by Стив Хиллард
“I’m not sure Barren and his types behave by the rules we’d like. He has been sent here, through that pool. He won’t stop until he has retrieved all the documents. Maybe there’s something that we can use against him, it. I don’t know. I’ve got to think about it.”
“Grandpa”—it sounded so weird—“I can’t think anymore. I gotta try to unwind. Lay down, get some sleep.”
“Sure. Police and firemen are all over the building. He won’t come again tonight. I’ll be out early in the morning to attend to some things. If I decide to leave as well, to go with you, there are people to see, things to do before I depart. Be careful and let’s meet in the lobby. After you get some rest.”
“OK.” She looked at him, but her eyes glazed and her mind couldn’t find a forward gear. She was exhausted. She left to go downstairs and he shut the door. Even bone-tired, some heretofore unknown part of her felt lighter.
Cadence awoke with a start. She was in her new room. God! It was only five a.m. She felt Ara’s destiny ticking away. Whatever she and her grandfather decided, it only seemed to forestall Ara’s destruction. As she lay thinking on the bed, the noise of the sleeping city combined with the hotel’s vintage plumbing. Car beeps, sirens, hums, gurgles of something she’d rather not think about flowing through pipes in the walls inches from her head. Something, somewhere, tapped on the pipes. Whose that trip-trapping on my bridge? She let her ears search for sounds. Someone was walking down the hall. Creaking floor joists and carpet shuffles.
The creaking sound stopped outside her room. A shadow lurked at the bottom of the door, followed by that unmistakable quieter-than-quiet sound, when you know that someone is listening.
The shadow moved. She rose and watched in horrified slow motion as an envelope slid under the door. This was not the hotel bill.
She stepped quietly to the door and looked through the peephole. There was only the fisheye view of an empty hallway, and no creaking sound of anyone walking away. Making sure the chain was hooked, she partially opened the door. Looking out as far as she could without opening the door any further, all she could see was the long, empty hall. There was no sound of the elevator bell, no muffled footsteps padding down the fire exit.
She closed and relocked the door and picked up the envelope. Tasteful stationary. Expensive. Vanilla-colored finish. Immaculately sealed. Unmarked except for:
An Invitation for Cadence
She rubbed sleep from her eyes and sat down on the bed and opened the envelope. It held one page, newly folded. On it was written in fine script:
Cadence,
It is my pleasure to extend to you a request to join our society. We believe we share many interests in common. Our name is the Society of the Rings, but we are so much more. Do you yearn for that luminous, greater truth, and have not found it in family, friends, education, religion or career? Our search is not based on the demeaning, ritual insistence of “proofs,” but on the certainty that there exists a truth to match this inner yearning.
Visit us, if you please. We await your arrival.
Sincerely,
The Talisman Store
Riverside Drive
There was no street number. On the bottom, written in rough blockish letters, was a last inducement:
“We have the power to save both of you.”
Jess … Os, she thought. They will track each of us down if we don’t give all this up.
She was still too tired to think. She forced herself to lie back down. If sleep would not find her again, she would search for it. As it finally crept toward her, she put her fear to the side.
She got up five hours later and called Bossier Thornton. She explained what happened, in simple terms. Just the facts. The fire. The note. The new room. As they talked he tried online to find the “Talisman Store” and an address, but came up with nothing.
He put her on hold for a moment, and then came back. “Cadence, I just checked. The Algonquin night clerk is off duty and can’t be reached. The staff could’ve delivered the note. I know you will be talking with the assigned police and fire officers, but I want to sit down with you. I can’t get there till early evening. Say six. I could buy you dinner.”
“Thanks, you got a date, Officer Thornton.”
By one o’clock the fawning concierge had definitely hooked her up — swagged and fed and clothed and spa’d. She had on a brand new Chrome Hearts exercise outfit and Adidas running shoes. More important, she had open accounts, courtesy of the Algonquin. One was waiting at Macy’s — another of those purses? Another account waited at — all right! Bergdorf’s.
She would get a new purse, some hot shoes and, hell, a complete new wardrobe.
But before that, she had to take a mental break. A short fog-clearing vacation from everything. A freewheeling run might work. Let it take her wherever it might lead. She hadn’t jogged since she discovered the stacks of journals in her grandfather’s attic, in what now seemed to be another world, long ago.
She recalled sitting there in the attic with the yellow circle of the flashlight, feeling the ebb and flow of a tide of family questions that demanded answers. Now she had the start of some answers. Time might fill in details if they had that luxury. She had to decide her next steps, think about returning to Topanga with her grandfather, think about how to protect Ara’s story. More than that, how to keep Ara alive.
Time for practical action, she thought. I’ll take a run and get control of all this.
An hour later her feet had taken her to West Seventieth and Broadway. A slight breeze freshened the air that still felt cleansed by overnight rain. It was one of those days when sunlight showed off a bit, splaying broad stripes on buildings and dappling the pavement through leafy tree branches.
She kept jogging. A diner loomed in front of her. Big, steam-fogged windows and patrons posed like an afternoon version of Night Hawks.
She turned right and Broadway opened up, gently curving, lined with buildings leaning toward uptown like a Robert Crumb comic.
Chapter 36
INKLINGS IX
This is an excerpt from the last known recorded session of the Inklings, and may have been the last meeting with Professor Tolkien in attendance.
“I have enjoyed this delightful conversation with you, over so many Tuesdays. I regret that my great vice, this occupation with words and stories, may have been inflicted on all of you too heavily.”
Protests all ‘round.
“Not at all. Don’t be daft, man.”
“Tell us, Tollers, have we helped you reach any conclusions?”
“Only the happy one, aside from the importance of boon friendships. And that is this: it all goes on.”
“But where, isn’t that the question?”
“We should always remember, Ian, a tale is like any living thing, it is restless and has a will of its own.”
“I applaud your long effort. There are no, or at least should not be, any border police on stories.”
“But I think what Tollers is also telling us is that where he toils, on the frontier where making and remaking are as one, is an unruly place. All borders are places of magic. Like your half-mad little character, crossing even the doorstep threshold and setting foot on the road can sweep one away into far lands under strange moons.”
“Well, enough of all this. Edith and I are moving to a place on the coast. I shall hear the long clash of waves and rock, and the sea-birds repeating sounds like the waking cries of a newborn world.”
“And your secret gate?”
“That I have indeed passed through. Many times. Unlike Rhygoal, the Loud-Grating, or Utgard, the Unbreachable, it is a simple quaint, roundish door, decorated with tree branches. It bears no name, but be assured — it is there. It is time for others to find their own gates.”
Chapter 37
OCTOBER 31. 1:00 P.M
Jess returned to his room at the Algonquin, feeling new currents swirling in his life, threatening to jump the banks entire and sweep away four de
cades of emotional levees and willow thickets. Here, at the vortex of those currents, he had made the single greatest confession of his life. Here he was capable of giving a different answer to his life’s riddle: do I stay or do I go? Just like the song. He could stay with Cadence, this family remnant. Or, he could, as always, go. He could flee to the beckoning whiteline of the road. He felt at peace with the answer. He would stay here and wait for Cadence and they would set their plans. Together. He shuffled some papers and discovered that before she left last night she had taken something he hadn’t wanted her to see. It was a disturbing two-page translation that even he didn’t believe. He saw that Cadence had also placed two sketches on his desk. They were two images of the same rounded, ancient gate: one closed, one open.
He sat and resumed translating with a troubled intensity, waiting for Cadence to return. He hoped he could help Ara’s story find its conclusion. Perhaps he could even find a safe home for her legacy. Most important, perhaps he could find a safe place for his grandchild.
After a few moments of scribbling, he stopped cold. He could sense that, without warning, the Elvish of Mirkwood was about to reveal the final fate of Ara. He took a deep breath and resumed with a desperate, deliberate run to her final truth:
Ara lay hidden and listening just below the windowsill, her head pressed close against the outside wall. “Silence!”
The harsh clicking of orc speech was stopped cold by a single command in the Common Tongue. The voice had a clipped and fast accent. It was deep, accustomed to giving orders. The speaker was southern. His back was to the room as he looked out through the window of the stone building, his scarred hands inches from Ara’s hiding place.
“Marshalling an army is like harnessing a river. Confusion everywhere. The order of battle should be precise, but it ends stumbling all over itself. The more security we post, the more disorder and delay we get. Each guard has to be checked by other guards. So on and so on. Wizard hairs! It’s not enough that we face an enemy that seeks our extermination, but now we hear they have infiltrated us with ‘small spies.’ Ball-less demons! One could walk right past us now, and in all the confusion we wouldn’t notice. No one can stop this coming battle anyway. But for some weapon of terror planted in our midst, the die is cast and this battle shall unfold within hours. I can feel the victory we deserve and the end of those haughty bastards!”
She was suited in a stolen orc-courier’s dress, without armor or weapons. Leather headgear was pulled low over her soot-smeared face. A heavy charcoal streak, black on gray, ran down her face from her forehead to below her chin. Her feet were encased in bearskin leggings. She held a leather case with the simple double-oval mark of the Source inscribed in red dye.
On a crag high above the valley, two sets of eyes watched for Ara. They had been sitting there for three days and nights. The penetrating gaze of each studied, traced movements, saw patterns and clues. Finally they found the small, scurrying form with a gait like no orc. She was moving away from the headquarters of the ‘Eye of No Tears’ Empi, an elite legion of men. His steed spied first the odd movement, far below. Its tail whipped in impatience; steam flowed from its nostrils. Their eyes locked on the tiny figure three miles away, past heat and fumes. They watched as Ara sneaked along a sidewall, filched some food and water, and then moved toward the slopes of the volcano. Pazal rose and slipped the tough, braided dwarf-skin harness about the creature’s neck in preparation for flight.
As she darted among the battle groups, Ara felt unnoticed. She was safe as long as she ran. And that she did, propelled by dire urgency and duty. The pass-sign, a quick cupped hand in the likeness of an eye, she had mastered, although none in charge seemed to notice.
To her left, the slopes of Fume rose, impossibly and neck-craningly high. Its base was less than a mile away. On the plain before it massed an army making ready for battle. A thousand clock drums relentlessly measured the final hours toward battle. Every few minutes there thundered out a single, unified, resounding Boom.
She passed through the smells of strange creatures sweating in fear and exertion. Soon she was surrounded by clanks of metal and creaks of leather, cursing, and beneath all, the ceaseless, burdened tramp and thud of feet and hooves.
She entered a crossroads, helpless to take her gaze from the mountain, when a huge hand splayed in front of her. A troll guard directing traffic had signaled her to stop. She watched as one wing of the army passed.
Boom.
It was loosely formed of diverse and malformed troops. Then, moving fast, brandishing outlandish, long-stemmed weapons, boiled a vanguard more like a swarm of giant lethal insects. They were organized by no single commander. They needed no indoctrination, no order save sight and smell of the enemy. Their faces were twisted and tubered with yellow and purple bulges, as if designed to further horrify their foe.
Make way! The Swarm comes! Orcs and men stepped back warily to let the horde pass.
Boom.
Next came shambling ranks of great orcs. Heavy and grunting with complaint, all faced forward, eager to bleed the haughty elves that, outside battle or blade of treachery, knew not death. They jostled on, ready to fall ten to one if only to close with the tormentors of their race.
There came a break in the march’s flow. Ara started to move but the guard’s hand stayed in her face. She kept her eyes down. The hand reached out and pulled her closer, as if for safekeeping.
Boom.
A legion of men came next. Ara of the village stood in awe bordering on admiration. They were disciplined, clearly seasoned in battle, resolute in the patience that precedes great contests. Mounted captains stood high in their stirrups, exhorting them forward. “Today we meet the Meddlers!” they shouted. “The Great Imposters, the False Kings and Deceivers. Do you wish to see their Horse-flag over your villages? Show them our strength!”
Boom.
And with a single, great shout and raising blades, the sound of thousands roared forth as one, a force and conviction terrible to behold.
Ara saw that this array was not purely one of craven curs whipped from behind, but was of men and orcs ready to mark their enemy, including her own people, for death and defeat. The gravity of implacable, physical opposition, the blunt, grinding purpose of war unleashed, passed her in review. Whatever was about to happen, it seemed destined for a grim field where destiny is unveiled by wager of battle.
Boom.
Soon there was another break in the line. The giant hand guided her forward, as if saying, “On to your errand, little one.”
Now only a league from Fume, she continued the steady, jogging shamble that seemed her best disguise.
The unseen eyes that tracked her from above poised until she entered a small defile.
Boom.
As she emerged, Pazal stood before her.
Ara stopped. She heard a displacement of air and the leathery slap and folding of great wings behind her. Worst of all, she now recognized the thing before her. It was the black wraith from the gate. The same that had picked her up like a toy.
It spoke:
“Twice I find you standing before me, small one. Are you so enamored of our power that you have deserted your band and volunteered your lot with us? Or are you but a spy to be drawn on the rack before being fed to my pet? Do you have any idea what it feels like to be eaten alive? To see your insides in its mouth? I think you will … cooperate.”
Ara knew her life was forfeit. Boldness, even to the point of folly, might still play a role, however. Bad information might help in some way. She spoke loudly, “Hold your boast, Unman. I know of a hidden trifle much desired by your master. Would you destroy the clue that points to the one thing he covets?”
The tail wrapped about her legs as a great talon thudded to the ground by her side, its scaly knuckles level with her eyes.
Boom.
And there, for now, the trail of Ara the Hobbitess swerved into the vastness of unintelligible runes and was lost to Jess as surely as a blind turn
in Mirkwood itself.
Chapter 38
OCTOBER 31. 3:15 P.M
Cadence jogged on, fitful in her direction and pace, until her legs found their stride. She would indulge this time to let her feet and her thoughts seek their own paths. She crossed an intersection with a construction project underway. Slabs of steel, blowtorch cut, flat like lasagna, covered car-sized holes in the street. It was surprising the weight they bore, she thought as she watched cars and trucks kaboom hollowly over them. One of the slabs had been removed, and she stopped and looked down, like an observer of open-heart surgery. In the deep she saw ghastly confirmation of her sense of the unseen anatomy of the city. Looming in the shadows was a beamed and crusted urban skeleton. Relic iron trusses lay tied with bolts the size of sledgehammers. Leaking pipes ran past, each of a size that could transport trash cans, each made of wood held together with wire. Around these were ultra-modern, blue and yellow, gooey rubber cables, intertwined in insane symmetry. This was the bare guts of urban civilization revealed. All of it overlay a deeper shadow land lurking beneath, descending to perhaps untested depths. It struck her as indecent, exposing the quiet, eternally waiting gloom of that long-hidden world to garish daylight.
A piece of older asphalt pavement was exposed. Like dinosaur tracks on ancient sediment, it hosted random fossil remnants of the twentieth century. Pop bottle caps saying Big Chief, Nehi and RC. Flattened, steel beer cans with tabs church-key cut in double v-shapes. A wondrous bird skeleton, perfectly mistakable for Archaeopteryx, even to the back-arching death crane of the neck, with feather remnants and side-looking, traffic-polished skull intact. A rut, as if made by the last iron-wheeled horse wagon. A wood handled screwdriver. A brick peeking out, revealing a stamped date of 1908. A pair of smashed tortoiseshell eyeglasses caught in the black amber.