Everville (62 page)

"You never did understand." He looked off to his right, and there, wedged in a fissure, his arms trapped at his sides, was Father Hess. He was wearing the wound Lazy Susan had given him all those years ago, and they were as fresh as if he'd just received them.

"I'm not here to accuse you, Harry," he said. "You're not here, period," Harry said.

"Oh come on, Harry," Hess said, "since when did that matter?" He grinned. "It's not reality that causes the trouble, Harry. It's illusions. You should have learned that by now."

That was all this was, Harry knew: an illusion. He was conjuring it up. Every word, every drop of blood. So why couldn't he just tear his eyes from it and move on? "Because you loved me," Hess said, as though Harry had asked the question aloud. "I was a good man, a loving man, but when it came down to it you couldn't save me." He coughed, bringing up a gruel of bilious water. "That must have been terrible," he said. "to be so powerless." It stared at Harry pityingly. "The truth is, you still are," he said. "Still looking to see the Enemy clearly, just once, just once."

"Are you finished?" Harry said.

"A little closer@' Hess begged.

"What?" "Closer, I said." Harry approached the martyr. "That's better," Hess said. "I don't want this spread around." He dropped his voice to a growl. "It's all done with mirrors," he said, and suddenly his arms sprang from the fissure and seized hold of Harry's lapels. Harry wrestled to escape the illusion's grip, but it dragged him down, inch by inch, and as it did so the flesh of its face seemed to slide away in ribbons. There was no bone beneath. Just a brownish pulp.

"See?" it said, its mouth a lipless hole. "Mirror-men. Both of us."

"Fuck you!" Harry yelled, and pulling himself free of Hess's grip he stumbled backwards.

Hess shrugged and grinned. "You never did understand," he said again.

"I told you over and over and over and over-"

Harry turned his back on the pulpy face.

"And over and over-"

And looked back towards the door. He had a second, perhaps two, to realize that the lad, or some part of it, was no longer in that world but this. Then the ground around the Uroboros rose up in a solid wall and all that had gone before-the din, the tremors, the revulsion-seemed like a dream of perfect peace.

It was the ride of Phoebe's life: cocooned in a stony womb, and carried in the grip of the rock as it rose to block the lad's way. Texas had promised she'd be safe, and safe she was, her capsule home through the convulsing ground and up on fountains of liquid rock with such ease she could have threaded a needle had she wished to take her eyes off the sight he was showing her. The rock was a protean face, shaped and driven by his will. One moment she was plunged into grottoes where the Quiddity ran in icy darkness, the next the strata were dividing before her life so many veils, the next she seemed to he in the midst of a vital body, with liquid rock blazing in its veins, and the King's fossil heart beating like thunder all around.

Sometimes she heard his voice in the walls of her womb, telling her not to be afraid.

She wasn't. Not remotely. She was in the care of living power, and it had made her a promise she believed. The lad, on the other hand, for all its motion and its purpose, reminded her of death. Or rather, of its prelude: of the torments and the hopelessness she'd seen death bring. As it approached the door, and the earth rose up to block its passage, the rock pierced it and clusters of dark matter, almost like eggs, spilled from it, @-di the fouler for their glittering multiplicity. Even if they @vere eggs, Phoebe drought there was death in every gleaming one. When they struck the shore they burst and their gray fluids raced over the stones as if nosing out the darkness beneath.

Wounded though it was, its appetite for the Cosm was not dulled. Besieged by the rock, it continued to advance, thouah the very shore it was crossing had become a second sea, a surf of stone rising up to drive it back.

It was difficult for Phoebe to make out quite what was happening in the chaos, but it seemed that the lad had pressed @i portion of its body towards the threshold and was in the act of crossing over when Texas raised a wall of earth with such speed that he severed the questing limb from the main. The lad let out a sound the like of which Phoebe had never heard in her life, and as it was reeling in its anguish the whole landescape laid before her-highway, dunes, and shore-was Sim ply upended. She saw the lad topple, bursting in a thousand places, spilling its substance, as what had been horizontal moments before rose in a vertical mass above the enemy. It teetered there a long moment.

Then it descended upon the lad-a solid sky, failing and falling@ving the wounded mass into the pit where the shore had been. Even as this spectacle unfolded, Phoebe felt the cocoon shudder, and she was carried away from the maelstrom at speed, deposited at last close to the city limits, where the shore was still intact. She had no sooner come to rest than the cocoon cracked and deteriorated, leaving her exposed. Though she was perhaps two miles from the doorway, the ground was shaking violently and a hail of rock fragments was falling all around, some of the shards big enough to do her damage. Texas had exhausted all his strength, she assumed, to do what he'd done. She could not expect his protection any longer. She got to her feet, though it was difficult to stand upright and, shielding her head with her hands, she stumbled back in the direction of the city.

She returned her gaze along the shore once in a while, but the rain of dust and stones went on relentlessly, and she could see very little through the pall.

Nothing of the lad, certainly, nor of the door through which she'd stepped to come into this terrible world.

Both had disappeared, it seemed: enemy and door alike.

iv The first casualty on the Heights was Zury, who had been standing at the threshold when the shore on the other side k. erupted. Caught by a blast of frac@ rock he was thrown back into the liquefied ground. His acolytes went to dig him out while the lad's vanguard, severed from the main by the wall, thrashed in its fury, stining earth and air alike into chaos. Overturned in the dirt, the Blessedm'n's rescuers drowned along with their master. As for the lad, though it was but a small part of the invader, it was still immense: a ragged, roiling mass of forms, spilling its blood in the neirica's vestibule. The crack convulsed from end to end, as though the violence done in its midst was unmaking it. On the far side, earth and sky seemed to switch places. Then a storm of stones descended, the crack closed like a slammed door, and all that was left on the Heights was chaos on chaos.

Harty had been flung to the shuddering ground before the lad appeared and, certain he would be flung down again if he attempted to rise, stayed where he was. From this vantage point he saw Kissoon walk on the liquefied rock towards the wounded lad. He seemed indifferent to the tremors, and fearless, his head thrown back to study the invader in its frenzy. It seemed to be unraveling. Pieces of its substance, ten, fifteen feet in length were spiraling skyward, trailing sinew; other fragments, the smallest the size of a man, the largest ten times that, were circling in the air, as though hungry to devour themselves. Others still had dropped to the fluid ground, and were immersing themselves in the dirt.

Kissoon reached into his coat, and pulled from its folds the rod Harry had seen him wield in the Zyem Carasophia's chamber. It had been a weapon then. But now, when he raised it above his head, it seemed to offer a point of focus for the lad. they closed upon it from all directions, their torn bodies spilling their filth upon him. He raised his face to meet it as though it were a spring rain.

Harry could watch this no longer. His head was awash with images of the dead and death, his eyes stinging from the sight of Kissoon bathing in the lad's filth. If he didn't go now, despair would have him. He crawled away on his belly, barely aware of his direction, until the crosses came in sight, stark against the sky. He had not expected to see them again, and his aching eyes filled with tears.

"You came back," said a voice out of the darkness. It was Raul. "And

... you stayed," Harry said.

Raul came to his side and, crouching, gently coaxed Harry to his feet.

"I was cufious," he said.

"The door's closed."

"I saw."

"And the lad that's here-"

"Yes?"

Harry cleared the tears from his eyes, and stared up at the cross where he'd come so close to being nailed. "It bleeds," he said, and laughed.

in Evervflle, the denial had stopped, and so had the music. Not even those so drunk with liquor or love they'd forgotten their names could pretend all was well with the world. There was something happening on the mountain. It shook the sky. It shook the streets. it shook the heart.

Some of the celebrants had come out into the open air to get a better look at the Heights and exchange theories as to what was at hand. Some of the proffered explanations were rational, some ludicrous. it was an earth tremor, it was a meteor crashing. It was a landing from the stars, it was an eruption from the earth.

We should get out of here, said some, and began their hurried departures.

We should stay, said others, and see if something happens we'll remember for the rest of our lives...

Alone in the now-vacated Nook, Owen Buddenbaum sat and obsessed on Tesla Bombeck. She had been a late addition to this drama but now she was beginning to look distressingly like its star.

He knew her recent history, of course. He'd made it his business. She hadn't proved herself any great Visionary, as far as he could gather; nor had she shown evidence of any thaumaturgical powers. Tenacious she was; oh yes, certainly that. But then so were terriers. And@enough it didn't please him to grant her this@he had a measure of raw courage, along with an appetite for risk.

There was one story about her that nicely illuminated those aspects of her nature. It had Bombeck bargaining with Randolph Jaffe in or under the ruins of Palomo Grove. By this stage of events Jaffe had failed in his aspirations as an Artist and was reduced, so the story went, to a volatile lunatic. She had needed his help. He had been loath to give it. She'd goaded him, however, until her handed her one of the medallions like that buried under the crossroads, and told her that if she comprehended its significance within a certain time period she would have his help. If she failed, he would kill her.

She'd accepted the challenge, of course, and had succeeded in decoding the cross; thus making the Jaff her ally, at least for a time. The fact that she'd worked out what the symbols meant was not of any great significance in Buddenbaum's estimation. The fact that she'd put her life on the line while she grappled with the problem was.

A woman who would take such a risk was more dangerous than a visionary spirit. If Seth brought her to him, he would have to be ready to dispatch her at the flicker of an eye Tesla was halfway down the path to Phoebe's front door before she saw the figure rising from the step.

"I've been looking all over for you," he said. It was the boy from the crossroads; Buddenbaum's sallow apprentice. "I'm Seth," he said.

"What do you want?"

"It's not really what I want@'

"Whatever you're selling, I'm not interested," she said, "I've got a baby here needs tending to." I'@t me help," Seth replied. There was something almost pitiful in his appeal. "I'm good with kids."

She was too exhausted to refuse. She tossed the keys in his direction.

"Pick 'em up and open the door," she told him.

While he did so she cast a glance up at the mountain, which was just visible between the houses opposite. There was a smoking spiral of mist around the summit.

"Do you know what's going on up there?" Seth said.

"I've got a pretty good idea."

"It's dangerous, right?"

"That's an understatement."

"Buddenbaum says-"

"Have you got the door open yet?"

"Yeah." He pushed it wide.

"Put on the light." He did so. "I don't want to talk about Buddenbaum till I'm sure the kid's okay," she said, stepping into the house.

"But he says-"

"I don't give a shit what he says," she told him calmly. "Now, are you going to help me or are you going to get out?"

Harry and Raul were almost at the tree line when Raul stopped in his tracks. "Somebody's talking@' he said. "I don't hear anything."

"Well I do," Raul replied, looking around. There was nobody in sight.

"I heard voices like this before, when I was sharing Tesla's head." "Who the hell is it?" "The dead, I think." "Hmm." "Aren't you bothered?"

"Depends what they want." "He's saying something about his wife, finding his wife@'

"He hears me!" Coker yelled. "Thank God! He hears me!" Erwin looked back up at the mountaintop, thinking again of what Dolan had said, standing outside his candy store: We're like smoke. Maybe it wasn't so bad as that, being smoke, if the world was going to be overtaken by what he'd seen up there, coming through a crack in the sky.

Coker, meanwhile, was still talking to the creature ho'd saved D'Amour, directing him into the trees...

There were two people there in the shadows. One a woman of some antiquity, sitting with her back to a tree trunk, drinking from a silver flask. The other a man lying face-down a few yards from her.

"He's dead," the woman said as Harry leaned over to examine the man.

"Damn him."

"Are you one of Zury's people?" Harry asked her.

The woman hacked up a gob of phlegm and spat on the ground inches from Harry's foot. "Mary Mother of God, do I look like one of Zury's people?" She jabbed her finger in Raul's direction. "7hat's one of his!"

"He may look like one," Harry replied, "but he's got the soul of a man."

"Thank you for that," Raul said to Harry.

"Well, and are you man enough to carry me down?" the woman said to Harry. "I'd like to see my city before the world goes to Hell."

"Your city?"

"Yes, mine! My name's Maeve O'Connell, and that damn place"@he pointed down through the uses towards Everville@'wouldn't even exist if it weren't for me!"

"Listen to her," Coker rhapsodized. "Oh Lord in Heaven, listen to her." He was kneeling beside the harridan, his bestial face covered in bliss.

"I know now why I didn't go to oblivion, Erwin. I know why I waited on the mountain all these years. to be here to see her face. to hear her voice."

"She'll never know," Erwin said.

"Oh but she will. This fellow Raul will be my gobetween. She's going to know how much I loved her, Erwin. How much I still love her."

"I don't want your hands on me!" Maeve was roaring at Raul. "It's this man's back I'll be on or I'll damn well crawl wn there on my hands and knees." She turned to Harry. Now are you going to pick me up or not?"

"That depends," said Harry.

"On what?"

"On whether you can shut your mouth or not."

The woman looked as though she'd just been slapped. Then her narrow mouth twitched into a smile. "What's your name?" she said.

"D'Amour."

"As in love?"

"As in love.'

She grunted. "That never got me any place I wanted to go," she said.

"She doesn't mean that," Coker said. "She can't-"

"People change," Erwin said. "How many years has it beent'

"I haven't changed," Coker said.

"You can't be the judge of that," Erwin replied. "It's no use breaking your heart over this."

"Easy for you to say. What did you everfeel?"

"Less than I should," Erwin replied softly.

"I'm sorry," Coker said. "I didn't mean that."

"Whether you meant it or not it's the truth," Erwin said, turning his gaze from the woman-who was now clambering up onto D'Amour's back-and again studying the Heights. "You think there's more time than there is," he said, half to himself. "And there's always less. Always."

"Are you going to come with us?" Coker said.

"I'm glad for you," Erwin replied. "Seeing your wife again. I'm really glad."

"I want you to be part of it, Erwin."

"That's nice to say. But-I'm better, staying here. I'll be in the way."

Coker slipped his arm around Erwin's shoulder. "What's to see here?" he said. "Come on-they're leaving us behind."

Erwin glanced round. The trio were already twenty yards away down the slope. "Come see the city my sweet lady built," Coker said. "Before it disappears forever."

After the tumult, silence.

The rain of stones dwindled to a drizzle and then ceased altogether. The sea calmed its frenzy, and came lisping against the shore, its waters thickened into mud. There was no sign of life moving in its shallows, unless the glistening remnants of lad's eggs, bobbing in the filth, could be called life. Nor were there birds.

Phoebe sat amid the rubble of what had once been Liverpool's harbor, and wept. Behind her, the ships that had once swayed at anchor here were smashed in the streets; streets that had been reduced to gorges between piles of smoking debris.

What now? she thought. Plainly there was no way home. And little or no hope of finding Joe, now that she'd lost her guides in this wilderness. She could bear the idea of never separated from Joe forever was unendurable. She would have to hide that likelihood from herself for a while, or else she'd lose her sanity.

She turned her thoughts to the fate of King Texas. Could rock die, she wondered, or was he simply lying low for a while, to recover his strength? If the latter, perhaps he might show his face again and help her in her search. A negligible hope, to be sure, but enough to keep her from utter despair.

After a time, her stomach began to rumble, and knowing hunger would only make her weepier, she got up and into the devastation in search of sustenance.

Just a couple of miles from where she wandered, Joe stood in the veils of dust still falling where the door had been, and turned over the significance of all he'd witnessed. This was not, he knew, a total victory; not by any stretch of the imagination. For one, some portion of the lad had found its way over the threshold into the Cosm before the shore rose to annex it. For another, he was by no means certain the greater part, which now lay buried somewhere under his spirit's feet, w as dead. And for a third, he doubted the continent from which this force had come was now deserted. The invasion party might have been defeated, but the nation that had sent it out was still intact, somewhere beyond the Ephemeris. It would come again, he knew. And again, and again. Whatever the lad were-the dreamers or the dreamed-whatever ambitions they nurtured, they had today sent a force into the Heiter Incendo, where it would doubtless be able to prepare for a larger and perhaps definitive, invasion.

Whet@er he would have any part to play in the defense of the Cosm he didn't know and, for now at least, he didn't much care. He had the more immediate of his own identity to solve. It had been a fine adventure that had brought him in a circle back to this spot: the voyage on The Fanacapan, that sweet reunion with Phoebe in the weeds, the journey to b'Kether Sabbat, his final encounter with Noah and his discoveries in the belly of the lad-all of it extraordinary. But now the journey was over. The Fanacapan was sunk; Phoebe was somewhere in Everville, mourning him; b'Kether Sabbat was presumably in ruins; Noah dead; the lad buried.

And what was he, who had taken that journey? Not a living man, for certain. He'd lost all that he could have identified as Joe, except for the thoughts he was presently shaping, and how certain were they? was he then some function of the dream-sea? Or a sliver of the Zehrapushu? Or just a memory of himself, that would fade with time?

What, damn it, what?

At last, exasperated by his own ruminations, he decided to make his way back into the street in search of the fire watchers who had seemed to see him in the form of their answered prayers. Perhaps if he discovered one among them who understood the rudiments of life after death he might find some way to communicate, and learn to understand his condition. Or failing that to simply come to peace with it.

Phoebe returned to Maeve O'Connell's house on Canning Street more by accident than intention, though when she finally found herself standing before its gates she could not help but think that her instincts had brought her there. The house was in better shape than most she'd passed, but it had not survived the cataclysm unscathed. Half of its roof had fallen in, exposing both beams and bedrooms, and the path to the front door was littered with slate, guttering, and broken glass.