“Eater of dung!”
Jay’s vocabulary grew as the battle progressed.
Sayjak found a stick and broke it on the side of Chumo’s head. Chumo struck him with both fists and seized him in a massive hug.
“Twist your head off!”
“Break your legs!”
“Eat your liver!”
“Eat yours, with hot herbs!”
“Cut your dick off, shove up ass!”
Sayjak dragged his hands free, circled the other’s head with them. Chumo began kicking him as hard as he could in the injured ankle. Sayjak grimaced but did not relax his grip.
“Old bastard! Gonna kill you bad now!”
The People shrieked and leapt about. “Was Chumo bad enough to be a good boss like Sayjak?” the more intellectual wondered.
Jay found himself trembling and sweating as the beast-men rolled and crashed below. He had never seen a real fight before.
“No!” he whispered as Sayjak’s thumbs found their ways to Chumo’s eyeballs.
Chumo released his hands from the great hug with which he’d been trying to crush Sayjak. Now he began working them upward between their bodies as he felt the pressure begin on his eyeballs. He bared his teeth and snapped his jaws ineffectually. He snarled and cursed.
Sayjak squeezed.
Bringing his arms up, Chumo seized Sayjak’s wrists, attempting to pull his hands away from his eyes. He kept kicking at the ankle. Both combatants bled from scalp and shoulder wounds.
Jay wanted to look away but found that he could not. There was something fascinating about the spectacle, touching on thoughts of rationality and irrationality he had long tried to resolve. Basically, though, it was the terrible violence of the confrontation…
Chumo let out a horrible, gagging shriek, and Donnerjack saw that Sayjak’s thumbs were sunk deeply within his eye-sockets. Immediately, his hands shifted to Chumo’s throat. Chumo stopping kicking him and emitted several soblike gasps. Then he began choking.
“You say, ‘Let’s find out,’ ” Sayjak said, his grip continuing to tighten. “All right. You find out.”
There followed a highly audible cracking sound, like the breaking of a stick, as Chumo’s head snapped far to the right.
“There, you get your wish,” Sayjak said, untangling himself and rising above Chumo’s body. “Who’s boss here?” he yelled.
“Sayjak!” the onlookers shouted.
“Boss of bosses!”
“Sayjak!” they responded again.
“Don’t forget it!” he cried, then limped off toward his tree.
He regarded the tree’s height, measured it against the pain in his ankle, selected a lower tree whose branches were nearer together. Slowly, trying to appear casual as he took most of the weight on his arms and shoulders, he climbed partway and settled onto the first stout perch he could locate.
A number of his people cheered then, and he waved to them. Then he smiled to himself. This was the good life.
Jay waited a long while before slipping away. He had never had a nightmare while wide awake before.
Jay avoided his few friends and read books during the next several days. He wished he could tell them all that he was traveling. Instead he practiced his aerial acrobatics and let Caltrice refine his swimming in the stream below the waterfall. He had a recurring nightmare concerning the battle for the chieftainship of the People, and at times he seemed to hear the sticklike snapping of Chumo’s neck.
One night when he had been woken by a particularly vivid nightmare, he heard moans and the rattling of chains. He pursued the sounds to the third floor, where he glimpsed a ghostly figure passing.
“Wait! Please!” he called.
The figure slowed, halted, turned, and regarded him.
“I—I’ve never seen you or heard you before,” Jay stated. “Who— What are you?”
“Just a ghost. Seems I’ve been asleep for a long while,” the other told him. “Who’re you?”
“John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Junior. They call me Jay.”
“Yes, I can see the resemblance. How’s your dad?”
“He’s been dead for some years now.”
“Oh. I haven’t seen him here on the other side of life, so he must have hied off to some special haven. Sorry you lost him, boy. He seemed a good man to have around.”
“You knew him, then?’
“Oh, yes. Friends of sorts, the laird and me.”
“Why is it we never ran into each other before—that is, you and me?” Jay asked.
“Usually, I’m summoned by some sort of emotional turmoil, young laird,” said the ghost. “Something bothering you?”
“I saw a fight to the death the other day. Yeah, it’s bothering me,” Jay admitted.
“That’s one of those things that becomes a matter of time and perspective,” said the ghost. “I’ve seen so many violent endings—am the product of one myself—that they don’t mean as much to me as they once did, not to be puttin’ down the horror of your feelin’s this first time. Death, though, you’ve got to realize, is a part of life. Life is always going on, sure as birth. Just because you’re not always seein’ it don’t mean it ain’t there. Without it there’d be somethin’ wrong. Try to remember that.”
“Part of what bothers me is the cruelty.”
“No gettin’ around it. It’s sometimes a part of life, too.”
“Thanks, Mr. Ghost. I don’t even know your name.”
“That sort of slipped away from me somewheres. Don’t seem to matter, though.”
“I wish there was something I could do for you.”
“Now that you mention it—”
“What?”
“Let me show you where your dad’s liquor cabinet is. I’d like you to pour a little of the Laphroaig whisky into that ashtray, where I can inhale its nourishing fumes. It’s called a libation. Surefire way to make a ghost feel like a new man.”
“Really? Libation? Show me.”
The ghost took him to the cabinet and Donnerjack prepared his drink.
“Funny you can manage something physical, even in a gaseous form.”
“Maybe that’s why they call it ‘spirits,’ ” said the ghost, chuckling.
Jay smiled. “You don’t laugh much, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Makes you look better when you do.”
“Not much seems funny from here.”
“Put the chains down sometimes.”
“I’ve tried. They always come back.”
“Have another drink, without the chains.”
“Sometimes people sing when they drink. I’d forgotten.”
“Put down the chains, I’ll take a small drink, and we’ll try singing together.”
Later, Dack’s sensors picked up an oddly matched pair of voices:
“…You take the high road and I’ll take the low road,” they were singing.
Reese, the bracelet, and his creature friends all worked to dissuade Jay Donnerjack from visiting the human enclaves in Virtu, as well as places intrinsically dangerous.
“When you’re older and can assume other identities at the drop of a hat, we can consider it,” Reese said, “but there are some pretty strange creatures wandering Virtu—and whatever your dad built into that bracelet, it’s worth a fortune. People would kill for that crossover ability. You must keep it secret. Tell no one about it. And do not let others see you cross. In the meantime, practice assuming identities.”
Jay shuddered, returning in his mind to the battle between Sayjak and Chumo.
“Do you really think some things are worth killing and dying over?” he asked.
“What I think and what you think do not matter,” Reese replied. “There are plenty who do. You cannot go too far in either world without encountering some form of violence, real or metaphorical.”
“Why not?”