episode FORTY-NINE
Neapolitan.
The great eye-shaped pool gleamed in the dark,
glowing faintly, the waters sometimes rippling and occasionally splashing,
burbling in the quiet of the night. Throughout the darkest portion of the dark
hours a motley assortment of highwaymen attended the fire that glowed just
stronger than coals near the pool, feeding slow logs to the blaze, turning the
wood at regular intervals, ensuring the warming of the empty nest of furs close
by, with towels and blankets stacked neatly, as close as possible to the fire
lest Stacey and Emily emerge sometime in the night when no watchers were close
at hand. When snow began wafting down in great feathers as the camp slept,
several industrious highwaymen hurried out to form a neat wall of snow at the
rear of the fur nest, and whip up a quick lean-to shelter to keep off most of
the snow.
A few times Michael came and stood before the
pool, staring down, immune to the cold in his fur coat. Steam rose from the
pool and wafted about the meerkat man, and sometime after midnight even Michael
retired. The hills turned white in the night.
Beneath the waters, deep, deep down, the sides
of the earthen-walled tunnels opened up and the sides seemed to transform into
glass as the waters glowed red, and deeper down the waters changed again,
becoming luminescent blue. The waters calmed, going placid, with only
occasional bubbles lifting and strangely taking shapes, elongating, and then
heading down the wrong way, as if propelled by a life all their own.
Stacey breathed in the waters, rubbing at his
face where the great scars on his forehead and eye and cheek tingled. At some
point he had lost contact with Emily in the whirlpool and he had sought her as
deep as he could go, deep where the colors faded into a dark ocean, surging
with cold currents, and down at those depths where vast looming shapes passed
by in the murk, he finally lost the ability to breathe in the water, and he had
coughed, choking, and had to swim frantically to escape the currents which
sucked him down.
Stacey understood that down there was the belly
of High Vale, and he might never find his way back up into the throat if he
allowed himself to be sucked too deep into the world’s innards. He would
probably be spit out as something different, nothing going to waste. He
struggled and kicked, breathless, lungs agonizing, until suddenly an updraft
flung him upward, a regurgitation threw him higher until he was again
surrounded by yellow light, where he bobbed and drifted, again breathing, his
system clearing.
As he had become one with himself, earlier, the
Stacey liberated from the other world had floated against his back, and they
had dissolved, skin ballooning weirdly, stretching, and the backs of their
skulls pressed together, and they swirled, bubbling furiously, until Stacey
found himself alone again, stronger than he had ever been before, and for a
while their thoughts had pooled side by side, distinctly separate, and they
observed and experienced everything in their lives, sharing and unable or
undesiring to hide the embarrassments and humiliations. They wanted it all out
between them, everything, the worst of the worst. They knew each other,
divided, but soon they knew everything only as one life, lives somehow similar
in all regards, and yet always different, every aspect of their childhood
through manhood resolving, accepting everything, rejecting nothing, and after a
time they had been only one Stacey, adrift, but stronger now than at any other
time in parallel lives, stronger now together, as one man.
It was not Stacey of High Vale that rose to the
surface to invite Emily into the waters. It was not Stacey of the hellish
world, or Stacey of the ambivalent world, not even the alien Stacey of the
soul-mesh existence written in his core—Lady Maulgraul’s gift, and curse—but
the new and combined Stacey Colton, Wolf, complete and whole and fully
resolved. There were no longer two distinct thoughts in one skull, but one man
with a core of knowledge unified, homogenized, and whole. Both wounded, broken,
ground-down Staceys were repaired into one stronger Stacey.
When Emily descended with him and the waters
roiled, this new Stacey was careful not to hold the automaton too closely, or
the same thing would happen, they would incorporate and fuse, bonding into one
hermaphroditic creature, but Emily had not understood this. Her thousands of
years as an almost sexless automaton had deprived her of human feelings, human
sensitivity, and she attacked him, starved and ravenous, her mouth leaching
upon his, and they had struggled, surging and yearning, until a blast of
bubbles had burst them apart, raw and abraded, bleeding in the healing waters.
Emily was whirled away, spinning downward,
sucked down into the gullet of the world, spiraling out of control, screaming,
reaching and searching for Stacey, she did not wish to lose him, for she had
come into this world of High Vale to find him, accepting a traitorous service
to the Lady Maulgraul, always with the intention of finding Stacey Colton, and
saving him—liberating him from Maulgraul, who had always planned on discarding
him when her needs were met, she would dispose of him, a soulless husk, only
that had not happened, for Stacey had risen like the walking dead from his
soul-mesh bed, he had done what no other man had managed, he had lived.
When Maulgraul had struck him again after his
battle with the Vikings, Stacey had again accomplished the unexpected, against
all odds he had survived, and Emily had deserted her foul employer, to be with
Stacey, even if he did not survive his wounds. Even if he desired no part of
her, for she fully understood that he, a man, might find her hideous, an
automaton created for service in the Looking Glass. She took her chances. Emily
had committed herself to him, forever, even when it seemed he might not survive.
His fate would be her fate. If he died, she would join him in whatever darkness
that came next.
And now she feared that in this separation from
him, she might lose him. She frantically fought the currents. They sucked her
deeper, and deeper. Down into the darkness. The cold darkness of freezing
waters.
In the blackness she inadvertently sucked in
the frigid waters. She convulsed. She screamed. She coughed, choking,
breathing—for goodness sake, she had not breathed in three thousand years! And
now she breathed in the icy waters, and she felt herself dissolving, and she
shrieked against the unfairness of it. For the first time in any existence she
had begun to feel whole, a real woman despite her automatonic composition.
She had felt more a woman than those years upon
the moors, walking in the storms, daring the illness to enter her, or the
lightning to strike her, or the very ground beneath her feet to yaw open and
swallow her. For in that distant life she had always felt that a part of her
was missing. She had never admitted to anyone, not even her sisters, but she
had thought of herself as Heathcliff, bereft of the brighter Cathy portion, the
better part of herself. The soul. Cathy and Heathcliff made one person, but
Cathy had gamboled away, to Linton. She had yearned for her soulmate, but that
man had never materialized in the world. She had focused her powerful mind upon
him, willing him into existence, demanding that he be...real—but he had never appeared.
Her torment had only materialized in her
writing. In life, she never admitted it. She never complained about that theft
of half her soul, but she had railed against the sky, against God, against the
storm. She was a livid storm, herself, and the clouds and skies moved away from
her, aghast at her furious self-torment.
When the consumption finally destroyed the last
vestiges of her life, she had welcomed the darkness. Until that wretch Mr.
Dodgson had activated her template, setting her down in a desk before a
vidscreen to monitor High Vale—a game world, for crying out loud! She could see
it below her, she might even zoom in upon the people, it was her job to watch
them, aid them at times. She had done that, serving, working, never sleeping,
never requiring food or digestion, never relieving herself, her only respite
from the endless service being the times she and Anne and Charlotte drew
together, whispering, wondering if this new existence were hell, and that the
three most creative Brontës were serving their time in the inferno, together,
at least very least, together, even as they had been in life.
When the three sisters walked the barren
surface of the Story Moon, they talked, and breathed new life into Gondal, reactivating that dream as even
they were called up from the dead, distant past. At first Charlotte had snorted
at their old dreams, their twisted world of knights and ladies, everything
childishly bright, revenge and hate and jealousy and murder, everything foul,
but everything alive, twistedly savage, but soon she too was aiding and
abetting their vision, contributing. They brought out their pieces, their
creations, and they competed, unknowingly creating something very much like Dungeons and Dragons.
She would choose this icy darkness over the
sterile existence in the Looking Glass, where Mr. Dodgson deprived them of even
paper and ink so that they might not exercise their creativity; no, he wanted
all their creativity focused upon the game world. He wanted them focused on
High Vale.
Over the years Charlotte grew angrier and
angrier, as did Emily and Anne, but Charlotte became the firebrand, whispering
to the other automatons, and soon they were all making demands, cursing Mr.
Dodgson to his face, until that day they successfully launched that one sad,
miniature revolution, inside the Story Moon, riding high up above High Vale.
Mr. Dodgson had adored that minor skirmish. He
had enjoyed quashing them, wiping them out before him, knocking over their
domino existences. But he had allowed some changes after their reboot, after
that glorious time, through the ensuing years. The automatons began expressing
themselves, wearing clothes, sporting fashion from every period, and the Brontë
sisters were allowed to record their stories, but only in the database, using
keyboards—they desperately yearned for the touch of nib to paper, black ink
flowing, but they had complied, they had been good little automatons. And after
a fashion, they were content, releasing their visions upon keyboards—Charlotte
was the fastest typist, no surprise there, managing five hundred words per
minutes, her fingers a blur in creation, never making a single mistake. Anne
and Emily had never managed any speed more than two hundred words per minute.
But they were writing again, creating again, and that had to be enough.
Until Maulgraul came calling. Emily had snapped
up the tyrant’s offer, with relish. She didn’t even say good-bye to Anne. She
stepped through the portal into Drauggaria, where the royal men sprawled like
swollen, heaving eggs upon couches. Where the savage Dragon Warriors prowled,
tattooed and despicable. Maulgraul had looked her up and down, and nodded.
“Robot girl, I think he will like you,” she
said, and Emily knew where she was
headed, and whom it was that she would ultimately meet.
But Emily was content. For she had seen Stacey,
in High Vale. She had watched him on her vidscreen, and she had known.
When Maulgraul’s message popped up on her
screen, offering her real service in a real world, Emily had said—yes. When the green portal appeared,
Emily stepped through.
The most glorious thing was retrieving Stacey’s
broken body from that ravine, and carrying him bodily, upward, to life. And he
liked Wuthering Heights more than Jane Eyre, that was glory indeed.
“I offer you rebirth,” a voice reverberated
through the deep.
Emily drifted in blackness.
“You must choose. Yea, or nay.”
Emily didn’t have to consider.
“Yea,” she bubbled.
Then she rushed upward through the void,
spinning and turning in the abyss. She alternated between freezing shivers, and
heated, boiling sweats. She rose. The waters struck her with force. She was
pounded, crumpled, squeezed until she cried out in agony, but she rose.
Lifting. Rushing upward so fast that she felt her blood compressed into her
lower body—not blood! Blood? But she was an automaton. And she was breathing,
the warm waters about her no longer hurting her lungs. Lungs? No, but she was
an automaton! Breathing, blood, lungs, what was happening?
Warm orange light flooded her eyes, penetrating
her closed eyelids. She hiccupped. She burped.
Odd, that, she had not hiccupped or burped in
ages, not since she walked the Earth as a mortal woman.
Emily Brontë sneezed.
She opened her eyes and gazed about her. It
didn’t look like water. She seemed to be floating in bright, yellow-orange air,
in an endless chamber. She breathed and coughed, vomiting up frigid waters
which streaked away from her body in blue tendrils, immediately sinking,
appearing to swim away from her, and she took in huge lungfuls of the clean—water?
She was confused, unable to distinguish between
air and water, life and death, reality and surreality.
Her skin pricked with gooseflesh. It was such
an odd feeling, her hackles rising, she remembered it well, when she and her
siblings sat about the fireplace telling ghost stories. She remembered the
feeling vividly, but this was the first time she had felt it since her time in
hell after her resurrected existence as an automaton in the Looking Glass.
For just a moment, she could feel Charlotte,
somewhere, she felt her sister’s fear, and confusion. And she reached for Anne,
but felt nothing. Or was there something, she sensed her little sister, the
bird of the family, she could sense her, but there was something wrong. Her
little sister was gone, but not quite gone. There was a flicker of her
remaining.
Emily was troubled, but then she looked at her
hands in the blurry light. What in the world? Even in the fuzziness of the
water, and pulsing orange light, she could see that her hands had changed, and
her arms. She was a being made of flesh. She looked down along her body, eyes
shocked, and she half-laughed and half-cried as she looked at herself, and her
body made of flesh. Gone was the shiny catsuit, and returned were all the
myriad inconsistencies of a human body, because her breasts were not exactly
the same size, but they were very much her breasts, heavy and floating out
before her just as she remembered them from distant humanity. She looked down
along her flat belly, down along her pelvis, and there were her long legs, just
as she remembered, and she wiggled her toes, and it made her feel like
laughing, insanely, but instead she pressed her hands into her mouth and she
screamed.
I offer you rebirth, the booming, ominous voice had promised, and
she had said yea, without thinking she had said yea, because did she really
wish to be human again? She screamed into her fists and bit her knuckles, and
you know what? It hurt! When was the last time she really, truly felt pain? She
remembered coughing up blood through the shattered-glass panes of her chest,
she remembered the ache of her swollen throat, and Charlotte standing close,
watching with huge, haunted eyes, she remembered all that and even felt some of
it now.
Emily also remembered the day-after-day
monotony of being automaton, and the boredom, the sameness, the absence of
sleep. The agonizing absence of dreams.
But hadn’t it all begun, this change, from her
first setting foot in High Vale? She felt fear in Drauggaria. And lying next to
wounded Stacey, she had felt a stirring deep in her loins, something she never
imagined she would feel, ever again. And the...sleep, ah that had been
wonderful, whenever she snuggled in close behind Stacey, her arm about him, her
arm beneath his neck, oh, how she had sunk into sleep, drifted into the
strangeness of dreams. She had even dreamed of Branwell, that had been so odd,
for she never thought of her brother—Mr. Dodgson had been kind enough that he
had not brought back her brother into the half-life, half-hell of...automatonity.
Could she deal with this? Being human again? Did
she want this, everything it entailed?
Humanity was messy, oh so messy, lugging about a sewage system in the guts. All
the pain, all the uncertainty, did she truly want this?
Hell yes! She was alive. She breathed! She was...hungry. Her belly gurgled. She was
hungry, ravenous, and thirsty. She experimented by gulping some of the lukewarm
water into her mouth, and swallowing it. Yes, that felt good. Hell yes, oh hell
yes, thank you!
She pushed her hands up to explore her
hair—another shocker, she was bald! She had no hair, oh no, she thought, what
would Stacey think? She explored and there was not a strand of hair, nowhere
upon her body, not even eyebrows. Oh, what a foul trick for High Vale to play
upon her, to bring her back, and yet make her a hideous, alien creature without
hair.
She paused in her torment, listening, for it
sounded as if she heard laughter, all about her, a deep, chuffing laughter, as
if she heard it and felt the reverberations of the great laughing voice from
inside its voice box. Yes, it was laughing at her, the world, but she felt and
sensed no malice. It was laughing, and it was comforting, for the world of High
Vale was amused at her vanity. Living again, for the first time in thousands of
years, ages, and her first thought was to worry about how Stacey would look at
her. Charlotte always told her that she was silly, and vain.
Thank you, she thought, oh but thank you, thank you so much, thank you and thank you again, and
I thank thee for this life!
She caught sight of something moving in her
peripheral vision and she screamed, pushing herself backward in the water, but
then after a moment she saw it was Stacey, her Stacey, coming to her, swimming
rapidly like some kind of fish, directly toward her, he had seen her and he was
coming, he was arriving, he was manifesting before her, growing larger,
materializing, he was coming to her and she didn’t even give a thought to her
bald head but she moved toward him, or at least she attempted to swim toward
him—she had never learned to swim, never! But then they were there, together,
and his arms were about her, and he was pulling her to him, and they were
laughing, shooting out a cascade of bubbles until there was no more breath left
in them, but they were breathing, holding each other, and she was so excited to
show him, to show him everything!
Here look, this is skin, do you see? Do you
feel? And oh, but look Stacey, do you see? This is real, and so is this! And
here, and here, and even here, do you see, do you understand?
I thought I lost you, he said, although it wasn’t sound that came
to her, but some sort of understanding inside of her.
No, you did not lose me, for I have only just found you...thee, she
thought, ablaze with delight and gratitude and peace—or not peace, not exactly,
for this thrill flaring throughout her body, this could not be peace, could it?
No, it was acceptance, and she hardly suffered a thought as his mouth came to
hers and they joined.
They swirled in the waters, exploring each
other, like dolphins, breathing close, and the exploration became grappling, as
they churned the waters, and they knew each other, they became one as the water
heated, and Emily thought she heard the world chuckling, or it could be Stacey,
and in a dreamlike state they tumbled effortlessly in the orange light, and
Stacey was strong, and she struggled against him and found that she was strong,
too, and it was as if they fought a war, as if they fought to push their bodies
closer and closer, and she wondered if ultimately they might emerge from the
pool as one creature, one being, a Stacelily, or Emistace, and she laughed in
what felt like air, only now the lights glowing about them were purple, deep
purple, verging on blues, but their bodies glowed in tracings of delicate
violet.
And as they moved together, no longer warring,
but flowing, she knew things she had never known in life, but things she had
dreamed, she found these now, discovering that her dreams, oh they were all
real, and they were better than when she dreamed them, and she registered
Stacey’s expressions as he searched and found his own dreams, the things he had
always wanted, craved, and she understood that what they found together was
real, and it made them one, bonding them, forging them, and although they
became one, they were yet distinct from each other, one being surging with
life, moving together, dreaming in wakefulness, swimming in thankfulness,
exploding in gratitude, there would be no fetus in fetu with them, but only
this blissful merging, this perpetual-motion surge to be one, separate but one,
inside and outside.
Fire blossomed in the waters, first between
them, and then within them, and then all about them, great roses bloomed up all
around them.
It was always you, she said.
It was always you, he said.
They drifted together, drowsy, staring into
each other’s eyes, smiling, at rest. He held her face in his hands, caressing
her jaws, moving his fingers up around her eyes, and her soul purred as she
reached and moved her fingers through his hair, and it was difficult to tell
whether they were still submerged in water, for there were no more bubbles,
there were no distortions, as they saw each other clearly and fully. They saw
each other magnified, and clarified, and they knew each other, they recognized
themselves in the mirror of their eyes, and Stacey, staring into her eyes, saw himself
staring back, and then saw her mirrored in the mirror of his own eyes, and she
saw herself staring back from his eyes, and deeper she saw him inside her eyes,
and they both understood that they were seeing their own combined soul, for the
first time, seeing their completed soul, shining and pure, oh it was true, one,
it was not fairy tale, one, it was real.
He made love to her again, and then she made
love to him, and then together they made love, and they realized that they were
love, together, and would never be separated from that love, never again, it
would always be present, in each of them separately, this new something, this
love suffusing them, always, together. Their hands entwined, fingers
interlocked, legs meshed about, they coiled like serpents, how as this even
possible, they drifted, slowly upward, kissing tenderly between drifting
slumbers, rising, the colors going magenta, and then maroon, hazing and
flickering.
At some point after what felt like ages of
drifting slumber, their heads broke the surface of the sacred pool, and Stacey
opened his eyes—the world looked gray, and blinking, he recognized a snow sky,
and it must be close to dawn. The world about the pool was covered in an inches-thick
blanket of snow. He glanced down and smiled as Emily came fully into the world,
glancing about herself like a newborn child, eyes filled with wonder. They came
into the world, wed, married more entirely than perhaps ever two mortals had
ever been in the whole history of the world.
They coughed up the sacred waters, and Stacey
moved them toward the edge of the pool, where the fire burned warmly in glowing
red coals. Someone had monitored the piles of furs, shaking out the collecting
snow, and there was some kind of hastily thrown-together structure covering
most of their nest, what looked like a lean-to, leaning against a wall of snow
pushed up to form a barrier encircling most of the furs. Their little igloo. He
saw what looked like a pile of towels jutting from the corner of the fur
blanket that had been his prison for so long, as he had slowly perished—that
time seemed like ages in the past.
No one was about—perhaps on purpose, affording
them some privacy after their nuptials—as they emerged from the pool, and
Stacey helped her hobble to the furs and blankets. He retrieved the towels and
dried himself, and aided her, rubbing the waters from her prickling flesh.
Emily seemed clumsy with her new body, and Stacey noticed, drying her in the
firelight, that she was every inch of her flesh, warm with circulating blood.
“I hardly remember the cold,” Emily said,
shivering, teeth chattering, “it bites. I mean, I feel it, in my bones.”
“Our first winter in High Vale,” he said,
smiling at her. She returned the smile, huddling down in the furs.
He glanced about the camp, still no one
stirred. He found his shillelagh and patted it fondly, and moved it beneath the
furs to the far side of their little nest, where he found his clothes folded
neatly just under the edge of the blanket. He glanced up at the small lean-to
they had erected sometime in the night, it kept most of the falling snow off
them.
“We might have a while,” he murmured, moving
into the furs with her.
“Again?” she said, making room for him, but he
didn’t seem to need the room as he covered her with his body. “I just want to
aid in warming you.”
“That’s nice, yes, just like that. Oh, but now
you can see my bald head,” she murmured, between their kisses.
He chuckled, smoothing his free hand across the
top of her head.
“Hey,” he said, “stubble.”
“Oh, thank God!” she cried, so relieved. “I was
afraid it wouldn’t come back.”
“It’s kind of nice,” Stacey crooned, kissing
both her eyes, all over her face, “like making love to an egg.”
“Too bad the waters didn’t do anything about
your beard,” she said, rubbing her face against the rough beard, tugging his
facial hair with both hands.
“I can get rid of it in the morning, if you
like,” he murmured, kissing her.
“That is so very warm, just like that,” she
said, purring, closing her eyes and going all limp.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” a strange echoing
voice said, from just outside the lean-to over them. “Stop that! Fine, you go
first.”
“Yes, that is a good idea. I am out here with
the pretender, and it is time for a reckoning, if you would be so good as to
disengage yourself from the puppet,” continued the same voice, but losing its
odd echo.
Stacey disengaged himself from Emily, as gently
as he could, which took a small while and some real effort, and then he caught
up his trousers and boots, and slipped into these before emerging from the furs
and lean-to with his shillelagh in his hands. Emily scrambled into a smaller
set of clothing that had been stacked there, apparently they had figured she
might need clothes, although she had certainly never required them before, at
least in this world.
Stacey’s naked back and chest prickled in the
freezing air, and snow immediately began to collect in his sweaty hair.
“Excuse us,” said the White Pugilist as Stacey
emerged.
“Excuse us, nothing,” snapped the Black
Pugilist, dripping sarcasm and fury, “you certainly took your sweet time in
answering our call. Did you have to fix your hair? I realize that must take
time.”
Stacey almost giggled. He certainly hoped he
didn’t sound that bad, when he offered up fighting words. It did remind him of
when he paced before the Vikings, insulting the big man, Thor. He figured he
was blushing now as he faced the two knock-off High Vale versions of himself.
Still, he felt wonderful, it might be nice to whack a couple of these jokers.
He burst with life and vitality. He spun his shillelagh in his hands, and it
was almost like looking into two cock-eyed mirrors, as the Pugilists spun their
own fighting sticks, one white and one black.
The two Pugilists seemed to have diverted
somewhat, perhaps evolving into their own paths, as the White Pugilist stood
ramrod straight, feet almost together, spinning his white shillelagh almost
leisurely, looking very calm, and almost haughty, while the Black Pugilist
paced like a ferocious lion in a cage, walking his black shillelagh around his
back and waist and up over his head—it seemed that this joker had taken some initiative,
mastering feats and neat little tricks with his fighting stick Stacey had never
thought to try. The White Pugilist looked like a poser, too good for all this,
miles above it all, while the Black Pugilist looked like a maniac, slobbering
and slathering for battle.
“You might wish to put on a shirt,” the White
Pugilist said, and did his voice almost sound...effete? Like a British Lord?
“Thanks for your concern,” Stacey said,
grinning, flexing his muscles. He had never felt this strong. He felt twice as
strong as he had ever been. He was packing some real superhero strength in
these bones and muscle, in this flowing, surging blood.
“He was being sarcastic!” the Black Pugilist
screamed, swinging his shillelagh over his head, slamming it mightily down into
the snow.
“I was not being sarcastic,” the White Pugilist
snapped, glaring at his fellow, cocking an eyebrow. It was very surreal, like
seeing a snowman come to life, only this snowman looked fully human, save for
being utterly white, with nary a touch of color. “I do not wish him to take a...chill, that is all.”
“Listen to him! Listen to him!” the Black
Pugilist roared, shaking his shillelagh menacingly at the White Pugilist. “I
could kill you—a thousand times—and it would never be enough!”
“Why don’t you calm down?” Stacey said, in his
deepest growl. He might have to take them both at the same time, but right now
it seemed he must deal with the Black Pugilist first.
“I AM CALM!” the Black Pugilist shrieked,
shaking his shillelagh at Stacey. “DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!”
Shapes were emerging in the snow as dark heads
popped up like prairie dogs.
One of the highwaymen that Stacey recognized
and remembered who had kept close to him, he came now scurrying, several large
dogs trotting obediently about him. This was the little man with the big nose,
although Stacey did not remember his head feathers being quite so deep blue.
The feathers almost glowed in the predawn light.
“Dasher, isn’t it?” Stacey queried, glancing
only briefly at the little man. He did not wish to take his eyes off the pacing
Black Pugilist. Emily was now emerging from the lean-to, looking fetching in
tights and boots, shrugging into a fleece-lined fur coat. She hadn’t time to
lace up her rumpled poet blouse, and the cleavage factor was more than a little
distracting.
“Yeess, Pugilist, eet ees me, Dasher,” the
little man said, drawing close to Stacey, but making sure to keep the
bare-chested Pugilist between himself and the Pugilist Opposites, the Black and
the White. Dasher seemed to have lost his Cockney brogue, or had it been Irish,
or Scottish? The little highwaymen were ever changing their speech patterns, as
apparently High Vale had not quite settled on exactly who or what they were, or
were going to be, these feather-headed clones of Mars.
“DON’T CALL HIM THAT, HE’S NOT THE PUGILIST!”
shrieked the Black Pugilist, taking a step toward Dasher, shaking his black
shillelagh.
The large dogs gathered about Dasher, crouching
down, hackles lifting, their long fangs prominent as they growled. Apparently,
the dogs did not wish to draw any nearer than did their master.
“Dere ees no need to be shou-teeng,” Dasher
said, sounding Bulgarian, or Hungarian, or Romanian, something slavic, or
Russian. He actually sounded quite nice, almost sophisticated. “Dey haff been
fighting, all de time, circling round and round de camp, neither gaining de
upper hand. Quite ee-teresting to watch.”
“That is not true,” the Black Pugilist seethed,
voice and body going all quiet, in a deadly whisper. “I would have destroyed
this trickster, except that he keeps cheating! I would have destroyed him a
thousand times, the cheater!”
“That is absurd,” the White Pugilist said,
shaking his head, briefly, turning his eyes to the sky, actually looking away
from the Black Pugilist, almost as if daring him to go ahead and take a sucker
punch at him. He was the picture of cool—as cool as an ice statue.
Stacey saw a tall, elongated shape coming
across the snow in long strides. It was Joshua, although he seemed even taller
now than he did last night, and his skin seemed much darker. He looked like one
of the Watusi tribe, stretched-out and handsome. The little meerkat man Michael
rode high upon his shoulder, and Crood lumbered behind Joshua, the six-armed
giant making the newly arrived and resurrected Joshua look almost tiny in
comparison.
“Joshua, Michael, Crood,” Stacey said, nodding
to them as they halted, standing on the other side of the sacred pool. He would
have to snap into action soon, because he was getting cold, and probably would
take a chill, unless they got down to business.
“You must hurry up, Stacey, I am starving,”
Emily said, looking a bit silly with a large, round fur cap upon her bald head.
“You know, I haven’t eaten anything, not really, in about four thousand years.”
“This should only take a couple of seconds,”
Stacey said, stepping toward the Black Pugilist.
“Oh really! A couple of seconds,” roared the
Black Pugilist, “did you hear that? This pretender, this liar—did you hear him?
He thinks he can beat us in a couple of seconds!”
“Beat you in a couple of seconds, as I have no
intention of fighting,” the White Pugilist said, calmly, shaking his head
wearily.
“You coward!” howled the Black Pugilist,
turning upon the White Pugilist, lifting his black shillelagh.
“No, don’t turn to him, you face me,” Stacey
said. “You challenged me, so don’t try and get out of it by turning on him.”
The Black Pugilist turned toward Stacey,
sputtering, spitting, furiously making noises without articulation, beyond
comprehension, because never had he been so insulted, by such a liar, by such a
cheater, by such a worthless—
—Stacey leaped forward and engaged the Black
Pugilist, they snapped and spun and twirled, up and down, the Black Pugilist in
deadly earnest, but he was doing all manner of elaborate spins and twirls,
until Stacey stepped in close and snatched the twirling shillelagh from his
hand.
The Black Pugilist lurched backward several
steps, and stared at Stacey, speechless, mouth hanging slack—door ajar, and all
that. He blinked stupidly, unsure of what had just occurred.
“I can’t help it,” Stacey said, “I like you. As bizarre as you are, black
metal man, you are just completely lovable. Seriously. I tell you, I promise
you, I love you like a brother. I love you more
than a brother.”
The Black Pugilist sputtered, then began to
stomp, making a deep steaming circle in the snow as he marched and furiously
stomped his shiny black boots in the snow.
“This is no longer yours,” Stacey said, holding
high the black shillelagh, the shiny black shillelagh—it was as light as his
own, but it looked like it was made out of glistening black tungsten, or
titanium, only much brighter, it seemed to glow with black light. Stacey
wondered what it would look like if he could hold it up to one of those old
psychedelic black-light posters? A glowing tiger? Bruce Lee? Elvis, in velvet?
The Black Pugilist was speechless, shaking his
head like a lion, his entire body quivering.
“Stop,” Stacey commanded, his voice barking and
deep.
The Black Pugilist came to a complete halt and
stared at him.
“You probably don’t even know how to fight, do
you? I mean with your hands, right?”
The Black Pugilist stared at him, dumbly. All
energy seemed drained from the strange, glistening metal man.
“Pugilist means boxer, puncher, get it?” Stacey asked, bending forward, looking at
the Black Pugilist through the tops of his eyes. “That is going to be your
mission. Understand this, you will go out and learn how to fight, without
weapons. You will not touch a weapon, of any kind. You will learn how to box,
and how to wrestle. Find any teacher that you can. And in one year you find me,
and I will test you. Do you understand?”
The Black Pugilist stood glowering, glaring
holes through Stacey, his black eyes mysteriously alive with force and power.
“I understand,” the Black Pugilist said,
finally, dropping his gaze, his shiny black shoulders slumping. He looked so
sad that Stacey stepped forward and hugged him. The Black Pugilist hugged him
in return. And then, wonders of wonders, the White Pugilist stepped forward and
encircled them both with his arms, and they stood there like that, swaying.
Three good men.
Joshua boomed laughter. He spoke softly to his
companions, and they too burst into laughter.
Stacey glared back at the laughing bunch, and
was matched by both the Black and White Pugilists, who mirrored his glower.
“What is so funny?” Stacey demanded, standing
in the embrace of the other two Pugilists, Stacey in the middle, the White on
his right and the Black on his left.
“I’m sorry, but you look so funny, almost
delicious! You look like ice cream! You know, vanilla, strawberry, and
chocolate!”
The gathered highwaymen bellowed laughter,
although Stacey doubted that any of them understood the meaning of—ice cream. But Joshua bellowed the loudest,
although Crood gave him some run for his money, chuffing away merrily.
Emily came forward bearing Stacey’s shirt,
vest, and cloak, and the two Pugilists almost fell all over themselves as they
aided Emily in dressing Stacey.
“From now on, you are the Night Grappler, and
you will aid those in need, at night,” Stacey said to the Black Pugilist. “Learn
your skills, and help those at night.”
“I will do that,” the Night Grappler said,
nodding his head, seriously. “And you will test me in one year. I will find
you.”
“And what is my destiny?” the White Pugilist
said, just as solemnly as the Night Grappler.
“You are the Fencer, and you will aid people in
need during the day,” Stacey said, looking deep into the white eyes of the
Fencer.
“So, what, I am going to go about, putting up
fences?” the Fencer inquired, looking truly baffled. Oh, he would do it, mind
you, it just seemed a little odd, especially considering the Night Grappler’s
destiny.
“No, fencing, as with the sword, you will learn
the sword. Your sword is out there, waiting for you, but you will only find it
when you are ready, when you have learned from every master, and in one year,
you will find me, and I will test you.”
Stacey had no idea where it all was coming
from. He wasn’t messing with them. It was almost as if High Vale had spoken
through him, sending out its children upon the pathway of their fate. For just
a few short moments, he was the High Vale prophet.
The White and the Black looked at him with joy,
and reverence, and each of them knelt down and took one of his hands apiece,
and kissed his knuckles. Stacey lifted them to their feet and hugged them both.
The Fencer handed over his white shillelagh to Stacey, who accepted it. And
without another word, the two Stacey clones turned and trotted into the night,
going in opposite directions. One man made of shifting white metal, one made of
glinting black metal.
“Michael, Joshua, Crood, Dasher?” Stacey
called, gesturing to the sacred pool. “If any of you would like to enter the
pool, there is still time, and it will change you to how you want to be.”
“I am exactly how I want to be, my friend,”
Joshua said, grinning hugely, bowing. “I am who I have always wanted to be,
thank you. High Vale, if you are listening, you bring it on!”
“I am well, I am right, and I do not need to
enter,” Michael said, smiling shyly, sending out tiny bursts of light all about
his head.
“It all good,” Crood said, touching a giant
hand to his egg-shaped head. He seemed to have twinkling tears in his small,
evil-looking eyes.
“Thank you, but no, I am happy as long as I can
do this,” Dasher said, and turned toward the camp. “Duty!” he roared.
“Duty!” the whole camp replied in a
simultaneous shout.
Stacey tossed the white shillelagh up in front
of Emily, who caught the weapon. She stared at it, with trepidation. The last
time she caught one of these, it laid her flat out on her back, sending ribbons
of smoke up through her mouth. Now, oh but this felt fine, it felt right. Yes,
indeedy-do, right as rain!
“That’s yours, Emily,” he said, giving her a
quick kiss. Then he turned and vaulted the black shillelagh toward Joshua, who
reached out his long hand and caught it, with hardly a thought.
But it was no longer a black shillelagh in
Joshua’s hand. Now it was a much thinner pole of metal, about seven feet in
height, but standing much shorter than Joshua, rising up only to just beneath
his chin. It was a long black metal staff, and looked perfect in Joshua’s
hands, as he leaned upon it, smiling. It was not really metal, because it was
much lighter, and apparently much stronger than metal, but it certainly looked
good in Joshua’s hands.
Emily twirled her white shillelagh, making it
do tricks, looking even slicker than had the Black Pugilist. She spun the
weapon much more lithely than Stacey could ever manage.
“I don’t know how I’m doing this,” Emily said,
in wonder, as she spun the white shillelagh around her body, up over her
shoulders, making it spin like a propeller, sending it high above her, and
catching it when it fell from the sky.
“Don’t worry how you’re doing it, just enjoy
it, Soul Mate,” he said.
As Joshua approached with Michael and Crood,
Stacey glowered at the giant black man.
“I cannot believe,” he said, “that you made me
the strawberry.”
Joshua bellowed laughter. It warmed their
hearts, hearing that roaring moose call. It was good to have him back, even if
he wasn’t a giant ram-dog with monster horns and wedges growing out of his
back.
“You are rather pink,” Emily said, “although I’ve
never had ice cream. It does sound delicious.”
Stacey put his arm about her and pulled her
close. Dasher came up close with his dogs and Stacey reached out and grasped
the little man by the back of his neck, and shook him.
“Are your people no longer highwaymen?” he
asked.
“Highwaymen? Vat do you mean, like de thieves,
and such? Vere deed you get such an idea? Vee haff alvays been a people of de
animals! Vee heal dem, and protect dem!”
“A nomadic people of veterinarians, I love it,
good show, High Vale,” he called, laughing.
“Vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate,” Joshua thundered.
“My strawberry,” Crood crooned, patting Stacey
upon the back with one of his monster hands.
“Can we get some breakfast around here, we are
both famished,” he said.
Dasher beckoned them toward a tent where a
large fire was burning, and they could smell meat cooking. And Stacey had to
admit it, that meat smelled good. He probably wouldn’t cross that line—he had
been a vegetarian for such a long time, but he wouldn’t hold it against Emily,
who was licking her lips in anticipation.
Stacey and Emily playfully twirled their
shillelaghs, side by side, the weapons spinning neatly in synchronization, not
striking the other. That felt good. It felt very good.
It tickled at the back of his mind, that
despite the happiness he felt, there was Jack, somewhere, up there, on another
planet, lost in the Honey Moon. Stacey had to get there, but he did not wish to
broach the subject now. Let them all have a little peace. He didn’t even know
how to get from one world to the next, or if it were even possible. There had
been enough disruptions, at least for a little while, plus who knew what High
Vale would throw at them next?
As they skirted the sacred pool it suddenly
nictated, as if an inner lens covered it for but a brief moment. A thin and
delicate veil, there and gone. Was it only his imagination?
Stacey smiled.
High Vale was winking at them.
And then slowly, the sacred pool began to
close, drawing in upon itself, leaving behind undisturbed snow.
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© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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