Beauty

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Once, late in the evening, we looked up to see the stars occulted by a vast shadow with a line of light along its edge and knew we gazed upon the incredible heights of Baskarone.

  “I want to go there,” Constanzia breathed. “I can think of nothing else. Since I first saw an ambassador from Baskarone, I have longed to go there. It is why I started reading The Diaries. To find a way!”

  Mama shook her head, biting her lip. “I’m afraid that is impossible, child.”

  “You don’t understand. If you’d ever seen one of them…”

  “I have,” Mama said, her nostrils flaring, her mouth grim. “Several, as a matter of fact. What you say is true. Seeing them makes us long for Baskarone, but we may not go there, no matter how we long. They will not let us in.” She turned abruptly and went into her cabin, leaving Constanzia and me to stare after her, wondering at her tone.

  I wondered often at her tone. When I was honest with myself, I realized I had expected a mother, my mother, to be like Dame Blossom: a little severe, but unfailingly affectionate in a kindly, nurturant way. Mama was not that. Sometimes I thought she was not even very like the woman who had written the letter. Oh, it was nothing one could put one’s finger on. We talked together, took tea together, confided in one another. I told her about Giles. Her eyes filled with tears, and we cried over that together. She understood. She said she had felt that way about my father. I held her hand and was happy. And then, just as I thought I was beginning to know her, I saw on her face an expression of remote untouchability. She looked through me, as though I did not exist. Then, some hours later, she became my affectionate mama again.

  This happened more than once on our voyage. I could not explain it. I feared, from time to time, that something I had done or, more likely, had not done, sometimes came to her mind, damaging the feelings between us. Or I feared that something about me put her off. I didn’t know what it was. When she was being my mama, I felt as secure as a child held in loving arms. When she looked through me, I felt wavery, as though my very existence was in question. I actually wished for Carabosse, so that I could ask her what she thought was happening.

  Another night, with the Queen moored at the edge of the water, I saw the last of the cages disposed of. Several times during late-night hours of our journey I had left Mama and Constanzia sleeping and had sneaked into the hold to hold converse with those in the cages. Ambrosius had read or traveled widely, and had been interested in the religions of the world. Each cage had been consigned to a particular hell, and each cage was full of beings Ambrosius imagined had learned to fear that special hell, whether one of fire or ice or eternal separation or mere time-serving prior to some later reconciliation with whomever or whatever they considered responsible for their fate. There were many espousing fundamentalist Christian faiths, all babbling of the love of God while seething with guilt and resentment. I suggested to them that, if they could bring themselves to disbelieve, they might free themselves from their confinement, and a few must have managed to do so, for several of the consignees from Erebus complained of light weight when they received their shipments at last.

  When I came up on deck after the last such conversation, the captain was standing at the rail. I was not wearing my cloak. He nodded at me and grinned apologetically. “Can you believe I used to bring them all across from the Edge in a rowboat?” he asked. “Of course, that was before I came to Chinanga. I suppose it’s more interesting now.”

  “Where did Ambrosius borrow you from?” I asked.

  “The Greeks,” he said. “I am their ferryman.”

  “Of course,” I said, remembering things I had read. “You rowed a boat across the Styx.”

  “For the coins on the dead men’s eyes,” he said. “The work has not changed much.”

  “And where do the souls come from in the cages?” I asked.

  “Where do the trees come from,” he smiled. “And the snakes and the orchids.”

  I nodded, thoughtfully, taking his point. “Are you bored?” I asked. Everyone spoke much of boredom here in Chinanga.

  “Oh yes,” he said in a grumpy voice. “I am bored. So much so that occasionally I long for the simpler days.”

  Two days later we reached the falls which came down from Baskarone and moored along the river-bank, well back from the plunging torrent. We could not see the top. The roar of the waters and the clouds of spray extinguished any appreciation of the enormousness of the fall.

  In a clearing some distance from this pool the captain found the expected stack of kegs and crates, let down from above, I supposed, by some unimaginable windlass. While the crewmen were loading, several passengers departed, quiet persons with purpose writ large upon their faces. The captain shook his head after them as they went off toward the great wall.

  “Going to try for it, they are,” he told me. “Going to try and climb it. Every time I come up here, there’s a few. Silly creatures. Even if the wall wasn’t unclimbable, which it is, them from Baskarone aren’t going to let anyone climb there.”

  I shook my head with him. Poor vagrant creations of Ambrosius Pomposus, destined to climb so high to so little purpose.

  While they were getting the cargo aboard, Mama and I hiked to a hilltop some little way apart where we might see the falls entire. Even at this distance, I could see only the lower half, though Mama’s fairy vision could see far more than I. She had some ointment in her pocket, one of the things, she said, that she always carried with her. She annointed my eyes with it, telling me to blink several times and wait until the tears stopped. It stung, but only for a moment. When I looked up again, I caught my breath in wonder.

  The wall was wreathed in rainbow, not puny arcs such as we sometimes see after a shower, but great circles and bows, one within another, like the radiance of a butterfly’s wing or the feathers of certain birds where the light breaks its own color through barbs and scales to make a glorious aureole. The waterfall was a silver marvel, tumbling in sprays and droplets, each catching the light, separating and rejoining in a myriad braided saults. Above, upon the height, I could see trees and towers and color where great tracts of flowers bloomed. The angle was wrong, I should not have been able to see anything there. It was as though the light itself bent, as it does going around stars, to give me a glimpse of what lay above.

  The vision was more like taste than sight. When I looked away, my eyes longed for me to look back, as the tongue longs for savor. Each tree upon the height was the epitome of tree. Each tower the quintessence of what towers could be. Everything there seemed to be the design from which earthly things were made. I was conscious that the burning presence in my chest was still. I did not feel it. It was at rest.

  In a moment my eyes stung again, perhaps from the ointment, more likely from tears, and when I looked back, the vision was gone.

  “The ointment is stale,” Mama said in an annoyed tone. “I waited for rescue overlong in that jungle. Never mind, my dear. When we come to Ylles, you will learn it is as beautiful as Baskarone.” Her words sounded confident, but her smile, when I turned to look at her, seemed forced.

  I believed her, but still I wiped tears from my eyes as we returned to the Stugos Queen. We were not alone. Several of the passengers had come along for the sightseeing, and they, too, seemed depressed and sad. It seemed almost willfully malicious to let us see what lay upon the heights and yet forbid us access to it, but when I said this to Constanzia she rebuked me.

  “Such is not the case. It is only from such visions and temptations that fantastic longing comes. Out of that vision, a thousand worlds are built. I have heard it said in Nacifia that it is better to be a climber who falls to his death from the walls of Baskarone, than to be king in any other land.” She sounded somewhat doubtful, as though the source of the quotation was not a trustworthy one. “Any other land,” she repeated, as though to convince herself.

  “Except Faery itself,” I commented to Mama, as a quiet aside.

  “Except Faery itself,” she
agreed. “Oh yes, dear. Of course.”

  When the cargo was aboard, the Queen turned downriver, and we raced with the current instead of against it, achieving in one or two days what had taken ten or twelve to accomplish on the way up. Our speed was such that we felt quite giddy. Before we knew it, we were at Novabella once more, having dinner with Don Masimiliano (sopa de limon, filetes des pesces del rio, ensalada de los helechos tropicales, plantain tostarse, quarto trasero de gallivant asado—from the colonel’s successful hunt—pastelillos de frutas, with patito-chuleta as a savory followed by coffee and liqueurs) and then away downstream toward Nacifia.

  Mama did not feel well after eating the roast gallivant. She whispered to me that the fauna of imaginary regions were invariably poisonous to beings from her realm. Not binding, necessarily, as were fairy fruits or the pomegranate seeds of Hell, but simply unhealthful. I had felt no such trouble, and therefore decided that my digestive system was probably fully human. When I mentioned this to Mama, she said in a tart voice that it had taken me some little time to arrive at that conclusion. Only then did I realize that she had not had recourse to the personal cabinet at the rear of the ship once since she had come aboard.

  “In many imaginary lands, as here, they shit and piss,” she advised me. “As on earth, though rather less copiously. But not in Ylles nor, I believe, in Baskarone. Never mind, dearest. When you eat fairy fruits, you will not be bothered with such grossness any longer.”

  I had not precisely been bothered up until this time, though afterward I seemed to give a great deal of unaccustomed attention to the matter. No doubt this was one of the differences that Roland sensed in Mama. The implications were shattering. How refreshing to have all the joys of love (I write in a literary or conventional sense, rather than from experience) sans consequent familiarity with those anatomical proximities which humans find both so unfortunate and so teasingly attractive. I came to the conclusion that there would be no perversions in Ylles.

  We arrived at Nacifia late one night and tied up at the pier with no sound from the whistle. I thought it might be thoughtfulness on the captain’s part until I saw him and Mrs. Gallimar tête-à-tête in the dining room and realized he simply had not wished to interrupt their last evening together. Last, one assumes, for a time, for a long time, though not for all time, since everything in Chinanga repeats itself. Constanzia had already gone ashore. It was one of those evenings when Mama and I felt close and familial, a dear feeling, one that left tears brooding in the corners of my eyes. We stood at the rail with Roland close behind and looked at the sleeping city while we whispered to one another all that we knew, thought and imagined about it. On the pier several escapees from the clownery presented classical tableaux vivants for our edification. They had chosen to portray an ascent to Baskarone, as though achieved by certain historic personages, each tableau occasioning a tiny frisson, as of surprise. If one were not continuously aware of Chinanga’s origins, one was continually agitated by little shocks, only to say to oneself a moment later, “But what else would one expect in Chinanga?” Tableaux vivants, of course.

  “Beauty,” Mama said to me in a serious voice, “when we are taken to the Viceroy’s palace tomorrow, stay close to me and do not be surprised at anything I may say or do.”

  [“She’s going to do something stupid,” I said to Israfel.

  “Who?” he asked. “Beauty.”

  “No. Elladine. She’s going to do something silly. I can feel it.”]

  I kissed Mama on her beautiful cheek and promised her that I would not. We went into the cabin together and so to bed.

  20

  I had no further thoughts until the morning when the whistle, so long delayed, woke us as well as every living thing within hearing of it. It was not long after breakfast that the Viceroy sent a cart for Mama, one draped in fringed velvet, its curtains held aloft by a tottery framework of gilt staves. I guessed the cart had appeared in festival processions for many seasons, and when I saw the priest from the cathedral wringing his hands on the sidelines, I knew I was correct. Mama had merely replaced St. Frog in being hauled up the cobbled streets by a succession of devotees, including many inmates from the clownery who seemed in a state of unusual excitement.

  I walked at the side of the cart, behind Mrs. Gallimar, who moved along with ladylike little steps, acknowledging the plaudits of the assembled citizenry. Beyond her was Senora Carabosse. I resolved to keep her in sight until we had a chance to talk. On the other side of the cart strode Roland Mirabeau, his fine features drawn together in an expression of concentration and resolve. Behind us came another cart bearing the head of the gallivant, preserved in a barrel of Baskaronian wine for this occasion. Colonel Esquivar strode beside this tumbrel, his moustaches waxed into spiral magnificence, with several of his ragged children tagging at his heels. Behind the colonel came the captain and his crew, and after them the ragtag and motley of the town. Outside the gates to the citadel there was a momentary hiatus in our progression, soon remedied when the great gates swung open to the accompaniment of fanfarons and vorticals. Inside the gates a blood-colored carpet led up the vast stony flight to the massive portal, just outside which the Viceroy waited.

  He had dressed for the occasion in cloth of gold with diamonds. Flatulina was no less marvelously accoutred, and various of the viceregal children stood here and there, observing our approach with scarcely concealed incredulity. I was not surprised to see Constanzia between two of them, standing attentively immobile, as though she had been there all along. We paused at the foot of the stairs.

  “Senorita,” the Viceroy began, sweeping his hat before him in the first gesture of a very complicated reverence.

  “Senora, actually,” Mama said.

  The Viceroy came erect all at once, like a poker. He glared at Roland Mirabeau, who shrugged elaborately.

  “She is a virgin,” the chaperone said. “No matter what she calls herself.”

  “With a difference?” hissed the Viceroy, coming down the stairs sidewise, like a crab, one hand held threatening before him. Flatulina edged down behind him, her head held slightly forward, like a snake about to strike.

  “As you will observe,” Roland said calmly, indicating Mama with a nod of his head. She sat at ease, awaiting the Viceroy’s approach. When he had come near enough, she held out her hand for him to kiss. He bowed over it. I saw his nostrils quiver. Perhaps he scented the odor of … of whatever Roland had sensed. Over the top of his head she gave me a look of sceptical disdain, but when he raised himself again, her face was all sweetness.

  “I have been told you require my assistance,” she said. “So happy to be of help.”

  I scarcely heard her. At the top of the stairs, the ambassador from Baskarone emerged from the great doors. My eyes became fixed upon him. They could not turn aside. What business had kept him here so long? What business had brought him here at all? Why ever he had come, his stay had not changed him. The thought occurred to me that ambassadors from Baskarone were, perhaps, among the eternal things which did not change.

  He became aware of my stare and smiled at me as though we were friends but lately separated. I blushed and cast down my eyes, released by that smile to come to myself once more. Resolutely I turned my eyes on Mama and the Viceroy. That was where any business pertinent to me would transpire, and Mama might at any moment need my help. When I glanced up a moment later, the ambassador had gone, perhaps away, perhaps inside the castle, who could say. My heart stopped for a moment, then resumed its steady thudding.

  The Viceroy awarded a medal to Colonel Esquivar, to much tantara of trumpets and huzzah from the populace. The gallivant head was turned over to representatives from the firm of Pelasges y Plumas, rellenadores acclamados to the hunters of Chinanga. The head would hang in the viceregal dining room, said the Viceroy. Considering both its bedraggled state and the bestial glare remaining in the glassy eyes, the rellenadores would have their work cut out for them.

  Mrs. Gallimar and the chapero
ne were rewarded and dismissed. A benefice was awarded Captain Karon. Alms were given to clownery inmates loose along the street. Sweets were tossed to the crowd. There was a general departure, and we were left in relative quiet, scarcely more than a two-family party: the Viceroy’s numerous one; plus Mama and me. The Viceroy rubbed his hands together and put on a new expression as he winked and nodded at his wife. “I have everything ready,” he chortled. “Have had, simply forever, just waiting, don’t you know.” His eyes glittered with hectic abandon. He was not the same man I had seen before. He was transformed by excitement.

  [“I don’t like this at all,” I said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Carabosse, it will happen, whether we like it or not,” sighed Israfel. “It has been inevitable, ever since Elladine arrived. This world does not appear in our futures; we misinterpreted that fact, that’s all. We had no way of knowing.”

  “I should have read all The Diaries,” I confessed. “I should have been more careful.”

  “Shhh,” said Israfel. “Be ready to salvage what we can….”]

  I looked across at Constanzia, who shrugged. Evidently her father had gone further in The Diaries than she had. Following his urgent beckoning, we entered the castle and paraded down a long, stone-floored corridor between files of uniformed guardsmen, climbed several flights of rocky stairs which twisted and coiled about in the walls of the place, and arrived at last in a tower room set up for the study of astrology, alchemy, or some even more esoteric science. I stooped to one great brass telescope as we passed it, finding it focused upon the heights of Baskarone. The mechanism had not the power of Mama’s salve, but one could make out the effulgence of the place.

  “At last,” the Viceroy said, lighting candles and setting alembics to bubbling. “At last,” as he thrust a sword through a ring and suspended both above a chair. “At last,” as he bustled about opening books to proper pages, laying out indescribable things upon a stone set in a pentacle. He motioned for Mama to seat herself in the chair. She looked at the suspended weapon with a suspicious eye, but complied even as she summoned me nearer, taking me firmly by the hand.