River of Blue Fire

by Tad Williams

  The dark face on the screen was carefully quiet for several seconds more. “Is this going to be one of those tabnet field-days?” she asked at last. “You know, ‘Cops Seek Abo Myth-Killer’?”

  “Not if I can help it. It’s a five-year-old murder, anyway. The sad truth is, no one cares but me and my partner, and if we don’t come up with anything soon, it’s going back into the Unsolved file, probably for good.”

  “Come to my office, then.” Having made up her mind, she spoke briskly. “I’ll tell you everything I can. Fix a time with Henry, the one you spoke to first. He has my schedule.”

  Before Calliope could protest her own busy calendar, Professor Jigalong had ended the call.

  She sat staring at the screen for half a minute, full of useless frustration, then called back the associate and arranged a meeting. Furious at her own malleability—she, the one her father had called “Ox” because of her stubbornness—she scrabbled in the bottom desk drawer for the biscuits. Diet, hell. She would eat herself huge, until the Jigalong woman quailed at the sight of her.

  What she found at the bottom of the drawer, after a long and fruitless search, was an IOU from Stan Chan dated two days earlier, a chit for the packet of biscuits he’d stolen.

  The biscuit thief was doing legwork for another case, so Calliope went to the university by herself. She missed the shuttle from the parking lot, and decided to walk across campus instead of waiting for another hoverbus.

  The students seemed uniformly well-dressed—even the clothes that imitated gutter fashion were expensive and finely tailored; Calliope was more conscious than she wanted to be of her decidedly unglamorous suit and flat, practical shoes.

  Most of the young people she saw were Pacific Rim Asians, and although she had already known that many mainland Chinese were enrolled at UNSW (one of the school’s nicknames was “BUSX”, which stood for “Beijing University, Sydney Extension”), it was still a bit startling to see it in person. The entire country was really half-Asian now, she reflected, although most of the Asians, like Stan, whether their grandparents had been Chinese, Laotian, or Korean, were now as Australian as Waltzing Matilda. They had joined the mainstream—or rather the mainstream had broadened. Funny how that happened. But, of course, not everyone was part of it: some, like the Aboriginal peoples, remained largely excluded.

  Professor Jigalong’s earlier reaction reminded Calliope that only a few generations ago, her own Greek immigrant ancestors had been the funny foreigners, the butt of jokes and sometimes the target of uglier treatment. But in fact, if you looked at it from the Aboriginal point of view, Calliope and her Greco-Australian forebears had never been that different from any other whites.

  Victoria Jigalong’s office was no bigger than most academic holes-in-the-wall. What was surprising about it was its austerity. Calliope had been expecting to find it filled with Aboriginal art, but instead, except for a cabinet with several shelves of old paper books, and a not completely tidy desk, it was as stark as a monk’s cell. The professor’s shapeless white dress, revealed as she stood up from behind the desk, its muslin length emphasized by her height, suddenly seemed a kind of ecclesiastical garment. Calliope exited the firm, dry handshake and lowered herself into the only other chair, caught between hops again.

  “So.” The professor donned a pair of almost antique spectacles. With the lenses over her eyes, and with her shiny, hairless head, she now seemed a thing entirely made of reflective surfaces. “You want to know about the Woolagaroo myth.”

  “Uh, yes.” Calliope would have preferred at least a bit of humanizing small talk first, but was clearly not going to get it. “Is it well known?”

  “It is one of the more common. It appears in different forms in the story-cycles of quite a few Aboriginal peoples. Most have the key elements in common—a man takes it into his head to build an artificial man and give it life. He constructs it from wood, and gives it stones for eyes, but his attempts to breathe life into it by magic fail. Then, when he has walked away in disgust, he hears something following him. It is the Woolagaroo, of course, the wooden devil-devil man, and it chases him. Terrified, he hides, and the Woolagaroo continues on its way, over stones and thorns and even walking on the bottom of rivers, until it disappears.” She steepled her fingers. “Some folklorists do not believe it is truly a myth from the Dreamtime. They think it is more recent.”

  “I’m sorry, slow down for a moment, please.” Calliope pulled her pad from her bag. “Do you mind if I record?”

  Professor Jigalong looked at the device with distaste, and for a bizarre moment Calliope thought she was going to be accused of trying to steal this very modern and impressive woman’s soul. “If you must,” was all the professor said.

  “You said ‘the Dreamtime.’ That’s a myth, too, isn’t it? That there was a time before time, when all the Aboriginal myths were actually true?”

  “It is more than that, Detective. Those who believe, believe that it can be accessed. That in dreams, we still touch the Dreamtime.”

  She had spoken with a peculiar emphasis, but Calliope did not want to get embroiled in some kind of academic crossfire. “But you said some people think this Woolagaroo myth is, what, modern?”

  “They believe it is an allegory of the first contact with the Europeans, and with their technology. It is a myth, they say, that warns the native people that machines will destroy their makers.”

  “But you don’t think they’re right.”

  “The wisdom of so-called primitive people runs deeper than most of those who call themselves civilized can understand, Detective Skouros.” The harshness of her tone seemed almost automatic, the fossil rigidity of an old argument. “One does not have to have seen a gun or a motorcar to think that humanity should not rely too greatly on that which it makes, as opposed to that which it is.”

  Calliope did her best to draw the woman back to specifics; the professor, as if realizing that the detective in front of her was not part of the debate she herself felt so strongly about, relented. She filled up fifteen minutes of the pad’s memory with citations of different versions of the folktale, and of various expert commentaries written about it. Professor Jigalong’s gestures were concise but subtly theatrical, her deep speaking voice almost hypnotic, and even her casual conversation gave the impression of being long-considered. Once more Calliope had the sensation of being overwhelmed by the professor’s peculiar magnetism. At first she had thought it was sexual—Professor Jigalong was a handsome and very impressive woman—but more and more it seemed she was fascinated by the woman’s sheer presence, her own reaction more like the awe of a potential devotee.

  Calliope didn’t like that. She didn’t see herself as a fan, let alone a cult follower, of anyone or anything, and she couldn’t imagine changing that for a professor of folklore with a chip on her shoulder. But it was hard not to react to the woman.

  As she was listening (or half-listening, in truth, because the wealth of detail was beginning to overwhelm her), Calliope let her gaze drift around the office. What had seemed a monastic blankness to one of the walls was now revealed to be a very large—and, it appeared, fairly expensive—wallscreen, resting now in a neutral flat white tone. And there was a single ornament too, which she had missed against the multicolored spines on the bookshelves.

  The object on the wooden stand was quite simple—a slightly irregular circle of yellowed ivory or bone, stood upright like the mouth of a tunnel, the whole thing including its almost invisible support bar no more than a hand’s length high. Had it not been the only adornment in that otherwise purely functional room, Calliope would barely have noticed it. Instead, she found it hard to look away.

  “. . . and that is why, of course, I find your suggestion that this particular myth may be part of a ritualistic killing very unpleasant.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry.” To cover her embarrassment at having stopped li
stening, Calliope shook her pad slightly, as though it had frozen up. “Could you just say that again, please?”

  The professor gave her a hard-edged look, but her voice remained even. “I was saying that there is a sector of native Australian society that believes the Dreamtime is coming again. Like most fundamentalist movements, it is a reaction to suffering, to political disenfranchisement. And not all who believe this are fools or dupes, either.” Here she paused for a moment, as though for the first time considering what to say next. “But there are some who believe that they can hasten this return of the Dreamtime, or even shape it to their own ends, and they are quite willing to pervert the rituals and beliefs of their own people to do so.”

  Calliope felt a rising spike of interest. “And you think the killer might be someone like that? Someone who’s trying to perform some ritual, some magic, to bring back the Dreamtime?”

  “Possibly.” Victoria Jigalong looked far unhappier than seemed appropriate. Calliope wondered if it pained her to speak of what seemed an example of her own people’s gullibility. “The Woolagaroo is a potent metaphor in some quarters—and not just an example of technology’s troubling side. There are those who see it as a metaphor for how the white man’s attempts to remake the native peoples in his own image will eventually backfire. That his ‘creation,’ if you will, will turn on him.”

  “In other words, some people use it as an incitement to racial unrest?”

  “Yes. But remember, even in these unsettled times, it is a myth, and like all my people’s myths, what is beautiful in it—what is true in it—is not to be confused with what sick or unhappy minds might make of it.” Oddly, this stern woman almost seemed to be asking the policewoman for understanding.

  After Calliope had thanked her and was standing in the doorway, she turned and said: “By the way, I couldn’t help noticing that ring of bone on your bookshelf. Is it a piece of art, or an award of some kind? It’s really quite beautiful.”

  Professor Jigalong did not turn to look at the shelf; neither did she answer the question. “You seem like a good woman, Detective Skouros. I am sorry for my earlier sharpness.”

  “That’s all right.” Calliope was flustered. The professor’s tone had gone strange and hesitant again. Was it going to turn into a come-on after all? Calliope didn’t know quite how she felt about that.

  “Let me tell you something. Many people are waiting for the Dreamtime. Some are trying to make it happen. These are strange days.”

  “They certainly are,” she said quickly, then wished she had kept her mouth shut. The woman’s stare was very, very intense, but that was no reason to babble.

  “Stranger than you know.” Victoria Jigalong now turned and walked to the bookshelf. She took the bone circle down and ran a reverent finger around it, like a nun telling the rosary. “And in these strange days,” she said at last, “do not underestimate someone who summons the Woolagaroo magic. Do not take the Dreamtime idea lightly.”

  “I don’t take anyone’s beliefs lightly, Professor.”

  “We are not talking of beliefs any more, Detective. The world is coming to a great change, even if most cannot see it yet. But I should not keep you any longer. Good afternoon.”

  Half an hour later, Calliope was still sitting in her department car in the parking lot, playing back the interview as she stared at her notes on the Woolagaroo myth, and trying to figure out what in hell that had all been about.

  CHRISTABEL waited and waited outside the metal door, trying to make herself not be afraid any more. It seemed like there was a dragon behind the door, or some other kind of monster. She was afraid to knock, even though she knew it was only Mister Sellars on the other side. Mister Sellars and that bad, scary boy.

  When she finally felt brave enough, she banged on the door with the stone, the little code that Mister Sellars had taught her, bump-bumpa-bump-bump.

  The door opened. The boy’s dirty face looked out at her.

  “I want to see Mister Sellars,” she said in her most serious voice.

  The boy opened the door to let her through, and she crawled past him. He smelled. She made a face at him and he saw it, but he only laughed, a little hissing sneaky sound like Mystery Mouse.

  Inside the tunnel it was hot and wet and cloudy, and at first she couldn’t see very much. There was a little stove on the floor, and a pot bubbling on top of it, making the steam that made it so hard to see. The air smelled funny, not sour like the boy, but like something from the medicine cabinet at home or one of the things her daddy drank.

  When she was inside the door, she stood up. She couldn’t see much because of the cloudy air and she didn’t know where to go. The boy gave her a little shove, not too hard, but not very friendly, making her trip and almost fall. She was scared again. Mister Sellars always called out hello to her, even when she came without talking to him on the Storybook Sunglasses first.

  “You bring some food, mu’chita?” the boy asked.

  “I want to see Mister Sellars.”

  “Ay, Dios! Go on, then.” He walked up behind her like he would push her again, and Christabel hurried along the wet concrete so he wouldn’t touch her.

  Mister Sellars’ chair was standing empty in one of the wide places in the tunnel, which made her even more scared. Without the old man in it, it looked like something from the news on television, like one of the spaceship things that landed on Mars and began making little machines like a mama cat having kittens. She stopped and would not go near it, even when the boy came up behind her. His breathing seemed very loud. So did her own.

  “This little bitch all crazy,” the boy said.

  Something stirred in the shadows beyond the chair. “What?” asked a quiet voice.

  “Mu’chita loca, seen? She say she wanna talk to you, but she jumping all around. I don’t know.” The boy made a snorting noise and went to do something with the pot full of boiling water.

  “Mister Sellars?” Christabel was still scared. He sounded funny.

  “Little Christabel? This is a surprise. Come here, my dear, come here.” She could see something waving just a little, and she walked around the chair. Mister Sellars was lying down on a pile of blankets, with another blanket over him so that only his head and arms stuck out. He looked very skinny, even more than usual, and he did not lift his head up when she came close. But he did smile, so she felt a little better.

  “Let me see you. You will forgive me for not getting up, but I’m afraid I’m rather weak just at the moment. The work I’m doing is quite tiring.” He closed his eyes, almost like he was going to sleep, and waited a long time before he opened them. “Also, I apologize for the atmosphere. My humidifier has malfunctioned—that means it stopped working—and I’ve had to improvise.”

  Christabel knew what ‘malfunction’ meant, because Rip Ratchet Robot said it on the Uncle Jingle show whenever his rear end fell off. She wasn’t quite sure what Mister Sellars meant, though, since his humidifier didn’t have anything to do with his rear end, as far as she knew. She wasn’t sure about “improvise” either, but guessed it had something to do with boiling water.

  “Are you going to get better?” she asked.

  “Oh, I expect so. There’s a great deal to be done, and nothing will be accomplished with me flat on my back. Well, actually I could be standing on my head and it wouldn’t make any difference, but I need to be stronger.” He opened his eyes wide for a moment, as though he were really seeing her for the first time. “I’m sorry, my dear, I’m babbling. I’m not feeling very well. What brings you to see me? Shouldn’t you . . .” he hesitated for a moment, as though looking at something invisible, “be in school?”

  “It’s over. I’m going home.” Christabel felt like there were secrets to tell. She didn’t want to talk about school. “How come you haven’t called me?”

  “As I said, my dear, I�
��m working very hard. And I don’t want you to get into any trouble.”

  “But why is he here?” She was whispering now, but the boy still heard her, and laughed. For a moment she wasn’t scared of him, she just hated him, hated his stupid face always hanging around when she came to see Mister Sellars. “He’s not good, Mister Sellars. He’s bad. He steals things.”

  “Yeah, s’pose you go to la tienda and buy all that soap, then?” the boy said. He laughed again.

  “That’s not necessary, Cho-Cho.” Mister Sellars’ trembly hand came up like a branch blown by the wind. “Christabel, he stole because he was hungry. Not everyone has a nice family like you do, and a warm place to sleep and plenty to eat.”

  “Verdad,” said the boy, nodding his head.

  “But why is he your friend? I’m your friend.”

  Mister Sellars slowly shook his head, not saying no, but sad. “Christabel, you are still my friend—you are the very best kind of friend anyone could have. The help you gave me is more important than you could ever know—you’re the hero of a whole world! But right now I have to do the rest of my work, and Cho-Cho is better for that part of things. And he needs a place to stay, so he’s staying here.”

  “And if I don’t stay here, I tell those army vatos that there’s a crazy old man living under their base, seen?”

  Mister Sellars’ smile was not a happy one. “Yes, there’s that, too. So that’s all, Christabel. Besides, you can’t keep sneaking out. You’ll get into trouble with your parents.”

  “I won’t!” She was angry, even though she knew he was right. It was getting harder and harder to think up reasons to go off on her bicycle alone so she could bring bags of bread and half-sandwiches and pieces of fruit from her lunch to the boy and Mister Sellars. But she was afraid that if she stopped coming, the boy would do something bad—maybe take Mister Sellars away somewhere, or hurt him. Her friend was very thin and not very strong. Right now, he looked really sick. “I don’t care if I get in trouble, anyway.”