The Alehouse at the End of the World

by Stevan Allred

  “What have you brought me, crow?”

  “A fine delicacy,” the crow shouted, crawling through the gaps between the Kiamah’s teeth. He emptied the basket of eyeballs and conaria onto the Kiamah’s tongue, and he sang a magical song of the crow to make the treats grow large enough to satisfy the beast. Then he slipped between cheek and gum again, while the Kiamah chewed and swallowed.

  “Delicious,” the Kiamah said. “Bring me more.”

  This the crow was happy to do, for he relished the chance to sneak a few morsels for himself, and he would take full advantage.

  “You are the devourer of all things,” the crow said to the Kiamah. “You are the strongest of the strong. I will bring you more tomorrow.”

  And so it began. Each night, while the pyre of bones burned, the crow flew to the Kiamah’s snout with a basket of eyeballs, or a basket of nipples, or a basket of nether parts, always with a goodly number of conaria thrown in, and each night, the Kiamah demanded more. The crow told Raven that the Kiamah was well pleased with his nightly offerings, but he never mentioned Raven to the Kiamah, until one night, the Kiamah said, “Where is Raven? Is he too lazy to fly here himself?”

  “Oh no,” the crow said. “Raven is not lazy. Far from it, he is ever so busy with his duties as the King of the Dead.”

  “Does he not speak of me?” the Kiamah said. “Does he not remember that I am the Kiamah, who is above all kings? Is Raven too proud to fly here himself?”

  “Well,” the crow said, whispering now, “you didn’t hear this from me, but Raven is quite proud of himself. He boasts often about being King of the Dead.”

  “Is that so?” said the Kiamah, and then the Kiamah harrumphed a great harrumph. “Yet he says nothing about his master, which is to say me?”

  “Yes,” the crow whispered, “it is so. Well, to be honest, he does speak of you on occasion.”

  “And what does he say?”

  “I am afraid to tell you,” the crow said. “You must promise not to devour me in your anger.”

  “Do not bargain with me, Crow. Tell me what you have heard.”

  The crow flew to the back of the Kiamah’s tongue, ready to flee. “He says, O greatest of all beings, that you are nothing but a bloated lizard, too sluggish to even think.”

  The Kiamah gnashed his teeth together, grinding them with the fearsome sound of the earth itself shaking and quaking. The crow flew back down the Kiamah’s throat a short way, and returned to the Kiamah’s mouth only when the beast quit grinding his teeth.

  “Bring me Raven,” the Kiamah thundered, “and he will know full well my displeasure.”

  “Yes, your magnificence, I shall do so.” The crow turned as if to leave, and then turned back. “Have you considered, O king of kings, that you will need someone to rule the Isle of the Dead in his place? Someone to keep the sacred fire burning, and to carry out your wishes?”

  “Mmm-hmmmfh,” the Kiamah grunted. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Indeed, your sagaciousness,” said the crow. “Might I offer you my services?”

  “Good idea,” said the Kiamah, “Let it be so.”

  All of this was as the crow had foreseen. He had only to return to Raven and tell him that the Kiamah had so enjoyed his nightly treats of late that he wanted to thank Raven in person. Raven, flattered by the prospect of the Kiamah’s gratitude, suspected nothing, for to him, in this, the winter of his life, the crow was nothing but an errand boy. And his last errand for Raven was to lead him to his own demise.

  The crow had helped Raven to limber his tired wings by leading him through a series of exercises, the two of them lifting first one wing and then the other, and then flapping both wings together until Raven’s creaky old joints were loosened up enough to fly. Raven was ready for a nap after this, but the crow reminded him of his audience with the Kiamah, and said that the beast was eager to show his respect to Raven, and that he most likely had a gift for him. They flew off together to the far corner of the sky, and then up the throat of the beast, the crow urging Raven onward when he tired, and letting him rest for a good long while just at the top of the Kiamah’s throat before they entered the cavern of the beast’s mouth.

  As soon as the crow announced the presence of Raven the Kiamah made quick work of him, gnashing the last of the Old Gods to pulp between his teeth. The crow, once again sliding himself between cheek and gum, watched from his vantage point, so close that he would himself be gnashed to mush if he moved forward the slightest bit. And when he saw Raven’s syrinx appear midst the gore, he gobbled it down, so that now, with Raven’s voice box in his gullet, he would possess the power to sing forth the souls of the dead.

  Aw aw aw aw aw, thought the crow. What a clever fellow am I, for I have brought about the murder of Raven, and no one’s the wiser.

  Only a fortnight had passed, and the pelican and the cormorant were already in his power. Oh, they put on a show of being independent, but he knew how much they feared him. As well they should, for he could make them disappear just as cleverly as he had Raven. He was lord and master of the Isle of the Dead, and no one, not even the frigate bird nor that newly arrived hairless rogue, could stop him now.

  “Interlopers,” the crow muttered. “Friggin’ frigate bird.” And that walking pile of putrid whale muck, so fixated on his beloved. How pathetic was that? Well, they were complications, to be sure, but they were nothing he couldn’t handle. And soon, he would have more allies in the belly of the beast. He would summon his congress of crows, and together they would rule the Isle of the Dead.

  §

  The sun rose a jaundiced orange, sick from the crow’s nightly bacchanal. The fisherman awoke early. The dead tree where he had left his companions the night before was empty. He unwrapped his beloved’s clamshell and he saw that the striations of her shell, which the evening before had been shades of gray, were now as brightly colored as a rainbow.

  “Praise the gods,” he cried out, “she lives!” For surely this was proof that what he held in his hands was no ordinary clam. She had spent the night in his breeches, and she was the better for it. He held her against his heart. Perhaps she could hear it beating, and she would know he had come for her. Her clamshell fit perfectly between his palms. He gazed again at the striations of color, red and orange, yellow and green, blue and violet, and he held the shell up to his ear. She was so close it made his heart ache. In the quiet of the dawn he felt the faint throb of her being, resting inside that shell, as one hears the whisper of a ghost in a dream. It was a wisp of a feeling, not yet quite a sound, but it gave him comfort.

  He wrapped her in the damp sarong and laid her down again. He was stiff from sleeping on the sand, but as he moved around, gathering a supply of firewood for the day, his limbs loosened. His fire had gone out while he slept. He shaved a pile of wood shavings with the cuttlefish beak, and he brought out his flint and steel. He took a pitch ball from the silver chain round his neck, unwrapped it, and laid it in a bed of shavings. The pitch ball smelled of his home on the cove, and he wondered if he would ever find his way back. With the practiced strokes of a lifetime, he struck the spark that kindled his fire, and blew on it to make it grow. More wood made the fire crackle, cheering the fisherman further.

  He ate the rest of the fish from the evening before, and now, warmed and fed, the fisherman picked up his beloved. He had some questions for the crow, and it was time to get some answers. He walked down the beach to the pyre, a veritable hillock of glowing red embers covered in ash. There were marks in the wet sand where the canoe of the dead had been beached, and many footprints. Next to the pyre was a tall wooden statue of the three birds, carved from a single log and painted in shades of green, yellow, and red. They sat one on top of the other, with the pelican on the bottom, the cormorant on her shoulders, and the crow atop the cormorant, with his wings spread for flight, and a look of mischief in the narrowing of his eyes. The pelican’s bill was opened wide, and within it could be seen a wise old woman’s face. She wa
s either sleeping, or she was in a trance.

  Something in the pyre burned through, and the embers settled, making a sound as dry as grasshopper wings scraping against themselves. The wise old woman opened her eyes, which were round and yellow, and she looked at the fisherman and winked at him. The pelican closed her bill, and the figures of the statue slowly woke up, stretching their wings and yawning. The fisherman gaped at them, astonished, as the figures he’d taken for carved wood came to life, their bright colors changing chameleon-like to the blacks and browns of their daytime plumage. The crow flapped his wings and hopped down from his perch on the cormorant’s shoulders.

  “Good morning, whale patty,” the crow said. “Happy as a clam, We trust?” And at this, the crow laughed his awful laugh—aw aw aw aw aw. Behind him the cormorant remained sitting on the pelican’s shoulders, both of them with their wings folded, but their eyes open.

  The fisherman considered his reply. His first impulse was to drop the front of his breeches and piss on the crow’s feet, but he thought better of it. Instead, he bowed his head, both to hide his anger and to fool the crow into thinking that the fisherman accepted him as a superior being. The royal “we” was an invitation to flattery, and flattering words he would offer, but not from a position of weakness. He unwrapped the sarong enough to reveal the clamshell inside, and he held it up to show the crow. Then he raised his head and looked the crow straight in the eyes, and he spoke.

  “O wise and benevolent crow,” he began, “I thank you for honoring the terms of our bargain—”

  But the crow interrupted him. “What was that you said? Speak louder, featherless one, and let everyone hear what you say.”

  The cormorant rolled an eye at this, and the pelican, squatting beneath him, shuffled her feet in embarrassment. The fisherman sighed. Why, oh why, must this bumptious bird be so difficult, and when, oh when, would he suffer the comeuppance he so richly deserved? The answer to the first question was obvious—because it was his nature to be so, while the answer to the second was known only to gods greater than those here assembled. Still, this was no time to raise a ruckus, so the fisherman began again, more loudly this time.

  “O wise and benevolent crow, in whose grace we all wish to abide, let me be the first to congratulate you on your clever restoration of the sacred fire, which I, in the depths of my ignorance, unwittingly caused to be put out. And let me say further that only a crow such as yourself, which is to say a crow of great power, could have done so with such ease. You are truly a virtuoso amongst builders of sacred fires, and a dazzling example of crowish magnificence, before whom I am ever humbled.” As he spoke, the fisherman imagined a steaming pile of fresh manure growing ever taller in front of the crow.

  In reply, the crow belched. “Livers,” he said, “so earthy and tender, though chewy if undercooked. But they give us gas.” Then he raised his tail, and from his dungbie he let loose a foul petard. “Awww,” he said, “such sweet relief,” and then his attention returned to the fisherman. “Well said, O inept drencher of eternal flames. Pray continue, for We sense a request from you in the offing, and We are breathless with antici”—and here, while the crow paused, the cormorant and the pelican waved their wings to clear the air of his odious vapors—“pation.”

  “Yes, your crow-ness,” the fisherman said. The crow looked down his neb at this form of address, but the fisherman pretended not to notice. “May I draw your attention to this clam, which you so benevolently gave to me last evening? I am wondering if you, in your capacity as King of the Dead, have within your power the ability to restore my beloved’s soul to her human body?” The cormorant was shaking his head, no, no, no, this was not a good idea to ask the crow for anything, while the pelican looked on sadly, ready to draw forth a healing drop of blood from within her breast, but with no precise notion of where she might drop it.

  “Naw aw aw aw aw,” the crow laughed. “I’ve been waiting for this,” he said, so entertained that he forgot the royal “We.” “This is, as I said when you first arrived, an old story. You come here looking for your beloved, and when you find her, you want her to be just the way you remember her.” The crow again looked down his beak at the fisherman, his two black eyes as heartless as lumps of coal. “Well, cookie, it doesn’t work that way. Dead is dead, and your beloved’s body burned in the pyre the night she arrived. So there’s no going back to what was.”

  The fisherman pursed his lips, unwilling to take no for an answer.

  “What you say is true,” the pelican said, “but we have, on rare occasions, seen exceptions made to the usual course of events.”

  The crow turned his head and glared an eye at the pelican. “No one asked you to speak,” he said.

  “Have you no mercy?” the pelican said. She was trembling beneath the cormorant, but she looked right back at the crow, convinced, as always, that there was a spark of decency in anyone, and that she could nurture that spark into a flame. “Look at what the man has done to get here,” she said. “Has he not proved himself worthy? He has her soul, you’ve shown him that much favor, can you not tell him what he needs to do?”

  “Kiaww,” the crow said. “Do I look like someone who stands around answering questions just because someone asks?”

  “Well, sir,” the fisherman said, “you are the captain of this ship, as it were. If not you, then to whom shall I turn?”

  The crow gave the fisherman a hard look, but he could not see any lack of sincerity in him. The fisherman stood with his eyes cast down, cradling the clamshell in his hands.

  “All right,” the crow said. He began to pace, crow-hopping back and forth. “Let’s see now,” he said, “can you sing? Or play an instrument? There was a fellow who turned up here once who was a powerful good singer, and he got his beloved back. Although his efforts came to naught in the end, as I recall.”

  The fisherman shook his head. “I can sing, but not so’s anybody would be impressed.”

  “Do you know any sacred songs?” the crow said, still pacing. “Anything handed down from an immortal ancestor?”

  “No,” the fisherman said. “I know the usual drinking songs and bawdy ballads, but nothing of a religious nature.”

  “I thought not,” the crow said. “Highly entertaining, those bawdy ballads, I’m sure, but not the sort of thing to raise the dead. Do you have anything to barter with? I’m partial to shiny metal objects, although it would have to be something really special.”

  The fisherman kept his hands at his sides, keenly aware of the silver chain round his neck. Must he barter it away to bring his beloved to life? His pride rose within him, for he was loath to part with it, even though it appeared it was the only thing he had that might satisfy the crow’s greed. He put a finger between the necklace and his neck, raising the silver chain.

  “Might this be of interest, your crow-ness?” said the fisherman.

  The crow stopped pacing, but he barely glanced at the necklace. It was a pretty thing, but he could steal it whenever he wanted.

  “Hardly sufficient,” he said. His beak opened into an enormous yawn, and he stretched his wings and flapped them a few times before folding them back up. “Well,” he said, “I guess that about covers it. I had quite a night last night, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll ask you to go back to your end of the beach now.”

  “Wait,” the cormorant said. He hopped down off the pelican’s shoulders, his spectacles perched on his bill, and a thick book under his wing. He made his way to the crow, waved his wing in front of himself, and now he wore the cap and gown of a scholar. “We are your advisors—”

  “Royal advisors,” the crow said.

  “Yes, royal advisors,” the cormorant agreed, although he took a moment to look over the tops of his spectacles at the crow and sigh. “And, as such, I feel compelled to remind you that there is another way.” The cormorant opened Constantine Hermanopoulos’s Compendium of Barristical Terms and Legal Precedents for Mortals and Gods, and flipped pages with his bill, muttering
habeus corpus and non compos mentis, and other such barristical terms to himself. “Ah, here ’tis,” he said, “the relevant passage.” He held a wing up and whispered to the crow from behind it. The crow listened, and then dismissed the cormorant with a toss of his head.

  “So,” the crow said, making a great show of how royally bored he was with all this, “Our cousin the cormorant—”

  “Distant cousin, to be accurate,” the cormorant said, taking a step back from the crow.

  The crow, royally exasperated, let loose his own sigh, and continued. “Our distant cousin,” he said, looking down his beak at the cormorant, “reminds Us that if the soul within the clamshell were to suckle some breast milk, a new body might possibly be persuaded to grow. Having had no direct experience with this procedure, We make no guarantees.”

  “And,” the cormorant said, “go on, corpus delicti, quid pro quo. Tell him the rest.”

  The crow sighed another royally bored sigh, and then spoke in a rapid, almost singsong voice, as if he were now the barrister, reading aloud the fine print of a particularly boring will. “Should you chance upon some breast milk here, and find a woman willing to suckle your beloved’s soul, you will be allowed to live here together for a year and a day. After that, she goes back to her shell, period, end of story, blah-di-blah-aw-aw.”

  The crow puffed up his chest, his feathers shiny in the morning light, and he fixed one of his black eyes on the fisherman, and spoke now as a judge who took pleasure in passing a harsh sentence on a miscreant. “However,” he said, “under no circumstances will you be allowed to leave here with her. And if you stay, you too will die. We will take great personal satisfaction in piercing your belly with Our beak, and pulling out your entrails while you watch. We shall pluck out your tongue, and pluck off your nose, and your ears, and gobble them down. And We shall eat your very soul, and neither you nor it will ever return to the material world. Capisce?”