Hell, we tried. We’ll get credit for that much. Almost made it, too. If only…
“No!” he shouted suddenly. “No! I won’t let you!” He hurled himself at the gap, tried to pry his body through, wriggled and writhed against the recalcitrant opening. Lightning struck, somewhere in the dark realm just beyond, illuminating an open countryside of fields and forests and, beyond them, the beckoning foothills of the Mulun range.
Thunder pealed, setting the fence rocking. The slats squeezed Fiben between them, .and he howled in agony. When they let go he fell, half-numbed with pain, to the ground near Sylvie. But he was on his feet again in an instant. Another electric ladder lit the glowering clouds. He screamed back at the sky. He beat the ground. Mud and pebbles flew up as he threw handful into the air. More thunder drove the stones back, pelting them into his face.
There was no longer any such thing as speech. No words. The part of him that knew such things reeled in shock, and in reaction other older, sturdier portions took control.
Now there was only the storm. The wind and rain. The lightning and thunder. He beat his breast, lips curled back, baring his teeth to the stinging rain. The storm sang to Fiben, reverberating in the ground and the throbbing air. He answered with a howl.
This music was no prissy, human thing. It was not poetical, like the whale dream phantoms of the dolphins. No, this was music he could feel clear down to his bones. It rocked him. It rolled him. It lifted Fiben like a rag doll and tossed him down into the mud. He came back up, spitting and hooting.
He could feel Sylvie’s gaze upon him. She was slapping the ground, watching him, wide-eyed, excited. That only made him beat his breast harder and shriek louder. He knew he was not drooping now! Throwing pebbles into the air he cried defiance to the storm, calling out for the lightning to come and get him!
Obligingly, it came. Brilliance filled space, charging it, sending his hair bristling outward, sparking. The soundless bellow blew him backward, like a giant’s hand come down to slap him straight against the wall.
Fiben screamed as he struck the slats. Before he blacked out, he distinctly smelled the aroma of burning fur.
66
Gailet
In the darkness, with the sound of rain pelting against the roof tiles, she suddenly opened her eyes. Alone, she stood up with the blanket wrapped around her and went to the window.
’ Outside, a storm blew across Port Helenia, announcing the full arrival of autumn. The caliginous clouds rumbled angrily, threateningly.
There was no view to the east, but Gailet let her cheek rest against the cool glass and faced that way anyway.
The room was comfortably warm. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and shivered against a sudden chill.
67
Fiben
Eyes… eyes… eyes were everywhere. They whirled and danced, glowing in the darkness, taunting him.
An elephant appeared — crashing through the jungle, trumpeting with red irises aflame. He tried to flee but it caught him, picked him up in its trunk, and carried him off bouncing, jouncing him, cracking his ribs.
He wanted to tell the beast to go ahead and eat him already, or ^rample him… only to get it over with! After a while, though, he grew used to it. The pain dulled to a throbbing ache, and the journey settled into a steady rhythm. …
The first thing he realized, on awakening, was that the rain was somehow missing his face.
He lay on his back, on what felt like grass. All around him the sounds of the storm rolled on, scarcely diminished. He could feel the wet showers on his legs and torso. And yet, none of the raindrops fell onto his nose or mouth.
Fiben opened his eyes to look and see why… and, incidentally, to find out how he happened to be alive.
A silhouette blocked out the dim underglow of the clouds. A lightning stroke, not far away, briefly illuminated a face above his own. Sylvie looked down in concern, holding his head in her lap.
Fiben tried to speak. “Where…” but the word came out as a croak. Most of his voice seemed to be gone. Fiben dimly recalled an episode of screaming, howling at the sky… That had to be why his throat hurt so.
“We’re outside,” Sylvie said, just loud enough to be heard over the rain. Fiben blinked. Outside?
Wincing, he lifted his head just enough to look around.
Against the stormy backdrop it was hard to see anything at all. But he was able to make out the dim shapes of trees and low, rolling hills. He turned to his left. The outline of Port Helenia was unmistakable, especially the curving trail of tiny lights that followed the course of the Gubru fence.
“But… but how did we get here?”
“I carried you,” she said matter-of-factly. “You weren’t in much shape for walking after you tore down that wall.”
“Tore down…?”
She nodded. There appeared to be a shining light in Sylvie’s eyes. “I thought I’d seen thunder dances before, Fiben Bolger. But that was one to beat all others on record. I swear it. If I live to ninety, and have a hundred respectful grandchildren, I don’t imagine I’ll ever be able to tell it so I’ll be believed.”
Dimly, it sort of came back to him now. He recalled the anger, the outrage over having come so close, and yet so far from freedom. It shamed him to remember giving in that way to frustration, to the animal within him.
Some white card. Fiben snorted, knowing how stupid the Suzerain of Propriety had to be to have chosen a chim like him for such a role.
“I must’ve lost my grip for a while.”
Sylvie touched his left shoulder. He winced and looked down to see a nasty burn there. Oddly, it did not seem to hurt as badly as a score of lesser aches and bruises.
“You taunted the storm, Fiben,” she said in a hushed voice. “You dared it to come down after you. And when it came… you made it do your bidding.”
Fiben closed his eyes. Oh, Goodatt. Of all the siUy, superstitious nonsense.
And yet, there was a part of him, deep down, that felt warmly satisfied. It was as if that portion actually believed that there had been cause and effect, that he had done exactly what Sylvie described!
Fiben shuddered. “Help me sit up, okay?”
There was a disorienting moment or two as the horizon tilted and vision swam. At last, though, when she had him seated so the world no longer wavered all around him, he gestured for her to help him stand.
“You should rest, Fiben.”
“When we reach the Mulun,” he told her. “Dawn can’t be far off. And the storm won’t last forever. Come on, I’ll lean on you.”
She took his good arm over her shoulder, bracing him. Somehow, they managed to get him onto his feet.
“Y’know,” he said. “You’re a strong lil” chimmie. Hmph. Carried me all the way up here, did you?”
She nodded, looking up at him with that same light. Fiben smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Pretty damn okay.”
Together they started out, limping toward the glowering dark hummocks to the east.
PART FIVE
Avengers
In ancient days, when Poseidon still reigned and the ships of man were as weak as tinder, bad luck struck a certain Thracian freighter, who foundered and broke apart under an early winter storm. All hands were lost under those savage waves, save one — the boat’s mascot — a monkey.
As the fates would have it, a dolphin appeared just as the monkey was gasping its last breath. Knowing of the great love between man and dolphin, the monkey cried out, “Save me! For the sake of my poor children in Athens!”