by Greg Bear
“You’re not thinking of resisting?” He remembered Biri running around the rock, powdering it, and Biri was just a young, inexperienced Sidhe. What could a Wickmaster do, if all restrictions were off?
“Yes,” Helena affirmed, her eyes wide with excitement. “Isn’t it about time?”
“Is Savarin the leader?”
“Heavens no. Someone you have yet to meet.”
“But I shouldn’t know his name.”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Not until we’re positive you can be trusted.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I think so,” Helena said after a moment. “Yes, I trust you.” She smiled broadly and rocked back and forth in her chair. “Nobody could be an undercover agent and burn his clothes off on my doorstep.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“We’re still planning. Nothing’s finalized. But if this really is winter, maybe we can get on with it. They’ve been planning ever since I came here, and long before. The central committee is very careful.”
“Thanks for the clothes,” he said, remembering how Eleuth had clothed him before.
“Nothing to it. Try not to destroy them.”
“No guarantees,” he said ruefully. “Sometimes the best intentions go way wrong.”
“Don’t I know it,” she said. She fastened her gaze on him and bit her lower lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re very handsome,” she said.
“Bull.”
“I mean it. You’re attractive.”
“I think you’re beautiful.” The words came out before he could assess them. Helena’s expression didn’t change for a moment, but then a slow, warm smile emerged and she touched his knee with her hands. “I mean it, too,” he said.
“You’re sweet. What time do you have to be back?” Her tone became businesslike and she went to the window again.
“Dusk,” he said.
“That’ll probably come early today. You want to learn why we’re so positive we can resist, and succeed?”
“I suppose,” he said.
“You’ll have to be sure, now,” she said sternly. “I’d have to take you someplace pretty unpleasant.”
“How can I—? Oh, okay. I’m sure.”
“Strong stomach?”
“I guess.”
She frowned at him, then held out her hand. He took it and stood up.
“There are several lessons for you to learn,” she said. He felt his heart quicken hopefully, but she put on a shawl and held the apartment door open for him. “I have friends in the Yard. They’ll get us inside. There’s somebody I want you to meet. A Child.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Yard was at Euterpe’s center, a broad, flat brick building surrounded by streets uncharacteristically wide for the human town. Helena marched ahead of him, an intent look on her face. “Nobody likes to go here,” she said. “I don’t go often. Savarin comes here more often than the rest.”
The entrance to the yard was narrow, barely two feet wide, and blocked with a heavy woven wicker door a foot thick. Helena pulled a knob and glass chimes tinkled faintly within. A peephole slid open in the brick wall beside the door and a yellow, bleary eye peered at them.
“Sherebith, it’s me,” Helena said. The wicker door opened with a hollow scraping sound.
“Yes, Miss Helena. What can I do for you?” A yellow-faced, plump woman in a long gray gown stood in the half-open en trance way, arms folded, staring at Michael with neither trust nor liking.
“This is a friend,” Helena said. “I’d like him to see the Yard and meet Ishmael. Michael, this is Sherebith.”
Michael held out his hand. “Glad to meet you,” he said. The woman looked at the hand, grimaced in disbelief and opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said in a resigned tone. “He’s been quiet today. The others are following his example. Thank whomever for small favors.”
Sherebith led them down a dark corridor, the walls, floor and ceiling of which were made of close-spaced bricks the color of dried dung. Some light entered through narrow slits at intervals of six or seven strides; the only other illumination was from wax candles ensconced between the slits. Despite the musty smell, the floors and walls seemed clean and well-tended. Sherebith went first, followed by Helena and then Michael, who had the nagging urge to look over his shoulder.
The interior was silent. At the end of the corridor was another heavy wicker door, this one studded on the outside with more glass chimes. “Alarms,” Helena said, tinkling one before Sherebith opened the door and set them all ringing.
Beyond was an open court about ten feet square, again made of brick and devoid of ornament. In each of the four walls was another door. Sherebith stepped to the door directly opposite and unlatched it. As the door creaked open, a damp thick odor wafted out, combining the worst traits of musty cellars and the sewer sludge Michael’s father used on the family garden.
The candles burned dimmer in the thick air beyond. There were no slits for lighting, but covered ventilator holes in the ceiling admitted faint barred spots of day.
The room’s opposite walls were lost in darkness. Square brick columns supported the low ceiling, each side holding a guttering candle. Michael saw pits dug into the floor, each about ten feet on a side and faced with brick and tile. Michael counted seven. “Compound three,” Sherebith said. “I call it Leader of the Howl Compound, because of Ishmael. He’s the big one. The instigator.” She pointed to benches near each pit. “When the compounds were built, people thought perhaps the parents would like to come visit their children now and then. Nobody has, not since the first few months. Only me and the caretaker. I’m the warden.” She smiled, revealing snaggled, yellow teeth. “I’m the only one who cares about them, who’s kind to them, except the caretaker.”
“What about Savarin?” Helena suggested gently.
“Him? He has reasons to come here. He gets them upset sometimes. No love for Savarin. Does he listen to them when night’s down and they hear the calls from the Plain, things you and I can’t hear? No.” She pointed to her small, curled ears, hidden beneath straight strands of graying hair. “Calls from their real kin. The bodies mean nothing. It’s what’s in the bottles that counts, not the shape nor the labels.”
She led them to the middle pit. Michael glanced into the other pits as they passed; the walkways were only a yard wide, and it was difficult to stay calm with the unknown on each side. Each pit held a single pale, reclining figure, some child-sized, some larger. He couldn’t make out details.
Sherebith leaned over the middle pit. “Ishmael,” she called softly. “Ishmael, are you home?” A thin gray figure stirred in the shadows.
“Yes, Mother.” The voice was thick, deep and cultured, imbued with an abyssal sadness. Michael felt a tug on some emotion that he could not immediately identify.
“I’m not his real mother,” Sherebith confided with a slack-lipped smile. “But I’m the only one he knows.”
“Ishmael,” Helena said, kneeling on the walkway. The pit was as deep as it was wide, and the walls were made of slick, hard tile. The figure was naked and the pit was bare except for three bowls, receptacles for food, water and waste, all arranged neatly against one wall.
“Yes.”
Michael’s eyes had adjusted well enough that he could make out the details of Ishmael’s face. It was small, round, disproportionate to such a tall body. The hands were large and hung from arms which began thin at the shoulders and widened to grotesque forearms and wrists.
“We have some questions to ask,” Helena said.
“I’m not otherwise occupied.”
“Has he been here since he was born?” Michael whispered.
“Almost,” Helena said. “He was one of the first that we know of. He’s been here since the War.”
“Time passes,” Ishmael said. “Questions.” He sat down, leaning against the tiles and stretching his pale legs out on the floor.
“Who are you?”
“A sideshow for the guilty. A product of lust. Something so evil it must be evilly confined through all its endless life. An abortion walking. Victim.”
“Don’t listen to that crap,” Helena told Michael. She glanced at him to gauge the effect Ishmael was having, then returned her attention to the pit. “Who are you?”
“An abortion!” Ishmael’s voice rose. “Born of man and woman.”
“You killed your parents.”
“I don’t remember.” Coy, smiling.
“You tried to kill others.”
“You are so informed.”
“Who are you?” Helena persisted. “Your name.”
“Call me—”
“Stop that,” Sherebith said quietly. “His name is Paynim. He’s one of Adonna’s own.”
“Paynim,” said the figure, “Ishmael. No matter.”
“He took the child’s body when it was born. There are no souls here.” Sherebith walked around the pit. “I am the only one who cares.”
“Adonna cares!” Ishmael wailed. “Adonna bred me—”
“Buried you,” Sherebith said, pacing behind Helena and Michael, making Michael edge uncomfortably close to the pit.
“Adonna freed me.”
“You rose from the Blasted Plain. You still call to your friends there.”
“No friends.” Sad, deep.
“Then what are you?” Helena asked.
“Out of time, mired in the Realm, given form by Adonna. Ishmael.”
“What are you capable of?”
The Child shook his head. Michael could barely make out his grin. The air was stifling. Michael wanted very badly to be outside.
“I stare at the Realm. I foresee.”
“What do you foresee?”
“Rebellion.”
“When?”
“Soon, soon.”
“Who will win?”
Michael looked at Helena, then at Sherebith.
“The Pact will be broken. Alyons will lose everything.”
Helena’s expression was triumphant. “That’s the second time he’s used those words. He told Savarin the same thing. We’ll win!”
Michael frowned. The Child’s face was composed, hands folded in his lap. Sherebith kneeled beside the pit and looked up at them. “Nobody cares for them but me,” she said. “I am the only one.”
“And the caretaker,” Helena reminded her.
“And him.”
Behind them, a short lean man dressed in brown pants and a knee-length baggy shirt pushed a wicker cart across the narrow walkways. From the sides of the cart hung the paper and wicker bowls used by the inhabitants of the pits. Three covered containers poked from a recess in the top of the cart. Helena and Michael stepped out of his way and he passed along the narrow walkway, the bowls tapping against the side of the cart. Michael looked at the man’s face. He seemed to concentrate on some inner melody, gliding under the bands of light from a ventilator; his eyes were sunken, useless, and as blue as a newborn kitten’s. “The caretaker,” Helena whispered into Michael’s ear.
“The only one,” Sherebith affirmed, gaze fixed on Ishmael in his pit.
Michael was cold when they emerged from the Yard. Sherebith closed the door behind them and latched it without a word. For the first time, Michael knew what it felt like to want to die—to get the misery over with.
That was the emotion he had contracted from Ishmael.
Helena took a deep breath and brushed her hair back from her face. “Now you see why we don’t go there often.”
“They’re kept in the pits… because they hurt people?”
“They’re monsters,” Helena said, walking across the road. “Didn’t you hear him?”
“Yes, but he’s been there… how long? Decades? That would turn anyone into a monster.”
“I’ve only heard stories,” Helena said, keeping one pace ahead of him. “They killed their parents, or they murdered other people. Or they escaped to the Blasted Plain and lived there and made raids on Euterpe until they were caught, or killed. And when they were killed, a foulness came out of them.” She shuddered, her shoulders jerking spasmodically. “This isn’t Earth, Michael.”
“I know that,” Michael said, his voice rising. “But Jesus—the way they’re treated. If they’re so bad, why not just kill them?”
“We can’t kill them,” she said. “Alyons can. Not us. He hasn’t killed any of them for a long time. None have escaped for a long time. They’re human… sort of. I don’t wish to talk about it anymore.”
“All right. Then about his prophecy. How do you know he’s telling the truth?”
“Sherebith will tell you. Once you get past all the crap, Ishmael never lies.”
“But maybe he misleads. I read about the sibyls—”
Helena turned on him, neck thrust out and fists clenched. “Look! We have little enough to go on, nothing to encourage us. We take our reassurances where we can.”
“From Ishmael?” Michael said, his face flushing. “From someone you lock up as a monster?”
“A special monster,” she said, relaxing slightly. “Don’t try to set us straight about the Realm, or about what we’re doing, Michael. We’ve been here much longer than you have.”
That seemed to settle it. They were silent the rest of the way back to Helena’s apartment. She walked up the stairs ahead of him. “You want to come in?” she asked.
He considered. “Yes. I want to know what I can do to help. I don’t like Alyons any more than you do. Maybe less.”
“Then come in,” Helena said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Helena busied herself cleaning up in the back room behind half-drawn curtains. Michael listened to water splashing, toilet articles clinking, Helena humming to herself.
He was disturbed. Something was wrong, but what exactly eluded him. The perverse mood brought on by Ishmael’s words was passing; what was wrong, or seemed wrong, was much more mundane.
Helena. When she was away from him, he had doubts she could ever be more than she was at this moment—friendly, but distant. When she was in his sight, the doubts shrunk to mere points, blocked by his infatuation. She was quick, pretty, human. She would never look like the Crane Women. She came from Earth. From home.
Yet he didn’t feel at ease around her. He was more comfortable around Eleuth than Helena.
Helena parted the curtains and smiled at him. “Thank you for waiting. I always have to wash myself off after visiting the Yard.” She offered him a damp rag. He didn’t feel any dirtier than usual, but to please her, he robbed off his face and wiped his hands.
“There,” she said, throwing the rag into a corner and sitting in the second chair before him. She adjusted her seat until it was square with his. “You know how much I feel for you,” she said.
He didn’t reply for a moment. Her eyes locked his; he had to make an effort to look away and swallow. “I know that you feel for me,” he said, concentrating on the curtained window. “I don’t know how.”
“Now you’re being obscure,” she said. “I care for you a great deal. You are a very sweet boy. True, you’re caught up in things you don’t really understand, but so am I. So are we all. You do the best you can.”
He shrugged, his thick red eyebrows drawn together. She smiled. “You’re smart, attractive, and anywhere else I would probably be in love with you, right this minute. I’d want you to write your poetry for me. I’d play the piano for you.” Her smile broadened. “You may hear me play a piano soon, anyway. If we were in Brooklyn, I’d take you—” She stopped and her face stiffened. “But we aren’t. We have to see that. I can’t love you, not like I should. Today you’ve seen why.”
“I have?”
“The Yard. To love you properly, I’d want to give myself to you completely… and I can’t.” She searched his face and reached out to touch his cheek. “Don’t you see? They’ve taken love away from us here. We might make a mistake, a slip. I could
n’t stand the thought of having a Child.”
He was dumfounded.
“Poor Michael,” she repeated.
“I don’t see—” he began. But he did see. She was being perfectly reasonable. And yet… there was that wrong thing, that still-nagging point of disturbance.
“Friendship is very important here,” she said. “We live by it. We all have to work together, or they’ll overwhelm us. We all have to resist every way we can. I need you. We need you. As a friend.”
He still didn’t have any reply. He wanted to show her he knew what she was about to say, but he couldn’t.
“We can’t be lovers, Michael. Do you understand? I hope you do. I want to have you understand, now, before it gets all…” She waved her hand and cocked her head to one side. “All crazy.”
“I understand,” he said. It was too late. He felt it even more strongly now. Not being able to have her made him love her all the more. He knew it was perverse, but it wasn’t a new emotion; it was just that the denial unveiled it completely. He had to be near her any way he could. “Friendship is important to me, too,” he said with a weak grin. “I need friends here.”
“Good.” She laid her hand on his knee and regarded him earnestly. “We need your help.”
“How?”
“If you truly want to be one of us, to resist Alyons and the coursers and to free us all from the Sidhe… you have to listen for us. Let us know what you hear.”
He laughed. “The Crane Women don’t tell me anything,” he said. “I feel like a God damned mushroom with them.” He was surprised by the bitterness in his voice.
“Yes. I know the joke,” she said. “We all feel that way. But Savarin says you’re right in the thick of things. There’s a Sidhe living not ten yards from your hut, and the Crane Women are training you. I’ve told Savarin I bet you’re already learning things no other human knows. Like how to burn off your clothes.” She smiled. “We still don’t know why you’re being trained. Probably only Lamia could tell us that. But there must be things you can learn, knowledge you can pass on to us. You could learn about the land beyond the Blasted Plain—”