9 Tales Told in the Dark 7

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  I knew none by his person, but the ready clubs and shouted words explained all to me. Tusitala likewise understood and offered no resistance. The young foreigners panicked, however—even though we had warmed them in advance of the possible danger.

  “Criminals!” Jones yelped like a frightened dog in utter and complete misunderstanding. He jerked his shiny ween carbine upward and was immediately wrestled to the ground by a burly pair of Pledged Ones.

  Benford at least said nothing, save for sneering under his breath at more Samoans who pressed close to him—including one whose strong fist held the American's Henry rifle barrel impotently toward the ground. He struggled briefly and was knocked over, the weapon torn from his grasp. He whined as an especially meaty Pledged One sat on his chest.

  The group's Matai and what had to be a witness stepped forward once some degree of calm was restored. They glanced only briefly at the three white men, their foreign dress and skin color immediately clearing away any doubts about their guilt.

  Clad only in my common lavalava and obviously Samoan, I merited at least a cursory examination.

  “This is not he?” the Matai asked.

  The witness shook his head.

  “You're certain?”

  “It was Sapo Tutuila,” the witness snarled. “This is not Sapo Tutuila.”

  The Pledged Ones' leader nodded. Met my eyes. 'I am Esnu of the Kufetoa Clan, Matai of Tiavea Village.”

  “You've come a fair distance,” Tusitala spoke up in Samoan, surprising the Matai and his party. “The man you seek must be a serious offender.”

  “Indeed.” Esnu studied my friend's pale face a moment. “You are the one called Teller of Tales?”

  “It is my honor to be known as such,. Your countryman is in my employ and I dare count him a friend, as well. He has been nowhere near Tiavea—nor any other distant town—for some weeks.”

  “I understand. But what business has he here?”

  Tusitala winced. “I must take responsibility, Matai Esnu. My young visitors heard of this place and wished to—uh, pay their respects? I agreed and Nalietoa was required to accompany us. Again, I assure you—he is no criminal, fleeing to Eave’s side for Sanctuary. This I swear, on my Scared Honor!”

  “For a white man,” Esnu observed dryly, “your honor is said to be unusually reliable. And you know of our ways. And speak our language well, I see.” He turned his head. Barked the order that saw everyone released.

  Benford and Jones came up angry, so the Matai was proved wise, in that he did not signal the return of their firearms until Tusitala had an opportunity to inform them of the actual circumstances.

  “You mean these blighters still take it seriously?” Jones said and accepted the return of his carbine with an utter lack of grace. “I know they still club violators to death for the least and silliest transgression. But a God, living in that bleeding tree and offering asylum to any lawbreaker who reaches it? Even for these islanders, that's too daft to believe!”

  “It's their way,” Tusitala replied.

  “Their way!” Jones and Benford both sneered.

  It seemed the Matai, his Pledged Ones and the witness spoke little or no English. But they didn't have to—the two foreigners' attitude was entirely too clear. And I, of course, had a literal understanding of each disrespectful word.

  Again, the two did not care. But they were curious, in their mean and mocking way, what crime this Sapo Tutuila was guilty of—and how he had escaped the usual, immediate punishment.

  Reluctantly, Tusitala agreed to ask. He was interrupted in mid-sentence, however, by the derisive hooting of a bedraggled Samoan man who had climbed unseen into the Sacred Tree.

  This was when all of us—even the young whites—knew that this foolish expedition had allowed the criminal to slip past his pursuers.

  “Sapo Tutuila!” the witness bellowed and lurched forward, brandishing a shark tooth dagger. “Murderer! Defiler! I'll burn your body, the way you tried to burn hers!”

  Secure amid the huge up-swept branches of the Asylum Tree, Tutuila jeered.

  Enraged beyond reason, the witness darted forward.

  Two Pledged Ones and I caught him. Dragged him back. The witness—Lotto Mafifi—thrashed and screamed, but still he was returned to safety.

  “Your fault!” Mafifi turned on me and tried to gouge my eyes out with his thumbs. “You and these cursed foreigners! You took our attention, made noise and let the vile thing slip past us!”

  I turned aside, knowing that the crime was great enough that not even Jones or Benford could ridicule our culture for demanding a life in return.

  The details, as they emerged, were as terrible as any could imagine. Mafifi had come home from gathering bananas for his menfolk's supper to a nightmare scene.

  Tutuila had apparently raped and most surely murdered Mafifi's wife, Aunu. To cover his crime up, the body had been dragged into Mafifi's fale and her torn puletasi draped loosely atop the corpse. The killer was encountered in the very act of setting the fale's thatched roof ablaze—in the apparent hope that evidence of his crime would be reduced to ash, with all thinking it a tragic accident of some sort.

  Then men struggled briefly. Then Tutuila broke for the jungle. Rather than pursue, Mafifi ran through the spreading flames to drag Aunu out just before the burning roof collapsed. It was only then that Mafifi realized his wife's nakedness and that she was more than merely unconscious.

  This account was sickening enough to reach even such men as Jones and Benford. Lotto Mafifi's uncommon and open grief also had its effect, I'm sure. I found myself wondering how I would act, should a similar horror be visited upon my family. Would I be any stronger—any less maddened by such a loss?

  “So now the bastard sits there, safe and secure?” Jones shook his head. “They won't touch him, just cause he reached the bloody tree?”

  “They cannot,” I said. “Ave can be vengeful, not to mention perverse.”

  “Perverse?” Benford spat the word back at me. “That one's big damned understatement, boy! You don't build jails, cause you don't believe in walls. Won't take somebody's freedom, just his life—one punishment for every crime? The thief, the murderer and the man who doesn't show the clan chief quite enough respect all get treated the same—clubbed to death, on the spot!”

  “But let him get to one blasted moso'oi tree,” Jones prompted, “and the crazy bugger's safe?”

  “Perverse,” Benford repeated. He met his friend's eye in silent, nodding agreement. Hen he addressed himself to Tusitala. “I see you're right, Mr. S. We interfered with actual justice here. By accident, surely. But still, as the only civilized men here—the only ones not held back by silly superstition—it's our place to put things right.”

  “No!” Tusitala and I cried out in unison.

  Unfortunately, all this did was direct the others' attention to us as the young fools raised their weapons. Tusitala and I were too distant to stop them, though he made to lunge in their direction.

  I embraced him. Held back so he could not be judged a party to the foreigners' folly as the shots rang out.

  Hit squarely in the forehead, Sapo Tutuila was thrown back against the Tree's massive center. Other bullets struck him and the Sacred Thing's surface as he fell.

  The young fools had scarcely a moment to cheer their deadly efforts before the Matai and his warriors advanced on them. I'm quite certain they did not notice the sudden and unnatural darkening of what had been a cloudless dry season sky, nor the rumble of angry, threatening thunder.

  Tusitala and I saw all this, however—and I, at least, fully understood.

  Seconds later, both white men were down, never to rise again—their skulls caved in, as fit punishment for their desecration.

  And quick as that, the weakened but still vigilant God was again content. The thunder ceased; the clouds dissipated as abruptly as they had formed.

  And that was all, save that the strain and excitement of that day brought Tusitala's Ever-Coughin
g Sickness back to the fore. I was barely able to get him safely back to the Place of Five Waters and our great Teller of Tales never was truly the same again.

  ><><

  Within two short years, Tusitala was in the ground and the only good in it was that he did not see the world as it is now.

  The white nations that called themselves Great Powers have gone mad.

  The ones called Germans and several lesser cohorts struck against the others. Their Boats-that-Fly have dropped many bombs and much death gas on their enemies. And the same steam-fueled “batteries” were put into Boats-that-go-Undersea, attacking unseen to destroy the steamships of the British, French and others.

  Those white nations and others copied these new terror weapons. Now they fight back in kind and it's said the very world teeters on the brink of complete destruction. I truly wonder, my son, how many shall live till next year—to confront the beginning of the 20th of the white man's “centuries.”

  Samoa has escaped this strange new kind of steam-powered war for now. But all is not well here—as you can see for yourself, my dear young son.

  With these Great Powers thus occupied, as Benford and Jones predicted, more of their kind came among us. Their faceless, ruthless “Corporation” is subject to no one nation's law—including ours. It is said they follow the example of the American Dole and other white plantation owners who made the Kingdom of Hawaii their private country and reduced our distant cousins there to outright servitude in all but name.

  In any case, our good king is deposed—thanks to these stateless white men and their filthy, corrupting money.

  The streets of Apia have all been paved. Steam-powered carriages and carts now crowd and rush along them—loud and dirty and insanely fast.

  And just yesterday, I saw the first of the hulking monstrous “macadamizing” machines emerge from the capital. Even now, my son, it creeps slowly, loudly up the Road of Loving Hearts—spewing forth its choking smoke and laying down its hot, gooey “asphalt” that will dry hard and flat—all for the use of more white men and more of their terrible, ugly inventions.

  Someday—should their “Corporation{ grow strong enough—it might make bold to challenge whatever by then is left of the so-called “Great Powers.”

  Then the “Total War” we hear of shall come to our shores!

  But not, I think, till you're a grown man—assuming you have the dubious fortune to live so long.

  I know this is a terrible thing to say.

  Yet as I am almost glad that Tusitala did not live to see this, so am I grateful in some bitter manner that your mother died in birthing you. Dear Ulani could never have stomached what we face today—and what you will face, in this steam-powered future.

  And I shall not be here to help you, either.

  The Ever-Coughing Sickness is no blessing, certainly.

  But again, I'm almost glad it has sought me out—brought to me, no doubt, by the foul brown air of this accursed white man's Age of Steam.

  Son enough, I too shall go into the ground—like the mother you never had the great good fortune to know and like my dearest friend and second father, our beloved Teller of Tales—the good and decent man known to his fellow whites as Robert Louis Stevenson. . . .

  THE END.

  THE INCUS by Jim Lee

  Ton Trong Duc emerged from yet another less-than-satisfying meeting with the Highland Province’s Lord Governor. Still, the scroll in his hand represented one tiny concession. Ton knew this should count as progress, no matter how slight. Yet he could not summon anything resembling a positive outlook. Nor could he explain why the nagging pessimism he felt had grown still more acute as he quit Kumar’s offices for the tile-roofed veranda.

  Ton sighed and guided a leg forward then down. His boot hardly touched the first of the three broad wooden steps before an uncharacteristic frown settled on his round face. The expression deepened with each slow, deliberate descent and looked to be frozen in place, a sheer grimace of foreboding, by the time he came level with the Government Compound’s expansive courtyard.

  Staring straight ahead, yet seeing little even in that circumscribed manner, managed five steps before a familiar voice broke his near-trance-like preoccupation.

  “Lord Justice?”

  Ton halted. He blinked and turned his head. The silk tassels of his flat-topped cap swayed as Demon Fighter swung into place immediately adjacent to Ton’s right elbow.

  The foreign-born Wizard, whose name was also his title and even, so it seemed, his primary reason to exist, peered intently into his nominal superior’s face.

  “So the meeting went as expected?” Demon Fighter said. A wry grin deformed his weathered lips.

  The Lord Justice looked hard into the wizard’s smooth face. The man was far more than twice his age—older even than the stiff-necked Lord Governor, in fact. Yet, except for those wind- and sun-battered lips, the old Annamite tribesman’s countenance remained unchanged from what Ton remembered from his boyhood.

  And why had it taken Ton so long to notice that?

  “Yes,” the Provincial Lord Justice finally answered and shook his head. “Kumar refuses to loan us horses for your mission, even for a single day.”

  Demon Fighter shrugged. “It’s only the next valley over. One and one-half hours’ walk each way, two at the worst.”

  “You’re still welcome to take my personal mount,” Ton reminded.

  “Do you insist I have an armed escort?”

  Ton nodded.

  “So you expect me to ride in comfort, while two guardsmen struggle along on foot in full travel armor? No, Trong Duc—that won’t do. Either we all ride, or I muddle along beside my unnecessary protectors.”

  “You realize I can’t safely reduce the mounted contingent with Investigator Nguyen. That Visha and his group are no ordinary bandits. And I won’t send an undermanned unit out to be slaughtered as the previous Lord Justice did, not two years’ hence!”

  “No one has asked to you,” the wizard replied mildly.

  “And I can’t put off either his mission or yours!”

  “Again, no one asked—”

  “As for your escort being unnecessary—” Ton snarled, only to stop in mid-growl at the sight of a full-blown smirk. “Something amuses you, old man?”

  “Well, Trong Duc, if I cannot enjoy your normally pleasant demeanor, your misdirected outrage is at least more interesting than the air of mindless despair you were projecting moments ago.”

  The Lord Justice wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that comment. Almost as a reflex, he raised the scroll as if it were his ceremonial gavel and he was about to slap it down, bringing an especially vexing case to its conclusion.

  “My orders?” Demon Fighter guessed wrongly for once.

  “What? No.” Ton peered at the document for an absentminded moment. “My scribe is still preparing those, as well as the ones for Investigator Nguyen.”

  “What then Trong Duc?”

  “A token gesture from our esteemed Lord Governor.” Ton handed it over. “He will not provide extra horses, though he has quite many at hand. He won’t even order his outposts to deploy extra patrols in support of my Ordinary Crime Investigator’s efforts. But on the off-chance one of those outposts sends out a patrol on its own initiative and they encounter Nguyen’s party, this document orders the patrol to render ‘all appropriate assistance’ to him.”

  “With the patrol leader left to decide what is ‘appropriate,’ I suppose?”

  “Precisely.”

  Ton and the wizard exchanged brief, cynical chuckles.

  “A little enough gesture,” Demon Fighter observed.

  Lord Justice Ton nodded and accepted the scroll’s return. “Kumar also made certain to remind me how few general patrols his Guard units can send out these days. How thin-stretched they are, what with manning the new border posts—”

  “Ah, yes.” Demon Fighter sniffed and struck a self-important pose. “The ones to our immediate east, along a fr
ontier that once marked no more than our boundary with two of Champa’s other Provinces!”

  His satirical take on Kumar’s pompous tone and snide attitude complete, the wizard slipped back into his normal voice. “And of course, without saying so directly, he implied who he blames for the defeats that cost your people those places?”

  “Oh, of course,” Ton agreed and bit his lower lip, much like a naughty little boy about to transgress and enjoying the prospect immensely. “Our Lord Governor is nothing if not subtle.”

  “Correction, the wizard said firmly, “he is nothing.”

  Ton shrugged, glanced at the scroll. “I trust Nguyen Van Bao will be able to distinguish this document from mine?”

  “He’s learning.” Ready to proceed, Demon Fighter turned toward their side of the compound. “Much native intelligence in that one. You chose well, Trong Duc.”

  “I hope so.” The Lord Justice resumed walking, now more briskly and with more seeming confidence.

  “He already recognizes quite a few of the more important characters,” Demon Fighter said, keeping pace without difficulty. “And if nothing else, I’m certain he can recognize your scribe’s artfully accomplished hand, as opposed to the scarcely intelligible scribblings of Kumar’s idiot cousin!”

  The wizard chuckled at his own wit.

  Not breaking stride, Lord Justice Ton rolled his eyes. But as always, he took comfort in having the irreverent mountain tribesman at his side.

  2

  The senior monk of the local Buddhist Wat and the Hindu temple’s High Priest seemed more interested in conversing with each other than in offering their departure blessings. Friendly competitors talking shop, Demon Fighter thought with a secret smile. In any case, the traditional ceremony couldn’t begin until those two got down to it.

  Thus seeing he had time, the wizard drifted from his appointed location over to where Nguyen Van Bao stood. Demon Fighter watched the Ordinary Crime Investigator fiddle with his belt as the man’s wife smoothed the Sash of Office she’d just slipped onto him.