John Crowley - Beasts

His wide gaze turned the world. He saw, far off, the dog, coming toward him, squirming through the reeds and mud. Even as he looked, the dog barked, calling to him.

Sweets didn’t need to call again, he already lived within Painter; the dark shape far off on the hill was only the rich, imperious center of him, he extended infinitely out from it; Sweets had been drawn to him by only the faintest, the most tenuous, the farthest-extended atoms of his being. It had been enough. Now Sweets needed only to plunge into that center, taste it with his tongue, to forget that anything else existed.

Painter waited on the hill, watching the dog hunching and leaping and struggling toward him.

Winter deepened toward the death of the sun. On the eve of the solstice, Hawk could refuse the insistent summons no more. He had come back to his evening rest, but perceived as he approached it that there was someone there in the tower. He circled it for a time. He didn’t, anyway, want to rest; he wanted to fly, soar, beat away night with long wings. This world had grown old. He rose up in easy stages, seeking a quick current.

As he went, Loren and Sten watched him, passing back and forth Loren’s binoculars.

“The glint,” Sten said. “When the light catches it… See?”

“Yes”

“His jesses. The grommets in them.”

“It must be.”

“It was Hawk.”

“I think it was. I don’t know how.”

“Next year, will he come back?”

“Maybe.”

“We could take him, take him up.”

“No.” Loren had read the sign. “Not after he’s been free. There’s no caging him now. He’s nobody’s hawk now, Sten.” He didn’t say: and neither are you.

He shifted the binoculars. Far off, something hovered: not a bird. It seemed to dart, searching, like a preying dragonfly. Then, moving straight toward them, swiftly: they could hear it.

All of them in the tower heard it. Below, Mika looked out the slats of the windows; Sweets lifted his ears and growled deep in his throat, till Painter stilled him.

“It’s coming here,” Mika said. “It’s black.”

Like a hawk, it hung for a time thoughtfully overhead, moving only slightly, looking (they all felt it) down on prey it knew was there, however concealed, Then it dropped; its noise grew loud and its vortex hurtled away dead leaves and chaff, dust of weeds and winter detritus. Its blades slowed, but continued to slice air. Its bubble face was tinted, they couldn’t see anything within. Then it opened.

The pilot leapt out. Without looking around him he began to haul out boxes, crates, stores. He threw them out anyhow; one box of shiny aluminum containers broke open and spilled its contents like treasure. He pulled out three long guns and added them to the pile. He put his head within the interior. He stood aside while his passenger, with some difficulty, got out; then he clambered quickly back in and closed the bubble. The blades roared; their visitor bent over, closing his eyes against the machine’s rising, his cape snapping around him. Then he straightened, tidying himself.

Reynard stood in the tower courtyard, leaning on a stick, waiting.

They came slowly from their hiding places. Reynard nodded to them as they came forth, pointing to each one with his stick. “Mika,” he said. “And Caddie. Sten, and, and Loren. Where is the leo, Painter?”

“You’re dead,” Caddie said, staying far from him, “I killed you.”

“No,” he said, “Not dead.” He walked toward her, not limping now, and she retreated; he seemed brisk, young, almost gay.

“I shot you.” She giggled, a mad, strangled laugh.

“The one you shot,” Reynard said, “was my parent. I am his — child. In a sense. In another sense, I am he almost as much as he was.” He looked around at them. “It would be convenient for you to regard me as him,” He grinned, showing the points of yellow teeth. “How anyway could Reynard the Fox die?”

Painter had come out of the shed, and Sweets, who curled his lip at the fox’s odor. Painter came across the yard to where the little figure awaited him.

“Good evening, Counselor,” he said.

“Hello, Painter.”

“You’re supposed to have died.”

“Well, so I did. It’s wrong, I know, for Judas to be the one to rise from the grave. But there it is.” He looked a long time up at the massive face he had so often heard described and seen in tapes, but had never confronted. Even in the first moments of encounter he saw his parent’s mistake, and wondered at it. “You shouldn’t feel cheated,” he said. “The one who betrayed you suffered death. But he wanted you to have his services still. My services. Forever.

“You see,” he said, including them all, but looking at Painter intently, and at Sten, “I am sterile. Sexless, in fact. Therefore, in order to go on, I must be recreated — cloned — from a cell of my own. My parent understood the impasse he had come to, and saw that the only way out of it was his own death. I had been prepared to succeed him. My education was to have been longer, but I was released when he died.” He looked up at the wide sky. “It was a long wait.”

Loren said: “He did that in secret? Matured a clone? And nobody knew?”

“He was — I am — rich enough. There are men I pay well. Skilled. All that. I am immortal, if I’m careful.” He smiled again. “A less delightful prospect than you might imagine.”

Sten said: “You know what he knows.”

“I am he.”

“You know his plans, then, Why we’re here.”

“He had no plan.” Reynard’s voice had grown thin and almost inaudible.

Small plumes of frost came from his nostrils. Evening — the longest of the year — had gathered by degrees around them.

“No plan?”

“No.” Slowly, as though crumpling, he sat. A tiny folded figure. “Men plan,” he said. “I’m not a man, The appearance is a deception. All lies. Talk.” He said the word like a tiny bark. “Talk.”

Mika shivered violently. When she spoke, she felt her throat constricted. “You said Sten was to be a king.”

“Yes? Well, so he is, I suppose.”

Sten said: “What am I supposed to do?”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it? If you are a king.”

Caddie said: “You said Painter was King of Beasts.”

“I did. How was I to know it was the truth? My parent died learning it.”

They had come close, to hear his delicate, rasping, exhausted voice. “I make no plans,” he said. “I discern what is, and act accordingly. You can never trust me. I must act; it’s my nature. I’ll never stop. You. You make the future. You know yourselves. I will act in the world you make. It’s all up to you.” One by one, they sat or squatted around him, all but Painter, who still stood, remote, unmoving as an idol with eyes of jewel. It was still not yet night, though it had been twilight most of the day. They could still see one another’s faces, strange, matte, like the faces of people asleep. Tomorrow, the day would be imperceptibly longer. The sun would stir in his long sleep.

“Whatever we are to do,” Reynard said, “we are at least all here. Everyone I know of. All but Meric. Well. He prepares the way. Some way.” He offered, with a tiny, long-wristed hand, a place in the circle to Painter, He waited while the leo sat. The dog crept in beside him.

“Shall we begin?” Reynard said.