Chapter 6: Demon Moon Dirge

Roland was confused, but he only allowed the tip of that emotional iceberg to surface. He had never heard of a place, neither bar nor barony, with a name such as Mars. He thought he heard the name once before, but it referred to a place where no man could have hailed from. No matter how far the world had moved on.

"Is your Mars a part of the northwestern baronies?"

"I couldn't tell ya."

"Why not?"

"I don't know what a Northwestern Barony is, that's all," Spike said, snuffing the cigarette out in the sand. By this time, the sun had completely left the sky for the day, and the darkening horizon was already displaying a vast menagerie of heavenly bodies. He surmised that the clarity of this sky revealed at least a hundred times more visible stars than any

(planet)

place he'd visited before, aside from when he was in the Swordfish. With the recollection of that name, a sudden rush of images inundated Spike's mind like the muzzle flash of his Jericho; intense, powerful, yet fleeting. Only a trail of thought was left behind, and nothing substantial was left, save for one piece of information. "I can show you where Mars is, if you really want to know."

Roland was skeptical, yet intrigued at this possibility. "I would know this, yes." Instead of showing him a map or drawing him a picture, however, he confirmed the impossible assumption that Roland had initially entertained.

Pointing to the horizon, Spike said, "It's the one above that deep valley. The red one."

Never turning to look, Roland merely studied Spike's face, seeing if it would change into the one he was expecting. Cuthbert had shown him this face many times, and Roland remembered each stage as clearly as a book keeps a picture. First, he would appear to be as serious as a physician telling a family the bad news about their loved one, but then a small smile would twitch at the corner of his mouth, and soon there would be laughter. The gunslinger expected this, but it never happened.

Seeing that his new companion wasn't going to look, Spike lowered his arm, feeling very conspicuous and awkward for the first time since he could remember. "I guess you've seen it already."

Roland responded with a phrase spoken in a language Spike had never heard before. He cocked his head to the side, a confused but intrigued look on his face. When Roland followed up with another indecipherable phrase, Spike said, "I don't understand what you're trying to say, but it does sound really fancy. Are all gunslingers bilingual?"

"So you're not in league with the Manni folk?"

"I've never heard of the Manni folk, but they sound like an interesting bunch. Are they the locals you were talking about?"

"No," Roland said, finally looking towards the reddish spot in the quickly darkening sky. He stared at it for a moment, thinking about how such few people outside the influence of the Manni have figured out how to visit other worlds and other times. Perhaps in Spike's when, the Manni go by a different name, or perhaps by then, their secrets will no longer be secrets. Vannay, strangely enough, suddenly spoke up in Roland's mind. Thinking about a problem is merely a fraction of finding its solution; action comprises the rest. "Do you visit your Mars when you go Todash?"

Spike chuckled softly. "Okay, now you're just making stuff up." Roland kept his eyes leveled. "Then again, you don't seem like the lying type." He sighed, then, "I'll bite. What the hell is Todash?"

Roland was halfway through explaining how Todash was used by the Manni to travel between worlds, when Spike interrupted.

"No, no, no. Definitely not that. I was actually born on Mars. It's where I lived most of the time when I wasn't on the..." He hesitated, trying to chase down the memory of the Bebop. He knew it was there, and he knew what and whom it represented, but after the flash of memory a moment ago, the whole thing was just a blurry mess in his head. He had to concentrate hard just to make out its shape, but still couldn't quite see its name. He could still see the name of his own ship, so he substituted it. "…On the Swordfish. That probably doesn't even matter, 'cause I guess you guys haven't figured out space travel yet, right?"

Roland's eyebrows furrowed slightly when he heard the name of Spike's ship. How that name was connected with the charm carved into the grip of his gun would be the subject of their next palaver, perhaps, so he simply shook his head in answer to Spike's question.

Whether or not Roland's answer meant 'no, we haven't,' or 'no, we have, but just don't use it,' Spike decided it would be the subject he would use in their next palaver. Until then, he decided to ask a few questions of his own.

"So this Gilead of yours, it's here on earth, right?"

Roland nodded. This answered two questions for Spike, the first being the obvious one. The second answer told him that, though this was earth, it probably wasn't the same earth he was used to. He began to think that he'd traveled back in time, but the way his new gun-slinging friend handled the concept of space travel and living on Mars told him that perhaps Roland wasn't the throwback that he resembled. Spike went on.

"The way you look, I'd also guess Gilead's a long way from here."

"You would guess correctly."

"Well, that leads us to the forty-million woolong question: what sort of bounty head brings you this far from ol' Gillie-add?"

"…The Man in Black."

"You're chasing the country music legend from the 20th-century? I mean, Jet was a pretty big fan too, but…" Spike stopped, both when he saw the look on Roland's face, and when he realized that he remembered Jet's name without trying. He still couldn't concentrate hard enough to see anyone else's name, but this was an encouraging recollection nonetheless.

"I have been on his trail since I left Gilead's gates. I will catch him."

"I bet I can guess what'll happen when you do," he said, a somber note creeping into his voice. "It's a personal thing, isn't it?" He said, staring into the last of the purple light on the horizon, realizing that despite his short stay, he was definitely tired enough for sleep already. He thought it wouldn't be too long before he'd nod off, in spite of the fact that he still knew next to nothing about his situation, this "earth" that seemed to have no craters and a complete moon, or even the steely-eyed figure before him. Who knows how exhausted he'd be after tomorrow's activities? Who knew what activities awaited him? Who knew what was waiting for them in that town?

Roland nodded once as he looked off towards the town, almost as if he were on Spike's mental wavelength. Spike could see that this palaver was over, at least, in the Gunslinger's mind. It seemed that Roland was the type that could not be coaxed into very much introspection, certainly not much more than Spike had already gotten him to reveal.

Without a word, Roland began making his camp. He retrieved a small, flat piece of wood from the pile of bucka by the shed and placed it on an even spot of sand. He lay on it, adjusting it one time, and then he pulled his hat down over his eyes and crossed his arms. He was asleep within five minutes.

Spike was watching the town below while Roland bedded down, trying to see if any lights would appear as the darkness engulfed it. He thought he was able to see some flickering candlelight at one point, but he was unsure as to whether it was merely his expectations or the real thing. Either way, they didn't last long.

Deciding to simply lay in the soft sand was a decision Spike made probably because the sand alone would be softer. In truth, it was more likely that Spike saw Roland do it first. Even in a hot, barren world filled with gunslingers and Manni folk and mysterious towns, Spike Spiegel refused to follow anyone. Except, perhaps, for

(Julia)

one person in his life. He thought he could almost see her, but her face never appeared. Without really knowing what he was saying, he muttered two words to the sky.

"Stupid cats."

Feeling somehow lighter, more like himself, he smiled his Spiegel Smile, clasped his hands behind his head, and counted the stars until he fell asleep.

A creature that wore the darkness like his own personal cloak had been skittering around for the past two hours inside a building that was doing quite a bit better than the shack on yon hill. Every time he saw the ambling figure come into view, he tittered and began muttering the little rhyme to himself over and over:

"Charyou tree! Charyou tree! I see you, but you can't see me!"

Approximately half a mile before his quarry reached it, the creature saw a brief flash of light come from inside the dilapidated shack. He was even able to hear something like the sound of the Todash chimes, but these were much different. It sounded like Gan itself, speaking its will through the world. The creature tittered again, clapping his hands. He felt good enough that he did a do-se-do with the corpse of a middle-aged woman. Her back cracked with each dip, her head lolled with each spin.

"You dance divinely, my dear! No bunions on those toes, no sirree!"

He continued for a moment before he sensed his quarry approaching the shack. Quickly tapping into the threads of the future, he saw what would ensue almost as clear as any vision he'd ever had. The creature's mood was elevated to such a degree that he dropped the woman's body like a sack of half-putrid potatoes. He cast a quick cloaking spell, just enough to evade detection but perhaps not enough to avoid it. Parking himself at the building's window, he gleefully watched, wishing he had some popcorn to enhance the spectacle.

The way things went, however, held almost no resemblance to what he had seen. Perhaps he had only seen what he wanted to see, or perhaps he had only seen one way it could have gone. Either way, his mood was slightly dented. The two gunslingers (one of 'em is more of the Boba Fett type, though) had a bit of a skirmish, but the one in the blue suit seemed to have arrived without his six little helpers. When the creature in the room saw that they were starting to palaver, he snapped his fingers in consternation.

"Oh, fiddlesticks. Guess I'll have to deal with Cowboy Lonesome and The Gilead Kid myself. Care for another turn, darling?" he asked, scooping the dead woman back into his arms. Her head nearly popped off her neck during another one of his spins, and he lost his concentration for a moment. As he reached for her head, (in vain, as it turns out, because it was still connected by some flaps of skin) the cloaking spell wavered and the building's walls reflected a dim light for the briefest of moments. Nothing more than a match-strike in the grand scheme of things, but still more than he was willing to disclose. He froze in mid-dip, holding on to her hand like a starving dog holds onto a discarded piece of meat. He was listening so intently that the sound of the woman's head plopping wetly onto the floorboards sounded like a gunshot. He cringed comically, putting a finger to his lips.

"Now, now, honey! We don't want to spoil the surprise so soon, do we?"

He peeked out the window again, but only saw two men (who should have killed each other) bedded down for the night. He was worried for nothing! Even so, he decided the night's tomfoolery must give way to another night's worth of traveling. After all, Pricetown was still nearly two hundred miles away, and dancing the night away was not going to get him there any quicker. He stealthily made his way out of the little village, being careful not to be distracted by the work he had done earlier in the day. Sometimes, the creature would get lost in self-congratulations, and this was definitely not the time for that.

The beginnings of the desert lay before him, and he bounded across it with gleeful abandon.