by Sue Perry
63. PANDEMONIUM'S MECHANIC
Hari!–Ya was right about Travel with the grannies. Taking three grandmaters through many Frames to Next Vast was no more difficult than transporting a ladybug. I got back to my apartment on Ma'Urth feeling positively perky.
Hail hail, my gang was all there. Kelly Joe did not look up from his guitar, which he played from the same spot where he had played at the last house concert. Everyone else nodded, smiled, or what–upped me. On the couch, Jenn sat between Hernandez and Anya. In the hall outside the bathroom, Zasu danced like sunlight on surf. In the kitchen, Anwyl paced.
Next thing I knew, Kelly Joe was packing up and Anya was standing beside him. "Thank you, musician, for that insight and hope. Nica, welcome home."
I flashed the smile of the unburdened. For once, I didn't have to dissemble about where I'd been; relocating the grandmaters was an Anwyl–appointed job.
Anya continued, "Why sought you this meeting?"
Hernandez got to his feet. "Want to propose an adjustment to strategy. You're fighting battles, outnumbered, while I'm underutilized. I know war. I know sabotage, too, but how about if I scale back on torching buildings and join you more often when you're fighting?" It was as close to questioning an order as Hernandez could get.
Anya replied, "Our modest numbers do not threaten our victories. All your abilities will be well and fully tapped. For the non, we look to you to ready this island for the cataclysm to come."
Hernandez seemed to want to say more, but sank down to the couch with a look to Jenn.
Jenn spoke up. "Aren't we hurting the buildings when we sabotage the construction sites? They're alive, right?"
Anwyl waved his fingers like Jenn's questions were a pesky fly. "Your damage affects only this Neutral Frame, where the buildings feel little."
Anwyl had been dismissive, but Jenn isn't easily dismissed. "Will we have enough people when the time comes to fight Maelstrom?"
"Whatever our numbers, we will make those enough," Anwyl said.
Anya corrected gently, "But when war begins, it will be Warty Sebaceous Cysts that we fight, not Maelstrom."
Anwyl explained, "Warty Sebaceous Cysts lead the wars. Maelstrom devours the survivors." Which maybe added to our insight, but wasn't good for morale. "But mistake this not. We are not yet at war. These battles are but skirmishes."
Some of the battles I'd witnessed might call skirmishes, but the conflict in Marzipan seemed harsher. I blurted, "I'm worried about Marzipan, it felt empty last time I was there. And bad. Deserted in a really bad way." Anwyl and Anya stared at me until I regretted speaking. As far as they knew, I had no business in Marzipan. But they stared for a more basic reason.
"She means Marzipan," Kelly Joe said.
"Oh, Marzipan," Anya said.
Hand to heart, their pronunciations were the same as mine. My sigh crashed waves into Gibraltar.
Anya and Anwyl exchanged a look. Anwyl said, "You bear ill news about Marzipan. Show us. Warriors, follow Nica."
Zasu joined Jenn on the couch—they weren't warriors. I led the others down my street on Ma'Urth, to the intersection with Amsterdam Avenue, where the cold empty fog had been thickest in Marzipan. Anwyl fell into step beside me. He had restless eyes today, checking every cranny and shadow.
We waited outside the corner Starbucks for Anya, Kelly Joe, and Hernandez to catch up. Something inside a building foyer had caught their attention. I had time for a little praise–mongering. "I have good news. Hari!–Ya finished her mission to relocate the grandmaters. I helped a little."
"Yes, she told of this. You have a new mission. Tonight Hari!–Ya must rescue another of our allies among the Cobra people. Join Hari!–Ya on Brooklyn Bridge at dusk, so that you might assist with the rescue."
I couldn't decide what jazzed me more—Anwyl's trusting me with insider missions, or standing this close to him for this long. Ego, libido, when they join forces I'm doomed.
In Marzipan the fog was thicker and colder. If the Frame was sick before, now its maggots had cancer. We weren't too late because there had never been any hope of saving Marzipan. Or anywhere else. I dropped to my knees. Slime coated my throat, barbed wire bit my lungs. I heard screams in the distance—make that, inside my head.
Anwyl crouched with his back to us. Anya pulled me close, pressing one ear against her heart. Its slow pounding elevated my attitude to the level of despair.
"Take cover? Over there?" Hernandez' voice trembled until Anya set a hand on his head.
Meanwhile, Kelly Joe marched into the intersection where the worst vibe throbbed and vanished into the fog. I strained to hear his steps between Anya's heartbeats.
Anya released us Neutrals at the same time that Kelly Joe called, "He's gone," and stomped back out of the fog, sounding disgusted.
Before I could pose the question, Anya answered, "Maelstrom was here."
Anwyl gestured for us to follow him, his ear cocked as though he followed a sound. Anya held my hand and I knew my attitude was improving when I resumed feeling afraid—it takes hope to feel fear.
A block later, I heard what Anywl had heard—howls and screams.
The anguish came from a clump of blue– and white–furred beings on a school playground. They had the weary kindness of grade school teachers. Another teacher exited a building, guiding a stumbling child whose white fur stuck out in all directions. The emerging teacher cried, "He alone survives!" and more wails erupted.
They spotted us and shouted over each other. "Anya daughter of Niav... Anwyl son of Rayn! We beg your aid! ... Maelstrom engulfed us ... While we were stunned with hopelessness, Lobotomists stole the children ... Please save these innocents."
Impressive, the way they sprang into action. Hernandez ushered the Marzipani to the side of the school building, where they were more shielded. Anya posed questions that reassured while extracting critical information like how many, how long ago. Kelly Joe played his harmonica until the child stopped ducking whenever anyone spoke.
Anwyl ran out to the street at a crouch, following a scent. He called to us, "Here lies their path away."
"We're faster than they are, let's catch up." Kelly Joe pocketed his harmonica.
Anya told me, "Remain here. If foes appear, take the child to your Frame of safety." She meant Frivolous Bedlam and now was not the time to ask why she wouldn't mention it by name. She clasped my arms. "You did well to bring us here. Remain vigilant."
And they were gone. The teachers, the child and I huddled on the edge of the big empty playground.
The teachers debated what they might have done differently, to stop the Lobotomists. The disagreement grew heated.
To get their attention, I waved then pointed like Townshend thrashing a guitar, and I used a voice I'd learned from Anya, which filled the air without yelling. "Look! What you're doing!" The boy knelt, cringing, with hands over his ears.
The teachers clammed up and looked like Mrs. Meacham, my childhood neighbor, the day she drowned her daughter's guinea pig in the wash. "Maelstrom's got everybody upset," I reassured them.
"How long must we wait to know their fate?" one teacher asked. The playground filled with ghosts of missing children.
"I wish I knew. But while we're waiting, you can help me stop Maelstrom. Answer some questions for me." Belief that they could fight Maelstrom brought them back from the cliff where they'd been sparring. Sometimes fake confidence is what it takes. Be the bullshit. "Maelstrom had a device to enslave books. Someone from Marzipan helped Maelstrom with it. What is it? How does it work?"
The teachers grew tall and stiff. One with dark–blue fur stepped forward to face me. "We thank thee for these questions. Through all the cycles we carry the shame of complicity and we welcome this chance to ease our burden. I am the seventeenth in my line. My forefather, the seventh in my line, was forced to serve as Pandemonium's mechanic to that dire machine. At first he refused, which brought war to Marzipan and many died. The mechanic briefly escaped his sorry fate afte
r Pandemonium was captured in Frame collapse, but then Maelstrom's minions abducted him. In those days, Maelstrom was believed dead. It was we, the Marzipani, who sounded the alarm that Maelstrom still lived, had abducted the mechanic, and intended to enslave more tomes.
"All this is knowledge common to all Marzipani. However, one of us also possesses the personal memories of that mechanic. In this way we retained his experience but limited the distress of those memories. Until now. The Marzipani are Maelstrom's eternal foes. Now we will share those memories so that we may give them to thee."
As though they operated on a switch, all the furred grownups closed their eyes.
Seconds or minutes elapsed. At some point my foot shuffled. The eyes of all the furred grownups popped open. I faked a smile and froze. Their eyes drifted shut again. I lost count after 67 breaths, which was the longest I've ever stood still. I'm told that even in deep sleep I'm restless. Science says that smiling makes us happier, even if the smile is faked. Maybe my fake stillness would—gak!
Twelve pairs of eyes popped open. Dark–blue reported, "According to the memories of my forefather, the mechanic, Pandemonium took a printing press and converted it to become an imprinting press. With this press, she and later Maelstrom enslaved books."
My reaction zoomed back and forth along the disappointed–insulted continuum. I'd hoped for a plausible answer. But could I recognize one if I heard it? "An imprinting press? What does that mean, did Pandemonium make a magic printing press?"
A teacher with bright–white fur replied, "If by magic you mean a machine with workings that are understood poorly and by few, then yes, call it magic. It does not hurt to think it so."
Dark–blue added, "Remember that books are manufactured beings and as such, can be controlled. Pandemonium developed a means to control them. Books, when sent through this press, became the operator's slaves, as did their offspring."
"By 'offspring' do you mean later editions?"
They closed their eyes and after a time, opened them to say, "Yes."
"What can you tell me about how this press works? How do I shut it down or reverse the process?"
"Before he took his own life, the mechanic told his granddaughter all that we have conveyed to you. It was she who shared the memories with us but she has no gift for machinery so his mechanic's knowledge of the imprinting press is lost. Thus –"
"Not all have perished!" The teachers ran past me, all but Bright–white, who stayed with the boy.
Across the playground, Kelly Joe strode into Frame with three tots perched on his shoulders and back. Six older munchkins clung to a rug that he dragged behind him. He called to us, "The Lobotomists split in three directions. In the direction I followed were seven dead and these survivors. They've seen too much."
At seven dead, the teachers began to carry on, which emphasized how absent of emotion the children were. They stared at the teachers, the school, each other.
Kelly Joe blew a harsh chord on his harmonica and in the startled silence, he gave orders. He deployed some teachers to care for the children, some to fetch the children's parents, some to stand guard until the other allies returned. Then he walked away without a goodbye.
I jogged after him. "I have to go to Maelstrom's Frame. Show me how to do it safely."
He kept walking. "There's no safely to that."
64. GO THERE, STOP IT
"Then show me least unsafely." I jogged to keep pace. "I have to go there. It's what I have to do." Kelly Joe hadn't looked surprised, I realized in retrospect. "I know you don't want to go back to that Frame."
He cast me the world's briefest glance.
I replied to its content. "You're right, I don't know a frigging thing about it."
We walked a block in silence.
"We'll start from Frivolous Bedlam," he announced. "That's the least unsafe route."
"Thank you," I said. When words are inadequate, keep them simple.
As soon as we Traveled to Bedlam, I said, "I need to stop at my apartment. I'll be quick." Kelly Joe waited on Julian's front stoop while I ran upstairs. Inside my apartment, I unshouldered my backpack, removed Lose Twenty Pounds, gave a few instructions, and returned outside.
On Julian's front stoop, Kelly Joe twisted notes on his harp. I asked, "Do you ever break out into a tune on that thing?"
"They're tunes to me. You left your backpack inside."
"I did."
"A woman of plots and schemes," he said without judgment.
"Sometimes they turn out to be plans and strategies." I sat beside him.
"Will you be looking for something in Maelstrom's Frame?"
"His imprinting press—a special printing press he stole from Pandemonium. He uses it to enslave books. It used to be in that Frame with him, based on what I learned in the Halls of Shared Knowledge."
"You've been to the Halls," Kelly Joe bent some contemplative notes.
"You're basically the only one who knows that, too."
"A woman of schemes and strategies."
Around us, the buildings traded knock–knock jokes in the sun. Kelly Joe did finger twirls with his harmonica. He stopped twirling and said, "We'll try a place that's isolated but close to Party City."
"Party City. I'm guessing the Cysts named that one."
"No allies have seen Party City for many cycles. We could walk into—anything."
"Tell me more about the isolated place." I followed him up the street.
"It is—was—where Central Park lies. Maelstrom always reshaped the land and it could be something else now. Also, Maelstrom has machines that eavesdrop and listen for sounds that don't belong. We'll walk in a way that disguises our steps."
He taught me the special walk as we headed into the Upper East Side. The basic idea was to walk without pattern, with an erratic gait like we were on the sands of Dune hiding from the giant worms. Easy to explain, mind–scramblingly hard to do. But finally I got it—or close enough—and Kelly Joe said, "Good. That'll do."
My buddies the food carts followed at a distance but when we got to Museum Row, they spun around and raced each other back toward Midtown. I didn't blame them. In Bedlam, the Upper East Side is yawnsville: most of the buildings are sentient and they stand around like Ph.D.s at a cocktail party.
Just past the Metropolitan Museum, Kelly Joe said, "Here we go." He took my hand and he didn't Travel us all that far but I got a headache–nausea package worthy of a jump to the Far Frames. Might have been stress.
In Maelstrom's Frame, it had been gray and damp for so long that the fog had mold. The air was still, expectant, a twilight gloom that never changed to nightfall.
Our approach along Fifth Avenue put us at the lip of a crater. To the west, where Central Park should have been, was a blasted pit with steep trails winding through sharp rocks and black canyons. To the east, the Upper East Side was a rubble of broken concrete and asphalt with, here and there, a building foundation, crazed and cracked. Every few blocks a building still stood, dark and void.
Muffled but sharp, clanks and growls filled the air. I couldn't place their direction. Kelly Joe put his hand over my mouth before I could warn him that those were the sounds of clockwork dogs. He put finger to lips but I'd already got the message to be quiet.
Using our erratic gaits, we tiptoed down the steep incline of Central Park crater. The rock that lined our trail was shattered and gouged and as we went deeper, the ground seeped as though infected. Loose rock covered the slopes and cascaded in spontaneous avalanches that echoed and masked any noise we made. Nonetheless, I did my best to move as quietly as Kelly Joe did.
As we descended, the dogs sounded near yet far. Other noises also came from everywhere and nowhere: scrapes of machinery, bursts of flowing liquid, footfalls.
Half way down into the crater, all ambient noise ceased. Kelly Joe spoke in his usual soft tones which, in the quiet, startled me like Tchaikovsky's cymbals. "The crater blocks sound below this point. Before Maelstrom was imprisoned, he didn't kn
ow this crater was dead to sound. He's had time to make that discovery but perhaps he hasn't done so."
"Or he could be spying on us right now."
"We'll know soon enough."
I listened for indications that the clockwork dogs were coming to get us. But I could no longer hear them. The Frame was on mute here. Clockwork dogs could be at the lip of the crater and we wouldn't hear them. Kelly Joe led us deeper into the crater.
"We can't change Frames from down here, we have to go back to the surface, huh? Because in other Frames, there's no crater and this area is solid rock."
"That's correct. We'll return to the surface soon to find the imprinting press. Or have you changed your mind about looking for it?"
"No, but we'd better go before I lose my nerve completely." I'd never been anywhere that felt as bad as this Frame did. Pain and distress suffocated us like nuclear fallout. "How could you stand it here for so long?" The words slipped out—I was incapable of discussing his past without heavy doses of judgment and maybe that was justified but now was not the time.
Surprisingly, he answered as though it were any old question. "Back then, Maelstrom hid his nature. Now, listen up. You'll get tired and sore, but you must maintain that erratic walk. Clockwork dogs have a poor sense of smell and weak eyesight but they sense changes to air currents, as do books and chainsaws that may be on patrol. If our steps have pattern they'll change air currents."
As soon as I nodded, he led us up toward the surface of Central Park crater. He stopped one more time. "Stay within reach. If we're spotted, grab my hand no matter what else happens. From here on, we can't speak, and we'll only gesture when we have to."
"Because gestures can change air currents."
"They surely can."
I followed his instructions flawlessly. That wasn't just for my own safety but to make sure that no one and nothing noticed our visit. If Maelstrom found out his Frame had had visitors, he'd make sure it could never happen again.