"All right."
"No, it isn't! It's not all right at all. You called me 'Shorty,' or the Pei'an equivalent thereof, you dumb vegetable! When I get my turn, I'll roast you! I'm glad I'm alive again, and I guess I owe that to you. But I'll croak you, bastard! You've got it coming, and you'd better believe it. I'll take you with anything available."
"I doubt it, little man," Green Green said.
"Let's wait and see," I said.
So Nick joined us, walking on the other side of me from Green Green.
"Is he down there now?" I asked.
"Yes. Do you have a bomb?"
"Yes."
"That would probably be the best way. Make sure he's inside and lob it in through the window."
"Is he alone?"
"Well-- No. But it wouldn't exactly be murder. Once you get the tapes you can bring back the girl."
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Kathy. I don't know her."
"She was my wife," I said.
"Oh. Well, I guess that idea is out. We have to go in."
"Perhaps," I said. "If we have to, I'll take care of Shandon and you get Kathy out of the way."
"He wouldn't hurt her."
"Oh?"
"It's been several months since we woke up, Frank. We didn't know where we were or why. And this green guy said he didn't know any more about it than we did. For all we knew we were really dead. We only found out about you when he and Mike had the argument. Green dropped his guard one day and Mike picked his brains, I guess. Anyhow, Mike and the girl--Kathy, yes--sort of have a thing going between them. I guess they're in love."
"Green, why didn't you tell me this?"
"I did not deem it important. Is it?"
I didn't answer because I didn't know. I thought quickly. I leaned my back against a rock and pushed the gas pedal of my mind to the floor. I had set out to find and kill an enemy. Now he stood by my side while I sought a different enemy in his stead. Now to find out that he was shacking up with the resurrected wife I'd come to rescue . .. This did change things. How, I was not sure. If Kathy was in love with him, I was not about to burst in and shoot him down in front of her. Even if he were just using her, even if he didn't care anything for her, I could not do that--not with him meaning something to her. It seemed that Green Green's earlier suggestion was the only thing left--to contact him and try to buy him off. He had a new power and a pretty girl. Add to that a wad of money, and he might be persuaded to lay off. It still troubled me, though, that he had tried to kill me with his hands.
I could just turn around and go back. I could climb aboard the _Model T_ and in less than a day be scooting toward Homefree. If she wanted Shandon, let her have him. I could settle my score with Green Green and return to my fortress.
"Yes, it is important," I said.
"Does it alter your plans?" Green Green asked me.
"Yes."
"Just because of the girl?"
"Just because of the girl," I said.
"You are a strange man, Frank, to come all this way and then change your mind because of a girl who is Only an ancient memory to you."
"I have a very good memory."
I did not like the idea of leaving my Name's enemy running around in the body of a capable and clever man who would not mind seeing me dead. It was a combination that could keep me awake nights, even on Homefree. On the other hand, what good is a dead golden goose--or pigeon, as the case would be? Its funny how, if you live long enough, friends, enemies, lovers, haters move around you as at a big, masked ball, and every now and then there is some maskswitching.
"What arc you going to do?" Nick asked.
"I'm going to talk to him. Make a deal if I can."
"You said he would not sell his _pai'badra_," said Green Green,
"I thought so when I said it. But this thing with Kathy now makes it necessary that I try to buy it."
"I do not understand."
"Don't try. Maybe the two of you had better wait here, in case he starts shooting."
"If he kills you, what are we to do?" asked Green Green.
"That'll be your problem then. --See you in a little while, Nick."
"Check, Frank."
I moved on down the trail, maintaining my mental shield, I used the rocks for cover, crawling among them as I neared. Finally, I lay flat on my stomach about a hundred fifty feet above the place. Two huge boulders shielded me and cast heavy shadows. I rested the pistol on my forearm and covered the back door.
"Mike!" I called out. "This is Frank Sandow!" and I waited.
Perhaps half a minute passed while he decided, then, "Yes?"
"I want to talk."
"Go ahead."
Suddenly the lights went out below me.
"Is it true what I've heard about you and Kathy?"
He hesitated, then, "I guess so."
"Is she with you now?"
"Maybe. Why?"
"I want to hear her say it."
Then, after everything, her voice:
"I guess it's true, Frank. We didn't know where we were, or anything--and I remembered that fire... . I don't know how to--"
I bit my lip.
"Don't apologize," I said. "That was a long time ago. I'll live."
Mike chuckled.
"You seem confident of that."
"I am. I've decided to do it the easy way."
"What do you mean?"
"How much do you want?"
"Money? You scared of me, Frank?"
"I came here to kill you, but I won't do it if Kathy loves you. She says she does. Okay. If you've got to go on living, then I want you off my back. How much will it take for you to pick up your marbles and go away?"
"What are marbles?"
"Forget it. How much?"
"I hadn't thought you would offer, so I never thought about it. A lot, though. I'd want a guaranteed income for life, a large one. Then some really large purchases in my name--I'd have to make a list. --You really do mean it? This isn't a trick?"
"We're both telepaths. I propose we drop our screens. In fact, I'd insist on it as a condition."
"Kathy has been asking me not to kill you," he said, "and she would probably hold it against me if I did. Okay. She means more to me. I'll take your money and your wife and go away."
"Thanks a lot."
He laughed.
"My luck is finally good. How do you want to handle this?"
"If you'd like, I can give you a lump sum and then have my attorneys set up a trust."
"I like. I want everything to be legal. I want a million, plus a hundred thousand a year."
"That's a lot."
"Not to you."
"Just commenting. --Okay, I agree." I wondered how Kathy was taking all this. She could not have changed so much in a few months but that this would not sound a bit sickening to her. "Two things," I added. "The Pei'an, Gringrin-tharl--he's mine now. We have a score to settle."
"You can have him. Who needs him? --What's the other thing?"
"Nick, the dwarf, comes away with me, in one piece."
"That little--" Then he laughed. "Sure. In fact, I kind of like him. --That's all?"
"That's all."
The sun's first rays tickled the belly of the sky and the volcanos flamed like Titan torches out over the water.
"Now what?"
"Wait till I pass a message to the others," I said.
--_Green Green, he'll deal. I have his pai'badra. Tell Nick. We depart in a few hours. My ship will come for me later today_.
--_I hear you, Frank. We will be with you shortly_.
Now only the Pei'an remained to be dealt with. It was almost too easy. I was still on the lookout for a trick. It would have to be an awfully elaborate one, though. I was inclined to doubt the possibility of collusion between Green Green and Mike. Anyhow, I would know in a few moments, when Mike and I dropped our screens.
But after all my preparations, to settle the whole thing like a couple of businessmen...
<
br /> I could not tell whether I had chuckled or snorted. It was something that felt somewhere in between.
Then I felt that it was wrong. It? Something, I do not know what. It was a feeling that probably goes back to the caves or the trees. Hell, maybe even the oceans. Flopsus shone through the ash and the smoke and the mist, and she was the color of blood.
A quietness seemed to settle over everything as the breezes grew still. Then that old gut-grabbing fear was back with me again, and I fought it. A big hand was about to come down out of the sky and squash me, but I lay still. I had conquered the Isle of the Dead, and Tokyo Bay burnt all about me. Now, though, I looked down the slope into the Valley of Shadow. It is so easy for me to find things to be morbid about, and all things came to remind me of this. I shuddered and stilled my shaking. It would not do for Shandon to find fear in my heart.
Finally, after I could wait no longer, "Shandon," I said, "I'm dropping my shield. You do the same."
"All right."
... And our minds met, moved about inside one another.
--_You mean it_... .
--_So do you_... .
--_Then it's a bargain_.
--_Yes_.
And the "No!" that slammed back from the subterranean recesses of the world and echoed down from the towers of the sky clashed like cymbals within our minds. A flash of red heat passed through my body. Then, slowly, I stood, and my limbs were as firm as the mountains. Through lines of red and green, I saw everything as clearly as by daylight. I saw where, down below me, Mike Shandon emerged from the chalet and slowly turned his head to rake the heights. Finally, our eyes met, and I knew then that what had been spoken or written in that place where I had stood with a thunderbolt in my hands had been true: --_Then there must be a confrontation_. Flames ... --_So be it_. Darkness. There had been a patterning of events from the time I had departed Homefree up until this moment, which overrode, defeated the agreements of men. Ours had been a series of subsidiary conflicts, their resolution unimportant to those who controlled us now.
Controlled. Yes.
I had always assumed Shimbo to be an artificial creation, conditioned into me by the Pei'ans, an alternate personality I assumed when designing worlds. There had never been a clash of wills either. He had come only when summoned, delivered and departed.
He had never taken over spontaneously, forced any sort of control upon me. Perhaps deep down inside I wanted him to be a god, because I wanted there to be a God/god/gods somewhere and perhaps this desire was the animating force, and my paranormal powers the means for what was happening. I don't know. I don't know... . Once there was a burst of light when he came, so bright that I cried, not knowing why. Hell, that's no answer. I just don't know.
So we stood there regarding one another, two enemies who had been manipulated by two older enemies. I imagined Mike's surprise at this turn of events. I tried to contact him, but my faculty was completely blocked. I imagined that he was remembering that strange, earlier confrontation himself, however.
Then I saw that the clouds were massing overhead, and I knew what that meant. The ground beneath my feet gave a gentle shudder, and I knew what that meant, too.
One of us was going to die, though neither of us wished this.
--_Shimbo, Shimbo_, I said within me, _Lord of Darktree Tower, must this thing be?_
... And even as I said it I knew that there would be no reply, not even for me--save for what followed.
The thunders rolled, soft and long, like a distant drumbeat.
The lights out over the water grew brighter.
We stood as at the ends of a dueling field in hell, waves of light washing about us, clotted with mist, dotted with ash; and Flopsus hid her face, edging the clouds with blood.
It takes the powers a time to move, after they've been built to the proper point. I felt them pass through me from the nearest power-pull, then move away in great waves. I stood, unable to move a muscle or to close my eyes against the stare of the other. In the twisted light through which I saw, he occasionally flickered, and I glimpsed the outline of the one I had come to know as Belion.
I was diminishing and expanding, simultaneously; and long moments passed before I realized that it was I, Sandow, who was becoming more and more inert, passive, smaller. Yet, at the same time I felt the lighthings take root in my fingertips, their swaying tops high above me in the sky, waiting to be turned and prodded and drawn crashing to the ground: I, Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders.
The gray cone to my left was slashed down the side like an arm and its orange blood spilled forth into Acheron, to sizzle and steam in the now glowing waters; its fingers flexed high and ruddy in the night. Then I split the sky with my lines of chaos and sent them down below me in a deluge of light, as the cannons of heaven saluted and the winds of the sky rose again, and the rains came.
He was a shadow, a nothingness, a shadow, then he stood there again when the light died, my enemy. The chalet was burning behind him and something cried, "Kathy!"
"Frank! Come away!" cried the green man, and the dwarf tugged at my arm, but I brushed them both aside and took the first step toward my enemy.
A consciousness touched my own, then Belion's--for I could feel the reflex that shrugged off the latter. Then the green one cried out and drew the dwarf away.
My enemy took his first step and the ground shuddered beneath it, slipped in places, collapsed upon itself.
The winds beat at him as he took his second step, and he fell to the ground, causing fissures to open about him. I fell with my second step as the ground gave way beneath me.
As we lay there, the isle gave a shaking, shrugging twist to our shoulder of rock, and it slid and settled and smoke came up from the cracks within it.
When we rose and took our third step, we stood in a nearly level place. I shattered the rocks about him as I took my fourth step; and with his, he toppled rocks toward me from above. Five was the wind and six was the rain, and his were the fire and the earth.
The volcanos lit up the lower sky and fought with my lightnings for the upper. The winds lashed the waters below us, and we continued to sink toward them with each jogging of the isle. I heard their splashing, within the wind, the thunder, the explosions, the constant _plit-plit_ of the rain. At my enemy's back, the partly crumbled chalet still burned.
With my twelfth step, the cyclones arose; and with his the entire isle began to sway and creak, the fumes coming heavier and more noxious now.
Then something touched me in a way that I should not be touched, and I looked for the cause.
The green man stood on a crag of rock, holding a weapon in his hands. A moment earlier, it had hung at my side, not to be used for the gaining of cycles such as this.
He pointed it first at me. Then his hand wavered and, before I could strike him, jerked to his right.
A line of light leaped forward and my enemy fell.
But the movement of the isle saved him. For the green man fell as it shuddered, and the weapon fell away. Then my enemy rose again, leaving his right hand on the ground beside him. He held the wrist in his left and stepped toward me.
Chasms began to open about us, and it was then that I saw the girl.
She had emerged from the burning building and edged around to the right of us, in the direction of the trail I had descended. Then she had been frozen for a time, watching our slow advance, one upon the other. Now she caught my attention as the chasm opened before her; and something cried out within my breast, for I knew that I could not reach her to save her.
... Then it broke, and I shuddered and ran toward her, for Shimbo was gone.
"Kathy!" I screamed, once, as she swayed and fell forward.
... And from somewhere Nick leaped up to the edge and seized her outfiung wrist. For a moment, I thought he would be able to hold her.
For a moment... .
It was not a matter of his lacking the necessary strength. He had plenty of that. It was a question of weight and momen
tum, of balance.
I heard him curse as they fell.
Then I raised up my head and turned upon Shandon, with the death-fury lighting up my backbone. I reached for my gun and recalled, as in a dream, what had become of it.
Then the falling stones caught me and pinned me as he took another step, and I felt my right leg break beneath me as I fell. I must have blacked out for an instant, but the pain brought me back to consciousness. By then he had taken another step, which brought him very near, and the world was going to hell all around me. I looked up at the stump of his hand, at those manic-depressive eyes, at the mouth opened to finally speak or laugh; and I raised my left hand, supported it with my right and performed the necessary gesture. I screamed as my fingertip flared and his head fell from his shoulders, bounced once and rolled past me--those eyes still open and staring--and followed my wife and my best friend into the chasm below. What remained thudded to the ground before me, and I stared at it for a long while before the darkness sucked me down.
VIII
When I awoke it was dawn and I was still being rained on. My right leg throbbed, about eight inches above the knee, which is bad--the place and the pain. The rain was only rain, though. The storm was over. The ground had stopped its shaking. When I was able to raise myself, however, I forgot my pain in a moment of shock.
Most of the isle was gone, sunken into Acheron, and what remained was unrecognizable as my handiwork. I lay perhaps twenty feet above the waterline, on a wide shelf of rock. The chalet was gone and a mutilated corpse lay before me. I turned away from it and considered my own predicament.
Then, as the torches of last night's dinner of blood still sputtered and blazed, befouling the morning sky, I reached out slowly and began removing the rocks that lay upon me, one by bloody one.
* * *
Pain and monotonous repetition of an action numb the mind, free it to wander.
Even if they had been real gods, what did it matter? What was it to me? Here I was still, right where I was born a thousand or so years before, in the middle of the human condition--namely, rubbish and pain. If the gods were real, their only relationship with us was to use us to play their games. Screw them all. "That includes you, too, Shimbo," I said. "Don't ever come to me again." Why the hell should I look for order where there wasn't any? Or if there was, it was an order that did not include me. I washed my hands in a puddle that had formed nearby. It felt good on my burnt finger. The water was real. So were earth, air and fire. And that was all I cared to believe in. Let it go with basics. Don't get cute and sophisticated. Basics are things you can feel and buy. If I could beat the Bay long enough I could corner the market on these commodities, and no matter how many Names were involved they would find all the property registered in my name. Then let them howl and bitch. I would own the Big Tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I rolled away the final stone and stretched out for a moment. I was free.
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