Icarus Descending w-3

by Elizabeth Hand

  “Wine please, Mazda,” Giles ordered.

  “Yes, master,” the server hissed, and crane-stepped back into the kitchen.

  Trevor and Giles tried to draw us into conversation, but Jane was too wary and I was too exhausted to say much. Miss Scarlet and Fossa carried on a heated discussion of medical practices and ancient cinema. The aardman had adjusted the hyalines on his wrists so that blurred projected images appeared at the end of each of his thick, knobby paws—crude holos of a pair of perfect, milk-white hands with tapering fingers set with many rings, glowing with that slightly blurred aura that surrounds cheap, Archipelago-made hyalines. The projected hands moved perfectly with Fossa’s own. As he and Miss Scarlet spoke, I watched him, his hulking figure bent over the table, lifting his fork and knife with those ridiculously delicate fingers and bringing the food to his gnarled face. I stared fascinated, until Miss Scarlet shot me a disapproving glance and I turned back to my meal.

  The food was odd, too. Not the wine, an earthy cabernet served in goblets of that mouth-blown violet glass made by abos in Wyalong—Trevor must have a fine cellar, with such crystal to match it. But after a sweet, soft white goat cheese served with lovage and rue (fresh herbs! in winter!) the server brought in platters that steamed and gave forth a heady, musky scent.

  “Wendy.” Giles nodded at Mazda to indicate it should serve me first. “Please, help yourself—”

  With steady, gleaming hands the server ladled out a dark broth. Small round objects swam in a rich sauce, heavily scented of juniper berries. I stared doubtfully at my plate as the replicant continued around the table, then passed back into the kitchen for the next course and began the whole process again.

  “What—what are they?” I asked at last, poking at my plate with a knife.

  “Mushrooms,” said Trevor. His enhancer sent lavender ripples dancing from his wineglass as he held it to the light.

  “Mushrooms?” said Jane.

  “Mushrooms,” Miss Scarlet repeated avidly from where she balanced on a stack of books atop her chair. “How lovely!”

  There were mushrooms in sauce; an aspic of tiny pink mushrooms like the tips of one’s fingers; a tray of what appeared to be slices of bread, but which were actually great round crescents of the sort of fungus one finds growing on trees. Across the table Jane gulped her wine and picked at several mushrooms stuffed with garlic and herbs, while next to her Fossa ate greedily, as did Trevor and Giles. I nibbled tentatively at one breadlike wheel and found it very bland. Still, I couldn’t quite bring myself to clean my plate, and like Jane I drank a lot of wine.

  “They’re the only plants not affected by the mutagens,” Trevor explained between mouthfuls. “Everything else—corn, tomatoes, beans—we harvest half what we once did. Come winter we’re pretty much reduced to living on whatever herbs we can grow in the greenhouse. And even those don’t do very well in natural light—too much from the high end of the spectrum. So it’s gotten difficult to put things up. The tubers don’t keep the way they used to, and with the fruits we’re pretty much limited to eating them as fast as they fall from the trees—they practically spoil overnight.

  “But not the fungi. We tested them; for some reason they don’t retain toxins the way that plants do. Of course, I mean the ones that aren’t poisonous to begin with.”

  I put down my fork and motioned for Mazda to pour me more wine. I was thinking of those skulls above the fireplace.

  “We believe it’s because they grow so quickly,” Trevor went on. “The spores actually mutate faster than the mutagens, and after a few generations there’s no trace of the psychoactive agents at all. And mushrooms grow like—well, like mushrooms—so now they seem to have thrown off the viruses completely. We hope.”

  Giles nodded. “We cultivate these, of course. Had to, in order to have anything to eat in winter.”

  “So you live on mushrooms? Jane picked mistrustfully at her plate.

  “Oh, we have some stores of dried beans, lentil flour, things like that. And some very good chutney I put up last year—the chile and spices keep the pears from turning. But in the last few years our produce just hasn’t been very good. Once the soil is contaminated…”

  Giles sighed and shook his head. “It didn’t used to be like this. Now we have to trade for much of our food from the mountain people—venison and root vegetables, mostly. And of course all sorts of things come from Cassandra.”

  When I looked at him questioningly, Trevor broke in. “It’s always been difficult for the fougas to maneuver out there, in the mountains. You would be surprised—there are places in the Blue Ridge where the viral rains have never fallen.”

  “And the wine?” I raised my glass. “It’s very good—”

  “That comes from Cassandra, by way of the Ascendants,” Trevor said. “May I toast our guests?” Candlelight sent motes of gold and black dancing across his enhancer, and he smiled.

  Dessert was a custard fragrant with rose water—apparently the mutagens had spared some chickens and a cow, or else our hosts had stores of ersatz food in their pantry. But by then I was too tired to do more than poke at my bowl with a long-handled silver spoon.

  Shortly afterward we went up to bed. Giles bade us good night and retired to the kitchen, but Trevor accompanied us to our rooms. More than once he had to help Jane up the steps. She had steadfastly refused to eat much, and the wine had affected her more than it did Miss Scarlet or myself.

  “Night,” she said thickly at the door to her room. She regarded me through slitted eyes before adding, “Ge’ some other clothes,” and ducking out of sight.

  A few steps more to Miss Scarlet’s room, where she turned to our host. “I have not had such a fine meal in many months, Sieur. You are a most gracious innkeeper, to serve impecunious guests with such courtesy.”

  Trevor looked down at her, amused, and gave a little bow. “Our pleasure. We like to help those less fortunate, when we can.”

  Miss Scarlet reached up to pat my leg as she went inside. “Sleep well, Wendy,” she called softly.

  Trevor went before me to the next door, waving his hand in front of light-plates so that the hallway dimmed. I followed him into my room, still uneasy and feeling a little drunk myself. Someone had put more wood on the fire. Trevor bent to poke it, sending sparks flying into the room, and threw on another log. Then he crossed to the window, checking the casement to make sure it was closed and clucking his tongue at how heavily the snow lay upon the roof.

  “Would you like some different clothes?” He turned back to me, his enhancer catching the light from the fireplace and streaking his face with gold. “I’ll be glad to get you more—”

  I shrugged. There was that odd smell again: not unpleasant but so strange, like lemons buried in the earth. “Clothes? Well, yes. If you have them. I—I’m not accustomed to things like this. Skirts—” I almost told him how I had traveled so long disguised as a boy, but instead explained lamely, “An actor—actress—you know—and skirts are clumsy for traveling—”

  Trevor smiled. “Of course. You should have said something. Your friend Jane—your lover?”

  “No!” I hadn’t meant my voice to sound so sharp. I sat abruptly on the edge of the bed, blinking to keep tears from my eyes. “No. My lover was killed two days ago, at the feast of Winterlong. He was a Paphian, a Saint-Alaban….”

  Trevor’s voice was kind. “I didn’t know. Forgive me—it must have been terrible for you—”

  I remained silent, willing him to leave. After a moment he said, “The clothes you’re wearing—they belonged to my daughter. But there are others here somewhere. I’ll find them and lay them out for you tomorrow.”

  I bunched the bed quilt between my fingers. “Your daughter?”

  “Yes: Cadence. She lives in Cassandra, but I’ve still got many of her things here. I’m afraid they’re not very fashionable. She’s a bit older than you—”

  Laughter crept into his voice as he added, “ Much older, as a matter of fact. But
her clothes seem to fit, even if the style isn’t what you’re accustomed to.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I said stiffly. He crossed the room to leave, and I started to rise.

  “Please,” he said motioning for me to sit. He stood in the open doorway, his strong, youthful hands incongruous with that white beard and hair. “I know you must find this all a little strange, Wendy,” he said gently. He tilted his head so that blue light leaked from beneath his enhancer. “But you’re safe here—probably safer than you’d be anywhere right now.”

  I tried to keep my voice from sounding cold as I replied, “It’s just that such kindness to complete strangers—it’s unusual, that’s all.”

  He laughed again, softly. “Giles and I are very unusual people, my friend. We’ve entertained refugees here before; I’m sure we will again. But you have nothing to fear while you’re under this roof. In more than six hundred years no harm has ever come to a guest of the Mallorys. Not unless provoked…”

  He inclined his head and left, the door clicking softly behind him. And despite my weariness and the wine buzzing inside my head, I lay awake for some time afterward, staring at the shadows cast by leaping flames while I pondered his last words and what he meant by them.

  I woke late the next morning. The wind raged at the eaves as though it would tear the shingles off. During the night, someone had come in to put more wood on the fire, so that the room was very warm. Smoke flurried from the fireplace, and the sun shone blindingly through battlements of icicles around the windows. A clock beside the bed read half past ten. I felt more clearheaded than I deserved, considering how much wine I’d had at dinner. For a long while I lay there, staring at the tin ceiling and counting the stenciled grape vines circling the walls.

  When I finally got out of bed, I found more clothes had been piled neatly on a chair by the door. As Trevor had warned, they were shockingly out of date—some of them reminded me of the costumes we used at the Theater, nearly a century old, nylon threads fraying, patched with much newer fabric. Only these clothes were in much better condition than our costumes. Many seemed almost new, only the faded scarlet of a brocade robe or a string of shattered lumens hinting at their age. I dressed quickly, pulling on heavy blue canvas trousers and a pullover of nubby brown wool. When I went downstairs, I met Giles in the hallway, wearing a heavy shearling coat, his cheeks ruddy with cold.

  “Good choice!” He beamed, plucking at my sweater. “That’s from our sheep, that wool—”

  I followed him into the kitchen. A very old wood-burning cook stove stood against one crumbling brick wall, a cheerful thing with green enameled doors and a rusted kettle steaming softly atop it. Breakfast, thank god, was a meal not totally reliant upon fungus. There were eggs kept warm in a tiny glass oven (another curious relic), and some kind of mutton sausage, its gamy taste mitigated by juniper berries. And tea—real tea, nearly black from sitting in its pot on the woodstove for most of the morning—and grainy honey dipped from a cracked glass bowl.

  “No, the sheep do very well. The animals weren’t taken by the virus at all,” Giles explained, as though taking up the thread of a conversation we’d begun just minutes before. He sat across from me at the battered table, reached into a pocket, and withdrew a small paper package. “Cigarette?”

  “Where did you get those ” I hadn’t smoked a tobacco cigarette since I’d been at HEL. In the City of the Trees, the Paphians had hinted darkly that the tobacco trade was dead, killed by the Ascendants. Giles pushed the package across to me.

  “Cassandra.” He leaned over to the woodstove and lit his cigarette, inhaling deeply. “Cadence sends them to us.”

  “But—I haven’t seen one for months. I heard the crop failed.”

  Giles nodded. “That would be the party line. The Ascendants tried to take over the farms in Cassandra—this was about a year ago—but things just don’t work like that in the mountains. So the trade dried up, for the Ascendants at least. Most of it goes west now, over the mountains and north to the United Provinces. And of course we get our share, and keep them on hand for guests.”

  “Your Cassandra sounds like an interesting place.”

  Giles tipped his head back, blinking thoughtfully. There was something studied about his expression, as though he were playing at a casual manner. “Oh, it is, it is. They have some interesting beliefs—salvation, great destinies, things like that. Remarkable, er, people there. Not much like us, to tell you the truth. Very interested in, um, religion, and—well, I guess you could call it politics. In taking a sort of—er, a global view of things. You might enjoy talking to them some time. If ever you go there, I mean. Quite an interesting place, oh yes.”

  I stared at him blankly. He drew on his cigarette, looked around before continuing in a conspiratorial whisper. “Cassandra’s the center for all these changes, you understand. There’s a—they have a sort of replicant there, a marvelous thing they found hidden in one of the caverns. It can send and receive messages from HORUS, it advises them—”

  “Who?” I asked, exasperated. “ Who does it advise?”

  Giles looked surprised. “Well, everyone. I mean, anyone who’s interested in what’s going on.” His eyebrows arched dramatically, and he fixed me with a knowing look, as though I too were expected to know whatever the hell was going on. “You know, Dr. Burdock and all the rest…”

  He spoke the name with reverence. I sipped at my tea, and after a moment asked rather crossly, “It sounds like this Dr. Burdock made quite an impression there. If they’re still talking about him four hundred years later. What happened to him?”

  Giles’s good-natured face puckered into a frown, and his gaze flickered uneasily from me to the floor. “He was a victim of one of the fundamentalist Ascensions,” he said at last.

  “And this replicant that can communicate with HORUS—” I had only ever heard vague rumors about the ancient network of space stations, where political refugees were supposed to have fled and founded the first Ascendant Autocracy centuries before. “What’s it doing there? It doesn’t sound like these people have much use for the Ascendants.”

  But now Giles decided he’d said enough. “There are some strange old things in Cassandra. And here, too. Trevor is only one of them.”

  He laughed softly, almost to himself, and ground out his cigarette in a small brass dish. So that would be all the explanation I got, at least for now. I stretched my hand across the scarred old table and picked up the cigarette pack. It was made of thin, pulpy gray paper with a logo stamped on it in bleeding red ink. The logo showed the image of a pyramid with an eye inside, surmounted by a star or sun. Beneath it was a single word spelled out in strange characters.

  Iχαpυσ

  I pointed at the unknown word. “What’s that mean?” Giles only shrugged and looked away. I took a cigarette from the packet. It was needle thin and hand rolled, and tasted sweet.

  “They cure them with hashish and honey,” said Giles. He poured himself some tea and took a sip. I started to ask him again about the symbols, the eye in the pyramid, the foreign word, but before I could speak, he pushed away his cup and stood. “Well, I better get back out there. Miss Scarlet’s in the barn, trying her best to keep out of the way. Your friend Jane is helping me with the cows. She’s a wonder with animals.”

  I smiled. “She was a Zoologist in the City.”

  “That’s what she said. Well, she’ll earn her keep here, that’s for sure.” Grinning, he slapped the table in farewell. So I had the kitchen to myself—very pleasant, with the sun streaming through the high windows and the mingled scents of my hashish cigarette and the fruitwood burning in the woodstove. I thought about what Giles had told me, marveling. A place in the mountains where people did not live in fear of the Ascendants. A replicant that could talk to the fabled HORUS colonies. And this peculiar Dr. Burdock, who seemed somewhere between saint and demon. I tried to recall if Dr. Harrow had ever spoken of him at HEL. But I drew up nothing, and wished again I
’d paid more attention when Dr. Harrow was trying to teach me about the history of our world.

  I finished my cigarette and put together breakfast from the things kept warm in that magical little glass oven. I ate eggs and sausage and a kind of crumbly green cheese, took a few bites of the breadlike bracket fungi and drank my tea. The hashish left me feeling pleasantly muddled. It reminded me of mornings at the Human Engineering Laboratory, where we young empaths were given every luxury and no one would disturb our meals if we wished to eat alone. That was before Justice and I fled HEL; before my brain had sprouted new neutral pathways that allowed me to feel emotions as others did. Now, for the first time I found myself missing the regime at HEL. It had seemed like—it was —a prison, especially during the last weeks of my tenure there; but how much calmer that life seemed than the one I had now.

  And suddenly Justice’s face appeared before me. I closed my eyes, trying to will away the surge of grief, wishing I could once again be the detached creature Dr. Harrow had used and discarded; but it was too late. I had no visions left. Now, when I tasted my own tears, or Miss Scarlet’s or Jane’s, there was only bitterness on my tongue. It seemed to me that it was a terrible price I had paid for my brief time with Justice. Once I would have raged over my unhappiness, but even rage was gone from me now. So I sat, the sunny morning gone cold about me, and drank my tepid tea alone.

  From somewhere in the house a clock bonged the noon hour. I stood and began pushing dishes around on the counter, wondering if I should go find my friends in the barn.

  “Ah! You’re awake.”

  Turning, I saw Trevor in yet another doorway—it seemed every hall led to the kitchen in this house. He wore faded old clothes and carried a basket filled with more mushrooms. “Come with me,” he called, smiling and beckoning me toward him. He started back down the corridor. I looked around, half-hoping for someone else to appear; then with a shrug I followed him.