Abaddon IX

The hills had closed in around them, many of them topped with barrows and standing stones, when the first drop of rain landed, splat, on the top of Eluned’s head. She was surprised by its warmth and reached up to touch the sphere of precipitation that was now trickling through her hair to her scalp. It didn’t feel right. It had too much texture for water. And, not only that, it was warm! When had rain, except maybe in the most tropical of climates, or perhaps in the desert (well, she could hope) been warm? She withdrew her hand and stared in horror at her fingers. Blood! She lifted her face to the skies as if she expected to see ruby red clouds raining garnets of blood. She saw nothing but the ashy clouds above her; felt the warm, unpleasant smack of another drop against her forehead. She wiped it away in disgust and turned to see Jabberwock watching her, eyes mirroring her fear and repulsion. His hairy brow wrinkled in perplexity.

A large drop splattered his moist, black nose, and he shook his head, spraying droplets of blood all over the white roadbed. Eluned began to moan and picked up her pace in an effort to avoid the rain. But, the faster she ran, the harder it fell. The soft clay of the road was soon a sticky red paste. Blood dripped from the Princess’s ebony curls and slowly soaked her shoulders and insinuated its way inside of her wool cloak, staining the collar of her white blouse.

As suddenly as she started running, she stopped. Eyes rolling, wildly, she searched for cover. Panting, the Bandersnatch finally caught up with her.

“What is wrong with you?” he gasped, scrawny chest heaving.

Eluned stared down at him as if she were talking to a madman. His gray fur was matted with blood. Even his eyes reflected the bright, dark red that coated the landscape with its evil smell.

“Take a deep breath,” he ordered, “and calm down.”

The thick, metallic smell was asphyxiating. Gagging, she continued to search for cover, mumbling, “out, out, out.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jabberwock barked, frustration and fear echoing in the rising octaves of his doggish voice. His precious princess was losing it in front of his very eyes and he had no clue as to why the rain had prompted this insane behavior.

She was now mumbling, “blood, blood, blood,” while simultaneously scrubbing the slimy liquid from her carnelian lips with a blood smeared fist.

The short, bristly hairs on the Bandersnatch’s neck stood at attention. Ears pricked and alert, tail ready to march, he carefully eyed the hills around them. A phantom was at work, a Wight, a creature of the barrows, home to the dead, had spotted the Princess and was spinning its evil web . . .

Out of the corner of his eye, Jabberwock saw a flash of gray wool and mud-stained suede as the Princess suddenly turned and sprinted up a barrow. His eyes widened in terror when he saw where she was heading. A door had opened in the barrow where heretofore none had existed. And Eluned was running toward it as fast as her lithe young legs could carry her. Using all the power available to him, Jabberwock screamed with his mind, “STOP!”

The Princess reacted as if struck by lightning. Hands to head, and back arched, she briefly resembled a bow before her feet began to slip from beneath her and she rolled, ungracefully, back down the wet, grassy slope.

She had barely reached the bottom before she began scrambling back up the hill again. Pupils large, lids heavy, she looked drugged, or, perhaps, hypnotized. With only a modicum of regret, Jabberwock sunk his razor sharp teeth into Eluned’s hand as it sought purchase in the slippery turf of the barrow.

She screamed in pain, but her eyes cleared and she looked in disbelief at her friend. Blood was trickling from his narrow jaw but he retained his grip until he was sure the Wight had lost its grasp on the Princess’s mind.

Eluned looked around her in dismay. The door at the top of the barrow had disappeared, and the blood was gone, replaced by a cold drizzle. Tears slowly cleansed the mud and grass from her face. Unconsciously, she wrapped a linen handkerchief around her wounded hand.

“A Barrow Wight,” Jabberwock explained as they stumbled the last few feet to the road.

“A . . .,” she whispered, face gray with shock.

“An apparition,” he muttered, “the putrid, dripping, eidolon of unwholesome revelation.”

“Eidolon?”

“H.P. Lovecraft.”

Eluned buried her face in her hands, shuddering. “There was blood . . . everywhere. It was raining blood. I was walking in a stream of blood. The hills were red with blood . . . blood . . . blood.” Her hand ached, terribly, and she was shivering with shock and cold. She began to cry again. “I’m sorry,” she managed when the sobs had finally subsided, “I just didn’t expect our journey would be so . . . so . . . uncomfortable.”

“I always told you you were too much a romantic,” Jabberwock chided her, but kindly. “If you can hold out another half hour or so, we’ll reach the last inn before the mountains. We’ll call it an early day. You need rest and warmth . . .”

“Mulled wine,” she interrupted.

“Exactly,” he agreed.

“Warmth,” she continued. “The desert. Heat. Sun. Sand. Blue Skies.” The last mile disappeared beneath her feet as she chanted a mantra of and for comfort.”

They came to a crossroads. Straight ahead, the Mountains of Misericord towered above them so high Eluned could see only the lower slopes, shrouded as the mountains were in billowing robes of cloud. An ancient sign creaked and twisted in the breeze. The archaic lettering, a remnant of the Great Demesne, was weathered beyond legibility. Tracing the indentations with a finger yellow with the cold, Eluned discovered the track led north to Muskroe and south to Seagirt. She looked at the Bandersnatch, eyebrow raised. Would they be heading north or south or would they continue their journey to the east?

“We’ll be traveling so far east we’ll be west,” he answered her unspoken question.

“The desert?” she asked, hopefully. Didn’t the Draconian Desert lie beneath the eastern slopes of the Mountains of Misericord?

Jabberwock only smiled and inclined his head toward the inn. The slate roof was covered with mosses and lichens creating the effect of a natural patchwork quilt. Smoke curled from the chimney, dipped and swirled with the currents of air before settling on a path to the heavens. Golden light brightened the windows and beckoned cold and weary travelers. With a sigh and a groan, the Princess and the Bandersnatch set their stiff muscles in motion, leather soles and sharp claws slapping and tapping the cobbled path to the door.

Except for the crackling of the fire, the inn was blessedly silent. It was also empty.

“Hello!” Eluned called, shutting the heavy oak door on the cold air outside. “Hello?” She tried again, making her way over to the fire.

Silence, and more silence. Eluned and the Bandersnatch shared an uneasy glance.

“I don’t like this.” Jabberwock whispered.

“You don’t think . . .” The Princess looked over her shoulder, nervously.

“There’s no telling . . .” A door slammed somewhere above them and they both jumped. Eluned screamed. She clapped a slender hand over her mouth in case another shriek should try to erupt. Her eyes rolled, wildly, in their sockets, for the second time that day. The throbbing in her hand reminded her of what had happened the last time she lost control. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath.

“Ello!” Basso profundo. “Ello? Body dere?”

“Hello,” Eluned squeaked, cleared her throat and tried again, “Hello! Yes!” What sounded like an elephant was lumbering down the stairs.

The largest man she had ever seen appeared at the bottom of the staircase. He had to be at least eight feet tall, Eluned estimated. But he wasn’t just tall. He was large. Not fat, exactly, but he appeared to be carrying a couple hundred pounds of muscle, alone, on his barrel-chested torso. He had to weigh at least a quarter of a ton, she thought as she unashamedly gawked. Thick, shiny (he was clean, that was a plus!) and straight blue-black hair framed a face as broad as China. Dark, slanted eyes, a squat nose, and a full, smiling mouth seemed somehow out of place on this giant.

“Yes, can I help you? Yes?” His hair, poorly cut (as if someone had stuck a bowl on his head and chopped around it), swung around his face as his head bobbed up and down. He was making Jabberwock dizzy.

“We need.” Eluned stopped. She didn’t know what she wanted more—mulled wine, hot food or a warm bath and bed.

“Yes?”

“We need a room and food and bath and wine and,” she bit her full lower lip, thinking, “well, I guess that about sums it up.”

Their host was staring at the Bandersnatch, wonder in his Mongol eyes. “You,” he addressed Jabberwock, “You da Dhami Dhole.”

“Historically speaking,” the Bandersnatch sighed, and then smiled, wickedly, “and you must be the Dzu-tch.”

The giant bellowed laughter. “Teoleticary speaking, yes. I eight-feet tarr. I eat beef.”

“Dami? Dole? Dzu? Dzu?” Eluned sputtered.

“I get wine,” their host left the room, chuckling.

“Explain.” The Princess ordered.

“I hate it when you get imperious,” Jabberwock kvetched, but he was actually enjoying himself.

“Exprain, prease,” Eluned amended, sitting on a bench in front of the snapping fire. “He recognized you. What’s a dami dole? What’s a dzu-, a dzu-whatever you said? How did he know you could talk?”

“Are you quite finished?”

Eluned rolled her eyes.

“It’s Dhami, d-h-a-m-i, Dhole, d-h-o-l-e.”

“Yeah, so?”

“A dhami is a sorcerer or necromancer.”

“A ledgerdemainist, thaumaturge or magus? Her look was cold. If Jabberwock had been capable of blushing, he would have done so.

“I told you the truth. So I’m a living legend, what can I say?”

“I still don’t understand. What’s a dhole?”

Jabberwock muttered something unintelligible.

“What did you say?”

“I said a dhole is a doglike mammal.”

“A calnivole, too, no?” Their host rejoined them with a steaming jug of mulled wine and two, thick, clay goblets. He poured for himself and the Princess.

“Where I come flom,” he said, “Dhami Dhole myfrical cleatures wif many powers. Didn’t know Dhami Dhole stirl exist.”

“Like telepathy and prescience?”

“Yes, terepafy. Know future, too. Tought Dhami Dhole ting of past. Can’t berieve Dhami Dhole here, fole my eyes.”

“Wait a second. Did you say creatures? Plural?”

“Prural, yes.”

“I have reason to believe I am the only Bandersnatch in existence,” Jabberwock explained.

“Bandelsnac?”

“That’s Bandersnatch, you oaf,” Jabberwock was miffed. It was important that the Princess never doubted his word.

“Jabberwock the Bandersnatch,” the Princess indicated the grouchy Dhami Dhole. “I am the Princess Eluned of Zion.”

“Bonpo,” he introduced himself, extending a hand the size of a hamhock. Eluned clasped it, tentatively, but Bonpo was surprisingly gentle.

“So,” she eyed the Bandersnatch, “I thought you were immortal?”

“Unless killed. I don’t die of old age.”

“Kind of like a tortoise, huh?”

“I suppose that’s an apt enough comparison.”

“Are you sure you’re the only Bandersnatch in existence?”

“Vely rikery,” Bonpo said, “In Dziron, onry myf, regend.”

“Which reminds me,” Eluned turned to Bonpo, “What’s a Dzu-whatever Jabberwock said?”

“It is Yeti.”

“Yeti?”

“The abominable snowman,” Jabberwock helped him out. “A creature about eight feet tall that eats cattle.”

“Abomneral snowman!” Bonpo’s laughter clapped like thunder. “Vely good, vely good!”

Eluned was edging away from the laughing giant. “Sounds like a pretty good description to me.”

“Eat cow, not human,” he was still laughing.

“So why did you leave the Peaks of Vulpecula?”

“Too corld.”

Eluned shivered but she was no longer listening. Vulpecula. Didn’t that have something to do with the word, fox? “Why Vulpecula?”

“Vely qrick, dis woman,” Bonpo’s face was flushed with admiration.

“What else is hiding up there in those mountains?” She asked the Bandersnatch. “Dragons, unicorns?”

“Too corld.”

“I heard you,” she snapped.

“I meant too corld for dragon.”

“Oh.” She blushed. “Solly, I mean, sorry.”

Bonpo sailed off into gales of laughter. Jabberwock was grinning, too, in his usual way—teeth bared, tongue lorring, uh, lolling.

Eluned shivered and moved closer to the fire. Bonpo refilled her cup with hot wine and stood.

“I fix hot baf.” He shambled back up stairs, steps creaking loudly beneath his weight. In the ensuing silence, they could hear his continued chuckles muffled by the sound of splashing water as he filled a tub for the Princess.

“How come there are no more Bandersnatches?” She sipped the soothing, deep red liquid. Somehow, she just couldn’t compare it to the similarly colored liquid that had nearly made her lose her mind only hours earlier.

“Genocide. About 300 years ago, we were considered warlocks. We were hunted down with dogs,” he spat the latter word, “spitted and burned.”

A cold chill insinuated its way once more through her body. She shook her head in denial. She didn’t even want to imagine. “No wonder you despise dogs,” she said, quietly. “Were you the only Bandersnatch to escape?”

“No, there were others. We scattered to the four winds.”

“I assume you can reproduce.”

“Most certainly, but only if we have a mate.”

“You didn’t have a mate?”

“I did.”

Eluned’s heart sank. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he was about to say.

“She was killed when we crossed The Devastation of Pelf.”

“You crossed The Devastation! I thought, I thought . . .”

“Thought it was impossible?”

“Yes.”

“Very nearly. But there is life there, the most repulsive,” he shuddered. “Lovecraft, himself, would be hard put to describe the terrors, the monstrosities in that wasteland.”

Lovecraft again! She’d have to ask him about that later. “She wasn’t . . .”

“I couldn’t save her,” his voice cracked. Nearly three hundred years later and it was still like it happened yesterday. “It was hiding beneath the sands. It’s fiendish claw tore into her flesh.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Suffice to say that Kamali did not suffer long but I carry the anguish of that moment for eternity.”

The Princess was stunned into silence and tears stung her eyes. She had been meeting with Jabberwock almost daily for eleven years and she had never had the slightest clue. Not an inkling or intimation, not even an indication that he had once loved as she might never even hope to love.

The yeti was pounding down the stairs. She wondered how long the staircase would last beneath his weight.

Jabberwock stared, morosely, into the fire remembering a time more than three hundred years earlier when love was life; and life was a hidden, verdant valley in the Peaks of Vulpecula. A time when there was little to fear; when the Janawar (for Bandersnatch is what the Jabberwock chose to call himself in his new life) coexisted peacefully with the yeti, yak and snow leopards; where lotus bloomed in cerulean pools and snow never fell; and why was a question that did not require discussion.

Eluned quietly stood, leaving Jabberwock to his memories and tears and still-aching heart. She followed Bonpo up the stairs and the gentle giant did his best to climb silently.

Easing her sore body into the hot, scented water, the Princess inhaled the fragrance of honeysuckle and roses and slowly her muscles began to relax. But, her mind was racing. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems; everything always takes a lot longer than you think it ought to, and that seemed to particularly apply to her at this point. Had she really been so self-centered that she had never pressed Jabberwock on his past? Why had it taken her eleven years to find out about her great-grandmother? Kamali? How long had she been taking things at face value? She was beginning to scare herself. Eluned vowed to look deeper—at herself, the Bandersnatch, at everyone and everything she came in contact with. Surely the climate was not the only reason Bonpo had ventured here from Dziron. This was a cold land, too. The Mountains of Misericord towered above the inn and brought snow and storms nearly three seasons out of four. Surely if he had desired warmth he would have journeyed farther south. There were many warm lands in the south—the Desert of Tarshish, the Favonian Islands, the Kingdom of Adam, to name just a few.

She resolved to question him further after her bath. Jabberwock, too, for that matter. She sipped at her wine as she contemplated her new self, or at least what she hoped would become her new self. She chuckled. Perhaps, she would turn out all right, after all.