The two brothers found themselves not far from a town built of mud houses. They took once again their human forms and Shallow said, “Let us go into the town, and see what there is to see."
Tiger and Shallow went into the village, found a bar, and ordered beer. (Even before the flood there were bars where men could gather to drink.) The brothers listened to the villagers talk—the accents were strange, but the old strong magic gave the brothers the power to understand all forms of speech, not only human speech but the speech of animals and gods.
The town was abuzz with fear and excitement. For the last three nights, a winged lion had prowled the darkness outside of town, and last night it carried off a child of the village. There was much talk of driving the winged lion away with torches, or building a wall around the town for protection, but nothing had been done.
As the brothers were leaving the bar, a small boy just outside the door held out his cupped hands. “The gods reward those who are generous to the poor,” the boy said. Shallow walked on without even a glance at the boy, but Tiger paused.
Tiger said to the boy, “Go, get dust from the ground and a little water from the well, and make a loaf of bread out of mud.” The boy ran to do as he was told. When he returned, Tiger took the loaf made of mud in his hands, and when he handed it back to the boy it was soft, warm bread, with a crunchy brown crust. The boy devoured it in less time than it takes to tell.
"Boy,” said Tiger. “Are you brave?"
"I am the bravest of boys,” said the boy.
"Would you like to help rid your town of the winged lion that eats children?"
"The winged lion ate my little sister last night. My mother weeps and wails and casts dust in her hair. I will do whatever you ask."
"Come with me,” Tiger said.
They walked to the darkness outside the town. “You stay here. I will protect you,” said Tiger. Then he transformed himself into a stone, so the winged lion would not be frightened, and would come.
The boy wiggled his foot at the darkness, to show that he was not afraid.
Soon, crouching low to the ground, the winged lion crept toward the boy. It was dark, but Tiger could see in the dark. He returned to human form and cried, “Run, boy."
The boy ran. The lion sprang. Tiger stood in the lion's path, and hit the lion in the face with his fist. The lion spread its wings and soared up into the air. Tiger could see its outline black against the stars. The lion folded its wings and plummeted down on Tiger. When the lion was almost upon him, claws outstretched, Tiger transformed himself into a lance, which pierced the lion's heart.
The boy watched, wide eyed, as the lance rose out of the body of the dead lion and took the form of a man. “Go,” said Tiger, “and tell your mother that the winged lion is dead. I will follow."
Tiger followed the boy to the mud house where he lived, and the boy told his mother and father what Tiger had done. The family invited Tiger to stay the night and sleep by the hearth, though it saddened them that they had no food to offer him. But Tiger provided a feast for the whole family and, late that night, after everyone else was asleep, the boy's older sister came to Tiger to warm his dreams.
Shallow, meanwhile, visited a temple prostitute and turned a stone into gold to pay for food and drink and her services for the night.
The next morning, when Tiger awoke, the sun was already in the sky. He thanked the family for their hospitality, and left the older sister with a smile and a caress to remember him by. He knew that Shallow would have resumed the race as soon as the edge of the sun was seen on the horizon, and so he lost no time. As soon as he was out of sight of the town of mud huts, he transformed himself into a gazelle and bounded across the open plain.
All day the two brothers raced across the wide land.
Night found Shallow between two cities and so, in order to keep his word, Shallow returned to the city he had passed an hour earlier.
Tiger reached the outskirts of that same city at sunset, and found a large caravansary that offered food, drink, and lodging.
The taproom was crowded both with travelers and with local bully boys. Whores and pickpockets were working the crowd, and a flute player and a drummer could barely make themselves heard over the din.
Tiger drank heavily, and began to brag, and when a local tough doubted his word, he broke the man's jaw. All of the other locals leaped into the fray and Tiger easily beat them all, without need of magic. In the joy of drunken combat he did rather more damage than he intended, but as best as he could remember, as he nursed his sore head before sunup the next morning, he had not killed anybody.
In penance for the damage he had caused the previous night, he did not use magic to cure his hangover, but jogged doggedly northward through early morning streets.
Meanwhile, Shallow had spent the evening gambling, in the back room of a small tavern on the north side of the city. The game he joined consisted of casting goat's knuckles, whose six sides were each marked with a kabalistic sign. The rules were complicated, as both the number of dice rolled and the value of each combination varied according to the previous roll, but Shallow easily mastered the rules. It was an interesting game, but luck was against him, and he did not deign to use magic when gambling—it would have taken all the sport out of it. In the small hours of the morning, he lost the last of his gold.
Listening to the conversation of the local men, Shallow gathered that the fortunes of this city were in a decline, and that the city to the north was stealing away all of their business with luxury inns, large places of worship for every religion under the sun, and temple prostitutes who were both beautiful and skilled.
Shallow asked, “Will you all agree to return the gold I lost, if I tell you how to restore the prosperity of your city?"
One of the older men remarked, “Advice is easy to give, not always worth listening to, seldom worth paying for."
"Suppose I leave that up to you,” Shallow said. “You return my gold only if you find my advice worthwhile."
Several men nodded, looking slyly at one another. How could they lose?
Shallow thought in silence for a short time, while the others watched him with growing interest. Finally, he asked, “What is the gambling like in the city to the north?"
"They don't gamble,” said one man. “Against their religion."
"They don't gamble!” cried Shallow. “Well, then, there is the answer to all of your problems. Build a great gambling palace, with beautiful girls, plenty to drink, and games of every kind. Reserve the game we've been playing for the serious gambler. Most of your games should be very simple, with very high stakes. Here's one."
Shallow described a game where, at each round, players must either double their bet or drop out. The stakes quickly grew to astronomical size. He outlined other games where the stakes were low, the play rapid, the rules simple and almost, but not quite, fair. The more he talked, the more the men were caught up in his glowing description of a gaming city that would draw caravans from miles around. When he finished, they all eagerly pushed back toward him the gold they had won.
Shallow raised both hands, palms outward. “You keep the gold. It is my investment in the future of your city. Use it to begin work on your gambling house. Repay me with interest, when next I pass this way."
For what was left of the night, Shallow slept deeply, and dreamed. In his dream, he was in a darkened room surrounded by glowing eyes, with gold irises and pupils like black pits. The eyes swirled and danced around him. When he tried to raise his arms, they felt too heavy to lift, and when he tried to speak, only a dry croak came from his throat.
He woke shortly before dawn. His dream quickly faded from his memory, but a vague uneasiness remained. When he broke bread, it seemed strangely tasteless and unappetizing. Just as he was leaving the city, he sensed his brother not far away. He joined him, and jogged alongside him. His brother's face had a large, purple bruise, and his expression was uncommonly glum, but Shallow knew better than to ask questio
ns. Instead, he said, “Brother, we will reach the mountaintops late today or early tomorrow. I propose we run this last lap in human form. Are you willing to match your natural speed and endurance against mine?"
"Done,” was all Tiger said.
The two men ran side by side for a while, and then Shallow began to pull ahead. His long, lean body was more suited to running than Tiger's heavy muscles and barrel chest. Tiger's lungs worked like bellows, drawing in great quantities of air. His feet pounded the dusty earth. But Shallow seemed to fly, his feet barely touching the ground as he ran, and Tiger, head throbbing, was unable to close the distance between them.
Gradually, as the sun rose to zenith and cities, towns, and villages, farms and fields fell behind, Shallow's lead grew greater and greater, until Tiger could no longer see his brother without using farsight.
The land gradually changed from fertile land to dry, barren hills. In place of a blue sky, in which floated cloud castles, the sky turned colorless and empty. The sun beat down and sweat ran from Tiger's brow and glistened on his arms and legs. Still he ran, without stopping, without slowing, pushing his powerful body to the limits of its endurance.
Far ahead, Shallow ran smoothly and tirelessly. All day he had run, his mind serene and without thought, sometimes following roads worn down by the feet of men, at other times following animal trails or no trail at all. As he climbed higher and higher, he turned aside at any sign of man. He had never before traveled this far north, but he had heard of the mountain tribes, proverbially clannish and warlike.
As he ran up the slope of a long, brown hill, a small dell came suddenly into view, where three very old men sat cross legged, wearing nothing but breech cloths. The bones of their elbows and knees were large, their arms and legs skinny, their bellies fat, their necks scrawny, their turned-up feet calloused, their heads bald. Shallow stopped a respectful distance away from them. When they took no notice of him, he began to back away.
"Shallow.” A voice spoke his name, yet no man's lips moved.
"Shallow,” a second voice said, “What right have you to be so proud?"
"Shallow,” said a third voice, “Do you know who we are?"
"I do not know who you are, but I have no quarrel with you,” Shallow said.
"We hate you and your brother. We loathe and despise you. We mean to destroy you.” Three voices spoke in chorus.
Shallow reached deep into the old strong magic and spoke but a single word, “Forget."
Cackles of laughter hung in the air. The lips of the three old men still had not moved.
"The old strong magic does not work on us."
"We created the old strong magic."
"We are the Old Dark Gods."
Shallow said, “What do you want?"
"We never asked much from men."
"We asked that men fear us."
"We asked that men never presume to try to be our equals."
Shallow bent and lifted a huge boulder over his head, and dashed it down upon the Old Dark Gods. The boulder shattered. A black whirlwind appeared and carried the fragments of boulder away. The Old Dark Gods had not moved.
"What do you want!” cried Shallow.
"We want to humble you and your brother."
"We want men to understand that men are men and gods are gods."
"We want you to crawl."
As one, the three old men rose into the air. They spread their fingers and toes, and their eyes grew large. From the air above their heads came a Word. Shallow found himself looking up at them through strange eyes. They were giants. The pebbles over which he scurried were like mountains.
"Crawl on the earth."
"As a dung beetle."
"For the rest of your days."
As Shallow crawled helplessly in the dust, the three old men sat down cross-legged and waited.
Only a few miles away, Tiger, his mind deadened with fatigue, ran on, unaware of the fate that had befallen his brother. On and on heavily he jogged, up that long, slow brown hill. When he reached the little hidden dell, he saw the three old men. He saw the dung beetle crawling in the dust and his inner eye recognized his brother. Recognizing his brother, he knew at once that the three old men were the Old Dark Gods. Only the Old Dark Gods could have done this to Shallow.
Without waiting for the three old men to speak, Tiger cried out. “Young Bright Gods, I call on you. In the name of Marduk, in the name of Asher, in the name of Ishar, in the name of Tiamat, in the name of Gog, in the name of Magog, in the name of Leviathan, I call on you. I pledge my devotion, my worship, my sacrifice, my praise, and the praise of my children, the praise of my brother, and the praise of my brother's children, from generation to generation, world without end."
A bright light filled the little dell on the mountainside. When he could see again, Tiger saw that the three old men were gone. Shallow stood there in human form.
The brothers, rivals without equal among men, understood one another too well for speech. What they needed was to run, and run they did, climbing ever higher, from the foothills into the mountains. As they pushed their way upward, step by step, bodies leaning forward at almost the same angle as the steep mountainside, they passed out of the barren land and into a forest. Giant oaks spread their roots over moss-covered boulders. Higher still they climbed, and the oaks gave way to spruce and fir. The ground was covered with a carpet of brown needles and the brothers’ deep breaths drew in the aroma. The air under the trees darkened. Shoulder to shoulder they climbed, neither able to push himself ahead of the other.
They came to a meadow of thick, green grass, on the far side a white snow bank. The sun, which hung in the west like a ripe plum, cast blue shadows on the snow. Tiger and Shallow pushed themselves to one final burst of speed. Side by side they reached the snow bank, scooped snow up in an outstretched hand, and filled their mouths with cold white stuff.
Then they laughed and Tiger said to Shallow, “Race you back!"
It came to the minds of both young men that it was downhill all the way and so they transformed themselves into rivers and raced back to the sea.
The melting snow followed the paths they left behind them and made two rivers, which are named after the two brothers to this very day.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Novelet: THE REVEL by John Langan
John Lagan expects both his novel, House of Windows, and his collection of stories, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, to be published in paperback editions later this year.
His new story very neatly and effectively dismantles a traditional horror story to show us that its inner workings are dangerous and should not be taken lightly.
1. The Chase
Every Werewolf story—these days, at least—features a chase. This one is no exception.
Indeed, it may well be that the chase has become the heart of the story, its true heart, and not the scene of transformation, which, while certainly spectacular, cinematic, the opportunity for all manner of verbal pyrotechnics, is light on meaning. The change to wolf, the face opening into snout, the fingers erupting into claws, the voice rushing the register from scream to howl, is about the animal within, and, at this point in our post-Darwinian history, how new or shocking is this?—whereas the chase is about predator and prey, and so about power, and so about matters more subtle and problematic. Most likely we will, and should, identify with the prey, find the predator a figure of fear. Most likely.
It may help to imagine the chase—whose narrative purpose is to draw you into the story immediately—projected on a movie screen. So much of contemporary horror fiction references film either as a substitute for written precedents or as inspiration for elaborately gruesome descriptions that such a suggestion should not seem surprising. You will want to imagine yourself in a darkened theater, probably with a date or a friend (since who goes to a horror movie alone?). Perhaps you have a tub of popcorn, perhaps a box of Sour Patch Kids, perhaps you find food at the theater distracting and annoying. Whe
n the screen lights, the first thing you are aware of is motion, a pair of blurred legs racing forward. You hear breath panting, feet rustling dead leaves and cracking dead branches. As the camera switches to a long shot, you see that we are in a forest, one in upstate New York if you are able to determine such matters—if not, the forest will look more or less familiar, depending on your location—and that it is late autumn. If you are the kind of person to be struck by such details, you may notice that the bare trunks, the occasional evergreen, have been photographed in such a way as to suggest a maze through which the man who owns the running legs is careening. At this distance, you can obtain a better view of him, as he bolts from left to right across the screen, almost tripping on a root. He is white, of average height, medium build, possibly mid- to late-thirties although it is hard to be sure, dressed in green camouflage pants, shirt, and baseball cap, brown boots, and a bright orange hunting vest. He does not appear to be carrying a gun of any kind. In the third shot, a close up of his face, you see that it is plain, undistinguished by anything more than the terror distorting it.
There is more, much more, that you could know about this man, the facts of an entire life. (Obviously, you would not have access to this in the opening scenes of a film.) For example, you could know that he is a graduate of Harvard University, at which he obtained his MBA and his wife. You could know that his older brother, Donald, first took him hunting when he was fourteen; it had to be Donald because their father had been killed the year before in a train wreck in Arizona (decapitated). You could know that, before he left to go hunting this morning, he changed his infant son's sodden diaper and found the pungent smell oddly endearing. You could know that he likes country music, that he enjoys bacon, egg, and cheese on a hard roll, that he has season tickets for the Yankees that he does not use as much as he would like. You could know something very bad about him—that when he was fifteen, he crushed the skull of a neighbor's Doberman with a baseball bat—you could know something very good about him—that recently, he has contributed half the cost of a new daycare center at his church (Methodist). You could know all of this but it is, in a sense, irrelevant. It's not irrelevant to him, of course, or to the people in his life, but it's of little matter to us, the audience. He is the sacrifice: he is here to be murdered, and rather horrifically at that, for our interest. His death begins the Revel. Certainly, there have been others before him, as we will find out later on, but he is the first we encounter, and the spilling of his blood consecrates the story's opening.
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