The Digging Leviathan

by James P. Blaylock

  He could just see the flatbed truck parked ahead, along the main channel. The diving bell was hanging from a chain, swinging across onto the deck of the tugboat. The fools! They’d find nothing but death. His mechanical mole had been a work of genius. He couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong. He drove to Ports O’Call Village and parked in a metered lot. Damn the meter. He was above meters. He walked along the docks, just at the edge of a meandering mob of Japanese tourists. There was the tug. The bell was aboard. The tourists pointed at it, jabbered. Good God, the fool Latzarel was telling them a joke. Pinion was furious. He was tempted to … he didn’t know what.

  He knew only that Latzarel and St. Ives weren’t going anywhere. His head ached. Damn the noise! He squinted into the sun at a wheeling gull that cried out overhead to torment him. The pier ran out into the channel and another pier—two others—angled out perpendicularly from the first. Farther along was another identical pier, and beyond that another and another. Pinion’s head reeled with the thought of it. There was a dull ache right behind his eyelids, as if something was shoving against the back of his eyes, pushing them out. He felt as if his head were about to burst.

  One of the tourists waved a camera at the bell, chattering at Latzarel to stand beside it. The man slipped, sprawled toward the edge of the pier, and Latzarel and St. Ives and the boy—what was his name?—gawked over the side. Pinion stepped across onto the boat, barely making a sound on his crepe soles. In a moment, just as the salty camera was hauled dripping from the water, Pinion crept in under a heap of canvas and rope. He lay in the darkness, the sounds from without muffled by the canvas. There was a roaring in his ears, as if someone held a great seashell to either one—the hollow windy sound of thousands of miles of open ocean. He clutched at his head, stifling a groan. It must be arthritis, enlivened by ocean air. He could feel it in his joints—a burning and tearing, almost an itch. His skin crawled. Maybe it was the damned canvas. But he couldn’t just throw it off and pop out.

  The motor churned into life, the tug surged forward, and in twenty minutes he felt the roll of the groundswell as they motored out toward Angel’s gate. Latzarel was full of joviality. Pinion hated Latzarel. He retched under the canvas as silently as he could, clutching his stomach, which seemed to be tearing itself to pieces. His bones felt as if they’d crack apart. He was hellishly sick, but it wouldn’t stop him.

  He was aware, suddenly, of an uncanny illusion. The canvas, it seemed, was translucent, like green seawater, and he peered through it at a sunlit sky as if he were looking out from the depths of a pool. He felt a cool rush of water across him just as a twisting shudder of pain wracked his hands. But nothing had happened. He still lay under the canvas. He reached for the edge of it to pull it back, but his fingers slipped through it as through water. It rippled, sending a swirl of little wavelets across his vision, obscuring the sight of the bowed front of the cabin that was drawn sharply against the sky. The ripples settled. Pinion stared, unbelieving. Just out of the corner of his eye he could see Latzarel bending to some task. St. Ives was nowhere about. Squires was invisible in the wheel-house above. And staring at him, dead at him, through the curved glass of the cabin, was Giles Peach, as if in a trance. A rush of panic slammed through him. Peach could see him. He looked him in the eye. He was watching him there beneath the canvas. Something was desperately wrong.

  He doubled up in pain, then straightened with a cry he couldn’t suppress. He gasped for breath, floundering. They’d see him. Surely they’d see him. Suddenly he hoped they would. He’d die otherwise. His skin seemed to ripple like the canvas. It itched wildly. He scratched at his arm and a line of silver scales popped loose. His fingers were strangely immobile, were joined, in fact, by little fleshy bridges of skin. He clawed at his throat, unable to breathe. The flesh on his neck seemed to be disintegrating, pulling apart.

  He gasped and thrashed, but his screams were airy nothings. And in a moment he wasn’t even aware of screams—he was aware of nothing at all, not even of the startled cry of Edward St. Ives, who noticed the pitching thing beneath the canvas and pulled it back to reveal a momumental fish with fleshy, finger-tipped fins, gasping helplessly in the ruined uniform of an ice cream man.

  “Good Lord!” shouted Latzarel with a suddenness that nearly pitched the stupefied Edward into the metamorphosed John Pinion. But Latzarel hadn’t even seen Pinion, he was pointing at the beach, yanking Edward by the back of the shirt.

  Chapter 23

  Ashbless again? thought William at the sound of his name. But something told him that it wasn’t. It hadn’t been that kind of whisper. It hadn’t been meant to hail him; it was a ghost whisper, echoing out of the dark corridor, neither ahead nor behind him. He slowed, listening. There it was again. “William. William Hastings.” Then the sound of something—what was it?—a razor lapping against a strop, the scraping of leather soles on the concrete pipe.

  How far was he from the shore? Surely not more than half a mile. He began to run. His flashlight had dimmed again to a dirty intermittent glow. William ran on, passing the mouth of a tunnel from which came a shrill scream, a howl that degenerated into shrieking laughter. There was a rush of steps behind him. They stamped along furiously for a moment then gave off into abrupt silence that lasted just long enough to convince William that some fresh horror was about to launch itself at him, then erupted into the clanging of a bell that echoed wildly through the sewers as if through the dark halls of a funhouse.

  The clanging was sliced off cleanly, and in the deep, ensuing quiet the whispering began again: “William. William Hastings,” weirdly loud, as if leaking into the sewers through secret transmitters. And impossibly, directly ahead of him, Hilario Frosticos materialized, stepping out of the shadows, clutching his bag.

  William almost ran headlong into him. He threw himself to the side, his shoulder skidding against the curve of the pipe, and spun half around, slouching onto his hands. His flashlight smashed against the concrete floor and blazed brighter than ever. But it wouldn’t last. William was sure it wouldn’t last.

  He looked into the doctor’s face, searching there for some sign of compassion, of civility. It was utterly blank—a face made of stone. Even its color was wrong—a pale bluish ivory that shone through a layer of powder. The color in his cheeks was rouge. And his hair—it seemed to be sewn on in tufts stitched in neat rows like trees in an orchard. He was ghastly—inhuman.

  His eyes—that was the worst part. They were void. Empty and depthless and white as if obscured by semi-transparent cataracts. What did he look like, wondered William, beneath the rouge? How old had he been when he traveled in the company of Pince Nez, thirty-five years earlier? And who, for God’s sake, did he resemble? Why was William certain that he wasn’t who he seemed to be?

  Frosticos coughed, lurching just a bit, almost imperceptibly. But William saw it. He clutched his black bag with rigid fingers. He grinned, and the grin broke into a fit of coughing and choking. William made a move, as if to run, but Frosticos stepped in front of him, waving the black bag, taunting him with it. What grim instruments did it contain? What hellish apparatus?

  A tear ran out of Frosticos’ left eye, taking a line of powder with it. The flesh below was unnaturally blue—almost iridescent like the blue of a fish. It gave William the horrors. He was frozen there, waiting. He couldn’t think in a straight line. One thought kept bumping up into another, catapulting over it smack into a third, the lot of them piling up in a tangled heap. He watched the doctor’s face. There was something wrong with it. Dead wrong. He seemed to be almost gasping for breath, and he clutched once at his heart, involuntarily, as if swept by a sudden spasm.

  “Where’s the poet?” croaked Frosticos, still grinning in a frozen rictus.

  “Gone,” said William coolly.

  “Peach?”

  “Gone with him.” William was certain by then that Ashbless was miles down the river, deep into a land closed to Hilario Frosticos, no matter what vile powers he possessed. Fr
osticos knew it too. He’d lost Reginald Peach. A look of absolute fury twisted his face, followed by a wretching spasm of pain.

  “You’ll like your new home. …” Frosticos began, but was doubled up by a wracking cough. When he looked up again he was haggard, twisted. He looked as if he had aged fifty years beneath the fleshy powder. William could have run. Frosticos’ power over him was broken. William knew it. He could have slammed Frosticos over the head, beaten him silly. But he didn’t Something was peculiarly, violently, wrong. And William sensed that for Frosticos it was going from bad to worse. He had a look in his eye—a hunted look—the look of a man who’s just discovered he’s made a frightful error. William would wait him out. He gripped the shaft of the flashlight tightly, ready to spring. But he’d watch for a moment first.

  Frosticos’ hand shook as he fumbled with the latch on the black bag. For one grim instant William suspected that his worst fears were coming to pass. He raised the flashlight as if to crash it into the doctor’s forehead. Frosticos fell back a step, waving his hand, digging at the bag, glancing back and forth at William and the bag, sweating in a sudden flood of pasty makeup and rouge.

  Something vital was in the bag, and it hadn’t anything to do with William. Heroin? Morphine? Of course. The false aspirin tablets. Frosticos had miscalculated. He’d chased William through the sewers until he’d gotten sick. But it was happening too quickly, taking him utterly by surprise. He must be incredibly dependent on it, thought William, eyeing the bag.

  Frosticos tore it open and reached inside. William kicked it out of his hands, sending it end over end into slimy black water. Vials and bottles cascaded out, smashing, rolling, spilling serums and pills.

  Frosticos howled—a deep, tortured howl of fear and pain. He turned on William, his teeth gnashing together, his eyes wild.

  “Come on then!” William cried, waving his flashlight, a sudden surge of courage washing through him.

  Frosticos turned and ran at the vials, grasping, gagging, clutching at an uncorked bottle of green liquid that had emptied half its contents into the water. William was after him in a trice. Frosticos lunged. William clubbed him with the flashlight, slipping in a pool. His legs splayed out. He grabbed Frosticos’ coat, pulling the doctor down with him. Frosticos shrieked, kicked, bit at the air. William rolled away and leaped up. He kicked the bottle down the sewer as if it were a football.

  Glass and liquid flew when it glanced off the wall of the pipe. Frosticos screamed down on William, utterly insane, his mouth gibbering nonsense. William danced on the vials, smashing and breaking them, and clubbed Frosticos in the side of the head with the flashlight.

  The lens smashed and the cap flew off followed by a shooting stream of batteries. Frosticos vanished in the darkness. William steeled himself for another gibbering onslaught. Frosticos would have the strength of a madman. But it was too late to run. He had run far enough.

  Frosticos was silent, breathing heavily. He gasped. Something thudded into the concrete, three times in succession, as if Frosticos were jackknifing in the grip of a seizure, banging his head. William yanked off his torn pack, rummaging blindly for the penlight. He found it, switched it on, and shined the light into Frosticos’ face.

  He gasped and fell back, treading on the pack. Frosticos seemed to be a mass of worms. His skin was crawling, metamorphosing. He jerked and breathed in hoarse, shallow, ratcheting coughs like an ancient, tired man dying on a sickbed, Then, with one last back-bending jerk, he flopped and lay still. His face slowly settled, quivering, broadening. Dark hair sprouted impossibly from between the pale sprouts. White eyebrows blackened. His eyes slowly focused on William’s face, puzzled at first, then clutched by a surge of sudden hatred. But they were no longer the eyes of Hilario Frosticos. Lying on the floor of the sewer, his still, dead face wearing a last look of rage and baffled surprise, was Ignacio Narbondo, vivisectionist, amphibian physiologist. William gasped, unbelieving.

  The face began to shrink, changing once again. Skin shredded off. Hair grew out amazingly. There was a quick smell of death and dry decay in the air—a sarcophagus smell, mingled with the weird aquarium smell of fish. The hair fell out in clumps onto the floor of the sewer, and for one last moment, just for an instant that hung suspended between flesh and dust, William could swear that Frosticos resembled nothing more than a gigantic, ancient carp. But what was left staring up at him in the feeble glow of the penlight was the ivory-boned skeleton of a man, its head pushed forward onto its chest by the swerve of concrete pipe.

  William stared at it, his mouth open in disbelief. Surely this was the least expected of the lot of it. But it fit—it fit like a glove. “Carp don’t die,” that’s what Pince Nez had said to Edward. A madness, Edward had assumed. But it signified in some dark way. They had all known it signified; they just hadn’t known how.

  Shining the penlight on the still bones, William backed up, a step at a time, picking up his backpack from the sewer floor. He half expected the skeleton to hoist itself up like a marionette and rush at him as if William were Sinbad the sailor. A scattering of teeth clattered from the skull like dice, bouncing and rolling. William was off like a shot, racing for sunlight. This was no Arabian Nights. This was stark, sober reality. Frosticos was dead. The diving bell sailed at three o’clock. He’d come too far along peculiar paths to miss that voyage.

  His knee, he discovered, had been bounced on the concrete when he’d fallen. And his back felt as if someone had been at it with a hammer. He pulled his pocket watch out; it was frozen at half past two. The water ran deeper in the pipe. He was forced to slop through it. He hadn’t run for five minutes before he was heaving and gasping again. He’d had it—more than had it. The thing was impossible. The bell, no doubt, had sailed. He’d stumble out onto an empty beach and be led away as a murderer. They’d find the skeleton in the sewer and accuse him of atrocities.

  He dragged along, carrying his backpack in his good hand. There ahead, suddenly, was an arced slip of sunlight that looked for all the world like a crescent moon shining in a starless sky. The crescent grew to a half moon, a gibbous, a full moon, and he was out, jumping three feet down into the weedy sand.

  Offshore sat the Gerhardi, riding at anchor. The bell was perched on deck. Latzarel was aboard. And there was Edward, posturing at a heap of canvas. Latzarel had him by the coat, pointing onshore, first at William, then above. He hollered something. Edward stood up. There was Jim at the bulwark, dropping the rowboat. A shout rang out above him on the bluffs. William looked up as he limped across the beach, pulling his backpack onto his shoulders, waving tiredly at Latzarel.

  Two policemen were sliding toward him down the sandy trail. They hailed him, called him Mr. Hastings. They’d call him something else when Frosticos’ skeleton washed onto the beach in the next rain.

  William waved at them pleasantly and loped straight into the water, striking out in a sodden, tired crawl toward the Gerhardi, which appeared and disappeared beyond the swell. He knew they wouldn’t swim for him—he’d become too much the public figure, no longer the head-smashing, begonia-tearing desperado. They’d shout foolish codes over the radio and the harbor patrol would put out of San Pedro. But unless they could dig up another member of the Peach family to pilot them, they’d have a hard time with the pursuit. William bobbed on a swell, treading water. There was Jim in the rowboat ten yards off, five yards. William struggled to haul himself into it, but couldn’t. It was impossible. Jim struck out for the Gerhardi with William in tow. Pince Nez, so miraculously preserved in the sewers, would be a waterlogged wreck. But it had served its purpose. Edward, of course, might despair at the drowning of his sixty-dollar book.

  A moment later and William was clambering up the side, boosted from below. He collapsed forward onto the deck, the spinning sun in his eyes. “Let him lie,” said Edward—a harsh thing, it seemed to William. He rolled over and watched the rest of them hurry across to the far side of the deck to grapple with something heaped there. William blinked
. It was a great fish. For a moment he was certain it was Reginald Peach, but of course it wasn’t. He rose, slumped, and crawled across on his hands and knees. It was John Pinion.

  Edward and Professor Latzarel grabbed the canvas beneath the fish, heaved, and flopped Pinion overboard. William watched him sink, spiraling slowly downward into the deep pool wearing his foolish, shredded ice cream clothing. Pinion twitched and then thrashed almost double as if shaking himself out. He thrashed again, shuddered down the length of him, gave a great kick with his fused legs, and was gone, undulating away into the green depths.

  “Let’s go,” shouted Giles, looking out the hatch of the diving bell, indifferent, it seemed, to Pinion’s fate. No one argued. There’d be five of them aboard—a tight fit, surely, but the bell was built for six. They shook Squires’ hand and helped William in, cutting short his shouted reminder to Squires to look after the mice and axolotl. Even before the hatch slid shut, the bell was hoisted above the deck and swinging out over the water. Giles checked the instruments and fiddled with the humming Hieronymous machine. Lights blinked on in a spray of amethyst and emerald and ruby.

  William dragged off his backpack and rummaged inside. There was one thing he had to know. He pulled the top from the rosewood box and held the box in front of Giles. “I got this out of Yamoto,” he said, nodding at it. “I’m fairly sure they’re not aspirin. Some sort of opiate, I think—heroin maybe—manufactured by Han Koi, but I need to be sure.”

  Giles glanced at the pills as if they were utterly uninteresting, just another irritation. “Of course they are,” he said after a moment. “You’re absolutely correct.” And with that the bell plunged into the water, a storm of green bubbles rising beyond the portholes. The Dean-drive mechanism whirred into life, and a pellet of salt, extracted from the first bit of converted seawater, tumbled out of the Hieronymous machine into a galvanized bucket.