The fisherman had heard many tales about the afterlife, but none that he held certain. Some said the afterlife was a paradise, and some said there was a court of the gods that passed judgment on the lives of mortals. Some said there was no afterlife, and others said that the life we knew was merely a dream from which death awakened us. He had heard tales of a hole in the sky that led to the land of the dead, or the kingdom of the dead, and the letter from his beloved had called it the Isle of the Dead, as had the pelican. But in all his travels he had never heard any mention of the Kiamah beast.
“And where is this beast?” the fisherman asked.
“Why, all around us,” the frigate bird said, spreading his wings. “He is invisible during the day, but at night, you will see we are inside him. Up there, where you see the sun, his great heart beats all night long.”
Either this frigate bird was a part of the bewitchment, or his words were proof that what the fisherman had seen through the cormorant’s spectacles was real. But the fisherman was a stranger in a strange land, and far from having his bearings.
“You are uncommonly large for a frigate bird,” the fisherman said. “Do you know the other birds here?”
“Oh yes,” said the frigate bird. “We are old friends.”
“Tell me, what manner of beings are you?” said the fisherman. “Are you gods?”
The frigate bird cocked his head to the side, as if to consider how best to answer. “Demigods might be closer to the truth,” said he.
Gods, demigods, or monsters, they were trouble, or so thought the fisherman. Still, this one was a likeable fellow, and he seemed honest enough, even if he had the bearing of a pirate.
“And where,” the fisherman asked, “are we at this moment? Is this really the Isle of the Dead?”
“Of course it is, pilgrim. Of course it is.”
“If this is the Isle of the Dead,” the fisherman asked, “where are the dead? I seek my beloved, who has preceded me here.”
Before the frigate bird could answer, the crow came walking up to the fisherman’s fire, trailed by the pelican and the cormorant, who walked with their heads down and bobbing, as if in obeisance to the crow. They circled the fisherman’s fire once, the crow looking at it first with one eye and then the other, and then they stopped.
“Ahoy, Cousin Cormorant,” the frigate bird said. “Ahoy, Cousin Pelican, and Cousin Crow.”
“Greetings and salutations, my peripatetic friend,” the cormorant said, “or perhaps I should say volapatetic.”
“Halloo, Cousin,” the pelican said, shuffling his broad webbed feet and hopping with pleasure at the frigate bird’s arrival.
But the crow merely cawed, kiaww-aw-aw-aw, his tone peevish, as if the frigate bird’s friendly greeting were unwelcome. “Quite the fire you’ve got going here,” the crow said.
The cormorant and the pelican preened, stroking their feathers with their bills, all the while keeping a close eye on the crow. Both of them had bare patches of bloodied skin at their necks and on their breasts.
The fisherman kept his distance and said nothing. A dangerous bird, this one, and a quick one to strike the first blow. The fisherman had an urge to cover his eyes with his hands, but he resisted, not wanting to show the crow any weakness.
The crow stopped on the other side of the fire. “Would you mind telling us, O great keeper of the flame,” the crow said, his voice now artful and flattering, “how you got it started?”
The fisherman considered this wheedling request. So now he was a keeper of the flame rather than a foul pile of whale ordure. Perhaps there was some leverage in that.
“I have my ways,” the fisherman said. He poked at his fire with a stick, arranging the burning embers for cooking.
“A lovely thing, a fire,” the crow said. He eyed the pile of clams at the fisherman’s feet. “Getting ready for a meal, are we?”
The fisherman squatted and felt the heat coming off the coals with his hands. He looked at the crow and nodded. The crow was hinting that he was hungry. Here was the way to open negotiations.
“May I offer you a clam?”
The pelican and the cormorant stopped preening themselves, and looked at each other as if they were about to speak. The crow spread his wings and flapped them once. “Kiaw!” the crow cawed. “Quiet!” He began scratching in the sand on the other side of the fire.
“Going to cook those clams?” he said. “I prefer mine raw. Toss me one, will you?”
The fisherman did so. The crow snatched the clam out of the air with his beak. Behind the crow the cormorant and the pelican clucked amongst themselves, but as they were speaking in the lingua franca of birds, the fisherman couldn’t make out what they were saying. In the tree above him the frigate bird spread his wings wide and flapped them in agitation, as if he wanted to swoop down and steal the clam from the crow. They called this crow an imposter, and spoke ill of him to his face, but still, he held some sway over them. He’d pecked them into submission, by the look of it.
The crow dropped his clam to the sand, and he bent down and prised it open with the tip of his beak. Clever bird, the fisherman thought. His stomach growled again. It was time to put his clams on the fire. He gathered up a few of them, but before he could drop them on the coals, the crow scooped the clam out of his clamshell, and he came round the fire with it in his beak. The fisherman stepped back, but the crow came right up to him. He turned his head from side to side, showing the clam to the fisherman. The pelican and the cormorant chuttered in alarm behind him.
This was no common clam. This was a clam with two arms, and two legs, and the body of a woman, and she stretched her arms and yawned as if she were waking from a very long sleep. She was unclothed and shapely, her skin was a pale gray like an oyster, and wet and shiny in the sunlight. She opened her eyes, her face as delicate as a porcelain doll’s, and for a moment she looked right at the fisherman, her lips parted as if she were about to speak. And then the crow swallowed her whole.
“Soul of the dead,” the crow said, and he laughed, “aw aw aw aw aw. Tasty little morsels. Was it anybody you knew?”
Souls of the dead? Had he just glimpsed his beloved’s soul? The fisherman screamed. The clams fell from his hands. Something wretched rose in his gorge, and his stomach heaved. Only bile came up. He leaned over and let it spill forth from his lips, only to see it land on the clams at his feet. Unspeakable desecration, yet he had not meant it so. A chill wracked his body, and his shoulders shook. He was in the company of monsters, and they had made him behave monstrously.
“Awww,” the crow said, “poor fellow. Was it something I ate?” Again that cruel laugh—aw aw aw aw aw—the crow’s beak wide and his open gorge red and slick. “Fiend,” the cormorant said. “Barbarian.” And he came round the fire with his wings spread, beating at the crow, who fell back, still laughing. Tears fell from the pelican’s eyes. “How could you?” he said. “That soul will never be reborn again.”
The crow turned his back to them and hopped away, and then he snatched another clam from the pile and flew off.
The fisherman fell to his knees. He picked up a clam and wiped it clean on his breeches. He gazed at it. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Have I come all this way,” said he, “only to see my beloved devoured by that hellish bird?”
The pelican cooed soothingly. “No, I think not. The chances are slim.”
The fisherman picked up another clam, and he held one in each hand, and he looked from one to the other. “Is this my beloved?” he said. “Or this?”
“Only the crow knows for sure,” the cormorant said. He dug his bill into his chest feathers, preening them with quick, practiced strokes.
“Did he just eat her?” the fisherman shrieked. “Did he just fly off with her?”
“How has your luck been running lately?” the cormorant said. The pelican stepped forward and spread his wings, showing the backside of one of them to the cormorant. “What my friend means to say,” the pelican cooed, “is that there
are as many clams on this beach as there are grains of sand. So there’s no point in worrying yourself. We’re sure she’s here, and we’ll help you find her.”
“Is that the royal—?” Before the cormorant could finish, the pelican shoved his wing into the cormorant’s open mouth, and gave the bird a look to silence him. The cormorant screeched, and he flapped his wings and flew off.
“How?” the fisherman said. He sat on the sand, looking carefully at each clam in his pile. He might as well have been trying to guess the sex of a chicken by looking at an egg. One by one he put the clams down, arranging them in rows on the sand. “How the devil do we find her?”
The pelican, his wings folded now, stretched his neck out and bent down to look at the clams, regarding them with first one yellow eye and then the other. “I wish I could tell you,” he said, “and yet I have no answer for you.” He cooed, perhaps as much to soothe himself as to calm the fisherman.
The frigate bird spoke from his perch above them. “Remember, you have something the crow needs,” he said. “If the crow fails to light the sacred fire again, the Kiamah beast will be angry with him.”
The fisherman looked up at the sky, where the crow circled far above them. “Crow,” he called out, “come down here. Perhaps we can help each other.”
The crow flew lower and lower, spiraling down through the air. He still had the clam he’d snatched, gripped in his claws. “A bargain?” the crow called down. “You wish to offer me a bargain?” He flew at treetop level, still circling, and then, as he flew over some rocks, he let go of the clam. The fisherman sprang to his feet, but there was no way he could catch the clam before it hit the rocks and broke open. When he reached it the tiny creature inside was gasping for air, a shard of clamshell protruding from his belly. This one was an old man, who rolled onto his side and drew his knees up to his chest. And then he breathed no more, and was still.
The crow landed next to the fisherman, and he began to strut back and forth like a sea captain on the deck of a ship. “You see how it is,” the crow said. “I’m the only one who can find her for you. You’d best give me what I want.”
“And what is that?” the fisherman said.
“Why, your fire of course.” The crow hopped up on a driftwood log, and now loomed over the fisherman. His crow feet edged sideways until he stood in the smoke from the fire. “Awww,” the crow said. “Love that smell.”
“Show me my beloved,” the fisherman said, “and I’ll give you my fire.”
“Perhaps,” the crow said. “Or perhaps I’ll just steal your fire and be done with you.”
The cormorant dropped out of the sky and landed between the crow and the fire. “Fair’s fair,” the cormorant said, “and thievery is the work of a knave. Steal the fire, and you will only prove yourself a scoundrel. Would the true King of the Dead stoop so low?”
The crow puffed up his shiny chest feathers, and fixed one haughty eye on the cormorant. “You’ve no right to judge me,” the crow said, “but as to the matter at hand, if Señor Stercutius{2} here gives me his fire, I’ll dig up his beloved’s clam.”
“She is alive then?” said the fisherman. “You haven’t eaten her?”
“You’re on the Isle of the Dead, fool,” the crow said, “your beloved is most certainly deceased. As you will be too, soon enough.” The crow hopped down from the driftwood log, muttering to himself that a live human on this shore was blasphemy, and an affront to the King of the Dead. He paced back and forth, cawing in a most ugly and threatening manner. They all watched him, the fisherman feeling his patience spooling out like a fishing line, the pelican embarrassed by this treatment of a guest, and the cormorant affronted by the crow’s ignoble behavior. Kiaww, the crow muttered on, why should the King of the Dead have to barter for fire with a mere human? It was an insult on top of the blasphemy.
“Oh, shut up,” the frigate bird said. “He means is her soul still alive, you barnacle brain.”
“Her soul?” the crow said. “That slimy little morsel? Of course it’s still alive. Although why you attach such significance to it is beyond me.”
“You know why,” the pelican said. “The clams are part of the cycle. And to eat a soul”—and here, the pelican shuddered—“why, that’s the real blasphemy here.”
“Just so,” the cormorant said, “our charge here is to serve the transmigration of souls from one life to the next. Ergo, no souls, no canoe coming at midnight, and no canoe leaving at dawn. And no reason for us to be here.”
Ah, the fisherman thought. This business of souls and clams was all new to him, but the comings and goings of boats were always a good thing to know.
“So my beloved’s soul is still alive,” the fisherman said, “and you can produce it.”
The crow stopped his pacing, and with one black eye he regarded the fisherman as if he were an insect. “Yes, dung beetle, I said I would dig it up.”
“Do you swear on the Kiamah’s snout?” said the cormorant.
“I so swear,” said the crow.
“So be it,” said the fisherman. This was no time to take offense at yet another insult from this insufferable bird. “The fire is yours.”
And so the deal was struck. The fisherman was required to keep his fire going while the crow searched for the soul of his beloved, and the crow was made to promise that he would return by sunset with the right clam. The crow flew off, leaving the pelican, the cormorant, and the frigate bird with the fisherman.
“That crow,” the frigate bird said, “is a picaroon if ever I saw one.”
“A picaroon, and a poxy pignut,” the cormorant said, “but he is bound by his oath.”
“I heard him say he was the King of the Dead,” said the frigate bird. “What truth is there to that?”
The cormorant spread his wings and rattled his flight feathers with an air of exasperation. “With Raven gone missing, the crow has it in mind that he shall rule in his stead. We have opposed him in this, but he has a beak quick to do us injury, and he grows ever more belligerent. And more than this, his powers grow mysteriously stronger, as if he has made a pact with the Kiamah beast.”
A change in rulers, thought the fisherman, is a time of turbulence. A time of both risk and opportunity. He’d best keep his ears open and his wits sharp. But there were more immediate matters pressing on him. He threw more wood on the fire. His belly growled again. He looked at the clams he’d laid out in rows, and he felt queasy. He was hungry, sure enough, but he was no cannibal of souls. He gathered them up and went back to the wet sand of the inlet, where he buried them, one by one, just above the lapping waves. The memory of that woman’s bright little eyes looking right into his plagued him. One minute she was there, and the next she was a squirmy lump in the crow’s throat. Ye gods, what a fate.
To rid himself of the upset in his belly he sat on the sand and thought of the crow plucked and roasted, sitting on a large silver platter. There was an alehouse in Hav where they held a celebratory feast for the winner of the annual roof race, a race the fisherman himself had nearly won when he was a young man, failing only because one of his stilts snapped three rooves from the finish line. At the feast an elephant-bird was served, the meat savory and succulent, and now he remembered sitting at that great table with all the other roof-runners, only this time he had won the race, and he was given the honor of carving the crow, and he cut off one great drumstick, a piece of meat the size of a small ham, and he took a great bite from it, and everyone cheered. The crow was delicious, the most satisfying fowl he had ever eaten, and the fisherman was no longer queasy.
He waded out into the inlet until he was waist deep, and then he stood and peered into the water. Farther out he saw the dark shapes of fish swimming along the sandy bottom. If only he had a net to cast, or a hook to bait and a line to throw. He looked down the inlet toward the shallows at the far end. Perhaps he could herd a fish there, and snatch it right out of the water with his bare hands. All his life the sea had fed him, but now he lacked
so small a thing as a dip net, or even a line and a hook.
A shadow passed over him, and a moment later the cormorant landed on the water nearby. The fish scattered, and the cormorant paddled over to him.
“Nice day for a swim,” the cormorant said.
Sunlight glanced off the cormorant’s spectacles in a way that suggested someone possessed of superior knowledge. “I suppose,” the fisherman said, “that you fellows eat a lot of fish.”
“Why yes,” the cormorant said, “I suppose we do.”
“As do I,” the fisherman said. “I’m actually a fisherman by trade.”
“Do tell,” the cormorant said. “And do you find that a satisfying line of work?”
“I do,” the fisherman said. “Not so much as a line of work, but as a means of feeding myself when I am hungry.”
The cormorant peered over the tops of his spectacles at the fisherman. “Yes,” he said, “I know what you mean.”
“How do you catch them?” the fisherman said.
“Like this,” the cormorant said. He rose up in the water and arched his neck and dove with his body following his neck all in one sinuous motion, and the water closed over the bird without a sound. He moved swiftly through the water until the fisherman could barely see him, and then he surfaced. The tail of a fish stuck out of his bill, and the cormorant stretched out his neck, and he swallowed it whole. It made the fisherman shudder to see that live thing struggling inside the cormorant’s throat, and now he was queasy again. And angry at himself, for he was growing hungrier with every passing moment, and yet his belly twisted itself in knots at the mere sight of this creature feeding. In life, hunger made a killer of all beings great and small, such were the circumstances of all who lived, and it was foolish to allow one’s feelings to hinder what was only natural. But, having survived the belly of the whale, to be swallowed alive was a fate he would no longer wish on anyone. Better the sharp rap to the head.
The Alehouse at the End of the World Page 4
