Wolfer Martin D’Ambry was such a master, and the piece he had composed for Lydia spoke not only of the times of separation but also of reunion. It rejoiced at the discovery of a daughter and so skillfully mimicked her intensity that Alice sat up and laughed in recognition. It was when the music drifted into defiance of fate, of old masters and new summonings, that the fog began to rise.
Initially, the three humans accepted the meteorologic anomaly (the day to this point had been fine and clear) as an effect generated by the genius loci to accompany Ambry’s music. Doubt surfaced when the fog solidified into a swirling mass of tentacles, all of which oriented on Wolfer Martin D’Ambry.
“Ambry!” Lydia screamed.
Alice’s response, perhaps because she had known her father for such a brief time, was less panicked. Leaping to her feet, she tore hard green apples from the tree nearest to her and pelted them with considerable skill at the foggy monstrosity. Her target defused its mass in sections, permitting the apples to pass through.
Ambry, meanwhile, had dropped his bagpipes and unsheathed his claymore. Spinning the blade in an elaborate series of cuts, he would have swiftly left his opponent without either hands or head if his opponent had borne a resemblance to humanity. The fog creature, however, merely rejoined where the blade had slit its substance, apparently less inconvenienced by the sword than by the apples.
From her vantage, Lydia could see this.
“Ambry! Just get away from it! You can’t harm it, but you might be able to outrun it!”
The expression that crossed Wolfer Martin D’Ambry’s face at that moment suggested that he was about to declaim that he was not the type of man who ran from an enemy—no matter how fearsome or inhuman. Common sense won out over empty heroics, or perhaps he heard the terror and love in Lydia’s voice. In any case, he abandoned his pipes and began a controlled retreat toward the cottage.
Alice assisted him by redoubling her hail of green apples, for the tentacled fog had to slow slightly to adjust its mass. From the apricot tree under which Lydia stood, unripe fruit began to drop, encouraging her to add to the bombardment. The genius loci assaulted the fog with wind that blew from the north, growing in intensity and fraying the fog monster at the edges.
Attacked on multiple fronts, the fog monster split its attention to return the assault. Lydia jumped agilely away from the tentacle that punched at her. Alice was not so fortunate.
Whip-thin, cutting the air so that it screamed, a tentacle slashed out at her, catching her around one leg and yanking her off her feet. A second tentacle, this one thick and shaped like a mallet, loomed over her, descending to smash her flat. Throwing her last apple Alice willed herself small, rolling out of line.
Virtual shapeshifting had never been one of her talents, but this time something worked. Momentarily, she was aware of a change of venue— almost as if she was back in her Verite body—then she was in the orchard again. The tentacle had lost its grasp on her and while it was casting about, she scrambled away.
As Alice readied another apple, it seemed that they must win, that Ambry would gain the relative security of the cottage and the genius loci would be able to raise the winds to gale forces that would shred the fog into wisps and memory. Sheltered behind a tree, Lydia was throwing steadily now, her missiles making swiss cheese of one foggy flank.
Then, just as victory seemed certain, the fog changed character, a face forming at its center. The face was masculine, with azure skin and lightning bolt eyebrows over dark blue eyes. The massing fog became flowing hair and beard framing a stormy countenance. Eyes narrowing, it focused on Ambry.
“Enough of this now, Piper,” a deep, yet somehow petulant voice rumbled. “I can’t possibly do things properly this time without all the pieces of my legion. Come along now.”
Reaching out a thick tentacle, the fog plucked up the still backpedalling Ambry as a child might a doll. Once enfolded in the foggy embrace, Ambry drooped limply, his face lax and expressionless.
The fog dispersed, carrying its prize. Mother and daughter stood stunned, watching in dull horror as a single tentacle reappeared to collect the bagpipes before vanishing with the rest.
“Mom, did what I just think happened, happen?”
“Yes.” Lydia sounded as if she was trying not to sob.
“Then you’d better tell me all about Ambry’s past—everything you know.”
“Alice…”
“Mom, I’m going after him.”
“Alice!”
“No, don’t say I can’t. Don’t even suggest that you’ll find him. You’re a great doctor—one of the best—but finding missing people, getting the story… that’s what I’m good at.”
“Alice…”
“We can argue, but it won’t find Ambry and it does waste time.”
Lydia sighed. “Are you planning on doing this alone?”
“No. If you don’t mind, I was going to call Drum and ask him to help.”
“How much are you going to fill him in on?”
“Everything you’ll let me tell him. He can’t do his job with partial data.”
Lydia bit her lip, paced a few steps.
“I can’t stop you, can I?”
“Not really—certainly not if you’re considering running off. The minute you’re gone, so am I.”
“I suppose that someone should be here in case Ambry gets a message out.”
“True. And, Mom, you know his haunts. You’ll be able to check there—to warn the genius loci to be on the alert for him.”
“I’m convinced. Call Drum. I’ll fill you both in together.”
Alice dropped the green apple she still held and hugged her mother. Her fingers were sticky with the sour juice.
“I’ll find him, Mom. I promise.”
“I don’t doubt it, Alice.” Lydia squeezed her daughter harder. “What worries me is what will happen when you do.”
“I’ll bring him back. I didn’t just find my dad to lose him to some… master programmer with delusions of godhood!”
Armored in indignation, Alice Hazzard went into the cottage to place a Virtu-to-Verite call to Desmond Drum. Outside, Lydia picked up the plate that held the remnants of her birthday cake. The ants were marching. She imagined she could hear the pipes that drove them on.
* * *
Tranto remained in Deep Fields when Jay departed for Mount Meru.
“I am hard to overlook, my friend,” the phant said ruefully, “even within my chosen site. With their varied abilities and knowledges, Mizar and Dubhe will be able to assist you. I fear I should only be an impediment. On this journey, if you need to resort to brute force, then you are indeed already lost.”
Jay punched the phant above one wrinkled knee.
“That’s it—be encouraging! Don’t worry, Tranto. We’ll be back before you and the Lord of the Palace get tired of each other’s company.”
Death grinned his bone-white grin. “Tranto informs me that he is quite willing to assist me with some projects I had in mind. My usual workers have an unsettling tendency to fall apart. I look forward to the assistance of a trained construction proge.”
“Then we’ll be leaving as soon as the Brass Babboon returns for us,” Jay said. “I sent a signal up the line about an hour ago.”
“Rest until it arrives,” Death advised. “You will not have opportunity thereafter.”
“I’m not certain I could sleep,” Jay admitted. “I’m too nervous.”
“Oh, I think you will have no trouble,” Death said. “As many a poet and philosopher has noted, Death and Sleep are close kin. You will find my palace very restful. Go up the stair on the right. You will find the room your father—although unknowing—designed for you.”
Hearing the command underlying Death’s polite invitation, Jay obeyed. He found the room, furnished with bunk beds and decorated in a style popular for boys at about the time he had been born. A curving windowseat overlooked the front of the palace. Assuring himself that he would certain
ly hear the Brass Babboon’s arrival from here, he undressed and stretched out on the padded bench.
Despite his doubts, he slept deeply and well, not awakening until the Brass Babboon, spitting fireworks and blasting “The 1812 Overture,” churned to a stop before the palace.
Dubhe swung down from the top bunk and onto Jay’s shoulder.
“I should have know he’d like that one. Brace yourself, the cannon salute is coming.”
Jay did and was glad to have done so for the Brass Babboon accompanied the recorded cannons with mortar fire from his smoke stack and wild laughter. The decaying forms of Deep Fields reared up in response to the unaccustomed noise, detached arms and legs, wheels and gears, spinning and cavorting, tumbling and twirling in a Danse Macabre such as Deep Fields had never seen.
“We’d better get downstairs before B.B. has the place down around our ears,” Jay said, grabbing his clothes.
Dubhe laughed. “Deep Fields is always coming down around someone’s ears—the trick is getting something to stay.”
“Still…” Jay stuffed his arms in his shirt and buttoned it up crooked. “I’d hate to have something happen to this palace. My dad designed it and… well, the Lord of Entropy seems so proud of it.”
“You noticed,” Dubhe muttered. “Next thing you’ll be telling me that you would have preferred to grow up here.”
“Let’s not take it that far… but it might have been cool. Did you see that horse thing he had?”
Jumping onto Jay’s back saved Dubhe the necessity of replying. The youth tore out the door and down the spiral stair to the main floor at a breakneck pace that left Dubhe’s tail flapping behind them. At the front door, they found Death watching the Brass Babboon fart bottle rockets.
“Exuberant, isn’t it?” the Lord of the Lost commented. “I must admit, I envy John D’Arcy Donnerjack his talent for creation. I must be, by definition, derivative.”
Jay steeled himself to look directly into the shadowed cassock, pretending to meet eyes that he could not see.
“Sir, you just spoke of my father in the present tense. Is he… well, is he alive somewhere?”
“Not that I know of,” Death said, cool and pitiless. “He did not come to me, but then, being a creature of the Verite he would not have even though I was the agent of his ending.”
Jay stiffened. “You killed my father?”
“Yes. Does that shock you, Jay?”
“I… I… Yes.”
“Does the fact that I killed him shock you or that I would admit the fact to you? You knew that we were enemies, that he designed that noisy train out there to effect my destruction—at least on a temporary level— although I suspect that he would have been pleased to have managed it in a more permanent fashion.”
“But he did that to save me!”
“From what?”
“From death.”
“From Death or from dying?”
Jay paused. “Dying, I guess. I never really knew him. You made certain of that. Maybe he just thought he’d made a bad deal.”
“Yet, I also made certain that you were born, my boy.”
“For your purposes!”
“And now that you know something of those purposes, are they so ignoble? Moreover, your father never asked me if I intended your dying. He assumed the worst of me and I permitted him to do so.”
Jay was so angry that he was nearly driven to tears. Feeling them pooling hot beneath his eyes made him angrier, so that his question came out as a shriek.
“Why?”
“Because, Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack, even Death may grow weary of people assuming the worst of him. I treated John D’Arcy Donnerjack honorably—returned to him his bride, gave him an opportunity for a child. Yet, even before your birth, I found him in arms against me. When I would not renounce my claim on you, he armed his castle against me. I sought to reclaim Ayradyss after the fashion of a repossession rather than from any evil nature.”
“How can I believe you!”
“Have I ever lied to you, Jay, even when I would benefit from doing so?”
Jay looked at his shoes, at the gargoyles on the palace walls, anywhere but that shadowed cassock with its white hints of bone.
“Not that I know of, sir.”
“Very well, then, I do not ask you to like me, but you did surrender to me. I have given you a task. Your train awaits. Go and do as I have told you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jay turned away, securing his father’s engineer’s cap on his head, wiping a tear or two away with a quick rub of the back of his hand.
“And, Jay…”
“Yes, sir?”
“Good luck.”
* * *
Desmond Drum stretched and reached for his kimono. Noriko, the geisha who had just finished giving him the best massage of his life, rose to assist him. Then she bowed formally and folded back a screen at the far end of the room, revealing a hot tub crafted to resemble a natural mineral spring, complete with waterfall.
“If Drum-san desires,” she said.
“Just some tea, darling. I have an appointment in just a bit.”
“Appointment here?”
“Don’t be hurt. It’s not another woman, just boring business.”
“Ah.”
Noriko smiled, departed, returned momentarily with the tea tray. Even after she had poured, making an art form of every tiny movement, she seemed inclined to remain with him. Drum did not protest, knowing that she was lonely.
Virtual brothels had all but ruined the RT sex trade. Crass red-light districts, with their attendant crime and disease, had vanished everywhere that virt access was cheap. Even more elegant places like this tea house had to be subsidized by the Japanese government in order to survive.
The Floating World and its blossoms, having survived shifting morality and fashion, were faced with extinction at the hands of computer technology. A haiku tried to form within Drum’s mind, something about snow and cherry blossoms. He let his mind drift, taking cadence from the plunking notes Noriko was pulling from her samisen.
Another woman brought him a message scroll on a porcelain salver. He glanced at the words and followed her from the rooms. Behind him, Noriko’s samisen continued to drop audible tears.
“Hello, Drum,” Daimon greeted him without rising. Today he wore a lighter cotton kimono printed with white chrysanthemums on a dark blue background. His hands, as always, were gloved, and his face concealed by a stylized mask.
“Conichiwa, Daimon-san,” Drum answered. “You’re becoming a bit predictable with the Japanese thing, you know. Bad thing, if you’re hiding.”
“I am hiding, but I believe that any great enthusiasm for the search is gone. If I were to make myself obvious… but in my retirement, I am left alone. In any case, I am not too foolish. As a historic recreation, this place is not equipped with any computer access at all, not even for mundane matters of bookkeeping. I doubt that I am the only one who finds it attractive for this reason.”
Drum nodded. “Must make a good place for any number of clandestine operations. Have you reviewed what I sent on last time?”
“I have. I must admit, I expected Mr. Crain to accompany you.”
“Link’s busy. He’s taking a few days to celebrate his mother’s birthday.”
“How sweet.” Daimon sounded wistful.
“Are you content with the investigation thus far?”
“Content? I have yet to find what 1 would need to destroy the Church of Elish and without that I must remain a prisoner.”
“Perhaps you should settle for finding something that you could use to blackmail them to preserve your safety.”
“Something in the line of ‘If I die, this will be released’? Yes, I have contemplated this option. I will admit to being a coward. I never believed that they would persist both in their enmity and in their mission. The riot in Central Park should have been enough to weaken them!”
“Instead they grow stronger. Their virt crosso
vers are now no longer limited to psi powers and lesser projections. The gods…”
“Terrify me. Do they terrify anyone else?”
“Me. Link. Anyone who thinks about the implications. Most everyone considers divine manifestation another entertainment gig. Europeans and Americans don’t believe in gods anymore, Daimon, haven’t since the nineteenth century. That’s where the Elshies are strongest.”
“No belief, yet they join the Church.”
“Perhaps I should say that while there is no universal cultural belief, there is a great deal of individual desire for something divine.”
“Yes… I know, too well. I am considering attending the Celebration in California. Would you take care of ticket purchase for me?”
L…
“Certainly.” Drum started to laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You say you’re terrified, but you’re going to head right where Bel Marduk can spit fire at you. Either you really don’t believe that they are gods, or something even funnier.”
“What?”
“You do believe, bud, and you can’t pass up the opportunity to see a god in the flesh.”
“Stop laughing!”
Drum stood. “I want to catch the next suborbital. Take care, Daimon. Shall I send your ticket here?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you want it made out to? They’re not general admission.”
“No, I recall that from your report. Can you come up with a false ID for me?”
“For a fee.”
“Consider it paid.”
“Pity.”
“Why?”
“I was looking forward to making out a ticket for Arthur Eden.”
“Drum!”
“Sorry. You didn’t think I knew?”
“I did not!”
“I’ll bet Link has figured it out, too.”
“How?”
“It’s what we do best, figuring out what other people don’t want known. Don’t worn?, Daimon, we haven’t ratted vet. Nor will we. We just get this warm feeling inside from knowing it all.”
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