Through Caverns Measureless to Man

by D G Rose

  After a few minutes, Pan came over and sat down next to me and handed me a piece of toasted fungus. It tasted like bread, slightly sweet with a touch of caramel. As I chewed, I couldn’t help but stare at his giant, erect, cock swaying, just inches away, as he talked and laughed.

  He caught me looking and throwing his arm around my shoulder he said with a laugh, “It’s OK. Everyone should try to be, at least, a little gay, if only to better understand the nature of their own attractiveness to others.”

  And I wanted to die then, although I don’t know if it was from embarrassment or from joy and so I just leaned into his side and closed my eyes.

  When I open them again, Pan was gone from my side and the fire had burned down.

  “It lives!” Christabel joked. The three of them stood together, like old friends, sharing the last of the wine.

  Pan clapped his hands together and did a little leap into the air and, being drunk, fell flat on his ass. We all laughed as he ran around in a circle trying to get a look at his injured tail. Finally, convinced that no lasting harm had been done, he said, “Well, if you’re all ready, I’ll keep my part of the bargain and provide transport.” And he suddenly had, perched oddly, on top of his horns, an old-style, striped, railroad cap. “Next stop, Xanadu! Toot-Toot!” And we all couldn’t help but laugh when he swept the cap from his head and balanced it on his giant-erect-cock.

  With a wave of his hand, a rip appeared in the air between us and the fire, its interior blackness highlighted by the surrounding rim of dull red from the failing flames, nothingness made solid. I, honestly, was afraid. But Christabel, our guide, didn’t seem the least bit worried and she kissed Pan and took her position in front of the rip and waited for Amy and me.

  Amy stepped up to Pan and going up on her tip-toes gave him a long kiss. Longer than I thought strictly necessary and she must have felt the need to support herself somehow because her hand rested on his railroad cap.

  Then I walk over to face the horned God. As soon as I approached, he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into an uncomfortable hug, that quickly became comfortable and with a loud kiss on my ear, he pushed me roughly away.

  Christabel took our hands in hers and led us through the rip.

  CHAPTER 10 - Ghosts or angels or ghosts of angels.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fucking Pan! Always thinking with his dick! Can’t fucking concentrate for ten fucking seconds!” Christabel was understandably upset. We had stepped through Pan’s rip in the air, expecting to be instantly transported to Xanadu, but we had arrived instead at some indistinguishable spot seemingly still within the Caverns Measureless to Man. Even Alph, the Sacred River, was nowhere in sight. “Horny fucking bastard!”

  “Good one!” Amy held her hand up in the high-five position, but Christabel left her hanging.

  “What?” Christabel asked.

  “Oh, you know.” Amy lowered her hand. “Horny bastard. It’s a pun. Cause… ya know… he’s got horns and….” She trailed off.

  “First,” Christabel held up a finger. “Here we prefer rhymes to puns. And second,” She held out her hand, waist high, palm up. “I’m more of a down-low type of gal.” And a small smile broke her face.

  Amy slapped her hand and the two of them shared a laugh.

  “Are we lost?” Amy asked, her hand, familiarly, on Christabel’s arm.

  “No.” Christabel ran a hand through her hair. “I know where we are, more or less. It’s just that we’re miles off course and we were already running late. So… Fuck!”

  She looked around a bit and finally struck out in one of the many directions that, to me, looked exactly the same.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked. Hurrying to catch up and inserting myself between Christabel and Amy.

  “The same plan as before. Head over to the river, down to the Sunless Sea, across the sea to Xanadu, deliver you and the box to Miranda, save the day and we all live happily ever after.”

  That part about saving the day was new. So was the part about happily ever after, but I assumed that was just smoke.

  We walked for what seemed like an eternity until Christabel called a halt. Shading her eyes against an absent sun, she scanned the sky then pointed. “Albatross.” She said quietly.

  “What’s the story with the albatross?” I asked her. “It was at the house, too.”

  “That albatross is part of the most fucked up love triangle in history, real or literary.” She explained. She cleared her throat, as she often did before quoting, as if she were about to recite a sacred text and she was afraid that a catch in her throat would ruin the flow of words. “The spirit who bideth by himself/ in the land of mist and snow / He loved the bird that loved the man / Who shot him with his bow.”

  “What’s with all the poetry?” Asked Amy. And I was glad she did because I wanted to know, too.

  “The Mad Dreamer, whose Dreams we occupy, whose Dreams some of us are, has a mind with a poetical bent. Gods, Monsters, Unicorns, Champions.” She tapped her own chest. “Those of us who dwell in his Dreams can’t help but reflect that back, or be reflections of that.”

  But something else had caught my attention. “Who shot him with his bow? So that means…”

  “Yes.” Christabel nodded. “The albatross is kind of a zombie. But not the eat your brains kind of zombie. I mean, I guess it would eat your brains, if, you know, they were on display, as would many different kinds of animals really, but I don’t think it has any particular interest in brains. Although the albatross is dead, the Spirit imbues it with a kind of life, it serves as an extra set of eyes, a sort of memorial spy. Well,” She looked around. “This seems like as good a place as any to camp.” She tossed down her pack.

  And, of course, it did. It was exactly like every other part of the caverns. Grey, dark, rocky, indistinguishable.

  “What about the bird and the spirit?” Amy asked. “Shouldn’t we keep moving?”

  Christabel shrugged. “If the bird knows where we are, then the Spirit does too and we have to rest sometime.” And that settled it.

  Somehow Christabel discovered some fungus logs for a fire and she managed to find some soft fungus to roast. Not enough for all of us, but a good meal for Amy. She pulled some rabbit jerky out of her pack, which she must have bought, at some point, back at the Half-Frog. It was good.

  We slept in a tight group, close by the fire, not from cold or fear of attack, but for protection from the oppressive feeling of being the only living creatures alone in the sparse world. I’d hoped to maneuver myself into the middle, but Amy was quicker.

  As I lay down to sleep, I saw three stars off on the far horizon and I let out a little gasp of surprise.

  “What?” Christabel asked, ever alert, raising her head to look back at me.

  “Nothing, I just was surprised to see those stars.” I pointed and she followed my finger.

  “Those aren’t stars.” She said. “Those are ghosts or angels or ghosts of angels.” She said cryptically before I drifted off to sleep.

  I woke first, as usual, and decided to look for some more fungus for the fire. In retrospect it was stupid. I mean it’s not like we were going to be staying around. As soon as Amy and Christabel woke up, we would probably be on our way. I think I was thinking that maybe I could also find some of the edible fungus for Amy and then, well, you know, I’d look like I was… I don’t know. Useful.

  I’d been wandering about for maybe fifteen minutes without much luck. I wasn’t worried about getting lost, as long as I could see the smoke from their fire, in this flat landscape, I could always find my way back. Of course, I wasn’t worrying about the wrong thing.

  I finally did find a few dry fungus logs and a small patch of food fungus. I crouched down to pull the lobes (which seemed to be the edible part) off a fungus stem. It was harder than I expected, and when the lobe finally came free, I toppled over backwards. I picked myself up, feeling stupid and glad that nobody was there to see it. I
heard it first. A harsh wheezing sound, unlike anything I’d ever heard before, but nonetheless, unmistakably, laughter. I spun, ready for a fight, and came face to face with the monster! Well, face to knee. He was really big!

  He roared and rushed at me. I screamed and backed away. He swiped at me with his giant hand, but I tripped over a fungus log and fell to the ground while his hand passed harmlessly over me. He seemed confused for a moment and examined his hand, like he couldn’t believe that he’d missed me and he was looking for signs of blood or some other gore. I’ve done the same with mosquitoes. But, after a few moments, he spotted me, lying where I’d fallen, among the logs. He reared back with his hand over his head and prepared to finish me when a streak of brown soared over my prone body and smacked into the monster’s stomach. Christabel! My hero!

  He stumbled back, but didn’t fall and struggled to regain his footing, but Christabel was unstoppable. She pummeled him in the thigh with her small hand, over and over in the same place until his leg buckled. He was down on one knee, but the position gave him more stability and he was able to knock her aside with a sweep of his forearm. She tumbled to the ground and the giant monster brought his hand up to squash her.

  I panicked, he was going to kill Christabel! I looked desperately around and found (under my ass) a good sized fungus log. I picked it up. It was too heavy to use as a club, but I tucked it under my arm and ran as fast as I could to use it as a battering ram against the monster’s good leg. I got a solid shot and it bellowed in pain and rather than squash Christabel, it turned to swat at me. I jumped back and it just missed. I rushed in, under its arm and grabbed the log and ran back. Christabel had gotten to her feet by now and I motioned her over to me. I figured that she and I could attack the monster together. She came over to where I was, then turned to the monster and raised her hand with the index finger up in the universal ‘wait a moment’ signal and, to my surprise, the monster waited.

  Christabel slapped me, hard, across my face. “Listen Bucko!” her frustration was all over her face. “I’m like the Pony Express and you’re like a package. When the Pony Express riders were attacked, do you think the packages got involved in the fight?” She didn’t pause for my answer. “No. No, the packages did not get involved in the fight. So, stay the fuck out! Package!”

  “But… But he was going to kill you.”

  She waved her hand indifferently. “Maybe. We fight and, sometimes, people die. But we’re not savages. We have rules. And we don’t gang up on people!” Then she turned back to the monster. “Sorry!” She yelled up at him. “Look, I’m going to stand here and you can have a swat at me and we’ll pick up where we left off. Ok?”

  The monster opened its mouth, threw back its head, and let out a roar. “You know, I’ve really lost the mood.” He had a surprising upper-class British accent. “What do you say we chalk this one up to a learning experience and I’ll kill you some other day?”

  Christabel looked up at the monster’s face. “John Graham Chambers’ rules?” She asked.

  “Of course.” The monster replied.

  Christabel spit on her hand and held it out. “Agreed.”

  The monster looked down at her tiny wet hand with clear disgust. “I’m not shaking that after you spit on it. But agreed, nonetheless.” And he took off with a strange loping gait.

  “He’s oddly fastidious for a monster, isn’t he?”

  “Spirit.” Christabel replied automatically and turned towards our camp, where Amy would be waiting.

  CHAPTER 11 - This ain’t my first rodeo.

  We’d been walking for a long time when I was surprised by a breeze. I was so shocked by the movement of the air that, for a moment, I didn’t hear the calliope. I looked up and in the distance, behind the slowly spiraling campfire smoke, I saw a pennant flapping in the breeze on top of a peaked tent. I was about to point it out to Christabel, but she was already running.

  And cursing. “Shit! Come on!” She yelled.

  We ran until we were pulled up in front of a sea of tightly grouped tents surrounded by a fabric fence. ‘Astley's Amphitheatre’ the sign at the entrance proclaimed. Christabel grabbed my hand and led me to the ticket booth. It’s wasn’t déjà vu, but it was just as disorientating. I dragged my feet, but she pulled me onward.

  “Is this a…” I started.

  “Nah, it’s just a circus. Don’t be a baby.” She dragged me a bit more.

  “What’s the difference?” I’d always been curious, but had always avoided circuses (not like I’d had a lot of opportunities to avoid them, it was more of a conceptual thing) on the off chance there was no real difference.

  She shrugged. “The difference is I’m paying.”

  She put a coin on the ticket counter. “Two please.” And took her change and the two tickets. “No time for candy apples.” She said. “We’ve got to find Amy before something happens.” She didn’t have to mention that the something would be bad. It was clear.

  She pulled me around corners, down the midway, behind tents, into sideshows, always quickly scanning the crowds for Amy and moving on. The crocodile-headed woman, her bare breasts swaying just beneath the line of rough leathery greenish skin. The fire eaters and the strong man. The sword juggler. “What,” he asked looking right at Christabel. “Is the difference between a juggler and a swordsman? Courage.” He answered his own question without waiting for a reply from the audience. “Well, that and most swordsmen can’t juggle.” And the assembled crowd laughed and the juggler too, without dropping a single sword.

  A disembodied butterfly’s wing fluttered in the air, followed by a cloud of wings in all shapes and colors and sizes, all torn from their bodies and screaming danger and sadness. Christabel pulled me into a mass of onlookers and there we saw her.

  Amy was in the center of a group of whirling dancers and above her swirled a cloud of butterflies. Amy stood on a painted wooden platform, her arms held over her head and one leg crooked against the other in a ballerina pose and she twirled around and around while tinny music came from the base. Each dancer held a long silk scarf in one hand and a longer polished sword in the other and as they danced around Amy each would reach out and almost touch her, either with their scarf or their sword depending on which was closer, and the butterflies wound in and out of the dancers, first obscuring Amy then revealing her. Blood on one sleeve gave testament to the danger of the dance, but Amy stood immobile or immobilized while the dancers whirled and the butterflies swirled. The air was filled with rent wings and the floor littered with their fallen bodies, many writhing and trying to fly with one wing before death took them from either loss of blood or the pounding feet of the dancers or the crowd.

  Christabel put her hand on my arm to hold me back. “Don’t say or do anything. If the dance ends with her unbloodied, we have a good chance getting her out of here.”

  “She’s already bloodied.” I pointed to Amy’s stained sleeve.

  But Christabel refused to succumb to my logic and tightened her grip on my arm.

  I watched the dance, cringing every time a sword (or, to be honest, even a scarf) came near Amy, the tempo increased, the dancers whirling and clashing and leaping, the butterflies swirling and diving and dying. I strained against Christabel’s hand, but she held me even tighter and I couldn’t break away against her superior strength. A sword slashed through Amy’s work shirt at the waist, tearing the fabric, which flapped away to reveal her side, uncut. Then another slashed away a belt loop from her jeans. And another cut her right pant leg to ribbons, she remained, mercifully unbloodied but I couldn’t stand the strain. Christabel held my arm so I opened my mouth. “Stop! Stop! This is insane! You’re going to kill her!” I shouted. The music stopped with a shuddering creak and the dancers stopped with a skid and the remaining butterflies fluttered away, but not before a dancer, from broken concentration or from spite, laid open Amy’s stomach with a long slash. A spray of blood landed at my feet and Amy, suddenly free to move,
collapsed, falling from her platform, her hand trying to hold in her intestines and failing miserably.

  All around us the circus came to a halt, the dying music of the calliope and the dying calls of the barkers. The platform and then the dancers and then the crowd and finally the tents, all began to fold themselves up, getting smaller with each doubling, but not thicker, until reaching the size of a butterfly they took to the skies, leaving Christabel and me with Amy dying in my arms.

  I held her, this girl I hardly knew, just a waving neighbor, really no closer than Jim Kincaid from the funeral home, and now she was dying because of me. It’s an interesting intimacy holding a dying person. Her blood dirtied me, and I had no desire to be clean.

  “Help! I don’t know what to do!” I screamed.

  Christabel ignored me and busied herself doing… something.

  “Help!” I yelled again, although I knew that no help was possible. Something long and slick and smooth slipped out from the gap in her belly and lay against my hand. Should I put it back? I was paralyzed.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw that Christabel was building a fire. Maybe she had an idea.

  Once the fire was roaring, she stripped off her shirt and waved it in the smoke a few time, then rested for a moment and repeated the action.

  “Help!” There was no way this was helping and if Amy had to die in my arms, I, at least, wanted someone else there.

  “Busy!” Christabel shouted back.