Through Caverns Measureless to Man

by D G Rose

  Amy raised herself back up on her elbow so that she could flop down again in frustration. “The lost god! Sounds like a quest to me! We help that poor girl regain her family god, the inn is safe again, prosperity and good fortune abound, bing bang boom, quest completed and on to Xanadu!”

  “I don’t think you understand how this works.” Said Christabel, “But if you guys want to try and help her out, it’s ok with me.”

  And that was good enough for Amy, who jumped off the bed and gave a little victory dance.

  “Just out of idle curiosity.” Christabel started. “How would you imagine that we go about recouping a lost god?”

  “No idea.” I said.

  “Well.” Amy said. “It’s a quest, right? So there’s a thing to be found and some monsters to be slain and.. well, that’s about it. Haven’t you guys ever played any role-playing games?”

  “No.” I admitted. “I don’t think I knew about them back when I had friends, and then I didn’t have any friends because, well, you know.”

  Christabel just shook her head.

  “You live in a fucking role-playing game.” Amy told her. “Surely you know how a quest works.”

  “Never had one.” Christabel said. “And I’m not sure that I have one now. But you seem to know all about it, so I’ll let you take lead on this.”

  It sounded pretty snarky to me, but Amy was pleased, so I didn’t say anything.

  Amy thought about it. “Let’s start by visiting the shrines. First, the one here at the inn and then the one down by the river. All good quests always have places to visit.”

  So, we tromped back down to the common room. The same girl was there and we asked her where the family shrine was. The girl displayed no curiosity; she simply led us outside behind the inn to a small black outbuilding shaped like a pagoda.

  Christabel knocked on the side of the building and it let out an unusual hollow ring. “Iron?” She asked.

  The girl nodded. “Yes, many years ago the Ma family of Quest Valley was larger and richer and they commissioned this iron pagoda to serve as the family shrine. It makes her abandonment all the more painful. We have a long history of faithful devotion to our god.” Then the girl took an odd shaped key from a pocket and unlocked the door. Handing the key to Christabel she said, “I can’t bear to go in. Please lock the door and return the key when you are done.”

  We entered the small room and looked around. The shrine was dim, the only light entering from the open door and some small shaded openings in the roof. The room was lined with shelves and the shelves held numerous clay tablets with names and symbols inscribed. Along one wall was a tiered table, like an altar, and it held bowls of rice and clay jars. Amy picked up one of the jars, opened it, peered inside and gave it a big sniff. Then she held it out to me. I sniffed it too. It was empty, but it still held a faint whiff of old wine. She did the same to each jar. She stood in the center of the room and paced slowly around, her fingers hovering just over the clay tablets, but unwilling to touch them. “Well, she’s right. There’s nothing divine here.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Amy looked at me. “Well, it feels just like every other place in the world, so nothing divine there, nothing divine here. Q.E.D” Then she added, “You know that Q.E.D doesn’t really mean ‘Shut the fuck hell up’, right?”

  I hadn’t known that. I mean, it sounded like something that Christabel had just made up, but I wasn’t sure. I had assumed that there must be something in Latin for ‘Shut the fuck hell up’, so Q.E.D certainly could stand for it.

  I was tempted to lie. I didn’t want to look dumb in front of Amy, or Christabel who was also listening in. All my adult life I’d been afraid to look stupid or uneducated. But, I didn’t want to lie to her. I really wanted her to know me, and knowing me, to want me. “No. I kind of assumed that it was bullshit, but I’ve never heard it before. I didn’t get a lot of Latin in the tenth grade, or any of the earlier grades either.”

  Amy, looked at me like she understood my inner thoughts, like she’d known all along that I didn’t know what it meant, and like she didn’t give a damn. It was the warmest look I think I’ve ever seen. She hooked her thumb around mine. “It’s just Latin for ‘It is demonstrated’ or ‘it is proven’. I wouldn’t know it either, except my art history professor loved quoting shit in Latin and making us all scramble to look it up. He was a real asshole.”

  I gave her a thumb squeeze. “So, now what?” I asked.

  Amy looked at Christabel to see if she was going to suggest anything, but Christabel stayed silent. “Well,” Amy said. “Nothing here, so let’s go to the shrine by the river.”

  The river shrine was a good walk from the inn. Amy and Christabel chatted along as we walked and I was lost in my own thoughts, just enjoying the warm sunny day and the nearness of Amy. We pulled up by the river bank, in front of a little shrine. It was nothing like as fancy as the iron pagoda of the Ma family, being little more than an open-sided gazebo with some shelves and cubbies for offerings, but it was obviously more trafficked, with almost every available space filled with bottles of wine or bowls of rice or flowers or some other offering to the god.

  And Amy was right, there was a definite something in the atmosphere, some electricity, some feeling that here, prayers were heard, really heard and, maybe, even answered. I was tempted to pray myself, I wanted things, so many things, but it would have felt like a betrayal of the Ma family. Plus, I had nothing to offer.

  While Amy and I examined the shrine, Christabel wandered down to the river bank. Amy was pointing out something about how this shrine wasn’t dedicated to the dead, but to the living, when I caught sight of Christabel waving to catch our attention. Her mouth was moving, but no words reached us. The only sound that reached us was her high-pitched shriek as she disappeared from sight.

  I don’t think Amy saw, because she wasn’t behind me as I took off running. When I reached the river bank, there was no sight of Christabel. Then I saw her, floating in the river, not moving. I took off running along the bank, hoping to catch up, but the current was too fast and I was falling behind. My only hope was to swim and let the current push me along. I looked at the river, it was like something alive, like a serpent waiting to swallow me whole. Without giving myself time to be afraid, I jumped. The shock of the cold water took my breath away. I wasn’t a particularly strong swimmer, but since Christabel wasn’t swimming at all, just floating, like, I was afraid to think, a dead person, I was able to make progress. I swam and flailed and reached until I was close enough to grab the back of her shirt. Of course, now that I had her, I only had one hand to swim with, and I panicked as I felt myself lose what little control I had. So, she slipped from my hand and then I panicked that I’d lost her and I grabbed out at her again and caught her again. And slowly, I was able to make my way to the bank and I pulled myself and Christabel onto the muddy ground. I wanted a second to regain my breath, but I didn’t have a second. Christabel was face down on the bank and I flipped her over. For all her strength, she didn’t seem particularly heavy at that moment. I put my ear to her mouth to listen for breath. Was that something? I couldn’t tell! That wasn’t good! Normally you can tell if someone is breathing. There was blood around her nose and she felt cold.

  CPR! I know nothing about it! But I’ve seen it on TV! She’s already on her back. I think I’ve seen people put their fingers in the mouth of the person before starting CPR. I don’t know why, but I do that. Her mouth is slack and easily opened. My fingers feel nothing but her cold slimy tongue and teeth. What’s next? Push on the chest or breathe in the mouth? I decide to breathe. I’ve seen them hold the nose of the person closed. The person. That’s how I have to think of her. That’s how I keep the panic down. It seems weird to say, but other than Amy, Christabel is the closest thing I have to a friend in the whole world. If we’re even in the world.

  I hold her nose closed and breathe into her mouth. Am I doing it right?
Too hard, not hard enough? Should I take shallow breaths so that she gets the oxygen before I use it all up? I breathe a few more times then I decide to push on her chest. How do I do that? I mean can I just do it anywhere on the left side? Or is it somehow more specific than that? I don’t know, so I just go ahead and estimate where her heart might be and give it a few pumps. I do it one hand on top of the other like I’ve seen on TV. Then more breathing, then more pumping. I pause to listen for her breathing, but nothing. I keep at it. It feels hopeless and I can feel my tears mingling with my sweat. Wake the fuck up! Wake the fuck up!

  Amy pulls me off. I’m crying and yelling. I can’t believe that Christabel is dead! And such a stupid way to die! I mean she was the Champion of the Mad Dreamer! She killed that giant serpent like it was nothing! She bested Neb in a sword fight! She was the strongest and most agile person I’d ever even seen! How could she die in such a stupid way? Slipping on a muddy river bank?

  Amy knelt alongside Christabel, she also did the two-handed pumping thing, but it was clear that Amy knew what she was doing. She twisted Christabel’s head to one side and with the first few chest compressions, water fountained out of her mouth. Amy was counting under her breath, then she gave three quick breaths then listened then back to pumping. After about a minute of this, Christabel vomited, a spray of watery yellow vomit, mixed with chunks of pickled vegetables. I remember thinking how the cauliflower looked almost untouched. Christabel began to breathe on her own, but her eyes remained closed. Amy grabbed Christabel under her arms and lifted her to her feet then bent Christabel over at the middle so her head was facing down. Amy squeezed Christabel’s stomach and more vomit and water drained out of her.

  After Amy was satisfied that Christabel had expelled everything she was going to expel, she set her back down on the river bank. Christabel was breathing and almost appeared sleeping. She’d been unconscious during the entire event. I ran over to Amy and wrapped my arms around her. She was sweating and breathing hard from her exertion.

  “Will she be OK?” I ask.

  Amy’s whole body was shaking. “I don’t fucking know!”

  We stood for a few seconds, just holding each other. Christabel had almost died, but what if she still didn’t recover?

  “Help me move her.” Amy said. “This cold mud can’t be good for her. Let’s carry her up the bank onto the grass.”

  So we did that. Then we dropped down alongside Christabel exhausted. I knew I needed to go for help, but I needed a moment to catch my breath. If I took off now, I’d probably collapse before I’d gone a hundred paces. We were within sight of the river road so that we could ask for help if anyone came by.

  Amy curled into me and I put my arms around her. Then I saw something glinting inside of Christabel’s shirt. A little silver glint. And I noticed for the first time a leather thong around her neck.

  I pointed it out to Amy. “Have you ever noticed that necklace on Christabel before?”

  Amy snuggled closer. “No. I’ve never seen it. But, she’s like a priestess or something, right? It’s probably a religious medal.”

  I nodded. “Probably. Some kind of Mad Dreamer icon. Do you think it has his image on it?”

  Amy shrugged. Christabel must be wearing off on her. “Might. I mean, apparently, you can visit the actual Mad Dreamer, so people must know what he looks like. It’s almost even more strange how you never see his picture.”

  I agreed. “Right! Like in our world, there are images of the various gods everywhere! And nobody even knows what they look like. Imagine if you could go and look at the body of Jesus Christ, how many photos of that thing there would be!”

  “Sure. It’d be on the fucking money and the fucking billboards and the fucking coke bottles!” She agreed.

  “So…” I began.

  Amy looked at me. “So…? What?”

  I pursed my lips. “Curious?” I asked.

  She looked confused. “Curious about what?”

  “About what the Mad Dreamer looks like! I mean is he an Abrahamic god with a flowing beard and robe or is he, you know, a three-armed hippopotamus?” I said. “Of course.” I added. “It wouldn’t be right to just reach in there and grab something that she’s obviously been keeping hidden.”

  Christabel at that moment shifted a little and gave a small yawn. It made her look much more like someone sleeping in the grass by a river on a sunny afternoon and much less like a potentially brain-damaged near-drowning victim. Which is to say it made what happened next much more forgivable.

  Amy reached in and grabbed hold of the silver object and held it in her hand to look at it. “Huh? That’s weird.” She said.

  “What? What’s weird?” I asked, squirming to see. “Let me see it.”

  “The Mad Dreamer looks just like George Washington.” She said, twisting her hand to show me a shiny American Quarter Dollar coin.

  CHAPTER 25 - Dean Martin? Are you fucking kidding me?

  Amy tucked the coin and its thong back under Christabel’s shirt, although the buttons had ripped off during her time in the river, so it kept peeking out. Amy stayed with Christabel and I ran back to the inn for some help. The girl at the inn arranged for an ox cart to come back with me and we loaded the still sleeping Christabel on the cart. On the way back to the inn, Christabel opened her eyes. So, it was with considerable relief that we carried her to her room. Amy and I placed her on her bed and covered her with the blanket. As I stood up, Christabel grabbed my wrist and pulled me close.

  “My hero.” She whispered in a raspy croaky voice. Well, at least the sarcasm centers of her brain seemed undamaged and with Christabel that probably accounted for eighty to ninety percent.

  We asked the girl to scrounge up some chairs so that we could watch over Christabel during the night. I’m not sure what we thought we were watching for, but it didn’t seem right to just leave Christabel alone in her room.

  So, I was sitting, just watching Christabel, as I mulled over some stuff. Of course, I’d recognized that quarter. It wasn’t the one I’d given Christabel at the Fair just a few weeks ago. No, it definitely wasn’t that quarter. It was the one I’d given Miranda all those years ago. Still shiny, just like it’d been. So, how come Christabel was wearing it? I mean, OK, she knows Miranda. Apparently, they’re close, but why would Miranda give it to Christabel? Were they a couple? If so, did Miranda know about Geraldine? Or, was it some kind of statement? Did Miranda give it to Christabel because she was angry with me? Or, was I reading too much into it? Did it mean more to me than it did to Miranda? I mean, this was the first time I’d seen it in over thirty years, but Miranda had had it all along. It was, after all, just a quarter.

  Amy took my hand and broke my reverie. “Are you hungry? I can go check if there’s anything to eat.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that would be good.”

  Amy left the room, Christabel cracked open an eye. “Water.” She croaked.

  I handed her a cup of water that we’d had waiting for just such a moment. Then, because I was kind of feeling angry or something, I said, “I would think that you’d had enough water already.”

  She cracked a smile and took a careful sip of the water, then a longer drink. “I thought she’d never leave.” She said.

  “Who? Amy?” I asked confused.

  Christabel nodded. “I guess we have some stuff to talk about and I thought it might be better if we were alone.”

  Seeing my look of confusion, she reached into her button-less shirt and dangled the coin in front of my eyes. “I imagine you have a few questions.”

  I nodded. “How come you have Miranda’s quarter? Did she give it to you? Is she OK? Is she really even here? I mean, in Xanadu? Unavoidably detained?” It all rushed out.

  Christabel looked at me with confusion, then shook her head slowly. “Oh, Nicky. I’d have thought you’d have figured it out by now.” She thrust her face forward. “Look at me.”

  There was still blood riming
her nose and a nasty bruise under one eye where she must have struck a rock or something. “You look like shit.” I said.

  She gave a sigh. “But what else do I look like? Who? Who do I look like?”

  And it was almost like her face underwent a shift, a subtle rearrangement of her features, and I saw what had been there all along. “Miranda! You look like Miranda! Are you her daughter? Are you my niece?” I must admit that the idea that Miranda had had a child, had had a life, here in this place, while I’d had nothing, hurt. It hurt me to think of her together with some dreamland prince, kissing and cuddling and living a life. A life that had included having a child, and not just any child, but Christabel, who for all her sarcasm and prickliness, was formidable, powerful, free, and, if I’m being honest, just wonderful.

  Christabel sat up. I thought maybe she would want to hug me. To give her long lost uncle a hug. She leaned forward and rapped me on the forehead with her knuckles. “Pleh! Pleh! Nicky! How have you missed this?” She dangled the quarter again. “Whose quarter is this?” She asked.

  It took me a moment to realize that she was expecting an answer. “It’s my quarter. I mean it’s the quarter that I gave to Miranda.”

  She smiled a big smile, like a teacher might when a child finally grasps some concept that has been particularly elusive. “And who would have the quarter that you gave to Miranda?” She asked.

  I shook my hands in frustration. “Miranda’s daughter! Or, I suppose someone close to Miranda. A friend or a … I don’t know, a girlfriend?” Then I added, almost too low for her to hear. “Although I could use the family.”

  Christabel leaned forward again and put her hand behind my neck, locking my forehead against hers, my nose against her nose. She gave a small shake of her head. “I’m not your niece. I’m not some friend of Miranda’s or a girlfriend for that matter.” She took a deep breath. “I am… Miranda.”

  I know that you probably shouldn’t push a near drowning victim in the chest, but I needed to get away from her as fast as I could. I stood up, knocking the chair over backwards. “Bullshit!” I shouted. “Miranda would be almost forty by now!” And what better argument could there be? Christabel was seventeen or eighteen, maybe a young looking twenty-two. I’d always tried, year after year, as I’d aged, to imagine how Miranda would have looked, had she still been alive, and Christabel was not what I’d imagined, not for a long time now at any rate.