She detected a certain heaviness in his manner. He assured her that he had never been on better form.
While a blankey, smelling strongly of meat, prepared their bed, Sam Oakenhurst said aloud: ‘If Paul Minct hopes to seduce whiteys to his cause he cannot know the machinoix. This fellow and his kind are as loyal to their masters as anyone can be. Disobedience or treachery is inconceivable to them. They would be disgusted and terrified if it was suggested. The machinoix never put their own to work on the meat boats. They trust their whiteys absolutely. There is no reason why they should not.’
‘Paul Minct must have some understanding of this. How does he think he can force them to divert the boat and sail into the Fault?’ The Rose shook her head.
‘Whether or not he plans to enter the Fault, he is without a doubt planning to trap us. He cannot see how we can escape and is happy to take his time. Yet why should he go to such lengths to kill you, Rose?’
‘He must be certain. And it is in his nature to make such plots. He knows that I have pursued him through the myriad branches of the multi verse and that I am of the Just. I must put an end to him, if I can. Betrayal is a sophisticated and legitimate art which he practises merely for the pleasure it gives him. But he has another ambition I cannot fathom, as yet.’
‘What did he do to you that you must punish him?’ Sam Oakenhurst asked.
‘He educated me to betray myself and thus to betray my people. ‘ She spoke softly, economically, as if she could not trust her voice for long. ‘The story I gave at Brown’s was true.’
‘And these other stories? Are they true? What we saw at Poker Flats?’
‘Myths,’ she said. ‘True enough. They describe the truth.’
‘And what does Paul Minct describe?’
‘Only lies, Sam.’
With hideous dignity the whitey bowed and left the cabin.
~ * ~
18. MON BON VIEUX MARI
‘WE WERE CALLED the daughters of the Garden, the daughters of the Just,’ she told him. ‘We reproduced ourselves by the occasional effort of will. We understood the principles of self-similarity. I suppose you would call it an instinct. There is no particular miracle in being, as we were, part flora, part mammal. Such syntheses are common to the worlds I usually inhabit. Paul Minct made me cross so many scales and forget so many lives to reach him. The stories are always a little different. But this time, I think, we shall achieve some kind of resolution.’
‘Surely, we are something more than mere echoes... ?’ Yet even as he said this Sam Oakenhurst felt oppression lifting from him and a rare peace replacing it. In combination with what the machinoix had given him, he found still more strength. He had reached a kind of equilibrium. At that moment nothing was puzzling. But was this merely an illusion of control? What she had told him should have dismayed him. Had her madness completely absorbed him?
‘Our science was the science of equity,’ she continued. ‘We were the natural enemies of all tyrannies, no matter how well disguised. Our world occupied a universe of flowers; blossoms and leaves were woven between blooms the size of planets. Paul Minct allied himself with a devolved race whom we knew as Babbyboys and these he ultimately unleashed upon our world. Just before he committed that crime he was lover and I taught him all our secrets.’
‘And your sisters?’
‘Our whole universe was raped. I am the last of it.’
Until then Sam Oakenhurst had been unable to imagine a burden greater than his own.
~ * ~
19. DANS LE COEUR DE LA VILLE
‘WE ARE PLAYING charades, do you see!’ Paul Minct’s mask glittered with a kind of merriment. ‘Major Moyra is in the part of Little Fanny Fun, while Manly Mark Male is played by our own dashing Jasmine Shah! But who shall play the rival? Who shall play Handsome Harry Ho-Ho? You know this one, Mr Oakenhurst, I’m sure.’
‘Those tales no longer fascinate me, Mr Minct.’ Sam Oakenhurst stood just within the cabin door. The three would-be murderers had pushed away furniture and draperies and made a stage of a broad, ebony table, its legs carved with a catalogue of machinoix delights. It was on this that the two performed, while their superior applauded from an asymmetrical couch he had made comfortable with the sanctuary’s afterlife cushions.
‘This is disrespectful to your hosts.’
‘Oh, Mr Oakenhurst, we shall not be going back to New Orleans! We’re on our way to the Fault to find the Holy Grail, remember?’ Major Moyra bawled in open contempt and unhitched her gaudy skirts.
The Rose stepped up, anxious to end this. ‘Crude entertainment for a mind such as yours, Paul Minct. Or is this merely a leitmotif ?’
‘You are too judgemental, Mrs von Bek.’ Paul Minct turned his glaring mask this way and that as if he could barely see through the holes. ‘You must be more flexible. Only flexibility will enable you to survive the perils of the Fault. Come now, join our little time-passer. Choose a character of your own. Pearl Peru? The Spammer Gain? Corporal Pork? Karl Kapital?’
‘I have nothing further to take from this,’ said Sam Oakenhurst. ‘And nothing to put in. Play on, pards, and don’t mind me.’
‘Play for the hell of it, then!’ Jasmine Shah sprawled her painted legs over the table. ‘Play. Play. What else is there to do, Mr Oakenhurst?’ Her yellow eyes were sluggish with guilty appetites. His anticipated death was making her salivate. ‘Taste something fresh.’
The killing ritual was beginning. And so they sat obediently until they were called and Mr Oakenhurst was a somewhat wooden Harry Ho-Ho, while the Rose became Pearl Peru to the life, telling the first tale of The Spammer Gain and how her fishlings were stolen. Enough to distract Paul Minct a little and make him clap his pale hands together. ‘You are a natural actress, Mrs von Bek. You missed your vocation.
‘I think not,’ she said.
‘There, pards, we’ve proved ourselves easy sports,’ announced Sam Oakenhurst, ‘but now we must come to business. We are here to discuss the part of our plan where we take over the meat boat. Are the whiteys bribed, yet?’ Mr Oakenhurst found himself again speaking from impulse. His tone was sufficient to let the enmascaro know that Sam Oakenhurst was making a call.
‘Not yet,’ said Paul Minct easily. ‘There’s time enough, Mr Oakenhurst. Let us relax.’
‘We no longer accept you as our director.’ The Rose swung down from the table as Paul Minct, gloating in a supposed small victory, displayed his surprise. But he recovered quickly.
‘Here’s a better game than I anticipated.’ Mr Minct calmed his two shadows with a casual hand. They were both thoroughly alarmed. Evidently they had not once considered a play made at the opponents’ convenience.
Caged light, fluttering in the woven flambeaux, cast the only movement on Mr Minct now. His body was still as stone. As if he hoped to stop time.
‘This is not like you, Mr Oakenhurst.’ The Rose was amused.
‘Not like me at all.’ He turned to address the enmascaro. ‘A surprise play, eh, Mr Minct?’
Eyes moved like quick reptiles behind the mask. The curtain over the mouth rattled. ‘Just so, Mr Oakenhurst.’
Sam Oakenhurst hardly knew what to do next. He felt a rush of elation. He was in control of his terrors.
~ * ~
20. AIMER ET PERDRE
IT HAD NEVER been in Sam Oakenhurst’s nature to decide the first move. Paul Minct had relied on that while certain the Rose would not make a play before Mr Oakenhurst. But now, equally unpredictable, Paul Minct produced the little OK9 he had once recommended to Mrs von Bek and he took a step back to cover them both. ‘This is not my style, either, as you know. But I’m willing to change if you are. That’s the basis of a relationship, as I tell my wife. No wands now, Mrs von Bek. This beam is wide and I will resort to brute murder if I must. I have a vocation to fulfil. An oath.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the Rose in surprise. ‘This one has a conscience!’
‘I had such hopes for your death, Mrs von Bek. Mr Oakenhurs
t would have appreciated what I made of you. We have a little time before we prepare the sacrifice. Not much, but we must make the best of what God sends us.’ He signalled to Major Moyra and Jasmine Shah. Then suddenly he was still again, as if stabbed.
‘That is the one,’ said Sam Oakenhurst to the machinoix. ‘He is not my friend.’ He watched incuriously as one oddly jointed jewelled hand closed over Paul Minct’s wrist and squeezed the gun free while fingers felt through the beads deep into his mouth and throat.
Rose von Bek looked away from Paul Minct and, with Swift Thom, brought Major Moyra and Jasmine Shah merciful deaths. In the last moments the game had been unpleasantly easy as often happens in a spontaneous end-move. When the Rose looked back she saw that Paul Minct had been returned to his seat. He was not dead, but his cold eyes begged for her mercy. The rest of him had been expertly snapped here and there. He was little more than a heap of broken bones but he would live indefinitely.
Mr Oakenhurst bowed low before his invisible kin.
The voice which came from the folds of drapery behind the table was musical but oddly diffident. ‘We shall put those two with the other meat.’ There was a long pause, then: ‘The broken one is yours, if you wish.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Rose.
‘No thankings, no,’ said the machinoix. ‘Not need. I am the same. Same. You. You.’ In the following silence the Rose said: ‘Where has she gone?’
‘To rest,’ Sam Oakenhurst told her. ‘She has used up pretty much all her strength for a year. What will you do with him?’
‘Eventually I must kill him. I have that much compassion left. But it will take me a while to find the necessary resolution.’
Sam Oakenhurst stepped aside to let the whiteys drag the corpses off. ‘Nature resists linearity. Why didn’t you understand that, Paul Minct? What was your plan? What did you intend to sacrifice and to whom?’ Approaching the couch he reached to Paul Minct’s head and touched it in a certain way, allowing the lips to move.
‘The meat was for the Fault.’ His suffering made Paul Minct obedient now. ‘The Fault is a sentient creature. Five times I fed it. This sixth time was to bring me my reward, for I would be sacrificing the Rose, my mortal enemy, body and soul! And what rarer sacrifice? For the Rose is both the last and the first of her kind. Then I should have been permitted to sail through the golden branches into the Great Cup and know my whole power!’
‘You must tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘It will make me more merciful. How did you plan to take over this boat?’
‘I placed no faith in bribes or whitey revolt. I simply made adjustments to the steering gear. That is why this boat is now on inevitable course for the Fault, under full sail. We shall keep our original bargain, ma’am. But you never did confront me, Sam. Not really.’
Mr Oakenhurst silenced Paul Minct’s mouth. The man’s bravery was more impressive than his judgement. ‘We are to be your sacrifices, still? I think not. Eh, Mrs von Bek?’
The Rose frowned at him. ‘It is either the Fault or drown. Have you no curiosity, Sam?’
‘There are innocent lives in this!’
‘They will not die, Sam. That’s merely a conception of the Singularity. You have already discovered the benefits of mutability. The Fault will either translate us or reject us, but it will not kill us. And there’s every chance we’ll remain together. We must have the will for it and the courage to follow our instincts.’
‘I must return to New Orleans,’ said Mr Oakenhurst. ‘There is a debt outstanding.’ He looked with hatred into Paul Minct’s agonized eyes.
Again, he began to doubt his judgement. What good had his decisions been now they were heading helplessly into the Biloxi Fault? He turned to ask her how much time she thought they had, when the whitey bos’un shuffled down the companionway and crossed to the door, kneeling with bowed head before Sam Oakenhurst and the Rose and not speaking until Mr Oakenhurst gave permission.
‘Respectfully, master, our meat boat is about to be a-swallered by the Biloxi Fault.’
~ * ~
‘Remember!’ she called, as she followed him up the narrow ladders towards the bridge, ‘It is only a matter of scale and experience. You are not a fraction of the whole. You are a version of the whole! Time will seem to eddy and stall. This is scale. Everything is sentient, but scale alters perception. The time of a tree is not your time.’ It was as if she shouted to him all she had meant to teach him before this moment. ‘To the snail the foot which comes from nowhere and crushes him is as natural a disaster as a hurricane and as impossible to anticipate. The time of a star is not our time. Equity is the natural condition of the multiverse. There are things to fear in the colour fields, but not the fields themselves!’
Now he was on the top deck, heading for the bridge, the vast black sails bulging overhead as the freak wind took them more rapidly towards the Fault than ever Paul Minct had planned. The massive presence of the Biloxi Fault filled their horizon, all bruised colours and sharded light, yelping and gulping the ruins of star systems and galaxies as the meat boat sailed inexorably towards the lava-red glow of Ketchup Cave.
‘I will remember all your lessons!’ He took the wheel from the terrified whitey, but it would not respond to his straining movements. The boat dipped and rose on a sudden tide while the wind threatened to tear the sheets from her masts. ‘Help me,’ he said, as the whitey ran below. She came towards him. Then something soft had batted the meat boat into the middle of the bloody blossoming field. Yet the vessel maintained her original momentum, travelling steadily under sail. They could see nothing but the surrounding scarlet. When they spoke their voices were unfamiliar and used new but coherent languages. Sam Oakenhurst felt his stomach peeling open, his entire flesh and bones skinless to the flame. He fell backwards.
He tried to look up beyond the sails and saw something moving against the scarlet. A huge owl. He shuddered.
Now the Rose had her hands upon the useless wheel. Mammalian only in broad outline, she appeared to curl her limbs and cast roots into the steering machinery, as if seeking the whereabouts of Paul Minct’s tamperings. Her scent enraptured him. It was thicker than smoke. Something vicious and insistent threatened nearby and was dangerous, some version of Paul Minct. The Rose pulled mightily on the wheel and this time the meat boat responded, gliding into a sudden field of blue populated with the black silhouettes of mountains shifting constantly in perspective, and then descending into a maelstrom of purple and white, soaring into field upon field of the vast spectrum, turning and wheeling until Sam Oakenhurst had to take his eyes from her to lean over the side and throw up into an infinity of lemon yellow spheres and witness his own vomit becoming another universe in which uncountable souls would live, suffer and die until the end of time, while the sounds that he made would eventually be interpreted by them as evidence of a Guiding Principle.
The Rose was laughing. Sam Oakenhurst had never seen a creature so filled with joy, with the rage of risk and skill which marked the greatest jugaderos. He had never known a creature so daring, so wise. And it seemed to him that some new strength bound him to her, through all the colour-flooded fields of the multiverse. And then she began to sing.
The beauty of her song was almost unbearable. He began to weep and his tears were blinding quicksilver. It was as if she had summoned a wind and the wind was her voice calling to him.
‘Look up, Sam! There, beyond the colour fields! It’s the Grail, Sam. It’s the great Grail itself!’
But when his eyes were clear of tears Sam Oakenhurst looked up and all he saw was a lattice of light, like roots and branches, twisting around them on every side, a kind of nest made of curled gold and silver rays. And through this, with happy ease, the Rose steered the machinoix meat boat. Her hair was wild around her head, like flames; her limbs a haze of petals and brambles; and her song seemed to fill the multiverse.
The meat boat was a fat brazen lizard crawling over the surfaces of the vast fields, following the complex river sy
stems which united them, replenished them, blending with new multihued mercury fractures running through a million dimensions and remaking themselves, fold upon fold, scale upon scale, until they merged again with the great main trunks, ancient beyond calculation, where (legend insisted) they would find the final scale and return, as was their destiny, to their original being: reunited with their archetype; no longer echoes. ‘And this shall be called the Time of Conference,’ said the Rose, bringing the meat boat down into a clover field of white and green. ‘The Time of Reckoning. That, Sam, is the fate of the Just.’
He had managed to reach her and now sat at her feet with his arms around the stem of the wheel. He watched her as a new force took hold of the boat. A sudden stench came up from the holds, as if something had ruptured. She struggled with the wheel. He tried to help her. She sang to whatever elements would hear her but she was suddenly powerless. She shook her head and gestured for him to relax. There was nothing more they could do.
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