He moved the knife slightly.
“—to kill the young lady and her father. When we disrupted that, it pushed back to restore events to the original . . . plot.”
Toa looked slightly alarmed. “This . . . you-know-who bugger . . . he was doing it?”
“Not directly,” Deor said. “Not yet. For that Power to do so would rip the fabric of this story apart, and this story is very important to It; one source of Its strength. No, what has happened here is that we have . . . written ourselves is the only way I can put it . . . into the story and are turning it towards our own purposes, a little at least. And the story itself is fighting us. Events try to reshape themselves towards the original ending.”
All right, this is getting even stranger, Pip thought; Thora’s snort said something along the same lines.
Then something occurred to her. “These people here . . . they don’t know they’re characters in a story, do they?”
“No,” Deor said. “That is where using the terms of my art, the storyteller’s art, breaks down. They are real, and the story is their world which is real to them.”
“But if they can’t tell they’re in a story about something ancient, how could we? If we were, that is.”
She pinched herself where none of the others could see it. It hurt, and she mildly needed to pee . . . but then, she knew right now that her physical body was lying beside John’s and those things had felt just the same back there in the real world, the one where she didn’t think occasionally that she was either accompanied by or somehow was a lioness.
My head hurts, she thought. But does that mean anything if pinching myself doesn’t?
Deor began to reply, checked himself, then said: “Best not to think too much along those lines, Captain Pip.”
Toa shuddered. “Too bloody right! We’ve got enough to worry about right now. I wish you hadn’t said that, Pip; I have a feeling it’s going to come back to me and I wish it wouldn’t already, if you know what I mean.”
Then something struck him, something closer to his brutally pragmatic nature.
“Won’t that happen with this Wilde character, too?” Toa said.
“Probably,” Deor admitted.
“Then let’s get to it,” the Maori grumbled.
They went up the stairs in a quick rush; after the noise of the fight below, stealth was less necessary, or at least less practical.
Deor stopped them outside Wilde’s door. “Remember,” he said. “Our enemy is not this little man’s body. Our enemy is the world around us, trying to make us fail. You are all tested warriors of great skill . . . but you don’t need great skill to defeat his body. And the greater the skill of your attack, the more things that can go wrong with it. This world, this story, will seize upon each such chance.”
Thora nodded. “KISS. Keep it Simple, Stupid. Good advice.”
Toa chuckled like gravel in a bucket. “Right you are. A sheila after my own heart. Let’s do it, then.”
He pulled back the shovel for a blow at the door. Deor coughed, leaned forward and turned the knob. Then he pushed it open sharply, and they lunged through to spread out within.
Wilde was sitting on his high chair, eyes glittering in the dimness of a single tallow candle. He grinned at them, adjusted his pink wax ears, and threw the cat resting on his lap at Deor’s head.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BETWEEN WAKING WORLD AND SHADOW
The cat stopped singing. John wept with relief; he’d started wanting to hear it, and it was starting to make sense. His mind babbled, thanks to saints and the Virgin and the Holy Trinity, and to Pip and Thora and Deor and Toa for coming after him—he couldn’t recall exactly how he knew that they had, but he did know, and hope was as sweet as water would be on his swollen tongue.
Just knowing that there’s something in the universe besides this room and the cat and . . . whoever the man from Boise is, poor bastard.
The cat lashed its tail and hissed, then darted out of the room—the door was open a little, then not. And the absence of the cat pulled at him. Suddenly the two of them were . . .
We’re with Hildred Castaigne again.
Wilde watched Hildred in silence after Vance left; when Hildred had stepped into the hall he looked back. Mr. Wilde’s small eyes were still fixed on him, while the shadows gathered in the fading light. Then he rose, closed the door behind himself as he left and went out into the darkening streets as the fairy-fire of electric lights came on.
They don’t even need the gasman who goes around and lights the streetlamps of the richer cities in Montival about this hour.
He stopped in the park by the Lethal Chamber, admiring the shining marble white in the darkness, and the shadowed faces of the Fates.
Hildred noted absently that he had eaten nothing since breakfast, but he was not hungry. John was, and thirsty too. The sensations were muffled since he was feeling Hildred’s too, but they were there.
“Sir?”
A man in the tattered remnants of a military greatcoat had been staring across the park at the Chamber, his face thin under the stubble.
Hildred looked at him, and he spoke in a slurred tone, not meeting the younger man’s eyes.
“Sir, I have not eaten for two days. I haven’t been able to find employment since the war—I fought the Germans in New Jersey—my nerves—the shells, Oh, God, the shells—”
Hildred absently pulled a handful of change from his pockets and dumped it in the man’s hand. He took it and looked into Hildred’s face as he carefully wrapped the coins in a scrap of cloth, then turned and shambled away without another word.
Hildred waited, as wisps of fog ran through the street and it grew a little chilly. An hour later another beggar approached, and he greeted him with a smile.
That made the man flinch, but he still held out his hand.
“Please, sir, if you could spare some money for food I would thank you and thank God.”
Hildred looked at him. “Why do you wish money?”
The man blinked rheumy eyes; he might have been anything from thirty to sixty, and he smelled quite strongly. John’s instinctive estimate that he was near the lower end of that range; beggars usually didn’t live long lives, mostly having some quirk of mind that kept them from taking care of themselves and earning their keep, and gave them an aversion to letting others help. In Montival anyone could earn enough to eat and a place to sleep if they were willing and able to work, and now that the terrible years after the Change were long past there was usually charity for those who could not. In the Association territories the Church would look after those who had no kin or lord or guild to fall back on, and other realms of the High Kingdom had their own arrangements.
Though that may not be true everywhere. God has blessed us with rich lands and good lordship has let us have the peace that lets each household reap what it sows with none to put them in fear.
“So . . . so that I may eat, sir,” the man said.
“Why do you wish to eat?”
“So that I should not die of starvation, sir.”
“Why do you fear death?” Hildred said, his voice—and the emotions John could sense—genuinely curious. “Your life is a hell of loneliness and misery and regret for what you have done that cannot be undone, without purpose, promising you only suffering. Why do you strive to keep yourself alive in a world that offers you nothing but pain?”
The man stared at Hildred, the dull unhappiness in it flaring into something more active; he smeared the back of his hand across his bristly chin and mouth, exposing blackened teeth, and tears ran down from the corners of his eyes.
Hildred pulled out a piece of paper from his waistcoat pocket, on which was traced the Yellow Sign, and handed it to him.
“Here. This is infinitely more valuable than money. It will give you purpose!”
The derelict
took the paper and stared at it, frowning in puzzlement at first. Then his eyes grew wider and wider.
He’s . . . really seeing it, John thought. And it’s telling him things . . . maybe making him think certain things.
There was an old French poet he’d read once, who’d explained a friend’s suicide by saying that he turned a corner one night and came face-to-face with himself, and could not bear it. That came suddenly to his mind as he watched the beggar’s face. Too much truth without context could be a deadly lie.
The man turned and stumbled away, still staring at the paper, then mechanically tucked it way. His head turned as if he was hunting for an escape, and then fixed on the statue of the Fates. That froze him for an instant, and then he ran towards the Lethal Chamber. It was an odd motion, as if he were dashing towards it and trying to pull back at the same time, and when he reached the bronze doors his hands went out to the side to hold himself off against the marble. Then they buckled, and the doors swung open and then shut again.
That heavy chunk sound came again, and the whirring and grinding. Hildred chuckled softly at the rush of energy he felt, and the faint sufferings of hunger that John had been noticing abruptly went away in a rush of curiously detached nausea—as if he wanted to vomit and had no stomach to do it with, which was more or less true and very disturbing to think about.
The electric lights were sparkling among the trees, and the new moon shone in the sky above the Lethal Chamber. Hildred felt a mixture of anticipation and restless boredom that sent him wandering from the Marble Arch to the artillery stables and back again to the lotus fountain. The flowers and grass exhaled a fragrance that John found soothing, as if something had wafted through the barred window of a prison cell. The jet of the fountain played in the moonlight, and the musical splash of falling drops reminded Hildred of the tinkle of mail in Hawberk’s shop; there was a little mental jar as John and the Boisean had the same thought at the same time, though it was more natural for them since they’d both worn mail often.
For an instant John had a strong sensation; a mail shirt with a padded backing resting on his shoulder and cinched at his waist, the sort of thing Eastern light horse wore in Montival. It was a memory, but not his and not Hildred’s either.
Hildred felt an impatience at the dull sparkle of the moonlight on the water; it brought him no such sensations of exquisite pleasure as when the sunshine played over the polished steel of a corselet on Hawberk’s knee. He watched the bats darting and turning above the water plants in the fountain basin, but their rapid, jerky flight set his nerves on edge, and he turned away to walk aimlessly amid the park’s trees. The artillery stables were dark, but in the cavalry barracks the officers’ windows were brilliantly lighted, and the sallyport was constantly filled with troopers in drab fatigue uniforms, carrying straw and harness and baskets filled with tin dishes.
Twice the mounted sentry at the gates was changed while he wandered up and down the asphalt walk. He pulled a watch on a chain out of a waistcoat pocket—something John had read of in the Regency-era books that were so popular in the Protectorate, especially among gentlewomen—and looked at the dial. It was nearly the midnight hour he’d arranged with his cousin Louis. The lights in the barracks went out one by one, the barred gate was closed, and every minute or two an officer passed in through the side wicket, leaving a rattle of accouterments and a jingle of spurs on the night air. The square had become very silent.
The last homeless loiterer had been driven away by the gray-coated park policeman’s kick and prod with his nightstick, the streetcar tracks along Wooster Street were deserted, and the only sound which broke the stillness was the stamping of the sentry’s horse and the ring of his sabre against the saddle pommel. In the barracks, the officers’ quarters were still lighted, and military servants passed and repassed before the bay windows. It wasn’t altogether different from the castle garrisons of men-at-arms John was used to.
Twelve o’clock sounded, the altogether familiar sound of a church’s bells.
St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, Hildred thought. The new one.
At the last stroke of the sad-toned bell a figure passed through the wicket beside the portcullis that closed off the interior courtyard of the cavalry barracks, returned the salute of the sentry, and crossed the street into the square and walked towards the Benedick apartment house with the brisk stride of a man who was used to facing disagreeable work.
“Louis,” Hildred called.
The man pivoted on his spurred heels and came straight towards his cousin.
“Is that you, Hildred?”
“Yes. You are on time.”
Hildred took his offered hand, and they strolled towards the Lethal Chamber.
“It’s late, but perhaps that’s as well—I couldn’t sleep, and at least now I’m not tempted by too many toasts to Constance and her charms, I can’t have a sore head tomorrow! By God, Hildred, I keep thinking how lucky I am! And Captain’s bars already, you’ll note—”
Hildred has a will like iron, John thought. He’s not trying to tear Louis’ throat out with his teeth and he wants to, God how he wants to!
At last they stood under the elms on the Fourth Street corner of the square opposite the Lethal Chamber.
“But I’m babbling,” Louis said with a laugh. “What is it that you wanted to speak with me about, old chap? Unless you knew I’d need fresh air and a fresh face.”
Hildred motioned him to a seat on a bench under the electric light, and sat down beside him.
And he hates that look . . . the one that’s looking for signs of madness. Because he is mad, and down deep he knows it and fears it . . . as he fears and loves the Yellow King. I never really understood how true it is that evil is its own self-inflicted punishment before!
“Well, old chap,” he inquired, “what can I do for you?”
Hildred drew from his pocket the manuscript and notes of the Imperial Dynasty of America. The Boisean looked at it with a swirl of contradictory feelings; bitter betrayal seemed to be the strongest of them, oddly enough.
Hildred looked him in the eye and said:
“I will tell you. On your word as a soldier, promise me to read this manuscript from beginning to end, without asking me a question. Promise me to read these notes in the same way, and promise me to listen to what I have to tell later.”
“I promise, if you wish it,” he said pleasantly. “Give me the paper, Hildred.”
He began to read, raising his eyebrows with a puzzled, whimsical air.
Uh-oh. This Hildred hates being patronized. Nobody enjoys it—
A young, artistically inclined Prince with an aversion to boring busywork and speeches in a dynasty of serious warriors and grimly energetic rulers got enough of that. Though his father had sympathized enough to tip him a wink when he ducked out to work on a song instead of giving a speech at the opening of a bridge now and then.
—but most of us don’t shake with a need to kill when we get it, even when it’s doubly irritating because it’s hidden.
As Louis read he frowned, eyebrows contracted, and his lips seemed to form the word what rubbish! Then he started and blinked as he came to his own name in the closely written pages, and when he came to Hildred’s he lowered the paper, and looked sharply at him for a moment. When he came to the end and read the signature of Mr. Wilde, he folded the paper carefully and returned it to his cousin.
Hildred handed him the notes, and he settled back, pushing his fatigue cap up to his forehead. A flash of memory in Hildred’s mind recalled the same gesture with a schoolboy’s hat as he walked whistling with a satchel of books over his shoulder on a sunlit day long ago. It was a disturbing element of common humanity in a mind that seemed to be sinking into a sea of chaotic hatred, and then it was gone.
Then he unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow Sign, but Louis simply looked at it with a show of interest.
“Well,” he said, “I see it. What is it?”
“It is the Yellow Sign,” Hildred hissed.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Louis.
“Dr. Archer used to employ that tone,” Hildred said. “But not since I showed him the Yellow Sign . . . and the book.”
“You let him know that you own a copy of The King in Yellow?” Louis said in alarm.
“Not only that, Louis, I showed him several interesting points,” Hildred said with a chuckle that made John swallow convulsively—or at least think of doing so. “He had a very different tone after that, I assure you.”
Hildred’s voice trembled with triumphant hate for an instant, and then took on a forced calm just as frightening.
“Listen, you have engaged your word?”
“I am listening, old chap,” Louis replied in what he probably thought was a soothing voice.
“Dr. Archer, having by some means become possessed of the secret of the Imperial Succession, attempted to deprive me of my right, alleging that because of a fall from my horse four years ago, I had become mentally deficient. He presumed to place me under restraint in his own house in hopes of either driving me insane or poisoning me. I have not forgotten it. I visited him last night and the interview was final. At least from his point of view.”
Louis went pale, something visible even in the darkness and under the electric light. He stayed very still, but John and the other man recognized the stillness that preceded action.
“Did . . . you harm Dr. Archer, Hildred?”
“I told you,” the other man said impatiently. “I showed him a certain book. He may well harm himself, now.”
Hildred made a dismissive gesture. “There are yet three people to be interviewed in the interests of Mr. Wilde and myself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his daughter Constance.”
Louis sprang to his feet, lethal menace in his stance. Hildred rose too, and flung the paper marked with the Yellow Sign to the ground.
“Oh, I don’t need that to tell you what I have to say,” he cried, with a laugh of triumph. “You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to me!”
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