Paul Di Filippo - WikiWorld

“The ålefisk man?” murmured Laura, her thoughts in synch with Mark’s.

“My secret friend,” said Ola simply. “My lover. I call him Elver. Now go and look at the stone. It’s a kind of billboard for him. Elver thinks, and the patterns here bloom. I can read them, and with your magic glasses, you can too. Look at it, Mark and Laura. See and rejoice.”

Heads together like children peering through a crack, Mark and Laura shared the Yotsa goggles, each of them using one lens, studying the lichen-like patches on the rugged stone. The stele loomed as info-dense as any Egyptian or Mayan relic.

“It’s like a webpage almost,” said Laura. “A jumble of scenes. Look there, at the bottom. The eel man eating a cow. The grass in the pasture is covered in slime, and the poor animal is bellowing.”

“See the villagers chasing the eel man?” said Mark. “And they built fires to block him off from the fjord. Look there, they’ve caught him.”

“And they’re cutting off his tendrils and smoking them,” added Laura. “Tentacles as thick as logs.”

“You were eating that type of meat for supper tonight,” interjected Ola. “The ålefisk man is generous to his friends.”

“Eating the god,” mused Laura. “A mythic archetype.”

“The villagers didn’t fully kill him, though,” put in Mark. “A stub of the eel man is wriggling back into the fjord. And he’s growing all the time. He branches like a hydra.”

“Yes, yes, but I want you to look at his message near the top,” urged Ola. “This is your invitation.”

“Oh—oh my,” said Laura.

Seen through the Yotsa lenses, the rust-red blotch unfolded to show Mark, Laura, and Ola disporting themselves in the over-large bed of Room 3 upstairs. Someone else was in the bed with them, barely visible beneath the sheets—a playful, squirming figure, lively as an oil-lamp’s flame, wet bed linens pasted to his uncanny lineaments.

The Yotsa 7 trembled in Mark’s hand. Beside him, Ola was softly singing to herself in Norwegian. An intoxicating sweet musk was drifting from the folds of her gown. As if mesmerized, Mark and Laura let Ola take their hands and lead them upstairs to Room 3.

Far from being cold, Ola was warm and responsive beneath the comforter. She’d insisted on leaving the room’s windows wide open, and quite soon, the expected humanoid, anguilliform creature slithered up the porch’s columns, across the slanting roof and into the embraces of three lovers. Elver the ålefisk man. The love-making was unspeakably delicious, indescribably foul.

Hours later Mark awoke to the sound of Laura bumping around the room. Of the Yotsa 7, no trace. Slippery eel and human exudates, drying, had encrusted his skin. With the constant daylight, he found it hard to judge the time. Mid-morning, maybe. Memories of last night crashed onto him like a collapsing brick wall. Oh no. Had they really done all that?

“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the hell out of here,” said Laura, hoisting her suitcase onto the bed. She already had her slacks and blouse on. She trotted into the bathroom and returned with her toiletries. And then she dropped them all on the floor and burst into wails.

“It’s okay, Laura,” said Mark, getting out of bed naked. He felt sticky all over. Tainted. “I’m coming with you, don’t worry. God. I hope that thing didn’t—”

“Didn’t lay eggs in us!” said Laura, her voice rising to a subdued shriek. “Oh, Mark, what if we suddenly feel the baby eels wriggling inside our flesh?”

“Did you take a shower yet?”

“Of course. And I used the icky bidet. You shower now, too, Mark. I’ll pack for both of us, okay?”

“Yes. I wonder when the next bus or ferry leaves? I don’t suppose we can ask—”

“Ask Ola?” said Laura. “How could we let that woman bring us down so low? Do you think she’s beautiful, Mark? Do you love her more than me?”

“Of course not. We must have been drunk. Or drugged? Maybe that eel man thing wasn’t—”

“Maybe it wasn’t real,” said Laura, completing his thought. “That’s what I keep hoping. Oh, hurry up and get ready before something horrible happens.”

Of course just then their door swung open. There was Ola, neat and lush as a Scandinavian buffet, bearing a tray of breakfast foods in her capable hands. She swept in, leaving the door wide open.

“No fears of privacy now,” she said, talking in a steady stream lest Mark and Laura interrupt her. “The older couple have—ascended. We have the hotel all to ourselves today. Us three and my dear Elver in his watery caves down below. There’s a tunnel that leads from here to a subterranean part of the fjord, you know. Elver and I thought that perhaps—”

“Did you steal our Yotsa 7?” demanded Mark.

“Elver has it,” said Ola with a happy smile. “He formulates some wonderful new ideas. But why are you two behaving so—”

“Stay away from us!” cried Laura. “I’ll call the police if you come one step closer.”

“I don’t think you will,” said Ola calmly. “I know that your government has marked you two for destruction.” She held up her hand for silence. “My Elver—he knows so many things. But there are things we are learning from you. Help us with our plan for your wonderful tool—and your secrets are safe.” Ola formed one of her eerily perfect smiles. “If you like, you’re welcome to stay on in Fjaerland for quite some time. My parents have left our family farmhouse empty. You could live there if you liked. And perhaps now and then we four could—”

“You disgust me,” spat Laura.

“That ålefisk man,” put in Mark, overcome with fear. “He didn’t implant anything in us, did he? No larvae?”

Ola gave a tinkling laugh. “What a thing to worry about! Elver has no children. He is only one, and he is immortal. One ålefisk man in the world and no ålefisk woman. Elver is lonely. He wishes that humans accepted him and loved him like those silly trolls you see in gift shops. Elver is a far nobler symbol of our Norsk heritage. Those trolls— pfui ! They rot gullible brains with shopping-mall cuteness. Elver is deeper. Elver wants that many more people eat of his inexhaustible flesh, and that we know freedom from our carking cares. I believe, Mark, that you and your wife are very good at public relations?”

“You couldn’t prove that by the mess we engineered for ourselves,” said Mark.

“Mark, don’t even answer her!” Laura commanded. But her husband noted that she had ceased to bustle with her packing, as if intrigued.

Mark caught Laura’s gaze and sought to transmit his innermost thoughts to her, using a wisp of entanglement that had been generated by their sharing of the Yotsa 7 when viewing the stele.

Laura, please listen to me. We have nothing to lose by joining Ola’s cause. And maybe a lot to gain. The Yotsa 7 is too weird for humans to control. We need a mythic counterweight. And we need a friend against the feds. Let’s ride the bucking, fucking Eel Train to glory. It’s a win-win for us and Elver both! Let’s trust ourselves, and trust Ola, and trust this creature older than mankind. What do we have to lose?

Their locked glances persisted only a micro-second, but managed to channel a flood of information and feeling. And then they broke the connection.

Calm now, Laura turned to Ola. “What are you imagining that we can do for you?”

Ola grinned. “You do not realize the true potential of your invention. It is not just a receiver, but also a transmitter! This, my Elver has deduced. But it is best if I let him explain in his own way.”

Instinctively, Mark shot a look at the open bedroom window, anticipating the second appearance of the eel man. Ola understood his expectations, and corrected them.