Fool on the Hill (35 page)

VI.

“Jesus!”

Preacher took a step and suddenly sank waist deep in snow. Jinsei immediately gripped his arm with both hands and prepared for a struggle, for it seemed almost as if something had grabbed Preacher from below in an attempt to drag him under.

“It’s all right,” Preacher assured her. “Just stepped in a hole. I’m OK.”

“Can we
please
get out of this place?” Jinsei pleaded, still gripping his arm.

“Sure, right up . . .” Preacher started to pull himself up when his foot caught on something. “Wait. Hang out a second.”

He pulled his arm loose of her, then turned and stepped full into the hole, knocking out some more space for himself. He bent down and dug.

“Preacher, what—”

“Something here . . .” He gave a hard tug, freeing something from the earth. He held it up triumphantly.

Jinsei blanched, thinking at first that Preacher had somehow dredged up a piece of corpse, though on closer inspection she saw that the object was actually a box—a black iron box, a cube no more than half a foot to a side, wrapped with a single silver band.

VII.

Approaching the pinnacle, the two lovers abandoned the quilts and rolled precipitously close to the edge of the hayloft, groaning in comfortable uncomfortableness at the feel of the uneven wood planking. George found himself once again in a state of awe, for where making love to Calliope had been smooth and perfect, this present coupling was marvelously amateurish and sloppy—and all the better for that. He reveled in the reality of it.

Very near the summit now, somebody’s arm or leg struck the bottle of
Leidenschaft von Heiliger
,
sending it flying. It did a bombs away and sprayed red wine all the way down, smashing to bits on the floor below. Neither of the lovers even noticed.

VIII.

“Preacher, I really wish we could go somewhere else to open that. . . .”

“Hang out,” Preacher responded.

Paper thin, the silver band tore easily. He unwound it from the box, offering it to Jinsei. She would not take it; shrugging, Preacher folded it and placed it in the pocket of his longcoat.

“Preacher, I think . . .”

But he did not hear her, so fascinated was he with the riddle of the box. All the seams had been carefully scaled with some sort of solder, but the solder was brittle with time and chipped away easily enough. Using his thumbnail, Preacher cleaned off most of it, then began to raise the lid of the box.

Even as he did, something with wings and talons of ice struck him on the side of the head and sent him sprawling.

IX.

George and Aurora cried out together, as did the wind, ever George’s ally. Shrieking, it took hold of the barn and shook it like a toy.

“Again,” Aurora whispered, when the earth had stopped moving.

X.

“What
is
it?”

Preacher pushed himself up on one hand, using the other to touch his bloodied forehead. The box had been knocked away and had landed on its side in the snow a few yards beyond him, open just a crack. It was not the box that held his or Jinsei’s attention anymore, however, but rather the strange bone-pale bird that had settled on top of it.

“Sweet Jesus,” Preacher said, as Jinsei knelt beside him and pressed a handkerchief on his wound. The bird had to be the most unnatural-looking creature he had ever laid eyes on, like a crystalline statue somehow animated to life.

The Messenger steadied itself on the tilted surface of the box. It watched the man and woman warily; it had been watching them ever since they had first entered The Boneyard. Preacher had been permitted to pick up the box and break the Seals, but now that that was accomplished the Messenger would kill him—kill both of them—to protect the contents.

“Let’s get
out
of here!” Jinsei hissed. Preacher nodded, took her hand, and together they backed away, turning to run as soon as they had gotten a reasonable lead. The Messenger made no move to follow them but did not take its eyes off them, either; it studied their retreat most attentively.

From within Pandora’s Box, another creature studied them as well.

MESSAGES, AND A PARLIAMENT OF VERMIN

I.

“All right,” Mr. Sunshine said eager at his Writing Desk. “All right, George has his Princess, the Princess has her George, and the box is open. Now, what’s next . . .” He riffled his Notes. “The dog! That’s right, the dog!”

Searching inside his Desk for a piece of Stationery (not, of course, ordinary stationery), he scrawled a quick Message. Then, folding it twice, he wended his way through the Monkeys to a dim corner where a Mail Chute waited with open mouth. The Chute bore this symbol: ?????
and the legend:
UNDERWORLD CORRESPONDENCE ONLY.

“Not quite like the old days,” Mr. Sunshine said wistfully, as his Message made an uncertain descent down the dark Chute. “But still, that takes care of that. Now . . .”

II.

Just after dusk on that same Christmas Eve, Mrs. Smith called from Madison to announce that she would not be home for another day at least, though she felt terribly about missing the holiday with her family and gave all her love to Aurora. Sensing a golden opportunity, Walter and George built a cozy fire in the hearth and conspired to introduce Aurora to what Lion-Heart had always called the Dubious Art of Getting Stoned; after the briefest hesitation, she turned out to be an excellent pupil. The three of them were soon giggling like cheerful idiots, hugging one another, and tossing off non sequiturs a mile a minute. Even Luther managed to join in the fun. He could not puff a joint, of course, but he stuck close to Walter—of whom he had grown quite fond, thinking him an archangel—who obligingly exhaled in his direction.

Luther had at last found contentment: more food than he had ever seen before, warmth, dry shelter, and kind Masters. Surely he must, finally, be in
Heaven. True, he had encountered no other dogs here, nor had he seen any during the entire chariot ride up, but for the time being he was so overwhelmed by comfort that he asked no questions. He had even ceased to worry about Blackjack, though he knew he must soon find a way to get a message to him.

Now, as his shaggy head tingled strangely in response to the smoke, Luther felt the divine power of Heaven close in around him. The room grew bright; Luther’s eyes were drawn to the space right before the fireplace, where, as casual as you please, an aging mongrel materialized out of thin air. It was a dog he knew well, a dog who had protected him and given him love when he was only a pup. A dog he had initially set out for Heaven to find.

“
Moses!
”
Luther cried, his deepest hopes realized. “Moses, I found you!”

Moses did not speak, but turned almost immediately and began walking out. Luther followed him, leaving the humans to their laughter.

“Moses, Moses, where have you been? I missed you more than anything! I—”

Moses led him down a short hall into the kitchen, where a gust of wind blew open the back door. The older dog marched straight outside, unmindful of the cold. Luther stayed close on the heels of his sire. Long minutes they walked, deep into the night, until the Smith house became a mere twinkle of distant warmth and light. Only then did Moses stop and turn once more.

“Oh, Moses!” said Luther, who had kept up a joyous babble the whole time. “Moses, it’s so good to be here with you.”

The old mongrel looked at him with deepest regret.

“You gotta leave this place, Luther,” he said.

III.

The creature crept out of the iron box shortly after nightfall. Small, twisted, utterly loathsome in appearance, it was no wonder his enemies had called him Grub. At last released, his first thought was to vent his anger on the prison that had confined him for so long. Yet to his great fury he discovered that he could do nothing to the box; the act of sustaining himself for more than a century had drained him of his magic, and he was now powerless.

Hateful, hateful, hateful! How could he wreak his revenge, without magic? To be free and still helpless was even greater torture than confinement. . . .

Rasferret.

The Messenger waited patiently on the snow behind him, wings folded.

Rasferret, a bargain for you.

The Grub quailed at the sight of the ice bird, for he was a coward at heart, and without magic he could no more defend himself than he could
attack. Only the mention of a bargain kept him from fleeing, whatever good that might have done.

And so in that cold place of the dead, the Messenger passed on the Word that Mr. Sunshine had given it, communicating in a silent tongue. Rasferret listened, growing bolder as he heard the terms of the offered bargain. Was it revenge he craved? He would have it. Did he need fresh magic to accomplish that revenge? That too would be his, in greater amount than he had ever known before—and with it he could slay and destroy to his heart’s content. Only one catch was placed on the deal: that an opponent would be raised up against him, not a sprite but one of the Big People, a man with great power and will of his own. The Grub would have magic to fight him, but to keep it he must win the battle. If he failed, he would forever after be powerless.

The strength of magic began flowing back into Rasferret’s body even before the Messenger concluded, and having tasted of it the Grub could not refuse the deal, no matter what the eventual consequences. He flexed his newfound power by warping the prison-box into an unidentifiable wreck of metal, making the lid-hinges pop like breaking bones.

Well, well. In the blink of an eye he had shed his helplessness. But his power was not yet complete—he was made to understand that the magic would accrue gradually, peaking some two and a half months from now on the Ides of March, when the crucial battle would take place. Between then and now there was much work to be done. He had never killed a human before; he would have to practice.

IV.

“
Leave?
”
Luther protested. “But I just got here!”

“Don’t you give me that look, Luther. It’s not my fault. You got a part to play, back on that Hill you came here from. Not a big part, but it’s what’s wanted.”

Luther glanced back toward the distant house. “But
they
brought me here. I can’t make the trip alone.”

“Why not? You already did it once. Only difference is you won’t have the cat with you this time, but you’ll manage fine enough without him. I’m not saying it won’t be a trial to you, mind—the Road’s got longer, and you can be sure Raaq is still angry at you for getting away from him. But like I say, you’ll manage.”

“But do I have to leave right now?”

“What’d I always teach you? Did it ever pay for a dog to put off a hard task?”

“No,” Luther replied despondently. “But—”

“You’ve gone and used one ‘but’ too many already, Luther. Now—”

“
Listen to me!
”
Luther insisted, with an abrupt burst of anger that was completely unlike him. “This whole thing—the reason I left home in the first place—was to find you again. And after all I’ve gone through you show up just to tell me how I have to leave a place where I’m finally happy.”

“Spirit,” Moses observed, showing the first bit of good humor since his sudden appearance. “You changed, Luther. You’re not the innocent little pup I left behind me. I wager it’s the Road that changed you—could be it’ll change you more before it’s done with you. But any way you look at it, you don’t need me anymore.”

“I
want
to be with you. Will you walk with me?”

“I’ll show you where to pick up the scent. Beside that . . . well, I’m a ghost, Luther. What you want to spend time with me for?”

“I told you . . .”

“That’s a kind thing,” Moses said. “You missing me so much. But it makes no difference, you see, ‘cause you were wrong. You can’t walk to Heaven, Luther. It may come to
you,
sometime, but—”

“You mean this isn’t Heaven, either?”

“Guess you ain’t lost all of your innocence.
Course
it ain’t Heaven. Heaven’s like nothing you could ever expect, Luther. Neither is death, come to that. And a wise dog, he don’t waste his time looking for either one.”

“One of the philosophers I met told me it was good to waste time doing things like that . . . following obsessions. Especially when I don’t know what else to do.”

“Well . . . when you don’t know what else to do. But I just told you what you ought to be about, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Luther admitted.

“Just so. Come on now and I’ll show you where to start.”

V.

Even as Luther was engaged in the curious reunion with his sire, many hundred miles to the cast Rasferret the Grub was busy setting up a little reunion of his own. Reunion, of course, is not quite the right word; recreation would be more accurate.

Riding on the back of the Messenger, the Grub relocated to a different part of The Boneyard, away from the place where he had been so long entrapped. As the moon rose in a cold are above the horizon, he used his magic for a Summoning. Some hours later, near midnight (Luther had by this time bade a regretful farewell to Moses and set out on his new journey), Rasferret had himself set down atop a jutting stone rectangle that bore the words:

DEDICATED TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF HAROLD LAZARUS

1912–1957

BY HIS ADORING WIFE

GOD GRANT HIM REST

This tombstone, as mentioned before, was capped by a gargoyle figurine. It was onto the shoulders of this figurine that Rasferret settled himself, and to say whether gargoyle or Grub had the more horrendous countenance would be difficult. The Messenger set down nearby, perching in a lower place. When all was ready Rasferret brought his Parliament to order with a silent command.

In excess of fifty rats had gathered on the snow surrounding the tombstone, like dark castings left by a passing beast. They had come in answer to Rasferret’s summons, some creeping out of deep tunnels in the earth, others from cellars and dank sewers, all bringing bits and pieces of junk as tribute—shiny scraps of metal, snips of wire, beads, small bones. Having taken their places they waited to be made over, the tiny white plumes of their breath mimicking a ground mist.

Rasferret did not speak so much as a single word; instead, eyes glowing bright blue—the blue that is the hottest part of a flame—he lifted his misshapen arms, in the manner of a preacher bidding his congregation to rise. And rise they did, or tried to. Each rat, spine crackling in metamorphosis, struggled to stand straight on its hind feet. Some succeeded; others, less fortunate, got halfway up only to collapse, crippled beyond repair. Most of these did not live long.

The metamorphosis concluded. Of the fifty or some rats who had come to the Parliament, perhaps twenty survived the transformation and became Rats, bipedal soldiers in Rasferret’s new army. They were already armed, for the objects they had brought with them had also been transformed, bits of metal becoming crude swords, wire and bone knitting together to form crossbows.

The Grub reviewed his troops. Twenty was not a large number, but there would be many more as his power increased. Even the magic he had already been granted would have been sufficient for quite a few more transformations, but he was conserving, saving his energy for a special bit of business several nights hence. Rasferret grinned obscenely in anticipation of his first murderous acts in more than a hundred years.

As he grinned, one of his troops broke ranks. The Rat was a large one, the largest of the twenty actually, and carried both a crossbow and a long blade. It limped, but Rasferret sensed that the limp was the result of a previous injury, not an accident in metamorphosis. Curious, Rasferret met the Rat’s gaze, saw the anger and love of destruction within it. There passed a
moment of perfect communication between the two of them during which, again, not a word was spoken.

At last the Grub nodded in assent, receiving a clumsy bow in return. And that is how Thresh the Rat, the slayer of Cobweb, became a General in the army of vermin, second in command only to Rasferret himself.