As the sun set, the Jester stopped making up riddles. Karl felt silent, too. The Jester stood and looked across the river, at a glorious sunset. Karl remained sitting. Everything went still. Even the animals quit moving and seemed to be looking across the river. Insects stopped flying and leaping. There was no noise, just a heavy silence. They remained unmoving, silently gazing at the sunset, in a timeless embrace. It might have been 10 seconds. It might have been an hour. The Jester tilted his head back a bit. A tear rolled down his face.
“Goodnight, Wildcard. We shared a wonderful dream.”
He turned back and pulled an already opened bottle of wine from the basket. “Let’s have a party! We should have an Irish wake.” He was suddenly ebullient, happy as a village idiot. “Start a fire, Karl.” It was a good idea, and he went searching for firewood. He felt strangely contented by the death of the old couple. It felt perfect. Hopefully, they died peacefully. When Karl returned with the wood, the wine had been replaced by Jameson’s Irish Whisky, and a 6-pack of Guinness Stout.
“What happened to the wine?”
“I drank it,” the Jester said casually.
“The whole bottle?”
“Yes. Of course.” He looked surprised. “We must drink copiously. This is the wake of Wildcard.”
“Is everyone in wildspace drinking?”
“No idea, Karl. But we certainly are.”
They played a game of throwing either playing cards or miniature game pieces, one from each player, into the fire at the same instant. The Jester seemed to be cheating, throwing a bit early, or a bit late. The pieces, or cards, would burn or melt, then rise up, an animated version of their previous picture, much larger and made of flames. The fire was huge, probably 3 meters across. They had to run up and throw the pieces in, then dash back because of the heat. The fire figures fought each other to the death. Then the winning figure would dissipate, growling, or striking a heroic pose, or cackling madly, depending on whether it was a bear, a gladiator, or a wicked witch.
Karl watched a fire-elephant stamp an entire army of poorly organized fire knights to death. He seemed to be missing some subtlety of the game, because, whether his piece won the battle or not, the Jester would jump around and shout, “hooray, I win,” like a child. Karl didn’t care. He enjoyed watching the fireworks.
“How do you pick your piece?”
“Well, I just know if my piece is supposed to win or lose. If the piece should lose, I choose at random, and if it should win, I select it. Go!” They ran up to the fire, tossed, ran away. A cobra materialized, to fight Karl’s Sherman tank. The tank drove over the cobra, killing it immediately. “Alright, I win. In your face.” The Jester laughed, jabbing a finger at Karl, who laughed also.
“This is fun to watch, but it’s not much of a game,” said Karl. “Kind of stupid.”
“Seems like a good game to me. I like it.” He did seem to be having a very good time. “How do you pick your play, Karl?”
“I find something that I want to see made out fire. Strategic, huh?” They laughed uproariously at this.
“It is the perfect strategy for this game,” the Jester agreed.
Karl looked at the river, saw the boy-Sergeant coming across. “Go,” said the Jester. They ran up, tossed. Karl’s phoenix arose as an iron eagle with both wings spread and raised in majestic, industrial dominance. The Jester’s was an SS officer, holding up his arm in a Heil, Hitler. He brought the arm down on the eagle, karate chopping it in two. Karl could not tell if the soldier said “Hai” or “Heil.”
“Cool,” said the Sergeant, walking up. “Can I play?” The Jester and Karl each handed him some pieces and cards and they played three handed. The Sergeant always won which made the Jester angry.
“You’re not playing fair,” he said. The Sergeant would toss the pieces or spin the cards instead of running up and back. They always landed in the exact center. His fire-pieces might arise more quickly, killing the others as they arose, before becoming fully formed. Also, they did not arise where they landed, but might wait until the other pieces had arisen, then appear behind them, quickly cutting off their head or running them through.
“You’re supposed to let them really fight.”
The Jester got a crafty look on his face, and the next play, the Sergeant’s turned into a hulking, brutish soldier, sleeves ripping from his arms, scarred, vicious face with short hair standing straight up. He wore a patch that said “USMC” on his left shoulder. He walked over to the other two pieces before they formed and grabbed them by the throat. He held them both down with one enormous hand, took a box from his pocket and forced the contents down their throats, ramming his fist down each throat while holding it. He tossed the box over his shoulder. It landed burning between Karl and the Sergeant. The words “rat poison” were visible on the cover before it disappeared. Karl looked back at the fire. The Sergeant’s piece had become a video game ape, wearing a loin cloth and beating has chest in a mechanical rhythm. He was jumping up and down on an old couple, writhing in agony, dying. As the ape came down on their stomachs with his knees, he would briefly appear to be a crying child.
The Jester looked at the Sergeant, and tilted his head.
“I win, Sergeant,” he said softly, almost kindly.
“Funny. Let’s go Karl. We have some luggage to find.”
Karl had forgotten, so they asked where the Portal was, and the Jester shot a bottle rocket. He told them to follow it to the silver spire.
“Was it hard, killing them?”
“Yeah, it was pretty intense emotionally, and mentally. I don’t know who I am, Karl.”
“Typical Wildcard. Welcome to my world. I’ve never known. It seems normal to me. I don’t question it. It’s sort of obvious.”
“Not to me. I’ve always been pretty certain of my identity. Until now.” He stopped and looked at Karl, almost pleading. “What the fuck am I, Karl? I’m not a man, I’m not a boy. What am I?”
Karl had no answer. They walked in silence.
“Killing Wildcard,” Karl finally said, “Wow. What happened in there?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s OK. I understand. Are we supposed to stick together?”
“I think so. For now at least. Have I told you my Shifting Alliances theory? Either high tactic or low strategy. A little of both, I guess. I’d really like to discuss it with the General.”
“Are you still loyal?”
“I killed them, didn’t I?”
“I suppose.” Karl was not at all certain. The first Sergeant had probably done the killing. “What’s the alliance thing?”
“You don’t get to pick your allies in here. Not even for strategic reasons. I mean, occasionally, you do, but usually, they seem implied by the situation, if you know what I mean. Forced, like we were forced when I was trapped in the Portal. If you fight a new alliance, it goes badly for you.”
“Sounds about right. What are we supposed to do now?”
The Sergeant made a puttering noise with his lips. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Let’s go find the box.” Karl was pretty sure it was the wrong choice, but it was the only thing he could think of.
“Not the Poet?”
That sounded more right. “How do we find him?”
“Here’s the overall plan then. We locate the Portal, determine a means of passage, then a means of motive power through wildspace, then reconnoiter the Poet’s location.” He laughed. “Won’t be easy, I imagine. The box will be simpler to find, most likely.”
The silver spire was over the large hill behind the Gatekeeper, closer than Karl remembered. It vaguely resembled a cactus, thought it was a sculpture, not alive. There were no trees and almost no grass in a wide, ragged circle around it. Dead space. They climbed it, shook the stiff arms, leapt off, kicked it. The Sergeant even ate one of the odd purple berries. He got a ferocious stomachache and had explosive diarrhea in his baggy shorts. He found a stream to wash them.
“Figure it out, yet?” The Sergeant strolled back in wet shorts.
“Nope. You smell better, yet?”
“Yeah. A little.” It didn’t smelled like feces, just as food had not tasted like food until a few days ago. It just smelled bad. “Why didn’t we ask him what to do when we got here?”
“Might have been a good idea. I doubt he knew though. I think this is a ‘figure it out’ thing, not a ‘they tell you what to do’ thing.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. What do we do, then?”
They stayed for a long time, nothing happened. They tried to ask Trident, but he was inert. They foraged for food, ate, walked.
The Sergeant leaned against the spire with his elbows on his knees, face in his hands, thinking. He looked at his red Converse All-Stars. Different colored socks: a black dress sock, and a white sport sock with two black bands around it. He laughed. He was wearing a red tank top that said PIMP on it. Over that was a light unbuttoned shirt with short sleeves, black with happy white skeletons dancing all over it.
“Why are you dressed that way?”
“Not sure. There is something about being in here. You need to be cool, hip in an electronic way to get the job done. To be a master player. You have to have that kind of attitude. If you are a young boy. I need to look like this.”
“Just a tactic, huh?”
“Yeah, maybe. Something like that. A natural tactic.”
They sat there some more.
Finally, the Sergeant said, “I think we’re supposed to go to sleep. I’m going to.”
It was about midnight, Karl guessed. “Good idea.”
The Sergeant fell asleep quickly. Karl bunched up his coat, used it as a pillow against the tree. He laid there for a bit, then saw the Gatekeeper walking up with an axe on his shoulder. Karl nudged the Sergeant. “I’m awake,” he said, sounding quite alert. “He woke me up and I’ve been watching him.” He sat up.
The Jester walked up to the spire and pulled back his axe to swing. “Wait,” said Karl. “Don’t cut down the spire.”
“Why ever not?”
“Why would you?”
“I chop it down every night at midnight. It’s my job. It’s what I do. It’s what I am.”
“But you’re the Gatekeeper.”
“Yes, that also. Is this not a gate, in any event?”
He pulled the axe back to swing and the Sergeant grabbed the handle just below the blade. The Jester swung his hands without an axe in them.
“Hey! What’s the idea? That hurt.”
“Wait.”
“Prefer not to. I need to get this done, now.” He reached out. “Gimme my axe back.”
“No. Not yet.”
“Why not?” Karl asked.
“I got a pulse hit from Trident. He’s live now. What is it, T?”
“I sensed a quantum anomaly when he was preparing to swing. The axe and the gate are connected.”
“Why can’t I jump off now, Trident? I did last time.”
“I do not know. I sense no activity.”
“Twone,” said Karl.
“We already solved that puzzle to get in.”
“Now we solve it to get out, in a different way. The spire and the axe are the same thing.”
“Yes,” said Trident. “They are not distinguishable.”
“Then how can you say they’re different things?”
“At a gross perceptual level, they are different. At a quantum level, they’re identical.”
Karl grabbed the axe. “Hold the spire, Sergeant.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea, Karl, but maybe it’s stupid. It’s hard to say.”
“Yeah.” Karl pulled the axe back. “It is.” He swung. “It certainly is.”
The spire was severed at a stroke and they were in the Space Between.
LuvRay was sitting on a box, in the desert alone. It was hot; the sun was fierce. This was not LuvRay’s desert. This was the hot desert, deep desert. He was in the Saraha.
It had taken him about two weeks to find the box. The false Trident had plane tickets and train tickets and camels and translation when he needed it, so he kept the thing. He had been there for a few days and ate and drank very little. He was rationing.
He had a hat. He had gotten it from a gypsy caravan that he caught his last ride with. The false Trident told him they were going near the box. They gave the hat to him as a gift. They seemed to like him very much. When they passed by the box, the gypsies became extremely interested. LuvRay told them that was his destination and he would leave them. He was concerned that they would want to take the box. A small party detached with him to go there. When they got about ten meters from the box, the gypsies all panicked and ran away. LuvRay did not see them again.
It was a black sea chest, with rounded metal caps on all eight corners. The lip of both the lid and the bottom were lined with the same metal and the clasp was metal as well. The clasp was a hinged affair shaped like an upside down keyhole which fit over a metal loop on the bottom part. The metal was aged, not rusty, but pitted from sandstorms. It was ordinary. Even LuvRay had seen one before. It was padlocked shut. The lock was not so big, and LuvRay thought he could kick it off, or break the clasp, if he chose to.
Taped to the top was a stack of papers and a scroll. The papers were some man-business thing. LuvRay chose not to understand business along with many other aspects of man. Entertainment, for one. He felt instinctive aversion, and when he thought about why, he realized he would lose too much in order to gain the knowledge. He would sacrifice peace, and simpleness.
Business; busyness. He did not want to be busy. Such an approach made no sense to LuvRay. He felt maewe te for the Sergeant and the General in their busyness. Maewe te, an Indian word, meant “seeing those whose spirit has lost its way.” It implied sadness and knowing that one could not help. Maewe te. He had felt it often since leaving his desert.
He deciphered the paper well enough. It was a list of city names. Some he knew, others not. This box had been many, many places. He lifted the pages. It was just lists of places the box had been. He tried to open the box, but couldn’t open the lock or pick it. Indians and wolves did not use locks. He lifted his foot to kick it.
Wolf-fear. Primal fear, the fear beyond death rose like a tidal wave.
He fell back, twisting around to bolt, ran on all fours a short way. The fear subsided. He crouched in the sand, panting, eyeing the box warily. Brought himself back to ground, back to human. He stood and returned to it.
LuvRay looked at the scroll. He sat down against the box. Someone watching might have thought that he had decided to wait. But he was just being a wolf in the desert.
“LuvRay?” Karl asked, floating outside the Star Portal of the Heart of wildspace. The Portal was gone.
“Yes,” LuvRay responded. “You are okay, Karl?”
“Good enough. How are you?”
“Yes, good.”
“Heard any new poems lately?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“Sit on box in desert. Three days, now.”
The box. Karl and the Sergeant smiled at each other.
“I suppose we should go there.”
“Maybe,” said Karl. “I’m not certain, but you may be right. What do you think, LuvRay?”
“I not know,” he said. “I wish see you.”
“So no poems, lately, huh?”
“I not say that,” said LuvRay. “I say not hear. I finded. It was lie in roll on box.”
“Yeah, what was it called?”
“Not looked. Maybe is not poem.”
“Hmmm. Will you read it to us? By the way, we’re stranded in space. How should we get out of here?”
“Your way is no clear.”
“Maybe it’s in the poem,” said the Sergeant. “Read it, LuvRay.”
“We would have met the Lone Wolf. Wait…” LuvRay began again, reading slow as if he barely knew how. “Wildcard would have met the lone Wolf
gladly brought him into the heart
what could he have taught us before our final hour
a moment of deeper understanding is a moment of life worth living
the greatest lesson he gave
to meet us or not, he did not care
“Did it say ‘we’ or ‘Wildcard’ in the beginning?” Karl asked. “You changed it the second time you read it.”
“It changed by self.”
“Anything on the back?” asked the Sergeant.
They heard LuvRay flip the paper over.
“No.”
“Alright,” Karl asked. “How do you think we get there LuvRay?”
“I am not know. Is no my world. How you think get here? Maybe here is not your right place at now.”
Karl and the Sergeant exchanged glances. Neither was sure.
“Yeah, I think it’s all we’ve got to go on presently,” said the Sergeant.
“Except the Poet. Wherever he is.”
“That’s the problem. Ideas, anybody?”
“Something comes.”
“Describe it.”
“It is a box in air. Floating. Four metal wheels on top.”
“Metal wheels?”
“The things to hold into air.”
“Propellers. It’s a helicopter? A large one?”
“Large? Big, big. It could not be in General’s large room.”
Karl looked at the Sergeant. BIG helicopter. They could hear the noise of the thing as it approached LuvRay and the box. It was deafening. “Dammit,” said the Sergeant. “The Benefactor. She’s found a way into Mansworld. How did you get in, LuvRay?”
The signal was gone.
“Listen to this,” Trident said. It was a crackly radio voice. “The voice is Winston Churchill.”
Wildcard invents ethos; invents barbarian futures
sweeps them into distant corners but never ignores this creation
Wildcard invents Wildcard, each second invents patterns
guidelines without words with which the world may be drawn anew
this is the beautiful burning of all ideas of what is
and what could ever be
the proof that nothing is ever the same, and never changes
Wildcard invents the air you breathe
so that you may leap towards the light, alone
“I believe it’s a clue,” Trident said.
“Obviously, it’s a clue.”
“Not that obvious, Karl. Trident filters a lot.”
“Many things come my way that I do not pass to you.”
“Why not?” Karl was surprised that the Sergeant seemed so lackadaisical about the filtered information.
“I receive more than a human mind could possibly cope with.”
“He’s pretty good.” The Sergeant said. “If he constantly deluged us with M-E info, we would be non-functional. He has to do it.”
“It would disable even you?”
“Yes, it’s machine speed. Way too much. Constant torrent of entire books, packing lists, chemical compositions, recipes, blueprints …”
“I have blueprints.” Trident interrupted. “They came through at the precise instant you said blueprints.”
“Totally cool. Bet it’s bullshit, though. Bullshit here, anyway. We’re in space. What good are blueprints?”
“Should we hurry to get to LuvRay? He might need help with the Benefactor.”
The Sergeant managed to begin a spinning motion, head over feet, backwards. “No. I believe we should set a plan, but not move too quickly.”
“Let’s go to the box.”
“Poet.” Karl said.
“Trident? Break the tie.”
“The box.” The response was instant.
“That’s unfair, you and Trident are practically the same.”
“It’s called command edge, Karl. I may be a boy, but I’m still the Sergeant. And, no, it’s not fair. Never accuse me of playing fair. I don’t. I win.”
“Alright. Let’s go to the box. How do we get there?”
“Yeah. We’re pretty well stranded. I see no way to move. The nano-stuff won’t create enough propulsion, and we would be moving so slowly it would be idiotic. We might never get there that way. We could be dealing with stellar distances.”
“I may have a solution,” Trident said.
“How?”
“To move, I believe we need :3:, and to find out where to go, we need Dartagnan.”
Immediately, a musketeer was there. He wore high, black, soft leather boots folded over the top, floppy, wide-brimmed, stylish black hat with a long, large white feather, white low-buttoned, lace-cuff shirt, cream-coloured vest, and pantaloons tied with a sash. He had long curly black hair and a smirk.
“Hello, gentlemen. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dartagnan.” He drew his sword and bowed while holding it out behind him. “At your service.” He looked back along the length of his sword and moved the point slightly, as if drawing a bearing. He held it for a long moment, then stood, and sheathed it. “Let’s make a deal.”
The enormous floating ship came in about 15 metres from LuvRay, quite close considering its power. They were trying to be the alpha. LuvRay had heard that term about dogs and wolves and liked it. It said a lot. Alpha male, alpha dog. Not top dog or boss, but most important and the one who held an edge which could be easily lost. The edge had to be maintained among wolves, watched always.
He had never been alpha as a boy. Too young. Later, though, as a man, he found a wolf-pack and joined. It was easy. He brought food, a whole dead deer, to them. He persuaded the alpha to relinquish alpha. He showed the pack they would eat better, much better, with him as alpha. No violence or threats were used. He spoke to their instinct. In the end, he could not get them to breed with him there. Only the alpha male mated. He had to leave so that the pack could survive. Occasionally, he brought food to them and ran with them. But he would not let them follow when he left.
No more, he thought, looking out from under the brim of his hat, peering through the now fiercely blowing sand as the immense structure settled. It was shimmering black, and felt like the Sergeant’s devices often felt. Many things buzzing. Tek, they called it. Lots of it. He wondered who was inside, and knew this alpha battle would not be bloodless.
Men descended, wearing suits, with short hair and sunglasses. They were talking to their wrists, holding one ear, walking around the great beast and the surrounding desert. They made signals to each other, waved instruments, squinted against the driving sand. One approached him, looking at a white device he held. He turned to the sides, walked around at a distance, talked to his wrist. The motor noise stopped. The spinning wheels on top slowed. The men stood where they could watch LuvRay. A few minutes later, Martha stepped out of the beast and walked up to him.
They looked at each other, not speaking, for a very long time. Two, maybe three minutes.
“You are no Martha. Is this trick?”
“No, mister Chose. I would not attempt to trick you. Not in that way, at least. I have too much respect for your special skills. Such a ruse would be transparent to you. This is merely the body I have in this world.”
He doubted that. LuvRay sensed she had more control over her appearance than that. He did not care. She just smelled wrong, to him.
“Big ship.”
“Thank you.” She made a signal to one of the men, dressed more formally than the others, wearing white gloves and a tuxedo. He went inside the ship.
“Who is Doctor?”
“Who was the Doctor, you mean? Until you killed him, he was the most talented quantum brain interface surgeon in the universe. He brought Karl into Mansworld in the first place. He created the tek to bring all of us here.”
“I thank him. I no want be here.”
She nodded. “He was a vile, evil man.”
“You are no cool brook.”
“Is that an Indian expression?”
“Yes. Terrible insult.” It was a trivial insult. But he wanted to see if she smelled the lie.
“Well, Mister Chose, what shall we talk about?”
Dartagnan had placed himself at an angle between them, so that they formed a triangle where they could only reach him if he wanted them to, if he reached out as well.
“Dartagnan,” the Sergeant said. “How powerful are you in the Space Between?”
“More so than you.”
“Kinda figured.”
“I’m not so sure,” Karl said. “You have some obvious advantages, but I think human instinct will be better out here than you might guess.”
“The Sergeant has trained all human instinct out of himself, Karl. He is a machine. Would you care to hear a poem?”
“Not really,” they said.
“Good. I wasn’t going to tell you one anyway.”
“Look, Dartagnan, let’s negotiate. What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything, really. I just want in. I want to play. This is the best party happening, so once I’m invited, I’m in. No cost to you. Good deal, wouldn’t you say?”
“All right,” said the Sergeant, a bit wary, then he nodded his head. “Let’s rock. What can you do? Where do we go? We’ve been trying to choose between the Poet and the box, and-”
“Yes, yes. Trident played it for me.”
“When did he do that?” Karl asked. “That was not OK’d.”
“I did it as soon as you came to agreement. When the Sergeant said ‘all right.’”
“You should have waited, T. Don’t tell him any more for now.”
“Why not? You always lay out it out.”
“The old couple just died. It’s in flux. I may need to lie in some situations. Too volatile.”
“Yes, the texture is changing. The fabric is being rewoven.” Dartagnan spoke in a comically dramatic voice. “Wildspace eases into a new era, the dawn of an unknown age is upon us. A sense of-”
The Sergeant interrupted. “Let’s go to the box.”
“I also cast my ballot for the box. It simply sounds fun.”
“You don’t get a vote, Dartagnan.”
“Sad,” said Dartagnan. “I find democracy to be so …beautiful.”
“Why doesn’t he get a vote?” Karl thought it odd, since Dartagnan agreed about the box.
“He threw away that privilege when he declined to negotiate.”
“But he voted in your favor.”
“Next time he might not. If he has no vote, I automatically win. I hold command, that is. Maybe he gets a vote later, if I get an edge from it.”
“How could that happen?”
“If Trident gets cut off, perhaps. Anything can happen, this is wildspace. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Karl said. “I have some questions first. You’re the swordsman on 8-ball, obviously. Why was your trap so elaborate? I mean, the wizard of Oz? That’s so corny.”
“Thank you, dear Karl. Elaboration is the mark of the artist in these matters. You wouldn’t understand. You certainly have your gifts, but you lack the creative sensibility. What does corny mean, by the way? I fail to grasp the word.”
The Sergeant laughed. “It means… God, what does it mean?…Sort of old-timey and trying to be funny, but not funny, I guess. Karl?”
“Sounds good to me. Do you have a Webster’s in your memory bank?”
“Yes, but I prefer Steven’s dictionary, as it holds a fuller set of cross-referencing and superior etymologies.”
“Man, you’re a dipshit,” the Sergeant said. “Talk about missing the point. What’s the definition?”
“‘Of or producing corn. Informal: unsophisticated, old-fashioned, trite, sentimental, etc. Second entry: having or relating to corns on the feet.’ Clearly, it’s the first informal definition.”
“Clearly.”
“I associate it with humor,” Karl said. “Like something an old guy would think was funny. Anyway, the Oz thing. Why the big show?”
“Ah, yes, that …” Dartagnan whirled his hands theatrically, “…wizard entanglement. Poetic execution, wouldn’t you say?” He waited for a reply. “Wouldn’t you?”
“It was silly.”
“Everyone has to be a critic, don’t they?” He crossed his arms and looked away with a sniff.
Karl coughed out a bemused noise. “You asked!”
“Right, sorry. Petty of me, I suppose. But that wizard,” he said earnestly, “wasn’t he…realized?” Dartagnan made a fist and shook it dramatically on the word. “As a character?” He shook the fist again. “Wasn’t he interesting to your human sensibilities?” He seemed baffled, but in a showy way, like a B-movie actor hamming out frustration. “Didn’t he grab you?”
“Well, I didn’t think about it like that. I didn’t know what was happening. But...no, not really. I mean, he said cool things, I guess, but there was no…person there.”
“Well, what about the puzzle of it?” Dartagnan curled his fingers arou