by James Kahn
The city streets were labyrinthine here—turning, twisting, narrow—so that try as they might, the escapees could not turn back toward the western pier. Instead they kept heading deeper into the city.
The religiosity of the city was evident at every step. Trident patterns were glazed into most doorways. Icons of the great sea bass—the holy fish—adorned every windowsill and filled the tiny altars that stood on every street corner. The God of Venice was everywhere, here; in every thing; and it gave the escaping hunters the eerie sense that they were being watched by the very stones of the city.
Citizens were starting to notice them now, too. Centaurs were uncommon sights on these islands. News of these villains who’d murdered the Priest of Hoods was everywhere, as well—so at every cross street people stopped to stare at this ragged, motley bunch.
Then the ruckus behind them started. Apparently one of the unconscious guards had awakened, and called the alarm. Creatures began following the renegades. They stopped trying to look nonchalant and began to run. Citizens gave chase, joined by soldiers, dogs, children, birds. Down alleys, around buildings, through squares and over bridges. Josh and friends ran faster; the town closed in.
They came to the end of a street that emptied into a large square thick with celebrants. There were no side streets, and they couldn’t turn around—their pursuers were too close. So into the piazza they strode.
A great cheer went up. The square faced on the Grand Canal, and the Doge was just floating by in the royal gondola, preparing to throw the city’s ring into the sea.
Josh and the others stepped quickly into the pressing crowd, to lose themselves in the crush. It was a reasonable thing to do, and would have succeeded, but for Beauty’s great height. He was clearly visible over the heads of all the other onlookers. When the vigilante band finally burst into the square, they moved immediately in on Beauty, and began shouting: “There he is! The centaur who murdered the Priest of Hoods! Stop him!”
People all around began to look at Beauty. The jubilant holiday hilarity turned to angry grumblings, pointed fingers, hushed glares. Someone threw a stone; it hit Beauty in the shoulder. “Let him breathe water,” someone shouted. “Kiss waterbottom,” yelled another.
Instantly, the helpless Centaur was being borne on a wave of frenzied hands and fists over the sea of people, toward the deep Grand Canal. As he was carried along, metal chains and jewelry of all kinds were thrown around his neck, over his body; to weigh him down, tangle him up. Josh and Jasmine tried frantically to get to the Horse-man, to help him somehow; but like sticks in the ocean, they were soon separated from Beauty and from each other, by the swells and crosscurrents in which they were trying to float. Isis had all she could handle just not getting crushed under the tide of feet; and Sum-Thin steadfastly watched, alert, ready.
Beauty was scared. He writhed and bucked, but the mob heaved him powerfully, inexorably to the water’s edge. Hating fingers dug into his flesh; spit and curses stung his face. His struggles were futile. As he was brought finally to the rim of the canal, a somber thought, like a shadow, passed his mind. “I am an object of vengeance.”
Over the edge they threw him, and into the profound gray waters, where, jewelry-heavy, he sank like a statue.
A great cheer went up. Almost immediately, the sky darkened, as if the sun were eclipsed, or the air a blanket of smoke. The crowd gasped as a single organism and silently looked to Heaven.
What they saw was the most strange and terrifying scene anyone had ever witnessed. Across the sky, blotting out the day like a cataract, flew silent legions of Vampires wing to wing. Hundreds of them soared in tight formation, a diaphanous black apparition about to settle over the city; night’s dark victory. In the hush that ensued on the banks of the Grand Canal, the first distant rumbling of a thousand flapping leather wings began to stir the air. Someone screamed; and the next moment was total chaos.
People in the square started running, in all directions at once. Children were trampled, carts overturned. Some of the soldiers fired arrows skyward, but the Vampire battalions were much too high, and the arrows fell back into the crowd. Some of the citizens brandished tridents at the advancing creatures; some hurled curses. Nothing helped.
A heart-stopping scream—almost a siren—rang down from the head of the Vampire fleet. Then the foremost Vampires began a wide slow spiral dive toward the city. All the succeeding ranks followed, until the entire formation was flying headlong into the islands, looking like nothing so much as a black, swirling cape.
In the square, frenzy was at a peak. Isis, Josh, Jasmine, and Sum-Thin climbed statues, hid behind stairs and flattened against walls to avoid being crushed in the melee. As soon as enough people were gone from the square—either fled to their homes, or dead in the street—Josh leapt from beneath the bridge he’d crouched under, and ran to the edge of the canal into which Beauty had been thrown. Jasmine joined him in a second.
The first wave of Vampires began swooping down out of the last leg of their descent, wrenching terrified Humans off the ground, gnashing their necks, then dropping them once more to the earth. Soldiers and sailors were emerging in force now, as well, killing some of the Vampires with arrow and spear, grappling hand to hand with others. The streets were sticky with blood.
Josh and Jasmine dove into the canal simultaneously. Joshua swam straight down, and in the clear water quickly saw his beloved Beauty, snagged and still at the bottom. The Centaur had managed to pull off all but one of the heavy chains around his neck, but that one had caught in a tangle of seaweed near the canal floor; and there he lay.
Josh reached his motionless friend in an instant and tore the golden harness free. Jasmine was soon beside them, lending assistance. A minute later, the Human and the Neuroman were pulling the cold Centaur up on the bank. His color was blue, his eyes waxy. Lifeless. Jasmine began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
All around them the fighting continued. Sum-Thin ran up, crouching, to Beauty’s side, and started cardiac massage over the great Horse-chest. Josh did the same to the man-chest. A Vampire fell screaming from the sky, spinning out of control like a broken kite, into the water fifteen feet away. Black smoke could be seen rising on the other side of the city. Bedlam was everywhere.
Suddenly Beauty coughed, vomited, moved; breathed. The others sat back in grave relief—none yet allowed the luxury of joy to intrude: the air was still heavy with death and insanity.
Before anyone could utter a sound, there was a great rushing of wind, and into their midst—from nowhere, it seemed—dropped a dark winged figure, terrible and grand and ready to strike. Jasmine, Josh, and Sum-Thin crouched in a line before the prostrate Centaur, facing their towering attacker with the desperate strength that comes near the end of a long struggle.
No one moved. Slowly, Jasmine stood, her legs weak, her mouth open. “Lon?” she whispered.
The great Vampire smiled. “None other, Yasmeen.”
Jasmine shook her head in confusion. “But…”
He held up his hand. “No time for questions now, please. We must hurry. Is this all of you?”
Isis skittered across the square, ran between Lon’s legs, and jumped up on Joshua’s shoulder.
Josh took a quick look around the ragtag bunch and smiled. “This is all of us,” he nodded.
Lon turned his head up and opened his mouth to yell. They heard no sound, but in a few moments, three more Vampires flew down and stood there with wings unfurled.
“Three more friends,” Lon spoke softly. “Lev, Ula, and Aba. They’ve come to help me take you away. Come.” He held out his hands.
Jasmine walked over to him, and he wrapped his powerful right arm tenderly around her waist. Then he took two long steps to Joshua’s side, gripping the Human in a similar fashion. Then he spread his wings and flew.
Josh held his breath, in pure wonder as the earth receded below him. He held Isis tightly, just as Lon was holding him, and watched the figures on the ground shrink to the size of
rodents and insects. Two of Lon’s Vampire friends picked up Beauty in a hammock-contraption and began flying in Lon’s trail; the last Vampire followed, carrying Sum-Thin.
The wind raced across Joshua’s face as Lon’s slowly beating wings lifted them higher, finally leveling off somewhere over the sea. The Venetian Islands were far gone, no more than stones in the glittering ocean. Josh was mesmerized: such depths to such heights, in such a short time. His mind reeled.
They headed south and east. A big hawk paced them for a time, then veered off for more interesting companionship. Occasionally, they went through clouds—cold, wet, white-bright. Sometimes they’d catch an updraft, at which Lon would simply spread his wings straight, and sail. Josh felt giddy.
Some time later—Josh could not say how long—they saw land. Lon set his course on a gradual descent, and in a few minutes they touched down on a high cliff overlooking a black-sand beach. The others landed within minutes, carrying Beauty and Sum-Thin.
The Vampires spoke to each other briefly—silent mouth movements, with an occasionally audible beep—and flew off in the direction of the setting sun. Lon remained behind with Josh and friends. Beauty was awake now, if a bit unsteady on his feet. The others stood facing Lon.
“That was quite a rescue, Lone Ranger,” said Jasmine. “How’d you do it?”
“This gentle creature showed me where to look,” said Lon, pointing to a small cluster of elms behind them. From out of the trees flew Humbelly, the long-lost Flutterby. When she saw Joshua in the clearing, she fluttered madly all around his head, humming like current down a wire. Josh gasped happily. Isis assumed a reserved, if suspicious, crouch. Humbelly lighted, grinning, on Joshua’s shoulder.
Lon continued. “Our search for you is a long story. But first, before we trade adventures—look north.”
They did. Some miles distant, on somewhat lower cliffs over the coast, stood a massive black castle, surrounded by what looked like walls and a city.
“Behold, the City With No Name.”
Gleaming red in the sunset, a river could be seen as well, flowing past the castle and emptying into the ocean.
“The castle on the Sticks River,” Lon went on. “There resides the New Animal, and there will your people be.”
With clarity, Joshua stared at the gothic structure. It was the end of his quest. Dicey was being held there, and Rose, and Ollie. Like a lens, the castle focused all the events of the recent past—the struggles, escapes, bonds, losses, lessons, and hopes—into a crystal point; almost a physical manifestation.
Without warning, and quite without meaning to, Joshua began to cry.
CHAPTER 14: The City With No Name
THEY sat around a small campfire in the clear black night, obscured from view of the distant castle by a tiering of brushy knolls. To the east and south stretched the uncharted expanse of the Ansa Blanca—the great empty desert that no animal had ever crossed. To the north was the waiting fortress, and to the west, the ageless ocean. But here and now was a pause: friends telling stories, sharing secrets with the campfire.
“The Flutterby came for me some week or two after you’d left,” Lon began. “It was very upset. It carried in its feet the locket I gave you,” he said to Josh, and handed the young man the pendant that looked like a golden blood-drop.
Joshua checked his belt and ascertained that the locket was, indeed, missing. “When could I have lost it?” he pondered, taking the memento once more from the vampire, affixing it again to his belt. It felt somehow like an action in a recurring dream.
“So I wondered myself,” continued Lon. “So I followed the little Flutter, who was in a frantic state and clearly quite keen for me to come along.
“It brought back memories, I tell you, seeing the Terrarium again—it almost felt as if I hadn’t ever been away. In any case, I followed the beastie down, and we soon picked up your trail—though the jungle had erased most of it. We came eventually to a small stream that poured over a waterfall, and here the Flutterby nearly flew itself senseless. I examined the area closely. Only hints of sign remained, but they all seemed to point into the falls. I told Humbelly to remain right there until I returned—and I went under the waterfall.
“I followed the stream through a series of dark caves to an opening—where I encountered the strangest jungle city I’d ever seen.”
“We were there …” began Josh excitedly. “It was …”
“I know you were there, I saw you,” Lon went on. “Later that afternoon. At first, though, I saw nothing but the marvels of the city! Beautiful Muses beckoned me, sang to me. I avoided them at first, to search for you—but their music was insistent; and finally, irresistible. I drank from their necks; they drank from my excesses. We passed half a day thus, when suddenly they transmogrified into Dragon-snakes and entwined me nearly to death. Only narrowly did I escape.
“With jolting clarity I remembered my mission here, and set off once again in search of you. Many strange and unsettling things did I encounter. Old dreams and fears come to life, mythic creatures, temptations and torments of every variety. And then you, Jasmine, I saw you. In a garden, speaking to a feathered serpent.”
“It was me,” Jasmine declared. “The serpent was speaking to me of Time.”
“So he was,” nodded Lon. “I called out but you did not hear me. I walked toward you, but could not reach you—first a ravine separated us, then I could not fly. I tried to cross on a plank, but fell in. I crawled out with great difficulty, but now I could not calculate how best to reach you. I approached from this way, but as fast as I walked, I got no closer. I tried coming around from the other side, but lost direction. Finally, I stumbled into the garden—almost by accident, trying to avoid a falling tree—and you were gone.
“I searched for one more hour, during which time I glimpsed each of you. A moment, here; in the distance, there.
“Night was coming, though, and I wanted to let the Flutterby know not to worry—that it might be a while before I found you, but that you were here, and all was well. I went into the caves again, along the stream and out through the waterfall. When I re-emerged into the evening jungle, two things were apparent, one unsettling, the other blood-chilling.
“First, Humbelly was gone. This surprised me, since I’d told her to wait. As I looked around I became further aware that the jungle looked different somehow from the way it had looked a few hours earlier: a wild cluster of orchids beside the river where there had been none; a new bend in the course of the stream; a hill of giant Ants. I brought my hand up to scratch my chin, and I got my second start: I had a beard!
“And no ordinary beard. Now I must tell you, I once let my beard grow, uninterrupted, for fifty years, and its growth was unhurried but steady. Four centimeters a year, like a clock. Well, when I looked down at the growth I had beside that jungle river, I can tell you, for just a moment my heart stopped. That beard was two feet long: over ten years! I looked for other explanations, but there simply were none. Ten years. It was preposterous, but inescapable.
“There was nothing to do but go back in.”
The others listened with rapt attention. Jasmine rhythmically stroked Beauty’s flank, as he lay, still weak, beside the dying fire. Josh quietly honed his blade on a flat rock. Isis lay motionless as a Sphinx. Sum-Thin’s eyes were lightly closed. But each, in the night wind, listened.
“So back I went,” Lon continued. “And wandered for a year.”
“A year!” Josh exclaimed.
Lon lowered his eyes in assent. “I saw many things in that time. The changing of seasons, the drama of many lives. I explored the limits of the city, delved into its recesses. In the still waters of its many pools, my soul was mirrored. I saw you, at times, too; but could never reach you. You, Joshua, trying to read ashes in a library. You, Jasmine, making love to Beauty.” They all lowered their eyelids. “I met a two-faced Neuroman called Janus, who told me the entire city was in a maelstrom whirling at the speed of light, that it contained All-time a
nd No-time, that I would never leave, that I would never die. I met devils, and angels. I rode photons, and battled monsters. I asphyxiated. I met myself.
“And all at once, after a year of this—it felt like a thousand—I saw you again—all three of you—running toward the caves, Josh in the lead. I gave chase. You weren’t far ahead, I could see you burst through the waterfall only thirty yards or so ahead of me. Yet when I jumped through, you were gone, nowhere to be seen. I searched the area quickly, and found your track, though—it was at most one or two days old. And when I felt my face, my beard was only half an inch long: three or four months from when the Flutterby brought me here. Suddenly, Humbelly did fly up—and led me into the jungle again, right in the direction your prints led.
“I tell you, I didn’t know what happened then, and I don’t pretend to now. But that’s how I found your trail.”
“Hypnosis,” Sum-Thin conjectured through closed eyes.
“Perhaps,” Lon acquiesced. Josh was wide-eyed. Jasmine squinted. “Howsoever,” said Lon, hands to the fire, “I followed you down to Ma’gas’. Unfortunately, I arrived the day after the fire. I snooped around. I contacted some old friends I hadn’t seen in many years. Many years. It was popularly believed that you’d escaped the blaze—no Neuroman parts could be found in the ashes, and no Human bones. And I had no reason to doubt it—you’d come through worse than fire.
“And I knew where you were headed, to the city on the Sticks. So I began flying back and forth, between here and there, over the sea for two days. And that’s how I found you. Tied to the mainsail of a BASS raft headed for Venice. I knew you wouldn’t last long there, but I couldn’t imagine single-handedly charging into that enclave of cultists to save you. So I arrived at an ingenious plan.”
“You engaged a thousand Vampires to attack the island?” Jasmine asked incredulously.
“I flew home at top speed, got the three friends you met, and brought back a film from my library.” “A film?”
