There was something in Hack’s words that prompted The Boy to do as he said. The opening up of his mind to the Anyplace was something he had learned to do almost instinctively. This place…well, it was something else again, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of connecting with it in the same way. He did not close his eyes because he did not want to remove his gaze from Hack for even a moment, although the pirate did not especially look as if he were about to make a move against The Boy. But he turned his vision inward, letting his mind wander across the vastness of the black and gray wasteland that lay all around them.
His inner eye, the center of his imagination, showed him a realm of terrible foreboding. His mind soared above it, as he himself would have if he’d had the power of flight. It looked much like the Anyplace, but the gray and black hues permeated every aspect of it.
And there were inhabitants, yes. But they were nothing like the joyful, spirited, adventurous denizens of the Anyplace. No, these inhabitants were not living in their surroundings. They simply existed there.
And they burned. They burned with frustration or sadness or hatred. They burned for goals unaccomplished, for words left unsaid, for emotional turmoil unresolved. They seethed because they were unable to communicate with those who really mattered. They went neither forward nor back. They just…were…and were not.
“Boy?” Paul said softly. He didn’t move from the place Captain Hack had dropped him. “Boy?” Then, angrily, he turned on Hack and said, “What did you do to him!”
Credit Paul with courage. He still had his sword, and he pulled it out now to face the pirate as The Boy simply stood nearby, rocking slightly on his heels but otherwise looking as if he had completely lost touch with his surroundings (when, ironically, just the opposite was true). Captain Hack noticed the defiant gesture and simply chuckled softly. “You have determination, lad…but not much wisdom.” Hack had his cutlass out, and the hatchet that adorned his wrist was at the ready.
Paul charged him, hoping that youth and determination would win the day. Such was not the case. Their swords clashed for mere seconds, and then Hack knocked the sword out of Paul’s hand. Hack brought his sword around, looking prepared to sever Paul’s head, and suddenly The Boy’s blade intercepted his swing. Hack grinned. “So you’ve rejoined us, I see. And what, pray tell, have you managed to discern in your ponderings?”
The Boy stepped back, keeping his blade leveled. “This,” he said, his voice carefully controlled, “is the Noplace. If the Anyplace is the place between dreaming and wakefulness, the Noplace is the place between dreaming and the end of life.”
“Just so,” Hack said proudly. Again, he could have been no more pleased than if The Boy had been his own son, answering difficult questions for a grueling exam. “People in comas reside here, helpless to reply as their loving relatives sit at their bedsides and chatter to them endlessly about this, that, and the other thing. And this is also the residence of those who have passed, or are about to, but have scores to settle. Vengeance left unaccomplished. That which people call ‘ghosts’ exist here, with pale reflections of themselves occasionally seeping over into the world of man.” He gestured toward the expanse of it. “Is it not magnificent, Boy? All your life you’ve taken refuge in the Anyplace so that you would never grow older. And now you’ve taken up residence in the Noplace, where you will elude death…but on my terms this time. My terms.” And suddenly he said, “Mine!” and came straight at The Boy.
The Boy darted back, deftly keeping his blade up. He did not have the power of flight, but he still intercepted Hack’s charge with accuracy and certainty. Their swords clanged together, running up each other’s blades, bringing Hack and The Boy together with their sword guards locked, each pushing against the other.
“We end this now,” said The Boy.
“You don’t understand. It never ends.”
With that declaration, Hack shoved The Boy backward down the icy path that he had climbed to get there. The Boy tumbled foot over face, and when he managed to skid to a halt, he saw Captain Hack coming right after him, laughing loudly, and his cutlass shaking with urgency.
The Boy rolled out of the way, falling off the edge of the icy mountain. Fortunately it wasn’t far to the bottom at that point, and he landed nimbly on his feet. He was amazed to see Captain Hack leap into the air, somersault, and land squarely in front of him.
“Let me explain to you what the rest of your existence will be like,” Hack said generously.
He attacked then with eagerness and ferocity, and The Boy found himself retreating.
“Imagine a future where, since you are not truly alive, you cannot truly die,” said Hack as he thrust forward. The Boy parried desperately. Hack continued to come at him, his sword blinding. “Nor will we ever truly tire. We will spend the remainder of our twilight existence, if not eternity itself, battling fiercely without letup or respite.” He lashed out with one booted foot, catching The Boy squarely in the chest and knocking him back. The Boy, feeling leaden, fell, and then scrambled to his feet. Hack advanced, the point of his sword shaking not from fear but anticipation.
“This will be your punishment, Boy, and I could never have conceived of a better one if left to my own devices fore’er.” Captain Hack chortled as he spoke. The Boy had already managed to stab his opponent several times, but none of them mattered. The cuts healed instantly; death would not take him. “Until the end of reality and unreality itself, we shall battle! No quarter will be asked or given, nor will it matter. Do you not see the glorious irony of it? You, who hid in the Anyplace so you would never have to move forward in your development, have now gotten your wish! You shall never move forward, nor back, nor side to side, nor any which way. You will always be no more and no less than you are right now: the eternal opponent of Captain Hack!”
They battled around the perimeter of the iceberg, Hack more relaxed and amused by The Boy’s defenses than he’d ever been. The Boy shouted back defiantly, “You’re insane if you think I’m going to spend the rest of eternity just existing to be your fencing partner!”
“I don’t see that you have much choice, Boy,” Hack said.
“I could put up my sword. I could stop.”
“Quitting isn’t in you, Boy,” Hack said, and that was true enough. Then he added, “Besides, here’s what you haven’t considered: If you do not fight, I will have off your legs. Your arms. Your head. And you won’t die, because in this realm you cannot. Instead, you’ll simply lie there, resting in pieces, while I stand and laugh at you. Then I will do the same to your little friend, and laugh at him. And when I am bored with that, I’ll reassemble you and we’ll begin the entire process over again. Face it, Boy. You are trapped. Trapped!”
Back and forth across the ice they battled, The Boy now putting on an aggressive display of bravado. But it seemed as if Hack was playing with him. That he didn’t care much what The Boy did, for the ultimate laugh would be from Hack directly at The Boy.
“How does it feel, Boy?” Hack said, his cutlass deftly slicing a pattern in the air. “How does it feel to know that I was in your mind like no other? How does it feel knowing that you’re going to be staring into my face for ever and ever, unable to escape me or the knowledge that, once and for all, my triumph is complete? And you know what else? You never defeated me in the first place! Not ever! It was the beast that was my demise, and you’ve no fearsome creatures to help you now! Here, there is just you and your wits, and that is not enough. Not remotely enough by half!”
Slowly The Boy’s spirit began to shrink. He was starting to realize that Hack was correct. The odd thing was that Hack was embracing the notion of eternal battle, which should have pleased The Boy as well, since there was nothing he liked better than a good scrap. But he wasn’t pleased. The concept of never moving forward, of seizing upon one aspect of his life and never moving beyond that—in those terms, it seemed one of the most pointless endeavors in creation. But was that not, at its core, the philosophy of The B
oy himself?
The Boy looked into the face of his enemy and saw the waste of his own life there, and he did not like it in the least.
Paul had clambered down from the iceberg, but he was helpless to intervene, and Captain Hack was laughing loudly and triumphantly; for as you know he is a most educated villain and could appreciate irony in a way that most other pirates never could.
That was when Paul felt something, something…pervading the area. They were not alone. Something was there; something was watching them.
The Boy obviously felt it, too. He closed his eyes, reached out, tried to get a sense of what was near them, inviting it to reveal itself to him. Hack did not hesitate and thrust forward with his sword, howling in triumph before remembering that he might as well have stabbed a cloud for all the good it did. The problem was that his sword was now lodged in The Boy’s chest, and he was having trouble removing it because The Boy was gripping it firmly. Angry, Hack brought his fearsome hatchet up to try to bury it squarely in The Boy’s face, but at that moment The Boy kicked away into Hack’s chest, knocking him back. The Boy pulled the pirate’s cutlass from his chest and for a moment stood there with a sword in either hand, looking as fierce and primitive as he ever had.
He was about to attack yet again, but suddenly Paul was in the way, and he was facing Captain Hack.
“Stand aside, Paul,” said The Boy. “He’s mine.”
“No. He’s ours,” said Paul, intuiting what he needed to do. Yanking off the tiger skin that he’d been wearing as a cloak, he threw it as hard as he could toward Hack. The throw wasn’t an especially good one and the wind began to carry the skin, to send it skimming across the ground.
And then something seemed to ripple through the air, as if the air itself had come to life. It seemed like a mirage, or perhaps a fast-moving patch of fog. Paul realized it was not random currents of air or casual happenstance. Whatever it was, it was moving with distinct purpose and was heading straight toward the tiger skin that was flying on the fierce breeze that had just kicked up.
Suddenly the tiger skin conformed around it. As opposed to being carried by the wind, the skin began to move of its own accord, charging forward with feline grace. Because there was no skeleton to support it, the skin stretched as if it were elasticized. The jaws, no longer confined by a skull, stretched wide and even wider. Although there were no teeth within, it didn’t matter, for the mouth was of sufficient width that it could easily swallow whole anything it desired.
At that moment, it clearly desired Captain Hack.
Captain Hack, who had already been devoured once in his life, shrieked in uncomprehending terror. For a heartbeat he brought up his hatchet to try and ward off that which was descending toward him, and then his lack of true nerve betrayed him. He turned and tried to outrun it, but alongside him, keeping easy pace, was The Boy. Paul was on the other side, likewise keeping pace.
“How do you think it feels for him, Tigerheart? For that great bloody salmon,” The Boy said, probably taking a bit more pleasure in someone else’s misfortune than one would consider appropriate—but boys will be boys. He was speaking almost conversationally to Paul, as if they were discussing Hack’s fate in the abstract. “How do you think he feels, Tigerheart, to have a beast at his heels once more, knowing he will now pay the price for his crimes?”
And Paul said, “And I wonder, Boy, how he feels knowing that even here—in the Noplace, where death has no meaning—it will have a unique meaning for him?”
“Get away! Get away!” Hack’s voice went up several octaves, and somehow he heard his own voice and the lack of manliness in it.
Hack was ashamed.
He stopped in his tracks, and even though the phantom tiger was barreling toward him, he didn’t deign to look its way. Instead he said with decided heat, “You, Boy, ruined my life, and you, Tigerheart, have ruined my death. I certainly hope you are both satisfied.”
At which point the creature that had been pursuing them—the thing that was a tiger neither alive nor dead—vaulted the remaining distance and descended upon Captain Hack. Paul looked away, flinching. The Boy never averted his eyes but instead grinned, his sharp little front teeth making him look like a triumphant wolf.
Thus was the last of Captain Hack swept from the Noplace, destined now for the final place from which there is no return.
When Paul finally steeled himself to look, Captain Hack was gone. The phantom creature that had devoured him, however, was walking slowly toward Paul, one paw padding in front of the other. Paul braced himself, not at all sure what to expect. Would he be next? And what did “next” represent?
The creature rubbed its mighty remains of a head against Paul’s leg. “Snow tiger?” Paul whispered.
“Of course,” said the snow tiger. Its mouth was not moving, yet Paul could hear its voice clearly in his head.
“But—but why are you here? How are you here?”
“Because of you, Paul.”
“Me? I—I don’t understand.”
“Because of your grief over slaying me. Your sorrow was so overwhelming that it held me to this place. I tried to ease your mind as much as I could through my very hide that adorned you quite well. And I was with you in the jungle when you were tracking The Boy, helping you, giving you all of myself that I had to give.”
“Forgive me,” whispered Paul.
“There is naught to forgive. Just as I did what I must as a beast, you did what you had to as a hunter. But if it will help…then I forgive you. Does that attend to your sense of guilt? Can we, in the end, be friends once more?”
For answer, Paul reached down and placed his arms around the beast’s mighty neck. Although it was mostly just fur hanging in the air, Paul was still amazed at the solidity of it; and the warmth of the tiger’s presence swept over him. He saw nothing, yet something warm and rough slid across his face. His tiger was licking his face.
“I still taste guilt,” said the tiger. “Why?”
“They…” Paul felt ashamed even to say it. “They call me Tigerheart. The Picca. The Boy just now. I can’t seem to stop them from doing it.”
“Why would you want to?”
“It’s disrespectful to you.”
“Nonsense. There is nothing the Picca value more than the heart of a warrior and no warrior they valued higher—or feared more—than me. To call you Tigerheart is to say that you are like me. It is a compliment that reflects as much on me as you, and I can think of no more deserving owner of the name. Wear it as proudly as you would my coat, Tigerheart.”
“I will never forget you.”
“Of course not. Who could?”
Paul heard something then, a deep sighing from the innermost recesses of his tiger that blended with the howling of the wind. Then the fur sagged, bereft of the spirit that had supported it. It took with it the spiritual remains of Captain Hack and the first love that only the heart of a young boy can give to the first individual, aside from his parents, who ever gave his life real meaning.
“Farewell…my best friend,” Paul said, and although he couldn’t hear a reply in the wind, he was certain there was one just the same.
He sat there for a time, uncertain how long, and then he realized The Boy’s legs were directly in front of him. Happily, the rest of The Boy was situated above them.
“Now what?” Paul said, not unreasonably.
“Don’t you want me to ask if you’re all right?”
“Do you care?”
It was a fair question. The Boy considered it and then shrugged, which was about as much answer as Paul had expected.
“So…now what?” Paul said again.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Paul was dumbfounded.
“We could explore, I suppose.” Even The Boy wasn’t completely taken with the notion, but it did appeal slightly to his adventurous heart. “I admit, it seems rather bleak here, but—”
“There can be no ‘but’ here!” Paul said. “We
have to return to the land of the living! This—this half-life is no place for us!” Then he looked down at the vicious wound he’d sustained from Captain Hack, the one that had propelled him into the twilight realm of the Noplace, and the full weight of their dilemma settled upon him. “We—we have no choice, do we?” he said, touching the wound. “We can’t return. Even if we did manage to somehow…I would then die from…” His voice trailed off and he stared at The Boy as if seeing him for the first time. “How came you here? If this is a land of the dead or near dead…”
The Boy, with a curious display of pride, pulled aside his tunic to reveal the deep thrust he’d taken from Mary Slash. Paul gaped, standing and walking over toward The Boy, staring at it in wonderment. “You did that for—for me?”
“Of course not. I did it for me,” The Boy said curtly. “The villains were trying to write the end of the piece, and I wouldn’t have any of it. Things turn out the way I want them to. That’s simply how it works.”
“Well, then…you couldn’t possibly want things to turn out that we’re left here to freeze or be miserable? What sort of ending is that?”
“Not an especially good one,” The Boy said. “Bleak and depressing enough to have been conceived by an adult.”
“All right, so…” Paul’s mind raced, and then he recalled something from very long ago. “There was a time when you were in trouble—no, when Fiddlefix was in trouble—and you asked for all the dreaming minds of children to help you, to restore her…to make things work out, to—”
“We’re not in the Anyplace,” said The Boy, impatient that he should have to point that out. “We’re in the Noplace. And that’s—” Then he stopped as an idea leaped fully formed to him. His enthusiasm began to grow as he spoke. “But there are still people here. Many people. Not children, for the most part, but dreamers nonetheless, most of them dreaming of a time when they were children and their whole lives were ahead of them, instead of dwelling in darkness as they do now, waiting for their end to come at last. I can give them a chance to make one final difference. Perhaps they couldn’t partake of the adventure, but at least they can help see it to its proper conclusion.”