by Jeffrey Ford
That night I fell into a deep sleep from which I struggled to escape. I revisited again my childhood, but this time what came to me were only the scenes of my father's unbridled anger and the resultant early death of my mother. I woke at sunrise, crying into my pillow as I had done so many nights of my early life. What a relief I felt when I finally opened my eyes and realized I was free of it.
After I bathed, ate a light breakfast, and dressed, the mayor and two of his miner thugs escorted Aria to my study. I greeted her cordially, but she said nothing and would not make eye contact with me. I had prepared the lab table with straps in order to hold her down in case she became unruly.
"I pray you are successful, Cley," said the mayor, a note of skepticism in his voice.
I stepped up to Aria and looked directly in her face. "I will do for you what I can, my dear," I said.
She looked now directly at me and spit in my eyes. I took a step backward and at this instant she brought her knee up into the crotch of one of her detainers. With the suddenness of it all, she was able to break free, and she bolted from the room across the hall into my living quarters with the other miner in hot pursuit. She almost got the door closed, but the man was, of course, stronger and was able to pry it open before she could lock it. We all followed immediately.
When I came into the room, she was wielding the knife that had come with the breakfast service and swinging my valise at the fellow who had managed to corner her. ' 'Murderers," she was yelling. The mayor made a move for her, and she heaved the valise at him, hitting him square in the head. It was finally the miner whom she had kneed in the groin who was able to jump in after one of her lunges with the knife and subdue her. They dragged her next door, kicking and yelling for help. Quickly I prepared a rag with a strong general anesthetic and buried her screaming face with it.
The miners were helping me strap her to the table when the mayor appeared, rubbing his head. "Feisty," he said with a laugh, but I could see the ordeal had shaken him.
"Don't worry," I told him. 'Til cut that out of her, along with quite a bit more. By the time she awakens, she will be a new woman."
"Anamasobia was never so strange," said the mayor, staring at the floor.
Then I told them to leave and come back the next afternoon.
I put pads beneath her head in order to catch the blood that would result from my cuts, and then fitted her with a headband that had a long piece of cotton attached to it that could be flipped back over her skull while I worked and then brought down over the face in order to mop up the gore that might obscure the area of flesh I intended for incision. With this completed, I methodically laid out my scalpels and picks and clamps, and then brought out the drawing of the new Aria. Through the night, as I had worked on it under the gaze of the beauty, that picture had spoken words of love to me. I was determined for it to become more than an illusion.
The scalpel ploughed smoothly through the skin of her left cheek, and with this first pass, I could feel nothing but the ultimate success of the experiment. I whistled a tune that was popular in the Weil-Built City just prior to my departure, a sweet ditty about endless devotion, as I leveled her willful lower lip. 'There goes that vain intelligence," I whispered to her sleeping form while scoring the upper lids of her eyes. I relieved her nose of a weight of cartilage that I knew was at the root of her troublesome curiosity. There was no other choice with those haughty cheekbones but to employ the chrome mallet. My concentration became so intense that all I could see was her face, and it became like the topography of some untamed country that I manipulated from above with artistic finesse and a transcendent vision of perfection. It was all a matter of subtraction, and for a time I wished that the sublime mathematics would never end.
I had worked diligently through the morning and well into the afternoon, taking no break for lunch, when I began to lose my way. The map I carried in my head of where I wanted to end up, began to lose its clarity. My self-assurance flickered in and out like a flame in the wind. It was the telltale itching of my skull that let me know I was in need of the beauty. I reasoned that with the drug to bolster my innate genius, I could easily finish the job successfully by dinnertime. Besides, I cwrfd not go on without it, because the chills were beginning to run through me, making my sight wobble and my hands shake. I set down the scalpel and went next door for a fix.
I found my valise on the floor where it had landed after making contact with the mayor's head. The thought of that actually brought a smile to my lips as I opened it. I pulled out an unused vial, and to my horror found that it was cracked and empty. Frantically, I pulled out another and found it in the same condition. Then I noticed that there was a violet puddle on the floor. All of the vials were broken. I was without sheer beauty, and the pains of withdrawal were breaking out all over my body like the blows of an invisible enemy. I groaned, but my mind screamed and then dove straight down into a turbulent ocean of confusion and fear. The only thing that kept me from passing out was the thought that I could not leave Aria in the state she was. If I were to fail to retrieve the fruit, it would surely mean my life.
I staggered across the hall, determined to finish the job before I lost all my senses. My mind was already reeling so terribly I could barely stay on my feet. I held myself up with one hand resting on the lab table and with the other I lifted the scalpel and tried to concentrate amid the quaking of my internal organs. The first shivering cut I made I knew was wrong, but there was no erasing here. I pushed on in an attempt to make another cut that would offset the one I had just made. This became a trap, and I pictured myself running headlong, deeper and deeper into a labyrinth from which there was no possible escape. My earlier precise incisions now became a desperate slashing, and the blood flowed freely, sometimes spurting across my shirt. Droplets of it momentarily blinded me. They landed on my lips, and the taste of it brought me to my knees. I struggled back to my feet, fighting off the flashes of blankness that turned my mind into a ball of night.
I continued like this, basically unconscious for some time, before, far off at a great distance, I heard myself scream in agony. Then I fell through the nausea, the freezing and burning of the chills, the tearing of my brain, the silence of my heart to a place I supposed was death but unfortunately wasn't.
I got an urgent message from the mayor that there was one more person I should definitely read before making my ultimate decision. "At this time of night?" I said to Mantakis, who was carrying his feather duster.
I put on my topcoat and took my bag of instruments. It was again snowing hard outside, and I only made the slowest headway down the street in the face of the fierce gales. The children had been out in the storm, I could tell, because the street was lined along both sides with frozen effigies of the Traveler. They appeared every now and then from behind the driving blizzard, staring down with cold eyes like a gauntlet of righteous judges. I trudged along for what seemed an eternity through the murmuring, twirling dark, and then suddenly I had arrived.
I knew I was going to trip and fall on the bottom step leading to the church and I did. Opening the big, crooked door that creaked with sounds of mirth, I entered. I took it slowly over the bridge, which seemed more unsteady than ever. In the altar chamber, only half the torches were lit. "Hello," I called, but there was no answer. The screen had again been set up, and the chairs we had used for the reading were sitting in the same positions.
"Hello," I called. In the dim light of the torches, the arms and faces of the hardened heroes appeared now to be flesh instead of stone. Either the wind outside or the echo of my own breath created a faint sound of breathing as if the church itself had life. The eyes of the painted God stared down on me.
From behind the screen came the sound of someone coughing.
"Hello there," I said. "Why didn't you answer?"
I set down my bag, took my coat off, and went to view the subject. As I stepped behind the screen, the torches blew out, bringing instant night. In a panic, I took a step forward.
I felt two hands grab my wrists and pull me in. My hands were placed on a face and were made to glide over the features. At first it was all too unusual, but I felt the owner of the hands would do me no harm. Then the Physiognomy took over—math turning numbers to images in a most brilliant display of color in my mind. My body began to vibrate with energy as if I had become a machine.
Suddenly, the torches rekindled, shedding their blurred light. I found myself with my arms out, my hands manipulating thin air. This angered me greatly. In a fury, I put my coat on and grabbed my bag. Back out into the storm I went, muttering invectives at Anamasobia as I stumbled through another eternity.
I woke all too suddenly from the dream and could tell it was early the next morning by the bright light that streamed in through the window. I was shaky and nauseous and had a headache that nearly blinded me. Still, from where I sat in the chair by the small table Aria and I had shared dinner at a few nights ago, I could see her form. The cotton cloth that was attached to her head, now reddish brown with dried blood, was draped over her face. I could detect, by the gentle movement of her chest that she was still alive. I wanted to get up and see what I had done to her, but I was still too weak to move.
At first, I thought that it was all in my mind. Then I realized that the screaming voices I heard were not coming from the Mantakises but from out in the street. There was a great commotion going on somewhere, and if I was not mistaken there was the sound of either gunshots or fireworks. My first inclination was to think that perhaps the town was celebrating in their belief that the white fruit would soon be restored to the altar of the church. I wondered through the fog of my illness if perhaps I might not have been successful and that everything still might work out well, when I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading to my rooms.
I had no time to try to get up before the door to my study burst open. It was Garland.
' 'My god, what have you done?" he said, seeing Aria laid out on the table, her head surrounded by the bloody pads.
I reached into the pocket of my trousers for the derringer, but then remembered that I had left it in my topcoat the day before. I was about to yell at him to get out, when another figure appeared in the doorway. I thought it might be Calloo, judging from the size of him, but then my eyes focused and I saw the Traveler bending his head down in order to pass through the opening. What made the scene even more fantastic was that the thin, brown creature carried in one arm a baby swaddled in blankets.
"What kind of a circus act is this?" I asked, trying to sound powerful from within the cloud bank of withdrawal.
Garland walked over to stand before me, but I paid no attention to him. My eyes were on the Traveler, the way he moved, his long braided hair, the unearthly look of calm on his face.
"Your Master, the great Drachton Below, is here in Anama-sobia," said the father.
"What?" I said. Now Garland had my full attention.
"Oh yes," he said. "His soldiers are systematically murdering everyone. He has with him some wolfen creature that has torn the throats out of women and children. Hell has come to the territory."
"But how does this thing live?" I asked, pointing to the Traveler, who smiled gently at me.
"The fruit. I fed him one single bite of the fruit weeks ago when I first took it from the altar. Since then he has been recovering slowly. When you applied your ridiculous instruments to him, he was already well on his way back to life."
"So, Aria was right," I said. "The Physiognomy was right."
"When I ran at the altar and you kicked me, I was trying to confess, to spare her the consequences of having foolishly become involved with you. I can't waste my time on you," he said. "We are taking the girl and heading for Wenau. You, on the other hand, must go down and take your bullet. You're a vain, stupid, man, Cley. I would have killed you myself, but I think it more appropriate that your Master do it for me."
Everything was moving too fast for me to protest or even get out of the chair, and the sight of the Traveler paralyzed me with a fear, not for my safety but that the world could be so absolutely strange. They walked over, one on each side of the lab table. The baby began to cry and the Traveler softly touched the child's forehead, quieting it.
"Let's see what horror your nonsense has created," said the father. He reached out and lifted the cotton veil that covered Aria's face. The Traveler automatically brought up one of his huge hands to shield his sight as if the girl's visage were a blinding beacon. Garland was not so quick. Taking the invisible blast full in the face, it snapped his head back. He fell to the floor, and with a groan, expired, blood trickling from his nose and the corner of his gaping mouth. The holy man's face was transfixed with a look of absolute horror I had to turn away from.
With his free hand, the Traveler reached into a small pouch he wore around his waist and took out the white fruit. He gracefully brought it to his mouth and took a bite. Then he put the fruit away, took the piece from his mouth, and forced it between Aria's lips, all without casting a glance at her. Instead, he looked into my own eyes and told me silently but as clearly as if he were speaking that what I had wrought through my work was the very face of Death.
I cringed in my chair like a child, unable to look away from him. Then, I don't know where he found the strength in his willowy frame, but after replacing the cotton veil over her face he lifted her with one arm and slung her over his shoulder. Now carrying the baby in one arm and with Aria's form draped over him, he walked lightly to the window. There, he lifted one of his enormous feet and kicked the glass out with two well-placed blows. I could hear the shards breaking against the wooden sidewalk four stories below. With his passengers still secure in his grasp, he stepped up onto the windowsill and crouched so that his height fit into the opening.
"No," I said, knowing what he was about to do.
He turned his face to me and smiled.
I jumped out of my chair in order to try to stop him, my head pounding and my intestines tightening like a fist. I took three steps and then fell over the body of Garland. On my way to the floor, I watched them fall. I listened but did not hear anything hit the ground. With all my strength, I scrabbled to my feet and made my way to the window. Looking straight down, I expected to see them all sprawled like broken dolls on the walk. Instead, I saw nothing. They had vanished.
The fact that the ugliness I had projected onto Aria's face had killed Garland was too much for me to accept. I knew, even through the dizziness, as I staggered to the lab table and vomited, that he had been right and that, at this point, the Master would kill me as if I were just one more piece of human trash from the territory. My only chance was to try to make it out of town and hide in the surrounding forest. This seemed rather unlikely, considering the condition I was in. I had a feeling that it was over, the end of the line. I wanted to cry, seeing how far I had fallen in one short week. He was right: I was a vain and stupid man. One cannot serve a monster and expect not to be devoured someday. As I straightened up and cleaned myself off, my first thought was that worse than death would be my being sent to the sulphur mines. If I was to be brought back to the Weil-Built City for trial, I would have to find a way to commit suicide.
I left the room and staggered down the stairs to the lobby. There, lying in the middle of the floor, beneath the broken-down chandelier, were Mr. and Mrs. Mantakis, dead in each other's arms. A pool of their commingled blood spread out around them. It looked as if they each had been shot no less than twenty times. I stepped past them and could not believe that I felt a pang of remorse. Unbelievably, actual tears were welling in my eyes. I ran past them and pushed through the front door, knowing that the gruesome tableau I fled was a fraction of what Garland had seen in Aria's face.
Outside, the morning sun blinded me for a few moments as I tottered down the street, reeling from the aching of my head and joints. The continuing pains of withdrawal weTe era>wgh to make a bullet seem welcome. As my vision cleared, I saw bodies strewn everywhere in the street, fresh
blood turning the fallen snow a deep red. Up by the church, I could make out the uniformed soldiers of the city. Gunshots sounded, and those without uniforms fell face first in a race to the ground. Flames billowed from the tops of buildings, devouring gray wood, and thick smoke spewed forth from the broken windows of the bank.
"Cley," I heard a familiar voice yell. I turned and saw the Master standing a hundred yards away. He was dressed in furs and wore a broad smile. Greta Sykes strained at a golden leash he held tightly. He waved to me. "It's been nice working with you," he called over the din of the mayhem. I saw him crouch down then, and he appeared to be whispering something in the werewolf's ear. Even from the considerable distance that separated us, I could see she looked exactly as she had in that vision or dream in which I had met them in the mines of Gronus. Then he unhooked her collar and she was dashing toward me.
I turned and tried to run, but at that very moment the coach and four came charging out from the alley between the bank and the theater. I lost all my will to live, knowing I was trapped. The breath left me in one great torrent as I prepared myself for the sharp fangs and long-suppressed revenge of Greta Sykes.
"Cley," I then heard another familiar voice call. I looked up and saw that the driver of the coach was not the Master's porcine henchman as I had expected but instead Bataldo. I thought I was going to be crushed beneath the horses' hooves and the wheels, but at the last moment, they swerved to my left and came to an abrupt stop. "Get in," said the mayor.
For a second, I could not move. When I did, it was to turn and see the werewolf push off the ground fifteen yards away, springing directly at my throat. The door of the coach opened and out stepped Calloo. He strode over and grabbed me with one hand, pulling me back out of the way. Then turning with a grace and precision I would not believe him capable of, he made a fist and drove it into the side of Greta Sykes' head, burying one of her metal bolts deep beneath the skull. She shorted out on the ground before my eyes, jerking, sparking, spewing yellow liquid as he dragged me to the coach and threw me inside. The door closed with a bang and the horses responded. We flew past the sound of whizzing bullets, children screaming, the Master laughing eternally deep behind my eyes.
