by Robert Adams
The battered but still fearsome beast continued its now-cautious seeming advance. Fitz knew not whether the brain within its blocky head was of sufficient development to really lend it caution or if the lack of former speed and outward ferocity was the result of its succession of grievous injuries, pain and loss of blood, but the slight respite was welcome. At length, when the dragon had come within reach, it swiped at him with one clawed foreleg. Fitz, holding the hilt of his strange weapon with both hands much as he would have held a golf-club, the point almost touching the ground, swung the long, keen blade up and out in a circular slash that met the threatening talon in mid-swing and, to his surprise, severed it at its wrist. He recovered balance and blade-control just in time to wield it against the swiping of the thick, whiplike tail; it he did not completely sever, but the
great, gaping, blood-spouting wound that the katanga inflicted clearly crippled the member to some extent.
"Now what?" he gasped aloud to himself. "There's just no way for one, lone man with a sword to put down a dragon of that size and bulk—even crippled up like it is—without getting hurt himself. The tiling still has one good forepaw, not to mention the two big back ones and even if it can't bite anymore, the teeth, fangs, whatever, in that damned upper jaw could shred me in no time flat if it gets close enough to use them and I can't retreat without exposing this poor bastard here to the same thing. A sword just isn't long enough for this kind of work; what I need is one of those Nip spears."
After briefly applying the vision of its remaining eye and the sense of its mangled tongue to the blood-spurting stump where its right forefoot had so lately been, the remorseless reptile took yet another step toward the two-legged thief that was trying to steal its kill. But, abruptly, it halted and swivelled its gory head about so quickly and forcefully as to send an arc of red blood splattering out around it. A sizable drop caught Fitz full in the eye and he pawed frantically to clear it away, then he too looked toward the stream to see what had distracted the beast.
"If it's another one of these bastards, then my ass is grass, for sure. ..."
Sergeant Kiyomoto, his muscular legs working like pistons, came along the bank of the stream at a full run. He had heard the gunshots and recognized them for what they were—smoothbore rather thati rifle or pistol reports—he had never before heard of gods using shotguns, but he imagined that true gods more
or less made up their own rules as they went along. And why should they not so do?
His feet, thick-soled with callouses, spurned dry sand and gravel, splatting in mud and damp clay, and he bore the bronze axe easily in both his hands before him, at high-port, as if it had been a rifle; sharp-honed, blood-smeared blade-edge bearing forward. He had seen the god fly through the empty air, along the stream and around the bend and he ran in just such course, never casting even once glance back at the knot of spearmen, confident that the loyal, disciplined troops would follow wherever he or Lieutenant Kaoru might choose to lead.
As he rounded the bend, he caught sight of the god. Grasping Kaoru's katanga, the divine personage stood between the sprawled body of the lieutenant and a sizable dragon; that either the god or the officer had used the ancient blade well was evident from a single glance at the gashed and bleeding dragon.
Without breaking stride, the sergeant raced up to the side of the erect dragon and swung the bronze axe, driving the edge deep into the thick haunch— through scaley hide, through layered muscles—to finally reach and sever the tough tendon. The dragon's tail swept around to thud against the sergeant's legs; but the feet were firmly set down and, in any case, the buffet was a mere shadow of the tail-strength of an uninjured beast of the sort. Then, when the animal collapsed onto its belly and remaining two, sound legs, Fitz leaped forward and drove the point of the katanga straight through the snout in a spot he recalled having seen (through Kaorus' eyes, while
he was visiting in that young officer's mind) a spearman thrust his spear, thus pinning down the head long enough for Kiyomoto to step up and cleave the spine where it met the head of the dragon.
When he had jerked out the axe blade and stepped clear of the quivering, jerking body, Sergeant Kiyomoto bowed low in indication of his complete submission and awaited the commands of the newcome god. He was not at all surprised when the god spoke in Kiyamoto's own dialect of Japanese, did not even realize that he was not "hearing" the speech, not at first.
"Your officer took a nasty crack on the head, Sergeant," Fitz informed him. "It might be best to just make him comfortable and leave him prone until we can judge how badly he's injured."
When the last of the Norman retainers had fearfully, grudgingly followed the example and firm orders of their liege-lord, Sir Gautier de Montjoie, had bathed their bodies, hair and clothes in deodorant soap and icy water, the march was recommenced, cleaving to the marks hacked into the treetrunks by Fitz the day before. The blue lion took point, moving well out in advance of the van, occasionally within their sight, but usually not. Following as he was the fairly fresh scent of Fitz's passage, rather than advancing from tree-blaze to tree-blaze, Cool Blue moved faster and straighter than the Normans, far outstripping the men over and over again, then perforce having to wait for them to close.
Coming at a fast walk around a bend in the waterway, Sir Gautier suddenly found it necessary to plunge
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a foot nearly knee-deep in the muddy verge of the onrushing stream to avoid stepping on the blue lion. He swore a cracklingly blasphemous oath in Norman French and demanded, "Sir Lion, must you sprawl your ensorcelled, heathen bulk in the very path of Christian men?"
"If you sadass cats don't like lift up your boots a little faster," replied the lion telepathically, "we gone be like tomorrow catchin' up with ol' Fitz. You dig, man? And you don't want to travel or much less camp out and sleep in this here stretch any longer then you fuckin' got to, neither, man. This here's hostile territory with a like capital fuckin' H."
"What is your meaning, Sir Lion?" demanded the Norman knight. "Save for a seeming dearth of larger game, it appears a goodly and well-watered land."
"And that's all you know, buster," stated the blue lion, giving emphasis to his projected words and thoughts with short, powerful flicks of his tail. "And you stay 'round here too long, you'll find out just what I'm like talkin' the hard way, too. So hard a way that maybe not even you Norman dudes will like live to think about it, neither. You dig?"
hounds or coursing-cats yet spawned can ever prevail against Sir Gautier de Montjoie and his sturdy band of retainers."
The lion growled softly, low in his chest, then beamed. "It's just like I told ol' Fitz back at square one: you Norman fuckers is long on guts and damn near lacking brains altogether. Look, man I ain't talking dogs and cats, see? Hell, no, that kinda pets Saint-Germaine is got running around in this part of the country don't never run in bunches lessen Saint-Germaine sets them to, 'cause they don't like each other at all, man . . . 'cept to eat. Wanta see what they looks like?" The blue lion projected from his own memory the appearance of a huge, long, thick-bodied lizard, then added, "And, cat, they big—I mean like humongous!—take three, four your biggest dude and lay 'em out end to end and that's how long some them scaley fuckers gets. They can move fast-er'n you ever would b'lieve, faster'n you even wanta think about; yeah, they can't keep it up for too long at a time, but then they don't gotta, cause they lays in wait and picks the time and the place and the critter they're gonna jump, see. And they ain't like snakes and littler lizards and all what ain't worth a shit at nights and on cool days, see; they can see as good at night as a cat can and they don't need the sun to keep them warm, so they can come after you 'round the fuckin' clock."
The knight pinched his stubbled lower lip between two, grubby fingers, then nodded. "I thank you for the warning, Sir Lion. A creature five or six ells in length, empowered of such awesome speed and which hunts both by day and by night is indeed
much to be feared. We will from hence move in wa
riness of such creatures.
"But why are these beasts set here to roam, then, are they the wardens of the marches of the noble Comte, perhap?"
The blue lion arose to his feet and, while stretching fore and aft in typical feline manner, then yawning prodigiously, replied, "Hell, man, like I dunno. I ain't no bunghole buddy of that goddam Saint-Germaine, see, not no way, man. I only know them fuckers and where they stomps on account of that friggin' carrotpuller, he set them to chase me out after he'd done put me in this damn lion-rig, see. And I come right through this damn glen, too; if you and your dudes hadn't of gone up that bluff when you landed here, if you'd of come this way, instead, chances are wouldn't be none of you left un-et, by now, you know.
"If you do have to camp out here, you better plan on climbin' up trees and sleepin' there, see. They can stand up and walk and all on their hind legs, but they can't seem to climb any tree that ain't got lotsa thick branches and limbs low down for them to step up on, they can't none of the fuckers shinny and they all built the wrong way, looks like, to do much jumpin', too.
"Look, you and your dudes couid move lots faster if you'd do like me and keep down here where it's flatlike, 'stead of up on the ridge looking for trees been hacked on. Ol' Fitz ain't' dumb . . . mostly, and you can bet your ass he picked the easiest way to go, see. I'd damn sure rather catch up to him and his
guns before we come on one them fuekin' badass lizards, and that's for damn sure, man."
The group of spearmen who set about butchering the dragon slain by Fitz and their sergeant did so in unaccustomed silence; none of their usual jabbering and joking and horseplay could be seen or heard. Only Sergeant Kiyamoto had witnessed the white man soar to the aid of the downed officer, but one and all had seen him rise unaided from the ground beside the dead carcass of the dragon and move swiftly through the empty air to a point high in a huge tree, then return with a medical kit and certain other objects. To state that the experience had left them all abashed would have been to utter the grossest of understatements.
Kiyamoto, on the other hand, who had been prepared in advance by his dreams and his earlier priestly training, rendered the newcome god all due respect and deference, but otherwise felt and gave the appearance of behaving much as was normal of him. He sent one party of the spearmen to work on this dragon and the rest back upstream to finish butchering the first, while fending off any inroads of possible scavengers drawn by the smell of spilled blood.
With the assigned details underway, the stocky noncom came back to squat near where the god knelt by the unconscious form of the lieutenant, his sure, white hands applying field treatment to the young man's hurts. When the god had elevated Kaoru's feet, loosely bandaged his head-wound, sponged blood, sweat and dirt from his face and covered him from feet to neck with a sheet of what looked to Kiyamoto
like seamless eelskin, he took a long pull from his canteen, then offered the bottle.
Hesitantly, diffidently, Kiyamoto took the preferred refreshment, thinking, "I, a mere man, to touch my human lips where those of a god have just rested . . . ? How can I essay such sacrilege? It is not right, not at all proper." And so he just squatted there, reverently holding the water bottle as if it were some sacred and irreplaceable relic.
Fitz entered the stocky man's mind, found the reason he refrained from drinking the water his body obviously craved and spoke to him in blunt gentleness. "Sergeant Kiyamoto, despite appearances, I am only a man, no whit different in most ways from you or this young man or any of your soldiers. Yes, since first I set foot into this land that I am told is called Tirnann-n-Og, I have been finding within myself, or developing—and I'm not yet sure just which of those two choices it really is—strange and miraculous powers.
"The first of these talents was this ability to speak or, rather, to communicate mind-to-mind with men and some animals, as I am now communicating with you whose language I do not speak at all. As possibly a part of that previously unsuspected talent, I have found, too that I can secretly enter the minds of men and scan their memories and innermost thoughts without their knowledge. Thus, I know them oftimes betters than they know themselves, and could easily manipulate them if I so chose . . . though I have not done so, to date.
"More recently, I have learned that I possess the abilities, under certain conditions, to move myself,
other persons and inanimate objects through the empty air from place to place, to "fly," as it were. Please don't ask me how I can do this, Sergeant, for I have no idea how I do, I just have come to know that I can. However, I do not consider these abilities to be in any way, shape or form god-like. I am no god, just a man."
But even as he spoke the words, he could not but wonder if they were in fact truth. Tom . . . Puss . . . the grey, panther-size cat who came of some nights and communicated with him telepathically (in dreams?), was always assuring him that he was not a mere man, never had been, not really, and that the longer he stayed in this land or world or whatever, the less like a mortal man he would be.
"Tir-nann-n-Og . . . ?" questioned Kiyamoto. "What do the words mean? The lieutenant here, despite everything, maintains that we are still in Burma and that the stream, yonder, is a tributary of the Irrawaddy River."
"And you do not agree with him," stated Fitz. "Well, you, not he, are right, Sergeant. You're also right about the passage of time; the mules did, indeed, die of old age." At the noncom's look of astounded surprise, Fitz smiled and beamed. "Remember, I told you that I could enter the minds of others, bide unsuspected therein and sift through their memories? Well, I did just that in the case of Lieutenant Kaoru, here, while my body lay hidden high in a huge tree near where you all killed the first dragon this morning.
"But back to the point: yes, you are correct. When I entered this place, that war had been over for more
than thirty years. Italy was the first of the Axis powers to surrender, then Germany and, finally, Japan. I, too, fought in that war, Sergeant, as a younger man, of course. I fought the Japanese Army, but on the Pacific Ocean islands, not in Burma."
"As a younger man?" queried Kiyamoto, slowly. "Just how old are you, now, then?"
"I'll soon be fifty-seven years old. I was in my twenties when I fought in that war, in the United States Marine Corps," answered Fitz, readily.
The noncom stared at him for a long moment, then said, "Your race must age differently than mine, then, for you look to be no more than thirty years old . . . perhaps a little more than that, but not many."
Fitz nodded and said, gently, "I can understand and appreciate your doubts, Sergeant. Believe me, when first I set foot here I did truly look my fifty-odd years, that and more. But before you keep on silently questioning my veracity, go down to a still backwater of the stream and look closely at your reflection, calculate your own age and imagine how you ought to look . . . how you should look and don't. Look at the lieutenant, look at your men. Tirnann-n-Og means, in Old Gaelic, Land of the Young. Humans residing in this place apparently fail to age and in the cases of some, the aging process is even reversed, it would seem."
Kiyamoto looked down at his strong, scarred hands, thinking that yes, assuredly, they were not those of a man of advanced years. Nonetheless . . . He shook his head, "It seems impossible."
"It is!" agreed Fitz. "Yet it happened; it's going on
right now for you, me, all the rest. And we, here, aren't all or even the most extreme cases. Somewhere, roaming around in this place are a Norman knight and his band of armed retainers. He and his men are firmly convinced that they are all somewhere in the countryside of Syria, on their way to free the City of Jerusalem from the Moslems during the First Crusade, which occurred nearly nine-hundred years ago, Sergeant. None of them has aged, either, in all that time. True, some have died fighting beasts, but none of the survivors of the original band looks a year older than when first they literally fell into this place almost a millenium ago. And, just like the lieutenant averred when you spoke to him on the matter of the mules, that hon
est young knight is of the firm opinion that he and his have been here in this place for no longer than a year or, perhaps, two.
"Now, true, these men all are unlettered—I doubt that Sir Gautier de Montjoie can write so much as his name—but lack of sophistication does not always mean lack of intelligence, as you know. Sir Gautier is possessed of a fine, intuitive mind, just like Lieutenant Kaoru's and yours, so I suspect that there is something in or about this place that warps a man's sense of elapsed time."
Kiyamoto nodded slowly as he "heard" and absorbed the thoughts of the white man, then said, "Yes, that last well could be. I, too, weighed out a similar thought when first I came to the realization that none of the men and, indeed, not even the lieutenant, himself, seemed to understand just how long a time we had been in this place, that this place was not only not Burma, but not even a part of the
ordinary world of mortal men. Although I ended by speaking of all this to the lieutenant, I have said little to the men, in general, for their morale is still mostly good and they continue to talk among themselves of their plans when they return to Japan . . . after our victory and the end of the war. I think that it would adversely affect discipline to detail my suppositions to them."
He paused for a moment, then asked, "Please tell me. You say you took part in, fought as a marine soldier in the war and that my land suffered defeat in the end. Was it an honorable surrender following defeats in the field or ... or was it a forced capitulation come out of an invasion of the Home Islands?"
