Snake Oil - Waiting For The Galactic Bus - Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 14
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Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 14

He dragged Charity after him toward a barren promontory rising high over the mist. "Take heart: even surviving is an action. To choose and act, even in hell, we are alive."

"How can we be alive?" Charity ran a dirty hand through her hair stringy with damp and singed ends. "We're as dead as you can get."

"Life's not state but quality. Here, this will help." Dane drew the lace from the front of his shirt and tied back Charity's hair. "In the far kingdom of Plattsville, would you ever know a day like this?"

No, Charity reflected honestly. I'd be working in the kitchen or just riding around with Roy or watching dumb old TV. Scary as this place is, and for all his weird talk, Dane is the beautifulest man I ever saw.

"Now you get down to it," she allowed, "things could be a lot worse."

"So they could." Dane swept her clear off her feet and kissed her. Charity's heart definitely missed a few beats. She felt his kiss down to her dangling toes.

"Just a little further now."

At the summit only a vast blanket of white fog lay before them, dirtied with smoke and reddish ash. The rock beneath them trembled. When Charity looked back, she saw the earth convulse once more in a scream of sundered stone. The last spasm subsided in echoes that stumbled away across leaden skies like fading timpani. "Is the weather always this bad here?"

"No. Quite oft it turns truly foul." Dane touched her cheek, "You're a brave lass, Charity Stovall. And very lovely."

Charity gulped. He said it easily enough, as if a little surprised at the discovery. No one had ever called her lovely. Now, suddenly, she felt that way. But Dane was pointing, a gesture weighted with more doom than hope.

"There. My father's keep."

13 - Yonder lies the castle of my father

From somewhere, dry strings swept up to be capped by a single piano note from which a chilly figure shuddered away in woodwinds. The mist eddied and parted to reveal a brooding castle of black stone rising from the heath. Over the single tower a banner turned in the wind.

"There's a flag, Dane. Someone's home."

"No one is there. But one will come."

The ubiquitous music turned rhythmic as they jolted down the last slope and on toward the drawbridge. They crossed it, passed under the portcullis across a cobbled courtyard and up a spiraling set of damp steps, Dane's boots ringing on the stone. They moved down a long, gloomy corridor toward a widening flicker of light.

"Told you someone's here."

"There's always a light," Dane answered. "And someone always comes."

"Your folks?"

"No."

The vast hall stretched away before Charity, an ocean of dark with one small island of light from a wall sconce. Dane took the torch and set it to logs and kindling laid in the huge fireplace. With more light came welcoming warmth. Giant shadow snakes danced up the high walls. Charity could see the size of the hall now, big as the Plattsville High School gym. Over the mantel a single lion's head glared at her in bas-relief. Just under it, Charity caught the transient gleam of light on cold metal. All of it gloomy and depressing; yet that odd, steady light followed Dane. Like the music, it must be awfully annoying, but Dane seemed to accept it as part of himself like Roy's camouflage fatigues.

"We sort of never get hungry here, do we?"

"No. Not for food." Dane left her by the fire and vanished into the gloom. He emerged again carrying something, which he held out to Charity: the most gorgeous pearl-gray velvet gown she'd ever drooled over in a movie or on the cover of a paperback romance. She thrilled to the sensual crush of the material. The neckline alone was illegal. "It's beeyootiful! Where'd you find it?"

"My mother's."

"Oh, Dane, I couldn't."

"Of course you can. It's yours."

"All right. Turn your back and I'll give you back your vest." Charity let the luxurious weight of the velvet fall about and caress her body. What could be so bad for people who can dress like this? she wondered with a shade of mean envy. At least they had fancy problems. "Oh, it's really neat, Dane. Thank you very much."

"Stay by the fire. Stay in the light." Dane prowled the shadows beyond their fire, the musical voice coming out of gloom. "This was my father's house, seat and symbol of that honor to which he hoped I might aspire. Remember me in your prayers, Charity. Say that when I might have mattered, I would not. That even now I need to act and choose when action mocks me with futility."

All that was pretty, but she did wish he could talk a little plainer so she wouldn't feel like a fool trying to answer what she could barely understand.

"Do you know poetry, girl?"

"Just what we had to read in school. Woody Barnes gave me a book of poems for my birthday once." By Rod somebody, she recalled imperfectly, though one of them was enough. It was about a man in love with a man, which she didn't approve of that at all and didn't bother with the rest. Anyway, why was Dane going on like this, so far away from her? "Come sit by the fire, it's real toasty now."

Dane knelt by Charity. Even kneeling he conveyed the effect of a taut athletic effort, like Gene Kelly. But now Charity could see the firelight dancing in his eyes and understood very well the feelings they stirred.

"There was a poet of Italy," Dane said, "who wrote of hell for those who changed allegiance or had none. Ever must they pursue, this way and that through a mist, one banner that ever eluded them. In this place I should have honored am I damned ever to find it empty, ever to lose and know too late what winning might have been." The fine head bowed over his knee. "Pray for me."

His voice was like an open wound. Charity's heart opened and reached for his pain, closed tight around it. "Dane, I'm sorry."

He flung himself on his back, searching the darkness above for a hope that would not be there.

"You're crying. I never saw Roy cry." He would have let himself be run over first, though tears took nothing from Dane's manhood. "He was my boyfriend."

"The boy who loved you?"

"Yes. Well, just that once."

"Oh, there's the sin." Dane wound his fingers in her hair. "That such a woman was loved only once."

When he drew her down to him, Charity knew the meager statistic was about to rise and loved the whole notion. She slid her arms around Dane's neck while the violins overhead haunted them with melody. "I don't want you to hurt, Dane."

"Or I you. We'll help each other." His body moved against hers, sending a different heat through every part of her. This was a fringe benefit she hadn't counted on.

"Can we? Even dead and all?"

"Why not feast on the lamb?" Dane chuckled with the dry ghost of humor. "We've already been hanged for the sheep."

"Sure enough," she whispered against his lips. "Way I figure, they owe us."

14 - Enter Nemesis, pursuing

Something woke her.

The fire had burned low. She lay with her head on Dane's arm in a soft glow from the embers. Then Dane gently slid his arm away. She felt his movement. When she turned over, he was dressing rapidly.

"Did you hear it?" he muttered.

"Something woke me up."

"Yes." Dane threw on the sheepskin and thrust his feet into boots. "They have found me. They will not do't in the dark." He threw another log on the fire in a shower of sparks, then came back to Charity. "Stay in the shadows. Do not speak or cry out at what you see. All was foreordained." He handed her the gown with a remembrance of their earlier tenderness. "I should have known you in life. But it is enough."