“That is pretty much it,” she admitted. “Things haven’t exactly wound up as I imagined them, with me and Ti riding off into the glorious sunset.”
“No, that’s fairy tales. Sagas, on the other hand, are never without cost, and the principals rarely wind up truly happy when the evil is defeated. The constellations are filled with the shapes of creatures and personalities of myths and legends from hundreds of cultures, most of whom, it is alleged, wound up there because they came to unhappy conclusions.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“It would never have worked with you and Tiana. Love does not conquer all and you know it. Ti is best at doing what he is going to be doing. Nobody can do that job as well or as faithfully. But that sort of role drove you insane once before and would again. It’s simply not your element. She would have sacrificed it to remain your slave, but you would have been so guilty at the waste of her considerable talents and skills and intelligence locked in at that level. In the end, both of you would have been miserable.”
“Did you tell her about me? Did she figure it out?”
“No. Sooner or later it might come to Tiana, but we decided that it was your decision. I think you should, though. As a man and hating it, and as an absolute monarch of sorts, she’s going to be very lonely. Just visits and talk—no permanence—would probably help her a great deal.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m just not ready to handle that yet.”
“I understand. But it’s part of the future. And, of course, you have a son.”
Her head shot up. “You think that isn’t the number one thing on my mind? I had this vision, father and son, roaming Husa-quahr, showing him the sights and delights, watching at least the last half of his childhood. Doing things with him—fishing, hunting, all that. But he’s here because his dad’s a big, tough guy, with a sword that cuts through stone, and afraid of nothing at all. What am I gonna do? Walk into Terindell and say, ‘Hi, Irving, I’m back, only I’ve been changed forever into a four-foot-tall, sexy, green nymph girl. Wanna go fishing?’ ”
“He might take it a lot better than his father being dead and him here alone,” Marge put in. “He needs somebody.”
“He might not even be quite as put off as you think,” Ruddy-gore added. “During his last exercise, he was trapped, inevitably, by the Circe, and turned into a pig. He’s restored now, but it’ll be some time before he lives that down. He’s actually adapting quite well to the way things work here now. He’s even showing some magical talents that I was quite unprepared for. From his mother, I suppose. It’s a rather different sort of magic than mine, but he has great potential. Poquah has been giving him instruction in the same way Gorodo is teaching him the fighting skills. He’s going to be somebody someday, Joe. He’s got the talent and the will for it.”
Joe thought about it. “Maybe—maybe I will go back with you. Sure isn’t any life sticking around this dump. Not as Joe— not right now. We’ll pick a name. I’ll be around, along with all the other fairies there, and I’ll at least be able to be near, maybe help. Then, maybe, when I get a little more confident and maybe he’s a little older…”
“I’ll drop by for moral support any time,” Marge assured Joe. “Maybe we’ll go a few places together, two fairies out in the world. Poke in here and there. See old friends and a few new places. Maybe even take a trip on Macore’s boat, remembering that I can fly for help if need be. It might be kinda fun to go a few places and do a few things without being on a wanted poster for a change.”
Joe sighed and stood up. “Well, I guess it beats sitting through one hundred and eighty-nine episodes of Gilligan’s Island all to hell, anyway.” He looked back at the crater one last time. “Still, I sit here and I think of that conversation I had with Sugasto, and I wonder if it really is over, even now.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Marge asked a bit nervously. “Boquillas had no fairy soul. He’s gone.”
“Yeah, but where! He sure isn’t going to Heaven, not any Heaven I could ever imagine, and he even betrayed Hell. Where do the great evil creatures of legend go when they die? Are they gone, or are they, perhaps, suspended somewhere, neither in Heaven nor Hell, looking like those poor souls in the Devastation for some reality, some way to loose themselves again upon the world?”
“I hadn’t thought of that, Joe, but that may be a valid idea,” Ruddygore told her. “If there is such a place, it must have such concentrated evil of such a magnitude that we must all pray that it never breaks out.” He chuckled suddenly. “Of course, it would be unlikely in any event. Anyone who wound up in such a limbo would be such a power-mad egomaniac they’d always be at each other and never trouble us.”
“I hope so.” Joe sighed, turning for the last time from the crater. “I really hope so.”
The last thing Esmilio Boquillas remembered clearly was the horrible, stabbing pain in the chest, and then someone lifting him into the air and throwing him down, down, until there was this horrible, searing pain that was suddenly cut off, leaving nothingness.
He had floated in this nothingness now for a very long time, although he had no concept of time. It was meaningless to him, without a body, without true form, without any boundaries or borders.
And yet, now, he was aware of others here, some having an almost human feel, others giving a mental impression of something so hideous, so horrible, that were he still in human form he could not have beheld them without going mad. Somehow, they were blackness even within the total absence of light.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. “Who are you?” he asked in thought, for he had no mouth to form the words nor was there any true medium to carry them.
“I am Baal, who challenged even great Satan for the throne of Hell, little one,” thundered back the response.
Another shape, another question.
“I am Sauron, the Eye of All, Darkest Lord of Middle-earth,” the shape responded, and he had the distinct impression of some huge eye, near him, sightless but intelligent.
“I am great Cthulhu who sleeps forever beneath the Sea of Dreams until one day I shall waken once more and desolate the cosmos!” a third said.
And there were more, many more, existing together yet in splendid loneliness, each too powerful and too much a god even to acknowledge the others.
Esmilio Boquillas floated there, suspended between Heaven and Hell, between nightmare and reality, and thought about them all for a very, very long time. As powerful and as evil as he had been, he couldn’t hold a candle to any of them, and they knew it. And that, oddly, placed him in a unique position, as he came to realize. As the lesser of all of them, he was the only one they would all acknowledge.
And, finally, he thought he had something.
“Hey, look, Cthulhu, baby! You’re the greatest evil god of all, but we have to face it—we’re stuck here. Now, if I can coordinate the others, get them to pull together with you, we might actually breakout of this place. Once free, you could then easily deal with them, right?”
“I listen, little one.”
And the next…
“Hey, look, Sauron, baby! You’re the greatest evil god of all, but we have to face it… ”
