The Incompleat Nifft by Michael Shea Page A

that most of the corpses in that wall were those of women and children. Their torn faces looked out everywhere from the black swarming of wings and jaws and pincers.
    The tower was an insane jumble of the reknit skeletons of everything you could think of. In fact it was more a monkey's perch than a tower, and the giant that came swinging down from it moved more like an ape than a man. He bellowed as he came, with thick, fang-hindered speech:
    "Skin! You've got living manskin, Guide! I want some!"
    The guide reined up, crying, "Hail, War-father. We shall pay your toll."
    The ape wore as a helmet the top half of a man's skull—a giant's, you understand, for the ape was as big as the hags and yet the skull's sockets came all the way down over its red eyes. The immortal also wore epaulets of braided human hair, but nothing else. It carried a battle axe with a bit as wide as an infantry shield. It rolled up to us, enlisting its free fist as a foot. Both of the hounds instantly leapt upon it. It pummeled them with vigor, but it seemed a long time before they lay still in their harness.
    Haldar leapt down from the chariot. The Guide said: "What piece do you want, starving one?"
    The immortal answered decisively. "I want an index finger." It shifted its stance restlessly, poised on feet and knuckles. Haldar held out his left arm, the finger extended.
    The ape began an incredible preliminary dance of strokes and feints and flourishes. It hopped and postured in a great, dust-raising circle around Haldar, whooping with every loop it cut in the air. It dodged and ducked and parried and, at the climactic moment, took a soaring bound at Haldar, and brought the axe in an heroic arc down upon his finger.
    Haldar was jolted through by the shock, but stood firm. The finger was clipped off as neat as a daisy at the base, the other knuckles not even grazed.
    The ape rolled the finger thoroughly on the ground. "Best with dust," it growled companionably. It popped the treat in its jaws and crunched it with gusto for a long time. I helped Haldar bind his hand. He was drenched with the sweat of pain, as was I. Regretfully, the War-father swallowed the last of the finger and sighed.
    "I wish I could take more," the immortal rumbled wistfully. "What do you say, fellow? Let me have one more finger, hey?" It poked Haldar cajolingly in the shoulder.
    "No more, beast!" snapped Haldar. "Damn your greed!" The ape stamped furiously, and smote the ground so hard with its axe that the chariot rattled. I helped Haldar back aboard. The Guide stung the hounds, and we surged through the gateway. Our passage sent up a cloud of panicked birds and insects. For a time they hung seething above the dyke, like the black smoke of some great city's sack. Then they settled back down on the hill of torn faces. Soon we were driving for high ground.

VIII
     
    I heard the nearness of our goal before the Guide said anything. I heard wind, wind and fire in measureless, empty places, yet nothing was as dead as the air of this world. Haldar too knew something—he said only that he sensed a chill, but I had seen his shudderings since paying the toll. He had a way of rubbing the skin on his arms as if to erase grotesque sensations, and sometimes he looked with amazement at his hands, as if he expected to find something in them, or crawling over them. I guessed his skin's premonitions matched those my ears received. Then the Guide pointed to a region of rocky outcrops which thrust up from a clay mesa to form a higher and more ragged mesa of stone. "Up there," he said, "are the gates of the Winds of Warr."
    It appeared Defalk would be spared the payment of Toll, and it heartened him, I think. He began to stare ironically at the two of us. I said: "You look amused. What sunny ray has pierced your horizon?"
    "I was only thinking, friend assassin," he said. I let this pass. "I was thinking how very like Dalissem it would be to show me her contempt by spurning my life. I mean once she'd