"I found it Shirou, I made it appear."
"There are so many tales about it. I spun a few myself. That it would grant your every wish. "
"Any wish, hah! If that were true, I sure wouldn't be here. I'd be living high on the hog in Europe. Swimming in dough."
"Eternal youth --- like hell I got it."
"Money --- the hell with that, too."
"But I got health. And good children. And I'm alive. You can only dream about the places I've been."
"And I'm still alive."
"I only ask for one thing. Let me live. And give me health. And the children."
---
Pledge
Red got up, went behind the ore car, sat on the embankment, and watched as the green wash dimmed and quickly turned to pink. The sun's orange rim came up over the ridge, and purple shadows stretched from the hills. Everything became harsh and in high relief, he could see things as clearly as if they were in the palm of his hand.
Right in front, two hundred yards away, Red saw the helicopter. It had fallen, apparently, into the middle of a mosquito mange spot, and its fuselage had been squashed into a metal pancake. Its tail had remained intact, only slightly bent, and it stuck out over the glade like a black hook. The stabilizer was also whole, and it squeaked distinctly, turning in the light breeze. The mange must have been very powerful, for there hadn't even been a real fire, and the Air Force insignia was very clear on the flattened metal. Red had not seen one in many years and had almost forgotten what the insignia looked like.
Red went back to his pack for the map, which he spread out on the hot mound of ore in the car. You couldn't see the quarry from here --- it was blocked by the hill with the burned-out tree on its rise.
He had to go around the hill from the right, along the depression between it and the next hill, which he could also see, completely bare, its slope covered with brown rocks.
All the reference points corresponded, but Red felt no satisfaction. His instincts protested against the very thought, which was irrational and unnatural, of laying a path between two nearby elevations.
All right, Red thought, we'll see about that later. It will be clearer when we get there.
The path before the depression led through the swamp, along open flat ground, which seemed safe enough from here. But looking closer, Red noted a dark gray spot between the two dry hills. He looked at the map. There was an X there, and it said "Whip" next to it in clumsy letters. The red dotted line of the path went to the right of the X. The name was sort of familiar, but who Whip was exactly, and what he looked like, and what he did, Red could not remember.
For some reason, Red could only remember the smoky room, huge red paws holding glasses, thundering laughter, and open jaws filled with yellow teeth --- a fantastic herd of titans and giants gathered at the watering hole, one of his most striking childhood memories --- his first visit to the Dev's. What had I brought that time? An empty, I think. Right after the big explosion which ended the war, wet, hungry, crazy, with a sack over my shoulder, I burst into the bar and clattered the sack on the counter in front of the innkeeper, looking around angrily, listening to the wisecracks, waiting for the keeper to count the right amount of greenbacks. No, wait, it wasn't green back then...
I waited, put away the money, and unexpectedly, even for myself, took a heavy mug from the counter and slammed it into the closest laughing face. Red smirked and thought: maybe that was Whip himself?
"Is it all right to go between the two hills, Red?" Alice asked in a low voice near his ear. She was next to him looking at the map, too.
"We'll see when we get there." Red kept looking at the map.
There were two other X's, one on the slope of the hill with the tree, the other on the rocks. Poodle and Four-eyes. Those were killed masters, Buzzard allied with them but... well Buzzard is a buzzard. They let their servants die for a promise of the grail. But as they were getting to it...
The path was marked below them.
"We'll see," he repeated, folding up the map and putting it in his pocket.
He looked Alice over.
"Put the backpack on my back. We'll go like before," he said, shifting under the weight of the pack and arranging the straps more comfortably.
"You go ahead, so that I can see you every second. Don't look back and keep your ears open. My order is law. Keep in mind that we'll have a lot of crawling to do, don't suddenly be afraid of the dirt. If I tell you to, drop your face into the mud without any backtalk. And button your jacket. Ready?"
"Ready." Alice was very nervous; the rosiness of her cheeks had disappeared.
"First we go this way." Red waved sharply in the direction of the nearest hill a hundred steps from the rocks. "Got it? Let's go."
Alice heaved a sigh, stepped over the rails, and started down sideways from the embankment. The pebbles rained after her noisily.
"Easy, easy," Red said. "There's no hurry."
He started down slowly after her, automatically adjusting his leg muscles to the weight of the heavy backpack. He watched Alice out of the corner of his eye.
She's scared, he thought. She must sense it. If her sense is like her father's, she does. If you only knew how things were turning out, Buzzard. If you only knew, Buzzard, that I took your advice this time.
"This is one place, Shirou, that you can't go to alone. Like it or not, you'll have to take somebody with you. I can give you one of my people who's expendable."
You talked me into it. It's the first time in my life that I agreed to something like this. Well, maybe it will turn out all right, he thought.
Maybe, somehow, it will work out. After all, I'm not Buzzard, maybe I'll figure something out.
"Stop!" he told Alice.
The girl stopped ankle-deep in rusty water. By the time Red got down to her, the quagmire had sucked her in up to her knees.
"Do you see that rock?" Red asked. "There, under the hill? Head for it."
Alice moved on. Red let her get ten paces ahead and then followed. The mud slurped underfoot. It was a dead swamp --- no bugs, no frogs, even the willows were dry and rotten. Red looked around, but for now everything seemed to be in order.
The hill slowly got closer, covering the sun, which was still low in the sky, and finally blocking the entire eastern sky. At the rock, Red looked back at the embankment. It was brightly lit by the sun. A train of ten ore cars stood on it. Some of the cars had fallen off the tracks and were lying on their sides, and the embankment above them was covered with the rusty red piles of the ore. Further on, in the direction of the quarry, north of the train, the air over the track shimmered and undulated, and tiny rainbows exploded and died in the air.
Red looked at the shimmer, spat, and turned away.
"Let's go," he said. Alice turned her tense face to him. "See those rags over there? You're looking the wrong way! Over there, to the right."
"Yes," said Alice.
"Well, that was a guy called Whip. A long time ago. He didn't listen to his elders and now he lies there in order to show smart people the right way. Look just to the right of Whip. Got it? See the spot? Right where the willows are a little thicker. That's the way. You're off!"
Now they were moving parallel to the embankment. Every step brought them to shallower water, and soon they were walking on dry, springy hillocks. The map still showed this as solid swamp. The map's old, thought Red, Buzzard hasn't been here in a long time, and it's gotten out of date.
That's bad. Of course, it's easier to walk on dry land, but it would have been better for that swamp to be here. Look at Alice go, he thought. She's walking like she's strolling down Central Avenue.
Alice seemed to have perked up and was walking full speed. She had one hand in her pocket and she was swinging the other as if out on a stroll. Red rummaged in his pocket, took out a bolt weighing an ounce or so, and threw it at her head.
The bolt hit Alice in the back of the head. The girl gasped, grabbed her head, crouched, and fell into the dry grass. Red stood over her.
"That's how it comes out here, Alice," he pontificated. "This isn't an avenue, we're not on a promenade here, you know." Alice got up slowly. Her face was drained white.
"Everything clear?" Red asked. Alice gulped and nodded.
"Fine. And next time I'll let you have it in the teeth. If you're still alive. Go ahead!"
The girl could have made it, after all, thought Red. They probably would have called her Pretty Girl Alice. There used to be one called Pretty Boy, his name was Dixon, but now they called him Hamster. The only man to fall into the meatgrinder and live. He was lucky. The fool still thinks that it was Buzzard who pulled him out of it. The hell he did!
You don't get pulled out of the meatgrinder.
He did pull him back all the way, that's true enough Buzzard performed a heroic deed like that. If he hadn't...! Everybody was getting fed up with his tricks, and the guys had told him: you better not come back if you come back alone. That was when they began calling him Buzzard, before they used to call him Winner. Why? That's clear enough.
The winner of the war, the one whose wish actually happened. And not only once.
This grail cloud be real after all. That would explain all of these things that happened around. Burned trees, cursed land, thick mud which acts like acid, weird gravitational changes...
This path is a trial itself.
Red felt a barely perceptible current of air on his left cheek and immediately, without thinking, he shouted: "Halt!" He extended his hand to the left. The current was stronger. Somewhere between them and the embankment there was a mosquito mange, or maybe it extended along the embankment itself: there was a reason why the cars had tilted over. Alice stood as though she had been planted, she did not even turn around.
"To the right. Let's go."
Yes, she would have made it.
What the hell, do I feel sorry for her or something? That's all I need. Did anyone ever feel sorry for me? I guess they did. Rin felt sorry for me. Sakura feels sorry for me. Only I don't get to feel pity.
My choice is always either/or. He finally understood the choice: either this girl, or my Saber.
There was no real choice, it was clear.
If only miracles did happen, some voice said inside, and he repressed the voice with horror.
They went around the mound of gray rags. There was nothing left of Whip. Some distance away in the dry grass lay a long, completely rusted stick --- a minesweeper. In those days many people used mine sweepers, buying them up on the quiet from army suppliers, and depended on them like on the Lord God himself, and then two men were killed within a few days, killed by underground explosions. And that put an end to it.
Damn it, it's hot! And this is so early in the morning, I can imagine what it will be like later.
Alice, walking five paces ahead, wiped the sweat from her brow. Red squinted up at the sun; it was still low. And suddenly he realized that the dry grass was not rustling underfoot but squeaking like cornstarch, and it was no longer stiff and bristly, but soft and crumbly --- it was falling apart under their shoes, like flakes of soot. And he saw Alice's clear footprints, and he threw himself down on the ground, shouting: "Hit the dirt!"
He fell face down into the grass, and it turned into dust under his cheek. He gnashed his teeth in anger over their bad luck. He lay there trying not to move, still hoping that it would blow over, even though he realized that they were trapped.
The heat was increasing, overwhelming him, enveloping his body like a sheet soaked in boiling water. Sweat poured into his eyes, and Red shouted belatedly to Alice: "Don't move! Bear it!" And he started bearing it himself.
This is hell.
Inferno.
He would have withstood it, and everything would have passed quietly and well, they would have gotten by with a lot of sweat, but Alice couldn't take it. Either she had not heard Red's shout, or she became scared out of her wits, or maybe, she had been baked more strongly than Red --- anyway she lost control and ran off blindly, with a scream deep in her throat, following her instinct --- backward, The very direction they couldn't take. Red barely managed to rise and grab her ankle with both hands.
Alice fell down with the full weight of her body, raising a cloud of ashes, squealed in an unnatural voice, kicked Red in the face with her other foot, and struggled wildly. Red, not thinking clearly any more through the pain, crawled on top of her, touching the leather jacket with his burned face, trying to press the girl into the ground, holding her long hair with both hands and desperately kicking her feet and knees at Alice's legs and her rear end and at the dirt. He could barely hear the muffled moans coming from beneath him and his own hoarse shouts:
"Lie there, you damned--- lie still, or I'll kill you."
Tons and tons of hot coals were pouring over him, and his clothing was in flames and the leather of his shoes and jacket was blistering and cracking, and Red, his head mashed into the gray ash, his chest trying to keep the damn girl's head down, could not stand it. He yelled his lungs out.
He did not remember when it all ended. He understood only that he could breathe again, that the air was air again, and not steam that burned his throat, and he realized that they had to hurry and get out from under the devilish heat before it came crashing down on them again.
He got off Alice, who was lying perfectly still, tucked both her legs under one arm, and using his free arm, crawled forward, never taking his eyes off the line where the grass started again. It was dead, prickly, dry, but it was real and it seemed like the greatest source of life in the world. The ashes felt gritty in his teeth, his burnt face gave off heat, and the sweat poured right into his eyes, probably because he no longer had eyebrows or eyelashes.
Alice was stretched out behind, her jacket seeming to catch on to every possible place. Red's parboiled hands ached, and the backpack kept bumping into his burned neck.
The pain and lack of air made Red think that he was completely burned and that he would not make it. The fear made him work harder with his elbow and his knees.
Just get there, just a little more, come on, Shirou, come on, you can make it, like that, just a little more... you made it like this before...
Then he lay for a long time, his face and hands in the cold, rusty water, luxuriating in the smelly, rotten coolness. He could have lain like that forever, but he forced himself to get up on his knees, throw off the backpack, crawl over to Alice, who was still lying motionless some thirty feet from the swamp, and turn her over on her back.
Well, she used to be a pretty girl. And now that beautiful face was a dark gray mask of baked-on blood and ash. For a few seconds Red examined with dull interest the ruts and furrows made in the mask --- the tracks of stones and sticks. Then he got up on his feet, picked up Alice by the armpits, and dragged her to the water. Alice was breathing hoarsely, moaning once in a while.
Red threw her face down into the deepest puddle and fell down next to her, reliving the pleasure of the wet, icy caress. Alice gurgled, moved about, braced herself on her hands, and raised her head. She was bug-eyed, she understood nothing and was greedily gulping air, coughing and spitting. Then she came to her senses. Her gaze settled on Red.
She shook her head, scattering dirty drops of water.
"What was that?"
"That was death," Red murmured and coughed.
He felt his face. It hurt. His nose was swollen, but his brews and lashes, strangely enough, were in place. And the skin on his hands remained intact, but red. Alice was also gingerly touching her face. Now that the horrible mask had been washed away, her face --- also contrary to expectation --- turned out to be all right. There were a few scratches, a bump on her forehead, and her lower lip was split. But all in all, okay.
"I've never heard of anything like that," Alice said looking back.
Red looked back too. There were many tracks on the gray ashy grass, and Red was amazed to see how short his terrible, endless path had been, when he crawled to save them from doom. It was only twenty or thirty yards from one edge of the burnt-out grass to the other, but in his blindness and fear he had crawled in some wild zigzag, like a roach on a hot skillet, and thank God he had at least crawled in the right direction. He could have gotten into the mosquito mange on the left, or he could have gotten turned around completely. No, that would not have happened to him, he was no greenhorn. And if it had not been for that damned girl, then nothing at all would have happened, he would have gotten blisters on his feet --- and that would have been it as far as injuries.
He looked at Alice. Alice was washing up, moaning as she touched the sore spots. Red stood up, and wincing from the pain of his clothes on his burnt skin, walked to a dry spot and examined the backpack. The pack had really taken a beating. The top buckles had melted and the vials in the first-aid kit had burst to hell, and a damp spot reeked of antiseptic. Red opened the pack and started picking out the slivers of glass and plastic, when he heard Alice's voice.
"Thank you, Red! You saved my life!"
Red said nothing. Thanks! You fell apart, and I had to rescue you.
"It was my own fault. I heard your order to lie there, but I was really scared, and when it got so hot --- I lost my head. I'm very much afraid of pain."
"Why don't you get up?" Red said without turning around toward him. "That was just a sample. Get up, what are you loafing around for?"
Wincing from the pain of the pack on his burned shoulders, he put his arms through the straps. It felt as though the skin on the burned places had wrinkled up. She was afraid of pain, was she? Shove you and your pain! He looked around. It was all right, they hadn't left the path.
Now for the hills with the corpses. The damn hills, just stood there, the lousy mothers, sticking out like the devil's horns, and that damn depression between them. He sniffed the air. You damn depression, that's the really lousy part.
"See that depression between the hills?" he asked.
"I see it."
"Head straight for it. March!"
Alice wiped her face with the back of her hand and moved on, splashing through the puddles. She was limping and did not look as straight and well-proportioned as she had before. She was bent over and was walking very carefully.
There's another one I saved, thought Red. What does that make? Five? Six? Ten?
And now I wonder why? She's no relation. I'm not responsible for her. Listen, Shirou, why did you save her? You almost got it yourself because of her. Now that my head is clear, I know why. It was right to save her, I can't manage without her, she's my hostage for Saber.
I didn't save a human being, I saved my minesweeper. My master key.
Back there in the heat, I never gave it a second thought. I pulled her out like she was my flesh and blood, and didn't even think about abandoning her even though I had forgotten everything --- the master key and Saber.
What does that mean? It means that I really am a good guy, after all. That's what Saber insisted, and Rin used to say, and what Sakura is always babbling about. Some good guy they found!
Drop it, he told himself.
You have to think first, and then use your arms and legs. Got that straight? Mr. Nice Guy. I have to save her for the meatgrinder, he thought coldly and clearly.
We can get past everything except the grinder.
"Stop!"
The depression lay before them, and Alice was already standing there, looking at Red for orders. The floor of the depression was covered with a rotten green slime that glinted oilily in the sun. A light steam rose above it, getting thicker between the hills, and nothing was visible beyond thirty feet. And it stank.
"It'll really stink in there, but don't you chicken out."
Alice made a noise in the back of her throat and backed away. Red shook himself back to action, pulled from his pocket a wad of cotton soaked in deodorant, stuffed up his nostrils, and offered some to Alice.
"Thanks, Red. Isn't there a land route we could take?" Alice asked in a weak voice.
Red silently took her by the hair and turned her head in the direction of the bundle of rags on the stony hillside.
"That was Four-eyes," he said. "And on the left hill, you can't see from here, lies Poodle. In the same condition. Do you understand? Forward."
The slime was warm and sticky. At first they walked erect, waist-deep in the slime. Luckily the bottom was rocky and rather even. But soon Red heard the familiar rumble from both sides. There was nothing on the left hill except the intense sunlight, but on the right slope, in the shade, pale purple lights were fluttering.
"Bend low!" he whispered and bent over himself. "Lower, stupid!" Alice bent over in fright, and a clap of thunder shattered the air.
Right over their heads an intricate lightning bolt danced furiously, barely visible against the bright sky. Alice sat down, shoulder deep in the slime. Red, ears clogged by the noise, turned and saw a bright red spot quickly melting in the shade among the pebbles and rocks, and there was another thunderclap.
"Forward! Forward!" he shouted, unable to hear himself.
Now they were moving in a crouch, Indian file, only their heads exposed. At every peal Red watched Alice's long hair stand on end and could feel a thousand needles puncturing his face.
"Forward!" he kept repeating. "Forward!" He could not hear a thing any more.
Once he saw Alice's profile, and he saw her terror-stricken eyes bulging out and her white bouncing lips and her green-smeared sweaty cheek.
Then the lightning began striking so low that they had to duck their heads. The green slime gummed his mouth, making it hard to breathe. Gulping for air, Red tore the cotton out of his nose and discovered that the reek was gone, that the air was filled with the fresh, piercing odor of ozone, and that the steam was getting thicker, or maybe he was blacking out, and he could no longer see either of the two hills. All he could see was Alice's head sticky with green slime and the billowing clouds of yellow steam.
I'll get through, I'll get through, Red thought; this is nothing new. My whole life is like this. I'm stuck in filth and there's lightning over my head. It's never been any other way.
Where is all this gunk coming from? You could go crazy from this much gunk in one place!
Buzzard did this: he walked through and left this behind. Four-eyes lay on the right, Poodle on the left, and all so that Buzzard could walk between them and leave all his filth behind. That's what you deserve, he told himself.
Whoever walks behind Buzzard walks up to his neck in filth. You didn't know that? There are too many buzzards, that's why there isn't a single clean place left.
Rin is wrong: Shirou, you violate the balance, you destroy the order, you're unhappy, Shirou, in good, or bad. You're not happy when the things are good, nor you are when the things are bad. It's people like you who keep us from having the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
What do you know? Where have you seen any good? When have you ever seen me having a good time?
He slipped on a stone that turned under his foot, and fell in. He surfaced and saw Alice's terrified face right next to his. For a second he felt a chill: he thought that he had lost his way. But he had not gotten lost. He realized immediately that they had to go that way, where the black top of the rock stuck out of the slime; he realized that even though there was nothing else visible in the yellow fog.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Keep right! To the right of the rock!"
He could not hear his own voice. He caught up with Alice, grabbed her shoulder, and pointed: keep right of the rock and keep your head down.
You'll pay for this, he thought.
Alice dove under at the rock, just as a lightning bolt hit it, smashing it to smithereens.
You'll pay for this, he repeated, as he ducked under and worked furiously with his arms and legs.
He could hear another peal of thunder.
I'll shake your souls out of you for this!
He had a fleeting thought: who do I mean? I don't know. But somebody has to pay for this, and somebody will!
Just wait, just let me get to the grail, when I get to the grail, I'm no Buzzard, I'll get what I want from you.
