by Mark Teppo
Eponymous paced down the stairs to the lower level. He spared a glance for the bank of monitors to his right, and the fifty agents laboring before them in their neon orange jumpsuits. "He’ll have eluded the trap I set upon Tzompantli, and defused the Tezcatlipoca bomb. It was beneath him, really."
Skull looked nervous. The expression doubled his grotesqueness. "The Omega Key, doctor . . ."He pointed. The countdown, indeed, was ticking close to zero. Spread across twenty-five screens, the mammoth, diminishing digits looked suitably catastrophic.
"He will come!" Eponymous hissed. "Nightingale will have discovered the hidden chamber beneath Tzompantli and found the inscriptions there. A stupid man might mistake them for directions to Lake Puma Yumco . . . but the Nightingale is not stupid!"
"It’s almost charged. A weapon beyond imagining . . ."Skull spoke too late. The countdown had already clicked to zero, a sinister, house-tall ovoid on the massive bank of monitors. A groaning whirr shuddered through the floor. With it, a pedestal separated itself from the metallic tiles and glided up, silver-skinned and perfect in its contours.
"HE WILL COME!" Eponymous realized that he was sweating, large drops gathering on the bald dome of his brow. Nightingale had never disappointed. Two decades of cat and mouse, of inexorable trap and impossible escape, and Nightingale remained the foil to his every scheme—no matter how brilliant, well conceived, or endlessly elaborate. Once, long ago, Eponymous had wanted money. Notoriety had seemed appealing. He had craved a sort of hideous fame, like Mengele or Manson. Now he could no longer enjoy food without the threat of the Nightingale hovering in his thoughts. No woman could satisfy, unless he knew for certain that the pride of England’s secret agencies was close at hand. "He will . . . he’ll have found the hidden temple. Its devotees will be helpless before him, for all their generations of martial training. Helpless! All one hundred . . ."
He took a step towards the pedestal, and as though in answer, the metal cover at its apex slid back. The single red button it had been concealing stared back at him like a bloodshot eye.
"Master . . ."Bones, too, was sweating; it leant his holocaustic face a ghastly sheen. "Your assassins. Regina Dentata, Rex Lazarus. What if one of them succeeded?" He turned his sallow eyes to the great, hovering zero. "If Nightingale is dead then—"
Eponymous swung towards him, scrawny fists clenched. He was almost surprised by his own rage. "Nightingale cannot die! He will have found the map I left, discovered the true map in the microdot on its reverse. He will come, we will battle—and I will triumph. Only then. I will blot out his life with my own bare hands!"
Bones made to step between the Doctor and the pedestal and thought better of it. "But, the end of the world . . . the whole world..."
Eponymous reached the pedestal, considered it gravely. "He’ll stop it. He’ll stop me. He always stops me . . ."
There was pleading in Skull’s smashed eyes: "What if he doesn’t? What if you’ve won?"
Eponymous started. "I’ve won?"
"Then we can shut it down. The world is yours." Bones ran frail fingers through his bleached-blonde hair. "No need for—"
"If I’ve won . . . if Nightingale is dead . . . if our battle is over . . ."Eponymous looked, once more, at the button. The Omega Key was the bluntest instrument he’d created, an obscenity against life itself. He could never have so much as conceived it if he’d ever imagined it would be used.
His gaze darted to the blast doors, to the external monitors. There was nothing to see—only the evening sky melting into the first bruise-purple of night.
He placed his palm over the button.
A single tear hung on his cheek. Eponymous brushed it absent-mindedly away.
"If Nightingale is dead . . ."
The Thirteenth Ewe
— Lyn McConchie
Shani was a Keeper. One of those who followed her flock or herd the year through. Walking where they walked, sleeping where they slept. Finding her food along the way in the high hills. Just before the last and harshest months of the winter she would return with her sheep. In safe pens at the village edge the ewes would give birth. Then they would wait for spring before they set off again, sheep and Keeper together. They would be back only briefly at the beginning of summer. Then the ewes would be shorn and the lambs left with the villagers.
To Shani the small flock was kin, her family. She sorrowed to leave the lambs behind knowing what would happen, but accepting that was the way of life. However, times were starting to change. When she was five a man had come to the village, there he had built a great long shed and set machines within. He’d hired many of the women to work there. The money paid was good. It meant not having to slave in a small garden to grow food. A woman could buy vegetables in the market and still have money and time left to herself.
When Shani was ten the owner added to his factory size. Now many of the village men worked there as well, their small plots of land lying idle. It was at that time Shani had become a Keeper for her father’s flock. Her parents, her older brothers, all worked the factory machines; only Shani remained to Keep the ewes according to custom. Other families had even given up their sheep, allowing the ewes to be sold in the market. But not Shani’s family. Her parents were traditionalists who believed that without their flock the Goddess would not smile on them. The sheep stayed, and Shani Kept them.
She was the youngest of her parents’ children, so by tradition the flock was hers since she was Keeper. But the old laws were changing in other ways. Her mother died in late spring when Shani had already been gone for several months. It was not unexpected; the old woman had been unwell for almost a year. Shani’s father would have burned all that had belonged to his wife then but his sons spoke against it angrily.
"It’s a waste. Such things are valuable."
"It is custom." The old man’s voice was firm.
"Custom, not law."
"The Goddess will be angered if we take what belongs to the dead."
There was a harsh laugh from one of his sons. "The Goddess!" The words were a jeer. "Superstition, old stories."
Shani’s father shook his head slowly. "Not so, in my time I was a Keeper of the sheep. Once I saw Her walking the High Hills. The ewes stopped to look up so that I knew they saw her too. Your mother used to say that the Goddess watched over Keepers to keep them from harm." He sighed. "Maybe she has left us now. She has no love for machines, and our village is a village no longer."
A son snorted, "No, now it is almost a city and a good thing too. But if you are so worried over Her anger, why then, we’ll sell our mother’s things to some city fool. There are many who would pay well for the spoons her father carved. Let the Goddess’s anger fall on them—if she still exists and has power."
By the Summer when Shani returned it had been done, her father’s initial refusal having been worn down by the nagging of her two brothers. She grieved for the loss of her mother who had understood her. In her youth her mother too had been a Keeper. They had sorrowed together at many of the changes that had come to their village. Shani returned to other changes, to her bewilderment her sheep were now to be penned well outside the town. She protested.
"What of wolves?"
The guard shrugged. "Not many wolves about these days, and people don’t like the stink of sheep. The lambs make too much noise with their bleating—they keep citizens awake who complain about it to us. The Council has ruled that from now on the winter pens are to be well away from the town." He eyed her more kindly, "Don’t worry, girl. I’ll drop by on my rounds when I can. Anyway, the sheep will be happier away from the town too I should think."
Shani nodded, that was true. They talked of the stink of the sheep and their wool, but the smell of the town was worse than any clean scent of healthy beasts. She called her small flock and the twelve ewes followed obediently. Winter passed, and both sheep and Keeper were glad when they could take the track up higher and higher leaving the town behind them again. Even the most matronly of the ewes
skipped and danced as they left the pens. Shani plodded along with them, her thoughts anything but light.
Her oldest brother had spoken to her before she left. At first she hadn’t understood his subtle hinting, so he’d spoken more plainly.
"You’ll make more money in the town."
"I don’t need money." Shani was almost amused. In the High Hills there were berries, nuts, wild fruit trees. She could dig edible roots. If she wished for meat, she could set snares for rabbits or birds. It was only in winter that she needed more than the Hills could give.
Her brother looked at her in exasperation. The sheep made little in comparison to the money the girl could earn. The family would prosper still more with a fourth wage coming in. The sheep wouldn’t fetch much if sold, but there was another reason to rid the family of them. He was an ambitious man, and with the last tie to the old ways cut he could aim for a seat on the council. The men on that looked forward. They had no time for Keepers of beasts, nor for foolish beliefs and superstitions.
Such things were irritating to a man who did not believe, although certain tales were the latest stories amongst the Keepers. It was said that some had taken their flocks and departed to seek the Goddess. It was nonsense. There were always those who did not return before the worst winter storms. Sometimes they found their bones—sometimes it was never known what had happened to them. The tales his mother had told to her children when they were young were the dreams of Keepers too long alone in the hills.
His father had seemed to grow old all at once when their mother died. Soon they would convince him to be rid of the flock as they had convinced him to sell their mother’s possessions. The girl would mourn her sheep briefly no doubt, but she was young. She’d forget the noisy, smelly animals once she realized how much she could buy with a week’s wages. Let her think over what he’d said to her. She might even come back in summer ready to obey. If not . . . if not, she could be persuaded.
To his infuriation he was wrong. A year passed, then another and another. Still Shani came and went as Keeper of her flock. Despite the handicap of one whom others called his strange sister Shani’s brother achieved a seat on the town council. Then their father died, and Shani returned for the funeral and winter. Her brother met her at the pens.
"We’re selling the flock."
Shani’s eyes hardened as she faced him proudly, "No. It is the law that they are mine now. I am Keeper, they pass to me with our father dead."
"Maybe," her brother said savagely." But nothing else will do so. Let you try making a living from twelve old footsore ewes. And just for a start you can pay the winter pen fees. That will teach you the value of money." He stamped out leaving Shani hiding a smile.
Her mother had spoken with the girl before Shani left for the hills that last time. "Nothing stays the same forever no matter how much we may wish it. The old ways change, your brothers would have them change even faster. I do not trust what they may do when your father and I are gone. And—I feel age in my bones, in case I am not here when you return . . ."she had reached out to hand her daughter a small bag. "Take this and waste nothing."
Shani heard the soft clink of coins within the soft lambskin pouch. Her mother had brushed a hand lightly over the girl’s head. "Take my blessing also, Keeper of the Flock. Honor the Goddess, care for the sheep." She had hugged the girl then thrust her through the door as her ears caught the sound of approaching footsteps. "Say nothing of what I have given you. Now go, it is time the sheep were on the hills again." Then as Shani moved towards the door her mother spoke again, and very softly. "Remember, Keeper, the Goddess expects you to do your best for the sheep, but it is not forbidden to ask for guidance."
Shani had opened the bag that night. It held a mixture of coins, mostly silver, but one gold, and several more coppers. If the Keeper had not understood the danger before her mother’s death, she did now. Over the next few years she had managed to add a coin here and there to her store. She had enough to pay pen fees for a winter. She could sell the lambs before she left again. There would be the wool in summer. Together lambs and wool should keep her and pay the fees necessary.
But while she understood the danger, she did not know her brother’s angry determination. He was a senior councilor the following year. Two years later he stood as Mayor. He lost and believed that it was because of Shani. There were those who laughed openly that a councilor had a sister who was a hill-runner. Her brother gritted his teeth. In four years he would stand again, but this time he would win. He had only to make it impossible for that stupid girl to continue with her foolish sheep. He laid his plans and worked hard at them all that year.
Shani returned with her sheep that summer. To her horror, where the winter pens had stood there was only empty ground. "The pens?" she questioned the elderly shearer, the only one remaining, "Where have they moved the pens?"
He eyed her sadly, "Nowhere. The council has said that since only one flock comes down from the hills nowadays, there is no need for them." She would have spoken but he waved her silent. "Listen to me, Shani. Your mother was a Keeper when I first learned to shear the sheep. We were friends. Before she died she asked me to help you if I could, and to warn you if I learned of danger. Your brother planned all this. The land has been sold to another on the council, and they will make a law."
"What law?"
"A law that sheep may not come closer to the town than the foothills." Shani gaped at him. "But —but, if they are so far away in Winter how can I bring them hay? Who will come so far to shear them?"
He nodded. "I would walk to the flock and shear them, but no one will bring hay that far, and if they would your brother will find some way to convince them otherwise. This is his way of ridding himself of a hill-runner in the family. He believes he has left you no choice."
And as Shani discovered, in that he was right. She survived through that year. Her mother’s friend sheared the sheep for her. In winter Shani purchased hay and using a small trolley that she made she dragged bale after bale of hay to feed her sheep, three miles away in the foothills. She sold her lambs to men who rode out to look over the flock. And before the worst storms she took her sheep to a small cave that she knew and penned them there while Shani slept behind a fire in the cave’s mouth. In spring she took them to the high hills, knowing however that this would be the final year in which she was a Keeper.
She met her friend in marketplace. "Well, child, what will you do?"
Shani’s eyes were fey, and he was suddenly afraid for her. "I shall go to the high hills. Before she died my mother told me ‘the Goddess expects you to do your best for the sheep, but it is not forbidden to ask for guidance.’ I shall ask, and if it be Her will, I shall learn, and if she says nothing then I shall do whatever I must."
"You would not . . ."
Shani smiled. "Kill myself? No. Not that, but if I cannot bring my flock home because of my brother’s treachery then it may be that I shall not return here at all, neither my flock nor their Keeper."
He watched her set out the next morning having risen early to bid her farewell. Shani hugged him for that, accepted his blessing in lieu of the one she should have received from kin, and strode up the winding hill path. She walked slowly all day, bedded the flock down that night and headed higher yet at first light. And in the glow of sunset she came to her objective, a tiny shrine, barely large enough to hold a roughly carved lamb, and a shallow trough into which clear sweet water trickled. The flock crowded to drink from the trough, and Shani knelt, laying a bunch of bright hill-roses before the lamb.
"Lady, I am thy daughter, I am a Keeper of the Flock as it has always been, but is no longer. In all of my village I am the last Keeper, mine the last flock. The sheep pens have been torn down, the last shearer grows old and has no apprentice. I am forbidden to bring my flock to the village and must pen them in the hills . . ."
She choked, remembering the bitter cold, the howl of wolves and her nights there, torn between terror for her flock and kn
owledge of what a wolf pack could do, she caught her breath and told the rest of her story. "Lady, if I continue as I did last year I shall die and they will slaughter the flock. If I give them up, the flock will be slaughtered and my heart will be empty. I am Your Keeper, as my mother was and hers before her. I have no wish or desire to be anything else. Lady I am a sheep astray, show me the path."
Head bowed, she waited. And in the silence something stirred, soundless, yet a feeling as if behind her it moved, coming for her, power flooding the hills, the shrine, and—the flock. Shani turned slowly, in the center of her sheep stood a thirteenth ewe, a large sturdy animal, already seen to be in-lamb, and her fleece? Shani stared. The fleece was winter-long, and . . . the ewe moved so that the sunset caught her and the fleece glowed a soft shimmering golden in the light. Shani caught her breath.
If it were true and no trick of the light, her flock and their Keeper might be saved. It was true, and before Shani returned with the winter, all twelve of her ewes were in lamb to the precocious ram-lamb born that spring of the thirteenth ewe. The lambs they bred, bred true, their fleeces shimmering golden wool that the rich almost fought to possess.
The old shearer trained an apprentice hastily, while the council rebuilt the sheep pens where they’d always been. Shani’s brother took the credit himself of course, and he became mayor in his time, but Shani did not care.
She was a Keeper all the days of her life, and after her came other young girls to be Keepers in turn to a growing number of offshoot flocks. The Shani sheep—as they came to be called—flourished, but only under the guidance of true Keepers, those who paused each spring at the shrine and gave thanks, remembering. And in the high hills a Goddess smiled on those who were Hers, sheep and Keepers both, blessed and beloved.