"Christ, no."
"What then?" "You're not seeing it, Ted," Harry insisted. "I told you: Look away."
Very reluctantly Ted averted his eyes and Harry brought from his pocket the prodigile suit, a minor magical device for which he'd paid Otis Voight four hundred bucks. It was a sliver of aluminum two inches long and one and a half inches wide, with a small sigil stamped at one end, and five narrow grooves radiating from the sign. Harry pressed it into the gap between the door and the frame, as close to the lock as he could get it.
Behind him he heard Ted say, "You got a prodigile. Where the fuck'd you get that?"
It was too late to tell him to look away, and no use lying. Ted knew magic's methods and implements too well to be deceived.
"It's none of your business," Harry told him. He didn't like dabbling in the craft (even the use of a prodigile, which was an extremely minor device on the thaumaturgic scale, brought with it the danger of contamination or addiction), but sometimes circumstances demanded that the enemy's weapons be used in the very labor of destroying them. Such was the sour reality of war.
He pressed his thumb against the exposed edge of the suit, and jerked it down. His flesh opened easily,, and he felt the prodigile throb as it drew blood. This, he knew, was the most likely moment for addiction; when the suit was activated. He told himself to look away, but could not. He watched, never less than amazed, as his blood hissed against the metal and was sucked along the grooves and out of sight. He heard Ted draw a sharp breath behind him. Then there was a burst of luminescence from the crack between door and jamb, and the unmistakable sound of the lock mechanism snapping open. Before the light had quite died, Harry put his shoulder to the door. It opened without resistance. He glanced round at Ted, who despite his earlier bullishness, now looked a little fearful.
"Are you ready?" Harry said, and without waiting for an answer slipped inside, leaving Ted to come or stay as he wished.
TWO
The interior smelled of stale incense and week-old sushithe odors, in short, of bad magic. It made Harry's heart hmnmer to smell those smells. How many times do I have to do this? he found himself wondering as he advanced into the murk. How many times into the maw, into the sickened body? How many times before I've done my penance?
Ted laid his hand on Hany's shoulder.
"There," he murmured, and directed Harry's gaze off to the right. Some ten yards from where they stood was a further flight of stairs, and from the bottom a wash of silvery light.
Ted's hand remained on Hariy's shoulder as they crossed to the top of the flight and began the descent. It grew colder with every step, and the smell became steadily stronger: Signs that what they sought lay somewhere at the bottom. And, if any further evidence was required, Harry's tattoos supplied it. The new one itched more furiously than ever, while the old ones (at his ankles, at his navel, in the small of his back, and down his sternum) tingled.
Three steps from the bottom, Harry turned to Ted, and in the lowest of voices murmured, "I meant it: about not being responsible for you."
Ted nodded and took his hand off Hany's shoulder. There was nothing more to be said; no further excuse to delay the descent. Harry reached into his jacket and lightly patted the gun in its holster. Then he was down the last three steps and, turning a corner was delivered into a sizable brick chamber, the far wall of which was fifty feet or more from where he stood, the vaulted ceiling twenty feet above his head. In the midst of this was what at first glance resembled a column of translucent drapes, about half as wide as the chamber itself, which was the source of the silvery light that had drawn them down the stairs. Second glance, however, showed him that it was not fabric, but some kind of ether. It resembled the melting folds of a Borealis, draped over or spun from a cat's cradle of filaments that crisscrossed the chamber like the web of a vast, ambitious spider.
And amid the folds, figures: the celebrants he'd seen coming here through the afternoon. they no longer wore their coats and hats, but wandered in the midst of the light nearly naked.
And such nakedness! Though many of them were partially concealed by the drooping light, Harry had no doubt that all he'd heard about the Zyem Carasophia was true. These were exiles; no doubt of it. Some were plainly descended from a marriage of bird and man, their eyes set in the sides of their narrow heads, their mouths beakish, their backs feathered. Others gave credence to a rumor Harry'd heard that a few of Quiddity's infants were simply dreamed into being, creatures of pure imagination. How else to explain the pair whose heads were yellowish blurs, woven with what looked like bright blue fireflies, or the creature who had shrugged off the skin of her head in tiny ribbons, which attended her raw face in a fluttering dance.
Of the unholy paraphernalia Harry had expected to see, there was no sign. No sputtering candles of human fat, no ritual blades, no gutted children. The celebrants simply moved in the cradle of light as if drifting in some collective dream. Had it not been for the smell of incense and sushi he would have doubted there was even error here.
"What's going on?" Ted murmured in Harry's ear.
Harry shook his head. He had no clue. But he knew how to find out. He shrugged off his jacket and proceeded to unbutton his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to join them," he replied.
"They'll be on to you in a minute."
"I don't think so," Harry said, heeling off his shoes as he pulled his shirt out of his trousers. He watched the wanderers as he did so, looking for any trace of belligerence among them.. But there was none.
It was as if they were moving in a semi-mesmerized state, all aggression dulled.
There was every possibility they wouldn't even notice if he went among them clothed, he suspected. But some instinct told him he would be safer in this throng if he were as vulnerable as they. "Stay here," he said to Ted.
"You're out of your mind, you know that?" Ted replied.
"I'll be fine," Harry said, glancing down at his nearnaked body and patted his belly. "Maybe I need to lose a pound or two...... Then he turned from Ted and walked towards the cradle.
He hadn't realized until now that either the light or the filaments was making a low, fluctuating whine, which grew louder as he approached. It throbbed in his skull, like the beginning of a headache, but uncomfortable as it was it could not persuade him to turn round. His skin was gooseflesh now, from head to foot, the tattoos tingling furiously.
He raised his left arm in front of him and pulled the dressing off his fresh ink. The tattoo looked livid in the silvery light, as though it had been pricked into his flesh moments before: a ruby parabola that suddenly seemed an utter redundancy. Norma had been right, he thought. What defense was a mere mark in a world so full of power?
He cast the dressing aside and continued to advance towards the cradle, expecting one of the celebrants to look his way at any moment. But nobody did. He stepped into the midst of the drapes without so much as a glance being cast in his direction and, weaving among the wanderers, made his way towards the center of the Borealis. He raised his arms as he did so, and his fingers brushed one of the filaments, sending a small charge of energy, too minor to be distressing, down to his shoulders and across his chest. The Borealis shook, and for a moment he feared that it intended to expel him, for the shimmering folds closed around him from all sides. Their touch was far from unpleasant, however, and whatever test they had put him to he apparently passed, for a moment later they retreated from him again, and returned to their gentle motion.
Harry glanced back, out into the chamber, in search of Ted, but everything beyond the light-the walls, the stairs, the roof-had become a blur. He didn't waste time looking, but turned his attention back to whatever mystery lay waiting in the center of the cradle.
The ache in his head grew more painful as he approached, but he bore it happily enough. There was something ahead of him, he saw: a sliver of darkness at the core of this cradle of light. It was taller than he was, this sliver, and it almost seemed to exercise some authority over him, because now that he had it in view he could not turn his eyes from it.
And with the sight, another sound, audible beneath the whine, like the repeated roll of muffled drums.
Mystified and mesmerized though he was, the identity of the sound was not lost on him. It was the sea he was hearing. His heartbeat grew urgent. Tremors ran through his body. The sea! My God, the sea! He breathed its name like a blessing.
"Quiddity-"
The word was heard. He felt a breath upon his back and somebody said,
"Hold back."
He glanced round, to find that one of the exiles, its face an eruption of color, was close to him. "We must wait before the neirica," the creature said. "The blessing will come."
The blessing? Harry thought. Who were they expecting down here, the Pope? "Will it be soon?" Harry said, certain that at any moment the creature would see him for the simple Homo sapiens he was.
"Very soon," came the reply, "he knows how impatient we are." The creature's gaze went past Harry to the darkness. "He knows how we ache to return. But we must do it with the blessing, yes?"
"Yes," said Harry. "Of course. Yes."
"Wait... " the creature said, turning its head towards the outside world, "is that not him?"
There was a sudden flurry of activity in the vicinity as the creatures-including Harry's informant-moved off towards the edge of the Borealis. Harry was torn between the desire to see whoever this was, coming to bless them, and the urge to see Quiddity's shore. He chose the latter. Turning on his heel he took two quick strides towards the sliver of darkness, his momentum speeded by the force it exercised. He felt the ground grow uncertain beneath him, felt a gust of rainy wind against his face, fresh and cold. The darkness opened before him, as though the gust had blown open a door, and for an instant his sight seemed to race ahead of him, his lumpen flesh stumbling after, out, out across a benighted shore.
Above him the sky was spired with clouds, and creatures trailing dusty light swooped and soared in lieu of stars. On the stones below, crabs made war or love, claws locked as they clattered towards the surf. And in that surf, shoals leapt the waves as though aspiring to sky or stones, or both.
All this he saw in a single hungry glance.
Then he heard a cry behind him, and with the greatest reluctance looked back over his shoulder towards the chamber. There was some consternation there, he saw. The cradle was shaking, the veils that circled the crack, like bandages wrapped around a wound, torn here and there. He tried to focus his eyes to better see the cause, but they were slow to shake off the wonders they'd just witnessed, and while they did so screams erupted to right and left of him. Their din was sufficient to slap him from his reverie. Suddenly fearful for his life he took off from his place beside the sliver, though its claim on him was powerful, and it took all his strength to do so.
As he ran he caught sight of the creature who had so recently addressed him, stumbling through the veils with a wound in its chest the size of a fist. As it fell to its knees its glistening eyes fixed on Harry for a moment, and it opened its bony mouth as to beg some explanation. Blood came instead, black as squid's ink, and the creature toppled forward, dead before it hit the ground. Harry searched for its killer among the shaking veils, but all he found were victims: creatures reeling and failing, their wounds atrocious. A lopped head rolled at his feet; a creature with half its body blown away took hold of him in its agony, and expired sobbing in his arms.
As to the cradle, which had so suddenly become a grave, it shook from one end to the other, the veils shaken down by the violence in their midst, and bringing the filaMents with them. they spat and spasmed on the ground, the light they'd lent the veils dying now, and steadily delivering the chamber into darkness.
Shielding his head against the failing cradle, Harry gained the outer limit of the circle, and now-finally-had sight of the creature that had visited these horrors on the scene.
It was a man. No more, no less. He had the beard of a patriarch, and the robes of a prophet. Blue robes once, but now so stained with blood he looked like a butcher. As to his weapon, it was a short staff, from which spurts of pallid fire broke, going from it almost languidly. Harry saw one go, snaking through the air to catch a victim who had so far avoided harm. It struck the creature (one of the blur-and-firefly couple) above her buttocks and ran up her back, gouging out the flesh to either side of her spine. Despite the appalling scale of her wounding, she was not felled, but swung round to face her wounder.
"Why?" she sobbed, extending her flabby arms in his direction. "Why?" He made no answer. Simply raised his staff a second time, and let another burst of energy go from it, striking his victim in the mouth.
Her pleas ceased on the instant, and the fire climbed up over her skull, turning it to ruin in a heartbeat. Even then she didn't fall. Her body shook as it stood, her bowels and bladder voiding. Wearing a look close to amusement, the prophet stepped over the bloody litter that lay between them and with one backhanded swipe struck the seared face with the staff, the blow so hard her head was separated from her neck.
Harry let out an involuntary cry, more of rage than of horror. The killer, who was already striding past the beheaded woman towards the crack, stopped in mid-step, and stared through the blood-flecked air. Harry froze. The prophet stared on, a look of puzzlement on his face.
He doesn't see me, Harry thought.
That was perhaps overly optimistic. The man continued to look, as though he glimpsed some trace of a presence in the deepening darkness, but could not quite decide whether his eyes were deceiving him. He wasn't about to take any chances. Even as he stared on in puzzlement he raised his staff.