Innkeeper's Song

THE FOX

Too hot. Too hot. Poor little fox, slipping and turning inside nasty draggly bag of wet fur. Man-shape has no fur, but Nyateneri threatens a dozen times death if she sees. So no man-shape, no nice red ale in the taproom, nothing but hot wind in the hot weeds under the tree where chickens sleep. Like eating old brooms. Poor fox.

Day, night, on and on. Nothing to do but sleep. I can sleep a hundred years, if I want—eat nothing, drink nothing, wake if you think about me. But once I look up and there she is, looking down, Lukassa. Eyes so old in that face—as old as I am, almost. She says, “Fox, fox,” so softly. Bends down, picks me up, like the first night, tucks me against her shoulder, against her neck. I lick sweet salt, only a little little.

“My fox,” she says. “Help him.”

Him? Lukassa feels me growl, holds fast. “Oh, fox, he is kind man, he is kind to people.” Not to foxes. Lukassa: “And he is in such danger.” Good. Let that other one take him by scruff and tail, see how he likes it. I lick her throat again. Take man-shape now? But she squeezes me till I squeak, says, “You know them, the ones who come at night. I know you know them. You can make them go away.”

Make magician go away, nicer. Lukassa: “He needs to die. It is his time, he needs to die.” I curl up in her arms, close eyes. Lukassa says, “But if he dies now—sick, sleepless, raging—then he will become like them, only worse, much worse. There is a word, but I forget.”

Griga’ath, yes, too bad, who cares? Lukassa lifts my head, waits long for me to look back. “Fox, fox, I know there is nothing you can do to help me—but please, for him. I am asking you because we are friends.”

Kisses nose, sets me down. “Go to him.” And stands there, all trust, all believing, waiting for me to trot right away, off to save wicked magician from night visitors. I lie down where I am, let my tongue hang out. Lukassa’s eyes bright with sadness. “Fox.” Waits, turns away. I yawn in the dust—any chickens having bad dreams, slipping off branches? No. My sadness. One eye awake for Nyateneri, one ear up for fat innkeeper, then back to sleep—no trouble in stupid griga’aths, not for foxes. Trouble is magicians.

But, but. No sooner wriggled some comfort out of crackly weeds, here comes old nothing at me again. “Find out, find out. Too much restless, what is moving?” I know what is moving—stupid magicians, snatching at each other across the sky. Stupid, stupid magicians, no more, no less—but old nothing says, “Find out,” and there, no more sleeping for poor fox. So here I am after all, trotting right off to Lukassa’s wizard, hello, and is it bad voices keeping you awake, kind friend? How nice, some justice yet. Perhaps a fox can add a few words.

Deep, hot dark. Inn door all locked and barred, but mice know a rotted board in the kitchen, and what mice know fox knows. Scrape, wriggle, shake, and here we are under Shadry’s great oven—still warm, too, fire snuggled down into ashes for the night, like the dirty small boy asleep on a couple of chairs in a corner. Not a sound, only my claws clicking across the stones.

Up the stairs with the draft, down the hall with frightened beetles. Candlelight squirming under door of magician’s room, trying to get out of there, and no wonder. Oh yesyes, I do know those voices, I know smells. Smell like lightning, they do, smell like drains under bathhouse, like bloody snow where sheknath have been eating. For a moment my fur shivers for poor old magician, but it passes. Too many magicians in the world, no one knows like me.

Outside the room, and as soon stay outside. No fear, but I do not like to be near them. Voices hurt my teeth. Old nothing: “In, fox.” Man-shape or this, which? Think about it, take the man-shape—why, who knows? Better to walk in on two legs, maybe. Easier to look through the keyhole.

The room is full of them, maggots heaving in a dead thing, making it seem to breathe. Some with faces, some without, some with glass, fire, pulsing flowery guts where face should be. Some with no shape, no body—only a little shadow, little dark bending in the air. Some pretty as pigeons, rabbits—others, eyes refuse them, those others, even my eyes. They crouch on bedposts, sprawl on windowsill, scuttle this way, that way along the rafters. Never saw so many in one place. Most times, you have to look a special slanty way, close one eye, to see them at all. Other side of mirrors, they come from.

Magician sees them. Hoho, magician sees them. He walks back and forth, back and forth, never looks at them, never sits down on bed. Must not stand still, must not rest, not with them. Gray once, white now he is—ash-white, burned white, like Lukassa. Lines raked down his face, clawmarks without blood. Back and forth he goes, head up, feet stamping, singing a bad song, a soldiers’ song:

Over and over, wheezing it out in his burned voice, even Nyateneri doesn’t know that one. So many verses, too. If he stops, even once, they will be on him—oh, not with claws and teeth, though you’d think so to see them, but with eyes, voices, sweet slithering laughter, on him with old shames, old betrayals, old rotting secrets. Twist your memories, they can, wrench good dreams into shapes too wrong to bear, too real to bear. Have your soul hanging in ribbons that fast, I know.

Magicians never lock their doors. I push it open, walk in, leaving just a crack in case of accidents. Hot everywhere else, cool as knives here. Jolly Grandfather man-shape gazes around, thumps magician’s shoulder, booms out, “Ah there, scoundrel, why didn’t you tell anyone you were having a party?” Eyes as big as coach wheels, eyes in dark wet bunches, eyes on the tips of tails and tentacles—all turn toward man-shape. Shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be able to see them, bright-eyed Grandfather. Only magician never looks up, but trudges on, up and down the room, croaking away:

Tired, tired, tired he is, man-shape’s slap almost knocked him over. Lukassa would weep. Not me. I say to old nothing, This is what it is, what is moving, no more than that. Goodbye, thank you, fox can go now. But you never know with old nothing. “Stay. Watch. Too much power here, wild, wrong. Stay and see.”

And there’s fair for you, there’s justice—nothing better for a fox to do than wait among nasty figments until morning comes or magician dies, either. Push in with them on the bed, on windowsill, must I, listen all night long to captain and corporal, all because old nothing thinks one magician is different from another? Nonono, not this time, not this fox, no fear. Too many chickens expecting me elsewhere.

But what, then? Man-shape cannot simply walk out, old nothing would never permit. Very well, sendings must leave, just as Lukassa begs, because it suits me—me, no one else. Think, fox. Man-shape slaps magician on shoulder again, keeps him company in the chorus:

A good song. Magician keeps stamping and singing, eyes down always—won’t even look at nice old Grandfather man-shape, no more than at sendings. But Grandfather looks at everything, eyes bright as my teeth. Grandfather shouts out to sendings, greeting them by their names, names like night in the mouth, like broken glass, names like burning oil, dead water, like wind. Wind in bad places.

They don’t like it, being called by their names. Don’t scream and scatter, don’t turn to stone, but they don’t like it. Interesting. Couldn’t harm them if I cared to—or they me—but interesting still. Grandfather man-shape shouts louder, makes stupid jokes of names, even puts them into marching magician’s song. Hissing and mumbling now, angrier at me than ever at him. Brighter and brighter they grow, all seething with the same black fire, mark of the power that set them on old magician. Room surges with their hurtful little voices, they drown left-right, even drown man-shape’s bellowing. Magician buckles, stumbles to knees, hands over ears, over face, no more song.

On him in a moment now, the lot of them, laughing, mocking, gnawing, he’ll not rise again as what he was. Too bad, Lukassa—enough for you, old nothing? One less magician—one more griga’ath, and who cares? Not this fox.

But then this magician turns, still on his knees, eyes wide, blazing green as the sky just after sunset. He throws out one hand, says three words, dry grass rattling—and gone, all of them, all at once, gone, blown-out candles, slamming doors, dew-bugs in a starik’s mouth. Nothing remains—not an echo, not a twist of smoke, only a cold narrow room left huge by its emptiness. This magician stands up, slowly, smiles very slowly.

“Thank you,” he says, as Grandfather man-shape blinks and shrivels into a red fox sitting on the bed. “That was becoming quite exhausting.”

“No thanks wanted,” I tell him. I am puzzled, hate that, hate puzzled. I say, “It was not to help you.”

Smile widens and widens, teeth or no teeth. “I know that, but I am still just as grateful. It was most clever of you to realize that their own names hurt their ears as much as they do ours. There will be others here, very soon, but at least I will rest a little and perhaps think of a new song to keep them at bay. The captain and the corporal are beginning to lose their charm.”

Brushes me off the bed like dust, lies down sighing. My nice teeth grind together, but too many stories about foxes who bite magicians. “Snap your fingers, mumble words, send them off,” I say. “Why bother with songs?”

Half-asleep already, he looks smaller with every breath. “Too tired,” he whispers. “Have to face them, hear them, too tired, they’d have me. Too tired for anything but singing. Thank you, old friend.”

Last word is a snore. I stand looking at him for a long time, not wanting to. Friend of his, this fox, friend of any magician? He knows better, wicked old tired man. Yet I have gone to him, not wanting to—helped him, not meaning to, meaning only to help this fox. Just as Lukassa begs, kissing nose. I hate this. Magician snores on, ends of mustache fluttering in the wind. Some other is here, watching with me—not old nothing, but a deadness, a dead place, window-high, just beyond bed, no bigger than my front paws together. Where it is, no air. Not for foxes, this room. Good Grandfather man-shape, to leave the door a little open.

So back down the hall, clickclick, clickclick, past more snoring, past sighs, whimpers, a fox indoors, swimming through currents of human noises, human smells. I hear magician muttering in his sleep, same as always:

My feet pick up the rhythm, not wanting to.