by Jeffrey Ford
"I find it truly insane," I said, "that I have searched for love my entire life, and finally, when I found it, it was in the mind of a man who I considered to be a symbol of pure evil."
"But do you forgive me?" he asked.
"There's nothing to forgive. You are the only one of the three of us who operated out of truth. Your father and I were deceitful, he toward the world, and I with myself. You were right about something else also," I said, and took a sip of shudder.
"What?" asked the demon.
"It turned out to be a love story."
30
MISRIX LEFT THE ROOM IN ORDER TO GO CHECK ON BELOW and see if there was any change in his condition. Meanwhile I sat listlessly, staring at the wall and smoking one cigarette after the other. I knew now what it was like to lose someone close to you. Granted, Ea and Aria and their children had left and gone away to the Beyond, but at least I knew they were still out there somewhere. Anotine, on the other hand, was as good as dead now. I could remember Below's memory of her, but I could never again be with her in the same way as I had. "She must think I betrayed her," was what I kept saying to myself. Although I had returned to reality in one sense, the loss I felt was like a barrier that continued to separate me from it.
Quite a long time passed, and when the pack of Hundred-To-Qnes was empty, I realized that I had to begin thinking about getting back to Wenau and administering the Beauty to those trapped in the sleep. I was about to get out of my chair and go in search of Misrix when the door opened and he entered, followed by Below. To my surprise the Master no longer wore the blue pajamas, but was now dressed in a formal-looking black suit with a broad-brimmed hat on that I could have sworn had been Mayor Bataldo's. He walked upright and showed no ill effects from the long illness he had just come through.
The second he saw me, he smiled.
"Cley, I've had you on my mind quite a bit lately," he said, and laughed raucously at his own joke.
Misrix pulled the chair across from me out for him, and he took a seat.
"Excuse me for a moment, Cley," he said. He turned to Misrix. "Listen, boy, I want you to go over to the Ministry of Education, back there where I've been stockpiling the beauty. Load it on the wagon, hitch the horses to it, and bring it around. It's time to ingratiate ourselves to the good people of Wenau."
"The werewolves, Father," said Misrix.
"Oh, yes," he said. From around his neck Below removed a chain with a small thin cylinder attached to it. "Take the whistle. If they bother you, blow on it, and it will put them off."
The demon took it from him, but did not move.
"Yes?" asked the Master.
"I want you to know that Cley saved your life, sir," said the demon.
Below reached over and rubbed the fur on Misrix's forearm. "I'm aware of it," he said. "I'll never forget it."
The demon smiled, then, giving me a quick look, turned and left the room. The instant the door closed behind him, Below reached into his jacket, pulled out a pistol, and laid it on the table in front of him.
"What do you think of him?" he asked me.
"He is very special," I said. "You should have more faith in him."
"How might that be possible?" he asked.
"Why do you think you have to coerce the people of Wenau to accept him? I'm telling you, they will be frightened at first, but once he has a chance to prove himself, you won't need to force them to see his kindness. With the plan you have, you will end up making them hate him as they hate you."
"I wish I had the faith in people you have, Cley. I only have faith in power," he said with a sigh.
"And so you are going to shoot me?" I asked.
"It is a rather second-rate means of execution. I would have liked to have thought up something more diabolical in keeping with your remarkable qualities, but, as you know, IVe been out of sorts lately, and my imagination needs time to rebuild"
"What will your son think when he comes back and finds me dead?" I asked.
"He will be upset for a time. Parenting is a tough business. You can't shield your children from the realities of the world forever. I tell you it makes the process of raising a son bittersweet, knowing the vicissitudes of life he will have to face," he said, staring at the table. A look of true sadness came over him.
"Were you aware of me in your memory?" I asked.
He nodded. "I saw you flailing around, but it was as if I was paralyzed at the bottom of a deep well. It was a struggle to focus on my memories. Things were not always clear. I really had to concentrate. My word, what an effort it took to invigorate my form on the dome and set a course that would lead you to the antidote."
"You consciously sent me back to the ruins of the city?"
"I could see that you had botched the situation on the floating island. I knew I had to help you get to a particular memory where the antidote would be more obvious. When Anotine kissed me, even though it was a memory kiss, it still carried a hint of the beauty, and this revived my will just enough for me to start the dome's engine and set a course."
"And what of Anotine?" I asked.
"She is still there, Cley. You saved her, and what's more, if I am not mistaken, she is pregnant with your memory child. Watching you interact with her was somewhat pitiful, but it offered a bit of amusement."
"She was a woman you loved and abandoned?" I asked.
"No, no, no, her memory seized while studying Scarfinati's book. She's on a ship somewhere encased in a chemical ice that can't melt. She's out there somewhere," he said, sweeping his hand in front of him. "The ship left port one year and never returned."
"That's not what Scarfinati told me," I said.
"Oh, please, Cley. You should know at your age how the imagination, how desire, influences memory. My memory of Scarfinati is a mischievous entity in my mind. You carv't b^few a word of what he said. These things can't always be controlled. Take the Delicate, for instance. He came to me in a nightmare when I was a child, soon after my sister's death. I've been trying to get rid of him since, but he persists. He's a symbol of something very powerful that I can't quite understand and can't, for the life of me, forget."
"There is a world of evil inside you," I said, "but I also found love there."
"One thing you've got to understand, Cley. What you experienced wasn't all me. Your presence changed things; your desire was so inextricably intertwined with my memory that it would have been hard to separate the two. What belonged to whom is difficult to say. Perhaps, for a short time, you made me better than what I really am. For that, I'd be happy to spare your life, but from past experience I know you are an incorrigible meddler. If it were anything else but Misrix's future, I would let you go."
"Promise me that you will protect the people of Wenau," I said.
"I intend to. Where would I be without them?" he said, and, taking the gun in his hand, pushed his chair back and stood. "Stand up," he said, pointing the gun at me.
I thought about leaping over the table at him, crying out for help, running for the door, but the dull ache inside me caused by my loss of Anotine canceled my will to act. "Shoot," I said.
He took aim at my chest, and I waited for him to pull the trigger, but then he started coughing violently, making him unable to aim. Holding his free hand up as if to indicate he would be with me momentarily, I could tell he was trying to utter one of his witticisms, but the words came forth in a tortured gurgling. It was obvious he was having a hard time catching his breath, and I waited, really rather bored, for the episode to pass. Only when he dropped the gun and brought both of his hands to his throat did I realize his condition was serious. He stumbled back against the wall for support, all the while making these slight wheezing noises.
I came around the table to try to help him. "What is it?" I yelled.
The door opened and Misrix entered. "Everything is ready, Father" he said before noticing us. A moment later, he saw what was happening and came over to Below's other side. There was a look of intense fear on his f
ace. "What's happening, Cley?" he screamed.
"Your father was going to shoot me, but then he started choking. I don't know."
The Master quickly went from bad to worse, the complexion of his face turning nearly as blue as those of the spire miners of Anamasobia, who, after years, take on the hue of the mineral they work. The wheezing diminished, he lost consciousness, and we eased him to the floor.
"What should I do?" asked the demon.
I shook my head. Whatever was happening was a mystery to me.
Moments later, Below's whole body suddenly relaxed. I felt for a pulse but could find nothing. I could hardly believe it. The great Drachton Below, the Master, was dead. His eyes stared coldly at the ceiling, his mouth was agape, his hands lay on his chest.
"How?" asked Misrix, tears in his eyes.
My life had just been spared by some wild fluke, but still I felt terrible for the demon, having recently experienced an equivalent loss. I stood up and backed away.
"What is this, Cley?" he said. "Look, there is something in his throat."
I came back and knelt.
"There," he said, pointing with the tip of a claw.
Pulling down on Below's chin in order to open his mouth yet wider, I bent low and peered into the dark behind his tongue. There was something there. It appeared to be a small flap of some kind. Then Misrix changed his position to look over my shoulder, and the light, which had been blocked by his head, now revealed to me the color green. My hand immediately went to my breast pocket and found it empty.
Misrix reached past me and, using his claws like tweezers, snagged the edge of the flap and pulled. The veil came forth like a long green tongue, like a trick from a children's magic show. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The demon started crying again as he unfurled the piece of material until it was completely open.
"I don't understand," he said, and laid the veil across Be-low's face, covering his hideous expression.
I knew then that this was my miracle. Having eaten the white fruit, I kept waiting for something unusual to happen either to me or for me. I had taken for granted that my simply surviving the mnemonic ordeal had been the marvel I was waiting for. Somehow a thought had taken on physical actuality. I was sure that Anotine was partially behind it.
Misrix took the chain with the whistle from around his neck and handed it to me. "Go," he said. "The wagon is just outside. There is enough sheer beauty on it to cure a thousand Wenaus. Help your people."
"Come with me," I said. "Ill see to it that you can find a life with us."
"I can't leave now," he said. He took the spectacles off his face, dropped them on the floor, and stomped them with his hoof.
I was about to plead with him to come accompany me again, but he turned away, and yelled, "Go!" As I left the room, I looked back to see the demon kneeling over Below's corpse. He put his arms around the body and laid his head on the chest. Then his wings came up and covered them from my sight.
It took me some time to find my way out of the Ministry of Information, but eventually I wandered into a corridor that led to a door that opened on the street. There was the wagon loaded high with crates of sheer beauty, two horses harnessed to it. I climbed aboard the seat in front and lifted the reins. These beasts were somewhat more helpful than Quismal. I did little more than flick the reins, and they started off. They took me through the city, around rubble and blasted buildings, always finding a clear path through which the wagon could pass. It took no more than fifteen minutes before we had traveled through a spot in the circular wall where the masonry had been completely obliterated.
The wagon was sturdy with huge wheels for traversing ditches and mounds, and the horses were not only bright but strong and fast. Once they hit the plain, they started running, and I swore to myself that this would be absolutely my last time crossing that hellish tract of ground. I had Below's whistle ever at the ready, but I saw no sign of the werewolves. It was important I stay aware of our progress as we sped toward Wenau, but all the time my mind was on Anotine.
31
IT WAS I WHO BROUGHT THE SERPENT TO PARADISE. THERE were no needles in the crates of beauty, so I guessed at a dose and administered, orally, two drops of the concentrated formula to adults and one to children. The results, as in Below's case, were remarkable. Within hours, the victims of the disease were up and walking around. By the time the sun went down, I had brought so many back from death's door that I was actually beginning to feel I deserved all of the praise that was bestowed upon me. A great euphoria swept through Wenau, partially the thrill of resurrection, partially the hallucinatory effects of the drug.
I had to warn each of the victim's families that the beauty was a serious narcotic and that their loved ones would experience visions and all manner of paranoid delusions. They accepted this as a small price to pay for a cure. I should have told them all about the brutally addictive effects also, but I couldn't. It wasn't that I forgot. I just couldn't bring myself to take responsibility for the tragedy I knew would follow.
I used less than a quarter of one of the thirty cases on the wagon and ended my rounds late in the evening by the river, drinking field beer with Jensen and Roan, their wives, and some of my other neighbors. The night was cool, and the smell of the open air, the rushing water was so fresh after the stale atmosphere of the ruins. Someone lit a fire, and we gathered around it. One of the children carried over to me a letter of thanks from the entire settlement on blue paper that had been hastily scrawled for the event.
Then Jensen quieted everyone down, and said, "Cley, we are waiting to hear of your journey"
I waved him off, and said, "Talk will only cut into my drinking."
"Now, now," said another. "We want to know."
"Is Below still alive?" asked Semla Hood.
"Below is dead," I said.
A round of applause went up, and for some reason this saddened me. They pressed me for more details, and I began to cry uncontrollably. The group went silent around me and each of them looked away in order to spare me embarrassment. I was greatly relieved when conversations broke out around the circle, and I was no longer the focus of attention.
Miley Mac's wife, Dorothea, told the woman next to her, "I never felt better then when I awoke from the sleep. The strangest thing happened. I saw a face on the wall of my bedroom. It was my brother, who had died in the destruction of the Well-Built City. Stranger yet, I had a conversation with him."
More testimonies followed hers concerning the hallucinatory effects of the drug. Most of them were positive. But that is the way the beauty works. I remember it well. The first time it shows you what you most desire, but once it has you in its grasp, your will is no longer your own.
As these tales of visions were being related, I excused myself, climbed into the wagon, and headed away from the center of the village toward my home in the woods. I can't describe to you the sense of relief I felt when I stepped across the threshold. The place was utterly quiet, and only then did it strike me how much I had been through in the past few days.
I had thought that it would be the finest feeling to again lie in my bed, but when I did, I could not fall asleep. Thoughts of Anotine rushed into my mind, and I tossed and turned with loneliness and desire. The loss of her was something I could not put behind me. Even when I finally dozed off from complete exhaustion, I had nightmares in which she came back to ask me why I had abandoned her.
The next day, I woke late, but did not get out of bed for hours. Instead of going into the forest to gather wild herbs and roots as was my routine, I lay there listlessly, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the faces of Nunnly, Brisden, and the Doctor. Though I remembered their names and their specialties, some of the things each of them had said to me, I couldn't conjure a clear image of any one of them. This frightened me, and I crawled out of bed finally, telling myself, "Come on, Cley. You've got to get going."
I dressed and went outside into the bright light of afternoon. The very first thing
I noticed was that two of the crates of beauty were gone from the wagon. I counted them again and again, but there was no mistake. This was the first theft I had ever heard of in Wenau. The drug had already begun to work its will. Right then, I should have destroyed the stockpile and gone to the market to warn my neighbors, but I didn't. The village I had worked so hard to help found had begun on a course of self-destruction. I knew I didn't have it in me to stand in the path of that boulder rolling down hill. Instead, I hefted three crates inside my home.
Whereas I had administered two drops for the other adults of the village, I prescribed four for myself. Sitting at my table, facing the window that showed a lovely scene of silver-backed leaves shifting in the wind, I tasted sheer beauty, perhaps the most bitter substance known to man. I audibly groaned as it worked its way through my system, growing like a vine around my heart and mind. Then, everything became soft and slow.
I looked up and there was Anotine, sitting across from me. She was laughing as if I had just told her a joke. Her hair was down and she wore her yellow dress.
"I missed you," I said to her.
"Don't worry, Cley, I'll be here for you now," she said. She got up and stepped around the table in order to lean down and kiss me.
Two days passed, and every time she began to dissipate, I took more drops of the bitter liquid. I ate little and only went outside to relieve myself. By the end of the second day, I noticed that there was only one crate of the beauty left on the wagon.
Occasionally the drug did not bring me Anotine, but instead Below or the Doctor or Misrix materialized to torture me with recriminations of one sort or another. One night, after having just made love to Anotine in my bed, I heard something creeping around the door of my house. The moment I leaped up, she vanished. I was suddenly frightened, thinking that someone had come to take the last of my store of the beauty. I knew that by this time, the entire village must be out of its mind, swinging between elation and craving. It was more than conceivable that someone would be willing to kill for a drop or two of the drug.
