A Princess of The Linear Jungle

by Paul Di Filippo

  Children raced out, the boys rats, the girls pigeons.

  The explorers stood gape-jawed. Merritt thought she had become innuredinured to strangeness, but evidently she had more capacity for shock than she had imagined.

  The humans were forgotten in the general exuberance of the homecoming. But none of them thought of fleeing, realizing the impossibility of escape.

  Suddenly a wave of agitation raced through the ratmen and pigeon-women, radiating from deeper within the village. All the villagers fell to their knees and bowed their hybrid heads to the ground, forming a defile.

  Down that corridor of obeisance walked a fully human woman, completely bare. Fully human, save for her crimson skin. In stature and proportion, she was magnificent, tall as Scoria or Pivot, more lush than Cady Rachis. Even her luxuriant tresses were a watermelon cascade.

  Here was the creature whose partial photograph had sparked their quest.

  Merritt, riveted by the sight, experienced a sourceless flash of knowledge: this woman was singular, unique. No others of her tribe existed.

  The living eidolon came right up to the stunned humans, regarding them with a keen and piercing gaze. Then she spoke, in dulcet tones.

  “I am the Princess of Vayavirunga. Welcome to you all. Especially to my heir.”

  And then the Princess of Vayavirunga kneeled gracefully at Merritt’s feet.

  10.

  NEW PRINCESS

  “I’M GOING MAD! MAD, I TELL YOU! AS LOOPY AS THAT RED witch herself!”

  Cady Rachis’s latest temper tantrum caused Merritt’s perpetually incipient headache to spike. Wouldn’t the woman ever shut up?

  Three weeks of forced habitation in the boring and tranquil village of the hybrids had not completely agreed with any of the surviving members of the Scoria-Vinnagar Vayavirunga Expedition, but perhaps least of all with Cady Rachis. True, after the deadly rigors and confusion of their capture and transportation here, the security of knowing their status as privileged prisoners, as well as ready access to shelter, clean water, and decent food (admittedly, a monotonous vegetarian diet), had allowed Cady to relax and improve her appearance somewhat. Hair combed, face un-begrimed, tattered clothes washed and creatively rejiggered into a revealing playsuit fit for the tropical clime, the statuesque lounge singer easily assumed the role of next-most beautiful woman in all the Jungle Blocks.

  But where was the large society of admirers she needed to affirm her erotic allure?

  Ransome Pivot, of course, remained faithful and worshipful, but he was only one callow youth, however broad-shouldered, and no amount of adoration from such would suffice.

  Durian Vinnagar and Dan Peart remained asexually immune to her charms, each fixated on other concerns.

  Arturo Scoria exhibited a disgusting fidelity to Merritt, Cady’s one human rival. In fact, since her nomination as Princess-in-waiting, he seemed somewhat in awe of her, solicitous of her every comfort.

  Even the ratmen—no longer quite so vile-seeming and reprehensible as initially deemed, and certainly modeling many desirable masculine traits, all on shameless display in frequent semi-public intercourse with their buxom avian mates—ignored Cady, refusing to accord her any of the lavish kowtowing they bestowed on the Princess of Vayavirunga.

  And that red witch herself stood as the biggest roadblock to Cady’s rightful domination of this new social order she had been forced to inhabit, however temporarily. The self-annointed Princess of Vayavirunga ruled with a capricious yet iron hand, and her preternatural beauty and charisma represented an unassailable pinnacle from which nothing Cady did could dethrone her. At those infrequent intervals when the Princess manifested among the humans in her elusive fashion, she sucked all the erotic air out of the room and concentrated it in her naked form.

  “We have to get out of here soon!” Cady exclaimed now, to whomever would listen. “Why aren’t you all doing something! Anything!”

  The six travelers sat inside the large hut they had been assigned. Its shaded interior boasted few furnishings: really nothing more than six sleeping pallets of moss and palm fronds and a few withy baskets holding fruit.

  Already, thought Merritt, trying to tune out Cady’s repetitive diatribe, it seemed they had inhabited this rude hut forever. What would their captivity feel like if it extended into months, or even years? Dan Peart was the only one to harken to Cady’s plaint, since it jibed with his own concerns. He began to go over his futile scheme once again.

  “The key to getting out of here is the River. You might argue the Tracks’re just as likely an escape route, but no Train’s gonna stop for anyone trying to flag it down in the middle of the Jungle Blocks. Nope, it’s got to be the River. We climb out of this salad bowl at night, quiet-like. Then we find the nearest Cross Street and make our way out to the Slips. We hail a boat by day, or even swim out to one—”

  Scoria interrupted this fantasy. “Do you recall, Dan, how incredibly difficult it was for us to beat our way from the Slip to Broadway, even with machetes? How could we penetrate such a tangle without a single tool? Do you imagine you could separate a ratman from his lance? No, the hybrids would be upon us before we even got to Broadway. I’ve said it a hundred times before: our only hope in seeing civilization again resides in Merritt, and her relationship to the Princess.”

  Merritt squirmed uneasily as all eyes focused on her. She didn’t know what to say. Her situation and status were highly problematical and confusing, not mention embarrassing and scary.

  Since that moment when the Princess had kneeled before Merritt, the ruler of Vayavirunga had continued to insist that Merritt was in some nebulous sense her heir, the next ruler of Vayavirunga. But what this meant on a practical level, no one could say, least of all Merritt.

  This uncertainty stemmed from the fact that the Princess did indeed seem insane. Not all the time, and not in a manifestly dangerous way. But her thoughts and reminiscensesreminiscences followed odd, sometimes self-cancelling vectors, charting bizarre paths across fact and fiction…

  Merritt had been invited, alone, to conduct several dialogues with the Princess in her private hut, which, democratically, was no more ostentatious or luxurious than any other. These talks left Merritt dizzy with their implications, consisting as they did of a welter of confessions, omissions, assertions and interpolations.

  At the first such session, Merritt had not known what was in store.

  Three days after their arrival in the village, bereft of further briefs from the Princess, they had all been wondering what was in store for them, when several ratmen approached the humans and culled Merritt out of the pack. Scoria and Pivot tried barging along as her protectors, but found themselves on the wrong end of a few spears.

  Led to the Princess’s hut, Merritt came upon the mystery woman seated on the only article of furniture yet found in the village: a bamboo throne cushioned with a feather-stuffed, leaf-latticed pillow.

  The Princess’s resonant voice was all honey, but Merritt could detect the steel beneath. The inside of the hut was warm and close, and filled with a potent, indefinable spicy scent.

  “Sit at my feet, dear, and tell me your name.”

  Merritt complied.

  “Yes, that fits you perfectly. I had a dim sense of your name, which, after all, is but the most trivial part of your essence. But there could beno mistaking your glowing spirit, calling out to mine, mate to mate. I first saw it shining afar. A little flame, burning in my inner vision ever since you were born. Then, as you passed my domain some months ago, riding upon the waters, I sensed your closeness, your affinity. That was when I determined to bring you here, to end my long isolation.”

  “You—you brought us here? How?”

  “By allowing myself to be seen and photographed. Why should I appear only now, after all these centuries of secrecy, if not to lure you here?”

  “But how could you know anything about Arturo and his plans? Do you visit other Boroughs? How could you ever pass unnoticed, looking as you do?�
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  The Princess laughed like a crystalline rill tumbling down the wall of the bowl they inhabited. “Not in the flesh, dear Merritt. But I apprehend many things nonetheless, both near and far. As you will, when you assume my mantle.”

  Here the Princess of Vayavirunga seemed briefly to collapse a little bit into herself, as if allowing herself to register the full weight and despair of a burden long denied by sheer force of will. But then she resumed her magnificent manner.

  “I am weary now. Leave me, and we shall talk more later.”

  When Merritt returned to her fellows, they all surged around her in relief, even Cady. Arturo quizzed her about what had passed, and she tried to recount everything.

  Ransome said, “What could she mean about centuries of secrecy? Is she implying that there’s been a succession of Princesses who have all kept hidden? She’s the latest, and you’re to follow?”

  “That must be the case,” said Scoria.

  But Merrit was not so sure.

  Subsequent conversations with the Princess had touched upon many of the enigmas of the Jungle Blocks, but often without satisfactory or definitive results.

  On the origin of Vayavirunga: “A piece of the sky fell down, detaching from where the Pompatics dwell. When it landed, all was changed.” Or: “There was an accident in Fogtown, the central Borough. Scientists were responsible. What they made escaped, and ate down and outward.” Or: “The Citybeast wept, and its tears transformed whatever they touched.”

  On the origin of the hybrids: “They are the former human citizens of these Boroughs, transmuted.” Or: “I myself spliced them and taught them to breed true, so that I might have followers to keep me company and serve me.” Or: “They were seeds inherent upon the falling sky piece, that piece, which took root here and flourished.”

  On why the Pompatics ignored the dead hybrids: “I have removed the entry for their species from the lookup table.”

  On the Subway and the Discontinuity: “The Linear City automatically reroutes around damage.”

  On her personal origin: “I rode down on the sky fragment’s back.” Or: “I was an infant castaway when the ship that carried my parent son the River crashed here in flinders, during a storm. The hybrids raised me.” Or: “I came here like yourself, on another expedition, when there was no Princess, and invented my role.” Or: “I was sent from the Borough of Narligrash, millions of Blocks from here, to monitor the situation, and I simply overstayed my remit.”

  Finally, as to what fate lay in store for Merritt, the Princess would only say: “I shall take you to your destiny when the time is ripe for us both.”

  During these interviews, Merritt would find herself experiencing the queerest affinity for and empathy with the Princess, almost as if she could experience the other woman’s thoughts and feelings directly. The hot, cloistered air inside the royal hut, thick with unknown perfume, conspired with Merritt’s anxiety and perpetual lack of sleep to induce in her a fugue state, where all her old life seemed unreal under the waterfall of seductive words tripping from the Princess’s tongue. This fugue state often passed over at night into odd, perfervid dreams. Orphaned since birth, had Merritt not indeed felt a special calling? Who was to say she was not indeed the next Princess of Vayavirunga?

  Back in the hut she shared, shaking herself out of her trance, Merritt and the others spent futile hours parsing these tidbits of contradictory information, nowise enlightened in the process.

  At this moment Merritt could no longer stand the massed expectations of her fellows, all centered on her, thanks to Arturo’s assertion that she alone held the key to their release. She got to her feet and said, “I can’t think about any of this any longer. I’m tired, and I’ve got a headache. I’m going outside to play with the children.”

  The ratboys and pigeongirls, from toddlers to adolescents, could generally be found running about, playing variations of simple games any human child would have found instantly familiar. They were used to Merritt’s company by now, for she delighted in being with them, and they welcomed her into their midst with chittering and cooing. Soon she was sitting cross-legged on the ground and holding and holding a pigeonbaby in each arm, while ratboys rested their heads in her lap to be petted.

  Durian Vinnagar approached. “Merritt, let us go over again this matter of the Citybeast—Vasuki, of course, great be His Name. It’s truly the most vital matter of our quest. You claim the Princess said something about His tears—”

  “Oh, Durian, please leave me alone! I’m so very tired. We’ll know everything there is to know when the Princess is ready to show us, and no sooner!”

  And that day, as it happened, lay just beyond the following dawn.

  When several ratmen came to the dwelling of the humans early that morning, Merritt resignedly rose to her feet and prepared to accompany them to see the Princess. But the ratmen were not satisfied with her individual compliance, and began chittering animatedly at the other explorers, urging them all to file out of the hut.

  Outside, Merritt was astonished to see the whole population of the village awaiting them. A nearly palpable air of expectancy overlaid their alien stances.

  The ratmen continued to chitter away, and suddenly Durian Vinnagar spoke, his voice laden with astonishment.

  “I—I can understand some of what they’re saying. After all these weeks of blankfaced immersion. It’s as if a door suddenly opened in my mind….”

  Arturo Scoria clapped his rival on the back with real affection. “Durian, I always said your linguistic skills were second-to-none! Give out with what you can decipher.”

  “They say—they say we must all go to see She—She-Who-Needs-Be-Heeded. It is the time… the time of succession.”

  Merritt’s guts clenched and knotted. What was expected of her, what trial would she face? Did she want whatever was about to be offered to her? Why now? No, she needed more time to think—

  But the royal guardsrats brooked no dissent, and the six explorers were hastened deeper into the village, toward the hut of the Princess, the mass of hybrids trailing expectantly, as if at a carnival.

  Dan Peart looked longingly at the Riverside slope. “I say we make our dash right now, chums.”

  Ransome Pivot said, “And get a spear through the back? Leave Merritt alone to meet what awaits without help or encouragement? Is that really what you want, Dan?”

  Peart slumped in defeat. “No, of course not.”

  Durian Vinnagar did not join in the argument. Sparing him a look, Merritt thought she had never seen him more preoccupied. Surely even in these circumstances he would show a little academician’s pride at his translation accomplishments. But no, only obsessive worry clouded his features.

  Cady Rachis, however, grinned with pure schadenfreude. “Whatever happens to Little Miss Genius, I’m sure she’ll derive at least her master’s thesis from it.”

  Arturo Scoria gripped Merritt’s hand and squeezed. “Don’t pay her any mind, Mer, she’s simply jealous. We’re all standing behind you.”

  “Jealous! Ha! Of this pale little wallflower! Why, I—”

  Their arrival at the royal hut cut short Cady’s insults. There, they encountered a disturbing sight.

  The Princess of the Linear Jungle was pacing up and down before her residence, muttering to herself and wringing her hands. Her thick melon-tinted hair was wildly tufted, as if she had been pulling at it. All her regal composure had evaporated.

  “To die, to cease, to be no more! I want an end to my days, don’t I? I’ve yearned so for the last century. Insupportable! I know too much! The roots and branches of this world! Too much! But not to walk the earth, to smell the flowers, to hear a voice— What—What comes after? The bulls and wives will fight over me, won’t they? Behind the scrim of this world, what awaits? I thought I saw it once, all gears and pistons. Or was it a glittering net of diamonds? No! I cannot hesistate any longer! I brought my successor here! Let her worry about it all! Let her take up the scepter. Courage, Haresha
r, courage! If it must be done, it must be done swiftly, and today!”

  Visibly bucking herself up, as if slipping on an invisible corseting garment over her superb form, the Princess turned to confront her visitors, acting unconcerned, as if her most intimate vulnerabilities had not just been displayed for all to see.

  “Welcome, Merritt, my young protégé, and welcome also to your comrades. Today is a day of solemn magnificence, but also of joy. Let us go forth, you and I, to exchange places. I will become mortal, and accept my instant demise, while you put on the raiment of eternity.”

  Merritt struggled to understand. “What—what do you mean? Do you speak in symbols, or realities?”

  “In both, dear. But come, time is ever-passing, and we should not waste it. I will explain as we go.”

  Taking Merritt’s hand and separating her from Arturo, the Princess of Vayavirunga marched off past her hut, toward the center of the Jungle Blocks, heading for a part of the overgrown Borough the explorers had never yet seen.

  Chivvied along by the ratmen, the humans perforce marched too.

  The land continued to slope down.

  “We are approaching the central cataclysm, Merritt, where the skyblock impacted, where the science creature escaped, where the City-beast shed Her tears.”

  Durian Vinnagar pricked up his ears at mention of the Citybeast, and Merritt thought he murmured, “His tears…”

  Ahead of the walkers stretched a barrier of trees and shrubs, cultivated rather than wild. The Princess called a halt. She turned to face her loyal hybrid subjects. Chittering and cooing and gesturing, she plainly bade them hang back.

  “They are allowed no further. Come now, and you will see my secret.”

  Merritt and the rest pushed through the sparse thicket and came to a stop.