Tesseracts Fourteen: Strange Canadian Stories

by John Robert Colombo

  While Korliss groped for a memory, the man took a step into the room. “Like all the others,” he said.

  “This was my room?” Korliss asked.

  “Still is. Paid up. I thought you’d be back.”

  “How long was I here?”

  “Just a few days,” the man said, then nodded. “So that’s where you’re burned.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Aching for the sun, to get to where there’s nothing between them and it. Some just climb a tower. Climb it and stay there, staring. Till their eyes are scabs…” For an instant the man’s expression made Korliss flinch. Then his sardonic manner returned “Others — they have to keep going after it, trying to hunt it down. Some just stare, and it burns them out right then. Like the old story — you get too close and you burn and fall. I’ve seen them. All kinds. They come through here and they go on, and some of them come back, but, sure enough, they’re all burned somewhere, inside or out; they’re falling. I’ve watched ’em all fall. More every year.”

  “You can’t have watched them,” Korliss snapped. “You’re blind.”

  “So I am. Doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s happening. Some of them can’t bear to leave it. And here’s a place they can stay, quiet, among people who understand. Always a cheap room here for the burned and falling.”

  No, Korliss thought. That’s not me.

  “Why did you think I’d be back?”

  “I know the type. And besides, why else would you have saved all this?”

  The man felt across the wall, slapped twice, and a panel popped loose. He pulled it away and gestured at a stack of gold-edged cards inside. His blank eyes had gazed past Korliss’ shoulder the whole time.

  “You could check that it’s all still there. But since you don’t remember it anyway, you’ll have to trust me, won’t you?”

  Korliss stood speechless.

  “So now you don’t know whether to break my neck for searching your room or thank me for finding your money for you. Isn’t life interesting? In a minute you’ll be asking me where you came from.”

  “You know?”

  “Ha! Of course!” The man half-turned, spreading his arms. “Out of… Out of… ”

  “Stop clowning around and say it!”

  “Out of the womb, like the rest of us. Out of the dark and into the light!”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “I have! I’ve told you all I know, more than you ever told me.”

  “Why don’t you get out of my room and let me think.”

  Korliss listened to the man’s footsteps retreating; then he examined the pile of currency. Gold cards. It must have taken years to accumulate so many. Where had he earned them? His identipak told him nothing. He began to search the room. In a closet lay a pile of clothing. Korliss spread it on the floor. There was a stained blue-gray tunic with an emblem embossed on the lapels: a crimson fountain and a golden caged gryphon. He inhaled sharply, then sat down and closed his eyes. A picture began to form.

  After a few minutes, Korliss left the room and made for the stairs.

  He found Seth in a vacant room, sitting on a wooden bench staring at a small canifel curled up at his feet. “Had one of these once,” he said when he noticed Korliss. “When I was a kid. Named it Stalker. Brings back memories.”

  “Not to me,” said Korliss. “I’ve got to go now. Are you coming?”

  “Yes, you see, I haven’t been in a place like this for half my life, it feels like. Just let me look around a bit. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Korliss sighed and sat down. Seth bent and picked up the canifel. It opened its eyes, showed a pink tongue as it yawned, and licked his hand. Korliss got up and paced the corridor. When he looked in the room, Seth had lain back on the bench and was dozing with the pet on his lap.

  Korliss hesitated then shook his head; he slipped a handful of cards into Seth’s hand and went to the car.

  “Follow the Heliodos,” he told it. “Nightward.”

  The shadows had grown longer, and darker. Ahead of him, lanterns on carts and groundcars made stretches of the Heliodos sparkle as though the snake had been sprinkled with gold dust.

  To the north was a field ablossom with glowing tents, clusters of lights, some spinning or tumbling into the air like jeweled insects. The open spaces were furry with crowds. He put the car into a wide circle about it, hoping for a prickle of recognition.

  Finally he turned away and the field slipped past his wingtip and vanished among blocks and canyons and low hills with slums and ruined towers in their shadows.

  Halfway to the horizon a squat gray factory sent clouds of dark smoke into the sky before they bent sunward. Korliss watched it slide above his wingtip and vanish behind him.

  He was approaching one of the wetlands, a steel-gray marsh stippled by reeds. Walls of dark trees and slab-sided buildings threw gray shadows across it, and only the far edge glittered where it caught the sun.

  Beyond was a grove of trees and another cleared space. A crowd was milling in front of a circular tent and a group of low structures. From the center of the field a pyrotechnic burst upward, unfurling into a crimson rose that drooped back towards the earth. A red fountain.

  Korliss was suddenly short of breath. His palms were sweating. He urged the car lower, staring at the field, at a line of square shapes, at a row of cages.

  “Land.”

  Ahead was a mass of gray shrub and tall trees. The trunks were in shadow but leaves on the upper branches shimmered golden.

  “I have exceeded my allowable range,” said the car. “Under my license agreement, once I set you down I must return immediately to my franchise zone.”

  “Land!”

  The car touched down at the edge of the field and opened its canopy. The vehicle was in the air by the time he had gone ten paces.

  At the far side of the clearing, in front of a stand of red-leaved quercids, a crowd was gathering around three gilded carriages lit by flaring torches. Korliss worked his way around the edge of the clearing towards them. Halfway there, he saw that the carriages formed the wings for a wooden apron stage backed by red velure curtains.

  He had paused beside the row of cages. They held chimaeras and gryphons. Serpentine, he suddenly knew, the creatures would have slipped through the bars, but they had been held in their current forms for too long to change back. (Had someone told him that? Who?) Standing amidst a litter of stones and empty drinking bulbs thrown by the crowds, the creatures stared over his head with wide, knowing eyes.

  He realized he was quivering with tension.

  One of the gryphons lowered its head toward him. Breath hissed through its nostrils. The creature’s eyes were bile green, with horizontal black slits for pupils. A nictating membrane slid across and back. The eyes gazed at him.

  Korliss saw wings and legs shrinking to nothing, feathers and fur smoothing into silvery scales, the beak blurring into fanged jaws — and he could not tell if he was imagining or remembering.

  Then he saw his own hands dumping a bucket of meat scraps into the feeding trough at the back of the cage. He had a clear vision of the wings spreading and the creature soaring towards the clouds. No more than a speck of gold ahead in the purple sky as the maglev crossed the ravine.

  Korliss shivered. The gryphon raised its head again and backed away, one unblinking eye still turned to him. He could hear breath rumble in its throat.

  Behind him, from the stage, came the sound of the evening bell, distorted by a worn amplifier. As the crowd moved towards it, Korliss’ hand reached out and entered the code that unlocked the gryphon’s cage. Then he worked his way into the crowd, waiting for the theater.

  After two strokes of the bell, municipal police in dark uniforms appeared at the far edge of the clear
ing and began moving forward. After twelve strokes, the curtains swept open. In center-stage, under a blue spotlight, stood a silver-clad giant. He raised his arms to the crowd and began to intone in a sonorous voice. “Friends, I bring you the tale of star-strider Orlando, guardian of the Firstfall Bridge, the terror of tyrants, the freer of the oppressed, banisher of the form-twisters, that you yourselves—”

  The voice fell silent. Two dark uniforms had vanished behind the stage. Korliss thought he could hear raised voices. Then the blue spot went out and in place of the giant was a white-haired man in sagging trousers and a patched gray jacket. Some of the audience started to laugh.

  Korliss edged around the back of the crowd. It had been stupid to open the cage. The gryphon might no longer be able to fly. It could be hurt; people in the crowd could be hurt. But his hand had moved and he had not questioned the impulse.

  One of the police stepped onto the stage. His voice, too, was amplified. “This is an unsanctioned performance,” he began.

  Korliss bent his knees and shoulders a little and joined a knot of people heading towards a row of vehicles.

  From the cages came gasps and stifled screams.

  “A ride sir?” a shrewd-faced young woman sitting in a light trap called to him. “Half fare for the first hour?” She twisted the reins of her gray equine in her hands. “I was supposed to take old Jovinian — the Prologue — out for his ale and back before his final curtain speech. The cops’ll put him out on the streets again in a week or so, but I don’t think he’ll be needing me today. But you look as though you might.”

  “I do?” He walked around to examine the equine, which snorted and lifted its head away from his hand.

  The woman leaned down and triggered the lanterns. “You’ve had a nasty knock on the head in the last couple of days. And you’re avoiding the cops. Perhaps you’ve got something to do with what those people over there are shouting about. Now you’re putting old Cinerius between you and them.”

  “Am I?” He swung himself up beside her. “I’m going nightward.” Over her shoulder he thought he glimpsed a bronze shape fleeing into the woods, and he relaxed into the seat. “Take the Heliodos and I’ll tell you more when we’re on the way.”

  “A car would be cheaper to run,” Hippolita remarked as they joined the nightward traffic. “But it’s hard to get them repaired nowadays, and equines have more prestige with the customers here.”

  “You’re right,” Korliss said after a moment. “I don’t live in these parts. You have nothing to fear from me, but I’m not sure why you assumed that.”

  “If you’re avoiding the law here, it’s no worse than a coin toss whether I’d be on your side anyway. In any case, I can look after myself.”

  The equine worked up to a brisk trot that Hippolita assured Korliss it could keep up for most of a day.

  He held out a gold-edged card. “As far as this will buy.”

  She looked quickly at him as they rattled over cracks, into the shadows of giant redwoods.

  “For that you could sleep at a place I know. Half a day from here.”

  Behind them the sun was eclipsed by the distant towers, leaving a blaze of orange and violet in the sky. Dark buildings appeared beside the road. Floating blue globes cast harsh light on intersections. At the crest of a rise, a tree stretched a leafless limb across half the road. Only the bare upper branches were gilded by sunlight.

  “That branch was still green…” he murmured, and shivered.

  “Leaf borers,” she nodded to herself and added, “So you have been here before.”

  Yes, thought Korliss. But some time when he had been much, much younger…

  After the tree, the road descended again. Ahead of them a long straight path sank into shadow. As the sunset vanished behind them, Hippolita engaged the brake gently, so that Cinerius would not be pushed into a canter, and said, “Let me tell you a story.”

  The clopping hooves drew them deeper into the shade.

  “Once upon a time,” she said, “a poor family lived by a river. They had lived there for more generations than anyone could count — ever since, it was said, the sun had shone down full on their home. They had tilled their garden plot, sold vegetables, repaired furniture for rusty metal coins, and remained poor. But now the sun was almost set. The air was cold, and fuel expensive. Their garden grew only hard tubers. Worst of all, was the dark.

  “There were two children, their parents and their grandfather. The father tried to find work repairing groundcars, but usually he had to settle for straightening bent cart axles or repairing sonic blades. Sometimes he drank too much or used the wire for hours at a time. The mother had built control units for videos, but now she spent most of her time caring for her own father, who was almost blind.

  “The elder daughter had glamour, and though she might have made a living as a herbiculturalist she spent time and effort on her appearance and manners, and became affianced to the son of the local landgrave.

  “And the younger daughter: what shall we say about her? She was jealous, of course, and tried to hide it. She felt she was the talented one in the family. She was the one who had scored best on the education programs, the one who had the ideas for solving their problems with their old groundcar. She was also the one least happy in the old dark house by the river. She knew her ancestors had lived where it was light, and she craved the light. She would lie awake in her bed to listen to the river and imagine it carrying her towards the sun.”

  Hippolita shook the reins as the trap rattled over a wooden bridge. They had left the Heliodos for a less-traveled artery. Ahead, a hunched black shape was plucking at something beside the road. As they approached, it snarled from reddened jaws, then twisted into a shadow that scurried up a tree and vanished.

  “Sphynx,” said Hippolita. “They’re common around here. I was afraid it might attack Cinerius. People used to say they came in across the ravine. But the bridge has been down for years now, and they’re still around.”

  Korliss glanced into the woods as they passed the place where the creature had vanished. Nothing stirred.

  “I’m hungry,” he said. “Do you think… ?”

  “A good courier is always prepared,” she told him. “There’s a place up here we can stop.”

  In a fenced-off glade, she unmounted the carriage lamps and spread a cloth on the grass. From a basket she produced bread, milk, cheese, fruit, and a bottle of wine.

  After a while Korliss realized she was watching him. She was sitting back, one eyebrow raised.

  “I carry half a bale of hay as well, if you want more,” she said. “When did you last eat?”

  He couldn’t remember. “I’ve been busy,” he said, and looked at the empty basket. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about that. But we should get going now. Help me pack up and then open the gate for us.”

  As Cinerius drew the trap beyond the fence, Korliss closed the gate and then swung himself up beside Hippolita.

  “You didn’t seem concerned about sphynxes in there, but that fence wasn’t much of a barrier.”

  “It’s enough,” she said. “They don’t like the spikes. And besides, they prefer to attack from ambush. Otherwise they’re usually only dangerous if they think you’re after their food.”

  “You said people hadn’t expected them to keep coming because the bridge was down. Which bridge was that?”

  “The rail bridge. Everyone thought they came out of nightside — but obviously not. The line runs next to the Heliodos, but that ends at the ravine now, too. The rail bridge lasted longer, but a maglev train lost lift on it at top speed and they never rebuilt it. The other side is mostly ice, from what I’ve heard. Too cold for sphynxes, though people say you can see some sort of tracks in the snow still. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Korliss nodded. “I
think I remember the maglev bridge. When I was young. I think I saw a gryphon from it.” They made their way back to the main road. “Sphynxes, gryphons — everyone hates them,” he said. “Whether they kill or not.”

  “Perhaps because they change shape, and you can’t be sure what you’re facing. Perhaps because they were here first and we’re squeezing them out. Guilt…” Hippolita frowned and eased her grip on the reins. “I think I should finish my story.”

  “One day,” she said, “the younger daughter asked her sister how she hoped to live with a man as rich as her betrothed, and her sister told her the family secret, passed on only to the eldest child. The family over the years had hoarded savings in a metal box hidden in the brickwork of the riverbank. The savings were for emergencies or special occasions, to be replenished immediately afterwards, and her father had promised her a wedding and a dowry from them.

  “She must have said something sympathetic to her sister, but when she was alone, she brooded, and she hated.

  “The younger sister knew she could make use of that money; she had the talent to create a career for herself away from that dark cul-de-sac. A day later she found the hoard and fled with it.

  “It was quite easy to find her way to the new towers, where the sun shone on her. Soon she would be successful and send the money she had taken, and more, back to her family. She too met a man, a rich man, who promised to marry her and sponsor her career in the theater. But she found that her money did not buy as much as she expected or last as long. And when it was gone, her benefactor had vanished too.”

  They shared a long silence, while Hippolita’s trap rattled on into the dusk. Overhead the sky was a deep luminous blue. Two stars gleamed, and dark streamers of cloud flowed towards the sun.

  Finally they crossed steel tracks in the road, then entered a rutted side-street.