by Jeffrey Ford
I sat up in the bed, extra pillows behind me. The sun streamed in the window, and the ocean breeze rolled through the room. I sipped at a cup of herbal tea. Silencio had applied his leaves to me through the night and saved my skin from anything worse than blistering. The most dangerous of my afflictions was dehydration, which the monkey had also cured over a period of hours by administering water, cabbage juice, and Rose Ear Sweet.
Corporal Matters of the night watch, with his winning personality and long white hair, stood before me with a nervous look.
"You say your brother has run off?" I asked him.
"Yes, he came by my place yesterday afternoon. I was working in my garden on the veranda overlooking the sea, when he suddenly appeared from behind a potted shrub," said the corporal.
"Was there violence?" I asked.
"None at all. He implored me to go to the mine to release you. He said his mind was full of paradise and that he must journey out into the wilderness. I think he has finally gone mad," said Matters.
"He said he'd been tampered with by the Master," I said.
"That's what they all say," said the corporal, sitting on the end of my bed.
"He told me that you too had been subject to some invention on Below's part," I said.
"Nonsense, Cley. It's all lies. Why are you willing to believe a lunatic who tried to kill you?" he asked.
"I saw a scar," I said.
"That scar," he said, "was made by a saber blade on the fields of Harakun."
"I had a suspicion that you and your brother were one and the same Corporal Matters," I told him.
He laughed. "Forget about that oaf. He's gone down the island. I doubt he will ever return. I'm in charge now, always. My first edict is no more mine. My second is, Silencio, go get us a bottle of Sweet and three glasses."
We drank, but I did not drink a lot. How could I not be leery of the corporal? He seemed to be truly the affable fellow of the night in broad daylight, but I knew I would have to watch him closely. Where Silencio stood, as an enemy or friend or maybe even the instigator of my salvation, was hard to tell. He seemed to have some personal agenda I couldn't yet figure out. Still, I was alive, and these two were the ones who had cut the ropes and dragged me from the mine. I gave myself up to the moment and conversed with the corporal about the fine weather.
It took a few days before I could get on my feet. With the constant attention of Matters and Silencio, I made a full recovery. As soon as I was up and about, I began spending my mornings down along the shore and my afternoons going to see certain sights suggested by the corporal. One day he and Silencio accompanied me to a lagoon that cut into the south shore of the island. It was surrounded by palm trees and flowering oleander. The monkey walked down to the water's edge and began doing a dance, flapping his arms over his head and screeching.
"Watch closely," said the corporal, who sat next to me on a blanket up the beach a way. As he spoke, I noticed that the birds, who had been squawking and chirping, suddenly fell silent. Now Silencio stopped moving and also quieted down. Although he had his back to us, I could tell he was staring intently into the clear waters. Off to his right, what I had thought to be an eel slithered up onto the shore, but when it kept coming, growing out of the water, and I could see the circular cups that lined it, I realized this was the kraken.
'Watch out, Silencio," I yelled and got to my feet, but the monkey had already begun to move as the huge, slippery arm swept the beach for him. A series of back flips brought him clear of the danger. Later that day, as we sat eating radish sandwiches and swilling Three Fingers, we saw the kraken surface. Its bulbous head, three barrels wide, had a single eye that watched us as its numerous tentacles undulated through the water.
We spent the nights sitting at the bar out on the screened porch. It was these times that almost made me forget that I had nearly been cooked alive a few weeks earlier. There seemed to be an endless supply of alcohol, and Silencio wouldn't take no for an answer on the refills. Sometimes we played cards by candlelight. The monkey invariably won, but we had decided to play for points—demarcations on a sheet of paper that stood for nothing owed. Many times, we did not go to bed until the sun was coming up.
On a morning after we had turned in rather early, the corporal came to my room and invited me to join him on a trip to the center of the island. He told me that we would have to bring guns in case of wild dogs, but that they probably wouldn't bother us in daylight. I agreed to go, seeing that all the sites the corporal had so far taken me to had been interesting. It was also my desire to know the island as well as I could.
When Silencio found out where we were going, he declined an offer to accompany us. This made me somewhat suspicious. The idea of the corporal toting a gun reminded me that the issue of him and his brother had never been sufficiently settled. Ever since my rescue, though, I had seen no sign in him that he was anything but what he professed. We had actually become good friends and companions. It was an effort to remind myself to be wary.
On the way to the center of Doralice, we did encounter a rogue dog who jumped for my throat from off the side of a dune. The corporal felled it with a rapid shot from his pistol. Very close to the spot of the attack, Matters showed me the bones of an enormous sea creature that had crawled ashore in a storm one night and died in the dunes. We continued on, passing through a valley in the sand that was a small oasis. There was a clear pool at its center, and fruit-bearing trees grew all around it.
"Sometimes I come here and think about my brother," said the corporal as he picked a lemon off an overhanging branch.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"You know, it all goes back to your mother," he said, biting into the fruit. Its aroma was one half of Aria's perfume.
At almost exactly midday we came over a particularly tall dune and saw below us an enormous wall constructed of sea-shells, behind which were tall mounds with openings, like sand castles melting in the surf.
"Palishize," I said to Matters.
He looked quizzically at me. "Very ancient," he said. "Once I found some writings by Harrow up in the attic of the inn. His theory was that it was built by people who came out of the sea."
We walked through the streets and, as in my vision, they were cobbled with large clam shells, backs to the sun. I found the experience so startling that as we wound around the bases of the mounds, I told the story of Beaton's journey to paradise. It took me the entire return trip to the inn to recount all of the adventures I remembered, and I finished up on the back porch at midnight, drunk on Rose Ear Sweet.
The corporal just shook his head when I finished. A few seconds later, his eyes closed and he fell off his stool onto the floor. Silencio soon came with a pillow for him. The combination of Three Fingers and the Beyond had been too much. We threw an old blanket over him, and I stepped outside to see the stars. As I walked through the dunes, I thought about Aria and how I would get to her. I saw the Weil-Built City in my head, but its vicious power scared me. I decided to simply think first about getting off Doralice.
I stopped in the path and looked up at the sky. As I traced the lines of the constellations, I heard someone approaching on the path. I thought it was Silencio, since, back at the inn, he had signaled to me as he finished his drink that he might join me on the beach. That is when two hands grabbed me by the shirt collar. I looked down into the face of Corporal Matters of the day watch. The scar that ran through the center of his head split my vision.
His breath was foul with alcohol, and, as he spoke, he spat all over me. "Cley," he yelled, "I order you to paradise." He pulled on my shirt, trying to drag me along with him. "I've located it; it's here on Doralice."
"Where is it?" I said, though I was still dazed by the suddenness of his appearance.
He stopped and loosened his grip on me somewhat. His eyes wandered as if he were trying to remember.
"I was there," he said and tightened his grip.
I poked him in the eyes with two fingers of my
left hand, and he instantly let go of me. His scream echoed behind me as I ran at full speed through the dunes, back toward the inn. I had to see if the corporal of the night watch was still asleep on the floor. Either I had him or I didn't, but at least it would settle these matters.
As I came through the screen door onto the back porch of the inn, Silencio was playing a somber nocturne. I was gasping for air from my run, but I pushed on across the porch to the bar. There, I found Corporal Matters asleep where I had left him. I poured myself a drink and sat down and stared at him. It seemed to me that the white hair was rather askew, that he appeared to be breathing heavily for someone asleep, and that the blanket no longer fully covered him as it had before. On my second drink, I was not so sure of these things. By my third, I began to believe that the corporal of the day watch was really out there, searching for paradise.
The next day I told the corporal, as he sat nursing a hangover, that I had had an encounter with his brother.
"He's not in paradise yet?" asked Matters.
"He was out in the dunes," I told him.
"There's some bad business," he said.
"He ordered me to go to paradise with him," I said.
"He's run aground," said Matters. "I wouldn't be surprised if the wild dogs make a meal of his sagging flesh quite soon."
A few mornings later, Silencio came to me, screeching and motioning for me to get out of bed. The sun was barely up and the night had left a chill in the room. Corporal Matters of the night watch came through the door, looking worried.
"There's a boat in the harbor with soldiers on it," he said. "You'd better strip down and get over to the mine, while I go see what they want."
I immediately did as he requested, and, in less than a half hour, I was down there in the heat and stink again, sweating and gagging and chipping away at my tunnel. "One more reminder of hell," I thought, wishing it were true. I began to become concerned after I had been in the mine for more than two hours. I started to wonder why the soldiers were there. "Perhaps they are bringing another prisoner," I thought.
It was still an hour beyond that when I heard the corporal calling me from the rim of the pit. I gladly threw down my pick and scrabbled up the path. Outside in the afternoon heat, I found the corporal and three uniformed soldiers, carrying rifles.
"Cley?" said one of the men.
I nodded.
"Come with us, please," he said.
I looked over at Matters, who shook his head slightly to indicate to me not to address him. We followed the soldiers through the dunes, down the beach, and to the harbor where there was a steamboat waiting.
"Corporal Matters," said one of the soldiers as we stood on the wharf next to the boat.
The corporal stepped forward.
"We are taking Cley," said the soldier.
"As you wish," said Matters.
Then the soldier pulled something off his belt and applied it to the side of Matters's face. The object was a black box with two steel prongs sticking out of one end. The corporal screamed in intense pain. This lasted for a full minute until his eyes turned to jelly and black smoke poured from his ears, nose, and mouth. He fell in a heap at my feet.
"What?" was all I could ask.
The soldier proudly held the device up to me. "It melts gear work. It's an easy way to put them down when they've become obsolete. Now, if you'll kindly step aboard, Physiognomist
Cley, we have been ordered by the Master to escort you back to the Well-Built City. You have been pardoned."
Just like that, dressed in my underwear, I stepped aboard the boat. I felt bad about leaving Silencio alone, but this was the only way to get back to the City. They sat me by the side so I would have a good view. One of the soldiers brought me a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I couldn't believe I had been pardoned.
Later, as we cruised down the north side of the island, four soldiers came and held me down. One of them brought forth a syringe of sheer beauty and jabbed it into my neck. The drug exploded in my head and showered its violet glow throughout me. The soldiers begged my pardon, then lifted me up and put me back where I had been sitting.
The beauty wrapped me tightly against the winds and I stared, lost in daydreams. Before the boat turned away from the island, we passed its western tip. At somewhat of a distance but still visible, I saw Corporal Matters of the day watch on a small spit of sand that jutted out into the breakers. Behind him the beach was crawling with hungry wild dogs, waiting. I waved to him and called his name. He looked up and out to sea at me. 'Tve found paradise," he called over the water.
News of my return was all over the Gazette. The headlines hinted that a terrible mistake had been made in one of the more intricate calculations leading to the final equation of my guilt. As far as the general populace was concerned, they were to have no fear of the efficacy of the Physiognomy for themselves, since their features were obviously much cruder, hence, easier to read. There was a quote attributed to myself, which, of course, I can never remember having given, to the effect that the whole mix-up was totally understandable. The Master was quoted as saying that he was relieved that one of his most trusted subjects could now be pardoned and return to a fruitful life in the City. Following this nonsense was an in-depth recounting of my life and the numerous high-profile cases I had prosecuted. Every one of these represented to me a tunnel tomb carved in sulphur.
When I opened the door to my apartment, all was exactly as I had left it on that afternoon, months ago, when I had set out for the territory. The only exception was a giant bouquet of yellow flowers on my desk along with a small package which turned out to be a month's supply of sheer beauty and enough syringes to carry it to my veins. The soldiers, who had brought me from Doralice, had injected me every eight hours on the return trip, so that I was once again dependent on the drug.
I cannot say that I did not breathe a sigh of relief getting beneath the covers of my own bed and sleeping deeply, but once in dreams, Aria, Calloo, Bataldo—even Silencio—came to me to remind me that I had covert, unfinished business with the realm to attend to and that I could not allow any measure of comfort and warm welcome to deter me.
After I awoke from a nightmare of demons, I stayed up and tried to think clearly through what I would have to do. I smoked thirty cigarettes between then and dawn, in an attempt to forgo an injection. I soon realized that, in my secret self, with my new knowledge, I was as much a stranger in the City as I had been in the territory. The title of Physiognomist, First Class was merely a disguise for me now. Somehow I would have to outsmart the Master, stay two thoughts ahead of him. The only problem was that his thought process was less than linear. "I will have to think around him," I whispered, but then regretted my words, remembering the time he had told me, "I don't read, I listen." It was all too much, too suddenly. The morning sun brought tears to my eyes as I rolled back my sleeve and tapped a vein at the crook of my arm.
The next day a messenger appeared at my door to inform me that a coach would be by in an hour to take me to Below's offices at the Ministry of Benevolent Power. I bathed quickly and dressed in my lime silk suit with matching vest. Plucking one of the yellow blossoms from the bouquet, I affixed it to my lapel as an outward sign that all was right with Cley, that his confidence in the Master, the realm had been fully restored. I knew that the order of the day would call for both a good measure of groveling and a certain self-assurance when it came to discussing my future. I was sure that there had been some ulterior motive behind my pardon. As I heard the driver knock at my door, I decided to allow things to develop as they would, all the while staying keenly observant for a spark of insight that might lead to a plan.
As the coach wound through the streets of the City, I marveled at that complexity of design I had not witnessed in so long. My last stay there had been spent between my prison cell and the courtroom. The black bag, which had been thrown over my head during the transport between them, had prevented me from seeing the citizens bustling to
and fro beneath the spires and domes. The pink coral buildings, the glass, the crystal would probably have made Beaton think he had stumbled upon paradise had he taken a wrong turn in his wanderings and landed here. I did notice a greater presence of uniformed guards on patrol. They carried flamethrowers, which was unusual.
The coach pulled up before the enormous crystal structure of the ministry. I got out and made my way up the steep steps and through the front door into the lobby. A young woman came up to me as I advanced toward the elevators.
"Physiognomist Cley, welcome back to the City. The Master awaits your arrival," she said.
I nodded to her and smiled, but she was only the first to greet me. People I didn't even know stopped me in the lobby to wish me well. Behind their smiles and open palms, I knew there had been an order from above requiring affability. I stayed calm until I had nodded to everyone and then took the elevator up to the tenth floor. When the doors opened and I entered the long hallway that led to Below's office, I was astonished to see that it was lined on both sides with the blue static forms of hardened heroes from Anamasobia. Among them I spotted Arden, holding his mirror. On my left, Beaton leaned in a static pose into the aisle, the fingers of his hand slightly parted, proffering his invisible message.
When I entered his office, the Master was sitting behind his desk, a flat, smooth piece of quartz the length of the coach that had brought me. There were stacks of paperwork on it, which he was in the process of throwing into the blazing fireplace behind him.