Croaker:
Jasmine’s squeal rattled the windows and doors.
“Bomanz! You come down here! Come down right now, you hear
me?”
Bomanz sighed. A man couldn’t get five minutes alone. What
the hell did he get married for? Why did any man? You spent the
rest of your life doing hard time, doing what other people wanted,
not what you wanted.
“Bomanz!”
“I’m coming, dammit! Damned woman can’t blow
her nose without me there to hold her hand,” he added sotto
voce. He did a lot of talking under his breath. He had feelings to
vent, and peace to maintain. He compromised. Always, he
compromised.
He stamped downstairs, each footfall a declaration of
irritation. He mocked himself as he went: You know you’re
getting old when everything aggravates you.
“What do you want? Where are you?”
“In the shop.” There was an odd note in her voice.
Suppressed excitement, he decided. He entered the shop warily.
“Surprise!”
His world came alive. Grouchiness deserted him.
“Stance!” He flung himself at his son. Powerful arms
crushed him. “Here already? We didn’t expect you till
next week.”
“I got away early. You’re getting pudgy, Pop.”
Stancil opened his arms to include Jasmine in a three-way hug.
“That’s your mother’s cooking. Times are good.
We’re eating regular. Tokar’s
been . . . ” He glimpsed a faded, ugly
shadow. “So how are you? Back up. Let me look at you. You
were still a boy when you left.”
And Jasmine: “Doesn’t he look great? So tall and
healthy. And such nice clothes.” Mock concern. “You
haven’t been up to any funny business, have you?”
“Mother! What could a junior instructor get up to?”
He met his father’s eye, smiled a smile that said “Same
old Mom.”
Stancil was four inches taller than his father, in his middle
twenties, and looked athletic despite his profession. More like an
adventurer than a would-be don, Bomanz thought. Of course, times
changed. It had been eons since his own university days. Maybe
standards had changed.
He recalled the laughter and pranks and all-night, dreadfully
serious debates on the meaning of it all, and was bitten by an imp
of nostalgia. What had become of that mentally quick, foxy young
Bomanz? Some silent, unseen Guardsman of the mind had interred him
in a barrow in the back of his brain, and there he lay dreaming,
while a bald, jowly, potbellied gnome gradually usurped
him . . . They steal our yesterdays and leave
us no youth but that of our children . . .
“Well, come on. Tell us about your studies.” Get out
of that self-pitying mindset, Bomanz, you old fool. “Four
years and nothing but letters about doing laundry and debates at
the Stranded Dolphin. Stranded he would be in Oar. Before I die I
want to see the sea. I never have.” Old fool. Dream out loud
and that’s the best you can do? Would they really laugh if
you told them the youth is still alive in there somewhere?
“His mind wanders,” Jasmine explained.
“Who are you calling senile?” Bomanz snapped.
“Pop. Mom. Give me a break. I just got here.”
Bpmanz gobbled air. “He’s right. Peace. Truce.
Armistice. You referee, Stance. Two old warhorses like us are set
in their ways.”
Jasmine said, “Stance promised me a surprise before you
came down.”
“Well?” Bomanz asked.
“I’m engaged. To be married.”
How can this be? This is my son. My baby. I was changing his
diapers last week . . . Time, thou unspeakable
assassin, I feel thy cold breath. I hear thine iron-shod
hooves . . .
“Hmph. Young fool. Sorry. Tell us about her, since you
won’t tell us about anything else.”
“I would if I could get a word in.”
“Bomanz, be quiet. Tell us about her, Stance.”
“You probably know something already. She’s
Tokar’s sister, Glory.”
Bomanz’s stomach plunged to the level of his heels.
Tokar’s sister. Tokar, who might be a Resurrectionist.
“What’s the matter now, Pop?”
“Tokar’s sister, eh? What do you know about that
family?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“I didn’t say anything was. I asked you what you
know about them.”
“Enough to know I want to marry Glory. Enough to know
Tokar is my best friend.”
“Enough to know if they’re
Resurrectionists?”
Silence slammed into the shop. Bomanz stared at his son. Stancil
stared back. Twice he started to respond, changed his mind. Tension
rasped the air. “Pop . . . ”
“That’s what Besand thinks. The Guard is watching
Tokar. And me, now. It’s the time of the comet, Stance. The
tenth passage. Besand smells some big Resurrectionist plot.
He’s making life hard. This thing about Tokar will make it
worse.”
Stancil sucked spittle between his teeth. He sighed.
“Maybe it was a mistake, coming home. I won’t get
anything done wasting time ducking Besand and fighting with
you.”
“No, Stance,” Jasmine said. “Your father
won’t start anything. Bo, you weren’t starting a fight.
You’re not going to start one.”
“Uhm.” My son engaged to a Resurrectionist? He
turned away, took a deep breath, quietly berated himself. Jumping
to conclusions. On word no better than Besand’s. “Son,
I’m sorry. He’s been riding me.” He glanced at
Jasmine. Besand wasn’t his only persecutor.
“Thanks, Pop. How’s the research coming?”
Jasmine grumbled and muttered. Bomanz said, “This
conversation is crazy. We’re all asking questions and nobody
is answering.”
“Give me some money, Bo,” Jasmine said.
“What for?”
“You two won’t say hello before you start your
plotting. I might as well go marketing.”
Bomanz waited. She eschewed her arsenal of pointed remarks about
Woman’s lot. He shrugged, dribbled coins into her palm.
“Let’s go upstairs, Stance.”
“She’s mellowed,” Stancil said as they entered
the attic room.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“So have you. But the house hasn’t
changed.”
Bomanz lighted the lamp. “Cluttered as ever,” he
admitted. He grabbed his hiding spear. “Got to make a new one
of these. It’s getting worn.” He spread his chart on
the little table.
“Not much improvement, Pop.”
“Get rid of Besand.” He tapped the sixth barrow.
“Right there. The only thing standing in my way.”
“That route the only option, Pop? Could you get the top
two? Or even one. That would leave you a fifty-fifty chance of
guessing the other two.”
“I don’t guess. This isn’t a card game. You
can’t deal a new hand if you play your first one
wrong.”
Stancil took the one chair, stared at the chart. He drummed the
tabletop with his fingers. Bomanz fidgeted.
A week passed. The family settled into new rhythms, including
living with the Monitor’s intensified surveillance.
Bomanz was cleaning a weapon from the TelleKurre site. A trove,
that was. A veritable trove. A mass burial, with weapons and armor
almost perfectly preserved. Stancil entered the shop. Bomanz looked
up. “Rough night?”
“Not bad. He’s ready to give up. Only came round
once.”
“Men fu or Besand?”
“Men fu. Besand was there a half dozen times.”
They were working shifts. Men fu was the public excuse.
In reality, Bomanz hoped to wear Besand down before the
comet’s return. It was not working.
“Your mother has breakfast ready.” Bomanz began
assembling his pack.
“Wait up, Pop. I’ll go too.”
“You need to rest.”
“That’s all right. I feel like digging.”
“Okay.” Something was bothering the boy. Maybe he
was ready to talk.
They’d never done much of that. Their pre-university
relationship had been one of confrontation, with Stance always on
the defensive . . . He had grown, these four
years, but the boy was still there inside. He was not yet ready to
face his father man-to-man. And Bomanz had not grown enough to
forget that Stancil was his little boy. Those growths sometimes
never come. One day the son is looking back at his own son,
wondering what happened.
Bomanz resumed rubbing flakes off a mace. He sneered at himself.
Thinking about relationships. This isn’t like you, you old
coot.
“Hey, Pop,” Stance called from the kitchen.
“Almost forgot. I spotted the comet last night.”
A claw reached in and grabbed a handful of Bomanz’s guts.
The comet! Couldn’t be. Not already. He was not ready for
it.
“Nervy little bastard,” Bomanz spat. He and Stancil
knelt in the brush, watching Men fu toss artifacts from their
diggings.
“I ought to break his leg.”
“Wait here a minute. I’ll circle around and cut him
off when he runs.”
Bomanz snorted. “Not worth the trouble.”
“It’s worth it to me, Pop. Just to keep the
balance.”
“All right.” Bomanz watched Men fu pop up to look
around, ugly little head jerking like that of a nervous pigeon.
He dropped back into the excavation. Bomanz stalked forward. He
drew close enough to hear the thief talking to himself.
“Oh. Lovely. Lovely. A stone fortune. Stone fortune. That
fat little ape don’t deserve it. All the time sucking up to
Besand. That creep.”
“Fat little ape? You asked for it.” Bomanz shed his
pack and tools, got a firm grip on his spade.
Men fu came up out of the pit, his arms filled. His eyes grew
huge. His mouth worked soundlessly.
Bomanz wound up. “Now Bo, don’t
be . . . ”
Bomanz swung. Men fu danced, took the blow on his hip, squawked,
dropped his burden, flailed the air, and toppled into the pit. He
scrambled out the far side, squealing like a wounded hog. Bomanz
wobbled after him, landed a mighty stroke across his behind. Men fu
ran. Bomanz charged after him, spade high, yelling, “Stand
still, you thieving son-of-a-bitch! Take it like a man.”
He took a last mighty swing. It missed. It flung him around. He
fell, bounced back up, continued the chase sans avenging spade.
Stancil threw himself into Men fu’s way. The thief put his
head down and bulled through. Bomanz ploughed into Stancil. Father
and son rolled in a tangle of limbs.
Bomanz gasped, “What the hell? He’s gone now.”
He sprawled on his back, panted. Stancil started laughing.
“What’s so damned funny?”
“The look on his face.”
Bomanz sniggered. “You weren’t much help.”
They guffawed. Finally, Bomanz gasped, “I’d better find
my spade.”
Stancil helped his father stand. “Pop, I wish you could
have seen yourself.”
“Glad I didn’t. Lucky I didn’t have a
stroke.” He lapsed into a fit of giggles.
“You all right, Pop?”
“Sure. Just can’t laugh and catch my breath at the
same time. Oh. Oh, my. I won’t be able to move again if I sit
down.”
“Let’s go dig. That’ll keep you loose. You
dropped the spade around here, didn’t you?”
“There it is.”
The giggles haunted Bomanz all morning. He would recall Men
fu’s flailing retreat and his self-control would go.
“Pop?” Stancil was working the far side of the pit.
“Look here. This may be why he didn’t notice you
coming.”
Bomanz limped over, watched Stancil brush loose soil off a
perfectly preserved breastplate. It was as black and shiny as
rubbed ebony. An ornate ornament in silver bossed its center.
“Uhm.” Bomanz popped out of the pit. “Nobody
around. That half-man, half-beast design. That’s
Shapeshifter.”
“He led the TelleKurre.”
“He wouldn’t be buried here, though.”
“It’s his armor, Pop.”
“I can see that, dammit.” He popped up like a
curious groundhog. No one in sight. “Sit up here and keep
watch. I’ll dig it out.”
“You sit, Pop.”
“You were up all night.”
“I’m a lot younger than you are.”
“I’m feeling just fine, thank you.”
“What color is the sky, Pop?”
“Blue. What kind of
question . . . ”
“Hallelujah. We agree on something. You’re the most
contrary old goat . . . ”
“Stancil!”
“Sorry, Pop. We’ll take turns. Flip a coin to see
who goes first.”
Bomanz lost. He settled down with his pack as a backrest.
“Going to have to spread the dig out. Going straight down
like this, it’ll cave in first heavy rain.”
“Yeah. Be a lot of mud. Ought to think about a drainage
trench. Hey, Pop, there’s nobody in this thing. Looks like
the rest of his armor, too.” Stancil had recovered a gauntlet
and uncovered part of a greave.
“Yeah? I hate to turn it in.”
“Turn it in? Why? Tokar could get a fortune for
it.”
“Maybe so. But what if friend Men fu did spot it?
He’ll tell Besand out of spite. We’ve got to stay on
his good side. We don’t need this stuff.”
“Not to mention he might have planted it.”
“What?”
“It shouldn’t be here, right? And no body inside the
armor. And the soil is loose.”
Bomanz grunted. Besand was capable of a frame. “Leave
everything the way it is. I’ll go get him.”
“Sour-faced old fart,” Stancil muttered as the
Monitor departed. “I bet he did plant it.”
“No sense cussing. We can’t do anything.”
Bomanz settled against his pack.
“What’re you doing?”
“Loafing. I don’t feel like digging anymore.”
He ached all over. It had been a busy morning.
“We should get what we can while the weather is
good.”
“Go ahead.”
“Pop . . . ” Stancil thought
better of it. “How come you and Mom fight all the
time?”
Bomanz let his thoughts drift. The truth was elusive. Stance
would not remember the good years. “I guess because people
change and we don’t want them to.” He could find no
better words. “You start out with a woman; she’s
magical and mysterious and marvelous, the way they sing it. Then
you get to know each other. The excitement goes away. It gets
comfortable. Then even that fades. She starts to sag and turn grey
and get lined and you feel cheated. You remember the fey, shy one
you met and talked with till her father threatened to plant a boot
in your ass. You resent this stranger. So you take a poke. I guess
it’s the same for your mother. Inside, I’m still
twenty. Stance. Only if I pass a mirror, or if my body won’t
do what I want, do I realize that I’m an old man. I
don’t see the potbelly and the varicose veins and the grey
hair where I’ve got any left. She has to live with it.
“Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up
wondering who’s taken over the outside of me. A disgusting
old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when
I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man.
I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to
go.”
Stancil sat down. His father never talked about his feelings.
“Does it have to be that way?”
Maybe not, but it always is . . .
“Thinking about Glory, Stance? I don’t know. You
can’t get out of getting old. You can’t get out of
having a relationship change.”
“Maybe none of it has to be. If we manage
this . . . ”
“Don’t tell me about maybes, Stance. I’ve been
living on maybes for thirty years.” His ulcer took a sample
nibble from his gut. “Maybe Besand is right. For the wrong
reasons.”
“Pop! What are you talking about? You’ve given your
whole life to this.”
“What I’m saying, Stance, is that I’m scared.
It’s one thing to chase a dream. It’s another to catch
it. You never get what you expect. I have a premonition of
disaster. The dream might be stillborn.”
Stancil’s expression ran through a series of changes.
“But you’ve got
to . . . ”
“I don’t have to do anything but be Bomanz the
antiquary. Your mother and I don’t have much longer. This dig
should yield enough to keep us.”
“If you went ahead, you’d have a lot more years and
a lot more . . . ”
“I’m scared, Stance. Of going either way. That
happens when you get older. Change is threatening.”
“Pop . . . ”
“I’m talking about the death of dreams, son. About
losing the big, wild make-believes that keep you going. The
impossible dreams. That kind of jolly pretend is dead. For me. All
I can see is rotten teeth in a killer’s smile.”
Stancil hoisted himself out of the pit. He plucked a strand of
sweetgrass, sucked it while gazing into the sky. “Pop, how
did you feel right before you married Mom?”
“Numb.”
Stancil laughed. “Okay, how about when you went to ask her
father? On the way there?”
“I thought I was going to dribble down my leg. You never
met your grandfather. He’s the one who got them started
telling troll stories.”
“Something like you feel now?”
“Something. Yes. But it’s not the same. I was
younger, and I had a reward to look forward to.”
“And you don’t now? Aren’t the stakes
bigger?”
“Both ways. Win or lose.”
“Know what? You’re having what they call a crisis of
self-confidence. That’s all. Couple of days and you’ll
be raring to go again.”
That evening, after Stancil had gone out, Bomanz told Jasmine,
“That’s a wise boy we’ve got. We talked today.
Really talked, for the first time. He surprised me.”
“Why? He’s your son, isn’t he?”
The dream came stronger than ever before, more quickly than
ever. It wakened Bomanz twice in one night. He gave up trying to
sleep. He went and sat on the front stoop, taking in the moonlight.
The night was bright. He could make out rude buildings along the
dirty street.
Some town, he thought, remembering the glories of Oar. The
Guard, us antiquaries, and a few people who scratch a living
serving us and the pilgrims. Hardly any of those anymore, even with
the Domination fashionable. The Barrowland is so disreputable
nobody wants to look at it.
He heard footsteps. A shadow approached. “Bo?”
“Besand?”
“Uhm.” The Monitor settled on the next step down.
“What’re you doing?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Been thinking about how the
Barrowland has gotten so blighted even self-respecting
Resurrectionists don’t come here anymore. You? You’re
not taking the night patrol yourself, are you?”
“Couldn’t sleep either. That damned
comet.”
Bomanz searched the sky.
“Can’t see it from here. Have to go around back.
You’re right. Nobody knows we’re here anymore. Us or
those things in the ground over there. I don’t know
what’s worse. Neglect or plain stupidity.”
“Uhm?” Something was gnawing at the Monitor.
“Bo, they’re not replacing me because I’m old
or incompetent, though I guess I’m enough of both.
They’re moving me out so somebody’s nephew can have a
post. An exile for a black sheep. That hurts, Bo. That really
hurts. They’ve forgotten what this place is. They’re
telling me I wasted my whole life doing a job any idiot can sleep
his way through.”
“The world is full of fools.”
“Fools die.”
“Eh?”
“They laugh when I talk about the comet or about
Resurrectionists striking this summer. They can’t believe
that I believe. They don’t believe there’s anything
under those mounds. Not anything still alive.”
“Bring them out here. Walk them through the Barrowland
after dark.”
“I tried. They told me to quit whining if I wanted a
pension.”
“You’ve done all you can, then. It’s on their
heads.”
“I took an oath, Bo. I was serious about it then, and
I’m serious now. This job is all I have. You’ve got
Jasmine and Stance. I might as well have been a monk. Now
they’re discarding me for some
young . . . ” He began making strange
noises.
Sobs? Bomanz thought. From the Monitor? From this man with a
heart of flint and all the mercy of a shark? He took Besand’s
elbow. “Let’s go look at the comet. I haven’t
seen it yet.”
Besand got hold of himself. “You haven’t?
That’s hard to believe.”
“Why? I haven’t been up late. Stancil has done the
night work.”
“Never mind. Slipping into my antagonistic character
again. We should’ve been lawyers, you and I. We’ve got
the argumentative turn of mind.”
“You could be right. Spent a lot of time lately wondering
what I’m doing out here.”
“What are you doing here, Bo?”
“I was going to get rich. I was going to study the old
books, open a few rich graves, go back to Oar and buy into my
uncle’s drayage business.” Idly, Bomanz wondered how
much of his faked past Besand accepted. He had lived it so long
that he now remembered some fraudulent anecdotes as factual unless
he thought hard.
“What happened?”
“Laziness. Plain old-fashioned laziness. I found out
there’s a big difference between dreaming and getting in
there and doing. It was easier to dig just enough to get by and
spend the rest of the time loafing.” Bomanz made a sour face.
He was striking near the truth. His researches were, in fact,
partly an excuse for not competing. He simply did not have the
drive of a Tokar.
“You haven’t had too bad a life. One or two hard
winters when Stancil was a pup. But we all went through those. A
helping hand here or there and we all survived. There she
is.” Besand indicated the sky over the Barrowland.
Bomanz gasped. It was exactly what he had seen in his dreams.
“Showy, isn’t it?”
“Wait till it gets close. It’ll fill half the
sky.”
“Pretty, too.”
“Stunning, I’d say. But also a harbinger. An ill
omen. The old writers say it’ll keep returning till the
Dominator is freed.”
“I’ve lived with that stuff most of my life, Besand,
and even I find it hard to believe there’s anything to it.
Wait! I get that spooky feeling around the Barrowland, too. But I
just can’t believe those creatures could rise again after
four hundred years in the ground.”
“Bo, maybe you are honest. If you are, take a hint. When I
leave, you leave. Take the TelleKurre stuff and head for
Oar.”
“You’re starting to sound like Stance.”
“I mean it. Some idiot unbeliever kid takes over here, all
Hell is going to break loose. Literally. Get out while you
can.”
“You could be right. I’m thinking about going back.
But what would I do? I don’t know Oar anymore. The way Stance
tells it, I’d get lost. Hell, this is home now. I never
really realized that. This dump is home.”
“I know what you mean.”
Bomanz looked at that great silver blade in the sky. Soon
now . . .
“What’s going on out there? Who is that?” came
from Bomanz’s back door. “You clear off, hear?
I’ll have the Guard after you.”
“It’s me, Jasmine.”
Besand laughed. “And the Monitor, mistress. The Guard is
here already.”
“Bo, what’re you doing?”
“Talking. Looking at the stars.”
“I’ll be getting along,” Besand said.
“See you tomorrow.”
From his tone Bomanz knew tomorrow would be a day of normal
harassments.
“Take care.” He settled on the dewy back step, let
the cool night wash over him. Birds called in the Old Forest, their
voices lonely. A cricket chirruped optimistically. Humid air barely
stirred the remnants of his hair. Jasmine came out and sat beside
him. “Couldn’t sleep,” he told her.
“Me either.”
“Must be going around.” He glanced at the comet, was
startled by an instant of deja vu. “Remember the summer we
came here? When we stayed up to see the comet? It was a night like
this.”
She took his hand, entwined her fingers with his.
“You’re reading my mind. Our first month anniversary.
Those were fool kids, those two.”
“They still are, inside.”
Croaker:
Jasmine’s squeal rattled the windows and doors.
“Bomanz! You come down here! Come down right now, you hear
me?”
Bomanz sighed. A man couldn’t get five minutes alone. What
the hell did he get married for? Why did any man? You spent the
rest of your life doing hard time, doing what other people wanted,
not what you wanted.
“Bomanz!”
“I’m coming, dammit! Damned woman can’t blow
her nose without me there to hold her hand,” he added sotto
voce. He did a lot of talking under his breath. He had feelings to
vent, and peace to maintain. He compromised. Always, he
compromised.
He stamped downstairs, each footfall a declaration of
irritation. He mocked himself as he went: You know you’re
getting old when everything aggravates you.
“What do you want? Where are you?”
“In the shop.” There was an odd note in her voice.
Suppressed excitement, he decided. He entered the shop warily.
“Surprise!”
His world came alive. Grouchiness deserted him.
“Stance!” He flung himself at his son. Powerful arms
crushed him. “Here already? We didn’t expect you till
next week.”
“I got away early. You’re getting pudgy, Pop.”
Stancil opened his arms to include Jasmine in a three-way hug.
“That’s your mother’s cooking. Times are good.
We’re eating regular. Tokar’s
been . . . ” He glimpsed a faded, ugly
shadow. “So how are you? Back up. Let me look at you. You
were still a boy when you left.”
And Jasmine: “Doesn’t he look great? So tall and
healthy. And such nice clothes.” Mock concern. “You
haven’t been up to any funny business, have you?”
“Mother! What could a junior instructor get up to?”
He met his father’s eye, smiled a smile that said “Same
old Mom.”
Stancil was four inches taller than his father, in his middle
twenties, and looked athletic despite his profession. More like an
adventurer than a would-be don, Bomanz thought. Of course, times
changed. It had been eons since his own university days. Maybe
standards had changed.
He recalled the laughter and pranks and all-night, dreadfully
serious debates on the meaning of it all, and was bitten by an imp
of nostalgia. What had become of that mentally quick, foxy young
Bomanz? Some silent, unseen Guardsman of the mind had interred him
in a barrow in the back of his brain, and there he lay dreaming,
while a bald, jowly, potbellied gnome gradually usurped
him . . . They steal our yesterdays and leave
us no youth but that of our children . . .
“Well, come on. Tell us about your studies.” Get out
of that self-pitying mindset, Bomanz, you old fool. “Four
years and nothing but letters about doing laundry and debates at
the Stranded Dolphin. Stranded he would be in Oar. Before I die I
want to see the sea. I never have.” Old fool. Dream out loud
and that’s the best you can do? Would they really laugh if
you told them the youth is still alive in there somewhere?
“His mind wanders,” Jasmine explained.
“Who are you calling senile?” Bomanz snapped.
“Pop. Mom. Give me a break. I just got here.”
Bpmanz gobbled air. “He’s right. Peace. Truce.
Armistice. You referee, Stance. Two old warhorses like us are set
in their ways.”
Jasmine said, “Stance promised me a surprise before you
came down.”
“Well?” Bomanz asked.
“I’m engaged. To be married.”
How can this be? This is my son. My baby. I was changing his
diapers last week . . . Time, thou unspeakable
assassin, I feel thy cold breath. I hear thine iron-shod
hooves . . .
“Hmph. Young fool. Sorry. Tell us about her, since you
won’t tell us about anything else.”
“I would if I could get a word in.”
“Bomanz, be quiet. Tell us about her, Stance.”
“You probably know something already. She’s
Tokar’s sister, Glory.”
Bomanz’s stomach plunged to the level of his heels.
Tokar’s sister. Tokar, who might be a Resurrectionist.
“What’s the matter now, Pop?”
“Tokar’s sister, eh? What do you know about that
family?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“I didn’t say anything was. I asked you what you
know about them.”
“Enough to know I want to marry Glory. Enough to know
Tokar is my best friend.”
“Enough to know if they’re
Resurrectionists?”
Silence slammed into the shop. Bomanz stared at his son. Stancil
stared back. Twice he started to respond, changed his mind. Tension
rasped the air. “Pop . . . ”
“That’s what Besand thinks. The Guard is watching
Tokar. And me, now. It’s the time of the comet, Stance. The
tenth passage. Besand smells some big Resurrectionist plot.
He’s making life hard. This thing about Tokar will make it
worse.”
Stancil sucked spittle between his teeth. He sighed.
“Maybe it was a mistake, coming home. I won’t get
anything done wasting time ducking Besand and fighting with
you.”
“No, Stance,” Jasmine said. “Your father
won’t start anything. Bo, you weren’t starting a fight.
You’re not going to start one.”
“Uhm.” My son engaged to a Resurrectionist? He
turned away, took a deep breath, quietly berated himself. Jumping
to conclusions. On word no better than Besand’s. “Son,
I’m sorry. He’s been riding me.” He glanced at
Jasmine. Besand wasn’t his only persecutor.
“Thanks, Pop. How’s the research coming?”
Jasmine grumbled and muttered. Bomanz said, “This
conversation is crazy. We’re all asking questions and nobody
is answering.”
“Give me some money, Bo,” Jasmine said.
“What for?”
“You two won’t say hello before you start your
plotting. I might as well go marketing.”
Bomanz waited. She eschewed her arsenal of pointed remarks about
Woman’s lot. He shrugged, dribbled coins into her palm.
“Let’s go upstairs, Stance.”
“She’s mellowed,” Stancil said as they entered
the attic room.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“So have you. But the house hasn’t
changed.”
Bomanz lighted the lamp. “Cluttered as ever,” he
admitted. He grabbed his hiding spear. “Got to make a new one
of these. It’s getting worn.” He spread his chart on
the little table.
“Not much improvement, Pop.”
“Get rid of Besand.” He tapped the sixth barrow.
“Right there. The only thing standing in my way.”
“That route the only option, Pop? Could you get the top
two? Or even one. That would leave you a fifty-fifty chance of
guessing the other two.”
“I don’t guess. This isn’t a card game. You
can’t deal a new hand if you play your first one
wrong.”
Stancil took the one chair, stared at the chart. He drummed the
tabletop with his fingers. Bomanz fidgeted.
A week passed. The family settled into new rhythms, including
living with the Monitor’s intensified surveillance.
Bomanz was cleaning a weapon from the TelleKurre site. A trove,
that was. A veritable trove. A mass burial, with weapons and armor
almost perfectly preserved. Stancil entered the shop. Bomanz looked
up. “Rough night?”
“Not bad. He’s ready to give up. Only came round
once.”
“Men fu or Besand?”
“Men fu. Besand was there a half dozen times.”
They were working shifts. Men fu was the public excuse.
In reality, Bomanz hoped to wear Besand down before the
comet’s return. It was not working.
“Your mother has breakfast ready.” Bomanz began
assembling his pack.
“Wait up, Pop. I’ll go too.”
“You need to rest.”
“That’s all right. I feel like digging.”
“Okay.” Something was bothering the boy. Maybe he
was ready to talk.
They’d never done much of that. Their pre-university
relationship had been one of confrontation, with Stance always on
the defensive . . . He had grown, these four
years, but the boy was still there inside. He was not yet ready to
face his father man-to-man. And Bomanz had not grown enough to
forget that Stancil was his little boy. Those growths sometimes
never come. One day the son is looking back at his own son,
wondering what happened.
Bomanz resumed rubbing flakes off a mace. He sneered at himself.
Thinking about relationships. This isn’t like you, you old
coot.
“Hey, Pop,” Stance called from the kitchen.
“Almost forgot. I spotted the comet last night.”
A claw reached in and grabbed a handful of Bomanz’s guts.
The comet! Couldn’t be. Not already. He was not ready for
it.
“Nervy little bastard,” Bomanz spat. He and Stancil
knelt in the brush, watching Men fu toss artifacts from their
diggings.
“I ought to break his leg.”
“Wait here a minute. I’ll circle around and cut him
off when he runs.”
Bomanz snorted. “Not worth the trouble.”
“It’s worth it to me, Pop. Just to keep the
balance.”
“All right.” Bomanz watched Men fu pop up to look
around, ugly little head jerking like that of a nervous pigeon.
He dropped back into the excavation. Bomanz stalked forward. He
drew close enough to hear the thief talking to himself.
“Oh. Lovely. Lovely. A stone fortune. Stone fortune. That
fat little ape don’t deserve it. All the time sucking up to
Besand. That creep.”
“Fat little ape? You asked for it.” Bomanz shed his
pack and tools, got a firm grip on his spade.
Men fu came up out of the pit, his arms filled. His eyes grew
huge. His mouth worked soundlessly.
Bomanz wound up. “Now Bo, don’t
be . . . ”
Bomanz swung. Men fu danced, took the blow on his hip, squawked,
dropped his burden, flailed the air, and toppled into the pit. He
scrambled out the far side, squealing like a wounded hog. Bomanz
wobbled after him, landed a mighty stroke across his behind. Men fu
ran. Bomanz charged after him, spade high, yelling, “Stand
still, you thieving son-of-a-bitch! Take it like a man.”
He took a last mighty swing. It missed. It flung him around. He
fell, bounced back up, continued the chase sans avenging spade.
Stancil threw himself into Men fu’s way. The thief put his
head down and bulled through. Bomanz ploughed into Stancil. Father
and son rolled in a tangle of limbs.
Bomanz gasped, “What the hell? He’s gone now.”
He sprawled on his back, panted. Stancil started laughing.
“What’s so damned funny?”
“The look on his face.”
Bomanz sniggered. “You weren’t much help.”
They guffawed. Finally, Bomanz gasped, “I’d better find
my spade.”
Stancil helped his father stand. “Pop, I wish you could
have seen yourself.”
“Glad I didn’t. Lucky I didn’t have a
stroke.” He lapsed into a fit of giggles.
“You all right, Pop?”
“Sure. Just can’t laugh and catch my breath at the
same time. Oh. Oh, my. I won’t be able to move again if I sit
down.”
“Let’s go dig. That’ll keep you loose. You
dropped the spade around here, didn’t you?”
“There it is.”
The giggles haunted Bomanz all morning. He would recall Men
fu’s flailing retreat and his self-control would go.
“Pop?” Stancil was working the far side of the pit.
“Look here. This may be why he didn’t notice you
coming.”
Bomanz limped over, watched Stancil brush loose soil off a
perfectly preserved breastplate. It was as black and shiny as
rubbed ebony. An ornate ornament in silver bossed its center.
“Uhm.” Bomanz popped out of the pit. “Nobody
around. That half-man, half-beast design. That’s
Shapeshifter.”
“He led the TelleKurre.”
“He wouldn’t be buried here, though.”
“It’s his armor, Pop.”
“I can see that, dammit.” He popped up like a
curious groundhog. No one in sight. “Sit up here and keep
watch. I’ll dig it out.”
“You sit, Pop.”
“You were up all night.”
“I’m a lot younger than you are.”
“I’m feeling just fine, thank you.”
“What color is the sky, Pop?”
“Blue. What kind of
question . . . ”
“Hallelujah. We agree on something. You’re the most
contrary old goat . . . ”
“Stancil!”
“Sorry, Pop. We’ll take turns. Flip a coin to see
who goes first.”
Bomanz lost. He settled down with his pack as a backrest.
“Going to have to spread the dig out. Going straight down
like this, it’ll cave in first heavy rain.”
“Yeah. Be a lot of mud. Ought to think about a drainage
trench. Hey, Pop, there’s nobody in this thing. Looks like
the rest of his armor, too.” Stancil had recovered a gauntlet
and uncovered part of a greave.
“Yeah? I hate to turn it in.”
“Turn it in? Why? Tokar could get a fortune for
it.”
“Maybe so. But what if friend Men fu did spot it?
He’ll tell Besand out of spite. We’ve got to stay on
his good side. We don’t need this stuff.”
“Not to mention he might have planted it.”
“What?”
“It shouldn’t be here, right? And no body inside the
armor. And the soil is loose.”
Bomanz grunted. Besand was capable of a frame. “Leave
everything the way it is. I’ll go get him.”
“Sour-faced old fart,” Stancil muttered as the
Monitor departed. “I bet he did plant it.”
“No sense cussing. We can’t do anything.”
Bomanz settled against his pack.
“What’re you doing?”
“Loafing. I don’t feel like digging anymore.”
He ached all over. It had been a busy morning.
“We should get what we can while the weather is
good.”
“Go ahead.”
“Pop . . . ” Stancil thought
better of it. “How come you and Mom fight all the
time?”
Bomanz let his thoughts drift. The truth was elusive. Stance
would not remember the good years. “I guess because people
change and we don’t want them to.” He could find no
better words. “You start out with a woman; she’s
magical and mysterious and marvelous, the way they sing it. Then
you get to know each other. The excitement goes away. It gets
comfortable. Then even that fades. She starts to sag and turn grey
and get lined and you feel cheated. You remember the fey, shy one
you met and talked with till her father threatened to plant a boot
in your ass. You resent this stranger. So you take a poke. I guess
it’s the same for your mother. Inside, I’m still
twenty. Stance. Only if I pass a mirror, or if my body won’t
do what I want, do I realize that I’m an old man. I
don’t see the potbelly and the varicose veins and the grey
hair where I’ve got any left. She has to live with it.
“Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up
wondering who’s taken over the outside of me. A disgusting
old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when
I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man.
I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to
go.”
Stancil sat down. His father never talked about his feelings.
“Does it have to be that way?”
Maybe not, but it always is . . .
“Thinking about Glory, Stance? I don’t know. You
can’t get out of getting old. You can’t get out of
having a relationship change.”
“Maybe none of it has to be. If we manage
this . . . ”
“Don’t tell me about maybes, Stance. I’ve been
living on maybes for thirty years.” His ulcer took a sample
nibble from his gut. “Maybe Besand is right. For the wrong
reasons.”
“Pop! What are you talking about? You’ve given your
whole life to this.”
“What I’m saying, Stance, is that I’m scared.
It’s one thing to chase a dream. It’s another to catch
it. You never get what you expect. I have a premonition of
disaster. The dream might be stillborn.”
Stancil’s expression ran through a series of changes.
“But you’ve got
to . . . ”
“I don’t have to do anything but be Bomanz the
antiquary. Your mother and I don’t have much longer. This dig
should yield enough to keep us.”
“If you went ahead, you’d have a lot more years and
a lot more . . . ”
“I’m scared, Stance. Of going either way. That
happens when you get older. Change is threatening.”
“Pop . . . ”
“I’m talking about the death of dreams, son. About
losing the big, wild make-believes that keep you going. The
impossible dreams. That kind of jolly pretend is dead. For me. All
I can see is rotten teeth in a killer’s smile.”
Stancil hoisted himself out of the pit. He plucked a strand of
sweetgrass, sucked it while gazing into the sky. “Pop, how
did you feel right before you married Mom?”
“Numb.”
Stancil laughed. “Okay, how about when you went to ask her
father? On the way there?”
“I thought I was going to dribble down my leg. You never
met your grandfather. He’s the one who got them started
telling troll stories.”
“Something like you feel now?”
“Something. Yes. But it’s not the same. I was
younger, and I had a reward to look forward to.”
“And you don’t now? Aren’t the stakes
bigger?”
“Both ways. Win or lose.”
“Know what? You’re having what they call a crisis of
self-confidence. That’s all. Couple of days and you’ll
be raring to go again.”
That evening, after Stancil had gone out, Bomanz told Jasmine,
“That’s a wise boy we’ve got. We talked today.
Really talked, for the first time. He surprised me.”
“Why? He’s your son, isn’t he?”
The dream came stronger than ever before, more quickly than
ever. It wakened Bomanz twice in one night. He gave up trying to
sleep. He went and sat on the front stoop, taking in the moonlight.
The night was bright. He could make out rude buildings along the
dirty street.
Some town, he thought, remembering the glories of Oar. The
Guard, us antiquaries, and a few people who scratch a living
serving us and the pilgrims. Hardly any of those anymore, even with
the Domination fashionable. The Barrowland is so disreputable
nobody wants to look at it.
He heard footsteps. A shadow approached. “Bo?”
“Besand?”
“Uhm.” The Monitor settled on the next step down.
“What’re you doing?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Been thinking about how the
Barrowland has gotten so blighted even self-respecting
Resurrectionists don’t come here anymore. You? You’re
not taking the night patrol yourself, are you?”
“Couldn’t sleep either. That damned
comet.”
Bomanz searched the sky.
“Can’t see it from here. Have to go around back.
You’re right. Nobody knows we’re here anymore. Us or
those things in the ground over there. I don’t know
what’s worse. Neglect or plain stupidity.”
“Uhm?” Something was gnawing at the Monitor.
“Bo, they’re not replacing me because I’m old
or incompetent, though I guess I’m enough of both.
They’re moving me out so somebody’s nephew can have a
post. An exile for a black sheep. That hurts, Bo. That really
hurts. They’ve forgotten what this place is. They’re
telling me I wasted my whole life doing a job any idiot can sleep
his way through.”
“The world is full of fools.”
“Fools die.”
“Eh?”
“They laugh when I talk about the comet or about
Resurrectionists striking this summer. They can’t believe
that I believe. They don’t believe there’s anything
under those mounds. Not anything still alive.”
“Bring them out here. Walk them through the Barrowland
after dark.”
“I tried. They told me to quit whining if I wanted a
pension.”
“You’ve done all you can, then. It’s on their
heads.”
“I took an oath, Bo. I was serious about it then, and
I’m serious now. This job is all I have. You’ve got
Jasmine and Stance. I might as well have been a monk. Now
they’re discarding me for some
young . . . ” He began making strange
noises.
Sobs? Bomanz thought. From the Monitor? From this man with a
heart of flint and all the mercy of a shark? He took Besand’s
elbow. “Let’s go look at the comet. I haven’t
seen it yet.”
Besand got hold of himself. “You haven’t?
That’s hard to believe.”
“Why? I haven’t been up late. Stancil has done the
night work.”
“Never mind. Slipping into my antagonistic character
again. We should’ve been lawyers, you and I. We’ve got
the argumentative turn of mind.”
“You could be right. Spent a lot of time lately wondering
what I’m doing out here.”
“What are you doing here, Bo?”
“I was going to get rich. I was going to study the old
books, open a few rich graves, go back to Oar and buy into my
uncle’s drayage business.” Idly, Bomanz wondered how
much of his faked past Besand accepted. He had lived it so long
that he now remembered some fraudulent anecdotes as factual unless
he thought hard.
“What happened?”
“Laziness. Plain old-fashioned laziness. I found out
there’s a big difference between dreaming and getting in
there and doing. It was easier to dig just enough to get by and
spend the rest of the time loafing.” Bomanz made a sour face.
He was striking near the truth. His researches were, in fact,
partly an excuse for not competing. He simply did not have the
drive of a Tokar.
“You haven’t had too bad a life. One or two hard
winters when Stancil was a pup. But we all went through those. A
helping hand here or there and we all survived. There she
is.” Besand indicated the sky over the Barrowland.
Bomanz gasped. It was exactly what he had seen in his dreams.
“Showy, isn’t it?”
“Wait till it gets close. It’ll fill half the
sky.”
“Pretty, too.”
“Stunning, I’d say. But also a harbinger. An ill
omen. The old writers say it’ll keep returning till the
Dominator is freed.”
“I’ve lived with that stuff most of my life, Besand,
and even I find it hard to believe there’s anything to it.
Wait! I get that spooky feeling around the Barrowland, too. But I
just can’t believe those creatures could rise again after
four hundred years in the ground.”
“Bo, maybe you are honest. If you are, take a hint. When I
leave, you leave. Take the TelleKurre stuff and head for
Oar.”
“You’re starting to sound like Stance.”
“I mean it. Some idiot unbeliever kid takes over here, all
Hell is going to break loose. Literally. Get out while you
can.”
“You could be right. I’m thinking about going back.
But what would I do? I don’t know Oar anymore. The way Stance
tells it, I’d get lost. Hell, this is home now. I never
really realized that. This dump is home.”
“I know what you mean.”
Bomanz looked at that great silver blade in the sky. Soon
now . . .
“What’s going on out there? Who is that?” came
from Bomanz’s back door. “You clear off, hear?
I’ll have the Guard after you.”
“It’s me, Jasmine.”
Besand laughed. “And the Monitor, mistress. The Guard is
here already.”
“Bo, what’re you doing?”
“Talking. Looking at the stars.”
“I’ll be getting along,” Besand said.
“See you tomorrow.”
From his tone Bomanz knew tomorrow would be a day of normal
harassments.
“Take care.” He settled on the dewy back step, let
the cool night wash over him. Birds called in the Old Forest, their
voices lonely. A cricket chirruped optimistically. Humid air barely
stirred the remnants of his hair. Jasmine came out and sat beside
him. “Couldn’t sleep,” he told her.
“Me either.”
“Must be going around.” He glanced at the comet, was
startled by an instant of deja vu. “Remember the summer we
came here? When we stayed up to see the comet? It was a night like
this.”
She took his hand, entwined her fingers with his.
“You’re reading my mind. Our first month anniversary.
Those were fool kids, those two.”
“They still are, inside.”