by Felix Gilman
“Don’t let them talk to Brace-Bel. You know how he is. Say he’s ill.”
Basso nodded and walked off down the garden path.
Arjun had been studying Ivy’s face. She was eerily similar to Ruth, but a Ruth narrowed, somehow, perfected, stiffened— machine-tooled to a fine degree of precision. Perhaps it was the eyes, or the charged elaborate curls of her dark hair; perhaps it was the way she stood.
“Ivy,” Arjun said, “your sisters sent me …”
“Shut up a moment. Let me take a look at you.”
“Ivy …”
“A ghost. A visitor. You don’t look like much. Do you know the way out, then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t …”
“You don’t remember. Yes. I’ve heard that story before. The Mountain, the fall, its awful defenses. Poor old you. How did you get there?”
“Ivy, your sisters miss you.”
“Did I ask about my sisters? How did you get there? How do I get out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well—think.”
It was midafternoon when she let him go. His head reeling from questions and her sharp voice, he walked back across the lawns.
Out of long habit he’d tried to mislead—but he couldn’t lie to her. She was a great deal cleverer than he was, and impatient.
He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know either. He didn’t have the answers. All he had were handfuls of mad images, some scraps of music.
You’re a mess, she said. Go get something to eat. And think. I’m not done with you yet.
He tried to find Stevie, but she seemed to have hidden herself. He took some bread and cheese from the pantry. Mrs. Down forbade it, but he defied her. He ate in the library, which was silent, and echoing, and in fact largely empty of books; it was not an Age for books. The pride of the poor collection were three copies of Brace-Bel’s own works, scavenged presumably from flea markets out in the city somewhere. One of the books was a scholarly edition of Brace-Bel’s Collected Letters, full of condescending annotations by a Professor Kay S. Pooler, who’d lived and worked at some intermediate time between Brace-Bel’s own life and these last days of the city. Her notes tried to explain Brace-Bel’s times by analogies to her own now-almost-equally-distant times, and the main effect of the fat hardbound volume was to leave Arjun headachy and disturbed. He reshelved it and went for a walk.
In the late afternoon a thin grey smoke was still visible over the top of the Hill. Arjun watched it from the second-floor windows on the landing of the great staircase.
Something in the wreckage of the night before still burned. The handiwork of the black-masked men lingered awkwardly, outstaying its welcome.
“Who are they?” Arjun asked.
“Huh?” Basso, who’d been at work on the stairs, rested his broom on the banisters and came to the window.
“The men who did this. Four men in black masks came running past and …”
“Do I look like I know anything about that?”
“Mr. Basso, you very much look as though you might.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I used to know some people. All right. You see, the Black Masks are for the workers. In the old days we used to march, and we used to down tools if the bosses weren’t treating us right, but now when you do that the Know-Nothings come crack your skull; so sometimes someone cracks back. Whoever’s estate got blown up, they probably own some factory where something happened. Or somebody did something. Or something. I dunno.”
“So the Black Masks blew up their boss’s home? Perhaps there were women and children there.”
“Perhaps,” Basso acknowledged. “There’s women and children everywhere. Ask Brace-Bel what he thinks of families. Besides if you don’t …”
“I hear my name invoked.” Brace-Bel descended the stairs from the upper floors like a pale cloud. He wore a silk dressing gown and held a wet cloth to his forehead. “Oh. A fire. Shut up, Basso. Do not bore our guest. He like me is from a finer time. The dull ephemera of politics is no explanation for the beauty of this act. Arjun, the end of time is the condition of the impoverishment of the imagination. Look out over the city for a thousand miles and all you will see is repetition. The same simple figures played over and over on poor instruments. Whoever set that fire interrupted the monotony for a night. That curling smoke is a question mark over the world. An exclamation! Perhaps I should work in fire, not words.”
“Perhaps you should, Mr. Brace-Bel,” Arjun said. “I want to talk to you about Ivy. About Shay. “
“Later, later.” Brace-Bel, taking slow, achy steps, descended toward the main hall.
“I want to talk to you about your devices and weapons.”
“Later. My head throbs like an open pox sore.”
The household ate dinner together. They sat around a great circular table and fumbled expensive cutlery and ravenously dug into Mrs. Down’s beef stew. In the light from the fireplace their costumes cast strange and monstrous shadows on the walls. Stained napkins were folded into the shapes of peacocks and roses. Brace-Bel led his household in a blasphemous toast against all priests and all Gods and all authority and against the nest of vileness that was his mother and mothers in general, who had birthed him into this city and thus cast his pure and refined spirit in that fat uncomely form, a flesh from which there was little escape; and against fathers, too, while he was at it …
His servants made a vague pretense at listening, at first, in the grudging way of employees in the presence of an eccentric boss; when it became clear that Brace-Bel intended to talk for a while they went back to their eating, and whispered among themselves.
Brace-Bel sat down with a thump and a sigh of relief passed round the table.
His face was very waxy and pale and yellow. He drooped and sagged and repeatedly dropped his spoon into the stew. Ivy sat at his left and largely ignored him. When he pawed at her she slapped his hand away; he looked momentarily hurt, and then appeared to forget the insult.
From time to time Brace-Bel’s eyes lighted on Arjun, who sat at the far edge of the table. A look of surprise and shrewd suspicion crossed his face.
Brace-Bel kept his stick, with its strange glittering crystal, close at hand, lying on the table by his wineglass, and fingered it thoughtfully.
Arjun sat between thin pale Stevie, still dressed in grey feathers, and a tattooed young man in a plain business suit. Stevie’s eyes were fixed on her plate; he tried to talk to her but she mumbled and turned away. He wondered what Basso had said to her to make her afraid.
He decided that his presence was unnerving her. “Excuse me,” he said, and he put down his napkin and stood. He circled round the table. He asked the young shaven-headed man on Ivy’s left to swap places, and was told to fuck off. Arjun dug a few coins from his pockets and offered them. It seemed to be an acceptable trade; the young man took them with a grunt and slouched away from the table, carrying his plate and his fork like weapons in tight little fists.
Arjun sat. “Ivy,” he said, “I promised your sisters I would bring you home. Will you come?”
“Of course not. Why should I?”
“Will you tell me why not?”
“I believe in what Mr. Brace-Bel is doing here. I belong here.”
“Yes,” Brace-Bel said. “Yes, we are on the verge of a remarkable breakthrough into …”
She sighed coldly; he blushed, went silent, amused himself by poking at his stew as if trying to murder it.
Arjun said, “I would go back to your sisters and tell them you are happy here, but they might not believe me. I am not very persuasive, as you can see. Will you come back with me for a day, to tell them you’re well? Frankly I think they fear you may be dead. Come back for a day. Mr. Brace-Bel will survive without you for a day or two.”
“They don’t want me back for a day.”
“I’m sure they would.”
“They want me back forever.”
“Yes, perhaps, but …”
“Families,” Brace-Bel
announced drunkenly, “are a curse. I am a better father to my creatures than any they were born with. And a better mother, too. I’ll birth them all into a better world. I’ll sire Gods and Goddesses out of them!” Brace-Bel stood, rang his wineglass with a fork for silence, then lost his thread and sat down again. “Why are you still here?” he demanded, rounding on Arjun, leaning across Ivy—who moved her chair deftly back out of his way—and gesturing with his fork.
“Everyone expects me to disappear. I don’t know why.”
“I wishIcould disappear.” Brace-Bel frowned. “Why are you still here? Ivy’s mine. I need her.”
“I promised to bring her home,” Arjun said.
“She doesn’t want to come. She told you that herself.”
The table had gone quiet. Brace-Bel’s servants flicked their eyes from Arjun, to Ivy, to their master.
“How I can be sure she means it?” Arjun asked.
Brace-Bel shrugged. “Most women do not know their own heart; not Ivy. Ivy is a woman of unusual genius.”
“How did you make your fortune, Mr. Brace-Bel?”
“Money comes easily to me, because I disdain it.”
“Why do the police and the Know-Nothings leave you alone here? They hunted me; when they suspected I was an alien here they were ready to shoot me. You flaunt it. They tolerate you. Why?”
“A fair question.”
“You told me yourself that you have a great stock of unusual devices. Something in your horrible garden drove poor Mr. Thayer mad. I am very unsure about Basso; his eagerness to serve you after what you did to his colleagues strikes me as suspicious. You play with minds.”
“A fair point. I understand your implication.”
“You see, then—I cannot be sure that Ivy’s will is her own.”
“What evidence would suffice to persuade you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you are in a difficult position, Arjun.”
“Yes. Here I am.”
“Here you are indeed. This house does have other work, you know. I am a busy man. Your presence is a distraction.”
“I’m sorry—I must compound the offense. I came here both for the Low sisters’ sake, and for my own reasons. A creature told me your name. A Beast. A lizard. Suddenly the name dragon rises in my memory. Others I’ve told of this have thought me mad, but I think you’ll hear me out.”
“I suppose I will.”
“It told me it spoke prophecy. It did this to my hand. It promised in return to tell me who I am, why I came here, where I must go. But we were interrupted. It gave me your name. The Know-Nothings hold it captive in a cellar under a museum. Perhaps it sent me to you because you can save it.”
“Me?”
“It owes me prophecy. It may be able to tell me what happened to me on the Mountain, how I can return there. First I have to free it. What weapons do you have, Mr. Brace-Bel? Do you have something to confuse guards? Something to open locks or bend bars? I suspect you might.”
“The Know-Nothings hold this creature? I don’t pick fights with powers greater than me, my friend. My position here is precarious.”
“You told me your story. Of course you pick fights.”
Brace-Bel smiled. “I only want to go home, my friend.”
“Perhaps the creature can help you.”
“Now I wonder if you came here to steal my devices.”
Arjun thought for a moment. Ivy was watching him closely; it was important to impress her with his honesty. “I have considered it. I would if I thought I could.”
Brace-Bel’s red eyes narrowed. “A thief,” he spat.
“They’re not yours. You took them from Shay.”
“Shay left me stranded here. I felt myself entitled.”
“I met Shay,” Arjun said. “If I recall rightly he injured me, too. I need his devices, now.”
“You can’t have them.”
“What if I promised to bring them back?”
Brace-Bel drummed his fat fingers on the tablecloth. “I should have Basso whip you out of here.”
“I wonder why you haven’t already,” Arjun admitted. “It’s very gracious of you to feed me.”
“Perhaps I’m lonely. Lonely for the company of men who remember the old days. Look at you! You were touched by the miraculous. I can see it in your eyes.” Brace-Bel reached out and fondled Ivy’s leg. “Not even Ivy, my dear Ivy, can say that. There are things you will understand that no one else can.” Ivy rolled her eyes. “I still suspect that my ritual summoned you here for that very purpose. My own ghost. I will not force you to leave. In fact”—Brace-Bel flung his fork across the table, to clatter against the wall behind Basso’s head—”I forbid you to leave. I wish to observe you. Mr. Basso, please make a note of my wishes.”
Arjun shrugged. He had been unclear all day whether he was a guest, or an unwelcome invader, or a prisoner; it was something of a relief to have his situation clarified. “I don’t intend to leave. I hope to talk to you again in the morning when you may be more open to persuasion.”
“I am rarely awake in the mornings. I have grand plans for tonight’s debauchery.”
“I’ll wait. I can be patient.”
“Has it occurred to you that if I’ve mesmerized Ivy, and Basso, it follows that I could mesmerize you? I could make you forget your mission. I could make you serve me. Does that not worry you?”
“Not especially, Mr. Brace-Bel. I believe myself to be quite strong-willed.”
Brace-Bel raised an eyebrow. “You think your mind is invulnerable? A question, Arjun: what happened to you on the Mountain?”
While Arjun thought that over, the household rose from dinner. Apparently Basso or Ivy had given some signal. The servants flocked, hissing and gossiping, away from the table and toward the dressing rooms.
Brace-Bel was picking his teeth with a silver pin. “Will you join us, Arjun?”
“I … I think I would prefer not to.”
“Shame. You can watch if you please. Maybe we’ll summon up a more sporting and playful ghost tonight. Maybe you will be the first of many. Stay with us and bring us good luck. Try not to vanish in the night.”
Arjun watched the proceedings for a while, standing on the edge of the ballroom in the shadows.
Now that he knew what he was seeing the whole thing seemed rather pathetic and sordid. Brace-Bel’s servants mostly seemed bored. Their motions were listless, their costumes absurd, their steps heavy.
When Brace-Bel started laying into Stevie with the whip—he’d been performing some ritual of obeisance to her with a silver goblet and blood-red wine, and when he suddenly cast it aside and stood, eyes wild, Ivy was there to press the whip into his hand, and she stood behind him smiling, hands folded—when Brace-Bel started with the whip Arjun’s first instinct was to wrestle the weapon away again and try his luck a second time with Basso; but soon the whip was in Stevie’s hand and Brace-Bel was on his knees, a white helpless shape like a peeled potato, and Arjun, not knowing what else to do, walked away in silence. As he left Brace-Bel’s whole household began in unison to rut, with a great shaking of feathers and clattering of jewels and horns and gears and chain mail. Even the chamber orchestra downed their instruments and descended into the fray. Arjun turned at the door to see Ivy, alone, standing aloof from the scene. She smiled coldly at him. Her eyes shone by candlelight. He closed the door and left them to it.
Distant moans and shrieks and grunts followed Arjun downstairs.
In the morning the household felt cold and bruised, awkward and exhausted. Another night’s work and the barriers of reality remained stubbornly unbroken, and the Gods kept their distance.
Arjun took Brace-Bel’s Collected Letters down into the garden and sat with it in one of the shrines. He read Brace-Bel’s long impassioned diatribe against the asylums of Ararat and the priests and judges who wielded the word madness as a weapon against free thought and …
According to the scholars who’d annotated Brace-Bel’s l
etter his accusations were largely unreasonable. But Arjun had spent time in a madhouse, and he remembered the bars; he remembered being watched.
He realized that Ivy was there in the garden watching him; it seemed she’d been watching him for some time.
“How was last night’s … ah … ?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“I remember Brace-Bel,” he said. “In his own time he was considered mad. Much of what he says is true. There were Gods, there were better times in the city, there are doors, there are paths. I have walked them myself. But Brace-Bel will never find them, Ivy. He’s a fool. You’re wasting your time here.”
She raised an eyebrow. He felt himself being minutely scrutinized for flaws.
He wondered what kind of desperation would cause a woman of her evident intelligence to follow Brace-Bel, to remain with Brace-Bel, to put her hopes in Brace-Bel after night after night of failure and absurdity.
“And you?” she said. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
She stepped closer. “You know what I fucking want.”
“I imagine, since you’re here with Brace-Bel, since your own time is what it is, that you want to leave the world behind. To escape.”
“To understand. That’s part of it. Can you help me?”
“Yes. Come home. There are better times out there, and I remember the way. Come home to your sisters, and we can all go together. “
She leaned in very close. Her eyes were the green of diodes, synthetic chemicals, strange stars. She sneered. “You want to be part of the fucking family, do you? If you had any sense you’d run away now and never come back, and you’d go alone. You don’t understand anything.”
Her sudden anger shocked him. Anger and … hurt?
“You told Brace-Bel something about a Beast that talked,” she said. She flashed him a brilliant smile, and for a moment she reminded him again of Ruth, and he was charmed; then he saw how cold her eyes were. “Now that’s interesting. Tell me everything about it.”
He told her. She listened in silence, nodding with excitement, as if the story of the Beast reminded her of something important, confirmed something she’d begun to doubt. Without warning she walked off. He tried to follow but she stalked fearlessly across the trapped and deadly garden where he only dared creep, and he lost her among the willows and shrines.
