by Jeffrey Ford
I noticed a yellow puddle forming beneath the new Minister of the Arts. The others were visibly shaken. They nodded and yessed and hailed to the realm. Then they stood there staring at Below who stared back.
“Get going,” he yelled, and fired the pistol into the ceiling. “Take that piece of dung with you and drop him off at the dump,” he said, motioning to Graves’s corpse.
The bureaucracy of the Well-Built City had never moved so swiftly. As soon as they were gone, he told me to pull up a chair. I did, trying to position it away from the gore that remained.
“I heard about the explosions, Master,” I said. “Who do you suspect?”
“I know exactly who it was, Cley,” he said, putting the pistol back in the drawer.
“But who?” I asked.
“It’s me,” he said. “I was up all night with headaches that were like seizures. I’m telling you, whatever has gotten inside me from that fruit has some kind of consciousness. It is determined to destroy my City. From my bedroom window I have a view of most of the skyline. I began to get one of the attacks, and then, in my mind, I saw a building I had lovingly designed so many years ago. The next thing I knew, my eyes were forced shut from the severity of the pain, and I heard an explosion. When the episode passed, I opened my eyes and could see outside that the building I had pictured was in ruins with flames leaping from the rubble. I won’t even mention the damage I did to my own residence. My personal servant is a million flecks of flesh right now, spread across the ballroom of my palace.”
“Is there any hope of a cure?” I asked.
“My researchers are working on something derived from the leaves of the tree growing where I planted the seeds of the fruit. It has just begun to sprout, and we hope the sap might counteract the effects of the fruit. I am still a day away from having my hands on that serum,” he said.
“Why did you tell them it was a conspiracy?” I asked.
“What was I going to tell them? The Master is systematically destroying the city?” he asked.
I nodded.
“It’s killing me, Cley,” he said. “I can feel it inside me, plotting my demise. Here, in my veins, is where the conspiracy is.” He shook his head in what appeared to be genuine sadness. “You know, there was a room in the Ministry of Security—perhaps you remember it—whose ceiling was made of tin embossed with the image of a pelican. That design was a mnemonic device for remembering the face of my sister, who died when I was ten. Now, after last night, I can no longer see her. That room has also been destroyed in the City behind my eyes.”
Just then, he was flung back in the chair with another of the attacks. He grasped his head and cried out, “Here it comes. To the window, Cley. The Ministry of Education. They’re going to take it in the rear entrance.” His words turned into a prolonged groan.
I watched from the window as the back of the building he had mentioned suddenly turned into a pillar of smoke, shards of crystal, blocks of coral went flying into the air and rained down onto the streets below. In addition, I could hear blue spire heads popping down the hallway, and a bookcase just to my left cracked and splintered, the volumes falling in an avalanche to the floor.
I turned back to the Master, who was now drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. “I’m all right now,” he said weakly. “Fix me a syringe, would you?”
I prepared a dose of the beauty for him. He took it and shoved it into the vein in his left temple. As he pulled the needle out, he breathed a sigh of relief. “My lovely beauty,” he said. “It’s the only thing that does any good against the pain.”
“What more can I do?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just had to tell someone who would care. Keep your ears and eyes open for me, Cley. This is a dangerous time with me so under the weather.”
“You can count on me,” I told him.
I didn’t hand out any appointment cards that day. I knew I was going to have to act within the next day or else there might be nothing left of any of us. The streets were in turmoil, rescue workers heading toward the Ministry of Education and citizens fleeing in the other direction. Soldiers were trying to keep the peace by aiming their flamethrowers at unruly crowds who were threatening to crush one another in human stampedes. I went back to my apartment, took a needle myself, and lay in bed, thinking. Somewhere amid the long dream of the beauty, I heard another explosion and stumbled out of bed to look out the window. The Academy of Physiognomy was on fire. I smiled and lay back down for a while more.
As soon as the night came, I got up and dressed. The streets were quiet now, though the smell of smoke was still in the air. I took the same route on which I had led Calloo to the western side of town. The Earth Worm was a dirty little place I remembered from my student days. Not that I ever visited it, but I knew many who did. I kept to the shadows and stayed off the main thoroughfares as much as possible.
A few blocks away from the place, I thought I heard someone following me. I looked back but saw nothing. With the whereabouts of the demon unknown—whether he was alive or dead—I was somewhat scared, not having my trusty derringer with me. I quickened my pace and did not turn around anymore, though I still thought I heard the sound of someone tailing me at a distance.
The Earth Worm was a small ramshackle establishment. There wasn’t much light inside, only candles on a few of the tables and one glowing sign for Pelic Bay hanging over the mirror behind the bar. Three patrons sat together, drinking quietly in front of it, leaning against the splintered wood. The bartender dozed on a stool in the corner beneath an advertisement for Schrimley’s. Over in the back, through the shadows, I saw Deemer’s white hair. He was sitting at the last table, bent over a glass of wine.
I approached and took a seat in front of him. He did not look up. I cleared my throat to get his attention, but he didn’t move. I thought that he had fallen asleep waiting for me, and leaned over and touched his shoulder. Then I noticed the bullet hole in his shirt, half-hidden by his topcoat. At almost the same instant, I saw my derringer sitting on the table, next to his glass of wine. Behind me the three stools were scraping across the floor as the men stood.
I turned around and there were two soldiers holding rifles aimed at my heart. The Master stood between them, making the sign of the O with his middle finger and thumb.
“They’ve been fishing some strange items out of the containment pool over at the waterworks lately, Cley,” he said. “In addition to that derringer, they also found a topcoat that looked very familiar to me.”
“I can explain,” I said.
He held up his hand. “I trusted you, Cley. I let you get close to me, and you betrayed me just like the rest of them. When the gun and coat were brought to my attention, I began inquiring as to your whereabouts. It seemed you had paid a visit to the engineer last night, so my men and I paid him a visit this afternoon. My head verily destroyed his study, but not before we found revolutionary writings. I had his whole family executed on the spot.”
I looked over at the bar and realized that the bartender was also dead. “You can kill me,” I said, “but at least I’ll die knowing that you and the City won’t be far behind.”
“No more vacations to Doralice for you,” he said. “I think we’ll just inflate your head.”
“Was it just the derringer?” I asked. “Or were you on to me from the beginning?”
“I found it rather peculiar that you never inquired about the girl. I didn’t want to believe that you were hiding something, but when they came to me with the topcoat and gun today, I knew,” he said. “What was your plan?”
“I wasn’t after you,” I told him. “I just wanted to free the girl.”
“A shame. Take him outside,” he said to the soldiers.
They came and each took me by an arm. As we started for the door, Below clutched at his head. I thought he was about to have another headache, but then it seemed to pass and we continued.
Out on the street, there was a coach waiting. “To the executi
on chamber,” Below called to the driver. The soldiers took me to the coach and one of them opened the door. As it swung back on its hinges, something shot out and hit him in the face so hard his grip was torn from my arm by the force of it. The other soldier brought up his weapon, and as he did I hit the ground to get out of the way of his shot. He managed to get off one round into the coach, but as he aimed to fire again, Calloo, or something like Calloo but badly burned and popping springs, lunged out at him and grabbed him around the throat and snapped it as easily as he had taken off the demon’s horn. In that same instant, Below was pulling a pistol from his belt. But Calloo’s massive fist was faster, hitting him right in the face and sending him to the ground.
I leaped to my feet and moved around to the front of the coach to get to the driver before he could escape, but I soon saw his condition was similar to Deemer’s. Calloo moved up behind me and put one of his hands on my shoulder. His inner workings were a cacophony of grinding gear-work that I could barely hear over the dangerous hum of an overload. A good portion of his overalls had been scorched, and his left side, face, and arm had been blackened. There was a bullet hole or two more in him, but I think he smiled at me. A croaking noise came from his throat, and I interpreted it as a greeting.
29
I closed Calloo in the cab of the coach, begging him not to kill Below, who had only been knocked unconscious. I then climbed up into the driver’s seat and pushed the lifeless body of the driver onto the street. Lifting the whip out of its holder, I cracked it over the horses’ heads, realizing only then as they sped off that I had no idea how to drive the contraption. I pulled back on the reins and tried to slow them, but it seemed they had taken my initial command to go, a little too much to heart. We rounded a few corners on two wheels and dashed the back of the cab against a lamppost, but in a few blocks, I was able to get them to slow to a moderate trot.
In the heat of the events that had transpired so rapidly, I had formulated a plan, or I should say it was more like one leaped into my head. I drove on and then looked around for the place Calloo and I had stopped for dough-gummels the night we had discovered the crystal sphere. It took all my strength to bring the four horses to a standstill at the curb outside the small store. As soon as I was sure they were not going to bolt without me, I leaped down from the driver’s seat and ran across the sidewalk to the door.
Luck was with me, because the same man, a member of the conspiracy of O, was behind the counter again.
“Greetings, Cley,” he said, and made the sign to me.
I reached across the counter and grabbed him by the collar. “Listen,” I said, “I need ten cups of shudder to go.” When I looked around, I saw that there were a few patrons sitting at tables. I turned back to the counterman, whose shirt I still had hold of, and told him, “Tell your people I have kidnapped the Master. If they are going to do anything, tonight is the night. Do you understand?”
He nodded to me, and I released him. He set immediately to work, pouring cups of shudder and snapping lids on them. He arranged them neatly for me in a cardboard box. Again, he charged me nothing. As I ran out the door, he yelled after me, “See you in Wenau.” Behind him I heard the patrons join in with a chorus of “Wenau.”
I got back up on the coach and set the box next to me. We were off in a flash. The horses seemed now to be part of the conspiracy, because it was almost as if they knew that I was headed for the sewage treatment plant. Minutes later, we rounded a turn, and the white marble building of the waterworks came into view. I veered to the left of the street and brought the coach to rest outside the gray beehive.
As soon as we stopped, Calloo emerged from the cab, carrying Below over his shoulder. I jumped down and joined him in the street. After retrieving the box of cups, I grabbed the whip and cracked it over the horses’ heads again. They took off down the street with the coach in tow.
We entered the building and followed the same route we had the first time. If Calloo was slow before, his scrambled clock-work now had him lurching along at a snail’s pace. It seemed to take forever to get down to where the river tunnel hit level ground. There was nothing to do but wait for him. I couldn’t complain, seeing as how he had saved my life so many times I could no longer keep count.
We walked along the tunnel until we came to just before the spot where it opened up into the concrete cavern that held the false paradise. I motioned for my friend to lay the Master down.
He half set him and half dropped him, so that Below leaned back against the wall in a sitting position. I kneeled down and began smacking the Master lightly to try to revive him. It was a good thing he had been weakened by the poison of the fruit, otherwise he might have already escaped from us by use of his magic.
After a few slaps to the face and my shaking his shoulders, he began to come around. As soon as I saw his eyes open, I popped off the lid to the first cup of shudder, tilted his head back, and poured the liquid down his throat. He took half of it before I stopped, fearing I would choke him. When I tried to follow with the second half of the cup, he had by then reached full consciousness and spit it out all over me.
“You’ll never get away with this, Cley. My men are right around the corner. All I have to do is scream, and they will come running,” he said, gasping for breath.
“The minute you make a noise, my friend here is going to put his boot in your mouth,” I told him. “If you want to live, you’ll start drinking. There’s a lot of shudder to down before we continue.”
“Sorry, my doctors have prohibited it,” he said, and laughed. He closed his lips tightly and would not open them.
Calloo looked placidly down on the scene, whirring and chunking. I suppose he grasped part of what was going on, because he lifted his leg and kicked Below in the stomach. It wasn’t as powerful a blow as he could have delivered, but it was enough to get the Master’s jaw to unhinge and leave me an opening for the shudder. I poured down two more cups before he fought me off again. Calloo came at him with the boot, and we repeated the procedure. Finally, he grudgingly acquiesced and took the last few cups without fighting.
When I was done force-feeding him, he asked. “What is your plan, to drown me with shudder and leave me in this tunnel?”
“No,” I said, “I need you to hatch an egg for me.” With this, I told Calloo to lift him to his feet, which the miner did with the ease of a bear lifting its cub.
“Ingenious,” Below said to me.
“Do you think it will work?” I asked him.
“I’m afraid you won’t find out, since you and this hulking wreck will be burnt to a cinder within minutes,” he said.
“Feel free to have a headache anytime,” I said.
Calloo kept his hand squeezed tightly around the back of Below’s neck as we walked the remaining few yards to where the tunnel entered the chamber. I peered out of the shadows and saw the soldiers, four of them standing guard around the base of the sphere. The false paradise again filled me with wonder as I gazed upon it.
I wished I had thought to bring the rifles of the soldiers from the Earth Worm. We needed to get closer to the sphere without the guards interfering. “How did you make that sun?” I whispered to Below.
He began to give me an answer, but his words trailed off into a real cry of pain. I first thought that Calloo was squeezing his neck too hard, but I soon saw that the shudder was having the desired effect. At the same time, I could see the soldiers had heard and were coming to investigate. I was paralyzed with fear from the uncanny sense that this had all happened before.
“There goes the Ministry of the Treasury,” groaned Below.
I felt a tremor run through the tunnel, accompanied by the very distant sound of an explosion. A moment later, chunks of rock blasted off the wall a few yards behind us. The force of the shock almost knocked me into the river again. As soon as I had my bearings, I looked out and saw the soldiers had stopped advancing for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on.
“Over here,
” yelled Below.
They heard his voice and instantly began advancing again.
I readied myself to spring out of the shadows at them. I didn’t know what good that would do, but I thought in the confusion I might be able to subdue at least one of them. I was praying that Calloo still had a few more rounds of fight in him.
When I looked back, I saw that the Master was again grimacing with pain. He brought his hands up and clutched his head. “Not my palace,” he croaked. We felt another tremor, heard another explosion, and a moment later out in the cavern the floor erupted and geysers of rock and steam shot straight up. It wasn’t enough to kill the soldiers, but it was more than enough to scare them. They fled in the opposite direction, abandoning their posts and disappearing around the other side of the sphere as pieces of the cavern ceiling gave way and showered down.
As soon as they were out of sight, I motioned to Calloo to bring Below. We made our way across the uneven concrete floor, wending around the craters and watching for falling debris. Two more blasts occurred before we drew close to the base of the wondrous structure. The Master was drifting in and out of consciousness as the place came apart around us. The crystal sphere rippled in the explosions like a real soap bubble, but I saw no sign of its cracking.
Inside the paradise, I could see Ea and Arla, looking out at us. She held the baby, and they were waving to me. “Bring him closer,” I yelled to Calloo. My intention was to mash his face right up against the shell of crystal. I ran ahead and motioned for the prisoners to move away. As I ran toward them, I saw a flash of bright light reflected. I turned in time to see Calloo detonate and burst with a deafening bang, the parts of him flying out behind the Master. Gears, springs, rotors, flesh spread out across the cavern like confetti in a high wind. Below fell forward, unharmed.
I rushed to him before he could get away and lifted him to his feet. My adrenaline was pumping wildly, and I had unusual strength. I forced him over to the crystal wall and shoved his face against it. Three more explosions blasted out of him, again furiously rippling the bubble but not cracking it. The last one I could tell had diminished strength, and I feared that the enzymatic effect I had induced with the shudder was wearing off.