by Jeffrey Ford
“Good evening,” he said to me, adjusting his shirt cuffs inside the sleeve ends of his jacket.
I stepped back even farther and reached down into my boot for the Lady Claw. As I straightened and pulled the protective sponge off the end of the instrument, Nunnly caught his breath and let out a most pitiful scream that scrambled my senses. Weak with fear, I held the scalpel up in front of me and made ready to defend myself.
“What have you there?” asked the Delicate as he took a step closer to me.
I sliced at the air to let him know I meant business, but now I was not half as sure of my abilities as I had been when we set out.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” he said in a placid voice. He reached out toward me with those long, rubbery fingers, and I sliced the Claw down across them.
He flinched and drew his hand back. “Excuse me for hitting your weapon with my hand,” he said, giving me a sincere smile. “Perhaps we should get to know each other.”
I lunged again with the scalpel, this time for his throat, but he was deceptively fast. His neck seemed to move separately from the rest of his body, pulling itself in, as his hand came up and caught me. Those fingers grew and encircled my wrist, applying a pressure so intense I had to drop the Claw. In reaction to this, I threw a punch with my free hand, and with no effort at all, he intercepted it and held it fast. Then that circle of braided hair rose of its own volition off his chest, wriggling like the body of a snake, and passed over my head to rest around the back of my neck. I wanted to struggle, to kick and break free, but his vacant eyes, which were now only inches from mine, told me not to.
“Someday you will have to explain that lip maneuver to me,” he said in Nunnly’s voice. His mouth opened wide and a blast of warm breath, reeking of spoiled meat, stole my last shred of will. In my mind, at a place hidden from consciousness, I was wild with fear, though my body was completely limp. From deep within the Delicate’s bowels, mixed with the digestive gurgle, I thought I could hear the doctor crying for help. His lips moved over mine, and I felt an incredible pressure begin to build in my chest. There was a muffled explosion that turned the night red, and I thought I had died.
Then I was falling to the pavement, gasping for air. I landed on my back, and could see the Delicate step over me and begin walking quickly away. His back was ablaze with a red light, and there were small flames and smoke issuing from the brown suit.
“Sorry to have to leave unexpectedly,” I heard him say as if holding back a groan. He lurched forward down to the alley I had come from and disappeared around the corner.
Anotine was there in a moment with the signal gun in one hand and her spear in the other. She helped me to my feet and asked if I was all right. I nodded as I caught my breath, and then we turned back to see what had become of Nunnly.
Brisden, the sample bottle of ocean cradled in his arm, knelt above the engineer, whose body was jerking and rolling back and forth. Weak cries of pain, like dry whispers, were issuing from his open, disfigured mouth. One side of him was deflated, leaving the flesh loose and puddled as had been the case with the doctor. It was obvious that his ribs were broken on the bad side and that his leg and arm contained no trace of skeletal structure. I finally managed to get my voice back, but the combination of Nunnly’s suffering and the ordeal I had just been through prevented me from speaking for a time.
“We heard a scream and came running,” said Anotine. “I can’t believe I actually managed to hit the Delicate in the back with a shot from the top of the stairs.” She paused for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears. “Cley, what are we going to do?”
I had to struggle against despair. Things had gone from impossible to hopeless. Although the Delicate could be hurt, I couldn’t imagine what it would take to kill him. The island was growing ever smaller. The doctor was dead. Nunnly was soon to follow, and Brisden had lost his mind in the face of tragedy and had given himself up to ceaseless babbling.
Anotine leaned over and picked the scalpel up off the ground. She came over to where I was standing, and whispered to me. “You’ve got to kill him, Cley. There is nothing that we can do but end his suffering.” She handed me the instrument, and I accepted it.
The thought of taking Nunnly’s life made me physically ill, but what Anotine had said was true. Still, my mind worked feverishly for another solution. I thought about Wenau, where I was a healer, and wondered what I would do there. There were no herbs or roots of the forest that could reverse the effects of the Delicate’s attack.
“Give it back to me, Cley. I’ll do it,” said Anotine. “I can’t watch this anymore.”
As she reached for the Lady Claw, I stopped her hand. From out of the storm of confusion in my mind, a single white image presented itself. I thought of Anotine’s secret place and the tree that grew there. I had seen the fruit that hung from its branches work miracles in my own reality. Its effects could be short-term or long, for better or for worse, depending somehow upon the morality of the person ingesting it. I knew it had saved Arla Beaton’s life after I had butchered her, trying to rework her physiognomy. I also believed it was the long-acting effects of it that had years later erased the hideous scars from her face and allowed her to remove the green veil. It was the catalyst that had destroyed the Well-Built City after Below had partaken of it. I hoped now that in this world it could save Nunnly’s life.
21
There was no time for me to explain to Anotine the history of the white fruit or what I hoped it would accomplish. Searching the ground for the sponge I had removed from the scalpel, I quickly found it and secured the instrument, putting it back in my boot. Then I walked over to where Nunnly lay and gently helped Brisden to his feet.
“Take the spears,” I said to Anotine as I bent over to gather up the wriggling, loose parcel that was now the engineer. As I hoisted him into my arms, he groaned unmercifully. He was surprisingly light, but hard to get a hold of because of the state the Delicate had left his body in.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To your special place with the fountain of the monkey,” I said.
We merely exchanged a look, and I believe she knew I had something in mind. As I trudged down the corridor with Nunnly draped across my arms, I thought of myself in the arms of Misrix, flying through his memory above the forests of the Beyond. Anotine gathered up the spears and prodded Brisden along in our direction. We were particularly vulnerable to an attack just then, but luckily the Delicate seemed to be somewhere else, no doubt tending to his wounds. I knew, from having passed the low opening in the wall so many times that night, exactly where I was going.
We traversed two alleys and a terrace. After that there was only one flight of stairs to climb, in the middle of which I almost dropped poor Nunnly. By the time we made it to the top, my arms were cramped with pain and my heart was pounding. The engineer’s breathing had grown erratic, and his supplications had withered to near-inaudible whimpers. Anotine moved ahead of me as we got closer to our destination, making sure that Brisden kept pace with her. As I staggered across the last courtyard toward the wall with the opening, I saw her kneel and toss the spears into the secret place. She then crawled through herself and helped Brisden to enter.
I carefully placed Nunnly down at the opening, and she reached out and took him by the shoulders. She pulled, and I pushed, and we managed to get him through the portal. Once I had finally entered, I lay back on the stones and rested. My body was aching from the exertion, and my breathing was nearly as erratic as that of the engineer’s.
“Cley,” said Anotine, “why are we here?”
“Help me up,” I pleaded, and she leaned over and grabbed my hand.
The place was as serene as ever, the fountain water quietly splashing, the monkey frozen in his dance. Then I turned, and to my delight, the tree bearing the white fruit had, unlike the rest of the plant life on the island, not succumbed to the disease of disintegration. As I had hoped, it stood strong with all its leaves,
the pale globes of fruit hanging ripe and heavy. Brisden sat, with the glowing sample jar beside him, on the bench that encircled its trunk, and the peaceful nature of that scene made me momentarily forget the danger we were in.
I walked toward the tree with Anotine beside me, and only then did I begin quickly to describe the properties of the fruit as I knew them. Continuing with my explanation, I stepped up onto the bench next to where Brisden sat and reached among the low-hanging branches to pick a large specimen that in its bleached complexion seemed to emit its own light. Holding it in my hand, I could again smell that sweet aroma I associated with my daydreams of paradise. It brought me back to Misrix’s Museum of the Ruins, where I had, myself, tasted the flesh of the delicacy. My discourse trailed off as I wondered for a moment how and when the fruit would change me, or if the fact that I had survived as long as I had in the mnemonic world was already a sign of its miraculous influence.
“It seems you are expecting quite a lot from it,” said Anotine, bringing me back from my thoughts.
“Perhaps,” I said, stepping down off the bench.
Brisden, who had been unusually silent for some time, let loose another stampede of words that I think had to do with the nature of miracles.
Anotine and I returned to Nunnly and knelt down on either side of him. I retrieved the scalpel from my boot and removed the protective sponge, flicking it off with my thumb. With the other hand, I brought the fruit up in front of us and made ready to cut it. The idea was to get as thin a slice of the pulp inside as I could so that it would melt in our patient’s mouth. I trimmed away the skin from the outside of one half of it and then cut three hair’s-width slices. When I had collected them in my palm, I handed Anotine the scalpel. Leaning low over Nunnly, I forced the wafers into his mouth.
“We’ll wait for a few minutes and see if there is any effect,” I said, resting back on my knees.
“If there isn’t?” asked Anotine.
“I’ll end his life,” I said.
Anotine looked up, away from me, and took a deep breath. “Look, Cley,” she said, “the sky is lightening. Day is coming.”
From her expression, I couldn’t tell if she was pleased with this or if it frightened her more than the night. I tilted my head and saw the stars fading into a sky of black and blue. Nunnly gave a sudden grunt, and I quickly turned my attention back to him.
“No,” I said, as I watched the flesh of the engineer’s face begin to pucker into wrinkles. I had no idea what was about to happen, but I had a sudden feeling in my stomach that it wasn’t going to be good.
“He’s turning black,” cried Anotine, pointing to some spots that were forming on the skin around his mouth. These blemishes spread like spilled ink, dyeing every inch of his skin, the texture of which was also undergoing some rapid metamorphosis.
Before our eyes, in no more than a few seconds, Nunnly’s body was transformed into a shriveled, dark mass, like a fallen plum that has rotted and dried in the sun. Anotine leaped to her feet and backed away from it.
“What kind of miracle is this?” she asked as if accusing me of some evil.
I shook my head but could not speak, and watched helplessly as she walked away to where Brisden was sitting. At the worst, I never expected an outcome so horrific, but I should have. This fruit of the memory world was not the fruit of paradise, but in its dripping pulp, its core, its very seeds, it was a beautiful symbolic mask for one of Below’s million nightmares.
I sat there, trying to remember Nunnly, but I couldn’t. What remained of him bore absolutely no resemblance to anything human, save for the fact that it was clothed in a shirt and trousers. All that came back to me was the image of a wisp of cigarette smoke. I left the mess where it lay and went over to the bench at the base of the tree, where the others sat. Brisden, eyes wide and perspiring like mad, was jawing away at a remarkable rate as if coming to some crescendo, and Anotine sat with her face covered by her left hand.
“If I had wanted to do him in, I never would have risked my life against the Delicate to save him,” I explained to Anotine.
“I know, Cley. I’m sorry,” she said, and waved away my comment.
“Have you got any ideas?” I asked.
She shook her head and stared past me at the fountain. “The disintegration will reach the village soon if it hasn’t already, and then it won’t be long.”
“Are you giving up?” I asked.
“Aren’t you?” she said.
“I could go out in search of the Delicate, but I doubt I could overcome him on my own.”
“I doubt the two of us could overcome him,” she said.
Just then, Brisden ceased his rant. He wiped his brow and looked up at us as if we had suddenly appeared before him.
“You’ve returned,” I said, smiling.
“I was never gone, Cley. While you were turning my good friend, Nunnly, into a prune, I was arguing myself into a solution.”
If it were anyone else speaking, I might have been offended, but I had grown accustomed to Brisden’s unique sense of humor. “Who won the argument?” I asked.
“Who else?” said Brisden. “Now you two are going to do as I say.”
“We’re listening,” said Anotine, who seemed to be taking him with perfect seriousness.
“Nunnly was a part of me, and I can hardly stand to continue living without him. I wish I had the time to sit and reflect on the loss of my companion, but now it is time for revenge. I want the Delicate, and I know how to destroy him.”
“What should we do?” I asked.
“You two have already done enough. I want you to take your ridiculous spears and go hide behind the fountain over there. Whatever happens, and I mean whatever, don’t come out of hiding. If you do, all will be ruined,” he said.
“You can’t defeat the Delicate by yourself,” I told him.
“I won’t be alone,” he said. “I’ll have the doctor to keep me company.” He placed his hand atop the lid of the glass sample jar and patted it. “Now go, quickly, and keep quiet.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Anotine.
“Be off,” he said.
I was very apprehensive since, for most of the night, Brisden hadn’t seemed to be in his right mind. Anotine took my arm, though, and pulled me away in the direction of the fountain. We stopped and lifted the spears where they lay near the entrance.
“There’s a chance that he knows what he is talking about,” she whispered to me as we took up our positions behind the fountain.
“There’s a chance we might find a flying carpet and escape the island, too,” I said.
“Brisden has often amazed me with his insights,” she told me. “His revelations are either uncanny in their brilliance or so bizarre they have no bearing upon reality.”
“I think I know which this one is,” I said, and my statement was confirmed when I heard the philosopher begin whistling, as loud as he could, the tune from the wooden box at Nunnly’s.
“Give him a chance,” she said.
We could watch him from where we knelt on the cold stones in the shadows. He was whistling with great vigor and swaying back and forth. After a few minutes, he stopped abruptly and sat in silence. I was about to tell Anotine that Brisden was out of his mind, when I heard the sound of footsteps echoing from the other side of the wall near the opening.
“He’s here,” she whispered, and I tightened my grip on the spear.
At first, I didn’t think his enormous head could squeeze through the portal, but it did, like an infant’s appearing from the birth canal. The Delicate was born into the secret place, pointed chin, twin braids, singed brown suit, and all. Once he was through, he stood and leaned over to brush the knees of his trousers.
“Hello, there,” said Brisden, waving to him as though he were seeing an old friend.
“Greetings,” said the Delicate, and waved back.
“Come sit down,” said Brisden.
“One moment,” he said, and stopped o
n his way to kneel over the remains of what had been the engineer. The huge head moved up and down the length of the shriveled carcass, sniffing and licking it here and there. When he had finished his investigation, he stood and continued on to the bench.
Anotine must have known what I was about to do, because she put her hand on my arm to restrain me from charging. “Let’s see what he has in mind,” she said.
“Thanks for stopping by,” I heard Brisden say, and refocused my attention on the bench beneath the tree.
“Quite a night of excitement,” said the Delicate.
“Well,” said the philosopher, “the island is disintegrating, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t trouble myself with those things,” said the creature. “I’m only out for some air.”
“Mine, by any chance?”
“You are Brisden, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Mouth or ear?” asked the Delicate.
“I prefer the ear, because that will give me a few more moments to speak.”
“Are we ready then?”
“Just a second, I’d like a last drink,” said Brisden, and lifted the sample jar. He unscrewed the lid and dropped it on the stones at his feet.
“Oh, my,” said the Delicate.
“Proceed,” said the philosopher as he put the jar to his lips and tilted it, swallowing the liquid mercury in four gulps.
At this moment, the Delicate’s braid came up and encircled Brisden’s neck. He was pulled sideways toward the creature, his ear fitting into its open mouth. As the process began, the sample jar dropped to the floor and smashed into splinters. I held on to Anotine and she to me as our friend’s screams filled the secret place. We closed our eyes to the sight of his dissolution. We should have run to his rescue, but there was little point. Anotine had stopped me by whispering, “Cley, don’t. He wants to die.” I knew she was right.