“I don’t mind. In the hands of humans, they can be deadly explosives…”
“What?!”
“… if thrown against the right targets. We’re in Spring, and there are protections against Malak here. His agents fear what the Tabriks have placed throughout this Season to thwart him. Autumn has Mrs. Norse to protect it, but as she is his greatest enemy, he is bringing most of his forces to bear against her. Summer is the most vulnerable.”
“How do you know all this? You told me there wasn’t time before, but…”
“It’s very complicated to tell, but simple to show. When we have reached the Hive, you’ll have all the answers you can bear.” The cat made the proposition sound downright grizzly.
She would have asked Kitnip what sort of dangers they might face on the journey, but thought better of it. At least it was a relief to learn they were in one of the safer areas. Even so, the cat was right to observe caution if Malak could strike against them anywhere.
Malak. Grandfather. It was hard to believe they were the same person. She hadn’t heard the cat admit to this knowledge. Come to think of it, Kitnip would have only seen her grandparent on rare occasions. The family had never been close, just another of its many problems.
This was no time to explore the subject. Kitnip was moving off, more slowly this time, and Fay was grateful that her feline friend was pacing herself to be more easily followed. Making a knot at the top of her shirt, Fay proudly noticed that none of the cones fell out when she lifted her makeshift bag. She doubted any snooty girl scout could do better.
It was good to be on the move again, now that she had rested; and good not to have to think too much about what had happened to Mom, Dad … and Clive!
***
“My dear boy,” said the old man who was Malak, the Dour One, and who just happened to be Clive’s grandfather. “I can smell you hiding there. Sort of like ‘Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum’ in the old fairy tale. You can’t hide Gurney blood from me!”
Clive started shaking. Wolf growled, way down low, but you could still hear it. Grandfather didn’t miss a beat: “So you have that old mongrel with you, too. You never took good care of the beast. But then you never bathed yourself very well either, which is why I can find you now. There’s nothing preventing me sending my little friends right up to you and having them eat out your eyeballs.”
Clive whimpered. Wolf growled in words: “I’ve had just about enough.”
“Fear not, Clive. Sheath your fangs, Wolf. I’ll not attack you … today. And if you have one good brain between the two of you, then you’ll recognize the folly of attacking when I am surrounded by my autumnal legions.” “What do you want?” demanded Wolf, and his voice was different, full of fire and thunder every bit as frightening as the unbearable confidence of their enemy.
“Fair enough. I want what I always want: a bargain.” He allowed silence to collect in the air; and then it sort of drifted down to different parts of their bodies, touching Clive’s fingers and ears, pressing up against Wolf’s nose. The longer it went on, the worst it got until finally Wolf’s impatience was stronger than Clive’s fear.
“Stay there,” said Wolf, and padded out from behind the tree so that the Dour One could see him. “We’re not buying anything today,” said the dog.
“Good,” came the reply, “because I’m not selling.”
The parley was fairly begun. “So what’s this about?” Wolf wanted to know.
“I’m buying. What would you say to a once-in-a-lifetime bargain? You have something I want to invest in. Now ask yourself, what is the best possible investment?”
Wolf had a ready answer: “A bone.”
The Dour One was well named. Anyone else might have at least cracked a smile at the canine thought. But Grandfather had never laughed at jokes. He didn’t even seem to hear what anyone else said, but continued on his solitary course.
“The best investment is something that can never go wrong, that always pays and pays and pays. Many wise people have given this problem much thought over the centuries and they always arrive at the same answer. The best investment is taxes.”
Clive listened to the dry, cold voice. Although he didn’t understand the exact meaning of much of what the old man said, the general idea was simple enough. Grandad was not a nice man.
“You mean collecting taxes,” said the dog.
“Of course,” was the solemn answer. “I’m offering the two of you employment. So it’s you who would be selling your services by joining my friendly army of tax collectors. There’s a big project coming up and it will cost everything I’ve got to pull it off. Now we don’t use regular money around here. We pay for what we want in more ineffable substances, but I’ll teach you what they are and how to get them.”
Even though Wolf had told him to stay put, Clive came out from behind the tree. He’d understood enough of what Grandfather was saying that he had to show himself and say something.
“But Grandfather…” Clive began.
“Ah, my dear, sweet boy!” said the man.
“Grandad!” Clive tried again to seize the other’s attention, and half expected to be called down for using the name he’d been told to avoid … but nothing happened. “Why do you want us?”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you have a task for us back on earth?”
The man allowed himself the briefest of smiles as if to say: Clive is using strategy! Now who would have expected that? Grandfather bowed in honor of the indirect approach and explained, “A certain terrible lady altered my plans, but we shouldn’t cry over the spilled milk of kindness. I’m in a magnanimous mood and offer you this splendid opportunity with job security and automatic promotions.”
Clive wasn’t in a buying or selling mood: “But back on Earth, you were always cursing the IRS. You had nothing good to say about taxes.”
“That is true,” said the man.
“Then what’s this about?” asked Wolf.
“There is an important difference, you two.” Grandfather started to grin. He grinned so broadly that he looked like a happy man. Clive had never seen that before. “The difference is that here I get to collect the taxes,” said He Who Was Malak. “Back there, I had to give them.”
“You didn’t really mean it when you complained to Mom and Dad every April.”
“To anyone who would listen!” Grandfather helpfully finished the thought. “I was very bitter about anyone taking my money. The operative word is mine! There’s no reason you should know about my poor business partner, Bob. We had diversified into computers at just the right time. He railed against the government more than anyone I’ve ever met. The poor fool thought I agreed with him on principle every time I was merely practical. When we received an offer that would mean upgrading the IRS computers, he wanted to turn it down. A contract worth millions. Poor old Bob. I had to get rid of him.”
“You … killed him?” Clive dared to ask.
Now the man laughed. Grandfather had never done that, never! Who was this strange amalgam of at least two different people, Lord Malak with Grandfather’s mind and sordid memories? “You never have to murder idealists, boy. You can take care of them legally. That’s what the law is for, to reward practical people.”
As Malak elaborated the point, the weird creatures that had so terrified the boy wandered into the clearing and surrounded their leader. Clive had had no idea there were so many. He could count a dozen in plain view, and the movement of bushes suggested there were many, many more.
Suddenly Wolf broke the spell. “We don’t want to touch your money, or what you use for it.”
Their would-be employer was most forgiving: “Ah, you wouldn’t know real money from Kibbels and Bits. Besides, we’re not talking about money. Everything runs on magic hereabouts. I need more magic in one place at one time than has ever happened since Creation, little pooch. I started the ball rolling with the spell I chanted on Pine Lake back on earth a lifetime ago. You might say that was my audition. No
w I have the best job there is, and I’m offering you a little piece of action instead of the alternative.”
Clive was finding it hard to breathe for some reason. It was as if every spoken word was hitting him in the chest. Most annoying was that he felt like crying from that little balloon that fills up deep inside with all the tears you try never to show. He couldn’t stand to listen to anymore.
“Where’s Dad?” he blurted out.
“You’re changing the subject,” said Malak.
Clive’s answer flowed out of him like a river of pain: “You used to say you hated Dad because he couldn’t make enough money. But if you want all the money for yourself, then you’d hate Dad for making money, too.”
“The innocent babe has spoken a Truth,” said the very old man.
“You’d hate him either way!” Clive could hardly believe what he heard himself saying. Wolf observed the boy with sympathy, but in this situation, there was nothing he could do for him.
“I hate you!” shouted Clive at the figure standing before him, the monster who had once been part of his family.
“There’s no profit in that,” said the Dour One. “I’ll give you one more chance.”
“We’ve heard enough from you,” said Wolf as he started backing away until he was right up against Clive. That’s when Grandfather gave them a taste of the alternative: he pulled off his head and threw it at them.
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The Land Beyond Summer is posted for entertainment purposes only and no part of it may be crossposted to any other datafile base, conference, news group, email list, or website without written permission of Pulpless.Comtm.
Copyright © 1996 by Brad Linaweaver. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CROOKIES
Meanwhile, back in the world so recently departed….
Aunt Miner decided to pay a surprise visit on her favorite relatives, which unfortunates turned out to be the Gurneys, as usual. Only this time, Aunt Miner would be the one who received a surprise.
The woman had an uncanny knack for making promises that never came true. It had been often suggested that she take up a career as a family counselor, or failing that try her hand in one of the banking professions. If she said that you could count on something absolutely, then you could be certain of the opposite. One of her many promises was that she’d never drop in unannounced.
The funny thing about the situation was that it turned out to be the best visit Aunt Miner ever had with the Gurneys. First of all, she never got along terribly well with children. She would accept any plausible excuse to explain their absence. For her, the make-believe Mom and Dad were perfectly convincing, and perfet in every other way.
“Clive and Fay are visiting friends,” said Dad with a big smile.
“Friends they met at school,” added Mom with a bigger smile.
Aunt Miner rarely listened to anyone but she could give the appearance of engaging in conversation. What they had already told her was more than sufficient to satisfy her curiosity (weak at the best of times); but she stuck to the topic, out of a feeling that parents are interested in their children, even if no one else is.
And so she asked, “Are they spending their whole summer vacation with these children?” Hers was an indifferent inquiry, raised in the hope that perhaps the absence of the children would mean a longer visit from everyone’s favorite aunt.
The man who looked just like Dad said, “Yes.”
The woman who looked just like Mom said, “No.” Unfortunately, they spoke at the same instant. For anyone else in all possible universes this might have been taken as a clue that something was wrong. If Aunt Miner had been paying just a little attention, she might have noticed that the Gurneys were acting like characters out of the TV sitcoms that she so frequently watched.
The point is that Aunt Miner couldn’t be allowed to leave and alert someone if she suspected anything. Malak could replace her with a duplicate if he thought someone might miss her (as unlikely as this might be), but this was a decision for him. Basically, the fake Mom and Dad would have to contact the boss.
They couldn’t know that poor Aunt Miner wasn’t worth plotting against. She wouldn’t be a threat to the Dour One’s plans if she saw the children whisked away right before supper.
Aunt Miner rambled on in her characteristic way, so that even the cold, calculating minds listening to her every word lost track of what she was saying. One minute she was reminding them that they’d never visited Cousin Orson as they had promised they would before their financial problems (only made the worse by the endless recession). The next second she was complaining about how their carpet wasn’t the best material by a long shot, and that its shade clashed with a set of Peruvian ashtrays she had given them.
“… and just where are those ashtrays?” she wanted to know. The fact that the Gurneys had given up smoking around the time of Fay’s birth was supremely unimportant to Aunt Miner. She smoked, after all, and ashtrays were a fine gift to provide to relations who might be visited by their most loving member of the extended family.
The strangest thing about this sad woman was that if she rambled on long enough she would make some accurate observations, if only in passing. In a minor key, the woman specialized in unpleasant truths; and she’d never realize that she had crossed an invisible line until long suffering relatives would become so upset that even she couldn’t help but recognize what she had done. But, of course, this time she would have no cause for embarrassment, and no clue as to the actual content of her remarks, because good old fake Mom and Dad would be cheerful no matter what.
Oddly enough, if the real Gurneys had been there they might have learned more than usual from this particular visit. Especially when Aunt Miner laid it on thick with “Mom”: “Oh you dear girl, you’ve always been emotionally stifled, you know. I blame your mother, God rest her soul, but she didn’t encourage you to be yourself. Very few parents do. Now you find it hard to open yourselves to others, not even to your own brother … but then he was a little rascal, wasn’t he? Too much like his pop, but you always knew that, didn’t you? Well, your dear, sweet man has his hands full when you get stubborn, doesn’t he? You dig in your heels and nothing on God’s green earth can move you.”
“Would you like some coffee?” asked the fake Mom with a big smile that would have made any normal person worry about arsenic poisoning, but Aunt Miner was protected from worry by invincible ignorance. She was proud of the fact that she’d never had an ulcer. No one had ever tried calculate how many stomach ailments she had generously provided to others.
The offer of refreshments did put her on another track, though. It was time for the fake Dad to hear unpleasant truths about himself. They went like this: “But you, Old Fellow” — her nickname for Dad — “you could do with a little more sensitivity, you know. Not big gobs of it, like mashed potatoes the way Joe used to serve them. You remember him, don’t you? He’s a dentist now. He’d never have married Donna if he’d stuck to that ridiculous idea he could be a painter! Donna is a practical woman with her feet on the ground. Oh, where was I?”
The real Mom and Dad would have viewed the momentary lapse in her attention as unmerited favor from on high. Slaks, on the other hand, could continue nodding and smiling as long as was necessary.
Aunt Miner continued: “Anyway, dear old Fellow, you need to notice that the little woman has moods. She’s your rock and you don’t appreciate it. Sometimes that rock needs communication, and sometimes it needs to be left alone. Why is it that men can never tell when a woman really needs to be alone? She spends half her time tending to his moods while he pretends he doesn’t have any, but she needs to rest occasionally and try to find herself, which is harder for us than it is for you….
“I mean, it’s not like you men exactly misplace yourselves. You give us as many headaches as you cure, I’ll tell you that right now, the way I told my late, dear husband who had his fault
s, mind you, I’d never say he was a saint … although he went to Church a great deal.”
She went on in this line for some time until even she ran out of steam, and while taking a longer than usual breath allowed for the fake Dad to lean over directly in her line of vision and ask, “Would you like some cookies to go with your coffee?”
Aunt Miner responded to him in the usual way, with a barely perceptible nod (except for a few extra words about watching her diet) and then, before she knew it, had a steaming cup in one hand and a big grey cookie in the other. If she’d bothered to notice, she probably wouldn’t have actually bitten into the cookie. It wasn’t very appetizing, being one of the Dour One’s inventions, concocted of the same substance from which he’d fashioned the copies of Mom and Dad. The Slaks had never eaten of these cookies. If they had, it would raise an interesting question about whether or not such activity was cannibalism. Grandfather was of the opinion that whatever you eat, it’s not cannibalism unless you know that you’re eating your own kind. He’d thought about lots of unusual things before he became more than human, which was good pratice for what he was doing now.
Anyway, Aunt Miner had a very big cookie in her hand and was aware that she’d have to stop talking for a moment if she wanted to eat it. Mom and Dad leaned forward with keen anticipation as Aunt Miner stopped talking, took a deep breath and … resumed talking.
The last thing the woman said before she started eating was: “I miss him, I’m not about to deny it. He was a good husband as husbands go, but he had his faults. We stayed together in those days, not like young people today. Not that I’m saying we had stronger values than your generation; I’m just saying that we stayed together because that’s the way it was then. It’s such a different world now. You’re all so serious about everything, and so impatient. You never wait for things the way we did. Why I remember….”
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