Sea of Silver Light o-4

by Tad Williams

  "You bastard!"

  Paying no attention to Paul's struggles, Userhotep lifted a jar from the floor and dipped out something black and viscous. He rubbed it across the incisions. It was all Paul could do not to scream as it burned into the raw flesh.

  "I think that's probably poppy-seed paste," Wells observed. "Kind of a primitive opium to help you dream. They have a multidisciplinary approach here, you see—a little science, a little magic, a little pain. . . ."

  "Here is the malefactor, O gods,"

  the priest chanted,

  "The one whose mouth is closed against you

  as a door is shut

  Here is the one who will not tell truth

  Unless you open his mouth so that his spirit

  has no shade in which to hide!

  Give unto me the provenance of his tongue!

  Give unto me the secrets of his heart!"

  Even as he spoke the charm Userhotep sliced at Paul's skin again and again, caulking each wound with salty black paste. His fluting voice was distant, distracted, as though he were reading the minutes of an unimportant, forgotten meeting, but there was a curious intensity to the man's flat, cold eyes: as the pain mounted, they seemed to grow brighter, until the face was all Paul could see, the rest of the room falling back into shadow.

  "See, it doesn't matter whether you believe or not," Wells said from somewhere behind him, the yellow Ptah-face eclipsed by the priest's round visage like the sun disappearing behind the moon. "That's one of the clever things about this network—really, you have to give old Jongleur credit, it approaches genius. . . ."

  "I don't know anything!" Paul groaned, fighting uselessly against the ropes, the burning of his skin.

  "Oh, but you do. And if we play the system right, perform the proper spells, you'll talk whether you want to or not—whether you think you remember or not. Surely you've noticed by now that the network operates below the conscious level? Makes everything more real? Hides things that you know must actually be there, even kills people just by convincing them they're dead? If I'd known how Jongleur managed it all, I would have pushed him out a long time ago." Wells' bad-boy giggle penetrated only slowly—Paul was having trouble understanding, his mind beset by storms of agony and confusion.

  "See, the gods are waiting for you in the caverns

  of the Netherworld!

  See, how they crush the heart of your silence!

  See them in all their power, and know fear!

  The Upreared One!

  The Terrible One!

  Turned Face!

  He of the Coffin!

  She who Combs Out!

  The Cobra Speaking in Flame!"

  ". . . Of course, that's probably why he never let any of us know how it worked." Wells' voice was now quite distant, barely audible above the priest's chanting. Hot cramps pulled at Paul's joints, threatening to force them apart. "What was his little joke-term? Reality Enhancement Mechanism. Get it? REM, like when you dream. But damn him, you have to admit it works. Are you feeling it yet?"

  Paul could not catch his breath. A black fever was creeping through him, hot and thick as the poppy paste, dark as the caverns of the priest's spell, caverns he could almost see, impossibly deep, full of watching eyes. . . .

  "Now, Jonas, I think it's time for you to tell me everything you know about our friend Jongleur." The yellow face of the god returned, floating into the swirling shadows of Paul's vision. "Tell me what happened. . . ."

  "Give me the force of his tongue, that I shall

  make it a whip to chastise the gods'

  enemies!"

  the priest said, a triumphant note now entering the drone,

  "Give me the force of his tongue, that he shall

  hide his secrets no more!

  Make me master of his silence!

  Make me priest of his hidden heart!

  Speak now!

  Speak now!

  Speak now!

  The gods command it. . . !"

  "I . . . I don't. . . ." The priest's voice seemed like thunder in his ears, a din so great he could barely think. Images whirled past, fragments of his life in the tower, Ava's sad dark eyes, the smell of wet greenery. His own words were echoing both inside and outside his head. "I'm . . . I'm. . . ." He could see himself, could see everything, and the past tore open, ripped like flesh—painful, shriekingly painful, as the memories came tumbling out.

  The darkness fell away, dropping him into something deeper still. He heard his own voice speak as if from a great distance.

  "I'm . . . an orphan. . . ."

  CHAPTER 29

  Stony Limits

  NETFEED/MUSIC: Horrible Animals to Reunite?

  (visual: Benchlows entering hospital for presurgical exploration)

  VO: In what even their staunchest fans admit has become a rather bizarre saga, onetime conjoined twins Saskia and Martinus Benchlow, founding members of My Family and Other Horrible Horrible Animals, who had themselves surgically separated a few months ago to facilitate the breakup of their musical partnership, are now contemplating reattachment.

  S. BENCHLOW: "Even after we broke up, we were spending all our time together arguing. My new manager said, "What's with you two, it's like you're joined at the hip," and, well, it got us thinking. . . ."

  M. BENCHLOW: "The whole separation's been utterly weird. I never knew it could be so lonely going to the toilet."

  He said it again, caught on some incomprehensible cusp. The momentary blackness was fading, but his voice echoed strangely, as if he stood outside himself, listening. "I'm an orphan. . . !"

  "Sorry you had to find out about it like this, lad." Niles sounded genuinely troubled, but his face on the screen was as unreadably reasonable as ever. "For some reason the hospital couldn't get through to you there in the States, so they called me. I suppose you must have put me down as a backup or something."

  "I'm . . . I'm an orphan," Paul said for the third time.

  "Well, that's pushing it a bit, isn't it?" Niles spoke kindly. "I mean, I think you have to be an actual child to qualify, don't you? But I really am sorry, Paul. Still, she had a good run, didn't she? How old was she?"

  "Seventy-two." He'd been in America for over half a year, he realized. "Seventy-three. That's not old at all. I thought . . . I thought she'd be around a few more years." I thought I'd get back to see her. How could I let her die alone?

  "Still, she wasn't well. Kindest thing, isn't it?"

  For an instant, Paul hated his friend's handsome face and easy sympathy. Kindest thing? Yes, if you come from the sort of family that shoots its old dogs and horses, it probably seems that way, A moment later the rush of fury was gone.

  "Yes, I suppose it is," he said heavily. "I should call and make the arrangements. . . ."

  "Done it for you, mate. It was all in her records, anyway. Do you want the ashes sent there?"

  It was such a strangely repellent idea that Paul actually considered it for a moment. "No. No, I don't think so. I don't think she'd like Louisiana. I suppose she'll want to go in that place next to Dad." He couldn't for the life of him think of the name of the so-called remembrance park, had never visited his father's resting place—if a cubbyhole with a door in a fibramic wall made to look like marble could really be dignified to that extent. "I'll look up the details and call you tomorrow."

  "That's fine. We're at the Oaks." Which was a breezy way of saying Niles' family were having one of their semiannual bivouacs at their country house in Staffordshire.

  "Thanks, Niles. You're a good friend."

  "Worry not. But how are things going on your end? I had sort of a strange call from your Americans a while back."

  "I know." He debated telling Niles the whole story, but he was already in his friend's debt—how much did you actually owe someone who arranged to have your mother burned, anyway?—and did not want to descend deeper by keeping him on the phone listening to complaints and suspicions and just plain weirdness. "Things are okay here. Lot
s of stories to tell when we get together. A bit odd, I guess, but basically everything's fine."

  Niles gave him a quizzical look, but with his usual deftness swiftly turned it into a smile. "Right. Well, stay out of trouble, old man. And I am sorry about your mum."

  "I'll call you tomorrow. Thanks again."

  He was embarrassed he'd said it in front of Niles, but as the elevator shot soundlessly upward, the word would not leave his head.

  Orphan. I'm an orphan. I've got no one left. . . .

  It was a bit overblown, perhaps—he hadn't seen Mum since leaving England, and while he was there he hadn't exactly moved heaven and earth to keep her at his side once she'd got sick the first time—but now that she was gone, something had definitely changed.

  Who do you have, really? Niles? He'd be just as kind and efficient if it was you who'd snuffed it, and then he'd get on with his fabulous life. "You remember Paul Jonas," he'd say to his friends, who wouldn't. "Chap I've known since Cranleigh—we were at university together, too. Worked at the Tate? Poor old Paul. . . ."

  She met him in the antique study, her fine features so rigid they seemed almost a mask, and gave him a very small, very polite smile. "Come in, Mr. Jonas. I've been looking forward to our lesson."

  He paused in the doorway, disconcerted by the gleam in her eyes, a hint of excitement or even fear. "Miss Jongleur, I. . . ."

  "Please!" Her laugh was a little too shrill. "We should waste no more time! You are already a bit late, dear Mr. Jonas, although I do not criticize. You must understand that time weighs heavily on me between activities."

  He allowed himself to be pulled inside, yanking his hand through just in time to keep it from being caught by the closing door. Before he could even take a breath she had thrown her arms about his neck and was covering his face with kisses.

  "Miss Jongleur!" He tried to detach himself but she clung to him like a creature of the tide pools fastened onto a rock. "Ava! Have you lost your mind?" He managed to get one arm against the firmness of her corseted stomach and push her back until he could get a grip on her shoulders and hold her away. He was shocked to see her eyes streaming with tears.

  "They cannot see us here!" she said. "Our friend is protecting us!"

  He only half-noticed that her phantom friend had somehow become his as well. "Even so, Ava—I told you this was a terrible idea! That it simply cannot be!"

  "Oh, Paul, Paul." Disconcertingly, she bent her head and kissed his hand where it clutched her arm. Despite his monstrous uneasiness, the lunacy of it all, something in him responded with a throb in his groin, a twitch of the serpent sleeping in his spine.

  "Ava, stop. You must stop."

  "But, Paul!" She turned her huge, tragic, damp eyes up to him. "I have just found out the most terrible thing. I think my father . . . I think he is going to have you murdered!"

  "What?" It was too much. For a moment he hated her, too—despised her helplessness and her derangement. How had he got himself into such a terrible, ridiculous situation? Something like this would never happen to Niles Peneddyn. "Why should he do that?"

  "Come outside," she said. "Come into the wood. We can talk there."

  "I thought you said we could talk here. That your . . . your ghost or whatever was protecting us."

  "He is! But I cannot stand being in this house a moment longer. Caged like an animal. Time . . . time is so long here!" She threw herself at him again, and although he kept his face turned from hers, refusing her kisses, the straining, panicky need in her tensed body performed a strange inversion and he wrapped his arms around her, soothing her as though she were a terrified child.

  Which she is, he thought, his fear and confusion mixed with genuine sorrow. They've done something terrible to her. Whatever they've done, it's criminal.

  Her chest heaved against his. At last a little quiet came. "Come outside," she said. "Oh, please, Paul."

  He allowed himself to be led to the door of the study, pulling away at the last moment so that they made a more decorous picture as they emerged from the supposed zone of safety.

  She's even got me believing this, he realized. This ghost, this secret friend of hers. Either someone really has hacked the system or else Finney and Mudd just aren't paying attention. I can't believe they'd find this kind of behavior acceptable.

  The house was quiet, the maids withdrawn to wherever they went—off-duty? Gossiping about their employer's crazy daughter in some modern break room down on lower floors? Or were they hanging in a closet like marionettes, waiting for the unseen puppeteer to use them again?

  They have to be real people, he told himself. The Gothic atmosphere was beginning to make even the most freakish notions half-believable. I've bumped into one of them. You can't bump into a hologram and they don't make robots that realistic. He hoped he survived all this to make it back to England, if only so he could tell Niles and his other friends about it someday, preferably with a drink in his hand. This would be one story that he felt sure none of them could top.

  Ava's breakfast sat untouched on the table in the sun porch. Paul looked at it wistfully, wishing he'd had more than a cup of coffee himself. Once out in the garden, his pupil broke into a trot. For a moment he felt drawn to hurry after her, then remembered the eyes that were almost surely watching; he walked down the path as sedately as he could manage.

  She was waiting for him in the fairy ring, her eyes bright, but not with tears. "Oh, Paul," she said as he stepped into the circle, "if only we could always be together like this. Able to say what we wished without fear!"

  "I don't understand what's going on, Ava." He sat down beside her, keeping a careful distance. She looked at him reproachfully but he chose to ignore it. "The last time we were here you told me . . . you told me you had a baby. Now you say your father is going to kill me. Not to mention your friend from the spirit world. How can I believe any of this?"

  "But I did have a baby." She was indignant. "I wouldn't lie about such a thing."

  "Who . . . who was the father?"

  "I don't know. Not a man, if that's what you mean." She paused. "Perhaps it was God." There was no hint of mockery.

  Paul was finally convinced beyond any residual doubts that she was mad. Her father's controlling obsessiveness, her prisoned life in this bizarre place—a zoo, really, with only one animal—had completely disordered her mind. He knew he should get up and walk back into the house, take the elevator down to Finney's office and resign, because no good could come from such a situation. He knew he should, but for some reason, perhaps the pain hiding behind her gentle face, he did not.

  "And where is this child?" he asked.

  "I don't know. They took him from me—they didn't even let me see him."

  "Him? You know it was a boy? And who took him?"

  "The doctors. Yes, I know it was a boy. I knew it even before I knew I was carrying him. I had dreams. It was very strange."

  Paul shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm not understanding this very well. You . . . you had a baby. But you never saw it. The doctors took it away."

  "Him. Took him away."

  "Him. When did this happen?"

  "Just after you came to be my tutor, six months ago. Do you remember? I was ill and I missed several days' lessons."

  "Just after I came? But . . . but you didn't look like you were carrying a child."

  "It was very early."

  Paul could make no sense of it. "And you never. . . ." He hesitated, caught in the strange trap of speaking to her as though she truly were a girl from nearly two centuries in the past. "And you had never . . . been with a man?"

  Her laugh was unexpectedly loud. She was very amused. "Who would it be, dear, dear Paul? Poor old Doctor Landreux, who must be a hundred years old? Or one of that horrid pair who work for my father?" She shuddered and inched nearer to him. "I have been with no one. There is no other man for me but you, my beloved Paul. No one."

  He was losing the strength to object to her endearments. "But someone too
k the child away?"

  "I didn't know at the time. I had been feeling ill for weeks. I was particularly sick in the mornings. I went to the doctors and they examined me—at least that's what I thought they did. I only found out later that they'd taken away my baby before it could grow. But somehow I knew anyway, Paul—I knew! But I only understood for certain when Miss Kenley told me."

  "Miss Kenley. . . ?" He felt like he had walked into a play at the interval, and now was hopelessly trying to figure out what had happened in the first half. "Who. . . ?"

  "She was one of the nurses who used to come in with Doctor Landreux. But Finney saw her whispering to me, and now she doesn't come in anymore. Miss Kenley was very sweet—she was a Quaker, did you know? She didn't like working here. She wasn't supposed to tell me anything, but she thought it was terrible, what they did, so she told the doctor she was going to see if I was improving, but instead she took me for a walk in the garden and told me that they'd taken out my little baby." A tear trickled down her cheek. "Before he could even grow!"

  "So you only know you were going to have a baby because this nurse told you so."

  "I knew, Paul. I knew in my dreams that there was a baby inside me. But when she told me the terrible thing they had done, then I understood everything."

  "That's a lot more than I can say." The twitter of bird-song in the trees overhead was continuous and loud. Paul found himself wondering how sound could enter into the circle so freely, but their own conversation could somehow be kept secret.

  But there has to be something going on, he thought. They wouldn't just let us sit here and talk about things like this, would they? Unless of course they already knew the girl was crazy and were curious how Paul would react. Was it all some kind of loyalty test? If it is, I don't want the job that badly. In fact, I don't want this bloody job at all.

  Still, there was something in Ava's story that wasn't so easy to dismiss. That didn't mean it was true—the whole thing might be some hysterical fantasy of this Miss Kenley's, foisted on the unfortunately sheltered, gullible Ava—but it might mean the girl wasn't entirely deranged either. And whatever else she might be, she was certainly a victim.