The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth)
Page 19
“Now...” she said.
It was a dusty hillside, a bluff above a river. Beyond it was another bluff, a sign of the old river level before the years had carved the soft ground and the river had sunk. The land shimmered with heat. Sagebrush dotted the hillside in clumps.
Manuel thought he caught a flash of purple nearby, a rectangular object among the brush. But the heat was creating small mirages above the ground, and he must have imagined it. Despite the heat, he shivered, remembering. “Did you see the fireman’s face?”
“He looked very pale. I thought he was sick,” said the Girl.
Zozula was silent for a moment. Then he said, “The firebox door was open. Everything was glowing red—the floor, the window, yourselves, Silver, even the coal. Everything was red. Except for the fireman’s face...” And he shivered too, at the memory of that ghastly visage.
The Wheeled Dog
There’s a little green lanky iguana;
He’s the basilisk men understand.
He runs over water when startled
And dwells in a tropical land.
But the Dream Basilisk is a Gorgon,
And his tail bears a venomous tooth.
For facts are the fabric of fancy,
And fiction is stranger than truth.
—Darryl Du Piking, 129,643–130,125
“Song of the Dreamers”
“Don’t go that way if you want to stay alive!” It was an unusual voice. Afterward they could never agree quite on its inflection or tone. Zozula found it supercilious, whereas the Girl thought it a warm bass. Manuel suspected that the voice spoke into their minds, not their ears.
They had been walking for over an hour with no set destination, following a ridge of burned grass above the river, urged on by Zozula, who pretended to have some mysterious objective of his own. The Girl was exhausted and Manuel was helping her along. At last Zozula had agreed to descend to the river, where they could slake their thirst and rest. The ridge was disheartening. It offered only a view of other ridges, rolling into the distance like a gigantic frown on the face of the earth.
And now, the voice.
“Who said that?” asked the Girl. They were descending the slope among small bleached rocks. Nothing was big enough to conceal a person. “Did you hear that, Zozula? Was it you, Manuel? You’re not playing tricks again, are you? We can do without practical jokes, right now.”
“It wasn’t me,” said Manuel.
“It came from over there,” said Zozula positively. “Show yourself!” he commanded.
First there was silence in the air and in their minds. Then, the tiniest rattle of loose stones and a feeling of decision that communicated itself to all three of them, so that they relaxed without knowing why. Then a small high-pitched and rhythmic squeal that set their teeth on edge, and a quick pattering.
A creature appeared.
It was like no creature they’d ever seen before. It was the most familiar creature on Earth. It was a machine. It was all of these, and it moved them to pity.
“H-hello, boy,” said Manuel. The others said nothing.
It was small and brown, with a questioning face, floppy ears and a white spot on its forehead. Its eyes were soft brown and it carried its head erect and alert. It watched them, tongue lolling.
It was a dog on wheels.
Perhaps at some time in the past the dog had been involved in an accident and his hind legs had been crushed and he had been valuable enough (or conceivably, wealthy enough) to undergo an amputation and to be given a harness securing a pair of light, rubber-tired wheels under his abdomen. Behind the wheels, his tail wagged. When he ran, he trotted with his front legs and the rest of him rolled behind.
“I said, you’d better not go any farther along this trail.” The dog indicated the narrow, dusty track that ran beside the river.
“And who are you to tell us where we may or may not go?” Zozula’s tone was lofty.
“They call me Roller. I live hereabouts. I’m not real, of course, and neither are you, but I don’t want to see you get killed—even if you are a figment of someone’s imagination.” The dog regarded them critically. “Although anyone with an imagination abnormal enough to dream up the likes of you three, I wouldn’t like to meet. Maybe it would be kindest to let you follow the trail after all.”
“I know I’m ugly,” said the Girl quietly. “There’s no need to remind me.”
“You’re no great beauty yourself, Roller.” Manuel moved to the Girl’s defense.
Zozula’s initial pity had also turned to irritation. “Step aside, dog. Those who pretend superior knowledge are the most stupid of all. You’re real and I’m real, and the only unreal thing is the monster, or whatever it is, along the trail! Now—we’re looking for a thing called the math creature. Can you direct us to it?”
The dog looked cunning. “I’ve heard my master referred to as the math creature. He lives in a land he has created himself. Such a strange land it is.”
“Will you take us there?”
“The way lies through the monster’s country,” said the dog in some triumph. “I’ve been stuck here for days because I’m frightened to go back that way.”
“What does your monster do?” asked Zozula sarcastically. “Roast people with its fiery breath?”
“Strikes them dead with its stare,” said the dog sulkily. “And when I say dead, I mean Totally Dead. This is no dream. The monster is the only real thing in this region. You and I, we’re no more than charismas in the Land of Lost Dreams, but the Little King is flesh and blood and venom.”
Zozula stiffened. “The Little King...” he repeated softly. “The Basilisk... Yes, I’ve heard of the creature.”
“Is it bad?” The Girl sat on the riverbank, bathing her sore feet. The cool water didn’t seem to help.
“I don’t think so. The Basilisk never really existed. It was a mythical beast recurring from time to time in legend, a little changed in appearance each time. What it looks like now, I can’t imagine.”
“Like a dragon, and everybody knows what dragons look like. Something like a crocodile”—the dog seized on Zozula’s admission of ignorance—“and something like a giant bird with huge bristly wings. It’s ruled this region for ages, killing everything that comes near, even the grass under its feet.” Briefly the dog pawed the blackened ground. “And the eagles and the pterodactyls.”
“Ugh!” The Girl’s cry was not intended as a tribute to the fearsome nature of the Basilisk. She had scooped up a cupped handful of water and tried to drink it, then spat it out. “This water’s awful—it tastes bitter.”
“The Basilisk fouls the very rivers—”
“Enough of that! Let’s try to get some sense out of you.” Zozula interrupted the dog. “First of all—if the beast is so fearsome, how come you’re still alive?”
The dog seemed to cower, assuming a sloping posture, head down, tail between its wheels, rump high. “It’s because I’m not real. I’m not worthy of the Little King’s attention. And I travel at night, so that he can’t see me.”
“Then how do you know what he looks like?”
“I’ve seen him at dusk, silhouetted against the sky. I’ve seen him by moonlight, trying to mate with the Cactus Asp. I’ve heard his cries rolling across the land like storm waves. I’ve seen what he does—the dead things, the stink.
And the worst thing of all is that I’ve envied him. He’s real, like nothing else in this place.”
“I have to see this miraculous beast,” said Zozula skeptically.
They rested by the fouled river and felt the sharp pains of hunger. They hadn’t eaten for hours. But where could they find food in this burned and blasted land? Evening came and the dark hills closed around them and the river ran sluggishly past them like mercury, and just as poisonous. As the light failed, a cold mist arose from the surface, damp and choking, and Roller told them stories of the fantastic inhabitants of the Land of Lost Dreams—the cat-headed elephants and soft-bod
ied robots and walking bushes, and all the baroque things that humans had dreamed up in millennia of sleeping and that had been cast out by the Rainbow as being inappropriate to Composite Reality.
Zozula told the dog that all these things were not real.
“If they can kill me, then they’re real enough,” said Roller. “Shall we go now? It’s dark enough to be safe—although why you should want to take the chance is beyond me.”
Zozula couldn’t explain that, either. It was an urge, an itch, a giant curiosity. No doubt they could have taken a detour to the math creature, but he just had to see the Basilisk. Was his path being influenced just a little by Starquin?
The Girl complained. “I don’t want to walk just yet. Let’s find a cave and sleep, shall we?”
Zozula’s impatience got the better of him. “Listen to me. I’m not sitting by this stinking creek all night. I’m hungry and there’s no food around here, that’s for sure. And we can’t come to any harm in the dark because the Basilisk can’t see us (just supposing Roller is telling the truth, that is). And if he is telling the truth—well, we might come across a kill and find ourselves some venison for roasting! Now come on!”
He gestured them to their feet, then set off up the trail, followed by the dog. Roller’s bearings squealed and his wheels occasionally seized, sliding on the loose scree and dragging him to a temporary halt. He freed them by backing up, then scampering forward again. Zozula’s impatience grew with each occasion. The Girl took advantage of the delays to sink to the ground. Manuel remained standing, lost in a reverie of his own. Night flowed around them, cold and full of unfamiliar smells.
They saw only one other living creature on their journey to the Basilisk’s lair: a man, tall and muscular, striding toward them, passing them with barely a glance and disappearing into the night. Manuel, lagging behind with the Girl, caught an impression of dark hair and heavy brows, and of full lips in a half-smile, as though sharing a secret joke with the night air. He never knew why the Girl gasped and stopped dead, staring after the figure long after it had gone.
“Are you all right?”
“I... Yes.” Her face was even paler than normal and her plump arms quivered. “I’m fine. Stop staring at me, will you? Come on—we’re getting left behind. Without Roller, we’ll be lost.”
“We’re lost already, with or without Roller. I don’t think Zozula knows where he is. He’s just pretending. And anyway, we could hear Roller’s wheels squeaking a kilometer away.” Manuel was in a contrary mood, caught up in a quest of which he wanted no part.
In a moment of mutual unhappiness they stumbled forward and blundered into Zozula and the dog, who were standing tensely in the middle of the trail.
“Quiet!” Zozula warned them.
They froze and listened. The dark cliff of a steep hillside loomed below the stars, and they heard the sound of harsh breathing. They had reached the Basilisk’s lair.
The Basilisk
“Ha!”
It was a sharp exhalation. The Basilisk had scented them.
The dog gave a yelp of fright and cowered behind Zozula.
Manuel found the Girl’s hand in his, and was glad. They clung together. Only Zozula stood firm, secure in his long belief that he was immortal and invincible.
“Don’t be frightened,” Manuel whispered shakily to the Girl.
“Me, frightened? I can always wish the brute away—can’t I?”
Now they heard the Basilisk’s approach, a quick, pacing run, four claw-tipped legs moving swiftly in pairs, in fast rhythm, chik-chik-chik. The beast stopped and sniffed. They were aware of its smell pungent as the mist that had risen from the river. They could just discern its outline. It was not large, maybe about the size of a deer, but bulky, with four clawed legs set close together beneath a globular body. When the wings fluttered they sounded leathery rather than feathery, and they flapped the stink of the beast into Zozula’s face.
“Stop that!” he said sharply, as though addressing an errant pet. He felt Roller trembling against his legs and said, “It’s all right, boy. He can’t see you. He’s not going to strike you dead, if you want to believe all that stuff.”
The Basilisk sounded. A harsh screech pierced the night, followed by a chattering and gobbling.
“He’s saying we’re in his territory,” said the dog.
“You speak his language?”
“I... I suppose so. I can tell what he means, anyway.” After the Basilisk had made some more noises, Roller continued, “He says he’s king of the hills and we’ve offended him, and he wants to know why he shouldn’t strike us dead, right now.”
“Because it’s dark, that’s why,” said Zozula.
“He can follow us until daylight and then kill us.” The dog was so fearful it could hardly voice the words.
“A fine, spirited beast. Ask him how we can satisfy him.”
The dog whined and trembled and probably transmitted thought-images, because after a while the Basilisk began to reply.
“He says he’s roamed these hills for many years killing everything that moves, since that is his destiny. He says he’s at the height of his powers.” Indeed, the very ground seemed to vibrate with the dynamism of the Basilisk’s presence. “He says he is the superior in combat of any creature on Earth. But this very ability has its drawbacks. Recently he has been feeling urges that any lesser being would have had no difficulty in satisfying, but in his case it isn’t so easy. He desires a mate. He wishes to reproduce himself, many times over.”
“Are there no females around?”
“If there were, he would inadvertently strike them dead.”
“That’s quite a problem for him,” Zozula observed.
“He says it’s our problem too, because unless we find him a suitable mate, he’ll kill us. Two of us must search, the other two he will hold hostage. The hostages must stay in the dark at the back of his lair, where they’ll be unharmed. While they’re prisoners, they must devise a way for the Basilisk to sire offspring without killing his mate.”
Amused, Zozula said, “That sounds fair.”
“Who stays behind?” asked Manuel.
“You and the Girl. You lack courage, and she’s physically unfit for the search. Roller will be my guide.”
So Zozula and the dog set off on their quest. They traveled for many days and little is known of the strange things they saw. The Land of Lost Dreams is not endless, because it has only existed since the creation of Dream Earth. Nevertheless, there were at that time 80,000 years’ worth of rejected and homeless oddities wandering the limbo between the computer and the many happentracks of Reality. They were disorganized, anachronistic, often separated by relatively as much space as separates the particles within an atom—which is to say that you could walk a long way in the Land of Lost Dreams
without meeting a living thing. Not once during the journey did it occur to Zozula that there might be no such creature as a female Basilisk. He plodded on confidently, sustained by that sense of destiny that had possessed him ever since he had reincorporated the Girl from Dream Earth. The dog trotted behind, bearings squeaking continuously.
And on the eleventh day they found a female Basilisk.
She stood on a low hill, staring proudly around. Roller uttered a yelp of fear and hid behind Zozula, who strode forward confidently. The Basilisk was plump and of arrogant stance, and in the daylight they could see that her wings were in fact leathery like bats’ wings, although the ostrichlike body had a fair covering of metallic-green feathers. The four legs were stout, scaly and clawed like those of a turkey, and the tail was tipped with a villainous spike. The head was crocodilian, although it bore a scarlet comb like a rooster. She was a proud-looking creature.
She looked at Zozula. Her eye was red and fierce, but if Zozula felt any misgivings, they have not been recorded in song:
He faced the fiery Basilisk and stared it in the eye—
Zozula stood triumphant where a lesser man would die.
“See,” said Zozula, “it’s all superstition. There is no conceivable way in which one creature could kill another by the power of its eye alone. I hope we hear no more of this nonsense, Roller.”
“Why do you suppose the land is all charred?”
“Doesn’t it occur to you that there may have been a bush fire burning through here recently?”
“Look,” said Roller, “she’s eating a burned-up bird. How do you suppose she got hold of that?”
Zozula said patiently, “The bird flew into the fire and was burned by it. Or it flew over the fire and was asphyxiated by the smoke and fell. So the Basilisk eats it. Clearly, the creature is nothing more than a scavenger. Its gaze is harmless.”
“There is another explanation.”
“I doubt it. But you may tell me.”
“The bird was real, but you’re not. She can’t kill smallwishes.”
“Ridiculous!” Deeply offended, Zozula drew his cloak about himself. “Now, tell this creature our mission, before I take a stick to you!”
So the dog began to communicate in his mysterious way, and soon the Basilisk began to pay attention and to gobble and croak back. She shuffled her claws and pranced briefly, showing intense interest. Her eyes widened and blinked rapidly and she flapped her wings, but did not leave the ground. Roller cowered as he communicated, afraid that the Basilisk’s excitement might trigger the power to strike him dead.