by D G Rose
I hate how she could instantly put me on the defensive. This should have been a happy moment, we were reunited again, all three of us, and Amy had made a miraculous recovery. But no. Fucking Christabel had to ruin it by jumping on me at first sight.
I gave her my most indifferent shrug. “I went with Neb. He invited me.”
She stepped forward and rapped her knuckles on my forehead. I mean she actually did it. “Did you miss the memo, Nicky? We are running behind! You can’t go gallivanting off. Not looking for firewood, not following Neb like a lost puppy. You have to stay focused, or bad things happen. Like Amy. Like Miranda.”
I don’t know why when Neb said basically the same thing it didn’t bother me. But when Christabel said it, it really pissed me off. Maybe it was the forehead knocking. It probably was the forehead knocking. Anyway, I did the only thing I could think to do, the thing I used to do when Miranda would piss me off, my only real model for interacting with women who are not my mom… I poked her in the stomach. At least that was the plan. Only Christabel caught my hand, finger extended and twitching, twisted my wrist painfully and tossed me into the dirt. Something like a thousand watching soldiers broke into cheers and jeers.
I picked myself up and dusted myself off and took off for my rooms.
“How could you jump down his throat like that!?” Amy yelled at Christabel. “He had every right to go off, he’s a grown man and you’ve given us fuck all reason to be interested in this mission of yours.” At least that’s what I like to imagine she said. I couldn’t hear a thing, over the shouting of the soldiers and the roaring shame in my ears.
I threw myself down on the bed. So comfortable. And I took the last gulp out of the skin of Scotch that Neb had been so kind as to forget that I had. It was a large gulp. Maybe three normal gulps.
As the whiskey warmed me from the belly out, I began to feel foolish. Not the foolish of being tossed on the ground in front of hundreds of taunting soldiers, but the deeper foolish of thinking that maybe I’d overreacted. Maybe I should have stayed. Had a… you know… conversation with Christabel. Now I was stuck in my rooms, comfortable though they were, and I didn’t know how to go back out to be with the others. So, I felt a mixture of relief and dread when the knock came.
I sat up. If it was Christabel, I wanted to be in some kind of alert posture and I wanted to take up as much space on the bed as possible. I don’t know why, but that’s what I wanted. While I was arranging myself for Christabel, the door opened and Amy stuck her head in.
“Can I come in?” She asked.
“Sure.” I relaxed my posture and scooted over to make room for her and she sat down.
“I want you to know that I was angry with you.” She began.
“Angry with me?” I was incredulous.
She nodded. “Yes. You’re my only friend here. And I was so happy, so very happy to see you and then you just disappear. For days. Leaving me alone with Christabel and all these strangers. Why would you do that?”
I was going to explain about Neb and how he really didn’t give me much choice and how I hadn’t wanted to go and all that, but it wasn’t true. What I wanted to tell her was ‘I’m not your friend. I’m not safe. Don’t rely on me. I’m not to be trusted.’ I wanted to tell her the story about how one day I was on my bike, riding to work, and I saw a guy I kind of knew on the roadside. I wanted to tell her how, as I approached, this guy held out his hand, palm towards me, and how I put out my hand and as I passed, I slapped his hand in a perfect side five. I wanted to tell her how that was my perfect social interaction, friendly, but with no commitment. What I said instead was, “The truth is Amy, I don’t know. I guess I’m just kind of an asshole.”
She looked at me and put her hand on my knee. “No, Nick. I don’t think you’re an asshole. It was just an asshole move. Don’t do it again.”
“You know,” I told her, determined to hold on to the privilege of being an asshole. “I seem to have this habit, as many people have pointed out to me, of constantly making asshole moves. Maybe that’s just who I am.”
She shook her head and took her hand off my knee. “Don’t go so easy on yourself. You tell yourself you’re broken like it’s an excuse not to fix it.” She stood up and headed for the door, stopping with her hand on the knob. “When you’re ready, come on out. There’s going to be a feast tonight.”
It was a long time before I was ready. I wasn’t sure how to deal with Christabel. But, staying in my room all night wasn’t much of a choice, so I did, eventually, come out. There was a feast, and Amy and I were seated at the Lord’s table, along with Neb, Amytis, and, of course, Christabel. I ignored her at first and she returned the favor, but when she caught me looking at her, she stuck out her tongue and I did the same and just like that the tension evaporated.
Three days passed, Amy healed, Christabel taught me to ride (although not without much loss of temper on both sides), and the army of King Zedekiah harvested food and reseeded the fields, supplying food for the army that would come behind them, that would try to despoil them of the godhood they were trying to rightfully steal.
On the morning of the fourth day, the army was ready to mount the stairs. Neb insisted we attend the ceremony.
“It’s not every day you get to see a few thousand men march off to certain glory or certain death.” He noted. And who was I to argue?
The army assembled in front of the great stair. Even though the stair was wide enough for a hundred men to march abreast, a barricade had been erected some fifty stairs up and the soldiers had to cross just five at a time, each given weapons and armor (I have no idea how it was arranged so that each man got back the equipment he had earlier surrendered) and moved off to the side to equip himself. It was a slow affair. Finally, the whole army had passed the barricade and the King mounted the stairs, admittedly regal in his silver armor, astride his pale horse. I was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness, but also by a sense of envy. What would it be like to mount the stairs, surrounded by comrades, to march to heaven, to gamble for the chance to transform into something glorious, like the broken angel must have been in life, to transcend, even if just for a moment?
“Why does he allow it?” Amy asked Christabel.
“It’s part of the job.” She replied. “Part of what it means to be Lord Protector of the Tower.”
“No.” Amy shook her head, “Not Neb. God. Why does he allow them to attack? To overthrow Him? Or try, at any rate.”
“Oh.” Christabel looked at Amy. “We’ve all thought about it, I mean those of us who live in the Tower. I’ve got my own ideas, nobody knows for sure. Of course, I’m just speculating about a hypothesis, but my idea is that He’s distracted.”
“Distracted?” Amy asked.
“Yeah.” Christabel continued. “I used to think He allowed it because He didn’t care, because He was inviolable, because He always won. But I’ve heard the screams that last for days and seen the fallen bodies, men to be sure, but too many angels to imagine that He suffers no losses. Then I thought that He was somehow unaware. But what kind of God is that? Now I think that He is distracted. I think that each king imagines that he will mount the stairs overthrow God and remake the world to suit himself. But I’ve seen too many kings mount the stairs and nothing ever changes. No old enemies are ever thrown down nor old friends lifted up. So it must be something else. Maybe all the kings lose. Maybe the current God is the same God as always and maybe He never cries for His lost angels, but I don’t think so. I think that some of the kings win. That some of the soldiers do, in fact, become angels of the Lord. But I think it’s different than what they imagine. I think that once a king assumes the mantel of godhood his attention turns away from his old concerns, his former grudges. Instead of wanting to punish his worldly enemies and reward his friends, instead of wrapping Himself in cloth of gold and lightning, on becoming God he finds his interests going in a different way. Now he watches the delicate ballet of quarks in the heart of a
proton, now the violent death of a supernova, now the intricate face on the clock of the galaxy. The human scale concerns are lost in the God scale awareness and can't be found again for their dull ordinariness. How can God turn his gaze to something as tiny as a usurper? Worry about something as obviously inconsequential as who sits the Throne of Heaven?”
Amy nodded like it made sense to her. “Is it always kings? Never a queen?”
Christabel gave a shrug. “Never as far as I know. If you had an army, would you mount the stairs and try to overthrow God?”
Amy thought for a second. “No.”
“Me neither.” And Christabel led us away.
With the army gone, the tower felt empty and slow. All the frenzied activity and energy, the sense of a terrible purpose and terrible fear drained away and left us, me at least, feeling lost and eager to be on our way.
Four days later the screaming began. It was as terrible as I remembered it, only worse. When I’d heard the screaming from outside the tower it had sounded like the end of the universe, now it was like the end of the universe with reverb. The horrible sound bouncing and doubling and redoubling from all sides. It got into your bones and made you wish your teeth would just fall out and be done with. Then the bodies began to fall. Men, of course, but angels too. Ten men for every angel, but plenty of both.
The residents of the Tower began a macabre harvest. Angel hearts to sell in Folkstone, feathers, even the blood of the angels was drained to fertilize the fields, to allow crops to grow in the gloomy depths of the Tower’s shadow. Passing an angel, strung up by his ankles, throat opened and dripping dry, Amy suddenly felt herself well enough to travel.
CHAPTER 15 - We seemed to have lost the knack for being alone.
Neb and Amytis provided us with horses and we rode out of the tower, through the gate and back into the open land of the caverns. It was almost too bright after the darker twilight of the tower. We traveled much faster now and we reached the Sacred River, Alph, less than a day after passing the tower gate.
We followed the river for a few days until we could see the walls of a city in the distance.
“We’ll sleep in Folkestone tomorrow.” Christabel told us. “Of course, it’s kind of a shithole, so we might as well enjoy our last night in the open.” And she slyly drew out a leather skin that I thought I recognized.
We drank. It felt unreasonably good to be all back together again. Still, as the whiskey wormed its way through my veins I couldn’t help but think back.
“So…” I began, smoothly. “What the fuck is going on here? You said you it wasn’t safe to talk in the Half-Frog, but we’re all alone now and I think we deserve to know. This trip has turned out to be more dangerous than I expected and I’m not taking another step until you tell us what it’s all about.”
“Me either.” Added Amy.
Christabel stopped with a huff, throwing her teenage years into sharp relief. “Look. We swim in the Dreams of the Dreamer. Everything from the Cavern to Xanadu, itself, is the Dream. The people too. At least me. I mean, maybe not you two. What do you think happens to the Dream when the Dreamer wakes?” She shook her head sadly. “Nothing good.”
“OK. I get that.” I said, totally not getting it. But here we were, having been chased by the monster and having been two dimensional, in this Cavern which beyond a doubt was Measureless to Man. So, maybe there was a Mad Dreamer and maybe when he woke it would all disappear. If that wasn’t the explanation for everything that had happened, the real answer was unlikely to be anything less strange. “But, there were two sides in the tavern; The Mad Dreamer versus the Waking God.”
Christabel sighed again. “Some people, some crazy people, think that when the Dreamer wakes it’s going to usher in a paradise.”
“But you don’t?” Amy asked.
Christabel looked down at her feet. “I know it won’t. I’ve seen the Dreamer. Touched him. Tasted his Dreams. We live and die in the Dream, but if the Dream dies, there is no resurrection. Not for us. Maybe he’ll dream a different dream some different night, but we, the occupants of this Dream, we’ll be gone. Just so much mist, burned off by the light of the sun.”
“So the Dreamer wakes or he doesn’t. Hardly seems worth fighting about.” Amy said.
“No!” Christabel swung savagely around to face Amy. “The Mad Dreamer will never wake!”
But Amy wasn’t about to be cowed. “Well, apparently he’s a god. I don’t see how you can stop him from waking if that’s what he wants.”
“Miranda knows how to stop it. To put the Mad Dreamer back to sleep.” Christabel waved her hand at me. “He’ll stop it. Him and what’s in that box.” And that was all she would say.
Of course, our threat not to continue was hollow. We never had any choice but to continue on, there was no going back, only going through.
Folkestone was somehow both smaller and bigger than I thought. From a distance it looked like a sleepy port town, maybe a hundred houses, maybe a dozen streets, but once inside the town, the streets never seemed to end and each street seemed to contain more intersections than there were streets in the town.
Christabel led us a wandering way down to the docks. It took hours, although it couldn’t have been more than a mile. She hailed an old man, who was stereotypically marked out as a sailor by his clothes, his pipe, and his peg leg. “What chance at passage for three across the Sunless Sea, Grandfather?” She asked.
He took a long pull at his pipe, which produced a loud wet sucking sound but no actual smoke, then closed his eyes as if the shipping schedule was printed inside his lids. He waved a hand to include all the ships in the harbor and when he spoke, he did it in a posh English accent. “These here are all coasters, you’ll be wanting The Wedding Guest, not due in for a fortnight. I can let the Captain know you want three berths.” And he held out a gnarled hand.
Christabel put a gold piece in it, “We’ll be at the Oak and Oar.” And she turned away.
The Oak and Oar had three unoccupied rooms and Christabel, who never seemed to want for money, took them all. Although I’d slept by myself in my room at the Tower, something about the commercial nature of the inn struck me as off and, standing in the lobby, I felt a pang of the loneliness to come.
The innkeeper led us upstairs and opened a door. “This room would be good for the gentleman.” She said without explanation and since nobody objected I entered and sat down on the bed and watched everybody I knew in the world vanish behind a closing door.
I unslung the box and threw myself back on the soft pillows and stared at the ceiling trying to recall how long a fortnight was. Long enough to get bored I imagined. I, of course, am an old hand at staring at the ceiling doing nothing. I felt not the slightest twitch of homesickness.
After a while, Amy knocked at my door, let herself in and without a word lay down on the bed next to me. We seemed to have lost the knack for being alone.
We rejoined Christabel at dinner. “Since we’ll be here for a while, I have some business I can take care of in the city. That means I’ll leave you two alone most days. You already know how dangerous this place can be for the unescorted.” She eyed me meaningfully and I dutifully looked down at my hands. “The best thing is for you to keep to the hotel as much as possible.”
“How long is a fortnight?” I asked.
Was that scorn in her eyes? “Two weeks. But we’ll probably be here more like three. The ship will have to refit and resupply and take on a new cargo before it’s ready to ship out again.”
“You expect us to stay cooped up in this hotel for three weeks?” Amy asked incredulously.
Christabel poked Amy hard in the stomach. “Wander the streets if you like.” She said with a shrug, “But, Astley's Amphitheatre is hardly the worst thing you can find out there, or that can find you.”
And I resolved then that we would indeed spend the next three weeks cooped up in that hotel.
The next morning, Christabel was m
issing from breakfast but I discovered that the inn had a backgammon set and that Christabel’s credit extended to unlimited bottles of the sweet yellowish house wine.
And I spent the next two weeks with Amy, playing backgammon and drinking and falling in love. Maybe you think I should have fallen in love before. Maybe you think I should have realized, way back at the beginning, that she was smart and brave and tough and talented and dauntless and perfect. Maybe you’re right. You’re probably right. Fuck you for being so smart.
All I know was that it was torture saying goodnight and it was torture sitting and playing and laughing and drinking with her all day unable to tell her how I felt.
And I hated her a little, for the breezy way she walked into my room each morning, all sparkly and bright, and for the breezy way she waltzed out each night, still sparkly and bright, suffering none of the unrequited love that burdened me.
But, well, I’d never been in love before and I knew not the slightest way how to go about it, and we were stuck together on this weird journey and things would be awkward if I said anything and, let’s face it, I am a coward.
Two weeks past and word came that The Wedding Guest had made port. And as I lay down to sleep that night, thinking of Amy, I felt something under my pillow and, reaching under, found a folded scrap of paper. I unfolded it and here is what it said: The House of Diligence, 82A Frangipani Lane.
Devoid of any context it was impossible to determine what it meant, what I should do. But I didn’t have a second of doubt about what I would do. I would go.
The next morning Amy appeared in my doorway, shaking the backgammon box. “Ready to lose, loser? I’ve got my eye on a new cold room!” We’d been betting on the games, using those ridiculously large gold coins that Christabel tossed about, even though neither of us had any. I estimated each coin to be about an ounce and a half. I was currently down about 400 coins – so let’s call it 600 ounces of gold. I figured all my worldly possessions would probably add up to 5 or 6 coins worth, so it was an impossible amount. My secret plan, my super-secret plan was to convince her to marry me and then claim that she couldn’t collect from her husband, based on probably some grave misunderstanding about the law of debts between spouses. But anyway, I’d have Amy along with the debt and I’d be happy to have both.