by Dyrk Ashton
Xeco shakes his head and flaps his arms to shed the wet of the snow. He leers at Arges, orange eyes gleaming, and opens his beak. In broken English, the words come croaking as if from a monstrous parrot, “Hel-lo He-phae-stus. Pol-ly want... an eyeball.”
Arges snorts, shaking with rage--but even though the battle fury is upon him and he’s faced with his arch nemesis, he turns his attention back to Tanuki. Taking him by the shoulders, he says, “Follow the tunnel. Down, not up. Go to the northern sea. Get away. Tell others.”
Tanuki searches his mind, comes up blank. “Tell who?” They haven’t spoken to any other Firstborn in centuries.
Asterion huffs with force and crouches forward, one hand on the ground like a football player readying for the snap. He swings his head and horns in broad swipes, paws the ground with his free hand, finger-hooves gouging the stone floor.
Arges shouts, “Asterion! Are you insane?!”
“Aster, no!” Tanuki cries.
Asterion knows his chances of defeating Ziz are slim. The beast’s advantages are many. Size, obviously, and strength, which comes with his great age. His reach of wing and neck, and that pike of a beak. But I am The Bull, he reassures himself. Ziz is a stupid, vicious monster. The limited space of the hall can work to my advantage. If I can draw him in. If I can get close, inside his striking range, and stay there... He turns the strategy over in his mind. Without an Astra weapon, the best he can hope for is to injure Ziz enough to make him go away. He has to try. And if it happens that I am vanquished, I will be remembered well. Ziz will recall the pain of this day for the rest of his miserable life, and when he passes, when that day finally comes, all will rejoice.
Asterion heaves back, then thrusts his massive head forward, releasing a mighty bull’s bellow.
In reply, Ziz plunges his elongated head and neck between the pillars, slamming his shoulders into them. They crack and groan, chunks split off near the ceiling and crash to the floor. The horrible cry heard from the sky shreds the air of the hall.
Arges shouts to Tanuki, “Find him, if you can! Tell him what has happened here! I love you, Little Brother.”
Tanuki can’t believe this is happening, and certainly not the last words of his Big Brother. “I...”
Xeco, The Terror Bird, postures, arms out. Lowering his head, he opens his monstrous beak and lets out a deafening SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Arges shouts louder, “Go brother, go! The fate of us all lies with you!”
With a shove from Arges, Tanuki springs through the fire. He turns for one last look, then runs off down the tunnel as fast as his stubby legs can carry him.
For a moment Arges stares at the flames, thinking of all his magnificent furnaces, in this world, in Asgard. Beautiful forges, scorching and steaming with molten metals and quenching pools, where he wrought stunning and deadly things. He remembers his mentor, The Prathamaja Nandana, and the songs of his beloved sea-nymph, Galatea. He recalls all the families he has had, and lost.
He pounds the keystone again. The back wall of the hearth moves downward. My family is here now. All the family I have. The passageway door thumps to a close. He smashes his fist down on the keystone, crumbling the top of the hearth.
The Rhino turns toward his enemies, drops to a crouch, his single eye burning red. If it is within my power, I will not let them come to harm.
The Terror Bird bears down upon him, coming fast. His horrendous beak opens in another ear-splitting SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Arges pounds forward on all fours.
* * *
Tanuki reaches the safe room of the Lair of the Bull, a stone cell replete with shelves of provisions, sleeping benches and a round steel door like the vault of a bank. They’ve never had need of it, but The Bull insists they replenish supplies once a month. Each of them has a duffel bag in case the day should come that escape became necessary. Asterion has been more attentive about this in the last half century. The watoto are everywhere and their technology advancing at a frightening rate. Tanuki knows The Bull has feared they’d soon have to abandon their home. Now that day has come. But this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen! Not like this!
Tanuki frantically checks his bag, but of course everything’s there. He lifts his satellite telephone but has no one to call. The Turkish authorities and his Japanese contacts would be useless. Tanuki pauses, trying to think, but thinking is useless as well. He shoves the phone back into the duffel bag, snatches up a flashlight and spare staff, and dashes from the room.
* * *
Arges and Xeco barrel toward each other in the great stone hall. Asterion launches into a sprint, straight at Ziz, faster than any creature his size should be able to move. The hooves of his toes chip the floor with each step.
He suddenly alters his course to intercept Xeco before he can reach Arges, sweeping low with his horns and arms at the Terror Bird’s legs--but Xeco is too fast. He leaps into the air, gnarled arms held out for balance, clearing both the grasping Bull and the charging Rhino.
Arges tries to halt himself but gains little purchase on the polished floor. He scrabbles desperately, skidding directly toward Ziz, who rears up and strikes. Arges is yanked out of the way just as Ziz’s beak pounds the floor, sending stone fragments flying.
Asterion pulls Arges to his feet, back and away from the enraged Quetzalcoatlus. Ziz shrieks, pounds the pillars again with his shoulders. Xeco rounds Arges and Asterion, moving toward Ziz.
“Is Tanuki away?” Asterion asks.
“Yes.”
“Good, this is no place for the pup.”
Xeco stands guard while Ziz hunkers down, tucks his wings in front of him and squeezes between the pillars into the hall. He unfolds himself, dull scaly skin, mottled gray with crimson detailing along the bones of his wings. His head rises to nearly sixteen feet above the floor.
Arges groans, “Great.”
“No,” says Asterion. “It worked, he’s inside.”
“That was a ploy?”
“Of course.”
“Now what?”
“We inflict as much damage as possible,” Asterion replies. “If necessary...,” he nods almost imperceptibly toward the terrace, “we jump.”
“As good a plan as any.” Arges claps Asterion on the shoulder. “For life.”
Asterion returns the gesture. “For Father.”
Ziz raises his wings, cries his klaxon cry. Xeco, circling back around in an attempt to force them toward Ziz, lets out another SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Aster and Arges crouch, roar together, and charge.
* * *
Tanuki bounds down the stairs of the dark tunnel, the beam of his flashlight bouncing over glistening wet stone. His mind races. Arges is older than Xeco, heavier and stronger--but the Terror Bird is so very fast. Sleipnir, the horse-monster of Asgard, is amazingly fleet of hoof, but it has been speculated that only Sekhmet may be capable of outrunning Xeco. And Xeco has that fireman’s axe of a beak and those talons--the talons that tore the eye from The Rhino. Tanuki was there. The popping and ripping, the howl of agony, the blood and black ooze. A shiver shoots along his spine. Run, Tanuki, just keep running. Breathe, and run.
* * *
Ziz advances on Asterion, snapping with his beak, swiping with his wings. The Bull jumps, ducks and rolls, avoiding the blows. Chunks of rock from shattered shelves, tables and chairs fly everywhere.
Arges and Xeco circle close to one another, The Rhino trying his best to grab hold of The Terror Bird, to land a fist, to get his arms around him. Xeco escapes every grasp and blow.
Gods, he’s fast, Arges thinks, but if I can just get a hand on his filthy neck it will be over! But Xeco knows it too, and Arges has to protect his eye to keep Xeco from his intended prize.
Asterion grabs the tip of Ziz’s wing but it’s snatched from his grasp. He leaps, trying to get close to his opponent’s body, but is blocked by a wing and tossed to crash into the wall, smashing a lamp. The flame is snuffed out. Gas flows from the torn fixture, invisibl
e and deadly.
Xeco escapes a punch thrown by The Rhino and counters with a strike of his foot. The fearsome claws make no mark on The Rhino’s thick hide, but Arges is pushed back, off balance. Xeco lunges, the hook of his beak landing solidly on Arges’s shoulder. It glances off without leaving as much as a scratch. Xeco leaps back, screeching in frustration.
* * *
Tanuki continues down the tunnel stairs. Asterion is of mighty stock and a brilliant combatant. He’s gone head to head with older Firstborn before, and, against all odds, been victorious. But he’s only three! Xeco is older, and Ziz is old, even for a Firstborn, one of the True Ancients, the handful of Firstborn who survived the Cataclysm. Most all the True Ancients were assumed to be long gone. But if Ziz still lives... Tanuki shudders, pushes the thought from his mind, concentrates on the dark steps beneath him.
* * *
Struggling to rise, Asterion hears Arges shout a warning, but before he can turn The Terror Bird is upon him, opening an ugly gash in his back with his cruel beak. Xeco rears to strike again but abandons the attack as Arges closes in.
Suddenly Ziz has hold of Arges’s shoulder and neck, his wing claws crunching deep. Arges grunts, beats at the wingbone with a fist, tries to push it away with his other hand, but to no avail. The claws only tear his flesh even more. Ziz slashes The Rhino’s chest with his other claw, opening a gruesome triple wound. Then Asterion’s hands are on the wingbone. With a great ripping sound, one of his horns pierces the leathery membrane.
Ziz cries out and releases Arges, who stumbles back, spinning, just in time to see Xeco striking at Asterion. Arges uses the momentum of his turn and swings a roundhouse at The Terror Bird’s beak. This one connects. Xeco hits the ground hard, his head bouncing off the floor. Arges bounds toward him, but Xeco is already flopping away.
Ziz yanks his wing from Asterion’s grip and slams it back into him just as quickly, sending him sprawling across the floor, blood from his back smearing the light-colored stone.
* * *
Tanuki stops short on a landing, where one set of steps proceeds downward through the mountains to the north while another goes up to the right.
Aster, Arges, my brothers.
Asterion is wise. He will see reason. He and Arges will come to their senses, submit and be spared. But Tanuki knows how deep The Rhino’s hatred of The Terror Bird runs, and he saw the look in the eyes of The Bull, as if Aster knew what Tanuki fears to consider. There will be no sparing of lives today.
He looks back the way he came, then down the stairs, then up. What have I done?
He sheds his duffel bag and bounds forward--and upward.
* * *
The top of the curving stairs dead-ends into solid stone. Tanuki searches with flashlight and fingertips for a crack in the wall, finds it and pulls. The hidden latch comes outward with a clunk. A portion of the wall grinds to the side. Weak moonlight, fresh air and snow rush in. He stumbles onto a ledge, hears grunts and crashes of battle in the distance. Arges and Asterion still live!
At a steep angle below, not a hundred feet away, is the terrace outside their home. There’s a sound like a rasping foghorn and Ziz comes backing out of the hall, shoving awkwardly between the pillars. He unfurls to his full height and howls at the cavern entrance.
Asterion emerges, gashed and bleeding, but undaunted. Tanuki hears a screech from the Terror Bird inside the hall, cut short by a colossal WHUMP!
Arges staggers onto the terrace, blood flowing from his wounds. Ziz attacks with a wing. Asterion ducks, but Arges takes the brunt of the blow. He slams into a pillar with such force that it snaps. Asterion rushes to his aid--but not fast enough--Ziz skewers Arges through the stomach with his beak, pinning him to the stone.
Tanuki wails silently, Arges!
Asterion tackles Ziz at the beak, tugging it from Arges’s body. Ziz whips his head, flinging The Bull away. Asterion hits the terrace, rolls, and drops over the edge, causing Tanuki to gasp in fright.
But Asterion catches the lip of the terrace with one hand. With a tug he’s back up, facing his enemy. Ziz swipes with his wing, aiming high this time. Asterion ducks the blow, bellows and springs with all his might, angling his head to drive a horn into the heart of the beast. His aim and timing are perfect, but his horn snaps on impact and dangles from Ziz’s hide, having barely pierced the skin.
Tanuki stifles a cry. A horn of The Bull! Broken!
Staggered by the blow, Ziz trips backward off the edge, but flaps his wings and rises in the air with Asterion clinging to his neck. Ziz reaches up with one leg, grasps Asterion in a gigantic claw and wrenches him off. With the other foot, he snatches the broken horn from his chest, then yowls and stabs it deep into Asterion’s shoulder at the neck. Asterion roars.
Whether he breaks Ziz’s grasp or Ziz lets go, Tanuki can’t tell, but Asterion falls, plummeting toward the monastery a thousand feet below. Ziz shrieks in triumph and plunges after him. From this angle, Tanuki can’t see the ground below the terrace, or what happens there. He can only imagine the worst.
What he can see is Arges struggling to get up, but unable to, bleeding profusely from the hole in his gut, his preternatural strength waning fast with the loss of his Firstborn blood. Tanuki makes up his mind to run back, to return to Arges, regardless of his own safety, but Xeco stalks onto the terrace and he freezes. Xeco shakes his head violently as if to clear it, then saunters toward Arges with infuriating self-assurance.
The snow continues to fall, flakes melting to tiny droplets on Arges’s torn body, disappearing in his steaming breath, merging with his flowing blood. Xeco pounces, grasping with claws that now dig into weakened flesh. He raises his beak.
Tanuki can’t bear it. “NOOOOOO! XECO! STOP!”
The Terror Bird spies him and laughs, a grating, unearthly chortle. He turns back to Arges.
Tanuki shouts, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Xeco strikes, again and again, chopping mercilessly at Arges’s neck. The Rhino’s body convulses with every blow, and then he is still. The Terror Bird wrenches back and forth until the head comes free.
Tanuki falls to his knees, “No...”
Xeco clutches the head with one foot, a toe in Arges’s silent mouth, and digs into The Rhino’s remaining eye with a twisted clawed hand. The eye comes loose with a sucking pop. He tosses it to his other hand, looks up at Tanuki for a long moment, then throws his prize into the air and snatches it with his beak. He swallows it in one gulp and watches--watches Tanuki push himself up on shaking legs, grasping at the stone wall for balance, and totter into the mountain.
Xeco laughs and laughs, the ghastly hollow sound echoing in the cold mountain air.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Flowers & Figs 6
There’s a beep from a monitor on Sarah’s desk, where Stan looks back at her from the booth in the lobby downstairs.
“We’ve got someone here to see Peter,” he reports. “Is he available?”
“Did you say ‘Peter’?” she asks dubiously.
“Yes ma’am.”
Sarah checks a schedule on her computer. “He’s in music hour. Just started. Can they wait?”
* * *
In the lobby, Kleron heard Sarah through the security booth speaker. “Music hour?” he says. “Wonderful! The old man has always been fond of music.” He turns to his companions, drumming his black-gloved fingers on the counter, then back to Stan. “We quite enjoy a good tune ourselves. Perhaps we could join him?”
* * *
Bob pivots the microphone stem of his headset below his chin and asks Sarah, “Has anybody ever come to see Peter?”
“Nope,” she responds, “and we’ve got no contact information or next of kin on file for him either. It’s a damn shame they haven’t come to see him before now, if you ask me.” She waves down a nurse who’s walking past. “Emily, are you going back to the offices?”
“Yeah, whatcha need?”
“Can you tell Dr. Williams that someone’s here to s
ee Peter?”
“Sure,” Emily replies, then enters a door just past Sarah’s counter.
Sarah swivels to face Bob. “Maybe they’ll know something about Peter’s medical history, or at least be able to give us his last name.”
* * *
In the third floor security booth, Joe “hmphs” to himself, watching the screen. He pivots to look out to where Zeke still plays for the old folks. “Hey Lisa,” he calls to the guard at the door. “Get Fi, will ya?”
Out in the rec room, Fi notices Peter’s hands trembling and his head nodding erratically, like an old man’s does sometimes, but cocked as if he’s listening to something other than the music.
* * *
“I just need you to fill these out,” Stan informs Kleron, sliding a clipboard through a slot below the glass. “Are you family?”
The man smiles broadly, though his eyes remain lifeless. “Why, yes. Very much so.”
“And the rest of your group?”
“They are, in fact.” He waves a hand at the two dark-haired pale young men in designer shirts. “These are my children’s children, Derek and Tod.” Derek and Tod nod in greeting.
“Over there are their cousins,” Kleron gestures toward the two bearded fellows, who seem uncomfortable with being pointed out. They wear buttoned vests over long sleeved shirts of colored patterns, and though their beards meet their sideburns, their cheeks are shaved and they have no mustaches. “Their names are Henri and Didier.” The two men shuffle and fret, then turn away and face the wall.
Kleron raises an eyebrow to Stan. “Don’t mind them. They’re French, you know. Travelled quite a distance for this visit. Could be the jet lag.”
Kleron spreads his arms dramatically to introduce the tall men in fur coats. “And, of course, my half-brothers.” The men turn their heads in unison to eye Stan through their sunglasses. They’re the same height, at least 6’ 6”, and though they look like twins, one of them has the right sleeve of his coat removed and sewn over to compensate for a missing arm.