Riverworld Anthology - Tales of Riverworld Part 8

"Think I'm a G.o.d?" was the reply. "I am a G.o.d. I have proclaimed it."

"That's all it takes?" asked Selous with an amused smile.

"Enough of your insolence!" snapped the man. "I've slaughtered whole cities for less!"

"Have you indeed?"

"Yes. Now help me to my feet."

Selous placed a foot against the man's chest and shoved, hard.

"Either strike me dead for that, or get ready to do some explaining," he said.112."I will kill you!" screamed the man, starting to get up again. Once more Selous shoved him down.

"I'm running out of patience with you," he said. "Who are you, and why were you following me?"

"I am Gaius Caligula Caesar, and I explain myself to no one."

"Caligula?" repeated Selous, arching an eyebrow.

"You know of me?"

Selous nodded.

"Then bow down and pay homage to me, and perhaps I shall let you live."

"Answer my questions, and perhaps I'll let you live."

"I am immortal," said Caligula. "I cannot die."

Selous chuckled. "Where do you think you are, and how do you suppose you got here?"

Caligula concentrated for a moment. "I had a dream," he said. "I dreamed that my retainers stabbed me, cut me to ribbons. And then I seemed to awaken on the bank of a broad river. But it was only a dream, for here I am."

"It was not a dream."

"Then this must be heaven."

"It is not heaven," answered Selous. "I a.s.sure you of that."

"It must be heaven," Caligula said again. Suddenly he looked around. "But where is Jupiter? Where are Mars and the fleet-footed Mercury? More important, where is Venus? Where is Aphrodite? Where are the Helens of our mission? Where are the women?"

"That I cannot tell you," said Selous, "though I know of your reputation."

"And well-deserved it is," said Caligula. "Who but I would know all the hundred and one ways to pleasure113.Venus and take her pleasure for his own?" He paused and stared at Selous. "And what G.o.d are you?"

"My name is Frederick Courtney Selous, and I'm no G.o.d. On the other hand, you do not strike me as a pleasurer of women or anything else."

"Then you simply demonstrate your ignorance," said Caligula. "You do not know the splendid technique to which I am privy. But, of course, you would not have an emperor's phallus, a G.o.d's constancy."

"You do think well of yourself, don't you?" said Selous.

"And why should I not?"

"At any rate, I a.s.sure you that no G.o.ds exist here."

"No?" said Caligula, touching himself in a familiar and, to Selous, disgusting way. "Then I am the last and thus the greatest. I command you now to let me rise."

"You seem to do that quite well on your own."

"I will show you a rising in time of which you could not dream." Caligula glared at him. "You must be one of the G.o.ds' servants. Let me up and take me to them, or it will go hard with you, Frederick Courtney Selous."

"I've killed more elephants and lions and buffalo than you can count," said Selous. "Don't make me add a G.o.d to the list."

"I cannot die," answered Caligula confidently. "They tried in Rome, and all that happened is that I ascended to heaven."

"This isn't exactly heaven," said Selous.

"If I am here, then it must be."

Selous stepped back and allowed Caligula to get to his feet, watching him every second. "Why were you following me?"

"I seek the city of the G.o.ds," answered the Roman. "I114.saw you disappear into the forest, and I decided that you knew where it was and would lead me to it."

"You were wrong."

"A G.o.d cannot be wrong," said Caligula. "Therefore, you must be lying."

"It is true that I seek a city," said Selous. "Any city. There must be some force governing this world, some set of rules and rulers, and since they have not manifested themselves along the riverbank, I decided to go in search of their civilisation. I was following the trail of Sir Richard Burton, whose name will be as unknown to you as my own. It seems to have vanished, but I hope to pick it up again. I do not know where he is headed, but I a.s.sume he also has the intelligence to seek out the rulers of this place, and I hope to join forces with him before he reaches his goal. That is the whole of it."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You are free to believe what you wish," said Selous. "You are also free to go your own way. I warn you now not to follow me: my next trap may not be so pleasant."

He turned and started walking off.

"Wait!" cried Caligula.

Selous stopped and turned to face the Roman. "What is it?"

"I am tired, and my leg pains me. I shall permit you to carry me until I regain my strength."

Selous chuckled. "That's very generous of you, but it's an honour I think I can do without."

He turned to leave, and the Roman hurled himself on his back, clawing at his eyes and biting his shoulder.

Selous dropped to the ground, rolled over once, then managed to grab one of Caligula's hands and twist it115.sharply. The Roman screamed and released his hold, and Selous scrambled to his feet.

"If you touch me again, I'll kill you!" he snapped.

"You hurt me!" said Caligula. Suddenly he began crying like a baby. "Why would anyone want to hurt me?"

Selous stared at him and said nothing.

"Don't you know that you are not permitted to touch the person of a G.o.d?" wept Caligula. Suddenly the tears vanished, to be replaced by a smile. "Still, I admire your courage, Frederick Courtney Selous. Perhaps I shall let you be my general. We shall cut a b.l.o.o.d.y path through my enemies."

"That's a generous offer," said Selous sardonically, "but right now I'm the only enemy you've got."

"Nonsense," said Caligula. "Is not the forest our enemy? Does it not hide the path we seek?" He ripped a small dead branch from a nearby tree. "I shall take this plunder to prove we have conquered it!"

"I think Gibbon understated the problem," murmured Selous, staring at the Roman as he went around gathering up more tokens of victory.

"Well?" demanded Caligula, his arms filled. "Don't just stand there! We've got a city to find and a world to conquer!"

"I think we'll find the city much faster if we split up," said Selous.

"An excellent suggestion," said Caligula. "But then who would draw my bath for me and bring me my meals?"

"I thought I was a general."

"You are whatever I want you to be," said Caligula.116.

117."Otherwise, what's the purpose of being a G.o.d in the first place?"

"You have a very short memory," said Selous.

"My memory is perfect."

"But you have already forgotten what happened the last time you tried to give me an order."

"That was different," said Caligula. "That was before I made you my general and we brought the forest to its knees." He paused. "Tomorrow morning I shall create some women for us to enjoy, and perhaps some birds to sing of our coming, and we shall march off to find the city."

Selous shook his head. "I'm leaving now."

"Then I will follow you."

"I might not wait by my next trap. You could spend all eternity hanging upside down, or impaled on sharp sticks at the bottom of a pit."

"I allowed you to catch me," answered Caligula. "I was tired of chasing you, and it seemed the easiest way to meet you."

"Sure you did," said Selous.

"Be not clever with me, mortal, or you risk bringing down my G.o.dly wrath upon you."

"It's a chance I'll have to take," said Selous, unimpressed.

"At the very least, I will have the members of my guard run you through."

"First find them, and then I'll worry about it."

"Then I shall do it myself," said Caligula, picking out the longest, sharpest branch he could find and brandishing it like a sword.

"You take one step closer and I'll wrap that thing around your neck," said Selous.

"You are but a mortal," said Caligula with a maniacal laugh.

"I didn't give in to the whims of madmen the first time around," answered Selous. "I don't propose, to change my ways in this life."

Caligula stared at him, puzzled. "Why didn't it all end when I died?"

"The Empire?"

"The world. How could it go on without me?"

"It managed quite well without you," answered Selous.

"Who succeeded me? Did Jupiter himself descend to sit on the throne?"

"You were succeeded by Claudius."

"That crippled old fool?" yelled Caligula. "Now I know you lie! He could barely speak his own name!"

"But he didn't go to war with a bunch of trees," noted Selous.

"I always knew he was a coward." Caligula paused, trying to remember the thread of the conversation. Finally he shrugged. "Well, don't just stand there. We've got a city to find!"

Selous stared at him for a long moment, and decided that he'd probably be better off knowing where this lunatic was every second than having him pop out of the bush at the most inopportune moment. Finally he shrugged.

"Follow me," he said.

"Do you hear them?" repeated Beethoven.

Huey Long swayed to a halt and looked over Beethoven's shoulder, far past the composer into the smoke and haze of the fading Riverworld.

"Hear what?" he said. "I don't hear anything. Just118.the gulls, maybe-the bird calls. That's all. Nothing exceptional."

"Horses," said Beethoven. "Napoleon's troops. They're coming after us."

"I don't hear horses," said Huey.

"They are sending the troops on horseback with spears and muskets," said Beethoven with total conviction. "They know where we are. That was their plan all the time. We're going to be killed here like pigs." He turned to Huey. "I warned you," he continued, "we should have gotten out of there days ago. I said, let's go, let's leave, but you wanted to stay."

"Wait a minute, now," said Huey. "You're wrong. There are no troops, no horses, no muskets. Just the usual sounds." Agitato, that was one of Beethoven's words. Excited, frenzied. That was what was happening before him. "Just stay calm, son," said Huey Long. "Ain't nothing happening that we can't control."

But Beethoven was a trembling, palsied mess before him now, tears leaking from his astonished eyes, that huge forehead clotted with sweat. The musician gasped, grabbed a big towel that he used as a cloak, then fell gracelessly to the mud and rocked there, grasping his knees.

It's an epileptic fit of some sort, decided Huey. I should have stumbled off, kept to myself, tried to understand this place before things began to happen. But when I came to myself on the banks of this crazy place, he was the first I saw; he helped me and guided me to some kind of consciousness. How could I have left him?

Still, it was confusing. One moment surrounded by your bodyguards, striding through the lobby of the capitol into history, the future and your destiny ahead like a119.dream, the next minute crushed to the ground, astonished, surely dead and quaking with this German musician.