Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes (18 page)

My life, I knew, would be a story of falling and rising. Man cannot live in truth to things always. For the third time, a spirit of pusillanimity urged me to return to the Wabe. But I was not of the tents of those who hide from the sun, but of the houses of those who go forth to meet it.

I set my face like flint toward Enoch.

Part II

35 A Cold Trail

The rooftops of Enoch were islands in a sea of darkness. Wearing my armor, I leaped from one to the next as though they were stones in a stream. I circled the great rift and landed lightly in the moonlit moss-garden of the terrace where I had fought the ghul.

I pushed through the iron door and descended to the suite where Seila had been held prisoner. Nothing was changed, except that the metal box was gone. The air was stale. No one had been there, probably, since the day I’d been infested.

Going back out and walking around to the dais, I began scanning the pavement for clues. Suddenly the fierce white light fell about me again. There was a trace of watchful menace in it. I stood forth in it, shielding my eyes, trying to discern the source. The terrace grew hot, so that the mosses were like to wilt. Then, as abruptly as before, it vanished.

It took me some time to get my night vision back. My eyeballs felt as though they had been seared. My armor cooled slowly. When I could see the stars again I leaped to the parapet and so to the next rooftop.

Now I made for the tower where Seila had taken me. It was easy to find, being taller than its neighbors and crowned with its verdant miter. I went down into the room. There, too, the trail was cold. The note written in Arrasene characters was still on the table where I’d left it. I thrust it into my armor and went out.

There was one last place to try.

*          *          *          *          *

Like a dobsonfly drawn by a candle, I spiraled down to the sepulchral pit, circling the flame-tipped pyramid. I alit in the black boughs of a nimlath and clung there, watching with folded wings.

A female figure with a head like a second Saant emerged from the throne room and began to descend, her shadow a black finger before her. She reached the foot of the stairs and set out across the cemetery. I swung from tree to tree, following her, then dropped to the earth and went after her on foot.

She reached her house, a square mausoleum with an iron fence and a bronze-tiled dome, and went inside. I vaulted over the gate and climbed up above the lintel to listen. There was no sound of voices. She was alone. I swung down and entered.

A clay lamp was burning in a niche that had once held a sarcophagus. There was a folding screen of gold-painted silk in one corner. A nightgown of black byssum was draped over the top. A dress leaped up beside it, and the gown slithered out of sight.

Joanna emerged a moment later, her figure filling its byssum sheath like a basket of ripe fruit. I had expected her to start when she saw me, but she didn’t. That was when I noticed the tiny crossbow in her hand. The string was pulled back and the bolt was pointed in the general direction of my abdomen.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“I want to talk to you,” I said, removing my helmet. “Perhaps it’s asking too much, but somehow I didn’t think so.”

“It’s you,” she said. Her hand faltered. “They said you were—”

“I was. But now I’m not.”

“But that’s impossible!” Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“No one to throw off a daemon. It would have had me if I’d been left to myself. I was fortunate, that’s all.” I nodded at the crossbow. “You can lay that down, you know. I’ve not come here to hurt you.”

She looked at it as though it were in someone else’s hand. “If Jairus ever found out I saw you like this, he’d have me impaled.”

“If you didn’t turn me over to him, you mean.”

“Yes, if I didn’t turn you over.”

“Are you going to?”

She shrugged, then set the weapon down. “I must be going mad.”

“Why? Because of your ingratitude to your benefactor, who can’t spare even a single man to escort you home at night?”

“We’re safe here. The Cheiropt lets no one through. And anyway, what do you think I am? A princess? You can’t expect him to spare guards for all his wives. There are so many of us.”

“Do you enjoy your life here?”

“It’s a place,” she said. “Things will be better after the exodus. We would have been about ready to depart by now, you know, if it hadn’t been for you. Do you have any idea how angry you made him? That was quite a trick you played.”

“It was no trick,” I said. “I spied on him that night. He was going to release chimeras into the city.”

“Ah. And you don’t approve of chimeras.”

I drew Deinothax. “Do you see this sword? This sword is the bane of chimeras.”

She laughed. She had a rich, throaty laugh. “You’re something of a fool,” she said. “Do you know that?”

I laughed, too, and sheathed my sword. “I do,” I said. “I’m hot. Help me off with this armor.”

“What if Jairus comes?”

“I’ll take my chances. I told you, I want to talk to you. I’ll feel like I’m threatening you if I don’t make myself vulnerable first.”

“You
are
a fool,” she said. She began to help me. She was shorter than Seila and more rounded. Her thick red hair had a warm, spicy fragrance. Piece by piece the armor fell to the floor. “Now,” she said, stepping back, “what was it you wanted to ask me?” There was a gleam in her eyes. They blinked slowly, like lacewings feeding on hidden honeydew.

I pulled her to me, pressing her body tightly against mine, and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me again, fiercely, rolling her eyes back. I ran my hands down her slim waist, over her rounded hips, and so to her gentle posterior.

She pulled away, brushing her hair out of her face. There was a rosy glow on her cheeks. “There, now,” she said. “Did you really want to ask me something?”

“I—yes,” I said, blinking. The green was fading from my limbs, but she didn’t seem to notice in the lamplight. “When I first came here,” I said, “I was looking for someone. A woman.”

“Oh,” said Joanna. Her face fell.

“Perhaps you’ve seen her. She’s half Druin.”

She turned her head. “I should just tell you I haven’t,” she said, “but I can’t. I am mad, I suppose. Yes, I have seen her. It was two days after I saw you. She came here.”

“Jairus captured her?”

“No. She came of her own accord. I remember that Jairus was surprised she knew the way.”

Cold water poured down my back. “What did they talk about?”

“You, partly. But really I don’t know. He sent us away.”

“And where is she now?”

“I don’t know. But she’s in his keeping. I overheard him say something about her the other day. He called her his secret weapon. He must have her holed away somewhere.” She bit her lip. “Do you love her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Yes, I suppose I still do. But I came here to ask of her for another reason. We’re both parts of a puzzle that I don’t understand.” I thought for a moment. “There was a ghularch. The one who came in the rail-car that day. Derrin. Does he come here often?”

“No. But I know for a fact that he’ll be here tomorrow, if that interests you.”

“Tomorrow!” I cried. “In the evening? As before?”

“That’s when he always comes,” she said. “Just what is it you’re trying to do?”

“I’m not altogether certain.”

“Then by what right do you come among us?” she demanded, turning on me. “Stirring things up, as you put it yourself.”

I closed my eyes. “My task is to accomplish my task. That’s life, Joanna. What exactly is the aim of life? Can anyone answer that honestly?”

“That’s an evasion.”

I hesitated. “To be truthful, there is a burden on my heart. I’ll tell it to you. Bur remember that you insisted, so don’t despise me.

“The Cheiropt is a living prison of black iron. Fighting it only makes you part of it. That’s where Jairus is wrong. He wants to lead an exodus through an irruption of chaos, but his way will only lead you all into deeper darkness. There has to be a harrowing, an advent from the outside.

“I am from the outside.  I can open prison doors and set the prisoners free. I can establish a kingdom in the cracks and crannies of Enoch, a kingdom that will transform the landscape like a mountain chain rising up from the deeps of the earth. A kingdom that will preserve the wisdom of my people, and join to it whatever Enoch and Eldena have to offer.

“But then, perhaps that’s only vanity speaking.”

“I don’t think so,” Joanna said softly, laying her hand on my arm.

“Thank you,” I said. I kissed her lightly on the lips one more time. Then I began donning my armor. “I won’t forget your help.”

“Is that all the gratitude I get?” she asked, watching me warmly.

“Perhaps one day soon I’ll be able to repay you,” I said. “For now, goodbye and good luck.” I went out into the night.

*          *          *          *          *

It wasn’t hard to evade detection as I made my way to the wall. Joanna’s confidence was shared by the rest of Jairus’ followers. They hated the Cheiropt yet depended on it as implicitly as any phylite. It was the air they breathed.

I climbed flights of stairs up the side of the foundation. When I reached the top I paused at the balustrade and looked out. Clusters of orange sparks showed where the communes lay. Work was going on at the opposite side of the pit, where metal vessels were suspended within great scaffolds strung with silver-green lights.

There were no sentries that I could see. I went into the nearest building, groped my way to the stairs, and climbed to the top story. A blind search of its apartments revealed no roof access, but the windows had long been glassless. I ran down a corridor and leaped out across an alley to a lower rooftop. From there I went on my way, bounding from tower to tower. I shot over the wall of the Cheiropt without the hoplites’ notice.

The moon had set and the night was dark. The streets in the inhabited districts were like black canyons flowing with rivers of light. I left them far to the south, pursuing a northeasterly course, making for the foundation’s edge. The methane fields came into view, squares of black velvet separated by strips of silver satin.

From the last tower I dove into empty space, kicked my legs, and extended my wings. Just when disaster seemed imminent I swung up and out. Driving the pinions with chains linked to my greaves, I went whirring high above the grid of fields.

I winged my way to where a little hill stood out of the waterish lowlands, a stade or two from the city. It was a long island crowned with tall buildings like exposed teeth, a former elite community, now deserted, linked to the city by a great stone causeway. I alit on the high terrace of the tallest tower, folded my wings, and passed through a colonnade into a once-opulent salon.

It was a long, high-ceiled room with windows along the front. Marks in the dust showed where I had dragged a brazier before the door to a smaller room. The air above the mouth of the bowl trembled slightly. I stirred the coals with a poker, then added a few new lumps. The gilded ceiling glittered in the glow, and the frescoes that adorned the back wall came to life.

The panels together formed a long schematic landscape picture, with wind-sculpted desert formations, mist-shrouded mountains like towers of dark stone, primeval moss-forests, fenny riverbanks, brackish swamps overshadowed by trees that waded on raised roots, sun-dappled reefs, and the depths of the open sea, all inhabited by fishes and creeping things. Presiding over this garden were a single man and a single woman, singularly out of place, their stylized eyes wide with fear or wonder.

With a pair of tongs I lifted a coal out of the brazier, bore it into the drawing room beyond, and dropped it into a smaller bronze bowl on the floor. Velvety shadows pulsated across the walls and ceiling. The floor remained a pool of darkness. This was the room I had chosen to inhabit. Its door when I’d found it was closed, so little dust had accumulated inside it.

All that I’d brought from the forest was neatly stored around the sides. Cookware and provisions occupied the shelves. My mattress was on the floor in an alcove. Ancient furniture stood in groups as I’d found it.

I sat in an armchair and began to remove my armor, hanging it on a tree one piece at a time. A big shadow hulked in a corner of the room, thrown by a half-globe in a wooden stand. I rose when I was done and went over to touch its ridged surface. I knew what it was, my grandfather having shown me something similar—an heirloom of the House—when I was a boy.

This one was made of thermosetting resin, blue-gray and red-ochre and green and purple, the north pole on one side and the south on the other, with the equator running over the top. Tethys was draped across its crown, embraced on three sides—north, east, and west—by the supercontinent, Panormus, a mottled mass of earth tones touched with sepia and edged with emerald and purple.

High mountains lined the eastern coastline, and there were lower ranges and steep-sided plateaus along the western, while the north pole was ringed by a vast, glacier-covered uplift that sent pitted fingers far into the south, even to the northern coast. There it joined with a rugged peninsula surrounded by a field of islands that reached toward the top of the globe like an outstretched hand.

The great omega of Enoch ran almost unbroken around the coast, thousands of miles from end to end. I was on the eastern edge of the rim, some way north of the central band. The interior of Panormus, the hemispheric Desert of Eblis, was only vaguely marked at the half-globe’s extremities. Arras wasn’t shown at all.

Projecting from the very top was a tiny spike: the Tower of Bel. The viaducts were fine raised lines joining it to the mainland. But no viaduct led south. There a small continent, Ir, made Tethys almost an inland sea, reaching in a great crescent across its mouth, divided from Panormus only by straits and small seas. Its sultry interior was a confusion of livid hues like a blotchy bruise, the aeonic Nightspore Forest, a no-man’s land of nocturnal sylvanity.

Once the coals in the salon were hot enough I began to prepare my supper. I went out on the terrace while I waited for the water to boil. The helots were going back and forth like fireflies in the marsh. The causeway and the aqueduct beside it were pale ribbons in the starlight. Insects made noises in the night.

Later on, after I finished eating, I went over to the pipe organ that occupied the end of the long room. I had discovered it several days previously. Though I’d never seen one, it had been easy to see that it was a thing to be pumped, and, that done, my fingers had sought out the keys of their own accord.

Now I played it with growing confidence, holding down families of notes for prolonged periods, then shifting to other groupings. It was more like the rhythm of a behemoth’s aorta than the music of the men of Enoch. The fugue drifted out through the windows, over the bleached rooftops, and down to the marsh, where the helots heard it as they labored under the stars.