Grimus Read Free Page B

been called before.
    —No, said Flapping Eagle. But she’s not here. Not in Axona.
    —Precisely. You realize this puts us both into a rather awkward position? Vis a vis the law, you see.
    It really was very simple. Bird-Dog’s sudden disappearance meant Flapping Eagle, as next of kin and sole surviving family, was at last open to attack by the Axona. As the lawbreaker could not be punished, so her guilt fell upon him. There was only one punishment: exile.
    All that Bird-Dog had said was: I saw Sispy again today. We’re leaving. That was in the small hours of the morning. It was only later that Flapping Eagle had been struck by the thought that he was exactly as old today as Bird-Dog had been on the day she first met the pedlar. Thirty-four years, three months and four days. It was as if his future had touched her past.
    It was an abrupt departure, but then the two of them had been growing away from each other ever since Flapping Eagle’s refusal to drink the yellow elixir. To him, it had been faintly nauseating to watch Bird-Dog petrified at an immutable age, her cells reproducing perfectly every day, not a hair falling that wasn’t replaced by a new one. And for Bird-Dog, the spectacle of her little brother growing up towards her daily was a constant rejection of herself and the decision she had made. It was the first and only important thing in which Flapping Eagle had not followed her lead.
    They hadn’t even made love for several years; both of them missed it. Still, thought Flapping Eagle, now she’s got Sispy. A pedlar’s woman: tame ending for her.
    The Sham-Man was clearing his throat again. Flapping Eagle forced himself to listen to his equivocations.
    —Health, you know, said the walrus pontifically, is a tricky thing. Awfully tricky. The thing is to make sure one is always one jump ahead. Craftier than the slinking germ, if you follow me. Catch the worm before it turns, eh, eh?
    The Axona were obsessed with health and cleanliness. They used more metaphors deriving from this preoccupation than the wildest hypochondriac.
    —At this moment (the Sham-Man’s face shaped itself into a mask of tragedy) I’m afraid the corpse of opinion is dead against you, old chap.
    —Corpus, said Flapping Eagle.
    —Exactly. Dead against. Temperatures are rising. There is a fever abroad in the land, if you take my meaning. There are those who diagnose a modicum of bloodletting (his lips curled into an expression of elegant distaste) but of course I’m not wholly in agreement with them. See their point, mind you. Just don’t happen to agree. Must be my liberal upbringing.
    —What is your position, asked Flapping Eagle.
    —Ah. My position. Ah. Now there’s a question. I quote the sayings of Axona, correct me if I get anything wrong: “All that is Unaxona is Unclean.” I’m afraid we really can’t have contamination around here, you know. Spreads like wildfire. And before you know it, poof, there’s a disease. Nothing against you personally, naturally. Always thought you more sinned against and so forth. But there you are, what can one do, she’s got you for the high jump, I’m afraid. After all you may already be infected.
    —So what do you suggest?
    —Tell you what, TELL you WHAT. Why not, this evening, under cover of darkness, you follow, why not just slip away completely? Save a lot of unpleasant scenes. That’s what I suggest. Think about it. I’m really very sorry about all this.
    Flapping Eagle, alone in his tent, scrabbled furiously at the floor. Then he had them: the yellow and the blue. —At least, he thought, if I am to live in the Outside, I may as well give myself one advantage. He drained the life-giving fluid. It tasted bitter-sweet. He put the blue bottle in a pocket.
    I mentioned that life among the Axona prepared me in many ways for Calf Island. One of the ways was this: it taught Flapping Eagle the power of obsession.
    The town was called Phoenix because it had risen from the ashes of a