The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  Sudden watched her go. He stiffened. “That’s strange.”

  “What’s strange?”

  “Oh... just for a moment, I thought...”

  He didn’t tell Enchantress, because he didn’t want to appear a fool. He could have been mistaken. Funny things happen to the mind on a tiny asteroid.

  Just for a moment, he thought he’d seen Maya disappear into a kind of purple tent, but then the tent had gone. It must have been a mirage.

  The Blind Man

  He was a nightmare dreamed up by the humans of Dream Earth. He was created that way, and endowed with all the trappings of evil like the model he was based upon, a fictional character from long ago. Nobody knows why he was created, unless it was to satisfy some deep human urge to be frightened—that urge that causes children to be fascinated by monsters. Or unless, again, it was to stave off the simple tedium of Dream Earth.

  Many people were involved in the nightmare and each contributed horrors from the depths of his soul, dreaming together in some blazing chasm of imagined hell. They added a feature here and a characteristic there, dank clothing and a fetid odor, and then they turned the creature loose—relatively formless, but a conglomeration of evil traits. Other dreamers came upon the thing and saw it through their own eyes, and it so happened that it made a connection in their minds, and gradually an appropriate image began to solidify; and the blind man began tapping his way around the hills and valleys of Dream Earth.

  He added piquancy to the existence of the Dreamers. They would taunt him and occasionally trip him, while he, face contorted with diabolical rage, would lash out blindly with his stick, hissing oaths. And his tormentors would back off, hugging themselves with fear and delight. For a while this was fun. But as time went by, the curious logic of Dream Earth began to assert itself and the blind man evolved an unusual protective instinct. A Mohor noticed it first, but without recognizing it. This bogus emperor from the Second Dark Age strode up to the blind man, intending to scorch him a little with his pistola. The blind man skipped aside.

  “He can see!” said the Mohor, surprised. “The blind man’s getting his sight back. Who’s been fooling around here?”

  “I’ll soon put it right,” said a Nrindella who had psy to spare. She smallwished.

  Experimentally, the Mohor aimed his pistola again. By this time the blind man’s rage and language were becoming unnerving.

  The blind man knocked the pistola to the ground with a sweeping blow of his stick before the Mohor had time to press the button.

  “So much for your psy,” said the Mohor to the Nrindella. “Come on, let’s get back to Ahamat. The blind man’s no fun anymore.”

  They disappeared—but the blind man didn’t know this. For several moments he stood there tense, stick held ready, face questing emptily this way and that. Because he could not see. He had never been able to see.

  What he could do, was to anticipate. Only on Dream Earth could such a propensity have developed. In order to save himself from injury, the blind man could see into the Ifalong for just a couple of seconds. Just enough to be able to recognize imminent danger and to avert it. A small enough gift in all the wonders of Dream Earth, but one that was of great value to its possessor.

  And ultimately of great value to Starquin...

  So the blind man became a nuisance, gate-crashing parties, annoying and frightening people, making them impervious to their smallwishes because of the very strength of his image. In the end the Rainbow had to take a hand because there was some suggestion that the blind man was actually gaining the power to corrupt people and was gathering around himself a noisome coterie of castoff smallwishes: demons and witches and dwarves.

  So the Rainbow banished the blind man to the Land of Lost Dreams.

  Before he went he had found his identity. It happened quite unexpectedly as he awaited his exile. The Celestial Steam Locomotive rolled into its ghostly station, and the driver, leaning from the cab, called out his jovial invitation.

  “All aboard, shipmates!”

  Then Silver saw the blind man and his face paled, and his hand, trembling violently, reached for the rum bottle.

  “By the Powers,” he whispered. “It’s Blind Pew!”

  The Girl never had a chance. Bone-weary, hungry, thirsty, yet determined to get out of the Land of Lost Dreams and back to reality, she stumbled up yet another hill. She would have to rest soon, she knew, but meanwhile she would keep going, buoyed up by her new resolve: never to complain again, never to fall into the Swamp of Submission, never to listen to the May Bees.

  She passed a rock face. She didn’t see the cave at first, so the sudden voice, though soft-spoken, gave her a bad scare.

  “Will some kind person help a poor blind man?”

  Now she could make out a shadowy figure standing just inside the cave entrance. “What do you want?”

  “Just a little help along the way. I’m lost, ye see—and ‘tis a lonely thing to be blind and lost. Now—ye have a kindly and clever voice, and ye can set me on me way again, I’ll be bound.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Just give me yer hand and point the way south, that’s all I ask.”

  The Girl reached toward the dim figure, touching it gently.

  Instantly a skinny hand shot out and fastened on her arm.

  “Ah-hah! What have we here? A lass, or is it a lad? It has meat aplenty on its bones, whatever it is!”

  And the vile, skeletal hand began to explore further. The Girl resisted strongly, wriggling, trying to twist away from the arm that had been thrown around her waist—in vain, because she was quickly drawn off balance into the gloom of the cave. “Let me go!” she cried, kicking. Her heel smacked into a knife-edged shin.

  “Damn ye!”

  She was thrown to the ground and she hit her head against the rock wall. When the tears of pain cleared from her eyes, she stared in horror and disgust.

  The creature who scuttled about the cave was quite the most dreadful thing she’d ever seen. Hunched, clothed in a tattered black cloak like some monstrous vulture, it seemed barely human. It scurried crablike to and fro, scattering twigs on the foul floor of the cave, muttering to itself, occasionally pausing and cocking a sightless eye in her direction. A shapeless black hat emphasized the rolling pallor of the eyes.

  Coarse stubble covered the chin and, adding somehow to the appalling grotesqueness of the creature, a green eyeshade was fastened across the forehead. The thing paused again and the head turned toward the Girl. Toothless gums bared.

  “Mebbe now I’ll knock some o’ the spirit out of ye, lass!”

  So saying, the blind man snatched up a stick from against the wall and began to thrash away in the general direction of the Girl, crabbing toward her, meanwhile uttering cries of rage as though the very act of lashing out served to increase his fury. Many of the blows clattered against rock, but quite a number struck the Girl as she tried to roll away. At last, sobbing with

  exertion, the man hurled down the stick and took up a coil of rope. Seizing the Girl by the leg, he threw two loops around her body before tying a rapid knot. He then secured the other end around his waist.

  “Now, me beauty,” he said, “I’ve got meself a pair of eyes!”

  It had all happened too quickly for the Girl, exhausted as she was. Lying there helpless and bruised while the blind man resumed his odd occupation of scattering twigs, she felt great sobs of despair welling up inside her. Forcing herself to be brave and to remember the lesson of the swamp, she said in a voice that she couldn’t quite hold steady:

  “I’m not going to help you in any way at all.”

  Then she waited, shivering, for the next outburst.

  Instead, the blind man said quite softly, and all the more threateningly for it, “I’ll be the judge o’ that, me lass.” He squatted before her, drawing the rope until it tightened and he could place her exact whereabouts. His eyes rolled toward her. “Now, you and me, we’re going to have a little talk. First off
, how did ye get here, eh?”

  “I... I walked,” the Girl found herself saying. The cave stank and the blind man stank worse. She swallowed heavily.

  “I know that, me beauty,” purred the man. “But before that, now. How did ye arrive on this strange shore, eh?”

  “We came by the Train, Zozula and Manuel and I.” The Girl’s eyes filled with tears as she thought about the other two. Suddenly furious with her own weakness, she added loudly, “And they’re right behind me—they’ll be here in just a moment. I can tell you—they’ll be pretty mad when they find out what you’ve done to me. You’d better let me go right now!”

  “The Train, eh?” said the blind man quietly, and the Girl shuddered at the suppressed venom in the words. “And who might the driver of the Locomotive have been, lass?” He took up his stick, slapping it gently against his palm.

  “S-Silver.”

  “Silver, is it? Long John hisself, is it?” The voice was a roar of rage and the Girl flinched as the blind man leaped to his feet. His hat fell over his eyes and he pushed it back, revealing wispy yellowing hair. “Well, that for Long John Silver!” and he swung the stick in a murderous arc that would have split the Girl’s skull if she hadn’t jerked back. He crouched again, breathing heavily, muttering to himself. “Silver, still driving... By the Powers! This is a piece o’ luck, and no bones about it! This lass here, she could be me ticket...” He snapped the rope taut so that the Girl fell against him. Then he took her by the shoulders, his sightless eyes a few centimeters from hers. “Did Silver speak of me, lass? Pew’s the name. Did ye ever hear him speak o’ Blind Pew?”

  “No. Never.”

  “And likely he wouldn’t. For what he did to me, no man ought ever to do to a shipmate. Base treachery, ’twas!” The fury took hold of him again and he shook the Girl violently. “He tricked me, he did! He took advantage of me poor infirmity, and marooned me on this blasted land! He...” Pew was trembling with rage now. “He took me ashore saying there was gold here—then he slipped back into that Locomotive and away before ye could take a turn around a bollard! Left me here all these thirty year, he did, with nothing but the rats for company—and some creatures stranger than rats!”

  Now his voice dropped to a quiet, almost conversational tone. “But now ye’re here, lass, and now I’ve got eyes. So now ye’ll take me back to Mister John Silver, and I’ll settle the score!”

  Cold Fire

  “But I don’t know where to find the Locomotive.”

  It was morning, after the worst night of the Girl’s life. Twice she’d slipped her bonds and crept toward the cave entrance, and twice a twig had snapped under her step. Pew had flung himself at her, cursing, and thrown her to the back of the cave. Bruised, exhausted and weak, she shrank back as the blind man thrust his face into hers.

  “Cold fire, lass—cold fire. Find the cold fire, then ye’ll know the Locomotive is no more’n a cable’s length away.” He winked, one lid closing over a sightless orb.

  “Cold fire?”

  “Ye’ll know it, lass. Ye’ll know it when ye see it.”

  So they set off across the Land of Lost Dreams, the Girl leading, Blind Pew behind, one skeletal hand on the rope to detect any attempt at loosening the knots. The morning sun slanted across the rocky terrain, casting harsh shadows, picking out the occasional lonely creature that watched their passing.

  “Cold fire...” Pew muttered frequently. “Watch for the cold fire, lass.”

  The Girl plodded on, her mind filled with a horror of the loathsome creature at her heels. He seemed to have anticipated her every move, so far. How could she possibly escape?

  Later that morning she saw her chance. The trail wound into a valley littered with boulders and slashed with crevasses. Rolling pebbles made walking difficult and several times she almost fell, although the blind man seemed as nimble as a goat. In due course, however, the Girl saw what she was looking for.

  A deep crevasse ran beside the trail.

  She couldn’t see the bottom. The gash in the valley floor was jagged and several meters across—except in one place where the two walls almost met. And it would be possible to step across...

  Could she kill a human being?

  She walked on robotlike, thoughts chasing through her mind. Pew was not human. He was the quintessence of evil, created by human minds. If she owed any duty to Mankind, it was to destroy this monstrous thing... Yet she hesitated.

  She reached the overhanging lip.

  She arrived at a decision. She stepped across—and changed direction instantly, so that the lay of the rope led Pew to a wider gap. She kept the rope taut.

  Pew shambled toward her—toward the drop—mumbling. He was two meters away, one meter. He took another step. His cloak flapped in the breeze like bats’ wings.

  He paused.

  “Hello...” he said quietly. “What’s this? What’s this, lass? Mutiny, is it?” Under the green eyeshade, the eyes were blinking rapidly. The stick tip-tapped on the ground, rang on rock, then hovered over nothingness, stabbing at air. The tone became wheedling. “Ye’d try to harm an old man who gave the sight of his eyes in gracious defense of his native country? Shame on ye, I say. Now I asks ye, lass. Fair’s fair. Is this just deserts for a loyal old sailor?”

  And so saying, he gave a great tug on the rope.

  The Girl staggered to the brink.

  “Is this just deserts?”

  “No! Stop! I’m sorry, really I am!”

  “Then come over here, lass. Step lively, now!” Pew jerked the rope.

  Trembling, the Girl edged along, reached the lip, stepped across. Pew drew her close to gauge the distance, then pushed her roughly away and swung the stick in a wide arc. The Girl tried to jerk back, but the rope hampered her and the blow slashed across her shoulders. Pew bellowed and swung again. This time the Girl received a glancing blow across the temple and fell to the ground half stunned. Pew swiped at empty space, swore in frustration and jabbed around to relocate his target.

  The Land of Lost Dreams swam around the Girl. She only half saw the nightmare figure of Pew as he towered over her like a hunched bird of prey, eyes rolling. Consciousness was slipping away from her, the world receded, to be replaced by a vision: a rock, smooth and eerily glowing. The rock was somehow important and it stood before her like a signpost, somewhere behind the flailing, flapping figure of Pew.

  She had to reach that rock...

  “Eh? What’s that ye say, lass?” Pew dropped beside her, suddenly changed, suddenly tense.

  “The rock, the glowing rock... I must reach the rock...”

  “By the Powers,” muttered Pew. “Cold fire! Ye see it, lass? Where is it?” He seized her hand. “Take me to it!”

  “I can’t... I can’t move...” She tried to rise, then fell back, sick. The vision was fading. She would never reach it now.

  “Point it out, lass!” Pew was beside himself with urgency, plucking at her hand.

  She gestured toward the ghostly glow.

  Gibbering with excitement, Pew fumbled at the rope, freed himself and set off across the broken ground at a shambling run.

  The Girl gathered in the loose end of the rope, hardly aware of what she was doing, hardly aware that she was free. She closed her eyes and lay there quietly. There was no urgency anymore; she couldn’t see the rock now.

  And out there across the valley, Pew’s excitement was gradually changing to rage. He quested this way and that, tripping over rocks as his precognition failed him, hugging boulders, only to reject them, slashing with his stick. In the end he gave one roar, then in ominous silence began to tap his way back to the Girl.

  She lay with eyes closed tightly, listening to the crunch of feet on gravel, the ringing of stick on rock, the steps gradually coming closer, and she didn’t dare look. She felt a hardness against her back as she pressed herself against an overhanging boulder. Her thumb crept into her mouth and she made little cooing noises of absolute terror as the centuries dropped away fr
om her, leaving her a defenseless, crying baby in the unforgiving harshness of the Land of Lost Dreams.

  And Pew drew near. He was deathly quiet. No shouting, not even the pant of his breath. Just the tap-tap of his stick on rock, and those footsteps, crunching close.

  He stopped. There was no sound anywhere in the land, just a giant waiting silence.

  And then the tapping started again, and the footsteps crunched. But this time they were receding, going away, disappearing.

  The Math Creature

  Where in hell have they gone?” grumbled Zozula after he’d searched the immediate vicinity. “They ought to have more sense than to wander off like that. And the Girl was sick, too. They’ll get lost, without me to show them the way.”

  “I’m still here,” said Roller.

  “You and I are going to have to leave, dog. I must get back to the console and try to locate them. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing. Perhaps the poison from the May Bees affected them both.”

  The dog said, “They died and became spirits.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “They did!” The dog danced his front feet in frustration. “I saw it! They got up and walked away into the night mist, and never came back. If that isn’t dying I don’t know what is.” “All right. Have it your own way. Now, you’ll show me the way to the Train, dog, and none of your excuses.”

  The dog led Zozula in a direction he judged to be north, through barren dusty valleys, beside dried-up watercourses. As they walked, the hills on either side became steeper and the ground beneath their feet more level. The curve of the sky flattened out so that they seemed to be walking in a box. It was an eerie sensation, and after a while Zozula questioned the dog.

  “Are you sure this is the way?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Roller replied. “Do you think I can’t recognize my own master’s handiwork?”

  Now they were approaching a vertical slit where the valley walls converged. The dog bounded forward. His spirits had been rising steadily ever since the ground had hardened to a smooth glassiness. “My master makes it easy for me, you see!” he cried. “When I’m in his land, my wheels don’t bog down and I don’t have to climb hills. That’s why I love him!”