IGMS Issue 33 Page 6

  "I knew there were children about," the guard says. "I told you."

  "Yes," says the voice behind me and my stomach knots itself. It's Mother Sharna's voice and though I could imagine what happens to people caught by the guards, I can't begin to imagine what happens to people caught by Mother herself.

  "What were you doing, eh?" the guard asks Murzah. He leers. "You're too young to want to be sneaking off with a young woman, aren't you, boy?"

  Sharna orders him to be silent. "Take him down to the cell. In the morning, Jarnak can take him to the quarry. Old enough to sneak around, old enough to do a man's job."

  "No!" My shout echoes off the stone walls.

  "No," I say again, twisting in Mother's arms. "Murzah can't be sent to the quarry. He makes. . ."

  "Geetal!" This time I know he means it as a warning, but I go on.

  "He makes these wonderful creatures. It's a gift from the gods. And the gods don't bless quarrymen."

  "What is this nonsense?" asks the guard. Mother Sharna doesn't speak.

  "Look in his pouch," I tell them. A small movement behind me and the guard does as I suggest. He holds the tortoise in one hand, the grasshopper in the other, both still as death.

  "Wonderful creatures? They look like garbage to me."

  "Make him hold one!"

  The guard forces Murzah's hand open and places the tortoise inside of it. At Murzah's touch, the head of the tortoise shifts from side to side and its feet begin to move.

  "Let me see it," Mother Sharna says. She lets go of me and takes the tortoise, examines it from every angle and watches its movement. She sets it down on the floor. It creeps along the ground.

  "Amazing," she says. I am relieved that I've gotten us out of trouble and allowed Sharna and the guard to see just how special Murzah is.

  Then I'm being pushed into the guard's arms and Murzah is being led away by Mother.

  "Get her back in bed," she says by way of dismissal of both myself and the guard.

  He looks me over and sniffs. "Too young," he says again. I've never been so glad of this before.

  Murzah still sleeps in the dormitory, but I don't see him anywhere else around the orphanage for days. He's not in line for meals, not doing chores like the rest of us. And he's not in the mass of older boys -- the ones not favored enough by Mother Sharna to be guards -- who gather each morning to go to the quarry. Someone comes for him each morning, whisks him away, and he doesn't return until late.

  I want to know where he's going, what's happening. I try looking for Kirun so I can ask if he knows what his older brother has been up to, but I can't find him either.

  I finally work up the courage to sneak over to Murzah's bed at night. I poke his leg. He looks up at me and then rolls away.

  I poke him again.

  "Go away," he hisses.

  "No. I want to know what's happened to you. You leave before sunup and are gone until late. Are they beating you? Making you do some awful work, even worse than the quarry?"

  I wait what feels like several minutes and I'm just about to give up when he turns back towards me.

  "If I tell you, will you go away?"

  The scorn in his eyes hurts, but I nod. I have to know. Of course, having to know is what started all this.

  "Mother Sharna's uncle is a General in this region," he says. "They're trying to rebuild, still, after the War and the Plague. The factories which made the machines of death are smashed, and the people who knew how to run them are dead."

  "What does this have to do with you?"

  "Imagine a bat built to carry bombs, Geetal. A lion built to kill men. An elephant built to smash buildings, crush anyone who gets in its way under its feet."

  He pauses. I can imagine these things.

  "Do you see now? Do you see what . . ." I know he's about to say "you've done." But he finishes "they're making me into?" Both, I suppose, are true.

  "So tell them no."

  "I can't. They have Kirun." He turns back away from me. "You got your answers. Now go."

  I walk to bed and wish that I hadn't survived the Plague, that I had died with my mother. I've ruined Murzah's and Kirun's lives. Lying down, I cry myself to sleep.

  The rare times we see each other, Murzah ignores me and I let him. Winter comes and a fever passes through the orphanage. I don't get it, but that only means that I have to work harder to ensure that everything gets done with so many of the others sick in their beds.

  One day they make me help dig two graves. I do this task with an older boy, the one who had called me too young the night Murzah and I got caught. I see him looking at me several times and I hope his feelings about my maturity haven't changed, despite the outward changes he can observe.

  I am lying in my bed, eyes closed, half asleep. A hand touches my leg and I almost scream. I sit up fast and see Murzah there, his finger to his lips. He beckons me to come with him. I'm astonished and overjoyed, thinking he has finally forgiven me.

  "Murzah," I whisper when we're alone but he shushes me again. We walk past the door of the room in which he made his first creations, climb to the second level and then the third. Dust piles up along the edges of this hall and I know I hear little feet scurrying away from us.

  He opens a door and lets us into a room. A ladder is bolted to the far wall. Murzah nods towards it. We go up the ladder, through a hatch in the ceiling, and we're on the roof. Against one wall is a pile of pieces of metal, chunks of wood, scraps of cloth.

  "Kirun is dead," he says, the first words he's spoken to me since the night I came to him in his bed.

  Tears well up in my eyes. "I'm so sorry, Murzah." It's all I can say.

  "It's not your fault." I'm astonished to hear him say that. "He died of the fever. It could have happened here, too.

  "But now," he says, "I can tell them no. Or do even better." Murzah pulls a scrap of paper out and shows it to me. A great bird, an eagle, is drawn on the paper. The bird's claws are oversized,a person sits in each one.

  "Why tell me?"

  "I need your help. I can only get so many pieces of material. It's taken me the three weeks since his death just to gather this much and it's only a fraction of what I need. They're talking about having me build even worse things, not just animals but true monsters as well. I have to get away."

  I tell him that I'll help. My heart lifts as I imagine climbing into the claw of this eagle, feeling the strength of Murzah's creation raising me up and taking me away from this place. Of course I'll help him.

  So now, along with the chores I have to do and my attempts to avoid the stares of Mother Sharna's guards, I gather any things I can safely steal which I think will help Murzah. Once a week we go up and add what I've found to his pile. Other than that he continues to ignore me. When I ask him why, one night on the roof, he says it has to be that way.

  "With Kirun dead, they've got to be worried that I'll rebel. If they thought we were close, they could use you as leverage against me."

  I put my hand on his chest. "If they do that, if they capture me and try to use me against you, just go."

  Murzah bows his head and when he looks up I see a glistening in his eyes. He doesn't speak.

  "Promise me? Don't let them use me like that."

  He nods at last. "I promise." He leans in and kisses my lips. The contact electrifies me and I feel warm and noble and like someone who might not be too young, not for him.

  "We have to get back," he tells me. He pulls away and heads for the open door in the roof. I follow him. It feels like my feet barely touch the ground all the way back to the dormitory.

  Spring is coming. There's a warmth in the air during the middle of the day and there's more life outside, birds and chipmunks and other animals.

  Last week when we went to the roof, Murzah sorted the pile out and gave me specific instructions for what to find. I've done the best I can since then. I know this means we must be nearly ready to go and I hope what I've gathered will be enough.

  Like
always, he comes to my bed and we go through the orphanage without a sound, always watching for the guards. On the roof, I show him my findings for the week. He nods at the pieces of rope and everything else I've assembled.

  "It's time," he says.

  "Tonight?"

  "Tonight. But I need time to put him together. Wait by the hatch, let me know if you hear anything."

  He labors throughout the night. I watch the moon peak in the sky and sink back down. I go to Murzah twice to ask if he needs anything, but he shakes his head, lost in his work.

  The sky is turning light in the east when I hear the first cries of alarm. They're from people out on the grounds, so Murzah hears them too. I run over towards him but he hisses to keep watch, that we have to know when someone is coming into the room with the ladder.

  "When you see someone, close the hatch, Geetal. It will be time to go then, however ready he is." Murzah ran a hand over the eagle's flank and I see its wings stir slightly. He whispers to it and the movement stops.

  The sun slides up the horizon. I hear footsteps inside, not far away. I look down and notice that we hadn't closed the door from the hall to the room with the ladder. I swing my legs into the opening to go down and shut it. But I'm too late. A guard steps into the room. Our eyes meet and he hollers for the others.

  "Now, Murzah!" I yell and slam the hatch shut. There's a flimsy latch and I use it, knowing it won't keep out the strong boys below for long. I look for something to weight down the hatch, but find nothing.

  I run to the wall where Murzah and the eagle stand. The bird's eyes twitch to and fro and its wings are gently moving.

  "It's ready," I say, smiling. "You did it."

  I lean in, knowing we have to hurry, but wanting to take just a few seconds to repeat our first kiss before we fly away.

  Murzah shoves me to the hard tiles of the roof.

  Voices shout below and I hear a banging on the hatch.

  The bird has lifted up from the tiles and is hovering just above them. Murzah climbs into the claws of the eagle, his shoulders in one claw and his legs in the other.

  I cry his name, beg him to wait.

  "He's only strong enough for one," Murzah says.

  I'm on my feet. The eagle's claws are at eye level to me. "But we were building him together. To leave together."

  Behind me, the latch snaps.

  "I never said that, Geetal. I can't help what you assumed."

  I lunge towards the eagle, hoping to hang on, hoping that Murzah is wrong about what it can carry, willing to take any chance to get away from what this place holds for my future. The beast snaps at me with its beak, grazing the skin of my arm, leaving a little spot of blood.

  The pain startles me and in the moment that I am flinching away from the source of that pain the bird takes flight. I hurry to the edge of the roof but they are already too far gone for me to jump. I glance down at the ground far below and think about jumping anyway; they would say I was a fool girl who didn't know how far she could jump, not that I was a fool girl who killed herself.

  But I hesitate a second too long and as I bend my knees to leap, strong hands grab me and pull me back from the roof's edge. The guards, boys playing at being men, scream in my ear, cursing me and telling me what they think I am good for. Between their arms and legs and faces there is a patch of sky. And in that sky, flying away, Murzah and his eagle are already tiny in my sight.

  Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma

  by Alex Shvartsman

  Artwork by Andres Mossa

  * * *

  I just made the deal of the year and I couldn't wait to tell Grandma.

  As soon as the customer left, I locked the front door, flipped the cardboard sign to Closed, and headed into the back. Clutching my latest acquisition to my blouse, I entered the packed stockroom, dodged around the bronze naval cannon, nearly caught the hem of my skirt on a rusty suit of armor, and made my way through a plethora of other items too large or too heavy to be stored on the shelves. Most of this stuff has been here since before I was born, and will likely remain in the same place long after my hypothetical future children take over the shop. You never know when the right buyer might come along, and the family is in it for the long haul.

  Grandma Heide was in our office, sitting at the desk. She had moved the keyboard out of the way to make room for the game of solitaire she was playing with a Thirteenth century Egyptian Tarot deck. She barely glanced up when I walked in.

  "You do know you could play this on the computer, right Grandma?"

  She set down a card in one of the columns after a few seconds' thought. "Can your newfangled gadget fake the feel of shuffling a dog-eared deck of cards? Simulate the pleasure of placing one in just the right spot to make a perfect play? I didn't think so." She looked at me over her glasses. "The old ways are almost always best."

  "Yes, well, I'm not here to argue about that again. Guess what I just picked up on pawn."

  I stepped closer and placed a pocket dimension in front of Grandma. It looked like a pyramid-shaped snow globe the height of a soda can. It was filled with ocean water. In the center floated a being of scales and tentacles and shapes so unnatural that staring straight at it caused a headache. When not stored outside of our space/time continuum, it was the size of a cruise liner and must have weighed as much as a small mountain, which is what made pocket dimensions so darn handy.

  Grandma picked up the pyramid, pushed the glasses up her nose and peered inside.

  "What is this?" she asked.

  "Cthulhu," I said, smug with satisfaction.

  "Geshundheit," said Grandma. I couldn't tell for certain if she was kidding or not. Probably not.

  "I didn't sneeze," I said. "Its name is Cthulhu. It is an ancient god of anxiety and horror, dead but dreaming."

  Grandma didn't appear impressed. "What does it do? Besides dream." She turned the pocket dimension slowly to examine its contents.

  "Do? It's a symbol for the unknowable fathoms of the universe which dwarf humanity's importance. Besides, it's a god. How long has it been since we had one of those in the shop?"

  "1982," she said immediately. "The government of Argentina pawned a few of the Guarani nature gods to help fund the Falklands conflict. Little good it did them."

  I didn't remember this, but I was still in diapers in 1982.

  "Pre-Columbian godlings barely count. This," I pointed at the pyramid, "is the real deal."

  Grandma finished inspecting the god and placed the pocket dimension on top of the computer, next to a mug filled with ballpoint pens. She turned her attention back to me.

  "And what did you pay out for this rare and unique item?"

  I told her.

  Grandma pursed her lips and stared me down. Ever since I broke the wing off the stuffed phoenix when I was a little girl, it had been the withering expression Grandma Heide reserved for when I screwed up especially badly.

  "Whoever pawned it will have taken the money and run," she declared. "They won't be back. Enjoy it for the next month, and let's hope some fool gets as excited about this overgrown octopus as you did. If not, then maybe we can sell it off by the pound to the sushi chains."

  "You never have any faith in the deals I make." I crossed my arms. "I'm not a little girl anymore, and I spent my entire life around the shop. When will you begin to trust my judgment? I say we got a bargain and I'll prove it."

  "This shop is full of the mistakes of overeager youth, Sylvia." She pointed toward the stock room, brimming with stuff. "I made my fair share when I was your age. The pawn shop business is simple. Stick to quality common items that are easy to move, and pick them up cheap. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be ready to take over the family enterprise." Then she drew the next card from her deck, indicating that the conversation was over.

  When your family is in the business of running the oldest pawn shop in the world, there are big shoes to fill. I wondered if Grandma had similar trouble when she became old enough to wor
k at the shop, back before Gran-Gran Hannelore had retired.

  Under the terms of the pawn, the customer had thirty days to come back and claim his item. That gave me plenty of time to line up potential buyers. There were a number of leads for me to pursue, but I started with the obvious.

  I unlocked the front door, flipped the sign to Open, powered up my laptop, and logged on to Craigslist.

  It didn't take a month. The first interested party showed up within days.

  "I'm Keldmo, the Grand Prophet of the Deep Ones," announced the enormously fat man. He was wearing some sort of a toga or bathrobe getup, probably because no one made pants in his size. "I understand that you've recently come into possession of the great Cthulhu?"

  "We did. Or we will, if the previous owner doesn't pay back the loan in three weeks' time. How much are you prepared to pay?"

  "Is the undying gratitude of thousands of worshippers not enough?"

  "Not nearly."

  "I don't have a lot of money." Keldmo wiped the sweat off his ample chins with a handkerchief. "The congregation hasn't been quite as devout in recent years. The collection plate brings barely enough to keep food on the table."

  I bit back the obvious retort. Besides, Keldmo wouldn't have appreciated the barb. If he ever had a sense of humor, he probably ate it a long time ago.

  "Having the actual Cthulhu to display at services, I'm sure that would turn things around," he said. "Reinvigorate the worshippers, help with the recruitment drive, that sort of thing."

  "You aren't planning to wake it up and unleash it upon the world, are you?"

  "Heavens, no," said Keldmo. "A living god can be dangerous and unpredictable. What if it has different ideas and plans for its followers than I do? No, it's best to let sleeping horrors lie."

  "Good," I said. "Now what are you willing to pay, really?"

  Keldmo made his offer. It was significantly less than the amount I had invested, but it was a start. I told the cult leader that I'd be in touch and sent him on his merry way.