The Death of the Beasts

THE beasts have already lost several of their number. The first ice-bound morning, a few of the old beasts succumbed, their winter-whitened bodies lying under two inches of snow. The morning sun tore through the clouds, setting the frozen landscape agleam, the frosty breath of more than a thousand beasts dancing whitely in the air.

I awake before dawn to find the Town blanketed in snow. It is a wondrous scene in the somber light. The Clocktower soars black above the whitened world, the dark band of the River flows below. I put on my coat and gloves and descend to the empty streets. There is not yet a footprint in the snow. When I gather the snow in my hands, it crumbles. The edges of the River are frozen, with a dusting of snow.

There is no wind, no birds, no movement in the Town. I hear nothing but the crunching of snow under my feet.

I walk to the Gate and see the Gatekeeper out by the Shadow Grounds. The Gatekeeper is under the wagon that he and my shadow repaired. He is lubricating the axles. The wagon is loaded with ceramic crocks of the kind used to hold rapeseed oil, all roped fast to the sideboards. I wonder why the Gatekeeper would have need for so much oil.

The Gatekeeper emerges from under the wagon and raises his hand to greet me. He seems in a good mood. "Up early, eh? What wind blows you this way?" "I have come out to see the snow," I say. "It was so beautiful from up on the Hill."

The Gatekeeper scoffs and throws a big arm around me as he has done before. He wears no gloves.

"You are a strange one. Winter here is nothing but snow, and you come down from your Hill just to see it."

Then he belches, a locomotive cloud of steam, and looks toward the Gate. "But I will say, you came at the right time," he smiles. "Want to climb the Watchtower? Something you ought to see from there. A winter treat, ha ha. In a little while I will blow the horn, so keep your eyes open." "A treat?" "You will see."

I climb the Watchtower beside the Gate, not knowing what to expect. I look at the world beyond the Wall. Snow is deep in the Apple Grove, as if a storm cloud had specifically sought it out. The Northern and Eastern Ridges are powdered white, with a few dark-limned crags to mar their complexion.

Immediately below the Watchtower are the beasts, sleeping as they usually do at this hour. Legs folded under them, they huddle low to the ground, their horns thrust forward, each seeking sleep. All peacefully unaware of the thick coat of snow that has fallen upon them.

The clouds disperse and the sun begins to illuminate the earth. Beams of sun slant across the land. My eyes strain in the brightness to see the promised "treat".

Presently, the Gatekeeper pushes open the Gate and sounds the horn. One long note, then three short notes. The beasts awaken at the first tone and lift their heads in the direction of the call. White breaths charge the air anew, heralding the start of the new day.

The last note of the horn fades, and the beasts are risen to their feet. They prow their horns at the sky, then shake off the snow as if they had not previously noticed it. Finally they walk toward the Gate.

As the beasts amble by, some hang their heads low, some paw their hooves quietly. Only after they have filed inside do I understand what the Gatekeeper has wanted me to see. A few beasts have frozen to death in their posture of sleep. Yet they appear not dead so much as deep in meditation. No breath issues from them. Their bodies unmoving, their awareness swallowed in darkness. After all the other beasts have gone through the Gate, these dead remain like growths on the face of the earth. Their horns angle up into space, almost alive.

I gaze at their hushed forms as the morning sun rises and the shadow of the Wall withdraws, the brilliance melting the snow from the ground. Will the morning sun thaw away even their death? At any moment, will these apparently lifeless forms stand and go about their usual morning routine?

They do not rise. The sun but glistens on their wet fur. My eyes behind black glasses begin to hurt.

Descending the Watchtower, I cross the River and go back to my quarters on the Western Hill. I discover that the morning sun has done harm to my eyes, severely. When I close my eyes, the tears do not stop. I hear each drop fall to my lap. I darken the room and stare for hours at the weirdly shaped patterns that drift and recede in a space of no perspective.

At ten o'clock the Colonel, bringing coffee, knocks on my door and finds me face down on the bed, rubbing my eyes with a cold towel. There is a pain in the back of my head, but at least the tears have subsided.

"What has happened to you?" he asks. "The morning sun is stronger than you think.

Especially on snowy mornings. You knew that a Dreamreader cannot tolerate strong light. Why did you want to go outdoors?"

"I went to see the beasts," I say. "Many died. Eight, nine head. No, more."

"And many more will die with each snowfall."

"Why do they die so easily?" I ask the old officer, removing the towel from my face to look at him.

"They are weak. From the cold and from hunger. It has always been this way."

"Do they never die out?"

The old officer shakes his head. "The creatures have lived here for many millenia, and so will they continue. Many will die over the winter, but in spring the survivors will foal. New life pushes old out of the way. The number of beasts that can live in this Town is limited."

"Why don't they move to another place? There are trees in the Woods. If they went south, they would escape the snow. Why do they need to stay?"

"Why, I cannot tell you," he says. "But the beasts cannot leave. They belong to the Town; they are captured by it. Just as you and I are. By their own instincts, they know this."

"What happens to the bodies?"

"They are burned," replies the Colonel, warming his great parched hands on his coffee cup. "For the next few weeks, that will be the main work of the Gatekeeper. First he cuts off their heads, scrapes out their brains and eyes, then boils them until the skulls are clean. The remains are doused with oil and set on fire."

"Then old dreams are put into those skulls for the Library, is that it?" I ask the Colonel.

"Why?"

The old officer does not answer. All I hear is the creaking of the floorboards as he walks away from me, toward the window.

"You will learn that when you see what old dreams are," he says. "I cannot tell you. You are the Dreamreader. You must find the answer for yourself."

I wipe away the tears with the towel, then open my eyes. The Colonel stands, a blur by the window.

"Many things will become clear for you over the course of the winter," he continues.

"Whether or not you like what you learn, it will all come to pass. The snow will fall, the beasts will die. No one can stop this. In the afternoon, gray smoke will rise from the burning beasts. All winter long, every day. White snow and gray smoke."

Bracelets, Ben Johnson, Devil

Beyond the closet opened the same dark inner sanctum as before, but now that I knew about the INKlings, it seemed a deep, chill horror show.

She went down the ladder ahead of me. With the INKling-repel device stuffed in a large pocket of her slicker and her large flashlight slung diagonally across her body, she swiftly descended alone. Then, flashlight thrust in my pocket, I started down the slick rungs of the ladder. It was a bigger drop than I remembered. All the way down, I kept thinking about that young couple in the Skyline, Duran Duran on stereo. Oblivious to everything.

I wished I could have been a little more oblivious. I put myself in the driver's seat, woman sitting next to me, cruising the late night streets to an innocuous pop beat. Did the woman take off her bracelets during sex? Nice if she didn't.

Even if she was naked, those two bracelets needed to be there.

Probably she did take them off. Women tend to remove their jewelry before they shower.

Which meant, therefore, sex before showering. Or getting her to keep her bracelets on.

Now, which was the better option?

Anyway, I'm in bed with her, with her bracelets. Her face is a blank, so I darken the lights. Off go her silky undergarments. The bracelets are all she has on. They glint slightly, a pleasant muffled clinking on the sheets. I have a hard-on.

Which, halfway down the ladder, is what I noticed. Just great. Why now? Why didn't I get an erection when I needed one? And why was I getting so excited over two lousy bracelets? Especially under this slicker, with the wcgld about to end.

She was shining her light around when I reached bottom. "There are INKlings about. Listen," she said. "Those sounds."

"Sounds?"

"Fins flapping. Listen carefully. You can feel them."

I strained, but didn't detect anything of the kind.

"Once you know what to listen for, you can even detect their voices. It's not really speech; it's closer to sound waves. They're like bats. Humans can only hear a portion of their vocal range."

"So then how did the Semiotecs make contact with them? If they couldn't communicate verbally?"

"A translation device isn't so hard to make. Grandfather could have, easy. But he decided not to."

"Why not?"

"Because he didn't want to talk to them. They're disgusting creatures and they speak a disgusting language. Whatever they eat or drink has got to be almost putrified."

"They don't consume anything fresh?"

"No. If they catch you, they immerse you in water for days. When your body starts to rot, they eat it."

Lovely. I was ready to turn back, but we forged on. She knew every step of the way and scampered ahead. When I trained my light on her from behind, her gold earrings flashed.

"Tell me, do you take off your earrings when you take a shower?" I spoke up.

"I leave them on," she slowed down to answer. "Only my earrings. Sexy?"

"I guess." Why did I have to go and bring up the subject?

"What else do you think is sexy? I'm not very experienced, as I said. Nobody teaches you these things."

"Nobody will. It's something you have to find out for yourself," I said.

I made a conscious effort to sweep all images of sex from my head.

"Umm," I changed the subject, "you say this device of yours emits ultrasonic waves that put off the INKlings?"

"As long as the device is sending out signals, they won't come within fifteen meters of us. So you should try to stay close to me. Otherwise, they'll nab you and pickle you for a snack. In your condition, your stomach would be the first thing to rot. And their teeth and claws are razor sharp."

I scooted up right behind her.

"Does your stomach wound still hurt?" she asked.

"Only when I move," I replied. "But thanks to the painkillers, it's not so bad."

"If we find Grandfather, he'll be able to remove the pain."

"Your grandfather? How's he going to help?"

"Simple. He's done it for me lots of times. Like when I have a terrible headache, he uses an impulse to cancel out my awareness of pain. Really, though, pain is an important signal from the body, so you shouldn't do it too much. In this case, it's an emergency. I'm sure he'll help."

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't thank me. Thank Grandfather. If we find him," she reminded.

Panning her powerful light left and right, she continued upstream along the subterranean river. Moisture seeped out from between the rocks, running in rivulets past our feet.

Slimy layers of moss coated wherever this groundwater trickled through. The moss appeared unnaturally green, inexplicable for these depths beyond the reach of photosynthesis.

"Say, do you suppose the INKlings know we're walking around down here now?"

"Of course, they do," she said, without emotion. "This is their world. They're all around, watching us. I've been hearing noises the whole time we've been down here."

I swung my flashlight beam to the side, but all I saw were rocks and moss.

"They're in the cracks and boreholes, where the light doesn't reach," she said. "Or else they're creeping up on us from behind."

"How many minutes has it been since you switched on the device?" I asked.

"Ten minutes," she said, looking at her watch. "Ten minutes, twelve seconds. Another five minutes to the waterfall. We're doing fine."

Exactly five minutes later we arrived at the waterfall. Again the roar of the waterfall had been selectively suppressed; apparently the sound-removal equipment was still functioning.

"Odd," she remarked, ducking under the noiseless cascade. "This sound removal means the laboratory wasn't broken into. If the INKlings had attacked, they would have torn the whole place apart. They hate this laboratory."

Sure enough, the laboratory door was still locked. She inserted the electronic key; the door swung open. The labo-ratory interior was dark and cold and smelled of coffee. She anxiously shut the door behind us, tested the lock, and only then switched on the lights.

It was true that the laboratory was basically a repeat of the upheaval in the office above: papers everywhere, furniture overturned, cups and plates smashed, the carpet an abstract expressionist composition of what must have been a bucket of coffee grounds. But there was a pattern to the destruction. The demolition crew had clearly distinguished between what was and was not to be destroyed. The former had been shown no mercy, but the computer, telecommunications console, sound-removal equipment, and electric generator were untouched.

The next room was like that as well. A hopeless mess, but the destruction was carefully calculated. The shelves of skulls had been left perfectly intact, instruments necessary for experimental calibrations set aside with care. Less critical, inexpensive equipment and replaceable research materials had been dashed to pieces.

The girl went to the safe to check its contents. The safe door wasn't locked. She scooped out two handfuls of white ash.

"The emergency auto-incinerator did its stuff," she said. "They didn't get any papers."

"Who do you think did it?" I asked.

"Humans, first of all. The Semiotecs or whoever may have had INKling help to get in here, but only they came inside. They even locked the door to keep the INKlings from finishing the job."

"Doesn't look like they took anything valuable."

"No."

"But they did get your grandfather, the most valuable property of all," I said. "That leaves me stuck with whatever he planted inside me. Now I'm really screwed."

"Not so fast," said the chubby girl. "Grandfather wasn't abducted at all. There's a secret escape route from here. I'm sure he got away, using the other INKling-repel device."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Grandfather's not the type to let himself get caught. If he heard someone breaking in, he'd get himself out of here."

"So he's safe above ground?"

"Above ground, no," she corrected. "The escape route is like a maze. At the very fastest, it'd take five hours to get through, and the INKling-repel device only lasts thirty minutes. He's still in the maze."

"Or else he's been caught by the INKlings."

"I don't think so. Grandfather prepared an extra-safe shelter for himself, exactly for times like these. It's the one place underground no INKling will go near. I bet he's there, waiting for us to show up."

"Where is that?"

"Grandfather explained the way once, but there should be a shorthand map in the notebook. It shows all the danger points to look out for."

"What kind of danger points?"

"The kind that you're probably better off not knowing. You seem to get nervous when you hear too much."

"Sure, kid." I didn't want to argue. "How long does it take to reach that shelter?"

"About a half hour to the approach. And from there, another hour or hour and a half to Grandfather. Once we make the approach we'll be okay; it's the first half hour that's the problem. Unless we really hurry, the INKling-repel device's battery will run out."

"What happens if our porta-pack dies midway?"

"Wish us luck. We'd have to keep swinging our flashlights like crazy."

"Then we'd better get moving," I said. "The INKlings wouldn't waste any time telling the Semiotecs we're here. They'll be back any minute."

She peeled off her rain gear and got into the GI jacket and jogging shoes I'd packed.

Meanwhile I stripped off my slicker and pulled on my nylon windbreaker. Then I traded my sneakers for rain boots and shouldered the knapsack again. My watch read almost twelve-thirty.

The girl went to the closet in the far room and threw the hangers onto the floor. As she rotated the clothes rod, there was the sound of gears turning, and a square panel in the lower right closet wall creaked open. In blew cold, moldy air.

"Your grandfather must be some kind of cabinet fetishist," I remarked.

"No way," she defended. "A fetishist's someone who's got a fixation on one thing only. Of course, Grandfather's good at cabinetry. He's good at everything. Genius doesn't specialize; genius is reason in itself."

"Forget genius. It doesn't do much for innocent bystanders. Especially if everyone's going to want a piece of the action. That's why this whole mess happened in the first place. Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works. Your grandfather is no exception. Thanks to him, I got my gut slashed, and now the world's going to end."

"Once we find Grandfather, it'll be all right," she said, drawing near to plant a little peck by my ear. "You can't go back now."

The girl kept her eye on the INKling-repel device while it recharged. Then, when it was done, she took the lead and I followed, same as before. Once through the hole, she cranked a handle to seal the opening. With each crank, the patch of light grew smaller and smaller, becoming a slit, then disappearing.

"What made your grandfather choose this for an escape route?"

"Because it links directly to the center of the INKling lair," she said, without hesitation.

"They themselves can't go near it. It's their sanctuary."

"Sanctuary?"

"I've never actually seen it myself, but that's what Grandfather called it. They worship a fish. A huge fish with no eyes," she told me, then flashed her light ahead. "Let's get going. We haven't got much time."

The cave ceiling was low; we had to crouch as we walked, banging our heads on stalactites. I thought I was in good shape, but now, bent low like this, each pitch of my hips stabbed an ice pick into my gut. Still, the pain had to be a hell of a lot better than wandering around here alone if I ever let her out of my sight.

The further we traveled in the darkness, the more I began to feel estranged from my body.

I couldn't see it, and after a while, you start to think the body is nothing but a hypothetical construct. Sure, I could feel my wound and the ground beneath the soles of my feet. But these were just kinesthesis and touch, primitive notions stemming from the premise of a body. These sensations could continue even after the body is gone. Like an amputee getting itchy toes.

Thoughts on the run, literally, as I chased after the chubby girl. Her pink skirt poked out from under the olive drab GI jacket. Her earrings sparkled, a pair of fireflies flitting about her. She never checked to see if I was following; she simply forged ahead, with girl scout intensity. She stopped only when she came to a fork in the path, where she pulled out the map and held it under the light. That was when I managed to catch up with her.

"Okay up there? We're on the right path?" I asked.

"For the time being at least," she replied.

"How can you tell?"

"I can tell we're on course because we are," she said authoritatively, shining her light at our feet. "See? Take a look."

I looked at the illuminated circle of ground. The pitted rock surface was gleaming with tiny bits of silver. I picked one up—a paperclip.

"See?" she said, snidely. "Grandfather passed this way. He knew we'd be following, so he left those as trail markers."

"Got it," I said, put in my place. "Fifteen minutes gone. Let's hurry," she pressed. There were more forks in the path ahead. But each time, scattered paperclips showed us the way. There were also boreholes in the passage floor. These had been marked on the map, spots where we had to walk with care, with flashlights trained on the ground.

The path wormed left and right but kept going further and further down. There were no steep inclines, only a steady, even descent. Five minutes later, we came to a large chamber. We knew this from the change in the air and the sound of our footsteps.

She took out the map to check our location. I shone my light all around. The room was circular in shape; the ceiling formed a dome. The curved walls were smooth and slick, clearly the work of… human hands? In the very center of the floor was a shallow cavity one meter in diameter, filled with an unidentifiable slime. A tincture of something was in the air, not overpowering, but it left a disagreeable acid gumminess in your mouth.

"This seems to be the approach to the sanctuary," she said. "That means we're safe from INKlings. For the time being."

"Great, but how do we get out of here?" "Leave that up to Grandfather. He'll have a way."

On either side of the sanctuary entrance was an intricate relief. Two fishes in a circle, each with the other's tail in its mouth. Their heads swelled into aeroplane cowlings, and where their eyes should have been, two long tendril-like feelers sprouted out. Their mouths were much too large for the rest of their bodies, slit back almost to the gills, beneath which were fleshy organs resembling severed animal limbs. On each of these appendages were three claws. Claws? The dorsal fins were shaped like tongues of flames, the scales rasped out like thorns.

"Mythical creatures? Do you suppose they actually exist?" I asked her.

"Who knows?" she said, picking up some paperclips. "Quick, let's go in."

I ran my light over the carving one more time before following her through the entrance.

It was nothing short of amazing that the INKlings could render such detail in absolute darkness. Okay, they could see in the dark, but this vision of theirs was otherworldly.

And now they were probably watching our every move.

The approach to the sanctuary sloped gradually upward, the ceiling at the same time rising progressively higher until finally it soared out of the flashlight's illumination.

"From here on, we climb the mountain," she said. "Not a real mountain, anyway. More like a hill. But to them, it's a mountain. That's what Grandfather said. It's the only documented subterranean mountain, a sacred mountain."

"Then we're defiling it."

"Not at all. The reverse. The mountain was filthy from the beginning. This place is a Pandora's box sealed over by the earth's crust. Filth was concentrated here. And we're going to pass right through the center of it."

"You make it sound like hell."

"You said it."

"I don't think I'm ready for this."

"Oh come on, you've got to believe," said my pink cheerleader. "Think of nice things, people you loved, your childhood, your dreams, music, stuff like that. Don't worry, be happy."

"Is Ben Johnson happy enough?" I asked.

"Ben Johnson?"

"He played in those great old John Ford movies, riding the most beautiful horses."

"You really are one of a kind," she laughed. "I really like you."

"Thanks," I said, "but I can't play any musical instruments."

As she had forecast, the path began to get steeper, until finally we were scaling a rock face. But my thoughts were on my happy-time hero. Ben Johnson on horseback. Ben Johnson in Fort Defiance and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Wagonmaster and Rio Grande. Ben Johnson on the prairie, sun burning down, blue sky streaked with clouds.

Ben Johnson and a herd of buffalo in a canyon, womenfolk wiping hands on gingham aprons as they lean out the door. Ben Johnson by the river, light shimmering in the dry heat, cowboys singing. The camera dollies, and there's Ben Johnson, riding across the landscape, swift as an arrow, our hero forever in frame.

As I gripped the rocks and tested for foothold, it was Ben Johnson on his horse that sustained me. The pain in my gut all but subsided. Maybe he was the signal to put physical pain out of mind.

We continued scaling the mountain in the dark. You couldn't hold your flashlight and still use your hands to climb, so I stuffed my flashlight in my jeans, she strapped hers up across her back. Which meant we saw nothing. Her flashlight beam bounced on her hip, veering off uselessly into space. And all I saw by mine were mute rock surfaces going up, up, up.

From time to time she called out to make sure I kept pace. "You okay?" she'd say. "Just a little more."

Then, a while later, it was "Why don't we sing something?"

"Sing what?" I wanted to know.

"Anything, anything at all."

"I don't sing in dark places."

"Aw, c'mon."

Okay, then, what the hell. So I sang the Russian folksong I learned in elementary school: Snow is falling all night long—

Hey-ey! Pechka, ho! Fire is burning very strong—

Hey-ey! Pechka, ho! Old dreams bursting into song—

Hey-ey! Pechka, ho!

I didn't know any more of the lyrics, so I made some up: Everyone's gathered around the fire—the pechka—when a knock comes at the door and Father goes to inquire, and there's a reindeer standing on wounded feet, saying, "I'm hungry, give me something to eat"; so they feed it canned peaches. In the end everyone's sitting around the stove, singing along.

"Wonderful. You sing just fine," she said. "Sorry I can't applaud, but I've got my hands full."

We cleared the bluff and reached a flat area. Catching our breath, we panned our flashlights around. The plateau was vast; the tabletop-slick surface spread in all directions. She crouched and picked up another half dozen paperclips.

"How far can your grandfather have gone?" I asked.

"Not much farther. He's mentioned this plateau many times."

"You mean to say your grandfather's come here out of choice?"

"Of course. Grandfather had to cover this terrain in order to draw up his subterranean map. He knows everything about this place."

"He surveyed it all by himself?"

"Certainly," she said. "Grandfather likes to operate alone. It's not that he doesn't like people or can't trust them; it's just that nobody can keep up with him."

"I can believe it," I said. "But tell me, what's the low-down on this plateau?"

"This mountain is where the INKlings first lived. They dug holes into the rock face and lived together inside. The area we're standing on now is where religious ceremonies were held. It's supposed to be the dwelling place of their gods, where they made living sacrifices to them."

"You mean those gruesome clawed fish?"

"According to Grandfather, the fish are supposed to have led the INKlings' ancestors here." She trained her light at our feet and showed me a shallow trough carved into the ground. The trough led straight off into the darkness. "If you follow this trough, you get to the ancient altar. It's the holiest spot in this sanctuary. No INKling would go near it. That's probably where Grandfather is, safe and sound-removed."

We followed the trough. It soon got deeper, the path descending steadily, the walls to either side rising higher and higher. The walls seemed ready to close in and crush us flat any second, but nothing moved. Only the queer squishing rhythm of our rubber boots echoed between the walls. I looked up time and again as I walked.

It was the urge to look up at the sky. But of course there was no sun nor moon nor stars overhead. Darkness hung heavy over me. Each breath I took, each wet footstep, everything wanted to slide like mud to the ground.

I lifted my left hand and pressed on the light of my digital wristwatch. Two-twenty-one.

It was midnight when we headed underground, so only a little over two hours had passed.

We continued walking down, down the narrow trench, mouths clamped tight.

I could no longer tell if my eyes were open or shut. The only thing impinging on my senses at this point was the echo of footsteps. The freakish terrain and air and darkness distorted what reached my ears. I tried to impose a verbal meaning on the sounds, but they would not conform to any words I knew. It was an unfamiliar language, a string of tones and inflections that could not be accommodated within the range of Japanese syllables. In French or German—or English perhaps—it might approximate this: Even— through— be— shopped— degreed— well Still, when I actually pronounced the words, they were far from the sounds of those footsteps. A more accurate transcription would have been:

Efgven— gthouv— bge— shpevg— egvele— wgevl Finnish? Yet another gap in my linguistic abilities. If pressed to give a meaning, I might have said something like, "A Farmer met the aged Devil on the road." Just my impression, of course.

I kept trying to puzzle together various words and phrases as I walked. I pictured her pink jogging shoes, right heel onto ground, center of gravity shifting to tiptoe, then just before lifting away, left heel onto ground. An endless repetition. Time was getting slower, the clock spring running down, the hands hardly advancing.

Efgven— gthouv— bge— shpevg— egvele— wgevl Efgven— gthouv— bge— shpevg— egvele— wgevl Efgven— gthouv— bge—

The aged Devil sat on a rock by the side of a Finnish country road. The Devil was ten thousand, maybe twenty thousand years old, and very tired. He was covered in dust. His whiskers were wilting. Whither be ye gang in sich 'aste? the Devil called out to a Farmer.

Done broke me ploughshare and must to fixe it, the Farmer replied. Not to hurrie, said the Devil, the sunne still playes o'er head on highe, wherefore be ye scurrying? Sit ye doun and 'eare m' tale. The Farmer knew no good could come of passing time with the Devil, but seeing him so utterly haggard, the Farmer—

Something struck my cheek. Something flat, fleshy, not too hard. But what? I tried to think, and it struck my cheek again. I raised my hand to brush it away, to no avail. An unpleasant glare was swimming in my face. I opened my eyes, which until then I hadn't even noticed were closed. It was her flashlight on me, her hand slapping me.

"Stop it," I shouted. "It's too bright. It hurts."

"You can't fall asleep here like this! Get up! Get up!" she screamed back.

"Get up? What are you talking about?"

I switched on my flashlight and shone it around me. I was on the ground, back against a wall, dripping wet. I had dozed off without knowing it.

I slowly raised myself to my feet.

"What happened? One minute I'm keeping pace, the next I'm asleep. I have no recollection of sitting down or going to sleep."

"That's the trap," she said. "They'll do anything to make us fall asleep."

"They?"

"Whoever or whatever it is that lives in this mountain. Gods, evil spirits, I don't know— them. They set up interference."

I shook my head.

"Everything got so hazy. Your shoes were making those sounds and…"

"My shoes?"

I told her about her Finnish footsteps. The old Devil. The Farmer—

"That was all a trick," she broke in. "Hypnosis. If I hadn't looked back, you probably would have slept there for… forages."

"Ages?"

"Yes, that's right. You'd have been a goner," she intoned. Too far gone for what, she didn't say. "You have rope in the knapsack, don't you?"

"Uh-huh, about five meters."

"Out with it."

I unstrapped the knapsack from my back, reached inside among the cans, whiskey, and canteen, and pulled it out. She tied one end of the rope to my belt, winding the other end around her waist.

"There. That ought to do," she said. "This way we won't get separated."

"Unless we both fall asleep," I said.

"Don't add to our problems. Let's get going."

And so off we went, tied together. I tried hard not to hear her footsteps. I maintained flashlight contact with the back of her GI jacket. I bought that jacket in 1971, I was pretty sure. The Vietnam War was still going on, Nixon and his ugly mug were still in the White House. Everybody and his brother had long hair, wore dirty sandals and army-surplus jackets with peace signs on the back, tripped out to psychedelic music, thought they were Peter Fonda, screaming down the road on a Chopped Hog to a full-blast charge of Born to Be Wild, blurring into I Heard It through the Grapevine. Similar intros— different movie?

"What are you thinking about?" asked the chubby girl.

"Oh nothing," I said.

"Shall we sing something?"

"Do we have to?"

"Well, then, think of something else."

"Let's have a conversation."

"About what?"

"How about rain?"

"Sure."

"What do you associate with rain?"

"It rained the night my folks died."

"How about something more cheerful?"

"That's okay. I don't mind talking about it," she said. "Unless you don't want to hear it."

"If you want to talk about it, you should talk about it," I replied.

"It wasn't really raining. The sky was overcast, and I was in the hospital. There was a camphor tree by the window. I lay in bed and memorized every branch. A lot of birds came. Sparrows and shrikes and starlings, and other more beautiful birds. But when it was about to rain, the birds wouldn't be there. Then they'd be back, chirping thanks for the clear weather. I don't know why. Maybe because when rain stops, bugs come out of the ground."

"Were you in the hospital a long time?"

"About one month. I had a heart operation. Funny, isn't it? I was the only one sick, now I'm the only one alive. The day they died was a busy day for the birds. They had the heat turned up in the hospital, so the window was steamed up and I had to get up out of bed to wipe the window. I wasn't supposed to get out of bed, but I had to see the tree and birds and rain. There were these couple of birds with black heads and red wings. That's when I thought, how strange the world is. I mean, there must be millions of camphor trees in the world—of course, they didn't all have to be camphor trees—but on that one day, when it rained and stopped and rained and stopped, how many birds must have been flying back and forth? It made me really sad."

"It made you sad?"

"Because, like I said, there's got to be millions of trees in the world and millions of birds and millions of rainfalls. But I couldn't even figure one out, and I'd probably die that way. I just cried and cried, I felt so lonely. And that was the night my whole family got killed. Though they didn't tell me until much later."

"That must have been horrible."

"Well, it was the end of the world for me. Everything got so dark and lonely and miserable. Do you know what that feels like?"

"I can imagine," I said.

Her thoughts on rain occupied my thoughts. So much so I didn't notice that she'd stopped and I bumped into her, again.

"Sorry," I said.

"Shh!" She grabbed hold of my arm. "I hear something. Listen!"

We stood absolutely still and strained our ears. At first, faint, almost imperceptible. A deep rumbling, like a tremor. The sound got louder. The air began to tremble. Everything told us something was about to happen.

"An earthquake?" I asked.

"No," the girl shuddered. "It's much worse than that."