by Jeffrey Ford
"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 there." 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 Aria 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 ahold 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 entered, myself, 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 into 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 Ano-tine, 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 sa
t 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, myself, 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 on 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 refo-cused 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.
There were all manner of terrible noises, sucking and gagging, the breaking of bones, the slosh of blood, and when I opened my eyes to look, Brisden had been reduced to a formless bag of flesh lying on the bench. The creature belched and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his suit.
I nudged Anotine in order to get her attention. I wanted her to run for the portal while I made a foolish attempt to subdue Below's walking death. When she did not move or turn to look at me, I realized that she was in shock.
"Anotine," I whispered, and tapped her cheek lightly.
She didn't move, but continued staring in the direction of the bench. Looking again at the Delicate, I now saw him looking directly back at us. I tried to crouch as low as I could, and I put my arm around Anotine as if this would serve to hide her.
The creature's broad mouth broke into a smile. "Hello, there," he said, and rose from the bench. "I've been looking everywhere for you two. I have a secret to tell you both."
22
AS THE DELICATE MOVED TOWARD US, I BROKE FROM THE shadows behind the fountain in an attempt to draw him away from Anotine.
He had only taken two steps before I came at him, walking quickly, spear in hand.
"Have you tried the fruit?" I asked.
"I couldn't possibly," he said. "I've just eaten."
I lifted the spear in both hands and lunged at him, thinking I could keep him at a distance. He smiled at me and continued to advance.
"Stay back," I yelled, and lunged again.
"An impressive maneuver no doubt," he said. "I think we are going to get along famously."
In another step, he would have been close enough to wrap those rubbery fingers around my throat. I aimed for his head and threw all of my weight behind the weapon. That jab should have put the steel tip directly through his left
eye, but his head simply flopped to the side, like a dead fish, at the last possible second, and I missed him completely. At the same time, his hand came up and grabbed the shaft of the spear.
"Let me hold that for you," he said, and nonchalantly ripped the weapon from my hand.
I backed away from him as his head returned to an upright position. He dropped the spear, and it clanged against the pavement.
"Anotine," I yelled, and looked over my shoulder to see if she had heard me. She remained crouched in the shadows. When I turned back to the Delicate, somehow he was there, right in front of me, though I had never heard him move.
"Rest now," he said, his eyes like stones, his stinking breath all over me.
I didn't have the chance to react. His arm moved like a whip, and his fist caught me right beneath the jaw. My head snapped back with the impact, and I fell to the ground, landing on my side. I felt no great pain, but I was stunned, unable to move my arms or legs. Consciousness was a tenuous thing, but I managed to hold on to it. Struggling to move my head, I looked over to see the Delicate standing above Anotine. He reached his hand down to her as if she were a child.
"It's time to go now," he said in a soothing voice, coaxing her to stand.
I opened my mouth and tried to yell her name, but it came as a rasping whisper. His strategically placed blow had momentarily paralyzed me, and now that some feeling was beginning to return to my limbs all of my muscles were twitching like mad. It took the greatest effort to roll onto my stomach and lift myself to my knees.
"Come now," he said to her, and reached for her hand.
I judged from the slowness of my movements that I would never revive in time to help her. A great anger surged through me but did little to hasten my recovery.
Then Anotine suddenly burst from her crouch with a terrific grunt, swinging the butt end of the spear around and catching the Delicate on his pointed chin. The creature was knocked back two steps. As he worked to regain his balance, she flipped the spear around and jabbed him in the right shoulder, retrieved it, and jabbed again in the same spot.