Time's Dark Laughter Part 5

Beauty was reluctant to leave. He approached the large cone, to examine it. Long before he reached it, however, his hoof knocked against a lip of stone in the dirt. He looked down to see a continuous ring of gray stone, about two feet wide, jagged, completely encircling the cone, which seemed to rise from the Earth at the center of this ring.

The cone itself was circular at its base, having a diameter of about six feet and sides that sloped gently to meet at a point ten feet in the air. Beauty walked up to view it closely. It seemed to be made of iron, or steel, and had a dull, frosty sheen in the light of the fireflies. He touched it: cold, hard. Down one side was a seared, feathery crack filled with moss, as if lightning had struck here once.

Aba joined him. They walked its perimeter. "What is their religion?" asked Beauty.

They stopped at the opposite curve of the object to notice a cl.u.s.ter of runic symbols etched in the metal. First there was a small rectangle, with thirteen lines running its length and a lot of stars grouped inside a small square inset into its upper left corner. Below this were different lines, which looked like writing to Beauty; Aba held up a jar of fireflies and read aloud: "United States of America. USAF." And then, below it: "MX Missile. Group F. Silo 47."

"You can read." Beauty stared at Aba with some surprise. Then: "What does it mean?"

"I'm not certain," Aba shook his head. "When I studied with Lon, he mentioned this United States of America once. It was an ancient kingdom, I think. Before the birth of the animals."

Beauty winced. It wasn't until some years ago that he had found out-from Jasmine-that most of the creatures who now roamed the Earth were the result of experiments in genetic engineering, only a couple of centuries old. Prior to that he had always believed-and part of him still believed-that the Centauri were an ancient race, older than Humans, as old as the trees. It still pained him to deny this history, though he knew he must.

D'Ursu padded over. "I've found where they went into the ground. Here." He showed them a line of scratched rock just inside the ring of solid stone that encircled the cone. It demarcated the edge of a ma.s.sive door into the Earth. "If you want to chase them, here is where to start. As for me, I'm going to finish sleeping." So saying, the old Bear waddled toward then- camp.

Beauty hesitated a minute; Aba stood behind him. Finally they, too, walked away, toward the sea in the graying night.

They set out early the next morning, Beauty glum, Aba contemplative, D'Ursu boisterous. The brown Bear romped along the beach, making loud noises at the Sandpipers to scare them, and then laughing ferociously at the magnitude of his wonderful trick.

Around noon they came upon an overturned cart; behind it were three wary Humans, two of them hefting spears. The third stayed partially hidden from view.

"Come no closer," shouted one of the men, raising his weapon.

"We mean you no harm," Beauty called back. "We journey to the south. Can we help you?"

"You nor your kind. Leave us be!" yelled the other man.

"Let's away," gruffed D'Ursu. "I need no further invitation."

"I know some healing," Aba called out. "If any of you are sick-"

"Begone, vile thing," the first man bellowed.

Aba flinched, hurt far more than if the man had loosed his spear. He knew how Humans felt toward his kind; he internalized then- hatred, and atoned for the sins of his race daily, in act and thought. "Truly, we only wish you well," he said to the man.

The third Human stood up now, and they could see she was a woman. She whispered something to the man; both men shook their heads. She whispered more urgently, and again the men refused. Finally she turned toward Aba, and it was suddenly clear she was holding an infant in her arms-it could hardly have been a week old.

"It's my baby," she cried out. "He used to be so happy and noisy-he was all the time laughin". Now suddenly he's turned all pale, and he won't eat, and quiet as the grave, it's almost like he's not the same baby-he's so changed." One of the men tried to pull her back, but she tore her arm from his grip, and spoke again to Aba. "Can you do anything?" she pleaded.

Aba, Beauty, and D'Ursu shot sidelong glances at one another; but none knew what to say. Beauty could not look at the woman. D'Ursu Magna pawed the sand, scratched his ear, then let out a huge roar to heaven, which frightened the poor Humans even more.

Finally Aba spoke. "Yes, I'll tell you what to do," he said evenly, like a healer. "Make a pap of fish roe, bread crumbs, and milk, and dip your finger in it and the child will suck your finger. Give him love, and he will return it."

They were all silent, looking at one another. Finally Beauty set off around the overturned cart, and continued south toward Ma'gas', with D'Ursu and Aba close behind, as the woman wept, and thanked them.

CHAPTER 5 In Which D'Ursu Tricks Himself; And the Insatiable City Almost Takes Some Country Cousins for a Ride

"ALL right, so I was wrong," D'Ursu grumbled when they were well away. "How was I to know the Changeling's family would a.s.sault us with tears? I swear that is the cruelest weapon a Human ever invented."

"Seeing the mother did not make it wrong." Beauty spoke with deep regret. "We had it hi our power to save her child last night, and we did not."

"Perhaps," said Aba, "but had we been killed last night, we'd never have finished this journey to save your people." He said it to convince himself as much as Beauty.

"Then we acted selfishly if that was our motive-and not merely out of ignorance."

"Don't berate yourself, Centaur. A choice was made, for better or worse. We make choices every day, and we live with them. I think it's time to leave this one behind."

Beauty agreed there was sense in that doctrine.

"Beaute Centauri," D'Ursu said, laying his great paw on the Centaur's back, "you were my captain once, and you are my captain still. From this tune on, whatever is your wish, it is my mission."

"My wish, ugly Bear, is to move faster and speak less."

At this, D'Ursu Magna snapped his snout shut and lumbered down the beach at a trot. Aba jumped on Beauty's back to ride, as the Centaur geared up to a canter. The Bear stayed several hundred yards ahead, playing in the surf, running up the dunes, lying in the sand gra.s.s, then taking off again. He was so glad to be out of the city he could barely contain his spirit. Periodically, he would roar for no reason in particular; and this gay abandon, inevitably, lifted Beauty's mood.

As evening neared again, D'Ursu went up into the hills to scout a campsite, while Aba flew out over the water and south, to see how far they were from Ma'gas'. Beauty lay on the warm sand and looked for the first star.

He was glad for his companions. Their hearts were strong, that was the main thing; it would have been a lonely search without them. Lonely and uncertain: this was the legacy of Rose's disappearance. Beauty felt, for the first time, cut loose from his moorings. Nothing seemed as certain as it once had.

The first star of the evening winked dimly, high above the sea. He wondered what it was telling him. He wondered if it shone now on Rose or Josh.

A shadow pa.s.sed over the star, then momentarily obscured half the sky, before the sound of wind snapping leather told Beauty that Aba was flying overhead. The Vampire landed a few yards away, his great wings blowing the sand in swirling gusts around for several seconds. As the sand settled, he walked over to Beauty and sat down.

"Ma'gas' is very near," he said. "If we leave at dawn, we should arrive before noon."

Beauty nodded. "What brings you with us now, truly?" he asked suddenly.

"Truly, for clarity," Aba replied. "To understand the world, I must understand myself. And part of my self died with Sire Lon."

"What was he to you? How did you know him?"

"When my father died, he was my father. He was teacher and guide, and friend when I wasn't friend to myself."

"I knew him only briefly, but his honor and loyalty made me richer in the knowing," Beauty attested.

"And this friend of yours for whom he died-Joshua- what is his measure?"

"Joshua . . ." pondered Beauty. "He is a man much like other men. He is a Scribe, which I essay not to hold too heavily against him; and he is a hunter, for his food. He is simple and unexceptional, and a hero only to those who love him."

Aba smiled warmly. "And a lucky man, withall, to have so steady a friend."

Beauty smiled back with his eyes only. "Friend I may be; but steady, I fear not-the legs of my spirit shake with doubts."

"Doubt is no reason for shame. Doubt is only the sense with which we smell death. You pick up the scent of your mortality, you shiver from its thrill; you call it unsteadiness, but it's not: it is your perception that this life is shimmering beneath your feet, and will momentarily dissolve."

"Like faltering on early spring's thin ice over deep water," Beauty answered with his eyes closed, trying to see the image Aba described.

"Just so." Aba nodded. "And to call that unsteadiness is to ignore the fact that it touches the nature of the ice, and remarks the nature of that which lies beneath."

"So you would have me applaud my doubts?"

"At least the existence of the sense. As to the specifics of your doubts, I cannot say-I scarcely know you."

Beauty smiled with his entire face now. "I think I begin to know Lon better through you."

There was a rustling in the gra.s.ses up the dune, and suddenly D'Ursu came rolling down the sandy slope, wheezing and breathless with laughter.

"What's happened, old Bear?" Aba began laughing with him.

"I found two nests, not forty paces apart," D'Ursu choked out when he had quieted down a bit. "Green-tailed Runyon, and Green-breasted Emu. Both full of eggs, both unguarded." He lay down on his back to collect himself.

"Slow down, Bear." Beauty smiled. "What of these bird nests?"

"I slipped an Emu egg in the Runyon nest, is what! When the silly hen hatches her children, she'll find three green tails and a green breast! What a good trick!" He coughed and cackled.

Beauty became quickly sober. "D'Ursu Magna, that was not a good trick. The poor birds will be terribly confused and frightened when the eggs hatch. How could you do this after the grief we have seen at the Human child taken from its nest?"

D'Ursu was suddenly incensed. "It's not the same thing at all! These birds aren't even born yet. And besides, when they do hatch, no harm will come. It's a prank, no more! It's done all the time." His anger was quickly turning to guilt.

"D'Ursu Magna," said Aba, "where is the sport in confusing a poor bird?" His tone was curious; he merely wanted to understand.

"It's not sport!" D'Ursu roared. "It's a joke, a simple trick." He was feeling worse and worse. They all hung their heads in silence. The stars were in full blossom now, like diamonds on a cape of black velvet. D'Ursu spoke again, finally. "It's only ... I'm so happy to play at my forest games again, I ... got carried away. Yes, that's what happened, and it won't happen again. You're right, Beaute Centauri-it was a bad trick."

Beauty grabbed the Bear's ears and shook his head vigorously.

The Bear growled, then said, "Here. I will die of remorse on this very spot." With which he tumbled back and lay still.

"Get up, lazy Bear, and gather us some wood, for all our trouble in putting up with you."

D'Ursu jumped up. "No! First I will go and put the egg back nicely in its proper nest, so the poor stinking green-brain won't die of confusion in the spring." He lumbered back up the dune and disappeared over the hill.

Beauty found a turnip patch, and roasted some of its bounty with a lot of acorns over a small fire Aba had put together. When, an hour later, D'Ursu hadn't returned, they began to worry. Aba flew over the area, but returned in ten minutes shaking his head.

"D'Ursu!" Beauty shouted, but without response.

Alert and deliberate, they walked up into the hills. They hadn't been gone five minutes before they heard it: a mad fluttering sound, followed by silence; then, again, the fluttering. They moved cautiously toward the noise, crouched down in the gra.s.s, until finally they came upon the scene: D'Ursu lay motionless beside the Emu nest; beside him the Emu fluttered in its death throes, then stiffened and died as Beauty and Aba stood there. They quickly ran up to the inanimate Bear.

The head-and only the head-of a Quetzal Viper had locked itself in D'Ursu's foot, its fangs buried deep into the meat of the Bear's hind paw, its body torn off at the neck. Beauty kneeled beside D'Ursu Magna's face: the powerful Bear still breathed, and his pulse was strong; yet he remained unresponsive to all prodding.

"He lives," said Beauty.

With great effort, Aba pulled open the snake-head mouth, extracting the fangs from D'Ursu's foot. Beauty tore a handful of vine gra.s.s from the earth and made a tourniquet high on the Bear's leg. Aba then slit open D'Ursu's swollen foot with his razor-sharp nails, and bent down to suck out whatever poison was still in the wound.

Beauty examined the Emu-dead, a Viper bite in its chest. The nest beside the mother bird had only one egg hi it now, pale green in the moonlight. Nearby, Beauty finally found the body of the serpent, still writhing slowly in its own death dance. Its neck was ragged where it had been torn from the head; and just distal to it were three egg-shaped lumps all in a row, inside the snake's midsection.

It was clear to Beauty, now, what had happened. D'Ursu had brought back the Emu egg he had taken, only to find that a Quetzal Viper had, hi the meantime, killed the mother Emu and was now probably dozing after a three-egg feast. D'Ursu had replaced his poached egg, stomped on the Viper's head, and yanked its body off at the neck while he stood on the skull. As he moved to throw the decapitated body in the brush, the half-crushed head had re-flexively clamped down on his foot, sending its deadly venom coursing through the poor Bear.

Aba stood. "No more poison, we'll just let it bleed, though. Help me get him on your back, Beauty."

Together they struggled with the Bear's weight, until the limp carca.s.s was slumped across Beauty's back. Aba tied him hi place with lengths of vine. "I know a doctor in Ma'gas' who has antidotes for many things," the Vampire panted. "If we hurry, he may be able to help."

Beauty nodded, and stepped carefully down the hill. Aba started to follow, then paused to look back. He ran over to the Emu nest, removed the solitary egg, walked forty paces into the brush, and hi a few moments found the Runyon nest, its three hazel eggs cl.u.s.tered still as a long pause. Quickly he placed the Emu egg in their midst; then ran down to join Beauty, thinking all the while that poor D'Ursu was right: it had been a good trick, after all, to put the Emu egg in another nest.

They reached Ma'gas' hi the peach-gray of the hour before dawn, when a city sleeps its deepest. Beauty's hooves clattered over the boardwalk under the weight on his back, while Aba flitted from alley to street looking for a place he remembered.

Light seeped into the sky; the city stirred. Sailors hoisted rigging, or stumbled out of the taverns. Vendors opened then- windows, swept their walks, laid out their stocks, and sang and coughed and spat. And suddenly, a new day was rising.

Aba found the door he wanted, halfway up a narrow alley. He banged on it repeatedly, joining in the morning noises, as Beauty clopped slowly up beside him. After a minute of this, the door finally opened, and a grizzled old man stood bunking in his nightgown.

"What the h.e.l.l do you want?" he croaked. This set off a coughing spell that threatened not to stop, until a large glob of phlegm struggled free into his mouth, which he expectorated at Aba's feet.

"Our Bear friend is near death-bitten by a snake last night."

"Did you bring the snake?" the old man demanded. His hair was wild, his body twisted with arthritis. He smelled like an old man.

"The snake?" Beauty asked stupidly. He was exhausted-from the physical burden, the sleeplessness, the emotional strain-so his thinking was slow.

"The snake, yes, the snake!" screeched the old man.

"What did you think I said? The rake? The cake? The flake, maybe? Idiots. Well, come in, come in, we can sit around the kitchen table and guess what bit him."

This brought forth a laugh from the aged doctor, which gave way to another coughing fit, which was punctuated, finally, with another huge glob of sputum, spat into the street. This concluded, the old man ushered them into his apartments and shut the door.

The place was filthy. Beauty was instantly sorry he had come, and was about to leave when the old man tore off D'Ursu's bindings and tipped the unconscious Bear over onto his back on a long table. He then pulled open the window shades, and in the bright glare of daylight, through clouds of settling dust, Beauty saw it was the kitchen table. "I'm Dr. Jerome," the crotchety old physician stated as he rattled through a pile of greasy, crusted pans hi the sink, looking for something. "Do you have any money?" "Yes . . ." Beauty hesitated. "We-" "Give it to me, then. How the h.e.l.l do you think I live here-on the charity of my neighbors? I'll tell you how, you mangy myth. They suffer me to live here even though I'm a Human and a grouch and a well-known Scribe, 'cause I fix 'em when they get sick, and I pay my rent. So give me your money!" He stamped his foot; Beauty reached into the leather purse he wore slung around his neck, and handed over most of his coin. The doctor grunted. "Not much here," he mumbled. "About the Bear . . ." Aba suggested. "And you didn't bring the snake!" Jerome ranted, pounding his fists on the sink.

"It was a Quetzal Viper," Aba pressed on. "With short yellow feathers, and-"

"A Quetzal?" Dr. Jerome's eyes twinkled. "You saw it? You know what it was? Why the h.e.l.l didn't you say so? Now we're having a conversation!" He hopped all around the room, madly opening and closing cupboards, coughing, talking to himself. D'Ursu breathed hi fits and starts on the table.

They followed the doctor into the next room, his study, which was even filthier than the kitchen. Shabby, faded books lined three walls from floor to ceiling. The dust on the bindings looked at least a century thick. The floor was strewn everywhere with papers, leaves, ropes, tools, dirt, tiles, and pencils; it was impossible to actually see it, let alone walk on it. Against the fourth wall was a great desk, containing a microscope, more papers, more papers still, jars, gla.s.ses, powders, prisms, and a sleeping kitten. Dr. Jerome rummaged through the mess for several minutes before he realized Beauty and Aba were standing behind him.

"You still here? What the h.e.l.l are you still doing here?"

"We just-" Beauty began.

"Out, get out! How the h.e.l.l can I get any work done when I'm bothered by visitors at all hours. Idiots! Visiting hours are over! Get out!" He pointed to the door.

"When should we-"

"Don't even think about coming back until tomorrow morning. By then, we'll know one way or the other-hoo-hah's or boo-hoo's. For right now . . ." But his sentence sputtered out in a paroxysm of coughing, during which the two friends slipped out the front door. On their way, they saw into a large back room: five mats were lined up on the floor; on one, a young female Centaur slept peacefully, her hind legs swathed in bandages; on another, a Wolfman tossed in torment, his body coated head to foot with some kind of blue ointment.