Elephant Song

TWENTY-EIGHT

They were awakened just before dawn by the deep rumblings of a storm coming from the west. Flashes of lightning illuminated the sky as they quickly cooked the morning's cobit while a fire could still be made. Before they had finished their cakes, the heavy rain began to fall. "Bah!" Trouble hooded his head and hefted his pack as he glanced up at the sky. "It is still as dark as a cashier's conscience." He turned to No One. "We should lay up until the blowdown has passed."

No One looked at the western sky, then across the choppy waters of the lake. He faced Trouble. "This could go on all day. I don't want to lose a day."

The magician placed his hands upon his hips. "The fate of the Universe will not be changed if we take a little longer. I have just as much reason as you for learning from the eggs—"

"No." No One shouldered his pack. "No, you don't."

Tarzaka turned from No One and looked at the magician. "No One has a bull to kill." She looked back at No One. "True?"

No One began walking down the road. Tarzaka pulled her pack strap over her shoulder. "Trouble, we cannot get any wetter than we are now."

"Bah!" Trouble Held out his arms. "Where to, then, No One?"

No One looked back over his shoulder. "We follow the road toward Arcadia until it leaves the shore of the lake. Then we follow the shore."

They walked against the driving rain for hours, the chill numbing both thought and bone. While his mind thought upon Reg's death, No One's eyes were concentrating upon stepping around the large puddles and maintaining his footing upon the road's greasy surface. Just then a feeling of warmth filled him. He stopped. Trouble and Tarzaka stopped a few steps beyond.

Trouble looked around at the dripping green trees that bordered the road, his eyes wide with fear. "What is this, No One?"

"Do you feel it?"

Trouble nodded. "Aye."

No One looked at Tarzaka. "And you?"

Tarzaka's eyes were dulled, her face slack. Ignoring No One's question, she turned to her left and began walking toward the lake's jungle-lined shore. No One placed his hand upon her arm. "Wait, Tarzaka. Where—"

She pulled her arm free and continued into the trees. Trouble grabbed No One's shoulder. "We must follow her."

No One looked at the narrow strip of trees between the road and the lake. "This cannot be the place. There is nothing there."

Trouble glared at No One. "Place or not—" He waved a hand in impatient disgust at No One. "Bah!"

The magician hurried to follow the fortune teller. No One frowned at Trouble's back until it disappeared into the trees. He hesitated, then turned to follow them. As he approached the edge of the road, he heard a voice as it filled his mind.

Come, Johnjay. Come to me.

He stumbled and fell to the road. The voice—its strength— never before had No One experienced its like.

Come to me, Johnjay.

He crawled to the nearest tree and used its trunk to pull himself to his feet. His breath came in harsh, short gasps. "Who? Who are you?" He closed his eyes and forced his thoughts to form. "Who Are You?"

Come to me.

No One sagged against the tree and tried to make his thoughts ask the question again. But before he could ask, the answer came.

Come to me, Johnjay. I am your wife.

No One recoiled from the tree, anger driving the warmth, the thoughts, from his head. He screamed at the sky. "I will be damned if you are! Damned, I say!" His head filled with the pain of cruel laughter.

Then you are damned. Come to me, Johnjay.

The laughter left him, and he looked at the trail in the highgrass made by Tarzaka and Trouble. He studied the bent blades of grass as though by force of will he could make them refuse his steps. His feet moved forward and he entered the trail.

For hours he unwillingly lurched and stumbled through the dense vegetation. At times the trail would be invisible to his eyes, but his feet never failed to find it again. Twice he called out Trouble's name and received no answer. In time the rain stopped, followed an hour later by the sun. Minutes later the swamp steamed under the heat. No One's head swam from the effort and from the hot, thick air. When the power left his legs, he fell face down into the highgrass.

When his breath returned, he rolled over onto his back and stared without sight at the branches, leaves, and vines above. He shook his head at the ache in his legs. "What moves me against my will?" He rested quietly for a long moment, then pushed himself up to a sitting position, and looked down the trail. He was a long way from the road. No One cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. "Trouble! Trouble! Tarzaka!"

He lowered his hands and listened but could hear nothing but the buzzing of the insects. He hung his head as he took his hands and began massaging his tired legs to keep them from cramping. He paused, frowned, and looked at his surroundings. "Why did she let me rest?" He thought again. Did she? What did Trouble say about the cloaking of his mind? It appears as a blackness to the mind reader when... he was trying to think of nothing. No One nodded. "I dropped from exhaustion, my mind went blank, and she lost me! Yes." He held his hands to his head. How does one think about nothing?

His hands fell to his lap as an edge of warmth touched him and left. He pushed himself to his feet. "She is after me again!"

How to think about nothing? No One closed his eyes. Whiteness. A white wall, large enough to fill my entire vision, no matter in which direction I turn. The texture of the wall—eliminate it. Whiteness. Just whiteness.

The edge of warmth covered him again, but his legs did not move. Whiteness. And now, take away the white. He felt the edges of his mind grow dull, a pressure as though someone's thumbs were pressing upon his eyeballs. All about the outside of his skull, it was as if great avians were flapping their wings and screaming in frustration. But they were outside; not inside.

He looked down the trail, his eyes slightly out of focus. He spoke out loud. "Swamp woman? Can you hear me, swamp woman?"

The flapping and screaming about his head increased to a frenzy, then suddenly died. No One waited, then allowed a small patch of whitness to return. "Swamp woman?"

You fight me, yet you call to me?

No One wet his lips and nodded. "Swamp woman, I will come to you, and on my own. But I will not be forced. On my own. You have what I want."

I have your friends as well.

"They are nothing to me, swamp woman."

The laughter threatened to break down his barrier for a moment, then it eased. Very well, Johnjay. Come to me. Follow the trail. I will have them teach you how to kill the bull. I am waiting, my husband.

"By damn! Woman, I am not your husband!"

The laughter returned, then No One was left alone with nothing but the gnaw of fear for company. He studied the trail for a long moment, then began to walk it with shaking steps. "Is it fear?" He asked himself. "Is it tiredness or fear that shakes my legs?" The answer was not clear and No One refused to risk removing the cloak from his mind to clarify it. He already knew that the fear was in his heart. Along the way, he saw Tarzaka's pack by the trailside. A few steps beyond was Trouble's pack. He hefted them both, placing their straps over his left shoulder, and continued down the trail.

Just before the darkness came over the swamp, No One reached the edge of a clearing. He eased the packs from his shoulders and studied the open place. It was a gentle rise grown deep with highgrass. At it's top appeared to be a mound or monument of some kind. He looked around at the clearing's treeline, but could see nothing. Looking again to the front, he saw the trails of Tarzaka and Trouble through the highgrass leading toward the mound at the top of the rise.

He squatted and rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. Cloaking his mind for so long had produced a center-pole splintering pain through his eyes. He studied the mound and decided against removing his mind-cloak. The swamp woman had not attacked his mind for hours, but No One was convinced that she was waiting for him—waiting for him to show the slightest weakness.

He quickly looked again at the clearing's treeline, then he hid the three packs beneath some brush. Standing, he turned into the jungle to the left of the trail and began quietly working his way around the clearing; After an hour of this, he went again to the clearing's edge and tried to make out what could be seen. The darkness was fully upon the swamp, but far to No One's left was the light of a torch—two. No, a torch and a cooking fire.

He crept farther into the clearing, squinting his eyes, trying to compensate for his cloak's effect upon his focus. Behind the cooking fire was a thatched shack. To the right of the shack, a torch was mounted upon a tall pole driven into the ground.

No One studied the scene, then he looked up the rise toward the mound. The mound appeared much larger now, and there seemed to be a dark-robed figure seated before it facing the shack. He studied the figure for a long time, but it remained motionless. He moved even further into the clearing, stopped, and squatted. The figure did not move its head; did not appear even to move its chest.

As the sound of voices came from the shack, Johnjay leaned forward and lowered himself upon his hands until his eyes were just above the tops of the highgrass. He turned his head but saw nothing stir at the shack. Looking back at the motionless figure, No One began crawling up the gentle slope toward the mound. The figure's left side was toward him, its face shrouded by the hood of its dark robe. When No One came close enough, he saw that the figure was seated in a roughly made wooden chair. Ten steps from the figure, No One turned and began crawling to his left, watching the shack. He could see inside the shack's door and he recognized Tarzaka—or at least someone wearing a fortune teller's robe—seated just inside. He moved further around the top of the rise, then turned his head to his right and looked at the figure.

In the dim light from the shack's cooking fire, he could make out a face, stark white with large dark eyes. He moved closer and closer until his breath caught. It was the grinning face of a death's head, the large dark eyes nothing but empty sockets. He leaped up, turned away, and ran downhill, his imagination hot upon his heels. In his panic, he let the cloak fall from his mind. An instant later, he was thundered into darkness.

The naked woman, the almond eyes laughing at him from that mist of long, black hair. "You are mine, Johnjay! Now you are mine."

Images of skulls, great swamp monsters, shining lengths of gut, the five bulls charging over the edge of the cliff, the judgement of the Miira Ring, Goofy Joe demanding that the town of Dirak blackball him...

"You are mine, Johnjay. You are mine..."

He opened his eyes in the dark to see Tarzaka looking down at him, her face lit only by the flames of the cooking fire coming through the doorway. The only other light in the shack was a small oil lamp. Tarzaka looked across his chest and nodded. "He is awake."

No One looked to his right and saw Trouble sitting cross-legged beside him. "Trouble, what is happening?"

The magician looked out of the doorway, then back at No One. "The swamp woman has us." Trouble again looked out of the doorway. "She is gone right now."

No One tried to sit. "We must run while we can." Both Tarzaka and Trouble forced him to his back. "What are you doing?"

Tarzaka looked at No One steadily, her face rigid. "We go nowhere. It is time for you to live up to your part of the bargain."

"Bargain?"

"No One, you said you would take me to learn from the eggs. They are close by. All that we must do to learn from them is for you to give Ssura what she wants. Ssura is the creature's name."

No One frowned, then looked at Trouble. "And you?"

Trouble slowly nodded his head. "I have seen what the eggs can do, No One. If I can learn but a bit of it, I can go back to my town. You understand that? Isn't that why you've come here? Isn't that why you want to kill the bull? Give Ssura what she wants."

No One shrugged off their hands and sat upright. "And you two would have me do this thing?"

The left side of Trouble's mouth drew back in a half-smile. "It would seem to be a pleasant enough task." "And what would that be?"

Tarzaka grabbed No One's arm with a surprisingly strong grip. "Understand, No One, that unless you do this thing, none of us get what we want. Including you!"

"Can I not get a straight answer from either of you? By the gray beard of Momus, what must I—" No One turned his head toward the door as he saw a figure standing high upon the incline. It was the creature he had seen in his vision; just as naked, just as beautiful. She just stood there facing the shack. Trouble nodded toward the figure. "No One, Ssura is the daughter of Waco Whacko and Fireball Hanah Sanagi. I cannot tell when, but I can see that she has been without her parents a very long time. Perhaps since she was five or six years old." Trouble looked at No One. "She has been reared for the most part by the eggs. She protects them at their command."

No One frowned as he studied the figure of the swamp woman. "We mean no harm to the eggs."

Tarzaka adjusted her robe and looked at the figure standing upon the opposite side of the fire. "The eggs would strike a bargain with us." "What bargain?"

The fortune teller nodded toward the door. "Up there, in that mound behind the skeleton, is where the eggs rest. They will still be eggs when the three of us have turned to dust, and they must be cared for if they are to survive. This is Ssura's mission handed down to her by her father. But she will not live forever. She needs a child."

No One's eyebrows went up as his jaw fell down. "She what!?"

Trouble nodded. "She wants a child from you, No One. As I said: a pleasant enough task."

"Bah!" No One looked from Trouble to Tarzaka, then back at Trouble. "Why not you? You were here first."

"Through Ssura the eggs have seen your mind. They know of you. Ssura spoke to us of Little Will and your grandfather, Bullhook Willy. They want you, not me." Trouble held out his hands. "And the eggs will not teach us unless you agree."

No One snorted. "Then they will not teach us! I will have lost nothing but time. There are other ways to kill bulls. You two have this great desire to learn from the eggs—"

Tarzaka held up her hand. "As do you."

"—let Trouble perform this service!" He pushed himself to his feet. "I am leaving!" As he approached the door of the shack, the jungle around them wailed with cries, screams, and growls. "By damn, does she control the creatures of the swamp?"

Trouble nodded. "She cannot get through to my mind when it is cloaked, but this clearing is guarded by uncounted numbers of those swamp monsters. They reach me with a most impressive argument." The magician looked at Ssura. "I do not doubt that she will kill us if you do not give her what she wants."

No One looked out of the door and saw Ssura's arms rise. The howling from the jungle ceased. He stared at the swamp woman. "How long?"

Tarzaka spoke softly. "Until a live child is born."

No One turned slowly toward his two companions, his head hung down. "A year. Almost an entire year." He turned and looked out of the door, toward the figure seated before the mound. "The skeleton."

Tarzaka's voice trembled. "It is Waco. She said he once told her that he would never rest until there was a child to carry on the watch after her. She seems to have taken her father's words quite literally."

Trouble pushed himself to his feet and placed a gentle hand upon No One's shoulder. "No One, look at her. She has beauty enough to shame a ballet girl. Besides, we haven't any choice. It's that or all of us either die or remain prisoners the rest of our lives."

No One moved slowly from beneath Trouble's hand. This time the jungle did not scream. Trouble and Tarzaka watched as No One came abreast of the fire. The swamp woman screamed, laughed hysterically, then ran toward the skeleton. No One looked back at his two companions briefly, then turned and continued up the incline until he was swallowed by the dark.

Tarzaka faced Trouble. "Do you think he will be all right?"

Trouble shook his head and placed his arm around the fortune teller's shoulders. "I do not know. What I do know is that the swamp woman is crazier than Arnheim's cuckoo clock."

Again he shook his head. "I only hope that No One can, er, perform adequately under the current circumstances."

Tarzaka looked past the fire into the darkness. "Could you?" Trouble snorted. "No. That lady scares the salt from me. She is straight from the white rubber lot."