Fugitives of Chaos

by John C. Wright

  I said quietly, "You can have my dead body. You want it? You can keep it. I'm not going to miss it once I drown."

  He squinted, looking uncertain.

  I said, "Or were you thinking of keeping me ashore? In the air? Boggin will find you. He'll make you cut your own penis off and eat it like a sausage. Or am I wrong about him?"

  The look on his face told me I was not wrong. I had read about all the color leaving a man's face, but I never saw it happen before.

  I whispered, "Do you have something else besides those fragile little mermaid caps for keeping a girl able to breathe down there? I don't think you do, or you would have used it. You wished me back to health when I was dying, and I thank you for that. But you couldn't wish air into my lungs, or you would have done it."

  He stared at me, his face a little slack.

  And then he grinned, a big grin, showing all his teeth. He tucked his branch under one arm, and pantomimed clapping his hands together, making the motion, but not making the noise.

  "That were good," he said quietly, his eyes sparkling with admiration. "You talk a good fight. Let's see how it works out."

  He flicked the branch back into his hand and struck the blunt end solidly into the bearskin, just at the point where my midriff was.

  I doubled over, suddenly out of breath. He dropped the branch and caught me up in his arms, arms as tough as old tree roots. One arm wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. With the thick folds of the bearskin draped over, I could not even raise my elbows.

  His other hand he clapped over my mouth.

  He breathed in my ear. "You're a quick one, a clever one. I like that. Lots of book-learning. Suppose to give a girl polish, book-learning. Refined. But you ain't never been one of my people. Everything we can do, we do with our feelings. The world is a big lie, and we are the biggest liars in it. And sometimes the world believes us, if we are sincere enough. Sincerity; that's the thing, the very thing. You see, I can't just stop wanting you, desiring you, needing you, just 'cause I want to. My feeling is too strong. Now you come and say your feeling that you'd rather die than be with me is stronger than my feeling to the contrary. Well, maybe you caught me in a weak moment. But I know all about feelings. I studies 'em. All my folk do. We know what makes a man go, and a man stop. Some feelings, they blaze bright enough, but they are like fire in autumn leaves, see? Poof, and they are gone. Now, you think you can keep your feeling up forever? No matter what I do? What if I was to burn off your foot, slow-like, so you'd be matched with me, eh? Then you wouldn't be so sad I couldn't go dancing with you."

  He picked me up as if my weight were nothing, and hopped a one-footed hop closer to the fire. With one hand still over my mouth, and one around my arms and waist, he thrust my feet toward the fire.

  I kicked and lifted my legs as high as I could, writhing beneath his arm. I could not get free; I could not bite his hand; I could barely make any noise through my nose. The bottom of the bearskin fell in the flames, and started smoking and crawling upward.

  "Now, then," he whispered. "That looked bad, didn't it? Here you are all willing and ready to die, but not to get a little singed? I'll make you a promise. You stick your foot into the hot coals, and let your foot get burnt black, without flinching, without being afraid, and—hey!—I'll let you go and with my blessing.

  Mucius Scaevola did it. You can do it."

  I did not do it. I kicked once or twice more, trying to get my legs higher up.

  "Such pretty, pretty legs," he whispered. "I make it simpler. One toe. You burn off one toe without flinching or making a face, and I'll let you go. It will convince me you mean what you say. No? Come on.

  Even a bunny will gnaw off its legs if'n it's caught in a trap. And I ain't even asking your whole leg. Just a toe. It won't hurt after the nerves burn off; it'll smell like roast pork."

  That did not make the prospect any more appealing. I gathered my every ounce of strength and strained against his arm, making a shrill noise through my nostrils. It was the same as if iron bands were wrapped around me.

  He was standing on one goddamn leg, and all my kicking could not knock him over.

  "Naw. Time's up. I changed my mind. Your legs are so long and fine. Trim ankles, just like a naiad." He made a little hop, and took me away from the flame. The bearskin was still smoking, and I jumped and kicked where little flecks of ash touched me.

  "And besides, you can dance for me, even if I can't dance no more. Belly dancing like those houri girls do. But I'll give you one more test."

  He moved his thumb less than an inch, and pinched my nostrils shut with his hand.

  "Maybe I hold you this way till you pass out. Maybe I kill you dead. You don't know, do you? But I tell you what. You hold still and look real brave, and I'll know, I'll really know, you don't mind smothering to death. Maybe I'll do this over and over and over again, while you faint each time, till I am really convinced."

  Wherever that feeling of calmness, that chess-match feeling, was, which had made me so sure I had all the answers, that feeling wasn't here. I really tried to hold still. But when your lungs are empty, your body starts jerking.

  And you start thinking about books you started reading that you want to finish. Things you wanted to say to friends.

  He hissed, "You see, it's one thing to close your eyes and jump down into a pit. It's another to take a spade and dig that pit, and lay down in it, and then pull the dirt atop you, one spadeful at a time. Plenty of time to think, when you dig your own grave. Are you going to hold still? I'll be impressed."

  I rolled my eyes and looked up at him. I was ready to surrender. But now, I could not even tell him I was ready to give up.

  He must have seen it. But he held his hand there, choking me.

  Then he moved his thumb. Less than half an inch. That is how much space separated me from not-me.

  Half an inch.

  And yes, I was weeping. Quentin had done so well when it was his turn to face this kind of thing.

  Grendel said, "I take my hand off your mouth, if you're willing to do one little thing for me. You say,

  'Thank you, sir,' when I let you talk again."

  I nodded. It was Boggin and his making me count, all over again.

  He took his hand away.

  I said, "Thank you, sir."

  "That's better."

  "I'm not talking to you."

  "What?"

  "I see something you don't see." I was draped over his arm at the moment, remember, and my face was turned toward the sky.

  He turned his head and looked up.

  It was perfect timing. He could not get his hand up to save his face.

  Like a thunderbolt, a huge black eagle with white-tipped feathers struck, claws like knives digging deep into his cheeks. The sharp beak rose and fell like a hammer, or rather, like a pickaxe.

  Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you, whoever you are.

  When the eagle's head yanked back, there was something long and bloody in his beak. A tongue?

  Grendel let me fall, and he sprang back, toppling, batting at the wings that were batting at him. Reality quivered, and when the quivering stopped, Grendel was gone. In his place stood an enormous three-pawed bear. Tatters of his torn shirt fell from the bear's shoulders. There was that much concession to reality, but the fact that an extra seven hundred pounds of matter just popped into existence out of nowhere evidently did not annoy the Grendel paradigm of the universe.

  The bear swept out with a paw and delivered the kind of blow that can decapitate a full-grown bull.

  Boom.

  But the eagle, instead of collapsing into a bloody mess, bounced away and flew back in the bear's face.

  He thrust his beak into the white muzzle and tore a swatch of tissue out of the bear's nose.

  I shrieked and winced. Very girlish. Grendel would have approved. But seeing the nose ripped off a bear, all that delicate tissue come out, is almost too gross for words.

  This time the bear got h
is claws into the eagle, and it was time to feel sorry for the eagle. Blood and feathers flew up—I do not know from where—and another sweep of that terrible paw sent the bird rolling across the snow, leaving a swath of red drops on the white snow.

  The rolling mass of feathers would have seemed funny, if this had been a cartoon. But as it was, I think it was one of the most horrible things I ever saw. No, wait. Seeing the bird flop to a standstill, and wiggle his wings, was worse. Both wings flopped. Both were broken.

  Then, somehow, it was even worse again to see the eagle stretch out his neck, drive his beak through the snow to the hard soil, and jerk his neck and shoulders. He pulled himself forward an inch. Two inches.

  Three.

  The bear, dripping bloody gore from his face, and bellowing in pain, rose up, teetering on one leg, clawing at the sky and screaming; and even the bear stopped in astonishment, and watched. Four inches.

  Five.

  The bird kept coming. He did not give up. He wanted to keep fighting.

  The bear dropped to three legs, loped in one huge rolling wave of muscles and fur over to where the eagle was crawling toward him, stepped on the bird with one huge paw. The eagle was driven down into snow. I wondered why all his hollow bones were not cracked.

  The eagle craned his neck around at an impossible angle and bit the bear in the foot.

  The bear had had just about enough from this eagle. Taking the eagle by the neck in his jaws, the bear lashed to the right and left, smashing the eagle's body over and over and over again into the snowy, rocky soil, until there were splatters of blood to the left and right.

  I cried out, "Grendel! Don't kill him!"

  My shout was loud enough to draw an echo from the Kissing Well. The voice sounded like a man's voice. "… don't kill him…" Unlike my voice, the echo was calm and soldierlike. A voice giving an order.

  A second bird fell from the sky. This one was a vulture. It was more enormous than any vulture of Earth.

  It had black wings and a white head.

  The vulture struck, driving claws like sabers into the shoulder and chest of the great bear. It drove its beak into one eye socket and pulled out the eye in a gush of blood and vitreous humor.

  The bear dropped the eagle and raised his claws to defend himself, knocking the vulture away from him.

  In a flurry of wings like the snap of gale winds, the vulture returned.

  The bear was battering the vulture, and was winning. But the eagle, still somehow alive, even with two broken wings, and while being trampled underfoot, raised his beak and his shivering claws.

  The eagle clawed at the stump of the severed bear paw, and opened the seam that held it shut. At the same time, I saw something not almost too gross for words, but really too gross, even though I cheered and hurrahed at the time. The eagle drove his beak straight into… Well, never mind. Why don't we just say it was the upper thigh, or near there.

  The bear began lumbering away. He was blinded, noseless, bleeding from jowls and groin and leg. The bear ran toward the sea cliffs with the wounded vulture in pursuit, its wings like a storm.

  At the edge of the cliff, the bear tried to rise up on his one hind leg. The vulture landed on his face again. I saw the vulture tear at the bear's throat, and a splash of blood shot out. It looked like a death blow. The bear went limp but caught the vulture in his paws as he fell. They both went over. If there was a sound of a splash, I (fid not hear it.

  Clutching the bearskin tight around me, I went closer to the wounded eagle, my bare feet sloshing through the snow. I was afraid to touch a wounded animal, but I knew this was something supernatural, something that had come to save me. Eagles were the symbols of Jove in myth. Maybe this was one of Boggin's servants?

  I looked at him. He looked terrible.

  What could I do? What was I supposed to do? I wasn't a veterinarian. Maybe I could move him closer to a fire, but I was afraid to try to pick him up. He had just bitten through a bear. What could he do to my little hand?

  I tried to look into the fourth dimension, now that Grendel was… dead? In the sea? I could see the tiniest glimmer of light from my hypersphere, but then darkness closed over it again. The Grendel effect was fading, it seemed, but it seemed it might take a while to fade. How long? A minute? A day? Six months?

  The wind blew by, and I shivered. Once I started shivering, I could not stop.

  This will sound selfish, but suddenly I was worrying about more than just the wounded bird. Where was I going to go? How was I going to get away, if my powers did not come back on in time?

  I could stand near the fire, I supposed, wrapped in the bearskin. Until the fire died out. Then what?

  Gather wood? Wait till Boggin found me? I was sure that a fight to the death between two supernatural birds and a shape-changing bear monster was something Erichtho's mirror or tarot cards could pick up, even if Boggin's winds hadn't heard the noise and weren't coming to investigate. I was still on the grounds of the estate.

  I reached out and touched the bird gently. He flinched when I touched him, as if my hand had hit a sore spot,

  and the beak snapped in my direction. The eagle seemed to have a cross expression on his features, even though he did not really have expressions.

  "Sorry!" I said. "Oh, I am so sorry!"

  The eagle looked at me as if I were an idiot. He had a sarcastic look.

  "Is—is there anything I can do?"

  The eagle dropped his head back into the snow, eyes sinking shut, too weary to continue withering me with his contempt.

  "Please get better. I don't know if you are magic or anything, or if you can grant wishes, but—please get better! I'll do anything if you get better!"

  One yellow eye rolled open, and the beak snapped. A hissing croak came from the throat. Was that a yes? I know that in fairy stories you are not supposed to make wishes or say things like "I'll do anything,"

  but I didn't want the poor creature to die on my account.

  I said, "Are you going to get better?"

  Then the eye stopped moving; the lid drooped. He looked dead. Maybe he was just resting. But he looked dead.

  The wind blew again. Cold, cold, cold.

  I hopped and danced (a little dance I like to call the frostbite toe dance) over to the fires.

  It was painful to get a dozen feet across the snow back to the fires. I could not even imagine trying to make the two miles or more to the village. Assuming the group would be waiting for me still at the same dock.

  Think, Amelia, think. Review options. What would Victor do? Use logic. What did logic say?

  Look over all raw materials. Okay. One wounded eagle. One bearskin. My wedding dress, hanging on a branch not far from the fire… Hm. Probably dry by now. Little glass slippers at the foot of the tree. Lots of rope on the ground, in case I wanted to tie myself up again and wait for Grendel to come back.

  Wait. Rope.

  Where had Grendel gotten the rope from? Or the bearskin? For that matter, where were the materials he used to start the two campfires? He might have just ripped the branches off trees with his bear claws, but then what? Any matches or anything he might have been carrying in the undersea kingdom would have been soaked through.

  I remembered how Boggin had kept his man-clothes in the bell tower, where he could reach them from the air. Grendel said he visited his mother on a regular basis. Where did he keep his man-clothes? It had to be near the Kissing Well——-

  Think, Amelia. You are standing in snow. Look at the ground.

  And there they were. Bear tracks going from the well into the little stand of trees not far away, a footprint and a peg-print coming out.

  I hopped over to the slippers, hoping they might have some magic to enable them to resist the cold. Well, they didn't. It was the same as being barefoot. I took the dress, too. Don't ask me why. It was still a pretty dress, sort of.

  One girl in a bear rug (me) went running as fast as she could into the woods.

  Here was a l
ittle shed, no bigger than a closet, with a round roof made of sod patches, buried up to its neck in the ground. You had to step down into a waist-deep pit to get at the doorflap, which was made of deerskin heavy with ice.

  Inside the hut were two chests, and a circle of ash on a flat stone beneath a smokehole. Sitting in the ashes were three right boots. The place was too small to step all the way inside. I knelt, and reached in.

  And there were clothes. I stole two pairs of his pants and put them on, one atop the other. I took up a shirt, but it was so scratchy and disgusting that I put on the wedding dress first. It did have some magic for repelling dirt or something, because when I put three shirts on over top, this time they did not scratch or feel greasy.

  Was there anything else worth stealing? I found a heavy knife in a sheath. Girl can always use a knife when she is out walking. The boots? One was burnt through and through, but the other two were in so-so shape. They were large enough that left or right did not matter to me, and I could slip my feet into them, glass slippers and all.

  Anything that might help the wounded bird? One chest had a compartment with some white handkerchiefs in it. I wondered why Grendel would carry gentlemen's pocket handkerchiefs. He did not seem the type to use so many.

  Oh. I should have recognized them. Except I knew them better by taste, not by sight. Handkerchiefs?

  Not quite. This was what he used to gag his prospective brides with.

  I pulled out a handful. Maybe I could bind up the bird's wounds with them.

  Beneath the hankies was a book: Hesiod's Theogony.

  That brought tears to my eyes. I know Grendel was an enemy, and a rapist, and he was going to kill me, and torture me, and… and…

  And I felt sorry for his mother. There would be another pile of bones out back.

  When I got back out to the bird, he was sitting up, preening. The wings seemed better. They did not look broken. Every time he drove his beak through the layer of bloody feathers, more red drops fell to the snow, leaving the wing clean and unwounded.