The Choir Boats

by Rabuzzi, Daniel

  “Wake up!” she screamed but still she descended, her legs circling as if she were treading water. She looked down, right into the shining empty pupils of the Owl, each pupil a tunnel into which she could fall and never stop falling. At that instant, strength flowed back into her. She stopped her descent, realizing that she had held the Wurm pinned to his pillar, that he could not pursue her even if she could not overcome him. Only ten feet above his slicing beak, Sally floated and yelled, “No, not here, not this time!” With that she suddenly flew backwards. The Owl’s face dwindled and disappeared. Sally woke up.

  She woke with her heart pounding. Isaak was walking all around her chair. Tom was pounding on her door, and yelling. Still fearful that a shadow from the Wurm’s world might have clung to her and entered Yount, Sally stumbled to the door. Was it really Tom, or was it something that only sounded like Tom? Isaak came to the door and looked up at Sally as if to say, “Why aren’t you opening the door to your brother?” Sally opened the door.

  “Jambres!” yelled Tom. “He’s coming back, with Billy and Tat’head and the others! I dreamed him — sister, you know I don’t dream the way you do — but I dreamed. I saw them walking towards me on a moonlit road. Billy Sea-Hen tipped his hat and held up a hand in salute, curling two fingers into his palm. They’re coming! We must tell the Queen.”

  The next morning, Tom, Afsana, and Sally took pains to tell the Queen without telling the Arch-Bishop or any Sacerdote. When they could not tell her the timing of the Cretched Man’s arrival or what he might do once he came, the Queen was in doubt but finally agreed to meet him, provided the McDoons were with her.

  “I put my trust in you, who have given us so much,” said the Queen. “But I sense that you are yourselves not wholly convinced about the wisdom of seeking alliance with . . . with the Cretched Man. We shall meet with him, but no more can we promise now.”

  The next week was grim. The Ornish siege of Arreniuble tightened. The Ornish continued their advances in the Northern Fief-Lands and in the Liviates. Casualties mounted. Against this backdrop, the only good news was that the watchers on Yount Major’s western coast reported that the embassy squadron was making good time and that no Ornish raiders were to be seen.

  “Ornish raiders!” said Tom to Reglum, who had arrived with this latest piece of news.

  “Unlikely though, they would have to cut right through our core defences, to make ’round all of Yount Major,” said Reglum. “Don’t you worry, the Ornish have stolen a march on us in the outlands, but we shall rally quick enough once this war gets going for real. Well, I must be off, even A.B.s with suspect shoulders have duty-watch in wartime. May I come ’round the same time tomorrow, Sally?”

  As he walked upstairs for bed, Tom could not rid himself of the idea of raiders boarding the embassy frigate. Lost in this gloomy thought, he turned the key to his room, opened the door, and in the thin gaslight saw figures within. Gasping, he started to pull the door to, but several hands caught it and pulled the door inwards and Tom with it.

  Loositage! Tom thought. Sacerdotal Guards!

  He flung himself on the lead figure. He and the man fell to the floor grappling one another. Tom pinned the man down and was about to hit him with his good fist, when he realized these weren’t Sacerdotal Guards.

  A familiar voice said, “Well now, Tommy Two-Fingers, my lad, this is not exactly the warm welcome we were expecting — or rather it is too warm, you might say!”

  Tom gaped at Billy Sea-Hen on the floor beneath him. With one easy motion, Billy extricated himself from Tom’s grasp and stood up. Tat’head and the other Minders were all around him, laughing softly. In the corner sat Jambres.

  “Like that old dumbledore, didn’t I say that?” said Billy, nudging Tom’s shoulder. Tom picked himself up off his knees, shaking his head. Tat’head made a soft buzzing sound.

  Tom found his tongue at last. “But . . . how did you . . . ?”

  Billy jerked his head in Jambres’s direction and said, “His Grace can find hidden paths, you know that. We walked a piece on one, and here we are.”

  “But we cannot stay long,” said Jambres. “The Learned Doctors have ways to detect such comings and goings and will discover us shortly. That would be infelicitous.”

  Tom focussed on the Cretched Man. Even in the dim light something looked strange about him. With a lurch in his stomach, Tom knew what it was: Jambres had on new clothes. Instead of the great-coat from the advent of George III’s reign, Jambres had a cutaway frock-coat. His tricorne was gone in favour of a top hat, his breeches were replaced with trim trousers that strapped under each foot and tucked into his shoes. The materials and the cut were exquisite: Jambres would not have been out of place among the fashionable ton strolling in Mayfair or Belgravia in London. Except perhaps that his coat and pants were the colour of blood, and they rippled at the seams and stitching.

  Before Jambres could speak, Billy said, “We were all to be fitted for new clothes, all of us, but His Grace would not allow it. He argued with the Tailors, made ’em keep their needles and scissors away from our flesh. Only there was a price he had to pay, something he had to barter to make full weight on the Tailors’ bill, and we don’t know how we can ever make it square with him for his paying it on our behalf.”

  Jambres shook his head and said, “There is no need to speak of repayment, William.”

  Billy looked grim. “Well, governor, someone’s got to pay, to make right your sacrifice, that’s all I got to say.”

  Tom stared at Jambres and realized what price the Cretched Man had paid. Jambres was no longer just the man in the coat, but the man in the coat and trousers. Tom felt sick.

  Jambres said, “William, all of you, ’tis I who should repay you. You came with me when you did not have to, and you too have incurred a cost in doing so.”

  Tom looked carefully at the Minders’ clothes but confirmed that they were ordinary in every detail. He asked Billy what the Cretched Man meant.

  Billy said, “You know how slaves get thumbs or noses cut off or are hamstrung or gelded?”

  “Oh no!” cried Tom.

  “Rest easy,” said Billy. “We all have the parts we were born with — everything, if you catch my drift. But they cut us all the same, just not so’s you could see it, deep in our minds. With ghostly blades. Oh yes, they made a little cut but they couldn’t reach the deepest places in our minds. We protected ourselves. They did not hurt us like they wanted to.”

  Billy fell silent. Tom thought again that Billy looked like somebody he had met in London, only now, if Tom ever met whoever it might be in London, Tom would think that person looked like Billy and not the other way around.

  Tom gripped Billy’s arm and said, “I would have gone with you, Billy, you know that. I wanted to go with you.”

  Billy smiled, they all did, and said, “Of course, Tommy boy. We knows that, no one more than me. But you weren’t supposed to go, that wasn’t the way of it. Your place was here, not there.”

  Tom released his grip and said, “Where did you go?”

  No one spoke until at last Tat’head said, “His Grace knows for certain. All I can say is that we went very far, to a place you never want to come to Tommy, never.”

  Billy said, “The Owl took the Cretched Man in his beak and he took all five of us others by his claws. We dangled like throstle-birds on a wire, heads flopping, as the Owl flew away with us. We flew and flew into bitter cold night, with just the moon for company, only there wasn’t much to see except a grey desert beneath us. The Owl flew a very long time.”

  Again everyone fell silent until Tat’head said, “Funny thing about the place, Tommy, is that time was all slant-wise and unstilted. We have talked amongst ourselves about it and can’t agree how long we were gone, only that it was a long time, and for certain not the same as how the clock runs in England or in Yount.”

  Jambres stood up, joined the circle, and said, “As William says, it is cold there, a lunar cold. High flew the Owl ov
er the frozen grey wastes. Wastelands but there are roads there, oh yes, many roads lead to the place we were going — many, many roads so every soul can find a well-trodden path. We flew over the ranks of the Watchers, who guard the outermost perimeter, far beneath us, so far that they looked no larger than the heads of pins, though they are huge as they squat on their pillars in eternal vigilance. Finally we approached the first circle and began to descend. From our great height we just caught a glimpse of what lies beyond, as far from us as we had already travelled, but it was enough.”

  The Minders stared at the wall, seeing again what Jambres described.

  Tom said, “What did you see?”

  Without moving, Jambres said, “What Uriel and Raphael showed Enoch. On the very edge of sight the teterrimous mountains, huge, made of brass, scaling the dark heavens, rimmed with blue flames. At their base, the lake of living ice in which the nine stars are chained for their sins. On the plain, the prisons for the angels who have fallen. In the mounting hills, etched by white fire unquenched, the hollows that will be the tribunals at the end of time.”

  Tom wished he had not asked, but now it was too late.

  Jambres continued. “Down we descended in the dark. The Owl left us at the ante-buildings and others came out to take us within. The ante-buildings are vast beyond your imagining, full of chambers and endless corridors and stairways that run very deep, yet they are only the least of all the edifices in that place. We passed through the House of Triangulation and the House of Truncation and the House of Transection, in all of which ageless practitioners have perfected their arts, where they will carefully work trenchant attitudes upon you. At last we were brought to the hall of the Tailors where I was fitted, sutured, and brailed, as you now see me.”

  Tom wished to hear no more.

  “There is little more to tell,” said Jambres, with a brittle laugh. “I am to resume my duties as gatekeeper and warden to Yount. They sent me back in my newly bespoke suit. They made us walk the long road over the cold desert. That’s where you saw us in your dream, Thomas. And then slowly we made our way to Sanctuary, by roads that crossed out of the dark place, ones that only someone with my skills could find.”

  Tom said, “Where is the Seek-by-Night?”

  “Still in Sanctuary with her crew,” said Jambres. “We did not think it prudent to sail into Yount Great-Port, so we slipped in by a quieter door!”

  For the next hour, they spoke of recent events in Yount and the reason for the Cretched Man’s return. Jambres said he needed to see the Queen as soon as possible. Tom said the Queen had already agreed. All that remained was to select a time for the meeting.

  “This very day, if it can be arranged,” urged Jambres. “We can return here at immediate notice. Speak everything in your power, Thomas, to make this happen. Much depends on it!”

  “How will I send word?” said Tom.

  Jambres handed Tom a bronze token, the size of a fifty-pence coin, with a circle of sable glass inset in the middle, and said, “Focus on the glass lunette, think of me until you can see me in its smoky depths. Shout with your mind, as hard as you can, and I will hear you.”

  As he said that, Jambres turned his head slightly as if he had caught a faint sound that was not there earlier. He held up one hand in his elegant coat. No one spoke.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “We have been found out. Come, we must depart. There is yet a few minutes. The Doctors have clumsy equipment and will not be able to locate us with accuracy, but they know I am here.”

  The Minders made ready to leave. Jambres bowed to Tom, turned, made a small motion and said something in a language unknown to Tom. The gaslight faded until only a small, ruddy glow remained at the tip of the hissing nozzle. In the near-dark, Tom could not see clearly but it appeared that Jambres and the Minders walked into a corner of the room — and vanished. The last to leave was Billy, who nudged Tom in the shoulder on his way past.

  “Good to see you, Tommy,” said Billy. “Time’s comin’ now for the fight.”

  Tom saw a last rustle of movement in the corner, and out of the darkness he caught Billy’s rapidly fading voice saying, “A respiration of angels, Tommy, a glory of seraphim.”

  The next morning Tom summoned Jambres to meet first with the other McDoons, and Jambres came. The McDoons gasped. Jambres sat in the chair in the corner at the far end of Tom’s room. He was white as ivory. His suit was immaculate. He wore no expression but he sat as if he were a violin string that had been tightened to the breaking point. Afsana said something in Hindi. Sally saw, for one second, the image of a shrike, its cold eye staring at her above a bill polished and cruelly curved. She had a cribbling sensation along her neck and shuddered down her spine. She regretted her decision to allow the Cretched Man here. Isaak hissed, her tail twice its normal size, her back a ridge of golden fur. At the sight of Isaak, the Cretched Man’s face betrayed emotion, a flicker of sadness, a shiver of desperation.

  Jambres slowly reached his right hand out and said to Isaak, “Please, do not be frightened. Come to me, little Bast.”

  Isaak stopped hissing but did not advance. Jambres said, “In my country of origin, back before Moses and Aaron, we held cats in the highest esteem. We built shrines to your kind, little one; we sent you to the Otherworld when you died. Come now, I will not harm you.”

  Isaak paced forward, not quite stalking but placing each paw with enormous precision. She did not take her green eyes off the Cretched Man.

  Jambres said, “Does the small lion have a name?”

  Against her will, but knowing that Tom would say if she did not, Sally said, “Isaak.”

  Jambres smiled and said, “Isaac. Very good. Behold, here am I.”

  Isaak came to within six inches of the Cretched Man’s outstretched fingers. Isaak stopped and sniffed. Slowly her tail resumed its normal size, the fur on her back lay down. Isaak walked with exaggerated deliberation along the perimeter in front of the Cretched Man. She did not come fully to him, but neither did she flee. Jambres put his hand palm up on his knee, letting his fingers hang limply over his kneecap, very white against the red trousers.

  Looking up at the McDoons, the Cretched Man said, “I know what you see in me: ‘dreams, magical terrors, lying signs, a witch, a night spectre, Thessalonian wonders.’ Am I as you see me? I come to offer what aid I can. Thomas can vouch for me.”

  Barnabas thrust out his arm and said, “I do not know what to make of you; you play tricks on us. You kidnapped our Tom!”

  Fraulein Reimer held Tom’s arm, said something harsh in German, looked as if she might spit.

  Afsana broke the silence. “Your very name is reviled in Yount. The only matter upon which the Ornish and those of Yount Major can agree is that you are the devil himself.”

  Before Jambres could answer, Tom said, “Unfair, cousin! Fraulein, I beg you! You leap to a conclusion before you have heard the facts! The Yountians know Jambres not, or not as he could be.”

  Sally looked at Jambres, but avoided the eyes that had almost snared her in her dream in the Mincing Lane partners’ office.

  She said, “You are here solely because Tom has spoken for you. I am still not inclined to put my trust in you.”

  Jambres bowed his head slightly and said, “To this I am accustomed. I come because I see a great danger threatening Yount Major, and because this war will decide the fate of all Yount for a long time to come.”

  Isaak came fractionally closer to the Cretched Man’s extended fingers. Jambres affected not to notice.

  “The Ornish have prepared for many years, waiting for just such a pretext as Sarah and Afsana gave them,” he said. “Not wholly a pretext — they genuinely wonder if Sarah is the Saviour and fight in part to seize her. Regardless, they make war with a power and ferocity that Yount Major, for all its efforts, cannot meet.”

  The McDoons digested this. The fraulein shook her head, said something about the King of Wrens. Tom said, “But what about the others? The Land of the Painted Gat
e and the Free City of Iquajorance?”

  “Place little hope there,” said Jambres, as Isaak edged a little closer. “Murximrash-manwa, The Land of the Painted Gate, has little incentive to join with Yount Major this time, such are the blandishments made by the Ornish. And the Free City is a city of financiers, counting profit only, seeing profit whoever wins. It has been neutral in all disputes for centuries. Look not to it.”

  Afsana put her hands on her hips, and said, “What do you propose then? You make it sound hopeless. We who have wished ourselves to come will not end as slaves in an Ornish iron mine or run away from Yount back to Palipash.” She lifted her head so the silver threads in her hair flashed and her earrings glistened. Tom would have followed her into Ornish rifle-fire at that moment. Even Sally was impressed.

  Jambres said, “No, I do not propose either. I offer instead a plan to bring more Karket-soomi into this conflict, to wage a war against Orn, not because they are Ornish but because they refuse to relinquish slavery.”

  Tom turned to the others. “See? This is what I told you about, the ‘Thieve’s Redemption’ that Billy and the other Minders speak of. A rogue’s crusade to — ”

  Afsana cut him off. “Crusade?! That is not a word I wish to hear. Nor would the Rabbi of Palombeay or many other Karket-soomi who dwell here. Nor, come to think of it, would the Yountians — they do not worship your Christian Father!”

  Tom stammered and blushed. “No, yes, I mean . . . of course, you are right, dear cousin . . . a poor choice of words. I did not mean it literally . . . figure of speech. . . .”

  Sanford interrupted. “Tom has told us about the five with you from England. Brave as these may be, they are hardly enough to turn the tide of battle against Orn, no matter what we call the effort.”

  Jambres said, “Quite so. I intend to recruit many more from the poor wards of London, from the docklands of Liverpool, the slums of Manchester and Glasgow. And beyond: there are many who would join us from Port-au-Prince to Pondicherry, from St. Petersburg to Cape Town.”