Стивен Бойетт - Mortality Bridge

He stands and walks down to the river, where he bends and takes a good long look at whiskey wallet cigarillos matches locket. The naked blank man blinks at unfamiliar things. The ragged clothes on which they’re piled are dry though he is not.

He stares at the driver’s license and touches his thickbearded face. He frowns and shrugs and flips the license away. Cracks the whiskey bottle and sniffs. Now this he recognizes. He puts his mouth to the bottle and lifts the bottle high and swallows. Poison, jesus christ it burns like lye. He staggers gagging toward the river where he splashes in the shallows and bends with hands on knees and vomits whiskey and little else. He dryheaves for a while. When the sickness passes he cups his hands and splashes water on his face up on the sand the blank man stares at murky redblack air. He sits up gasping as if remembering that he has an appointment and has overslept.

A dozen feet away downshore a man stands watching him. Short and muscular and hairy. His beard mere thickening of his curly black hair. Eyes a piercing blue. He is armored in bronze. Cuirass, plated girdle, greaves, leather sandals, a helmet with flared nosepiece and a horsehair crest on top. In his hand a long wooden spear tipped with a flat bronze blade shaped like a narrow leaf. On the sand at his feet a long black case, feminine in shape, with silver latches and a handle on one side.

The armored man watches the blank man struggle to his feet. The blank man glances at the unfamiliar objects on the sand before him. Empty whiskey bottle on the sand. Jewelry. Some litter. Oddly the most familiar thing the blank man sees is the armored man he faces now. He feels perhaps he knows him. Knew him anyway some lost where.

The air is hot and the blank man begins to sweat. The armored man stares past him and his bright eyes do not waver and his tone is flat and without color as he says Hola, Orfeo.

The sound of the name opens a door in the blank man’s mind. An ancient door long locked and safeguarding a room held deep within a house containing many rooms. He raises his hand palmout in the old way and in the language of the Achaian before him says, “Hola, friend. Are you come to tell me who I am?”

The helmet swivels slowly but still the eyes do not meet his. “A man may only tell himself that thing.”

“What, then?”

“I am charged with several duties.” The stern face gives the impression of a grudging smile. “First I bear two gifts.”

“There’s an old saying about Greeks bearing gifts.”

“I have heard it many times.” The Achaian fumbles in his cuirass until he draws forth a roll of human parchment that has flattened in the metal breastplate. He offers the scroll and the blank man hesitates and then takes the parchment and unrolls it and reads the illdrawn letters inked in red dried russet.

Buddy pal:

Here’s the short version. Your name is Niko. You’re a real true Rock Star. The reason you are is because you signed a deal with us a long time ago. We’ll skip the fact that you’ve got the chops to have made it to the top without us. Your problem, not ours.

You were also quite the alcoholic junkie asshole back in the day, but your name in red on the dotted line took care of that double plus good. Well, the alcoholic junkie part, anyway.

So you straightened up and flew right and got rich and famous and everything else you bargained for, but then you went and fell in love with some babe. Maybe you forgot the “implicit chattels” part of your contract, or maybe you just didn’t care. I don’t know. Anyway, she got sick and died. You’re not a very roll-with-the-punches kind of guy, and you got pissed off and came down here to bring her back. Which should explain a lot about your current condition, physically and otherwise.

A while back you fell into the river Lethe and forgot who you are, because the water washes away a lot more than dirt. At least I think you fell. You might have jumped. Either way, you keep on going back to the river, and every time you do it’s like hitting reset. Blank slate time.

You’ve been doing this a lot longer than you’d want to know.

Armor Boy’s been sent there to throw you in the river with a chain around your ass to keep you from ever remembering any of this and resuming your little quest. I didn’t send him but I was able to use him to give you this message and your Dobro. I’m hoping it’ll help bring you back to yourself, but for all I know you’ve forgotten which end of the thing to hold.

Don’t let Armor Boy’s sparkling conversation fool you. He brought the gifts because I made him, but he’s mainly there to kick your ass. Try not to make it easy for him.

Sports book now puts it at 9,000 to 1 against you—IF you hand this guy his hat.

Got a lot riding on you, cowboy. Don’t let me down.

No signature. Niko sounds his heart for some response but he finds none. This note concerns some stranger.

He looks up from the sweatstained parchment. The armored man stands patient and unblinking, a living statue on the sand. “Do you know what this says?”

“I do not care what it says.”

“I see. Well, thanks for delivering it.” Niko smiles. “Have a nice day.”

A glint of amusement in the bright blue eyes. “My duty is not discharged.”

“Ah. Well. Worth a try.”

The Achaian merely stands there. His gaze includes Niko only in the sense that Niko stands within his field of vision. As if the Achaian can see a horizon on the endless plain on which they stand.

Niko gathers his belongings and nods at the Achaian. “See you,” he says, and makes to step past him but the bronzetipped spear comes to the fore.

“Can’t we talk about this?”

“I am not sent for conversation.”

“But we are countrymen.”

“There are no countries here.”

“Well we are ancients of a sort.”

“There are no ancients here.”

Was there a falter in that gaze? “I have no quarrel with you. According to this I’m after those who sent you.”

“I am those who sent me.” The Achaian takes his gaze from that haunted private distance and looks directly at Niko for the first time. His expression yields nothing. “This time with you is a respite from afflictions I endure without surcease. Nothing you can say or do will sway me from that reprieve.”

Niko’s slow nod belies the sudden prick of anticipation and fear within his chest. “All right. One thing more?”

The armored Achaian merely stares. Niko indicates the carrying case on the sand. “This note says that belongs to me.”

“It is your second gift.”

“Okay then.”

The Achaian sets the black case on the sand without taking his gaze from Niko and steps back three paces and transfers the spear to his left hand.

Niko eyes the spear as he steps toward the case and kneels before it on the warm sand. He flips a latch and the Achaian tenses. “I don’t think it’s a weapon,” Niko says. And undoes the latches and opens the case and regards the gleaming metal thing encushioned there.

“Not a weapon?”

Niko shrugs. “No more than any musical instrument. I think it is a kind of lyre. See the strings?”

“If the strategy is to bore an opponent to death perhaps. Music is a wasteful vice.”

“I’m going to take it out.”

The Achaian shrugs but does not relax his grip upon his spear. Still Niko feels that the Achaian will not murder him but means to engage him according to some code. He pulls the heavy unfamiliar instrument from the case and holds it awkwardly as he squats there on the sand. Polished metal glinting dull red light. He frowns at the long neck with its inset metal bars. Raps the metal body with his knuckles and it gives a dull and hollow gong. Well, if it is a kind of lyre then it stands to reason the strings are meant to be plucked.