John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

He picked me up as if my weight were nothing, and hopped a one-footed hop closer to the fire. With one hand still over my mouth, and one around my arms and waist, he thrust my feet toward the fire.

I kicked and lifted my legs as high as I could, writhing beneath his arm. I could not get free; I could not bite his hand; I could barely make any noise through my nose. The bottom of the bearskin fell in the flames, and started smoking and crawling upward.

"Now, then," he whispered. "That looked bad, didn't it? Here you are all willing and ready to die, but not to get a little singed? I'll make you a promise. You stick your foot into the hot coals, and let your foot get burnt black, without flinching, without being afraid, and—hey!—I'll let you go and with my blessing.

Mucius Scaevola did it. You can do it."

I did not do it. I kicked once or twice more, trying to get my legs higher up.

"Such pretty, pretty legs," he whispered. "I make it simpler. One toe. You burn off one toe without flinching or making a face, and I'll let you go. It will convince me you mean what you say. No? Come on.

Even a bunny will gnaw off its legs if'n it's caught in a trap. And I ain't even asking your whole leg. Just a toe. It won't hurt after the nerves burn off; it'll smell like roast pork."

That did not make the prospect any more appealing. I gathered my every ounce of strength and strained against his arm, making a shrill noise through my nostrils. It was the same as if iron bands were wrapped around me.

He was standing on one goddamn leg, and all my kicking could not knock him over.

"Naw. Time's up. I changed my mind. Your legs are so long and fine. Trim ankles, just like a naiad." He made a little hop, and took me away from the flame. The bearskin was still smoking, and I jumped and kicked where little flecks of ash touched me.

"And besides, you can dance for me, even if I can't dance no more. Belly dancing like those houri girls do. But I'll give you one more test."

He moved his thumb less than an inch, and pinched my nostrils shut with his hand.

"Maybe I hold you this way till you pass out. Maybe I kill you dead. You don't know, do you? But I tell you what. You hold still and look real brave, and I'll know, I'll really know, you don't mind smothering to death. Maybe I'll do this over and over and over again, while you faint each time, till I am really convinced."

Wherever that feeling of calmness, that chess-match feeling, was, which had made me so sure I had all the answers, that feeling wasn't here. I really tried to hold still. But when your lungs are empty, your body starts jerking.

And you start thinking about books you started reading that you want to finish. Things you wanted to say to friends.

He hissed, "You see, it's one thing to close your eyes and jump down into a pit. It's another to take a spade and dig that pit, and lay down in it, and then pull the dirt atop you, one spadeful at a time. Plenty of time to think, when you dig your own grave. Are you going to hold still? I'll be impressed."

I rolled my eyes and looked up at him. I was ready to surrender. But now, I could not even tell him I was ready to give up.

He must have seen it. But he held his hand there, choking me.

Then he moved his thumb. Less than half an inch. That is how much space separated me from not-me.

Half an inch.

And yes, I was weeping. Quentin had done so well when it was his turn to face this kind of thing.

Grendel said, "I take my hand off your mouth, if you're willing to do one little thing for me. You say,

'Thank you, sir,' when I let you talk again."

I nodded. It was Boggin and his making me count, all over again.

He took his hand away.

I said, "Thank you, sir."

"That's better."

"I'm not talking to you."

"What?"

"I see something you don't see." I was draped over his arm at the moment, remember, and my face was turned toward the sky.

He turned his head and looked up.

It was perfect timing. He could not get his hand up to save his face.

Like a thunderbolt, a huge black eagle with white-tipped feathers struck, claws like knives digging deep into his cheeks. The sharp beak rose and fell like a hammer, or rather, like a pickaxe.

Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you, whoever you are.

When the eagle's head yanked back, there was something long and bloody in his beak. A tongue?

Grendel let me fall, and he sprang back, toppling, batting at the wings that were batting at him. Reality quivered, and when the quivering stopped, Grendel was gone. In his place stood an enormous three-pawed bear. Tatters of his torn shirt fell from the bear's shoulders. There was that much concession to reality, but the fact that an extra seven hundred pounds of matter just popped into existence out of nowhere evidently did not annoy the Grendel paradigm of the universe.

The bear swept out with a paw and delivered the kind of blow that can decapitate a full-grown bull.

Boom.

But the eagle, instead of collapsing into a bloody mess, bounced away and flew back in the bear's face.

He thrust his beak into the white muzzle and tore a swatch of tissue out of the bear's nose.

I shrieked and winced. Very girlish. Grendel would have approved. But seeing the nose ripped off a bear, all that delicate tissue come out, is almost too gross for words.

This time the bear got his claws into the eagle, and it was time to feel sorry for the eagle. Blood and feathers flew up—I do not know from where—and another sweep of that terrible paw sent the bird rolling across the snow, leaving a swath of red drops on the white snow.

The rolling mass of feathers would have seemed funny, if this had been a cartoon. But as it was, I think it was one of the most horrible things I ever saw. No, wait. Seeing the bird flop to a standstill, and wiggle his wings, was worse. Both wings flopped. Both were broken.

Then, somehow, it was even worse again to see the eagle stretch out his neck, drive his beak through the snow to the hard soil, and jerk his neck and shoulders. He pulled himself forward an inch. Two inches.

Three.

The bear, dripping bloody gore from his face, and bellowing in pain, rose up, teetering on one leg, clawing at the sky and screaming; and even the bear stopped in astonishment, and watched. Four inches.

Five.

The bird kept coming. He did not give up. He wanted to keep fighting.

The bear dropped to three legs, loped in one huge rolling wave of muscles and fur over to where the eagle was crawling toward him, stepped on the bird with one huge paw. The eagle was driven down into snow. I wondered why all his hollow bones were not cracked.

The eagle craned his neck around at an impossible angle and bit the bear in the foot.

The bear had had just about enough from this eagle. Taking the eagle by the neck in his jaws, the bear lashed to the right and left, smashing the eagle's body over and over and over again into the snowy, rocky soil, until there were splatters of blood to the left and right.

I cried out, "Grendel! Don't kill him!"

My shout was loud enough to draw an echo from the Kissing Well. The voice sounded like a man's voice. "… don't kill him…" Unlike my voice, the echo was calm and soldierlike. A voice giving an order.

A second bird fell from the sky. This one was a vulture. It was more enormous than any vulture of Earth.

It had black wings and a white head.

The vulture struck, driving claws like sabers into the shoulder and chest of the great bear. It drove its beak into one eye socket and pulled out the eye in a gush of blood and vitreous humor.

The bear dropped the eagle and raised his claws to defend himself, knocking the vulture away from him.

In a flurry of wings like the snap of gale winds, the vulture returned.