Edgar said, “Bruce? Professor Ling?”
Brucie stayed silent, still staring at the magic water, a well full of milk flavored with strawberry syrup.
Edgar said, “Professor Ling, the chirurgeons of Têtonland can grow you new limbs. They can make you whole again. In there...” a gesture at the rippling, misty Well, “In there we all die.”
How does he know that? Is it part of some story in which we have no part?
“And to what end...” whispered Inbar, holding his pixie like a lovely doll.
Astrid Kincaid slung her rifle over her shoulder, snugging its strap up close, and said, “The Hell with you all.” She turned, stepped forward, stepped into the Well and disappeared.
Gone, thought Ling Erhshan. Not a splash, not a shift in the pattern of ripples.
“Professor Ling.”
Mind empty, Ling Erhshan took a step forward, then another and another, until he fell into the Well and was gone.
o0o
Subaïda Rahman stood silently by and watched them go, by ones and twos:
Astrid Kincaid with anger snapping in her eyes. Fed up with... all of this. Fed up with not finding... whatever intangible thing she was looking for.
Then Ling Erhshan, cradling his bandaged stump, limping on his torn leg, bending over his injured side, shuffling forward, slowly, slowly, into the Well and gone.
And that horrible Brucie Big-Dick, empty-eyed, singing softly to himself, “‘... gone where the goblins go...’“ Two quick steps forward and away.
Passiphaë Laing, girl reporter, heroic woman figure... Character from a story, imitation of life set in motion for the edification of some passive Other? Passiphaë Laing hand-in-hand with Rhino-Jensen-I-Presume, the two of them stepping forward into the pink mists of nothingness.
Lord Genda Hiroshige, fleeing God’s wrath...
Fleeing the Space-Time Juggernaut?
Lord Genda Hiroshige pausing to kiss his pathetic robot girl on the lips, both of them closing their eyes ever so briefly. And holding hands as well as they dropped away into that other world.
Away, perhaps, into nonexistence?
See the fear on Inbar’s face? See how he clutches his pixiegirl close? I’ve found what I came for, his fearful eyes proclaim. Don’t make me lose it now. Is that all you came for, Dr. Inbar, planetologist supreme? A magic sleeve to rub your penis?
Amanda Grey casting one arrogant eye round at the remainder, withering contempt for Squire Edgar. Amanda Gray turning and striding into the pool.
Edgar, standing motionless. Edgar fatalistic. “So. You put down the godhead. And it takes you back up.” He drew his long sword, a gleaming metal tensor in the half-light that spilled up from the Well. Held it over his head. Screamed the name of Odin, fury in his voice. Made a swan dive over the well and...
Omry Inbar looking at her, clutching his pixie doll. “Subaïda?”
Does Aarae have no opinion? Is he what she was looking for? Can’t she take him back to Yttria and Happily Ever After? Rahman shrugged, smiled a half-smile. “Sorry.” Took a step toward the Well, then another. Inbar ran past her, breathing heavily, and fell headlong into the mist, leaving her alone.
Well. All alone here now. All alone with my thoughts, my fears, my... memories? All right. And do I have the courage? Of course I do.
One step. Then another. And...
Falling. Falling through emptiness. Falling through the silvery pink mist that had spilled up from the Well of Liquid Light. Falling all alone in an empty pastel sky. Strange. I thought the others would be with me. No wind in my ears. Hair motionless. I could be floating in a vacuum. Not even breathing. How do I know that I fall?
Voice, neutral voice, neuter voice, voice without timber, voice without sound. Whispering to her...
Subaïda.
Subaïda my love?
Who?
No answer.
The voice said, By those who snatch away men’s souls, and those who gently release them; by those who float at will, and those who speed headlong; by those who govern the affairs of this world! On the day the Trumpet sounds its first and second blast, all hearts shall be filled with terror, and all eyes shall stare with awe.
Fallingfallingfalling. Accompanied by the whispering Voice.
I know those words. Of course I know them. Heart in her chest, all the evidence she had that she was still alive, stuttering with sudden terror. Oh, God. Every child knows those words.
Memory of hearing them, droned by some bored teacher. Some teacher teaching because it was the only job she could get. Somebody poking at my back. Salim. Trying to get my attention. I must have been eight years old. Maybe nine. They used to read to us from the apocalyptic Suras when we were children, because they were exciting, because they knew we’d listen. The dull, pedantic ones could come later, when we were accustomed to listening...
The Voice whispered, When we are turned to hollow bones, shall we be restored to life? A fruitless transformation!
Fruitless indeed. For what good is life, simply lived over again? Why come back to the same old sorrows and fears? Better to stay down in the empty silence of the grave, unknowing, unthinking, without form, without substance, without spirit...
But with one blast they shall return to the earth’s surface.
Whether they will that return or not. They question you about the Hour of Doom... On the day when they behold that hour, they will think they stayed in the grave but one evening, or one morning.
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. What if it’s real?
Then: Explosion of light and sound...
o0o
A moment’s heart-pounding tumble through formless pink mist, tiny woman clutched tightly in his hands, then Omry Inbar found himself standing sunk to his knees in the surface of a cloud. A bright cloud, fleecy white wool under a dead black sky.
Curious, detached thoughts from that cool, carefully-trained scientific mind, a part of him that seemed almost lost, buried beneath endless dunes of drifting sand. It’s that Lunar sky again, featureless, dead black sky, but for the Sun and Earth...
Eyes searching the heavens. Nothing. No sun to make this cloudscape bright. No Earth to go home to now. Am I tired of forging onward? The feel of the tiny woman in his hands was one answer. “Where are we, Aarae?”
Tiny pixie face clearly frightened, big, dark foxy eyes darting and wary. “In... the heart of God’s Machine.” Pixie girl still talking from a script, speech full of meaning-freighted pauses. But she huddled close to his side, and that was all that really mattered.
A meteor fell from the black sky, trailing a line of pale pink dust, arcing downward to fall nearby. A glowing meteor with a human at its heart. Rahman, of course.
He struggled to walk, found it unexpectedly easy, like walking through fog. Though, when I peer downward... nothing. My feet are resting on nothing. I’m walking on air. Walking toward Rahman, but... They made it to a towering billow of cloud stuff and Inbar stood still, looking all around. White clouds towering higher, tumbling lower, down to a horizonless black sky. Far out in the inky dark, other clouds, moving across his vision field, only that, for their was no backdrop, other clouds, tracking in distant arcs, like planets round a central sun.
As if I stood at the center of some immense, diaphanous orrery. Planet clouds with little moon clouds swirling round them. As if they floated on some invisible surface. A bit like... some ancient spiral galaxy in formation. Can we have come to the beginning of time? No. Not the beginning.
Voices.
Ling Erhshan coming up the hill, cradling his stump, leaning into his pain, Brucie the Technician walking with him, the two of them talking. Ling said, “It all reminds me of something.”
Yet another old story? Was that all you thought about, when you weren’t building your secret rocket ship? Sudden bitter memory. They brought weapons to the Moon, these terrible Green Chinamen. Was it that which brought monstrous Americans down upon us all?
What
if there’d been no Stargate? Another... thread, perhaps, in which the Plan worked out. Arab bases on the Moon, Arab resource nodes out among the asteroids. Colonies on Mars. A space station around Venus. Miners mining the surface metals of Mercury. A volatiles production facility on Ganymede...
A future for humanity. But...
Tiny Aarae sitting on his shoulder now, her tiny vulva damp on his skin, whispering in his ear, whispering, It will be all right, my love. It will be all right...
Brucie said, “Yeah. I know what you mean. I remember being a kid, back in the Fifties...”
Sudden, pale shock, Inbar realizing he meant the Nineteen-Fifties.
“... something about the galaxy turning out to be suds floating in a cesspool...” Cloudscape floating on darkness.
Ling said, “Bertram Chandler, perhaps?” Frowning now, concentrating, trying to remember.”
Brucie said, “‘The Key’?”
Delight on Ling Erhshan’s face, momentarily blotting out the pain. “Of course! Halvorsen’s outhouse key.”
To come here then, and think about... old stories? Who are these people? Aarae pressed her face against his cheek, kissing the corner of his eye. Other people appearing in the cloudscape. Laing and Jensen, holding hands. Amaterasu and Genda, holding hands. Kincaid, holding her rifle. Rahman, alone and empty handed, face flat and still, eyes alive with interest.
They walked onward, not quite a group, more like a collection of stragglers. Foot soldiers in some old movie. Napoleon’s men, trudging slowly home through the snows of Russia, dying, dying, dying, the fruit of French manhood all lost at once. Frenchmen are short, they say, because all the tall Frenchmen died before Moscow.
A distant voice, crying out in the wilderness. “Oh, God. Take me away from here...” A soft, whining voice. A child’s pleading voice.
Knight-Errant Amanda Grey and Squire Edgar, not standing together, standing apart, facing each other, another figure huddled between them, a man on his knees, a man on his belly, a man clad in rich clothing, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, cloth sequined with precious stones, emeralds and rubies and sapphires and diamonds, bright green and red, shimmering blue, pale, straw-tinted yellow.
A very handsome man in beggar’s pose, handsome man with empty gray eyes, whispering, “I’m tired of this game now. Can you show me the way home? I’ve been lost for ever so long...”
Angry Edgar, pointing down at the apparition, eyes afire. “Is this what you came for?”
Amanda Grey, appalled. “Ardry Bright-Sky...”
And Edgar said, “I loved you Amanda.”
Astonished look on her face. “Our duty, Edgar...”
“Duty.” Spat out, like something foul in his mouth. He held up his hand, the one with the plain silver ring. “A man can grow tired of duty.”
She said, “Without the ring, you can’t have the role. You know that. You always knew it. You made... a choice. Once upon a time.”
She kneeled by the fallen figure and said, “Come, Prince Ardry Bright-Sky. We are here to take you home.”
The man started to cry.
Edgar said, “Do you still think Erik Rede-Miser will let you marry his grandson? Do you still think you’ll one day be queen by Ardry Bright-Sky’s side?”
Amanda looking up at him. “I have what I came for.”
Fury sliding across Edgar’s face, filling up his eyes. “And what of these others?” Gesturing round, at their little audience of fellow travelers. “What of them?”
She looked, eyes empty now, as empty as those of Ardry Bright-Sky. “Let them do what they will. I have what I came for.” A long silence, filled only by Ardry’s soft weeping. “Come, Edgar. If you’re still my squire. Take off your ring and send us home...”
Home? Omry Inbar felt a curious pang in his chest. Home? Which home? Where will he send us? Can my Aarae come home to Earth? Pixiegirl suddenly clutching him fearfully around the neck, holding him close. Tiny pixie voice crying out, bell like, “Oh, Edgar. Oh, Edgar, no...”
Edgar, seeming not to hear, looking down at Amanda Gray, at fallen Ardry Bright-Sky, whoever he might be, if anyone. Voice very flat now, emotionless: “Take off my ring.” Anger apparent: “That is forbidden.”
Rage glowing in Amanda Grey’s otherwise empty eyes. She opened her mouth, as if to speak...
And the sky suddenly blinked, a flicker like heat lighting, lambent glow expanding to fill up the whole world, accompanied by a rustle of wings, a hundred billion wings, a trillion wings rustling like leaves in a fresh Fall wind, the wind that comes before the storm...
o0o
Ling Erhshan watched it come swarming out of nothingness. First one, a bright spark, then another, and another, some going this way, some that, until they were many, emanating like shower meteors from a fixed radiant. Forming up into... something. What am I expecting? A crackle, like static electricity in the air.
Inbar seeming to cower, pixie fluttering on his shoulder, terror stark on her little woman-face.
Pathetic wretch on the ground, moaning softly, as if to himself, “Oh, Lord Ahriman. No more. Please no more. I’ll be good. I promise I’ll be good...”
Memory rising up out of the haze. What was I? Six? Seven? It’s all tangled up together now. Childhood memories. The stories. The later events of my adult life. All tangled up together, like none of it was real. Ang Xianhue. That was his name. A half-Vietnamese boy who lived at that first orphanage. The one where...
Memory of a thin little boy, pinned to the floor. Big man holding him down while that gaunt, angry woman lashed at him with her shiny patent-leather belt. Hitting and hitting, little Xian crying, begging for them to stop, then choking, choking on his tears, only gasping, hardly able to breathe...
Afterward, she was so angry that she’d cracked the fake leather of her strap. I don’t remember why she was beating him. Maybe because he kept insisting his name was really Ang Nguyen Hue...
I do remember imagining that boys with real parents never had things like this happen to them. It was such a bright dream. Just like the dreams in the old books and stories, the dreams on films, the dreams that drenched my soul with hope for the future.
The black sky was full of fiery birds now, bright with birds, birds of all colors, birds of flame, birds swarming, turning in on themselves, whirling round and round, birds taking on a definite shape.
Ahriman? Is that Ahriman in the sky now? Is that who I want it to be? Some foreign devil’s nightmare devil, that’s all. Fiery birds like a cloud of bright smoke, like a cartoon genie emerging from his cartoon lamp, cloud of fire growing bright eyes, bright lips, a beard of licking flame.
Sergeant-Major Astrid Kincaid, she of the silver eyes and golden hair, standing tall before them, rifle to her shoulder, leveled, then tilted up into the sky. Firing. Firing. M-80 blinking, explosive rounds disappearing into the sky, tiny crack, crack, crack, futile, small sounds lost in the immensity all around them.
What does she think she’s doing?
No answer.
But she kept on firing.
So, said the thing in the sky.
So, my little ones...
Ardry Bright-Sky screamed, a child’s hopeless wail, and threw himself into the cloudscape, face down. “Please, oh, please...”
Amanda Grey standing before him, standing over him, straddling him with her proud, muscular heroine’s legs. Amanda Grey with her bright sword drawn, held over her head, defying the heavens.
Squire Edgar, baldheaded, sad Squire Edgar standing motionless beside them. Nothing on his face. Nothing but sorrow. You knew it would come to this, that face said.
Beside him, Ling heard Brucie Big-Dick whisper, “If that’s fucking God then I’m fucking Captain Kirk.”
Astrid Kincaid, firing her useless gun, bang, bang, bang...
Punishing God for all his transgressions?
You could hear her swearing under her breath, random words torn from whatever part of her brain was responsible for that sort of thing. G
od damn you, God damn you...
Silly. Can God damn Himself?
Why would He bother?
Just to show He can?
Must be tough, being omnipotent...
Then Edgar stepped forward, stood right in front of Amanda, in front of whimpering Ardry Bright-Sky. “Forbidden,” he said. Flat. Bitter. Useless. Lifted one hand to the heavens. The one with the ring. “You see?” He shouted. “You see?”
The thing in the sky said, Ho, Ho, Ho.
Edgar took off his ring, took it off and threw it down into the cloudscape, sent it ringing off some hard, invisible surface.
You will not, said the thing in the sky.
I will, said Edgar, voice equally large.
You will not, said the thing in the sky.
I Am That I Am, said Edgar.
And reached upward.
And blinded them with his golden light.
Eight. The Hound of Heaven.
The first conjecture, then: Where did it all come from? No problem. The records are here, well kept, well organized, for all to see. No problem at all.
Level One.
Once upon a time, through my own stupidity and greed, I fell into the Multiverse and, being who/what I seem to be, was seized by the minions of Archangel Bob and thrown into the maw of God’s Machine, the Great Universal Soul Sorting Algorithm. And this universal Turning machine of infinitely mutable pathways decided I fit the job description of God Almighty.
Well, that’s nice.
Reminds me of a political action plan I conceived not long after the turn of the millennium, when I was a young man and so thoroughly disgusted with the twists and turns of American politics. Let’s do away with electoral office, I said. Instead, let’s make a pool of all eligible citizens. Let’s hold a lottery and fill the offices that way.
What, you don’t want to be President of the United States of America? Too bad. Four years, buddy. Do a bad job, did you? As punishment, we’ll make you serve another term.
The Transmigration of Souls Page 29