The Alehouse at the End of the World

by Stevan Allred

  “It is more than enough,” said the goddess. “Well done.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” said the pelican. She took a few steps in front of them, swaying her womanly hips back and forth. She had indeed been practicing, for her sashay was saucy, like the woman’s, and would be the more so when she wore a sarong.

  So there was the way. It was risky, for the pelican was a novice, but with the woman distracting the crow, and some guidance from herself for the pelican, it just might work. She might even find time for another tryst with the frigate bird, a pleasure she’d thought she must deny herself. Or the cormorant, if the frigate bird was off on one of his many errands. There would be sport for all, and the men none the wiser.

  “What about her eyes?” said the woman.

  The pelican blushed. “The eyes,” said she, “They’re the hardest part.” She closed them, and her brow furrowed, and when she opened her eyes again, they were blue.

  “Perfect,” said the woman.

  Yes, perfect. The woman would have her chance with the crow, and the pelican her chance with the fisherman. They would be bound to her, and when the time came to call in the debts, they would not refuse.

  “You must do exactly as I say,” said the goddess.

  And so they put their heads together, and they laid their plans.

  §

  The fisherman did not wake when his beloved rose from their bed for her nightly trip to the privy, though he came close enough to wakefulness to think, Tomorrow I must finish the privy door, and hang it. He was already fully asleep when she returned, and slipped beneath their coverlet of silk to spoon her body against his back. The coverlet had been a gift from the goddess, out of the store of bed linens the whale had brought, and beneath its warmth the fisherman felt the soft skin of his beloved. She moaned, her breath hot on his neck, and her hand groped its way to his cods. His Man Thomas was not rampant, and the woman pulled at it, her fingers eager and somewhat clumsy. He rolled onto his back, and her mouth was upon his in a trice, her kisses fervent, urgent, almost desperate. She kissed him everywhere at once, his lips, his cheeks, his neck, his brow, and all the while she gripped his Man Thomas as if it were the tiller of a skiff she steered larboard and starboard.

  “Gently,” he whispered. In her hunger for him she seemed to have forgotten the way to tease forth the spine of his Thomas, and he put his hand on hers to show her. “A tizzle for the pizzle,” said he, a phrase from their own private dictionary of love, and to which his beloved always replied, “A shiver for the quiver,” and so might they commence a rainbow kiss. But in the moment she did not reply in her usual way, nor swing her nether lips round to his, nor swallow the head of his Man. No, she only loosened her grip on the tiller, following the lead of his hand on hers, and kissed him the more ardently, and now his own desire caught fire from the sparks of hers. After some fumbling about she managed to place the tip of his arrow in the opening of her quiver, although not at all with the sureness of touch to which he was accustomed, and she lowered herself upon him, and sighed.

  The woman bounced and jiggled on him so eagerly that she fell off several times. She had ever been an ardent lover, but this night the fisherman found her so eager as to be almost clumsy in her enthusiasm, as if she had forgotten, with all else she had forgotten, the rhythm and the form of their coupling dance. Her lovemaking was fervent, her kisses earnest, but she was awkward and graceless at times, and in the end he found it best to roll her over and take the high ground. Thus positioned, he rode her home, spending himself within her. He withdrew himself, gave her an affectionate and leisurely kiss, and then lay on his side, his back to her front, a return to his slumbers fast approaching.

  To his surprise she reached for him again, and the fisherman groaned. He had labored the day long as a carpenter, shaping the boards for the privy door, and his ardor was sapped. He let her hand play for a while, but it was to no effect, and he said, finally, that he was tired, and must sleep.

  “That’s it?” she said. “That’s all you have for me?”

  “The spirit is willing,” said he, “but the flesh is spent.”

  “But I am ready now for more,” said she.

  “Yes, my beloved,” said he. “Perhaps in the morning.”

  “The morning will be too late,” said she. She tugged harder on his Thomas, but the poor fellow remained tepid, and soft. The fisherman placed his hand over hers, and pulled it away.

  “I need sleep,” said he, “and the Man Thomas will be of no use to you until I do sleep.” He turned over and faced her, and he traced his finger along the links of the silver chain round her neck. Her gaze was full of ardor, and his finger stopped, arrested by the color of her eyes.

  “Your eyes,” said he.

  “What about them?” said she.

  “They’re yellow,” said he.

  Her lips rounded themselves into a circle, and she closed her eyes, her brow furrowed between them, and when she opened them again, they were blue.

  “Are you sure?” said she. “It’s dark in here.”

  “I can see well in the dark, as you know.”

  His woman licked her lips, as if they were suddenly dry. “Then you can surely see that they are blue,” said she.

  “They are now,” said he, “but a moment ago, they were yellow.”

  “A trick of the light,” said she. She traced his lips with a fingertip while she looked steadily into his eyes, her gaze randy and wanton.

  There is no light in here to trick, thought he, but her touch was teasing, and arousingly so, and led him toward the pleasures of the flesh. He kissed the tips of her fingers.

  “The light of love burns hot in you tonight,” said he, “but strangely so.”

  “Lover,” said she, “I am no stranger to thee.” She pulled his face to hers with her hand on the back of his head, her mouth like the sucker of an octopus so hungry she was. The fisherman was far from recovered, but her eagerness for him would not be denied, and he put his hand between her legs, stroking her quim, and this, by the sound of her moans, she found most pleasurable. ’Twas a skill he had long since perfected, and he brought her swiftly to the top of the great wave, whereupon she cried out lustily, and then coasted down the other side.

  Again the fisherman kissed her, and rolled on his side, ready to slip back into the slumber of depletion. Again the woman put her hand on him, and begged for more, and would not let him be. Although his wrist ached, again he used his practiced hand to fetch her what she wanted. But when she wanted still more, he feigned sleep, and would not be roused, though she pleaded with words and lips and hands.

  At last she gave up, and sat next to him in the darkness, and felt the sweat cooling all over her skin. Her flesh tingled from within, as if every jot and tittle of her being trembled each against the other. She had never given herself over so completely to pleasure. All her worries were pounded into dust, and scattered on the merest puff of air. She felt wondrously emptied, and yet filled with desire.

  The fisherman was now well and truly asleep, and so did not hear the footfalls that approached the door, nor see the head of the goddess peer in, nor her hand beckoning the woman to come out. She left the bed, and found both her own twin and the goddess outside. Her twin embraced her, her smile broad, and the one woman took off the silver necklace and gave it to the other. One twin entered the house, and lay next to the fisherman, and the other walked off into the night with the goddess.

  “How was it?” said the goddess.

  “’Twas good while it lasted,” said the pelican, “But I could’ve done with more.”

  “Such is the nature of desire,” said the goddess. “The more we get what we want, the more we want what we have not yet got.”

  When he woke again in the light of dawn, the fisherman gazed upon his beloved, who lay sleeping next to him. He touched the silver necklace round her neck, tracing its path across her collar bone.

  “Cariña,” he said. Her sleepy eyes opened into his, and the
y were blue, as ever had they been.

  “Hold me,” said his beloved. “But let me sleep.”

  The fisherman wrapped his arms round her, her back to his front, and with the rise and fall of her breath, he let himself fall back to sleep.

  §

  The frigate bird perched one-footed on the roof of the world, his position precarious, his spyglass to his eye, held there by his other foot. What he had first seen, mere weeks ago, as a single distant point far out in the Fetch, was now an enormous dark mass in the middle distance. He watched there a swarm of the Turropsi, hovering in front of it, dwarfed by its gargantuan size. The Turropsi had forbidden him to approach it, but they had told him that it was not so much a thing they could touch as it was a blind spot, an abyss beyond which they could see no future. Not for the spirit world, nor the material world, nor even for themselves. They told him that as they approached it seemed that they never met its surface, yet when they turned to look back, they found themselves already enveloped by darkness. Many Turropsi had flown into it. Only a very few had ever returned.

  Now swarms of the Turropsi labored at the edges of this vast blind spot, trying to move past it, but whenever they did so, it simply expanded, blocking them so that they could not move over it, nor under it, nor around it. Other swarms of the Turropsi used their paddle arms to move aside the mists at the edges of the blind spot, trying to change its course, to turn it away from the great standing wave of the present. He had never seen the Turropsi so urgent in their churning of the mists, and yet the dark mass grew ever closer, and ever larger. Their failed efforts gave him, beneath his breastbone, a desperate chill that shriveled his red throat pouch.

  The frigate bird flipped his spyglass round in the manner of a knife handler showing off his skills, a piratical sort of trick that he had often used to impress any buccaneer who might question his authority, though he did it now simply to calm his own rattled nerves. Just behind the great standing wave, he found the tale of his own band of heroes on the Isle of the Dead, writ there as if in a tapestry whose leading edge was constantly woven anew. There his compatriots were busy with the brewing of ale, and Dewi kept the crow sozzled with desire, and the pelican waddled about being helpful and compassionate to everyone in her path. There the Kiamah dozed, his eyes ever half-open, waiting to devour the world should his supply of conaria falter.

  The frigate bird flipped his spyglass round again, and looked into the mists being sucked into the present, where countless Turropsi used their many arms to sort through all that was possible, narrowing the choices. The mists were too thick to see much beyond a turbulence full of dark shapes, but there, in the middle distance, and closer than the vast blind spot, he was able to make out a thick, fractious horde, milling and tumbling about. A horde of marauders so large as to be beyond numbering.

  This was the army waiting its moment to do battle on the Isle of the Dead. The Turropsi paid it no mind, and this army would soon enough arrive on their shore. War was coming, and beyond that was the obliteration of all good things. The frigate bird shivered.

  Ye gods, he thought. What have I gotten myself into?

  §

  Every morning when he arose, the fisherman took a piece of charcoal from the fire and added a mark to his tally of days on the side of the house. He worked side by side with his beloved, hauling water from the stream, making ale, gardening. Every night they met the canoe, and led the newly dead to their home, where they shared the bounty of their lives, eating and drinking, singing and dancing, giving everyone one last chance to make merry, and forget that their lives were over. The cormorant expounded on the history of ale, and settled bar bets on any subject with genial authority. The pelican gave succor to the high-strung and the fearful, assuring them that they had nothing to fear. The frigate bird came and went as his duties required, but he joined them often, mingling with the newly arrived, offering his pipe to those who partook, and collecting the objects he had placed in their hands or their pockets before they found themselves on the far shore. Even the fish eagles joined in from time to time, for they, too, had discovered the beneficent, generous, public-spirited virtues of ale, and they were fond of sipping this divine beverage through hollow reeds, which they then kept in their mouths like materials for a nest as they flew back to the canoe of the dead. The crow and the goddess made their entrance when the festivities were in full swing, a royal couple now, king and queen of the dead, the crow charming and personable, the goddess gracious and serene, and after a time they led the dead to the sacred fire, where they coughed up their souls and surrendered their bodies to the flames.

  Every morning the crow held court, but later than had been his custom before he began trysting with Dewi Sri. He sat on his throne, which the fisherman had built, however begrudgingly, according to his instructions. Cariña had urged him to do so in an effort to stay in the crow’s good graces, though the fisherman only pretended that the crow’s good graces mattered one whit to him. The cormorant and the pelican were there always, their shoulders a little less burdened than before because they no longer slept with the weight of the crow atop them. The crow, for his part, held forth on whatever subject caught his fancy, and his congress of crows stood at his feet, thoroughly entranced by his crowish speech, their dark eyes staring up at him, fierce, proud, and loyal.

  The days passed in relative calm for a week, and then another, the quiet of the days broken only by the cries of passion from within the canopied bed, where the goddess taught her lover the four and sixty positions of their bawdy silk canopy, and by the calls of the congress of crows, who found perches in the trees, and spent their days scavenging the pyre for tasty bits of roast flesh.

  It was on one such morning that the fisherman approached the King of the Dead, his tally of days till it was time to return home now a week short of fulfillment. His friends the cormorant and the pelican stood behind the crow’s throne, both of them sober of face, although a sly smile briefly curved the pelican’s bill.

  The fisherman bowed low, then stood up straight and looked the crow directly in his shining black eyes. “Oh, great and magnificent King of the Dead,” he began, but the crow interrupted him. “How is your handsome woman friend this morning?” said the crow.

  “She is well,” said the fisherman, a note of puzzlement in his voice. “I thank you for asking after her.” Since when did the crow care about anyone but himself?

  “Excellent,” said the crow. “Please do Us the favor of sending her Our compliments.”

  Perhaps the goddess was teaching this arrogant bird some manners, thought the fisherman. A man would do a lot to please the object of his affections. “I shall,” said he. “Allow me to extend her compliments to you.”

  “Aw,” said the crow, “did she instruct you to do so?”

  “Not in so many words,” said the fisherman, “but I know her mind well, and I know that she holds you in the highest esteem.” No harm in flattering the king, especially now that he was about to let them go. Behind the crow the pelican fidgeted, bored no doubt, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

  “Kiaw aw aw aw aw aw,” laughed the crow. “We are certain that she does.”

  Ye gods, this sack of turds is full of himself. Best to get down to the matter at hand, or we will waste the whole morning blandishing and truckling.

  “Lord Crow,” said the fisherman, “I come before you seeking to know the hour and the manner of our return to the land of the living.”

  “Return to the material world?” said the crow. “We are puzzled. To what do you refer?”

  This reply from the crow sent a trickle of sweat swiveting down the fisherman’s side, although he kept his composure, and resisted the urge to draw his knife. The crow was not a foe to be taken lightly, and it was better to argue his way through if he could.

  “You will recall,” said the fisherman, “that in exchange for my services as the carpenter of your rails and slats, you promised me that I should return to the land of the living.” />
  “Oh, that,” said the crow. “We do recall the conversation, and We daresay We recall it more accurately than do you.” The crow had his hands on the arms of his throne, and he leaned forward now, as if to share a royal confidence with his subject. His black beak was gleaming and sharp. “We believe that what We promised you was that you would return home.”

  “Yes, Lord Crow. That was the promise.”

  “Excellent, Sir Dungpile,” said the crow. “We are glad you agree. We are happy to comply, and that is something that it is well within Our power to do.”

  Good, thought the fisherman, we are one step closer to settling the matter. “Yes, Lord Crow,” said he, “your powers have long been evident to me. I am wondering when and how this shall take place. By what means are we to return home? Will the journey be long? Shall I provision myself?”

  “So many questions for so simple a matter,” said the crow. What a dotard this fop-doodle is. “But first, let Us clear up any confusion about the precise meaning of Our promise. We made no mention of the material world. Nor of the land of the living, as you prefer to call it.”

  Now the fisherman’s hand went to the hilt of his knife. Let the crow understand, if this vile poltroon meant to betray him again, it would be the last trick of his wretched life. But the crow did not flinch, nor shrink back in any way, and so the fisherman pressed his case forward, his voice calm, but steeled.

  “Surely the meaning was clear,” said the fisherman. “My home is in the land of the living.”

  “We beg to differ,” said the crow. He sat back in his throne, and his head lolled to the side, as though the matter at hand were of no consequence. “Your home is here, in that house you built yourself. You are free to return there at any time you wish, and if you need assistance, We are at your service.”

  Betrumped again? A rage of heat rose in the fisherman’s face. His hand fairly ached to draw his blade. Swive me, thought he, I’ll kill this man-harpy. I was not born to be his fool.