“No one just makes deals with demons, Goss. They get in your head, futz around with your insides, show you futures where you can get everything you want. You can even get it sometimes. But it comes at a cost. Everything comes at a cost with them. And it’s never the price that’s advertised. Pawn to d6.”
“The boss is strong, though. He might be able to get through it all right?”
Yashar shook his head.
“Knight to c3.”
“I’ve been on this earth too long to believe that. Colby’s cursed. It’s my fault. And this is the fallout of that curse. There’s no point in worrying about it. He’ll be who he’ll be on the other side of it.”
The two stared morosely at the board, examining their next moves.
“Bishop to g4.”
“Yashar, what’s a familiar?”
Yashar again looked over his nose at the dog. “It’s . . . it’s a special relationship between a pet and his master.”
“I like boss. Knight to e5.”
“Between a pet and his boss.”
“Boss said it was a best friend.”
“It is, kind of.”
“What is it really?”
“It’s a magical bond. It means he can see what you can see. You can read each other’s thoughts. He can weave magic through you. Bishop to d1. Bishop takes queen.”
“You took my queen? Already?” Gossamer’s eyes grew sad, his muzzle lowering to the board’s edge.
“Yes.”
“But that’s my favorite piece.”
“Learn to protect it better, then.”
“Bishop to e7. Check.”
Yashar eyed the board, looking for a way out of check.
“Why won’t boss make me his familiar? That all sounds awesome.”
“Because it’s not all awesome.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Catch is that your life forces become linked. You can’t ever get too far from each other. You would have had to go to Australia or else you’d both be doubled over, sick, puking your guts out. I’ve seen it.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“King to e7. I told you, Goss, your life forces are linked. So if he dies . . .”
Gossamer looked up, suddenly understanding. “Oh,” he said solemnly. “I would die too.”
“And if something ever happened to you, he would be weakened to near death. It’s a position that comes with great benefits, but terrible consequences. Colby doesn’t lead a very safe life. And he loves you, Goss. Very much. He doesn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Is that how you feel about Colby?”
“Every goddamned day.”
“If you could take it back, would you?”
“The wish?”
“Yeah.”
Yashar sat silently for a beat. “What do you mean? Do I wish he had made a different wish?”
“No. If you had to choose between Colby’s wish and the wish of another child, which would you choose?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought about that every day for nearly fifteen years now and I still don’t know. Every time I sleep, I dream about it. I had a dream once, seven years ago, in which I granted a wish to a different child. It was a wonderful dream. Everything was just how it used to be. The kid’s wish was simple, didn’t end so badly, and we went about life happy, not involved with . . .” He waved around the bar. “Any of this. But then, what I assume was about a year or so into the dream, I remembered Colby. And he showed up in the dream. I saw him living his life. Normal. Bored. Working behind the counter of some retail chain. I have no idea what he was selling. But I missed him. I missed him so badly. So I talked to him. And he didn’t know me. I tried to tell him that we knew each other, but he didn’t believe a word of it. And for the rest of the dream, I was miserable. I went about the various unbelievable adventures I have in those dreams and couldn’t enjoy a one of them because Colby wasn’t there.
“So what would I do, given the choice? Would I spare my friend a lifetime of fear and suffering and damnation? Or would I put him through all that just so I wouldn’t be so lonely? I’d like to think that I would be unselfish. I’d like to think that, but all evidence is to the contrary. Does that answer your question?”
“Yeah,” said Gossamer. “Knight to d5. Checkmate.”
Yashar cast his eyes down incredulously, thinking for a moment that the dog had no idea what he was doing. And he saw it. Checkmate. “Wait! That’s the fool’s gambit. With a queen sacrifice! Where did you learn that?”
Gossamer’s tail wagged furiously, his mouth dropping open with a panting smile. “Learn to protect your queen better, you said. You said that. You mocked me.”
“You just sharked me.”
“I did.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Don’t . . .”
“Dog joke.”
“That only works on Colby.”
“What’s good for the goose . . .”
Yashar could feel the doors opening, the metal outer door closing with a slam, the inner door popping open with a WHOOSH. He wasn’t expecting anyone, but he wasn’t expecting trouble either.
Half a dozen kutji flooded in through the door, their stubby malformed bodies skittering across the floor, scampering up the walls, scooting across the bar. Yashar pushed his seat back slowly, its legs grinding against the concrete.
“Goss,” he said beneath his breath. “If I say run, you fucking run.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“This is no time for loyalty.”
“Screw you. This is exactly the time for loyalty.”
“Yashar,” hissed the kutji standing tallest atop the bar. “It’s my understanding that this place is under new management.”
“It is. So get the fuck out of my bar.”
“No,” it said, hopping down, striding confidently toward the djinn. “I mean it’s under new management now.” The kutji held out both of his hands, waving to the bar. “This place is ours.”
“Like hell it is,” said Gossamer, fur bristling, growling deep, as if he was ready to snap at the closest hand.
“Goss,” said Yashar. “Ease back.”
“This place is ours.”
“Not anymore it isn’t,” said Yashar. “Live to fight another day, my friend.”
“Is that all it takes to own a bar? You just walk in and take it?”
The kutji smiled wickedly, teeth pointing every which way out from his black gums. “Sometimes,” it said. “Sometimes.”
Yashar stood up slowly, waving for Gossamer to follow him. “It’s all yours.” The two then backed away toward the door, Yashar spinning slowly as they did, trying to keep an eye on all the kutji at once. A single kutji stood between them and the door, for a moment refusing to yield. But as Yashar cautiously closed the distance, he moved, holding the door open for the two.
Yashar gave one last, longing look at the bar, drinking in the sweet nostalgia, took a deep breath, and then stepped outside.
Crows lined the alley, a single kutji in demihuman form standing ten feet from the door. Yashar and Gossamer stopped dead in their tracks. They looked around, saw they were surrounded. Gossamer squatted low, tail back, teeth bared, growling.
“You the guys here to kill me?” asked Yashar, inching ever closer to his companion.
The kutji nodded.
“You doing this because you want to? Or because you have to?”
“What’s the difference?” asked the kutji, balling up both of his fists.
“Difference is in how many of you I kill before we call it a night.”
The crows all squawked at once, angry, beating their wings against their sides, shaking their feathers while strutting on their perches.
“Oh, you like that, huh?” yelled Yashar over the sound. “I’ll ask you again! You doing this because you want to or because you have to?”
“Kill him,” said the kutji.
At once the birds took to the ai
r, their speed faster than Yashar imagined, diving toward him and Gossamer.
“Shit!” Yashar picked up Gossamer by his belly, hoisting him awkwardly in the air, then spun, pulling himself tight, vanishing into thin air. The birds swarmed in, finding nothing, some slamming into the wall, others the door—none striking home.
“Where is he?” screamed one of the kutji, shifting back from crow to man.
“He’s gone,” said another.
“Well, spread out. Find them.”
“It’s too late,” said yet another, sniffing the air. “They’re gone.”
“What now?”
The lead kutji from inside leaned out of the door, dangling on the knob. “We make sure he doesn’t come back. We make sure he gets the message. Everybody inside.”
The last of the crows shifted immediately, pouring inside the building. They leaped up on the tables and up on top of the bar. One swung back and forth on the single dangling bulb as if it were a jungle vine. The largest of them began tossing bottles against the wall, pouring liquor over the bartop. “Help me,” it said to the others.
In a flash, every bottle in the bar was shattering against any and every surface there was. Every bottle but one. The last bottle of Old Scraps’s special reserve. The largest kutji held that bottle in one hand, stuffing a rag in it with the other. Then he picked up a lighter from behind the bar, lit the rag, and screamed, “Everybody out!”
Then he threw the bottle against the bar and the whole place went up in flames.
CHAPTER 50
DREAMSPEAKER
He awoke, a fire crackling beside him, a shadow standing silently at the edge of its light.
Colby sat up, smiling. “Hello, Mandu.”
The shadow walked slowly around the fire, a large walking stick preceding it step by step.
Mandu Merijedi looked only vaguely as Colby remembered him, the creases in his face deep from years in the sun, his hair no longer salt and pepper, but fully bleached white with age. His eyes were milky with cataracts, tired, iris and pupil fading into the whites as if he were blind. His teeth gleamed in the firelight, his smile warmer than the blaze.
“Hello, child,” he said, his voice darkened, affected by the grave. There was an echo to it, a hollowness, as if he was calling through a cave, recorded, then played back through an old speaker, static and all.
“It’s been a long time.”
“No, it hasn’t. Long for you because you’re young. The young always think such a short time is forever. You don’t understand forever. Not yet.”
Colby nodded. “You’re right. I don’t understand it.”
Mandu laughed, each ha trailing off into the night like distant fireworks. “Of course I’m right. That’s why you came all this way to speak to a dead man.”
“Thank you for waiting for me.”
“I had no choice. You were always going to come here and call on me. I just knew in advance.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. Ain’t upset. No need being upset with the inevitable. I might sooner be angry that things fall down instead of up or that rain also darkens the sky. It is how things were meant to be.” He paused and beheld the stars as if he hadn’t seen them in years. “You’re here about the girl,” he said, still staring at them.
“Yes. The dreamwalker. Kaycee.”
“That’s not her name anymore. But don’t worry. She’ll find you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“How did you get here?” Mandu’s gaze wandered down from the sky, looking Colby straight in the eye.
“A powerful spirit brought me. On his horse.”
Mandu shook his head. “No. Ask yourself. How did you get here? To this spot? Now. How did you get to now? Only when you understand what brought you to where you are can you really go farther. If you want to find your friend, you need to retrace your steps. Walk the path you walked as a child. Sing the song of your deeds, walk the songline to the last place you saw her. But do not sing it wrong or you will unsing creation. You will unsing your own story. Remember, Colby, the past is the past. If we try and change it, we only change ourselves.”
“You want me to walk my songline?”
“I want to rest. You, you want to remember. Because you want to find your friend. She needs you. To fulfill her destiny and free herself from what ails her, what binds her, she needs you. This was the destiny she has so long pined for and it is so close. You cannot let her down now.”
“Is that it? Is that all I have to do?”
Mandu laughed again, this time more heartily than before, though it still chilled Colby to the bone. “No. That’s not it. That’s just the beginning.”
“Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“I don’t know everything. The spirits only show so much.”
“That’s damned inconvenient.”
“Destinies are fulfilled best by people trying to avoid them. They are not carved into the earth like mountains, but are like water in a billabong. Knowing a destiny is like knowing where the water will go when it rains. You know the water will be there. But you cannot tell the sky to put the water there. You cannot tell it when. You just have to let it. You can carve the earth out yourself, make rivers and reservoirs, guide the water away. And destiny becomes different. But why would you? You want the water in the billabong. Because it will bring the animals that will feed the people. You must think back on your song, you must be the rain. It will fill the billabong. It will bring the animals. It will feed the people.
“I have been given the opportunity to stand back and see history as one might see the land from this hill. It is all laid out. And it was my job to protect it. To sing of it. To be its custodian. I did that. And now that is Jirra’s job. And I can rest.”
Colby eyed the spirit knowingly. “You’re already at rest, aren’t you? This is just an echo.”
Mandu nodded, waved his arm around the dark of the dream. “Dreams are the one place the spirits cannot hear us.”
“You knew that I would need to hear this and that I wouldn’t be alone.”
“I was wrong to not want to teach you, especially when you learn so well.”
“You never wanted to teach me?”
“White fellas don’t learn the dream so good. But when a great spirit of the desert comes with the wind and brings you a child, saying, ‘Teach him the old ways,’ you do not question him. This is proof. The spirits were right to bring you to me. We come from the clay; we return to the clay. It is how it is supposed to be. Over time, the world changes. We can do little about that. But getting to take part, no matter how small, in a great story of such changes? Getting to leave something behind, whether given credit or not, is the greatest gift. I have that now. So thank you.”
“I haven’t changed anything. Certainly not the world.”
“Your wish changed everything, Colby. Changed the order of things. I don’t know how it works, or what the dream behind it is doing, but whatever it did, very powerful spirits took an interest in you. They set about changin’ the path of your life to get you where they wanted you to be. My spirit had me do the things I did to get you here, to this moment, because he said the choice you make here, at this point in your life, is the one that decides not only who you become, but what becomes of the world. The fate of all the dream rests in your hands. Do you remember the story of the orphan who cried awake the Rainbow Serpent?”
“Yeah. Are you saying I’m the orphan?”
“You were, once, before you made that bloody wish. But then you became the serpent.”
“Wait, what?”
“The serpent was just hungry. Been asleep a long time. To him, the people were nothin’ but tucker. He never knew how big he was, that his body carved rivers in the earth. Never knew that his very dreams would dream the world awake. That’s you. That’s you now. In your story, the orphan becomes the serpent. Dreams the world anew.”
“I don’t even know how that’s possible. I’
m not that powerful.”
“That’s the other part of the story. The moral for everyone else. Small people change the world. Bring down great monsters.”
“How do I bring this one down?”
“The dreamwalker?”
“Yeah.”
“You cut her cord. Severed the link between her spirit and her body.”
Colby glared at Mandu. “You tricked me into doing that.”
“Too right!”
“Why? Why did you let me think I did that?”
“Because of how you felt after you did it. I didn’t understand it at first either. My spirit told me this must be done and I trusted my spirit. But then I saw how you watched over her as she slept; how your guilt made you more conscious of how you used your power. When I met you, you were a boy unafraid to throw magic around, to rob the world of its dream to solve your problems. Now you are a man who hesitates before acting, thinks about the consequences of his actions, protects the dream where he can. Even when you kill a thing, you give its dream back to the world. That’s why you had to believe.”
“It was another damn lesson?”
“They’re all lessons, fella. Everything is a lesson in this life. Even the small things.”
“I cut her cord to learn a lesson?”
“Her cord was cut because it had to be. She could not become who she is now if it hadn’t been. And this is who she was always meant to be. The reason you did it was to learn a lesson.”
“So why did it have to be cut?”
“Because, if her body dies—”
“She dies. I know. That’s not an answer.”
“That body was not her destiny. She was meant for the world of dreams, not the one of her body. But what if someone were to disbelieve her body? Will it away?”
“She would be disbelieved with it. Right?”
“Yes. Unless . . .” Mandu looked across the fire, waiting for Colby to get it.
“Unless . . . ?” Colby’s eyes shot wide. “Unless some other spirit had made her body its home.”
“Too right again!”
“Then I wouldn’t be disbelieving her, I would be disbelieving something else. Is that right?”
“A dreamwalker whose body is taken by another spirit is condemned to walk forever as a spirit.”
Queen of the Dark Things Page 28