“Enjoy now,” he breathed. “My turn later.” And he studied the machete she’d hung on a nearby tree limb. Could it be the same one that had cut him? He knew how they operated now. Just like swinging a big stick, only sharper. Good for taking a head.
He crouched and watched. Plenty of time now. Might as well spend it planning…
It was evening when Chumo returned with four others. Silent, for all their great bulk, they crouched beside him as he pointed out features of the camp, indicating attack points he had decided upon. Then he motioned for them to follow him and took them a great distance off into the brush.
There he halted and spoke softly:
“You—Chumo, Staggert—hide in trees, near, with me. Ocro, Svut— you climb in trees, be overhead. When they sleep, ground people follow me in. Kill everyone. Too much trouble, Ocro, Svut jump down quick. Help.”
“If they got guard?” Staggert asked.
“Mine,” Sayjak replied. “I go first. Guard dead, and you come in. Get the rest. Understand?”
It was not the desire to demonstrate his leadership, or even mere bravado, which governed the plan. It was, rather, Sayjak trusted none but himself, a value he’d learned at an early age as a wandering outcast from his own clan, and the thing which had probably assured his primacy for so long in this one. Self-sufficiency, distrust, and the ability to make an instant decision and follow it with a surprise move, were—had he been of the reflective sort—the most useful lessons he might have felt he’d learned in those early days.
And so they returned to the camp of the bounty hunters, and his party positioned itself in accord with a shoulder clasp, a pointed finger, a nod apiece. Sayjak took up station in the thicket nearest the hunters and worked his way slowly to its forward edge. There, he lay absolutely still, watching the figures about the fire as they sipped some beverage and talked.
Would they leave a guard? He suspected so. He planned to approach as close as he could, then give the attack signal to the others simultaneous with leaping upon the guard and killing him—or her. He hoped that Big Betsy would stand the first watch herself, both because she was the most formidable and it would be well to dispose of her quickly, and because he could hardly wait—after all these years and encounters—to slay the huntress from far-off Verite. He had never heard of Thomas Ray, who had introduced sex and repro into proges, so long ago. But probably he should rape her, too, he decided, just to show that his victor)’ was total as well as complete. On the other hand, he realized that he would be afraid to try it while still she lived. No matter. Afterwards would serve as well to prove his point.
Again, he studied the machetes. Big Betsy had hurt him bad with one such, that other time. He had thought of it over and over, until he was certain how it worked, though he never dwelled on the mysteries of design or manufacture. Good for getting heads, he knew. It was how they filled their bounty sacks.
He watched the campers and tried to understand their conversation, but failed. He wondered whether Big Betsy knew any of the People’s talk. He listened to the night sounds and studied that other mystery, the fire.
It seemed a long time before one of the men began to yawn. But moments later another joined him. The first said something and gestured toward his sleeping roll. Big Betsy nodded and answered, jerking her huge thumb in that direction. All three of the men retired to their bedrolls, and she added more sticks to the fire. She cleaned her weapon and honed her machete then, setting both of them near to hand when she was done. Sayjak studied their disposition. He had to come upon her in such a fashion that she could not seize advantage and turn it on him. Once it was simply strength against strength there would be no problem despite her bulk. He was considerably more massive, and his strength had long been a thing of legend among the People. So…
He would leave his cover with total stealth, he decided, as soon as the other bounties’ breathing had grown slow and regular. Then he would advance carefully but not trust to total soundlessness in crossing those final feet. Yes, that seemed most prudent. He felt that she would be as alert as one of the People, and the tiniest sound would be as sufficient to galvanize her to action as it would be to himself. He would have to cover that final distance with a great leap.
A half-hour, perhaps, went by. The three men seemed to be sleeping. Big Betsy was sitting very still, staring into the flames. He continued to wait. The sleepers should be easy for the others to deal with. But—best not to take any chances.
The night wore on. It became obvious that the others were deep into sleep. His clansmen would be growing restless, might think he was afraid of the human woman. Was he? She was the biggest woman he had ever seen. He fingered his scar. Then he parted the fronds before him and moved slowly forward.
He placed each foot with the utmost precision and shifted his weight carefully. He controlled his breathing. He could not control his smell, however.
He heard her sniff, once. Then her right hand flashed out toward the weapons. He leaped immediately, his battle cry rising to his lips.
But Big Betsy had thrown herself to the side and rolled away, moving with surprising speed for one of her bulk, uttering a shout of warning to the others as she did so. Sayjak missed his target—her back—but a quick movement of his long arm was successful in knocking the half-clasped rifle from her hand. He lunged at her again, but she rolled backwards over a shoulder, removing herself from his path and coming up onto her feet, facing him.
As he began to reach for her, she kicked him twice in the stomach, ducked beneath his sweeping arm, and drove a heavy fist against the right side of his rib cage. While any of these blows would have devastated a man, Sayjak was only momentarily shaken by them, and, snarling, he made for her again. She tripped him as he passed, and he felt her ham-like fist fall upon the massive muscles at the back of his neck.
Shaking his head, he turned toward her again. About him now rose cries and growls as his clansmen fell upon the recent sleepers, along with the sounds of their conflict, which included the breaking of bones. Big Betsy kicked him again. He bore it stoically and advanced upon her, moving more deliberately now, having learned that his rushing attacks were less than effective.
She retreated from him, striking as she went and keeping her kicks low, for she had seen the enormous speed of his hands and arms and feared his catching hold of her leg should she kick too high. She worried him about the shins, knees, and thighs, but he plodded toward her, ignoring these blows, his arms swinging low before him. He found himself wishing she were one of the People as he considered what a fine mate she would make.
He struck suddenly with a blinding movement of his left arm. While she managed to roll with it, her balance was destroyed. She stumbled to the side. He was upon her in an instant, seeking to immobilize her. Even then, before he succeeded, she struck his chin with the heel of her hand, clawed at his eyes, aimed brief blows at his throat. Finally, his left arm about her back, crushing her right arm to her side, he caught hold of her left elbow with that hand and drew it against her left side with such force that he heard cracking sounds from within her chest.
She grunted once, perhaps too compressed to cry out, and suddenly she spat in his face. He wondered at the significance of this as he reached out and caught hold of her head with his massive right hand. Behind him, the sounds of struggling had ceased and there came only a few death moans now. He turned her head to her left as far as it would normally go. Then, slowly, he continued to turn it. Her neck made cracking sounds, and he felt spasms within her body. He squeezed her more tightly and continued to turn her head. There came a final snap, followed by a brief convulsion. Then she fell limp within his grasp. He lowered her to the ground and stared.
Then he turned, looking to where the others stood beside the other bodies. They were watching him. Had he promised aloud that he would have her? He tried to remember. He looked at her again. No, he hadn’t, he suddenly recalled, and he felt better. He would eat her liver and heart, instead, he decided, be
cause she had fought well. He sought her machete, found it.
Then he grinned. He would try it out on the others. He chose one sprawled prone, raised the blade, swung it like a stick. It passed easily through the neck and the head rolled away on a trail of gore. Delighted, he moved to the next and did it again. When he had done them all, lie sat them with their backs against tree trunks and placed their heads in their laps, hands arranged to hold them lightly on either side.
Then he turned to Betsy. He used the machete carefully in her case, and when he had done he arranged her garments to cover the wound.
He left her seated beside the others. But she did not hold her head in her lap, for he had taken it with him, along with the machete.
* * *
Dubhe—bored, impulsive, lonely—was in a twilit valley to the west of Deep Fields, beside an acid stream, engaged in necrophilia with the significant remains of a blond baboon, when he heard the sound unlike any sound he had ever heard before. Startled, he released her, and her lower anatomy pranced away into the stream, to be reduced in stature with every step, until finally naught remained but a pungent memory. He threw his head back and barked in frustration. The intruding sound continued, so strange. It was—patterned. It was unlike the intermittent burst which came and went as a by-product of entropy doing its stuff.
He climbed out of the valley. East, it seemed. Something interesting going on there. The sounds did not let up. He struck a course in that direction. A piece of something shiny and mechanical drifted by and he mounted it and rode it until right before it crashed, jumping off at the last moment. Then he hurried on afoot, through the always-twilight, spotted with occasional flares and will-o’-the-wisps from the always-decomposing, leaping chasms, scrambling up hillsides and down their farther slopes.
“What is it, Dubhe? Whither fare you?” came a satiny voice from a hole that he passed.
He paused and the snake slithered forth, long, shining like beaten copper.
“I’m following that peculiar sound, Phecda.”
“I feel its vibrations, also,” the snake replied, silvery tongue darting. “So you do not know what it is?”
“Only its direction.”
“I will join you then, for I, too, am curious.”
“So let us go,” Dubhe responded, and he set off once more.
He did not speak again for some time, though he occasionally caught the glitter of Phecda’s scales at either side, and sometimes before him. They hurried on, the sounds louder now—voices and instruments distinguishable.
Mounting a hillside, they halted. To the east, they beheld the figure of a man, walking, a kind of light about him. What gate, track, or trail might touch upon him as he moved here?
The sounds came from the tall, dark-haired man, or from something he bore with him. He moved slowly, with a deliberation that implied a definite course he followed. It led him down his hillside and into a long valley.
Dubhe hesitated to move toward him and so be seen. He elected, rather, to follow, and so let the man pass below before he moved again. Phecda also waited, apparently of the same mind.
The sounds danced through the air in the man’s wake, and Dubhe found them pleasantly disturbing. “Is there a word,” he asked Phecda, “for when the noise is good?”
And Phecda, who spent her time passing through mounds and around them and going up and down the valleys, digesting bits of wisdom before they might decay, replied, “Music. It is called music. It is a thing very difficult to manifest here. Perhaps that is why the master likes it so—for its rarity. More likely, though, he loves it for itself—as I see that this is easy to do.”
They followed the man and his music through the dark valley, Phecda pausing only to devour the remains of the previous day’s weather report for Greater Los Angeles.
“Let us pass him,” Phecda said at length, “for I can tell from a feeling to the land that the master will meet him in the valley, two bends hence.”
“Very well.”
They skirted the foothills to a ridge, crossed through a declivity, raced ahead to another such gap, crossed the valley into which it debouched, and mounted a hill. The music came from far behind them now. Ahead and below within the great vale they saw a slow movement.
Death climbed a small mound, extended his arms, and turned in a circle. Then bones rose up out of the ground, fell down from the heights, rushed toward him in a chaos of rattling forms, came together before him, assembled themselves into a structure. Soon a high-backed throne stood there, surmounted by a skull. It shone like ancient ivory in the valley’s quiet light. As Death took a step forward, the excess bones flew away to outline a path leading out to the mouth of the valley at its turning. He moved to the rear of the throne then, where he opened his cloak to release a spectral form which hovered behind its knobby back.
Returning to the front, he seated himself. Raising first his right hand, then his left, flames came up on either side, creating shadows. The music grew louder.
“The boss really knows how to do things with style,” Dubhe remarked.
“He does seem to take a certain pleasure in the dramatic,” Phecda observed as they descended and moved into a nearer patch of shadow.
Phecda and Dubhe waited for what seemed a long while. The sounds continued to increase in volume. Then there was movement at the end of the valley.
The man halted and stared. Then he advanced slowly along the bony way, his music all about him. When he came to the foot of the mound, he stopped again.
“…And our visitor seems similarly inclined,” Phecda added.
“True.”
Death turned his head toward the visitor. He spoke in a ragged, rattling way his minions had not heard him use before:
“You come to me playing Politian’s Orfeo, arguably the world’s first opera. A fine piece, which I have not heard in a long while. Of course, this also stirs memories of a story I have not heard in a long while.”
“I’d thought it might,” the man replied.
“I know you, John D’Arcy Donnerjack. I am an admirer of your work. I am especially fond of the delightful fantasy of the afterlife you designed based on Dante’s Inferno.”
“The critics liked it, but the public proved somewhat less than enthusiastic.”
“It is generally that way with my work, also.”
Donnerjack stared, not certain how to respond until Death chuckled.
“A small jest,” the cloaked one added. “In truth, few consider me an actual being. I might be curious as to how you arrived at this conclusion—let alone decided to undertake this journey and succeeded in finding your way here.”
“My life’s work has involved Virtu, and I am among other things a theorist,” Donnerjack replied.
“I feel it will be worth spending time with you one day, in discussion of theory.”
Donnerjack smiled.
“I might enjoy that. You would seem the logical source for final opinions.”
“Mine is not really the last word on everything. Generally, I leave it to others.”
Death cocked his head and fell silent, until the current passage had finished.
“Lovely,” he said then. “I take it you seek to induce in me a mood of esthetic pleasure?”
Donnerjack placed the small unit which he bore on the ground at Death’s feet.
“I admit to that intention,” he answered. “Please accept the player as a gift. There are many other melodies on it as well.”
“I will do that, with thanks, since most things that come to me are damaged—as well you know.”
Donnerjack nodded, stroked his beard.
“The thought had occurred to me,” he said, “and it concerned something which I suppose came to you recently.”
“Yes?”
“Her name was—is—Ayradyss. A dark-haired lady of some attractiveness. I’d known her well for a time.”
“As have I, also,” Death replied. “Yes, she is here. And your manner of arrival as well as yo
ur visit itself leads me to anticipate you to some extent.”
“I want her back,” Donnerjack said.
“What you ask is impossible.”
“It figures in legend, folklore, religion. Surely there must be some basis to it, some precedent.”
“Embodiments of dreams, hopes, desires. That is what these things are. They are without foundation in the real world.”
“This is Virtu.”
“Virtu is as real as Verite. It is the same in both places.”
“I cannot accept that there is no hope.”
“John D’Arcy Donnerjack, the universe owes no one a happy ending.”
“You say that it is impossible for you to give back that which you have taken?”
“That which I have received is damaged in some fashion and no longer able to function adequately.”
“That which is damaged can be repaired.”
“That is not the sort of thing for which I am known.”
Donnerjack made a sweeping gesture, encompassing half the landscape.
“You must have the wherewithal here—in the form of every sort of piece or program—to repair anything,” he said.
“Perhaps.”
“Release her to me. You like my Inferno. I will design you another space—to suit your desire.”
“You tempt me, Donnerjack.”
“Have we a deal, then?”
“It would take more than that.”
“Name the price of her return.”
“What you ask would be difficult, even for me. You ask me to reverse entropy, albeit locally, to invert standard procedure and policy.”
“Who else might I ask?”
“Some great artificer might duplicate her for you.”
“But she would not be the same, save superficially. All of her memories would be gone. It would really be a different individual.”
“And that one might not feel for you as she did?”
“I care more about her than I do about myself.”
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