Tigerheart (12 page)

Her face darkened, and her voice dropped to a tremulous warning. “Could mean…your life.”

“
Excellent!
” crowed The Boy. “That being the case, I’m most anxious indeed!”

He started jumping about enthusiastically. He had removed his sword from his belt, whipping it around artfully. It was fortunate for him that he was pointing away from the Piccas as he was doing so, lest they consider it a threat and fill him with arrows, thus aborting the mission before it even got started. “What needs to be done?” The Boy said. “Does it require killing?”

“Yes.”

This prompted The Boy to bound into the air and ricochet off several tree branches. When he landed, his lips were pulled back in a feral snarl, displaying his perfect ivory teeth. Paul could not help but feel a twinge of pity for whoever it was that The Boy was to go up against. “Bring him here!” said The Boy, making a couple of thrusts with his blade for good measure. “His day is done!”

“Not a ‘he.’ An ‘it.’”

Curiously, this pronouncement gave The Boy pause. Paul had a feeling that he knew why. According to what his father had told Paul in his tales, The Boy supposedly had a superstitious streak about him. True, he had no fear of death, but he had a healthy wariness of anything that returned from the dead. He misliked monsters of any ilk and things that went bump in the night. Not that he would have admitted such to anyone. He had far too vast an ego for that. Still, as noted, it gave him pause…in this case, the pause being about three seconds. “What sort of ‘it’?” he said finally, although he tried to add a careless toss of his head at the end of the question so he could appear casual.

Princess Picca looked at him oddly, since the answer was self-evident to her (what with her being a girl and not at all superstitious). “An animal,” she said.

Realizing how painfully self-evident that should have been, The Boy strutted about momentarily saying “Tut-tut. Of course an animal. What else could it be
but
an animal?”

“An undead zombie?” said Paul, who felt that the aptly named Anyplace was the perfect territory for just about anything the mind could conjure.

The Boy fired him an annoyed look, but he was saved from having to respond when Princess Picca said dismissively, “Nonsense. Although may wish for zombie when see animal. Great murderous beast it is. Kill several of my tribe. Many braves try to hunt it. None return.”

“Make ready your cooking fires,” said The Boy, “for I am on the hunt now, and I always return! What sort of beast do I seek?”

Something within Paul knew. Before the princess even spoke, he knew the words that were about to tumble from her mouth, like a story that is suddenly coming back to you after not having heard it for many a year.

“A tiger,” Princess Picca said. “A tiger—”

“With fur white as a drift of snow,” Paul said, as if speaking from very far away, “and eyes that glisten with power, and a tail that snaps like a whip. And where he treads, everything around him stops and listens, even the trees and the bushes and the smallest mushrooms. He is the mightiest predator in the Anyplace.”

“Not mightier than I,” The Boy said with confidence.

“Mightier than anyone or anything,” Paul shot back, feeling unaccountably as if his pride had been stung.

“How do you know that?” said Irregular, feeling a bit forgotten in all the proceedings.

“Because he’s mine.”

“Yours?” The Boy looked at him askance. “What mean you by that?”

“I mean he’s mine. In my dreams, I run with him. I ride on his back and feel his powerful muscles and silken fur. And he would never hurt me, and he would never hurt any of you. I asked him not to hunt humans, and he told me he wouldn’t.”

“Then he has lied to you,” Princess Picca said with quiet certainty, although she did look a bit sympathetic. For some reason, that very sympathy outraged Paul all the more, for he did not feel as if he needed her sympathy or anyone’s for that matter. Moreover, the way she was staring at him, it was as if she could see straight into his uncertainties. For, as you may recall, Paul suspected even at the time that the snow tiger’s claims of never hunting humans might well be slightly false. Paul had glossed over it in his mind, wanting to give his beloved friend the benefit of the doubt. Now those doubts were no longer beneficial.

“The beast hunts my people,” said the Princess. “The beast kills my people. For hunger. For sport. Matters not. Must be stopped. If Boy stop the killing, then will be great service to Picca. We will be in debt. We in debt, we can be allies.”

“You don’t have to kill my tiger!” Paul said. “This is a mistake! A misunderstanding! I’m telling you, if it’s the same tiger—”

“Only kind like it in the Anyplace,” said the princess.

“—then he can be reasoned with! He’s…” Paul thumped his chest with his fist. “He’s a part of me. A part of who I am. He always has been. I’ll talk to him. He’s not the one attacking your people. I know it. I just know it.”

Once again Princess Picca felt the need to confer with her people. This conference, however, took a good deal less time. “Very well,” said the princess. “Storyteller go with The Boy. You see for self. And when you see, then you help Boy kill snow tiger.”

Privately, Paul was convinced that that would never happen. He knew his snow tiger. He knew the greatness, the nobility that pounded beneath that glossy fur, and was positive that he could get the entire matter sorted out. If it required the tiger to return with him, bound, to the Picca camp, so that he could explain it to them himself, then he was certain he could talk his tiger into it. They just didn’t know the tiger the way Paul did.

Paul said none of this. Instead he simply bowed and said formally, “I will do whatever is necessary.”

“What about us?” Irregular and Porthos piped up in unison. And even Gwenny queried the prospect of joining them on this big game quest.

But Princess Picca shook her head with finality. “No. You stay here. Only Boy and storyteller leave.”

“But why?” Gwenny said pleadingly.

“Because,” Princess Picca said as if it were the most reasonable deal in the world, “If Boy and storyteller have not returned before the rising of the sun”—she pointed to Gwenny, Irregular, and Porthos—“you three will die. Executed by braves.”

This piece of information landed upon the youngsters like the metaphorical sack of bricks. “Ex-executed?” Gwenny managed to stammer out.

Princess Picca nodded gravely.

“Executed…if he fails to return?” When Princess Picca again bobbed her head in the affirmative, Gwenny said with some alarm, “Boy? Did you hear that? All our lives depend upon you accomplishing this mission!”

The object of her admonishment was paying no attention. He was far too busy thrusting his sword and dodging the attacks of imaginary opponents.

Paul watched him gallivant about, and then turned to Princess Picca and said hopefully, “Is it too late to accept your offer to kill The Boy?”

“Yes. Too late.”

“Bugger,” said Paul.

Chapter 12

Tiger, Tiger Burning White, in the Forest at Midnight

P
aul had not truly thought that murdering The Boy was a viable option, although he could not say for sure what he would have done if he had been informed that, yes, the possibility of that solution remained.

They set off from the Picca camp that very day. The Boy and Paul were both armed with swords, Paul still holding the one that he had swiped from the pirate vessel. Princess Picca seemed of the opinion that The Boy’s blade would be inadequate protection against the savage teeth and slashing claws of the snow tiger, but The Boy’s confidence was boundless. He dismissed any such concerns out of hand, loudly announcing that he could handle whatever was thrown at him. Paul noticed, but did not comment on, the fact that The Boy said “I” at any opportunity, rather than “we.” Obviously he considered Paul a tagalong at best, a burden at worst, and fully anticipated that the success or failure of the mission was wholly on his shoulders.

Paul knew otherwise. For Paul was certain that the mission’s success depended not upon The Boy’s flashing blade but rather on Paul’s ability to communicate with his great tiger and convince him to change his ways. That was presuming that the tiger,
his
tiger, was truly responsible for the slaughter that the Picca tribe had laid at his door…an accusation that Paul was not fully prepared to accept. Between you and me—and it really is necessary to keep it
entre nous,
since Paul might well feel a bit hurt by this sentiment—Paul was in his own way as unbearably overconfident as The Boy. There were just different reasons for it. As you well know, pride goes before a fall, and both lads were bristling with their own sorts of pride. Thus even the casual observer could foresee that matters would not end well…and I am telling you this in advance so that, when matters do not, in fact, end well, you can be prepared for it to some degree.

They made their way into the forest. From the outset Paul felt as if all his nerve endings were on fire. Every rustle of brush, every bend of a tree seemed to hide a hundred different menaces. The Boy, by contrast, whistled in a carefree manner. He did not relax his guard. He had his sword at the ready the entire time. But he did not carry it in an en garde position. Instead he held it casually by his side, like a suitcase or handbag. All he was doing was eliminating the time that would be required to draw the blade.

Still, Paul felt it prudent to follow suit, so he likewise held his sword. If nothing else, it was convenient for chopping away whatever brush managed to get in their path.

The Boy watched Paul’s excessive wariness with great amusement. He even chuckled whenever Paul would jump at some new and unexpected sound. This began to wear on Paul, who saw nothing funny about the situation at all.

“Do you truly think he’s going to attack us now?” The Boy finally said.

“I don’t think he’s going to attack
me
at all,” Paul said. This was mostly the truth, although there was some niggling part of him that insisted on reminding him this was a tiger they were talking about: a wild animal. What made such creatures wild was their unpredictability. So although Paul expected that he was safe from a fierce charge by the creature, he was keenly aware that the possibility of such an assault remained. “You, on the other hand…that’s a whole different matter.”

“Not during the daytime,” The Boy said. “He’s a hunter. It’s daytime. He won’t be out and about until night. There’s an off chance that we might stumble upon his lair in our meandering, but the real confrontation will likely come once the sun has set.”

Paul was not thrilled about that prospect. The looming trees seemed filled with menace even now. The notion of stumbling about at night, with nothing save moonlight to give them guidance, was quite daunting.

“How will we find him?” Paul said.

“We’ll hunt him.”

“But what if we don’t find him?” he said again.

“We will.”

“You can’t know that for sure….”

The Boy stopped in his path and turned to face Paul. There was excitement glittering in his eyes, the prospect of facing a tornado of claws and teeth kindling an almost savage glee within him. “A great hunter, which by all accounts the snow tiger is, knows when he’s being hunted.”

“How?”

“Any one of a hundred ways. He just knows. That’s what makes him great. And a
truly
great hunter—which, again, describes our target—will endeavor to turn the tables and transform the predators into the prey.”

“You mean…” Paul said with a gulp. “You mean, while we’re hunting him, he’s going to be hunting us?”

“Exciting, isn’t it?”

“Not as much as you seem to think it is.”

The Boy turned out to be right about one thing: For the balance of the day, they saw not the slightest hint of the tiger’s whereabouts. Conversation was sporadic and mostly consisted of The Boy launching into some recounting of his previous adventures. Paul found them interesting enough, since he was rather enamored of stories of adventure and derring-do. He did not bother to press The Boy about their previous encounters through mirrors and such. He had tried a few preliminary queries along those lines, but The Boy answered in that offhand, careless manner he used when he plainly did not recall the subject being discussed.

At one point, Paul’s stomach was growling so audibly that The Boy ordered him to stay where he was. He vanished into the undergrowth, and just when he had been gone long enough that Paul was starting to worry, The Boy reappeared. He held up the point of his sword proudly, and Paul gasped. A dead rabbit was dangling helplessly from the end of the sword.

The sight made Paul a bit sick, although he did have to admire the amazingly efficient way that The Boy skinned the creature in mere seconds. The Boy went about it so matter-of-factly that the very absence of effort made it all the more remarkable. Then The Boy briskly gathered some brush around a stone and struck the stone with the edge of his blade. The single blow was all that was required to send sparks leaping onto the brush, and a few gentle gusts of breath from The Boy fanned the flame higher. Shortly, The Boy was roasting the rabbit over a small but impressive fire. Paul was so taken with the expert display of forestry and woodsmanship that he didn’t even take note of the sun setting until it was well below the horizon. By the time he did notice, his mouth was filled with roast rabbit and so he wasn’t in a position to comment.

He found it curious that The Boy ate nothing. When he attempted to offer some to the strange lad, The Boy shook his head and waved it away. He was about to query as to why that was and how The Boy was not remotely hungry, when The Boy spoke first. “How long will you be staying?”

Paul was surprised that The Boy would ask. Indeed, it was the first thing The Boy had posed to him that was not related to The Boy himself in some way. “I…suppose until I’ve done what I came here to do: to find a new little sister for my mother, so she won’t be unhappy anymore.”

“You want to make your mother happy.” He sounded unenthused.

“Well…yes.”

The Boy shook his head. “No point in trying. Mothers are always unhappy; and no matter how much you do for them, it won’t ever be enough. Be best for you if you gave up on that idea and just remained here for good.”

“Best for me? Or best for you?”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“I don’t suppose you would,” Paul said with a small laugh. “You are marvelously adventurous and fear nothing. For that I can only envy you.” He tossed the remaining bit of rabbit onto the ground, where a small creature of some sort ran up and carried it off in its teeth. “But you aren’t one of the world’s deepest thinkers.”

“Thinking is a waste of time. It keeps you from action.” The Boy, who had been crouched nearby in imitation of a frog, now leaped to his feet and thumped his chest. “We should get moving. The sooner we find the tiger, the sooner it finds us.”

“But…don’t you ever wonder…? No,” Paul corrected himself, “no, of course you don’t. But I wonder…”

“Wonder what?” The Boy blew air across his teeth with impatience.

“I just…I don’t understand why you’ve no desire to grow up. That’s all.”

“That’s
all
?” The Boy’s delicate features twisted into a sneer. “If that’s all you don’t understand, then you
do
understand
nothing
.”

“Then explain it to me.” Paul wasn’t considering the time constraints or the snow tiger hidden somewhere out there, perhaps watching them from a safe distance even as they spoke. “I mean, don’t you see that there’s something wrong with being the way you are? Explain why you’ve no interest in growing up.”

“Explain why you do.”

“Well, because…” Paul gestured helplessly, trying to find the words. “Because there’s so many great things to experience as you get older.”

“Greater than that which I live every single day? Honestly now.”

“I…suppose not,” Paul said. He tried to rally, but The Boy overspoke him.

“There you have it,” said The Boy, as if the entire matter were settled…which, as far as he was concerned, it was. Yet, strangely enough, he continued to speak with a heaping dollop of disdain. “I used to spy on old Hack just for fun, and once I overheard him when he was in his cups. He was talking about how he felt the absence of his hand and upper arm. A faint ghostly tingling for a missing part of himself. What they do to you, Paul…you have no idea. As you grow up, they’re not satisfied until they cut the very heart of your childhood out of you. And you spend the rest of your life feeling the joys and freedom of your youth—the cut-away part, the best part of you—with that same phantom tingling that Hack felt. But it is gone, and no matter how much you wish it so, will never come back, because it’s been devoured.

“None in the waking world seem to know what they want. Children desirous of nothing but to become adults. Adults who have no desire but to recapture their childhood. The entire human race doesn’t know whether it comes or goes, and you think that I—who may well be the only one who knows precisely what he wants and doesn’t want—have something wrong with
me
?” He tugged on his hair. “My locks will never be unlocked. My teeth”—and he pointed to them—“will never be rootless.” He placed his arms firmly akimbo. “I will always crow but never have crow’s-feet. My forehead will wrinkle in thought, but never remain that way. My body will never die a hundred little deaths, and I will never know what it is to grow up and spend the rest of my days running about trying to find forms of amusement that will be nothing but pale imitations of the entertainment to be found here in the Anyplace. And, best of all, I will never have to count on people.”

“For what?”

“For anything. If Gwenny, if you and the others flew away tomorrow, I would be just fine on my own. I was betrayed once in my life already, thank you very much, and by adults. I’m damned if I’ll ever trust another, and double damned if I am to become one.”

“You’re referring to your parents barring the windows, preventing your return.”

“I am,” said The Boy icily. “That’s why your mother is not worth the fuss you’re making over her wants and needs, Paul. I guarantee you that, were the situation reversed, she wouldn’t be doing the same for you.”

Paul drew himself up, and, although he made no motion to attack, there was stern warning in his tone. “I grieve that your mother did you such injustice, Boy,” he said, “but dare not speak ill of mine. Is that understood?”

It is impossible to say whether The Boy understood or not. He had no sense of tact, no comprehension of boundaries. How could he know that he stood in danger of crossing a line when he knew not where the lines were?

What might have occurred between The Boy and Paul had The Boy continued his verbal assault on Paul’s mother can only be imagined. And so I leave it to your imagination, with full confidence that you will be able to conjure it on your own time. For matters are now proceeding apace that will force us to leave their animated discussion behind.

A low growl emanated from the forest nearby. Paul froze where he was, all the blood draining from his face. It was impossible for him to determine exactly where the sound was coming from. It seemed to be everywhere at once.

The Boy had immediately assumed a defensive posture. He was holding his sword in an entirely different manner from the lackadaisical way he’d been handling it before. His grip was tight, but he wasn’t choking it, and his arm was loose and limber. Unlike Paul, who was trying to get some idea of where the creature was, The Boy was instead watching Paul to see how he reacted. Paul’s momentary panic seemed to amuse him.

“Is that it? Is…that him?” Paul whispered.

“I should think so,” said The Boy. Paul hadn’t noticed it before, but the tips of The Boy’s incisors were slightly extended, so it almost looked as if he had fangs. Or perhaps they simply got that way for special occasions such as this. Paul wouldn’t put anything past him. The Boy’s nostrils flared and he nodded once in approval. “I smell him. He’s upwind of us. That was a mistake.”