Old Venus

The Wizard of the Trees

JOE R. LANSDALE

I AM HERE BECAUSE OF A TERRIBLE HEADACHE. I KNOW YOU will want more of an explanation than that, but I can’t give it to you. I can only say I was almost killed when the great ship Titanic went down. There was an explosion, a boiler blowing, perhaps. I can’t say. When the ship dove down and broke in half, I felt as if I broke in half with it.

An object hit me in the head underwater. I remember there was something down there with me. Not anyone on the ship, not a corpse, but something. I remember its face, if you can call it that: full of teeth and eyes, big and luminous, lit up by a light from below, then I was gasping water into my lungs, and this thing was pulling me toward a glowing pool of whirling illumination. It dragged me into warmth and into light, and my last sight of the thing was a flipping of its fishlike tail; and then my head exploded.

Or so it seemed.

When I awoke, I was lying in a warm, muddy mire, almost floating, almost sinking. I grabbed at some roots jutting out from the shoreline and pulled myself out of it. I lay there with my headache for a while, warming myself in the sunlight, then the headache began to pass. I rolled over on my belly and looked at the pool of mud. It was a big pool. In fact, pool is incorrect. It was like a great lake of mud. I have no idea how I managed to be there, and that is the simple truth of it. I still don’t know. It felt like a dream.

With some difficulty I had managed a bunk in steerage on the Titanic, heading back home to my country, the United States of America. I had played out my string in England, thought I might go back and journey out West where I had punched cows and shot buffalo for the railroad. I had even killed a couple of men in self-defense, and dime novels had been written about me, the Black Rider of the Plains. But that was mostly lies. The only thing they got right was the color of my skin. I’m half-black, half-Cherokee. In the dime novels I was described as mostly white, which is a serious lie. One look at me will tell you different.

I was a roughrider with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and when it arrived in England to perform, they went back and I had stayed on. I liked it for a while, but as they say, there’s no place like home. Not that I had really had one, but we’re speaking generally here.

I struggled to my feet and looked around. Besides the lake of mud, there were trees. And I do mean trees. They rose up tall and mighty all around the lake, and there didn’t seem anything to do but to go among them. The mud I wouldn’t go back into. I couldn’t figure what had happened to me, what had grabbed me and pulled me into that glowing whirlpool, but the idea of its laying a grip on me again was far less than inviting. It had hauled me here, wherever here was, and had retreated, left me to my own devices.

The mud I had ended up in was shallow, but I knew the rest of the lake wasn’t. I knew this because as I looked out over the vast mire, I saw a great beast moving in it; a lizard, I guess you’d call it. At least that was my first thought, then I remembered the bones they had found out in Montana some years back and how they were called dinosaurs. I had read a little about it, and that’s what I thought when I saw this thing in the mud, rising up gray and green of skin, lurching up and dipping down, dripping mud that plopped bright in the sunlight. Down it went, out of sight, and up again, and when it came up a third time it had a beast in its mouth; a kind of giant slick, purple-skinned seal, its blood oozing like strawberry jam from between the monster’s teeth.

It may seem as if I’m nonchalant about all this, but the truth is I’m telling this well after the fact and have had time to accept it. But let me jump ahead a bit.

The world I am on is Venus, and now it is my world.

—–—

My arrival was not the only mystery. I am a man of forty-five, and in good shape, and I like to think of sound mind. But good as I felt at that age, I felt even better here on this warm, damp, tree-covered world. I would soon discover there was an even greater mystery I could not uncover. But I will come to that even if I will not arrive at a true explanation.

I pulled off my clothes, which were caked with mud, and shook them out. I had lost both my shoes when the ship went down; they had been sucked off me by the ocean’s waters with the same enthusiasm as a kid sucking a peppermint stick. I stood naked with my clothes under my arm, my body covered in mud, my hair matted with it. I must have looked pretty foolish, but there I was with my muddy clothes and nowhere to go.

I glanced back at the muddy lake, saw the great lizard and his lunch were gone. The muddy lake, out in the center, appeared to boil. My guess was it was hot in the middle, warm at the edges. My host, the thing that had brought me here, had fortunately chosen one of the warm areas for me to surface.

I picked a wide path between the trees and took to the trail. It was shadowy on the path. I supposed it had been made by animals, and from the prints, some of them very large. Had I gone too far off the path I could easily have waded into darkness. There was little to no brush beneath the trees because there wasn’t enough sunlight to feed them. Unusual birds and indefinable critters flittered and leaped about in the trees and raced across my trail. I walked on for some time with no plans, no shoes, my clothes tucked neatly under my arm like a pet dog.

Now, if you think I was baffled, you are quite correct. For a while I tried to figure out what had nabbed me under the waters and taken me through the whirling light and left me almost out of the mud, then disappeared. No answers presented themselves, and I let it go and set my thoughts to survival. I can do that. I have a practical streak. One of the most practical things was I was still alive, wherever I was. I had survived in the wilderness before. Had gone up in the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter with nothing but a rifle, a knife, and a small bag of possible. I had survived, come down in the spring with beaver and fox furs to sell.

I figured I could do that, I could make it here as well, though later on I will confess to an occasional doubt. I had had some close calls before, including a run-in with Wyatt Earp that almost turned ugly, a run-in with Johnny Ringo that left him dead under a tree, and a few things not worth mentioning, but this world made all of those adventures look mild.

Wandering in among those trees, my belly began to gnaw, and I figured I’d best find something I could eat, so I began looking about. Up in the trees near where I stood there were great balls of purple fruit and birds about my size, multicolored and feathered, with beaks like daggers. They were pecking at those fruits. I figured if they could eat them, so could I.

My next order of business was to shinny up one of those trees and lay hold of my next meal. I put my clothes under it, the trunk of which was as big around as a locomotive, grabbed a low-hanging limb, and scuttled up to where I could see a hanging fruit about the size of a buffalo’s head. It proved an easy climb because the limbs were so broad and so plentiful.

The birds above me noticed my arrival but ignored me. I crawled out on the limb bearing my chosen meal, got hold of it, and yanked it loose, nearly sending myself off the limb in the process. It would have been a good and hard fall, but I liked to think all that soft earth down there, padded with loam, leaves, and rot, would have given me a soft landing.

I got my back against the tree trunk, took hold of the fruit, and tried to bite into it. It was as hard as leather. I looked about. There was a small broken limb jutting out above me. I stood on my perch, lifted the fruit, and slammed it into where the limb was broke off. It stuck there, like a fat tick with a knife through it. Juice started gushing out of the fruit. I lifted my face below it and let the nectar flood into my mouth and splash over me. It was somewhat sour and tangy in taste, but I was convinced that if it didn’t poison me, I wouldn’t die of hunger. I tugged on the fruit until it ripped apart. Inside it was pithy and good to eat. I scooped it out with my hands and filled up on it.

I had just finished my repast when above me I heard a noise, and when I looked up, what I saw was to me the most amazing sight yet in this wild new world.

Silver.

A bird.

But no, it was a kind of flying sled. I heard it before I saw it, a hum like a giant bee, and when I looked up the sunlight glinted off it, blinding me for a moment. When I looked back, the sled tore through the trees, spun about, and came to light with a smack in the fork of a massive limb. It was at an angle. I could see there were seats on the sled, and there were people in the seats, and there was a kind of shield of glass at the front of the craft. The occupants were all black of hair and yellow of skin, but my amazement at this was nothing compared to what amazed me next.

Another craft, similar in nature, came shining into view. It glided to a stop, gentle and swift, like a gas-filled balloon. It floated in the air next to the limb where the other had come to a stop. It was directed by a man sitting in an open seat who was like those in the other machine, a man with yellow skin and black hair. Another man, similar in appearance, sat behind him, his biggest distinction a large blue-green half-moon jewel on a chain hung around his neck. This fellow leaped to his feet, revealing himself nude other than for the sword harness and the medallion, drew a thin sword strapped across his back, dropped down on the other craft, and started hacking at the driver, who barely staggered to his feet in time to defend himself. The warrior’s swords clanged together. The other two occupants of the wrecked craft had climbed out of the wells of their seats with drawn swords and were about to come to their comrades’ aid when something even more fantastic occurred.

Flapping down from the sky were a half dozen winged men, carrying swords and battle-axes. Except for the harness that would serve to hold their weapons, and a small, hard, leather-looking pouch, they, like the others, were without clothes. Their eyes were somewhat to the side of their heads, there were beaklike growths jutting from their faces, and their skin was milk-white, and instead of hair were feathers. The colors of the feathers were varied. Their targets were the yellow men in the shiny machine on the tremendous tree limb.

It became clear then that the man with the necklace, though obviously not of the winged breed, was no doubt on their side. He skillfully dueled with the driver of the limb-beached craft, parried deftly, then with a shout ran his sword through his opponent’s chest. The mortally wounded warrior dropped his weapon and fell backward off his foe’s sword, collapsed across the fore of his vessel.

The two warriors in league with the dead man were fighting valiantly, but the numbers against them were overwhelming. The man with the medallion, or amulet, stood on the fore of the craft, straddling the carcass of his kill, and it was then that I got a clear view of his face. It has been said, and normally I believe it, that you can’t judge someone by his appearance. But I tell you that I have never seen anyone with such an evil countenance as this man. It wasn’t that his features were all that unusual, but there was an air about him that projected pure villainy. It was as if there was another person inside of him, one black of heart and devious of mind, and it seemed that spectral person was trying to pressure itself to the surface. I have never before or since had that feeling about anyone, not even Comanche and Apache warriors who had tried to kill me during my service with the Buffalo Soldiers.

It was then that one of the two defenders, having driven back a winged warrior he had been dueling with, pulled with his free hand a pistol. It was a crude-looking thing, reminiscent of an old flintlock. He raised the pistol in the direction of his adversary and fired. The pistol’s bark was like the cough of a tubercular man. The winged man spouted blood, dropped his sword, brought both hands to his face, then relaxed and fell, diving headfirst like a dart. As the winged man dove between the limbs near me, crashed through some leaves, and plummeted to the ground, the sword he dropped stuck conveniently in the limb before me. I took hold of it thinking that now I had a weapon for self-defense, and that it was a good time to depart. I told myself that this fight, whatever it was about, was not my fight. They were so busy with one another, I had not even been seen. So, of course, casting aside common sense, I decided I had to get into the thick of it.

It might well have been the fact that the men in the craft were outnumbered, but I must admit that one glance at the man with the jeweled medallion and I knew where my sentiments lay. I know how that sounds, but I assure you, had you seen his face, you would have felt exactly the same way.

Why I thought one more sword might make a difference, considering the horde of winged men assisting the evil-faced man was enormous, I can’t explain to you. But with the thin, light sword in my teeth, I began to climb upward to aid them.

This is when I realized certain things, certain abilities that I had sensed upon arrival, but were now proving to be true. I felt strong, agile, not only as I might have felt twenty years earlier but in a manner I had never experienced. I moved easily, squirrel-like is what I thought, and in no time I reached the craft caught in the fork of the limb.

The winged men were fluttering about the two survivors like flies on spilled molasses. The man with the necklace had paused to watch, no longer feeling the need to engage. He observed as his birds flapped and cawed and swung their weapons at his own kind. It was then that he saw me, rising up over the lip of the limb, finding my feet.

I removed the sword from my teeth and sprang forward with a stabbing motion, piercing the heart of one of the winged attackers. It fluttered, twisted, and fell.

The yellow-skinned couple glanced at me but accepted my help without question or protest for obvious reasons. I must have been a sight. Naked, having left my clothes at the base of the great tree. My skin and hair matted with mud. I looked like a wild man. And it was in that moment I noticed something I should have noticed right off, but the positioning and the leaves and smaller limbs of the tree had blocked my complete view. One of the yellow skins was a woman. She was lean and long and her hair was in a rough cut, as if someone had just gathered it up in a wad and chopped it off with a knife at her shoulders. She was not nude as her opponents were. She wore, as did her companion, a sort of black skirt, and a light covering of black leather breast armor. She had a delicate, but unquestionably feminine shape. When I saw her face I almost forgot what I was doing. Her bright green, almond-shaped eyes sucked me into them. I was so nearly lost in them that a winged man with an axe nearly took my head off. I ducked the axe swing, lunged forward, stretching my leg way out, thrusting with my sword, sticking him in the gut. When I pulled my sword back, his guts spilled out along with a gush of blood. As he fell out of view, more of the things came down from the sky and buzzed around us, beating their wings. They were plenty, but it was soon obvious our skills with weapons were superior to theirs. They used the swords and axes crudely. They handled them with less skill than a child with a mop and a broom.

My partners—such as they were—were well versed in the use of the blade, as was I, having learned swordsmanship from an older man while I was among the Buffalo Soldiers. My teacher was a black man, like me, and had once lived in France. There he had been trained well in the use of the steel, and I in turn had learned this skill from him. So it was not surprising that in short order we had killed most of our attackers and sent the others soaring away in fear. The necklace-wearing man, who had been observing, now joined in, attempting to take me out of the fray, and I engaged him. He was good with the sword, quick. But I was quicker and more skilled, blessed with whatever strange abilities this world gave me. He caused me a moment’s trouble, but it only took me a few parries to grasp his method, which was not too unlike my own. A high-and-low attack, a way of using the eyes to mislead the opponent. I was gradually getting the better of him when his driver coasted his machine next to the limb. My opponent gave out with a wild cry, came at me with a surge of renewed energy, driving me back slightly, then he wheeled, leaped onto his machine, and slid quickly into his seat, smooth as a woman slipping sleek fingers into a calfskin glove. The sled with the two yellow men in it darted away.

I turned, lowered my bloodstained blade, and looked at those whose side I had joined. The woman spoke, and her words, though simple, hit me like a train.

She said, “Thank you.”

It was another side effect of my arrival here. I was not only stronger and more agile, I could understand a language I had never heard before. As soon as the words left her mouth they translated in my head. It was so immediate it was as if their language were my native tongue.

“You’re welcome,” I said. This seemed a trite thing to say, me standing there on a limb holding a sword, mud-covered and naked, with my business hanging out, but I was even more astonished to have my words understood by her without any true awareness that I was speaking my own language.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“Jack Davis,” I said. “Formerly of the United States Buffalo Soldiers.”

“The United States?” she asked.

“It’s a bit hard to explain.”

“You are covered in mud,” the man said, sheathing his sword.

“You are correct,” I said. I decided to keep it simple. “I fell into a mud lake.”

The man grinned. “That must have took some doing.”

“I consider myself a man of special talents,” I said.

The young woman turned her head in a curious fashion, glanced down at me. “Is your skin black, or is it painted?”

I realized what part of me she was studying. Under all that mud had I been Irish and not part Negro, my blush would have been as bright as the sinking sun. Before long it would become obvious to me that on this world nudity was not something shameful or indecent in their minds. Clothes for them were ornaments, or were designed to protect them from the weather, but they were not bothered by the sight of the flesh.

“Correct,” I said. “I am black. Very much so.”

“We have heard of black men,” she said. “But we have never seen them.”

“There are others like me?” I said.

“We have heard that this is so,” said the woman. “In the far south, though I suspect they are less muddy.”

“Again,” said the man, “we thank you. We were very much outnumbered and your sword was appreciated.”

“You seemed to be doing well without me, but I was glad to help,” I said.

“You flatter us,” he said.

“I am Devel, and this is my sister, Jerrel.”

I nodded at them. By this time Devel had turned to the sled and to the dead man lying on its front, bleeding. He bent down and touched his face. “Bandel is dead by Tordo’s hand, the traitor.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“He was a warrior, and there is nothing else to say,” said Jerrel, but she and Devel, despite their matter-of-fact tone, were obviously hurt and moved. That’s why what happened next was so surprising.

Devel dragged the corpse to the edge of the sled, then the limb, and without ceremony, flipped it over the side. “To the soil again,” he said.

This seemed more than unusual and disrespectful, but I was later to learn this is their custom. When one of their number dies, and since they live in high cities and populate the trees, this is a common method. If they die on the ground, they are left where they fell. This treatment was considered an honor.

I processed this slowly but kept my composure. My survival might depend on it. I said, “May I ask who these men were and why they were trying to kill you?”

Jerrel glanced at Devel, said, “He chose to help us without question. He is bonded to us in blood.”

“True,” Devel said, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced.

Jerrel, however, decided to speak. “They are the Varnin. And we are warriors of Sheldan. Prince and princess, actually. We are going to their country, in pursuit of the talisman.”

“You’re warring over a trinket?” I said.

“It is far more than a trinket,” she said. “And since there are only us two, it is hardly a war.”

“I would call in reinforcements.”

She nodded. “If there were time, but there is not.”

She did not elaborate. We left it at that for the time being, and set about releasing the silver craft from the limbs where it had lodged. This seemed like a precarious job to me, but I helped them do it. The craft proved light as air. When it came loose of the limbs it didn’t fall, but began to hum and float. Devel climbed into the front-seat position, where the dead man had been, touched a silver rod, and the machine hummed louder than before.

Jerrel climbed into one of the seats behind him, said, “Come with us.”

Devel glanced at her.

“We can’t leave him,” she said. “He looks to be lost.”

“You have no idea,” I said.

“And he helped us when we needed it,” she said. “He risked his life.”

“We have our mission,” he said.

“We will find a safe place for him,” she said. “We still have a long distance to go. We can not just abandon him.”

This discussion had gone on as if I were not standing there. I said, “I would appreciate your taking me somewhere other than this tree.”

Devel nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced.

I stepped into the machine, took a seat. Devel looked back at me. I could tell this was a development he was not fond of, in spite of the fact I had taken their side in the fight.

But he said nothing. He turned forward, touched the rod. The machine growled softly, glided away through a cluster of leaves and limbs. I ducked so as not to be struck by them. When I looked up, the machine had risen high in the sky, above the tree line, up into the sunny blue. I was astonished. It was such a delicate and agile craft, so far ahead of what we had achieved back home. This made me consider that, interestingly enough, their understanding of firearms was far behind ours. There was a part of me that felt that it would be nice if it stayed that way. It seemed humans and bird-men were quite capable of doing enough damage with swords and axes. As for the pistol Devel had fired, he had discarded it as if it had been nothing more than a worn-out handkerchief.

I glanced over the side, saw below all manner of creatures. There were huge, leather-winged monsters flying beneath us and in the clear areas between the trees. On the ground in the rare open spaces I could see monstrous lizards of assorted colors. The beasts looked up at the sound of our humming machine, their mouths falling open as if in surprise, revealing great rows of massive teeth. We passed over hot, muddy lakes boiling and churning with heat. Huge snakes slithered through the mud and onto the land and into the trees. It was beautiful and frightening. In a short time I had survived the sinking of a great ocean liner, an uncommon arrival in a hot mud lake, climbed a tree to eat, found a fight against a yellow man with a strange talisman who was assisted by winged creatures, and had taken sides in the fight. Now, here I was, lost and confused, flying above massive trees in a featherlight craft at tremendous speed, my body feeling more amazing than ever, as if someone had split open my skin and stuck a twenty-year-old inside me. It made my head spin.

“Exactly where are you going?” I had to raise my voice to be heard above the wind.

“Perhaps it is best we do not speak of it,” Devel said. “You aided us, but our mission is personal. You know what you know about the talisman and need know no more.”

“Understood, but where are you taking me?”

“I am uncertain,” Devel said.

“Very well,” I said, not wishing to be put out of the craft and left to my own devices. I needed to try to stay with them as long as I could to learn more about this world. Here was better than wandering the forest below; how much better off remained to be seen. As an old sergeant told me around a wad of chewing tobacco once, “If you ain’t dead, you’re living, and that’s a good thing.” It was one of the few bits of advice he had given me I had taken to heart, as he was always jealous of my education, which he called white man’s talk. I had been blessed with a Cherokee mother who had learned reading and writing in white man’s schools and had become a teacher. She always said education didn’t belong to anyone other than the one who was willing to take it. She also said education was more than words and marks on paper. She taught me the customs of the Cherokee, taught me tracking, about living in the wild. All the things I might need to survive.

That said, I preferred the comfort of the flying sled to the rawness of the wild world below. This way I had time to consider and plan, though I must admit my considerations and planning were not accomplishing a lot. It was more as if wheels were spinning inside my head but wouldn’t gain traction.

Besides, let me be entirely honest. The woman was why I wanted to remain. I was smitten. Those green eyes were like cool pools and I wanted to dive right into them. I wanted to believe there had been some kind of connection on her part, but considering my current appearance the only person or thing that might love me was a hog that had mistaken me for a puddle to wallow in.

I can’t say how long we flew, but I feel certain it was hours. I know that exhaustion claimed me after a while, the cool wind blowing against me, me snug in my seat. I might have felt better and stronger, but I had swum in the cold ocean, pulled myself from a hot mud pit, climbed a great tree, and fought a great fight, so I was tired. I drifted asleep for a while.

When I awoke the sun had dipped low in the sky, and so had we. We were coasting down between large gaps in the great trees. We came to trees so huge they would have dwarfed the redwoods of home. There was even one with shadowy gaps in it the size of small caves.

That’s when I saw that nearly all the trees had large gaps in them, from head to foot. It was part of their natural construct. As the sun finally set, we flew into one of those tight wooden caverns, Devel parked his airship, and we stepped out.

The night was dark as in the inside of a hole. No moon was visible. What stars there were made a thin light. But then, as I stood there looking out of the gap, soaking in the night, an amazing thing happened. It was as if there was suddenly dust in the air, and the dust glowed. I was confused for a moment, then some of the dust landed on me. It wasn’t dust at all, but little bugs that were as silver as the flying sled, shinier. The entire night was filled with them. They gave a glow to everything, bright as the missing moonlight.

I should pause here and jump ahead with something I later learned. There was no moonlight because there was no moon. This world was without one. Of all the things I had trouble getting used to, that was the one that most pained me. No bright coin of light coasting along in the night sky. In place of it were glowing insects, lovely in their own way, but they could not replace in my mind the moon that circled Earth.

Jerrel pulled a length of dark cloth from inside a container in the craft, fastened it to the top and bottom of our cavern. It stuck to where she put it without button or brace or tack or spike. The cloth was the same color as the tree we were in. I realized immediately, that at night, and perhaps in day at a decent distance, it would appear to be a solid part of the tree. We were concealed.

There were cloaks inside the craft’s container, red and thick. Jerrel gave Devel one, me one, took one for herself. She turned on a small lamp inside the craft. The source of its power I assumed was some kind of storage battery. It lit up the interior of our cavern quite comfortably.

Jerrel broke out some foodstuffs, and though I couldn’t identify what she gave me, except for a container of water, I lit into that chow like it was my last meal. For all I knew it was. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad, either.

Before long, Devel lay down and pulled his cloak over him and fell asleep. I was near that point myself, but I could tell Jerrel wanted to talk, that she was interested in me. She began with a few simple questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. I told her about the great ocean liner and what had happened to me, how I thought I might be in a dream. She assured me she was real and not a dream. When she laughed a little, the way she laughed, sweet and musical, it assured me my ears were hearing a real voice and that my eyes were seeing a strange and rare beauty.

Jerrel tried her best to explain to me where I was. She called the world she knew Zunsun. She took a slate from the craft with a marker, drew a crude drawing of the sun, then placed her planet two places from it. I knew enough basic astronomy to know she was talking about the planet we called Venus.

I learned there was only one language on Zunsun, and everyone spoke it, with varying degrees of accent according to region. I told her about the moon I missed, and she laughed, saying such a thing seemed odd to her, and it was impossible for her to grasp what it was I so sorely missed.

After a time, she opened the back of the sled and took out a large container of water. She also found a cloth and gave that to me to clean up with. I was nervous wiping myself down in front of her, but as she seemed disinterested, I went about it. Running water through my hair and fingers, wiping myself as clean as possible with what was provided. When I was nearly finished, I caught her eye appraising me. She was more interested than I had first thought.

I don’t know why, but Jerrel took me into her confidence. Had Devel been awake, I don’t know she would have. But I could tell she trusted me. It was an immediate bond. I have heard of and read of such things, but never believed them until then. Love at first sight was always a romantic writer’s foolishness to me, but now I saw the idea in an entirely new light, even if it was the light from a battery.

“Tordo has taken our half of the talisman,” she said. “The other half is in the city of the bird-men. Once it was whole, and its powers gave the bird-men a great advantage against us. Our people warred constantly against them. We had no real land to call our own. We moved among the trees, for we couldn’t defend ourselves well in a direct fight against the bird-men, not with them having both halves of the talisman and aided by wings.”

“Where does it come from?” I said. “What does it do?”

“I can only speak of legend. The halves have been separated a long time. One half was with our people, the other with theirs. It is said that in the far past the two tribes, weary of war, divided the talisman. This was not something the bird-men had to do, as they were winning the conflict, and we would not have lasted. But their warrior-king, Darat, felt we could live together. Against the advice of his council, he gave our people one half of the talisman and kept the other. Divided, it is powerless. United, it was a dangerous tool of war. No one remembers how it was made or of what it was made, or even what powers it possesses. When Darat died the tradition of peace carried on for many years with new rulers, but then the recent king of the bird-men, Canrad, was of a different mind. After many generations he wanted the lost power back.”

“And one of your people, Tordo, betrayed you?” I said.

Jerrel nodded. “He was a priest. It was his job to protect our half of the talisman. It was kept in a house of worship.”

“You worship half of a talisman?”

“Not the talisman. The peace it gives us. Peace from the bird-men, anyway. There are others who war against us, but they are less powerful. The bird-men could be a true threat. It surprises me that Canrad has taken this approach. The peace between us had worked for so long.

“What we are trying to do is stop Tordo before he delivers our half of the talisman. My father, King Ran, sent us. We did not want to alarm our people. We thought to overtake the thief swiftly, as we got news of his treachery immediately, Tordo’s and that of the lesser priest, the one who was with him in the flier. But it turned out Tordo was prepared for our pursuit. His actions hadn’t been of the moment, but were long prepared. He had the winged men waiting. An assistance given him by King Canrad. Tordo knows how my father thinks, knew he would try to catch him with as little alarm as possible by using a small force. He knew this because Tordo is my father’s brother, our uncle.”

“Betrayed by family,” I said. “There isn’t much worse.”

“We could go back and raise an army, but it would be too late. Two days and he will be in the city of the Varnin, and they will have both pieces of the talisman, and all of its power.”

“Seems to me, that being the case, you should have flown all night.”

Jerrel grimaced. “You may be telling the truth about being from another world.”

“You doubt me?” I asked.

She smiled, and it was brighter than the light from the battery. I melted like butter on a hot skillet.

“Let me show you why we do not fly at night. Why no one in his right mind does.”

She took hold of the cloth she had placed over the entrance to the tree cave, tugged it loose at one edge, said, “Come look.”

I looked, and what I saw astonished me. The sky was bright with the glowing insects, thicker than before. Their light showed me the sky was also full of great batlike creatures, swooping this way and that. They were the size of Conestoga wagons, but moved more lightly than the flying sled. They were snapping and devouring the shiny bugs in large bites, gulping thousands at a time.

“Fly at night, they will make sure you do not fly for long. We call them Night Wings. They rule the sky from solid dark until near first light, then they go away, far beyond the trees and into the mountains where they dwell.”

“This means your uncle has to stop for the night as well,” I said.

“Exactly,” she said. “When the Night Wings depart in the early morning, we will start out again, hope to catch up with them. They don’t have a tremendous lead, but it’s lead enough if they are able to arrive at the city of the Varnin and my uncle delivers the talisman.”

“Were you and your uncle ever close?”

“Close?” she said. “No. He was not close to my father. He felt he should have his place of rule. My guess is he hopes to do just that under the agreement of Canrad of Varnin. He would rather rule with a cloud over his head than not rule at all.”

“I would like to assist you. I have a good sword arm. I can help you stop your uncle. I pledge my allegiance to you.”

Jerrel grinned when I said that.

“I accept,” she said. “But Devel must accept as well.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said.

“For now, let us rest.”

We took our cloaks, stretched out on the floor of our wooden cave. I tried to sleep, and thought I would have no trouble, exhausted as I was. But I merely dozed, then I would awake thinking I was fighting the waters of the Great Atlantic, only to find I was indeed on Venus, sleeping in a tree, and sleeping not far away was the most beautiful and enticing woman I had ever known.

I was up when Jerrel and Devel rose.

It was partially dark, but some light was creeping through the cloth over the gap in the tree. Jerrel pulled it loose, let the beginnings of early morning seep in.

Jerrel and Devel moved to an area of our cave away from me and whispered. As they did, Devel would glance at me from time to time. His face was a mixture of emotions, none of them appeared to be amused.

After a moment Devel came to me, said, “Jerrel trusts you. I feel I must. Her judgment is generally sound.”

“I assure you,” I said, “I am trustworthy.”

“Words are easy, but you will have your chance to prove your loyalty,” he said. “Don’t let us down.”

“Did I let you down in the fight?”

“No. But what we face from here on out will be much worse. It will try all of us.”

“Then put me to the test,” I said.

We flew away from the tree and into the morning sky. As we went, the sun grew large and the sky grew bright. The glowing bugs were long gone to wherever they go—some in the gullets of the Night Fliers—and the hungry bat things were gone as well. We sailed on into the bright light and before long it was less bright and the clouds above were dark and plump with rain. Finally, the rain came, and it came hard and fast and began to flood the seats on the craft.

Devel guided our flying sled down and under the lower limbs of the trees. We dodged in between them swiftly, and close to limbs that for a moment looked like inevitable crash sites. But he avoided them, flicked us through clusters of leaves, then down under a series of trees that were smaller in height than the others, yet wide and numerous of branch with leaves so thick the rain could hardly get through. It was as if a great umbrella had been thrown over us. As we went, the sky darkened more and the rain hammered the trees and shook the leaves; random drops seeped through. Then came the lightning, sizzling across the sky with great gongs of thunder. There was a great crack and a flash, a hum of electricity, and a monstrous limb fell from one of the trees.

The lightning, as if seeking us out for dodging the rain, flicked down through a gap in the larger trees and hit one of the smaller ones just before we glided under it. A spot on the limb burst into a great ball of flame and there was an explosion of wood. It struck the front of the craft, hit so hard it was as if a great hand had taken hold of the front of the flying machine and flung it to the ground.

Fortunately we were not flying high at the time, but it was still a vicious drop. Had it not been for the centuries’ buildup of loam from leaves and needles and rotting fruit to cushion our fall, we would have burst apart like a tossed china cup.

We smacked the ground hard enough to rattle our teeth. The machine skidded through the loam like a plow breaking a field. It went along like that for a great distance beneath the trees, then hit something solid that caused us to veer hard left and wreck against the trunk of one of the smaller trees.

It was such an impact that for a long moment I was dazed. When I gathered my thoughts and put them into some reasonable shape of understanding, I examined my surroundings. I was in the middle seat of the flying sled, Devel ahead of me, Jerrel behind. But she wasn’t. She was missing. I struggled out of my seat, got up close to Devel. He wasn’t moving. He couldn’t. He was dead. A short limb jutting out from the tree had been driven securely through his chest, bursting his heart. His body was painted in blood.

I fell off the crumpled craft, landed on the ground, and started to crawl. When I got enough strength back to manage my feet under me, I searched around for Jerrel, screamed her name.

“Here,” she said. I turned, saw her rising up from behind a pile of leaves and branches. She was scratched up, but from where I stood she looked well enough, all things considered.

When I got to her she surprised me by taking me into her arms, clutching me to her.

“Devel?” she asked.

I gently freed myself from her embrace, shook my head. She made a squeaking noise and fell to her knees. I squatted beside her, held her as she shook and cried. As if to mock us, the sky grew light and the rain stopped. The world took on a pleasant, emerald glow.

I was still astonished to find that at death all that was done in way of ceremony was that the dead were placed on the ground. I assumed that in the humid air of Venus, aided by insects and internal decay, bodies would soon lose their flesh and find their way into the soil. But it was still disconcerting to see Devel pulled from the machine by Jerrel, stretched out on the soil to be left. Jerrel wept over him, violently, then she was through. She left him, as she said, to Become One With The All. I convinced her to stretch his cloak over him though she thought it was a waste of material. I know how this makes her sound, but I assure you, this was custom. I guess it was a little bit similar to some American Indian tribes leaving the corpses of the dead on platforms to be consumed by time and elements.

We traveled forward. The sky had completely cleared and the storm had moved on. We could hear it in the distance, roaring at the trees and the sky. I don’t know how long we walked, but finally we came to a clearing in the wilderness, and in the clearing were mounds of giant bones. Some were fresh enough that stinking flesh clung to them, others had almost disappeared into the ground itself. Teeth gleamed in the sunlight. In the distance the dark rain clouds moved as if stalking something, lightning flashed and thunder rolled and the wind sighed.

“It’s a kind of graveyard for the great beasts,” Jerrel said, looking around.

It was indeed. It went on for what I estimate to be ten or fifteen miles long, a half mile wide.

We had brought some supplies from the crippled flying sled with us, and we found the shade of some very large and well-aged bones, sat down in the shade the bones made, ignored the smell from stillrotting flesh, and ate our lunch. It was an odd place for a meal, but our stamina had played out. We sat and Jerrel talked about Devel. It was minor stuff, really. Childhood memories, some of it funny, some of it poignant, some of it just odd, but all of it loving. She talked for quite a while.

When our strength was renewed, we continued. I guess we had walked about a mile among the bones when we found her uncle’s airship. It was blackened and twisted and smacked down among a rib cage that looked like the frame of a large ship. The man I had seen before, the one who had been driving the craft, was still in it, though some creature had been at him—had actually sucked the flesh from his head and face. But it was him. I could tell that, and if I had any doubts Jerrel dismantled them. She drew her sword and cut off his fleshless head and kicked it into a pile of the bones.

“Traitor,” she said. I saw then not only the beautiful woman I had fallen in love with but the warrior, and it frightened me a little.

“The question,” I said, “is where is your uncle? Wait. Look there.”

A little farther up, among the bones, were the wrecked bodies of several bird-men, blackened and twisted and scorched by fire.

“The lightning hit them same as us,” I said. “Maybe your uncle was killed.”

But we didn’t locate his body. Perhaps a beast had found him, but it was also possible that he was journeying on foot to the kingdom of the Varnin.

“This means we might catch up with him,” I said.

Before long I spied his tracks in the soft soil, pointed them out. Jerrel could find Varnin without tracking her uncle, but it was him and the talisman we wanted, so the tracks were encouraging.

It was near night when we finally passed the lengthy stacks of bones. We edged toward the forest. The trees, low down and high up, were full of ravaging beasts, but the open land worried me most. Anyone or anything could easily spot us there.

Edging along the trees, moving swiftly and carefully as possible, we were taken aback by the sudden appearance of half a dozen beasts with men mounted on them. My fear had been realized. They spotted us.

The beasts they were riding looked remarkably like horses, if horses could have horns and were shorter and wider with red-and-white stripes. They were guided in a way similar to horses as well, bits and bridles, long, thin reins. The riders were seated in high-set saddles, and as they came closer it became apparent they were not human at all.

Humans have flesh, but these things had something else. Their skin was yellow like Jerrel’s skin, but it was coarse and gave one the impression of alligator hide. They had flaring scales around their necks. Their features were generally human-like, but their noses were flat as a coin, little more than two small holes. Their foreheads slanted and the tops of their heads peaked. Their mouths were wide and packed with stained teeth and their round eyes were red and full of fiery licks of light. They were carrying long lances tipped with bright tips of metal. Short swords with bone handles bounced in scabbards at their hips. Closer yet, I saw there were little glowing parasites flowing over their skin like minnows in a creek.

Jerrel said, “Galminions. They are eaters of human flesh. Robbers. They run in packs. And they smell.”

They came ever closer. Jerrel was right. They did smell, like something dead left under a house.

“Ah,” said the foremost rider, reining his mount directly in front of us. The others sat in a row behind him, smiling their filthy teeth. “Travelers. And such a good day for it.”

“It is,” Jerrel said. “We thought a stroll would be nice.”

The one who had spoken laughed. The laugh sounded like ice cracking. He had a peculiar way of turning his head from side to side, as if one eye were bad. When the sunlight shifted I saw that was exactly the problem. He was blind in that eye; no red flecks there. It was white as the first drifts of snow in the Rockies.

“How is your stroll?” said Dead Eye.

“It’s been warm, and it’s quite the hike,” Jerrel said, “but it has been amusing. It has been so good to speak to you. We must be on our way. We wish you good day.”

“Do you now?” said Dead Eye. He turned in his saddle and looked back at his companions. “They wish us good day.”

The companions laughed that similar laugh, the one that sounded like ice cracking, then made leathery shifts in their saddles.

“It’s good to see we’re all in a cheery mood,” Jerrel said.

When Dead Eye turned back to us, he said, “I am cheery because we are going to kill you and eat you and take your swords. But mainly we’re going to kill you and eat you. Maybe we’ll start eating you while you’re alive. Of course we will. That’s how we like it. The screams are loud and the blood is hot.”

“You will dance on the tip of my sword,” I said. “That is what you will do.”

“And what are you exactly?” said Dead Eye.

“A black man.”

“I can see that. Were you burned?”

“By the fires of hell. Perhaps you would like a taste of hell itself.”

“What is hell?”

I had wasted my wit. “Never mind,” I said. “Let us pass, or—”

“I will dance on the tip of your sword,” Dead Eye said.

“Exactly,” I said.

“What about the rest of us,” he said. “Shall they dance as well?”

“I suppose that between our two swords there will be dancing partners for all of you.”

This really got a laugh.

“He is not joking,” said Jerrel.

“We will be the judge of that,” Dead Eye said. “For we are not jokesters either.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “You look pretty funny to me.”

My comment was like the starter shot.

They came as one in a wild charge. Jerrel and I worked as one. We seemed to understand the other’s next move. We dodged into the trees, and the Galminions followed. The trees made it difficult for them to maneuver their beasts, but we moved easily. I sprang high in the air and came down on the rider nearest me with a slash of my sword, severing his head, spurting warm blood from his body like the gush from a fountain.

Jerrel lunged from behind a tree, and avoiding the ducking horned head of one of the mounts, stuck it in the chest. With a bleating sound it stumbled and fell, rolled about kicking its legs, tumbling over the fallen rider, crushing him with a snap of bone and a crackle of bumpy skin.

That was when Dead Eye swung off his steed and came for me, driving his lance directly at my chest. I moved to the side, parried his lance with my sword. The tip of his weapon stuck deep in a tree, and the impact caused him to lose his footing. When he fell, it was never to rise again. I bounded to him and drove my sword deep in his throat. He squirmed like a bug stuck through by a pin. His white eye widened. He half spun on my sword, spat a geyser of blood, shook and lay still.

The others fled like deer.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I am, and believe it or not,” I said, “fortune has smiled on us.”

For Jerrel riding one of the beasts was uncomfortable and she rode awkwardly. For me it was like being back in the cavalry. I felt in control. The creatures handled very similar to horses though they seemed smarter. That said, they had a gait similar to mules, making for a less smooth ride.

“You call this fortune?” Jerrel said.

“If your uncle is on foot, yes,” I said.

As we rode on, in front of us the clearing went away and a mountain range rose before us. It was at first a bump, then a hump, and finally we could see it for what it was. The mountain was covered in dark clouds and flashes of lightning, all of it seen to the sound of rumbling thunder. The patches of forest that climbed up the mountain were blacker than the trees that gave the Black Hills of the Dakotas their name.

The day moved along, the sun shifted, and so did the shadows. They fell out of the forests and grew longer, thicker, cooler, and darker. A few of the shiny bugs came out. We shifted into the woods, found a spot where old wood had fallen, and made a kind of hut of trees and limbs. We dismounted and led our animals inside through a gap. I found some deadwood and pulled it in front of the opening. I chopped a lean but strong limb off a tree with my sword and used it to stretch from one side of our haven to the other. On one side of it I placed our mounts, the limb serving as a kind of corral. After removing their saddles and bridles, I used bits of rope from the bag of supplies we had brought from the wreck of the sled to hobble them, a trick Jerrel had never seen before.

Finally we stretched out on our side of the barrier with our cloaks as our beds. We lay there and talked, and you would have thought we had known each other forever. In time the Night Wings were out. They flew down low and we could hear their wings sweeping past where we were holed up. Many of the bugs outside slipped in between the gaps of fallen wood and made our little room, such as it was, glow with shimmering light.

Jerrel and I came together at some point, and anything beyond that is not for a gentleman to tell. I will say this, and excuse the dimenovel feel to it. My soul soared like a hawk.

Next morning we were up early, just after the Night Wings and the glowing bugs abandoned the sky. We saddled up and rode on out. From time to time I got down off my critter and checked the ground, found signs of our quarry’s tracks, remounted, and we continued. By the middle of the day we had reached the mountain and were climbing up, riding a narrow trail between the great dark trees.

The weather had shifted. The dark clouds, the lightning and thunder had flown. As we rode from time to time I saw strange beasts watching us from the shadows of the forest, but we were not bothered and continued on.

Late in the day I got down and looked at our man’s tracks, and they were fresh. Our mounts were giving us the final edge on his head start.

“He is not far ahead,” I said, swinging back into the saddle.

“Good. Then I will kill him.”

“Maybe you could just arrest him.”

“Arrest him?”

“Take him prisoner.”

“No. I will kill him and take back the talisman.”

I figured she would too.

The trail widened and so did our view. Up there in the mountains, nowhere near its peak, but right in front of us at the far end of the wide trail, we could see the city of the bird-men. The great trees there had grown, or been groomed, to twist together in a monstrous wad of leaves and limbs, and mixed into them was a rock fortress that must have taken thousands of bird-men and a good many years to build. It was like a castle and a nest blended together with the natural formations of the mountain; in places it was rambling, in others tight as a drum.

I said, “Before we come any closer, we had best get off this trail and sneak up on our man. If we can jump him before he enters the city, then that’s the best way, and if he is inside already, well, it’s going to be difficult, to put it mildly.”

Jerrel nodded, and just as we rode off the trail and into the dark forest, a horde of bird-men came down from the sky and into the thicket with a screech and a flash of swords.

Surprised, we whirled on our mounts and struck out at them. It was like swatting at yellow jackets. I managed to stick one of the creatures and cause him to fall dead, but as he fell his body struck me and knocked me off my mount. I hustled to my feet just as Jerrell ducked a sword swing, but was hit in the head by the passing hilt of the sword. She fell off her beast and onto her back and didn’t move.

I went savage.

I remember very little about what happened after that, but I was swinging my sword with both skill and insane fury. Bird-men lost wings and limbs and faces and skulls. My sword stabbed and slashed and shattered. I was wet and hot with the blood of my enemies.

To protect themselves they flapped their wings, lifted up higher, and dove, but they were never quick enough and were hindered by the thickness of the trees and my speed was beyond measure. I leaped and dodged, parried and thrust. I raged among the flapping demons like a lion among sheep.

Finally it was as if all the bird-men in the world appeared. The sky darkened above me and the darkness fell over me, and down they came in a fluttering wave of screeches and sword slashes and axe swings.

I was a crazed dervish. I spun and slung my blade like the Reaper’s scythe, and once again they began to pile up, but then I was struck in the head from the side, and as I tumbled to the ground, I thought it was the end of me.

I couldn’t have been down but for a moment when I felt a blade at my throat and heard a voice say, “No. Bring him.”

Jerrel and I were lifted up and carried. My sword was gone. I was bleeding. I saw walking before the pack of bird-men, Tordo, Jerrel’s traitorous uncle.

We were hoisted out of the forest and onto the trail, carried up toward the amazing twists of forest and stone. As we neared I saw small clouds of smoke rising from stone chimneys, and in loops of groomed limbs I saw large nests made of vines and sticks and all manner of refuse. The nests were wide open, but they were built under the great limbs and leaves of trees that served as a roof. Beyond them there was an enormous tree, the biggest I had seen on my world or this one, and there was a gap in it that served as an opening into the city proper. A great drawbridge had been dropped, and it stretched out over a gap between trees and mountain, and the gap was wide and deep beyond comprehension. Over the drawbridge we were carried, and into the great fortress of wood and stone.

My thought was that Jerrel was already dead and I was next, and let me tell you true as the direction north, I didn’t care if I died. With Jerrel lost, I wished to die.

As it turned out, I didn’t die. And neither did Jerrel. I didn’t realize she was alive until we found ourselves in the bowels of the fortress in a prison that was deep inside the cave of a tree; a series of metal bars served as our doorway. Looking through the bars I could see a long corridor that was also the inside of a tree, and there were two guards nearby, one with a lance, one with an axe, both with expressions that would make a child cry.

In our cell they dropped us down on some limbs and leaves that served as beds. There was a peculiar odor. The only thing I can equate it with is the smell of a henhouse on a hot, damp afternoon.

I knelt over Jerrel, lifted her head gently. “My love,” I said.

“My head hurts,” she said. The sound of her voice elated me.

“I guess so. You took quite a lick.”

She sat up slowly. “Are you okay?”

“I got a bump myself, behind my ear.”

She gingerly touched it with the tips of her fingers. “Ow,” she said.

“My sentiments exactly. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t kill us.”

“I think, in my case, my uncle wants me to see the ceremony.”

“What ceremony?”

“The linking of the two halves of the talisman. The acquisition of the greatest power on our planet. He wants me to see what he has achieved before he puts me to death. Wants me to know the deed is done, and I have failed to prevent it, then we die.”

“If you ain’t dead, you’re living, and that’s a good thing,” I said.

It took her a moment to take that in. It was as if whatever power allowed my words to be translated to her language had lost a beat. After a moment she laughed her musical laugh. “I think I understand.”

“We won’t give up until we’re beyond considering on the matter one way or the other,” I said.

“I love you, Jack,” she said.

“And I you.” We allowed ourselves a kiss. Yet, in spite of my bravado, in spite of the repeating of my old sergeant’s words, I feared it might be our last.

“Love is a wonderful steed,” said a voice, “ride it as long as you can.”

We looked up, and there above us, sitting on a ridge of stone was a bird-man, his feet dangling. He looked youngish, if I can claim any ability of judging the age of a man who looks a lot like a giant chicken crossed with the body of a man. A very weak-looking chicken. He appeared near starved to death. His head hung weak. His ribs showed. His legs were skinny as sticks, but there was still something youthful about him.

“Who are you?” I asked. It wasn’t a brilliant question, but it was all I had.

“Gar-don,” he said, and dropped off the ledge, his wings taking hold with a fanning of air. He settled down near us, his legs weak and shaky. He sat down on the floor, his head sagged, he sighed. “I am a prisoner, same as you.”

“Gar-don,” Jerrel said. “The former king’s son. His heir.”

“That was how it was supposed to be, but no longer. I was usurped.”

“Canrad,” said Jerrel.

“Yes,” Gar-don said, “now he is king. And I am here, awaiting the moment when he is able to acquire the rest of the talisman, and from what I overheard, that moment has arrived.”

“Yes,” Jerrel said. “For all of us. I am Jerrel, Princess of Sheldan.”

Gar-don lifted his head, took a deep breath, said, “I know of you. I am sorry for your fate, and his.”

“Jack,” I said. “I am called Jack.”

“I shall go out as a prince,” Gar-don said. “I will not beg. My horror is not my death but what the two halves of the talisman can do. Canrad will possess immense power.”

“What does this power do?” I asked.

“We only have legend to explain it to us. It gives him the power over spirits and demons from the old trees.”

“The old trees?” I said.

“Giant trees that contain spirits of power,” Jerrel said. “Those kinds of trees no longer exist. They ceased to exist before I was born, before my father was born, his grandfather and so on. The spirits are contained in the two halves of the talisman.”

“Canrad will be able to control the people then,” Gar-don said. “They, like my father, and myself, were perfectly happy with our peace treaty. Only an insane being wants war. The people only follow Canrad because they fear him. All uprisings have been destroyed, or the participants have gone into hiding. After today, they might as well never have existed, for he will control anyone and everyone with his new powers. He will not be able to be defeated.”

“But you don’t actually know how he will do that?” I asked.

“I have only heard of the legend,” Gar-don said. “The power of the spirits, the demons of the trees. Exactly what they are capable of, I do not know. Our people have always feared the talisman, and knowing now that it will be united, no one will resist him. It would be useless.”

There was a clatter of sound in the hallway. Gar-don stood weakly, and said, “It seems we are about to find out the exactness of the talisman’s power.”

They came for us, unlocking our cell, entering quickly. To be sure of our compliance there was a horde of them with long spikes and strong nets and an angry attitude. I managed to hit one with my fist, knocking him to the floor in a swirl of dust and feathers. Jerrel kicked another. Gar-don tried to fight, but he was as weak as a dove. They netted the three of us, bagged us, kicked us awhile, then hauled us away like trapped vermin being taken to a lake to be drowned.

We were brought to a large throne room, that like the overall stronghold was made of stone and was combined with the natural strength of trees and limbs and leaves. Enormous branches jutted out of the walls high above our heads, and perched on them like a murder of ravens were bird-men and bird-women—the first females I had seen of that race. An occasional feather drifted down from above, coasted in the light.

Above that perch on which the bird-people were seated was a tight canopy of leaves, so thick and layered it would have taken an army of strong warriors many days to hack their way through it; actually, I’m not even sure they could do it in years.

They brought us in and held us close to the floor in our nets. We could see through the gaps in the netting. Besides the bird-people on the limbs above, the throne room was packed with others, some of them warriors, many of them nobles, and some citizens. We were the spectacle, and all of the bird-people had been summoned to witness whatever ceremony was at hand. I assumed it would not be a parade in our honor.

On a dais was a throne and on the throne was a large winged man who looked as if an ancient human being, fat of body, thin of legs, with a head like a warped melon, had been mated to a condor and a buzzard, all of him swathed over with warts and scars and age. A golden cloak draped his shoulders, and except for half the talisman on a chain around his neck, he wore nothing else. His eyes were dark and the color of old, dried pinesap. This, of course, was King Canrad.

Tordo stood near the throne, one hand on its back support. There were guards on either side of King Canrad and Tordo. The room was full of warriors as well.

Canrad nodded at Tordo. Tordo stepped to the center of the dais, removed his half of the talisman from his neck, and lifted it up with both hands. Sunlight coming through an open gap behind the king glittered across the talisman like sunlight on a trout’s back.

“What say you?” said the king.

The crowed cheered. It sounded like the sort of cheers we Buffalo Soldiers used to give the lieutenant when he rode by on horseback. A white man who led us like we couldn’t lead ourselves, as if our color tainted our intelligence. It was a cheer, but it came from the mouth, not the soul.

The king said, “The old order is here. Gar-don, son of the former king, who was not worthy and shall not be named is also here. He will see how a true king shows his power.”

“It is you who is not worthy,” Gar-don called out from his netted position on the floor.

“Strike him,” said the king. One of the warriors stepped forward and brought the staff of his spear sharply across Gar-don’s back. Gar-don grunted.

“We also have among us the daughter of King Ran of the Sheldan,” said the king. “A rather inferior race in my opinion. Add a black man-thing that I can not define, nor can anyone else, and we have three enemies of the throne. The gods will welcome their deaths. They will be the first to die by the power of the talisman. I will call up all the demons of the trees, and they will render these worthless creatures into wet rags.”

“I know your law,” Jerrel said, pushing herself to her knees under the net. “I ask my right to challenge you, or your second. If I win, our lives will be spared.”

“I am too old to be challenged,” said the king. “I have no intention of sullying myself with a duel. Nor will I sully one of my men. Why should I? You have the right by our law to make a challenge, and I, as king, have the right to refuse. I refuse. Be silent.”

King Canrad leaned forward on his throne. I could almost hear his bones creak. His wings trembled slightly. He looked like a gargoyle rocking on its ledge. He said to Tordo, “Bring me the power.”

Tordo hesitated, then moved toward him. King Canrad held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Tordo held his half of the talisman forward with his left hand, and as the King reached to take it, Tordo sprang forward, snatched at the talisman around the king’s neck, yanked it loose of its chain.

Links of chain clattered on the floor as Tordo slammed the two pieces of the talisman together with a loud click. He lifted it above his head with a smile. He yelled out a series of words, an incantation. I understood the words, but not their jumbled purpose.

And then the spell was finished, and …

… Well, nothing. It was as quiet in the throne room as a mouse in house slippers. From somewhere in the crowd there was a cough, as if someone had a mouthful of feathers, which considering who was in the room, could have actually been the case.

Tordo’s gleeful expression died slowly. He said a word that didn’t translate, but I had an idea what it meant. He turned slowly and looked over his shoulder. He had gone from a potential wizard of the trees to a fool with two connected pieces of jewelry.

The guards hustled up from the bottom of the dais, their spears raised, ready to stick Tordo.

“No,” said the king. “Give me the talisman first.”

One of the warriors tugged it from Tordo’s hands, removed his sword as well, gave the talisman to the king. The king held it in his hands. He looked at it the way a fisherman might look at his catch, realizing it had appeared much larger underwater. “It is useless. It is a lie.” He lifted his eyes to Tordo. “I will make your death a long one.”

While they were so engaged, and all eyes were on them, I lifted an edge of the net, crawled out from under it and seized one of the bird-men. I drew his sword from its sheath and shoved him back. I sprang toward the dais. A warrior stepped in front of me, but I jabbed quickly and the sharp blade went through his eye and down he went.

With my newfound abilities renewed, I leaped easily to the dais and put my sword to the king’s throat.

The guards on either side of the throne started toward me.

I said to the king, “Give the order to free the lady and Gar-don, or I will run this through your throat.”

The king’s body shook. “Free them,” he said.

The net was lifted. The warriors around them parted. I noticed there was a rearranging of soldiers, some shifted out of one group and into another. It was a good sign. They were showing their division.

I said, “Those who wish the king well, fear the point of my sword. Those who wish him ill, perhaps you would enjoy my sword thrust. We shall see which is more popular.”

There was a slight murmur.

By this time Jerrel and Gar-don had joined me on the dais. They stood near me and the king. Jerrel picked up the pike of the guard I had killed. Tordo hadn’t moved; he feared to move.

Gar-don said, “I am your king. I am the son of the true king, who was the son of a king, and the king before that. Today the talisman failed Canrad and Tordo. The spirits within it do not wish their will to succeed. They do not wish their powers used for something so pointless as killing and destruction and war. It is peace they want. It is peace they have allowed. And I suggest we obey their will and continue on that path, lest they turn on us and destroy us all.”

Someone said, “Gar-don, our king.”

A moment later this was repeated, then someone else said the same, and voices rose up from the crowd and filled the room, and the voices came not from the mouths of the frightened but from the souls of true believers.

There were a few who for a moment seemed unwilling to make the change to Gar-don, but they were vastly outnumbered, and those who tried to defend Canrad were quickly dispatched in a wave of bloody anger. If there was a lesson to be learned from Gar-don’s remarks about the talisman, they hadn’t actually learned it, which meant the bird-people were as human as the wingless. They were not ready to accept that the talisman was nothing more than an ancient myth.

Gar-don took the talisman, held it up as Tordo had done. He was still weak and struggled to hold it aloft. But his spirit was strong. He spoke so loudly his words could be heard at the back of the room and up into the leafy canopy.

“The power of the talisman will remain unused. Half of it will go back with Princess Jerrel, back to her city and her king, where it will continue to remain powerless, and our peace will continue.”

“What of him,” said a bird-woman, stepping forward to point a long finger at Tordo.

Gar-don turned his head to Tordo, studied him. He was about to speak when Jerrel beat him to it. “Gar-don, King of the Varnin,” she said, “I ask you to sanction my right to combat with Tordo. He has stolen from my family. He has insulted my family. And I desire to insult him with the edge of my blade.”

“And if you lose?” said Gar-don.

“I won’t,” Jerrel said. “But if I do, let him go. Banish him.”

“Don’t do this,” I said. “Let me take your place.”

“I am as good a warrior as any other, my love.”

“Very well,” said Gar-don. “But before that …”

He turned to the former King Canrad.

“I banish you. As of now, you will rise and you will go away, and you will never come back.”

The old man rose, and in that moment, seeing how weak he was, I almost felt sorry for him. Then a blade came out from under his cloak and he stabbed at Gar-don. I caught Canrad’s arm just in time, twisted. It snapped easily. He screeched and dropped the dagger. I let him go.

Gar-don leaned forward and looked into Canrad’s eyes. “I see emptiness.”

Gar-don weakly picked up the dagger Canrad had dropped. He seemed strong all of a sudden. “It will not matter what I do, Canrad, you are dead already.” With that, he jammed the blade into the former king’s chest. The old man collapsed in a cloaked wad, and immediately a pool of blood flowed around him.

“Give Tordo a sword,” Gar-don said, turning back to the situation at hand. “Death is your loss, Tordo. Banishment is your victory.”

Jerrel dropped the pike and was given a sword.

Tordo was given a sword. All of the disappointment of the moment, every foul thing he was, bubbled up and spewed out of him. He attacked with a yell. He bounced forward on the balls of his feet, attempting to stick Jerrel. Jerrel glided back as if walking on air.

Everyone on the dais moved wide of their blades as they battled back and forth, the throne sometimes coming between them. Once Jerrel slipped in Canrad’s blood, and in spite of this being a private duel, I almost leaped to her aid, but Gar-don touched me on the arm.

“It is not done,” he said.

Tordo put one boot on Canrad’s lifeless neck and used it as a kind of support to lift him up and give him more of a downward thrust. But Jerrel slipped the lunge.

Tordo sprang off Canrad’s lifeless neck and made a beautiful thrust for her face. I let out a gasp of air. It was right on target.

At the last moment Jerrel dropped under his thrust, which lifted the hair on her head slightly, and drove her weapon up and into his belly. He held his position, as if waiting for his form to be admired, then made a noise like an old dog with a chicken bone in its throat and fell flat on his face. Blood poured out of him and flowed into the puddle of gore that had fanned out from beneath Canrad.

Jerrel studied the corpse of Tordo for a moment. She took a deep breath, said, “I have drawn my kin’s own blood, but I have avenged Tordo’s treachery and honored my father.”

Gar-don stepped forward and surveyed the crowd. He lifted his chin slightly. The response to this was another cheer from the multitude, and this one was more than from the throat. It was from deep within the soul.

—–—

There were great celebrations, and we were part of it. It was pleasant and necessary to the new agreement between kingdoms, but I was glad when it ended and we were given back the mounts we had taken from the Galminions, sent on our way with supplies, fanfare, and of course Jerrel’s half of the talisman.

As we rode along the wide trail in the morning light, winding down from the great lair of the bird-people, I said, “Do you think Gar-don’s people believed what he said about the talisman?”

“Perhaps they did,” Jerrel said. “Perhaps some did. Perhaps none did. The only thing that matters is there was no great power when the two pieces were united. It’s just a legend.”

“Designed to prevent war between your people and theirs,” I said. “That seems like a legend worth believing. The halves of a great power divided so neither has a unique and overwhelming power over the other.”

“Devel would be amused,” she said.

We experienced a few adventures on our way to Jerrel’s kingdom, but they were minor, mostly involving brigands we dispatched with little effort, a few encounters with wild beasts. When we arrived in the land of Sheldan and Jerrel explained all that had happened to her father, I was afforded much curiosity, mostly due to the color of my skin.

I was thanked. I was rewarded with a fine sword and scabbard. I was given a prominent place at King Ran’s table, and it was there that Jerrel told him that we were to marry.

It was the first I had heard of it, but I was delighted with the idea.

That was some time ago. I am sitting now at a writing desk in a great room in this Sheldan castle made of clay and stone. It is dark except for a small candle. I am writing with a feather pen on yellow parchment. My wife, the beautiful warrior Jerrel, sleeps not far away in our great round bed.

Tonight, before I rose to write, I dreamed, as I have the last three nights. In the dream I was being pulled down a long bright tunnel, and finally into the cold, dark waters of the Atlantic, washing about in the icy waves like a cork. The great light of a ship moved my way, and in the shadows of that light were the bobbing heads of dying swimmers and the bouncing of the Titanic’s human-stuffed rafts. The screams of the desperate, the cries of the dying filled the air.

I have no idea what the dream means, or if it means anything, but each night that I experience it, it seems a little clearer. Tonight there was another part to it. I glimpsed the thing that brought me here, pulled me down and through that lit tunnel to Venus. I fear it wishes to take me back.

I finish this with no plans of its being read, and without complete understanding as to why I feel compelled to have written it. But written it is.

Now I will put my pen and parchment away, blow out the candle, lie gently down beside my love, hoping I will never be forced to leave her side, and that she and this world will be mine forever.