Axel woke up in total joy and sprung to his feet. He had nearly a second of happy realization, and he opened his mouth to shout. But no shout came from his mouth.
One of those short, sharp-bladed Dolophonoi knives, seeming to move by itself, buried itself in Axel's throat, and the ten-year-old Golden Ape fell dead.
But the short knife, still seeming to move by itself, withdrew from the red-running throat of Axel and hovered in the air seeking further prey.
“I know you now, I'll have you now!” Lord Randal cried and went fearlessly after the dancing knife. Lord Randal's own knife had flicked out and stabbed at an unseen something. But the dancing knife found Lord Randal's throat just as it had found Axel's. And Lord Randal fell dead.
The knife now withdrew itself from Lord Randal's throat in turn, and danced in the air again. Then it went like a soaring bird through the blasted hole and into the Executive Passage, and it disappeared from them.
“Woe, woe, woe!” sobbed Dubu the Bear. “Whatever it was, it's gone now. And now we are only eight covenanted ones. What will we do? What will we do, Lutin?”
“I don't know,” Lutin said. “My own hour is upon me.”
“Dubu,” Inneall said, “you and Marino and Popugai take Lutin to the House on Tom Dooley's Island and be with her. You go with them too, Sebastian. And I and Carcajou and Schimp and Henryetta will take these two murdered ones to Ocean Bottom. There are places prepared for them there. I saw their names written on their cenotaphs down there today, but my mind refused to accept it that it was their names.”
They came out of the Apes’ Caverns then, back through the Executive Passage, out of the Clubroom and out of Structo Lane, down to Ocean shore, and down into the Ocean, the four living and the two dead ‘persons’. Deep down in the Ocean it was not completely dark, even shortly after midnight, even a half mile deep in Inneall's Ocean. The Lantern Fishes (Torpedo Laterna) drew themselves up in files and lighted the way. And on Ocean Floor, the Whales in a great circle with their heads pointing in at the cenotaphs with their unshut foot-in-diameter eyes shined sharp green lights.
Inneall read the names on the stone cenotaphs, but there was no need for that. The high-relief representations of the persons to be entombed there were amazingly true. There was Axel To-The-Life, carved in limestone death on the cover of his cenotaph. And there was his name “Axel, a True Child of Wonder”. Carcajou and Schimp lifted the stone lid, placed the dead Axel inside the cenotaph, and closed the lid again.
And on top of another cenotaph was Lord Randal grinning in ruddy, happy stone death. And his name was there “Lord Randal Eternally Noble and Eternally Good”. Carcajou and Schimp lifted the stone lid, placed the dead Lord Randal inside it, and—
“Wait!” Henryetta cried. She reached into Lord Randal's breast pocket and took out the kangaroo knuckle-bone. She read in her tight underwater voice the writing on it:
“The name of the person who is Supreme Head of the Kangaroo for the brief present time is Invisible Alfred.”
All were stunned by that. But they quickly found angry words.
“He played the part of the cheapjack ignorant Prophet so we would consider him a nothing-person,” Carcajou spoke in fury. “And he was invisibly everywhere with his murder-plotting and his eavesdropping on our conversations.”
“He was the lowest sort of clown and buffoon, only this side of a moron,” Schimp complained. “And at the same time he had to be a man of mega mind, of an evil mega mind. What treachery! He had surely practiced murder by ordinary sleepwalking as had the Dolophonoi; and it wouldn't have been enough. But then today, quite by accident I guess it was, he was introduced to the Ocean Sleep as practiced by Satrap Saint Ledger, and it did prove to be enough. Oh, there was no bottom to his trickery!”
“He was even up in the crows-nest of the Annabella with us,” Inneall mourned, “and he overheard and took advantage of every item of our plans. Lutin said that something smelled funny up there, that it was the smell of treachery. And even then we didn't understand.”
“And that same smell is right here right now!” Henryetta howled. “Twice at banquet I thought I heard a dog under the table, and I looked and saw none. But there was a dog under the banquet table, a dog named Invisible Alfred. And that same dog is here right now, but where, where, where? Oh, Oh, Oh, whose is that cenotaph with its lid askew and half off? Whose is the image and name? Oh, Oh, Oh, Inneall, it is my own image and name!”
Then the dangling knife reappeared and at the same moment buried itself in Henryetta's own throat. And she fell across her own cenotaph dead. But this time, the knife did not withdraw itself from the throat. It stayed there. Invisible Alfred had finished his work as Supreme Head of the Kangaroo, and was rising invisible, rising high above them to Ocean Surface.
The Lantern Fishes (Torpedo Laterna) still gave them faithful light. Carcajou and Schimp put Henryetta in her cenotaph, still with one sharp short-bladed knife in her throat and another one in her belt-sheath.
But the green lights from the Whales’ unshut one-foot-diameter eyes was flickering. The great Whales, drawn up on the Ocean Bottom in a circle with their heads facing the cenotaphs, were weeping huge, salt-water tears on the bottom of the saltwater sea. Who else had ever had tears that big shed for them?
Carcajou and Schimp put the cover on Henryetta's cenotaph. Oh, even a deep ocean would not be able to cover forever the murder of her.
There was another empty cenotaph there with its stone cover ajar. The representation on the cover was that of a man so possessed by a mixture of passions and raptures, terror, sorrow, hope, overflowing happiness all together, that there was no telling who the man was. And the name on the cenotaph was “Hieronymous Ignatius Zchold, a Good Man.”
“Who in the world is Hieronymous Ignatius Zchold?” Carcajou asked the whole Ocean in disbelief. Then the three of them, Inneall, Schimp, and Carcajou, struck out for the Ocean Surface half a mile above their heads. And they had doubts about their making it. Oh, they were still in the hyperactive pseudo-dream state of Oceanic Metastasis, but the Metastasis is sometimes eroded by encounters with shock and sorrow and dismal dejection and futile anger.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
OCEAN-BOTTOM OVERTURE
We'll not grow old nor stale nor dim.
We're full of wonder to the brim.
No matter if the mountains fall,
We have them still in full recall.
We own the best of childhood still.
We're full of joy, and yet to fill.
We stand on beatific brink.
We're fewer, though, than one might think.
—In A Green Tree. Auctore.
On their way up from Ocean Bottom the three had felt ocean quakes. And when they came to the surface and swam to Ocean Side at old Heart's Desire Cove, they felt land quakes, earthquakes. Then they recalled the prophecies of Lutin and others that Tom Dooley's Island with its House would sink to the bottom of the Ocean that day.
It was ghost dawn (ghost dawn is an hour before false dawn even). Inneall and Carcajou and Schimp stopped at Jack Flannagan's Piano Bar and Sidewalk Cafe and had cockerel eggs and apple cordial. Someone was singing ‘All Day and All Night’ in the Piano Bar. Jack Flannagan came out to the sidewalk and sat and talked with them.
“It's the Third Night of Summerset coming to its end and the dire third and last day of Summerset soon to begin,” Jack said. Jack Flannagan had always seemed human; but he never slept and he was ever busy running his piano bar and sidewalk cafe twenty-four hours a day. So it was likely that he was an Ambulatory and Miming-Human Computer who was better at the miming than most of them. Or, if not a computer, he had picked up some of the computer habits. “The last day of Summerset is usually a dire day,” Jack went on, “and it's fitting that it should begin with those little earthquakes. They are saying that Tom Dooley's Island will sink to the bottom of the Ocean this day. The coming day will be the first Official Hanging Day, though it'll be an annual event here
after. There will be several hangings in the City, but lots of people are going to come here to Oceanside to see the Hanging and also the Priest-Stoning on Tom Dooley's Island. Those two things are really supposed to be semi-private. Well, things like that can't be private or even semi-private, and they sure can't keep the dogs away, though that may be attempted. The dogs know about it already and are avid for it. You're the little-girl machine who made the Ocean, aren't you sis?”
“Yes,” Inneall said, “and it's a good Ocean, however much the Scientists are running it down. They think they know everything. Well, let's see them make an Ocean.” Inneall raised her left hand and waved to the place where she believed the invisible ship Annabella Saint Ledger was drifting just off shore. And in the air above just where the crows-nest on the fore mast of the Annabella should be, an unconnected left hand raised itself and waved back. It was Lanternjaw Lunnigan faithful Captain of the ship, with all of him painted with invisible paint except his left hand. This was the every-early-morning signal that he and Inneall had agreed on for even and aye. They would keep in touch.
Somebody was playing ‘A Thousand Years is Like a Day’ on the piano inside. Inneall and Carcajou and Schimp went to that part of old Heart's Desire Cove where Inneall had just signaled to Lanternjaw, the place where the deep water came right up to shore, the place from which Invisible Alfred had addressed the crowd of ten thousand from the invisible poop-deck yesterday. They listened there for the ship, for the quietest invisible ship makes some sound, like the sound of the rope ladder dragging in the water. The three of them went up the ladder. Then they sailed in the Annabella Saint Ledger the short distance to Tom Dooley's Island. “Be ready to back away in plenty of time when the island begins to sink,” Inneall called up to the invisible crows-nest. “It will be very turbulent.” “Tell us not our business, little girl-machine Inneall,” Lanternjaw called back down. “We are mariners and you are not.”
Then it was out of the Invisible Ship and into the highly visible house. And the carry-over party guests were still partying.
“What is that glow around the house?” Inneall wondered.
“Probably actinic rays,” Schimp said. “If I was a Computer with computer-sensing I’d know for sure.”
“Of course it's actinic rays. But what is causing them?”
“Oh, the murders have stopped. How gross!” Rose-of-Sharon Montdrago said accusingly as she came up to the Three. Rose-of-Sharon was one of the four Seconds who would hang their friend Donatus O'reily that day. “Why have the murders stopped? How can one solve a murder mystery if the flow of clues is cut off like that? There have been no more murders since you Royal Kids left here yesterday afternoon.
“Why is there such a glow around the house and on everything in the house, Rose-of-Sharon?” Inneall asked that lady.
“Some people say it's a big egg that's making the glow. That sounds as if the silly season had come to Persimmon Manor. Why can't we have more murders to give us a better shot at solving the murder mystery.”
“Rose-of-Sharon,” Dubu the female bear said as she came up to talk to the new arrivals. “I told you that I had solved the murder mystery, and I told you that there would be no more murders here, except one particularly horrible murder of another sort here this morning. And I told you that I wouldn't try to explain the murder mystery to you until your drunken wits were less muddled.
“Inneall, Lutin is all right now, and she has already given birth, but you're not going to believe to what.”
“I sure don't believe it,” said the Pirate Sebastian Lazar as he came up to them. “There is no way that Lutin could have given birth to that. But there it is.”
“Given birth? Lutin? Was that what was wrong with her?”
“Inneall,” Popugai the parrot said with the rough side of his voice, “you have researched a million subjects. And you haven't researched so fundamental a one as this?”
“No. Why should I have? It didn't interest me. I'm only a ten-year-old girl-machine. Sebastian Lazar, what is that thing you have under your arm?”
“Oh, it's the Midnight Cock from the Cenaculum of Sleepers in Apes Cavern. I have it well-hooded though. And it won't crow till I unhood it. Well, I'm going visiting to the two they-who-will-die-today persons in this house.”
“Sebastian, you wouldn't cheat Donatus O'reily out of the last hours before he is hanged? And with an interloper cock yet?”
“Yes. This Island will have sunk before his cherished hours could have run their course anyhow.”
The ‘boys’ Carcajou and Schimp went with Sebastian Lazar and Marino the Seal and Popugai the Parrot to visit the two they-who-will-die-today persons. Inneall went with Dubu to visit Lutin and to see the you-wouldn't-believe-it that she had birthed. Satrap Saint Ledger was outside of Lutin's lying-in room. With his usual big gesture, Satrap had given her the biggest room in the house. She could have entertained three hundred persons in that room for her lying-in if she’d wished.
“I got a midwife-nurse human person for Lutin as soon as they brought her here,” Satrap said. “Midwifery is not a thing that non-humans should be dabbling in. Actually she's a Master Doctor and Constellated Physician. As to the ‘Egg’, well, I'm sure that there's an explanation for it, but I've no idea what it might be.”
In the big room, Lutin was at her ease on a long, low ‘snake couch’.
“Hello Inneall,” the girl-snake said. “My visions were a little bit confused, coming as they did up at an angle through half a mile of ocean water. It was Henryetta then who was killed by Invisible Alfred the head of the Kangaroo as being a Serpent's Egg, and not you. He passed right over you. I’d have killed you and passed over Henryetta if I’d been head of the Kangaroo. You're much more the menace to the Kangaroo than Henryetta was, but I won't try to tell them their business. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody in the world was as happy as I am this morning! And ‘Serpent's Egg’ has an entirely new meaning to me now. Lo!—and Behold It!”
“That thing!” Inneall cried out aghast.
“Yes, that thing with the beautiful golden and blue light pulsating about it!” Lutin spoke out of her mood of rapture. “That wonderful, that blessed, that hope-of-the-world thing.”
“Lutin, that egg is three meters long and two meters thick!” Inneall exploded. “It probably weighs five hundred times as much as you do. You couldn't have laid it. Besides, pythons are live-bearing. They don't lay eggs.”
“There's always a first time,” Lutin gushed. “Oh rapture, rapture!”
“What really happened?” Inneall asked the midwifely person who was also a Master Doctor and Constellated Physician.
“What happened,” said that utterly utterly woman, “was that somebody cast me into a deep sleep and cast Lutin into a sleep also. When we woke up, that thing was there! Well, a quick examination showed that Lutin had indeed given birth while she and I slept, but I don't believe that she gave birth to that.”
“And I do believe that I gave birth to that,” Lutin insisted. “It is me in every way. It is exactly like me!”
“Oh, Oh!” Inneall cried out. “Who around here is the mad sleepcaster? Dubu, did you just put these two dubious persons to sleep? And why?”
“The First Coming was ridiculous beyond the point of laughter. The King and Creator of the Universe was born to road-people in a cow-and-sheep barn, and was wrapped up in a cow-blanket when he was brought forth and placed in a grubby feed-trough for a bed.
“What if the Second Coming should be even more ridiculous? But is it possible to think of anything more ridiculous? Let us try to think of the most ridiculous circumstance possible for the Second Coming, and we may still fall short of it.”
—The Book of Jasher
“Sure, I did it,” Dubu told Inneall. “I cast Lutin and that midwife into a deep sleep. And I did it because a couple of odd fellows tempted me into it.”
“How were they odd, Dubu?”
“Oh, they were transparent, and a couple of other thing
s. They told me that it was all for a joke, the biggest joke ever. ‘It is the joke by which the World will be saved and transformed’, that was their very words. I skipped out then after I had cast Lutin and the midwife to sleep. I wasn't here when the ‘Ultimate Egg’ appeared.”
“What other things, Dubu. Besides being transparent how were the odd fellows odd?”
“Oh, they giggled a lot, things like that.”
“It's artificial,” Inneall announced, examining the big egg with her nose and ears and other sensors. “There's electronic gear inside the shell, and a mechanical pump is pumping in there. But there's something alive inside this big egg too. Well, we'll come back to it. There's other eggs to fry first.”
Inneall zoomed out of there with Dubu following in her wake. She met Sebastian Lazar crawling out of the priest's hole, still with the hooded Midnight Cock under one arm.
“I'm going to take his place, take the place of the obsolete priest of the obsolete creed,” Sebastian said.
“I didn't know that you had researched Dickens, Pirate,” Inneall commented. “You don't look enough like him for it to work, do you? After all, Sydney Carton bore a striking resemblance to Charles Darney. Do you bear a striking resemblance to this man—what is his name—?”
“His name is Hieronymous Ignatius Zchold,” Sebastian Lazar said.
“Oh, that's the mysterious name on the mysterious cenotaph on Ocean Bottom. We were puzzled by that name.”
“No, I don't look like him, Inneall. I don't mean that I will take his place that way. H. I. Zchold will die today, and I Sebastian Lazar will live as many more days as I am able to. But I will try to take the place of Zchold in the world.”
“I am impatient with you, Sebastian,” Inneall snapped with that metallic curtness which even the most human-seeming of computers show sometimes. “That man had no place in the world. And do you really intend to awaken Donatus O'reily with that Midnight Cock?”
Serpent’s Egg Page 18
