by James Kahn
Buildings were the first element that caught the eye—ancient buildings, hundreds of years old, made of brick, cement, steel, glass; crumbling with age and weather. Every structure was partially or completely engulfed in a mantle of foliage: crawling ivy, matted iris. The windows were mostly broken, the iron rusted. But for all their decay, they stood, some taller than imaginable. Some even seemed to scrape the sky.
Connecting the buildings were discontinuous, pocked cement walkways. Interspersed among the buildings—roughly demarcated by the geometric shapes the walkways enclosed—were the gardens of the city. Fabulous gardens, like little transplanted sections of jungle. An overgrowth of purple orchids beside this building; a riot of exotic fruit trees over here: melons, pomegranates, figs, passions. An avalanche of ferns, a lake of poppies, a wall of shaggy moss. A thousand varieties of palm proliferated, some taller than the tallest buildings. And spattered everywhere were flowers. Cerulean, magenta, emerald-green, memory-violet, colors from a different spectrum.
Joshua felt exhilarated, disoriented. Standing uncertainly on the rise with the Sirens’ perfumed laughter in his ear, and this strange vision before him—Josh felt his mind begin to slowly, subtly distort. In what way he could not say; but he was aware of some alteration in his senses, some ongoing process, which came from within and without. Pleasurable, but intricate.
As they stood there, each absorbed in confused wonder at what was happening, the sun dipped below its distant, mountainous horizon. And as was its habit, the jungle night fell quickly. But the city did not stay dark.
A large, central pond—filled not with red, but with turquoise phosphorescent algae—cast a diffuse ethereal glow in the heart of the main grouping of buildings: blue-green walls, cobalt shadows. And studding every tree that formed the perimeter of the mystical city, every tree and plant within the city, every vine or bush that climbed or grew, studding them all were millions and millions of fireflies. Spread thin in some areas, clustered elsewhere, they blinked on and off randomly, like stars in the black night sky. Sparkling, dazzling.
Truly, a jeweled city.
The Sirens laughed joyously at the transformation, and ran down the hill into the magical village, calling behind them in their lyrical, alien tongue. Neither Josh, nor Jasmine, nor Beauty knew the language; but somehow they all understood what the Sirens had said: “The city is yours.”
Ena dragged Mary behind a rock, muffling the girl’s cries with a handful of ferns. She slapped the Human roughly, once, twice; and savagely bit her throat. Blood flowed, the Vampire drank; other pleasures were crudely taken.
When she was done, Ena dropped the unconscious girl and walked back out into the camp. Everyone was watching her. There was a crescendo of whispers, which came to a dead halt as Bal stood up to face Ena. Even the jungle, night-red and steaming, seemed to watch.
“Sire Ena,” said Bal quietly. “There is blood on your mouth.”
She touched her finger to her lips, wiped a sticky drop off, put her finger to her tongue and sneered. “Tastes good, too. What of it?”
“Whose blood is it, Ena-Sire?” His voice remained modulated, nonaccusing; yet almost imperceptibly the corners of his mouth upturned in the mask of barely restrained anger.
Ena shrugged. “The blond slut with the long hard nipples.” Uncontrollably, she leered at the memory.
Bal snapped his fingers. Dicey’s head shot up, but the call was not for her. Uli jumped up, walked behind Ena’s hiding rock, walked out again. “The Human is dead,” he said gravely to Bal.
“Dead,” Ena mocked. “The thin-blooded tramp, she—”
“You were given orders,” Bal declared, his voice a whisper.
“Orders,” she spat, “you dare give me orders not to take my pleasure on this fodder whenever I please, while you suck that little bitch dry in—”
He flew at her with such speed, the movement was a blur. With his right hand he pulled back her head. She was quick too, though, and jerked to the side, so his fangs landed in her shoulder. At the same moment, she slashed her claws down his neck. They broke apart, both drawing first blood.
They circled each other slowly, as the astounded, terrified Humans watched the deadly dance. Uli stood behind the prisoners, to make certain no one took this opportunity to escape.
Both Vampires had their wings half spread, for balance and quick flight. Bal was bleeding from the neck, Ena from the shoulder. Their eyes were electric. Suddenly Bal flew straight up twenty feet, Ena backed to a tree. Bal pulled in his wings with one huge beat, and nose-dived his braced opponent. She bared her fangs, struck out with her talon-nails as he closed—when suddenly he opened his wings, stopping short, and her claws missed him by inches. Before she finished her follow-through, he was on her.
With his left arm he pinned one of her wings; his right hand pulled up on her chin from behind, forcing her jaw shut, exposing her throat. Viciously he plunged his razor teeth into her jugular vein. She snarled like a rabid wolf. They fell to the, ground, his jaw still clamped to her neck. She reached around behind her and dug her knife-claws into his face, through his cheek.
Dicey stared on in shock. Who would win? She turned to Uli. “Help him,” she pleaded.
On the perimeter of the camp. Rose sorted her own mixed emotions. Should she run? No, Uli was vigilant. If Bal died, could they escape? Bal was probably their only protection at this point, at least until they got to their Una’ destination. But if Ena won, maybe she and Uli would fight. Maybe …
With a sudden twist, Ena got her wing free and flapped skyward, Bal still gnashing at her throat. As she wrenched free momentarily, he spread his wings as well, and maneuvered to get a new tooth-hold in her chest, over her heart, while he pinned her arms behind her with his own. The wounds in her neck were gushing blood.
Wings beating rapidly, the two locked Vampires tumbled and spun erratically near the treetops. Their piercing, inaudible radiowave screams drove icily into the brains of the terrified Human prisoners, causing many of them to wail or writhe. Ena managed to get one arm free, tearing a hole in Bal’s wing near the shoulder. She pulled up on his head just enough to sink her fangs deeply through his scalp, and they plummeted and crashed down into the nearby brush.
All was silent.
Uli and the others ran over to view the wreckage of the death struggle. The two figures lay still in the undergrowth, clutching, bleeding, wings askew, fangs in flesh. A heavy hush.
Slowly, Bal extricated himself from the ruins and stood. His shoulder, wing, face, and head were all badly gashed. Ena did not get up.
Bal stepped forward. “Put the prisoners to bed, Uli-Sire, and you take the first watch. I will rest; and take, perhaps, some nourishment.”
Dicey’s pupils dilated; her teeth chattered; her neck tingled. She went with Bal.
They wandered through the ancient streets as in a dream, half-focused in the shimmering light, the primal shadows. They moved together at first, then separated, straying alone down side alleys, up cul-de-sacs, sometimes running into each other again, sometimes accompanying each other for a while, finally separating to explore alone once more. At first they thought they were alone here. Presently, they found they were not.
Jasmine ambled down a brick path between two low buildings. One had no roof, and the firefly glow from inside puffed above the ragged walls like a halo.
The other was glass and steel, and still bore a faded, falling sign over its front window: LESTER’S LAUNDROMAT. Inside, rows of cuboid rusting shells lined the floor. Lightning bugs flashed amid the sleeping shapes.
Jasmine shook her head. “A lost civilization,” she pondered. How long ago had she seen such structures as these? Under what peculiar circumstances? It could have been three hundred years or three thousand. And who could possibly describe the circumstances defining the points in space and time she had occupied when these buildings were new? It overwhelmed her, this thought. She cried.
Suddenly, she thought: “But Neuromans can’t cry.�
�� And this scared her. She felt her sense of self being undermined, starting to dissolve. “No,” she thought, and ran into the roofless building.
She found herself in one large room, furniture strewn around the floor. Torn upholstery, rusty springs, rotting tables, all twinkling with fireflies. And sitting on a broken vinyl couch in the corner was a naked woman—no, not a woman: a beautiful female creature, almost Human, but with black hair that strayed down all over the floor, and a face hollow with lust, and eyes dark with madness: a Maenad. At her breast she suckled a small furtive monkey with antlers sprouting from its head.
Jasmine stepped back, aghast. Something about this scene gripped her, took her breath. The shadowy sexuality, the shattered windows, the animal abandon, the human despair; a memory without substance, rich in feeling; something to conjure with.
She backed out the door. She headed toward a flickering garden.
Joshua saw one of the Sirens scamper into a two-story brick house. As he approached it, he saw one entire wall was gone. Beyond it, inside, stood shelf after shelf of books. He entered.
He walked slowly down the aisles, gazing at the titles: Robinson Crusoe, The Hound of the BaskerviUes, Murder in the Cathedral, Spartacus. His heart filled with emotion: so many souls alive here in the glimmering firefly light, waiting to be reawakened by the brush of his eye across the page. With trembling hand he reached for The Lost World, and pulled it from the rack. Surely this book was left here for centuries for Joshua to find now; left for him alone, to tell him where he was, what this mysterious place was all about. Momentously, he opened the covers—and the book crumbled in his hands.
Into moldy dust. Into nothing. He stared through his fingers at all the souls disintegrating into timelessness. All those years, all those lives. Dead in his hands. His sense of loss was stupefying.
He steadied himself on the stacks, breathed deeply, pulled down another tome. It broke into flakes before he opened it. He thrust his hand rudely across an entire shelf—not an ounce of resistance; nothing left but a scattering of mildewed powder.
He staggered. The meaning of this was unimaginable, earth-quaking: the written words had lost their power. The power to create, the power to preserve eternally—crushed into ash. So, was Scribery a false path and Scribes false prophets? Lies, then, all of it? If he wrote Dicey’s name and story, would she not live on, after all? Would the words wither and blow away, just like her body, her soul lost forever? If so, Scripture was merely a poor ruse. Meaningless scribble.
Sick in heart, he braced himself on the wall. A small moan tumbled from his twisted lips. Fireflies floated like sparks in slow motion around the room. There was a sound behind Josh. He turned. It was the Siren.
She laughed. A sound like the ringing of rose-crystal bells floated from her mouth. Her lips closed, then, into a tenuous smile that said she understood the pain of loss. She held out her arms; caressed her bare, featherless breasts; held out her arms again.
He looked at her grimly. “What’s the use?” he said.
She answered in birdsong.
“Nothing lasts,” he bemoaned, “we’re all sliding … into the abyss.”
She fluttered, cooing.
“Even our words …” his voice broke.
She stroked her soft hand feathers down his cheek, absorbing his tears.
Josh felt the urgency of his grief melting into the urgency of passion. “But you’re here,” he said to her. “You’re alive. And so am I.”
Her lips parted, her tongue came out. He pulled her down, his hands in her feathery warmth.
Beauty stared into the deep blue-green pool for a long time, an infinite moment.
A glowing blue Man, cut off at the waist and jammed onto a Horse’s body. A freak of some archaic religion called genetics. A lost member of an ancient tribe that wasn’t ancient, from a continent that never existed. A myth, then. Possibly even a complete figment of someone’s imagination. A passing whim. Possibly he did not exist at all, and would disappear when the whim passed.
His despondency grew deep as the blue people into which he lost himself. And lose himself he did; for as he watched his image reflected in the water, he saw it slowly dissolve and vanish. “Truly, then. I am nothing.”
A column of hooded monks walked in procession down the main street. They chanted an unknown hymn in a subterranean language. In their midst, they carried a great black box, obviously heavy. Upon reaching the edge of the forest, they set fire to the box with torches. When the flames died down, the monks retreated to the caves at the end of the village.
Jasmine stepped into the garden. It was thick but low to the ground with lilies, daffodils, snapdragons. Looking up, she saw the night sky actually clearing somewhat, the star-lights blinking down at the fly-lights winking up. There, a million miles just past the apex of the tallest building, she saw Venus, the spring evening star.
Who will love me? wondered Jasmine.
She meandered deeper into the shrubbery, directionless as a waif. Broken objects from another age were strewn about the flora—telephones, toasters, skulls. Nestled in a splash of tall reeds and galloping overgrowth was the rusted hull of an old car. Its hood was long gone, its windows empty sockets.
Probably cannibalized for parts, she thought. Probably my parts, she thought.
She looked inside. In the torn back seat, a light blue Goddess with at least four arms, draped with gold chains, was using all her hands to caress the tooled muscles of a blond sensual God. Shiva seducing Dionysus. Suddenly the young man’s features began distorting, though, his body changing form. He was horrible now, now a loathsome crone; and now again changed to a mirror image of the many-armed Goddess. The two beautiful blue deities embraced, entwined, lost in each other. Shiva seducing Shiva. Until the final change, and the protean flesh of the one melted, leaving only a skeleton in the other’s arms. Death seducing Shiva. The radiant blue Goddess tried vaguely to push his bone-fingers from her loosening thighs, but he teased her lips, her lips were moist, and finally, she pulled the skeleton fingers in.
Jasmine turned from the scent, her heart as hollow as the decomposing shell of the dead auto.
Who can love such a thing as me? she echoed. Not even Death.
A young bronzed man approached her. She could see at a glance his name was Priapus. It stirred her loins, but without feeling, without soul. Casually she fondled his namesake until it swelled, rose, grew hard and long as her arm. Jasmine felt empty as a rusty car in the jungle, though. She could feel Death’s cold fingers prying at her knees, but she was dry as summer straw, and she knew he would soon lose interest. She felt parched by her unloveliness, a creature of a dead technology. Dead past, dead future. Only the final Event itself eluded her. The skeleton turned to Priapus. Jasmine walked away.
A bird flapped into the open. It screeched once, dove into the blue-green pond, went deeper, disappeared.
Rolling down a side street, a large steel ball rumbled ominously. It stopped for a moment before a partly crumbled wall, then rattled on, into the dark at the end of the city. A long moan bubbled up out of the central pool, collapsing to a whisper before it died.
Josh lay on his back, staring at the stars. How deeply they swam. Time played tricks on him. It stopped; froze the constellations in inkwell space. It raced, spinning like a skyrocket. Stop-time, rush-time. Dream-time. Space-time. Space. Time.
A Maenad lay down beside him. Her eyes were mirrors, so as she looked up, they went deep as space. “Words are written there you will never see,” she said, in the glass-language he understood but did not know.
“Perhaps my child will read them …” he began.
She shook her head. “The words were lost in Time.”
“In time for what?” he asked, confused.
“In Time, forever.”
“Forever is a long time.” He couldn’t grasp the conversation they were having. He kept almost getting it, and then it would slip from his ken once more.
“Forever is No-Time.
Time-less.” A short laugh broke shrilly from her. “We have No-Time.”
“No time for what?” he asked. What was he supposed to do?
A resounding thump filled the air, like the beat of a heart, as if the whole city were a heart. The trees vibrated, the buildings shook. It happened once again, some time later, but no more.
Creatures walked past Beauty, but did not see him. He moved from empty fear to empty insight. Invisibility cleared his vision, so he saw things as they really were.
A cluster of Satyrs turned into swine. A preening cat became a languorous woman. Birds were flowers, skin took on wrinkles, limbs were deformed. Hearts showed through, some red, some black. He saw them all but himself: to himself, he remained invisible.
A ball of flame appeared, hovered above a garden, changed color, floated down, sank into the earth. Somewhere, a giant bell tolled: gong, gong, gong.
Josh walked up to a mysterious box, muddy glass on one side, wood on the others. Jasmine appeared. “It’s a television set,” she said.
“What does it do?”
“It made moving pictures of people. It made them look like real little people, running around inside.”
“Real people?”
“No. Well, yes.”
Three Devils with cloven hooves, horned rams’ heads, and serpent tails burst in, reeking of debauchery and decay. They pushed Josh into Jasmine, held him against her, taunted and poked at the two, jabbed them, tormented them. They pushed Jasmine to the ground, pushed Josh on top of her. Every time Josh tried to rise, they pushed him down again. They squatted, rubbed themselves on the two cowering figures, handled each other, made wild, foul ejaculations, ran away.
Josh and Jasmine fell apart, limp, without will. Longing, unsettled. Sick at heart.
Wraiths floated across the pool like uncertain thoughts. In the western trees, a stale wind.
Beauty stood at the edge of the Forest, staring out. Only blackness beyond. The moving blackness of his life.
Josh walked up, stood beside him. He saw the same blackness.
They stood like this, before the blackness, sharing their lonely losses, their separateness. They did not touch; but they felt the sharing.