Midnight Lamp

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘Wait! My saltbox!’

  ‘Yes, yes, saltbox, I have it, it’s safe—’

  ‘Give it to me, Sage! Stop the car Ax! Trust me, this is worth doing.’

  They’d have given her every star in the sky. She grabbed the saltbox and jumped out, they leapt after her. Lavoisier heaved like a kicked ants’ nest, off-roaders rushing around, people milling in the church square, loudhailer orders, swathes of white light—

  ‘I’m afraid Rufus didn’t hold them long. Sorry.’

  ‘Rufus was brilliant, sweetheart!’

  She twisted open the wooden apple, and swung her arm. An arc of white crystals soared, impossibly far, and landed on an isolated blockhouse in the outer sector. There was an instant, impressive explosion, followed by a rattling cascade of them, a firework display.

  ‘Their big ordnance,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘That should keep ’em busy.’

  She closed the box, held it to her breast and stared at them, a ghost in grave-wrappings, barefoot, bewildered as if she’d just woken on this hillside—

  ‘What happened to you, Fiorinda?’

  ‘What happened to me? Where do I begin? You know how we have mad Counterculturals? I met the real Counterculturals. They do things differently in America. Everything’s on a much bigger scale.’ And again she stared, a revenant lost among the living. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ confessed Sage. ‘The FBI found you. Oh, Fee, I’ve lost my mask. I can’t believe I lost my mask.’

  ‘The FBI found you,’ repeated Ax. ‘We came to get you out, because they know, beyond reasonable doubt, that you have effective magic. They’re on their way to annihilate Lavoisier, and you weren’t supposed to survive. We’re not clear yet, Fio. We have to get away from here, we daren’t head back to LA, we have to keep out of sight until they’ve been and gone—’

  They drove the autodump, and slipped the Rugrat in among the wrecks. Unmasked, but it didn’t look out of place: it was filthy, and had suffered a few knocks. Fiorinda laid her palm on the car’s flank, be safe, Rugrat… The trailbox was where they’d left it; they stripped off the dirty black shroud, and Ax led out the horses. Fiorinda stood with Sage’s arms around her.

  ‘Which one’s mine? The pinto?’

  ‘You can share mine,’ Sage stooped over her, inhaling her. ‘I need a co-pilot.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  They used Paintbrush as a pack pony, and Fiorinda rode in front of Sage. Madeleine expressed some doubts about the whole deal, but she soon settled down. They headed into the hills, and at last reached a pan of level ground, hidden by steep bare slopes all around. ‘This is where we left our stuff,’ said Ax. ‘There’s a cave. I think we’ll be safe for the night at least.’

  ‘Ax,’ said Sage, ‘Fiorinda’s here. Who is a threat to us? We’re safe anywhere.’

  The cave was known locally as the Cow Castle. It had a lick of an underground spring in the back, and a brushwood barrier at the entrance, to dissuade tourists or other vermin. Ax dragged aside the brushwood, they led the horses inside. ‘I don’t want to seem ungrateful,’ said Fiorinda. ‘But is this necessary? I’ve had enough of being underground.’

  ‘Didn’t plan to be,’ said Ax. ‘We’ll sleep under the stars.’

  He took the camping mattress and the quilt out doors and shook the mattress to inflate it. Sage brought the stuff-bag full of presents. The three stared at each other, lips parted, awed by the silence, the calm.

  ‘Now, what do we have in here?’ said Ax, opening the bag. ‘No chocolate ice cream, that’s back in the Rat, but we do have—’

  ‘Marmite! Oh! You angels, where did you find this!’

  ‘We humbled ourselves, and asked the expats. Give her the Bombay Mix.’

  ‘And here’s the Bombay Mix. And the Red Stripe, but it isn’t frosty.’

  ‘You can dip the Marmite in the Bombay Mix. I m-mean, Bombay Mix in Marmite, and no one will make any remarks—’

  Candy corn, liquorice, idiotic toys, a ridiculous dress, old storybooks from Westwood village… She sat among her hoard, hugging the foamy, baby-girl party dress, wiping tears from her cheeks. ‘When did you buy all this?’

  ‘When you went away. We were pitiful. We kept buying things that we thought would tempt you to come back.’

  ‘He said you’d run off because you were sick of us,’ said Ax, perfidious.

  ‘Sage!’

  ‘Oh, he only thought you were dead. He was totally grown-up and rational.’

  Fiorinda chugged warm Red Stripe. Ax went to unharness the horses. Sage watched her, smiling, sipping at his own can.

  ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Splitting.’ He grimaced experimentally. ‘Black eye, fried sinus, ouch. Don’t think I’ll try getting the button out until morning.’

  She wiped her eyes again, found the end of the bandage with her fingernails, tugged it loose: and unwound it until her naked scalp was revealed, all doodled on by the amateur occult neurologists. Chin up.

  ‘Is that it? No other depredations?’

  ‘This is it. They cut my hair off, and they kept my head shaved. They kept me in an underground dog kennel, which to be fair was no worse than their own cells, they kept putting me in that damned scanner, and they made me sit in that stupid chair, bound in iron, looking at them, argh, for hours on end. Otherwise they were kindness itself.’ She laughed. ‘You won’t be able to blind me with science anymore, doctor, doctor. I know everything, all the things that are wrong with me. The standard features I don’t have, that I had to cobble up for myself. But they still couldn’t make me do magic, so they were very confused.’

  ‘But you are not confused.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m all right now.’

  Ax came back. He knelt beside her. ‘My little cat, my darling, you are so beautiful. Your eyes are so bright.’

  He didn’t know if he should touch her. Maybe he shouldn’t, because even to look at her was making him unbelievably horny. But there was Sage, lying there peacefully, silently saying go ahead, Sah, it’s okay, all okay. Fiorinda took his face between her hands, whispering Ax, my darling Ax. They lay down together kissing, and he felt himself folded in fire, wrapped in a burning calm, coming home to his own country, after a long voyage on stormy seas; coming back to himself.

  ∞

  Fiorinda’s House

  Fiorinda woke, curled in the hollow between her lovers’ bodies. She touched her naked skull, to remind herself how bad it was: touched her saltbox and groped over the top of the mattress for the water bottle. Ah, cool water. She tucked the bottle back, and retreated into the valley between warm ramparts. I have found my way back to the best place in the entire world, this is my paradise. But she needed a piss.

  Sage stirred and mumbled, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Need a piss.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  All that could be seen of Ax was a dim puddle of dark hair. ‘We mustn’t leave him on his own,’ whispered Fiorinda. ‘He might wake and us not be there.’

  ‘We’ll keep him in sight.’

  To the south, between the hills, Orion was rising sideways, Betelgeuse just clearing the haze. They crouched on their heels in the sagebrush, watching the glint of familiar stars on two lively dark streams, as they hurried to join each other. She remembered a ritual: long ago, when she and Aoxomoxoa and the Heads were first acquainted. An initiation for the teenage mascot in a freezing cold field somewhere in Denmark on the Hard Fun Tour: digging like cats and squatting in a row, defecating with these five big men. Communal dumping, it was so important.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘The shit fests.’

  He laughed and put his arm around her, tugging her against his breast, resting his chin on her skull. ‘I don’t like having no hair. This is more undressed than I like to get. I feel as if I’m walking about in my bones.’

  ‘Don’t panic, you’ll have a Number One Crop in a day or two. It drives me nuts, how
fast my hair grows… Thanks for talking me up back there, babe, I’m sorry I couldn’t match the advertising.’

  ‘You did great, brilliant idea bringing the immix. I wish I could have stopped Elaine, but I’d have had to take issue with her power-source, and that’s a whole other situation.’

  She felt him shudder. ‘Just tell me, do they know what they’re risking?’

  ‘They do, and they don’t care. Their cause is just, though hell may swallow us. Sage, I’m afraid I know who the Fat Boy candidate is.’

  ‘Me too. I met the Watcher, remember.’

  She slipped out of his embrace; or maybe Sage withdrew. Fiorinda looked at her own hands, and her feet, and the myriad reality that glowed through the flesh. The desert night was a cloak she wore. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘S’ okay.’

  She hugged him, he hid his face in the hollow of her shoulder, then heaved a sigh and began to kiss her little breasts, delicious fire, reminding her that she was still hungry, hungry, hungry for more of that. Then Ax, who had quietly come to find them, was there, taking hold of her in the starlit dark with the hard, sure touch of his musician’s hands, she leaned back, weightless, soul-kissing with the wolf while the tiger fucked her.

  Sage carried her to the mattress, they changed partners, around and around, until the meat was shared to pieces and the predators fucked to bits. ‘Hey, Ax?’ Sage mumbled, nuzzling over where her hairline used to be; he was fascinated by this new nakedness, untouched Fiorinda—

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What d’you say, we persuade her to give the look a fair trial?’

  ‘No,’ said Ax firmly, wrapped around her back, sheltering her exposure as best he could, with his lips, his cheeks, the hollow of his throat—

  ‘Fuck off, Sage. I don’t see myself as an elective slaphead, thanks.’

  ‘It could be really good. You could wear a very stylish headtie or a hat—’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Leave her alone, big cat. Unrestricted access to the nape of her neck is pretty cool, hm, very horny, but, that’s supposed to be our secret.’

  ‘Perverts. I know you’re only trying to make me feel better.’

  When she woke again a pale blue dawn was well advanced. She lay looking at the broken necklets of pink cloud, scattered over the sky where Orion had been; smelling woodsmoke and coffee; listening to a curious, regular crunching sound. Oh, it’s the horses eating. Ax was watching a coffee pot, hung over a fire of sage roots. Sage stood beside the animals, patting them as they tugged mouthfuls of horse-food from a bundle (she felt betrayed. Sage was supposed to be her ally against horses). Three raw-boned rabbits with mobile black-tipped ears, like English hares, were watching the feed bundle, calculating and fearless.

  ‘Did you bring me any clothes beside the party frock?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Ax, ‘We did. You really think we’re idiots, don’t you.’

  ‘Bra and pants?’

  ‘Socks and boots, even. I used to run a country, you know.’

  Predictably, the underwear was not what Fiorinda would have chosen for being a fugitive in the desert, but never mind. The cave was neither deep nor dark, light came in through cracks. She found her washbag, brushed her teeth and splashed her face, frugal with the water: eyes welling-up at the thought of them bringing Fiorinda’s toothbrush on their desperate mission. The cowgirl hat they’d bought for her, though charming, settled roomily on the bridge of her nose, without the masses of her hair to bulk out her skull. She borrowed a cowboy bandanna, and tried to tie it so it could not be mistaken for hejab.

  Sage was frying eggs. Ax had clearly been up to the brim of their hollow to reconnoitre: he was coming back, a pair of binoculars round his neck, looking thoughtful. By the fire she found glazed cinammon buns, laid out on a clean square of brown paper from a grocery bag. Sage smiled enigmatically, set the pan of eggs on a stone and popped a tin of self-heating refritos. Memories, camp grounds, wild days, poured through the fabric of the moment—

  ‘Our tech’s still working,’ remarked Ax. ‘I just checked my headset.’

  ‘They did say Friday. What’s happening out there?’

  ‘I can’t see Lavoisier, but they must have the fire under control, or I’d see the smoke. Nothing moving around here. How about your damage?’

  ‘Got the button out. ‘I have a bizarre headache, sinus feels horrible, fine shiner, and a field defect here’ He circled a finger above and in front of his left eye.

  ‘Have you taken anything for it?’

  ‘Nah, it’s not pain exactly. Better not; it’ll clear.’

  ‘The suicide warriors won’t come after us,’ said Fiorinda.

  She took a sip of hot coffee and bit into her bun, very aware of the two male animals paying close attention: of the atavistic ritual in these gifts of food. The bun was rather stale, but God, delicious.

  ‘What are you going to do about the FBI raid?’

  Ax sat beside Sage, with a saddle for a backrest, and the pan of eggs between them. He took up a fork. ‘Nothing, that I can think of. What do you think we should do? Do you feel like telling us your side of the story yet?’

  Sage and Ax had babbled in the night, about the Committee and Harry, the Few’s forebearance, their misdeeds. Fiorinda had not yet given her report.

  ‘Oh, boy…’

  ‘We know about the fertility clinic.’

  Fiorinda ducked her head, remembered that she had no hair to hide behind and laughed. As if waking from a nightmare (and how long had she been dreaming?), astonished and grateful to find none of it had been real—

  ‘All right, a summary. On my way back I stopped at Silverlode to eat an ice cream, symbol of good faith. I was in the Silver Mule, and I realised that it was where Lazarus had meant us to come; where we were expected. So I went and told you I was going off on a little holiday, made contact and went off with them. They handed me on, and I ended up here. That’s basically it. It all seemed rational at the time: I was the only one who could handle the Fat Boy candidate, and I had to do it, or I would never be sane and never be able to have my baby… I left you like that to protect you, but also because I knew I was in no fit state to convince you of the truth. I was hallucinating, I was completely bonkers. I didn’t really know what was happening to me, in the Silver Mule, whether I was infiltrating the enemy or, or raving in a padded cell.’

  ‘That was my fault!’ broke in Sage, distressed. ‘If I hadn’t been smothering you, you’d have let me help you, you would never have—’

  ‘Knock it off. There was nothing you could have done. We went to Carlsbad, and then my new pals grew some fangs. They took my clothes, they took my ring. I didn’t realise why, I never meant you to think I was dead—Oh, shit, but the Rugrat was okay?’

  ‘It lost some working memory in police custody, that’s all.’

  ‘I was afraid they’d find it and kill it. I was so worried about that. When I made contact, I thought Sage’s good friend Laz had put us in touch with people who’d tried to get near us but been foiled by the studio. I was dead wrong, they only wanted me, because I’m Rufus’s daughter. Sage is an evil Babylonian labrat, and you’ve said very mean things about Green Nazis, Ax. I kept telling them I had no occult powers, I thought they couldn’t find out different, as far as I thought anything coherent. But when I got to Lavoisier they sheared me like a sheep, and they scanned my brain the bastards. Then they decided they had to keep me shackled in iron, and I was trapped. There was no way I could reach you. Believe me, I did try telepathy—’

  This seemed to strike a nerve, especially with Sage.

  ‘We weren’t in a very receptive mode.’

  ‘Telepathy sucks. It’s uncontrollable and confusing.’

  ‘Never mind. Do the FBI know what Lavoisier is?’

  ‘They seem to have known about it for a while. Lavoisier is the stronghold of a group called The Invisible People, and a training camp for occult terrorists. For some reason this didn’t stri
ke anyone as actionable, until you disappeared.’

  ‘Hm. Well, the Invisible People are not here. I don’t know who the Invisible People are…’ She frowned. ‘But I do know that there’s a big network, famous names like your Laz included. Lavoisier’s the lunatic fringe or the pure hard core, depending on your opinion. This is where the Fat Boy candidate sacrifices are run from. You didn’t see the half of it. They do a lot of very weird and gross things, underground, in the hope of boosting vaguely “psychic” wannabes to the point where they can make a hex stick.’

  ‘Are they getting anywhere?’, asked Ax, affecting only mild concern.

  ‘Not a flicker, thank God. Everything real comes from the candidate, who of course has never been near this place. Vestigal ability stays crap no matter what, and if they wanted to, they don’t have an idea how to rewire normal brains. That would be lab-work, anathema. Some of them even think the scanners are a terrible mistake: which added splendidly to the confliction in camp, when they only had the evil Babylonian scans to “prove” I was magic.’

  She paused for thought.

  ‘Very conflicted. They longed to worship me, because I was their Holy Grail, and they can’t play with their own Holy Grail, because the candidate’s identity has to be protected. But I was the candidate’s rival, and so expendable, so they longed to cut me open too… They told me they’d faked my suicide, and that was a blow. I was trying to think of a cunning plan, so I could escape without commiting magic, but, I would have thought of something—’

  ‘Sure you would,’ said Ax. ‘I knew that. Peter Pan here just got whiney, and scared of being left alone, so we had to come and fetch you.’