
"Sis—"
"Ducks doing disgusting things is disgusting."
"Tuesday—"
"I mean, if you want to see something that'll turn your stomach, you ought to—"
He took her gently by the neck and stretched it until she gagged. Botham glowered and started across the room. Gideon smiled at him and waved him back, then released his sister and pulled her onto his lap.
"Christ," he grunted. "What the hell have you been eating?"
"Disgusting duck things, and I'm getting pretty tired of it."
"I love you, Sis," he said.
She looked at him, startled.
"But if we don't try to do something about the Wamchus, there won't be anything left for us to go back to in order to get you back into your figure."
She quacked softly.
"We've been away for too long. It may be too late even now, but I made a promise to Whale, too. And I have to keep that one before I can keep the one I made to you. At least, I have to try. Do you understand?"
She shifted uncomfortably. "You're a rat, Giddy."
"Don't," he said, "call me that."
"Oh," she said. "Big man. Back from the dead and you figure you're something special, huh? Think you're a real hero, is that it? All this publicity gone to your head?"
Abber looked puzzled.
Horrn headed off to his room to pack.
"Sis—"
"Let me remind you: Los Angeles. Fourth quarter. Behind one touchdown and the coach, because he was drunk, put you in to save the game because the other two quarterbacks were injured. One pass was all you needed. You put it in the stands, game over, play-offs gone for another season."
He closed one eye. "What year was that?"
"Pick one."
"Low blow, Sis," he said, knowing it was true.
She hopped to the floor. "What if you don't make it? What if, this time, you don't come back? What the hell do I do then?"
He grinned. "Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly."
"Fuck you, Gideon Sunday," she said as she flew into Botham's arms and let him carry her from the room. "And," she called back, "the horse you rode in on."
"Horses?" Botham said.
"Shut up, Finlay," the duck grumbled.
"But you said horse."
She pecked lightly at his cheek.
"Do they really do that to horses where you come from?"
"Finlay, damnit!" and the door slammed shut.
He laughed, stood, and went in search of Harghe, who was out by the pool, sunning himself without burning for the first time in years. He nodded when Gideon walked up to him, and lay down so they could meet eye to eye.
"Leaving?" the giant asked.
"The Wamchus," he said.
"Grahne?"
"That was the deal, Harghe."
Harghe closed his eyes, thought, snored, opened them again and smiled. "Better you than me, pal. She's a bitch to keep an eye on."
Gideon decided he was hearing things, that Abber was hiding somewhere in the bushes and translating. "I'll send her back in one piece."
"Right."
A breeze rippled the pool's clear water, disturbing a large black shadow that darkened its surface. He looked up, but the sun's glare prevented him from seeing anything, and the giant's steady breathing prevented him from listening more closely to what he thought was a harsh, lingering cry.
"I don't suppose," he said at last, "you'd consider coming with me. I hear the jungle's nice this time of year."
"Terwin," the giant said regretfully.
Gideon nodded his understanding. "In an hour, then. Would you explain things to Grahne and ask her to be ready?"
Harghe grunted to his feet, dusted himself off, and looked at the house. "She's always ready," he said, close to anger. "If I hadn't killed her father already, I'd kill him now for dying and leaving me to take care of her."
He walked off and left Gideon to stare after him, then to search the bushes, then to hear the cry again and see, through the glare that spread over the town, something large and black hovering above the house.
It was formless.
And its eyes were large and slanted and green.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The first earth tremor wobbled their legs just as they were setting up camp for the night. At first they thought it was the aftereffects of the party they had reluctantly left behind; when it repeated, however, no one moved, and not all of them breathed. Fearfully, they scanned the width and breadth of the Grassplain for signs of herds stampeding from predators, or a running giant with second thoughts about leaving his niece alone with all those men, or an avalanche of such incredible size and duration that its repercussions reached far beyond its relative horizon.
But nothing was seen, not even a dust cloud.
Then, one by one, they turned their gazes to the north. Above the forest at whose edge they waited. To the high double summit of Hykrol Peak. And saw with silent gasps a vivid red glow spreading over the sky.
It took Gideon several moments to understand why the new eruption's display was so spectacular, so vivid, so filled with that same giddy feeling one has when one stands on a ledge and leans over to see how far it is to the bottom—that if I just tip over a little I can fall, maybe I can fly, though the odds are I'm going to die.
"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I think both sides are blowing up this time."
They looked at it from as many angles as they could manage, bumping into each other as they did, and comparing notes with hushed whispers.
"Yep," he said, marveling at the serenity that smothered his panic. "Both of them are blowing their stacks all right."
"I knew it!" Tuesday said. "Damnit, I knew it!"
"We all did," Gideon told her, "so hang on to your pinfeathers and calm down."
She huffed at the scolding, she sulked when he would not apologize, she waddled over to Botham and watched him with large, limpid eyes while he fashioned a cozy tent from the hides of a few benst he had bashed for practice along the way.
Gideon, ignoring the mutterings that passed between Horrn and Bones Abber, crossed his arms casually over his chest and watched the volcano. It had been suggested to him several times since leaving Terwin that his idea of heading home the short way was not tactically sound, since the sisters Wamchu would no doubt realize their intention immediately and stop them before they reached the edge of the forest. Gideon countered with the suggestion that wasted time in the jungle might very well mean the deaths of hundreds of people through the agonies of starvation; and besides, the sisters had thei
r headquarters in the jungle, he had seen it, and he was not anxious to make a return visit in case Thong had somehow managed to revive her pet.
"What's the difference whether we meet them in the forest or in the jungle?" Horrn asked with uncharacteristic boldness. "I don't see how going this way is going to help."
"Trust me," Gideon had said.
The thief wondered if Gideon's death hadn't somehow affected his brain.
"I don't like exposing my Tuesie to danger," Botham said with a growl. "The forest is open, lots of space, and the Peak's slopes have no plants or anything. It makes no sense. I don't like it."
"Trust me," Gideon had urged.
The blacksmith wondered if Gideon's brain hadn't been substantially reduced by its acid bath.
Abber, who had seen the dragon firsthand but the Qoll only from a distance, but who had seen the devastating effects of both and had nearly died himself in his efforts to revive the hero, thought they ought to return at once to Rayn, tell Whale all they knew, and raise an army. Then, in a patriotic fervor seldom witnessed in the Middle Ground, they could come back to the Peak and storm it, batter it, drive the Wamchus into the open and slice them to ribbons he could use holistically in his practice of healing and massage. Though, he admitted, it would be difficult to raise an army if the soldiers could barely walk from lack of adequate nutrition.
"Exactly my point," Gideon said.
Abber didn't know what the point was, but he knew better than to argue with a hero whose best friend was a giant goat.
Gideon, however, knew exactly what he was doing.
At least, whenever he thought about what he was doing, he knew he was doing it; whether it worked or not was another matter entirely.
Daylight gave way to a pink-tinged sunset.
The distant voice of the volcano settled into an almost subliminal grumbling.
Horrn lit the fire. Botham cooked the steaks. Abber fetched handfuls of water from a nearby stream and was pounded by Tuesday for interrupting her bath. Red chased a blue-and-gold horned butterfly that reminded him of his mother, gave up when the butterfly squirted a foul-smelling liquid into his eyes, and contented himself instead with filling his stomach.
Grahne sat at the mouth of the communal tent and sharpened her various weapons on a large stone she'd dug out of the ground with her toes. Sparks flew. Steel glinted. A few practice thrusts and strokes made the air whistle faintly around her. And when Gideon sat beside her, her eyes closed in languid anticipation.