by James Axler
“Ah, I have too much respect for you to try to trick you, or to make stupe wagers with you,” the ghost replied. “I offer you nothing more or less than a simple challenge.”
“You intrigue me, ghost. A spirit that does not wish to trick me? That is unusual.”
“I have seen you with the other ghosts, and know that there is no point. I offer this challenge. Wrestle me. If I win, you come with me. If I lose, I leave you alone.”
“That is simple enough,” Krysty said, mulling it over. “Very well, I accept your challenge, ghost.”
“Good. Then let us engage…”
The skeleton moved toward Krysty. Rather than back away, she mirrored the move and took a step toward the ghost. It ducked in toward her, and she feinted back before sidestepping so that she could move around and be hind the skeleton. The ghost turned so that its skull grinned at her, glinting in the light of the shining moon.
“So, you do not wish to touch me. Could it be that you who are supposedly afraid of nothing are scared of one little ghost?” he crowed.
“Perhaps I just wanted you to think that, ghost,” she countered, moving with a speed that took the skeleton by surprise. Before he had a chance to move, she had plucked his rib cage from him, his arms falling to the floor. His skull wavered precariously atop his spine.
“What are you doing?” he asked, bewilderment large in his voice.
“Showing you what I think of you as a wrestler. One move and I was able to better you,” she said. “Now it is time for me to play.”
With which she took the rib cage and climbed the rocks so that she was looking down on the pass on the far side of which was a river.
“See what a good sled you make, ghost,” she said, turning the rib cage so that she could ride upon it, and throwing herself down the scree, the bones chipping on the loose stones beneath. She yelled with excitement and joy as the bone sled sped over the rocks, coming to rest in the shallows of the river.
She picked herself up and shook herself dry, climbing back over the rocks until she was in the pass once more, facing the wobbling ghost head.
“Now go and find your bones and leave me be,” she said, leaving the ghost in her wake.
The chief of the ghosts had been watching this with interest, and knew that to defeat Krysty would require something special.
So it was that she turned a bend in the pass to find the chief ghost as a skeleton, seated atop a spectral steed that was also nothing but bone.
“I have come for you,” he boomed, hoping that the stomping of skeleton hooves would unsettle her.
Krysty laughed. “Is that the best that you can do? I am a scarier ghost myself,” she said. She began to make faces and yell at the horse, distorting her features so that they looked inhuman. The horse reared up on its hind legs, and the chief ghost yelled with shock and surprise as he was unseated, landing on the floor of the pass with a bump that scattered his bones across the dirt.
Krysty took the reins of the skeleton horse and calmed it. She looked at the skull of the chief ghost, then laughed again as she left the horse, moving among the debris of skeleton bones and throwing them as far and wide apart as she could manage.
“See, you are not scary, ghost. None of you could steal my breath, no matter what tricks you may try. For you have no power over the living, and you cannot harm us. Lucky the man who soon realizes this.”
With which she mounted the skeleton horse and set off toward her village.
A short time later, she rode into the village to find that all had come out to greet her. Her skeleton mount had been seen from some distance, and there had been alarm that ghosts were riding on the village to attack. Then, when it could be seen that she was riding the steed, the concern turned to amazement and speculation about what could have occurred to make such an unusual event.
As soon as she had pulled the mount to a halt and climbed down, it vanished into a puff of ghost smoke, its task done, and the villagers gasped. Many voices, talking at once, asked her what had happened. Breathlessly she explained how the four ghosts had revealed themselves to her, and how she had bested them.
“Truly, you are the most courageous among us,” the chief told her, “and you have much to teach our people about showing bravery and lack of fear in the face of the enemy.”
Krysty was pleased about that, and was about to answer the chief, when suddenly she froze. All that was in her mind about bravery and courage fled, to be replaced by fear and dread. She could not move, and she felt the cold sweat of terror prick at her scalp.
To the amazement of the gathered village, she started to scream, long and loud, and with barely room for breath.
“What is it?” the puzzled villagers asked themselves, turning to one another. “What is it that has caused such terror in one who has shown no fear in anything that she has faced?”
“Look,” said a small girl, stepping forward from the crowd, “I can see what it is.”
And, as she pointed to an area on Krysty’s breast where she herself was staring as she screamed, the villagers saw that a small bug had landed upon her jerkin. It was this that had put so much fear into the heart of one who had been so fearless about ghosts.
“It is nothing—see?” the little girl said as she plucked the bug from Krysty’s breast and held it in the palm of her tiny hand. The bug fluttered its wings and flew away as the little girl laughed. “How can you be so scared of that?” she asked, giggling.
And as she watched the bug fly away, Krysty wondered at herself, and realized that there was a great lesson for her to learn in this.
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
J.B. was a mouse boy. He lived in a log. At first he had no recollection of how this had happened to him, but as he sheltered from the elements, taking sustenance from the food brought to him by other mice, slowly it came back to him, and he began to remember.
His name was Wahre’dua, and he was one of two children. The other was called Dore. This was his brother, yet as he envisaged his brother it was not a boy who came to mind, but a woman with dark skin and braids. The name Millie was in his mind. Millie was Dore. She had another life before they were reborn as the brothers, and although others might see her as a small boy, he would always see her as he had first known her, just as he knew she would see him not as the mouse boy but as a grown man.
This was confusing. There was something else that he needed to recall, something that was important. Yet, try as he might, he couldn’t bring this to the front of his mind, as the memory of his brother and what had happened to leave him here was too strong, and would not be denied.
Wahre’dua and Dore had been with their mother and father. They had traveled far while their father hunted. One morning, while father had been away hunting buffalo and mother had been cooking, he and his brother had been playing. They had seen the stranger, but paid him no heed. People came and went as they traveled.
This man didn’t pass. He stayed. He wasn’t a remarkable man, yet there was something odd about the way that he looked. It was as though smoke rose above him, obscuring him so that although he looked as other men, so it was that you couldn’t fully bring his face to mind when you wished.
The man talked to their mother. She wished to carry on with her task and did not seem to return his conversation. This did not deter him. He kept talking, then went on his way.
In the afternoon he returned. The boys played, but could hear him. Their mother still didn’t wish to talk. The stranger tried to tempt her with magic tricks, but she didn’t pay him heed. Finally, in a rage, he killed her. When their father returned, he was saddened, but was a practical man. He decided that he couldn’t return with both the boys, and so he took Dore, leaving Wahre’dua to live with the mice and become an animal.
But the mouse boy didn’t wish to be separated from his brother. So he resolved to find his father and his brother. Despite the fact that he was only a boy, he knew the way in which they traveled, and returned to
their home village.
He waited for his brother to be alone, and then the two boys played. But he knew that his father would want to trap him if he realized that Wahre’dua had returned, and Wahre’dua was still angry with his father for leaving him, so he whispered into his brother’s ear that he should forget every time they parted company.
Remembering this, he went to play with his brother. The two of them hunted and trapped until the sun began to drop in the sky and Dore had to return home to their father. But, having done so much, Wahre’dua forgot to tell his brother to forget.
So Dore, excited, told their father of what he had been doing. And so it was that the next day, when the mouse boy came out of hiding to play once more with his brother, he was surprised when their games were interrupted by their father. He tried to escape, but despite all he had learned, their father was still the better hunter, and he captured the mouse boy, who came to live with his brother and his father at last.
Yet his father still wasn’t happy with Wahre’dua. Now that he was home, the mouse boy forgot his anger in the joy of being with his family once more. He missed his mother in a way that he hadn’t while he lived wild, but he was determined to make up for this by winning the love of his father, and so making his own feelings for his father grow to what they should be.
To do this, he determined to show his father what he had learned, and that he should be a good hunter like him. He also resolved to teach these things to his brother. Dore was brave like Wahre’dua, but hadn’t lived the same life, and so was cautious where his brother was fearless.
The two boys trapped slugs and rattlesnakes. The slugs were to show that they had no fear of the things that others quailed from because of how they looked and felt. The rattlesnakes were to prove to their father that they had no fear of that which could chill them with a swiftness that would brook no mishap. One wrong move, one second of time lacking in judgment, and they would be no more.
They were successful because the mouse boy was an excellent hunter, and his brother was a quick and skillful student. They soon had many trophies that they could bring before their father. Yet this didn’t please him. He was disgusted with Wahre’dua, and it seemed that the mouse boy could do nothing to please his father.
And this was how the mouse boy and his brother became great hunters—because their father would not show pleasure in the exploits of his mouse boy, Wahre’dua.
For the mouse boy was the stronger of the brothers because of his experiences, and so he could always bend Dore to his will. And Wahre’dua had a plan that would make their names as great hunters.
They would travel to the forbidden place where U’ye, the great female maw of the world, lived. There, they would chill her as proof of their skills.
“But she will eat us whole,” Dore said.
“Not if we are clever,” mouse boy replied.
In front of the place where U’ye lived there was land covered in flints. “Follow me,” Wahre’dua told his brother as he threw off all his clothes. Dore did so, and then watched as his brother rolled in the flints until they covered his body.
“I see. These will protect us as she cannot eat us until they are gone,” Dore said, throwing himself into the flints and covering his body from head to foot.
The two young hunters then went to U’ye and challenged her. The female maw took them up, and started to slowly chew the flints from their bodies. Yet they couldn’t find the place where they could strike the chilling blow. They were still struggling to find this when she had stripped them both of flints, and was about to consume them.
“Oh, brother, we are about to die,” Dore cried.
But Wahre’dua smiled, for he could feel one flint that the female maw had failed to find. It had lodged under his foreskin, which he pulled back so that he could retrieve the flint.
When this was in his hand, he wished that it would be a flint knife, and magic made it so. It was then that he realized that he had the power of magic.
Wahre’dua took advantage of U’ye’s surprise to strike a chilling blow in her diaphragm. This was the only place in which she was vulnerable. With a cry, she expired, and the force of her chilling caused an earthquake that rippled across the land, telling all of the boys’ triumph.
Soon, word of their victory spread, and the boys became well-known for their feats of monster slaying. Dore learned magic well from his brother, but always it was Wahre’dua who had the greater powers.
So it was that they began the times that made their legend stand tall. Horned water panthers were keeping their tribe away from the waters that they needed to survive, so Wahre’dua and Dore decided to chill the panthers. But how to gain access to the panthers?
“Listen to me, brother,” Wahre’dua said, “for I have the stronger magic and I know this will work. Chop me up into pieces and cook me so that I am an offering for the horned water panthers.”
“But brother, I cannot chill you,” Dore cried.
“Do not worry, it will be all right. You take your part, and I will take mine.”
So Dore took a knife to his brother and chopped him into pieces that he then cooked in spices. He carried this to the place where the panthers lived.
“Who are you that dares approach us?” they called.
“I am Dore, and I have an offering for you.”
“For that alone we will let you live. Now begone,” the panthers cried.
Yet no sooner had the panthers gathered around the platter of cooked meat, to gorge themselves, than Wahre’dua reconstituted himself from the pieces. The panthers were surprised, and before they had a chance to act, Wahre’dua had moved among them all, chilling them with his flint knife. He called upon Dore, who had been in hiding nearby, and who rushed to join his brother. Between them it took the brothers little time to lay waste to the panthers, and once more the tribe was able to use the river and have water.
When the chief of raccoons used his people to stop the tribe from hunting, once again the brothers used their trick to get among the raccoons and chill them.
It wasn’t long before their growing reputation as monster hunters spread farther across the land, and attracted the attention of spirits who didn’t wish them well. The Honpathotei, a tribe of flat-head spirits, challenged the brothers to a race. If the spirits won, then they would be able to stop the brothers from chilling any more monsters.
The spirits were convinced that they would win, as they hadn’t the encumbrance of the flesh. But they didn’t reckon on the magic that the brothers held, and to their surprise they were defeated.
“You would have us do as you wished if you won, so now you must do as we wish,” the brothers told them.
The spirits weren’t pleased, but an oath was something that couldn’t be easily broken. Their displeasure grew even more when the brothers told them what they had to do.
The flat-head spirits were divided into two armies, each commanded by one of the brothers. And while the brothers watched from a hill, the two spirit armies fought at their commanders’ behest until such time as they had wiped each other from the face of the Earth.
“See, brother, none will doubt our power to do good now, should we be called upon,” Wahre’dua told Dore.
But despite their power, and their willingness to use it only for good, their father was frightened of the magic that they held. For that reason, he hadn’t wished them to take part in any of their monster hunts. But now that they had bested the flat-head spirits, he knew that the time had come to speak of what had happened to their mother. In this way, he knew that they would set out to avenge her chilling. And while they were gone, it would give him a chance to leave: for he knew that they no longer needed him, and he was scared to be in their presence now that they had this power.
“The man that chilled your mother wasn’t a man. He was disguising himself with magic. In his real form he is hideous to behold, as he has two faces, each with spikes, and his body is covered in these spikes. He comes from a tribe called the
Sharp Elbows, who are all like him. They are monsters who bring fear to all whose path they cross. I will tell you where they live, and I want you to go and find them.”
So their father told them of the land in which the Sharp Elbows lived, and sent them on their way, hoping that by the time they returned, he would be gone.
But this wasn’t to be, for the brothers were driven onward by the desire to avenge their mother, and so they made their way to the village of the Sharp Elbows far quicker than anyone could have imagined.
“We will use our old trick,” Wahre’dua told his brother.
“But what if they know of it?” Dore asked.
“Even if they have, our magic and our will to chill them is stronger than their will to survive. I know it,” his brother replied.
And so it was to be proved. Dore chopped up his brother, cooked him in spices and took him as an offering to the Sharp Elbows. But they seized Dore and would not let him go.
“So, this meat is the mouse boy whose mother I ripped to pieces.” One of the Sharp Elbows laughed.
That was his big mistake. The knowledge that their mother’s murderer was among the Sharp Elbows before them spurred the brothers to greater feats of hunting and magic than even they could have believed. Dore broke away from the Sharp Elbows who held him with fury, and his brother came back into being with an anger that drove him on. In no time, the Sharp Elbows were no more. Those creatures whose savagery and incredible spikes had made almost invincible were now no more.
The whole of the world knew of the brothers’ triumph as they returned to their father. He had known that they had the power to beat the Sharp Elbows, but even he could not have reckoned on their achieving this so swiftly.
Now, more than ever, he feared their power, even though he was their father. So he sent them off on a quest to discover the corners of the world, so that they may rid it of monsters. And while they were gone, he ran away to hide.
During their journey, the brothers made friends with the powers above, the Great Spirits that govern the world. These spirits recognized the power of the brothers, and the things they wished to achieve. So the powers above taught them how to make bundles of peace and bundles of war, and how the magic of these bundles could help them in their task.
