Brian Thomsen & Martin H. Greenberg (ed), page 3
“Mordred,” Kay said with a slight bow, “thank you for receiving me, though I know you received no notice of my visit. I myself did not know I was bound here until after I was on the shores of Avalon. I come because of this man. A Christian. A bishop. He has come from Rome, believing our city here to be the New Jerusalem, an earthly heaven fashioned by the hand of God. He believes the city—and all of Arthur’s lands, from the Viking realms to the Gaulish ones—to belong to the church, to Rome. Unless we convince him otherwise, he will return to Rome, and the pope will send armies to take this land.” Kay’s ominous tones sifted away into the carpets.
Seeming still to be listening, Mordred stared intently at the two.
“I’ve been trying to show him that this city is not ruled by God but by a man, an imperfect and fallible man—King Arthur. And not just by him, but by you as well. I’ve been trying to show him that the impossible beauty of the city arises not just from virtue but also from vice, from outlawed, Pagan magic—and that much of what he would call Camelot’s heavenly felicity in fact results from Avalon’s indulgence of every carnal, greedy, selfish, unchristian impulse. I’ve led him into this underworld of yours, showed him hoodlums and prostitutes, counterfeiters and confidence men and extortionists, but he sees only angels and apostles. So I have brought him here, begging you to convince him … or to offer some other—well, some other solution.”
Mordred at last blinked. He pivoted sideways in his seat and drew a long breath of smoke from the thing in his hand. In distraction of thought, his free hand strayed up to the part in his black hair and slid in a smooth line from the crown of his head to the valley behind one ear. Blue and mystic, smoke drifted from slightly parted lips. His voice was equally smoky. “So, Arthur has a problem, and you come to me. It’s Rome’s problem, really, Christendom’s, and you come to me. And for what? To show this man the dark shadow of Camelot? To show him my evil, sinful people? You’re happy enough to drink my waters and eat my bread, Kay. You’re happy enough to enjoy the fruits of my land, and yet you bring this man here to show him all that is wrong with Camelot? What have I done to earn such disrespect?”
Kay paled. “I respect you, Mordred. I have told this man you are as much ruler here as the king.”
“And yet you come here, unannounced, and ask me for a favor, and do not even think to call me godfather.” The man seemed genuinely vexed behind his calm face and gently blinking eyes. “I have taken on all the bloodshed that won Arthur his throne. My underworld caters to the lower passions of Arthur and his knights and his citizens so that the upper world can be clean and bright. I make Camelot Camelot, and yet you come here with such disrespect.”
Kay dropped to one knee before the great mahogany desk, bowed his head, and said, “I ask this favor in full respect, Godfather.”
“Good,” said Mordred. “Good. I cannot help you or your friend until you both understand my true position in this city. Arthur’s knights seem a host of angels only because I am here to provide comfort to the beasts within them. Arthur has turned his back on all the darkness in himself and in his people. He has turned his back on me, his very own son. And his people do so, too. The people of Camelot don’t accept me, don’t even know me, but I’m living here below, making their world beautiful and true. We rule together, my father and I, he in the light and I in the shadow. I provide comfort to the dark regions of men’s souls.”
At last, Bishop Niccolai moved, going down on both knees, his eyes glistening with tears of joy.
” ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwel-leth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. … At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you …’ “
Slowly, Mordred rose from his seat and approached the bishop, kneeling there gladly before him. He extended his hand.
Niccolai seized and kissed it. “Godfather!”
Mordred blinked, studying the man. “I will do this favor for you, Sir Kay. Still, it is obvious that I cannot argue with the simple faith of such a one. I cannot convince him to report what he does not believe. Here is a man of truth, and I am a man of truth—even if I am not the Spirit of truth he believes me to be.” The faerie godfather took a long draw upon his bundle of leaves. “But you spoke of another solution …”
Glancing at the glowing eyes of the bishop, Kay suddenly wished he had not brought the man to Mordred’s underworld. “I was wrong, Godfather. You cannot kill him. He is a child, a fool—you can’t kill him—”
“No,” replied Mordred, a shallow smile on his lips. “I won’t kill him. Where’s the justice in that? This is a good man, honest and true, a man who sees God in all things. He’s a right pagan, no matter what he calls himself. I could use a man like this in Arthur’s chapel. I think I can convince him to stay. I am, after all, the Spirit of his god, and this is, after all, heaven. And, speaking of spirits, I have a decanter here that will help him see everything more clearly.”
Relieved, Sir Kay said, “I owe you a great debt for this service, Godfather.”
“Yes, you do,” Mordred affirmed. “And I have in mind a way in which you can pay me back. I’ll contact you soon. Until then, I am done with you. The bishop will stay here with me for a time, but for now, I am done with you, Kay.”
“Wait,” said the knight, trembling and astonished, “what will you have me do?”
And the godfather said, “As your own god said to Saul when he was blinded for persecuting a faith he did not understand,
” ‘Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.’ “
* * *
ODIE AND THE ZOO
by Jeff Grubb
Big Odie slouched into The Zoo’s Olympic Cafe. His sweat-covered biker leathers slapped against his thighs as he settled his massive frame on one of the spindly legged, white-enameled, cast-iron chairs. A young woman in a toga, nervous and pale, manifested at his left side almost immediately, order pad held before her like a protective talisman.
“Can I help you, sir?” squeaked the maiden, for Odie was not one of the regular clientele, and particularly not regular for a quiet Wednesday.
Odie regarded the young stripling of a girl with his single baleful eye, and muttered, “Ale.”
The waitress gulped and managed, “You mean beer, sir?”
Odie grunted, somewhere between irritation and a guffaw, “Whatever,” he said simply.
“We have Sparta, Fix, and …” started the maiden, but Odie stopped her, slamming a meaty hand against the glass tabletop. “Ale!”
The maiden vaporized, leaving only the swinging doors back to the kitchen swaying with her passage. That made Big Odie smile. It was good to know that he still could spook the hired help.
Odie looked around and gave a derisive sniff. The café had white stucco walls painted with Mediterranean scenes. Stenciled grape leaves ran around the front window, and a clanking balalaika played from hidden speakers. It was too light and airy for Odie, who preferred smoked-filled bars and firepits beneath the open sky.
From the kitchen came the sound of a rapid-fire discussion in Greek, and the maiden was back with a tumbler filled with pale yellow fluid. She set the tumbler down in front of her muscular customer.
“What’s this?” snarled Odie.
“Your beer, sir,” squeaked the maiden.
“This?” said the massive, one-eyed biker. “This pig’s urine? Ale should be foaming when served, wench, and in a cup carved from the skull of an enemy! My Vals know better than to serve this swill.”
A heavy hand touched Odie’s left shoulder and he flinched, spinning in place in his chair. Someone had come up on the biker’s blind side, the side with the eye patch. Odie wheeled to see the smiling bearded face of The Zoo.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, sir?” asked The Zoo, turning the last word into a private joke. The owner of the Olympic Cafe was as large as Odie, but his bulk was soft and old, and his beard was shot with silver.
“You should know better than to do that,” snapped the biker, glowering at the restaurant owner. Then Odie added, “You can’t get a decent ale in this place of yours.”
The Zoo smiled, and the smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. The restaurant owner nodded to the waitress and said, “Clio, bring him a rhyton of my best. And don’t bother running a tab. This gentleman here is an old friend.”
Big Odie turned back to the maiden but caught only a glimpse of her short toga as she scampered back into the kitchen. He would have laid a deadly curse on her slender form if she had not vanished.
Instead he turned back to the owner. “Zoo,” he said simply.
“Please, I go by Jove now,” said the owner, settling his own bulk into the chair opposite the biker. “No one has called me Zoo in ages.”
“You’ll always be The Zoo,” said Odie, “And hiding away in this crap-ass little dago restaurant won’t change that.”
The broad smile became a little brittle, “I see you haven’t changed. Still a silver-tongued bard, you are.”
Odie reddened and held up both hands in apology. “Sorry. I speak without thinking.”
The waitress returned with an ornately carved drinking horn filled with beer, the foaming head spilling over the rim.
Odie hefted the oversized horn and said, “Big enough. But how do you set it down?”
“You don’t,” said The Zoo. “That’s the purpose of the rhyton. You only put it down when you’ve drained it.”
Odie looked at the horn and let out a chortle. “And I bet it’s a lot deeper than it looks.”
The Zoo shrugged. “It’s carved from the horn of the minotaur. Father’s Day present from one of the kids. I think he meant it as a joke.”
“You’ve got quite a brood,” said Odie.
Again the large owner shrugged. “When I was young,” he said. “How’s yours?”
Odie took a deep draft from the drinking horn and rubbed the cascading suds from his red beard. “The usual. He’s block-headed, foul-mouthed, and violent. A real nasty little psychopath.”
“Well, it runs in the family,” said Jove the Zoo. Big Odie grimaced, and the restaurant owner gave a deep chuckle and smiled again. “Sorry. I speak without thinking. So what brings you to my neck of the woods? You’re usually up north, instead of around here, parking your eight-wheeler in front of my café and scoping my muses. What can I do for you?”
Odie was silent for a moment, then looked up at the other, older being. “I got problems.”
“Don’t we all,” said The Zoo.
Odie was quiet for another long moment, then said, “It’s the new kid. He’s muscling in on my territory.”
The Zoo let out a long, low sigh, the sigh of an old man when all the life went out of him. “Yaweh.”
Odie raised the rhyton to his lips, cursing as he did. “The little bastard jew-boy ki …”
With a speed that belied his girth, The Zoo lunged forward, grasping Odie’s wrist. The benevolent face of moments before was gone, replaced with a storm-clouded brow and eyes that flashed lightning.
“In my place of business,” said The Zoo in a voice that had once leveled mountains, “we don’t use that kind of language. This is a family place. Remember that, please.”
Odie looked around quickly, but the rest of the café was still empty. Still, the big Nordic biker felt the grip around his wrist and the tone in The Zoo’s voice, and nodded. “Sorry,” he said at last. “I meant no insult.”
“None taken,” said The Zoo, and he let go of Big Odie’s massive wrist. His own fingers had barely spanned the other man’s forearm. “I know how you feel. I had worse words for him when he and I fought, years ago.”
Big Odie leaned over the table, and the iron legs of his chair groaned from his girth. “So you did fight him?”
The Zoo motioned with his hands to the rest of his café. “I fought him. I lost. You may have noticed that things aren’t as busy as they once were.” He waved at the vacant chairs in the sunlit café.
Big Odie grunted, “You know, you were once a big fish.”
“The biggest,” said The Zoo, “back when you were leading your first roughneck gang through the German woods. But those were the elder days, when you moved in on Frey’s territory and I was fat and happy from ousting old Lady Ishtar and those Egyptians. But it’s different nowadays. I’m still happy,” he leaned back and patted his own expansive girth, “though not as fat, believe it or not.”
“So what happened?” asked Odie.
The Zoo shrugged. “What always happens. I got lucky. Got cocky. Thought it would last forever. Thought I was too smart to get sideswiped like Ishtar, and Tiamat, and the others. Thought I could conquer the world.”
“You almost did.”
“I almost did,” grunted The Zoo, and his eyes grew misty. “At least the parts that were worth anything. But I didn’t take care of business. That’s the bottom line. If you don’t take care of the day-to-day, you make yourself vulnerable. You got into this because you care about your people. And if you don’t do that, fugeddaboutit!”
Odie sat silently for a moment, chewing over what The Zoo had said. Zoo looked at the one-eyed biker and shook his head. “It’s a tough lesson,” he said. “By the time I realized that it was the little things that mattered, it was too late. The New Kid was firmly entrenched.”
Finally Big Odie said, “My first lieutenant went over to him.”
“Loke?” said The Zoo. “The weaselly little accountant? Better off without him. Never liked him. Too tricky for my taste.”
“Yeah, but I thought he was LOYAL,” thundered Odie, and the kitchen doors rattled at the sound of his voice.
“Yeah, I thought my capo, Dion, was loyal, too,” said The Zoo. “But when push came to shove, they all bailed on me. Diana, Hermie, Festus, the whole lot. The New Kid had positions all ready for them. Not as good as I was offering, but I was on the way down. They saw it coming, and they bailed. Don’t blame them. Not really.”
“But you fought him,” said Odie. “You went to the mattresses.”
“Yeah,” said The Zoo, leaning back. “Biggest mistake I coulda made, and I made it.”
Odie cocked an eyebrow and took a long pull from the drinking horn, waiting for The Zoo to continue. The restaurant owner let out a long sigh, as deep as the Aegean, and when he spoke again, it was in a soft voice.
“Before we tangled, the New Kid was a punk. Just another hairy thunderer with an attitude. No offense. You and me both, we’re like that. Old school. Fling a few thunderbolts, smash a few mountains, and everyone falls into line. So once I woke up to the fact that he was stealing my markets and luring away my people, I tried to fight him that way.”
The Zoo let out another long sigh, his mind peeling back the years. “So I did the whole mano a mano thing with him. Expecting him to treat me the same way he treated Baal, or the way I ground down Ishtar. But he was too smart. He kept himself tight, loyal, and dedicated. Worked himself into the fabric, into the chinks between the bricks, until he was supporting a big part of my own activities. And then I made the big mistake.”
Another long pause. Odie finally said, “And the mistake?”
“I whacked his son,” said The Zoo. “Thought I was pretty damned clever at it, too. Set it up within his own organization. Found the right fall guy. All safe and legal. The boy was hung out to dry. Then, blammo!”
“Blammo?”
“Pulls an Osiris on me!” The Zoo chuckled. “You’re too young to remember, but it’s an old trick, creating yourself anew, rising from the ashes like a phoenix. But Kid Yaweh puts a new spin on it. He brings back his boy, with more than a little head-nod to the idea that he can do it for anybody. So the New Kid makes the crossover from another street punk to a respected figure. His kid dies on him, and in the passion of the passing he makes his move. He’s got the martyr, he’s got the organization, and he’s got the promise for anyone who throws in with him. I’m still fighting with thunderstorms, and he’s changing the system out from under me. Within a few years, he’s got all of my power bases in the home country, and then he moves into my big house in Rome.” The Zoo chuckled again.
“You almost sound like you respect him,” said Odie.
The Zoo shrugged. “At the time I wanted to give him a lightning-bolt enema and mail his body parts back to Palestine. But yeah, he had me, and I didn’t even see it coming. So tell me, does this sound much like what you’re going through?”
Odie looked into his drinking horn and let out his own sigh. “So you’re telling me I can’t fight him.”
“I’m telling you he’s no backwoods war-god,” said The Zoo, tapping his finger against the tabletop for emphasis. “I’m telling you he’s got organization and he plans real good. And he’s not afraid of making sacrifices for his cause. He doesn’t do things in half measures.”
At the mention of sacrifice, Odie raised his hand to the patch over his left eye.
The Zoo noticed the motion and said, “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d that happen? You had two of those the last time I saw you.”
“Another sacrifice,” said Odie. “You know the Norn Girls?”
The Zoo nodded. “The Weird Sisters? Yeah, I know them way too well. They run off of women’s magic. That’s another piece of work entirely. Neither you nor me nor the New Kid have them figured out entirely. What did you get for the eye?”
“I wanted to know what would happen,” said Odie. “What would happen if I went to the mattresses with the New Kid.”
“And they told you …” The Zoo left the question dangling.
“Pretty ugly stuff,” said Odie. “Ragnarock and Roll. That’s when I thought of you.”
