Fathom (29 page)

If they’d searched the island and turned up nothing from sandy shore to shore, they
must
have concluded that the ocean had taken her. And it is rare that the ocean returns its prizes.

But sometimes things too firm to decay and too tough to be nibbled by fish will sink, and sometimes the tides will push them back out, regurgitating them the same way that an owl or a snake will reject the bones, shells, and spurs of the things it swallows.

“So that’s me, then,” she said to herself. “Rejected, and unable to decay.”

Her own voice stopped her. “Decay,” she said again, and there was meaning in the word that she couldn’t put her finger on. It was packed with significance—though she couldn’t tell precisely how.

“Yes?”

She jumped, creating a little splash in the puddle—which was almost gone. The soil that was more sand than dirt drank it up fast, and sucked it down in a filtering spiral, down to the rock below.

“What? Oh, it’s you.”

“It’s me.” The creature was standing beside the pump. It was damp in a comfortable way, like it enjoyed being wet for all it hated the water and the things that lived within it.

“Are we—” She fumbled for the sentiment. “—safe?”

“Safe?” It laughed, and chunks of debris fluttered down into the disappearing water. “Never. Not under any circumstances, ever again—if ever we were before. But for now, I think, we’re all right enough. The water witch has other problems to pursue. She is not looking our way, which is the best we can hope for. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

“Fine? Is that all?” It fashioned its leafy lips into something close to a leer. “I would hope that you’re significantly better than fine. You left Samuel in a cabin?”

Nia was getting used to the creature’s random and obstinate shifts in conversation, so she ran with the flow of it and said, “Yes, where the light is. I don’t know if that’s safe or not, but as you just said yourself, we’re all right enough. And, bless his heart, the man can’t see in the dark.”

“But you can?”

“Better than he does. You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” it asked.

“What I can do. You made me, and you have no idea.”

It began to walk toward the cabin, and Nia joined its long-legged stride. “I didn’t make you. I modified you. I cannot create. I can only transform.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re back,” Sam observed almost happily. “Hey, Nia, I found some shoes.” Indeed, he lifted up a pair of work boots that were brown and rough, but sound. “They’re a man’s pair, but they aren’t very big. They were under the cot here, and . . .” And he faltered, trying not to notice that she was naked underneath her wet white shirt.

“Thank you,” she said. She took the shoes and upended them, shaking them to see if anything would scatter out. She pulled back their tongues, loosening their laces, and wormed her feet down inside—where she found a warm flannel lining that was not too badly weathered or worn. The warmth of them she could have lived without, but the softness was pleasant, and it made her feel more civilized, somehow, to cover her bare feet.

While Nia pushed her toes into position and tied the laces, Sam was sitting on the far end of the cot and trying not to look at the way she was shaped beneath the clingy wet fabric. It was already beginning to dry, but it was not so dried yet that the darker tips, angles, curves, and crevices were not readily apparent.

To distract himself, Sam turned to the creature and asked it a question. “So tell me, um, Mister. What do we call you?”

It turned the idea over in its head, considering a response but seemingly incapable of deciding on one.

“Don’t you have a name?” Sam pressed. “Anything we could
attach to you for simple communication purposes? She’s Nia, short for something longer; and I’m Sam, short for Samuel. But who are you?”

“You bandy those names about too casually, Samuel. But it’s natural for you. A title does not bind you the way it binds some others. Other kinds,” it clarified. “I did have a name once, but I wore it as a title . . . and that name was stripped from me. By the time the first men first set ink to paper with their very first quills and sticks, I had already been exiled and unnamed.

“So I began again. I scavenged, combing the vacant and unwanted areas between the points of power. I sought a new purpose and a new authority; I assumed a role that no one else wanted. Even if any of them had been aware that such a role existed, no one would have seen the value in it.”

It was talking to itself more than to them. It scarcely seemed aware that they were still there, still listening, still waiting for an answer.

“But there is power in the leavings of life, in the castoff of cells and the discarded refuse of growth. Something must feed it. And when it dies, something must break it down, something must cycle it again.” It met Nia’s eyes. “Or preserve it against that cycle.”

“Decay,” she said. It was the same word that had earlier stuck in her mouth. “That’s what you’re talking about.”

“Decay. The breaking down of things that once grew up. What could rise anew if the corpses of the old things did not nourish them? So, yes, you could call me Decay and you’d be correct. I break down, or I can prevent the breaking down. This is where I’ve found my niche, and recovered my strength.”

It settled down lower, spreading its legs against the stones of the tiny hearth. It shrugged its massive shoulders and set its hands
on either side of itself, leaning forward in a pose that was meant to convince and assure.

“There is no more Death,” it declared. “Death as a task and title was undone, and its mechanisms were given to the elements. It was spread across the fire, the water, the force of the earth’s pull, and the passing of time. It was given away to the dominion of others, and its own dominion was disbanded. But this left . . . gaps. It left possibilities, even as I felt that all possibilities had been removed.”

Nia thought she understood, but the enormity of it choked her throat. This creature that called itself Decay had been demoted . . . from Death? She wasn’t sure where to begin her frantic wondering, so she listened instead, and hoped to hear something less heavy and hard to fathom.

“But,” Sam pushed, “what are we supposed to call you? Have you no name? Nothing at all that we could use to mention you, or simply discuss you?”

It nodded slowly and spoke without any hurry.

“If I must give you a name . . . if only to close the question . . .” It was hunting for something, left or lost deep in its memory. “A long time ago, in this very place, there were primitives of your breed. They glimpsed me, and they invented stories to account for me. They called me—” And it emitted a string of sounds that were beyond Nia’s or Sam’s capacity to pronounce. “I believe it meant, He Who Feasts upon the Moss Graves.”

At the end of this proclamation, silence filled the dimly lit cabin while Nia and Sam each tried to find a way to condense the small sentence into something that would fit in their mouths.

“Moss . . .” Nia said. “Moss-feaster?”

The creature visibly brightened, insomuch as a thing made from the rotting forest floor can do so. “Mossfeaster. Yes. You have
your name now. Call me that word as you like, and I will answer to it.”

Sam made a dubious face. “Is that a promise?”

“It’s more like a prediction. Now,” it said, climbing to its feet and stretching to a height that almost hit the crossbeams of the ceiling. “Is there anything else we can take from this place? Anything else you might require?”

“I’m thirsty,” Sam said.

“There’s a pump out back,” Nia told him. “But otherwise, I think we’re finished here . . . if
you’re
finished here.”

“Oh yes,” it said, stomping toward the door. “I needed nothing in the first place. The rest was for you, and for him. But now we need to move. We need to push ourselves farther, away from water.”

“You keep
saying
that—,” Sam said, rising from the cot to follow.

“And I keep
meaning
it. We still have several hours before the sun rises, and I think we should take advantage of them. Darkness won’t hide us from the water witch any more than daylight will, but we should move while our flight is fresh. We should cover all the distance we can.”

“Where are we going? How far from the water can we go—do we need to go all the way to Georgia?”

“Not so far as that,” it said. “Inland, and north. There is a town there, near a larger city. The city is called Ybor, and the water witch has business there.”

They went down the creaking stairs and into the woods. Sam was carrying the lantern and bringing up the rear. “Wait, but. But you just said that we wanted to get away from her, away from the water.”

“For now, yes. But soon we’ll need to confront her. We must
engage the minions she’s contrived, and destroy the device that she’s creating. It won’t be easy, and I can’t set you upon this mission cold, and newborn, and uninformed. So first, you will walk with me.”

“I’m hungry, too,” Sam added to his earlier complaint of thirst.

Mossfeaster said, “We’ll improve upon your condition, Samuel, provided that you continue to aid us. And I think that once you understand what’s at stake, you’ll realize that, really, you have no choice but to lend us your assistance.”

“What kind of assistance do you expect from
me
? I mean, you’ve got”—he cocked his head at Nia—“
her
—and you’re tougher than me by a mile. What on earth can I possibly do? What use do you expect me to be?”

“Someone must go into Ybor, and someone must help our little stone angel here to fit in with the rest of your kind so that they do not hunt or fear her. She is preserved well enough; water may tear down stone, but much more slowly and not without terrible effort. But she is different from them now, and not only because she is improperly covered.”

“This is crazy,” Sam mumbled. “All of it, it’s crazy. I’m just an insurance man. I’m not really in the business of helping . . . do . . . whatever it is I’m helping you do.”

“Insurance?” Mossfeaster repeated the word slowly, as if by digesting it the creature might determine its meaning. “What is that? Explain it to me.”

Sam fumbled for words. “It’s a preventive thing. It protects your property by promising that if it’s destroyed, you’ll be compensated.”

Mossfeaster considered this, walking in silence ahead of them. Its colossal, semi-humped back moved up and down with each step, and the light of Sam’s lantern cast jagged, sharp shadows in
every direction. The trees split the light into bars and beams, chasing the night out of their path.

It stopped and turned around so that the flickering glow of the portable flame illuminated its face. It smiled.

“Yes,” it said. “I approve. I will take it as a sign that this is correct and right. I’ve inadvertently selected a guardian for my guardian.”

“Wait. No, I mean—”

“No, I
understand
. You protect property, and people. You guard them, even if it’s only with money. I know enough of how your society works to understand. I think it’s a sign.”

“You believe in signs?” Nia asked.

It turned around and resumed walking, and it was walking straighter, with more optimistic bounce. “I
do
,” it assured her. “There is more to the heavens and more to the stars than us small things that crawl and swim, and live and die, and bleed and watch and struggle against one another.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Sam fussed.

“Leave him alone,” Nia said.

“He doesn’t have to leave me alone if he doesn’t want to,” Moss-feaster said, and through the words he still was smiling; Nia could hear it as she followed along behind. “I don’t mind. But Nia, I approve of your disapproval. I am glad to see that you already wish to protect me. I protected you, and you will do likewise in return. You were the right choice, and while I had some reservations about
that
one”—it waved a big hand in Sam’s general direction—“I am now reassured. We will make this happen yet. We will stop the water witch from calling Leviathan, and we will undo the thing that she has set into motion.”

Sam stumbled and caught himself. The lantern shot crazy, wobbling beams in every direction, but steadied itself as Sam found his footing. “And what kind of thing might that be?”

Mossfeaster said without looking back, “She intends to destroy this world, and every one of you who crouches upon it.”

“Every one of you?”

“Every one”—it nodded—“of
us
.”

The forest east of the ocean was thick and dense and hard to walk, and it was rough for Mossfeaster to lead. Although the creature could twist and distort itself around the trees, Nia and Sam could only walk behind their towering leader and try to match the monster’s unrelenting pace.

The Whistle at the End
of the Earth

J
osé loved Ybor City almost as much as he loved Bernice, who strolled half a step ahead of him. He let her take a slim lead because he liked to watch her walk; he loved the sway of her body, moving shiplike through the small industrial city, dodging the streetcars and tripping lightly even in the tall, thick shoes that she wore to prop herself up. It was easy to love Bernice. Beautiful and bold, wicked and wild, capable of being sublimely civilized and charming . . . she was a fantasy plucked from the water and given to him to hold and to keep.