Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes (21 page)

41 The Proposition

The apartment was a squalid one-room affair high over the ghostly river of light, several blocks south of the library. Jubah wasn’t there when we entered. Bulna told me to make myself at home, then went into the kitchenette and began preparing something to eat.

I sat on a divan and looked about. The only light fell from the tube lamp over the sink where Bulna was working. The room was a combination of luxury and squalor. The cheap, dusty furniture was heaped with treasures from the tomb and stacks of clay tablets. The latter were Bulna’s records, paper being a regulated commodity. There was a mattress in one corner. A thin blanket full of holes was rolled into a ball on the divan. Every so often a change in the street bulletin outside would fill the room with lurid light.

Jubah opened the door and came in. “Hello, Keftu,” he said, going across the room to say something to Bulna. He froze, then took two steps backward. “By all the—”

“Hello,” I said. “I’m back.”

A teapot began to whistle. “Go have a seat,” said Bulna. “Catch up with Keftu. He came to make us a proposition. We’ve been waiting for you. I’ll be there as soon as I finish up.”

“Well, well,” said Jubah, drawing up a chair. “So the man has a proposition.” He blinked his little eyes. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I? But suit yourself. I was just curious.”

“Well,” I said, “the first thing I did after my escape was make the Misfit’s acquaintance. We got on well at first, but then I wrecked his ally’s rail-car and destroyed some valuable property. The next day I was mistaken for a lottery winner and narrowly avoided being flayed by the Cheiropt. Later on I encountered a nephel-infested ghul, which I beheaded in a fair fight. I was infested myself then, or nearly so, and ran into the moss-forest at the foot of the Pelus. An Eldene magus came up and drove out the devil. I stayed with him for weeks, learning all he had to tell me. Then he died, and I returned here.”

Jubah’s jaw hung slack. He blinked his small eyes. Then he smiled. “Shit,” he said. We both laughed.

Bulna came in with three cups of black tea and a pyramid of pickled eggs on a platter. After setting it down on an end table he sat beside Jubah, crossed one leg over the other, and clasped his long fingers around one knee. “So,” he said. “In the library you mentioned something about our situation being untenable, and your having a plan for dealing with it. Am I right?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Dah,” scoffed Jubah. “Of course our situation is untenable. When have we ever thought otherwise? You have something better? Eh?”

“Well, to begin with—”

“Who are you to come here and tell us what we should be doing? You couldn’t even hold your own in the pit. And you wouldn’t have made it as a delver without us, either.”

“That’s true,” I said. “That’s why—”

“Then maybe it’s you who needs to listen to us. It’s no simple matter get along in the in-betweens.”

“Jubah,” said Bulna, “our friend came here in good faith. I told him we would listen to what he had to say. Let’s at least hear his proposition.”

“I’m all ears, once he gets around to telling us what it is.”

I cleared my throat. “You say you get along in the interstices. Well, I’m here to tell you that that time is at an end.”

“Says who? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“All right, maybe I don’t. How do you get along then? What are these in-betweens? Explain it to me.”

“Surely you know that by now,” said Bulna. “The phyles of Enoch don’t interact with each other, except in the Cheiropt. They’re practically invisible to each other. People like us, who don’t fall into any category, can survive in the gaps by escaping notice and taking advantage of loopholes.”

“Right,” I said. “And what if there were no phyles? What then?”

“Well, that would be perfect,” said Jubah. “Then we’d all be equal. No one would be left out.”

“But is that in fact how it would be? Are there misfits and recusants in the Tower of Bel?” Neither of them answered. “That’s my point. It’s my belief that someone—who, I don’t know for certain—someone, I say, is trying to dissolve the phyles here in Enoch.

“The Cheiropt is at a point of semi-stability. Someone has his hand on the lever to tip it into perfect disorder. When that happens, all Enoch will be one phyle, or rather, each Enochite will be his own phyle. There’ll be no place for people like us. It isn’t just a matter of not having a phyle. You know that as well as I do. The machinery works for most, but it catches on any eccentric piece and mangles it. It’ll be the Palace of Collections for the well-placed, and the choppers for the rest.”

“What lever are you talking about?” said Bulna.

“There are two levers, actually,” I said. “Cajolery and chaos. The cajolery of the Cheiropt, and the chaos of men like the Misfit. He’s just the first of a breed. You’ll see.”

“And who has his hand to them? Are you claiming that there’s someone behind the Misfit?”

“I’m not just claiming it. I know it. I’m not sure who for certain. There’s a man called Vaustus, the Sun Mage, who leads an army of fanatics—the Sons of Taïs—in the desert. He has ties to Jairus. He’s my first candidate.”

“What proof do you have?”

“None, yet. I hope to have some soon.”

“What do you propose to do about it?” asked Jubah.

“My first course,” I said, “would be to keep the levers from being pulled. That failing—as it must eventually, I think—we’ll have to think of a new way to survive. What I propose is a mobile existence.”

My friends were all ears now. “What do you mean?” asked Bulna.

“When I escaped with Granny—”

Jubah guffawed. “Escaped
with
her! Don’t you mean, escaped
from
her?”

“No. The Misfit sent a ghularch to dispose of her. I rescued her.”

Jubah sneered. “You’re a better man than I am.”

I went on with my story. “We stumbled upon a great corridor twisting through the bowels of the city. The Footsteps of the Eldenes, she called it. It was a black, horrible place, all right, but I think there might have been truth in what she said. The Recusants
are
the Eldenes, more or less, you know.”

“Who are the Eldenes?” asked Jubah.

“The race of architects who supposedly helped lay the foundations of the city,” said Bulna.

“I think,” I said, “that it would be possible to get from one place to another using these corridors as highways. The Cheiropt isn’t cognizant of them. Somehow, I don’t believe it could be.”

“And what does this have to do with us?” asked Bulna. “This is where your proposition comes in, I suppose.”

“Yes. There are plenty of people in our position. The Misfit attracts them like flies to a carcass. They have nowhere else to go, other than the pits or the Palace. He lords it over them: they practically worship him, and he has a harem of wives. Well, we’ll provide an alternative. We’ll go a progress through the guts of the city.”

“And do what?”

“That I don’t know. Surely there’s some way to support ourselves, with so many. We can be a city within a city, wanderers in the wilderness of Enoch. We’ll own everything in common. Bulna, with your background, you could act as steward. You, Jubah, could be the boss of the outfit. You’d be in charge of keeping everything in order as we go along.”

“And what would you be? Eh? The demarch?”

“Well, why not?” I insisted. “As a figurehead, if nothing else. People need something to follow. They’d follow me.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Have you heard of Amroth?”

“The beast-slayer? The one who strangles behemothim and eats demon-fish filets for breakfast? Sure, who hasn’t?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m Amroth.”

Jubah grinned. “Shit,” he said.

Bulna wasn’t smiling. “You almost have me convinced,” he said. “But it’s all so wild. This story about a desert prophet exerting influence over the Cheiropt. I just don’t know, my friend.”

“I’ll put my money where my mouth is,” I said. “I’m about to go to the Deserits myself to see what’s happening out there. If I come back with evidence—real evidence—then will you two at least consider my proposal?”

They glanced at each other. “What do you think?” asked Bulna.

Jubah shrugged. “Sure, why not? We’ll consider it. How do you expect to get there? Fly?”

“Actually, no,” I said. “It’s much too far. I’d hoped you could advise me.”

Jubah leaned back. “Well,” he said, “you could take the train. Stow away on the freight line here by the marshes and head north. That won’t get you all the way there, though. You’d have to get off at the mouth of the Ilissus. There’s a big switchyard just before you get to it. After that you could catch a train bound for the Afram terminus.”

“Last night I overheard someone saying that there are ghulim amassed on the Deged. And that there might be a checkpoint at the Tartassus Gate.”

“That’s odd,” said Bulna.

“If you’re right,” said Jubah, “then you might have to think of something else.”

“What are these places?”

“The Deged,” said Bulna, “is a shelf of land beyond the Tartassus Mountains. It overlooks the northwestern reaches of Eblis. The Ilissus River arises high in the Tartassus, flowing south for many miles, then turns southwest and meanders toward the Bay of Ia, at the northeastern corner of Tethys. The tracks follow the river, keeping to the northern bank before crossing just beyond the bend. There’s a tunnel, and a bridge, and then you get to the Deged.”

“And that’s where the trouble would be?”

“Definitely,” said Jubah.

“There’s Pinky,” said Bulna. “What about Pinky?”

“Sure, there’s Pinky,” said Jubah. “That’s true.”

“Who’s Pinky?” I asked.

“Runs a carnival in Sand City. Just south of the switchyard I mentioned. Knows all kinds. You have to watch yourself with him, of course. He’s a little like Granny. Same social function, if you know what I mean. Never met him myself; he keeps well out of sight. He might be able to put you in touch with someone, if you make it worth his while.”

“All right,” I said. “That’s enough to go on, I think.” I got up and shook hands with my friends. “I’ll try not to be long. If you should happen to move, would you find a way for me to get in touch with you?”

“I’ll leave a message at the tomb,” said Bulna.

“So long then,” I said. “Wish me luck.” With that I departed.

42 Northward Bound

The world was the clacking of the car and the rhythm of its swaying and a reek of dung so strong it burned my nostrils. I opened my eyes. They met with untroubled darkness. I was on my back on a floor of rotten wood. The air was close and thick, set like plaster around me. I felt an urge to shatter the mold, and shifted my arms and legs.

Recollection came slowly. I sat up. The floor was filthy, and pieces of fodder clung to my hair. I was in the middle of a long boxcar. Iron tools swung back and forth from the rafters. There was a fence on either hand. Ventilation slots ran the length of the sides, admitting feeble gray light. It waxed slowly, revealing the white-gold ghost that slumbered beside me, swaying with the car’s motion. Arges sat upright even in sleep.

I got up and went to the side. Seizing the bar on the sliding door with both hands, I heaved with all my strength, opening it just enough to see out by. The landscape lay beneath the twilight of dawn. I’d slumbered through hundreds of miles. The edge of the viaduct was a translucent blur. The grid of horsetail fields lay beyond and below, crisscrossed with bars of light, interrupted here and there by a refinery crowned with jets of flame. The mountain rampart towered over all.

The belt of fields was wider than in the south, the mountain-wall taller and more forbidding. We were moving north along the Asur range, having passed a cusp of the coastline in the night. The livid roots faded to white-tipped pinnacles outlined against a roseate sky. The air was crisp, autumnal. I felt that a step or two might take me as far as I wished to go.

Day had begun to infiltrate the car. Now I could see chebothim huddled behind the barriers, feeble saurians beside the great bulls of Arras. They were pushing against one another and straining their necks, blinking their small yellow eyes as if in perpetual amazement. I smiled, wishing I had something to give them.

The sun rose into a pass. A bar of pure, pink-gold light fell through the open door and struck Arges full in the face. He opened his eye and looked directly into the daystar.

“Good morning,” I said. “We’ve made good progress. We’ll be there by evening, I think. Come break your fast with me.” I shared some cured meat with him. He ate it with resignation. I had refused to travel with a cannibal, and it would have been imprudent to feast on the cattle.

The journey lasted all day. We stayed in the same car the whole time. Only once were we disturbed, when the train made a stop at a rock-crushing plant and we had to hide in the corrals. The rest of the time I watched the scenery from the ventilation slots.

The eastward view remained uniform. The Asurs seemed hardly to move as the train drove northward. The air became warmer as the sun climbed to its zenith. Little hard-looking white clouds began to materialize, and the afternoon was filled with fleets of scudding cumuli that dappled the green grid with their shadow.

The viaduct clung to the city’s edge, supported over the moat dividing the methane fields from the metropolis. Smoke fumes hung heavy in the middle air. The towers were yellowed like stained teeth. At one point the train passed the old epicenter of an earthquake, a violent ruin pocked with craters where the lower levels had collapsed. The damage was chiliads old, as though the survivors had simply moved elsewhere with no attempt at rebuilding.

The train approached the northern reaches of the Asurs late in the afternoon. The range curved away to the northeast while the coast bent to the northwest. A lower range diverged from the main mass of the mountains and swept toward the tracks, its rounded peaks clad in purple scale-tree. The pinnacles beyond them had a queer, crenellated look. The marshes came to an end, giving way to a wilderness of warehouses, factories, tenement houses, empty lots, and cesspools.

The city presented a less uniform face now. The foundation-wall curved away with the coastline, and the barren space before it was a mosaic of housing projects, refineries, factories, saloons, warehouses, sandlots, temples, and stockyards, with the thousand eyes of the city gazing over it to the mountains. Children ran naked through the streets, laying with one another or playing violent games. Dead animals festered in odd corners. Big dragonflies sported over the filmy pools, gorging themselves on flies.

The train’s shadow soared up to meet us as the viaduct bent to the earth. The track continued between fences of corrugated metal. Soon the brakes were applied. “Come,” I said, heaving the right-hand door open. The cyclops crouched beside me. Other tracks came to meet ours as the train slowed. The view opened up. We entered a switchyard. As the trails curved to the left, we jumped out and ran as though pursued.

*          *          *          *          *

Pinky’s Playland stood out of Sand City like a cheap plastic brooch dropped into a dustbin. Its phantasmagoria of red and yellow and blue made a nimbus of false fire in the humid night.

I approached the entrance alone, stepping into the stream of helots converging upon the gate. These comprised a different class than what I had come to know in the south. Sand City was like a vision of Hela’s past, from the days of princes and serfs. The Hela I knew would be found under the strip of city to the west.

In my ear, a voice said: “What do you think you’re doing?” A heavy hand settled on my shoulder and twisted me inexorably around. I found myself looking into a broad, florid face. One eye was hard and mean. The other, glass, was pointed in an irrelevant direction.

“I’m just going to the carnival,” I said. We were an island in the stream now.

“Not with that, you’re not,” he said, pointing at Deinothax. “You’ll have to check it, friend.”

Silently, I cursed myself for not having left it with Arges. “Check it?” I said. “What do you mean?”

The man gripped me more tightly and shook me a little. “Do I need to draw a diagram?” he growled. “Leave. It. Out. Side.”

“Trust me,” I said, patting his arm. “Ask Pinky.”

The man flushed a deep shade of crimson. An idiotic smile settled on his face. With an almost dreamy expression he twisted me into a wrestling hold. Reflecting that I had miscalculated, I prepared to resort to extreme measures. It would have gone badly for at least one of us. But a shrill voice stayed my hand.

“Truro!” it shouted. “You meathead! What are you doing?”

“Eh? What?” the guard grunted. He began to release his hold. I looked up, wincing. My rescuer was a scrawny girl with matted red hair.

“If he’s a friend of the boss,” she said, “then squashing him into jelly isn’t going to brighten your prospects any, is it? Not that they’re wonderful as it is.”

“Well, I—”

“Let someone with brains take care of this, Truro.” With a wink at me she mouthed: “Overworked.”

Truro let me go, then stood there clenching his fists uncertainly, his oblique eye giving him a look of desperate confusion. “Take a hint, Truro,” the girl bawled, slapping his meaty arm. He began to move off, muttering under his breath. The girl took my hand, and together we entered the carnival.