“Listen, you two,” he said. “Keep away from the parapet. Climb the spire if you want to see. Understand?”
“Babu,” said Phoenix, “are you—”
“Understand?”
“Yes, Babu,” they both said.
He leaped off the edge and soared along a southbound street. For a few seconds he glided, and was able to take a quick picture with the camera at his breast. Then he wheeled, driving the gearbox with his legs, and made his way back to the spire.
“Did you take one?” called Mena. She was on the pinnacle with her brother.
“Yes. A nice one, I think. I’ll be right back.”
He left them, going down to his darkroom to replace the paper, and returned. The process was repeated several times. He took pictures of streets, turrets, and various inaccessible details.
By the seventh round the children were getting restless. Phoenix was doing flips to make Mena laugh. Suddenly she screamed and pointed. Phoenix followed her gaze, just in time to see his father dropping from the air, trying frantically to get his wings to work. One of them was broken.
Phoenix heard someone scream. “Babu!” He was the one screaming. He slithered down to the spire’s base, ran to the parapet, and looked down. His father was a huddled heap on the street, moving feebly.
The world spun. He felt sick. The sun was a searing eye and the air was still and sultry. “Go tell Mama,” he shouted, then dashed down the stairs.
When he reached the street he ran to his father, who lay where he had fallen in the middle of an intersection. Zeuxis let out a horrible, high-pitched groan and began wriggling on his side.
Phoenix hesitated, afraid to get nearer. There was blood on the pavement. One of his father’s legs was broken, with a jagged white bone protruding. The camera lay in pieces all around.
His father moaned again. Phoenix fell to his knees at his father’s side. “Babu! Oh, Babu, please be well!” he cried. “Gods, let him be well!” He touched his father’s shoulder.
“Phoenix?” said Zeuxis. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Babu.”
“I love you, Phoenix. I’ll always love you. Always be a good boy.”
“Babu, everything will be all right.”
“Take care of your sister. Be good to your mother. Let her lean on you a little.” He coughed violently and his body convulsed.
“Zeuxis!” Phoenix heard his mother scream. She was standing on the apartment balcony high above. “Zeuxis!”
“Listen,” said his father. “Bury me in the spire. Do you understand?”
“In the spire?”
“Yes, up there where we just were. I want to be where we were so happy.”
A helot wrapped in white gauze came skulking by, casting the pair a sidelong glance. Phoenix called to him and begged for help. Together they were able to get Zeuxis into the building and up the stairs. They met Helen on the way.
While Helen and their helper got Zeuxis on the bed, and Mena stood there watching, Phoenix went and knelt on his mattress, facing the wall. “O divine spirits of flame,” he whispered, “I’ve never prayed to you before. But please let my Babu be all right. Please let him get well.”
Zeuxis died before sunset. He was interred as he had asked.
* * *
The endless stagnant summer dragged on. Phoenix shrank within himself. No more did he leap or shout or sit atop the wardrobe to contemplate the universe. Helen was afraid of provoking a reaction and left him alone. Mena became terribly sensitive, crying at the least rebuke.
It so happened that Zeuxis’ death drove up the price of his pictures. Soon phylites were more than willing to buy anything they could get. Helen began selling them one at a time, holding some in reserve. Mena often went with her while Phoenix stayed at home.
One night the children were lying awake on their mattresses. They had their feet pointing toward the wall because they liked to be in the moonbeams.
“Phoenix,” whispered Mena.
“Yes?”
“I miss Babu.”
“I know. I don’t want to talk about it.”
After a moment’s silence: “Phoenix?”
“What?”
“Why don’t you ever talk to Mama?”
“I don’t know.”
“It worries her.”
“I know.”
“She said today that what you need is a man in the house.”
“She’s wrong.”
“That’s what I said, but she won’t listen. She talks to a man.”
Phoenix got up on his elbow. “What? A man? Who?”
“I don’t know. Just someone she met. She likes him. His name is Brontes. He makes me feel strange. He’s always looking at me.”
Phoenix fell back on his pillow. “Don’t think about it.”
“I won’t, Phoenix.”
They drifted off to sleep soon after.
One day a few days later Phoenix was sitting in his mother’s room, reading at the console, when he heard voices in the corridor. His mother was talking to another adult. He turned around with a sinking heart.
The door slowly swung open. Helen stepped in out of the darkness. “Hello, Phoenix,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”
Phoenix said nothing.
“Come in, Brontes,” she said.
The man from Granny’s store, the big man with one eye larger than the other, stepped in beside her. He smiled good-naturedly, but Phoenix could have sworn there was a hint of a smirk behind it. His teeth were large and yellow.
“Say hello, Phoenix,” his mother said.
“Hello.”
She looked nervously from Phoenix to Brontes and back to Phoenix again. “I have wonderful news. Brontes is going to be a new Babu to you and Mena. We’re going to leave this place as soon as we can and start afresh in another part of the city.”
“He’s not my Babu,” said Phoenix.
“Phoenix!”
“It’s quite all right,” said Brontes. “He’s right. We understand one another, eh? Don’t we Phoenix, my boy? We’re going to be friends, aren’t we?”
“I’m not your boy, and I’m not your friend. We were happy the way we were.”
“That’s enough of that!” said Helen. “You apologize to Brontes.”
“You can’t marry him. I won’t let you.”
“I already have. We just made the sacrifice.”
“We’ll be good friends, boy,” said Brontes. He put his big arm around Helen’s shoulders and squeezed her.
Phoenix bolted past them, past his sister, and up the stairs.
* * *
He found himself in his father’s darkroom. It hadn’t been touched since that day. The emulsion papers were still where his father had stored them. He decided to try developing one.
For several hours he worked there in the darkness, not thinking about anything else. The results were imperfect, but the picture was legible. It was a carved gargoyle spouting lead that had melted in some forgotten sunstorm long ago.
When he went back down Brontes was still there. He still refused to acknowledge the man, but his mother was kind and gentle, and they soon settled into an uncomfortable truce.
Every day Phoenix returned to the darkroom to develop another picture. Brontes was always about. For all the man’s plans, he didn’t seem particularly eager to move. He spoke daily of going to his place to get his things, but never did.
A scale-tree sprang from the pinnacle of the spire, over Zeuxis’ sepulcher. Its herbaceous trunk was scaly and pale, its head darkly livid with touches of green. It grasped the crumbling masonry with splayed roots. Though it shot up almost overnight, the head refused to open. The children grew fond of sitting beneath it.
One day Phoenix went back down to the apartment earlier than usual. He found the door locked. He knocked and got no response. It wasn’t the first time he’d been locked out when they went to sell pictures. There were voices inside, though. He knocked again. Still nothing.
&nb
sp; It gave him a bad feeling. He slid the window open at the end of the hall and climbed out to the ledge. Clinging to the ornate masonry, and trying not to think of the dreadful gulf behind him, he inched his way over to his bedroom window and peered in.
Brontes was there, and Mena was with him.
Something went off in Phoenix’s brain. He slid the window up. It was noisy, but Brontes didn’t notice. Phoenix slipped across to the other bedroom and got the poker they used to stir the brazier. He returned, lifted it up, and struck Brontes, who was crouching, on the back of the head.
Brontes let loose a low, angry whine. He rose slowly and turned. “You little maugreth!” he spat.
“Touch my sister and I’ll kill you,” said Phoenix. He struck a second time, laying the iron alongside Brontes’ jowl. Brontes stepped forward as though not quite comprehending what was happening. The third blow felled him. His fall was tremendous.
“Let’s go,” said Phoenix. He took his sister’s hand and together they fled. They ran up the stairs without thinking and hid in Zeuxis’ darkroom.
The velvety darkness embraced them. They sat side by side, hearing one another breathe, listening for the sound of steps on the stairs. But no steps came. The darkness was pregnant, as in the instant that preceded the unfurling of the cosmos.
They were there for hours, long after the sun must have gone down. They dozed a little, perhaps, but it was hard to tell.
“Phoenix,” whispered Mena.
“What is it?”
“I miss Babu.”
“I do, too.”
As time went on they started to get restless but were too afraid to leave the comforting darkness. So Phoenix set about developing the last of the pictures, showing Mena how it was done.
The picture emerged like a memory from the mists of time. It showed a field of rooftops. A tiny human figure stood at the corner of one, casting a long shadow like a black stiletto. With a magnifying glass Phoenix looked closer.
He jerked upright and backed against the wall. Mena took the glass and looked for herself. It was Brontes, holding a metal weight on a long chain.
“We have to get help,” said Phoenix.
“Where?”
“We’ll go to the hoplites.”
Mena shook her head. “They only help members of the Collective.”
“There’s nothing else to try. If that doesn’t work, we’ll just run away.”
“We can’t leave Mama,” said Mena.
Phoenix didn’t reply. He rolled up the picture and took Mena by the hand. They went out into the hallway. Pale dawn showed against the window.
They went to the back stairs and crept down. On the ground floor they followed a narrow corridor to a side door. But as they neared the rectangle of light, a dark figure stepped out to bar their way.
“Just where do you think you’re going?”
“Run!” shouted Phoenix. He dashed toward Brontes while his sister ran the other way. Brontes threw him against the wall, knocking him senseless, and chased after Mena. He grabbed her and thrust her, kicking and screaming, into a closet and wedged the door shut behind her.
Then he went and helped Phoenix to his feet. An ugly purple and yellow bruise ran along one side of his face. He placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I was going to start with her,” he said. “But you’ve spoiled things.” His hands inched toward Phoenix’s neck.
“Oh, no,” said Phoenix. “Please let us go. We’ll just go away and won’t ever bother you again.”
“And leave Mama? But I don’t want you to go away. I want us to be happy together.” He had his thumbs on Phoenix’s windpipe now.
Phoenix tried to plead again but he could no longer speak. He was sad but not afraid.
Brontes squeezed until there was no more to squeeze. Then he looked down at what he had done, and gave a long, drawn-out sob.
He noticed the paper on the floor and stooped to pick it up. He unrolled it. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, wiping his eyes. He giggled and crumpled it into a ball.
* * *
Mena crouched in the closet, forgotten. She began to explore the space. It was cluttered with brooms and mops and hardware. At the back she found a little door midway up the wall. She slid it open. There was a tall vertical shaft beyond, with a cord dangling from above. A dumbwaiter.
As quietly as she could she ran the box down. It was large enough for her to climb into. It slid slowly down with her weight and came to a rest in the basement. Dim light filtered through the grille.
Brontes was there. He had a white sheet laid out on a table. With a big boning knife he began to work on what lay heaped there. Every so often he went over to stoke the fire he’d started in the old boiler.
Mena watched him strip the flesh off the bones one piece at a time and throw it in a big pot of water. He stacked the bones to one side as he cleaned them. The organs he heaped in a different pile, with the heart by itself on a platter. Everything was red by then.
He went out. Mena threw the grille up, dashed over, seized the still-warm heart, and returned to her hiding place. She got the door back down just before Brontes returned.
For a moment he continued his work without noticing. Then he looked down at the plate and froze. He whirled, peering suspiciously into the shadows. For a moment Mena thought he was going to come open the grille. But in the end he shrugged and went on.
Mena wrapped the heart in her silk handkerchief and put it in her apron pocket. Once or twice she thought she felt it palpitating, but she knew that that was impossible.
She thought of the stories her father had told her of cannibal cyclopes living in high mountain valleys, beyond the coal swamps, where they herded behemothim with crooks of black iron. He’d said there were clans of them in the city, too, living in ruined neighborhoods where no men dwelt, and that occasionally they bore off a phylite woman and begot mixed offspring.
Done with his preparations, Brontes set the pot on the fire. Every so often he stirred it. For hours he came and went at intervals, checking on the stew. Mena stayed where she was, though her limbs ached with crouching.
The day was far gone when Brontes came in with a platter of sea vegetables and trilobites. He dumped the plate into the pot and stood by, stirring frequently. Half an hour later he took the whole thing off the fire, ladled the steaming contents into a big bowl, and bore it out of the room.
Mena emerged, shaking. The bones lay in a glistening stack on the table. A clean folded sheet lay on a shelf where Brontes had put it. Mena placed the bones in the sheet, drew up the corners, and tied them.
She went to the stairs and listened. There was no sound. Quickly she dragged the bundle up to the corridor and from there to the back stairs.
It took a long time to climb to the top. It was sunset when she stepped onto the pavement. Wind from the west lifted her hair. The sun was setting.
She spread the sheet out and carried the bones up to the pinnacle one at a time, placing them in a mossy hollow embraced by the scale-tree’s roots. When she was done she discovered that she had lost one bone, the tip of a little finger. She looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found, and there was no going back for it. Last of all she placed the heart in the ribcage, still wrapped in her handkerchief.
She slid part of the way down and sat there, looking out. Sunset collapsed into dusk, orange to blue-green to indigo. Here and there the descending curtain was pricked by an argent light, a window behind which some actuary or accountant was concluding a day’s work. She hugged herself.
A rustling noise made her turn. The scale-tree shuddered from the base of its pithy stem to its bulbous head high above. She climbed down and backed against the parapet. The tree’s head glowed from within as though enclosing a gold-white fire.
There was a tremendous explosion. The crown burst open in a spray of soft boughs and glittering windowpane leaves. A creature of fire and light shot straight up into the starry sky.
Its form was human, but in place of arms it
had broad wings that beat the night air exultantly. It was clothed in silky scales that were long and soft and pearl-white. For feet it had cruel talons, and cruel, too, was its curved beak, with corners curled in a terrifying smile. Its eyes were vast black pools, and a diadem of gold-tipped white scales thrust back from the crown of its head.
For a moment it beat there, glowing with its own golden light, and then with a vengeful shriek it was gone.
Mena sank to her knees on the pavement.
* * *
When she entered the apartment, her mother and Brontes were seated at the sideboard, eating. Brontes looked up in surprise, then flushed, a strange fire dancing in his eyes.
Helen was angry. “There you are,” she said. “Brontes told me how naughty you and your brother have been.” She took a bite of meat. “This is so good, Brontes. I never knew you cooked.”
“I’m glad you like it,” said Brontes, smiling at Mena.
Mena calmly picked up her mother’s bowl and bore it to the windowsill. Her mother was too surprised to stop her. She did the same with Brontes’ bowl. He seemed amused.
Then she went over and took up a fork. Scorn gave way to suspicion on Brontes’ face. Like lightning she lunged. Brontes jerked back and fell over.
“Philomena!” Helen shrieked. “What are you doing? Are you mad?”
Again Mena tried to stab him. He was on his hands and knees now, scrambling to get away from her. On the third try she succeeded in driving the tines into his lower back. He leaped to his feet with a howl, striking his head on the table, the fork still sticking out.
Just then an unearthly golden light flashed across the window and was gone.
They all froze. “What was that?” Helen whispered.
A lovely strain of inhuman song suffused the sudden silence.
“Whatever could that be?” she went on. “Somehow, it makes me feel... oh, I don’t know!” She held her hand out to Mena.
Mena went and clasped it. They hugged one another. Brontes cowered in the corner, holding the bloody fork.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies #178 Page 2
