This Immortal

"I want a picture of that too. Olive tree, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Good. I wanted to know what to call the picture. 'Goat eating green shoots in olive tree,'" he dictated; "that will be the caption."

"Great. Shoot while you have the chance."

If only he weren't so uncommunicative, so alien, so unconcerned about his welfare! I hated him. I couldn't understand him. He wouldn't speak, unless it was to request information or to answer a question. Whenever he did answer questions, he was terse, elusive, insulting, or all three at once. He was smug, conceited, blue, and overbearing. It really made me wonder about the Shtigo-gens' tradition of philosophy, philanthropy and enlightened journalism. I just didn't like him.

But I spoke to Hasan that evening, after having kept an eye (the blue one) on him all day.

He was sitting beside the fire, looking like a sketch by Delacroix. Ellen and Dos Santos sat nearby, drinking coffee, so I dusted off my Arabic and approached.

"Greetings."

"Greetings."

"You did not try to kill him today."

"No."

"Tomorrow, perhaps?"

He shrugged.

"Hasan-look at me."

He did.

"You were hired to kill the blue one."

He shrugged again.

"You needn't deny it, or admit it. I already know. I ca

"But I am happy here, Karagee."

"You will quickly cease being happy if any harm comes to the blue one."

"I am a bodyguard, Karagee."

"No, Hasan. You are the son of a dyspeptic camel."

"What is 'dyspeptic,' Karagee?"

"I do not know the Arabic word, and you would not know the Greek one. Wait, I'll find another insult.-You are a coward and a carrion-eater and a skulker up alleyways, because you are half jackal and half ape."

"This may be true, Karagee, because my father told me that I was born to be flayed alive and torn into quarters."

"Why was that?"

"I was disrespectful to the Devil."

"Oh?"

"Yes.-Were those devils that you played music for yesterday? They had the horns, the hooves…"

"No, they were not devils. They were the Hot-born children of unfortunate parents who left them to die in the wilderness. They lived, though, because the wilderness is their real home."

"Ah! And I had hoped that they were devils. I still think they were, because one smiled at me as I prayed to them for forgiveness."

"Forgiveness? For what?"

A faraway look came into his eyes.

"My father was a very good and kind and religious man," he said. "He worshipped Malak Tawus, whom the benighted Shi'ites" (he spat here) "call Iblis-or Shaitan, or Satan-and he always paid his respects to Hallaj and the others of the Sandjaq. He was well-known for his piety, his many kindnesses.

"I loved him, but as a boy I had an imp within me. I was an atheist. I did not believe in the Devil. And I was an evil child, for I took me a dead chicken and mounted it on a stick and called it the Peacock Angel, and I mocked it with stones and pulled its feathers. One of the other boys grew frightened and told my father of this. My father flogged me then, in the streets, and he told me I was born to be flayed alive and torn into quarters for my blasphemies. He made me go to Mount Sindjar and pray for forgiveness, and I went there-but the imp was still within me, despite the flogging, and I did not really believe as I prayed.

"Now that I am older the imp has fled, but my father too, is gone-these many years-and I ca

"Hasan, it is difficult to insult you properly," I said. "But I warn you-the blue one must not be harmed."

"I am but a humble bodyguard."

"Ha! Yours is the cu

"No, Karagee. Thank you, but it is not true. I take pride in always meeting my commitments. That is all. This is the law I live by. Also, you ca

"Then beware," I told him. "Your first move toward the Vegan will be your last."

"If it is so written, Karagee…"

"And call me Conrad!"

I stalked away, thinking bad thoughts.

The following day, all of us still being alive, we broke camp and pushed on, making about eight kilometers before the next interruption occurred.

"That sounded like a child crying," said Phil.

"You're right."

"Where is it coming from?"

"Off to the left, down there."

We moved through some shrubbery, came upon a dry stream bed, and followed it around a bend.

The baby lay among the rocks, partly wrapped in a dirty blanket. Its face and hands were already burnt red from the sun, so it must have been there much of the day before, also. The bite-marks of many insects were upon its tiny, wet face.

I knelt, adjusting the blanket to cover it better.

Ellen cried a little cry as the blanket fell open in front and she saw the baby.

There was a natural fistula in the child's chest, and something was moving inside.

Red Wig screamed, turned away, began to weep.

"What is it?" asked Myshtigo.

"One of the abandoned," I said. "One of the marked ones."

"How awful!" said Red Wig.

"Its appearance? Or the fact that it was abandoned?" I asked.

"'Both!"

"Give it to me," said Ellen.

"Don't touch it," said George, stooping. "Call for a Skimmer," he ordered. "We have to get it to a hospital right away. I don't have the equipment to operate on it here.-Ellen, help me."

She was at his side then, and they went through his med-kit together.

"You write what I do and pin the note onto a clean blanket-so the doctors in Athens will know."

Dos Santos was phoning Lamia by then, to pick up on one of our Skimmers.

And then Ellen was filling hypos for George and swabbing the cuts and painting the burns with unguents and writing it all down. They shot the baby full of vitamins, antibiotics, general adaptives, and half a dozen other things. I lost count after awhile. They covered its chest with gauze, sprayed it with something, wrapped it in a clean blanket, and pi

"What a dreadful thing!" said Dos Santos. "Abandoning a deformed child, leaving it to die in such a ma

"It's done here all the time," I told him, "especially about the Hot Places. In Greece there has always been a tradition of infanticide. I myself was exposed on a hilltop on the day I was born. Spent the night there, too."

He was lighting a cigarette, but he stopped and stared at me.

"You? Why?"

I laughed, glanced down at my foot.

"Complicated story. I wear a special shoe because this leg is shorter than the other. Also, I understand I was a very hairy baby-and then, my eyes don't match. I suppose I might have gotten by if that had been all, but then I went and got born on Christmas and that sort of clinched things."

"What is wrong with being born on Christmas?"

"The gods, according to local beliefs, deem it a bit presumptuous. For this reason, children born at that time are not of human blood. They are of the brood of destroyers, the creators of havoc, the panickers of man. They are called the kallikanzaroi. Ideally, they look something like those guys with horns and hooves and all, but they don't have to. They could look like me, my parents decided-if they were my parents. So they left me on a hilltop, to be returned."

"What happened then?"

"There was an old Orthodox priest in the village. He heard of it and went to them. He told them that it was a mortal sin to do such a thing, and they had better get the baby back, quick, and have it ready for baptism the following day."