by Greg Bear
The collapsed ceiling of the anteroom—or skyling, as the boy called it—formed a convenient staircase from the far wall to the surface. They climbed and stood on the edge, where they looked over each other uncertainly. Jeshua was covered with dark green mud. He picked at the caked layers with his fingers, but the mud stuck like glue.
“Maybe, come fine a bit ob wet to slosh.”
A branch of the Hebron River showed itself by a clump of green reeds a half mile from the tunnel exit. Jeshua drew its muddy water up in handfuls and poured it over his head. The boy dipped and wallowed and sprayed it from puffed cheeks, then grinned like a terrier at the Ibreemite, mud streaming down his face.
“Comes off slow,” Jeshua said, scraping at his skin with clumped silkreeds.
“Why you interest’ in place no man come?”
Jeshua shook his head. He finished with his torso and kneeled to let his legs soak. The bottom of the stream was rocky and sandy and cool. He looked up and let his eyes follow the spine of a peak in Arat, outlined in sunset glow. “Where is Mandala?”
“No tell,” the boy said. “My polis.”
“It kicked you out,” Jeshua said. “Why not let somebody else try?”
“Somebod alread’ tried,” the boy informed him with a narrowed glance. “Dat dey tried, and got in, but dey didna t’rough my dur go. Dey—shee—one gol, dat’s all—got in widout de troub’ we aw ekspek. Mandala didna sto’ ’er.”
“I’d like to try that.”
“Dat gol, she special, she up an’ down legen’ now. Was a year ago she went and permissed to pass was. You t’ink special you might be?”
“No,” Jeshua admitted. “Mesa Canaan’s city wouldn’t let me in.”
“One it wander has, just early days?”
“Hm?”
“Wander, moob. Dis Mase Cain’ you mumbur ‘bout.”
“That’s the one.”
“So’t it don’ let dis you in, why Mandala an’ differs?”
Jeshua climbed from the river, frowning. “Appel?” he asked.
“Me, m’appel, not true appel or you got like hair by demon grab, m’appel for you is Thinner.”
“Thinner, where do you come from?”
“Same as de gol, we follow de polis.”
“City chasers?” By Ibreem’s estimation, that made Thinner a ruthless savage. “You don’t want to go back to Mandala, do you? You’re afraid.”
“Cumsay, afraid? Like terrafy?”
“Like tremble in your bare feet in the dirtafy.”
“No’ possible for Thinner. Lead’er like, snake-skin, poke an’ I bounce.”
“Thinner, you’re a faker.” Jeshua reached out and lifted him from the water. “Now stop with the nonsense and give me straight English. You speak it—out!”
“No!” the boy protested.
“Then why do you drop all ‘thu’s’ but in your name and change the word order every other sentence? I’m no fool. You’re a fake.”
“If Thinner lie, feet may curl up an’ blow! Born to spek dis odd inflek, an’ I spek differs by your ask! Dis me, no fake! Drop!” Thinner kicked Jeshua on the shin but only bent his toe. He squalled, and Jeshua threw him back like a fingerling. Then he turned to pick up his clothes and lumbered up the bank to leave.
“Nobod dey neba treat Thinner dis way!” the boy howled from the river.
“You’re lying to me,” Jeshua said.
“No! Stop.” Thinner stood in the water and held up his dripping hands. “You’re right.”
“I know I am.”
“But not completely. I’m from Winston, and I spoke like a city chaser for a reason. And accurately, mind you.”
Jeshua frowned. The boy no longer seemed a boy. “Why try to fool me?” he asked.
“The chasers have been making raids on the farmlands outside of Winston. I’m a freelance tracker. I was keeping tabs on them. A few caught me and I tried to convince them I was part of a clan. I thought you might be one of them, and after speaking to you like that—well, in a tight spot, I keep to my cover.”
“No Winstoner has a tattoo like yours.”
“That part’s true, too. I did find a way into the city, and it did mark me and kick me out.”
“You still object to taking me there?”
Thinner sighed and crawled out of the stream. “It’s not part of my trip. I’m heading back for Winston.”
Jeshua watched him cautiously as he dried himself. “You don’t think it’s odd that you got into a city?”
“No. I tricked it.”
“Men smarter than you or I tried for centuries before they gave up. Now you say you’ve succeeded, and you don’t even feel special?”
Thinner put on his ragged clothes. “Why do you want to go?”
“I’ve got my reasons.”
“Are you wanted in Ibreem? A crook? A murderer?”
Jeshua shook his head. “I’m sick,” he said. “I was told a city might cure me, if I could find a way in.”
“I’ve met sick pilgrims before,” Thinner said. “A few years ago Winston sent a crowd of sick and wounded to a city. Bristled like a fighting cat. No mercy there, you can believe.”
“But you have a way, now.”
“Okay,” Thinner said after an uncomfortable pause. “I’ll take you there. It’s on the other side of Arat. You’ve got me a little curious. You look like you should be dumb as a creeper, but you’re not—you might even be smart. Besides, you’ve got that club. Are you desperate enough to kill?”
Jeshua thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said.
“It’s almost dark,” Thinner said. “Let’s camp and start in the morning.”
The Mesa Canaan city—the city that had rejected him, now probably to be called the Arat city—had almost finished its reassembly. Its towers rose high above the foothills, glowing warm and sunset-pretty, like a diadem. It seemed to have found a good supply of water in its new valley, perhaps a steady mountain spring. Sensible, Jeshua thought. He made a bed from the reeds and watched Thinner as he laid down his own nest.
Jeshua slept lightly and woke with the dawn. He watched a small insect creep over his chest, inquiring with its finger-long antennae. He gently picked it off, set it on the ground, and cleared his throat.
Thinner jack-in-the-boxed from his nest. “You didn’t cut my throat,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“Wouldn’t do any good.”
“Work like this wears down a man’s trust.”
Jeshua returned to the river and soaked himself again, letting the chill wallop his face and back in heavy hand-loads. The pressure in his groin was lighter this morning than most, but it still made him grit his teeth. He wanted to roll in the reeds and groan, rut the earth, but it would do him no good. Only the impulse existed.
They agreed on which pass to take through the snow-capped peaks and set out. Jeshua had spent most of his life within sight of the villages of the Expolis Ibreem and became increasingly nervous the farther they hiked. They ascended the steep slope of a wandering ridge, up to the snow line, where Thinner’s claim to have tough soles proved true. He walked barefoot over all manner of jagged rocks and broken branches and ice without complaint. At the crest, Jeshua looked back over the plain of reeds and the jungle beyond. With some squinting and hand-shading, he could make out clusters of huts in two villages and the Temple Josiah on Mount Miriam. All else was hidden.
In two days they crossed Arat and a terrain of rolling foothills, which led them to a high, level plateau. As they waded through a thick green field of wild oats, Thinner said, “This used to be called Agripolis. If you dig deep enough, you’ll find irrigation systems, fertilizing machines, harvesters, storage bins—the works. It’s all useless now. For nine hundred years it wouldn’t let any human cross. It finally broke down and those parts that could move, did. Most died.”
Jeshua knew a little of the history of the cities around Arat and told Thinner about the complex called Tripo
lis. Three cities had grouped twenty miles north of the mountains. After the Exiling, one had fragmented and died. Another had successfully left and moved far south. The third had tried to summit the Arat range and failed. The bulk of its wreckage lay in a disorganized, mute clump east of the plateau.
On the far margin of the field, they passed a sad line of bulkheads and buttresses, most hardy of a city’s larger members, still supported by desiccated legs or mounted on decayed wheels. Some were a hundred yards long and twenty feet across. Their metal parts had corroded. The organic parts had disappeared, except for an occasional span of silicate wall or internal skeleton of colloid.
“They’re not all dead,” Thinner said. “I’ve crossed here before. Some parts can still make the walking difficult.”
In the glare of afternoon they hid from an armored, wheeled beast like a great translucent tank. “That’s something from deep inside—a mover or loader,” Thinner said. Jeshua tried to get closer but Thinner held his arm. “Just let it go. I’ve learned enough about feral city parts that I’m not going to walk up and poke it.”
When the tank thing had passed they moved on, only to encounter creatures less threatening and more shy. The young of Ibreem had been taught enough about cities to identify many of their parts, but Jeshua couldn’t name these or guess their functions. They were queer, dreamy creatures: spinning tops, many-legged browsers, things with bushes on their backs, bowls built like dogs but carrying water—insane, confusing fragments.
By day’s end they stood within a stone’s throw of Mandala’s outer walls. Jeshua sat on a sun-warmed flat stone and studied the city. It had a massive, ungainly pear shape, like the old temples called ziggurats. Long, black and orange banners hanging from the towers near its peak were supposed to act like the leaves of a tree, absorbing the sun’s energy, and also like flags meant to convey the city’s purpose and attitude. The banners now clashed with the delicate blues and greens of the city’s substance. Below the banners, silvery reflectors once used to direct light into the interior now cast long shadows.
“It’s different,” he said. “Not as pretty.”
“It’s older,” Thinner said. “One of the first, I think. It’s like an old tree, crusted over, scabrous—not like a young sprout.” He gave Jeshua a peculiar look, as if he might have spoken too harshly.
Jeshua looped his belt more tightly about his club and shaded his eyes against the sun. By squinting, he could make out hints of gardens and fountains and crystalline gymnasiums on the high promenades, thousands of feet above them. The wings of dragonfly buttresses still undulated with slow, in-out beats to keep air moving, and he could imagine a time when the city was filled with people, and sun was reflected through the halls, down light wells, into living quarters, giving all of Mandala an interior luminosity. Despite the jarring orange and black of the banners, the city still possessed an innate glory that made Jeshua’s chest ache. He could almost hear those ancient voices in the wind.
“How do we get in?” he asked.
“Through a tunnel, about a mile from here.”
“You mentioned a girl. Is she real, or part of your cover?”
“She’s real. She’s inside. The city lets her go wherever she wants. I don’t think she has to worry about anything, except loneliness.” He squinted at Jeshua. “At least she doesn’t have to worry about where her next meal comes from.”
“How did she get in? Why does the city let her stay?”
“Who can judge the ways of a city?”
Jeshua nodded thoughtfully. “Let’s go.”
Thinner’s grin froze and he stiffened, staring over Jeshua’s shoulder.
Jeshua looked around and loosened his club in his belt. “Who are they?” he asked.
“City chasers. Rough ones. They usually stay in the shadows. Something must be upsetting them.”
At a run through the grass, twenty men dressed in rough orange and black rags advanced on them. Jeshua saw another group approaching from the opposite side, closer to the city perimeter. “We’ll have to fight,” he said. “We can’t outrun them.”
Thinner looked distressed. “Friend,” he said. “It’s time I dropped another ruse. We can get into the city right here, right now—but they can’t.”
Jeshua swung his club and ignored the non sequitur. “Stand behind me,” he said and took a stance, baring his teeth and hunkering low as his father had taught him to do when facing wild beasts. The bluff was the thing, especially when backed by his size.
Thinner pranced on bandy legs. “Follow me, or they’ll kill us!” he said, then broke for the glassy green wall. Jeshua turned and saw the polis chasers complete their circle, concentrating on him and aiming their spears. He ducked and lay flat as the metal-tipped shafts flew over, thunking into the grass. As he raised his head, a second flight hummed past, one grazing him painfully on the shoulder. Then he heard Thinner rasp and curse. A chaser had caught him and held him at arm’s length, repeatedly slashing his chest with a knife.
Jeshua stood tall and ran for the circle, club held out before him. Swords came up and out, dull gray steel spotted with blood-rust. He blocked one thrust and cut it aside with the club, then killed the man with a downward swing.
“Stop it, y’idiots!” someone shouted. One of the chasers shrieked and the rest backed away from Jeshua. Thinner’s attacker held high a head, severed from the boy’s body and dripping thick green fluid. Though decapitated, Thinner shouted abuse in several languages, including Hebrew and Chaser English. The attackers abandoned their weapons before the oracular monster and ran away, pale and stumbling. The man who held the head dropped it and fell over in a dead faint.
Jeshua stood his ground, bloody club trembling in his loosening hand. Then he walked up to the prone chaser and roughly kicked him in the ribs. The man doubled up, moaned, and opened his eyes, then scrambled to his feet and ran away as fast as he could. Jeshua let him go.
“Hey,” said a muffled voice in the grass. “Come help!”
Jeshua walked slowly through the grass, spotting six points on his forehead and drawing two meshed triangles between.
“El and hell,” the voice cried out. “I’m chewing dirt. Pick me up. Let me see where we are!”
Jeshua found the boy’s body first. He bent over and saw the red, bleeding skin on the chest, pulpy green below that, and livid colloid ribs. Where the chaser’s knife had slashed deep, glassy machinery and pale blue fluids in filigree tubes surrounded glints of organic circuit and metal.
A few yards away, Jeshua found Thinner’s head face down, jaw working and hair standing on end. “Lift me out,” the head said.
Jeshua reached down and picked up the head by the hair. Thinner glared at him above green-leaking nose and frothing lips. The eyes blinked. “Wipe my mouth.” Jeshua broke off a handful of grass and did so, leaving bits of straw behind, but getting most of the face clean. His stomach squirmed, but Thinner was obviously no mammal, nor a natural beast of any kind, and somehow that kept his nausea in check.
“I wish you’d listened to me,” the head said.
“You’re from the city,” Jeshua said, twisting it this way and that.
“Stop that—I’m getting dizzy. Take me inside Mandala.”
“Will it let me in?”
“Yes, dammit. I’ll be your passkey.”
“If you’re from the city, why would you want me or anyone else to go inside?”
“Take me in, and you’ll discover.”
The solid wall parted and a tall petal folded down to form a ramp. Jeshua held the head at arm’s length and inspected it with half-closed eyes. Then, slowly, he lowered it, looked at the gardens within the wall, and took his first step, then stopped, shaking.
“Hurry,” the head said. “They’ll come back. I’m dripping out fast.”
At any moment Jeshua expected the ramp and wall and gardens beyond to bristle with glassy thorns, but no such thing happened.
“Will I meet the girl?” he asked.
Eyes wide and stomach tense as rock, Jeshua passed through the high green wall and entered the city of Mandala.
“There, that was easier than you expected, wasn’t it?” the head asked.
Jeshua stood in a cyclopean green mall, light bright but filtered, like the bottom of a shallow sea, surrounded by the green of thick glass and botanical fluids. Tetrahedral pylons and slender arches rose all around and met high above in a circular design of orange and black, similar to the banners and—now that he thought about it—the marks on Thinner’s chest. The pylons supported four floors opening onto the central court. The galleries were empty.
“Put me down here,” Thinner said. “I’m broken. Something will come along to fix me. Wander for a while if you want. Nothing will hurt you. Maybe you’ll meet the girl.”
Jeshua looked around apprehensively. “Would do neither of us any good,” he said. “I’m afraid.”
“Why, because you’re not a whole man?”
Jeshua dropped the head roughly on the hard floor and it bounced, screeching.
“How did you know?” he asked loudly, desperately.
“Now you’ve got me all confused,” the head said. It stopped talking and its eyes closed. Jeshua nudged it with his toe. Nothing. He straightened up and looked for a place to run. The best way would be out. He was a sinner now, a sinner by anger and shame. The city would throw him out violently. Perhaps it would brand him, as Thinner had hinted earlier.
He heard a noise behind him and turned. A small wheeled cart gripped Thinner’s head with gentle mandibles and lifted its segmented arms to send the oracle down a chute into its back. It rolled from the mall into a corridor.
Now that he was inside the city, Jeshua wanted more than anything to return to the familiarity of the grasslands and tangible enemies like the city chasers. The sunlight through the entrance arch guided him. He ran for the glassy walkway and found it rising to keep him in. Furious with panic, he raised his club and struck at the spines. They sang with the blows but did not break.
