I didn't. Instead, I said, "How was kitchen duty?"
"Not too bad," Cu said with a minor grin. "I made a kick-ass apple cobbler. You coulda had some but you were out cold. Weren't any peaches though. I looked. He must really hate peaches."
"You actually wanted to find some?"
Cu shrugged again. "Just wanted to see. Wonder why he hates them so much?"
"I hate avocados," I said. "Some people just hate stuff. Dandelions. Bugs. Scotch tape. Some people even hate horses."
Bob gave a snort of disbelief.
"I'm not kidding," I said to him. "People really do hate horses."
Bob shook his head and turned away, refusing to believe me.
"Anyway," I said, as I turned back to Cu. "Don't you hate something?"
"Squalling babies," he said.
"Yeah, but you don't eat them."
Cu gave me a look.
"Do you?"
He broke into laughter, which was the reaction I was looking to get. "You should see your fucked up face."
To which I pouted. I gingerly prodded the right side of my face, which had connected with the stone floor per the laws of gravity. They apparently still applied even though I wasn't in my own realm anymore. My cheek was bruised and so was my eye. I didn't even want to see what they looked like. My head was pounding like a quintet of timpani drums. What I really wanted were some drugs. "Got an aspirin?"
"No," Cu said. "And you have a concussion. So you have to stay awake for twenty-four hours."
"I do?" I said.
"Else you might fall asleep and die." He said it with such wickedness that I believed him.
"You'll have to talk to me," I said. "I'm really sleepy."
"Talk about what?" he said with a grimace.
"Tell me a story."
"What are you? Five?"
I thought about it. "Nope, just twenty. But something has to keep me awake. I'll never stay awake that long by myself. I'm not that entertaining."
Bob whinnied.
"No, you cannot lick me for the next twenty four hours," I said sternly.
He pouted, and then nickered.
"I don't care if I do taste salty. We'll order you up a salt lick." To Cu, I said, "Sure you don't have any aspirin?"
"Positive," Cu said. "I can see what the kitchen has."
"Can you?" I said in my most pitiful voice. "I feel kinda sick."
"Concussion'll do that to you," Cu gave my shoulder a quick pat. "I'll be right back. Bob'll keep you awake." He disappeared.
When Cu came back a few minutes later, I was reluctantly allowing Bob to lick my face in order to keep me awake. He wasn't doing it for my benefit. He was just enjoying the taste of me. And I was just lying there taking it, spittle dripping down my cheeks and onto the bed sheets. Bob was enjoying himself, making happy horse noises all along the way.
Cu shooed him away and gave me a warm and wet towel to clean off the wet horse saliva. When my face felt less spit-covered, he handed me a dry towel to dry off with. He had set down a large silver tray, one that was almost as big as he was, on the bedside table. He handed me a mug off of said silver tray. "Drink it all."
I sniffed. "What is it?"
"I don't know," he said. "I told one of the girls down there that you had a headache and that's what she gave me. Just drink it."
"What if it's poisoned?"
Cu snorted, and, to my great surprise, he took the cup from my hand, took a quick swallow and handed it back. "See? No poison. Drink, Fractious."
I drank it. It tasted more like tea than anything I'd had to drink in this world yet. I wasn't quite sure what kind of tea it was, if it even was tea, but it was warm and friendly. I liked it and downed the entire cup in a few seconds. It didn't get rid of my headache completely, but it certainly relieved it. I handed Cu back the mug. "Thanks, buddy."
"Don't mention it." He set the mug back on the silver platter. "Feeling any better?"
"A little, yeah." I gave him a smile. "Thanks. Really. You don't have to fuss over me or anything."
"I ain't fussing." Cu said, a tinge of his old wiry self in his tone.
I wasn't sure which I liked better though; the fussy Cu or the loud, cussy Cu. "I won't tell."
"Better not, boy." He aimed a finger at my face. After that he went to the foot of the bed and settled there. He tucked his little legs beneath him. "So, you wanted a story. What do you want to hear?"
"How did you get to be a king's guard?"
Cu rolled his eyes. "That's not a story. I thought you wanted to hear Goldilocks, or something."
"Come on, Cu," I begged.
"You're born into it," he said. "My pap was a guard. My grandpap was a guard. So was his pap and grandpap before him. We've been guards for generations."
"Can girls be guards?"
"Why, you interested?"
I rolled my eyes.
Cu grinned. "Girls can be guards, but there are very few. If the family of a guard doesn't have a son then they send a daughter. Every guard family sends one child to be trained."
"What about you? You don't have any kids. Who will you send to train as a guard?"
"Who says I don't have kids?"
"Well, do you?"
"No," he admitted. "Never been married."
"You're, like, two hundred years old."
"One hundred and seventy-eight," he corrected. "I got plenty of time."
"How long do the Tuatha Dé usually live for?"
"Three, four hundred years. Give or take a hundred years."
I marveled. "Wow."
"Time moves differently here," he said. "Not like your world. You'll see. You might live to be a hundred and fifty. You never know. I knew a guy once who lived to be two twenty-two. No shit. He was human, just like you. Well, not just like you."
I didn't bother responding. "But you want to have kids, right?"
He shrugged his right shoulder. "I guess. I'm not partial to kids much. Squalling brats, remember? But to continue on the tradition of being a king's guard? Yeah. I guess so. What about you?"
"Me? I'm only twenty. I can't even drink in my world. "
"Seriously?" Cu said. "How old do you have to be?"
"Twenty-one. For all I know, I turned twenty-one in my world already. You did say time moves differently here. Crista said that too."
"What about her?" he said. "You wanna have babies with her?"
I wrinkled my nose. "She hates me. Besides, I barely know her."
"Could be a prospect. You don't have to know a girl to have babies with her." He clucked his tongue at me and winked a blue eye.
I sighed. "Whatever. Can I go to sleep now?"
"It's only been half an hour. Sleep now, die now. Get it?"
I got it. I didn't want to. But I got it. "I'm so tired."
"Let's go do something," he said.
"Like what?"
"Go find some fucking peaches!"
"Stop being obsessed with peaches," I told him. "Amergin hates them. If you give him peaches, he'll probably get so upset he'll kill you. Where would that leave me?"
"Probably just as dead," he said.
"Let's go for a walk," I suggested. "Get a good look at this place we're stuck in."
"As long as you don't make me hold your hand."
I snorted, Bob style, spraying a little snot for emphasis. "Now why would I do that?"
"I dunno." Cu hopped down from the bed. "You're acting kinda funny. I thought you might start acting funnier."
"I have a concussion." I pointed at my achy head. "I have a right to act funny."
Cu rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Come on."
I went.
There was a garden in the middle of Amergin's mountain fortress. A random Anu showed us the way when we asked if there was some place nice to take a walk. The garden opened up to the sky, showing blueness, and clouds that floated by like little bits of cotton candy. I suddenly wanted a snack and, to my luck, growing in the middle of the garden was a big apple tree wi
th bright, red apples hanging ripe from the vine.
"It's like the garden of Eden," I said as I plucked an apple. I shined it on my shirt, as I had seen done in many a cartoon, and examined it closely, looking for worms. "Think I'll gain knowledge if I take a bite?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Cu had his nose buried in a barrel of potted basil.
"You never heard of the garden of Eden?" I was shocked.
"What is that? Some kind of human fairy tale?"
"Exactly." I said. "See, there's this thing call God."
"I've heard about that," Cu said.
I continued, "And God made this man and this woman, from... His flesh or something. I dunno. But these two dudes, well, dude and dudette anyway, they lived in a garden in harmony with all the animals. Then the devil came and told them to eat the forbidden fruit from this apple tree of knowledge. See?"
"No," Cu said.
I ignored him. "Then Adam, that's the dude, and Eve ate an apple because the devil made them do it, and that's when they realized they were naked."
Cu was obviously waiting for me to continue but I just stood there, waiting for him to revel in my story.
He obviously didn't. "So-o-o-o... They were naked the whole time and didn't know it?"
I nodded vigorously.
"Are you feeling all right?" Cu said.
"No," I said. "But I'm sure I told the story right." I pulled at my chin. "Maybe I didn't tell it right. Let's see, there's the Adam and Eve bit. And the devil made them eat the apple. Then they were naked. No, they were naked all along. They just realized that they were naked. And that made it a bad thing... Hhm."
"Whatever," Cu waved a hand in my general direction as he moved off to inspect another plant. "Eat your apple. Realize you're naked. Maybe it's a bad thing or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Just don't fall asleep."
"I won't." I took a bite of the apple.
Nothing happened.
I didn't realize I was naked or begin to think nudity was a bad thing. I didn't fall asleep either. I don't know why I expected to fall asleep; this wasn't the tree of narcolepsy. And it obviously wasn't a tree of knowledge either. I was disappointed, but then I hadn't really expected much. So I just continued to walk in the garden, munching on my apple and listening intently as Cu tried to teach me about spices and herbs. He apparently really did know how to cook.
"How'd you learn all this crap about cooking? And how come you were always just giving me bread? How come I didn't get to taste any of your roasted hares or pigeons or whatever you were eating on our little journey?"
"First off," Cu said, "I hated you for most of our journey. Why would I let you share my food? Second off, I went to culinary school."
"Huh?" was all I could think to say.
"Yeah," he said. "See, I wasn't the first born son. My pap had another son before me. My brother, Bu."
I snickered. "Bu?"
"Yeah, Bu. What's so funny about that?"
"Was the third son's name Du?"
"She's a girl. And yes, her name is Du."
"How come the first son wasn't named Au?"
"What the hell is an Au?"
"I dunno," I said. "What's a Cu? Or a Bu? What the hell is a Du, for that matter?"
He ignored me. "Anyway, my older brother was killed in a tragic accident when he was eighty. Hit by a bicycle courier in New York. Dude never knew what he ran over because he couldn't see us."
"Hadn't been hit on the head, eh?"
"Yeah. The courier flipped over the front of bike and came down in the middle of the road. My brother never had a chance. I was there. I tried to get to him, but I was too late. Bus. Wham!" He slapped his hands together and shuddered.
"So, naturally I became the first son and took on his duties as a king's guard." Cu looked away from me. "We were in New York for fun, you know? It's a fun place to be. We were raiding bars, getting piss assed drunk. It's fun to fuck with people who can't see you. We got lots of ghost stories started about haunted bars, haunted hotels. That kind of stuff. Bu was a good guy."
I felt kinda bad. "That's too bad. Real sorry."
"Yeah well, it was a long time ago." He cleared his throat. "But since he was the firstborn and went to be a king's guard, I had to do something with my life. So I went to California through the Watts portal and took the city busses into Pasadena to go to the culinary school over there."
I couldn't help it. "Watts portal? You're kidding, right?"
Cu shook his head. "There are very few portals into your world. The one in New York through which I brought you. The one that comes out in Watts, in California. And there's one in Intercourse, Pennsylvania."
"Intercourse?" I laughed. "You made that up."
"I did not," Cu said. "It's a real place."
"How do tell somebody that you live in Intercourse, Pennsylvania?"
"Certain not with a straight face," Cu said, echoing my laughter.
"And why is there a portal there?"
Cu plucked a sprig of rosemary and popped it into his mouth. "I don't make these things up, Fractious. It's the honest truth."
"Okay, I believe you. So, what do you do in Intercourse, Pennsylvania?"
"What do you think you do in Intercourse, Pennsylvania? There ain't nothing else to do there. I prefer Watts. People there are fucked up. I love it! I love Los Angeles."
I daydreamed a bit. "Yeah, that's where I'm gonna go back to when all of this is over. Hey, then you can come and visit me."
He raised an eyebrow at the prospect.
"What?" I said. "I'll still be able to see you, right?"
"Yeah, you been knocked on the head too many times not to see me." Cu sighed.
"What?" I asked again.
"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I do kinda hope you live through this. I'm really getting to like you."
I wiped imaginary tears from my eyes, and gave a fake sniff or two. "Really, Cu? I mean, really? You don't hate me anymore?"
Cu's smile bordered on disbelief. "Yeah, I don't hate you anymore."
I grinned. "Come here!"
He tried to run away but with my long legs I caught him quickly. I swept him up into a hug, twisting back and forth as he squirmed in my arms. I planted a big wet kiss a-la-Bob on his cheek and set him down.
He wiped his cheek and stuck out his tongue in disgust. "Don't ever do that again!" he shouted as he swiped at his face. "I'm just not that into you."
Cu shook himself off. "I told you that you were fucked in the head."
"Maybe a little. I did say I didn't feel so good. Maybe that's it. Concussion." I tapped my temple, in case he didn't remember.
"Maybe we should go back to the rooms." He eyed me suspiciously and motioned for me to follow. "We'll find some peaches another day."
"Whatever." I followed him back to our rooms.
It had only been two hours since I'd awakened after my fall from Bob's back, so I knew I had to stay awake for too many more hours. I was bored. It was hard. My head hurt like a biting bitch and I felt too gross to eat anything after digesting my apple. I drank more of the mystery tea though, brought up by one of the girls from the kitchen. She sat and told me her life story. I didn't even have to ask her. She just sat down and began talking.
She was one of the Tuatha Dé, but she was more of a prisoner, forced to work for Amergin because she had married an Anu. When her life story was done, another fifteen minutes had passed and I still had nothing to do. She left and Cu, Bob and I were alone again.
We spent the next half hour sampling greens that Cu had pocketed from the garden. Bob was upset that we hadn't let him go down to the buffet, but he was okay after we explained that it was not a buffet; it was a garden. We gave him a taste of the herbs and he was happy again. Bob the horse was so easy to please. Give him a little sprig of basil and he's happy as a Shetland pony on a Sunday morning.
Finally, the night was over. Twenty-four hours had passed since I'd hit my head on the stone floor, and Amergin was calling
for me. He was happy enough to let me spend my wakeful twenty-four hours without bugging me, but once that was up, he wanted me to perform again, even though I hadn't had any sleep at all. I didn't complain though. Aside from getting absolutely no real sleep and aside from being knocked out, that is, there wasn't much to complain about.
Amergin sent up breakfast for me. The girl who brought it told me it was specially made by Cu himself. It was an omelet made with bacon, basil and a few other veggies that I couldn't identify. It was delicious even though I didn't know half of what I was eating. It made me feel special, and I found that I liked that feeling. Then I went down to see Amergin. He made me feel special too.
"Feeling better, Mr. Fractious?" he said.
"Much better," I said. "And you can call me Guy, if you want to."
"Guy," Amergin said.
"Cool," I muttered, although I wasn't sure what was.
"So what would you like to do for me today?" Amergin said.
Bob was standing behind me and gave me a little nudge with his nose.
"Anything but standing on Bob's back while he runs around." I rubbed the spot on my forehead that had hit the ground hardest. I was sure I still looked a fright, although Bob had assured me that the swelling had gone down. I was pretty sure he was lying, just to be nice. "We'll try that again some other day."
Bob snorted his agreement.
Amergin looked disappointed.
"How about we ask Bob some questions?" I suggested. "Test his intelligence?"
"Sure." Amergin jumped right in. "Who founded the Aengus Institute for Pine Tree Blight Eradication?"
Bob was quiet.
"He doesn't know that," I said.
Bob shoved me from behind.
"Okay, maybe he does." I moved away from Bob.
He whinnied.
"Trick question. Bob says it wasn't Aengus. It was his brother Bengus."
"Correct," Amergin said in his gleeful way. He clapped his hands once. "Now for a toughie. There are five names for the kingdom of Dian Cecht, the physician's colony in upper Fomor. Name all five and explain their meanings."
Bob neighed, whinnied and stomped his right front foot.
I spent the next three hours translating horse lingo to Amergin as the wizard tried in vain to stump Bob. But Bob was a lot smarter than I thought he was. A whole hell of a lot.
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