Shallalu

by Danielle L. Parker

Part 3

“My reasons were simple,” Hzuma said. “I was cursed. The curse was slowly and hideously destroying me. To escape it, I planned to travel to a time before — before the curse even existed. I reasoned the curse would then have no effect. And so, I have done.”

The Asp lifted its bowl of soup to its mouth, inhaling with a smack. The soup was greasy but surprisingly tasty. But Blunt supposed he could not complain about a free meal.

He could read none of the signs hanging about this room, although his eye told him there were several alien languages represented. Many species were represented here too, not one of them familiar to Blunt’s eye. One thing was clear, however. All their fellow diners were down on their luck. This was a charity soup kitchen for the destitute. Its priests or attendants — slow-moving, block-like bipeds with trunk-like proboscises — moved about dispensing bowls to all comers.

Blunt tipped his bowl, peering moodily at the solids in the bottom. Vegetables of some sort peeped forth over the brown liquid — at least he hoped they were vegetables. One never really knew.

“You didn’t need to take me along,” he commented bitterly.

The Asp pushed aside its empty bowl and whistled in amusement.

“No,” it replied. “I did not. I could have left you to the guardians. You would be but bits of meat now!”

Blunt gave a curt nod of concession. He could not argue. A half-moon of cloth was missing from his vest; the teeth of the creature had sheared leather as neatly as a shark bite.

His companion pulled out a small pick from some inner pocket of its robe and leaned back in evident relaxation. It probed its uneven collection of fangs with the pick.

“I was a priest of Yumma the Eating God,” it continued in a muffled voice. “The Eating God represents the insatiable hunger — greed in all its forms. I was, I must say, devoted.” Something in its fangs, a bit of the soup’s solid matter, diverted its attention. It probed more earnestly, then wiped the detritus on the sleeve of its robe with a small sound of satisfaction. “Many years I served Yumma. Happy years they were!”

“But at last,” it continued, returning the toothpick to the folds of its robe, “I became too old to serve. The priests of Yumma live long and well, for greed is life’s greatest joy. Do not even you humans worship greed with all your soul? But the day came. I was old and useless. It was time for me to be eaten.”

Blunt glanced up from the soup he agitated. “Eaten? You’re kidding. And you snakes always claim we’re the barbarians.”

“Eaten. Such is the fate of those who serve, however long and gloriously, the Insatiable God. Into the belly of the Fat One they go, when their time comes. But I...” The Asp shuddered. “I did not choose to be eaten. I ran away. Thus, the curse fell on me. I have wasted away, moment-by-moment, ever since. Yet I know I have now escaped at last. Yumma does not even exist in this time. I must be free!”

It raised its thin arm and pulled back the sleeve of its robe.

“Look, human!” it crowed, shaking the flaccid sac dangling from its wrist at him. “Look! Already I feel the return of my vigor. My poison sacs will swell, and the scales of my face gleam once more. I have escaped the curse!”

The captain laid his spoon in his empty bowl. It did not seem to him, as he examined the shriveled ball waved before his nose, the sac was any fuller than it had been. Perhaps Hzuma’s curse was simply age. But he saw no gain in pointing this out. His companion’s red eyes glittered with joyful conviction.

“Then I guess the question is not where we are,” Blunt said, glancing around him. “But when.”

The Asp shrugged.

“Millions, many millions of years in the past,” it replied cheerfully. “Our legends speak of the strange city whose time-threads tangled so disastrously they tore the very fabric of space-time. Your Earth is home to no more than spawn generated of the mating of mud and sea at this instant. My own people have just begun their journey to the stars, and Yumma the Eating God is no more than a dream to come.” It paused and clacked its claws, half-regretfully. “I am sorry. I will find my own kind, even in this now, but you, human — you will die here without brood-kin, the first — the very first, and the only one — of your species.”

The man looked back with eyes as cold as the reflection of a gun-barrel.

“I’ll get home.”

The Asp shrugged in the human manner.

“It is not so inconceivable to travel to the past,” it replied. “Time threads wrap, and sometimes they touch. But to travel to the future — such an aberration might be the very act that destroys Shallalu. But no matter! Here we are, human — two homeless, penniless, friendless aliens in a strange city. We know neither its language nor its customs. But by good fortune we have already found food. Surely we are also fortunate there are so many beings here, two as strange as we have not been remarked. May our claws continue to snag luck. Let us view this marvelous city, and see what we find!”

Blunt had no arguments. He rose to his feet and followed his companion. But at the door, before one of the block-like aliens spooning soup into a bowl for another mendicant, he lingered. The creature, noticing his attention, lifted its elephantine snout in a questioning gesture. Or so the man supposed; he could only guess.

“You gave a stranger a square meal,” Blunt said. “I’ve got nothing to give you for it. Still...” He felt at his throat and pulled his St. Christopher medallion over his head. He held out the battered silver on his palm. “Guess this’ll have to do.”

Small eyes set in a triple cluster regarded him. The snout lowered and groped his palm with a touch so soft the man scarcely felt it. It raised the medallion with its sensitive lips, and studied the dangling coin.

The man turned to go. But a sudden honk startled him. The trunk, with his medallion still suspended, kissed his forehead with a loud resounding smack. The captain staggered.

“What’s going on?” the Asp hissed as it wheeled.

The captain clapped his hand to his brow.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I think I’ve just been blessed.” He hitched his gun on his hip. “Let’s see how far this blessing goes, snakie.”

Proceed to parts 4-7...