BY JOEL TAGERT Being consumed by a dark god was just the beginning. When Th’yaleh’s great tentacles rose around my little dinghy, I looked frantically for escape, but of course there was none. Perhaps there had never been any escape possible, from the fi rst; perhaps all my travails at the oars of the lifeboat, and the ill-fated voyage of the Robin before that, and the war, and even my love for Eleanor, every breath, every word, every gesture, had all been to lead me here, to the dripping ascent of those serpentine mouth-parts. In unexpected surety, like Socrates presented with his hemlock, I looked then not to those glossy coils, but to the late afternoon sun, another sort of god, who shone down cold and regretful. Good-bye, old friend. The dripping rose to a roar. The waves turned to a whirlpool, then an abyss. I fell. Then, the most astonishing moment of my life – yes, more astonishing than that maritime consumption: I lived! I awoke violently, coughing and retching sea-water and bile. Even as I did, something snatched at my leg – snatched, then bit! I screamed, in pain and confusion, kicking and scrabbling. Understand that all was in darkness, a darkness beyond any you can imagine. It was the kind of darkness that required ancient words to evoke, words that themselves whispered of long-forgotten deities and the hidden crevasses of the psyche: cthonic, stygian, cimmerian. To fall into Th’yaleh was to fall into blindness. Thus, seeing nothing, my leg being thrashed to pieces, I reached in my pockets for any weapon. Immediately my hand gripped a steel cylinder, its weight solid in my palm. Screaming, I swung it, struck a hard carapace, swung again and again, each blow connecting with a nasty crunch, until my unseen assailant twitched and fell still. I fell back, crying out and clutching at the wound. The fl esh all around the ankle was torn, the skin laying in fl aps. I contemplated letting myself bleed to death. No matter where I was or how I had gotten there, escape seemed as distant a prospect as cocktails at Delmonico’s. Perhaps it would be best to lie back and let my heart throb lower and lower before fi nally falling still. But it occurred to me that the blood might draw more predators, and this put an end to any self-pitying morbid fantasies. However I was to die, I did not want to be torn to pieces. Grimacing, I tore off my coat and shirt (leaving me in my undershirt), and tied the latter as tightly as possible around the leg. I heard a noise then, a repeated clicking, and scrabbled for my weapon where I had dropped it. Finding it, I spent long minutes with it held before me, swaying this way and that at the faintest movement of the fetid air, before I suddenly realized what I was holding. It was an electric torch, of course: I had had it in my pocket from the night before, taking it from my cabin as the Robin foundered. I almost laughed as I pressed the switch. Nothing. The bulb was broken, the glass tinkling inside when I shook it, most likely ruined when I had beaten my attacker to death. Now I did laugh, a mad bark that ended in piteous sobs. I curled up on the ground. I have no idea how long I lay like that; I think I slept, for my head was throbbing terribly. I woke with the headache (probably a concussion) somewhat abated, my head clearer, and took stock of my situation. I could still see nothing, but even in my sleep I had gained some sense of the space. The ground was wet, the liquid possessing a distressing viscosity, like saliva. The surface was irregular, with repeated grooves deep enough to lie in. It was cold, but not truly freezing, else I might have succumbed to hypothermia already. There were no walls immediately in reach. There were sounds in the darkness, a visceral symphony: rumbles and burbles, hisses and creaks. Sitting here would do no good. I tried to stand. With much wincing and cursing, I determined that I could at least put weight on the leg. The bone did not seem to be broken, nor the Achilles severed. No doubt a doctor would have had a more precise diagnosis, but I was something nearly useless in the wild: an accountant. Even my time in the Army had been spent primarily looking at rows of numbers. Well, accountant, account for thyself.
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