Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

Now it showed him a vista of Mount Meru, the primal mountain at the center of the universe. It stood stark as the idea of a mountain, holding something in its lines of Fuji, the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, and a child’s crayon triangle with a jagged line drawn at the top for snow. Nor was it unfitting that it inspired such thought, for it was all of those things and more. Some would argue that the other mountains took their shape and their power to inspire dreams of divinity within humanity from this mountain; others would argue that Mount Meru was the synthesis of all dreams of mountains. Death cared not.

He caused the picture to rotate in its frame, viewing the primal mountain from all sides. In a hollow at the very base, he saw what he had been searching for—a dark declivity in which there was motion as of many bodies.

“What make you of this, Phecda?”

In a smooth undulation of coppery scales, the serpent surged up the rearmost part of the Throne of Bones and then wrapped herself around Death’s black-cowled head, cresting like the crown of Lower Egypt on the bone-white brow.

“Either there has been a great increase in the numbers of the lessermost gods, my lord, or someone is gathering an army. I’d bet on the latter.”

“So would I. The cycle has been new begun these twenty years now. I expected something of the sort. There are questions, however, to which I do not know the answers, nor would I be likely to get them even if I were to ask politely.”

The serpent chuckled. “True.”

“I need an agent. Do you believe that the one I have prepared is ready for his mission?”

“As ready as a year or so will make him, great Death.”

The Lord of Deep Fields banished the image from his monitor. This he tossed over his shoulder to land with an almost musical crash.

“Then, I must take him so that his education might begin without too great a further loss of time.”

“On the human scale, lord, the gods move slowly.”

“I have counted on that, Phecda. Even as they have counted on being immune to my reach.”

Together they laughed, a harsh sound, without music, that nonetheless filled the hall called Desolation.

It was after midnight and it was raining when Drum dropped Link at the corner outside his mother’s apartment building. Link moved to a position beneath the awning and watched the Spinner rise and buzz off into traffic.

The evening after sauerbraten had in some ways been anticlimactic and, in retrospect, now, tantalizing.

Their rendezvous had been on a property belonging to an acquaintance—whether it was an acquaintance of Drum’s or his employer had not been clear. They had finished dinner and headed to the northeast.

Before too long, they had gotten into an area of trails rather than roads. The ground-effect generator hummed and sped them down hills and across fields through dampness and night, while Link struggled to commit every turning of the way to memory, occasionally triggering his microcam toward a landmark and wondering whether its high-sensitivity filter would bring in a picture. He scanned the skies periodically, noting that Drum occasionally did the same. But no Mesopotamian cattle-men were cruising the night in this area.

Another quarter hour, and they approached a walled estate. From a succession of hilltop vantages, few lights could be discerned within and about the massive house or villa. Starlight and a touch of moon sparkled on a small lake to its rear, however, and a small illumination could be glimpsed from a structure near to its middle.

They slowed as they neared the gate, halting when they came up before it. Drum leaned from his window, touched a plate beneath a speaker on a post. When it queried him, he responded, “One drummer drumming.”

There was no response other than the gate swinging open. They drove through, bearing off to the left across the lawn, rather than following the driveway toward a circle before the house. The gate swung shut behind them.

They made their way amid pine trees, coming at last to the shores of the lake. Drum headed out across the water toward the intermittent light within the small structure on the island. As the moon came slightly higher, it became apparent that a series of small wooden footbridges connected the island to the shore in a bamboo grove near the house, zigzagging its pyloned way from ait to islet.

He drove up onto the beach, headed to a smooth, gravelly area, and parked there.

“All out,” he said, opening his door.

“The building?” Link asked.

Drum nodded and began walking. Link fell into step at his side.

They made their way around to the far side of the structure, coming upon a narrow, flagged path just before its terminus at the doorway. Drum halted then and inquired, “Good evening?”

“Possibly,” came a deep-voiced reply from within. “Please join me.”

Drum entered and Link followed him. A large man, who had been seated back on his heels in a kneeling position beside a low table, rose to his feet. There were small windows in the bare, unfinished wooden walls, to the right and the left. Portions of the branches of evergreens passed near, outside either window. Through the one on the right the moon shone. A salmon-colored paper lantern surrounded a light at the table’s center. It cast illumination on the near wall, where hung a scroll bearing oriental characters. It also drew angled shadows upon the stylized demon mask worn by the man before them. He wore a high-necked, long-sleeved kimono of green silk, and he had on a pair of lemon-yellow gloves. Behind him, a vessel of water steamed on a small heater. He gestured toward the table, which, along with the lantern, held a tea service.

“Won’t you join me in a cup of tea?” he asked.

Drum had reflexively slipped his shoes off on viewing the decor, placing them beside the doorway. Link, a social mimic in the presence of those who seemed to know what they were about, did the same.

“Didn’t expect a tea ceremony,” Drum remarked, moving forward and taking a place across the table from his host. Link seated himself to his right.

“‘Tisn’t,” the large man replied. “Nothing fancy at all. I borrowed this place for our meeting, found the fixings here, and decided I’d like a cup. Please join me.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Drum replied.

Link nodded as the man set about preparing the brew.

Drum picked up his cup, turning it, regarding it. “This one has seen many years,” he said. “Lakes of fine brews must have passed through it. It has a pattern of cracks beneath its glaze, as in a Renaissance painting. And it fits the hand so well.”

Their host turned and stared at him.

“You surprise me, Mr. Drum,” he said.

Drum smiled. “It is never a good thing to become predictable,” he said. “Not in my line of work, either.”

“Either?”

“Either.”

“I am not sure what you are implying.”

“It was only a small observation concerning predictability.”

A chuckle occurred behind the mask. Red and green, the demon face turned toward Link. “And this is the journalist you mentioned?” he said. “Mr. Crain?”

Drum nodded, as did Link.

“I am happy to meet you, sir,” their host stated, “though I fear I cannot afford a more formal introduction. Security—my own—is involved.”

“In that case, how shall I address you?” Link asked.

“That depends on the nature of the relationship we develop,” the other replied. “For now, ‘Daimon’ will do, for it is the mask I have chosen in the role of your host.”

“What sort of business did you have in mind, Daimon?”

“Mr. Drum has informed me that you style yourself as an investigative reporter.”