See Sonic.
In the slanted rain he stands shielding his emerald eyes from the rawedged wind. Upon his shoulders rests the weight of the world. I can see it.
He waves me ahead.
The crumpled bodies of four unsuspecting bandits twitch weakly on the cold gray mud beneath him.
Right behind you, Sonic.
Their dying fingers grasp faintly at my ankles as I hopstep across the matted grass. Sonic pulls me onward and I feel safe as long as he's close by.
On a hill we stop for lunch. Sonic dismounts his backpack and lays it in the grass. Pulling my muddied shoes off I plop down across from him and sit embracing my knees. Sonic watches, removing two saranwrapped sandwiches from his bag and handing one to me. Peanutbutter and strawberry jelly, no crust. His is ham and cheese I think.
Sonic's always been a slow eater. He licks his lips, measures every chew. Take your time while you've got it buddy, he winks.
By and by the river tapers off and flows into a shallow marsh at the foot of the valley. Slowly we wade through the still black water trailing clufts of duckweed and debris and sidestepping fallen treebranches.
Sonic leads. I clutch his outstretched hand, glove soaked through. I can almost feel his skin through the matted canvas.
Watch your step here.
Stumble. Lose my footing.
You alright?
Yeah. Fine.
We should be able to get out up here.
On we lumber toward a raised wooden platform where a giant metal circuit rigged with thick black wires stands humming in the cricketloud air. Sonic hops aboard the plank and hoists me up behind him. For a while we stand dripping and panting, wiping dirt and dead bugs from our fur. Then Sonic motions onward and we set off squelching down the rickety wooden boardwalk, due east.
Copper pipes knotted in the floor chime softly with running water. Sonic stops to remove a knife from his backpack.
Hear that? He drops to one knee and lays the blade edgewise across the pipe and carves a small rectangle in the brittle cylinder.
Water hisses white and foamy in the opened vein. He lowers his lips to the flow and drinks.
Clean, he nods, drying his mouth on his forearm. Go ahead. Give it a try.
I do and it tastes faintly of iron but I dont tell him that.
We follow the wires to a muddy sinkhole several yards away where the wires angle off toward the water and disappear below the surface.
Old ringwell, Sonic sighs, leaning over the railing. See the proofing on those wires? That's Rotor.
Does it still work?
I dunno, he shrugs. Why dont you see if there's any rings left.
Okay.
Sonic holds my ankles while I lay sprawled on my stomach groping blindly in the murky black water. Fingertips claw through mud and resin, probing walls of unknown rock, wriggling in the maws of hidden fishnests. Something slick and metallic, a dull knob embedded in the dirt. I know it's there. One hand burrows deep in the sand and grips the small brass circle and tugs until it gives way. Sonic reels me in.
My hands huge with mud I flop panting on the boardwalk and drop the ring at his feet. He squats and holds it to the shifting light. Then watching me flick giant globs of dirt and algae from my gloves he stands and offers it to me.
Early birthday gift, he winks, draping the ring around my neck.
The brass is cold and wet. I ask him: Arent you gonna need this?
Sonic just shrugs and shifts his weight. For what?
Not far from that place the ground flattens to a broad graygreen plain where the waters have long since receded and the paper skyline grins atop little inky waves lapping gently on the ivory beaches some rare miles in the distance. Wind rich with seasalt licks at our unprotected faces as we trudge sucking through the kneehigh grass, soaked and ragged and filthy and bitter cold.
Sonic, I'm sorry.
Sorry?
For slowing you down.
What makes you say that?
You could run if it werent for me. If I could keep up. You'd be there by now.
He stops briefly and turns to face me, eyebrows raised inquisitively, quills whipping and flaring out behind him in the punishing wind. He doesnt say anything. He just looks at me and smiles and after a while we continue on as if nothing had been said at all.
The lighthouse stands raw and stark where seaborne winds have scoured and limed away the paint. A sodden dirt path barely visible amid the overgrowth curls gradually up the slope and terminates just short of the stoop at the base of the tower.
With one hand Sonic nudges open the battered metal door and stands hunched below the wind peering in at that imperfect darkness like some poor invalid in search of shelter. Someone's lit a fire in the chalky cement floor there and a faint orange glow flickers and plays among the inner shadows. The brackish scent of cooked game hangs heavy on the air within.
Lookin for somethin, stranger, demands a low gravelly voice. Or are ye content with lettin all the warm air out?
Sonic starts. We didnt mean to intrude, he yells from the doorway. We were just looking for a place to wind down and rest a while.
Well. Dont be shy. There's plenty room for the lot of ye.
Sonic eyes me sternly and with that passing glance he turns and leads the way inside.
Get the door please, requests the stranger.
Sonic does. The lick of the sharp red flames instantly elucidates the small circular room.
Seated there in a tattered wheelchair is a thin frail weasel. He looks about twentysomething. His legs are bandaged, his ratty purple fur clotted with dried black blood. His eyes are tired and withdrawn, shaded beneath the brim of an enormous brown hat. His hands rest limply in his lap clutching a long gray stick that from time to time gently stokes the fire and prods the gutted rabbit skewered to a makeshift pyre cooking diligently over the churning flames. Smoke wafting toward the ceiling escapes through a small crevice in the unfinished wall.
Dont be shy, shrugs the weasel again, waving us closer.
Sonic goes first. He sits crosslegged on the near side of the fire and by his position alone blocks me from proceeding any further.
Name's Nack, the weasel grins. What's yours?
Sonic. This is Miles.
Nack smirks. Names like those I'll bet you cover serious ground between the two of ye. Where ye headed?
We're tracking someone. A murderer.
Murderer?
Escaped from Knothole about a week ago. Killed three innocent people there.
Hails from Knothole, does ye?
Sonic nods slowly.
Caint say that I've been, Nack grunts. Reckon I'd not be warmly received. But if ye dont mind my askin, what's this murderin sumbitch look like?
Sonic stares blankly at the fire, scratching his quills. Looks a lot like me, he mutters after a while. Darker fur. Darker eyes. But a lot like me. So they say.
Huh. Small world.
How's that?
As fate would have it, was a slick sumbitch that looked a lot like you put me in this here chair.
What happened?
Well. Caint rightly say in front of the boy. But godblessit if I ever walks again. Was six day ago when it happened. I suppose I's lucky to of made it out at all. None of my partners survived. Hedgehog made mincemeat outta all of em. Some old sharecropper round the way picked me up not long aftern and drug me on back to town. I come out here lookin for payback but in the heat of the moment I's a feistier man than ye sees now. Besides. Who's I really kiddin. Shape I'm in, slick sumbitch would have his way with me.
What do you plan on doing now?
Nack just laughs a forced unpleasant laugh and his laugh becomes a cough.
After a while he unhitches the pyre from the twisting flames and removes from the kebob a heap of blackened meat which he slides onto a small clay plate and sets in his lap to cool.
Either of you boys hungry?
I am, but Sonic shakes his head and I feel obligated to do the same.
Game's dark meat, Nack murmurs to himself. Some say it's strong meat. But I like that about it. Full flavor. Tough. Just so long as ye got a right set of chompers on ye.
He cranes his head to one side and prods the overgrown canine protruding from his upper lip. Then he smiles and winks at me and it's a sad smile full of irresolution.
After Nack's eaten his fill Sonic asks: Any idea where our mutual friend made off to?
I've some idea, Nack starts. But I'd hoped ye might humor me just a moment longer. See I aint no do-gooder myself but I understand your motives. I know ye's out to do what's right, to do what's just. But for what? Not long ago I come to a realization. And what I come to see is that life aint nothin moren a shared experience. So often we look upon each other with simple eyes. We see ourselves as we is, as flesh and bone and body. It's fallacy, for that which gives us sight is that which most perfectly blinds us. Sure we's all here, we's all part of this shared experience, but that dont rightly explain the individual. We's moren names and faces, eyes and mouths, ears and noses. I's not one to preach, but life and death ye'll fear until the day ye see yourself as somethin more. Call it spirit. Call it inner energy. I know this body, this trap of flesh I'm in. Most of all I know when it's been damaged, when it's hurtin, and right now I know it aint long for this world. But I dont fear death. What's death but the loss of one's body, the lens through which one fools oneself. The individual, the energy, that's what lives on. Is we so cynical as to believe that life begins and ends with our bodies? That once we's gone we's gone forever and all's extinguished? That it aint nothin left of you and me at all, not one scrap of individuality? I dont kindly presume to know what you believe in, but it seems to me that this life aint nothin but a prelude to the next. And I know that once this body's run its course, once its fed the worms and gone the way of all things, that I'll be movin on ahead straightern straight. Same as I ever was. That's my gift. See I know the bad ones wont never quit but it aint nothin in this world capable of harmin me. They can break my legs. They can let my blood. But try as they might they caint get at the individual, that which truly is me. Understand. It aint no sense in believin in this world same as it aint no sense in fearin that which ye caint control. What comes will come. Just make sure ye's right prepared for it when it does.
He sets aside his plate and leans back in his chair watching us for a long time. Smoke ripples from the faded embers glittering at his feet. He folds his arms and stares firmly at Sonic and Sonic does not avert his gaze.
I believe in karma, Sonic replies. Sooner or later everything evens out. And more often than not I'm the instrument through which that occurs. See I am justice, the great equalizer. My friends wouldnt last a week without me. I'll worry about what's coming when it gets here. For now all I want is my murderer.
Silence hangs between them. What's left of the fire crackles sorely in the floor.
Nack looks away. Foller the shoreline, he mutters grimly, dabbing at his nose. There's an old sawmill to the north. Last I heard that's where your boy was shackin up. Stay close to the water. Keep straight. Ye'll get there.
Sonic takes me by the arm and pulls me to my feet.
Off so soon?
Take your time while you've got it.
A faint smile plays over Nack's features. In that case I suppose you'd better leave it.
If we're lucky we might still be able to catch him.
If you're lucky ye wont never be able to catch him.
Sonic steers me toward the door and when he turns the knob the wind outside comes punching through and props the door open before us like the unseen gesture of some mannerly ghost.
I dont suppose I could trouble you for a favor afore ye leave.
Sonic stops and turns. What kind of favor.
Nack just nods in my direction. Caint rightly say.
Placing a hand on my shoulder Sonic kneels down beside me and tells me to wait outside and that he'll be there in a minute. Then he ushers me out the door and pulls it shut behind him and the lock rings with a sharp metallic squeal and the wind whips and hisses in my ears.
Take your time while you've got it. I sit thinking about that for a long time, watching the water churn white and cold below me. Down on the sand an egret herds her young and there they follow in an orchestrated line skirting the waves of lapping foam. The little ones take turns jumping ahead and falling behind and on and on they stumble in this manner like a caravan of dancers tottering out across the bluffs in silence, vanishing one by one beyond the rocks.
I touch the power ring still draped about my neck, trace the small scratches in its soft copper surface. After a while Sonic emerges from the lighthouse and walks to the edge of the ridge. He looks at me with his lips pressed together and turns and looks out at the sea and picks a strand of strawgrass and stoops chewing on one end of it in the blustery wind.
He doesnt say anything for a very long time.