Roger Zelazny - Isle Of The Dead

To cross over the dark waters ... It was an eerie feeling, because of what the place meant to me, because of the chord it had struck Within me while I was building it. The feeling of the Valley of Shadows, the sense of the serene passing, this was absent. This place was the butcher's block at the end of the nm. I hated it and I feared it. I knew that I lacked the spiritual stamina to ever duplicate it. It was one of those once in a lifetime creations that made me wish I hadn't. To cross over the dark waters meant to me a confrontation with something within myself that I did not understand or accept. I was cruising along on Tokyo Bay, and suddenly this was the answer, looming, the heaped remains of everything that goes down and does not come again to shore, life's giant kitchen-midden, the rubbish heap that remains after all things pass, the place that stands in testament to the futility of all ideals and intentions, good or bad, the rock that smashes values, there, signalizing the ultimate uselessness of life itself, which must one day be broken upon it, not to rise, never, no, not ever, again. The warm waters splashed about my knees, but a chill shook me and I broke rhythm. Green Green touched my shoulder, and we matched our paddling once again. --"Why did you make it, if you hate it so?" he asked me. --"They paid me well," I replied, and, "Bear to the left. We're going in the back way." Our course altered, shifting westward as he strengthened his strokes and I lightened mine. --"The back way?" he repeated. --"Yes," I said, and I did not elaborate.

As we neared the isle, I ceased my reflections and became a mechanical thing, as I always do when there are too many thoughts to think. I paddled and we slipped through the night, and soon the isle lay to starboard, mysterious lights flecking its face. From ahead, the light that glowed atop the cone crossed our path, dappling the waters, casting a faint red glow upon the cliffs.

We passed the isle then and moved toward it from the north. Through the night, I saw the northern face as in daylight. Memory mapped its scars and ridges, and my fingertips tingled with the texture of its stone.

We drew near, and I touched the sheer, black face with my oar. We held that position while I stared upward, then said, "East."

Several hundred yards later, we came to the place where I had hidden the "trail." A cleft slanted within the rock--forty feet of chimney--where the pressure of back and feet allowed ascent to a narrow ledge, along which a man might edge his way for sixty feet, to encounter a series of hand- and foot-holds leading up.

I told this to Green Green, and he stabilized the raft while I went on ahead. Then he followed, uncomplaining, though his shoulder must have been bothering him.

When I reached the top of the chimney, I looked down and was unable to spot the raft. I mentioned this, and Green Green grunted. I waited until he made it to the top, and helped him out of the cleft. Then we began inching our way along the cleft, eastward.

It took us about fifteen minutes to reach the upward trail. Again, I went first, after explaining that we had a five-hundred-foot climb before we reached another ledge. The Pei'an grunted again and followed me.

Soon my arms were sore, and when we made the ledge I sprawled and lit a cigarette. After ten minutes, we moved again. By midnight, we had made it to the top without mishap.

We walked, for about ten minutes. Then we saw him.

He was a wandering figure, doubtless narcotized up to the ears. Maybe not, though. You can never be too sure.

So I approached him, placed my hand upon his shoulder, stood before him, said, "Courtcour, how have you been?"

He looked up at me through heavy-lidded eyes. He weighed about three hundred fifty pounds, wore white garments (Green Green's idea, I guess), was blue-eyed, light-complexioned and soft-spoken. He lisped a bit when he answered me.

"I think I have all the data," he said.

"Good," I answered. "You know that I came here to meet this man--Green Green--in a combat of sorts. We have become allies recently, against Mike Shandon ...?"

"Give me a moment," he replied.

Then, "Yes," he said. "You lose."

"What do you mean?"

"Shandon kills you in three hours and ten minutes."

"No," I said. "He can't."

"If he does not," he replied, "it will be because you have slain him. Then Mister Green will kill you about five hours and twenty minutes from now."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Green is the worldscaper who did Korrlyn?"

"Are you?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Then he will kill you."

"How?"

"Probably by means of a blunt instrument," he said. "If you can avoid that, you might be able to take him with your hands. You've always proven just a bit stronger' than you look, and it fools people. I do not think it will help you this time, though."

"Thanks," I said. "Don't lose any sleep."

"... Unless you are both carrying secret weapons," he said, "and it is possible that you are."

"Where is Shandon?"

"In the chalet."

"I want his head. How do I get it?"

"You are a kind of demon factor. You have that ability which I cannot fully measure."

"Yes. I know."

"Do not use it."

"Why?"

"He has one, too."

"I know that also."

"If you can kill him at all, you kill him without it."

"Okay."

"You do not trust me."

"I don't trust anybody."

"Do you remember the night you hired me?"

"Faintly."

"It was the best meal I ever had in my life. Pork chops. Lots of them."

"It comes back to me."

"You told me of Shimbo then. Invoke him and Shandon will invoke the other one. Too many variables. It may be fatal."

"Maybe Shandon has gotten to you."

"No. I am just measuring probabilities."

"Could Yarl the Omnipotent create a stone he could not lift?" Green Green asked him.

"No," said Courtcour.

"Why not?"

"He would not."

"That is no answer."

"Yes it is. Think about it. Would _you?_"

"I do not trust him," said Green Green. "He was normal when I brought him back, but I believe that perhaps Shandon has reached him."

"No," said Courtcour. "I am trying to help you."

"By telling Sandow he is going to die?"

"Well, he is."

Green raised his hand, and suddenly he was holding my gun, which he must have teleported from my belt, in the same fashion as he had obtained the tapes. He fired twice and handed it back to me.

"Why did you do that?"

"He was lying to you, trying to confuse you. Trying to destroy your confidence."

"He was once a close associate of mine. He had trained himself to think like a computer. I think he was trying to be objective."

"Get the tape and you can resurrect him."

"Come on. I've got two hours and fifty-eight minutes."

We walked away.

"Should I not have done that?" he asked me, after a time.

"No."

"I am sorry."

"Great. Don't kill anybody else unless I ask you to, huh?"

"All right. --You have killed many people, have you not, Frank?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Them or me, and I'd rather it was them."

"So?"

"You didn't have to kill Bodgis."

"I thought--"

"Shut up. Just shut up."

We walked on, passing through a cleft of rock. Tendrils of mist snaked by, touched our garments. Another shadowy figure stood off to the side, at the place where we emerged upon a downward-sloping trail.

"... Coming to die," she said, and I stopped and looked at her.

"Lady Karle."

"Pass on, pass on," she said. "Hasten to your doom. You could not know what it means to me."

"I loved you once," I said, which was not the right thing to say at all.

She shook her head.

"The only thing you ever loved--besides yourself-- was money. You got it. You killed more people than I know of to keep your empire, Frank. Now there has finally come a man who can take you. I am proud to be present at your doom."