Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

As the steed pranced out of the vaulted gates carrying the slim, robed figure of Death, Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack craved it as he had never before craved any created thing.

Phecda twined around the steed’s head, halter and herald both, and when Death had drawn alongside the Brass Babboon’s cab, she raised her viper’s head and hissed greeting.

“So, at last you come to Deep Fields, Jay Donnerjack. Know that you are welcome here.”

“Thank you, Phecda,” Jay replied. He bowed to the Lord of Entropy. “And thank you, sir.”

Death grinned, white within the darkness of his cowl.

“You come as your father twice came to me. What do you wish to claim from me?”

“Nothing.”

“You cannot have me believe that you made this trip for pleasure.”

“The scenery was a wonder like nothing I could have imagined, but no, sir, I did not make the journey for pleasure.”

“Yet you want nothing from me. I am intrigued. Tell me why you have come.”

Jay straightened his father’s striped cap on his head. His heart pounded in his chest and his joints felt loose and weak. The inside of his mouth flooded with saliva and as quickly went dry. He realized he was terrified, but he did his best to hide his fear.

“I learned of a bargain made between you and my father, sir. The more I thought about it, the more I came to feel that you had been wronged.”

“I have been.” Death’s voice cracked on the final word.

“And I have come to… to ask you what purpose you had for me when you demanded me from my father.”

“You said you wanted nothing from me, but you ask for an explanation.”

“Perhaps I should have said that I wanted nothing material.” Jay placed his hand on the cab’s door latch, “Before I surrender myself, I will admit that I am curious what you intend for me.”

“Before?” The glint of white within the cowl might have been a smile, but it could as easily been the fixed rictus of a bare skull. “So you intend to surrender?”

“In some circumstances, surrender is more honorable than being taken captive. I believe that this is one. If my father had left behind a debt of money or service, I would have tried to pay it. I’ll admit that I don’t particularly like the terms of this debt, but I think it should be honored nonetheless.”

Death laughed, a sound that made Tranto flap his ears and Mizar whine in involuntary protest.

“You speak fair, Jay Donnerjack, even though your voice does quaver. What would you do if I told you that all I required of you was a source of spare parts for some project I am involved with?”

Jay recalled Reese Jordan’s conjecture on that very point, but he remained steady.

“I would beg your leave to say farewell to Dack, since he has been the only parent I have known, then I would turn myself over to you. If you would not permit me to leave, I would ask at least permission to send him a message.”

“And if I told you that I required the traitor who even now swings alongside you in the cab of the Brass Babboon?”

“I would be able to do nothing, sir. I cannot dispose of my friends’ lives.”

“Thanks, Jay,” Dubhe whispered.

“Even if I required them?”

“No, sir. I think you pulled a mean trick on Dubhe and the rest when you set them to be spies on me.”

“Perhaps I merely meant to protect you.”

“I’d thought of that, but you shouldn’t have left them not knowing what your intentions were.”

“Ah, we are back to my intentions, are we? Very well. I have no desire to break you up for spare parts. I have bits and pieces to spare here in Deep Fields. Indeed, spare parts are all that I possess. I desire you alive and functioning. Had your father surrendered you to me as I had intended, you would have been educated here. I gave in to his whim, and so you are perhaps less well-trained for the task I need done than you might have been.”

“Task?”

“This is not the place to speak of such things. Come forth, if truly you mean to surrender. We will confer in my palace.”

“And Dubhe?”

“He has allied himself with you. You choose to serve me. Therefore, he is indirectly in my service once more. I can settle for that. The same goes for Mizar and any others you have brought with you.”

Jay opened the cab and leaned upon the door. The silence of Deep Fields weighed on him, muting even the chuff of the Brass Babboon’s stack and the noise as Mizar and Tranto came to join him.

“Shall I wait for you, Jay?” the Brass Babboon asked.

“There is no need,” Death interjected. “When he leaves here, it will be in a less obvious fashion.”

“Then I’ll lay tracks out of here. Leave a message for me at any of my stations, Jay, and I’ll come as fast as I can.”

Jay patted the grinning face. “Thanks, B.B. I’ll remember that.”

With a wail that rippled the ruined proges into a Danse Macabre, the Brass Babboon departed. To those watching, he simply seemed to enter the middle distance, dimmish, and recede until the eye could no longer fix on his point.

“Come,” Death said, his steed turning.

Jay let Tranto lift him onto his back. With Mizar at his side and Dubhe on his shoulder, he obeyed. An up-swelling of cacophony rippled through the still air. It was impossible to tell if the sound was mockery or applause.

In a site modeled after an early twenty-first century nightclub, two men sat at a table that floated two meters in the air, tilted at a thirty-degree angle. The original nightclub would have required elaborate constructions involving plexiglass and nearly invisible cable to achieve this effect. In Virtu, of course, none of this was necessary.

“Tickets went on sale today at all Virtik locations,” commented Skyga.

For this manifestation he wore his hair long and the pale blue of a cold day. His brows were upswept cumulus and his features stern but benign. Privately, he considered his virtual savoir faire an example to his associate who was, as ever, deplorably slovenly.

“And sales are going well,” said the Hierophant of the Church of Elish.

Today his tee-shirt (sweat-stained at the underarms) read “Marduk is a Pisser” and showed the great and terrible conqueror of Tiamat raining down on a crowd of upturned faces. It was a bit too tight and had crept up to create a gap above his baggy shorts through which his hairy beer belly protruded. The Hierophant knew that his casual attire drove Skyga crazy and did his best to make certain that the one from Highest Meru always had something to annoy him.

“We should be able to generate ample mana to sustain the crossover,” Skyga continued.

“That’s the idea, bud. How are your troops doing?”

“Morale is good. I have made allies among many of the genü loci — some are even assisting in training and coordination. Others are merely providing guarded sites so that I can conceal the extent of my strength.”

“Do you really expect any resistance once the show is on the road?”

“Seaga will not approve, for the success of this venture will forever confirm me as the foremost of the Highest Three. It is difficult to know how Earthma will react.”

“I thought you said that she’d been helpful.”

“She has. That’s what worries me.”

The Hierophant gestured and a long-necked beer bottle appeared in his hand. He removed the cap with a bottle opener built into the underside of the table. It rattled to the floor.

“Want one?” the Hierophant said, after he had taken a long drink and belched approvingly. “Tastes real good.”

“No, thank you,” Skyga said stiffly.

“It’s good, as good as anything Verite has to offer—or so I’ve been assured.”