Strontium-90 (10 page)

War’s End

Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth, and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.

-- Revelation 6:4

Two Siberian shamans and a tall, earth witch from Florida sat with me around a midnight fire atop Mount Shasta. We debated how to find world peace. The lamas in their Tibetan Monasteries had no idea. Neither did the Jesuits in Italy. They thought in the old ways, were stuck in the ancient paths. Then a phrase from the earth witch gave me the idea how to eliminate war.

“We need to strike at the root of the problem,” she said.

The shamans crooned agreement.

I grunted, only half listening. I concentrated on a small piece of trickery. Lately, I’d taken to secretly draining bits of soul-energy from those I met and storing the energy in a crystal around my neck.

“Did you hear me?” the earth witch asked, touching my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I said.

She frowned. “You probably don’t agree. You’re probably glad for war, glad for fighting. It must be a matter of your build.”

She had a point. I was born with a robust body, Viking-like, people said. My red hair added to the image.

“Just think about the prestige,” she said.

I did, and I grinned. “You know what motivates,” I said.

“You’re a male,” she said, as if that explained everything.

I left Mount Shasta deep in thought, the earth-witch’s words riding my shoulders like an Aztec death vulture. A Nordstrom by birth, I was descended from a family of rune priests who had practiced the bloody art of Odin worship for generations. When I returned home to Modesto, California, I put on work gloves, snipped rosebushes and pruned my plum tree.

During the mid-morning of the third day, I dug a hole for a new pomegranate tree. A caw interrupted me. I laid aside the shovel, wiped my brow with a sweaty forearm and shucked off my gloves. An eagle-sized raven watched me from atop the nearest telephone pole. It spread its huge wings, dove and landed on my shoulder with a jar. With its thick black beak—there was a nick near the upper tip—it stroked my nose.

“Muninn?” I asked.

The raven squeezed my shoulder like an old friend. Then the raven flapped away, brushing my sunburned cheek with its wing. I’m not sure why, but that convinced me.

So I put away my gardening tools, phoned the land office and told them I’d be gone two weeks, maybe three. I purified myself afterward. Five hours later, I went to the backyard and ducked my head, crawling into a pyramid house. I locked it and spread out several long out-of-print books. Hours went by in intense study. Finally, I went into a trance and fasted for three days. At the end, I opened my eyes, knowing what I had to do. I crawled out and staggered to my bomb-shelter under the house. The man I bought the property from had been a survivalist. The thing that convinced me to destroy War was the challenge. Cursed with a massive ego, I considered myself the most powerful magician since Merlin. This was practically my duty.

The trapdoor creaked as I closed and locked it. I liked the idea of working for world peace from a bomb-shelter. It seemed fitting. I lit a hundred candles and scattered various arcane articles on the floor: Inca masks, an African spear, voodoo dolls, crystals, flasks of cauldron brews, you name it. I had conversations with several spirit-beings, a few diametrically opposed in metaphysical outlook to each other. You could say I was a mixer of crafts. I took what worked to create a mystic smorgasbord.

The next-to-last-step was the hardest—summoning the
Book of Veils
. Only four people these days could. Of those four, only two could open it. I’m one of them. The other lies slumbering in a Transylvanian crypt. As I mouthed the last syllable, a big, black leathery thing with red splotches on the cover appeared. Some said Solomon had used the book. Others in the know claimed Nostradamus had read it. Frankly, I had my doubts about Nostradamus. Nobody who’d read the book was ever that flashy. Anyway, I knew that where I’d be going I would not be able to carry it. So I memorized several key passages. Page by page I uttered the opening phrase and worked my way to the back. I had to pry apart page 332 like a new encyclopedia. I think no human had ever looked at page 333 before.

As I finished uttering the last word, something nearby popped like a firecracker. Sulfurous-smelling smoke billowed. An icy howl blew out all but one candle. I stepped back and watched the final candle. A drop of wax rolled down its stem. The smoke rolled away, and there on page 333 stood a five-inch imp. He had a narrow head, vampire teeth over thin green lips, warty skin and fiery yellow eyes. I didn’t like him. He garbled harsh words in an alien tongue.

“Say again,” I said.

He cocked his head, regarding me. Then he cleared his throat and growled in devilishly accented English, “You want to travel the Corridor?”

“That’s right.”

“And you know your destination?” he asked, arching forward on his clawed toes.

“You’re a clever little fellow,” I said.

He narrowed his evil gaze, and after a half-second’s hesitation, he snapped his fingers. A blood-red skeleton key appeared in his tiny hand.

“Any time you’re ready,” he said.

Ah, the cunning imp tried to trap me.

“First, let’s add a little injunction.” I sing-songed one of the passages I’d memorized. He growled uncomfortably, blinking harshly at each note. When I’d finished, I said, “Now I’m ready.”

He scowled before he shrugged and pasted on a used car salesman’s grin. He inserted the key into a slot that had appeared in midair. He twisted the key and my bomb-shelter vanished. Red smoke billowed in its place. The imp took a gigantic leap and landed on my shoulder, the same one Muninn had used. The imp grabbed a tiny fistful of hair for support.

“Is this the Corridor?” I asked.

“First question,” he said, holding up a tiny green finger.

My gut knotted. I only had one free question. The rest I’d have to pay for later, much later. “We can both count,” I said. “Now answer the question.”

He grinned viciously and spewed reptilian breath as he said, “Your instincts are marvelously spot on. We’ve arrived in the Corridor.”

The smoke took on shape to resemble an underground cellar. It had a moldy-old-feel of something seldom used. The walls and ceiling constantly shifted as if the smoke struggled to hold its form. Limbo came to my mind, because when I looked at my cowboy boots, I saw that they’d sunk into the smoke up to my ankles. So this was the famed and anciently arcane Corridor of Time. I’d read hints about it in a brittle Chinese scroll from the Ming Dynasty. The tunnel snaked away into the distance much farther than I could see. I didn’t know where the muted light came from, but I was thankful for it.

“What’s first?” the imp asked.

“I want Lieutenant Kantaro Murakawa,” I said.

“Alive?”

“I want him on 21 February 1945,” I said.

The imp sneered. “Do you happen to know where he can be found?”

“The spirit of Bushido told me,” I said. “He’s in
Mitate
number 2, which in his time consisted of thirty-two kamikaze planes at their base in Katori. You’ll find the lieutenant leading the bombers in an early morning attack off the island of Iwo Jima.”

“You’ve done your research,” the imp said, sounding impressed.

I shrugged, and he had to clutch my hair to keep from pitching off.

He gave me a level stare before he said, “Better start walking.”

I did. As the imp had implied, it was a long walk. Striding through the swirling, muggy and seemingly endless Corridor gave me claustrophobia, and a hard sense of doom, my own. Ghost images appeared. I think they were of my past lives or maybe lost relatives. One ghost lifted a hand minus three fingers. That chilled me, especially because the imp laughed. Like the others, however, this ghost disappeared as I neared.

After a vast stretch of loneliness, the imp said, “Slow down. We’re nearing your kamikaze.”

I grunted and slowed.

The imp cracked his knuckles, and he graced me with his wit. “Maybe the lieutenant won’t want to come along.”

“Don’t worry. I’m ready for that.”

“You’ve got me interested now,” the imp said.

“That surprises me,” I said.

He chuckled nastily. “This is getting better and better.”

“Meaning?”

“That you’ve woefully misjudged my original concern. I’m not worried. It’s the opposite. I’m anxious to watch the kamikaze carve out your heart. That you so badly misjudged my concern makes me even more certain that you have no idea what you’re doing—and that always makes things interesting.”

More limbo-like cloud flooring passed beneath my boots as I strode back in Time. The imp was a wit, the worst type of guide in these situations.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

I glanced at him sidelong, noticed the huge grin.

“Say…” he ticked off his little fingers. “Three more steps.” Three more it was. “Stop,” he said. “Now lean toward the left-hand wall. Far enough,” he shouted in my ear.”

He leaned out, his horny heels pressed against my chest and his arm outstretched. He inserted the key into the cloud-wall and twisted. The lock groaned. Then a window-sized section of cloud cleared away.

I looked out. Far below, I saw a World War II American Fleet. Tiny white wakes trailed toy-sized ships.

“Lieutenant Murakawa is eye-level,” the imp growled.

I heard the drone of Japanese bombers before I spotted them. They began to pass my ghostly window. The lead planes slowly dove down toward the American ships. They flew so near I could have reached out and touched their wingtips. Then Murakawa’s bomber flew past. I recognized him. His nearest wing-flap jerked upward as the engine loudly whined. The Rising Sun red circle painted on the peeling side brightly reflected the morning sunlight. I chanted a spell. In an eye-blink, the pilot no longer sat in his cockpit, but stood staring at me. He was a stocky, brown-clad youth with a red-dotted handkerchief tightly tied over his sweating forehead. He wore a samurai sword at his side.

“Lieutenant Murakawa!” I barked harshly in his tongue, with an illusion over me so I looked like a senior Japanese officer. “Do you willing serve the Emperor?”

He stood straighter and snapped his open mouth shut.

“Good!” I shouted. “You will march with me and ask no questions. We go to fight for the victory of Japan! Agree or disagree now.” If he said yes, I’d have him, even if I’d bent the truth.

“Yes, sir,” he barked.

I grinned. “Let’s go then.”

Murakawa marched in step behind me. I cast another spell, this one directly on him. It was only possible because of his ‘yes’ answer. I hadn’t expected any problems with Murakawa. I’d picked him because he was the most fanatical soldier in history.

“Quite a speech,” the imp said.

The less I told him the better.

“What’s next?” the imp finally asked.

“I want Daniel Boone of Kentucky fame. You’ll find him in Chief Blackfish’s camp just north of the Ohio River in 1778.”

“It will take longer getting there than it did here,” the imp said.

I walked a long time, in places staggering in a stupor. The imp
finally alerted me and inserted his key, and the lock creaked as if rusted.

Tall Daniel Boone sighted down his famed Kentucky rifle Tick-Licker. Around him stood or crouched various Shawnee braves of Chief Blackfish’s village. It was a shooting contest and Boone, naturally, was winning.

I chanted my spell just as Boone shot the bulls-eye. When he stood before me, he glanced around in astonishment.

Through the ghostly window, I pointed out the just as astonished Shawnee braves.

“You’ve been trying to escape their village for some time,” I said.

Boone gave me a level gaze.

“You’ve heard of Kokumthena?” I asked.

“Are you calling me a pagan?” Boone asked.

Kokumthena was the Shawnee creator god, a woman. She was a gray-haired old lady who ended the world when it was time.

“By fighting at my side,” I said, “you’ll help Chief Blackfish. He’ll be told that you’re helping Kokumthena.”

Boone shrugged, although through the window he carefully studied the braves shouting and arm waving at each other.

“I can send you back,” I said.

He rubbed his jaw as he glanced at me sidelong.

“Or you can agree to help me,” I said.

“I’ll help,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then follow behind the Japanese,” I said. As Boone turned, I cast the second spell. He’d said yes, so he was mine now for the duration.

As we began marching, the imp said, “Fight at your side. Was that another lie?”

“You know the rules,” I said.

The imp’s slanted eyes narrowed. He stroked his tiny chin and finally shrugged. “What’s next?”

“I want Genghis Khan, birth name: Temujin, born to the Yakka Mongols. I want him the year of the Mouse in the cycle of the Twelve Beasts, Christian Reckoning 1227 A.D. The day he lies dying.”