The SONG of SHIVA

by Michael Caulfield

  Crossing the Avon, he turned north, racing for twelve minutes and three kilometers before hazarding another backward glace. Finding no evidence of the black-coated figure, he slowed first to a brisk walk, zigzagging for another half dozen blocks, casting furtive glances behind him only at the turning of each street corner. When he saw no one, he slowed even further, beginning the innocent-looking stroll that would eventually take him out of the city.

  Surveying the nearly empty platform as he approached Horfield Station thirty-five minutes later, he couldn’t avoid thinking: They were waiting for us. We weren’t even one step ahead of them. Can’t count on pratfalls to pull our bacon out of the fire every time. Even now, the once-in-a-lifetime lucky curbside stumble felt outrageously incredible, unreal and dreamlike, especially the perceptual slow motion.

  This morning’s hypnogogic revelations continued running through his head like a looped video signal, simultaneously building in relevance and mystery. As strange as reliving the Vauxhall scene had been, it sure hadn’t helped poor Zhòngní.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Chester

  A dark, boundless and immutable Ocean,

  Where length, breadth, height, and place dwell not;

  None save timeless Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature,

  Communing with Anarchy eternal.

  William Wordsworth : Ode to Immortality

  C’mon sweetheart! Where are you?

  The long shadow of Chester’s Phoenix Tower stretched ominously across the battlement walkway, marking the halfway point of Nora’s second circuit of the city. Beyond the shadow, inside the encircling wall, a sea of red-tiled rooftops gleamed like a molten sea. Walking south late in the afternoon, oblivious to the picture postcard vista, she continued praying for a miracle.

  Saw you break clean ― tear down the street. What happened? You should have been here by now.

  By any yardstick Chester was an ancient city. Erected in a strategic loop of the River Dee as the Roman fortress of Deva, it had once marked the outer extremity of the civilized world. After three centuries of legion-enforced calm, in the twilight of empire, its garrison had followed a would-be emperor named Constantinus into Gaul and never returned.

  Through the slaughter and confusion of the seven centuries that followed, sovereignty had passed fitfully from Celt to Saxon to Norman to Viking and ultimately into English hands. During that period the tower and encircling wall had crumbled and been rebuilt several times and the city’s name changed from Deva to Chester, the long weight of years that had begun in fear of marauding Celts eventually exhausting itself on a far different sort of army ― cash-paying tourists.

  Don’t strand me here. Please!

  On the grass outside the wall, less than a longbow shaft’s flight south of the tower, Lyköan was inspecting the Kaleyard Gate, headed north. Not an original entrance into the Roman fortress, the portal had been punched through already ancient ashlars during the reign of Henry V by burghers hoping to improve mercantile traffic. Two centuries later, however, Royalist supporters of Charles I would seal it up again in a vain attempt to defend the city from Long Parliament forces come to lay siege in the tumultuous spring of 1643.

  Times change. Scholars alter history with pen or keystroke. Mighty edifices become mere relics of a nearly forgotten past. And a once important gate or tower is reduced by the sway of centuries into a five-minute stop along the self-proclaimed World Famous ‘Walls of Chester’ Walking Tour ― walls still capable of sheltering fugitives.

  Shielding his eyes, Lyköan watched the familiar figure gliding along the top of the parapet. She wasn’t looking in his direction, still hadn’t seen him. Sunlight was pouring painfully through each crenel as her silhouette passed in front of the late afternoon sun. Stepping into the shadow to avoid the direct glare, he whistled loudly, then called, “Hey, beautiful!”

  Nora stopped. Startled, she looked around.

  “Down here!”

  Leaning out through the nearest ambrazura and seeing him standing at the base of the wall, she let out an involuntary cry.

  “I thought you said on the wall. What’re you doing down there?”

  “Trying to stay out of trouble,” he shouted back. “Wait there. I’ll be right up!”

  Pointing to a narrow stone stairway not far away, he took off running. Nora bolted in the same direction. Even with the backpack, Lyköan reached the top of the stairs first.

  “Where have you been?” Nora gasped, throwing her arms around him. “I’ve been here for hours. When you didn’t show, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Blame Wessex Rail. Had some really lousy connections,” Lyköan deadpanned, eyes brimming as he pulled her close. “Saw you turn the corner and figured you got away, but I was forced to take the scenic route. Ended up running through most of Bristol. Took me quite a while just to get out of town.” A group of sightseers was approaching. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  Descending the inner wall, they hurried into the heart of the city, exchanging details of their individual odysseys north. In Crewe, the final transfer before Chester, a single line of train schedule was all that had separated them.

  Eyeing the sidewalk traffic, Lyköan cut the travelogue short. “For the time being, Chester should be safe ― safer than Salisbury or Bristol anyway.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Whispering into her ear as though dispensing an amorously sweet nothing, he explained. “No CCTV cameras. They aren’t scheduled to be installed for another year. So there’s no video record of our arrival. We’ve effectively disappeared.”

  “For how long?” Nora whispered back.

  “Well, that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whitehall’s resources. But he’s lost a step. Catching up will require some old-fashioned legwork. He’s got no local boys to help him out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bussing his lips against her neck, delighting in both the woman’s scent and their mutual subterfuge, he explained. “No local cops. If they were involved, we’d’ve seen uniforms at the post office. Bristol would’ve been crawling with them.”

  Picking up on the playful ruse, Nora turned and, pressing her lips lightly against his, asked, “Then who were the two gorillas?”

  “Wish I knew,” Lyköan wisped back. “They didn’t smell like New Scotland Yard. Freelancers maybe. Or private dicks ― undocumented covert ops ― spooks. Certainly trouble, but probably not allied with any local police.”

  “Charming.” She drew away, smiling faintly.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Lyköan continued in her ear again. “They’re damned-well organized. Look how fast they caught up with us. First they find Zhòngní by following your phone or credit card records...”

  “Legally?” Nora leaned her head back against his chest as they stopped on the sidewalk, pretending to admire a storefront window display.

  “Maybe. Does it matter? Either way it points to professional connections. But luckily ― for whatever reason ― no nationwide APB.”

  “How can you be sure?’

  “I’m not. But worrying about it’s a waste of time. We’ve got more important things to do right now.”

  Taking her hand, Lyköan headed hurriedly deeper into downtown. First stop, a TerraTrex Outdoor store, picking up matching Berghaus backpacks, Inyoni utility knives, digital compasses, high intensity flashlights, a replacement chronograph for the one Lyköan had lost at the Node ― and enough Adrenaline Outerwear: black, khaki, olive high-tech fabrics with lots of rugged double stitching, plenty of odd-sized pockets with zippers, webbed vents, brass snaps, drawstrings and Velcro ― to see them safely through a week or more on the Devon Moors. Which was exactly what, Lyköan told the pushy clerk, they had in mind.

  Leaving the store, he laughed genuinely for the first time in days. “My God! Did you see? It’s so damned obvious ― that we’re bloody Americans. The look on that clerk’s face? We don’t have a choice. We need
to find some way to work ‘obvious’ into something believable.”

  Marks & Spence was next. Back on the sidewalk in twenty minutes, an upscale tourista outfit apiece neatly folded and on their backs. Half a shopping cart full of more mundane items from the Brimley Road Tesco’s followed. Before leaving the store, Lyköan used the public copy machine to transfer the authentic BritRail activation stamp and rail agent’s signature from Nora’s pass onto his own. By no means perfect, the cut-and-paste ruse would pass a cursory inspection. In the dumpster behind the store they jettisoned the now identifiable pack Nora had taken from Cairncrest.

  Stars were sparkling in a clear night sky by the time they secured lodging in Hoole, a working class suburb across the Dee and less than a ten minute walk from the railroad station. Nestled in a drab neighborhood of similarly nondescript establishments, the rundown guest house was a perfect hideaway for a couple preparing for one final act of deception. Lyköan paid a single night’s tariff in advance.

  “We’ll be leaving for Bath at daybreak,” he lied. “So we won’t be taking breakfast,”

  “I see, then,” the disinterested manager replied from behind his cluttered desk, frayed suspenders and substantial paunch, looking up only briefly.

  They climbed the stairs, dumped their gear in the small, spare room – a hideout worthy of a town named Hoole. It had been a difficult day and already too late for the fractal immersion program. Lyköan suggested dinner. Nora hadn’t eaten since yesterday. He had tasted nothing since Salisbury. They were exhausted. A refueling now might alleviate the lethargy that had settled in like an oppressive fog.

  “I think I’ll join you,” he announced. “I might’ve taken this fasting business too far already ― turned the corner into full-blown starvation. More than Sun Shi probably intended.”

  Whether it was true or not, no amount of improved metaphysical development was worth the muscle mass erosion this lack of nourishment was now producing. He simply had no fat left to burn.

  Finding a lively pub around the block incongruously serving Fish & Chips and Chinese, they outlined plans for the remainder of the evening over whitefish, rice and steamed vegetables.

  * * *

  Nora pushed the clippers smoothly through the dark curls, watching the locks tumble to the floor. In the clippers’ wake, a uniform centimeter of tight black stubble remained. As she worked, Lyköan sat statue-like on one of the room’s two well-worn chrome and aqua vinyl chairs, chin against chest.

  “All this beautiful hair ― and under it your scalp’s perfect. Not a mark. Not a ding. Smooth as an egg. The perfect head for short hair.”

  “Only for the past week ― believe me,” Lyköan replied, running his fingers above his left ear. “Used to be a nice ragged scar right here – compliments of a neighborhood rock-fight when I was a kid. Gone. Like it never happened.”

  There were other recent alterations too. The permanent shinbone irregularities everyone gathers with age? A week ago he had been no exception. All gone. The painful bursitis that had been slowly developing in his left shoulder. Nothing. Total range of movement. No pain. The persistent reminders of life, you knew these things like the back of your hand. Not so much as an ache or scar remained. Only the memory that they had once existed. Even the barely-healed scar from the recent surgery to remove the slug he’d taken only a few weeks before. Not a trace remained. Smooth, elastic skin without a single imperfection.

  “Nothing to show for forty-seven years of hard living,” he cracked.

  “Nobody’d believe that either. If we just met and you told me that – if I didn’t know it was true ― I wouldn’t believe you. I don’t think anyone would. Thirty-five maybe. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

  He had.

  Nora was amazed. “And a complexion to die for. Not a wrinkle! Though I don’t really remember. Did you have many before?”

  “Plenty.”

  “Well, it ain’t the haircut, mister.”

  “You finished?” Lyköan asked, looking up. “There’s something else I want to check.”

  “Sure, fuzzball. All done.”

  Nora stepped back, admiring her handiwork. Lyköan went to his pack and removed a tape-measure and mechanical pencil. Walking to the bath-room doorway, he handed her the latter.

  “Here. Make a mark level with the top of my head, will you?”

  Lyköan stood with his back to the doorframe. Nora, on tiptoes, ticked the molding.

  “Got it.”

  Stepping away, Lyköan hooked the tape’s angle-edge under the baseboard and pulled it taut.

  “I knew it! I’ve grown five centimeters!”

  “You sound like you’re complaining.”

  “Just wondering where it’s all going to end. My vision’s changed too. Even with ultrasonic correction a year ago, I still needed reading glasses ― you know?”

  She hadn’t.

  He explained. “Today, all those merchandise labels? No trouble at all. Even the fine print.”

  Exchanging roles, Lyköan cropped Nora’s hair almost as short as his own. He helped her bleach out every trace of the natural auburn and then added peacock highlights to perfect the desired au courant look.

  “Isn’t this too much? Won’t it draw attention?” she asked afterwards.

  Lyköan understood, but had an entirely different take.

  “If Margaret Cunningham can sport it on the cover of People ― any natural beauty should be able to pull it off.” It was meant as a compliment.

  And why not? MC or Emsee ― as the tabs had dubbed Hollywood’s newest all-American cinema darling ― was only a few years Nora’s junior.

  “Yep, you’ve nailed it. What People called edgy display. Anyway, we’re Yanks. The locals would be disappointed if we weren’t a little outrageous. Don’t worry, it’s perfect.”

  Sure, it might attract attention, but she looked absolutely stunning ― astonishingly beautiful in fact ― and utterly transformed from the still attractive although somewhat severe-looking CDC siren he had first encountered back in Bangkok. She had really softened. And there was something else ― a more pronounced alteration that defied definition ― a change that could not be explained by the new haircut and color alone. Could it possibly be some sort of proximity effect? Was his accelerated energy level contagious ― somehow rubbing off? What could possibly be the mechanism? The idea seemed preposterous.

  * * *

  “You’re right, E. This morning was skin-of-our-teeth,” Nora agreed, hoping to assuage his sudden sullenness. “But we did get away, didn’t we? That’s all that matters. It means we live to plot another day.”

  “And start all over at square one,” Lyköan said with that now familiar crooked smile.

  Looking into his face, starlight filtering through the open window, Nora wondered if maybe it didn’t look a little less crooked. Was even his smile seeking some sort of symmetry?

  At eighteen after one in the morning Lyköan had returned to enumerating their troubles. It was a long list. In all of today they had only managed to take one step forward for the two they’d lost at St. Philips Marsh. But overall, as the Brits would say, things had gone decidedly pear-shaped. Bad to worse. Frying pan to fire. The outclassed rabbit dashes away from the ravenous predator ― instinctively fleeing from talon and fang. Suddenly, fear of that figurative slavering breath had become unbearable. He could think of little else.

  “Don’t you think we might be outsmarting ourselves?” Nora suggested. “Sure, it made sense to try and cover our tracks ― run into hiding like we have. But we can’t run forever.”

  Why not? he wondered. But realizing what that meant, he said nothing. Naked after finishing in the bathroom, she had joined him on the bed, cozying up against his furnace of runaway metabolism.

  “We could even use our pitiful performance this morning to our advantage,” she suggested.

  “Oh yeah?” he snickered, aloud this time. “How?”

  She laughed self-consciously. “Isn’t i
t obvious?”

  “Not to me.”

  “You’re actually asking for my read? There’s a first. Great. Then here it is. Pandavas has us running for dear life and he knows it. He’s expecting us to burrow in deep as we can dig ― find some darker hole under an even bigger rock. Sound familiar?” She indicated their bleak little room. “That’s exactly what we’re doing, isn’t it? But what if ― instead of cowering here like toothless prey…”

  You got the right simile there, sweetheart, Lyköan acknowledged silently, shifting on the bed.

  “…we returned to Cairncrest? Slipped back into the Node the same way we escaped and threw some kind of spanner in the works. Something, anything to buy time?”

  “Right, straight back to Shiva Central. Honestly, if I thought that had a snowball’s chance, I’d risk it. I really would. But we’ve already shot that round. Hey, I’m not complaining...”

  He paused, as though straightening his train of thought. Here was another ideal opportunity to confess ― come clean about the truth regarding his Shiva Node confinement. Squelching the urge, he pretended to retrack the sham derailed thought and finished with, “...but like I said, surprise is a tactic that only works the first time.”

  “How about hacking in remotely,” Nora suggested, a little less hopefully. “Every system ― even Innovac’s ― no matter how well protected – virtual shields ― whatever ― could still have a blind spot.”

  “Possibly,” Lyköan agreed. “Sun Shi called it erecting a stronger fortress to hide the more vulnerable treasure. Just by the act of trying to protect something ― his argument went ― an even more obvious and inviting target is created.”

  Was he listening to himself? Hadn’t he done exactly the same thing with the truth? Like the philosophical alter ego, whether lofty conscience or darker Tanner, the other-self insisted upon exposing him to himself. He pushed the self-recriminations aside and continued the hollow argument.