World Enough, and Time

by James Kahn

  Josh looked askance. “My race isn’t vanishing. What do you mean?”

  “You are the last of your breed, I’m afraid. There we’re few enough of you left in the time the Ice Age began, after the Clone Wars, and now … well. You’re at a dead end, I’m afraid. Between the Scylla of glacial Ice that creeps ever closer and the Charybdis of all the ingenious, diabolical predators you genetically engineered. We’re all quite fortunate, in a way, to be witnessing the demise—a remarkable piece of evolutionary history is concluding right—-”

  “Stop!” Josh quietly commanded, holding her arm, fear and disbelief on his face.

  She stopped, fastened her gaze to his for a long moment, reflected from inside her cloud. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She drew on her opium pipe. “We were talking about time, a stitch in which, et cetera. Time was, it seemed very constant to me. Now it is thick and thin, like the weather.”

  “It’s just our longevity,” Jasmine mused. “It’s changed our perspective. I know what you mean, though.”

  “Perhaps. As if the subtleties of time’s changes in speed and depth can be appreciated only if seen in the long view …” She passed the pipe to Jasmine.

  Jasmine toked, smiled. “It was at the speed of light when we were running guns through your back room here …”

  Sum-Thin joined the memory at the, speed of thought. “When hepatitis was sweeping the Vampire colonies. Not many guns left anymore, though …”

  “No,” Jasmine agreed, “they were pretty much all destroyed during that spasm of animal self-righteousness in the Clone Wars …”

  “Along with all the Clones,” Sum-Thin laughed.

  Jasmine paused.

  Josh found all this banter rather distressing. He was still brooding over Sum-Thin’s cavalier comment about the end of the Human race. He remembered Jasmine once talking about the way Humans had almost destroyed themselves, but he took it for granted they would repopulate, grow strong again: their time would come.

  But perhaps it would not.

  These Neuromans knew more than most animals; they’d seen more. Sum-Thin’s offhand remark chilled him deeper than December rain.

  Jasmine broke her pause. “About the Clones,” she said. “We were offered one tonight. Is it possible?”

  Josh and Beauty both refused the pipe, so it went back to Sum-Thin, who drew long on the sweet resin before answering. “They were being made once more, for a time, some few years ago—practice runs. There is a nucleus of Neuroman bioengineers, in a castle at the mouth of the Sticks River. They have been dabbling again. There have been experiments …”

  “Truly,” Jasmine nodded slowly. “Then the rumors of the New Animal have some basis …”

  “Not rumors.” Sum-Thin lay back on a pillow. “There is a New Animal. The Neuromans have engineered it and made it Ruler of their city.” Her eyelids dropped halfway down.

  “What’s it like, the New Animal?”

  “No one knows. No one but a small cadre of Neuroman engineers has ever seen it. Reputedly, it has great powers.”

  “So it was said of many Accidents,” Jasmine grimly intoned.

  “Accident or Grand Design. Only one thing this says to me: those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

  Jasmine’s lips thinned. “What more is known of this Animal?”

  Sum-Thin lowered her lids even farther. “Only speculation and surmise. It may demand Human sacrifice.” Josh and Beauty tensed. The Neuroman continued. “Or perhaps all the Humans are being taken there merely for the purpose of experimentation.” She stared cannily at Josh, as if to say: Eat this truth; your days are numbered.

  Josh spoke in anger muffled by despair. “That’s why we’ve come. To save them.”

  Sum-Thin smiled, some thin opium smile. “Bravo. The Human spirit.”

  Josh made a fist. Beauty seethed. Jasmine saw the situation souring badly, unexpectedly. They didn’t understand each other, Josh and Sum-Thin, they were on different wavelengths. Josh saw only Dicey, while Sum-Thin had seen it all. Jasmine stood to defuse the situation.

  “It’s time to split up, I think,” she said to the other two hunters. “I’ll stay here with Sum-Thin a bit longer, gather more intelligence. Why don’t you two head out by the docks, nose around. Make some discreet inquiries.” She put her powerful hands around Beauty’s waist and pulled him—with his subsequent surprised assistance—to his feet, facing her. “Discreet,” she repeated, holding her eyes firmly on his.

  Beauty had the distinct impression that everything in his life was taking on double meanings. He walked out of the small den with Josh, two dismal spirits in search of a vanishing memory.

  When they’d gone, Jasmine lay down with Sum-Thin and kissed her affectionately on the cheek. “Do you always have to play the Dragon Lady?”

  Sum-Thin closed her eyes, smiled; picked up her pipe.

  Josh and Beauty left the Casa Blanca in silence, walking slowly along the old wooden docks. The sound of waves gently sloshing against the pilings had a calming effect; and so, lulled by the ocean’s unhurried respirations, the two friends meandered.

  “What’s the point?” Josh wondered. “What’s the point of Scribery if there are to be no Scribes to read in a hundred years?”

  “She did not mention Scribes,” Beauty corrected. “She said only that Humans would disappear.”

  “Either way. This quest, my writings, all our trials: it’s all without meaning. Empty as wind.”

  “Your life may yet be long and full,” Beauty soothed. He tried to sound consoling, yet his heart was heavy as his comrade’s.

  Joshua’s face was wry, bitter. “I was smug when we found your people had no past; how hollow it is, now that mine have no future.”

  “We seem ever destined to share our losses,” said the Centaur. His feeling for the Human was great.

  “Ah, Beauty, it was triumphs we used to share. What’s happened to the world?”

  A great gull flew over the harbor, studied the lights on the water, flew back into the darkness.

  “I will become a Scribe,” Beauty said quietly. The idea had come to him only that moment, as great inspirations sometimes will, without considerations or intent. And once he said it, it seemed immediately and certainly right.

  Josh was shocked. “But you’ve told me a hundred times how you mistrust Scribery. What could ever possess you to—”

  “To diminish our losses. Your pain will be less if your religion lives on after your race has died. And as your pain is less, so is mine.” Josh was moved to silence. Beauty went on. “It is a small enough thing, to learn these scribbles …” his voice trailed off, minimizing.

  Josh put his hand on his friend’s back, his eyes moist with love. “Friend, we’ll triumph still …”

  Beauty felt twisted with, unanswerable grief, though, at the complexities life had brought them; and soon the words overflowed his lips, like a pot that finally boils. “Clone Wars, Race Wars, kidnapping, vendetta. Is there no end? No end at all to what our peoples must suffer before the world is through with us?”

  Josh stopped, looked up at the mighty Centaur. “Here is our solace, Beauty. Leave behind the emptiness in your history and my destiny. Here and now, we are what we are. You’ve been searching, since Jasmine’s story, to know who and what that may be. Well, you’re yourself and nothing else. As am I.”

  Beauty stared into the truth in Joshua’s face, and it was a long moment before a weary smile crested over the surging of his doubts. “Old friend, it is good to be me, beside you.”

  They were quiet with each other for a while, walking once more along the wharf. Glowfish shone softly in the shallow waters below, eating the insects that floated on the surface. Above them the moon beamed as proudly as the sun’s only child. Momentarily, at least, all the world seemed at peace to the two travelers.

  Josh kicked a stone into the harbor. “What do you think of Sum-Thin?” he asked.

  “She knows much,” Beauty sai
d, considering. “But I think she has been un-Human too long. She lacks the quality of empathy.”

  Josh nodded, heading away from the water. “Maybe she just lacks someone to empathize with,” he replied charitably.

  They passed a cooper’s shop, a few taverns. Suddenly Josh halted in midstep. “Look,” he whispered.

  Beauty looked at the storefront Josh was staring at, but nothing struck him. “What is it?” he whispered back, feeling Joshua’s tension.

  “The Sign of the Scribe,” said the young man. It was only at this coaxing that Beauty saw then, carved into the wooden scrollwork surrounding the old door, the symbol he’d seen Josh draw so often before, the snake in the circle:

  “I’m going in,” Josh continued with contained excitement. “You go into the bar next door. Scout around, see if there are any back entrances or communicating halls.”

  Beauty nodded and went into the adjoining cafe. Josh entered the doorway under the Sign.

  Inside, various creatures sat around tables, smoking opium, drinking yucca whiskey, casting bones. It seemed to be a bar. Dim candles flickered here and there like half-remembered thoughts. Perhaps half the patrons were Human. Josh walked slowly up to the bar at the back of the room, sat on the only empty stool—between a Ghoul and a Werewolf, and drummed his fingers on the liquor-rotted surface.

  The bartender strode over in two long, slow steps. He was Human, but scary as any creature Josh had ever met: nearly seven feet tall, thick as a Bear, his lower lip chewed off in some ancient fight, his gnarled left hand bound with wire mesh to resemble some medieval weapon. “What’ll it be?” he queried Josh without friendship—only the grim artificial scowl sculpted by his absent lip.

  “Tequila,” said Josh. The Werewolf to his left drooled onto the bar, glowering at nothing in particular. To his right, the Ghoul—an ugly creature whom Joshua did not care to observe too closely, but whom he assumed to be a Ghoul because of this quality which made other animals wish to look away—darted sidelong glances of a distinctly unsavory nature in Joshua’s direction.

  The bartender returned, set down a full shot glass and a quartered lime. Josh withdrew a gold piece from his belt and handed it over. The barman pocketed the coin and left Josh the bottle; but not before Josh saw the candles on the bar glint off the gold out of the eyes of every animal there. He sipped his drink, as his eyes opened to the shadows.

  At one of the tables, a disagreement briefly flurried over a cast of the bones, then settled down. A small Dog gnawed a table leg. In the corner, two Humans whispered to an upright Lizard. Josh dipped his finger in the shot glass and traced lines on the bar. The Ghoul eyed him disconcertingly.

  Joshua felt eyes on him from all over, in fact. He wasn’t certain if he was just being paranoid, but decided that in any case he had to make a move—either leave, to see who followed; or something more daring.

  Nonchalantly he extracted a small, blank slip of paper from his pocket—as if he’d been looking for a cigarette or a coca leaf, and come up with this disappointingly worthless piece of refuse; half a rolling paper, no more. He dropped it on the bar, too insignificant to bother with; and aware of eyes still on him, left it there as he continued to nurse his drink, continued to trace lines on the bar. Only now, some of the lines he traced on the bar managed to track over the paper as well; and every so often his finger would rub over the cut faces of the quartered lime, as if it were a touchstone.

  Until, at the right moment, he glanced down, as if noticing the discarded paper for the first time. He picked up the paper, .examined it disinterestedly, pulled a candle over, examined the paper in the light, to demonstrate to himself—and anyone else watching—that the paper was blank. And then Joshua held the paper over the flame. Toying with fire.

  Slowly, the faint brown letters began to emerge out of the invisible citrus ink. They were clear only a brief moment before the paper burst into flame—long enough, perhaps, for the passing bartender to notice what was written, if he noticed, if he knew what writing looked like, if he could read: HELP! Long enough to get Joshua killed if the barman wasn’t a friend; if the wrong person saw the script.

  Josh dropped the burned-out ash onto the bar top as the last of the cool flame licked at his calloused fingertips. Nothing else happened. The barman continued serving drinks, the Werewolf drooled; intoxicated beasts traded words and fortunes. The Ghoul seemed to be edging closer. Josh finished his drink and made to leave.

  “Just a minute,” snarled the bartender. “You didn’t pay.”

  “No. Yes. Yes, I did.” stammered the young hunter. “I gave you—”

  The brute clapped a massive right hand on Joshua’s shoulder, and slammed his head down onto the wood, knocking him dizzy; then pulled him like a rag doll across the bar to the other side. “Stiffs don’t drink, they get drank,” he growled; whereupon he opened a trapdoor in the floor and dropped Josh through it into the waiting harbor water below. There was a loud splash. A few customers laughed, as the bartender closed the trapdoor. “Country trash,” he muttered.

  Josh revived immediately upon hitting the water, but not before inhaling a lungful. The next thing he knew, though, there were hands all over him, hauling him up some rickety, slime-covered steps. By the time he stopped sputtering and coughing he found himself lying on a bare floor, in a quiet, well-lit room—surrounded by a dozen grim, waiting figures. Quickly, he ran his eyes over their faces: all were Human.

  “Welcome, brother,” said a thin man near the door.

  Josh sat up shakily. “What place is this?” he asked.

  They all smiled to see that he was well. Several left immediately by the door the thin one seemed to be guarding. One went to cooking something on a small coal stove, two returned to sorting knives in a box. One sat at the table, picked up a pen, and to Joshua’s heart-stopping joy, began to write. The three nearest to Josh sat down on the floor beside him.

  “We call ourselves the Bookery,” began the fellow who sat closest to Josh. He was a serious young man, with red hair and rimless glasses. “We’re all Scribes here, but our society is secret, even from other Scribes. My name is David.” He held out his hand.

  Josh took it. “Joshua,” he answered, feeling totally safe for the first time in a long while.

  The two others said Hello. One was an intense, wiry girl named Paula, her hair bobbed short, her face freckled. The other was a lad of no more than eighteen years, though in weight he nearly equaled the other three together. His name was Lewis. He seemed rather shy, and Josh liked him immediately.

  “How did you find me?” asked Josh.

  David laughed. “Percy threw you down to us. He’s the bartender. He signaled us you’d be arriving soon, and we were waiting for you to … drop in. We’re in a hidden room under the docks at the moment.”

  “You can help me?” Josh pressed. He was certain they would. They had the feel of good fortune.

  “We can help each other,” Paula said. “What is it you need?”

  “My bride, my brother, and a dear friend have been stolen, my family murdered. They’ve been taken—”

  “They’ve been taken south, to feed the new animal,” David said stonily. Two older people who’d been reading to each other in the corner stopped when these words were spoken.

  Josh remained speechless a moment. “Then you know of …” he began.

  “We know there’s a fiend afoot in the land. We know we will kill this new animal or turn into scripture trying.”

  “Will you join us?” asked Lewis.

  “I … I must find my people first,” Josh declared. The sleep-feeling was suddenly starting to come over him; a spell in the offing, without question.

  “But our fight is the same fight,” Paula insisted.

  “My … my …” Joshua tried to speak, but his mind was clouding rapidly, as the darkness welled in him like a flood of night.

  The void. He floated, weightless, in a dimension without space, time, sense. Nothingness. No-thingness. Where had
he heard that before? Déjà vu. So perhaps there was time. Back time, like the river twisting around on itself, old undercurrents pulling against the tide. Pulling, there, the light now, pulling him in, sucking him down, reeling him in on a line of pure energy, throbbing, pulsing, brighter, brighter …

  He woke up shaking, on the floor, David and Paula holding him down. Beside him, Lewis lay unconscious, twitching, held by four others. Through his quickly vanishing grogginess, Josh felt somehow ashamed and afraid.

  “I… I’m sorry …” he began.

  “Don’t talk, you’re all right now,” Paula soothed him, stroked his forehead.

  “So you’re one of the Touched,” David murmured.

  “These spells …” Joshua tried to explain.

  “We know of them,” David nodded. “Lewis, here,, gets them, too.”

  Josh looked over to see Lewis just beginning to arouse. “Lewis, too?” he gasped incredulously. “Others have these trances? But what do they mean, what are they?”

  “No one knows,” Paula shook her head. “I’ve seen several people possessed by them. They all describe the spells in the same way—a blackness, and a magnetic light…”

  “Yes, yes, that’s it!” Josh sat erect, desperate for someone to understand his affliction.

  “No one knows,” Paula only shook her head again.

  Lewis sat up. He and Josh stared at each other for a long second, looking for the answer to their common mystery. They found an ambiguous empathy: some measure of shared circumstance, pain, and confusion. Briefly, they held hands.

  “Whatever it is,” David interjected, “those who are Touched seem to be gathering in the south, though none can say why.”

  “We all gather in the south,” said the old woman writing at the table. “Here we fight our future.”

  “Scribery is the only future,” said another.