The Redemption of Althalus (11 page)

“A lot of it doesn’t make sense anyway.”

“Put them back the way you found them.”

“All right, all right. Don’t tie your tail in a knot.” That remark always seemed to trigger one of their little mock tussles. Emerald would lay her ears back, crouch low over her front paws with her bottom raised up and swinging back and forth ominously while her tail swished. Then she’d leap on his hand and mouth it. She’d never extend her claws, and though she growled terribly, she never actually bit him.

His best response to that was to take his other hand and thoroughly stir up her fur. She seemed to
hate
that, since it took her quite a while to comb everything back in place with her tongue.

Since Emerald was a cat—at least for right now—she had a keen sense of smell. She insisted that Althalus should wash frequently—every time he turned around, it seemed. A large tiled tub filled with steaming water would quite suddenly appear near their bed, and after the first few times, Althalus would sigh, rise from his seat, and begin removing his clothes. In the long run, he’d found, it was easier to bathe than it was to argue with her. As time went on, he even began to enjoy soaking in hot water before supper every day.

A peculiar notion came to him that winter, brought on perhaps by the continual darkness. He was still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t crazy, having possibly gone insane because he’d missed his time to die—just like the mad old man who’d talked to God. But maybe he hadn’t missed it after all. What if somewhere back in Hule, or maybe after he’d come up into the mountains of Kagwher, someone had slipped up behind him with an axe and chopped his head open, and he was dead? If it’d happened quickly enough, he wouldn’t have even realized it, so his ghost had just kept on walking. His body was probably lying somewhere with its brains dribbling out of its ears, but his ghost had continued on toward this house, totally unaware that he was really dead. It hadn’t been Althalus who’d encountered the crazy man who talked to God, and he hadn’t really reached the Edge of the World and watched the fire of God. That was just something his ghost had thought up. Now his ghost had reached its final destination, and it would remain here in this closed room with Emerald and the Book forever. If his theory was correct, he’d crossed over into the afterlife. Everyone knows that the afterlife is filled with all sorts of strange things, so there was no point in getting excited about a room that stayed warm and comfortable and well lit without any trace of fire, and no real need to start bellowing, “impossible” every time he turned around and something unusual happened. The whole business was just his own personal afterlife.

All things considered, though, this particular afterlife wasn’t so bad. He was warm and well fed, and he had Emerald to talk to. He might have wished that there was some of Nabjor’s mead around someplace, or that some sister of the naughty-eyed girl in Nabjor’s camp might pay him a call now and then, but as time went on, those things became less and less important. He’d heard some pretty terrible stories about the afterlife, but if it didn’t get any worse than it was right now, Althalus felt that he could learn to be dead with it—he realized that “learn to live with it” didn’t exactly fit in with his current situation. The one thing that nagged him was the total lack of any possibility of hunting down the man who’d killed him. Since he was now an insubstantial ghost, he wouldn’t be able to hack the rascal to pieces. But then he realized that he might just be able to haunt his unknown assailant, and that might be even more satisfying than butchering him.

He wondered if he might be able to persuade Emerald to agree to that. He could promise her that they could come back here to their private afterlife after he’d haunted his murderer to death, but he was almost positive that she wouldn’t put much store in promises made by the ghost of a man so famous for lying every chance he got. After he’d thought his way through the idea, he decided that he wouldn’t mention the notion to his furry roommate.

Then the sun came back to the roof of the world, and the notion that he was dead began to fade. Eternal darkness sort of fit in with his concept of an afterlife, but the return of the sun made him almost feel that he’d been reborn.

He could read the Book fairly well by now, and he found it more and more interesting. One thing did sort of bother him, though. Late one spring afternoon, he laid his hand on the Book and glanced at Emerald, who appeared to be sleeping with her chin resting on her paws as she lay on the table beside the Book. “What’s his real name?” he asked her.

Her green eyes were sleepy when she opened them. “Whose name?” she asked.

“The one who wrote the Book. He never comes right out and identifies himself.”

“He’s God, Althalus.”

“Yes, I know, but which one? Every land I’ve ever visited has its own God—or its own set of Gods—and they all have different names. Was it Kherdhos, the God of the Wekti and Plakands? Or maybe Apwos, the God of Equero? What
is
his name?”

“Deiwos, of course.”

“Deiwos? The God of the Medyos?”

“Of course.”

“The Medyos are the silliest people in the world, Emerald.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You’d think that the people who worshiped the real true God would have better sense.”

She sighed. “It’s all the same God, Althalus. Haven’t you realized that by now? The Wekti and Plakands call him Kherdhos because they’re interested in their herds of sheep or cows. The Equeros call him Apwos, because they concentrate most of their attention on the lakes. The Medyos are the oldest people in this part of the world, and they brought the name with them when they first came here.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Off to the south—after they learned how to herd sheep and plant grains. After they’d lived in Medyo for a while, they expanded out into those other places, and the people in the new places changed God’s name.” She rose to her feet and stretched and yawned. “Let’s have fish for dinner tonight,” she suggested.

“We had fish last night—and the night before.”

“So? I like fish; don’t you?”

“Oh, fish is all right, I suppose, but I get a little tired of it after we’ve eaten it three times a day for three straight weeks.”

“Fix your own supper,” she flared.

“You know perfectly well that I don’t know how to do that yet.”

“Then you’ll just have to take whatever I put on the table, won’t you?”

He sighed. “Fish?” he asked with a certain resignation.

“What a wonderful idea, Althalus! I’m
so
glad you thought of it.”

There were many concepts in the Book that Althalus couldn’t understand, and he and Emerald spent many contented evenings talking about them. They also spent quite a bit of time playing. Emerald
was
a cat, after all, and cats like to play. There was a kind of studied seriousness about her when she played that made her absolutely adorable, and she filled up most of the empty places in his life. Every so often she’d do something while she was playing that was so totally silly that it seemed almost human. Althalus thought about that, and he came to realize that only humans could be silly. Animals generally took themselves far too seriously even to suspect that they were being ridiculous.

Once, when he was concentrating very hard on the Book, he caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye and realized that she was creeping up on him. He hadn’t really been paying much attention to her, and she’d only let that go on for just so long before she’d assert herself. She came creeping across the polished floor one furtive step at a time, but he knew that she was coming, so he was ready for her when she pounced, and half turning, he caught her in midair with both hands. There was the usual mock tussle, and then he pulled her to his face and held her tightly against it. “Oh, I
do
love you, Emmy!” he said.

She jerked her face back from his. “Emmy?” she hissed. “EMMY!?!”

“I’ve noticed that people do that,” he tried to explain. “After they’ve been together for a while, they come up with pet names for each other.”

“Put me down!”

“Oh, don’t get all huffy.”

“Emmy indeed! You put me down, or I’ll claw off one of your ears!”

He was fairly sure she wouldn’t, but he put her down and gave her a little pat on the head.

She turned sort of sideways, her fur bristling and her ears laid back. Then she hissed at him.

“Why, Emmy,” he said in mock surprise, “what a thing to say. I’m shocked at you. Shocked.”

Then she swore at him, and that really surprised him. “You’re actually angry, aren’t you?”

She hissed again, and he laughed at her. “Oh, Emmy, Emmy, Emmy,” he said fondly.

“Yes, Althie, Althie, Althie?” she replied in a spiteful tone.

“Althie?”

“In your ear!” she said. Then she went off to the bed to sulk.

He didn’t get any supper that night, but he almost felt that it might have been worth it. He now had a way to respond when she started acting superior. One “Emmy” would immediately erase the haughty look on her face and reduce her to near-inarticulate fury. Althalus carefully tucked that one up his sleeve for future use.

They declared peace on each other the next day, and life returned to normal. She fed him a near banquet that evening. He understood that it was a peacemaking gesture, so he complimented her after about every other bite.

Then, after they’d gone to bed, she washed his face for quite some time. “Did you really mean what you said yesterday?” She purred.

“Which particular thing I said were you thinking of?” he asked.

Her ears went back immediately. “You said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

“Oh,” he said. “That. Of course I meant it. You shouldn’t even have to ask.”

“Don’t you lie to me.”

“Would I do that?”

“Of course you would. You’re the greatest liar in the whole world.”

“Why, thank you, dear.”

“Don’t make me cross, Althalus,” she warned. “I’ve got all four paws wrapped around your head right now, so be very nice to me—unless you’d like to have your face on the back of your head instead of the front.”

“I’ll be good,” he promised.

“Say it again, then.”

“Say what, dear?”

“You know what!”

“All right, little kitten, I love you. Does that make you feel better?”

She rubbed her face against his and started to purr.

The seasons turned, as seasons always do, although the summers were short and the winters long up here on the roof of the world, and after they’d gone around several times, the past seemed to recede until it was only a dim memory. In time, the days plodded by unnoticed as Althalus struggled with the Book. He began to spend more and more of his time staring up at the glowing dome overhead as he pondered the strange things the Book had revealed.

“What
is
your problem?” Emerald demanded irritably once when Althalus sat at the table with the Book lying almost unnoticed on the polished surface in front of him. “You’re not even pretending to be reading.”

Althalus laid his hand on the Book. “It just said something I don’t understand,” he replied. “I’m trying to work it out.”

She sighed. “Tell me what it is,” she said in a resigned tone. “I’ll explain it to you. You still won’t understand, but I’ll explain anyway.”

“You can be very offensive; did you know that?”

“Of course. I’m doing it on purpose—but you still love me, don’t you?”

“Oh, I guess so.”

“You
guess
so?”

He laughed. “Woke you up, didn’t I?”

She laid back her ears and hissed at him.

“Be nice,” he said, putting out his hand and scratching her ears. Then he looked back at the troublesome line. “If I’m reading this right, it says that all the things Deiwos has made are of the same value in his eyes. Does that mean that a man isn’t any more important than a bug or a grain of sand?”

“Not exactly,” she replied. “What it really means is that Deiwos doesn’t think of the separate parts of what he’s made. It’s the whole thing that’s important. A man’s only a small part of the whole thing, and he’s not really here for very long. A man’s born, lives out his life, and dies in so short a time that the mountains and stars don’t even notice him as he goes by.”

“That’s a gloomy thought. We don’t really mean anything, do we? Deiwos won’t even miss us after the last one of us dies, will he?”

“Oh, he probably will. There were things that used to be alive, but they aren’t anymore, and Deiwos still remembers them.”

“Why did he let them die out, then?”

“Because they’d done everything they were supposed to do. They’d completed what they’d been put here to attend to, so Deiwos let them go. Then too, if everything that had ever lived were still here, there wouldn’t be any room for new things.”

“Sooner or later, that’ll happen to people as well, won’t it?”

“That’s not entirely certain, Althalus. Other creatures take the world as they find it, but people change things.”

“And Deiwos guides us in those changes?”

“Why would he do that? Deiwos doesn’t tinker, pet. He sets things in motion and then moves on. All the mistakes you make are entirely yours. Don’t blame Deiwos for them.”

Althalus reached out and ruffled her fur.

“I
wish
you wouldn’t do that,” she said. “It takes forever to get it all straight again.”

“It gives you something to do between naps, Emmy,” he told her, and then he went back to the Book.

C H A P T E R     S I X

T
he past receded even more in his memory as the Book claimed Althalus. By now he could read it through from end to end, and he’d done that so often that he could recite long passages from memory. The more it sank into his memory, the more it altered his perception of the world. Things that had seemed very important before he’d come here to the House at the End of the World were no longer relevant.

“Was I really that small, Em?” he asked his companion one evening in the early autumn of another of those interminable years.