“Where’s Czernobog?”
“He says the spring cleaning makes him uncomfortable. He goes out to buy newspaper, sit in the park. Buy cigarettes. Perhaps he will not come back today. You do not have to wait. Why don’t you go? Come back tomorrow.”
“I’ll wait,” said Shadow. There was no magic forcing him to wait, he knew that. This was him. It was one last thing that needed to happen, and if it was the last thing that happened, well, he was going there of his own volition. After this there would be no more obligations, no more mysteries, no more ghosts.
He sipped the hot coffee, as black and as sweet as he remembered.
He heard a deep male voice in the corridor, and he sat up straighten He was pleased to see that his hand was not trembling. The door opened.
“Shadow?”
“Hi,” said Shadow. He stayed sitting down.
Czernobog walked into the room. He was carrying a folded copy of the Chicago Sun-Times, which he put down on the coffee table. He stared at Shadow, then he put his hand out, tentatively. The two men shook hands.
“I came,” said Shadow. “Our deal. You came through with your part of it. This is my part.”
Czernobog nodded. His brow creased. The sunlight glinted on his gray hair and mustache, making them appear almost golden. “Is ...” he frowned. “Is not ...” He broke off. “Maybe you should go. Is not a good time.” .
“Take as long as you heed,” said Shadow. “I’m ready.”
Czernobog sighed. “You are a very stupid boy. You know that?”
“I guess.”
“You are a stupid boy. And on the mountaintop, you did a very good thing.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“Perhaps.”
Czernobog walked to the old wooden sideboard and, bending down, pulled an attaché case from underneath it. He flipped the catches on the case. Each one sprang back with a satisfying thump. He opened the case. He took a hammer out and hefted it experimentally. The hammer looked like a scaled-down sledgehammer; its wooden haft was stained.
Then he stood up. He said, “I owe you much. More than you know. Because of you, things are changing. This is springtime. The true spring.”
“I know what I did,” said Shadow. “I didn’t have a lot of choice.”
Czernobog nodded. There was a look in his eyes that Shadow did not remember seeing before. “Did I ever tell you about my brother?”
“Bielebog?” Shadow walked to the center of the ash-stained carpet. He went down on his knees. “You said you hadn’t seen him in a long time.”
“Yes,” said the old man, raising the hammer. “It has been a long winter, boy. A very long winter. But the winter is ending, now.” And. he shook his head, slowly, as if he were remembering something. And he said, “Close your eyes.”
Shadow closed his eyes and raised his head, and he waited.
The head of the sledgehammer was cold, icy cold, and it touched his forehead as gently as a kiss.
“Pock! There,” said Czernobog. “Is done.” There was a smile on his face that Shadow had never seen before, an easy, comfortable smile, like sunshine on a summer’s day. The old man walked over to the case, and he put the hammer away, and closed the bag, and pushed it back under the sideboard.
“Czernobog?’ asked Shadow. Then, “Are you Czernobog?”
“Yes. For today,” said the old man. “By tomorrow, it will all be Bielebog. But today, is still Czernobog.”
“Then why? Why didn’t you kill me when you could?”
The old man took out an unfiltered cigarette from a packet in his pocket. He took a large box of matches from the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette with a match. He seemed deep in thought. “Because,” said the old man, after some time, “there is blood. But there is also gratitude. And it has been a long, long winter.”
Shadow got to his feet. There were dusty patches on the knees of his jeans, where he had knelt, and he brushed the dust away.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” said the old man. “Next time you want to play checkers, you know where to find me. This time, I play white.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will,” said Shadow. “But not for a while.” He looked into the old man’s twinkling eyes, and he wondered if they had always been that cornflower shade of blue. They shook hands, and neither of them said goodbye.
Shadow kissed Zorya Utrennyaya on the cheek on his way out, and he kissed Zorya Vechernyaya on the back of her hand, and he took the stairs out of that place two at a time.
POSTSCRIPT
Reykjavik, in Iceland, is a strange city, even for those who have seen many strange cities. It is a volcanic city—the heat for the city comes from deep underground.