Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar

by Garth Nix

  “I don’t want to keep you from your holiday,” Joe said, stepping up to the bar. “If you want to close, just let me know and I’ll head out.”

  “Why don’t you take your beer over by the fireplace and I’ll join you in a few minutes. An old friend of mine will be here soon and you’re welcome to join us this evening,” Gil said, handing Joe a glass stein of amber lager. “I have the sense you’re supposed to be here this evening.”

  Joe sipped his beer from near the fireplace, watching silently as Gil moved around the room, turning off overhead lights and lighting white pillar candles on the scattered tables and tall tapers perched in brass holders on the windowsills. Swags of evergreen hung around the room, filling the bar with the sharp, clean smell of pine.

  “Thanks for letting me join you and your friend tonight,” Joe said as Gil settled into the leather chair opposite his own. “My wife loved Christmas. She died last year and I just couldn’t bring myself to sit alone at home tonight. Ellie was a fanatic for everything Christmas. Her family never had much when she was a girl, but once we were married she was all about tinsel and lights and giant Christmas trees. I think she’d like how you decorated this place.”

  “I’m glad you think she’d like it. I prefer the old thinking of the winter holidays. Evergreens to remind us that spring will return, and candles to help us through the winter darkness. I’ve celebrated the old traditions for a long time. Nick would be disappointed if he saw that I’d strayed from them.”

  “Your friend ‘Nick’ is visiting you on Christmas Eve?” Joe asked. “Please don’t tell me you’re putting out milk and cookies for him, as well.”

  “No, he’s more a stew and ale kind of guy,” Gil said with a smile. The bartender checked his watch and fetched an armful of cedar planks from the nearby closet, stacking them carefully upon the embers in the fireplace. The wood, fresh and sweet, smoked heavily before finally catching fire, the aroma of cedar mixing with pine.

  “Cedar is nice, but wouldn’t it be put to better use in your closet rather than the fire?”

  “Another tradition, maybe the oldest and one of the most important. I don’t know that Nick would be able to find me if it wasn’t for the cedar,” Gil said, standing up and staring into the growing fire. “I was burning cedar the first time he showed up at my bar.”

  “You two go back a ways, I take it,” Joe remarked, intrigued by the strange collection of traditions.

  “Pretty far. He was the first to try the special brew I’m tapping tonight. Every Christmas Eve Nick comes by and we open a small keg. I think you’ll find it different than any other beer you’ve had,” Gil told him, turning to look at Joe with a smile before walking toward the kitchen. “Give me a moment. I need to get a few final things ready before he arrives.”

  “Are you sure he’s going to make it tonight? The snow was getting pretty bad when I pulled into the parking lot.”

  “Oh, the weather really doesn’t bother him,” Gil said, returning from the kitchen with a small wooden cask. He handled it easily, balancing the cask on the edge of the bar. He set an old-style wooden barrel tap with a silver fitting and a heavy wooden gavel next to the cask, along with three ceramic steins.

  Gil returned to the kitchen and brought a worn cast iron pot with a broad lid to the fireplace. He set the pot amidst the coals, the flames licking up its sides. It reminded Joe of the cauldron used by Macbeth’s witches.

  A heavy knock sounded at the front door, like a distant roll of thunder. Gil stepped quickly to the door and pulled back several locks that Joe had not noticed. They looked old, yet sturdy, and required an unusual pattern of key and knob turns, reminding Joe of the locks he’d seen years ago in the Tower of London. Another harsh knock swung the door open and a blast of icy wind ripped through the bar. The candles fluttered and the fireplace flared high, as though the flames themselves announced the visitor’s arrival.

  As Gil secured the door and reset the locks, Joe studied the newly arrived man covered in a long fur cloak, brushing the snow from his shoulders. Gil embraced him, and after a hushed welcome, took him by the arm and escorted him close to the hearth.

  “Nick, it is my privilege to introduce Joe Thomas. Joe, this is Nick, one of my oldest friends.” While Joe had expected something unusual from Nick based on the traditions that Gil had mentioned, he was entranced by the man standing before him.

  Nick wore a heavy, dark fur cloak befitting a Viking and a matching fur hat. Beneath the cloak he sported a quilted forest green tunic and wine-colored leather pants. Tall leather boots nearly reached his knees. When Gil helped Nick with his cloak, Joe could see that despite the initial appearance, the man beneath was far from the image of a Viking. He appeared ancient, with deep crevices lining his face. Two bushy white eyebrows perched above weepy, jaundiced eyes and a wispy white beard clung to his cheeks. He was of medium height but slender as a rail, his back bent with age.

  “It’s great to meet you, Nick,” Joe said, standing and extending his knobby, arthritic hand. He wasn’t surprised to see Nick’s equally claw-like hand. “Gil has been telling me a little about the Christmas Eve traditions the two of you keep.”

  “Thank you, Joseph. Please, sit,” Nick said, gently settling into the chair opposite him and looking around the pub. “Gil and I have been meeting together on Christmas Eve for many years, though I do have to say, Gil, I think this is one of the nicer of your establishments.”

  Nick’s age and poor health grew more apparent by the firelight. The skin on his face and neck appeared paper-thin and his mouth was nearly devoid of teeth. Dark liver spots covered his hands and his fingernails were unkept and yellowed. A map of wrinkles and channels lined his face, centered around an oversized, crooked red nose.

  A loud pop drew Joe’s attention to the bar. He turned to see Gil setting the gavel down, the tap now in place as he poured beer from the cask into two of the steins. He handed one to Nick and set the other on the nearby table.

  “I put the stew on the fire just a while ago, so it should be ready soon,” Gil said.

  “I have a little time before I have to be on my way,” Nick remarked, taking a long pull from his tankard of ale and wiping the thick foam from his mustache. “So, Joseph, I heard that you were a school teacher.”

  “Yes,” Joe confirmed, looking at Gil, surprised the bartender had mentioned him to his old friend. “High school history mostly, but I liked to dabble a little. Middle East cultures, philosophy, theology.”

  “Theology, you say,” Nick said, nodding and staring into the fire. “Hopefully not just the big three religions. Over the years I’ve found that those who follow them tend to believe only their faith matters. There’s so much more out there in the pantheon of the gods.”

  “I tried to avoid the big three whenever I could. I taught some Far East religions but most often stayed with the ancient middle east, Germanic, and Norse mythologies. So much of that really inspired what became the big three,” Joe explained. “I liked students to make a connection between those cultures and what they are taught today. Religion today has its roots in the old gods more than anyone likes to admit.”

  Nick chuckled at Joe’s last statement and nodded, taking another drink. Gil removed the heavy lid from the pot and dished large portions of thick stew into wooden bowls, handing one to Nick and Joe each.

  “This is an old recipe that may be a bit strong for your palate,” Gil said to Joe. “It’s made with some of the ale I brew for Nick’s visit, so you may want to take your time with it.”

  Thick clouds of steam rose from the bowl, and Joe let its warmth soak into his hands. I can’t remember the last time I felt this hungry, he thought, stirring the hearty stew and inhaling its deep, complex aroma. Over the past several months Joe hadn’t had much of an appetite and it was beginning to show in his face as his reflection in the mirror each morning grew gaunter and more stricken. The doctors said it was a side effect of the chemotherapy, but the treatments were slowing the spread of hi
s cancer. Joe thought of it as just another sacrifice at the altar of modern medicine. But just the smell of the stew made him want to eat.

  Joe clutched the bowl to his chest and spooned up a thick chunk of meat and carrot, glazed in dark, spicy gravy. From the moment the spoon touched his lips Joe felt more alive than he had since before Eleanor fell ill. There was something about the stew that made Joe feel more aware, more in the moment. He ate ravenously, barely stopping for a breath, scraping every last drop of the gravy from the bowl and licking it from his spoon. Joe felt that he’d awakened from a long, restless sleep full of horrible dreams to find a beautiful spring morning.

  Sitting back in his chair, the empty bowl in his lap, Joe realized sheepishly that Nick and Gil had been watching him.

  “I’m glad you like the stew,” Gil said, laughing, patting Joe on the shoulder as he walked back to the bar to refill his stein.

  “Truly the food of the gods. You have outdone yourself again, my friend. If you don’t mind, I am going to help myself to some more ale,” Nick said, lifting his stein in toast to Gil and rising easily from his chair, standing tall and stretching in front of the fire, his joints popping as he reached toward the ceiling.

  So consumed with how he felt from the meal, Joe didn’t notice Nick walk easily across the room, gliding smoothly between the tables, his gait long and strong. He didn’t see that Nick’s hair seemed fuller, covering his head with a thick snow-white mane, as generous as the beard that now covered his face. The clothes that hung loosely from his frame when he arrived now fit snugly. His hands became heavy and strong, his large tattoo-covered forearms shaped and muscular. But Joe wasn’t watching Nick transform—Joe was watching himself change.

  Only after finishing the meal did Joe realize the low, persistent ache that had invaded his body with the cancer was gone. The ever-present cold in his bones had faded, replaced with a warmth and strength that he had not felt in years.

  There must be more alcohol in this stew than I realized, Joe thought. But by the firelight he noticed his hands appeared stronger, younger. The liver spots that had blemished his hands for a decade were gone, and the muscles and skin looked as strong and healthy as they had been in his youth. Joe stood easily and stepped to the mirror above the hearth. The face staring back at him was one he had only seen in his old Army photos for the past 40 years. Joe raised his hands to his face, feeling his cheeks and nose, running his hands through his thick auburn hair, before turning to face Gil, who now stood next to him, facing the mirror.

  “What is this, some sort of trick? This isn’t funny. You don’t mess with an old man like this,” Joe snapped, a hand rising quickly to his throat. His voice was again a strong baritone, not the froggy, creaking voice of an old man.

  “There is no trick. There is no joke,” Nick said from bar, his deep bass echoing in the pub. Joe looked toward the bar and where Nick should have been standing was a monster of a man. His white hair was pulled back and held tight with a black ribbon, his beard braided into a single tail hanging down from his chin. His eyes were bright blue and shimmered in the firelight like open water under a bright sun. His once pale and blemished skin was tan and radiated health. “I thought the same when I first tasted the ale a long, long time ago. But I promise, my friend, what you see and feel are very real. Gil, I believe it is time.”

  Gil, still standing next to Joe, reached above the fireplace and swung the mirror toward the ceiling on a set of hidden hinges, revealing a glass-fronted case inset in the stone chimney. A large sandstone tablet was mounted behind the glass and seemed to glow in the firelight. Joe stepped closer, staring at the strange glyphs and symbols carved into the tablet and realizing the glow came not from the fireplace but from the tablet and the symbols themselves. He recognized several of the ancient languages scribed onto the table: Sumerian, Akkadian, Celtic, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, Norse. Joe reached up and ran his fingers over the glass, feeling the energy emanating from the symbols. Closing his eyes, Joe heard ancient voices chanting, a cacophony of voices and languages all speaking directly to him.

  Joe opened his eyes, the voices fading when Gil reached up and gently removed his hand from the glass. “A long time ago, I was the leader of a great nation, but I became greedy and envious of the gods. I yearned for their immortality and pursued it without hesitation,” Gil told him. “After many years of searching, a witch granted me the immortality I desired, but with a price I did not expect. The witch gained her freedom, but my soul was eternally tied to this tablet and to this tavern.

  “I cursed the gods for their trick, for my damnation. Over the centuries I learned much about the tablet and about my own destiny and the destiny of mankind. I have discovered many of the secrets of the tablet and the potions that it details. One of those is the recipe for our ale.”

  Joe looked from Gil to Nick, then to the mirror and back to the tablet. “If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes I could never believe it. I still don’t know if I believe it. Why are you sharing this with me? We barely know each other, and neither of us knew I would be here tonight.”

  “I didn’t know you were coming tonight, but I had a sense that tonight was different,” Gil said. “And I didn’t choose you.”

  “It’s the gods who have chosen us, just as they chose Gilgamesh, or Gil, as we now call him,” Nick said from the bar, draining another stein of beer and letting loose a deep belch. “When you’ve been here before, haven’t you noticed there are rarely any other customers? You know this place as The Four Bucks. I first knew it as Mohammed’s Coffee House in Myra. But to Gil and the gods it is always the Ur-bar, regardless of where or when it may appear.”

  Joe thought back to the first time he’d noticed the place. It had been one of his last days with Eleanor. She’d had a particularly rough day and the doctors recommended she stay in the hospital that evening. Joe wanted to stay, but she wouldn’t allow it. Go home, have dinner, watch the game, and fall asleep in your recliner, she told him from her hospital bed. Joe’s eyes teared at the vivid memory. It felt more like he was watching a movie of his life than simply recalling a memory.

  Joe had probably driven down that road a thousand times but hadn’t seen the sign for The Four Bucks, or even noticed the low stone building, until he found himself parked directly in front. He remembered not wanting to go home, not wanting to spend the evening alone in the house he built with Eleanor. He knew that, too soon, he would be alone for good. So, Joe wiped his eyes, entered The Four Bucks, and was greeted by Gil from behind the bar.

  “For some, the Ur-bar presents itself at the time they most need it,” Gil explained. “That’s one of the inscriptions on the tablet, at least somewhat. It’s a little more poetic in the original Aramaic. When you walked in that first time, I could feel the magic thick in the air and the tablet glowed much like it does tonight. Over the ages, I have learned that every man has a role to play, whether they wish it or not. I accepted my role as keeper of the tablet, the sacrifice I made for the immortality I sought, unwillingly as it may have been. I do not pretend to understand the magic involved. I am but a servant of the gods.”

  “But what does it want from me? I’m just an old man dying of cancer. What did it ask of you?” Joe pleaded, looking to Nick.

  “You don’t recognize me on my most important day of the year?” Nick asked incredulously, grinning at Gil. “I have been known by many different names. The Wanderer. Wodan. Sinterklaas. St. Nicholas. Father Christmas. And, in more recent years, Santa Claus. I was a selfish man, focused on my own worldly pleasures, until I found myself alone one night in the coffee house with a man who served me a strange, strong ale and told me an unbelievable story. The gods revealed themselves to me that evening, and every Christmas Eve since then I have followed the scent of cedar to Gil’s establishment. I drink the ale and I continue on, strong and healthy for another year.”

  “But you aren’t tied to the bar like Gil? You can go as you please?”

  “I am tied to the ta
blet in that my immortality wanes over the year. I am certain that if I did not return every Christmas Eve to drink and sup and worship the gods, the god of death would find me as it finds all men in time.”

  Gil laid a heavy hand on Joe’s shoulder and turned him toward the tablet. “The gods have chosen you as their vessel. You have been offered a chance to live as Nick does, as a servant of the gods benefitting all mankind.

  “Nick has been doing his part to help the world for a long time. We all know of the problems in the world, and things are only getting worse. Man has forgotten his gods and their teachings. Man commits murder and destroys the world without a second thought. The world slips toward greater chaos every day. You have been chosen to help slow that slide.”

  “But I’m not a god,” Joe protested. “How am I supposed to stop chaos? There’s already a Santa Claus. I think people might notice if suddenly there were several of us running around.”

  “People notice less than you may think. And there can be as many of us as the gods wish,” Nick told him. “We do most of our work in secret. We aren’t broadcast into every home like a televangelist, although that might not be such a bad idea. It’s more that our presence, our simple existence, inspires hope. At least, that’s what I’ve figured out over the past thousand years or so. The gods aren’t always so great at giving instructions or explanations. The fact that people believe in me, even if it is a fat man in a red suit, gives them hope. You can see it every December. People are a little nicer to each other for no selfish reason. They are feeling my presence, the presence of the gods, and the inspiration that they could be better people.”

  “And it seems that the gods have selected you to be part of that greater good,” Gil said. “You are a good man and the gods have decided that you are needed in this world, at least for a little bit longer.”

  Nick lumbered over from the bar with a third stein, offering the dark, spicy beer to Joe.