Memoranda (5 page)

I was almost certain that this was not Below. In the time I had known him he had never worn spectacles, and unless he had gone senile in recent years, the last thing he ever would have done is run his hand over my hair in such a caring manner. I decided to bide my time and do some slit-lid spying before abandoning the mask of sleep.

I turned onto my side, grumbling like one caught in the throes of an unpleasant dream, so as to get a better look at the table and its occupant. In waiting a short while before attempting to open my eyes, it came to me where I must be. The long rows of bookshelves, the high ceiling made it evident that I was in the basement of the Ministry of Information, where I had once done research to try to discover the blueprints for the false paradise.

When I thought enough time had passed, I opened my eyes a quarter of the way and saw the silhouette of what appeared to be a man, a large cumbersome cape draped over his back, leaning forward, reading a book. At half-aperture, the man became clearer and was not a man at all. My eyes shot open wide and a cold sweat broke out across my back, for sitting there, wearing a pair of round-rimmed spectacles like any scholar in the world, was the demon. That cumbersome cape I thought I had seen became his pointed wings, and that sound of boots on the coral floor had really been the sound of hooves. His barbed tail danced rhythmically behind him as he turned the page and began silently moving his lips.

I wanted to scream but tried not to, and the result was like a dog barking. He turned his horned head to look at me, his yellow eyes magnified behind thick lenses. Ripping the covers off, I rolled out of bed and ran, limping down the nearest aisle between the rows of books. I screamed as I ran. In between my yells, I could hear his wings beating above as he pursued me.

Eventually, the shelves ended, and I was facing a wall. I backed up against it and watched as he descended, his wings kicking up clouds of dust from the old books. My trip to the Beyond had shown me what these demons could do to human flesh. As he approached, I cautioned him not to come any closer or I would take action. He did not heed my warning. I have no idea why I did it, but I reached into my coat, pulled out the green veil, and threw it at him. Though it had been wadded into a ball, it immediately opened up in midair inches from my hand and fluttered to the ground like a feather. The demon grimaced and a strange sound welled up from his chest.

I stood there, shaking, waiting for him to pounce, and then, after a long time had passed, I realized that he was laughing. He bent over, picked up the veil, and handed it toward me. When I reached out and took it from him, he said, “Physiognomist Cley?”

I was astonished at his use of human language and could do no more than nod.

“I am Misrix,” he said. Then he bowed slightly and brought his hairy, clawed hand up to shake.

Perhaps it was the ridiculous nature of a demon wearing spectacles that told me finally that I had nothing to fear. I reached out and clasped hands with him. As we shook, his wings opened and closed slightly. Then he turned and started back down the aisle. Motioning to me with his tail as though it were an arm, he called over his shoulder, “Come, I'll make us some tea.”

5

“Sugar?” asked the demon.

I came suddenly to attention and nodded without realizing what he was asking. From the time I had taken a seat at the library table, and he had gone through the door to fetch the tea, I was unaware of both my surroundings and the passage of time. In my mind I kept replaying the scene of me throwing the balled-up veil at him. The memory of his laughter had left me reeling.

“One lump or two?” he asked, lifting the lid off a silver sugar bowl that was part of the service he had brought in on a lacquered tray.

“Yes,” I answered.

He bowed his horned head and reached daintily into the bowl with two of his claws, like pincers, to pull out one cube at a time. Putting two in my cup, he lifted a spoon and stirred five times, his wings rising slightly with each orbit.

“We haven't had lemon for a long time,” he said, averting his glance.

I said nothing but continued to stare in disbelief at his cordiality. “A shy beast of prey?” I said to myself. It might even have been easier had I come to my senses and found Greta Sykes chewing my leg. All I could think of was having seen my friend, Bataldo, the Mayor of Anamasobia, attacked by demons in the Beyond.

While preparing his own, he looked up every so often, showing enough fang to make me uncomfortable. He brought the cup to his lips when he was done and tested the mixture. The steam rose from the tea and fogged his spectacles, so he took them off and cleared them against the reddish brown fur of his stomach. His eyes intrigued me with their vertical serpent slits instead of irises, but at the same time they stirred some primal fear in me, and I could not look for long.

“You saved me tonight,” I said.

He nodded. “I was out for some air, and I saw you running.”

“The werewolves,” I said.

“I'm sorry,” he told me. “I have no control over them. I'm as frightened of them as you are. If I landed outside the walls and stayed on the ground, they would as soon rip me apart as you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You are welcome, Cley.”

“How do you know me?” I asked, lifting my tea.

“My father,” he said.

“Who is your father?” I asked.

“Master Below is my father. He showed me you,” said Misrix.

“Drachton Below?” I asked.

“He birthed me into the world of men. He gave me language and understanding,” he said.

“Is he here, in the ruins of the city?” I asked.

“He is here,” said Misrix.

“I've got to speak to him,” I said.

“I will take you to him soon.”

“How were you birthed into the world of men?” I asked.

“It was like a great wind blowing out a candle in my head. With the brightness of the Beyond extinguished from me, I could concentrate. I began to think as humans do.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Very well, Cley,” he said, and with this reached back into the folds of his leathery wings and brought forth a pack of cigarettes and a small box of matches.

“You smoke?” I asked.

“From what I have read, it is most appropriate that a demon should smoke,” he said with a bashful grin. “But you won't tell my father, will you?”

“Not if you give me one,” I said.

He reached the pack across to me.

“Where did you get these?” I asked.

“In the ruins. I can find almost anything in the ruins if I look long enough. These spectacles, do you like them?” he asked, leaning his head down and peering over the top of them. “I found them on a dead one. My father says they do not help my sight, but I like them. When I look at myself in the glass, I see ‘intelligent.'”

As he lit his cigarette and inhaled, his hooves clicked a rhythm against the stone floor. He passed me the matches and coughed profusely, like the muffled roar of a lion. The smoke wreathed his head, and if not for the spectacles, I saw before me an illustration from the catechism of my childhood. He flapped his wings to clear the air, took another drag, and began.

“I still vaguely remember when I was a beast, gliding through the forest, sniffing at the breeze of the Beyond for a trace of living flesh. Then I was captured and brought to the City. All I remember from that time is rage and fear. I escaped from my captors. Food was easy to find, though, and rarely put up much of a fight. Once I battled a powerful man in the underground, and he cracked off one of my horns. The horn grew back, and I went on to hunt again. Finally, there were explosions everywhere, and I flew up out of the City and circled in the air until they ended. After that, it was difficult to find food. I could not eat the dead even though there were so many. To eat the dead is to die. I lived on stray cats and dogs who survived the end of the City. Sometimes I would swoop down on pigeons, but this was meager food, and I was beginning to starve.

“One day I saw a man, it was my father, before I knew he was my father, standing out in the open. I flew down on him to take his living flesh, but as my claws ripped into him, he was not there. He had vanished like smoke, and what I knew next was a net dropping over me. Then he was there, and he stuck a long, sharp thing into my arm. I was awake and dreaming all at once for a very long time. Through that time I heard his voice always speaking to me. The words seeped into me and twisted around my inside, grew like vines and flowers, blossomed in my skull. It was painful, but the pain was far away.

“
Sheer beauty
were the first words I came to understand, and I knew they meant the bite of the needle. When I awoke, I no longer desired living flesh. Father fed me plant meat. I no longer knew every moment what I would do in the next moment, but instead sat for long moments thinking. This thinking was a curious thing at first. It was a clock ticking, a music I did not want to hear the end of. Finally, I was released from my waking dream, and I knew before I stood up and took my first step that I was Misrix. I cried to know that I was born then. My father put his arms around me. ‘You have much to learn,' he said.”

Here the demon motioned for me to return the pack of cigarettes. He took another and this time reached up and struck the match head into flame against his left horn. As he brought the light down, he looked out of the corner of his eye to make sure I had caught his performance.

“So,” I said, “Below dragged you into humanity.”

“Birthed me,” he said. “He showed me many things. Told me many things. And then one day, we discovered that I had a special way of learning. I used to be his assistant in the laboratory. I watched him make his inventions and experiments, as he called them. At the time, he was turning men into the wolf-things that surround the ruins. A group of men from somewhere came to the City. They had weapons and were hunting through the debris for treasures. We captured them, he and I and Greta. He told me that he was going to help them to return to their true forms. What they were really searching for was to be turned into wolves. We put them all alive in cages and then one at a time, he would take them out and work on them. Their screams upset me. He told me it was not easy for them to become what they needed to become.

“One day when he was sleeping, I heard one of them screaming in the laboratory. I went in there, although I was not supposed to without the Master. The man begged me to let him go. I tried telling him he needed to become a wolf, but he cried most pitifully. He told me he would be all right if I would just let him loose to take a walk for a few minutes. I hurt inside for him and undid the straps, letting him up. He ran away. Father was furious with me. He yelled and even struck me in the face. I was told to stand in the corner, and he sent Greta out to find the man. She returned an hour later, but I guess she never found him.

“Later, the Master came to me and told me never to do anything in the laboratory without his permission. I told him I was sorry, and he said I was good then. I wanted to put my arms around him, but his face was still frowning. Instead, I reached out and laid my hand on top of his head. That is when the learning came in a great storm through my hand and arm and into me. It was like his life was in my mind. I saw him as a boy and a young man. I saw him doing a thousand things and speaking a million words. ‘Remarkable,' he said as he lifted my hand from his head. He had felt it too and said it was a part of my animal nature that I had not lost—that it would be a valuable tool. From then on, we learned to contain the storm, we birthed it into a human thing, and this is how he taught me so much in the few years I have been alive.”

“And what did he teach you about me?” I asked.

“He told me you were one of his children and showed me you in his thoughts.”

“Did he tell you he once tried to have me killed?”

“No,” he said, and pushed his chair back. He stood and his wings lifted, his tail danced.

“What kind of father tries to kill his children?” I asked.

The demon took off his spectacles and stood quietly for a long time, pulling at his pigtail of a beard.

“I know,” he said in a quiet voice. “That first time the storm came through my hand and into me, before we learned to contain it, I saw everything.”

“It bothers you, doesn't it?”

Misrix shook his head. “Why did he do that to the woman with the green cloth? Why did he shoot the man? Why did he make the soldiers scream with pain to become wolves? The knowledge came to me through him, but also there came a small stinging insect, always buzzing through my thoughts. Everything I have come to know is poisoned by the sting of this creature. At night I cannot sleep for wondering.”

“Why do you stay here?” I asked.

“He is my father.”

I told him what had happened at Wenau—about the exploding bird and the sleeping disease.

“Yes,” he said, “I know.”

“Please. I must help those people,” I said. “Take me to him. Let me reason with him.”

“Come, Cley,” he said.

He waited for me to get out of my chair, then led me through the door, holding it open as I passed. We walked in silence down a long, door-lined corridor, and I marveled at this beast with a conscience. What struck me was that as depraved as Below was, he was somehow capable of raising a “child” who had a sense of morality. I thought I might be able to enlist the son as an ally.

At the end of the corridor there was another door. As we approached it, Misrix reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, the claws curving down to point at my heart.

“You must promise that you will not hurt him,” he said.

“Me, hurt Below?” I said. “I was hoping that you would protect me from his anger.”

“That won't be necessary,” he said as he turned the knob and pulled back the door.