Shallalu

by Danielle L. Parker

Part 4

Shallalu! Here was its springtime, its youth. The air Blunt drew into his lungs held special sweetness. The light was the fresh yellow-green that first brightens the leaves of an April willow. Such was Shallalu in its vigor, in its full glory, in the fruition of its heart-dreams — before any glimpsed the horror to come.

The man wandered, his keen eyes drawn to each new and miraculous sight. Hundreds of different species bustled past, passing through the variably sized doors and gateways and streets that had so puzzled him before. Once a thunderous bellow startled him as he passed a shop front; a glance showed him a pit of mud, where half a dozen braying quadrupeds sported in bubbling ooze.

Another biped brushed by him, swathed head to toe in gauzy robes and chains of sparkling diamonds; its tendrils of hair floating behind as if in a wind. The tiny red suckers at the ends of its locks snapped and hissed at Blunt as it passed. A second biped, gaunt and cavernous of chest, dried leathery skin stretched over wiry, ropy limbs, two huge swords jutting behind its shoulders, strode by. Others of every kind jostled him on the street.

Yet in that vast crowd was no recognizable face, nor even the sight of an Asp, save for his companion. No speech or voice did he recognize.

The hollow in the captain’s stomach grew emptier and colder. He was alone — alone as no one of his kind had ever been. Forever alone, perhaps!

“Someone is coming! The ruler of this city?”

In the street ahead, where the Asp’s skinny finger pointed, was a stir and bustle. Bodies pressed back against the honey-stone walls to make room. Slender figures clad in shining gold armor in an advance guard strode with ceremonial iron maces swinging in gauntleted hands. Behind trod larger bearers, sinewy beings with pale golden fur and huge round amber eyes, carrying a swaying palanquin of colored silk curtains and ivory bars on their bowed, naked shoulders. The rider within could not be seen, although the procession drew rapidly closer.

The guards were now but yards away. Blunt saw sun sparkle off their opaque visors and heard the pants of the perspiring bearers.

Then suddenly the air rent, and a dozen dark shapes boiled through the tear, and fell upon the guards.

Screams and panicked uproar ensued. Bystanders bolted left and right. As Blunt hesitated, one of the attackers detached from the struggling pile, arched its back like a pouncing weasel, and fixed a blazing glare upon the palanquin.

“No you don’t,” Blunt said, and took three rapid steps forward.

His fist connected with the back of the creature’s head. The skull was softer than he expected, for its brain splattered like a melon inside its metallic head cover. It dropped without a sound. Another flung itself on Blunt with a feral yowl, raking his arm with its claws.

The captain swore and seized it by the neck in one huge hand. He smashed it headfirst against the wall. That one, too, dropped flaccidly to the stone. Blunt waded into the melee and smashed two more heads together. They broke like eggs.

“Any more?” the man panted. “Bring ’em on!”

But no reply came. Six assassins lay in a tangled mess at his feet, with ichor oozing through dents in their armor. Guards too lay still and dead. The palanquin, abandoned by its fleeing bearers, rested askew on the paving.

“Perhaps this was not wise,” the Asp said. “I was, after all, merely a devotee of the Big-Bellied Fat One, not Kavi the Fearsome. I am not fond of battle, and even less of hangings, prisons, executions and torture. I suggest we run for it, human!”

“Not until I’ve seen what’s inside that cart.” Blunt stepped forward.

But before his fingers grasped the silken folds, small gold-furred fingers drew back the curtain. Two large amber eyes in a triangular, sharp-chinned face met his stare with eerie serenity. Blunt saw a strange bulge in its forehead — a lidded eye.

Then it spoke. “You have come at last,” it — she — said in a throaty yowl. “Ah, lover, I have waited for you!”

“You speak English!” the captain stuttered disbelievingly.

“Yes,” she said, and stretched and arched, like a satisfied weasel. “You taught it to me — you will teach it to me. I am Estee, and I have seen your coming — with this.”

And the Eye in her forehead opened. The Eye swirled with a milky vortex. Blunt lifted his hand to shield himself from its gaze.

“Welcome to the city of the Chronosians,” she said, while Blunt shrank from that terrible stare. “That is the name you will give us. Welcome, James Sherman Blunt! Time is something we no longer have in abundance. Our dying future falls swiftly on us. That, too, I have seen. Come!”

Part 5

Perhaps it was inevitable that one night, when the sweet-sap flowers in her garden opened their huge white petals in the moonlight, he became her lover.

But for weeks he did not yield. Because if Estee wielded a bizarre fascination for the man, so too did she repel. She was not human. When she feasted, she tore small live things with the neat points of her fangs, and wiped the trails of blood from her lips with her small, dainty fingers.

Nor could he endure her Eye. Never could he endure the horrid stare of that opened Eye.

The Chronosians were rich, and lived in the most perfect peace. For there was no hardship or trouble they could not See and avoid. Crimes, she told him, were never committed in Shallalu. For before the thought was formed, the guardians of the city were there, and the evil deed averted, and the rebellious wish harshly punished.

“So it has always been,” she said to him in her scented garden, “until now. Only Chronosians are hidden from each other in the great sea of Time (you will tell me, one day, of the god who swallowed his own children but could not avoid his doom). I see the passage of my kind, as one sees the wake of a ship. But the ship itself, or my own kind, I cannot see.”

She took his hand and played with his fingers. “Aye, somewhere in the future, will begin a great war. It will engulf us — past, present, and future. You know assassins have already attempted to kill me. Yes, the lords of Time will kill each other, and you, my lover, know already the end of it.”

Her amber eyes were as calm as stones. She wore a white robe pinned at one shoulder. The cloth was gauzy. Through it he could see her sinuous body. Alien muscle rippled beneath her furred skin as she moved. White gleamed between her lips, not teeth but fangs.

Jim Blunt pulled away his hand. “I’m not your pet, lady.”

She touched his face. “That I know. I would indeed I could keep you chained by me forever. But I know our time together is short. Do not deny me! I will pay for this; yes, you do not know the great price I will pay for it!”

Still not a ripple disturbed the calm of her gaze. She knelt before him and reached up with her slim arms, but the man caught her wrist in his hard fingers.

“This is not my time. I must return.”

“Yes,” she replied and bowed her head. “That is the price I must one day pay. But until then...”

The man drew her up and pressed her slender form against his body. He bent his head. Her kisses held always the iron undertone of blood, and her caresses scored thin red lines upon his back. “Until then...”

Part 6

“Leave?” the Asp whistled in loud amusement, clasping its hands across its newly rotund belly. “Are you a fool, man? You live in a luxury you could but dream of before. Is the love of the female too great a price to pay for it? Foolish man!”

Jim Blunt looked out the tall window at the garden below, a frown drawing his pale brows. He shrugged. “I’m not cut out for the life of a gigolo,” he replied curtly.

“I feared that,” Hzuma said. “Your demon drives you — I saw it in you. You have here all one could desire, but it is not enough. You must measure yourself against the risk of death; challenge that next mountain. Ah, to be young again! Though I was never such a fool.”

“I’m leaving,” Blunt said. “Are you going with me or not?”

“Look at me,” the Asp said. “I am fat. How good it is to be fat! My scales shine once more. My belly swells like the brood-filled womb of a birthing one; my venom...” The Asp shook the loose sac at its wrist in sudden frustration. “Well, one day my vigor will return to me. We have no enemy, and no curse, to fear here. What need have I of venom in this peaceful place?”

“Are you going, or not?”

The Asp sighed. “The furry female has no interest in me,” it murmured. “Will she still feed me and let me lounge all day in her garden, if her lover abandons her? What do you think, human? I think not.”

“You’re getting too fat,” the man replied. “Time to hustle out of here. We’ll take our chances.”

The Asp caressed its belly regretfully. “Perhaps you are right, human.” It cocked its head. “But listen! We have visitors?”

“Chronosians,” Blunt whispered, looking down from the window. “Aristocrats of some kind. Two of them.”

A bitterly imperious voice spoke below their vantage point. It was the voice of his lover. “What brings two such great lords to my unworthy abode?”

“Estee,” the older visitor replied, raising his hand in the sign of greeting. “We have a serious matter to discuss.”

“I listen, my uncle and my prince.”

“There have been three attempts upon your life,” the visitor said, in the yowling speech Blunt had only begun to comprehend. “Our kinsmen of our future are determined to destroy you. I see the threads of doom, my child, wrapped about you. What have you done, oh my child?”

“I? Nothing, my lord.”

“The strangers,” the second visitor snarled, showing pointed fangs in his red-furred face. “Cast them out, Estee!”

“One is my lover,” she replied in the same proud, bitter tones.

“Take a lover of your people, my child,” the uncle replied. “These must die. I see the shadow of a terrible fate about them. They must die, my child, for the good of our people.”

Silence fell, broken at last by a mewling breath. “If it must be so — it must be. But not until tonight, my lord. Give me until tonight!”

“The guardians of the city are at your gate. I regret, my child, but it must be now. Go into your house, Estee, and do not interfere. Where are your guests?”

Blunt drew back from the open window with a sharply drawn breath. “They’re going to kill us,” he whispered.

“There,” Estee said. She must have pointed, although he could not see her. “They are swimming in the lower pool — I saw them there not long ago.”

“She’s throwing them off the trail,” Blunt muttered.

The Asp put its hand inside its somewhat more snugly fitted robe and drew out its gun.

“Over the wall and away,” it hissed. “Now!”

“Wait,” the captain breathed.

Footsteps receded. When Blunt stole to the window once more, he saw Estee below, alone. She lifted her gaze to him. Her amber eyes glowed.

“There is a chance,” she called softly. “There is still a chance to save you — quickly, my love! Follow me!”

Blunt straddled the windowsill. “Stand back. I’m jumping down.”

The Asp peered over the edge. “My old bones,” it grumbled. But it followed nimbly enough.

“This way!” she whispered when they stood beside her. “I have prepared for this day — now you must trust me. I know a secret passage — a tunnel to where you must go. Follow me, for your lives!” And she fled, swift as a racing deer.

Blunt remembered little of that pounding flight. Straight as a bullet Estee ran to a curtained wall. A long unused door behind opened with groaning protest. Beyond lay a dark passage, too low and too narrow for Blunt to pass easily, dank with long undisturbed air. Still he raced with no care for his scraped arms and bumped head. Estee ran ever before him, a glimpse of flashing golden limbs. The blood thundered in his head, and his pulse stabbed furiously in his ribs, as he sought to keep pace. Behind him, he heard the Asp’s whistling gasps.

At last the downward-sloping tunnel curved up. They climbed dimly lit stairs, passing through great empty cavernous rooms. His lover halted before a strangely marked door. Its surface was covered with writing he could not read, and in the center was a single Eye.

“You must be swift,” she gasped, catching the captain’s hand. “Swift, for your lives! Beyond this door is the greatest, darkest sorcery of our people — a Door to the Future. It has never been opened. But by it you may return, my love, as you were ever meant to, to your own time. This is my final gift to you.”

“Future?” the Asp said. “But that would...”

She leapt in the air to strike its scaled face a ringing, open-palmed blow. “Silence, foul creature!” she snarled, and turned again to the man. “When I open this door, my love, you will see a bright white light. Enter; no more is required. You will be returned to the same instant you left.”

“When we were about to get eaten,” the Asp protested under its breath. “That’s a great help!”

“For that, too, I prepared.” She drew a rod out of her robe. “This will disable the guardians. Aim it, and press this switch. Goodbye, my love!”

The captain took the rod in his big hand. He looked down with a frown. “I couldn’t stay,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She stood on tiptoes to kiss him swiftly. “I knew. Yet for a while you were mine — that suffices. Go now, my love!”

But the captain lingered. “I’ve loved many women. Many I’ve almost forgotten. But I won’t forget you.”

“This is a bad idea,” the Asp mumbled. “The time-threads...”

She opened the door. A shivering, milky light spilled forth. “My Eye will watch over you, as long as it can. Go now!”

“Wait,” the captain said. “What’s this about the...”

“The time-threads will collapse!” the Asp howled. “It will be the end of...”

But with unexpected strength, she thrust them both into the baleful light. The Asp’s howl followed Blunt through the rent in the universe — into the dark howling night, once more, of Shallalu-To-Be.

Part 7
conclusion

Jim Blunt rose to his feet and brushed off his backside. The fabric was slashed, and he winced from a bleeding gash in his flesh, too.

But looking at the monstrous dog-like creatures lying at his feet, he thought he was lucky to have no more than a nip in his buttocks and the loss of a pair of pants. The creatures still quivered. They were not quite alive, perhaps — but certainly not dead. Perhaps they could not be killed. But at least they were presently immobile, and that was good enough for him.

“That’s a handy gadget,” he said, breathing hard as he shoved the device into his belt. “Whips of fire! I wonder what it is?”

His companion, sitting at his feet, shook its scaly head mournfully. “We caused a catastrophic collapse in space-time,” Hzuma said. “You, my friend, brought on the death of Shallalu. You precipitated the collapse of that great civilization! Future time travel — that’s something that just shouldn’t happen!”

The man looked up at the stars with bleak eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I understand that — now.”

A long silence fell. The Asp sighed, and mournfully examined its shriveled poison sacs. “The curse, too,” it said. “Ah, the curse falls on me once more!”

Jim Blunt looked down with a ghost of a smile on his tormented face. “You never escaped it, old friend,” he said. “Or it never was. Take your pick.”

“What?” the Asp protested. “Of course I escaped it! Why, the Eating God was not yet born!”

The captain leaned down and pulled his companion to its feet with one strong hand. “Greed is eternal,” he said. “Whatever made you think you could outrun the god of everlasting greed, Hzuma? Come on, old snake. I’ll buy us a bottle of good bourbon to share. It’s been quite a night.”

to Challenge 394...