“Whatever he likes—especially if he’s the one who got rid of the bull in the sky.”
Drum nodded, driving slowly, conservatively now.
“He did, didn’t he?” Link said after a while.
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“If I knew that, I’d’ve done it myself.”
“Obviously, he’s got you working on something involving the Elshies.”
“Reasonable guess.”
“You think there might be a big story in it?”
Drum shrugged. Then he smiled.
“Sell me whatever you’ve got to sell and I’ll take you home,” he said.
“No, and no.”
“I don’t think the client is going to give you a story.”
“I smell one.”
“Smell all you want. I didn’t really have dinner and we’ve a little time now. I’m hungry. How about you?”
“I could use something.”
“I hope it’s sauerbraten, then, because we’re near a German place I like.”
* * *
In Deep Fields he dwelled. Upon his Throne of Bones within the hall that was called Desolation, he looked into the shattered video monitor that he held in one skeletal hand. By the power that was in him, was of him, he conjured an image. Fragmented and flecked with static, it rose in the hollow between the monitor’s broken glass edges. Something bulked within the image—a mountain, he knew, for it was this mountain he wished to look upon. There was motion, also, but he could not determine what walked or crawled or otherwise made motion on the mountain’s slopes. He permitted the image to fade.
“Phecda!” the Lord of Deep Fields called, voice low and even.
“Master?” Tarnished sunlight falling from the dark-shadowed beams overhead, the copper serpent dropped from where she had watched.
“Fetch me the red cable.”
There were many red cables in Deep Fields, thousands would be too small to number them, even millions would feel the strain, but Phecda knew there was but one red cable that would interest the Lord of Deep Fields at this time. Into the thin line where segments of two equally impossible columns joined, Phecda slithered. Defying the continuity of space, she came forth from a roughly triangular hole in the ulna of one of the many bones that Death was using as a footrest. The red cable that had been one of Mizar’s tails slithered after her, moving in the fashion of a snake by grace of Phecda’s small power.
As Death did not deign bend to pick up the cable, Phecda set it to entwining its way up the throne, making art of the interplay of dry white and plastic red against the contrast of the lord’s black robe. When the cable came even with the left hand of the Lord of the Lost, he plucked it from the eye-socket out of which it was emerging. Instantly, Phecda withdrew her power and the cable drooped, plastic encasing monofilaments and wire, nothing more.
“Thank you,” Death said, the courtesy surprising the serpent, who flickered her tongue out in silvery acknowledgment.
Whether or not the Lord of Deep Fields noted this would be hard to say, for he had returned his attention to the shattered monitor. Once again the picture grew—outline discernable, but detail indistinguishable, too few pixels to the centimeter. At this juncture, Death snapped the length of red cable in his hand and it stiffened into a wand beneath half a meter in length. Death tapped this upon what remained of the screen, breaking away a few jagged teeth of glass, but contrary to all logic, the picture grew sharper.
Now it showed him a vista of Mount Meru, the primal mountain at the center of the universe. It stood stark as the idea of a mountain, holding something in its lines of Fuji, the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, and a child’s crayon triangle with a jagged line drawn at the top for snow. Nor was it unfitting that it inspired such thought, for it was all of those things and more. Some would argue that the other mountains took their shape and their power to inspire dreams of divinity within humanity from this mountain; others would argue that Mount Meru was the synthesis of all dreams of mountains. Death cared not.
He caused the picture to rotate in its frame, viewing the primal mountain from all sides. In a hollow at the very base, he saw what he had been searching for—a dark declivity in which there was motion as of many bodies.
“What make you of this, Phecda?”
In a smooth undulation of coppery scales, the serpent surged up the rearmost part of the Throne of Bones and then wrapped herself around Death’s black-cowled head, cresting like the crown of Lower Egypt on the bone-white brow.
“Either there has been a great increase in the numbers of the lessermost gods, my lord, or someone is gathering an army. I’d bet on the latter.”
“So would I. The cycle has been new begun these twenty years now. I expected something of the sort. There are questions, however, to which I do not know the answers, nor would I be likely to get them even if I were to ask politely.”
The serpent chuckled. “True.”
“I need an agent. Do you believe that the one I have prepared is ready for his mission?”
“As ready as a year or so will make him, great Death.”
The Lord of Deep Fields banished the image from his monitor. This he tossed over his shoulder to land with an almost musical crash.
“Then, I must take him so that his education might begin without too great a further loss of time.”
“On the human scale, lord, the gods move slowly.”
“I have counted on that, Phecda. Even as they have counted on being immune to my reach.”
Together they laughed, a harsh sound, without music, that nonetheless filled the hall called Desolation.
* * *
It was after midnight and it was raining when Drum dropped Link at the corner outside his mother’s apartment building. Link moved to a position beneath the awning and watched the Spinner rise and buzz off into traffic.
The evening after sauerbraten had in some ways been anticlimactic and, in retrospect, now, tantalizing.
Their rendezvous had been on a property belonging to an acquaintance—whether it was an acquaintance of Drum’s or his employer had not been clear. They had finished dinner and headed to the northeast.
Before too long, they had gotten into an area of trails rather than roads. The ground-effect generator hummed and sped them down hills and across fields through dampness and night, while Link struggled to commit every turning of the way to memory, occasionally triggering his microcam toward a landmark and wondering whether its high-sensitivity filter would bring in a picture. He scanned the skies periodically, noting that Drum occasionally did the same. But no Mesopotamian cattle-men were cruising the night in this area.
Another quarter hour, and they approached a walled estate. From a succession of hilltop vantages, few lights could be discerned within and about the massive house or villa. Starlight and a touch of moon sparkled on a small lake to its rear, however, and a small illumination could be glimpsed from a structure near to its middle.
They slowed as they neared the gate, halting when they came up before it. Drum leaned from his window, touched a plate beneath a speaker on a post. When it queried him, he responded, “One drummer drumming.”
There was no response other than the gate swinging open. They drove through, bearing off to the left across the lawn, rather than following the driveway toward a circle before the house. The gate swung shut behind them.
They made their way amid pine trees, coming at last to the shores of the lake. Drum headed out across the water toward the intermittent light within the small structure on the island. As the moon came slightly higher, it became apparent that a series of small wooden footbridges connected the island to the shore in a bamboo grove near the house, zigzagging its pyloned way from ait to islet.
He drove up onto the beach, headed to a smooth, gravelly area, and parked there.
“All out,” he said, opening his door.
“The building?” Link asked.
Drum nodded and began walking. Link fell into ste
p at his side.
They made their way around to the far side of the structure, coming upon a narrow, flagged path just before its terminus at the doorway. Drum halted then and inquired, “Good evening?”
“Possibly,” came a deep-voiced reply from within. “Please join me.”
Drum entered and Link followed him. A large man, who had been seated back on his heels in a kneeling position beside a low table, rose to his feet. There were small windows in the bare, unfinished wooden walls, to the right and the left. Portions of the branches of evergreens passed near, outside either window. Through the one on the right the moon shone. A salmon-colored paper lantern surrounded a light at the table’s center. It cast illumination on the near wall, where hung a scroll bearing oriental characters. It also drew angled shadows upon the stylized demon mask worn by the man before them. He wore a high-necked, long-sleeved kimono of green silk, and he had on a pair of lemon-yellow gloves. Behind him, a vessel of water steamed on a small heater. He gestured toward the table, which, along with the lantern, held a tea service.
“Won’t you join me in a cup of tea?” he asked.
Drum had reflexively slipped his shoes off on viewing the decor, placing them beside the doorway. Link, a social mimic in the presence of those who seemed to know what they were about, did the same.
“Didn’t expect a tea ceremony,” Drum remarked, moving forward and taking a place across the table from his host. Link seated himself to his right.
“‘Tisn’t,” the large man replied. “Nothing fancy at all. I borrowed this place for our meeting, found the fixings here, and decided I’d like a cup. Please join me.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Drum replied.
Link nodded as the man set about preparing the brew.
Drum picked up his cup, turning it, regarding it. “This one has seen many years,” he said. “Lakes of fine brews must have passed through it. It has a pattern of cracks beneath its glaze, as in a Renaissance painting. And it fits the hand so well.”
Their host turned and stared at him.
“You surprise me, Mr. Drum,” he said.
Drum smiled. “It is never a good thing to become predictable,” he said. “Not in my line of work, either.”
“Either?”
“Either.”
“I am not sure what you are implying.”
“It was only a small observation concerning predictability.”
A chuckle occurred behind the mask. Red and green, the demon face turned toward Link. “And this is the journalist you mentioned?” he said. “Mr. Crain?”
Drum nodded, as did Link.
“I am happy to meet you, sir,” their host stated, “though I fear I cannot afford a more formal introduction. Security—my own—is involved.”
“In that case, how shall I address you?” Link asked.
“That depends on the nature of the relationship we develop,” the other replied. “For now, ‘Daimon’ will do, for it is the mask I have chosen in the role of your host.”
“What sort of business did you have in mind, Daimon?”
“Mr. Drum has informed me that you style yourself as an investigative reporter.”
“I needn’t style myself anything. My record would speak for itself,” Link replied, “if I cared to offer it.”
“I am not unaware,” said Daimon, continuing with the preparation of the tea, “that, under a carefully constructed computer persona, you have worked professionally at this occupation for years, ‘Steffens.’ “
“You have been thorough. Why?”
“I watch you not to watch you. I became aware of you because of our shared interest.”
“The Elishites?”
“Correct.”
“Any special reason for this interest?”
“So special that it must remain private. What of your own?”
“I can talk about it,” Link said. “I think the Elishites are pulling something. They’re just too slick not to be. Perhaps it’s something like the televangelist scandals, late twentieth century. I don’t know what the angle is, but I’m sure there’s something there. A gut feeling, you might call it.”
Daimon nodded. Despite his disavowal, it was obvious even to Link’s untrained eye that this was more than a casual brewing and service. Daimon’s movements were too graceful and at the same time, along with his comments, ritualized, as if he were following a script. Half-consciously, Link straightened, brushed dust from sleeve and pant leg. He tucked in his shirttail, ran a hand through his hair, glanced at his fingernails, dropped his hands out of sight, to clean one with another.
“Have you learned much concerning them?” Daimon asked.
“Did my homework,” Link replied. “I read everything from the general stuff to Arthur Eden’s Origin and Growth of a Popular Religion, which was pretty thorough if no longer current. Shame he can’t bring out a new edition.”
“Obviously, it still left you with questions.”
“Well, I’m still not happy with the origin part. But I can understand its quick spread from the precedents Eden gives—”
“You don’t doubt the notion that it was founded in Virtu, that an AI rather than a human received the revelation? Or that its followers feel that it must spread to Verite? That no one knows exactly how its crossover powers function? That its followers feel that its gods will one day manifest here? That the interface will be destroyed and the Verite annexed? That our world is somehow a subset of theirs, no matter what the paradoxes?”
“That does strike me as a little outre. But then, any revelation, anywhere, does. And a lot of the rest is just theology. However, yes, its founding in Virtu seemed more a publicity stunt than a matter of divine choice.”
“Could be,” Daimon said, beginning to serve the tea. “As with most religions, there’s a lot of mystery wrapped around the way it got started. If you buy the thesis that it was founded in Virtu without any assist from Verite, though, it raises all sorts of interesting epistemological questions.”
“‘Epistemological’?” Link asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Having to do with the origin, nature, and limits of knowledge.”
“Thanks.”
“So do you see what I mean?”
“I guess so. But I wonder whether there’s a juicy story in it. Not just an—academic one.”
“What do you mean by ‘juicy’?”
“Well, scandal. Crime. Drugs, sex, fraud, misappropriation of funds. All of the traditional things.”
“I’m sure there is. One can find all of that just about anywhere.”
Link regarded the tea as he was served, pausing for a moment to enjoy its aroma.
“I do not understand what you are saying—or not saying,” he said then. “But it sounds like, ‘Yes, your story is there, only it’s a lot bigger and very different than what you have in mind.’ “
Daimon tapped his fingertips together as if applauding soundlessly. Then he served Drum, who sighed, smiled, and tasted the tea. “Most refreshing,” Drum commented, “to one who found himself, suddenly, half-asleep.”
Daimon served himself, seated himself with them.
“Or, for that matter, half-awake,” Drum added.
“Is it?” Link asked, staring through the steam across his cup.
“I think so, though I’ve nowhere the sort of evidence you’d need for, say, the story of the century. What I was hoping, was that I might recruit you to share your findings with me periodically. My needs are not journalistic. I would not compromise anything you intend to write.”
“What are your needs?” Link asked him.
“Life and death.”
“Your own?”
“That, too.”
Link tasted his tea.
“Exceptional,” he remarked.
“Thank you.”
“In other words,” Link said, “you want information, but you won’t say why or what for. You must realize that this would make it a little difficult to know what to bring you if one
did suddenly have access to Elishite materials.”
“I realize that.”
“…And you seem to be assuming a continuing interest on my part, rather than a short-term thing.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been watching you and I know that it’s more than a passing thing.”
“Watching me…” He glanced at Drum, who nodded.
“I wasn’t walking around the grounds back there for my health,” Drum said.
“How long have you been on my case?”
Drum glanced at Daimon, apparently caught some invisible sign, and said, “Just checking in on you every now and then.”
Link sipped his tea and sighed.
“All right,” he said. “Now what?”
“You don’t think you’re going to uncover a big story overnight, do you?” Drum asked.
“Nope.”
“It could take months, even years of steady investigation.”
“Quite possibly.”
“And you think you’re up to that?”
“I do now.”
Drum raised his eyebrows.
“Because of your own actions,” Link continued. “You’ve made enough smoke to convince me there’s a fire.”
“Well, would you be willing to share the results of your research with Daimon?” Drum asked.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘share’?” Link asked.
“I would pay you on a regular basis,” Daimon explained, “to do me periodic reports summarizing the results of your ongoing investigation into the affairs of the Elishite Church.”
“And not to publish a thing if you tell me not to?”
“No, what I want to buy is a personal scoop. I get it before anyone else.”
“Hm. How long before?” Link asked, sipping his tea.
“Twenty-four hours. Though I reserve the right to try to talk you out of publishing at all in some circumstances.”
Link shrugged.
“You can try,” he said.
“Close enough,” Daimon said, moving first to one window, then to the other and looking out.
“See any flying cattle?” Link asked.
“Not yet.” Daimon turned back to him. “You know anything about them?”
“Only what I saw tonight.”
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