Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

by Jeff VanderMeer

  But what I've told you is close. Close enough, according to our sources.

  ... You may not believe me, Finch-Crossley, but I don't take any of it personally. Not really. They behave as their nature and their situation warrants. I can respect that. There's a sick kind of honor in that, really. But that still doesn't mean I don't plan on finishing what Manzikert started. Because, as you've guessed, we now have a new weapon. A new weapon that is very old.

  They'd reached the far shore, the sea giving way to land. The boat nudged up against a lip of flat rock. Which led to an overhang carved out of the black stone. The ancient fossilized remains of a fireplace out front. Beyond the fireplace, evidence of habitation.

  Almost as unreal as the story the Lady in Blue had told him. The air moist and cold. Finch shivered.

  Didn't know whether to believe her or not. Didn't know if it mattered. Nothing she'd said sounded any more or less plausible than what Duncan Shriek had written in his books. Understood, too, the weight of everything she had shown him. Knew it in his gut.

  Wanted to tell her he lived in a different world. The world where Stark wanted to hurt people he loved, where Heretic could have him killed on a whim. Where Wyte's condition went from bad to worse. All of it gritty and immediate, with immediate consequences. He wasn't Crossley's son anymore. He was Finch, and there was a reason for that. Survival.

  “You're too quiet,” she said.

  “I've heard worse theories,” Finch said. Because he felt he had to say something. Because he felt overwhelmed.

  The Lady in Blue gave him a curious look, head tilted to the side. “Not convinced? That's a shame, because you can disbelieve it all you want. It'll get you nowhere. Now get out of the boat and help me,” she said.

  The shocking cold of the shallow water woke him up. They pushed the rowboat up onto the shore. The Lady in Blue unhooked the lantern, walked forward.

  “What is this place?” Finch asked as his boots found dry land.

  “Wait and see,” she said. Ushered him toward the overhang.

  A cozy little space, sheltered by the rock. A thick layer of dust covered the uneven floor. Looked fuzzy in the lantern light. A welter of numbers and words had been carved into the far wall, all the way up to the ceiling. So many marks that they struck Finch like a cacophony of noise. Made him claustrophobic.

  In the far corner, a skeleton on top of a blanket had disintegrated into a thicket of fibers and fragments. Intact. Yellowing. Human. Delicate, almost birdlike. Curled up in a position of sleep. On its side.

  Looking at those small bones, Finch felt a sudden, inexplicable sadness. “Is that the monk?”

  Words from the man's mouth in the clicks and whistles of the gray caps' language. And then, a sudden and monstrous clarity that can never be put into words.

  “Yes, according to Shriek, that's Samuel Tonsure,” the Lady in Blue said. “This is where he died. A hermit. In exile. Truff knows why the gray caps left him to this fate. Blind. Alone. He must have gone mad in his last years.”

  She pointed to the other corner. To a large pockmark in the floor. Light green. With rings within rings. Like a cross section of tree trunk. “And that's where Duncan was found. We didn't even know that he was human, or alive. He looked to us like a gray cap whose legs had been fused into the ground. When he was brought to me, I don't think he even knew who he was. He'd learned to walk among gray caps undetected. He'd traveled through the doors for many, many years. And then he'd come home here, alone, lonely. To give up being human. Half out of his mind. Attuned to the rhythms of mushroom and spore. Here, by Tonsure's side. Like a dog guarding the grave of its master. I think he thought he'd wake up in a thousand years and everything would be different. Or that he'd never wake up at all.”

  Remembering Duncan's words: “They found me and infiltrated me-I could feel their tendrils, their fleshy-dry-cold-warm pseudopods and cilia and strands slowly sliding up my skin, like a hundred any hands. They tried to remake me in their image.”

  “And you found a way to use him.” An echo of his voice against the stone. A place more like a memorial than a home.

  “Yes. After awhile. After we managed to remind him that he was human. Amazing how long that part took.”

  Finch said, “What happened next?”

  Pain in her smile. “Do you want to know a secret?”

  He leaned in toward the Lady in Blue, humoring her. This close she looked somehow off-balance. Something in her eyes. The faint smell of cigars. Masked by the freshness of some subtle herb.

  “Duncan Shriek isn't dead,” she whispered.

  Then she jabbed something into his neck.

  No time for surprise. No time for anything but falling through the gullet of the skery. Again.

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  9

  ame to: On the battlements of a fortress at night. Gun emplacements dark and menacing.

  Duncan Shriek isn't dead. For a moment he was losing his balance. Then someone propped him up from behind. I don't believe it. Not Crossley, not Finch.

  Cold, with a wind blowing. Above, the heavens, laced with stars that seemed to be falling in together. A wash of silver and gold across the sky. Beyond the walls, a vast empty space. A desert? In that space, a thousand green fires blossoming. He knew this place-he knew it. It had been in his memory bulb dream. Shriek's memories. Bliss was here.

  The Lady in Blue stood beside him again. Surrounded by dozens of soldiers. Intent on moving supplies, guard duty, or cleaning weapons.

  “This is the monastery fortress of Zamilon, or at least a version of it,” the Lady in Blue said, as if reading his thoughts. “Abandoned for many decades, until we came along.”

  Duncan: “Where the eastern approaches of the Kalifs empire fade into the mountains no man can conquer, the ruined fortress of Zamilon keeps watch over time and the stars. Within the fortress . . . Truffidian monks guard the last true page of Tonsure's famous journal.”

  Below the battlements, the great hulking shadows of some kind of machinery. Engines of war flanking a wide road that led to a huge door. Looked like it was made half of volcanic rock and half of charred book cover. Set in the door, a smaller door, and a small door set into that one.

  Painted and carved into every surface, radiating outward, the symbol from the scrap of paper:

  Finch pointed to it. “What's that?”

  “It's part of how we travel through the doors. Part of the .. . mechanism. But it means something different to the gray caps. It doesn't work the same way for us as for them. Thankfully.”

  Turned to the scene beyond the battlements. Furtive movement out there. Occluding the fires at times. A suggestion of long, wide limbs. Of misshapen heads.

  “And all of that?”

  “Those are the fires of enemy camps. Not gray caps. Not human. Something else. They don't know what to make of us. And we don't know what to make of them. But we have to hold this position. Do you want to know why?”

  Felt again like he was falling. “I'm not sure.”

  The Lady in Blue pulled him around. Held him by the shoulders. A vice-like grip. An almost inhuman strength. He understood now, on a physical level, how she had held on, and kept holding on, all this time.

  “You don't have that luxury, James Scott Crossley. That out there is nothing. It's just the latest thing to make us falter, to make us doubt ourselves.” She released him. “When we started out, we didn't really understand. We had to learn fast.”

  “You read Samuel Tonsure's journal?”

  “That and other things. Shriek's books after we found him.”

  “And you learned about Zamilon?”

  “Sometimes by hard-earned experience. But now we know: Zamilon is a nexus for the doors. It exists in our world, but it also exists in many other worlds simultaneously.”

  “And Duncan needed to go through it for his mission? He was on a mission for you?”

  “Yes. But he's unpredictable. We think he went somewhere he shouldn't h
ave. Triggered a trap. I'm not sure we'll ever know what went wrong unless Shriek chooses to tell us.”

  “So it's dangerous to travel through the doors?”

  She stared up at the wash of stars. “It can be. We only use doors leading from or to Zamilon. Anything else has resulted in disaster. We don't know why. But Duncan has no such constraint ...”

  Remembering the Spit: Through many doors . . . The doors smaller then larger, then smaller again. Oval. Rectangular. Square. Inlaid with glass. Gone, leaving only gaping doorway and a couple rusted hinges.

  “Who knows about the portals, the doors?”

  The Lady in Blue laughed. “Duncan Shriek knew. Maybe some people have always known. Ambergris's early kings may have had the knowledge and lost it. Every schoolchild used to know. Because every scary story about the gray caps implies that they can move quickly from place to place . . . So far we've kept it from the rebel cells operating in the city. There's too much risk of them being captured by the gray caps and made to talk. And on the other side, the gray caps seem to have kept the doors hidden from the Partials.”

  “How much do the gray caps know about you?” How much does Stark know? Or Bliss?

  “They know we're out here. But we're blessed by their concentration on the towers. It makes it easier for us to operate.”

  “Tell me why I'm here,” Finch asked. The question he didn't want answered.

  The Lady in Blue's features tightened. She looked away. "What I'm going to ask from you is dangerous. I wanted you to understand fully. So you'd know it in your gut. What's at stake. Because the war we're fighting right now isn't in Ambergris. It's out here. It's about opening and closing doors. Holding positions around places like Zamilon. With the few soldiers we have.

  “We don't have a functional army here.” She gestured around her. “Maybe a thousand well-trained men, if that. The rest are scattered. Twenty thousand soldiers, Finch. Marked by the HFZ and scattered across the doors. Imagine. Each one flung somewhere else, like a pearl necklace shattering on a marble staircase. Only, the moment after that necklace shatters there are thousands of marble staircases and one bead on each.”

  “They're not dead?” Finch, incredulous.

  The Lady in Blue shook her head. “No. Most of them are just lost, and we need to bring them back ... When Duncan didn't complete his mission, when we figured out where the bodies had turned up, where Duncan was, some wanted to cut our losses. Abandon the mission. Try to sabotage the towers. I said no. I said, I knew your father. I knew him well enough to know that, in this case, we could trust you. That you'd understand. That I'd make you understand.”

  “Understand what?” Finch said. “What is there left to understand?” A fury rising in him. “Understand that when I go back I have the secret services of not one but two countries working against me? That the gray caps will kill me if I don't solve this case? That my partner is probably dying? What is it that you want me to understand?”

  The Lady in Blue looked at him in surprise. As if no one had spoken to her like that for a long time.

  “I understand, Finch,” she said slowly, biting off each syllable, “that you are the only one who can get back to the body while they're watching. It's a trap for anyone else. A fatal trap. And you and I both understand now that Duncan Shriek is alive. And I'm telling you that if you can get to him, you can bring him all the way back and help him complete his mission.”

  “What kind of weapon is Shriek? Is he a bomb?” Only thing Finch could think of. Like the suicide bombers the rebels had used in the past.

  “No. He's the kind of weapon that's also a beacon. Also a door.” She smiled. A wide and beautiful smile that cut right through Finch. There on the ramparts. Overlooking the desert. In a place that might or might not be part of the world. “There may be a way.”

  “Just say it.”

  “We mean to force the door, Finch. To hijack it. To come through in numbers. Duncan Shriek is going to find our lost men and bring them through the gate formed by the towers. Before the gray caps can bring their own people through.”

  “That's insane. The risk ...”

  “If we had a better plan, we would use it.”

  “Even if Shriek is alive, how do you know he can do it? Bring the soldiers back?”

  “He's shown us some of what he can do already.”

  “How will he find them?” Each question cut him off from one more avenue of retreat.

  “They are all marked, or tagged, by the HFZ event. Each man. Each woman. He will find them through the doors, and we will return to Ambergris triumphant.”

  A strange light had entered her eyes. Like someone who had been dreaming of something that they'd never thought could happen. And now it was happening.

  “What if they kill me? Eat my memories?” Finch asked. “What then?”

  The Lady in Blue turned the full force of her gaze on him. “What's really bothering you, Finch? Is it fear? Or is it something else?” She turned to look out at the desert again. “Those things out there,” she murmured. “They're gray caps, and they're people. Combined. How? I don't know. Maybe they came here during the Silence. Possible. But even though I don't know, I understand. Because we're changing, too, Finch. There's no one under my command who hasn't been altered in some way. The question is how much you change. Change too much and you're no different from Shriek, no different from a gray cap. And then even if we win, we lose. But adapt just enough? That's what I need from you. To adapt just enough.”

  An answer for everything. Yet Finch knew he'd always be searching for the next question. He felt a hundred years old. Like the weight of everything had piled on his back at once.

  “What if I say no? What if I want you to just leave me the fuck alone?” Stop fighting, some part of him advised. Just fall into it and keep falling. But he couldn't. Not yet.

  The Lady in Blue sighed. “You know, it's no good for the Kalif, either, if the gray caps come through. I don't care who you are or aren't working for. I don't care about your father's spying. I just know you hate Partials and your father had no love for the gray caps.”

  “How are you going to protect me?”

  “We can't protect you. But we can make sure you don't get caught.”

  “You mean you can kill me.” Feeling ill. Realized that in some ways the Lady in Blue was no different than Stark. Apply pressure. Squeeze. Get what you want.

  The Lady in Blue looked somehow both stern and compassionate. In a quiet voice, she said, “I mean you know too much, John Finch. Sometimes we have to take the cards we're dealt and make the most of them. You can't throw away the cards now-you've already looked at them.”

  There it was. Stated directly. Somehow Finch admired her more for it. A bitter laugh of appreciation as he stood there, facing her down.

  “So I have no choice.”

  “If it's any consolation, maybe you never had a choice. Maybe there was never a point at which you could have turned back.” She had the good grace to look away as she said, “Our man will be in touch when the time comes.”

  Finch anticipated the needle a second before it entered his neck.

  When they released Finch back into the crowd at the black market party, everything was different. The sound soared over him at first. Then it was as if he couldn't hear it anymore. Looked for Sintra but didn't see her. Looked for Bosun but didn't see him, either. Didn't know how much time had passed. But the band was taking a break.

  An urgency to the night, but he'd brought it with him. Couldn't get the image of the Lady in Blue out of his head. On a hill. In a boat. At the wall of the fortress. The images stabbed at him, threatened madness. What didn't she tell me?

  Finch crossed the room on unsteady legs. Wary of Bosun. But still no Bosun. Felt for his Lewden Special. Relief. It had been returned to him.

  Made his way through corridors. Gaze unfocused. Seeing nothing. Out into the rain. The towers a steamy green above the tops of buildings. The street nearly empty.

 
Two steps onto the street and he met an immovable force. Bosun, appearing out of darkness. Pulling his right arm behind him. Inexorable, the man all muscle. Felt Bosun's other hand looking for his gun. Felt it taken. Again.

  Bosun's hot breath at his ear as Finch was marched toward a side alley. Helpless as a child.

  “Find my carving?” Bosun muttered.

  Against the discomfort, twisting, “For Truff's sake, you don't have to break my arm.”

  “So you didn't find it.” Bosun seemed disappointed.

  “What carving?” Grunting. Contorting to try to get relief.

  “Stop moving. In your apartment. Left it there while we took the place apart. Would've done in your cat if he hadn't hidden.”

  Another mystery solved. One that didn't even matter anymore.

  “Fuck you. Your breath smells like shit.”

  Bosun just laughed. “Be lucky if yours doesn't begin to smell like blood.”

  In the alley: Stark. With five other men. Bosun shoved Finch forward, releasing him.

  “Finch, what a surprise!” Stark said. “I know you're just coming from a party, but we're having our own little party out here. Glad you could make it.”

  Bosun punched him in the gut before he could react. Fists like stone. Sent him slumped over onto the ground. Begging for air.

  Got to his feet slowly, not sure if he should. Could've used Wyte coming out of the darkness in that moment.

  Stark's face was a vicious half-moon in the dimness. Hard to believe Bosun was his brother.

  “Where'd you go, Finch? Where'd you go for an hour and a half? Bosun says you were there and then you weren't.”

  The question so much smaller than the answer. Contempt for the interrogator. What kind of spymaster came in person for this kind of ambush? Only someone who'd never gotten past the simple art of the shakedown. Came in hard and fast and thought that was enough.

  Not here it isn't.