A, B, C: Three Short Novels Page 8

  “Suddenly there was a scream. They came like vultures. The moon was overhead now, and a cloud of them darkened the white disk with their wings. They scurried after the fleeing men, over the sand. All we could really make out was a dark struggle on the silver sand. Swords raised in the white light, screams, and howls that sent us staggering back into the ocean…Argo and a handful of the men who were left began to run toward the boat. The beasts followed them down to the edge of the water, loping behind them, half flying, half running, hacking one after another down. I saw one man fall forward and his head roll from his body while blood shot ten feet along the sand, black under the moon. One actually caught at Argo’s veils, but she screamed and slipped away into the water; she climbed back into the boat, panting. You would think a woman would collapse, but no. She stood in the bow while we rowed our arms off. They would not come over the water. Somehow we managed to get the skiff back to the ship without foundering against the rocks.”

  “Our aquatic friends may have had something to do with that,” said Geo. “Iimmi, you say her veils were pulled off. Tell me, do you remember if she was wearing any jewelry?”

  “She wasn’t,” Iimmi said. “She stood there in only her dark robe, her throat bare as ivory.”

  “She wasn’t going to bring the jewel to Aptor where those monsters could get their hands on it again,” said Urson. “But, Geo, if Jordde’s the spy, why did he throw the jewel in the sea?”

  “Whatever reason he had,” said Geo, “our friends have given them both to me now.”

  “You said Argo didn’t know whose side these sea creatures were on, Leptar’s or Aptor’s,” said Iimmi. “But perhaps Jordde knew, and that’s why he threw it to them.” He paused for a moment. “Friend, I think you have made an error; you tell me you are a poet, and it is a poet’s error. The hinge in your argument that Snake is no spy is that Argo must have dubious motives to send you on such an impossible task without protection, saying that it would be meaningful only if all its goals were accomplished. You reasoned, how could an honest woman place the life of her daughter below the value of a jewel—”

  “Not just her daughter,” interrupted Geo, “but the Goddess Argo Incarnate.”

  “Listen,” said Iimmi. “Only if she wished to make permanent her temporary return to power, you thought, could she set such an impossible task. There may be some truth in what you say. But she herself would not bring the jewel to the shores of Aptor, though it was for her own protection. Now all three jewels are in Aptor, and if any part of her story is true, Leptar right now is in more danger than it has been in five hundred years. You have the jewels, two of them, and you cannot use them. Where is your friend Snake, who can? Both Snake and Jordde could easily be spies and the enmity between them feigned, so that while you were on guard against one, you could be misled by the other. You say he can project words and images into men’s minds? Perhaps he clouded yours.”

  They sat silent for the lapsing of a minute.

  “Argo may be torn by many things,” continued Iimmi. “But you, in watching some, may have been deluded by others.”

  Light from the river quivered on the undersides of the leaves.

  Urson spoke now. “I think his story is better than yours, Geo.”

  “Then what shall we do now?” asked Geo softly.

  “Do what the Goddess requests as best we can,” said Iimmi. “Find the Temple of Hama, secure the third stone, rescue the young Goddess, and die before we let the jewels fall into the hands of Aptor.”

  “From the way you describe this place,” muttered Urson, “that may not be far off.”

  “Still,” Geo mused, “there are things that don’t mesh. Why were you saved too, Iimmi? Why were we brought here at all? And why did Jordde want to kill you and the other sailor?”

  “Perhaps,” said Iimmi, “the God Hama has a strange sense of humor and we shall be allowed to carry the jewels up to the temple door before we are slaughtered, dropping them at his feet.” He smiled. “Then again, perhaps your story is the correct one, Geo, and I am the spy, sent to sway your reason.”

  Urson and Geo glanced at each other.

  “There are an infinite number of theories for every set of facts,” Geo said at last. “Rule number one: assume the simplest theory that includes all the known conditions to be true until more conditions arise for which the simplest no longer holds. Rule number two: then, and not until, assume another.”

  “Then we go into the jungle,” Iimmi said.

  “I guess we do,” said Urson.

  Geo stood up. “So far,” he said, “the water creatures have saved us from death. Is there an objection to following the river inland? It’s as good a path as any, and it may mean more safety to us.”

  “No objection here,” said Iimmi.

  “What about the jewels?” asked Urson. “Perhaps we ought to bury them someplace where no one could ever find them. Perhaps if they were just completely out of the way…”

  “It may be another ‘poet’s error,’ ” said Geo, “but I’d keep them with us. Even though we can’t use them, we might be able to bluff our way with them.”

  “I’m for keeping them too,” said Iimmi.

  “Though I’m beginning to wonder how good any of my guesses are,” Geo added.

  “Now don’t be like that,” cajoled Urson. “Since we’ve got this job, we’ve got to trust ourselves to do it right. Let’s see if we can put one more of those things around your neck before we’re through.” He pointed to the two jewels hanging at Geo’s chest. Then he laughed. “One more and you’ll have as many as me.” He rattled his own triple necklace.

  chapter five

  Light lowered in the sky as they walked beside the river, keeping to the rocky bank and brushing away vines that strung into the water from hanging limbs. Urson broke down a branch thick as his wrist and tall as himself and playfully smote the water. “This should put a bruise on anyone who wants to bother us.” He raised the stick and drops ran the bark, sparks at the tips of dark lines.

  “We’ll have to go into the woods for food soon,” said Geo, “unless we wait for animals to come down to drink.”

  Urson tugged at another branch, and it twisted loose from fibrous white. “Here.” He handed it to Geo. “I’ll have one for you in a moment, Iimmi.”

  “And maybe we could explore a little before it gets dark,” Iimmi suggested.

  Urson handed him the third staff. “There’s not much here I want to see,” he muttered.

  “Well, we can’t sleep on the bank. We’ve got to find a place hidden in the trees.”

  “Can you see what’s over there?” Geo asked.

  “Where?” asked Iimmi. “Huh.” Through the growth was a high shadow. “A rock or a cliff?”

  “Maybe,” mused Urson, “but it’s awfully regular.”

  Geo started off into the underbrush; they followed. The goal was farther and larger than it had looked from the bank. Once they crossed an area where large stones fit side by side, like paving. Small trees had pushed up between some of them, but for thirty feet, before the flags sank in the soft jungle, it was easier going. Then the forest thinned again and they reached a relatively clear area. Before them a ruined building loomed. Six girders cleared the highest wall. The original height must have been eight or ten stories. One wall had completely sheared away and fragments of it chunked the ground. Broken rooms and severed halls suggested an injured granite hive. They approached slowly.

  To one side a great metal cylinder lay askew a heap of rubbish. A flat blade of metal transversed it, one side twisting into the ground where skeletal girders showed beneath ripped plating. Windows like dark eyes lined the body, and a door gaped in an idiot oval halfway along its length.

  Fascinated, they turned toward the injured wreck. As they neared, a sound came from inside the door. They stopped, and their staves leaped a protective inch from the ground. In the shadow of the door, ten feet above the ground, another shadow moved, resolving into an animal�
��s muzzle—gray, long. They could see the forelegs. Like a dog, it was carrying a smaller beast, obviously dead, in its mouth. It saw them, watched them, was still.

  “Dinner,” Urson said softly. “Come on.” They moved forward again. Then they stopped.

  The beast sprang from the doorway. Shadow and distance had made them completely underestimate its size. Along the sprung arc flowed a canine body nearly five feet long. Urson struck it from its flight with his stick. As it fell, Iimmi and Geo were upon it with theirs, clubbing its chest and head. For six blows it staggered and could not gain its feet. Then, as it threatened to heave to standing, Urson rushed forward and jabbed his stave straight down on the chest: bones snapped, tore through the brown pelt, their blue sheen covered a moment later by blood. It howled, kicked its hind feet at the stake with which Urson held it to the ground; then it extended its limbs and quivered. The front legs stretched and stretched while the torso pulled in on itself, shrinking in the death agonies. The long mouth, which had dropped its prey, gaped as the head flopped from side to side, the pink tongue lolling, shrinking.

  “My God!” breathed Geo.

  The sharp muzzle had blunted now and the claws in the padded paw stretched, opened into fingers and a thumb. The hairlessness of the underbelly had spread to the entire carcass. Hind legs lengthened and bare knees bent as now human feet dragged through the brown leaves and a human thigh gave a final contraction, stilled, and one leg fell out straight again. The shaggy, black-haired man lay on the ground, his chest caved in and bloody. In one last spasm, he flung his hands up and grasped the stake to pull it from his chest; too weak, his fingers slipped back down as his lips snarled open over his perfectly white, blunt teeth.

  Urson stepped back, then back again. The stave fell, pulled loose with a sucking explosion from the ruined mess of lung. The wolf man had raised his hand to his own chest and touched his triple gold token. “In the name of the Goddess!” he finally whispered.

  Geo walked forward now, picked up the carcass of the smaller animal that had been dropped, and turned away. “Well,” he said, “I guess dinner isn’t going to be as big as we thought.”

  “I guess not,” Iimmi said.

  They walked back to the ruined building, away from the corpse.

  “Hey, Urson,” Geo said at last. The big man was still holding his coins. “Snap out of it. What’s the matter?”

  “The only man I’ve ever seen whose body was broken in that way,” he said slowly, “was one whose side was struck in by a ship’s spar.”

  —

  They decided to settle that evening at the corner of one of the building’s ruined walls. They made fire with a rock against a section of rusted girder. After much sawing on a jagged metal blade protruding from a pile of rubble, they managed to quarter the animal and rip most of the pelt from its red body. With thin branches to hold the meat, they did a passable job of roasting. Although it was partially burned, partially raw, and without seasoning, they ate it, and hunger abated. As they sat at the fire by the wall, ripping red juicy fibers from the bones, night swelled through the jungle, imprisoning them in the shell of orange flicker.

  “Shall we leave it going?” asked Urson. “Fire keeps animals away.”

  “If there are animals,” reminded Geo, “and they do want anything to eat…well, they’ve got that thing back there.”

  On leaves raked together they stretched out by the wall. There was quiet—no insect hum, no unnameable chitterings—except for the comforting river rush beyond the trees.

  —

  Geo woke first, eyes filled with silver. He was dreaming again the strange happenings he had dreamed before….No. He sat up: the entire clearing had flooded with white light from the amazingly huge disk of the moon sitting on the rim of the trees. The orange of the fire had bleached before it. Iimmi and Urson looked uncomfortably corpse-like. He was about to reach over and touch Iimmi’s outstretched arm when there was a noise behind him. Beaten cloth? He jerked his head around and stared at the gray wall. He looked up the concrete that tore off raggedly against the night. There was nothing but stone and jagged darkness. Fatigue had snarled into something unpleasant and hard in his belly that had little to do with tiredness. He stretched his arm in the leaves once more and put his cheek down on the cool flesh of his shoulder.

  The beating came again, continued for a few seconds. He rolled his face up and stared at the sky. Something crossed on the moon. The beating sounded once more. His eyes rose farther. Something…no, several things were perched on the broken ledge of the wall. A shadow shifted there; something waddled along a few feet. Wings spread, drew in again.

  The flesh on his neck, his back, his chest, grew cold, then began to tickle. He reached out, his arm making thunder in the leaves, and grabbed Iimmi’s black shoulder. Iimmi grunted, started, rolled over on his back, opened his eyes—Geo saw the black chest drop with expelled breath. A few seconds later the chest rose again. Iimmi turned his face to Geo, who raised his finger to his lips. Then he turned his face back up to the night. Three more times the flapping sounded behind them, behind the wall, Geo realized. Once he glanced down again and saw that Iimmi had raised his arm and put it over his eyes.

  They spent a few years that way.

  A flock suddenly leaped from the wall, fell toward them, only to catch air in a billow of wings across the moon. They circled, returned to the wall, and then, after a pause, took off again. Some of them fell twenty feet before the sails of their wings filled and they began to rise again. They circled wider this time, and before they returned, another flock dropped down on the night.

  Then Geo grabbed Iimmi’s arm and pulled it down from his eyes. The shapes dropped like foundering kites: sixty feet above them, forty feet, thirty. There was a piercing shriek. Geo was up on his feet, and Iimmi beside him, their staffs in hand. The shadows fell, shrieking; wings began to flap violently, and they rose again, moving out from the wall. Now they turned back.

  “Here it comes,” whispered Geo. He kicked at Urson, but the big sailor was already on his knees, then feet. The wings, insistent and dark, beat before them, flew toward them, then at the terrifying distance of five feet, reversed. “I don’t think they can get in at the wall,” Geo mouthed.

  “I hope the hell they can’t,” Urson said.

  Twenty feet away they hit the ground, black wings crumpling in the moonlight. In the growing horde of shadow, light snagged on a metal blade.

  Two of the creatures detached themselves from the others and hurled themselves forward, swords swinging above their heads in silver light.

  Urson grabbed Geo’s staff and swung it as hard as he could, catching both beasts on the chest. They fell backward in an explosion of rubbery wings, as though they had stumbled into sheets of dark canvas.

  Three more leaped the fallen ones, shrieking. As they came down, Urson looked up and jammed his staff into the belly of a fourth about to fall on them above. One got past Iimmi’s whistling staff and Geo grabbed a furry arm. He pulled it to the side, overbalancing the sailed creature. It dropped its sword as it lay for a moment, struggling on its back. Geo snatched the blade and brought it up from the ground into the gut of another, who spread its wings and staggered back. He yanked the blade free and turned it down into the body of the fallen one; it made a sound like a suddenly crushed sponge. The blade came out and he hacked into a shadow on his left. And a voice suddenly, but inside his head…

  The…jewels…

  “Snake!” bawled Geo. “Where the hell are you?” He still held his staff; now he flung it forward, spear-like, into the face of an advancing beast. Struck, it opened up like a black silk parachute, knocking back three of its companions before it fell.

  His view cleared for an instant; Geo saw the boy, white under the moonlight, dart from the jungle edge. Geo ripped the jewels from his neck and flung the handful of chain and leather over the heads of the shrieking beasts. At the top of their arc the beads made a double eye in the light before they fell on th
e leaves beyond the assailants. Snake ran for the jewels, picked them up, and held them above his head.

  Fire leaped from the boy’s hands in a double bolt that converged among the dark bodies. Red light cast a jagged wing in silhouette. A high shriek, a stench of burnt fur. Another bolt of fire fell in the dark horde. A wing flamed, waved flame about it. The beast tried to fly, but fell, splashing fire. Sparks sharp on a brown face chiseled it with shadow, caught the terrified red bead of an eye, and laid light along a pair of fangs.

  Wings afire withered on the ground; dead leaves sparked now, and whips of flame ran in the clearing. The beasts retreated, and the three men stood against the wall, panting. Two last shadows suddenly dropped from the air toward Snake, who still stood with raised arms out in the clearing.

  “Watch out!” Iimmi called to him.

  Snake looked up as wings fell at him, tented him, hid him momentarily. Red flared beneath, and suddenly they fell away, sweeping the leaves—moved by wind or life, Geo couldn’t tell. Wings rose on the moon, circled farther away, were gone.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Urson said. They ran forward toward Snake.

  Geo said, “Am I ever glad to see you!”

  Urson looked up after the disappearing figures and repeated: “Let’s get out of here.”

  Glancing back, they saw the fire had blown back against the wall and was dying. They walked quickly toward the forest. “Snake,” said Geo when they stopped, “this is Iimmi. Iimmi…we told you about him.”

  Iimmi extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Look,” said Geo, “he can read your mind, so if you still think he’s a spy…”

  Iimmi grinned. “Remember your general rule? If he is a spy, it’s going to get much too complicated trying to figure why he saved us.”