Tigerheart (17 page)

The Boy surveyed the expanse to be covered and checked on the progress of the tidal wave. He realized that Paul had been right to express concern; they weren’t going to make it. “No! The wave’s coming in too quickly! You were right the first time! To the caves!”

“But, Boy,” Gwenny said, “you said they’ll be underwater!”

“They will! Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it! Hurry! Go, go!”

With the ground trembling fiercely beneath their feet, and sounds like a hundred charging elephants rumbling all around them, those on the ground wisely opted to heed The Boy’s advice, self-contradicting as it was. They sprinted for the caves, practically tripping over one another in their endeavors to reach them before the unthinkable occurred.

The Boy sailed overhead, and he shouted down to them, “Whatever you do, don’t look behind you!”

Naturally they all looked. Their eyes widened in shock and fear.

A wave, the biggest wave they had ever seen, was roaring up from far below. Higher and higher, until it seemed as if it were genuinely touching the sky in a dark lover’s caress, before it started to thunder down toward them. The more imaginative of them might have sworn they saw a man’s face, stretched and distorted but clearly filled with an elemental fury.

They ran into the caves, which were dark and dank but thankfully bereft of other occupants such as bears. Paul found himself in one with Gwenny, Princess Picca, and several of the other braves.

“We get flooded in here!” said one of the braves with a tremor in his voice that seemed to contradict the notion of his being “brave.” “We all die!”

“The Boy will make sure that doesn’t happen,” Paul said, pulling the tiger skin more tightly around himself.

“You believe?”

“I believe,” he said firmly.

“As do I,” Gwenny piped up.

The water was coming closer and closer, and within seconds was going to come crashing down upon them. But Gwenny was facing the cave entrance with utter sangfroid, and Paul—who, despite his proud words, couldn’t help but feel at least some degree of uncertainty over their imminent fate—tried his best to emulate her remarkable reserve in the face of impending disaster.

It was at that moment that they heard even more rumbling, this time from overhead. Paul looked up, his face a picture of misery. “Oh,
now
what?”

A few rocks fell in front of the cave mouth, and then a few more, and suddenly dozens were tumbling down, filling in the gap.

“An avalanche!” Gwenny said, realizing what was happening. “The Boy’s created an avalanche!”

She was correct. The caves were set deep into the mountain, but there were plenty of loose rocks farther up the mountainside. The Boy had flown up to them, knocked some of the larger supporting boulders loose from their moorings, and seconds later had sent an entire cavalcade of stone tumbling down the sides of the mountain.

They had one last glimpse of the wave careening toward them, and then that view was obscured by the rockslide as it completely covered the opening of the cave. Seconds later the rocky “door” to the cave trembled under the staggering impact of the wave. Paul was terrified that the rock barrier would give way, but the opposite turned out to be the case: The wave hit the rocky barrier with such force that it compressed it, making it stronger rather than weaker. The makeshift barrier held.

They heard the water thundering past them, to the sides and above, and they clustered together for security. The cave was completely dark, the last bits of light extinguished as the rocks came together to form their shield. Paul had no idea who he was pressed up against until a soft but commanding voice said, “Watch hands there.”

“Sorry, Princess. Can’t even rightly see them,” he muttered, repositioning his hands to a less personal area.

Finally the assault on their ears subsided. The sounds of the storm were still audible, but muted. Over time—although how much time, no one could possibly have guessed—even those sounds lessened until there was silence.

“Gwenny…do you think there’s nothing but floodwaters around us?” whispered Paul.

“I don’t know.”

“What about The Boy? Do you think he survived?”

“I don’t know.”

“How are we going to get out of here if he didn’t survive?”

“I don’t know.”

From the darkness, Princess Picca said in irritation, “Anything Gwenny-lady
do
know?”

“I know not to punch an Indian princess in the mouth for getting snippy. Especially when it’s pitch-black and she could never prove it was me.” Then she paused and added, “Then again, this is the Anyplace, and memory can sometimes be an inconsistent thing. So let’s hope I don’t forget that as well.”

Princess Picca wisely said nothing more on the subject.

Chapter 15

The Boy Helpless

T
he Boy saw the gargantuan wave crashing down upon him, but that didn’t deter him from his endeavors to save the Piccas and his friends. He pushed against the boulders that he knew would trigger a rockslide, but they seemed disinclined to move. He threw all his strength into it, and more besides, and the air hissed sharply between his pearly teeth as he pushed and prodded and cajoled and begged the huge stones to cooperate with him. Just when it seemed hopeless, he felt a small amount of give that quickly escalated into a good deal of give. He let out a triumphant howl, like that of a wolf, as the rocks tumbled from their perch and rolled violently down the side of the mountain. Within seconds, they were covering the entrances to the caves that lay at the bottom.

So pleased with himself was The Boy that he yanked out his sword and shouted defiantly at the oncoming tidal wave, “
I’m not afraid! Have at thee!
”

Now there is much to be said for confidence and determination in the face of an opponent. But there is also something to be said for overconfidence, none of it especially flattering. And determination is, again, quite laudable in its proper place. There is undeniably, though, a fine line between determination and ill-advised pigheadedness, and we would be dishonest if we did not say that The Boy’s behavior tilted rather toward the latter.

Let us focus ever so briefly on the positive aspects of the encounter: The Boy managed to hold on to his sword. This was rather miraculous, and we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge it with a brief “Well done, you.”

That, tragically, covers the entirety of the positive aspects, leaving us with a considerable debacle for the balance. Certainly it was one of the low points of The Boy’s otherwise remarkable and generally successful career.

The wave slammed into The Boy, sending him tumbling end over end. Ludicrously, he actually made several attempts to stab it, which turned out just about as well as you might expect. The Boy thrashed about, completely losing track of up and down. He tried to fly away from it, but there was far too much water all around him. He was trapped inside a vast wall of water, unable to escape. He shouted in defiance, which turned out to be another rather bad idea, since it simply resulted in his swallowing water.

He flipped around out of control, unable to hear anything except the flowing and churning of the water itself. For one such as The Boy, who relished being in thorough control of everything, this was a torture vicious enough to have been spit up from the bowels of perdition.

And the biggest problem of all was a fairly simple one: The Boy couldn’t swim. That’s not to say that if he’d possessed the skills of even an Olympic-caliber swimmer, things might have gone differently. Chances are they wouldn’t have. Nevertheless, he couldn’t swim, and he knew he couldn’t swim, and that knowledge certainly didn’t do much for his confidence level.

Like an insect endeavoring to outmuscle a spider’s web, The Boy fought to pull himself loose from his imprisonment. He was busy choking on water and so drawing a breath wasn’t really an option. Finally a surprising notion crossed his mind: He might die. Of all the ways he might have died, he would never, ever have envisioned this one.

They say that one faces impending death through a series of regularized steps: shock, disbelief, anger, bargaining, and ultimately acceptance. Since The Boy tended to be a bit mercurial, not to mention precocious, he went straight to acceptance. Not that he had a death wish, mind you. It’s simply that death tended to hold a morbid fascination for him. Nor did he regard death as the life-ending experience that you and I would. Instead, when it came to the subject of demises, The Boy’s attitude was very much along the lines of “If I die, I wonder what will happen next.”

The Boy had just managed to reach that point of “I wonder—” when death was snatched from him unceremoniously. With no warning, The Boy was spit out of the wall of water. He tried to regain his equilibrium, to fly, but things were happening too quickly. Unable to control his forward motion, The Boy spiraled through the air, the Anyplace whirling around him. Then he felt a violent crashing, and something tearing up his skin. He was barely conscious enough to be aware that he was plummeting through the tops of trees, hurtling toward the ground, and then blackness overcame him.

Imagine, if you will, the pirates’ delight when they found him.

The
Skull n’ Bones,
which we have left unattended for long enough in our narrative, had indeed found safety on the leeward side of the island. This isn’t to say that the ship didn’t feel the effects of the storm that Captain Slash had been instrumental in unleashing. The seas were so choppy that, although the veteran pirates handled themselves with aplomb, the Bully Boys were leaning over the edge of the ship and heave-hoing their lunches into the water.

Nor were they immune to the vast tidal wave that had slammed into the island. Although the majority of the wave’s fury was expended upon the upper shores, there was still enough to cascade down upon the pirate vessel, flood the decks, and come perilously close to sinking the ship. This caused a good deal of grumbling among the crew even as they worked like fiends to bail out all the water, since they well knew that Captain Slash was the one responsible for the debacle in the first place.

But Slash was a wise and wily individual, and she knew precisely what to tell the crew to buoy their spirits: that they would make an immediate excursion onto the island as soon as the storm subsided, to see what newly unearthed treasure they could find and what prisoners they could take.

A landing party consisting of Captain Slash and a half dozen of her more stout swarthies rowed to the Anyplace and made their way through the forest, finding whatever they could find.

The sky was still dark although the fearsome rains had let up, and the ground was moist and spongy beneath their boots. Simon the Dancer had taken point, vaulting over puddles and pointing out newly made sinkholes so the pirates could make sure to walk around them. Slash’s gaze darted here and there, looking for some sign of potential booty. She had experienced tempest-tossed lands where various valuables had been washed away from their owners to wind up in the mud, ripe for the picking.

It was Suleyman who spotted the unexpectedly valuable treasure first. We should not be surprised that Suleyman was the one who did it. Suleyman was very aware of the evil and viciousness of his various deeds, and was perpetually glancing skyward to make sure that the gods had not tired of his evil and decided to dispatch him with a thunderbolt from on high. So Suleyman, in one of his standard looks heavenward, spotted a most astounding sight. “Captain,” he whispered, and even whispering his voice came out in a low rumble. “Look yonder.”

She followed where he was pointing and gasped in delight. There, with arms dangling limply and body swaying in the nighttime breeze, was the unmoving body of The Boy. His torso was entirely visible; from the waist down (or should we say “upside down”) he was snarled in branches and vines. There were scratches over his face and upper arms. His eyes were closed, and a small trail of spittle was trickling from the edge of his mouth.

They had brought heavy netting to drag things along in. Squealing with delight, Captain Slash ordered the netting to be brought forward. Agha Bey, at his captain’s behest, clambered up into the trees and cut The Boy down. The Boy tumbled toward the ground and, as he did so, the sudden motion awoke him. But he didn’t react fast enough to go airborne, and seconds later the pirates had him completely entangled in the net. He lay there, arms pinned to his side, the weight of the net preventing him from lifting off.

Captain Slash strode forward, grinning. “Well, well, well…The Boy. Quite an honor, if I do say so myself.”

“You do indeed say so yourself,” he tossed back carelessly.

She swung one booted foot fiercely and connected with The Boy’s side. He groaned in pain and tried to roll away, but didn’t get very far.

“You were a foolish young man,” she said. She was strolling around him, reveling in her power over him, her hands draped behind her back. “All you had to do was remain exactly as you were, living in my brother’s shadow. Had you done so, you would still be in command of the most fearsome pirate ship afloat. My brother was more than content to be the puppeteer. But thanks to your foolish efforts, the two of you are separated when you were so effective together.” She eyed him slyly for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’d consider returning to the previous arrangement. If you reattach to my brother, then all will be as it was before. This”—and she gestured toward him, lying there helplessly—“would slowly fade away and be forgotten. Instead of memories of humiliation, you would know nothing but success and triumph.”

“I’m no one’s puppet,” he said defiantly.

This drew chuckles from the pirates. Captain Slash simply shook her head, as if this were the saddest thing he could have said.

“In that case, you’ll be no one’s anything. A pity, too. I wonder how your beloved pixie will react when we bring her your head as a trophy.”

Sadly (for such is the transitory nature of memory in the Anyplace) The Boy actually had to pause and think what Slash could possibly be referring to. But then it came to him in a lightning flash of recollection. “Fiddlefix!” he said, new energy flooding through him. “You have her?”

“Safe and secure in my quarters, under lock and key,” said Captain Slash smugly.

“Don’t worry, Fiddle!” he said as if the pixie could possibly hear him. “I’ll save you!”

“You,” the pirate captain reminded him, “cannot even save yourself. And if you think I’m going to allow you to live so that eventually you might trick your way into freedom and unseat me…well, you are sadly mistaken. Sadly for you, that is. For us, we are the gladder for it.” And she strode toward him, bringing her sword arm back, preparing to thrust it forward squarely into The Boy’s chest.

The Boy did not flinch. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said defiantly, and his show of bravado caught her by surprise.

“I wouldn’t?” she said, lowering her sword, one slim eyebrow arched. “And why wouldn’t I, pray tell?”

“What do you think would happen to the Anyplace without me?” The Boy said. “You, your ship, your dreams…they’d all dissolve. You’d be nothing without me. I am the be-all and end all of this land. It exists because I want it to exist. It needs me far more than I need it. When I’m gone, everything comes to a stop, hanging there in a haze of nothingness until I return. Nothing happens here that I don’t allow to happen or want to happen. Were I to go, the Anyplace would go with me. And where would you be then?”

“Why, I imagine I’d be right here,” Captain Slash said, not the least bit impressed by The Boy’s outburst, “chuckling over your dead body and watching with laughter while creatures large and small come scurrying out of hiding to sup on you.” She shook her head and actually sounded pitying. “Ohhhh, my dear, dear Boy. How tragically typical. Every young lad foolishly believes the sun rises and sets upon him, or that he is the axis upon which the world turns. But I thought you were exempt from such delusion because it’s a point of view invariably fostered by too-attentive mothers. You have no mother, and so I would have believed you to be devoid of the standard delusions. I wonder how it could be that you have them, especially considering your mother wanted nothing to do with you.”

“You know nothing about it,” The Boy said defensively.

“On the contrary,” she said, walking around him and looking far too confident to suit The Boy’s comfort level. “I know all about it. Some you told me while you were still in the shadow of my brother. Our Miss Fix filled in the rest. How tragic that you think you can control all that transpires in the Anyplace when you cannot even control your mother’s love for you.”

The Boy’s eyes smoldered with fury, but Captain Slash knew that she had pinked him, drawing virtual (if not actual) blood. “Villain,” he snarled, “if I were free right now, I’d—”

“You’d what? Stop me? In the same way that you stopped the assault of the Seirenes?” She laughed loudly. “Or the way my brother, even though he was dead, was still able to outwit you? Consider that again: You were outwitted by a dead man’s shadow. And now you stand helpless before my men and me”—and she gestured with her normal hand at the pirates who had accompanied her. They roared in bawdy approval of her words, causing The Boy to flinch. Captain Slash shook her head in clear disappointment. “I have to say, I don’t understand you, Boy. How can you be confronted with mounting evidence of your own ineptitude and continue to have such an inflated sense of self-worth?”

“There’s nothing inflated about it,” he said, but there was increased quavering in his voice, and the uncertainty was becoming so foul that it was generating its own stench. “One of me is worth twenty of you….”

“There is only one of me, Boy, and that one has captured the one of you, so whose worth has been proven while whose was left wanting?” She whipped her sword back and forth just under his nose to add emphasis to just who was in charge. Were The Boy faster off the mark, he would have held the net up so that she could have inadvertently sliced it herself. But he failed to do so. “Is that, ultimately, why you refuse to grow up, Boy? Because you think that once you do, you’ll enter the adult world and lose control of your environment? Have you ever considered the possibility that your imagination is no longer the single greatest source of energy in the Anyplace, presuming it ever was? That the Anyplace is far more responsive to my manipulation, specifically because I
am
an adult? I know the way things work. I know the true order of the universe and am not afraid of it, nor afraid to exploit it.” She leaned in toward him, driving home a sword so metaphorical that the one upon her wrist didn’t come into play. “If—when—you die, Boy, the world will go on without you. That may be the single most difficult truth that all such as you must cope with. You will die…and life will continue. I’ll not shuffle off this immortal coil, nor will my crew, upon your passing. I will have my triumphs and tragedies, and you will be wholly unable to stop me. You’ll just watch helplessly from whatever ‘beyond’ will accept consignment of you. And you will have plenty of time—eternity, by my reckoning—to come to grips with the notion that you are no more important than I. Less important, actually, since I have command over your fate whereas you have none over mine.”