“Uncertainty? In Hell?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, his arm said, the flesh rippling and shifting on waves of pain. He closed his real eyes, seeing through the sketch again, the view a bleary section of his room and Marianne herself, face concerned and attractive.
“No. Tell me,” he said.
“There are rules, even here,” she said, “and what’s happening here is outside of those rules. The Bureaucracy doesn’t know what’s happening, and I think that whoever’s doing it is deliberately feeding into the confusion. The stories I heard today felt fully formed somehow, not things that were growing the way rumors and gossip usually do. They were dropped into the crowd as entire creations, designed to make people frightened, to confuse them. They were detailed. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” he said. She was smart, he thought. She listens, and she guesses in the right directions and hears the things that aren’t said, and she makes the links between them all.
“There’s another thing.”
“Yes?” Wincing again at the pain, wiping at the blood that trickled down his arm. Summer bundled one of the sheets off the bed and held it to his arm, soaking up his dripping blood, but it muffled what Marianne said next and he pushed it away, grateful but insistent.
“There was another rumor, the most common of all the ones I got told. I heard it three or four times, the most of any of the stories. The things that carried out the slaughters, that lit the fires, they moved oddly.”
“ ‘Oddly’?” But already thinking he might know what Marianne was going to say.
“Oddly, as though they weren’t usual, weren’t normal. Not like demons or humans, I mean. Not like the things that live in Hell.”
“Like they danced?”
“Maybe. Pale things, I heard. Pale things like angels.”
Angels. Angels, dancing angels attacking the inhabitants of Hell, setting Hell aflame?
No. No, it couldn’t be.
Couldn’t it? Mayall was an angel, and he danced.
It was too big to consider now, he needed to focus again on the specifics, on the things he could hold and feel and sense the shape of.
“If the attackers came in through the overgrowth, then there’s someone who can maybe help us,” Fool said.
“The thing we spoke to the other night?”
“The Man of Plants and Flowers,” Fool confirmed.
“I don’t know what he is, but he’s not a man,” said Marianne. Fool did not reply.
—
The garden was empty of humans, demons, and bauta, but getting there took a long few minutes. The corridors of the Information House bustled with Evidence Men and Information Men, human and demon, the two groups clearly avoiding each other. Even viewed through the hazy vision of the sketch as Marianne carried it and him to meet with the Man, the divisions were clear; the Evidence Men strutted and preened as they made their way about the building, the Information Men made themselves small and kept to the sides of the walls and scuttled from doorway to doorway. At one point, Fool thought he saw Mr. Tap, or at least its angular, twisted back as it stooped to enter a room, but the glance was fleeting and it was difficult to tell. When they finally came to the rear entrance of the Information House and Marianne took them outside, Fool relaxed a little, but only a little. The risks of Hell were too easy to forget in the confusions of Heaven, but even the short journey with Marianne had reminded him: to be in Hell was to be in danger.
“What’s Heaven like?” asked Marianne as they waited. She had seated herself on one of the old stone benches, the picture held in front of her so that they were face to face. Fool, in Heaven, closed his eyes so that he might see her and what was around her as clearly as possible.
“It’s nothing like I expected,” replied Fool truthfully. “There’re no spires, at least not that I’ve seen. It’s like the Heaven you can see from Hell is an image they want you to see, to aspire to, or maybe just to show you what you’re missing. The real Heaven isn’t as bright, it doesn’t glow. Oh, it’s beautiful and clean and smells good, but it’s still earth and air and rock and trees and people, just like Hell.”
“Is it filled with love?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what being filled with love is, not really. I know that the parts I’ve seen, some of them at least, are wonderful.”
“Only parts of it?”
“Yes,” said Fool, thinking about the dead body on the side of the pool, its blood mingling with the water from its robes and spilling slowly back toward the body of water, thinking about the Joyful wrapped in grass being cut down by angels after they had taken their fill.
“What are the people like? The Elevated ones?”
“Not like us,” replied Fool. “They’re asleep, or in some other place. No one talks.”
“No one?” asked Marianne. “That’s sad. I like talking. Heaven for me would be to be able to talk to people all the time without being frightened I’d say the wrong thing, without worrying that what I said would lead to them judging me, and people would say what they liked back.”
“Yes,” said Fool.
“I like talking to you,” said Marianne. “You listen to me. You never make me feel scared or stupid when I talk.”
Fool didn’t know what to say so simply said, “Thank you. You aren’t stupid, and I like talking to you as well. I’ll be happier when we can do it properly, though, rather than this way.”
Marianne didn’t answer. Instead, Fool’s vision began to shake as the paper she held trembled in her previously steady hands. Slowly, she turned it around so that Fool’s view slid sideways, moving over the thick, brambled foliage before ending up facing the gate in the far wall.
There was an Evidence Man staring at them through the metal lattice.
It had pressed itself against the bars, hands clenched around two of the struts, face jammed into the gap. Its tusks ground against the metal, making a wretched wail of noise as dribble spattered down its chin. In the gathering gloom its eyes gleamed, pale yellow glitters almost lost in the depths below its heavy brow, but not lost enough that Fool and presumably Marianne didn’t realize it was staring at her.
“Don’t move,” said Fool as quietly as he could.
The bauta slowly began to rattle the gate, shaking it back and forth in its frame as though to test its strength. It hissed, long tongue emerging from its mouth and lips, the sound coming to Fool through his paper ears and sounding dusty and dry. It shook the gate harder, and even at this distance Fool could see the rust flake away around the hinges, see the masonry grind and begin to crack. Those little fuckers are strong, he thought abstractly as the thing shook the gate more furiously.
“What do you want?” called Marianne, her voice steadier than Fool thought his might have been in the circumstances. The bauta carried on grunting and shaking the gate.
“I am an Information Man of Hell, part of the Information Office, carrying out my duties,” Marianne continued, “and you have no authority to interfere. This garden belongs to the Information Office. Now, leave me be.”
As they watched and waited, Fool heard the sound of other Evidence Men walking on the other side of the wall, approaching the bauta at the gate. They were grunting at each other, their language guttural and hoarse, and their feet rasped against the ground. Marianne hunched down as the voices and footsteps came closer; looking at her from below, now held forgotten at waist height, Fool watched as she trembled and her eyes closed; whatever bravery she’d had to challenge the Evidence Man at the gate had been almost used up. We still try not to be noticed, thought Fool, all of us, but we can’t manage it, not really. Marianne creeps down here but gets seen anyway, challenges that little thing, hoping to face it down, and suddenly there are more and that’s it, she’s in their view. And what about me? What about little Heaven’s Fool? Everyone and everything in Heaven and Hell seems to be watching me.
The new Evidence Men joined the first at the gate. There were four of them now, c
lustered in the space and staring through the bars at Marianne and the paper Fool she held, faces piglike and coarse. Although she was holding Fool down and sideways, he could see the bauta in his peripheral vision; in Heaven, eyes closed, he turned his head to where they were in Hell, but it didn’t help and the movement of his flesh without the parallel movement of his view was slickly nauseating. He stilled himself and waited.
The four bauta seemed confused by Marianne’s refusal to back down. Instead, she sat as still as she could and opened her eyes again, staring at them without looking down. Fool could see the effort it was costing her, could see the muscles in her jaw clench, see the sweat trickle around her hairline at her temples, and was glad that the bauta were far enough away to miss those details. If they saw them, they would know, and in the knowing Marianne would be doomed.
The four began to speak, their grunts curiously whispered, interspersed with things that might have been words made guttural and torn, and squeals that they kept muted. They seemed to be arguing, the original one still occasionally rattling the gate, making the hinges grate, drool and blood slicking its tusks, shiny in the light of distant lamps. The others split their attention between Marianne and the first at the gate, glances jumping back and forth until, at last, they pulled the creature away. Gesturing, they left it peering through the bars into the garden before it gave the gate a last shake, snarled, and then turned and left. Fool’s last sight of them was their shaggy hair catching the light and the rear of their filthy breachclouts disappearing into the shadows.
Only when they had been gone for a minute or so did Marianne let out her breath.
“Well done,” said Fool as she raised the paper, let him look at her clearly again. She was breathing deeply, was still trembling, and for the first time he wished he could reach out and hold her, feel her the way he had felt Summer and Gordie today, tell her it was okay, she had survived. He wanted to embrace her and tell her there was no point in being frightened of what hadn’t happened or what could have happened; there was too much else that still could happen to worry about.
“Yes,” said a voice that could only be the Man’s, “very well done, Information Man Marianne. You did marvelously.”
Marianne didn’t reply. Instead, she spent another few moments bringing her breathing back under control, steadying herself, and then she turned Fool so that he was facing the knotted undergrowth. Already, the plants had hunched themselves into a mass that might have been a body, a growth that might have been a head. Its mouth was exaggerated, created by two branches that fluttered and bent in a wide parody of lips as the Man spoke.
“Two visits in two days, Fool. I’m honored. So then, what information do you have for me?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Then we have nothing to talk about.”
“Yes we do. I’ve given you information, now I want my payment.”
“Payment?”
“Payment, in information.”
“Oh, Fool, you’re getting better, you’re learning!” said the Man, his tone that of a delighted teacher watching a favored pupil excel unexpectedly. “Fine, then. What information can I pay you with?”
Fool listed the places where the arsons had occurred, and the slaughters, and then said, “You live in the plants around those places?”
“Of course.”
“Then you must have seen what came through them, came through you before they burned things or killed people?”
“No, but then, I wasn’t looking for anything, Fool. I am still keeping a low profile, keeping my attention low so that the attention of others slides over me without catching.”
“Can you look in those places now? See if there’s anything there that shouldn’t be? Anything that might tell me who’s responsible?”
“And I get?”
“More information.”
“Very well. Wait.” The Man’s shape slumped, as though wires that had been holding him had been cut, the branches bending back to their more usual position. He bobbed in the breeze, unmade, while Fool and Marianne waited. Marianne was, without thinking, turning the paper Fool so that he saw the whole of the courtyard as a slow, gyroscopic twist. Eventually, he said, “Marianne, can you hold me still?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, immediately holding the paper up, facing her, still. Was she blushing again?
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I was just getting dizzy.” She grinned and then spun the paper again in wide, deliberately ornate loops so that he felt like he was flying, making him laugh. He stopped laughing when she slowed, stopping him, and spoke, his arm pained again.
“Do you trust the Man?”
“No, and you shouldn’t either. It suits him to help us at the moment, but one day it won’t and then he’ll use you and leave you behind. Be careful of him.”
“That’s good advice,” said the Man, rising up again from the growths, rising into the growths. “Information Man Marianne, Fool is a sensible man, and you’d do well to heed his advice.
“Now, to business. Fool, you were right. I found trails through the undergrowth. Someone’s been trekking their way through me without asking, which is simply rude, walking through me like I’m some common forest, and all the trails lead to clearings.”
“Clearings?”
“Yes. Clearings, natural ones. There’s nothing there now, not obviously, but if you know what to look for, what things should be, it’s obvious. The ground; it’s wrong. It’s been dug through, churned and disturbed and then put back together but not very well. It’s something I’ve not felt before, as though the earth has been opened and then inexpertly closed. Does that help? Do you know who might have caused it?”
“No,” said Fool, and wondered if that was true because he might, he thought he might know, “but I know what happened.”
“Really? Tell.”
“Tunnels,” said Fool. “Whoever it is, they’re making tunnels.”
“And what might that mean, Fool?”
“I don’t know, not yet. Let me think. I’ll be in touch soon.”
Later, after saying good-bye to Marianne and waiting until his skin had sealed itself again, Fool opened his eyes on his room. Blinking gave him some kind of focus, albeit a brittle and fragile one that showed him Summer and Gordie watching him with almost identical looks of concern on their faces.
“I’m fine,” he said, and wondered if he was, really. No, he thought, he wasn’t, not at all. He was tired, the kind of tired that seemed to be pulling him in different directions all at once, making his vision double and clash and his body ache and the pains magnify into sharp and stabbing things, but that was usual, wasn’t it? He might be in Heaven but he was a thing of Hell, and pain was his birthright and his burden.
And yet, he still had work to do. What he had learned from the Man and from Marianne was a step onward, a new piece of a pattern he still had no real idea about, and now he had to start trying to piece it together, or at least, to make the pieces seem less jumbled.
Fool used the feather and began to write on the walls. Their plain white openness invited it, he thought as he made the first mark. Besides, he had to work this out, Heaven had instructed him to, and this was how he worked. I’m writing on Heaven’s walls, he thought. If I wasn’t damned before, I fucking well am now.
He didn’t care. For the first time since the canisters with their gaudy orange ribbons had started dropping from the tubes carrying details of fires in Hell, Fool felt he had seen a break in the flatness, had a sense that he might have found a start of the trail that led back from the flames and blood to the creatures that were causing it all.
Carefully, he wrote his notes on the wall, speaking them aloud to Summer and Gordie, writing down the things they chipped in alongside his own thoughts. Ink dripped in rivulets from the words like tears, forming long streaks on the white walls like wounds. Then all three of them linked various words with arrows, each using the feather but always giving it back to Fool after they had finished, tr
ying to re-create the information board Fool had in his room in Hell, trying to create a logical structure from the mess of thoughts and facts. They added in the slaughters, wrote what they knew about them, made their links, and then stopped.
“It’s like a maze,” said Gordie after a few seconds of peering at the information before them. “There’s a path here, there has to be, but we’re lost in the middle of it rather than seeing from above.”
“No, not a maze,” said Summer, “a storm. It’s like everything’s been thrown at us at once and we have to try to dodge most of it and work out which bits are needed and which bits are just damage and rubbish.”
“None of it’s rubbish,” said Fool. “That’s the point. The picture is drawn from everything, even the things we look at and then decide aren’t part of the picture. We still have the information, we still have the rumor or the fact or the question, it’s there but we choose not to include it. We can always go back, look at it again, sift it out and see if it fits the new picture we make, add it later.”
“But now it’s just chaos, all wind and spray and nothing we can see,” said Gordie, and he sounded just as Fool had remembered him when things went like this, like a child disappointed with reality, unhappy that it had let him down. He saw Summer take Gordie’s hand again and smile. Gordie saw the smile, returned it, and then leaned over to kiss Summer on the cheek. She, in turn, twisted so that his lips met hers and they kissed again properly. When they broke apart Gordie said, quietly, “It’s nice to be able to do that without worrying.”
Without worrying, thought Fool. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the difference, really. Here, you can act without so much worry, without so much fear. There’s judgment, yes, but it’s distant and kinder, less random. He wondered what Summer and Gordie would make of the thing Hell had become, and how it would be when they got back; he had told them about some of the changes but had not gone into detail, wanting them to focus on the investigation and not wanting to flood them with new information. They’ll find out soon enough, he thought. We all will.
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