Monsters and Magicians (6 page)

"Two Imperial Marines were called in, rifle-armed, bayonets fixed. The big, burly men were ordered to impale Mr. Hara on the long blades, only to see the steel inexplicably bend and snap halfway from points to guards when they tried to obey. Other things were essayed—a whole plethora of weapons and means of killing—but with no more success than that first, shattered wakizashi, and at that point Mr. Hara was told to return home and wait to hear from his superiors, who would have the unenviable task of retelling the whole, impossible tale to their superiors . . . and trying to convince said superiors that they were neither drunkards, lunatics nor liars in the process."

that dark night that he became Hara Tadahira. With the morning tide, he set sail upon his lifelong exile from his homeland."

"The poor bastard," said Pedro, feelingly. "But he never told me one word of all of this, Danna, in all the years I've known him. So why did he tell it all to you, an acquaintance of so short a time, I wonder?"

She shrugged again. "I don't really know, Pedro . . . and in a way I wish to hell he hadn't told me any of it"

"Why?" he inquired. "What you've recounted is a most singular tale, admitted, but I can't see any reason that it should've so shaken you up, not the M. Dannon Dardrey I know."

"Oh, but there's more to it, Pedro," she said, softly, adding, "and that's the part that curled my hair and innards."

"Mr. Hara recalls that the captain of that merchant ship was the only man aboard who knew anything at all of his last-minute passenger and seemed a little awed by him; nonetheless, he was eminently practical, too, and immediately he had ascertained that the strange man was a consummate ships' officer and navigator, he was more than willing to allow him to take the bridge on a regular basis, thus making it easier on his own, somewhat shorthanded crew.

"The broadbeamed ship was anything but a speedy sailor, Mr. Hara recalls, and they had been some three weeks at sea on the broad Pacific, far out of sight of any land, when one dark night he was called down from duty-station to supposedly advise on an equipment problem elsewhere on the ship. As he reached the bottom of a ladder, however, at least

two pairs of hands lifted him frorp his feet and hurled him overboard.

"The ship had just then been steaming somewhere, he thinks, near the fiftieth parallel and the water was icy-cold, so he knew that he would not last for long immersed in it, nor did his frantic shouts apparently reach any ears aboard the ship. He could only keep swimming in her direction even as her lights drew farther and farther away to the eastward.

"He says that his body was beginning to stiffen with the deep cold, despite the heat engendered by his exertions, when he suddenly spied a sharp rising and falling. He thought it a mirage until he reached it, felt its solidity and realized that it was truly a half-swamped wooden boat. Once he had hauled himself aboard, he found the twenty-foot boat to be severely battered, oarless and half-full of water, although her hull seemed sound and her seams relatively tight. During his search for oars, he found a scoop and began to energetically bail out the boat. When he had gotten the water level low enough, he decided that this must have been some ship's lifeboat, for a waterproof locker in the bow contained biscuit, water, brandy and some other basic foodstuffs, a German-made flare pistol and a half-dozen flares for it. In a twin compartment at the stern was another supply of fresh water and biscuit, some simple fishing gear, a rubberized raincape and a rainhat.

"But, though provided with water and food, he had no means of propelling the boat and could but go wherever the winds and seas willed. Therefore, after he had partaken sparingly of his provisions, he rolled himself in the slicker—which item, having been cut

for a large Caucasian, was more than expansive enough for his shorter, more slender stature—and sank at once into the sleep of exhaustion."

Once yet again, she rubbed at her forearms and said, "Now, Pedro, you can believe this next or not. Mr. Hara believes it and . . . and I do, too ... I think. But it's screwy and spooky and . . . and . . . Well, anyway, here's what he told me.

"He says that the warm sun on his face wakened him and he sat up to a heart-stopping shock: he was no longer alone in the boat. Not only was he not alone, the man now seated on a thwart was known to him, though he had assumed him dead, drowned with all the rest of the crew of his ill-fated light-cruiser, storm-sunk in the Yellow Sea far to the west, His companion was none other than the Japanese naval officer—the Buddhist monk who had urged him, begged him to forbear from ordering the two great sea-monsters fired upon on the morning before the death of his ship and crew!

"At the first, Mr. Hara believed himself to be dreaming, still asleep or at least half-asleep and dreaming, but then, realizing that he was, indeed, fully awake, he could only sit, stunned, for a moment. Then he politely asked, 'Lieutenant Shimaszu, are you then a gen, an apparition come to haunt me?"

"The man, who was not in naval uniform but rather garbed in the robes of his religious calling, bespoke Mr. Hara in a sad, gentle voice, saying, 'Honorable Captain, I am yet in the body, I too survived the shipwreck; no, I am no ghost, but neither am I truly with you here. You see but £ projection of my body, a projection accomplished with the aid of some very

learned and holy men. I am come to tell you of yourself, of your future life, that you will give over trying to end it abruptly.

" 'No matter what you may attempt, you see, it will be in vain, for by your deeds you have condemned yourself to life, life that can end only when you have redeemed those cruel deeds by way of actions which are preordained."

"Mr. Hara says that he then shook his head and avowed his complete mystification, his utter lack of understanding. He says that the likeness of Lieutenant Shimaszu then told him, "Honorable Captain, I am forbidden to further enlighten you at this time, for you must gain wisdom that you now lack before you could hope to truly understand. You must seek out and learn wisdom and, in a future time, in a place far and far from here, we two will again meet, meet both in the true flesh. Then you will be told it all and, grown as you then will be in age and in wisdom, you will understand and accept your punishment and your destiny.'

"Mr. Hara says that then, of an eyeblink, the boat again rocked upon the sea, empty save for him. And, Pedro, he firmly believes this all, believes that it really happened, that he truly saw and heard all of it. Can you believe it, any of it?"

His answer was, "Do you, Danna? Do you believe him, his tale?"

She nodded firmly. "Yes, yes, I do. But don't try to probe into exactly why I do, just accept that I have my reasons for believing that old man, unequivocally."

He shrugged. "Then what can I do save believe him too? For, as I earlier said, I've never known him to lie to me about any single thing. Was that all of it? How the hell did he get out of the middle of the North Pacific Ocean? Did the merchant ship steam back in search of him, then?" I

"If it did, it never found him," replied the woman. "No, he continued to drift, helplessly, stretching out his food and fresh water as far as he could. Twice, at the cost of a very thorough drenching, he was able to collect enough rainwater in the rubberized raingear to refill both of his water containers, but he was almost out of food when, of a day, a flying fish—one of a school fleeing predators—plopped into his boat. He said that, although there was not much edible meat on the foot-long creature, he as able to use its guts for bait and thereby catch a sizable tomcod which fed him well for a couple of days, its body-fluids also reducing his need for water from his dwindling supply.

"Mr. Hara says that he can never be certain just how far he drifted in that uncontrollable boat but, as he never saw another ship at any distance, not even a smudge of smoke on the horizon, he knows that he was out of the shipping lanes. Then, of a night, he awakened from fitful sleep to see what looked to be a masthead light bobbing near the limits of his vision, to the southwards.

"Making great efforts to move slowly and carefully, he moved up to the bow-locker, retrieved the flaregun, loaded it and fired a signal high into the starry sky, then another and, finally, a third.

"The crew of the fisher that had found him were a mixture of Polynesians, ethnic Chinese and two third-generation Japanese, all out of Hawaii. They had had the misfortune, in a sudden squall, to lose their half-breed skipper and their rudder. Their mainmast also had been sprung at the same time and they were rather a dispirited lot, more than happy to allow Mr. Hara—who seemed to know what he was about—to take command.

"When he brought the battered vessel back to its home port, the owners decided he was a man worth keeping around, for all that he then spoke not a word of English. And so our Mr. Hara, scion of an ancient and noble Japanese clan, one-time noble officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy and captain of a large .warship, became the hired skipper of small fishing boats in a backwater of civilization. He continued this work for more than five years."

Fitz had just finished eating his spit-broiled pheasant and was carefully sipping at his canteen-cup of steaming, fragrant tea when, with the now familiar faint tickling of the mind that bespoke telepathy, a

♦ "voice" declared, "I smell fresh meat and like, man,

m I'm hungry as a lion."

; With that, a full-size blue lion strode from among

' the brush and bushes and rocks of the hillside into the tiny clearing before the rock shelter, facing Fitz across the firepit. His normal, baby-blue hue was closer to a royal blue, which fact told Fitz that he was or had recently been upset about something. The blue lion flopped down on the rocky ground,

pointedly eying the pint-size antelope hung in the tree. "Hunting like sucked today, man," he declared dolefully, "Old Saint Germain must of like let some of his damn pets loose around these parts, them fuckers like scare all the game away from wherever they're at, you know, they stink as bad as snakes and alligators. I'm like flat bushed and my stomach's growling like I was still a damn old boar-hog, too."

Nestling his steel cup back among the coals, Fitz stood up, paced over to the tree, untied the rope, then took the lowered carcass over to the waiting lion. While the huge beast rent flesh and crunched bones, they continued to silently converse.

"Where's Sir Gautier?" asked Fitz.

"Well, like, man, he nor me expected you back so damn soon, you know. Like, you ain't been gone a whole day, you know. He went off to see could he find the rest his Normans, man. He shouldn't have no trouble there, like, man, he can just follow the stink." The feeding carnivore added, "He should ought to be back in two, three days, like anyway. Hang around, man. You can spend the time like shooting some more of these; they're good eating, see, but the little fuckers are like too fast for me to catch one, usually. I'll be done with this soon, man, hand me down that bird up there, too, huh?"

Fitz shook his head. "That pheasant's my breakfast, Cool Blue. Do you want what's left of the one I just ate?"

"Like is the Pope a Catholic, man?" was the lion's reply, "Like throw them over here; I'm like starving, tramping around these fucking boondocks all day for

nothing but a few damn frogs. What'd you like do with the guts and the head and legs and all of this little thing, huh, man? Like they're some of the best parts."

But when Fitz had directed Cool Blue to the spot he had dumped the offal from his kills, little was left aside from bloodstained leaves and stray feathers. The lion's color became almost navy blue and Fitz ended by giving his companion the other pheasant, reflecting to himself that he could breakfast out of die supplies he had brought from the other world, Sir Gautier not being on hand to take a share. Then he banked the fire and zipped himself into his sleeping bag under the overhang, the entrance more or less blocked by rocks, the motorcycle and other gear and the huge, blue Hon sleeping just the other side of the firepit.

Hungry as the lion still remained, Fitz doubted that any edible creature would survive long enough to get across the small clearing to the overhang and him, so he went to sleep feeling as secure as if he had been in the soft bed in his other-world bedroom, guarded by multitudinous alarms and a twelve-foot cyclone fence topped with barbed wire.

Nonetheless, he awakened a bit after moonrise to the certain knowledge that he no longer lay alone in the rock recess. Opening his eyes to bare slits, he could see between himself and the lit clearing a shape that was patently feline but clearly not the bulk of the baby-blue lion.

"Tom . . . ?" he projected telepathically, "Puss . . . ? Is that you?"

"Yes, my dear, old friend," came the silent beaming into his mind from the leopard-sized beast, moving close enough to lick at his face with a broad, rough tongue, "I am the creature you once knew as Tom/ "

As the hundred-and-a-half pounds of lithe, furry animal lay down beside and snuggled against him, Fitz wondered again—for the umpteenth thousandth time again—if this, any of this, was truly real and, if the events of these last few years had indeed taken place, how it was that they could be real.

And the huge grey cat read his thoughts, half buried though they had been. "Yes, my old friend, my dear friend, it is, has been and is now real. You must accept it, for all that there yet is too much of the mere human left in you to understand it. You must accept it on the faith that you will in time understand it all."

"Mere human, Puss?" he beamed. "If f m not a human being, then what the hell am I, pray tell? What am I supposed to be becoming? A cat, like you? A lion, like Cool Blue?"

He sensed a gentle humor in the silent reply from the now-recumbent feline form. "When once you have proven yourself of true worth, have met with the Dagda and are come fully into your own once more—you and she who will be yours and the Keepers—then will you know and understand everything."

"What land of an answer is that, Puss?" he demanded in clear exasperation. "Who or what is this Dagda, anyway? Danna says that in the old Irish folk