“What is it, Master?”
“Hope. The secret is hope.”
“Hope!”
“Yes, hope. Most failures are failures of hope. Did you not know that?”
“You’re making fun of me again, Master. I hope I live to see tomorrow, but wishing a thing doesn’t make it so.”
“That isn’t what I meant, Keftu. Consider the mosses.” He lifted his hand, palm upward, and spread out his fingers. “The scale-tree sporeling raises its head to the sky, confident—in its vegetable way—that an end exists to be attained. It is the same with beasts, and with men.”
“But the river pours into the sea, and the sea is not filled,” I said. “The sun rises and sets and goes to the east to rise again, slowing each time like an unwound machine. Everything under heaven decays. Heat flows from one place to another, leveling out. At last one day the cosmos itself will become static, lukewarm, and time will cease forever.”
“Like an Enochite clock,” said Gaspar. “And this troubles you. You! A mite in a corner of this weary cosmos of yours. Whence this worry? Eh? Do you not see it? All creation groans as with the pains of labor. The woman in labor knows only that her time has come. But a new life begins ere the morning.”
“And what child waits to be born?”
“That I do not know. Who hopes for what he can see? If he could see, it would be, not hope, but possession.”
“I still don’t see what hopefulness has to do with old age.”
“Hope, Keftu, not hopefulness. I can say, ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well,’ and speak the truth, but my meaning isn’t that I’ll come to a good end. No, I know that I’ll not. Death and decay are at the end of everything. You and I, Keftu, we know that. But I look out from the dome of my skull, through the windows of my eyes, and see the world, and bless it, saying, ‘It is,’ or, ‘It is good.’
“You came here looking for the elixir of life. On the streets of Enoch they say it exists. Flee from it if you find it. The heart yearns for eternity, and the mere prolongation of days cheats this. The closest thing man can attain to is the present. Live in the present, Keftu. That is the secret of old age.
“For hope can degenerate in two ways. The first is to presume that it has already attained its object. The second is to despair of the very possibility. The first results in infantility, the second in senility. They are sisters, conjoined twins, attached to one another by a secret conduit. Does this surprise you? Go down to Enoch, and see how close they really are.”
“What is this conduit, Master?”
Gaspar smiled ghastfully. “It is pride,” he said. “The pride that would raise a tower to rival the gods in their thrones. Yes, the pride of an Eldene architect.” He paused, short of breath. “Listen to me,” he panted. “You’ve asked my advice. A man must choose his own path. But this I can tell you. Reject everything the Cheiropt offers you, now and forever, no matter how it may seem to further your aims. Flee place, honor, gain, and good deed. Keep your eyes on your goal, which is unknown and invisible to you.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“And now,” said Gaspar, “I believe I’m beginning to feel better. A cup of tea would be good. Go, my son, and brew me some tea. Leave me be for a moment.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. I rose and went out. There was no water, so I had to go down to the stream with a pitcher. When I returned there was an amber glow in Gaspar’s window. I set the pitcher down and peered inside.
The window looked over the head of the bed, so that I could see Gaspar’s feet and legs under his blanket, but not his face. He raised one withered hand as if imploring someone. “Mother,” I heard him say.
My eyes followed his outstretched fingers. There, between the foot of the bed and the closed door, I saw a thing of fire and light. It had no eyes; or rather, it was all eyes. It glanced at me.
Trembling, I withdrew. I picked up the ewer and went inside. All was still. I boiled water in the kettle and poured it over fragments of dried fruit at the bottom of a mug. When these had steeped for a minute I bore the steaming cup to Gaspar’s door. “Master,” I said, knocking. There was no answer. I pushed my way inside.
Gaspar was dead.
* * * * *
The main difficulty, of course, was knowing what to do with the body. There were no land crabs to pick its bones clean. I considered exposing it to the scavengers of the forest, or even performing the office myself, but in the end it seemed best to entomb it as it was. I bore it to the wall of the valley and laid it within a grotto, then sealed the opening with stones and mortar of lime.
I returned to the house. It was empty with Gaspar gone. It had rained, and, though the sky was clear again, the winds of the dying day shook droplets from the soft boughs and livid leaves, making a second shower.
I thought of remaining there a while longer. But the time had come to return to the city. The blank blackness before me was big with significance. The world-city’s songlines were an occult skein of luminous threads, asking to be traced. A new vista was being unveiled, and it frightened me. Restriction to the songlines was granting me a new dimension of freedom, as a trellis grants freedom to a trained plant. All I had seen so far was only a trace or projection of that larger universe. There were dynamic threads that ran across the course of history, woven through the very chambers of the human heart.
My life, I knew, would be a story of falling and rising. Man cannot live in truth to things always. For the third time, a spirit of pusillanimity urged me to return to the Wabe. But I was not of the tents of those who hide from the sun, but of the houses of those who go forth to meet it.
I set my face like flint toward Enoch.
Part II
35 A Cold Trail
The rooftops of Enoch were islands in a sea of darkness. Wearing my armor, I leaped from one to the next as though they were stones in a stream. I circled the great rift and landed lightly in the moonlit moss-garden of the terrace where I had fought the ghul.
I pushed through the iron door and descended to the suite where Seila had been held prisoner. Nothing was changed, except that the metal box was gone. The air was stale. No one had been there, probably, since the day I’d been infested.
Going back out and walking around to the dais, I began scanning the pavement for clues. Suddenly the fierce white light fell about me again. There was a trace of watchful menace in it. I stood forth in it, shielding my eyes, trying to discern the source. The terrace grew hot, so that the mosses were like to wilt. Then, as abruptly as before, it vanished.
It took me some time to get my night vision back. My eyeballs felt as though they had been seared. My armor cooled slowly. When I could see the stars again I leaped to the parapet and so to the next rooftop.
Now I made for the tower where Seila had taken me. It was easy to find, being taller than its neighbors and crowned with its verdant miter. I went down into the room. There, too, the trail was cold. The note written in Arrasene characters was still on the table where I’d left it. I thrust it into my armor and went out.
There was one last place to try.
* * * * *
Like a dobsonfly drawn by a candle, I spiraled down to the sepulchral pit, circling the flame-tipped pyramid. I alit in the black boughs of a nimlath and clung there, watching with folded wings.
A female figure with a head like a second Saant emerged from the throne room and began to descend, her shadow a black finger before her. She reached the foot of the stairs and set out across the cemetery. I swung from tree to tree, following her, then dropped to the earth and went after her on foot.
She reached her house, a square mausoleum with an iron fence and a bronze-tiled dome, and went inside. I vaulted over the gate and climbed up above the lintel to listen. There was no sound of voices. She was alone. I swung down and entered.
A clay lamp was burning in a niche that had once held a sarcophagus. There was a folding screen of gold-painted silk in one corner. A nightgown of black byssum was drape
d over the top. A dress leaped up beside it, and the gown slithered out of sight.
Joanna emerged a moment later, her figure filling its byssum sheath like a basket of ripe fruit. I had expected her to start when she saw me, but she didn’t. That was when I noticed the tiny crossbow in her hand. The string was pulled back and the bolt was pointed in the general direction of my abdomen.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“I want to talk to you,” I said, removing my helmet. “Perhaps it’s asking too much, but somehow I didn’t think so.”
“It’s you,” she said. Her hand faltered. “They said you were—”
“I was. But now I’m not.”
“But that’s impossible!” Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“No one to throw off a daemon. It would have had me if I’d been left to myself. I was fortunate, that’s all.” I nodded at the crossbow. “You can lay that down, you know. I’ve not come here to hurt you.”
She looked at it as though it were in someone else’s hand. “If Jairus ever found out I saw you like this, he’d have me impaled.”
“If you didn’t turn me over to him, you mean.”
“Yes, if I didn’t turn you over.”
“Are you going to?”
She shrugged, then set the weapon down. “I must be going mad.”
“Why? Because of your ingratitude to your benefactor, who can’t spare even a single man to escort you home at night?”
“We’re safe here. The Cheiropt lets no one through. And anyway, what do you think I am? A princess? You can’t expect him to spare guards for all his wives. There are so many of us.”
“Do you enjoy your life here?”
“It’s a place,” she said. “Things will be better after the exodus. We would have been about ready to depart by now, you know, if it hadn’t been for you. Do you have any idea how angry you made him? That was quite a trick you played.”
“It was no trick,” I said. “I spied on him that night. He was going to release chimeras into the city.”
“Ah. And you don’t approve of chimeras.”
I drew Deinothax. “Do you see this sword? This sword is the bane of chimeras.”
She laughed. She had a rich, throaty laugh. “You’re something of a fool,” she said. “Do you know that?”
I laughed, too, and sheathed my sword. “I do,” I said. “I’m hot. Help me off with this armor.”
“What if Jairus comes?”
“I’ll take my chances. I told you, I want to talk to you. I’ll feel like I’m threatening you if I don’t make myself vulnerable first.”
“You are a fool,” she said. She began to help me. She was shorter than Seila and more rounded. Her thick red hair had a warm, spicy fragrance. Piece by piece the armor fell to the floor. “Now,” she said, stepping back, “what was it you wanted to ask me?” There was a gleam in her eyes. They blinked slowly, like lacewings feeding on hidden honeydew.
I pulled her to me, pressing her body tightly against mine, and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me again, fiercely, rolling her eyes back. I ran my hands down her slim waist, over her rounded hips, and so to her gentle posterior.
She pulled away, brushing her hair out of her face. There was a rosy glow on her cheeks. “There, now,” she said. “Did you really want to ask me something?”
“I—yes,” I said, blinking. The green was fading from my limbs, but she didn’t seem to notice in the lamplight. “When I first came here,” I said, “I was looking for someone. A woman.”
“Oh,” said Joanna. Her face fell.
“Perhaps you’ve seen her. She’s half Druin.”
She turned her head. “I should just tell you I haven’t,” she said, “but I can’t. I am mad, I suppose. Yes, I have seen her. It was two days after I saw you. She came here.”
“Jairus captured her?”
“No. She came of her own accord. I remember that Jairus was surprised she knew the way.”
Cold water poured down my back. “What did they talk about?”
“You, partly. But really I don’t know. He sent us away.”
“And where is she now?”
“I don’t know. But she’s in his keeping. I overheard him say something about her the other day. He called her his secret weapon. He must have her holed away somewhere.” She bit her lip. “Do you love her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Yes, I suppose I still do. But I came here to ask of her for another reason. We’re both parts of a puzzle that I don’t understand.” I thought for a moment. “There was a ghularch. The one who came in the rail-car that day. Derrin. Does he come here often?”
“No. But I know for a fact that he’ll be here tomorrow, if that interests you.”
“Tomorrow!” I cried. “In the evening? As before?”
“That’s when he always comes,” she said. “Just what is it you’re trying to do?”
“I’m not altogether certain.”
“Then by what right do you come among us?” she demanded, turning on me. “Stirring things up, as you put it yourself.”
I closed my eyes. “My task is to accomplish my task. That’s life, Joanna. What exactly is the aim of life? Can anyone answer that honestly?”
“That’s an evasion.”
I hesitated. “To be truthful, there is a burden on my heart. I’ll tell it to you. Bur remember that you insisted, so don’t despise me.
“The Cheiropt is a living prison of black iron. Fighting it only makes you part of it. That’s where Jairus is wrong. He wants to lead an exodus through an irruption of chaos, but his way will only lead you all into deeper darkness. There has to be a harrowing, an advent from the outside.
“I am from the outside. I can open prison doors and set the prisoners free. I can establish a kingdom in the cracks and crannies of Enoch, a kingdom that will transform the landscape like a mountain chain rising up from the deeps of the earth. A kingdom that will preserve the wisdom of my people, and join to it whatever Enoch and Eldena have to offer.
“But then, perhaps that’s only vanity speaking.”
“I don’t think so,” Joanna said softly, laying her hand on my arm.
“Thank you,” I said. I kissed her lightly on the lips one more time. Then I began donning my armor. “I won’t forget your help.”
“Is that all the gratitude I get?” she asked, watching me warmly.
“Perhaps one day soon I’ll be able to repay you,” I said. “For now, goodbye and good luck.” I went out into the night.
* * * * *
It wasn’t hard to evade detection as I made my way to the wall. Joanna’s confidence was shared by the rest of Jairus’ followers. They hated the Cheiropt yet depended on it as implicitly as any phylite. It was the air they breathed.
I climbed flights of stairs up the side of the foundation. When I reached the top I paused at the balustrade and looked out. Clusters of orange sparks showed where the communes lay. Work was going on at the opposite side of the pit, where metal vessels were suspended within great scaffolds strung with silver-green lights.
There were no sentries that I could see. I went into the nearest building, groped my way to the stairs, and climbed to the top story. A blind search of its apartments revealed no roof access, but the windows had long been glassless. I ran down a corridor and leaped out across an alley to a lower rooftop. From there I went on my way, bounding from tower to tower. I shot over the wall of the Cheiropt without the hoplites’ notice.
The moon had set and the night was dark. The streets in the inhabited districts were like black canyons flowing with rivers of light. I left them far to the south, pursuing a northeasterly course, making for the foundation’s edge. The methane fields came into view, squares of black velvet separated by strips of silver satin.
From the last tower I dove into empty space, kicked my legs, and extended my wings. Just when disaster seemed imminent I swung up and out. Driving the pinions with chains linked to my gre
aves, I went whirring high above the grid of fields.
I winged my way to where a little hill stood out of the waterish lowlands, a stade or two from the city. It was a long island crowned with tall buildings like exposed teeth, a former elite community, now deserted, linked to the city by a great stone causeway. I alit on the high terrace of the tallest tower, folded my wings, and passed through a colonnade into a once-opulent salon.
It was a long, high-ceiled room with windows along the front. Marks in the dust showed where I had dragged a brazier before the door to a smaller room. The air above the mouth of the bowl trembled slightly. I stirred the coals with a poker, then added a few new lumps. The gilded ceiling glittered in the glow, and the frescoes that adorned the back wall came to life.
The panels together formed a long schematic landscape picture, with wind-sculpted desert formations, mist-shrouded mountains like towers of dark stone, primeval moss-forests, fenny riverbanks, brackish swamps overshadowed by trees that waded on raised roots, sun-dappled reefs, and the depths of the open sea, all inhabited by fishes and creeping things. Presiding over this garden were a single man and a single woman, singularly out of place, their stylized eyes wide with fear or wonder.
With a pair of tongs I lifted a coal out of the brazier, bore it into the drawing room beyond, and dropped it into a smaller bronze bowl on the floor. Velvety shadows pulsated across the walls and ceiling. The floor remained a pool of darkness. This was the room I had chosen to inhabit. Its door when I’d found it was closed, so little dust had accumulated inside it.
All that I’d brought from the forest was neatly stored around the sides. Cookware and provisions occupied the shelves. My mattress was on the floor in an alcove. Ancient furniture stood in groups as I’d found it.
I sat in an armchair and began to remove my armor, hanging it on a tree one piece at a time. A big shadow hulked in a corner of the room, thrown by a half-globe in a wooden stand. I rose when I was done and went over to touch its ridged surface. I knew what it was, my grandfather having shown me something similar—an heirloom of the House—when I was a boy.
Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes Page 19