“So Peericks knows where you are?” I said
“No,” said Oan. “Not exactly. It was agreed that I’d be released for care at a private facility in an undisclosed location. It’s all in order, I’m sure. But the regent doesn’t wish for anyone to be able to find us here.”
“And what do you know of this regent? I take it she’s an ancient of some authority. Secretive bird with heaps of cash. But apart from that—”
Oan didn’t seem interested in chatting about regents. She interrupted my peroration, telegraphing the fact that no husband of hers would ever get a word in edgeways. She changed the subject entirely.
“I have wondrous news,” she said, her eyes suddenly bedewed and her voice taking on a melting note, two signs which I thought portended trouble for Feynman comma R.
“N-news?” I said.
“From Norm Stradamus. I’ve spoken to him. I’ve spoken to him at length, and told him about our plans. Oh, Rhinnick—”
Here she broke off, pressing my hand to her heart in a dashed familiar fashion and allowing her eyes to become even further bedewed. She looked as though her soul had become home to new and beautiful thoughts.
“Rhinnick,” she said, although “swooned” would be mot juster.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Rhinnick.”
“Still here, old bird, and awaiting your next dictum.”
“Oh, Rhinnick! Norm Stradamus has given his blessing.”
She then paused to blush deeply before closing in on my position and showing every indication of initiating a shame-inducing hug.
I quaked where I sat, bracing for the inev., when I was saved by the last-second intervention of a vigilant ally.
“EEK!” said Oan, or words to that effect, as Fenny hopped off the bed and into her lap. She followed up with “oh, my word,” and other expressions of surprise as the little fellow danced the hamster version of a buck-and-wing dance atop her thigh.
“Ah,” I said. “My hamster. Fenny.”
Oan gathered her wits about her, settled back into her chair, and let Fenny do his thing.
“I think he likes me,” she said.
I might have said something about hamsters being notoriously bad judges of character, but I didn’t wish to wound the old disaster, merely to find some civil way to oil out of the engagement, or at least change the tone of the present conversation before any more of this hugging business might erupt.
“So Norm’s blessing,” I said, easing into the thing, “this is his final word on the subject? No chance . . . that is to say, no fear, that he might entertain second thoughts, change his mind, possibly louse the whole thing up?”
“Goodness, no!” said Oan, once again taking my faint hope and dashing it groundward. “He’s most enthusiastic. He sees our union as an important development for the church. Our wedding will be celebrated far and wide by adherents of the Order. Norm wishes to speak to you about it and sort out the details.”
The last thing I wished to do was start plotting out seating charts, writing out vows, or otherwise chatting about the details of any dashed wedding, but I saw this as my only chance to extricate myself from a lavish bedroom populated by a determined fiancée in a hugging mood. So I uttered something along the lines of “there’s no time like the present,” removed my sheets with a flourish, and hopped out of bed with the greatest of promptitude. I then stood still for a space, recovering from the dizzying headrush that ensues whenever a medium-term coma patient rises from his bier.
I bade Oan to lead me Normward.
She handed me my hamster, and we were off.
A couple of shakes later we were standing with Norm Stradamus in some large species of parlour or salon — one that was every bit as lavish as the room in which I’d rested, it being generously decked out with about 378 objets d’art, as the Napoleons call them. These adornments gave the room an antiquish sort of air, one that was echoed by the prophet standing before us.
Now, stop me if I’ve described Norm Stradamus to you before. If you recall, the man styled himself the High Priest, Principal Prophet, and First Prelate of the Mysteries of Omega, and looked exactly how you’d expect a character with that string of titles to look, provided only that what you expected was a slightly hunchbacked, somewhat gristly, eagle-nosed headmaster equipped with a scraggly beard, wispy hair, and parchment skin, the whole portrait being completed by a black skullcap and a dark green robe.
He was standing by a little cart bearing drinks and all the fixings which was, as far as I was concerned, an excellent place to be. He summoned Oan and self to his side, made all of the usual civilities, lobbed a few honorifics in my direction — Hand of the Intercessor and all that rot — and then asked if I’d like one for the tonsils.
I assured him that I would. Indeed, had the man offered three or four at once, I would have taken him up on his offer.
Oan and I stood in a sort of respectful silence while Norm fiddled with the controls, adding here an ounce of gin, there a splash of vermouth, when I perceived that we were not, as I had hitherto believed, a party of three, but rather a full foursome. Off in a distant corner of the salon, or a distant corner of the parlour if you prefer, sat a person obscured in shadow. But despite this camouflage or concealment, I knew at a g. that this had to be the regent herself.
No, check that for a moment. Let’s call her the Regent, capital R, because I’ve rarely basked in the presence of someone who so obviously called for all the capital letters you could muster.
I’ve never been one for magical thinking, or one who is given to fooling about with metaphysical hokum. I don’t read people’s auras, perceive the tenor of their vibrations, or assess their attunement with various psychic whatnots. But a certain palpable sort of somethingorother did seem to emanate from this Regent. And if I had to give this somethingorother a name, I think it would have to be “nobility,” or possibly “stateliness,” “loftiness,” or “grandeur” if you prefer. Whether the source of this emanation was a result of the Regent’s finely chiselled features, her closely cropped hair, the upright posture she maintained in a seated position, or some combination of these or other factors, I couldn’t exactly say, but the overall package reminded me forcibly of a Siamese cat — a creature decidedly manufactured for both worship and adoration. She was ornamented every bit as richly as the parlour in which she sat, being tastefully festooned with every bangle, bauble, and bijou for which she could find an appropriate resting place on her person. This arrangement was finished off by a sort of rich, purple drapery which was cinched at the waist with a golden cord. She was, in a word, Magnificent, capital M. And she just sat there, blinking at us, while Norm expertly speared a couple of olives and presented his finished work.
“Bottoms up!” I said, giving every appearance of making merry while keeping a wary eye on the Regent’s corner.
“To happy unions,” said Norm, clinking my glass with his.
I drank deeply, feeling this was the best course.
“The Regent,” I said, resurfacing and nodding in her direction. “She isn’t joining us? A teetotaller, perhaps?”
“She prefers to observe,” said Norm.
“It’s her way,” said Oan.
And while I thought to myself that this violated some precept or other in the Host’s Formbook — sitting mutely and gawking while your guests hobnob amongst themselves, I mean to say — I didn’t raise the issue or do anything else to cramp the Regent’s style. If she wanted to sit like a Trappist monk while I and my fellow standees drank martinis, who was I to get in her way? So I merely drank my drink and gawked back.
“We’re so pleased to have you here,” said Norm, bobbing in my direction in a way that struck me as unduly obsequious, if obsequious is the word I want. “It’s our honour to have the Hand of the Intercessor in our midst as we carry out our important work.”
I bri
stled. I mean to say, all of this “Hand of the Intercessor” stuff was starting to grate on me. It’s one thing to be on the receiving end of public adoration; it’s quite another to receive it because you’re the hand of somebody else. The “Intercessor” to whom everyone kept referring was, if you’ll recall, merely an old pal of mine named Ian Brown, the milquetoastiest chump to ever inspire a fit of yawning. I didn’t begrudge this chump his ill-deserved fame, nor did I bother pointing out that the only thing interesting about that lump of unflavoured oatmeal was Penelope, his wife. But I now started to chafe at being defined as this chap’s hand. We Rhinnicks aren’t vainglorious, but we like do like to rest on our own laurels, as the expression is. Call me “Rhinnick, escaper of hospices,” or “Rhinnick, knocker-out of psychiatrists.” “Rhinnick, helper-out of needy pals in trouble.” Or even “Rhinnick, chap who was personally selected by the mayor to safeguard Detroit from apparent (but, as it turns out, imaginary) existential threats,” if you like. But not “Rhinnick, Hand of the Intercessor,” which was no better in my estimation than “Old Whatshisname, Hanger-on of a More Interesting Pal.” Judge me harshly if you like, but judge me on my own merits.
I don’t mean to prolong the point, but it was bad enough that Oan — to whom I was in danger of being hitched matrimonially if current conditions persisted — thought of me chiefly as Ian’s Hand. But now that I was ensconced here, in a large, stately home apparently filled to the brim with members of the Church of Ruddy O, it seemed as though I’d be hard pressed to take more than a couple of steps without bumping into someone who’d look at me and think, “there’s that chap who knows Ian, let’s see if he’ll introduce us.” Why, here was their leader, Norm Stradamus, a character with whom I’d scarcely exchanged three words in my prior adventures, treating me as a popular favourite simply because I’d been standing cheek-by-jowl with Ian when last we’d met.
But though proud, we Rhinnicks know when to keep the upper lip stiff. I stifled my chagrin. I reminded myself that there are times for wallowing in self-pity, and times for swallowing your dudgeon, rolling up the sleeves, and seeing what you can do to help a pal who finds himself treading on life’s banana skins. If Nappy’s note could be believed, Norm Stradamus was in a posish to give some clues as to who might have taken her. And any step toward Nappy was a step toward Zeus, the two of them having been inseparable the last time I’d checked.
“Er . . . I said we’re honoured to have you with us,” Norm repeated, pulling me out of my reverie.
“Oh, the honour is all mine,” I said, falsifying things a bit. “Oan tells me that your important work has something or other to do with Napoleons.”
“It does!” said Norm. “We’ve gathered all the Napoleons we can find and brought them here.”
“Quite a crowd, I’d imagine.”
“It is. There are several hundred housed in the Regent’s hospital.”
“They can’t take kindly to that,” I said. “Napoleons hate captivity. They’re known to be haughty spirits — these Napoleons, I mean — and apt to resent being exiled or otherwise bunged into anything reminiscent of a slammer, however luxurious.”
“It’s for their own good,” said Norm, “and for the public’s good, as well. Everything we do is for the public good. We’d never do anything to harm anyone without cause.”
As he said this, I thought to myself that it had a sinister ring to it, suggesting that this Church of O was perfectly happy to love thy neighbour only so long as thy neighbour didn’t get in its way. Stand between them and whatever it was they wanted and they’d ram you with a police cruiser and bung you into a cage.
“So what’s led to all this Napoleon rustling?” I inquired.
It was Oan who supplied the answer. Up until now she had been a silent member of our little circle, she having been experiencing some trouble with an olive which had gone rogue, slipped its moorings, and found its rest on the carpet. Now that she’d attended to this development and rejoined the party, she seemed keen on holding up her end of the feast of reason and flow of soul.
“The High Priest and the Regent are looking for a way to reach the beforelife,” she said. “They believe the Napoleons are the key.”
“Why in Abe’s name would you want to reach the beforelife?” I said. “You may not know this, but I’m a princk, and I remember the beforelife. You can take it from me that it isn’t all donuts and jam. There are downsides to the herebefore. Take death, by way of example. Dashed inconvenient thing, death. Every time you cross the street, lance a boil, leap from a cliff, or swim too soon after dinner, you run the risk of shuffling off the mortal coil and before you know it you’re bobbing up to the surface of the Styx without any memory of who you were.”
“That’s why the Napoleons are the key!” said Norm. “The Napoleons do remember. They have a deep connection to the beforelife. While we believe everyone starts out in the same way, manifesting in the beforelife and living a full life there before appearing in Detroit, Napoleons are different. Special, I mean. They make the trip back and forth a number of times. Consider the Napoleon whose car you’d taken.”
“Jack,” I said.
“Right, the Napoleon known as Jack. Upon questioning, and after exposure to various treatments designed to improve his memory, he insisted that he’d been back to the beforelife dozens of times. He’s lived any number of lives, and gone by several names. He remembered living as Napoleon, Jack, Judas, Richard, Brutus, Sheila, and at least two chaps named Pope.”
“He’s been a host of unpleasant people!” said Oan, “Every one of them a scoundrel!”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, “and the unpleasantness seems to have stuck. Why, the last two times I’ve met the blighter he seemed keen on investigating my interior. Probably cheats at cards, too. So what’s your theory? A life of anti-social behaviour, or ignominy, if you prefer, gets you a hand-stamp for the beforelife equivalent of come-and-go privileges?”
“Not at all,” said Norm. “No, it seems to have something to do with the Napoleonic brain — or rather their mindset, the way they perceive the world. It’s about their expectations.”
“Expectations, eh?” I said, stroking the chin.
“What we learned about in the cavern,” said Norm.
“That which was revealed by the Intercessor,” said Oan, lowering her eyes reverently and curtsying my way, as though any mention of the inter-bloody-cessor called for a show of respect to me.
“As Oan once taught in her Sharing Room,” said Norm, “it seems that, in a very real way, it is our expectations that give the universe form.”
“I’ve experienced the same thing,” I said, for I had. “It’s what happens when you expect a party to be a bit of a drag and it turns out, despite the host’s best efforts, to be a bit of a drag. Your expectations bring it about.”
“No, no,” said Norm, “it’s much more than that. You must have seen what happened when the Intercessor fell into the Styx; when he took the plunge in the holy waters and fulfilled the prophecies of the ancient texts.”
His allusion was to what I’ve previously described as “the cavern sequence” — that slice of my fairly recent past which Oan had described to Dr. Peericks, causing him to bung her into Detroit Mercy. It was during this cavern sequence that I’d first met Norm Stradamus, encountered his Church of O and observed the fallout of a battle between Penelope — Ian’s wife — and the City Solicitor, two fairly omnipotent world-bending characters who’d gotten into each other’s way. But I didn’t see what any of this had to do with expectations.
“Sorry, no,” I said.
“No?” said Norm.
“No,” I repeated. “I mean, no, I didn’t see what happened when Ian nose-dived into the Styx. I mean to say, I’m vaguely aware that there were some fairly apocalyptic goings-on — flashing lights, exploding thingummies, a bit of earthquakishness trembling the world’s foundations —
but I’m afraid I missed most of it. Occupied with other things.”
“Well,” Norm said, “what many of us witnessed made it clear the Intercessor was able to call forth a power—”
“Called Penelope,” said Oan.
“That’s right, a power called Penelope, and through this power he was able to reshape the very fabric of Detroit. Bend it to his will. Change the very nature of nature.”
“We call it Climate Change,” said Oan.
Chapter 19
“Climate Change?” I said.
“That’s right,” said Norm Stradamus. “The power to alter the environment. Change the entire world to fit with your expectations. The Intercessor, through this Penelope figure, had that power. The City Solicitor had it, too. And we believe Napoleons have it in some measure, at least in so far as it relates to remanifesting themselves in the beforelife. So deep is their expectation that they’re going to be reborn, so thoroughly are they convinced that life here in Detroit is but a step toward remanifestation in the beforelife, that their expectations are made manifest through reincarnation.”
“The Regent has this power, too!” said Oan, exhibiting awe. “The power of Climate Change. She’s not as strong as—”
“Enough!” said a commanding, feminine voice from somewhere nor’nor’east.
I spun ’round. It was the Regent herself, standing a pace or two behind me. At her side was a sleek, hairless hound with a silver collar, looking at me as though I were a particularly mouthwatering piece of kibble.
Afterlife Crisis Page 20