Color burst upon the auditorium, fierce as morning sun upon a sleeper’s face. Senlin flinched and blinked at the assault but refused to look away.
He gaped at the rippling reservoir of the Bath that beamed at him. Light scattered over the water in shimmering scales, fine and dense as the mail of a fish. The girl, now a giantess, was no longer frozen. Her ankles stirred her shadow in the water; her braids swayed over the back of her bathing dress. The folded boat in her hand, firmly pinched at first, loosened and began to slip from her grasp. Then the scene restarted with a jarring burst of white, and the boat appeared cinched between her fingers again.
This final flare was not the only of its kind: the scene strobed like a cloud overflowing with lightning. The repetition was hypnotic. Tears welled in his eyes.
“How is this possible?” he whispered.
“Do you know what a camera obscura is?”
“No.”
“Mirrors, my boy. And a trick or two more.”
Senlin made an effort to time the sequence, and decided it was no longer than five seconds. Five seconds! He wondered how many years of Ogier’s life it had taken to create these five seconds of absolute sublimity.
“The flashes are from the empty frames,” the Sphinx said. “Out of the original sixty-four, twenty-eight paintings are still in circulation.”
“But isn’t that where they are supposed to be?”
The Sphinx changed the subject. “Tell me what you see. Describe it as you did the Brick Layer. Refresh my impression.”
Senlin frowned at the feint, but dutifully answered the request. “I see the Baths. The reservoir. I’ve been there. It’s like the ocean with the fury poured off. He’s captured the light and the gauzy quality of the air perfectly.”
“What about the girl?”
“I have wondered about her. It’s always struck me as a melancholy choice to have posed her facing away. I wonder why Ogier did it. She’s obviously just a child, and yet look how world-weary she seems. There’s something— bereft about her, isn’t there? Of course, I could be completely wrong. One thing I know about children: they’re more pensive than adults give them credit for. We often misread them badly.”
“True.”
Senlin closed his eyes for a moment and savored the respite from the glaring light. “Who is she?”
“You’ve covered the setting and the girl, but you’ve missed something quite significant. Look at the water under the boat,” the Sphinx said.
Senlin studied the spot beneath the dangling paper boat. After a moment, he glimpsed something, a cursive-like movement of light. The effect reminded him of using an ember to draw in the night air. The ghostly trail lingered just long enough for his mind to distinguish a shape before a flash of white consumed it.
“Was that a number? Was that a nineteen?”
“It was.”
“Why are there numbers?
“It’s part of the combination.”
“To what?”
“To the heavens, of course,” the Sphinx said. The animation stopped abruptly, and the lights came up. Senlin felt disoriented by the reappearance of the pale slope of empty seats about them. “Come, I’ll show you.”
In his former life, there had been little in the world Senlin loathed more than a theater lobby. The charmless corrals were filled with patrons who came and went with all the poise of a general panic. And though everyone was too busy elbowing one another into stanchions to pay anyone else’s appearance the slightest attention, this never stopped one and all from flaunting their station in life through the display of canes, cravats, brooches, décolletages, muffs, watch chains, perfumes, and professionally coached accents.
So it was strange for him to stand in a lobby and feel so at ease.
There were no red rope mazes, no underpaid ushers in imperious uniforms. The low chandeliers were no brighter than a candle on a bedside. Sofas and upholstered chairs encircled attractive rugs. Beyond this comfortable lounge, a row of elevators stood open, their interiors glowing with a warm yellow light. The only interruption to the procession of inviting exits was a shut steel door. It seemed the sort of thing one might find in a bank. Senlin was disappointed but not surprised when the Sphinx marched straight to it.
Naturally, the vault door included a tumbler, which stood out like an illuminated eye. The tumbler was marked with a hundred digits, which seemed a tad excessive to Senlin, though he was no expert in such matters. A relatively discreet plaque beside the vault was embossed with the curious phrase, The Bridge of Babel.
“What’s in there?” Senlin asked.
“I don’t know.”
Senlin was surprised by the Sphinx’s frankness. “I thought all of this was your home.”
“Inherited home, yes, but this vault was installed by the Brick Layer before my time. I do not have the combination.”
“What’s this about a bridge?”
The Sphinx laid his hand on Senlin’s shoulder. The contact made him shiver. Senlin turned to stare into his own distorted reflection. He could hear the Sphinx’s raspy breathing behind the mirror. “Tom, I am going to ask you to entertain an alternative view of the world. First, you’ll find it funny; then it will make you angry; then you’ll be frightened. It’s all perfectly natural. It is the feeling of discovery, and it grows more unsettling the older we get. I want you to persevere.”
Senlin squared his shoulders. “All right. Enlighten me.”
“What if I told you that this floor and everything beneath it, this ceiling and everything above it, all the brick and mortar that surrounds us is not part of a tower?”
“It’s not a tower? Well, it certainly is an elaborate decoy.”
“It is in fact a bridge. An unfinished bridge.”
“A bridge? To what? The moon?” He couldn’t help but smile at the thought.
“Yes. The moon, the planets, the stars and everything else. It is a bridge to the heavens.”
“That’s preposterous. You can’t build a bridge to the air. If you build to the air, it is called a tower. You’re playing some sort of semantic game.”
“I am not. It is a bridge. Not to the air, but to the edge of our world’s influence. The whole universe waits to be explored. And we’re stuck here, squabbling in the mud.”
For the first time, it occurred to him that the Sphinx might be utterly mad. If not mad, then at least obsessed. And Senlin had signed a contract with him. He had rejected Marat’s hopeless crusade only to join a man who was jousting with the stars.
“If you remember nothing else of what I say, remember this: when humanity ceases to aspire, it begins to decline. Do you know why the status quo is so tyrannical and nauseating? Because it does not exist! There is no stasis in the world, and certainly not where humans are involved. The status quo is just a pleasing synonym for decay. You’ve seen what the Tower inspires: cruelty, apathy, casual violence, self-destruction, and empty gratification. Those are the fruits of the Tower.”
Senlin rubbed the furrow in his brow. “I won’t argue with that characterization.”
“You cannot. It was not meant to be a tower, a stratum of senseless competition and oppression, a structure that requires war to renew it like a forest needs fire to prosper. What a barbaric thing! The Brick Layer aspired to better. He knew harmony was not a symptom of plenty, or political climate, or even that crushing stalemate your kings call ‘peace.’ Harmony is the result of purpose. So the bridge was imagined, and construction begun.”
“But what happened? If this is truly a bridge, why didn’t he finish it?”
The Sphinx turned his face away. “He came to the limit of his day’s technology. He came to the limit of his life. He realized that years, decades would be required to develop the understanding, the expertise necessary to continue the work. The halt was supposed to be temporary, a time of invention, research, and preparation. Instead, men took the opportunity to lay their stakes, to shore up their power, and to demean the hod. Thus, the unfinished bri
dge became a finished but unworthy tower.”
Senlin bit his tongue, but he wanted to say it didn’t matter what the Brick Layer had envisioned; it only mattered what he had built. And that was the Tower: the very thing the Sphinx blamed but refused to take responsibility for.
He felt a stirring at his feet. He looked down to find the librarian butting his head upon his pant leg. The cat looked up, then rubbed his chin on the same spot. Senlin bent and scratched the librarian behind his ears.
“Inside this vault there is the means to restart the work. A catalyst. A plan. The way forward, the way upward. Our redemption lies behind that door.”
“How do you know?”
“I know it as I know many things I cannot begin to explain to you,” the Sphinx snapped. “The Brick Layer built the zoetrope and distributed the paintings so each ringdom would hold a piece of the vision. He insisted upon cooperation, and to ensure it, he embedded the combination in the animation of the frames. The vault can only be opened when all the panels are present.”
“If cooperation is so important, why have you begun to collect the panels on your own?”
“Generations of war and turmoil have dimmed the memories of many men. The ringdoms have forgotten their promise. For years, I have watched carefully, and I have only intervened when a panel was threatened by obscurity or neglect.”
“Then you would open the vault yourself? Whatever is in there, whatever the catalyst is, you would unbox it on your own?”
“If I must. You have to understand, I am fighting for the future of our race, and there are those who would see all come to ruin.”
“You mean Marat,” Senlin said.
“You may think you know him, but you do not. He means to lock us out, to keep the work from continuing. This rebellion he stirs is not for the good of the hod. He doesn’t care about them, not really. He is a cynic who would rather preside over ruin than see our race ascend.”
“He doesn’t think much better of you.”
“But what do you think of him? Were you charmed?”
“I sympathize with some of his sentiments, but his methods are wicked. He tried to kill my friends; he tried to kill me. He appointed himself judge and jury of the hods, and apparently hasn’t any conscience against capital punishment. He’s trained his followers to systematically blot out perfectly good books, for heaven’s sake. No, I wasn’t charmed!”
“He calls it meditation, all that scribbling. Back to front so they never accidentally read a word, until after a while, the words start to lose their meaning; they become abstract shapes. He’s wants his followers to unlearn the act of reading and thought.”
“Reprehensible,” Senlin said with genuine disgust, though his loathing of Marat’s mission did not make him like the Sphinx’s theories about the Tower any more.
“I cannot afford to be a myth any longer. I must reassert my influence. We must act. We must aspire. The time has come for you to go to Pelphia and infiltrate the ranks of the hods.”
“But why me? You think me an incompetent dupe.”
“You might not be the smartest or bravest person I have ever met, but you are astute, and you have a knack for getting out of trouble. You’re quite the slippery fellow, Tom. And I think you’ll make an excellent spy.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Do not allow small people to make large impressions. Do not fritter your beauty upon mirrors. Do not make wishes, for wishes only curse the life you have. Never forget, you stand at the end of a long line of short lives.”
- The Wifely Way by the Duchess K. A. Pell
Edith felt like a new moon slowly filling up with light.
At some point during the waxing of her thoughts, she became aware there were others in the room with her. Their faces were familiar, though she could not quite place them. They were taking excellent care of her; she understood that much. The younger nurse’s hair was cut like a military recruit’s. She had an expressive face and luminous, lavender eyes; she was talkative and restless. The older nurse said next to nothing and was so large she shook the floor when she walked.
Why was she in bed? She couldn’t remember. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, though the question did not bother her a great deal. Nothing bothered her, in fact. Nothing at all.
The young nurse fed her warm milk mixed with oats and dabbed her chin. The big nurse brushed her hair, a little roughly but not unkindly. Edith let her head be pulled by the brush. She liked the rocking sensation. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, the room was quiet and the lamps were turned down low.
It felt like someone was sitting on her arm. It wasn’t painful, exactly. It was more of a constant pressure. Each time she tried to shift to a new position, her limbs resisted. She wondered if she wasn’t paralyzed, but she didn’t feel numb. She only felt a supreme indifference.
Hours passed before it occurred to her that she should look to see who was sitting on her arm and tell them to get off because it was starting to hurt. She turned her head.
A third nurse, dressed in a tidy, starched uniform sat on her shoulder as if it were a sidesaddle. Humming a mindless tune, the nurse lifted a cattle brand from a pail of red coals. She stuck out her tongue and touched the pink tip to the glowing iron. Steam hissed, and the nurse pulled back chortling and popping her dry lips.
Edith wondered whether the nurse knew she was awake. She tried to ask her why she was sitting on her, but the noise she made was only sufficient to draw the nurse’s attention. The nurse smiled and patted her hand. Edith didn’t like her. She could feel the hairs rise on her skin, could feel the blood throb in her fingers. She could feel the whole sensitive bulk of the limb, and for a reason she could not exactly recall, the sensation filled her with sorrow.
“To the count of three,” the nurse said, and then pressed the brand into the soft skin of her arm.
The pain was like a buttonhole into which she narrowly fit.
Edith came awake with a terrific gasp.
Voleta was at her side in a moment, clasping her hand and reassuring her that she was in no danger. She was in her bed and resting, and the worst was over now.
Edith began reassembling her dignity at once. She sat up, politely declining any assistance. Her shoulder was throbbing, but she felt otherwise able-bodied.
“What time is it?”
“A little before midnight. You’ve been drifting in and out for two days. I don’t know what the Sphinx dosed you with, but it was stronger than rum.”
Edith rubbed her face. “Is the Captain back?”
“No,” Voleta said, coming off the bedside. It suddenly seemed awkward to be sitting so close to the first mate. “You really haven’t missed much. Byron has been coming around every few hours to look in on you.”
“Byron’s been examining me?” Edith grimaced at the thought.
“Under supervision, of course. He just took your temperature and pulled back your eyelids and held your wrist for a bit. Once he brought a little dropper of something from the Sphinx because you were moaning in your sleep. We poured it in to your mouth, and it seemed to help. He’s been quite wonderful, actually. I think you should be nicer to him.”
Edith was too dazed to roll her eyes. “Where’s Iren?”
“She went to bed a few hours ago. We’ve been taking turns watching you. Are you hungry?”
“No.” She turned her legs out of bed. The air felt suddenly thin. For a moment, she thought she might faint, and to stave off the lightheadedness, she took several deep breaths. Feeling a little restored, she pulled herself out of bed by the bedpost, and adopted a shaky, broad stance.
Voleta watched the mate’s dizzy stagger across the room with concern, and was relieved when Edith reached the bench of her dressing table without collapsing.
Examining herself in the mirror, Edith felt disassociated from what she saw. Her new arm was as drab as a washtub. All the finery and flourishes were gone, replaced by bulky plates and a pauldron that woul
d never fit in a sleeve. It was larger than her previous engine almost by half.
“It’s different, isn’t it?” Voleta said, her image appearing in the mirror behind Edith.
“He said my old arm was built for diplomacy and only light bludgeoning. It wasn’t designed for the constant abuse I put it through. This is more of a field model,” she said, knocking at the arm. It rang softly and deeply like a cast iron pan. “I’ve never once in my life looked forward to wearing a dress, so it’s nothing I’ll miss. But I wonder if anyone will ever look me in the eye again, or if they’ll be too busy gawking at this— tractor.”
“Nonsense. It’s nothing a nice scarf can’t fix.” The girl tugged at the mate’s nightshirt, adjusting the collar. One sleeve of the shirt had been cut off to make room for the engine, and it made the rest of the gown hang lopsided about her neck and chest. “Perhaps you can ask the Sphinx to update your wardrobe.”
“He told me about taking you under his wing. You don’t have to pretend.” The young woman was still looking at Edith’s reflection, particularly her hair, which she lifted and piled, examining the effect with a pout of concentration. “I don’t understand why you did it. I wasn’t trying to deprive you of anything. I just wanted to protect you.”
“I did it because we can’t keep making enemies of everyone we meet, sir. That’s not going to turn out well for us. Besides, I was feeling like a prisoner, and I don’t enjoy that feeling.”
“Why do you keep calling me ‘sir’ if you aren’t going to do anything that I ask?”
Voleta shifted her gaze from the mate’s hair to her face in the mirror. “I know it’s a conflict of interest, but I think we’ve handled it very well so far. You’re a superb first mate, and I look forward to following most of your orders for a very long time.”
“One day I’d like to take you back to my home and introduce you to my father. Just so he can see I was not the most precocious young woman in the world.”
A soft tap at the bedroom door was followed shortly by the appearance of antlers. The stag had his eyes closed. “Are you awake and decent?” he whispered.
Arm of the Sphinx (Books of Babel Book 2) Page 38
