Monsters and Magicians (29 page)

Kiyamoto, on the other hand, who had been prepared in advance by his dreams and his earlier priestly training, rendered the newcome god all due respect and deference, but otherwise felt and gave the appearance of behaving much as was normal of him. He sent one party of the spearmen to work on this dragon and the rest back upstream to finish butchering the first, while fending off any inroads of possible scavengers drawn by the smell of spilled blood.

With the assigned details underway, the stocky noncom came back to squat near where the god knelt by the unconscious form of the lieutenant, his sure, white hands applying field treatment to the young man's hurts. When the god had elevated Kaoru's feet, loosely bandaged his head-wound, sponged blood, sweat and dirt from his face and covered him from feet to neck with a sheet of what looked to Kiyamoto

like seamless eelskin, he took a long pull from his canteen, then offered the bottle.

Hesitantly, diffidently, Kiyamoto took the preferred refreshment, thinking, "I, a mere man, to touch my human lips where those of a god have just rested . . . ? How can I essay such sacrilege? It is not right, not at all proper." And so he just squatted there, reverently holding the water bottle as if it were some sacred and irreplaceable relic.

Fitz entered the stocky man's mind, found the reason he refrained from drinking the water his body obviously craved and spoke to him in blunt gentleness. "Sergeant Kiyamoto, despite appearances, I am only a man, no whit different in most ways from you or this young man or any of your soldiers. Yes, since first I set foot into this land that I am told is called Tirnann-n-Og, I have been finding within myself, or developing—and I'm not yet sure just which of those two choices it really is—strange and miraculous powers.

"The first of these talents was this ability to speak or, rather, to communicate mind-to-mind with men and some animals, as I am now communicating with you whose language I do not speak at all. As possibly a part of that previously unsuspected talent, I have found, too that I can secretly enter the minds of men and scan their memories and innermost thoughts without their knowledge. Thus, I know them oftimes betters than they know themselves, and could easily manipulate them if I so chose . . . though I have not done so, to date.

"More recently, I have learned that I possess the abilities, under certain conditions, to move myself,

other persons and inanimate objects through the empty air from place to place, to "fly," as it were. Please don't ask me how I can do this, Sergeant, for I have no idea how I do, I just have come to know that I can. However, I do not consider these abilities to be in any way, shape or form god-like. I am no god, just a man."

But even as he spoke the words, he could not but wonder if they were in fact truth. Tom . . . Puss . . . the grey, panther-size cat who came of some nights and communicated with him telepathically (in dreams?), was always assuring him that he was not a mere man, never had been, not really, and that the longer he stayed in this land or world or whatever, the less like a mortal man he would be.

"Tir-nann-n-Og . . . ?" questioned Kiyamoto. "What do the words mean? The lieutenant here, despite everything, maintains that we are still in Burma and that the stream, yonder, is a tributary of the Irrawaddy River."

"And you do not agree with him," stated Fitz. "Well, you, not he, are right, Sergeant. You're also right about the passage of time; the mules did, indeed, die of old age." At the noncom's look of astounded surprise, Fitz smiled and beamed. "Remember, I told you that I could enter the minds of others, bide unsuspected therein and sift through their memories? Well, I did just that in the case of Lieutenant Kaoru, here, while my body lay hidden high in a huge tree near where you all killed the first dragon this morning.

"But back to the point: yes, you are correct. When I entered this place, that war had been over for more

than thirty years. Italy was the first of the Axis powers to surrender, then Germany and, finally, Japan. I, too, fought in that war, Sergeant, as a younger man, of course. I fought the Japanese Army, but on the Pacific Ocean islands, not in Burma."

"As a younger man?" queried Kiyamoto, slowly. "Just how old are you, now, then?"

"I'll soon be fifty-seven years old. I was in my twenties when I fought in that war, in the United States Marine Corps," answered Fitz, readily.

The noncom stared at him for a long moment, then said, "Your race must age differently than mine, then, for you look to be no more than thirty years old . . . perhaps a little more than that, but not many."

Fitz nodded and said, gently, "I can understand and appreciate your doubts, Sergeant. Believe me, when first I set foot here I did truly look my fifty-odd years, that and more. But before you keep on silently questioning my veracity, go down to a still backwater of the stream and look closely at your reflection, calculate your own age and imagine how you ought to look . . . how you should look and don't. Look at the lieutenant, look at your men. Tirnann-n-Og means, in Old Gaelic, Land of the Young. Humans residing in this place apparently fail to age and in the cases of some, the aging process is even reversed, it would seem."

Kiyamoto looked down at his strong, scarred hands, thinking that yes, assuredly, they were not those of a man of advanced years. Nonetheless . . . He shook his head, "It seems impossible."

"It is!" agreed Fitz. "Yet it happened; it's going on

right now for you, me, all the rest. And we, here, aren't all or even the most extreme cases. Somewhere, roaming around in this place are a Norman knight and his band of armed retainers. He and his men are firmly convinced that they are all somewhere in the countryside of Syria, on their way to free the City of Jerusalem from the Moslems during the First Crusade, which occurred nearly nine-hundred years ago, Sergeant. None of them has aged, either, in all that time. True, some have died fighting beasts, but none of the survivors of the original band looks a year older than when first they literally fell into this place almost a millenium ago. And, just like the lieutenant averred when you spoke to him on the matter of the mules, that honest young knight is of the firm opinion that he and his have been here in this place for no longer than a year or, perhaps, two.

"Now, true, these men all are unlettered—I doubt that Sir Gautier de Montjoie can write so much as his name—but lack of sophistication does not always mean lack of intelligence, as you know. Sir Gautier is possessed of a fine, intuitive mind, just like Lieutenant Kaoru's and yours, so I suspect that there is something in or about this place that warps a man's sense of elapsed time."

Kiyamoto nodded slowly as he "heard" and absorbed the thoughts of the white man, then said, "Yes, that last well could be. I, too, weighed out a similar thought when first I came to the realization that none of the men and, indeed, not even the lieutenant, himself, seemed to understand just how long a time we had been in this place, that this place was not only not Burma, but not even a part of the

ordinary world of mortal men. Although I ended by speaking of all this to the lieutenant, I have said little to the men, in general, for their morale is still mostly good and they continue to talk among themselves of their plans when they return to Japan . . . after our victory and the end of the war. I think that it would adversely affect discipline to detail my suppositions to them."

He paused for a moment, then asked, "Please tell me. You say you took part in, fought as a marine soldier in the war and that my land suffered defeat in the end. Was it an honorable surrender following defeats in the field or ... or was it a forced capitulation come out of an invasion of the Home Islands?"

"Troops, American troops, did land in Japan and occupy it . . . but only after the surrender agreement had been signed," replied Fitz adding, "though I understand the Russians forcibly siezed Sakhalin and a number of smaller, northerly islands . . . the Kurile Islands, I think they were. It's been a long time to remember clearly ... for me."

"Yes, the Russians always had wanted all of Karafuto—that which you call Sakhalin—because of the mines it holds, the minerals."

"But," continued Fitz, " the courageous communist bastards chose to wait until after a prostrate, defeated Japan had actually signed a surrender before they sent their troops into those islands, Korea and Manchuria."

"When did all those occur?" inquired Kiyamoto.

"Informally, Japan capitulated on the fourteenth day of the eighth month of 1945, but the terms of

surrender were not officially signed until the second day of the ninth month of that year."

"Why?" demanded Kiyamoto. "Our armies all were well-armed, well-fed, well-led; we could have fought on for many years past that date. Why would the Emperor and His advisors have countenanced a surrender? I do not understand it."

Fitz sighed. "Sergeant, there in Burma you may not have been fully aware of what was going on in the rest of the world. Starting in 1942, we Americans, plus British, Australian, New Zealand, Dutch and French forces, started island-hopping in the South Pacific, while our navies and aircraft worked on reducing the size and effectiveness of your fleets. The Philippine Archipelago was reconquered in 1944 and by the seventh month of 1945, American planes based on Okinawa and many another island Japan had once and very lately held were tormenting the cities and military installations of the Japanese Islands around the clock with untold tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs, seldom toward the end as much as seeing Japanese aircraft of any kind or description.

"Then the United States developed a new and extremely terrible type of bomb. Two of these were dropped and wrought then-barely believable devastation and death in the target areas. After the second of these, overtures of surrender were made and, shortly thereafter, the war was formally concluded, Germany having been defeated months earlier. Capitulations of the various forces still in the field in the battle-areas took longer, of course, but by the end of 1945, all contingents of any size had been reached

and had laid down their arms . . . though in some places, such as Indo-China, it was found necessary to temporarily rearm them and use them to maintain order among the indigenous peoples, always under supervision, of course."

"But . . . ?" began Kiyamoto.

"I think," interrupted Fitz, "that that man there, behind you, is awaiting orders."

Lieutenant Kaoru's unconscious body was raised high enough by Fitz's mental powers to slip beneath it a litter hastily constructed of axed-down saplings, bark-strips and fresh, bloody dragon-hide. A lot of dragon-meat needs must be borne back to the site of the first kill, so Fitz stopped the sergeant when he would have detailed some of the few available bodies to bear the littler and, rather, raised it and the body on it some feet above the ground, then flew along beside it to the confluence of the streams. He was awaiting the sergeant and his party when they arrived, bathing the face of the injured man with a handkercheif soaked in the cool, running water.

"We got trouble, dude!"

The Baby-blue Lion had come back along his own trail at a fast, distance-devouring lope to halt before Sir Gautier and his strung-out band of warrior-retainers. Drooping a little where he sat in classic, feline posture, red-pink tongue hung out and dripping onto his big forefeet and the tail lapped over them, he silently beamed the bad news.

"Fitz is up ahead, but it looks like he's being held. It's like a whole bunch of little short, skinny slope-heads—Chinks, Nips, gooks, I don't know; all them

slants looks the same to me—all of them damn near buckass naked, up at a place where another stream joins this one on the other side."

Sir Gautier leaned tiredly on his spear, his face serious. "How many of them, Sir Lion? More than we number, here?"

"Oh, yeah, man," Cool Blue assured him. "Least half again's many as you guys, maybe like twice as many."

The Norman knight frowned. "How are they armed and equipped?"

The blue lion arose from his seat and padded the few steps to begin lapping water from the stream, though still in telepathic communication with the leader of the warband, the while.

"The mosta them gooks ain't got nothing but long old spears, man, though I did glim at least two swords and one or two axes, too. But, Like I said, they're all wearing damn little more'n their fuckin' birthday-suits, man—no armor, no shields. Looks like the bunch of them just finished killin' and butcherin' a big deer or elk and one those humongous lizards I tol' you about, you know. The mosta them has got blood up to the yingyang, like, and they taking turns standing out in the deeper part of the stream and rinsing it off, you know."

"Lord Fitz," demanded Sir Gautier, "does he appear ill-used?"

"I couldn't like see him all that clear, man, you know," said the blue lion. "He's like on his knees with them bunched up 'tween me and him, see. But somethin' I could see was he ain't wearing his pistol-belt anymore and one the gooks is got his three-

barrel long gun strung crost of his back. So, like whatcha gonna do, man?"

"Why, what must, in honor, be done," replied the knight. "What else? We will advance and, if needs be, fight; either my lord Fitz be freed of this bondage or we will die in the attempt to free him, of course, Sir Lion."

"Now, hold on there!" the blue lion beamed in alarm. "What you mean 'we, 9 white man? This cat agreed to guide ol' Fitz, teach him the ropes, see, guard his back when won't nobody else to do it around. Won't nothing said 'bout yours truly like going up 'gainst no dozen or more slants with spears and swords and axes, see. You dudes, you gets your rocks off doin' this kinda shit, so you do it; just count the Cool Blue out, you dig, baby?"

Sir Gautier tried not to allow his face to indicate his contempt. He gave a Gallic shrug. "Behave as you will, Master Lion; I and mine will do as we must. I had not truly expected honor in a heathen, ensorcelled, man-eating beast, but neither had I ever expected to encounter a craven lion. King of beasts, no more, now more alike to Prince of poseurs, me-thinks, Crown-prince of cowards."