The Neil Gaiman Reader

by Neil Gaiman

  PEOPLE, IN THE CORRIDOR of the big house, moving loudly and drunkenly, shushing each other as they stumbled and giggled their way down the hall.

  Shadow wondered if they were servants, or if they were strays from the other wing, slumming. And the dreams took him once again. . . .

  Now he was back in the bothy where he had sheltered from the rain, the day before. There was a body on the floor: a boy, no more than five years old. Naked, on his back, limbs spread. There was a flash of intense light, and someone pushed through Shadow as if he was not there and rearranged the position of the boy’s arms. Another flash of light.

  Shadow knew the man taking the photographs. It was Dr. Gaskell, the little steel-haired man from the hotel bar.

  Gaskell took a white paper bag from his pocket, and fished about in it for something that he popped into his mouth.

  “Dolly mixtures,” he said to the child on the stone floor. “Yum yum. Your favorites.”

  He smiled and crouched down, and took another photograph of the dead boy.

  Shadow pushed through the stone wall of the cottage, flowing through the cracks in the stones like the wind. He flowed down to the seashore. The waves crashed on the rocks and Shadow kept moving across the water, through gray seas, up the swells and down again, toward the ship made of dead men’s nails.

  The ship was far away, out at sea, and Shadow passed across the surface of the water like the shadow of a cloud.

  The ship was huge. He had not understood before how huge it was. A hand reached down and grasped his arm, pulled him up from the sea onto the deck.

  “Bring us back,” said a voice as loud as the crashing of the sea, urgent and fierce. “Bring us back, or let us go.” Only one eye burned in that bearded face.

  “I’m not keeping you here.”

  They were giants, on that ship, huge men made of shadows and frozen sea-spray, creatures of dream and foam.

  One of them, huger than all the rest, red-bearded, stepped forward. “We cannot land,” he boomed. “We cannot leave.”

  “Go home,” said Shadow.

  “We came with our people to this southern country,” said the one-eyed man. “But they left us. They sought other, tamer gods, and they renounced us in their hearts, and gave us over.”

  “Go home,” repeated Shadow.

  “Too much time has passed,” said the red-bearded man. By the hammer at his side, Shadow knew him. “Too much blood has been spilled. You are of our blood, Baldur. Set us free.”

  And Shadow wanted to say that he was not theirs, was not anybody’s, but the thin blanket had slipped from the bed, and his feet stuck out at the bottom, and thin moonlight filled the attic room.

  There was silence, now, in that huge house. Something howled in the hills, and Shadow shivered.

  He lay in a bed that was too small for him, and imagined time as something that pooled and puddled, wondered if there were places where time hung heavy, places where it was heaped and held—cities, he thought, must be filled with time: all the places where people congregated, where they came and brought time with them.

  And if that were true, Shadow mused, then there could be other places, where the people were thin on the ground, and the land waited, bitter and granite, and a thousand years was an eyeblink to the hills—a scudding of clouds, a wavering of rushes and nothing more, in the places where time was as thin on the ground as the people . . .

  “They are going to kill you,” whispered Jennie, the barmaid.

  Shadow sat beside her now, on the hill, in the moonlight. “Why would they want to do that?” he asked. “I don’t matter.”

  “It’s what they do to monsters,” she said. “It’s what they have to do. It’s what they’ve always done.”

  He reached out to touch her, but she turned away from him. From behind, she was empty and hollow. She turned again, so she was facing him. “Come away,” she whispered.

  “You can come to me,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she said. “There are things in the way. The path there is hard, and it is guarded. But you can call. If you call me, I’ll come.”

  Then dawn came, and with it a cloud of midges from the boggy land at the foot of the hill. Jennie flicked at them with her tail, but it was no use; they descended on Shadow like a cloud, until he was breathing midges, his nose and mouth filling with the tiny, crawling stinging things, and he was choking on the darkness. . . .

  He wrenched himself back into his bed and his body and his life, into wakefulness, his heart pounding in his chest, gulping for breath.

  VII.

  BREAKFAST WAS KIPPERS, GRILLED tomatoes, scrambled eggs, toast, two stubby, thumblike sausages, and slices of something dark and round and flat that Shadow didn’t recognize.

  “What’s this?” asked Shadow.

  “Black pudden’,” said the man sitting next to him. He was one of the security guards, and was reading a copy of yesterday’s Sun as he ate. “Blood and herbs. They cook the blood until it congeals into a sort of a dark, herby scab.” He forked some eggs onto his toast, ate it with his fingers. “I don’t know. What is it they say, you should never see anyone making sausages or the law? Something like that.”

  Shadow ate the rest of the breakfast, but he left the black pudding alone.

  There was a pot of real coffee now, and he drank a mug of it, hot and black, to wake him up and to clear his head.

  Smith walked in. “Shadow-man. Can I borrow you for five minutes?”

  “You’re paying,” said Shadow. They walked out into the corridor.

  “It’s Mr. Alice,” said Smith. “He wants a quick word.” They crossed from the dismal whitewashed servants’ wing into the wood-paneled vastness of the old house. They walked up the huge wooden staircase and into a vast library. No one was there.

  “He’ll just be a minute,” said Smith. “I’ll make sure he knows you’re waiting.”

  The books in the library were protected from mice and dust and people by locked doors of glass and wire mesh. There was a painting of a stag on the wall, and Shadow walked over to look at it. The stag was haughty and superior: behind it, a valley filled with mist.

  “The Monarch of the Glen,” said Mr. Alice, walking in slowly, leaning on his stick. “The most reproduced picture of Victorian times. That’s not the original, but it was done by Landseer in the late 1850s as a copy of his own painting. I love it, although I’m sure I shouldn’t. He did the lions in Trafalgar Square, Landseer. Same bloke.”

  He walked over to the bay window, and Shadow walked with him. Below them in the courtyard, servants were putting out chairs and tables. By the pond in the center of the courtyard other people, party guests, were building bonfires out of logs and wood.

  “Why don’t they have the servants build the fires?” asked Shadow.

  “Why should they have the fun?” said Mr. Alice. “It’d be like sending your man out into the rough some afternoon to shoot pheasants for you. There’s something about building a bonfire, when you’ve hauled over the wood, and put it down in the perfect place, that’s special. Or so they tell me. I’ve not done it myself.” He turned away from the window. “Take a seat,” he said. “I’ll get a crick in my neck looking up at you.”

  Shadow sat down.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” said Mr. Alice. “Been wanting to meet you for a while. They said you were a smart young man who was going places. That’s what they said.”

  “So you didn’t just hire a tourist to keep the neighbors away from your party?”

  “Well, yes and no. We had a few other candidates, obviously. It’s just you were perfect for the job. And when I realized who you were. Well, a gift from the gods really, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Was I?”

  “Absolutely. You see, this party goes back a very long way. Almost a thousand years, they’ve been having it. Never missed a single year. And every year there’s a fight, between our man and their man. And our man wins. This year, our man is you.”

/>   “Who . . .” said Shadow. “Who are they? And who are you?”

  “I am your host,” said Mr. Alice. “I suppose. . . .” He stopped, for a moment, tapped his walking stick against the wooden floor. “They are the ones who lost, a long time ago. We won. We were the knights, and they were the dragons, we were the giant-killers, they were the ogres. We were the men and they were the monsters. And we won. They know their place now. And tonight is all about not letting them forget it. It’s humanity you’ll be fighting for, tonight. We can’t let them get the upper hand. Not even a little. Us versus them.”

  “Doctor Gaskell said that I was a monster,” said Shadow.

  “Doctor Gaskell?” said Mr. Alice. “Friend of yours?”

  “No,” said Shadow. “He works for you. Or for the people who work for you. I think he kills children and takes pictures of them.”

  Mr. Alice dropped his walking stick. He bent down, awkwardly, to pick it up. Then he said, “Well, I don’t think you’re a monster, Shadow. I think you’re a hero.”

  No, thought Shadow. You think I’m a monster. But you think I’m your monster.

  “Now, you do well tonight,” said Mr. Alice, “and I know you will—and you can name your price. You ever wondered why some people were film stars, or famous, or rich? Bet you think, He’s got no talent. What’s he got that I haven’t got? Well, sometimes the answer is, he’s got someone like me on his side.”

  “Are you a god?” asked Shadow.

  Mr. Alice laughed then, a deep, full-throated chuckle. “Nice one, Mister Moon. Not at all. I’m just a boy from Streatham who’s done well for himself.”

  “So who do I fight?” asked Shadow.

  “You’ll meet him tonight,” said Mr. Alice. “Now, there’s stuff needs to come down from the attic. Why don’t you lend Smithie a hand? Big lad like you, it’ll be a doddle.”

  The audience was over and, as if on cue, Smith walked in.

  “I was just saying,” said Mr. Alice, “that our boy here would help you bring the stuff down from the attic.”

  “Triffic,” said Smith. “Come on, Shadow. Let’s wend our way upwards.”

  They went up, through the house, up a dark wooden stairway, to a padlocked door, which Smith unlocked, into a dusty wooden attic, piled high with what looked like . . .

  “Drums?” said Shadow.

  “Drums,” said Smith. They were made of wood and of animal skins. Each drum was a different size. “Right, let’s take them down.”

  They carried the drums downstairs. Smith carried one at a time, holding it as if it was precious. Shadow carried two.

  “So what really happens tonight?” asked Shadow, on their third trip, or perhaps their fourth.

  “Well,” said Smith. “Most of it, as I understand, you’re best off figuring out on your own. As it happens.”

  “And you and Mr. Alice. What part do you play in this?”

  Smith gave him a sharp look. They put the drums down at the foot of the stairs, in the great hall. There were several men there, talking in front of the fire.

  When they were back up the stairs again, and out of earshot of the guests, Smith said, “Mr. Alice will be leaving us late this afternoon. I’ll stick around.”

  “He’s leaving? Isn’t he part of this?”

  Smith looked offended. “He’s the host,” he said. “But.” He stopped. Shadow understood. Smith didn’t talk about his employer. They carried more drums down the stairs. When they had brought down all the drums, they carried down heavy leather bags.

  “What’s in these?” asked Shadow.

  “Drumsticks,” said Smith.

  Smith continued, “They’re old families. That lot downstairs. Very old money. They know who’s boss, but that doesn’t make him one of them. See? They’re the only ones who’ll be at tonight’s party. They’d not want Mr. Alice. See?”

  And Shadow did see. He wished that Smith hadn’t spoken to him about Mr. Alice. He didn’t think Smith would have said anything to anyone he thought would live to talk about it.

  But all he said was, “Heavy drumsticks.”

  VIII

  A SMALL HELICOPTER TOOK Mr. Alice away late that afternoon. Land Rovers took away the staff. Smith drove the last one. Only Shadow was left behind, and the guests, with their smart clothes and their smiles.

  They stared at Shadow as if he were a captive lion who had been brought for their amusement, but they did not talk to him.

  The dark-haired woman, the one who had smiled at Shadow as she had arrived, brought him food to eat: a steak, almost rare. She brought it to him on a plate, without cutlery, as if she expected him to eat it with his fingers and his teeth, and he was hungry, and he did.

  “I am not your hero,” he told them, but they would not meet his gaze. Nobody spoke to him, not directly. He felt like an animal.

  And then it was dusk. They led Shadow to the inner courtyard, by the rusty fountain, and they stripped him naked, at gunpoint, and the women smeared his body with some kind of thick yellow grease, rubbing it in.

  They put a knife on the grass in front of him. A gesture with a gun, and Shadow picked the knife up. The hilt was black metal, rough and easy to hold. The blade looked sharp.

  Then they threw open the great door, from the inner courtyard to the world outside, and two of the men lit the two high bonfires: they crackled and blazed.

  They opened the leather bags, and each of the guests took out a single carved black stick, like a cudgel, knobbly and heavy. Shadow found himself thinking of Sawney Bean’s children, swarming up from the darkness holding clubs made of human thighbones . . .

  Then the guests arranged themselves around the edge of the courtyard, and they began to beat the drums with the sticks.

  They started slow, and they started quietly, a deep, throbbing pounding, like a heartbeat. Then they began to crash and slam into strange rhythms, staccato beats that wove and wound, louder and louder, until they filled Shadow’s mind and his world. It seemed to him that the firelight flickered to the rhythms of the drums.

  And then, from outside the house, the howling began.

  There was pain in the howling, and anguish, and it echoed across the hills above the drumbeats, a wail of pain and loss and hate.

  The figure that stumbled through the doorway to the courtyard was clutching its head, covering its ears, as if to stop the pounding of the drumbeats.

  The firelight caught it.

  It was huge, now: bigger than Shadow, and naked. It was perfectly hairless, and dripping wet.

  It lowered its hands from its ears, and it stared around, its face twisted into a mad grimace. “Stop it!” it screamed. “Stop making all that noise!”

  And the people in their pretty clothes beat their drums harder, and faster, and the noise filled Shadow’s head and chest.

  The monster stepped into the center of the courtyard. It looked at Shadow. “You,” it said. “I told you. I told you about the noise,” and it howled, a deep throaty howl of hatred and challenge.

  The creature edged closer to Shadow. It saw the knife, and stopped. “Fight me!” it shouted. “Fight me fair! Not with cold iron! Fight me!”

  “I don’t want to fight you,” said Shadow. He dropped the knife on the grass, raised his hands to show them empty.

  “Too late,” said the bald thing that was not a man. “Too late for that.”

  And it launched itself at Shadow.

  Later, when Shadow thought of that fight, he remembered only fragments: he remembered being slammed to the ground, and throwing himself out of the way. He remembered the pounding of the drums, and the expressions on the faces of the drummers as they stared, hungrily, between the bonfires, at the two men in the firelight.

  They fought, wrestling and pounding each other.

  Salt tears ran down the monster’s face as it wrestled with Shadow.

  They were equally matched, it seemed to Shadow.

  The monster slammed its arm into Shadow’s face, and Shadow could taste
his own blood. He could feel his own anger beginning to rise, like a red wall of hate.

  He swung a leg out, hooking the monster behind the knee, and as it stumbled back Shadow’s fist crashed into its gut, making it cry out and roar with anger and pain.

  A glance at the guests: Shadow saw the bloodlust on the faces of the drummers.

  There was a cold wind, a sea wind, and it seemed to Shadow that there were huge shadows in the sky, vast figures that he had seen on a ship made of the fingernails of dead men, and that they were staring down at him, that this fight was what was keeping them frozen on their ship, unable to land, unable to leave.

  This fight was old, Shadow thought, older than even Mr. Alice knew, and he was thinking that even as the creature’s talons raked his chest. It was the fight of man against monster, and it was old as time: it was Theseus battling the Minotaur, it was Beowulf and Grendel, it was the fight of every hero who had ever stood between the firelight and the darkness and wiped the blood of something inhuman from his sword.

  The bonfires burned, and the drums pounded and throbbed and pulsed like the beating of a thousand hearts.

  Shadow slipped on the damp grass, as the monster came at him, and he was down. The creature’s fingers were around Shadow’s neck, and it was squeezing; Shadow could feel everything starting to thin, to become distant.

  He closed his hand around a patch of grass, and pulled at it, dug his fingers deep, grabbing a handful of grass and clammy earth, and he smashed the clod of dirt into the monster’s face, momentarily blinding it.

  He pushed up, and was on top of the creature, now. He rammed his knee hard into its groin, and it doubled into a fetal position, and howled, and sobbed.

  Shadow realized that the drumming had stopped, and he looked up.

  The guests had put down their drums.

  They were all approaching him, in a circle, men and women, still holding their drumsticks, but holding them like cudgels. They were not looking at Shadow, though: they were staring at the monster on the ground, and they raised their black sticks and moved toward it in the light of the twin fires.

  Shadow said, “Stop!”

  The first club blow came down on the creature’s head. It wailed and twisted, raising an arm to ward off the next blow.