Tad Williams - City of Golden Shadow

It started in mud, asmany things do.

In a normal world, it would havebeen time for breakfast, but apparently breakfast was not served in hell; thebombardment that had begun before dawn showed no signs of letting up. PrivateJonas did not feel much like eating, anyway.

Except for a brief moment ofterrified retreat across a patch of muddy ground cratered and desolate as themoon, Paul Jonas had spent all of this twenty-fourth day of March, 1918, as hehad spent the three days before, and most of the past severalmonthscrouched shivering in cold, stinking slime somewhere between Ypresand St Quentin, deafened by the skull-rattling thunder of the German heavyguns, praying reflexively to Something in which he no longer believed. He hadlost Finch and Mullet and the rest of the platoon somewhere in the chaos ofretreathe hoped theyd made it safely into some other part of thetrenches, but it was hard to think about anything much beyond his own fewcubits of misery. The entire world was wet and sticky. The torn earth, theskeletal trees, and Paul himself had all been abundantly spattered by theslow-falling mist that followed hundreds of pounds of red-hot metal explodingin a crowd of human beings.

Red fog, gray earth, sky the colorof old bones: Paul Jonas was in hellbut it was a very special hell. Noteveryone in it was dead yet.

In fact, Paul noted, one of itsresidents was dying very slowly indeed. By the sound of the mans voice,he could not be more than two dozen yards away, but he might as well have beenin Timbuktu. Paul had no idea what the wounded soldier looked likehecould no more have voluntarily lifted his head above the lip of the trench thanhe could have willed himself to flybut he was all too familiar with themans voice, which had been cursing, sobbing, and squealing in agony fora full hour, filling every lull between the crash of the guns.

All the rest of the men who hadbeen hit during the retreat had shown the good manners to die quickly, or atleast to suffer quietly. Pauls invisible companion had screamed for hissergeant, his mother, and God, and when none of them had come for him, had kepton screaming anyway. He was screaming still, a sobbing, wordless wail. Once afaceless doughboy like thousands of others, the wounded man now seemeddetermined to make everyone on the Western Front bear witness to his dyingmoments.

Paul hated him.

The terrible thumping roarsubsided; there was a glorious moment of silence before the wounded man beganto shriek again, piping like a boiling lobster.

Got a light?

Paul turned. Pale beer-yellow eyespeered from a mask of mud beside him. The apparition, crouched on hands andknees, wore a greatcoat so tattered it seemed made from cobwebs.

What?

Got a light? A match?

The normality of the question, inthe midst of so much that was unreal, left Paul wondering if he had heardcorrectly. The figure lifted a hand as muddy as the face, displaying a thinwhite cylinder so luminously clean that it might have dropped from the moon.

Can you hear, fellow? Alight?

Paul reached into his pocket andfumbled with numbed fingers until he found a box of matches, miraculously dry.The wounded soldier began howling even louder, lost in the wilderness a stonesthrow away.

The man in the ragged greatcoattipped himself against the side of the trench, fitting the curve of his backinto the sheltering mud, then delicately pulled the cigarette into two piecesand handed one to Paul. As he lit the match, he tilted his head to listen.

God help me, hesstill going on up there. He passed the matches back and held the flamesteady so Paul could light his own cigarette. Why couldnt Fritzdrop one on him and give us all a little peace?

Paul nodded his head. Even that wasan effort.

His companion lifted his chin andlet out a dribble of smoke which curled up past the rim of his helmet andvanished against the flat morning sky. Do you ever get the feeling...?

Feeling?

That its a mistake.The stranger wagged his head to indicate the trenches, the German guns, all ofthe Western Front. That Gods away, or having a bit of a sleep orsomething. Dont you find yourself hoping that one day Hell lookdown and see whats happening and... and do something about it?

Paul nodded, although he had neverthought the matter through in such detail. But he had felt the emptiness of thegray skies, and had occasionally had a curious sensation of looking down on theblood and mud from a great distance, observing the murderous deeds of war withthe detachment of a man standing over an anthill. God could not be watching,that was certain; if He was, and if He had seen the things Paul Jonas hadseenmen who were dead but didnt know it, frantically trying topush their spilled guts back into their blouses; bodies swollen and flyblown,lying unretrieved for days within yards of friends with whom they had sung andlaughedif He had seen all that but not interfered, then He must beinsane.

But Paul had never for a momentbelieved that God would save the tiny creatures slaughtering each other by thethousands over an acre of shell-pocked mud. That was too much like a fairytale. Beggar boys did not marry princesses; they died in snowy streets or darkalleys... or in muddy trenches in France, while old Papa God took a longrest.

He summoned up his strength. Heardanything?

The stranger drew deeply on hiscigarette, unconcerned that the ember was burning against his muddy fingers,and sighed. Everything. Nothing. You know. Fritz is breaking through inthe south and hell go right on to Paris. Or now the Yanks are in it, weregoing to roll them right up and march to Berlin by June. The Winged Victory ofSamo-whatsit appeared in the skies over Flanders, waving a flaming sword anddancing the hootchy-coo. Its all shit.