Greg Bear - Songs of Earth 2 - Serpent Mage

by Serpent Mage (lit)

  The chair. The turning chair.

  In the house next door to Clarkham's, on his first passage through to the Realm, Michael had paused to look into the living room and had seen an overstuffed swivel rocking chair with its back turned toward him. The chair had been rocking, and as Michael had watched, it had started turning.

  With a chill, he had passed by the living room, the chair and its unseen occupant.

  The guardians of Clarkham's gateway could have numbered more than two. Tristesse had been stationed by the Sidhe; Lamia had acted as a watcher for both Clarkham and the Sidhe. But the third -

  Whatever had been in the rocking chair -

  Might have been controlled solely by Clarkham.

  Michael had little doubt that the shuffling footsteps he heard at the end of the hall and the occupant of the chair were one and the same.

  He swore under his breath and tried to open a gate. But he could find no purchase; the seamless glass-smooth creation allowed for no exits. He swallowed, hoping to wipe the taste of the wine from his tongue, but it lingered. Thinking of the water fountain, he walked quickly to the ceramic basin and turned the handle. The cool water did not erase the taste.

  For a moment, Michael felt very foolish. He had just spun loose a thing of incredible complexity and power, an improving overlay for the sick and injured Earth; he had absorbed the knowledge of the world's oldest living being -

  And yet he still was afraid. He damped the fear quickly and stood in the middle of the hall, wrapped in a grim calm. Being merely human could get him killed. He explored Manus's knowledge of guardians and other artificial and altered beings. The brief tastes of memory - changelings, conjured devils, witch-waifs, abortions like Ishmael and transformed monsters like the vampiric Tristesse - did not match what he heard approaching.

  A door opened and closed around the corner at the end of the hall. Something sniffed delicately. "Hello," a muffled voice said. "I see you've gotten this far."

  The voice was barely recognizable.

  "Clarkham?" Michael asked.

  Again the delicate sniff. "Yes. Have you found her yet?"

  "I've found Kristine."

  "That's good. You'll pardon me if I don't show myself. I still have some pride. We've never met, you know."

  Michael raised his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

  "No, we never have. Puzzle it out. Reports from distant shores. Corruption and bad decisions. Vicarious thrills."

  "I don't understand."

  "I won't get in your way. My ambitions, at least, are few now. And don't confuse the other with me, though we are both failures. The other brought your woman here. You'll contend with him, not me. I regret many things, not least of all. him. You can go now."

  "Who are you?" Michael asked, confused.

  "I've identified myself. Let that suffice. To tell all would be most painful. Find out for yourself. Earn the facts."

  Michael thought of the rocking chair. "You were in the house next door to Clarkham's."

  "Yes."

  "Who were you waiting for?"

  "Arno. To apologize. I told him I'd be waiting when I left him the key."

  "Did you expect me?"

  The sniff was less delicate this time, and much less pleasant. "You can go."

  The elevator door opened with a chime. Michael hesitated,. then entered. The simulacrum operator smiled toothily at him. "Lobby?" he asked.

  Michael nodded.

  "Nothing on the fourth floor," the operator said, smirking.

  The door closed with a squeak, but behind that squeak, Michael thought he heard a distant groaning wail of anguish. Even through his controlling discipline, his neck and scalp prickled.

  The brightness of the sunlight had diminished slightly. He passed the shoeshine stand and turned left down the street in Kristine's direction. When he had first located Kristine, he had seen a distinctively narrow three-story white wood-frame building wedged between two other brick and stone structures. Considering the limited size of Clarkham's creation, Michael didn't think it would take him long to find the site.

  The street changed character within a few hundred yards. The buildings became darker and older; brick and stone replaced stucco, and styles seemed to revert to the teens and twenties. The air was cooler, grittier.

  The people were different, too. Much less care was being spent on the details of the simulacra. Their faces were blander, more standardized; the worst of them were mere blank-eyed mannequins.

  Michael became aware, after walking a mile and a half, that he was much closer to the edge of corruption. He took care to limit the extent of his probe in that direction.

  Despite his discipline, he couldn't help becoming more excited - and anxious - the closer he came to Kristine. The undercurrent of his anxiety was excruciating So much had happened since they last met; even if he could bring her out of this creation and back to Earth - even if Earth was recovering through the influence of his overlay - would they still feel for each other with as much intensity and depth?

  So little time together, and the time so strange.

  Memories of Manus's ancient loves came to him unbidden, colored by rich emotions and contexts he couldn't begin to interpret. There were hardly words in English to describe what the memories conveyed.

  Now the figures around him were little more than place markers walking around in barely-sketched clothes. Michael could see and feel the shifting qualities of their presence, holding them together only marginally here on the edge of a corruption that burned.

  He saw the narrow white building, sandwiched between two five-story brick apartment complexes. A fire escape criss crossed its front and ended a few feet above arm's reach over the sidewalk. Beneath the folded ladder, a simple square wooden overhang shadowed the building's double glass and wood doors.

  Michael felt for Clarkham's presence, gingerly skirting the painful borders of the creation. There was nothing definite; his probe kept being drawn back to the office building where the unseen figure had addressed him, and Michael kept pulling away from that sensation of lostness and resignation.

  He pressed down the latch on the brass handle of the right-hand door and opened it slowly, stepping inside. A wall of tarnished mailboxes waited with timeless patience on the left, beside a janitorial door shut and padlocked. To his right, an ancient map of Los Angeles hung behind dusty and cracked glass.

  So much detail.

  Stairs covered with frayed oriental-style carpet rose beyond the wall of mailboxes. He began climbing, not needing to refer to the building's directory, knowing which floor. She is here.

  Kristine, Michael knew, sat at this very moment in a cracked leather armchair behind a glass-topped desk in a small office on the top floor, the third.

  He climbed the next flight of stairs, past the second floor landing and doorway, the door hand-lettered in black: "Pascal Novelties and Party Supplies." Not and - and. The detail was repeating, and inaccurately.

  Clarkham had made much of his creation out of rubber-stamped combinations, prefab units, as it were. Michael thought of the large teeth on both the salesman and the elevator operator. Identical.

  On the third floor doorway, in gold letters on the clear glass, he read

  TOPFLIGHT DETECTIVES

  Ernest Brawley Rachel Taylor

  Divorces Investigations Confidential

  Behind the door, at the end of the very narrow hallway that ran the length of the building against the right-hand wall, Michael heard Kristine speaking to someone in an undertone.

  He walked at a measured pace down the hallway, restraining an urge to run and find her immediately, simply to see her and know by the evidence of his eyes that she was alive and well.

  The corruption was so close, barely a few hundred yards away, practically singing against the fabric of the streets and buildings, vibrating in the wood like a threatened quake or tremor. How had she stood it for so long?

  The door to the last office was half-open. Michael pu
shed it all the way. Kristine sat facing the door, black Bakelite desk phone sitting on the glass-topped wood desk in front of her. She held the receiver pressed against her ear and slightly lowered from her heavily lipsticked mouth.

  Kristine's hair been arranged in an upswept, split bun above her forehead and pulled tightly back behind into a more full bun. The style was not particularly attractive. She looked hard, weary. Her eyes barely reacted when she saw him.

  "Yeah," she said into the phone. "Bring me the timecards, and I'll believe Jimmy was there, like you say. Look, I've got company, I gotta go." She hung up the receiver decisively. "There's a buzzer downstairs. We come down to meet you. What can I do for you?" She appraised him coldly.

  He smiled. "It's time to leave," he said.

  She stiffened and dropped one hand below desk level. "Where are you going, then?" she asked.

  What came next was pure inspiration. He remembered Bogart and Stanwyck going through their timeless motions on the television screen the night his father had first introduced him to Waltiri.

  "You mean, where are we going," Michael said casually.

  "The persuasive type, eh?" Kristine asked, eyes sweeping him again with faint amusement. "You aren't dressed for the part. Ernie has a good tailor-"

  "It's not what I'm wearing that counts," Michael said. "It's what I'm thinking."

  "Is a penny payment enough?" She still had her hand below desk level, and Michael sensed that it was just an inch or two away from a gun. She knew how to use it, too.

  "More than enough. For you, it's free." Michael began to feel gloriously giddy. "I'm thinking you don't belong here. You look and act tough, but I know you better."

  "We never met before, Mister."

  "Think back. Think back to before you came here. Remember a kiss?"

  She smiled wryly. "So sing me the tune the radio was playing. Maybe that'll refresh my memory."

  Just the words Stanwyck had used.

  Michael wet his lips and walked slowly into the office, sitting on the corner of her desk, watching her hidden arm closely. He began to whistle, hoping he could reproduce at least the basics.

  She stopped appraising him. Her large green eyes opened wide with wonder. The face behind the makeup softened noticeably.

  "I know that." she said.

  "You should. It's our song."

  "What's it called?" she asked, both hands on the desk, empty. She seemed about ready to stand, perhaps run.

  "Opus 45," Michael said. "Concerto for piano and orchestra, Infinity."

  Kristine pushed the chair back. "There's no music like that here," she said.

  "It's a simple case of kidnapping."

  "Who?"

  "You," Michael said, pointing. "Now we have to go."

  Her confusion put an end to the enjoyment. Michael held out his hand, and she reached for it, hesitated, then grasped it firmly. The warm touch of her skin was ecstasy.

  "Your name is Kristine," he said.

  "Yes, of course I know that - Kristine Taylor. I mean. Kristine Pendeers."

  "And who am I?"

  She smiled, and a tear traveled down one cheek, bringing a streak of mascara with it. "You're Michael," she said, taking a deep, tremulous breath. "Oh, God. Michael! Where in hell are we?"

  "Not far from hell at all," he said. "Come with me."

  But first, she ran from behind the desk and wrapped her arms around him. Not so much had happened after all, he decided - not enough to matter. He was crying, too.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The difficult part now began: getting home. Michael led Kristine out onto the street. "Something hurts my head here," she said. "I haven't really been able to think about it until now, but it's been hurting for a long time."

  "The whole place is rotting away at the edges," Michael said.

  Kristine made a face. "That's what it feels like. Can we leave?"

  "I'm trying."

  "What's happened to you? How long has it been?"

  Michael shook his head and held his finger to his lips. "I have to think." He pulled her close to him and nuzzled her cheek, then let her go and drew his palms together to feel for a way out.

  "God, all this gunk," she said, touching her lips with her finger.

  Michael tried again to locate a seam in the apparently seamless matrix of Clarkham's world. The substratum beneath the detail and solidity was masterfully smooth, smoother than it needed to be - as if Michael's father were to spend weeks polishing the underside of a table. Again, there was more craftsmanship than practicality or actual achievement in this world.

  "It's going to be hard," Michael said finally, letting his hands drop.

  "We can't leave?"

  "There has to be a way." He was calling up facts from the Serpent Mage's memories, but in all that Manus knew about makers and creating worlds, there was little about one-way entries. Detail, he thought. How do I use Clarkham's craftsmanship to get out?

  "We're going to walk toward the center. That's where the reality is most complete," he said.

  "I'm ready. I have some questions. I think I have some questions, anyway. How long have I been there - months, years?"

  "Months, maybe. No more."

  "Am I older? I feel older."

  "You don't look any older."

  "Is this place like the Realm you talked about?"

  "Somewhat," Michael said. "It's much smaller, and it's. not made the same." They looked at each other intently. "I love you," Michael said. "It's been awful, not being able to find you."

  Kristine's face was almost comically serious. "I haven't felt the time, however long it's been. He made me into somebody else. And the funny part is - nothing happened, and / didn't really notice. I wasn't bored, but most of the time I just sat behind that desk or walked around the city, thinking I was on a case. Taking phone calls. God, I don't remember what people said to me. It's all jumbled now, but it didn't feel like it when. I was in it. Like a bad dream. Not a nightmare, I mean, but badly thought out, artistically bad."

  They brushed past figures that became more and more convincing and detailed as they approached the center of Clark-ham's creation. "I have a thought," Michael said. "It's crazy, but no crazier than anything else. Do you know a liquor store or a good restaurant around here?"

  "Of course," Kristine said. "There's a fancy French place called La Bretonne. Lots of mobsters go there."

  "Take me there," Michael said.

  "Why?"

  "We need to order a good bottle of wine."

  La Bretonne was on the ground floor of a stately stone building at the very heart of Clarkham's creation. At four or five in the afternoon - the apparent time of day - it was just beginning to open for its supper "crowd." Neither Michael nor Kristine was dressed for the occasion, and a haughty maitre d' with slicked-down black hair and prominent teeth adamantly refused them service

  This did not stop Michael. Leaving Kristine at the front, he walked to the prominent oak rack of wine bottles on one wall and paced before it, finger to his lips. The maitre d' followed and berated him for his crudeness and bad manners.

  "I will call the police, m'sieur," he threatened with a terrible French accent.

  Michael chose a sauterne - Chateau d'Yquem 1929 - and skirted around the man, uncorking the bottle as he rejoined Kristine.

  The maitre d', red-faced and huffing like a pigeon in heat, stalked off with loud threats to call the police. Other employees - penguin-like waiters and busboys - stood well clear of the scene, watching with mixed empty amusement and empty irritation.

  Michael offered the bottle to Kristine, more out of politeness than any expectation she would be able to use the taste as he intended to. She took a swallow and nodded. "Good wine," she said, returning the bottle.

  "Clarkham's a connoisseur of wine. I'd expect him to stock his world with a good cellar." He brought the bottle to his own lips and took a hearty swig. It was indeed a good sauterne, bloody gold in color, and it carried a distinct message
- a sweet message of warm sunny fields and evening mists, of a definite place on Earth. Michael gripped Kristine's hand as the maitre d' returned, still livid and voluble.

  A shadow fell over the restaurant's interior. Kristine paled and held Michael's hand with painful pressure. "I know who that." she began, not needing to finish. Michael recognized it, also.

  Out in front of La Bretonne, hidden behind a stone pillar, was the presence he had met on the fourth floor. The simulacra in the restaurant froze and lost definition.