by Tad Williams
“No. But I can give you a few suggestions that may save you a great deal of time.”
“Such as?”
“I hardly think it fair that I show you mine before you show me yours.” The wintry smile returned; he’d amused himself. “Surely we can find some way to help each other?”
By now, I was beginning to almost like the guy, although I wasn’t any closer to trusting him. He clearly knew things about me and the other angels that most people didn’t know. “Any chance you could tell me a little bit more about yourself, Doc?” I asked. “Where you came from, how long you’ve been doing this, stuff like that?”
He smiled. “It will be a long time before you’ve earned enough credit for that, Mr. Dollar. But maybe someday.”
“Okay, then we’ll play it your way for now. How about I give you some of what you want to hear first, then you can return the favor? After that, we’ll swap back and forth.”
“Excellent. Tell me about your own experiences, please. Did you first wake up in Heaven or here on Earth?”
So I related the basics of my angelic life, starting with my first memories of waking up in Heaven, then continuing through my training in Camp Zion with my old sergeant Leo, and on through the early days of my work as an advocate. I stopped well short of the current mess, with no further mention of Eligor and nothing about my trip to Hell, or, most especially, of course, about Caz. I was economical with names and locations in general, and I kept the recollection to broad strokes, but otherwise told the truth as I remembered it. Gustibus made no notes, but I had a feeling that would come later, and that he wouldn’t have forgotten much.
“Excellent,” he said when I stopped. “And much of it quite informative. I know of Camp Zion, of course, but I have had little chance to hear about the Counterstrike Units from anyone who actually served in one.” His smile this time was less cheerful. “I have spoken with a few who received some rough treatment at their hands, however. Do you remember an armed encounter with Hell’s forces at a place on the bay called Guadalupe Slough? I believe your unit, the Lyrae, were involved.”
“Smugglers had a warehouse, and we hit it,” I said. “Nasty fight. It was a few years before my time, though.”
“Yes, you’re right. I had the occasion to speak to a gentleman who went by the name of Eduardo Stayner, at least in human circles, although he was better known to many as Freezegripe, a lower-order demon. He was on death row at Folsom Prison for his later role in a botched hijacking that had killed two Brink’s guards, and since he was confident he would receive a new body after he went to the gas chamber, then go right back to work for the same infernal masters, he felt comfortable telling me about the firefight at Guadalupe Slough. Your lochagos Leo apparently shot him in the face during the raid, and he was still somewhat perturbed about it. He’d healed, but the scars were still very prominent.”
“My heart bleeds for him.”
The smile again. “As did mine. A thoroughly unpleasant fellow. But he was the first live contact I’d had in a long time with any of the Opposition soldiers, and because I’m a good listener he told me a lot more than he intended.”
“Well, that’s interesting . . . sort of,” I said. “But it’s not really what I was hoping for when you said you thought you could help me.”
“It’s more interesting than you suspect. You see, a lot of what I’m going to tell you now first came from Freezegripe, although I’ve been able to confirm most of it from other sources.” Gustibus was still standing—apparently he truly didn’t sit—and now he walked to the window and leaned against the sill. Outside the sea had gone dark as the afternoon drew on and the overcast thickened. I noticed for the first time that not only was my host dressed like a hipster monk, his feet were bare.
“I suggest you pour yourself a glass of water, Mr. Dollar,” he said. “Now I have a few stories to share with you.”
I’m glad he suggested the water, because within a few minutes I was learning things that not only made my hair curl and my brain cramp, but also made the inside of my mouth feel very, very dry.
nine
buddhist druid christmas
GUSTIBUS SAID, “I can tell from the way you talk about San Judas Tadeo that you care for the city very much, Mr. Dollar.”
“Really?” Nobody had ever accused me of that before. I mean, yeah, I guess I have a sentimental fondness for Jude, sort of along the lines of what you might feel for an alcoholic parent who loves you but keeps setting fires by accident.
“It is clear. But the problem is, you are not taking a long enough view.”
“You just talk, Doc. I’ll listen.”
Again the slight smile. He wasn’t so much cold or aloof, I had decided, as a bit otherworldly. I still wasn’t positive he was human, at least the ordinary, mortal kind.
“Very well,” he said. “Let me give you an example of what I mean. Back in the middle of the nineteenth century, at the height of the Gold Rush, the Barbary Coast of San Francisco was a worldwide hub for adventurers and fortune-seekers. One fellow, a gambler and occasional saloon owner—the deeds to these places were passed back and forth in innumerable games of chance—was a man named Portugee Jake. He was a famously dangerous fighter, and was said to have shot more than a few men dead with the pearl-handled Colt he always wore. He eventually went into whisky and made an immense amount of money selling to the other saloon owners, and the tales of the wicked parties he gave at his mansion on Nob Hill were legendary.”
“I said I’d listen, but I don’t see the point.”
“Stay with me, Mr. Dollar. Perhaps you’ll be more interested if I tell you that not only was Portugee Jake a noted shot and a man with, what was called at the time, “a vast catalogue of vices,” he was also known far and wide as an exceptional horseman.”
“Ah,” I said. “Horseman.”
“Just so. In any case, Portugee Jake disappeared during the Great Fire of 1906, and although he does not surface again in the histories, I can tell you that a large portion of the assets he collected in San Francisco eventually made their way into the portfolio of a man named Cyrus Van Leydeken—“the Major” as everyone called him, owing to apparent service at the siege of Fort Canosa in the Spanish-American War. Major Van Leydeken went into the arms business, but instead of building his business in San Francisco, he chose instead to head south to the small but growing municipality of San Judas.”
“Was this Major Van Whatsit guy by any chance an expert horseman, too?”
Gustibus nodded. “He certainly owned them and cared about them a great deal. One of his horses nearly won the Preakness, and his studs created much of the Bay Area’s prize stock. He built a large mansion on several hundred acres of rolling hills in what is now Atherton Park and became one of the founders of the modern city of San Judas.
“Then, in the 1930s, Van Leydeken died—or so we are told. His son, who had apparently been overseas, arrived to take up the family concern. His name was Jasper Van Leydeken, and the resemblance to his father as a young man was said to be uncanny. The second Van Leydeken spread the family fortune into many other areas, including the early foundations of the aerospace industry—what would someday earn the area the name of “Silicon Valley.” Late in his life, apparently, the son also began a partnership with something called the Vald Family Trust—a name I’m sure you recognize.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“When Van Leydeken was gone, the company was administered by lawyers for both families until eventually Kenneth Vald stepped in. One of the businesses he built was Vald Credit, as you probably know, since VC Inc. continues to dominate the local economy to this day.”
“So what you’re telling me is that my least favorite demon, Eligor the Horseman, has been here in this area since the nineteenth century. Okay, I get it. But what does it mean to me?”
“It means you’re asking many of the right questions, but you ha
ve to think bigger. And longer.” He paused. “I myself wonder why Eligor found San Jude such a pleasant base of operations. He has several other identities and fortunes in other parts of the world, but he has spent a great deal of his earthly time here. It might be something as simple as enjoying the mild California weather—he certainly spent a great deal of the Renaissance in Italy’s similar climate—but I suspect there is more to it than that. What it is that drew him and others here, though, I still can’t say.”
I was trying to wrap my head around all this, but I have to admit it was making me feel stupider rather than smarter. “Okay, but what . . . ?”
“What does it have to do with you? I am coming to that, Mr. Dollar. Patience. First, let’s put a few more names on the table. I am told that the matter of this upstart Third Way has occupied Heaven’s attention lately. As William Blake wrote, ‘A robin redbreast in a cage, Puts all Heaven in a rage.’ Well so, apparently, does building a new cage for the robins that your employers consider to be their personal property, because Heaven is, quite plainly, in a rage. Well, most of Heaven. But it is those few who are not who interest us.” He poured himself a glass of water, but didn’t drink. “The reason, I suspect, that you are still struggling to get answers is that you are too close to the problem.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that you must distance yourself, both historically and in other ways, to truly understand the situation. At the moment you fear one enemy even more than Eligor—isn’t that true?”
This guy seemed to know everything. “I guess that’s fair to say.”
“One of the very ephors who judges your behavior. An angel of high standing—a Principality, in fact.”
He was good, that was pretty clear, or at least his sources were. “Yeah. And I suppose you can name that angel in three notes or less.”
“I believe I can. Anaita, Angel of Moisture.”
A sudden superstitious reflex made me pause, as if naming her might cause her to appear. “Go on.” It felt more than a little crazy to have this odd man I’d never met before today telling me things about my own life, things no ordinary person should know. It was a bit like opening a fortune cookie to read, “Your boss will send you on a business trip to Houston, your youngest child needs dental work, and on Thursday you will receive a tax refund check for three hundred and forty dollars.”
“Here again,” he said, “you do not have the necessary perspective. What do you know of this particular angel?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “She’s powerful. She’s old.”
“Here is something else to consider.” Gustibus finally took a very small and precise sip of water. “She was not always an angel.”
“What? You mean she used to be an ordinary person? A mortal?”
Gustibus shook his head. “That I couldn’t say. But long before she was considered an angel, she was a goddess.”
“A goddess? You’re kidding, right? You mean like Pele, the Volcano Queen, or something? What the hell does that even mean?”
“The world of the immortals is more complicated than you can imagine. She’s had many names, but Anaita—or Anahit, or Anahita—was her name when she was a goddess, too. The ancient Persians revered her.”
I had to get up for a second to walk around. Bad enough I had an important angel trying to kill me, but a goddess? “How does someone get promoted from goddess to angel? Is that even a promotion?”
Gustibus puffed out his thin cheeks and then sucked them back in again. He did it a couple of more times, and I was just wondering if I was about to hear his mating call when I realized he was laughing. “Oh, I like that, Mr. Dollar. Very good. I don’t know exactly how it came about, but I can assure you that the entity known as Anaita of the Third Sphere was once known as Anahit, Goddess of Moisture and Fertility. That was several thousand years ago, of course. I’m sure you know that many of the great lords of Hell were once considered gods or goddesses, but how this Anaita ‘changed teams’, if you’ll forgive the analogy, is a story still undiscovered, although I very much hope to unravel it someday.”
“Okay, so I’m in even worse shape than I thought. I’m not sure this does me a lot of good.”
“You were being patient, Mr. Dollar. Please keep listening. Whether she is goddess or angel is not so much the issue—she is what she is. But it does point up the fact that you are dealing with immortals or near-immortals, and you must stop thinking in the same human way.”
“I’m pretty certain I used to be human myself. That might have something to do with it.”
He waved his long hand, dismissing my remark. “I’m sure. But you need to think about these unanswered questions, because at least one of them may help you with your most pressing problem. The first two questions—who wanted this Third Way? And why? And here’s another, just as important: If Anaita and Eligor collaborated to open this new territory (and if they hadn’t there would be no feather and no horn to concern you) how was that collaboration arranged? Remember, these beings are the equivalent of high government ministers of two warring nations, except their respective masters have been at war for uncountable millennia. They cannot simply drop in to each other’s offices for a chat. In fact, if they were even seen in the same general location, it would be cause for gossip and speculation among both immortals and mortals alike.”
“You’re saying that whatever deal they made . . . it probably didn’t happen right off the bat.”
“Exactly, Mr. Dollar. Whoever made the first overture would have moved with incredible caution. What if he or she misjudged the other? Making bargains with the enemy is a capital offense for both parties. And here’s another question whose answer might help with our earlier queries—who seems to be in charge of this Third Way?”
“Well, from what my friend says, it’s Anaita—or Kephas, as she called herself while she was setting this up. Certainly I’ve only ever heard him talk about instructions coming from Kephas, no one else. I haven’t heard that Eligor’s had a single thing to do with the place. Which means it was probably her idea. That means she was the one to approach Eligor, not the other way around.”
Gustibus nodded. “Now you’re thinking in a useful way. Remember, these beings are immortal, but in the real world their power is more limited. They cannot simply wave their hands and have things happen—at least, not very often and not without a great outlay of their own energies. Because of that, they tend to use local resources when possible. How did I know that Portugee Jake and Cyrus Van Leydeken and Kenneth Vald are all the same entity? Simple. I followed the money, Mr. Dollar—I intend no humor, by the way—and it showed me that while the identities changed, the money that allowed those identities to thrive in our world all came from the same source of funds over the decades, since I first found Eligor’s footprints on California soil, as it were. Now we must follow another trail, also hidden but equally visible to logic, and ultimately that trail should lead to Anaita and perhaps the answer to your problem.” He took another sip. “But first it is your turn again to answer my questions. Unless you still doubt that I can be useful to you.”
“No, sir. Fire away.” This was one of the weirdest days I’d spent on Earth, but I had finally begun to get the swing of how this Gustibus guy worked, and I wanted more. It had never occurred to me that Grand Duke Eligor could have been in San Judas so long, and I realized there were a lot of things like that I hadn’t even considered.
I let Gustibus guide me through what he wanted, which was a (still carefully self-edited) version of my last year, including the specifics of my beef with Eligor. I left out my relationship with Caz and my trip to Hell again—there were some things I just wasn’t ready to discuss with strangers, even useful ones—but Gustibus seemed to know most of what I’d been doing anyway, at least in general terms. When I surprised him, he would say, “Really?” and nod with approval. He did it a lot as I described my doings with the ephors, th
e angelic fact-finders who had been on my case for a while.
“Excellent,” he said after I’d answered his last question. “Oh, this is a pleasure, to speak to someone on the inside with eyewitness information.”
“So you’ve never been to Heaven?”
He looked genuinely sad. “My information comes from other sources. I have spoken to angels besides you, but only in very guarded conversations, swapping one bit of pertinent information for another, equally isolated piece. In fact, I hope we can do this again sometime, you and I.”
“Yeah, it’s possible.” I’d been collecting informants myself ever since my Counterstrike days—George, the ghostly Sollyhull Sisters, and a freaky piece of work called the Broken Boy, just to name a few—but this guy was entirely different in what he knew, and you can never have too many good sources.
He took another sip of water. “So now we return to your current situation. You are under investigation by your superiors, with an unconsummated bargain of some kind remaining between you and Eligor the Horseman—this I infer from your obvious desire to find the horn, plus the many things you have pointedly not told me, despite the your willingness to share the other details of your story. More crucially, you are apparently also a target for Anaita, which complicates matters, because Anaita has something you seem to want very much—Grand Duke Eligor’s horn.”
“Okay, you proved it. You’re smart. Are you going to tell me where it is?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Dollar. No, I’m afraid I don’t know where the horn is.”
“But you said . . . !”
“I said I’d help you. Listen to me carefully, and I think you’ll agree that I’m keeping my side of the bargain.”
“I’ve had my fill of bargains lately, to be honest. They seem to keep blowing up in my face.”
