The Land Beyond Summer is posted for entertainment purposes only and no part of it may be crossposted to any other datafile base, conference, news group, email list, or website without written permission of Pulpless.Comtm.
Copyright © 1996 by Brad Linaweaver. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE OWS IN VOWS
"Mom," cried Fay. Clive hestitated to speak. "Dad," cried
Fay. Clive still remembered how he had been taken in by the
Slaks at the village of Il. These two pathetic people, hunched
over in a cage, seemed real enough. But he couldn't be sure.
Would he ever be sure again?
"They can't hear you," said Grandfather. "I'll bring them
to you." There was something terrible about watching Malak enjoy
himself. He clapped his hands, as much to applaud himself as to
pass on instructions.
The statue began to move. This sent kids scurrying. As
before, the volleyball players paid no heed, even after it
stepped on one of them as its giant feet SHOOSHED SHOOSHED out of
the water, dragging mud from the lake bottom.
Several blood relatives lept to their feet as if to flee,
but with one shouted word of black magic, Grandfather who was
Malak held them in their places. He didn't need do much about
Aunt Miner. One look at what was causing the commotion and she
fainted dead away. Fay couldn't decide if the various friends
and family members had any idea where they were.
The gargantuan statue impressed Clive quite a bit, as it
continued to impress volleyball players into the ground. Back
home, he had a picture of the Colossus of Rhodes right over his
bed, next to Madonna. There was no sword in the statue's hand
but otherwise it was very similar, excepting the face. The THUD
THUD of stone feet brought Clive back to the here and now; and he
hoped that Grandfather was adept enough with his wizadry to
prevent the giant stepping where it wasn't intended. Concern for
his parents, if they were his parents, was equally balanced
against the personal desire not to be squished. Or squashed.
The statue came to rest a few yards short of the picnic
tables. Fay ran over to it but Clive held back, afraid it might
move again. Malak/The Master/The Dour One/Grandfather did
nothing to prevent her, and seemed to be encouraging Clive to
join Fay. No one else budged from their seats and Clive had the
impression of their being held in place by magic. The Jennifers
could not be restrained by such means, but they remained seated,
heads close together, as if holding themselves in reserve.
Clive finally swallowed hard and took a few tentative steps
toward his sister, who called out to him with: "We must wake
them up!"
"Their eyes are closed," Clive observed, "but that doesn't
mean they're asleep."
"Full marks, Clive," said Grandfather. "You know a trance
when you see one. What a promising career you could have had in
the bureaucracy of your choosing."
Suddenly dozens of the marching men with football heads
appeared. Each carried a piece of long extension ladder. The
foremost pushed Fay out of the way.
"Hey," Clive started to protest but Fay surprised him by
putting a finger to her lips and shushing him. He went over to
his sister and helped her up. The two of them watched the
operation. While the football-headed men worked to put the
ladder together, hundreds of the samller jack-'o-lantern men
swarmed out of the woods and surrounded Clive and Fay, rubbing
them with their soft, spongy hands.
"Just ignore them," said Clive through clenched teeth. He
was glad to find out that he was no longer afraid.
"Why isn't Mrs. Norse here to help us?" asked Fay. Clive
shrugged as though her absence didn't bother him, but he was
worried.
The strange men were bringing Mom's limp body down the
ladder first. She seemed to be in a trance. One football man
had thrown her over his shoulder, the way a fireman might carry a
child he was rescuing from a burning building. Suddenly Fay felt
Malak's cold hands on her shoulders. She pulled away.
"Dear children," hissed Grandfather, "only you can save
them. I'm giving you the chance to restore your parents'
marriage, and help the Seasons achieve their final destiny while
you're at it."
"Why should we believe anything you say?" asked Clive
angrily.
"When have I told you a lie? Think back to the first day I
promised you great things in the future...."
"You never told us what you would do with Mom and Dad,"
sobbed Fay, turning her face away.
With sophistry worthy of the lawyers he used to decry,
Grandfather turned sweet reason into a sour emotion: "Was it my
fault you were ripped cruelly from your world, and right after
I'd made you masters in your own home? The Slaks were better
than your original parents could ever be. They still are! I'd
have let you continue bossing them around as long as your little
hearts desired."
Fay was about to respond with a kick to the old man's shins
when Clive pleasantly surprised her with: "You're a liar,
Grandfather! Mrs. Norse said you would have replaced us, too, if
she hadn't brought us here first."
"Propaganda, dear boy."
"You wouldn't have left us there long enough to find your
stupid gold," Clive went on.
"Well, my dear grandson, at least I approve of your
priorities."
Fay wasn't about to let him get away with that. Now it was
her turn. "You picked Clive's weakest moment, right after Dad
beat him. But Clive already misses Mom ... and Dad, too!"
"How terribly unfair to me," said Malak, "after I rescue the
two of you. The marriage was over, children, over except for
the formalities. I provided you with the mother and father of
your fondest dreams."
Fay ran over to the recumbent form of her mother and cradled
the head in her arms, as if she meant to cut off the rasping
sounds that came from their mutual tormentor. "Don't listen,"
she said, as much for her own benefit, hugging Mom harder and
harder, as if she could escape that way.
Clive turned from watching his father being brought down the
ladder, and faced everyone's mutual problem. "I don't believe
you. You hated Dad. You never wanted him to marry Mom. Why
would you change now unless it serves your purpose about being
Master of the Seasons?"
"Why, next you'll say you don't believe me when I say the
sky is blue." Malak sidled over and put an arm around Clive's
reluctant shoulders. "What color is it, anyway. Do you think
that maybe it's really ... yellow, and the blue is a trick?"
Clive shrieked and pushed the bony arms away. His courage
seemed to evaporate. How did the vile bastard know about a
person's weakest points, the areas you had to force way down,
deep down in your mind, so they couldn't come back up and haunt
your best intentions?
"I've turned over a new leaf," said Grandfather, chuckling
at some private joke. "I'm going to make the Seasons better.
"That's why I was collecting taxes. Improvements don't come
free, you know, and it takes a lot of magic concentrated in one
special place to get the job done."
Clive and Fay exchanged glances again. The time they'd been
separated in this unpredictable world had brought them closer
together, if only through comfortable silences they could share.
Malak could tell when would-be victims held private councils.
There'd been no such trouble with the parents, but these damned
(or undamned) kids were a different matter.
"I should never have sent Slaks to offer Clive honest work
as a tax collector," he admitted.
Walking over to where Mom and Dad lay sprawled across the
grass, he made as if to lift them but actually held them down
with a gesture both patronizing and full of anger. He stroked
their heads as if they were animals, and pressed down hard so
that Mom and Dad's faces were ground into the dirt. "It's time
for us to be a real family again," he said to the prostrate
forms. "Already your offspring have grasped the meaning of
responsibility to one another. They love. How you poor
creatures ever produced two human beings is a mystery, but
perhaps we'll find an answer through your sacrifice."
Malak reached inside his ample cloak and, with a flourish
worthy of a stage magician, produced two silver daggers similar
to the one Clive had seen the Slak version of his mother use on
the beach. The Jennifers chose this moment to act. Jennifer of
Spring bounded up from her seat so quickly that she knocked over
Mr. Wynot, who was so deeply transfixed that he made a little
peeping noise as he slid out of his seat. The unhappy man's eyes
were glassy, like the rest of the picnic revelers.
Malak was ready for the Jennifers. He drove the daggers
into Mom and Dad's backs with the speed of lightning. Fay gasped
and tried to move from where she stood but it was as if an
invisible hand clutched her, squeezing body and throat hard
enough to hurt but not hard enough to kill. Clive couldn't even
lift his hand the few inches necessary to touch his sister by the
arm in her hour of need.
The Jennifers didn't seem to be trapped the way Clive and
Fay were held in place; but the moment the blades were driven
home the guardians of the Seasons joined hands and waited for
what they knew must come next. Fay's mind was frozen by the
spectacle of her parents flailing on the ground, wriggling like
bugs pinned to a board. There should have been blood, but the
backs of her parents' clothes showed no telltale signs of
spreading crimson.
Something else was happening. The hilts of the two knives
were glowing and light was lancing upwards at an angle where the
two beams met; the single beam formed in this manner shot
straight up at a different angle where it touched the sword held
in the upraised hand of the giant statue. The stone blade began
to glow.
While all this was going on, there was a low sound droning
in the background, as if a million bees swarmed a few feet under
the ground. Clive could move his arm. Fay turned her head to
see him, as the immobility slowly drained from her tortured body.
The Jennifers began to chant strange, melliflous words that
provided a counterpoint to the annoying hum, as if trying to keep
the sound from growing any louder and driving everyone mad.
Fay was first to notice the new danger. Forming directly
over the blade of the stone sword was a small, white cloud. This
was the second cloud she had seen in this world. She remembered
the last one all too well. She didn't feel any better when she
saw a shadow forming underneath the cloud, a shadow in a world
without shadows, that resembled a great bloated spider.
The cloud attacked. It fell toward them as if it were made
of lead, while thin tendrils reached out from the shadow below,
twitching and crawling across the ground. Everyone had noticed
Malak's latest monster by the time Fay screamed. Clive grabbed
at her and tried to run, but there was no requirement for them to
move.
The cloud passed over them, leaving a brief impression of
frostbite, before heading toward the picnic tables. As the sky
became a source of dread yet again in the Land of the Seasons,
Malak chanted: "Takes two to make a marriage; takes two to make
divorce; takes two to change the Seasons, and do it with blessed
force."
The Jennifers stood between the cloud and the others,
staring, chanting their response to Malak in a private language
of their own, but the cloud simply zoomed over their heads where
it dissipated in the limbs of the trees. A few wisps of white
mist drifted away and that was all.
"Good show," said Malak, "pip, pip, and a bit of all right.
Yo, Clive Gurney, yes you there, with the stolid expression, why
don't you be the first to investigate my latest masterwork.
Don't be shy, just wander over to the nearest tree and check it
out!"
Nothing seemed different from his current vantage point, so
he expected the worst. Still, it was a pleasure to be able to
walk again. Clive walked over to the trees, brushing past
nervous inlaws along the way. The first difference he noticed
was a sickly sweet odor that was all wrong. Near at hand was an
oak, or something so close it might as well be called one.
Reaching out to brush the rough bark with his fingers, he felt
the hair stand up on the back on his neck. "It feels real
enough" he said as he made contact.
"Everything is real," said Malak who was Grandfather, busily
blocking Fay's desire to reach her parents. Whatever invisible
force had blocked her way was now removed, but he was more than
adequate to block her path with his body.
"Be careful," said Fay.
As Clive cautiously plucked a leaf from its branch, he
shivered at the touch even though it was still a warm summer day.
The leaf rested in his hand as if some marvelous insect that had
lost the strength to fly ... in a land that had banned insects.
Fay saw his expression change as he gazed down at what was
happening in his hand. "What is it?" she called to him,
forgetting Malak and her parents as she ran over to him. No
barriers blocked her in this direction.
She ran to him as Clive backed away -- an incongruous sight,
because he was trying to back away from what remained in the palm
of his hand, arm held straight out as if it belonged to another
person. Coming up behind him, she saw the object of his disgust.
The leaf was decomposing. It wasn't turning brown and brittle,
as might be expected. Instead, it was liquifying into a muddy
orange sludge. The remains made a hissing sound, the part that
really bothered Fay. "Throw it away," she told him.
Clive always tried to follow good advice. He let go of it,
but that wasn't good enough. Dropping to his knees, he rubbed
his hand frantically against the ground.
"You don't have to do that," came the reassuring tones of
Malak. "You're not hurt." Clive worked up the nerve to turn his
hand over and give it a thorough examination. He seemed to be
all right. The same could not be said for the grass that had
been touched by the liquid as it changed color from natural green
to a purple that was neither its color nor the color of the
sludge.
Malak was as happy as a clam at a vegetarian convention. He
jumped up and down, hooted for joy and talked some more: "What
I can do for the Center of All Seasons, I can do for a thousand
lesser worlds, feeble reflections of what goes on here; and that
includes humble, little earth, my pretties. Thanks to your
parents, dear Clive, dear Fay, I can bring to your world the same
originality they worked so hard to bring to their relationship.
There's nothing more boring than tranquility, you know!"
Clive wasn't buying a word of it. He grabbed a handful of
leaves and ran at Malak, throwing them at his face and trying to
mash the rest of them into his cloak. The Jennifers called out
warnings but for reasons best known to themselves they wouldn't
budge from where they continued standing, holding hands. A
memory was nagging at the back of Clive's mind like a bad
headache ... something about a direct approach being unadvisable.
"Aint gonna work on me," said Malak, shrugging off the
attack. "I'm immune from my own policies, sort of like your
country's Congress."
"It used to be your country, too, Grandfather!" said Clive
as tears started pouring down his face. Fay had never seen her
brother cry and the sight made her all the angrier.
"None of that, my boy. We haven't the time. If you want to
be patriotic, I'll provide endless opportunity, never fear. But
first we must finish the task of Ye Olde parental sacrifice.
They're still alive, you know."
Swaggering over to the writhing human bodies, Malak bent
down and removed the daggers which made a strange popping sound.
Immediately, Mom and Dad lay still. "Reminds me of their wedding
night," he added gratuitously. "The negative energy released by
a truly loveless marriage is not all it's cracked up to be. What
we want is a case were love has gone as sour as yesterday's
cottage cheese, but there's still a little speck of the original
passion left. The ambivalence factor should never be
underestimated."
He gestured for one of his football-headed freaks to seize
Fay and bring her over to Mom and Dad. The action was pointless
and cruel as Fay had been struggling to get to them. Clive
wanted to come to her aid but now a football man blocked his
passage.
"Fay, you are a mystery to me," he said. "You still love
them."
"So does Clive," she felt the need to say. Clive was
silent.
"Not the way you do, dear little Fay. Something there is in
the poor lad that makes him judge them. No sense of his proper
place, I'm afraid. Confidentially..." Malak leaned over and did
a mock whisper in her ear, "I never thought you had the potential
to be a tax collector the way your brother did. I'd never have
sent you to meet the Maw."
"Thanks so much," she said sarcastically. "Instead I got
the spider-fish thing."
"Nothing but the best for you," he agreed, oozing with
charm. "The kind of love there is in you is a valuable resource.
Or as I read somewhere a long time ago, 'Love suffereth long, and
is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own;
is not provoked, taking not account of evil; rejoiceth not in
unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things.' One can never be too careful about the books one
reads."
Clive chose that moment to chime in with: "Or as ABBA says,
'Breaking up is never easy, I know, but I have to go.'" Clive
prided himself on his knowledge of classical music.
Malak spun around, deeply irate over the interruption. But
Fay was grateful for Malak's distraction because it gave her a
chance to think again. He was talking about love in its biggest
sense, and accusing her of having more than her fair share. He
was going to use that somehow to do something dreadful. The dumb
lyric from the popular song brought love down to a more trivial
level. Kids at school were constantly saying they were in love
with each other ... and if they were lucky, it would last as long
as a hit song on the pop charts. The only caveat was that with
everyone worried about AIDS, kids pretended to be less shallow
and superficial than they knew themselves to be. For the first
time, it struck Fay that Mom and Dad were just about as reliable
in the old "love" department as the kids at school. Russell and
Claire had simply taken longer to get bored.
This disconcerting view of complete adult bankruptcy took
root in Fay with the suddeness of a summer cold. Only she wasn't
going to be able to sneeze it away. The idea festering inside
her head was that if Mom and Dad had loved their children more,
they would have at least faked marital love to keep the pretense
of the family alive. When adults talked about honesty and
rethinking their priorities and getting on with their lives, they
arrived at a most interesting place concerning the kids. They
expected their offspring to pretend eternal affection; but they
wouldn't pretend with each other for the sake of those same
children. Plus: they'd never extend the freedom of walking away
to their kids, either. The police never went after runaway
spouses. But runaway kids found out the meaning of being a
fugitive in less time than it took to make a fink phone call.
If Malak had known all the trouble that was loosed by
Clive's little comment, he would have dumped a bucket of black
magic all over his poor grandson. Instead, he turned back to
consider Fay, blissfully unaware of the sea change that had just
taken place.
"I'll be bringing them back to consciousness just for you,"
he told Fay. "You can help them do a shallow and temporary
reconciliation. When they realize the danger, they'll at least
have the sense to go along...."
Yes, Fay thought, fear is the key. That's what had been
missing in her parents' lives together: an insufficiency of
marrow freezing terror!
"... but then again, they may be so deeply moved by their
predicament, and the sacrifices their children made on their
behalf, that the love will be real. If that happens, my master
spell won't work. So you have a good motive to do your best.
But if they give me what I need, I can release their negative
energies, feed that into all the magic I've been hoarding ...
and bring the Fifth Season to millions of worlds."
Kitnip sniffed around and said, "Sort of like turning the
Universe into a catbox that's never emptied."
"Animal," snorted Malak, no doubt offended by creatures of
Kitnip's size who refused to be subordinate. There would be a
lot more professionally made Slaks and a lot fewer amateur life
forms when he was finished setting Existence to rights.
"There's only one difficulty with your plan, sir," said Fay,
smiling sweetly.
"You have no choice, child. The contest is between your
hope for their reunion and my confidence in their
incompatibility."
"But great Malak, your excellency, sir," Fay said just as
sweetly. "What if I've changed my mind? I don't want them back
together."