Simon managed to get some orders through to his legs, and he got slowly to his feet. Mofeislop called out to the hunchback to kill Simon. Odiomzwak sat up slowly, leaning on one hand, the other held to the side of his head. Blood oozed out between his fingers.
Simon picked up the axe as Odiomzwak got to his feet. The hunchback’s eyes suddenly focused, and he cried out. Simon swung the axe with the edge turned to one side so he would strike the man with the flat side. Even in his confusion and desperation, he did not want to kill his would-be killer. And he did not swing it as hard as he should have. The axe rang on the stone wall, missing Odiomzwak. He had leaped up and dodged out into the hallway.
Simon glanced above. Anubis was still holding the sage at bay, was, in fact, making him retreat. He ran out into the hall, though wobblingly. Odiomzwak wasn’t in sight. He ran down the long wide hallway and, as he went past a doorway, the hunchback leaped out at him. Simon thrust the end of the axe in his face; the man fell back but a flailing hand seized the axe-shaft. Twice as powerful as Simon, Odiomzwak tore the axe out of Simon’s hand. For a moment, though, the hunchback was half-stunned. Simon ran through the doorway, saw his banjo on a table, and picked it up. When Odiomzwak, yelling, came through the doorway, Simon broke the banjo over his head.
A critic would say, years later, that this was the only time Simon had ever put his banjo to good use.
Odiomzwak fell, and the axe dropped. But he was up again and staggering toward the retreating Simon with the axe again in his hands.
Simon kept on moving backward while his and Odiomzwak’s breathing scraped like a bow on an untuned fiddle. Simon’s legs felt as if they would shake themselves to pieces; he was too weak to run. Moreover, he had no place to run to. In three paces, he would be back up to a wide and open window.
From down the hall came the growling and snarling of Anubis and the shrieks of Mofeislop.
“Your master needs you,” Simon gasped.
“Maybe a few bites’ll take the uppityness out of him,” Odiomzwak said. “I’ll deal with the dog after I take care of you.”
“Help!” Mofeislop screamed.
Odiomzwak hesitated and half-turned his head. Simon jumped at him; the axe gleamed; Simon felt it strike him somewhere on the face; he went down. Sometime later—it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds—he regained his senses. He was sitting on the floor; the left side of his face was numb; he couldn’t see out of the left eye. The other eye saw clearly enough, though his befuddled brain didn’t understand what it saw. Rather, he didn’t understand how what he was seeing had happened.
The bloodied axe was on the floor before him. Odiomzwak was staggering backward, screaming, his hands held before his face and clutching a shriek, a flurry of feathers.
Then Simon understood that Athena had flown in through the window. Seeing Simon in danger, she had attacked Odiomzwak’s face with her talons and beak.
That’s nice, he thought. Wish I could get up and help her before he wrings her neck.
Odiomzwak began whirling around and around as if he was trying to get rid of the owl by centrifugal force. Athena continued beating at him with her wings and tearing his face with her talons. Around and around they spun in painful dance until they disappeared into the wings. In this case, offstage was out the window.
Simon got to the window and leaned out in time to see Odiomzwak bounce off an outcropping. A small object shot away from him—it was Athena, who must have been gripped tightly until then. Odiomzwak kept on falling and bouncing; Athena whirled around and around for a while, then her wings grasped the air, and she began to climb back up, toward Simon.
Three vultures slid into his view, gliding steeply down to Odiomzwak, whose curved spine now seemed to be straightened. He looked like an inch-long doll who had been filled with red sawdust.
Simon sat down in a chair. He felt as if he would not be able to move again for days. A savage growling and a high screaming down the hall, coming nearer swiftly, told him that he would have to move soon. If he couldn’t, he might never move again. Which, considering the way he felt, sounded like a good idea.
Behind him was the fluttering of wings, then silence. Simon swiveled around. Athena looked as if she had been in a washing machine with red-dyed laundry. They stared at each other for a moment, then she flew off the table and onto the floor by the axe. Simon turned toward her just in time to see her grab something round from the floor and swallow it. He swallowed too and felt even sicker. His left eye had gone down her throat.
Now was no time to faint. The sage, somewhat chewed up, had burst into the room. Behind him bounded Anubis, streaked with blood, though whether it was Mofeislop’s or his or both, Simon couldn’t determine. Somewhere along the way the sage had lost his dagger, and he was now eager to get hold of another weapon.
The only one in sight was the axe.
Simon rose in slow motion. Mofeislop, whose personal projector had speeded his film up, leaped to the axe and bent over to pick it up. Anubis fastened his teeth into the sage’s tail near its root. The sage screamed again, straightened with the axe in his hands, and, like a dog trying to bite his own tail, described a spiral over the floor. His axe flailed out, hitting nothing, though narrowly missing the owl, who had launched herself at his face.
The three spun toward Simon. He tried to get out of the way, thought he had succeeded, but felt something strike him near the root of his own tail.
17
THE FAMILY TREE IS KNOWN BY ITS FRUITS
The pipes of pain shrilled while his ancestors danced.
Throughout his sufferings, his father and mother and thousands of forefathers and foremothers circled around and around. Every night they got closer and closer as they whirled by, as if they were Indians and he the weakening defenders of a wagon train.
Once, in a moment of consciousness, he whispered to Chworktap, “Would you believe it? Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are among them. Not to mention Hiawatha and Quetzalcoatl.”
Chworktap, looking puzzled, gave him another sedative.
Simon understood dimly that she had come just in time to keep him from bleeding to death. She had arrived in the spaceship a few minutes after Mofeislop had sheared off Simon’s tail. The sage was dying, his own tail bitten off, his eyes shredded by Athena, his throat torn. His last words, gasped to Chworktap, were, “I was only trying to do him a favor.”
“What does that mean?” Simon had thought. Later, he understood that the sage believed that it was better not to have been born at all. The second best thing was to die young.
Chworktap had fled from the capital city to pick up Simon because her ship had warned her that an alien ship was approaching Dokal. It might or might not be Hoonhor, but she didn’t want to take a chance. And so now Simon was in sick bay while the Hwang Ho traveled at 69X speed with no definite destination in mind.
Chworktap had amputated the few inches of tail left to Simon. But he wasn’t exactly restored to his pristine condition. The rest of his life, he wouldn’t be able to sit down long without hurting.
His left cheekbone had been caved in by the axe, but the big patch that covered his empty socket also covered this.
Chworktap, in an effort to cheer him up, had made many patches of various shapes. “They also have different colors,” she said. “If you’re wearing a puce outfit, for instance, you’ll have a matching patch.”