by Lionel Fenn
"You want one for a pet?" Junffer said in astonishment.
"No."
"A good thing. They're nasty little beasts. Foul, if you'll pardon the expression, and utterly without redemption on any level except, perhaps, in waste removal."
"What I meant was—"
"Besides, pink is such a tacky color for a creature, don't you think? It makes them look so... so undone."
"What I meant was," Gideon persisted, "is that all there is, what we're seeing up there, or are they attached to something bigger, like a body or something?"
"Oh, I see! Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I mistook your interest for affection substitution."
Gideon looked over the side and wondered how many bones would break if he threw Junffer out. Then the skeleton squealed, and Gideon ducked just as the spinning spear made its first contact with the vac web.
It was horrible.
It was like nothing else he had ever experienced, unless he counted his thirty-third birthday, when some friends had taken him to a mud-wrestling exhibition where, on a whim and after several scotches, he had joined the ladies in the arena.
They weren't amused, and proved it; he wasn't amused when he recognized a long-standing and recently surfaced phobia of having his mouth and eyes filled with mud.
It was a shower of flesh and rose-tinted blood and razor-like protrusions and slime and wormy parts, and above it all the shriek of the vacs as their web was shredded and their various pieces were scattered throughout the cavern.
But it was mercifully swift.
Once through the living web, the party quickly noted that the vacs were unable to climb, and were too stupid to use the escalator. The only thing they had to face next was a thoroughly sullied section of their carrier, and the stench that rose from the slaughter below, a stench not unlike that of a battlefield on which hundreds of corpses had been left to rot in the summer after being sprinkled with rose water.
They watched the vacs writhing helplessly, their wormy tips lifting off the cavern floor in search of the prey that had so cleverly outwitted them.
"Big," Gideon muttered.
"Fifteen to twenty feet, the adults," Junffer said.
"Disgusting," Tuesday said.
"Be careful," the skeleton said. "There are mothers down there."
"You said it."
Junffer tsked at the implied obscenity and leaned back, darkened his eyes, and appeared after a while to be snoring. Gideon, however, could not for the life of him shift his gaze away from the next opening, wondering what sort of creature they would encounter next. He asked no one in particular if they had any idea how long it would be before they reached their destination, and Junffer, or some smoky and still alert part of him, replied that there were twelve levels yet to pass through, and he would not speculate on the inhabitants of each since he was, after all, a star, and stars did not concern themselves with petty matters like the little people and their little lives.
Gideon looked down at his sister. "Was I ever like that?"
"You're still alive, aren't you?"
Thank god, he thought. The idea that fame might turn him into a creature like that made his skin break out in gooseflesh. It had been bad enough hanging on to his already low self-esteem without having to deal with self-worship and pre-demise godhood.
Gideon ate from the scanty supplies still in the pack on Red's back, then stretched his feet out and closed his eyes. It would be wise to get some sleep, he decided, since Junffer, resting or not, seemed to be in control.
He dreamed of Ivy.
He dreamed of home.
He dreamed he had found a Bridge, that brilliant rectangle of light that would take him back to his pantry, to his kitchen, to his living room where the bottle of scotch was waiting beside his crossword puzzle. He also knew the rules—that a Bridge never appeared unless there was a need, and it bothered him even in slumber that the need within was growing stronger.
He had no idea how long he slept.
His eyes snapped open, and he found himself rising slowly above a cavern so huge that the roof was invisible, and the floor was forested by high-growing moss. The air was damp, and a light fog drifted out of the moss clouds that dangled in monstrous clumps from the roof.
He shifted uneasily.
There was something wrong here, something so terribly wrong he decided to go back to sleep and hope it would be taken care of before he woke up again.
Then, in one swift calculation, he realized what it was—the silence.
Absolute and total silence.
Even the whisper of the escalator was muffled.
He looked around wildly, and saw Tuesday huddled next to the lorra, saw Junffer standing with his spear next to his chair. When the skeleton looked down, he put a finger to where his lips would have been and pointed up.
Gideon refused to look.
Junffer pointed again and whispered, "Monster."
CHAPTER FIVE
A monster? Gideon asked silently.
Junffer nodded solemnly.
A big monster?
Junffer shook himself to simulate a shudder.
Gideon considered asking another question, but changed his mind. There didn't seem to be much use talking to a skeleton about a monster, especially when that monster was already waiting for them on the next level and was, by Junffer's reaction, something a bit more than a gathering of vacs or a flock of nasty dommers. And considering the way Junffer had handled those two attacks, Gideon was not entirely confident this one would be quite so easily gotten through, all things considered.
The escalator moved on.
Moss hung over the sides and hissed when it was disturbed.
Red lifted his face to the air and sniffed, then growled low and deep in his throat.
Junffer tapped a finger against his kneecap nervously, the grey behind his eyes boiling dark save for an infrequent flash of dull white or pale red. His spear, held butt-down to the steps, trembled in his grip, the tip wavering through a small circle that held no promise at all of a swift and decisive victory.
The opening grew nearer, and quite a bit larger as the moss parted of its own wise accord.
Gideon rubbed a hand over his face, back through his hair, down over the beard that refused to grow with neatly trimmed edges and a definition of character that would mark him as someone special, if not someone who hadn't shaved in a while; he patted his chest to still his heart; he tightened his buttocks in isometric anticipation.
This, he thought, is a stupid way to spend an evening.
He could, were the Fates not so capricious and filled with malicious mischief, still be home. Without a doubt, he could be lying in his bed with the sheet over his face, swearing creatively at the blue jays that had built their nest in the elm tree outside his bedroom window and delighted in giving him weather reports that began an hour before sunup. There was no question that he could not be perfectly, blissfully happy being unemployed and lacking a single viable skill save throwing a football that scarcely anyone could catch when they were supposed to, and sometimes not even then.
At home there was nothing to be afraid of.
At home there were no monsters.
He looked back toward his sister and realized with a start that it was growing dark.
Very dark.
Dark enough, now, to conceal the opening to the next level and thus, with infinite detachment and insidious indifference, the monster that lay in wait for them above.
That's when he heard the breathing, and knew with resigned hysteria it wasn't him, or the lorra, or the duck, or the skeleton.
A slow and steady inhalation, a slow and rasping exhalation that ruffled the moss around the opening's lip and sent a faint, noxious breeze dancing through his hair.
Yep, he thought, that sure is a big monster up there, all right.
Junffer's cloudy insides began to glow, causing the moss to writhe away in terror, dispelling the fog that had thickened and slipped over the escalator's smooth side
s, momentarily halting the breathing. Then he touched Gideon's shoulder, pointed upward, and rose.
Gideon hesitated. He failed to see the logic of exposing one's self too soon, despite the possibility that in such exposure lay an element of surprise that the monster might not take into consideration while it was waiting. Up there. Breathing again, with clear, giddy expectation.
Junffer poked his shoulder and gestured angrily.
Gideon groaned silently to his feet and leaned close, squinting against the glow, which had now increased to the level of an infant bonfire.
"He'll see us, Jeko," he whispered harshly. "Can't you turn yourself off?"
"I am a star," the skeleton reminded him.
Good; and I am a walking corpse.
Nevertheless, and not to be beaten at the star game as long as he was playing his last hand, he wiped a palm against his side and began stroking the bat. Junffer looked at him suspiciously. Deep within the greenwood grain there appeared a faint light even as the wood itself grew warm, and even warmer. Junffer looked at the bat. The light rose toward the surface, slowly, slowly, until, just as Gideon's palm was ready to ignite, a cloud of glowing blue separated from the bat. Immediately Gideon cupped his palms around it, shaped it, and lifted it upward, blowing until it hovered ten feet away.
It held that distance as they rose.
Junffer's eyes flashed green.
The opening was revealed as the blue light passed through it, and though Gideon stared until his eyes watered, he could see nothing but the skyward thrust of the escalator and its forlorn, empty chairs.
"Now you've done it," Junffer said testily.
"Done what?"
"Let him know we're coming."
"Well, Jesus, he can see you, can't he?"
Junffer slapped his free hand to his skull and groaned. "But he can't! Don't you know anything, Sunday? Don't you know he's blind to my color?"
The blue light intensified.
"Oh," Gideon said.
"We might have been able to ambush him," Junffer said, his tone one of patronizing disgust. "We had a chance then, but not now. You and your silly little trick have cooked our geese."
"Watch it," Tuesday muttered from under Red's hair.
"So we stand up to him face to face," Gideon said angrily. "Isn't that more honorable than getting him in the back?"
"You want to try it?" the skeleton asked as they reached the floor of the next level and Gideon saw their opponent, leaning casually against the escalator's side, picking its teeth with a sharpened boulder.
—|—
Gideon understood perfectly that there are times in a man's life when, surrounded by friends and loved ones, he must make a decision about the proper exhibition of courage, leadership, and qualities so intangible they have yet to be named; he knew also that there was a growing body of evidence proving that the failure of such exhibitions had no effect one way or the other on friends and loved ones, psychologically speaking, in the moment before their hideous deaths.
What it boiled down to was a matter of guilt—either you felt it or you didn't, depending on how guilty you felt.
Thus, standing bravely in the vanguard, he decided that either he'd have to fight the thing, or jump off the escalator—the results of which would be, essentially, the same.
The thing was very much like a giant.
In fact, as his head rose above the floor, Gideon saw that it was exactly like a giant—exceedingly tall, exceedingly hefty, dressed in thonged boots and leather shorts and a puffed-sleeve shirt whose buttons were unable to contain either the continent-spread of its chest or the rain-forest density of its chest hair, in which various things of a disturbing nature crawled about with claw-clicking abandon.
As soon as Gideon was fully above the floor and Jeko's head was poking into view, the giant sighed, dropped the boulder, and picked up a club the size of which would have been daunting to an archangel. Its eyes, virtually invisible beneath brows in which cousins of the chest-hair things also crawled, focused on Gideon's face, then his bat, then the others sliding into view behind and below.
Its head cocked toward its right shoulder in a manner which indicated a measure of bewilderment.
Its club, resting heavily on its left shoulder, jumped a bit in indication of uncertainty.
"We'll have to go for its weak spot," Junffer whispered nervously.
"Where's that?" Gideon whispered back without taking his gaze from the gaze of the giant.
"The small of its back."
Gideon wavered. "But it's facing us!"
They were now close to its waist.
"Then think of something!"
He tried. He considered setting up a diversion while Tuesday took the bat and flew around to the back to clobber the thing senseless, but thanks to Whale he was the only one who could hold the damned thing. He wondered about Red's claws and teeth and horns, how much damage they might be able to do while he took a fast run up the thing's arm and did the bashing himself, but realized that the best he could hope for from the lorra was a scratch in the thing's palm. For a wild moment he entertained the notion of negotiation—spare my friends, and I'm yours—but his parties always had been dull and he figured he'd be dead before he got out the first word. There was, on the other hand, always the possibility that the skeleton had some magic up his marrow, though that was clearly out of the question when Junffer took a step back and huddled cravenly beside the lorra, whose eyes were so busy flashing from angry black to unconcerned white that he was panting. A timely arrival of the cavalry was impossible. An equally fortuitous earthquake, intracavern hurricane, or volcanic eruption was mere fantasy. And the thought of making a last stand on a slow-moving escalator was so humiliating he almost took a frustrated swing at the chest now drifting by, until he caught a glimpse of the things moving around in there, which made him gag and become slightly airsick.
The giant didn't turn around.
"The hell with it," he said, and sat down.
"What?" Junffer stood up. "What in the world are you talking about?"
Gideon looked at him steadily. "I said, 'The hell with it.' "
"That's telling him," Tuesday muttered from beneath Red.
The giant grunted, and shifted the club to its other shoulder.
"But you simply can't let him kill us, Gideon!" Junffer protested. "That's—that's just not done!"
"Look at him," he said.
"Do I have to?"
"I mean, look at the size of him, Jeko."
"A brute," the skeleton sneered. The eye-grey swirled upward. "And talk about needing a bath..."
"We don't have a chance," Gideon said as they came even with the face, and the eyes blinked with the effort to see clearly something so small and so close.
"Hardly the way for a hero to act," said Junffer.
"That's telling him," Tuesday said.
"Look," Gideon said, "if he whistled, he'd blow us off this thing and we'd die. If he sneezed, we'd drown. If he snapped his fingers, we'd be..." He shuddered. "It just isn't worth it."
The skeleton blinked as best he could. "But what about Ivy?"
"I'll miss her," Gideon said sadly, noting that the top of the giant's head was in sore need of a brushing. "But I think I'm man enough to understand that she'll have others before long."
"A little late for that," his sister muttered.
Junffer pointed his spear down at the giant's pate. "Well, I, for one, am not going to end my days in disgrace," he announced in a supremely demonstrative huff. "I do have my standards."
"I hope you have a long arm."
"What?" the skeleton said.
"What?" Tuesday said, burrowing out from under Red's hair and looking down at the giant, who was looking up at them and clearly wondering where it had gone wrong.
They passed into the next level, an extensive garden filled with brilliant flowers, graceful ferns, and the pure scent of Eden. A waterfall on the far side of the cavern dropped in ripples of silver sprays to
a rainbow-misted pool around which tiny, deer-like creatures gamboled, innocent of the hell that lay just below them. The air was sweet. The temperature as perfect as anyone could want. The light as gentle on the eyes as a feather drifting from the wing of a passing dove.
"Sonofabitch," the duck said.
Junffer dropped into his chair, arms and legs akimbo, the energy spinning in utter confusion. "How did you do that?"
Gideon carefully laid his bat to one side and wiped his face dry of its sudden sheen of perspiration. He noticed that his fingers were trembling, and his throat was too raspy for swallowing to salve. After waiting several seconds for the reaction to pass, he breathed and grinned.
"What," he said, "do you do every time you see that thing?"
Junffer looked from side to side, and brushed away a cloud of silken butterflies that wound playfully in and out of his rib cage. "Well, I certainly don't make a habit of seeing him at all."
"Of course not. But when you do—"
Junffer lifted a hand. "I get ready to fight, of course. Do you think I'm a complete fool? The spear's up, the legs placed just so, and I dare him to do something to a star such as myself."
"And does he fight?"
"Every time—when he sees me."
"Now suppose," Gideon said, "you just refused to notice him. That you let him know he was beneath your contempt. Suppose you sat down, took out a book, and started to read when you saw him. What would happen?"
"He'd squash the hell out of me, that's what," Junffer said.
"He would?"
"Of course he would, he's a giant! Giants squash things. That's the rule." Junffer paused. "Why? Did you think that, if you ignored him, he'd ignore you?"
Gideon watched paradise drift away below him. "It had crossed my mind, yes."
"Dumb," the skeleton said. "Not bright at all. Which is to say, giants are stupid by nature, but they're not that stupid, if you see what I mean."
"It worked, didn't it?"
Tuesday waddled up to him and nuzzled his shin. "You mean," she said gently, "you deliberately tried the pacifist routine? You decided, on your own, to put a flower in his gun, so to speak?"
