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The world was cool, a dark shell of rock, a cliff overhead, a shelter from the scalding gravel masquerading as sand. It faded into reality in a billion pieces, one after another, faster than anything, slower than footsteps, which were the first sounds that he heard when he woke up.
He doesn’t have a name. He doesn’t know what a name is, and never will, because his brain is small and blunt and doesn’t need to be particularly powerful to keep him alive. As far as he can comprehend himself, he is big. A unrelated but currently important fact: big is also old, and a heavy sleeper because of it, which is why he just let what smelt like…. four meals walk right by his sleeping nook. Their feet couldn’t have landed more than a whisper from the blackish grey scales of his snout.
This has annoyed big. His personal space has been infringed on and he’s missed an easy (and welcome) meal. Well, he’d better get going. He’s not going to fall back asleep anytime soon, and the food’s walking away down the tunnel. Big doesn’t usually go down there, because it’s so very cold, much more than the calm shade of the nook at its mouth, which is juuust right to keep him from cooking during the height of the day, when the sun’s burning a hole through anything that steps into its sights out there on the black hot rocks.
If big could understand the sounds the food was making farther down the tunnel, he’d know they agreed with him. But he can’t, so all he hears is noise, noise, noise. Worse than monkeys and birds rolled together.
“Shit, I think I’ve burnt me goddamned toes off.” A sound made for wheedling; not high-pitched, but mostly emitted through the nose.
“Shut your griping.” A phlegm-thickened, short-set voice that brings to mind rotten oatmeal, grit-covered clothes, and bloody knuckles.
“Come off it, ye were bitching at the oars so hard I’d thought they’d break off.”
“Jack was rowing.” Soft and deep, with a little edge that suggests it’s almost running through its stock of patience. “Harping about how much you burned your foot is the most work you’ve done since you stepped off the boat. Now which way?”
Fluttering, scraping noises, as of something unfolding.
“Here.”
“Good. Keep it to that volume, eh?”
Big shook himself once – lazily – and set off after the sounds, slow and deliberate, one foot at a time, a back-and-forth bent-kneed swagger that dragged along all of his hundreds of pounds with all the ponderous pomp they deserved. He came to a fork in the tunnel, flicked his tongue, tasting, and set off down the correct route. More noises filtered their way into his head.
“Much further?” said Jack.
“Not much,” said the noise that was Isaac. “Just a wee bit. No more turns from here.”
“Oh, no more turns, is it?” said a peevish, ragged thing that sounded like it was being throttled through a ruptured chimney.
“Good thing we’ve got you along with us to guide us all those treacherous ways. We could’ve got lost on our way to the cave that we could see clear from the boat. Or we could’ve taken the wrong turn out of two paths. Or we-“
“Will ye shut the hell up, Matthew? If it weren’t for me and me map ye’d be sitting in an alley somewhere waiting for a bloke with wallet, whisky, and no brain in his skull to mug himself next to ye. Instead, ye’re less’n a few hundred feet from the biggest pile of gold ye’ve ever dreamed, a pocketful with your name on it? That’s enough to buy a damned pub and drink yerself to death before yer next birthday, and bitching yerself silly about it.”
“And if it weren’t for us,” said Jack, “you’d be still sitting on a pier waiting for passage to this burned rock.”
“Just shut off, will ye – ALL of ye! Look, we can all argue after ye’ve got your fifth-”
The footsteps stopped, as did big’s, in perfect synch, one claw frozen just before hitting the ground.
“Fifth?” said that deep voice. “Now then Isaac, that’s not how I count us. By my eye, I see three men. And yourself.”
“Five pocketfuls, and that’s just the right size. Ye get a fifth, Jack gets a fifth, Matthew gets a fifth, I get a fifth, me map gets a fifth. Without it, there’s no money at all. And I’ll be having to carry it, on account of me having two pockets.”
“Really? With it ‘a few hundred feet’ away?”
“Look, if ye-“
“Quit baiting the little bastard, Benson. Open ‘im up.”
“Quiet.”
There was a gasp, a shuffle, and a shriek that ended in a few sharp sounds. Big’s tongue flicked, and came back with the smell of blood.
“Four ways, then. Come on.”
“Right.”
“Took your time, didn’t you? Should’ve slit him a new throat last week after he wouldn’t shut up about the storm.”
“The rest of the crew wouldn’t be as understanding as you two. Now quiet.”
The muttering trailed off and the footsteps started again. Big’s long-suffering claw touched ground, and his pace quickened towards the blood. Maybe the food would come easy this time.
“Understanding of what, exactly? A bit of murder? Because if they were going to look funny at the story of ‘oh gosh he fell overboard in the storm, you saw how he was staggering about’ I don’t think they’re going to be fond of ‘there was a cave-in that killed exactly one person.’”
“We’ll blame it on the lizards. You saw them. He tripped on one.”
Big nearly tripped on the corpse. It was scrawny and insubstantial, more bone than body, and altogether puny, not nearly the right size. He’d have been more pleased to eat a seagull. A small hiss escaped him, and his steps quickened, the faint whisper of his tail on the stones growing to a murmur.
“Oh yes. The lizards. Of course. How big were they again, five foot?”
“Quiet.”
“You keep saying that-”
“And I mean it.”
“Yeah.”
Nothing much then. Running water flickered across big’s ears, glided on his tongue.
“Oh bloody wonderful. An underground stream? Really?”
“Crossable.” A large splash followed the proclamation.
“Doesn’t mean we have to enjoy it.”
Splash. Splash.
“Freezing!”
“You’ll feel warmer with gold in your pockets.” Footsteps sounded on stone again.
“Not warm enough.”
“You are determined to make a nuisance of yourself, Matthew.”
“Well aren’t we feeling menacing today, Benson.”
“It is a statement of fact. Here is another: there is a great deal of gold just past us, and if you persist in your petty complaints, myself and Jack will be splitting it into two pockets instead of three.”
“Facts, facts, facts. Jack, give Benson his facts.”
Benson froze again for an instant as the footsteps ceased, then resumed under the cover of the quick scuffle that emerged, punctuated by two hoarse shouts and a wheezing screaming that turned liquid, ending in a much, much larger splash than heard previously.
“Shit.”
“Good job. He was right about two pocketfuls being better than three, just came to the idea later than we did.”
“Shit. Shit.”
“Oh, he didn’t get you that badly.”
“Got my leg. My good leg.”
“Right, right. Look, just tie it off and we can fix it back on the boat. I bet that cave-in line would work now, you know. Two casualties work better than just one.”
“Hurts. Give me a hand…”
“Later, first-“
“NOW, bastard!” A sigh. “Fine, fine. Hold still.” Scruffle. Bang. Bang. SPLASH.
And then quiet, with nothing but a rush of footsteps.
The creek pulled itself within range of big’s shoddy night vision, a creek run lost inside the island’s guts, winding its way down nowhere good. Blood was in the air, on the rocks, and lost to the water – along with both the corpses he could scent, prompting another irritable hiss, larger and louder. He lunged across the fast-flowing current with angry haste, claws touching the far side before the tip of his tail was wetted, and moved down the hall at a fast crawl, the scent of blood and food held firm in his tongue-tip’s grasp.
Light ahead, and a strange gibbering, a laughter, a sound that big didn’t understand and didn’t care about. Big broke into a gallop, all of him dragging behind his legs, a deadweight on a set of furious pistons fronted with serrated teeth.
There was a bright light and a loud noise ahead. There was a chamber, as big entered it. And in its center, a single massive, glittering, golden thing that a species more attracted to bright colours than big’s might have found wonderful. He had no eyes for the statue; his treasure stood before it and was dwarfed against it, meat and flesh, arms outstretched, one hand shining with mechanical sunshine, head tipped back and laughing, laughing, laughing.
“All in one piece and all the wrong size… too big for any one man’s pocket!” said Matthew, as he turned around, face locked into a grin that was all teeth and no mind. “Too big! It’s too big!”
And he was just the right size.