Caleum heard the noise from a distance and it did not frighten him, as he had heard sorrow songs before, belonging half to this world and half to other realms. Nor did he know where it was coming from, but only that something was different in the land he was traveling toward. That had been his lot for many years, however, as he rode toward the sundering of one thing from another, until he held very few illusions about anything anymore.

He reached instinctually for his sword, but it was not there, and he tried to remember where he last held it, but could not recall having it since his injury, though his hands themselves remembered wielding it. He felt a surge in his blood’s pulse and asked the colt for more speed to return him home to Stonehouses. He did not fear the thing, whatever it was. On the contrary he felt pulled toward it. If it was his last labor before walking his own land and seeing his family again, he wanted it to arrive as soon as possible, so he might vanquish it and rest awhile. Nay, he did not know what it was.

The beast felt the man’s progress and was placid. He was prepared for him long ago and would no more fall for his tricks and deception but rout him, as he should have before. He would have satisfaction and rest again in his rightful home.

When Caleum turned onto the road leading to Stonehouses his heart was buoyant and radiant, but he felt the cut of sadness as he approached the main house and saw it reduced by fire. He walked around and looked in the cold ashes, wondering what had happened there, before getting back on his mount and heading to his and Libbie’s place.

On the path on the shore of the lake his blood came to a dead stop as he saw the most fearsome and cruel giant he ever beheld in all his journeys and all his days. He remembered when he was younger and had been told the legend of the monster buried in the lake. Whether it was called Ould Lowe or else Old Love he could not properly remember, but it was only legend, and this thing before him was howling real and intent solely on his destruction. He stopped his horse and tried to think of how he would battle it, when the beast saw him and called.

ten

A blanket of densest snow covered the hills, and fog filled the valley that morning like smoke blown into a goblet of water. Miniature islands of ice floated out in the center of the springtime lake, cresting and ebbing with whatever wind was passing, like a ragtag army on the march to a new battle. All below him the people were still in their houses sleeping, without knowledge of the disturbance beyond their doors, so there was no witness to what passed that morning — and nothing but lore as it has come down, to tell of that struggle.

The man was still weary from his journey, and as the beast stood before him he looked out over his lands, down into the valley, and back at the path he had taken and thought how there was no road and no nation there at all when his ancestor first arrived, but a confederacy of valley and hills, and permanence in that place was only a freelance idea. Nor was there law or commerce, but an untouched and perfect peace such as would never exist again. There was little in the country that had not changed since the Titans’ age, but what he wanted was much the same, and he would fight again to have it.

Ould Lowe stood balanced on his one leg and stared down at the man with godlike scorn. He did not need legs or arms or even fists to do his work in the world. He possessed the instrument of unyielding will, which made him permanent there.

“What is your business with me?” the man asked, looking back at him with much the same gaze.

The monster laughed and drew nearer, until he had taken hold of the horse’s bridle. “It is for you to get down from your mount and square things.”

Caleum nodded and stepped out of the stirrups, slowly leading the beast away from the horse, as he tried to remember all he had ever heard or read about the fiend.

“He was bigger, the first one,” pronounced Lowe, who loomed two full heads above the man, after measuring him. “This will be easy work.”

“Let us have at it,” Caleum answered.

“You cannot overcome me,” Lowe declared. “I am your history and religion.”

“There are two views of the thing,” the man answered him.

“Nay. There is a third.”

“It is false.”

“Who is to say but me?”

“There is much falseness that is believed.”

“I am your master.”

“Aye? Then there is much we must debate.”

They fell upon each other then like two great khans, only one of whom could have ascendency there and no other arrangement possible.

The man did not know how strong the fiend truly was until it was upon him, and when the monster’s hands reached him he knew at once it was stronger than anything he had known before.

The beast arched and circled like a snake, and began squeezing life from him with all the slowness of a game he was destined to win. He would let him breathe, then tighten his grip and begin withdrawing his breath again, wanting to relish his victory, wanting to feel all the man’s strength leave him, until he cursed his days and that he ever walked the earth. He was like some primordial antecedent, demanding tribute that day, or else some taunting sphinx showing himself, then falling away, as the man struggled to understand what had been.

When Lowe let him draw breath again, he felt a surge of strength and was able finally to grasp hold of the beast and wrestle him to the ground in a great tangle of violence as they battled on in the snow.

The monster learned from that moment Caleum was no plaything but game for a contest, and each then directed his blows with all the more force, knowing he had no more room for error.

When the creature’s anger fell on him again, the man felt each hard punch with a great clarity of pain that made him wince and nearly cry out. When he was able at last to retaliate he put an equal energy into the blows he delivered, which made the ogre grimace and recoil, but it would not release him.

Thus did they keep up their brawl through all the morning hours, before full light had come to fall on and wake the world. They were forming or else untying something there that could only be made in blood and darkness, and they were engaged in their terrible, boundless brawl through all those still early hours.

The man fought to keep what was his and already won and leave what was behind in the past. The beast fought for what was once its own, like an illimitable ancient passion.

He, the man, was not learned in magic, nor was he a giant, but he fought as he had to for his home, which was burned down, and the dwelling place of many accumulated sorrows now — but no less loved because of that — for it was not destructible. Neither by fire nor flood, or fissure in the earth, but existed in the spirit, and only the death of that could make him fall to the beast. As they clasped there, though, there came a time when all his strength did leave him. Sensing the nearness of his victory at last, Lowe picked him up, and threw him five full feet, so that Caleum was left flat on his back, unable to move.

Lowe was triumphant and came to finish him. However, as he knelt down to the man a strange gleam on the snow caught his attention, and he could not resist lifting it from the white field where it shone dazzling in the sun. He turned it over endlessly in his hand, mesmerized, wondering what sort of strange new food it was.

It was only when he was caught in this state that the man was able to recover and encircle the monster with a length of chain he took from his traveling trunk.

Lowe, when he felt himself bound again, let out a long morbid call that distressed all who were still sleeping, as they felt a mute unutterable sadness in their dreams.