The Fissure King

by Rachel Pollack

  He was remembering now, the one time he'd truly surprised Anatolie. She was telling him about the Great Dogs, Sam and Lily, and he suddenly said, "Oh, I think I've met them." Anatolie had stared at him, her mouth half open, as if ready for one of her beloved har kow dumplings. So Jack had gone on to tell her of his bored trick as a kid, when he'd riled up the neighborhood dogs and then went downstairs and opened the kitchen door to discover the monsters.

  Very softly, Anatolie had said, "Ah. I take it you did not speak to them?"

  "No. I closed the door and ran upstairs."

  Her mouth had twitched, the hint of a smile. "Then it seems, John Shade, that you are a very lucky young man." Later, Jack would understand that this was a kind of joke, for Travelers considered "luck" an illusion, a dangerous one, borne of ignorance. At the time, though, she just went on to tell him the story of who had met the Dogs, and what had happened to him.

  Now Jack grabbed a handful of the bones from his pocket and held them out. "Carolien," he said, "I know whose bones these are.The man who is not one thing or another. It's him, Carolien. It's Joseph of the Waters!"

  "Oh, verdomme," Carolien cried. "Natuurlijk! The one person for whom every wall is a crack. The Fissure King!"

  3.

  Every Traveler knew the story of Joseph, the man who wanted to change the world. They knew it because their teachers told it to them as an object lesson against what they considered the greatest danger to Travelers, not enemies or hostile Elementals, but what Anatolie called "aggrandizement," and what Jack simply thought of as "over-reaching." Joseph didn't think of it that way. After all, he did not do the working for himself. He had decided that the Original Powers, the ones who set up the world, had made things far too rough for wretched non-Travelers. Anatolie had surprised Jack with the expression, "rigged the game."

  Lots of people thought this—how could you miss it?—but Joseph decided to do something about it. The OP had put a kind of escape clause into the structure of things. Anatolie had told Jack she suspected it was a kind of trap, a way to tempt Travelers who would go too far. Whatever the reason there was an enactment you could do that would require the Powers to hear your petition and make a change.

  It was called The Way Of Force, and the preparation alone was rigorous. It involved eating strange combinations of food for weeks, as you found some remote frozen place, where you would walk out naked onto the ice and squat down, head between your knees, and speak strings of apparent nonsense syllables directly into the Earth. Then, once it actually started, you had to dress in white rags, tilt your head back until all you could see was the sky, and chant certain formulas over and over for three days, without sleep. During those three days not only must you not eat, you mustn't touch even a scrap of food.

  Joseph went to the coldest loneliest place he could find. He did all the preparations, and while at first he told himself that this was crazy, arrogant, how could a lone Traveler force himself upon the Powers, slowly he became more confident. Energy surged through him and by the time he began the actual enactment he shook with strength. Head tilted back so that all he could see was a gray sky and a washed-out Sun, he called out the formulas, over and over. Three days, the archives said, and after the first, the sky began to brighten. On the second day the ground shook, and the Sun seemed to appear in several places at once. On the third day, light blazed across the sky, and it seemed to Joseph that the whole Earth vibrated underneath him, so violently it would swallow him up, but he kept on. Light blazed across the sky. It separated, first into sheets of flame, then columns of concentrated energy. It's them, Joseph thought. I've done it. His voice got stronger. The columns began to take shape, animals or people.

  Suddenly Joseph heard a sound, the whimper of a creature in pain. For just an instant he looked down, then brought his eyes back to the sky. With relief he saw that the columns hadn't broken apart, if anything they had gotten clearer. And yet, he could not forget what he'd seen—two emaciated dogs, close to death from starvation, their eyes pitiful and desperate.

  Joseph made his voice even louder than before but he could not drown out that wretched sound. His eyes still on the sky, his voice like a trumpet, Joseph continued, but he felt around him for a few scraps of meat and bone left over from his last meal. When a fingernail grazed something he tried to mentally tell the dogs to take it. The whimpering just continued.

  It doesn't matter, Joseph told himself, I've done it. There's no stopping it now.He glanced away to pick up the food and toss it to the animals. "Here," he said. "Eat."

  But when he looked back at the sky the light had started to dim. "No! This can't be right!" he shouted at the columns that even now were beginning to fade, then break apart.

  "This isn't the end!" he cried, more to himself than the Powers. "I can do it again." And then he heard the growls, one low and thunderous, the other almost a shriek. He looked down and saw the dogs, changed now, their bodies large and thick, their fur layers of sharp scales, their teeth like jagged mountains from the first days of Creation. For of course they were Sam and Lily, the watchdogs of the Powers, who above all else did not like to be pushed around. Just before they leaped at him, Joseph called out the Words Of Departure, the formula that all Travelers memorize for the moment of their death.

  Only, Joseph didn't die. They tore at his skin, his muscles and organs, even his bones, and yet he continued, not alive but not dead either. He had become a Border Elemental, caught between worlds, master of openings—the Fissure King, for whom every wall becomes a crack, every barrier a door.

  Carolien touched Jack's shoulder. "He's waiting for you, schatje."

  Jack nodded. "In Spuyten Duyvil. Come on, let's go."

  As they made their way back to the car they debated whether they needed to stop at the rest of the stations, one by one, to Spuyten Duyvil. "Make sure we have all the bones," Jack said.

  "I don't think so," Carolien said, as she strode to the car. When Carolien moved quickly, Jack had to hustle to keep up. She said, "The bones were a puzzle, and an invitation. You've solved the puzzle. The invitation is complete."

  "And the feathers?"

  "Ah." She stopped at the car door, made a face. "I do not know." Jack almost smiled. Carolien hated not knowing something. Now she said, "But I do not think they come from him. They are connected to him but they come from something else. I am sorry, Jack. This is just a feeling."

  Jack touched her cheek. "I'll take that," he said. "Then all that matters is that Joseph is waiting for us. Fuck the feathers. Time to go meet the King."

  They drove down to Spuyten Duyvil using the Travelers' Siren, a device secretly built into black Altimas that emitted a psychic alarm so that all cars, including cops, would make way for them and not realize they were doing it.

  When they arrived at Spuyten Duyvil Station they discovered that the railroad had set it on the Bronx side, rather than on the northern tip of Manahatta. So they got back in the car, drove over a short bridge, and looked for a place to park. The neighborhood of Spuyten Duyvil had gone upscale, they discovered, with townhouses and apartment complexes, and the kind of school that draws double career parents with school-age kids.

  Jack searched for a parking spot that was close to the Spit, and hopefully not so tame and modern. He found it in front of a three story building made of large weathered stones, and a roof part slate, part copper. It bore the name "Villa Charlotte Bronte," and it really did look like something you might see at the edge of the moors two hundred years ago.

  "Come on," he said, and they set off for the trees at the end of the street, where the land tilted down toward the water. As soon as they left the paved road the fragment of woods began to change. They didn't notice right away, but then it became too strange to miss. The ground became overgrown with winter weeds and brambles, the leafless trees more crowded together, so that they had to push branches out of the way. Ahead of them they could hear
the sound of angry waters, the Hudson and the Harlem fighting for control of the point.

  Jack turned around and saw that the Villa Charlotte Bronte was gone, and so was the street and all the other buildings. He said, "We've gone back in time. Before the British. Before the Dutch. Before Frederick Philipse dug his canal to tame the waters."

  Carolien looked around again, then nodded. "Ja," she said, "How else to make a border, a place not one thing or another? The land has invited us backward."

  "No," Jack said. "He did it. He promised me he would come when I needed him, and now he has." He pointed up the hill to where a tall man stood motionless. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat, a black jacket, yellow leggings and gold-buckled shoes, and around his neck a kind of ruff of black feathers.

  Carolien gasped. "Peter Minuit!"

  "Yes," Jack said.

  "But he's dead."

  "Well, of course he is. His grave's not far from here. You know that."

  "Neen. You do not understand. I saw him die."

  "What?"

  "Alle Nederlandse Reisers—sorry, all Dutch Travelers—must witness Peter die. That is the moment we become a Traveler."

  "Jesus," Jack said. For a moment he remembered Benny Pope shooting Carol Acker in the face. And then his wife, lying in blood on the kitchen floor. But all he said was, "He's a time traveler, Carolien. Time travelers can die, but they're never dead."

  He took a step towards the apparition on the hill. "Dank je wel!" he shouted, then bowed. When he stood up, the man was gone.

  Carolien said, "Schatje, we need to work on your accent. But first, we must save your daughter." Together, they headed down the hill to the end of Manhattan Island.

  The dense trees gave way to a small triangle of dirt and stones where the land met the water. Jack spun around, searching. "Where is he?" he said, feeling desperation creep up his spine. Had they done it wrong? Did he miss something? "Joseph!" he shouted. "Where are you?"

  Carolien held up a hand. "No. You must not show disrespect. Please. Give me the bones."

  Jack grabbed the collection from his pockets and handed them over. Carolien set them down, one by one, near the edge of the water. Then she backed off and got down on one knee. "Your majesty," she said, "we come, not for ourselves, but for an innocent. Eugenia Shade is trapped where she does not belong, in the Forest Of Souls. You alone can save her. We beg you to reveal yourself." She stood up.

  As Jack held his breath, the air seemed to thicken, become a swirling column, dark, like a miniature tornado. Then it congealed, thick, hard, and at the very moment it became firm, like a pillar of ice, it began to crack. Small fissures opened up and down the surface. Then all at once they cracked open and showered to the ground. And then he was there.

  Jack had never seen anything like it, gnawed bones and tissues somehow holding together in the shape of a man. Even the face was half eaten away, a skull with about a third of it gone, and the rest covered in strips of skin. Now it was Jack who got down on one knee. "King Joseph," he said, "we bless you and thank you. We know that nothing we have done deserves your precious intervention." Anatolie had taught this to Jack in one of their first lessons. It was called the Standard Formula of Recognition, to be used in the unlikely event of coming face to face with a Power.

  When the King spoke, his voice seemed to come from far away, dry and hoarse. "Standard," he said. "I am not—one of them."

  Fuck, Jack thought, and he got up. Did he blow it? Would the Fissure King leave? Or refuse to help him?

  The skull moved slightly, tilting forward, then upright. Jack realized that Joseph was examining him. The voice said "You've met the dogs."

  "Yes," Jack said. "When I was young and did not know what they were."

  "But you didn't—speak to them."

  "No."

  The assemblage of bones and meat tilted back slightly. Jack worried it might tip over and break apart, but it stood upright again. The distant voice said "If only—" He stopped himself.

  It took Jack a second before he realized the Fissure King was waiting for him to speak. "I need your help. My daughter is trapped in the Forest of Souls." Joseph stood motionless, silent. Jack said, "There's a culling. I don't know when, but soon. If she's still there she won't survive." He took a breath. "For all I know, it's already happened." While I was collecting your goddamn bones, he thought.

  "No. It has not happened yet."

  Jack's heart leapt. "So you know."

  "Of course I know."

  "Then you know I can't save her. I've tried everything I could, but I can't reach her. But you can. You can bring her out."

  The King said, "There is a price."

  Jack wanted to grab that loose assemblage, shake it, scream at it, There's always a fucking price! Instead, he just said, "Tell me."

  The skull moved again, a kind of nod. Joseph said, "I want to die."

  "What? You want me to kill you?"

  The whole upper skeleton moved now, and Jack had the horrible thought that the Fisher King was laughing at him. "Kill me?" Joseph said. "You?"

  Jack's fists clenched. He never knew he could hate someone as much as he did that moment. He opened his hands and said, "Then what can I do? Tell me."

  Silence for a moment, and in that pause Jack realized that Carolien was looking from him to Joseph, her mouth open, her face pale. "Oh no," she whispered. "No."

  Joseph of the Waters said, "I can only die if someone agrees to replace me."

  Jack heard Carolien's gasp, heard the sob in her voice as she said, "Jack! You can't do this. Please."

  Jack kept his eyes on Joseph. "I'll do it," he said. "If you save my daughter I'll take your place." He expected Carolien to protest again, but she just stood there, staring at him. To Joseph he said, "How do we do it? Do I have to become like you?"

  "No. The dogs did this. And you never spoke to them. You never offered them meat."

  "Then what? What do we do so I can take your place?"

  "We do not do anything."

  Jack controlled his rage. "Okay, then who does?"

  "The Ravens."

  "What?"

  "Do you have the feathers?"

  Jack grabbed them from his pockets, held them out with both hands. "Here," he said.

  "Ah. Twelve. Good. You got them all."

  Jack thought, Thank God, though he had no idea what was going on.

  The King said, "Set them on the ground in a circle. Not touching, with the pins inward." Jack began to put them in a curved line, end to end. "No!" Joseph said. "With the pins inward."

  Jack just stood there, shaking. What does he mean?

  Carolien touched his arm. "Schatje, he means like the spokes of a wheel. The pins are the hard part at the bottom. The part that sticks into the bird's body."

  Jack grabbed the feathers from the ground and started again. In a few moments he had indeed made a wheel, with an empty center. He stepped back, looked at the Fissure King, who didn't move, but kept his body turned toward the feathers.

  A thin band of light shimmered above each feather. It became wider, more substantial, columns of white light so strong and pure Jack could hardly look at them. He must, he knew. He remembered back when he saw the Old Ladies, how he knew he mustn't look away. And the dogs—he'd backed up, but didn't move his eyes until he'd closed the door. And Nero, when Jack stared into his mouth. The one unbreakable rule, the thing he'd learned on his own, even before Anatolie taught him True Sight. Don't look away.

  They were taking shape now, twelve huge birds with their heads bowed, their brilliant wings folded over their bodies.

  The Fissure King said, "Miss Hounstra, you who know so much. Do you know the collective name for Ravens?"

  "Parliament," Carolien said.

  Jack kept his eyes on the birds, but he thought, It's a parliament? They're going
to hold a debate while my daughter is dying?

  "No!" Joseph said. "That name belongs to their children, the meager black ravens of your world. The true name, the name for the Twelve White—is Jury."

  The Ravens lifted their heads and Jack saw that one stood taller than the others. The foreman, he thought. Whatever its title, the larger Raven said, in a voice that made Joseph's seem friendly, "Carolien Hounstra. Child of the Council of Frogs. Will you speak for the defense?"

  Child of the Frogs? Jack thought. He promised himself he would ask her about that later. Then he realized there might not be a later.

  Carolien said, "Always." Though he didn't look, Jack could hear the shaking in her voice.

  "Then Lord Joseph," the Raven said, "Please state the charges."

  The Fissure King said "Abandonment."

  "What?" Jack said, still focused on the Foreman. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Joseph went on, "He has abandoned everyone who ever cared about him. He left his parents, he abandoned his first lover, Abby."

  Jack said, "She broke up with me."

  Carolien touched his arm. "Shh," she said. "Let your lawyer speak for you."

  Joseph said, "He abandoned Xoltan the Younger."

  "That was me," Jack said. "How could I abandon myself?"

  Carolien whispered, "Quiet." Out loud she said, "My lords, Mr. Shade thinks he has a fool for a client. But he makes a good point."

  "Your turn will come," the Foreman said. To Joseph, "Continue."

  Jack wondered why Joseph, who clearly wanted Jack to succeed, would make the case against him. But then he realized that the Ravens would not allow the switch any other way. Joseph said, "He abandoned Layla Nazeer, the first time in the circus—"

  Before Jack could interrupt again, Carolien touched his arm, whispered, "Don't speak."

  "—and then again," the King continued, "when the geist entered his daughter and his wife begged him to help, he abandoned both of them."

  Carolien said, "No, no, no. It was Miss Nazeer herself who returned to her life the first time. And as for the second, the last, Mr. Shade did not abandon her, he made a terrible mistake. Stupidity is not abandonment."