The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth) (27 page)

Amused, Zozula said, “That sounds fair.”
 

“Who stays behind?” asked Manuel.
 

“You and the Girl. You lack courage, and she’s physically unfit for the search. Roller will be my guide.”
 

So Zozula and the dog set off on their quest. They traveled for many days and little is known of the strange things they saw. The Land of Lost Dreams is not endless, because it has only existed since the creation of Dream Earth. Nevertheless, there were at that time 80,000 years’ worth of rejected and homeless oddities wandering the limbo between the computer and the many happentracks of Reality. They were disorganized, anachronistic, often separated by relatively as much space as separates the particles within an atom—which is to say that you could walk a long way in the Land of Lost Dreams
 

without meeting a living thing. Not once during the journey did it occur to Zozula that there might be no such creature as a female Basilisk. He plodded on confidently, sustained by that sense of destiny that had possessed him ever since he had reincorporated the Girl from Dream Earth. The dog trotted behind, bearings squeaking continuously.
 

And on the eleventh day they found a female Basilisk.
 

She stood on a low hill, staring proudly around. Roller uttered a yelp of fear and hid behind Zozula, who strode forward confidently. The Basilisk was plump and of arrogant stance, and in the daylight they could see that her wings were in fact leathery like bats’ wings, although the ostrichlike body had a fair covering of metallic-green feathers. The four legs were stout, scaly and clawed like those of a turkey, and the tail was tipped with a villainous spike. The head was crocodilian, although it bore a scarlet comb like a rooster. She was a proud-looking creature.
 

She looked at Zozula. Her eye was red and fierce, but if Zozula felt any misgivings, they have not been recorded in song:
 

He faced the fiery Basilisk and stared it in the eye—
 

Zozula stood triumphant where a lesser man would
 
die.
 

Set in bare green skin, that eye was a fiery little ruby that swiveled to follow him as he walked forward. The dog howled, but he didn’t die, either.
 

“See,” said Zozula, “it’s all superstition. There is no conceivable way in which one creature could kill another by the power of its eye alone. I hope we hear no more of this nonsense, Roller.”
 

“Why do you suppose the land is all charred?”
 

“Doesn’t it occur to you that there may have been a bush fire burning through here recently?”
 

“Look,” said Roller, “she’s eating a burned-up bird. How do you suppose she got hold of that?”
 

Zozula said patiently, “The bird flew into the fire and was burned by it. Or it flew over the fire and was asphyxiated by the smoke and fell. So the Basilisk eats it. Clearly, the creature is nothing more than a scavenger. Its gaze is harmless.”
 

“There is another explanation.”
 

“I doubt it. But you may tell me.”
 

“The bird was real, but you’re not. She can’t kill smallwishes.”
 

“Ridiculous!” Deeply offended, Zozula drew his cloak about himself. “Now, tell this creature our mission, before I take a stick to you!”
 

So the dog began to communicate in his mysterious way, and soon the Basilisk began to pay attention and to gobble and croak back. She shuffled her claws and pranced briefly, showing intense interest. Her eyes widened and blinked rapidly and she flapped her wings, but did not leave the ground. Roller cowered as he communicated, afraid that the Basilisk’s excitement might trigger the power to strike him dead.
 

Finally the Basilisk was still, standing tensely and sniffing the air. She pawed the ground.
 

“She’s offering us food,” said Roller.
 

Zozula regarded the mangled carcass and shuddered. During their quest, food had been hard to come by, but finally they’d found a stunted tree that nourished bitter fruit. A meal of these had blunted his appetite for some time.
Maybe forever
, he thought. “Not now,” he said. “Later, perhaps.”
 

“Then she wants us to lead her to her mate.”
 

The three began their journey over the sere hills. The dog led the way, retracing their scent, while Zozula and the Basilisk walked behind. At night they rested under the crippled trees and nibbled the fruit, and by day they traveled the misty land.
 

Shortly after dawn on the first morning of their journey back, a flight of geese arrowed across the sky and the Basilisk stiffened with interest, glancing up.
 

Two geese fell smoking to the ground.
 

“Remarkable,” said Zozula, after a moment’s silence.
 

The dog was quiet, reasoning that Zozula could take a stick just as easily to a right dog as a wrong dog.
 

“The Basilisk practices some kind of smallwish,” theorized Zozula. “The geese aren’t real, of course,” he said, stripping the blackened skin and feathers from one and biting into the hot meat hungrily, “but the flavor is excellent.” He threw the remains of the carcass to the dog, while the Basilisk gnawed at the other bird.
 

There were several such killings during their journey and the manner of them fascinated Zozula. The Basilisk’s fast, pacing gait would slow and she would cock a crimson eye at the sky. The hue of her comb would deepen and she would utter a short gobble of anticipation. The bird would approach, winging across an empty sky. The Basilisk would observe it askance, waiting until it got within range, still trotting along. Suddenly the beast would stop dead and, standing foursquare, would raise her head like a gun turret and let the bird have it with both eyes. The bird would roll over in a puff of smoke and feathers and plummet to the ground. Zozula and the dog would race the Basilisk to the body, and, if the bird appeared to be of a natural species, Zozula would appropriate a portion and leave the Basilisk and the dog to squabble over the rest.
 

Finally they reached the lair of the male Basilisk. It was noon and the land was silvery bright. “Tell the creature to wait here,” Zozula instructed Roller, “and we’ll go on into the cave. Maybe we’ll have to wait until night before we can bring the Basilisks together, or maybe there’s another way.”
 

They left the female behind a rocky outcropping and made for the cave. The male Basilisk suddenly stepped forth, stared fiercely around and spotted them. The dog yelped. He’d been immune from the female’s glance, but that didn’t mean the male was harmless. But he survived, and so did Zozula They entered the cave, to be greeted by Manuel and the Girl.
 

“Where have you
been?
We’d given up—we were going to leave tomorrow. This Basilisk, he can’t kill us, you know. We found that out quickly. Birds, yes. And mice and suchlike. But we were safe—he even killed a kind of lion that came sniffing around!”
 

“Basilisks can’t harm us.” Zozula patted the creature’s feathery flank. “Probably because they exist on a slightly warped happentrack. But they are king of their own dimension, all the same.” He went on to describe their quest and its success. “The female is nearby, but we can’t introduce them to each other yet or I’m afraid she’ll die.”
 

The male Basilisk became restless, pawing the ground. Zozula threw a restraining arm around his neck.
 

“He’s scented the female,” said Roller.
 

“I’m not sure I can hold him. Quick, Manuel—give me your shirt. We’ll have to blindfold the creature, or our quest will have been pointless.”
 

Manuel ripped his shirt off and Zozula wrapped it around the Basilisk’s head. It did little to calm the brute. A muffled chattering and gobbling filled the cave, and the animal’s claws scratched for a foothold, sending the dog rolling into a corner. Manuel and the Girl hung on while Zozula secured the mask. Even then, as they relaxed their grip, the Basilisk made his way purposely and unerringly toward the cave entrance, swishing his barbed tail. They followed.
 

Zozula felt the occasion demanded a short speech. “I don’t know why we’re doing this thing, but I like to think it’s part of something bigger, some destiny we’re fulfilling. Don’t you feel it too, Manuel? Haven’t you had the feeling there’s an ultimate importance in our actions, Girl? I can sense some great cosmic Scheme, with ourselves as its instruments. Exactly where this creature fits in, I’m not sure—but you can be sure it’s going to be important somewhere, on some happentrack.”
 

As they hurried along after the Basilisk, Manuel said angrily, “You haven’t been sitting around here for days doing nothing, like us. Do you know what I think? I think you’ve spent so many years in charge of your Dome that you think everything you do has some special significance. You’ve got a bloated idea of your importance, if you don’t mind me saying so. You think you hold life and death in your hands. Listen, Zozula, out here you’re just another man. This isn’t a real animal; it isn’t from real Earth. It’s just a man-made Dream thing.”
 

“Manuel!” whispered the Girl, aghast.
 

But Zozula ignored him. The Basilisk had reached the open air and had stopped, sniffing the breeze, his cowled head turning blindly and questingly this way and that. He trembled with desire, the scent of the female strong in his nostrils.
 

And sensing him, too, she came. She emerged from behind the rocks and saw the group at the cave mouth, and her head jerked up and she uttered a roaring screech. Zozula, Manuel, the Girl and the dog backed off. The male Basilisk turned uncertainly, facing his mate but unable to see her. He took a tentative step forward.
 

She bounded toward him, tail high, comb glowing. Her wings rustled and flapped, her feathers were iridescent with lust. She reached him and came to a skidding halt and, as he took another step toward her, she turned crimson eyes on him in a glowing look of love.
 

He gave out one croak and fell dead, smoking.
 

Appalled, Zozula seized a gnarled stick and set about the female Basilisk, beating it furiously. He shouted incoherently with rage and desolation.
 

Manuel said to Roller, “You’re safe now. I told you the Basilisk wasn’t all-powerful.”
 

“Another Basilisk is still here. And it’s proved what it can do.” The dog trembled.
 

The Girl said, “You can come with us. I think Zozula will want to go soon.”
 

Later that evening they built a fire at the mouth of the cave and sat staring into the glow while the fog deepened into night, and the voice of the female Basilisk could be heard somewhere out there, calling hopelessly for her mate.
 

Zozula spoke at last. “What a waste of a magnificent animal. And we’ve wasted days searching for the female when we could have been locating the math creature. Why did it all have to happen?” The fog lifted around the upswirling smoke and suddenly the stars were there, and the Land of Lost Dreams was just like any other land, and the cries of the lovesick Basilisk might have been any animal cry—the screech of a cougar, maybe, back on Real Earth.
 

Manuel sighed. The night held a mysterious beauty. Feeling sorry for Zozula, he said, “Nobody can be expected to understand everything. You said yourself there were programs in the Rainbow you knew nothing about and memory banks you couldn’t even get into. It’s big out here, Zozula. Bigger than the sea, bigger than the sky. Even the Rainbow might have forgotten what it’s dumped in this place. And perhaps there are no happentracks; perhaps Time is just a straight line, or even a circle. How can we tell?”
 

Zozula was silent.
 

The Girl’s eyes were shining as she gazed into the fire. The image of the female Basilisk was vivid in her mind: dynamic, prancing, death-dealing. “I’ve never had anything so real happen to me before,” she said. “I’ve learned something from all this, anyway. Do you know what I think, Zozula? I think that we’re not just looking for the math creature, or True Humans, or Manuel’s Belinda. I feel there’s something else we’re being readied for. I was once told something by the Oracle...” She relapsed into a sudden silence, embarrassed.
 

“Funny...” Manuel looked at her. “An old
bruja
spoke to me once. And God speaks to me occasionally, too. We might not understand everything, but I think somebody else does.”
 

Zozula sat in silence. The sounds of the Basilisk faded and he was left alone with his futility—which was the way it was meant to be. No man should have the arrogance to presume that he has been specifically chosen by Starquin. The Almighty Five-in-One does not need individuals. He arranges the pieces according to his overall plan—some of those pieces may indeed be individual humans, just as some may be mastodons or fleas—and then he lets them jiggle about on their own, like atoms. And, like atoms, they form an observable whole, a planet, a plan. Zozula was newly from the Dome, and he needed to learn humility. Maybe, like the Basilisk, he couldn’t conceive that he, too, could be killed.
 

He was no longer in charge of Composite Reality. He was a vulnerable human, and although he was indeed a part of Starquin’s plan, he could no more affect its eventual outcome than a ballroomful of Marilyns could affect the Cuidador Ebus.
 

Legendary figures and mythical beasts... As Mankind grew older and his knowledge of the Universe around him more complete, so his craving for the inexplicable grew. There were ages about which he knew noth ing and could never know anything, because these ages were before the advent of recorded history. So where he was unable to deduce the facts from fossils and ruins, he invented legends. The legends were not pure fabrication, because they were assisted by the Rainbow—often through the medium of the Oracle—so that many of these legends first emerged on Dream Earth.