“Not courage,” the voice said, attached to a spindly figure who came through the haze and dropped to one knee before him, crouching in the mud beneath the tree stump upon which Huey stood. “Hey, mate, why don’t you give it up and just face the truth? We are lost. We are as lost as we all have ever been. We are so lost that we don’t even know the wood. Why don’t you let us sleep? Why don’t you let us buy out of this terrible place?”
“If you have the courage to say this,” answered Huey, “then you have the courage to move on from here. We can take back the city. We can find our souls within that place. We can reclaim ourselves and we can begin anew.”
He was sure of this, Huey thought. It was not only the sound of his own voice pounding that realization into him, but indeed some intimation of what they had become. He clambered down off his perch on the tree stump, staring at the Brit who had baited him, and behind that Brit the ragamuffin crowd that had assembled, the worst army he had ever seen—and yet it was an army, it could be taken in that direction.
“Beethoven,” he said, “stand up and give us a march! Give us a march, do you hear me? We are going to take back the city!”
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And without thinking about it further, without stopping to consider the amazing and preposterous dimensions of what he had somehow suggested, Huey Long pushed his way through them and began to advance upon the city.
Suddenly a voice rang out:
“It’s a very big city, and you’re a very small army. If you’re going to take it, then you’re going to need an advantage, something to even the odds.”
“Yeah?” said Huey, turning to face the lean, bearded newcomer. “What have you got in mind?”
Selous smiled and displayed a youthful blond man who struggled against the rope that bound him. “A god,” he said. “A genuine gold-plated god.”
Caligula looked up at the man and said, “He’s right. That’s exactly what I am. You will unbind me immediately. You will release me from these ropes or I will strike a curse—”
“He talks like that,” interjected Selous. “Up and down, like nothing you have ever heard. You might as well give him a try. After all, not only does he have plans, big plans for reckoning, but how can you be defeated with a god at your fore? In any event,” Selous concluded with a sweeping gesture, “I turn the situation over to you. Deal with him as you will.”
Caligula examined the others carefully: the wild-haired man with the poisoned features of a Claudius, the somewhat younger, smooth-faced man with funny hands and strange gestures. They were not the kind of troops he would have envisioned, but on the other hand, you had to use what you had. In court, out of court, in or out of the city, surrounded by fools or madmen, you lived as you
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Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg
must, transcendent, and you brought order from the sinister.
“Well,” said Caligula with a haughty tilt of his head, fixing his attention on the smooth-faced man who seemed the most reasonable, perhaps the most reverent of them all, “are you going to release me? Are you going to serve my powers? Or will you defy me and bring down my terrible curse?”
“He talks that way,” said Selous. “Almost all the time. I can’t do anything with him; maybe you can.”
“Yes,” said the smooth-faced man, his eyes filled with reverence, or at least a decent sense of the occasion. “Yes, I think we can do that.” He reached out, began to tug on the ropes. “Stand clear,” he said, “and let me release this god from his altar.” He smiled at Caligula. “My Latin ain’t all it used to be, and truth to tell, it was never that good. What did you say your name was?”
“Quickly unbind me,” said Caligula, “and you will know my name and my curse, all of my circumstances….”