Fire in the Wall

by S G Dunster

  “I keep to myself,” the stranger replied. “Usually. I’ve made an exception in this case, obviously. A man really cannot resist a path with flowers.” He aimed the remark at me. “Color and scent, it draws the bees and the poets.” He turned back to Lil. “Who were you trying to find?”

  “Flowers,” I muttered to myself, feeling thoroughly confused.

  “He’s . . . a friend,” Lil replied. “He’s been talking to me through the . . . thinness. The Grey Man.”

  The brows lifted again. “You’re in a thin spot?”

  Lil’s expression shifted to the same confusion I was feeling.

  Maybe, I thought, this guy’s not quite there. It was an unwelcome supposition. I needed to be rescued. I was ready for someone who knew what they were doing to take over.

  “The place where you once lived on the crust, I mean, of course,” he continued, and Lil’s face cleared. She nodded.

  “Yeah. The divide between above and below worlds is thin in our town. We’re sitting on an old caldera. It’s eroded enough now that . . . Well, it got filled by this world, I think. These underparts. Filled by . . . tellings.” Lil shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. All I know’s he needed help. The Grey Man. And so did Logan.” She glanced at me. “The tellings were making him . . . he’s susceptible.”

  “They Grey Man,” the stranger mused. “He didn’t give you his name, of course. Coward.” His lip curled. “Hans,” he spat.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Lil said. “He’s been— “

  “He’s been meddling on the surface because he can’t stand to be in his own head. He lost her, and now he’s going after someone else.” The stranger’s voice rose, and he reached up and tugged at a curl of dark, greasy hair that had escaped his hat. “Damned coward,” he muttered. “Fool. He’s ruined her, now he’ll ruin you.”

  “A good poem.” Lil’s voice was tentative, almost shy. “Who are you? If you’re really here, really . . . firm, you must be something. Something strong to have survived longer than the others.”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “Survived what?” I snapped. “What are you guys talking about?”

  Lil and this stranger gazed at one another again. And again, something passed between them. The cat leaned back on its haunches and reached up, clawing the dude’s already much-tattered leg.

  “Yes, Monty,” he said, looking down at him. “You’re quite right, of course.” He turned to me suddenly, giving me that horrible, misplaced smile. “Eap. That’s what you may call me. Nice to make your acquaintance. And your name?”

  “Logan,” I replied, flinching away from the hand he’d offered again. “What did you and Lil mean? Who are what you’ve survived?”

  “Your grammar is tangled thoroughly around your ankles.” He gestured for us to walk past him. “I’ll take you to my place, and we’ll have a little talk there.” His great awful eyes rolled in his yellow face as he scrutinized the mist around us. “Where there’s less likely to be a conflation of ears eavesdropping.”

  “Yeah. All right.” Lil took the lead. Eap turned, waiting for me.

  Reluctantly, I walked after them into the whiteness.

  We walked for a while. I thought, from time to time, that I saw shapes, dim things like curling fog, but nothing materialized for a long time; nothing at all, until the road.

  A long raised length of concrete on each side of the road started to appear in the distance, and when we got to it, when I stepped on it, there was a faint impression of stone blocks underfoot. It was dim, at first, in the fog, and then became clearer. The stone was grey, cracked, grown through with black lichens. I watched it because it was the only thing to watch.

  I heard something. Maybe the faint roar of a river, and then I saw it in the distance—a cut of darkness across the white plane, and the road ahead arced over it like a bridge. Beyond that, houses, and trees on a hill shaped sort of like a bread loaf.

  Everything was grey, except where it was black—darkness so intense that my eyes complained and want to look away. Some of the roofs were black. The river was black. The shadows were stark black. Like I was in a black-and-white film, one of those old Charlie Chaplin movies where nothing seems quite in focus and the contrast is way off.

  “What is this?” Lil said. “I’ve never heard of this place.” She paused and slowed as the first of the houses came into view. “The Grey Man said it’s all gone,” she said quietly. “All forest now.”

  “Your Grey Man’s never had much fortitude,” Eap replied. “He was one of the first to leave. Grandeur is not entirely fallen to Grimwoods yet.”

  I was slowing as well, looking. The sky was a roil of clouds and mist, almost a veil. A curtain. Atmospheric protection, contained. And more solid, maybe, than anything I’d touched for a while. I don’t know how I sensed it, but I did. Just to test, I studied the stones under my feet, concentrating, imagining black pavement.

  The stones bent slightly, like the edges of a fishbowl lens. They grew a bit smoky. But I was sweating, and they weren’t changing.

  I stopped thinking of pavement, and the cobbles were immediately precise. Square edges, perfectly matched to each other.

  “It is the work of a hundred tellers or more,” Eap said. “And I have seen this road a thousand, thousand times. It is quite firm, Logan. It takes more than one telling to change.” He clapped my shoulder with a square hand. “Don’t feel badly.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I really don’t.” My spirits were much lighter, a sense of relief so intense, so buoying, that I fairly skipped along that dreary grey road. Something real. Something real. How much I’d been longing for something real.

  He fell into step right behind me as I passed him. “In spite of our friends who like to eat everything up in their hoary old forests, even they stop at the edges of real firmament. And here we are: the town proper. What’s left of it.”

  We crossed a bridge, which humped up, then sloped down, and stopped by an old brick building with a peaked roof, half a dozen gables, and a spindly chimney. It would have been pretty awesome looking if it weren’t all crumbly and grey.

  There was ornate woodwork in the peak of the roof and sculpted stone over the windows and door. “Here my old friend George used to reside. Brilliant with an image, George was—wrote lines and lines that you could swallow down like cold water on a sweaty day. He liked to know who was going and coming in town. And this,” he said, stopping by a massive peaked Victorian with lots of flowery stuff under the roofs and posts, “used to be your Grey Man’s place. See the gabling? And those rotted old vines were roses and ivy, of course. No lawn, but a field full of dandelions. See the park in front? He used to make towers of ice and fill them with his birds and maidens and mermaids. He’d get a hundred visitors a day. People coming to him like he was king of tales. Asking his advice. Fawning. Bah.” He waved his hand like he was batting away mosquitoes. “First to run. One of the very first. The only reason he is still firm, still unbroken, is that he knows how to hide, your Grey Man.”

  Lil stopped and stared at the house. “So where’s he now? You’ve seen him?”

  “Who can know,” Eap said. “Noplace. Or a dozen places at once, if he’s succumbed to blyk, which would not surprise me in the least. Perhaps this is why he has not found you yet. Pray he never does.”

  “He’s not a blyk,” Lil said fiercely. “He’s still himself. He talked to me only . . . just before I got here. I told him I was coming.”

  Eap stopped still, turned to face her. “And what did he say, when you told him of your coming?”

  “He told me . . . he said it . . .” Lil fell silent, caught in his glare. “He said to—”

  “He told you to stay away.”

  “He needed help. He needed us. Why are you down here? How come you’re still firm? You must know how to hide, too.”

  They stared at each other for a long few seconds, his dark, watery eyes with a hint of cool malevolence, hers jewel-blue and full of angst.

  Ea
p broke his gaze first. He let out a long sigh. “Perhaps Hans is not so villainous as I thought. You should have listened.” He snapped his fingers and Monty leapt up onto his shoulder. “You’ll be consumed by our blight, Lil. And you’ve brought your friend to be consumed with you. Such friendship as this, I cannot conceptualize. Come.”

  Lil scowled and stayed put. “We can’t hide,” she said. “We have to fight.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her, pausing. “Fight what?”

  “The thing . . . the blyk. The Rook and the . . . Wolf.” She grew quieter as his eyes narrowed, as his brows shot up.

  “The Rook, the Wolf. The Grey Man,” Eap said. “Blyk, singular. Do you know precisely what it is you fight Lil?”

  She glared.

  “Come on, now,” he said mildly, turning away from her. “We can’t spend too long on this street. They haven’t completely erased it, but knowing you’re here might be the last turn of the scythe to decide them that way.”

  “Them,” I repeated. “Who, them? Who are we fighting?”

  “Hush,” he gave me a small, almost cute smile. “No need to murder the English language. I shall tell you what you wish to know, Master Logan, as soon as we’re in a place that’s safe.”

  We continued to follow him. The street became crowded with rubble, and buildings, and things that were between the two, and spread out in a grid of alley and road. A strange collection of buildings grew thicker together as we continued: small, gingerbread-type cottages next to nine-story brick apartments; one or two steel and glass towers rising toward the sky like monoliths; Victorian mansions cuddled next to thatch-roofed huts like mothers with their chicks. And here and there was something totally weird: a series of small hills with doors in them; a large pile of naked tent poles and rotted fabric with a huge fire-pit. There were a couple of gnarled trees with the ruins of what looked to be wooden platforms, the remains of tree-houses like Lil’s. Lil frowned.

  I laughed quietly. She was mad someone else had used her idea, her theme. Her fantasy, made ordinary by the fantasies of others. Lil doesn’t like to like the same things others like.

  We passed by a glass mansion that stretched over a thick, rushing stream of dark water that circled a lake. The lake had several disreputable-looking house-boats bobbing on it.

  All falling apart. Everything grey, white, black.

  The road climbed the hill, and the houses seemed to get bigger as we climbed. There was a palace with a dozen towers topped by onion-shaped domes, surrounded by sharp-tipped iron fences. I could see ivy and pampas grasses and roses inside, and lines of hedges, all wildly overgrown.

  “A good teller, she was.” Eap lightly touched one of the iron bars as we passed. “When she fell, most of the rest, the ones who were left whole, went soon after. And here we are.” He reached down and touched the cat, which was stalking around his legs, back arched, eyes narrowed. “It’s all right, Monty,” he murmured.

  It took a moment for me to see what he was pointing to. A break in the foliage, barely more than a deer-path, cut through the hedge and continued right along the fence. It was grown over on both sides. He walked in, holding the branches away for us to follow.

  Lil stopped, biting the edge of her mouth. I pushed her. “Go on,” I said.

  She stepped in, giving me a hot look, and I followed both of them.

  The bushes closed in overhead, making it so dark I could hardly see my shoes on the ground. My faded, broken-in Nikes. I’d looked at them thousands of times. Studied them while sweating miles. Even that color though—the sun-rotted green and orange—looked blinding and bright against the black and white and grey of everything else. Lil, too, like a Technicolor figure in a black-and-white film. And Eap—well, the slight yellow tinge of his skin was the only thing out of place. He was pretty much black and white. He matched well.

  “Here,” he said.

  I squinted through the brush. He was holding open a round, scarred wooden door. It was crowded by foliage. Above the door, a mound of foliage. I couldn’t tell if it was a door in a hill, or simply a house that had grown over terribly.

  The handle was a stove-handle, with tarnished brass fittings. It almost looked like a piece of debris, tossed there randomly, until he grabbed it and opened it, revealing a dark room beyond. As we approached, he opened it wider and gestured us inside.

  I stepped in after Lil. He came in after her. The cat leapt onto his shoulder and he shut the door, and everything turned black. I blinked, closed my eyes tight, opened them and waited for the lines of the room to come into focus in the sudden dim.

  Chapter 11

  Bookshelves. Walls made of bookshelves. And one window—small, dirty, pretty much covered by foliage—let in light to see the hint of regular shelves crammed full, stacked haphazard with books and sheaves of paper going in every direction.

  Books on the floor, too; tall, rickety stacks of them. Piles of them. Mounds rimming the entire room, which was small anyway.

  A cabinet full of what I recognized as different kinds of spirit— faceted crystal bottles, green glass bottles, clear glass bottles containing every color of liquid from searing yellow to thick, sludgy brown.

  Books and booze, I thought, looking around, moving carefully to a long metal-legged couch with tarnished ornate scrollwork. I sat and a spring immediately stabbed me in the butt. I shifted sideways, finding an incongruous lump of stuffing that had slid together under the threadbare velvet.

  Lil chose a spindle-backed chair with a small round table beside it. It was covered with a dozen mismatched glasses and cups—some crystal, some ceramic mugs, and one cracked plastic that looked like it could have come from our cupboard at home.

  He stood in the doorway, watching us. “Rule one,” he said. “Do not accept an invitation from a stranger. Not here in the Caldera.” He hesitated, then added. “At least, not in its current state.”

  I stared at him, standing there, gaunt and pale in his dim doorway. The shadows shifted, or seemed to, lengthening his fingers, sending thready lines over his face so his eyes glowed, malevolent pale rings between the deep shadow of sockets and the pure black of iris and pupil.

  I stood quickly. “Lil.” My voice cracked like a 12-year-old’s.

  A blob of yellow light phased into being, spreading illumination through the room. It was a lamp. Eap was holding it—a glass thing with a tall, undulating tube. The flame danced in it, throwing contrast on every line of Eap’s face, making his eyes seem to bug out.

  “In this case, you are lucky,” he said smokily, setting the lamp on the table beside Lil, shifting a handful of empty glasses to make room. One fell on the floor and shattered. “I happen to be a friendly stranger.” He gave both of us a stern look. “Do not make this mistake again. Even if it is I who invites you, alone, to a place where I can easily have my way with you. It is not hard to make dark things wear the faces of the living.”

  He sat on the other end of the couch, making it screech, and took a ratty wool blanket from the floor, pulling it over his lap. He was shaking. He snapped his fingers and a glass appeared in his hand. In fact, it was the shattered glass on the floor. The mess disappeared, and reformed in his hand, whole. “Whiskey?” He nodded at the cupboard.

  “Uh . . . no,” I replied shakily. Carefully, I sat down again, keeping a distance between myself and him.

  “Good,” Eap said curtly, draining his glass in one harsh tilt of his head. “I have to go outside firmament to tell new things into being. Brings too much notice, if I do it here. A cup, it can be reused. Spirits,” he sighed. “They disappear into the blood and brain and become much the same madness as they do on the surface.”

  “Why do you drink then?” Lil gave the collection on the table a withering look. “And can’t you do anything here? Make anything?”

  “You can’t tell away what’s inside you,” Eap replied. “Addictions. Weaknesses. Fears. They do not retreat in the face of fantasies told into reality. In fact— “

 
; “They become worse,” I finished for him without even thinking. “They become real.”

  He pointed at the cupboard and filled his glass again. I noticed, this time, that the amber liquid in one of the bottles sunk an inch lower.

  “Right.” Lil tapped her knee. “So, what are we doing here?”

  “Resting a moment. And talking,” Eap replied, giving her a mild glance that had a hint of something nobody should mess with.

  Lil must have seen it, too. She closed her mouth around the words she was about to say next and folded her arms tightly at her waist. She glanced around, frowning. “All this, though. You like this? Why not tell something a little less . . .”

  Eap wheezed. I decided it was a laugh. “You are quite right. Who likes a hovel? And yet, it is home. It’s safety.” He gave me a toothy grin, setting his glass aside and sighing. “Ah. Warmth for the blood. Settling for the stomach. Juice to the brain.” He tapped the crown of his head and lay back. “Time for some rest, children.”

  “How do you know what time it is?”

  He opened one eye and regarded me. “How do you usually know when it is time to rest, Logan?”

  “Light. Time to be awake. Dark. Time to be asleep,” I answered easily. “But here, the sun and moon don’t seem to choose to be in the sky the usual amount of time.”

  “Ah, yes. One forgets how things were, on the crust.” He sighed and closed the eye. “Time is told down here through the hungers. How many meals have you had? How many times have you felt a need to sleep?”

  I stopped to calculate. “We’ve been here about two days, then. And Lil was gone two days before that. Is that about how long, Lil?”

  Lil shrugged.

  I blew out my breath in a gust of relief. “That’s good. Time passes the same here and above, then. It’s not like . . . a time warp, or something. Like Narnia, where you spend years and go back and it’s the same day.” I frowned. “Actually, maybe that’s not good.”

  Mom. She’d be frantic by now.